Judith Guest once said, "Living the blessed life is the luck of the draw. We don't get control over the cards we're dealt, but we do have control over how we face the odds, how we play them. Some people with awful cards are successful because of how they deal with them, and that seems courageous to me."
A Patsy Cline Moment
I feel like a character
In a Patsy Cline song.
Already broke up and cryin.
No happy notes to hang
My hat on, cause she took
All them away. Never sayin
What you meant till after
I married the wrong women.
All those streets of tears, salty
And not worth a wipe.
We could have danced to another
Song or just let me play
Out my own.
But your voice said it over and over
And no kiss can get you back.
I fall to pieces.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Friday, March 21, 2008
Quote by Anna Quindlen Poem by Carl Sandburg
If your success is not on your own terms, if it looks good to the world but does not feel good in your heart, it is not success at all.
Anna Quindlen
Wilderness
- Carl Sandburg, 1918
THERE is a wolf in me … fangs pointed for tearing gashes … a red tongue for raw meat … and the hot lapping of blood—I keep this wolf because the wilderness gave it to me and the wilderness will not let it go.
There is a fox in me … a silver-gray fox … I sniff and guess … I pick things out of the wind and air … I nose in the dark night and take sleepers and eat them and hide the feathers … I circle and loop and double-cross.
There is a hog in me … a snout and a belly … a machinery for eating and grunting … a machinery for sleeping satisfied in the sun—I got this too from the wilderness and the wilderness will not let it go.
There is a fish in me … I know I came from salt blue water-gates … I scurried with shoals of herring … I blew waterspouts with porpoises … before land was … before the water went down … before Noah … before the first chapter of Genesis.
There is a baboon in me … clambering-clawed … dog-faced … yawping a galoot’s hunger … hairy under the armpits … here are the hawk-eyed hankering men … here are the blond and blue-eyed women … here they hide curled asleep waiting … ready to snarl and kill … ready to sing and give milk … waiting—I keep the baboon because the wilderness says so.
There is an eagle in me and a mockingbird … and the eagle flies among the Rocky Mountains of my dreams and fights among the Sierra crags of what I want … and the mockingbird warbles in the early forenoon before the dew is gone, warbles in the underbrush of my Chattanoogas of hope, gushes over the blue Ozark foothills of my wishes—And I got the eagle and the mockingbird from the wilderness.
O, I got a zoo, I got a menagerie, inside my ribs, under my bony head,
under my red-valve heart—and I got something else:
it is a man-child heart, a woman-child heart:
it is a father and mother and lover:
it came from God-Knows-Where:
it is going to God-Knows-Where—
For I am the keeper of the zoo:
I say yes and no: I sing and kill and work:
I am a pal of the world:
I came from the wilderness.
Anna Quindlen
Wilderness
- Carl Sandburg, 1918
THERE is a wolf in me … fangs pointed for tearing gashes … a red tongue for raw meat … and the hot lapping of blood—I keep this wolf because the wilderness gave it to me and the wilderness will not let it go.
There is a fox in me … a silver-gray fox … I sniff and guess … I pick things out of the wind and air … I nose in the dark night and take sleepers and eat them and hide the feathers … I circle and loop and double-cross.
There is a hog in me … a snout and a belly … a machinery for eating and grunting … a machinery for sleeping satisfied in the sun—I got this too from the wilderness and the wilderness will not let it go.
There is a fish in me … I know I came from salt blue water-gates … I scurried with shoals of herring … I blew waterspouts with porpoises … before land was … before the water went down … before Noah … before the first chapter of Genesis.
There is a baboon in me … clambering-clawed … dog-faced … yawping a galoot’s hunger … hairy under the armpits … here are the hawk-eyed hankering men … here are the blond and blue-eyed women … here they hide curled asleep waiting … ready to snarl and kill … ready to sing and give milk … waiting—I keep the baboon because the wilderness says so.
There is an eagle in me and a mockingbird … and the eagle flies among the Rocky Mountains of my dreams and fights among the Sierra crags of what I want … and the mockingbird warbles in the early forenoon before the dew is gone, warbles in the underbrush of my Chattanoogas of hope, gushes over the blue Ozark foothills of my wishes—And I got the eagle and the mockingbird from the wilderness.
O, I got a zoo, I got a menagerie, inside my ribs, under my bony head,
under my red-valve heart—and I got something else:
it is a man-child heart, a woman-child heart:
it is a father and mother and lover:
it came from God-Knows-Where:
it is going to God-Knows-Where—
For I am the keeper of the zoo:
I say yes and no: I sing and kill and work:
I am a pal of the world:
I came from the wilderness.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Poem, no title Quote: John McPhee
Seek first the kingdom before
anything was the word.
Realm found in most unusual
places, among markings that tell
something, that imitates more
and imparts less. But on some days
they are ten for a dollar. Then on another
they are two for three dollars.
Who do people say that I am-
is as good as a greeter at Wal-Mart
not comatose in some aisle but dying
with dignity. Grasping at straws is
dissimilar to grabbing for loved ones.
Wills read are not the same as eulogies said.
Family is always there and wondering
who got what. Moses taking off sandals
is what made the ground sacred-
the fire always speaks.
I am.
When asked what he writes about,John McPhee said, "I'm describing people engaged in their thing, their activity, whatever it is."
anything was the word.
Realm found in most unusual
places, among markings that tell
something, that imitates more
and imparts less. But on some days
they are ten for a dollar. Then on another
they are two for three dollars.
Who do people say that I am-
is as good as a greeter at Wal-Mart
not comatose in some aisle but dying
with dignity. Grasping at straws is
dissimilar to grabbing for loved ones.
Wills read are not the same as eulogies said.
Family is always there and wondering
who got what. Moses taking off sandals
is what made the ground sacred-
the fire always speaks.
I am.
When asked what he writes about,John McPhee said, "I'm describing people engaged in their thing, their activity, whatever it is."
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Thoughts
Derek Walcott said, "The English language is nobody's special property. It is the property of the imagination."
I have run across an activast, Van Jones who is trying to connect green living and the Black community. He is a prophet worth listening to. I have been reading the Iliad, taking in the seige of Troy, and then go back and ponder. One page of writing and you find out it has been ten years these warriors have darkened the sand with their blood.
I have signed up for a PRH classes to help unravel who I am at the age of 52. If you want to know more there is a link on this Blog. I have a poem coming out this summer in Drash Magazine, and will be doing readings.
I have run across an activast, Van Jones who is trying to connect green living and the Black community. He is a prophet worth listening to. I have been reading the Iliad, taking in the seige of Troy, and then go back and ponder. One page of writing and you find out it has been ten years these warriors have darkened the sand with their blood.
I have signed up for a PRH classes to help unravel who I am at the age of 52. If you want to know more there is a link on this Blog. I have a poem coming out this summer in Drash Magazine, and will be doing readings.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Our first President from Writers almanac / Poem Grazing Moon
Ten Things You Never Knew about George Washington, born on this day in 1732:
His dentures carved from a hippopotamus tusk. They were drilled with a hole to fit over Washington's one remaining tooth, and they rubbed against his natural tooth in such a way that Washington was in constant pain, and so he used an alcoholic solution infused with opium.
By the time he reached 30, he had survived malaria, smallpox, pleurisy, dysentery. He was fired at on two separate occasions — and in one of them, his horse was shot out from under him and four bullets punctured his coat. He also fell off a raft into an icy river and nearly drowned.
During the last night of his life, a doctor friend came over to perform an emergency tracheotomy on Washington. Arriving too late, the doctor tried to resurrect Washington by thawing him in cold water, then wrapping him in blankets and rubbing him in order to activate blood vessels, then opening his trachea to inflate his lungs with air, and then transfusing blood from a lamb into him.
He enjoyed playing cards, hunting foxes and ducks, fishing, cockfighting, horse racing, boat racing, and dancing. He bred hound dogs and gave them names like "Sweet Lips" and "Tarter."
His favorite foods included mashed potatoes with coconut, string beans with mushrooms, cream of peanut soup, salt cod, and pineapples.
He snored very loudly.
He did not wear a powdered wig, as was fashionable at the time. Instead, he powdered his own red-brown hair.
Washington had a speech impediment and was not good at spelling. He would often mix up i's and e's when speaking and in writing.
There are 33 counties, seven mountains, nine colleges, and 121 post offices named after Washington.
He delivered the shortest inaugural address ever. It was only 133 words long and took 90 seconds to deliver.
Grazing Moon
I linger for the full moon
The ones seen by my grandfather
On a North Dakota night. His solitary
Light as he stumbled home to tell Louise
His wife, another financial lie. His conductor
Buttons of brass as close to coins that he
Could muster.
Louise’s anger laced in French
So her swearing was ignored
And waved at like a moth
As her drunken Pat
Peed on their moon-glow fence.
A son missed him at the station
And at the bar of his demise,
And all normal paths
A son would guide his father home.
His dentures carved from a hippopotamus tusk. They were drilled with a hole to fit over Washington's one remaining tooth, and they rubbed against his natural tooth in such a way that Washington was in constant pain, and so he used an alcoholic solution infused with opium.
By the time he reached 30, he had survived malaria, smallpox, pleurisy, dysentery. He was fired at on two separate occasions — and in one of them, his horse was shot out from under him and four bullets punctured his coat. He also fell off a raft into an icy river and nearly drowned.
During the last night of his life, a doctor friend came over to perform an emergency tracheotomy on Washington. Arriving too late, the doctor tried to resurrect Washington by thawing him in cold water, then wrapping him in blankets and rubbing him in order to activate blood vessels, then opening his trachea to inflate his lungs with air, and then transfusing blood from a lamb into him.
He enjoyed playing cards, hunting foxes and ducks, fishing, cockfighting, horse racing, boat racing, and dancing. He bred hound dogs and gave them names like "Sweet Lips" and "Tarter."
His favorite foods included mashed potatoes with coconut, string beans with mushrooms, cream of peanut soup, salt cod, and pineapples.
He snored very loudly.
He did not wear a powdered wig, as was fashionable at the time. Instead, he powdered his own red-brown hair.
Washington had a speech impediment and was not good at spelling. He would often mix up i's and e's when speaking and in writing.
There are 33 counties, seven mountains, nine colleges, and 121 post offices named after Washington.
He delivered the shortest inaugural address ever. It was only 133 words long and took 90 seconds to deliver.
Grazing Moon
I linger for the full moon
The ones seen by my grandfather
On a North Dakota night. His solitary
Light as he stumbled home to tell Louise
His wife, another financial lie. His conductor
Buttons of brass as close to coins that he
Could muster.
Louise’s anger laced in French
So her swearing was ignored
And waved at like a moth
As her drunken Pat
Peed on their moon-glow fence.
A son missed him at the station
And at the bar of his demise,
And all normal paths
A son would guide his father home.
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