Dear Readers

Dear Readers,

You have probably noticed that I am posting excerpts from stories instead of posting my poems. I have always wanted to write short stories and novels. An instructor of mine told me about Nanowrimo. What is Nanowrimo? It is a website http://www.nanowrimo.org/ that is free for writers. It offers a writing contest for the month of November. Anyone who finishes the challenge wins. The challenge is to write 50,000 in a month (November). The writing doesn’t have to be polished. My instructor told me that she wrote 50,000 words of crap. The focus of the writing is about practice not perfection. She also advised me to have a general idea of what I would like to write. A writing buddy of mine told me that she never has an idea of what she’s going to write she just writes. I did think of a general story line that I wanted to work with.

The recent posting that I have made, “Robin’s Story,” “Work,” “The Long Walk Home,” and “The Bus” all come from my Nanowrimo writings. All of these excerpts come from a short story that I was working on for Nanowrimo. And of coarse I took the time to polish what I published on this website. I never did figure out a good title for it and I was calling it “Tessa.” Tessa is one of the main characters in this story. The genre of the story is futuristic fantasy. The time, that the story takes place is 2275. There has been a terrible nuclear war. Why did I pick to write about a civilization after a nuclear war? A non-fiction novel that I was reading for one of my classes, Rebecca Solnit’s, “Savage Dreams”, inspired me. Solnit is an anti-nuclear activist. She writes about visiting the Nevada nuclear test site, which she has visited on several occasions. She gives accounts of individuals and groups, who have been affected by the testing. This inspired me to write about a society struggling to survive in the aftermath of a nuclear war. I also wove into my story that the form of government that the characters in my story are living under is a Theocracy. I read Gary Hart’s essay “God and Caesar in America,” for a class that I took. I decided to add the element of religious control as a form of government and used my own upbringing in a fundamentalist Christian religion to help create this piece. I hope you enjoy my short story excerpts.

Cheers

Robin's Story

Robin’s Story

Robin opened the door to his studio apartment, set down his backpack, put some hot water on for tea and sat down with paper and pencil to write a story.

Once there was a high tower made of white stone in Ireland. Ivy grew thickly up the sides of this tower. It was said in the twenty-first century that this tower was haunted. People from all over the world would go and sleep in the old stone tower because they wanted to say that they had a haunted experience. Cathy was a round housewife from the United States, who begged her husband Ron to make reservations to stay one night in the haunted tower. Ron, who wore a brown cowboy hat and a blue plaid shirt stretched over his beer belly, grumbled at first but then gave in.
The tower was originally built so that the only way in or out was through a small window on the west side of the tower. But the O’Donnels , who inherited the tower from some distant relatives, had a hard time finding an insurance company that would cover tourist climbing a ladder several hundred feet in the air; they decided to have a stone staircase put in. Cathy and Ron were out of breathe has they finished climbing the one hundred stairs to the little room. Once inside the room, Cathy looked out the one small window-looking west to watch the sun setting. Ron grumbled and put on his red plaid flannel pajamas and Cathy put on her lavender colored nightgown with yellow roses. She always braided her long blonde hair into a single braid that hung down her back. By the time she finished with the last plait of the braid, Ron was snoring soundly in bed. Cathy was in the habit of reading in bed, she mostly read romance novels. She flipped her braid over her right shoulder and crawled in beside Ron. It might have been the climb or the excitement of the day but Cathy was soon drifting off into a restful sleep, her book lying against her bosom.
Rapunzel, who was always there but never visible, approached the couple as they lay sleeping. She picked the book up off of the sleeping woman’s bosom and looked at the cover. A man and woman were embracing. The man had on a white shirt that was open at the front exposing a muscular and tan chest. The woman lay against the man’s arm in a swoon, her long flowing red hair sweeping away from her back, her rose bud mouth expectant. Rapunzel sat in a chair next to Cathy, holding the book to her chest and cried out, “Oh, Mother what have you done? What have you done? As she cried she put the book down and leaned over the woman. The woman’s long blonde braid was tied with a red ribbon on the end. Rapunzel’s invisible fingers pulled at the ribbon until the ends gave way and she laid the ribbon on top of the book on the table. Great wet tears flowed in remembrance of her love. He was young, beautiful and fair. As Ranpunzel cried, Cathy dreamed that she was in the midst of a great rainstorm. She was holding an umbrella to try to protect herself from the gale. “Funny,” she thought while dreaming, “a rainstorm has never made me feel sad,” and she too started crying. Rapunzel was surprised by the quiet sobs of the woman and the tears that streamed down her face. Finding a tissue on the table, Rapunzel lovingly dabbed at her tears. She soothed the woman with a song of the mountains as she undid her braid and brushed out the woman’s hair.
After Rapunzel finished brushing Cathy’s hair, she sat at the window and watched the stars make their final journal westward over the hills; first there was Orion the hunter, then the teapot and now the dragon. As Rapanzel watched the stars she remembered her lover the fair prince. A long time ago, he would stand underneath her window at the bottom of the tower as she sang. She noticed that his hair was thinning on top and that his scalp often showed through pink or red. She could also see the outward curvature of his belly. But he too liked to sing and had a beautiful alto voice. Her mother, she hated the prince. She was jealous! One day she told Rapunzel, “You either tell that fat balding man to go away or I’ll do something really terrible to him.” Rapunzel had grown tired of her mother after all she was thirty-eight years old. If the tower had had stairs like it did now, she would have simply walked away and left her mother to brew in her own meanness. But she didn’t have a way out, so she waited for the prince to appear. And instead of telling the prince to go away, she told the prince when to come and visit her. The prince came back the next day, when her mother was taking a trip into town for supplies. She let down her thick red braid and he climbed with great energy up her hair and into the tower. Once inside the tower they stood looking at each other. He introduced himself as Prince Herbert. He belted out a couple of lines from a popular folk song and she joined in. She poured him a glass of water and prepared a plate of flat bread, cheese and apple slices. They spent the afternoon this way, enjoying each other’s company. They embraced before he left, she told him to come back in two days. He came back often. Once he came back with a robe ladder that he wore over his shoulder like a sash. Once in the tower he secured the homemade rope ladder to a wall and they both climbed down. The prince had a horse that was secured to in a tree in nearby thicket. Herbert and Rapunzel rode the horse named Star back to his kingdom. Now Herbert’s parents the King and Queen immediately fell in love with Rapunzel. They were relieved that their forty -something year old son had finally found someone that he loved. Herbert and Rapunzel were married in the castle the following month. Rapunzel’s mother Agnes had taken residence in the tower. She sat drinking ale and the flame of her anger finally became a mountain of red-hot volcanic rage. “How dare her daughter, how ungrateful of her daughter!” She wasn’t even invited to their wedding, not that she would have gone anyway, but still! One night during one of her rages, she got up out of her chair, found an axe that she put it into a bag, climbed down the rope the two had used to escape a month and a half before and walked towards the kingdom. The first person to greet her was old Sam who guarded the gate. He had often seen Agnes come into the kingdom for supplies. Agnes put on her sweetest voice and said, “I’ve come to visit my daughter and her wonderful new husband.” Sam smiled broadly and let her in. After entering the kingdom, Agnes stayed in the shadows of the alleyways and buildings, moving stealthily like a cat looking for prey. The castle was in the middle of the kingdom, it was a modest affair, only being four stories high, it looked more like a mansion. Agnes crept around the north side of the castle where she knew the cooks had their door. It was open as the cooks were all on break, smoking long stemmed pipes and eating leftovers. Agnes pretended that she had a delivery. There was no reason to suspect that Agnes wasn’t there for the purpose that she claimed so the cooks smiled and nodded at Agnes as she walked into the kitchen. Once inside the deserted kitchen Agnes exited out a door that took her up a passageway of stairs. The stairs led to a hallway. It’s too terrible to describe what Agnes did to prince Herbert and Rapunzel with her axe while they lie sleeping in their beds.
The next day after the terrible news spread throughout the kingdom, Sam the gatekeeper went to the sheriff and informed him that Agnes was the only person to come into the kingdom in the late afternoon. The sheriff, whose name was Tom, was a short man with a thick beard and mustache. He rode out to the tower that morning, climbed up the ladder, saw the bloody axe against the wall and brought Agnes, whose arms he bound to her sides back into the kingdom. Judgment was pronounced against Agnes and she was beheaded a week after the murder.
Each night, Rapunzel would replay this story, savoring the memory of her happy times with prince Herbert as brief as they were. The western sky was starting to turn pink when she heard footsteps coming up the stairs. The wooden door sudden burst open letting in a gust of cold air and in stomped her mother Agnes. At this point Ron awoke. The door to the room was wide open and the hair on the back of his neck was standing on end and he wasn’t certain if it the cold air that he was feeling or some fear. He got up to close the door and felt a cold hand on his neck, he stopped still in his tracks, shuttered and closed the door. Rapunzel on seeing her mother, cried out, “OH Mother what have you done!” “What have you done?!?” Agnes eyed her daughter didn’t say anything and sat down at the window. “Mother answer me what have you done?” Agnes acidly replied, “I have saved you from a life of unhappiness, you were too stupid to see what an idiot that prince was, I saved you.” Rapunzel howled pulling at her shoulder length hair (for one of the things that her mother had done with the axe was to cut off Rapunzel’s hair to her shoulders) at her mother’s curt response. “But mother I have no life” Agnes didn’t reply, she just sat staring out of the window. Ron had an uneasy feeling that he couldn’t talk himself out of as he lay with the covers pulled up to his chin. As the sun climbed over the hills and then into the room, Agnes got up and stomped out of the room. This time being fully awake to his horror Ron watched the door open and then shut by itself. Ron was still lying flat on his back and the covers pulled up to his chin nervously looking at the door when his wife Cathy woke up. “Why Ron what is the matter?” Cathy asked. Ron who wanted to preserve whatever was left of his masculinity answered back, “Oh nothing dear, I’m just cold.” “Well, you’ll warm up when you get dressed,” Cathy asserted. Cathy was so surprised to see Ron looking like a frightened child that she didn’t notice that her book had been moved or that her hair had changed. Rapunzel sat and looked out the window as Ron and Cathy got dressed and left the room. After they left, she got up from her window seat and crawled into the vacated bed falling into a deep sleep.

Book 1 Chapter 2 Story Continued

Work

Tessa worked at one of the many governmental buildings that covered about foursquare blocks in the business district. These were large gray square two and three-story buildings. As Tessa walked through the revolving glass door of the engineering department building where she worked a gust of cool air greeted her. The air conditioning alone made going to work worth her while. The lobby to the building mirrored her own studio apartment, in one word it was stark, white walls, black and white checked linoleum floors, couches and chairs with beige colored plastic coverings. There were two sets of stairs one that went up to offices occupied by engineers and one going down into the basement, that’s where she worked. A white faced clock with black numbers told Tessa she had fifteen minutes to put on her uniform and punch in at the time clock.
Her manger Betty was a white haired grandmotherly type, who always greeted her with a smile. They nodded at each other as Tessa walked by her office. She took her beige time card out of its metal pocket and slipped it into the clock and punched in. In the locker room she put on her white polyester one-piece dress uniform. It fit snuggly on her rounded hips and waist. She walked out to the cafeteria where steam tables were sending up aromas of ham, roast beef, fish, potatoes, green beans, and winter squash. She was on the cooked vegetable end today. Men in white shirts came through her line and pointed to what they wanted and she obliged by dipping her scoop in and gently plopping onto any available square of their tray what they wanted. Today, her work took on a kind of mindless rhythm until she heard whistling and the familiar scuff of shoes. Oh God! She didn’t want to look up to see the blue rheumy eyes of the dinosaur. She felt her stomach muscles tighten involuntarily. She looked up to see him towering there, his lips puckered as he whistled. She had never seen him here! What was he doing here!
“What would you like sir?” she asked him in a voice that cracked.
“Why, those mashed potatoes sure do look good”
She noticed a black dot thinly veiled in the whipped whiteness. Usually she would scoop it out for the trash receptacle near her feet but today she hurriedly scooped it up and plopped it on his tray. She hoped it was some hapless spider or fly and not just a black potato eye. He smiled at her and puckered his lips in a whistle as he moved on down the line. Faceless men in white shirts kept sliding past her, pointing at green beans, or squash as she clenched her jaw.
Long white tables ran the length of the room facing away from the steam tables. This was communal dining at its most sterile. She knew he had chosen a spot to watch her. When the line had died down, she looked up and out over the cafeteria. Sure enough, there he was and he was looking right at her. Betty came and tapped her on the shoulder. “Honey, it’s your break time.” She felt the knot loosen in her stomach as she took a tray and served herself lunch. As she put a few slices of turkey on her tray, she heard shoes scuffing along the floor. She looked up and there he was…the six foot plus old toad, she wanted to fling something at him, so that he would shuffle away from her, leave her alone, instead she looked up at him and said, “I’m on my break if you need something, I’ll call someone.” “Oh, no I don’t need anything, except for you to come out and sit with me.” She looked down at her plate, silenced, digging for a quick excuse, “I’m meeting a co-worker in the back,” she struggled to say.
“Well, maybe another time” he smiled down at her.
She didn’t know what to say and so she quickly left.
“I’ll see you on the bus, then” he called after her.

The Long Walk Home

As she heard the click of her time card being punched, she decided that if he was driving the bus, she was going to walk the five miles home. At the bus stop she waited five minutes and sure enough there he sat like a king on his throne. She walked out of the line of people and towards the intersection. There was the quiet whir of the electric car motors, footfalls of other pedestrians and the wet sound of chewing gum in her mouth pulling her forward. As she walked along she thought about the pictures she had seen of wooden houses; these were long gone except for the few historical houses spread out in different districts. She thought about the soft knock that her shoes made on the wooden stairs and the feel of the smooth wood of the handrails. She further imagined what it would have been like to live in one of these houses, the soft feel of the wooden cabinet doors, letting your toes sink into soft plush carpeting on a cold winter’s day, taking a long hot baths in a claw footed bath tub, oh, to live in those times!
She was outside of the business district now and walking through residential areas. In these areas stood two and three-story apartment buildings that looked like gray cement boxes. These were the living quarters for everyone except for those few, who were in favored positions, like her foe the bus driver. The sun was an orange ball on the rim of the horizon as she saw the three-story building that she lived in. The lawn was short and neat. Yellow, white and pink rose bushes lined up against the gray of the side of the building. She had seen pictures of apartment buildings during the pre-war era; these were structures of differing sizes and shapes, not these gray uniform buildings. She heard the low hum of the security camera as she walked up to the front door of her building. She held her id bracelet up to the scanner. An audible click and the door opened into a linoleum-lined hallway with doors on both sides and a metal stairway that lead upstairs. Her studio apartment was on the second floor. Again the low hum and whiz as the motion detector activated the security cameras. A remembrance of the peppy song, “smile your on candid camera” brought a brief smile to her face. The red light of the laser read her bracelet id and for a moment she imaged herself at the wooden door of an apartment that used a key in a hole in the doorknob and maybe another above it to get in. There was heavy sounding click, before her door opened and she smelled familiar odors of cooking and soap. The soft glow of white lights greeted her. The door closed heavily behind her and as she put down her day bag, she picked up the remote and turned the TV monitor on to a music channel. She sat on her bed, closed her eyes and let herself be absorbed by sweet sounding violin music. Dinner! In her bag, she had a shiny aluminum tray full of cafeteria food.

About Found Poems

Dear Readers,
Last week I published two found poems, “Humankind” and “Déjà vu.” In this post I would like to briefly explain what found poetry is and specifically how I put mine together. I am currently taking a poetry class and one of the poetic forms that we studied is found poetry. Simply, found poetry is made up of words that are found in the environment and then put together in poem form. What I did for my found poems was to pay attention to signs in my environment as I was out walking my errands. The title was inspired by a sign on a door on a medical place in old town called I saw “HumanKind.” “Please Travel at a Safe Speed,” is a sign out on “Spring Creek” walking trails. These two: Yield to Pedestrians and Yield to Oncoming Traffic, you’ll recognize as traffic signs. Eat fresh sautéed or grilled Noodles, is on the side of “Noodles” restaurant. Drink Coffee -Starbuck’s and Public Restrooms this Way are also self-explanatory.
The inspiration for the other poem’s title, “Déjà Vu,” is the name of one of my favorite coffee houses. Open, Close, No Checks and Cash or Credit Cards Only, are the signs that are in the windows of almost all businesses.

Book 1

Book 1

Chapter 1

Morning

“Good Morning Citizen 1012.” Tessa stirred in her bed. “Ten minutes to the leaders message,” a female electronic voice announced. Tessa stretched her arms above her head. “It is now time to hear from our beloved leader.”
As Tessa sat down in front of the TV monitor, she picked up her blue hairbrush. “Good Morning Citizens, let us remember today as we go about our business, that God the Father has blessed our nation because we are a nation of righteous people.” The leader smiled his thin-lipped smile. Tessa brushed her hair rhythmically, feeling the bristles on her scalp. Hair brushing was an effective tool, as she could stare at the TV monitor, while the white lights of the retinal scan softly swept over her eyes. There was a click and a hum as the air conditioning came on. She took the blue pills with a glass of water as she ate her usual breakfast of powdered eggs and oatmeal. Afterwards, she neatly folded her work uniform and placed it in her day bag. This was a typical morning.

The Bus

The air was heavy with moisture. Tessa felt the beginnings of under arm perspiration forming on her brown cotton dress. The city bus a long and lumbering vehicle made hissing noises as it pulled up to the curb. A line formed and people entered the bus, scanning their bracelets as they passed a box by the driver. As she held her bracelet up to the scanner, the white haired bus driver, smiled broadly at her. His blue rheumy eyes quickly locked onto hers. She shivered inwardly. “Well, hi there,” he announced loudly. “Hello,” she said, and quickly made for a seat at the back of the bus. At one of the stops there was a few minutes wait and the bus driver as usual took the opportunity to get up out of his seat. Tessa heard his cowboy boots clicked on the plastic anti-slip floor mats. He whistled and hummed to himself as he strolled along the isle pretending to check the bus.
“Well, how are you?” he boomed at her.
She said, “Oh, I’m fine.”
“Well, it sure is nice to see you.”
She noticed that the soft crater on his nose was getting larger.
“Have I shown you pictures of my house?”
“Yes, about a month ago, you showed me some pictures of your house, it’s very nice.”
“Well, it is nice but it’s awfully lonely,” he said, as he smiled at her.
“Hey, I have an idea, if you’re not busy Friday night, you could come over to my place for a steak dinner.” “Boy, those steaks, sure do taste good,” he whistled and then smiled.
“No thank you, my sister and I are going out for the evening,” Tessa mumbled.
“Well, maybe some other time then,” he said, as he tapped his ring on a metal pole.
She didn’t have to answer back, as a soft chime, caught his attention. He strolled back to the front of the bus and let a tall male passenger on. She hear the hydraulics of his seat his as he sat down heavily, she knew the old hedgehog would look at her before he turned his ignition on and shifted into gear. Hers was the next stop and as she exited the bus, he boomed at her, “Remember that God the Father loves you.” She said, “thank you” while not looking in his direction and hurried off the bus.

Found Poetry

HumanKind

HumanKind:
Please Travel at a Safe Speed,
Yield to Pedestrians,
Yield to Oncoming Traffic,
Eat fresh sautéed or grilled Noodles
Drink Coffee- Starbuck’s
Public Restrooms this Way


Déjà Vu

Déjà Vu:
Open
Close
No Checks
Cash or Credit Cards Only

Autumn (Revised)

The granddaughter awakens
It is early morning, in the garden, pumpkins glow orange
As the wind makes dry rattling wind chimes of leaves
That it pushes around a tree
In which five ravens sit facing west
One she raven caws softly to the others as she tells a story.

The granddaughter sits at her desk, she is writing a story
She begins: The goddess Morrigan awakens
She rises and calls in the spirits of the west
It is early morning- the harvest moon glows orange
She puts on her necklace the one with a pendant shaped like a tree
Bare of its leaves

Morrigan stretches forth her hand, in which she holds green leaves.
The grandmother enters the bedroom where the granddaughter is busy writing her story
The ravens watch the grandmother and granddaughter from their perch on the tree.
The orange cat lying at the foot of the bed awakens
The rising sun casts an orange light into the room; the granddaughter writes facing west

The goddess twirls the leaves while facing west
The leaves
Slowly change from green to orange
The grandmother peeps curiously at the granddaughter’s story
Morrigan awakens
Fall as she looks out to watch the leaves change color on the tree.

The grandmother smiles as the ravens stir on the limbs of the tree
They stretch their wings to the west
Cold air rattles the window of the granddaughter’s room and awakens
The orange cat who is dreaming of chasing dried leaves
The granddaughter pauses her story
As the grandmother drapes a shawl across her shoulders against the chill; it is orange

The pumpkins in the vegetable patch glow orange
The ravens have flown back to the tree
As the granddaughter thinks about her story
The west
wind blows sending more leaves
Sailing into the air- The grandmother who has been napping awakens

The granddaughter’s imagination awakens as the room blazes with the color orange
The leaves of the tree
Stirred by the west wind wait for her to finish her story

Dear Readers,
Last week I published my sestina poem “Autumn” and this week I have worked and revised it a bit. I feel that I need to talk about my original idea before I explain the changes that I made. The idea to write “Autumn” came to me in bits and pieces. First I was inspired by the beautiful autumn that we are having this year. As I was out on my walks, I would see images in my mind of a woman sitting at a spinning wheel, changing green summer grasses into the brown grasses of fall. I thought about creating a goddess character named Autumn and her daughter Fall. I decided not to use the spinning wheel because it seemed to cliche and so the goddess changes the leaves by twirling them. Then I was inspired by a sestina poem called, “Sestina” by Elizabeth Bishop, in her poem Bishop’s two characters are a grandmother and granddaughter. I decided to create my own grandmother and granddaughter characters. I also threw in the ravens an allusion to Edgar Allen Poe’s poem “The Raven.” In my revision, I decided to add certain mythic elements such as the goddess Morrigan and the direction of the west. I did some research and decided to use the mythology from the goddess religion, since it was a goddess character that I was working with. I found that according to the goddess religion Morrigan is the goddess of autumn and west is the direction associated with autumn. In line 10, I also added a harvest moon, which is also associated with fall. I made many other changes to some of the lines, shortening some and lengthening others. Hope you enjoy.

Autumn

The granddaughter awakens
It is early morning, a pumpkin glows orange
As the wind pushes dry leaves
Around a tree
In which five ravens sit quietly
One she raven caws softly to the others as she tells a story.

The granddaughter sits at her desk, she is writing a story
She begins: The goddess awakens
She rises from her bed-quietly
It is early morning- the moon glows orange
She puts on her necklace the one with a pendant shaped like a tree
Bare of its leaves

The goddess stretches forth her hand, in which she holds green leaves.
The grandmother enters the bedroom where the granddaughter is busy writing her story
The ravens watch the grandmother and granddaughter from their perch on the tree.
The orange cat lying at the foot of the bed awakens
The rising sun casts an orange light into the room where the granddaughter writes quietly

The goddess twirls the leaves quietly
The leaves
Slowly change from green to orange
The grandmother peeps curiously at the granddaughter’s story
The goddess awakens
Fall as the leaves change color on the tree.

The ravens stir on the limbs of the tree
They stretch their wings quietly
Cold air pushes against the ravens wings and awakens
The orange cat who is dreaming of chasing dried leaves
The granddaughter pauses her story
As the grandmother drapes a shawl across the granddaughter’s shoulders it is orange

The pumpkin in the vegetable patch glows orange
The ravens have flown back to the tree
As the granddaughter considers her story
The cat jumps out of the tree quietly
The wind blows sending more leaves
Sailing into the air- The grandmother has been napping when she awakens

The granddaughter’s imagination awakens as the room blazes with the color orange
The leaves of the tree
Quietly wait for her to finish her story

Dear Readers,
Both "Autumn" and "Saturday" have been written in a poetry form called the sestina.
If you go to Wikipedia.com, they have a pretty good explaination of what a sestina is (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sestina).
The sestina is a patterned poem. It has a total of seven stanzas. Six of the stanzas have six lines and the last stanza is three lines (called a tercet). It is the ending words that have a strict word order. If you look at my first stanza and label the last words as A, B, C, D, E, F, and then look at my next line, you'll get the idea that I use the last words over and over throughout the six stanzas in patterned ways. As I stated earlier the ending word order pattern is strict.
I wrote "Saturday," recently, for a poetry class that I am taking. I enjoyed creating "Saturday" so much that I wrote a poem for Fall called "Autumn." I hope that you enjoy these.

Saturday

Shutters open to Saturday morning sunlight, I am home.
Sitting quietly in my rocker, I consider,
My steaming cup of comfort.
Lily is stretching in a patch of warm light.
She eats fishy tidbits that I pour into her bowl,
I return to my rocker and private thoughts.

Dozing to my,trailing thoughts
I awaken to, Dorthy saying, "There's No Place Like Home."
I eat oatmeal and apples out of a blue bowl
I consider
how patterns of light,
Play on my feet and I feel such comfort.

Lily's warm body curled in my lap, brings me such comfort.
My solace is interrupted by thoughts:
Early morning light,
Should be spent away from home
I consider
Going to the farmer's market, as I rinse out my bowl.

Skylar's walking halter resembles a cut-out bowl.
As we walk, light encases our bodies, this is true comfort.
At the farmer's market people stroll around smiling, I consider
A boutique of sunflowers mixed with white daises, a thought
Oh home,
A corner that catches afternoon light

Refracted rainbows dance in the light
Flowers are placed in an earth colored vase, round like a bowl
They gaze out at my home.
Lily softly meows, comfort
Afternoon thoughts
Colors shift in the sky as I consider.

Parts of a day not yet over, I consider
How pink and orange swirls of light
Bring thoughts
Of how darkness will hold the stars in an evening bowl
Lighted candles that bring comfort
And guide the wayward home.

These Saturday thoughts are placed on a shelf in the memory bowl
A sputtering candle flickers light
Against the darkness, comfort in my home.

Emily Dickinson an American Muse of the Past

Dear Readers,
My interest in Emily Dickinson goes back to when, I was about ten years old and my mother bought me a book of Dickinson's poems. I was a voracious reader and eagerly read the book. I remember being interested in her life, specifically, that she was a recluse but I didn't understand her poetry. As an adult, I have had a second chance to read and actually understand Dickinson's poems through the guidance of my teachers. I find Dickinson's poems to be mysterious and very abstract. Some of them, like "A Narrow Fellow in the Grass" are pretty straight forward but others like "My Life Stood-a Loaded Gun" have layers of meaning having to do with her life and there is a religious allusion thrown in as well. Readers, I have posted the poems, "Little Green Snake" and "Death Stood Over My Bed", which were inspired by Dickinson's poetry on this blogsite.

Little Green Snake

After you died,
I found you
bloody in the grass.

I mourned,
little green snake.

I held your cold body in my hands,
my fingers touched,
the bumps of your scales,
felt the softness of your belly.

How I wish,
you would look at me
with your round black eyes.

Dear Reader:
This poem was inspired by Emily Dickinson's poem, "A Narrow Fellow in the Grass." In her poem Emily write about a young boy coming upon a snake in the grass, that at first fascinates him and then frightens him. I studied this poem in on of my literature classes. This poem brought back memories from when I was nine years old. My family and I were living in a rented house in Orangeville, California, a suburb of Sacramento. I don't remember when I learned that green garter snakes are harmless snakes but I regarded them with a fascination that I would have given to butterflies or frogs. This poem is based on my literal memory of finding and feeling sad for a little dead garter snake.

Death Stood Over My Bed

When I was eight
I dreamt about death
standing over my bed.
A skeleton
Draped in a white veil,
When I was nine
It almost happened.
I was sick for a year
I slept-
My mother was angry-
And then she cried.
If I died
what would become of me?
Would I become a vampire?
Or a ghost?
Haunting my mother-
Telling her that I loved her
And that I was sorry-

Manifesto for Others On-Line Work

Dear Readers,

Copyright issues have been an issue in this country (and I'm sure others) since the invention of the printing press and continue on into the twenty-first century with the Internet. As for myself, I will show respect for the work of others online. I follow certain guidelines. The guide lines that I follow are simple, if I use a source (in an essay or presentation) whether it is print, images, music or video, I give credit to the sources that I have borrowed from.

In the article “Technorealism” (http://english.boisestate.edu/tpeele/nfwfourohone/Digital%20Rhetoric%20Readings/technorealism.pdf ) the authors in their “Principles of Techorealism” discuss the importance of “protecting intellectual property.” I am a believer in citing sources, if I find someone’s written work on line, and I want to incorporate it into an essay, I will cite them as the author of the idea. I recently found information on someone’s blog-site that was perfect for an essay that I was working on, and used and cited it (my instructor was even impressed with the quote that I used). Another example of me citing someone else’s work is from my recent work of putting up my blog-site. On my blog-site, I have two pictures up and I have cited where these pictures came from. Copyright issues have been an issue in this country (and I’m sure others) since the invention of the printing press and continue on into the twenty-first century.
I like the idea that “Creative Commons”(http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7023.pdf) article proposes, that we need a “middle-ground” for copyright laws. The philosophy that the “Creative Commons” article proposes that “free exchange of knowledge is fundamental to the common good…” I am going to use a “creative commons” license for my creative writing that I’ve posted online. I like the idea of sharing my work with others and if someone wants to spin an idea out of something that I’ve written, that would make me happy. Which brings me in agreement with the “Changing Copyright” essay by Negativland (http://www.negativland.com/riaa/tenets.html). In “Negativland’s Tenets of Free Appropriation” it states that “The urge to make one thing out of other things is an entirely traditional, socially healthy, and artistically valid impulse…” Like I said earlier it would make me happy if after reading one of my poems, someone was inspired to spin off of one of my ideas or words and created their own writing.

Webs

Spiders sing lullabies to their prey against the silence of the night-

When I was eight my great grandmother crochet a black web of a
shawl for me.

Webbed patterns on water, remind me of
broken mirrors and how promises made in childhood
shatter easily.

Spiders hide in the sweet smell of words and flowers

Don't stand in the dark shadows of trees,
to see the last rays of sunlight.

Running in the Early Morning Light

The god Apollo wreathed in light,
beckons me back to my tabernacle of clay each morning,
chuckling, he says to me, "Put on they running shoes,
glorious creation of mother earth."
I rub my eyes- my head still feels sleepy as I head out the door,
but my feet are faithful guides that know the way to the trails.

The moon is headed west on its journey-
Trees-the old wise ones, wait, meditating silently-
The brook mummers to itself, as it bumps and bubbles among the rocks-
Three small blackbirds balance themselves on the triangle shape of a sign,
they too are awaiting the ascension of Apollo's temple in the East.

My feet make soft sounds on the pavement.

Gigantic power-lines, hum, crackle and pop as I pass under them.
A fox hears my approach and turns its head to say hello-
It is too early for prairie dogs, they lie dreaming in their burrows.

Sapphires and Rubies

(Copy of American Gothic is from Gabriele Lusser Rico's book Writing the Natural Way)

My brother paints-

I am posing as a common wife-
a farmers wife
I too am a painter
I do not know this man I stand beside-

His eyes are hard and determined-
His pitchfork says, I rise early, work hard

The farmer's passion is
domination of his house, land, wife, children-

I long for my paint brush-
my sapphires and rubies

This apron I wear says, I will bake him bread, clean his clothes and feed his chickens-

And in the evening when he sets his pitchfork down,
his grim mouth will say-
You are my woman

My fingers twitch-
I am going to live in Paris next year.

Dear Readers,
I love this poem. It explores the possibilities of women as independent artists. I find myself often pondering the question of why there aren't more women writers and painters. I wrote Sapphires and Rubies about ten years ago, using an exercise out of Gabriele Lusser Rico's book "Writing the Natural Way." I used the picture "American Gothic" and wrote out lists of words that I associated with this picture.
The list of words might have looked something like this:
farmer:
land
pitch-fork
hay
cattle
hard work

farmer's wife:
apron
chickens
children
laundry
cooking meals

As I work the word list, something will click inside of me (a light bulb moment). The click might express itself as an idea, picture or even a key word that the rest of the poem will be built around.

Reaching into Blue Ripples

(Image from Gabriele Lusser Rico's book Writing the Natural Way)

An artist
reaching into blue ripples
embraced circles
and carved wholeness
out of wood

At the center
the hand of God
creates hoops of light-

Fingertips touch and say
the left side of the body knows the right

A wreath of eucalyptus leaves encircles me-
I can taste blue ice sliding against my tongue.

Dear Readers:

This poem was written while using a writing prompt from Gabriele Lusser Rico's book "Writing the Natural Way." The writing exercise was to write a list of associates from looking at the wooden sculpture (shown above). I no longer have the original list. However, I can tell you that the poem has three different characters, there is the artist, who is creating with wood. There is a creator character creating out of the ethers. And there is the mediator who connects the artists work with the etheric creations of a creator.