Wordzzle 102 - The mountains and the road

This is my contribution to this week's Wordzzle. Wordzzle is a game in which each week word lists, used to create stories, are given on the blog Views from Raven's Nest. Participating users post their stories on their own blogs.

This is my entry number 46, for Wordzzle week 102.


Ten Word Challenge:

sugar daddy,
page,
Copernicus,
liquid,
craggy,
trapezoid,
milquetoast,
blizzard,
food cream,
dental problems

The milquetoast ate a Sugar Daddy
And turned another page
Would craggy curves and trapezoids
Become all the rage?

Was Copernicus a good guy
Or a villain in his day?
With history's revisions
Will nothing ever stay?

Numbers fell in blizzards
And as liquids ran away
Is food cream the answer
Or just a step along the way?

Would dental problems be included?
He really couldn't say
So much still to study
And the test would be today!


Mini Challenge:

Hersey kisses,
pregnant,
scarring,
cadet,
grist mill

Grist for the grist mill
They stand at attention, then march along
Cadets without number
Though I suppose a number is recorded somewhere

I sit here, watching them on TV, eating Hersey kisses
Too many can make you look pregnant
But I'm not female, and never wanted to be a cadet anyway
And it hides the scarring of the mind


Mega challenge:

sugar daddy,
page,
Copernicus,
liquid,
craggy,
trapezoid,
milquetoast,
blizzard,
food cream,
dental problems

Hersey kisses,
pregnant,
scarring,
cadet,
grist mill

The land lay like liquid food cream
Under a strangely empty sky
The road disappears into a point
That I must travel by

Craggy mountains in the distance
blurring into haze
Took forever to come closer
Though I traveled all the day

Sodas caused dental problems
Or so the dentist said
So Sugar Daddies and Hersey kisses
Were what I had instead

Problems without answers
Occupied my mind
Pondering the mysteries
Finding what I'd find

Should milquetoasts be beaten into cadets
To make the world go round?
And would the world stop spinning
If no more cadets were found?

Should blizzards fall in summer
To cool the hottest days?
And if they did would we complain
And wish for the sun's rays?

If Copernicus looked through his telescope
And found scarring on the lens
Would he give up and walk away
Or start over again?

Pregnant pauses proliferate
And bring forth what they bring
But sometimes what they deliver
Is not much of anything

The grist mill grinds so slowly
And grinds so very fine
The particles like dust all float
And clutter up the mind

Pages dance and flutter in the wind
And decorate the day
Recording all that man has said
And all he couldn't say

Through trapezoidal glasses
The world looks clear again
It seems to keep on spinning
Without going round the bend

The mountains stand before me now
And seem to fill the sky
The road still disappears
And its end I cannot spy

No road leads up the mountains
None that I can see
There seems no way for me to cross
To get where I must be

I see the end ahead now
The road turns right for me
And I drive along it
Past where the mountains be

The mountains gradually lessen
And behind me all recede
And I go on without them
To the place where I must be

Wordzzle 101 - Dr. John

This is my contribution to this week's Wordzzle. Wordzzle is a game in which each week word lists, used to create stories, are given on the blog Views from Raven's Nest. Participating users post their stories on their own blogs.

This is my entry number 45, for Wordzzle week 101.

Dr. John Linna, a mostly retired minister I believe, was a major Wordzzle player. He recently passed away, and the words in the Mini Challenge word list refer to him and his creations. He maintained several blogs, including Dr. John's Fortress, Dr. John's Word Play, Pigeon Falls, the Dragon's Lair (Fandango), and others. When I started playing he had a picture of an odd looking superhero, with a mohawk haircut, as his icon. He later changed it for a while to a dim picture of his face, and then changed it to a colorful ink drawing of a knight on horseback, heading at an angle toward the viewer. The superhero and knight references in the poems refer to those icons.


Ten Word Challenge:

smoothness,
crafty,
purchase,
brief,
chirping,
forever,
shift,
moonrise,
lampshade,
stereotype

Caught within the moonlight
The crafty creeping thing
Stepped into a lampshade
And could not step out again

Chirping in frustration
It struggled all in vain
The lampshade would not let it go
To be as it had been

It had to purchase the lampshade
That would not let it be
And they walked out together
Unstereotypically

Though not the normal couple
No brief affair had they
Locked in an allegiance
They continued on their way

They went that way forever
Or so it sometimes seems
With a shifty lack of smoothness
As a lampshade sometimes brings

After many a moonrise
They can still sometimes be seen
The lampshade and its partner
The crafty creeping thing


Mini Challenge:

remembrance,
Dr. John,
Agent 012,
dragons,
Fortress

The Fortress door hangs open
Its superhero knight has gone
The dragons circle sadly
Left now on their own

A town in a basement
Where the trains once ran on time
Has an interruption in its schedule
Over which it's hard to climb

To Agent 012's list of bad days
Add another one
One that will be especially
Hard to overcome

Words spoken in remembrance
Of the superhero knight now gone
The great Internet tale spinner
The mighty Dr. John


Mega challenge:

smoothness,
crafty,
purchase,
brief,
chirping,
forever,
shift,
moonrise,
lampshade,
stereotype

remembrance,
Dr. John,
Agent 012,
dragons,
Fortress

Stories of crafty smoothness
Or poems or anything
Long or brief or in between
Were things his thoughts did bring

He had a mighty Fortress
That overlooked everything
And from it his creations
From his mind did spring

A knight that laughs a lot
And a tiny town and train
And old and obscure words
Were written once again

Agent 012's adventures
And the Fandango dragon colony
And words that came from pictures
Created stories seamlessly

But a shift has somehow happened
Forever was cut in twain
Dr. John has left us
This is in remembrance of him

Perhaps somewhere a ticket
Is purchased for a tiny train
Perhaps somewhere Agent 012
Looks out from behind a lampshade

Perhaps somewhere dragons fly
Past a swift moonrise
Awakening the chirping birds
But unbothered by frog spies

Unstereotypical moments
Continue on with ease
With story after story
And it will never ever cease

Wordzzle 99 - The tower

This is my contribution to this week's Wordzzle. Wordzzle is a game in which each week word lists, used to create stories, are given on the blog Views from Raven's Nest. Participating users post their stories on their own blogs.

This is my entry number 43, for Wordzzle week 99.


Ten Word Challenge:

thermometer,
Pandora,
vivid,
langourous,
Saturday,
pancreas,
apple dumplings,
watch tower,
lichen,
sparrow

All along the watch tower
the apple dumplings watched.
Lichen covered sparrows
washed up upon the rocks.

Seven painful pancreases
waited to cross a road.
If they ever made it
still has not been told.

The thermometer was steady,
in an unsteady sort of way.
The sudden chills and heat spells
evened out they say.

Long languorous Saturdays
marched by everyday at noon.
Pandora opened up her box
and began to play a tune.

Vivid scenes aplenty,
remembered for a while.
Now it's time to go to sleep,
so good night my child.


Mini Challenge:

rigid,
spiritual,
ribbon,
web cam,
vitamins

The web cam saw the tree in the forest fall, but it had no microphone to record any sound that was made.

It wasn't lack of vitamins that had killed it.

Some vines had wrapped around the tree like ribbons, squeezing its rigid trunk, choking it.

It lay there now, dividing the forest floor into before and after.

To those near or on the tree as it fell, the results were physical and sometimes even traumatic.

To distant watchers on the Internet, it sometimes had a more spiritual component.

The web cam itself made no judgments, but merely watched.


Mega challenge:

thermometer,
Pandora,
vivid,
langourous,
Saturday,
pancreas,
apple dumplings,
watch tower,
lichen,
sparrow

rigid,
spiritual,
ribbon,
web cam,
vitamins

In the middle of a barren plain
a lonely watch tower stood.
From its heights a watcher watched
was he up to any good?

He had no web cam to help him out,
or assistants of any kind,
and his days were all spent watching,
usually well into the night.

Occasionally he'd see travelers
passing through from there to there.
Often they'd be merchants
on the way to sell their wares.

Sometimes people would stop by
and he'd hear tales of other places.
And sometimes he would buy some things
but not in all cases.

He also had a garden,
and a well that was drilled deep,
and a small grove of trees
with fruits and nuts to eat.

There was also a stand of windmills
to supply electricity,
and a small pond nearby
to attract ducks and geese.

The winds tended to blow briskly
whether it was dark or light.
The thermometer changed swiftly, though,
as day went into night.

In times of plenty he ate well,
with roast duck and vegetables and fruit,
and gravy and biscuits and homemade bread,
and apple dumplings too.

But when food was scarce it might be
sparrow and pancreas pie,
or leaves and bark and insects,
as the days and nights went by.

He watched from his tower
high above the barren plain.
As the days and decades passed
he watched and watched again.

The view was usually vivid,
with little chance of rain,
and usually changed little,
remaining much the same.

Sometimes he felt he was caught in
one of the ills Pandora released,
listless and languorous,
trapped there in defeat.

One day he took a piece of stone
off the tower by a crack,
and threw it out as far as he could,
and the next day it was back.

Most days he felt better,
and was satisfied with life,
and felt full of vitamins,
and his mood was light.

The choice he made so long ago,
almost like a spiritual thing,
he still felt was for the best,
and still made his heart sing.

One day some merchants stopped by,
but were not met at the door.
They found his body in a hallway,
laying on the floor.

They held a small service,
and spoke the words that came,
and fashioned a marker for him,
and buried him in the plain.

As travelers went by the tower,
sometimes stopping to pick fruit,
they swore they felt a presence
and sometimes saw one too.

And sometimes a dark figure
was on the tower high,
watching all the scene below
as in the days gone by.

Some people stayed away,
though others came to see,
but as the years went past
it faded to history.

One Saturday a traveler stopped
and saw the garden overgrown.
The trees were hanging low with fruit,
and the wind blew a mournful tone.

He saw the marker in the plain
and the grave where the body lay,
and he found other markers
marking other graves.

He went over to the tower,
as if he'd heard a call,
and put his hand on the lichen-colored stone
that made up the wall.

His schedule was not so rigid
that he could not stay a while.
There was so much here that he should do
he thought with a smile.

He would clean up the garden,
and eat some fruit from the trees,
and go all through the tower,
and see what he could see.

The days passed as he worked
and ate the vegetables and fruit,
and he often went to the tower top
to take in the view.

He decided to clean the tower too,
and read some journals he had found,
left behind by those who'd come before,
now bodies in the ground.

The days turned into weeks and months
and there was always more to do,
and more and more he was on the tower top
as the wind about him blew.

The dreams of travel faded
as into a routine he grew,
as he became part of just one place
instead of a salesman on his route.

One day he realized a year had passed
and that he was here to stay.
He put some long ribbons on a pole
to celebrate the day.

He put the pole upon the roof
so everyone could see,
and the ribbons flapped along their length
in the constant breeze.

Distant travelers saw the sight
and knew what it meant.
The empty and haunted tower
had a new resident.

In the middle of a barren plain,
a lonely watch tower stands,
and from its lonely windy heights,
a watcher watched again.

Wordzzle 98 - Inside the box

This is my contribution to this week's Wordzzle. Wordzzle is a game in which each week word lists, used to create stories, are given on the blog Views from Raven's Nest. Participating users post their stories on their own blogs.

This is my entry number 42, for Wordzzle week 98.


Ten Word Challenge:

treasure chest,
idiom,
pantry,
crippled,
baying wolf,
wind chill,
time,
angel,
salamander,
laundry list

The crippled angel's laundry list
held many things to do
Things were added everyday
but some were checked off too

A wolf cried out in loneliness
and lack of things to do
And the baying wolf's idiom
across the landscape blew

A squirrel looked in its pantry
at the acorns grown more few
and thought of warmer weather
when food in abundance grew

A salamander sat upon a treasure chest
waiting for the dew
and hoped for better weather
as the wind about it grew

A cow out in a meadow
was disturbed by wind chill too
and dreamed of summer days
as the wind about it blew

As time passed the wind was less
and the earth warmed anew
The wolf rejoined its roving pack
whose members became less few

An owl sitting in a tree
watched and called out "Who"
and the angel crossed items off his list
of many things to do


Mini Challenge:

risque,
radish,
ring tone,
ravishing,
ruler

The ravishing ruler heard a risque ring tone while eating a ripe radish, and reigned down hard on the rogue.


Mega challenge:

treasure chest,
idiom,
pantry,
crippled,
baying wolf,
wind chill,
time,
angel,
salamander,
laundry list

risque,
radish,
ring tone,
ravishing,
ruler

If the treasure chest was opened
what treasures would we see?
Ravishing radishes and ringing ring tones
and radiant rulers three?

Or rash and risque rabble-rousers
talking for a fee?
Or a baying wolf without a mate
a sad sight for to see?

Or salamanders packed in like sardines
for some a special treat?
Or food for empty pantries
if such a thing could be?

Or perhaps a breeze to cause wind chill
when warmth is what you seek?
Or crippled cats without hats
or boots for their tootsies?

Or the missing laundry list
of goals you couldn't reach?
Or a list of obscure idioms
spoken on a beach?

Will good or bad be revealed
when the lid swings free?
Best have an angel by your side
when its time to see.

Posts about posts, Part V

In 2007, 2008 and 2009, I posted collections of posts I made to a message board I visit frequently. This is the fifth collection of these posts.

On that message board, new threads crowd out old ones, old in this case meaning oldest last update. Threads can persist for a long time, however, if they are posted to frequently enough so that they stay comfortably away from the bottom of the list.

I help to keep some of the threads going, by posting to them when it seems that a new post might be needed. On threads about writing or poems, I have sometimes posted poems. Most of these poems refer to posts or posting in some manner, and most of them are short, sometimes very short, though a few are fairly long.

As originally posted they did not have titles, but I have given them titles here. The times shown are in Arizona time (MST), not the time on the message board, which uses Eastern time.


TIME TO WRITE (2)
5:13 AM 12/4/2007

Time to write
If you might



UP WE GO
1:22 AM 1/13/2008

Up we go
Enjoy the show
And if you like it a lot
Post what you've got



HERE I GO
6:56 AM 1/31/2008

Here I go,
Once again,
If this thread is saved,
We all win.



IT MIGHT BE TIME
4:10 AM 4/8/2008

It might be time
To write a post
To prevent a thread
From becoming lost

So a post I write
And place it here
So that this thread
Is not a loss to bear

Threads go by
Some stay, some go
Will this one stay
In time we'll know

Threads go by
And disappear
This stays for now
Please keep it here

The bedtime prayer

This is the prayer my mother taught me to say before going to sleep. The last two lines are different from the more common version. I wasn't even aware of the more common version until late in grade school, or possibly not even until high school.

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
And when I wake another day,
I pray the Lord to guide my way.

The Question

This is a kind of free verse poem/essay, one that's unusual for me because of its political nature. The election, over a year ago now, settled things for a time, but the person the poem alludes to remains in the spotlight.

This poem/essay is dated 2:00 PM, October 23, 2008, Arizona time (MST).


THE QUESTION

I can't see Russia
From my house.

But I have seen
Japanese cars
And eaten
Mexican food.

Is that enough?

Yet more posts about posts

In 2007 and 2008, I posted collections of posts I made to a message board I visit frequently. This is the fourth collection of these posts.

On that message board, new threads crowd out old ones, old in this case meaning oldest last update. Threads can persist for a long time, however, if they are posted to frequently enough so that they stay comfortably away from the bottom of the list.

I help to keep some of the threads going, by posting to them when it seems that a new post might be needed. On threads about writing or poems, I have sometimes posted poems. Most of these poems refer to posts or posting in some manner, and most of them are short, sometimes very short, though a few are fairly long.

As originally posted they did not have titles, but I have given them titles here. The times shown are in Arizona time (MST), not the time on the message board, which uses Eastern time.


PLACE YOUR POEM
2:33 PM 3/25/2007

Place your poem
Within this place
So this thread
Won't be erased



POST YOUR POEMS
3:15 PM 5/15/2007

Post your poems
So that we may know 'ems



GIVE ME SOME WORDS
1:30 PM 9/6/2007

Give me some words
Sane or absurds
Short or long
Story or song
Prose or rhyme
Now's the time



A POST TO FILL
3:15 AM 9/22/2007

I write this down,
A post to fill,
So this thread
Won't be nil.



NOW'S THE TIME
3:35 AM 12/4/2007

Now's the time
To make a post
Whether it be
Least or most



A LITTLE NUDGE
3:36 PM 2/20/2008

There are days
When posts come fast
But those days
Don't seem to last

And so I give
A little nudge
To this thread
To make it budge

Other posts
Are welcome, too
Perhaps a post
will come from you

Make a post
If you can
And give this thread
A helping hand

Line 'Em Up

This is another humorous poem. The numbers in the poem refer to the lines in it, with each number corresponding to the number of the line in the poem. The last two lines are not numbered, though the last one is otherwise referenced.

This poem is dated 12:41 PM, August 28, 2007, Arizona time (MST).


LINE 'EM UP

This is the first line
And here is the second
The third comes next
As the fourth one's beckoned

The fifth went down
And then the sixth
Then the seventh was next
And the eighth forthwith

The ninth went in
Before the tenth did come
The next line's the end
And I'm really bummed

Color Bother

This is another light, good natured poem, this time talking about finding rhymes for colors. I wrote some parts of it fairly easily, as some colors have many possibilities for rhymes. Some other colors, though, required extra thought. Also, although I already knew that the final color listed would not have a rhyme, I thought of a few different ways to handle it before finally deciding on the one shown here.

This poem is dated 6:27 AM, August 27, 2007, Arizona time (MST).


COLOR BOTHER

This charming fellow,
Found a rhyme for yellow.

And one for red,
Popped out of my head.

And one for green,
Came quick and clean.

I found one for blue,
And you can, too.

For the color purple,
Roger Miller used syrple.

But orange has none,
So I ate one.

The Candlestick and Jack's Friend

This is something I came up with not long ago, though I'm not sure now what prompted my thoughts on the matter. It is, of course, a sequel to the "Jack Be Nimble" nursery rhyme, in which he jumped over a candlestick.

This poem is dated 1:59 AM, November 29, 2008, Arizona time (MST).


THE CANDLESTICK AND JACK'S FRIEND

When Jack jumped over
The candlestick,
His friend thought that
Looked really slick,
And said, "I, too,
Can do this trick."

But her overconfidence
Was a little thick,
And she burned both ends,
And called in sick,
And she still can't sit,
But she's one hot chick.

Still more posts about posts

Last March and in the summer of 2007 I posted collections of posts I made to a message board I visit frequently. This is the third collection of these posts.

On that message board, new threads crowd out old ones, old in this case meaning oldest last update. Threads can persist for a long time, however, if they are posted to frequently enough so that they stay comfortably away from the bottom of the list.

I help to keep some of the threads going, by posting to them when it seems that a new post might be needed. On threads about writing or poems, I have sometimes posted poems. Most of these poems refer to posts or posting in some manner, and most of them are short, sometimes very short, though a few are fairly long.

As originally posted they did not have titles, but I have given them titles here. The times shown are in Arizona time (MST), not the time on the message board, which uses Eastern time.


SHORTER THAN MOST?
6:31 PM 1/21/2007

This is a post
That's shorter than most

That's longer than some
With still more to come

But the ending is near
It is right here

.
.
.
.

I lied, I fear
The end's not here

Will it be found?
Is it deep underground?

Is it closer than that?
Is it under my hat?

Is it inside my head?
Is it still to be said?

Will it be seen
When placed on the screen?

Will others then post?
And not just almost?

And the thread will go on
But this post is done



HERE THERE BE POEMS
7:39 AM 8/28/2007

Here there be poems
Sparse and lush
Post yours now
And avoid the rush



WORDS GO DOWN
1:13 AM 3/12/2008

Words go down
The thread goes up
But as time does pass
It begins to drop

'Round and 'round
The circle goes
Keep it running
See that it grows

Add a post
A word or two
Whatever you have
Old or new

Place it here
Don't be too late
Threads can leave
When people wait



POEM OR PROSE
5:51 AM 4/18/2008

Poem or prose
Here it goes



I WROTE THIS LINE
3:16 PM 5/12/2008

I wrote this line
And this one too
I could write more
But this will do

Snakes! - the poem

I first wrote this poem as a post to a thread about humorous invented words and definitions, as a reply to someone who had written a much shorter poem about snakes. Her poem was a general response to posts about snakes, and had a line that could be taken as referencing an earlier post of mine involving Medusa, the mythical figure who had snakes on her head instead of hair. The general point of her poem, given in a humorous way, was that she did not like snakes, though she did not say the word anywhere, always saying "them" instead. At the time the thread was sometimes being used by people to post humorous take-offs on the "Snakes on a Plane" movie, so quite a few posts had snakes in them, though some had versions not involving snakes.

I later changed my poem slightly, in a version not part of that thread, making it have less of a specific response, making it a more general poem about someone not liking snakes. It fits in rather well in my family this way, as my father was chased by a snake long ago and my mother, when she was young, sometimes had the experience of a particular worker on the family farm showing her snakes he had killed while mowing the yard.

In the poem below, the line "Many other places where" originally said "Places have been listed where" in the version in the humor thread, and the line "Places I have not yet given" originally said "But other places were not given".

This final version of the poem is dated 12:11 PM, December 10, 2007. The version in the humor thread was dated 8:55 AM, May 24, 2007, and the Medusa post was dated 7:40 AM, May 23, 2007. All times are Arizona Mountain Standard Time (MST).


The Medusa post:

Snakes on a Brain

What happened when Medusa's "hair" became ingrown.


The final version of the poem:

SNAKES!

Should a snake always be inside its lair,
And not catch a person unaware?

Are there other places they can be,
Where you cannot, will not, see?

Many other places where,
You would not like to find them there?

Places I have not yet given,
Places where they could be livin'?

If one crawled swiftly up the lane,
Would it drive you quite insane?

If they came from out your pockets,
Would your eyes bulge from their sockets?

If one fell from trees into your hair,
Would it give you such a scare?

Would one in the sunshade in your car,
Really give you such a jar?

Would one found upon a pillow,
Make you let out quite a bellow?

So many places snakes might lurk,
Would they all drive you berserk?

Is there a place that I could say,
That would not make you run away?

Or would a snake found anywhere,
Be one more snake than you could bear?

The Dance

Many of the things mentioned in this poem actually happened to me. I haven't seen any sea serpents yet, though. I haven't seen any angels either, at least as far as I know. I do think I have a guardian angel, probably several. Perhaps some day they'll appear more openly and we can have a talk, even if I don't see them dance.

This poem is dated 6:38 AM, August 25, 2007, Arizona time (MST).


THE DANCE

How many angels can dance
On the head of a pin?
Was an argument
No one could win.

How many sea serpents
In the sea?
First depends
On whether sea serpents be.

How many flying saucers
In the skies?
How to tell
The truth from lies?

Would something that goes bump
Within the night,
Still go bump
In the broad daylight?

I have seen something
In the sky,
I have not seen since,
Though the days go by.

My name was called
By no one there,
Though I came when called
And looked everywhere.

Things that might have gone wrong,
Somehow went right.
In darkness trapped,
I saw with more than sight.

Helped somehow
by things unseen,
Who knew just when
To intervene.

So much out there
we do not see,
How can we say
it cannot be.

Could angels dance upon a pin,
Singing merrily all night long?
Would we all be welcomed there,
If we weren't a stranger to their song?

Or do we need to see
What can't be seen,
To join the dance
Where the angels sing?

Below the Stars

I originally published this poem on a message board, as is the case with many, though not all, of my poems. The poem seems to indicate that I might have needed to think of happier memories at the time. Perhaps the message board also needed to. It did seem to be a time of troubles on it.

This poem is dated 9:14 AM, April 19, 2007, Arizona time (MST).


BELOW THE STARS

Below the stars
Beneath the sky
The Earth still turns
The days go by

Time moves along
Upon its way
Though we cry out
It does not stay

Memories we have
Of things that were
Of times long past
That are no more

Some memories stay
And some may go
Some are happy
And some bring woe

Happy memories
Are generally best
The ones that are bad
Can cause regret

So even if just
For a little while
Let's make memories
That make us smile

The Post Unlaced

This is another poem that was originally posted to a message board, to a thread about poems. While it was posted to keep the thread going, it is one of the better poems I have written for such a purpose.

This poem is dated 4:49 PM, December 17, 2006, Arizona time (MST).


THE POST UNLACED

At this time
With some haste
I leave this post
All unlaced

With lines askew
And reason frayed
It fell from
The bed it made

Perhaps another day
Will come
With other posts
That are more fun

This day I leave
This post for you
All unlaced
but spirit true

This is This

This poem is something that came to me, for the most part, fairly quickly. I did take some extra time on the last half of it, enlarging it to four verses instead of three and making the third verse follow the pattern of the second verse. I posted it to a message board shortly after writing it. Though the poem might be taken to have a bit of an edge to it, it was mostly done in humor. I think.

This poem is dated 1:33 AM, June 10, 2008, Arizona time (MST).


THIS IS THIS

This is this
And that is that
Where I am
Is where I'm at

Where I go
Is where I'll be
If you're there
Then me you'll see

Where I went
Is where I was
If I'm still there
I haven't budged

What I do
Is what I does
And I wrote this
Just because

In 2012

The 2012 in the poem refers to the date that the Mayan calendar ends, generally said to be December 21, 2012. That marks the end of the calendar and the end of the age, after which the calendar restarts and a new age begins. Some say that the end of the old age and the beginning of the new one will be a time of trouble, with many changes happening. Predictions of the future are frequently in error, though. We'll know in a few more years, one way or the other.

This poem is dated 3:02 AM, February 6, 2007, Arizona time (MST).


IN 2012

In 2012
The world will end
In 2012
The world began

And the world begins
With each new day
And sets us all
Upon our way

Will the world ever end
And not begin?
We will know
When we get there then

Message Madness, or The Post That Wailed

The post in the poem is, of course, a message board post. I originally wrote this poem for a message board I frequently visit, for a thread for users' poems. The message board had recently, at the time, been going through some troubles, but this poem does not refer to any specific post by me or anyone else. Like most of my other poems, it did not originally have a title, but has since been given one. This poem is dated 12:59 AM, 7/20/2007, Arizona time (MST).


I shot a post into the air,
It fell to Earth and quivered there,
And gave a wild uncertain shout,
And madly madly ran about.

And hid within the debris field,
And cowardly refused to yield,
And let no others have their say,
And even kept the dogs at bay.

I let out one of many sighs,
As it watched back through narrowed eyes.
With its eyes so burning hot,
Watching me though I watched not.

I finally went upon my way,
Letting it decide to go or stay.
Left it lonely sitting there,
I could not say without a care.

I've heard it's still occasionally seen,
Among the debris it hides within.
I saw it there again today,
I guess some posts are just that way.

More posts about posts

Last summer I posted a collection of posts I made to a message board I visit frequently. This is another collection of those posts.

On that message board, new threads crowd out old ones, old in this case meaning oldest last update. Threads can persist for a long time, however, if they are posted to frequently enough so that they stay comfortably away from the bottom of the list.

I help to keep some of the threads going, by posting to them when it seems that a new post might be needed. On threads about writing or poems, I have sometimes posted poems. Most of these poems refer to posts or posting in some manner, and most of them are short, sometimes very short, though a few are fairly long.

This is another collection of some of the poems. They did not originally have titles, but I have given them titles here. The times shown are in Arizona time (MST), not the time on the message board, which uses Eastern time.


I LEAVE THIS POST
5:04 PM 6/10/2006

Around the world,
Across the way,
The sun has made,
Another day.

Within this time,
Within this place,
Within this now,
That we have made.

I leave this post,
For all to see,
Containing these...
My words for thee.



TOO LATE THE POST
12:54 PM 6/28/2006

Too late the post,
And like most,
This thread will disappear.

So do your part,
Straight from the heart,
And place your post right here.



I POSTED A POST
2:04 AM 10/6/2006

I posted a post
Worse than most
Better than some
Much better than none

The post revives
And brings new highs
And for a while
Might bring a smile

If this post won't do
Perhaps one from you
Would be the one
To get it done

And in this way
The thread might stay
And not be a ghost
For want of a post



IN THE RACE
6:55 PM 12/7/2006

I put this post
Upon this place
So that this thread
Stays in the race

So that it lives
Another day
And so more posts
Might find their way

Perhaps a post
From you will come
Posts are needed
As a race is run

Some threads win
And some must go
Let this thread stay
Let the words flow

As time moves on
Let this thread rise
And be a delight
To everyone's eyes

Let posters post
And viewers watch
And be inspired
And ideas hatch

So that this thread
Should never die
And in old age
Be forever spry

I put this post
Upon this place
Let your post come
Come join the race



TIME FOR MORE
12:19 PM 2/26/2007

Time for more
That's for sure
For thoughts in rhyme
Now's the time

Put them here
Have no fear
Do not stall
We welcome all



TIME TO WRITE
11:49 PM 3/22/2007

Heavy or light
Time to write



PUT DOWN A WORD
1:40 AM 8/3/2007

Put down a word
Put down a line
Make a story
Or make a rhyme

Something you know
Or something you feel
Or somewhere you've been
Whether dream or real

Write it here
Don't wait too long
Without new posts
This thread is gone

Write a word
A line, a song
Do your part
Keep this thread young



JUST STOPPING BY
12:38 PM 8/14/2007

Just stopping by
To bring this thread high
To say hello
And make it grow

And as everyone knows
Up it goes
From down below
To the top of the row

I bumped this thread
To keep it fed
And make it high
While stopping by