Mother's Day Crochet

My mother's been working on redoing her living room, and recently bought a new dining room table.  She mentioned that she'd been in search of a new table runner, and so of course I took it as a chance to try out a new pattern.

One word to describe this: TEDIOUS.

I love the finished product, but holy crap it was an enormous pain in the ass.  Seriously.  It involves one piece at a time, completing three rounds, and then using the fourth as a joining round.  Not to mention the border.

I wanted to pull my hair out.

But, I am quite pleased with the finished product!  Wish I had gotten a pic of it on her table...the red looked very nice against the dark wood.

(Pattern here. Do not attempt unless you are a masochist and enjoy pain.)

Meet Hippolyta

(most excellent pattern courtesy of BitterSweet -- I tweaked the pattern a bit for the body portion...added some extra increase rows to make her a bit fatter.)

Hippolyta has been through some pretty gnarly things in her life.  She was kidnapped by Theseus the lion (you never could trust those overgrown cats), who eventually scorned her in favor of Phaedra the gazelle (the long-legged bitch).  Thus, she has been forced to live a life of exile.  Tragic.

   

Hippolyta, I am glad that you are finished.  I somehow seem to repress memories of former amigurumi projects whenever I begin a new one, thinking, oh, this cute little animal couldn't possibly be as painfully tedious as I seem to recall the others as being...right???

And then I dive on in and then I find myself in distress.

But hey, the finished project is always fun and generally satisfying as long as I don't think too long and hard about what it takes to get there.

NaPoWriMo ends

I did it!  And more!

36.

what does it mean,

to write your darkness

tuck it away

return to it, and find it missing?

searching for it causes

lateness to everything and

preoccupation, upon arrival

whose hands now

hold your wounds

what eyes now

know the look of

intake, your terrible secrets

35.

localman limits

the head, the scalp where

pedestrians stoop

wait, wait, hold for the walk

language trot, mouthy

froth and mad boundary!

limits, for all the local men

to keep them in safety

to restrain them from traffic

34.

descent of old slender silence

            I want to claw the books from their shelves

            take a knife to the upholstery,

            shatter the frames—

to be certain: somewhere in me

                      lives phenomenal destruction

I still say very little

feel the hurt in deep cavities

wonder about talk

33.

rage flash

delay in the spire

you atop your tower

descend

descend

this is the end

this is not the end

I did 30. now I'm past that

it's almost like I write poems or something...

here's a smattering, for better or worse, poems for me:

32.

birdsong, call,

peal of ring and arc,

a far blaze for ages

ancestors from tomorrow

take the warble,

            heave it

here lies tone and speak

your penance

31.

hapless now

that I’ve grazed contentedness

again now purged

into headlong shadowed certainty

questions like quarry

in web, trapped,

anticipating the pangs

of protracted dying

is it worse, do you think,

when you know how it goes,

do nothing but hang by,

suspended until feasting?

28.

red bleeds like pomegranate burst,

well, not quite red—

no one would mistake it for blood

only mist, paper:

incompatible elements

bad clang

27.

chewed entrails,

that is you—too gritty

for soft mouths

perhaps if they would cut our tongues,

just swallow your hard chunks,

the pieces you’ve hacked from the barks of history

that would not happen

you love too much

how teeth feel

against the waste,

gnawing the oldest wounds

raw and still replenishing

26.

how much scent lies in steam curls
how much of the wisp is water
how much is afterburn of scald

think of this life as steam,
wispy and watery and
very deeply scalded
            the burns eventually scab, peel
            seared skin from the fresh flesh

we are never fresh
ripening always before our time,
pruned from our roots
            to feed those with larger hands

your scald smells rich with char,
how is it still so white?
how are you still warm
            after all this frigid and
            lusty abrasion

24.

tumbler cyclone

swish before the swig

rise up, aroma—

            prevail

like oolong steam over

the clink clink tumbling cups

your omen in the tea leaves

your easter lily petals

            falling from stem, littering

            pollen across the table

risen! risen! arboreal god in

            the tree heavens

            picking herbs

            for the nightcap

god wears a monocle, I think,

to be half-blind

to blur his pained supplicants

20 & 21

20.

so many pigeons today,

cobbling their way through narrow streets

I read about a pigeon

that won a medal for its valor

            in war

why the pigeon,

and not I, in these great wars?

is this living

not brave enough

21.

if there were acrobats

to fold this all,

            all this paper debris

            all these body shreds

into soft origami

new heart

whole old

lithe expansion of

and compression of

            (the rest)

body body, fold into thyself

to thine skin

and bruise, rue

history with its tines

            flesh-staked

hard fold

            toothy crease

thick past, be better,

brush against comfort

            crumple like dancer,

            bringing audience tears

19

when I was in Gualala

I met a large, burly man named Jed

he had many tattoos

            wore a do-rag

            and a bedazzled leather vest

he had a dog as well: Princess,

            who was small and heartily-furred,

            like an overgrown rat

Beckett whined and whined

until we went over to meet them

we got to talking, and he told me

about his old dog, Bones—

a Lab, he said, just like your Beckett—

but Bones had cancer

and died

when he spoke of Bones, his voice

cracked, a bit.  He told me of his

profound grief, how it was years and

years before he allowed Princess to fill his heart

I liked Jed very much.

I hope he found what he needed,

            on his road trip up the coast,

            with his princess at his side

            helping to fill his tired heart

full as it is

of bones

10-18

18.

chain light, shell walls

the shame base’s foundations,

chainlinked

soul can try to heave the dull steel,

but the bind is the dreadful bind

            —bound, beaten—

soul can’t shout but a muffled cry,

            hits the shell

            with dead thud

wicked shell crevices

with their crests and neaps

ah, sad fettered soul,

at the floor of this valley

with its sheer sides

            and not a handhold

17.

is it odd, to find tears and

eyes chill-stung wet

undistinguishable?

both are likely,

equally probable

so, to differentiate—

16.

it is very windy here, on my last evening,

but the sky remains very blue

and the sun’s mirror on the ocean is glorious,

and warm

there are a few people walking

a mile or so down the beach

from my view, here,

the waves are taller than those humans,

the force of this observation is greater than

what I’ve imagined

if something so naturemade can overtake their earthliness

then there is likely more

progress of hope

15.

it’s a terrible thing,

to have to leave this place,

to go back to where there is mostly drought

I don’t want to leave here

for each unexceptional day back

where I am landlocked and unambitious

water breaks over the rocks,

smoothes them—dulls their

sharp capacity for puncture

oh, if my history were those rocks

and all it took were waves

to smooth it

14.

I’ve heard an awful lot about malignancy

these past few days:

one was rich with relief at the benign reveal,

but the fear, the deeper implication,

was still malignant

bodies are delicate

they take harm too easily

one table over, another woman is waiting

for her results

            —I know that ache—

she smiles, says come what may,

but she is in very near distance of terror

easing into ourselves

requires the harm—

then, where terror inlays intimacy,

we see that these bodies,

delicate as they are

can bear malignancy

13.

distances breathe here

minutes space differently

where we’ve known heartbeats

where, with eyes closed and

every other sense alert,

a far thud approaches

            in finger-just distance

so reach for the marvel

sew it deep inside

seamed as you are with this strange splendor,

wear your way well into the world

12.

this is sure something,

sitting at a café called Trinks

looking at the sea

sipping a mocha and eating torte—

            9-layer torte

is this living?

or, is this how people live?

today has been glorious:

I took Beckett to the beach for the first time

I ate every bite of this 9-layer torte

I drank every drop of this abnormally good mocha

I wrote this poem, and others,

            (better ones, maybe)

but this might be my favorite poem,

because breathing in this air and

finishing layer 9 and licking every drop

of chocolate hazelnut buttercream from my fork

and also writing this poem—

            I sure think this seems like living

11.

some were agape

when I told them I was coming here alone

it was pity first

then fear—alone?

I don’t fear the ocean, I said to them,

or myself—

those things are undeniable,

            and natural

if I fear it’s deep in history

            in knowing if I were to open this body and

            leap into that wide ocean, alone as I am,

            salt would bury, nip painfully,

that’s what unsettles me

10.  Gualala

they predicted thunderstorms each of my days here

today, there is blue sky and

thunderous waves

I didn’t sleep that well last night—

I think the quietude of this place

sits strangely with me

I would like to live on the water,

one day

I would probably need

the remainder of my lifetime

to acclaimate