Writing Practice

Will wisdom be evoked as
the letters trip across the screen unseen

As some cryptic idiom
might ascertain
what goes right
and not awry

What is noble
what is fine, what leads
towards a
common Origin

Wherein our common Joy
Perhaps may embrace us all...

Fall Rant: "Oh Autumn Shadow"

Oh Autumn Shadow...


You put your shade on me...

And rob me of my birthright joys,

And the satisfactions of my sixty-some passages...


You rain your shade round me

And steal my small circumference of sunshine...

Focusing my mind on failures, could-have beens,

And pleas for attention, remembrance, and other pathetic

Whatnots...


At this "later life transitions" stage

I have no patience or time

For those who find in me

Lack of character or social grace

(Or deficiencies in "rhyme").


Critic:

Tend to your own affairs...

To your own illusions...

To your own joy-robbing, mirthless

Critiques...


I throw off your autumnal shade,

For I am a man of sunshine made.



To those who spend their lives

Blowing kisses to their own chosen butts,

I can only say:


I have joyfilled songs to play...

And... they start today!

HOMEWARD BOUND

Another day on the San Francisco Peninsula... then back home to Crescent City.



What with our May spent in China, and a couple of months of motel living while home renovations have taken place, we will be...oh so happy...to be under our own roof in our own 1,000 sq. foot, "petite" manufactured home. My wife, Cathy, wants to join a gym...and I am eager to go swimming in our local river (the Smith).



To live far from the maddening crowd in rural, coastal California means fewer trips to world-class museums, like the Metropolitan, and fewer visits to the cafes and street sights of urban America...still fresh, running water and walks among the towering trees of Redwoods National Park exert a stronger pull on me than the glamor and glitz of the city.



We are, at last...HOMEWARD BOUND.

A Peace of Place and Timelessness

Back in California after ten days on the East Coast (Manhattan, Brooklyn, and New England).

Been visiting with my 96 y.o. MOM.

Last night I drove her and her friend to a 4th of July party at the home of another member of the watercolor group she attends. About thirty people there. The atmosphere was low-key and pleasant...and she had a fine time. She sat up for three hours...good! for her.

The folks who gave the party had a beautiful, lilied koi pond in their backyard, fed by a homemade waterfall. I sat quietly by the pool for maybe five minutes (when some kids interrupted my reverie)...steeped in the peace of place and time (or timelessness).

The peace of place and timelessness nurtured me more than any fancy pyrotechnics.

4th of July--A New Era

It's July 4th.

Independence Day.

A new era is beginning...in which those with independence of thought and disposition, those who can take a global perspective, those who put children and elders first, those who value education and the arts, those who understand that human interdependence and ecological interdependence are fundamental...will supersede those of narrow sectarian or nationalistic interests.

The process already is in motion...A NEW ERA IS BEGINNING!

From narrow-minded thinking I assert MY independence.

Happy Independence Day!

PENELOPEAN TASKS

"In the shadows of this time of many passages" is my CRYPTIC for this HALLOWEEN missive to whomever may still venture to this website...

"Happy HALLOWEEN", by the way.

"All Souls present?"



HALLOWEEN: dying and regeneration...and "hijinks and hilarity" and thumbing my nose at MY "bogeyman" fears.

And...visiting some 'remote' in the lower heights of the Siskiyous in my imagination...I, nonetheless, function, work and form my word-quilt far from the Siskiyouan 'idyll'.

A good day for PENELOPEAN TASKS!

Impeach The Liar: Establish Democracy

Catherine, my wife, and I have been hanging out on the Oregon Coast for the last month or so--and now are dawdling in Yachats, Oregon until after the Fourth.

The theme of the July 4 gathering here is FLASHBACK TO THE SIXTIES with lots of RETRO music and bands, a "LA DE DA" parade with an UMBRELLA BRIGADE and other conjurings of neo-THEATRO CAMPESINO influences in performance art.

My plan is to be a respectful spectator of this ragtag, INDEPENDENCE DAY parade-gathering.

I will be wearing my IMPEACH THE LIAR pin...hence, I will be participating in my own fashion.

Let's remember:

THE 4TH OF JULY, 1776 WAS A CHALLENGE TO TYRANNY. Maybe this 4th will renew the people's challenge to government tyranny...

grandson's nap

IT IS IN THE IN-BETWEEN

IN THE SPACE

BETWEEN

NOW AND PLANS

THAT my

GRANDSON'S NAP

SETS

THE

EASIEST PACE

DUNEBUGGY died today

DUNEBUGGY (14 yo canine puppy-friend) died today...

Someday, maybe, I will tell his story (if, on my 'ayah-baba' plane, "DUNER" gives me permission...)

I'm not sure why, but all this GRIEF turmoil surfaces...so, let it flow, I guess...

Cathy, wife and friend, has been sharing immediate LOSS with me--e.g., we dined "out" and we hugged a bunch.

Duner's 'passing' is one more loss.

The loss of my friend, Mark, to cardiac arrest in his hotel room in Santa Cruz is yet one more loss.

There have been a BUNDLE (of "losses").

But the ETERNAL PROCREATOR AND PROVIDER is no swindler for s(he) resurrects what she takes unto HERself --keeping HOLI what she would cherish.

Trans.: "Creating anew from the chaos of thanatos"--even if EROS remains only as a cherished idealization (a la MAXFIELD PARRISH idealized themes).

This is not great writing; but, then again, I am not a writer--rather...i labor at writing!

vignette

okay be that way...


not to acknowledge

a degradation

pursuant

to

indifference

about the

physical hunger

of brothers and sisters

near and afar...


exacerbates the

slow, raw simmer

of the hitch-hiker,

who resents the driver-

for owning the car-

that picks him up

and delivers him

to his gratitude-free

destination...


"I get

out here,"

he drawls...