Ahh ~ Friday at last...

The week is coming to an end like a locomotive pulling into a small town station... the brakes stalling the wheels and the metal to metal glide amid all the steam and noise, the motion continues a bit longer but at a declining speed. Then the jolt and there you are. It has stopped.

I definitely feel the holiday upon us. Two Christmas parties yesterday. One for the office and one an evening at the Writer House. I read a couple of poems. I'll have Christmas shopping to do this weekend.
There is a mixture of a sort of manic world and this inner calling for peace and tranquility. They do not mix well together. I suppose that is would support James Hillman's assessment when he said, "Slowness is basic to the notion of melancholy from the very beginning. Mania is often described in psychiatry by the absence of sadness." When the world is in chaos it tends to overlook the sadness of war and famine and sickness, and so on. It is at these very moments that I believe mankind needs poetry the most. But no, we somehow find it easier to be numb to the horror and immune from humor as well. We are just to busy to let silly emotions get in the way of anything.
Bits from my journal this week:

• A fog of silence settles in the gully sunken between us.
• The reeds of hope / sprouting runners / travel across the anticipatory terrain
• I am transparent, here but out of sight.
• Nights of curview / days strung between roads / boardered by odds / not quite palatable / survival will apply to travelers / moving between strife // What are the options? / a sigh of indigestion /rather resignation of lost causes / St Anthony Pray for us. //

~0~

The President is not going to make "rash decisions" on Iraq. He has moved back the time for his anouncement to after the first of the year. Some military people are now calling for more troops. {sigh} The President has rejected major parts of the ISG. He talks about changing stratagy. I'm thinking that chage is going to look a lot more like "stay the course."

Question for Iraqi citizens. Are you better off now than you were four years ago?

~0~

Driving through Taco Bell - "Hold the green onions, hold the lettuce. Uh, come to think of it, just hold my order."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Latest Iraq War Deaths to date since U.S. Invasion in March 2003:
U.S.-LED COALITION FORCES = United States 2,941 / Britain 126 / Other nations 121
IRAQIS = Military Between 4,900 and 6,375 / Civilians Between 50,585 and 56,083
[source]

Poet's memorial riddle solved

Five years of secrecy over the location of a memorial to the late Poet Laureate Ted Hughes have come to an end.
BBC Spotlight's environment correspondent Simon Hall has spent two years searching for the site on Dartmoor in Devon. He was helped by a guide, and used clues in Ted Hughes' will and his work. [full story]

Daily Intrusions

Daily Intrusions

Drowning the sounds
That ring true of philus
I catch the ugly clatter
Rudely interrupting

Who we are
And treating common
This rare beaded mosaic
We have become

A lover's parting shot Frieda Hughes: Poetry

From London Times Online:

A scorned lover imagines her partner in the drama of an abstract geometric painting in one last anguished message.

[click here]

Congratulations Kelli

• Congratulations to Kelli Russell Agodon for her Pushcart nomination by 32 Poems!
• 87 year old Ferlinghetti recognized by France for his poetry.
• Over the weekend I listened to a number of podcasts from Poetry Magazine's web site. The following one concerning a poem by Dean Young caught my fancy and I thought I'd pass it along. [click here]

Under Construction....

You will note for example my links have shrunk... hang loose peeps, I'm just doing some home remodeling. Things will look normal soon. Ok, hopefully normal / better.

Persian poetry for dummies?

Yep... A U.S.-based Iranian foundation, Translation Project, plans to translate 100 top Iranian literary works into world’s mostly spoken languages. Seriously, they are also are partners to create a Persian poetry for dummies-style book that traces Persian poetry from its classical roots to today’s work and breaks it down for all a variety of audiences... second-generation Iranians, students, and poetry enthusiasts.