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

Small Exchanges

 

Small Exchanges by Mary Payne

 A small encounter at a school in Sri Lanka, photo by marympayne

 I look for excuses for small exchanges…”I like your bag, so colorful." “Not so humid today…. lucky for the rain last night.”

 I see the Muslim mother covered head to toe in 32 degree heat, her four children spread around her like a fan… bright beach floats and bags bounce around us. They’re all tired, ready for home.  We’re waiting for the number 12 bus,

sweltering in direct sun.  It is a wonder that she is so calm, composed.  

I say something to her 5 year old, the fussy one of the four.  He is so startled to hear me that he stops his whining to stare, clutching on to his mother’s long skirts. The mother and I exchange a smile and a sentence. She says in broken French, that it is not her country, not her language… to explain why she can’t talk further.  But our exchange really needs no language. What we needed has already been accomplished.

Don’t we love to go to the restaurant and have the young waiter stop to converse with us over lunch. He has served all the tables now.  He wants us to be pleased, love his food.  He is co-owner; the restaurant new, but he doesn’t have to stop and talk, to introduce himself.  It makes us happy. We feel the implied friendship, the promise of conversation when we return.  

I notice that many people are indeed, kind. Some thank the bus driver.  Some help the frail ones out with their wheeled carts.  Sometimes the young ones look up from their phones and give up their seats….multi-tasking.

When we thank a kindness here, they say back to us, "de rien".  "It was nothing." But it's not

nothing.  It's "huge" as my sister would say.

Monsieur always lets people go ahead. “You only have a few things, go ahead.”he says. There are smiles and acceptance, occasional astonishment… sometimes, a “Non, monsieur, vous étiez avant moi.”  

“Je ne suis pas pressé”. he says.  “Allez-y”… I am not in a hurry, go ahead. 

Why hurry to the grave he says to me later, nothing to be gained by hurrying….and I can tell how much he gets from these encounters.  He shares them like a child proudly pulling small smooth stones from a pocket. 

Yes, a need to reach out… maybe just with a sentence or a look of complicity.  It’s an inner smile, a private pleasure.

Small exchanges are not small, no, not small at all. 

Back in the Game

 Hello, my faithful readers,

Yesterday, with my up to date French covid pass, I went out to the Apple store at cap3000 to get an appt. to correct various problems.  The Apple store here on the Côte d’Azur, is no longer taking rendezvous over the internet.  It seems that many people have arrived to their appointments with their pcs, even though they were not Macintoshes, and asked for free help from the Apple Geniuses.  So now, the staff grill you in person on what you are seeking, before they grant an appointment. 

One of the questions that I thought they wouldn’t be able to help with , was why I could not access my Google story blog anymore but was put through to my art blog or vice-versa. As you can see i have mixed the content of the two blogs because I couldn’t get onto the one I wanted. But the Apple guy said , yes, they could probably help me with that next Thursday. 

Then today, Tuesday, by some miracle , I am able to get on my story and poetry blog without further ado. 

So let’s catch up a little since the 20 or so months of Covid here in France.  

Monsieur and I have been well and continuing our exercise and mostly eating healthy foods. ( I say mostly, as there are certain trousers that I don't fit into anymore.)    We have both been vaccinated and have been invited to have a booster after 6 months from our last shot.  So that is all good. 

However, I have quit the art school after many years of attendance.  The school had closed for “in person” teaching  and put its classes onto Skype.  With the myriad problems with using Skype and my mediocre French language skills, I felt it was not working for me.  I also was not feeling the need for further instruction and had been attending the last five years because of a good teacher and also,  mostly for social reasons.  I will miss speaking French and my colleagues in that inspiring situation. 

  But I have now transferred my creative side to writing which is a practice I have always loved.  I am writing poetry again, but also have started writing stories from my past…a kind of memoir approach.   I have only three or four readers who I am daring to send my output to, but they have given me incentive to continue.  And it isn’t really about the finished project, it is more about savoring memories, connecting with my family and friends who might remember it better, and trying to improve.  So watch out for some stories here and maybe some more poems. 

I hope you are all well and feeling more secure since the vaccination programs started and life for all of you is feeling stable again. 

 And I hope you will join in with some comments here or in a private mail.  I could  use the human connection these days and I certainly miss the feedback I enjoyed in the past.  In other words, I miss you guys, the messages, yes, but especially the hugging. 

Cynthia Lost her Knickers

Stock photo by Almay

                                       
 

Cynthia Lost her Knickers…

by Mary Payne

Cynthia lost her knickers.     

but she can’t imagine how. 

She had them at the Club “Nautique”. 

But doesn’t have them now.   

Good thing her frock is rather long.  

and goes down past her knees      

She wouldn’t want to show the goods

in this September breeze.   

She took the tram, she walked a bit.  

She even took the bus.  

That’s quite a ways to do without  

'fore having lunch with us.   

Funny how we feel secure with

just a scrap against our body.

and without a pair we start to feel 

that somehow we are naughty.

If you should see a puddle 

of sprigged polyester blue. 

it’s better just to turn your head, 

pretend you never knew.   

There’s not a shadow of a doubt

that Cynthia has brass.

But even she’s going home to change

before her Bible class.

Ps. I wrote this last summer...most of it is true. 

Last Page of Gyotaku Project

Children's story pages,  Mary M Payne

 This is the story of the Mediterranean Sea.  It is the story of fish...and the printing of fish . 

E is for Ectothermique.. the scientific name for fish, almost 32,000 species, more than all the vertebrates put together.

M is for mussels..  a bivalve that lives in salty water or fresh.  Here in France we eat mussels whenever we can.  Delicious.  Bring me “ Moules Marinieres” we say. "sil-vous-plait".

P is for Pulpe..  a most intelligent mollusk with eight legs and a soft body.  It is also a tasty dish, but who dares to eat such a cunning creature. 

R is for red starfish.... The Mediterranean red star is called Echinaster sepositus, an echinoderm in the shape of a star.  Sounds like a Roman emperor, doesn’t it? 

E is for endangered...  All sea creatures are in peril now. Fishermen are taking too many fish and wasting fish with their callous methods.  And then there are plastics and all manner of  trash dumped in the seas. Shame on us.  We need to do better.

I is for Impression... the way the Japanese have done it for centuries called Gyotaku.   This is a way to record shape and size of a fish, a method started by the Samurai.    All you need is some ink and some rice paper. This story is also about Gyotaku.

N is for Neptune grass...  Great prairies of Neptune grass, 15 kilometers wide, have been growing in the sea for tens of millions of years.  Their fibrous materials, when turned by the waves make spherical balls which wash up on the shore. 

T is for tidal pools... Hardy organisms such as mussels, clams and sea stars shelter in tide pools near the shore. These creatures must adapt to differences in water/ salt content , currents, exposure to sun and predators.

E is for Ecosystem.... a community of organisms, animals and plants that share cycles of energy and nutrients.

S is for Sea bass… the most cultivated and the most commercially fished in the Mediterranean Sea.  We call it “bar “ in France and serve it with butter and lemon … always a tasty, white fish.

Maybe this story is also about good eating.  But I want this story foremost to be about respect for the gift of the Mediterranean Sea and all it's glorious creatures. 

My first and only Reduction print

Galet I, reduction lino print by Mary M Payne

Galet II reduction lino print 19x22 in. by Mary M Payne

I just tried to put this new entry on my art blog but it refuses to go there.  So hey, the two blogs are for the moment combined.

That series reminded me of another I had done a few years back, my first and only attempt at reduction printing.  

What is a reduction print?  One could say that printmaking is defined by contrast... value differences or differences in color. 

 For a reduction print, one most often uses color and linoleum.  The artist carves away or "reduces" parts of the printing block, printing one color at a time, usually printing from lightest to darkest colors since dark covers light. 

I started with this photo I took of galets and dove feathers.

   Next I transferred the design "backwards" onto a standard piece of lino cut 8.5 by 12 inches or 22x31cm.  I did this with carbon paper.

Charbonnel, my preferred printer's ink.

  Next I rolled my ink, color mixed to preference with a spatula down on a piece of glass to mix with a brayer and roll out onto the lino.  That would have been the pale blue.  You will see in this series that each print is different as I experimented with the colors and placement of colors.

Galet III reduction print by Mary M Payne

The next step was to take my gouges and scrape away all of the background on the piece leaving only the rocks and feathers.

After that there was no going back!

The second color to put down was the "blanc cassé".  

 I roll out the off-white ink which was in every object on the page, and inked the lino.

In order to insure there were no gouge marks onto the blue background, I put a piece of copy paper ( a mask) which would cover all the background just leaving holes for the objects now inked off-white.

 Then I ran all of it though my little home printing press that Monsieur had bought me.   

Next I cut away anything that was off-white only.   Except while looking at my lino plaque ... I seem to have left the stone in the middle standing without cutting it away!! I must have gone over it again in the end with off- white.  I think I still needed it in place to print the gold rim outline. 

 The next color was  yellow ochre. It appears in four stones and part of the feathers.  I printed everything with that color in it and then carved away four stones of that hue, the rim outline of the middle stone and the piece of the feather that was yellow.

That left two stones with gray and the part of the feathers.  For each color, I continued to use the copy paper mask to cover up the background so that it was a smooth blue.  

 After the gray ink, I carved away those two gray stones leaving only the stone which would have mostly black and the remainder of the feathers.  Although no stone is really black,  I wanted a stronger contrast.

 As you can see, I kept playing with the colors to get a better result so that each print is slightly different.  In the piece below you can see that I decided to give black to the first stone instead of the second stone. 

Galet IV reduction print by Mary M Payne

If anything this kind of activity is a brain game...lots of problem solving. 

 

Most reduction artists start with about 25 sheets of paper to produce 10 prints.  I inked ten and produced five. This is fun but not for the faint of heart. There are very few ways to correct as you go along. 

  By the way, you are the first to see this series.  I am taking some time off from art to remember...and not produce. With Covid confinement and no classroom meetings now, it seems like the time to reflect. 

P.S. And I am just going to say that the fonts are still morphing on their own on blogspot.  If you see something suddenly in huge letters or the opposite... please just go with it.  I don’t want to spend hours figuring out why.