What can I share?
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Posted:Apr 6, 2021 6:45 am
Last Updated:Apr 15, 2021 7:34 pm
7195 Views
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What can I share? written March 29th, 2021
I talk to people who have done so much and traveled so far
I wonder what do I have to share with the world that is unique and worth sharing?
I can share the view outside my window of old trees growing wild
I can share the sound of my pen scratching across the paper
I can share the blue sky now always shining in this poem
I can share a welcoming silence that wraps itself around you healing protecting and comforting
I can share coolness in the heat of summer warmth from my flannel quilt in winter and a moment of home when you feel bereft
I can share the depth of my heart the world seen through my eyes the words that only I can write.
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We smile and nod
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Posted:Apr 6, 2021 6:25 am
Last Updated:Apr 8, 2021 7:12 am
6758 Views
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We smile and nod written March 30th, 2021
I bring you the book the one I have read every day of my life
you translate it into Aramaic then back into English and say it is very nice. _____
I cook for you the food that sustains me and offer to share it with you
you discard the food and eat the bowl you seem to enjoy it? _____
I take you out for a walk in the yard that is my life
you stare the whole time at the grave I am trying to walk away from. ______
I offer to you in my cupped hands the flame that is my love
you put the fire out and say thank goodness that crisis has been averted. ______
We sit beside each other and smile and nod trying to decide if this is enough.
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Pretty words - pretty poems
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Posted:Apr 3, 2021 6:59 am
Last Updated:Apr 6, 2021 2:31 pm
6787 Views
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Pretty words - pretty poems written April 3rd, 2021
I read looking for the pretty words - pretty poems - the bright sparkling counterpoint to the dark that so often resides in me.
The bold descriptions of every color under the sun the pretty words - pretty poems - the light I long for in me.
Some days the search leaves me frozen and mute as I try find the pretty words - pretty poems in me.
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3
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Glorious
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Posted:Mar 29, 2021 7:08 am
Last Updated:Jan 5, 2022 6:34 am
6720 Views
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Glorious written January 26th, 2021
Come here dearest shy happy one smile and light up my day for you are glorious a light in this dark world
Come here dearest waiting eager to please one sit here with me for you are glorious company in a lonely world
Come here dearest laughing embodied lusty one teach me how to love this body for you are glorious fireworks in the night sky
Come here dearest scared hurt hiding one you are safe in my arms find comfort with me for you are glorious show me the world through new eyes
Come here dearest organized empathetic care-taker one rest for a moment in other's arms for you are glorious always with a brave face in this fierce world
Come here dearest for you are glorious.
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Fishing for poems
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Posted:Mar 26, 2021 6:14 am
Last Updated:Mar 29, 2021 5:07 pm
6466 Views
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Fishing for poems written March 22nd 2021
I have a friend says he likes fish while his likes catching fish.
My friend's approach always produces satisfaction as he is happy just with fishing pole in hand,
while the other leads ecstasy or heartbreak depending on if a satisfactory fish is caught.
I hope I can cultivate a love of sitting here my pen moving across the page and when I have worn myself out let me this enough and my day a success.
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4
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No more poems
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Posted:Mar 26, 2021 6:11 am
Last Updated:Apr 2, 2021 4:16 pm
6414 Views
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No more poems written March 22nd 2021
This is it, I am quite sure today is the day are no more poems
Inspiration is gone not even a mirage of left in the desert of my mind
I will forever read other people's poems and will be no spark in me
No answering yes Yes YES! What a lovely word, idea, image that makes me want write
In the past inspiration was often my friend lighting up my days and nights but now no more mine
This is it, I am quite sure today is the day are no more poems
But ! One just darted by excuse me while I chase after this one last poem.
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5
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Trees!
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Posted:Mar 23, 2021 4:07 am
Last Updated:Aug 8, 2021 5:17 pm
6902 Views
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A man travels from Mindanao to Kyushu and says his inner geography is enlarged by each new place. Is it? Might he not grow more by staring for twenty-four hours at a single pine needle? —Arthur Sze, "Parallax", Gift of Tongues
Trees! written March 22nd, 2021
I know the answer to the question posed above is of course the single pine needle but I am tired of this pine needle day after day, year after year this same pine needle.
I am sure if my heart opened enough this pine needle would teach me the answer to the question I can't think of that would make everything ok but I want to see other trees!
I want to see trees I never imagined armies of them marching over hills and also the lone banyan tree in the desert in India.
I want to see the first tree after crossing the ocean and the last tree before the tundra.
I want to see the Tree of the Year! every one that is still alive! and mourn the ones that don't exist anymore.
I want to see the 5000 year old bristlecone pines in California and visit the seedling I planted in grade school in our backyard.
I want to see the tree of life Yggdrasill and Anne Frank's chestnut tree in Amsterdam.
I want to see every tree growing along every fence-line on every field men have ever plowed.
Only then, maybe, will I be satisfied to return to this same pine needle.
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7
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The winds blow and gust
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Posted:Mar 22, 2021 7:25 am
Last Updated:Mar 23, 2021 4:17 am
6301 Views
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the wind feels the smallest birds It's got. —Primus St. John, "Biological Light", Gift of Tongues
The winds blow and gust written March th, 2021
Today the winds blow and gust bending but not breaking the boughs of the pine sending the last of the fall leaves swirling along labyrinth paths only the wind can see. We who can take shelter in constructs we have sweated and sacrificed for built to withstand the winds that blow so proud of ourselves, while the smallest bird without a straw to it's name lets go and rides the wind letting fate take it where it will.
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4
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Excerpt from Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird about writing
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Posted:Mar 21, 2021 4:07 pm
Last Updated:Jul 6, 2021 3:03 pm
6658 Views
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From the book Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott Excerpt from the section titled: "How Do You Know When You're Done?"
There’s an image I’ve heard people in recovery use—that getting all of one’s addictions under control is a little like putting an octopus to bed. I think this perfectly describes the process of solving various problems in your final draft. You get a bunch of the octopus’s arms neatly tucked under the covers—that is, you’ve come up with a plot, resolved the conflict between the main characters, gotten the tone down pat—but arms are still flailing around. Maybe the dialogue in the first half and the second half don’t match, or there is that one character who still seems one-dimensional. But you finally get those arms under the sheets, too, and are about to turn off the lights when another long sucking arm breaks free. This will probably happen while you are sitting at your desk, kneading your face, feeling burned out and rubberized. Then, even though all the sucking disks on that one tentacle are puckering open and closed, and the slit-shaped pupils of the octopus are looking derisively at you, as if it might suck you to death just because it’s bored, and even though you know that your manuscript is not perfect and you’d hoped for so much more, but if you also know that there is simply no more steam in the pressure cooker and that it’s the very best you can do for now—well? I think this means that you are done.
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Why I love science fiction
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Posted:Mar 21, 2021 6:07 am
Last Updated:Jun 19, 2021 6:59 am
6034 Views
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I was thinking about this last night. What is it about science fiction that attracts so much? Why does the genre work so well for ?
science = real fiction = imagined futures and worlds
The first science fiction that made fall hard, was the original Battlestar Galactica tv show, with Lorne Greene, Richard Hatch, etc. I was , and it came on the same night I had orchestra practice. We did have a vcr, but it killed me have go orchestra when my favorite show was on. There was also Star Trek and Buck Rogers on at that stage in my life, but it was Battlestar Galactica that pulled in.
I think maybe, it was that I couldn't imagine my real world being any different. There just didn't seem be options. As I look back, there really weren't options, or I don't know what they would have been. I wasn't going run away, the thought of a foster family terrified .
But a future world, in another time and place, there I could imagine things being different. There could be safety, comfort, the compassionate loving father figure, the brothers and , the friends struggling together. Maybe even a first crush lol.
So in a life without many options, science fiction became a world where things could be different. Things that I couldn't imagine in my world, might be possible somewhere in the future in another universe. Lorne Greene and Richard Hatch have both passed away, but I always wanted to thank them for becoming my family through an imaginary tv show.
I don't mean to be depressing, but this was my life. If you want to make a broken human being, give them a childhood without options, or where the love and care are mixed up with and you have to take the whole package, or nothing.
Today I have options. I still struggle, but I have people in my life who love me. Science fiction is still fun and makes me thin I never know where I'll be going, what the inhabitants of the world will be like, or how they will communicate. I will always enjoy travelling other times and worlds, and will always be grateful for the comfort it offered me as a .
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I want poems
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Posted:Mar 16, 2021 5:40 am
Last Updated:Mar 20, 2021 8:09 am
6332 Views
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I want poems written March 15th, 2021
I want poems with roots that reach down underground and are best friends with the earthworms
I want poems that reach up through the sky covered in dewdrops that glisten from the light of distant stars
I want poems that are so dark you walk by them and don't realize they are there until you brush up against them
I want poems that tickle and tease leaving gales of laughter drifting on the breeze in their wake
I want poems that say fuck you when you ask what meter they should be read in. These are not that sort of poems and my poems are not for you.
I want poems that are too sad, too angry, too revealing because other's expectations stifle and are not who we really are
I want poems that touch you yes you, the one reading this right now
I want poems that are awkward and unfinished wearing mismatched socks and tripping over their own feet because it is not easy to be imperfect or even downright homely
I want poems that are the that sits at the back of class wanting to disappear into the ground but raises his hand to be called on anyway
I want poems that know the question, that find the answer that finally figure out all that is in me
I want poems that are friends and lovers and strangers whether they are 1 poem or many, but oh how I long for someone that is many poems
I want as many poems as I can fit into this life and this world we inhabit for a period of only a finite number of poems.
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5
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How oceans came to be
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Posted:Mar 15, 2021 6:47 am
Last Updated:Mar 17, 2021 3:49 pm
5766 Views
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How oceans came to be written March 15th, 2021
Tears fall from eyes wetting cheeks running in rivulets down bodies drenching the earth until it can hold no more so the waters rise becoming a salt water ocean created from tears that fell from eyes.
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6
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Writing "The waitress"
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Posted:Mar 12, 2021 7:40 am
Last Updated:Mar 15, 2021 2:24 pm
6310 Views
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I am always curious about how other people write. So here is how one poem developed for me.
I try write each day. I sit down and sometimes 's a line or a thought that I know I want write about. Sometimes I page through my unfinished poems notebook and choose one work on. Other times I read from a favorite poetry anthology until something sparks a poem.
This day we had gone for a drive pick up lunch, and I was back at home. I read some from the poetry anthology, and I loved this line by Jane Miller, from her poem "Poetry", in the anthology Gift of Tongues: "We are being made into words even as we speak." and I write this:
I return to my room cool dark and deep words having swirled around me all day tempting me to reach out to grab a few to put together into this poem that is today.
I like it, but it doesn't really say anything about my day. I love the phrase, "this poem that is today." So what happened today? How can I incorporate something more specific from my day today into the poem?
I love writing about nature. Lots of neighborhood trees in my poems. I also often write about things in my head, or about things that are central to I am. Self poems.
I try include physical descriptions in my writing, so it's not just unattached thoughts floating around like they do in my head. Rarely, I write about people. could be made into words from today?
I remember a waitress from where we got lunch. I have lots of thoughts. (We were wearing masks, but you can still tell when people are smiling.)
I return to my room cool dark and deep words having swirled around like the waitress' full skirt. I smile at her and hope her life will be one of many smiles I hope that she will bend her world to suit her instead of being bent by the traditions and proprieties I see filling the space around her those things I grasp and find words in to make this poem that is today.
I copy the poem, making slight changes, moving sections so they make more sense to me, scribbling alternate words off to the side. I enjoy writing by hand. I enjoy copying the poem. Sometimes I make changes, sometimes not. The copying is soothing to me.
I read the poem out loud and think about line breaks. I try to imagine a stranger reading it. Would they know what I was talking about? I don't want to offend anyone's religious traditions, but that is part of this specific poem. She isn't just any waitress, she's a is clearly part of a very specific tradition.
I don't know if the finished poem is "better" than that above, but it's where I end up and feel wanting share with the world. I don't think it has much do with that original quote from Jane Miller, so I will save that for another day.
The waitress started March 3rd, 2021
I smile at the waitress and she smiles back so young and unformed being everything that everyone around her expects.
Words swirl through the air like her skirt does as she turns lace covering her hair speaking of conventions and traditions that so pretty when you don't have live them.
I hope that her life will be filled with many heart-felt smiles and that she will bend her world suit her instead of being bent or broken by all I see crowding the space around her.
I return home sort through all these dense heavy thoughts find the words make this poem that is today.
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