Week #15—Calisthenic

From p. 107-8 of Writing Poetry

Object: Tennis Racquet

3 Adjectives:  oblong, high-strung, unwieldy

3 Appositives: designed by Babolat, purchased at the pro shop, tested by the tennis pro

3 Acts:  execute a harder serve, extend a player’s reach for the ball, prevent muscle strain

3 Memories:  once I hit my knee on the follow-through of a serve and cringed; I threw it toward a ball I could not reach; it crashed into my partner’s racquet as we went for the same volley.

3 Declarations: it is necessary for participation in a great sport; it is useful for picking up balls without bending over; it is dangerous in the hands of a two-year old.

High-strung, unwieldy, designed by Babolat

to extend a player’s reach for the ball

Once, I threw it toward a ball I could not reach

If I could, I’d crash into my partner’s racquet

as we tried to hit the same volley

It is dangerous in the hands of a two-year old.

Strung tight and unwieldy

my Babolat soared toward the ball

hitting my partner’s racquet as she

launched for the same volley.

We crashed into each other

like two two year olds gauging a hug.

Week #15--Sign Inventory

Week #15—Sign Inventory

A Mask Called Nothing

by Amy Pence

So we enter the dog days—summer

its bedraggled undergrowth, feasting

insects, spiders spinning, unspun.

Everything swarming to the grand ticking

surface:  verdure & verdant—a plentitude,

identity leaks from our faces, a carnival

of exiles:  subversion, ecstasy, anarchy,

apathy, masochism—listless and rogue.

Then finally, nothing:  its jade eyelids

around sockets, skin textured—

wind in the bestial unknowing

genuflects to an embarrassment of days.

Unloosed from the Dark, a lowly coming—

all the names unleash their quiet.

Confessional style

voice in the collective “we” (seemingly)

enjambment

alliteration and assonance of ‘s’ sounds in lines two through four

and five.

more alliteration in “verdure and verdant”

a list of nouns related to feelings and states of mind

two uses of colons; four dashes

personification of summer “its jade eyelids,” “skin textured”

strange capitalization of Dark

odd phrasing in “identity leaks from our faces”;

“listless and rogue”; “an embarrassment of days”;

“unleash their quiet.”

seven two-line stanzas

Week #15--Improv

To Janis Joplin

 by Leigh Ann Couch

You bit and crawled, caterwauled to wild applause

with doo-wop boys backing you up. First-girl ferocious,

throttled by music and Son House, you were his

bottle-neck demon. Your voice had a body, blood

in its teeth, a tight-lipped father, a sad-eyed mother,

and never got enough love for the fucking,

so it backed over the men who needed some

tire-marks across their chests.

In a ring of fire I dream you, daughter-eyes crazed

with light, that mangle of hair, you lay hands

on yourself to be transformed—my exploding

angel of fame, sex, excess, no longer

middle-class white girl, just voice

clawing its blind way out our throats.

To Dean Martin

by Pauline Rodwell

You sat and crooned, couched before cameras

with GoldDigger gals at your side. Bad boy beautiful,

juiced up from studio applause, you were my

tuxedo hero. Your style was so smooth, easy

like Grant, a Greg-arious director, a straight-man pianist,

and always attentive to the ladies,

making them look gorgeous while you

looked more so in your golf tan and golden hair.

In a marathon of reruns I watch you, crazy but cool

in skits, those ridiculous roles, your unrehearsed foibles

that bring peels of laughter—my savior from boredom,

that debonair flair, those mellow vocals, the Italian

boxer with big hands, your soothing, sexy, sound seeps

into my psyche sending all other archetypes away.

Week #15--Free Entry

Worry

Greedy for feasting, tiny claws strain

for sunflower seeds meant for feathered

friends—not pesky, tall-tailed thieves.

Through the bedroom window,

I watch him struggle with the grids—

like a prisoner desperate to escape

his cell—only this felon wants in. Taking

pity, I toss out a corn cob and, later,

during the southern night’s drawl,

hear him scuttle inside the wall—

disrupting the cat’s sleep and mine. I think

about the house wires and what will happen

if he finds a live one. I wonder if he can

access the attic and gnaw on my seasonal

door wreaths. What if his mate has followed

him here? I entertain the thought of babies,

and if they will suffocate (or will I?) as I burrow

deeper into my pillow of helplessness. He scuttles

from one end of the house to the other,

reminding me of my scramble through the endless

tunnel of each day’s toils. Maybe he’s on a lark—

enjoying a boyish adventure while his mate

waits patiently for him to return to the nest that

they made together and explain himself to her.

She’s probably nestled high in a pine tree next

to the house, bracing against the wind as it whines

through the crevices of her crumpling heart.

How long will she wait and what will she do

if he doesn’t come back? Will she define a new

destiny for herself? Will she look for another,

learn to live alone, or, like Dido, self-destruct?

Will she ever stop listening . . . watching . . . waiting?

Week #14--My Post to MacKenzie's Calisthenic

MacKenzie,

This speculative narrative about Odysseus inside the Trojan horse is rather unique. Appealing phrases like "the fleshy tulip of his thumb" and "the belly of that wooden deception" counter the more prosy short sentences. Your imagery of the "spiral of fate" as a braided cord is very clever.

I'm not sure the word "concrete" fits in with the rest of the text, and two uses of "heart" might seem heavy. Also, the proximity of "inside" to "In his ears" sounds a little awkward. Finally, I think something more is needed in front of "ineffable," such as 'woven by the' or 'spun by the' "ineffable hands of the gods."

Those are my thoughts. It's a really nice draft and could be developed into an interesting work with some expansion. Perhaps, as Dr. D suggested in class to Elizabeth, add a completely different exercise and see if they can meld together. You do great work!

Pauline

Week #14--My Post to Elizabeth Wood's Free Entry

Elizabeth,
There's a childish tone to this poem that seems overshadowed by the past tense. Why not write in the child's voice and in present tense so the excitement of Easter morning becomes more vivid and not just a flashback? I love the second verse's imagery of armless dolls and the sonorous treats of "discarded" and "carnage"; "armless and harmless" and many  other goodies.
Problematic for me:  "sotto voce" after whispering seems unnecessary--one needs to retire. Also, the line: "Lust snatched crumbling sleep from my eyes"--has too many unrelated connotations of sexual desire, theft, and the Sandman. I'm just not sure these fit together well for a child's awakening.
It's a nice start to something good. I hope you continue to work on it and share it with us.
Pauline

Week #14--Calisthenic

An exploring possibilities exercise:

                  Approximations

Riding around in your new hydrangeas,

we lose ourselves in a euphoric funk of

which-a-ways and that-a-ways, knowing

that eventually we would arrive at displeasure

with having to make our way into broccoli

and biscuits, missing out on the panoramic

flow of ants and lizards craning and zipping

all over the horizon. We wonder where

time fell and if it could be made into wool.

Perhaps not. Nevertheless, it will be useful

in keeping track of winter clothes and putting

out the trash. But what about tomorrow’s guest

list and all the marbles strewn along the path?

Leave them for the experts, I say. We existentialists

only care about the moon and what it will

tell us tonight when the dogs start crowing.

And anyway, the butter will soften in starlight

while you and I melt into eggrock.

Week #14--Junkyard Quotes

“She’s the blow-dry princess.”

News reporter talking about Kate Middleton’s third-place status as a popular princess.

“Dare I contend with souls so wise?”

Vigen Guroian, an Eastern Orthodox Christian (from onbeing.org)

“I am a dander whisperer.”

TV ad for CVS Pharmacies

“Smooth and seamless is sin when it is woven so finely into the fabric of life.”

Rev. Dena Bearl, “First Person.” Pathways, Spring 2011

Week #14—Improv

Study of Two Pears

            by Wallace Stevens

                  I

Opusculum paedagogum.

The pears are not viols,

Nudes of bottles.

They resemble nothing else.

               II

They are yellow forms

Composed of curves

Bulging toward the base.

They are touched red.

              III

They are not flat surfaces

Having curved outlines.

They are round

Tapering toward the top.

              IV

In the way they are modeled

There are bits of blue.

A hard dry leaf hangs

From the stem.

              V

The yellow glistens.

It glistens with various yellows,

Citrons, oranges and greens

Flowering over the skin.

              VI

The shadows of the pears

Are blobs on the green cloth.

The pears are not seen

As the observer wills.

Interpreting the Captcha

                        by Pauline Rodwell

                  1.

specifi cidatio

what it means, I do not know.

I just had to copy it

to prove that I’m responsible.

                   2.

Whenever I go to vote

on a certain website,

I have to type in letters

that make no sense at all.

                   3.

They say that folks had trouble

spelling animal names

in order to confirm their votes.

So they changed their format.

                    4.

They thought they had trouble before!

It was so simple to type

the first letters of “lion” or “zebra”

and click from the drop down menu.

                      5.

Now I have to decipher letters

in various fonts and italics

and type them out JUst So

or I’ll get kicked out.

                        6.

I’ll bet those folks who complained

are really sorry now, and

whoever invented captcha

could not have learnt to spell.

Week #14—Sign Inventory

Interleaving

            by Leigh Ann Couch

Is wind the sound of crackling,

the burn of sudden winter. Is rain the sound

of slapping, the dissolute taste of silver.

Is field that steady reach of your longing

to fly, the dirt beneath surging in waves.

Am I your despair and love a compound of symptoms.

Does wind bend and snap

young pines like pole beans, or is it pitched

through woodlands by planets, their cacophonies.

Is field that steady reach of your longing to fly.

Does rain collect itself and burst the seams of heaven—

you say I entered leaving—or was it thirst,

green and helpless, flooding us with good intentions.

Am I your despair and love an insoluble crystal.

As field might exist to hold back the ocean,

I dread your steady reach. Like the shore,

I’ve a taste for disappearing.

My longing, this rage of dirt surging

in waves of I and thou, this measuring

of how wind is wind, rain rain,

we are finished and these are the elements:

cause and consequence, want and acquiescence—

they keep our periodic places. Need chooses me.

If I could go, I would never leave.

Confessional style, interrogatory voice with conclusive ending.

Periods instead of question marks after questions.

Allusions to chemistry and periodical chart

Four six-line stanzas

One repetition of line six

Some enjambment, two long dashes

Alliterations:  “sound of slapping”; “pines like pole beans”; “cause and consequence”;

Five repetitions of “I”, three occur in second stanza

Repetitions of “wind” and “rain” in fourth stanza, “dirt” in first and third stanzas.

Internal rhyme:  “wind” and “winter”; “reach” and “beneath”; “snap” and “planets”;

“burst” and “thirst”.

No end rhymes.

Eleven ‘ing’ verbs

Use of ‘thou’—breaks the rule

Week #14--Free Entry

A rewrite from an earlier posting:                                        

                                          Visitation

The funeral parlor fills with family and friends of the deceased—

who does not smile. It’s not like him, his widow says. He always smiled.

The blinking video in the corner of the room proves it—

in the white choirboy surplice, at their midlife wedding (they seemed

so right for one another), boating on the lake, camping in national parks,

skiing in Aspen—always flashing those crooked teeth, the same ones

I remember from Ms. Jones’ typing class when he would get us into trouble

for talking too much, for keeping me in stitches. Have you heard the one about . . .

he would ask as his finger jabbed my back. I would twist my torso around

in my desk to see his face light up, all ears. He liked to make me laugh.

I needed to laugh.

The crowd mingles; no one seems interested in the flashbacks,

no one but me, that is, and a nearly blind old woman with a walker

who hobbles right up to the screen, her dark eyes peering into

the memories. Each of us seem to be searching for a sign—a reason.

Nearby, as remnants of his life recycle, he’s quiet and composed:

the downward turn of his mouth, the waxy pallor, sunken cheeks,

eyelids creased shut, and hands folded over his chest forever.

Inertia charges through my arm as I touch his shoulder, his best gray suit.

I miss your smile. Did you hear the one about . . .

Response to Kris' Improv

Kris,
Your improv emits a somber tone of anguish and death, a topic that might fall into the category of overuse; however, I think the speculation of the speaker about the dead man hoping that his body would be thrown into the ground uncontained provides a theme that could develop into something original. Certain lines captured me, like "too dark and sterile for names" and "autos / lined for the living." I'm not sure, though, about "a tree / bloomed above would lean from his ground, / laying petals into his eyes." Perhaps specifying what kind of tree and changing "his" to 'its' would help to make it sound more lifelike (no pun intended). Also, the line "all while those still living" seems to refer back to the "autos" due to the repetition of "living," so perhaps something different would work better there. I generally like what you have begun and think expanding on the dead man's wishes would be fun to explore.
Pauline

Response to Christine's Calisthenic

Christine,

I enjoy the kookiness of this draft and, like Kris, love the last line. I think "You bird me" and "I bird for you" sound too strange but could be reworked into something that keeps the bird theme going. Along that same line, I think "Like a bird, you smack against the window of my world, etc." might be a way into a less kooky, more serious draft. Still, this one is fun.

Week #13—Sign Inventory

Horoscope

            by Ted Hughes

You wanted to study

Your stars—the guards

Of your prison yard, their zodiac. The planets

Muttered their Babylonish power-sprach—

Like a witchdoctor’s bones. Your were right to fear

How loud the bones might roar,

How clear an ear might hear

What the bones whispered

Even embedded as they were in the hot body.

Only you had no need to calculate

Degrees for your ascendant disruptor

in Aires. It meant nothing certain—no more

According to the Babylonian book

Than a scarred face. How much deeper

Under the skin could any magician peep?

You only had to look

Into the nearest face of a metaphor

Picked out of your wardrobe or off your plate

Or out of the sun or the moon or the yew tree

To see your father, your mother, or me

Bringing you your whole Fate.

Dialogic tone: “You” and “me”.

Sporadic rhymes: “stars” and “guards” in one line, “fear” and “hear” in first verse; “disruptor” and “more” appear in two consecutive lines, as do “deeper” and “peep” in second verse; the “or” of “metaphor” in line 17 rhymes with “your” in line 18 and “or” in lines 19 and 20, “me” in line 20 rhymes with “me” in line 20, “plate” in line 18 rhymes with “Fate” in line 21, where “your” also picks up the rhyme of the four preceding lines.

English-German word coupling in "power-sprach."

Verse structure of 9—6—6 lines.

Enjambment with capitalized first letters of each line.

References to “Babylonian book” lend a historical, even palimpsest quality.

The repetition of the word “bones” provides a macabre element to the tone of the poem.

Metaphor of “stars” as “prison guards.”

Personification of “bones” that “roar” and whisper.

Week #13--Junkyard Quotes

“She really goes at those bushes. Give her an axe and she’ll chop the hell out of ‘em.”

A tennis friend.

“If you want your babies to soar, you don’t put rocks in their pockets.”

Part of a speech NPR’s Michele Norris gave in Marietta.

Most of us have eaten a spider in our sleep.

From a forwarded email of trivial facts.

The tide of good times ebbs too low for too long.

Moi.

Week #13--Calisthenic

An expansion-contraction exercise, using the first six weeks of my junkyard quotes:

Sometime between September and Wednesday, the DOT expects a blizzaster. By dropping gravel into hollow potholes and spreading sand on the local roads, they hope to prevent a plethora of car crashes during and after the storm. They also plan to unload piles of snirt along the nearby river, unaware of its detrimental effect on the fish harvest next spring. The snirt contaminates the waters and kills the fish, which are then scavenged by birds returning from their winter migrations. The petroleum poisons prevent the birds from procreating, and their populations diminish. This, my friend, is how we treat our fellow beings on this planet. One man alone cannot make a difference, but large numbers of people can turn this mess around. In the timeframe of a few years, we can ALL stop the terrible tsunami of pollution which destroys our world and help restore it to its original pristine condition. This is no laughing matter. The future of generations of life is at stake. Do you protect your environment or do you sit back and watch the world self-destruct, telling yourself that it cannot happen to you in your lifetime?  Don’t fool yourself. Get off your butt and go green now!

One more blizzaster turns into piles of snirt

melting into poison for fish, birds, and families

that fish in the waters for food. Unlike the sole

swoosh of a tsunami, pollution invades us one

by-product at a time and swells into a monster

wave of destruction that threatens the future of

our planet.

Clarion Call

Snirt mounds

melt into pounds

of poisons bound

to spoil streams

destroy dreams

and us

fish die

birds can’t fly

we must try

to think green

regain pristine

and not pollute.

Week #13—Free Entry

Practicing phrasings:

The crape myrtles cluster together like ladies at a luncheon, their carefully coiffed hair set off by the veins of their elegant necks.

The brown bunny in the backyard munches on clover, unacquainted with jelly beans and Easter chocolate.

The dog lopes along the lane, straining the limits of his long leash.

The beavers dam the creek so much that heavy rains flood the road.

The woodpecker’s elongated beak seeks the big seeds, scattering the tiny ones for small fry.

The squirrels chatter at the cat as if he had stolen their tails.

The deer dash into the forest, the white of their abrupt tails evaporating in the fog.

The narcissus sprouts in spring the way seasoned lovers savor a secret kiss.

Rows of lyriope border the wide driveway, not unlike the arch of oak trees that line the entry to Southern plantations.

Myriads of maples make suburbia attractive to sappy treehuggers.

Week #13--Improv

This is an riff off of Kate Northrup's "Lines":

Homework

                                    by Pauline Rodwell

The wittiest of all will probably engage in a struggle

            with the demands of homework,

and have to sweat it, eventually.

You can attack it throughout the day

            but your progress goes nowhere

after three, six,

            eight hours and it keeps on

demanding, demanding. You can’t

quit on it. One paper

            reaches completion

but comes back to you

days later for reworking. If you had been smart,

you would have chosen a topic

not so radically unpopular:

Papers always have a title and a thesis.

I myself once wrote a paper on homework.

            I took it to the professor

and laid it in front of her

 whispering Read, it’s original

but she tossed it in the can.

            Then the semester was done

and the graduating students were cheering and jumping

while I was crying because in just a few weeks

it would all begin again:

reading, writing, assignments.

Week #12—Sign Inventory

Night, Museum Garden

            by Kate Northrup

The statues here are like the living dead

or no, these are the ones stopped

            --who cannot move about, moan

or walk—

            suspended like this

in their continuing predicaments: the horse

            in the far corner, startled,

rearing; the girl about to bathe, who turns

            toward some interruption, the woman

seated beneath the cherry tree, looking away

from what may be a grave—

their faces this evening

            mirror clearly

what they do not face

while over the wall

            trees rustle. A few taxis

pass on the avenue, and further

the moon goes by, but again

silently, like a boat rowed over an empty pool.

Third person voice

Modernist-style, in that it focuses on things

strange form of one, two, or three line verses

spacey appearance on the page, as in ghostlike

three dashes

eerie tone

alliteration in “move about, moan”; “turns…interruption”; “trees…taxis”

No end rhyme, but internal rhyme in “away” and “grave”; “mirror clearly”.

Imagery in the “moon…like a boat rowed over an empty pool.”

week #12--Response to Ray's Free Write #11

Ray,
This is a good synopsis of what it's like to work at a movie theater. I like the first lines of each verse, except "Carefully smuggled" seems redundant although the alliteration with the next two lines works nicely. I suggest you find another word for "desire" and another for "young" as these lack specificity. I also suggest "The elderly couple arrives five minutes late, disrupting the masses to avoid previews." Good draft overall!

Week #12--Response to Christine's Free Write #11

Christine,
This draft about chairs reads pretty cool until the last line, where I get lost. The combination of "mouth remotes" seems too odd. But the best lines are the second verse and "Stools, though backless are paradigms of correct posture." Nice alliteration there and catchy, or 'kitschy' phrasing. Well done!

Week #12—Free Entry

      Just Like You and Me

Tulips—yellow—outside my door—

scattered—only three or four.

I’m tempted to assign them names,

like Jolly, Sunny, Rod, and James.

Like me, they stand up straight and tall

above a thin and thornless stalk.

Like you, they shut their petals tight,

rejecting any morning light.

Like me, they’ll blossom where they grow.

Like you, they’ll lean when breezes blow,

reminding me of why I frown;

maybe I should cut them down.

Week #12--Junkyard Quotes

“Help! I’m online and I can’t get off!”

Cartoon of old lady at her computer.

Immaturity wants more; maturity counts its blessings.

Moi.

“Go ahead and bash the hell out it, darling.”

Jamie Oliver, tenderizing chicken on GMA.

“It’s a televisional affair.”

Russell Bland referring to Regis and Kelli’s relationship on their TV show.

Week #12—Improv

The Waking

            By Theodore Roethke

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.

I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?

I hear my being dance from ear to ear.

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?

God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,

And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?

The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do

To you and me; so take the lively air,

And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady, I should know.

What falls away is always. And is near.

I wake to sleep, and tak my waking slow.

I learn by going where I have to go.

I yearn to write, and burn my yearning bright.

I see my fear in what I cannot feel.

I live by trusting what I think is right.

We love by seeing. Who is in your sight?

I sense your presence when I go to kneel.

I yearn to write, and burn my yearning bright.

In many who surround me, are you Light?

You shine your face! I catch a glimpse of real,

And live by trusting what I think is right.

Death makes us Free; but can you quell the fright?

The world supplies us with abundant yield;

 I yearn to write, and burn my yearning bright.

Grim Reaper plans to take another bite

of two or three, so eat your holy meal

and, brother, try to think of what is right.

This worry makes me giggle, I get tight.

What hurts me dies hard. And I lose my zeal.

I live by trusting what I think is right.

I yearn to write, and burn my yearning bright.

Week #12—Calisthenic

Random excerpts from the Norton Anthology of Poetry:

I have what the talkers were talking, the talk of the beginning and the end, / But I do not talk of the beginning or the end (Whitman). The Soul selects her own Society— / Then—shuts the Door— / To her divine Majority— / Present no more— (Dickinson). Here is the ancient floor, /  Footworn and hollowed and thin, / Here was the former door / Where the dead feet walked in (Hardy). Trenched with tears, carved with cares, / Hope was twelve hours gone (Hopkins). The time you won your town the race / We chaired you through the market-place (Housman). While still I may, I write for you / The love I lived, the dream I knew (Yeats). Out of me unworthy and unknown / The vibrations of deathless music: (Rutledge). And God stepped out on space, / And he looked around and said: I’m lonely—I’ll make me a world (Johnson). A star glide, a single frantic sullenness, a single financial grass greediness (Stein). In the brown water, / Thick and silver-sheened in the sunshine (A. Lowell). But I was well / Upon my way to sleep before it fell, / And I could tell / What form my dreaming was about to take (Frost). Down between the walls of shadow / Where the iron laws insist, / The hunger voices mock, / The worm wayfaring men (Sandburg). Or do the boughs  / Hang always heavy in that perfect sky (Stevens).

After twelve hours of talking, all hope was gone. The frantic tears had not brought God out of space, through the former door of the dead and into the footworn wayfarers. The sunshine they had enjoyed disappeared into the shadows, and the iron laws of Society won the race. Outside, a perfect sky hollowed out the glide of carved stars on God’s ancient floor, and the greediness of the world wormed its hunger into the boughs of his deathless music. A single, unworthy soul shuts the door on the dream and hangs onto the vibrations of loneliness.

         1939

 

Twelve hours of talking,

feet dead from walking,

one undeserving wayfarer

suffers a lawless terror.

The sun on the boughs,

a lone worm carves out

a grassy, iron-rich spread—

hungry for the dead.

Under deathless skies

an ancient god cries

as a heavy, hollow soul

glides through a starry hole.

Week #11--Response to Candis' Calisthenic

Candis,

This is an intriguing mix of statements that might be useful for a poem with a mysterious tone. Most interesting to me are lines 2-4 and 9. I hope you incorporate them into a future work and see what develops, maybe something in the voice of a multi-lingual celebrity.

Pauline

Week #11--Response to Elizabeth Wood's Improv

Elizabeth,

I do like the way you animated the pot in this piece and described the way it tugs at you with its "gape" of "possibilities." I wonder if you stayed in that voice of projecting your feelings into the pot and not at the pot, you might find a venue for the speaker's emotions in a more subtle way. Nice work!

Pauline

Week #11--Free Entry

Just practicing with rhyme here. I know it's cheesy.

OH, TO BE A CAT                 

Oh, to be a cat,

So compact and complete,

Coiffed with colored coat

And shoe’d with padded feet.

Oh, to be a cat,

Cuddly and carefree,

Content to be alone

In one’s own company.

Oh, to be a cat,

Cute and, oh, so clean,

Chasing tail and feathers,

Pardoned for being mean.

Oh, to be a cat,

Constantly aware

Of everything in range,

Allowed to stand and stare.

Oh, to be a cat,

Innocent yet wise,

Constantly admired

By doting human eyes.

Oh, to be a cat,

Indulged and so adored.

I would be delighted

To be so self-assured.

Oh, to be a cat,

Content at drop of hat,

Wouldn’t you be tickled

If I could be like that?

Week #11--Junkyard Quotes

“Most chefs make pasta, but I’m doing something I call ‘impasta’.”

Chef Richard on the Today Show 3/28/11.

“We can never see the sunrise by looking toward the west.”

Japanese proverb.

“Why do Irish dancers dance with the arms by their sides?”

An old friend.

“Does this ass make my car look fat?”

Political bumper sticker.