The Player...by Mary Payne

 

The Player, Nice

Standing on rue Bavastro I spy

a perfect carving of a sea bird

poised on the roof of a car

as if a giant hood ornament

has climbed up to get a better view.

He's so still one can enjoy the curved

yellow beak with it's bright red dot,

the carapace of cool grey plumes

all the colors bright and fine

the whites pristine "Javel" whites,

not a working class bird

not bones and flesh.

I pause, not wanting to miss the moment.

A couple is watching him too, Americans...

dialogue drifts from over the street.

They are standing quite near

but the bird never stirsl

"He's quite beautiful" she declares.

"How do you know its a he?"

"Well, he's cool, debonair...he's Cary Grant".

"Ho, really?  Just watch, he'll snatch a fish 

off the ice there before you can say

Archie Leach".

He chortles at his own cleverness. 

"He's not bothered, so confident," she says.

"Oh yes, City gulls are all about confidence.

They'll grab a fish off your plate AND your fries.  

I've seen it at CoCo Beach, thieves

the lot of 'em.

"Reminds me of this guy Tully back home. 

He'll come over, start talking and 

when your back's turned,

he'll palm a jacket or a tool.

Last time we were missing a nozzle,

don't know how he did it, the fucker."

"Well then,  Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief", 

she parries.

I silently approve her defense 

of this striking, industrious gull, 

certainly nothing like Tully, 

the "kepto" back home.

Why is it, I ask myself, that females

are suckers for handsome rogues,

hustlers, chancers, pre-possessing knaves?

But beauty isn't the point here.

Yes, he's young, he's beautiful

but it's the ambition, the daring.

Who wouldn't cut a few corners

to feed a hungry brood...and the wife,

he loves the wife too,

of course he does.

Who wouldn't chance it for the chicks

and his female?

The Player would...

and I'd say

that's the kind of gull we have here.

My Father's Goose

My Father with his Goose, circa 1985

 Gus

“See he just bought the one and put it under

a bulb and when it hatched it was a 

head taller than the chicks and twice as hungry

so your dad just started feeding him separate.

That little guy used to follow him around ,

with those long legs a his….curious about everything. 

Then one day he was a big 30 pounder and

still thought of Harvey as his mother.

“Your old man couldn’t get in the car what the

goose flapped in after him….wanting to squeeze

in under the steering wheel and be petted,

big ole head hanging over Harvey’s shoulder.

And your daddy would stroke him, talk to him

a good fifteen minutes til he got him out

the car and locked in the pen. Otherwise 

he’d just run down the road after him. 

See ,your dad was a city boy, Richmond.

Didn’t know nothing 'bout raising farm animals. 

To him it was nothing but a love story…

nothing but a goddamned love story. 

When your father passed, that big ole bird

didn’t know what to do with” hisself”,

didn’t even know he was a goose,

kept on moping 'round the yard,

Your ma finally gave him to the farm

down the road where there were lots just like him….

hoping maybe he’d come to understand

that he was a bird. 

I wrote this piece from the point of view of the midwestern farmer who lived near my parents place in Newcastle, California. 

Poet's Club

My photo image showing that you can't quite capture the periwinkle sky I Nice with pixels, 

Poet’s Club

by Mary Payne

Having just read thirty random poems

I feel that I’m not authorized to call myself a poet…

to be in that revered club with Henry VIII 

and his “Some Sayeth Youth Ruleth Me” 

or with modern poets of dark disquiet, 

for I am a sanguine soul 

and I had a happy childhood.

There were three dresses in my closet

that my mother had sewn for me

and on Friday my father drove 

on the road to town with a list…

including a peach and a pear

for each of us, a five cent sherbet cone, and

a trip to the public library.

No gangs threatened our look-alike dwellings.

No rogue uncle roved at night to 

unsettle my sister nor I.

No one even drank!

But I love words too…how they leap

from my head when I least expect it

to explode on the unsuspecting page.

And I am old. Does that count for this club…

senior discount perhaps?

Not many years left

to tell all I want to tell…

about the crab man who runs sideways,  

about the infant gecko with his clown-like grin….

eaten by ants on his third day,

How my father tamed the meanest man

or how the Mediterranean sun

can turn the sky a purple/blue

so rich and full-throated

that it can’t be caught

by either film or pixels 

but perhaps only in a poem.  

Libération

 

 

Photo by Agence Istra, quartier Libération

Libération

    In the queue at the tax office I bandy French with the others… joking and laughing… a hard won privilege, as for five years at least, I lost the power to “speak my person”… jumping enthusiastically into conversation only to feel silence and the chagrin of blank stares.

    Arranging one’s chosen words in another language, serving up a helping of a joke, is a freedom I earned slowly…arising from tenacity, the roving ear of a spy, and a streak of shameless audacity. 

   I think about the idea of“metamorphosis” now while sitting out front in the newly minted“French Coffee Shop”.  It’s among all the other cafes here in my preferred quarter: “ Liberation”, an apt name, with its towering trees, mix of old and young chatting and choosing from the market stalls that punctuate the pavement most mornings. We’re free of traffic here too.  Only the sleek trams pass through… gliding along without a fuss like helpful garden snakes.  

     I sit in the October sun content to contemplate an imposing facade before me. It is art “deco”with female“mascaron”and a giant limestone dragonfly, a crumbling white relic with soft green shutters, and a faded dignity.

    She speaks to me of another Nice…of opulence and verve and for no good reason my mind leaps back to Paris, 1937, before the worst fears…with Mistinguette singing “Je Cherche un Millionaire”.  Who knows, she might have stayed here across from me when this edifice was modern and arrogant with youth. 

     That was another time with other folks, not so different from us, really…stopping at sidewalk cafes to pass the time, jollying babies or dogs.  A few may be jotting notes, as I am now, my “Venoise” before me….reflecting, gazing..while this oddly chosen life unfolds perfectly around me. 

 

Medium Rare

 Image by Frenchentree.com

 Medium Rare

When I was still in high school I got invited by a boy to go on a real date.  These were few as my parents needed to meet the boy before they allowed me to go out and I refused, in some cases, to suffer this indignity. 

  My first boyfriend was from the church youth group so he was approved.  But I eventually got so tired of my routine with him that I hid under the house one day (with the black widow spiders) when I heard the sound of his motorcycle coming up the drive. 

“Well, that is strange . She was just here.  You can wait if you like” I heard my mother say.

The wait in the crawl space seemed interminable but finally my suitor left.  The next day I complained to my friend, Jane.  “Well, I wish I were going out with him.  You are lucky,” she said.  

An introduction was arranged and soon, Gene, was off my hands.  They made a fine couple for about a year, as I recall.  I stayed “single” throughout that year and sampled here and there. 

The second lad came later and he actually had money to take me to a restaurant.  My parents consented and off we went to a steak house.  I had never been to one.

  To raise five children and insure their college education was paid in full, my parents took us to only two kinds of eateries.  The first was for a lovely bean soup served at the counter at the A&P market.  We ate lots of saltines with that or “healthy” crackers that my mother brought with her.   …some sort of hard tack which were enticingly called “rye crisps”. 

The second was a child’s dream of a place called “Cliftons”.  It was a cafeteria but was dark inside and decorated  like an exotic island. There were favors for the kids and little parasols in our iced drinks,  …the kind of kitsch which kids adore.   That is where I had my first Salisbury steak and my first restaurant turkey slices with mashed potatoes and cream gravy.    

But never in my life were “ t-bone”, “prime rib” or any expensive cuts of meat on our family menu.  So really I knew nothing about what the French call “ saignant “ ( rare) , “a point”, ( medium rare),  “cuit” ( medium well) or “bien cuit”( well done) not to mention…”trop cuit” describing a tortured piece of beef …black and hard.  Actually, a steak cooked just over a minute on each side is called “steak rose”. 

So on this date, when we got to the restaurant and the waiter asked me how I liked my meat, I hesitated.  Was “cooked” the word he was looking for?  Finally, he asked “medium or well”?   I had no idea what he was after so I said I like it cooked all the way through.   

The conversation was labored as I tried to tackle the shriveled morsel of steak with the inadequate knife I had been given.  The date dragged on with this shy boy and my chagrin kept our conversation forced and embarrassing.   We were probably both relieved when it was over. 

It would be some years before I found myself ordering steak again.  By that time I had learned that I like meat grilled “medium rare” and it would be many more years until I would be saying “Je voudrais un steak rośe.” As I say now, “Sil vous Plâit.”

 Storm Alex, Oct 8, 2020, Nice France, Image by Sky News

                          
 Septuagenarian out along the sea,  5am, Nice France

She hadn’t wanted to go out today.     

rain they said…

A tussle with stalactite mind,

bristling at a dare, 

No rain yet, she pulls on layers, resigned.

 

Starting out’s a doddle.

Breezes almost warm,

palm trees in sway recall

a Hawaiian moment 

restoring rare resolve.

The body is a kingdom, ancient but revered, connections purring,

wizened workings stirring,

Spider knees holding, folding.

King’s laborers working as one. 

The waves are drama now,

even for a sea,

the prologue Shakespearean,

tempest primed though barely birthed,

an hour, perhaps, before cloudburst.

There is frenzy. There is fanfare 

A drumroll dervish follows the wheels.               

Clattering flagpoles tap, tap, tingle.

Beach stall flags in tatters now

whip the air like sea snakes.

Most days in muted dark

she recites poetry aloud

No answer but the crack of a gull.

But all that's aside now

As the gale grows full.

In record time she’s up the hill 

on descent, a cobra’s clench.

A new wind joins the first.

The clutch/ hold thrill

of a child’s tag game.

Nothing for it but to go inland.

She pumps furiously to be off the street.

She gropes the last slope.

Meters away from the gate,

she feels the first drops.

If the storm passes, tomorrow she’ll go.  

Four days, she’s promised herself,

four in a row.

On Friday she’ll revel...marveling again at what it takes to tame one small habit.

This storm turned out to be the start of Storm Alex which devastated many villages and the only rail line going through villages from Breil sur Roya to Tende, France. Oct. 8, 2020.

Can a Rose be...by Mary Payne

 

Can a Rose be… 

To gaze upon a life of dreams fulfilled

to count among the years, but common strife,

to be seen guileless but illusion filled,

One still can boast a full and wondrous life.

And yet the spur of youth was always there,

insuring years that held more promise still,

but now no hope of strength, nor skin so fair 

can make the roles we choose an ease to fill. 

The battle’s in the mind where thoughts are born. 

Creases don’t halt the mischief in the eye,

And we are free, if from the mirror torn,

we love ourselves the same as time goes by.

The challenged life starts as the body fails.  

Can a rose be yet treasured, as it pales?

 

Practice in writing a sonnet

alternate rhyme. ABAB, CDCD EFEF GG

Iambic pentameter