Michelle Buchanan's Plan

Please read the opening post in her new blog and consider her request. It's an excellent way to honour the men and women who've been killed in Iraq.

Go to Operation Poem.



Click to enlage and get some idea of the numbers of U.S. service men and women killed in different states, in Iraq, to date, from the Palm Beach Post.

Innocence

It's kind of like learning
to slip your bra off under
your sweater so he can touch
you--those little tricks you learn
over the years in some dark Chevy
or maybe if you're lucky, a sofa.
He learns to come with his jeans on
begging for more and maybe you
come too if he slips his hand down
your panties and touches you just
right. You learn how to find
that safe line between teasing and pleasing
because once you cross to the other
side you can't ever go back and you
learn later that innocence is an aphrodisiac
and no boy will ever again quite love you
like he did that night with one hand on your
breast, the other down your pants, 'your' song
on the radio and the moon writing
its name on every heartbeat

Duke Lang's blog: From a Penis museum to a deserted dance floor in Iceland.

Duke Lang is posting some of his travel journals on his blog on MySpace. You can go there to read them, but not comment if not a member. In this post, he visits an honest to god penis museum (they're preserved lol) and waltzes by the sea with his love, Disa. Well worth a read. Not only can this man write songs and sing, he can write with the best of them!

Duke Lang's MySpace post. If you click on his photo beside the post, you'll see his music profile page, but more blog posts are on the page, as well. The ones above it describe more ventures through Iceland on perilous roads with cabins in the most extremely deserted areas with food and blankets for stranded travelers.

He attached a photo of Disa on the dance floor he described. Notice the old speaker waay up top. Yes, they biked there! This post is magical.

The Oxford Project

Kim Komando's online newsletter brought an interesting site to her reader's attention today, and I found the site fascinating. Here's her description and the link:

It's amazing how time changes things. But, since time creeps up, most of us don't notice the changes.

That's why I find today's Cool Site so fascinating. Twenty-one years ago, Peter Feldstein took photos of residents of a small Iowa town.

Then, he returned and photographed the same people again. But this time, he brought a writer to record their stories. The result is an amazing slice of life.

It's remarkable to see the honesty in the photographs and stories. These people didn't pose for the camera. And their stories capture the essence and beauty of small town America.

To view this site, go to oxfordproject.com

...and the ocean reclaims

(Click to enlarge)

Making Eve (posted on my MySpace blog yesterday)

Spewed out of God's Sixth Day WIDE
open post utero mouth, these zygotes,
twin embryos, now grown, one buried
inside the other, tumblefall into Eden.

History's first birth defect.

That story about the rib?
History's first cover-up.

Nixon, listen up.
God did it, too!

No woman to ride side saddle
for long, Eve sharpens overgrown
nails, aliens her way free
through Adam's wimpy chest.
She flirts with the serpent,
finishes off the apple, tosses
Adam the worm and the core.

Original sin. What fun, she trills.

With a shake of her fuck-me frizzled
hair and one hand lifting an,
as yet uncarressed breast, she takes up
with a horny caveman. Their two dozen
mix-breeded children scope uncountable
later debates about Origins,
birth control, and the true
author of the Karma Sutra.


Pris Campbell
©2004

MiPo Print (OCHO) is out and it sings!!

The following announcement comes from Didi Menendex

Our new print companion to MiPOesias is now available.

http://www.lulu.com/content/337361

Contributors include:
John Korn
Jenni Russell
Jack Anders
Helm Filipowitsch
Ron Androla
Pris Campbell
Laurel K. Dodge
Amy King
Tom Blessing

If anyone is interested in reviewing OCHO, I will be happy to send you the PDF.

I will be mailing complimentary copies to a few of you as well.

Thank you,
Didi Menendez
OCHO and MiPOesias Magazine
www.mipoesias.com

NOTE: Several people have asked about the meaning of the journal's name. Tom Blessing was right in his comment. I just checked with didi. OCHO is '8'.

Fathers Day (Click to enlarge)

I was lucky to have two good parents. My father died of cancer twenty years ago this Christmas and my mother followed him ten years ago this September. The first photo is their wedding picture and the second, one I especially like, was taken in the late seventies under the mistletoe in my old hometown.
I'm grateful for both of them. I'm thinking of you, Daddy, on Fathers Day!

Our Hurricane Wilma kitten grows up!! (Click to see full size)

Those long time readers of my blog may remember the post I made last fall of the litter of kittens who rode out Hurricane Wilma in our house. The mother, a stray, carried her babies into our garage unseen when my husband had the garage door open, doing something in his van. The discovery was made when mom suddenly for the first time became insistent, almost desparate to run inside the front door whenever it was opened. Finally, my husband let her in and she headed straight for the garage where, yes, four tiny mewing kittens were found. In this first shot, Stubby (as I'll always think of her, though her name has changed) is lying on top of her sibs about four weeks after the storm hit.
Yes, we kept them until weaned, then found good homes for each one. I'm glad, since they were all adorable. The single shot is of Stubby propped up against the French Doors, looking up at me. Just adorable. It was hard to give them up, but we had to make a decision and decided mom was all we could take in, with a dog already king of the house at that point.

Recently, Steve did an A/C job for the kitten's mom and when he came home, he told me how beautifully that wee kitten had grown up. Today, we drove over, by invitation and I got to see our baby as a large cat. Those eyes are still beautiful!

The second photo is with Stubby and her new mom, trying to coax her out into the room. I think she thought we'd come to take her away again into the eye of Wilma, winds roaring around her, since she hid most of the time we were there. We did manage a few good fleeting shots and had the pleasure of seeing her at the beginning of her adulthood as a cat. Godspeed, Stubby. You were a pleasure to have in our home!

Tommy In The Sky With Diamonds

(Some of you read this earlier on my MySpace blog)

Stars blinked in the sky
that was us, high
in blackened theatre seats,
Roger Daltrey screaming,
seeeee me, heaaaaar me.
Clapton strutted down the aisle
with his MM crazed crowd
banners waving, blood of the
scotch bottle bled for thee--
Elton pin-balling that Wizard
in three foot laced shoes.
Pot so thick you could
slice the air.

Tommy, in rock opera glory,
resurrected across
that hazy Boston banned screen.

Tommy, Tommy,
sing us up the mountaintop.
Tommy, Tommy
lead us to the revolution.

We fell into each other after,
grasping and frantic,
eager to stretch
that fire into forever.


~


I rented the video years later.
My neighbor napped right through it and
my husband cracked lousy jokes, but

I slipped back with Daltrey
to the commune and you,
our bodies sweat-tight,
reliving the night when Tommy
lit up the theatre on Beacon Street.


Pris Campbell
©2003
(revised 2006)

Curious...how many of my blog readers saw the movie, Tommy, or have heard The Who perform it?

This is amazingly well done

A poem in flash, found as a link on the W.O.M.B. blog. W.O.M.B. in my right-hand column of links.

Cobweb.

Turn on your sound.
Pris

The link Brian Campbell mentions in his comment is Born Magazine for more of this type. As he says, this site is very difficult to navigate. Type in the last name in the box above poets. Choices will come up. Click on the one you want and hit the enter key. Good luck!!

Around the World

One of Kim Komando's newsletters features a site I'm still enjoying. If you like candid shots (and good ones) from all over the world you'll enjoy THIS SITE.

She describes it this way:
Today's Cool Site takes two of my favorite things and puts them together. That's right -- I'm talking about photography and travel.

You start with an interactive map of the world. Use the controls to zoom in or out on the map. Or you can click and drag to move the focus. You'll notice small yellow, orange and red dots sprinkling the map.

Just click on one of the dots. You'll get a preview of a picture taken at that location. If you're curious like me and want to see more, click on the preview. Then, you can see the picture in a full-sized window.

While you're exploring the photos, why not take a minute to upload your own? Anyone can do it!
---
NOTE: I found the instructions for upload on their forum. NOT obvious from the link. Here they are:
Follow the the steps 1) - 4)

1) Navigate to the location where you want to place your photo. You can use the controls or drag the map with the mouse pointer.

2) Click on the map with the left mouse button - the white bubble pops up.

3) Browse for your photo file. Enter title and description. If you want to upload as anonymous go to step 4). If you have already registred then select "I want to login". If you also want to register, select "I want to register". Fill in the appropriate data. All fields are required.

4) To upload the photo press "Submit" button.
----
I only had one pretty bad photo from the eighties of the main intersection of my hometown, Pageland, South Carolina, loaded onto my computer, but will see if I can scan more. On the map, find the Carolinas. Pageland is located on the South Carolina state line below North Carolina and below Monroe, North Carolina. Jefferson and Ruby are to its east and Kershaw to it's left. You'll see a bubble. That's where I grew up!!

btw: I couldn't get onto blogger at all yesterday to respond to comments or post them to other blogs. I see a maintenace is scheduled for tomorrow, so maybe the problems of the past two or three days will clear up after that.

Your mission...if you choose to do it..

is to use one of the words in the below list in a comment you leave.:-)

Click to enlarge. I wish I had more, but can't remember where I found this batch.



I'll be off the the dentist for a deep filling down into the root, dragging this cold with me. Wish me luck everybody!

Wildflowers

When my cousin turned eighteen,
she asked if she would go psychotic
like her sister
and two brothers before her--
believe the Nazis had poisoned her,
that she was an unrecognized
minister from France,
or end up in an institution
until she forgot who she was when she went.

I was a psychologist,
but what did I know?
The moon could explode tomorrow,
or dinasaurs could come shooting
out of black holes to rule
our planet like Godzilla did.

My baby cousin,
the tagalong,
the tail at the end of the kite
the five of us formed
those Montreat summers,
flying down the steep mountain road,
breathless and barefoot
to plunge headlong into Lake Susan,
so sure life would bring wildflowers
to our hands, forever.

She was never poisoned by the Nazis,
didn't preach in France,
or knock her father flat to his back
on her rare visits home.

A tumor found her, instead.
Thick, like a vine, it slowly strangled her.

Her chair is empty now.
My phone never hands me her voice.

So sure she would outlive me,
I'd willed her the Family Bible
and grandmother's old chocolate set.

Maybe I'll list them on E-bay,
let somebody else
take over our family's hauntings, or

just maybe
I'll look for a field of wildflowers somewhere,
lie back, watch clouds
turn cartwheels through the silent sky
until dusk falls and petals
drop softly to pillow the ground
with memories.

Featuring Ron Moss

Ron Moss, of Tasmania, creates some of the most beautiful haiga I've had the priviledge to view. He has graciously given me permission to post two of his haiga on my blog. Thank you, Ron! Be sure to click to enlarge them and remember that Windows resizes, so watch for the orange rectangle in the lower right corner to see if the image goes larger. Click HERE and HERE to see more of his work.

Below is Ron's bio from one of his publications in Simply Haiku to give an idea of the recognition he's received, as well as a taste of his background. Personally speaking, during my association with him over several years posting together now at Haiku Hut, I'd like to also say that Ron is one of the nicest people you'd want to meet.

Ron Moss writes and paints. He's published in Australia and overseas in magazines such as Famous Reporter, Yellow Moon, Heron's Nest, Frogpond, World Haiku Review, Mainichi Daily News and received an honorary mention in the Japanese Suruga-Baika Literary Festival and a second place in the 7th Mainichi daily News haiku competition.

He also paints watercolours and haiku "Haiga" which have been published in Paper Wasp, HaikuHut's Short Stuff, World Haiku Review and which features a portfolio of his haiga. He's a member of Watersmeet Haiku Group in Hobart, Tasmania and the World Haiku Association and World Haiku Club and has recently won first prizes in Haiku and Haibun and placings in Tanka and Renga and also co-edits Famous Reporter's Haiku Section.

He lives at Leslie Vale, Tasmania with his wife Sharon and works in the film and video department of the archives of Tasmania. He is also a volunteer fire-fighter and an officer at his local fire brigade.Ron was recently interviewed on the NPAC website after winning successive Gold Medals for haiga

For a general definition of haiga, if you're not familiar with the form, click HERE.

Haiga (Click to enlarge)

The beginning of hurricane season brought this to mind.

Black Widow

She undresses dresses nightly to the soft hoot
of hidden owls and tinkling wind chimes.
Perfumed and breathless,
she opens her arms to her new lover,
the old ones drained and scattered like
untended leaves in her trail.
They finally return to tired wives waiting
with burnt coffee and eggs
or empty apartments with beds
they can no longer bear to sleep in.

Her yard is littered with crumpled love poems.
It glows with spilt blood.

She spins silken tales for this new love,
weaves him closer with each word,
talons still hidden, demeanor as meek
as a coward's shadow.

He's a dead man walking, but
nobody's told him yet.

Pris Campbell
(c)2006

A short note...

Today was dental day and the shots for deadening put me into lala land with my chemical sensitivities so I'm sleeping off and on and hoping to feel normal again soon.

In the meantime, today is the funeral of Michael Parker's grandfather. If you know Michael, or even if you don't, take time to read the obituary and eulogy he posted on his site. Michael has been a good friend to me.

Michael, whenever you return, know my thoughts are with you today as are the thoughts of so many others.

Pris