Half-Marathon

Not really the poem I wanted, but it'll do. I was ready to do a marathon in February, but the flesh was weak and the cough was strong. More chances ahead.

Messenger
You cannot shape but fly
Cannot spin but bear
Your weight on one foot, air,
For an instant, and then the other.
And the message, of course, you know that too.
Three words to the king, no more.
No honing, no embellishment, no scrollwork on the shield.
Nothing that screams or dances
With each strike of your foot to the road
Need be told. Not the
Clash of iron and bronze or
Bronze fallen on the field, not
Iron on bone, no picture
Of blood-washed rocks, no words
Of the bronze smell of blood.
Nothing about the secret signal
From one royal family to another:
Retreat now, and your safety is assured.
Nothing about the goats: Their bleats deafening,
And still not enough to keep the pledge
Of sacrifice made to Artemis. Too many dead men,
Not enough live goats.

You are the messenger, and it is
Only later, over wine, that poets
Will invent you, give you a vision
Of Pan on your path, and your last words.
Now, on the road, you smile:
Getting to Athens, after all, isn't as
Arduous as getting to Babylon.
Your feet drum out the child's rhyme as you run.
Three score and ten, yes, and back again.

Update: Had to fix the ending and add a photo. Was working via the phone last night.
Image: Pan on a mixing bowl, photographed by Sebastia Giralt, creative commons share.

Eleven Observations On This Binary Occasion

1. I am a trashy woman who has not yet dismantled her xmas display.

2. I have bronchitis and was up all night the other night coughing and scanning the cable channels when I ran into "She's Gotta Have It." The women in this movie were so cool. Artsy and bohemian and un-really real. With all the humor and subject matter in your face, it's easy to overlook what a beautiful eye Lee shows for composition. Still exciting seeing it. [well, you won't see it here, cause I can't get the embed code right.]

3. Like Nola, I would prefer not to have to choose, but if I had to? Mars Blackmon.

4. I'm not going to compromise anyone's free speech, no matter how violent the rhetoric. Karma is stronger than democracy, however, and it will make you responsible for all your outputs, eventually.

5. Just read a report that Gulf bacteria is doing a great job of eating up the spilled oil. Trouble is, the bacteria also shits, what it shits after eating oil is endocrine disruptors. If you're a man who likes big boobs a lot, well, your future's bright, because pretty soon, you'll have your very own pair!

6. The evil of perfectionism seems to be limiting a lot of women in their 30s and 40s nowadays.

7. I really took Robert Plant for granted as a vocalist for a long time.

8. 127 Hours vs. Black Swan: Both Boyle and Aronofsky deal with people pitting themselves against extraordinary physical and mental challenges. Boyle celebrates the push, for all its hubris and cost, and Aronofsky tells the world, one slip and you're charred toast, see? 127 Hours FTW.

9. Driving home from the grocery store, Joan Jett's I Hate Myself for Loving You on the radio. DD: "She should do yoga." Me: "Why?" DD: "Because yoga teaches you not to be so hard on yourself."

10. I'm hoping dreaming will be easier when Neptune moves into Pisces in April.

11. I wish I could find a kind of bacteria that would do my pay work.

Transformed at the Withers

I'm looking at my Chiron return in March, which is sort of the last stand at the OK Corral to have any hope of budging that kundalini upstream. I'm working hard, truly. Chiron is an area of life where you will be made aware, like it or not; other interpretations say it is where you are wounded and where you have the most to teach.

I have Chiron in Pisces in the 9th, which explains my hopeless inability to get published or educated, and also my lucky ability to learn by osmosis. It is supposed to mean that I am a natural teacher. No one wants to learn anything from me, except about what not to do. I am also supposed to be able to teach psychically and must serve in this manner. Yeah, right. If you would like to know about your Chiron, put your date and TIME and place of birth in the comments or email it, and I'll send you an interpretation.

The Chiron return comes around ages 49 to 51; I'm on the younger side of this one for once. But its looming also signifies that I'm old, and has me reading about things like post-menopausal vaginal atrophy. Which scares the fuck out of me, literally, and has me diving for the Chinese herbs. A cool woman I'd met said she was taking testosterone, and that made me wonder, so I was doing some research. OK, so I don't have to worry about it, technically, for 10 years or more, and OK, it doesn't happen to everyone, but atrophy. Freak. Me. Out. And I'm thinking if it were penis atrophy, we'd have a 24/7/365 Jerry Lewis telethon about it to address this problem RIGHT NOW.

Then again, I'm doing some pay work on prostate cancer, and it's also freaking me out how little is done about this relative to breast cancer, and how often surgery is the first go-to when maybe it's not needed. Who would have thought I'd live to see a time when men go to doctors and don't hear about their choices? Progress?

So here is an old poem that has been aging in the little red notebook since this summer.

Aging Marionettes
What he called us--
The mahogany knob of his--
Wait for it--elbow
Crooked around the cords
Of my neck, hand dangling
At the sanded-smooth
Mound of my breast, pink tip
Only slightly nicked.
Cable-muscled arms and lank of legs
Worn thin by always moving, moving
Both of us still swaying slowly, facing ourselves
In the full-length mirror
In the Holiday Inn.