Sixty One Years On - On the Occasion of My Parents' SIxty First Wedding Anniversary

Sixty One Years On - On the Occasion of My Parents' Sixty First Wedding Anniversary

Frannie Zellman

The buses have traveled this route

For more than sixty years,

And before that, as trolleys.

The Hall has morphed into

More than a dozen stores and shops,

A dentist, three restaurants,

And less describable establishments

Between them.

When we were all younger,

The corner held Alexander’s.

The movie theater –theatre then-

Claimed stairs, a stage and curtains

That rivaled the Arabian nights.

An Empire about to fall,

But how could we know?

If I go back in my more than mind’s eye

And ears,

The time before I am born,

The voices echo across the entrance

And into the wedding hall.

All kinds and levels of English, some Yiddish,

Most but not all from New York.

They argue, they laugh, they suggest,

They’ve organized, whether shops, a crowd,

 sister or fellow workers.

 And this wedding.

So many voices, annoying, dissonant,

And beloved.

They live again

As the rabbi invokes the blessing

For those who don’t necessarily believe

But have yielded up precedence

To the old ways and wishes of the old

For the night.

Tiny yet determined,

The greatgrandmother

Stands like a small but strong tree.

Soon the grandparents-who-will-be will dance.

The Winter Police

The Winter Police

(Or, on the demise of very warm winter coats)

You remember very warm winter coats.

They had fur or fur-like acrylic lining them

and all around the sleeves and hood.

When you put them on and zipped them up

You peered, owl-like, from them

As if channeling winter animals 

Turned bright to match the snow.

In college you trooped to class in them,

slinging them over your seats

and burrowing quite satisfactorily into them

as if you had decided to hibernate early.

In a pinch you used them as blankets

If you happened to crash

In unplanned or unfamiliar places.

If you broke up with people 

Or they broke up with you,

You derived comfort

From rubbing  against your coats

As if they were friendly and loving pets.

Then, as if from the ether 

angry anti-warmth people

started muttering behind them,

"Where does she think she is, Siberia?"

And "Didn't know polar bears lived in New Jersey."

And people started wearing 

these shiny, stretchy things 

reminiscent of ski slopes and chalets.

The message was clear:

No taking up more space even in winter.

You're only supposed to be outside to ski.

Snow and frost and cold are for kids.

But three inch heeled boots are fine.

The message was clear.

So, a question

For the winter police:

What claims, what inheres

in the shiny new space 

that our warm winter coats vacated?

You may encounter those heeled boots

sooner than you think.

 

Watching and Waiting

A song that captures how many people on the Other Side felt when they found FatLand.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFOWG48ICjQ



Moody Blues - Watching and Waiting

Songwriters: THOMAS, RAY/HAYWARD, JUSTIN

Watching and waiting
For a friend to play with
Why have I been alone so long
Mole he is burrowing his way to the sunlight
He knows there's some there so strong

Cause here there's lot of room for doing
The thing you've always been denied
Look and gather all you want to
There's no one here to stop you trying

Soon you will see me
Cause I'll be all around you
But where I come from I can't tell
But don't be alarmed by my fields and my forests
They're here for only you to share

Cause here there's lot of room for doing
The things you've always been denied
So look and gather all you want to
There's no one here to stop you trying

Watching and waiting
For someone to understand me
I hope it won't be very long

Play Song

Watching And Waiting lyrics © EMI Music Publishing


Lyrics term of use

My Body and I: Conversation #1

Every so often I check in with my body on various issues. It is good to converse with one's body at times.

Me: So, body, what's going on?

Body:  Liked the Indian/Punjabi food today, but it wasn't as good as the first meal we ate in that restaurant.

Me: Isn't that always the way?  When they open, they're really good, but then they cut back and start economizing.

Body: I missed their tandoori chicken. Last time it was to die for. Or to live for.

Me: Body, isn't it amazing the way different people develop different tastes for things?


Body:  People would have to be crazy not to like that tandoori chicken.

Me:  Body, not everyone likes what you like. Different strokes for different folks.

Body:  I want  that tandoori chicken.

Me: Well, maybe next time we go, they'll have it again.

Body:  Why is it that everything good has to come to an end?  First, Hydrox cookies. Then the Kabab King buffet in Jackson Heights. Now, tandoori chicken in Indian Villa.

Me: You forgot the chocolate bells in Snowflake Bakery.

Body: I didn't forget. I just didn't want to be sad thinking of them.

Me:  You know the song, Body. "There'll be new dreams, maybe better dreams in plenty.."  (Joni Mitchell, The Circle Game)

Body:  Yes, that's true, sort of.  Something goes, but something new comes along.

Me:  So true, Body. Remember? You thought you wouldn't like any of the machines in the gym, but you loved the Cross Trainer.

Body:  Yeah!  I couldn't believe it. It was actually fun.

Me:  See? So remember. Newness does happen, contrary to what those depressing people say about there being nothing new under the sun. There is always something new.

Body:  I'll keep trying to remember.

Fattia

I think there should be the Great American Fat (Positive) Novel and the Great American Fat (Positive)  poem. (There should also be the Great American Fat (Positive) poetry journal, but that's a lot less likely to happen.)

Fatumen - wisdom gleaned from reading all about what fat or obese people are supposed to do/should do to lose weight, and then knowing that it is a lot of piffle.

Fatician - someone who claims to know what fat people want and need, even though s/he is not fat and does not have any fat friends.

Fatility - the ease and grace with which many fat people move. "She is so fatile!" "She moves so fatilely!"

Fatriarchy - those who, by dint of their intelligence, passion and charm and determination to bring about fat acceptance and liberation, are looked up to and revered by fat acceptance believers.

Faternity - the camaraderie that inheres at NAAFA and Abundia events.

Faternization - association with fat people. Punishable by being forcibly put in studies that explain how fat is contagious and that people who are close to them will contact the dread disease of Fatty Fatty Fatness.

Fatulity - believing that you will lose weight permanently if you diet. Believing in whatever new fad diet sneaks up the pike.

FatTorrents - place to download weird things said about fat people.

Fatma Fandi - Woman who preached that fat people should have their own country.

The Fat People - movie in which a young woman dreams about fat people and then wishes to lure them into her house.

Fatlust - lust for fat people.

Announcements

I just recorded the poem I featured here from Fat Poets Speak 2 a few nights ago - Radiance, which is about my mom.

Announcement:  Fat Poets Speak 2: Living and Loving Fatly is now scheduled to come out in April!!

Announcement: Royalties from Fat Poets Speak: Voices of the Fat Poets' Society will continue to go to NAAFA.  Royalties from Fat Poets Speak 2: Living and Loving Fatly will go to Ragen Chastain to assist with her activist efforts on behalf of fat people everywhere.

One day I hope to figure out how to upload audio and video files here.

Impostor?

I had a dream. And considering the amount of negative comments encountered by women online these days, it is probably not a dream -or nightmare- that belongs to me alone.

I dreamt/dreamed that someone (male, I think) called me an impostor. Somehow a lot of women -professionals, artists-  often seem to think that they don't have enough knowledge or skills or even talent to be doing what they are doing, that they will be "found out" by someone who will expose them for the charlatans -charlatanesses?- they are.

So I went over my qualifications carefully. I identify as a writer - a novelist and a poet. Okay - my MA was in Creative Writing. There's the academic qualification.

And I've even written. Poems in a number of journals. Edited and contributed to two anthologies. Wrote two novels and am working on the third of this trilogy. Gave workshops.

And I am fat, so I am not lying or pretending about my personal knowledge of what I write and teach.

So how could I be an impostor?

I came to the conclusion that perhaps it goes deeper than published work or a degree or teaching. It is something internal, something that the heckler was grabbing for. It is the utter confidence and conviction that one is what one is meant to be and what one helps the world by being.

So if the heckler and I hold different opinions about what is going to improve the world, but I follow mine up by writing about what I think will improve it, for him I am an impostor? If Fat Acceptance is my goal and not his..

You see where this could go.

Radiance - a poem dedicated to my mom

My 85 year old mom is very sick right now. She will get an MRI on Friday, which hopefully will push medical personnel to figure out what she has.

With this in mind, I print/reprint a poem that is supposed to appear in Fat Poets Speak (2);  Living and Loving Fatly. (Copyright Frannie Zellman, 2013)

Frannie Zellman

Radiance                                                                      To My Mother

Plump and radiant,

You adored them all

With your eyes.

Flowers in your hair,

You twirled your fan

From admirer to admirer

And led the boys

A merry dance

As you jumped from one

To the other

And winked at some

You didn’t care to know.

One summer morning

You raised your arms

And yawned

Into being

Another crop of young men

To appraise

To render helpless

In your presence

Turning, Circe-like,

humans

Into sea swine

Who lost their speech

And instead

Could only make raw, rasping sounds

Of love.

Tiny, thin now,

You stay beautiful

Not just in memory

But in the eyes of those

Who meet your eyes

And report back

To their officers

That yes, the danger

Still exists

And by god and goddess

What a woman to win

And to keep

If you can avoid the spell.

But of course

The fun lies still

In bringing down

The danger of your spell

And in the allure

Of singing their aches

To you

Without words

In a far, unknown place.

And for a few,

If they were once easy with words,

In trying to find the right sounds

To capture the essence

Of your eyes

All at once,

Without fading.

Holy Grail Not

I was just listening to a song, in two wonderful versions, called "Alkali." Written by Tom Russell, it talks about a man who keeps on looking for gold, but can't find any.

Sadly similar to the way it used to be -and still is for many- for people who used to keep on trying to lose weight, but couldn't.  Of course after tons of research and blaming and fat shaming, we finally found out that actually most of us and our bodily systems are built so that we don't lose much weight - or lose weight, then gain it and often more right back. Some people keep on hoping and praying and starving themselves because they keep on looking for a result that is as elusive as that gold.

The sad thing is that while people are putting so much energy -and getting hungry, irritated and often actually sick as a result- into losing weight, or trying, they could be expending it on things that would make them so much happier instead, and also on eating that would make them happier and feel better. Some of it might even have to do with playing or walking or going on swings or dancing, movement that makes their bodies happy, but may not be what one thinks of when one hears the word "exercise."

Another sad thing is that some religious beliefs seem to push people into looking for what they cannot find, or doing things that hurt and torture their bodies in the name of faith.

I keep wondering why any loving god would push or force people to hurt themselves in the name of faith, just as I wonder why any intelligent doctor would prescribe starvation and/or torturing one's body in the name of health.

An editing moment

Sometimes I like poems I write. Sometimes I am less than thrilled with them. Either way, they all get edited. Indeed, they all must be edited. Sometimes it is good to leave them for six months, then return. Other times one can see what needs changing in a matter of hours.

Here is a perfect example.

I like the poem I wrote called Writing About Tigers. I think it merged the dream world and the real world in some well-thought-out ways. I like the way it connected the process of writing with the process of thinking about tigers.

However...I think that "Writing Tigers" would have said more of what I really wanted to say by leaving no imaginative space between "Writing" and "tigers."

And that verse starting with "Now that we know" simply doesn't belong in this poem. It is from a different register and domain. It is from the domain of "Social Justice," which, much as I approve of it, is not what this poem is about. The words are flat and preachy. This is a poem about leaping and imagination, not about "Save the tigers," although of course the poems implies this as well. And that is another thing. The poem actually implies this stance well enough not to need these words.

Writing (about) tigers     Frannie Zellman                   Take out "about." It is neither necessary nor appropriate.

Not all tigers will have the same
ferociously pleased teeth
phased into a smile
or tail that goes into a spin
when it wags.
If you wish to write (about) tigers,
you must first leave your wishes
for tiger speed and tiger eyes
at the writing door.
Tigers sleep and they sit
and sometimes they even cock an eye
or two
at what scurries and slips and scrims
on the jungle floor.
If they don't all pounce and tiger walk
on their way to crunching dinner,
you must understand that their tiger fire
is simply on low steam
and will erupt quite emphatically later
when smaller animals present themselves
for closer inspection
and digestion.

And oh one more thing..
They don't all burn bright.

(Now that we know that no one should request    Take out. Not the right tone and too literal for here.
their coats for rugs,
We also know that they need trees and prey
and watering holes.)

So if you still wish to write tigers, remember:
 they will play
with your imaginings
and slip off into the trees
with chunks of your words
as long as their ears and as thick as their breath
underfoot.

Clutch, learn to bear their green stare
like the light you remember
when the power goes.
It will warm you
as you call them
in dreams
before you pounce.


Ah. Much better!

haters of fat women

According to our legends, many of which are matched with facts, hetero men liked fat women at many points in our history, going all the way back to cave times. Good to cuddle with a fat woman to keep yourself warm, even after the discovery and use of fire.

Hatred of fat women seems to coincide/correlate with hatred of women in our times. Oh, what a surprise..and women who are in online media and write in public draw hate e-mails, no matter their size.

Telling us how we have to look is the last gasp of anti-woman and anti-feminist bigotry.

Anti-fat people are mostly not big fans of cuddling.

Writing Fat

Writing Fat

Past far past the bones of things
the stark outlines
that prod and hurt
when you try to love them
the die-ts that trash life
the good for you things
that squeeze happiness
out of days

Instead write lush
fillings sauces
pleasure
oozing with filling
fruit cream custard
whiskey spiced coffee
in front of a fire
hugs as long as your arm
and twice as soft
warm bellies to be rubbed
kissed
bitten if you like

and never forget the chocolate.

Writing about tigers

Writing about tigers     Frannie Zellman

Not all tigers will have the same
ferociously pleased teeth
phased into a smile
or tail that goes into a spin
when it wags.
If you wish to write about tigers,
you must first leave your wishes
for tiger speed and tiger eyes
at the writing door.
Tigers sleep and they sit
and sometimes they even cock an eye
or two
at what scurries and slips and scrims
on the jungle floor.
If they don't all pounce and tiger walk
on their way to crunching dinner,
you must understand that their tiger fire
is simply on low steam
and will erupt quite emphatically later
when smaller animals present themselves
for closer inspection
and digestion.

And oh one more thing..
They don't all burn bright.

Now that we know that no one should request
their coats for rugs,
We also know that they need trees and prey
and watering holes.

So if you still wish to write tigers, remember:
 they will play
with your imaginings
and slip off into the trees
with chunks of your words
as long as their ears and as thick as their breath
underfoot.

Clutch, learn to bear their green stare
like the light you remember
when the power goes.
It will warm you
as you call them
in dreams
before you pounce.

Muse(s) and chocolate

I find that chocolate has a most salubrious effect on my writing poems and contacting one of my muses. It is of course possible that the muses like chocolate, too. I have never seen any of them refuse it. I guess it is my equivalent of leaving cookies for Santa Claus. I leave chocolate for the muses.

I was not always cognizant of this important link. When I was younger and in an MA in Creative Writing program, I sought for a muse without chocolate. It did seem to appreciate halvah, especially the kind made by a certain co-op in Cambridge, Mass.,  but I did not grasp the relationship between the muses and chocolate. This made it a lot more difficult to contact the muse, especially since I only had one of them at the time.

Try it sometime. Contact your muse(s) and offer chocolate.

You'll all be happy.