Poems

The one good thing about the Dodge is it did help my writers block and I wrote two new poems. Hope you enjoy.

Waterloo United Methodist Church
September 2008

I worshipped the images
of my youth,
first a story, wood panels
and stained glass.
Then only the word.
And then songs written
only for the voice and guitar.
Now, if not for the men working,
silence,
turning me back to the word.

The Bridge At Morris Canal
-for Maddy

I wanted to walk
across the old plank bridge,
to share with someone the river
and the path into the woods
just beyond.
Only it collapsed
at some unknown time.
I go home
knowing what I missed.

Religulous

Yep, I saw it. Was it funny? Sure. It was mostly sad. Imagine doing all sorts of research to prepare to interview people. Sure the information you are providing has been refuted since, oooh, the early 1900's, but it's new to us so the average person will not know it. Sure you could go to the various seminaries or religious institutions, but why would you when you can go to a truck stop chapel? It was sad. I know the people who were watching the movie with me thought he was spot on. Since he was only going against Joe Average on the street they would not stand a chance against him. He did his homework. Granted it was very dated and proved wrong. Bill is a coward. He hates all religion, but Christians in particular. He spent %95 of the movie talking to a prosperity preacher and people on the street of The Holy Land Experience. It was sad for him and an embarrassment. I hope it makes him feel good about himself. It'd be like me smacking around a 13 year old. I know I can beat him up and it's easier than taking on someone my own size.

Ha!

Thanks LP for this one. It states so simply how I feel.

I also have a confession to make. Inspite of my recent jibes at Moleskine notebooks I had recently bought one of their pocket sized ones. I need something to cary around with me, but find most either too big, too flimsy or too expensive so I settled for the Moleskine. Actually, they had a softer leather one that seemed to fit my needs. So I brought it with me to the Dodge, made a whole bunch of notes in it, and even wrote two new poems. I recently did a load of laundry. Yep, that's right, I left it in my back pocket and it got ruined. Thankfully I had typed out the new poems before hand so I didn't lose those. I did lose all the notes I had made for a potential script idea a bunch of us are working on. I guess that'll teach me to mess with the mystic Moleskines! What is ironic, but what do I see all around the Dodge? More Moleskines! They were everywhere. Fortunately more were using the good old fashioned spiral bound notebooks.

R.I.P. Hayden Carruth

One of my main pet peeves about the festival was it seems that many poets these days hadn't really earned the right to the title. Give them an MFA and they publish a book makes them all of a sudden a great sage of the world. Hayden Carruth is good proof of what happens when a life lived along with a ridiculous amount of talent really makes a poet. He didn't go the normal path of a writer and as I am sure you can see from the picture he lived life hard. What results is a body of work that should be envied by anyone wishing to become a poet. He deserves to read. He deserves to be respected and listened to. He was the real deal. Check out his web site and his page on the Academy of American Poets.

An Appology

Sometimes in my attempt to just goof around and share some ideas with a few readers I often forget that someone may actually read this who doesn't come from inside my small circle and take offense at what I have to say. I have removed a recent post on my experiences at The Dodge because a poet whose work I respect read it and took me to task for not being responsible. And he was right. I do not take what I write here all that seriously and have probably developed a bad habit of not being careful with my words and writing things too much on the fly. It is my regret that what I wrote, quite frankly, deserved the stern talking too that I got. And quite frankly by my literary better. In the future I hope to take this more seriously and take into more of a consideration the feelings of those who may read it.