dogtrax @dogtrax@mastodon.social

Perhaps I need to do another #introduction here, since it has been some time since I did it last. My regular forays here include composing #smallpoems, writing #smallstories, sharing #smallquotes and other connected sharing threads. If you write there, I'll try to respond. I may even remix as a way to honor your writing. I try to keep my heart and mind open.

So many artists have captured the beauty of a morning moon, hanging quiet in the sky, with the clouds moving slowly in front, as if Earth's satellite was silver backdrop to motion and wind. This is what I saw this morning. I shook myself loose from the idea that a photo would be worth the trouble of getting my phone from inside the house. We are not our devices. I needed only to stop, and look, and appreciate the beautiful sky with my eyes and memory. Here, I write it down. #smallstories

forever
it takes the seed
of a Sequoia to
take root and reach
for the sky
is the same amount
of time we'll need
to wait for the Earth
to stay alive

#smallpoems

“Exposed film is all I have of him now. My father has been reduced to imprints of light.”

— from Feast Your Eyes, by Myla Goldberg, Page 295

#smallquotes

He rushed into the classroom.
"I've been attacked by a pink flamingo," he informed me. I waited for him to continue.
"In the hallway. Pink flamingo."
I faked a glance down the hallway filled with kids. It was Hat Day, with donations to support cancer research. Lots of strange hats.
"It was (name) in a pink flamingo hat, near the lockers, in the hallway," he said, as if we were playing Clue. "He's jumping on people."
I nodded, as if understanding.
"At least it wasn't an elephant."
#smallstories

What's left
inside the faint outlines
of the breath that blows
the dust off the story
resembles footprints
and angels

#smallpoems

more inspiration from the margins of The Art of Is with #improvisart

“It was in the storms that he sang the loudest. He was like all the others then, unable to hear his song over the wind and the crashing waves … (m)aybe the churning and the pounding and the rolling water that carried his sound away would rearrange them into a new composition another would hear.”

-- from Song For a Whale, by Lynn Kelly, page 110

#smallquotes

@tellio

"In 1913 the pioneering American composer Charles Ives subtitled his second string quartet thus: “4 men — who converse, discuss, argue (in re: ‘Politick’), fight, shake hands, shut up — then walk up the mountainside to view the firmament.”

-- from Art of Is (just to let you know, I am still in there, reading and making poems and stuff. Thx)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSfarCi3SPQ

#improvisart

#ourstreets #silentsunday

I was walking behind a group of girls who were dawdling, enjoying each other's company. They began a deep discussion about comic superheroes, asking each other who they would want to be. Wonder Woman. Captain Marvel. Black Widow. Cat Woman. The Wasp. They assigned each other superheroes, connecting personalities to strengths. I listened in, thinking how the push for more female characters (but not enough) may be paying off in how girls might see themselves empowered on the screen. #smallstories

Stepping out into
this strange place
of threads and fabric,
of gossamer stories,

soft silhouettes shadowed
by memory, the light touch
of remembering
in the dark --

the mind works out
what the heart
struggles to know

though few of us
bother to listen

#smallpoems

“At first, I wasn’t sure Lil heard him, but then she looked him straight in the eye. I was making windows, she said.”

— from Feast Your Eyes, by Myla Goldberg, Page 159

#smallquotes

This is what whale music looks like ... https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/what-whale-songs-look-sheet-music-180956813/?no-ist and what is sounds like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXaxWKzTaRc How cool is that?

It’s not easy to catch sight of a flower petal in flight. By accident, really, I was standing beside the kitchen table where my wife brings in flowers from the outside to add color to the home. I was standing there, just lost in thought about a poem and a line I was struggling with (still am) when I noticed a petal drop to the table. Then a second. I left my head space to look closer, and found myself entranced by these tiny temporary umbrellas. The poem could wait. #smallstories

“When the tapes disappeared, so did the possibility of sonic revelations that could come from access to the original recordings.”

From amazing, and alarming, investigative report by Jody Rosen in New York Times of the fire at UMG warehouse years ago that destroyed thousands of song masters and much of the legacy of blues, jazz, rock, pop. The company kept much of this secret, no surprise, and some artists don’t know their original music is gone, destroyed in the fire.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/11/magazine/universal-fire-master-recordings.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

brush
the dust
off the poem

for it exists
even when
long forgotten;

some words
linger, longer
than expected

faint outlines
of shapes and
sounds

brush
the dust
off the poem

#smallpoems