Tag: America

MONUMENTAL ERRORS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

As I would have said at the time: Note to folks living below the Mason-Dixon Line: It’s time to remove the Confederate monuments. They look too much like a sore loser.

Let’s remember, those shafts (at least the ones I’ve seen) have to be offensive to every descendant of every slave in America.

Think of all the German-Americans who never erected Kaiser monuments in honor of their dead kin. Japanese-Americans who could have placed Hiroshima/Nagasaki reminders. Italian-Americans, with Mussolini railroad efficiency. Vietnamese, Native-Americans, French?

It’s one thing to respect the dead, but this has felt defiant. From my view of history, it was a rich man’s war fought by the poor who continued to suffer poverty long after. Including many of my ancestors.

Now, what do I make of the statues of Civil War soldiers found on every town green in New England?

The wounds linger, don’t they.

HOT TUB ORACLE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

I never intended to live there as long as I did, in the rented townhouse in what I sometimes called Yuppieville on the Mountain. But it must have suited me during that decade of waiting and searching, my anticipating true love and a long-desired relocation into permanence. Besides, it was convenient to the office. Admittedly, I enjoyed using the whirlpool in the clubhouse, soaking in the hot water while watching snowflakes drift down on the other side of the display windows; besides, at that time, the complex was still surrounded by woodlands. Lest it sound too idyllic, let me also acknowledge the dumpster parked beside my unit was frequently overflowing.

The poems in the resulting collection arise in that experience of transient proximity, which has become so much a part of the American landscape. The poems themselves are a kind of side street from other works I was drafting and revising during this time. Still, they make me examine what was right in front of me, all the same.

The series closes my collection, Rust and the Wound. To read the free ebook, click here.

LOST YEARS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

these damned mill towns exhaust
another mystery in the night
of Indian and Barbados descent
as much a sphinx as medical

for a change, salmon, at the hydroelectric dam

(along with the fish ladders they’re installing
two blocks from my home) the only evidence of life
is where beaver has gnashed a foot up the trees

~*~

the decade and a half
between the collapse of first
marriage and origins

that second                spiritual redirection
and career retrenchment
not harried                but

resignation
collisions
oh, all these devils

~*~

like the other stuff I was going to do tonight
my intellectual existence, it seemed
if she knows any alternatives

To continue, click here.
Copyright 2015

FROM MY LITTLE THIRD-FLOOR DECK

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

did I hear thunder?
coffee in the treetops

just a pony cart of vegetables
street vendor’s cry
(O! the Arabs of Baltimore!)
on his daily round
somehow getting by

yet clouds slipped in

with a long cord, the phone

this old apartment, all light and draught
the floor sinking, new cracks in the plaster
was giving way, downward, you could hear it in the night
paint flaking, more pieces falling to my bed

all going downhill, to the basement

rusty pipes, armies of cockroaches
at work in the walls

constantly dripping faucets
kitchen, shower, the bathroom sink

stacked magazines slid away on their own
new grit emerged immediately after sweeping

the faucet knobs never matched

water rings in the ceiling

blooms collapsing for lack of circulation

To continue, click here.

REAL DEVELOPMENTS IN THE YEARS SINCE I DRAFTED THAT NOVEL

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The years since I drafted Big Inca versus a New Pony Express Rider have brought significant, often dramatic, restoration and redevelopment to long neglected historic mills like the ones at the heart of my novel.

One impetus for the renewal appeared in a handful of towns in Maine, where credit-card giant MBNA transformed old mills into attractive call centers that in turn revitalized local economies. Even after being shut down in a later buyout, the benefits linger, and other developers had concrete models to follow.

Visionary entrepreneurs like the late Joseph Sawtelle here in New Hampshire as well as nonprofit agencies or local government-backed councils entered the picture, making mills in other towns emerge as small-business incubators or readily adaptable buildings for new arrivals, especially enterprises growing rapidly.

And, if the location’s right, they can attract artists of all stripes – painters, sculptors, printers, dancers, musicians, craftsmen, bakers and caterers – as an affordable alternative with natural light and high ceilings. (We love the annual studio tours and open houses in the mills in one nearby town.)

Sometimes the downtown locations lend themselves to conversion into residential condos as well. And then there are universities, health-care organizations, and museums that move in for convenience. (Well, one mill in downtown Manchester, New Hampshire, does have a helicopter pad on the roof.)

In other words, there are some fascinating case studies just about everywhere I turn.  But I still haven’t found any where the top of the tower is turned into a tiny penthouse, not the way Bill did at one point in the novel. I’m still quite fond of that touch.

SIMPLE LYRICS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Charles Ives, supporting a childhood memory
with a cosmos of commotion
how holy!

me? I’m an American, through and through
who wonders just what it means
to be bred in the USA . one, that is, without
the increasingly militaristic outlook

one also passionate about
symphonic and operatic repertoires
and steeped in the history of painting

the apologetic place of American artists
(especially in classical music).
only rock, country music, and the movies
seem exempt
and ever so profitable, as an industry

Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set, click here.

ONE COUNTER GIRL TO THE OTHER

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

“here’s the guy
you called a moron
the other day”

“that’s Mormon,
not moron!”

vital differences
in the distinctives
add up, I trust

~*~

came home the other day and found
my apartment door unlocked, apparently from when
the maintenance crew came in to leave a form saying
my rent’s going up next month

so much for living an hour from Boston

at least nobody tried the door in the meantime

~*~

in the circling, a return, or maybe
everybody’s coming down with colds or the flu

a repressed desire for children
driving from one town to another

interrupted by an “emergency” message from the operator
even when it wasn’t an emergency

(just informed I have
with two “personal days” that must be taken before
the year ends)
my bank balance says otherwise

To continue, click here.
Copyright 2015

CECILIA AND NADINE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

bright brown irises
maybe a little too wide-eyed (available)
hair golden heartbreak. still

Duquesne University and Uniontown, Pennsylvania,
were places he’d been, he told her
requesting the next dance

there’s more than lightness afoot
driving these distances. Attraction, see,
flashes into conflict

“Quakers. They believe in Jesus, don’t they?” is how
she starts revealing she’s Jewish, from New York City,
but Ohio Boy steps back instead of forward, and misses

a third muses, “Relationships are weird. Always weird,”
while wondering if she’s sufficiently brainy to stay him
or just what he might be lacking

all the same, they cover their aces and wild cards,
map their terrain, and
reach out in the music for someone

Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set, click here.