No one ever answers when I call

[Dunc]

Brian

If My Brains are Still Safe - wonderfully silly images. But is anyone's brain safe these days?

Dreams and Hopes - as you portray, it can get right down to basics at sunset.

Fear the Bomb - Well yes, there'll be Not Much we can do if someone fingers the wrong button. Pressing *like* is a perfect take on our relationship to the problem.

Impossible Dream - I drink to your wisdom. But give me time and I'll think of something to say to the stars.

A Plan - a fun little romp! Of course, there's always uniforms.

To Lay the Pencil Down - or even just Thank Gawd! It's a quite particular pleasure to reach the end of a NaPo.

As for vectors and scalars ...

Thanks for the thread.

Regards / Dunc

[larryrap]

Hi Brian,

I haven't been as diligent as you and some others with conveying my thoughts and support and I hope for your forgiveness on this. I do want to say a few words on some qualities I cherish in your work, the longer confessional poems in particular, a form which you own (you own several more kinds of poems but I have to focus). Yes, they're chatty, the opposite of tight (although the sentences are crafted with care to sound fluid and natural), and perhaps not the kind of high-charged language fix I'm often looking for. Your material is often of the most personal possible, something that could be objectionable in lesser hands. But here's where your good qualities come to the fore: generosity, frankness, a genuine curiosity towards people, and a wise and painful acceptance of the tragic - as well as the comic - in our lives. So typically a poem like "Selfie with Dad" will raise an initial resistance in me, then slow me down and take me in with its patience and human warmth and allow me to emerge feeling more wise and alive than before.
It's a point of interest that when you bring these qualities to the Japanese art series, something entirely wonderful happens, as you bring a culture distant in space and time to the same kind of vivid human life as with your own personal accounts, and the sense of connection to some great human or transhuman fate spanning centuries becomes very uplifting and strong.
I watched the trailer to the Ghibli film which I'd missed somehow until now - I'll have to track that film down. I feel very close to the sentiments you put into that poem.
I'm glad I had the minutes to share my thoughts on your work although I ought to get more into specifics, but now to peel onions etc. for an evening with our guests Mike and Sue.

Best wishes,
Larry

[Arlene]

just wsnt to say it's been fun, snd sometimes sad, reading your thread, and to thank you again for dropping by mine. this last one...good fun again.

[Donner]

Hi, Brian,

She doesn't ask for pity, I must say—
just do not be the one to block her way.

Amen.

Having grown up during the 50's and 60's and going through the era of grade school bomb drills (put your coat over your head to protect from falling glass and sit down in front of your locker) and backyard bomb shelters, so We Do Not Fear the Bomb resonated with me. Even back then I wondered how a coat over my head could possibly protect me from an atomic blast, but we did it anyway - there's little we can do—.

Keep smilin', Brian. You do good work.

Donner

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

Brian

If My Brains are Still Safe - wonderfully silly images. But is anyone's brain safe these days?

Dreams and Hopes - as you portray, it can get right down to basics at sunset.

Fear the Bomb - Well yes, there'll be Not Much we can do if someone fingers the wrong button. Pressing *like* is a perfect take on our relationship to the problem.

Impossible Dream - I drink to your wisdom. But give me time and I'll think of something to say to the stars.

A Plan - a fun little romp! Of course, there's always uniforms.

To Lay the Pencil Down - or even just Thank Gawd! It's a quite particular pleasure to reach the end of a NaPo.

As for vectors and scalars ...

Thanks for the thread.

Regards / Dunc

Thanks for the reads. Your observations are always welcome.

Hi Brian,

I haven't been as diligent as you and some others with conveying my thoughts and support and I hope for your forgiveness on this. I do want to say a few words on some qualities I cherish in your work, the longer confessional poems in particular, a form which you own (you own several more kinds of poems but I have to focus). Yes, they're chatty, the opposite of tight (although the sentences are crafted with care to sound fluid and natural), and perhaps not the kind of high-charged language fix I'm often looking for. Your material is often of the most personal possible, something that could be objectionable in lesser hands. But here's where your good qualities come to the fore: generosity, frankness, a genuine curiosity towards people, and a wise and painful acceptance of the tragic - as well as the comic - in our lives. So typically a poem like "Selfie with Dad" will raise an initial resistance in me, then slow me down and take me in with its patience and human warmth and allow me to emerge feeling more wise and alive than before.
It's a point of interest that when you bring these qualities to the Japanese art series, something entirely wonderful happens, as you bring a culture distant in space and time to the same kind of vivid human life as with your own personal accounts, and the sense of connection to some great human or transhuman fate spanning centuries becomes very uplifting and strong.
I watched the trailer to the Ghibli film which I'd missed somehow until now - I'll have to track that film down. I feel very close to the sentiments you put into that poem.
I'm glad I had the minutes to share my thoughts on your work although I ought to get more into specifics, but now to peel onions etc. for an evening with our guests Mike and Sue.

Best wishes,
Larry

Thanks for the very kind words, Larry. I understand what you mean by "the opposite of tight", and for certain types of narratives that fluidity and expansiveness seem to me essential.

In my researches, I found that I had written another "Selfie with Dad" some months ago--totally forgotten--which lacked the fire of this newer one, and so it had fallen to the wayside. Perhaps, the thing I needed was the urgency that NaPo brings to poetic writing.

As for the Japanese poem, I have one print left. I actually wrote something for this last remaining print some months ago, but like the first "Selfie with Dad" that was stillborn, this poem did not quite fit--a little too contrived. I am hopeful now, though, that the end is truly in sight, and I will surely let you know when it is finished.

just wsnt to say it's been fun, snd sometimes sad, reading your thread, and to thank you again for dropping by mine. this last one...good fun again.

Thanks, Arlene. Fun and sad--a range of emotions can be the best thing to hope to achieve in an exercise like NaPo.

Hi, Brian,

She doesn't ask for pity, I must say—
just do not be the one to block her way.

Amen.

Having grown up during the 50's and 60's and going through the era of grade school bomb drills (put your coat over your head to protect from falling glass and sit down in front of your locker) and backyard bomb shelters, so We Do Not Fear the Bomb resonated with me. Even back then I wondered how a coat over my head could possibly protect me from an atomic blast, but we did it anyway - there's little we can do—.

Keep smilin', Brian. You do good work.

Donner

Thanks, Donner. Your observations and your experience are spot on, as usual. Many thanks for the words and the reads.

BrianIs AtYou

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

I feel bad, as I have one more. I felt compelled to write a follow-up to "Never Easy", my take on Sisyphus and Tantalus. The new one has the narrator meeting Prometheus.

It was in me in the month of April, and just needed to get out.

Prometheus Found

I wandered to the eastern uplands, far into the Caucasus—
and here I found Prometheus—his body chained to solid rock,
a hungry eagle at his side that glared with eyes of hate.
I grabbed my bow and arrows, and notched one to my string.
“What say you, friend Prometheus? What say you, friend?” I cried.

He turned his bleeding torso, till the chains began to bite.
He coughed up blood, and spat his words in anger—
“Are you a wretched messenger?—a spy from high Olympus?
If you have come to see me cower, you will be surprised!
No groveling or compromise will ever come from me!

“If either hand were free, I'd smite you fools that bend to frivolous gods!—
I’d teach you such a lesson that your wisdom would surpass both Zeus and Metis—
though I am less inclined these days to think that gods are wise.”
“Oh no! My storied hero!” I replied, “I've come to set you free at last.
The fire you gave to mankind is a boon deserving payment,

“and I have come to pay what's owed. I saw the hungry eagle soar,
when I was quite a distance off. I knew that moment I must do the deed.
The stars that guide my journey were mapped by those that learned from you.
The metal of my armor comes not from lame Hephaestus, but from men who pass
your secrets on—the ore they dig from Earth, the fire that purifies!”
 
I watched as bold Prometheus, that Titan of the ancient world,
took heed of my brash words. His chin fell to his chest—the chain fell slack.
“Do mortals name you ‘Heracles’? The scion of the gods that I foretold?
I suffer, and I count the days, but thirteen generations have not passed—
I count but seven. I cannot say that prophecy is ready for fulfillment. State your name!”

“My name is of no matter. I hunt the wolf in darkness.
I follow flowing rivers to the ice of snow-capped mountains.
I find the one who suffers—and I try to make amends.”
The Titan glared—his eyes as hateful as the eagle’s.
“I've wrestled with these chains for years. The younger gods are proud.

They've hurled both men and Titans to their doom,
for blasphemies far less than you presume. Why should I trust you?
My lot is endless torture served by Zeus, and by his minions—
the eagles of the sky: they serve his every whim.
And they in turn feed well. Do you not know?"

He turned again to face me—the chains bit deep and bloody—
despite the bitter anguish that it gave him.
The eagle took this chance, and dove from clouded heights
to strike his hapless victim. He raked the Titan's side
with talons sharper than a knife. The liver and the entrails spilled—

the eagle had his feast. I could not bear to see the Titan tortured so,
to suffer his unending death-in-life.
I pulled the string with arrow fletched and ready, and I cried:
“Prometheus! I said before, I came to set you free!
The eagle now has proved my cause is just!”

Prometheus was silent. The eagle spied my arrow as he nibbled at the liver,
and cast a glance more gluttonous and hateful than I had ever seen.
“You ask for trust? Well, I will prove my worth indeed!”
I aimed the arrow at the eagle's eye.
The eagle raised his wings and shrieked,

as storm clouds from Olympus' heights appeared on the horizon.
The eagle flew like lighting to the sky.
I eyed him in his flightpath as he flew,
then turned to face the shackled Titan.
"My trust is earned!" The arrow left the string.

Its line was straight and true. The eagle's eyes grew fearful,
as he soared above the storm clouds—
surprised in awe and terror at the arrow's vengeful fate.
The Titan wept: "I knew!" The arrow found its mark.
The eagle dove in wonder at the target I had chosen.

Prometheus slumped over, the arrow in his neck.
The Titan spoke no more. "Carrion bird!" I cried, "No longer will you feast!
For mankind has avenged at last the torture of Prometheus!
No longer will he suffer, and I will use the Gift of Fire
to burn his lifeless body as you soar!"

I build a funeral pyre among the chains.
It burned for days despite the storm cloud rains.

**

Six generations on, brave Heracles arrived,
condemned by hoary prophecy to wander out this way.
He found of old Prometheus but little more than ashes—
charred bones among the stones and chains.
Above these grim remains, he saw a storm cloud—

a silhouette of eagle’s wings. No prophecy came true that day,
so Heracles just grabbed the Titan’s skull, and walked away.

----------------

BrianIs AtYou

[Sorella]

Brian,
You were one of the several people staggering in, no, beating down a closed door, to get a root beer or the like in the Finish (Finnish?) Bar and made me go look for their last poem and leave a bit of fluff -- only to be glitched again.

I so enjoyed the two ditties, Pencil and Plan -- irreverent, fun, just right at the end. A super duper NaPo from your ink-- laden ink--spurting fountain pen.