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Saturday, October 16, 2010

Magpie Tales 36



Light is Reversible and I Wear It—

inside out
snug about me
a compression bandage
that heals the anxious pricking;
nervous needles of daylight—


people I don’t even know
that pass me
that press me
that push me to the brink.

Day is my hell—
my holy hell.
I am safest with it
under my surveillance
at a distance.


©2010 Michael A. Wells


Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Confession Tuesday

Sometimes I think that reaching Tuesday is like hitting another milestone on your odometer- you’re driving down the road and note that it just rolled past 55,000, and soon it’s 80,000. Next thing you know you reach 100,000 and everyone in the car is doing a foot dance to celebrate. Then, 150,000 and 175,000 and now you aren’t dancing but praying.
 
It’s confession time…
 
Dear reader-
 
It’s been another week and so many miles of life since my last confession.
 
Fall is an interesting time of year because it seems to be about slowing down. Darkness comes earlier and it seems that this draws the day out because you are up during a darker period of time longer than normal. Fall is also a perceived changing of the guard. Summer is dying off and you know the trees will soon be bare and their tentacles will rake the sky till the snow falls and the cold northwest winds choke off nature. In spite of all this doom and gloom, fall is not without grace and beauty and I keep trying to tell myself this— even as the baseball season vanishes and with most other forms of life.
 
This past weekend I confess I was depressed, even as my San Francisco Giants survived to reach the playoffs. My head felt like it was clogged with fog in all of its grayscale colorless form. Later, that gray would set like cement into the worst headache to carry around. I realize I’ve spent more time inside lately then out and I don’t suppose that has helped. Still, it is that time of the year that I battle this more than any other.
 
On Sunday there was an outside poetry / art event that I was thinking I would attend, but in the end I stayed home to watch the Giants game. I confess that my decision was based upon the fact that poetry events come and go, but it’s not every year your team makes the playoffs.
 
Any hope of this improving as we started a new week vanished yesterday as I learned that a coworker battling a terminal illness passed away over the weekend. While I suppose it was not that I never anticipated it, the last contact we had left no indication it would be so soon. I was stunned. Everyone was stunned.
 
Everyone have a great week and be safe!

Monday, October 11, 2010

N.J. organizers say Dodge Poetry Festival attendance as large as past, more diverse | NJ.com

 

NEWARK — Greg Gillett and his wife, Mary Jo, have traveled from Michigan to New Jersey many times to attend the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival, but the event produced some pleasant surprises this year.

The festival moved to the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark from Waterloo Village in Sussex County.

Despite the presence of four U.S. poets laureate, "there were fewer big names than other years," said Mary Jo Firth Gillett.

Yet the poetry teacher in the Detroit area said she found that a plus.

 

Full Story:  N.J. organizers say Dodge Poetry Festival attendance as large as past, more diverse | NJ.com

 

 

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San Francisco Wins Series - Advance to NLCS! Celebrating!

Outfielder Cody Ross Homers in the game tonight.  The Giants win the series on the Road in Atlanta.

Saturday, October 09, 2010

Imagine

  • Imagine Hunger a thing of the past
  • Imagine Forests rejuvenated
  • Imagine Cancer cured
  • Imagine Diabetes defeated
  • Imagine Literacy an epidemic
  • Imagine Wellness a way of life
  • Imagine Knowledge universal
  • Imagine a world Clear of Nuclear weapons
  • Imagine Human Rights without a second thought
  • Imagine A Song in Every Heart
  • Imagine Living Life in Peace

John Lennon - 9 October 1940 – 8 December 1980



Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Friday, October 08, 2010

"Last Letter"


The New Statesman publishes a previously unseen work by the late poet laureate Ted Hughes that shed some light on the final days of Sylvia Plath.  Above, Actor Jonathan Pryce reads the poem.
This is sure to start a whole new round of discussion and debate about the Hughes-Plath relationship.

Wednesday, October 06, 2010

Magpie Tales 35



The Fall

Not all
falls are without grace
it’s not all black and white

the lush green
slowly ages
to perfection
and one day

we wake like the frog
in the pan on the stove
who only notices
he is cooked

too late to realize
summer has crossed
the line

and we cheer
the cool afternoons
brushed with color
aplenty

we plan weekend excursions
around watercolor scapes—
drive deep into their belly
and breathe the discolored air
crisp and thick
with ripe

and over weeks
all this too
will pass

all will slowly
lose grip
in a
last
dying
act

and gently
on streams of air
fall effortlessly
without a sound
to the ground
below


©2010 – Michael A. Wells – all rights reserved