Just Visiting

The right color, but my shirt logo was all lower case
with the print small enough to be in one line.

I Have This Attitude Sometimes

Time's passage,
the normal suffering found
within time's passage,
the way none of us
depart unscathed,
how I turn, turn, searching
how to turn round right.

I am no exception,
cannot be one on this planet.

I once wore a black t-shirt proudly
'til I wore it out. In white it
said "only visiting this planet"
which would be all right with me.

September 18, 2010 7:23 AM
Edited, 9/19/10 4:15 PM

I want to live near here

On Being The Way I Am

Erethism, a word first used in or around 1800 meaning abnormal responsiveness or sensitivity to stimulation, coming from the Greek through French. Not only do I suffer alcoholism, I also suffer erethism, but not from Mercury poisoning. At least I don't think so.

Wiki says:
"Erethism or erethism mercurialis is a neurological disorder which affects the whole central nervous system, as well as a symptom complex derived from mercury poisoning. This is also sometimes known as the mad hatter disease. Historically, this was common among old England felt-hatmakers who used mercury to stabilize the wool in a process called felting, where hair was cut from a pelt of an animal such as a rabbit.

"The industrial workers were exposed to the mercury vapors, giving rise to the expression “mad as a hatter.” Some believe that the character the Mad Hatter in Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland is an example of someone suffering from erethism, but the origin of this account is unclear. The character was almost certainly based on Theophilus Carter, an eccentric furniture dealer who was well known to Carroll."

On Being The Way I Am
(But I mean well, don't you know)

My erethism
forces the hues surrounding
the roiling tendrils
of my knotted soul.
I sense the aneurysm
which I know will soon
burst and flood the scene
with all my good intentions,
as if that would do,
make up for all my
thoughtless actions which have caged
the tree of my fate.

September 19, 2010 2:48 PM.

There are Black Butterflies

Tell Me

The black butterfly
left me your letter, many
paragraphs richly
encrypted, a code
of your distant devising.

It opened, popping
like seed pods often
split apart in shiny grins
with green teeth showing.
That left the black print
to shower down around me
in drifting dry piles.

Truly, tell me now.
Tell me what to do for you
to touch your red heart.

‎July ‎29, ‎2014 7:43 PM

The Back Story - A Magpie Tale

Provided by Tess for this week's Magpie Tale

The Back Story

Aliens discussed
the planet with the Pharoah
and determined how
to get us buzzing
with rumors about ETs
by building big stone
buildings and all that.
Then they giggled on their way
to the next system
down the galactic
spiral arm with rubes like us
and did it again.

‎July ‎27, ‎2014 2:03 PM

A typical BEM from the fifties (bug eyed monster)

Split Stream

How can this ever all fit the bowl?

The guy in the glass
has gone on strike, posted notes
updating the pace,
negotiations
pending the damp shame I feel
as my stream splits through
my leaking courage
and I have to mop the floor
again and again.

September 19, 2010 1:27 PM

Getting old is not for sissies.
They make devices to simplify a variety of situations
but you can't take this stuff everywhere.
Oh c'mon. You gotta laugh about this shit.

I Stayed Too Long

The Maw Of My Heart

You told me to go,
saying that a visitor
staying overlong
stinks like old fish. I
feel out of sorts and monstrous
now that it's revealed
how little I thought
of you and yours in the maw
of my own heart's need.

September 19, 2010 12:55 PM

The Storm

The House Finches

House Finch Eggs

Because House Finches use human habitations as nesting grounds, they are nearly tamed birds and their nests are often easy of access. This image is not mine but the story in my poem is something that happened to me.

I have been struggling to get my blogging feet back under me and some other things I am used to doing as well. Getting old is not for sissies.

On April 19, 2014 Irene posted on Orange Is A Fruit

a nest of finches

I’m fussing over a nest
of house finches. Over
the rambling roses, edged
in grasses and straws.
You asked me to hurry, get
dressed while I fluctuated.

So I dressed this verse
in a hurry, throwing on a
mint camisole over shorts.
You wore your welder’s cap,
fluffy curls peeking brown.
A small finch arrowed out.

A male and female House Finch.

The male has the color, of course, 

as is commonly the way with birds.

I replied in the comments:

The House Finches

The Jasmine bloomed thick
that year, full of white flowers
and that big perfume
and there, just above
eye line was the house finch nest,
angled out of sight
but I could hear them.

They wove it so carefully,
and there were three eggs,
I think three. I stayed
away from them all the while,
through the small hatching
and then all the flights
to feed the three tiny chicks
and they grew and grew
until one day that nest
tilted and spilled all three out
to the waiting cat
Hell Boy or perhaps
the stray who came from further
up our springtime street.

There was nothing left
but the nest all vertical
and old eggshell shards.

‎April ‎18, ‎2014 10:31 PM

House Finch Breeding Bird Survey Map

Image Credit: US Geological Survey

Standing Beside Myself

What is left behind,
a scrap of our past, twenty
years reduced to this,
splashes from the glass
that falls to the ground between
my splayed feet planted
below your window -
and you but a dangling twist
of cloth above me.

I must go, I guess.

It does me no good holding
court outside your house.

September 19, 2010 12:41 PM

Jack The Ripper - Three Word Wednesday

Wiki says:
Jack the Ripper is the best-known name given to a never identified serial killer who was active in the largely impoverished areas in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. The name originated in a letter written by someone claiming to be the murderer that was widely disseminated in the media.

The letter is widely believed to have been a hoax, and may have been written by a journalist in a deliberate attempt to heighten interest in the story. Within the crime case files as well as journalistic accounts the killer was known as "the Whitechapel Murderer" as well as "Leather Apron".

Three Word Wednesday offers these words for use in a posting:
Fraught; Honorable; Nocturnal
Go HERE

I've Seen Better Times

My old Scottish blood,
fraught with the Whitechapel scent
far from the calm seas
of honorable
nights well lived has me slinking
down cobbled alleys
with the feral cats.
They, like me, are nocturnal
at need and like me
they feed on moist bits.
The one sharp thing I still keep
is my stainless knife.

‎July ‎16, ‎2014 7:29 PM

After Losing Her Babies

The electron lept
off the wire onto her beak
and moist pinkish tongue
there to dance a jig
and flash into holy light
all white and blinding.
Raven held on tight
death defying claws and beak
while the particle
storm swamped her bird brain
and ate her whole raven life
leaving bones behind -
and feathers, always
there are black raven feathers
to mark a last day.

July 8, 2014 4:12 PM

Urban Life

Urban Life

The city takes us
as we are, but then changes
us beyond recall.
We say all fucked up
and we mean it - in secret
we care so much for
the truth of these things.
We would rather be found out
than give an inch, pray
for rain than lower
ourselves to touch their slime.
Still, we hope to win.

September 18, 2010 10:06 AM

Recently, I went into surgery on my eye for the third time. I hope I am nearing the end of my ordeal. Each surgery is in the 5-8k range. Medicare and supplemental insurance covers all but a couple hundred each. I am told all is well. I see much worse but I think that what has happened is the cataract has shifted somehow. The cataract has been developing as expected as a consequence of the three vitrectomies I have undergone. Cataracts are an inevitable consequence of losing the original vitreal jelly. I lost that fluid because the subretinal hemhorrage I suffered some time ago broke past the retina and bled into the fluid, ruining its clarity completely.

This operation was the easiest of the three but it has kicked my ass the hardest. I don't know why except to say I am aging and doing so fairly rapidly so I can't say from last year how I will be this year. Or in another way I might suggest that this third surgery has my body drawing a line and warning me not to open up a hole in the white of my eye again. That is what they have done in my vitrectomies. The doctor opened a hole, removed the fluid and the oil droplets left behind intentionally and then in the vacant space he had clear sight on the retina and what happened since he last looked. He said all is as good as it can be.

I have damage that can't be fixed but I also had other things that could be fixed. He trimmed away scar tissue last time and reattached the retina again. It had come loose again due to scarring. This time he saw that the retina had held in place where he put it. The time before it had not.

Next in a couple months I will have a cataract removal and lens replacement. I will soon enough have a bionic eye. Gotta love the city. It changes you. That's not all bad, perhaps. But right now I am not doing that well. I had some sight in that eye which is gone to be replaced with vague blotches of light and dark. And I do not feel well, spending lots of time in bed. I have been to the doctor and made sure that nothing obvious is wrong. I apply lots of eye drops, three different kinds as directed.

Saturday night my eye started hurting in a new way (considerring this is the same operation for the third time) and that's why I went to the doctor on Sunday. *sigh*

Arrogance

The North Star in a three hour time lapse.

Arrogance

I am stage managed
in my intention, willing
to change direction,
to stand on the "x"
at your cue, as you bring up
the lights, drop the scrim.

Soon I shall sweep clean
the stage of all the others,
stand alone as if
I am the North Star.

September 18, 2010 6:44 AM

Arrogance is a thorn in my side. I struggle. Not as much as I did in my younger days, but still. It is really hard to be humble. I work hard to continue to learn and I hone my various skills. If you ask me why I will be irritated and ultimately refuse to talk to you. Unless I am lonely or something. I try not to be like that though and try not to show it even if I am. Lonely or something. Heaven forbid you ever award me with any real power over others. It's not that I have any concept what I might do. It's that I also work hard to avoid anything like real responsibility as well.

Of course I fail in my program of action and I have responsibilities just like anyone else might and also I am burdened with knowing I am not good at avoiding things either. Just like all the other stuff I am not good at. Shit.