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Give Us Our Daily

December 19, 2014

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Give Us Our Daily–

Sure, I’d like to earn bread, writing–
but what I write for
is to b-read.

(Well, what I really write for
is to write more.)

But better read
than dead
which is what I would be
not writing.

(Being read is
the better bread
no ifs, ands or butter
about it.)

And so I knead and noodle,
breed words,
shape lines,
give rise to what is sometimes
admittedly half-baked
(always my wry
gets carried away),

feed too
on the b-read
of others, my dear
companions.

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Here’s a very belated and rather silly poem for Grace’s prompt on dVerse Poets Pub about bread.  Process note-I think the word “companion” comes from the Latin, meaning someone with whom you break bread.  Thank you for being mine!

Ps slightly edited since first posting.

Categories: elephants, poetry
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Comments: 10 Comments

For Mr. Know-it-all, The Host With the Most

December 11, 2014

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For Mr. Know-It-All

You beamed a hospitality
that didn’t require proffered tea-
it said, you’re you and I am me
and here’s a place where “we” can be.

Your spot might not suit to a T,
but we fit just fine if some of me–
(with you)–was whittled carefully–
(fifty words worth–no, wait, let’s see—

Cause humans tend to err, alive,
why not add another five--)

Oh, gee, man, how I’ll miss your jive.

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Here’s a poem for Galen Haynes, the wonderful G-Man, the host with the most, who came up with the form of Flash 55, posted here for Mama Zen’s prompt on With Real Toads to write something less than 75 words with a homophone.

The Friday Flash 55 prompt was so much fun–Galen’s own post witty and wonderfully irreverent, and his persona a joy.  His comments were invariably kind, thoughtful and affirming.  Godspeed, Galen, as Mama Zen wrote in her own beautiful post, and send his family sincere condolences.

PS — Galen was so kind and funny.  He could always tell if a poster was a bit depressed or under the weather.  The above pic is from a post I did when I just couldn’t squeeze out a 55.  The rest of the pictures can be found here.)

Categories: 55, elephants, poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 21 Comments

(“Not Sure What I Feel About This… Really”)

November 29, 2014

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Here’s a draft something for Corey’s (Herotomost’s) prompt on With Real Toads, to write something about an experience about which we are uncertain how we feel.  This is a bit longer than I intended–I got carried away with the pictures– They are also done in pencil on paper which makes them hard to edit!  But enough excuses–  Note that the whole picture may not show up on some browsers–if that’s the case click on it.  (Or let me know, as maybe I should reduce them.)  k.

 

 

Categories: Blogging, drawings, elephants, poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 17 Comments

Chemical Make-up

October 26, 2014

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Chemical Make-up

Let the kids curl
around Heny Swarzfigger, who could pull
a nickel from his ear,
rolling the r’s in his
cadabras.

He knew that magic words
ended in -ide or -ate,
even -ic (hydrochloric), – ium (potassium),
and, okay, sometimes -ur–(only sulfur
he laughed with that squashed grin
that masked the jokes no one else
ever got, was more of a
curse–)
(peuw)

and that the shine on his brown basement
bottles, his beakers (mason jars)
and the true test tubes–three had come
with his first set and only one
had exploded–was brighter than even a coin
made out of gold (Au), though nickel (Ni)
was pretty neat stuff–good
for alloys and sea green–and he pushed up
the wire bridge of his glasses, and, for a moment,
the small round lenses were portholes
through which he could see waves
of mounded nickel compound, crystalline
aquamarine, though actually
more granulated–

and he’d been a sh–sh–shy boy
even before the TB took him so long away,
blanketing him, the only child, in a far cold place,
its windows flung open
even to snow–
it was the froth he liked especially,
that free-form fizz that sometimes whizzed
beyond prediction, a lava let loose,
that could, he knew, if he made a single
mistake, burn more
than his remaining
eyebrows, that might even
curl up the planked stairwell,
engulf the still upstairs, dissolving everything
in its place up there, the irrefutable proof
that all came down to atoms
colliding with
his mother’s firm tidiness, till the bubbling roar
pushed its way outdoors–

Oh, then, the kids would have something to see, he thought,
now squinting in the halo of bunsen burner,
the blue glow of incipient reaction.

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Another draftish too-long sort of poem. This one is for Herotomost’s lovely prompt on “mah thing” when young, posted on With Real Toads.  In this case, I chose to write about my dad’s thing, chemistry  My dad was a very shy child, intensely devoted to his lab.  This may have come from being an only child, who had tuberculosis at age 7, which required him to spend two years away from home in a sanatorium.  The drawing as is the case with most on this blog is mine.  All rights reserved. 

Categories: elephants, poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 12 Comments

Angkor What?

September 19, 2014

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Angkor What?

If I could be what I am not,
I’d be someone who’d visited Angkor Wat
who, sitting ‘neath the towers Khmer,
found some bliss beyond repair.

But I am not what I am not
and have never been to Angkor Wat,
and bliss is something I’ve been known
to fix until it starts to groan.

So I must face myself as is–
that is myself with a face like this,
that grins, scowls, frowns (most unlike Buddha)
and is always stuck in would’a, should’a.

But this I tell you–I tell you what–
if we never get to Angkor Wat,
some kind of bliss we still have got
though, sure, it sometimes may get mired
in suffering, you know, and desire–
(thank God)–

Whenever you sit just right there
though you are not a tower Khmer
my Dharma still becomes quite clear
to be to be to be right here.

As Bodhisattva, I may be jumpy
and this Nirvana may be lumpy
but I will take it any time
as long as, anchor, you, are mine.

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Here’s a sort of nonsense poem for Tony Maud’s terrific prompt on dVerse Poets Pub.  Angkor Wat (pronounced like the English word “what” ) is an ancient Buddhist temple complex in Cambodia, one of the wonders of the world.  And I’ve never been there!  (Though long wanted to go, always finding the Khmer buddhas particularly beautiful.)

Also, the above was supposed to be a free stock image of Angkor Wat–I’m not sure how the little elephant got in there though. 

PS_-this has been edited since first posting.

Categories: elephants, poetry
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Comments: 21 Comments

Pared Down

August 24, 2014

Pared Down

So, what if, in those days
when Despair walked her like a dog,
heeling her sternly,
one of those cabs she dashed in front of,
not exactly on purpose, but not looking both ways
when faced with any chance to dart away–
to bypass the silver flash of plate glass, to out-dive the splash of yellow
under white-skied sun, to feel, for a moment, lucky–
what if one of them had, in fact, crashed
and Despair smashed
into the tar, and even though lashed
to her same stretcher,
had ended up as hospital offal,
ashen–

Would she then, after the long recovery,
the fitting of fiberglass or steel, the pairing
of the prosthesis–
would she then, nights,
after its pegged bulk had been unbuckled, bedside,
long for you–
I’m talking to you directly now, Despair–
Would she feel, in the flat vacancy below the sheet, down comforter,
your abscessing absence–
Would she, wakeful
in the ache cast by your phantom, prop herself up,
and not quite able on crutches to feel her way, still search
by window’s glow, some bottle of balm or pill–
something that might kill pain
from afar, a heat-seeking missile
encapsulated–

And what if, by some strange happenstance, you, Despair–
that limb that is so much a part
of her given form–were restored–
the despaired-of calf reattached, the rank ankle knobs
re-positioned–
Would she now dog you? Trot gamely by
your re-joined gait even as you heeled her sternly,
after, that is, you held her close–

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Here’s a sort of poem for the “play it again, Sam” prompt on With Real Toads, hosted by Margaret Bednar.  Margaret gives a choice of certain past prompts–the one I chose was by Kerry O’ Connor to write a labyrinthine/mazelike poem (hopefully influence by Borges.)   The picture is another recycled one, I’m afraid–called “between a rock and a hard place. ”  (All rights reserved, as always.) 

Categories: elephants, poetry
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Comments: 28 Comments

To Do

August 23, 2014

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To Do

I make such a todo
of the to-do
that I don’t make time
to be.

To be or not to be, ponders Hamlet.
Don’t be a do-bee, responds me (after Miss Connie).
Dooby dooby doo, croons Frank Sinatra.

Frankly, my dear,
though I don’t always like his style,
Sinatra probably said it best;
for Hamlet doesn’t even make it
through the play,
and Miss Connie (of Romper Room)
never actually said it
my way
(ahem).

For there’s naught quite like
a dooby-do
when you just don’t know the words–
(so much so absurd)–
when you strive to do
what you want to be
and not to be
what you do,
when your face surprises
in mirror’s light,
when your shadow seems
yet stranger in the night–
when the world swims by
in grey-green glances
stillness swarming
insect dances–
so many many hums,
and you’ve got
to sing something–

 

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A draftish sort of poem for a prompt by Fireblossom (Shay) on With Real Toads to write something involving lists.  I mean dooby here solely as the dooby that goes with doo!  I wrote the poem last night and have probably over-lengthened today–originally ending with good old strangers in the night, but that seemed a bit grim. 

Have a nice weekend, and check all the great posts at Toads. 

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PS – both drawings are recycled, but old favorites–all rights reserved.

 

 

 

Pps– I have edited since first posting .

Categories: elephants, poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 17 Comments

Screen-Free

August 21, 2014

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Screen-free

This is the First Day of the Rest of My Life.
Determined not to live it in the blue light
of a computer screen,
I grab my notebook and
what turns out to be
a leaky pen.

This is the First Day of the Rest of My Life,
but already my fingers are blotted bluer
than the dawnish morn (this being the First Day
of the Rest of My Life, I’ve gotten up early)
and I’ve smudged the down comforter
with indigo.

I tell myself that anyone who will live like I will
in this, the Rest of My Life,
will, of course, have bedclothes stained
with ink and, probably also, tea,
but that feels depressingly like
the rest of my life, that is, the spotty part that came before.

I try to block out the smudge
with my notebook–for even at the Dawn
of this energetic, disciplined, real-world Rest of My Life, I do not have the vim
to get up and wash my hands, much less
the comforter–

Rub my fingers along the white pages,
but their blue-lined grid is stolidly oblivious,
the ink already too embedded in my skin
to rub off.

A lone cow lows
out the window,
somewhere down the valley,
but beneath the same pale sky.

 

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Here’s a sort of poem posted for two prompts–though I don’t know that it’s quite right for either.  One is from Victoria C. Slotto on dVerse Poets to write about patterns in our life; the other is Susie Clevenger’s post on With Real Toads, to use a Native American springboard–in this case, the line–“Listen, or your tongue will make you deaf.” – Tribe Unknown.  I don’t know how this came from that, but I think it arose from the idea that the big change would be just to look out the window in the morning with neither pen nor keyboard.  

The drawing above is an old one, and because in black and white, I did not include the blue smudges!  

Categories: dog, elephants, poetry, Uncategorized
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Rosa Multiflora Gore

May 31, 2014

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Rosa Multiflora Gore

Sometimes, I feel a curmudgeon
bludgeoning bush, butchering
blood-red boughs,
snipping grounded throats, clippers straining
at my hip–
but this green deserves
demonizing,
an invader–

So, despite sure wounds,
I wage the losing war, wade in,
lending my mettle
to soft-speared grass, show-spiked
dandelion,
Queen Anne’s Lace, my liege.

 

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Rosa Multiflora, also called rambling rose, is an invasive species that has moved into my area of the Catskills.  The flowers are actually incredibly pretty and fragrant too, but it would, if it could, crowd out all the native plants, and make fields one big thorn bush (a  Sleeping Beauty mid-nap kind of landscape.)  Every once in a while, I undergo battle against it.  (The thorns are everywhere and sharp.)

The poem with title (and even hyphenated words, counting as two–HA!) is exactly 55 words–it was written for Hedgewitch’s Flash 55 prompt on With Real Toads.  (As pretty much always, all rights reserved on text and drawing. )

Categories: elephants, poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 36 Comments

Milestones? Mushki?

May 24, 2014

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Today feels a milestone of sorts.  (If milestones are things one trips over rather than markers that stay decently to the side of the road.)

This is my post number 1801 on this blog.  (One thousand eight hundred and first.)

That is rather hard for me to believe.  (And, I’m afraid to say, the number makes me feel old rather than accomplished.)

Secondly, although I haven’t fully approved proofs of my upcoming novel, “Nice,” I’ve sent out the last versions, which if I’ve expressed my corrections properly, will be approvable.

So, now, ever trying to avoid all the things I really should be focusing on in my life–i.e. family responsibilities, job, house–I am thinking about my next writing project.  (Okay, okay–I do focus on family responsibilities!  Yes, I know, not as much as I should–  I’m trying, Mom–)

My plan is to work next on revising an old manuscript of a children’s novel.   I think the level is sometimes called “middle-grade”.

I am embarrassed to say that this particular novel was first written by me eleven or twelve years ago.  I then spent the next several years trying to make it more saleable–i.e. commercial–

Then, liking the book less and less (even though I also wrote a sequel), I just gave it up for some time–

But now, I want to resurrect the manuscript, revise it one last final full time, and publish it myself, because it is a sweet novel, about, essentially, a girl and her dog–

Here’s the big barrier–trying to figure out which of about twenty versions/drafts to use as the basis for the final version.  The earlier ones are more wordy, but possibly sweeter–those drafts are more like the old-fashioned children’s book (something written to be read aloud to children.)  (The book in that incarnation was called “Sally and Seemore and the Meaning of Mushki”.)

The later drafts are more spare and possibly seem more like books written by a professional children’s book writer.   The later ones may be more child-friendly in that they have fewer words and possibly more momentum.  (The later title was “Dogspell”.)

For years, I thought I was right to move in the direction of the later drafts–

And yet–

And yet–

And yet–

I was never happy with them; I felt I had whittled out something–a slower and more contemplative way of looking at the world–that I just kind of liked–

But I really do want to finish with this now.  And maybe the earlier ones are too wordy?   And should one ever go backward instead of forward?

So…..?

Categories: dog, elephants, Uncategorized, writing
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Comments: 8 Comments

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