Poem for Jerzy

VENUS IS A SIZE 12
By Leslie B. Patient

VOLUPTUOUS
Feel the word in your mouth
Vo- Lup- Chew- Us

Voluptuous as crimson velvet cushions
stuffed to full roundness
your hand smoothing with the extra pressure
to sink into the luxury of something delectably
soft and secret

Voluptuous as sun-fed vineyard grapes
Glistening with drops of morning dew
Their juicy globes enticing your lips
To part in exhilarating anticipation

Voluptuous as verdant rolling hills
Dotted with Spring crocuses
Splashes of royals and radiance
Your eyes feast on the curvaceous earth
Longing to lie in her fertile valleys

Voluptuous as the cool and bodacious sculpted alabaster of the
Armless Goddess of Love
Her hips, all forty Inches sized 12, marbled perfection of she
Whom we should emulate

Go Ahead Giorgio,
cut your sleek angled lines for single digit bags of bones
Drape your runway skeletons with shimmering silks
That jut with collar bones and elbows
Choose the flat barren bellies of pre-pubescent
Cosmetically engineered faux female bodies
So that grease-fat fed morons can drool over bikini unclad torsos
And fabricated photo-shopped femmes fatal
Only to themselves

Rush (Limbaugh) scoffs
At Michelle (Obama’s) vision for natural healthy living
Bending in the garden to plant the seeds of
Self-confident children fed on foods that
Spring from mother earth and not in Petri dishes
Cancer-causing concoctions
Zero calories, zero life force

Rush (Limbaugh) scoffs and says
“Well, she ain’t exactly a swimsuit model herself!”
and I think
No.
She is not.
And I thank god.
Because it is her abundant realness that exudes a strength and stillness
That says to me there is a fullness of
Womanity
Which gives me the courage to strut my
38-31-40 five foot nothing self
with potent pride that rejoices
in the double digit dress size of
The Goddess of Love
And I can call to the silvery moon in my own alabaster nakedness
Aphrodite is our muse
We are all Venus
And we are all called to be
Voluptuous.

Convergences

Today my daughter, Kiri, lost her first tooth and my daughter, Mari, stopped believing in Santa Claus. And this makes me quite sad in the wistful sense. It's why I think Peter Pan is one of the most brilliant books ever written. Why generation upon generation is drawn to Holden Caulfield. The process of growing up, of letting go of the things and stuff of childhood signals a kind of passage, almost a kind of death, really. It's when you know that something is gone, it won't ever be able to be retrieved. I feel quite pleased that Mari believed in Santa Claus through to sixth grade. I feel like I accomplished instilling a sense of wonder and enchantment that was able to last even a few months past her getting her first cell phone. She wanted to know "the truth" tonight because of Kiri's tooth. For some moments there, while she was adamant about the non-existence of Santa, she still kind of believed in the Tooth Fairy. Because all these years, the tooth fairy has been writing notes to her, explaining why she forgot to bring the money for a couple of days, or demanding that she take better care of her teeth. When Mari lost her last tooth, she even left a present for the Tooth Fairy. Tonight the Tooth Fairy showed Mari where she'd been keeping all her teeth and Mari wrote the note as Kiri's Tooth Fairy and she said she was happy to know the truth, but happy to now be part of the magic.

They say that you get a little hit of dopamine every time you check your e-mail or FB status. It's probably similar to what might have happened when you went to the mailbox years ago and found a personal letter. It's the feeling of human contact, connection, that the internet has both wondrously given and yet paradoxically surreptitiously stolen away. It's New Year's Eve and I'm sitting on the couch, roaring fire-- well not as roaring now, comfy-- but alone. My children were chomping at the bit to go to the neighbor's home whose dog we are caring for while she parties in NYC at the "largest singles party in the city." So I'm now actually alone right now. Me and my geriatric dog and even more geriatric cat. Dying fire, dying animals, dying year. Whoah-- that's a bit pessimistic. I'm not feeling down. I'm just feeling--- blah. New Year's Eve always feels that way to me. It's so anti-climactic. There is the build up to Christmas-- which always seems to deliver-- but New Year's has the hype and none of the magic. Maybe I'm sad-- because I'm spending yet another holiday without my love. The kids could soak up all the love on Christmas-- Christmas doesn't even count if there aren't children around. But New Year's-- you need someone to kiss at midnight. Sure-- I can kiss the kiddos. I can even get a furry kiss from the geriatric animals. But this night has that hype of love and passion and being with the person of your dreams---. I'm lucky-- he's in my life-- he's just not here right now-- and for that I feel fortunate-- for New Year's Eve is rough for all the legit single people--- if it's lonely enough for me and I'm only temporarily single. So--- to all of you-- who wish New Year's Eve didn't have all the hype of romance-- I'm with you--that's why I spent two hours on Facebook tonight, people-- getting all those hits of dopamine.

Just saw James Cameron's AVATAR and can say I'm much more in agreement with the critics that taut it as a groundbreaking phenomenal movie rather than on the side of folk who are saying "old story, wooden dialogue." Yes, it is an old story, as old as Medea and Jason, it's essentially parts of the Illiad. But what Cameron has done is create a new world into which to place this old story. And other critics, too, argue that the film is too political. Sure, it is political, but if we as a domineering nation read into Cameron's script as being critical of the U.S. that's because that's who we are. ANY domineering, imperialistic nation that believes that those who will not bend to their will are inferior and "savage" will see the same thing. This post-colonial world has many villains, yet, as Cameron's film portrays there are as many conflicted "former" conquerors, who realize the rights of the natives-- albeit sometimes too late. However, in Hollywood, it's never too late. Too bad we can't have the tree of life sort things out in the Middle East.

I've lost track of how many Christmasses of the 19 that Steve and I have known one another that we've been apart. It's probably close to half. This is the first year, however, where I actually had to be the only adult in the morning. Usually I'm at my parents' house, or I have my brother or a visiting friend or something. But this time I did the whole Christmas morning thing on my own. And it wasn't so bad. Because my kids are awesome and Christmas is awesome. But it still would have been a whole lot better if Steve were here.

Tough Way to become a Millionaire

James Bain was wrongly accused of the kidnapping and rape of a nine-year old boy because the boy picked him out of a line-up in 1974. Despite an alibi corroborated by a witness, Mr. Bain was convicted and spent the last 35 years in jail, until the Florida Innocence Project finally got DNA evidence to be tested and retried and exonerated Bain. He was only 19 years old when he was put in jail. And yet the man harbors no anger, says he's got his faith. That may be true and for that he is a better man than most who leave jail. To have spent one's whole adult life in jail, it seems unfathomable. Yet, Florida has a law that gives $50,000 a year for every year in jail if you've been wrongfully convicted. Mr. Bain is entitled to $1.75 million!! Well, he's got God for sure, but at least he's also got a savings now, something he surely will need as he adjusts to this new planet.

REAL MEN LOVE THEIR PREGNANT WIVES

Ok. I'll admit it. I'm following the Tiger Woods story. I am fascinated with all the issues his infidelity brings up. First of all, yes, it's true, he was not sprung from divine loins, he is, much to the nation's chagrin, HUMAN. That's a relief in some ways. It's too hard on humanity to see someone so talented, so wealthy, seemingly so on top of the game of life without pretty much thinking we are doomed in our mere mortal existence. Tiger, however, with these indescretions has now finally reached that pinacle of hero-dom, his hubris has been exposed and like many a semi-divine figure, his fall from grace is viewed with an odd mix of pleasure and fear. The pleasure is of the Schadenfreude kind, but the fear-- the fear is dependent on one's gender. Men, I would surmise, look on Tiger's predicament as a cautionary tale, the kind that makes them erase their own "special friends" from e-mail lists and cell phone directories. The great fear for women comes when we look at Elin Nordegren Woods. She's beautiful. Drop dead gorgeous. If a man can cheat on her, what hope do most of us schleps have?? Then the fear almost melts into a resignation, that it's true-- All men are scum. Tiger Woods, THE Tiger Woods still fell into the most trite cliche of a man who would cheat on his wife when she was pregnant and bearing children. Appalling. I do say all of this knowing full well there are wonderful faithful men out there, ones who enjoy loving their pregnant child-bearing wives, fully and wholly and EXCLUSIVELY. I know, I married one.