Sandy

sandy debris

sandy- tossed 

Sandy

in the still scent, sight fell sway

but a floating filamented fleck

as nostrils flare inhaling a luminous load

of life lurching,

life lifting from the heap of it all, fetid-fragrant

irrevocably skimmed

Rising to fill all senses,

Held until memory’s end

Sacrosanct song of sense

sandy

HAPPY THANKSGIVING MESSAGE

storm tossed boardwalk - long beach new york

brady max - a new face 

that little sense of everything in the in-between 

Thanksgiving - In what now feels like another life-time ago - I lived in the Virgin Islands - the little children there called Thanksgiving "turkeyday" with a particular lilting, eye sparkling joy.  For many people of all ages and venues Thanksgiving is as much and as little as "Turkey Day."   I am one of those acutely gratitude aware individuals - which is both blessing and incredibly boring - most notably around times evoking sentiment.  Which for me, could very well be the incredible ability for someone to  blink a particularly fluttering eyelash.

Let us just say that Thanksgiving is perhaps my favorite among holidays because I am released from the chastisements of over being overly sentimental - I am, in a sense, unleashed.  This year I feel myself straining at the collar that usually holds me back and before me are the green fields of endless space in which I can, must and relish running barefoot calling to all and everything that this year and in fact this past month has illuminated.

Ready?  I hear the unmistakable, click and here I go - nothing about my neck to hold me back - I write to each and all of you and to the Universe at large.  There are always the simple, but profound gratitudes, for the ability to exercise senses, still with agility -to see, to hear, to taste, to touch, to smell. Ah, I inhale the fragrance of life.

This is no song of "myself" this is a song of connectedness of all of us each to the other.

October 2012 will stand as a glowing testament to the power of the Universe, Mother Nature, some may even say G-d - the spectrum spanning the creation of a new life, pulled into this twirling, whirling cerulean marble we all share - to the tossing of the sea I so love to show a strength that too many have chosen to ignore and even to disrespect.  

And so, I am grateful, .... in the midst of watching people's posessions piled outside their homes - seeing homes that are gutted and some that are simply vanished.  I am grateful.

I am grateful for the tiny finger that grasped mine as I fed a bottle to a new face that looked with wide wondrous eyes straight into mine and found a forever place in my heart.  For little girls who are living in a new home and their parents who are finding their footing, for other little girls who lost everything material in the rush of water through the walls of their home, but who are together with those whose love is not subject to the vicissitudes of weather.  I am grateful for a unicorn girl who became a mother virtually before my very eyes in a magic that is difficult to supercede, for an infant boy who has grown into a man of greateness, morality and responsiblility.  For a life-partner who somehow has been with me on this time-travel of incomprehensible length and continuing happiness.  Ah, yes so many personal moments of gratitude which will be shared with each and all in the privacy that they deserve.

But, wait, as the game show hosts might intone "there is more!"  This year, I am grateful that the my deepest beliefs in the innate selflessness of human beings has been validated.  I have watched, people dig deep beyond the darkness that that may threaten to eclipse their sense of self and find light, and the ability to smile, for themselves and to connect with one another.  

Finally, in terms of those with whom I share a love of writing on a more or less daily basis - I am grateful for a sense of community that spans the world and melts any sense of difference or distance. between us.  I am grateful for the pain and love shared by one who lost the love of her life and yet continues on, available to give and receive love and beauty.  I am filled with gratitude for those who sit in, look out from or look back to their own dark rooms and grin.  You all know who you are.  You know, and I feel your embrace and reach out to you, with joyous thanks.

 For those no longer physically here - well as  George Burns and my grandfather used to say "it's a good day anytime I wake up, stretch my arms and don't hit wood."  I am grateful for those who have become one with a greater energy that thrums all about and through me - who are no longer touchable in the physical sense but whose presence is felt in every rustle of leaves in the trees, in the falling snowflakes, in the rise of a cardinal's flight, or in the most unexpected and inexplicable ways and places.  

I am grateful for the bounty that is my life - that no matter how compromised it may ever come to be, that I am able to realize that I am fortunate by the throw of Universal dice that I landed where I did, and that my greatest deprivation will more than likely be far richer than a typical day for most in most of the world.  

And finally, yes, really finally now -  I am grateful for those who hear my voice in the void and respond with a "like" or a word, or a personal message.  I am forever grateful for words, once called by one "squiggles on the page" that mystically morph into life and help us celebrate, grieve and love together as one - connected in gratitude on this spinning cerulean marble we all share.   

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

PAD Day 20. Gathering - Letting Go

Gathering our minds

Letting go of possessions

Hurricane Sandy

DAY 19. A WHEEL POEM

A wheel poem

This is a wheel poem
as wheel as can be
it is my first written 
in the sand by five
year old me 

DAY 18. A GLOSA

I knew not what be a glosa

Until I attempted and found it to be collosa

Here it is and here it be

I gave it a try, called it a night with a "Whoopee" 

The challenge of the day was to write a "glossa."
This "involves an epigram of 4 consecutive lines from a favorite poet that the challenge participant believes they can write successfully to. Then, write a poem consisting of four 10-line stanzas where the final line of each stanza is a line from the epigram, in order. Within each stanza, lines 6, 9 and 10 must rhyme."  What follows is my attempt.... based on the beginning lines of Whitman's - what else given this prompt "Song of Myself"

“Song of Myself” 

Walt Whitman

I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,

And what I assume you shall assume,

For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul

I see about me the fields and cities the

desolation, destruction and dancing

of this whirling cerulean marble we share

oceans, lakes, mountains and deserts

forests and plains winding merging

each and all connected as a threaded Oneself *

shimmering in a sparkling panoply of vibrancy

each texture, taste, sight and lyric sound

connecting each to each within a collective sunself

I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself

I feel about me the pain and joy the anguish and

pleasure of each, from newborn

blinking eye to shuttered lash of ended time

blazing, blurring, blotting, bleeding, bolstering

this cerulean marble we share

the essence floating of all exhaled exhume

pulses within each corpuscle pounding

particles of light within the ray of my being

illuminate all, beyond imagined flash of sonic blasted boom

and what I assume, you shall assume

I taste and hear and touch

each blade of grass, each droplet of the diamond

rain, burn the bottom of my feet on the scorching sand

freeze my skin in the avalanche of ice

burst eardrums to the screams of hungry children

sleep lulled by the sweet song of mothers’ succulent love

the sweet nectar of honey glosses my lips

as bitter herbs rest in the cradle of my gut

each to each and all to all converge in one unfathomed melodious hue

for every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you

For self in the collective tapestry

is lone, but a dull thread

dangling in the stratosphere

a filamented figment of what could be, dropped as a stitch

in the grand design of each shout, scream, sigh, touch, taste,

and emerald blade of dew wet grass rising from earth damped hole

desolate, striving, wretched until recognition relaxes melting

self into reconciled, reverenced, reconnoitered remembered role

I loafe and invite my soul

PAD CATCH-UP DAYS 11- 19

DAY 19. A WHEEL POEM

A wheel poem

This is a wheel poem
as wheel as can be
it is my first written 
in the sand by five
year old me 


DAY 18. GLOSA POEM


DAY 17. HOW TO -----

How to drive yourself up the wall

Focus only on the negative
see within each face a frown
keep the news on twenty four seven
do not sleep when you can wake
add a pinch of your own individual misery
and from this a shattered hope retrieve, hold and take


DAY 16. USE LAST LINE OF YESTERDAY'S POEM

Depthless Thanks

Deeper than the fathomless sea
that has tossed and pounded in
unrestrained rage I throw my
depthless thanks as offering into
the receding tide in the midst
of devastation


DAY 15.  TRADE-OFF

Trade Off 

For the surge of power
for dryness indoors
for the glance at the
sparkling sea with
a smile rather than
a grimace
I give
depthless thanks


DAY 14. -  STUCK

Stuck

Between the
proverbial rock
and the hard place
there is a soft spot
sticky as glue


DAY 13. LETTER & RECIPE

Stuffed

I have no parchment upon
which to pass this secreted
recipe to you
From grandmother's hands
on to you the secret
of the stuffing that brought
you home to me each year
and now I fear will move
me to obsolescence

DAY 12 - TECHNOLOGY THAT DOESN'T EXIST BUT SHOULD


Mind Port

A port that
placed within
my brain
that scans
each thought
before it can drain
A port that catches
the BIG ONE THERE
that without this port
devolves into thin air

DAY 11 - VETERAN'S POEM

Mommy's Home

Sound of blasts

silenced in these

navied nights with

children

breathing

heavy

and

safe

These navied

homelanded

nights

where

I

lie

awake

Passion Walks *

Sandy are the shores of the receding tide

Sandy are the shores of the receding tide

Revealing in their wake the debris of life

Revealing in their wake the debris of life

Shores revealing the wake of life

In the tide receding

Gull shrieks passion on the sandy shore line

Gull shrieks passion on the sandy shore line

Scavenging  trash trodden broken boards

Scavenging  trash trodden broken boards

On the sandy shore line punctuated gull shrieks

Broken boards scavenging passion

A couple walks the shoreline remembering

A couple walks the shoreline remembering

He halting.  She bent.  Twisted hands entwined

He halting.  She bent.  Twisted hands entwined .

Remembering the shoreline 

Hands entwined passion walks.

* a fast first paltry attempt at a paradelle