Leviathans

Leviathans

The cows and calves give
signals built of salt and mist,
amidst the circle
they have built, water
borne, looking for their big ones.

Giants of waves dive,
battle armed monsters
who leave their marks, their grim scars
but the cows, the calves
call, call them back up
with vocals beyond treble
as they are wont too.

August 30, 2010 8:20 PM

Falling Short

M. Scott Peck

Wiki says:

Morgan Scott Peck (May 23, 1936 – September 25, 2005) was an American psychiatrist and best-selling author, best known for his first book, The Road Less Traveled, published in 1978.

Peck's works combined his experiences from his private psychiatric practice, with a distinctly religious point of view. In his second book, People of the Lie, he wrote, "After many years of vague identification with Buddhist and Islamic mysticism, I ultimately made a firm Christian commitment – signified by my non-denominational baptism on the ninth of March 1980..." Peck claimed that people who are evil attack others rather than face their own failures.

Peck discusses human evil in his book People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil, and also in a chapter of The Road Less Traveled. Peck characterizes human evil as a malignant type of self-righteousness in which there is an active rather than passive refusal to tolerate imperfection (sin) and its consequent guilt. This syndrome results in a projection of evil onto selected specific innocent victims (often children), which is the paradoxical mechanism by which the People of the Lie commit their evil. Peck argues that these people are the most difficult of all to deal with, and extremely hard to identify.

Human evil is distinct from spiritual evil. Peck eventually accepted that spiritual evil and the devil actually exist after he participated in exorcisms headed by a practicing exorcist. On this issue of spiritual evil I have no comment. However, I have long accepted Peck's description of human evil, especially as it appears in families and victimizes children. I will not fully detail his description, leaving that synopsis for the Wiki article to express. The Wiki article was written carefully by someone familiar with Peck's work.

In People of the Lie Peck also brings Christian spiritual history into play by explaining that in the concept of sin as used by the church there is both a diagnosis of illness (human evil) and as well a possible diagnosis of possession and/or worship of a false god (spiritual evil). Peck believes that the church considers genuine cases of spiritual evil rare and cases of human evil much more common. Thus Peck considers sin to be at least in part an early form of a mental health diagnosis and repentence and exorcism (at least in some small part) both therapeutic attempts.

Most people have considerred Peck's first book, The Road Less Travelled as his most important work. However, it is so similar to dozens if not hundreds of other books by other authors. For this reason, I consider People of the Lie to be his most important work because it is a singular work. Few other authors have written of evil in the same way. There are several other works by Peck I did not read so I don't know if I would find them more important or not.

On a final note, it is sad that Peck is another example of ordinary humanity. He had a majestic vision of the yearning of the human spirit that he expressed as a writer and he gave a rather poor showing in his private life. We are left with the decision then to let his books speak for themselves or to insist that they are suspect because an ordinary man wrote them. I hope that Peck was not an evil man in any way. In this same way, I hope that you and I are also not evil. I admit there was a period when I actively wrestled with the risk that I might be evil. I eventually became convinced that I was not. That struggle took place long before I found either Peck's first or second book. Peck died at home after suffering from Parkinson's disease, pancreatic cancer and liver duct cancer.

Falling Short

Why so often is
it this way, that you or I
discard what others
kindly call the real
thing, our words tinny to our
own ears, so far from
perfection they be
to us, our own hearts failing
to find the current?

August 30, 2010 6:35 AM
Retitled November 28, 2013

Indecision

Indecision

My two eyes have lost
their measure of each other.
They no longer work
together and do
not show the same world to me.

My right eye takes in
detail and color
and still loves to find meaning
in all creation.

My left has withdrawn
and turned inward, seeing best
the white amoebas
that swim up and down
the seas of little colored
dots that no longer
form the world's details,
leaving only blobs and broad
forms of things out there.

Now I get to choose
which view is the true to life
way of passing things.

November 28, 2013 8:29 AM

Too Many Choices - 3 Word Wednesday

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 3 Word Wednesday writing group *click here*

This week's words:

Curious; Inevitable; Wary

Too Many Choices

Squirrel struggles so
with the way of the branches
he must travel on.
They fork left while he
wants right, go up - he wants down.
Though curious, he's
become so wary -
and it's inevitable
that he should scold me
since it is my tree
after all and the cat is
also mine for sure.

When the noon sun shines
just so and the leaves rustle
in some right key, then
squirrel remembers
how it was those happy days
when there were no cats
nor any stupid
dogs however sweet they are
when even dumber
humans throw their sticks.

It's hard to guard the places
where he's hid his nuts
when it's time to nap.

November 27, 2013 10:13 AM

The Small Heart of Things

The Small Heart of Things Book Trailer from Julian Hoffman on Vimeo.

I don't mind plugging this book. It looks like a good one.

A Kindness At The Small Heart Of Things

I am not confused,
no longer, for you removed
all the outer lights,
leaving me only
the inner display of truth
so I can steer by
that instead of things
we all say in public to show
each other what's what.

August 30, 2010 5:56 AM

Consumption - A Magpie Tale

John Singer Sargent, "Autumn On The River - 1889"

Offered by Tess as a writing prompt on The Mag: Mag 195

To vist the Magpie Tales writing group and enjoy the work the contributors produced this week *click here*

I hope you will decide to add your own work, following the directions Tess gives in the sidebar of The Mag site.

Last Outing,
Autumn, 1889

We're on the river,
you prone and at risk should we
topple in some rogue
wave or other thing
happening - but none in sight
for sure at this time -
you lie in the bow,
hair wrapped up and fur around
you with your blanket
all down amidships,
the coughing quiet for now,
while I punt against
the relentless rasp
of your lately ripped breathy
flow of bloody air.

November 24, 2013 11:05 AM

This poem reflects my own experience of late. One of the joys of my late in life passage is the respiratory distress I suffer from time to time due not to virus but to allergies run amuck. With modest luck, no viral or bacterial complication will appear. This latest bout has been directly and obviously initiated by an accidental ingestion of a small bit of peanut, a half a nut to be exact, over a week ago.

The tedious misery of tender and inflamed esophogeal tissue forced to accept yet again and again the passing flow of painful air helps me recall the grand fun I had in a seriously asthmatic childhood. That condition was also driven by a then unknown primary and constantly activated food allergy.

A specialist found that toxicity in my diet when I was twelve. As I abstained from eating potatoes, I brought my troubles mostly to an end. There were some other necessary treatments and adjustments. This discipline included twice weekly office visits over the next year to receive injections of a desensitizing elixir concocted of allergen tinctures.

My aging body now no longer resists these lifelong sensitivities very well. So with my breathing troubles active, looking at this picture, I instantly thought, "CONSUMPTION!"

Singing In The Rain

Singing In The Rain

When I fell in love
with you the whole planet changed.
I mean, from orbit
to first molecule
the whole world shifted through some
seven dimension
torus and came out
the other side all brand new.
I was full amazed
the people near me
did not see this obvious
renewal but then
I remembered how
it has all happened before
not only to me
but to him and you
and to Gene Kelly singing
in Hollywood's rain.

November 18, 2013 8:25 PM



Filmsite.org says: "Singin' in the Rain (1952) is one of the most-loved and celebrated film musicals of all time from MGM, before a mass exodus to filmed adaptations of Broadway plays emerged as a standard pattern. It was made directly for film, and was not a Broadway adaptation.

"The joyous film, co-directed by Stanley Donen and acrobatic dancer-star-choreographer Gene Kelly, is a charming, up-beat, graceful and thoroughly enjoyable experience with great songs, lots of flashbacks, wonderful dances (including the spectacular Broadway Melody Ballet with leggy guest star Cyd Charisse), casting and story. This was another extraordinary example of the organic, 'integrated musical' in which the story's characters naturally express their emotions in the midst of their lives. Song and dance replace the dialogue, usually during moments of high spirits or passionate romance. And over half of the film - a 'let's put on a play' type of film, is composed of musical numbers.

"This superb film, called "MGM's TECHNICOLOR Musical Treasure," was produced during MGM studios' creative pinnacle. From the late 1930s to the early 1960s, producer Arthur Freed produced more than forty musicals for MGM. The creative forces at the studio in the Freed Unit - composed of Freed, Vincente Minnelli, Stanley Donen, and actor/choreographer Gene Kelly - also collaborated together to produce such gems as Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), The Pirate (1948), On the Town (1949), Best Picture Oscar-winner a year earlier with director Vincente Minnelli - An American in Paris (1951), Royal Wedding (1951), Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954), and Gigi (1958).

"Because the colorful, witty film is set in 1927, it humorously satirizes and parodies the panic surrounding the troubling transitional period from silents to talkies in the dream factory of Hollywood of the late 1920s as the sound revolution swept through. The film's screenplay, suggested by the song Singin' in the Rain that was written by Freed and Brown, was scripted by Betty Comden and Adolph Green (who also wrote On the Town (1949)). The time frame of Comden's and Green's script, the Roaring 20s Era of flappers, was mostly determined by the fact that lyricist Freed (and songwriter Nacio Herb Brown) had written their extensive library of songs in their early careers during the 1920s and 1930s, when Hollywood was transitioning to talkies. The musical comedy's story, then, would be best suited around that theme. Except for two songs, all of the musical arrangements in the film to be showcased were composed by Freed and Brown for different Hollywood films before Freed became a producer.

"[The title song was originally created by lyricist Arthur Freed and composer Nacio Herb Brown for MGM's Hollywood Revue of 1929 (1929). The general storyline of the film was derived from Once in a Lifetime (1932), a hilarious adaptation of the Moss Hart-George S. Kaufman play also set during the time of panic surrounding Hollywood's transition to talkies."

In 1952 I was seven years old. I loved this film then. I still do. Gene Kelly was amazing. Young Debbie Reynolds was beautiful.

Just Another Wordsmith

The Wordsmith Creates Another Poem

I can't be trusted.

I fashion words, build meanings,
tell involved big lies
and keep and lay tracks
as if predator and prey
both have come this way.

Sometimes, like a wag
might, I tell on me as if
confessing all sins
but no, just stories
around the campfire
with me the least likely to
complain about it,
how shaming it all is,
when you learn how flatulent
I really can be.

‎November ‎16, ‎2013 8:04 AM

Sunday Just Past Noon, I Was Not There - Magpie Tales

Add the "1940" postmark to the old style addressing. This is an unfolded letter sent during the early part of World War II. I hope it arrived in time:

Offered by Tess as a writing prompt on The Mag: Mag 194

To vist the Magpie Tales writing group and enjoy the work the contributors produced this week *click here*

I hope you will decide to add your own work, following the directions Tess gives in the sidebar of The Mag site.

I looked out from under the huge feathery brows of some old Brit, ca. 1990. He wrote:

Sunday Just Past Noon

I look at this letter
and know I should feel something,
wish I felt something,
but I just do not.

I touch the cancelled grey stamp,
imagine those days,
then turn to sip tea,
much more recently brewed up -
spy the pile of bills
I've shoved to one side
and suck on my rusty teeth,
getting out the cheques.

‎November ‎17, ‎2013 1:27 PM

But I saw it like this:

I Was Not There

The old stamp calls me.
The mark does too. That post came
Tuesday, the same day
the bomb found its track
past the balloons, jammed itself
deep into the earth
before blowing you up
into little bits all mixed
with cloth, wood and grit.

November 17, 2013 2:12 PM

I include my expansion because he would never tell you.

The Root Of Creativity - Reprise

Jacob Wrestling with the Angel (Gustave Doré, 1855)

"What we most frequently see when the mind is focused and clear are the habits of mind that create unnecessary suffering, habits fueled by greed and hatred and delusion. Over and over we struggle with our lives, resenting our experiences, blaming ourselves for not being other than who we are. We are unable to see past the immediate, overwhelming drama of our personal story to find relief, indeed, liberation, in the consoling realization of an astonishingly lawful cosmos: paying attention to current experience stops the stories that create and recreate suffering." - Sylvia Boorstein, Buddhist teacher.

There are stories and there are stories. I understand what Ms. Boorstein is writing of. These are not the other stories, the deep stories, the "just so" stories designed in fact to open us to the dreamtime, to the Golden Age, to the Kingdom, to the realm of the Grandfathers. There are so many ways to envision our place in the scheme of things, what it is now, what it once was, what it can be. We have a spirit history and a spirit destiny. We have a journey, a quest, a path. We yearn and oddly enough what we yearn for is to be ultimately released from yearning, but not yet, not yet.

Under the right conditions, myths are not silly stories, not obstructions at all. Under the right conditions myths are elixirs designed for awakenings. Not THE awakening. There are no stories for the whole enchilada. There is only getting it or not getting it. However there is also the Path, and there are waystations along that Path. These stations are not like locations that can be mapped in some geography, nor are they accurate timepieces. Something else figures in, soul figures in, the process of unfolding figures in. There are waystations. Myths illuminate with the inner light.

And myths are always new as well as timeless. That is why sometimes for some of us an author can create a book that works today as the old myths once did. There are motifs and types. We can actually study those as Joseph Campbell certainly did, and know what comprises a myth. The other way, we can become creators ourselves and find them rising up out of some mystery within us. We paint, or dance. We perform the music and write the story, or the song, or the poem. Some will sculpt, some will weave. Many of us are driven and the Greeks had a word we still use. Of that drivenness we speak of the Daemon, the Daimon, the Demon, the Divine Man, a spirit that comes upon us and compels the work. To live close to that possibility is to come closer to being the vessel that God calls us to be.

Of all the calls possible in this world, God calling us out, the common thread in them is the act of creation in this way, and in our creations we will find a spark that we share in common with God. Once that spark is expressed, a common and true expression in our lives, we have become potential sons and daughters of the Divine, on the true path toward our realized destiny.

That is one piece of my theology, that creativity is at root Divine. I write this as a follow up to the video of Elizabeth Gilbert that I posted on facebook a couple days ago. If you didn't see it there, here it is again:


Addendum: This posting first occurred in December, 2010 and over its life was visited over twelve hundred times. That lifts it out of the obscurity of most of my postings which are lucky if they get even a few hundred visits. Most stay well under one hundred. I think it is time to renew its presence here, though I do not really expect such a glowing run this time around.

Testing For The Role

Typhoon Haiyan makes landfall in the Philippines.

You're the Philippines,
I'm some ugly mad typhoon.
Your heart's left for drowned,
drenched past all recall
and I crawl over you, go
somewhere else, new days.

It's payback, that's what.

As I blow me down I wheeze,
I whistle and hawk
up love like sputum
while I trim off my white beard
shaving back to three,
the razor's setting
I chose years ago waiting
all this time for you.

November 15, 2013 1:38 AM

Sometimes my poetry is a role play. I am not hard enough to actually be this guy, I hope. I would like to think I could have played him as a character.

I started my college education majoring in drama but I was not brave enough to persist in that degree track. There were too many pressures and obligations and the politics of the time as well. All conspired to sidetrack me and I did go crazy. Yes, I did. Not smallest in all that was an Army Reserve gig I was burdened with. Finally I just quit the Army, could not take it one more day. That's crazy, yes it is.

Starting in 1966, I began smoking dope and dropping acid and thought of my behavior as acting out of revolution. Many of us thought like that in 1966. I still think that pose was probably true enough but not very effective. After a few months I was lifted out of a death spiral (this is no shit and the lifting out included four months at a place called Alum Rock Hospital) and exiled to East Bengal for a couple years so I could run out the military clock, which I did. When I returned to California with an Honorable Discharge (also no shit), the politics at college had gotten more serious and I was happy to join up with that too. After all that my major had morphed into a mix of Philosophy and Psychology and I had Sociology electives.

When I got fired from my drug dealing gig in 1971, how I financed everything, I left school, found a lover and eventually emigrated from California to Oregon. I started college in 1963. I left school in 1971 with about a year's worth of full time classwork left to do. What happened, I finally restarted my college work in 1979 and got my BA in 1981 while holding down a day job. I sat at home getting drunk evening after evening, writing up a thing called a Prior Learning Experience Portfolio. In that document I asked for and received 28 credits in Philosophy and Psychology for work I did in those fields outside of school. I did that work drunk too. Telling you how I got my degree, I may have also qualified myself as an alcoholic. I finally sobered up in 1983. That's a while ago, I guess.

Bird Questions - Reprise

I have noticed this before. There are things about human society which baffle the others on the planet. That is the best they can do. Straight lines do them in, at least some of them, as in the story of the chicken who is hypnotized when aligned with a straight line drawn away from it, beak down. Wiki says: The first known written reference for this method came in 1646, in Mirabile Experimentum de Imaginatione Gallinae by Athanasius Kircher in Rome.

Domestic cats consider inside and outside the house all the same territory for them and much prefer doors to remain open. I have been sure at times that a cat who lived with me would want to "go out" some of the time just to know they could. Cats no doubt hate having to rely on two footed clods to get what they want.

The small birds don't want to come in the house but it is obvious that they cannot see the glass in the windows. I believe that is not so much a matter of the eye as it is the brain. Bird brains tell birds there are no such things as closed transparent openings. If it's transparent, it's open. That's what a bird's brain says.

Bird Questions

He came and asked me
what's with the glass? He sometimes
forgets it's there. It's
against nature, he
says adamant and angry, but then
he admits we are
better off inside
where we do so much less harm
than we otherwise
might.

March 30, 2009 12:36 PM
First Post, February 8, 2010

In The Later Hours - 3 Word Wednesday

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 3 Word Wednesday writing group *click here*

This week's words:

Aggressive; Heighten; Limited

In The Later Hours

You renew complaint.
"He's totally aggresive,"
you say while primping
your mane in the glass
illumined by wax candles.
We can't see outside,
the view blanked by flames
which heighten last hopes, keeping
him bound, limited
in scope and impaled
on the snags of his anger.
That's when I begin
losing my feathers. I whine,
in treble clef voice.

‎November ‎13, ‎2013 6:54 AM

Life Lines

The Downstream Brisbane River After Opening The Spillway Of The Wivenhoe Dam, 2010.

"All rivers, even the most dazzling, those that catch the sun in their course, all rivers go down to the ocean and drown. And life awaits man as the sea awaits the river." - (Simone Schwarz-Bart (b. 1938), Gaudeloupean author. The Bridge of Beyond, p. 81, Éditions du Seuil.)

I will not despise
the dust nor will I seek gold
in the lead casing
you peel from my heart.
I look for hands I may hold
as I search among
lines of destiny
one line that might be my own,
so ordained by sky
and lake and meadow.

I used to keep trust with God
that I might be led.
I thought that my task.
I expected a blessing
to fill my bright sails.

It's true enough I have not
one time been becalmed.

November 11, 2013 7:14 AM

I Didn't Latch Her Cage

Ferrets make marvelous pets. They have been domesticated for at least 2500 years. Some people do not find ferret odors all that awful. Others detest ferret odors. You can remove the scent glands and often they are removed before you buy them. They are bright and inquisitive and playful.

The aromatic
ferret wriggled free to chase
her prey in the weeds
out back of the house,
her curiosity took
her from the safety
of captivity
to the uncertain expanse
of winter's approach.

August 29, 2010 7:42 AM

Ferrets love water and are great natural swimmers. Ferret fleas do not love water. This is easy flea control and fun to watch as well.

The Beat Goes On - A Magpie Tale

Somewhere in 1895-1896, somewhere in there, Edgar Degas photographed a dancer in a double exposure. Known for his paintings, Degas also loved to work in photographic images, he said the black and white definitely fit his mood.

Years ago I found out I could not be a photographer even though I have some prints that are quite good. It would be too demanding of my time and resources. This was in the late seventies, and of course in those years, the cost of photography was monumental. I quickly learned that I would be taking tons of pictures, just like the news pros do, because that's the way it is. You take dozens to get a few. I knew at once that I was not interested in posed studio art or similar modes. I wanted the raw stuff to be great or nothing. After a few months and a significant dent in my finances I walked away. Now that digital work is possible, I still don't return out of the habit of producing art (and music) in other ways.

Here is Degas' photo:

"Dancer Adjusting Her Strap" (Danseuse Ajustant Sa Bretelle)
Offered by Tess as a writing prompt on The Mag: Mag 193

To vist the Magpie Tales writing group and enjoy the work the contributors produced this week *click here*

I hope you will decide to add your own work, following the directions Tess gives in the sidebar of The Mag site.

The Beat Goes On

In another place
I've comissioned a hostess
to oversee things
I got for Advent.
I know I should strip myself
but the dance goes on,
broken strap or no,
and this dancer's lost her core
to some art-fart sway,
some taste for the dark
you insist on showing me
as if you could make
me care at this point,
get me to agree with you
love is squeezed lemons.

November 10, 2013 3:46 PM

Spirit Passing Through This World

Spirit Passing Through This World

I have come this way
again as if I would stay
this time - not like last
when I was the wind
passing and pushing brown leaves
hard against siding,
deep into sidewalk
cracks and swirling beneath trees,
covering caches
that squirrels forgot.

By next winter I will spread
as if made of ice.

Indeed my heart is
sculpted from the Greenland bergs
that crave hulls of ships.

‎November ‎8, ‎2013 11:09 PM

Icebergs produced from one of the fast-flowing outlet glaciers draining the Greenland Ice Sheet. ©2009 Julian Dowdeswell SPRI. Note the boat in the bottom left of the picture for scale.

At The Bend Of The World

At The Bend Of The World

After some debate
two of the crows decided
to start on the eyes
of the fallen one.
Those eyes did not reflect sky
any more nor earth
for all that matter.
Other crows, lower ranking,
began their digging
closer to the tail,
perhaps searching for liver
or some such innard.
I tried for silence
and even some reverence
for the way of things.

‎November ‎7, ‎2013 7:21 PM

Carrion Crows once thought to be the same species as Hooded Crows are now considerred to be a different species. They eat a wide variety of foods and have been known to kill prey at times. They are known as well to drop shellfish onto rocks from heights sufficient to crack them open.

Carrion Crows mate for life and both partners raise the chicks. They are found throughout Europe and Asia. When Carrion Crows and Hooded Crows are in the same area, they will occasionally interbreed.

Going Over The Border

Ramona Falls, Mt. Hood Wilderness, Oregon

Going Over The Border

That day's journey took
three hours to get to the falls
from downstate, my start
a short enough time
in the scheme of passing things.

That change from hot sun
to the cool, tangled
mist near the base, the roaring
of it in my heart
reminded me of you,
of your last embrace, and what
it meant to leave you.

August 29, 2010 7:15 AM

A Life's Work - 3 Word Wednesday

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 3 Word Wednesday writing group *click here*

This week's words:

Amplify; Criticize; Moan

A Life's Work

You took that one step
into the cut wheat stubble,
heard your dusty crunch.
Waves of locusts washed
away from that one foot fall.
Not to amplify
beyond all your
terms of holy surrender,
nor to criticize
your soul's tentative
delight, I admit
I loved your wee moan of joy
once you found your path.

November 6, 2013 5:09 AM

Just Like Running Scales

Wiki says: "Nora (born 2006) is a gray tabby cat, rescued from a shelter in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, who has become famous for "tapping" the piano. The Times of London, in its online edition, characterized her music as being "something halfway between Philip Glass and free jazz." When a year old, Nora climbed up onto the bench in front of a Yamaha Disklavier piano in the middle of the night and began to play.

"Since that time, Nora has continued to play the piano on a daily basis. This sometimes annoys her owner. She will play duets with her owner and her owner's students. The students encouraged the creation of a YouTube video, which was uploaded in early 2007. It received a large number of views and attracted the attention of other media. It was featured on many talk shows, newspapers and news channels including Martha Stewart, CNN, The Daily Show, Public Radio International, The Today Show and the Philadelphia Inquirer. Nora was featured on the syndicated television show, Wild About Animals, episode #332, in September 2010.

"It appears that Nora likes the attention piano playing brings her, but she also plays when alone. She expresses a preference for playing with students, especially when they play Bach, and for playing a specific piano, her Yamaha Disklavier. She gravitates toward the D-E-F range on the keyboard and includes the black keys in her playing."

Just Like Running Scales

Each bruise is a symphony
trying to erupt,
each malaise a note
in the depth of my aching
knuckleheaded style.

I wish I knew more
so I learn and learn over
and over again
just like running scales
up and down the black and whites
in the flats and sharps,
in the naturals.
He calls me to His practice,
guess that's what it is
breaks my nails again.

November 5, 2013 6:20 AM

The Challenger

The Challenger

I will relocate
one of these days, not that far
away, steep ascent
coming up, rocket's
white glare - maybe not bursting
in air like they did.

Ever since that day
I have wondered what sitting
in an exploding
rocket would be like.

People I know laugh at odd
things but astronauts
probably laugh too
thinking that's one beautiful
hell of a last ride.

November 4, 2013 5:44 AM

The Coven - A Magpie Tale

Resurrection-Reunion 2 by Sir Stanley Spencer (1891-1959)

This painting's image offered by Tess as a writing prompt on The Mag: Mag 192.

To vist the Magpie Tales writing group and enjoy the work the contributors produced this week *click here*

I hope you will decide to add your own work, following the directions Tess gives in the sidebar of The Mag site.

The Coven

Some women I know,
they entwined, knotted themselves,
powered up for sure.
It took ten minutes
for them to do their fancy
dance for us, trilling
lalalalala
in God's own heavenly tongue.

They unwound the code
that unlocks the dead,
gave breath to the sodden clouds
and opened the gates
of the heart felt front.
They roared their release. Fat rain
landed all around.


As for me, I ducked
under the oaken gallows
to wait out the scorn.

November 3, 2013 11:02 AM

The End Of Everything

Sentience won't bestow
any particular rank,
not this time, bucko.
Status doesn't count.
The glory that was Rome won't
matter, not at all.
We went to the moon.
So what, me hearties?  So what?
The Mars messages
and the craft passing
Pluto are bubbles of no
concern, no matter
how much it all cost.
So much froth, rime on the gourd.
We watch the stars fail,
the galaxy shred,
the ice race north to south or
south to north - old Sol
is completely gone.

‎November ‎1, ‎2013   4:55 PM