poems, etc.

Zelda's returns to the Daily Grind this week. As this move prompts us to consider what we're about, tonight's exercise was write about your creative process, with an emphasis on Zelda's

the rain falls in to the harbor
I watch it through the windows of the sushi restaurant, sipping a beer as I wait for my food

there is a moment here, seeing water return home
a moment I would photograph if I could image the inside of my mind
I cannot
so I write instead

so I write instead but
it's not enough, sometimes

A little haiku I wrote before Zelda's:

rain falling
into the harbor -
water coming home

With my workshop at the Well this Friday, May 16, I'll be launching a new venture: Warrior Poet Consulting. Under that brand I plan to provide workshops and other training and coaching to help people develop their creativity and cultivate personal excellence.

We'll see how it goes. Still trying to figure out step 2 of the business plan:

1. Relentless self-promotion.
2. ?
3. Profit!

Tonight exercise was to write a haiku, then pass it to someone else who would write a response

my haiku:

spring will not stop!
the relentless greening --
you cannot argue

Jesse's haiku, that I received:

From the window, grass
is uniform until splash,
the rabbit spreads

have you ever seen rabbits dance?
I have.

on a lazy late spring day
with the buzzing of the bees already taking on a lazy summer tone

from the window I see
one rabbit run out of the woods
stop in the middle of the lawn

writing exercise: write about a dream that was about self-discovery, where you (in the dream, or in later analysis), learned about yourself.

post and lintel architecture reminds me of her
that's the way they built before they invented the arch
posts on either side of an opening with a crossbar up top
and that's what happens when you fall in love with an intellectual
the abstract notions you discussed while snuggled up on the couch
become emotional triggers

writing exercise from the phrase "precariously balanced"

I am standing on a basketball
just to see if I can do it
balancing for one or two or five seconds before I reach out to the wall to steady myself

slowly I shift weight to one leg, lift the other, let go of the wall
manage to hold for a second or two

from here I could fall in any direction
front back left right
but
from here I could move any direction

Today's Zelda's Inferno exercise was based "Twenty Little Poetry Projects" from our usual text, "The Practice of Poetry". Everyone put in a couple "projects", and we pulled them out of a pile randomly:

1. (something you did but could never do again) could never climb to the top of that tree again, the branches would never hold my weight like they did when I was eight.

2. (about, or in the voice of, an animal) the dog looked to the door like a desperate man looks to the icon of his god, like it was his savior, like its opening was the second coming of christ, the divine clear light

3. (compare someone to a summer's day) her presence was like a summer's day - a hot, skin-scorching drought-ridden day that sucked the moisture of life from you and left you a dessicated burnt husk

4. seeing out the window of my cubicle a double rainbow in the evening sky, running out of the office to stand in the parking lot to see it better - never lose that.

5. (how did Karla's hair get messy?) dating the era by hair products - Vaseline, Vitalis, gel, mousse

6 (something you wish you could do over) and if I had it to do over again, i would have gone to bed with her, oh yes, I would have taken her up on it

7. (remember the kitchen you grew up in) the avocado green refrigerator, the flowered wallpaper, the red hanging lamp over the small table where my mom would make sandwiches for us

8. (paint a picture from previous line; or, write a line with no nouns) thinking painting tasting illuminating red green flowering remembering mothering loving

9. (every word starts w/ same letter) running reflecting rainbows reward reserving respect rejecting redacted reality

10. (quote the owners manual for your soul) congratulations on your purchase of a human soul! we hope your soul will bring you years of use and enjoyment. please familiairize yourself with this manual before unpacking and installing your soul.

Went to the open mic at Cacao Lane Wednesday, played a few songs - longest I've played since I crushed my finger, and didn't have any pain. Hooray!

Interesting episode afterwards:

the Buddha said, "do not drink alcohol"
I've never quite agreed with the Buddha on that one

and he's not
here, now
sitting at this bar
next to a young man who wants to buy us all shots
to toast the memory of his dead girlfriend

if I were the Buddha
maybe I could say something amazing about the
illusory nature of birth and death
that would help ease his pain

but I am not the Buddha

St Paddy's Day - or Irish Pride day, as I prefer to think of it... down to Leadbetters for a few in honor.

For a while I've had just a line or two from a potential song about me sainted Irish grandmother in the back of my head...

This is a song about Marion
A girl I never knew
An Irish lass from Baltimore town
With a heart so sweet and true

Now Marion could play the blues
In a dark and smoky bar
Or she could sing a hymn so sweet
T'would make your soul see stars

This is song about Marion
A girl I never knew
An Irish lass from Baltimore town
With a heart so sweet and true

Today's Zelda's Inferno exercise was to write something that included or was inspired by "fascinating facts" that someone else provided. I drew:

1. 1 in 20 African Americans have Native American blood
2. The 2 South American countries (due) south of Miami are Peru and Ecuador
3. The largest fish is a whale-shark.

used the first one, and came up with this:

we build identities on the stories we are told
ancestral tales handed down through generations

but these leave out so very much...

Cherokees on the Trail of Tears
took their slaves with them