Heartbreaks and Betrayals with Tanka and Madame Butterfly

Here she is, Madame Butterfly, so in love with Mr. Pinkerton, who left her with a baby, and returned with his American wife to claim his son and leave his crying mistress all alone. Susan Dobay's digital integration artwork is inspiring and touching.  Let's see...

Madame Butterfly - by Susan Dobay, 2013

sometimes it comes back

his memory, her softness

their reckless flight

his baby, their child, his firstborn

half-orphan outside

You will be able to see some of this beautiful art at Susan Dobay's next exhibition, "Regeneration" that will be held at the Shumei Hall Gallery in Pasadena and will open on Sunday, April 6, 2014 at 1 to 5 p.m. There will be a concert, too, though not of "Madame Butterfly".... 

Rock Cherries - by Maja Trochimczyk, 2014 

I wrote three tankas for a presentation of Susan Dobay's artwork inspired by Madame Butterfly, Puccini's immortal opera. The presentation, with the accompanying chapbook was one of the string of events associated with the California visit of an extraordinary Japanese poet, Mariko Kitakubo - held at the Altadena Library, and including Mariko's poetry, a segment on Madame Butterfly and Dobay's art, and a Japanese tea ceremony. Since two were included in that performance, I presented the third one here. 

Broken Heart by Maja Trochimczyk, 2014 

Why do we still care about Madame Butterfly? What's most attractive and bewildering in that opera is the perennial conflict of cultures, and betrayal.  The jilted lover commits suicide, like so many others, who could not imagine life alone.  Heartbreak can kill, literally. 

The topic of heartbreak has recently attracted the attention of a young poet, Karineh Mahdessian, who solicited contributions for and published an anthology by women, called "Heartbreak" and featuring "ache" on the cover. There are 80 poems in the book, written by  a diverse group of poets, ranging in age from high school graduates to grandmothers. Some poems are the very first publication of their authors, others are penned by experienced poets and writers with extensive teaching and publication careers.

Karineh's own heartbreaking story inspired her to find compassion and comfort in the words of her spiritual sisters. Her method of compiling the anthology was unusual: she asked poets to send her three poems so she could chose what she liked.  Her choice was only revealed in the final publication. At the reading on March 16, 2014, in La Puente, poets got their copies of the anthology, in burning orange and yellow.

Heartbreak Anthology by Karineh Mahdessian

When leafing through this volume,  bursting with stories of grief and loss about children, mothers, fathers, as well as all sorts of romantic heartbreaks, I realized that my own poem - indeed all poems I sent - were not really heart-breaky at all. It is hard for me to write about things I do not feel and I understood the assignment" to relate strictly to romantic heart-break, as in : </3, or the complaint of a jilted lover. My response to emotional distress of this kind is, by now, of someone who's been there done that, and knows the arts of coping, grounding and self-soothing (or pretends to know).  The point of losing a loved one, or a love interest, is to learn to say, with Hiob, "God has given, God has taken, praise be to God." 

Easier said than done, of course. But ultimately, serenity and contentment are our goals, reached typically in old age. I remember that British study of happiness that discovered that people are the happiest in their seventies, when the ranging storms of passions have passed, the life's work is done, and they spend hours of contentment in their gardens.

New Spring - by Maja Trochimczyk, 2014 

Gardens - the ancient Garden of Eden - the small patio gardens and large botanical gardens - are the true medicine for heartbreaks. Walking, photographing flowers, listening to birdsong, people-watching - all this medicine is contained right there, in the gardens. Those who know how to heal have spent hours digging into the rich dark soil, pulling the weeds out, planting a new flower, a tomato, or a fig tree... Then, they watch the plants grow, and finally enjoy the fruit of their labor - a blossom, a fruit... Perfect! A heartbreak? What was that, again?

Ice Cream Street

Days come and go,

the earth keeps turning.

You left. I am still.

You drive down my street,

come back for another look.

What do you want to see?

Love is not an easy thing

to manufacture.

I make it in large dollops,

served like ice cream

in cups of kindness.

I package it in dulcet tones

of good memories.

It is expensive,

also quite refined.

It is perfect that way.

The world is, too.

Oceans breathe.

Stars do not ask questions.

Night trees sleep

with birds in their branches.

The mountains

 grow more distant,

settling into calm.

(c) 2008, reprinted in Heartbreak from Rose Always (rev. 2011)

Desert Blossoms - by Maja Trochimczyk, 2011

Now, that serenity was not an instant discovery, but a result of years of hard labor. I had to write volumes of distress out of my system first.  Some of this confessional "poetry" is not really of any interest to anyone, except another woman with a broken heart. Somehow, in hindsight, getting these long strings of complaints together seems really selfish. When crying, we do not see the world, for all the tears needlessly spilled.  But at a moment, when the heart is broken, it really seems broken. The world comes to an end. 

As Karineh and her colleagues so eloquently wrote, a heartbreak leaves one feeling literally "broken-apart" - torn and destroyed.  

i entered broken world

i broken entered world

i entered world broken

~  from Karineh Mahdessian's "breaking" in Heartbreak

the words now hardened and metallic in my mouth,

I feel our shared language disintegrating in my hands

dust between the pages...

~ from Alexandra Hohmann's "English Major Breakup" in Heartbreak

the agony of drought
the swagger of flash flood
day after day, no grass

~ from Ruth Nolan's "When Rain Can Kill," in Heartbreak

Fence Geography - by Maja Trochimczyk, 2014

Sometimes, there's a good reason to cry: the mother, child, or husband dies. It does not seem fair. Grief-stricken parent, daughter, lover screams in anguish, gets in a fit of rage, simmers with anger, falls into despair. It is easy to accuse God of being evil at this stage of dealing with a heartbreak. God's indifference... does not God see what's going on? Why is my beloved taken? 

I wrote some of those types of poems after the death of my father who was shot by robbers in his summer home and never recovered, finally succumbing to a long, wound-caused illness.  A bullet tore through his abdomen, spleen, liver, intestines. A miracle he lived through the sepsis. Another miracle: he lived through the multiple surgeries. Seven drains, living on IV food for four months. And then, still alive, a year after that. Through that time, after being released from the hospital, following a six month stay, half of that time in an ICU, he could only eat unsalted mashed potatoes and chicken broth... My mom, who lost one third of her lung to a bullet, cooked and cared for him. His last call: "Majusiu, you would not believe what happened. I changed into a vampire. I live on other people's blood." It turned out his own spine marrow stopped producing red blood cells and he had to have a transfusion every two weeks, and a dialysis, the kidneys were not working either... 

His body fell apart, and our lives fell apart with him. For a long time before that I felt as if I was all splintered inside into a thousand little pieces, pierced by a bullet. On my desk, I even had a hologram of glass breaking apart, forever held together, forever breaking in that image... Then, the bullet, the breaking became a reality.  When I went to an art exhibit at REDCAT once, I saw a mirror mosaic "Resist Resisting God" that did the same to me...

Mirrored by "Resist Resisting God" - by Maja Trochimczyk, 2012

Eloe 6

grief is a thief

and a stupid one at that

he stole your life

when God was not looking

(too busy –

concocting colors

to paint the canyons, stars,

dabbling in sunsets)

(c) 2008, reprinted from Miriam's Iris (2008)

Sunset by Maja Trochimczyk, 2012

There are many kinds of grief and loss, many reasons for heartbreak.  Those caused by others we have no control over: evil neighbors, evil "tribes" - wars, hatred, discrimination, a bullet piercing the skin... Those caused by others we belong with in our immediate communities and families - family disputes, divorces, deaths after a long illness, fading away with cancer...  Those caused by the two persons intimately involved - one person leaves, the other one stays, brokenhearted...

All victims of senseless crime know the first type of heartbreak. The criminal does not know them, yet they suffer, their loved ones die... Here's a different example of the first type of heartbreak, from a post by Carla Tomczykowska, about the family of her husband,a child of a mixed marriage, refugees from Europe: "Polish AND German were his first languages although he was born here. His father, a Polish survivor of Auschwitz, after the war met a German woman and they got married!!!! When they finally settled in the Polish community in Baltimore, she was reviled for her nationality, and as a young boy, my husband suffered from that hatred at the hands of Polish relatives, neighbors and even the nuns at school. This affected him so much, for he loved his sainted mother dearly, that he totally blocked out the Polish language and refused to speak it anymore.... My husband's dilemma as a post-war child was a two-edged sword - he suffered from both being a child of a survivor of a concentration camp (this is a recognized syndrome) and also the stigma (within the Polish community) of being the child of a German woman, being called a 'Nazi.' It has taken him all these years to recognize and deal with these traumatic emotions formed in his childhood."

This is a peculiar, I'd say "linguistic" variant of the loss suffered by refugees and displaced persons around the world. They were not welcome where they went after their homes were destroyed and their lives broken. Not this kind of loss... 

The Heartbreak anthology does not go into these sorts of heartbreaks - consequences of war, famine, crime, natural disasters, floods and fires. Instead, the stories in Heartbreak are about human grief over human loss of just one person, a loved one: a daughter, son, mother, father. The loss of a love. A lover who left, a husband who was not faithful, a child who will not send a mother's day card. 

Mother's day

an empty mailbox

~ haiku by Jan Benson, from Heartbreak

What do they know?

Do they know your smile, your laugh?

~ from Tairy Barrie's "One Tear" in Heartbreak

While reading about so many passionate, depressed, enraged, and disappointed women, I thought I should at least try and write a truly angry "heartbreak" poem, if only to feel young. But I could not quite feel very serious about it, so it came out as a comedy of errors. Enjoy!

The End

I imagined you dead

and me, your widow

dancing in black veils

purple lipstick, amethyst

nail polish.

But you lived.

You came back to stab me,

pour salt water 

on my wounds.

Enough. Dosyc. Basta.

I can't stand seeing you

laughing at my weakness.

Unexplained.

Unforgiven.

I hang my bra 

on my bathroom door.

I pull a blanket 

over my head.

Listen to a chorus of frogs

pairing in the wet darkness

of spring chaparral

Enough. Dosyc. Basta.

It will dry out. 

There will be fire.

It will turn into charcoal,

flames dancing 

with the shadows

on the rim of the valley - 

dying, gasping

with the last breath

of my love.

(c) 2014 by Maja Trochimczyk

Imprisoned Heart - by Maja Trochimczyk

... like a long trail 

that they leave on

me ripping 

open my 

wounds once

again

~ from Toti O'Brien, "Queen of Hearts" from Heartbreak

The Old Towns in Warsaw, Krakow, Gdansk...

Returns, in thought or reality, to the landscapes of childhood, constitute an important poetic inspiration. I had a chance to re-visits the landscapes of my youth during the travel to Poland in May and June 2012. It was a sentimental travel back to my roots and more than a few of my "favorite things."

First, Warsaw: this is where it all began. The house I spent my childhood in is gone, demolished to make room for the widening of the street of Powstancow Slaskich. The fields on the other side of the street have been turned into a huge "osiedle" (subdivision) with thousands of inhabitants in ugly apartment blocks. There is a massive signboard in the exact spot where our house once stood and the cherry tree once grew. The little street, "alejka" is still there, lined with yellow iris of our neighbors.

My childhood is gone, of course, but it was a strange feeling to see its material traces erased. I asked a high-school friend to drive me through the narrow streets of Osiedle Przyjazn, where the faculty of the Warsaw Polytechnical University used to live after the workers who built the Palace of Culture had returned to the Soviet Union. Quite a few houses still stand, the streets are lined with maple trees, I remember walking on the curb, picking up the yellow leaves...

My favorite part of Warsaw, the Old Town is still there, though - "still" is a wrong word here, since it was completely destroyed after the Warsaw Uprising and rebuild after the war. The enormous effort of reconstruction of downtown Warsaw ended only with the reopening of the Royal Castle in the early 1980s. I was there before that. I remember the last ruined wall standing with just one window at the top, in the sea of ruins. I used to go to a music school right there and looked up to and through that window at the night sky, while waiting for a tram to take me home. The trams are there, too, painted red and white. It was hard, and still is, to get used to the red square building of the old/new Royal Palace. It still strikes me as something that does not quite belong where it stands, where it once stood. It was gone for just thirty years, but I lived with that gap, and now it is there again, an apparition from before my time.

Filled with tourists and school groups of kids who jump into the puddles the Old Town in Warsaw is very much alive. It is also very lively and completely swarming with schoolkids in Krakow, where I went to a conference on emigration at the Jagiellonian University. In contrast to Warsaw, this Old Town is completely "old" - all buildings, churches, and lecture halls of the university where we held our sessions are real and ancient, though many have recently been restored and repainted. The city is lovely at all hours of day and night, marked by the trumpet call from the tower of Kosciol Mariacki, to the four corners of the world. The "hejnal" is interrupted in the place where the original melody was cut short by an arrow from a Tartar invader, back in the 12th century. History runs deep there - and it suffuses the city and its inhabitants with the warm glow of benevolence. Somehow, it seems, there are more friendly folk, willing to go out of their way to help everyone, in Krakow than in any other city on the planet. Maybe walking through these streets mellows their spirit?

Finally, Gdansk. I travel there to a conference at the University of Gdansk, East and Central Europe in Exile: Patterns of Transatlantic Migration, organized by a large group of partners, headed by the indefatigable Dr. Anna Mazurkiewicz. I'm to speak about exiled composers, but before that happens, I revisit the sites of my own exile and those of my family. The residents are justifiably proud of the recently completed restoration efforts that transformed the Old Town of this Hanseatic sea-bound city, into a real gem filled with amber necklaces and artwork. After my poetry reading on "Aliens in California" (illustrated with photographs and artwork of my California friends) and before the conference begins, I walk through the narrow, streets lined with peaked houses all decorated and colorful. It is much more beautiful than I remember from my childhood at my aunt's home. At that time, in late 1960s and early 1970s, large swaths of the Old Town were still in ruins, only the main street and a couple of side streets were restored, while across the Moltawa river you could see the empty holes of the window, roofless brick walls. It was a scary place then, with so many areas barren, a real wound of the war. But it is completely different now...

My mother's aunt, Jadwiga Hordziejewska and her uncle, Dominik, lived there, after forced resettlement from their estate in what is now Belarus and used to be Soviet Union, near the lake of Switez, and Mickiewicz's hometown of Nowogrodek. They lost everything in that move, everything except for the one cow my uncle took with him to Oliwa. They used to walk through the parks and streets of the city for many years, an old gentleman in his top hat and the prize-winning Holstein black and white cow... He refused to speak to anyone, Ciocia Jadzia worked to support the family, while her husband grieved, frozen in the past, unable to accept the present.

The builders of these old towns, and those who restored them to their colorful and welcoming charm, tell us that we should cherish the past, though never forget what pain was wrought upon us.

Thus, we should always cherish the little flower of "niezapominajka" - forget-me-not. In an old children's verse it is "growing at a stream, looking at me with its blue eyes, and whispering modestly: "do not forget me."

We should not forget what made us who we are. I talked about remembering and being either petrified by grief, loss and guilt, or just remembering the past moments, as beads on an necklace. I even wrote about that lamp I photographed in Jelonki, Warsaw, with the snowflakes twirling in its yellow glow. This poem first published in Miriam's Iris is a suitable tribute to a travel back in time and into the future of being an emigre in California. On the occasion of this long, sentimental trip through my favorite landscapes, I decided to reproduce it for my readers.

Prelude - Water Charms

I.

The hummingbird builds its nest.
Its thin beak – the stem
of a multicolored jewel
sparkling in the sun
(a copy of its own similitude) –
holds the glistening body aflutter.

Rose bushes wear diamonds,
well-polished – their colors change
with the breeze
like the bird’s shiny feathers.

My Californian garden
tries to seduce me
with precious necklaces
and melliferous strains
from the mocking bird
hovering above
the scent of gardenias.

“All right” – I say –
“Don’t play games with me.
I’ve seen it all before.”

II.

Pearls scattered on the meadow
tremble on the blades of grass,
hide in the hearts of clover.

The sun shines straight through their ovals,
translucent, in a bright shade of green.
Stalks bend under their glassy weight.

Tempted by curiosity,
I destroy their perfect balance,
depriving the world
of its well-deserved splendor.

The droplets fall
to the ground and disappear.
How shall I ever be forgiven?
My wickedness – unthinkable.

III.

Dead leaves seek shelter
under thin panes of glass.
Ice covers pools of rainwater.

The stillness mocks past intimacy
when noisy reds, yellows, and browns
flew up from under my feet
in an autumn park
of maples and poplars.

I changed the future of the world
with one step of my boot:
the pane cracked,
the air bubbles shifted,
a the harmony was gone.

With glee I crushed the worlds
that did not need me.

I shudder when I look back –
a trail of footsteps
filled with muddy water,
dirt splattered on the geometry of ice.

IV.

The magic of white butterflies
twirling in the glow of street lamps
makes me dizzy. The black sky turns.
Bright spots move faster still.

I’m afraid. They chase me –
larger – whiter – denser
stars, monsters, snowflakes?
My scarlet fever began that night. V.

Winter morning reveals its treasures.
Leaves, cones, twigs, tree-trunks,
even pebbles on my path
wear bristling coats of crystal ice.

The pearl-grey sky is a bride’s dress,
waiting to burst open with new life.

The clouds settle on their beds.
Houses, bushes, roofs, fences,
dress in white muffs,
scarves and blankets.

The fence boards,
stiff like British soldiers,
present puffy hats to the Queen.

I admit it. I cut their heads off
with my red-gloved hand,
leaving behind a line
of headless corpses –
oh, silent horror!

VI.

The damage that cannot be undone –
melting the universe of beauty
with one breath
that changed a snowflake
into a dirty spot on my glove.

Slowly walking into
the immaculate field of whiteness,
I scarred the snow’s pristine expanse
with clumsy footmarks.

VII.

Again: plunging into
the smooth expanse of a lake,
I broke its sleepy obsession
with mirroring the evening sky.

I paid for my guilt with exile –
a foreign country, a borrowed name.

Crystals do not charm me in the desert
where Joshua trees parody my gestures
of praying for snowflakes
by stretching their twisted limbs
into the purple sky.

No hope for maki, chabry, and rumianki.
My childhood flowers
won’t be found on the meadow
painted yellow by the spring
across the barren slope
I see from my kitchen window.

VIII.

I’ve dreamed of being happy
in the sweet impossible,
with Italian cypresses, ice plants,
and a white fence around my house.

But my memories trap me.
Only the hummingbird
floats around, twitching its tail
like a miniature goldfish.

Maki – wild, red poppies (Papaver rhoeas); chabry – blue Centaurea cyanus, and rumianki – white chamomile daisies, grow in the meadows and fields of Poland and throughout central Europe.

________________________

And here's my bouquet of "niezapominajki" from the Royal Baths Palace at Lazienki Krolewskie. Do not forget me, or so they say...

“Healing from the Ashes” - Poetry & Art

When Ariyana Gibbon invited us, the Village Poets, to a special poetry reading at the Healing from the Ashes exhibition she organized in Sunland to benefit the victims of Station Fire on October 17, 2010, I did not have much to show for it. I had written one haiku about wildfires in general and one poem about my experience of watching the danger approach, anxiously waiting for the wildfire to leave the slopes of my mountains, where it just sat for days on end:

FIRE TREASURES

The flames are closer and closer,
the air thick with smoke, dense
with the noise of helicopter engines.

I have never faced such danger.
Pacing around the house, I start
collecting papers, packing suitcases

of photo albums that nobody looks at,
so old, they show us two lifetimes earlier
in an antique glow of happiness.

Neighbors sit on their front porches
with binoculars, watching the spectacle
unfolding, a reality show without a screen.

They laugh and drink, eat barbecued
hamburgers and sausages saturated with
the smoky flavor of California fire season.

I can’t stand the wait. I examine the contents
of my house, gather things I cannot lose,
say farewell to those that may burn.

I give up my claim over shelves of books,
roses in gilded frames, fine china, music boxes –
my treasures become worthless bulk.

The flames shoot higher, the fire refuses
to budge under the aerial assault, stubbornly
dwells on the slopes illuminated in red at one a.m.

Next morning, my car sinks low in the driveway
under the weight of papers I packed to save.
Someone else will burn them after I’m gone.

A neighbor’s little daughter walks by,
looks at the heavy suitcases and asks,
“Mommy, is Barbie going on vacation?”

There was also a small haiku and a tanka based on mosaics from the fire that I found on the project's website:



FIRE HAIKU

wine-red sun
sinks into the ashes -
winter's fire

FIRE TANKA

red flames lick the sky
smoke thickens into darkness
a butterfly soars
ascending into turquoise
my future brightens

Not much to it, nothing tragic. It is not a surprise, then, that the Poet Laureate of our community was not the featured poet at the “Healing from the Ashes.” That title went to Jane Fontana who lived much closer to the fires and eloquently described the experience of loss and recovery. She did not lose her own home, but her neighbors did: only two houses survived on her street. Her poems were compassionate and inspired.

After walking into the exhibit on Foothill Blvd. and touring the wonderful exhibition, I was inspired, too. I was struck by the beauty and expressiveness of artwork made lovingly from remnants found in the fire – mosaics from shards of china, reliefs including burnt clocks and lamps, curio cabinets of little figurines, paintings… Our neighbors experienced real loss, and it was transformed, in that impromptu gallery, into poignant art.

On one wall was a large metal clock, burnt, with markers for the hours, but no hands. “Time stopped for this clock,” I thought as I read the title – Sun Dial by Ruth Dutoit. It spoke to me and in 10 minutes I wrote a new poem. I like the idea of a clock with no hands to show time. A French experimental filmmaker Agnes Varda made a documentary about The Gleaners, talking to those who gather and recycle things, and showcasing her own collection of her own recycled, handless, timeless clocks.

There’s a point to this. I have one clock like that at home, dark rectangular frame with mother-of-pearl inlay in the style found in India or the Middle East, it sits on my shelf to remind me of timelessness, eternity, so I would not rush around too fast, try to do too many things at once. “There’s time, there’s still time” – it tells me… Ruth Dutoit called hers The Sun Dial and there’s a small marker, or dial, on her disc, where time is measured by metal wings:

ENDLESS

The sundial glows
in a sunset of memory.

Time stops.

Dragonfly wings
freeze in a nanosecond

of fiery beauty
before evaporating.

Time stops.

We measure loss
in dragonfly wings,

in crystal shadows,
scattered wine-glasses

filled to the brim
with flames

before breaking,
before our time stops,

it too stops.



Another image that started "speaking" to me was a mosaic of a fames-spewing dragon by Robin M. Cohen. Unfortunately for the auction, it fell off its mounting on the wall and was damaged at the time of the exhibition. Cohen's mosaic was quite ornamental, almost too pretty for its materials of such tragic provenance. It resulted in a decoratively expressive, yet uncomplicated poem:

FIRE DRAGON

burn, burn, burn,
the horizon disappears
in scarlet light
burn, burn, burn
the air shimmers,
incandescent

the dragon’s here
watch the dragon
the creature of change
the beast of renewal
transforms our lives
by pain, by loss, in fear

the dragon sings out
burn, burn, burn
flames lick the rooftops
with fierce kindness
to destroy and renew
burn, burn, burn

Finally, I came across a larger artwork by the exhibition's organizer, Ariyana Gibbon. She made several mosaics on canvas for this project and one of her pieces reminded me of something I knew, both pleasurable and painful. I went home before I was able to write the following poem, stringing a necklace of tearful memories from 1975 and 1999...


FROM THE ASHES

~ to Ariyana Gibbon

The mosaic tears glow
and flow In indigo sky
crystallizing in memory
into soft petals of ash
blanketing my driveway
after the mountains
were bright with fire
for weeks, hot-spots shining
in charcoal darkness
like an ocean-liner’s lights
on the Bosphorus,
on the way to the Black Sea.

The mosaic patterns
measure space in echoes
of arabesques on the ceiling –
the Blue Mosque
in Istanbul made me
dizzy with delight.

Wait, I saw such tears elsewhere –
Oh, it was that lapis-lazuli
silver necklace I admired
in a Grand Canyon shop
He bought too late
to save what was beyond repair.

The mosaic teardrops fall,
ashen, each one shattered already,
made of old pain that does not go away,
or cry itself out. It just sits there,
a boulder on the highway
damaged by rockslide,
a burnt-out shell of a house,
lost to flames.

Shards of broken china
glow against dark velvet –
a treasure found in ashes,
held together by a thin ribbon
of gold paint, a promise of sunrise,
at the edge of indigo sky.



______________________________________________


More photos from the poetry reading at the exhibition may be found on Picasa Web Albums: http://picasaweb.google.com/Maja.Trochimczyk/SunlandHealingFromTheAshes#.

All photos and poetry reproduced here are copyrighted:(c) 2010 by Maja Trochimczyk