random thoughts

2 posts

Random Thoughts, Encroaching Christmas Edition

pinesnow

Random Thoughts, December 9th Edition:

  • When it comes to Homer, there are Iliad people and there are Odyssey people. I am an Odyssey man, myself. The journey towards over the swords. The cagey man over the ragey man. The ship’s keel over the hero’s heel.
  • Shopping? You say you’re done with your shopping? Must mean I best get started.
  • Poets I like to read in essay-mode: Robert Hass, Tony Hoagland, Jane Hirshfield.
  • Holiday meditation (oxymoron alert!) recommendation: Chinese and Japanese poetry. Read, reread, repeat.
  • Is there a word for the sound of snow landing on snow in a windless snowfall? That word is a poem.
  • Ditty of the Day by Arthur Guiterman:

On the Vanity of Earthly Greatness

The tusks that clashed in mighty brawls
Of mastodons, are billiard balls.

The sword of Charlemagne the Just
Is ferric oxide known as rust.

The grizzly bear whose potent hug
Was feared by all, is now a rug.

Great Caesar’s bust in on the shelf,
And I don’t feel so well myself!

  • Poetry ideas are pack animals. I see many, write them down, and pick which one to muse upon. Then it’s forest silence for long stretches. Ideas go ghostly.
  • Most contemplative season? I vote autumn, which puts man’s mind to the great mystery of life–his own approaching winter.
  • “Stopping By Woods on Snowy Evening” may be kids’ stuff, but it’s many a poet’s guilty pleasure committed to memory, too.
  • Speaking of, why do we use the term “committed to” as if memory is an asylum?
  • A fully-trimmed Christmas tree is a glorious thing–if someone else trims it, takes it down, and vacuums the last needle (found along about April).
  • “the season ’tis, my lovely lambs,” (e.e. cummings)
  • “With all their ancient faces like rain-beaten stone” (W.B. Yeats)
  • “Not the silent, deflected sound of snow / but that direct, cold ping running down the gutters of my spirit” (K.R. Craft)
  • But I flatter myself.
  • Because no one else will.
  • Collectors can make money on e-Bay, especially this time of year, if their collected nostalgia is in mint, never-used condition, but I collect compliments and kind words. Neither has a market, other than the bazaar of my mind, and it is bizarre, indeed.
  • Definition of an “Old Soul”: I prefer medieval and Renaissance Christmas music to modern fare. Apologies to Mariah Carey (all she wants for Christmas is whoever is listening to the song).
  • I just read this week that the word “whom” is dead. The “whom” is dead! Long live the “who”!
  • Cindy Lou Who?
  • There’s something to be said for the Grinch and Scrooge. Both Christ and the Buddha would say it, too.
  • Give the gift of experience over stuff, yourself over stuff, your generosity over stuff.
  • Go forth this Saturday and be a collector of moments. (Hint: It’s not in any store and it doesn’t have a web address.)

 

Random Thoughts: The Gratitude Edition

cornucopia

Some random thoughts before people wake up in this house and the madness of Thanksgiving begins:

  • First of all, I won’t bore you with the usual thankfulness for family and friends and health and roofs over one’s head.
  • Whoops.
  • Has anyone else noticed the rise in comfort food consumption (CFC) since the electoral college’s election of Trump?
  • Free verse. Whoever captured it in the first place? And how did its rescue become such a cause célèbre?
  • Sunrises. Always be grateful for sunrises. By comparison, sunsets are rather commonplace.
  • Poetic touchstones: Frost, Yeats, Kooser, Wright, Gilbert, Dickinson, Szymborska, Kenyon, Roethke, WCW, Stevens, the Chinese and the Japanese of old.
  • I’m grateful for two books under the belt, with #3 off to the races.
  • I’m grateful for readers who support new poets whose books are unavailable at local libraries (to the tune of ABBA’s “Take a Chance on Me”).
  • And economists who speak up when thrifty sorts balk at the price of poetry books: “That’s only 30 cents a poem! And besides, why aren’t you so thrifty when it comes to your daily ice coffee (size: Honkin’), your monthly phone plan (size: Macy’s Parade balloon), your cable bill (size: outrageous), and your cases of bottled water (size: totally unnecessary)?” (Good question!)
  • I’m grateful for perspective.
  • Can we give thanks for the resurgence of print books? As was true with Mark Twain, news of its death was greatly exaggerated.
  • And what about local bookstores run by mom and pop? If they’re close enough, talk to your economist again and forego that amazon discount. Less to a conglomerate capitalist behemoth and more to writers. As a reader and patron of the arts, isn’t that what you’re about? Put your money where your principles and precepts are.
  • Has anyone else noticed the rise in people watching comfort movies on Hallmark  (CMOH) since the electoral college’s election of Trump?
  • Shakespeare. Always give thanks for Shakespeare. And reread two plays (minimum) a year, one comedy, one tragedy–each metaphors for your life.
  • Speaking of classics, have you ever noticed how many poets read the King James Version of the Bible, especially its most poetic books (e.g. the Psalms) for inspiration and rhythmic tutelage? Amen to that!
  • Personally, I take comfort in Ecclesiastes, easily my favorite Old Testament book.
  • If any of your grandparents are still alive, give thanks. If one or both of your parents are still alive, give thanks. And overlook their shortcomings by reminding yourself of your own.
  • I am thankful for people who are kind on-line, a place where trolls in basements virtually proliferate and pillage virtual villages of good will. It’s easy to be an anonymous bad-ass, but to be an anonymous decent person? Less so.
  • I’m thankful for the first ritual of the day, my daily coffee (bread was otherwise occupied).
  • Let’s hear it for poetry markets, for poetry editors and readers who take huge swaths of their time to read would-be, wanna-be, and is-be poets’ best efforts!
  • Has anyone else noticed the rise in people drinking alcoholic beverages (PDAB) since the electoral college’s election of Trump?
  • Which reminds me, we give thanks for newspapers, journalism, objectivity, facts, and truth… the victims of demagoguery the world over.
  • Speaking of, give thanks for every country in the world where peace rules the land. May we do our best to spread it to countries where that is not the case.
  • For ars poetica and ars blogica.
  • For any reader who made it this far. Thank you! May you stay cool, calm, collected and well-read as we enter the holiday season!