Sorry, photo got cut off. It’s always a bit complicated taking pictures on the subway, especially of small elephants.
Have a good day!
Archive for the ‘elephants’ category
Tired on Monday Commute (With Elephant)
November 14, 2011Over Herd on the Hudson Line
November 2, 2011
Amazing sights outside the train window. Sorry for the blurs–train moving, me half asleep.
Asleep on One’s Feet (With elephants)
October 2, 2011
Tired today….
Pop Art – Serious Poem
October 1, 2011
Andy with Elephant
I am posting this in response to a dVerse Poets prompt to write something about Pop Art. My illustration above has (ovbiously) quite a bit to do with Pop art, but nothing with the poem below. (I couldn’t resist it.)
The poem has less to do with Pop Art, I suppose. My excuse is that the prompt talked of writing about a cultural phenomenon. I don’t know if this qualifies, so my second excuse is that I think of Pop Art, some times, as complex juxtapositions flattened out upon a page. Here goes:
Train of Thought
I am thinking, as I sit upon the train,
that the person who invented rubberized eggs,
that is, those eggs that are scrambled, squared,
and then somehow boinged, for easy sale,
should be shot, or at least, forced to eat them, when
a woman with a rubbed-out face
steps onto my car. She’s been burned badly,
her face segmented into angular wedges of scar that
web from one ear to the opposite cheekbone.
Hard to read the history
in the hieroglyphics.
An explosion on a stove?
Acid thrown in warning? Retribution?
Her skin is tan, hair dark, but any particulars
of ethnicity scratched out. I go
for the acid, knowing that whether or not she is a woman
purposely victimized, there are such women.
She stands, her face turned
so that I can see only an edge of eye (though her eyes
are almost all edge).
I want to give her my seat, but the gesture feels
intrusive, a stare made physical, so I do nothing but wonder
about a world in which eggs are turned
into seamless elasticized squares, women’s faces into
a stitching of stiff triangles, and how our minds can hold such things at once–
the trivial, the tragic, this train.
(All rights reserved.)
Mea Culpa. Blown Sestina. (Feels Bad But Could Be Worse.) (No Casualties)
September 28, 2011
In the early years of this millenium, I used to console myself when I made a mistake with the thought that I hadn’t invaded Iraq. (The idea being that if even supposedly “expert” teams of ex-think-tank leaders can make extremely problematic and terribly consequential decisions, I should cut my self-acknowledged dim wits some slack.)
It feels flippant to use such a consolation in the case of a poetic mistake, that is, the omission of a line in a poetic form. I could perhaps look for solace in less bloody, and perhaps more current, comparisons, such as “Hey! I didn’t invest in credit default swaps.” Or, how about, “I didn’t push Greek debt.”)
A plain old admission of “I blew it” makes a lot more sense.
So here it is–I blew it. My “sestina” posted yesterday is missing a line in the third stanza. This stanza only has five lines rather than the requisite six; the missing repeated word is “air.”
My only excuse is I wrote the poem in such extended scribbles (actually on a big index card while walking) that I scribbled over my little reminders related to the ordering of the end words. (I had posted them in pencil in the margin of my index cards.)
Of course, the poem is salvageable (if such a thing even matters). I can re-work the third stanza. I am also pretty sure that the additional line will make the poem better. My sense is that traditional forms became traditional because they have a certain ring–a kind of innate rightness, charisma.
So far, unfortunately, I haven’t had the time or the strength of mind to make the changes. (Embarrassment takes a certain hold, as in, that elephant up there is blushing.)
My apologies to all who complimented me on the good use of the form!
Apple Picking! (With Elephant)
September 25, 2011
11 P.M. 9/11/11
September 11, 2011
11:00 P.M. September 11, 2011.
It feels, somehow, like the start of a new decade.
Who knows what tomorrow may bring?
The only thing we can be sure of is that it won’t be yesterday.
Well, actually, there’s another thing that I personally can be pretty sure of–that I will probably complain about whatever tomorrow does bring, at least a little bit.
But from my perspective–right here, right now, breathing in, breathing out, typing and not-typing, and (okay, okay) with my nose slightly stuffed, stomach slightly cramped (those are some of the current complaints–oh yes, and an occasional pulsation in the ears and I’m also kind of broke), it’s amazing, wonderful.
Back to the City And Gym, i.e. Elliptical Machine
September 6, 2011
Back in the City and my good old multitasking ways, i.e. writing this blog while on the elliptical machine.
There are some great benefits to writing at the gym:
1. Your expectations of both your physical and cognitive performance are automatically lowered the minute you pull out your pen–not only do you not have tea and a madeleine but you are actively pumping your legs. Also, who can be Usain Bolt while writing longhand?
2. No distractions – fellow gym rats tend not to talk to someone scribbling in a composition book.
3. Low cost entertainment – a notebook and pen are substantially cheaper than an iPod.
4. A really great idea (which has not yet come to me) is a perfect reason to cut short your work-out.
5. The need to exercise your upper body is a perfect reason to cut short your blog.
6. The sound of that energizer bunny guy on the Stairmaster (which, when trying to write, bores into your eardrums) makes you feel completely unmanic.
7. The sight of that other guy staring blankly into the air in between nautilus reps (you can’t help staring at him as you try to come up with something to say) makes you feel amazingly prolific.
8. Work those thighs.
9. And fingers.
10. Too late for the abs though; i.e. lost cause.
More Yankee Grit And More Tea
August 25, 2011
My favorite baseball team, the New York Yankees, once again gave a lesson in perseverance today, coming from a score of 1-7 (behind) in the 4th inning against Oakland to a final victory of 22-9, with a record breaking 3 grand slams. This, on a day in which the game was delayed for approximately 90 minutes because of rain.
I ponder this example of “sticktuitiveness” over my sixth or seventh cup of strong tea, hoping to get something done this damp evening, or to, at least, go to the gym. Caffeine is useful, but doesn’t quite seem to substitute for a good eye, apt swing, strong follow-through, stamina….
Blocked by Writer’s Block? Indecision Block?
August 21, 2011
I am facing a real dilemma as a would-be writer these days. I am almost (truly this time) finished with a comic teen mystery novel called NOSE DIVE. It is a silly but fun book whose final proofs should be sent to me shortly. (Hurrah.)
So, now what? I started working last weekend on a novel that I had written bits and pieces of for last year’s Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month.) Approximately 50,000 bits and pieces. Though I ended up last November with a framework that seemed interesting, it was as fragile of the mere vision of a house of cards, meaning that it will require a lot of work from scratch.
In the meantime, I have three or four (maybe even five or six!) pretty close-to-finished old manuscripts. These are each novels, mainly for children or young people, that I thought at one point were done, but then began re-writing repeatedly, and finally, out of frustration with my own questionable decisions during revision, abandoned.
So now here I am, mainly just spinning wheels (the little ones in the cranium). Last weekend, the Nanowrimo novel seemed the most exciting if difficult choice. At my increasingly gloomy age, taking on a new and more serious book felt almost like being faced with a diving board–one of those things that if not attempted now, would be out of reach for the rest of my life.
But intervening weekdays filled with job, housework, and obsessive escapist reading, not to mention a large variety of internet distractions, and a very depressing world newscape–all seemed to snip last weekend’s thread.
Plus there are the ghosts of all those old, once-loved, novels. (My brain feels like it’s on a diving board with them too–that if I don’t address them now, I never will.)
The terrible thing is that the last time my body actually was on a diving board and I did make myself do a spring dive, it was actually sort of problematic. I mean, sure, there was the rush of fear and bravado during the prefatory springy steps, the jump, the upheaval of legs and torso, feet and head, the exhilarating plunge into the surprisingly cold hard water, but then I went so deep so fast, my ears beginning to hurt quite a bit, my stomach too, that I really wondered if it was such a great experience after all.
So, maybe, what I need to do first is look for another metaphor.
ManicDDaily 
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