For Carolin

For the moment, this blog is about Carolin Combs (see video link a few entries down.) She is a great great girl and this blog is for her.

Bill Costley

To carolin

Every memory rips my heart to ribbons
of pulsating flesh, even the smallest:
like when you showed me a novel that
you thought might matter to me, because
I'd left my wife & children for you, but
somehow I missed that point entirely:
Martin Flavin's MR. LITTLEJOHN says
"Why do something if it isn't fun?" I
wasn't able to see any fun in what I did;
the fun was only beginning, due to you.
You only recently finally told me that:
"You were carefully chosen." Now it's
obvious you carefully chose me, then.
I didn't understand it, then. Now I do.

(21 JAN 07 7:13pm PDT, Santa Clara CA)

Bill Costley

To carolin

Everytime I see you
my heart explodes
like a tiny balloon
stuck in my chest,
inflated by love.
I love you now;
I loved you then;
I loved you when
I didn't know why I did.
I loved you for all the reasons
I'd understood then
& for all the others now;
& you knew why:
You're distractible,
you always said,
ruefully, ruefully.

(21 JAN 07, 1:26pm PDT, Santa Clara)

Bill Costley

Where 'stuff' comes from & goes
or, Thrift-store Kids

Carolin & I grew up in states far apart, in factory-cities,
children of industrial-union members, thrift-store kids,
she, because her mom Amah scoured them for top-brands,I
, because I wanted books I didn't have to return to the
Lynn MA public library. After we met, my wardrobe
improved substantially, thanx to her mom in Ypsilanti MI
& its Value-Village, now -World, where she still shops.
Carolin eventually became a Talbots & Kate Spade pony,
I, Mephisto shod, both dressed way above our class, &
mentally way beyond the gear we wore. All her clothes
go to Julia Ball, sister & daughter of Episcopal priests,
who's just her size. Mine'll go who knows where? Where
-ever my son Alex decides. He looks a lot like me, but is
not quite my size; all my media go to Marshall Brooks
my friend & sometime publisher, who already knows this.


(20 JAN 07, 5:28pm PDT, Santa Clara CA)

Bill Costley

What'll I do w/out You

What'll I do w/out You,
my dearest, my dearest?
Live alone, quietly writing
these poems to You, daily,
in mind, mouth, on paper,
continuing what we'd said,
but now in implicit dialog.

(20 JAN 07, Santa Clara)

Carolin's cake video

This is so cool - Carolin is a natural presenter!
It was filmed for a cable channel in the US.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkDKecx2ZKI

Cinnamon Bear

http://www.cinnamonbear.co.uk/

Bill Costley.

@ your ‘presentation’ Best

To my chef carolin

Every time I cook, I think of you, my chef carolin,
of how you’d do everything quickly, differently,
with panache, deft intelligence, style, as a chef would.
You were a chef & everyone knew it, cf. Chef Winston.

I’m just the sous sous prep-chef, peeling the potatoes
& cutting them to your specified sizes, making raw
ingredients ready for you to turn into what people
recognize as real food, actual cuisine. You added
light to cooking, I just boil & eat stuff; granted,
I like it anyway; hardly anybody else ever does.

“I’m not a presentation chef!” I told Dick Bartlett
on your video of Crème Marie Louise. Too true!
But you rose to the occasion & triumphed on tape,
soon on DVD, then on the World Wide Web.

Cruelly, your teeth fused & you were fed by PEG
via a stomach tube, a vicious irony for such a chef
as you were. What crueller punishment for a talent
that gave everyone such joy. I promise you, you’ll
triumph on VHS, DVD, the Web, for ever & ever,

building a spectacular Crème Marie Louise while
moving images exist, as moving as anyone can be.
Ray Kurzweil imagines DigitalRay in a box will
contain all that he ever was & is. Your cake video
displays you working at your ‘presentation’ Best.


(15 JAN 07, Kaiser-Permanente Hospital rm 669, 900 Kieley Blvd, Santa Clara CA 95051)

Christmas Lights Set to Music

Christmas lights set to musical score