In The Garden Living an RPG Life

Stripes of rain

make empty

streets cozy;

drench trees so

they bow and

tickle snails;

make puddles

and me a

rain dancer.

When I was writing on Huna Trainer regularly, a few of us started writing three-word comments.  It was so much fun that I decided (as a good logarrheatician would) that the three words could be cubed into three lines of three words each.  Well, today I thought I was doing the original “cubes” but realized I was focused on syllables instead.  And then I realized that three sets of nine syllables made an American Sentence.  So, you can read it either way:  As three cubes or as one American Sentence.

Breathing in

breathing out…

the top of my head expands under

the hedge of my hair

the soles of my feet tingle.

Breathing in

breathing out…

chest expands

thoughts contract

into breathing alone.

Breathing in

breathing out…

looming clouds enter

leaves dripping rain move through

wet streets emerge.

Breathing in

breathing out….

stars on one horizon

stars on the other horizon

bones in between.

Breathing in

breathing out…

stars inhaled into bones

bone songs vibrate being

stars exhaled into bones.

Breathing in

breathing out…

stars inhaled into bones

bone songs vibrate being

stars exhaled into bones.

Breathing in

breathing out….

stars inhaled

bones vibrate

stars exhaled.

Breathing in

breathing out….

being vibrates

bones sing

being vibrates.

Breathing in

breathing out…

the wave expands

the bones sing

the wave vibrates.

Breathing in

breathing out…

the wave

the bones

the song.

Breathing in

breathing out…

the song

the wave

the song.

Breathing in

breathing out…

the wave.

Breathing in

breathing out…

being.

Breathing in

breathing out…

the song.

Breathing

in

breathing

out…

Breathing…

I wrote this after a Huna Healing class in Second Life.  Lots of breathing, of course, and also a huge insight.  It’s the Wave again.  It was the Wave in Aikido that brought me first to take classes in electronics.  I didn’t quite understand what the point was.  As it turned out, I got to finish some things I didn’t believe I could even start: my FCC Radiotelephone License and my Amateur Radio License to be specific.  Childhood dreams I didn’t think even belonged to me.

So now that I have them, what next?  That was my question till now.  More wave stuff evidently.  Yes, I used my understanding of communication electronics to build an analogy for interpersonal communication effects, but that seemed really obvious. I was talking to fellow travellers on the Huna Training podcasts, and we mostly knew all that from Serge King’s Urban Shaman.

It was the idea of the breath activating the Wave that was new today.  And from that point, the universe of my novels took a whole and enormous step deeper.  I was so focused on justifying the effects in the world through physics that I didn’t see the truth of things:  It’s the Wave.  Listening to Martha Beck helped me put the few things together.  Again, a confluence of Huna (as shamanism) and Aikido and the Wave of the Dreaming.  That’s all I can say for now since I still haven’t got it all put together myself yet.  Maybe by this year’s NaNoWriMo, it will make sense to me.

Green rain drips

from branches

from rooflines

from grey skies

into sun-warmed streets I’m not walking on.

Tonight there is a news story about the finding of a small girl who has been missing for a while.  When I heard the news story earlier today, I knew that the suitcase found contained the body of the girl.  It is not a good feeling to have this image in my heart.  I do not know how to process this event into a reality that requires the pursuit of happiness as a measure of the quality of ones life.  How is her full life the pursuit of her own happiness?  Who is happy now?  She was eight years old.

I don’t often allow my heart to be swept away by the emotions of outside events.   This intent to write poetry, to allow my feelings to drive the quality of my life, to determine what my attention is focused on, has created a difficult dilemma.  Do I commit to the feeling?  Or do I succumb to the media and the community?  These are concepts that I do not usuially consider when I write, when I focus on a topic.  What happens now?

It is dark here

A body found

A small girl trapped in a suitcase.

What travelling has she

agreed to?

adventured to?

It is not for me to give her life a story.

When we hear the story

of happiness and judge

that we are not choosing this path

what other choices do we have?

The villian chooses control.

The hero chooses fearlessness.

What does a child choose?

(For Roachie - Mae V. Cowdery)

A brown aesthete writhes under the glareof historical texts.

No Poe.  No Keats.  No Cullen or du Bois.

Only soaring into paths not travelled across galaxies

Light years to go before sleep

What did it matter that Death kept its eyes on my skin

its hands on my heart.

You had gone first.

I was an unknown shadow on your horizon.

Only now do our separate events approach each other.

Startled by a comma,

a sudden intake of breath

becomes a public endeavor

to explain the presence

of god in the voice.

It’s ridiculous to think

that writing is hard work.

After all, there is nothing

one can do but put down

neural nets and

chemical pulses across

gaps of memory.

Nothing to it.

Cutting through the strings

hearts untwine.

Alone, we are not ourselves anymore.

Wrapping up the book

pages unfurl.

Bound, our stories tell themselves.

My niece is participating in National Poetry Writing Month, an event sponsored by Poets.org and the Academy of American Poets.  Seems like a good plan to get me back into gear.  I’ve had some interesting revelations in the last week that have left me needing a mental rest.  Perhaps this is the way to go.

It’s not like I don’t have other writing to do, though.  Have an assignment for my technical writing class that I only have general notes for and it’s due on Sunday.  I’ve left things till the last all semester long, so I don’t see why I should rush and get things done, what–early? On time?  Who is to say when that really is?

No, not justifying my writing behavior.  Just wondering where in the timestream I am sailing.  ReadWritePoem.org is pledging to provide prompts for the month’s activities.  I’m liking the first one which requires using terms from different disciplines.  This could be the extra push I need to even think about the paper: a technical description of a transistor.  Part of my block is that I am not naturally that linear.  I don’t usually even think of things completely, relying instead on general impressions.  When I do focus, I find myself using metaphor as a kind of placeholder for the reality.

Even considering doing this project, I realize that this could be just what I need.  Dual focus. It’s what English teachers suggest to help one through reading texts: double entry.  On one side of the page you write notes from the text.  On the other side of the page you write whatever occurs to you.  The idea is that both streams come together in a final understanding of the piece.

Poem 1
Taking down the apples,

leaves pressed against palms

scented blanket of season’s memories.

Her softly dried skin held that scent,

that touch,

that sun dappled pressing of palms against bodies.