Behind the Deak

A shadow fell across his leafy brow.
The sinister one. The heavy one.
His feet were big as his buckets
propped on his desk-
it was the mammoth dark wood desk
that created a chasm between him
and anyone who strolled in.

Casual was not his color.  Casual was too close.
It allowed for comfort and that tilted the scales
in the wrong direction.  Always he strives to be
that backhand shot across the net that comes to you
in such a way you have to lean hard and fast to return
the serve and only with dumb luck will the volley be back
in his court anytime soon.

A Poem Takes Place

"A door opens, a door shuts. In between you had a glimpse: a garden, a person, a rainstorm, a dragonfly, a heart, a city. I think of those round glass Victorian paperweights ...a clear globe, self-complete, very pure, with a forest or village or family group within it. You turn it upside down, then back. It snows. Everything is changed in a minute. It will never be the same in there - not the fur trees, nor the gables, nor the faces. So a poem takes place."  ~ Sylvia Plath

Thank You Maurice for the Gift of Your Imagination

"I believe there is no part of our lives, our adult as well as child life, when we're not fantasizing, but we prefer to relegate fantasy to children, as though it were some tomfoolery only fit for the immature minds of the young. Children do live in fantasy and reality; they move back and forth very easily in a way we no longer remember how to do."

Maurice Bernard Sendak  - 10 June 1928 – 8 May 2012

Let the wild rumpus start in heaven!

Confession Tuesday - Roundup Edition

Dear Reader:

I have the day off today and it suddenly occurred to me that I should have a day off every Confession Tuesday.  I actually have it off because it's Harry S Truman's birthday. I know that some of you may find that odd, but around here the nation's 33rd President is a pretty big deal.  And who am I to question a paid holiday. It could be celebrate dirt clod day and I confess it would be happy to have it off.

I confess that this past week we've had too much rain for my liking. I can hear the green stuff growing again and that means I need to mow the lawn. [sigh]

This past week I've been moving lots of things around including adding the book case above to our bedroom. I confess that I have a habit of many books scattered all about the house. I have book cases in my office but I will still carry books out including especially the bedroom. Now I don't have an excuse to let them pile up in the bedroom and I will be able to find many of those transitory books with greater ease.

Another benefit of the new book case and cleaning in my office I have managed to locate what I believe to be nearly all of my personal journals. I confess that these did not have a specific home and now about 20 of them occupy one shelf dedicated just to them. I confess this has inspired me to plan to recycle through these some 4,000 plus pages looking for gems that I can go back and inspire me to take them steps beyond where I left off.

Reading in Remembering Randall - a memoir of Randall Jarrell written by his wife Mary von Schrader Jarrell, she discusses Randall's work on Translations as something he turned allowing him to use his writing energies  even when he felt poemless himself. She talks about him at times wondering if he had already written his last book.  I confess that reading this was encouraging to me in that I realize someone the callabur  of Randall Jarrell also had doubts and dry periods.

I  confess that I'm looking forward to a summer free of dry writing periods. Hey, I can hope!

The Pen and the Bell

“Strictly speaking, this isn’t a book—it’s a beautiful, quiet path into the deep woods of contemplative practice through the medium of the written word." ~ Norman Fischer, from the Foreword to The Pen and the Bell


I don't know about you but this sounds pretty sumptuous to me.   Check out the author's site here:

 The Pen and the Bell - Mindful Writing in a Busy World

Mag 115: The Way To Read...

   image by Manu Pombrol         

                                          

Barely anything else is relevant

the surroundings conically insular;

reading aloud has ringing quality

reverberating off Mason and water.

Did I say water? I hardly notice it

we have become temperate equals.

This is the way to read a superior literary work—

aloud, to yourself and the rest of the world be damned.

Michael A. Wells

Mag 115

If

Outstretched is how this week as been

with multiple vulnerabilities sacked out

in bunk beds resting up for the next day.

The weekend is nigh but I fear it

hardly will differ from the last

with no demarcation, no reverence,

no amount of appreciation for

white space, for quiet on the page,

for ink that might occur if given

half a chance.