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.

Unconscious Mutterings Week 364

You say and I think....


1.Weak :: knees

2.Flashy :: bling

3.Sack ::  sad sack

4.Business :: listing

5.Purple :: heart

6.Fan :: baseball

7.Airline :: ticket

8.Guide :: TV

9.Lunch :: box

10.Exercise :: aerobic



get your own list at Unconscious Mutterings

Some cheery news

After a two year absence from New York busses and subway, Poetry in Motion is returning. Poetry in Motion had been in opperation for 15 years and became a  model for other such programs in other cities.

For a glimpse of what commuters will see in 2010 - some Emily Dickinson, a 10th century Japanese poem, a 9th century Aztec poem and a "cheeky, chiding poem" by Stevie Smith called Deathbed of a Financier among other works.

Source

Your three words for 2010?

Last night I did something I’ve been intending to do for some time now. I got comfortable on the bed and pulled out a file folder with some of my poems and began separating them into stacks based on how I thought they might work into a manuscript idea that I have. I found some that I believe will work as they are. Another group that I believe could work but I feel require anything from some minor tweaking to more involved rewrites; however I can still see working. Then there are the rest of them.


I would like to have had more that I thought would be a good fit, but I still have some material that was not printed out in that folder. I have material in a couple of other places, like our desktop that I don’t use for writing any longer and just some hard copies of work that I’m not quite sure where the original files are. Fortunately I’ve gotten better about how I retain my work, but there are things that fall into the hole of historically I’ve not always been so good about it.


I’m not going to get into the nitty-gritty details of what my goal is here, but I did set some general timelines back in September about a manuscript and I am working to stay focused on this project.


Contrary to my norm, I did make some new years resolutions and I am happy to say that at this tinder age of 2010, I’ve stuck to them.


This has nothing to do with my specific resolutions, but I was trying to think if I could select a three year mantra for 2010, what it might be. There were several things that came to my mind, but in the final analysis, I chose these: “Read, write, more.”



What three words define what you wish for in 2010?