Before The Rain

Something is coming.
Over the hill. 
Through the dark
green nomenclature.

Daylight is inverting.
The sky swells.
Blues darken.

The ambiance shifting.
A quiet calm.
Then air stirs 
right through us. 

Magpie #234: Starry Night

Starry Night By Alex Ruiz

Where have I hid from the wonders.

All above me the night is Calypso.

I am Odysseus transfigured.

I, Odysseus am caught by this night,

by each star's twinkle; jewels 

of adornment in your blue hair

flowing all about the shoulders 

of the earth. I am awestruck.

I the captured cannot

capture you on canvass.

My paints, my brushes

are unworthy of such beauty.

Michael Allyn Wells

Mag 234

Magpie 233: Leaving

Yell Sound, Shetland, 2014, by R.A.D. Stainforth

Overhead the sky is an accordion
as we make way on gentle waves
like a slow dance sashaying
side to side and watch the shoreline
grow thinner like it is starving
for our return...




Michael Allyn Wells

Magpie Tales

Barry - May 20, 2003 - July 31,2014

Barry - a long-hared Dachshund, became a part of our family in 2003. He was just a stinking cute pup that you could hold in two cupped hands. 

He was a beautiful redhead - his parents were both long-haired AKA registered Dachshunds, one also red and the other cream colored.  

Barry learned at a very early age to offer his hand to shake at the snap of my fingers. He became so proficient at it he would later often come to me and offer it on his own. He especially liked to come ou on the bed beside me when I was putting on shoes and socks in the morning and initiate the hand shake ritual - perpetually offering it even as I had already shaken it. I think he must have believed he could keep me from leaving for work by doing so.

To the left is a younger Barry in Jammies.  He really did not like clothing on - I don't recall how we managed to get this picture. I look at his face on this picture and I can almost hear him saying, "this shit ain't funny."

He slept in our bed at night - sometimes sleeping on top of the blanket between my wife's extended legs. At other times, especially towards morning would come over an burrow under the blanket next to me or if I was on my side he would sometimes sleep resting his front paws and his head on top of my legs,.

If one of us was home sick in bed, he always would come and lay with is as if he was obligated to make sure we were ok. He was a great caretaker.  Below he is seen napping with Mo.

From time to time he would come and sit in my writing studio as I worked. But when I came home from my day job he was always hyper-jubilant and could not wait for me to acknowledge that I knew he was at my feet.

In winter, Barry would move through snow by sort of hopping with his little legs over the white stiff as opposed to walking through it.  The sight reminded me of bunny hops. 

As seen above, with age, Barry would trade some of his red face hair for a cream  or whiter hair.  During the past year he was failing in health - losing weight badly  and we discovered that he had developed Exocraine Pancreatic Insufficiency.  This was a life threatening condition but with an enzyme additive to everything he ate it was manageable. This however resulted in something that would break my heart routinely and the other dogs would get treats he would not be able to. He ate canned food that required to sit with the enzymes while they cultured in the dog foot before feeding. 

Thursday evening - he simply crawled into a kennel in my writing studio where normally Silas would sleep or be crated when necessary. That is where he passed away. 

Berry was survived by two adoptive brothers Klaus and more recently adopted Silas.  He joins Mo another brothers who passed away this past year. 

There is a tremendous hole left in my heart. 

New Foxtrot Video Sound Mix

Marie Craven has created a wonderful mix of video, 
Nic Sebastian's voice and my words. You can see it here.

The Making of a One Week Poet Laureate

While many state governments are busy dealing budgets, revenue shortfalls, pandering to the NRA and trying  to make participating in the democratic process even  more challenging, Governor Pat McCrory of North Carolina has managed to create a controversy out of poetry.

Now you may say, who cares about poetry anyway? (If you are actually asking this question, you probably are not  reading this blog) Still, if you must persist with this question, then the simple answer is other poets. I'd like to argue that there is a larger universe of poetry lovers out there then just  poets themselves but  I've heard it said that  poets fair only slightly  better than mimes in terms of respect. That may be true, but I suspect we also rank higher than clowns (sorry they are just creepy), roaches, and congressmen and congresswomen.who are bringing up the rear, no pun intended. But we can hope this improves, for poets anyway and isn't that the point of having  Poet Laureates?

Evidently Governor  McCrory took lightly the responsibility of naming a new State Poet Laureate. Katy Waldman a Slate staff writer indicated it has been suggested that  Governor McCrory may have been trying to ditch the State Poet Laureate program altogether with his controversial appointment of Valerie Macon, whose credentials have been highly scrutinized - in large part due to the fact that the Governor sidestepped the North Carolina Arts Counsel in vetting  Macon as a candidate.

While I don't claim to know how every state that has a Poet Laureate addresses the selection process, I know that many states, my own included have generally relied upon some input of state arts counsels in vetting candidates the Governors to choose from. These things can get sticky as in the past there have been some controversies related to political involvement by some poets. But this case, for many, falls on the merits of the poet's body of work and literary background, not some hot button political issue. Four former state Poet Laureates have been critical of the Governor for his bypass of the Arts Counsel and selecting a person lacking in the kind of credentials one would expect  of a person to represent the state.

I suspect that Valerie Macon is a very fine individual. Of the little I have been able to learn about her I know that she is a civil servant and that she has a passion for helping the homeless.I know that she has self-published two books. I know that poems from them have been purported to have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes, though nominations from such publications do not meet the contest rules.  Further, it was reported that she has served as the Gilbert-Chappell Distinguished Poet for the .Eastern Region in 2011.when in fact she mentored under the person who actually held that title.

Valerie Macon resigned two days ago, July 17th, within a week of her appointment. In her letter of resignation she sited concern over the distraction from the function of the Laureate that she had become.
For her part, she says that she remains passionate about the mission for poetry to touch all people no matter what their age, education or social status. Governor McCrory has accepted Macon's resignation but has stated, "Poet laureate position shouldn't be limited to cultural elites.

A couple of observations on my part...

• It's unfortunate that Ms. Macon was dirtied by the negative exposure. No one likes to become a public spectral.
• I am amazed that Governor McCrory would appoint anyone to such a position that has almost no discernible record by search engines of any body of work. 
• What happens next? Will the Governor McCrory consult  those who have traditionally  been a part of the process? Was he genuinely ignorant of that process or did he intentionally by-pass them? 

I find some humor in the idea that a governor would decry elitism since the political hierarchy to reach such an office as Governor generally saturated with it. 

While it seems to me that perhaps there need not be standard template for a Poet Laureate there ought to be at minimum some evidence that the individual has been able to successfully create a body of work that demonstrates a proficiency with the art and successfully publish attain publication.  The stigma associated with self-publication is slowly being broken down, but I should think that at minimum even with self-publication a strong candidate should have publication credits for various journals or reviews. 

I hope that this whole unfortunate mess will not sour poetry for Valerie Mason. It least for the present it sounds like she remains a devotee. I hope that people look past her and recognize that this was not of her making. The ball is back in the Governor's court.

Confession Tuesday & Gratitude Thursday

Dear Reader:

I hope you will pardon me if I attempt to kill two days with one stone.

Yes, I confess that I missed Tuesday's Confession because of the 2014 MLB All-Star Classic. Since baseball is simply poetry in motion, and poetry is so close to Godliness, I am relatively certain that there  exists a special disposition for significant games, those being any game that occurs between opening day and the end of the World Series. 

So much has happened since my last confession. One being a very traumatic start to the weekend when we were arriving at puppy class Saturday morning and newly adopted rescue dog named Silas got free from my wife and leash trailing behind him dissipated into a large wooded area behind our destination. We were in Gladstone, another community miles and miles away from home.  I confess that throughout the some 12 hours that Silas was missing  I vacillated between optimistic and pessimistic.  Actually I was optimistic he would surface, but not so much that he would be back home that night. 

I have to say we were really blessed by a large number of persons most of whom we do not even know that answered a call put out  by my daughters for help in searching. So many people, some we kind of know by name but not well and others who are totally  strangers to us. As I searched the perimeter streets I cam upon car after car with  stickers in the back window that Identified them with KC PET PROJECT. These people turned out in droves to help with the search.  Late afternoon we disbanded and leafleted and headed home. a few hours later  we were called back o the area because Silas had been spotted.   A couple more hours of search, all of us tired and hot, including Silas, we were reunited and went home.

I confess the number of  KC Pet Project people who came to assist  gave me more hope.  Silas is a rescue dog and he still has some anxiety issues. He is not  likely to approach someone he has no knowledge of. But he is dog friendly so many brought their own dogs on leashes.  In the end, it was my son-in-law Brandon who first  spotted him and my  youngest daughter (great with child) who carried him out of the woods. 

On another note, I am counting my blessings that a trip to my physician seems to have largely, for the time being ended what has been a two month period of ongoing and severe headaches. I confess that these headaches were taking a heavy toll on me. 

On the writing side of life, I confess to receiving one rejection letter this past week, but I now figure I'm due for an acceptance any day now. 

I've been able to take a few hours of vacation time. I'm often so close to my maximum that I'm having to take a few hours every week just to keep from being truncated (losing time)... In fact I got off at 3PM today! Yeah!

So this past week has really been a very good week it turns out. Not without stressors, but in the final analysis it has been one to be very thankful form.