Karen Greenbaum-maya


Fractals: A Romanesque Cauliflower

Chicken and the Egg

Daughter’s tattoo froths Hokusai sea foam. Mother’s new tattoo cradles a pearl, sealing off a flinty irritation. Daughter signs up for hot yoga class. Not for pregnant women. Mother posts selfies from Bikram, sweat soaking her skin-tone sports bra. My heart center is connecting with the universe. Daughter goes vegan, won’t eat what had a mother. Mother inhales smoothies green with kale, bitter with celery. Daughter interns high on the navel of the world in Bolivia, seeking language her mother can’t eavesdrop. Mother hikes Machu Pichu. Why don’t we learn tennis, she says. Daughter gets a new tattoo, in skin-toned ink.

What’s In a Name

Kafka has been wondering about this psychoanalysis thing. He has heard about the neurologist, Something Freud, He has heard Freud believes every symptom is about sexuality, but surely Kafka misunderstood. He gives a little hiccup of a laugh. What can you expect from someone whose name means Pleasure? It is said Freud believes that all one’s troubles can be traced back to the relationships with one’s parents. Kafka gives a silent bark, a sniff of a sarcastic cough. Who doesn’t know this? There is also someone called Jung, son of a Lutheran minister. Jung=Young. Likely he believes in some kind of transformation akin to rebirth. How predictable. It seems Jung believes also in meaning. Searching for meaning, sure. Finding, arriving at meaning? What can any honest person living in the world possibly answer? And the other psychologies are just as badly written! Adler = Eagle, like the Emperor’s two-headed eagle, screeching for more power. And Fliess = Industrious, and he comes up with a new paper every week, the untrammelled bastard. Kafka prefers not to telegraph such obvious character traits to a reader. His own name, Czech for Jackdaw, at least permits some ambiguity, depending how a person feels about jackdaws. When Kafka read Dickens, he kept slamming the book down. Those names! The characters might as well wear special insignia, special clothing to proclaim who they are.

A Fibonacci Artichoke

Karen Greenbaum-Maya, retired clinical psychologist, German major, two-time Pushcart nominee and occasional photographer, is having so much fun she simply doesn’t know what to do with herself. Her first full sentence was: “Look at the moon!” Her collections include The Book of Knots and their Untying and the chapbooks Burrowing Song, Eggs Satori, and Kafka’s Cat. For links to work on-line, go to: www.cloudslikemountains.blogspot.com/.
 
 
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