This is going to be a short post but an important one for me because I’m telling you about my poem being published in a chapbook! The Yolo Crow is a literary magazine for the California county of Yolo, where I live. I submitted one of my poems, Reflections on Autumn, in June and I found out at the end of last month that my poem had been accepted for publication and would be appearing in the Fall 2009 issue (it’s the first poem in the book.) You should visit their site and order a copy of it! While you’re doing that tell them why you’re buying it too. I might have posted the poem here before but I think re-posting it is in order, so you’ll find it below.
This isn’t the end. I’ve submitted other poems to other magazines and will continue to do so. I do need to spend more time writing poetry though. Next month, as this month is NaNoWriMo and I’m participating again for the third year. I’ve never been able to successful complete a NaNoWriMo challenge and I don’t see that happening this year either. Instead of writing a 50,000 word novel I’m aiming for 10,000 words this month ,which should be difficult enough. What is 10,000 words, a novella? We’ll call it a short story.
In other news, I’ve got the garden all planned out and priced, as well as the fire pit and patio around it. They’ll both becoming together over the next month and a half. As soon as I get a camera and a scanner I’ll be uploading pictures and images of it all. We have a composter on the way too, which should cut down on our garbage and help with the garden. Busy, busy times!
I’ll end with a random thought, Lava Lamps. Are they the most amazing thing to come out of the 1960’s?
Reflections on Autumn
Light pierces the eye, hits the pan of the skull,
a dazzling display that with every fold of color, every shimmer, brings pain.
The sky is empty and the eternity of clear blue is marred by only
the stooping sun.
The breeze lazily curls around the body, seeking, slipping through thin cloth, brushing against flesh;
flesh pale and cold, unwarmed by blood that is too thin,
pumped by a heart that works like the engine of a run-down Chevrolet,
pumping, struggling….and finally pumping again.
The wind carries merely the hint of things that once were
which now lie buried by ash and forest debris,
fermenting in soil.
On barren trees but for a few leaves
fruit hangs overripe on the vine,
pungent skins cracked and bleeding
drawing endless clouds of insects
which fill the air with the sound of
contentment.
Contentment that lasts for but an instant, a flash, and it is gone
and they are gone,
small bodies littering the ground
struck down by a cold that comes from the north,
from lands far distant.
From plains of unbrushed life,
fields of ice radiate iridescent
under an atmosphere thinned,
thin like the flesh of a grape,
or the calm on water,
easily torn, easily broken.
Thin like the soul…
I know that one makes new goals on New year’s day but, for me, that only insured that I didn’t spend any amount of time actually thing about what I wanted to accomplish in that year and, worse, not following through. Last year at the end of July I wrote out a large list of goals. I gave myself a year to accomplish some of them, others I gave myself more time (five or ten years.) That year recently came to an end and I wrote about how I did