Tag: poetry

Friday’s Theme Music

Mood: temperate

It’s another Friday. This one is December 13, 2024, which triggers some, especially if they’re Knights Templars. But I’m not one and I’m not bothered by the date. Except, there’s less than two weeks until Christmas, if that’s your celebrating avenue. More importantly, the end is near — the end of the year, that is.

Today’s white blob of a sky blends in over the mountain and tree tops, fuzzying our edges and spitting on the eastern windows. Temperature is 42 F and as with yesterday, we’re just four degrees of separation from our high. Unlike yesterday, which morphed into a pleasant autumn day with wintry overtones, a brisk wind is moaning the blues, prompting a high-wind advisory.

Papi the ginger blade despairs of this wind. He beat at the door as soon as it rose. Fattened by brekkie and at least floofmentarily aware of the wind, he’s stretched out in the living room, a pretty orange and white furry binkie.

Several politically-connected matters caught my eye. One, Andy Borowitz put his humorous spin on Hegseth as Drumpf’s nominee to head Defense: “Hegseth Offers to Connect Breathalyzer to Nuclear Arsenal”. Feels hysterically funny because there’s too much truth in it. The second item was one pointed out by on Scottie’s Playground: Study: Republicans Respond to Political Polarization by Spreading Misinformation, Democrats Don’t. Some of us reacted, yes, and water tends to be wet. To see it hardwired as actual study results is satisfying because it underscores our observations that the modern American right wing can’t handle the truth and make shit up.

Finally, also out of Scottie’s Playground, is a tale of Not Good News in Florida. “Earlier this fall, Florida officials ordered transgender women in the state’s prisons to submit to breast exams. As part of a new policy for people with gender dysphoria, prison medical staff ranked the women’s breast size using a scale designed for adolescents. Those whose breasts were deemed big enough were allowed to keep their bras. Everyone else had to surrender theirs, along with anything else considered “female,” such as women’s underwear and toiletry items.”

Yes, we know that besides making shit up when they feel threatened, American Republicans tend to become crueler and treat others who aren’t like them with greater contempt and inhumanity. They’re such a misguided, fact-aversion, hate-filled, group of lying fantasists. If we had greater involvement and better critical thinking from more voting-age Americans, we wouldn’t be in this mess. But a large swath of indifference and lethargy has given power to fools, and all of us will suffer.

I have a weird song in the morning mental music stream (Trademark dated). “I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter” originally came out in 1935, twenty-one years before my birth. It’s literally been around all my life and then some. The Neurons inserted it into the mmms after a dream in which I wrote myself a letter and then mailed it. A busy dream night, all I remember of that dream is that I as a young teen wrote myself a letter and posted it on a sunny day. Then this song begun. It’s been covered by two and a half gazillion performers. I have females and males singing it in the mmms because this was one of those songs Mom often played on her stereo hi-fi, and she sang along to it. I just surfed the net for a version which I like. Hope you know the song and like it. So here’s the late Jeff Healey with his cover. Jeff Healey and his band were in the movie Road House staring Patrick Swayze, Sam Elliott, Kelly Lynch, and Ben Gazzara in 1989.

Rain is spitting on the western windows now, and the wind’s mutterings have turned louder, angrier, and more prolonged. Coffee and I have made our daily agreement. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Soonday Morning

Mood: Soontobe

It’s Soonday, December 9, 2024. We’re enjoying a clear sky loaded with sunshine and an outdoor tempy of 28 F. Frost has shadowy places airbushed with white influences. A dense fog warning is percolating while 49 F is being dangled in front of us as a high. Should say that it’s my local system calling out 28; in other parts of Ashlandia, sunshine has cleared the forests and mountains and 42 is already being experienced. A friend’s weather setup, available via Wunderground, has his temperature at 31 F. Dress appropriately.

Moving slow this morning. That’s why I’m calling this soon day. Soon, I’ll get up and do things. Soon I’ll leave and get my hair cut. Soon. Night fraught with dreams and restlessness are keeping the go pedal from getting engaged, even though coffee and I have said our hellos. One dream featured me as a young man with young friends and relatives, traveling to another place. Along the way, I stopped to visit with others. There, I rested in sunshine and told people of other people’s businesses failing, along with places such as airports not being built. It ended with me trying to pull a nuisance weed, which then bloomed, leaped out of the ground and ran away, freaking us out. Then we laughed.

This cold weather and clear sky put me into a whirlpool of childhood memories. Once, while going outside to play football with friends when I was almost a teenager, I was accosted by mom. “Put a heavier coat on, for God’s sake,” she said. “It’s winter outside.”

Wise me replied, “It’s not winter yet, Mom, until the solstice, December 22.”

She answered, “It’s winter when it’s cold and the snow starts falling to me.”

We were living in Penn Hills, a Pittsburgh, PA, suburb. Snow had been falling since before Thanksgiving. Therefore, it was winter.

I used to talk to her about her winters in Iowa. She loved those days, she said, because they would stay in the house, where it was cozy and warm, and play games, listen to the radio, talk, cook, and clean. Winter remains her favorite season for those reasons.

Those memories crystallized into two songs for me last night. Both are called “Our House”. They’re very different. The first was dropped into the morning mental music stream (Trademark frozen) when a television show featured it ysterday evening. This is the “Our House” by Crosy, Stills, Nash, and Young. My wife sang along with it; that stirred The Neurons up, and triggered that memory whirlpool. But a rebel group of Neurons countered with “Our House” by Madness. Two very different songs. The CSNY offering says, “Our house is a very very fine house. With two cats in the yard. Life used to be so hard. Now everything is easy cause of you.” Madness sings, “Father wears his Sunday best, Mother’s tired, she needs a rest, the kids are playing up downstairs. Sister’s sighing in her sleep. Brother’s got a date to keep, he can’t hang around.” The CSNY version is about a young couple’s domestic tranquility. Madness offers a portrait of hustle, growth, and noise.

Let’s get positive (sung to Olivia Newton-John’s “Let’s Get Physical) and move forward. 2025 is almost here. Here’s the music to help you along. Cheers

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Woundsday’s Theme Music

Mood: Reinvigorated

It’s Woundsday, December 4, 2024. The stagnant air seemed to have shifted a little, as the chill has abated. Although Ashlandia is claimed to be foggy, my perch’s view was fog free. Sunshine enriched blue skies took the vision field from end to end. Now, 11 AM, my personal weather sys says it’s 46 F outside. Alexa claimed it’ll be 67 F today but I don’t trust it. Other forecasts say 57 F today, which seems reasonable.

It’s Woundsday because I’ve been busy this morning licking my wound. Eww. Gross. Figuratively licking my wounds. The wound is the surgery site to repair my ankle. Much better today, thanks. Now I’m practicing my walk, trying to rid myself of my limp, regain some grace, and speed up my stride.

We’ve been following several news stories. One is that another Trump nominee has withdrawn. I’m not celebrating as I’m sure he’ll find a horrid replacement. My wife then regaled me with a few Buzzfeed anecdotes about people realizing what their support of Trump means to what goes on in their world. Trump nominees are surprising them. Examples include a business women who was planning equipment purchases being taught what the tariffs will do. Then there are parents with a child in Headstart just learning that Trump intends to shut down Headstart and now wonder what will happen to their child. In other words, they’re gettin’ woke by their vote.

Also following a story in Pennsylvania about a woman who fell into a sinkhole while looking for her cat in Tuesday morning’s cold, dark hours. I’m from that area and have family still living in the region, so it’s one of those six degrees of separation things. I hope they find her alive and well but I’m sadly doubtful at this point.

Today’s music in the morning mental music stream (Trademark okay) is “Feelin’ Alright”. I posted this song back in 2016. I wrote then: “I’d only recently learned that Dave Mason wrote this song. I knew that Traffic had performed it, but in my heart, this song always belonged to Joe Cocker. Whichever group or performer does it, the song always lifts me up. I loved it when he sang it in concert.” Still standing with that declaration. It’s my song for Woundsday because I’m going to have beers with my friends tonight. It’s our usual Wednesday setup. I haven’t attended for seven weeks. Haven’t had a beer in that period, too. I did have wine and rum with mulled cider on T-Day, though. Beyond that, I’m walking well and experiencing minimal discomfort and pain.

I woke from a dream this morning and remembered open lines from a Dylan Thomas poem.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

The dream had been about reinventing myself and reinventing the world, so I can understand the connection with the poem. It’s one of my top five poems.

Hope you have a superb Wednesday, and the days beyond today are also superb as we count down the last of 2024. Coffee and I have rekindled our relationship once again. We’re good to the last drop. Here’s the music. Cheers

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Something Else

The signs of aging pile up,

Promising on some days to beat you up.

Hair losses, hair changes, where the hell does it go?

Why can’t I get it to look right, why won’t it look just so?

Sometimes you ponder the person you had been.

You think you see them staring back, hiding from within.

Other times you wonder, if you ever were that way?

And if you were, what can you do to look that way again?

The weight you gain, how the body thickens,

Everything sinks and sags and generally looks in ways that sicken.

Then someone tells you how great you look,

and you wonder, is that a joke?

If you think I look good today, you want to say,

you should have seen me back in the day.

I was something else.

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Wednesday’s Theme Music

Mood: Precipitized

Autumn was hulking against the house by the back door, sometimes gently tapping to come in. I opened the door. A lush gush waltzed in and danced around the room.

I’ve decided that I like autumn better than summer and winter. Winter and summer are fickle about their temperatures and weather offerings. Autumn seems more relaxed and straightforward about it. Yes, warm days will come, with some soaring temperatures which somehow complements a view of autumnal foliage against a blue sky. Mostly, though, memories of autumn has me anticipated a level stream of gently declining temperatures as tree shed their leaves and winter begins gracing us.

It’s Wednesday, 9/11/2024. A moment to remember that morning, seared into so many of our brains, sharp-edged memories formed as our daily routines were put on hold and we watched our televisions.

It’s 55 F at my house. My wife was up early to get ready for her exercise class. She told me after I got up that she came in and whispered to me, “It’s raining,” but I was deeply asleep and did not hear.

A little later, Tucker (pronounced Tuck-ah), shouted, “It’s raining and I’m hungry and get up and feed me.” Which I did.

Ah, rain. Small drops, lighty falling, wetting everything, and releasing gases that waft up to us and awakens rain memories. The smell is so rich.

Our air is so clear and fresh this morning. Purple has the readings around me in single digits. Airnow.gov has us at 25.

Today’s high will be in the upper sixties.

I’m looking forward to having something done about my injured foot. Although I wear my brace when I’m out and about, strange complaints and sharp pains will jump out. “Hey, don’t bend me that way,” it yells. “Watch where you’re stepping. You want pain, I’ll give you pain.” I know, it’s a very small thing to endure compare to what many others suffer. I’m just a whiner.

I’m not going to comment much on the debate last night. I will say that my personal confidence and hope that Kamala Harris becomes POTUS number 47 pole-vaulted into new levels.

With the debate and the rain and season shift, The Neurons have plugged a Steve Perry song into the morning mental music stream (Trademark gone). “Oh Sherrie” was released in 1984. I don’t know why it’s in my head this morning. I can’t trace a relationship to anything that I thought, did, or dreamed. It’s just there as I walked into the office, coffee cup in hand, swallowing the last of a fig, and gazed out the window at the green mountains, flat gray sky, and cautiously falling rain. The Neurons work in mysterious ways.

Stay positive, be strong, and vote blue in 2024. Coffee is half gone. Here’s the music video — Steve Perry with Journey playing his hit single. Cheers

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Doggone Cute

I was walking past several parks today. People were out with their dogs, always in the shade, playing.

One shaggy-haired young man looked like he was in his mid-twenties. His canine companion looked old and out of shape. The guy lightly throw a Frisbee. The dog galloped after it. After twenty feet, the dog stopped and turned around, looking for the disc. It sailed over his head and landed four or five feet behind him.

“Behind you,” the man called to the dog. Turning around, the dog saw the Frisbee. Picking it up in his jaws, he trotted back, but stopped four feet away and settled down in green shade.

“Drink water,” the guy said.

The dog went to a water bowl and took a few sloppy laps. “Bring me the toy,” the man said.

Doing as told, the dog brought it over and put it on his man’s feet.

“Ready?” the man asked.

Watching him, the dog began jogging away. The Frisbee was launched. The dog ran out, stopped, and turned around as the Frisbee landed behind him.

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Saturday’s Theme Music

Mood: upbeat and restless

Today is Saturday, June 22, 2024. Summer had asserted itself with a firm hand. A solidly blue sky gazes down on Ashlandia and bright sunshine blisters our skin and browns the land. Currently 73 F, Ashlandia’s area will experience low to mid 90s for the highs today. The wind has shifted and the smoke has drifted out of our valley to go plague others in another valley, so it’s breathable outside. Take precautions against the heat and outside activities can be pursued. It supposed to get cooler for a few days, with temperatures dipping into the eighties.

It feels like it’s been a long week. Realizing it’s Saturday surprises me. The big Biden-Trump debate looms on the calendar. Personally, I have a physical this week. Slowing down, moderately overweight, I feel like I’m aging by the day — which, yeah, we all are — so I’m not looking forward to the physical.

Mom and I spoke yesterday. She related one of her favorite precautionary tales. Her mother had a thing about smells. She was living alone, in her nineties, as her children discussed putting her into a nursing home or assisted living facility. Those discussions had stalled.

Meanwhile, on a cold December Nebraska night, her mother put on a light jacket and took a banana peel out to put in the outside trash. She slipped and fell, staying on the ground for forty-five minutes before noticed and helped. That was the end of her living alone. She lived for several more years but wasn’t the same.

On her part, Mom’s big fall over a decade ago triggered her long health decline. For my part, when I was immobilized with an obstructed bladder a few years ago, I saw changes quickly emerge. I was suddenly stiffer and less fluid in my movement. My balance felt slightly off. My metabolic rate had changed as I aged, of course, but suddenly I put on weight. Much of my muscle seemed to slack off overnight. Then, boom, my skin all seemed to be sagging.

It’s likely that all those things were happening but I didn’t notice until my routines were changed. Seeing those changes made me more cognizant of my retreating hair line, and the color fleeing my hair and beard. I feel older, slower, and weary. Reading news of the world and its people, and political news, doesn’t seem to help at all. I turn to coffee for energy boosts but I know I shouldn’t be drinking it any longer. Like Grandma and her banana peel, I can’t stop myself.

I read Jill Dennison’s blog as frequently as I can. She and I seem like kindred political spirits, part of the same tribe as many of you who regularly visit my blog and comment. I read one of Jill’s posts and commented yesterday. In her comments back to me, she mentioned that she’s looking for a rainbow.

That was like a set up for The Neurons. As soon as that was read and digested, they began playing Chris Rea’s song, “Looking for A Rainbow” from 1989, in the morning mental music stream (Trademark smoldering). The song starts out slow as it carries forward the album’s theme, The Road to Hell, but becomes jauntier and of course features Rea’s slide guitar work.

Well we come down to the valley
Yea we’re looking for the honey
I see a rainbow
I say that’s the land of milk and honey

Me and my cousin
Me and my brother
My little sister too
Come looking for a rainbow
Yea we’re looking for a rainbow

Well we come down to the valley
Got our babies in our arms
Yea we’re Maggie’s little children
And we’re looking for Maggie’s farm

Me and my cousin
Me and my brother
My little sister too
Come looking for a rainbow
Yea we’re looking for a rainbow

h/t to Genius.com

Yeah, Jill, baby, I think many of us are looking for a rainbow and the land of milk and honey. Some seem to believe the only way there is by holding others back, beating them down, or banishing them. Yes, I’m looking at you, Republicans.

Stay positive – yes, it’s hard – be strong – yes, also hard – and lean forward and Vote Blue in 2024. Maybe we can create a place that attracts rainbows. Here’s the music. Cheers

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The Writing Moment

One important matter that many new writers overlook is, what does their muse want?

The muse can fill a critical function in the fiction writin’ process, so identifying them and learning what they like — and DISLIKE — can be a significant component of your personal process. Sometimes, as it is for me, it’s more than one muse, so the aspiring writer must pay attention to who the muses are and what they do. Fer ‘nstance, my muses love coffee. Don’t try to pawn tea or chai off on ‘em; they’ll inform you with seething disgust that they’re not the same. However, some of the muses are more impatient and arrogant than the others. Some of them read someone else’s fiction and immediately scream into my ear, “Write something like that!” I’m always coping with them doing that. The way I do so, with more patience and caution that touching a sleeping cat’s belly, is to gently promise I will write something like that after I finish this (whatever this is) and hope they accept and quiet down.

BTW, don’t try to overlook the grammar and punctuation muses. They can be wrong but they will push and push for a decision about a comma, period, tense, noun, verb, and so on, until they’re satisfied (at least for the moment).

My muses are not fond of writing at home, cuz cats, spouse, phone – well, environmental distractions. (Yeah, we still have a home phone, althought it’s VOIP.) My muses like it in a noisy coffee shop where nobody pays attention to them and they can write in peace surrounded by people bustling around on their business. As I have multiple muses (sometimes called musi in the more traditional plural spelling) (yeah, just kiddin’ ‘bout that), I need to ensure the right one shows up on time. Little is worse for me than entering a revision session only to have a ‘new project’ muse enter to help, suggesting the concept for a new novel, novella, short story, movie, song, play, or essay.

Last, my musi demand time and focus on them everyday. If they don’t get it, they spoon crankiness, exasperation, and irritation into my mood. So, every day, no matter what’s happenin’, they want me to sit and write or edit. They don’t care if zombies are overrunning the neighborhood, a blizzard is underway, or nukes are falling. Nor is being hungry, sick, or social engagements a concern for ’em. They want their writing or editing time. And don’t think that research is good enough for the muse. I’ve tried mollifying them with research; my muses don’t buy it and will sometimes go off and sulk, leaving me without a muse to write. I can do it, but it’s a bit like having problems with a bowel movement.

Now, back to writing. So sayeth the muse what’s in charge.

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