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