Tuesday, November 30, 2010

DID YOU KNOW THAT ABRAHAM LINCOLN WAS A POET?


Well, actually - 

Abraham Lincoln neither wrote, nor attempted to write, much verse. What little he did write was perhaps the product of a sort of mental exercise—to gratify an impulse to see what he could do. . . . - The Atlantic archives, Via THE DISH.


THE BEAR HUNT
by - A. Lincoln

A wild bear chase didst never see?
            Then hast thou lived in vain—
Thy richest bump of glorious glee
            Lies desert in they brain.

When first my father settled here,
            ’T was then the frontier line;
The panther’s scream filled night with fear
            And bears preyed on the swine.

But woe for bruin’s short-lived fun
            When rose the squealing cry;
Now man and horse, with dog and gun
            For vengeance at him fly.

A sound of danger strikes his ear;
            He gives the breeze a snuff;
Away he bounds, with little fear,
            And seeks the tangled rough.

On press his foes, and reach the ground
            Where’s left his half-munched meal;
The dogs, in circles, scent around
            And find his fresh made trail.

With instant cry, away they dash,
            And me at fast pursue;
O’er logs they leap, through water splash
            And shout the brisk halloo.

Now to elude the eager pack
            Bear shuns the open ground,
Through matted vines he shapes his track,
            And runs it, round and round.

The tall, fleet cur, with deep-mouthed voice
           Now speeds him, as the wind;
While half-grown pup, and short-legged fice¹
            Are yelping far behind.

And fresh recruits are dropping in
            To join the merry corps;
With yelp and yell, a mingled din—
            The woods are in a roar—

And round, and round the chase now goes,
            The world ’s alive with fun;
Nick Carter’s horse his rider throws,
            And Mose Hill drops his gun.

Now, sorely pressed, bear glances  back,
            And lolls his tired tongue,
When as, to force him from his track
            An ambush on him sprung.

Across the glade he sweeps for flight,
            And fully is in view—
The dogs, new fired by the sight
            Their cry and speed renew.

The foremost ones now reach his rear;
            He turns, they dash away,
And circling now the wrathful bear
            They have him full at bay.

At top of speed the horsemen come,
            All screaming in a row—
‘Whoop!’ ‘Take him, Tiger!’ ‘Seize him, Drum!’
            Bang—Bang!  the rifles go!

And furious now, the dogs he tears,
            And crushes in his ire—
Wheels right and left, and upward rears,
            With eyes of burning fire.

But leaden death is at his heart—
            Vain all the strength he plies,
And, spouting blood from every part,
            He reels, and sinks, and dies!

And now a dinsome clamor rose,—
            ‘But who should have his skin?’
Who first draws blood, each hunter knows
            This prize must always win.

But, who did this, and how to trace
            What ’s true from what ’s a lie,—
Like lawyers in a murder case
            They stoutly argufy.

Aforesaid fice, of blustering mood,
            Behind, and quite forgot,
Just now emerging from the wood
            Arrives upon the spot.

With grinning teeth, and up-turned hair
            Brim full of spunk and wrath,
He growls, and seizes on dead bear
            And shakes for life and death—

And swells, as if his skin would tear,
            And growls, and shakes again,
And swears, as plain as dog can swear
            That he has won the skin!

Conceited whelp! we laugh at thee,
            Nor mind that not a few
Of pompous, two-legged dogs there be
            Conceited quite as you.


A small dog of nondescript breed. Local, U. S. A. — The Editor




A NUMBERS GAME





From the American Human Development Project,
an incredible interactive map showing health, education, and income by state.
Just something to think about.


Monday, November 29, 2010

A SECRET GIFT: Hope



 
 A Secret Gift: How One Man's Kindness--And a Trove of Letters--Revealed the Hidden History of the Great Depression - Ted Gup



In telling their stories, the book becomes a portrait of endurance and recovery, as well as of a community in the throes of the Great Depression.

[...]Assistance programs there frequently ran out of food. Malnourished children in homes their parents couldn’t afford to heat got sick; some died.

The devastation hit all levels [...]


The letters, Gup writes, “reminded me of the difference between discomfort and misery, between the complaints of consumers forced to rein in their spending and the keening of parents whose children went hungry night after night.” They also show that a gesture of generosity can deliver, along with small relief, good fortune that rings with hope.







Saturday, November 27, 2010

Thursday, November 25, 2010

A GIFT OF HOPE



A Secret Gift: How One Man's Kindness--And a Trove of Letters--Revealed the Hidden History of the Great Depression
_ Ted Gup

In telling their stories, the book becomes a portrait of endurance and recovery, as well as of a community in the throes of the Great Depression.

Before the stock market crash of 1929, Canton was a busy industrial city, home to Hoover and Republic Steel. But it was kneecapped by the Depression, with unemployment running as high as 50 percent. Local banks failed, taking all the deposits with them. Assistance programs there frequently ran out of food. Malnourished children in homes their parents couldn’t afford to heat got sick; some died.

The devastation hit all levels: The people who received $5 from B. Virdot included a grocer who’d gone broke extending credit to his customers, and a man who lost his family’s mansion after putting it up as collateral for the farm machinery business he had inherited.

The letters, Gup writes, “reminded me of the difference between discomfort and misery, between the complaints of consumers forced to rein in their spending and the keening of parents whose children went hungry night after night.” They also show that a gesture of generosity can deliver, along with small relief, good fortune that rings with hope.


I AM THANKFUL FOR MANY THINGS


HERE ARE JUST A FEW.

* I still have a home.

* After a long, frustrating hunt, I now have a job.

* We have plenty to eat.

* The law says that the fruits of the twenty-plus years my loving husband and I have been together belongs to both of us, and will be lost should something happen to one of us.

* Though I drive an old car and spend most of my time in jeans, strangers tend to treat me with respect and deference.

* Petty authority figures do not look for an excuse to harass me. 

I do not take any of these things for granted. Many people do not have even these basic things for which to be thankful. 


Last year I got a bit preachy. (here & here if you're interested).

But . . .



 
This year I just wish to say thank you. 

Thank you to the framers of the constitution, the magnificent, living document which grows and matures with us. 
Thank you to those who have fought bravely, often at personal sacrifice, to ensure that great document continues to encompass human dignity for all.
And I pray that one day we will live up to the ideals set forth in that magnificent document.


* I am also thankful for those of you who take a few moments from your busy days to stop by here an read my latest offering. May you, your families, and friends have reason to celebrate Thanksgiving all year long.

FAMILY GET-TOGETHERS . . .GOTTA LOVE 'EM



This is from ours last Thanksgiving




(That's me on the right)



World Below the Brine

         by Walt Whitman

The world below the brine;  
Forests at the bottom of the sea—the branches and leaves,  
Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seeds—
      the thick tangle, the openings, and the pink turf,  
Different colors, pale gray and green, purple, white, and gold—
      the play of light through the water,  
Dumb swimmers there among the rocks—coral, gluten, grass, rushes—
      and the aliment of the swimmers,
Sluggish existences grazing there, suspended, or slowly crawling
      close to the bottom,  
The sperm-whale at the surface, blowing air and spray, or disporting
      with his flukes,  
The leaden-eyed shark, the walrus, the turtle, the hairy sea-leopard,
      and the sting-ray;  
Passions there—wars, pursuits, tribes—sight in those ocean-depths—
      breathing that thick-breathing air, as so many do;  
The change thence to the sight here, and to the subtle air breathed by beings
      like us, who walk this sphere;
The change onward from ours, to that of beings who walk other spheres.


For some Whitman reading choices


 

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Fishing in Winter

         by Ralph Burns

A man staring at a small lake sees
His father cast light line out over
The willows.  He's forgotten his
Father has been dead for two years
And the lake is where a blue fog
Rolls, and the sky could be, if it
Were black or blue or white,
The backdrop of all attention.

He wades out to join the father,
Following where the good strikes
Seem to lead.  It's cold.  The shape
Breath takes on a cold day is like
Anything else--a rise on a small lake,
The Oklahoma hills, blue scrub--
A shape already inside a shape,
Two songs, two breaths on the water.

from: Us. Copyright 1983.



Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Diving into the Wreck

      by Adrienne Rich

First having read the book of myths,
and loaded the camera,
and checked the edge of the knife-blade,
I put on
the body-armor of black rubber
the absurd flippers
the grave and awkward mask.
I am having to do this
not like Cousteau with his
assiduous team
aboard the sun-flooded schooner
but here alone.

There is a ladder.
The ladder is always there
hanging innocently
close to the side of the schooner.
We know what it is for,
we who have used it.
Otherwise
it is a piece of maritime floss
some sundry equipment.

I go down.
Rung after rung and still
the oxygen immerses me
the blue light
the clear atoms
of our human air.
I go down.
My flippers cripple me,
I crawl like an insect down the ladder
and there is no one
to tell me when the ocean
will begin.

First the air is blue and then
it is bluer and then green and then
black I am blacking out and yet
my mask is powerful
it pumps my blood with power
the sea is another story
the sea is not a question of power
I have to learn alone
to turn my body without force
in the deep element.

And now: it is easy to forget
what I came for
among so many who have always
lived here
swaying their crenellated fans
between the reefs
and besides
you breathe differently down here.

I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.
I stroke the beam of my lamp
slowly along the flank
of something more permanent
than fish or weed

the thing I came for:
the wreck and not the story of the wreck
the thing itself and not the myth
the drowned face always staring
toward the sun
the evidence of damage
worn by salt and away into this threadbare beauty
the ribs of the disaster
curving their assertion
among the tentative haunters.

This is the place.
And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair
streams black, the merman in his armored body.
We circle silently
about the wreck
we dive into the hold.
I am she: I am he

whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes
whose breasts still bear the stress
whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies
obscurely inside barrels
half-wedged and left to rot
we are the half-destroyed instruments
that once held to a course
the water-eaten log
the fouled compass

We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to this scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which
our names do not appear.


from: Diving into the Wreck: Poems 1971-1972. Copyright 1973.



Monday, November 22, 2010

Upon Shark

   by Robert Herrick

Shark, when he goes to any publick feast,
Eates to ones thinking, of all there, the least.
What saves the master of the House thereby?
When if the servants search, they may descry
In his wide Codpeece, (dinner being done)
Two Napkins cram'd up, and a silver Spoone.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

El Dorado

         by Edgar Allan Poe

   Gaily bedight,
   A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
   Had journeyed long,
   Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.

   But he grew old,
   This knight so bold,
And o'er his heart a shadow
   Fell as he found
   No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado.

   And, as his strength
   Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow;
   "Shadow," said he,
   "Where can it be,
This land of Eldorado?"

   "Over the mountains
   Of the moon,
Down the valley of the shadow,
   Ride, boldly ride,"
   The shade replied,--
"If you seek for Eldorado!"



Friday, November 19, 2010

The Satyr's Heart

         by Brigit Pegeen Kelly

Now I rest my head on the satyr's carved chest,
The hollow where the heart would have been, if sandstone
Had a heart, if a headless goat man could have a heart.
His neck rises to a dull point, points upward
To something long gone, elusive, and at his feet
The small flowers swarm, earnest and sweet, a clamor
Of white, a clamor of blue, and black the sweating soil
They breed in...If I sit without moving, how quickly
Things change, birds turning tricks in the trees,
Colorless birds and those with color, the wind fingering
The twigs, and the furred creatures doing whatever
Furred creatures do. So, and so.  There is the smell of fruit
And the smell of wet coins. There is the sound of a bird
Crying, and the sound of water that does not move...
If I pick the dead iris?  If I wave it above me
Like a flag, a blazoned flag?  My fanfare? Little fare
with which I buy my way, making things brave? The way
Now I bend over and with my foot turn up a stone,
And there they are: the armies of pale creatures who
Without cease or doubt sew the sweet sad earth.

from: O Blessed Dark. Copyright 2004.

"Kelly has a talent for coaxing out the world's ghosts 
and then fixing them in personal landscapes
of fear and uncertainty." - GB.



Thursday, November 18, 2010

"GEE, ADULTERY MUST BE FUN."


- As My Sister Opined,

At Five Years Old, 

On The Disparity In Child And Adult Bedtimes.


She has yet to live it down.








Wednesday, November 17, 2010

THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES HAS ONE TOO . . .


UNITED STATES 

It also has a link to VOTE INFORMATION right on its home page.



IF YOU'VE EVER WONDERED HOW YOUR SENATORS VOTED . . .


Well, here is the place to go.

(the Home page)

Once you get there click on VOTES, to the right.

That will take you to a page with tools to find whatever legislation or senator you are curious about. 
It even lets you find stats about their voting proclivities.  

A handy resource come election time. 

Don't rely on media spin (right or left),
find out for yourself.

Then, contact her/him to let them know you are paying attention.


SELF-PUBLISHING IS NO LONGER A DIRTY WORD


The digitization of media is changing the way we share information, music, photos, and our social lives. Why shouldn't it change the way we read, write, and publish books? Today's writer has more choices than ever. You could go the traditional route, find an agent, and make it to bookshelves everywhere. You could self-publish and create your own literary empire. Maybe you'd rather write for pleasure, put your work on the Web, and enjoy a little internet fame. - webook home

photo of book with self publishing vs traditional publishing
Image via digital inspiration.


weBOOK -  Community picked writing. WEbook.com is the leading site for the discovery of new, talented writers. It brings together tens of thousands of writers, published authors, avid readers, and almost 100 established literary agents, for the purpose of finding talented writers, and helping them get published.

Lulu - Lulu.com brings the world of online book publishing to you. Looking to self-publish? Lulu's print on demand (POD) solutions make it quick and easy. Create a book in minutes, publish with the click of a mouse, distribute, sell and print books to order.

iUniverse - iUniverse has helped more than 30,000 authors publish their books professionally and affordably. Since 1999, we have crafted a reputation for breaking records and blazing new trails in the self-publishing industry.

blurb - With Blurb, you’ll find all the tools you need to make your own photo book. Count on bookstore-quality printing and binding, and a range of choices from Hardcover photobooks to Softcover paperbacks in an array of trim sizes. Learn how to publish a book and much more.

Xlibris -  Whether you are writing a book, promoting your work, or searching for online publishing services or a self publisher to publish your book, Xlibris' comprehensive range of publishing, editorial, add-on and marketing services enable you to customize your self-publishing experience. Our professional team of publishing professionals are available every step of the way to guide you through the self-publishing process.

BOOKMARK -  Forget about all the complicated terms and acronyms, this site will help you get your book published simply and easily so you can benefit from being a Published Author. Just read through this site and we will get your book completed fast.

createspace - Our free online publishing tools and Community can help you complete and sell your work. Distribute on Amazon.com, your own website, and other retailers without setup fees or inventory.

Schiel & Denver -  Book Publishers is a leading US book publishing company that provides complete ISBN book publishing, editing, book marketing and global book distribution services to first-time and veteran authors.

cafepress - Create and sell your own books using true print-on-demand technology! No setup fees or minimum quantities.Visit our Learning Center for information on how to publish your book!

Lightning Source - Once entered into our system, your titles are ready to start generating profits on every sale and information about your titles enters the catalogs of the world's largest distribution channel of wholesalers, retailers and booksellers. We handle all aspects of order management including receipt of payment, printing, fulfillment, and paying you for your books that have been purchased each month.




Links to SOME BOOKS about SELF-PUBLISHING.
INFORMATION and RESOURCES for SELF-PUBLISHING.


Tuesday, November 16, 2010

When You are Old

         by W. B. Yeats

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.



Monday, November 15, 2010

LOOKS LIKE THE BEGINNING OF AN INTERESTING SERIES


The Righteous Skeptic's Guide to Reading Poetry

"I introduce this five-part series, a sort of "state of the union" for poetry, in the hope that it will spur a broader discussion among poetry readers and non- readers alike. 

- Adam Roberts - poet, educator, and post-graduate fellow
at the Iowa Writers' Workshop.





Picking Up

       by Evelyn Duncan

During the depression
my mother, teetotaler,
but thrifty to a fault,
surprised my father and me
when she cobbled up a still,
kept it on a shelf behind the kitchen stove,
and salvaged a crate of too-ripe pears
by making brandy, pouring it into Mason jars,
and storing them on the cellar stairs.

When my father found a better job at last,
and movers came one day to move our stuff,
"A shame to have this go to waste," we heard my mother say,
offering them the brandy, which they polished off.
They soon grew happy at their work,
hanging a chamber pot and her Sunday dress
on outside panels of their battered truck
and speeding off into the dusk
before she could protest.

We closed the house, cranked the Model-A, and started out,
following over stony mountain ruts,
but soon were stopping now and then
when headlights showed familiar shapes
lying in the road or ditch: first
the chamber pot and dress; next,
a chair, a bucket, and a box of sheets.
But drunk with hope, we praised our luck,
sang "Bringing in the Sheaves"
as we collected what the truck had dropped.

from: Picking Up. Copyright 2008.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

QUOTE FOR THE DAY


"For lovers of books . . . a house without books is no house at all; and in a family where books make a great part of the pleasure of living, they must be where they can be got at without trouble, and what is of more importance, where they can share in the life about them and receive some touches of the humanity they supply and feed."



Saturday, November 13, 2010

After Apple-Picking

        by Robert Frost

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.
And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it's like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.



WHERE CAN I GET A FRANCHISE?










Friday, November 12, 2010

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELIZABETH, AND THANK YOU.



Elizabeth Cady Stanton

"Come, come, my conservative friend,
wipe the dew off your spectacles,
and see that the world is moving."


Stanton (right) with friend, Susan B. Anthony



Thursday, November 11, 2010

THANK YOU.











SOME GOOD NEWS


Today we are seeing the needs of military families being raised to level of national importance. First Lady Michelle Obama, along with Dr. Jill Biden, has made improving the lives of military families her signature issue, and this is reflected in a proposed expansion in funding for military support programs in the president’s 2011 budget.


A POEM FOR VETERAN'S DAY



It is the veteran, not the preacher,
who has given you freedom of religion.

It is the veteran, not the reporter,
who has given you freedom of the press.

It is the veteran, not the poet,
who has given you freedom of speech.

It is the veteran, not the liberal protesters,
who has given you freedom to assemble.

It is the veteran, not the lawyer,
who has given you the right to a fair trial.

It is the veteran, not the politician,
who has given you the right to vote.

It is the veteran, who salutes the Flag,
and who serves under the Flag.


The PA VFW shares this poem to recognize Veteran’s Day and give citizens an accurate measure of veterans’ contributions to America. It is a part of a beautiful message written by Benjamin Mastridge, that can be read in its entirety, here. Mr. Mastridge ends with a plea that we, "Give them all a heartfelt, ”Thanks for my freedom.”"


I submit that we go further.

I suggest we remove our support from politicians who set the needs of Veterans against the needs of those currently serving. 

I suggest we remove our support from those who would use the needs of military families as political bargaining chips.

I suggest we remove our support from those who repeatedly turn their backs on Veterans in desperate need of good medical care.

Our veterans and serving military deserve our support more than one day a year, and that support needs to go deeper than a bumper sticker on our gas guzzling SUV.  


Some pertinant links: here. here. here. here. here. here. here. & here.



IF YOU ARE (or know) A VETERAN or SOLDIER ON ACTIVE DUTY . . .


Once again this Veterans Day, Thursday, Nov. 11, Applebee’s Neighborhood Grill and Bar will thank our nation’s veterans and active duty military by inviting them to their neighborhood Applebee’s for a well-deserved free meal.


Simply show proof of military service, such as:

  • U.S. Uniform Services Identification Card
  • U.S. Uniform Services Retired Identification Card
  • Current Leave and Earnings Statement (LES)
  • Photograph in uniform
  • Wearing uniform
  • Veterans Organization Card
    (i.e., American Legion and VFW)
  • DD214

The menu is limited

but if you're hungry . . . it's better than a bumper sticker



FOR MORE VETERAN'S DAY FREEBIES check out:


"Veterans Day 2010 Freebies from Applebee's, Outback Steakhouse, Hooters, National Parks, Sam's Club and More" - gather.





I LIKE THEIR MOTTO:



Support the Troops, 
Oppose the Policy


"Welcome to VeteransAgainstTheWar.com. This site's purpose is to allow open discussion about the war in Iraq. I felt this site was necessary as when people say they are against the war their patriotism is questioned."

This is from the VeteransAgainstTheWar.com links page:

Anti-War Sites

 

Liberal Websites

 

  • IVotedForKerry.com -A site a co-worker and myself created. Don't leave the country without one of our sttylish hats.
  • Buzz Flash -Great Headlines
  • Awol Bush -A site that talks about in great length how Bush avoided his military obligation.

Miscellaneous

 

  • Treat Any Soldier -A place to buy carefully arranged care packages for Soldiers overseas
  • Aljazeera -Some times it is good to check the news from the other side. They spin it just as much as our news media though

Pro War Sites

 



Wednesday, November 10, 2010

CHANGING EDUCATIONAL PARADIGMS



Here is a great video on YouTube.


photo of a computer keyboard smashed through the monitor




~ I can't get the embedding to work right ~


so
you will have to go to the source


It is definitely worth it.




YUMMY SCIENCE



periodic table made of cupcakes


Tuesday, November 9, 2010

And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. - Sylvia Plath




New Statesman published "Last Letter," a previously unseen poem by Ted Hughes, about the three days before Sylvia Plath's suicide.

In 1963, American poet Sylvia Plath killed herself. Since then, her husband Ted Hughes has refused to respond to accusations that he was to blame for her death. Now, in Birthday Letters, his new book of poetry, the British poet laureate breaks his silence. 



... a young woman with two babies, whose husband had left her, living in a cold house, trying to be a mom, trying to be a writer, trying to put her life together, who didn't make it--who killed herself--and wrote poems full of rage, bravery, and it electrified people. Ted Hughes in the book uses the metaphor of--he talks about her--paparazzo eye. You could say that he's been under investigation for the suicide of Sylvia Plath for 35 years.


If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same time, then I'm neurotic as hell.
I'll be flying back and forth between one mutually exclusive thing and another for the rest of my days.
- Sylvia Plath


Ariel
by Sylvia Plath

Stasis in darkness.
Then the substanceless blue
Pour of tor and distances.

God's lioness,
How one we grow,
Pivot of heels and knees! - The furrow

Splits and passes, sister to
The brown arc
Of the neck I cannot catch,

Nigger-eye
Berries cast dark
Hooks -

Black sweet blood mouthfuls,
Shadows.
Something else

Hauls me through air -
Thighs, hair;
Flakes from my heels.

White
Godiva, I unpeel -
Dead hands, dead stringencies.

And now I
Foam to wheat, a glitter of seas.
The child's cry

Melts in the wall.
And I
Am the arrow,

The dew that flies
Suicidal, at one with the drive
Into the red

Eye, the cauldron of morning.


Sylvia Plath Forum. (Closed but still informative)

Monday, November 8, 2010

Wildflower

        by Stanley Plumly

Some—the ones with fish names—grow so north
they last a month, six weeks at most.
Some others, named for the fields they look like,
last longer, smaller.

And these, in particular, whether trout or corn lily,
onion or bellwort, just cut
this morning and standing open in tapwater in the kitchen,
will close with the sun.

It is June, wildflowers on the table.
They are fresh an hour ago, like sliced lemons,
with the whole day ahead of them.
They could be common mayflower lilies of the valley,

day lilies, or the clustering Canada, large, gold,
long-stemmed as pasture roses, belled out over the vase--
or maybe Solomon's seal, the petals
ranged in small toy pairs

or starry, tipped at the head like weeds.
They could be anonymous as weeds.
They are, in fact, the several names of the same thing,
lilies of the field, butter-and-eggs,

toadflax almost, the way the whites and yellows juxtapose,
and have "the look of flowers that are looked at,"
rooted as they are in water, glass, and air.
I remember the summer I picked everything,

flower and wildflower, singled them out in jars
with a name attached. And when they had dried as stubborn
as paper I put them on pages and named them again.
They were all lilies, even the hyacinth,

even the great pale flower in the hand of the dead.
I picked it, kept it in the book for years
before I knew who she was,
her face lily-white, kissed and dry and cold.

from: Summer Celestial. Copyright 1983.
  


A LOT LIKE MY HOUSE . . .

 
wet floor sign over coffee spill with the words BP we're on it
STILL!


If anybody's wondering why I'm dredging up something that is
so over;
the well may be capped
but the ramifications are far from
so over.




Sunday, November 7, 2010

Trees in the Garden

         by D. H. Lawrence

Ah in the thunder air
how still the trees are!

And the lime-tree, lovely and tall, every leaf silent
hardly looses even a last breath of perfume.

And the ghostly, creamy coloured little tree of leaves
white, ivory white among the rambling greens
how evanescent, variegated elder, she hesitates on the green grass
as if, in another moment, she would disappear
with all her grace of foam!

And the larch that is only a column, it goes up too tall to see:
and the balsam-pines that are blue with the grey-blue blueness of
     things from the sea,
and the young copper beech, its leaves red-rosy at the ends
how still they are together, they stand so still
in the thunder air, all strangers to one another
as the green grass glows upwards, strangers in the silent garden.

from: The Complete Poems of D. H. Lawrence. Copyright 1971.



Friday, November 5, 2010

'Gunpowder, treason and plot'


INTERESTING TIDBIT:
 
On November 5, 1990, a descendant and namesake of Guy Fawkes set fire to a gigantic replica of the Houses of Parliament for a charity fundraiser in Devon, England. There were also present sixty other descendants of the original Guy. - Wilson's Almanac.






HAPPY
Guy Fawkes
DAY

One and All


Thursday, November 4, 2010

Late Autumn Wasp

         by James Hoch

One must admire the desperate way
                it flings
itself through air amid winter’s slow
                paralysis,

and clings to shriveled fruit, dropped
                Coke bottle,
any sugary residue, any unctuous
                carcass, 

and slug-drunk grows stiff, its joints
                unswiveled,
wings stale and oar-still, like a heart;
                yes, almost

too easily like a heart the way, cudgeled, 
                it lies
waiting for shift of season, light, a thing
                to drink down,

gnaw on, or, failing that, leaves half of
                itself torn
willingly, ever-quivering, in some
                larger figure.

from: Miscreants. Copyright 2007.



Wednesday, November 3, 2010

THIS ORGANIZATION IS WORTH A CHECK






Growing Voices (GV) is an online forum dedicated to supporting community-based projects and organizations that encourage development and reconstruction at the local level. 





GV creates a direct line of support between donor and recipient, which addresses issues of accountability and promotes a humanistic approach to giving.  We hope that by providing a network geared towards a respectful informational exchange, gifting, and no fee volunteering, you will be inspired to participate in change at the grassroots level. 


If you are interested in making a donation,
  It's tax exempt, 501(c)3 and you can give as little as $10.
The money goes for groceries,
gas, temporary and permanent housing.