Saturday, July 31, 2010

MEMORIAL DAY

Honoring the military in church
bothers the hell out of me
implying God loves us
more than any
others

I have always known it is wrong
killing anything for pleasure
or even for need
if the need is not great
insistent

A boy I knew once killed tadpoles
catching a bucketful of them
and smashing them
carefully on a rock
with a hammer

Friday, July 30, 2010

How could I not think of E. E. Cummings' grasshopper poem. You should probably find the poem in a book to see what he does with it. When I posted it on the BLOG, the formatting changed. I couldn't figure out how to paste it in as it appears in Cummings' original. Even reformatted it's a tour de force.





r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r
by E. E. Cummings

r-p-o-p-h-e-s-s-a-g-r
who
a)s w(e loo)k
upnowgath
PPEGORHRASS
eringint(o-
aThe):l
eA
!p:
S a
(r
rIvInG .gRrEaPsPhOs)
to
rea(be)rran(com)gi(e)ngly
,grasshopper;

Thursday, July 29, 2010

I knew immediately today just after lunch that I had stumbled into J. R. R. Tolkien's Shire in Middle-Earth. I'm not at all sure what the creature coming out of the earth is, but anyone who has read The Hobbit will recognize it. Click on the image to see it larger.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

This morning at Starbucks I fell in love with this miniature Australian Shepherd; but, alas, he was spreading his affection around to anybody who would pay attention and gave me no more nor any less attention than he gave others...except one. Don't get me wrong. He is not a shallow, hail-fellow-well-met creature. He knows his duty and where his affection belongs. He is a "service dog" whose job it is to stay close to a fellow who sometimes has seizures. This remarkable dog recognizes signs when a seizure is about to begin, and he lets his human friend know when he must stop everything and take special medicine. When a seizure comes, he stays close to give comfort.

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

The TUESDAY TWILIGHT CONCERT IN BALBOA PARK...HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH FIGS...but I'm throwing in the figs just for the hell-of-it.
THESE FIGS

These figs
and I
on the earth
at the same time...

must mean something...
Does it matter what...
finally?

Monday, July 26, 2010

Ordinary things

Locks and valves and spigots
make the world comfortably safe
or incredibly dangerous
depending
on
who
controls
the twists and turns.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

THE AGAPANTHUS BUD SUGGESTS SOMETHING WONDERFUL IS COMING SOON...After only a few days this:Then finally this:ANTICIPATION

Macaroni and cheese...
Tomatoes fresh from the garden...
Fresh peach ice cream...

Yosemite falls in winter...

Nancy in the airport at Maui...

Descent into Anchorage
on the longest day of the year
with the midnight sun hanging
in the sky as if it had forgotten
what it is supposed to do...

Magnolia blossoms up close...

Humming birds up close...
Love up close...

Is life good
finally
because anticipation
is one of the gifts
we are given...

or not?

Saturday, July 24, 2010

NORTH PARK PICNIC
--------------------------
TOLSTOY SAID NOTHING

Tolstoy said nothing about picnics
but he might have done
had he thought about it.

He must have noticed
all people at a picnic look alike
from far away.

whether the family they belong to
is happy or not.
----------------------

This "costume" was perhaps the most enigmatic of all outside the Convention Center where more than a hundred thousand people gathered this morning for Comic-Con. At first I thought she was carrying a whip in her right hand, but that bit of fantasy turned into a carrying strap for her bag. The lettering on the bag says, "MAKE LOVE, NOT TRASH." Of course, I was expecting WAR not TRASH. Was she going to or from making love not trash?

Friday, July 23, 2010

SAN DIEGO RIVER EARLY MORNING ODYESSEY: I often ride out from Mission Valley on the north side of the river... all the way to the ocean crossing the Sunset Cliffs Bridge to get over to Ocean Beach before riding back into the valley on the side of the river. These are only a few of the things I saw today.The Photo-du-jour is the empty T-shirt and blue jeans. I was riding my bike along the south side of the river from Ocean Beach back to Mission Valley and was startled to see the jeans and shirt up ahead in the dry grass. At first I thought there was a body in them. Hundreds of homeless people make the river bottom their sleeping place. Some of them were sleeping along the path in mid-day. I was told one day by a homeless person that she always slept in the day and stayed awake at night for obvious safety reasons. The third picture, "1-800 EAT SHIT," is the back of the T-shirt.
THE IMAGES BELOW ARE PHOTOSHOPPED WITH A DRY BRUSH PAINTING TOOL.