there's just too much
The rain comes down like speech from above
one letter at a time, hitting windows and
rooftops in words and phrases,
flowing from the gutterspout in torrents of language,
singing to me as it sheets down my skylight
'hush, don't worry, this too is temporary'
where there is silence today there too shall be
the glory of sound before long; each crumb of life knows
the tune and waits patiently for the clouds to hum the melody
touching every cell, every fiber of my being
bringing song and harmony and reminding me
of the potential for beauty that waits behind closed lips
that hover just short of opening, delaying anxiously
those next few notes that just may answer the questions
falling from the sky
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
April in Maine
by May Sarton
The days are cold and brown,
Brown fields, no sign of green,
Brown twigs, not even swelling,
And dirty snow in the woods.
But as the dark flows in
The tree frogs begin
Their shrill sweet singing,
And we lie on our beds
Through the ecstatic night,
Wide awake, cracked open.
There will be no going back.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
Slum Lords
by John Updike
The superrich make lousy neighbors-
they buy a house and tear it down
and build another, twice as big, and leave.
They're never there; they own so many
other houses, each demands a visit.
Entire neighborhoods called fashionable,
bustling with servants and masters, such as
Louisburg Square in Boston or Bel Air in L.A.,
are districts now like Wall Street after dark
or Tombstone once the silver boom went bust.
The essence of superrich is absence.
They like to demonstrate they can afford
to be elsewhere. Don't let them in.
Their riches form a kind of poverty.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
A Girl in Milwaukee and a Girl in Brooklyn
by Matt Cook
My wife is talking on the phone in Milwaukee
To her girlfriend in Brooklyn.
But, in the middle of all that, my wife has to go pee.
And it turns out that the girl in Brooklyn,
At the very same time, also has to go pee.
So they discuss this for a moment,
And they're both very intelligent people.
They decide to set their phones down and go to the bathroom
(This was back when people set their phones down).
So they do this, and now we have a live telephone line open
Between Milwaukee and Brooklyn
With no one speaking through it for about two minutes as
A girl in Milwaukee and a girl in Brooklyn go to the bathroom.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
Sonnet 104
by William Shakespeare
To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I eyed,
Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold
Have from the forests shook three summers' pride,
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned
In process of the seasons have I seen,
Three April pérfumes in three hot Junes burned,
Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.
Ah yet doth beauty, like a dial hand,
Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived;
So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,
Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived:
For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred,
Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
--> excerpts from The Writer's Almanac - my favorite daily dose of wordnerding
It was on this day in 1789 that George Washington took office as the first president of the United States. In his inaugural address, Washington asked for the divine blessing of the "benign Parent of the Human Race" on the new government.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
It's the birthday of expatriate writer and literary confidant Alice B. Toklas-the partner of Gertrude Stein-born in San Francisco (1877). In 1907, she went to Paris and there she met Stein, whom Toklas described as wearing "a large, round coral brooch, and when she talked I thought her voice came from her brooch. It was unlike any other else's voice - a deep, full velvety contralto's, like two voices." She immediately thought Stein was a genius.
The two became lovers and on a trip to Tuscany a few years later, Stein proposed to Toklas. They returned to Paris and moved into 27 rue de Fleurus, dislodging from the apartment Stein's older brother. The place became a social center for various artists and young writers, and Toklas regularly prepared elaborate meals for Picasso, Hemingway, Matisse, and Fitzgerald. She later included some of her recipes and stories in The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook (1954), in which she wrote, "In the menu, there should be a climax and a culmination. Come to it gently. One will suffice."
Stein proposed that Toklas write an autobiography and suggested that it be called "My Life with the Great" or "My Twenty-Five Years with Gertrude Stein." But instead, Stein herself wrote the book she called The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1933). In the book, Stein writes in the voice of Alice:
"I am a pretty good housekeeper and a pretty good gardener and a pretty good needlewoman and a pretty good secretary and a pretty good vet for dogs and I have to do them all at once and I found it difficult to add being a pretty good author."
one letter at a time, hitting windows and
rooftops in words and phrases,
flowing from the gutterspout in torrents of language,
singing to me as it sheets down my skylight
'hush, don't worry, this too is temporary'
where there is silence today there too shall be
the glory of sound before long; each crumb of life knows
the tune and waits patiently for the clouds to hum the melody
touching every cell, every fiber of my being
bringing song and harmony and reminding me
of the potential for beauty that waits behind closed lips
that hover just short of opening, delaying anxiously
those next few notes that just may answer the questions
falling from the sky
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
April in Maine
by May Sarton
The days are cold and brown,
Brown fields, no sign of green,
Brown twigs, not even swelling,
And dirty snow in the woods.
But as the dark flows in
The tree frogs begin
Their shrill sweet singing,
And we lie on our beds
Through the ecstatic night,
Wide awake, cracked open.
There will be no going back.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
Slum Lords
by John Updike
The superrich make lousy neighbors-
they buy a house and tear it down
and build another, twice as big, and leave.
They're never there; they own so many
other houses, each demands a visit.
Entire neighborhoods called fashionable,
bustling with servants and masters, such as
Louisburg Square in Boston or Bel Air in L.A.,
are districts now like Wall Street after dark
or Tombstone once the silver boom went bust.
The essence of superrich is absence.
They like to demonstrate they can afford
to be elsewhere. Don't let them in.
Their riches form a kind of poverty.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
A Girl in Milwaukee and a Girl in Brooklyn
by Matt Cook
My wife is talking on the phone in Milwaukee
To her girlfriend in Brooklyn.
But, in the middle of all that, my wife has to go pee.
And it turns out that the girl in Brooklyn,
At the very same time, also has to go pee.
So they discuss this for a moment,
And they're both very intelligent people.
They decide to set their phones down and go to the bathroom
(This was back when people set their phones down).
So they do this, and now we have a live telephone line open
Between Milwaukee and Brooklyn
With no one speaking through it for about two minutes as
A girl in Milwaukee and a girl in Brooklyn go to the bathroom.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
Sonnet 104
by William Shakespeare
To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I eyed,
Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold
Have from the forests shook three summers' pride,
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turned
In process of the seasons have I seen,
Three April pérfumes in three hot Junes burned,
Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.
Ah yet doth beauty, like a dial hand,
Steal from his figure, and no pace perceived;
So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,
Hath motion, and mine eye may be deceived:
For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred,
Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
--> excerpts from The Writer's Almanac - my favorite daily dose of wordnerding
It was on this day in 1789 that George Washington took office as the first president of the United States. In his inaugural address, Washington asked for the divine blessing of the "benign Parent of the Human Race" on the new government.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _
It's the birthday of expatriate writer and literary confidant Alice B. Toklas-the partner of Gertrude Stein-born in San Francisco (1877). In 1907, she went to Paris and there she met Stein, whom Toklas described as wearing "a large, round coral brooch, and when she talked I thought her voice came from her brooch. It was unlike any other else's voice - a deep, full velvety contralto's, like two voices." She immediately thought Stein was a genius.
The two became lovers and on a trip to Tuscany a few years later, Stein proposed to Toklas. They returned to Paris and moved into 27 rue de Fleurus, dislodging from the apartment Stein's older brother. The place became a social center for various artists and young writers, and Toklas regularly prepared elaborate meals for Picasso, Hemingway, Matisse, and Fitzgerald. She later included some of her recipes and stories in The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook (1954), in which she wrote, "In the menu, there should be a climax and a culmination. Come to it gently. One will suffice."
Stein proposed that Toklas write an autobiography and suggested that it be called "My Life with the Great" or "My Twenty-Five Years with Gertrude Stein." But instead, Stein herself wrote the book she called The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1933). In the book, Stein writes in the voice of Alice:
"I am a pretty good housekeeper and a pretty good gardener and a pretty good needlewoman and a pretty good secretary and a pretty good vet for dogs and I have to do them all at once and I found it difficult to add being a pretty good author."