tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-118325842024-11-01T06:53:17.161-04:00pinnipeds, natural and unnatural history, poetry, fiction and the virtual worldUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger30125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11832584.post-86737573108973843712021-06-24T16:37:00.001-04:002021-06-24T16:37:34.748-04:00

 The cat sits under pink flowers.The cat sits in sunlight.The sunlight blurs like golden dustblowing between her and me.Her white-gold fur melts into wind, into light and dust. It blurs. It becomes pink flowers.I no longer know where each one ends.I no longer know where I begin.Am I beside the cat? Or is the cat(alive or dead, or merely imagined) –is she inside me?

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11832584.post-43627774225004104812021-05-23T16:05:00.007-04:002021-05-23T16:23:42.921-04:00

Magma flows beneath a bed of ferns: fire fretted through lace,dendritic leaves of elemental silver.Birds here spark and rise, singing glass-shatter.I fear the birds are mostly a delusion.Ice and embers share a voice,as does the chink of cooling lava.And, honestly, the magmais just part of the diorama.Stepping back, you see the silver ferns flank an automatonbeneath the window of the north

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11832584.post-70699309485791006582017-04-29T16:23:00.004-04:002017-04-29T16:25:16.128-04:00

This is an old poem, from 2008. But I figured it should be here. It's always been one of my favorites. And yes, it is based on a dream. I am walking through a subway tunnel,going to the opera,carrying a raccoon.The tunnel is slabs of concrete,like an overpass, a parking structure.People are walking here. Daylight leaksthrough bolted junctions.And the raccoon&

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11832584.post-2820669107608816972017-04-29T15:38:00.005-04:002017-04-29T16:05:15.253-04:00

Since our writers' conference, I've been working on some experiments. One is finding ways to "make the familiar strange" by taking one idea and pushing it in various directions, like ripples expanding from a pebble dropped into a pond. This poem is one of the results. A rose of beaten gold; a rose of brutal anthracite. A rose in granite on the wall of a cathedral; Another in stained glass, on

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11832584.post-17815642800882378252017-04-20T16:29:00.000-04:002017-04-29T16:05:35.001-04:00

In April, the giraffe Is covered with red roses. Roses bloom in her map of splotches, Her net of pale square rivers, As April browses, big-bellied, among acacias -- Aflame, rose-covered, infinitely gravid. The lions sleep: a peaceable kingdom. Easter pales the horizon. The world is once again Reborn. All creatures now Bring forth their hopeful young, Their singing dreams of freedom. O,

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11832584.post-38893416975984200182015-02-02T12:35:00.001-05:002015-02-02T12:43:28.866-05:00

A "random word" text from my Internet-based writing group. In this case, the prompt was "leaf". Random-word texts are supposed to be written with minimal reflection and editing. "What does this word suggest to you?" They can become the seeds for later stories.  I grip the leaf with all my limbs, gnaw through the stem, and fall. Wind catches me at once, spins me at random, tosses me above

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11832584.post-35897205115622662982015-02-02T12:22:00.003-05:002015-02-02T12:23:11.754-05:00

I heard the first line of the poem on the Metro PA system, and it got me thinking. Since the recent tunnel-fire (which hospitalized over 80 people, and killed one,) we have all been a bit nervous. The train ahead of us is experiencing a medical emergency. An individual has fallen on the tracks, and the train refuses to go on. Support personnel are arriving on the scene in various and sundry

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11832584.post-39097854472998922152014-07-16T13:34:00.001-04:002015-02-02T12:37:54.964-05:00

(What will you do with a scrap of paper, a sharpened pencil, and the moon?) My prison window shows a patch of sky, So every night I draw a picture of the moon. Shape after shape, marching on the wall, They grow, then wane, then swell to full again. New-moon nights, I draw a patch of black, Scribbled to reveal the stonework underneath. Full moon is a blind white eye, Gibbous a cut potato.

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11832584.post-65792853632787340142014-06-27T10:08:00.004-04:002015-02-02T12:36:10.722-05:00

(The prompt for this one: Remember your voice.) Here in space, nobody can hear you do much of anything. Scream, certainly -- which is what you do the first few days. Or weep, or moan, or curse your fate, ringing the full changes on profanity in several half-remembered languages. Finally, you get used to the quiet. You start hearing the subtle difference between the radiant hush of the stars

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11832584.post-91307521162053003252014-06-24T09:39:00.003-04:002015-02-02T12:36:22.676-05:00

(Another prompt from Facebook: "Wishing for night") It will come at last: this sweet cessation, this tiny, vagrant death, this rambling through dim fields of dream. It will come again. And end far, far too soon when light puddles the horizon: this daily burning, this uncouth clarity, this louche, foul revenant we fled in sleep: the soul's eclipse, our fragile benediction.

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11832584.post-72973553536997398352014-06-23T11:02:00.001-04:002015-02-02T12:36:32.171-05:00

(For a friend's poetry prompt Facebook page. The prompt: "The moon slips its mooring and drifts away.") The moon has fallen into the pond behind the garden. I row out to where it bobs, Luminous, tangled in lilies, soiled with duckweed. It's too big to fit in my boat -- An awkward shape, and much too heavy, And the boat in any case too leaky. And so I leave it there, another lost regret, Like

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11832584.post-74854544612494652132014-01-28T13:40:00.002-05:002015-02-02T12:38:21.983-05:00

We never found the Island, Though we coasted up and down the trades For a year, then two -- or five? I don't remember. In the end, it didn't matter. The voyage had become its own redemption. The crew -- ex-pirates all -- were disappointed To miss the promised treasure. But in time they grew Content, whiling away the windy, blue-sky days In hoisting and lowering sails, knotting ropes, and

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11832584.post-75839615710530335442014-01-27T11:16:00.002-05:002015-02-02T12:38:41.132-05:00

Under apples in autumn, Under persimmons in December, Under lilacs in paradise, Under roses at our final wedding. Beside the bed at midnight, Under the window on the moonlit lawn, Beside myself with anger, Over the roof, and tumbling toward the moon. Here we see the answers. Here we see the reasons. Here our needs are taken into account. Here we find the only thing that matters -- Which was

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11832584.post-33232297550615563642013-11-08T16:12:00.002-05:002015-02-02T12:39:45.011-05:00

The prompt was "quantum". "This could go either way, friend." I paused mid-stride and looked at him. Male, mid-forties, matted beard framing gaps in yellowed teeth. He was sitting in front of the First National Bank on a piece of cardboard, which he shared with a crumpled burger wrapper and an empty paper cup. His extended palm was stained with dirt."Please, lady," he said, widening his

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11832584.post-16045238923635591522011-12-02T11:29:00.001-05:002013-11-08T16:14:22.718-05:00

Deep frost this morning, and rims of ice on the ponds. The bus, adjusting its schedule, dropped me off one stop early in the flat suburban wasteland: road and strip mall, parking lot buffered by a canal and frozen lawn. A flock of geese, feathers ruffled against the cold, paused in their grazing to watch me pass.

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11832584.post-62854237713396084202011-10-20T11:46:00.000-04:002013-11-08T16:14:39.376-05:00

"It's not as though you have to remain a dragon," said Drusilla, in a superior tone that implied it had been she, rather than Livia, who had mucked about with the spell book. "There's always a whatchamacallit, a counterspell, don'cha know? We just have to find out what it is." "Mrflxgq!" said Max, which was the closest his dragon-mouth could come to forming human words. What those words might

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11832584.post-28399132687769249082011-07-21T17:06:00.000-04:002013-11-08T16:15:09.277-05:00

For Mars The heat brought a darkness with it, a blindness caused by glare and slitted eyes. As the outer world vanished, the inner flared into being. Clouds became smoke, buildings pale ashpiles crested with ramparts of flame. Each breath felt thick and liquid, like inhaling hot blood.

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11832584.post-20046302271025560582011-07-20T14:49:00.001-04:002013-11-08T16:15:29.255-05:00

by Titanium Mars ‎"When it gets that hot, we will all die." Seal made a dismissive gesture. "Surely not all. The old. The ill. The vulnerable. Those who can't afford air conditioning. It's not the end of the world." Her companion pointed upward, at the glaring mosaic of the sun's disc filtered through leaves. "The corona has already engulfed Mercury. By Friday, it will touch Venus. This is

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11832584.post-33088646399863763362011-04-21T17:54:00.000-04:002015-02-02T12:37:06.778-05:00

One of my PSN friends and I are doing "prompt poems". We send each other words or phrases, and send back the poems they inspire. This one was actually from a prompt I sent her: "wolf status". She sent me a lovely poem in reply, describing wolves singing in the boreal forest. But it got me thinking along somewhat different lines, and here's the result. He's a high-status wolf, this one lounging

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11832584.post-38366605209305924242010-05-10T13:35:00.003-04:002010-05-10T13:38:17.863-04:00

My first submission to the PicFic blog and Twitter feed has been accepted! PicFic is one of the main sources of Twitter-compatible 140-character fiction.They were always watching us

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11832584.post-57045223738043354012010-05-10T11:04:00.000-04:002010-05-10T11:06:14.792-04:00

"Hold your breath, and pull the trigger," his father said. The trophy convict gripped the cage bars, his eyes pleading, as Bobby fired.

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11832584.post-71713567376596936352010-05-10T10:59:00.003-04:002010-05-10T11:04:44.409-04:00

Lately I've gotten interested in the evolving world of very short fiction, such as flash, usually defined as complete stories of 1000 words or under. A further evolution, fiction compressed to haiku length, is the growing world of Twitter stories: complete or implied stories with a maximum length of 140 characters.I've decided to start posting flash and Twitter stories on this long-dormant blog,

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11832584.post-5871502188183961762007-12-24T21:25:00.001-05:002011-10-18T10:49:24.540-04:00

The Palm T|X has a little graphic notepad. I never used it for much, but over the past few days I've been experimenting. I've been intrigued by the work of Doodle Bean, whose daily PDA drawings grace her eponymous blog and her Facebook page. She obviously has some sort of graphic program -- it's time to explore the Palm catalog again! But until then, I find notepad drawings can be quite

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11832584.post-24178095191965853122007-08-27T19:22:00.000-04:002013-11-08T16:16:16.093-05:00

1. Rockville Pike roars at my back. There, past cement, a flash of yellow: Goldfinch, balanced on a seed-head. 2. The storm rolled in while we were at the movie -- Beyond parked cars, the rainbow's limb was Crossed by lightning-slash. 3. Gray squirrel, spooked, Jumps onto snow fence, falls, And burrows skull-first Through the rigid orange mesh.

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11832584.post-35382715035702655362007-08-17T16:49:00.000-04:002007-08-17T17:50:50.508-04:00

Casinos exist in a perpetual twilight, ambient light diminished so the machines can shine. There are no clocks; the seasons of the day are marked by the ebb and flow of patrons, and by early-morning maintenance, oddly mundane in glitter-chiming, stochastic Xanadu.The old man appeared as I worked a dollar single-play 9/6 Jacks machine at the end of a row near the high-limit area. He reminded me of

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0