Strewn All Over

Image of the Day:  The mugginess felt on my skin and the cicada's metallic whine, like a hot wire searing my brain.

Happy July--it's hot and humid and the bugs are fierce--especially the black flies in the woods where we take our dog for her daily walk.  I haven't posted in a while--summer is particularly difficult to do so. 

But I won a scholarship to the Poets on the Coast writing retreat and I'm thrilled!! This is my very first writing retreat and I'm excited about going.  It will be quite a journey, both physically and mentally I'm sure.  I keep thinking of all the things I want to bring and how I want to write every second I'm there.  I know that's not possible and I have no idea what I am going to write, but at least I'll have time to explore. 

And I also purchased my very own (another first!) writing desk and know exactly where I want to put it in my house.  I have been using the kitchen island as my spot to write, but that's not exactly working.  I'm excited to have a place to put all my tools together--books and journals and computer--and have them not strewn all over the house. 

I've gotten some rejections recently:  from Adroit journal, but they at least singled out a poem they particularly liked; from Apple Valley Review, which had no commentary at all about my poems; and Outlook Springs, which included an amazing amount of nice things said about my submission.  So that was nice.  I got an acceptance from an anthology so we'll see how that comes along.

I've also signed up for a MOOC class on Whitman and Writing about War.  I haven't had a chance to finish viewing the first class, but what I've seen so far seems interesting.  Also I signed up for an on-line class at the Poetry Barn which starts in August and I hope I get a few poems from that. 

by Gregory Kimbrell

Nocturne (Tremors of the Earth)
       
Dear shadow, electric lights burn once more
throughout this remote valley, though night
arrived hours ago. Darkness will be restored
shortly. My only photograph of my brother
fell from the bedroom mantel and woke me
from the dream in which I visited his grave.
I always wanted to believe that the dead lay
in undisturbed sleep. You, shadow, become
still, listening to the footsteps and blunders
of the fearful who retire one after the other
in their homes above you. In the plane tree,
the owl straightens its feathers, compacting
its prey into a sphere of bone and gray hair.