The Word Mechanic

Why I removed 12 posts

2012-01-19T14:48:00.001-05:00

This morning I removed 12 posts, each of which contained a poem that hasn't been published somewhere else. I've appreciated the reponses I've gotten to poems that are still drafts. But more and more journals consider poems posted on the poet's blog as already published. Consequently, they're ineligible for inclusion in the journal, which aquires first rights. I'll still blog about poetry. I just can't afford to limit the market for my work.

The Sight of Music

2011-11-03T10:02:00.000-04:00

Enjoy!

Tuesday Starts NaNoWriMo

2011-10-30T12:51:00.000-04:00

Novemeber is Nanowrimo -- 50,000 words of your novel in one month. I'm joining in this year, and hope to make it further than I have in the past. It's a program being directed by the Office of Letters and Light. Check out the video, and happy writing.

If Bud and Lou Were Alive Today

2011-10-26T17:11:00.000-04:00

I got this from a listserv for medical writers I'm on and think it's worth sharing.

If Bud Abbott and Lou Costello were alive today, their infamous sketch, 'Who's on First?' might have turned out something like this:

COSTELLO CALLS TO BUY A COMPUTER FROM ABBOTT

ABBOTT: Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?
COSTELLO: Thanks I'm setting up an office in my den and I'm thinking about buying a computer.
ABBOTT: Mac?
COSTELLO: No, the name's Lou.
ABBOTT: Your computer?
COSTELLO: I don't own a computer. I want to buy one.
ABBOTT: Mac?
COSTELLO: I told you, my name's Lou.
ABBOTT: What about Windows?
COSTELLO: Why? Will it get stuffy in here?
ABBOTT: Do you want a computer with Windows?
COSTELLO: I don't know. What will I see when I look at the windows?
ABBOTT: Wallpaper.
COSTELLO: Never mind the windows. I need a computer and software.
ABBOTT: Software for Windows?
COSTELLO: No. On the computer! I need something I can use to write proposals, track expenses and run my business. What do you have?
ABBOTT: Office.
COSTELLO: Yeah, for my office. Can you recommend anything?
ABBOTT: I just did.
COSTELLO: You just did what?
ABBOTT: Recommend something.
COSTELLO: You recommended something?
ABBOTT: Yes.
COSTELLO: For my office?
ABBOTT: Yes.
COSTELLO: OK, what did you recommend for my office?
ABBOTT: Office.
COSTELLO: Yes, for my office!
ABBOTT: I recommend Office with Windows.
COSTELLO: I already have an office with windows! OK, let's just say I'm sitting at my computer and I want to type a proposal. What do I need?
ABBOTT: Word.
COSTELLO: What word?
ABBOTT: Word in Office.
COSTELLO: The only word in office is office.
ABBOTT: The Word in Office for Windows.
COSTELLO: Which word in office for windows?
ABBOTT: The Word you get when you click the blue 'W'.
COSTELLO: I'm going to click your blue 'W' if you don't start with some straight answers. What about financial bookkeeping? Do you have anything I can track my money with?
ABBOTT: Money.
COSTELLO: That's right. What do you have?
ABBOTT: Money.
COSTELLO: I need money to track my money?
ABBOTT: It comes bundled with your computer.
COSTELLO: What's bundled with my computer?
ABBOTT: Money.
COSTELLO: Money comes with my computer?
ABBOTT: Yes. At no extra charge.
COSTELLO: I get a bundle of money with my computer? How much?
ABBOTT: One copy.
COSTELLO: Isn't it illegal to copy money?
ABBOTT: Microsoft gave us a license to copy Money.
COSTELLO: They can give you a license to copy money?
ABBOTT: Why not? THEY OWN IT!

(A few days later)
ABBOTT: Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?
COSTELLO: How do I turn my computer off?
ABBOTT: Click on 'START'...

The Letter Writer

2011-10-05T18:49:00.001-04:00

The tip of the pen had worn away
and scratched at the page,
making him shudder the way hard chalk
scraping on a blackboard once did.
Still, just one more letter to write.

One more letter. No one writes letters anymore,
not with a pen with a broken tip.

It would be easier on a computer --
e-mail. Just hit send, and it's done before
there's time to think, do I want to send this?
Computers are safer. They protect
him the way his own handwriting cannot.
But his computer's in a dark
room inside an empty house.

A room void of other breath but
his own. He thinks he'd rather hear
the scratching. At least here, men
with great rings of keys pass back and forth
with great practiced ceremony,
pushing brooms, wearing rags
on their belts, coughing phlegm. Not pretty.
Not like a friend
would be.
Not what a dog or cat
could be. But still he prefers

the company of their loneliness
to such silent dependency,

the smell of ammonia and polish to
sour milk and rotting grapes
behind the beer in the fridge at home.

He wants to like this place. This time.
But he can't. The letter's unfinished and
the pen won't let him. He thinks
a new pen, one that didn't scrape
but rolled as easy as the surf

would make this place perfect.
The words would spill out the way milk
Leaks from a mother's breast. We've
become too private, he writes and then
throws the paper away because

that's all there is that's left to be.

First published at Carcenogenic Poetry July 24, 2011

Copyright 2011, Joseph Saling, the Grandpa, at The Word Mechanic Blogspot
All rights reserved

No Exit

2011-10-04T08:38:00.000-04:00

Just got this in an email and thought I'd share:

Let's face it. After Monday and Tuesday, even the calendar says "WTF."

apology

2011-09-28T09:15:00.000-04:00

I apologize in advance to all people who grt annoyed by filling out the word verification for making comments. I took it off because Braja said she would refuse to send me any more comments if I left it on. Since I took it off I have received multiple daily "comments"such as the following.

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I was receiving them constantly after removing the word verification the first time. That's why I readded it. That's why I'm adding it again. If you don't want to comment, just know I'll miss hearing from you.

Newest Poem

2011-09-23T10:04:00.003-04:00

For those of you who missed it, here is my latest poem published at Carcinogenic Poetry.

The Last Day of His Life

The last day of his life began
like all the rest except
he found some pills above the sink
and took them down to stare
into their white infinity
then said out loud, Why white?

The last day of his life he packed lunch for his children
and stood waiting at the door while each one filed by
taking the brown bag from his hand and smiling
as he admonished them to study hard.

The last day of his life he kissed
his wife and told her not to worry.

Getting in the car he drove
until he couldn't be seen from the house
then followed the long narrow path through the field to the beach
with its white sand that seemed to stretch into infinity
and sat there watching white clouds disturb
the sky with shapes that had no permanence,
with weight that wasn't there,
and wondered once more Why white?

First published at Carcenogenic Poetry July 24, 2011
Copyright 2011, Joseph Saling, the Grandpa at The Word Mechanic Blogspot
All rights reserved

Man of God, angel of vengence and death, maker of changes

2011-09-21T10:35:00.008-04:00

Daniel Silva has a new novel -- Portrait of a Spy. It's the thirteenth book in an ongoing series of books about Gabriel Allon, an art restorer who is also an Israeli spy and counter terrorist assassin. Some of you may remember I've written about Silva and his skill before.

It isn't easy to write about the same character doing the same thing in novel after novel with the same supporting cast of characters. Len Deighton, another of my favorite writers of espionage thrillers, wrote a trilogy of trilogies that began with Berlin Game and ended with Charity that I would highly recommend to anyone. The problem is, though, those nine novels demonstrate the difficulty. Because while each book must stand on its own, it also must put itself into context with the preceding novels. And my feeling by the time I got half way through the nine books was that for much of the time I was rereading the stories I'd read before.

Silva, on the other hand, is a true master of three important creative traits. The first is letting his characters age naturally from novel to novel. So in a sense, they actually become different characters. The second is giving just enough information about the recurring characters and their past exploits that you don't have to know what happened earlier to understand who they are and what they are like while at the same timethe reader who does remember them can recall the earlier story. The third and most important trait is describing the character in such a way that you don't need to have known the character at all to get an image of who and what the character is.

One of the most important characters in the books is Ari Shamron, who is legendary within the Israeli intelligence community, the man who recruited Allon as well as Allon's father figure and linchpin for what happens in each novel. He often isn't introduced, other than in brief allusions, until midway through the book. Here is how Silva introduced him in Moscow Rules:

There is a VIP reception room at Ben-Gurion Airport that few people know and where even fewer have set foot. Reached by an unmarked door near passport control, it has walls of Jerusalem limestone, furnishings of black leather, and a permanent odor of burnt coffee and male tension. When Gabriel entered the room the following evening, he found it occupied by a single man. He had settled himself at the edge of his chair, with his legs slightly splayed and his large hands resting atop an olive-wood cane, like a traveler on a rail platform resigned to a long wait. He was dressed, as always, in a pair of pressed khaki trousers and a white oxford cloth shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. His head was bullet-shaped and bald, except for a monkish fringe of white hair. His ugly wire-framed spectacles magnified a pair of blue eyes that were no longer clear.

Note "like a traveller on a rail platform resigned to a long wait." In Portrait of a Spy Sharon is older, supposedly retired, but still at the center of Israeli operations. Half way through the book, Silva introduces him this way:

A few minutes after the speech ended, a message arrived from the Operations Desk at King Saul Boulevard. It was just four characters in length -- two letters followed by two numbers -- but its message was unambiguous. God was cooling his heels in a Montmartre safe flat. And God wanted a word with Gabriel in private.

Then on the next page at the start of the next chapter we get this description of God:

The door to 3A hung slightly ajar; in the sitting room was an elderly man dressed in pressed khaki trousers, a white oxford classic shirt, and a leather bomber jacket with an unrepaired tear in the left shoulder. He had settled himself at the edge of a brocade-covered wing chair with his legs slightly splayed and his large hands bunched atop the crook of his olive wood cane, like a traveller on a rail platform resigned to a long wait. Between two yellowed fingers burned the stub of a filterless cigarette. Acrid smoke swirled above his head like a private storm cloud.

An angry storm cloud above the head of an angry God waiting to have a private word with his archangel Gabriel. (One meaning of Gabriel is man of God.) As much as I want Silva to write about other things, I hope he never stops writing about Allon and Shamron.

2012 election

2011-09-20T10:04:00.000-04:00

Got this today from a liberal mail list I'm on. Too good not to share. I enjoy good biting satire (and sarcasm):

I really don't think that we have to worry about Obama getting re-elected. I'm pretty sure he's a shoe-in. The reason being that he'll get most of the votes of the Democrats & Liberals and I can't see why Republicans wouldn't vote for him since he gives them pretty much everything they ask for.

Notable quote of the day.

2011-09-16T09:31:00.000-04:00

From Roger Ebert's review of the remake of Straw Dogs about "David's" and "Amy's" first day in their new home -- the Mississippi small town where she grew up:

Their first day they go into a bar and grill where any sensible person would know to make an immediate U-turn and walk out again.

BTW: Our local newspaper -The Atlanta Journal Constitution -- which often picks up Ebert's reviews, and which is the only local paper I've disliked more than the Manchestser Union Leader, printed an intellectual comparison of the the original Peckinpah movie from a new York Times article. In it's guide to movies that it prints on Fridays, it gave only the briefest summary of the movie and said "not reviewed for publication." But the AJC should be the topic of another post.

Enjoy the weekend.

Ohio State University 27 -- Toledo 22

2011-09-10T16:33:00.000-04:00

The Luke Fickel fantasy continues!

Just picking up where I left off

2011-08-25T18:14:00.000-04:00

I have a character in one of my unfinished novels who is a poet. Early on in the narrative he's asked, "Do you write every day?"

"Sometimes," he answers.

2 new poems

2011-07-25T09:19:00.001-04:00

Today is my birthday. I've nothing special planned except to work. S left yesterday for California to spend 2 weeks at a spa. But we went out Saturday night for dinner to celebrate. So I expected today to just be a day like any other.

But when I opened my email, there was a pleasant birthday surprise. Carcenogenic Poetry sent me a message saying they were publishing two of my poems -- The Letter Writer and The Last Day of His Life.

You can see them here.

50 years ago today

2011-07-02T19:43:00.001-04:00

I was 30, and it was my first term in graduate school. Outside, the air was hot and humid, the way it was supposed to be in September in the middle of Ohio. But I wasn't outside. I was in the office I shared with six other graduate student TAs, three of whom would turn Columbus into Paris for me over the next four years. I was the only one there. It was middle of the afternoon and everyone had taught and gone home or gone to the library, and I took advantage of the quiet to focus on the literature I was supposed to digest that quarter. I was sitting at my desk in the corner, my favorite novel of the 20th century open in front of me, reading the wonderful passage in which Jake is riding a bus to fish for trout in the Pyrenees for probably the fifth time in my life, and suddenly, I leaned back in my chair and thought, "For the rest of my life, they are going to pay me to do this."

"Oh, Jake," Brett said, "we could have had such a damn good time together."

Ahead was a mounted policeman in khaki directing traffic. He raised his baton. The car slowed suddenly pressing Brett against me.

"Yes," I said. "Isn't it pretty to think so." (Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises)

It wasn't the right time or the right way for him to die. Ray Bradbury didn't think so either.

"Oh he had readers all right, all kinds of readers. Even me. I don't touch books from one autumn to the next. But I touched his. I think I liked the Michigan stories best. About the fishing. I think the stories about fishing are good. I don't think anybody ever wrote about fishing that way and maybe won't ever again. "
The hunter in "Kilimanjaro Machine" by Ray Bradbury

Read the story, then come back to see the video.

"I waited one heartbeat, then reached over and opened the door."
"The Kilimanjaro Machine" Ray Bradury

Ernest Hemingway July 21, 1899 - July 2, 1961.

Think about it

2011-06-29T16:28:00.000-04:00

I came across this little gem of wisdom today on a listserv I'm on.

The moon is more important than the sun. That's because the moon shines at night when it is needed.

Worth visiting

2011-06-22T17:52:00.000-04:00

Take a look at CARCINOGENIC POETRY. I think whether you write poetry or simply like poetry, you might find it interesting.

"I drink champagne."

2011-06-10T17:29:00.000-04:00

Does anyone know how to motorize a piano? I don't play any wind instrument other than a harmonica, but S suggested we join this band to expand our circle of friends.

Enjoy.

Now

2011-06-08T17:52:00.000-04:00

I've been struggling with the idea of later

and how there comes a time
when you have to stop putting it off and say,

this is later.
This is the time you've always said there would be
for whatever has to happen now.

At first it felt sad.
But today I came back to poetry
and knew I should have abandoned the idea of later
a long time ago.

Cats and Dogs

2011-06-07T17:16:00.000-04:00

My sister-in-law sent this to me a while back, so I thought sharing it would be a good way to get back into the blogosphere.

The Dog's Diary:

8:00 am - Dog food! My favorite thing!

9:30 am - A car ride! My favorite thing!

9:40 am - A walk in the park! My favorite thing!

10:30 am - Got rubbed and petted! My favorite thing!

12:00 pm - Milk bones! My favorite thing!

1:00 pm - Played in the yard! My favorite thing!

3:00 pm - Wagged my tail! My favorite thing!

5:00 pm - Dinner! My favorite thing!

7:00 pm - Got to play ball! My favorite thing!

8:00 pm - Wow! Watched TV with the people! My favorite thing!

11:00 pm - Sleeping on the bed! My favorite thing!

------------------------------------------

The Cat's Diary:

Day 983 of my captivity.

My captors continue to taunt me with bizarre little dangling objects. They dine lavishly on fresh meat, while the other inmates and I are fed some sort of dry nuggets. Although I make my contempt for the rations perfectly clear, I nevertheless must eat something in order to keep up my strength. The only thing that keeps me going is my dream of escape. In an attempt to disgust them, I once again vomit on the carpet. Today I decapitated a mouse and dropped its headless body at their feet. I had hoped this would strike fear into their hearts, since it clearly demonstrates my capabilities. However, they merely made condescending comments about what a "good little hunter" I am. Jerks!

There was some sort of assembly of their accomplices tonight. I was placed in solitary confinement for the duration of the event. However, I could hear the noises and smell the food. I overheard that my confinement was due to the power of "allergies." I must learn what this means, and how to use it to my advantage. Today I was almost successful in an attempt to assassinate one of my tormentors by weaving around his feet as he was walking. I must try this again tomorrow, but at the top of the stairs.

I am convinced that the other prisoners here are flunkies and snitches. The dog receives special privileges. He is regularly released, and seems to be more than willing to return. He is obviously retarded. The bird must be an informant. I observe him communicate with the guards regularly. I am certain that he reports my every move. My captors have arranged protective custody for him in an elevated cell, so he is safe. For now.

January 28, 1986

2011-01-28T10:12:00.000-05:00

25 Years Ago Today

Challenger: An Elegy

“The world stopped when the Challenger exploded.”
A visitor’s note at the Challenger Web site

(I)
Nothing works. Neither day nor night.
All the stars disappear. Birds in mid flight
Fold their wings and fall, refusing to fly.

The sun sinks slowly then freezes in the sky.
The winds stand still. Fish die in the ocean.
The pendulum’s swing remains the only motion.

(II)
That night I saw Orion rising overhead and knew
That things exist beyond the meaning of the words we use.
Some things are only light, or sound, or pressure on the skin.
Some things inhabit space before the space where words begin.

Now all the words in all the books cannot inhabit space
Reserved for things that vanish from our lives without a trace.
The names we give we give to things we know can be recalled.
And words won’t salvage anything when you see the heavens fall.

Once Jupiter held up the stars for a longer night of love.
Jehovah stayed the sun with force for slaughter from above.
But never once has someone made a minute fail to pass
Or just by willing made the trilling air of bird song last
Beyond its final note dissolved inside an evening wind.
Yet still the sky at night gives hope you’ll hear it once again.

(III)
goddess boat -- serpent
at the feet of Orion,
trailing the heavens

bodies without down-
link fall from the sky, and you,
leaping like a hare,
lift the hunter killed
by his love past my window.

gods and goddesses
tease the human isolate
with monstrous burning
while we raise new myths
from the scattered debris
of human yearning.

Originally published in A Matter of Mind, Foothills Publishing, 2004.
© copyright 2004, 2009-2011 the Grandpa at The Word Mechanic Blog.

All rights reserved.

Say What Redux

2011-01-16T12:19:00.000-05:00

This came from a set of author's instructions from a book publisher:

"Chapters may include up to 15 references, with a maximum of 30."

Say What?

2011-01-14T18:34:00.000-05:00

From a transcript of a discussion at a conference:

“If I add up the 5.4% mortality, the 5.2% permanent dialysis rate, and 2.4% permanent paraplegia rate, I come up with a number of 15% of patients that either walked away dead or miserable.”

This is too good not to share

2010-12-03T10:42:00.001-05:00

S sent me this this morning. It was just exactly what I needed.

No wonder he's called The King.

What do I like about being back at work?

2010-11-22T18:12:00.000-05:00

I get to take Friday off this week.

For the past 16 years or so, "Black Friday" has meant this is the day everyone gets to enjoy but me. I've had to work or I couldn't afford Christmas. (Well it's never really been that bad, but it's felt like it.) But this year I get to eat leftovers at my own pace like everyone else. Pumpkin pie (weigh watchers be damned!) hre I come. And my granddaughters are coming and I can spend all my time with them if I want (although what they want to do is help S decorate.) That's all right; I can take pictures.

So...

Happy day after Thanksgiving everyone. And enjoy the day before Friday by saying something nice to someone in your family. Oh heck, say something nice to all of them. There must be some reason they deserve it.

And here is something nice I want to say to someone special.

Originally posted Wednesday, October 21, 2009

If I Were Paris
Some nights this room is still on fire
As if you’d been a goddess then
And I a mortal dreaming you
Were human only to awake
And learn too late you were divine.

I’d dodge the lightning bolt that made
Anchises lame for having loved
You once and told. But you’re not here.

These myths weren’t meant to be believed.

If I were Paris, I’d refuse
The bribe you offered him and claim
Instead the right to watch the white
Foam rise at Paphos, see you step
Ashore as Flora welcomes you.

© copyright 2009, 2010 (Joseph Saling) the Grandpa at The Word Mechanic Blog.

All rights reserved

I'll get back to writing about words and poetry soon

2010-11-16T18:11:00.000-05:00

These are more place holders.

I like to draw. Even when the results are not very good. As I said in an earlier post, drawing, painting teach me about my father.

Sketches

Jim Bowie

Brave

Teapot

Woman

What I miss

2010-11-12T18:59:00.000-05:00

Well, first of all I miss posting on this blog. And I miss surfing all of yours. But it's an early New Year's and now that I'm not overly concerned about my next freelance job, I vow to do better.

But that's not all I miss,

I miss Perkins Cove at Ogonquit (actually just outside Perkins Cove

I miss the yard at the bed and breakfast in Ogonquit.

I miss the view of the sea from the Marginal Way betwen Ogonquit and Wells Beach

And I miss the view of the entrance to Wells Beach as seen from near the end of the Marginal Way

This is the region where The Writer's Wife, the poem a few posts back, took place. It's in Maine, and it's the exact place where the little girl was pulled out to sea. Ogonquit means beautiful place by the sea.

It feels good to be posting again.

Thought for the Day

2010-11-09T10:28:00.000-05:00

Never argue with idiots. They just take you down to their level and win by experience.

So what has changed?

2010-10-26T09:02:00.000-04:00

I got a job.

After 16 years as a full-time freelancer I took a job at the end of summer as a managing editor of a health Web site. The salary is in the ballpark of what I was making as a freelancer, and I'm roughly doing the same kind of work. But now I get benefits, which means I can take time off on a holiday and not fret over the fact that if I'm not working I don't get paid. And I have more say in how the work I do and the work of the writers I edit are used. I have have professional work colleagues, not just clients, and the benefit of bein part of a team.

There is a downside. As a freelancer I worked on my own schedule. I sat at my desk whenever I decided it was time for me to be at my desk. Now, even though I still work remotely, I work on the company's schedule. And I've long had a distaste for the corporate culture, which I am now a part of.

Obviously, there are tradeoffs when coming in from the cold. I'll explore them in more detail in future posts.

Flowers Redux

2010-10-17T18:16:00.000-04:00

I first posted this painting on the blog in July 2009. I'm reposting it as a sort of place holder. A way of saying I know I've been gone for a long time. But I'm coming back, and things have changed. I'll explain later this week.

water color on paper

This is my favorite time of the year

2010-09-04T17:41:00.006-04:00

And this is the team that makes it so.

Just because

2010-08-16T08:55:00.000-04:00

See "The Writer's Wife" in the post before.

The Writer’s Wife

2010-07-11T16:19:00.000-04:00

“For fifteen years we lived against the sea
Below Ogunquit where the surf marks time
And tide, and days remained unchanged, and each
Of us learned to watch the seasons silently.
He needed me. I cared for him. He wrote.
I listened when he read to help him find
A voice. But otherwise, we seldom spoke.”

She owned a shop in Perkins Cove. A sign
That long ago surrendered to a vine
That choked off half its words and cut its way
Across the paint still offered works of folk
And modern art – some pieces she had made,
But mostly it was others’ work. It soaked
Up time, and she could draw on slower days.

“I’ve kept books I’ve filled with faces from the crowd,
A different one for each of thirteen years.
My therapist suggested it would help
To use a pen to get my feelings out.
It did, so I stopped seeing him and kept
On drawing. Over time it eased the fear
From always feeling helpless and inept.

“The sketches give me strength, and I can hear
Myself sometimes in the mothers standing near
The girls I draw. I’ve labeled every book.
It shows the age its models represent,
First nine, then each year adding one. It took
Me days, sometimes, when, after some effect,
I’d seek a face. But it gave me peace to look.

“My husband wrote a book he called To See
From Distant Stars. It was his way to fill
The void, the way that sketching did for me.
But truth is neither one of us could free
Ourselves from the haunting silence of the night
When even winds and crashing waves grow still.
She’d barely made a sound. Just slid from sight.

“It’s strange how you remember things. A chill
From a current in the sea. Like an imbecile
I thought of being cold. And when the man
With a surf board yelled take hold, I knew my plight
Was sealed. They searched for her for days. A fan
Shaped pattern spread from Wells to York. And tight
Along the shore, boaters scoured the rocks and sand.

“They never found her. Gradually our friends
Began to put their worries on other things.
It often goes that way. Some pain just ends
When another takes its place. A life depends
On letting go. You have to let things fall.
Some say it’s pre ordained, that life springs
From life’s decay, and nothing matters at all.”

She stopped and looking down removed her rings.
“I don’t need these any more. If I had wings
I’d fly away I feel so light. We had
A chance ten years ago. He said he saw
My books and opened them, said it drove him mad
To see what might have been, said his soul was raw
And he was tired of always being sad.

“He wanted to believe we owed her more
Than grief. Five years had been enough. That week
I put my books away and closed the store,
And we considered moving from the shore.
His book had made him famous and Hollywood
Had made him rich. Now he wanted us to seek
What was left between us that still felt good.

“On Friday morning he’d been asked to speak
On God and fate at Boston College. He’d sneak
Away at noon, he said, to see a farm
In western Mass. He said he thought I should
Come too, and then he smiled. He aimed his charm
At me. I knew he always understood
The way his smile could undo any harm.

“I almost told him yes but then said no.
I don’t know why. I heard the harbor bell
And thought it rang for me. It said don’t go.
And so I stayed and felt the undertow
Of loss refuse to let me up. There are caves
Beneath the sea where drowned souls go. They dwell
There undisturbed by tide or clutching waves.

“But we, who’ve stayed behind and sampled hell
And know too well the terror of a swell
We can’t escape fight, just to stay ahead.
And I’m not sure it ends, unless the grave’s
An end and nothing lives among the dead.
I got a call that Sunday night. Fate so enslaves
And taunts us even hope’s a thing to dread.

“He’d swerved too late to miss the deer and caught
The berm and its hind quarter. When they found
Them at the bottom of the hill, they shot
The doe. Twelve weeks went by before I brought
Him home, and now it’s been ten years. I grew tired
Almost at once of tending him. I’d drowned
His girl, he said, now penance was required.

“There is no penance in this world. We’re crowned
The day we’re born with thorns and walk around
Blinded from blood that runs down from our brow.
We both lost sight of what I once admired —
The way he handled grief and could allow
Me mine. Some said his Distant Stars inspired
New hope. But hate was all he offered now.

“Each year to mark the day she disappeared
He’d find the place above the rocks where he
Had stood to watch what every parent’s feared
But can’t conceive. Each wave that rolled in leered
At him and nothing ever changed. He went
Alone before the crash. He and the sea,
A willful pair, both static and unbent.

“Then when he couldn’t walk it fell to me
To push him up the cliff where we were three.
That changed things. He no longer hoped to stare
Down waves and force the ocean to relent
And give her up. How could one prepare
For that first time? He grabbed me and would have sent
Me to the rocks if I’d let go his chair.

“You can’t prepare. ‘Why not this one?’ he cried.
‘Why’d you leave her here but take the child?’
As if I’d never asked the same. I pried
His fingers from my arm. ‘You should have died,’
He said and grabbed my hair. ‘But it’s not you.
It’s all of this. This emptiness. This wild
Insane eternal silence.’ ” She was through.

She pushed her hair back from her face and smiled.
“You know the rest, the way his charm beguiled
A public hooked on fame. Some said they learned
From him. Some looked at me and said he drew
His strength from love. They said that I had earned
My place beside him. No one ever knew
How intensely hot the rage inside him burned.

“And no one cared. No one asked me why
I stayed, or why I took him there each year.
I drew the last face yesterday. A bride
Of twenty-two. My baby girl, my pride,
Was grown and gone. I watched her walk away
To build her own new life away from here,
Away from us. I’ve no reason now to stay

“I took him up early. When we got near
The spot, a seagull rose and in the clear
Air bobbed above the rocks before it rolled
Sideways, falling forward through the wind. ‘Say
She’ll come,’ he said. We stood facing a cold
Wind from the sea. I said, ‘she left yesterday.’
At the cliff’s edge, my hands let go their hold.”

Originally published in The Rain Town Review, Volume 8 Issue 2, 2010.
© copyright 2010 Joseph Saling/the Grandpa at The Word Mechanic Blog.
All rights reserved.

Now there's a show I wanted to see.

2010-06-27T15:21:00.001-04:00

Saw this yesterday in the TV preview section of our local paper:

"Dynocroc vs Supergator" 9 tonight SyFy -- Tourists ignorant about "Jurassic Park" get munched.

For some reason, though, I missed it.

Now for a preview tease of my own --

Watch for it on a monitor near you

Coming in From the Cold

You won't believe the ending!

Because I haven't been here in so long

2010-06-11T18:49:00.000-04:00

My brother sent me the link for this. Enjoy.

Vision

2010-05-15T18:42:00.001-04:00

Fingers coursing beads

in a room turned caramel

by pulled shades,

an ancient lady

prays, locked in her bed beneath

a picture of Jesus,

and breathes medicinal

odors of age & death while

her sister dusts rungs

on a wicker chair.

None of my grandkids are going to see it

2010-05-14T10:43:00.000-04:00

What passes for a newspaper in our fair city publishes synopses of movies currently playing around town. A number of them have a Parents Guide appended to them to let Mom and Pop know about anything that some parents might find unsuitable for their kids. Here's the Parents Guide for Queen Latifah's new movie "Just Wright":

There is an implied overnight tryst with Queen Latifah nearly dancing in bed the next morning, covered by a sheet. There is other mild sexual innuendo, wine and beer drinking, occasional mild profanity, and some intense basketball action.

Oh no!

Quick! Cover your eyes!

They're playing basketball!

Sign of the times

2010-05-09T16:05:00.000-04:00

Saw a campaign sign today for a candidate for a congressional seat. Under his name was his campaign slgan, "Less government."

So if I understand, he wants me to vote for him because he'll do less work than the other guy. Wonderful. Wish I had a job that would pay me to do less.

Finding Braja

2010-05-07T19:21:00.000-04:00

On our last day in Charleston we had breakfast at Saffron, a bakery/deli/cafe at the edge of the historic district. When we sat down, the server asked if she could bring us something to drink, "Coffee? Juice? Soda?"

I gave up drinking coffee almost a year ago, and so I said I wanted ice water and asked if she had green tea. She said she didn't know but they had lots of tea and she'd go look. When she came back she had two teabag envelopes that she put down in front of me to see if either one would work.

The first one I looked at said "Green Tea with Jasmine." When it comes to green tea I'm a bit of a snob (though I'm not above using a tea bag to brew it), so I rejected the jasmine. The second envelope said "Pure Green/Supports Vitality." I said that's the one I wanted, so she picked up both and walked away from the table. Looking back over her shoulder, she asked "You want water with that, right?"

I had one of those disconnect moments but felt quite ascetic as I pondered how I might have tea without water.

When she came back she had a pot of hot water, the tea bag and a glass of ice water. I took the tea bag out of the envelope and put it in the pot of water. After about two minutes I went to remove the teabag, but the tag at the end of the string came off in my fingers. I turned it over in my hand and both noticed there was a fortune written on one side and felt a presence.

The fortune said "Without realizing who you are, happiness cannot come to you." Then I looked back at the envelope that had held the tea bag and for the first time noticed the brand. It was "Yogi." And then I understood. Somehow, I had made a connection with the lovely blogging Yogini from half way around the world. You may not have been aware, Braja, but you gave me something to think about that morning.

Words Women Use

2010-05-06T10:27:00.003-04:00

If you are ever in Charleston, South Carolina, as we were last week, there are at least three places you have to go to eat.

The first is Magnolia's on East Bay Street. Order the small plate seared tuna. It is the closest I've ever come to Nirvana at the dinner table.

The second place is Hank's, about a block from the Old Market at the corner of Church and Hayne. (Tip: Make your reservation before your trip if you want to get a table at a reasonable hour.) There is nothing there that isn't good. But don't pass up the oyster sampler. The best part of it was the oysters from the local waters. The shells were long and narrow, and the oysters were exquisitely delicate and sweet.

The third place is Hyman's Seafood on Meeting Street. It seems every tourist in Charleston has to go there, so if you go in the evening, be prepared to wait outside in a line. We went for lunch. I can't say the food was outstanding like at the other two restaurants, but it was good and plentiful. I don't think they know what a small plate is. But it's not the food I'm sending you there for.

In the sugar container on each table is a stack of cards with words of wisdom printed on the back so you can become enlightened while you wait for your meal. Here's the one I Picked up:

Words Women Use

Fine: This is the word women use to end an argument when they are right and you need to shut up.
Five Minutes: If she is getting dressed, this is a half hour. Five minutes is only five minutes if you have just been given 5 more minutes to watch the game before helping around the house.
Nothing: This is the calm before the storm. This means "something," and you should be on your toes. Arguments that begin with "Nothing" usually end in "Fine."
Go Ahead: This is a dare, not permission. Don't do it.
That's Okay: This is one of the most dangerous statements that a woman can make to a man. "That's Okay" means that she wants to think long and hard before deciding how and when you will pay for your mistake.
Thanks: A woman is thanking you. Do not question it or faint. Just say you're welcome.

The card S got was filled with advice about how to keep your marriage strong. It was a verbal cornucopia of loving, caring things couples can do for one another, and so of course, S was reading them to me. Things like "Compliment each other's choice in clothes;" "Start each day with a kiss;" "Give back rubs;" and the like. As she read them she came to one that said "Date." She stopped reading, looked at me, thought for a minute and then said, "I think they mean each other."

Coming full circle

2010-04-18T16:45:00.002-04:00

Thank you to ...45+ and aspiring for the link that led me to this little bit of fun. It makes me miss my grandkids. Enjoy it.

Enjoy.

2010-04-13T09:21:00.000-04:00

I found this at Lauren M's blog {hi, lauren m!} {loves...}. She has some other good things there too. You should check it out.

At the Frick

2010-04-10T17:47:00.000-04:00

In the museum, the bronze statuary,
Small enough to be held in hand, excites
You. The artist’s craft, his love of form both
Transparent, his hand invisible, his soul,
Poured like liquid stone, became these figures
And we become the air through which they move.

Yet in a poem, I could give you more
Than these perfect bodies. I could give you
All of their warmth, all of their hue, and more.
I could give you the sun in a blue room,
Balconies with no way down, salt-laced rhythms
Of tides, sea birds unreachable. And still
Would I never see or feel in the cold
Dead bronze the things you see, the things you feel.

Originally published in A Matter of Mind, Foothills Publishing, 2004.
© copyright 2004, 2010 the Grandpa at The Word Mechanic Blog.
All rights reserved.

The Sound of the Sun

2010-04-09T19:12:00.001-04:00

In the morning all there was
Was the bird and the babble of water
Fed by melting snows and the wind
And the sound of the sun slapping the top
Of the mountain wall.

Originally published in the Columbus Citizen Journal, November 1974.
© copyright 2004 (Joseph Saling), 2010 the Grandpa at The Word Mechanic Blog.
All rights reserved

Be careful where you put things

2010-03-30T18:24:00.002-04:00

I got these from another listserv (for writers and editors). These are bloopers taken from church bulletins or announcements from the pulpit. They just prove that when you're dealing with words, location is everything.

Low Self Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 PM. Please use the back door.
The Fasting & Prayer Conference includes meals.
The sermon this morning: 'Jesus Walks on the Water.' The sermon tonight: 'Searching for Jesus.'
Ladies, don't forget the rummage sale. It's a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Bring your husbands.
Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our community. Smile at someone who is hard to love. Say 'Hell' to someone who doesn't care much about you.
Don't let worry kill you off - let the Church help.
Weight Watchers will meet at 7 PM at the First Presbyterian Church. Please use large double door at the side entrance.
Miss Charlene Mason sang 'I will not pass this way again,' giving obvious pleasure to the congregation.
For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a nursery downstairs.
Next Thursday there will be tryouts for the choir. They need all the help they can get.
Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24 in the church. So ends a friendship that began in their school days.
A bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall. Music will follow..
At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be 'What Is Hell?' Come early and listen to our choir practice.
Eight new choir robes are currently needed due to the addition of several new members and to the deterioration of some older ones.
Scouts are saving aluminum cans, bottles and other items to be recycled. Proceeds will be used to cripple children.
Please place your donation in the envelope along with the deceased person you want remembered..
The church will host an evening of fine dining, super entertainment and gracious hostility.
Potluck supper Sunday at 5:00 PM - prayer and medication to follow.
The ladies of the Church have cast off clothing of every kind. They may be seen in the basement on Friday afternoon.
This evening at 7 PM there will be a hymn singing in the park across from the Church. Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin.
Ladies Bible Study will be held Thursday morning at 10 AM.. All ladies are invited to lunch in the Fellowship Hall after the B. S. Is done.
The pastor would appreciate it if the ladies of the Congregation would lend him their electric girdles for the pancake breakfast
The eighth-graders will be presenting Shakespeare's Hamlet in the Church basement Friday at 7 PM. The congregation is invited to attend this tragedy.
The Associate Minister unveiled the church's new campaign slogan last Sunday: 'I Upped My Pledge - Up Yours.

There's actually a couple of those churches that sound like they might be fun to belong to. Let's all prepare to sin.

Reminder: April starts Thursday. Check out Bel's challenge for National Poetry Month at the Itsy Bitsy Monkey. Every year she invites her readers to join her in posting a poem a day throughout the month of April. Let me know if you take her up on it, and I'll be sure to post links to your poetic achievements.

Another sign of the times -- Keep the forklift dry

2010-03-28T16:50:00.001-04:00

S saw this on a poster for Senior Paws & Furry Friends, which invites people to a attend a “Chocolate, Wine, & Art” function to raise money for homeless pets:

Taste sweet treats from Atlanta’s most gourmet bakeries and candy shops and wet your pallet with unique wines from around the world.”

She said she found it strange to ask people to dump perfectly good wine on the ground. I'd ask where the editor was, but I bet he'd already started wetting his palate when this crossed his desk.

Whoa! Who are your friends?

2010-03-27T17:02:00.000-04:00

Just got this on a list serve I'm on. It's from a list of rules for a condo association:

b. Defecation of the animals must be 'pooper scooped' from any common area in the complex.
c.The afore mentioned also applies to visitors and are the responsibility of the apartment dwellers being visited.

The Man Who Talked to Birds

2010-03-13T18:21:00.000-05:00

This is another first draft.

The Man Who Talked to Birds

Every morning, he had conversations with birds.
What did he say? What did he think they heard?

Every day, he'd break bread and throw it
Over the fence then wait for birds to show up
Or come drink from the pedestaled basin in his front yard.

They were his birds. Joe's birds. Daddy's birds.
This is a man who'd talk to a chicken
And claimed the chicken learned to play
The xylophone. This is a man who guarded
A dove's nest on his window ledge. Who put out
Building material, straw he gathered himself,
For the dove to use, then called the newspaper
When the eggs hatched. This is a man who caught
Young pigeons and brought them home in a cage
For his son to use in a school project. This man
Watched the birds with a meticulous fancy --
Imagined they understood him. Held out his hand
With seed and had them take it from his palm.
He believed he knew what they were thinking.

And when he died and they came to the house,
Everyone claimed they were looking for him.

Mother built a shrine in the corner of the yard,
Surrounded it with ceramic angels so he
Could be where the birds are, and they
Could be with him.

© copyright 2010 the Grandpa at The Word Mechanic Blog.
All rights reserved

Get ready for April. Bel over at The Itsy Bitsy Monkey extends a special challenge every year during National Poetry Month. Her goal is to post an original poem every day, and she challenges her readers to do the same. And even if you don't take the challenge, reading the poems she posts is certainly worth the visit.

It feels good to laugh

2010-03-05T16:15:00.000-05:00

I know I haven't been around for a while, but this afternoon I was getting overwhelmed by this huge project I'm involved with and was feeling low. So I took a break and watched this video. By the time it was over, I felt immensely better and knew I had to share it. Enjoy. And I'll be back soon.

I must have sort of arrived

2010-02-17T18:28:00.000-05:00

I graduated from high school (St. Francis DeSales in Columbus, Ohio) in 1964. I don't remember the last time I was in the high school, but I'm sure the Viet Nam War was still going on. And although one of my brothers still gets involved in mentoring programs there and I see or communicate with one or three of my classmates every once in a blue moon (an interesting expression, by the way), I have no contact with the school, nor does the school have contact with me, except an occassional email asking if I know what happened to missing classmates. (I actually did know about one of them.) But I don't think anybody there knows me because, to my knowledge, I certainly don't know any of them.

So imagine my surprise when I got an email from my brother the other day:

By the way I was at DeSales the other day and they have a new (at least to me) permanent display directly across the hallway from the Trophy case outside the Gym. It is a wall with 8x10 pictures of people who are in the academic hall of fame. There is a large label of the title and each picture has a brass plaque under it saying the name and the class. The first picture on the wall was none other than my big brother. I told mom and she was very proud of you. (Actually, I am too!) Congratulations!

It's nice that my brother's proud of me. And my mother, too. But this was the first I'd heard of it. At least it's not the post office. But geez, you'd think someone would have sent me a letter. Maybe they think I'm dead. Hmmm.

First draft

2010-02-10T18:10:00.000-05:00

Here's the first draft of a poem based on a Japanese folk tale. I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do with it yet. I got the tale from a student a number of years ago along with several others. She was writing them down and giving them to me so she could practice English in the Writing Lab. I'm thinking of building a series of poems around them.

Swan

A farmer and his wife, barren past their youth

Find a young swan with hurt wing and take it home.

They place a box for a bed just inside their front door

And feed it rice before they retire,

Saddened by the fearful noise it made when they picked it up,

Glad to be able to help,

Glad to offer love.

In the morning on a rug inside their front door,

A teenage girl curls beside the empty box,

Sleeps fitfully dreaming, she says when she wakes,

Of water like a mirror in the morning sun

And a strange but lovely face she did not know

Staring up at her from below the water's surface

And dreaming, she says, of open space.

It's like falling up instead of down.

Father, she says, can I have more rice?

And, Mother, these clothes feel strange.

Can you show me how to wear them?

The Writer's Wife

2010-02-04T19:06:00.000-05:00

A week ago, I received my copy of the latest issue of The Raintown Review. In it is a poem called "The Writer's Wife." It's five pages, and it begins like this:

"For fifteen years we lived against the sea
Below Ogunquit where the surf marks time
And tide, and days remained unchanged, and each
Of us learned to watch the seasons silently.
He needed me. I cared for him. He wrote.
I listened when he read to help him find
A voice. But otherwise, we seldom spoke."

It is my most significant poem to date. And at five pages, it's also the longest poem I have ever published. I wrote the first version of the poem over 40 years ago. The idea came from a fantasy game my first wife and I played when were dating. It was about a woman who had thrown her childen off a cliff. The idea didn't gel as a poem, and although I kept writing it again and again throughout the years, I couldn't make it work.

Then about seven years ago while I was living in Birmingham, something happened on a trip to Maine that changed the whole concept of the poem for me. I knew the poem was not about a mother who murdered her kids. It is about what happened to a couple after their seven-year-old daughter was lost by being caught in a rip current, and it tells the story of the next 15 years of their life. Once I realized what the poem was really about, it took me a couple of months to actually write it. And it wasn't easy. It's a formal poem with a difficult rhyme scheme. But once I started, once I wrote the line "For fifteen years we lived against the sea," I had no doubt where it was going or that I would complete it.

I finished the poem shortly before that Christmas. It's a funny thing about writing poetry. I know I've said this before. It's hard work to write a good poem. It's even frustrating work, and you have to love -- not the frustration -- but the work itself. And you have to simply know it's going to come together.Then when it does, you look at it and say, "Of course. This was where I was going all the time." And you immediately forget the work. It just feels natural, as if it always was that way.

I included the poem in a reading I did at Keuka College in Finger Lakes district of New York a few years ago. At the reception after the reading, the poet Bruce Bennett, who had been in the audience, came up to me on his way out and said he thought there was something epic about the poem. That was the greatest compliment he could have paid me. I spent nearly my entire adult life writing it. It feels good to have it recognized.

I can't post the poem here, because it's in the current issue of the magazine. And it's also not on line there. If you want to read it before my next book is done, you'll need to buy a copy of Volume 8 Issue 2 of The Raintown Review or else look back here on the blog in about six months. But since I can't post it, I'm going to repost a poem I first put up here last May. I only got one comment on it, so maybe you missed it. Or maybe you were just being polite.

From the Choir Loft

Singing is twice praying.

On alternating days we sang the Mass
At seven, boys, then girls, then boys again.
Sometimes the only ones who'd show
To sing were me and Hal the organist,
And I could barely hum a note. Refrains
Eluded me, so Hal would sing it solo.

Now Hal had music in his hands and feet;
The organ's pipes were a part of him.
But when he tried for music from his throat,
Well, Father said it sounded kind of sweet
If sweet meant scratchy, hoarse, and thin
And not unlike the bleating of a goat.

From Kyrie to Agnus Dei, Hal
Sang all the parts, sang treble, alto, bass
And never worried what the music said.
The words were all that mattered. Still somehow
He'd hit the final note then turn his face
And wink at me and proudly raise his head.

Hal quit the church when Kyrie became
The simple English Lord and anyone
Who wanted stood and strummed communal chords
For Masses where the singing was the same
As elevator sap, and Hal seemed stunned
To learn that music is in deed the words.

Originally published in Birmingham Poetry Review, Summer/Fall, 2005.
© copyright 2009 the Grandpa at The Word Mechanic Blog.
All rights reserved

And I call myself an editor

2010-01-26T18:21:00.000-05:00

After a meeting today for a project I'm working on, I received an email from the client saying that documents being used to create the health tool should be stored in SharePoint -- software that allows documents to be shared and creates a history so that we always know what the latest version is.

I wrote back an email saying among other things: "I’ll put stiff there as soon as I can."

That prompted the following reply from a doctor who is also working on the project:

just remember to bag your bodies before storing them 8-).

Jack

Guess I had that coming.

Another sign of the times

2010-01-22T15:56:00.003-05:00

Saw this in the parking lot at a Cracker Barrel Restaurant:

Neighborly Reminder

Lock your car

and

remove your valuables.

In that order? Has anyone got a crowbar? Forget that. Has anyone got an editor?

Wish I had a poem to share

2010-01-17T21:08:00.004-05:00

But I don't. Not tonight. So instead I'll offer you some opening lines and let you do what you want with them. I only ask that you share the poem if you use them. But first, let me share some random thoughts about my day.

******
S and I started it at 6 this morning by going to the fitness center in Gaylord's Opryland Resort and Convention Center in Nashville. After a 40 minute workout (despite a painful Achilles tendon), we swam for 20 minutes in the indoor pool. Then because it was raining and cold outside, we spent about 20 minutes in the outdoor jacuzzi. I've felt warm and proud all day.

******
In regard to the Achilles tendon problem: That bum Achilles has been at my heels all day. S thought it was a little bit over the top, but I figure anytime I can get 3 puns in a single breath, I'm doing OK.

******
We were planning to go to the Frist Visual Arts Center in downtown Nashville and then maybe have dinner someplace like The Wild Horse Saloon and hit some of the clubs along Broadway before coming back to Opryland. If you've never done it, it feels a little like New Orleans, albeit on a much smaller scale. But there is one way Nashville tops the Bourbon Street experience.

Nashville is the Music City. (It's home to the Country Music Hall of Fame and to the Bluebird Cafe, which is a songwriter's Mecca.) And because it's the Music City, it's packed with country star wannabes, many of whom are really quite talented, but most of whom can only dream of getting a contract. But that doesn't deter them.

The clubs along Broadway and Second Avenue, let groups come in to play without pay -- they play for tips. And here is what makes it better in that one way from New Orleans. Because they're not paying the band, the clubs don't care if you walk in off the street and listen for free. There's no cover and no minimum drink requirement -- not even one. You can just walk in and listen. And there are enough good musicians and singers to make it worth your while.

The problem today was that because of my injured Achilles, I wasn't sure I wanted to stay downtown tonight and then try to make my way back to the hotel through streets I didn't know using a GPS that sometimes decides it just doesn't like me and wants me to get lost. I could tell S wasn't happy about my suggesting we start back while it was still light. It is, after all, our anniversary weekend.

But we got to the Frist early, and since it wasn't open yet, we decided to go to the other end of Broadway for lunch at the Wild Horse Saloon. Then as we walked back past the clubs on Broadway it was clear -- at 1:30 in the afternoon -- the street was coming alive. So we started going in and listening and moving on to the next club on our way back to the museum. The highlight came at Tootsies at the corner of Broadway and 5th Ave.

I remember the last time we were in Nashville and spent a late night downtown, Tootsies was the place to be. And here it was on an early Sunday afternoon every bit as alive as it was on that Saturday late night when we were there before.

*******
We were also able to enjoy the museum, and then get back to the resort in time to have a pleasant romantic dinner at an Italian restaurant and to enjoy roaming around the shops before coming back to our room. Now we're sitting here listening to jazz and blogging and thinking about tomorrow.

*******
On the way back to the museum, we were talking about how the product model at the Opryland resort resembled that of a cruise ship. And then we remarked on how the cheaper rooms, which were not available when we booked, didn't have balconies, just like the inside state rooms on a cruise ship don't have balconies that extend out over the ocean. And I reminded S how much we enjoyed having a state room with a balcony on a cruise we took several years ago. She said we hardly ever spent time in the room. I said, though, that I spent a lot of time on the balcony in the middle of the night. That's how I came up with these lines.

Standing on the stateroom balcony
Peering into the endless black
Of a horizonless night

A caption for the times

2010-01-16T23:36:00.003-05:00

Found this verse inside a greeting card in a gift shop in Nashville today. Thought I'd share it with you.

"My soul's had enough chicken soup. Give me chocolate!"

Still Learning as I Go

2010-01-08T17:27:00.009-05:00

My second painting is done, framed, and shipped to my sister-in-law for a Christmas gift. (In my family, we draw names and give a gift that we have to make to the family member whose name we get. My sister-in-law likes lighthouses, so the picture seemed appropriate.) I really meant to continue the Learning as I Go series of posts while I painted it. But given how little time I've spent on the blog over the last month or so, that proved hard to do.

That doesn't mean I didn't continue to learn. For one thing I learned how hard it is to paint daylight. The sky went through multiple paintings and over paintings.

I knew this first one wasn't right, but wasn't sure why. So I tried again.

I liked the water here, but the sky was just getting darker. After a couple of more attempts, I came up with this.

At first I was impressed with the clouds. But after a couple of days looking at it from my desk, they struck me as being unnaturally white, and the sky still wasn't any lighter. So I went back to the book I'd been reading and read again about glazing and also about working orange and yellow into the clouds to give the impression of daylight. So I painted this.

At this point, I was glad I had a career working with words and so decided not to quit my day job. But I took one more stab at it.

I really messed up the water, but, hey, the sky had light. I don't think the author of Genesis had any idea just how hard it is to let there be light. I know I didn't do it in a day.

Next, after working for several days to restore the water, came the rocks and then the light house.

The signature.

And finally the frame.

So what have I learned? I learned I really like doing this. And I think I learned something about painting daylight, which is what I had set out to do when I chose the lighthouse as my subject.

I've started a third picture. Now I'm learning how to paint foliage and grasses. If you don't mind I'll share some of that that experience with you too.

Happy New Year, everyone.

What did you say?

2009-12-22T09:56:00.002-05:00

I was working yesterday on an article about ruptured eardrums and came across this sentence in one of the references I was using. There's nothing wrong with it grammatically or syntactically, but I just hope no one takes it literally.

Teach your children about the damage that can be done by putting foreign objects in their ears.

Help, quick, can we get an editor over hear?

'Twas the week before Christmas

2009-12-19T17:17:00.002-05:00

Materialistic? Nous?

I'm Sorry

2009-12-11T23:12:00.004-05:00

Actually, I want to apologize for my post of November 10. It's a beautiful video. And there is no justification for making it commercial. The video is beautiful. The atttempt to sell is not. But if you click throu to see it, watch the commercial. It still is beautiful.

What Wonderful Ears

2009-12-08T18:06:00.003-05:00

I was editing an article about yeast infections in dogs and found the following passage in the section about symptoms. In all fairness to the writer, she was rushed, and this was a rewrite, but still...

You may notice your dog scratching his ear or rubbing it on the floor or on a piece of furniture. That's a sign that he may have a yeast infection. You should check his ears for these signs: (2)

• Brown, yellow or bloody discharge that has a strong odor
• Redness or swelling
• Crusted skin on the near ear flap
• Loss of hair around the ear
• Head shaking or tilting
• Loss of balance
• Loss of hearing
• Walking in circles
• Unusual eye movements
*********************
I suppose you could tell if the dog was walking in circles by watching its ears. And even the head shaking and tilting might be evident. But the unusual eye movements? I'm going to be watching my dog's ears this evening. I'll tell you later what they say about her eyes.

Just because

2009-12-03T18:07:00.001-05:00

This is just funny. Enjoy.

Part 3 is postponed

2009-11-22T00:15:00.001-05:00

All the things I don't know, I am haunted by. Those who know, understand.

Random Friday

2009-11-20T19:53:00.005-05:00

* Look for part 3 of Learning as I Go tomorrow.

* I miss the time when I posted a blog every day.

* One of my biggest pet peeves as a freelanceer who specializes in writing about health is editors who say they need doctors to write their articles. I don't want a writer operating on my wrist to fix my carpel tunnel syndrome. Sure, the writer will understand how I got it. But even if he's written about the operation, he/she still won't know how to do it. Why do editors think doctors know how to write?

* I know there are some doctors who can write well. I've edited their work. But it's because they are also writers, not because they are doctors.

* So those particular writers, if they're good surgeons too, could operate on my wrist.

* The last few weeks, I've been cleaning up some awful prose messes created by docs.

* Check out Bel's (aka Mommy's Nintendo) blog. She's writing about her spiritual journey.

* All my friends in Blogland: I'm coming back. I'm going to be catching up on your posts. They better be good ;0) (I know they will be).

* I'm out of aquamarine blue. I need a trip to the art supply house tomorrow.

Things I'm surprised I didn't say:

* Tomorrow is the Ohio State Michigan game.

* Fantastic basketball game on tonight between Syracuse and North Carolina. Kind of glad Ohio State lost their game against NC last night or they would be playing Syracuse tonight.

* There must be a poem somewhere in all of this.

Thought for today

2009-11-11T18:05:00.002-05:00

Time is simply a road map of the now. And the arrow that's pointing to tell us "you are here" is what we call the present.

Just watch

2009-11-10T23:45:00.006-05:00

This is actually a commercial from Thailand. I stole it from Butterfly Dreamer, whose site you should absolutely see. But, here's the rub: Watch it more than once; watch it at least three times. Get beyond the Pantene pitch. (She would have gotten there without beautiful hair.) Then, tell me what it does to you. -- I agree with Butterfly dreamer: It is "one of the most inspirational and beautiful videos I have ever seen."

Learning as I Go: Part 2 -- Getting Started/Painting #2

2009-11-09T17:25:00.007-05:00

Step 3 -- Paint the sky

I only have a slight understanding of the concept of underpainting. It's the first layer of color or colors that serve as the basic definition of the painting in progress. It "blocks in" the composition and serves as a blueprint for subsequent layers of color as details are added or refined. This first layer, according to some of the sources I looked at, should lay down the darkest color for the sky, water, and foreground and then the overpainting will add highlights, brightness, and variations in color.

I read about it, but I wasn't really conscious of "underpainting" as I began the canvas. Start with the sky and work forward was the basic principle my father had taught me. So that's what I thought I would do here. But acrylic is different from chalk or pastel or watercolor. So I wasn't going to be able to do what I thought I was going to do. I saw very quickly I was going to have to go back to the sky multiple times.

The horizon was an accident, albeit a happy one. I got too much dark blue on my brush as I was painting the lower portion of the sky. But I saw immediately that it worked for the deeper water of the background. So I actually ended up doing what was in my ead two steps at once. From there it was a simple step to block in the lighter water of the foreground. And since the sky was pretty much dry, I decided to try to lighten it up.

I was satisfied with that day's work, and I felt like I'd learned something.

To be continued...

Learning as I Go: Part 1 -- First steps Painting 2

2009-11-08T16:41:00.012-05:00

After I did my first acrylic painting [see it here], I read more about the importance of using natural light in the process of painting. It's essential for being able to see the actual colors I'm putting on canvas. So, since I didn't have room by the window in my office to set up the easel, and since I couldn't really count on having time during the day when the light was best to paint, I bought myself a daylight lamp to clamp onto my easel. It made all the difference.

I put the painting back on the easel, and the green and red paint I'd used to put grasses in the foreground and the blue grey gravel path popped. But the middle ground didn't. The surface of the hill extending down to the ocean was flat. It still is, but I intend to change it. First, though, I need to understand more about painting light--as well as the lack of light. So I've been reading about and studying samples of techniques such as "glazing," which I'll talk about in a future installment of Learning as I Go.

In the meantime I started a second painting. If you're interested, I want to share with you what it's like to be a complete novice teaching myself to paint.

Step 1: Choose the Scene
We went to some fascinating places this past summer in California and in New England, and I took a ton of photos. So I started the second painting by printing out a number of photos and spending a lot of time just going through them. I finally narrowed the choice down to two:

Choice 1 -- Hillside at Timber Cove where we stayed at the ocean in California

Choice 2 -- Lighthouse and Rocks off the coast of Maine at Fort McClary
(1)...........................................................................

(2)........................................................................

I liked the first choice because I liked the different textures and I want to learn about painting grasses and foliage. I also want to be able to paint a hillside head on and give the viewer the feel of the ground rising.

I liked the second because there was a lot of motion in the water and because the challenge of painting daylight above the blue of the water was intriguing.

I decided I wasn't ready yet for the challenges in the first picture, and learning how to paint light is probably my first real task. So I chose the second picture.

Step 2 --Draw It
I made several sketches. (If I can't draw it, I can't paint it.) Here is the last one I made.

Doesn't really have the detail or the perspective I think it should have, but I thought it was enough to get me started.

Step 3 -- Paint the sky

[to be continued]

A nightmarish week

2009-10-31T17:27:00.003-04:00

My computer crashed last Sunday. I was trying to install the new Windows 7. But it got caught in an endless loop of rebooting. I couldn't even get a desktop. I spent the entire day Monday trying to get the issue settled with the help of someone from Microsoft spending four hours on the phone with me. The problem was that she didn't speak any known language. And the closest she came to English was repeating back to me the things I told her I tried, telling me that those were the things I needed to do. Finally she said she would have to put me on hold for ten minutes, would that be okay? I was tired of yelling at her that what she was asking me to do I had done already multiple times, both on my own and when she told me to do them, so I said yes put me on hold. She said she had to look for something . I hoped it was a translator. After five minutes, the phone disconnected. I supposed she had found what she was looking for and had no more reason to talk with me. Anyway, I didn't call back. I just spent the rest of the day doing those same things over again.

Then on Tuesday I got on my laptop and sent out emails to all my clients who had sent me stuff that I was supposed to be working on but which was locked as email attachments inside my failed office computer. Sometime close to noon a Microsoft guy supposedly in Cincinnati called me, said he knew about my problem (scary, no?), and he could help me solve it. After going back over what the problem was, he said the installation had failed and the computer was being tugged at by two operating systems, neither one of which could get control of it. "Oh," I said, "you speak English."

The man then asked if there were any important files on my computer. I asked him to repeat the question, and after I told him yes, he told me I needed to start Windows from the installation disk and do a "custom install."

I told him when I tried that before I got a warning saying it would wipe out everything on my computer -- all my writing, all my contracts, all my client lists, all my billing records and tax files. "Is that my only option?"

"Yes it is," he said. "But it won't wipe out your files. You'll just have to reinstall all your programs."

"All of them? It will take all of them?"

"Yes. But you just have to put the disks back in and reinstall them."

I didn't see any point in telling them that at least half of all the thousands of programs on my computer were downloaded, I had no disks for them, and I had no idea where the product keys for most of them were. Probably in a series of email archives. What would be the point? This was my only option.

So he talked me through the steps of getting the installation going. Once it was running, he said it would take a while and would it be all right for him to call me back in 45 minutes?

What the hell. "Sure," I said. "That will be fine."

The installation program crashed once. But I restarted it, and just as the second run was finishing up, the man in Cincinnati called me back and asked about the status.

When the computer was running and I had a desktop, he asked if he could take control of my computer and show me where my files were. "Okay," I said. But when he tried to locate them, they weren't in the folder where they were supposed to be. He did a search on a file extension and couldn't find anything. Then he asked for the name of a file. I gave him one and he searched for it. Then he found it, found the location of the folder it was in and added it to my "library." He then released control of my computer and said, "So now you see where they are?"

It's too late to make a long story short. But I can make it less long than it would be. I didn't see where they were, but I said yes, thanked him, and spent the rest of Tuesday reinstalling some programs and searching for my files. I got Outlook working, but couldn't find my email files to pull into it. I did find a folder that had program files in it. Some of them worked and some of them didn't. I went to bed that night thinking I was never going to work again.

Wednesday I kept looking for files. I started to figure out where they were. Still didn't have my email. Couldn't make my FileMaker database work. But I did feel I was making some progress.

Thursday I kept stabbing at the computer but also managed to get some of the work done that was scheduled for this past week. And by the end of the day Friday, I had managed to restore my database program, complete this past week's assignments, and even find my email files.

Now it's Halloween, but I'm not scared.

The Ecstacy of Morricone

2009-10-24T22:14:00.004-04:00

How can you not love it when this man makes music?

And if you've not seen Once Upon a Time in the West, it should be on your bucket list.

Some of us would never get where we're going.

2009-10-16T08:57:00.003-04:00

I got the link to this video from High Desert Diva's blog, which if you don't know, you should definitely check out. Why don't we have more initiatives like this?

Blog Action Day Personal Effort Climate Change.

2009-10-15T11:06:00.007-04:00

Today is blog action day, and the topic this year is climate change.

I don't really have a lot to say about climate change that others who know a lot more than I do won't say better. But I can talk about some personal changes that have occurred over the past couple of years.

About a year ago, I was attending an adult discussion group at a UU church I was considering joining. The congregation was in the process of launching a major initiative to take themselves as much "off the grid" as possible. And nearly everyone in the discussion group was avid about being green. They were recyclers, solar power enthusiasts, hybrid car owners, and apostles for change. I found it a little disconcerting. I felt woefully under informed and under committed. Plus, I wasn't convinced, despite Al Gore, that climate change was an issue that was going to garner commitment from the mainstream, despite the group's insistence that the times they are a changin'.

One year later, I don't know much more. I don't know what my carbon footprint is, though I know what that means. I was convinced back then that climate change was important and ruining the environment. But I didn't really think I could make much difference. But something clicked and I started making little changes. Here are some of the things I've done:

I changed nearly all the bulbs in the house to energy saving fluorescent bulbs. I don't mind it takes a few seconds for the light to get bright when I turn them on.
I print out a lot of paper when I do my job. When I edit, even when I edit Web content, I need to print it out to do the final edit in hard copy. I still print it out, but instead of throwing the paper out, I turn it over and put it back in the printer to print the next file on the back.
When both sides are printed, the paper now goes into a brown paper bag (unless there is confidential information on it) that gets set out to be recycled on recycle day.
As often as I can, I empty my shredder into a brown recycle bag that I put out on the curb for recycling.
I found Greenoffice.com that sells recycled materials where I now buy as much of my office supplies as I can.
I put plastic jars and cans that have grungy stuff in them that I can't rinse out into the dishwasher so I can put them in the recycle bin when they come out.

Those are some of the things I do. There is more, but the point is even a little bit can make a difference, especially if that little bit makes me more aware of what more I can do. Each one of us needs to look at what we do, and then do what we can to make a difference.

October Observances, part 2

2009-10-13T09:40:00.004-04:00

"Domestic violence touches the lives of Americans of all ages, leaving a devastating impact on women, men, and children of every background and circumstance. A family's home becomes a place of fear, hopelessness, and desperation when a woman is battered by her partner, a child witnesses the abuse of a loved one, or a senior is victimized by family members."

******

"During this month, we rededicate ourselves to breaking the cycle of violence. By providing young people with education about healthy relationships, and by changing attitudes that support violence, we recognize that domestic violence can be prevented. We must build the capacity of our Nation's victim service providers to reach and serve those in need. We urge community leaders to raise awareness and bring attention to this quiet crisis. And across America, we
encourage victims and their families to call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE. Together, we must ensure that, in America, no victim of domestic violence ever struggles alone."

(Presidential Proclamation September 30, 2009)

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

Nearly one in every four women are beaten or raped by a partner during adulthood. 1 in 6 women and 1 in 33 men have experienced an attempted or completed rape. Three women are killed by a current or former intimate partner each day in America, on average.
Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Fact Sheet
The National Network to End Domestic Violence

Please, if you are in an abusive situation, tell someone and ask for help. And if you know someone who is being abused, don't remain silent. Reach out and help. In the United States call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at (800) 799-SAFE (7233) or TTY (800) 787-3224.

Internationally, The Broken Spirits Network maintains a database with contact information for organizations around the world that can intervene, provide support, and help stop cycles of abuse. You can find the directory here.

October Observances

2009-10-09T15:26:00.004-04:00

Two important observances this month.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Be sure you check out Rachael Chatoor's "Standing All the Way" on her Blog.

October is also Health Literacy Month. All month long there are events going on around the world to bring attention to the importance of and advocate for understandable health information. Find out how important clear health information is to individuals and learn what people and organizations are doing to ensure that people get the kind of healthcare and health communications they need here.

Effective health communication is a two-way process.

My first acrylic on canvass or why I like to paint

2009-10-03T17:03:00.010-04:00

As a preteen and adolescent, I drew and painted pictures with chalk and with pastel. As an adult I've painted with watercolors and used charcoal and pencil. A couple months ago, S and I took a one night "class" on painting with acrylics. It was really more of a social night out. Everyone in class followed the teacher's instructions and painted the same picture. We had stuffed mushrooms and martinis and wine and cookies and cake. At the end of the evening, the teacher took our photos with our pictures and put us on her mailing list for future such events. It was fun and totally relaxing. But I didn't get anything I wanted to call my painting out of it.

I had been thinking about painting with acrylics for some time. Not because I'm a visual artist. I'm not. My father was, but I didn't inherit that particular gene. I'd been thinking about it because I enjoy painting, and when I was working regularly with watercolors, it gave me a way to relax and forget whatever was stressing me. I wanted to try acrylics because the stuff I'd read about working with them sounded interesting.

My father had used them, but that's because he used everything, even some media he invented himself. When he painted, though, he generally preferred oils.

The one night class, at least, gave me some basics about handling acrylics and how to start working with them. So when we went to California this past summer, S bought me a basic set of acrylics and a few canvasses for my birthday. I thought about using them there, but didn't. When I got home, though, I selected a few photos I'd taken to use as subjects while I learned about the medium.

OK, drum roll, please.......................................................

I call it Path at Pine Cove, Twilight. I'm probably not going to frame it and hang it, but I'm not unhappy with it.

Since the photo I painted from is a twilight shot, the foreground is supposed to be dark. But the flash on the camera washed out the color. So I tried to take the picture without the flash and got (another drum roll please ).......................

If you look at the photo on the easel above the picture, you'll see this is actually the way I envisioned the picture turning out -- wonderful what digital photography will do to your work, but it isn't an accurate representation of what I'd done. So I took another photo. This time I got (you know, drum roll)............................

....the picture I wish I had painted!

WHY I LIKE TO PAINT

I like to paint because I'm not a painter. There is no pressure. I don't have to be good. If I'm going to get something out of it I need to try to be good. But there's nobody standing over me saying I should do this and not do that.

My father would do that when I was a teenager and later when I'd show him some of the drawings I'd done as an adult. But that's what fathers do.

And there's no gate keeper judging me in terms of whether I get paid or whether anybody else gets to see my work or even whether I'll get more work from them. So there's none of the pressure I feel -- regardless of how much I like my work -- as a professional or a poet. When I paint, it's my time for me. It relaxes me, and that's good for my blood pressure and my soul.

Just me, thinking about what I see.

But something more happened with this painting. Something I hadn't expected.

When I work with watercolor, I do a painting, sometimes two paintings, in an evening--most of which paintings I don't keep. But it took me weeks to do this first acrylic. That's partly because I wasn't sure all the time what to do next and partly because of time. It was also partly because I wanted to think about what I was doing and about the mistakes I made so I could learn from this experience.

My "studio" is set up in a section of my office, which occupies the entire third floor of our house. The table where the easel sits is about fifteen feet away from my desk. The whole time I was painting the picture, the canvass stayed where, as I worked during the day, I could simply turn and look at it any time I wanted. I also saw it whether I wanted to or not whenever I'd get up from the desk or simply turn in my chair to think about the next paragraph or prospecting letter.

Every time I saw the picture, I saw something different. The mistakes I made, I would stare at for days. I was clueless how to fix them. But when I would figure it out, just by looking at the painting so often I would wonder whether I could mix the colors again so that the correction would fit with what's there. Then, I would simply look at the painting and know what to do. Sometimes I'd get up from my desk right then and spend maybe 10 minutes painting, clean up, and go back to my desk and back to work.

A couple of days ago, I figured out how to do a key part of the picture I was having trouble with. At dinner that evening, I asked S if she wanted to see what I was doing. When she said yes, I went up and brought the painting down. I was excited and started explaining what I'd done that day but soon began chronicling the entire process I'd gone through. I'd point to something in the picture and talk about how I did it or about a mistake I'd made and what I'd done to fix it or how the mistake had actually worked out better than what I had intended to do. And I'd explain what I had learned from that and what I would try to do with the next picture.

As I explained these things I realized something. I was looking at the picture the way my father looked at pictures -- his own and his students. I was solving problems in one of two ways. I was either calling on the advice and critiques he had given me over the years, or I was solving them with what I remember seeing him do or hearing him talk about doing while I watched him paint.

Sure. My painting is for me, and I'm learning about painting and about seeing. But a big part of why I like it is I'm also learning about my father's painting.

This is why I blog

2009-09-27T22:04:00.003-04:00

So I can say things when I need to remind myself

There are things that happen as you get older. There are battles that are lost that never should have been lost. There are dreams that never should have been left unfulfilled. There are projects that should have been completed. And there is time that you can never get back.

I have done things that have made a difference in people’s life.

I know that because the people have told me—called me out of the blue and said thank you.

I know that because I’ve run into people at random—people I don’t remember—who have said something I did made a difference in their life. I got off the train at South Station in Boston, was walking with what seemed thousands of other people in Boston who had gotten off of other trains and heard someone—a total stranger—say to me “Professor [grandpa]? You don’t remember me, but you were my teacher in business writing when I was junior at St Anselm. I use what you taught me every day. I’m vice president at [a big bank in Boston], and the way I got there was knowing how to write. And it was your class that taught me how to do it. I always meant to call you and tell you thanks..

And I’ve seen writers who wrote for me as their first editor win awards for work they did for me, win awards and publish books when I was the first editor who believed in them.

But you get older, and the work you set out to do hasn’t been done, and you think you’re starting to run out of time. The clock hasn’t stopped ticking yet, but the tick-tocks are coming faster and faster and sounding fainter and fainter.

It’s the angst that destroys. So how do you answer it?

Trust the people you know.
Know that you have influenced other people’s life.
Understand that no work ever gets done by whining about the fact it’s not getting done.
Accept the fact that when you die you die. What you’ve done to that point is the sum total of your work.
Accept the fact that you’re alive.
Work.

It’s hard to imagine I’ll ever be satisfied. But I can still keep working.

5 Minute Therapy

2009-09-24T15:35:00.002-04:00

My therapist recommended I watch this video. Do you think she was trying to tell me something?

Character Envy

2009-09-23T17:53:00.003-04:00

Jason, the narrator of my novel, is a poet and teacher of creative writing. He seems to have little respect for his own poetry and he doesn't much care for students. Here's a fragment from one of his poems:

If we touch the magic
That makes us real dissolves
Like bullion in a cup of water
And we become mere parodies
Of what might have been.
Thin, watery imitations
Of a hearty broth.

In the following scene he's walking in the woods with his brother's 14 year old step daughter. Jason's father, a painter, died of a stroke in his studio just a few days before. Jason's been called to New Hampshire by his aunt (who is actually his father's mistress) and this is the first time he's met any of his brother's new family. Candi, the young girl, is a big fan both of Jason's father and of Jason's poetry. She's taken him to a spot in a field where she used to go and watch Jason's father draw.

I sat down beside her. “You liked Pop did you?”
“Very much. It doesn’t seem fair, Jason, that he died so soon after I met him. I danced with him at Howard’s and Mother’s wedding. I was so nervous when he asked me because they were playing a waltz and I was so sure I was going to step on his feet. But he made it easy. I didn’t even have to think about what I was doing. He made it feel like magic.”
“Pop was a good dancer. I can remember when I was little watching him and my mother dance together in our living room. I also remember when they used to go to square dances. He’d wear a cowboy hat and she’d wear this big flared skirt with all these layers of petticoats underneath it.”
“You wrote about that,” Candi said. “’My Mother’s Petticoats.’ It was in your first book. How she would swirl in front of you, fanning you with her skirt and being dissolved in a cyclone of lace.”
I felt humbled. I had actually forgotten that I’d included that poem in my first collection. “You really do know my work better than I do, don’t you?”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Did I get it wrong?”
“No. No. You got it just right. I’m surprised, that’s all. I wish I could remember my work as well as you seem to.”
“I like that poem a lot. The way you describe the air moving so fast around you and you stayed still as a stone, and then how your mother wasn’t even there. Nothing but the moving air and you felt left behind. I kind of know what that feels like. Everybody just comes into your life and goes and it’s like they were never there at all. And if the air didn’t move, you would never know it.” She had it just the way I had meant it when I wrote it. “Aunt Margaret was your mother’s sister?” she asked.
“Yes.”

I like that pooem too. In fact, I wish I'd written it. That's what I mean by character envy.

Peace Day

2009-09-18T10:59:00.003-04:00

Monday, September 21 is the International Day of Peace 2009 (also see the Culture of Peace Initiative site as well as Peace One Day). The Web sites list "Peace Building" events that are going on around the world, from random acts of kindness to concerts to international forums. There are also events on the World Wide Web, on Facebook, and in other networking venues. I plan to spend time on Monday thinking about how I can be a part of peace building. I invite you to join me.

It's a dream worth sharing.

It's a wish worth granting.

Afghanistan: Peace Day 2009

Watch for it

2009-09-11T18:05:00.003-04:00

Watch for the winter issue of The Raintown Review. (I'll let you know when it's actually published.) I got word today they are going to publish my poem "The Writer's Wife," which is in my mind one of my most important poetic works.

And while we're on the subject of watching for it, Pastor Sharon at Dances with God gave me an award a while back. I don't as a rule do awards, though I'm very honored when I get one. And this was a special award so I told her I would do it. I just haven't figured out how yet. But I will. Maybe this weekend. In the meantime, if you haven't met Pastor Sharon, you really should. Why not pay her a visit right now.

Epithalamium

2009-09-10T17:47:00.000-04:00

For L.M on the occasion of his third marriage

Let me sing for my love a song
And my love will cover me with kisses.

Then never stop singing. Let your voice fill the land
with your new bride’s name.
In the morning, sing to her as you make her toast,
spreading marmalade.
At noon, sing to her over cups of chicken soup
brimful with noodles.

Sing to her in malls; sing on the escalators
and in parking lots.
Sing at the counter and tables of fast food chains.

When you buy movie tickets, sing your lover’s name
while you count your change.
Sing in the soft glow of dimly lighted lounges
with fake fires burning.
As the singer on stage sings a final set and
your love sips wine, sing.

Sing on the drive home and as you check locked windows
while she combs her hair.
Sing to her in the rush of passionate embrace.

But give her also days without singing,
for her heart, just as yours,
must hear the splinters of other songs.

Originally published in A Matter of Mind, Foothills Publishing, 2004.
© copyright 2004, 2009 the Grandpa at The Word Mechanic Blog.
All rights reserved

What a difference a couple of words make

2009-09-05T07:44:00.003-04:00

This is actually another sign of the times. Looking for a place to have breakfast in Manchester, NH, I came across the Web site for the Manchester diner:

MANCHESTER

DINER

Many Have Eaten Here, Few Have Died

S pointed out that's not quite as bad as it could be. Just add "Only a" in front of few, and it's no longer just funny. It's a challenge. But, be afraid, be very afraid.

Another sign of the times

2009-09-03T21:26:00.003-04:00

This sign's on a placard in my hotel room here in New Hampshire:

Complimentary
High Speed Internet Access
And Remote Printing

See your desk drawer for details.

Well, I'm looking at it right now, and I've asked repeatedly for details. So far it's been nothing but mute.

As you leave, take a look at the spotlight post. Fantastic Forrest has invited us to join her in an important endeavor.

Bloopers

2009-08-31T17:52:00.004-04:00

It's time to share some of my own writing bloopers. Here's two I made -- among several-- in an article I wrote today. The first one I caught before I sent the article to the editor. The second one I just saw.

1) I was writing about using plug-in timers that turn your lights on and off when you're away on vacation and I wrote:

"Look for timers that have battery backup so they'll still work if there's a power failure."

(I meant so the time would still be accurate.)

2) I just now saw this one:

"Always park your car in the garage with the garage door closed when you are there."

(That sounds dangerous no matter how you read it. I think I meant "Always leave your car in the garage with the garage door closed when you are home.")

10 years ago in Boston

2009-08-30T15:28:00.001-04:00

This is well worth the 10 minutes it takes to watch.

Thinking about the reader

2009-08-29T18:13:00.002-04:00

Here’s the “lead” paragraph from an article for the web I edited the other day:

For some expectant moms, even the slightest ache or pain can trigger a five-star alarm and trip to the doctor, but other pregnant women may well ignore a potentially serious warning sign because they think it is a normal part of pregnancy or they fear of being the girl who cried wolf.

This is from a professional writer with an impressive list of credits, including Woman’s World magazine, Arthritis Today, and the Wall Street Journal. The writer has a graduate degree in journalism, and has won awards for online reporting. I can only assume the writer was having a bad day. (Actually, what I really assumed is that the writer is used to having her work very heavily edited and simply doesn't care.)

That one-sentence paragraph has 52 words and a Flesch-Kincaid grade level of 21.7. And can someone please tell me what a five-star alarm is? I know there is a product called a FiveStar Alarm that can be used to detect levels of dangerous gasses. So the writer may have been trying to use a metaphor, but I don’t think it works. I didn’t know there was such a product until I googled it, and I doubt many readers would know either. But what I really wonder is why a writer for whom English is not a second language would turn in an article with the phrase “they fear of being the girl who cried wolf." All that tells me is the writer didn’t bother to read any of the text before turning it in.

S and I were having dinner a few weeks ago with some close friends who are professional communicators like us, and at one point in the discussion the issue was raised about whether or not every assignment was equally important. J, an editor whose work I especially admire, said, “No, some assignments don’t matter. The job is just to get them out there.” Her point was that if an editor or a reporter treated every piece he or she is working on as if it needed to be perfect, the pieces that did truly matter might never get done.

I tend to agree with J. But that’s because I understand she wasn’t saying that there was any excuse for shoddy craftsmanship from a professional. And it doesn’t excuse a professional communicator for not considering the audience. You put out the best you can in the time you have with the attention it deserves. But if it isn’t clear, if it isn’t accurate, if the language isn’t at least used properly, you don’t present it.

If the writer of the one-sentence paragraph had any concern at all for the readers or for the subject matter, the paragraph might have looked like this:

For some expectant moms, the slightest ache or pain triggers a major alarm and a trip to the doctor’s office. But other pregnant women sometimes ignore a potentially serious warning sign. They may think it’s a normal part of pregnancy. Or they may simply not want to be seen as the girl who cried wolf.

Discovery

2009-08-22T17:18:00.002-04:00

There was a moment when he heard his lover’s voice
And thought he heard a language, that was more language
Than he had ever heard before. Like black granite
Dropping straight to the sea. Like wind on which gulls glide.

Her words were more varied than roses in sunlight,
Than the mottled maple outside his window when
The sky’s light lay parallel to the earth. And why,
He asked, had he not heard it before? Heard only

Filtered expressions of common speech? The next day
In a boat on the lake he listened to the lap
Of waves from a dying wake. Heard a cicada’s
Hum winding in the August air. Watched schooling bass

Churn the water no more than a pole’s reach away.
He lay down, his face to the sun, and tried staring
At it through the mesh in his hat. That night he walked
The concession area past where swimmers splashed

In the afternoon. At the end of the pier, two
Men sat in an anchored boat, their light a halo
On the silent water, and he heard it again.
In their talk, their words like ice on the quiet lake.

Originally published in A Matter of Mind, Foothills Publishing, 2004.
© copyright 2004, 2009 the Grandpa at The Word Mechanic Blog.All rights reserved.

Help Me I'm Reading and I Can't Get Up

2009-08-18T17:35:00.004-04:00

I got a letter yesterday from a credit card company telling me of the changes in my "Credit Card Agreement." First, the letter provided a summary of the three changes. I assumed the intent was to use simpler language than the legalese used in the actual agreement. That way they could help me understand what the changes are. Very nice of them I thought. I do a lot of that same sort of thing for health consumers. That is I assumed it until I read the first summary. It felt like I was swimming in a tub of molasses:

Annual Percentage Rate for Variable Rate Accounts
The index for your account is changing from the Prime Rate. The new index will be the highest three month LIBOR (London Interbank Offer Rate) published in the northeastern edition of The Wall Street Journal in its Money Rates table at any time within the immediately preceding three months, including the month in which the index was determined, rounded up to the nearest one-quarter of a percentage point. As of July 1, 2009, your Margin would be the number of percentage points plus the index which would give you the same APR you now have on Purchases and Balance Transfers. This change is effective on the first day of your billing cycle that begins in April 2010.

They don't really want me to understand what they're doing, do they?

Another sign of the times

2009-08-15T16:24:00.003-04:00

Saw this at the gas station up the road from the house:

Guaranteed Gasoline

As opposed to what? Milk and honey? Everyone knows cars won't run on milk and honey.

My latest publication is now on line

2009-08-11T15:58:00.004-04:00

"Captain Lee" [click here] is now live on line at The Chimera, Issue 6. It's a sonnet sequence and was included as part of their "Feature Theme: poems in well-wrought form." It's the only sonnet sequence in the group.

I hope you spend some time with the e-zine reading the other poetry there as well as mine and then come back and let me know what you think. And I'll be happy to answer any questions about "Captain Lee," that you leave in the comments. It may take a couple of days, though. Our phones aren't working and neither is the DSL, and God Bless AT&T who can't tell me what's wrong or when they'll be fixed -- or even let me talk to a real person instead of their computer.

Don't Worry Be Happy

2009-08-04T16:27:00.004-04:00

I stole this video from the November Sky Poetry blog. Enjoy.

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.

Sound Can Find No Home

2009-08-03T18:12:00.002-04:00

Still, body stripped & blanket draped, you lie
where your final cries rise to mix with sounds
in undulant trees & descend disguised
as August noise. The waning day dies loud
with voice as evening winds laced with smells
of charcoal fires convey laughter from crowds
gathered about a store-front clown, and swells
from a calliope mount toward clouds
drifting in the silent advent of dark.
Sonant waves wash across your heaveless breasts,
but sound can find no home within the stark
confines of your lifeless form. Pulsing crests
pass unheeded, & grief’s urgent sobs die
at your ears. Life’s flood ebbs, returns, flows by.

Originally published in Red Jacket, 1993.
© copyright 2004, 2009 the Grandpa at The Word Mechanic Blog.
All rights reserved.

Another Signs of the Times

2009-08-02T01:02:00.003-04:00

Name on a bakery in South San Francisco

Galli's Sanitary Bakery

I don't even want to guess what that means.

Had no Internet access for the past two days, but had a very close encounter with nature and with my most severe phobia. Will catch up next week.

Leaving Eden but Still Drifting

2009-07-30T09:39:00.005-04:00

We close the gates behind us
today at noon .
Our travels aren't over.
Travels that took us
the last few days to Fairfax,
Occidental,
Healdsburg,
but always returned us to Sebastapol,
to the double wooden gates
at the end of a graveled lane
that open onto Eden.

Last night after the Sonoma County Fair,
we ate dinner in an Italian restaurant
at Railroad Square in Santa Rosa.
Today we'll have lunch
with my son and his family
to say goodbye
and to be with
our youngest granddaughter
one more time before driving to Jenner
on the coast and up Route 1 to Timber Cove
to an inn that sits on a cliff above the ocean.

When we get back to Atlanta,
I'll paint what I've seen
and let Eden infuse my days.

The house we've been staying in is at the end of a gravel lane. The property backs up to a state park, and there is a vineyard bordering the north side of the property. The land has an olive grove that the owners harvest to make their own olive oil each year. There are apple trees, peach trees, pear and plum trees, fig trees, walnut trees, and one lemon tree. The grounds are surrounded by blackberry bushes with the most lush blackberries I've ever tasted. There are flower gardens, rose trellises, a vegetable garden surrounded by huge lavender and rosemary bushes. Aside from Hawaii, it is the most Eden like setting I have ever been in. And everywhere you drive, it is more of the same.

This has been a time to just let go of schedules, of deadlines, of angst over whether or not we are doing the right things with our lives or over why we aren't doing the things we know we should be doing. It's been a good week, and there are a few days left, and I intend to enjoy them.

Gray Sonoma Morning

2009-07-28T12:12:00.004-04:00

waiting to eat a second breakfast
with my granddaughter
it's overcast, not the typical fog
that rolls in from the ocean overnight
and obscures all but the hint
of an outline of hills
behind the olive trees
then burns off and lets
the sun come through

the fog is gone now
as it always is by this time

I can clearly see the field
and the hills with their foliage
but the crystal clear air
is chilled and filled with random
drops of condensation
and the sky is still grey
I've photographed the grove
and the hills behind
in as many different lights as I could
and I've stood or sat
just looking from the deck
to lock the various shades of light
and the olive trees
with the shivering silver
of their green leaves
inside my mind so that later
when I look I can see
what the photo doesn't show

it's grey this morning
a quiet calming peaceful grey
the quail
still walk along the edge of the yard
and through the bushes
behind the garden
the roses still stretch
up from the porch
as if pointing at the sky
where yesterday I saw
an eagle and three hawks
and last night
as I did the night before
I saw
through the front room window
two stars
rising above the eastern horizon
to shine brightly
through the distant trees

Still adrift in California

2009-07-27T10:57:00.004-04:00

dancing before breakfast
and then the farmer's market in Sebastapol
coming away with fresh caught wild salmon
and baskets of tomatoes
eggs benedict market style for lunch
market style=no ham or bacon
spinach with sundried tomato pesto instead
then a visit to screaming mimi's ice cream
the hottest spot in town
for a taste of local strawberries
an afternoon of photos
and a set of new acrylic paints
red headed woodpecker in the tree outside the window
that evening planked honey mustard salmon
and roasted corn on the cob
home made pesto and summer squash
market tomatoes
and ice cream with
the sweetest blackberries I've ever tasted
all made sweeter by family
summer in Sonoma County

California drifitn', back next week

2009-07-26T11:02:00.006-04:00

adrift in Northern California
enjoying a private Edenic retreat
listening to Bob Marley's One Love
on S's play list
contemplating generations
and anticipating the soft sweetness
of the freshly picked blackberries
I plan to add to my next pot
of Twinings green tea

a rather disjointed post

2009-07-20T19:15:00.005-04:00

My favorite NPR (National Public Radio) program is This American Life. Sunday night I was listening to it -- I know, I should have been on the blog reading all of your fantastic posts, but it was This American Life -- which is a collection of stories and this week's topic was fear of sleep.

The first story was about sleep walking and doing things when you did that could kill you. It happened to Mike Birbiglia, a comedian who told the story at a club called The Moth. You can access the club Web site here.

It would be worth your time to spend some of it on both of the sites linked above. But that's not what this post is about. Ira Glass, the host of This American Life, does very insightful commentary about the stories and the story tellers. When Birbiglia's story ended he gave background on the comedian and the club and concluded with the statement "Catch him before he becomes too famous." So I'm sharing him with you. But that's still not the point.

I've met a lot of people in the Blogosphere. And I've made a lot of friends. And I watch them become more and more famous. And they still say "hey" to me. That's good. The Blogosphere is a place to catch people before they become too famous. That's the point. I'm glad I'm here. because I'm glad you're here.

I'm standing up for my writing

2009-07-17T16:51:00.008-04:00

Literally.

I have some kind of sciatic nerve problem, or at least that's what the physician's assistant thought it was yesterday. It's aggravated by sitting at my desk, partly because I don't have good chair poster when I'm leaning over the keyboard working. After about an hour or so, my leg begins to hurt enough to make me very uncomfortable, and after about another hour, I can't bear to sit there any longer. The only thing that helps is to stand up and walk around. So I started last week standing at the kitchen counter to work when it got bad.

Last weekend I had to work both Saturday and Sunday, and I thought why even bother to sit down? So I used some wire shelving we have to hold my laptop and stood the whole day each day while I worked. I also found that in addition to my leg not hurting, standing let me think a little more clearly about what I was writing. Whenever I got stuck, I just walked around in a little circle and by the time I got back to the keyboard, the words I needed were there. So I kept standing all week long.

Yesterday when I saw the PA and she was giving me some exercises to do, she suggested that I should try to stand to work. (I told her that usually I could hardly stand to work, but I don't think she got it. So I just said OK.)

A few months ago I was working on an article about physical activity and I came across a research study that focused on the benefits of standing as opposed to sitting. It turns out that people who do their job mainly sitting (like bus drivers, for instance) have a tendency to die sooner than people who stand more. We all know about the value of exercise, but this was true even with low level physical activity. So maybe pain is not such a bad thing after all.

Here's the first draft of a poem I did today after coming across some notes I'd made for an essay. Too early to tell whether I like it or not, but I thought I'd share it.

The running of the ideas (first draft)

When the gates were opened for the running
of ideas, three men were trampled at the start.
Two more scrambled over the walls that lined
the street. And only the bravest stayed in front,
shouting the whole way, cheered on by rabble
leaning from the balconies above
and smiling critics -- middle-aged women and men
holding dry martinis, drinking rum.

At the ring the crowd roared as the first idea--
proud, brave, and very strong--gored the rider's
mount and threw the rider to the ground.

No one could slow him. No one could tire him,
until the bravest fighter of them all
stood before him and with his cape and grace
took pass after pass and brought him to his knees.

The crowd chanted its approval. They'd seen
a work of art. And the idea, its hind legs
lashed to the horse, was, without dignity
and without ears, dragged from the dusty ring.

© copyright 2009 the Grandpa at The Word Mechanic Blog.
All rights reserved

The poet in me is a recluse

2009-07-15T21:16:00.001-04:00

He doesn't want to be. He just withdraws.