Michelle (Poem for Michelle Obama)

Thy leading arms and shoulders


always sinewed and strong


against the strain


against the waves.


Thy hands a gentle dalliance


playful,


and Thy Loving Face,


casting the erring waters of eternity aside


as we, the misguided, and Loved,


though lost


clamor on Thy decks,


and finally look to Thee


as we round the other her in our deepest scorn


and look in wonder upon


cabo de hornos


the Horn.




                         JD Painter

* Looking at this little number now, I see themes I didn't see when making it up last night. 


The figurehead's tresses of course tie in with Coulter and Nicole. 


I always view figureheads with a vague sadness-hence the song again- maybe because they bravely bear the brunt of the brine and storm and never complain, and do it as a sort of Godly duty and Love for the mere mortal sailors. The sadness element in the song ties in with my debt, and lost Love. Then of course there is the Mother of God, and the tempest and all looking to Her for guidance.  


And she is holding back her hair in a very seductive way as in, once she lets go, there will be fulfillment and Deliverance.  


Something like that, and more, but I can't bare all of my soul.


And to all the recent Grads: Old Johnny wants to wish you the best of Luck with the Job Hunt.


Here is a little story that you might find encouraging:

http://esquirepainting.blogspot.com/2011/05/human-resources-officer-fiction.html

7:20AM June 4--Strange Dream

I woke up a few minutes ago, with a gasp. It was another one of those sleep apnea episodes, and this one was a pretty bad one. It reminded me of coming out of the anesthesia after my sinus surgery. There was a nurse nearby, who kept  commanding me to "breathe" as I slowly came to consciousness.

Anyway, I had mentioned before in this blog how my family, and their old construction company had, among other projects, erected all of the steel for the US Supreme Court building in 1932, and the World Trade Center in the late 1960's and early 70's. 

I was on the WTC construction site as a kid around 1972,  and I remember staring out the upper windows of one tower-the South I believe-and, along with my brother and late cousin Donald,  throwing little bits of the freshly laid concrete floor out the windows--for there was no glass yet--and a flattened paper cup, and other things. 

I can still see the towers going up through a mist and under a gray sky, with the kangaroo cranes on top slowly moving, if one took the time to wait and watch them move. It wasn't as bad as trying to wait and watch the minute hand on a clovk move, for there was movement (that bit is the William Penn Warren prose style coming through).

My brother and I used to watch the men welding together the floor panels for the WTC in my father's old construction yard in Cartaret NJ. And I remember walking across that long yard, past the piles and piles of steel that been fabricated not too long ago, or maybe very long ago, and now wore an even coat of varying shades reddish rust. Steel that had come from other steel erection jobs, or that was waiting to go to other steel erection jobs. 

I remember walking and past the enormous stacks of newly made floor panels that were waiting to be trucked to the WTC site where they would be lifted off their flatbeds by the long steel cables dangling over the side if the WTC towers, like strings from the hands of an unseen puppet master way up there in the sky that you couldn't see, but that you always knew was up there, dangling his strings, and waiting to lift, and wind, and sling, and haul the floor panels up into the heavens until they reached the last floor. The uppermost floor. The last layer on a wedding cake made for a topping out party to celebrate the tallest building ever made by man in the history of the world. (Which is was at the time.) 

(Damn, my PG Wodehouse voice is out now,and my RPW is in! Anyway, if you watch this you will see an uncle of mine, though I never met him, operating one of the cranes @8:53 in the Part 1. And at the end my father is there on the far left waving his helmet. 

I can walk upstairs right now and into my father's attic office, and put my hand around a real section of one of those cables used to haul the steel for the WTC way back then. My father has it on a little wooden stand, with a plaque with a Latin phrase (I'll add that later) It is about a foot long, with brass collars on either end to keep it bound together. 

Anyway, to return to my dream, I dreamed that I was in a museum in NY City, and at an exhibit commemorating the construction and history of the WTC. There was such an exhibit at one time. It might have been at an Architectural Museum. Not sure.

But in my dream I was staring at a poster on the wall, and reading some information, and I started to cry. I cried until the crying turned to weeping. I think I was actually crying in my sleep as well, but cannot be sure of that.

And then, I awoke with a gasp, like I had been swimming under water and holding my breath for as long as I could possibly hold it, and panted for a space, fully awake. 

Strange right? That's the sleep apnea. It might be brought on by too much alcohol. I don't know.

But then I took Shane out back so that he could do his morning business,and started thinking again about the Parent Child theme from my previous post. I thought about it some more as I made Shane breakfast, and decided to put it all here, as I am doing.

My grandfather, or my father's father,  was a good deal older than his two brothers (My great Uncles) When My grandfather and great grandfather erected the US Supreme court steel framework in 1932, my grandfather was a man in his 20's and his two younger brothers were not even into their teens yet.

As time went on, the two brothers came to work for the family business, but were always under, according to my father, the very strict and stern leadership of their older brother (who was my grandfather if you can follow all this)

My father tells me that over the years they grew to deeply resent their older brother, and it was not until they were both into thier 50's, and when my grandfather finally grew ill from Parkinson's disease,that they finally had their chance to....well...call it "overthrow" their brother and gain stock and control over the family business or company. 

So it's a real life Cain and Abel bit, and my fater wrote about it in his book I mentioned before: "Men of Steel-The Story of the Family that built the WTC."

But to return to that dream I mentioned, I was crying, and I wonder if that sort of weeping is a necessary accompaniment for a true redemption that occurs when one has finally worked out an ancient conflict and has suddenly arrived at the resolution of that conflict, and can now find peace within one's soul. 

Here is Mendoza Weeping in remorse over the slaying of his brother. It was more like manslaughter actually, and not premeditated murder. But still, he killed his brother over a woman.

The movie is based on the excellent Robert Bolt Novel.

Why was I crying in my dream? Was it for the fate of the people that were in the WTC when it fell?

And then I thought of Mary Magdalene again, and remembered my effort-you know-the Marlyn Chambers Poem, where I ask if it is not the society that should be weeping and begging Marylyn Chambers for her forgiveness, for having created and encouraged the sale of her body so that we could all beat off, and that some people could reap enormous financial gain? 

And then I started to apply that bit to other societies.  The Germans weeping and begging the Jewish People for forgiveness. (with a poignant scene from Schindler's List in my head) 

Or America's tears washing the feet of all the undocumented Latino day laborers that groom suburban properties all across the fruited plain, and the rest of the world, for the times that America has sinned? 

And then it all boils down to the parents again in some odd way doesn't it? 

There was an older woman I had had many a conversation with about the topic of parents in general, and she was very resentful towards her own. She blamed them for many things that had gone wrong with her life. She blamed them for interfering in her marriage, (she had married out of her faith) She blamed them for being critical, and for having caused her psychological pain, and I was stunned when she delivered her maxim: "Life doesn't begin until both your parents are dead!"

My reaction was to laugh at the time, but I have often thought of that statement since then. 

I thought of my own parents and asked if they had caused me any pain, whether it be psychological or physical,  from something they either had done or had not done (call it negligence, and its elements, or a breach of a duty of parental care if you will)

And then I thought about how parents, after all, are human, and do make mistakes just like anyone else. And maybe it is that realization; the realization that Parents are not, and cannot be, and never were perfect, when it is truly comprehended, that is a pivotal moment in our lives. 


I suppose I am helped in this thinking by a similar observation made by the son, Marvin is his name I believe,  of the Professional Boxer, Joe Frasier. Marvin spoke about how he finally came to realize, in so many words,  that his father wasn't immortal and therefore perfect, as he witnessed his father falling several times under the punches of George Foreman.


But still I ask myself, and in my heart, how do I feel about my own parents. Have I been wronged by something they did or did not do, and that has been a source of pain, mental or physical, financial   etc. I can only determine that in my own heart, and if the answer is Yes, do I forgive them and weep? Redemption in other words. 


And then I thought about how a mother brings a child into the world in great pain, and how husbands sometimes stand nearby, but that it is the mother who alone feels all the pain. And of all the sacrifices a parent does make, if  that parent has also tried to be a good parent that is. 


That's all for now, except to add that figureheads and world leaders are not, in reality, immortal either. 


So here is the US Supreme Court Pic again when it was just a little baby in 1932. If you zoom in you can see my last name on the upright derricks. There is a family rumor about how my Grandfather dated Jean Harlow. He probably did. But that has never been proved, just like the Iroquois Indian ancestry has never been proved. 


As I read this Robert Penn Warren book I keep raving about, I think of my grandfather, whom I never knew because he was too ill with Parkinson's disease, a lot. 


I have a better print of this somewhere. There are probably lots more in the Archives in DC and I'd like to hunt around there someday for more pics like this one. Maybe have it blown up and framed. 

US Supreme Court Building, 1932
(A lot of people don't like it when I talk about all this stuff,
 but I think it is pretty cool)


And no, I don't come from money, and never did. 


________________________________________

June 4--6:55PM

Here is to a face that can never betray a face.  Here is to deep, lovely, questioning eyes. And to being regarded, and regarding in return, and to all of the regarding ending up as all of the regarding and the questioning being a settled and questioning conversation communicated upwards, upon the telegraph wires, burning their electricity into heaven. 

Here is to subtle, communicative gestures, some measured, and some uncontrollable, and which cannot ever be concealed. 

Here is a Man, talking to a Woman.

Here is Love.