No one ever answers when I call

[5th column]

Morning Bisay, first up - what Steven said and B) How much fun is the kitty ditty (I haven't come up with one yet but I'm contemplating the 30/30 challenge (historically an epic fail), once again.

Here's a thread title inspired musical moment...

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

Hi, Brian


There are a lot of really good things going on in this thread, but once again I'm captivated by the Japanese print poem. The latest one, 'Dawn at Isawa in the Kai Province', impressed me even more than the first one I read. Fair play to you for mastering the form. To read these two poems really relaxes me. I think that's important, that when you read, the poem doesn't dominate too much.

Some specific lines that I thought were just great:

there is nothing to be done.
Someday the long night will end—

Over the slim bridge,
and into the morning mist,
Fuji and Edo await.


Travelers raise weary eyes—
the short night ends far too soon.

Sublime work -- thanks for sharing it.

Thanks, Steven. I had been afraid that I might have forgotten the lessons I learned while writing the Japanese print poems those short few years ago. When I first attempted the project, I struggled constantly over wording and line breaks. It was possibly the most exhausting and exhaustive poetic endeavor I have ever undertaken. To learn that it appears that the lessons have been retained is gratifying.

Morning Bisay, first up - what Steven said and B) How much fun is the kitty ditty (I haven't come up with one yet but I'm contemplating the 30/30 challenge (historically an epic fail), once again.

Here's a thread title inspired musical moment...

Thanks, Neil. I have not decided if I will try the 30/30 this year. And, yes, I had great fun writing the kitty ditty.

BrianIs AtYou

And now for something completely different.

[Emilio]

Brian, I loved the thought behind the thought in the PS of All I've got! It's fun and inspiring,

Best,

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

A Prayer

If you believe that Christ died for your sins,
do not feel an obligation to kill others for their sins,
just to make sure that there are sins enough,
that His death would not have been for nothing.

I suspect that He would say
that there are sins enough already,
that His pain and suffering on the cross
was not intended as payment
for an all-you-can-sin buffet,

but, rather that you should act
as though you wish that His sacrifice
should not have been necessary,

that you would even take back the Fall and the fig leaf—
the apple, if possible—
and be happy if the serpent need not ever have lost his limbs.

Do not take the fact that I address this plea
initially to followers of Christ
as a challenge to those of that faith only.

I exhort those raised in other traditions
to speak to their brothers and sisters
in YHWH or Allah, in God's name in every tongue,
in Brahma, in Buddha, the Compassionate One,
in Ahura Mazda, in Ameratasu, in Olorun, in the Goddess,
in Ranginui, Sky Father, in Papatūānuku, Earth Mother,
in Gitche Manitou, the Great Spirit, in Quetzalcoatl of the feathers,
in Zeus, or in Thor, whose lightning fills the sky—
and to those who follow no god or gods
but the dictates of their conscience alone,

to speak in whatever language
and in terms of whatever beliefs
and practices they might have,

to speak with sacred words, or secular words, or profane words,
to act with purity of purpose, unity of mindfulness,
to acknowledge our common failings,
to strive to rise above them,
to frame this plea across the world to all,
in simple terms that all will understand,

that the killing—
in His or Her name—
or in no name at all—
must stop.

Amen.

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

BrianIs AtYou

[MEHope]

Hello Brian at me, I back at you. Well I did not get far in your thread which makes me feel badly because you have been so generous to read my poems and offer your thoughts. Your second poem, Selfiie with Dad, and this line "holding his naked body like a crystal chalice" stopped me for a moment in its tender loveliness...oh, my. I have a sad and wounded relationship with my father so any father poem (mine turns 86 this year) grabs me in strange and sad ways...well.

I will be back. Selfie was moving, and so very humane and human. I love that.

[cookala]

hi Brian ! I enjoyed your kitty ditty - thanks for the fun, it made me !

[Sorella]

Brian, Adore what I read as reckless feckless ☺ cuter your way!
Dawn and the previous Japanese ekphrastic (are both Hokusai?) moved me to comment at last despite molasses on brain and on Forum. You understand them so deeply I think you were Hokusai in a previous life.

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

Brian, I loved the thought behind the thought in the PS of All I've got! It's fun and inspiring,

Best,

Hey,Emilio. We cross posted last time round. Thanks for reading.

Hello Brian at me, I back at you. Well I did not get far in your thread which makes me feel badly because you have been so generous to read my poems and offer your thoughts. Your second poem, Selfiie with Dad, and this line "holding his naked body like a crystal chalice" stopped me for a moment in its tender loveliness...oh, my. I have a sad and wounded relationship with my father so any father poem (mine turns 86 this year) grabs me in strange and sad ways...well.

I will be back. Selfie was moving, and so very humane and human. I love that.

Thanks ME Hope. The line you cited seems to resonate with many. My best to you and your father.

hi Brian ! I enjoyed your kitty ditty - thanks for the fun, it made me !

Thanks, cookala! Kitty ditties should make you smile.

Brian, Adore what I read as reckless feckless ☺ cuter your way!
Dawn and the previous Japanese ekphrastic (are both Hokusai?) moved me to comment at last despite molasses on brain and on Forum. You understand them so deeply I think you were Hokusai in a previous life.

Thank, Sorella! Glad you like the short couplet.
Both of the ekphrastics are Hokusai. I am close to completing the series, which has been a many-year journey.

BrianIs AtYou

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

Come Again!

A cat and a chicken sat down for a snack.
They could not so quickly agree. “I want tea!”
said the cat. “I'd rather have coffee, quite black,”
said the hen. “Oh, let us not argue again!”

The waiter (a dog) thought that he should bark in.
“It's best, my good friends, not to fight. Am I right?
We've both tea and coffee! It comes in a tin!”
“It is best,” cat agreed. "But, as for the rest,

I'll have me some tuna, and fresh chicken breast!”
The hen nearly fainted, and cried, “Oh, I lied!
I cannot just sit here severely distressed.”
The cat started hissing; she mewled and she spat,

till hen dropped an egg. The hen and the cat
got up from their snack. They could not (or would not)
agree. “Not coffee!” “Not tea!” That was that!
“Come again!” barked the waiter, to cat and to hen,

as he picked up the egg. “It’s omelets again!”

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

BrianIs AtYou

[PClem]

Kudos for getting cats and chicks together in one poem and very funny at that!

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

Kudos for getting cats and chicks together in one poem and very funny at that!

Thanks, PClem. I started thinkin' about a cat and a chicken, and ended up with a nice nonce quatrain stanza in the process.

BrianIs AtYou

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

The following is an "extra" for the Fuji series.

For the first 36 prints in the series (which were the only prints, originally), I wrote what I intended as a kind of conclusion, or capstone. This conclusion, or capstone, was written, like the rest of the first 36 (save one), with haiku stanzas.

Today's new poem is intended as a conclusion or capstone for the final 10 prints, which Hokusai added to the series when the original 36 became a commercial success. For the last 10, I have written with tanka stanzas.

Both of the conclusions or capstones are paired with public domain photographs of a contemporary Fuji.

With this poem, I am finally caught up again!

Sometimes 時々 (Tokidoki)


Mount Fuji in Spring, public domain, photographer Mya Told
Source: http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/...ure=mount-fuji

Mount Fuji trembles.
Eruption and earthquake shake
the mighty ash heaps,
and winds of great power lash
the cold peak—then comes stillness.

Sometimes I tremble.
Not eruption, nor earthquake,
nor seeing the peak—
but the mountain looking back—
dispassionate, knowing not

its nature—or mine.
Stone—solid—above the reeds—
longer lived than we—
lasting, but not eternal—
yet our myths might make it so.

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

BrianIs AtYou

PS

The following is the earlier poem, "Someday", that is the companion-piece of today's poem. "Someday" was originally posted for the 2011 NaPo here, without a picture, which I later selected.

Someday いつか (Itsuka)


Mt. Fuji, viewed from an aircraft on a winter day. (From a high angle at 28,000 feet). Public Domain. Photograph by wiki user Carpkazu.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mt...er_28000Ft.JPG

When I make the trip,
they will ask me to remove
my shoes and my belt.

My body will glow
with the backscatter X-ray,
unless I decline—

and if I decline,
they will search my whole body,
looking for secrets.

The secrets they seek
will not be found—just poems
stuffed in my pockets.

They will not know me,
and, perhaps, I will not know
myself anymore.

I will speak a strange
language—immediate, pure—
of Buddha, and snow,

and the bamboo girl
who came from the Moon. Someday
I will climb Fuji.

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

BrianIs AtYou

[Steven]

I like both these poems, especially the first, that captures the mystery of Mt. Fuji. There is a similar mountain/volcano here in Ecuador called 'Cotopaxi', which has a similar conical shape. Apparently the name means 'neck of the moon' in the indigenous language.

Eruption and earthquake shake
the mighty ash heaps,
and winds of great power lash

The heavy sounds here are fantastic, before the 'stillness'.

It has a great twist at the end. A really tight poem.

[casket N orbit]

I really enjoyed “This Old Story” and the “Seven Simian Stanzas…”. The details are wonderfully woven and rivet attention. I liked the repetition about the heat in “Stanzas” and the hints for the need of glasses in the “Story”.

[Arlene]

Brian really is smiling at me I think reading the cat poems, the hen and the cat, etc...the Japanese poems are beautiful too...but the nursery rhyme storytelling gift you have makes my heart sing.