Last night a flash of micropoems galloped through my head. A few of them:
prepare Kids for Life
even Monopoly can be
a Teachable Moment
1. Capitalism is Ruthless
2. do not mess with Mom
floatn Gauze
Frogsong baseline
Leaves rustlesweep
Windchimes waterfall
even cars
fear to break this
the Quiet is roaring
on hearing a Micropoem
please
say
more
she insisted
I paused
why?
the Wind said everything
A lot of interesting micropoetry is done by people who don’t have legions of followers. #micropoetry microcurated is drawn from their micropoetry. This is about finding micropoetry that’s interesting, great, fun, thoughtful or sometimes just plain delightfully strange.
Instead of assuming people without legions of followers are focused on finding this, I decided to reverse the usual formula and go find them.
And sometimes, it’s actually been surprisingly hard to connect with some of the authors. The first thing I picked for this issue actually a tweet pulled from the contents of a blog entry without any way to contact the original author. I’m going to gamble that most of these authors will get it.
Raise the black flag!
Ellusive gem of micropoetry! Cower before me for I am the Dread Pirate Roberts and you, micropoem, I am dragging you back kicking and screaming while I smile gallantly!
one lone cloud
a curl of duck-down
sails the lake
Jan Dobb
#haiku, from statuses of friends
Back to work today
I want to stay home and write
to the maple blues
Robyn MacKinnon @art_rat
The weather man
(having visions)
foretelling chances
which half of the sky
will rain this time?
Positively Wyrde @Wyrde
Humanity: Bored at breakfast!
G*d: Have smartphone
School closures not
t
t
loading
Stare
Yep
Still bored
Tim 4til7 Wood @4til7
This time, it’s all about the selfies (even when it’s not) featuring: car, creepy old man in mid-century modern garage and looking over the edge of a cliff.
@Kelsye’s challenge was: “In SIX WORDS, write a story about your first job”
throw papers
avoid
creepy old man
Written on the way to Pueblo Alto in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico:
selfie time!
oh YEAH
screen
squint
can’t see
snap
check
sucks
repeat
I own an old Miata I picked up for next to nothing a while back. It got me thinking about guys and their relationships with their cars and began to think about turning it into a book called Something about that Car.
miatatop down
turned
across the garage
listening to
the freeway sing
and the blues rock
Credits:
Everyone around me lives with me and my stir fry of bilingual puns, dutch butcherings for fun and little profit, taking conversations on surrealistic tangents, sometimes complete with accents and sound effects, because and for laughter, and tossing out random non-sense to no one in particular as I walk by people… I’m in the same non-sense-filled surrealistic funland that Tex Avery, Lewis Carrol, J. M. Barrie and Douglas Adams played in. Even here, writing still gets at truth because you can find something, even in “just” playing. Writing gets at truth. It just does it through another means. In my case, one where bugs bunny rewrote yesterday’s blog entry. But, that’s not lie. Just getting at something by another means. And you won’t get there by lieing, even in a world darker and more in need of escape than I ever imagined I’d find.
And, I still had to name 43 episodes. So, I invented a new bit of game fun to get there. You’ll find the names at the beginning of the book, in An Index of Chapters:
Before introducing the grizzled numbered is’s, the author would just like to acknowledge each of them for the many layers of meaning in their names even if they don’t understand half of the jokes themselves as well as acknowledge the legal website that suggested acknowledgement, when used regularly, reduces legal expenses on average by 25% while noting that your mileage may very.
Now I have another problem. The problem isn’t the 43 episodes of House Stories that are again sitting waiting outside my door. The problem is that I have to be Adam-the-name-giver for all 43 episodes of House Stories. I know this. They know this. And I can tell by their looks that I better have an answer, a name, for each and every one of them when I open the door.
Ah, but that’s the catch. For House Stories, names just haven’t come. I thought of just numbering. I thought of using long titles and longer summaries to introduce both. I thought of this and I thought of that. And none of them fit. I began to wonder if, to name them, I had to understand them, know who they are. Which is a bit of a problem to figure out with this bunch. Who is a story after all? Do I fight a story to know it? Do I have to wrestle all night with one like it was an angel? Or pretend I’m Serif and kung fu dance my Neo stories across the tables until we reach a draw?
Researchers say kids already hear in the womb. They hear voices, they hear music, they hear us talking, they hear the news, they hear the television, and they hear us talk about all of that. By the time someone can read my words, they already know the monsters under the bed are real. Monsters are the dark, twisted, evil creatures in the stories we tell about other places. We tell lots of those stories, all the time. We’ve talked our world full of monsters.
Some stories are easy to tell into this world: Horror, gadgets to escape the horror by watching it more, how to overcome this horror, that Horror is trending now, expect this new horror soon, How to live in the aftermath of that other horror.
Ah, but I still want to play. How do I tell that kind of story into this world that I’m telling my stories into?
I learned to tell stories that could still play by telling them. Now, everyone around me lives with me and my stir fry of bilingual puns, dutch butcherings for fun and little profit, taking conversations on surrealistic tangents, sometimes complete with accents and sound effects, because and for laughter, and tossing out random non-sense to no one in particular as I walk by people.
After a while I realized that I’m in the same non-sense-filled surrealistic funland that Tex Avery, Lewis Carrol, J. M. Barrie and Douglas Adams played in.
A friend, V. P. Crowe once told me, I don’t know if what you do is poetry but I like it. I think part of what she’s seeing is because writing is getting at truth through another means and you can’t get there by lieing about what’s around –even when you’re playing– even when that world is both darker and more in need of escape than any of them could have possibly imagined.
to be continued…
House Stories started when I saw something. What everyone else saw meandered off one way. Ah, but what I saw was something else again. A magical next happening imagined itself in my mind. And it was more interesting, strange and fun than what everyone else saw; interesting enough I told people. Again and again, I kept seeing wonderful magical things happen. House Stories was showing itself to me. And I was telling the story of another neighborhood that lived just out of sight, just a squint away.
After a while, we moved. It seemed like I left both neighborhoods and I couldn’t find my way back. Progress on House Stories, the book, slowed to a crawl. Even when I drove through the old neighborhood, I didn’t see people I knew or sense the other neighborhood. I wasn’t connected anymore.
And we moved several more times. For 41 days, we stayed in tents on a friend’s property. Not too long after dinner, the sun set. it was far enough from the city it got dark: no street lights, no hall lights, no table lamps. The sky screamed with stars but, when we looked down, it was literally lights out. Doing anything meant a lantern or flashlight. It was a bit like sneaking a flashlight into bed as a kid without the being sneaky part. Without sneaky as fun, unless the proverbial book is really really good, after a while, it’s time to do something different. And there’s nothing to do except prowl around, be bored or chill. I choose prowl then chill. Prowl became wander and I quickly added think; then wonder, question, imagine, reconnect.
I realized I’d been thinking House was somewhere else. But, she wasn’t: Nothing is any place other than where it is. Same with House and the rest of the neighborhood. They were never any place but where they were: right here. I had to learn the trick: remembering to squint. Then? I went to visit House. Then Squirrel came by.
Now I have another problem. I have to be Adam-the-name-giver. Just outside are the 43 episodes of House Stories. Those 43 episodes are again sitting and waiting outside my door. I can tell by their looks that I better have an answer for each and every one of them when I open the door. Ah, but that’s the catch. To name them, I have to understand them, know who they are. Which is a bit of a problem to figure out with this bunch. Who is a story after all?
Tomorrow: Part II
I’m at a swim meet with my 12 year old daughter waiting for her first heat. In Twitter:
@Kelsye: In SIX WORDS, write a story about your first job http://kelsye.com/six-words-fewer-write-story-first-job/ #6words
I write
throw papers
avoid
creepy old man
I was a little younger than my daughter when I worked that job. The past shouldn’t echo but it does.
We’re still waiting so I listen to BBC news. The reporter is at a hospital in Gaza. An old lady moves slowly down the street …with her husband… holds a white flag as far over her head as she can maybe they …miles away they… won’t fire on her? Beyond the reporter …end of the block… artillery? mortars? explosions. The reporter …war reporter… keeps going through a voice that wavers her past experience not enough? around the edges and shakes.
She won’t can’t? describe the body in front of her. Into my head pops Monty Python explosion… Time Bandits midget gone. She doesn’t say if the old lady makes it. More explosions disappear Python.
I think the reporter will make it. For me, BBC News has this weird quality that won’t countenance otherwise. It just wouldn’t be proper. What I don’t know is whether she’ll survive.
And I’m not sure which she I really mean.
Last night, I was the announcer at a swim event.
What little I know about swimming, I’ve absorbed over the last year. Not because I’m a fan of swimming or because I’m a big sports fan but I’ve learned it because my daughter likes swimming. I take her to practices. I take her to meets. I get her fins and a snorkle. Along the way, I’ve pick up a little. Precious little. Is that freestyle? I think so…
Emails kept going out from my daughter’s swim team: we need help! It’s the big event they host once a year and they needed people. Finally, I caved. I looked at what needed to be done and signed up to be an announcer.
Last night, people kept coming up to me —are you the announcer? with a shade of awe in their voice— and complimenting me on how good I was doing.
Tonight, I volunteered for an anonymous position: safety guy: make sure kids arn’t doing stupid dangerous stuff. We wander around the pool and through the locker rooms in an orange vest. I suspect it’s about keeping the insurance company happy. I know it’s about as anonymous as you get. The kids see the orange vest and stop doing what they already know they’re not supposed to do. Everyone else ignores us. It’s like a Romulan cloak: you’re invisible. People look right through you unless you’re “shooting”.
Exactly one person sought me out tonight. The head ref asked were you the announcer last night? You know you’re an anonymous red shirt (to harken back to Star Trek) when the question is phrased that way.
Once I said yes, the compliments flowed. And, yesterday, I heard compliment after compliment about how I did. Many were from people I didn’t know, have nothing to gain, and, odds even, will never see again.
My life’s been interesting. There are many things I’ve done. And some of those I’ve done well. I’ve worn the programmer hat. I’ve been the computer fixer. I’ve sat on boards. I’ve trimmed trees. I’ve loaded trucks. I’ve been this. I’ve been that. But, there only seems to be one that really connects with people.
Last week, a counselor had me take a personality test that put me in a four capital letter box. My box is INFP. The official shorthand is healer. I looked at the description and I thought Shaman. It’s a voice of sorts.
Last night, it wasn’t that I really knew anything about swimming. It was that I understood what needed to be said and I said it.
A chapbook of my poems was called Voices: Painting with Words. A friend, Dick Sevrens read the book and called me a prophet. I’m not about to claim I’m a burning bush but I keep seeing what needs to be said and saying it.
A collaborative poem on a rain stick in videopoetry created by Jeramiah Frick, Tim Wood and Ingrid Wood.
Words by Jeramiah Dean Frick and Tim Wood with editing suggestions by Ingrid Wood.
Symbols accompanying words by Ingrid and Tim
Words and Symbols penned onto rain stick by Ingrid
Camera: Sander Bomgardner
Editing: Tim Wood
(c) 2014, the creators
For Abbey Clements and Opalina
They are
voices
overexposed
beautiful
coldly vulnerable
They are
blue angels
They are
drift
loose
Two pairs of hooked wires
hang from the branch
She chooses to be hooked
and by the hooks
raised up
And so
one after another
do they
4 ohio 2 towers 20 children
but not like this
not to the rhythm
a slow metronome
of sledge hammers on oil drums
pacing the muscles
the muscles lifting
lifting up the strange fruit
shame and vengeance
humiliation
hanging is not for hearing
it’s how you own the words
it is about power
and most of all
control
they become those Names
shame and vengeance
humiliation
become their power
become
and will
4 ohio 2 towers 20 children
it’s not now
not like this
Contrails over Gotham
ashes ashes
they both fall down
an un-designated London is calling
the strange fruit follows
into the night
to control the wires
awe and shock the monkeys
vengeance
4 ohio 2 towers 20 children
it’s not now
not like this
Not like
Jeremy speaking in class
Klebold in Columbine
in the name of vengeance
this time an Elementary
4 ohio 2 towers 20 children
it’s not now
not like this
On the hillside
Smoke blocks the light
ashes ashes came from his mouth
A shot
across the knoll
then shots
north by northwest
ohio 4
all fall down
it’s not now
not like this