LIMESTONE: A foundation of Kentucky literature

o... thirty-four years ago... today... i became a carmelite...

The Ascent of Mount Carmel
St. John of the Cross
translated by Charles G. Bell

In the dark of night
With love inflamed
By luck, by chance
I rose unseen
From the house hushed in sleep.

Safe in the dark
By a secret stair
My luck, my chance
And night for a veil
I stole from the house of sleep.

By chance of night
By secret ways
Unseeing and unseen
No light, no guide
But the flames that my heart gave--

Led by those rays
Surer than day
I came where one waits
Who is known to me
In a place none seemed to be.

Night that guides
Purer than dawn
Night that joins
Lover and loved
And the loved into Lover changed.

In my flowered heart
That is only his
He lay in sleep
Lulled by the breeze
The fanning of my cedars gave.

Down turrets that air
With hand serene
As it stirred in his hair
Gave my throat a wound
That took all sense away.

I ceased, I was gone
My face to his own
All passed away
Care and all thrown down
There among the lillies where I lay.

(from Five Chambered Heart by Charles Greenleaf Bell)

Flight & Gate Information

A Certain Lady
by Dorothy Parker (born this day 1893)

Oh, I can smile for you, and tilt my head,
And drink your rushing words with eager lips,
And paint my mouth for you a fragrant red,
And trace your brows with tutored finger-tips.
When you rehearse your list of loves to me,
Oh, I can laugh and marvel, rapturous-eyed.
And you laugh back, nor can you ever see
The thousand little deaths my heart has died.
And you believe, so well I know my part,
That I am gay as morning, light as snow,
And all the straining things within my heart
You'll never know.

Oh, I can laugh and listen, when we meet,
And you bring tales of fresh adventurings, --
Of ladies delicately indiscreet,
Of lingering hands, and gently whispered things.
And you are pleased with me, and strive anew
To sing me sagas of your late delights.
Thus do you want me -- marveling, gay, and true,
Nor do you see my staring eyes of nights.
And when, in search of novelty, you stray,
Oh, I can kiss you blithely as you go ....
And what goes on, my love, while you're away,
You'll never know.

Carrboro's well-versed poet sticks to his rhythm

CounterPunch

With poems, if you start with the word I you are basically putting on a clown suit, which is great for birthday parties and other ongoing projects...

The Rewilding Institute

pre-wedding stress... Calm down, love. It'll be OK. ... and i bet it will...

like the falling sensation that shakes me awake... this time of year i start... like that split second after i smash my toe into the door jam... a sudden helplessness... as pain approaches... and i understand that i may have forgotten how to do it... and the fall will continue... to the splat.

i mean... here comes the school year... i have to be a teacher again... and what if... i don't have a thought in my head... we have all these books to read... and i suppose we should try to become better writers... and last night a friend on the phone reports telling a kid...o you have brother tom... you'll have a great time... if you do the work... but what is the work... what ever is the work in a reading and writing and speaking classroom... suppose i'd better start thinking about that...

Dear Plagiarists: You Get What You Pay For

Why Teachers Love Depressing Books

ReadWriteThink

Conchology... offering our beloved paradoxical john of the cross...
To reach satisfaction in all
desire satisfaction in nothing.
To come to possess all
desire the possession of nothing.
To arrive at being all
desire to be nothing...

Kerry pledges $10 billion to clean up coal power plants... ? ...

The Bush administration pushes dirty coal plants...
But the surge in coal plant proposals is also fostered by the Bush administration and Congressional Republicans, who back new federal research spending for "cleaner" coal-burning technology, tax credits to expand investments in mining, and opening new stretches of the public domain in the West to coal leasing.

Chihuly Glass... good gorgeous glass... via suzanne

Buying Nemo

but... o... one more...Notes From Underground...

wasting time... clicking the Next Blog link at one of my favorite blogs takes me to...
Expounding Board... which takes me to The Daily List... which takes me to George Cassiel... which takes me to KLTC... which takes me to Identity, Fantasy, Heresy: A Portrait of My Evil Ways... which takes me to Fofocas Anays (boy, blogging is big in brazil)... which takes me to Roses and Brambles... which takes me to Zoe Worship... which takes me to The Nit-Picky Thoughts of a Wannabe Princess... which takes me to... a mess of kid blogs whose design is really very annoying...

this morning i'm reading the fire-eaters by david almond... i understand how someone could not like this book... but why would anyone not want to... or maybe it's my sense that this narrator/protagonist is about the age i would have been back when the world was going to end... i never lived in a place like shoreside at newcastle but i did live in a place where i was young and particular in that place...

and then the men came to work outside my window...

3rd bed_9

In the Classroom, Web Blogs Are the New Bulletin Boards

Will Bob Dylan portend the election of 2004?
Dylan evokes the wisdom that every religion teaches: If you follow fear, anger and violence you become a Pharisee, and you will teach your children hypocrisy. The poet opens both eyes and gazes into a narcissistic pool. The greatest struggle in anyone's life is with their own mirror, which is why poets are called mad by those who see themselves in their vision. There is no political party for poets like Dylan. He is isolated from both the left and the right because, unlike them, he recognizes their fear. Like Snow White's cruel stepmother, politicized people only want to hear words of praise from their reflection, not the brutal truth.

even wendell berry gets a mention in The Village Voice Free Will Horoscope... which is often a hoot... even when mr. b. is not cited...

so today mom, pat, and meg begin the first leg of their journey to the northwestern wedding of these beautiful people...

god-speed...

changes afoot at blogger... today when i visit fait accompli or tex files i find a "blog this" link right up top where the ads used to be. i click it and get a nice blogthis window... BUT... when i click the old "blog this" link on my browser's navbar i get a goofy link with added stuff like this: http%3A//nickpiombino.blogspot.com/">fait%20accompli... i get "%3A" instead of ":"... i get "%20" instead of a space... SO...

i visit blogger and find they've got a new navbar link... i try to go to it to get it... but nothing shows up on that page... it doesn't load... i fear it's because i'm on a mac... or maybe i need a more recent version of explorer... hmmm

...astonished
at what comes out
of the mouths
of people they thought were dull
or close to empty...

David Almond Interviewed
Of course, a lot of this is stuff that adults say kids won't get. If you write books that seem quite complicated, a lot of adults say, well we'll get those bits and the kids'll get the nice story. It's a very kind of patronising attitude towards kids.

Ochenski: Where the wild things are...
As our civilization becomes ever more fearful and bestial, Montana's deep wilderness, albeit filled with "animals that can eat your ass," seems a much safer place to be.

DeVry Poets

because I am inconsequential
my errors in effect are inconsequential
and because one learns by
taking risks
there is value in putting the self
out in the world

now i remember that today is the last monday of "summer"... this time one week from today i will have finished the first day of teacher in-service for the 2004-2005 school year... the start of my 29th year in the business... no complaints... if it weren't for some down-to-the-wire building renovation we'd have started this week... nevertheless i'm feeling a crunch on the fun-time... as should be some of my incoming students who need to start hopping over at the summer reading message board... get to it, kids...

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