words: in order

So, I have a plan. I’m not actually embarking on this plan tonight, but I (honestly) have every intention of doing so. I attended a poetry studio for a few years and the participants received a weekly word or phrase to write from. I didn’t always, but often tried, at least to come up with something.

I’m going to start doing that again. The catch is that I’ll have to come up with my own phrases, or perhaps convince my husband to spout something random, but I think I can get over that.

I’d love to say my head hurts, but it doesn’t. It’s baffled. Buffered. Behind about 6 inches of bubble wrap and yelling into a throw cushion. As such, I have no idea what it’s trying to say and, I have to say, I’m not terribly interested at the moment. I have things to do, like Christmas cards, Christmas shopping, cleaning and all sorts of mundane crap that’s barricading my poor brain behind to do lists.

I want to write something vaguely poetic. I am trying to read poems - some of them I can even get into, while I gloss over others and barely notice the words, never mind the content. Is it the full moon? The abrupt recent change in weather? The knowledge that this new gloomy weather is likely to be the status quo for the next several months? The fact that I haven’t been to my chiropractor in far to long a time?

My dog just sighed on the couch beside me and I believe that just about sums it up right now. I’m blogging (elsewhere, too, and with greater frequency) and that seems to be taking care of my literary aspirations for the time being.

In the mean time, I’ll read. And I’ll write. And, occasionally, I may try and cut through the crap and try to find a poem.

Quote Details: Edgar Watson Howe: A poem is no… - The Quotations Page

“a poem is no place for an idea” Edgar Watson Howe

Yeah. Think about that!

Well, eventually, anyway.

I know there are a few glitches in the sidebar, but those’ll have to wait for another day. I’ve been busy working on my private blogs, my photos, entertaining company, taking care of my pets and being constantly awed by my now four month old daughter.

And, suddenly, it’s Thanksgiving.

And, while working at all these things I realise that I am thankful. For all of it. For the fact that I am so happily busy with all the people and the few sideline projects in my life that I have not had the time to post here. I haven’t had the need to put into words how things are going, because I’ve been doing it.

It’s kind of nice.

I do miss chewing on phrases and tripping along alliteration, but I know that I’ll have the time for that later and the words will still be there. Besides, it still strikes me at this point in my writing, as damned near impossible to write about being thankful without sounding overly glib, trite or oozingly sentimental. I know it can be done - I’ve seen it - I just don’t know that I have the ability to steer clear of it in my own writing. The card companies already have the schmaltzy crap all tied up, anyway.

**********

the dog’s kiss
on my baby’s knee

she pays him no mind
as she, with all intensity, lays her fist
on his side of the sofa

And so, a new post from me. But it will contain nothing profound.

I am, at the moment, rather involved in the life of a near seven week old baby and she seems to be rather all consuming. It’s not that she’s given me nothing to write about, I just have little time to sift through it all in my head and actually write it down. That, and the dreaded memory loss that folklore has it arrives with motherhood has afflicted me too. Apparently it also affects my punctuation, but I’m going to ignore everything that could possibly be wrong with the previous sentence.

In addition to the dear babe herself, I have plenty of inspiration from people and things I see on our daily walks - at some point, there will have to be a whole volume of words written just to clear my head out.

In the mean time, photos are much quicker to take and, sometimes, manage to tell the same story.

I’ve sent three poems out into the big bad world.

It’s been a while since I’ve submitted anything, and I wanted these three particular poems to go to this particular ezine as soon as I saw the site. It was still a bit of a twist of the gut, hitting the send button, but the deed is done and I can now only sit and wait. According to the guidelines, I can expect to wait one or two months.

In the mean time, the next edition of Quills (see link in sidebar) will be out shortly, with the announcements of which poems won Byron’s Quill. Yep, I entered there too. My hopes for any acknowledgement there are significantly lower, but I am looking forward to the new edition, regardless.

In the mean time, posting may be (even more) sporadic as the impending birth draws a little closer every day.

Well, now I’m cranky. Yes, I’m prone to that anyway, what with the raging hormones of pregnancy and all that, but I’ve also just recently discovered that my favourite online magazine - the only one I wanted to link to in the sidebar - is no more. The Circle has produced its last issue.

I have a series of other online magazines bookmarked. Some of them, I read sporadically and some of them only publish sporadically. It looks to be tough road in the online business, despite my initial thought that it could, at least, be smoother than the print business. Perhaps not.

I’m hoping that The Circle archives are available for a time to come, and I’ll leave the link up as long as there is something to link to. I’ll probably go back and sift through some issues again to find old favourites. But it is sad to know that there will be no new additions - at least at that site.

untitled

part of you wonders absently
    how long before they sink
after watching most migrate through the kitchen door
on cat feet, bare feet and easy-to-blame dust devils

there is evidence of trespass
mandatory travel and personal preference
that leaves the rest of us guilt-free in our rocky endeavours

these ties are tenuous
and must be bundled in selective knots
if anything is to ever hold

we lie detached, perhaps

untitled

I woke the other night

disturbed

by a seagull’s scream
before a blast of hail
peppered my skylight,

ended

abruptly as it arrived
and left me shell-shocked

**********

Tomorrow is another meeting with other poets to discuss recent work and perhaps plan a reading. We had initially thought about reading tomorrow, but life appears to have caught up with us all and left us unprepared. I’m not sure if I’ll have a chance to participate in a reading after this point - what with the whole baby due date creeping up on me - but I will still certainly enjoy the chance to immerse myself in a few good words.

I find myself in early spring sympathy
with the robin who sits stunned at the chill still in the air
while chickadees remain steadfastly nearby
next to new-built crows’ nests and frost tipped buds.

And I suspect it is only a local camouflaged cat
who is at ease right now.