What Coyote Wanted

Loki, Coyote:
Those tricksters
Pull me in
They make so much
Sense -- yet a second glance
Guides me, mocks me.
Tricksters make only nonsense
And I am a ranger
Law and order
The lessons of my father
The lessons of my mother
Taught me to follow my conscience
Follow my better self
For the betterment of us all
For the best, for the rest of us.
Follow Intuition
Follow the order
Within that intuition.
Maybe that’s what
Coyote wanted,
What Loki—deep
In his Utgard/Asgard heart—
Wanted.
You know,
The right thing.

What the Horse Knows

Then Souls Fit Skin to Skin

When the ropes of reason slacken
When the veils of prudence thin
Then intuition harkens
Then souls fit skin to skin

--stanza from an old poem of mine ("Oh Malachi Malarkey") that also stands alone quite well.

Note: 10/6/18

Change line 3 to Then intuition beckons

Making: Clay in Process

 Wet clay: mask.  Feeling my way here . . . .

 Seals and mermaids: clay almost dry enough for the kiln.

 Bisqued whale with drying glaze.

 Motley assortment just glazed.

Quick session just to keep my hand in, you know?

"Oh Malachi Malarkey" (Poetry)

OH MALACHI MALARKEY

When the ropes of reason slacken
When the veils of prudence thin
Then intuition beckons
Then souls fit skin to skin

Hope can be so brittle
Clay not fired to the core
Well-thrown bowls roughly handled
Scattered shells along the shore

Now there's a measure in the offing
Now the surges swell with pride
Say, is this canny craft a coffin?
Say, may your reach not fall too shy

Oh, Malachi Malarkey
Oh, Sophia Sophrosyne
Heed the reefs not yet charted
Seek that green isle beyond design

--MD



(the latest attempt to play with verse and not just savor, not just quote)


If I manage to compose enough poems for a collection, I'm thinking of calling it "Shore Leave," as this post was originally entitled.

"My Aim Is True": Novel Navigation?

Or, By Bluff and Blunder?
Or, Compassion As Compass?
Or, Pin The Tale On The Donkey?

I'll stop with the subtitles, the alternative guides, and move to my central concern.  Here are three quotations that I've probably offered before, but the last few days I've found them resonating alongside a certain ambition to craft a full-length narrative of mystery and adventure.

1.  "But I had learned long ago that resolution by itself is not enough; we are what we do, not what we think and feel."
--James Lee Burke, "Heaven's Prisoners"

Here I am quoting from memory, but this is a quotation that sticks with me, that offers a rather pitiless ideal, which draws me in even as I want to bring or find more compassion than those words offer. "Resolution" in the first part of the sentence definitely means "completion" or "finishing," not merely "deciding upon" or "resolving to do." I think this quotation will help me to set up the conflicts in the "novel" I'm attempting to outline/frame.

2.  Let's listen to my second-favorite ancient Greek poet:


I over-reached
And another
Bears the bother.

--Archilochos
trans. Davenport

I take that short poetic fragment with ruefulness, with regret in the tone, not triumph, though I can see the psychology that would exult in that way. I can see such, but save me and all of us from such, I say.


3.  And the last of the triad, for now:

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
--Maya Angelou

Fourth?  Frankly, on reflection, I can see how all three of the quotations above spiral around each other, twining thematically into one threefold strand, and so further sayings may be called for.  Somehow, the supposed opening line of my absolute favorite ancient Greek poet's lost comic-epic also horns in . . . .

"He knew many things, and all of them badly."
Homer, from his lost Margites . . . .


I'm quoting from memory again here, but I think you can see I don't plan to tell a tale overburdened by seriousness.  And a fallible, flawed, but well-meaning character?  Who wouldn't like a bit of that?  I mean, aren't we constructed in that way ourselves, however we may aspire and resolve to do better?

And, that fourth selection just may be another way to say "Pin the tale on the donkey."