I missed “Poem in your pocket day”

Dagnabit. It was on April 14th.

I found out about this
through Digital Cuttlefish,
but is it now too late
to properly participate?

Alas, there is a lack
of calendars to track
this type of information.

Oh, what am I
to do to try
to make up for this abomination?

I guess I have to write it now
and hope you all forgive me.
What’s the best way to remember? How?
I’ll forget again next year, just wait, you’ll see.

Then again, it isn’t like
a day to write needs saying
Any minute, any hour
can be a time for playing.

All it takes is time,
a little drive, ambition.
It doesn’t even have to rhyme
I just tend to make that happen naturally. It’s a gift, what can I say?

So there is it, the poem from me,
this year’s late addition
to what really, seriously, ought to be
a lifelong, loved, tradition.

—
Anyway, the point of the day is to actually share favourite poems, not write your own necessarily.

So, now I’ll share mine. It’s hardly insightful or anything but a favourite it is and has been for 20 years or so. It’s called “Haunted” and not even Google could help me find an author for it. I’d copied it into a poetry journal I made in school. Fortunately I kept that. I never could have quoted it verbatim otherwise.

One summer day down by the lake
I threw a stone at a little snake.
I only meant to scare him some
And to relieve the tedium.
It didn’t just scare him. It killed him dead
Now his thin little ghost comes each night to my bed.

He comes every night and gives me no rest,
He curls on my pillow, he lies on my chest.
He wails in his little snake voice, so pathetic
His little snake sobbings so soft and poetic.

“Oh why did you kill me, you nasty big brute
When I was so little, and helpless, and cute?
Now I’ll never feel sun and I’ll never eat fruit
Or talk to a newt but you don’t give a hoot.
With that horrid big rock you just put me away
Now I’ll haunt you and haunt you until you are grey.”

He doesn’t pay heed to my pitiful cries.
He just lies there and stares with his little snake eyes.
His tiny snake body full of sorrow and spite.
His little snake body so see-through and white.

I can’t tell my mother. I can’t tell my dad.
For I know I’ve been wicked, I know I’ve been bad.
With this weird little ghost, I know I’ll be cursed
Till I’m old or I’m dead, whichever comes first.

To Dial-Up Land I go again

To Dial-Up Land I go again
To family not seen.
As usual my posts shall be, then,
Few and far between.

Still, I’ll write a little when
there is time or inclination.
Only one or up to ten –
depends upon determination.

Things going on at the home front– a family birthday party and a pie sale fundraiser for Telemiracle.

It’s not so much a miracle as it is a test of perseverance and stamina and generosity. It’s put on every year in Saskatchewan by the Kinsmen and Kinettes. The money they raise goes toward people in the province that need medical assistance, from operations to equipment. It’s running at TCU Place in Saskatoon this year, March 5th and 6th. I’ve never attended the thing but I’ve watched it on television. Dial-Up Land is also known for its Farmer Vision: the 2 TV channels that would each run all 36 hours of the Telemiracle broadcast when I was younger. I admit with little guilt how glad I was the year we finally got a VCR…

Anyway, Bob McGrath, much beloved from his Sesame Street history, has been a staple of the thing for years. They get other known entertainers and fill the rest of the time with local acts and requests to “Ring Those Phones!” so they can take the donations “Higher!” As annoying as that chorus gets, it still works; since its inception 35 years ago, Telemiracle has raised over 88 million dollars.

God loves poetry? No wonder people keep looking for what rhymes with Jesus

Via Melvillehouse Publishing I learn of a group trying to bring good out of the vitriol spewed by Westboro Baptist Church.

Using the press releases published by the WBC, the poets erase the words they don’t want and what’s left is usually a thought-provoking message. The medium itself has been used before, and the project takes its inspiration from Austin Kleon’s ‘Newspaper Blackout‘, and it’s refreshing to see the focus of so much hatred turned into something else with a little creativity.

Kevin and Andres, the founders of God Loves Poetry, started the project last year with an aim to demonstrate that,

“everyone has the ability to manipulate negativity by using just a little bit of creativity. Art, humor and love are three of the most powerful tools used to combat hate.”

Potential contributors can choose from some of the pre-selected press releases on the website, or search for their own to transform into a poem for submission to the website.

God Loves Poetry has some neat ones on there and I think it’s a cool idea. Some of them are very pro-God but others are good reminders for everyone, regardless of belief system.

When you’re writing poetry instead of sleeping..

you may as well turn on the computer and share the damned thing.

Resurrect the past?
I can’t.
Why?

Because a moment does not last
and every blink of
eye

takes it further away.
Even though my brain
pretends

it happened yesterday,
I must lay the ghost to rest;
it ends.

Life delivers a new
second, minute,
hour

not a dream. Better to undo
the latch so crazy birds
devour

nothing more
of
me.

I’ll throw them through the door
so I am
free.

–

What I wind up liking about this one is the fact that it works on a couple different levels. The five or so regular readers I have on the blog might perhaps catch whatever personal history references are in there (I’ve used poetry as a means of catharsis before), but one could also suggest that these lines might refer to a person realizing he or she is an atheist and ready to move forward into that new way of life.

Nifty, eh?

Well, at 1:30 in the morning it seemed nifty…

I’m also going to use this post to mention something poetry related that I don’t think I knew existed: National Poetry Writing Month. The Academy of American Poets started it up in April of 1996 to raise awareness of the need to promote creativity in all walks of life. The League of Canadian Poets got on board with this in 1999 with the intention of promoting free access to Canadian poetry at libraries.

There’s also NaPoWriMo that runs the same month, where participants aim to write poem a day. I think I’ll do that this year. It’ll be a hell of a lot easier than November’s NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, wound up being. That was like a second full time job that often encroached on my actual full time job on account of when the muse would strike. She ain’t waiting for no coffee breaks…

A little light poetry

Dial-Up Land’s the place to be
With gifts beneath “O Christmas Tree.”
And such delights a break shall bring
Tho’ it disrupts this blogging thing.
No fear, fair readers, I’ll return to thee.

Count four days and four nights, too
A holiday, yes, but much to do.
Perhaps a post will find its way
Hope if you like but please don’t pray
For topics funny, noteworthy and true

Will the Pope be attacked this year?
For stolen dolls, did you shed a tear?
Will some writer again announce
Those things we atheists denounce?
Or new disasters spreading fear?

No news is good news as they say
But bad for bloggers every day
While one might wish the world could rest,
Then what new knowledge would I have to test
When next you pass my way?

The One Minion Search Party vol. 43

Getting back into the swing means looking at more search results to see what ultimately lures people in my direction. So, a small sampling since it’s been a few weeks since I last did this:

how much should i pay for messing up a school library book

Depends on the mess. If it’s a torn page, tape fixes pretty much anything. If the cover fell off, glue might set things right. If you cut pictures out instead of paying for photocopying, then they just might make you (or your parents more likely) give money for a new one.

Which reminds me. A friend of mine had borrowed a cat encyclopedia recently and her cat must have been so annoyed over the possibility of being replaced with one of those models, she opted to barf on one of the pages as a special kind of cat protest. As this friend is a library worker, she knew the right thing to do was confess to the damage. And since the library is probably not willing to continue circulating a book admittedly barfed on (as opposed to the so many out there they unknowingly circulate), I suspect an arrangement was made to cover the cost of a replacement copy which will get ordered and delivered to the public eventually. In the past, people have had the option of buying a replacement copy themselves instead of giving cash but I don’t know if that’s still a policy.

lego house

Can’t help you there. I did find a freakish Lego Santa though.

atheist festive messages

Happy Newtonmas! Newton was also born December 25th. Happy Solstice is popular in some circles. Festivus is gaining favour. Saskatoon Freethinkers is having our second annual Festivus party this Sunday, actually. Some atheists are satisfied with Happy Holidays, as people often take holidays this time of year anyway and it’s quite generic. And some say nothing at all in the hopes they can avoid even secular references to what many people insist is some religious date of note.

jack sullivan delusional deacon

Sullivan is the Deacon who claimed the long dead Cardinal Newman helped heal his back even though his doctors likely explained to him, with the shortest words they knew, that the procedure he would eventually undergo was going to do that.

three rubber boots bowl sour cream lyrics

It warms the cockles of my heart to see people still search for that 12 Days of Christmas parody song. “Five golden rings…of keilbasa!!.. four something something, three rubber boots, two somethings.. and a bowl of sour cream for me!” It was a small “hit” in the 1980s but I don’t know who by.

tom waits sound effects

The best place to hunt for that information is the Tom Waits Library, specifically the Other Instruments page. Anything he can find a use for he’ll use, from chairs to toy pianos to a shitload of instruments I’ve never heard of, and likely never heard before I heard his albums.

“knitted me a sweater” christmas poem

This is not it but I’m at a loss as to what Christmas poem this would be from. The only Christmas sweater thing I can think of is a short story made into a National Film board of Canada film called “The Sweater” by Roch Carrier.

Till next time…

Saskatchewan Library Week is almost done

but there’s still a chance to win a Galaxy Cinema gift card worth $100 if you bring your completed (or at least attempted) Power Grid to any Saskatoon Public Library.

Today’s cheats:

Visit the Library’s art gallery and name one piece of art

Today is the last day for Lynn McKenzie-Barteski’s Garden of Art display at Frances Morrison Library so I guess I should have done this square earlier this week and stopped in myself to see what was there. There might be a picture called “Swiss Chard,” judging by the advertising on the library’s website. I like eating vegetables but I can’t imagine the allure of painting them. Her other art is pretty fine, though.

Write an acrostic using the word LIBRARY

Again, you can’t steal mine, but you can use it to jump start your own creativity.

Life is complex
It’s always a challenge
But when problems seem insurmountable
Reading a book can take you away from all of that
All you need is a your library card number to
Request a getaway
You deserve it

That was fun.

It really is that warm this weekend

It’s twenty-five degrees Thanksgiving weekend.
Thirty years ago they would have called it
“Indian Summer.”
Now in P.C. times it’s global warming
and we’re to furrow our collective brows
with worry and alarm.

Is that really why it’s hot outside? Should we fear
and gnash our teeth and flap our jaws debating
cause and effect,
or take the warm days like a gift from Summer
who must have tied some knots in Winter’s boots,
delaying him a while?

Either way, the see-saw flips from yes to no,
from know to “We have no idea,”
but we press on.
It’s a gamble knowing who to trust, believing
those who ought to know, and failing that we give
celebrities the microphones.

We can always count
on the cute ones
to distract us.

another poem related to funny, yet not

I gave myself the chore of
writing something funny.
The trouble is it’s hard to tell
what is or isn’t half the time.

Self-deprecating humour
keeps comedians
in gravy and nice suites
and I know it’s my routine as well
so comforting and familiar.

Laugh and the world
laughs with you.
Laugh at yourself first
and pretend for the world
you’re in on the joke.

Slapstick and banana peels
remain laugh-track standards
all because the audience
has been primed to think it’s
funny – why should it be?

If people want to claim
this world is “gone to hell
in a hand basket”
might not the reason be
the loss of empathy?

It’s hard to be funny

So, I made this promise to a friend, see,
that I’d find something funny to write about.
Only, I don’t know what on earth that might be.
Humour’s like beauty in a way,
an eye of the beholder kind of thing.
What I find funny might make him roll his eyes.

Like this joke: what’s the difference
between an orange? A snake
because it doesn’t have any legs.
I find that to be hilarious and don’t bother asking why.
You may as well quiz a stone to find out whether
it prefers hot days to rainy ones. But if you feel like waiting…

I used to know a joke about a man who’d bought
a donut and complained about the hole in it
but I forget the punchline.
For classics there’s the lightbulb series or
perhaps the cliche chicken on a road, even the elephants
in trees, refrigerators, and the one who covers for the chicken.

They’re all funny in their way, the way a pun is not.
Sorry, I’ve got standards and most sit at two thirds:
P.U. — P.S., that’s a joke as well. Just not a great one.
What’s black and white and red all over?
Spelling makes a difference
if you’ve ever read the newspaper, ha ha ha!

Fallen off your dinosaur lately? I can’t recall.
Do kids even know these jokes or have they all
been made redundant thanks to new jibes and riddles?
Not that it matters; humour evolves as people do
but sometimes I wonder if the greatest treasure
ever to be found someday will turn out to be a joke book.

Would future generations get it? Would it be held aloft
as we would hold great works of Shakespeare or
the Bible (even if we’ve never read them)?
I remember the plot to a short story where a film was found
and when they finally got a chance to watch and learn
about us humans, it wound up being Looney Tunes or something.

Which is a lesson, too, I guess – just not the one
we hope to impart on those who’ll follow.
History might be written by the winners
but only that which can remain will be remembered.
Still, I’d rather they uncover the perplexity of Elmer Fudd and the war
against Bugs Bunny than learn about some other things we’ve done.