Muse Sleeping

Why Not to Write Poems

“I’m a poet” makes for awkward social introductions.
No one reads poetry anymore. It’s old-fashioned,
irrelevant, and adolescent. 

You don’t see the universe in the heart of a lily.
It just spits orange pollen all over your black turtleneck
and makes you sneeze. 

Grammar is confusing. Poems are unnecessary.
They make nothing happen.* They don’t even 
rhyme anymore.

You are insufficiently weird. Only goth teens, 
hippies, queers, suicidal women, and old people 
write poems. 

Poets have to read poems. You read a poem once. 
You hated it. The only famous poets are dead poets. 
There are no rich poets. 

You have no talent. You’re the wrong ethnicity. 
You don’t know enough big words. You’ve got no 
rhythm. And WTF are “line breaks”?

You’ve read that it takes years of study and practice 
to write even one good poem. The only easy-to-write 
poems are list poems. And they’re boring.

(By Sharon Brogan written on VerseWrights)

Art by Henry Avignon, Buffalo, NY    https://www.facebook.com/henry.avignoniii?lst=1422499633%3A100002318747347%3A1513292513

What's Next . . .

Direction to me. 

It seems the blogs may be nearly on the way out . Too easy with FB to comment a quick retort or post a photo of your last meal than to really take some time, maybe research, and present a thoughtful presentation on the blog. 
Leaving my blog,  I fear loss of  my ability to stay with a project (may be aging but  not to the extent that I experience it) since attending other distractions -- FB, etc.  I will start something like repairing a lawn mower or sweeping up this lady bug infestation, and quit partway through vowing to return later.  Things get eventually done but only through attrition. I seem to have no staying power with a project, even reading.      Time for a change . . . .

  And  I see that poetry is still alive and well on the blogs:   withrealtoads.blogspot.com
or:       http://www.versewrights.com/

Old Metal Stuff

Girl and I on 1939 tractor which a neighbor and I restored from rusty condition on one of the wheels, and painted. Another close neighbor died and gave it to me 15 years ago.

One had to rotate the flywheel by hand there on the left to get the 2 cylinder to start.  It usually popped right off since there are petcock reliefs on the cylinders to allow  reduced pressure in the cylinders whilst starting.

We don't farm, so don't know what to do with it except maybe haul firewood, pull a dead tree, or drag someone out of a muddy/ snowy road.

Home Sweet Home

The Wind


I am done with everything but this business
of recalling what is human --
faint letterings insane, this burning leaf
or a curtain blooming in a still room --
all I know of eternity.  How it burns me, how borderless I become in the wind

Evaporating like the sweat on fingers
 and blown blindly over the blind ocean --
 no mark will tell the wind of my presence
 my feet will fail to remember you
dancing in a dark room
O my love how how the windows shudder.

 ( by Alison Croggon (I owe her a Quarter for this))


I hesitate writing about these old leavings:  sad  places now -- once filled with smells, sounds, livings, dyings, happiness, dancing, music, all of the living passed and over now.
 From a plat map I have seen, the land on which this house stands has been in the McCall family since 1856 Callaway County, central Missouri when  a lot of the population were black slaves and probably lived in a part of the house.  Hard to tell how long the house has stood without going through an abstract search.

This another leaving of a Doctor Offitt of Readsville, Missouri who practiced about the turn of the centeury and died  in 1903.  Going to rack and ruin-- a good roof helps keep it up.  I think that this was
the waiting/operating room since there was a drug room with shelves way in the back.  ( There are four structures still there)

This seems like the living quarters, still in pretty good shape with nice wood trim inside and a pump house out back.

This a newer place abandoned a few miles to the East of Readsvlle.  I am told the family raised 3 kids on 40 acres here probably in the 40's or 50's.  It is being kept up by, I guess, some of the kids or hired out (grass is kept cut).
In the past,  Sears sold house kits -- this may have been one of them:   http://www.searsarchives.com/homes/index.htm

Barn and out buildings across the road.

The old places still survive.

 People are gone, except in memories.