Waiting

Waiting (draft)

The night molasses air
holds aloft a full moon,
the illumination a brutal truth.

No love note passes.
The moon, holds back her mystical spell;
the barefoot bridesmaid walks on gravel
till the hail dents mark her soles.

Limp bouquets fly in the face
and drop around her to no avail.
Blue satin drapes her shoulders,
gathers at her waist.
The hem a receding hairline.

Still, night after night,
she waits,
she watches,
a moon that never winks.

Rockhurst Review

"Wide sea, that one continuous murmur breeds along the pebbled shore of memory!" ~ John Keats

• Poetry heads over to God's territory- two poetry books reviewed * God's Silence - Poems by Franz Wright -Alfred A. Knopf: 144 pp., $24 and Sinners Welcome - Poems by Mary Karr - HarperCollins: 94 pp., $22.95 [here]
• Judith Bader Jones, A Kansas City writer of both poetry and fiction, reads from her new collection of short stories, published by Sweetgum Press, is called Delta Pearls at 1:30 p.m. June 17, Borders, 9108 Metcalf in Overland Park. Call (660) 429-5773.
• New Letters Weekend Writing Conference: The author of The River of Doubt, Candice Millard will give the keynote address for New Letters’ annual event. Millard speaks the evening of June 23, and the conference continues the 24th and 25th. This is a local (Kansas City area event) Call (816) 235-1168 for details.
• Rockhurst Review - a fine arts journal [Nineteenth Edition] is out. This contains my piece titled, Sport Utility Poem. Some other very outstanding work this edition. Very pleased with it!

Tags: Rockhurst Review Judith Bader Jones New Letters Mary Karr Michael A. Wells Franz Wright Candice Millard

Trash Day Thursday

(Really it is trash day for me.... No reflection on postings here)

I found Ivy's blog post about orphaned poems almost sad... "If I write more poems, then I need to find journals to adopt them, don't I? Otherwise, they get cold." I'm sure we all have some we need to find homes for. So many orphaned... ::sigh::

I see Christine Hamm from this is all your fault has her own cafe press shop [here]

• OMG! too funny - Rejected Marketing Slogans for National Poetry Month. [click here] Credit to Jilly for posting this on her blog.

Man like may like the spicer spin...

It appears to me that almost any man may like the spider spin from his own inwards his own airy citadel. ~ John Keats

BUSH - COVERING HIS ASS - THE BEST HE KNOWS HOW

Marketplace: Negroponte given power to waive SEC rules


In a most interesting report, a reporter with Marketplace heard on National Public Radio reports on unusual development, this quietly took place this month that could have some very large implications.

On May 5, President Bush has granted his intelligence czar the authority to exempt publicly traded companies from any and all reporting requirements of their financial dealings. That is the same day that Porter Goss stepped as director of the CIA, and six days before USA Today published its story that three major telephone companies had turned over massive amounts of customer calling records to the federal government. Information that the NSA was using to data-mine and look for patterns and, basically, spy on the American people.

What this rule means, is that AT&T and Bell South and Verizon, who have these government contracts — [as it's been reported in the papers ]to sell customer data to the government, they may never have to report that income or how the finances of that program worked. This is scheme that allows them to continue to deny any such activity - legally - unless of course the circumstances are challenged and overturned by the courts. I urge you all to go [here] to listen to the broadcast, or read the transcript [here] and see the documentation [here].

tags:Bush NSA Verizon AT&T domestic spying Bell South

Rough Draft of poem

A rough draft of a poem I'm working on....


Buildup [working title]

Awaken abortively
By a rain battered pre dawn-
The mind shuffles through
A whole deck of thoughts,
A troubling one
Catching a hangnail
On the gossamer network
Inside my head,
Where scar tissue
Has built up
Over the years.

tag: Writing and poetry

Being in the realm of the imagination.

I have seen several things that are attributed to John Keats that suggest to me that he not only had a very fortitudinous imagination; it was that creative state of mind that he seemed to truly reside in. As a poet, I often try to go there, but I truly do not live in that realm. I'm not sure that living there is particularly fitting in the world we live in today. Which of course raises the question of just how fitting it was in Keats's time? (1795-1821)

I suppose that if one were a poet and nothing else, such an existence could work. Even among many very gifted contemporary poets, I'm not sure that I identify any single instance of one who I think actually "lives" in that kind of state of mind. Thinking of poets like Robert Bly, WS Merwin, Naomi Shihab Nye, John Ashbury, Maya Angelou, Margaret Atwood or Mary Oliver... these are a few poets who I believe have very bold imaginative flashes within their work. Yet, them seem to have normal lives. I'm guessing they come back to reality everyday.

From two quotes that I will share today, I glean Keats strived if not found that realm.

"My imagination is a monastery and I am its monk." There is something that tells me that with Keats, this is not particularly a metaphorical pronouncement. I get a real powerful image of his mind in this statement and how he resides within it.

Then, Keats speaks of the truth of imagination. "I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart's affections, and the truth of imagination." His poetics here works well for me because I firmly believe we write from a basis of truth. That truth may not necessarily reflect with 100% accuracy, historical events, but it is based on our life experiences real or imagined. Therefore those things, which are born within the mind, are truth.

Tags: John Keats Writing and poetry