December 23

"Doug it's Carolyn!"
"Doug it's Carolyn!"
Awake 9:30 AM Monday the 23rd on my day off
10 AM I hear a door panel pop
as the neighbor's front door beneath me
is wedged open...hear a gasped cry
I finish my exercises, shower, and breakfast
Open my front door and head downstairs
There's a police officer guarding the busted in door
Woody mustiness seeps out
A police investigator talks to a relative of Doug named Carolyn
I talk to her
My neighbor beneath me has passed away...
He was 66 years old, never married, increasingly reclusive
Condo neighbors had been trying to get in touch with him for over a week
He never answered phone calls or knocks on his door
His relatives didn't seem too concerned at first
He'd always been pretty ornery and reclusive
He'd had five heart attacks in the last couple years
The last anyone had heard from him was about a week and a half before
He called the condo board treasurer to say he was too weak to deliver his condo check
And taped it to his door
He had no friends
Perhaps he had some form of aspergers...for he had a brilliant mind...
But no people skills...
In years past he would call me and cuss me out for having the washer/dryer on too late
The garbage disposal piping leaking through his ceiling...that I fixed
His complaints were always right...just not kind
I tried to stay out of his way
The condo board was increasingly worried about him and wondered
If I heard anything immediately beneath me
I hadn't for the last couple weeks, but
I can be pretty oblivious...
"Doug it's Carolyn!"
"Doug it's Carolyn!"
I talked to Carolyn...
Doug was found on the floor beside his chair with a book near his hand
We guessed it was a heart attack, but at least he passed quickly
I talked to Carolyn about my love of books and how helpful Doug had been in the past
As the fix-it man of the condo
When did he begin his decline?
When will I begin my decline?
Has it already happened?
Who will come knocking at my door?
"Denis it's ...!"
"Denis it's ...!"
Will I be present or passed?
All I know is
I make a difference in this life I am living
How will I connect
In the time I have left?

Denis Streeter 12/30/13

Unknown

All the new that fell behind
Left in shelters of my mind
Camped in my house of many rooms
Open and close
Hibernation...
I am asleep through this waking life
Dull with what I have done and undone
Memory fails and then receives
Too late for what I must do
And what must I do?
The new has become old and more new coming in
Change and risk is what I must do
Not the risk that endangers my life...but yes...maybe that too
More the risk of connection and relationship
That makes my life and their life richer for our presence
And the learning...expansion...
Shall never cease.

Denis Streeter 12/23/13

Yes

Don't know how I came across this again. Don't think this has anything to do with the Jim Carrey, Zooey Deschanel, Terence Stamp movie Yes Man...

Over the analogs
The posters bloom
Blue hives of fairy tales
Breathing dogs of shame
In the cats meow
When kibbles bit storms
Sore halitosis
The mercury rings forgot
Samples in the maze
Toast in the molecules
Hiding in the night
Forethought forgotten
Sleeves in mores
That time forgot
Left in not out
And the frequencies bent
All the best from the worst
Leaving behind a malaise of A's
The constitutional suite
Well lived in rug
Dusted not cleaned
While toilets scrubbed
You sat
On analogs and poster blooms
I did not understand
You nodded your head and said
Yes.

Denis Streeter 10/21/13 & 2/14/14

Sleep wake sleep

Three pieces I wrote this morning after waking for an hour,then went back to sleep...slightly edited at library.

Beneath a feather

Trappist monks
Taking teabodies
Out to sea
In a scrunk
An open door
Remains shut
And the winter air
Hungers
Feeding shelter
Through finger tips
Opening chores
Feeding clothes
Other loomings
Live in shelters
Unreleased
And in the rubberbands
The wastelands live
Prufrock galivants
Pavlov salivates
Rorschach leaves
Results under tea
Where the norm bipolars
Under the busted grins
Everyone knows your name
Leaving lashes
Under the steeplechase
And the understudy understands
At half past nine
Feeling the weather
Icing decline
And the temperature rose
Toward afternoon
Knees blistered nose bled
Thoughts sinister
And my head said
In the afternoon
The seahorse shaped question
Marks the time
And the question is the answer
Laughing moonshine
Leaving me and
My guests behind
Funny steeples
Shot windows
Caressing doors
Where the new you know
Keeps laughing
Falling
Seeping
Sleeping
Under the hyde of night
Where none come out
Degrade
Digress
Degrammer
Falls and hides
Shipwrecked
Beneath a feather.

Denis Streeter 10/7/13


My door

Where did you feel
My corners snow
Over rocks
Into stone
Where did you find
Isotope
In my mind
Covered leaves
Mixing trees
Watching all
Of my time
Slicing dumb
Bending mine
Casper sieves
Under leaves
Watering holes
Left behind
Oceans weep
Shadows bend
Mime asleep
Under stores
Wanders
That sharp edge
Caves to walk
Ocean floors
Fishing smelt
Prayers distraught
Caspers
Thraught
Lacerates
Lazurus
Waking
The spring
Shadows beneath
Laugh
Isotope
Leaking out
My door.

Denis Streeter 10/7/13


Sun blocked

Lead fountains bleed
Shed and wine
All she said
In the corner
Left the snake
In the cabinet
Sunny stove
Hatching eggs
Finger nose
Frigging away
All the clothes
Begin to fray
First a start
Then an end
Filling space
Sinisters
Under floor
Board the moon
Looney tune
All the nouns
Verbal
In the gass
As they watch
The turning
On off away
Setting time
Variable play
Out the door
The cupboard
Feed the weasel
Pop the horn
Settle down
All forlorn
Off the horse
Out away
Boardwalked
Shadowed
Fertile wise
Under sinks that pray
Lead whine
Sun blocked.

Denis Streeter 10/7/13

The Contrite Contradictory Roll

It's been a long hard week of Fall Rush at the University Book Store and computer troubles. My mind is shot...or at least that's my excuse for writing this piece. I came up with it while walking back to my car from the bookstore and craving my slices of pepperoni from Grocery Outlet.

An hor d'oeuvre for the perfect bipolar culinary experience...

1) 1 slice Pepperoni
2) 1/2 leaf Romaine
[Be sure they are equal amounts]
3) Roll together and hold in center with a toothpick.

It's easy to make.
Try out your own version...

Denis Streeter 9/27/13

feral post

my email lost
a post gone feral
pop-up overlays of wizards
tummies of liposuction
all the pop-ups
the websites pressed
traveling directionless
feral screen
without reason
writing disappears
not to return
and I've lost
everything I have written
post gone feral
mirroring wildness within
calling my community
set my computer back
to 9/11
because HAL told me to
and now I have email
and the problem still works
go back go back
to C4
451
some scraps of paper to
remind me how to be human or humane
feral remainder

denis streeter 9/22/13

Three

Some dialectic experiment with a kind of made up old English feel.

Gibber gon

o'er seaful o becks
da sou-western borobows
preebin' shanty
thankin' groun'
turn roun' korned
rye o'er shadow shacks
windin' rivers
mimblin' turtles
snappin' gulf yonder
pebbles pock up
past present
betsys rock home
all di wivvel
pringlin' past
in da watershed
shadow shirt gown
duchess go goosey
roun' trip horsey
o'er dem downs
clippin' di clowns
eye in di horsey
thinkin' go roun'
gold dift
pan tuckered
fribber frapt
sentrun gibberest
purty n deep
gilead gleated
ocean goad song
fibbered
gibber gon

Denis Streeter   9/3/13


Scotch to broom

house to tree reckonin' me
o'er di scotch broom circle
troublin' da math
lichen di time
inchin' da chalk
circlin' di tree
tree drop through
hallow earth
catchin' soun's
nown hereafter
caught wiff di bees
yor sweet honey
ain' no alphabet
no a's or b's
nown shacks n harts
bumble beed
learnin' di pattern
unner earth
circlin' the circlin'
watchin' the watchin'
lichen di time
stil of korner
reckonin' me
whouse the tree
saddlin' drinkin'
scotch to broom
chalk in loom
weavin' n woven
waftin' tune

Denis Streeter   9/3/13


oft ot

marys the timin'
sugar off course
maplin' trees
mappin' knees
sap a wandrin'
sits to do
short stack pancake tru
breakfast lumbrin'
nown to do
oft shoot
trigger song
sugars mary
aft ot
sit squat
timin' schedule
oft ot
dun in threes
prayerin' up an
cestered through
crumbs to zone
pastured past
wine communion
learnin' leanin'
oft ot

Denis Streeter  9/3/13

Flugelhand

the icicles shot the webs too long
over canyons into song
and the ride over was way too long
we break icicles to stab our food
engendered our species through tunnels of sand
and the last one was copper panned
shoed in lake horse meridian
just off the handle north east of gone       
and the shoe shorn saddlebags jigger
in the sued ocean blue
where sad handles shake their hips and shoes
before the coffee kettle boils and kachoos
and the valleys laugh that canyon song
shhhhh...and the rocks gurgle
revealing the old spring bed
tempting old towns to unearth
just the wind's laughing mirth
and the trails travel out and in
trials saddlebags and jigger
mirroring myself from the outside in.

Denis Streeter   8/19/13

Supposing...

You discovered a wonderful remainder book on the bookstore bargain table...only slightly dog-eared.  You were curious as the cat on the cover of an open book and curiouser about the title Supposing...
It's a picture book by poet Alastair Reid originally published in 1960 and reissued by the New York Review Children's Collection.  Seriously...check out from the library any of the books from this collection.  They're all good.  I also have Ounce Dice Trice by Alastair Reid...another wonderful treat for the imagination...and probably deserves a separate blog posting.  After picking up Supposing..., I read portions aloud to customers and co-workers...and they all wanted a copy...but I got the last one!  I wish I had written these.

Here are three samples...

Supposing
I had a great house with valuable paintings
and furniture and things and I came
home one day and it was all blazing
and burned down and people came
rushing up to me being sorry for me
but I just laughed and took off my
clothes and threw them onto the fire...

Supposing
I had a picture of the view from my window
and painted the river orange just for fun, and
when I went out the next morning the river had
really turned orange...

Supposing
I had a twin brother but we never told
anyone and only went to school half the
time each...

These are lots of fun with perfectly complemented illustrations by Bob Gill. 
You'll want to come up with your own supposings and drawings.

Denis Streeter   8/1/13

The truth

Life is so beautiful
That nothing matters
The numbness you feel
Is beauty folding inside you
Is the lie that holds you awake
The truth that lets you down
Takes your sleep
Guides your day
Your trust in self and others
Gone with the wind
Old fashioned traits
Hold you up
Litter your wind
Lie to your face
Wish for more
It lies too
There is no truth but what is truth
It's not enough
For what lies as truth
In the discord depress
What you confess
Won't hold up in court
For what lies as truth
Your overblown
Floating to the moon where
The man gives you advice
Best not to adhere
You grab a beer
Soup almost ready
Beer nearly gone
It didn't have to go this way
But it did
In its entitlement
Find its moment
Still speaking
Without words
The contradiction of
The truth.

Denis Streeter   7/14/13

Slow breakfast

The crab rolls were tasty
As they lolled off the dog's tongue
Full of sassafras and goat's milk
In cream rhymers of thyme and sage
Worlds of contraband dance
Surrounding oceans of seaweed
Before the nonce reunion
Of sautéed prawns buttering shrimp
The last of the saline ships at arbor
Drips of ivy pyramidalis
Washing shores of sand to clay
Remolding figures to drip
Weathered bake love breath
Ships sang and sank
Generations of recovery
Old made new seen through
Shadows of foolish ways
Ringing those distant bells
Washing us home
Drifts of song leaves laughing
Fluttering wind chimes
Silent lesson
You know
Awake
Slow breakfast

Denis Streeter  6/29/13

Heaven Eyes

I didn't make it up.  That's the title to David Almond's third children's book...but his books are for all ages and defy category.  I finished reading it for the second time last night and was blown away.  The first time I read it I was somewhat disappointed and puzzled.  That was about 12 years ago...perhaps I read it too fast and didn't consider the carefully constructed arrangement...almost like a poetic symphony as children's novel.  David Almond's first two children's novels Skellig and Kit's Wilderness changed the way I read books and how I view the world.  There was a unique writing power that pulled me into the magic of spirit, love, darkness, contradiction, and freedom.  You either like his writing style or you don't.  Maybe it's more for artists, poets, and book critics.  I've read all his books, so you know where I stand.  For some reason I felt drawn to return to this book...so I checked it out from the library.  Something seemed to tell me I didn't give it a fair read the first time around.  By the time I finished reading it a second time, I felt like I had read some kind of miracle.  I hesitate to describe a plot or even the central character Heaven Eyes because the writing says it all and becomes a story that resonates between words and beyond words.  Hidden beneath the ordinary lies the extraordinary...and the heaven eyes to search deeper.

Denis Streeter   6/28/13

Tottled shores

the snow was full up wicker way
in sounds of sheet in combs of peet
in rending pending play
in pending wending play

the oceans fall in laps to rug
in walls of shoes confuse to bug
on benches counting names
on benches counting names

the shores were fall the beaches ball
a loon a loon a lab cartoon
in labradoring ways
in labradoring ways

the winch came up to laugh the grass
and tease the tinch to give an inch
in flaps of rugs and lakes of loons
in tents a tinch of tottled tune
in moons of bending bine
in moons of bending bine

in doors of play away away
the talks of tunes the letters play
in sidewalks dear they take you near
the store the store for more for more
the fribious snake cocoo cocoo
the thwarted boar ignore ignore
whose patted peet will peeted pat
whose footed fey away away
will teach a peach to each
will teach a peach to each

away away to stay the day
ignore the fleet of footed boar
to eat to eat to say no more
and laugh the seat of peeted pear
in doors of shores in bites of bear
I know I will be there
I know I will be there

denis streeter  6/17/13

When

This is a short piece I still like...from nearly five years ago.
I found it while cleaning up my place...

When

When I was a monk
I trimmed my tree
To trim my wick
To trim my fire.

Denis Streeter  10/8/08

Lettuce needles

The lettuce needles were shining this morning
So I took my dog out for a shampoo
He sniffed the ponies and went for a swim
Dozens of barnacles floated and dove
Grabbing his legs threatening to pull him under
I threw my stick which he grabbed in mid air
Shaking head batting off barnacles
He was tired after that and jumped on a pony
Pulling in its reins, driving it to the hair parlor
Returning forlorn...out of favorite shampoo
Feeling rotten, he ate some crabgrass
Which cleaned his hair right quick
I grabbed his collar and stuck him with lettuce needles
He curled up beside me and fell fast asleep
The lettuce needles were shining this morning

Denis Streeter  6/7/13

Tea deep sleep

I was cleaning up my place and came upon a poem titled Shoveling Ovens I'd written on 1/27/12. 
It needed revision (like my place) and a title change (hmm...maybe I should consider that), so it became...

Tea deep sleep

Waiting rooms shoveling ovens
Sweaters remove satraps
Heavens wait
One two three snore
Lips off onramps
Lambs counting
Reverb off
Salmon days shadow snores left behind
Over doors under shelves rainbows trouting
Before lunch jump
Swimming schools full of underline
Rainbow black
In cross outbacks tables left
No understanding
Deepness sweaters together
Pest pebbles to sleep
Under doors over shelves
Doors stair
In that tea deep sleep.

Denis Streeter  6/5/13

Drunken wisdom

This is a verbatim message my friend left on my phone...

"Guilt is the therapist...
And guilt is the therapy
And it is something that...
Needs to be paid attention to...
Because in some ways that is the mortar
That holds everything together."

From phone message recorded by Denis Streeter on 6/2/13
and transcribed on 6/4/13

Two bits

All under the desk
The tide too long
Ready to ride that barnacle wake
Brought to center blubber and molecules
Fat as a cat listening
To signs the feeder left out
Done up in blades and molecules
Sophocles left behind
And the sun bathed to soap
Picking up litter and preening its wake
Two feeders and density gone
Fiber free and shucks aside
The ladders were taller than the mitts admitted
Fiber optic and sinister grey
Done up in pools of forgotten grace
Silk screens and silver whirls
Tabs gone paths forgotten
All those islands unmet
All that water unfiltered
And land's the way
The path's for finding
Just a bit
Or two.

Denis Streeter   6/3/13

Water flight

I had to renew Robert Macfarlane's book The Old Ways (2012) and I'm still just inching my way through it.  The writing is so tight and creates such word pictures and stories of the old pathways by land or by water that I will soon fork over the money to buy the book.  The hardback library copy is beginning to get beat up in my bag.  It seems like each word and phrase brings me new discoveries. 
Let me read you a piece...but first a little background.  Ian, a sailor, leads the author by boat to the North Atlantic rocky island of Sula Sgeir following the old water and flight pathway made by the gannet.

     Ian told me a story, an old one that I had encountered before.  Ver-
sions of it exist near the gannetries of the Irish and Scottish west
coasts, revised to freshness with each new telling.  A small open boat
is sailing out to St Kilda--or to Rona, or the Blaskets (choose your
distant island)--when, far out of sight of land, it passes through a
herring shoal so profuse that the surface of the sea seems firm enough
to walk on.  The herring brings the predators:  whales, dolphins and
gannets, gannets in their thousands, thumping down from the sky
in the sea all around the boat.
     'Suddenly,' said Ian, 'there comes a noise like a firearm being dis-
charged.  Pack!'
     A gannet has dived by error into the open boat itself and there it is,
up near the bow, stone dead, its body limp and its beak driven clean
through the timber of the hull, its great wings, six feet for sure from
tip to tip, splayed on the thwarts.  Twenty miles from land in the big
Atlantic waves and with a hole in the hull; well, that should have been
death to the boat and its people.  But then they realize that the gan-
net's impact has been so powerful that it has plugged the hole it made.

pages 130-1, The Old Ways, Robert Macfarlane

This book is filled with great stories and beautiful language that ripples and deepens what we know of the old pathways.

Denis Streeter

The gift

What is your complexion
Mine is varied
But nearly always complex
Tell me you are engaged and show me your ring
And I feel genuine happiness for you
And genuine pain for myself
Simultaneously
And in this season of dying
For I have heard more than I care to know
Til I'm cold sweat, blue in the face, ready to pass out
Hold on...
I have also heard more engagements than I was ready to know
And through all my contradiction I feel hope
A sort of complex hope
Mixing with my darkness
A candle flame with black smoke
Curling my mind
Switching back and forth
Happy sad hope grounded
And that longing to be understood
Though words and actions make no sense
Actions better understood
They are the groundwork for what lies beneath
When words misunderstand or lie
"You were staring at me", she said
"No I wasn't", I replied
"Yes you were...and it creeps me out."
Was or wasn't, was or wasn't
Emotions a fleeting moment
That sometimes stay in reflection
A self contained reality
That bubbling anger
"They were wrong..."
"They won't admit..."
Its complexion
The contradiction of self
Raising its beautiful flame yet threatening to consume us
Reality and hope weave a fine chord
One to hang us, one to hold us up
But maybe that isn't the all of it
Maybe between the waiting and the doing
Contradiction and complexion
Weaves a length of beauty
Waiting to be understood
Perhaps waiting to be blessed
To be the gift.

Denis Streeter  5/22/13

Mathemagical thinking

This is a true story problem...
Kayla worked Grace's Thursday shift.
Grace is working Kayla's Saturday shift.
Kayla and Grace are working together on Monday.

So...

Let G=Grace
Let K=Kayla
Let T=Thursday
Let S=Saturday
Let M=Monday

If T, then K=G
If S, the G=K
Therefore
M=K+G

Denis Streeter  5/17/13

jumblevision

screw in the wiretaps
jumblevision too long
wrap up the chords
say what to say
short to the point
misunderstanding
jumblevision
say it is my song
say I listen alright
conference call I can not follow
shutdown to make it slowdown
fill in the pieces
mind left behind
wandering moors
forever wondering
knowing
tapping in

I did not get it right
I did not get it wrong

denis streeter  5/15/13

Others pain

When will the anger stop
It's about me
I get an email from my sister
Showing how much she cares for a friend of ours
I don't know her friend that well
Why does my sister have to reach out to every person she knows
Who is in pain
I don't know
I do
It's not a question mark
She carries the pain of others and buries her own
Until it becomes too much for her
And even in the caring email she sends to console
There's something oddly generic about it
She can't go deeper because she's dealing with her own issues
She gets information wrong
Then when corrected, she goes on to explain what she's going through
I didn't ask to hear any of it
And yet it goes on
One pain after another
And we diminish ourselves
Forget we are worth anything
Because others pain is so much greater than ours
The problem is
Everywhere in this world
There are people suffering more than us
Where does that leaves us
Our needs are important too
And the weird thing is
Now this sounds like a boohoo piece
"Our needs are important too"
How trite, how obvious
The key seems to be
How much is too much
The obvious answer seems to be
When our health is diminished by caring for others
And we continue to crumble because there is always someone worse off
Then comes the anger
We feel others are abusing us
But they aren't
They didn't ask for our help
We offered it
It's not about my sister
It's about me
It's about each of us
We have a choice
We always have a choice.

Denis Streeter  5/8/13

Tidal pull

Written after reading part of Robert Macfarlane's 2012 book The Old Ways:  A Journey on Foot.

Snoring shores shifting sands
Impermeable light water sky
Everything changes rules of sight
Eyes filling silt
Feet baking sinking sand clay
Your feet cast mold
Harden to clay
And the feet keep walking
Senses sharpen and bewilder
Water sand silt sky
Cast in magic
Straightlines curve, curves straightline
Big is small, small big
Imaginings gulls to eagles
Driftwood trees
Nonsense land that slippery silt
Freshmade indestructible feeling
Walking you to sea
Tidally pulling your chest
You hear your sirens, sights unknown and personal
Clamshells speak, crabs scurry echo ear, sanding land water sky
Cracked you laugh, fight to return, wanting to drown
The no-time sense enticing
Feet and head argue, body follows course
That course of safety and regret
Exhilaration
You'll never forget
Timeless made new, imagination
Making tracks in mind and shifting worlds

Denis Streeter  5/6/13

Shard awakening

Wandering deserts wilderness song
Highs too hot, lows too cold
Traveling between mirage and mire
Shadow shocked past of present gone by
Into mist abyss where darkness crawls
Eels of salamanders eat dust light flame
And dust to ash all over again
Dusking dawn's awakening song
In millions of seed budding sand
Mysteries answering cry
Why
Soon as ships lighthouse shores
Mirage our present
Leviathan wake
Sinking depth our thoughts
Dormant bottles our ocean
Doormat truth and lies
Entering rooms as sand slips our tides
Shoring frailties and treasures
Washed plates clamshell spits of time
Over ocean roars our mind
Reaching tidal contradiction
Too much not enough
Jackals our night carrion morning
Mind stretch, snap, sometimes shatters
Dustpan ready removal
And dust to ashes all over again
In seed budding sand
Falter frailty treasures
Seed shard awakening.

Denis Streeter  4/28/13

Normal

the spaniel jibberjabbered its bronx in cardiac silence
fleeing the tippertape from flying carbuncles and fribberfrap
all in the talking of rug fried toothpicks and sadwrap wine
lessons in noodles were all for fishing
the trout was out player piano
got a goosestache instead
just the wax and settled for clear
in dreams of white and orange-gold
black and red tinting in tents
war called for bachelor quarters
in bleaches of wine gone turpenoid
all in a gas with a huff and a steam
the jackass removal a farmhold away
dusting its shirts in distancing shelves
all the corks popped up and sneezed
the baggage too long, the mustard too hide
and the screen before the trash compactor
eating stations of grace in long letter line
a long nose squiggle came unkempt
sniffing rafters shampoo left behind
in court rooms stout and beaverbuilt
ill chords of beef trout and tanner
the little molecules let get away
washed under sewers of severing clay
when tolstois just wanted to be loved, just loved
and kickercounters went splay and hay
done up in doodle racks and onion spring crime
knocking in noodlehead crabs of spray
doneforth fingerfangered
toothspring flaggered
haggard as buggerdeeboo
as lunch snapped the kite sky
seesaw as toodleloo
i gotta go
flingerflangered flish and flush.

Denis Streeter  4/27/13

Gray matter

My favorite cereal bowl broke
When I was attempting to mult-task
I screamed an utter cry of remorse for
The bowl that it had lived
For breakfast and dinner
As long as I can remember...
I swept the remains
Trying to be positive
At least my kitchen floor is cleaner
I wept the remains in the garbage
Placed a smaller bowl
For making my routine spirit cereal
Same as I had made it for 20 years
Routines change
I hate change
The smaller bowl too thin, not high enough
Porridge overflow, and I'm thinking
All the goal oriented people
How I have no goals
Except to be in the flow
Connect better with others
Write better
I put on my red plaid short sleeve shirt
Thinking that will somehow brighten my broken day
Peer out window
Gray...
Change from my black to gray jacket
Outside to car, sky seems gray-white luminescent
I look at jacket
It feels more gray, as if
I've absorbed the sky into my jacket
And the gray is seeping into my skin
That overwhelming...and I pray
For strength for the day
That the gray matter will not seep too far
And somehow I am given enough strength...
A poet friend stops by work and delivers
His handmade card with his illustration and my nonsense verse
I had written impromptu for him earlier
It's a wonderful thing to know that what you can inspire
Goes beyond your knowing
Your gray matter...darkening...lightening...
What's the matter

Denis Streeter  4/26/13

No vowel left behind

Saturday I watered the post and let them in
Stuck as angels caught in the wiring
Listening to the flat footed songs
Lessen by evening thoughtlessly thrown
Loosen by cavities storefront left behind
Clay vessels with claws detached
Wanting to wash my hands but I won't
Pouring warm porridge
Reach for a towel, read insanity clause
Warm cold dripping from heart
Let the south-west in
It's not a direction but a thought
Piece by piece piles come together
As they ought
Written in glass the arm cut off
And the parsing games began
A noun a vowel slowly drops out
Sitting on the toilet, flush behind
Round and round it goes
Down and down it goes
That old black magic.

Denis Streeter  3/23/13

the the

sometimes things work
sometimes they do
i was wandering my mind
thinking of spring clues
not there yet...
living the laughing zoo
captivating the cardboard kind
that mingling the the
shingling in zoos
comfortably fine
if not divine
then what...
the the gained power
the knots got broken and the fish went free
the powders pounded me sideways
i laught until the shoes went splinter
hofo in the afternoon where the eggs lay
littered in the the of the chime splintered grass
looking optimistic at the wings of dawn
the the climbed from its hiding place
placing shingles in the two bys
looking up i could see the the disappear
but only for a line or two
then it appeared with an n at the end
and the castles shingled the timbuktus
watching the antelope in eye drop pews
washing the wishing wells wait for temples
to open wire and shingle the plains
nothing to do but open the catshoe doors
drink the bumblebee stew
laugh the elements in two by twos
in posts and clues
the the disappeared
the shindig belly up
the adventure between the lines
the paper over and out
and the lunches split with the dinners
still looking for the then.

Denis Streeter   3/11/13

Kendal mints

I am a sugarholic.  I'm pretty frugal, but I've saved and scrimped to buy Romney Kendal mints from Cumbria, UK.  It's named after Kendal portrait painter George Romney...so let's leave politics out.  They were a favorite from my childhood.  It's like a hard mint slab that tastes a bit like a York Peppermint Patty...but SO much better.  It's pretty much pure glucose and peppermint oil.  Every year I would ask for some for Christmas and you could only get it at the REI.  Then they stopped carrying it...some ten or twenty years ago.  I finally got my sugar source.  The website for ordering is Kendal Corner.  Check it out.  The mint and fudge is the best...and it's fresher.  Try the Rum & Butter bar...it will grow on you.   I've share them all with my co-workers.  Some like the Rum & Butter bar best.  You end up paying twice the price with shipping, but it will arrive in about four days.  I tracked it.  It went from Cumbria, UK, to Carlisle, UK, to Castle Donnington, UK, to Philadelphia, PA, to Louisville, KY, to Seattle, to my front door.  This time it was five kilograms of candy...or eleven pounds...just under one hundred dollars.  It's so intoxicating delicious it's worth paying the shipping price...and per ounce it's not much more than any regular candy bar in the U.S.  I've made four shipments in the past three month...so yes...I'm addicted.  I mostly like the Kendal mint cake...for which they are famous...particularly on climbing expeditions.   I just ordered the extra strong mint cake this time...I could feel the taste shooting right through my eyeballs.  I think they're still glowing an hour later...but it's probably all the glucose.  It's an interesting website.  They also have a monthly quiz you can buy for one pound...thirty questions...with answers to last month's quiz.  I don't know the questions, but the answers were interesting and informative.  The money they collect for the quiz benefits a local Cumbria Catholic School.  I'll buy the quiz on my next order. Denis Streeter

Validating Ludlow

A co-worker told me about the short film on youtube called "Validation".  If you haven't seen it already, I recommend it.  Just google "validation short film".  It's about 15 minutes long and totally charming.  It reminded my of a picture book I read years ago by Jon Agee called "Ludlow Laughs" (1985).  I love the opening sentence:
"When Ludlow was born, everyone immediately noticed this shape:"  [picture of down turned curve]
Ludlow was born grumpy, but one day he has "the funniest dream in the world".  How the plot and pictures develop are charming validation that Jon Agee has incredible talent.  Check out his palindrome books...letters same forward and reverse...like his "Sit on a potato pan, Otis!"  You'll want to create palindromes of your own.   He's also done illustrations for Tor Seidler (Mean Margaret) and William Steig (Potch and Polly).   Funny how it worked.  I saw the short film "Validation" and ended up putting six Jon Agee books on hold at the library.

Denis Streeter   2/20/13

oblique

The desk shivered shut
Open shadows jamming drawers
Shifting letters dream.

Denis Streeter   2/9/13

cyrano de bergerac twist

No it's not a drink.  It's a plot twist in Aidan Chamber's book "Dying to Know You" (2012)...young adult fiction at its best.  The writing rings true...funny and profound.  It starts out with an 18 year old boy visiting a famous 75 year old author...not because he likes to read, but...I'll start with the conversation between boy and author:

"Could I talk to you?"
     "Why?"
     "You're a writer?"
     "And?"
     "I need your help."
     "You see the sign on the door?"
     "Yes."
     "What does it say?"
     "No visitors without appointments."
     "Have you an appointment?"
     "No."
     "Then I suggest you make one."
     "Could I make an appointment?"
     "When for?"
     "Now."

     I couldn't help laughing.  Anyways, there was something
about him, an indefinable quality that instantly appealed.

     "What sort of help do you want?"
     "With my girlfriend."
     "I don't know anything about you, never mind your
girlfriend."
     "I can explain."
     "Young man.  I'm seventy-five.  Happily married for over
forty years.  What would I know about girls these days?"
     "You write about them."
     "You've read my books?"
     "No."
     "So how do you know?"
     "My girlfriend told me.  She's a fan.  And I looked you up
on the internet."
     "Really?  Well, at least you're honest.  But in any case, the
girls in my books are fictions.  I made them up.  They don't
have minds of their own.  Real girls do."
     "The help is just for me, really.  Not for my girlfriend."
     "Look, if we're going to continue this conversation,
which it seems we are, you'd better come inside."

     Room are a fixed size, which can't be altered without
pulling down walls and building new ones.  They should be
unchanging in shape and proportions.  But sometimes they
do change depending on who's in them.
     I led him into the sitting room.  He was tall, well built
but not bulky, not overbearing.  I was surprised, because the
room didn't shrink as it usually did when visitors came in.
It got larger.
     When we'd sat down, he on the edge of the sofa, leaning
forward, elbows on knees, eyes looking at his hands clasped
as if in prayer, me in the armchair facing him, I asked again
how he thought I could help.
     "My girlfriend wants me to write about myself," he said.
     "And?"
     "About myself.  Inside."
     "What?  You mean your feelings?"
     "My inner secrets, she said."
     "Why?"
     "She quoted something at me."
     "Can you remember it?"
     "'How can you call them friends when they do not
know their mutual feelings.'"
     "That's good.  Did she say who said it?"
     "Aristotle."
     "Aristotle?  She's read Aristotle?"
     "No idea."
     "Maybe she picked it up on the internet."
     "She does read a lot.  She'd like it here," he added,
looking at the shelves of books.
     "How old?"
     "Seventeen."
     "She's some girl, if she's read Aristotle."
     "Well, yes, she is."
     "Or maybe she's just good at finding quotes."  I let that
sink in before I said, "So what do you want me to do?"
     "Help me write the stuff she wants."
     "Why can't you write it yourself?"
     "Hate writing."
     "Then don't."
     "She says she'll only go with me if I do.  She's made a
list of questions she wants me to answer.  And I have to do
it in what she calls full-dress English."
     "'Full dress'?"
     "Yes.  Proper punctuation, spelling, and stuff.  And
printed out.  I hate doing that.  It's torture."
     "Not that bad, surely?"
     "Yes, it is.  And, anyway, I don't know what to write."
     "What do you want me to do, then?  Make it up?"
     "No!...But that wouldn't be such a bad idea, come to
think of it."
     He looked at me and smiled for the first time and said,
"Only joking.  But still..."
     "Still what?"
     "Dunno...Well, I do, to be honest.  There's a problem."
     "Which is?"
     He examined his hands again, fiddled with his fingers,
took in a breath, and gave me a defiant look.
     "I'm dyslexic."
     "Ah!" I said.  "I see."

From Aidan Chambers "Dying to Know You" (2012), pages 1-4

This is a smart, funny, and wise book with resonant meaning.  Highly recommended!
Check out Aidan Chamber's bio for more info...it will add depth to your reading.
I also highly recommend his "Postcards from No Man's Land" and "This Is All:  The Pillow
Book of Cordelia Kenn."  I plan to read all his books.


Denis Streeter  
    

    

Kombucha

I'd been drinking store bought kombucha for years and finally decided that it would be cheaper to brew my own.  My first attempt didn't work out.  It might have been old or I just didn't make it right.  My second attempt using the directions and ingredients from a store bought kit worked.  I followed the instructions to the last sanitational detail.  I've made several batches since.  Now I'm up to making five gallons at a time...or 21-16 oz bottles of kombucha.  I've got eight active cultures in their juices for other batches and another gallon of kombucha that should be ready in 3-4 weeks.  I drink about four ounces of it with my orange juice each morning.  It's too acidic for me to drink straight...tastes like apple cider vinegar.  I've heard all the health benefits and risks of brewing your own kombucha.  It does seem to give me some energy and I can feel it tingling behind my knees relieving pain.  So...psychological or not, it does seem to have some health benefit for me.  It seemed to help Jesus.  He was fed vinegar (kombucha?) from a sponge on the cross before he died...and days later was resurrected.  Well...okay...that probably didn't bring him back, but life is a mysterious elixir.

Denis Streeter   1/28/13

The Pig in the Spigot

Richard Wilbur is a poet well known for his wit, wordplay, numerous fine collections, and translations over the years.  My favorite is a book called "Opposites" (1973) and his succeeding opposites books over the years.  I think of them as classics.  They have been in print for years, though can be hard to find in libraries.  He illustrated his opposites books with deceptively simple line drawings that perfectly complement his words.  I highly recommend checking them out. 

He also wrote "The Pig in the Spigot" (2000), illustrations by J. Otto Siebold, which has the same clever wordplay that I like to emulate at times.  One of my favorites:

"If you'd been on Mount Ararat, would you
 Have smelled a rat?  Of course.  Not one, but two.
 For Noah's ark, we're told, contained a pair
 Of every creature when it landed there."  (page 27)

In every poem there is a clever word within the word...and range in arrangement.
Somehow these worlds make wonderful word sense.

Denis Streeter   1/27/13

Restless

The sands hook their shadows
Out closet windows
Waiting for drawstrings
But flashlights appear
Watching where they land
The sands shift
Canoes seem empty
Sky devoid of reason
Drawstrings open
Sky fishing line pole
Moon the sky waters
Midnight blue
Climbing dreams follow
Calling lighthouse bluff
No flashlight
No morse code
No Rapunzel hair
Dreams open drawstrings
Mining mind's corridor
Landing where reality left
Continuing night lesson
Stories pictures incomplete
Morning ponders
Closet sleeps
Story pictures
Reality ponders
Getting it right
Climbing dream lines
In measures of sand
Hour glass waits
Sifting
Canoes our dreams
Oar reality.

Denis Streeter   1/26/13

Soft shoe exercise

Stories prophetic
Open tombstones
Watchclosets
Wickerbaskets
Sidelinehorseshoes
All for the caveman
Living in your bedroom
Hopped up on stickers
Gravy distrust funds
401 cave in
Last weeks mushrooms
Overnight guests
Staccatos of moans
Wickershin basket
Left in the bathroom
All alone
Shadowland depot
Jiggle the head
No photos please
Just an armory
A trampoline and a bed
The higher you fly the longer you go
The phrase that lies
Shading with ease
Played on a lyre
All that wire
Front no back
Chestered to fire
Alert to the moon
Disasters that follow
The church of legs
The bible of bones
Sheen from the shore
Laughter to bed
The thoughts keep ticking
And chuckle some sleep
No not a peep
No not a peep
And energies snore
Popsticks chatter
Breaths are given
Taken away
Times come to go
Records given
Snores wept
Chinese forgiven
Implored for depth
I scream parlors
Ballet palaces
The treads of regret
Stored in houses
Shadowed by horns
The emancipated holy
Dressed for dishes
Swallowed up depth
Charge for the rest
Eating the chews
Choosing the which
Whichever you choose
O-ing the groan
Junket the booze
Laughter you choose
Lifting your arms
Under the fence
Table  alarms
Resting on pets
Broaching the arms
Petering pot
Lifted a lot
Snaggled in bed
Off with his head
Nothing he said
Off to the dead
The obvious said
Nickeled and dimed
'Busing the rhyme.

Denis Streeter 1/21/13

Some separation required

The was a phone
Eye took pictures
Mind received
Stored in compartment
Sometimes retrieved
No buttons pushed
Memories made
When I'm phoned in
Made real to me
To you I don't know
You have me
Some separation required
Imaginary real does it matter
It does you say
I agree
But only to a degree
Real imaginary blends
Sleep dreams
Days tabulate
You your phone
Know no buttons
Emotional intake
Scrambled
Sleep
Imaginary made real
Dreams
Honed in
Forget the p
The real it seems
You have me
Some separation required
If I am to be
Believed.

Denis Streeter 1/21/13

Outing

The closet went out to dinner
With the cloaks and the ties
Nothing special really
Just a suit and tie
But the tie went missing
Looking for an affair
With the socks
It was hot for a moment
Both fell dirty panting
Over.
The closet wants to move on
But stayed put
It's a containment issue
The other closets wanted to peer in
But it was not their custom
Against their bylaws
So they went away
Leaving the closet alone
As it was accustomed
The other clothing hung drawn
Peering expectantly
Feeling put on
Waiting
For the next affair.

Denis Streeter 1/19/13

Whichstick

The lettuce shorted out
While I swam
Two drumsticks and a bottle of wine
The torrent quicken
I got my whichstick and started beating
Enough to curdle, brought to stir
Not a bat was beating
The lemons silence beyond tears
In torrents of pine sol and wine
All the cleaning and clearing
Above the sodden sky
Coming down drearing
While soaks wake my walk
Waterjackets
Cast amongst the sheens
In that midnight awareness
Of yesterday's happenstance
Correction of daze night
Still buzzing anger
Hornets to light
Drilling new depth
Coaling my fire
Swimming
In these turning ways.

Denis Streeter 1/9/13

The Little Island

Little kitten and little island converse.  It's surreal and truly magical.  If you've never read the 1947 Caldecott winner "The Little Island" by Margaret Wise Brown you're in for a treat.  Margaret Wise Brown is a true poet and illustrations by Leonard Weisgard complement it perfectly.  It's completely charming and wiser than you know.  I don't want to say much about this book, but it will cast a quiet spell on you.  Probably many of you have seen and read this children's classic by the writer of "Goodnight Moon", but it's worth many reflections.  Highly recommended for all ages.

Denis Streeter  1/7/13

And there was evening and there was morning

The hammer left late that summer morning
Trying on baskets of winter leaves
Autumn left behind
Nobodys season
Tucked behind the pantrys inside drawer
Starting to snore
Dreams of drills and nails
Tool enclaves
Slaving sleep yet hearing roar
"Where's my fn hammer!"
Hammerhead winks and blinks to sleep
Winter leaves nobodys season
Battered open drawers
Dreaming what forgot
And open found
Sobered up
What was said
Hammerhead
Workhead
Nobodys season
But its reason.

Denis Streeter  1/5/13

Shake

The oysters drank their shells
Shake
Under sea roof rise
Shelling sand dollars
Under currency wheels
The planets roared and hummed
Squatting spheres of surprise
Until rain danced the seashore rise
Waiting for coffins to formaldehyde
And dust the distance
The starfish left behind
Tied to two docks
A duck and a tugboat
An ox and a snake
To zodiac below
The zodiac above
Dust in the wake
Water in the screen
Shake
The sand dollar cake
No candles lit
It's not your time
Shoot again adam
It'll come anseley
Shake again
You'll magritte to dali
Shake again artfully
You lose go fish
Oysters shark some shellfish pie
Allergize and insulin
Shock the system
Shake zodiac above below
What's to know
Follow the line to key lime
You know your just desserts
Shake

Denis Streeter  1/3/13

Xylophone borealis

The stories are told
Down by the blue lagoon
Where time lags and stories stretch
Large enough to fill the sky
The imagination
Leaps uncontained
And I hear the notes play
Feeling their colors
Xylophone borealis
Sun changing ice floes
Spectral analysis
And the mind moves in waves
Conducting some hidden orchestra
Changing its tone, its tune, its story
There's nothing to graph
The story listens
Feels changing cadences
Flows and adapts
Weaving strands
Lines of journey
Stories of life
Listening
Changing tone

Denis Streeter  1/2/13