best remedies for an over-active imagination - part 3

wet

two

pennies,

place

them

in

the

freezer

for

ten

minutes,

lie

down

and

place

them

on

your

imagination.

best remedies for an over-active imagination - part 2

apply

a

cold

pack

to

your

imagination

while

lying

in

a

dark

room.

best remedies for an over-active imagination - part 1

visualize

your

imagination

as

a

pile

of

sand

slowly

pouring

out

of

your

head.

a to z poem - love, Universal peace, volatility, Death, God, E=mc2, What is is, Awareness, Fidelity, Hell, Infinity, Light, Karma, Jack, Justice

every once in awhile, i like to post an a to z poem. . . where i leave most of the poem blank and readers fill in those blanks by adding their ideas to comments. i put the comments into the poem and then link the addition to the poem to the reader's website or blog. for me, these have been really fun. here is a link to one that we did on (or about) the moon. . . if you'd like to see how they work. . .

talking about when

we don't quite know what we are talking about when we talk about Awareness

we don't quite know what we are talking about when we talk about Anything

we don't quite know what we are talking about when we talk about Beef

we don't quite know what we are talking about when we talk about Charity

we don't quite know what we are talking about when we talk about Chattering

we don't quite know what we are talking about when we talk about Death

we don't quite know what we are talking about when we talk about E=mc2

we don't quite know what we are talking about when we talk about Fidelity

we don't quite know what we are talking about when we talk about Flash Fiction

we don't quite know what we are talking about when we talk about God

we don't quite know what we are talking about when we talk about Gratification

we don't quite know what we are talking about when we talk about hell

we don't quite know what we are talking about when we talk about Infinity

we don't quite know what we are talking about when we talk about Justice

we don't quite know what we are talking about when we talk about Jack

we don't quite know what we are talking about when we talk about Karma

we don't quite know what we are talking about when we talk about Love

we don't quite know what we are talking about when we talk about Loyalty

we don't quite know what we are talking about when we talk about Light

we don't quite know what we are talking about when we talk about Mothers

we don't quite know what we are talking about when we talk about Marzipan

we don't quite know what we are talking about when we talk about Monsters

we don't quite know what we are talking about when we talk about Never

we don't quite know what we are talking about when we talk about NaNoWriMo

we don't quite know what we are talking about when we talk about Ourselves

we don't quite know what we are talking about when we talk about Openness

we don't quite know what we are talking about when we talk about Peace

we don't quite know what we are talking about when we talk about Quality

we don't quite know what we are talking about when we talk about Raisins

we don't quite know what we are talking about when we talk about Solitude

we don't quite know what we are talking about when we talk about Truth

we don't quite know what we are talking about when we talk about Time

we don't quite know what we are talking about when we talk about Universal Peace

we don't quite know what we are talking about when we talk about Volatility

we don't quite know what we are talking about when we talk about What is is

we don't quite know what we are talking about when we talk about Xenophobia

we don't quite know what we are talking about when we talk about Yams

we don't quite know what we are talking about when we talk about YellowCake

we don't quite know what we are talking about when we talk about Zygotes

we don't quite know what we are talking about when we talk about Zorlonians

Thank you Charity for adding Raisins.

Thank you Jennifer for adding Mothers, Marzipan, Monsters Death and God.

Thank you Kay for adding Universal Peace.

Thank you Theresa for adding hell, Infinity, Karma, Justice, Never, Openness, Truth and Light.

Thank you Dawn for adding Awareness and Fidelity.

Thank you Inky for adding Gratification.

Thank you Kathleen for adding Beef.

Thank you Mikie for adding Quality.

Thank you Marty for adding Anything and Ourselves.

Thank you Jena Isle for adding Charity, Zorlonians and Loyalty.

Thank you Jessie for adding Chattering and Solitude.

Thank you Willow for adding Jack, Time, Xenophobia, Yams and Zygotes.

Thank you Zorlone for adding Flash Fiction and NanoWrimo

*this phrase 'we don't quite know what we are talking about when we talk about. . . ' is borrowed from Nicholas Taleb.

governing at the border

\were you born of fire or water

\or so_me_ thing else altogether

\or something else altogether

\or something else altogether.

hawk

make me a hawk then, so that I, too will understand.

After reading the comments. . . I added this to the posting. Thanks everyone for reading and commenting. It was really very nice of you to do so.

Here is the complete scene from Arthur and Merlin. . .

"What is thinking?" asked King Arthur

Merlin replied, "Thinking is what made you ask me what thinking is. Thinking is seeing things from the perspective from the height of a hawk."

"Make me a hawk then, so that I, too, will understand," said King Arthur.

Merlin made him a hawk. He was flying high in the sky when Merlin asked, "What can you see?"

"I can see the trees and the lake all at one time," replied King Arthur.

"Can you see as far as Camelot?" asked Merlin.

"Yes," answered King Arthur.

"Can you see the outer boundaries of the Kingdom?" Merlin asked.

"Yes! I can see it very clearly," King Arthur said. "When you are down here on the ground, can you see the perimeter and the same things that you see up there, only down here don't you see them in your imagination of your mind?" asked Merlin.

"Yes," said King Arthur.

"Then, think man think," said Merlin.

puzzle

is the

puzzle

ever

complete

geranium

the mechanics of smoke

a friday full of sky

for skywatch friday

i want to be

any other questions?

have you ever tried?

have you ever tried
not to write about
something that's been
bothering you all day,
all week, all month, all
year, since the nineteen-
seventies?

how'm i doing?

the yellow of her skin, the blue of the sky

'my hands are always cold,'
she said, 'all the way up.' she
tugged at the sleeves of her
sweater and folded her arms
over her chest. we thought
she was going to say more.

'would someone turn on
the heat? could you turn
on the heat?' as if she'd gotten
used to those around her
being nothing but careless
and passive. 'we're outside

mom,' you said 'it's july, the
light feels so nice on your face,
doesn't it?' i heard you thinking
about the yellow of her skin,
the blue of the sky.

she probably didn't understand
that you were once and were still
her daughter, that we hadn't seen
her since christmas. her hand was
an echo in yours. 'her fingers are

like little quills.' the sun delivered
a punishing shine, reflecting off the
wheels of her chair. 'just don't let
me fall,' she said. her hair was as
tangled as grape vines. you set

your purse on the ground and a
few coins rolled out onto the sidewalk
and spun around like the remorse
after random gunfire. i picked them
up and remembered that she once

said your father carried
shamelessness around
with him like pocket money.

jilly nines - bran snakes

this morning

jilly nines

ate bran

snakes *

for breakfast.

* bran-snakes is from the uncle remus story 'how brother fox was too smart' by joel chandler harris.

an uncertain aesthetic - part 2

if good fences make

good neighbors, maybe

bad fences make

good photographs.

curious

every night since he
was 17 months old my
son has slept with a
curious george stuffed
toy. he is twelve years

old now, in seventh grade,
and this past week he came
home from school on monday
with 'i love katelyn' written
on his hand. 'who wrote that,'
i asked, and he said, 'katelyn.'

on tuesday his hands were free
from ink. i wasn't disappointed
but his mother was. wednesday
was 'i love catherine. 'who wrote
that,' I asked. 'catherine,' he

said. Thursday was, 'i love jacqui.'
'who wrote that,' I asked. 'katelyn'
he said, as if I understood. 'it was
katelyn who wrote i love jacqui on
your hand?' i asked. 'why?'

'i don't know,' he said. 'i just don't
know.' this morning, when i woke
my son for school, i found curious
george stuffed in the bottom drawer
of his dresser between his bathing
suits and baseball caps.

i play this game sometimes

she wrote this to her
daughter:

there are only two
things more frightening
than being a child - one
is being a parent.

the other is being a child
without a parent. a
missing parent makes
you wonder, makes you
feel incomplete your whole
life. you'll never lose
that feeling. . .

. . . but with any luck you
can make it go stand
in the corner for awhile.

i like how the yellow of his skin looks next to the blue of the sky

my daughter, Jilly Nines said

about this one,

'i like how the yellow of

his skin looks next to the

blue of the sky.'

* there are more here and here.

* it must be friwatch skyday, or skywatch friday.

* we always catch

the toys before they hit

the ground. no toys were

harmed.

alone

'loneliness, is a mask,' she once told

me, 'and you don't even have to

remember how it feels, if

you remember how it looks.'

another sunday

another shadow

another shot

thank you tracy

how to murder a poet

i finished my second book, 'how

to murder a poet,' last night.

i told this to my wife, who

has never read anything i've

written, and didn't know i

had been working on the book.

she asked, 'do you think

anyone will be offended

by the title?' she smiled

at me across the dreary

mess of my desk. 'i don't

think so,' i said, and her

smirk took an accepting

turn for the better. 'i mean,

there are no murders in

the book, no murderers,

no real poets either for

that matter.'

'it all sounds like an enormous

nonsense,' she said. she

picked up a loose sheet

of paper from floor.

'actually, you're right,' i said.

'it's a love story.'

there is a little more to this story and it's linked here. . .

to be real

This is another entry in the blogs that I read. Real dishes break. . . is a phrase that only appears on Out of Context: pieces of a life. Once a month, perhaps when the moon is in some phase with which I am unfamiliar, Marty posts a set of aphorisms that are actually quite profound. Some people love all of them. Everyone loves at least one of them. The day that Real dishes break. That's how you know they're real, went live, I knew what I wanted to do. . . I broke a dish and it turns out, like with so many things, that he was right. Sometimes you have to break something to know if it's real.

to resist, to travel, to get some food, to jump, to fall, to reflect, to stay warm, to be left alone

I have wanted, for a long time, to write about the blogs I read but I have been reluctant to do so because there are about a hundred or so that I visit over the course of a week and I can't imagine writing about all of them in one day. To leave anyone out is not my way - so please consider this a posting in progress - every once in awhile, I will add to it, and have it rise to the top of the blog.

I am intrigued with google search - not for what it finds but for what it doesn't find. For example, yesterday if someone had done a search for the exact phrase "the child who erased the internet," it would have come up blank. Today, you would find, the posting that is just below this one. So I am going to use google to try to prove what I know is true - that you are all very interesting and all very unique. Thank you for writing.

To resist dethroning myself. . . is a phrase that I read on Charity Joy Bell's blog Thoughts. . . If you do a search for that exact phrase you are led by google just one place - to Charity. Well, two places soon enough - since I've now posted it here too. That phrase is so very rich in meaning and so unique that in the history of history it had only been written once. It does not even seem to appear in the memoirs of Edward the VIII of the United Kingdom who did, in fact, dethrone himself. I guess he never resisted.

Children are the unwitting passengers in the lives of others. . . is from Jennifer Trinkle whose blog is Writing to Survive. Google knows exactly where to find that phrase. The very next sentence in Jennifer's piece is. . . Best friends only offer so much protection which is also overloaded with meaning and responsibility and our expectations as children of our friends and how, as adults, we realize that they were kids too. Our parents take us (or leave us) places. We make the rest of the trip, often with great difficulty by ourselves.

Grace writes on Hugz Before You Go. When she writes about her cats, you'll laugh. The other day she told a story about BB and wrote. . . then he dives under the rug to get some food, which is kind of hilarious to consider and if you click through to Grace's blog, you'll even see a picture. Once again, the only place that you can read that phrase is over at Hugz.

I can't help but be impressed with the words, the picture, of jumping into seas of green ivy. . . which Jessie wrote on her blog Softly Spoken. When I searched for that phrase I only found it once but I learned three things at the same time. Interesting.

Inky is from Newfoundland a place I have never been but have seen maybe a hundred times from the air, flying home from across the atlantic. I always choose a window seat and I always imagine being there, so far to the east that it's always 90 minutes later there than here. Awhile ago, Inky wrote. . . and watch my falling star sparkle sparkle. Even google, which finds Inky's poem, Falling Star, just fine, can't quite reconcile how unique that phrase is. Inky lives in Toronto now but writes and posts photographs of Newfoundland that are so rich that you think you were there - ninety minutes ago.

Melancholy moon reflects your grace. . . is from a poem written by Robin about her niece. Maybe it's just me, but when we write about our families, I believe we are at both our most articulate and our most vulnerable. This medium, a blog, is something of a magic mystery to me. We've told each other things that we've not told our own families. I wonder how much of the future will be spent in someone digging through the archaeology of our words. There is a picture of Robin's niece on the poem that is stunning and sad.

The world before the world wide web is written by Mark Kerstetter. Last week he wrote. . . until they stop making new blue cardigans. It's from a poem, about a poem, about a man. I forget exactly. There is a word I have just learned - it is allodoxaphobia - the fear of opinions. Mark does not have allodoxaphobia.

Holly speaks mostly in pictures. The other day she wrote, the Monarch butterflies wouldn't leave me alone. It was that picture - four or five butterflies attacking--keeping her from taking her photographs, that made me smile all day. I am smiling now. Holly went on to write that she was kidding about the butterflies, but I don't believe her. Butterflies are like that, first they think you are as interesting as a flower, then they think the flower is more interesting than you, then they check you out again and then they leave.

And sometimes, you don't even see them go.

the child who erased the internet

the child

who erased

the internet.

click here to read more.

only 24 words more.

years later

she never spoke. the

sunlight took shape

around her. around

her smile which was

brief enough that

years later, i could

only pretend it

was much more.

fig

in summer,
my grandfather tended
fruit from an unlikely
harvest-- a fig tree he
transplanted in new york
from his home in italy.

in fall and winter he'd
protect the tree against
the weather, in what looked
to me then, something like
a burlap ghost.

the spring after he lost
interest in figs, the wrapping
never came off the tree and
the fabric slapped against the
dead braches, the shreds of
the ghost, each day becoming
evermore aimless in the wind.

let's see

I've posted something at a new pen today - I hope it formats correctly for everyone's computers. It does on all the ones here. It's about the connection between love and a tattoo.

There is a new photograph and poem on the litter blog today too.

Most of you will have already read the short piece about Jilly Nines on the half-life of linoleum but if you haven't, it's about a little black cloud.

There is also a picture of a hawk that was in our backyard today. It's on just pictures happening.

later today, I

later

today, I

am going to

post a poem

that has been

rejected by every

literary magazine

on earth. every one

of them, some more than

once. some more than twice,

even after major rewrites. oddly

enough, the poem starts with the words:

later

today, I

these hands

these hands,

holding back the

water,

shading your

eyes from the sun.

litter blog

There are some new entries on the litter blog today.

to be left there and forgotten

a table.

a table and
a chair.

a table, a chair
and a candle.

a table, a chair and
a candle that flickers
without being lit.

a table, a chair and
a candle that flickers
without being lit and
two boxes of matches
too wet to catch when
you strike them.

a table, a chair and
a candle that flickers
without being lit and
two boxes of matches too
wet to catch when you
strike them and the gentle
voice that you hear.

a table, a chair and
a candle that flickers
without being lit and
two boxes of matches too
wet to catch when you
strike them and the gentle
voice that you hear only when
you look at the candle that
flickers without being lit.

a table, a chair and
a candle that flickers
without being lit and
two boxes of matches too
wet to catch when you
strike them and the gentle
voice that you hear only when
you look at the candle that flickers
without being lit by the matches
too wet to catch when you strike
them.

a table, a chair and

a candle that flickers

without being lit and

two boxes of matches too

wet to catch when you

strike them and the gentle

voice that you hear only when

you look at the candle that flickers

without being lit by the matches

too wet to catch when you strike

them all calling out, begging,

to be left there and forgotten.

woodstock + 40

We went to woodstock today, August 15, 2009. The 40th anniversary of the original concert. We met Michael Lang one of the promoters of the festival. He is the man holding the camera in the top picture.

The middle picture is of the natural amphitheater where the concert took place. The photograph is taken as if from the position of stage up the hill towards the site of the Museum at Bethel Woods.

We found the spillway, about a half-mile from Yasgur's farm, in which so many young people cooled off in the spring water and which has been shown in so many famous photographs from all those years ago.

An older local man, who we met after we abandoned our car and were walking to the concert site (we were walking faster than the traffic was moving) shouted to us from his truck, 'this is the same crap as forty years ago. I'm just trying to get home, to get some kleenex. . . live a mile away and I've been on the road for an hour.'

I asked him if he had gone to the festival in 1969. He tapped the hearing aids in his ears and said, 'see these, i had 'em since before you were born, I don't know Jimi Joplin from Janis Hendrix.'

My friends Cathy and Mark went too, with their friend Bill. (you really should check out these links. . . )

(somewhere) after silence, (and) before regret

to answer your question -

everything is fine, of
course until it's not

and then, as sure as
eggs is eggs, it wasn't
really fine to begin
with and all that will be

left is to bitch
prodigiously or perhaps
stand back and admire
the surprisingly elastic
properties of a dream.

sorry, as it's said, is never
quite as simple, as sorry.