DAILY PHOTO: Yellow River Park
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Category Archives: Blogs
PROMPT: Fear and Self-Doubt
Feel it but don’t feed it. I feel whatever emotional sensation it brings with my whole attention, but don’t ruminate — i.e. don’t let the mind go into worst-case scenario building or pity partying or self-criticism. Use the sensation as an anchor for one’s awareness. This honors the source of consternation while recognizing that one’s mental (/ emotional) experience of an event is not the event, itself — i.e. that one has influence over one’s experience even when one has zero influence over the event. Gain confidence with the small emotional experiences and work toward the big ones.
This was the great gift I received in being taught sakshi bhava, the yogic practice of dispassionate witnessing.
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Grazing Deer [Senryū]
Drunkard’s Cask [Limerick]
A drunkard put a cask atop his car
so he wouldn't always have to find a bar.
Under that kind of weight --
The car's range: km - 8,
But his own range per liter wasn't that far.
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Tree Hell [Tanka]
pine cone wedged
in a rotten sleeper,
on derelict tracks,
may become a tree
and made into sleepers.
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Dandelion [Limerick]
“Spring has lined all roads with dandelions.”
At this a young girl started cryin’
You see, to her ear,
‘Twas rational fear,
For she was afraid of Dandy Lions.
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BOOK: “Lonesome Cities” by Rod McKuen
LONESOME CITIES LTD EDIT by Rod McKuenMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Google Books Page
Rod McKuen is the posterchild for poets who were loathed and brutalized by critics, yet who had massive popular followings. He is the Minecraft Movie of poets. McKuen was also a songwriter and recording artist. Poet and lyricist seem almost identical career fields (one makes money for being a simplified version of the other [the poor] one,) but I suspect in their differences one finds a big chunk of the resolution to the aforementioned disparity. At the end of this collection is a chapter entitled “13 Songs” that contains a baker’s dozen of poems that are pop lyric-esque. Until I got to these, I thought McKuen may have been getting an unfair wrap for being schmaltzy and pedestrian, but when I got to them, I could see the truth in the criticism.
This is not to say McKuen would have been as harshly judged today as he was in 1968 when this book came out. He was a bisexual man who is most famous for writing “Seasons in the Sun” (an unambiguously schmaltzy song made popular by Terry Jacks in a much more up-tempo version,) and in an era in which academics were “total squares.”
At any rate, this collection, which is largely organized by city, is a fun read.
View all my reviews
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Prickly Pear [Haiku]
prickly pears bloom:
yellow offering bowls —
bees give & take.
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DAILY PHOTO: Yellow River of Stone Mountain
PROMPT: Unwind
I’ve heard it said that it’s kind to rewind, but everyone who’s said that is quite old.
But I just lie on my back and contemplate the ceiling.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 