Confession Tuesday

The night is slipping by quickly so let's get this over....

Dear Reader:  It's been a week since my last confession. A week in which I've gotten back to writing or a reasonable facsimile thereof.

Writing took a back seat to a variety of other things the week before last.  I confess that I haven't been writing the best stuff but writing - even doing so poorly beats not writing. I'm maybe starting to hit my stride again. Just need to keep pushing through.

The surprise Maples in my back yard are starting to turn deep shades of red. Rich colors and every fall I confess I get an adrenalin rush when I see this change in color.

Went for a walk tonight with the dogs. I confess I always want to go for a walk until... until I start walking. Go figure. The exercise was good but the weather was also very nice. When it starts getting colder that's when it gets really tough.

I confess paying $3.19 a gallon for gas this morning was ALMOST exciting. I feel however it's a momentary blip in the future of gassing up my car.

Not much more to share tonight... Till next Tuesday - hang tight.

Magpie Tales 84 / Poem: Woman of Rain

Blood rain of the heavens

pounding earthward

arms outstretched to catch

all the violence nature can throw

at her—

losing herself to chilled veins

irrigating her flesh

thrusting her chest outward

her head arched back

an O wide to catch its fill

Niagara flowing over her lips

splashing into the cleavage below

her nipples rigid against the cold—

time becomes measurable

only as a benchmark

of periods of lucidity

of which second

has yet to occur

Michael A. Wells

Mag 84

Blessings...

This past week has been a difficult week for many reasons and I won't go into the voluminous details.  Let's just say that all about me there seemed to be worries, trials, and stresses. I'm talking about many of the people closes to me. But I am here this morning to say that there were and continue to be many ways in which those about me have be and continue to be blessed. Many of the challenges of the past week are being met with positive response. This of course is a good thing.

We don't hear enough about the good in this world. Maybe that is why I am so drawn to art.  Art allows things to just be. It is not required to reflect good or bad...  it is what it is and we can find enjoyment it the simple reflection of the human spirit on the page or on canvass or in the music that fills the air.

Have you or someone close to you been blessed this past week?

Recomended Reading

The poet Susan Rich has a post today that I recommend to everyone.  Her poem In Our Name  originally appeared in The Cartographer's Tongue, White Pine Press, 2000.

Susan's poem is timely given the execution last night of Troy Davis. While not specifically about Troy's execution, she very effectively takes each of us inside a death chamber

Please read it and recommend it to others.

Unconscious Mutterings Week 451

You Say and I think:

1. Earrings :: dangling
2. Tomorrow :: never comes
3. Soft :: and fresh
4. Idiots :: Bush
5. Portraits :: School
6. Handicap :: golf
7. Collar :: dog
8. Blouse :: white
9. Wool :: sweater
10. Statistic :: hits

Get your own subliminal list weekly here

W.S. Merwin Reads for the 57th Annual Poetry Day - October 6th

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
September 20, 2011

W.S. Merwin Reads for 57th Annual Poetry Day

CHICAGO — The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine, is pleased to announce that poet, translator, and environmental activist W.S. Merwin will read in celebration of the 57th annual Poetry Day on Thursday, October 6. In a career spanning five decades, Merwin has become one of the most honored and widely read poets in America. From his first collection, A Mask for Janus, which W.H. Auden chose for the Yale Younger Poets Prize in 1952, to The Shadow of Sirius, winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize, Merwin has written with sheer grace and limpid power about the natural world, time, and memory. Appointed U.S. poet laureate in 2010, Merwin lives, writes, and gardens in Hawaii, on the island of Maui. He has spent the last 30 years planting 19 acres with over 800 endangered species of palm, creating a sustainable forest. The property has recently been protected as the Merwin Conservancy.

What: Poetry Day: W.S. Merwin
When: Thursday, October 6, 6 p.m.
Where: Harold Washington Library
Cindy Pritzker Auditorium
400 South State Street
Tickets: Free admission on a first-come, first-served basis

Inaugurated by Robert Frost in 1955, Poetry Day is one of the most distinguished poetry reading series in the country, having featured such poets of note as T.S. Eliot, Elizabeth Bishop, Carl Sandburg, W.H. Auden, Anne Sexton, John Ashbery, James Merrill, Adrienne Rich, Gwendolyn Brooks, Rita Dove, Billy Collins, Seamus Heaney, Derek Walcott, and Robert Hass.

Find information about other Poetry Foundation events at www.poetryfoundation.org/ programs/events.

Confession Tuesday

Dear Reader:

It's been a week since my last confession. This is where I usually say something about how I can't believe how fast the week has gone. I confess that I don't feel that way.

I confess that when I see that my last blog post was on Thursday, a longer interval then I usually go or at least like to go without posting and yet it seems like an eternity ago.

I confess that my weekend seemed to kind of start late Thursday night and sort of been in a state of suspended animation except that suggests movement and this is more like a mobile hanging in a child room. Hanging and hanging and hanging.

I confess that I have strayed from my writing schedule and other than journaling I've really not written much of anything since last week.

I confess that last night I didn't even think of myself as a writer, a poet, for the first time in I don't know how long. This is a pretty devastating feeling since I think it's been a part of my own self identity for so long I don't know myself.

I confess that I did not want nor plan to post anything today on my blog. Yes, I confess I wasn't going to confess. How's that for honesty?  But I did, and I'm not sure why.  I'm off work today but was working on some work anyway. I think I just needed a break... I don't really know why.

I confess that I'm looking for a miracle for my San Francisco Giants.  They have started playing awesome again but winning the division is beyond their self determination at this point. They could win everything else and be close, but they need Arizona to stumble as well. Still they have an impressive string of 8 wins in a row under pressure. Let's make it 9 tonight!

I confess I feel the baseball season slipping, slipping out of my grasp. I can't hold onto it and stop it any more then I can stop the seasons.

I confess that I've had all I can take of robo calls from charities and collection agencies looking for someone else. If they get your contact information from a credit reporting agency that has your social security number but the person with the same name as you has a different social security number (which the agency has) should there not be some culpability?

I suppose this looks like a confession from Debbie Downer. Honestly I don't want it to seem that way, but you know what is all the rage to say these days... it is what it is.

Next week...  I hope.