. Spinning .

As a picture framer, I have seen many artists pick up palette, pencil, or pastels about the time of menopause or the more manly mid-life crisis. What amazes me is how many writers do the same. Most of us who fall within this category have had words building up inside of us for so many years that if we didn’t spend them talking to anyone within earshot, they simply traveled the nervous system circulating and bursting in little synapses to recluster in dangerous hoards that threaten eventual explosion. I truly suspect that if they did a little more research on the recorded cases of spontaneous human combustion, they would discover that all these unfortunate souls were unfulfilled writers, and the charred remains of walls and floors would yield a slew of clues in letters spattering the scene.

Thank the good Lord for those who have the ego or drive or intelligence to follow their inner callings without spending a lifetime sabotaging those hidden desires. Sometimes, all it takes is a couple pats on the head to give someone the confidence to realize that they may really have a talent that’s worth pursuing. Sometimes it takes a kick in the butt.

Right now, I feel good. I also feel like a wind-up writer whose “on” button jammed. I truly don’t believe I can be stopped at this point, and maybe I’ll still need a little kick now and then, but more likely, a little oil when long way down the road I get a little rusty. But just as I have been set back onto the straight and narrow path to Writerdom, I feel my own excitement extend to others who I feel share the need to express themselves in creative form. It is often taken perhaps as overbearing or pushy, but if I see the spark there, I need to fan the flames. In my own steamrolling manner I may be obnoxious about it sometimes, but you know, I’ll learn eventually to be more subtle and still remain persistent.

Now share the joy; go out and pat a would-be writer on the head.

Spring Reap

Thy tax is token
of thy toil and the harvest
by the I.R.S.

At a recent meeting of Narratives, our Writing Group, we workshopped a story that presented three souls meeting in a non-moving Purgatory elevator after death and subsequent incineration–oops, I mean cremation. One member, and I would have to guess either Catholic or Egyptian, had a problem with the ashes being refocused into a spirit, rather than using proper burial methods. Understandable, based on faith and beliefs so strongly ingrained within us, as death is an inevitable part of us from the moment we are born and it’s all just a matter of time.

Isn’t it odd, however, how we manage to overlook the obviousness of decomposition because our wishful thinking and mindset can overcome that which it does not want to see? Even the very popular TV show CSI doesn’t seem to be making a dent into fantasy–though it is a fantasy that focuses on a reality that we turn into fantasy in reality. Writers, of course, can have the clichéd field day with creating the death scenario, and always make the reader doubt his own beliefs.

Don’t need to take this further, I don’t think; but it may be wise to toss a jar of Oil of Olay into the grave.

Ah yes, ah yes
the I.R.S.
demandeth more
in tribute than
we thought was just
so now we must
scurry to refigure.
The Ides of March
foretold a view
of no vacation
or car bought new
but human nature
lies, and now to vent
reflects upon
the money spent.

(Well what’dya expect for five-minutes’ thought?)

Thanks to Cindy at A Pen and Fire for reminding us that this is National Poetry Month, and one place to visit for links is The Academy of Poets website that will lead you to what’s going on to celebrate this literature form.

But then again, Charles Bernstein seems to be campaigning for an International Anti-Poetry Month, and suggests newspaper ads such as this:

Go ahead, don’t read any poetry.

You won’t be able to understand it anyway:
the best stuff is all over your head.

And there aren’t even any commercials to liven up the action.

Anyway, you’ll end up with a headache trying to figure out
what the poems are saying because they are saying
NOTHING.

Who needs that.

Better go to the movies.

In my own manner, usually a day late and a dollar short but in this case, the poetics flowed a month early in March and slowed down quite a bit through these first couple weeks of April. I shall have to seek Edgar’s assistance to get into mood, shed the heavy philosophical or at least direct it into stanza format, and break down and write a few poems today.

Of all the elements of writing, Voice still puzzles me. Is it, perhaps, a way of seeing things and relating them? Which again, is troubling because we do think differently than we speak sometimes.

Wet, being wet, the difference is obviously visual as well as affecting the senses of touch, smell, taste and hearing.

Touch – Imparting something of itself upon the toucher, something that can be felt as different, cold or warm, slippery, moving, prickles of drizzle, softness of snow, bodies of water caressing upon entry and fitting tight as a glove, and leaving its mark upon the fingertip to share the experience.

Smell – Wet pavement, grass, lilacs heavy and poignant, fur coming back to life in a coat, air thicker and fresher with promise of rain, old wood still fragrant, human hair untarnished with Herbal Essence.

Taste – Sweetness of cooked carrots or raw, and the same with onions, stealing their pungency; clean of raindrops, metallic of pipes, well water tasting of rocks much like a stream, salty oceans, crisp rose petals like lettuce, snowflakes flat and cold air on the tongue.

Hearing – Beating of torrential downpours, humming down drainpipes, plinking in puddles, pounding whoosh of surf, tinkling of streams, gushing of waterfalls, mixing with melody in someone’s daily shower.

Sight – Sticking, slimming, drooping of a living being; vivid and deepened greens of grass and leaves and yellower meadows; polish and shine of buildings and streets; contrasting blacks and brownish grays of treebark; washed white fences; adding diamonds to a necklace of twigs; hobnailing flat raindrop-catching surfaces; birthing oceans in swales; doubling upside-down traffic on mirrors of highways; coloring the sky bluer after the rain.

Dry world versus wet world, I suppose, and what we make of it.