Sunday, December 6, 2009

Dec. 6th, Saint Somebody's Day


Every December 6th
my wife puts gold coins in one of my old shoes.
She's been doing this for years, for me and the children.
I once knew what this was all about
but now in my old age I tend to forget.
I do forget.
But if I would have saved some of these gold coins
over the years
I would now have a lot of chocolate.
It's grasshopper and ant-city.

Saturday, December 5, 2009

"Twas brillig and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe. All mimsy were the borogoves, and the mome raths outgrabe."


Nest chuts

foasting on an open rire

Fast Jock bipping at

your nalls
^.^
et al'ls
.............................
As yuletide carols are being sung by a choir, and folks are dressed up like esquimaux,
Mother Denise brought home a pound of chestnuts from Pick N Save, which we immediately photographed with the LVD II memorial P6000 Nikon 13.5 picel digital.
We believe we WILL roast them on an open fire and incorporate them into our Christmas regimen this year.
We remember finding chestnuts from a neighbor's tree and carrying them around in our pocket when we attended Hadfield Elementary in the 1940s. They were so beautiful and the more they were turned in a young appreciator's hand the more beautiful they became, like oiled walnut.
A chestnut is a lovely thing.
Likewise the Lewis Carroll poem, Jabberwocky
........................................................
The Jabberwocky
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood a while in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One two! One two!
And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
....................

Kings of the road, sooty men


We were here
in the day of the iron horses
plying their track-ed way
up and down the nearby Soo Line trail.
...............
In the shadow of St. Joe's Catholic church steeple,
the particulant-laden dark plumes of coal steam
from the engines passed through town
several times daily.
They caused church janitors to dust and wash windows
and other residents, including my grandma,
to cleanse their curtains frequently.
...............
Yet we rhapsodize these early trains,
say we miss them.
Living now - just barely -
in a noxious bubble o-er the planet
where every single breath we draw has poison it it.
It's too late to throw our lungs in a washing machine
and hang them out to dry.
We thought of the term 'sooty men' when we got this steam train image from a friend. Sooty men, from

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Ye shall be made new



And the red-maned lion shall lie down with the ram

Thus it is within the steeple shadows

of St. Paul's UCC and the shrine of Holy Hill

Where scripture is known;

is the metier;


AND

where Paul Bobrowitz's sculpture is found;

reworked tons of scrap metal

and still assembling,

reformed, reforming new things

with HIS magic.


Ye shall be made new.


(Watch for imminent posting here, and see Paul's website)




Tuesday, December 1, 2009

You just never know

New life from morbidity;
Rotting squash
throws shoots to save itself?
Waukesha WI 12/1/09
In a surprise turn of events, a yellow squash was taken up, rotated, from a kitchen table where it has reposed for - too much time before cooking - and the homemaker dropped the squishy object in disgust. "O-o-o-o-o-e-e-u-u-w!"
Bringing it to her husband he looked at it objectively. He noted the gray and green mold and felt the softening texture of the transitioning squash. More significantly, he spied the green shoots rising from the dying mass.
"This a metaphor. Could be a simile....." he absently mouthed. Taking a circumspect, symbolic and scientific view, he said "This, right here, this, this is ....L-I-F-E!"





Monday, November 30, 2009

Mixed messages

Benighted:

Let there be light,
more light:

Word came today with the above shopping craze newspaper photo that Mr. William Olson of Washington Island WI has passed away. He is shown in a photo by his son polishing the brass light at the restored Rock Island lighthouse. Mr. Olson was a writer and poet. This news came today via Norb Blei's blog: http://nbcoop.outlawpoetry.com/2009/11/30/william-h-olson/


Friday, November 27, 2009

Archival bath aid

In readying for the return of Lee and Erin for Thanksgiving, Mother Denise created a little nest of bathing aids for them.
Central to the nesting was their childhood duckie that turned up in the ongoing
basement sifting. A subtle reminder of days gone by,
it has so far gone uncommented upon by them. It could be that they attribute the duckie to the continual seething vortex of objets d'art that are part of this place from which they have escaped.

Well, I may use it. Another valuable 'find'.