Little Butt Crack Showing...

I couldn't resist this. A picture I shot a while back with cell phone mid-day as I stretched my legs over lunch hour. Some days I actually have a humorous streak.



Foxtrot - appearing in WestWard Quarterly Fall 2011

Earlier this fall my poem Foxtrot appeared in WestWard Quarterly.  Since this is a print publication there is not link to it but now that a little time has passed since the publication I have included now on the published poems page - see tab above or click here.

Magpie 94 / Poem: LUNCH

Lunch

Clock ticking
1800 seconds and ticking
rows of busy heads
bobbing and chewing
throats likes snakes
swallowing a rabbit
whole-

chatter
to a minimum-
like they each have some place
to go-
they do

half an hour for lunch
the the rest of their eight hour day

it's robotic-
circuitous               each day 
the same         each day
           the same



Michael A. Wells


Magpie 94


* photo credit - Lunch, George Tooker, 1964, Columbus Museum of Art

Knock My Socks Off Wednesday

Just one poem today...  but one awesome poem that knocked my socks off!


Enjoy Fire and Ice  by Lucy Biederman  - appeared in No Tell Motel

Confession Tuesday - Dance edition

It’s that time again – Mind if I eat my lunch in the confessional?

Dear reader- I’m eating Turkey Chili with beans for lunch all he while I confess that my mind is centered on the nachos with jalapeños I had a the hockey game Friday night. I’d much rather be enjoying those again rather them Turkey Chili form a can.     

Speaking of Friday and the game, I went with my daughter Shannon and two of her friends.  We had just gotten out of the car in the parking lot, traversed a few steps when this van pulls in with music blaring. I don’t exactly know what possessed me (and possessed is the story I’m sticking with) but I confess  that I broke out dancing as did Shannon though I don’t believe either was aware of the other until people started cheering, applauding and I’m pretty sure there was some laughter mixed in there too.  We both looked at each other and realized what was happening and of course in our moment of supreme embarrassment both stopped at once.  

I confess that the first thought that entered my mind was finding out the next morning that the dance routine had been taped and went viral on you tube.  In my defense, this culminated a period of  lots of bed rest and I can only surmise I was overly anxious to hit the streets.

Finally, I confess that I recently went more than a week without any Diet Coke.  Those who really know me will say I had to be sick. I was

Ted Hughes Honored Today

 

Ted Hughes (left) is honored today by his inclusion at the Poet's Corner in the South Transept of Westminster Abbey.  The practice of honoring  the greatest poets with a tomb or stove is a 600 year tradition in Britain.  (pictured on the right is photo of some of the markers)

The list of those honored before him include the likes of Dryden, Browning, Tennyson, Shelly, Keats, Blake, Hopkins and Eliot.

Hughes' inclusion came after some heavy duty lobby  by a number of poets including Seamus Heaney and Simon Armitage.  Britain's Poet Laureate from 1984 till his death in 1998 on might have though Hughes o be an early lock for the honor.

I've read a number of Ted Hughes' published works. While his first book, Hawk in the Rain is outstanding and won critical acclaim  when published in the late 1950's it is Birthday Letters, published the year he died that I most remember him for.  This work forever links him and his response to the final work of his first wife Sylvia Plath.

I have to say that while Hughes is a masterful poet, I have often wondered how long i would have been before his talents were truly recognized without Sylvia.  I was her belief in Ted and her dogged work typing manuscripts and sending them off that netted his recognition  for Hawk in the Rain. I have always seen Ted as the more laid back Brit and Sylvia with that American ambition driving him forward.

From the Hard to Believe Department

It's hard to believe Catch 21 is 50 years old.  I tried to recall my age at first reading it  and it threw me me.  I read it in the very late 1960's Probably '68 or '69 and did not realize that it was not not fresh off the presses then. Or maybe I knew but have forgotten.  It just seems that in my mind it was so relevant to the time.  Realizing that Joseph Heller actually began writing it in 1953 makes the story line even more remarkable to me.


also, a couple of notable local events...

Coming up: Sunday, December 11 - 2 p.m.
Central Library, 14 W. 10th St.

Guy Masterson: Dylan Thomas' A Child's Christmas in Wales

Welsh-born actor Guy Masterson reads A Child's Christmas in Wales, one of the most popular works by Welsh writer and poet Dylan Thomas.

And at The Writers Place: Friday, December 16, 2011 7:00 pm
Holiday Holiday Reading and Party with the Music of Jim Abel and Kevin Hiatt
Readers will include Shawn Pavey, David Hughes, Michelle Pond, Martha Gershun, Tim Pettit, John Hastings, Lindsey Martin-Bowen, Carl Rhoden, Tina Hacker, Eve Ott, Susan Peters, and Phyllis Becker.
All donations will go to the Phil Miller scholarship.