I make no commitment against falling into trite clichés or struggling against my preference for quips. My first day's NaPoWriMo attempt:

Laying by the surf, looking at the sky. Lark of a day.
Wool gathering through a work day wanting to fly away,
Breeze tugging the shell nestled against the sand and the spray,
Inside the wolf that howls at our vile lives, "gouge away."

Songs (from Ampache's random playlist generator):

• Skylark — Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers
• Fly Away — Sara Wasserman featuring Aaron Neville
• Wolf That Howls — Calavera
• Vile Lives — The Arm (SXSW 2006 sampler)
• Gouge Away — The Pixies

Thanks to Donna Vorreyer at ReadWritePoem for the prompt!

Oh, boy. I admit to feeling uninspired today. But I will not fall flat fresh out of the gate. Attempting today's prompt lead to snarkiness, so I've taken a different path today. Why am I trying to write a poem a day again? I haven't even tried since high school, and high school poems should stay in high school. We'll see. I'm not optimistic. I need to work forward even when not optimistic.

I want to see through words the other side of things
and reflect through sounds on the substance around me.
Pulsing beats of crickets and sirens,
undulating colors of clouds,
evaporating chill of friendship,
warming softness of distant love,
crushing flashes of imagination
missing aspects of inspiration.

This April fields growth from red hard Georgia clay.
This April feels up to plowing ideas from my dullen mind.

4/3/2010

2/5 stars

And this little piggy goes "ew." The lighting reminds me of the office lighting in "Joe v. the Volcano." The produce reminds me of the office workers in "Joe v. the Volcano." The international aspect is different than at the Kroger's, but it's also lacking in comparison. At least they carry Red Rock cola. This is more a 1.5 star place, but I reserve single stars for excruciating experiences.

Yelp tags:

I plead the dabbler's excuse. This feels more like a sketch than a full piece, but it must suffice for today. There is a fear underlying this, although nothing concrete. The prompt triggered many thoughts. I'm still trying to catch up to them.

Believing in the flow of the world brushes me a little out of sorts
or at least out of the way. Wetting my feet, leaving mudprints
along my way feels squishy and good until the dry crumbling begins.
Other steps without notice break my molds. Flowing with the din
and drang is greener grass unmoored and happy. Trying to skim
the flow catches only green feelings. Attention paid redeems
its discounts in return. Flow moves forward. My eddy seems
left behind.

As an aside, an American sentence from earlier today:

Direct speech is dead and buried under carcases of abused words.

It's been a long and good day. Much of it was spent on a friend's patio.

Relaxing with friends,
tickled softly by sparkling
peach fizz Mimosas.

While I'm not living up to either this day or the prompt, it's a holiday. I spent a holiday with new friends. That's a large enough achievement.

Today's prompt eventually was fun. Once upon a time, I could knock out sonnets easily. Spending a month responding to technical support requests purely in sonnets while reading Byron and Donne provided plenty of practice. I don't have copies of those sonnets, unfortunately. They were inspired by distant memories of St. Silicon's piece, "Typer, Typer Burning Bright." (Or so I think. Finding references to those old Byte Magazines is difficult. I like sonnet forms, and I want to practice them a tad this month. But I also need to push myself like I did a two days ago.

How can I speak to that gregarious,
muscled, and feathery muse when all my day
grinds on exposure, a vicarious
tease dancing beyond all the words I say?

The hidden is sublime behind the fan
that flits so fancifully dropping though mind
the drifting afterfeathers that all stand
themselves into letters softly defined.

These letters strive to become flecks of ink
affixed to some hard form of permanence
but just a cracked open window, I think,
suddenly they fly themselves to nonsense.

This dancer knows to flirt with light's soft edge;
A shaded lure beckoning senses to fledge.

Cheated a tad in a few line's pronunciation. Oh, and I very much liked yesterday's prompt. I just wasn't up to responding.

Of course, I settle myself in to read and write this evening only to find my home network connection disconnected. The estimated time to repair isn't until tomorrow evening. I ran off to an excellent local watering hole to write this piece, but I shouldn't stay long enough to read and comment on all the excellent poems appearing every day.

And it's morel season. I may fail at NaPoWriMo this weekend if everything works out well.

Maybe silly, but that's the point. Whenever I'm in too deep a rut of a mood, I rely on prairie dogs. I had seem them in SF's zoo, but that's nothing like seeing wild prairie dogs in the Badlands of South Dakota. Our move from California is the best memory of my life, and the memory of the little prairie dogs ignoring us and gleefully flinging dirt back and forth is one of the highlights.

jump yip stand chirp strech toss the tiny rock
over to the other little stand yip toss cock
the head to the side and check out what's looking
but ultimately the Cynomys knows the little things
are the matter tossed to and fro are other than
the big things that might threaten what comes and
those big things just aren't hovering here right now
so let's just toss and yip and enjoy what makes us wow.

Still need to catch up on reading. Some friends pointed out Spartacus, alas, and they swear it's better after the first few episodes. But those first few are horrible. All violence. All blood. Sprinklings of sex, but only to keep you watching for more blood. Are we really Rome anew? Or can we look to our little prairie dog friends for inspiration?

(AfterEdit: Yet another great prompt…)

Inspired by the prompt, but not following the method:

a paired market stroll
soft turn to the side, i smile
my shirt's a snot rag
sometimes you just don't expect
the many forms that love takes

Had to use that incident…

And I have to thank all the people who contributed prompts. Please ignore the complainers. Also, happy 41st birthday to RFC 1!

waves of yellow
sprays of yellow
breathing yellow
swirling yellow
pavement? yellow
footprints? yellow
brush away yellow
see fresh yellow
everything yellow
and then splat
amongst yellow
pulling yellow
another splat
snowflake yellow
splatter splat
tossed out yellow
revealing splats
flowing yellow
and now color
gutters yellow

Yes, I have a title. No, this isn't following the prompt. While a neat process idea (I'm new to the whole process thing; I typically stumble randomly), nature was quite insistently prompting all week. Most pollen scales list all counts over 120 ppm as extremely high. The last few days have had pollen counts over 5000 ppm. As one friend put it, it's "a tree bukkake party out there." Today it's raining, thankfully.

The prompt is utterly unlike how I always have written. It's fantastic and exactly why I signed myself up for the NaPoWriMo Challenge.

Swimming differs from floating.
While a phantasm is floating, the octopus swims away.
Swimming strums the water. Floating
gets wattled by the moon's whims, a seaweed marionette.
Swimming jams past what jugs the floating.
The silvery school of prey flap and flash and startle by
swimming. Pumice, bad eggs are floating.

Being differs from yearning.
Bruises mend while saudade is lurking like that tome
being unfinished. That recrement, yearning,
closes no distance and salves nothing itself. My steps,
being crickets, sing their yearning
nightly for both more and less than what I am now,
being on the fringe and yearning.

I'm not terribly happy with my result. I'm ok with the first half, but the latter falls flat to me. I wrote myself into a corner. Breaking the concrete could help. I keep returning to Nathan Moore and Dana Guthrie Martin's happy accident of transliterating the same piece. Putting those side-by-side on a large screen is inspiring. I think I need to try transliterating to loosen my imagery.

A quickie:

a walk, where everyone knows your name
for one more lap of a star around the Sun
a meander, where no one admits a name
and one more lap filled with ageless tease
a stumble, where everyone's a new name
drags one more lap across this night's seal

Not too long after coming to Atlanta, a new friend and local celebrity held a rather amazing birthday night. There's plenty missing from this quickie. Strong drinks. Flaming nipples. Sparkling queens. Some of which may be repeated tonight, hence my haste. Tomorrow's may be a tad fuzzy.

4/11/2010

5/5 stars

Surprisingly hearty food and hair of the dog were a perfect follow-up to whatever it was that happened last night. I'm definitely not the best at meeting new people, either, but these events definitely help. It was good meeting the few folks who managed to put up with my shell. And I'm sure this refrain will be repeated throughout, but a sushi buffet that's *good*? Wow. Definitely will remember Nori Nori.

Yelp tags: Local Flavor

4/11/2010

5/5 stars

Flame-kissed nipples and erotic undulations to Fraggle Rock. Drinks to curl your toes and barkeeps to put hair on your chest. Order doesn't apply here. Being drunk on spirit is important, spirits are secondary. But then again, order doesn't apply.

Yelp tags: Adult Entertainment Dive Bars

A bit of frivolity:

At every texture, from every angle,
looking for any little signs of wear.
Are the ones stuffed in the middle mangled?
Deciding takes such incredible care.

Are you firm and ripe, fluid and luscious?
Are you too eager? Are you withholding?
Choosing the other, how will you judge us?
Two trollops intertwined every morning?

None of this strictly is necessary.
Utilitarian views eschew your
undulating rubies of luxury,
but the heart embraces your shape and more.

Did you grow the skin of sickly white green
as quickly, or did you keep your sheen?

(oops. Left an editing mark in there… Removed.)

I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with cars. I like the physics. I often like the looks. But otherwise I'm mostly uninterested. The passion they inspire in others sticks in mind. That's the only reason I can find for fixating on rat-rods for today's great prompt from Carolee Sherwood. The rest just kinda happened.

The rat-rod purrs you to sleep.
Delicate sensibilities hide
when it comes 'round,
scurrying into warm dark sleep.

The rougher sensibilities shoulder
each other for a view.
They stick around,
peeking between legs, over a shoulder.

Suddenly they see their place and feel
and poke and discover
many things round.
Gears in motion are those that can feel

their fingers lacing and embracing
spinning pistons to loud strokes
moving around
to their purpose, all of them bracing

for full-throttle collisions, skidding curves,
clasping their rivets, seizing
that time around
crepuscule for themselves until the curves

buckle and straighten and lay themselves out
with solid lines for speed, wheel-
perfect, spin round
and fast and push it all, everything, flat out

with the roaring revs, again and again
to a squeeling burn,
coming around
gently a soft bend and over once again

meadows and rolls rocking the rough to sleep.
The garage's warm light
curling around
that warm night, the rat-rod purrs lovely sleep.

An image I miss appeared after the first line of Norman Dubie's "Of Politics, & Art", and I chased it for today's RWP prompt. The image is utterly unlike his piece. I think. There is nothing deep here, not even the water. You can walk for miles without wetting your belly.

Here, on the farthest point of the peninsula
roots point knees to scorching canopies
or flay out over little worlds of sand and
swells. Buttons run trades before tides
slowly rush space between bars with blue,
congregating hermits on the brackish edge.
Fuzzy fingers hold pentamerismic tests, within
snuggle the five doves of Aristotle's lantern.
The sky's greedy eyes scan flits of splashes
for long trawls, short gulps, sprays behind.
Vines alive drape paralyzed by all filling warmth.
Laced gray fingers run locks up flat breezes
cupping silk spinners and night fliers 'till dusk
when heat roars down and shifts into the waters.
Cricket song and wing song and tiny percussives
and cymbal leaves reverse flow of air and action.
Shimmering lights cannot tell up from down and
disappear into the heart of orchestral pitch
beating up and down without sight until light
is bounced upwards again on nature's knees.

And yes, sand dollars really hold five doves within their test, and the doves make up Aristotle's lantern. I adore sand dollars.

*Update*: This appears in Dana Martin Guthrie, editor, Read Write Poem NaPoWriMo Anthology, page 86. http://issuu.com, September 2010.

Just a little under half-way, so better than most of my cuts. I'm running low on time, so this is the best I can manage for the neat form in today's RWP prompt. I've seen cleaves, but I didn't know it was a more formal form. I think I can make this stronger, but not today.

There's a sub-prompt here identified by someone else. I thank the source quietly.

I'm torn between letting everyday haiku, senryū, and other short forms float away into the stream and skipping my pebbles here. I'll try posting for a bit and see how it feels.

For Kathleen:

The week has shattered
into shards. Empty bottles
toast the fledgling spring.

In response to Kris Lindbeck:

I had forgotten
senryū most accurately
reflects what I write.

Classy, MARTA style:

Sell switchblade lighters,
call her bitch behind her back,
then go for digits.

Listening to WWOZ one fine evening:

Dr. Longhair rolls
out the speakers, our outside
crickets as chorus.

The next few days will see quick, low-effort responses. Today's Poetic Asides challenge on deadlines is apt. A congregation of deadlines is gathering, plus a happy swing up to my wife in Virginia.

A burning mark merely a smoulder far off
near leaps high into the gut,
a freezing spike desperately motivating
action even if just before
a Cheshire grin spreading flame.

Today's RWP prompt is a great idea that I must remember, but the Poetic Asides prompt just struck home.

Way out of time today. An American sentence based on today's great RWP prompt and various other things upon which I've wasted far too much time:

Reading comprehension is a fast-food fueled, nose curdling lost fart.

Hopefully I'll come up with a serious submission later.

1/18/2011

4/5 stars

Ok, I've been here a few more times. I've had ribs, pork, and beef with a variety of sides. It's all good but lacking something. Similarly, the sides are missing… something. My wife put it best when she said the food's lacking "depth," although neither of us can be more specific. The food *requires* the sauces as opposed to being elevated by the sauces.

But I bump them up from three to four stars for a few reasons. They support local businesses like Heinzelmännchen brewery. I've found the smokehouse's lunches quite inexpensive and filling. The service is fast and efficient, which is handy when you're driving through. And the staff is delightful. Our server this last trip knew all about various food reactions and checked with the cooks about which sides contained wheat when she didn't know.

All this is worth a bump in the rating for me even if the food falls a tad flat.

4/17/2010

0/5 stars

Slow-cooked pig. Local beer. Automatic win.

That said, the cubed pork I had wasn't the best I've ever had. Definitely up in the top tiers, but it seemed to be missing flavor (besides banana leaf, different style). It was moist and well-cooked, just missing something.

Now, the sweet potato fries… Whoa. They're sugar-coated. That's a first for me, and sounds kinda awful at first. But… Take one of the sour sauces, mix in the hot sauce, and dip… Multiple levels of sweet, spicy, sour all in one.

Wash it down with the mild honey blonde ale from Heinzelmännchen, a brewery down the street, and it's all good again. Must against my better bladder judgment, I also tried their soft birch beer. YUM! Hope I can pass through Sylva sometime when Heinzelmännchen is open and I have an empty growler.

I'll stop through Dillsboro again, and I'll try the smokehouse again. Could be that their award-winning team was off winning an award somewhere.

Yelp tags: Barbeque Southern

4/17/2010

2/5 stars

sigh. I suffered a moment of weakness. I fell for the upsell.

I *needed* an oil change, and I'm still to much of a wimp to do it myself. And a wash before a long drive does help mileage… And Cactus is convenient to work…

But as soon as my butt hits the chair, I'm called out back for the upsell. At least this time they didn't wait long enough for me to settle into working. The upsell always is annoying because it's often something ultimately useful, but… And this time, I was weak. I agreed to something.

I didn't ask the price right away, because it sounded inexpensive. Stupid, stupid mistake. The upsell more than doubled my bill. When I mentioned not being told the price (while agreeing to pay, realizing I was the sucker), one cashier was apologetic. The other quickly corrected her manner by brusquely describing a "small, green sign" by the little desk out back. Because everyone will look for a small, green sign while their head is under the hood and the salesman is doing everything possible to keep your attention there.

If I had known the price, I would have delayed until I take my car in to actual mechanics rather than salesmen.

The wash was perfunctory at best. When the attendant asked if everything looked ok, I reached over and pulled off a strip of tape that somehow escaped notice thus far. Um, yeah. At least the vacuuming job was sufficient.

So two stars for being exactly what you expect, a flashy yet slightly shady place to get a quick, moderately inexpensive semi-wash while you work (if you're one of us with a laptop leash). Zero stars to me for falling for the upsell.

Yelp tags: Car Wash

4/17/2010

4/5 stars

After sitting in the escape-from-Atlanta traffic through Gwinnett, I was struck by an overwhelming urge for a milkshake. Checked the GPS, saw a place with "Shake" in the name, and I was on my way…

This place is odd. It's in a strip mall. They have an interestingly jury-rigged drive-through. I decided to try going inside, girding myself for the typically revolting grease pit smell… And was greeted by a *good* meat smell. I'm sure it's typical fed-lot, corn-fed beef, but it actually smelled good. They advertise using peanut oil, so I'd bet the burgers have that nice crust… If I weren't overheating and very unhungry, I would have swallowed my ethics and their meat. I could do without the religious items everywhere, but that's just my preference.

And the milk shake? Mixed right in front of me. Satisfied that deep urge.

Yelp tags: Hot Dogs Burgers

4/17/2010

3/5 stars

Our first time here, we had a wonderfully insane waitress and we sat in the boat… We spread our wings and soared to wonderfully misanthropic heights complaining about every annoying aspect of humanity. The pizza was ok.

My most recent visit, the server was delightful but not insane, alas. The pizza is still just ok. The calzone, well, I've never had a calzone without sauce before now. Other dishes at the table looked ok. But now my stomach's become a bit more sensitive to the grease level… Still an ok place for Abingdon and far better than the major chains.

Yelp tags:

A Coleridge quote relayed by Robert Peake grabbed my interest the other day.

Poetry is not the proper antithesis to prose, but to science.

While I have much, much more to say on the topic of poetic science, I need to keep this brief. A tanka feels appropriate right now:

the world doesn't need
thesis or anti-thesis
to feel seasons flow
we need everything even
if just to keep our loose hold

Again, I'm not using the great RWP prompt. I'm stocking up on prompts. I fully intend on circling around sometime, but time is always the gotcha. The one fully non-renewable resource keeps slipping away from me.

4/18/2010

5/5 stars

So I'm trying to find relatively quick food on Sunday at brunch-ish. I'd been meaning to try Laughing Seed, they didn't have a wait, and I have *not* been eating enough vegetables lately.

Overall, the food was pretty good. I had the Sooner Sunday sampler. The flavors were strong and the food hearty., It's not bland mush, but it's also not the crazy concoctions like at Cafe Gratitude in the SF area. Good grits, much better than many I've had. Neat chips for scooping up left-over grits, guac, and gravy. I'm not at all a fan of tofu, but theirs was fun. A little curry makes it a tasty yellow scramble. That's kinda the downside to me, too. Some of the pieces were trying to be "replacements" for meat/egg dishes. I'm not vegetarian, so I don't see the need for that… But they still tasted great.

This cafe is atop Jack of the Wood, so they have Green Man brews on-tap. I have to remember that for some evening in Asheville… There also was a cocktail on the brunch menu that looked divine, but it also looked too potent for someone about to jump back on the road.

Service was *fantastic*. I was in a little bit of a hurry, and my waitress was always available. Other people seemed relaxed and unhurried, and I only saw them served and not pestered.

I hate giving five stars on a first visit, even with the Asheville bump. I fully intended on a four-star review promising a follow-up visit. But then… One waitress came over from across the cafe… She recognized my shirt, a somewhat stylized Dalek along with "Exterminate." Sometimes people don't understand and scoot away from me… But we shared a little fan-oid squee moment about the good Doctor. Any place with hearty food, great service, *and* a Whovian on staff will end up with five stars from me.

Yelp tags: Vegetarian Juice Bars & Smoothies Vegan

Another quickie, but at least it's to the RWP prompt:

orange fast blurs of fur
tumbling through smiles and laughs
into stretched out naps

Another poem's floating around my head with the scent of morels and dirt, but we'll see if it makes it out.

"rwp"]]

4/19/2010

3/5 stars

Whoa, cheap. For the price, the burger is amazingly good. I doubt if the cows have seen a blade of grass in their lives, though, and the meat's lack of flavor reflects this. The sauce is fantastic, though, and the spiced salt on the fries is pretty darned good.

I'll probably be back to try a shake, but I'm already feeling a bit guilty for eating more feed-lot beef. My stomach's trying to decide about it, too, but it's temperamental. My mouth was pretty happy, though. My wallet (and, this week, our funding agency's wallet) definitely appreciated the meal.

Yelp tags: Burgers

I have something in mind. Some phrases are scattered in my notes. Other people have similar but photographic thoughts. But I can't quite release enough to bring the thoughts and phrases and images together yet. Instead, an apt off-shoot of today's RWP prompt became a tanka:

my crazy schedule
reveals lightning's other half
tines branching upward
darting flash shoots up to send
the insight back down to Earth

The anatomy of a lightning strike is pretty fantastic. Lightning does not simply shoot from the sky. The charge follows a path that minimizes the total action in an electric sense. It's an illustration of the calculus of variations, an illustration of nature seeing every path but following the only one that can be.

Clouds are gathering outside. They have that slightly off color that sometimes turns into a cathartic thunderstorm.

4/20/2010

3/5 stars

Darned tasty food. I had a wonderful lamb kabap coupled with a tasty roasted red pepper sauce, nice pita pieces, and tasty, tasty rice. The flavors were surprisingly mild but good for a lunch. For the price, though, I would have liked a bit more salad to balance the meat and bread. One of my group tried the buffet and seemed quite happy… He was quiet because he was eating. Everything at the buffet seemed labeled today, and the seater gave us a tour.

Service was excellent. She kept our water full and was always available without seeming to hover. Our food was a tad slow coming out for a working lunch, but she kept us informed.

So this is a 3.5 pushed down a bit by the price. I'm going to remember Truva for the future and recommend trying it.

Yelp tags: Mediterranean

These somewhat lame American sentences may be all I manage today. Coping with this many people is draining.

Etiquette's fetid corpse still bears stupidity's knife deep in her back.

Ceaseless droning presentations kick language beyond my heart's short reach.

Minutia projected large bumble, jostling insight into the street.

Turning myself out for display leaves little for me to find within.

4/21/2010

1/5 stars

Make it stop! I don't want to lose reviews in a flood of items at best tangentially interesting. I'll find photos if I want to find them. I'm interested in the *reviews* first.

BTW, why can they implement this but still not translate less-than and greater-than signs?

Yelp tags: Nightlife

An American sentence and senryū:

Watching the past's frets fingered as future direction sounds a dull note.

this is the right crowd
for hiding my own quiet
desperate want of life

4/22/2010

4/5 stars

For less than the price of a drink at Blake's, you get a hunk of sausage that would make you the envy of most folks there.

Mine was loaded up with standard ketchup and mustard, basic kraut, and other yums. The beef sausage was firm, thick, and spread its juices with a little attention. Arriving just at noon, there was no wait.

I'm glad there's a hot dog stand near the IPDPS conference. Wish there were one near Tech…

The only drawback is dealing with people who don't know how to walk in public. This seems to be a country-wide epidemic. When walking, the following events imply *NOT STOPPING IMMEDIATELY*: stepping onto a curb, entering a door, stepping off an escalator or staircase, feeling your phone ring, seeing serious beef slinging…

(I'm reserving another star for the future.)

Yelp tags: Hot Dogs Food Stands

Skidding into the prompt and just under the wire:

A chime of rust echoes through empty stalls.
The emporium lies fallow, memories
reverberate around skeletal walls,
olden posted bills now only a tease.

The trailing edge of gentle summer squalls,
having allotted the day's drip to wait,
clutch their saffron hue as evening falls.
Kisses on the iron to ruminate.

The slowly growing crystal tendrils pierce
metal meant to last until forever.
Or so felt youth looking forward and fierce
not yet feeling time's taste for sharp pepper.

Wandering now? A dizzy nesting house finch,
and a wizened old crow picking a cinch.

It's a start for later work. Given how this conference has sucked the air from me, I'm surprised this came out… Also, I tend to cut a syllable, bringing "wandering" to "wand'ring."

Plus two more sentences, assuming I still can count:

A day of unscheduled activations has left my switch set to off.

I stand outside the spiraling glass heights but within myself.

I need to clarify that this is neither autobiographical nor really following the current cool RWP prompt but rather a tanka sketching a scene seen earlier this week as people approached an Army wife:

damn she's beautiful
sitting there and making friends
eyes laugh with delight
and next to me sidles up
the bar's consolation prize

In the hard crash after a week of non-stop people. I don't cope well. There's a cool prompt today at RWP to add to the pile I haven't yet used. Might return to it this evening. Calling these today's work is a bit of a stretch, so I'll come back with something later.

Senryū:

the only woman
how horrible it must be
all eyes stand on you.

incoming douchebags
often bring out those feelings
undeserved but true.

American sentence:

Where some see lines, others feel sight pulled taught across imagination.

I'm not comfortable wearing free verse. So I've tried it again. I like imbuing structure, and this one didn't quite want it. Something here falls flat for me, too, but I'm feeling flat after the last week. I might have pushed the prompt-found phrase, one more for the road, too obviously.

dusky storms and a wren in the dark
calling out one more for the road
and really the clock nags it's time
to go to solo alone in place and
place one foot in front of the other
one. more for the road than the stop
that sequenced placement for progress
though pulling the stop alters tones
sounding out all crazy ideas stumbling
escorts the same simple route adding
one more. for the road home through
light splashes and wet beams is just
long enough for gestating ideas to
desires just one more step turn and
there's the door. in and hit the bed,
one moor'd fore. the road's outside
now and with it all those thoughtful
escorts dismissed by the nod with
not even a good night kiss.

If I wouldn't throw off the sampling, perhaps wearing better free verse would be my immodesty for Boobquake. Or I might throw off the sampling anyways.

4/25/2010

4/5 stars

After spouting about the benefits of grass-fed beef, well, I didn't leave myself any options. Had to try Farm Burger even with a freezer full of beef and venison…

Seems like I got lucky. My burger, today's daily combo, was cooked perfectly. The insides were pink, wet, and flavorful. The outside was crisply caramelized. The chimichurri sauce was ok. The bun was, um, anemic. But overall, I happened to have a good burger.

The fries, however, make me think that my burger was a by-product of their rush. They were soggy, hinting at a bit of a rush back there. That rush may have left my burger a good flavor of pink, so I'm not complaining.

Now, about the prices… Expensive. I heard quite a few people expressing their discomfort. I know the beef's not cheap, but the trimmings on mine seemed a bit slight for the price. Particularly the flappy bun.

The place itself is great. If you see a long line and empty seats at the bar, head on up. I finally gave up on the indecisive nitwits who didn't give the menu any thought during their 20 minute wait and sat at the bar. It was comfy, though not as nice as the outdoor seating would have been.

So it's a 3.5 rounded up for the happy goodie feeling and having Abita root beer.

Yelp tags: Burgers Gluten-Free

Weekly errands and the RWP prompt stumbled into another senryū:

Hello, it begins.
What passes next continues
without true meeting.

I don't consider this finished, but today's RWP prompt pushed me to at least bring it to light.

Train your thoughts on the image
and let your senses wander the ground
Look for undulating forms, pockets cradling
caught light until it flows softly as
something else entirely
different with how it treats the eyes
softly against crinkled brown litter

You know you have the right idea when
every perforated leaf, tight tiny pinecone,
dried prickly blossom tugs your senses.
Each opens possibilities sprung from the
season's fertile ground
permeated freshly with Spring dampness
that yields to the morel's firm insistence.

You're searching for a different light than
the rest, a glowing, blushing white that's
not the typical white, a glowing, soft black
that's not the typical black, in all for
light that's atypical
coming from within the Earth at dusk and dawn
all washed away by featureless midday light.

Whatever you do, don't look up away into
all that openness shoving the true ground
to back ground, fluffing details to pillows
resting your eyes outward. You need watch
little things subconsciously
when they spring from those few moments
when the world opens, ready for them.

Trying to remember the fun part with today's RWP prompt:

Just a quick note
another in a long line
sometimes stretching clear 'round the block
outside, waiting, drizzled upon, fading, but
never once butting ahead.

Well, um, fun in the sense that I just wrote it quickly without endless frittering. Now off to my mountain of technical writing.

For some reason, my head kept twisting today's RWP prompt from intuition to inspiration, perhaps because I need some. Quickly written during lunch before diving back into proposals and project reviews:

facets of light
falling all over

splashes of warmth
tinged with chill

run curved paths
engage the senses

trigger tiny thoughts
flowing into ideas

then dry off
trying to remember

before they're drained

And a bonus senryū that ultimately is related to the Poetic Asides prompt:

mountainous deadlines
darkly crowd narrow paths to
final completion

And, really, related to the mountainous deadlines keeping me from reading, commenting, and thanking people. I do appreciate all the wonderful comments and encouragement.

4/29/2010

4/5 stars

Good, and definitely worth another visit. I had the Putri Basket, a solid mixture of vegetables, seafood, and just slightly hot sauce. The flavor was fantastic, a good mix of spices with gentle heat. The scallops were ok, just cooked without any real sear. The shrimp also were ok; not the flavorful sweet-sticks of my Gulf-coast youth.

Others in our party had dishes where they asked for a 10 in the spicy scale. They didn't even break a sweat. My weak-ass taste buds likely would have jumped screaming off my tongue at those, so the scale's very much a personal thing.

As a bonus, the waiter brought out extra rice for those of us taking servings home. I've *never* seen that before tonight. That's the extra +1 star. The Putri Basket was enough for two meals for me with the extra rice, and he saved me the miniscule effort of hitting the button on our rice cooker.

I'm tempted to subtract that star again for the lack of local brew or real whiskey, but I'm very forgiving. This time. There are plenty of local brews worth serving…

EDIT: Oh, I forgot to mention the bowl of Dum-Dums! Remember to grab a mystery one on the way out!

Yelp tags: Thai

Something that returns as front page news again and again. Not quite the RWP prompt, but this is something I still can't quite face.

The Earth is bleeding
they say, but it's not quite true.
Blood doesn't poison.
They always forget the Earth
wears her life on the outside.

And the reason for being short:

project proposals
take crucial time away from
projects in progress

I started being silly and clichéd to loosen up for another idea I have, but this stumbled out.

it's the final night
and still i must write
palm thwacked against face
words laugh at my chase
quicker than my wit
they do confound it
left in swirling dust
ideas turn to rust
falling apart they
never find their way
except slowly down
into the deep ground
a fertilizer
from each separate burr
that ground against sky
as words said good-bye
and were buried deep
feeling sky's tears seep
through the hard kernel
'till after vernal
up sprout words their own
that words' scorn had sown
stretching out their leaves
unfurl to perceive
the light breath of wind
and feel the sun's grin

Thanks again and again to the contributors at ReadWritePoem and at Poetic Asides for prompts, poems, and feedback. You could say I used the "free prompt" at RWP, but it feels more like it used me. Left me with smile, though, so I can't complain.

(Oops. And I can't count. Fixed a line. Except that I really do pronounce "separate" with two syllables. Sorry.)

One last quip / tanka for NaPoWriMo 2010:

closing out this month
by thanking those who always
give their words to air
never expecting return
but feeling the sky open

(Time zones do rather remove the drama.)