Armadillo: Selected Works 1979 to 2009

By Deborah L. Fruchey

My most impossible ambition has always been to understand human nature. So when I discovered poetry at 17, it naturally evolved into a way to express my puzzling findings. Granted that it is often myself I end up studying (the easiest and nearest subject), the focus has always been to observe and report the quaint, illogical, stubborn and silly things we continually do. The journey has included explorations into odd corners: child abuse, addiction, mental illness, religious fanaticism, and a whole host of other issues that have come up over the years. This book contains 30 years of these observations, originally spread out in 8 chapbooks, plus some bonus material that has never appeared anywhere. Here is the world seen through the lens of a peculiar and unexpected life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Deborah L. Fruchey
• Release date: Nov 25, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463988633

Deborah L. Fruchey

Deborah Fruchey was born in California over 50 years ago. Her first novel, The Unwilling Heiress, was chosen as a Best Book by the American Bookseller's Association in 1987. She has attended several colleges just for fun, never earning a degree, and has worked at everything from international banking to selling light bulbs over the phone.In 2005 Deborah married musician Robert Hamaker, and settled in as a full time author. She occasionally does vocals for her husband's meditation music. She also speaks for the National Alliance of Mental Illness in their In Our Own Voice program, as a result of her own experience with Bipolar Disorder.Deborah no longer understands why she ever bothered with anything besides writing.

Book preview

Armadillo

Deborah L. Fruchey

Copyright September, 2013, Deborah Fruchey

Smashwords ISBN 9780463988633

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.

Table of Contents

1.throw back the little ones

Miss You

Younger Sister

Visit from a Neighboring Ego

...And a Five Piano Garage

Can We Drop the Subject

The Silent Treatment

Child of Martyrs

An Early Burial

Ending for a Lonely Poem

The Account

Where the Skin Ends

The Last Time I Saw Sheila

My Lover After Only 3 Meetings

At the Local

Age 5 and Under

Inside Track

Hot Bath Tonight

Portland

Mental Illness Has No Manners

Key to My Heart

About Sorry

Slob as Statement

Poets Have No Gender

II.Toasted Ice Cubes

Paperback Lover

Phone Fantasies

Rescue Inc.

The Answer is No

To My Lover's Answering Machine

Just the Essentials

Dr. Lust

2 Letters and 18 Phone Calls

A Song for Us Both

Waking Song

The Night I Paid the Bills

Advice to Husbands

Smoker

Post Script

Foreshadowing

Digging to China

Artifact

The Writer's Nightmare

In the Rose Garden

Do Not Bless Me Father

The Moment Passes

Teeth

A Personal Testimony

Just Another Saturday Night in the Loony Bin

To a Fellow Survivor

For Private Consumption

No Matter What We Say

Youth

Anniversary Song

To Someone I Won't be Sleeping With

To No One, To Any One

For My Next Trick

III.Wheels of Moss

Marky's Suite

The Love of Strong Spirits

Leaves of Eden

Wheels of Moss

IV.An Army of One

All The Stars Hang Upside Down

20 Pounds Extra

Beyond the Pier

Hills After the Fire

Advice from Eden

The Next Voice You Hear

Camping, Near Modesto

As if Red were a Color

Insomnia

A Stiff Upper Lip

V. Out of Context

His Lingering Death

No Living Poets

The Hermit Talks to Herself

Self Portrait

VI. Round Shouldered Moon

Weapons I Never Use

Satellite

Bruises

Never Again, Again

Thoughts While Going Deaf

VII.Not Without My Latte

Injury Accident Ahead

Fiddle (a sexual philosophy)

Alma Mater (a poem about Hell)

You Look Perfectly Fine to Me

Nice Try

Why I Never Slept with Bonnie

The New Guy

Our Last Summer in Berkeley

Mama Done Tole Me

No, I Will Not Tell You What She Did

Geisha (portrait in a hot tub)

Cleaning the Attic

I Had Never Seen His Bedroom

Containers

VIII.Notes from Obscurity

Where it All Happened

Sharpshooter

Redheads

Waiting Room

Before the Razor

In Praise of Mild-Mannered Men

Facing Things

Post Traumatic

After: Words

Body Count

Home Cooking

Snapshot

Spilling Things

Ambulance

Sculpting

1X.bonus poems

Ten Views of a Casual Lover

Motel Afternoon

Love Song to a Mortal Man

Ex-Lover Seen in a Cafe

Mislaid

Remembering David

Armadillo

To All Who Knew Me When

Poems from

Throw Back the Little Ones

(1987)

Miss You

I really wish I could call you up

long distance

but I can't because

these days

you sleep in my living room.

We now have two different sets of eyes...

you are gone.

I will help you sew your wedding dress,

but that is not the reason.

Gone is just gone:

whether you died

whether he took you

whether I kissed you goodbye

or you walked away.

Younger Sister

I remember a jumpsuit

with wrists the size of rubber bands.

But this is not in your eyes.

I know all about the failed chemistry test

and the pile of dirty socks under the bed.

But these are not in your eyes.

The boyfriend you might even marry

shares diary space

with a violet scarf you saw in Macy's.

You like Lionel Ritchie better than the Beatles.

I could envy you everything except your taste.

Unperturbed by echoes

or midnight or mourning,

you have mastered the art of merely.

The watch that I did not wear today

weighs heavy on my wrist.

Visit from a Neighboring Ego

The doorbell rang.

I glanced around to see if things were in order.

Suddenly I remembered

that in the bottom drawer

in the furthest corner

was a dirty sock

with a hole in it.

I stood there petrified.

But the doorbell kept ringing.

So I opened up and in rushed my neighbor

terrified

because she had found in her house

in the file cabinet

on the lowest shelf

a stale cookie

with mold on it.

This was ridiculous.

Nobody cares about

such small imperfections, I told her

and slammed the door behind her.

What a silly woman!

Thank God she didn't see

that dirty sock.

...And a Five Piano Garage

especially constructed with a culvert

so the culture will leak

out the driveway (past the Jones's)

and down the street to stink up the neighborhood.

Do I what?

No,

of course not.

Can we Drop the Subject?

Yes, Virginia, there are other topics than Love.

Sit in a half-lit living room,

all the laundry done,

and they will come to you.

Floorboards of pine, for instance,

sturdy and slightly scratched,

not embellished with rugs (or fleas),

needing waxing once a month and getting it

once a decade.

There are white jeans in summer

and paperbacks for Goodwill

plants by filmy windows

that look out on 17 friends of various stripes and seasons.

There are tables and ink and paper,

binders of last year's dreams and

god bless it

this year's