what comes first?

The old chicken or the egg question. Or in this case... the words or the idea? What drives your poetry? Personally I find that most often the words come first... before their meaning. Sometimes they are just disjointed phrases.. but I know I am on to something.

Today I went back to one of my old friends . the cut-up machine, in an effort to drag words into life, It is amazing how you can feed the thing a mixture of poetry, lyrics, advertisements, friend's emails, whatever and it will jumble them up so unrecognizably...then a few new phrases pop up that tickle the imagination. "fiddling religious" "human metaphors" "moon written" "breathing peace" "monkey ideas". Where is this leading? Who knows.

Endless Questions

Do these pants have pockets?

Pockets are very useful...

I could put my airplane in there

or some money if you give me some.

Why is broccoli green?

i don’t like to eat green stuff.

Apples are green but I like red ones better.

Red tastes nicer.

Did my mommy throw me up?

I was in her tummy with all her food.

I don’t like being all mixed with food.

How did I get out?

Can we ride the Jeep to the park?

I like to ride in a car with no top.

i like to look at the trees going by.

Why are the clouds following me?

But Perhaps ( a new poem)

But Perhaps

I seem to recall a snake

that broke into my childhood home

but they tell me

that was before I was born.

I can see it cross the room slowly,

king of the moment,

till daddy hooks it on a broom handle

and deposits it outside.

If I was never there

how can I see its yellow-eyed dare?

Okay. Distance does disguise.

Someone shuffled the deck.

All the cards in my memory file

appear misplaced beside other cards

and you tell me stubbornly

“It didn’t happen that way.”

I seem to recall a snake

slithering across our bedroom floor,

yellow-eyed and venomous

.....but maybe that too was just a dream.

We understand differently,

meet broken promises

with the same skill as a plumber meets

a leaky toilet tank .....

patch it up neatly

while mentally composing the bill.

When the drip returns

he’ll be far away,

perhaps he was never here at all.

Sleeping on Demand

I am off to the sleep clinic where I am to spend the night sleeping under watchful eyes while hooked up to a bunch of electrodes. Hope I will not awake to find I am transformed to Frankenstein. the whole idea of "lights out" and no flashlight under the covers seems weird to me....but it is only one night. Perhaps a poem will come out of it.

typos

Most of you know I can spell ...just not type.

Make that "folded" and "forums". Did I miss any others?

A voice from the great beyond

This just in... an old friend, Will Sheldon, just emailed me .

Rus, you will probably remember him from Utne.

BTW it is awful that that place fold in like it did. Mind I say "folded in" since it is still there but so totally different that I don't even recognize it. All the fun poetry forms are gone. No live poetry contest on Saturdays. No names I even recognize. Oh well.

I invited Will to visit here and post some work. I hope he will. I miss him.

Playing store

and other games of pure imagination.

 Had Kendall and Joshua for a short visit this morning while their mom went to the gym and then to awards day at Ryan's school.

 I bought a red dress complete with all accessories (hat, shoes, gloves) a shirt for my husband 

( a 'large" from the "husband department") as well as toys for my kid's....it should all cost about $7. And while I shopped I snacked on "popcorn" that Josh made by crumpling up bits of paper into tiny balls.

We read for the millionth time my all time favorite golden book  The Color Kittens (or color cats as Josh insists) and  I was amazed that they can both quote verbatim the little poems...green as cat's eyes, green as grass by streams of water green as glass.......orange as an orange tree, orange as a bumblebee, orange as the setting sun sinking slowly in the sea. I love kid's books that inspire poetic use of language and the kids always seem to as well. They ask for those books again and again.

Then of course the sofa took turns being a boat, a car, an airplane. 

All this play and we haven't picked up a single toy or game.

Where did the days go when kids played with cardboard boxes and their imaginations? I don't think I could keep them away from the TV or their DS or Wii for a whole day but a couple of hours at Grammy's...yes. That works.

Ryan spent the night on Monday and we did crafts and played cards.  

I am so glad to have these kids back!!!

Beach after Ike

Went out to High Island with Amy, Ken and kids on weekend. Soooooo  strange to see dunes gone and beach skirting the road. Terrible what nature can do. Ike was a real monster. 

Walking the sand. kicking at tangles

of slimy seaweed,

my plastic grocery bag in hand

scouting as always for bits of shells-

I feel like an archaeologist

of recent history 

uncovering strange treasures

not so long decayed

A high-heeled red shoe, ratty toothbrush,

baby blocks gnarled by surf

all the debris of daily life swept

away

Deposits 

in the banks of asphalt

where years ago another storm 

took out Highway 87

sprucing up the room

This is rather like interior decorating.....paint the walls, hang a few pictures. Now all I need is a big cushy chair and a good reading lamp.

my anniversary

38 years of happy marriage today! Worth a word in here I should think. 38 years doesn't come without changes and accomodations. Days of boredom and days of joy. I am definitely not the woman he married and he is not the man I first loved. The secret is to keep falling in love with the new person. This is an old one. 

Marriage Medicine

Choose nothing so resolute as elixir #7

that knows its place 

on the shelf, extracts fresh pain

when administered before

coffee.  When fitted pieces

fail to accomodate new shapes,

sudden outcrops

of bewitchy behavior, 

delight switching to discomfort,

the time has arrived for

drastic measures. Take one large

spoon of crushed conformity

guaranteed to freshly fascinate,

jog in place stammering “adapt, adapt”--

the antedote for the untimely season

of growing apart in union.

Geez this blog has gotten complicated. Twice now it has made me reset my password to get in.

Anyway. Trying to jumpkick my brain. My language is getting vague and poetry is hiding from me. I decided to read some stuff I had started and never finished.Some of it was interesting but I had no idea where to take  it next. This seems done. I only changed a few words and some weird enjambment.Anyone got any thoughts? No idea of a title

When we left 

time folded up the town,

stored it away 

in some dusty drawer.

I never doubted

the population logged  off 

with a sigh of relief 

they no longer 

had to keep up the pretense.

An artist 

at an easel had painted

cloud-streaked sky,

quaint shops,

rural landscapes.

Only our stepping

through the canvas

gave the image

breath. 

It was a brief reality.

Today I crossed the street,

peered at window displays that seemed

unchanged.

 I drove the short three miles 

to pasturelands where cows 

moved slow motion 

across sweet grass.

I couldn’t believe

a world went on without us--

without you beside me

studying a road map, 

calling out the names 

of towns like this 

with histories 

that only had a present life

as long as we were there.

missing people

So speaking of reconnecting.... does anyone know what became of Chris Tozier. If not for him there would have been no Captiva Summit. Or Fay? Or Barbara? Or (dare I ask) Silvia?

I still remember Silvia and her quest for garlic. Fay's kids must be almost grown now. Barb (God bless her ) may not be alive any longer.

Anyone got any ideas on locating any of them?

Reconnecting

Way back in the day, I used to chat in the old Yahoo rooms. Met a lot of people that way...some of whom I got really close to. I have lost touch with most of them now. One in particular was a young man... a philosophy major at University of Toronto. We got into a long email philosophy debate..read some books together...the whole nine yards but all in fun. I have no background in philosophy only a wealth of opinions. I even met him in person once when Ernie and I were on a fall leaf-peeper trip and decided to veer on up into Canada. 

Anyway, we continued to email until ,in his first year of grad school , he got way too busy to worry with chat and chatty emails. Time has a way of flying by. That was about nine years ago.

Last night on a whim I googled his name and got a wealth of hits! He now has a PhD and is teaching in BC. I emailed and got an email back......Amazing!

What did we ever do before the internet?

back to blogging

Here I am again.
i know I promised to come in once a day ....but I have not been loyal.

Okay.

 Thought for today : I now need 3 pairs of glasses to do what I once could with my naked eyes. What a strange phrase "naked eye". I clothe mine in "progressive lens" that have ceased to progress, reading glasses bought at Walmart, and prescription sunglasses for driving. This is ridiculous. On any given day I spend at least 25 minutes trying to find the right pair. Why does nature do this to us at just the point when memory also gets muddled and it turns out that the reading glasses are in Ernie's bedside drawer?????I have no explanation that I care to discuss for that one.

Hope the rest of you are doing okay. Have a good one,

Jude