Think about it

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

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

"I drink champagne."

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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?

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

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

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

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

So what has changed?

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

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

And this is the team that makes it so.

Just because

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

The Writer’s Wife

“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.

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

My brother sent me the link for this. Enjoy.