Blogs Reunited

To make up for the fact that I might be a bit of a plank, I’m issuing an invitation.

You see, I quite frequently do my blog reading in bed with my Kindle. It’s less cumbersome than my laptop and I can pretend that I’m going to sleep when really I’m catching up and promising myself five more minutes. And, if it falls on the floor when I drift over, I haven’t ruined a laptop – done that one before. Drambuie. Hell of a mess.

Now, if any of you use a Kindle Fire for bloggy business you may be aware that the buttons for follow and pressing send on a comment are gie close together. This may have resulted in me unfollowing some people almost immediately after making a comment. Yeah, I always make a habit of commenting then unfollowing. Good practice. Not.

It may, however, be down to the WP gods, as some people I refollowed commented that the same thing had happened to them. And, right enough, I’ve been surprised, a few times lately when folk followed me – what, again? I thought. I don’t want to make false accusations and my Kindle is a bugger, at times, what with predicting my text wrongly and making me look like a moron. Of course, I know how to spell luvverly poest. I just don’t know how to turn off the suggestions that keep coming up. Also, it has this nasty habit of making whole other words up which would be fine if I lived in Gobbledygook but I don’t. Just talk it sometimes.

Anyway, I was on Donna’s Always On My Mind Blog Party. Don’t you just love a good party? And I kept seeing people’s names and going, I haven’t seen you around in ages in my reader or emails. Then I clicked on their blog and the little follow button, down there at the right hand side – why did they move it, I liked it where it was, up there, ^^^ – showed up and I had the red neck of refollowing people I didn’t know I’d unfollowed.

I could go into that dohickey page where all the blogs you follow are listed and check each one but that doesn’t help me know who’s not there. Only who is. And those ones show up in my reader and emails.

Do you see what I mean?

Well, the long and the short of it is that I thought I’d open this here page up to all who read my scribblings and any who do not, (if you happen upon here, welcome!)

Please feel free to link a post below and take the opportunity to make new bloggy friends. I will also do my utmost to read each and every one. And, if I come across another blog that I have inadvertently unfollowed, I’ll just quietly click follow without any further explanation. Deal?

Now, I was going to turn off comments on this so’s people would go to comment on other people’s sites and not here (watch out for that follow button, though, if you’re on a Kindle) but then realised that you wouldn’t be able to post a link to your blog post.

:/ Tech, eh?

I hope you meet new people through this and that I get to catch up with those I’ve lost track of.

Bring your own booze. I don’t drink on school nights – well, not often. So, I can’t call it a party. More a reunion, I guess.

Oh, apparently, you’re better to just post one at a time so, if you want to link more than one, best do each separately. I don’t know why either. Maybe a favourite of yours or your most recent? Whatever you like. I follow lots of different types of blogs because I love lots of different types of things – photography, art, poetry, politics, cooking, crafts, travel, science, you name it, – so don’t be shy. You’re more than welcome.

Happy 1st February (when it comes, 42 minutes and counting). That has nothing to do with anything other than the fact that Spring is getting closer and January is a bitch. I’ll be glad to see the back of her. But very happy to see you here.x

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I Knew Him Well

I knew him well, you see

the heart of him

the soul of him

the man

his gentleness

his kindness

his actions

bywords of the whole

no one except perhaps

the cruel or one broken

could have accused so

falsely, sent him into

purgatory, there to

await condemnation

or vindication while

we prayed, kept the faith

in truth, in justice and

in him, his voice broken

in forgiveness even while

understanding incomplete

as ours, knowing only that

these things are sent

to try us

he was

is not

never was

found wanting

I knew him well, you see

his heart

his soul

the man

Great Escape

tower anna fix

(source: Anna Banana Hurley)

no imprisonment

solitary confinement

writer’s great escape

*****

Lock me in a tower, where a door was never found,

Suspend it high from clouds above the ground,

Shear my hair and cast the strands as confetti all around,

Imprison me where there is not a sound.

*****

Break the tethers tying, the ribbons that would bind,

Permit its soaring licence of the skies that it may find

A merging with the moments that are lost inside my mind,

In a tower built to wander unassigned.

*****

Give me books and paper and a fountain full of ink,

Let me loose alone without a link,

Lose me on the radar of a world upon the brink,

Hide me in holes in space so I can think.

*****

Let the words and pictures be my nectar, nourishment,

May I pass through times wherever I am sent,

Keep a window clear so I can see where lives are spent

While my tower gives me strength when it needs lent.

*****

Shelter me in shadows that the tower never casts,

Let me lease it for the silence while it lasts,

Keep it from the eyes of those forbidden to trespass,

Confinement solitary, unsurpassed.

*****

New Book – Onionskin

Wow! X THIRTEEN! Way to go, Paul!

Poesy plus Polemics

BookCoverImageOnionskin Volume 13 of my Collected Poetry

http://www.amazon.com/Onionskin-Lyrical-Paul-F-Lenzi/dp/1523332468/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1453998874&sr=1-1

I am pleased and excited to announce that my 13th full-length collection of original poetry has been released to book markets by Stonewood Press.

Onionskin: Lyrical Layers

“This is the thirteenth full length collection of poetry presented by the uniquely sophisticated voice of Paul F. Lenzi. A wide ranging assortment of original poems that explore the nooks and crannies of our human experience. Essentially a free verse journey with occasional side trips into haiku. These poems are provocative, stylish and easily digestible. They are also remarkably memorable. Rich with artful syntax, “Onionskin” stands up to the very best of contemporary American poetry.”

This 272 page volume is now available on Amazon in both paperback and kindle versions, as well as at Barnes & Noble. Similarly available are my 12 earlier books:

• City of Pawns
• Range of Motion
• Two-Cornered Rooms
•…

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The Final Phase

to all who looked

could bear to look

he was diminished

a skeleton of man

the faintest stamp

 

a vague tattoo upon

earth’s crusty dermis

his ink near finished

vibrant shades now

faded by his hands

 

a pencil etch-a-sketch

self-erasing shaken with

each dram and draw he took

a tracing watercoloured

in a wornout painting book

 

a disappearing frame on which

the cloth of life was worn

to disassembled threads

eliminating, obsoleting

even with each breath, he dreads

the final phase, the loss of vocal chords, the emptiness, the void of words – the stoking fear as death draws near, the absent smile, an unchecked tear – the fatal blow that takes him from those loved, those lost – the furtive reek encroaching, the avalanche, the bitter cost – the vapour misting, the misfiring heart, the solemnities, those torn apart – the shitting and the palour, the wasted times – the pungent puke of silence, he could taste the signs – his shell, it crumples, crumbles, vanishes and then – his one enduring, fleeting, ever-breathing thought that he should live, and live again – denying not his errors nor his sins long past – he sits, transfigured, mute, disfigured, and awaits his last-

behind the neutral mask

the fading screen

the maybe thoughts

of one still barely living yet

the might have beens

the deep regrets

desire to delay

the realisation

he cannot stay

a dying friend

and his careworn wife

the thoughts of death

the longing for life

no substitute

no greater bond

he sits and waits

for the not-so-great beyond

no consolation

in the years he had

too soon departing

husband, dad, grandad

a face resigned

while his heart’s aflame

no, no consolation

and I, I cannot him blame

for in the journey

we will never know

the choices taken

nor our time to go

PC and Stupidity

Hang her high!

She tweeted what she should not.

Out to dry!

She did it, yes, she did, she posted it.

Said a thing or two she’s now regretting

And some are saying, stupid girl, a dullard, what a tit.

Me, I’m wondering, what about the old days,

The things we did and said that keyboards never caught,

The silly, stupid things, the mad and mental,

The things we did, full knowing, we should not.

I’m thinking she’s a silly girl for tweeting,

Sharing status, dubious, to all,

Putting neck and job online, forgetting,

That others see

That anyone can run with

Make a private call.

I’m thinking that she shouldn’t have, but musing,

How many of us would still have been employed

If everything we’d done and said, back then, had all been

Captured on a timeline, on the internet, for the world.

I’m vexing for young woman caught, so stupid,

Twenty-four or so, so soon to be dismissed

If what she wrote is deemed to be inflammatory or offensive

And why the hell, oh lassie, did you not resist.

I’m thinking of all we others who have ever

Been just as stupid, in our pasts, or presents, never seen,

Are we any less culpable than she is,

For stupid not now showing on big screen.

I can’t stop thinking of that lassie,

Career on hold, most likely, gone for good,

Such a waste, and how two-faced some folk are,

As if they’ve never fallen, always done what they all should.

I’m thinking of the arguments, the counter,

The should-have-known, should-not-have put it there,

I’m thinking of Big Brother and her mother,

Of voyeurism. I’m thinking it’s not fair.

I’m thinking and I’m glad it’s not my daughter,

I’m hoping that good sense and fair play win the day,

I’m thinking still of how we could all be that lad or lassie

And I’m cussing on pc and on the internet today.

In A Cloud Of Great Unknowing

pyroclastic_flow

(source)

Fell ashes, in a cloud of great unknowing,

Flaken debris settled where it touched,

Seared the skin and edified the temples,

Encased, engulfed the living truth in dust,

Magmatised the mantle in a grey shroud,

Displayed treasures, lost in hearths of stone,

Embers died, the light, a distant mem’ry,

Crushed by mortar, pestled into bone.

Fell ashes, in a cloud of great unknowing,

From the heavens, from the centre, east and west,

Built and buried, bona fide, forgotten,

Climactic, pyrrhic victory, at best.

Excavations, earth’s enduring history,

Discovered worlds, through ages’ hidden signs,

By life and death, revealed, in ashes fallen,

Cloud of great unknowing writes the times.

 

Paul’s wonderful poem, Imagining Atlantis, set me off on one.

Optical Fusion

nucleus-178992-400-314

(source)

pensive waits and wonders

worried

weary

ruminating

rapt in broody thought

engrossed in melancholy

solemn

dreary

contemplating dots

that drift a lot

focus clears the haze

the woolly

blurry

sharpens to a point

the nucleus

anchors indistinct

from smoky shadows

clarifies to crux

the nebulous

elemental fusion

quite disarming

mists of time

and space

in clouded brain

explosive

in the focus

from the pensive

optic absolutes

now relative again