Marilyn, aka Misk Mask, has lived in lots of different countries, as her husband’s employer moves them around the world. They are based out of the UK, where she’s lived for 22-years with her Danish husband. Marilyn has two adopted sons, both grown, one living in the UK and the other living in the USA.
She started writing poetry during the November 2010 Poem-A-Day Challenge with Poetic Asides, and hasn’t stopped writing since. She says it’s a release, like adjusting the value on a pressure cooker. Writing poetry is relaxing, but it can be equally frustrating, lonely, and painful in a sort of cathartic way. It is everything that she didn’t think it would be, and she loves the whole creative process and the people who migrate toward it.
Marilyn is also a keen cook and baker with an active cookery blog, where she enjoys group baking challenges, creating and archiving family-favourite recipes, and photographing food, photography being another hobby. Gardening also ranks up there with her top hobbies.
Marilyn’s WEB WEDNESDAY INTERVIEW 11/23/2011
Marilyn’s Blogs:
Misk Mask (poetry) http://miskmask.wordpress.com
Misk Cooks http://miskcooks.com
Misk Cooks Page on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/MiskCooks
© All postings and intellectual materials on this page are property of Marilyn Braendeholm.
POETIC BLOOMINGS 
KISS AND MAKE UP
These two little girls,
one’s brunette and the other’s
blonde with bouncy curls,
share a room where they sleep.
They laugh and play and scowl
and glare, and sometimes say
shockingly foul things to each other.
Tongues wiggling and sticking out,
and tears of anger rolling down
their cheeks, they pout, they stare.
They’re sisters, quite a pair,
and they’re supposed to love
one another. They do but they
won’t really know that
or understand what it means
until they’re both all grown up.
Maybe when they’re really old,
like 202-years from now when their
cold joints creak and pop, and they
push themselves along
with wooden walking sticks
so their spines don’t curl
round like a cinnamon roll,
maybe then they’ll remember
they love one another and
they’ll know what it means,
but until then they’ll just keep on
glaring and hissing and swinging
dollies at each other until they’re
told to kiss and make up.
Poetic Bloomings Prompt: A Children’s Poem with a Moral Lesson
http://poeticbloomings.com/2012/02/12/moral-of-the-story-prompt-42/
A Shade of Translucency
He was the majority colour
of his village. The primary
colour, one might say. Most
were the same nondescript
hue; slightly translucent is
the word that best fits. See
there on his hand, where
the blue tint of tributaries
web across the back of his
hand. Yes, translucent was
the colour he wore and he
blended in well with
the rest of them all.
Poetic Bloomings Prompt: Colours
http://poeticbloomings.com/2012/01/21/colour-my-world-prompt-39/
Retuning Heart Strings
Wipe your eyes and dry
your tears, cry not for your
own loss. Tie your grief
to the wind and cherish
her love for you.
Poetic Bloomings Prompt: Gratitude
29 November 2011
The Chair with the Spindle Knobs
There’s nothing left of you here.
It’s Mom’s house now. No photos,
no mementos your scent long muted
by confused potpourri of lavender
and cinnamon and apple, and Vicks.
But that chair is still here tucked
under the table as if you might return
for one last supper. Your chair, the high-back
one with the wooden spindle knobs
and the woven thatch seat. You called it
the barn chair, joking to keep the cows
and the goat away from it because they’d
eat the chair right out from under you.
And then one evening after a long
and substantial meal you leaned back
to stretch the air from your stomach.
At first we thought you’d belched
but you didn’t. The high-back chair
with the wooden spindle knobs and
seat that the goat might mistake as its
evening meal cracked and broke
and hung limp like that chicken you tried
to kill with the partially severed neck.
That chair would never be the same.
You laughed, Mom burst into tears,
and then you flew into a rage. Sensible
people don’t cry over chairs, you said.
That was the year that I learned to walk
on eggs shells during the holidays.
You’re gone but your chair’s still here.
Glued and reglued every time it breaks
again, which it has. Twice more, I think.
I miss you so much that it aches
but I don’t miss the eggshells.
Happy holidays, Dad.
Poetic Bloomings, Prompt #30, Home and Hearth
A HEART-TO-HEART
If home is where the heart is,
then is a heartless man homeless,
and a homeless man heartless.
And so, I asked him
this homeless man who was cold
and lonely, sleeping in a foetal curl
below a slatted bench. Was this man
heartless from lack of home and hearth.
Does his heart wander through dark
leaf-strewn paths, searching bushes,
seeking shelter, a home, picking
at food discarded, bits of crusts, crinkled
pickles, a suggestion of meat, anything
to restore his energy for another
night. He walks the shadows behind
the mission’s cafe where music
bounces into the alley along
with tattered drunks from the tavern
next door. Another night under a bench,
newspapers tucked down his shirt
and a double layer over his chest.
The broadsheet headlines facing him
so he can read what he calls the comics.
He loves a good joke.
And so, he replied
If home is where the heart is,
Then have a heart for this man.
https://poeticbloomings2.wordpress.com/2011/10/02/wither-goest-thou-kevin-bacon-prompt-23/
Touched me, deeply. What beautiful, bittersweet insights.
GOD’S WINDLASS
Somewhere between puberty
and the Red Robin Tavern
on Lake Union, I lost Jesus.
I didn’t lose God;
just his son.
I woke up one morning
and we were strangers.
And so I just talked to God.
I searched, I tried,
I read, I cried.
I couldn’t fill the hole that
Jesus’d left; I couldn’t find him.
Logic applied illogically.
Logic removed emotionally.
Bible enervation.
And so I just talked to God.
One-way conversations
like leaving messages
on a friend’s voicemail.
“Ring me back when you
have time so we can chat.
Kiss-kiss. Love you.”
I never felt alone.
And so I just talked to God.
Like I’m doing now; this space walk
gone wrong. A slip, I spiral away
like a leaf on rushing water.
I should be scared; I’m not.
I’ve never felt alone. I’m talking
to God in the shadow of purgatory.
I sure could do with a pee though.
And so I just talked to God.
So imagine my surprise,
my life tethered in coils
to God’s windlass, he and I
bungee jumping, free-falling
through milky streaks of stars.
I’m not alone. God and Jesus
have been here all along.
Jesus still listening-in
when I just talked to God.
Poetic Bloomings at http://poeticbloomings.blogspot.com/2011/06/deep-space-nine-prompt-9.html
Wow. And, wow!
Well, hello there.
A FAREWELL TO DUST
She thought him as ancient as marble
but that’s where comparisons end
His face weathered and rough
with whiskers that scuff when
he rubbed his cheek up against hers
She touched a long lingering line
carved from his nose to his chin
deep as the cracks in the field
where years ago corn used to grow
as high as the top of her head
Now dust swirls collecting in your ears
driving its way up your nose and eating
a meal means chewing on grit as it
races its way through the night
pricking and prodding at dreams
He talks to her of times long ago
stories that seem like tall-tales
of the scent of pure green
of a colour called pink
of roses and clover and rain
I remember, he’d say, the sound of rain
a sound she’d never heard for herself
He said it was a sound like that clown’s
flat-soled, over-sized shoes, the one that
chased her as she ran from its reach
I remember, he’d say, the sound of rain
pounding the top of my head cooling my skin
after a long hard day’s work. It pounded
like a hammer on soap, he’d say, and it’d make you
bend over and hide from its weight
But now only dust and wind filled the air
the clouds emptied of everything but dust
There was no rest for him here, so God called him
back home, a dark day when the sound of rain falling
was once again heard as they all cried their final farewells.
11 May 2011 Poetic Bloomings Prompt #2 RHYTHM OF THE FALLING RAIN
FINISHED by Misk Mask
The rain can’t reach her here.
She’s sheltered in the shadowed
recesses of a rank smelling alcove,
a dreary ravine between two shops
that she calls home during the months
that promise warmer weather. Wind flays
the marble walls of the shopping center,
paper cups and burger wrappers
swept up in the gusts that fly
past her imaginary front door
with its peep-hole at eye-level.
She pats her bulging pockets, protected objects
retrieved here, there and somewhere she can’t remember.
Store receipts, not hers of course, but she likes
to pretend that she bought something there.
Aluminium pull-tabs, 8 of them that she wears
one on each finger as her precious rings;
she’s a fashion rebel she tells a bluebottle
fly that licks at a sore on her ankle.
And there’s the mutilated fairy doll
that’s missing its head but that doesn’t stop it
from yammering on about nothing all night long.
And empty disposable lighters in bright primary colours
reminding her of a rainbow, like the ones
created by her favourite key chain
with its dangling crystal pyramid.
But most valued, most precious, her legal tender,
her handfuls of half-smoked cigarettes
rescued from a nearby aluminium pillared ashtray.
The one topped with a swathe of funereal sand –
cigarette butts erect in it, tilting,
bent and subdued under thumb,
abandoned ghostly headstones.
Abandoned like she was.
Abandoned of hope.
Abandoned of joy.
Abandoned dreams of a life that included
children smiling each morning in exchange
for her hugs and kisses.
She fingers the short stubs,
counting and recounting them in case
one was stolen by that freak of a headless fairy,
possibly when sleep danced on her pillow
stealing away her dreams of a fold-away cot
with a clean pillow in a warm hotel room.
“Concierge! Give me a light!” she shouts
at a woman with fiery-red hair. Ignored,
she launches into a Sunday sermon on the evils
of shopping on the Lord’s Day of Rest
and calls the woman a flaming heretic.
She looks away and lets the last cigarette butt
roll from her finger back into her pocket.
“21!” she counts, but instantly forgets and so
resumes recounting them one at a time.
One hand counts, the other opens her package
of empties. Time for a drink from the remains
of the day – a discarded beer can. It’s marked
by its previous owner as finished, the sides
compressed together and bent into a deep fold,
but she knows that nothing is ever finished
until God releases her from this hell.
http://poeticbloomings.blogspot.com/2011/06/never-cross-word-prompt-8.html
FURRY-OCIOUS GAZOOKINGLY HUFFITY-PUFFS
At 5, she was taught
and she was told,
in no uncertain terms,
tell no stories, my girl,
and tell no tales,
or a fur-flying and
furry-ocious scolding,
gazookingly ever so stern,
she might possibly receive.
Feck, she thought.
So she gazookingly
did as she was taught,
putting a tight lid
on all and every telling
of stories or fanciful tales….
which pippity-pooh got her
furry-ocious scoldings
and gazookingly stern
huffity-puffs all the same,
because telling no tales
meant only telling
the truth
and now everyone thought
her an awfully-blah-blah,
rude little girl.
Feck, she thought.
So for the rest of her
long, wordy-inky-linky life
she wrote and told stories
without furry-ocious scolding
or strife, except during
Novembers and Aprils
when she only wrote poems
and said the word ‘feck’
a gazookingly awfully lot.
Poetic Bloomings Prompt: A Children’s Poem with a Moral Lesson
http://poeticbloomings.com/2012/02/12/moral-of-the-story-prompt-42/
A Seed in Her Ear
Tell me about the seed, he said, the beginning.
I offered him a single word, no need to say more.
Miscarriages, I said.
I felt the warmth drain from my eyes,
icy defences like a fence post to keep
my spine erect when my only wish was to slide
back on to myself like a melting snowman
cosied-up with an electric blanket.
And …? he asked.
It was a monosyllabic conversation
of extraordinary depth. I reckoned that
he was as drained of emotion as I was filled
with defensive tools. I was a tiny, ticking,
spring-wound clicking clockwork complete
with squarely notched edges so my thoughts
would fit together in a sensible way.
Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick. I was geared up.
Adoption, I said.
He peaked his fingers together like a steeply pitched
cathedral roof, and then rested his chin on the top.
I wondered if God rested his chin on church roofs
when he grew weary of listening to our incessant
whinging and belly aching. I doubted it. If God
got tired, there was no hope for fool like me.
He blinked, and paused …
I did the same.
And…? he asked.
He and his brother were my everything.
I was happier than any one person
should be allowed. And then he grew up,
he left home, moved far away, he married,
and then there was Emma. It was my turn;
I blinked, and paused …
He did the same.
And …? he asked.
Well, the thought of her being so far away,
the thought of her not knowing me except
as that woman in England who sends
very pretty dresses, ruffled umbrellas
and pink wellington boots, well, the thought
of her growing up without me was more
than I could take. I was impaled on cold chills
and throttled by panic. And then one day
when she was 2-years old, we cuddled,
we laughed, and we played. I treasured
every moment of that particular stay.
On that day, I hugged her
and I planted a seed in her ear.
Remember me, Emma, I whispered,
Please don’t forget me.
He stared at me, still playing God with his
peaky fingers. There was a hint of impatience
in his voice when he said,
…And?
Well, she’s 4-years old now, I said. A big girl.
When last I was saw her, she climbed up on my lap,
clasped her arms round my neck and whispered,
“Don’t worry, Nana, I haven’t forgotten.”
He stared, and I stared back.
How is that possible that a baby can remember
something like that, something I said so long ago?
He just stared, sitting there in his godly peaky pose,
and shrugged.
Well….? I asked.
Truly, I’m gobsmacked. Lovely.