Personal Poetry: Monthly Status Report – March Poems

March is supposed to come in like a lion and go out like a lamb — not this year. It’s reversed. It started pleasant enough, but now I am cold (I think I have one, or allergies due to pollen all over), it is cold and windy outside. When I finish all my reading and writing for today, I think I’ll take a sick day. Do retired folks get those, especially on Sundays? I feel the need to heal.

I posted a few of the poems I wrote during March. In addition to the 31 for each day, I wrote about 10 others simply because one does not refuse when one’s muse presents a poem. I also managed to write a few essays, but this month my poetry muse has been more active.

Poem titles for March included:

    • March (posted)
    • Rock and Roll Will Never Die
    • Now What I Was
    • A Touch of Cold (maybe it was cold in early March)
    • The Fire Down Below (posted)
    • Toys
    • At the Beginning of the Day
    • There Was a Time
    • Why We Can’t Be Friends (I can’t love/like everyone)
    • Late Bloomer (that would be me)
    • I Might Be
    • Me Too
    • Stinks (the smell, not the poem)
    • Hear Ye Me and Thee
    • The Dance (what we all want to do)
    • Bacon (the meat)
    • The Irish in Me (Must have been the 17th)
    • Too Much (of what?)
    • Losing It (crazy)
    • The Priest (a man I knew who died in prison)
    • Tank Hill
    • It’s Just Me
    • Handwriting from the Past
    • Confusing Transitions
    • Stability
    • Starting Short
    • Mari Zone II
    • Men Kill
    • Broken Sadness
    • Rouquin (French word)
    • Self Portrait as Poe

Beginning tomorrow (1 April 2019), I’ll continue to write at least one poem each day, but instead of writing to my muse’s ideas, I will write to whatever the National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) challenge prompts suggest. My source will be that website where each day’s assignments are posted around midnight. I’ll write and post the poem before giving up the day to Mister Sandman.

I expect to travel during the final days of the month, so I will be writing on the road (again—now I have Willie whining in my good ear). The world is rich with characters and topics, so I anticipate no lack of subjects (think small towns in west Texas).

Unlike my others, I feel challenged (obliged) to post these. That’s what NaPo is all about. Don’t say no pressure. Yes there is, and you know it.

As for prose, who knows?

Look both ways for opportunity and danger.
An inspiration need not be the creative juggernaut of the day.
Mind well gaps within the gaps.

Poetry: Searching for Nothing

wandering the halls, pacing, here,
then there, this way and that – in
corridors between over-decorated
rooms of the hopeless romantic lover
and the stark stripped-bare
reality of a stinking nihilist’s
hopeless shit-house of oblivion,
with its dullness and pointless obscurity

looking for answers in pain
where
too many unreal illusions
are at one end,
and silent nothingness
at the other,
just the bitter taste
of death
following me – chasing me

divining into these closets of insanity,
the brutality of life pounding
and raping each victim as one
reaches for love to taste
no eternal bliss or to miss –
eternal silence, quiet, peace.

©Bill Reynolds 3/28/2019

Look both ways. You need to know what’s coming and going.
Look again to mind the gap.

Essay: Rocks Can Speak

When I was a very young lad, one day as I was walking along a well-worn path, I noticed a stone of interesting size and shape. The stone briefly entered my short span of attention, as did many things lying about my undiscovered world at that age. I don’t recall many other details about my surroundings that day, but they no longer matter.

That was the first time a stone was not just another rock lying among other random bits of littered scree. Certainly, similar discoveries have occurred thousands of times throughout my life while walking, running, hiking, exploring, or just hanging out (thinking or not). This was a simple event that works as my metaphor for many other life events involving discovery, reason, and doing.

The rock was just lying there among others, perhaps for a thousand years or more. I wasn’t yet thinking in geological or historical terms. Stones have served many purposes after they were formed millions, perhaps billions, of years ago. There it was on the ground with others just where my eye located it. It had probably been moved around in one fashion or another over the centuries. I had no way of knowing, nor did I care. Even before approaching it, I was mentally making my I saw it first claim.

Living organic things come and go. Almost all life forms have appeared for a time and then were gone. Over 99 percent of life is extinct. Some rocks may contain fossilized records of past lives, but most are just inorganic minerals. I was not the only child who saw rocks, sticks, or other items as things naturally intended to be thrown about. Getting the right rock and throwing it brings a feeling of success. Skipping rocks on water is a universal rite of passage.

Looking around at the organic things today, I realize that most are less than 100 years old, and less than 50 in current forms. The complexities of the laws of thermodynamics (physics) change things, but we only see the now.

Neither I nor the stone said anything, Rocks don’t talk or hear in the animal sense. But nature can speak to us through both organic living things and through inanimate objects, such as rocks and fossils.

As I moved, the rock played its role as a lifeless stone like billions of similar objects covering the surface of the Earth. Rocks are infinitely expert at going with the flow. River rocks spend so much time tumbling in the roll of water they lose their edge and become rounded. The rock I saw did not sparkle, twinkle, or do anything spectacular. But I saw it. I squatted and half bent over so I could pick it up with my hand. That was many years ago.

More recently, I picked up another rock – my first in years. I carefully examined it, top, bottom, and all sides. One learns that by picking things up, especially rocks, one must carefully examine the item to ensure it is a lone stone, and not one littered with objectionable attachments. It must be just the boy, or now the man, an old man, and the rock with no another surprises.

While I didn’t bother to analyze it, the rock was local Austin limestone, or chalk rock, which is said to have formed in the window of 100 to 200-million years ago. It didn’t matter, and at the time, what I was looking at was just an old rock. Or was it?

Ideas are like stones. Once you pick one up, you must examine it, and only then decide what to do with it. As with stones, I have dropped ideas, put them in my pocket for later pondering, or threw them. When throwing ideas or stones, one must distinguish between discarding, sharing, or targeting. The first is simply throwing it away or back to where it came from. The second is communing by tossing it to someone else. But the third is capturing the idea or stone for our own creative purposes. Like rocks, ideas can speak to us. We just need to listen.

Look both ways for material and ideas. That’s what creativity is all about.
Toss some back to the gods, share some with others, or use them within your own art.
Mind the gaps. Look there for those hidden gems.

Like rocks, ideas may be too big.

Poetry: Cat Tight Transforms

 

With a stretch of transition,
I transform night into day
body and soul awaken so slow,
to the bitter sweetness of life
which is so heavenly sensed.

Time means nothing to me.
Cats care and have not, you see,
clocks or alarms or times to be
places like here or there,
or anywhere.

We lions have no closets to open,
no purpose but life, but to hunt and to live.
No worries outside my litter box,
which, by the way, clean it, slave!

To awaken tight sleepers
A king must be fed,
before he hunts and stalks
to eat a fresh breakfast
prepared by my slaves.
And maybe a spot of milk,
but not too cold, and my milk must never
be given too old.

Then off to my stalking, to warm up the day.
After a check on the birds I see in the yard,
a brief hiss aimed at the dog
so he knows his place, as least of my slaves,
then onto my perch, high above my kingdom.
You’re lucky to have me, that’s what they say.

On to the work of annoying the human
who is trying to write without
my permission, cajole her I will,
surely, she knows the importance of kill.
King cat is awake, all bow down so humbly
in homage to him. I’m sure that you will.

©Bill Reynolds 3/18/2019

Look both ways. The king wears fur. Mind the gaps and claws.

The Greatest Gift

It cannot speak
cannot see or hear
No feeling or form
It moves through the universe,
But it never leaves my soul

It has no name
but knows me well
it makes no sound,
But explodes in every human heart,
it is the beginning and the end
the lost and the found
the discovery and burn.

It is in every thought of every day,
It crosses and straightens,
It eats nothing but feeds everything
It curses not but many swear upon it
It sticks like glue and slips too easily away
Without cost it is the dearest of all
Giving strength to the weak, it
brings the powerful to their knees.

To give love,
To take love. The love of life,
The sights and the sounds and the smells
the feels and the tastes of love.
The least and the greatest of all gifts

Both taken and given.

© Bill Reynolds

Let your love look both ways, to what is and what might have been.
Fill the gaps with the time we have, as precious as it is.

Poetry: The Tractor

The tractor rests, over near the barn
she’s not minding the cold, snow, and ice of winters
nor the dry pounding heat of summers,
a little rust, peeling paint, heavy worn tires,
little more than time causes the hulk any harm.

Made to plough and cumber a heavy beam, this ox
of steel and rubber carried men to the work
of sowing seeds with a seeder and a drill,
for tilling of soil with tiller and rotary box.

This mammoth hand of farm and ranch alike
pushes and pulls all kind of cultivator and harrow,
she drags wagons full of fertilizer to make
bull and cow shit fly over ditch and burrow.

Pulling mowers and rakes for the gathering of hay,
with bailers in tow bringing seed in to feed,
with tires made heavy with water in and mud out,
that tough old tractor stands ready for more work.

The Case International, the Massy Ferg’ and the old Ford;
the John Deere and the New Holland or Caterpillar rig.
Germany’s Fendt and Japan’s Kubota.
Canada has a claim with Cockshutt tractors.

Maker of the world’s finest cars will not be omitted,
As Italians lay claim to the craft for the harvest
with a Lamborghini (seriously) trattori pulling that shit.

This old boy was just a wee lad
when he grabbed hold of the wheel
for learning to drive in the only front seat
of a farmer named Dixon and his old Massy Ferguson
we all had great fun in the summer’s hot sun
as the day’s work of the land got done,
for the wheat and the hay (and a little play).

©Bill Reynolds 3/11/2019

Poetry: The Fire Down Below

The miserable hot last days of summer
back in sixty-four, back at basic, back
before when in green uniform we all wore
black polished brogans, the boots of
airmen basics who were third-class to be
who walked and marched so perfectly in step
to the deep voice and beat of Jody calls
of some long forgotten TI keeping pace,
and cadence with forward; yer left, right,
aeyyepp, heft, leey-eft, sing-it – Basic!

Long ill-fit pants and button starched
shirts and hard desert pith helmets
moving and drilling into hot sticky
sweat dripped-on drill-pad black tar
as rainbows watched and wished
and wondered as we did it with smooth
cool rhythms and rhymes marches
on without red-flag days with a pill of salt
‘smoke ‘em if ya’ got ‘em cigs in socks’
breaks; then drill, drill, drill old rock and roll.

The soft rumble of boots on feet make
the beat of quiet cadence on walk or road,
‘There she was just a-walkin’ down the street’
dress right-dress, road guards out – troops
always marching, walking not talking no-
thinking waiting for me was mo’ kay-pee, not
some “Do wah diddy diddy dum diddy do,”
just hot sweat; sun turning boys to beets
in boxers where scalded butts and balls felt
the pain of the bloody red crotch-rot grow.

Every step became a new miserable pain,
working KP was to waddle legs spread,
just do and do well, never complain,
Save me sergeant from this misery below
down south will never again be all the same,
to march and to walk, maybe to never again go.
Cookie, gimme some nice corn starch, a powder
to bring calm love and peace of thee unto me,
to my family jays, my centering soul,
ending for another day, the fire down below.

Back in the Day

Look both ways, but looking back may be best.
Mind the gaps and smoke ’em if ya got ’em.

Poetry: March

Since March was the first month of the new year in ancient Rome, some historians believe the Romans named March after Mars, their god of war.

Time for a poem – warning ADULT LANGUAGE. If you’re easily offended, don’t read it. (Now you’re really curious, right?)

Man of March

Kiss me goodbye said Winter,
his eyes a-twinkle and a
guilty smirk, we find the
month of a Roman god, of
the lion and lamb, the
time of dancing transition
from the hard cock of cold
mister Winter to a soft sweet-
smelling moist pussy of
Spring, when even the
fucking pear look lovely
dressed with flowers and
the promise of new life
born of Spring, before
the Dragon swoops down
with heat and fire after
April, the last of the Kind
before October’s dance
(at 73) of fest and feast.
Hello, March, Man of
Venus and Lover
of Spring’s Pleasures!

©Bill Reynolds 3/4/2019

The best time to look both ways is when we are between the times. Mind the gap.

Blog News for Poets and Skeptics

Hey out there,

Was the salutation Pat Conroy used when he finally blogged (he disliked that word) what he referred to as his letters. On March 26, 2014, he wrote, “I’ve come to that point in my life when my memories seem as important as the life I’m now leading.” I understand that. Conroy fought blogging, but eventually took to it, resulting in the book A Lowcountry Heart: Reflections on a Writing Life, which is an anthology of his postings.

Pat Conroy’s Outlook

Pat touted the fact that he gave up writing poetry at a relatively young age and thus did much for the world of prose, by writing it; and for poetry, by not writing it. Pat also made a wonderful life for himself and his family by writing several best sellers. Had he been exclusively a poet, the odds would have been against equal financial success.

My Writing Memoir

I have been writing poetry (or creative prose) for a short part of my long life. In a way, I gave poetry up at young age too, by not beginning writing until much later. That was a mistake I’ll always regret. All I can do now is write as much as possible.

I smile when other writers talk about how they began writing in grade or high school, some as late as college. Well, me too, but my goal was to complete assignments for grades and promotions, no more. Bukowski began his poetry career at 35, half the age at which I began my own personal tryst with verse.

Like many others, I began writing earnestly after I fully retired. My previous careers involved extensive writing, mostly of a technical, business, or academic nature. It was not what one studies in Creative Writing or Memoir classes. It paid well enough. During my years of employment, I learned much about the craft of writing, if less about the creative and artistic aspects. I am working my recovery.

On Memories and Life

So, getting back to Conway’s quote on memories and their importance. I now lead the life of a writer and blogger. When people ask me what I do: I write. My memories, like Pat’s, provide seasoning, if not substance, to everything I write. Sometimes I think that since I started so late, I need to catch up. Now, I write all I want and about whatever I desire. I feel like I am making up for lost or wasted time.

New Blog Site Announcement

This blog site will continue as a literary blog for my poetry, essays, and anything related to writing that I want to share, but I have created another blog site. It is called Dispassionate Doubt: Broodings and Ponderings of a Pensive Skeptic.

I don’t like to post things unrelated to literature on Our Literary Journey, even though I wrote them. Furthermore, during the month of April I will post a poem each day on this site, related to the challenge of National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo). Additionally, I will post every weekday for the A to Z blog challenge on the Dispassionate Doubt site. In subject and substance, one will have nothing to do with the other. So, I will have two blogs. I think many of you do also.

Poems of February 2019

This completes my second month writing a poem each day of 2019, as a self-challenge. The topics, subjects, or titles of the 28 poems were:

  1. Placid Place (finding peace after fighting)
  2. Morning
  3. Why? (do we do things we do?)
  4. The Stone (also working an essay on this)
  5. How to Die
  6. Paths
  7. Tranquility Shit
  8. E-Day (Emily Day)
  9. The Call (a life-changing phone call)
  10. Changes (in life)
  11. Basic Good (me, maybe)
  12. Master (becoming one)
  13. Miracles
  14. Weeds (literally)
  15. What It’s Like – Old (on aging)
  16. An ekphrastic poem: An Old Boat (also one about painting my portrait)
  17. Dancing Trees (In the wind)
  18. Death by War
  19. Play (literally about playing)
  20. Midnight Writer
  21. Streets
  22. The Florence Diner (the place and people)
  23. Perception (differences in how we see)
  24. I’m Alive (celebrating life)
  25. Coal Miner’s Son
  26. There Be Dragons
  27. That Old Time Rock and Role
  28. FUBAR

To view the new WordPress blog site, click on the title in the announcement paragraph or here.

Look both ways, but remember it rises in the east and sets in the west.
Learn how to find Polaris, the north star.
Mind the gaps, the wonder, and the mystery of life;
of being, and of the universe.

Essay: Tell the Story (of two hearts)

J-Dubs challenged me and two others to write the story for this photo prompt. I have. I am then to post a new picture and challenge three other bloggers to write to it (there are apparently no rules for length or type. Some are poetry. Some are long, others short).

***

I was awakened by a loud noise but found nothing. Unable to sleep, I sat at my desk. As I started to type, a message appeared on screen that said, please don’t be afraid. We need to talk. If you say it is okay, I will be right with you. If you say nothing or no, I will leave you alone. Will you talk with me?

I thought about calling my wife, but I just sat there – heart racing. I pushed my chair back and thought, Now? The words now or never appeared on the screen. I think I said fuck.

I spurted out a muffled verbal okay then. A man immediately walked into the room. He looked like me, but this was no simple doppelganger. He was not someone else who looked exactly like me. He was me, but not me. He held two glasses of wine and placed one on the desk in front of me and he sat on the couch and sipped the other.

He spoke first.

You were wishing you had a drink. I had the same wish. All you need do is think your questions and I will think them too. Then I will answer you. I will talk, but only you can hear me. If you talk, you risk waking your wife. If that happens, I must leave. So do not speak. Just think. As you can see, I am physically here, but in a way I’m not. I’ll explain that later.

I cannot read your mind exactly as you do because I don’t share your background, reasons, motivations, or physical experiences, but my thoughts parallel yours. That’s how it works for us. It is our relationship while you live. We are not precisely the same person, there are two of us, yet we are the same persons in two parallel universes. It’s hard to comprehend. I need you for me to exist as I am.

We go back a long way. Do you recall the monsters under your bed as a child? That was me. I knew you would talk about it. As a monster, it would seem normal to others. If you had told your parents you found yourself under your bed, they might have been alarmed.

He went on for a long time. As we drank the amount of wine in the glasses never changed. When I thought of a question, he would answer it immediately. He never stopped talking. When I understood, he knew it and would move on.

While time passed, what seemed like hours took only minutes. He explained that as a form of mental telepathy wherein thoughts happen faster than spoken words. What seemed like talking was a form of thought transfer, which explained why no one heard us. I had not verbally said a word.

He said – You have heard of a parallel universe, right? I am not only from what you call another universe, I am you in that universe. Our universes are real, but separate and parallel. One is superimposed on the other – dimensionally separated, but not physically. Mine is older and less physical.

I can explain it but you’re not capable of understanding or believing it. We discovered the possibility of a different universe and sort of willed yours into existence. But for us to have access to yours, we needed to transform physically. What you call evolution is us trying to figure out how to make it work. Eventually we did, but not perfectly. We had to learn about the impermanence of a physical universe.

He explained that while he was a permanent entity, he did not always exist as he did now. He was not a life form until I was born. His incubation was parallel to mine and he came into existence as a person equivalent to me, but in his universe.

He explained that others like him have attempted showing themselves but often regretted it because of human reactions due to superstition and fear. He asked – How do you explain a parallel universe to people who don’t even know what a universe is? For communication there must be some common ground.

Then his expression looked more serious. He said – You need to know how this will end. When you die, I will cease to exist as I am now. I’ll revert to my prior form since at your death there will be no human entity to parallel. We don’t know what happens to you. Humans just seem to die.

Our being depends upon yours for quality and purpose, but not for raw existence. Eventually, I will be paired with another human. There are more of you than us, so many humans are not paralleled. Your existence is no longer dependent on us. You’re on your own in many ways.

You may find that unfair, but there is more for us to figure out. The two parallel existences still depend on each other. I want to propose that we try something new. If you like my idea, you and I will be the beta test.

Just as he started to explain his idea my wife called out to me. Instantly he was gone. I walked to the bedroom and she asked, “Do you feel ok? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

I told her that I had heard noises from under the bed that were very similar to when I was a child and had seen monsters.

She groaned and mumbled, “Why the fuck did I want to marry a writer? Go to bed!”

© Bill Reynolds 2/21/2019

***

Tell the story if you so choose. The three writers I challenge are:

  1. Kathrine
  2. Jim
  3. Tara

And the photo is (credit to Sherry):

Look both ways and watch your footing. Do not fall into the gaps.