Monthly Archives: August 2014

Wise Thoughts Unsaid and Unremembered

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Wise Thoughts Unsaid and Unremembered

The perfect reply that I hadn’t yet thought of
but figured out later? I have had a lot of;
but the problem is that now they still can’t be gotten,
for though once I had them, I now have forgotten!

It’s true.  Great retorts are jewels in the crown,
but truer that one has to write them all down!
And it’s best that you write them down lickety-splickly,
for though they come slowly, they seem to go quickly!


The Prompt:  We’ve all had exchanges where we came up with the perfect reply—ten minutes too late. Tell us what it was, being sure to sign off with your grand slam unused zinger!

My Promoter

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The Prompt: You, Robot—You’ve been handed a robot whose sole job is to relieve you of one chore, job, or responsibility you particularly hate. What is it?

                                                                        My Promoter

Since Ray Bradbury wrote of one in “There Will Come Soft Rains,”
the list of things robots can do seems to have made great gains.
Some are made to wash our hair. Others shave our heads.
They build our houses, clean our floors and even make our beds.
I grant that it is handy that there’s one that scoops dog poop,
and one to stop our snoring, another to cook soup.
Lonely? One shoots billiards and perhaps it lets you win;
but do not gamble with it, for I hear it cheats at gin.
It’s great that there’s a robot that lifts patients out of bed,
but since I am still mobile, I have other needs instead.
I want a robot that can read and surf the internet
to send out my submissions and to guarantee I’ll get
an agent and a publisher to dispense all my writing
and send it to reviewers so my words they would be citing!
Send it out to libraries, to Amazon and Kindles.
Keep track of my royalties so there would be no swindles.
In short, I want a robot that will publicize and fight
so all this writer has to do is write and write and write.

As far-fetched as these robots sound, they are all based on reality.  For more information, go to: http://mentalfloss.com/article/30898/10-robots-very-specific-tasks

 

If I Followed the Wandering Poet

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If I Followed the Wandering Poet

Who cares
if I swim naked in my pool?
All other human occupants
have left this neighborhood behind,
leaving more room
for possums, skunks,
birds, scorpions, spiders
and me.

I keep a closer company with them
than I do with any human these days.
Weeks ago, it was the orb weaver spider
who filled my mind,
but this week, I talk to the large caterpillar
with one rear antenna on his tail
as he sits for a day on the Olmec head
that guards my swimming pool.
Back and forth, back and forth I pass,
adding a look at him to my lap routine.
For one long afternoon,
he sits still—like Alice’s caterpillar,
but hookah-less,
meditating in this gray place.
If he were on my Virginia Creeper,
I’d be repositioning him
to the empty lot next door, but here
he seems to be a guest; and so some etiquette
keeps me from altering his placement
as he sits on stone, moving his suction cups in sequence
now and then only to alter his direction, not his place.

Recently,
I question if I’ve stayed too long
in this one place.
Is there something else
I may yet do?
So if you are a wandering poet
and you have a place you think I need to go,
please write of it
in the way you do best
and tell me why I have to go there.
And if you create a good argument and a better poem,
I will go to that place in much the same way
that I have come to this point
in my poem.
Blindly.
Open to what comes next.

This is neither a love poem nor a singles ad. It was prompted by a blog site called “The Wandering Poet” that I recently read. I think I commented, and then as I was ready to leave his/her blog, I caught sight of the “Follow” button. The phrase “follow the wandering poet” got stuck in my mind, leading to “If I followed the wandering poet” and this poem. The challenge is real. I will pick up and go to any place that any poet, male or female, makes irresistible by means of a poem. (Be kind. Choose nothing less for me than the best place on earth you know of. I, by the way, will do the same for you if you wish. Judy)

P.S.: Thanks, Wandering Poet. If I forgot to select “follow,” I’ll do it next time.

I will never cease being amazed at the incredible capacities of the human mind, because three days ago, I wrote the above poem for reasons explained above and the next morning I woke up repeating the lyrics “I will make you fishers of men, fishers of men, fishers of men.  I will make you fishers of men, if you follow me.” (an old Sunday School song I haven’t thought of for 50 years). Now this morning I woke up with the song lyrics, ‘I will follow him, follow him wherever he may go” running through my mind, only to go on the WordPress site to discover that the prompt for today was: Opening Lines—What’s the first line of the last song you listened to (on the radio, on your music player, or anywhere else)? Use it as the first sentence of your post.

All three days, “Follow” has seemed to be the prompt running through my mind and so I guess it is time to publish this poem, conceived of even before I’d heard today’s prompt!!!!

Rum Dumb

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Rum Dumb

Beer is tacky. Wine’s a joke.
My preference is Rum and Coke.
Squeeze a lime in. Take a sip
to cool your throat and wet your lip.
My favorite form of inebriation
is always Cuba Libre-ation.

The Prompt: Pick Your Potion—What’s your signature beverage — and how did it achieve that status?      http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/pick-your-potion/

Money Optional

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The Prompt: Work? Optional!—If money were out of the equation, would you still work? If yes, why, and how much? If not, what would you do with your free time?

Since I am already retired and spend most of my day making art and writing, I guess my answer is yes. I do it because I feel it is my reason for living and without that work, life seems to lose its importance. I do it because it forces me to look closer and to think more deeply. I do it pretty much every minute I’m not sleeping. Really, I always did what I wanted to do without taking into consideration what would sell and that still seems to be the case since I’m not getting wealthy on what I do, but I swore when I retired that I would stop doing all those parts of making art that I hated: the applying for shows, the promotion, the pictures, the resumes, the mailing lists. Now I just enjoy the creation and if I am sending them out to an unaccepting universe, nonetheless, I’m having the experience of creating, which any serious writer or artist will tell you is  the most important part and why we really do what we do.

Today is my 221st post, and since it is a short one, please scroll back and read an earlier post you haven’t read before and if you have the time, please comment. 

For instance, if you’d like to know why I ended up in Mexico, read this: Foreign Tongues or, if you want a love story with a happy ending, read this: The Ballad of Poor Molly.

Thank you for reading my blog.  Although yes, I do it for myself, I can’t help but feel gratified when others find what I write to be of consequence or enjoyable.  Judy

Let There Be Light

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Let There Be Light


My mind is a growling dog.
While I stew and fuss,
fulfilling lists,
she jumps the screendoor,
beckoning.
Rude me, to turn my back
on the only playmate
who wants to play
the same games I do
every day, every hour,
because I fear that initial
plodding through silt
page after page
in search of the stream
of words.

Sometimes boredom
yawns so wide
that I have to enter it,
to wander its inner closet
where for decades
only cobwebs
have stirred.
In some dark corner
where I spank the dog
or search the bedside table drawers
of a lover called out at midnight,
I find the river’s source,
but then
the phone
rings and I’m off
gathering crumbs from a forest path,
leaving lost children
stranded in their own story.

Stray puppies—I collect every one,
wild orange funnel flowers
and guava
washed in an afternoon kitchen
just before the invasion
of five o’clock sunlight.
All of them I carry back
to hidden places
to rub against each other
and ignite
into the language of this place
where life goes in,
plays dress-up,
but emerges
nude,
like poetry.

 

The Prompt: Is there a cause — social, political, cultural, or other — you passionately believe in? Tell us how you got involved . The cause I most believe in is getting in touch with your authentic and true inner voice.  This is what I do when I write. Would that more people involved in making decisions that will alter our world would do so. This poem is really about the creative process where, when done right, there is only truth. It is also about all the things that get in the way of this process.

Tunnelled

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The Prompt: Tunnel Vision—You’ve been given the ability to build a magical tunnel that will quickly and secretly connect your home with the location of your choice — anywhere on Earth. Where’s the other end of your tunnel?

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The Tunnel

Wave after wave for watching and sand for walking on—
always in the darkness, just before the dawn.
It’s not the sun I’m looking for or surfing or for fishing.
A flat and quiet walk each morning is what I am wishing.

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I exercise by bending to see that special stone
the sea has freshly churned up, just for me alone.
Arrangements of sea weed, coral and a shell
create what is beautiful–not merely what will sell.

All of them are beautiful, exactly where they land—
perfectly arranged as by some artist’s hand.
Is it design or accident? The argument still rages,
removing us from this free place and putting us in cages.

It matters not who made it and matters less the reason.
Believe in God if that’s your thing, but doubting is not treason.
It is enough to have this place that I am drawn back to
winter after winter, to memorize the view.

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I fill up all my pockets with sticks and stones and  sand—
a tiny brittle  seahorse carried in my hand.
Gathering my treasures before the sun appears,
for all the sadnesses of life, my payment in arrears.

If I’d a magic tunnel to carry me away
to any place I wished for, for an hour or a day,
the beach is where I’d always go, the choice for me is easy—
before the sun is fully out, it’s shaded and it’s breezy.

My skin is pale and colorless.  It welcomes not the sun.
So when the fiery orb appears, my beach combing is done.
I can retreat onto the porch to ponder and observe
the menu that the day serves up—my visual hors d’oeuvre.

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To rearrange the treasures the sea has given me,
to fasten down forever what recently was free.
For art is just our method of sharing what we feel
and trying to communicate the things we know are real.

I am not talented with brush or clay or bronze or wood.
But when I was still tiny, I discovered that I could
rearrange whatever came within my grasp
and make a little tableaux that made my family gasp.

I’d sneak into the bathroom , to the medicine chest
and rearrange the bottles in the way that I found best.
My father would protest in vain to please leave his alone,
for I kept my eye peeled like a mongrel’s on a bone;
and if he moved a bottle or a razor from its place,
extreme agitation was written on my face.

So now that I am grown up and I can freely travel,
I can arrange lovely things in ways that don’t unravel.
I can glue down elements once I rearrange them
so no errant viewer can pick them up and change them.

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For Mother Nature’s hand is vast.  She has a billion fingers
for picking up and placing things, but then she never lingers
to insure they stay in place, for this she has no reason.
Those billion fingers rearrange season after season.

Every second, every day, she can continue freeing
all the things she has arranged—it is her reason for being.
But for mortals  with two hands and with less renown
It becomes important to try to pin things down.

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And so although my efforts may often seem absurd,
to fasten down each object, to write down every word;
it’s proof here of my being.  Evidence I am.
Part of me an artist, the other part a ham.

I want to be noticed.  Want for you to hear.
Want to be remembered when I’m no longer here.
I want to build a tunnel through poetry or art
so you can visit anytime what once was in my heart.
I may change by tomorrow. I will not always be.
But what I have created might live after me.

 (To see some more of my beachwalk assemblages, please click on this link:  Assemblages)

Woodstock Redux Redux : The Watchers

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To understand the below poem, which was written to a prompt from okcfogottenman (who wanted me to address the subject of the broken tree limb) you need first to read my Woodstock Poem

Woodstock Redux Redux : The Watchers

Jimi and Janice sitting in a tree.
K-I-S-S-I-N-G.
Janice got so carried away
that the limb began to sway.
And though spirits don’t weigh much,
not so the limb that they both they clutch.
So as they vanished into vapors,
I felt the aftermath of their capers.
When the branch came crashing down,
It barely missed my fragile crown.
Lucky these greats of rock and roll
Didn’t have me as their goal.
If I’d been better at voice or guit,
that tree limb might have scored a hit,
and I’d be playing at the pearly gate
with other greats who’ve met their fate.
With tie-die halos above our hair,
We’d stage a heavenly Woodstock there!

Misspoken

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Drive-in Movie

My sister’s ex was one of those guys who aimed to impress.  From his baby blue Corvette Sting Ray to his multicolored shag carpet in his late-sixties/early-seventies “cool” apartment, he aimed to be smooth.  One night, we decided to go to the drive-in but didn’t know what was playing.  In this pre-computer era, there was just one solution to this.  He called the theater.  My sister was in the bathroom putting on her makeup and I had just arrived to pick them up; but from my location just inside the front door and hers in the bathroom, we both clearly heard him as he asked the question that quickly joined the annals of family history in the best gaffe category:  “Pardon me,” he said in his best “cool” voice.  “Can you tell me what time the next teacher farts?”

The Prompt: Uncanned Laughter—A misused word, a misremembered song lyric, a cream pie that just happened to be there: tell us about a time you (or someone else) said or did something unintentionally funny.

Wood Stalked (at the 45th Anniversary of Woodstock Celebration) August 16, 2014, Ajijic, Mexico

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The Prompt: Take a look at your bookcase. If you had enough free time, which book would be the first one you’d like to reread? Why?  My answer:  I would read Woodstock: Three Days that Rocked the World, and also dust off my Mastering the Tarot and I Ching books. For the reason why, please read below!

Wood Stalked
(at the “45th Anniversary of Woodstock” Celebration)
August 16, 2014, Ajijic, Mexico

45 years after Woodstock, all the hippies came back out to play
as the old folks all pulled out their tie-dye and folded their spandex away.
When we entered they gave us a name tag. Is this how they did it back then?
Did Janis consent to a name tag with her name neatly written in pen?
We sat in the shade at a table most far from the music by choice.
Regretting its decibel level and regretting its lack of a voice.
No Arlo, no Jimi, no Creedence. No Richie or Ravi Shankar.
Somehow I fear that the music was certainly quite under par.
I brought out the I Ching and Tarot. I thought it fit in with the age.
It had been a long time since such pastimes were considered to be all the rage.
Though I read off the Tarot to one friend and threw the I Ching with one more,
the party we got here at three for still hadn’t started by four.
Most had made a great effort with Afros or falls of long hair,
yet nobody ended up naked. Nobody ended up bare.
Most people sported a peace sign and many had felt tip tattoos;
and though no one lined up for the dance floor, everyone lined up for booze.
By five, thanks to fruit margaritas of mango or kiwi or cherry
the band began sounding much better and the vocalist sounded like Jerry!
Most folks flooded onto the dance floor to gyrate in front of the band
while I still remained at our table, arranging a new Tarot hand.
I dealt out the ten cards correctly after asking the question I wished—
willing to read my life’s menu of whatever providence dished.
My cards did not read as I wished them. They did not turn out to my taste.
Yet the final card said I’d be lucky, though I fear that I viewed it in haste.
As a crack split the air up above us and I heard a great crash on the ground,
Everyone looked up from tables to see what had made such a sound.
Then people began to rush over and I, too, looked in back of me
to discover a huge branch had fallen from the very top part of our tree.
The branch that had fallen was heavy as a twenty foot branch may well be,
and this branch that had fallen just seconds ago had gone down only inches from me!
If I had been two inches nearer, I probably would now be dead,
for the branch that came down in such furor must have passed just that close to my head!!!
I folded the Tarot cards up then and tucked my I Ching coins away.
I’d had all the luck that I needed, for I had survived one more day.

(For an Addendum to this poem, go Here.)

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