Pergatory

THINGS TO DO IN THE BELLY OF THE WHALE

by Dan Albergotti

Measure the walls. Count the ribs. Notch the long days.
Look up for blue sky through the spout. Make small fires
with the broken hulls of fishing boats. Practice smoke signals.

Call old friends, and listen for echoes of distant voices.
Organize your calendar. Dream of the beach. Look each way
for the dim glow of light. Work on your reports. Review
each of your life’s ten million choices. Endure moments
of self-loathing. Find the evidence of those before you.

Destroy it. Try to be very quiet, and listen for the sound
of gears and moving water. Listen for the sound of your heart.

Be thankful that you are here, swallowed with all hope,
where you can rest and wait. Be nostalgic. Think of all
the things you did and could have done. Remember
treading water in the center of the still night sea, your toes
pointing again and again down, down into the black depths.

Fog

THE fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
---Carl Sandberg

Happy Robbie Burns Day!!

To A Kiss

Humid seal of soft affections,

Tend'rest pledge of future bliss,

Dearest tie of young connections,

Love's first snow-drop, virgin kiss.

Speaking silence, dumb confession,

Passion's birth, and infants' play,

Dove-like fondness, chaste concession,

Glowing dawn of brighter day.

Sorrowing joy, adieu's last action,

Ling'ring lips, -- no more to join!

What words can ever speak affection

Thrilling and sincere as thine!

---Robert Burns

And... a song that I was not aware Robbie Burns wrote the lyrics to; Auld Lang Syne. This guy doesn't use the same tune we usually mumble at New Years, but it's kind of pretty;

Fog & Doug

Fog;
THE fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
--Carl Sandberg

(photo of Doug on planks)

Ouroboros

There are times,

          there are times,
you get stuck in your head,
and all you can see there is blue and there's red.

The red sweeps over with passion and wants,
while the blue tries to swallow with sorrow.
Blue haunts your dreams and the back of your head.
Sometimes life is just blue and just red.

Heavenly Alchemy...

Oft did I wonder why the setting sun
Should look upon us with a blushing face:
Is't not for shame of what he hath seen done,
Whilst in our hemisphere he ran his race?
- Lyman Heath,
First Century--On the Setting Sun

The setting sun, and music at the close,
As the last taste of sweets, is sweetest last,
Writ in remembrance more than things long past.
- William Shakespeare,
The Tragedy of King Richard the Second
(Gaunt at II, i)

Poem Problems...

Hi there. Before we go on you need to watch this;

...that was a video of Taylor Mali, errant english teacher turned slam poet pointing out the most overused ways to write and recite a poem
... now watch this...

... that was the poet who read at President Obama's inaguration...
Is it just me?

The Shortest Day

And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us - listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
--Susan Cooper
Happy Solstice Everybody!