Happy New Year

I'll be back posting after the weekend. If you could wish one thing for the new year, what would it be??


In the meantime, visit Twenty-five webcam Views of Times Square this evening if not near a TV. This is Kim Komando's 'site of the day'.

...and Google shares what what caught our interest in 2005

Pris

If you like Enya...

I hope you can get this beautiful video from her website. Sometimes it takes two tries for it to load for me and give it a minutes. Also, sometimes, it comes up the first time with no sound, but on the second try the sound is there. If you hate Enya, well...write me a poem:-)

The site, itself, is interactive and fun to visit. Look for it at Enya.com. Berenice from Poet at Rest was kind enough to share this with me.

Pris

Poems by young people with CFIDS

I found the poems and narratives written by these young people with CFIDS both moving and honest. It's been hard enough for me to deal with CFIDS and I had time for a good fulfilled life before I got hit with it. I can't imagine getting this illness as a child and losing my childhood. I've read some horrifying accounts from as early as ten years ago of the abuse some children with CFIDS went through with their classmates who didn't know anything about the illness and weren't educated by their teachers, who didn't know about it or believe in it, too. One young teenager struggled to keep up with schoolwork, but couldn't. She told her teacher she couldn't concentrate, had no energy, was tired all of the time. One of her classmates said 'If it's that hard, why don't you just go kill yourself?'

She did.

Feminist Artists of the Twentieth Century

Some time ago, I featured artist self-portraits. One reader commented that most were men. With the exception of Frieda Kahlo, that was true. Now, to balance that act out is this link to Feminist Artists of the 20th Century.

Enjoy!

Now, which of this group is most to your artistic taste??

Pris

Haiga Online Journal is up and WOW!

Read Haiga Online for some of the best haiga you've seen online. Want to understand haiga? You'll get a feel for that here. If you don't know what haiga is, google the word. MANY good articles out there. More than I can name in links here.

I know many of the people in this journal and they're tops in talent. Look for Jerry Dreesen, Laralee Frasier, Shane Gilbreth, an'ya, Carol Raisfield...so many more. Perhaps the most emotional page is a series of haiga by Ron Moss, created from photos taken on his return to New Zealand on the occasion of his father's death. Ron is among my 'heros' when it comes to excellent haiga.

This makes two journals this month that have a wow rating with me!

PS If you have a high speed connection, check out..

Revival Press, John Korn's blog. He combines Ron Androlla's words with his own vid skills comes up with a good, fun series of shorts. The post is on top of his blog today.

Pris

Hard Call

(response to Michael Parker's December 7 call for poems in reaction to a photo of Mammatus clouds)
******

These decisions that come
hard as a whore's breath,
fast as a fall face-down
onto an unforgiving walkway.
My never born son's curled fetal
body lies hammocked in multiples
in the Mammatus clouds hanging,
like guilt, over my cowering rooftop.
They remind me that one slide-trombone
moment can mean either a uterus
sucked dry as an old sock or
a newborn's long screaming ride
down to a mother's quiet lullaby
and bluebells, yet to be picked.

Pris

Mammatus are pouch-like cloud structures and a rare example of clouds in sinking air. Sometimes very ominous in appearance, mammatus clouds are harmless and do not mean that a tornado is about to form; a commonly held misconception. In fact, mammatus are usually seen after the worst of a thunderstorm has passed. For more information, read HERE

One more Christmas Eve Post (click to enlarge photos)

taken from a letter i just sent out to cousins, old friends from childhood days who knew my family, and some current friends.

My mother's last christmas alive was in 1995. We gathered at this table, as family did when it was in my tiny Carolina hometown for many years. I've not had it opened and decorated, with Aunt Orpha's Haviland china on it in all these years since. For one thing, the only family who's been able to come since her death has been a much loved third cousin, but not at Christmas. For another thing, for so many years I was too sick to even think about doing this. So...this year, my husband's mom and her husband are coming from a their home an hour away for dinner. I asked my husband to lift the leafs, as the room is small, as you can see, and the table generally stays folded down. Those are mother's mats, table clothes and napkin holders.

Family will recognize the old chocolate set that sat in the Dillard household when mother was a little girl, with her sister, Orpha, and brothers, Harry, Archer, Baylis, and Herman. Her great grandparents, W.B. and Ann Dickson, lived with the family and also gathered in these same chairs , but this is a smaller table. The original table of my mother's childhood was too big for mother to keep. The smaller sideboard is the Dillard one (my mother's family) and the larger one, with the chocolate set, came from my father's grandparents and is hand pegged.

So, ten years later, I'll have Christmas at this table again. Yes, I'll think of my parents. I'll think of my Aunt Orpha and Uncle Jim who often gathered there when I was growing up. I'll think of my cousins Marion, Ginny and Lisa, of Sam, my cousin, Agnes, my mother's first cousin of Uncle Herman and his family, of Archer Jr., my mother's nephew, Ruth, his wife, and their family, though I didn't get a chance to share many meals in Pageland with them since they were close enough to visit summers after I'd left home for college and graduate school. The last time the largest group of family was around the table was when my father died the day after Christmas in 1986. The dining room was packed with people. But of all these things, I'll think most of all of my good luck in being born into a family that was close knit, loved well and took care of its own.

For friends and readers of this blog who don't know me, this is an event that may not register in meaning for you. You had no way to know my family but, if you look closely, I feel sure that you'll their memories living on in this space.


Lastly, this is my 'hurricane' cat, Sabrina, taking a nap at the foot of the bed while I put the table setting together.

Night Divine.

That Santa in the seedy suit,
shaking the Salvation Army cup,
leers at me through yellow teeth,
pulls out a flask. Tipples.

Songbooks mold in cold cellars,
while woulda-been carolers
hunt wide screen TVs and
Victoria's Secret push-up bras in hopes
that this eve they'll get lucky again.

ohhhhh night divine!

I force myself to forget days of...

yonder breaks a new and glorious morn

cookie dough still coating my mother's hands,
the scent of old Christmas trees, bent
with homemade soldiers and angels, waiting
for us in the front parlour.

Come, my sweet. Lead me from
graveyards littered with
fake floral remembrances to the
ones we have loved, who no longer
can rise to sing with us on this day.


Art: Herbert MacNair. The Sleeping Princess
From the ArtMagik site

You'll lay an egg if you don't lie down while the man is laying bricks!

Lie/Lay...two of the most misused verb forms in writing. Thanks to a note from Michael Parker, I began harping on my favorite grammatical question. Go to this site for more pointers. It's worth a read. I see the words misused in posted AND published poems all of the time. Once you get the basic rules down, you'll never make the mistake again! I promise.

I'm just (lying/laying) around the house listening to music.
Don't know which is correct? Check those rules for sure!


****
for those of you checking on how I'm going, I'm hanging in. Saw the doc and am dizzily surviving the med so far, but the brain still is swimmy. Resting a lot.

Curiosity didn't kill this cat! (One I've had in my drafts folder to post for a while)

In a special collection of articles published beginning 1 July 2005, Science Magazine and its online companion sites celebrate the journal's 125th anniversary with a look forward -- at the most compelling puzzles and questions facing scientists today. A special, free news feature in Science explores 125 big questions that face scientific inquiry over the next quarter-century...to read the rest of this online article about these issues, click HERE.

So, what questions about what makes the universe/human life tick most interest you and why? Pick one (or more) or the top 25 questions on the first page of this article. Pick before you read the answers.

(I'm off to the doc today. Been staggering about from the med and sleeping. Sigh...)

Dealing with Frustration

I'm writing this post and dating it for tomorrow, since by tomorrow I may be too dizzy to post coherently. My doctor's office just called. Another of the infections that have recurred over and over and plagued me since March is back again. Two bacteria this time. I have a reaction to nearly all antibiotics. Different reactions to different ones. This one makes me so dizzy for the first few days I barely know where I am. Nauseated, too. Then it generally levels out to a dizziness level that's no fun but I can deal with. This time, they're taking me up to the highest dose of the med, though, and I just hope that it doesn't mean the reactions will be worse.

My CFIDS doctor is an immunologist but he's not been able to find a way to stop these. I've been to a good urologist and been tested up the kazoo. In fact, my follow-up appointment had been set for this Wednesday when I last saw him for testing a month ago. Everything checks out normal, save for the enormous amount of inflammation in my system.

I haven't been comfortable or painfree even in the lulls since March. I'm having trouble dealing with this again.

Especially at Christmas.

I may delete this. I haven't decided yet.

lights
dance in my eyes
christmas tree


Pris

Forgotten

..and who could speak of those days;
the trees carving gray slashes into
an indifferent sky, cat cowering
on our back patio, the tic of my den clock 
mocking me as I sat, fingering
poems into the air?

He never could tell me, you know,
tell me that all I would have of him
was a mist of breath on the bathroom
mirror, the chance glimpse of a receding
back, his best shirt flung to the floor, 
still warm with his angry sweat.

I walk out into the scent of Jasmine,
dress dew-damp at the hemline, think,
who can know of that kind of death
that ambushes us while still living,
or how long one can endure chaste limbs
blackening and tumbling off for
the wolves to carry away as bounty.

My laughter once rang like fine church bells,
but his shadow has pressed me flat.
I've forgotten my name, my mother's name,
the town of my birth, the face of my first
lover, the color of my father's hair.
I've forgotten it all.
Every single bit of it.

Oregon Literary Review

Charles Deemer, screen writer, novelist, and editor has launched the first edition of the Oregon Literary Review. Several of my previously published haiga and one unpublished one (credit is given to those earlier journals) are in this issue, along with fiction, absolutely wonderful art, a mind boggling selection of links to original music and creative videos. .I have the feeling that this is going to be a journal that will soar right up there with the top ones. A true multi-media experience!

I realize that everybody is getting ready for the holidays now, but take a peek, then bookmark this journal to come back to some lazy evening when you want to give yourself a real treat!

Pris

Oh, Christmas Tree!

(click to enlarge)

Temperatures are up to the eighties again and this is how we celebrate Christmas, South Florida style.:-)

Catting Through The Night...

As some of you who follow my blog already know,we adopted a stray cat after she dragged her newborn kittens into our garage before Hurricane Wilma hit. She's become more and more comfortable with us. Night before last was a bad pain night for me because of a lingering infection. Sabrina (our cat's new name) came in and jumped up onto the bed. As I tossed and turned, feeling pretty desparate, she walked up next to my head where I was lying on my left side with my hand tucked partially under my cheek. She reached out her paw and pressed on my little finger, forcing the hand down onto the bed. She then sat there for a minute kneading my finger with her paw before she curled up next to my feet again and went to sleep. I had the definite feeling that she was comforting me. Whatever her intention, it worked.

Animals are amazing. Care to share an animal story of your own in the comments? They love and love well and when they finally die, it can break your heart.

Pris

Ghost Riders

Hands stroke under my sheets,
drawing lost loves
back to haunt.
They piggyback old wants
onto your cries.

You say the forever words
when your lips cover mine,
yet when I'm astride
I see ghosts
ride you, too.

Pris Campbell
(c)2002

Talk to me, Santa!

(I posted this briefly yesterday and then put it into my drafts folder and put up the poem instead, soooooo...Santa's baaaaack!!!)



Red suit out of style, his cholesterol probably too high from that jolly belly, a man whose companions are 12 dwarfs and a reindeer with a nose replacement, he's packing his bag to go out into the skies again this year. What do you want put on the sled for you? Can you write a poem for Santa to entice him??

fat man
on a sled
reindeer grumbling

Best American Poetry 2006

Go to Reb Livingston's blog and read her Monday post. Billy Collins selected one of her poems published in MiPo for the above honor! Congratulations, Reb and congratulations, MiPo!

Pris

When kids grow up to be Rock Stars...

When I moved to Hawaii and was waiting for my car to be shipped to the state so I could begin working and move into my own place, I shared a second bedroom with a wide-eyed, big lipped adorable nine month old. He was the son of one of the navy wives. Her husband and my husband-to-be were good friends on a supply ship based off the coast of Vietman. I watched Chris grow older over the years the four of us remain friends, saw his 'terrible twos' when 'no' was his favorite word. Divorce split , first, my husband and me, then Chris's parents and the four of us drifted apart. Years later, I heard from his dad that he was making good money as a rock star. It wasn't until another navy friend recently sent me a link leading to the name of his group, Spin Doctors, that I discovered how well he'd done. Here's to you, Chris. I doubt you'll remember your first 'roommate', anymore, but it's good to read about your success!
This is Chris as I remember him, taken at a park in Hawaii after the ship came back from its tour of duty in Vietnam. Wasn't he adorable?? Click to enlarge.














An interview with Crhis can be found HERE. Chris is the blonde to the far left in the upper band photo.

By Popular Request...

An alternative self-portrait in haiga format. Haiku on the haiga courtesy of Michael Rehling, webmaster of Haiku Hut. Thanks, Mike! (Click to enlarge)

saturday nite free associating with pris... (this is also my Sunday post)

just past sunset...saturday.....I'm on my puter music box listening to the mamas and the papas sing 'dream a little dream of me'. the dog is asleep by the door, the cat on the sofa. the house is dark except in the kitchen and back here. husband isn't home yet. i don't mind. I've been eating my seeds and nuts from my trip to the health food store (yes, my second outing now in 8 months on my own after this long horrid health seige...hooray!), and one dip with spinach and artichoke hearts in it.

i remember the summer the mamas and papas were especially big. it was my last summer of grad school. I'd finished my prelims, my internship and had to write up a few last things on my dissertation, but basically it was the first free time I'd had in four years. I was living with P, my ex roommate who lives in St. Louis and is now dying of cancer. The other half of the house was rented by three service guys. they loved music, just as I did, and would invite me over ever so often just to listen to music and drink cheap red wine. none of us had any money and lived on macaroni and cheese most of the time. we played the mamas and papas a lot.

it was that summer that i met H., who became my first husband midway during his tour of Nam after I'd moved to Hawaii to work and wait to see if the 14 months apart had changed our minds.... i'd decided before then that i'd never meet anybody i trusted enough to marry and , god knows, i'd had enough proposals.

the only reason i went on the blind date was that a young secretary there had befriended me and she was just uncomplicated and fun to do things with. she'd dated one of H's friends and got pregnant. this was before legalized abortions. the guy had already stopped dating her, but he didn't step in and try to help , either. K begged me to go out with H on a double date and maybe she could win this guy back. she was still crazy about him. reluctantly, i did. their relationship didn't go any further than that night. she tried to abort herself with a hanger and nearly bled to death, but didn't. i never saw the jerk again, but did continue to date H and somehow sensed that i could marry him. the music of that summer weaves in and out, reminding me....

ah...now 'father and son' is coming on. Cat Stevens.... i was living in the commune by then with R after my marriage ended. i so identified with that song..... my parents wanted me to settle down and be 'normal', ie live in a regular house, remarry. i remember playing this song over and over...son sings...''how can i explain..it's the same old story...from the moment I was born I was ordered to listen....I know I have to go away..." music bridge..... father now.."It's not time to make a change..sit down and take it slowly...you're so young, it's not your fault. find a girl..settle down..look at me..I'm old, but I'm happy"...son responds..".......there's a way..I know I have to go away. I know I have to go.

now..'morning has broken' , also by Cat Stevens, one of the most beautiful songs written "..morning has broken, like the first morning....mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning....."yes.

ELO starting now...music "....it's magic....ohhhhh.....higher and higher, baby...it's a living thing. it's a terrible thing to lose...music bridge....making believe this is what you can see from your worse day....." I'm in a car with B, a mental health tech from the ward across the hall from where I work at the VA, and we're driving to lunch. this song comes on the radio and I turn it up. LOUD! it's such an exciting piece of music. he says 'i've never met anybody like you!' and later falls in love with me. who knows why? i was a dream. he didn't even know me. didn't have a clue.

and now coming on....'I don't want to talk about' it by rod stewart...from the 'slow side' of his album, popular, again when I was in the commune with R.... we would light candles and listen to that album a lot..and dance sometimes...it was in the golden days when i still believed he loved me. in all honesty, i'm really not sure he ever did..."...I don't want to talk about it..how you broke my heart..what if I stay here just a little bit longer...won't you listen to my heart..." we lasted five and a half years. haven't seen him now in almost 25 years.

well, husband is home and the trip down memory lane is over.

(from a letter just written to an unnamed friend)

***Name two or three songs that bring back the most vivid memories for you. If they're not too private, share them?****

Didi Menendez , Publisher of MiPo, interviewed online

Most poets would rate MiPo Journal as among the top five online journals today, if not higher. The quality of this magazine is due to the driving energy and talent of artist/poet/digital designer Didi Menendez. She works hard, is dedicated and that dedication has paid off.

Want to know more about what makes Didi tick? Take time to read a recent interview with her HERE. Click on Didi's face in the link to go directly to the interview. Leave comments on this post, if you like, and I'll direct Didi's attention to them.

I should mention, too, that Didi did the complete layout for the calendar in the poet's calendar post below. Were it not for her, it would've never turned out so well!

Pris

The Most Intriguing (and Sensual) Male Poets of 2006 Calendar

Follow THIS LINK to my original post about the above fantastically hot calendar. This is THE calendar you'll want on your wall for 2006. Trust me. By following the link, you'll see the cover again, featuring Richard Blanco (who could not want to see that face over and over again??), along with purchase links.

Let's get the word out. These poets gave their all to offer their photos and poems for a good cause and they're the greatest in my book, not to mention gifted in their field! Tell everybody you know. Tell the lady across the street. Tell the mailman. Tell the man fixing the telephone pole. Tell Donald Trump!

Pris

A means to what end??

This isn't a political blog, but, while there's a lot of controversy over a poet's role in politics, if our poems are one more way to let others see the world through different eyes, this issue is certainly one to deal with.

This LINK leads to a page of some of the disturbing torture photographs released in various news sources as early as 2004. I emphasize that they are disturbing, so please be forewarned before you look. Almost as disturbing are the smiling male and female 'interrogators' giving thumbs up signs in the midst of this mayhem.

Can we really expect to have crossed the Geneva Convention guidelines on torture and still retain our humanity??

Featuring Li-Young Lee, Asian American poet

Li-Young Lee was born in Djakarta, Indonesia in 1957, the son of exiled Chinese parents. His mother came from a noble family; her father, Yuan Shi-kai, was the first president of the Republic of China. On the other hand, Lee's father, Lee Kuo Yuan, came from a family of gangsters and entrepreneurs. Their marriage received official disapproval; moreover, Lee Kuo Yuan attached himself to a nationalist general in the Chinese civil war. During the course of the war, the general switched sides and Dr. Lee found himself in the position of personal physician to Mao Tse-tsung...bio continued here. The photo is also from this site.

The following poem, one of my favorites can be found on the Moonrabbit Blues site, one which features Asian American poetry, as well as in his book.

I've been a fan of Li-Young Lee since I read his first poem. I have the book, Rose, and would highly recommend it. There is a gentleness about Li-Young's poetry and a poignancy that makes something sigh deep inside of you, reading it.

From Blossoms
in Rose, by Li-Young Lee
Boa Editions, Ltd.


From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, from hands
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach.

There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.


**********
(I'm curious. If you were to feature a poet, whom would you choose? Michael Parker has introduced me to two excellent poets on his blog. I'm always looking for more)

Dare I ??? The Looking Glass Redux

Okaaay. This is my 'self portrait' for the day, inspired by the below post. A webcam shot, digitally modified in layers and then layered onto a premade background. Think Chagall will lose his place in history over this one??:-)

Into the Looking Glass

Here's a link to artist self portraits that I find intriguing.

This series of self-portraits by Edvard Munch and one by Frida Kahlo (with monkey) are fascinating, too.

Which self-portrait or self-portraits appeal to you the most?

Which one/s is done in a style you would most like a portrait of yourself created in, if you had your choice?

Puter .....yes, again, but Lloyd be my hero!!:-)

(I think Lloyd deserves another picture!)

1:20 update to the post below:

My friend, Lloyd, called me over his lunch hour and told me to sign onto MSN to give him remote control of my computer. He's the only person on the planet I would do that with. At any rate, I watched my browser move all around my screen (while I just sat here dizzily), go to RUN and from there into the registry. There, he made a few edits and...wow, my two drives are back! i've tested and retested with music and data cd's and it all works. I even again shut off the puter and turned it back on and they were STILL THERE.

Lloyd, how can I ever thank you enough? You're truly wonderful! Smart, too.

Pris

original post:

In attempting to update my music player, I lost my CD ROM and DVD drives. GONE from Windows Explorer and My Computer. Control Panel /device manager says the drives are corrupted, but every attempt to install a different drive just gives me a default message saying 'the drivers you have are the best'.

Ever feel like you were on a treadmill??

I had help troubleshooting. I'm sure Lloyd is ready to throttle me by now.

Am exhausted. Computers can be like a bad marriage when they go wrong. Sigh.

Pris

THE calendar

I'm seeing mention of it pop up everywhere. Which calendar? Is there any other than The Most Intriguing (and Sensual) Male Poets of 2006 Calendar??

For the latest post on it, go to Martha Schwer's Blog, second post down, as of right now. She already has hers and features a pretty sexy photo of Bill Allegrezza that you might want to see.:-)

She has a great blog, too, btw.

Pris

Beaches (click to enlarge)

This was taken in a coffeehouse in Cambridge, MA, when I was around 30. The print was stained, but I like it, so...

a senryu

unopened note
on the cold kitchen table
door slamming

Crash and burn...crash and burn

Today I'm trying to get the basic programs that I use back onto my computer, then can reload other stuff in dribs and drabs and fix settings.

I'm so bleary from looking at the screen all you would get is babbling from me today. Maybe a better post tomorrow??

Quiz Found on Michael Parker's Blog...his link is in my links section.

You are Form 6, Elfin: The Wyld.

"And The Elfin saw the evil and
misjudgement in the world and shot her arrow at
the sky. Bolts of lightning struck the earth
and gave the world balance and
growth."

Some examples of the Elfin Form are Demeter (Greek)
and Khepry (Egyptian).
The Elfin is associated with the concept of growth
and balance, the number 6, and the element of
water.
Her sign is the half moon.

As a member of Form 6, you are a very balanced
individual. You can easily adapt to most
situations and you may be a good social
chameleon. You aren't afraid of changes in
your life, but sometimes you evolve too
rapidly, leaving others to think that you are
leaving them behind. Elfin are the best
friends to have because they are open minded.


Which Mythological Form Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

PS So far, so good with the power holding here.

Quick Note from Electrical Siberia

This was written late Wednesday...my little 'date' setter has disappeared from my blog.

First of all, thanks for the comments below. The utilities people finally got here at the end of the day only to assess the problem. This, by the way, isn't a problem a generator or solar panel would handle. It's a problem of fluctuating power. Right now I have it. It could start into brownouts unexpectedly, flicker, or just go. The brownouts put a tremendous strain on appliances and even the computer despite the surge protector. As my friend Lloyd said, the brownouts are most likely what fried my first computer. The problem is a bad electrical connector on the two poles behind our house which pipe power to our house and also one wire is wrapped around another wire. Theoretically, a crew will come today to fix it, but they were supposed to come to assess AND fix early yesterday, so we'll see.

I'll be back when I know I won't kill a puter. Best off for now.:-)

11 a.m. update Thursday:
I hope the power problem is now fixed. The power people were just here. They fixed a connection on a pole, untangled the twisted line and checked voltage. These two were older and seemed more experienced than the two who were here each of the last two days (and they're heard nothing of yesterday's visit or the guy's report..they came because I again called first thing this morning to verify the appointment and--big surprise--no, nobody knew about it. I'm typing this and then keeping my husband's puter off for the day just to make absolutely sure no other problems pop up. If the power stays okay all day, my life saver, Lloyd, will come tonight and get me back online with my own computer...well, I'll be on with the basics. Next will be the job of reloading programs, fixing settings, getting address books back in etc...step by step.



Pris