Commander Chris Hadfield sings David Bowie's "Space Oddity" in space.

Commander Chris Hadfield said that after nearly five months of floating, his feet had lost all cushioning and calluses, so on these, his first days back, "I was walking around like I was walking on hot coals."

"I could feel the weight of my lips and tongue and had to change how I was talking. I didn't realize I had learned to talk with a weightless tongue."

To see his stunning photographs every day, almost every hour, was to be reminded that sunrise and sunset are part of the same grand master plan. It made my day to view earth from space along with Chris.

"It's part of our humanity to be in space," he wrote in Russian, and just before plunging back into Earth's atmosphere, he said, in French and English, "I came here on behalf of so many people — thank you."

Chris also tweeted something in as gaelige which rocked my boat, floated my spaceship. Who knew he spoke Irish? His daughter lives in Dublin.

I rarely am into hero worship, but Chris is my hero. Rocketman! You are my wings. (I'm bedridden these days with a bad knee injury so seeing Chris float effortlessly in space is awe-inspiring.) "Fear not!" said Chris.

I DREAMED OF BIRDS

I dreamed of birds
conversing in the distance
we were talking of feathers
come undone under a full moon
their soft words spoke
with no sound
but I understood
this is the way of dreams.

5/2013
Alexander Valley School

Partridge Sighting

I once nearly stepped on a male pheasant in an abandoned bit of apple orchard behind my cabin in Forestville. He exploded into the air, and I nearly shat myself. I was there to steal fall apples, wild golden delicious. But as I watched that feral bird tear into the sky with its ridiculous tail that defied the laws of aerodynamics, I was reminded of those old Chinese paintings. I never saw a partridge before. They look like quail. I had a similar experience with a grouse in BC. I was hiking in the piney woods, feeling sorry for myself, when I nearly stepped on a startled mama grouse who was taking her last stand, protecting her clutch of chicks. All those babies made a run for it, trying to hide around my ankles, like quail babies seeking shelter. I was surrounded by small balls of striped fluff. Hard to take yourself seriously under those circumstances.

Never seen a partridge before. They really do look like quail. (or chickens). I once nearly stepped on a male pheasant in an old orchard in Forestville. Nearly shat myself. But as I watched that feral bird explode into the sky with its ridiculous tail, I was reminded of old Chinese paintings. Had a similar experience with a startled mama grouse in BC, the babies trying to hide around my ankles, looked like quail babies.

On bended knee

I can't do much these days with bum knee (got an MRI yesterday!) but I've been gardening—sort of. Still a lot I can't do without hurting my knee. But I now have flowers (snapdragons & geraniums—anything I can transplant—or, rather, shove in the ground) that was formerly a no-man's land where icky ivy once grew in a thin strip between concrete prisons along our back alley fence.

So I'm watching the sun patterns and will try a tomato or two next.

But the ground has gotten too far away. I have to invent ways to get close enough to it—even with the retaining wall. On bended knee is not an option. What I've learned: It's harder to get back up. Especially with one knee out of commission. Now the other one's talking back.

BAD HAIR DAY

BAD HAIR DAY
—Oh, what a tangled web we weave
Sir Walter Scott, Marmion, 1808


This morning I awoke with dreadlocks.
My granny would've dubbed it a mare's nest.
What was I doing last night,
dream-cruising with the Hells Angels?


I contemplate the massive tangle
strand by matted strand, or rather, twig by twig—
the catalyst from yesterday's losing battle
with an overgrown crepe myrtle slowly dying for years—
falls out around me like a deconstructed nest
at an archaeological dig.


As I crashed about in the underbrush,
a hummingbird watched with vested interest.
Patrolled and scolded me. Form follows form.
I was flocked with a wreath of crepe myrtle
wings, stained the color of dying royalty, or sorrow.


I spray my nest with Neat's Foot oil,
bottled with enough patience to tame
a horse's tail or the industrial-sized "kitchen"
nesting at the back of my neck.


Born with an abundance of impatience,
I once whacked my matted hair off at the nape.
I was Samson, I was Delilah. Shorn
of my long locks, I was defrocked.
I yanked on my hair to make it grow.


My mane is my Familiar, curled on my shoulder
like a ship's cat, or a feathered serpent
hissing protectively down the curve of my spine
to the trinity of sacrum, ischium and Ilium.


There was so much duff trapped in my hair,
I had to sweep it out the door.
Soon, the birds will follow like gleaners
to scoop up my hair to line their nests.

5/13

AUTO POEM

'Tween Worlds

You know the Robin Williams line—even if he didn't say it: if you remember the 60s, you weren't really there. But we were really there. Meanwhile Gertrude Stein said: There is no there there. And there you have it as my grannie would say. What Robin should have said: Remembering it is tricky, at best.

SFchronicle_vault Dec. 9, 1987: Robin Williams hangs out with comedian Will Durst (left) after Durst lost a mayoral run. We're thinking that's Vera Carp of "Greater Tuna" on the right. 📷: Chronicle Archive

I follow a couple of Facebook groups and we've posted collective memory threads from multiple perspectives. Some of my recent blog posts are outtakes from those threads. Sometimes the outtakes gel, sometimes. they're merely placeholders of an idea I might revisit later.

We were reminiscing what it was like growing up between times during those turbulent years. Part of the backstory was the anniversary of the May 4, 1970 Kent State Massacre (which I didn't include). These outtakes are from random fragments that drifted in and out of that series of dialogues.

For some reason, though we lived in the epicenter of this sociological turmoil, it's hard to write about it so, from time to time, I whittle away at it, in search of the through line. Memory's always a work in progress.

I told Colorado poet, Art Goodtimes, a mushroom aficionado, that I had a wild mother who claimed I was an amanita child. As if that explained things. We laughed and blamed the drugs.

However, I was pretty straight, I was also very young. I was 14—a mere 'tweenie at the original 1967 "A Gathering of the Tribes Human Be In" in Golden Gate Park. It was a protest gathering to counter a new California law to make LSD illegal.

Timothy Leary famously said from the stage, "Turn on, tune in, drop out" and then came tripping out through the audience to give my mom a hug.

A Beatnik and a Project Artaud painter, my mom was one of the first artists to embrace the hippie movement. She was also one of the first artists to transform and live inside the Hamms Brewery vats—but that's an '80s story of punk rockers & hippie wars. Mom dragged me through the Haight early and often. Sometimes our worlds intersected. I was a wide-eyed kid trying to take it all in.

(I'm leaping ahead in my story here. The problem with a run-on memory fragment is that it's a challenge to force it to toe the timeline of congruity. Not an easy thing when the 60s' are invoked.) My mom knew Kush of Cloud House. She got around. She was featured in Whitman McGowan's poem-video, White Folks Was Once Wild Too. That's her dancing around the bonfire.

sfchronicle_vault June 1959: Allen Ginsberg flips through a Jack Kerouac book at a San Francisco bookstore. The Beatniks, as named by Chronicle columnist Herb Caen, had a positive influence on visual arts, performing arts and music. They challenged the values of a conservative city. And they built a foundation for a progressive future. 📷: Joe Rosenthal

I didn't know it at the time, but I was meeting future mentors of our generation: Richard Alpert "Ram Dass"), Allen Ginsberg, who chanted mantras, Gary Snyder, Lenore Kandel, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Jerry Rubin. Most of the bands who played were near neighbors: Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and Quicksilver Messenger Service.

I grew up between worlds and times in the San Geronimo Valley, a rural enclave which was rapidly becoming an alternative lifestyle destination. A lot of interesting folks shunned the cities and suburbs wound up in The Valley, as it was called. It was an uneasy marriage of radically different worlds.

I attended Lagunitas School District—LSD ('splains a lot). I was straddling the old redneck ranchers' world (living with my Irish Victorian grannie), and the Flower Children dancing in the dawn of a New Age—and me, trying to toe the mutable line. Not an easy task. 

During the late 60s, I attended Sir Francis Drake High School—the only high school (emphasis on the word high) in the nation to shut down a local draft board. 

We were a pretty radicalized group of kids. Our class president was Jared Rossman from Fairfax. That last name shoulld ring a bell—as in his older brother, Michael Rossman, a key figure in the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley in 1964. When we shut down the San Rafael Draft Board, we made the cover of Time Magazine and the 6 O'Clock news. And gave the FBI a new client list.

When the school district took away our buses, I was the kid hitching home from school. How I met most of the rock musicians of that era, Ken Kesey and his cast of Merry Pranksters, and boarded Further, etc.

I was living out in rural West Marin and commuting into the suburbs to go to school, holding onto a dual life between worlds while most of my friends were defecting, tuning in and dropping out, and running off with bands or the circus. It was some crazy times. Somehow we grew up between the Be-in, The Summer of Love, and the Kent State Massacre. This was our legacy.

Yes, we were really there. And we do remember. Robert Frost wrote: The best way out is always through. We survived the 'tween years—we could see no other way out but through. What a long, strange trip it's been.



My related blog post

Ken Kesey

Hitching in Marin during late 60s, early 70s

Note bene: for some reason someone, who posted a comment as "Anonymous" took umbrage to this post and wrote "b.s." Of course I didn't publish it—as they didn't bother to sign their name, nor did they say why they thought it was b.s. It's my past I'm writing about, so how is it b.s.? Maybe he thought it was made up. Who knows? Clearly he was full of b.s. for posting it. And so it goes. I invite comment and dialogue, but not b.s.

Pissy Fridge

It's been so hot the past few days, that if I open my refrigerator door too long, it eeks revenge by peeing on the floor.

Yes, eeks. My fridge is a big sissy. Sometimes, it squeaks like a mouse for no real reason. Other times it ekes out a chortle or randomly sighs. Sometimes in the middle of the night it creaks and clacks, like a thief at the door. Shares the shit right outta me.

You'd never know it was a relatively new refrigerator. It piddles. It moans. I mean, how on earth do you house-train a large, awkward white, rather vocal tweenie fridge? There's no drainage bunghole in the back to be unplugged. Can't blame that.

You see, it's one of these newer never-defrost miracle fridges. All the no defrost frost turns into —or more like a squall pounding the lower south 40 section. And here we are, edging into drought season. It's a no-frills fridge, with no discernible water spigot.

My modern no-defrost fridge has some bladder issues. I clean the gaskets, it piddles. I wipe the ceiling and walls down, it dribbles. If I poke under it with a foreign object—say, a broom, it hisses like a snake.

Some days are worse than others. So it has its own dedicated washcloth diaper. The mold has its own life cycle issues. We're not mentioning that one.

I personally think the fridge enjoys wetting the floor—especially after I've just mopped it. Then the fridge sighs and moans. Reminds me of Steve Martin pissing his pants in that movie.

All I can say is that the fridge had better not take up the banjo—or I'll play Deliverance to it all right. Right out the door.

Today, it wet the just-mopped floor as I was standing next to it. All over my foot. I swear it chuckled. But it is a very selective piddler. What drives me nuts is there's no discernible pattern. I think it has control issues.

A friend said It sounds passive aggressive. Or maybe it has some fear issues. She suggested vacuuming under it. Dust bunnies were to blame. Thundering hordes of mice have taken refuge under it—no room for the dust bunnies. Vacuum? Vacuum? Nature abhors a….

What about the freezer, you might ask. It's feckin brilliant. It's the first freezer that doesn't develop glaciers around a dichotomy of thawed ice cream. You need a chainsaw to cut the manly ice cream, it's hard as rock. Wish I could find a man like that. So much hoarfrost forms inside the cartons, I'm thinking of opening a brothel.

Most of the time the fridge sounds like a cross between a gentle wind, a raging sea, or the freeway at rush hour. I think it's hammered on the ammonia-freon mix. As long as I don't have to burp the fridge, or feel it aspirin, I can live with it.

Of course, Neil freaks when he sees water on the floor. You'd think the Hoover Dam had burst. Or that I did it. Me, I mop up after it with a washcloth—I don't want to encourage it.

Knee Woes

Argh, I'm under strict doctor's orders to keep all weight off the knee and to rest it in the elevated position above my heart. It's driving me bonkers—if it weren't for the great nostalgia threads on FB to distract me, I wouldn't have such a great time to be collecting bits here & there and filling in tidbits on some of my older blog entries... RICE. Icing the knee—I'm shaken, but not stirred.

MRI finally approved. Yay! I can't believe it took so long.

Proof positive that pain raises the blood pressure—mine was 135/80 both visits this week. My normal:120/70.  It's been normal for the past 2 months—but I've had more intense pain the past week. I think that's what made it spike. (I'm only on Advil. Can't stomach the pain meds, literally. Gack.)

I told the new nurse to take my pulse again and it dropped down to 128 /80. Better. She was very confused. Blamed it on a technological malfunction. Not that I willed it down. Too voodo doodoo. To be fair, she cranked down the armband so tight the first time, right on my detached biceps, an old injury, that it hurt like crazy. What was she, a masochist?

Also, I think I caught a virus—it peaked last night with sore throat. Add that to the mix.



added and revised for sentence clarity 4/3/2016 FB memory

Beltaine Chickens?

Today's SF Gate headlines blazed: Chickens go up in flames.

A little egg-cessive Beltaine celebrating gone awry in Palo Alto—or an otherwise slow day for the news?

Believe it or not, the Irish Word a Day is Sicín - Chicken.
Ba mhaith liom sicín a ithe.

None dare call it WickerHen.

Owner says hens were probably smoking in the henhouse.

I think the Colonel did it.

Ok, so I just can't help myself—either it's the Monty Python tea that's given me the giggles or the fires raging in SoNapa counties are burning an early bumper crop of something green.

They say it's going to be another drought year.

Mayday

We had a Maypole at school and I remember being very excited by both Easter and Mayday. I loved making woven paper baskets and delivering flowers to neighbors. I think I was a little confused by the proximity of both festivities. But I distinctly remember preferring Mayday over Easter (alors!)—despite the siren call of Easter egg hunts, bunnies, and chocolate.

It was that bedecked Maypole that was mesmerizing. I remember holding the ribbon and watching how it wove around the pole. The penny dropped. The baskets we wove, and now the Maypole. Folk customs in the making.

My story on
Lá Fhéile Bealtaine shona daoibh

End poem prompt

C’est fin! (Just realized I never completed posting the last April writing prompts). Here's hoping you got a poem, or five, inspired by all these great writing prompts. There's enough fodder here to fuel poems throughout the summer—which I plan to do. At random.

So even if I didn't post my own poems under some of these prompts, it doesn't mean I won't do it later. I'll post creation date under my poems.

Since I type my poem titles in CAPS, it should be fairly easy to spot my work. (I also post random poems on this blog—the titles are in CAPS to distinguish from prose.) The date should also be a giveaway.

As for my blog titles for these April poem prompts, they were so eclectic, I picked one strong generic idea that seemed like it might be a fruitful writing prompt.  —MH

PAD: Two-for-Tuesday prompt, pick one (or both):
Write a finished poem.
Write a never finished poem.

NaPoWriMo: Find a shortish poem that you like, and rewrite each line, replacing each word (or as many words as you can) with words that mean the opposite. For example, you might turn “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” to “I won’t contrast you with a winter’s night.” Your first draft of this kind of opposite poem will likely need a little polishing, but this is a fun way to respond to a poem you like, while also learning how that poem’s rhetorical strategies really work. (It’s sort of like taking a radio apart and putting it back together, but for poetry).

---------------------

DROUGHT

It's odd how the life you
always envisioned
was never that obvious.
Hiding in some dark alley,
perverse dreams enticing you on,
like fool's gold or carrot sticks,
stubborn dreams that never materialized
haunting you—
but those hopes and aspirations,
abandoned by roadside ditches
amid thistles and blue chicory
and a paucity of water,
were the only things
that kept us going.

6/22/13

inspired by sugar is smoking by Jason Schneiderman

this prompt was surprisingly fun, better than the erasure found poem idea from April 26, which I didn't find as satisfying.
------------------

Molly Fisk: April 30 prompt: At the finish line
What a wonderful month of poems! Congratulations everybody! (And if you want more, we start visual prompts on May 1st.)

30 Day Poetry Challenge: Write a poem where something (big or small, abstract or concrete) comes to an end.


Ten more poems to go. Will I finish this in time for NaPoWriMo? Not bloody likely.

I've pulled poems from prompts because I can't find anything this way. I did try & post the link to the prompt whenever possible.

Prose poem prompt ( PROTESTING AT THE GROVE)

PAD: take a line from one of your poems (preferably one of your April poems), make it the title of your poem today, and then, write the poem.

NaPoWriMo: write a poem that contains at least five words in other languages. You could perhaps write a poem that takes place in a foreign country or, like our featured blogger for the day, write a poem based on overheard conversation (inclusive of foreign words). So whether you have to dig deep into what you remember from high-school Spanish, or use a dictionary to translate a few interesting words into other languages, why not drop a Mohrrübe or an asciugamano into your work today (even if it seems de trop.


Molly Fisk: April 29 prompt: Here is a little extra ___________ just for you.


30 Day Poetry Challenge: Write a prose poem. Not sure what a prose poem is? Visit: http://bit.ly/4B4diE



PROTESTING AT THE GROVE

Hot July on the Russian River. Bathers and Bohemians. Encampment. We posed as hookers as Bohos slaked their thirst on our side of the river. Northwoods Lodge: FBI agents, Bohos and us. Only there were no cameras. Maybe stealth ones.

Rose refreshed her lipstick in the mirror, looked me in the eye, said: I don't know if you gals are working tonight, but there's a bust going down. Tonight. Was I undercover, or under the covers?

Poet Karla Anderdatter was talking to the river on the Monte Rio Bridge. That's where we bonded. Beauty queen-activist Mary Moore rallied us. Things got ugly at the protest. I was clubbed on the back as I outran the law, camera in hand. Snap!

Did we cross the river? We went skinny-dipping, and the Bohos came to us to slake their thirst. The famous optometrist returning from Russia. Nothing wrong with his eyes. Leering at our flesh, he fed us the news.

Simone got her story on Helmut Kohl. I hardly knew who he was. I took photos. No need for words. Judy Bari also wrote for The Paper (Now The North Bay Bohemian). Newspapers and Bohemians. Full circle! These wild wolf women. Somewhere I have the negatives. Somewhere.

While we angled for more stories at the oasis, someone said sneak into the Grove? So I dropped my cover and we blew the joint. A US Olympic swimmer, he broke a world record for the backstroke. He also could've been lying. Somewhere I have notes. Somewhere. He took me in after midnight. Not much to see in the dark. A large parking lot. Lights in the distance. Maybe atomic ghosts.  We howled at the moon.

Not much else to tell, so I took him home. He was sleek as a seal. We did the backstroke and the butterfly and the breaststroke. Dropped him off at the gates at dawn. Was I sleeping with the enemy? All that water under the bridge. Tide coming in. Moon falling into the arms of the sea.

7/12/2013

COLOR 2 poem prompt

PAD: write a shadorma. For those new to the shadorma, it’s a fun little 6-line poem that follows this syllable count: 3/5/3/3/7/5.

“mornings after”

maybe she
won’t need him again
maybe she
knows that he
is just a phantom haunting
her empty spaces


NaPoWriMo: pick a color. How many synonyms are there for your color (e.g., green, chartreuse, olive, veridian)? Is your color associated with a specific mood (e.g., red = passion, rage, blue = hope, truth). Look around the room, take a walk — note everything you see that is your chosen color. Then start writing, using the color as a guide.

If you’re having trouble getting started, here are a few examples of “color” poems — Federico Garcia Lorca’s Romance Sonambulo, e.e. cummings’ All in Green Went My Love Riding, and (a personal favorite) Diane Wakoski’s Blue Monday.


Molly Fisk: April 28 prompt: The buds are just flushing the trees

30 Day Poetry Challenge: Write a poem that’s less than 140 characters. If you’re on Twitter, tweet it! Be sure to use hash tag #30dpc.



10,000th TWEET

Fitting that my 10,000th tweet 

was in tribute to Seamus Heaney:
for 10,000 birds have taken flight 

across the dark shoulder of the night.

10/1/2013

MECHANICAL poem prompt

PAD: write a mechanical poem. Either you’re mechanically-inclined, or you’re like me and hit things to make them work after they break (which, by the way, rarely works).

NaPoWriMo: Think of a common proverb or phrase — something like “All that glitters is not gold,” or “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.” Then plug the first three words of the phrase into a search engine. Skim through the first few pages of results, collecting (rather like a poetic magpie) words and phrases that interest you. Then use those words and phrases as the inspirations (and some of the source material) for a new poem. Happy writing!



So I did a "found poem" search with this exercise. Mostly regrettable examples.

10/2/13

When it comes to eating, I get that everyone wants to be Italian.

I gleaned some good lines here and there:

beyond the blue event horizon 

blow a heart with smoke 

may the words of my mouth 

blow a man with a dream

And some were just bizarre:

I find that a duck's opinion of me obscene  

blow a cow up with a bazooka

women make love to an octopus

OK, I just don't want to know about that octopus. One CSI: LV show had me going in circles about a prostitute who was in the fishtank and an octopus that got shot and slimed a tram enroute to Mandalay Bay, one man stabbed, another killed by a ricocheting bullet—with an autistic kid as the only witness. How do you spell surreal? And only the octopus survived.

But my favorite Googleism by far is:

sometimes when I'm alone I pretend I'm a carrot

(An original Google line; not in a million years would I have come up with that one.)

I found that typing the first part of a question yielded better results. Check out my Google Poems: Why? How? I posted them on 7/21/13 but was collecting them here and there.



Molly Fisk: April 27 prompt: These are the moving men

30 Day Poetry Challenge: Write a poem using the object to construct an extended metaphor. For more about extended metaphor: http://bit.ly/xSuQbw

FOUND poem prompt WALT WHITMAN, INLAND

(Sorry I was on the road, and mostly without internet. I'll post the missing prompts  ASAP.)

PAD:  write a casting poem. Casting can take on several meanings, including casting a spell, casting a line (such as in fishing), casting the actors in a play, and I suppose even the act of creating a cast.

NaPoWriMo:  Ronald Johnson took a copy of Milton’s Paradise Lost, and erased whole words and even lines, while maintaining the relative position of the remaining words. You can see a brief excerpt here.

Today, I challenge you to perform an erasure of your own. You don’t need to start with a poem as long as Paradise Lost, of course, but a tolerably long poem is usually needed to furnish enough material so that the final product isn’t just a few words long (though erasure haiku might be a fun new subgenre). A few long poems that might respond well to erasure could be Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis, Allen Ginsberg’s Howl, or Tennyson’s The Lady of Shalott. Go ahead and copy and paste the text into a document, and then start whiting-out words. Or make a photocopy of a long poem you like, and mark over words on the copy. You can form a whole new poem just by taking words away! Once you’re done, you can leave the spaces as they are (I rather like the “ghosted” look of all that empty space), or take the left-over words and keep playing with them, reforming new poems from them. Happy writing!


WALT WHITMAN

Beyond the seas
we take up the burden
bequeathed
by the earth—
a clear flame of truth
separated from
theories of religion
as the perfect meaning
is often lost to us
we are more sacred instinct
than the surge and fret of time,
the spirit often lost
while the letter of tradition
is retold with unlimited unction.
a poet's work
this song of America
make us feel the poetic force
These poems touched
with sweeping music
of Time and Space
open the mind.
to sing the first
harmony of the universe
The conjunction of
of poetic vision,
gaze into the future,
the social miseries lose
their finality of woe,
in the eternal human march.

6/19/2013


(Found poem from WALT WHITMAN Leaves of Grass
INTRODUCTION BY ERNEST RHYS.)

INLAND

Inland
a plot of ground
far from the water

sucking the shore
salt smell of waves
awakened the boats
Beating death by 

drowning the

taste of the sea

6/19/2013

(found poem from
Inland by Edna St. Vincent Millay)

--------------------

Molly Fisk:  April 26 prompt: terpsichorean \turp-si-kuh-REE-uhn\ , adjective:

1. Pertaining to dancing.
noun: 1. A dancer.

I even saw Major West that evening tapping his foot and picking up his feet in terpsichorean splendor with Mrs. West."
-- Jackson Bailey, My Love and I

They're agile, they're flexible, they're terpsichorean."
-- Tom Wolfe, A Man in Full

Terpsichorean comes from the name of the Greek muse of dancing, Terpischore. The word is a combination of the Greek terpein, "to delight," and -khoros, "chorus."


30 Day Poetry Challenge:  Circle all the verbs in a magazine article. Use as many of them as you can to construct a poem. Title your poem with the article's title.

More info on APRIL A POEM A DAY here.

SOUND poem prompt

in the koi pond
PAD: take the phrase “Everyone (blank),” replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles could include: “Everyone Thinks I’m Crazy,” “Everyone Knows the World Is Round,” “Everyone Needs to Leave Me Alone,” or whatever it is that everyone is doing (or not doing).

NaPoWriMo: Today, let’s try another musical form — the ballad. Traditionally, ballads were rhymed poems that told a story of some kind, and were often set to music. They were sometimes set in four-line verses, with an ABAB rhyme pattern, employing alternating 8 and 6 syllable, iambic lines. This 8/6 iambic pattern is sometimes referred to as ballad meter. The use of this type of pattern was not universal, however, and old ballads often involve different syllable counts, as well as refrains that break up the verses.

The form has generated many sub-genres over the years, including the sentimental ballad (think “Danny Boy“), the gruesome murder ballad, and of course, the power ballad. The form’s come a long way from the folk songs with which it began, but the narrative aspect of the ballad remains intact.

Your ballad could be sad, or funny. It could tell a tale of love, or murder, or just something silly. If you have any musical talent, it might be fun to try and actually make a tune for your ballad! Happy writing.

Molly Fisk: April 25 prompt: The sounds that fish make when no one is listening...


TALKING FISH & SEA WHISPERERS

The sounds that fish make
when no one is listening
in the koi pond, do they mouth
& baise-moué l'ail to the sky
and dream of swimming among the stars?
But in the depths of the ocean,
there's a piscean clack & growl,
the sonic boom and tump of black drumfish
travels up canals through bedroom walls—
their song akin to water-boarding, or a hydraulic engine.
At Strawberry Cove, the first high tide after the full moon,
we'd wait for the grunion run, they'd crawl out of the sea,
the only fish that must be caught by hand.
But the town drunks and Asians gathered them up in buckets
In a bioluminescent sea, we heard shoals of herrings
fart out a Morse code—like an angry army of Jimmy Choos
let loose in Grand Central Station at rush hour.
Those droning toadfish, those heavy metal rockers
sitting by the dock of the bay, no Country Joe & the Fish
singing We don't give a damn, drive Sausalito houseboaters
stark-raving-mad on warm summer nights.
Cusk eels jackhammering in the key of sea,
force sleep-deprived oceanographers inland.
We listened to miked pirañas, castenetting
like SETI radars in the Steinhart Aquarium.
Runaway seahorses, chirping clownfish,
yellow croakers, pistol shrimp, cod & haddock
thrumming up an aquatic din—
fishily belting it out in the name of love.
From Ensenada to Point Lobos
fish are chorusing a grand stadium "wave."
No passive acoustics, they sing the body electric
with a cacophony of barks and grunts
worthy of a Liberian ship engine with thrown rods.
Midshipmen looking for love in all the wrong places,
might have stumped Aristotle and sailors alike.
But no one has ever heard a butterfly fish make a sound.
Merely a whisper and sigh of fin and wing, like rustling leaves.

10/2/2013


30 Day Poetry Challenge: Write a poem inspired by a YouTube video. nah.

AUTO poem prompt

PAD: write an auto poem. Auto could mean automobile, automatic, automaton, or any number of possibilities.

NaPoWriMo: think about words buried in words. In particular, think about the words buried in your own name. Plug your name into an anagram generator, like this one, and try writing a self-portrait poem using words that are generated. (Don’t worry if it takes a minute or two to generate the anagrams — you’d be surprised how many different ones a name will generate — mine generted 107,144 anagrams, and I didn’t even use my middle name)!

Molly Fisk: April 24 prompt: trees near churches

BAD HAIR DAY

                  —Oh, what a tangled web we weave

                        Sir Walter Scott, Marmion, 1808

This morning I awoke with dreadlocks.

My granny would've dubbed it a mare's nest. 

What was I doing last night, 

dream-cruising with the Hells Angels? 

I contemplate the massive tangle 

strand by matted strand, or rather, twig by twig—

the catalyst from yesterday's losing battle 

with an overgrown crepe myrtle slowly dying for years—

falls out around me like a deconstructed nest

at an archaeological dig. 

As I crashed about in the underbrush, 

a hummingbird watched with vested interest. 

Patrolled and scolded me. Form follows form. 

I was flocked with a wreath of crepe myrtle

wings, stained the color of dying royalty, or sorrow.

I spray my nest with Neat's Foot oil,

bottled with enough patience to tame

a horse's tail or the industrial-sized "kitchen" 

nesting at the back of my neck.

Born with an abundance of impatience,

I once whacked my matted hair off at the nape. 

I was Samson, I was Delilah. Shorn

of my long locks, I was defrocked. 

I yanked on my hair to make it grow.

My mane is my Familiar, curled on my shoulder

like a ship's cat, or a feathered serpent

hissing protectively down the curve of my spine

to the trinity of sacrum, ischium and Ilium.

There was so much duff trapped in my hair, 

I had to sweep it out the door.

Soon, the birds will follow like gleaners

to scoop up my hair to line their nests.

5/13

30 Day Poetry Challenge: Instead of writing a poem, compose it out loud. Use a tape recorder, your smartphone, or have someone else write it down for you. Don’t over think it! Spend no more than 15 minutes “writing.”

NOTE poem prompt

PAD: Two-for-Tuesday prompt. In fact, this is one I include with every challenge. Here are your options:
Write a love poem.
Write an anti-love poem.

NaPoWriMo: try writing triolets. A triolet is an eight-line poem. All the lines are in iambic tetramenter (for a total of eight syllables per line), and the first, fourth, and seventh lines are identical, as are the second and final lines. This means that the poem begins and ends with the same couplet. Beyond this, there is a tight rhyme scheme (helped along by the repetition of lines) — ABaAabAB. Here’s an example by Thomas Hardy:

Birds at Winter

Around the house the flakes fly faster,
And all the berries now are gone
From holly and cotoneaster
Around the house. The flakes fly! – faster
Shutting indoors the crumb-outcaster
We used to see upon the lawn
Around the house. The Flakes fly faster
And all the berries now are gone!

Triolets were in vogue among the Victorians — all those repetitions can add a sort of melancholy gravitas to a poem, but watch out! They can also make the poem sound oddly gong-like. A playful, satirical poem, on the other hand, can be easily written in the triolet form, especially if you can find a way to make the non-repeating lines slightly change the meaning of the repeated ones.
____________

Note bene: I found the example so awful, so I reduced it to an equation. I also I didn't rhyme (oh no!), but then, I have trouble with rhymed verse. Never was fond of it. —MH
Pattern

A    (repeat 3 x—make it interesting)
B    (repeat 2 x—make it interesting)
C     new line  (rhymes with Line A)
A —repeated line
D     new line
E     new line (rhymes with Line B)
A —repeated line
B —repeated line


SOLSTICE TRIOLET

On the crest of the ridge, the full moon
rises with the fire of sunset in her arms
and holds the remains of the longest day.
On the crest of the ridge, the full moon
seeks the sun's solace—a slender night
while clouds shimmer in unearthly hues.
On the crest of the ridge, the full moon
rises with the fire of sunset in her arms.

6/21/13

(hey I never said I would write my responses on the day posted...so I'm two months late.)
____________
Molly Fisk: April 23 prompt: short shrift n.
1. Summary, careless treatment; scant attention: These annoying memos will get short shrift from the boss.
2. Quick work.
3. a. A short respite, as from death. (etc.)


30 Day Poetry Challenge: Write a poem that fits on a post-it note. Stick it somewhere public. (Don’t forget to take a picture of it before you leave it!)

Alluvial rocks from the base of Frenchman's Mountain

Alluvial rocks from the base of Frenchman's Mountain (4,052 ft)—sometimes erroneously called Sunrise Mountain, North Las Vegas (eastern side of North Las Vegas—facing west). 

Some rocks look like the sparkly blueschist embedded with garnets we used to find in Sonoma County. Granite/volcanic, sedimentary mudstone, metamorphic rock—a new one for me: Vishnu schist. I like the black schists and pink granites of the Vishnu Group—from the ancient core of the continent. 

Geologist Garry Hayes says: "Most of the rocks are mica and garnet-bearing schist and gneiss, and they are 1.7 billion years old, some of the oldest rocks in the American West." 

Gary says the pink one is orthoclase feldspar. It was different than quartz in that it fractured with smooth planes. It's related to the moonstones we find at Point Reyes. I once found strange pink dradel-like gobs embedded in granite in the Trinity Mountains that reminded me of it. 

Frenchman Mountain was named after Paul Watelet, a European immigrant who claimed  a mine after a 1912 gold strike. Watelet was a Belgian, probably a French-speaking Walloon, the locals thought he was from France.

The Great Unconformity, 1.7 billion year old Precambrian granite and schist. I am trying to contemplate how tectonic plates moved the mountain 50 miles.

Some folklore I found online: 

"I've lived in the Vegas valley since 1978, i met some local teens who were born in the valley I hung out with them at the base of Frenchman mountain at the end of Bonanza Rd. there was a porch and a cave at the foot of the mountain where teens gathered to drink and smoke pot. I remember stories of an old woman living in the mountain inside a cave, the story was she had owned the mountain or had inherited it from her family and chose to live there some time during the late 1930s to the mid or late 1960s when she was found frozen to death. Has anyone else heard about this story?" 

 I wonder if that was Paul Watelet's mine? His daughter?

Chris Callaghan, our host said: "I've lived here since 1960. The cave and parties are true, kids from my high school did this. The old woman was still there in the mid-60's. Don't think she really owned it, just lived there, an early squatter. It was very far away from town in those days. I remember when she died."

Pretty cool finding Vishnu schist studded with garnets in her back yard! And mica schist/gneiss. Sandstone, limestone and shale sediments metamorphosed and recombined with metamorphosed lava flows to form Vishnu schist. Even older Zoroaster granite metamorphosed into gneiss. 

Geologic remnants of the Grand Canyon and the Great Unconformity right in her  back yard. Who knew. She was right about that other rock—it is resin. It burns. Smells like pine. Unless, of course she has a strain of amber in her yard as well!

Walking in circles, Earth Day, Calico Canyon/Basin—Red Rock, Nevada

Walking in circles, Earth Day, Calico Canyon/Basin—Red Rock, Nevada. Still really paying for that little stroll.

 Sznnyx! Caught napping again. So that's how I channel the pain. Full drill: TENS unit electroshock, Advil, Ice & elevation. Sznnyx!

May 2: Finally requested from my PT a localized anti-inflammatory that is injected directly into the cranky knee via a negative electrical charge. Feels like a 30-minute session with fresh nettles. But it does the job. I loves me my TENS unit—II just crank it up and bliss out when I drive, or have to wait in the doctor's office. Of course, I look like a bad rewiring job with electrodes and wires dangling from my knee. I notice people give me a real wide berth when I wear it while shipping, or running errands—strike running, more like waddling.

The gimp is walking in circles. Again.

GUINEA PIGS

GUINEA PIGS

When my uncle was a teenager,
on a dare, he hopped the zoo fence
and swiped a lone guinea pig.
He stuck it in his jeans jacket
and brought it home. Aww,
it had babies, so he built a hutch
for his baker's dozen of guinea pigs—
Within months they had litters—and so on.
He tried to give them away. No such luck.
Picture my uncle trying to thumb a ride
across the Golden Gate Bridge to West Marin
with dozens of guinea pigs wheeking
and chuffing and piddling while chewing
their way to freedom from cardboard boxes.
They ate him out of house & home.
In fact, there were so many guinea pigs,
that they ate their feces, then they ate
each other. Too bad he didn't know
any Incas. Roast quwi tastes like chicken.
So one night, my uncle hitchiked out
to the zoo, climbed back over the fence
laden with boxes of squealing guinea pigs.
The zookeeper must have scratched his head
to find hundreds of guinea pigs in the pen
that weren't there the day before.

4/17/13

IMPOSSIBLE POEM

IMPOSSIBLE POEM

GUINEA PIGS

When my uncle was a teenager, 
on a dare, he hopped the zoo fence 
and swiped a lone guinea pig. 
He stuck it in his jeans jacket
and brought it home. Aww,
it had babies, so he built a hutch
for his baker's dozen of guinea pigs—
Within months they had litters—and so on. 
He tried to give them away. No such luck.
Picture my uncle trying to thumb a ride
across the Golden Gate Bridge to West Marin
with dozens of guinea pigs wheeking
and chuffing and piddling while chewing
their way to freedom from cardboard boxes.
They ate him out of house & home.
In fact, there were so many guinea pigs, 
that they ate their feces, then they ate 
each other. Too bad he didn't know
any Incas. Roast quwi tastes like chicken.
So one night, my uncle hitchiked out 
to the zoo, climbed back over the fence
laden with boxes of squealing guinea pigs.
The zookeeper must have scratched his head
to find hundreds of guinea pigs in the pen
that weren't there the day before.

4/17/13


(So here's the spillover—yesterday's post leaked over into today's attempt, but Molly's stealing with permission informed the piece. Or maybe it's a volta. Now, what to name it?)
---------------------------


PAD: write an express poem. This might be about an express train or express delivery. It might have something to do with expression painting. However you come at this prompt, be sure to express yourself.

NaPoWriMo: Early on in the month, I asked you to write a valediction — a poem of farewell. Today, let’s try the opposite, and write poems of greeting. There’s lots of things you could greet. The spring? Your new stapler? A favorite classmate? An addition to the menu at your local cafe? The subject’s up to you — now get out there and say “hello!”

Molly Fisk: April 17 prompt: Stealing with permission.

30 Day Poetry Challenge: Use volta (a poetic turn) in a poem of any length (it can be a sonnet, or not). For more about the volta: http://bit.ly/IoiYLd.

volta, ( Italian: “turn”) the turn in thought in a sonnet that is often indicated by such initial words as But, Yet, or And yet.

FROM THE FRISIAN

FROM THE FRISIAN 

                    DOWEN Albertina Soepboer 

Here it is, heading west, there's no mistaking it

the rigors of the pen writing samscaras.

It requires wading in, holding the pen flat, like a spade

the only way to carve out a track to lead out back.

The frission it creates when you think you're done

but the pen enters the house of memory at will

Reminding you it harkens a memory of two women

in an abandoned house, furrowing their brows at dusk.

4/16/2013

SAVED POEM

SAVED poem prompt

PAD: Two-for-Tuesday prompt. Here are your options:
Write a possible poem.
Write an impossible poem.

NaPoWriMo: write a “translation” of a poem in a language you don’t actually know. Go to the Poetry International Language List, pick a language, and then follow it to a poet and a poem. Generally the Poetry International website will present a poem in its original language on the left, and any translation on the right. Cut and paste the original into the text-editing program of your choice (and try not to peek too much at the translation). Now, use the sound and shape of the words and lines to guide you, without worrying too much about whether your translation makes sense.


DOWEN Albertina Soepboer (Frisian)

Hie it hoeden west, miskien hie it net
de rigels fan ús noateskrift skansearre.

It requiem waaide fan ’e flat, ôfdwaalde
fûgelkloft út de triedden om it bytfabryk.

Frissele frijden wy yn azem sûnder fleis.
In hûs fan stien streamde fol, bruts ôf.

It reinde wer. Ik harke nei de twa dowen
yn ús bline stege, fuorre har de triennen.

(MY TAKE)

Here it is, heading west, there's no mistaking it

the rigors of the pen writing samscaras.

It requires wading in, holding the pen flat, like a spade

the only way to carve out a track to lead out back.

The frission it creates when you think you're done

but the pen enters the house of memory at will

Reminding you it harkens a memory of two women

in an abandoned house, furrowing their brows at dusk.

Molly Fisk: April 16: How do you want to be saved?

30 Day Poetry Challenge: Do you find it difficult to express one sense (sight, hearing, taste, smell, touch) more than others in your writing? Paying special attention to that often ignored sense, write a poem with exaggerated sensory detail.

Lunch with Carol Drinkwater

Lunch with Carol Drinkwater (All Creatures Great and Small), and "Olive Farmers", at La Note, Berkeley, California. then a reading at Mrs Dalloway's for Carol's new book. Fun event and afternoon. I was newly on crutches with a torn meniscus, so I was in a lot of pain, and don't remember much. — with Gail Austin Andersen, Donna Champion, Linda Forde, Anjuli Sherin, Clive Lindemann, Arnold Ambiel and Carol Drinkwater.

Gracenotes from Paisley Abbey

Memory: Paisley Abbey. Neil was singing some Rabbie Burns in the apse because of the acoustics, and a startled steward popped his head out, and then, began to harmonize with Neil. The Abbey was filled with the strains of My Love is like a Red, Red Rose. Goosebumps on the heart. A moment locked in tine.

The steward took a shine to Neil, and we got a down-home back room tour of the bowels of the abbey. He showed us some finds from an archaeological dig lift from the old sewer: tweezers, gambling dice, chorale music—gracenotes scratched on a piece of slate roofing. Notes from the past.

added, rev. /4/2017

BROKEN POEM

BROKEN POEM


Zelda Fitzgerald once said
"Nobody has ever measured,
                    not even poets,
how much the heart can hold."
But sometimes when the heart becomes weary
after the dance of so much benign neglect,

a secret locked in a room of stale promises
shatters like seven years bad luck,
escapes, mercurial. Leaving us wanting.
The things we envisioned,
the life we might have lived.
Banking on a future that will never come.
Instead, we square off, like duelists at dawn
taking measured steps, as if numanistics
could save us from ourselves and each other
laying blame in the dark attic of the self.

4/12/2013

BROKE POEM

BROKE poem prompt

Zelda Fitzgerald once said

"Nobody has ever measured,
         not even poets, 

how much the heart can hold."
But sometimes when the heart becomes weary
after the dance of so much benign neglect,

a secret locked in a room of stale promises

shatters like seven years bad luck, 

escapes, mercurial. Leaving us wanting.

The things we envisioned, 

the life we might have lived.
Banking on a future that will never come. 

Instead, we square off, like duelists at dawn

taking measured steps, as if numenistics 

could save us from ourselves and each other

laying blame in the dark attic of the self.





PADI: write a broke poem. The poem could be about a broken record, broken relationship, or someone who is just flat broke (no money).

NaPoWriMo: “write a poem consisting entirely of things you’d like to say, but never would, to a parent, lover, sibling, child, teacher, roommate, best friend, mayor, president, corporate CEO, etc.” Honesty is the best policy, after all, so get it off your chest! And if you’re interested in the complete list of experiments, you can find them all here.

Molly FIsk: April 12 prompt:
We dance round in a ring and suppose,
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows. (Robert Frost)


30 Day Poetry Challenge: Write a limerick for a stranger. (For more information on the limerick, visit http://bit.ly/q1wV0)



APRIL A POEM A DAY info

Me & Mary Robinson, 7th, & 1st woman president of Ireland (photo)

Mary Robinson signing her memoir, Everybody Matters: My Life  Giving Voice, at Book Passages. A last minute impulse visit led to meeting her. She was so amazing. It was a FULL house at Book Passages. Mary's driver got lost enroute from Palo Alto, so we started late. Lots of old  Irish friends: Pat and Uta, Leslie...

What Mary said: everyone matters—that the individual is capable of changing society, the the world. Law and morality. Very empowering. Got a chance to chat with Mary at the end. Someone took a photo of us together, lovely. Thank you Jane Bark for driving us there!

This makes two Irish presidents I've met—Mary McAleece. I will have to dig up my notes.  We also met the inimitable Mo Mowlam, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, at UC Berkeley ca. 2000—she was a real firecracker, despite suffering from cancer.

My grandfather met Taoiseach Éamon de Valera, Ireland's first president of Dáil Éireann in San Francisco during the Irish War of Independence. Somewhere, there is a lost photo of them together, leaning on a car. We have a photo of Liam Mallows in our lower field. 

I have NOT, however, met, nor will I ever plan to meet Margaret Thatcher.

Me & Mary Robinson, 7th, & 1st woman president of Ireland (1990-1997)

Mary Robinson served as the seventh, and first female president of Ireland (1990-1997); she was appointed the U.N. Commissioner for Human Rights (1997-2002). In her memoir, Everybody Matters: My Life Giving Voice, she writes of her pioneering work on behalf of women’s rights, the separation of church and state, and world peace. Mary Robinson's social advocacy also includes Oxfam, the GAVI Alliance, vaccinating children worldwide, and the Council of Women World Leaders, and she is one of the “Elders,” led by Nelson Mandela dedicated to bringing peace and justice.