Changes

For the few people who have been paying attention, you may have noticed that I haven't been writing or posting much in the past few months. There are many reasons for this. Some of these reasons are out of my control, such as my current work schedule. But I have also kind of lost my way, my motivation, whatever it is that keeps me writing and posting things I think are worthwhile. In hopes of renewing some creative impulse I have decided a change of venue might be helpful. We'll see.

You may now find me at my Wordpress site, My Tiny Throes. All of the content here has been imported over there, and I hope the new scenery will spur me on to keep writing and posting. (As an aside, I have reverted back to my given name, Jeff. I think the folks who were out to get me have been sufficiently thrown off my trail, so there is no reason to use a nickname to protect my identity.)

Judson Mitcham: Before Prayer

(Judson Mitcham)

She curled up next to me on the Trailways,
clutching her cigarettes and change.
The light framed her face, while the bus
idled under a streetlight in Ringgold,
till it groaned on into the night,
headed south down the two lane.

I think of her often, this woman
who appeared in the aisle like a nightmare
somewhere in Tennessee, bits of weed
in wild hair matted on one side.
She lurched through the vacant bus
toward the one seat where, by accident,
she could touch someone.

When the light left her face, it came,
this ache I have felt all my life.
Whatever is within us, it is not enough.

                   --Judson Mitcham

David Wagoner: After the Point of No Return

David Wagoner

After that moment when you've lost all reason
for going back where you started, when going ahead
is no longer a Yes or No, but a matter of fact,
you'll need to weigh, on the one hand, what will seem,
on the other, almost nothing against something
slightly more than nothing and must choose
again and again, at points of fewer and fewer
chances to guess, when and which way to turn.

                                                                 

Tu Fu: Standing Alone

Empty skies. And beyond, one hawk.
Between river banks, two white gulls
Drift and flutter. Fit for an easy kill,
To and fro, they follow contentment.

Dew shrouds grasses. Spiderwebs are still
Not gathered in. The purpose driving
Heaven become human now, I stand where
Uncounted sorrows begin beginning alone.

          --Tu Fu, trans. David Hinton

Walt Whitman: Thought (Of persons arrived at high positions)

(Walt Whitman: May 31, 1819-March 26, 1892)

Of persons arrived at high positions, ceremonies, wealth,
   scholarships, and the like;
(To me all that those persons have arrived at sinks away from
   them, except as it results to their bodies and souls,
So that often to me they appear gaunt and naked,
And often to me each one mocks the others, and mocks
   himself or herself,
And of each one the core of life, namely happiness, is full of
   the rotten excrement of maggots,
And often to me those men and women pass unwittingly the
   true realities of life, and go toward false realities,
And often to me they are alive after what custom has served
   them, but nothing more,
And often to me they are sad, hasty, unwaked
   sonnambules walking the dusk.)

                          --Walt Whitman

Ralph Waldo Emerson: I Am Not Alone

The greatest delight which the fields and woods minister, is the suggestion of an occult relation between man and the vegetable. I am not alone and unaknowledged. They nod to me, and I to them. 

         --Ralph Waldo Emerson, from "Nature"

William Wordsworth: The Strength of Love

There is a comfort in the strength of love;
'Twill make a thing endurable, which else
Would break the heart.

     --William Wordsworth, from "Michael"