Tuesday, August 31

Philosophy of Poe-a-Tweets

I Tweet therefore I Am...tweeting.

My current, ongoing Creative Challenge: Poe-a-Tweets. The philosophical re-cap is this- sometimes the confines or restrictions you face (i.e. 140 characters) force you to simply acknowledge THE most important things. I have been sending out these itty bitty poetic reflections to the ether of The Internet(/webs) to make reflection habitual and to practice my search for wonder (which can come in small or surprise forms). If you're interested here's Week 4 of my Poe-a-Tweets:

Aug 25: stuffing gratitude in envelopes/planting electronic seeds/always left to wonder/what might grow

Aug 26: Ode to an empty inbox:/am I dreaming?/No?/Thank God!

Aug 27: #superman /keep your x-Ray vision/keep your spandex too/give me stories of the world/and why you want to save it

Aug 28: Hail: local harvest withstanding the storm/determined farmers never in bad form/Vouyer of a Market Dance/behind a teacup warm

Aug 29: wild apple/silent apple/take this reason/make it a cause./Each apple/tiny apple/dress up in cinnamon/make me a sauce

Aug 30: close watch/closer/than raindrops/to the window/anticipation blooms/spatter patterns/on the glass/appear transparent

Aug 31: sidewalk rainbow/stuck to my shoe/marvelled at its strange debut./now I'm shoeless/feet are bare/& the rainbow is still there

Saturday, August 28

Finding Things

There is a certain positive connotation with successfully 'finding' something that can't be replicated in successfully 'ignoring', 'fixing' or 'finishing' something. In the last two days I've found my favourite jacket, three dollars, a bit of underlined newspaper I could make into a poem, the perfect box to store some books under my bed and a bill that needed paying. Each of these things had drastically different outcomes but had the same sense of tangible, practical, sanity-restoring relief.

Only rarely does someone find something and think, 'curses! I finally found x!' Granted, It's probalby fair to say no one really ever says 'curses!' at all anymore in any real-life, unscripted context but nonetheless. Not being happy to find something is merely unsuccessful avoidance, a totally different undertaking. Even when it's that payment-due-tomorrow statement, boring report to submit or the email your boss needed you to forward - it is tangible success that allows your potentially panicking mind to take a deep breath and move on to something else.

So today, I hope you find something - especially if he/she/it in his/her/itself IS wonderful. Then, if you're on a roll, also take a second to be grateful that you found him/her/it - like a whole moment-of-silence style. Finding that feeling of gratitude will just be icing on the cake of un-lost stuff!

Now, I've got a bill to pay, some books to store and a jacket to wear and I'm grateful to be able to do all of it!

Tuesday, August 24

The Poe-a-tweet Endures

WEEK 3- just poe-a-tweeting before 8AM...as I wait for a morning yoga class

Aug 18: vacant picture frames/paraded down busy streets/keeping a clean slate/for pictures of Intuition/photos of Happenstance

Aug 19: downtown glows in my eyes/to the cause I'm not wise/enduring smoke-haze surprise/but I don't despise/as the sun it still tries

Aug 20: perfect laundry/imagination combined/the magic effortlessness of the dry clean/plus the scent/comforting bliss/a la warm dryer.

Aug 21: ur words r my fodder/so r mine too/process of poeting?/is something I do/lexicon tickling/wit can't entreat/what a feat

Aug 22: before today began/I held a moment in my hand/let morning light dance in my brain/to nurture thoughts I haven't named

Aug 23: apples ideas and high heels/characterize a day/fueling/feeding/fusing/leaving only cores/bringing further insight/and blisters.

Aug 24: apricot mountain/in the moonlight/singing Indie pop love tunes/in the moonlight/glitter the glory of headlight parades

Tuesday, August 17

Still Poe-a-tweeting...

WEEK TWO - another log of Poetic Tweeting:

Aug 11: report card from today for me/A+ in Creativity/A- for my Life Delight/to counter dismal tech insight/& #FAIL in DVD-Menu-Fight.

Aug 12:running the rain gauntlet/between caverns of construction/reality in another world/just behind my office tower

Aug 13: reclamation invocation/a maker of change./post-superstition beauty/the mark of a truly/fearless new age.

Aug 14: dance floor lights/brighten afternoon nights/warehouse of the past/a celebration at last.

Aug 15: Borrowed expectations/spawning subtle panic/lending headaches and total disappointment/to an otherwise glorious day.

Aug 16: play quotidian games/in generously exceptional ways/freely colour pictures of the ephemeral/bask in the warmth of imperfection

Aug 17: Ode to the Days That You Just Wake Up Productive/Nothing can stop me!/I am on fire!/Never wanna drop me/...until I retire.
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I hope you enjoyed this set. Some of the Twitter-ers sure are. I've been surprised with all the new 'followers' AND that I was even listed as part of #TeamPoetry on #FF (Follow Fridays)! ...which, granted I don't even fully understand but I remain grateful for and take it as a compliment.
Haha, oh Twitter, I definitely did not expect to learn so much about you this month!

Friday, August 13

TGI*gasp* Friday! The Thirteenth!

I have to say it. I have to! Friday the 13th is wonderful!

I will spare you the tirade into the roots of the superstition (being predominantly that of lunar cycles and goddess worship that became "passé" -understatement of the year- with the advent of monotheism. But feel free to read up on it here  for starters. There are also more 'academic' sources if you are so inclined, just ask...me or Google.)

However, my reason for thinking Friday the 13th is wonderful is beyond that. It is even more than the fact that it is FRIDAY the 13th (that's *Friday* people!). THIS day unlike all others is a fantastic was to become positively self-aware. And it's easy! Because you'll likely be doing it already (i.e. worrying about mirrors that shatter when you sneeze in their general direction, black felines that may have possibly ever touched the same pavement as you are about to step on and evil spells bound to conjure up simeltaneously an epic bought of -now no longer pandemic- Swine Flu-and cause you to lose your job in an instant.)

You will be totally aware of all these thing and reflecting on all kinds of other 'hidden meanings' and the like. So turn this awareness to some good use today! Just make it a bit more focused: look for beauty instead of mirrors, words of gratitude instead of those that harm and love instead of cats (fine! That last one's subjective...maybe I'm more of a dog person, but you're picking up what I'm putting down.)

Celebrate your everyday today! Start a movement... Happy Friday the thirteenth!

Tuesday, August 10

Poe-A-Tweets (part deux)

Here are the Poe-A-Tweets as promised as per last week's blog entry on Tourist Candy. One week down, three to go!

Aug 3: Raspberried soles/tracing province-crossing pavement/imagination so colour saturated/slate grey skies weep/golden canola tears

Aug 4: skin bronzed, head spinning/potential death by inbox suffocation/no match/for supernatural "short work week" sorcery

Aug 5:
Unscheduled dreams/between overflowing hours/heaping haunting hounding/holding them at bay/with an ocean of silence

Aug 6:
from home to home/ and back in time/ old friends new places/ and did someone just say Furby?

Aug 7: baseball diamonds on wedding rings/the white heels covered in red shale/gloves and loves united

Aug 8: short cut's chaos/& I'm furious/long road's splendor/& I'm curious/each day a pace that's pleasant?/escaping to the present

Aug 9: learning to Be/observant/curious./ lessons from petunia pots/5 year-olds./do nothing to Be./ Being human being.

Aug 10: pink polished nails/caked with dirt/iced with grass stains/escaped committment/gardening under false pretenses

(note: commonly the backslash is used to seperate lines in poetry when it is not possible to use the original, intended formatting. I utilize that technique here.)

Tuesday, August 3

Poe-a-Tweets

Today, like many other days I felt as though there were too many things to remember. I don't mean groceries or errands or long To-Do lists but rather the stories and mini-adventures that took place from rolling out of bed until, well, now and that's only mid-afternoon:
I picked delicious summer berries, went on a jog and passed an open moving truck filled with amazingly interesting stuff, drove through a colourful downpour and took a windy walk around in a strange city (see Urban Hiking).

This is, of course only the beginning of each story but you know as well as I do that there is never enough time to actually write all the adventures with due attention and still keep up with things like sleep (or the more pesky: work). So I came up with a plan (inspired by a book by Jill Jepson which I'll explain some other time): Poe-a-Tweets... or colloquially: "TodayInAPoem." If you aren't the technology enamoured type then Twitter may not be your thing and if you aren't interested in another channel to access the barage of human banality (for the large part in 'Public' land) than Twitter may also not be your thing.

Let me just say that it took a bit of effort and great deal of searching for interesting people to 'follow' before I found a use. For one thing, instant 'publication' of mini-poems and my soon-to-be Creative Challenge of the Month.*

So for the next 30 days (pending reliable Internet connections each day) I plan to use my LyndiaP Twitter feed and my beloved hash tag (or in English 'searchable theme name') #TodayInAPoem to help me digest all these servings of wonderful and share the sweeness. (I'll try to post the weekly results on Tourist Candy too)

I like TodayInAPoem (or TiAP if you prefer a good acronym) because it forces you to get to the essence of the story and they are so short that I can pump out quickly, say ten, in one end-of-the-day writting session.

Today's TiAP (pardon the redundancy)
Raspberried soles/tracing province-crossing pavement/imagination so colour saturated/slate grey skies weep/golden canola tears

*the Creativity Challenge of the Month is basically like a New Month Resolution in creativity and is a sure fire way for me to motivate myself to find time to make stuff. I always thank myself later too because it's such a Happy-Inducing challenge.