WorldWide Telescope
March 6, 2008 | Filed Under Inspiration, Life balance, Linked | Leave a Comment
If having this free software, soon to be available from Microsoft, doesn’t inspire poets…
Thanks to TED TALKS for offering the code to embed the video! I may be a MAC person, but I will put this on the Windows side and on Leon’s PC as soon as it is available.
NOTE: I have removed the embedded player as it keeps hanging up my site… but you can click on this link to go directly to the video.
Bright Stuff #379 by Write Stuff, a fun prompt
February 24, 2008 | Filed Under Linked, Poetry | Leave a Comment
Check out Write Stuff’s Bright Stuff posts: simple suggestions for us to exercise our writing skills (and get out of a writing funk). I saw 426 posts listed under that category there, so as writers we can’t possibly be lost for ideas based on that alone! This time it was suggested we add “one” of the ideas below into a scene or stanza that is not working for us now. Never one to follow all directions, I used them all in the order given in a new poem, similarly to what I used to do (and will again) here (read the second one, it is better) with Unconscious Mutterings. I did break my own rules after this was written and edited a line or two.
Her phrases:
A ringing phone.
A sealed envelope.
An unidentifiable sound.
Two men in orange sneakers.
A rare bird.
A broken clock.
My poem:
The Sound
A ringing phone broke the silence
that came after he opened
a sealed envelopeand with the shrill tone as
a backdrop he allowed
an unidentifiable sound to escape
his soul,one as strange to him as two men,
in orange sneakers and black suits,
hefting a casketwould be to normal society.
A sound comparable in a timeline
to the sighting of a rare bird,
but as intense as the emotion caused
when a broken clock starts
the moment a loved one’s soul moves on.It was the sound
of both letting go and hanging on for dear life.MeeAugraphie
02/24/08
Take advantage of Karen’s prompts - your way! I did. Thank you, Karen.
Life blocks
February 23, 2008 | Filed Under Life balance, Linked | 2 Comments
Two things quite evident to return visitors: I am wordy for the most part and I cannot resist a prompt, though many days I force myself to do the latter because just about everything I see or hear can easily become a prompt. Paisley posted about herself recently here. Her post was based on a comment made by one of her readers. Hers is a most powerful post. A must read for other human beings. And though I absorbed the “heart” of all else she said, the piece of my mind that grabs a detail and won’t let go of it did exactly that. I guess we react emotionally to those points that sneak in a little personal reality. Don’t expect to go over there and only read about what I chose to mention, what Paisley wrote is so much more!
As I continued to read, that one sentence kept slapping around in my head. “Prompt!” Prompt! Write about me… But it wanted to come out as a comment - and did - straight onto Paisley’s blog. I had final control over the delete key, however, (though I failed at that, you will see.) So, here it is, in its entirety as it might have read:
Paisley. Your words, whether just strung together or in poetry, are always powerful. That power does not come from the blog template or the presentation, for if we are paying attention, even in their strength, they pale by what you present in words.
You said you are no longer the other you.
As of “this moment”, I visualize people as a tower of blocks, each one labeled “you”, though only a component of themselves. With any “you” kicked out, the tower falls. So we can’t cast aside who we were.
Perhaps the new Jody/Paisley is because stronger “you” components were merely added to embrace or temper the other “you(s)” and they work together as a team, building on the experience of each other. I can only speak as an observer here, and only as me, but it seems you have not let go of “you”, nor should you. Instead you built a stronger you, a you that has become quite introspective and philanthropic, who has dared to try out new emotions at her own speed — and dared to tackle the responsibility of growth.
Maybe that is the real child in you, not the scared you — for the latter sounds adult, we know there is stuff to be scared of. The child is the one who takes that needed leap forward even not really understanding where he or she will land…
You, however, have the maturity to know how to judge the distance - and to know which pieces to put back together if you break.
Congratulations on emerging from that cocoon!
Why did I post this? Because we are all struggling with something in ourselves. Paisley is winning. Not only is she winning, she is brave enough to share with us just what she is winning against — and what she lost. And she tells it damn well… (substitute another word there, if I am honest). I don’t think anyone can not find truth of their own in something she wrote, even if the details were different. And if you haven’t been there, you have missed how well she associates visual with words… She has a gift for it.