Foreign Friday

It's a sad thing when you are writing a post for your blog and you feel like a visitor to it. I've been away from here a week and I also feel like I've been away from the life in general for a week.  I've been sick and off work all week but should return on Monday after a followup doctor's appointment.

Things that somehow feel foreign to me....

• Eating.  I should lose a ton of weight but I know I probably won't.  I've had days where all I ate was a bowl of Cheerios. One day it was a bottle of Glucerna. Another it was simply two eggs. Last night I had a small stake portion and some corn [the corn was the best part] and my wife must have thought I was pathetic.  Part of it has been at time no appetite, but even when not my blood sugar numbers have been elevated substantially during this illness and that has caused me to be cautious about intake.
• Writing. I've done none other then attempting to make a journal entry which if I recall I left hanging in mid sentence.
• Poetry.  I'm separating Poetry from Writing here only to demonstrate the magnitude of impact. The couple of times I would think about writing poetry it seemed I became nauseous feeling. I'm not saying I've suddenly fallen out of love with poetry just that my whole cycle-of-life thing has been tremendously impacted.
• TV. I seem to be able to tolerate it only in smaller doses.
• Shaving. This is not unusual for me when I'm sick as I generally will not shave when I'm under the weather.
• Driving. It's been a few days now.

As I wrap this post up, I look outside and snow if falling crazyassed hard. Our grass was already greening and now this.

Friends

I did a poetry reading tonight at a Quaker House Church on a theme of war & peace.  Not a big crowd but a friendly bunch... no pun intended.

Besides reading some of my own work I introduced them to a poem by Carolyn Forche and talked a little about the subtlety in her work and how effective she is with witness poetry without sounding preachy.

After a reading dry spell, this makes my second reading in two weeks.

Mixed Bag - Wednesday

Ouch!  I realized today that I plum missed Confession Tuesday.  On the upside, I took time out of work during my lunchour to make Ash Wednesday Mass so maybe I can have special dispensation.... Please!

Received a rejection letter from Rattle today but I won a poetry book, Dreaming in Darkness Jessica Kristie. Anxious to to read this book. Always love to be exposed to new poetry. I get a real rush from it.

Magpie 105: Collision

image: epic mahoney

The future and history crash

in a flat lined hub of fiber optic nowhere.

The long gone party-lines,

core black telephones decried

 iconic -pink princes phones

that came to link transient families,

translucent friends, truncated business

associates and cordial customers

in a national dialogue.

Colorful language went silent—

we pause to reflect

we pause to listen to what has become

a chorus of tapping finger tips

chipping finger nails

but void of human voice

of human color.

Our mind is left to add warmth

and pictures to text

and try to find the humanity

in the middle of everywhere.

Michael A. Wells

Magpie 105

A few gems from Tom Leonard ‘100 Differences Between Poetry and Prose’

among my favorite:

·       poetry is the subliminal history of linguistic shape

·       poetry has four wheels, two wings and a pair of false teeth

·       whoever heard of war & peace having the line as a unit of semantic yield

·       the square root of poetry is an ever-evolving quark

·       poetry is all the juicy bits in the juiciest order

·       you can talk about prose without mentioning school

The Poetry Brain

"Poetry is a different area if the brain [from prose] - much closer to music and mathematics." Margaret Atwood, BBC Radio 3, June 1995

Crossroads Coffeehouse Reading Last Night

Great readings last night at the Crossroads Coffeehouse- 310 Southwest Blvd, Kansas City, Mo 64108.  First time I've read in a while - but the crowd was great and seemed appreciative to all the readers.  Several readers on hand that I know but  some new ones too. 

A thanks to the owners of the Crossroads Coffeehouse for
sponsoring the event. They plan to do it every third Friday.



Pat Burge on the left reading.

 Shawn Pavey lower left reading