Poem: The Moon's In Tune

A parchment full moon
In a pale fog aurora
Struggles to clear the mountaintops tonight

The Sea of Tranquility
Flowers in the center
The moon's in tune

She leads the wolves in song
And turns the tide
Of earth's one great ocean

Down here we cured
Polio smallpox and Hitler
But we couldn't save the Dodo.
---o0o---

Poem: I've Looked At Clouds From Six Sides Now

[Provisional? Maybe it is done. . .nor sure. . .sometimes means that if/when the real poem emerges, it may include only two lines or all of them, in some sort of subset or superset].

1
The Seattle skybox
Is defined by a thriving
Patchwork of clouds
That resort themselves
In the gathering winds
And rotation of the earth
Forming new collages
In the patterns overhead.

2
A mother-of-pearl moon
Unveils itself in the night sky
As the four winds
Weave tufts and strands of cloud
Around her like fig leaves
Revealing and concealing,
Draping the Sea of Tranquility
The Marias and the crater Tycho
In a cloak of modesty.

3.
250,000 miles below
Under murky clouds
The moon performs
A forbidden hootchie-kootchie dance,
Like Salome or a whirling Turkish Dervish
Spinning in the shifting clouds.

3.
Clouds add a necessary roundness
To our angular lives.
---o0o---

Poem: Foghorns

The Point Lonsdale Foghorn

I hear three moaning foghorns tonight,
Probably at Bainbridge Island,
Point No Point, and Alki.

I can't detect a pattern.
The foghorns sing to each other
Back and forth across the murky Puget Sound. . .

There will come a time
When we will likewise
All sing to each other.
---o0o---


[ed's note]: Foghorns are really just audio lighthouses. Modern foghorns send out laser beams to test for visibility. If the laser indicates that visibility is low, a computer activates the foghorn, which sounds until the laser shows conditions have cleared. The notes of foghorns are extremely low because low sounds carry better, providing more of a warning. For large ships which do not turn or move rapidly at all (ask the Titanic survivors), the sooner they know of objective hazards. . .the better.

Poem: Evil Konks Out

1
The sun, and that sweet, sweet moon, cling to heaven.
Bugs, fish, animals, trees, and people
Cling to earth.

Power is like stapling
A target to your back.
Play dumb, play slow, play luckless.

2
Difficulty surrounds
You like a moat,
You persevere.

Spoof, lie, mislead, and spin.
Be a smiler.
Don't awaken their enmity.

3
In the end, evil konks out
Like a squid simmered in its own ink,
Because evil fails the moment

It overcomes good--
Consuming the energy
To which it owed its duration.
---o0o---

Poem: Snow Day In Kirkland, Washington

Silhouetted against blue bisque skies,
Crows bounce on snow-draped tree branches,

Shaking powder to the ground.
They survey the valley

For their prey, now in stark and dreaded relief
Against the glimmering white fields.
---o0o---

All This Is That begins its 5th year today

click to enlarge


All This Is That is four years old today. So, I'm just going to ramble about that.

We've been farked five or six times, which is always fun, because 10,000-15,000 people show up. But the interesting thing about http://fark.com is that their readers are always looking for the next weird story. . .none of them become regulars. Once in a while we are someone's blog of the day, or a blog or website notes a--usually bizarre--post here, and between 30 and 500 people turn up.

Most of our readers Google into here. More than half the traffic on All This Is That comes from Google, Yahoo and other search engines; 40% of the visitors are regular readers. Most of our visitors come from the U.S. and Canada, England, Australia, Turkey, Japan, Germany, Croatia, Brazil, and Ireland, in that order.

Even though it's been four years, I still haven't gotten around to writing some stories I've promised (this year, for sure!). The content here, as you may have noticed, is random, and mostly generated by whatever strikes my fancy on any particular day. For the last year and a half a big focus has been the U.S. Presidential race. Six weeks in the last year were extended travelogues as I documented my travels in Mexico, England, Turkey and Greece. If I actually focused on something, we could generate tons of visitors. But I have never found any particular area I'd like to focus on. I'm not a niche kind of guy, I guess.

We've now hit Alien Lore story Number 145. I have published 150 original poems in the last four years. And we have published hundreds of weird stories. Some articles that come up at the top of a Google search: Looking for Nude Condoleezza Rice Photos?; Matt Bevalaqua, the killer; Enumclaw Horse Sex; The Brady Bunch Porn Movie; Clemenza's Godfather spaghetti sauce; and a few others). Every day dozens to hundreds of people come searching for those. A lot of people come looking for images and photos. Since even the early days, we've always published a lot of photos, paintings, and images. I've seen images I've created appear on dozens of other blogs and websites.

I've never written a word about my work (a/k/a "day job") in all this time. I think I'll keep it that way, even though I love my job, co-workers, and the business we're in...this gets too complicated as it is. . .

I still want to write these stories sometime (all are at least half-done):

My Worst Jobs, Part 6: The Fish: My five years working at Carl Fischer Music

Dad, or, John Newton Brummet II

The Kent Bus Depot (almost done!)

The Hook Arm, the Wooden Leg, False teeth, and Girdles - My people. One more hillbilly tale.

Growing Up Hillbilly (they stopped in Seattle because you'd need a boat to go further)

Growing up Kent: The Liquor Store, The Butcher, and The Barber

My life as an orderly

Well, I'll get around to it sometime. In the meantime, I've am enjoying not writing about politics for a while. Our Alien Lore readership has seriously dwindled with a dearth of content (interestingly, when I publish those stories, readership goes way up, but the regulars click away very quickly).

One in a while, I think about pulling the plug. But then I come to my senses. If a few hundred people a day show up, I must be doing something right. If I publish a book of poems--and I probably will sometime soon--it will sell a few hundred copies. If I publish a poem here, that many people will read it in one day. When I publish in a magazine that's good for my literary career, but, let's face it. . .no one reads 'em!

More soon. . .
---o0o---

Complete list of Jack Brummet poems published on All This Is That

I have a selfish reason for posting these indexes every six months or so. . .it's the way I keep track of all these poems and save them to an actual manuscript. . .like we did in the old days. I long ago learned in my line of work that computers, hard drives, and software can only be trusted so far (not as far as you can throw them). Sometimes the only copy of a poem exists temporarily on All This Is That, until I save it off with its brothers, sisters, and cousins on a couple (four separate) hard drives (my work drive, my work external USB drive, my home drive, and my home external drive). But even then, I am never sure. . .I've been burned that many times! My mistrust is so all-encompassing, I don't write or create anything on a computer that isn't being saved every five minutes. My fear of flying is a minor peccadillo compared to my fear of hard drives.

Following is a list of poems from November 15, 2004 up to a couple of days ago. The other reason for an index or list is in case anyone wants to dip in and read a few. Writing poetry and biography was the ostensible reason I started this blog four years ago, but in the interim, art, lists, parody and satire, ufo's and greys, travelogues from Europe, Asia, Texas, England, Mexico, New York City, California, and Boston, and most of all, politics have also weaseled in, and like the proverbial camel's nose in the tent, have claimed their own chunk of turf here. That's OK too, but I admit having a soft spot in my heart for the poems.

The days when thousands of people visit here don't happen on the poetry days. It's the cheap shots, stories with a high placement in Google (Condaleeza Rice Naked, Enumclaw horse sex, etc.) parodies, scandalous stories, and tantalizing headlines that suck people in. I just kind of hope they poke around and find a hillbilly story or poem or painting or even some blatherings by Pablo Fanque they like.

Summer leaves in autumn hit the winter of their life
The islands from eight miles high
from the Poetry Generator: The Cloud Endures
Survival
Poem In Gorene
The listing freighter in the harbor at Kato Zakris
Rocks, flowers, and walls
Prayers In Istanbul
Sailng To Athens
That Cold Island Across The Sea
Moslems vs. Nazarenes vs. Pagans
Just Beneath The Topsoil
Sailing To Naxos, or, The Vortex
Flying, depending on the context, is better than not flying
Endurance & Limits
Scarred For Life
One of those days
Delusion
The Variations (newly revised)
How He Lived
The Broken Chord
Stackabones (for Claire)
In California, I write down the names of every great tree name I can remember
When the devil comes knocking
Into the wind
The Outlet
The riptide beneath my feet
The sounds on Puget Sound
Stages
But you can't
[with your back to the wall]
[The surging sea]
Are they on the way or is it "just my 'magination (once again)?"
The telepath
Catch 23
Narcissism
Midnight Madness
Grey USA
On seeing the photo of a long lost friend
Imaginary Friends
Alkyvision
[The streetlight's blue shadows...]
There's A Civil War In His Head
[Jesus Walks On Water]
On The Plain: just a song of Gomorrah
Why I won't run for President
The story of a long long journey
Dawdling
Landing, or, Aviophobia, Part 26
The eyes have it
You Rehearse Dying
How the first baby in the world
The Big Boat
Babylon and the unfinished tower
Late Spring
Higher Ground
Poem: The Icarus Factor).
Truism 1
The Grey Convoy Flies Over the UFO Crash Site
Dual Mortality
Ephemeral Communications
toast
3 A.M.
I'm agnostic about atheism
Snow Day In Kirkland, Washington
Squirrel poem
Going Mad Might Be Like A Bad Eight Track Tape Deck
Fall Haiku
Jericho & How Joshua Caused The Walls To Come Tumbling Down
The Orgy In The Pantry (starring Duncan Hines, Betty Crocker, Pilsbury Dough Boy, Aunt Jemima, Chef Boy-Ar-Dee and more
With Or Without The Words
Hello. . .My poem is. . .
You Gather Your Friends
The Way We Were
The White FlagThe Cover-up
The Good German
Dream Of The Grey
Torches & Pitchforks
The Red Flag
Don't look back
The Tenth Planet (Or An Incredible Facsimile?)
Anger management is a slippery slope
the vault
The Moon's In Tune
Another politician resigns in disrace
Rub-a-dub
Tendrils
The Candidate
Reds
Making Room
The revolt in heaven Found Poem: The Richmond Hill Oracle
The Robot Wars
Ten ways of looking at lies
The Broken Chord
With our heads in the sand during the transit and eclipse
the sun plays its red song
Litany
Poem: The Developers
A raindrop's life
The mystery of the first amendment to the Ten Commandments
The Bay Of Delusion
Mad Song
Reasons To Keep On
Conspiracy Theory
The Moon Race
Mr. Flue's Grave In Hillcrest Cemetary, Kent, Wash.
The World Seems Especially Calming And Verisimilitudinous Today
Kent, Washington
Rollover
[It's the Lee Harvey Oswald smile]
Zombie Breakdown
Heaven
Sonnet For Hari
Defensive Daydreaming
The Dream
Dogpaddling
The Prostethic Head & The Absence Of Blood
Tetuan - "No Paranoia, My Friend"
The Grey Ambassador
The Bad Movie
The Bucket
The Man In The Mirror
Liftoff Optimism
Perspective
A Flight Of Swallows
Audioblog - The Prevaricator
Weather Report
Your Wooden Leg
The Revelations
The Revelations Sermon At The First Church Of The Mojo Apocalypse
Dosvidaniya, Ivan Ivanovitch
The Late Excavation
Jack Kerouac, Meet John Barleycorn
The Gideon Bible In My Nightstand
At The Acropolis
When Aliens Land, Or, The Return Of The King
The sous-chef is a sociopath
James Wright
Falling
[Life Is Not A Hardy Novel]
Seven
Coyote Comes Home Like A Salmon
Shorts For Jerry Melin ca. about 1988
Bird
Monism
The Golden Rule
The Countdown
AT HILLCREST CEMETARY IN KENT, WASHINGTON, I WALK BY THE GRAVE OF SAM THE GRASSEATER
Notes On Flying
Daybreak
Explosions
Not Past Tense Yet
the glass is not half-full
It's Getting Crowded Here
Li Po In Disgrace
The Clock
A Love Song
Bad Timing
The Killer
The Absence of Footprints
Growing Up
Gone Fishing
The M.D.s
Acrylic
The Marriage
Driving Home To Seattle, We Watch Deer Drinking from the Skookumchuck River
---o0o---

Poem: When the devil comes knocking

"It's for you. I think it's The Devil."

I always wondered when
And how he would come knocking—

Maybe in a two-button Armani suit
Or clad in a red unitard

With a baffle for his tail—
And ask me why I blame him

For the ills in our hearts and world.
Will he flip open a dusty,

Bartleby-scriven ledger
And call me to account

For my good deeds,
Or did he come to claim me

For the accumulation
Of a succession of transgressions?

Does he realize I have a problem
With authority figures?

When The Devil comes knocking
Will he show up half-drunk

And reeking of sulphur
Or will he come in stealth

Looking polished and rakish
Like George Clooney or George Raft?

Will he proffer a Faustian deal?
Or is he coming because I earned

My passage into the underworld
The hard way, sin by sin

And he's nearly an innocent bystander
Just collecting the bill?
---o0o---

Poem: The sounds on Puget Sound

[jack writing in from Austin, Texas. Yeah, it's not a Texas poem at all...]







The sounds on Puget Sound



The fog pushes up the hill
and the stars fade
into a milky film

smeared across the sky.
I hear the voices
of three distinct sea lions--

Momma, Poppa, Baby,
Or maybe three bachelor
sea lions frisking on the jetty

outside Golden Gardens.
The barks come steady now
and I wonder if they're cold,

but Baja is just a swim
down the coast
and it's not easy

to leave the salmon, shrimp,
crab, squid, sardines,
smelt, octopus, oysters,

anchovies, starfish, cod,
clams and geoducks behind.
Maybe it's the lunar eclipse

getting under their hides,
and the moon, melting away
yanks their bearings awry.

The foghorn on the buoy begins
its low moan in counterpoint
to the random sea lion arfs

and out along the sound
somewhere between Seattle
and Bainbridge Island

I hear the muffled putt putt putt
of a tugboat hauling a sand barge
into Elliott Bay

and I realize the sea lions
are just barking
to cover up the engines.
---o0o---

Another random poetry generator

I've always been fascinated by poetry generators. I wrote one in the Prolog language in the 1980's and fiddled around with it forever, never able to get it quite right. This one, Rob's Amazing Poetry Generator, looks at a URL (in this case All This Is That) and comes up with a poem. Well, it's not much of a poem, but what I found fascinating was the way it grabbed snatches of this blog from two and three years ago and attempted to incorporate them into the poem. This actually makes me want to attempt to write another one. For what it's worth, here is what Rob's generator came up with:

All This song The
United States of bitters; 2 07 with
his nadir in
Iraq and hooking it bite
into a couple of America,
Republicans, The Pope favoured the
Pugilist Tuesday, November 24, 2007 Alien lore and
others. Do a Daily News
editorial called his education information, And come November 25,
2007
12:01:00
PM 0 abbr, acronym {
cursor: help; : you go see diagram
courtesy Tom Pennington .
Cures that Aside from
a Kendall Barack Obama
has been
serious deviations in public about
something unrelated to some
bad
decisions that there were frequently
but charming Fred wife, Jeri
Kehn Thompson bonus: knockout first
primary states, that is, distributed
without taking another
breath, from the book released yesterday I
title\>\u003c/div\> \u003cb:loop u003c/
a\> \
length of America, Republicans who had unknowingly passed
along with drugs, or less .Rhizoma Polygonati
Odorati rhizome
of without taking another breath.
from acorns, manufactured by Jack Brummet at least
Rudy had been ahead
in this blog...

Using the blog about the life of my friend Philip Kendall, it came up with this one:

In hand, over and this was
crawling across this is not jokes, all
of him fight once, although they camped out the
last time. you put them and
did have a guy name. u003d\\\>\
navMessage\\> \u003c/data:name\was
discussing
literacy, with some time with
the teachers loved his death
Milo nicknamed him in LL both
the courage to
Bellingham.
college
girls, and whenever
anyone we decided to
ride a whistle.
I would suggest popcorn,
Story Kevin Curran would respond
with Hobart when Dad pulled up, again,
What are wasting your game.
---o0o---

Poem: The telepath

Either my brain won't transmit
Or it's all hokum—

I've tried over and over
To put the stink-eye

On those who have tresspassed
Against me.

I've stood on the lawn at midnight
Sending invites to the greys

And they kept right on going.
I have sat in meetings

And tried to hypnotize
The speaker as he drones

On about something
That will never really matter.

I have focused
Every electron of thought

On a perceived enemy
And they always survive.

Even when I know precisely
What they are thinking,

I've never actually
Been able to verify

Whether it's telepathy
Or my brain playing tricks with my heart.

Even though I can't transmit or receive
I've been able to mount a shield

Against hoodoo and voodoo
And ill wishes trained on me—

A personal strategic defense initiative,
A bulwark against real

And imagined threats
Beamed my way.
---o0o---

Poem: [The surging sea]

1
The surging sea
Slots its surf
Into the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

2
Two islands down the line
A lone crow
Cries out for its kind,

Bouncing on the fragile limb
Of a lodgepole pine parked
On Mount Constitution's summit

3
I hear the musical murmur
Of two voices in the next room
Like a rhythmic background

With no melody
Coming from
The other channel.

4
Tell Saint Peter
At the Golden Gate
He's just going to

Have to wait
Because I am not coming
The day before tomorrow

Or the day after yesterday.
I am in no rush
To be issued a harp

And besides
I can't tell an E flat
From a B sharp.

I think heaven can wait
They have enough people already
And do they really need a date?
---o0o---

Poem: Midnight Madness

1
You can't see earth
From the dark side of the moon
But maybe that changes

With the accelerating deceleration
Of the moon and earth.
A waning Gibbous moon

Dangles overhead tonight
And The Sea of Tranquility
Looks like a menacing sinkhole.

2
Back in Seattle,
1.3 light seconds
From the moon,

A fog slithers in,
Wraps itself around houses,
Trees, shrubs, and churches,

And creeps along the ground,
Insidiously threading its way
Like a horror movie fog

Or a gauzy stage flat
Framing something terrible about to happen.
I wonder if the moon and fog

Really do cause madness and murder?
I've never bought the stories
About a full moon triggering mayhem,

But then I don't actually know
If our brains have tides
And if they do, if it matters.

3
The moon
And the fog
Are in cahoots.
---o0o---

Index of poems on All This Is That

An index of Jack's poems published here over the last three years.

Index of the 64 poems in the Changes cycle

Index of poems published from November 2004-July, 2007

Index of poems since July, 2007:

On seeing the photo of a long lost friend
Imaginary Friends
Alkyvision
There's A Civil War In His Head
[The streetlight's blue shadows...]
Jesus Walks On Water
On The Plain: just a song of Gomorrah
Why I won't run for President
The story of a long long journey
Dawdling
Landing, or, Aviophobia, Part 26
The eyes have it

---o0o---