Current mood: tired

I started this months before finishing it. Long gaps when writing remind me of the danger of letting things sit - especially poetry. It’s helpful to get some distance from the work, but situations and even people change amazingly quickly. It’s hard to judge how long is too long.. My upcoming birthday is  depressing and things kept wanting to go that way, but mortality wasn’t originally a theme in the first stanza - I was just trying to make it pretty.

It might help for short works to take detailed notes on one’s state of mind before starting and then only write when in similar moods, but this would limit the range of anything longer. Ack it’s way past time to sleep..

I’ve gazed along the open road
in early morning silence,
when the ground is lit with a heady glow
and the light is clear and constant;
a milky film of night-air clings
to the silver olive leaves
and the silver sun skims the sandy ground
and throws light in drops off the trees.

I’ve gazed along the open road
in staid light fast abating,
when the sky is great with gold decay
and the sun is spent and setting;
a rich bouquet of shared-life hangs
with black and heavy fruit
till fruit and branches drop with the day
and all that’s quick falls cold and mute.

Current mood: calm

There is a sweet and solemn place
away up in the canyon
along the ridge’s southern face
where the redroot’s blooming.
The air is hot and hazy thick
with the smell of summer,
the grass is ripe and sweet to pick
in gold and green and amber.
The insects murmer high and light
a humming and a popping
the sky is lit up low and bright
and peace is gently falling.

The morning sweat and rising breath
of oceans, rivers, lakes,
is drawn and packed against
the upper edge of air and space.
The sky bends under compounded
weight of wind and cloud;
the atmosphere beneath,
compressed and buckling, cracks,
crazing up the middle,
hot from the folding,
light showing through the back.

Again from creative writting

Found this half done in a notebook. Often when I come back to things they seem mehh but this was ok. The danger in waiting to finish is that style inevitably changes - it’s pretty obvious which stanzas are new. Distance is good, but not too much..

She sits across from me wild and unbroken,
hair wandering, eyes lit up by coffee fumes -
the high features of her face, the force of life
that uncurls from her shoulder and animates
fine ligaments as she reaches for a napkin
call to mind old romantic poetry in which the victim
is subject to all manner of unlikely metaphor, but,

My love is like an untamed bird
that sits in open hand -
her talk is singing, if she sang
to me I could not stand it.
Such things were meant not for mere men
but rather kings and lords
who sat in ancient times enthroned,
rich raiment draped like skirts of snow
round thickset hills of shoulders,
iron necks, proud heads turned slow.
Their crown was justice, might their sceptre,
From their lips flowed truth and beauty,
On their tounges were verse and laughter.
In their cages dwelt such birds;
when their strong hearts were galled
from bearing beast and sinful man,
then for the bird they’d call;

And notes as clear as moonlight rang,
bright peaks and dewy threads of song
light-shuttled through the air,
until the violent crowd grew quiet;
until all else fell silent.

Current mood: hopeful

..is a beautiful material, but
even when it’s oxidized and colored
touching turns the copper into other
ugly muddy shades until it’s covered
with the fingerprints - the copper color’s
smothered under brown and banal smudges -
though now I dip the copper in a can
of oil-based laquer and my fingers
in detergent and that works a little better..

You know your hobby is obscure when the only tools available were made in the 1800’s and are being sold on ebay as collectibles..

I drum out rythms on things all the time - it’s sort of a nervous habit.  I also spend alot of time walking around the warehouse at work doing audits, but I need to hold a pen and notebook so I can’t drum.  At some point I started tapping my feet instead, one thing lead to another, and the next thing I knew I was tap-dancing from pallet to pallet.  Now I’m not naturally a good dancer, but I’ve been making a conscious effort to improve and I think it’s paying off - all the warehouse workers stop and stare at me as I go by.

Also, this woman named Regina just sent me a friend request and I added her.  I don’t know who she is, but go to my friends list and take a look.  Her profile and blogs are amazing..

Current mood: blah

Maple leaves hang lightly on the trees,
glazed in pungent copper-red,
pulling branches into subtle curves
till taken by the wind and freed.
Curliques of growth soon to be black
and dead, they still refuse to serve
the Tyrant Winter creeping up in autumns’ lee.

Line two isn’t quite right.. I don’t like copper and can’t think of an alternative.  It was “pungent autumn red”, which is sonorous but linguistically feeble / repetitive.  Any ideas?

Current mood: “Orange clouds raining in my head”

Please abandon all expectations of topical consistency.  Thank you, you may now proceed.

Why would a girl hit on other men while hanging out with her boyfriend?  This happened to me twice in the past week and I don’t understand.  Ladies, please don’t do this - it’s very awkward and not even flattering since you aren’t genuinely interested.

Brenda has been transfered out of my office and without her witty reparte and goofy antics my job is entirely dreary..  Aye, Brendita!  Who now will staple papers to their hand for my amusement?  Who will roll vitamin bottles across an open copy machine in an effort to duplicate the labels?  Who will ask me to explain the pharmacological properties of horny goat weed?

Ode to Brenda

Oh lissome, white-coated Brenda,
your humour is sweeter than Splenda.
That your staples are errant
is quickly apparent -
from your fingers you hang referenda.

Thank you Nick and Ashley for your kind comments.  Just one person liking one piece is enough to compensate for much failure.

There are problems with all of these. The hymn is a little short (maybe a doxology) and has no lyrics plus the bass line needs work and a better synthesizer / real instrument. The middle third of the improvisation should be replaced with something harmonicaly different ( less repetetive), which can be done when it’s not 2 at night.

Two forklifts are used in the warehouse at my job, a Yamaha propane 2-stroke and a Wiggins electric. The Yamaha has a top speed of 20 mph and the Wiggins can manage 15. Both have telescopic forks capable of lifting 500 lbs over 15′ in the air. These things zip up and down the isles, often backwards, and the drivers are used to people moving, so you have to be aware enough to step out of the way. I was nearly flattened by the Yamaha last week while looking down at my notebook; as it whipped past my nose I noticed a humorous saftey sign on the engine cowling depicting a man standing on the fork, being lifted into the air.

While eating lunch I was reminded of the safety sign by the shape of my tuna sandwich and began to think on it. Safety signs warn against dangerous activities. Often the danger is obvious but people choose to ignore it because the activity is fun or useful, hence the need for a sign. Saftey signs can therefore provide good ideas for fun or useful activities.

Being lifted 15′ in the air is fun and useful by itself, but combine it with the speed of the forklift and some assorted warehouse junk and you get a spectacular fusion of feudalism and technology: Forklift Jousting!

Forklift Jousting requires teams of two: a driver and a lancer. First, each driver picks up a pallet to serve as a platform for the lancer. The lancer is armed with his choice of weaponry. I would personally use either a machine axle or a 12′ cardboard shipping tube, along with the lid from a sunblock drum as a shield.

When the contestants are ready, the forklifts retire to opposite ends of the warehouse. At a pre-arranged signal, the drivers accelerate and pass as close and as quickly as possible while the lancers try to knock each-other to the ground. Rules are as follows:

1) The forklifts must drive backwards, otherwise a jouster could land in front of his machine and be run over.

2) If the forklifts collide, the round is a draw.

3) The driver may raise or lower the fork as he sees fit, but the jouster must remain above the roof of the forklift so he is not shielded by the body of the machine, at pains of a 2 point penalty.

4) 1 point is awarded for disarming an opponent, two points for knocking him off his pallet. A bonus point is awarded for disabling the opposing driver or forklift without crashing into it.

5) If a jouster topples his opponent, he may choose to dismount and resume combat on foot, in which case additional points are awarded as follows: 1 point for disarming, 2 for bringing an opponent to the ground (both knees touching the floor), 3 for a successful beheading. If a contestant brings his enemy to such a pass that beheading is inevitable but chooses to show mercy, the judges may award beheading points anyway.

6) At the end of the tournament the team operating the Wiggins is awarded an extra point as compensation for it’s lower speed.

The winner is decided after three passes by a panel of judges and is awarded the looser’s next paycheck.

The summer weather in California is very frustrating. I want to lie there all day, and when I do go out I’m reduced to somnolescence and unable to hold up a conversation. By the time it gets cooler and I start to wake up it’s 10:00 at night and time for bed.

Praise Him who first sang the great theme of creation, and Who’s voice echoes down from glory to glory into the least of us, so we might be echoes of His singular Glory.

Praise Him who knit this theme into the foundations of the law so there might be harmony and order. The branches of trees echo the veins of leaves, the branching of rivers the veins of men.

Praise Him who loved what He made, even when it hated Him. He followed the theme as it dropped through minor keys, allied Himself with our dirty veins, and became a frail, paltry thing; a thing of blood and dust; a thing such that if the least of His angels breathed on it, it would crumble into ashes. He bound Himself to us so we might be bound to Him, He stepped into our shit to raise us up out of it.

Praise God who bound Himself not only to our humanity but also our filth and our sickness - He went down to death, the death of a criminal, death by suffocation and torture, and our sickness died with Him; He rises, and we rise with Him also!

Current mood: thankful

The twofold fruit of life lived in reflection:
When love first blooms with breath of light, like dawn
that breaks over the heart at fair creation’s
hard wrought majesty or the quick gleam
in some young woman’s eye, at root of love
is wisdom, knowing first the fire of God
behind the image of His glory, though imperfect;
second, being drawn through less to greater.

I now have a key to the dam gates. If anyone wants to go up there I’d be happy to loan it out.