Category: Poetry

Dog Days

Heat. It saps my energy and my will to continue. Yesterday I was out in the heat for a bit and that must have done me in because all I’ve done today is sleep and rest. I am dreading this evening because I need to go back out in the heat and cut grass and weed-eat around my property. Ugh.

In the mean time, I thought this might be a good time to check in with how the summer is going as regards my goals. All-in-all, it is going rather well. I am reading through Shakespeare’s Star Wars by Ian Doescher (while in the bathroom; hey, it’s something) and have completed the Phantom of Menace and The Clone Army Attacketh and am starting The Tragedy of the Sith’s Revenge. To go from almost no books read, to two down and more to go feels like a real accomplishment. I think after Revenge I will take a break from pseudo-Shakespeare and tackle something different altogether.

My doomscrolling has gone way down, though the app limits, which I did implement, started to annoy me. Either it isn’t enough time or it is too easy to circumvent, but either way I’ve turned it back off for now. I tend to have reached a balance with app limits off that keep me from doomscrolling for too long. Maybe I’ve learned a little discipline? Time will tell.

I’ve made huge process, too, on other tasks, primarily on the LEGO sorting. Working through the backlog of LEGO sets I bought primarily for the pieces (and not for display) has taken less time than I feared and I am already formulating plans to build, with eBay having furnished me some baseplates on which to construct. I can’t wait until they arrive so I can actually start. I still need to finish phase one of scanning in photos for my mother, and a few other things I planned to do have gone undone as of yet, but there is time still. My productivity has been up, and that is what I wanted.

Oh! I almost forgot: haiku! I’ve been writing them. I am a member of the social media platform Mastodon, and there is an account I follow that posts haiku prompts each week for each day. In the evening, I have been writing a few haiku just for fun. Maybe someday I will choose the best and refine them for some project, but right now it is about writing and enjoying the form. Here’s one I wrote recently:

After full summers

Winter ballparks lay fallow.

Hush! Legends need rest.

It needs a bit more tweaking, as do most of them, but it’s a start and a fun exercise before sleep.

I’ve even done some movie watching this summer, and in the theater, no less! My parents and I went to see F1 starring Brad Pitt, and just yesterday my sister, her beaux Will, and my parents, and I went to see the newest Superman.

Pitt’s action vehicle F1 was pretty much by-the-numbers about an aging former star returning to a thing to help an up-and-coming phenom, and both learn a grudging respect while winning the day. The cinematography was amazing, and put the viewer in the driver’s seat in a way I haven’t seen since Tom Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick. I enjoyed the spectacle, and the story made me care about Formula 1 racing in the same way that Legend of Bagger Vance made me care about golf. That is to say, I don’t, but both stories were strong enough to pull me in and feel like I cared about the sport for a few hours.

On the other hand, Superman was a bit of a shouty, if colorful, mess. Eschewing the origin story, for better or for worse, it throws the audience into the story of Clark Kent and runs from there. Nicholas Hoult’s Lex Luthor was over the top, and not in a good way, and everything felt a little hurried. I did absolutely love the scene-stealing Krypto the Super-Dog, and always love Nathan Fillion in a role, especially the douchebag Green Lantern Guy Gardner (who proves that a Green Lantern -can- work on screen!) which truly made me laugh. There were a few, brief, heartfelt moments in the movie, and I did appreciate that the score incorporated John William’s original theme for Superman. But other than that, it didn’t make me want to revisit the movie again, despite being curious what the rest of the Justice League will look like in this new universe that James Gunn, director of Superman and DC’s new direction, is building. I’ll have to wait and watch.

By the way, if you loved F1 and Superman, that is terrific! They weren’t precisely my cup of tea, and that is ok. We all love different things in different ways and for different reasons and that is what makes us colorful, wonderful, humans.

Finally, I knocked a few items off my list by completely re-organizing the kitchen and the laundry room. I did it entirely over one evening, and it felt really good to get done. I basically went through every single cabinet, pulling everything out, and deciding what I needed, what I didn’t, and how to organize most efficiently as I put what I needed back into the cabinets. For the moment they are staying organized and the kitchen remains tidy, and that makes me smile and less stressed every time I go in there. Fantastic win.

And, with me completing a blog post just now, I feel I was able to do -something- ahead of cutting the grass this evening. I know that I will be happy to have the outdoor chore done, I just dread doing it each time I must. I’m not sure why I hate it so. Perhaps it is my reluctance to sweat, and I don’t enjoy mindless exercise, but it needs to be done, and just before sunset is the time to do it, therefore do it I shall and then it will be done (for another week or so).

Yes, the summer is going well, despite the heat and uncomfortable humidity we have had in Texas this summer. Setting goals has been huge for keeping me on track, and writing about my goals to see the progress I’ve made has been good to help me stay positive, especially on days like today when I tend to be down on myself for not doing too much.

Here’s to the rest of the summer and my upcoming vacation to Boston, for which I am starting to get very excited! Just ten more days, and I’ll be flying away to New England. Can’t wait.

In the Queue

My summer goes by slowly.

Ever since the semester ended at the university, I haven’t had much work-for-pay. One job I hold there is writing consultant, meaning I assist students with their writing assignments (if they ask for help). The other job I hold is administrative assistant to one of the department heads, meaning I do anything he needs me to do in order to assist him with his duties.

The first job has mostly evaporated (temporarily) due to there being few students taking classes over the summer. The second job is hit or miss lately, with me working only when my boss has tasks for me to complete. I’m squeaking by in the pay aspect, with just enough work to keep bills paid until the fall semester will start. This is one aspect of scholastic work that I don’t particularly enjoy, at least at this university: the lack of a consistent paycheck all year ‘round.

However, with unexpected, though unpredictable, time on my hands, I have a few projects that I could work on when I don’t have much else to do.

Scanning

My mother is a shutterbug, and something of a photo collector. In the age before this one, when photography was analog, she amassed quite of lot of photographs. Now that we are living in a digital world, she would like these photos available to her on the iPad and in the cloud. That means scanning. She has procured a scanner (albeit a finicky one) that works well enough and quickly enough to scan in many photos in a session. I have already scanned a few albums worth, but have many more to scan. I think this will end up being more than a summer project, but it is in the queue.

Poetry

It is now two and a half years since I completed my first compendium of poetry, a book that has sold about four copies worldwide. And while I have barely written any poetry since, I am thinking about what my next poetic project could be, and I have an idea: a chapbook. My book of poems comprises several sections, and I thought it might be cool to create chapbooks of each section, and sell them individually as art projects containing both word and visual. I have saved in a wishlist online some appropriate paper, and a heavy-duty stapler that could aid me in creating these chapbooks, and all it takes is putting some together. My wife maintains an area on consignment in a local craft shop, and perhaps I could add a few of these chapbooks to that area and see if they sell. I don’t know that they would, but it is an idea in the queue.

Reading

I start to sound like a broken record in this regard, but I find it difficult to read these days. I wish I could read, but every time I think about opening a book, it seems an insurmountable task. But, I have a book that I bought a while back, Patrick Stewart’s Making It So. I would like to read that book this summer. It used to be I could read twelve books every couple of weeks, but maybe I can manage one book by September. I don’t know if that is achievable, but that book is in the queue.

Photography

Lately I acquired some scenery material: driftwood, sand, rocks, etc. and I aspire to use this to craft photo worthy scenes. While I’ve yet to use it as such, the ideas are percolating in my head of photos I could take. I have a few difficulties to iron out, such as a lack of room, not wanting to build permanent dioramas for the photos, and what to do with the scenery media when I am done with it, but I can’t shake the images I see when I close my eyes and dream of what could be. The pictures shimmer in the queue.

Organization

My wife and I moved into this house just after Christmas Day in 2024, which means we’ve been here almost six months now. The house is just now starting to feel like a home, and as such, it needs a few things internally, that thankfully aren’t plumbing or maintenance related. No, I am speaking of decorating and organizing. I have made great strides in the craft room (what was supposed to be the master bedroom) in terms of both decor and optimizing storage, layout, and usability. But the living room, the kitchen, and even perhaps the bedroom could use some help.

The kitchen in particular has very little decor, and still bears the marks of being moved into hastily, with little organization, optimization, and isn’t terribly user friendly. It does the job, but it needs TLC. The bedroom we are only in for sleep and whatnot, so that is low on the priority list, but the living room is the third most used common area (after kitchen and craft room). It, too, needs a little thought and love. Decorating and organizing thoughts drift through the queue.

Clearly, I have plenty to do. It has helped to streamline my priorities just in writing them down. Before I had vague ideas, but now I have action points and even some hazy plans. Yeesh, that sounded too much like a few of the committees I was on for work this past year. Shudder. If I could accomplish even half of these queued tasks, though, I would feel like I had a great summer, and my environment would benefit, as would my creative expression which needs, um, expressing.

And also in the queue? R&R. I can report that I have been already availing myself of some of that, and with a trip to Boston planned for the end of July, I can even take some time to see another part of the world. Won’t that be fun?

Summer Haiku

A few haiku from memories of Virginia summers, perhaps from a growing up day, moving from morning to night:

Flapping gently by -
Push breezes soft as butter
Flies across the lawn.

Cicadas chirping
Loudly in trees’ leafy boughs -
Constant summer song.

Sweet pink lemonade
Sipped from beaded tall glasses -
Tinkling ice cold drink.

Grass freshly mowed short
Reflects the red’ning sunset
In long yellow swaths.

Bats chase tossed balls down
In the dark’ning dusky day
Darting to and fro. **

Fireflies wink and
Fade, blinking their amber butts
In hopes of a date.

Orion flashes
His star-jeweled belt and sun-shield -
Guarding the night sky.

** A note is needed for this one. An old tree in a neighbor’s yard held a colony of bats, and as night fell they would emerge to chase insects. My brother and I thought it great fun to toss baseballs up in the sky and watch the poor, no doubt confused, animals dive towards the balls perhaps thinking them a fat, slow, tasty morsel. Shrug. I suppose we were easily amused as we didn’t watch tv and tablet computers had yet to be invented.

Rugged

I need to see rugged places,
where untamed things are;
invigorate my soul.
(a wild thing, trammeled
in some hutch-)

Breathe crazed currents deep,
and waken the were-beast
behind my bones:
quiet, small,
domesticated me

molting to craggy unrefinement
jumping out of freckled skin,
free to roam the reaches
of stretched sky
above ginger mop and red beard.

But if I do,
I may never be the same.
Dragonslayers rarely return home
unscarred and nicely kempt
to chat up the neighbors.

My horizons coalesce back
into sheetrock walls and paint.
The only roaring is the AC.
My heart halts its stirring
and drifts off again to shaken sleep.

Still, jagged scenes pause
behind night black heavens
waiting to be taken by the dawn,
cracking through rock and stone,
precipitating splendid life.

I need only to see the rugged places…

Accepted

I have bonafide acceptance into my first ever grad school! While I see this as a stepping stone in my graduate level education, I am nonetheless excited. As I’ve written before, I am also nervous. I am uncertain that I will be up to the challenge of school after so long out of the game, and worry that I may fail in this endeavor. Challenges are to be faced, though, and are ultimately what define us as people, so I am going to face this one as bravely as I can.

Meanwhile, I have been thinking about the step beyond this one: the Master of Fine Arts in Writing. I really, really want to jump into that, but must test myself first. My advisor at my first ever grad school has given me a lead into a community, Art House Dallas, that centers around creative arts of all kinds. After perusing their website, it looks as if they have plenty of written art events.

I have not been a part of a writing community since my undergraduate days when I was part of a quite exciting group of writers that were my peers and fellow students. I miss that sense of belonging intensely, and the fun of writing together with other enthusiasts. It particularly sharpened my skills and made me a better writer. I write on my blogs, but am not eliciting feedback on how to improve my writing. More online journals, these blogs give me a chance to throw words at the screen and not lose the ability to craft a sentence, but they are not trying to be high art.

I worry that in a community of writers I may not be accepted. I know that this is imposter syndrome rearing it’s inauthentic head, but I cannot shake the feeling that I wouldn’t belong, or that I would be an outsider. As with most people in a group, I would want to belong in the group, be a full, contributing member. I don’t want to hang on the fringe, or just exist in the space. I want to commit and become an integral facet. I would like to offer as much as I would be given, in terms of feedback, critique, and a fresh perspective. Maybe Art House Dallas could be the opportunity I am looking for.

I have a friend in Pennsylvania who is a young adult author and she has invited me to be part of her group of writers. To date, I have not taken that plunge either, but I feel that it is time to do so. If I am going to commit to a life of writing, and make it a viable part of my life, I really need to be part of communities that write.

I also need to get more serious about writing every day. My wife has a few book projects she would like assistance writing, and that I have agreed to help her on. I need to get started with those in a real way. My blogs are doing fine, I last wrote here ten days ago and on PhilMartin.blog four days ago, so I am regularly enough publishing posts, but I need to inculcate myself into the habit of writing. I cannot improve without doing, and doing so regularly.

I have an action list: join Art House Dallas events, join my friend’s group, start on my wife’s books, and continue blogging regularly. Taken together, that is more than enough to keep me busy. Grad school classes start this August, and once they do, I will really be in the thick of it. All the better! Without having a full time job, I need to be employed doing something. Even more so if that something is writing. (I hope to have a job again though, and relatively soon, but that remains To Be Seen at the moment.)

I look back and re-read that paragraph: my action list, and I am excited. There is potential for so much good there. It is a risk, of course, as most things new are, but without the threat of risk there is no hope of reward. I don’t achieve by sitting around doing nothing, and that gets boring after awhile anyhow. I must have something to do, and I have chosen, for better or for worse, writing.

I was thirteen the first time I consciously sat down and wrote a poem. I still have it, but it isn’t any good. It is evocative, but amateurish, has imagery, but lacks sophistication. I was thirteen, after all, and just starting. But it really reminds me of the poet I would become, and the sort of thing I write now, just, better. Before then, and since then, I have written a lot of different things, but that I consider the true beginning of my intentional writing career.

That is another long term project I would like to commence at some point, by the way: revising my book of poetry. Did you know that I self-published some poems? Well, I did, and you can buy the collection on Amazon. As good as I consider them (I am offering them for sale, after all) I would like to see what some intense revision could do. I want to put them through the wringer of my own critique, and others’, and see what emerges. I think I have enough to work on for now, but that remains a longer-term goal. Look for a second edition of Whiskey Poetry in the future! (But for now, buy the one that is out there. Amazon has it on sale for a little over $5. Can’t beat that!)

I am now thirty-six. That is twenty-three years in the profession. I have been paid, to date, if memory serves, $130 for my writing. That is for one job I held writing educational materials, a blog post for a website I used to contribute to, and two copies of my book to my mom and a friend. But professional writers don’t often become multi-millionaire New York Times bestsellers. Sometimes they aren’t even published. But they are still writers. What matters is how you do it, and I want to do it like they do: consistently and at a high level. Small beginnings are not to be diminished.

Consider my acceptance into grad school another small beginning. I am making my way forward, and that is what matters.

The Gray

I’ve heard it said:
“Kids will bring the gray.”
Which explains why ginger
Still locks up my follicles
Though my beard and brows
Have been golden and red forever.
Was I born aged, or like wine,
Will I catch up to my purpose?
Either way, gray finds us all,
Eventually, visibly on the head,
Or in the soul, wearied from the world,
Or in the heart, love gone cold
From years and years.
The eyes, I hope, go last - 
I wish to see one more sunset,
Bursting with yellow and scarlet,
Before a final dusk settles
Turning the earth to gray night.