Instead prance with the cats

I heard two cats
A kitten like voice
another menacing

I moved the blinds
to reveal a regular
on the ground
another black cat
on the parapet wall.

The kitten voice
from who I expected
to have the menacing
voice

Their tirade
an exchange of sounds
Both were bent on their
hind legs and up on
their front

slowly they relaxed
their voices calming
and their bodies
hunkering down on
all fours

*********
Title from Theodore Rothke in his book 'On poetry & Craft'

What to look for in winter

Ghirlandaio Tobias
Toff
A Dance to the music of time
A Flat iron for a farthing
The sword in stone
Dunbar
The tao of sketching
Predella
Finial
Acroterion
Cuisenaire
pawky
The Lay of the last minstrel
epilimnion
Myxomatosis
Ruddigore
The heat of the day
one hundred details
Rokeby Venus
The school of love
Art for children
Thurifer
Point counter point
Harl
Seven pillars of wisdom
woad
Galope
The Quest for Corvo
Ronald Firbank
What maisie knew
ruby parure
The soul of the eye
The Israelites gathering Manna
Bargello
Termagant
Ved Mehta
Stephen Kuusisto
Holman hunt
The crofter and the laird
Loderi
Indumentum
Fuchsia
Escallonia
Pimpinellifolia
Pianola
Philadelphus
James Kelman
couthie
Against nature
Hortensia
Cymbidium
quailed
Manchineel
Hollywood Babylon
Balletomane
Bakst
Ormolu
Leger

Patterns

At the threshold of
Indian households
you found floral
patterns laid out
in thin white
lines of a powder.

Now they use chalk pieces
colourful
Earlier they added colours
to the powder for
auspicious occasions
like Sankranti.

Enter a new gadget
A platic tube with
perforations by purpose
Fill it with the powder and roll
it on the floor
for the pattern you desire
and for however long you wish to
encompass your veranda

Like a lullaby
for a baby that repeats
till the baby sleeps

*********************
'My mother in law had threaded jasmine and marigold ropes and set in shaken chalk auspicious designs all around the preimeter of the house' What to look for in winter

What is an apple?

My mother wonders
if I remember putting
the question myself
and answering as a child
'It is round and red'.

My nephew as a child
had a face of an
apple

Stains

of baby's poop at the pediatrecian
milk let in on the dress
multivitamin drops overflowing from
the baby's mouth onto mom

Hate Cauldron

Mourning becomes Electra

An out and out tragedy of helplessness of characters having to part from their apple of the eye. The death is in them from that moment. They are ready to put their whole life into hating the souls responsible for shattering their dream.

The span of time for which the portrayal of the characters is done makes it easy on reader's imagination, making it sequential and even the slight movements conspicuous.

5/5

More baby

Her 3 big center
eyelashes coupled
from the above and
below

Her hands never stay
in the swaddle
Her left hand is
on her face like
in the ultrasound

Baby

When asleep she makes
a noise that
she has had enough
When nursing she opens
her eyes to confirm
that its ok with mom
she also looks around
shyly if anyone
is watching her.

Great cover art

Hayden Ferry review - Premier issue has an animal being hugged but the overlapping area missing. Another was the back of a human torso on a chair. Although one migh think that in this pose, the missing bent head of thinking man adds the energy to the pose, just the torso has enough raw energy to evoke response.

Beckian Goldberg's poems - Salvation, Birth.

William Olsen - eighteen species of hummingbirds

Candace Greenburg- 'waiting for the days of grace' poem recreates a day with her 'Maybe it was a day like this:' with multiple attempts to get a whole picture of it.

Contents

American Wasteland

Author's site

Ritalin gets a black box warning and then loses it.

Regulation of therapeutic goods

Worry wart

when baby is in too long
or out too late

Its like
waiting for the only
exam which is 5 days away
and then you are off home.

On the road

Author Howard Frank Mosher in The Great Northern Express, writes of not just his journey in an OldsMobile to a 100 cities on his book tour but also of his life and the people in it - his wife, uncle Reg and students he taught.
His memoir has the simplicity of Jose Saramago's 'small Memories' as well as a story structure in each chapter. Some chapters have a neat ending to a story started in previous chapters, making a story happen over chapters.
Uncle Reg's and other characters phantom appearance and dialogue reads like a Prairie House Companion session.
In one of the chapters, 'Prof told us' and 'Prof said that' got annoying. Made me wonder if that chapter should have been with Prof as the narrator.
Author not minding being referred to as 'Harold' and his humorous way of looking at his cancer experience in trimesters and his big trip a big grant tour, maintains his light hearted tone even while trying to make a difference in the life of his students steering them away from mill jobs. Its an effortless one sitting book read.
The author asks 'But who would write the stories we were hearing everyday right here in the Kingdom?'. He has captured them well, the funny stories of hunting, representing the culture of the place.
If I had read any of the author's previous work, I could get more attached to the memoir.

I will compare this with Queen of the Road

Shadows

show us a broken world

canopy on a wall

Cant complain

The kid above my roof
jumps like a baby in the womb
The other day I saw him
at the door upstairs
He's so little.