david elzey

“You were wrong, David. You were wrong about everything!”

That was the pronouncement made by my younger daughter as the final credits rolled for the season finale of the TV series Smash on Monday night. What I was wrong about, specifically, were my predictions about the show’s story arc. To be fair, my guess was made after the first or second week, when I saw a lot of potential in the various elements and couldn’t imagine the show would get almost instantly stupid.

I was not an actual fan of the show, though something more than a casual viewer. Apparently there’s a love-to-hate contingent out there but I never really followed the armchair quarterbacking that has become almost de rigueur of any TV series these days. But given the scope of what the show set out to accomplish — a backstage story of the creation of a Broadway show — I didn’t feel it was out of line for me to expect something more than a fifteen week version of an old MGM musical.

So what did I expect? I expected that they wouldn’t tease out the lead for the show-within-a-show all the way up to the very end; I thought they were going to stumble with funding and lose the director back to his old show, taking the rising star with him (his Eliza Doolittle as it were); that Smash would become a show about two separate shows with torn allegiances going up against each other, each becoming competitive in their successes; that the finale would involve the Tony awards where the two battling leading ladies were up against each other and when they announced the winner… fade to black, see you next season!

What we got was a very drawn out process of a show in workshop that was held together with preposterous sub-plots. The adoption of a Chinese baby, by the least realistic family on TV (and a teen son who was unarguably the show’s worst actor); the constant need to give the competing leads opportunities to sing popular songs to fill in for true emotions in storytelling; a determined producer whose lines were clearly written by a computer sampling dialog from old movies and phoned in by a sleepwalking actress… and in the end the show barely-but-miraculously makes it through its out-of-town previews with hints of Pregnancy! Suicide! Divorce!

How could I have expected anything more from TV?

So I won’t return to Smash for its second season, and maybe one day someone will develop the backstage drama worthy of Broadway that is also quality television.

Until then there’s always Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz.

Late at night, when the world is quiet, my Muse decides to lure me to the rocks of morbidity. The Muse creates doubt as often as it feeds me ideas. I tried to wrestle with some of these ideas in a blog post late last night, and wisdom had taught me to schedule the post rather than update it immediately.

Because I knew that this morning I would remember what I’d written and want to delete.

Most of it anyway.

What I’ve salvaged was this mini monologue from the film version of S.E. Hinton’s Rumble Fish. Benny, the soda jerk played by Tom Waits, delivers what is essentially the theme of the movie, which is about time.

Time is a funny thing. Time is a very peculiar item. You see when you’re young, you’re a kid, you got time, you got nothing but time. Throw away a couple of years, a couple of years there… it doesn’t matter. You know. The older you get you say, “Jesus, how much I got? I got thirty-five summers left.” Think about it. Thirty-five summers.

I’ve thought a lot about those thirty-five summers for the last thirty or so years, and I’m getting to the point where those perpetual thirty-five summers might not be so perpetual. They’re getting to be more of an outside number. Remember that thing I said about my Muse being morbid?

Time.

Time to start thinking about how to maximize those thirty-five summers.

Maurice Sendak left us this week and in his wake many people came forth with stories about the man and his impact on them, some as colleagues, some as readers. It would be fooling to claim this as a “top five” but these are the ones that stood out for me this week.

Illustrator Paul Schmid did a fellowship with Sendak a few years back, and on his blog he recounts the last visit he made. The key to the man, and the visit, was his ability to cut to the chase. “She didn’t capitulate.”

Art Spielgelman, creator of Maus, spoke with Sendak back in 1993 about his book We Are All In the Dumps With Jack and Guy. “You can’t protect kids, they know everything.” (Catch this while you can, before The New Yorker locks up behind its pay wall again).

Scholar and author Phillip Nel remembers his contacts with Sendak while working on his dual biography of Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss. “I feel as though Max was born in Rowayton, and that he was the love child of me, Ruth, and Dave.” Also: the birth of the rumpus.

Nel also gathered a collection of illustrators tributes to Sendak. Most of these are lovely, though I’m a little confused by Harry Bliss’s graveside tribute from children’s book characters who came before Sendak. Wouldn’t characters who benefitted from Sendak be more in his debt of gratitude?

And bookseller Sarah Rettger remembers Sendak the local who would visit her store. I am still curious to know if he ever bought a book, and I do mean ever. Could Sendak simply call a publisher and say “I’d like to see…” and like royalty he’d receive it by overnight express?

So that’s five. The plus-one is my own personal recollection of growing up alongside his new releases in the 60s and 70s, and one book in particular that spoke to me then and still does. It probably doesn’t merit being in the same company of the other posts above, but its my blog, so there.

Seems everyone had a favorite memory or story to share in tribute. Feel free to suggest your own in the comments.

…Poof.

Without a pop but with a whisper, Maurice Sendak packed his valise of sadness and crossed the ocean to join the place where his Wild Things were born.

To say I grew up with Sendak is to say I grew up within the sphere of his influence, as the books he both wrote and illustrated were published as I was becoming a reader. I was always slightly behind each new publication, discovering titles a few years after they were published, though they were and still are ever-fresh to my young eyes. The strongest, oldest memories would be of the books in The Nutshell Library (“Alligators All Around,” “Chicken Soup With Rice,” “One Was Johnny” and “Pierre,” 1962) but also there were the older books he illustrated for Ruth Krauss’s books “A Hole Is To Dig” (1952) and “Open House For Butterflies” (1960). In all these there is the whimsy of childhood but also the darkness that haunted much of Sendak’s work, a darkness that is a part of childhood more often excised by overprotective parents (and lately publishers). This very darkness, this undercurrent, is what anchors Sendak’s illustrations in a world instantly recognizable by children.

Why do his books stand the test of time? Look at the pictures.

The touchstone, of course, is “Where the Wild Things Are” (1964), a deceptively simple and subtle exploration of childhood play and anger management. It was and is the birthplace of much modern American children’s literature, much the same way that “The Great Gatsby,” “Winesburg, Ohio,” or “Main Street” could be argued as the beginning of a 20th century American literary tradition. Though for all Sendak’s cantankerousness, his outspoken disgust with being labeled a “kiddie book” writer, I think of him more as the Hemingway of children’s books. Without becoming too Freudian (is this possible with Maurice Sendak?) he simply is “Papa” to the world of children’s books. Seuss may have taught us all to read and think, Sendak taught us it was okay to feel.

Everyone has their favorite, but the Sendak book for me is “Higlety Piglety Pop!” (1967), a longer story featuring Sendak’s beloved dog Jennie who  explores the world and discovers her true passion as an actress. Based ever so loosely on a nursery rhyme, the key to this story comes in its subtitle “Or, There Must Be More to Life.” Jennie has everything she could want as a dog – a warm bed, plenty to eat, loving caretakers – but as with all children she must go out into the world and find out who she really is. That she ultimately becomes an actress spoke to a younger version of myself wondering about the life of a creative person out in the world, gaining experience. School, home, these were safe places, comfortable enough, but they didn’t speak to my spirit and they didn’t help me understand my place in the world or how to get there. While I certainly didn’t set out to model my life over that of a dog in a children’s book, I did need to leave home and put myself in some uncomfortable life-changing situations in order to learn about myself and what I wanted to do. I only wish those lessons could have been learned as quickly as Jennie learned them.

“Higlety Piglety Pop!” is an odd book of Sendak’s, more of an intermediate reader and to my knowledge the longest work of fiction he published (he wrote plenty of essays published as “Caldecott and Co: Notes on Books and Pictures,” 1988). While the book does end with the titular nursery rhyme acted out in picture book fashion, what I always loved was that Sendak took the time to flesh out the backstory to the drama. He probably could have illustrated the ditty as a picture book and told the same story, but just this once he wanted there to be more to the story, just as Jennie had wanted more to life. I did not know that this was Sendak’s valentine to his beloved terrier until many years later; it read to me, a young reader, like a fairy tale about a life. If it was nonsense it had the sense of what life looks like to a child, full of adults making rules and decisions arbitrary to a child’s eyes. There was danger and adventure and a mop made of salami. What’s not to like?

Recent interviews with Sendak around the publication of his most recent book “Bumble Ardy” (2011) showed his as a sad and tired man. He had lost too many loved ones and it seemed obvious that his art no longer brought him enough happiness to counterbalance the sadness.

Maurice, thank you for the wild rumpuess, the journeys through night kitchens, and all that chicken soup with rice.

And when I say final I think I mean it. Twitter has become a very different place than it was four years ago, which isn’t a bad thing as social networks will change according to their very social nature, but it has changed. It’s become a place of redirecting and reblogging and reposting and retweeting and not so much a place of original thought. The notion of original content debuting on Twitter now seems quaint, and while there once was a lot more sharing of stories and poems in the limited format it has clearly become a thing of the past.

And haiku, poor haiku. So abused and maligned. Teachers simply teaching the 5-7-5 without mentioning the subtleties of the form, the use of nature and observation. Authors abusing the form with little regard for its poetry. Which is not to say that I was or have been anything close to a purest, but when you end up cranking out three a day sometimes things get a little… sloppy.

And so the following twitter haiku, or twitku, may be the last ever to appear in my Twitter feed. It’s been fun, don’t get me wrong, and the occasional retweet was nice, but with so much noise on Twitter aimed at passing glances of attention the effort feels a bit lost. And now, without any further ado (and everything previous has been much a-doo)…

27 April
a bird in the garden, and two taken from the local news

cardinal sentry / standing guard over the yard / while sparrows argue

cell phones and six-pack / taken at knifepoint, found when / crooks ordered pizza

what’s the connection / video stores are replaced / by daycare centers

28 April
realizing the end of the month was at hand, the ‘ku started to sound philosophical

police arrested / man shoplifting baby food / sad, desperate times

egg on the sidewalk / nudged suddenly from its nest / baffles dog nearby

to shorten your life / allow every little hate / to subtract one day

29 April
the neighborhood was alive this day, with trash cans and wild turkeys

wind chime gamelan / ballet of empty trash cans / preceding the storm

the dandelion / noxious to adults, perfect / flowers for small hands

cat, frozen in place / scared by the bird in the yard / don’t mess with turkeys

if my dog has fleas / when ukulele tuning / what does my cat have?

30 April
and in the end… love

wrench ourselves from sleep / once used to being awake / force ourselves to sleep

with a simple twist / thousands of explosionettes / joys of bubble wrap

when no one’s watching / lie on the grass and pretend / earth is your jet-pack

money will follow / if the thing you love to do / is to make money

filling a bucket / drop after drop over time / in writing, in love

For those who might have missed previous installments for National Poetry Month, the Week One, Week Two, Week Three and Week Four roundups of my twitku for 2012. Final count: 92 twitku for the month. I probably could have pushed and forced out seven more for the 99 I was hoping for, but pushing them out wasn’t the goal. One a day was the goal, and three a day was the average, and that’s just fine. A few of them were even okay.

So that’s it, Poetry Friday. At the end of March I was debating whether to continue with posting original poetry to these weekly roundups but I knew I wanted to do one more (last) round of daily haiku while I thought it through. I have other areas of my writing to focus on, and while i don’t intend to turn off the poetry tap my appearance during these weekly roundups may become less frequent. We’ll see. I’m playing this by ear for the time being.

That said, if you’re a regular visitor, thank you. And thank you again for all the comments over the past year and a half about the poems you enjoyed. Feedback, it’s a good thing.

Right, so let’s see what the rest of the poetry world is up to. The Poetry Friday roundup this week is hosted by  Elaine over at Wild Rose Reader.

National Poetry Month winding down, and the twitku keep on coming! This week wasn’t as hard as last week, but I sense a diminishing quality overall. Less serious, more absurd, and the need for themes to keep rolling. You’ll see what I mean.

The following tweets were pre-recorded before a live audience.

April 20
I do not recall why I only managed to get two.

peanut butter toast / lands like a drunken frat boy / face down on the floor

foxes in vineyards / should know better than to want / what they cannot have

April 21
The first is about a test in New York, the second planted a seed for later, the third just happened

pineapple & hare / race through a standardized test / but nobody wins

three cans shaving cream / ten disposable razors / five o’clock teen wolf

sitting in traffic / broken AC, windows down / fully exhausted

April 22
Earth Day, and apparently I’ve grown cynical about it. At least in haiku.

oil covered birds / rainbow slick tides wash up tar / the price of cheap gas

circle of arrows / what comes around goes around / recycle and reap

1970 / cleaning beaches with trash bags / preserved in landfills

to preserve our air / close polluting factories / move them overseas

April 23
William Shakespeare’s birthday. And deathday. Some haiku revisions.

updating shakespeare / let all who die in hamlet / return as zombies

imagine how great / “midsummer night” would be if / puck was a werewolf

happy ending for / Romeo and Juliet? / they’re vampires now!

gender swap the shrew / for the next 400 years / “taming the bastard”

April 24
Another theme! American historical figure biographies, in haiku! (The last one almost ended “arbor-onanist.”)

benjamin franklin / prankmaster general and / closeted nudist

abraham lincoln / a stand-up comedian  / who hated to shave

johnny appleseed /planting his trees everywhere / masturarborist

April 25
One of these things is not like the others. In fact, it’s total nonsense, but it works.

sucking on a lemon / bright like the sun after a storm / but paper-cut tart

against the cobalt / cotton dabbed in mercury / bicycle weather

economic woes / jobs are haystacks of promise / in needle-free zones

chocolate choco / la te cho cola tech o /co late chocolate

April 26
Poem in your pocket day actually turned out to be the most poetic, traditionally speaking.

reach in your pocket / where you think you have money / only a receipt

constellation beach / pebbly stars recede as / their time becomes dust

you know that feeling / before you know you’re tired / clouds shrinking away

the tip of my tongue / where everything tastes so sweet / but the words won’t come

And that’s the way it is. Or was. And there’s still a few days to go!

When I first started tweeting daily haiku during NPM four years ago (not three like I originally thought) there were a lot of people tweeting poems. Then again, if my Twitter stats are correct, four years ago Twitter had fewer people – to the tune of 95% fewer. So the audience was smaller and the messages were more… personal? Intimate? Since then there have been Twitter novels, and collections of six-word biographies, and all matter of self-promotion that have changed the face of Twitter. Which is not to say I think any of that is bad, only that there has been a decided change in Twitter’s general “vibe” and my sense is that my fellow tweeps are more interested in broadcasting than they are sharing.

In fact, the only person who has shown up in my streams with any poetic regularity has been Elinor Lipman who has been tweeting a political couplet daily and will continue to do so through the 2012 election. The Daily Beast, the online arm of Newsweek, recently collected her tweets marking the rise and fall of Newt Gingrich’s presidential campaign. Nearly a year’s worth of daily poem tweeting and counting! Can’t wait to see what happens as the actual mano-a-mano campaign begins in earnest.

So, the last Poetry Friday of National Poetry Month 2012. What is everyone else in the blogosphere up to? Tabatha over at The Opposite of Indifference has the roundup, so let’s mosey on over and see what’s what!

I’m not jumping the bandwagon here, I’m building it. Print books are gonna be HUGE in 10 to 15 years. There’s gonna be a renaissance of the printed book that’ll make all our current hand-wringing look like the motion picture industry wailing over the pending death of movies at the dawn of television back in the 1950s. And the best part about this pending book boom: books are going to be awesomer than they are now.

Kids coming up with these new digital ereaders, soon this is all they will know of books. Oh, sure, the unused library in their school will have their shelves of “research” material that hasn’t made the transition, those titles that have yet to be digitized, just like back in the beginning of the compact disc transition where people still owned tape players and turntables for their “oldies.”

Then one day an author with a name and some clout is going to open shop and start printing fine editions of their books. They’ll pick up some other authors and do the same. Dave Eggers may be their model, but they may look back at the names behind the major publishers and see how they started, as small imprints with a unique viewpoint to share with the world. The hipster kids, annoying but ever-present, will tout the latest new first editions they found and swap publishers and authors to check out with other “booksters.” New stores will open catering to the “lost” art of the non-ebook, the codex, the physical artifact.

College kids will sit in cafes obnoxiously reading from a book printed on environmentally friendly paper, showing off their dust jackets in defiance of all the anonymous backs of ereader screens like mini-monoliths in a tabletop Stonehenge. The movement won’t change the world overnight but will capture the people’s attentions as they realize what was traded-off in the name of convenience. As with the resurgence of vinyl recordings and film cameras with kids now, the book will return with a renewed desire to regain a certain hand-made spirit to the enterprise.

The glut of digital democracy will, ultimately, send people in search of quality “slow books.” When a publisher returns to an emphasis on the quality of the finished product they will be forced to reexamine how they allocate their resources. Digital has already made it too easy for everyone to be published, and the result is a din too noisy to know where to focus ones attention.

The print book renaissance will remind people that it isn’t just the words that matter, but that presentation counts.

The ramblings of a Luddite, a technophobe with a desire for things “the way they used to be?” Hardly. But as I made the switch with my music from vinyl to digital I have come to hear my music less. In fact, I don’t listen to it at all, I just play it as if it were part of the wallpaper. The ease with which I can call up a song and listen to it on demand, the way I can shuffle songs or make playlists on the fly, this ease has caused me to miss the greatest thing about music in the first place: the music itself. I’ve traded the fidelity of old technology for the compressed convenience of the new, and so have you. I traded away making a conscious effort to choose a particular album and make the deliberate effort to play it when it could be listened to, really listened to, consciously. That’s what I realize I’ve missed, I’ve traded listening to music for consuming it.

Ebooks and digital publishing, it’s that same ease of consuming over the conscious act of selecting and reading — truly reading, with absolute focus and deliberateness — that’s been whittled away.

But it’s coming back, to a future near you.

First it came to me as a tweet, that a bizarre story with unanswerable context questions appeared on a New York State exam. The news story, which gave a summary of the story on the test, concerned a retelling of the fable of the Tortoise and the Hare, only with a Pineapple in the place of the tortoise. The Pineapple, who can talk but is immobile, naturally loses the race but is eaten by the other animals. The questions that followed, supplied by the news story made no sense. Even teachers administering the exam couldn’t decisively say which were the correct answers.

And as teachers were going to be assessed on the ability of their students to do well on this test it seemed a travesty.

Another tweet alerted me to the fact that the story was written by noted children’s author Daniel Pinkwater. A different story came into focus with just that information, because I’ve read enough Pinkwater to know that he prizes nonsense and zen equally in his stories. But I was still confused. How did a nonsense story end up on a test to measure reading comprehension? It sounded like another one of those areas where a test seemed more designed to promote failure than measure success. I poked around and found both an interview with Pinkwater along with a copy of the actual story as it appeared on the test.

Pinkwater himself finds the entire incident absurd and makes his pointed jabs at the testing industry clear. What struck me was the story of “The Hare and the Pineapple” (originally “The Hare and the Eggplant”) was taken out of context in such a way that, as a stand-alone piece, it seems practically designed to cause test taker anxiety. The fable in the book is told by an elderly man who is either going through early stages of dementia or at least pretending to be, so within that context the “meaning” of the story is, essentially, there is no meaning to the story. In reading the story as it appeared on the test, and looking at the questions, it becomes clear that the controversy as reported in the news was carefully written to highlight the absurdity of the test. There is one question I found that asks for a value or contextual judgment (“who was wisest”) but in the end it may simply have been that an absurd story in the middle of a “serious” test caused some eighth graders undue anxiety.

Still, the problem of context bothers me. When you take something with a very specific purpose in one text and remove it from its surrounding purpose, it opens up the possibility of misuse and misunderstanding.

In Paul Zindel’s YA novel The Pigman there is a story told by the old man as a “mystery” though he suggests that the story will reveal what kind of a person you are. If I’m not mistaken the story is an adaptation of a version playwright Edward Albee based on a Greek tale.

There is a river with a bridge over it, and a WIFE and her HUSBAND live in a house on one side. The WIFE has a LOVER who lives on the other side of the river, and the only way to get from one side of the river to the other is to walk across the bridge or to ask the BOATMAN to take you.

One day the HUSBAND tells his WIFE that he has to be gone all night to handle some business in a faraway town. The WIFE pleads with him to take her with him because she knows if she doesn’t, she will be unfaithful to him. The HUSBAND absolutely refuses to take her because she will only be in the way of his important business.

So the HUSBAND goes alone. When he is gone, the WIFE goes over to the bridge and stays with her LOVER. The night passes, and dawn is almost up when the WIFE leaves because she must get back to her own home before her HUSBAND returns. She starts to cross the bridge but sees an ASSASSIN waiting for her on the other side, and she knows if she tries to cross, he will murder her. In terror, she runs up the side of the river and asks the BOATMAN to take her across the river, but he wants fifty cents. She has no money, so he refuses to take her.

The WIFE runs back to the LOVER’s house and explains to him what the predicament is and asks him for fifty cents to pay the BOATMAN. The LOVER refuses, telling her it’s her own fault for getting into the situation. As dawn comes up, the WIFE is nearly out of her mind and dashes across the bridge. When she comes face to face with the ASSASSIN, he takes a large knife and stabs her until she is dead.

Now, on a piece of paper (or in your head), list the names of the characters in the order in which you think they were most responsible for the WIFE’s death. Just list WIFE, HUSBAND, LOVER, BOATMAN, and ASSASSIN in the order you think they are the most guilty.

The order of your answer supposedly reveals how much you value LOVE, SEX, FUN, MONEY, and MAGIC with each corresponding to the characters in the story and their behavior. And within the story there is a reason for The Pigman to be telling it, but let’s take the story on its own and instead of making an ordered list of who we think is most guilty, lets instead ask some contextual inference questions.

Based on the story above, which person is most likely to have hired the ASSASSIN?
a. the BOATMAN
b. the LOVER
c. the HUSBAND
d. the WIFE

Who does the WIFE fear the most in story?
a. the ASSASSIN
b. the HUSBAND
c. herself
d. the BOATMAN

What could the WIFE have done differently to avoid being killed?
a. Swim across the river.
b. Offered the BOATMAN double his fee for helping her.
c. Kill the ASSASSIN before he could kill her.
d. Found another way across the river.

The first question underscores a crucial bit of information that isn’t expressly given in the story, because we all know that an Assassin never kills for free. In the second question the Wife has reason to fear all of the people named in the answers, but which does she fear the most based on her behavior? The third question merely asks that the test taker choose what to their thinking is the best solution. These questions are sometimes kept out of the scoring and sometimes used to gather some other particular metrics requested by the test administrators or the company that produced the tests themselves. But as you can see, it’s easy to ask the questions, but much harder defending definitive answers when the story itself has another purpose within the larger context.

Now comes the blame game. Judging from all the news and hoopla regarding “The Hare and the Pineapple,” who do you think is the most at fault?

a. The news media for reporting the story.
b. The schools who administer tests with questions even their own teachers cannot answer.
c. The test preparers who make millions off selling tests to school districts even though the tests themselves may not provide the quantitative information they claim to possess.
d. The public, who believe that standardized testing is the best way to measure everything from individual knowledge to the ability of a school and its educators to provide quality education.

When you are done, put down your pencils, wait quietly and do not turn the page until you are told to do so.

(By the way, if you want to provide your answers to The Pigman’s riddle below I will email you what the results mean.)

You may be thinking that magic is an illusion, a slight of hand, a trick. That’s not the kind of magic I have in mind though.

I’m talking about a type of magic that you see when a face lights up. It’s a magic I used to live for as a teacher and one I continue to relish as a parent. It’s a magic of a moment when someone receives a gift that transcends the physical. It’s the Ah-ha!, the joy of surprise, the connection of finding something that speaks to you and let you know that you are not alone in the world.

I’m talking about the magic of a book.

And I’m asking you to consider becoming a magician, an agent of change that will get books to kids so they can experience that magic.

Each year the blog Guys Lit Wire, which I contribute to, puts together a book fair for a worthy cause, someplace in need of a little outside help. This year we are headed back to Ballou Sr High School in Washington DC because, as much as we were able to help them last year, they are still deep in need when it comes to books.

You can read the whole deal here at Guys Lit Wire. Read the background, click on the link of books, make a purchase. It’s pretty straightforward but here’s how I like to think about it:

Somewhere out there is a book. It was written by an author with the hopes of one day reaching a reader. One day that book finds its reader and the reader is astounded: it’s as if the author wrote the book specifically for them, is speaking directly to them. But in between there is a missing piece of magic, that midwifery that delivers the book to the reader. You will never know how you changed a reader’s life or even that you did, but never knowing, never being sure, that’s the territory shared by magic and faith.

Go.

Be a magician.

Spread the word, help others become magicians.

If memory serves, the third week of National Poetry Month is always a bit like hitting the wall. So this week’s twitku are a mixed lot.

April 13
All sort of animals today, mostly birds.

to last forever / our lives witnessed, recorded / and sung by the birds

urban savanna / lumbering teen hippo boys / stork-legged teen girls

missing bird flyer / the cat acts suspiciously / the dog looks away

April 14
There’s a rather weak attempt at a pun buried in here.

kentucky burgoo / is it porridge, soup or stew? / I haven’t a clue

peripatetic / when wandering patetics / fall madly in love

first sunburn of spring / no comfort to be found from / neglected aloe

April 15
Only two today, grass-stains and deep thoughts about place.

down by the water / the ground plays practical jokes / soggy grass-stained butts

this place I call home / who else called it home before / how many more will?

April 16
Another short day, a trip to the airport and the Boston Marathon.

romance of travel / standing in security / overpay for food

marathon monday / closed streets shut down the city / sirens fill the air

April 17
Just to be clear, the old guys are yelling at each other’s empty houses. Surreal and entertaining.

some say we are dust / but we are water transformed / liquid, solid, gas

elderly neighbors / yelling at empty houses / harmony of hate

echoes in my head / me: but, mom! i looked everywhere! / mom: did you LIFT things?

April 18
The first one is a Limick, sort of. It’s missing a line but it still works. Sort of.

the old man from kent / never knew about what grew / from the AC vent

repeating bird song / caught in an infinite groove / making time stand still

midnight is a crow / that drifts across the night sky / the moon in his eye

April 19
The cat reappears, and yes skateboards used to have clay wheels.

to shower in clothes / to prepare for the monsoons / or walk about nude?

dead vole at the door / a warning from the cat or / a peace offering

1969 / the mighty pebble could stop / clay skateboard wheels

truth bent like willows / faces betray memory / high school reunion

humor’s conundrum / he who laughs last laughs best or / he who laughs best lasts?

military jets / overhead at fenway park / national treasures

A couple of decent ones cropped up, some I don’t even remember what frame of mind I was in when I wrote them. The usual. I’d pick out some faves but I’d rather hear what struck a chord with y’all.

Poetry Friday, it’s a thing. I probably don’t have to tell you. Looking for the roundup? Diane over at Random Noodling is hosting this week, so head on over and see what else the rest of the internet is up to.

The price of gasoline. It goes up. It goes down.

Over time though it inches incrementally higher. We hear about it in the news, where there is a war, or when there is some problem with the supply. We hear soundbites of the average consumer complaining about how it gets harder and harder to pay for the gas they need to get to jobs, how corners will have to be cut someplace, how people turn to cars with better fuel efficiency.

This isn’t the problem. All this focus on gas makes for an easy story in the news, something we can grasp easily, but only because the news media has never really bothered to give the true story its due.

The problems isn’t gas, it’s wages.

The amount paid at the pump only hurts because it affects people’s personal budgets. If the average salary increased with inflation the cost of gas at $4 and $5 a gallon would seem cheap. If the news media instead looked at how the inflationary costs of goods and services outpaced the earnings of the workers then maybe we would have a better understanding of the problem. And some real outrage.

News media, and especially media that focuses on business, tend to focus on the economics of business. We know the box office grosses of the latest movies, how much Apple’s stock has increased, the value of the facebook IPO but there’s never a story about how much the price of peanut butter has increased in the past year versus the average salary of a family that relies on cheap protein sources to keep kids fed. We don’t see these stories because… why? They don’t make businesses and their bottom lines looking good? Because we fear that if a business fails so does the rest of the country? Is it that important to save an auto industry that uses gasoline (two business stories that we use as gauges for understanding these economically uncertain times) that we completely ignore that we have totally lost the entire middle-income section of the economic chart?

It has always struck me that no one finds its odd there’s a Business section of the news but not a Labor section, or at the very least and Personal Economics section. I would think any media that presented itself as offering a balanced view of news would want to counter every corporate leader profile with one from the rank and file, a running tally of jobs lost against business gains, hourly versus salary.

What I think captures the attention and imagination is that gas prices fluctuate down as well as up. If there was ever better evidence of the value and pricing of a commodity within American society, gas prices would be it. But it’s subterfuge symbolism, this marker by which we are made to feel that things are either getting better or worse when, in fact, the question that should automatically come to mind when the news media talks gas prices should be:

Compared to what?