The Nasty Woman and the
Smörgåsbord of words and feelings… some very nasty…. like me.
“In his late works , he embodied these and other ills in the nightmare ridden figure of the cosmic giant Albion, or universal humanity, who has fallen in to deadly sleep of mundane existence. In humanity’s coma, the divine is a remote and forbidding sky-god: nature a sterile heap of atoms, lovers and family members, enemies; and one’s own innermost being, an unrecognized alien.”
~Blake’s Poetry & Designs ` A Norton Critical Edition.
I realize I am being confrontational, nasty and outrageous. It is that two-week time as we move into the autumnal equinox. I hate this time of transition, but I love autumn.
Today I had to get gas on the way to where I was going. This local gas station charged me a 30 cents gas fee. Yet this is the normal way to skim the top and make a lot of money off millions of poor people. I remember when gas stations had attendants pour the gas, check the oil and fill the car tires. It was service with a smile.
I wish one of these monster gas companies would be brave and bring the service attendants back. They could collect the cash and we could give them the service charge… instead of a fucking machine.
Every time we take away a person’s job and replace them with a machine, we become less human.
I went into the mini-market and the cashier, who seemed to be acting as an employe, knew nothing about the fee and said,
“I don’t know why you are asking about it. You are the only one that cares? No one else has asked about it.”
I looked at her silently and squarely.
“You should know about it and all the things around you here. I must pay a fee and it is dirty filthy outside around the gas tanks. I remember the day…”
A man came forward and interrupted our conversation and the cashier looked away.
“Excuse us,” I said. “We are talking.”
I used a figure to point to the cashier and me.
“Grumble, “said the man under his breath.
I left telling the cashier she should lose her job for not knowing anything.
Then I came home to find standing outside my home a strange older man smoking a cigarette.
“Are you waiting for someone,” I said.
“No.”
“Then why did you park here?”
The street had no other cars around. He then looked up at the tree. I then asked him to please move his car I needed to part our truck there. He seemed nice enough for not having a reason for being there besides smoking a cigarette. We talked back and forth.
“We have had issues with drug dealers around here,” I said.
He soon left and I moved the truck out. I know I was being ridiculous. I thought it strange that he would get out of his car with his cell home in hand to smoke a cigarette under our lovely olive tree. I did say to him.
“I don’t like the smell of cigarettes and I am sure the tree doesn’t either.”
I think upon a poem I wrote that I have changed a bit.
Any time of the year but now it is moving into the Autumn poem.
Green-gold olives This eve I take my broom Last ray of sun is dead here … it is real… The shy clouds hide stars Only the Moon, Jupiter and Saturn shine their breastplates. Of radiant light… I take my broom to the front of our home into the dustpan goes Dry brown and yellow Pointy olive leaves and hard green-gold olives… Into the waste bin… away away. Goes all the thoughts of this day Of a wooing Crone… Looking around as I sweep and bend For any Fay to show their haunting ways In the clouds sailing on the night or Upon the grasping arms of the olive tree. Queen of Elphame mocks me As I move quickly and consistently, I call her Sabrina… How symbolic have I become? Wild movement… yet strangely calm. Sweet sweat dripping My dusty perfume… I do as many an old Crone Sweeping clean the front of their home At this transforming time. Today I am a nasty one...
