ㅁ Whoosh - the raven swooped past my window. Just a buzzing of wings, then the wind. I glanced at the flash of black. The tree branches had seen: they waved in greeting. Some time passed by. Then, again: raven flew.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #3201 “Tunnel vision”
ㅁ The world, it narrows till at last the only thing is lonely sleep. All words will fail, and lost: the past. The world, it narrows till at last the archive's hollow, empty, vast. What's left: cliche, no meaning, cheap. The world, it narrows till at last the only thing is lonely sleep.
– a triolet.
Caveat: Poem #3200 “Rain with various modifiers”
ㅁ regular rain steady rain drizzly rain expected rain spring rain summer rain fall rain winter rain sudden rain heavy rain driving rain oceanic rain because the trees thirst because the rocks groan because I live in this temperate rainforest morning rain afternoon rain evening rain night rain
– a quennet.
Caveat: Poem #3199 “Under a slate-gray sky”
ㅁ Trees, boats, and a dog: I saw these things, as I gazed At the windswept sea.
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Poem #3198 “Opposing forces”
ㅁ I had a dream about evil men. They were fighting a subtle war. Each side said how the other was so nefarious, and needed defeat. Their own badness: unstated, ignored, real.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #3197 “Dilemma”
ㅁ The devil you know, versus the devil unknown: pick a side. Choose one.
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Poem #3196 “Narratology”
ㅁ No story is done. It just fades from attention, goes on, secretly.
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Poem #3195 “The inexorable passage of time”
ㅁ The trees turned to green. Spring's buds and young leaves appeared. The rain did not stop.
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Poem #3194 “Today’s anniversary”
ㅁ Then, thirty-five long years ago, I signed my name and joined the army. This was an act of fate, you know. Then, thirty-five long years ago, my life's frustrations had grown, slow. The next few years would surely scar me. Then, thirty-five long years ago, I signed my name and joined the army.
– a triolet.
Caveat: Poem #3193 “Resignation”
ㅁ All the poetry became dull, monotonous, stale like last year's leaves.
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Poem #3192 “Eighty-sixth stanza”
ㅁ Kiamon waited and plotted a plan. Forces of evil will do what they can. Skies had grown dark and the night had arrived. Moonlight appeared. Her spirits revived.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter. Kiamon is a character in a great novel I fail write.
Caveat: Poem #3191 “Events in the otherworld”
ㅁ Off in the imaginary world, the eternal snow fell and fell. Somehow people still got by day to day: shoveling, plowing and digging, romping in drifts. The forecast called for snow.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #3190 “The emergent pattern”
ㅁ When I think it'll get easier... just then, in that precise moment, it doesn't get easier. A new crisis appears. Or, call it, instead a new challenge. I get tired. More tired. Tired.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #3189 “An inventory of sights”
ㅁ This morning along the road to town I saw some less typical things: a motorcycle just parked, a sad excavator without a driver, an unowned dog smelling smells, watching cars.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #3188 “Probably somewhere on the spectrum”
ㅁ I just don't like talking on the phone. There's something in the interface that brings out my introvert; this could be an email! But people call me, and want to talk, it's painful, it burns, argh.
– a nonnet. Just don’t ask me to read it to you over the phone.
Caveat: Poem #3187 “First world problem”
ㅁ The coffee grounds were floating there, with halos made from added cream. But how'd it happen? Wasn't fair. The coffee grounds were floating there, As problems go, not like a bear. But in the moment, crashed my scheme. The coffee grounds were floating there, with halos made from added cream.
– a triolet.
Caveat: Poem #3186 “Buyer’s remorse”
ㅁ The aliens came to regret it: saving humanity, they feared, had been a terrible thing. The primates could not feel any gratitude, though exceptions did arise. Enough? No.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #3185 “Looking out toward San Juan Island”
ㅁ Bleached, the trees in the sun shone like bright white glistening brushstrokes in a field of gray-green and the background of the sea blue-gray with little pale highlights animated the painterly frame.
– a reverse nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #3184 “Suboptimal solution”
ㅁ The aliens faced grave challenges. The dominant inhabitants had very limited skills in logic and reason. So ultimately, the aliens ended up telling lies.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #3183 “The secret invasion”
ㅁ Using antimatter and incense, the aliens crafted portals to come to our absurd world. They snuck in, stealthily. Deploying rainbows, they altered things, creating global peace.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #3182 “Signs springing forth”
ㅁ One sign of the Alaskan springtime: I met a slug on the driveway. It bore a westward heading, tasting freshly green grass, disregarding me. Salmonberry shrubberies budded, bloomed.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #3181 “The passage of time”
ㅁ The weekend was a dull, aimless blur. I felt like I deserved a rest. But then I felt so guilty. Not guilty enough, though. I read a few blogs. No cooking done. Did laundry. Walked some. Dreamed.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #3180 “Solar hijinks”
ㅁ The sun is there but I don't see it. The nurturing clouds protect us - each from the other's anger. If it's given a chance, the sun's wrath will hang you out to dry. Don't fall for solar tricks.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #3179 “Undone”
ㅁ It's revealed that the mind's departing. Cobwebs of perception remain. Cliches circulate, slowly. Anxieties rise up. Reactions kick in. All's uncertain. And joy fades. No fun. Fog...
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #3178 “What method is that?”
ㅁ errors proliferate in the world's strange fabric scientists assume there are rules maybe
– a cinquain.
Caveat: Poem #3177 “Errors of judgement”
ㅁ Clouds, drifting, make mistakes. They scud along, head for the mountain, committed to the bit, and then suddenly are torn, shredded on waiting, upright trees. They dissolve into a fractal mist.
– a reverse nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #3176 “A counterexample”
ㅁ On the other hand, there are the trees. They have a professional style. Organized, systematic, they take on gravity, eke out victories, and confronting earth and sky, persist, grow.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #3175 “The beasts in the woods”
ㅁ People think animals are experts in their many activities, but I don't think that that's true. They are rank amateurs! Constantly doubting what will happen, thinking what to do next.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Links #140
Here are some links I found interesting- with minimal comment.
- Dream welfare (really)
- The mental illness divide between liberals and conservatives probably isn’t what it seems
An illustration from the internet.
A quote.
“All this effort is invested in making influential people decide that you have taken away something they felt they deserved, causing them to hate you for life. Yes. These people are, generally, libs. They were already your enemies. Do you want to hurt them, or do you want to convert them? A child would want to hurt them; a king, to convert them.” – Curtis Yarvin (My thought: wow, not wrong, just needs a moral compass and he’s set!)
Caveat: Poem #3174 “Objection”
ㅁ Nothing ever goes as you expect. You create complex ideas, evolve preconceived notions, but that planning ahead fails to account for contingencies the real world throws at us.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Untypepadded at last
On this day we finally celebrate the long-hoped-for disintermediation of typepad in this blog’s existence.
I moved my blog to this self-hosted wordpress instance in 2018, frustrated with some decisions taken at the prior host, typepad. But these past 6 years, I have been unable to completely end my relationship with typepad, because I had literally 1000’s of pictures and blog-internal links to the old site (I’d been with typepad for 14 years!), all wrapped up in the page code imported to the new site, and I had no easy, automated way to fix that. So I have had a habit to go in and manually update these broken links, to go and manually grab the photos from the old site and get them properly moved to the new site. I have done a few here, a few there. I have had some bursts of productivity, but I rarely would get more than a dozen blog-posts processed in this way at once.
In the last six years, I have processed about 3000 old blog posts, dating from the blog’s founding in 2004 through 2018. And finally, this afternoon, I closed in the last remaining ones. Because I was only semi-systematic in my approach, these last stale blog posts were from October, 2013. They dated from the conclusion of my radiation treatment for my cancer. Somehow that felt weirdly symbolic.
So now, if I want, I can finally stop paying typepad for their hosting of the old blog. This was never a financial burden – my newer, self-hosted version actually costs me quite a bit more. Typepad had offered a deal, when I first signed up, for a “rate never changes” hosting plan that I’d signed up for. So the rate, a mere $50 / year, has never changed. Unfortunately, the quality of their support never changed much, either – it was always consistently bad. And the last straw was when they forced technical changes, with zero support or understanding, that broke material I’d posted.
Anyway, I’ll let the typepad hosting plan die a natural death, waiting until the end of the annual renewal – I believe that’s in August or September. And I really have to hope I don’t ever become disillusioned with my current blog hosting provider, since that’s… myself.
Caveat: Poem #3173 “The snow did not stick to the ground”
ㅁ The rain had changed to snow at last; it scudded down in swinging gales. Large, clumpy flakes plunged down so fast. The rain had changed to snow at last; but shifted back, the winter's past. The ground's too warm, so nothing pales. The rain had changed to snow at last; it scudded down in swinging gales.
– a triolet.
Caveat: Links #139
Here are some links I found interesting- with minimal comment.
An illustration from the internet.
A quote.
“Growth!” – Cancer