Recommended Reading

Dana Guthrie Martin is one of those people who's simply magical in her word choices. She has a poem in the latest Boxcar Poetry Review.

Another poet I have come to appreciate recently is Jayne Pupek and she's in Stirring this issue.

With that, I'll serve up a W. S. Merwin quote, since he is yet another poet I that elicits strong feelings:

Poetry is like making a joke. If you get one word wrong at the end of a joke, you've lost the whole thing.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day to all!

The rain falls steady this morning on the downtown Kansas City area and is forecast to for much of the day. The Irish community in this town hosts on of the three biggest St. Patrick's Day parades in the United States so obviously one must wonder what the wee-little green people did this year to upset the Mother Nature.
Still, it takes a lot more than rain to dampen the Irish on this day. Hell, after a few beers, many won't even know they are wet.

And with that, I close with a couple of thoughts for this great green day....

• "Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four essential food groups: alcohol, caffeine, sugar, and fat." -- Alex Levine
• "This is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever." -- Sigmund Freud (about the Irish)

Another Journal Bites the Dust

Sunday evening and I am bemoaning the near end of the weekend. I think mostly because last week seemed like five Mondays in a row. I anticipate this week being pretty busy too It seems my caseload at work has risen with no consideration for my already significant commitments. There should be laws against such things.

Oh, before I forget... Happy Birthday to Ivy - She's 34 according to her own account. My God, I barely remember 34.

There are lots of sirens very nearby - I presume by both the sound and the numbers they are fire trucks. We don't hear them out here as often as back in the city. Certainly not a cluster of so many at once. Certainly makes one pause with some prayerful thoughts. The dogs too seem unnerved by the sound.

I am about to finish filling up yet another journal. This latest one was started on September 29th, 2007 and having only like two pages left, I'll likely finish this one off yet tonight. I was looking back at some of my work in the previous journal recently. It always seems to feel a bit peculiar looking at things you've written in the past. Since many of my drafts start in their crudest form in the journal before subsequent revisions make it to the computer it can be an eye opener sometimes reading these things. You just have to wonder where your mind was sometimes.

My side bar so badly needs changes. For one thing, the blog listings is so outdated. There are several on there I used to read but don't any longer because... well, mostly because some of them haven't been updated since middle of last year. It's time for those to come down. Also, there are a few more worthwhile blogs that I try to catch on s somewhat routine basis. Also, if you have linked to Stickpoet and I've not reciprocated, drop me a note so you can be added.

I'll close tonight with these words from John Steinbeck... "I've seen a look in dogs' eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts."

Looking for Genius?

Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one.

~ E. B. White

Pointless Query

Braking
through the layers

past
linen wrap

percolating pulp
without

reason or
necessity

till exposure
it answers.

Household Diplomacy

Every night, whisper "peace" in your husband's ear. ~ Andrei A. Gromyko

Daylight Savings Crime

So Saturday night an hour was stolen from me. Now I get up before the butt crack of dawn as opposed to at it. By the way, powers that be, ( you know who you are)- Check out the Indiana study that suggests this is both more costly and not a savings on energy consumption.

I've disliked this from the very early days when no one really talked much about energy consumption - but tauted it for such things as allowing more daylight hours for extra curricular activities in the evening and how this was safer. Never mind the fact that most of those events were well supervised by adults, while we stood on dark street corners waiting on the bus in the morning. Go figure.