A Spam Poem Arrived Today

Posted on February 11, 2011 by randomyriad

Smile, Run conversation vision in us 

aid paper left until live wish

tend arm equal spread pub goal scene application

 cover, recover independent front in any ticket commercial

impose reference, climb desire

 next final usual master god

general night research all upon slip reader

failure war well factory

sit, talk area theatre past discuss writing course scene

walk despite site authority amongst vital nor agency limit

start majority performance,  prepare review pool

about attempt during signal perfect  grant cost

figure her example, cut rare note

lay  demand special return kid

Posted in Found Art, poetry, Word play | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Some Sunny Day Thoughts

Posted on February 10, 2011 by randomyriad

I am writing this in the staff break room on my lunch break. This is the first post I have done from work. After I am done with this I will take a walk. The day is fine and crisp and blue and sun will feel good. I have spent a lot of time outside today with 3 and 4 year-olds, and that has been fun, but I will enjoy moving at my own pace with my own thoughts in stead of trying to keep track of what many small, busy bodies are doing and what small faces and voices are trying to tell me. I love my time with the children, as well as my time without them. Their feelings are so big that they hide the subtler ideas that happen in my mind. When I am walking those ideas get to come out of hiding and I can see them more clearly. Walking also helps me to think especially on a pleasant day with a lot of sun as if the light seeps into the dark corners and sweeps out the little dust covered thoughts into plain sight. Some of them are a little shy and scurry back into the shadows, but at least I get a glimpse of them before they disappear.

My lunch is finished. I have drunk my tea. I like to listen a little to the conversations, but in a few minutes I will be moving in sun hunting for some ideas that I bring back here and put, inadequately and clumsily, into words and if I am lucky some pictures.

Posted in conversations, mindworks, my life, paying attention, Teaching and Learning, thinking in words, Walking, working world | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Sunset Shadows

Posted on February 9, 2011 by randomyriad

After a long drive home, I trudged up the stairs. In my little office space the setting sun was putting on a shadow show. I put down my guitar, got out my camera and sat watching.

Was it five minutes or fifteen? I really couldn’t tell you, but it is nice to arrive home while the sun is still up a little, even if it is just clinging to the horizon by a its fingernails.

Posted in capturing light, House and home, my life, paying attention | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Century #6: The Tower on the Beach

Posted on February 8, 2011 by randomyriad

This is a dream I have had many times starting just after the accident. I am on a beach. Breakers crash to one side and sand dunes fold into the distance inland. A square tower stands about 100 feet from the tide line in the middle of a square cement slab, a seven story skeleton of steel poles with a zigzagging steel staircase like a crazy zipper coming up through the center. At the top is a square wooden platform with 10 cent telescopes, attached to the bright blue railing on the side facing the ocean. A plaque at the bottom told the story of the tower, how a very rich man had built it to watch for mermaids. Above this was a sign carved in a plank of dark wood, “Virginia Beach State Park.”

My mother and father are climbing with my older sister and brother to the top of the tower, while I wait at the bottom looking out at the raging surf of the deep blue water on a clear blue Oregon coast day. I have always had a dread of high places. From up above I hear a scream that travels down into a crunching thud behind me. As I turned, I saw a young girl face down on the cement surrounded by thick spatters of red thick like dark paint spreading. Then another scream came. I look up as my mother’s face falls toward me, a frozen mask of surprise and horror. I jump back and turn away. Thud and spatter. I look up to see my brother prying my father’s fingers from the railing as he clings, dangling. With his last strength my father grabs my brother by the collar. A cry of alarm gasps out of my brother’s throat and both tumble to the cement slab. I turn away and run into the dunes.

I have only two younger sisters and my father had nothing to do with my family as I was growing up. I have no idea what I am supposed to learn from this dream. It is a catastrophe of tragic proportions that I am a witness to in which I have no way of interceding. I am personally involved but only in the dream. When I wake up all my involvement vanishes. I am left with a feeling of loss that fades as I go through my day and eventually leaves me all together like a half memory from my childhood until the next time I have the dream.

Posted in Dreamtime, Family, Fiction, Flying and Falling, mindworks, novel projects, Telling Stories, Voices in the Chorus | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Superbowl?

Posted on February 7, 2011 by randomyriad

I have been so busy this week and so absorbed in writing that for the first time since I was a small child I did not even remember there was a Super bowl in progress. I just moved through my day, as I do every Sunday, getting little things done, writing a lot, working out, all the things I can’t get to during the week because of work and commute. About 5:30 I went out to pick up Chinese food for dinner, and the woman at the cash register said something like:

“You drew the short straw eh? Had to go out for food and miss part of the big game?”

“Big game?” I answered puzzled. “Oh! The Super Bowl. I forgot that it was on.”

She of course thought I was joking. The funny thing is I think most of the people I know would react like I did. In the last few years, I have been one of the only ones of my family and friends who was even mildly interested in the game. I guess I have just moved on to a less mass media sporting event centered lifestyle. I don’t even want to see the commercials. I use my TV for watching movies and playing video games. This is really strange. I used to consider myself addicted to TV and now it is not a part of my life. I do watch Rachel Maddow and the Daily Show on my computer, but only when I have nothing else to do. I am in total control of my TV life. I remember when I had to be home to watch my cartoons, that feeling of missing something that was integral to my culture, the amount of idiotic nonsense I watched over and over again. I could probably have written 100 novels by now. And, now, without even noticing I have reduced what I thought of as an addiction to a point where it has almost no effect on my life at all. I guess maybe if you if you get busy you find out what you are truly addicted to.

Posted in All part of the process, change, conversations, discovery and recovery, mindworks, my life, paying attention, Telling Stories, thinking in words | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment