Hard Ground - by Tom Waits - Poetry from the street

Tom Waits is an American singer-songwriter and composer.  I've not really been personally familiar with him but do recognize some of is material done by other big name artists - "Jersey Girl", performed by Bruce Springsteen and "Downtown Train", performed by Rod Stewart are examples. I understand that he has somewhat of a cult following  himself and those who know his songs frequently find them to be atmospheric portrayals of dark, often seedy characters and places. Maybe then it should not come a a surprise that Waits has announced the release of 'Hard Ground,' a collaborative book that combines his poetry with photographer Michael O'Brien's images of the homeless.

The idea of the book, is modeled after 1941's 'Let Us Now Praise Famous Men' -- a collaboration between poet James Agee and photographer Walker Evans, whose shots of Depression-era farmers were incorporated with the poetry.

This book is due out in March.

Gratitude Journal - Post Thanksgiving

I do suppose it is a good time to indulge in gratitude acknowledgement:

• Presently I'm thankful Barry is looking better (as in his head seems less tilted) 
• I'm thankful for occasional messages from Arizona daughter even if they come after midnight.
• I'm thankful for Turkey wings - and the wonderful person who salvaged the wing for me. **heart you**
• Thankful for time with son and KC daughter and wife on thanks giving day.
• Thankful for time with wife - even watching TV together late nights.
• Thankful gas prices came back down (even if temporally).
• For egg bagels.
• For Swiss cheese.
• For new slacks.
• For poems to read.
• For poems to listen to (Whale Sound).
• For poems in the mind and finding their way to the page.
• For the San Francisco Giants Winning the World Series (in my lifetime) and maybe it can happen yet again!
• For Eco-friendly light bulbs.
• For Klaus walking even if wobbly.
• Cool days - warm hearts.
• Journaling. 
• Friends.
• Laughter.
• Poets who help other poets.
• Work.

Magpie Tales 42



The Cup

Tell me again its history
the metal muscle – the fortitude
the way it survived
crossing the Atlantic
stayed within the family
through those early years
when famine forced much sacrifice
and trading value for sustenance.


Tell me how it was passed on
father to son to grandchildren
and when the male linage legged
it became the daughter
bringing it forward
and how it survived into marriage
and nurtured still at great cost.


How it paused briefly
in Independence, Missouri
and then journeyed
on west— surviving
Indian territory, hard times
again on the trail when other things
were set aside – at immense emotional price.

Show me the moth eaten velvet beg
that clung to it when you found it
packed among grandfather’s furnishings
where you plucked it free
before the estate sale.

And remind me when it is my turn
to treasure it—

in the time honored tradition








2010© Michael A. Wells




Magpie Tales

Being Made Captive

"Sometimes the briefest moments capture us, force us to take them in, and demand that we live the rest of our lives in reference to them."  — Lucy Grealy from Autobiography of a Face

Confession Tuesday

Dear Reader... It's been a week since my last confession.  Come along and we'll get down to the crazy details.

• This past week I attended a Reading.  I usually try and shoot a picture or two at readings in order do a post on my blog.  I thought about shooting pictures at this one but they announced at the beginning that pictures were not to be taken. Not during the reading, not at the book signing or at the reception. I was shocked because I don't every recall this in the past.  I did in fact refrain from shooting pictures but I did think about it so dose that make me a sinner or a near sinner? The whole thing is strange because I've taken photos at this event in the past and there never seemed to be a problem.
• My efforts to settle into more of a regular routine for my writing too a back seat yesterday to a trip to the grocer for a turkey. Then delayed again while I spent time with my wife watching some of our favorite TV. Finally I settled in to write after she fell asleep and then my Arizona daughter - looking for some one to chat with texted me. It was very late and I don't get a lot of one on one time talking of texting with her so I again put my journal and pen aside.  When Meg was all texted out, I picked up my journal and got down to work. A very late session, but it turned out to be a very good one.

That's it for this week.  Everyone have a safe and enjoyable Thanksgiving.

Recording poetic particals

It seems that each time I visit Terresa Wellborn's blog I am blown away by something she has written, some picture, some great quote or particle of truth or sometimes it's a combination of these. This morning was no exception.

Today it was a quote from the French novelist Gustave Flaubert - "There is not a particle of life which does not bear poetry within it."

This quote tends to give credence to the value of notations in a journal of interesting things that come your way each day. It is from these particles that the gems, the precious molecules of poetic matter come. To let them pass without record surely means many are lost and never committed to use.

Anyway, thanks to Terresa I am reminded the value of notations of some life's small wonders.

Magpie Tales 41

Eleventh Hour

The eleventh hour

a repudiation of the one before.

Older, wiser, clutched the present

staking claim to so much more

then any earlier period of history.

Still this cannot be self contained.

Time is a currency that is devalued

with each passing moment.

The tarnished silver replaced and the

cycle continues. Each click of a second

the spin, an empty chamber of a gun.

–a misfire, misspoken pronouncement;

the anti-matter.



2010© Michael A. Wells

Magpie Tales