Journal Bits

I haven't done a Journal Bits post in some time so here are a few samplings:

AUG 22- I was seated next to a woman / who knew what I was thinking / she knew everything and she knew / nothing  of the way I fantasized / that she were a blot of lightening / and how she struck me / twice as improbable as / it was that I was / in electric convulsive / therapy for these things / that I think about/ when I have others / to indulge in my thoughts

AUG 27 - Writing last night was lackluster, but then I worked in an environment of distraction...

SEPT 2 - Today is the seventh anniversary of my blog

SEPT 6 - Any latitude given  / to these stories / of headaches and tides / pushing and pulling / against each other / are provincial

SEPT 7 - I'm on the verge of a couple of different poems but still sifting out the specifics.

SEPT 11 - I put Shannon on a plane this morning and this is the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks...

SEPT 13 - I'm tired tonight and I'll admit a bit grouchy...

SEPT 26 - Yesterday my copy of Letters From the Emily Dickinson Room arrived... read through it in one sitting.

OCT 6 - Not all falls are without grace...

OCT 8 - Vacation day.. double platelet donation... Meghan texted me,  she was donating platelets at the same time I was - this was cool!

OCT 12 - From here it's all academic / there is a darkness because there is / light -

OCT 16 - The Giants ended up winning 5 to 4. Yeah!

OCT 19- Giants win game 3 by a three to nothing score. gave up only three hits. Awesome game in San Francisco for the home fans. They lead the NLCS now 2 games to 1.

Few Journal Bits

I feel like we’ve already had more rain this year than all of last. I wake up mornings and I wring out my water logged brain and reinsert it in my head cavity and start the round all over. It has become insane!

At the left is a shot of the evening sky – the view westward from our neighboring Target. Yes it appears to be clearing. Long term however, we have showers in the forecast again tomorrow and Tuesday.  Who knows beyond that. It’s just like Chinese water torture only on a larger scale.

Some writing success during the past week. Some things I’m happy with as draft starts.

A few journal bits from this past week-

• 6-13-10  “eyes of emerald / a woman’s face / lashes like passengers / lined at the rail of an ocean liner / waving as she departs”
• 6-11-10 “Oh my God Klaus has improved. Last night he was trying to get up on his own. He cannot yet stand on his own but we can actually see this happening in due time.”
• 6-09-10 “I am watching my to-do list grow faster than I can attack it.”  :(
• 6-07-10 “it was well within the probability / you don’t think of / even when the thought occurs / a buzz that you wave off”
• 6-07-10 “that’s where you were— / the wild card I never used / the coupon that stayed on the refrigerator / well past the expiration”
• 6-07-10 “you remained an uncashed coupon / till the day you expired”

Couple of quotes I saw this past week that spoke to me:

"The first task of the poet is to create the person who will write the poems." -  Stanley Kunitz  Thanks to Susan Rich

“The two most engaging powers of an author are, to make new things familiar, and familiar things new.” - Samuel Johnson

 

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Overdue Journal Bits

  I’m a little overdue for a for a posting of journal bits so here goes. The following are a sampling of my recent journal writings.

I keep a common journal. It includes journaling about life, writing drafts, quotes I find that strike my fancy. And occasionally one of my completed poems after many rewrites

May 8 – [observation]  While labels are necessary to the existence of language, they also have the potential to be a detriment to mankind.

May 6 - [observation] Last nights Mary Oliver reading got me to thinking about my place in the family of things.

May 5 – the room swings / an awkward stroll through the park / the windows dance on the walls

the bed is a boat afloat / that I am at a loss to reach

May 3 – I was not good to writing over the weekend. I neglected it and did not especially realize it until today.

April 29 – pushed back from the walls / an echo rebuking me / when I wanted to walk away but did not

April 26 – Macaroni and cheese must be the ultimate comfort food of my generation. I think there is a poem somewhere here.

 

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Easter Mo & Journal Bits

Here is Mo in the annual back yard Easter Egg Hunt. Here he is still a little tentative about his find. Mo is just so huggable.

The brisk breeze this afternoon is a nice feeling. I'm concerned about tomorrow though as I have the baseball opener in the afternoon. We may have morning showers... long as they are out of here by noon time, I'm cool with that.

Now for some Journal bits for the past week... March 29 - April 3

• March 29 - (rough notes from a podcast A Conversation with Andrew Mitchell - at Stanford University on poetic language / Martin Heidegger philosophies) Paraphrasing - Describes poetic language as ambiguous ambiguity - language that is not frozen. The origin of the work of art does not  exhaust itself. Poetry as a way to expose unknowns... we become mortals through our encounters with poetry -Language is relationally defined by poets. Poetry gives name to the gods. 
• March 31 - I'm thinking about the fact that I'm sweating and its the last day of March. It's hot and I'm in a shitty mood tonight.  
• April 1 - National Poetry Month begins today and with it, my poem-a day- challenge. This is where it gets all crazy.
• April 3 - "Under the crush of an August sun / in the baptism of sultry shifting about / I opened my shirt for air-- / the two sides hung / like dead flags on polls / and there was no relief in this."
• "they walked the path to the creek abreast / as the woods crowed them, he took the lead, / his hand lingering behind in hers." 
• "If Kipling were here / I'd offer him a piece of mind. / Myopic, crumpled one--" 
• March 4 - quote by Martin Heidegger "Every man is born as many men and dies as a single one."

Journal Bits March 15 -21

March 16 - The morning is like an intersection with everything coming together at me all at once.

March 16 - There could be an IED / somewhere on this desk / who would know / till it were too late / till the florescent crackled / overhead the air crisp / with carbon / ashen paper particles


March 17 - and there among all other / was a single green rose / the bud still grasping itself
 
March 20 - where would we be without the moon / the moon that placates vampires / that romances our literature / that hangs in the trees / night after night until gone / its presence then in the conspicuous absence / until reappearing as a sliver resting against the night
 
March 20 - noted that late night I read "For the Year of  the Insane" by Anne Sexton
 
March 21 - Time to kill / on a messy morning / Sunday, graystone sky Sunday / silent cold / the air having scraped her teeth on snow that fell  / these past two days / crispy chattering

Journal Bits March 8 - 14

• March 8 - After assessing the potential of what I have so far towards my working manuscript, I'm about five off my time lines. Counld be worse.
• I guess I'm going to do the 30 days- 30 poems challenge for April again. I'm an idiot. I like to think of them as 30 drafts. Last year I had about five keepers out of the work.
• March 9 - After reading Susan Rich's poem What to Make of Such Beauty from her upcoming book The Alchemist's Kitchen my book want list just grew.
• When you are young / before death has any real grip on you / leaving an empty no-deposit-no-return
• March 11 - there is a phantom disorder / hiding within the order of us all...  there is a dark side to out toast / it is not what is buttered with sunshine
• The shelf has bowed under the its weight / heavy in insignifance
• March 12 - Is it time again for daylight savings? / A bouquet of bunk. Show me / the savings. Like all capatalism it's just shifting ledger columns / hocus pocus
• March 13 - After the minute and hour hands collide at midnight / after the house listens to itself for groans and settlements in the walls

Journal Bits MARCH 1 - 7

Journal Bits for the past week

• MARCH 1 -  Up from the deep blue / a slammed door / adolescent anger / against a quivering shore
• MARCH 2 -  it wasn't transative / and long-suffering / or shrouded on metaphysics
• MARCH 3 - Missouri has a new poet laureate, David Clewell of Webster Groves, Missouri.  He was not on my radar.
• MARCH 4 - My earliest memories of death / aren't saddled with suffering / shrouded in metaphysics / or even human.
• MARCH 7 - Quoted John Berger, "Mystifications protect power. Mysteries protect the sacred."

Journal Bits

A micro snapshot of my writing journal...

• Feb 16 - The short program / uncorked and raw / upon a mirror of ambition
• Feb 21 - Quoted May Sarton - " Loneliness is the poverty of self, solitude is the richness of self."
• Feb 25 -  He grew anamated / arms and voice in flight /sure of himself / surer then he's ever been / looking into the mirror / across a table
• Feb 26 - You never had the good / example that I never had / it's safest in the quiet / in the echo of the shadow / that hasen't moved / but listens

Recent Journal Bits

• January 6 - note: I'm still having trouble writing this year correctly.


• January 6 - "what I know of you / fits well in my cupped hand / it's all there is."

• January 7 - " Januarys grace is the slowly rising plum of smoke from the fireplace / chimney against the dark blue sky of a children's picture book."

• January 9 - "What do you suppose / the dead take with them / memories caramelized by years  / of turning, sautéed in the juices  / thank make up life?"

• January 10 - "Venation Blinds have great dexterity...  they align themselves so well / precise as the feet of a marching brand / white spats going up and down / in perfect cadence.

• January 10 - quote: "The late poems are the ones / I turn too first now ... they are made of words that have come the whole way" W.S. Merwin - Worn Words from The shadow of Sirus.

• January 16 - add the word pellucid to my word list - admitting the passage of light, transparent or translucent . Transparently clear in style or meaning.

A bit overdue for Journal Bits

A few journal bits from recent writings-

Dec. 15th “and now I / Foam to wheat, glitter of seas / The child’s cry [from Ariel by Sylvia Plath]

Dec. 15th when your room is a town / and the hallways a thoroughfare / to climb into your own bed is trespassing

Dec. 16th What is it that keeps us focused and what are the things that derail us?

Dec. 22nd Trying to expose the soul is like catching carp with bare hands. If a soul wanted to be seen and recognized for all that it is it would show a little leg.

Dec. 24th Silence is the reversible side.

Dec. 24th. Guilt creeps through superficial cracks…

Dec. 26th I failed miserably.

Dec. 26th I don’t choose them; they find me (morning thoughts)


Dec 27th What does one have to do to get a glass of plain water?

Dec. 27th “The poet’s only hope is to be infinitely sensitive to what his gift is, and this itself seems to be another gift that few poets possess.” [Ted Hughes – London Magazine Vol. 1 NO. 2 1962]

Dec. 29th “pulp non-fiction / outdated upon arrival”

Jan 1st “I see the pox / on the old man’s face”

Jan 4th We’ve evolved into a voodoo age… Our current socio-political climate is so amerced in a high voltage hate that most Americans are of a mindset that they whish harm to come to those who are of a different (and usually believed inferior) view then themselves.

Journal Bits

It's that time again...

• the paper absorbed everything and said nothing
• the night is an unsettled dog
• Mary Oliver quote - “Do you think the wren ever dreams of a better house?"
• the exit signs determined in their request
• it's a casual uncaring / not rooted in any harsh disinterest / more maladaptive to the day at hand
• losing myself in the moments of a hair cut / or the making of a spare key / that light headed tingling that forgets everything / suspends all thought in mid air

This thing

This thing you call success
is holed up in the laundry room
attached to black hoses
on life support

Journal bits

Battered by wind and rain / by tides and Lunar laughter / choked on unforgivingly / the night is pressed into servitude

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Journal Bits

• June 7 - "Books on the shelf lean / helter-skelter / left asunder / by random reading"
• June 7 - "Parking is an exercise / of temporary occupation / of territory"
• June 8 - "The day they closed / the car plant / eyes burned of acid bewilderment"
• June 9 - poets to add to my reading list for June: Farrah Field, Joe Wilkins, Adam Clay, Karen Rigby, Emma Bolden
• June 10 - "The miles between us are narrow ruled / I can count the times we've tripped  / over one syllable words
• June 12 - " holding on is an art / so too is letting go"

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Journal Bits & More

March 12 - [noted part of a line from a Boston Legal episode that I have a feeling will find its way into a poem at some later date] "its always orange for breakfast and apple for lunch"

March 12 - comfort is is an approximation/which has not arrived

March 13 - you have weathered the streets/know the names of its inhabitants/and carry a Godlike name

March 13 - The word is/side effects/are rare/and musical/most of the time /hardly irritable

March 16 - It's uncomfortably warm in the house tonight. For the longest time I was here alone tonight and the house felt closed in....

March 18 - From across the hall comes an airborne thought/I shall pocket it in hopes of making it my own

March 19- Two tea bags/bold is not exactly/a distinguishing landmark

On another note, I have a blog to recommend. Brian Brodeur's How a Poem Happens is an engrossing look into the creative process various poets subscribed to in the creation of specific poems. The most recent being Sandra Beasley author of Theories of Falling. Other poets featured Dorianne Laux, Stephen Dunn, Daisy Fried, and Dan Albergotti to name a few.  If you haven't been there, check it out!

I'm on a roll, sent out two batches of poems this past week to venues that I've not submitted to before. Fingers crossed!

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Sunday Evening - catching up on the week

Mood: exhausted

It's been a quiet evening and we stayed in, ate fried ravioli and played baseball on Playstation. Three games. I took the first two and Meghan beat me the last one. She played a really good first game and I came back in the bottom of the ninth to beat her by a run. The second came was a blowout and the third she won by a single run. I'm a tough competitor so while I won two of the three, she is getting better because two of those games were really competitive.

Things I have marveled at during this visit:

• Cathy Ann's grapefruit tree in her backyard. The fruit is awesomely sweet.
• Percy's size. (Percy is Meghan's dog) He's really grown since I last saw him.
• A life size Zen Garden on ASU campus. I didn't know there were anything but miniatures.
• How young many of the Giants players at Spring Training look this season.
• How nice the dog parks are here.
• How much I continue to hate daylight savings time in spite of the fact they don't have it here. In reality I lose that hour when I get back home just the same.
• People still drive like bats out of hell here.

We'll take in another Giants game tomorrow at Scottsdale. Sadly it will be the last time I see the team in person for a while.

Also planning to go to the Melting Pot after the game for dinner.

I've been able to get some writing in this week, and this morning did some sketching.

Some Journal bits from this week:

March 1

• What color ink do I spill upon/the pages that tell nothing/that scream the silence/to no end
• It's impossible to fold idle chat./I've tried to four square it and shove it/in my shirt pocket.

March 2

• sleep, the manna of horizontal incline/the presence of an absence of mind

March 5

• Quote "Every poetic image asks why there is something rather than nothing, as it renews our astonishment that things exist," - Charles Simic
• (thought) every war has veterans what about veterans of peace? We never give attention to those who dedicate themselves to the idea of peace becoming a reality. Note to self - this could be a future poem topic.
• a Kleenex box on the end table/extends it's hand

March 8

• Quote "It's the job of poetry to clean up our word-clogged reality by creating silence around things." ~Mallarme

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From my journal tonight...

My pillow is a bed for tender thoughts. Speaking of which, it's way past my bed time.

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Journal bits for the past week

a few random items from my journal this week...

Feb 14 - At times like this Alice will sit at a small table/pouring Earl Grey as we sip from miniatures/and talk about what, I never recall.

Feb 15th -In talking with Meghan yesterday I can tell she is getting excited about my upcoming visit.

Feb 16 - Yesterdays rewrite of An American Whim  came after receiving critical comments (that I sought) from PB and AD. AD gave me the most critical (technical) view while PB spoke to things she liked about it. 

Books are scissor stacked/in piles, on end tables,/desktop, the thick of carpet/on the floor next to the easy chair

Feb 17- Where has this month gone to? Already a shortened month it appears to work against the benchmarks I've arbitrarily set...

Feb 18 - MR emails me, "you of all people have new stuff and old stuff." Feel like I've been busted.

The pretext for the afternoon / was as one sided as the face /of Mount Rushmore but not near/as stark....

It was not with the exchange/of currency or anything so mercantile/

Feb 19 - was so totally whipped out from work today...

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A few bit from my journal...

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• you water the lawn with thought so fertile they spring up on contact
• if nakedness were a genre / you would be published / as total frontal and make no apology for an Freudian / complexes you may have caused
• the TV was black with apathy / your voice, reversible / is turned inside out

Just a thought- Why in the course of modern warfare with precision bombs and rockets are there still many innocents severed from the arteries that make us whole? 1-13-09

 

From my journaling this past week

Journal bits—

Saturday, Dec. 6th -(listening to an interview by of Katie Lederer, Hedge Fund Poet and editor of Fence) It’s important for writers and other artists to report – our work can be a form of anthropology.

Monday, Dec. 15th-You threw out a song like a bouncer / throws out disgruntle patron / who’s drink privileges were cut shout / not soon enough.//

not to oversimplify, but our massage / is not as harsh as it sounds / but it is with the honesty of clothing / hung out on a line.//

Wednesday, December 17th- I am amazed at the orderly disintegration of both wealth and the overall economy all around me. It’s like there is so much inter connection of the economic fabric of society that everything can’t quite collapse because not everyone can account for their assets at the moment at hand. But you know it is coming.