Posted tagged ‘manicddaily’
Raising Rocks (and Reptiles)
May 19, 2013Thumbsplitter (Update)
May 18, 2013
The above, believe it of not, is supposed to be a mantis shrimp (a super-violent shrimp–for a shrimp)–confronting a very brave dog and elephant.
The mantis shrimp, known also as the thumbsplitter, is not actually a shrimp. It does, however, has both a super-aggressive personality and a little hammer claw which is supposed to hit like a low-caliber bullet.
I have not run into any mantis shrimp, but I am FINALLY beginning to work on one of my old novel manuscripts. It’s taken a lot of time for me to get down to it, and much of that time is spent worrying about blogging and poetry, I really miss the blogging community. I miss the daily engagement both with fellow bloggers and with a short doable piece or prompt. But I am also acutely aware that I can’t at the moment “have it all” = if I were to spend my free time blogging and poeticising (even a short poem), I would have little time or energy to deal with my “novels”.
So, I’m a bit miserable. I feel like I am confronting one of these nasty thumbsplitters. (Worst of all, the irritable shrimp is myself!)
But I am getting down to work at last on a few other projects. We’ll see how long it lasts!
Horri-bingers of Spring (Flash 55)
May 16, 2013
Horri-bingers of Spring
Fleck on neck–speck you expect
is just dang skin playing tricks on you–
new mole that close shows
itssier-than-spider legs.
Crawled through spring’s
awakening, dropped
from greening limbs, it wants truly
to suck your blood
but without benefit
of HBO–
Ixodes dammini–damn
Ixodes – it’s not fed
for months; finds you,
dear.
**************************************
This ditty to the deer tick (spreader of Lyme’s Disease) was written for ironic Isadore Gruye’s prompt on With Real Toads that lookd at the underside of spring, and also -early!–for the G-Man. (Fifty-five, without the title, little red-black seeds–wait, those aren’t seeds–)
Deer ticks are horrible–may they never alight on you.
I’ve edited since posting– reference to HBO is meant to refer to True Blood series – I confess to having read the books but not seen the series – so perhaps should be “without benefit of Charlaine Harris.” Sookie Stackhouse, I guess, I am not.
Slender Canopy
May 15, 2013
I am posting this photo from a mobile device and am a little worried that it won’t show in full on a non-mobile device – i.e. regular computer. The telephone pole is supposed to be in the exact center – it got there, sort of, by accident, but that is where it is supposed to be. If it doesn’t show up properly first look, it will if you click on the photo.
So far, my blog break has not been very productive in terms of writing, but I have done a lot of escapist reading! Though photos are of the country, I have been in and out of New York doing escapist reading in much of my free time, even walking on the sidewalk. It is possible (if I do not get hit by a car or other pedestrian) that this is useful as part of the problem with the novel manuscripts I am trying to rewrite is that I need to make the plots move more quickly. Escapist reading is very informative in terms of giving one samples of quickly moving plots. Escapist reading while walking on a city sidewalk is very useful in terms of learning to skip one’s self along quite quickly at times – like when crossing the street. So… so… so… perhaps it is useful. I do find it hard to work on a big project in small snatches of time–and I miss the fun and engagement of smaller pieces – but will keep trying a bit longer. (Or maybe will cheat a bit more and write some short pieces!) At any rate, thanks much for stopping by. k.
Blossoms
May 13, 2013
Unfortunately, this photo when first posted only showed up partially as the App upload was too big. I just love the line down to the green leaves and the pear blossoms in the background. The great thing about old blossoming trees is that you can have beautiful flowers without having had to plant them!
Happy Mother’s Day
May 12, 2013
Memory of Back Seat of Car (Both as Mom and Child)
Yes, the image is sentimental. But so are many happy memories.
A happy day to all who’ve held someone’s head in their lap, or had their head held. (It was an experience that could even make carsickness feel okay, and a comfort that I, at least, have carried through my whole life.)
Containing It
May 11, 2013
Containing It
The whole way down the subway steps she thinks of cutting herself.
As she mounts the train, she feels
flesh at her knuckles, the arm of an older black woman
pressed against her, her dark skin as cool and sweet and ineffably
unexpectedly soft as a cloud.
Still her mind finds out the fine lines
it imagines peeling back from her wrist or throat
like the cover
of an opening book.
Swaying with the crowd, she tries to force consciousness elsewhere.
How much she’d like some tea. Strong. Milky.
Except that maybe it’s all the tea that’s the problem; some chemical reaction–
Still she wants it.
Depression is the anger turned inward.
Just tell yourself you’re mad at him.
Just say that you do too blame him.
She wants the tea so much she can almost taste it,
only the tea leaves in her mind brew a briny
greyed puddle. She pictures the puddle in the country,
beneath a willow, behind a hedge, in the shadow of a stone wall.
It is a place that never gets much sun, a small triangle at quarter to noon.
The wall is made of hundreds of stones
joined simply by corresponding shape,
the weight of each other’s gravity,
a long time together.
Too bright outside. She steps around a man made of angles, his elbows knobs,
orange plastic cup for change, grey stubble, and next to him,
a smooth coffee-colored guy pushing a wire cart around the
sidewalk’s gutted pools. “Gillette,” he shouts. “Schick, Remington—”
She keeps her eyes down, keeps
walking, but she hears in the hawked
brand names the reflection of the men, the silvered packages,
the stacked blades.
Maybe if she just buys some.
Not to use.
To stare down at
in the dark rumple of paper bag.
It will be a dry brown bag, its lip folded and re-folded
until, finally, it assumes the softness
of flesh.
She imagines herself looking inside the bag repeatedly, hiding it,
unhiding it, curling it vaguely closed, uncurling
it into a weighted vacuity.
But maybe it will help.
To just buy some.
To look at only,
to look at in a soft brown bag.
*************************
This is not autobiographical! It is the revision of an older piece, which I am posting for dVerse Poet Pubs Poetics prompt on temptation, hosted by Mary Kling. I’ve been taking a bit of a blogging break to work on larger projects–though mainly I find myself catching up on a great deal of practical things. I am getting ready to really work on the big projects soon! (Ha.)
To A Young Porcupine – WARNING – Sad/Graphic Photo
May 10, 2013
To A Young Porcupine, Killed
We might have gone to the same palm reader
if we believed in palm readers,
but porcupines don’t, as a matter of instinct,
and me – my lifeline fades half-way
across my hand.
And if the psychic had squinted
into your palm’s inked crease,
would she have warned you away
from dogs?
And what would she have said
to your mother, who, I suspect, quivers close-by–
That you can do everything right, even heroically,
and yet not save each day.
The dog, its eyes still able
to show hurt, is hurried to the vet.
but I come back to you,
turning with a stick your torn form,
hiding what’s been made meat.
Sometimes our natures
fail us -like the dog who swoops
into a muzzle of needles.
Sometimes, it’s simply chance
that lets us down – like you, sniffed out
by a lonely stream–
Then there are times like this, those
like me, who try to see ourselves as immune,
deciding that thumbs,
sticks, cameras (maybe even
guns) will protect us from
random fates; will save our young too
from the clutch of the
unreadable.
Your fingers stretch out,
in the position I’ve managed,
your palm gently cupped
and so like mine that we might have gone
to the same palm reader, had we believed
our lives were held
in the lines of our hands.
**********************************
I’ve missed you all terribly! But I have been very busy with my job, and adjusting to new life of back and forth – city and country -and some other pretty serious life issues. And I have at least been looking at one of the novels (I am tempted to say, stupid novels), I am trying to rewrite.
The experience described above has been very much on my mind too though — a porcupine killed by the dog of a friend and neighbor (not my old blind Pearl) and I have been trying and trying to write something about it. I still don’t think I’ve gotten down what I wanted to say, and I’m sorry to those of you that find the picture disturbing. It is disturbing. Very sad on all counts.
55 Words–ahem–Weeds for the G-man.
May 10, 2013
Somewhere Under The Rainbow?
May 5, 2013
ManicDDaily 
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