Short story based on a song

     The Truth About Billy Joe is a story based upon a song, and also was my entry into the acrostic story contest held annually by Brucedale Press of Port Elgin, ON.  It won second prize in 2019 and was published in The Leaf, #44, Spring 2019 edition, published twice yearly by Brucedale Press.                

                            THE TRUTH ABOUT BILLY JOE

by Ruth Latta

Always curious, also concerned, I worry about my sister-in-law Bobbie  withdrawing from the world. Becky Thompson is my name, or rather, was my maiden name, and Bobbie was my best friend all through school.  Carroll County is where we grew up, a farming community on the Mississippi Delta with Choctaw Ridge the only high point for miles around.  Daddy’s gift of a down payment on a store, a wedding present for me and Jeff, means that we’re living in Tupelo and aren’t as close to Bobbie as I’d like to be.

“Easier,” is what we say if someone from home comes into our convenience store and asks how we find city life.  Folks at home think Jeff should have stayed where he was and continued working the land, even though his pa had willed the farm to his mama, but after the tragedy with our friend Billy Joe MacAllister, and then his father’s death from a virus soon afterwards, Jeff deserved a new beginning. Getting started as a married couple and small business owners has been wonderful, but I feel badly about leaving Bobbie back home, brooding and grieving.

“Help us in the store,” I coaxed, but she said she had to stay home and see about renting out the land, since her mama was too upset over her daddy’s death to do much of anything. I can’t fault Bobbie for wanting to care for her mother. Just between you and me, though, I think she should pull herself together and try to find someone new  instead of being caught up in sorrow over Billy Joe  as if she were to blame.  

                  Knowing everyone in our high school class so well, I was surprised when Bobbie confided to me that she and Billy Joe were in love and were seeing each other secretly up on Choctaw Ridge.  Lots of highschool students marry their sweethearts shortly after they graduate, including Jeff and me, and I think she pressured Billy Joe to make a commitment so  she wouldn’t be left out.

Maybe poor naive Bobbie assumed, back in ninth grade, that when Billy Joe tried to scare her with a frog at the picture show it meant that he had a crush on her. No one else saw Billy Joe as husband material; in fact, I always suspected that he liked girls only as friends. 

One day after graduation our preacher, Brother Taylor, dropped by to discuss wedding details with me, and while there, asked me if there was anything going on between Bobbie and Billy Joe. Playing dumb, I listened as he mentioned observing them together on the Tallahatchee Bridge, and seeing Billy Joe throw something over the rail, down into the muddy water. Quickly I said that the only connection I knew of was that they, along with me, had formed a trio, the “Three Bees”, and had sung at high school assemblies.  Remembering something else, I decided to keep silent. Secrets, like  Bobbie  wearing Billy Joe’s ring on a chain beneath her collar, were none of Brother Taylor’s business.

The day Jeff and I got back from our honeymoon my parents broke the terrible news that Billy Joe MacAllister had jumped to his death off the Tallahatchee Bridge early that morning. Unnerved, I wept as Jeff drove us to his folks’ place  to see Bobbie.  

Violently sobbing, she lay curled on her bed, while her  mother, downstairs, told Jeff she didn’t understand why his sister was so upset.  With trembling lips Bobbie told me that Billy Joe had broken up with her, saying that while he liked her a lot, he couldn’t love her as she ought to be loved, and would she please keep the ring.  “X-rated” is the term for the frank conversation they had, and I won’t repeat any of what she told me, except that when she put the ring on the bridge rail he seized it and threw it away.

“You’ll find someone who isn’t a misfit like me,” he called after her as she turned and started home.

Zealots like Brother Taylor, quoting from Leviticus and preaching about Sodom and Gomorrah, create a climate that makes sensitive boys strive too hard to be normal, whatever “normal” is, and I blame him, not poor Bobbie, for Billy Joe’s tragic death.

© Ruth Latta, 2019, 2020

721 words

Another flu epidemic section from "Votes, Love and War"

The Emergency Nursing Bureau, headed by the Lieutenant Governor's wife and the President of the Women Teachers' Club put out a call for home nursing volunteers. They especially wanted teachers, as we were available, out on salary, and worked in cooperation with public health nurses in the schools. When Baz's mother heard my plan to volunteer, she  said,"I'll go too."

Together we went to the Manitoba Medical College for the four hours of lectures that were our training before we were sent out into the community as home nurses. The women in charge of this crash course recognized Elizabeth Weaver (Baz's mother) as a doctor's widow and were especially welcoming to her.

"One would think," Elizabeth joked later, "that my husband's medical training was communicable, transmitted to me by marriage."

We were issued white arm bands with green crosses to show the public that we were volunteer nurses going crucial work. That very day, Elizabeth was assigned to a family of newcomers in the North End,  a young couple with two preschool children. She returned home exhausted but exhilarated.

"Neighbours helped the couple when they were first stricken," she said. "The people of that area have really banded together, but they need outside help now that so many have fallen ill. This young man and woman had high fevers at first but their temperatures are down, now and I think they'll make it.  They held my hands and said 'Thank you,' one of the few English expressions they know. They're lovely people and it's such a pleasure to hold a baby on my lap again."

The following morning she packed a hamper of food and bed linens to take with her. "I thought of giving the children Baz's toy horses and teddy bear, because they have nothing, " she said, "but I just can't."

I put my arm around her. "We may want those toys in years to come, when Baz comes home."

I was annoyed at the Emergency Nursing Bureau's delay in placing me. It was against the Bureau's policy to send a young girl where there were five or six ill persons, as it might be too much for her to deal with. Nor could young ladies go at night to poor neighbourhoods, nor care for delirious men, who might do something violent or improper. How silly and prudish!  I was twenty-two, a married woman. As for being out at night, male volunteers drove nurses to their assignments, so what was the problem?

When Mrs. Weaver got home that day, however, I had exciting news. The Bureau was sending me to care for a war widow with two children. When we were discussing my assignment, to start the following day, the telephone rang, and to my surprise it was [my brother] Henry. ....Marta [our stepmother, had the flu...

"I'll be on the next train," I told Henry.

...

On the train, the passing countryside blurred as I thought of Marta...I couldn't lose another mother.  Lily Kate and Francie, who had taken me under their wings and taught me so much, were so far away and we hadn't been in touch for months...I still had Elizabeth Weaver and Keira Waite to take a motherly interest in me and I was fond of both, but neither was a substitute for Marta. I couldn't lose her!

Review of Gillian Gill's new book on Virginia Woolf

 : http://www.compulsivereader.com/2020/08/09/a-review-of-virginia-woolf-and-the-women-who-shaped-her-world-by-gillian-gill/
Above is the  link to my review of Gillian Gill's Virginia Woolf and the Women who Shaped her World.

Review of "Becoming Lady Washington"

My review of Betty Bolte's novel, Becoming Lady Washington, has been published in Compulsive Reader. Check out the link, below, to find out why I didn't like the book.

http://www.compulsivereader.com/2020/07/17/a-review-of-becoming-lady-washington-by-betty-bolte/

More from "Votes Love and War" flu sections

More from my central character,  Charlotte.

Around her neck, Keira was wearing a small cotton drawstring bag of camphor, and Elizabeth remarked to me privately that the strong smell would definitely keep people from getting close enough to spread their germs.

Ned was well, Keira said, though the CPR shops were hotbeds of disease, as men who had symptoms still came to work, not wanting to stay home and lose pay. She and Ned thought the ban on public gatherings was being inconsistently enforced and that its aim was to prevent unions from holding meetings and planning for the November civic election. The Trades and Labour Council was sending a delegation to the mayor and council asking that those laid off their jobs because of the ban on public gatherings, like theatre employees and musicians, be compensated for their lost wages. I was lucky; teachers continued to get paid.

Dad phoned me from the Prosper General Store to ask how I was and whether there was news of Baz. There wasn't.....On the 8th and 9th of October, the Canadians and some British army units took the town of Cambrai, and on October 11th the Canadian corps was relieved, but we didn't hear anything from Baz.

Dad said I'd probably get a letter soon and changed the subject back to the flu. There were no cases at present in Prosper, but in other small towns there were. In Carman, three of the four doctors had fallen ill, leaving just the one to tend patients for forty miles around. At our home, all was well. The local school and Prosper Collegiate were still open.

"Your old suitor, Mr. York, was by a few days ago," he said jokingly. "He just got back from overseas and dropped in on us to see if we'd board his child. He wants the little lad nearer so he can see him more often. Marta said yes."

He said goodbye, then, asking me to keep the family informed about my health, and telling me not to worry about them. "Way out here in the country, no germs can reach us.

The Flu Epidemic Sections of Votes, "Love and War"

In my novel, Votes, Love and War (Ottawa, Baico, 2019 ISBN  978-1-77216-191-5, $32), my central character, Charlotte, writes of her experiences during the heyday of the Manitoba women's suffrage movement and World War I.  These experiences include the "Spanish" flu epidemic of 1918-1919.  One of my readers told me that the novel is especially relevant today as we experience the Covid-19 pandemic.

Canada in 1918-1919 was much less prepared for a pandemic than Canada of 2020, and the virus was not the same, in that the 1918-1919 flu struck down people in the prime of life, while in 2020 the elderly seem to be the most susceptible - though in both instances there were many exceptions to the pattern. In both epidemics, person-to-person transmission seems to have been the reason for the spread of the virus.

The 1918-19 flu was called "Spanish" because there seemed to be  more cases in Spain than in other countries.  Actually, some of the first reported cases were in an army barracks in Kansas. Spain was probably more honest in reporting its statistics, while the countries at war in 1918 did not report the full incidence of the epidemic for fear it would interfere with morale. The historian Eslett Wynne Jones has written an informative book about the impact of the pandemic of 1918-19 on Winnipeg.

I've decided to share some portions of Votes, Love and War to show how my fictional Charlotte, a young teacher,  and her mother-in-law, Elizabeth Weaver, cope with the 1918-1919 pandemic. Charlotte's young husband, Baz, is overseas at war at the time. See below:

In March 1918, Mrs. Weaver drew my attention to a news item about an influenza epidemic at a military camp in Kansas. Having lost her doctor husband to typhoid, she was interested in communicable diseases. I listened with mild concern but didn't think much about it. We'd all had the flu at one time or another; it was seldom life-threatening except in the cases of the frail elderly and fragile infants. My worries were focussed on Baz... (pp. 341-342)...

In late August, cases were reported in the Eastern United States where some of the victims died within twenty-four hours of exhibiting symptoms. Mrs. Weaver consulted her husband's medical books and said that this virulent flu was "mutating" - changing slightly into new strains for which there was no vaccine. The crowding and movement of troops, the weakened condition of both soldiers and civilians in Europe, the dirty  living conditions of the war - all contributed to its spread... (p. 346)...

Meanwhile, cases had been reported in Newfoundland and the disease seemed to  be creeping westward. Next, cases were reported in Montreal and Toronto. On September 30th the Winnipeg Tribune headlined: "Fifteen Spanish Flu Victims will Reach City Tonight.  The sick  men were on a troop train from Quebec, bound for Vancouver, thence to Siberia to fight against the Bolsheviks.  According to the Tribune, all the men had been healthy on leaving Fort William. When the train got to Winnipeg, the sick men were taken to the convalescent soldiers' home run by the Imperial Order of Daughters of the Empire. Other ill soldiers had been dropped off at  military hospitals en route. On  October 3rd, the Tribune reported that two of the soldiers had died. A third died on October 9th. The Tribune claimed that men who were supposed to be quarantined had been allowed out to attend movies, thus spreading the disease to the community.... (pp. 346-7)

With a mask over my nose and mouth, I went out and bought menthol, cough medicine and lemons, which were much in demand. Meanwhile the death toll mounted in Eastern Cities... Winnipeg public health officer  Dr Alexander Douglas introduced a fifty dollar fine for anyone caught spitting in the street. In a  public statement he told the sick to go to bed and everyone else to avoid crowds... As of midnight, October 12th, all public meeting places were ordered closed, including churches, movie theatres, libraries and schools.

"You're getting a vacation!" Elizabeth told me. I smiled, but neither of us felt lighthearted."

To be continued in next posting.

 

Always a Bridesmaid - not true, actually

As someone very fortunate in winning writing contests over my many years of writing, I shouldn't complain about being an  honourable mention in two recent contests,  My short story,  "Sometimes Crime Pays" was a H.M. in the Capital Crime Writers' Audrey Jessup short story contest this June.

Also, I was recently informed that three of the poems I entered in The Ontario Poetry Society's "Rain on the Brain" contest won honourable mentions.

It's always a thrill to win something or get published. My review of Isabel Allende's new novel, A Long Petal of the Sea, appeared recently in Compulsive Reader.  Here is the link

http://www.compulsivereader.com/2020/06/16/a-review-of-a-long-petal-of-the-sea-by-isabel-allende/

Co-authoring a story with Sheila Ferguson

A writer can learn a lot from co-writing a story with another author.  Recently Sheila Ferguson (a member of the Emerald Plaza writers' group that I used to facilitate in pre-Covid-19 days) and I decided to collaborate on a short story using the prompt below: Write a story about a runaway bride.  We took turns, each contributing to the plot and providing interesting detail.  I found it fun to see what she'd come up with next. Sheila then went through the manuscript, pruned out extraneous detail and put it in chronological order.  Here it is:


THE PROMPT: WRITE A STORY ABOUT A RUNAWAY BRIDE.

Ellery was a young lady of twenty-one, who was planning to marry the love of her life, Tom, on their special day. As she was getting ready for the wedding, an urge to bolt came over her while she was in the ladies' parlor of the church. As she looked out the window, she saw the florist’s van pull to the side of the church and her mother-in-law and bridesmaids ran to meet him because he was late. There was a mix-up at the florists. Ellery was alone in the deserted room in her satin bridal gown. Looking into the mirror, she thought she was seeing a ghost, she was so pale.

“ If only my mother was here?” she thought. But her mother had died nine months ago of cancer. “What am I doing here?” she asked herself. Then, out of the blue, she looked around, grabbed somebody’s raincoat off the coat hook by the door and put it on. She then went into her mother-in-law’s purse and took the keys to her car. She dashed out the door, along the hall, down the stairs, past the Sunday School room, and out the fire escape to the car. She sped down the main drag that led to the bridge out of town. She was way out of town before realizing what she was doing and where she was going. She slowed down and decided to go to the old cottage her grandfather owned to clear her head. “Nobody will ever think of looking for me there,” she thought. “It  has been closed down for years.”

As Ellery was driving down the paved road heading towards the cottage some forty miles from the church, she finally got to the bumpy dirt road to the cottage. As she proceeded, she heard a loud bang. She stopped the car and got out. “Oh no, what am I going to do now?  I have a flat tire.”  It was getting dark and she had her wedding dress on. She could not possibly change a tire now. She turned off the car and started to walk the short distance to the cottage. As she walked, she thought, “This dirt road is no good for my satin shoes.”

When she got to the cottage, she was cold and tired. Even though it was May, it had not warmed up much as of yet. “Now, if only I can remember how Granddad did the fire.” She put in some of the wood that he'd left stacked by the cabin door, then crumpled some old newspaper on top of it. She turned the damper the way he used to do and she hoped the chimney would draw the air. One year something blocked the chimney and the cabin filled with smoke. Grandpa had to climb up on the roof where he removed an old bird’s nest.


The fire started. Ellery sat down on the couch, put the old blanket around her to warm up and left the coat on as well to protect her wedding dress.  She waited for the place to warm and planned what to do next. “Tomorrow I will see if there are any old clothes here to change into and walk back to the car, fix the flat and bring the car back to the cottage.” She was tired so she lay down and slept. Early in the morning she walked back to the car. While she was walking, she was going over in her head how to change a tire. She had only done it once before. That was when she met her fiancé Tom some two years ago. He was tall and handsome. He worked as a bank manager in the town of Osgoode.

She fixed the tire, drove back to the cottage and sat and enjoyed the morning sun on the balcony for a while. Feeling a little hungry, she remembered that Tom’s mother always kept drinks and chips in the trunk for when she picked up Tom at the train station when he came home to visit. She went to see what there was. She had a drink and ate a bag of chips. That would hold her over till later.
She then went inside to think. They would  be looking for her for sure. She could not stay there forever.  She could not take the car. While she was deciding what to do next, she cleaned away the spider webs all over the walls. Maybe it would be a good idea to leave this afternoon, the sooner the better.

She remembered Grandpa always kept maps on the book shelf in the living room, so she got a kitchen chair to stand on. As she reached up to get the maps down, the chair slipped from under her. She landed hard on her back and lay there for a while before she got up.

“Now how can I walk to the highway?  I hurt all over.” She took two Tylenols, lay down and fell asleep. When she woke her back was slightly better, but she didn’t feel well enough to hike through the bush to the highway and flag a car down, especially in the middle of the night. Traffic would be thin, she might not get a ride, and who knew what sort of people would be out in the early hours of the morning?

Her idea was to hitch a ride to a city of about 80,000 people about two hours to the south, where some friends of her late grandparents used to live. This couple, in their early seventies, missed her grandparents as much as she did. Tom’s mother had invited so many guests to the wedding that this elderly pair hadn’t made the list of invitees. They would understand why she’d run away and would let her stay until she figured out what to do next.

Ellery had always imagined a fall wedding at the church she and Tom attended, then pictures at the little park at the end of the road. A simple buffet style meal, music and dancing, then they would drive off into the sunset. But Tom’s mother had invited so many people Ellerys did not even know and arranged for a full hot meal. Also, she'd hired a band to play some kind of old fashioned music, not Ellery's idea at all. When she tried to tell Tom, all he did was agree with his mother.

“Enough day dreaming. I should be off,” she told herself.  So through the woods she went. She knew she had to get to the highway as soon as possible as it had been forty-eight hours since she went missing and Tom would have gone to the police by now. They might even have figured out where she had gone.
As she walked quickly through the woods, there was a noise behind her. Then she heard a voice calling her name. She stopped.

“Ellery, stop! It’s me, Tom.”  Tom came to her and said “Why did you leave?”

“You would not listen to me. I wanted a small fall wedding. Let me go.”

She broke loose and ran down the path. As she did, she hit a ground hog hole and down she fell. Her head struck a boulder on the path. It knocked her out. Tom picked her up, took her  back to the cabin, put some cold water on her head and suggested that they go and see a doctor.

While the doctor was checking her out. Tom called his mother to tell her that he’d found Ellery and that she was all right. That evening Ellery and Tom talked and he said he was sorry that he let his mother manage the wedding. “If you still want to get married,” he said, “we will plan it ourselves.”

"Missing You", a list poem

Below is a "list poem" that I wrote for a presentation I gave at St. Mark's Church over a year ago, on why seniors should write.  The poem began with a list of favourite clothing I've had over the years. Participants in the workshop made lists that were wonderfully varied. One woman listed favourite smells. Another participant listed the Latin names for bacteria. Someone else listed  a pet's charming traits. Another listed garden flowers.

 Elizabeth Barrett Browning's famous sonnet, "How Do I Love Thee?" is a list poem. There are plenty of song lyrics that are essentially lists, two being"If I Had a Million Dollars", recorded by the Bare Naked Ladies, and "I've Been Everywhere," recorded by Johnny Cash. Try writing a list poem.


MISSING YOU
by Ruth Latta

Instead of sending you away, I truly wish I’d let you stay.
I was a fool to act in haste, although you didn’t go to waste.

My blue dress with the tiny rose - I miss you more than you’d suppose.
My jacket, brown, in fine suede leather, I know that we looked good together.

My warm and furry Orlon hat: this winter I regretted that
I gave you up, so bright and red. You’re gracing someone else’s head

My long cream coat with real mink collar, you made me look so chic, and taller.
I said goodbye to a green suit, though photos show it looked quite cute.

I packed you up to give the needy, now  wish I hadn’t been so speedy
I never stopped to think, back then, that styles keep coming round again.

"Epiphany"

This poem appeared in the literary magazine Tickled by Thunder and in my chapbook, How to Remember.

EPIPHANY

When in Tim  Horton's, I once chanced to see
a baby in a stroller shriek with glee.
My instant thought: "Thank God it isn't mine.
It's someone else's and I think that's fine."

Its grand-dad fed it teaspoons-full of mush,
then turned back to his own meal, didn't rush.
The baby then began to scream and roar
and threw its rattle on the grimy floor.

The mother fed it more; she did not know
that next it would start sucking on its toe.
At least that kept it quiet, stopped the scream
that  knifed right through me like a dreadful dream.

Then, in dismay, a thought came to my mind:
In my old photo albums I can find
another blond, pink baby filled with glee.
The baby in the stroller looked like me.

"Writer's Stew"

This poem was written for an anthology on cookery published by the Ontario Poetry Society. My poem , "A Cake", was chosen for inclusion instead.

WRITER'S STEW

On the check-out line conveyor

she puts parsnips for their flavour,

for, without a sweetish touch,

critics will not like it much.

Chicken cubes? A protein note?

Saltiness may lose the vote

of the editors' committee.

Will these pundits say, "Too gritty."

Boring 'taters' must be peeled.

Should a writer wait to feel

inspired, or put in the hours?

Florets make up cauliflowers.

Onions, now. Their odour clings.

Cutting them, an insight brings.

Slice of life in every layer.

Tearful secrets hidden there.

Piquant, with its lacy leaves,

celery hints, withholds, deceives.

Add the carrots. Choose pre-washed.

Take a short-cut. Now the squash.

Picking up her shopping bags

she walks tall - no shoulder sags.

All together, her ingredients

blend into a work of genius.

(c) Ruth Latta, 2020

poem "Shadows"

This poem first appeared  quite a few years ago in the chapbook, Polarities.

SHADOWS

Irrational fears of dark corners
plagued me on long-ago nights.
"Let me stay up til ten.
til you go to bed,
and then I will be quite all right.

"Read me just one more chapter
but not the one about bears,
for the old coat that hangs
on a peg by the door
may be just a coat, but it scares."

These days the darkness is welcome,
needed for resting the eyes,
and the pillow is soft
at the end of the day,
but sometimes there comes a surprise:

A trip to a faraway country,
an interlude back in the past,
where the people who left
for the shadowy world
return from the darkness at last.

The psyche becomes a home movie
that lets me revisit old friends.
They speak and they smile
but just for a while.
Too soon the home video ends.

The visitors vanish at daybreak.
The sunlight too rapidly brings
a return to today
where I feel so alone,
and so badly missing past things.

(c) Ruth Latta, 2020

"A Blakean Button".

This poem was published in Canadian Stories magazine and again in my chapbook How to Remember. It's about a button I found that reminded me of  a passage from William Blake's writing.

BLAKEAN BUTTON

"What," it will be questioned, "when the sun rises, do you not see a round disc  of fire somewhat like a guinea?"

"Oh, no, no. I see an innumerable company of the heavenly host crying, 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty.'"

From The Book of Thel, by William Blake, 1789

A round disk of silver with petal design -
so what does this button suggest?
Just a flower in metal, the size of a dime,
to decorate somebody's chest?

Look closely, you'll notice a sunflower, styled.
Its intricate pattern is plain,
hypnotically whirling to dazzle a child
who may lack the words to explain.

This flower won't wither and die in the fall.
It outlasted the garment it graced.
Perhaps it endured to puzzle us all
as we think about time and of space.

Does the rising sun seem like a coin in the hand,
like a loonie, or guinea of gold?
To Blake, the sun seemed like a bright angel band
that sang praises in stories of old.

This silvery button the size of a dime
which sparkles like sun upon snow,
can stir thoughts of worlds far beyond space and time,
where fields of tall sunflowers grow.

(c) Ruth Latta, 2020

"Sometimes Crime Pays" - Finalist in Capital Crimewriter's contest, 2020

Congratulations to the Finalists on this year’s Capital Crime Writers short story contest, Audrey Jessup Award.

The top five finalists, in no particular order are:

• A Confidential Donation – Kevin Coleman
• Sometimes Crime Pays – Ruth Latta
• I Smell a Mystery – Adrienne Stevenson
• The Perseids – Joe Sornberger
• Midnight at Rocky’s – Wynn Quon

Normally the winners would be announced at our end of year dinner in June. Unfortunately, due to COVID-19 and the need to maintain physical distancing, the final results will be emailed to all entrants, as well as posted on this website and the Capital Crime Writers’ Facebook page on June 10.

Poem: A Country Walk

Today, April 22, 2020, it's very cold in Ottawa and we have a new sprinkling of snow on everything.  I can't wait until the weather gets warmer and  Covid-19 has calmed down, and hope that the day will come when we can take a country walk again.




A COUNTRY WALK

by Ruth Latta


Come with me where light depends
on sailing clouds and sunglass lens,
a place where peace and motion blend
as if time’s passage we suspend.

So silently on threadlike legs
a spider strolls around tent pegs.
A bird with fragile feathered head
comes bright-eyed, near, in hope of bread.

In air of pine and curing hay
some yellow-flowered plants display
their pods, pale green, a heavy load.
A brush, a touch, and they explode.

T'was Brillig, Honey

Zephyr me to Samarkand
or maybe to Xanadu.
Raven me to Innisfree.
Be gregarious you.

Flambe me with jubilance.
Spray me with oleander.
Hypnotise me with your pulse
as we forever wander.

Be my knight, my hero.
Don't quit me in a huff.
Braid your verdant yabbadabbadoo
and make me really chuffed,

Persuade my alabaster limbs
with your quintessential refrain.
If you'll be my sweet william,
I'll be your sweet lorraine.

(c) Ruth Latta, 2020

Poem "Movies at the Mayfair"

This poem appeared in The Banister, an anthology

MOVIES AT THE MAYFAIR

(A Homage to Pablo Neruda’s “Ode to a Village Movie Theatre.”)

One winter afternoon we went to see
this year’s “Best Picture”.

The huge theatre complex was Bedlam.
Lights pulsated. Music pounded.
We were trapped in a blend of
video arcade, rock concert
and fast food restaurant.

To see our film we climbed stairs,
more stairs, then entered a cavern of bleachers
ski-sloping sharply to the screen.
Aloft with the gods, in darkness,
I thought of the washroom, a million miles away.

“Come my love,” I said.
“I can’t do this. Let’s wait til it comes to the Mayfair.”

When we go to the Mayfair, a retro theatre
over eighty years old, we stroll along a busy street
past shops and restaurants.  In the lobby we join the queue
of students, cinema buffs and seniors.
Once inside, we pick up a community paper
or buy a used movie poster, like the one from Maudie
on the wall above my desk.

Here we came forty years ago as newlyweds
before there were VHS or DVD players,
let alone Netflix.
Nestled together with popcorn and coffee
we watched movies
we missed in the sad years before we met.

Now we recapture the way we were
and feel young again.
We look up at the cast iron fake balconies
where, over the years,
various faces have peered down on us,
like the cardboard cut-out bear,
a slightly sinister marionette
and a stuffed rodent.

The stage curtains are pulled back
and we watch ads for local businesses
and photos of the theatre
from the days when streetcars ran past it.

When the Mayfair was new,
the real-life protagonist of a novel I wrote
may have come by streetcar with her husband
to see King Kong, Duck Soup 
or Garbo in Queen Christina.

Here, when we saw Il Postino
and, more recently, Neruda,
I remembered Pablo Neruda’s poem
about the village movie theatre.

“Old movies,” he wrote, “are second-hand dreams.
...We will dream all the dreams.”

Today's poem - "A Star is Borne"

I included this poem in "How We Flushed Fluffy", a chapbook of humorous verse.

A STAR IS BORNE

When Liza starred as Sally Bowles
in fishnet stockings full of holes,
her long green nails a sight to see.
she was just what I longed to be.

In school I played a dowager
and though I had some fun with her,
that role did not fulfil my dreams;
I longed to sing with the Supremes.

When Tina Turner struts her stuff
in mini-skirts that flash enough,
and Dolly flaunts her ample charms
while singing "Safe in Jesus' Arms",

I pray that in a future life,
I will not be a mere housewife
but have a chance to shine my light,
at least on Karioke night.

(c) Ruth Latta, 2020

Today's Poem: "Driving with Dolly"

Another oldie of mine, first published in the chapbook, How We Flushed Fluffy and other poems, a combined publication effort with another poet, the late Valerie Simmons. The quotes are from songs recorded by Dolly Parton.


DRIVING WITH DOLLY

We glide the miles, we float along
with Dolly and her sweet refrain.
The wind, the birds, combine in song.
We hear the hum of passing train.

The oatfield's dotted with milkweed,
"Wayfaring Stranger" - this we know.
White parachutes on every seed
for "travelling through this world of woe."

The bales of hay look fresh and sweet.
"The crickets sing in fields nearby"
a golden great expanse of wheat
beneath a hazy summer sky.

Our troubles we have quite forgot.
We float with Dolly and her choir.
"They grew into a true love knot
And the rose it wound around the briar."

"We'll meet upon God's golden shore" -
with luck, not for a little while!
This earthly bliss - who'd ask for more
As Dolly sings each passing mile.

(c) Ruth Latta, 2020

This Visible Worm

"This Visible Worm" is one of my favourites. I wrote it years ago after seeing the movie Dangerous Minds, in which a teacher asked her students to take the Dylan/Dylan challenge; that is, to find the common elements in the works of Dylan Thomas and Bob Dylan.

I decided to set myself the "William Willie challenge." This poem first appeared in the British literary magazine, Magma, way back in 2003


THIS VISIBLE WORM
a homage to William Blake and Willie Nelson

She isn't the ramblin' kind,
but a bloom from a pretty rose tree,
and she gave all her love to this visible worm
and made a good man out of me.

The first time I saw her sweet face,
 I felt clean and as pure as a lamb,
yet strong as a tyger and brave as a sweep
for she's made me the man that I am.

To buy her the things that she needs
I will work graveyard shift at the mill.
No matter how dark and satanic the toil
I'll all of her wishes fulfill.

And on our days off we will stroll,
through the echoing woods hand in hand.
Our songs we'll combine in the sweet Georgia pine
a pleasant and green forest land.

(c) Ruth Latta, 2003, 2020

Two poems

Prior to the pandemic, I was a volunteer facilitator of the writers' group at the Emerald Plaza library here in Ottawa. Although the group is on the back burner indefinitely, I know that members are writing.  I am too, working on a sequel to Votes, Love and War.

Over the past forty years I've had a great many poems published in literary and other magazines. I've toyed with the idea of collecting them in book form someday - don't know when.  Although I retain the copyright to these poems, they are ineligible for future publication in magazines and future entry in contests because they have already been published.

"So why not put some of them on your blog?" I asked myself.

Here are two:

"How do I love you?" was published in Volume 12 of Harpweaver, the literary magazine of Brock University.  It was written to my husband one Valentine's Day and is a homage to Elizabeth Barrett Browning's sonnet, "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways..."

HOW DO I LOVE YOU?|

How do I love you? I'll enumerate:
I love you for your scientific mind,
although it means that I may chance to find
some fungi samples on the fridge's grate.
And thinking back to our initial date,
was it not Star Wars that, so very kind,
you thought of, so that we could both unwind?
(And I kept down the popcorn that I ate.)

I love you for the way you persevered
as Igor to a dreadful Frankenstein
Though some of your department heads were weird
with skill you managed them and did not whine.
With  kindness and with passion you have cheered
my life, and I am glad that you are mine.

 (c) Ruth Latta, 2020

***


The following poem was published in 1997 in Of Unicorns and Space Stations, Volume 3, Number 4, a Utah publication

SHE DREAMED SHE COULD FLY

She dreamed she could fly
while others lay sleeping.
In her white nightgown,
out to the fields
where foxes snuggle in their lairs,
where frogs chirp a rhythm
in the dark, cool pond,
where slowly, imperceptibly
in millimeters
buds grow into apple-green leaves.

A white garden of trilliums
between the birches
gaze up at the stars.

She dreamed that as she flew over
her toes just brushed the tips
of the dewy grass
and that she could smell
the wild cherry tree
raise up its spiky florets
to the moon.

(c) Ruth Latta, 2020

Emerald Plaza book event, March 3rd 2020

It seems like long ago that Ainalem Tebeje and I had our book event for InternationalWomen's Week at the Emerald Plaza Library. We were pleased that Ray Coderre, president of Baico Publishing, was able to attend our events.

Book event, Ruth Latta and Ainalem Tebeje

Ottawa authors Ruth Latta and Ainalem Tebeje
present their novels
in honour of International Women's Week
at the Emerald Plaza Branch
of the Ottawa Public Library

Tuesday, March 3, 2020, 1:30 to 3:00 p.m.

Votes, Love and War, by Ruth Latta, is a novel about the Manitoba women's suffrage movement and World War I

My Love Story in Broken English, by Ainalem Tebeje, is about a newlywed couple in Ethiopia. The husband defends his bride against harmful cultural customs.