On the Second Day

Posted January 3, 2014 by ManicDdaily
Categories: country life, poetry, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , ,

20140103-184157.jpg

20140103-185559.jpg

On the second day

of the two-thousand-fourteenth year, the world turned,
two cities in Iraq, two boys in Elmhurst, burned:
others saved from ice–nice–though that same ice
was melting all too fast.

Tomorrow rises
too often an occasion for more ash.
Still, we prise the phoenix:
still, we prize the phoenix;
still, we believe
in phoenixes.

******************************
Here are 55 grim words (excluding the cheating title, which is truly part of the poem) for the G-Man.  (Galen–I know apologies are unnecessary, but I feel bound to say that I HAVE written cheerful poems of late, but none have been in 55 words.)

I refer in the poem to certain events in the news yesterday–bombings in Iraq and a terrible fire in Queens, as well as the saving of the scientists/tourists in Antarctica.

The first picture is self-explanatory–the second a lace of ice on a window.  It is now about minus 6 on our thermometer,  during the day, the temp got up to a high of about 1 or 2.  Beautiful but a little scary to walk around in–if you worry about things like the ongoing integrity of your cheeks or nose or even throat.  (I had not before realized how cold air can burn going down.)   I feel very lucky to be able to have the mini-adventure of going out into this cold, and the great blessing of a warm place to come back to. 

Comments: 16 Comments

Resolutions (Found Behind Old Ear)

Posted January 1, 2014 by ManicDdaily
Categories: elephants, poetry
Tags: , , , , ,

IMG_3364

Resolution (Found Behind Old Ear)

Past years, I resolved to be oh so much better,
to learn what I’d stored up in what seemed less wetter
spots behind each of my ears–oh my dears–
experience, surely, would keep me from wrong,
(the way that it hadn’t the prior year long.)

But the truth is life’s short, and craves what it will.
Oh it wants, yes, it wants, really wants, its full fill.
This year I won’t bother to aim towards my lessening
but instead I here vow to seek out more blessening.

“No red wine”–that line has cast less than a ripple
on the pond of my life, the barest of stipple,
So. for now, I’m just going to plan on some tippling–
And since the word rhymes, let’s not forget nippling–

By that, I mean fitting your fingers ‘round mine–
and your lips and your heart and your patience divine–
(for flesh is just great, oh flesh is just fine–
yours so much warmer than even red wine–)

But when, through the years, you’ve dried ear-behinds–
you find that it’s also plain sweetness that binds–
sweetness of words, “I love you’s” at night
when one of you gets up and without any light
crashes a door on the way to the loo,
cursing the shoe, oh the shoe, the damn shoe,
but kissing its owner when slipping to bed,
kissing me even while rubbing your head–

Sweetness of words and sweetness of skies
(the ones that our skins stretch over our sighs)
but also the great one that holds us intact
beneath its bright blues and its sterling black,
that arcs high above us though we will look down
as we  try each to keep one shod foot above ground.

*************************************

Here’s a kind of silly poem for the prompt by the wonderful Kerry O’Connor on With Real Toads about resolutions.  (Sorry for the old drawing, if you’ve seen before.)  

Comments: 45 Comments

Resolutions For Old/New Year

Posted December 31, 2013 by ManicDdaily
Categories: Uncategorized, writing
Tags: , , , ,

20131231-213406.jpg

I had a sense that my new year’s resolutions were doomed when I looked down at the page on which I was starting to write them and saw I’d titled it “List for 2013.”

There’s a part of me that viewed that as one more sign of my decay, but then a good old defensive part kicked in.  Ah, I told myself–maybe a mini-review of what held me back in 2013 would be  a far more useful exercise than taking random stabs at that great but as yet unwedged pie in the sky of the upcoming year.

So what would I change in my personal 2013, if I had it to do over?

It came down surprising quickly to two words–”resistance” (as in having less)  and “quiet” (as in being more.)

Resistance is a shorthand for the concerns of the Serenity Prayer–you know, the one about having the courage to change what one can, the strength to accept what one can’t, and the wisdom to know the difference.

By resistance, I basically mean all those acts of non-acceptance and also all those non-acts of change that took up so much of my last year.  These are activities like moping, kvetching, carping, procrastinating–these may lead some people (eventually) to a burst of either reformation or resignation, but they are more likely, in my case, to lead to (i) a waste of time and energy that might otherwise be spent purposefully;  or (ii) a bungling of the contentment that might otherwise be attained.

Half the time I find myself complaining about circumstances to which I am actually fully committed, but which are–surprise surprise–just like me–imperfect.  (By “circumstances,” I also mean people.)

But my resistance typically only accentuates the imperfect–for example, I make my free time shorter by a henpecking focus on its shortness; I make the rocky parts of relationships rockier by grinding at them in a way that only sharpens them; I make all those chores and tasks and duties we all face more burdensome by stretching them out through procrastination (i.e. websurfing.)

So enough already.  Here’s the resolution–to stop adding to the inherent entropy of life–to let go, in other words, of some of the friction.

And the ‘being more quiet’ part–that speaks for itself.

Happy New Year to all of you!  I really do not know where this blog will go in 2014, but I am so grateful to you for your kindness and support for the last few years.

Comments: 19 Comments

Bamboo

Posted December 29, 2013 by ManicDdaily
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , ,

images

Bamboo

Sometime in the second half of the twentieth century,
a little before the U.S. involvement
in Vietnam, at an age when I still ran away
from suspense
to a sofa just out of sight of the TV
to bounce till I
could bear it,
bamboo meant World War II,
someplace steamed
in the South Pacific,
Alec Guinness limping upright
from a blistered three-foot
box, surrounded by sunspots
and jointed jungle.

How strong, by comparison, were the timbers used
by his troops to span the River Kwai–
even the Allied whistle carrying
no reedy wheedle–

How we thrilled at the buttoned brittleness
of the Brit, awed by the nobility of that
conspicuous backbone, all those eon-
forged vowels–my brother wired
to the one comfy chair, me caught
upon the carpet (unable even
to flee to far sofa safety), as we stared
through the flicker of that
yellow-green wood, a genus grown only
in the land of Holly–

Of course, poor Alec was nearly bamboozled–it was our
compatriot, the surly Yank,
William Holden, engulfed in brown wade
and incipient love handles, who knew the true score–
that war was not about building bridges
or character, but about detonators, destruction, lots
of bang, boom, shrapnel.

“Madness,” says the doctor character through
the smoke, but “greatness,”
is what we thought.

************************************

Here’s a  draft poem  for Hannah Gosselin’s prompt on With Real Toads about bamboo.  Sorry for the length.  I call it a draft because the poem has gone through a million iterations and I still am not getting what I want!  I’m also afraid it may be incomprehensible to anyone who has not seen The Bridge On the River Kwai, a movie made in 1957, directed by David Lean, and starring Alec Guiness, William Holden, Jack Hawkins and Sessue Hayakawa.

The movie takes place in a WWII prison camp in Burma in which the Japanese overguards force the Allied soldiers to build a bridge for a supply route.  Guinness plays a British Colonel focused on maintaining standards (and morale).   The pic is a frame from the move, all copyrights belong to the owner (and no infringement intended.)

Comments: 11 Comments

Strange Victory

Posted December 27, 2013 by ManicDdaily
Categories: poetry
Tags: , , , ,

20131227-184437.jpg

Strange Victory  (For Veterans, Of Whom I Do Not Think Enough)

If even a spill
from a thermos
leaves a scar,
a half-”v” upon my knee–
then how can we, no matter how
insulated, not see
the lines on those
whose lives
have been hit hard
in the head, burned at more
than edges, who, giving all and
asking precious
little, we thank
with precious less.

***************************************************

Another grim poem of sorts in 55 words for the G-Man.  (Sorry, Galen.)  This one inspired by listening to my husband talk about a very interesting, if very sad, book called Thanks For Your Service by David Finkel.  Finkel writes of the difficulties faced by veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.  In this holiday time, please keep in mind that the U.S. still has troops in Afghanistan–it is not the troops’ fault if no one is sure what they are doing there.

Comments: 14 Comments

Benefit Of The Divided Self

Posted December 26, 2013 by ManicDdaily
Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , ,

20131226-230717.jpg

Benefit of the Divided Self

In those moments when the mind’s
as barren as the moon,
as obscure
as its dark side,
as dry as
stranded dust

that shows
no foothold/print, no place
where one has stood
arms arced across stretched space
reaching for a scoop
of star spangle–

You see those arms–yours–
as if they belonged to someone else–
and wonder if their reach can ever
carry you–

and how does that work
exactly? The saving of
one’s self–

Is the difficulty
why there are always two of you
inside?  The one who watches
and the one who does–witness
and perpetrator–

And if there was a car
pinning one of you down–
crashed there in the frontal cortex–could the other,
like a mother,
lift it off?

You see her/your biceps veined
as they strain against the
steel fender–
you feel them shake
with the effort, while you/she waits
in some pain–

********************************

A draftish sort of poem–not sure it goes with the picture, but I like the picture (all rights reserved.)  Note that I often post pictures directly from my iPhone these days–it allows me to post with a ton of pixels–all those pixels show up when I check on the phone, at least, but I am not sure that the whole picture comes out on some browsers.  So if any of my photos look seriously out of kilter, try clicking on it and the whole picture should come up. 

Comments: 16 Comments

More Dog, Elephant, Christmas

Posted December 25, 2013 by ManicDdaily
Categories: Christmas, dog, elephants, Uncategorized
Tags: , , ,

20131225-215532.jpg

**********************
Yes, I know. Can’t I move on to something else? But I am in a drawing mood and the elephant and dog just seem to be at my fingertips. Hope all have had a great Christmas or if you do not celebrate it, a great break!

Comments: 5 Comments

Little Dog, On Mishearing a Holiday Greeting,

Posted December 25, 2013 by ManicDdaily
Categories: Christmas, dog, iPhone art, Uncategorized
Tags: , , ,

20131225-190929.jpg

Little Dog, On Mishearing a Holiday Greeting,

cheddars with delight.
‘Merry Swiss-mas!’ That’s what I
call good cheese…errr…. cheer!

***************************

A ho-ho-ho-ku for Mama Zen on With Real Toads.

Comments: 17 Comments

Christmas Eve Tree Decorating = Better Late than Never!

Posted December 24, 2013 by ManicDdaily
Categories: Christmas, dog, elephants, Uncategorized
Tags: , ,

20131224-232127.jpg

Comments: 8 Comments

A Little Wrung Out Before Christmas!

Posted December 23, 2013 by ManicDdaily
Categories: poetry
Tags: , , , , ,
I Have Seeds On My Feet

I Have Seeds On My Feet

Not Quite Ready For Christmas (Maybe)

I sit here December 23rd
in the mind of a dishrag,
not of the holiday sort
with pines and stars
in my threads–rather, one of the loosely cross-hatched,
the sort-of plaids, that sad batch
of the soggy sagged
with distended stripes and nothing
of the crystalline (not even to wipe)
about me.

Dish rags have their uses,
I tell myself–they too stand…slump
before the Lord–

I’m not sure what Lord–one, I suppose,
who passes out loaves and fishes
on plates–

But then, as a wind gust bangs
a window, I see this Lord
as a babe, cheeks round with pablum laughter, High tray
in need of a wash–
and I begin to smile, finding even
a spoon somewhere,
you lying next to me through
the whole of
these long nights–

************************************

A sort of poem for the solstice and for those (like myself) not yet on holiday.  (Moan!)  (And I know the cookie doesn’t quite fit!  It’s an old cookie!) (Moan!) 

Have a wonderful holiday yourselves!  And thanks so much for your kind support throughout this past year and this whole blog. This is amazingly my 1700th post.  I am linking it to With Real Toads open link night.  

 

Comments: 21 Comments

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »