True poetry...

Every Weed's a Rose

i shall imagine life

i shall imagine life
is not worth dying,if
(and when)roses complain
their beauties are in vain

but though mankind persuades
itself that every weed's
a rose,roses(you feel
certain)will only smile

e. e. cummings
Photo by Mousha

The eye of a little god.

Blue and intelligent, they took in the scene of people passing up and down, and up and down the sidewalk, cars rumbling, tumbling down paved destinies, and the murmur of life as it squeezed by him. A cat, painted like orange marmalade, smeared itself against an old man's trouser leg as he minded his shop, the cat meowing and complaining until at last the old gentleman bent over and scratched it behind its left ear, its favorite spot. A matronly woman had her hands full of grocery bags as she walked to her car (the one she used for daily life, not the classic automobile her husband kept in the garage for Sunday drives). A boy, one of the dying breed of knights, leaped to her side to help her, eager to earn some small reward in Heaven. Two little girls made bouquets out of flowers plucked from an abandoned lot next door, thoroughly unaware in their innocence that they were actually weeds. A young woman tried to hail a taxi, not noticing a button had fallen off of her coat when she dressed that morning in the dark, early to work for the first time all week. A father and his son walked by returning from the park with a ball and bat, the father with gray hair encroaching on his black locks and his son with age encroaching on his youth.

Blue and intelligent, the eyes of the little boy sat in his head as the boy sat on his porch which sat on a house which sat in the middle of the block. Blind, he could not see these things but he knew they happened just the same.


"The eye of a little god,
four-cornered,
most of the time I meditated on the opposite wall."
Poem excerpt from Mirror by Silvia Plath.
Photo by Shana Rae
Short story by me.

You Do The Math

Video was emailed to my Pre-Calculus class by Mr. McClung, the math teacher.

Mr McClung is so geeky...he has a clock with radians (of pi) instead of numbers and a wrist-watch with a built in calculator.

'nuff said, I think.

For Whom The Bell Tolls

In a small town the local bell ringer was retiring. The town elders put out the word that they needed a bell ringer. Nobody applied for the job until one day a man with no arms showed up at an elder's doors. The elder told the man that he couldn't possibly want the job as its very difficult.

"You must climb 2 flights of stairs, every hour on the hour, not to mention the bell is very heavy and most importantly you have no arms to pull the rope, how can you possibly be a bell ringer" said the elder.

The man begged, please, just give me a chance, let me prove to you that I can do this job. The Elder was moved by the mans plea and told him to come back tomorrow, and he will be tested. The man happily skipped away.

The next day rolled around , the man showed up at the bell tower at the appointed time. The elder and the man climbed the steps, when they reached the top the elder told the man "Go ahead let me see if you can ring the bell" with that the man went to the farthest point of the belfry and took a running start and ran right into the bell. ""BBBOONNGG" The man turned to the elder with a huge smile on his face. The elder told him if he could keep it up he had the job. The man was as happy as a clam and thanked the elder.

Weeks went by, the man doing his job perfectly. One day the man was walking up the bell tower and he heard voices at the top. He ran the rest of the way up and surprised a bunch of kids hanging out in the bell tower, he chased them off but didn't notice the mess they left on the floor. He knew he was almost late for the bell ringing, in a hurry he backed up as far as he could go and started running towards the bell, he didn't notice the banana peel, the man slipped, fell over the edge and plummeted to his death.

As he was lying there people congregated around, one gentle soul came out of the crowd and asked who this man was. Another bystander spoke up: "I don't know his name - but his face rings a bell."

---
Is it just the "lameness" of the joke or the image of a armless guy bashing his head on a giant bell repeatedly that has me laughing to the point of tears. Or maybe it's just my appalling sense of humor (or lack thereof).
---

On another less tinny note (rimshot please), I was shocked and scandalized (perhaps even gobsmacked?) by two news articles, one on msnbc.com and the other in Newsweek.

The Death of Cursive?

I shudder to think of it.

These articles go on to expound on the idea that now with the advent of technology and such gifts to our society as Twitter, Facebook, and other "necessities of life", cursive has become an archaic notion of backwardness and antiquity. Who writes in cursive anymore besides the elderly? What's more, with cellphones and texting and internet, who writes at all?

Less than a hundred years ago, writing was not just a daily necessity but an art. Now we live in an age of virtual communication in which we write less and less, slowly losing our ability to write in any legible fashion (much less use proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling, but that's another complaint that I won't make you, dear reader, go through just yet). Cursive, the authors of the articles say, wastes time and who, in these harsh economic times, can afford to spend extra minutes adding a few flourishes to their writing? We type everything we do, on our cellphones, on our laptops. No need for pen and paper anymore.

My own handwriting is admittedly terrible itself. This does not stop me however from writing all my notes in cursive and putting some effort into it. ( I need never worry about my fellow pupils cheating off of my notes; they can't even read good handwriting, much less my own). Perhaps it's because of my love for anything old (except of course, for last week's leftovers. I toss that out, thank you very much.) or maybe I'm just a sucker for tradition. I simply can't bear the thought of eradicating cursive from existence. The very idea is abhorrent to me. Get rid of yet another sense of decor for the simplicity of saving time? What then shall we get rid of next? Frills on our clothing? Paint on our walls? Vocabulary in our speech? For what other trifles will the bell toll next?




Poetry Manuscript from The Little John Collection

A line of glorious tone

Photo from mbgrigby

On leaving some Friends at an Early Hour

GIVE me a golden pen, and let me lean
On heap’d up flowers, in regions clear, and far;
Bring me a tablet whiter than a star,
Or hand of hymning angel, when ’tis seen
The silver strings of heavenly harp atween:
And let there glide by many a pearly car,
Pink robes, and wavy hair, and diamond jar,
And half discovered wings, and glances keen.
The while let music wander round my ears,
And as it reaches each delicious ending,
Let me write down a line of glorious tone,
And full of many wonders of the spheres:
For what a height my spirit is contending!
’Tis not content so soon to be alone.

John Keats

In the swing of things...

Recovering from last night's dancing. Oh yes, and I'm taking lindyhop lessons(!). My life's dream is almost accomplished. Now to find another life's dream. I just have to remember to triple-step (It helps if I say it to myself in my head).

I hate it when your partner does hold you tight enough. Their hand is on your back and it just resting there so when you swing out it feels like your going to fall. I guess guys are afraid of hurting their partners or are afraid of being too forward?

We learned the Groucho and I bet we look funny doing it. =)

Blinded Me With Science

http://zombietime.com/john_holdren

Good God, and this man is the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology.

People on the Pavement

The Thinker by Thomas Eakins

Richard Cory
by Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935)

Whenever Richard Cory went downtown,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
“Good morning,” and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich -- yes, richer than a king,
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread,
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.