a squat blue demi-god, fourteen glowing eyes leering at my sleeping feet. his center eyes move in slow circles as his metallic brain waits eagerly. sunlight claps him on the back, and gleeful, he shrieks his metal warcry BLOODCURDLING! alarmed, I lurch toward the brassy taunt. I catch him as he cackles, unresisting. smothered, the […]
(This has nothing to do with Wallace Stevens’ “Idea of Order at Key West,” though you should read that, too!) Fifteen minutes. Can I write this that quickly? That’s all the time remaining before bed, because after dinner I continued reading O Magazine until all the words were consumed. My girls mock me for reading […]
Today’s been subtly physically challenging. There’s a lot rolling around in my brain, but somehow I don’t feel equal to pulling it out and pinning it down. Not just now. My sweetie opened the shades across the front windows. It’s nearly 8pm, nearly twilight in a pause between drenching rains. I’m looking at the bright […]
(h/t to Mr. Colbert Report) While collecting steps today in the kind of heavy rain I took for granted as a kid in Georgia, I started thinking about shoring up one’s faults vs. leveraging one’s strengths. This, by the way, is all the rage in leadership/management circles: why browbeat someone for sucking at some thing […]
At 8:45p I set out to round off my 7000 steps for today. I walked down to our neighborhood pond, and got a full dose of the source material for this camp song: Hear the lively song / Of the frogs in yonder pond / Krik-krik, krikkety-krick / brrrrr-ump! Dude. Those peepers are LOUD. And […]
Today’s quick post is brought to you by Another Scrap of Paper! Not an idea-garden post-it this time, but some notes I took during a webinar. Said notes have floated up to the top of my desk-flotsam (Flotsam: fallen overboard by accident. Instead of jetsam, objects which were tossed on purpose. You’re now free to […]
I had a cross-Austin drive today, so I listened to another Creative Giant podcast. Halfway through, I heard: “We try to put all this structure around us [and our creative practice] because we don’t trust ourselves. But when we get in the creative play zone…things come out.” -Cynthia Morris My brain promptly skidded off into […]
Thin, tall green strands the shape of chives grow between the wide stones of the path to the patio. A tiny tree exploits the sanctuary of the green bouncy patio chair. Fruits the size of my pinky fingernail dangle from the spiky shrub in the corner. They’re greyish-bluish on top with purple beneath, like plums. […]
Conserves, preserves, jam What if you could gather up motion, pick a field of momentum, then bring it home and simmer it in sugar to distill it down? Then pour it into hot boiled jars, quickly lidded, and set it aside to cool. To store, so that later you could open a container and spread […]
(Side note for those who dodged Usenet subculture: in Early Computer, ^H was how the backspace key “looked” if you turned it into a printable character.) Not having a template for Being A Poet is bugging me. Template, vision, career path… Map for my days. Yardstick for whether I’m doing needful things or merely lollygagging*. […]
