Monday, July 23, 2007

Living Poetry - Meet STACY BARTON

Some of this blog's (admittedly few) readers may have noticed that I do have a liking for poetry. As I explained in an earlier post, this particular bug started many years ago under the influence of one of my teachers, Dr. Jon Kamholtz of the University of Cincinnati.

Well, I met Stacy online last year at an emerging theology site called Open Source Theology (OST). It quickly became obvious that she was a real writer - someone who understands how to put the words together to communicate not just facts, but also feelings. Stacy Barton writes poetry (and she also does plays and short stories). Her latest sally is a collection of short stories called "Surviving Nashville".


Well, I visited her blog last week and found that in a couple of posts, she had very casually tossed up some fascinating poetry . With her permission, I am putting up the 'less finished' piece here in this post and another one (more finished?) further down in my sidebar.

So, here's June, which Stacy feels is less finished, or even unfinished. The idea of putting up an unfinished and unpolished poem is to allow any of my lucky readers to participate in finishing a 'living' poem. Well here's your chance! And a golden chance it is indeed. That rarest of things, a creative work in progress, and you get to participate!
So, if anyone wants to suggest some changes, or add a stanza or two, please go ahead and feel free, and if Stacy likes it, the poem may end up being properly published in one of her future collections (no promises)!

june

june means summer

which means kids and pools and sunscreen and sandy beaches
and hot dogs and popsicles
and sleeping in
and afternoon movies with the shades pulled.

summer also means forgetting to buy groceries
(thus the hot dogs)
or do the laundry
(thus the swimsuits)
or go to bed at a reasonable hour
(thus the sleeping in)


If you want to read more, then hunt your way down to the poetry section in my sidebar for Stacy Barton's "At Dusk"

Saturday, July 14, 2007

The Other Side of 'The WAR'

John Doyle at Ktismatics just pointed out this article. It is important that you read it IF you have any interest in the truth about the conduct of the Iraq War.

Sometimes, perhaps too often, having an interest in the truth can be very painful. This is one of those instances. The collage on the right makes me feel physically ill, but i've posted it here.

If you prefer to feel safe, please do NOT click on it to enlarge!

When the loss of 3,600 young people is sooo sickening, what does one make of the loss of the 300,000 non-combatants in Iraq? Their pics are not posted anywhere, yet they are just as real and just as dead.

Follow the title link to a rather detailed article in The Nation where they have interviewed 50 Iraq war veterans in order to get a closer, if stomach turning, look at the real war in Iraq.

Not for the faint hearted!

A few posts down, I spoke of PTSD; well now you know.

It is also worth pondering the fact that George Bush Junior is planning on a permanent "occupation" of Iraq, since it is obvious that the puppet government there is completely incapable of holding that nation together on its own...

Pity the fate of the Iraqi people - how many do you think will now be wondering if Saddam was not the better of the two evils?

In case the link leads to an ad, click the "skip to" on the bottom right to go to the article itself.

Digg!

Friday, July 06, 2007

Jason's New Word

My good friend and internet interlocutor Jason Hesiak has created a word and that word was just too good to pass up! It is not found in the Online Dictionary and Google has only two instances, both of which track right back to Jason himself:

"VISCESIOUS"

So what does this word mean? Is it related perhaps to visceral? Or, could it be something quite Differant? What could the other forms of this word be?

Weigh in with your ideas and suggestions please!

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