The Risk To Write

We have a natural right to make use of our pens as of our tongue, at our peril, risk and hazard. ~ Voltare

Playing in what rain they could find

This morning the ground was wet with fresh rain, I caught sight of  geese across the street on the ball diamond.  The rain would soon disappear into oven baked ground. I would depart for work, and the geese I suppose they lollygagged about for a while and left.

Journal Bits

The following are representative bits, notes, quotes, writings  from my journal July 16 to present.

• 7/16 - fey - pronounced (fay). Adjective meaning 1. strange or unconventional or otherworldly. 2. doomed 3. able to see the future.
• 7/18 - art is not always in the details, sometimes it's the big picture
• 7/20 - Am I cursed? My poet home page dis down this morning. New hosting site and I'm dealing with this issue again.
• 7/20 - never have I laid eyes upon her / that the cortex was not held hostage. / Never have we touched that my heart / did not ache for more
• 7/22 - it will be known as the summer / of toasted coconut lawns / we began to lower our standards / of comfort
• 7/23 - At 9:00 PM the temperature was 102, unbelievable...
• 7/30 - I read Diane Ackerman's poem Between the Creases, probably not for the first time, but it really resonated with me today. 
• 7/31 - "The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts while the stupid ones are full of confidence." ~ Charles Bukowski 

Confession Tuesday - Olympic Bitchfest

It's Tuesday and them means time to head to the confessional. Won't you join me?

Dear Reader,

It's been another week since my last confession. One more week of mostly ghastly heat.  One more week of week of almost not stop a/c compressor running outside our back bedroom window, and  week and two days since my last poetry submissions.

I confess that last night when I realized it was national cheese cake day I wanted so badly to go out for a piece of cheese cake. When I realized designation of the day it was getting late and I did not want it bad enough to put one real clothes that I could actually be seen in public in. However, our office has a birthday party to celebrate at the Cheese Cake Factory this Friday. It all works out in the end.

I did not see the opening of the Olympics. How big is this? Well, I confess that I do not recall the last time I missed an opening ceremony. I caught some of the Olympics last night and I have to be honest, I'm just not that taken in by it this year. I've never quite felt about the Summer games the way I do about the Winter games. I love almost all of the winter stuff but I confess that less of the summer events strike my fancy. Sure I'll watch some of the gymnastics. I like the volleyball. The cycling and fencing is cool. The Boxing too. I quit caring about basketball years ago when Team USA had pro athletes compete. I confess that was a big turn off and they have never won me back. I was really int the baseball, but with that gone <sigh> so is a lot of my interest. I've never cared for soccer Olympics or otherwise. The canoe event that looks like white water rafting is pretty cool.

Talking about all this Olympic stuff makes me long for the next winter games. The Hockey, skiing, giant slalom, ski jumping (love it - I think I'd like to be a ski jumper at least till I got up on the run and was looking down) and toboggan, bobsled, luge, cross-country skiing and figure skating. Love the figure skating. So you see I'm pretty much a winter games kind of guy.

But there is another problem with the Olympics. The best covered games I ever saw were the Sarajevo Olympics in 1984 and Lake Placid in 1980.  They have gone down hill since and what I've seen of coverage this year is an all time low. I loved it when the coverage included cultural tid-bits about the host country and biographical sketches on the athletics and there home countries. Things about their families and what they went through to get there. I despise the tape delays. I Miss Jim McKay. No one knew the Olympics better.

I confess I did not intend this to be an Olympic bitch fest but is is what it has become. ;)

I confess that I will try to do better next Tuesday and cut this off here for tonight.

Poetry Games: Cast Your Vote!

The ancient Greeks felt poetry and sport went hand in hand at athletic festivals like the Olympics. Poets sang the praises of athletic champions and, at some festivals, even competed in official events, reciting or playing the lyre.  NPR is reviving that tradition with it's own  

Check out and vote for your favorite.  Poetry Games.

Summer of Discontent?

Will I look back on the summer as the summer of discontent? The heat, the lack of rain, a time when the leadership (with a small l) in our nation's capital was largely dysfunctional. And then there is the Aurora, Colorado mass shooting.

It's a summer when I've lowered my comfort standards by increasing what I consider to be a palatable temperature.  As for the disappointing circus in Washington, D.C., I refuse to lower my standards.

I've tried to find the good in things this summer and that's not always been easy. In people too. I try giving grouchy people a bit of a break because given the heat I figure we've all had some days in which our own irritability seemed to take over. Actually, I've found in many instances it's not quite so easy to find reason to get upset with others and this is a good thing. I'm not professing to be perfect at it but I'm vastly improved in this area and that makes me a happier person.

I've also been in search of the art in life. I keep telling myself there is art everywhere if we look hard enough. It means finding a different view of things so that you see some other meaningful aspect what might otherwise seem normal.  I like to find art in the randomness of things. If I can find art in the everyday then how much easier to find poetry in the split open bagel or the uneven seem of a concrete walkway.

This summer is not over and maybe I'm being too judgmental trying to chalk it all up to the negatives. Like the water over the rock slabs above there is movement. Things are happening and the year is in motion as well. I'm ready for some surprising good news, good things and feeling good.

I hope others are looking for art in their own day to day world. After all, art is for everyone. Art is for the masses and for all time.
 

Small wonders...

Rain fell overnight and surprisingly I recognized its remnants this morning.