Called You

Called You

If my lies could no more be typed

or sent
or texted
or recorded

What if I only called you.

If your fears could no more be avoided
or sluffed
or repressed
or hidden

What if I only called you.

If our war no longer lingered
or overwhelmed
or suffocated
or blamed.

What if I only called you.

LyndiaP November 25, 2010 (PoemADay 25 of 30)

Just Poetics

So today starts the PoemADay challenge for November.

This first one was short but they won't all be haikus (as much as I do like composing super short poems)

The patient parlance
triage-host assesses fate
emerg(e) poetry

LyndiaP Nov.1, 2010

(I realize this is a bit redundant as my Twitter feed is displayed on the right and says the same thing right now, but this is for posterity.)

Any and ALL poetic responses welcome :) (even a tangental rhyming couplet)

This Is the Shoulder Season

Unsure if I can withstand the barrage of meaningless marketing jargon that just collided with my ears and wrote lines of tension in between my eyes and through my jaw - I decided to make it beautiful.

The hive of buzzing euphemism almost got me down, but then by connecting to the groundedness of my carpeted hallway I "found poem" my newfound lexicon
(so to quote the infamous Run DCM- and it goes a little something like this):

'Grounded in the Shoulder Season'

[previously unmoved]
mobilizing land
aspiring revitalization
[in the] shoulder season cafe
culture
[yours/mine] our winter gardens
[without winter, I'm afraid]
astounding groundlevel [as environment's replaced]
public/private [?]
space
mobilizing land
[or it might make something of itself]

... if the challenge is to find beauty in ugliness that was attempt número uno.

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

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

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.
---
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!

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.)

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.

Oxymorons

I want to find out who invented oxymorons. I think they are quite wonderful (this illustrious inventor and his/her invention). I must admit that oxymorons are the most wonderful of all when used ironically but, simultaneously aren't so asinine that they cause me a frustration induced migraine.

It's hard, like with so many potentially annoying things (such as the blatant misuse of the apostrophe) to ascertain where one can draw a line between uncontrollable giggles of amusement and forceful vigilante vengeance. It's a subtle distinction. It is also a subtle understanding. An understanding of language that doesn’t always find itself in common practice. I’m definitely not saying that people don’t understand oxymorons or would be better off if they did understand them. I think the real underlying bit of wonderful here is that interest and even snippets of joy that comes from understanding a language really well. Now this is sounds linguistically elitist, I’m sure, but be assured that in no way am I discouraging people from learning only a bit of another language or trying to assert that English is better than other languages – again, totally untrue. I won’t go into a long spiel about the benefit of multi-lingualism but I will say that no matter how many languages – the ability for expression is not only empowering but it also, in my opinion, encourages more diverse and plentiful ideas and innovations.

How many times has some ingenious use of language inspired you? Sadly if you are only reading billboards this may not happen as often as you would like (or clearly, as I might like). So revel in the chances you get. It is a giant pinprick of light flooding an endless ocean – these linguistic lightning strikes in a curious mind.