How does one tell if a picture is a setting or rising sun? It is easy. If you are really happy, it rising.

The fishing boat with the reflected sunlight is about a mile from this statue.

Where does the willingness to take huge extra steps that most will never attempt come from? Or, is it, why are some unblocked?

Very little of good poetry is mere juxtaposition. Good poetry has forward motion, action and image, not dead irony. Irony is dead, cheap. And voice.

Poetry involves others to make it work. Let the reader step forward.

A rainbow.

You've seen this sign somewhere. Something there as the car goes by in a hurry. The will to stop, to change the momentum of the situation, the travel, the destination, the goal, is often fleeting. The sign is still there, the restaurant is closed. Everything in passing.

Have you ever seen light transverse an eye through the pupil and behind the iris and illuminate the white of the eye from within? Sure you have.

What did you think? What did you feel? Did you mention it?

Or are you asleep?

THERE ARE TWO KINDS OF PEOPLE;

There who people who tell the truth, and those who lie. These two people don't mix very well.

There are people who will seek psychiatric help and those who never will. Never the twain shall meet.

There are people who do not have the capacity to be empathic. This is a brain thing, and affects more people than we imagine.

There are people who have absolutely no self-perception. They have no idea who they are, what they want to do, or how others perceive them.

Some listen, others don't. Etc, on and on.

I think it helps to think in simple terms, although there are many more complexities than there is time.

I learned all this from Shakespeare, in the lines;

Listen more than you speak.

Everything is right before us. Live correctly, and things appear before you.

Another of the great mysteries of life is how people will live their lives and ignore the work of this century on psychology. I use the word psychology in a light manner. In other words, if your car breaks down, you call a mechanic; if your mind breaks down in some irrational manner, you call a shrink -- but most people don' t call a shrink or seek help. They think they have the absolute right to live their life their way -- and they do -- but why ignore science? There are patterns, there are needs to look under the hood, or under the body of the car with mirrors to check things out, to look for bombs if nothing else, if not the engineering skills of the mechanic.

One only moves forward with knowledge. Knowledge, not passion. Passion will fall by the wayside, knowledge guides.

Every one of us is running by some one else's window, and maybe they see you and maybe you see them, but it is all one great confluence of time and place, even the people you love, even someone special, because a moment here or a second there, and some meet and some never meet.

Well, this is my impression of the state fair. I couldn't find any interesting people to take pictures of, so with a positive attitude I looked up.

You don't want to hear what I really have to say. Of course, who am I to talk?

http://picasaweb.google.com/tomjardine is the free picture site where I will be loading photos anyone can see, in little slide shows, for the rare viewer.

Anyone can open their own site and post pictures.

I always like to think of what wisdom I have learned recently and to write about. I haven't learned anything recently.

The Mucky Duck

A few final pictures. The restaurant is the Mucky Duck, the name taken from an affectionate nickname for the White Swan, in Shakespeare's day.

In the slide show, on the bottom right corner is a link to the picassa site and by going there the pictures can be seen and there is a slider to make the pictures larger, if one cares.

Sanibel 6 2008

Intimacy with the world, getting as close as possible.

More pictures in a day.

Well, the last night here, I leave tomorrow. Lots of new pictures, almost three hundred, and I will make an ordered sense of them when I get back.

I did not make the shell heart on the beach, I was riding by on the bike, thus the tire marks.

Back to the old reality tomorrow.

Eight miles or so on the bike, on the beach.
The pictures of the huge house under construction was amazing. At least 20 thousand sq.ft. The main room is almost 40 feet wide facing a zero-horizon pool, I think they call it, when you do not see the edge of the pool.

Wonderful place, great time to be here.

Busy day running the body around.
Since being here I have written about 5 thousand words in two pieces, long narrative stories, a mix of poetry and story telling, very moralistic, or with hinted wisdom.

What a great place for rest and relaxation.

This morning, trying to figure out where to ride the bike, I watched dolphins, a pod of about 6 or so, heading to the lighthouse and inlet. So I walked that way a few miles, and it was getting hot by the time I got back.

Well, all this seems to be 'here are my vacation pictures' kind of stuff. Oh, well.

...
the calm of hope, faultless mode of wish,
desire to be the steward of beauty,
the momentary tenant of heaven achieved.
...

These are out of order, but I rode the bike down the path to the beach and watched a storm approach. The gulf turned green, the clouds turned dark, and by the time I got to the condo, wind, rain, lightning, power outages. It was fun watching the whole gulf suddenly lit up by lightning for a brief second. The next morning, bright and sunny.

This should come out to be pictures of Sanibel.

The light house at the tip of the island, at the inlet between Sanibel and mainland.
Dinner at evening with the one you love.
And under the rising moon.
A worthy shot, I thought, of a clam, or what is left over after someone else's dinner.

I am always amazed at how, when writing a story, the story is right in front of me, and I hardly have to make anything up.

Sanibel

Two lovers walking together toward the sunset.

This guy is checking out dinner on the beach. He caught something but I couldn't see what it was.

Night gets dark quickly, and there are no lights on the beach, so one of the secrets as to why people find magic here is that, just like in the olden days, when it gets dark, they go home instead of running around to no purpose. More a natural rhythm.

Sanibel

A few hundred miles beyond those sparkles is the hurricane "Ike."

The approach to the units and two people and a seagull.

It is all about controlling time and not letting time control you. Maybe control is not the best word, maybe modulating time sounds better. All I know is that half my life slipped away before I knew it. I chased things I had no need to chase.

There will come a time when everything in your life needs to be reconsidered.

It must be like stepping on your own boat for the first time.

Sanibel Island

Suddenly, in between hurricanes, I find myself on Sanibel Island, Florida, in a magnificent unit, alone for ten days.

I just walked an hour on the beach, the return trip against the wind from hurricane Ike's outer bands. I can see the curved clouds of a band, for lack of better terminology.

What heaven.

What heaven. Here, pictures. Enough talk.

One of Life's Mysteries

One of the great mysteries of life is how you might like person A yet that person likes person B whom you cannot stand at all. How does this happen?

Does person A like you in reality, (for lack of a better term?)

Is life and love really no more than knocking bowling pins or spinning marbles?

I guess these things are impossible to figure out.

For example: is that a romantic picture or a smelly fishing boat?

Today I spent time jumping from one poetry site to another, one poetry blog to another, and seemingly gathering information, but then after a couple hours, figured out that there was no information. It was all that endless useless networking kind of bibble-babble, none of which amounted to the bettering of writing skills.

Spent almost all day yesterday writing. I think anyone's productivity will increase if they have space to work that is all their own and not the house where people are, where bills are paid, and phone calls come in. It is funny, though, how expensive even 1,000 feet of space can be, if it has a bathroom, A/C, heat, lights and so forth. A place for books, desks, lamps, chairs and the like. I finally have such a space, and it is truly amazing for the spirit to concentrate.

First the will, then the art, then the space will come around.

Consider carefully when you are upset about what someone says about you. Sometimes someone you object to helps you more than a friend.

But you know this already.

May Already?

May already, already May. What have I done?

I'm caught on the wires
while speeders speed by.

So many going fast,
so few saying hi.