For instance, do you know how long a day is on Pluto????

I say bravo for D-man; you have already far exceeded my modest expectations in daily poem productions. Some days are longer than others. Like Gr. Barb, I was inspired to get in on the poeming; you reminded me that I had seen a poem while we were driving to Moorhead.

This Never Happened to Odysseus

I saw a poem today
on the prairie covered with white-gray snow,
revealed against the luminous gray-white sky:
A line of trees guarding the horizon
Back-lit,
Front-lit
by winter light, prairie light,
prairie winter light.
I drank in its startling beauty.
I let the wispy fingers of the trees draw on
my mind and
stir my soul, my winter soul.

And while its sweet, numinous taste
lingered still on my lips,
there came another regiment
and another--
it was a many-stanzaed poem,
maybe an epic--
with marching lines
crossing, reconfiguring as I passed,
performing with precision a
silent halftime show that
surrounded me on the field.
My mind whirled, lifted out
of my body; and now I could

see
myself in the poem
360 degrees of sky and
every valley lifted up
every mountain laid low and
a smooth
level
ribbon of road carrying home
my prairie soul.
My winter prairie soul.

Two firsts today: I finally caved and ate a donut at lunch, after resisting at every other meal this year up until today (it was delicious--custard-filled too!), and my one class for tomorrow got cancelled (good news, except that it is a result of my teacher suffering a mild concussion in some kind of freak accident). Pretty exciting day on the whole. I think I will use my extra free time tomorrow to do laundry. Cool. Does anyone know what word was combined with "biscuit" to get Triscuit crackers?

Quantity or Quality?

As I lower the bucket into my well of deep thoughts
I have to keep going deeper and deeper.

Or maybe my bucket has a hole in it.

Sorry about the name-calling brb. It's just that putting other people down in a (possibly) humorous way makes me feel better about myself. Oh yeah, and I wish I could describe the hotel smell, but I don't remember what it smells like exactly. I'll try to get to a hotel sometime soon. Actually, I could tell you what an 80-year-old hotel room smells like: Glade Plug-Ins.

The Parthenon in Greektown

In the back corner (deliberately?)
Someone comments that the walls must be paint-by-number
But wouldn't it be nice to have a view of the sea?
A blue-view. Certainly.
I have a view of the sea
Of people. Swaying and roaring
With the bursts of flame.
People who will be the same when they leave.
My appetite has left, or at least
It is buried.
Oh, do I know you?
Don't do as I do;
My view is blue.

Did I say a poem every day? I meant one poem per day on average. Brb suggested that I knock it back to a poem a week, further proof of her pessimism and defeatist attitude. But I will not be brought down by Captain Bring-Down. I was gonna write two today, but now it's too late. Maybe tomorrow. Oh yeah, and thanks to Ben for the poemment (poem/comment). It had a lot of feeling. I should try that.

ODE TO A CONTINENTAL BREAKFAST

It's a good reason to wake up--even if you are on vacation.
You can't smell it from your hotel bed (that only happens in movies),
But you know the continental breakfast is downstairs
Because the tall sign promised it would be.

So you do get up, and it feels good;
You're not tired because this is a special thing.
There's no need to go through your whole morning routine
Because it's just continental breakfast.

Hopefully, you are with people who make you feel comfortable
So the experience is not ruined by small-talk anxiety
And you can focus on your toast and muffins
And watch CNN.
No news this morning.

I'm a bit disappointed to see no comments on my last posting; I was thinking it was controversial enough to really stir things up. I think it's clear that the only thing that can save this blog now is poetry. So, I've decided to write and post a new poem every day. It may sound ambitious, but really if I want to use the broad sense of what a poem is, I could post one word, or even one letter. I probably can only use the blank screen poem once though. I think I'll start it off with a multi-word poem to generate some false excitement. So, here it is, the first in my new series of Bright Side poems:

At the beginning
I imagine wonderful things and
I worry about potential problems

But usually
Most of those wonderful things don't happen and
Those problems don't materialize

Rather
Wonderful things happen that I didn't expect and
Problems blind-side me

So, if I take sort of an average
It all turns out about as good as I expected
But very different

That's exciting