Facebook Fail, friends Hollywood squares

And this was my consolation prize. Facebook mixed and matched my friends’ names with new portraits. Only correct name and portrait is Jay Barrett. Dickens Fourtyfour is now Sarah Reid or her horse— I’m not sure which, and Eolah Bates will be delighted to know that she is now Dickens 44. They’re both bohemian artists. And my cousin Kevin is now grade school classmate John Watts. They both have an retro thing going. And anthropologist Andrew Hayes is now poet Tehmina Khan! And darling Lilah Christine Tuggle has magically transformed into my other Irish cousin Danielle McCormack. Since I’ve known Lilah since she was a baby, we’re practically related anyway. Is it Dada or Kafkaesque gaslighting? Weird doesn’t even begin to cover it. Whatever happened to let the punishment fit the crime?

It was fun while it lasted. I did a hard iPad restart and all returned to normal. No more mismatched Facebook Hollywood Squares. But Sarah Reid disappeared! I rarely accept new friends, nor repost other posts—to keep the hackability down. And no, I don’t think a human troll is behind these hijinks. FB is phukdup. Lol, and now Sarah is back with her horse, Oreo.

Dec. 5

Aaaand Facebook once again is mixing it up, with my Friends List, swapping out names and profiles. Third time’s a charm? For some reason only Jay Barrett’s name is correct, though he doesn’t really look like a boxer. And a Facebook hard restart rights it all. Jay is still a boxer, by choice. He looks much better than that, BTW.

Yet another epic Facebook AI bot fail

Today I was replying my cousin’s comment to my post on my Facebook wall with a memory about our Irish cousin Liam who just died—and for my efforts, I got this 6-Day “Content is not allowed” restriction out of the blue. The ONLY warning I got was a little red box around my benign comment. You can see a screenshot of my comment below and note the red exclamation mark over my profile photo. 

but I have learned the hard way, is the minute you get a red box around your comment and it says re-try sending, it probably is not a bad Wi-Fi connection—but Facebook AI censorship bots putting you on hold while they determine whether or not you are breaking rules or violating community standards.

Back to my saga. Facebook declined to post my comment about how Liam, when he was a small child followed us about, we were the exotic American cousins. I got this: “Your account activity didn't follow our Community Standards, so you can't do one or more things you usually do.” I have no idea why it was restricted. Was it the word “doggedly?” or “death?”

In the orchard

The inside of the fig, a crimson surprise with seeds like inverted thistles. Why does the fig tree wait so long to bear fruit, what does it dream of during those decades of silence? Is it because it blooms inside out?

We rejoice when the Banyan tree of Lahaina, a relative of the fig, sprouts new leaves after the fire, the roots run deep, despite being at sea level. Resurrection after the fire. Drinking the sea. Our mother.

We wait on the shore, the murmur and surcease of waves reminding us that everything is repeated.

That everything is repeated.

The way the citrus trees bloom despite the drought, gives me hope. Meyer lemon blossoms, like prom corsages of gardenias set fruit, small blessings to see us through the duration. The lonely sun rests on the horizon and waits for night to fall, ushers in an endless carpet of stars. The deer nip off the new buds of the Matilija poppy, despite its narcotic lethe.

I am enamored by the way the tomato resists the knife, so like our own skin, it too bleeds onto the plate, waiting for oil to drizzle a golden storm across its slices.

Love’s winged kind winter‘s naked trees, flashes of sunlight as the red leaves of the pear tree riding the wind, the orchard tucks in, waiting for spring. 

I remember listening for those nights when the roses followed the orb light, a siren call as we turned towards darkness, the end of summer when the mold begins to spread across the leaves of squash, hollyhocks and tomato, nipping, those sterile flowers in the bud, unseasonable flowers, unformed fruit. 

The tomato imagining life upside down. Once my uncle brought us a hanging planter tomatoes growing up from the bottom of the pot, as if it could right of the world’s wrongs.

The last time I began to write from memory, it robbed me of voice. Such saboteurs of DNA. What we inherit, remnants of our past, a gateway and a base reset. Why we write.

STONECROP

I am a collector of maimed plants orphaned by the side of the road, 

or abandoned on sidewalks. I gather them up like eggs in a basket, 

full of potential, and place them in pots to see what will sprout, 

like stonecrop on the sea cliffs, hanging onto fissures for eons on end.

Take the Matilija poppy, the experts said couldn’t be slipped

or transplanted but I shoved stems into barrels and it flourished.

I think of all the plants I’ve rescued over the years, my progeny

they took root, despite indifferent ministrations, and like new love,

they rewarded me with new shoots, as if eager for that second chance

and ran with it. But the garden gate was left open and the deer 

came down to browse, clipped that new potential in the bud.

10/25/2023 Write On! with Terri Glass

NANT FFRANCON

Having once slept in the glacial trough 

of Nant Ffrancon, the Valley of the Otter,

nestled between the Glyderau and Carneddau ranges,

dreaming of the shining cirque of Cwm Idwal,

I imagined sleeping an eternity there 

nestled amid the impossible summits of Snowdonia, 

craigs whetting their fangs against the sky.

Once I listened to the murmuring headwaters 

of Llyn Ogwen plash and foam down the rocks 

to the valley below, so denuded of trees that purple slate 

was hammered into thin earth to build fences, 

and sheep patrolled the heather and tundra willows. 

The salmon no longer return. No flash of silver and red.

The red dragon sleeps beneath Dinas Emrys.

It is said that after the Battle of Camlann, 

Sir Bedwyr, that is Sir Belvedere, banished Excalibur 

into the Lake of Ogwen where salmon once hurdled the cataracts. 

The Lady of the Lake was not named, yet she took up the sword 

to hide it in the lake’s secret depths once and forever.

But the restless sword still hungers for battles, 

both real and imagined, the way we all battle death daily,

while the world turns yet another jaundiced eye 

on Ukraine and Palestine. Not my war, they said, 

believing in fairy tales, they returned to their drinks.

We drove into Glanogwen, renamed Bethesda, the panacea,

by invaders who quarried slate for their Norman manses, 

they named the valley after their chapel, the house of mercy, 

when Penrhyn couldn’t hide those who died in the quarries.

They say that Lord Penrhyn’s castle is still haunted 

because it was built on the dark history of wealth 

gleaned from mining slate, Jamaican sugar, and the slave trade.

And so it goes. Whitewater over the backs of slaves and miners.

During the Welsh Revival, they got Methodist religion,

tossing out the old ways for brimstone. The churches and pubs 

of Bethesda hosted rival revivals to keep the mad world in check.

I’ll raise a glass and drink to the long steady course 

so that my ashes, winnowed like unseasonable snowflakes, 

will bloom on the machair, amid campion and saxifrage,

and perhaps we’ll dream again of a billowing sky at sunset,

in this land where the red dragon stirs in sleep, 

and the Lady of the Lake is said to wait with Pendragon’s sword, 

so that he may return, and we all may rise up again.

10/18/23 Write On! with Terri Glass

• CAERNARFON
• IN THE OPPRESSOR'S TONGUE
• Snowdonia, Wales
• Caer Bryn Celli Ddu, Anglesey, Wales (photos)
• How the Welsh language was really invented
• MacCamelot: Stealing King Arthur, or Musing on Pseudo Histories
• With Pointy Shoes & Bells on

Watershed, environmental poetry festival, 2023

Watershed, environmental poetry festival, 2023 me and others reading CPITS kid poems.

Saturdays

I couldn’t wait for the weekend. As soon as I got off the school bus, I was free to wear jeans for two whole days. Saturdays began at dawn, unfettered by obligations. We rode those long coastal ridges on donkeys, and later, on horseback, until dusk. Sunday mornings were reserved for church. That meant no breakfast as mass began at 9 AM. It took up half a day as we had to walk to Saint Cecilia’s Church, nearly 2 miles away. My stomach rumbling. After mass, and a trip to the WC, my grandmother hunted for french bread at the Lagunitas Store, squeezing each one for freshness. We left with a loaf of Bordenave’s Viennese milk bread, and a copy of the Sunday paper, Mr. Lacy waving goodbye. I don’t remember the long walk home, or anyone giving us a lift. Few folks had cars. Sometimes we also hoofed into Forest Knolls to get the mail, adding another mile to the journey. Shank’s mare, my grandmother said. She had bunions, it couldn’t have been easy for her to clip-clop down the road like a pony in those old black lace-up saddle shoes with fancy eyelets and a design punched out on the kid leather—like a man’s dress oxford with a tall square heel. When we got home, we tucked into a big fry up of bacon and eggs with buttered Vienna bread, hot from the oven. I pored over the Sunday funnies, the likeness of my aunt smiling back from a Paisano ad on the last page. But, by then, the day was half gone. My grandmother fell asleep on the couch with the newspaper draped over her. It was a sleepy time, a day of rest—not like Saturdays where the day was all ours from dawn until dusk.

Tomales Bay gleamed—

severing the coastal hills 

with a sword of light.

10/11/2023 Write On! with Terri Glass

A long night with restless critters

What an effing long night it was last night, I was sleeping in the tent when the coyotes all went off, singing arias a little too close to me for comfort, followed by a fox coughing in the valley, and as the rutting deer blundered past my tent, one of them knocking down the tent ropes, so it sounded like I was inside a large harp, booooiiiing! Zing! the roof was shaking like crazy. Then the wind came whipping down from the mountain (thanks to Karl the Fog—that heat spell was something—and extreme heat in October is cause for alarm—as in wildfire) and the gust of wind shook the tent like terrier with a rat. I could hear the tall fir trees cracking and groaning which set off the hoot owls. They sounded pretty feeble as they still don’t have their mature hoot down yet. The deer insult was followed by some largish animal attacking the side of the tent, three times with lots and lots of claws getting stuck in the tent wall. Of course, my first thought was Oh my God, a mountain lion or a bobcat is trying to get in—surely it’s not the coyotes. Not what I wanted to think about before drifting off to sleep—especially after coming onto my sleepytime gummy bear. Speaking of bears, by this time, I was really quite cross, and I begin yelling for all I was worth, which scared it—whatever it was—off, and it also brought out the neighbors bearing torches. Meanwhile, my cousin’s crazy cat was zooming around the inside of the tent like a well-oiled lunatic. Whatever was attacking the tent must’ve been trying to attack her. I no sooner got back to sleep when that episode was followed by two raccoons having it out and literally rolling like little fat fur barrels down the slope into the creekbed where they caterwauled and quarreled some more. This performance was repeated throughout the night with copious snarling and fearsome growling and snorting as they made direct contact several times. And at dawn, I had to rescue my cousin’s crazy cat (the one that was racing around the tent) singing her three-note Siamese cat opera, trying to get away from a large puffy stray tabby Tom who was trying to beat the crap out of her. They are all nuts. I chased him off, she was stuck on automatic hiss mode so I couldn’t pick her up and put her in the house. She usually doesn’t sleep outside, so she was pretty freaked out. I am so tired, I am cross-eyed. And now it’s raining. No need to do a rain dance. I’ve been dancing around the garden all night long in my PJs like a dementor screaming at all the wild animals.

The doe’s breakfast
Morning aubade

Missy the Deer (photos)

Missy the deer I caretook last year munching on chicken feed & rolled oats in the garden.

Last year I clandestinely took care of a young deer who was hit by a car. She was one of our deer, born and bred in my grandmother’s garden. Well, the other evening I had an interesting interlude with her. I haven’t seen her in nearly a year, and she came right up to me, almost expectantly, as I was getting out of my car—like she knew me. I was so shocked I just stood there. I rolled some lemon cukes her way, and slowly walked away. We tend to talk to all animals, she was no exception.

So later, she came to the back door and peered in expectantly. Her enormous ears swiveling like semaphores. It was as if she were saying, I know you. C’mon! She had also brought her twins. I thought, oh, great, she was somebody’s pet. She’s so tame someone’s been hand-feeding her. A practice I condemn. They’re gone and interfered with the boundary between keeping wild animals wild and leery of us. I also thought, there was no way it was last year’s deer I had taken care of. I looked for a limp. She seemed to favor her hind leg, but I couldn’t be sure. It was clean.  Deer movements are sporadic, at best.

Then, the day before yesterday, she came up right to me again when I was in the garden. There was no mistaking it. She was wanted a connection with me. I stood stock-still. There was only an old Adirondak chair between us. She kept watching me and edging closer, so of course I talked to her. She pricked those marvelous ears at me, never taking her eyes off me. 

This time I saw the big scar on her hind leg where the bone had broken through, and realized it was the same deer that I had secretly fed last year. I suppose I could anthropomorphize a bit here and say she was thanking me, but I think it was hunger talking. But most animals tend to like me and will often approach me. Do I stink, or smell like the forest? We had just returned from huckleberrying so we were manky. Maybe I should bathe more often.

She hardly limps at all now. And there is no doubt that she definitely remembers me. It’s uncanny. Apparently my cover has been blown. She has no fear of me, but her fawns are afraid of us—and that is good. Despite my best intentions not to interfere with her wildness, I’ve gone and named her Missy. But her guardian, Bucky the mascot is missing, so I fear the worst.

It was Alex Call who told me to get her some high energy corn to help her survive. I couldn’t find any cracked corn, so I got a sack of chicken scratch with corn in it. I think she found it an odd choice, so I added some rolled oats too, which she gobbled right up. She loved rose petals and leaves. I tried to stay within her food range but spinach, bok choy and squash were a no-go.

Since I still had some chicken feed left over from last year, I sprinkled in the dry grass for the birds, I gave some to her. She ate it, plus the apples we left in the grass. I put out some other greens too as she’s pretty thin. She still won’t eat spinach. So I sprinkled more oats and chicken feed in the grass. We shall soon see if she will lay eggs, or begin to crow like a rooster at dawn.

You can see the wounds on her hind leg, she figured out how to walk, but it must’ve hurt.

For the most part, last year, I kept out of her line of sight, only putting food out when she wasn’t around. I was hoping she wouldn’t make the general fatal connection between humans and food—but still she figured out who and what I was—the feeder. So, my scent was probably the main clue. It was either that, or let her die. I think Bucky’s trust in us put her at ease. But she was still very leery of us. I never approached her. I didn’t want her to become accustomed to us. 

Some a-hole hit her with a car or truck, probably one of the day workers up the hill, and he left her to die. Didn’t even call the humane society. Coyotes smelling blood and opportunity, were trailing her, mama and cubs were waiting in the wings for an easy meal. Over my dead body. We drove them off yelling like banshees. Sean permanently scared them off with an air gun. Talk about a chain reaction set in motion. We sure didn’t want them hanging about or snatching one of the cats either. 

Bucky was a gentleman, he stood guard when she ate & chased off predators, but not us.

But this was also during the tail end of the drought, and the young deer was having trouble finding food, Bucky, who quickly figured out that I was a friend, not a foe who was feeding the doe, was reduced to eating lichen, toxic cotoneaster and ivy—which she couldn’t reach. She couldn’t even walk down to the creek, not with that blown hock, so I put out a bucket of water as well as assorted lettuce greens and grain. 

After all, generations of her deer people have drunk out of my old horse trough, and eaten my horses’ hay. These deer were born in the upper garden where Missy was currently sleeping, so it is as much their natal stomping grounds as it is mine. Besides, during the summer, I often sleep outside in the tent when I come visiting. So they know me. I am merely part of the garden furniture.

I am so not into feeding opportunistic wild animals, thus altering their behavior, but I don’t mind cohabiting with them. So this is a bit of a hybrid event, keeping her alive. Luckily, her fawns are afraid of us. May it continue to be so.

• The doe’s breakfast
• Morning aubade

Lay lecturer

A real writer is possessed, can’t leave well, enough alone, she nickel-and-dimed the verbs and nouns into submission, tried on a new word order. You’d think she was at a bargain boutique sale, she was so desperate to pin down her vision, but any old words wouldn’t do at all. It was all about the context after all. She couldn't help it. Or herself.

She hitched up her pencil skirt to take the steps 2 x 2, late again. This time she had no excuse, the words took her hostage. Again. The clock ceased its machinations and left her behind as usual. It didn’t help that she got caught up in traffic. She hoped there was enough gas in the tank. She was cutting it close, story of her life. The narcotic sway of words on the page had this power to stop time and render it meaningless. It was her own little drop of eternity.

The top of the stairs was like an oasis. She had a straight shot into the classroom where the students were restlessly shuffling papers, as if to make a run for it. The five-minute late rule was invoked. She slid up to the podium like a baseball player stealing home. And she began her lecture in medias res, right in the middle of things, leaving them to scramble for context. The subject was not recorded.

There was always one student at the ready, who could roll with it. At first she mistook her student’s attentiveness for granted, labeling her an overachiever, enthusiastic, but lately she began to notice that Mary Beth seemed to be always taking down notes, while glancing at the clock. She thought what happens next? 

She began to worry that this woman was a spy, or perhaps she was planning to make a move on her job. Lectures held a tenuous position, and could be replaced at the whim of the department. No time for tenure on the hard-scrabble slope of lecturer competition. Lectures were a dime of dozen. She didn’t know whether to acknowledge the girl or ignore the situation completely. 

She could feel herself letting go of expectations. What would happen if she just stayed home the next time the words came to visit, and then let them have their way with her?

10/5/2023 WOW Writes, Dulcie Witman

This was from a free workshop I found on Facebook, called WOW Writes, wide open writing, held on the first Thursday of the month. We wrote for two minutes on a prompt. Then we were interrupted midstream by another prompt. Then again for a third time. I didn’t like the interruption, or the abrupt process of shifting directions or perspectives. I was later asked to read what I wrote by cofounder Dulcie Witman, who said that liked it, but I did not care for the actual workshop leader, whom I don’t remember. I’m always leery of therapists, perhaps afraid of being “herapized” by therapists always leaping to the wrong conclusions. I never went back to the group because I really don’t enjoy writing fiction. Not my thing.

Found my Writers’ Group drafts from 2003 to 2007

Today I found my missing writing from Vito’s Writers’ Group. The packet was hidden in among my CPITS conference notes and poems (for years!). A fluke, really. I just about given up on ever fleshing out the early 2000s posts on my blog when I stumbled across several pieces from 2003 in the back of my CPITS binder, and as I flipped through the binder for the third time seeing if I could clean one or two more pieces, I found all the writing that had gone AWOL from 2003 (only a few pages) through 2007 stuffed in a magenta folder with Steve Kowitt poems on top. No wonder I couldn’t find them, they were hiding out in not so plain sight. There may be more missing pages, but at least it feels like I can finally flesh out all the lean years with the exception of 2003. But 47 posts is doable. I would’ve preferred 52 posts but you never know. For the past few days, I have been combing through old clippings and writing, scanning and uploading them to the blog. Since it’s been such an enormous amount of time since I began this project, sometimes I double post, and then have to delete my work. Who can keep track of nearly 5000 posts anyway?

By right, the year 2007 should also have been included on that scant post list. I began this blog on Aug 20, 2008, and randomly backfilled 2007 with myriad poems, letters, essays, etc. But then I had to deconstruct it when I ran out of room for all my old poems filed by month (I didn’t know that I could backpost to 1970) so there was very little new writing from 2007, about 30 posts in all with less than a dozen poems (ditto that in 2008) because I hadn’t yet started blogging even though I made the site in January of 2007—and that’s with adding all the long lost Writers’ Group entries. There are now 88 posts, but about 40 of them are not from 2007! I decided to leave the letters all in one place, parked in the February 2007 slot, though they date back to the 1980s. At least for now.

• When This Blog Really Began—Aug 2008
• LITERRATA or Veritas and the art of Memoir
• My old poems from the 1980s-90s

*2006 was 12, now 21 (to do. I found my MIA Writers’ Group folder, in w/ CPITS)

*2005 was 10, now 22 (to do. need to add Writers’ Group)

*2004 was 33, now 66 (added Writers’ Group. MIA Florida journals! found 2 emails)

*2003 was 35, now 47 (I found 5 writers group posts buried in my CPITS folder)

THE APPROACH OF AUTUMN

                                        —after Rilke

There is that one moment in late summer 

when leaves fade to sunlight and begin their descent, 

the sweet order of bay fills the air with nostalgia.

The nights are drawing in, my grandmother said.
The shadows in the deep pocket canyons lengthen, 

& the whine of chainsaws announces the first hearthfires,

where a tide of woodsmoke rises, blue as an inland sea.

A restlessness stirs the psyche, all those undone tasks.
I think: One can never be homeless in the garden 

where the cat drapes herself across aching limbs 

and the mind travels the distance of winter frost

while tumbling leaves escape to darker climes.

10/4/23 Write On! with Terri Glass