Heavy Day

The day started off in a dark way yesterday.

While walking the pups, I noticed a bloated dead cat in the side yard of a house. Bloated like it had been there a day or two. Then I noticed the garbage cans were not curb side--odd for trash day. The car was in the driveway. Curtains closed up around the house. Walking the dogs I had often seen an elderly woman there, always by herself, doing yardwork. So in the name of being neighborly I freaked and called the police and asked them to check on the woman. No one answered the door when I knocked earlier. Have not heard anything more.

A few hours later, I got an email from my wife Erin saying that one of her students, an elderly woman, had died. She'd been struggling with brain tumors since her late 20's. Erin got the message right before class and had to break the news to her students. Hard class.

A few hours later, while I was at school picking up my son Whit, I was told by another parent that one of our neighborhood librarians had committed suicide. Her son had died 3 years ago, and she never recovered. I adored her and always looked forward to seeing her and joking with her when I went to the library.

I am in shock and deeply saddened. Her obit said she died of a broken heart. I am not sure why I am posting this. I think I just want you to know of her.

Qik Post

Imagine yourself saying through your gritted aching teeth, "I'll be back in a bit, just gonna run down to Immediadent." Or, you stub your toe enough to crack the nail open and say, "I need to make a trip to UrgiCare." I think I despise "Urgi" most because it just sounds so damn stupid.

Here is my Andy Rooney moment for the day. What the hell is with all these blended word names? Immediadent is what you'd expect, a kind of urgent care for dentistry, right here in Akron. No doubt useful, but the name? Come on. This is advertising at its worst. I think it all began with video stores spelling Time, Tyme! Or oil lube shops spelling Quick, Qik.

Here are a few I made up.

Escort Service:

ImmediaSex

Lawn Care:

UrgiTrim

TrimTyme

Physicals:

Immediaprobe

The possibilities, sadly, are endless.

Babies: Shaken not Stirred

Shake the baby "quiet". Wow, that would make a great iPhone game app. Well, maybe not so much.

"The Cupertino, Calif.-based company has rejected apps that let iPhone users throw virtual shoes at President George W. Bush or watch clips from the "South Park" cartoon. It has accepted numerous programs that simulate flatulence."

Priorities. Priorities.

Still Praying

Still Praying

I pray for a breeze in sweltering summer,
A little less precipitation in winter.
May the flowers bloom red, purple, or whatever;
May love be spared derisive laughter,
May someone be available to prop up the fallen.
Let me have compassionate people around
So that when a man is really down
They at least won’t increase his pain
By turning a cold shoulder and arched eyebrows;
Each day of the year, like a cooling spring
Gushing forth non-stop, let us have some wisdom,
Instead of bans and rulings against this or that.
I ask to hear songs welling from the heart
Without someone laying down a formula
Of prearranged keys for every melody.
I pray
For the day when people will have no need
To pray the way I have had to do here.

Cai Qijao

Ars Poetica

Ars Poetica

Rather than speaking words, I’d prefer to give my hand
to a child, immerse my heart in living foam,
and be quiet, with my forehead full of ocean
under a silent pinetree, pulsating upward.

Rather than speaking words, navigating in a plain
of crushed wheat, growing in waves, where immensity
extracts the juice of summer nights;
and instead of dreaming names letting the wind write them.

Rather than collecting songs harvested in infancy
I’d prefer my cheeks to be like a ravished nest,
and the taste of my lips to be moist with ignorance,

and with the very first delight of someone who has never kissed;
rather than speaking words, to be the words’ own fragrance,
and to be quiet, inside the poem, to be quiet …


By Leopoldo Panero

Reality Check for The Stupidly Weathly

If this weren't so nauseating it'd be funny. Read on about the hard times the wealthy are having. "I'm not after sympathy. We are blessed. What I want is a reality check on what rich means," Ms. Parnell says. "I can pay my mortgage and I can buy some clothes. I'm not going without, but I'm not living a life of luxury." If she wants a reality check, I'd say start with the vacation home. What a dork. Preciousssssss.

Spring Beauties

Spring has sprung white in our front yard. We get this beauty every Spring for about a week. Less if we get a late frost. Isn't it gorgeous. Speaking of gorgeous, Indy got into my wife Drey's hair stuff again. Loves to play dress up I guess.

Anonymous Keith

after a long tour with Poor Fool, Anonymous Keith has been retired. To those of you who have told me on the side to make him go away, your wish has been granted.

Kenneth Patchen

Going on forever now, I have been reading David Ray who reminds me in many many ways of Patchen.

Creation

Wherever the dead are there they are and
Nothing more.
But you and I can expect
To see angels in the meadowgrass that look
Like cows -
And wherever we are in paradise
in furnished room without bath and
six flights up
Is all God! We read
To one another, loving the sound of the s’s
Slipping up on the f’s and much is good
Enough to raise the hair on our heads, like Rilke and Wilfred Owen
Any person who loves another person,
Wherever in the world, is with us in this room –
Even though there are battlefields.

Robin Fulton

Today, I am paging through a few books of poetry by Robin Fulton. To me, he has always been "the guy who translates Transtromer" (and a shelf full of other poets I admire,) but I recently came across this poem of his in an anthology and thought I should take a deeper look. Googling his own poetry is really tough if you don't have a title to search. He's so tied to Transtromer that's almost always what you get. But, here ya go:

Something like a sky

Something in us has suddenly cleared.
Something like a sky.
Something like a still-life, alive.
Behind us, our footsteps and voices.
Behind all the walls, a wide silence.
The air is white and open, ready for snow.

Robin Fulton

This is from his collection Fields of Focus and it reminds me quite a bit of the Transtromer poem 2 A.M. And why that last line, "the air is white and open, ready for snow", gives me such a lovely shiver I don't don't quite know.

Mohican Resort

This weekend, we all went for an overnight stay at the Mohican Lodge. Here's the view, or a view, from out our room. With their awesome Stay for A's special, you get $10 off for every A on your kid's report card. Thanks to Whit we saved $50.

Here's an aerial view from the web site.












We were such good guests, the locals named a street after us.

Blistering Cold Freezes Blistering Heat

Blistering cold they say. Sounds weird, like cold fire.