People, maybe including myself, tend to do things of which they are not exactly aware. No one wants to be in the situation in this picture, five days a week. That backup is actually about two miles long -- every day.

People write poetry without thinking -- they just write the best way they know how, and somehow expect poetry to come out of it. As if it is natural to them. They expect to be a poet without thinking about what they are doing with their art. I want to ask a poet, tell me how your work is advanced in comparison to what is being written, what are you discovering? What is your poetry about? What do you have to say? Are you actually stuck in traffic and don't know it?

My Days

My mind is bright as bumper chrome,
intensity few retinas can take.
My thoughts are loud, however reticent,
and tangible as stoplights in the sun.

However, days are highway lanes. My home
is blocked by smoggy traffic. Headlights break,
and maniacs can't stand magnificent
reflective brains, which, once cracked, are done.

I slow on curves to disinterest fate,
however, madmen smoke and fume and smash
with reckless speed, and the momentum, weight,
can easily claim an accidental crash.

There are no open roads. There is no joy
in driving fast. I am a backyard boy.

...... excerpt.....

Time past, candles were for the rich.

Now, the poor light candles to be rich.

Kissers, campers, castles with kings,

alters, grievers and gourmet kings

light candles with purpose at night.

Slimeballs too, burn the night.

........

Little itty bitty moon up there. After all, it is just you and the world.

Being bitten by ants or fleas? Sun in their eyes? Tearful joy at the wedding on the beach? Thoughts of their own time passing or that one love who got away?

A gloomy day in the suburbs. With Red Box, people can rent movies full of actors faking life and not talk to anyone, or get the movies mailed or sent via cable. Perfect.

A flea market in San Antonio. You like flea markets? Flea markets are odd shows of humanity. It is very much like watching humans in a fish bowl. What on earth are they so interested in? Is it part of the discovery need -- the endless need to discover, to search, explore, to gather objects to possess? All the things they buy end up back in the flea market or in the landfill, all used up, worn out, chewed on, broken, or maybe in some museum if rare or valuable. I bought a nice pair of Nikon binoculars. I need to know what is going on out there outside the fish bowl.

Discovery is always a great joy. We all want to discover something. Discovery is why people like art, why people enjoy making art. Any art is the art of discovery.

Today I discovered, when I was standing in the middle of an intersection of a two four-lane highway with my camera, stepping inbetween cars while I tried to get an angle before the light changed, that it didn't bother me if people thought it was strange that some guy was standing in the road with a camera. I felt like a kid, trying to capture something beautiful.

Where do you write? Here is my favorite place to write -- the kitchen table. The pen on the notebook is a Waterman fountain pen for which I paid $150 -- about 14 years ago. Also, I heard years ago, to write, just write the poem or story you would like to read. What you would like to read -- write it.

In Florida last month, I always carried my camera, and often stopped along the bike paths to take pictures. Above, the blue water of a calm lagoon reflects the beginning of the evening sky. I myself, am so often in a hurry, and it is still hard to slow down and take a look at things. The same thing goes when we look at people, noticing things we did not notice before, good or bad.

I am always amazed at poetry, how poets write poems in a weird non-human voice, how the poems "chatter ideas," and how they want in some desperation to be published, as if being published proves something. Of course being published proves something, but the intent seems to be published now, today, currently, poems that offer nothing of interest to living life, but packed full of "half-thoughts," tid-bits of incomplete angst like stepping barefoot on a wide slice of onion on a cold tile floor. Icky.

Here are the rules for modern poetry:

Don't say anything.

Avoid a story.

Stay clear of wisdom.

Do not be clear.

Politics is acceptable.

Political correctness is demanded.

Contort the language.

Prose is poetry.

Personal angst is art.

Trauma, negativity, gloom required.

Incomplete, obtuse vague inferences are 'arty.'

The 'subject' is sacrosanct. Any subject is good, even if meaningless.

Religious poetry is always perfect.

Poems in tongue, in code, mysterious, popular.

Private poetry vs public poetry -- unknown concept.

Far-fetched references mean sophistication, however phony.

Anger, resentment, bitterness, yelling, are theraputic, and dull.

Never "offer" anything in a poem. If you do, just who do you think you are, some phylosopher? Everyone is on the same "level," everyone is equal, and never criticize anyone or their work, because whatever any writer produces is "art."

There are many other rules for modern poetry, yet there are one or two who rise above these rules.

The picture above, ugly to some, beautiful to some.

One of the most frequent thoughts I think is how few people will make a real difference in your life. I can rewind my life, go back to crossroads, events with people that made great difference for my life from then on, and there are only a few important ones. Where would I be if that one person did not make the decision they made? There are many different levels of events, but the important ones are very important and very few, at least for me. I remember her decision; she meant, "no, I am not living my life with you." But my love for her has never left and still lights and shadows my every living day.

How much of every life is a delusion? Which of us deludes our self into living what we know is false? Everyone does this to some degree, I imagine. We live all day inside a huge bubble of importance above our heads, when there is no real bubble. Wake up and get real, there isn't much time.

Redemption is a great theme for any art and any life, however many tragedies occur on the way.

All of life looks like a vacation if you are dead. Just returned from a nice vacation in Rockport, TX, a small gulf town, a small working waterfront, shrimpers and oysters, and fairly quiet. The view above is morning, and is for me the ideal place to wake up and start a day.

Ah, summer time, and the living is easy. Lounging around the pool, trying to find my lost swim goggles, avoiding the bugs which the pool company doesn't bother to clean, nothing is better.

How many summers? Count, not the years, but the summers you have left. But not now. 102 degrees, clear sky, roasted salted almonds, oranges, cool icy drinks, and then to go swimming later, under the stars of Texas, ah, nothing is better.

Hope your day is going well, too.

Acceptance of chance is an under-appreciated wisdom. Many of us can't remember where we put something down a short time ago. Most of us are bumping through jumbled days and weeks, but somehow things get done, things happen, and life goes on.

Sometimes, as often has been noted, the most interesting things are simply found, chance events and so forth. A kind word from a stranger, a plastic bag by the window.

Some see these things and some don't, and who knows what really matters? Some will see such things as "pictures of nothing" and much prefer pictures of waves smashing into light houses or jets flying through clouds, which are things also of interest, to be sure.

Either way, it is the process and the discovery that makes the day go along.

We tend to forget that we live in a paper-thin atmosphere, and could climb a ladder into space in an afternoon, if one existed. (Well, maybe if one could climb quickly.)

How are your New Year Resolutions? One of mine is to try to stop trying to do too many different things. Time is limited, except for the moon, which scientists say is getting further and further away from earth, and one will day will sail off. Illogical.