Dancing

The distance between
maintains breathing room as if
I needed to breathe,
as if your contact
did not save me as it has
before, me drowning
in your waters, gills
working just fine as I twine
my old soul with yours.

Of late we find space
enough to dance our gavotte,
weaving our new forms.

August 23, 2010 9:16 AM

However, a recent study claims that the oceans are under increasing stress from warming, de-oxygenation, and acidification. Significant changes in some areas of broad scale are now expected as early as 2030 as these processes are already advanced. See this: Human Assault Pushes Ocean to Limit Unseen in 300 Million Years

Five Star Brand - 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:

Dreadful; Hasty; Sustain

Tectonic movement between west Gondwana (Africa-South America) and east Gondwana (Madagascar, Greater India and Australia) began prior to 150 million years ago. At about this time, about 150 million years ago, rifting along the southern margin of Australia began, the first separating events of Australia from Antarctica. By 140 million years ago the rifts continued to form along the western and southern margins of Australia, separating Australia from Antarctica and Greater India. This separation was accomplished over the span of 20 million years and that part of the separation was complete by 120 million years ago. But Western Australia and Antarctica were still connected.

Much of Australia had subsided enough so that a sea formed above it, but this gradually changed through ten million years starting about 110 million years ago. Once again above water, the whole of Australia, now long separated from the rest of the world, continued its separation from Antarctica. There is much local detail involving the nearby landforms of New Zealand and Tasmania, and the island groups that are now found to the north.

One key conundrum, the major extinction event presumed to be the meteor impact in the Yucatan area of Mexico and Central America as it was then configured, not as it is shaped now, shows no evidence at all in the area of the Australiam continent, 65 million years ago. By 45 million years ago the separation of Australia and Antarctica was complete and the circumpolar flow around Antarctica was in place. For a birds eye view of this *click here*

I have no idea why this connects with my poem, but I find the tectonic movements of our planet fascinating. As I understand it, all the now separated continents will eventually come back together in some far distant future. I suspect just as man had nothing to do with the past movements, he will have nothing to do with the continued continental shifting. Eventually, all this planetary crustal circulation will stop. That will signal the end of life sustaining things on planet earth, since the crustal circulations distribute several critical features that nourish life here. Life in some extreme and limited form may continue then, but we will be gone from the planet. Perhaps we will have gone elsewhere in the cosmos, but we will no longer be here.

Five Star Brand

I have kept my oath
shaped like my trust, carved by you
last dreadful season
and while not hasty
I am sure you ground it out
of a single block,
a single blonde stump
of five star brand. The dishpan
wash will not sustain
us any more. No,
I am not much built for speed
and my word not much
good for our great hope
(it would dissolve into grit)
but we both are good
enough for now, for the worst
that comes of this old
slog.

‎October 9, ‎2013 5:45 AM

This Was Not Wonderland

Nibbled by rabbits,
my soul shreds, its severance
from the rest of me
not all that easy
in the mouths of prey. Eagles
circle overhead,
causing uncertain
glances among the nibblers
who know very well
the eagles are there.
All the leaves have dropped nearby,
the snarly bare limbs
offer vultures roost
as they wait for the rabbits
to finish me off.

I don't know any
more than this, not where or why.
I woke up so sad.

‎October 7, ‎2013 4:54 PM

Bound By My Fate

I am not so free,
cannot travel very far
these days, so beset
by the stronger straps,
straps I have sewn and then nailed
tight on several
ridges of my soul.

I am strapped down, five or so
points of strong restraint
as I tend to stray
in the evenings these days
but in the mornings
I find it so hard
to gnaw through the leather straps -
just is how it is.

August 21, 2010 10:25 AM

My Brother's A Drunk-A Magpie Tale

photoshop image manipulation by Christer (crilleb50) displayed on DeviantArt. Christer lists his residence as Sweden.

Offered by Tess Kincaid as a writing prompt for Mag 189
To join with and enjoy this week's Magpie Tales writing group *click here*

My Brother's A Drunk

The ticking helps me,
why I sit here in the damp
on my roundabout
trudge through my own mind.
The clockwork does not keep time
that well, not my job
to care for the gears
though they grind me as they turn
and turn.

Circular
feelings match the sounds.

You have gone on a new tear
not to be found, not
where you always go,
not this time. I fear what's next.
As they all said, pissed
and powerless, bro,
and I shiver a bit here
in the fog of love.

October 6, 2013 9:44 AM

This is a story. I don't have a brother. However, as a thirty year member of twelve step recovery, I have many brothers. And sisters too. I am often in this position, or one like it.

Here Is My Fate

Sheldon Parsons, Poplars and Chilis, Oil on Board, 20" x 16"
Art of New Mexico

If ever a time
like this time, like the echoes
of you on my skin
or the fading light
between the leaves of poplars
in the threat of fall,
the gold shapes of threat
as I struggle with my life.
What have I done?

August 20, 2010 7:28 AM

Looking For Love

A cutaway view of a Bouncing Betty as the German bounding S-Mine was called.

Wiki says:

"A bounding mine is an anti-personnel mine designed to be used in open areas. When tripped, a small propelling charge launches the body of the mine 3-4 feet (0.9-1.2 metres) into the air, where the main charge detonates and sprays fragmentation at roughly waist height.

"The original World War II German S-mine has been widely influential. American infantry in World War II named the German S-mine the Bouncing Betty. Other countries that have employed bounding mines in war include the United States of America, Soviet Union, and Vietnam. China and Italy have also produced them. Some American mines designed for this purpose utilised a standard 60 mm high explosive (HE) mortar round with an improvised time delay fuse which is activated by the propelling charge.

"Bounding mines are more expensive than typical anti-personnel blast mines, and they can be thought too expensive for scatterable designs. Because they are designed to be buried, they are often utilized for command-detonated ambushes, but tripwire operation is common as well. If timing is right and the mines plentiful then they can be used much like blast mines, with a time delay in the fusing to allow those who trip the mine to pass beyond into the kill zone.

"By design, bounding mines contain a large amount of steel, which makes them comparatively easy to detect with metal detectors. However, it is often the case that minimum metal mines have also been planted in the same minefield, which complicates the demining process."

Looking For Love

I crave the lovely
pain you set like a bounding
mine beneath the road,
how it springs waist high
and blows my limbs off my heart
which bounces on down
the remnant road bed
cratered and crazed with some shards
of glassy sight left
to me as my heart
stutters trying to speak out
while gushing my joy.

‎October ‎1, ‎2013 10:37 PM

This one might be a mite twisted. But then again one might consider how many minefields are left behind after conflicts and how many children go home maimed after playing in the wrong field. Fathers of children set the mines. Fathers and children and their mothers live with the after effects. Children love their fathers and mothers. This poem might be dead straight true. The human race can be monstrous. No. This poem is not at all twisted. It is we who are twisted.

Angelina Jolie is a Trustee of the Halo Trust, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization engaged in the removal of hazardous debris of war, and land mines are classed among this debris. So is Cindy McCain. If you are interested in this charity *click here*

What Else Can I Do

This tintype could be Elisabeth and Christoph Rieckmann and their family in about 1870.

Wiki says:

Tintype, also melainotype and ferrotype, is a photograph made by creating a direct positive on a sheet of iron metal that is blackened by painting, lacquering or enamelling and is used as a support for a collodion photographic emulsion.

Photographers usually worked outside at fairs, carnivals etc. and as the support of the tintype (there is no actual tin used) is resilient and does not need drying, photographs can be produced only a few minutes after the picture is taken.

In a tintype, a very underexposed negative image is produced on a thin iron plate, lacquered or otherwise darkened, and coated with a collodion or silver-gelatin photographic emulsion. Since in a negative image the darker portions of the subject appear lighter, or in this case more transparent, the dark background gives the resulting image the appearance of a positive. The ability to employ underexposed images allows effective film speed to be increased, permitting shorter exposure time, a great advantage in portraiture.

First described as a usable process in 1853, the tintype process became very popular in United States, particularly during the Civil War. The process continued to enjoy significant use throughout the 19th century for inexpensive portraits, especially by street photographers.

What Else Can I Do

True love showed me how
I'm doing these days, coming
up behind me to
split her beak or head
on the glass wall between us.
She fluttered and called
as if I could hear
through the crystalline backlit
screams of hard living
or around corners
sinuous and so skittish.
I deny it all
of course. I will not
admit I am twisted up,
not on your tintype.

‎September ‎30, ‎2013 5:22 PM

This poem gives homage to my mother, who used to say "Not on your tintype." The phrase works like "Not on your life." only more mild. I searched for answers to this phrase on the internet sites and the best of them in the end suggested that it is a nonsense phrase, like "So's your old man" (1920s) and "Wanna buy a duck?" (1930s).

I have my own impression, because my mother used many substitute phrases for cussing outright, which I never heard her do, beyond hell or damn (but never God damn). I think that this phrase is one of those substitutions. It does appear to replace "Not on your life." which is an oath and thus arguably unChristian. My mother would use Gosh for God and Shoot for shit too. I think my mother took "Not on your tintype" from her mother or others of her mother's generation, or perhaps even her grandmother, who was influential on Mom and directly of the generation using tintypes and also this phrase. What I mean, "Not on your tintype" can't be older than the Civil War by much if at all. It was in popular usage all the way up past 1900 to sometime in the 1920s perhaps.

My mother used the phrase occasionally into the 1960s. I don't remember her using it later than that. In the 1970s she went into ministerial training and spent the rest of her life in the role of a Unity Minister. I can imagine her, however, perhaps engaging in play, say a game of Monopoly or some such and saying "Not on your tintype!" in relation to someone inviting her to pay rent or something. That is the sort of context I remember the phrase as she said it.

The Fall Of Camelot - 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:

Allege; Conceal; Propose

The Fall Of Camelot

The scrape of metal
against the stone will signal
his return to court.
He will then allege
it was Lancelot caused us
to falter and fall.
It does no good now
to conceal this thing from those
who judge us wanting
nor should we propose
such starting from heretofore
on to get thee hence.
Oh, it was not him
nor her, not really that did
us in, but the king
was forced by all that
rose in our way to take that
stand, try to save us.
He cannot save us.

October 2, 2013 5:24 AM

Precarious Times

Your dangerous shape
tastes like pepper drink stinging
my tongue and changes
my heart, pushing me
farther than I'd go alone,
on my own power,
exposing my red red
blood to the heat of your lair.
You have woven bonds
of your scent, of your
eyes that flash a siren's light
and hold me swollen.

August 18, 2010 11:23 PM

With My Wand

Wiki says: "The Osprey (Pandion haliaetus), sometimes known as the sea hawk, fish eagle, or fish hawk, is a diurnal, fish-eating bird of prey. It is a large raptor, reaching more than 60 cm (24 in) in length and 180 cm (71 in) across the wings. It is brown on the upperparts and predominantly greyish on the head and underparts, with a black eye patch and wings. In 1994, the osprey was declared the provincial bird of Nova Scotia, Canada.

"The Osprey tolerates a wide variety of habitats, nesting in any location near a body of water providing an adequate food supply. It is found on all continents except Antarctica, although in South America it occurs only as a non-breeding migrant.

"As its other common name suggests, the Osprey's diet consists almost exclusively of fish. It possesses specialised physical characteristics and exhibits unique behaviour to assist in hunting and catching prey. As a result of these unique characteristics, it has been given its own taxonomic genus, Pandion and family, Pandionidae. Four subspecies are usually recognized, one of which has recently been given full species status. Despite its propensity to nest near water, the Osprey is not classed as a sea-eagle."

I add: The Osprey is very common in the American Northwest and its nests are distinctive and easy to find because the Osprey likes to nest at the top of bald trees and also the top of tall poles and such erected by us for our own purposes. Sometimes they return again and again and the nests are built higher and higher over time. When on a vacation into the Canadian Rockies, going up to Jasper and then over and back down on the west side, it was not long before I started seeing Osprey nests in British Columbia as well.

I live now on the bluff above Willamette Falls on the Willamette River. The most common large bird in our area is the Turkey Vulture, seen daily circling and riding the drafts above the river and the hills both sides. The next most common I believe is the Osprey. However, we see Bald Eagles too.

With My Wand

If I could, I would
turn you into your freedom,
soaring like ospreys.
I am willing now,
willing to gift you with lift
like the running cat,
or the hart mid-leap.

I would craze the glass, shatter
the bonds that hold you,
by grace release you
from the gravity of all
the old illusions.

August 18, 2010 10:59 PM

The Flagstone Path - A Magpie Tale

Photo by Mark G Haley. He holds the copyright, 2010.
Offered by Tess Kincaid as a writing prompt for Mag 188
To join with and enjoy this week's Magpie Tales writing group *click here*

The Flagstone Path

I pull up the stones
looking for signs you left me.
I miss you that much.
I find no treasure
and this matches the gray day,
the pile up of clouds,
and the systole hitch
I live with these halting times.

I set down the stones
using all due care
trying for the undisturbed
appearance of things
and I think I do
well enough, thank you. Indeed.
I pray you find peace.

September 29, 2013 11:22 AM

Ennui

There were times when he
would wonder what could have been.

This one time under
the tiny moon high,
almost full but so awful-
cold on cold night time
draft bringing the frost
of the pale thin aired morning
this after the last
the same old same old
and he sure saw the one way
he might go as toothed,
sharp needle bright toothed
and better to be stalled out
right here than to go.

‎September ‎26, ‎2013 2:45 PM

A Sacred Tussle

Can You Tell Me Please,
Who Won?

The Buddha came back
when Jesus went on His quest
to bathe in holy
waters as He taught.
He took His place riverside
on a smaller fork
off the Jhelum stream
beyond Kashmir's most Holy
Dal Lake, where he met
the Buddha, both robed,
in a tea shanty. They drank
tea with yak butter
as was the custom.

They decided arm
wrestling was the Holy thing
for them to prove right
then and there Who wins,
but angels clouded things for us.
No one will ever
know. Ain't that a bitch?

‎September ‎25, ‎2013 11:17 PM

The Long View Of Things

When you got next to
John it got bad for me, which
I never understood
because John was fine
and you were even better
when I was alone
with either of you.
When I searched and found you next
fifty five years passed
and it was just like
no time at all in some ways.
Once you were one street
over but now you
are half way to the star field
and neither of us
knows how to find John.
Last anyone heard John left
for the settlements.
As for me, I came
back down, found a smallish den
and now I'm selling.

‎September ‎24, ‎2213 7:50 PM
New Earth Left Coast Local Time

A Simple Request - 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 3 Word Wednesday writing group *click here*

This week's words:

Earthy; Grotesque; Nonchalant

A Simple Request

Wait at the corner
of Nonchalant and Easy,

wait for me, for me.
I'm a bit earthy
and as well a bit grotesque

(I'm in the middle
as you can surely
see - it's a really tough crowd)

and I don't come up
to your standards here,
this I know all too well, missy.
Don't turn away, please.

Oh Bother!...You did.

September 25, 2013 5:03 AM

Armageddon

This was our end. Oh, I knew
we found the oily
sludge in the mean deeps,
the red acid wash of wrack
and ruin rising
amid the broken
belongings, the spoken oaths
of propaganda,
lies, tall tales of rut,
amounting to our demise
in the choking wake
of bright jet strewn doom.

‎September ‎23, ‎2013 9:52 PM

The Little Monster

Open your third eye
if you dare, little monster!
I will poke it out!
By the Elfin Lakes
in elfin mail shimmering
with blue steel hammers
and a red steel pike,
maybe I will browbeat you
first, smash you all flat,
your three eyes popping
out and rolling here and there
and you mewling so
thin like and reedy
that I can slip past sideways
and leave you to fry.

‎September ‎21, ‎2013 12:56 AM

The Elfin Lakes

Wiki says: Elfin Lakes are two lakes in Garibaldi Provincial Park that are popular for hiking, snowshoeing, skiing, and mountain bicycling trails located east of Squamish, British Columbia, Canada.

The Memory - A Magpie Tale

"The Moth And The Lamp" offered for a creative prompt by Tess for The Mag 187. To join with and enjoy this week's Magpie Tales writing group *click here*

Thank you, Tess, for introducing me to this young man's work.

Cesar Santos (b.1982) is a trained artist working in oils on linen, as he says, his favorite media these days. (At least in the days he wrote of it for his website) He is Cuban American raised in Florida and an internationally trained artist, trained in the manner of the old masters and as well in modern venues. He thus boldly positions near photographic perfection in backgrounds which can be fully impressionistic and even surrealistic. Often he will mix the representational with the surreal in ways that tangle them together in knots of beautiful fantasy.

Sometimes he will offer up modernized versions of the paintings done by the masters easily recognized as both the old and the new. He favors female nudes but also produces landscapes and works featuring many other subjects. To illustrate how a man's art can imitate his life, Cesar is also well trained in mixed martial arts and he fights well enough to earn awards, not a usual activity for a deeply realized artist. As I looked at the work he chose for display on his website *click here* I found a great sympathy for his vision rise up inside me. I especially appreciate his mastery of the old forms. I wish I had the discipline for it. I feel quite at home with his fearless blending of figure and ground, which I have so often used in my own work, a skill that I started to explore in art, poety and music in 1968.

The Memory

She caught the room's light,
in a hazy afterglow
hung low where she could
reach and draw it in,
and lifting herself up, wings
strapped on, bare breasted,
she set one foot free,
the slipper dropping away
like unpleasant truths
should fall from us all,
like drab walls and dirty glass
should be blacklisted,
and possibly burned.

Then she curled around her source,
and she mourned her son.

September 22, 2013 12:29 PM

The Best Of It

I found your spade, found
a stone in my shoe, grass stains
on my torn out knees.

I shall continue to weed
this garden despite my pains.

For all it falls short
love is still the best of it,
the gateway, the bloom.

August 18, 2010 9:22 AM