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20 April 2021 - Luisa A. Igloria

Of second, third, fourth chances. To learn about the boy who came back as if from the dead, climbed out of the car wreck and lived to be nearly a hundred; and the girl raked over by wave after wave who came back to build that house made of sticks on the rocks. Something about the bird that dropped its feathers so it could remember what it's like to be naked in the mouth of the world—Sometimes it mouthed the shape of what sounded like love or a kiss or a call. Even if it didn't, we had to forgive it for confusing salt for sugar, for what dissolves easily in foam. We stood without moving, or learned to stop running away. [Read more...]

Over the influence

20 April 2021 - Dave Bonta

Up, and after discoursing with my wife about many things touching this day’s dinner, I abroad, and first to the taverne to pay what I owe there, but missed of seeing the mistress of the house, and there bespoke wine for dinner, and so away thence, and to Bishopsgate Streete, thinking to have found a Harpsicon-maker that used to live there before the fire, but he is gone, and I have a mind forthwith to have a little Harpsicon made me to confirm and help me in my musique notions, which my head is now-a-days full of, and I do believe will come to something that is very good. Thence to White Hall, expecting to have heard the Bishop of Lincolne, my friend, preach, for so I understood he would do yesterday, but was mistaken, and therefore away presently back again, and there find everything in good order against dinner, and at noon come Mr. Pierce and she, and Mrs. Manuel, the Jew’s wife, and Mrs. Corbet, and Mrs. Pierces boy and girl. But we… [Read more...]

Counting Backwards

19 April 2021 - Dale

Am I so sure that no one has anything to teach me? But years, years have past, and no book has done better than wake a thin, knowing smile. "Oh yes. That notion. Yes, nicely put." I admire the shine, maybe, or the labor. But the thought? Or the life it bodies forth? Nah. The idea, particularly, that any 21st Century American would have anything useful to say seems especially absurd. What could anyone who grew up in this absurd travesty of a nation have to say, but "Get out if you can"?But it leaves me stupid, and getting stupider. Stupidity fairly oozes from me, these days. Dull ignorance and prejudice. I grow brittle. I roam my little spaces and think my my old stupid thoughts. The sky is a little airless cap over my little airless neighborhood. I count, and count, and count: the number of breaths since I started trying to sleep; the seconds until I take my eggs off the stove, the eighths of inches my waist has grown or shrunk, the… [Read more...]

IN SOME LANGUAGE (40)

19 April 2021 - Tom

In some languagethe word for good-byealso meansBaby, don't go.The Middlewesterner [Read more...]

Elementary

19 April 2021 - Luisa A. Igloria

One of us buffs the schoolroom floor with half a coconut husk. Another leans over the second floor railing to clap two blackboard erasers together. For a moment, trapped chalkdust looks like powdered sugar falling. The mothers who've waited on concrete benches by the entrance are packing up their crochet hooks and threads, bits of exchanged stories. The lone janitor hauls water in a large plastic pail; when he goes down the row of toilet stalls, we hear a sluggish chorus of flushing. At the end of the year, we sand- paper the edges of our books and give them a fresh Manila paper covering; the next class will use them. Perhaps one of them will see the penciled answer to a chapter question or math problem that our dutiful erasing overlooked. [Read more...]

Poetry Blog Digest 2021, Week 15

19 April 2021 - Dave Bonta

A personal selection of posts from the Poetry Blogging Network and beyond. Although I tend to quote my favorite bits, please do click through and read the whole posts. After last week’s flirtation with a tighter focus on poetry, it’s back to the usual, glorious miscellany of poets thinking out loud about all manner of things (but mainly poetry). Some themes did emerge: poetry about women’s experiences, hopefulness about the easing pandemic, the pleasures of books, and the numinous power of large animals. Enjoy. paperboydelivering births and deathson his cycleJim Young [no title] Here I am again. Is it spring, with its stuttering reenactment of incarnation, that renders me numbskulled, vacant?I’m inert. Such a great word, short-stopped by that cul-de-sac of an -ert.Like the newly snow-emerged and dim-colored field, I am empty.I have not written in a long time. Nothing is on my mind. I am thought-less. Seem to have nothing to say. Have no idea how to write a poem.No idea why I would even do such a thing.Have no sense that I’ve ever done… [Read more...]

TEN OLD MONK POEMS (11)

19 April 2021 - Tom

IF YOU DON'TIf you don'tknow what it is,the old monk says,don't waste it.~HOW MUCHHow much can you endure,the old monk asked them.How pure is your heart?~AT THE THEATERThe old monk wentto the theater.Why do you hangaround here,they asked him.He said: I don't wantto miss the feature.~WRESTLINGWrestling the poem,the old monk says,I don't give upuntil it does.~THE OLD MONK'S SERMONSometimeswhat's most dearwe don't knowwe have.~TURN OUT THE LIGHTSTurn out the lightsbefore you're done,the old monk said.You'll see thingsdifferently.~IF IT WORKSIf it works,the old monk said,keep working ittil it won't.~IF WHAT YOU WANTIf what you wantis nothing,the old monk said,that's somethingyou can get.~CROW GOESCrow goeswhere coyote can't.Go with crow,the old monk says.~ASKED ABOUT PREACHERSAsked about preachersthe old monk said,don't get me started.~The Middlewesterner [Read more...]

Frontier

18 April 2021 - Dave Bonta

(Easter day). I up, and walked to the Temple, and there got a coach, and to White Hall, where spoke with several people, and find by all that Pen is to go to sea this year with this fleete; and they excuse the Prince’s going, by saying it is not a command great enough for him. Here I met with Brisband, and, after hearing the service at the King’s chapel, where I heard the Bishop of Norwich, Dr. Reynolds, the old presbyterian, begin a very plain sermon, he and I to the Queen’s chapel, and there did hear the Italians sing; and indeed their musick did appear most admirable to me, beyond anything of ours: I was never so well satisfied in my life with it. So back to White Hall, and there met Mr. Pierce, and adjusted together how we should spend to-morrow together, and so by coach I home to dinner, where Kate Joyce was, as I invited her, and had a good dinner, only she and us; and after dinner she and… [Read more...]

IN SOME LANGUAGE (39)

18 April 2021 - Tom

In some languagethe word for rocking chairalso means wisdom.The Middlewesterner [Read more...]

Guni-guni*

18 April 2021 - Luisa A. Igloria

Memory is always changing the ways we think of things— Slipped into the pages of an obscure book: a ticket from the World's Fair. The picture of a woman wearing Yale padlocks for earrings, another of a white army officer posing in front of a hut, each hand cupping the bare breast of a native girl flanking him on either side. I don’t agree with what the last one insinuates: they aren't smiling with hospitality or pleasure. There is nothing to caption in the manner of a potentiality. The smell of burning lingers in the air long after the carnivals have taken down their tents and flags. * Guni-guni; [noun; reduplicative] hallucination; imagination; illusion; figment; mirage [Read more...]

WE ARE

18 April 2021 - Tom

We are nothing buta darkness between the atomswhich hold us together.That is to say,we are the lightwhich consumes all things.The Middlewesterner [Read more...]

Traveler

17 April 2021 - Dave Bonta

Up betimes to the office, and there we sat all the morning, at noon home with my clerks, a good dinner, and then to the Office, and wrote my letters, and then abroad to do several things, and pay what little scores I had, and among others to Mrs. Martin’s, and there did give 20s. to Mrs. Cragg, her landlady, who was my Valentine in the house, as well as Doll Lane. Here yo did hazer la cosa with Mrs. Martin backward. So home and to the office, there to end my letters, and so home, where Betty Turner was to see my wife, and she being gone I to my chamber to read a little again, and then after supper to bed. on the road or on a crag who was I in the haze of my letters home Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Saturday 21 March 1668 [Read more...]

AIDED EARS

17 April 2021 - Unknown

Coming out of SpecSavers yesterday afternoon wearing my new NHS hearing aids, the paper bag which holds the case and batteries for the ear thingies bumps against my coat as I walk. The sound the crinkled paper makes is Maria Callas struck by lightning on the top of Mount Athos. People pass by talking to each other or to their phones and morsels of their words hit my ears like hailstones. I sit down at a table outside a café...you can do that now.. and chewing a soft slice of lemon cake is like jackboots tramping down an old wooden staircase. Never mind what the coffee sounds like as I swallow it. Back home typing this, the keyboard keys are Fred Astaire tap dancing on a steel drum without rhythm or music. I talk to myself and it’s like a dentist living inside the patient's mouth. Partial hearing loss began several years ago and I've had hearing aids before but never followed audiologists' advice to wear them daily so the brain can gradually get used… [Read more...]

IN SOME LANGUAGE (38)

17 April 2021 - Tom

In some languagethe word for ten thousandalso means sparrows.The Middlewesterner [Read more...]

Fools Rush In

17 April 2021 - fred

So I had some text here and saved as draft but the text was lost. Discouraging. At every step I take one increment forward, then two backwards. There remain more than a few bottlenecks, and until I get past them, I’ll … Fools Rush In Read More » [Read more...]

From

17 April 2021 - Luisa A. Igloria

There are those who say I have no culture or I have no [history] by which they mean [they believe] a lineage [begins] in the aftermath of war and not before It takes centuries for smoke [to clear] enough of an opening Ghosts return as night folds again The fragrance of laurel leaf interposes between one page and another You can barely discern which hand [wrote, erased, revised—] But everyone comes from somewhere Is coughed up from the damp belly of a ship onto shore Count the notches carved into wood One for each [departure or arrival] Lay your palms where children and adults shuffed down a gangplank holding in their hands pictures of their lungs The spore of a potato from the old country hidden in a trouser cuff Salt-smell clinging to each collar Every mouth holding on to syllables that once made the only sense Each one [from] [Read more...]

It Takes Dedication — and Luck

17 April 2021 - Loren

I think amateur photographers are often the biggest fans of great photographs because they, more than anyone else, know what dedication it takes to produce those great photographs. Dedication + Luck. And you have to be dedicated to your art to get lucky. Some people are put off by the high prices the best photographers demand, but if you consider the number of hours they spent learning their craft and the number of hours spent without getting a great shot, you wouldn’t begrudge them their fees —though, if you’re like me, you’re probably not going to have the money to buy those kinds of works because you spent all your ready cash on photo equipment. Bird photography, like fishing, is definitely variable. I’ve gotten a lot of great shots at both Theler Wetlands and Port Orchard marina, but that certainly wasn’t the case on my last visit. Birding was extremely slow except for the Canada Geese which were loud and ever-present. I don’t take many pictures of them anymore except when they first have goslings,… [Read more...]

ALL THE UNIVERSE

17 April 2021 - Tom

All the universebut one bubblein a swirling potbeyond us. So muchmore than we know,those other placeswe cannot reach.All the life and deathand resurrectionof endless others,we think it matters.This universe, too,this moment, matters,until it doesn't.The Middlewesterner [Read more...]

Hidden treasure and what comes next

17 April 2021 - rbarenblat@gmail.com (Velveteen Rabbi)

Last year at the start of the pandemic, my hevruta partners and I studied a text from the Piaceczyner (the rabbi of the Warsaw Ghetto) about this week's Torah portion, Tazria-Metzora. His jumping-off point is a verse about houses contracting tzara'at -- some kind of contagion -- and the need to quarantine such a house for a period of time. The commentator Rashi explains that there's treasure hidden in the walls of the afflicted house, and when we knock down the walls, we'll find the treasure. But the Piaceczyner is puzzled: if there's treasure, then why does Torah tell us to wait for seven days before we can knock down the walls and find the treasures hidden therein? His first answer makes me laugh: well, we can't exactly know why Torah says what it says! But then he says, if we look deeply we can recognize that in everything that happens to us, there's a spark of God's intention for goodness. Even if the situation we're in is a difficult one, God intends goodness for… [Read more...]

READY FOR CLOSE-UP?

16 April 2021 - Unknown

Collected my prescription close-up glasses yesterday. Here they are. The frame is a shiny sort of cobalt blue but the photo doesn't show it. I couldn't find any frames that were....what was that word?...sprankzy? I didn't like any of them and don't like this one much. I can read with them but if I look in any direction other than reading distance everything is blurred and dizzy. Are reading glasses always like this? Going back to SpecSavers tomorrow to complain and collect my NHS hearing aids. I can't get used to this "elderly" category. Nobody asked my permission to put me in it. Read the rest at the main Blaugustine: http://www.nataliedarbeloff.com/blaugustine.html [Read more...]