crowsperch

Truth/Lie

2011-09-25T11:52:00.000-07:00

I wont deny that i watch enough television to rush through the commercials on my TIVO. But the amount of times that I see advertisements that boldly claim truths and in small print deny or lie. To make matters worse the small print is not held long enough on the small screen to read the "fine print." I have become so used to it ie hypnotized by this speed to move on to the show I'm watching that I should be numb. But I have this quirk that makes me have to decide (we all have this and can use it if you are not asleep) and complain that this advertising especially for seniors (count me as one) is scary. The boldness to even announce the bad results for drugs that might kill someone or make the cure worse than the disease makes me think that another step has been taken in blinding people because: I've got this and I want a pill to stop it. Or the banks that tell you good news but the word Restrictions is in the fine print. We sign papers to buy a home (if we can nowadays) or a car. And that Caveat to read those details. We can't even start on the small screen. So ask questions just because they say they will be helpful and we should trust them is not enough. Go to you bank talk one on one, the same with your doctor. Television is good for many things but not to impart truths to those who need them most.

Doppelganger

2011-08-17T15:48:00.001-07:00

I was reminded that I have not written here for quite awhile. So a quick update. I got divorced and moved to Seattle and some healing. My latest book Tell them that you saw me but you didn't see me saw is being published by Moon Pie Press at the end of the month. Two pieces below about my Doppelganger Two Flags.

Back When

Two flags woke up next to the evangelical church. Above him the sign read: Praise God in all situations! He remembers laughing at that sign earlier, thinking, there are lots of things god might do, like the prophet Elisah showing his backside and God was a whirlwind. Dusting off his blue jeans making it look like a ritual and not wakeup on the street. Two Flags tried to reconstruct the night before; he had been drinking, not alone, thank you, but they were strangers. The bar was on a strip in downtown Portland, next to Chinatown. He had family here for a long time. He could recollect the interim of belches from Mount St. Helens, as he and his girl walked the Grotto. The elevator to the saints and the rosary laid out by someone in the sky. Those roses a relief in their smells from sinners that wander the park.

Dr. Two Flags
When Two Flags that grasshoppers were going to swarm east of the mountains, he took out his Hopewell pipe (shaped like a bear) and puffed Borkin Riff and blessed the six ways. Grasshoppers have a cycle and they know how to party thought Two Flags. He’d been among them, even took a shovel and pounded the ground missing as many as he could, and saying “sorry brother” if he hit a few.
The garage he lived in, in Lake City had a yearly infestation of caterpillars lining one sided like a velvet yellow rug. The trees to the south had nests holding leaves and branches in a funny death. Taking his broom he’d sweep the a swath he could reach and stop knowing this is not a renters job. Getting up early and walking outside with coffee he could look at what he didn’t own. His place in Yakima was his domicile, sweat lodge, bar, love shack. His friend JC was keeping an eye on it while Two Flags worked to get enough money to pay utilities. He would borrow the electricity and put his hose on another’s faucet when necessary. That seemed like always.
He lived in a two car garage; two very tiny cars. But he liked two! Plumed for a shower and toilet. All the furniture was the owners except a TV with rabbit ears. It was not cable ready but he would grab his crotch and shout: “I’m cable ready!” His work at Children’s Hospital was moving trash and staying out of the way and pretending to understand his Philippine super. His bus was like a golden pass and he has more scrubs than a surgeon.

Doppelganger

2011-08-17T15:47:00.000-07:00

2011-08-17T15:42:00.001-07:00

Cynthia & Nick's Wedding

2010-10-15T13:54:00.000-07:00

My daughter got married October 3rd. Here is a slide show.

href="http://smilebox.com/play/4d546b314e7a45334e6a68384d7a51784d5463304e544d3d0d0a&sb=1

Taos New Mexico last year

2010-09-25T12:50:00.000-07:00

In cleaning up my work area I ran across this piece.

When uncle Napoleon stopped eating peas on a knife with honey, he appeared in a village on the way to Taos. I should say I met him again for the first time. He knew the stories and that was enough for me. He used a willow switch to point out history on his covered porch wall. His back broken he moved using his swivel chair as pigeons flew around the enclosure. A walking stick appears, 'I make them' he says. He gave us homemade maps and hi-lited them with pink marker. He repeated a phrase: 'this road is not that long, you are not lost, stay on it.' God had spoken that to me years ago on a bridge; 'stay the course.' This new uncle Napoleon sang a Penetenta song in Spanish. I closed my eyes to listen, when he was done he said: 'you can wakeup.' A trickster sense of humor. When we left he said' come back again and bring your son and pretty daughter. We never told him we had children. His name was: Napoleon Garcia.

2010-08-06T14:45:00.001-07:00

movie

2010-07-17T11:48:00.001-07:00

Shopping around my poetry book

2010-06-19T10:10:00.000-07:00

I have been sending out query letters to universities about my latest book: Tell them that you saw me but didn't see me saw. There are a couple of poems with pictures on my blog from the book. My dream is to get the book published by a University Press in one of the Dust Bowl states and read my poems in each state leading to California as these courageous people did. I am going on a workshop weekend to Port Townsend to do a little art and then our Delmore Family reunion on Whidbey Island. I am giving a talk on story as it pertains to family. A new poem to enjoy below.

Louisiana

I named her Louisiana
A rambling girl, a bigger
Purchase I could have never got.
She had many a spat; tit for tat
Katrina the latest tussle.
Mass exit makes for mass entrance
Musicians leadin the pack.
Streets pour with water. The occasional
Sofa or love seat blisters every alley.
She’s pretty, my Louisiana; that ninth ward
Like a cancer, should have been examined
Sooner or been more honest when she was
Probed.
I see my Louisiana on TV its superdome
Like a tiara tossed. But she comes back
Dressed and sweats for the next event.
That’s my girl.

Amazon.com: a poultice for belief: Books

2010-05-23T17:07:00.000-07:00

Amazon.com: a poultice for belief: Books

Catching Up

2010-05-14T17:19:00.000-07:00

I finished reading an essay a few weeks ago called poetry by concession. It was from a book which I just got from Amazon yesterday titled: The selected writings of Juan Ramon Jimenez. This essay touched a lot of things that I feel in my craft of poetry. I put a quote of his on my e-mail. Here is a quote of his: one is a poet not because one writes poetry, but because one is "an abstract dancer," someone whose "eyes are not turned outward but within oneself." The poem below was written in Minnesota after visiting my grandparents. It is the first time seeing that site. Hinkely, Minnesota.

The Grandparents Grave

For Linda & Kim

The gate was a pull
A hedge made it so.
Walking the precipice
Of this life; committed
To finding their grave.

Red marble- square among green
And so serene.
Footsteps among the supine.
Relatives don’t sit in cloister
Like the “Our Town” line
Preaching among the dead.

We voice the history
Ineffable as it may be
Like voicing an abandoned organ-
Pipes bent and rusted, yellow keyed
Stops left open.

In death there is no punch
Of bare-knuckled fighters
Or swigging rock gut.

The story, the Irish line
That is what outlives all.

Poems Mailed

2010-02-28T16:09:00.000-08:00

I sent my latest book off to AWP Writers contest yesterday. I asked my friend Jenny to look over the poems (she is an amazing editor) and I added enough to get the minimum, of 48 + 1 poems so I keep working on my DL Project and other poems that come my way.
I am also reading Corn by Paul Engle written around the same time that Dorthea Lange was photographing farmers. I am reading John Steinbeck's Travels with Charlie. You thought I would say Grapes of Wrath didn't you. Also A Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich. I think she is one of the best writers out there.

2010-02-13T09:21:00.000-08:00

So much writing is done on emotion. I read about writers and how that have a schedule or a goal for each day. For a long time I tried this to emulate others who are so successful in this craft. This of course hides what my style is and creates guilt when I fail at "their" craft. I have my highs and lows as a writer but never fail to get something written. Having three books of poetry and several individual poems published says something of how I work. I am advocating for the individual style that all writers must find to FLOW.

My Dorthea Lange Project went on hold for awhile. I would look at her photos and nothing would come. I began to think I need to go back and choose a different set. Yesterday I looked at this one photo below and these simple yet powerful words came to me. I think of Gwendolen Brooks: We Real Cool Poem, http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/we-real-cool/ not to compare but to remind that short poems can be powerful. Taking It Easy

   We done work.
   Work done us.
   We done lean.

New Poems

2010-01-31T15:03:00.000-08:00

When mom smoked

She used a filter

Of black & silver.

The distance

From mouth to menthol

Was her intake.

This was style

A mirror to advertising-

Grace with a cigarette

Plugged in. WE

Who inhaled such exhaust

Were sickened years later

By that wand that coughs

In our memory.

David slew Goliath

That power moved through him.

David loved his Solomon, his king.

That love was a dance of weapons and music.

The obvious crown rolled like a rutted wheel

To and fro- subservience to royalty.

That spinning was playful with a dose of jealously.

David as king loved his women

Sending spouses to battle while he

Had his way. That power was seduction.

God’s law was his aura as his body plowed

The air with proclamations. That rule was hypnotic.

David’s musical talents went beyond the lyre-

Women moaned in lust and men wailed in cries

Of war, allegiance.

As old Solomon would split a child for equality

God’s favor he could not balance.

That was inconsistency for a king like David.

Chairman Mao’s Impromptu Visit

Chairman Mao got off the bus today

Dressed in shorts and hoodie.

Looking much like a round faced woman.

Holding a laptop, no red book,

No star on cap. The distance was palatable.

No visible guards. He did not wave or talk

The peoples talk.

Cameras did not flash as they did

When shaking hands with an over coated

Nixon on the Great Wall.

I counted the group around him

But it never added to nine-

More sometimes less, but no gang.

This impromptu stop, his only

Visit to

America

, is all the more

Bizarre since he’s been dead for so long.

2010-01-28T16:21:00.001-08:00

2010-01-13T15:55:00.001-08:00

2010-01-01T10:35:00.001-08:00

Stick Poet Super Hero: Best Poetry Blogs: A Baker's Dozen: Poetry Blogs Help Poets Expand the Horizons of Their Art | Suite101.com

2009-12-15T16:16:00.000-08:00

Stick Poet Super Hero: Best Poetry Blogs: A Baker's Dozen: Poetry Blogs Help Poets Expand the Horizons of Their Art | Suite101.com

2009-12-10T15:41:00.001-08:00

update

2009-12-07T15:58:00.000-08:00

It was 20 degrees when I went to work this morning. Walking Nell my leash hand froze! So my feet will soon be next to the heater. We decorated for Christmas last night. the old homestead looks great. Gwen put together our Christmas card on Saturday. I went to the thrift store and found another book I don't need but for $2.00. I also found a small picture frame and a cheap shelf to put nik naks on. I have completed 10 poems DL Project on my latest book and have matched pictures up with them with staples so I don't lose the hard copies. I am also collecting news items from 1939.

2009-11-16T16:46:00.001-08:00

I am an
Echinacea

What Flower
Are You?

~ Wendell Berry ~

2009-11-15T07:01:00.001-08:00

The Real Work

It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings.

~ Wendell Berry ~

Dorthea Lange Project

2009-11-14T08:32:00.000-08:00

I have not added anything for over a month. That surprises me since I was diligent for a good while. I have about seven poems completed on my next book. Dorthea Lange Project that is the working title right now. Trying to put my thoughts and words into this historic photos as I read about the history and think of my parents who lived through that period as a young married couple. I just finished a book called the Weed Patch School to gain incite to the Oakies that moved to California for that "better life" Below is a poem I construed from words about the depression from several books.

Half a Dance Wages

Ten cents a dance-

That’s what they pay me.

Twenty-five cents an hour

For cotton.

Ten cents a dance-

That’s what they pay me.

One dollar per ton of peaches.

Ten cents a dance-

That’s what they pay me.

Thirty-five cents an hour

For plums.

Ten cents a dance-

That’s what they pay me.

Twenty cents an hour

For potatoes.

Ten men for every job-

I’d settle for five cents

A day.

Gosh, how they weigh me down!

Philip Booth

2009-10-08T16:30:00.000-07:00

Philip Booth"Writing poems is not a career but a lifetime of looking into, and listening to, how words see."

Poets on Poetry: Carl Sandburg | Blotting paper

2009-10-07T18:43:00.000-07:00

Poets on Poetry: Carl Sandburg Blotting paper: Poetry is the journal of the sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air. Poetry is a search for syllables to shoot at the barriers of the unknown and the unknowable. Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away.
Source: Unknown"

Poets on Poetry: Karl Shapiro | Blotting paper

2009-10-07T18:39:00.000-07:00

Poets on Poetry: Karl Shapiro Blotting paper: "Karl ShapiroPoetry is a separate language. It’s a language in which you never really come to the point. You’re always at an angle.
Source: Unknown"

Praise

2009-10-06T16:12:00.000-07:00

Flannery O'Connor wrote about Caroline Gordon: "You walk through her stories like you are walking in a complete real world. And watch how the meaning comes from the things themselves and not from her imposing anything."

The Cycle of Writing

2009-10-03T11:55:00.000-07:00

I have been looking at much photography of Dorthea Lange of late. She speaks to me as i look at what she has taken pictures of. I have written a couple of poems about her photograph's and will include one of them here. I have marked the pictures I want to write about and have been looking listensing to songs/lyrics from the thirties. This has been enough to start me seeing that another book is underway.

Dorthea Lange Photo

My Hemingway Man 1939
For Jenny

The dress I did not wear
Matters little, for now.
Jim, shirtless- my young
Hemingway man, flexes
His security number across
His bicep.

He makes me kiss
Those digits each night
As tobacco smoke dissipates
On his chest hairs.
When Jim leaves
I’ll put on the hanging dress-
My style shines like the pot
To my right.

A Poultice For Belief

2009-09-26T06:29:00.000-07:00

My latest book came out this week and it is beautiful. It will be available soon on Amazon.com. If you read my blog and find my book leave a blurb at Amazon.

Thoughts

2009-09-20T06:08:00.000-07:00

I see that my blog is full of quotes and my Cool Papa Bell photo/myth. But I have far from abandoned my poetry. My energy is going into transfromative art. I see a figurine that is broken and I must complete it with a bit of crow/raven bits. Above the computer is a bookend of a monk reading. His missing foot has been replaced by a crow foot. A white Greek figurine I found at a thrift store (10% off for helping to lift a piece of furniture onto a truck) has got raven wings and a splash of white that i noticed on a crow while at work this week. I have seen other crows with this splosh of color but as with the muse why now does it show up and say now is the time. I mailed my latest book of poetry off to Red Hen Press, for a poetry contest. I did my usual send a copy by dropping it in the wrong ie. metered mail and not writing Attn. to the specific contest. I called the press and never heard back and it wasn't returned so my awkward method of posting mail continues.

Alberto Álvaro Ríos

2009-09-18T13:56:00.000-07:00

"He said: 'The worst thing a writer can do is to think. The best thing to do is to react, which includes thinking but doesn't let it act as an impediment or a censor. When you read something, you think something — write that down. That's what I'm always trying to do.'"

Philip Schultz Poet, quote

2009-09-10T18:36:00.000-07:00

"To not fear being vulnerable. Vulnerability as human beings is a necessary ingredient of their work. Strengths in their writing come out of that."

2009-09-07T11:26:00.000-07:00

I have been doing some altered art; taking postcards and changing them for my enjoyment. adding a little myth to the picture. This one of Cool Papa Bell caught my eye at a thrift store. I could see putting a crow wing on it and the words below.

The Fall of Icarus
From a painting of
The same title
By Bruegel the Elder

Icarus fell into ordinary time.
His drama transported by wings
Overseeing the routine below.
A farmer plowing
A sheepherder herding
One walking a path.
Of this triad
One looked skyward
Maybe he heard Icarus’
Father screaming-
Another looked to his flock
A drop of wax on fleece
Possibly.

The third man saw the splash
Legs thrashing- defective wings
Anchoring the boy into the nonporous
Surf.

ARTnews

2009-09-05T08:37:00.000-07:00

ARTnews

Loren Eisley

2009-09-03T17:06:00.000-07:00

He wrote: "Sometimes of late years I find myself thinking the most beautiful sight in the world might be the birds taking over New York after the last man has run away to the hills. I will never live to see it, of course, but I know just how it will sound because I've lived up high and I know the sort of watch birds keep on us. I've listened to sparrows tapping tentatively on the outside of air conditioners when they thought no one was listening, and I know how other birds test the vibrations that come up to them through the television aerials. 'Is he gone?' they ask, and the vibrations come up from below, 'Not yet, not yet.'"

Goethe

2009-08-28T12:56:00.000-07:00

"Goethe said, 'Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter. Looking at its sad appearance who would think that those stiff branches, those jagged twigs would turn green again and blossom and bear fruit next spring; but we hope they will, we know they will.'
And he said, 'One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.'"

Book Time

2009-08-16T10:48:00.000-07:00

I am currently putting a book together for a poetry contest. I have till the end of the month so it's back to the computer.

Percy Shelley

2009-08-04T17:57:00.000-07:00

"Percy Shelley said: 'Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.'
And, 'Chameleons feed on light and air: Poets' food is love and fame.'
And he wrote,"

From:Elder Blog

2009-08-04T17:52:00.000-07:00

"I am convinced that blogging is an almost perfect pastime for elders. It is solitary in the need to sit quietly as we think and write – never a bad thing to take time for a closer look.
It is also social in that blogging expands our circle of acquaintances and friends worldwide. It keeps our minds active and exercised and in telling our stories, it fulfills Carl Jung's admonition in his seven tasks of aging to review our lives as we approach the final chapters.
At a time in life when we no longer have the daily camaraderie of the workplace, may not drive any longer or, perhaps, are not as mobile generally as we once were, some smart people presented us with this marvelous, new way to be in touch just in time for us to benefit."

Diogenes Syndrome

2009-08-03T15:54:00.000-07:00

"“Diogenes Syndrome” which, Wikipedia tells me, is “also known as 'senile squalor syndrome'...a behavioral disorder identified in 1975 that is characterized by extreme self-neglect” and “compulsive hoarding, the pathological collection and storage of objects, mainly other people's refuse.”"

Publications

2009-07-18T08:38:00.000-07:00

This past couple of weeks I have had two poems come out in periodicals:
Sacred Poetry An invitation to writ href="http://abbyofthearts.com">

Raven Chronicles, where I was first published 20 years ago"a href="http://ravenchronicles.org">

My book Poltice for Belief is in its final stages so I am waiting to see the first copy come off press late summer or fall. href="http://marchstreet press.com">

New Mexico notes

2009-07-18T08:28:00.000-07:00

New Mexico Notes

Where Gwen had focused her camera over and over I was striking with my flash of words.

I am under the station of
Jesus falls for the first time.
His body is roped off
In the Tabernacle.
Beat into falling
Weight
Of sins morphed into a cross.
His stained
Glass eyes look at me. I am
Lower in the pew- cameras flash.
People put their hands
On the feet of Christ-
Rubbing Buddha rubbing Christ.

Lorretto Chapel Santa Fe

What is the sky
Doing under- hanging over
The ground without strings?
No jet would fly into that thin air.
A bi-plane would make it interesting
As long as “Lady Lindy” were in pursuit.

Santa Fe Plaza

His bike was sprouting flowers
As he crossed the plaza-
End of the Santa Fe Trail
The Ghost of Comanche’s
Always show colors first
Not putting the beauty
Under a bushel.
“We are beyond
The oldest dust
In your tires.”

He rode on
Singing reggae into a white cup.

Iris Murdoch said

2009-07-15T18:31:00.000-07:00

"Iris Murdoch said, 'Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck.'"

"E.B. White quote

2009-07-12T15:54:00.000-07:00

"E.B. White said, 'I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.'"

Poem: The Story By Tom A. Delmore

2009-07-09T16:52:00.000-07:00

The Story
Praying in old temples and missions
Is more conversion and red knees
Than looking for forgiveness
Among holy dirt, rituals
And adorned Madonna’s.

Sometimes I wake
And Mohammed is more
A boxer than prophet.
Miracles come out of
Families of dysfunction
And rings of the pugilist more often
Than a rider ascending to heaven
On a flaming chariot.

There is a belief among boulevard trees
Who worship oversized vehicles; that God
Is in the topiary. And there are those
Trees who believe it is the devil
In the edgings.

Why is there a book of Lamentations
And no book of Oz- a book of Psalms
And no Howl in the canon
Of sacred texts.

When one finds a new
Lost scroll, dead or otherwise,
Do we keep them under a bushel
And whittle out what makes good
Kindling? All stories spark fire
Saints and prophets are full of this refuse
There mouths spitting orange embers.

Jean Cocteau

2009-07-05T07:41:00.000-07:00

Jean Cocteau said: "The worst tragedy for a poet is to be admired through being misunderstood."

Seeing Kelly Moore

2009-06-27T09:20:00.000-07:00

When i was in Sante Fe last we I had the opportunity to meet the artist Kelly Moore. He is a fellow "Crow Lover" and we could not leave with out buying one of his paintings. Kelly is recognized as an outside artist, but whatever he sees and paints outside really hits me inside. Look at his stuff. Click his Bio below.

Bird of Prayer

The crows are gardening again.
Up with the sun they peck
the earth.
On some occasions
they bring their young crying
to the land; morsels are stuffed
down tender throats, raw
from cawing.

In summer they solo and caw
to God’s pause, caw again, move,
and caw once more. A trinity
of praise.
In that joy hopping,
movement of flying prayer,
crow recreates a dance of thanks-
never seen by Noah.

Bio Kelly Moore

2009-06-27T09:19:00.000-07:00

Bio Kelly Moore

Saul Bellow

2009-06-10T16:01:00.000-07:00

"He said, 'In expressing love we belong among the undeveloped countries.' And, 'You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write.' And, 'I discovered that rejections are not altogether a bad thing. They teach a writer to rely on his own judgment and to say in his heart of hearts, 'To hell with you.''"

Ginsberg said

2009-06-03T17:02:00.000-07:00

"Ginsberg said, 'Poetry is the one place where people can speak their original human mind. It is the outlet for people to say in public what is known in private.'"

Frank O'Hara - (reasonably) young and in love

2009-05-30T15:17:00.000-07:00

Frank O'Hara - (reasonably) young and in love

Mind’s Eye

2009-05-30T09:11:00.000-07:00

Mind’s Eye: "i.e. immediate, intense physical reactions, a sense of metaphor and decoration in everything—to express something not of them—something I suppose spiritual. But it proceeds from the material, the material eaten out with acid, pulled down from underneath, made to perform and always kept in order, in its place. Sometimes it cannot be made to indicate its spiritual goal clearly (some of Hopkins, say, where the point seems to be missing) but even then the spiritual must be felt. Miss Moore does this—but occasionally. The other way—of using the supposedly “spiritual”—the beautiful, the nostalgic, the ideal and poetic, to produce the material is the way of the Romantic, I think, and a great perversity."

It is always good to get touchstones from other writers/poets to keep our eyes sharp to the world around us. I have dificulty when I see something and can't get the depth of it to my satisfaction. Then I think that maybe I have seen enough. TA

John Cheever

2009-05-27T13:05:00.000-07:00

"Cheever once described the writer's task as to evoke 'the perfumes of life: sea water, the smoke of burning hemlock and the breasts of women.'"

Theodore Roethke,

2009-05-25T08:04:00.000-07:00

Theodore Roethke, went into "'Dionysian frenzy' that Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote about. Roethke wrote in his journals, 'I can project myself easier into a flower than a person.' And, 'I change into vegetables. First, a squash, then a turnip. … I become a cabbage, ready for the cleaver, the close knives.' And he wrote,'I knew how it felt to be a tree, a blade of grass, even a rabbit.' Also in his journal, he wrote, 'I wish I could photosynthesize.'"

Roethke wrote:
I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,
When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them;

Quote: George Macdonald/ Poem: T A Delmore

2009-05-24T09:15:00.000-07:00

George Macdonald, author of At the Back of the North Wind and The Princess and the Goblin, perhaps still puts it best, over 100 years on. "Were I asked, what is a fairytale? I should reply, Read Undine: that is a fairytale; then read this and that as well, and you will see what is a fairytale. Were I further begged to describe the fairytale, or define what it is, I would make answer, that I should as soon think of describing the abstract human face, or stating what must go to constitute a human being. A fairytale is just a fairytale, as a face is just a face; and of all fairytales I know, I think Undine the most beautiful."

When Eden said enough--- seeing
her first family pushed past paradise
to barren land, autumn fell on summer
and winter was felt
as a cold embrace.

The venture back still happens
like Abraham checking on Ishmael,
soldiers walk out of jungles decades later
wondering how the war passed them by.
Alchemists too lazy for travel make magic
and watch colors collude; maybe into gold.

God and the prophets are safeguarding the risky
edges and Moses could spit into Promised Land
an edenic for his stubborn tribe, but never
his heel.

Manna in the morning is mushy yellow
making forty years palatable travel.
coming back to paradise is not coming home
or paying a visit to a prodigal parent.

We are never greeted at the threshold
except in our imaginations.

Quote G.B. Shaw Poem: T A Delmore

2009-05-15T17:54:00.000-07:00

G.B. Shaw said, "I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it."
And, "Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire."
And, "Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children."

As the night closed in
a murder of crows
fled towards the bow-legged moon.

2009-05-10T15:03:00.000-07:00

"'Security is not the meaning of my life. Great opportunities
are worth the risks.'

-- Shirley Hufstedler"

quote Ellen Bryant Voigt, Poem T A Delmore

2009-05-09T07:24:00.000-07:00

" Ellen Bryant Voigt, said, 'Resist any temptation to use the poem to make its readers like you, or admire you, or forgive you.'"

Reality
She is from Mississippi
Said you had to love fish
As Jambalaya arched
From her mouth to mine.
We got caught up
In a Romanian rhap.-
Her secret sin, dueting
With Eddie Mercury
As we sang: no escape
From reality.
I promised bibs and she
De-shelling the stew
This was too good to be true
And we set aside Monday
For karaoke.

2009-05-03T08:49:00.000-07:00

May Sarton said "'If I were in solitary confinement, I'd never write another novel, and probably not keep a journal, but I'd write poetry, because poems, you see, are between God and me.'"

Poetry and Writing

2009-05-02T13:24:00.000-07:00

I have gone over the galleys for my latest book A Poultice for Belief I have had worries about an editor tearing my work apart and making it his but that is not the case. I am so close to the work or my tenses are off that he has done great editing. Only one poem will I quibble with hime over really. As for my healing book Crossing up River is the working title, I have to match the pictures up with my text and keep going . I am not a computer person so they the pictures don't line up right. But my goal is to get it down and work it out with the lucky publisher later on.

Recollections from the Ring: A Conversation with Ferdie Pacheco

2009-04-22T18:10:00.000-07:00

Recollections from the Ring: A Conversation with Ferdie Pacheco: "Joyce Carol Oates writes that 'watching the best boxing match is like hearing Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier perfectly executed.'"

Owlhouse

2009-04-19T14:50:00.000-07:00

Owlhouse: "You cannot write for children They're much too complicated. You can only write books that are of interest to them. Maurice Sendak"

2009-04-17T13:31:00.000-07:00

Brendan Kennelly Said"'Poetry is, above all, a singing art of natural and magical connection because, though it is born out of one's person's solitude, it has the ability to reach out and touch in a humane and warmly illuminating way the solitude, even the loneliness, of others. That is why, to me, poetry is one of the most vital treasures that humanity possesses; it is a bridge between separated souls.'"

Ledge

In my parents house was a wretched ledge.
Unspoken, distant, loathing. Rod of Oak
That was destructive, not creative.
A stick that was leaned on during the rosary-
Visible reminder.
Catching thighs with stinging accuracy
Like tipping a clumsy steer for branding. Striking
Cruel, rising stiff. Injurious wood
Used in a wild dance called the rosary.

Quote: Mark Strand Poem Tom Delmore

2009-04-11T07:45:00.000-07:00

Mark Strand said, "Life makes writing poetry necessary to prove I really was paying attention."

Coffee Shop Conversation

She sits across from her husband
They could be strangers except for the nearness.
Reading the USA Today to her New York Times
She speaks, completing coupleness. “Honey,
Less than one percent suffer from suicide headaches
Just like mine. A pain in the eyes for an hour
Than dissipating and coming back.”
He does not lower his section to say:
“just like yours” overlapping a painful truth.

She sits across from her husband
They could be strangers except
For the nearness.

Reading the USA Today
To her New York Times.
She speaks, completing coupleness.

“Honey, less than one percent
Suffer from suicide headaches
Just like mine;

A pain in the eyes for an hour
Then dissipating and coming back.”
He does not lower his section

To say “just like yours.”
Overlapping a painful
Truth.

Holy Week

2009-04-05T10:43:00.000-07:00

With Holy Week upon us I wrote this poem recently.

O Prince of Peace

Each year the same man
Picks up the whip of scourging
And you are at the post-
Shit-stained and bleeding.

That blood you sweated
Now re-enacted with thorns.
And there you are in the church.

Crazies broke you to bits.
Old women want you
Back on the damp eastern wall
Not in that corner niche.

All this time you could tie
Yourself to that column.
Give the man his whip
Even tell where each pull
Of skin will originate.

The story has metaphor.
And each year someone believes
And someone denies
And that rooster reneges
In every courtyard in the land.

And you say: feed my sheep.

Poem TA Delmore Quote Rimbaud

2009-03-21T09:15:00.000-07:00

Outward Signs

Mom did not take
Paxil or Prozac, she had
alcohol and nicotine to bed
this fetus. Me!
It was the fifties
where not knowing and caring
were sub-rewards of a World
War victory.

Upon my birth
no tremors or shakes, ‘cuse
the right balance of smokes
and wine made a space
in my brain. All I had to do
was look at my name bracelet
to know who I was
and flip it convex to know
a fallen St. Christopher
was protecting me.

"Genius is the recovery of childhood at will." Rimbaud

Book Work and Poem TA Delmore

2009-03-14T08:55:00.000-07:00

Ledge
In my parents house was a wretched ledge.
Unspoken, distant, loathing. Rod of Oak
That was destructive, not creative.
A stick that was leaned on during the rosary-
Visible reminder.
Catching thighs with stinging accuracy
Like tipping a clumsy steer for branding. Striking
Cruel, rising stiff. Injurious wood
Used in a wild dance named prayer.

I have been working on a book more off than on over the past twenty years on a way to heal the inner wounded child. It has always been sitting in that risky place of wonder what others will think or can I pull this writing together. Focusing outward seemed like a good place to work from, but much has coursed my blood in those years as Rilke aply puts it. Last night I went to my disorganized files and found my pieces and many distractive things I have not seen for years. I brushed them aside except for articles that pertain to this writing. For those who read my Blog keep me in your thoughts and prayers as I move toward this light.

Rollo May quote My Poem

2009-03-07T16:12:00.000-08:00

We recall the studies of especially creative people that were made by Frank Barron. Dr. Barron showed his cards—cards with many different drawings and paintings on them—to creative people and their counter-parts, people who weren't especially creative, asking them to pick out the cards they liked best. The latter group chose the orderly cards; they liked things to be clear, understandable, uncluttered. But the creative people chose the chaotic cards. The most striking thing about the creative people was this taste for chaos. They preferred the scribbles where there was no form whatever; they found a challenge in the chaos. They yearned to make form out of it, “to make of the chaos about them an order which is their own,” as Henry Miller puts it. This is the purpose of their existence. This is the fundamental creative aspect of all human beings whether they are especially talented or not.
The human imagination is shown in these strivings—which may sometimes be passion and sometimes simply curiosity—to put things into form. It's what Einstein did when he proclaimed that matter and energy are related in one formula, E = mc2. Our human mind is continuously doing that, obviously on a lesser scale.
—Rollo May from My Quest for Beauty

This Moment

More people are walking
Into traffic; so terrible
So traumatic.
A few get run over
More than once
Shape-shifters
Coyote, armadillo.

We follow human outcome
On the teli, in the paper, from
No name to identification
To obituary.

Many times there is no
Summation, was he/she,
German, Irish, Sudanese?
Did I attend school with them?
Did she work for my dad?
It behooves me to demystify.

Yesterday
A road side bomb killed 35.

Poem TA Delmore and quote by Lorca

2009-02-28T08:43:00.000-08:00

Lorca said, "As I have not worried to be born, I do not worry to die.”And, "In Spain, the dead are more alive than the dead of any other country in the world."

Hand Me down Wagon
I had a red wagon
handed down with twine
unraveling on the handle-
old photos tell me so.
The handle bent
as if to say:
“tie me to a bike,
journey me down any hill.”

Sometimes I’d crash;
black handle impacting
pushing into my chest.
Running home to mom
in pain, she, looking tired
oh so tired.

“Where’s the wagon, Tommy?”

Poem by TA Delmore Quote Stanley Elkin

2009-02-21T08:13:00.000-08:00

Ear Rings
She has bears on her ears
shiny silver shards
pressed into her lobes.
If one looked closely
at the lapel of those bear-filled ears
an arrow jaggeds itself on the bodies
of these stalwart beasts.
My totem on her lobes
and she keeps repeating:
there are no coincidences.

Stanley Elkin, said, "Life's tallest order is to keep the feelings up, to make two dollars' worth of euphoria go the distance. And life can't do that. So fiction does."

Poem by TA Delmore Quote by Sophie Kerr

2009-02-14T10:32:00.000-08:00

The Desoto rolled off the line
In fifty-five.
I was pulled out of mom
The same year.
Desoto’s longevity was waning.
I would grow, wailing
Till I learned to be vocal inside
And shut my voice on the outside.
.

Into this new century
I saw a classic Desoto.
Four people sat inside laughing.
In me there are people, peering
Not laughing. I’m
Still on the assembly line
Of imperfection.

Sophie Kerr, who said, "An industrious sinner I much prefer to a lazy saint."

Quot by Prose Poem by me

2009-02-07T10:46:00.000-08:00

Francine Prose said, "For now, books are still the best way of taking great art and its consolations along with us on the bus."

Winged Medicine
When the dead crow
was placed in the trash-
a perfect wing stretched
to greet me.
Twisting the appendage like a branch
it broke in my hand.
A gift so powerful
I dropped it to the ground.
Certain on some plain
it was in flight.

Poem by me

2009-01-31T19:27:00.000-08:00

I saw the Benjamen Button movie today with my son Patrick. What an amazing movie. Very powerful.

Held under water
No sin forgiven
The struggle for breath
Negates remorse.

To put your head under
Shout sin and shame away
As a preacher blatant upon
His pulpit-
Does not inhale.

The poignancy of breath
In purgatorial situations
Lofts sin onto a fisherman’s
Perch
To be scaled and de-boned.

Things

2009-01-24T16:30:00.000-08:00

As you all can see i added a book case of books I have read. A little charm for the Blog.
Go to www.abbeyofthearts.com and read the interview with an artist. This is my teacher in PRH, Mary Kolb.
I had a check back with the doctor. I fractured my fibula. The crack is getting wider so I have to have a surgeon look at it next week and see what he thinks.
My nephew Jim sent me some interesting things about my dad's family, I like this one too of my great grandmother on the far left and my grandmother next to her.

Collage Poem

2009-01-17T09:29:00.000-08:00

The poem is from a collage I am working on. I don't think it comes out of the myriad of "boxing" poems I have done of late, but more to fit the character(s) in the collage.

Twin’s Boxing
In the living room
Gloves knotted over wrists
In brown cracked leather
Worn-down in others sweat.

Dad’s voice rang
Smoke pouring from his mouth.
Chairs made the ring
And ring-side seats.

Gloves collided, too big
To do physical damage.
One could see any punch coming-
A hook was a birthing process.
All jabs and bluster were right up front.
In a clinch, arms so heavy
One wanted to hold the other
For rest.

We were entertainment for our parents-
Like Lawrence Welk, sans bubbles
And music, and the folks dancing.
Wunerful, wunerful.

Quote/Poem

2009-01-10T20:28:00.000-08:00

• "All my life I've looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time."
• ""The man who has begun to live more seriously within begins to live more simply without."
• "The shortest answer is doing the thing."
• "We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master."
Ernest Hemingway

Gnawing Bones

When dad asked:
“does her voice make you
hard;” all teaching ceased.
it was now a “man thing”-
in sex etiquette dads
never crossed over.

He sat by the TV
while I undressed
a woman from a LIFE
magazine pantyhose ad.
thigh by thigh
in the living room
calf by calf
on the couch
ankle by ankle
at a distance.

The pause
between question
and answer
father and son
was comparable
to inhaling
a drycleaner bag.

Articles of Faith: Inviting Warren fits Obama's inclusive ideals

2009-01-04T13:12:00.000-08:00

Articles of Faith: Inviting Warren fits Obama's inclusive ideals

Ray Bradbury Quote Tom A Delmore Poem

2009-01-02T19:55:00.000-08:00

Ray Bradbury said, "There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them." And, "Go to the edge of the cliff and jump off. Build your wings on the way down."

Half-way to Heaven
or Where was God?

These were my girls- stacked
like cord wood naked next to a ditch.
Limbs in all directions, along with men-
a death orgy in shades of black & white.

Once we stood in bars leaning on one another
touching layers of material to fumble arousal.
Their names so easy
back then
to remember.

When I entered this death place; fatigue-clad
led by stench to this magi-less scene,
those alive like ghosts from a Dickens’s tale
pointed to these heaps of limbs, half-way to heaven.

Modesty untangles the bodies
as those filled with sin and dust
drag and straighten atrophied appendages
for burial.

These are not just
my girls, come to think of it
they are me
they are you
the abyss the tight rope.

I danced with her
I’d know her ankle anywhere,
and yes that knap of neck, now
so elongated that my lips
would fit thrice in that space-
when one kiss was always
enough. Those places on bodies
we never mentioned but moanly vocalized-
splayed to nausea and averted eyes
and no light. There is no light.

Quote Mona Simpson, Poem Tom A Delmore

2008-12-26T17:34:00.000-08:00

Mona Simpson said, "What I'd finally say about truth and autobiography is that all writers are probably trying to get at some core truth of life, at some configuration that is enduring and truthful. I just haven't found the truth to be my vehicle."

Winter

The small birds come
Uninvited to a feast.
There is no searching out
A bridegroom or bride
Yet seed scatters ceremoniously-
The distance of a beak thrust.

In this heaving of seed
There is faith. Faith that others
Too frightened to come near
Will be filled like Lazarus
Under the cleft
Of Abraham’s bosom.

up and running new poem

2008-12-18T12:30:00.000-08:00

It is snowing today so no going to work. I have been relearning the computer per se since we got it back but we are now up and running.

Oils

She has flaxseed oil
And I fish oil. Hers
Sounds like it would protect
Outside as well as in.
A good oil
Too fight over.

Fish oil entails…enfins
An outward stench
Poured on gardens
That promotes growth.
The brown bottle arrayed
In coastal native art;
Red and black, type
On the label.

The fish oil swallowed
Is capsulated. The size
Of a wax suppository.
It swims, like salmon spawning
To my eyes
And keeps me seeing
Without the smell.

computer down

2008-12-10T14:45:00.000-08:00

We have been without a computer for two weeks so I will Blog when It returns.

Quote: William Steig Poem: Tom Delmore

2008-11-14T17:37:00.000-08:00

William Steig said, "If I'd had it my way, I'd have been a professional athlete, a sailor, a beachcomber, or some other form of hobo, a painter, a gardener, a novelist, a banjo-player, a traveler, anything but a rich man."

The poem below is from my forthcoming boook A Poultice for Belief

The Second Plague:
Frogs Swarm
Out of the River
When the frogs came up
From the river,
Their leaps took wing,
Sending them everywhere.
Every human footfall concealed
A crunch, a squish.
Frogs hung upon bodies
like ornaments
With no boundaries.
Magicians reproduced
Frogs, and said: ha!
Pharaoh spoke: I will release
Your people to worship.
Stop this frogging!
It stopped. All smelled the rot
of the Pharaoh’s renege.

Book to be published

2008-11-13T17:01:00.000-08:00

I got an email that my book A Poultice for Belief is going to be Published by March Street Press. I am looking at galleys of some of my poems. One was published in DRASH last May.

Quote by-Graham Greene Poem- Tom A. Delmore

2008-11-08T10:59:00.000-08:00

Graham Greene realized early in his writing career that if he wrote just 500 words a day, he would have written several million words in just a few decades. So he developed a routine of writing for exactly two hours every day, and he was so strict about stopping after exactly two hours that he often stopped writing in the middle of a sentence. And at that pace, he managed to publish 26 novels, as well as numerous short stories, plays, screenplays, memoirs, and travel books. He said, "We are all of us resigned to death: it's life we aren't resigned to."

Curing the Eyes

These young crows
Walked like the blind
Before Jesus, among
Dust and gravel.
Curing
Their beady black eyes
To see what is not visible.
Patrolling sameness
To find something useful
Something agitating-
Something their parents
Will steal from them.

Afghan T A Delmore Quote Stanely Kunitz

2008-11-01T11:53:00.000-07:00

Afghan

Wrapped in your crocheted plait
I nestle into my first experience
Of you.
Knitted into life by my mother’s
Hands, each pearl a piece of animation
From black border to mosaic center.
Couched afghan, lover’s web, smother
My shivers.

Stanley Kunitz said, "Poetry is inseparable from my life force, and that began very early. It was a great gift, and it has sustained me through the years, and the losses that have attended those years."
He said, "The poem comes in the form of a blessing, like the rapture breaking through on the mind."
And, "Old myths, old gods, old heroes have never died. They are only sleeping at the bottom of our mind, waiting for our call. We have need for them. They represent the wisdom of our race

Quote: Sylivia Plath Poem: T A Delmore

2008-10-27T15:29:00.000-07:00

Sylvia Plath said, "Everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise."

Shopping Cart Blues

Hold my hand and squeeze
Cantaloupes. Push the cart
As I disappear underneath.
Ridged steel and unpaid
Groceries, essentials
Dad would mutter throwing
A bag of potatoes to my back.
Wurlitzer sounds bring me down
Isles that once held that big fire
Truck over frozen peas. Holiday fare.

Take me where you will
To the end
Of meat counters
The beginning of checkout lines.
No one pushes me down
Linoleumed isles anymore.
I am the giant to smiling eyes
Under the haul of carted food.
Gone are the organ sounds
Of Montavani in return
Is the smell of Havarti,
And too many memories.

Autumn Poem by Tom Delmore

2008-10-19T13:52:00.000-07:00

AUTUMN IN THE WINGS

I am looking for autumn
in the staghorn sumac,
the gold of the vine maple,
the absence of apples.
A creeping cool that turns

furnaces on and stale odors
out. Fall has found me,
taking a ritual
of beauty, beyond the buoyancy

of my parents dreams, older than
the Bible. Autumn renowned
till cold puts pigment to mounds
blended for burning
or bagging.

All this pressed, years past
between wax paper
and taped to school windows.

2008-10-14T08:40:00.000-07:00

We are in Austin Texas this week.

Quote: Toni Morrison Poem TA Delmore

2008-10-06T17:32:00.000-07:00

Toni Morrison wrote, "They straightened out the Mississippi River in places, to make room for houses and livable acreage. Occasionally the river floods these places ... but in fact it is not flooding; it is remembering. ... All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was. Writers are like that: remembering where we were, what valley we ran through, what the banks were like, the light that was there and the route back to our original place." I posted this quote in Abbey of the arts blog.

Who’s Sport?

She does Tai Chi with less guilt.
Baseball books sell better in winter.
Her husband would never understand
DiMaggio a coffee spokesman.
Forever, his sultan of swat.

Soft feet on red brick
The thrill of the grass
Or the grasshopper position.
He can catch fly balls
She can move energy.

She will eat
Her husband one day
Mantis-like, sell
His baseball books
And keep her Mr. Coffee.

Till then his kiss
Is a double latté
No foam.

Grahame Green Quote Tom Delmore Poem

2008-09-27T10:06:00.000-07:00

Graham Greene realized early in his writing career that if he wrote just 500 words a day, he would have written several million words in just a few decades. So he developed a routine of writing for exactly two hours every day, and he was so strict about stopping after exactly two hours that he often stopped writing in the middle of a sentence. And at that pace, he managed to publish 26 novels, as well as numerous short stories, plays, screenplays, memoirs, and travel books. He said, "We are all of us resigned to death: it's life we aren't resigned to."

The Smell and Taste of Test

This morning has
The smell and taste
Of a math test.
The one you know
You already failed.
The air holds no empathy
Only Mr. Fortier who knows
Long before you entered
You flunked. Compassion
Is a wind that never rested
On my weary shoulders
But drones as a hornet
Outside the rain spattered
Window.

Chosen

2008-09-20T09:44:00.000-07:00

Back in July I went on a PRH Retreat in Port Townsend Washington. We were asked to go out and be chosen by a tree. I had a hard time with this because I am good at choosing beautiful trees, but one that would choose me? I followed no path and saw many trees that I liked. As I approached one a branch nudged my shoulder. I kept walking but then decided to turn around. It was amazing! If I could have climbed inside of it I would have. We talked, hugged and had a wonderful time. Yesterday I was walking my dog in a ravine by my apartment. About a third of the way through I saw a huge bird take off in front of me on the trail I thought it was a hawk. It landed in a low tree not far from me. It was a Barred Owl, in all its splendor! I had 3 minutes to chat sound and praise the universe for being chosen again. The bird considered me in a way that i could not ignore.

Quote: Naruda Poem: Tom Delmore

2008-09-13T09:30:00.000-07:00

Naruda:" All paths lead to the same goal: to convey to others what we are."

Radio Jesus

Out on the coast
Christian radio stations
Come in loud and clear.
Modulating
Over several waves
As if
Walking on agitated water-
Held up by hymn and verve
Could save.

A savior among static.
The smell of salt
Rotting vegetation.
He says: Come rest in me
Broken crab, razor clams
Shattered sand dollar.
Listen
For the word
So wet to bring them
That much closer
To the undertow of salvation.
Amen.

Quote and more Boxing

2008-08-30T12:02:00.000-07:00

I am continuing with my boxing poems again this week. These poems and a few others will be part of a collage that i am putting together.
Thanks for the comment last week. Always good to hear from people.

There is no excellent beauty that hath not strangeness in the proportion. From Hermitage Journal Blog

The Sweet Science

On the ropes is where
You find him trying
To fend blows and jostle
An opening with his head.
The bell now more important
Than the round. The bikinied
Girl carrying the numbered sign
Had blurred by the fifth.

On the ropes is where
He was trained
To avoid, and no rope-a-dope
In his repertoire.

Move, move, the corner
Shouts, his legs wobble
Like the recipient of
A first kiss of a lover
Except for the blows.

His ring expectations
Have never been so narrowed-
Ali standing over Liston.
His vision now vertical, not
In the stance of a champ.

Quote: Edgar Lee Masters Poem: Tom Delmore

2008-08-23T11:24:00.000-07:00

Edgar Lee Masters said, "How shall the soul of a man be larger than the life he has lived?"

Pugilist at the Transit Center

He has a face like a boxer
But I could not say he boxed.
Chiseled and boney where blows
Would blossom red. The ears
Have yet to attain vegetable shapes.
Maybe a peek-a-boo puncher-
Floyd Patterson; except white.
A welter weight- quick
Guessing here, since he’s just standing.

When he moves his butt
Over thighs and calves
Not anticipating a blow-
But quick to be in motion, a leg
To lunge. My words
Activating this languorous lad
As I spar in the distance.

Quote Ferlinghetti Poem Tom Delmore

2008-08-15T19:15:00.000-07:00

Ferlinghetti said, "Like a bowl of roses, a poem should not have to be explained."

Edward Curtis

When you died
The box camera
Would not fit in
Your casket.
Certain that your dreams
Could be held in
Sepia toned photogravures.
Just one more wax cylinder
For heralding angels was a silent
Plea.

Among Nez Perce you
Caught shadows on glass
And dressed warriors
Out of time. So much apparatus
Your troupe
Outnumbered the tribe.

In debt you photographed
Jewels embedded in eyes
That no one could purchase,
Just a people a language a time
Fading away.

When they buried you
A shelf should have been laid
Round your body
Formed of your exposed
transparencies.

Quote:John Hollander Poem: Tom Delmore

2008-08-02T08:21:00.000-07:00

John Hollander said, "I want my poems to be wiser than I am, to know more about themselves than I do."

You’re the Weeds

It was a frustrated phrase
The end of the line.
A step not to take. It came
After much agitation,
Like plastic covering furniture.

When mom went speechless
She fumbled the ledge
For the beating stick. One half
That was aggressive
Was not as strong as the half
That wanted to leave it be.

She would become a Martha Graham dancer
With a prop. Flying around the dining room
To pantry, and kitchen, my twin
And I knowing she could only catch one
Or get tired and give up.

I look at my aging face
A scar below my left eye.
Is that a consequence of escape
Or choreography?

Quote: Eric Hoffer Poem: Flying

2008-07-25T18:09:00.000-07:00

Eric Hoffer said, "When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other."

Flying

Rounding the turn
Stood the man on slew edge,
Like an outcropping of duckweed.
His pole an awkward extension
To the water. Not moving
Imitating the traffic around him.
Letting his line feel the current-
Becoming heron.

His transformation or failure
Are not my issues.
I am in motion
And will not see him fly.

Quote: Wendell Berry/ Poem: Tom Delmore

2008-07-18T17:14:00.000-07:00

Berry: If you’ve lost the capacity to be outraged by what’s outrageous, you’re dead. Somebody ought to come and haul you off.

Note Fever

It’s all jazz in my head-
Miles, Miles, Miles, sketching
Spain and fusing it to a dream.
Man, its dizzy making my path straight.
Hubbard- who keeps my cupboard in dis-
array. Gershwin moistens my meerschaum pipe
as damp as a clarinets reed.
Coltrane, Coltrane, Coltrane, chugging
in the synapses of my cerebellum, and Basie
getting lacey with his wand.
Its Chet making licks full of love
with voice and metal hum.

All this gives me note fever
and I pray
no cure!

Quote by Naruda Poem by TA Delmore

2008-07-12T09:09:00.000-07:00

Naruda" All paths lead to the same goal: to convey to others what we are."

Car Worries

How do you write a depression
One that sinks lower
Than a jelly fishes underside.
A material depression
That carries a partial guarantee.
As we walk up the steep grade
My little one says: my car
Will never die.

Quote by: Margaret J. Wheatley Poem By: Tom Delmore

2008-06-29T20:04:00.000-07:00

Determination, energy, and courage appear spontaneously when we care deeply about something. We take risks that are unimaginable in any other context.
Margaret J. Wheatley

When dad did not speak
Of where he came out
(A womb with Native
American markings)
We ventured
Like a tribe marched
Into silence.

He tended the land
A garden in each yard,
Worked for the Steel
Horse people.

You could see the native
In his mother yet she
Spoke French, and broken
English.

When he was ill
His mind gone
He said something
To mom, very native
But too late.

“He wanted to die
At home,” she blurted
Through sobs.

“With my people”
Is what any elder
Of the Iroquois
Would have requested.