Monday, March 28, 2016

Thursday, March 24, 2016

Poem: Hold Together

By Jack Brummet




It is one ocean with many names
And into the ocean, sooner or later, flows
Every river, spring, raindrop, creek, and swamp,
Every lake, lagoon, aquifer, mudpuddle, and pond,
Every snowflake, icicle, glacier, flood, bay, and teardrop.


---o0o---

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Found poem created in The Poetry Generator [We confound fluorescent witches]

By Jack Brummet


We confound fluorescent witches near the virgin
The fun has died
Dark and glowing beyond the sea
You pull lustful devils below

And grind blue demons against the sky
Awaken, awaken! The evil was good:
Unsure, silent on the edge of the world 
Down streets where guests
Look for landmarks while the snow falls

                    ---o0o---

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Poem: The Islands from eight miles high

By Jack Brummet



Beneath a chiseled frieze of cerulean blue
Islands recede into the water
To settle on the sea floor

Like an archipelago of Atlantises.
Islands come and go,
Bobbing up and bobbing down

Like lost corks
Drifting the seven seas,
Treading continents,

And the islands and straits.
They crest the waves
Beneath gathering clouds

As flocks of birds
Circumnavigate the globe,
Shuttling from landfall to landfall.
          ---o0o--- 

Friday, March 18, 2016

A Columbia County (Pa.) District JudgeCraig Longrecently posted a sign outside the courtroom informing visitors that they should not wear pajamas to court.  

Judge Long admitted this was not enforceable. . .he was merely trying to encourage minimal standards.

---o0o---

Thursday, March 17, 2016

28 Short Poems

By Jack Brummet 
Stealth

You think one thing,
Say another,
And do a third.
_____________________
                    
The host and tenant lock
In benign equilibrium.
_____________________  

Each valley followed by a slope.
Every going followed by a return.                    
_____________________

There is no relief without an ache,
 And no virus without a host.                    
  _____________________

Bricks tumble into the moat.
The king's body hangs naked from the flagpole.                    
  _____________________

For a fleeting moment
The condition for change exists.                    
  _____________________

A roiling thunderstorm clears the air
Like Wyatt Earp's peacekeeper                    
 _____________________

A bad beginning can be overcome
But a good end lasts forever                    
  _____________________

When you strip away the stage flats, makeup, and costumes,
It’s all one story starring our private heroes and dreams.
_____________________                    
  
Resurrection

He was ready to live again
Even if living just meant running
To keep ahead of the ghosts.
                    
  _____________________

It’s so still and calm
In the mosque,
You could hear a fly expire.                    
 _____________________
The Marriage

Two tattered mannequins
Prop each other up
In the Salvation Army Store window                    
 _____________________ 

Gone Fishing

As the forests swamps and bones turn slowly to coal
The last pterodactyl
Soars overhead, calling for a friend.                    
_____________________ 

It's so quiet you hear
dust motes six feet up
bump in shafts of sunlight.                    
_____________________

Take the worst that could happen
And add two zeros.
 _____________________                  


High fidelity clouds gather over 
The tattered stage flats of a world on fire.
 _____________________                  
  

It's Getting Crowded

We cover the earth with Venn Diagrams
As our steps bisect old steps.
_____________________               
  
The glass is not half-full

I saw our dreams disappear 
Like a white pony 
Over a low grassy hill. 
_____________________

The Golden Rule

Listen to the songbirds trill
But keep an eye
On the buzzard section.                    
 _____________________

An orchard of salt pillars
Circles Gomorrah's ashes:
Lot's Wife had no name.         
_____________________

If I don’t write it down
The words race away
Like a hit and run driver
_____________________                

Your Wooden Leg

Run if you still can.
Drag that wooden leg behind you,
But keep up, jogging after your pipe-dream.
_____________________                

Weather Report

Life is a raindrop
Sizzling as it skitters
Across the universal griddle.
_____________________
                    
"And after all, what is a lie? ’Tis but the truth in masquerade"
The truth exists; the lie must be created. 
_____________________           

Waiting

There is no tomorrow
until we get through
the day after yesterday
_____________________                 

Possibilities

In your chest beats the heart of a Good Samaritan
Who never quite got off the starting blocks                    
 _____________________

Torches & Pitchforks

The whole
Is far less than the sum
Of its parts

 _____________________
                
Mission Statement

The Army has two duties
To break things, and kill people;
Everything else is just fluff and overhead.
_____________________                    
 
Dodgeball

We weave around and through
Unseen hazards and shoals,

Always feeling less safe
Than we actually are.
_____________________            

The Odds

Simple probability and statistics
Tell us ineluctably that the more times
You stick your head In the lion's mouth,
The more likely it is that one day he will close it.
 _____________________             

The Man In The Mirror

There's a civil war in his head:
Lobe against lobe.
        ---o0o---

Faces #1370 - Wearing of the green

By Jack Brummet

---o0o---

BHO and Lin-Manuel Miranda freestyling at the White House, Subterranean Homesick Blues style


---o0o---

Wednesday, March 16, 2016

A windmill in Milwaukie, Oregon.

By Jack Brummet

Our cousins Andy and Allison have a windmill on their property in suburban Milwaukie [1], Oregon. It was originally farm country and the windmill was somehow grandfathered in when the property was later subdivided. . .

[1] Yes, that's actually how it is spelled.

---o0o---

Saturday, March 12, 2016

Slogging through Proust's "In Search Of Lost Time," a/k/a "Remembrance of Things Past"

By Jack Brummet

I am beginning the final volume
(7) of Proust's Remembrance Of Things Past. 3,031 pages, and 1,267,069 words. It's has been beautiful and infuriating and puzzling at times. I'm glad I did this with our book club because I would have probably weaseled out otherwise. it is also pretty interesting to be in a book club with three philosophy professors, a lawyer, two cool and smart professional women - one of who is a philosopher too-and one knucklehead, yours truly. So, this sentence from book five is pretty typical, and illustrative of why this book is such a slog. It gets way more dense, but never more Hemingwayesque. I've found I need to read three other books between each Proust volume (with at least one of those being some trashy genre fiction) to cleanse the palate.

---o0o---

Thursday, March 10, 2016

Drawing: Faces #1362 - Donald Trump announces his running mate

By Jack Brummet 


                                                                ---o0o---

Wednesday, March 09, 2016

Tuesday, March 08, 2016

Filtered Spring flowers/Faces #1362 (bamboo vase)

by Jack Brummet  

                                                  —o0o—

Monday, March 07, 2016

Faces #1359 - Trump Rally

By Jack Brummet 


                              ---o0o---

Picture at an exhibition

By Jack Brummet

                               ---o0o---

A mobile hoosegow

A 1920 Harley Davidson Mobile Booking Cage (via kateoplis)


                                 ---o0o---

Sunday, March 06, 2016

Drawing: faces #1356-1358


                                                             ---o0o---

Saturday, March 05, 2016

Analog world

                                                                   ---o0o---

Thursday, March 03, 2016

Senator Grassley's meltdown with reporters on the Supreme Court

Chris Christie's winter of regret

By Jack Brummet, National Affairs Ed.



This quote is from a Chicago Tribune commentary yesterday on Chris Christie. They describe him standing behind Trump at his Tuesday victory speech:


"He had the face of a man who has used his third wish and realized too late that 'may my family never starve' could be twisted to mean that the genie should murder his entire family."
---o0o---