Me and Michael

it is so easy to delete a post when editing it by just hitting the wrong button. and you can't get it back. I just wanted to edit a phrase that I had remembered wrong, and poof. gone. i am so irate. this does not happen with pen and paper.

Sometimes you feel like a nut...

...sometimes you don't.
                          (From an old commercial)

Or, to be more specific, sometimes you can write, and sometimes you can't. I come to the well and prime the pump and write and write and write and yet sometimes, even often, cannot break out of the realm of trying this, trying that, running around in a maze that has no final destination, end up with three or four pages of disjointed phrases, images, dead ends. I get the part about having to write out all the junk before you stop thinking about it and flow. But there are times when the flow remains elusive.

But there is something I was thinking about when I went out into the front yard yesterday during an unseasonably warm afternoon (and they tell us to get used to this...while the east is getting buried under a fourth excessive snowstorm in less than a month).

The hyacinths bloom most brightly
where I know I never planted them.

This seems like something to keep in mind. 

Ilfaro the junk man

One day, Ilfaro the junk man saw a fine lady.

At first he followed her with his eyes. Then he followed her with his thoughts. Then he followed her with his dreams.

First he washed his hands. When his hands were clean he washed his clothes. When his clothes were clean he washed his house.

When all was clean, he asked her a question.

At first she said: You are Ilfaro the junk man. And he knew she had followed him with her eyes.

Then she tipped her head and said: You must have worked very hard to become prosperous. And he knew she had followed him with her thoughts.

And at last she said: Your house is beautiful. And he knew that she would follow him with her dreams.

She had, and she had, and she did.

And they are happy.

Paper + wind, five minutes, go

    A paper blowing down an empty street. Nothing unusual about that. A blown paper wrapping itself around my legs. Unusual, but not particularly weird. A blown paper wrapped around my legs with my name on it. Below a picture. Now I’m paying attention.

    What had I done to merit a picture on any kind of paper, let alone one that had wound around my knees like a hobble and would barely let me walk? I peeled the paper off and carried it to a recessed doorway out of the wind. It took me a minute to find my name again among all the other words, long enough for me to think it was all my imagination. At the point where I was ready to ball the thing up and throw it in the nearest bin, the print jumped out at me. Two words. My name. An image. Me, from above, as though from a window.

    It took me a minute to make out the location. I was in a crowd, following the stream of foot traffic north on a busy sidewalk along Ordinary Boulevard after work, on my way to the market for a bottle of wine or a salmon filet or some salad greens for dinner. I don’t remember anybody asking my name on what could have been any evening during the last year or so. And yet, there it was in the caption below the picture.

    “Radiante Oblige....” That was me. And they spelled it correctly, too. “Radiante Oblige joins the crowd on her way to a meeting with destiny.”

    Chills raised the hair on my neck. I was torn between shredding the paper and letting the pieces be scattered by the wind and taking the page home to keep as proof of its own existence.

Tearing it up wouldn’t rid the world of this strangeness. There were likely thousands of these pages blowing around the town or folded up on driveways or lining cat boxes.

    But how was it that this page, out of all the loose paper floating down all the streets and alleyways of this city, had found me? This question was slightly less terrifying than questions about who was taking pictures of me, what made them think that a trip to the market was a date with destiny, and why on earth was this information was considered to be fit to print?

    Destiny. Not an idea I devoted much thought to. If there really were such a thing as destiny, wouldn’t it be inescapable, and wouldn’t everything you did be part of your journey?

    It was getting colder, and here I was in somebody’s doorway contemplating metaphysics. I took one last look at the picture and its caption, then folded the paper into sixteenths and shoved it in my back pocket. I pulled my coat a little tighter and stepped back out into the wind to continue home.

    From somewhere behind me, I could have sworn I heard the click of a shutter.

Keeping a date

Running through another night
without a moment for to write
except I'm writing other stuff
puff tough fluff guff--enough!

It's been a bit of a harried workweek. Last night, I simply FORGOT TO WRITE! I look forward to the weekend when I can take the time to bury myself luxuriously in words. Or so I dream, anyway.

no sound of raindrops
no wind blowing, no trees sigh
No depth, this winter

When in doubt, talk about weather.

turn my attention
back to the task at hand: stop
procrastinating

White shirt, black tie, Saturday morning

Wow, my thoughts are gruesome tonight. I just erased a long poem based on a "visit" to my house by a witness for the Lord who could barely conceal the hate and anger in his heart. By the third mention of blood (embedded in direct quotes from this man), I knew I could not post it.

He was not a very good advertisement for what he was selling. Or...maybe all too good. He said he was there to tell me of the love of our Lord, but even more important was the news about what would happen to me and my family if we failed to heed his call. I told him to get off my property as politely as I could, and to never come back.

I still remember the rage breaking his voice and the way he placed his hand on my door to prevent me from closing it. I watched through the window as he backed away. His acolyte watched him, too, as warily as I did.

I did not have to call the police.

The kingdom of God is among us, if only we have eyes to see. Threats will only make us disgusted or blind with fear. Where is the hope of heaven in that?

If what you really want is power over, then stop lying to yourself and everyone else.

If what you really want  to spread love, then you must love.

Hmm. No title comes to mind.

Well, some nights nothing comes to mind. After 45 minutes of false starts and deletions, I'm calling it a day. There is other stuff I want to write, but it doesn't really belong here. So I will quit and get to what's really calling me.

And tomorrow, I will finally finish Balin's evening vest. Or jacket, as the pattern envelope calls it. I'm not getting why it is called a jacket, and it led to a bit of confusion when I started working on the project. I finally figured out that no matter how long the sleeves were, if the item is worn under another item, then the top layer is called a coat, the underlayer is called a jacket, and the under underlayer is a shirt, which seems sensible enough.

needle thread scissors

coffee, favorite movie:

recipe for bliss

At long last

Rain, wonderful rain
for this parched land and these limp
leaves--joy and worry

Skyrim

I have never played Skyrim, or any other computer game of this type. I have to say "of this type" because I have played plenty of solitaire, but it just isn't in the same class.

This is all irrelevant.

What I mean to get to is the music. The soundtrack for the last three, um, versions of Skyrim...what do you call those things? They aren't upgrades, and I think they are more than expansions...anyway. The music is spectacular. Thank you, composer Jeremy Soule. You keep me sane while I work late into the night.

And perchance to dream

I'm going to try
something new and strange tonight
sleep sleep sleep sleep sleep

Baggage

Some of us tried to bring the gods of the earth
across the sky to these red sands
but they would not leave
their deserts
their jungles
their holy cities and golden temples

Some hoped to trap their gods in books they called holy
carry them like caged crickets singing:
Luck! Luck!
but when they turned the pages
the words fell out like dried flowers
and blew away on strange winds

All was scattered.
We learned a lesson:
our gods promised to be everywhere
but they are not here.
We will find the gods of this place
who might have different ways of
doing things
and gain the wisdom of our new home.

The priests did not look for new gods
who might have different ways of
doing things.

They culled their memories
sang as though there was still
something to sing to
claimed visions of wishful desire
assumed all authority
punished those who disagreed

And soon the old gods
were as powerful as they had ever been.

Story prompts

    Sometimes when I can't figure out what to write about, I open a writing book or two, or google story prompts. Most of the prompts are along the lines of: a husband catches his wife in a lie, and he follows her around and find something he doesn't expect.

    Or: A mom is putting her son's socks away and finds something she never thought she's see in a drawer belonging to a child of hers.
    Or: A man walks into his boss's office expecting to get fired.
    Or: A politician is found in a compromising position with an ex-colleague.

    Really? Do these suggestions really inspire people to write? I suppose a really good writer would be able to make something of these...really good writers already have. I can't imagine anything more dreary. It is I'm sure a failure of character on my part, or perhaps a sign that I am not a really good writer (I'm shocked! Shocked, I tell you!), but if I thought I had to write about offices and snoopy parents and jealous husbands, not to mention drug addictions and unscrupulous coaches, all the time I would throw away all my pens and notebooks and never open another Word document for the rest of my life. (I'd go back to Nisus. If only I had a Mac.)
    And while I'm typing all this, I notice that the back of my mind is mulling over these scenarios and trying to see if it can squeeze any hyperspace or elves into them. Or a tree. Or The Tree.....one of the socks seemed kind of lumpy. Betty glanced over her shoulder to make sure that Egbert was still talking to his friends in the yard. Should she? She must! A mother should know what kind of dangerous substances her son might be hiding from her. She grabbed the sock and quickly upended it and gave it a little shake. A baggie containing the biggest pecan she'd ever seen slipped out to rest on her palm. Suddenly the door slammed. "Honey!" came a voice down the hall. Not Egbert, but almost as bad. "Wilfred! I didn't expect you home so soon! Is everything all right?" She managed to slip the pecan back into the sock and stuff it back into the drawer with all the fresh socks before he came into the room. "Wait'll I tell you! Mr. Banks called me into his office today.....................
    Et cetera.
    There may be room for a superhero here.