Will Extremes End The GOP Control Of The House?

I'm going to take a little time and a little space here to veer a bit from poetry. I owe this juncture to the likes of Representative John Duncan (R-Tenn) and Representative John Fleming (R-La) in the House and Senators Mike Lee (R-UT) and Ted Cruz (T-TX) who have been hell bent on playing blackmail with the health care of Americans and risking the stability of a fragile American economy.  

The question I have to ask is this... Are the House Republicans about to go the way of the dinosaur?  As easy as it would be for me to say what do I care...  the bigger question is why do these Republicans wish to crash the stability of this nation's economy or play with the health of millions of Americans. These are the two options they are sending to the President. 

I realize that not all Republicans are happy with that extremes have been brought to the table by those who make up the Tea Party members of congress, but the House GOP leaders have failed to show any sign of leadership in this instance. We are talking about members of Congress that should well recall that impact the last government shut down had on their own party.. The obvious is that the Tea Party members of Congress want something that has nothing to do with keeping the government funding and they are willing  to piss on everyone else to get what they want. They really are the Pee Party... and they just want to piss on the Affordable Health Care Act. 

In this weekend's actions the Republican House added these extremes to a straight up and down government funding bill:

• de-fund the Affordable Care Act
• repeal a tax on medical devices that helps finance the health care law until December 15 in order to delay Affordable Health Care Act
• to allow employers to opt out of women's preventative health care coverage including contraceptives

Quite frankly I'm tired of people in government that are acting like spoiled children.If they want to act like spoiled children within the parameters of their own family life that's up to them, but imposing this behavior on the rest of our lives has no place our government. 

The Pee Party Republicans have a one track mind. Stopping "Obamacare" as they like to refer to it. This nation had this debate and it is over. I have been fortunate to have health care coverage for many years now. Delay or repeal is not going to directly impact me,  but I remember the days when my  family and I did not have health coverage. This country has come a long way to get to this point and I seriously am tire of the lies and efforts to stop this from happening. I've heard some members of Congress encourage people not to sign up for coverage. What self-centered assholes. 

Removing Obstacles - September 2013

anticipation contains an element of doubt
they agreed not to shake hands
agreement is good - right?

some will always want failure
act quickly - but not too fast
it seems peace often is left
to some degree of chance

Tuesday Confession on Wednesday

Dear Reader:

It's been 3,657 coughs (more or less) one dysfunctional DVR, another child out of the nest, 2 1/2 boxes of Kleenex, one Minsky's Pizza, another season of 24, and two new light bulbs since my last confession.

I confess that I've driven myself over the edge coughing and blowing my nose this week and very likely others around me at the office as well. I'm so ready for this to be over, especially since I have a GI scope next week and I don't want to have to delay it.

We had Minsky's Pizza tonight. Usually I would really enjoy a Minsky pizza. I confess I was so-so about it tonight. Cathy felt the same. She felt there was not quite enough hamburger on it, I felt it was too limp. I confess I do not care for limp pizza.

If I sound cranky, I might be. I mean feeling crappy has been the order of the day since oh, Friday afternoon. I'm thinking that tomorrow when I get up I am going to disavow this sinus crude. I confess that this approach is an exercise of mind over matter (or mucus) but I'm ready to try a fresh approach... a positive one.

Our DVR is not working tonight. it actually stopped doing what a DVR does yesterday. I need to get to Comcast tomorrow to replace it.( New season of Glee starts tomorrow night.)

I'm looking for a positive charge all-around. I'm coming into the blue season. The time when I often feel down even if I'm not feeling sick. It's time to do a head check and try and move forward with a positive frame of mind no matter how things are going. So here's to a upbeat week ahead!

Weekend Postmortem

Thursday and Friday were especially grueling days at work. As a result I was so looking froward to the weekend to relax and recharge my batteries. But Friday, my work day was so intense I was only vaguely aware how lousy I felt till I arrived home and the rest of the world  stopped moving a warp speed.

Friday evening it became crystalline that I was being held prisoner by a sinus-mucus-drainage-headache-burning chest, loss of appetite thingy that kicked my ass into bed.

Saturday came, more of the same. Lots of fluids, medicine, Kleenex, hacking (I know, we are getting a little too graphic) but my weekend that I needed to be normal was anything but normal.

By Saturday evening I attempted to work on an essay that I had due but my eyes hurt so much that reading was simply too frustrating and I gave up on the essay that was due by 6AM Sunday morning eastern time.
This left me sick and in a bad mood.

Mid-day Sunday I was feeling better but not especially steady or energetic but I ventured out to help load a trailer with varying furnishings of my daughter Shannon and my wife and I drove them to her new house where the two of them mostly unloaded. We returned and a second load was taken over by Shannon and my wife. I again crashed.

Of course the better part of the weekend is over. My eyes are able to read with out adding to a headache and although my nose is now running like a faucet, I am setting up and able to do this post on my laptop. Clearly the weekend is a lost cause and emotionally I will head off to work tomorrow mostly feeling like no weekend ever happened, of if it did it wasn't  one worth remembering.

 Also lost on this weekend was my submission Saturday. I've been so diligent about it for so many months it feels like another something important is unresolved. I suppose I could try and crank out something yet tonight but I really have been giving a lot of thought to these submissions and I don't want to do something half-assed just for the sake of doing it. Perhaps I can do something during the week to catch up.

I'm nursing a 52 ounce diet coke (which is half gone) and thinking I need to stop and do a breathing treatment. Maybe tackle a little reading before I go to bed and see what the world looks like on the other side.

Confession Tuesday - An Emotional Knot

Tuesday night... It's time to confess again and it's getting late so let's head to the confessional.

Dear Readers:

It's been a long seven days, an emotional seven days, a worrisome seven days. It's also been a week in which I had two poems accepted for publication and another poem hanging next to an awesome painting at the Albrecht-Kemper Museam of Art that inspired the work of art.

I've just come from a Royals - Indians baseball game. I was a bit conflicted because both teams are within reach of the wild-card for post season and the Indians are my second favorite baseball team behind the San Francisco Giants. But the home town Royals have not had a winning season like forever. I wanted to see a good game and confess that I kinda was pulling for the Tribe but wanted it to be a good game - not some blow-out. The Indians came from behind and won 5 to 3. Wahoo!

Some weeks from one Tuesday to the next seem to zoom by and I wonder where it all went. A week ago we were saying goodbye to our beloved dog Moe. I confess this continues to be hard for me to deal with but I'm somewhat sobered by the fact that our long hared dachshund Berry is sick as well. He has been shedding weight like crazy and after some blood tests it appears he suffers from EPI or Exocrine Pancreatic Insufficiency. I confess that the emotions related to Moe's death and the decline of Berry offer a very rocky emotional ride. The loss, the fear of losing another, coupled with cautious optimism  that there is something that can be done for Berry and yet the ongoing struggles to get him eating again and keeping food down. It's this mixture of emotions that has stretched this week like taffy, and me at times to a breaking point.

Friday two good things came my way and I confess that they have helped keep me sane.  The opening of the Jennifer Rivera Exhibit "Between the Lines" Pictures with poetry at the Albrecht-Kemper Museum of Art. A poem of mine shares wall space next to one of Jennifer's pieces of art. I am honored to have a poem that is part of this exhibit.  The other positive note is that I heard on Friday that two of my poems were accepted for publication in January in a venue that I've never been in before. This offsets the rejection I received this week.

I confess that sometimes I have be open to looking for the little things. Just as I will be looking for little signs of improvement in Berry this coming week.

Miss You Mo-Mo

Moe Cooling Down 

In Loving Memory September 9, 2013

The Poet Prism

Always a poet, always searching in wonder.  To me, some things can only be seen through the prism of a poet's mind.

 

Its seems to me that much of my life has been an internal dialogue which in the past twenty years has manifested itself in written word. The Welsh poet R.S. Thomas has remarked that "All people talk to themselves. Some are overheard, and they are the poets." I suppose this is so, and I was trapped in this path long ago.

 

Maybe there are more people that are on the cusp of becoming poets and don't quite realize it. I've always felt that there are people I know that express disdain for poetry and yet I feel they don't really know what it is they don't like. It's more of a idea that they are arguing with themselves over they any concrete purpose. They just haven't quite figured out how or to whom to express it. If they did, maybe they world cross over the line and become one of us. 



Confession Tuesday.. Er Wednesday

Dear Friends & Readers:

Another Tuesday has come and gone. This one slipped through my fingers and I didn't realize it because being off Labor Day made it feel like a Monday. That’s my story and I’m sticking by it. So here I am heading to the Confessional a day late. At least there is no line.

I confess that it is hard to believe that it’s September. Hard to believe because it seems like the first pitch of spring training was just thrown out yesterday. Hard to believe too, because I usually make some provision for coaching/mentoring in the fall and I've done nothing towards that end this year. This I just realized today.

I've been so busy writing and submitting that I confess that I have in some ways been less aware of the world around me. Oh, I’m not neglecting to interact with my family. I’m not hold up in a room writing and forgetting to eat (though that might be a way to shed a few pounds) and I know about Syria, I know about sequester, and I’m aware that poetry & the world lost Seamus Heaney. It’s perhaps the more subtle things around me that are racing by.

I confess that days seem long and months seem fast. Does that make sense? Is this what getting older is like?    

True, time is an arbitrary measurement created by man but I confess that I wish it were more arbitrary to me personally. I’d like to stop the clock at times or at lease slow it down. True, I’d probably speed it up weekdays between 8 and 5 but I’m sure that as soon as I realized that I couldn't get all my work done I’d be more responsible or judicious in how I allocated it. At least I could make sure I got my confession done on Tuesday and not Wednesday.

Amen!

Slipped Out Of Her Jeans - Liquid Imagination

LIQUID IMAGINATION Issue 18 is live and I am fortunate to have one of my poems with so many other really outstanding works.

You can catch Slipped Out of Her Jeans HERE and an additional treat is that there is an audio read of the poem by the vary talented Nic Sebastian. Here voice gives depth to the poem and I was thrilled to have her share in this publication with me.

LOSS

Seamus Heaney 

13 April 1939 – 30 August 2013

The completely solitary self: that's where poetry comes from, and it gets isolated by crisis, and those crises are often very intimate also.

Confession Tuesday on Wednesday

Dear Reader:

I confess to being absent minded yesterday. Yes, yesterday was Tuesday and that's Confession day here except my mind was, we it was somewhere else because It didn't even remotely think of  confessing anything.

Some days I think about it and I'm too tired and just put it off a day. Sometimes I'm out till late and by the time I'm home it just seems like it can wait. Not yesterday... yesterday was out of sight and mind.

                                                                ~0~

I'm starting to realize that summer is not long for this year. Of course today the heat wouldn't agree, but the shadows that fall across the yard this time of evening, the fact that schools are starting and this weekend is labor day weekend, these things are a reminder that the season of color is coming. Maybe an even stronger indicator is the fact that baseball is at that stage in the season where people talk of magic numbers. The number of games remaining till post season nearly half my age and a melancholy umbrella seems to shield me from exuberance. I confess that I'm feeling fall in my bones.

                                                               ~0~

My wife is a bead artist. Some days she will tell me she doesn't feel much like an artist but some days I feel like it's a stretch to call myself a poet. Don't all artists do this to themselves at times?  I've shown some pictures in past years of work my wife has done and it you would look at it you would likely agree that there is artistry in it. Every once and a while I get to thinking that I wish we would collaborate on something - maybe an abstract bead-work with a poem.  I confess that I realize there are real challenges that couples who are artists have in dealing with each others artistic approaches and work itself. Cathy is not particularly a poetry person though she is very supportive of me. The one art issue we most would butt heads over would be when my work tends to be more abstract. I confess that I love working in abstracts. I confess that I have no hope of convincing her to work in abstract given how she feels about abstract poetry.  Still, I can dream.

                                                           ~0~

I confess that lately I've been challenging my own tendency to want to procrastinate over things that I am anxious about. I would not say that I'm in danger of getting kicked out of procrastinators anonymous but I'm sure the general membership would disapprove of some of my minor successes of late.

That's it for this week.

Amen!

   

Letting Wonder Come to You

The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever. ~ Jacques Cousteau

Everyone  would do well to find the poet deep withing themselves that allows wonder to come, take hold of their life and change it. 

Recomended - 4 for Sunday

It's Sunday and I've realized that I have not been posting nearly as often as I used to. That's not necessarily a bad thing if you really don't have anything interesting to say, or you do but haven't the time to get it said right. It's often been one or the other. I have however seen a lot of interesting stuff this week that I thought I'd share case you may have missed any of it.

Martha Silano at Blue Positive posted her Ten Poetry Rules and while there is a slice of humor in them there seems to me to be a heap of wisdom in there too. Martha is the author of The Little Office of the Immaculate Conception, winner of the 2010 Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize and one of my favorite reads this year.

Then there is Jeannine Hall Gailey the Poet Laureate of Redmond, WA who writes Feeling Discouraged about Poetryworld?  First let me say that I like hearing a Poet Laureate talk about discouragement and poetry together. It's comforting to know that even a laureate can feel the pain of discouragement. I also like that she used the word poetryworld as I do feel like I live in that world.
Jeannine is the author of several books the latest of which is Unexplained Feavors which came out this spring and while it's on my list to read I have read earlier books and enjoyed her work.

In interesting read I found this week was Wolf Girl by Nic Sebastain. I love the second stanza.

And finally, a poem by the late Denise Levertov titled The Secret. What I lovr about this poem is the amount of depth she achieves in relatively simple verse.

If you missed any of this, not you have no excuse not the check it out. 

Confession Tuesday - Going Goats

Dear Reader:

It's been another week. How does this happen?

I'm headed to the confessional, care to come along?

Yes, it's been a week since my last confession.

My daughter takes this picture on the right and shows it to me tonight. This is one of two pygmy goats that my daughter informed me are at the shelter where she works. I confess I want a pygmy goat. I know with the pets we currently have this is not really an option. The neighbors probably would not take too kindly to it either but it's sooo cute, isn't it!! I don't know their genders but  I can just picture a boy goat named Gruffy and a girl goat named Greta.  I think we could probably stop mowing the back yard.

I confess sometimes I have a vivid imagination. That's a good thing right? I mean I think it's paramount to an artist's work isn't it.

Thinking back to my childhood, I have a history with goats.  I'm mentioned here before that as a child I had four imaginary goats that I used to keep alongside me on leads. If I needed to make a trip to the bathroom I would hand them off to another to hold for me. Looking back on this I see now that I man have been more suited for artistic endeavor then I realized until later in life.

I confess that I do wish at times that I had approached my writing life differently. I would certainly have begun it at an earlier age and perhaps the trajectory that I took might have looked different.

I confess too that I have learned in life that it really isn't of particular value to focus on regrets. Nothing positive really comes of dwelling upon what could have been.  It seems much more important for me to redouble my commitment and efforts towards my writing and utilize what time and what knowledge I have to move forward. So I will I will hope that Gruffy and Greta find good homes and in carry on writing with my four invisible goats in tow.

Submission Saturday Check-in

I have my Diet Coke (DC constitutes a food group) in for the morning but haven't thought beyond that for breakfast. It's Submission Saturday, something I generally devote my afternoon to. Once and a while I got a jump on it and get my submissions done before noon.  We'll see how this all happens later.

Of notable interest this week -

• I discovered a poet that strikes me as too good to keep secret.  So if you have not heard of Melissa Broder check out a few of her poems here. If you peel back her humor there is something genuinely serious about her. If you scrape the edges of her serious side she is deathly funny.
• Something really awesome happened related to one of my poems but I'm not telling just yet.
• Mail man brought my copy of Victoria Chang's The Boss yesterday. Poetry in the mail box gives me a real high. I'll have more on this book in a few days.
• Two new drafts this week that I have to work on refining.
• Number of Submissions past 12 months - 79. Still pending 29.
• Tuesday night met with some other poet friends.
• Watched way too many episodes on 24. I'll probably do it again this next week.

Confession Tuesday - Gratitude Edition

Dear Reader:

I’m a day late, but I had a poetry group meeting last night and rather then head to the confessional, I elected to watch some TV with my wife. So I confess that it’s been a week and a day since my last confession. Shall we get started?

 I confess that I have a wonderfully supportive wife when it comes to my writing. I know not all writers have supportive families that encourage or help in other ways. My wife may not always understand my writing but what she understands is that writing is a central tenet to my life. It’s like water. It’s air. It is the lifeblood of my day to day mental health. Okay, no wise cracks…. I’m as normal as any writer.

 Sometimes I will come home from work and there will be an event that evening and it’s been a rough day and I may say, “I just don’t know if I’m up for it tonight.” She will sometimes say something like, Oh go on, and you’ll feel better in the end.” And many times I will buckle up and go. But if I’m really dragging and elect not to go, that’s okay too. She is not going to make me feel bad about my decision.

 A few months ago when we feared the crashing of my 6 year old laptop, she made sure I got out and got a replacement one in time. This weekend I was trying to get set up wirelessly to one of the printers on our network since I've been displaced from my home office and it was not easy for me to get to my old printer, she took time out of her busy day to see that this happened when I had trouble with the network.

 I confess that I could not ask for a more supportive person in my life.

 Amen!

Confession Tuesday - Not with football you don't edition

Tuesday, so I'm off to the confessional. Won't you join me.

Dear Reader:

It has been a week of  umpteen episodes of Glee and 21, one poetry acceptance, two rejections,  and a haircut since my last confession.

When I arrived home tonight the little snot nosed kids that play football were all assembled on the baseball field across the way and cars lining the street. Parents all in their social circles of folding chairs jabbering with one another in the great pee-wee football frenzied. Orange cones sprang up in the grass for use by the coaches in conducting drills

I'm certain the moms and dads are watching their little tykes with some degree of pride, Perhaps a dash of trepidation as well, knowing that at some point these kids will come head to head with another person whose job it is to flatten them.

Now I'm sure I sound like the curmudgeon my daughters and wife are periodically suggesting that I have become. But I confess I have nothing against these youngsters at all. The problem is that when we bought our home, I delighted in the fact that there was a baseball diamond a few hundred yards from my doorstep. I've played catch on that field, shagged flies on that field, held batting practice on that field, and enjoyed watching others do the same, and to wit, baseball for me is synonymous with poetry and poetry  synonymous with life.

Folks, the ink on the August calendar isn't dry yet and these football types are committing sacrilege
under my watchful eye.  I confess that I don't wish harm to come to any of these people, but is it wrong of me to wish that a half hour before their next practice there were already two ball teams occupying the field and they had to go someplace else?

Of course I'm asking this rhetorically and It is not necessary for anyone to actually comment as to how mean spirited this sounds. I'm pretty sure God in his glory prefers baseball and is just as miffed about the encroachment of this baseball field by shoulder padded mini-refrigerators.

 

Confession Tuesday - Junkie Edition

Dear Reader:

It's been two weeks since my last confession.  Follow me to the box and let's get started....

I confess that I used a mind mapping program last night to brainstorm for an approach to a themed poem I am working on.

I confess that  my San Francisco Giants are in a free-fall. You can't get much lower then being swept by the Cubs. In each game it was by a single run but still...   They started out strong but the wheels seem to be falling off. Yesterday they stopped by the White House and Obama joked that the have a "habit of stopping by the White House". In honoring last years World Series Champs he reminded them, "Hey, you're a second half team."

I confess I need an acceptance letter this month. Does that make me seem like a junkie?

I confess this has become the summer of melons. Watermelon and Cantaloupe have both been exceptional this year and have become a staple in our household.

I confess I've been watching old episodes of Glee and 24 for the first time. I'm always a day late and a dollar short.

That's it for this week...  you are returned to regularly scheduled activities.

Shadow

 

 

 

 

"I thought the most beautiful thing in the world

must be shadow."- Sylvia Plath

The Mag 178: Moon on the Horizen

 

Andrew Wyeth - The Man and the Moon - 1990

 

 



When the land spreads out against the horizon
no man made obstacles to block the view
the moonrise breaks over natural terrain
is a sight to behold

And summer nights when the air is split apart
by the resistance of your bike on the road
your veins are rush with blood
as your body grows goose bumps

Not another soul in sight and the only sound
aside from the song of nature is the putt-putt
of your engine as you throttle down to a stop
dismount the bike and stand stark still

Facing the rising night light
in silent homage and obedience
to the calling stars
even a grown man cries



Michael A. Wells

The Mag