Elliptical Voyage

If every piece of writing has a thousand faces, then a poem must have a few hundred, at least. So many incarnations possible.
Here's one:

Elliptical voyage

Music

Inside my head

Lends Creedence to the rainfall

With eyes closed

I'm running

Back in time

Back to brown leather and red flannel

Back hair and blues music

Echoing

Moving past Neil Young,

Dylan's acoustic set,

Harmonicas soothe the

Glare of neon idols

Is this nowhere?

Does anybody know where

The darkest night

Has a few bright stars...

Baby,

Let me

Follow you down.

Comments

Writing on the Wall

The first time I saw graffiti that was memorable was in a middle school bathroom. As 6th graders I often walked home with friends by the middle school we'd soon be attending. A stop by the boys bathroom near the boys gym placed me face to face with a piece of graffiti that immediately madame and my friends laugh uncontrollably. On the wall above the urinals, was penned a short poem that read" This is a Teepee to take a pee pee, Not a wigwam to beat your tom tom 14 year-old humor at it's best. The laughter my friends and I experienced was cathartic. Being bottom of the barrel Freshmen could have dire consequences in the boys bathroom. Those unpleasantries would come later, but for the moment, we were ecstatic and proceeded to read all the g...

The Quality of Optimism

I've returned to The Book of Qualities, by J Ruth Gentler once again to meet the needs of one of the senior students in my little Writing From Memory class I'm currently teaching in my local community center. This little volume personifies various concepts and personality traits. The particular student "in need" seems to be fixated on writing about her past relationships. Apparently, there were many. I'm OK with that. I only hope that she picks a few qualities that are as revealing about herself as those that might describe her Ex's. There is much to be learned by writing about a quality. The aforementioned book seems to have survived well over the years. I first encountered it and its author way back in the late 1970s. I took a journal writing workshop from her. Then, a few years later, her book came out and I introduced these writing exercises to my students. 11th grade Juniors seemed to do the best with it. ...

Non-Reader

"The man hasn't read a book in years." I keep hearing that about the current occupant of the White House. Maybe that's as it should be because recent studies say that claim goes for over half the population of this country. Scary but true. It's obvious that the President doesn't know the history of this country. Examples abound. Even for those who can forgive him for inventing the African country of Nambia (he referred to that the other day) the fact that he knows very little about American History doesn't seem sway his followers. Either they know nothing too or they simply don't care. Probably both. Yet, the notion of ignoring history and repeating mistakes looms large all the while. A former colleague of mine, who taught Language Arts for a lifetime used to have a large banner in her classroom. When kids came into this learning environment they saw a sign which read, "Unless We Read, We Live But One Tiny Life." I'd love to hea...

Daily Blues & Views

Search This Blog