Score

http://www.paperdarts.org/flashes/

Paper Darts Writing Contest...Not too Late

Just wanted to let my few blog followers know about a writing contest I enter occassionally over at Paper Darts Magazine's Facebook page. They provide a prompt and conestants submit an entry up to 1000 characters on the page's wall.

This time the prompt is to write an obit for an inanimate object. Those who know me well could see the wheels clunking in my brain. Yes, I wrote about killing a beer.

There is still time to vote on my or any of the other entries. The voting stops at 11:59 p.m. CST today, Feb. 4, so head on over now. Here's what you need to do to vote:

1. Go to the magazine's Facebook page: http://tiny.cc/ZJGZL .
2. Become a fan of the page (required to vote).
3. Scroll down the page's wall and read the entries.
4. Vote at will.
5. Mine is entitled "Local Beer Killed", and is located about halfway down the page.

Thanks for your consideration. I hope you find it enjoyable. More next week.

Best,
m.

New, Leafy Vignette Published at Paper Darts

Newish local literary magazine.

http://www.paperdarts.org/fiction/

New Year. New Energy. New Focus.

Truth: I had meant to write a long piece here on January 1 on my new sense of direction, of energy. I blinked and January is gone. I see. That's how it is going to be. Okay, I'll just have to pay closer attention.

I will not bore you with the activities of the previous year. Suffice it to say that ducks were aligned, energies stoked and stored away. Muscles stretched and warmed appropriately.

This year is the important thing, is the year of doing. I have plans and am taking steps to make these plans come to fruition. No excuses. No fear. One of these plans is to maintain this venue of writing more committedly. I write by hand nearly every day, however, so little finds its way here. I want to share my thoughts and creative works with you, and I need to show it.

Starting today, I will update this journal every week with new material. Flash fiction, poetry, essay, meandering thoughts. It will all be here. It will be the best illustration of what is going through the errant circuitry upstairs. I will update on publication and on insights. Should I manage to chat with Buddha, I'll pass along his best wishes.

That said, Happy New Year. Let's make this the best one so far.

Happy Holidays, People

http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P37xPiRz1sg

"The Edge of the World"

by Jack Gilbert




I light the lamp and look at my watch.
Four-thirty. Tap out my shoes
because of the scorpions, and go out
into the field. Such a sweet night.
No moon, but urgent stars. Go back inside
and make hot chocolate on my butane burner.
I search around with the radio through
the skirl of the Levant. "Tea for Two"
in German. Finally, Cleveland playing
the Rams in the rain. It makes me feel
acutely here and everybody somewhere else.

The Work of Snow

Maybe it's the snow. Maybe it is because the snow, more than any recollection, reminds me of the solitude of my childhood. When school and home were too overwhelming for my delicate sensibilities, I would retreat into the woods behind our house, and I would sit on a hill beside the stream. I imagined myself a monk, I suppose, communing with nature. It was calming to be in the presence of something that did not want. As if this cloister were not peaceful enough, there was winter. The snow did there what it does up here. It mutes the insect buzz of the world. It forces you not to listen, but to watch. Watch the water flow beneath the ice ten feet below. Watch the bird alight on a branch, shaking free a puff of snow. Once you get seeing down, only then can you start to listen. Align yourself with the stillness and you will hear what is not to be heard. That secret water sounds like whispering. That snow likes to mimic the wind through hollow oak. All of this built in me a foundation of stillness that helped me through it all. It sharpened the senses we don't think much about. However, sensitivity has its cons. I haven't harmonized with that environment for over twenty five years, and yet I still often find myself overwhelmed by even the most simple of urban life. It is unsettling to think I trained myself out of being functional in the world.

So the snow is here, and there's more on the way. It knows its work. It stands for an elusive stillness. It recalls troubled times. It is the nagging reminder that I have always felt ill-prepared for what I entered the day I left it all behind.