Short poem with digital foolishness

Here's a poem to go with this crazy digital sea:

The mix, the shrift of wave and gilt,
all gnarl or growling storm
All life's atwist in azure time's wild light.
Adapt! Transform!

Quiet streets after polls close

On Super Tuesday, I came home after a poetry reading around 10 p.m.. I drove up old Route 7 and though the streets of downtown Danbury. No one was walking. No cars passed. The streets were eerily empty. Really empty. I could have been driving though a deserted movie set.

I can't help but wonder if people were so interested in the voting results, that they were cloistered at home in front of their TV sets waiting for the tally. If so, that's a promising sign in a democracy where most of the electorate traditionally stays home on election day. Whoever you favor, whatever party, whatever philosophy - register to vote and have your say in November.


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Pixies pluck forget-me-nots

Being an agnostic heathen doesn't mean one can't draw fairies or angels or sing scared music. Here are two versions of something I drew for My Not-Quite Blank Book, a book of writing prompts put out by Hanover Press. One was used in the book, but I forget which.

 For elegance and lightness I like the angel on the top. For impudence and a sort of solidity, I like the one to the left.... Forget-me-nots are my favorite flower which grew in miniature in the yard of the house I grew up in. They were originally planted by my father, who also mowed them into mutation when they spread out from the corner flower bed.

Department of delayed reactions: fear and its uses

Looking Back: All my life I have had a most unfortunate coping mechanism. When I am overwhelmed and don't know what to say - I freeze, stare straight ahead with a blank look, utterly inarticulate. Like the white tailed deer, I usually have a narrow escape and leave some angry driver zig-zagging down a dark road.

The first time I noticed this effect was in economics class in eleventh grade. (This was in the late 1960's; let's say the dark ages or there abouts....) A teenager who sat across the isle from me, and who I joked with every day, asked me to the junior prom. He had slicked-back hair and pointy black shoes - trademarks of a greaser or "hood" in those days. When I heard his invitation in that husky masculine whisper, I was terrified to the core. The idea stirred all my teenage hormones into a frenzy. But I froze, stared straight ahead, made no reply at all - as if I hadn't heard him, as if he wasn't there. In my demented teenage brain - I knew instantly if we went out, things would happen, things like sex in the back of his car and all the life-altering consequences that might follow. In a second it all unfolded in my mind. My throat closed. My eyes glazed over. He never spoke to me again. The prom went on without me.

New-age shrinks have a field day with this sort of thing. Strategies for overcoming fear are legion. But deer freeze for a reason. Deer who are still escape the hunter's gaze. As it turns out, this young man was a Moltov cocktail-brewing future felon who died in jail at a very early age. Despite the popularity of "conquering fear" and "living in the moment," it's worth considering that fear can be nature's useful warning. It can save your life.

---- Mar Walker

my sad eyes - a drawing from the old blog

A wisp of hair, a slant of lid
a memory our Agnus hid.

Somedays bleak is the thing - grey sky, a chill cast to the air. No snow, no wind, just the blahs. Not today though. This entry, (though not this picture) , was originally made on 2/28/07, on the old gallery blog.

"This is a digital drawing done with a drawing tablet. It was on the splash page to my website back in the days when it was on Prodigy's servers. having a difficult week. more later."

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Confession: I'm a low budget economic news junkie

"Are you really listening to that?" Maisy always asks when she comes into the room and I have CNBC on the tube. Usually I don't appear to be watching - but I am listening while I write or work at whatever home-bound efforts I am making. "They don't know what they are talking about" she says "who knows if any of them are right."

She has a point, but I am not a trader of any sort. It's the drama I love, the "now," the minute to minute throb of announcements. The fed, the traders reactions, the analysts statements the retorts and rebuttals. It's the struggles and trends of businesses and industries that employ people all over the globe.

There's crime and fraud, greed and indignation, buearocratic remedies and legal strictures, wisdom and foolishness, new products and expensive flops, hysteria and prudence. It's like a soap-opera only it involves real events, people and the future of business and technology around the world, as they are engaged in trying to make a living. It's like a reality TV except the scope is far greater then any of the individual players.

There's no doubt about it. I'm hooked even tough I'm not a player.

New Milford street reflections

I have a minor obsession with reflected and hidden images. This classic New England street, from New Milford CT is an example. It was posted on my gallery blog, which I am merging with this one. For most posts, I am using the same date as it was posted on that blog. This entry had just one line, so i thought I'd add to the text and post it with today's date.