North End Blues

A few weeks back I made a trip to my hometown to see a good friend of mine. It's been years since I drove through my old neighborhood, and time has not helped the memories I carry of it.



North End Blues


Time is a hula hoop
around my waist, swirling
faster with each loop.
On the street where once I lived
Elvis now impersonates himself,
croons "Cold Kentucky Rain,"
and smells of homelessness.
I see the notes of his song slip down
a dirty white shirt, catch in the ragged
edges of his bell-bottoms.
Down the block Etta James
lingers from a radio,
slows the spinning world,
her sorrow leaking out a torn
screen door in a dissonant
duet with the King on the corner.
Fledgling years turn and slide
down the alley, their soprano shrieks
bounce between buildings, a ghost
game of hide and seek once played
among grand dames of innocence
and peppermint, now houses without heart.
I scale the walls of a Four Square,
stare into my bedroom but a woman,
not my mother, glares back,
refuses to recognize me. Someday
the same will happen to her,
no keepsake view. The years change
everything but me, and la dolce vita
melts away. At least the mourning dove
in the old maple tree nods a greeting.
Elvis, Etta, and the bird in three part harmony.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Balm

Last night I had dinner with a good friend of mine, a medical colleague in town to present Grand Rounds at the U of MN. Later, prior experiences as an ER physician peppered my dreams. And I saw the Northern Lights once more.



Balm


Depleted after an ER shift branded
by chaos, I turn north in the night:
a pulsing emerald sky.

My heart spellbound
as a child cupping a butterfly,
my head hammered by horns honking.

                         *

On my balcony I wrap
against witching-hour air

eyes wandering the lime-lit cosmos
until Hypnos, god of sleep,
brushes my cheek

and the image of a mother
cradling her lifeless infant
recedes into my closet of sorrows.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Tornado

Over the weekend Minnesota saw four tornados wreak damage in rural areas, but, thankfully, there were no injuries.

The storms reminded me of a cyclone that ripped through north Minneapolis not so many years ago. It pummeled a part of the city that could least afford it.



Tornado


in that part of town
with gap-toothed houses, maws
boarded shut

For Sale and Foreclosed signs
creaking on too many blocks.

A liquor store looted even as the funnel
bullied its way down the street

barging into Cleo's hastily emptied Cafe
spintering tables into toothpicks

before bumping into a barbershop
ancient as its owner, sweeping up clippings

then ripped off the roof of a nearby clinic
exposing its cache of drugs like a favor

to marauders, one bad boy to another,
leaving in its wake intensified pressure

with one-room options
pluck and gutted in that part of town.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Laugh Lines and Crazing

It has been a crazy time with me traveling, returning to Minneapolis to spend only a night more than once before leaving again the following morning.

In other words, an explanation for the scattershot nature of poems this summer.



Laugh Lines and Crazing


Facial creams and time machines
fail me, but in the mirror

my mind takes up the slack,
possesses the knack
of air-brushing contours.

Not until I see a photo of myself
or glimpse my reflection aslant

does an image of a frayed
rag doll ambush me,
like a replay of Dorian Gray.

But no delusion with the devil
exists, only my magic-eraser smile
as antidote.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

The Weight of a Piano

A friend of mine talked of downsizing last evening, but was hesitant over the amount of space about to be lost. Most importantly, her beloved piano might have to be forfeited. I had a piano once . . .



The Weight of a Piano


follows me even as my fingers forget
the runs and cadences of the composers.

Slipping away on a rope and pulley
from a jerry-rigged marriage, the music

swung outside the window of my life,
my ex and his lawyer maneuvering.

Landing neatly on the pavement,
it barricaded one road completely,

flash-freezing
into a symbol of my former self.

Eighth notes and trills skipping away
like a harmony unwoven.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Unintended Consequences

How often do we choose things impulsively without thinking of possible repercussions? And when our actions come back to haunt us, does an out exist? I had forgotten what happened to King Midas, if I ever knew, and finally reread the entire tale.



Unintended Consequences


Midas,
foolish King of Phrygia,
what were you thinking?
A wish granted by bacchus,
a wish wasted on avarice.

What did you touch first
with your golden gift?
A wine cup, a scroll, or, maybe,
a laurel wreath which changed
into a lustrous crown?

How long before you realized
the grapes in your hand
or the water on your tongue
filled your mouth with bitter metal?

Lucky for you
the god had an antidote.
Lucky for us
after you bathed as he bid,
gold now forever found
in the sands of riverbeds.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Uninvited Guests

A lifetime ago, before the flood that still bedevils our cabin, we fed the birds. And other critters as it turned out.



Uninvited Guests


Late summer at the cabin
and we scatter birdseed
for the last of the warblers.

Only a grizzled turkey
wanders by, pecking
at the milo and cracked corn.

At dark a young buck
trips the yard light, finds
the bonanza before a raccoon

bullies him back from the food,
intent on stuffing his own mouth.

Come morning, the mixture
"Guaranteed to attract cardinals,
finches, juncos and jays"

is shelved for the season
and perhaps permanently

as the Tom steps through thin grass,
wattle swaying, hoping for a handout.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Unbuttoned

Peonies still bloom along the fence line of our condo, a sign of this year's late spring. I remember many a Memorial Day when these flowers waited to be snipped and placed on graves of those we wished to remember. Irreverent thoughts got the better of me on more than one occasion.



Unbuttoned


Peonies, ants still clinging,
cut each spring for cemetery plots.

Voluptuous blooms
shameless for Memorial Day

like a coquette's rouged cheeks,
blushing pink

or matted a swan-white.
Swaying bodies, slender stems

graced the graves
of my grandpa and uncles

smiling beneath those blossoms,
pendulous and perfumed.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Maple Syrup Time

A family reunion of sorts took place this weekend for my granddaughter's high school graduation. One conversation, started by my daughter from London, centered around maple syrup and the fact that most of it originates either in the US or Canada.

Below is another "Found Poem," a poem coaxed from a prose piece, that happens to be about maple syrup and the changing springtime.



Maple Syrup Time

                       Astro Bob, "Full Broken
                       Moon Shines Tonight and
                       Friday," Duluth News
                       Tribune, 4/18/19


Sugarbushing
catches then passes winter
in woods slightly out of line.

Flower moss blooms
from broken snowshoes,
and the Egg Moon of April

traces sprouting frogs. Snow
on the ground and ground phlox
reflects a pinkish-orange horizon.

Pause the moment
as the weather remains suspect
on a tilted earth with two moons rising.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Apples to Oranges

The 2019 Hurricane Season officially started yesterday, June 1st. But the devastation done by storms in prior years lingers on.

Massive flooding in the Midwest, currently, dominating the news, carries similar calamitous results. Take it from somebody who knows.



Apples to Oranges


No storm surges or tidal flows,
no gale force gusts
lash our lake up North.

Here, ill-tempered winds
kick up white-caps,
act like a fist-pounding toddler

enough to jostle bass boats and push
clueless canoeists against a far shore

send lily pads pitching on swells,
and fish hustling to the calm below.

But down South, oceans
barrel through Gulf Coast doors.

                       *

A cloudburst floods the forest.

Our brimming lake overspills
banks, and seeps under doorsills,
sluicing cabin floors.

No tempest with a name,
no buffeting blows, only water
remodeling.

                       *

At storm's end apples and oranges
and the same taste of fruit gone bad.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

A Trick of the Gods

The kids I cared for in the ER came with a variety of names. Granted, a lot of them were white bread like Emma and Lucas but any number of them were not.

A few names have stayed with me mostly for their quirkiness: La - sha (La dash sha) and SSSST (Forest). But I remember one patient because of a name that described her circumstances precisely.



A Trick of the Gods


Before me in the ER
lies a twelve-year-old girl,
bearing a name known
to the ancients.

Having slid into this world
too soon, she exists
with the mind of an infant,
a body limp and tube-fed,
a scar-crossed chest.

But her mahogany eyes follow
my stethoscope, sparkle
at the sound of soft voices.

Pandora,
did your mother name you
with irony or unwittingly?



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

School Outing

Yesterday's paper carried an article about reopening a reconstructed trail situated on a bluff above the Mississippi River. Six years ago it gave way with tragic consequences.

I lived close enough at the time to hear the helicopters hovering above the area. The sound gnawed at my heart.



School Outing


Yesterday the bluff:
favored site for field trips
       thick with trees
promise of arrowheads
       freedom from books
the lesson unplanned
       on shifting ground

Today only news choppers:
Life Flight no longer needed
       after the mudslide
maimed two, claimed one
       and left a fourth buried
too deep even for rescue dogs
       to detect

Since sunrise:
the drone of rotors once more.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Ellis Island - 1919

Today is Mother's Day. A while back I wrote a poem about my own mother's entry as a young immigrant into this country. It is in the form of a sestina where the end words of the first six lines repeat throughout the poem.

I can only hope she would have liked it. Happy Mother's Day, Mom.



Ellis Island - 1919


In her hand for luck a candy tin the shape
and size of a snuff box. In her Nordic blue
eyes wonder for Gustavino's vaulted ceiling,
capping the Great Hall. In her nose the scent
and sweat of people contained on crowded
ships now landed on America's front step,

Ellis Island. Lined up and directed to "Step
this way!" A doctor appraised her, felt the shape
of her twelve-year-old head, examined a crowd
of white teeth, approved her health with a blue
stamp. A man behind her, coughing blood, sent
back. To the wards? To the ship? TB sealing

his fate. In her ears echoing from the ceiling,
cacophony in a dozen languages, a step
away from chaos. Confusion when people sent
onward with new names. Mr. Duhamel reshaped
into Mr. Campbell. The Registrar misheard, blew
off their puzzled looks, inscribed lists crowded

with difficult names. Luggage vexed the crowds
jamming the floors, climbing to the ceiling.
A man of twenty tried to claim an untagged blue
steamer, listing its contents to an agent on the steps.
Identified it with shirts and socks, tried to shape
words to mark it his. Once opened, the scent

of mothballs erupted, and a forgotten accordion sent
a smile of recall across his face. Before the crowd
he picked up the instrument, played a polka, shaped
himself a future with others met under that ceiling,
broken English their common language, stepping
forward, ideas colored by the red, white and blue

promise of concerts to come. Cornflower blue
the color of her dress, hard-milled soap the scent
on her skin. Her father, here already, took the steps
by twos, searched for his family in the crowds.
Spying him, her laughter tickled the ceiling
as she settled quickly into his teddy-bear shape.

Two memories shaped her on Ellis Island: the blue-
lipped man with his scent of blood, and the crowd,
feet tapping to an accordion played under a grand ceiling.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor

Recyclable World

To add insult to injury after our cabin flooded last spring, looters showed up hoping to score. Instead, they found themselves calling a friend for help when lake water seeped into their own vehicle.



Recyclable World


Perhaps looters like vultures
descending after a disaster
belong to a greater cycle of rebirth.

A lake grown powerful overnight
claims new real estate rights, clinches
eviction.

Still, it stings when the cabin
tucked in waterlogged woods

turns into spoils for punks
in a rust-bucket car,
but karma snags them, too.

As the driver spins tires
mired in water and sand,

we already knew
what the vandals don't mark
the forest and wetlands do.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor