What Do The Dead Want

My friend "nowhere" at Whiskey River published a Billy Collins poem. *click here* It got me to musing in my own way. Here's what came out of that.

What Do The Dead Want

I want to write death
a note and suggest changes
he might institute.
It might be better
if he would let us know bits
for sure instead of
relying on faith
of some kind to draw us in.

It's gotten so bad
that Billy Collins
even wrote an amusement,
even him if you
can believe it, love.

He said the best of us all
desire to return
again and again
to see the ways snowflakes fall
on the winter limb.

February 23, 2013 6:52 PM

Bilbo and Frodo Have Sailed

Bilbo and Frodo Have Sailed

A thing may be true
or not, I suppose, monstrous
or plain Jane Smithers.
I don't know what all
to say about it.

No quest
can get me to you
these days, not after
your departure to the Elf
Lands far to the west.
I admit envy
in this line of thought - shivers
wrack my peace of mind.
I stand on the beach
in this evening's late breeze,
watch as Venus sinks.

February 22, 2013 4:53 PM

Question:
Why did Frodo go with the Ringbearers at the end of The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King?
Answer:
Frodo and Bilbo have both carried the ring a fair distance and the stain it left upon them made it impossible for them to remain in Middle Earth. Remember the Elves and Gandalf (the beings who weild magic) leave. Man and hobbit (those with mundane power) remain. Bilbo and Frodo have some measure of the ring's power left in them and so they too must go. It's sad, especially for Sam and Frodo. But, in the movie look carefully at Bilbo's face as he boards the boat. He is smiling and excited because he realizes it's the start of another adventure!

And in the Appendices to The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien theorizes that Sam too went to the West, long after his Rosie has passed away.

The Evening Meal

The Evening Meal

We're the infidels
in this below average
hard sell seduction.
Blood on their hands shows
the truth of the low drama
they brought in to us.

I heard there are buds
on the sideboard, Satanic
fruit in that red bowl
Nick left last Tuesday,
and a frozen roast thawing
for tonight's dinner.
Old Nick knows we would
eat the damn apples again
if the buds don't bloom.

I shall truss up this
roast knotted with proper twine,
then give the cook Hell.

February 21, 2013 6:44 PM

Pirate Attitude - 3WW

Thom writes:
Each week, I post three words. You write something using the words.

Then come back and post a link to the contribution with Mr. Linky (but please, link to the exact post, not your blog, by clicking on the exact post title and paste it to Mr. Linky below). As always, there's no hard-and-fast rule that you have to post on Wednesday.

To join this week's Three Word Wednesday writing group
*click here*

This week's words:

Heave; Ponder; Valid.



Pirate Attitude

Well then, Yo heave ho
you blowhards! Put your flipping
backs into it now!
Got to lift a ton
of swag from behind the lines.
Ponder this, boyos.
Figure what's valid
and what's not before you leap.

It's a deep deep sea.

The ooze of your blood
will tell on you far too soon
and bring the great whites
to chew your sorry
bones. They'll leave you hanging out
in pallid tatters.

February 20, 2013 4:30 AM

The Size Of Things

The Size Of Things

I'm confused. The size
of tidal things confuses
me this time around.
The stream flowing back
to the surf, leaving the kelp
behind in salt stink
and underneath it
are the sand monsters that should
be just huge - maybe
eons ago were
but for now are miniscule,
wriggling for safety.

‎February ‎19, ‎2013 12:21 AM

The Wind of History - A Magpie Tale

The Wind of History, Jacek Yerka

Offered by Tess Kincaid as a Magpie Tale writing prompt
Meets "Fair Use" restrictions

Join the Mag creative writing group

The Winds Of History

The car got itself
stuck on the way to your house,
missed the gate, thank God,
but still we had to
get out and walk to meet you,
thinking all the way
how the walls are down
and how many had to come
asking why the world
stalls at your command.

All the reports say it clear
how you refuse pleas
right now, how you turn
right to know into veto
power.

The sun won't
rise as we think it
should and most trees have gotten
into two strained lines.
The wind leaks and seeps
in dank and thin rows, streaming
from your open shades.

February 17, 2013 10:39 AM

Photoshop

This is HellBoy's first cousin. He hangs out with HellBoy and me and spends most of his time doing cursory internet research and debunking stuff like this picture here

The so-called Castle Island near Dublin, Ireland
which is really the photoshopped merging of an image of this island in Thailand

with a picture of this castle in a mirror image and stuff that didn't fit trimmed away:
Lichtenstein Castle is situated on a cliff located near Honau on the Swabian Alb, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Historically, there has been a castle on the site since around 1200. It was twice destroyed, once in the Reichskrieg's War of 1311 and again by the city-state of Reutlingen in 1381. The castle was not reconstructed and subsequently fell to ruin.

In 1802, the land came into the hands of King Frederick I of Württemberg, who built a hunting lodge there. By 1837, the land had passed to his nephew Duke Wilhelm of Urach, Count of Württemberg, who, inspired by Wilhelm Hauff's novel Lichtenstein, added the current castle in 1840–42. The romantic Neo-Gothic design of the castle was created by the architect Carl Alexander Heideloff.

For every serious contributor to the flow of information on the internet there is at least one person interested in creative alterations of reality. Very few people seem to care whether facts are facts or fiction. Understand that this is equally true in every arena. It is doubtful our political sources are any more trustworthy than the photoshopped images that travel into our awareness. This comes to us from both the left and the right. Beware the facts. They probably are not facts. Castle Lichtenstein sitting on Thailand's James Bond Island (so named for appearing in a 007 movie) in the Dublin waterways somewhere is a perfect example.

But not HellBoy's cousin, who is of course, quite real.

With Friends Like Me - 3WW

Thom writes:
Each week, I post three words. You write something using the words.

Then come back and post a link to the contribution with Mr. Linky (but please, link to the exact post, not your blog, by clicking on the exact post title and paste it to Mr. Linky below). As always, there's no hard-and-fast rule that you have to post on Wednesday.

To join this week's Three Word Wednesday writing group *click here*

This week's words:

Cumbersome; Morbid; Rampage.




With Friends Like Me

Cumbersome friendship,
awkward, even morbid, like
a mole that started
to grow and change on
your already large schnozzle -
I went on rampage,
broke all the china
and left you here to defend
my early exit.

"Dateline: 13 Feb 2013
Monkey mob goes on the rampage in surprise attack in Indonesia
Seven people have been injured, one critically, after a mob of wild monkeys went on a rampage in a village in eastern Indonesia, entering houses and attacking panicking residents."
Story and Image found on The Telegraph

Something To Do - Reprise

Something To Do

Talk, talk, talk, I say,
all this talk and wordy clouds
billow up around
this odd gathering,
all here to chatter. Over
there the tools idle
for lack of my hands
and yours. We forget ourselves
as we huddle here.

There is something needs
doing, I think, another
poem, home repair,
feeding the children,
cleaning up after the cat,
giving love to you.

Written February 1, 2009 9:45 AM
First Posted July 27, 2009
Picture added today. From atchi-kochi with my gratitude

Not The Way It Was - A Magpie Tale

Painting by Joseph Lorusso from Tess Kincaid as a prompt for Sunday's The Mag

Join The Mag creative writing group

Not The Way It Was

The color is wrong,
not the way I remember
on that day. I was
all over you, hot
and lively, I am sure that's right
and the way you stayed
a force all tangled
with me, touch for touch and breath
for honeyed hot breath,
I've no question there
but the light was different
and the hues, more red.

February 10, 2013 11:53 AM

Just Do It - Reprise

Ducklings Sinking The Ch'i

I have never been able to see myself much in charge of anything. I can't decide whether I am responsibility and blame avoidant or simply honest. I know what I prefer to think about myself. *blushing now*...

There is another way to live. I have tried to live that way.

Just Do It

Before I go there,
Before I do sink the ch'i,
It's impossible.

After I go there,
After I let the ch'i sink,
It's so easy. Lord!

Exactly. Lord help me now.
Help. Do what my heart cannot.

December 31, 2008 7:59 PM
First posted May 12, 2009

Charting The Days

Sunrise Over The Fence This photo was taken in October, 2010, and found as part of sumoetx's photostream on Flicker

Charting The Days

He insisted it
was so - he said the sun would
nearly always rise
over his inscribed
illuminated marks so
placed on the back fence.
He said sunset would
be next to my right big toe
no matter where I
thought to go. I don't
know what I should try to
make of this, seems like
lunacy to me.

February 7, 2013 12:44 PM

Getting My Feet Wet

Getting My Feet Wet

Yes, I am talking,
talking to you but it's hard
when you squat on stones
in the midst of things
and turn away as you do.
It is distracting,
the view you give me
and I think of other things
I could be doing
but don't want wet feet.

July 27, 2010 9:15 PM

The Backfire - 3WW

Thom writes:
Each week, I post three words. You write something using the words.

Then come back and post a link to the contribution with Mr. Linky (but please, link to the exact post, not your blog, by clicking on the exact post title and paste it to Mr. Linky below). As always, there's no hard-and-fast rule that you have to post on Wednesday.

To link up with this week's Three Word Wednesday *click here*

This week's words:

Backfire; Embarass; Taste.

A backfire set in Montana, 2006 (James Woodcock, The Billings Gazette Staff)

The Backfire

All down the fire line
the soot black heat and the crew
and the backfire rage
red eyed and streaked cheeks
claw hammer hands embarass
the reality
of the brazen blaze
you set to your freaky taste
last week and we've found
the sign of your camp
though we have not found shadows
of your god damned friends.

February 6, 2013 4:38 AM

Whitewater-Baldy Complex wildfire of 2012, Gila National Forest, New Mexico, USA. Photo by Kari Greer. Credit USFS Gila National Forest.

Predicament

You are allowed to see the humor here. I promise I won't be upset with you. First off, note the date. This is not a poem I wrote today though I have not yet posted it on this blog. Also, I doubt I was writing all that seriously back then either. I may have started with a small hole... You know that whining is anger whistling through a small hole, don't you? I am pretty sure I snapped out of it by the end of the first verse.

Predicament

I am desperate
to fill the hole I have found
in my head, my soul,
the sun, the sad wind.
No one should find a hole in
the wind. That's just wrong.

I've developed tics
over this - haunted, hunted,
I'm queer for creepers
coming at me from
behind and I shake clear down
to the tips of me.

July 27, 2010   3:17 PM

The Endless Search - A Magpie Tale

Central Library, Manchester, U.K., by Robin Gosnall offered by Tess Kincaid as a prompt for Mag 154.

The Endless Search

I arrived today
looking for the live free verse
or the right sonnet
within the pages
we hold so dear that we place
them in brown volumes
we keep in order
on shelves constructed of steel.

This got weird for me.
My passion ran thin.
I wrote some stuff down instead.
Here are some phrases,
a form I dare hold
true in the grand scheme of things
along with doting
on you.

Now will you
show me the time of day, love,
roll me in clover?

February 3, 2013 10:15 AM

Join The Mag creative writing group

Battle Cry

Battle Cry

You have to have swords,
one in each hand. One severs
the thick inner chords.
The other severs
the even thicker outer
cables that bind heart
and mind to the stake.

So get a fine grit whetstone,
a long leather strop,
and hone them, keep them.

Howl at time's silver spring tide
and stride down the field,
the war front of God
wearing the Cape of Good Hope,
wearing it to rags.

February 1, 2013 10:07 PM