Another picture of red trees

rocky mountain national forest

Look past the first line of trees…. the red goes on and on and on….

the pine beetle is native to north america.  The experts say drought and warmer climate is leading to the spread…

they don’t mention fire. but to say that fire is a natural part of the forest (opens the cones and allows the seeds to come out).  Pine beetles fly to the tree.  Pine beetles usually eat the dead and older trees, or the remains of a tree after a fire but because of their population increase they are now eating young and healthy trees.  And spreading to other areas that used to not  be affected or target by the beetle.      I think the lack of fire is a problem though.

Because of life and money, we control the fires but this forest is a time bomb.  Even the green trees can be infested.

Fire will spread very quickly in a forest of dead trees, which may be the only way to impact the beetle. or not.  Perhaps fire will cause the pine beetle to travel on to another spot or tree.

check this out…

nasa stardust mission

http://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news115.html

free online courses from mit

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm

working on a story

For the past few days I have been working on a story.  This is not the first story I’ve written but by far, it most outrageous and longest piece that I have attempted.  I will not be posting it on here.  It is a long way for being done or resembling anything coherent or readable, but my friends, I’m having a fun time.  It is science fiction.  It is an adventure story.  It will not be too weird.  When I have it sorted out, I may post parts of it, but I hope it will grew too big to put on a blog.

Already the characters are coming alive.  They are budding more characters.  I often times write a story and then realize somewhere in the process, that is going nowhere.  This is one is different. I already have thirty pages, and the plot is getting more complex and so, even if it does come out as total trash, it will be the longest trash I have written to date.  I can tell now that it will be at least 100 pages of trash.  And if I want it to be good, it will have to be a bit longer. Of course, I am trying too much for one story maybe. But perhaps it will grow to more than one story.  I am not sure yet. But I am excited.  I’ve been bouncing ideas off husband and one of my brothers, and both have given great feedback, and have said, that it sounds like a good story.  Lots of times my story ideas are boring. Like I am going to write a story about dog that eats bones. That is not a good plot.  A dog eating bones. Ha. Laughable.

My goal in writing poetry and flash fiction has always been to learn to write a decent line, a decent sentence. Then it was to write a group of sentences that were decent.  I wasn’t sure I was ready to move on, and I certainly won’t stop writing shorter pieces but with the advice of my family, I have decided to move on to a bigger project.  Will it work out?  I don’t know.  Will it be worth the effort?  Yes, maybe. Is anything?

So if you have written long stories or novels successfully, please feel obligated to give me advice that I will no doubt ignore, and wish later that I had followed (hehe).   What are some of the things you learned during your writing process?  How many of you worry about the word count?  How many words should make up a chapter?  What is the best way to stay motivated and excited?  When should you let someone else read the story?  When your done or halfway done, or as you progress?  What about editing and shifting?  Do you do it as you go along or do you plough through the whole story and go back?

Should you let yourself write the ending as it comes or do you plan it out before you start writing?  How much information does the reader really need?   Does reader need to know how, say a space ship works, or just that it does?

Of course, I have my own process, and it’s going smoothly now but I’d love to learn how others accomplished the same goal. So if you have the time, throw some words this way.

Why are the trees red?

rocky mountain national park

Damn those beetles

Think of Your Mother’s Heart

You little miss, should not lie

especially to your mom about being

sick because it breaks her heart

and makes her pace.  It is bad for mommy to pace

Her hair starts to stick up in the front of her head

from her hands pulling upward on her hair

The neighbors can see mommy through the window

punching her leg to stop the fuzzy panic in her brain

It is messy and disturbing for all of us to witness

It caused a humming bird to fly into the window

and your poor mother had to pick up the dead

little thing and put it in the garbage

She had to sallow her puke down and

recite lines from Our Town.

When you were a little tiny babe

you were sick and your mother

held you down as the doctors

and nurses put needles and ivs

in your body.  You were like

a trapped elephant with a tiger

in its belly.

Your mother, without faith

or knowing what was wrong

stood so strong, trembling within

screaming within,  wearing her

solid and brave mask

demanding and ordering

the rush of incompetence

moving around you and her.

She had to accept death, she had to accept

that she was powerless to save you

Each time you went into the hospital

she had to become a stoic Buddha

Do you know what that does to a woman

Your mother when she first had you

was but a child herself, dumb

and wild and on a hero’s path

She abandon her passport and toys

and silver cup that had been given

to her by the ancestor’s

She was disowned.  She was cut apart

She was a promising figure, a whisper

in circles, a goddess of beauty

with a powerful grip

your mom with her funny little

voices and facial expressions

with her songs and rhymes

is not that girl but an old woman

who has made it her goal

to give her life to you

Don’t lie to her

It may kill her

before you have run

out of uses for her

Sand in Hand

On the shore of a northern sea

in November some day ago

I grabbed a handful of sand

and rubbed it in my palms

and watched it fall to the ground

Sliding and tumbling- the sand smooth

but gritty, reflecting beige and yellow and white

I put my hand out and said, feel this

and the shadow next to me stepped back

and said, what

.

.

What I really meant to say was

Hug me smooth, Henry

It was cold outside

It was cold outside. It was windy and wet

or it was snowing, ten feet, since the day before

or it was hot and sunny; a freak surprise of warmth

or I can’t remember that part

You were wearing  tan pants rolled up just below your knees

I carried my journal and didn’t write in it once

We leaned into each other, hands around

each other’s shoulders, sitting on a rock

Do you remember what we promised?

Me neither. It was probably something mundane

or impossible, like buying chickens to celebrate

when we finally made it

Do you think the dogwalkers

thought we were sisters?

Homeward

There is a place for me

Its not in there with the dirty dishes

or on the white carpet next to the thunder stain.

Its not the box of pictures flashing

faster than I can perceive

Its there though, cold and blue

Very bad

I believe that people are born gay, and there is nothing deviant or abnormal about it. I believe that we born asking questions but are taught not to. I believe that faith, although comforting for some has killed too many. I believe humanity will one day embrace enlightenment. I believe that the faithful are not the only ones who experience moments when they feel connected to the universe. I believe in life, diversity, equality, and justice for all. I believe cookies are better than potatoes and for inner peace one must accept their ignorance and the uncertainty of life and death.

I believe that all humans are foolish, and yes, animals.   I believe that people at a very young age are brainwashed and that is why they have religious beliefs.  I think humans, as a whole need to get over their death wish.  I think more people need to enjoy their life and give more to those who have less.

I believe that gay people should be able to marry.  I think abortion should stay legal. I think the world would be a better place without religion.  I think religion teaches people to accept ideas or systems of beliefs, even when the physical evidence clearly proves it wrong.  I think most people sometime in their life have doubted their faith and I wish more would do so.

War offends me.  High heel shoes offend me.   I think people who wear make-up would look a lot better without it.  I think whole grain bread is awesome.  I think basil is tasty with tomatoes.  When I look through a telescope at night time sky, I tear up a little.

My favorite writers are  Mckenzie,  Hummel, Bukowski, Adrienne Rich, Steven Wallace, Emily Dickenson, Oscar Wilde, Brian Turner, Poeticgrin, Syliva Plath, Chekov, Miller, Twain, Emerson, henry david thoreau, charles dickens,Kurt Vonnegut, Daniel Clowes,Frank Herbert, Robert Jordan, Peter Farb, John Milton, Joseph Conrad, Tom Robbins, Eliah Anderson, William S Burroughs, Siegfried Sasson, Steve Martin, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg  David Budbill, Roo Borson, Wolfe,  John Kennedy Tool, H.G. Wells, Langston Hughes, D. H Lawrence, Galway Kinnell, Herman Melville, Lisel Mueller, O’Hara, Anne Sexton, William Carlos Williams, Ferlinghetti,   and many, many, many more.   I loved Billy Holidays Biography.  Moby Dick is one of my all time favorite books.  Crime and punishment is still awesome and Shakespeare is still the master.

I like writing that is absurd and political and biting and well crafted. I like writing that breaks rules or follows rules or makes up new rules.  I like a good story or a sad one, or one that doesn’t have a purpose.  I like writing that doesn’t  take it self serious or takes its self too serious.  I have never read something that is all bad, just very bad

Chin UP

It is very hard for me

not to bend my head

at the dinners when people pray

to their vicious gods of antiquity

but I keep my back straight and chin up and out

Out of cultural pressure

I used to bend to the old authority

and pretend that I could logically

taste the purity that will anoint

the human condition in the phase

after this one

Now I keep my eyes open and the apology off my face

Mutters and an Atmosphere

I’ve just finished a painting that will be the cover of the chapbook, Bring Your Own Cup….maybe…

Painting is not my strong suit.  I try very hard and take my time but everything I paint comes out a little weird.  The paintings look cool and are colorful –that should count for something.

There is an elephant that can paint a better elephant than me.

This is not a big deal.  I enjoy painting.  I can say a lot more with a painting than I can say with poetry or a story.  I can put what is in my mind on the canvas and there is no confusion.   I like confusion. I do but painting is more expressive of the mental images.  I like how the mind creates meaning with light and form.  Different colors set different moods.  If I could I would paint more but paints and canvas are expensive. Besides I broke my best brush.

Do you paint?  Are you good?  Why is that the talented don’t paint and creeps like myself paint?  Ok. I know a lot of great painters who paint but my favorite painters don’t paint enough.  They have jobs and lives and budgets, and well, they could make money selling their paintings.  All of my paintings are for sale.  You can buy them. Warning –they cost an arm and a leg.

They are not very good.   If you like twisted worlds of imagination, you will like them.  If you want to look at a painting, my paintings are for you.

You and I are not alike.  Our bodies and brains are lived in.  I’ve damaged mine.  You might ask how, and I might answer with a cough or ask you if you’ve ever made an atmosphere.  You will want to talk about your favorite TV show and I will discuss science and art and poetry.  I’ll play Thelonious Monks and you will say, this is weird or say you really don’t like jazz.

You’ll want me to notice your new shoes and I will talk about the obscenities of a long dead bard.   This will lead both of us down a path of desire.   I’ll desire someone who is more knowledgeable and you will want someone who is not a weirdo.

Time.  What is it exactly?  Space, what does it feel like?   Distance, why don’t you run to catch up?

Ultimately I’ll want to be a lone.   I will go into my office and finger my addiction.  I will write and read and try to comprehend what it meant for Kepler and me, to imagine.  You will watch TV and later, call your best to talk about it.

I will pace up and down the hall, muttering to myself.  I will call my soundboard, and he will belittle me and remind me how pointless my existence is.

Money is stupid.  It is convenient.  It is everywhere.  It causes the waste of natural recourses.  Spend more money, space explorers.  Earth is overcrowded.    How much money do we spend on discovering new ways to kill?   Some people can’t wait to die.  I can wait.  No, really you can cut in front of me.  I don’t care. all of you can go before me.  I have a lot on my mind.  It will take a long of time for me to sort it out.

The more space and time fabric between me and the predicable, the better.  Play the banjo or beat the drum.   Don’t run with scissors

Ever since I started painting my mind has been changing.  It is hard to put in words… Perhaps I’ll paint a poem about it.  What would that look like?  Does your brain try to build it?

Bees are not native to North America.  I love honey and the first person in 1500 something that brought those honey factories to good old u.s.a.  Do you realize that there is this beetle killing your trees?   In my past life I was a tree.  I was never an elephant, sadly. Who are these enslavedthinkers that are barking religion and confusing the masses?  It is hard enough to live.  I am a freethinker.  No one pays me to do it.  Are you afraid yet?

Radiation is a big deal. We need to build a thing you can climb into  and go ten thousand miles per hour and protect living life. How do you make an atmosphere?   Take your time, I’m never going to mars anyway.  Mars is boring.  I want to go to Andromeda

Children are stupid.  They are lazy and they are imaginative.  They don’t care about homework.  They don’t care about safety.  As a parent, you will probably ask yourself, if your child will make it to adult and if they do, what will become of them.  You’ll try very hard to teach them all you know but they won’t give a damn until you die because then they won’t be able to ask you the same questions over and over again to argue with you why you are wrong.   If they stop arguing with you then they have probably learned to accept your inferiority. It is a struggle to survive.  Have you ever got mad?  What did you do with your madness?

I burnt all my old writings.  I lit them on fire and watched them burn. It was pointless act.  I should have known better than to take matters into my hands.

I hate games.  I hate football.   Not that games are all the same or all bad.  I hate them because people use them as way to entertain themselves without thinking anything complex or new.  People want to always be entertained with simple and predictable ways.  Take riddles or ethic problems.  Children love them.  They are good for children. Adults love them too because they are simple.  They, like games have preset rules. You can comprehend them.  You can hold the whole thought in your mind with ease.  You don’t have to take notes.  football is complex. It may be the most complex game.  Watching a complex game is not the same as playing one or designing one and the game despite its ability to entertain you will not make you immortal or help you save your trees from the beetles or get honey in a jar.  It is a soap opera. You are attracted to the emotional elements.  Fan. Fanatic. A fantasist’s way to spend a day.  Fuck.  There is no way in hell I’d go back in time.  There is no way I’d pass up going on to the future.  Unless it was mars and I had no way to return.  I’m not saying I would come back.  I’m saying I’d want the option.  If you get in a boat and sail to a new land mass, when you set out and explore, your boat is waiting for you.  It will ride the waves for you. You don’t need a special suit for that.  The future, who knows what kind of suit you’ll have to wear.  One thing I am sure about though, it will not be biker leather.  That is just the way things are.  It will never be a world where everyone, even those who don’t ride motorcycles wear black leather.  Leather is old technology.  There are better fabric choices now.  What everyone in the future dressed in football attire?  I’d want to come back and slip on a pair of flops and cords.   Are you paying attention?    Wake back up,        please?

finished Bring Your Own Cup Painting

Bring Your Own Cup Painting -work in progress