The Lighter Side of JzB

Here you will find photos, poetry, and possibly some light-hearted foolishness. For the Heavier Side
of JzB
see my other blog,
Retirement Blues. (There be dragons!)

I claim copyright and reserve all rights for my original material of every type and genre.


Every day visits*
From Moose, Goose, and Orb Weaver
All seized by Haiku


"Why moose and goose?" you may ask. Back on 2/04/13 Pirate wrote a haiku with an elk in it, and I responded with
one with a moose and then included him every day. A few days later in comments Mystic asked "Where's the goose?"
So I started including her with this post on 2/07. A week later on the 14th, Mark Readfern
asked for and received a spider. The rest is history.

*Well, most days, anyway. Grant me a bit of poetic license.

Monday, December 31, 2012

Mad Kane's Limerick Off

Last Limerick Off Monday of 2012

Casanova was making a list
Of lovely young maidens he'd missed
Buxom blondes, lithe brunettes
Dancing with castanets,
But chose a redhead for his tryst.




UPDATE: It's a few minutes before midnight on 1/04, and I just discovered the REDHEAD prompt at Velvet Verbosity, via a multi-prompt story at The Muse Unleashed.  Since the link at VV is still open, I might as well join the fray there as well.

Carpe Diem #83 - Narcissus

NARCISSUS

Daffodils blooming beside my mother-in-law's driveway - Spring 2010 


Late Winter blossoms
Might bloom in February
Live into Summer

 ~  ~  ~  ~  ~

Yellow daffodils
More hardy than the crocus
Who bloom and soon croak
 
 ~  ~  ~  ~  ~

Beautiful young man
Forget your fair reflection
Go find real love

 ~  ~  ~  ~  ~

Be quiet, mother
Before I love another
I must love me first

 ~  ~  ~  ~  ~

I sing of myself
The best song I've ever heard
And I look good too

 ~  ~  ~  ~  ~



Carpe Diem #83

Sunday, December 30, 2012

My War Poem

Update 9/02/14:  I'm a day late to this prompt from The Garden, where Magaly asks if we have a favorite writing place.  I do not.  I have composed verse, prose and music in my head while driving on the expressway and while falling asleep [or more realistically tossing and turning] in bed at night.  Once in the white heat of inspiration I madly scribbled part of a story on a hotel room note pad while sitting in a food court at a mall in Toronto.

It's an Open Link Monday entry, with an opportunity to "link one of your poems, regardless of theme or format or date of publication." Recently I was rummaging through the archive and remembered this from a couple years back.
______________________

I was reading the chapter on war poems in Michael Bugeja's book last night and thought I didn't have a war poem in me.  Then I went to bed and composed this on my pillow before going to sleep.


THE GENERATION OF GREATNESS

We call them America's
Greatest generation
My father my uncles all those
Other men I worked with when
I started my first job in 1968
Were drunks

Years later Jimmy Carter would
Lobby against the 3 martini
Lunch these men lived on
Ice jammed into a short
Tumbler filled to the brim
With gin

Not so for my father a shot
And a beer man of simpler tastes
Kesslers and Strohs could
Get you just as drunk
Though maybe not quite
As fast

If they also serve who only stand
And wait what greater service it
Must be to get shipped across the Atlantic
Four fifths of the way back to
The place your mother escaped so many
Years earlier

He never told me what he did there
Nor of any British girls He might have
Americanized certainly not combat
Nor flying bombing missions
Maybe it was some dumb desk job with
A typewriter.

He told me once that to cure
The boredom he'd go into London
With his buddies on a Saturday night
And watch the bombs fall but
This might well have been
A lie

The booze was true though Gin
Whiskey Beer pick your medication
Anesthetic poured onto the
Scars crusting over deep
Old war wounds that never
Really healed 



Shadow Shot Sunday - Mellow Yellow Monday

Shelob



This Tolkein Lego
A boy and his Arachnid
Build with cousin help






MellowYellowBadge

Saturday, December 29, 2012

Six Word Saturday

Tomorrow
We will
See The Hobbit




Carpe Deim Special #14 - Ancient Road

ANCIENT ROAD

I
Where will it take you -
The road goes ever on and
Will it lead back home?

II
It starts at my door -
Flowing off like a river
 Where does this road lead?

III
The road carries me
On to my destination
Will you come along?

IV
Wherever we go
We wander without a map
On the road of life

V
There is no escape
I travel far down this road
And still find myself


Carpe Diem Special #14


Carpe Diem #82 - Withered Mums

Photo by JzB
Also used HERE


WITHERED MUMS

Even without snow
These once bright blossoms collapse
Faded and wrinkled

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Carpe Diem #81 - Nearly Spring


Nate pitching last Summer


When it's nearly Spring
My grandson works on pitching
Baseball season comes


Carpe Diem # 81

Five Sentence Fiction - Ending


Lillie McFerrin


This prompt brought to mind a demented sonnet I wrote several years ago, which coincidentally consists of exactly five sentences.




CELIBATE FATE

For four more weeks she keeps her innocence --
Mere carnal yearning since she was beguiled
Into wedlock with Selene's child
And his twenty-seven days of impotence.

The moon's once-in-a-cycle minstrel song
Called him out to last night's bloody rending,
Announced his victim's grim and grisly ending,
Siren to his lunatic Wulfsarkergang.

A shimmering crystal moonbeam, cold and clear,
Illuminates what never was but always were.
Its gray light casts the sacrifice's setting,
But her blood never flows at his blood-letting.

Her celibate fate follows Nature's whim:
The moon, not she, brings out the beast in him.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I just love the word WulfsarkergangIf memory serves correctly, I first found it in Roger Zelazny's novel, A Night in the Lonesome October.  It's the lupine cognate to berserkrgang, the legendary trance-like state of certain bear-shirt clad ancient Norse warriors, which gives us the modern word "berserk."

In this context, Wulfsarkergang is the insatiable predator state of the werewolf - a blood-crazed man in wolf's clothing.

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Three Word Wednesday CCCIX

Today's words:  Detonate, Limber, Tedious

Granddaughter Amanda as the Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nut Cracker


Tedious to stretch
But keep those muscles limber
Detonate in dance


Visual Dare 35

Conference


OK, boys, knockin' off that bakery was a piece of cake - and we didn't even have to ice nobody, neither.   But we still need dough.  Look, we're better bred than that, so we gotta rise up to somethin' bigger, see.  Listen to me, 'cuz this aint no pie in the sky. So what do you say, boys - if you guys got the crust, everybody gets a slice.  Now - are we goin' after Lego-Land or the candy store?

But you, Shorty, you gotta stay home.  I'm tired of you loafin'.



Visual Dare 35

Sensational Haiku Wednesday - Vision

Recently, I've been striving to achieve first-third line interchangeability, without torturing the language too much.  The first entry here fails to meet that goal, the others do, with varying degrees of success. Except for the the second, they all [most especially the first and last] can be related to last week's FSF, with the same prompt.


VISION

"I must look a sight"
She said, red-cheeked and wind-blown,
"No dear, a vision!"

~  ~  ~  ~  ~

That Superman had
X-ray vision - the power
To see through clothing

~  ~  ~  ~  ~

The touch of my eyes
Do you feel it caress you
When you pass me by?

~  ~  ~  ~  ~

When you look at me
Do you see the same love as
When I look at you?

~  ~  ~  ~  ~

Things I see in dreams
Imaginary creatures
Fantasy landscapes


~  ~  ~  ~  ~

 
 Sensational Haiku Wednesday is powered by Jenn
Join the fun!

Saturday, December 22, 2012

Carpe Diem #77 - Icicles




ICICLES

Spies at my window
Glistening with star secrets
Those cold evesdroppers


~  ~  ~  ~  ~


A clear frozen flow
That reflects the round worldscape
Dripping in sunshine


~  ~  ~  ~  ~ 

In desert winter
No icicles to stick you
Just cactus needles

~  ~  ~  ~  ~

Piercing Icicle
Deep in my left ventricle
As cold as lost love


 ~  ~  ~  ~  ~

 Cold flowing sadness
As you drift away from me
Ice blade in my heart


 ~  ~  ~  ~  ~

Icicle prison
At the universe's end
Doom of entropy


~  ~  ~  ~  ~ 
[And for a touch of the macabre]

It melts in the sink
Perfect to bludgeon or stab:
Murder implement


Carpe Diem #77

Friday, December 21, 2012

And in Other News

The world seems not to have ended.




For knowledge I hunger and thirst
So I pondered this month's 21st.
Spent so much time tryin'
To understand Mayan
Apoc'lypse, but it was the worst.



It's Mad Kane's fault.


Carpe Diem #76 - Quilt



My grandmother made
This patchwork quilt - work of love
Keeps me warm tonight


Actually, my mother has the quilt, and it might have been her grandmother who made it.  More than a little poetic license here.  The pattern isn't like the one in the picture, but it is that intricate.


With needle in hand
She carefully crafts the quilt
With love in her heart


There's no direct reference to nature or weather here, though one may infer the season from the topic of the warm quilt.  I'm mindful now of first-third line interchangeability, and am trying to achieve that feature with these haiku.  I think they work pretty well.


Update:  I like what Bjorn did, so I did this.

A party for two
Under grandmother's old quilt
Sharing body heat


Carpe Diem #76

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Five Sentence Fiction - Vision


Lillie McFerrin


Here are four separate FSF entries [all at no extra charge] on the prompt VISION, for the four main characters in what is either a developing story or a semi-coherent jumble of intertwined vignettes.


 SLUMBER [76 words]

After dinner, Marci was drawn again to the roll top desk.

Almost absently, she opened it and slipped into the heavy oak chair.

Suddenly sleepy, she laid her head on her arms, close to the cubby holes holding some of Uncle Albert's weird artifacts.

She missed the old man, and welcomed the connection the old desk offered.

Soon she drifted off, and in her strange dreams saw life-like visions of [what she thought were] imaginary creatures.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

HOMECOMING [76 words]

When Cheryl arrived home, she checked herself in the rear-view mirror and was disappointed in what she saw: sunken eyes, no make up, hair in a disarray of droops and tangles.

What would Gil think when saw what a mess she was?

But he greeted her with a kiss, and told her she was beautiful.

She ran her fingers through her hair, saying, "That's sweet, I'm a sight."

"No, darling," he replied, "You are a vision."

~  ~  ~  ~  ~

REVELATION  [79 words]

“Yes,” Rob cautiously admits when the bottle of wine was drained and he again stands with Marci gazing on her painting, “I’ve seen visions like this.”

Marci turns him toward her.

"That must hurt!" she says, lightly brushing over the mark on his cheek with her fingers, then her lips.

Then she draws back, eyes wide, as if shocked, and smiles knowingly.

"Rob," she says, leading him into the bedroom, “there are things we need to tell each other.”

~  ~  ~  ~  ~

DEAD RECKONING [89 words]

Gil tries to act normal, but isn’t sure how to navigate his marriage, now that he’s an adulterer.

Is he overcompensating, being too attentive, not attentive enough; how does he act when he isn’t acting?

That night when they make love, Cheryl seems uncharacteristically different in some undefinable way, almost as if she were desperate. 

He really does love Cheryl, but Marci has an allure that quickly became addictive.

He’s sailed into rocky shoals without a chart or even as much as an astrolabe to guide his muddled vision.

~  ~  ~  ~  ~

See also here.

Cheryl's Thread

Gil's Thread

Marci's Thread

Rob's Thread

Carpe Diem #75 Early Plum Blossoms

I wrote one of my haiku, then went in search of information on plums.  Backwards, I know, but don't be surprised when I do things that way.  Michigan is the number 4 state in U.S. plum production, and mostly grows European rather than earlier ripening Japanese plum varieties.  What I already knew was that the Winter of 2011-12 was especially mild, and led to an early Spring, followed by a disastrous late frost.  Plums in the state blossomed in March.  Apples, peaches, pears and cherries also blossomed early and these crops were all severely damaged by one night of late Spring frost.

For my haikus, I have interpreted the word "blossoms" first as a verb, then as a noun.

I searched in vain for a picture of a Michigan plum blossom, and finally settled for this one, from Japan.  The lonely blossom seems fitting.   Also some plum haiku at the source.





Early Plum Blossoms

I
Early plum blossoms
Too soon, then is ravaged by
Harsh Michigan frost

~  ~  ~

II
Early bird gets the
Worm; Early plum blossoms are
Nipped by late Spring frost


Carpe Diem # 75

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Mad Kane's Limerick Off - Blue

Check it out and play along here.




BLUE LIMERICK

A blue-eyed woman wore blue
Persistently: thus en la nu
She was ever so bold
To go bare in the cold
When her bosom and butt turned blue too


~  ~  ~



GO BLUE LIMERICK

A woman who always wore blue
Was a Wolverines fan - sad, but true
She dated a fellow
Who always wore yellow.
And when the Buckeyes won they cried, boo-hoo.


~  ~  ~  ~  ~

Reduced to a haiku

 You can take a thing
Too far and then play a sad
Rhapsodie in Blue

Carpe Diem #74 - Fireplace

For Thanksgiving we had all 11 grandchildren [and their parents] together at our house.  This only happens one or twice a year, so it's always a special time for all involved.




Above our fireplace
With the wood duck print all of
Our grandchildren framed




The stockings were hung
By the chimney not with care
With childish chaos


Transient Love


TRANSIENT LOVE

But of course you mattered
In that secret moment


And those others


Well


They mattered too
When the moment was theirs


~  ~  ~  ~  ~

Inspired by Christopher

Visual Dare 34 - The Kiss

Go to anonymous legacy to read about this week's dare and join the fun




THE KISS

So long we've been here
Not coincidence but molded
Fate placed us side by side
With my longing side-long glances
Caressing your smooth beautiful face

Then I fell for you

Such loving things I would
Whisper if you only had an ear
But you disdain the urgency
Every rigid cell of my being
Puts into my firm dry kiss

This is no fall from grace

I look upon your shaded eyes
The soft arc of your chin
The tip of your delicate nose
Imagine the sweet ecstasy of
Meeting your distant perfect lips

If you would only fall for me

{Sensational Haiku, Three Word} Wednesday

These prompts make me a bit more somber than the silliness you might have come to expect.  My mother-in-law has been in an extended care facility for several months.  They are trying hard to help here there, but she does little to help herself, and is growing weaker physically and emotionally.

Mentally, she's an enigma, and seems to wander among various degrees of past and present reality.  She's always been very sharp, so this is really quite disturbing.

Plus, a dear friend of mine who was an educator and a wonderful musician, only in his early 70's, is deep in the grip of dementia.   He now lives with his daughter and can't remember how to find his way to the bathroom.

SHW promptFamily
TWW CCCVIII promptsEcho, Hardship, Softly



Family memories
Echo softly -- the hardship
Of dementia nears



Join the fun!


~  ~  ~  ~  ~

A non-haiku on the 3 words
Inspired by Pigeon Diaries 


Always speak softly of lost love
The echo is a drumbeat in your heart
Memory marches on in hardship


~ ~ ~

Update 12/20: As a haiku

Lost love - speak softly
Your heart's drumbeat - echos of 
Memory's hardship

This one has 1st-3rd line interchangeability;
a feature I haven't previously considered.

Memory's hardship
Your heart's drumbeat - echos of 
Lost love - speak softly

I think the second version seems a bit more coherent.

I'll at least be thinking about interchangeably in the future.


L.A. Times Crossword Puzzle Blogging



Theme:  Meanwhile, back at the ranch  .  .  .   or, Mammas, don't let this happen.  Four long theme answers are common phrases related to a cowboy's typical activities, but with figurative meanings.  Two of these are grid spanning, and the other two only miss by 1 letter, so the themeage is pretty rich.

17. Lay a trip on, cowboy-style? : SADDLE WITH GUILT.  This one baffled me until I had enough perp help to suss it out.  Pretty clever, now that I get it.  Someone can try to lay a guilt trip on you, the way a cowboy burdens his horse with a saddle.  But, unlike the horse, you don't have to accept it.

 27. Motivate, cowboy-style? : SPUR INTO ACTION.   This is a pretty literal image, since a cowboy kicks his spurs into the horse to get it going.  A variation on the kick-start idea, maybe.

43. Control spending, cowboy-style? : REIN IN THE COSTS.  And this is equally and oppositely  literal, since our intrepid western hero pulls on the reins to get his horse to stop running.

 56. Hang in there, cowboy-style? : RIDE OUT THE STORM.  Cowboy's do ride, but this is the only theme answer that evokes a nautical rather than an old west image.   Does this detract from the coherence of the theme?  I can't decide.  Anyway, for another grid-spanner, it's worth it.

Hi gang, it's jazzbumpa.  C'mon, pards, let's ride on out and see what we can lasso.

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

A Pome Routine in Oz

Our 12-year-old granddaughter Rebekka just landed a role as a featured apple tree in The Wizard of Oz.  Hence this entry.





A POME ROUTINE IN OZ

I never thought that I would see
Our fair Rebekka as a tree,

A tree that's simply standing there
A nest of apples in her hair;

A tree who barely gets to know
Dorothy and her pal Scarecrow

As they skip along one day,
They take an apple, refuse to pay,

And in their greed, insult the trees.
So throw your fruit at such as these.

Such trespassers you cannot please
So stay with your best friends -- the trees.



~  ~  ~  ~  ~

Reduced to a Haiku

Dorothy and her
Brainless friend tricked apple trees
Into feeding them


 ~  ~  ~

Update: Another Haiku,
Inspired by Tigerbrite

Scarecrows

Sometimes they escape
Wander down a yellow road
Try to steal apples.

~  ~  ~  ~  ~




Carpe Diem Special #12

Monday, December 17, 2012

100WCGU #69

This week's prompt is the word pair " .  .  . Bah  Humbug!  .  .  ."

I sheepishly offer my response to this challenge, in exactly 99 words.


THE WOLLENSPOOF SONG

To the stables down at Scrooge’s
To the place where Scroogie shears
To the dear Old Time Pole Barn we love so well

Sing the Wollenspoofs assembled
With their hooves all raised on high
And the magic of their bleating casts its spell

Yes, the magic of their bleating of songs Scroogie loves so well
"Shall I foreclose" and "You owe me" and the rest
We will serenade our Scroogie while life and voice shall last
Then we'll we’ll go and become mutton with the rest

We're poor little lambs who have lost our way
Baa, Bah, Humbug!


~  ~  ~  ~  ~

Update: If anyone doesn't get the reference, they are to Ebeneezer Scrooge and The Wiffenpoof Song.

What I didn't realize is that what I've done here is a parody of a parody.  Welcome to the parody parade.

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Pandora

At jasmine calyx I found this picture and, of course, her wonderful poem.



Which, of course, inspired me

Pandora
You are no villainess
You had no evil intent
Simply god-given curiosity
And bad judgment


Pandora
You are also a victim
Zeus knew you were only human
And gave you a temptation
No human could resist

Pandora
You are Eve in other guise
First woman, mother of all
Drawn by the lure of knowledge
Of good and packaged evil 


Pandora
You are as lovely
As a Tolkein elf
And with your human unwisdom
Have cursed us all


Forever

Sunday Whirl

Wordle 87



I wasn't going to do it this way.  I've already spoken out, and  Mystic handled it with such power and grace.  I wanted to do something frivolous, magical, enigmatic  .  .  .

I thought it might be fun to find a phrase to start each of 13 haiku to employ our baker's dozen words.  So I went to page 56 of my old paperback copy of Charles deLint's short story collection The Ivory And The Horn, and in the story "The Forest Is Crying" found this sentence.  "So he only had two images of them: down and out, or dressed in khaki, carrying an assault rifle."

Then the wordle words cried out to me.  So I cooperated with the inevitable. And now I am crying.

Reflections at Sandy Hook

An assault rifle
Quickest way to top off
Your list of victims

An assault rifle
speaks.  Now no way to lighten
Grief for those families

An assault rifle
Brings to visibility
A madman's sickness

An assault rifle
Speaks. Nothing to listen to
But report and screams

An assault rifle
Blast signalling the end of
An innocent life

An assault rifle
Slicks the corridors with pools
Of innocent blood

An assault rifle
Leaves no time for a gentle
Sigh - just violent death

An assault rifle
Speaks death.  Responder rushes
To the scene  .  .  .  Too late

An assault rifle
Scratches at the psychopath's
Wild murderous itch

An assault rifle
Left no doubt about how the
event unfolded

An assault rifle
Reflected in the glassy
Stare of madman's eyes

An assault rifle
Pierces a milky tableau
Leaving children dead

An assault rifle
And predictably we have
One more tragic end



Saturday, December 15, 2012

Shadow Shot Sunday - Mellow Yellow Monday

Curtain Call

Emily
Presents flowers
To cousin Amanda


Sequel
To last
Week's SWS post

Two  
Granddaughters were 
In The Nutcracker  
 
Oldest  
Was the 
Sugar Plum Fairy
 
Youngest  
Was a  
Mouse and Gingersnap





MellowYellowBadge

Six Word Saturday

A
Christmas Pom
Routine for you





Granddaughter
Amanda is
Out there somewhere

Nope
I can't
Find her either.




UpdateChristmas performance with Churchill HS, Stevenson HS, Franklin HS, and Livonia Pom middle school.

Friday, December 14, 2012

Tragedy in a Schoolyard

Today a psychopath attacked school children at their school with murderous intent.

He wounded 22, but there were no fatalities.

This happened in China, where, due to the lack of readily available guns, he had to use a knife.

It's still a huge tragedy, but the parents of these children will be seeing them in recovery rooms, not morgues.

I am not making this up. Google it.

Also note, you almost never read about drive-by knifings, or innocents getting caught in the cross-stabbing.

Yes, people kill people. Guns simply make it a whole lot quicker, easier, more efficient and indiscriminate.

It's why we don't go to war wielding swords.

The Lure of a Fairie

The challenge from dVerse poets is to cast a poem in second person.  I don't think the examples given quite fill the bill. Herrick's imperative "Gather Ye Rosebuds" is spoken at someone, not having them be the active center of the narrative.  In "City of Orgies" Whitman talks about Manhattan.   Am I picking too fine a nit?

An optional part of the request is to recast an original poem into 2nd person. I've done that here with a Five Sentence flash fiction story, which is really only a half step removed from poetry, anyway


THE LURE OF A FAIRIE

The Park draws you
It's so peaceful
Comforting at dusk

Among the trees
You see a glowing cloud
Fireflies perhaps

Curious you approach
Among the trees
Suddenly full dark

The world slips
And you see her
Amid the glow

A queen in her court
A legion of tiny glowing
Female figures

And her face
So strange and lovely
She turns

Her gaze on you
Moss green eyes
Turn emerald glowing

Choosing you
She beckons
And you come


~  ~  ~  ~  ~
 
I'm less than delighted with the result.  Maybe I forced something into the wrong shape.  Feel free to crit.

Friday Flash 55

I haven't tasted human flesh yet, but I have written a Friday Flash 55.




A FAIRIE'S EYES

The green of fairie's eyes varies with lighting and mood -- yours and hers.

Emerald in sunlight or passion; moss or fern in winter, or low light.

Jade if angered or you hurt them badly.

Under filtered moonlight, or at dusk [if you are especially pensive] they can appear gray.

But that is an illusion.


~ ~ ~ ~ ~

This is reduced to 55 words from a comment I left at Jasmine Calyx.   It was rather stream of consciousness at the time, and doubly so now.


Wednesday, December 12, 2012

SQUARE - NOT SQUARE


Square?  Like Lawrence Welk
Billy Vaughan or that Bearded
Mitch (sing along) Miller Guy
Lombardo Wayne Waltz King
That paleface phony Pat Boone

No man!

Not to blow
My own trombone

But
I have improvised

In public
To my own
Original Blues tune

Shared
The Stage with
Wayne Bergeron

Played
At The Jazz Showcase
And Navy Pier

Grooved
In my dreams
with Count Basie

Taken
Time with

Don Ellis
Stan Kenton
Dave Brubeck

I may not wail
On the bridge

Like Sonny Rollins
Did at Williamsburg

My notes aren't
Ellington A-Trained
Goodman Jersey Bouncing

Don't Have
Carl Fontana's airy tone
Kai Winding's 4-B Beefiness
The round perfect arc of J.J.Johnson
Frank Rosolino's Triplet bouncing Dexterity.

But, baby
.
.
I swing!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Written in response to SQUARE by Luke Prater.

Diz said, just play, man.
This simply poured out of me, like cool jazz on a hot night.
I spent more time formatting the structure than writing the words.


Visual Dare 33 -- Timing

Angela must spend the rest of the week searching for these enigmatic pictures.



TIMING

Two-four, four-four, three-four, six-eight, nine-eight, twelve-eight, even fifteen-eight [that rascal Debussy.*]

All the time I spent practicing all those times.

Now it's my time!

And here's the train to Carnegie Hall, right on time.

"All, aboard then, step in time."

Wait  -- what!?!  Where is my cello?

Oh, sh  .  .  .

~  ~  ~  ~  ~

*The first two of a smattering of distinctive 15/8 measures sprinkled throughout this Nocturne occur from 47 to 51 seconds in this video.  They are basically equivalent to eighth note triplets in 5/4 time.  It was my great pleasure to perform this piece last Friday.  We didn't get a lot of notes in the trombone section, and the 15/8 measures were a big help in locating my entrances.

Point of clarification - this is not our performace.  We don't YouTube.

Saturday June 9, 2012
Festival Concert Hall, Round Top, TX
Texas Festival Orchestra
Pascal Verrot, conductor


12/13 Update:  If you've come along this far, do yourself a favor and follow along here for something completely celloistically different.


A Winter's Tale

A brief story written in Hay(na)ku

Inspired by the writings of Luke Prater

Had
A job.
Didn't like it.

Had
A wife.
Couldn't keep her.

Had
Kids too;
Where are they?

I'm
Not sure
Who I am

Come
Sit closer
To the fire.

No
I don't
Eat much anymore.

Yep
I'd sure
Love a drink.

Thanks
Friend that
Was damn good.

Now
I'll just
Curl up here.

Not
Sure if
I'll wake up.

Not
Even sure
If I care.


Sensational Haiku Wednesday

SEARCH

I
I didn't know I was
Looking but then fate stepped in
That's when I found her

II
If a Fairie comes
To our world is she searching
Or is she just lost

III
Why do you look for love
In right and wrong places when
What you want is sex

IV
Why look for sex and
Sometimes even pay for it
When you're seeking love

V
With all these words and
Syllables I am seeking
The perfect Haiku


Join the fun!

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

The Sunday Whirl - Wordle 86

On Tuesday.  As Ford Prefect once said, "Time is an illusion."  Link up here.




This array at first looked to be intractable, so I let it rest for a day.  Late last night I decided to compose a series of haiku with a common first line that illuminates the mythos of my developing story. In the Wikipedia article on Fairies there is a section heading "A Hidden People."  Five syllables and very close to what I needed.  After a little editing this morning, and arranging into what I think is the proper sequence, here they are.


The hidden people
Live in a magical space
Not so far from us.

The hidden people
Might coast overhead on their
Diaphanous Wings.

The hidden people
Have never forged steel weapons
Just obsidian.

The hidden people
Prefer bland climate; coats fit
Poorly over wings.

The hidden people
Know magic is old hat and
Weave spells from spirits.

The hidden people
Display the entire spectrum
Of green in their eyes.

The hidden people
Have innate eroticism;
They don't mate for life.

The hidden people
Will be relentless when they
Don't know what they seek.

The hidden people
seem delicate but can have
Power over us.

The hidden people,
Not fecund, tap into our
rampant fertility.

The hidden people
Can rejuvenate us with
The power of love

The hidden people
Suffer from stress and whither



Monday, December 10, 2012

100 WCGU #68

This week's prompt is a sentence fragment: ….they worked when I put them away….

Here, in exactly 100 words, is a follow up to Uncle Albert's Desk.

I wanted to explore the desk further, but had no unused words.


Weird Cubby Holes

Marci decided that such a bulky piece of furniture needed to do more than just take up space.  The cubby holes behind the roll top were perfect for storing her transistor radio, tape player, and the watch Rob gave her.

Later, she replaced the batteries in the radio and tape player, but neither ever ran again.  She took the watch to a repair shop and paid more than the original purchase price for a new mechanism.  But afterward it always ran unpredictably either fast or slow.

“It’s weird,” she told her friend Amy, “they worked when I put them away.”


~  ~  ~  ~  ~

Reduced to a Haiku 

Why did that old desk
Cast aberrations on those
Mechanical things?

~  ~  ~  ~  ~

As a six word story

What
Secrets does
That desk hold?

~  ~  ~  ~  ~



Marci's thread