Journal Bits

A few bit and jottings from my journal recently...

• vases stand tall/and empty on coffee tables/that seem lost without coffee./green plants offer no proof/of authenticity
• quote from Charles Simic - "The sense of myself existing comes first. Then comes images and then language."
• The asparagus was green/with envy next to the Julian carrots./My therapist would ask/how this makes the carrots feel.

Technorati Tags: Journal bits. Michael Wells

Visiting My Journal

Bumper Sticker seen tonight on car in Target parking lot:  Spiritual people inspire me / Religious people scare me.

Few Journal Bits this week:

notes to self....

topics to inspire future poetry

• Grandma fishing at Muscle Fork
• the act of shaving
• peanut shells on the floor
• geese on the ball field
• pill routine

polite conversation drizzled us/two scoops of vanilla ice cream, side by side with chocolate syrup

flies behaving badly in a seedy joint

I should like to have been there./Been somewhere emotion ruled/even if to have been speechless/but in the body./To witness a pair of long exposed legs/and feel some kind of movement.//

the stakes in the garden lean from the westerly fall winds

Technorati Tags: journal bits. Michael Wells,life as a poet

Back From A Weekend Run To St Louis

Back home after a whirlwind trip to St Louis to See Daughter #2.  Haven't done a Journal bits post in a while....  A few things from this past ten days.

• 9-11-08 "I look at a picture on my desk of all four of our kids together and note their facial features and how much they look alike."
• 9-11-08 Quite from Rainer Maria Rilke ~  "If my devils are to leave me, I am afraid my angels will take flight as well."
• 9-13-08 evening... "There is in you what is beyond you"  ~ Paul Valery
• 9-14-08 The blackened windows was unyielding./There is another side to this-  I dispute,/the blank stare, dark and framed/in a plague of crippling lies./
• 9-15-08 "conscripted fantasy"
• 9-16-08 I am better suited for productivity this morning as I am not zoned out on carbs. Life is a balancing act to get enough but not too many.
• 9-16-08 The language that we cling to is a monument that testifies to the organized progress of man. It is so exciting to be linked to this feat, this act of human achievement by the very use of it on a daily basis.
• 9-19-08 I got my ass kicked good a the office today.
• 9-20-08  ...had dinner, tacos from Jack-in-the-Box.
• 9-21-08 "a box store full of false hope/discount prices and depressed wages
Technorati Tags: journal bits. Michael Wells,Rainer Maria Rilke,a poet's life

Journal Bits This Week

• a quotation from the poet Stanley Kunitz - "I dream of an art so transparent that you can look through and see the world."
• ...monster winds rebuke her for safety disregarded.
• -still, fashion statements speak up/unpretentiously. These are long firm legs and sleek/institutional distractions.
• I want rain to be plain/I want rain that stays the same/No horizontal riding of wind/No golf ball sized hail on or off/the green.
• "Your whole age sits between what you hear/and what you write." - W.S. Merwin from "Sibyl"
• A lavish history locked away in a graying point of view.

Journal bits this week...

• conversations through cheese cloth/ripple the dialogue
• The last thing echoes its name/off the monument to a culture/unable to establish roots here
• I had a dream in the pitch dark. As disturbing as it was, it remains a shapeless void.
• Rain falling - acoustically pleasing. A single roll of thunder breaks through; then a second one. A lazy Saturday morning has broken out. [7-12]

Journal bits this past week

Poet at table

• A swatch of scalp lay silent/a plug of zoysiagrass/encroaching upon our sensibilities




• It was the summer of gas lines/so hot the legs of ants curled under




• ...How we stood/on the hill and cradled/our paranoia, keeping/to ourselves...

Journal bits

recent bits captured from my journal writings:

• virgin issues sautéed/in a time honored tradition of denial.


• a gold band indents my finger/as if to say something much deeper


• cars pass both ways-/my ride absent and my mind/dismantled in the heat/one thought at a time/ until I'm one/with the sky's urban haze.

Journal bits this past week

• Was it Bukowski who said/upright is so overrated?/If he didn't, he should have.
• The doors finish is marred/with the anxious requests/of a dog who wants me to know/he wants out.
• Testing the wind/for aptitude,/I find myself defending/its meager showing.
• Someone will give us props, if not from ourselves they/will come, not as gentle rain/but as the rat-a-tat-tat/of an automatic that/ speaks and then leaves behind questions.

Colors of spring & summer

One of the many things I like about spring/summer is the greening that occurs in Missouri. I'm not much of a heat person, so the spring weather is more to my liking, but the landscape coming alive with shades of green and the various other plant blooms that brings reds and yellows and blues, these sharpen my view of the surroundings. I also appreciate the longer daylight hours. I'm reminded how as a young boy I loved that stretch of evening that was browning down but not yet so dark I was required to come in.



I think these kind of nights fill me with an appreciation for colors and textures and words that allow images full of a range of shades to creep into my mind and work up something to put on a page.

A few bits from my journal of recent:

• Was it Bukowski that said/upright is so overrated?/If he didn't he should have.
• The weave pressing patterns/into my skin that rests/upon the rug of reverence/as I meditate on the life/of annoyances-
• Stories travel linear/ and mark their time with words/filled with suggestion
• counted votes spill upon the walk/in naked rawness so blistered/ by the divisions of public sentiment.
  

Journal Snippets

I've not posted many snippets from my journal lately, and I suppose that can be attributed to the fact that you've seen a lot of my drafts for NaPoWriNo. I thought I'd see what I can pull out that has not already been posted.

• Towering above my earliest memories of the city/ grand beacon and vertical point of reference / scraping the sky / occasionally the top swallowed by clouds
• Disfigured dairy / yellow glacier / sliding across the plate / victim of global warming / localized
• A reconfigured Rene Zellwelger / thumped in the head / and some Carly Simon concussion of a song / splitting it apart / there's nothing "so vain" going on here.

Sunday night

It reached at least 72 today in Kansas City. The wicked wend of the North West is pounding us and storms moved in tonight. Alas, snow is in the forecast for drive time tomorrow morning.

A few journal bits from this past week:

• unshaven legs, suctioned to a convex view /
• repetitive days in a mirror judgement / till there is glitter in the Coral Sea /
• a crooked scalp line parted the hairs / rising from the banks of regression /
• cut stone, linear and stacked / forged four corners / below the surface
• my son says my equilibrium /is off and that is why I can't stand / neocons-

Journal Bits

From my journal - a few recent bits:

• Dexterity lingers in hinged sticks / that count themselves by one
• If these were normal thoughts / they would bask in the sunny side / of frequency- not the cold darkness.//
• Shadows aren't secret places. / Just overlooked and misunderstood.//
• Streets flowed downstream / past lamp posts and shops / that closed for the occasion.//

This morning from my bedroom I heard rain beating against the windows. Considering the temperature I knew this was not a good thing. Tonight the ball field across the street looks larger then life in massive white.

In the picture above, my bud Barry, maintains a stern view of things.

Started reading Pushkin's Eugene Onegin which my daughter brought home with her from school for the Christmas break. Considering her distaste of poetry I am intrigued that she enjoyed the book so much.

Haven't shared any journal bits for a few days so I'll throw some in this post...

• portions of the night are tattered/comfort estranged/rest could only be a figment of active imagination
• I looked at my left hand/traced the lines deep/into the country side/until I could not recall /how I got there
• strung together, we are popcorn/and cranberries- differences/flashing red lights do not exclude
• night is lax on standards/makes no effort to screen/leaving the door ajar
• there is one non sequitur/that echoes in your head/and loosens the bindings/of Webster's unabridged/joins the others as the new word for the year/the binding restitched all tidy

Journal smatterings

• perception grows elongated/hangs around crowds/making the kinds of impressions/teenagers do to one another/looking to make points/with the opposite sex
• Intonation offered up for what?/ears- or simply a regurgitation
• nights of elastic boredom/ripple with salty waves/of complacency we suck on/there is a satisfying feeling /like a dog gets licking your face
• you showered the long day away/I gave you a bath robe/the belt hung limp

If only [prompt]

If only our better judgement played out
at the Metropolitan Opera House
to a spunky cheerleader packed crowd.

Journal bits this past week...

• no amount of social acupuncture / would ease the burden I carried /in a crinkle brown bag / with the sweet stench of rotting fruit
• what have I to want but a portion of real estate 12x13 to call mine / plant my sovereign flag in its heart
• your festive laugh disordered my thoughts / I skipped something critical on vinyl
• silence poured out of a pause
• some days I am the father of righteous indignation / searching for my child / lost among conformists.

Journal Jottings This Week

From my journal this week:

• As if coded in some way the birds / converse clearly aware of the time / to the exact minute in spite of / the human element of relativity.
• One cannot pluck notion / from the tangled presence / of central air against the popular / theory of tidal pull.
• Free admission flourishes / where depressed economics / wrapped itself around disinterest.
• World hunger beware, her dimpled / diplomacy will restore world peace / to its proper priority.

Bits from my Journal...

• It (curling) is far more physical than one might imagine.
• If boiled with water / The broth ascribes / to thinly veiled life / The taste of which fall flat
• The presence of that hauntingly empty feeling with the close of baseball season, is setting in.
• It is pretty much an established fact that I was small at birth... and that at some point when she (mom) was holding me I slid into the pocket of her robe.
• ...A bronze vagina / commemorating all that is, / but purely ornamental
• Like concrete in a sinus passage / my head is filled with reflective guilt

I beseech you, don't make me beg...

I’m scaling down this weeks summit and being careful, but not particularly graceful in my descent. Monday and Tuesday were relatively speaking manageable days. Wednesday was on the other hand, one of those days where it all falls apart and topples down on you. So today, I continue down the incline, but with concern as not to create an avalanche behind me.

There are but two days left for people to respond to my survey on the sidebar about rewrites. I want to blog some next week on revisions and while such a survey is of course not scientifically representative of the poet population as a whole, it will give me some idea as to what readers here might consider their norm. So please, don’t make be beg, (I look so undignified) if you haven’t done so already, take a moment to respond.

Couple of bits from my journal this week:

• The lady up the street powered up her nose / in a mammoth snub / I flashed an Indian corm smile / like I wanted her approving curtsy
• Afternoon slumps / Holding its hands in its pockets
• I would watch her sleep / Sometimes in silent fog
• You popped my bubble wrap / In italicized arrogance / I popped yours in return

Weary and wilted

In the course of my visit, I have now misplaced a shirt and shorts. Considering I came with extremely limited clothes this trip, and they seem to be disappearing at the rate of one item a day for the past two days, I could have difficulty being able to dress for the flight home by Saturday.

The trip is truly a mixture. I have greatly enjoyed being able to see my oldest daughter. That's been a blessing. I am however homesick- missing my wife tremendously, and beginning to feel a bit emotional already about the fact that when I leave, my youngest will be staying behind. So the emotions for the trip are a bit like taking a jar and putting the good and the bad together and shaking them up. What you get is pretty messy emotionally.

Writing has been difficult. Still a sampling of my journal from the last few days:

• These are not afterthoughts / That spill over the levee / But plateaus of articulation
• Things I wanted to say in deep cobalt blue
• Raining syllabic utterances
• His skin circumcised by a combination / Of sun and shifty motivations
• We saw in him all the signs / Of a man able to straddle / the Continental divide