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About This Author
My name is Joy, and I love to write.
Why poetry, here? Because poetry uplifts its writer, and if she is lucky enough, her readers, too. Around us, so many objects abound to write about. Once a poet starts with a smallest, most trivial object, he shall discover that his pen will spill out what is most delicate or most majestic hidden inside him. Since the classics sometimes dealt with lofty subjects with a lofty language, a person with poetry in his soul may incline to emulate that. That is understandable. Poetry does that to a person: it enlarges the soul and gives it wings. Yet, to really soar, a poet needs to take off from the ground.
 
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Everyday Canvas
"Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself."
CHARLIE CHAPLIN
Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn
anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.
David Whyte
This is my supplementary blog in which I will post entries written for prompts.
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Walt Whitman was born on 31st of May, 1819 and lived a good part of his life in Huntington, Long Island, NY within 20 miles of where I used to live. During his later years, he moved to Camden, NJ. Both towns have memorialized his existence by turning his houses into museums. He was a poet, essayist and journalist, and he also volunteered as a nurse during the Civil War.
Walt Whitman has a very unique style, an American style to be exact, as he used common people as his subjects. For this reason he is referred to as the “poet of democracy.”
You can download his work from Bartleby.com or from the Gutenberg Foundation for free.
Most of his poems are long and come in parts. My favorite is Carol of Words, but it is too long to put in here. Instead, here’s a short one titled Miracles.
MIRACLES
Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me, I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with anyone I love, or sleep in the bed at night with anyone I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;
These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.
To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.
To me the sea is a continual miracle,
The fishes that swim--the rocks--the motion of the waves--the ships with the men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?
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Prompt: Everyone at one point in their life has a difficult conversations, some go well - some not so well. Think about a conversation you've had that you really wish you could have a do over? Tell us about it what you would do different?
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I really don’t want to do-over anything because I acted the way acted and spoke the way I spoke then, according to my level of maturity and knowledge at the time. I general I don’t believe in regrets unless one has committed a crime or hurt someone badly or if the regret or rather looking back will help prevent future misses in relationships. Causing hurt to another person is the worst outcome of a difficult conversation.
Having said that, didn’t I hurt anyone at all? Surely, I did, but it always was because of their own obsessions with me or because of a circumstance about me. Whatever I did or said in the past wasn’t with malice at all, but it might have been through my own hurt or through the effort of trying to get myself out of a sticky situation. My worst problem with some of those instances was getting emotional. Getting emotional messes up everything in any conversation and makes the mind lose its course of action. Even then, I am not so unhappy about the way I handled things.
There are a couple of instances, however, when I wish I hadn’t bothered to talk at all because it wasn’t worth it. That conversation wouldn’t have changed anything in my circumstances and it wouldn’t change any stubborn minds, and it didn’t. Sometimes, it is better to just walk away from a sticky situation, and not tell it “as it is” to people who are mulish. They won’t get you anyway.
Difficult conversations are scary because the cost of failure raises the defenses on both sides, especially when the stakes are high, as in work situations. Delivering bad news to employees in case of a demotion or firing has to be the worst, but even then, the stress out of such a stressful conversation can be taken out by choosing the right words and not forgetting the humanity of the person one is talking to.
Yet, choosing the right words every time, especially in an argument, is not for the weak of heart. Which one of us hasn’t hit himself or herself on the head afterwards and said, “I should have said this or answered this way”? Arguments, however, rarely qualify for being difficult conversations, as such a conversation has to be held in a calm and sincere manner with the intention of informing the other party.
I think a difficult conversation can be handled best by discussing what matters the most, and not expressing other things tangentially. In addition, a calm demeanor and voice and carefully chosen words should help. Still, this is not so easy to do all the time. Sometimes we’re caught unawares in the most difficult positions when we have to have that fearful conversation. In that case, we have to do our best and not look back with regret at whatever happens. Knowing we did our best is our consolation prize.
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Prompt: What do you think is necessary to turn your blog into a published book? Do you need to base your blog on one topic or theme? Or have random entries like we do with here in the group? Do you think we will see blogs published as books in the future?
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Publishing a blog was never my intention. With my first blog, I was keeping to the topic of writing and literature in general. When I began blogging with Blog City, that idea went down the drain, since the themes and the focus of the prompts were all over the place. So I put up this second blog item for from-prompt-blogging.
Truth is, I love the prompts. Because of them I am writing every day and finding this practice very easy because writing in my blog takes fifteen minutes, more or less. Sometimes, I edit a comma, a double-written word, or something like that, but that’s all. This is the ideal writing regimen for me, since I absolutely hate revisions, and I can even write into the blog in between the other real-life things I am doing.
As to blogs getting published as books, it is already being done all over the net. Some people write their novels in blogs. If I were to have a goal or vocation oriented blog outside of WdC, chances are I would stick to one subject. That is the advice given for establishing and keeping followers.
Yet, my blogs are for me, for WdC, and whoever wishes to look at them from the outside, and I am quite happy with the status quo because I can experiment with my voice and subject matter as much as I like. I think, blogging this way is the ideal form of keeping up with my writing no matter what else happens in my other real or writing life, and I suspect this also works for other bloggers here in Blog City.
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Prompt: "A person who has not done one half a day's work by ten o'clock runs a chance of leaving the other half undone." Emily Brontë
Do you agree?
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Hahaha! Dear Emily hasn’t lived in our time, let alone my life or in my house.
Of course, the other half is undone, all the time, and on purpose, too. For one thing, the to-do lists I make for myself are never do-able. I still make those lists with the hope that at least part of them will be done. Otherwise, without those lists, I’d stand in the middle of my house or my driveway wondering what to do next with that glut of stuff waiting for me.
I bet Emily never wrote one list down; while her servants did her dirty work, she was busy writing Wuthering Heights, her magnum opus best-seller for centuries to come. Oh well, to each her own…
So that dear Emily is not put off as the result of my words, here is a poem by her, and surprise, surprise, it starts with a house.
The Visionary
By Emily Brontë (1819–1848)
Silent is the house: all are laid asleep:
One alone looks out o'er the snow-wreaths deep,
Watching every cloud, dreading every breeze
That whirls the wildering drift, and bends the groaning trees.
Cheerful is the hearth, soft the matted floor;
Not one shivering gust creeps through pane or door;
The little lamp burns straight, its rays shoot strong and far:
I trim it well, to be the wanderer's guiding-star.
Frown, my haughty sire! chide, my angry dame!
Set your slaves to spy; threaten me with shame:
But neither sire nor dame, nor prying serf shall know,
What angel nightly tracks that waste of frozen snow.
What I love shall come like visitant of air,
Safe in secret power from lurking human snare;
What loves me, no word of mine shall e'er betray,
Though for faith unstained my life must forfeit pay
Burn, then, little lamp; glimmer straight and clear—
Hush! a rustling wing stirs, methinks, the air:
He for whom I wait, thus ever comes to me;
Strange Power! I trust thy might; trust thou my constancy.
-- Note: the final two verses were written by Charlotte
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Prompt: It is a dark night and you see a white glowing angel. What do you think it means?
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Seeing a white glowing angel in a dark night? Whatever it means is secondary. First is the fact that it scares me. It scares me for having lost my mind. If not, it scares me that angels have gone berserk and have decided to invade the earth. Now what would we writers do if they were to get rid of all those things that escaped from Pandora’s box? We’d have to write without any conflict. Can you imagine any one of our magnum opuses (or is it magnum opii) without conflict?
Not to mention, I can’t look at any too bright stuff, let alone a white glowing angel. Why do you think I keep putting eyedrops into my eyes several times a day? True, my ophthalmologist makes me do that, but with a good reason, even if I may doubt any doctor’s reasoning.
Come to think of it, all doctors think they are white glowing angels. That is why, they think, our waiting so long in their waiting rooms is justified, which explains the fact that I am seeing enough of this type of white glowing angels in daytime. Then, if I saw one in the dark of the night, too, you’d understand why I would think I have flipped.
So to any white glowing angels of any kind out there, day or night, please do stay away from me as much as possible. Whatever I do or my body comes up with that needs correction will eventually correct itself. Even if it doesn’t, you won't be wasting my time and you'll be saving yourselves work. Now, what's better than that!
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Prompt: Some people apologize for everything, whether an apology is needed or not. When and under which conditions, do you think, an apology should be necessary?
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Where we need to apologize is simply where an apology is necessary: That is, where and when we know we have been wrong and have wronged or harmed someone or something such as an institution. If we keep apologizing, yet keep doing the same thing, that apology is a sham. It is also baseless to use an apology to fortify an excuse or an alibi. As Benjamin Franklin said, “Never ruin an apology with an excuse.”
An apology is a serious thing and it shouldn’t be taken lightly. I know someone who starts her objections with a, “Excuse me but…” whenever she disagrees with a certain notion. It is a useless way of using speech, same as saying “you know” with each statement. Why should anyone apologize for her or his difference of opinion? Wouldn’t just saying, “I think differently,” "I disagree," or "In my opinion..." be enough?
In the same category are the expressions used by people who need to explain and justify every decision and action they take. Although they are excuses and not direct apologies and at times they may be necessary, more often than not, they just waste the explainer’s energy. I am talking about expressions such as:
“What I was trying to do was…”
“You have me wrong; what I meant was…”
“What I wanted to really say…”
Then, where should we not apologize? First and the simplest answer is: When we are not sorry, and for what is the truth. Truth of us and for what we believe in. We don’t need to apologize for our feelings, dreams, lifestyle, the way we live, our appearance, our religious, sexual, or political preferences, our relationships, and all our values and purposes; in short, for our personal choices and priorities.
On the other hand, a heartfelt apology can help repair any relationship or wrongdoing; although the machos like John Wayne may say in a movie, “Never apologize, mister, it’s a sign of weakness.” Just when anyone is so great, important, and proud that they can’t offer a humble and sincere apology to someone they have hurt?
An apology should be based on the truth that it carries with it, and I believe, most of the time, a sincere apology shows an impeccable character in a highly evolved human being.
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Prompt: “A gull on an invisible wire attached through space dragged. You carry the symbol of your frustration into eternity.”
William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury
If you were to design a symbol for your greatest frustration, what would it feel or look like?
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Most of my frustrations happen when I get impatient with my own behavior or at my failure of action for something that had to be done, which I didn’t do. At that point, I feel like I have lightning flashing through my very own teeth zapping all the lights around to leave me alone and helpless in the dark. When this happens, my first reaction is to run away from it all, but now the rage at my flight behavior has turned inward, amplifying my frustration.
Frustration occurs when I am unable to reach my goals, usually as the result of my ambitions exceeding my abilities or sometimes as the result of external barriers in my way, such as getting stuck in a traffic jam while trying to get to an important meeting.
Frustration brings with it irritation and anger, but if I am careful, I may succeed to take it as a sign to adjust and redirect my goals. In its roundabout way, frustration can help me to cope better with life by forcing me to adjust my behavior and the way I react to external obstacles.
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I received the flollowing info from Daily Tips. I think it will be of interest especially for those of us who keep writing about crypts and such horrors, but not all crypt words should give us the chills.
Cryptid is a bird, an ivory-billed woodpecker; although it is believed to be extinct, it has been sighted as late as 2004 in Arkansas. Thus its extinct status is iffy.
I believe, for those of us who are a bit more imaginative, several stories are hidden in the following words starting with crypt.
These words are from Daily Tips, verbatim:
“Cryptid is of recent coinage, suggested in 1983 by J. E. Wall in a publication of the International Society of Cryptozoology, as a word “to replace sensational and often misleading terms like monster.”
“Cryptozoology may be a pseudoscience, but the word cryptid is a useful addition to the English vocabulary, joining other English words that derive from Greek kryptos, “hidden”:
“-Note: The Google Ngram Viewer shows use of cryptid as early as 1963, but the appearance in the ISC newsletter is most likely the cause of the word’s meteoric rise from 1990 to the present.
“crypt (1583)
An underground cell, chamber, or vault; especially, one used as a burial place and typically lying beneath a church.
“cryptogram (1827)
A piece of cryptographic writing; anything written in code or cipher.
“cryptology (1844)
The science, study, or practice of encrypting and decrypting information.
“cryptonym (1862)
A pseudonym or code name; esp. one given to a spy or to a clandestine operation.
“crypsis (1956) Cryptic coloration or behavior that enables an animal to conceal its presence.
“Cryptozoology (1968)
The study of unknown, legendary, or extinct animals whose existence or survival to the present day is disputed or unsubstantiated.
“Cryptids more sensational than the ivory-billed woodpecker include the following:
Abominable Snowman
Big Foot
chupacabra
Fouke Monster
Kelpie Water horse
Loch Ness monster
Mermaids
Sea serpents
Sewer alligators”
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Prompt: Invent an Opposite: What is the opposite of a kiss? What is the opposite of green? What is the opposite of a train? What is the opposite of cake? What is the opposite of a fence?
Now use both the thing and the newly created opposite in a story or poem? Have fun!
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The wind kissed her cheeks while the waves slapped her toes. Opposites both, working together, making her feel better. She moved with a slight hitch in her left hip, an asymmetry with a troublesome bounce. She was aware of it, so aware now, while she had been blind before, blind to his faults. Another opposite, she thought, being gullible until he had pushed her down the stairs.
Her life had been full of opposites. She didn’t like green anymore, for it was the color of his eyes, but black was a welcome color. Was black the opposite of green? For her, it was, as was bitter lemon opposed to cake. She would never bake a cake again, not for him anyway. She would put a slice of lemon in her own tea, in contrast, as bitter as a lemon slice can get. Maybe jalapeno peppers were the opposite of cake. Who knew! She shrugged. She couldn’t put pepper in her tea? Could she?
Anything was better than being with him now, anything the opposite of what was. She was so involved in thinking about the opposites, she didn’t hear what was happening behind her. When she finally heard him, it was too late.
“Bitch!” His anger was out of control. “You bloody bitch!”
He threw himself at her, bringing her down, both of them crashing into the beach. “You thought I’d never get out to find you. Did you!” He grunted as he tried to fill her mouth with sand.
The choking and the instant terror had made her nerve abandon her. She struggled, realizing she was terrified. What is the opposite of fear? She answered her own thoughts. Courage, confidence, fight back!
Her right hand felt the edge of the water.
She suddenly pushed him off with all her might, rolled from under him, and limping, stood up. He jumped at her, but immediately knelt in pain, blood squirting from his temple. He hadn’t noticed the stone she had in her hand.
She ran…still with the hitch in her left hip.
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Prompt: Write about the "Worst Visitor" who ever darkened your door.
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I never had any “worst visitor” as a house guest, to tell the truth. For me, the worst visitors would be the ones who would badmouth me or anything or anyone around me after all the care and attention I’ve given them. If such a person existed, I didn’t hear anyone telling me about him or her. So I assume my houseguests were all wonderful and decent people
I had, however, a very bad experience about three to four years ago, with vacuum-cleaner salesmen, well not exactly salesmen; they were more or less vacuum-cleaner demonstrators. This experience was so far out, I couldn’t make it up if I tried.
Here is how it went. One day, the doorbell rang. I looked through the peephole and I thought the man I saw was the new neighbor who had just moved in, as he looked like him in stature.
I opened the door. He was holding a case of plastic water bottles. He pumped them into my hands and said, “This is for you,” and shoving me, walked past me into the living room. By this time, I suspected that he wasn’t the neighbor and I felt fear, so I stood by the open door just in case. It was then that I saw the van by the mailbox, and a second man pulling out a machine.
When the second man with the machine arrived, I recognized that what he was carrying was a vacuum cleaner. This man was very polite, and he said he was a college student and the only thing they wanted to do was to demonstrate a new kind of vacuum cleaner, which also acted as an air cleaner and an alarm system if attached to a computer when its owner didn’t vacuum.
At this time, my hubby, who had to be doing whatever he was doing in the backyard, showed up, making me feel a bit better but annoyed at the same time for his usual way of catching on to things a little too late. He said, “All right, show it to us, although we don’t need one.”
Just then I looked into the living room and saw the first man throwing garbage--dust, hairs, torn papers, etc.--on the carpet. Oh, God!
While they were showing us how well the vacuum cleaner picked the stuff up, another car arrived with two other men who acted as if they were the bosses of the first two. They told the first man they were taking the van because it was needed elsewhere. The first man said it was fine if they brought it back in fifteen minutes.
Now we had two men in the house showing us the machine, two men with no vehicle if we were to order them out. I felt my husband stiffening, but he acted calm outwardly in his usual laid-back attitude. The weird thing was, the men said, they weren’t selling the machine but demonstrating it, as it would go on sale in six months and they wanted our opinion of it.
Well, fifteen minutes passed, and no van. The first man, the very talkative one, who seemed to be the trainer of the second man was coming up with weird ways of showing us what one could do with their machine, sweeping everything there was to sweep in the place.
Half an hour to forty-five minutes passed and still no van.
We were getting impatient. My husband said, “Please, leave now. We saw enough.”
“But there is one more thing,” the man said, rushing through the house to the bedroom door. “Do you ever vacuum your bed? There is an attachment for that.” My usually very calm husband was now getting livid. “No you can’t get in our bedroom,” Hubby said firmly.
Without waiting for another reply, the man barged into our bedroom and ripped the sheets off the bed and began vacuuming the mattress. The man acted as if he didn’t hear our objections on account of the machine noise.
Then, Hubby roared. “Leave this room, and please leave this house at once, or I’ll have to make a call you won’t like.”
His words made me fear even more, because in front of us, were two young muscular men in top shape versus us, two elderly people who could both fall down, even when faced with a slow breeze.
The second man said not to get excited and he’d make his friend leave, but first, we should give them enough time to make a phone call and let them wait for their van. Then he pulled the first man by the arm and talked to him, handing him his cellphone. Then he began packing up their stuff.
Soon the first man had finished talking on the cell and telling his boss that they needed the van as they had overextended their stay with us. From what I overheard, I gathered that his boss was using the van with his girlfriend. 
Looking embarrassed, the second man pulled the first man out holding him by the arm and told us they’d wait outside on the driveway for the van as the weather was very nice. This was how they left the house. A few minutes later, from the kitchen window I saw the van pull up and watched them get into it.
One thing was, all through this, they never told us how much the vacuum cleaner cost, but asked me if I were to buy, how much did I think it would cost. They said it wasn’t in the market yet. In short, they weren’t selling.
After them, I gave away the case of water bottles, which I don’t like to drink water out of plastic bottles anyhow.
To this day, we haven’t found out what their true aim was. Sometimes we jokingly wonder if they were the FBI or CIA people raking the neighborhood for negative extra-curricular activity or maybe they were burglars checking out the area. Plus, I never came across in any store the kind of a vacuum cleaner they had showed us.
At the exact place where they said they were planning to establish their own store, a bit off our town, is a pizza store in a strip mall. Out of curiosity, we went and asked if they ever knew of a vacuum-cleaner shop around there somewhere. The owner said they had been in the same spot for decades and they had no plans to sell, ever, and they didn’t know or think that there ever was any appliance store and they never heard of one moving in anywhere in the vicinity, either.
Go figure!
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Prompt: St. Andreas Fault, Jurassic World, an American Heroes movie and a Mad Max movie. Which one of these movies coming out this summer do you want to see?
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Any one of them will do but only if I am tied, gagged, drugged, and made to sit in the theater.
First reason is because I prefer books.
Second, I am not much of a movie-goer, although I used to be. In our home we prefer to watch movies on a DVD or what we record on the DVR. Last night we watched The Grand Budapest Hotel. I liked the idea of it, its artsy quality in a high-brow sort of fashion, but if I am really truthful about it, I can’t say I enjoyed it. Still it was better than the stuff my hubby watches and I glance at in passing sometimes, while I read a book or do stuff around the house.
Maybe it is old age and not the movie-makers’ fault, but I can’t seem to get as much enjoyment from the movies as I used to a long time ago. It isn’t even the horror or suspense in them. Give me something like the Silence of the Lambs or Carrie, and I’ll love it. If someone comes up with a movie like Casablanca, Gone with the Wind, American Beauty, or even Cold Mountain, I’d be so happy. Possibly, there are good movies out there, but I am not going to waste my time watching forty movies just to come across one movie to my liking.
I think, in quest for originality, the screenwriters and the movie people are coming up with oddities instead of decent movies, and admittedly, the word decent applies to where my personal tastes are concerned.
If you love movies, enjoy them, and don’t be discouraged with what I have written. It may well be because the older I get, the pickier I become.
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Prompt: "You know you have read a good book when you turn the last page and feel like you have lost a friend." Paul Sweeney
Do you agree?
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A good book? I think that is a slippery phrase, since what is good in a book depends on its reader. A good book for the prim and the prude would not have sex scenes in it, for example. For the adventure-loving reader, something in the literary genre such as a Paul Auster novel would be boring. Those high-brow readers who admire the literary genre, on the other hand, would snub at a Harlequin romance.
A good book for me is something I would enjoy reading and from which I would surely demand good grammar and use of the language, in-depth characterization, and an original plot or even a used-up plot that is re-hashed in an original fashion. An interesting setting would help, too. The genre doesn’t matter, as long as the sex or violence is not overly emphasized just for the titillation factor and not for its role in the plot or character elements.
Then, a book also stays with me for a while if something in it has meant something private or emotional to me, regardless of what I consider to be a good book. I am biased that way, and I suspect most readers are. In short, my good book assessment will depend on the fact that whether something in the story comes alive and speaks to me or not.
I don’t feel, at the end of any book, that I’ve lost a friend, especially if the ending has been to my satisfaction. That lost-friend feeling would be there if I were to feel disappointed in the ending. This happens sometimes. I read a book with great delight until the ending, but the ending is a flop. That to me is a lost friend.
Quite a few books exist that have stayed with me after I’ve finished reading them, but it is a long list and it starts with Saint Exupery’s Little Prince, which I’d read when I was seven or eight. That book never left me. When I was in my teens, I read a lot of Russian and French literature. Of those, Dostoyevsky stayed with me, and to a degree, it still does, as dark as his writing is. Then, there are some others that I mulled over from a few days to a few years. At no time, did I consider them as lost friends, but more like gained ones.
Three days ago, I finished reading Kristin Hannah’s latest, The Nightingale. It is still staying with me, regardless of how dark it is. I think the book is this author’s best work, and even its darkness is meaningful. On the other hand, I am partial to good World War II novels. Another recently read book that still stays with me and has to do with World War II is the Storyteller by Jodi Picoult. This is not a surprise though. Of the contemporary fiction, Jodi Picoult, Anita Shreve, Pat Conroy, Ian McEwan, and a few other authors’ books have a way of staying with me at least for a few days.
I never feel, at the end of any book, as if I’ve lost a friend. The feeling I get has more to do with the elation of being uplifted and having used my time in the best way possible.
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Prompt: ”…Open
your own broken heart. Look how I’ve split
the wood! Look at the golden streaming light!”
In her book Broken Sonnets at the end of the first poem titled Damage, this is what Kathleen Kirk--a.k.a Katya the Poet  --saw when she opened her heart.
What do you think you would see if you were to split open your heart?
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Why is it that I find it the most difficult to answer my own prompts? Don’t I know by now that I can’t come close to, in several pages, what Katya can poetically say in a few words?
Let me first take this in the physical sense. If I were to split open my heart, I would probably die, unless I was on the operating table for a bypass with a skillful surgeon. Thus, I don’t advise people to split open their hearts this way.
In another sense, if my heart were to be split open, in it I would see my family, all the people I love and have loved, the entire humanity (yes, I love people, no matter what), animals, plants, the planet earth, and my wonder and awe of all creation and its Creator. I might just add shock to my wonder and awe, too, as I was probably more shocked at stuff in the past than anything else and traces of that shock still linger.
Then, in the far corners, I would see the boxes I have stacked. Those, I don’t go near or even touch too often, as some of them can be hiding Pandora’s kins. The worst is, once something escapes, it takes me days and sometimes months to catch and lock it back in its box.
On the other hand, I have always hoped that the golden streaming light, which Katya mentions and I sometimes feel in me, will turn all my locked boxes into solid gold, and even if I open them, I’ll find everything inside to have shapeshifted into love, forgiveness, acceptance, and understanding.
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Prompt: “At all costs try to avoid granting yourself the status of the victim. Of all the parts of your body, be most vigilant over your index finger, for it is blame-thirsty. A pointed finger is a victim’s logo.”
Joseph Brodsky
Your opinions on the subject?
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This quote made me think a lot, as it reminded me, in a round-about sort of way, of some tricky defense attorneys’ tactics of blaming the victim.
There are some instances where a victim is blameless and he or she has every right to point the finger at the aggressor. Should I not blame Hitler with the fear that the other three fingers point back at me? Should the Jews who resided in Germany and in every sense of the word were faithful citizens of Germany not blame the Third Reich? I believe that they can and they should.
Then, in other lesser instances, when someone does something to us as to victimize us in some ways, should we not blame that person? When a child is abused in a situation where she hasn’t put herself in and from where she can’t escape, can’t she or he blame the abuser?
Yes, maybe, when we blame someone, we are also stressing strongly on our victimhood, especially inside our minds. Maybe this is what Brodsky means to say. Or maybe he means to say this: if the victim has put herself in a place knowingly that this victimization would or could occur, then it is a good idea to assess the situation as to one’s own shortcomings, before putting the entire blame on the victimizer.
Although I agree that a victim should not stay in her victim’s position but get up and fight back, still she or he has every right to point the finger at the transgressor, especially because her or his fighting back starts with pointing the finger at the guilty person. Yes, the pointed finger shows a person has been or is a victim, but if it is the truth, why hide it? Hiding it victimizes the person a second time around.
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Prompt: Put on a cape and declare yourself the super-duper hero of something...properly conjugated verbs, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, run-on sentences, maybe the best photographer...whatever sweet place you are ready or not ready to claim as yours. Tell us all about it! Shape yourself or shake yourself into this new role... I have faith in your abilities.
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Although I am limping and my cape is torn, I proudly declare myself as the hero of reading. True, in no way am I faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, or able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, but I read non-stop.
Last night I had only two hours of sleep over the book Nightingale by Kristin Hannah, the book I wanted to read during the last month or so, but this is nothing. There have been nights I never slept because of a book. Not good for this hero’s health, but no hero worth her salt ever puts her health above her heroic deeds.
Tonight, I am going to finish the book, and all day today I have been itching to get to it, but it is Saturday, and my weekends have a way of butting into my hero business. Since yesterday, because Nightingale is a borrowed book, I left my three e-readers untouched with half-read books in each one of them. In order not to mix the plots in the books that I concurrently read, I pick books in different genres or with very different plots. Heroism necessitates careful planning because of a hero's Achilles’ heel, and my heels have already been admonished several times over, for stepping on my cape and tearing it to shreds.
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Prompt: We are all guilty at times of telling instead of showing: I am going to give you some sentences that definitely tell, give me some examples of show, one or all of them. Whatever works for you. I am sure it will be interesting. 
Her hair was a mess. I hate the smell of roses. He couldn't wait to see her again. You always change your mind. The moon is full.
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Her hair was a mess:
Her hair on the pillow was a huge clump into which a bird would have loved to nest. I felt inclined to snatch that clump and comb it into place, but I held myself, feeling mixed emotions about touching her as she slept. When she finally woke up, her first reaction was to grope her hair. Then she sat up rubbing her hand through her tangled tresses, and I held my breath, thinking surely some of those tangles could come undone and break off, but such a thing did not happen. Instead the locks, locked tightly into each other, twirled and fell on her shoulders while the unruly ones stuck upward as if they were on Medusa’s head.
“I need a shower,” she said, scratching into her scalp. Averting my eyes, I nodded, and without a word, left the room.
I hate the smell of roses
Why is it that some odors push and shove into my nostrils, instead of helping my soul to transcend? Take roses, for example. Heck, the smell of uncleansed toilets are better. Honestly, I’ve never known the thrill of enjoying such fake aromas, and there is a good reason for this.
“Wake up and smell the roses,” Mama used to tell me, supposedly to change my ways into hers. She didn’t succeed, and I ended up gagging at the smell of roses.
Ever since that fragrance has made me scrunch my face with disgust, even if I knew I should act as if I enjoyed it. So I usually had a little fun with those who thought rose water or anything smelling of roses was heavenly.
“Why, it smells as good as gasoline?” I would say. “Peel back the petals and you can run a car using them.” This usually made their facial expressions to shapeshift enough to put me down six feet deep.
He couldn't wait to see her again:
In the middle of the night, he awoke from his dreams of her into reality, to her image burned deeply in his mind. He sat up, looking at the night sky through the open window, and sighed when the stars reminded him of her eyes. He arose on shaky feet out of the bed and went to lean out of the window. The cold night air tingled inside him all the way to his lungs, forcing a chill to run straight down his spine.
He wondered if his heart could take this waiting, this constant longing, until the morning, although he knew there were less than five hours to the time when she would be back, as soon as her night shift at the hospital would be over.
You always change your mind.
Last night, at dinner, you ordered baked shrimp, then scolded the server for not bringing you your shrimp cocktail. You screamed so loudly at him that the management made us leave the restaurant, and our evening was destroyed…once more.
What were you trying to prove… to me…to yourself…again? What is that something that makes you act like the ugly graffiti on the walls? Do you always look at the same things with fresh eyes or are these constant conversions show the butterfly in you trying to emerge from its cocoon?
Maybe it is your levels of perception that go askew all of a sudden; maybe it is you being so forgetful that you don’t recall what you agreed to. I should have known this about you the first time when you said no to the minister who was there to marry us. Several ministers and receptions later, your father had to slap you into saying yes. Now, after us moving from town to town and from one house to another, you are still searching for a new place, but the baked shrimp thing last night was the last draw. I now feel like I want to leave you, but then, I think I’ll stay until your next shot of murder at my joy.
The moon is full.
I watch the ivory ball in the night sky in awe and feel soaked in its power. As it rises, it pulls me to itself, reminding me how fragile I am and how easily I can be pulled, for I am a nocturnal thing, so imperfect, and excitedly, I ask, “Why?” Yet, the moon is stubbornly silent as it always has been; except its glimmer is chasing away the strange clouds of fine dust around it.
Encouraged, I raise my chin at its shimmering beams and howl. Then, the last thing I remember is my confused neighbor, hanging from his window and waving his arms at me.
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Prompt: I'm going to toss three titles out there for you to choose from to create your own masterpiece.. whether it be a short story, commentary or poem... Can you weave a work of art using all three titles into one? I can't wait to see where your imagination takes you. There's a bonus/surprise if you can name the authors as well.
"The Jar With the Dry Rim", "The Pope's Penis", and "The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills."
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Hey there, Bukowski,
That thing--“whatever hung deep in your robes” as Sharon Olds referred to--and all that machismo you flung about couldn’t hold Jane by your side. You, like most men, didn’t know of “the spirit is so near that you can't see it,” as Erin Curtis said, Erin Curtis who kept holding the jar for you with the dry rim as she had snapped it from Rumi. For her, you were “the rider who galloped all night and never saw the horse that is beneath him.”
So silly of you, Charles of the Bukowski fame! You felt sad for the "house next door," and at times, felt “raw with love,” but to the “little dark girl with kind eyes” you said, “when it comes time to use the knife I won't flinch and I won't blame you,” not realizing that your ex-wife Jane and I and our friends are women as the 50% of people on earth, the same as the girl with kind eyes, and that knife in your hand, you are holding it over all our heads.
Yet, what moved you, in “praise of God” or rather in praise of the poetry muse, made you the poet with the stark truth, as bare as a barkless tree trunk. How amazing it is to find a poet and writer who isn’t afraid of being an antihero, plus uncovering all absurdities of himself and his life, and how revealing this is of his complex humanity!
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Prompt: Checking email, most of us don't have jobs that require it but we do it anyway. It is simply compulsive behavior.
What other compulsive behaviors do you have? How can we get control of our compulsiveness?
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E-mails, Ohhh! Okay, don’t check them and see what happens.
I check my e-mails, not because I want to or it is a compulsive behavior, but because, if I don’t, there will be much to lose. In the long run, however, I organized a system, which hasn’t failed me so far. I just don’t use Outlook. I have five or so online e-mails. All except two are for those mails that are not absolutely necessary but those that the site owners insist on sending me. Why every single site I visit demands my e-mail and then floods it with stuff that is of no interest to me is beyond me to comprehend. To those addies I log in about once a month and delete everything in one swoop.
One of the two addies that I check all the time is here in WdC. The other is the e-mail addy that I use for my real-life stuff, which I check once or twice a day. WdC e-mail is for WdC; I never use it for out-of-site things and never give it to people I know out of site.
As to current compulsive behavior, I can’t stand seeing empty pages at the ends of periodicals for notes such as shareholder reports. I always cut them out and keep them as note paper or carry them in my purse for quick note taking, even though my notes sometimes overwhelm me and I have much more than enough paper and note-books lying around. This behavior sprung from my once-upon-a-time observation of third world countries, where people and school children did not have enough paper to write on. To this day, I hate waste, especially waste of paper.
One way to control compulsiveness is to catch ourselves in the act, and reverse the action. Until some time ago, I had the compulsive crossing of my legs as soon as I sat down. When I learned that hurt the circulation, I trained myself to sit with both legs on the ground. It wasn’t easy, let me tell you, To this day, sometimes I forget and cross my legs, then I correct myself.
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Prompt: What is the most difficult task for you in living your life--day to day, or if you wish, in general?
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As to actual everyday happenings, getting everything done with extra time left for what I like to do has become very difficult for me. There are just not enough hours in a day, and in my age I am not as fast as I used to be. I also get irked when unexpected stuff that needs to be taken care of or that takes immediate priority pops up; this leaves me no choice but to back out from everything I have planned to do earlier.
In general, in life, I hate the task of handling obnoxious people, especially those with prejudices of any kind and those who think they are so intelligent or smart and above everyone else. Having a high IQ or having accomplished a thing or two or belonging to one religion or another or being an atheist or anything else doesn’t put anyone above everyone.
For example, a very long time ago, although his general tone was positive, someone wrote this to me in an e-mail: “Most of the WdC people are below my intelligence level, although WdC is a good site.” I ignored that remark because that was all I could do. Yet, I have heard similar statements from some people in real life in other instances. I find handling such people to be very difficult. Other kinds of obnoxious people are those who operate with the idea of, “my way or no way.” I understand it when they do it on their own turf, but in someone else’s house, neighborhood, or country, their insistence on such behavior is ugly, and I find it to be very difficult to deal with those types.
My husband and some friends say I handle people well, in general. Yet, even if I can handle obnoxious ones usually by ignoring them or answering them gently, this still bothers me, because then, my ignoring or my gentleness makes me get mad at myself.
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Prompt: Poet Dylan Thomas sees a clown in the moon, and the clown says, “I think, that if I touched the earth, // It would crumble;”
What do you see when you look at the moon?
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Moon enchants me. So much so that, you’d think I were a werewolf, but I am not a werewolf. Probably the moon is the werewolf because it shapeshifts so often. Or if it's a clown, it is the kind of a clown who scares little children and even some of us adults.
Yet, when I look at the moon at its fullest, I see a twisted face, the face of someone who is out there to con you, and the moon is the perfect conman. Yes, unlike Dylan Thomas, I don’t see a clown, but a conman. Just ask the lovers who once promised love eternal under a full moon.
No wonder there are so many breakups. With promises made under the light of a conman as the moon, those lovers were gypped out of their eternal love and loyalty. The same conman-moon creates havoc with the tides, people’s heightened nerves, emotions, and other cycles, too many to list.
Still the moon fascinates me. Every time the full moon shows its face, I try to get an image of it with the camera, which hasn’t helped me financially. Since from a point-and-shoot camera, just to shoot the moon, I went to a semi-pro or rather a beginning pro camera, only to find out that to get a decent photo of the moon, I would need a $7000 lens attachment. There goes the dream, right? Nope, I am not giving it up. I’ll find a way around this…somehow.
Then…
In all fairness to the poet, here’s the entire poem. By the way, he wrote it when he was fourteen. That should say a lot about the talent of Dylan Thomas.
Clown in the Moon - by Dylan Thomas
My tears are like the quiet drift
Of petals from some magic rose;
And all my grief flows from the rift
Of unremembered skies and snows.
I think, that if I touched the earth,
It would crumble;
It is so sad and beautiful,
So tremulously like a dream.
And, here’s my half-wit, simple interpretation of it:
The poet’s clown must be a tender soul because his tears are gentle alluded in the first simile. The clown is crying for feeling lonely and he grieves for what can be forgotten as years go by. The life on earth is fleeting and should the moon touch it, there won’t be an earth, for there will be a collision, and the life on earth will be a dream. This may mean the clown (or the poet himself) is unable to touch what he sees as beautiful and fears that it will all be like a dream. Touching the earth may also mean facing reality, but I am sure one can give many meanings to this poem, as is usually the way, whether the poet meant all those meanings or not. |
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