Beyonce celebrated her 30th birthday on her yacht in Italy, with family and a few close friends. Her close friend Gwyneth (??) was seen giving Beyonce an envelope. Look how happy she is after she opens it!
I need to know what was in that envelope.*
Suggestions?
*My friend Maxine said “I would like to think it was a specially penned poem.” If you agree with Maxine, please approximate the poem.
Three months ago, I wrote about how hard it is to accept being powerless. Now, I am a malignant mass of seething hatred for my ex-husband. If only I could kill him. It would be an act of mariticide, although I don’t know if this applies to exes.
I hate that miserable fucker. I called and tried hard to be nice, to project friendliness. I asked when I could come over to see Max’s things, hoping I could borrow some of his books. We always loved the same books and asked each other for recommendations.
But no! Still no. That bastard is like a character from a Dickens novel, a mean old man who lives to say the word No. His exact words were: “If and when I’m ready, I’ll let you know.” When I began to argue my case, he announced triumphantly: “I won’t be bullied by you.” (Repeat this in your head with an English accent, to get the full effect.) Nothing would change his mind. I lost my temper and he intoned darkly: ”Don’t call me again.”
Last night I cried hysterically until I couldn’t breath, not because of the books but because of the situation of marrying a man who won’t let you see your son’s belongings, who has to try to control things even after death.
A reader named Marygrace sent me a link to a poem by Julie Sheehan that expresses the scope of my hatred with stunning accuracy. It is a singular gem that everyone should read and pass on, until the whole world can find solace in its perfection.
~
Hate Poem
I hate you truly. Truly I do.
Everything about me hates everything about you.
The flick of my wrist hates you.
The way I hold my pencil hates you.
The sound made by my tiniest bones were they trapped
in the jaws of a moray eel hates you.
Each corpuscle singing in its capillary hates you.
Look out! Fore! I hate you.
The blue-green jewel of sock lint I’m digging
from under my third toenail, left foot, hates you.
The history of this keychain hates you.
My sigh in the background as you explain relational databases
hates you.
The goldfish of my genius hates you.
My aorta hates you. Also my ancestors.
A closed window is both a closed window and an obvious
symbol of how I hate you.
My voice curt as a hairshirt: hate.
My hesitation when you invite me for a drive: hate.
My pleasant “good morning”: hate.
You know how when I’m sleepy I nuzzle my head
under your arm? Hate.
The whites of my target-eyes articulate hate. My wit
practices it.
My breasts relaxing in their holster from morning
to night hate you.
Layers of hate, a parfait.
Hours after our latest row, brandishing the sharp glee of hate,
I dissect you cell by cell, so that I might hate each one
individually and at leisure.
My lungs, duplicitous twins, expand with the utter validity
of my hate, which can never have enough of you,
Breathlessly, like two idealists in a broken submarine.
by Charles Baudelaire
This life is a hospital in which each patient is possessed by the desire to change beds. One wants to suffer in front of the stove and another believes that he will get well near the window.
It always seems to me that I will be better off there where I am not, and this question of moving about is one that I discuss endlessly with my soul
“Tell me, my soul, my poor chilled soul, what would you think about going to live in Lisbon? It must be warm there, and you’ll be able to soak up the sun like a lizard there. That city is on the shore; they say that it is built all out of marble, and that the people there have such a hatred of the vegetable, that they tear down all the trees. There’s a country after your own heart — a landscape made out of light and mineral, and liquid to reflect them!”
My soul does not reply.
“Because you love rest so much, combined with the spectacle of movement, do you want to come and live in Holland, that beatifying land? Perhaps you will be entertained in that country whose image you have so often admired in museums. What do you think of Rotterdam, you who love forests of masts and ships anchored at the foot of houses?”
My soul remains mute.
“Does Batavia please you more, perhaps? There we would find, after all, the European spirit married to tropical beauty.”
Not a word. — Is my soul dead?
Have you then reached such a degree of torpor that you are only happy with your illness? If that’s the case, let us flee toward lands that are the analogies of Death. — I’ve got it, poor soul! We’ll pack our bags for Torneo. Let’s go even further, to the far end of the Baltic. Even further from life if that is possible: let’s go live at the pole. There the sun only grazes the earth obliquely, and the slow alternation of light and darkness suppresses variety and augments monotony, that half of nothingness. There we could take long baths in the shadows, while, to entertain us, the aurora borealis send us from time to time its pink sheaf of sparkling light, like the reflection of fireworks in Hell!”
Finally, my soul explodes, and wisely she shrieks at me: “It doesn’t matter where! It doesn’t matter where! As long as it’s out of this world!”
In my youth, Max Blagg played a key role, which included my introduction to Astral Weeks. He was my first “boyfriend” when I moved to London. To a 15 year old juvenile delinquent from L.A., Max was the essence of English allure.
Max was always larger than life, one of those people who emote at high volume and always teeter on the edge of elation or dark despair. He seemed always to be yearning for another environment, another notebook or another woman. He once spent several weeks bitching about his futile search for a Victorian nightshirt. And I once risked his wrath by secretly borrowing his pink corduroy Levi’s, even though I could barely stuff my fat ass into them.
Max lives in NYC now, where he is a poet and man-about-town. I’ve only seen him once in the intervening years. But every time I hear certain records from 1969, I recall the indescribable joy of being free to do everything and everyone, and those memories usually contain an element of Max Blagg.
I missed out on high school but I racked up an education. Some of it was rough but mostly it was thrilling. It’s the kind of shit you can take pride in once you’re a boring housewife with costochondritis.
Happy New Year, Max! I’m glad you’re still around. In my heart you’ll always be 20 years old and the hottest thing on wheels.
Listen to Mrs. Palin’s reaction to David Letterman’s joke about her buying make-up at Bloomingdale’s to update her “slutty flight-attendant look.”
Oh, Mrs. P, he didn’t mean Bloomingdale’s literally! Now I’m wondering if she’s even capable of finding her way around the Bloomie’s cosmetics department.
Isn’t it fun to have her around again? I wish that if she gives up her bid for the presidency, someone will appoint her our Poet Laureate! She could write poems about the First Dude, she could rhyme Bristol with “pistol,” I don’t know, I just really see it working out well for this great nation of ours.
There is a $35,000 stipend that she could use to buy some closed-toe shoes OR to get a baby sitter for that poor little Trig.
Oh Roomy
I saw you speak
for the first time
Somehow perfect
Valley Girl diction, monotone
inappropriate laughter
Almost Asian
but not enough
Big mistake
rocking that teased hair.
~
dedicated to alittlelux, who sent me here.
