mold it to extinction
throw the lump of clay
coax it to perfection’s turn
touch each wound- erase!
language, culture and style…
07 Dec 2019 Leave a comment
in language, culture and style..., Poetry Tags: apocalypse, culture and style..., Dec 7, exotic words, FDR, hurricanes, If Only Life Were Like Language, intact, invent, jingling, language, lexical borrowings, make stuff out of nothing, Paul Hostovsky, Pearl Harbor, policy of neutrality, praise be to God, ramifying, resourceful, resources like words, sprinkling, unambiguous
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt called December 7th “a date which will live in infamy,” because it was on this day in 1941 that Japanese planes attacked the naval base at Pearl Harbor. More than 2,300 Americans died in the attack, and the United States joined World War II, which it had stayed out of the war for more than two years, adhering to its policy of neutrality in Europe’s affairs.
If Only Life Were Like Language
by Paul Hostovsky
If Only Life Were Like Language
and all the natural resources like words,
then the world would be
an unambiguously better place.
Because when you use a word
like apocalypse, say, it doesn’t then follow
that there is one less apocalypse to go around––
there are still an infinite number of apocalypses,
more than enough for everyone. And the more
people who use a language the more
the language grows rich and strong
and resourceful and ramifying
with new and far-out ways of saying things,
not to mention all the lexical borrowings that go on,
the exotic words and phrases, and the names––
names of dinosaurs and flowers
and racehorses and hurricanes––
and the lists, praise be to God for the lists!
Which is just the opposite of the world
with its dying rivers and dwindling resources
and endangered species list.
With words you can make stuff up out of nothing
which is more than you can say
for physics or chemistry or corn. Earth’s
the right place for language. I don’t know where
else you could invent an imaginary escape hatch
up and out of a dying world,
and take a little of the world with you in your pockets
like the jingling coins of a realm,
or like the crepitating bits and pieces
of a beautiful intact dead language
for sprinkling over the smart lunch conversation
in the next.
“If Only Life Were Like Language” by Paul Hostovsky from Is That What That Is. FutureCycle Press © 2017.
poppy-arm
05 Dec 2019 Leave a comment
in Poetry, poppy-arm Tags: blushing with young love, haiku by Jeanne, poppy-arm, sit so well on flesh's skin, the tones of poppy
poppy tattoo (watercolor)
the tones of poppy
sit so well on flesh’s skin
blushing with young love
haiku by Jeanne
If We Could Fly
04 Dec 2019 Leave a comment
in Poetry
the sound of “v”
Rolling Ribbons
Vistas verily vie
For favor when feathers fly
Us with wistful winds!
when clouds march…
03 Dec 2019 Leave a comment
in Poetry, when clouds march... Tags: "From Above", Army Marching Band, Battle Hymn of the Republic, clouds are blue, march, military might, Neil Waldman, oil, strut across the sky, when clouds march..., youtube
by Neil Waldman “From Above” in oil
sometimes clouds are blue
and march: military might:
strut across the sky!
singing of The Battle Hymn of the Republic by the Army Marching Band:
later day saints
02 Dec 2019 Leave a comment
in later day aints, later day saints, Poetry Tags: elders of the church, healthy responsible men, later day saints, sinew'd souls, strapping
Diane and Tom Brown’s grandchildren
elders of the church
healthy, responsible men
strapping sinew’d souls!
every death is a birthday…
01 Dec 2019 Leave a comment
in every death is a birthday..., Poetry Tags: 114 years old, Billy Collins, birthday whiskey, every death is a birthday..., family farm, McIsaacs, sticking out of the bunting, Sunday December 1, sunny apartment, The Writer's Almanac, wrapped up tight, yesterday's oatmeal, your face
John fathers Owen
Owen fathers Oliver
The Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, December 1, 2019
December 1st
by Billy Collins
Today is my mother’s birthday,
but she’s not here to celebrate
by opening a flowery card
or looking calmly out a window.
If my mother were alive,
she’d be 114 years old,
and I am guessing neither of us
would be enjoying her birthday very much.
Mother, I would love to see you again
to take you shopping or to sit
in your sunny apartment with a pot of tea,
but it wouldn’t be the same at 114.
And I’m no prize either,
almost 20 years older than the last time
you saw me sitting by your deathbed.
Some days, I look worse than yesterday’s oatmeal.
Happy Birthday, anyway. Happy Birthday to you.
Here I am in a wallpapered room
raising a glass of birthday whiskey
and picturing your face, the brooch on your collar.
It must have been frigid that morning
in the hour just before dawn
on your first December 1st
at the family farm a hundred miles north of Toronto.
I imagine they had you wrapped up tight,
and there was your tiny pink face
sticking out of the bunting,
and all those McIsaacs getting used to saying your name.
“December 1st” by Billy Collins from The Rain in Portugal. Random House, © 2016. Reprinted by permission of Chris Calhoun Agency.
Mark Twain…tongue in cheek…
30 Nov 2019 Leave a comment
in Mark Twain...tongue in cheek..., Poetry Tags: and heaven, but nobel, difference of opinions makes horse races, Familiarity breeds children, favorite quotes, Mark Twain...tongue in cheek..., sorrow is the source of humor, Truth is an option; it is not mighty
Mark Twain’s favorite quotes:
One of the most quotable of authors, Mark Twain said:
“It were not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of opinion that makes horse races.”
And “Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing the matter with this, except that it ain’t so.”
And “Familiarity breeds contempt — and children.”
And “The secret source of humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor in heaven.”
at my neighbor’s house…
29 Nov 2019 Leave a comment
in at my neighbor's house, Poetry Tags: 2019, 6 years old 10 months old and i year old, at my neighbor's house, be very grown up, Belfast, child-like, Chronicles of Narnia, CS Lewis, fifty, imagination lives, Lynn and grandson, miracles, oldenough to read fairy tales, Thanksgiving Day, the fear of childishness
Thanksgiving Day 2019
Thanksgiving Day 2019
Lynn and grandson (6 years old)
CS Lewis reminds me never to be ashamed of being child-like. That is where imagination lives. Ask any pe·di·a·tri·cian.
CS Lewis
It’s the birthday of the writer who said: “When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.” That’s C.S. Lewis, born in Belfast (1898), the author of the seven-volume children’s series The Chronicles of Narnia, which begins with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (1950), the story of four children sent away from London because of wartime air raids. He also said, “Someday you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”
Besides fairy tales and children’s classics, he wrote theological books, including The Screwtape Letters (1942), a novel in which a demon writes to his nephew; and The Great Divorce (1945), where residents of hell take a bus ride to heaven, and Mere Christianity (1952), based on talks he gave on the BBC during World War II.
C.S. Lewis said, “Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.”
thanksgiving
28 Nov 2019 Leave a comment
in Poetry, Thanksgiving Tags: a Day of Feast, beers the men crack, chaos of the day, cut wood, fueling appetite, leap into chaos, Linda McCarriston, liver quivering, make order, morning before the meal, poor blue thing, potatoes wobble, raw, steam, Thanksgiving, unmade ingredients, whacked
Thanksgiving
by Linda McCarriston
Every year we call it down upon ourselves,
the chaos of the day before the occasion,
the morning before the meal. Outdoors,
the men cut wood, fueling appetite
in the gray air, as Nana, Arlene, Mary,
Robin—whatever women we amount to—
turn loose from their wrappers the raw,
unmade ingredients. A flour sack leaks,
potatoes wobble down counter tops
tracking dirt like kids, blue hubbard erupts
into shards and sticky pulp when it’s whacked
with the big knife, cranberries leap away
rather than be halved. And the bird, poor
blue thing—only we see it in its dead skin—
gives up for good the long, obscene neck, the gizzard,
the liver quivering in my hand, the heart.
So what? What of it? Besides the laughter,
I mean, or the steam that shades the windows
so that the youngest sons must come inside
to see how the smells look. Besides
the piled wood closing over the porch windows,
the pipes the men fill, the beers
they crack, waiting in front of the game.
Any deliberate leap into chaos, small or large,
with an intent to make order, matters. That’s what.
A whole day has passed between the first apple
cored for pie, and the last glass polished
and set down. This is a feast we know how to make,
a Day of Feast, a day of thanksgiving
for all we have and all we are and whatever
we’ve learned to do with it: Dear God, we thank you
for your gifts in this kitchen, the fire,
the food, the wine. That we are together here.
Bless the world that swirls outside these windows—
a room full of gifts seeming raw and disordered,
a great room in which the stoves are cold,
the food scattered, the children locked forever
outside dark windows. Dear God, grant
to the makers and keepers power to save it all.
“Thanksgiving” by Linda McCarriston, from Talking Soft Dutch. Texas Tech Press © 1984.
The Vibrant Channeled Creator 