November 2: Old Phoebe, Old Poem, New Cartoon

Old Phoebe didn't say anything.  When she can't think of anything to say, she doesn't say a goddam word.

Holden says that about his little sister, Phoebe, who's mad at him for getting kicked out of school again.  I can say that about my twelve-year-old daughter, as well.  She is perfecting the teenage sulk.  She doesn't have it down cold yet.  I can still cajole her out of it with a few well-placed jokes or strange faces.

My daughter has been holed up in our house all day, recuperating from strep throat.  She's doing tons better now that she's been taking the antibiotics for over 24 hours.  I heard on the radio recently that some medical organization recommends no medicine for strep throat.  I guess the doctor is supposed to just look at his/her patient and say, "Suck it up."  I think that's a load of crap.

Anyway, I'm still working on my Christmas essay, so I'm giving you another old poem this evening.  However, I do have a new cartoon.

Saint Marty's going to watch The Lawrence Welk Show now.  Yeah, he's living the dream.

Bizarre Disease Keeps People
From Hearing Their Own Voices

Walt Whitman had it, couldn't hear his barbaric
Yawp over the rocking Atlantic surf.
His lines didn't beat his eardrums
To sound, the hammer and anvil still

In his gray head.  In the hospital wards,
He pressed his lips to the lips of dying
Soldiers, whispered his wordless love
For their fevered brows, boy cheeks, absent arms and legs.

Sitting naked in the sun, noiseless,
A spider in the dark green spears, he sang
His gossamer songs to the bright dew of dusk and dawn,
To the leaves of summer, breathless and tender.

And when the lilacs bloomed in his silver
Beard, he ate his tears in silence.

Confessions of Saint Marty