spiraling words

Words can have no single fixed meaning. Like wayward electrons, they can spin away from their initial orbit and enter a wider magnetic field. No one owns them or has a proprietary right to dictate how they will be used. ~ David Lehman



 

Knock My Socks off Poetry Wednesday

A couple of poems that I've read recently that I especially enjoyed and I feel are worth a read...

Ben Parkers'  Sharing the Task that appeared in Rose & Thorn Journal.


David Oestreich's In Praise of Coffee that appeared in Autumn Sky Poetry.

Getting it Right

A fist—      White knuckled

gripping something

               anything

bloodletting and leaches

               a vacation to cryogenic reality

brittle regions of home

               splintered and fractured

lessons of melodious ramblings

in hurtful octaves

breaches – spankings – platitudes

               tomorrow we rehearse

The Moment

"But I don't think of the future, or the past, I feast on the moment. This is the secret of happiness, but only reached now in middle age."  — Virginia Woolf

Confession Tuesday - coughing up the week

Dear Reader:

It is with a deep breath I come to the confessional. A deep breath because I'm trying to breath big today. It's been actually two weeks since my last confession and it was on the day that I should have been making my last one that I was feeling really crummy. By Wednesday morning I would be well on my way to feeling much worse. Today I went back to work. Only for a half day and I confess that when I left the office at 1 pm, I was pretty worn down. Pneumonia is a pretty nasty thing; of that I’m a believer.  

I took a nap after getting home and feel a little recharged but I kid you not once I put my head on the pillow, I crashed and burned. 

I confess that I have no exciting holiday stories to share. Just the one about the guy who did not travel across town with family to have dinner with other family members and that story is full of coughing up stuff you don’t want to hear about, or while surrounded in bed by dogs who are looking at you like “why must you keep up that annoying cough and by the way, what’s with the piles of Kleenex wads?” 

Oddly it seems there were moments this past week when in my general state of physical decline I had some flashes of brilliance (unless I was being delusional) about several aspects of a manuscript I’m working on.  It seems some clarity paid me a visit. And if they were only delusions I’m willing to except that/them anyway. I vaguely recall someone in the past saying you don’t have to be crazy to be a poet but it never hurts.

So really, with the kind of week I’ve had I confess that you just have to find the silver lining by getting a hold of the frayed ends and pulling on a strand just to see what unravels. 

Oh, least I forget… I confess that I lost weight over Thanksgiving. There is that to be thankful for.  

Yes, I am among the Living

Rumours of my demise are understandable but incorrect.  While I have no idea where the expression sick as a dog came from, that would be me on the right.  By the time I left work last Tuesday I was dragging and feeling a little under the weather. I attributed it mostly to sinus stuff.  I had scheduled a vacation day for Wednesday. Add that to the Thursday & Friday holidays + another two days for the weekend and Walla! You have five days off!  Wrong... Ok, they were days off but hardly qualify as vacation, holiday, I don't even think you can call it a momentary pause in life. No, Wednesday it became pretty evident things more just under the weather.

Basically the 5 days were spent in bed.  No journey to Thanksgiving with the family.  I only left the house for trip to Doctors and then another trip to the ER.  Results pneumonia.  Checked back in with the doctor today. I plan to go back to work tomorrow - at least for a half day and see how I do. I get worn down pretty easy. I'd like to say that I read a book or two over that time, or wrote a reams of poetry.  I did try some writing but maybe have one worthwhile draft from it. I wasn't in the best mood for writing.

That would also be my excuse for not doing Confession Tuesday or Knock My Socks off Wednesday.

Now I'm going to call it a night.



Thought for the Day

A conservative is one who admires radicals centuries after they're dead.

 ~ Leo Rosten