Promise me ... that ... smile

on Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Today's blog is brought to you by the letter.. P. It seems the perfect day for a poem :)


Promise me that smile
The runaway which has
No introduction just an
Unpretentious entry like
Uncle Charlie bursting into the room

Promise me no
Hesitation but just the rush
Of the current over stones
Warm and liquid and
Wordless

Promise me a crushing
Soothing velveteen couch
Kind of burying embrace
Full of overstuffed cushions
Which we toss out of
The way and timeless like
The moment before the sun
Goes down past the lip
Of the horizon seeming
To wait there burning a
Last cigarette before
Ducking under

Make me a promise
That you cannot fail to keep
A promise picked free of the
Cobwebs and dust of past
Hearts and simple
Like a naked grape
Ready for the roundness of
One mouth

©Julia Zed 2013

pascalcampion.blogspot.com

Oh I love the way you say it doctor!

on Friday, June 14, 2013

Oscars only ostrich oiled an orange owl today..

If I make a list of the people who most influenced me as a child, it would have to include Dr Seuss. A quick look at wikipedia tells me he was Theodor Geisel, produced 44 children’s books and won a pulitzer prize. What, only 44? I had expected to find hundreds. I must have read the whole lot then. I went to places like Pompelmoose Pass, the island of Gwark and the country of Motta-fa-Potta-fa-Pell, chasiing Poozers, visiting Sneeches, marvelling at the Tufted Mazurka, and Fiffer Feffer Feff. C’mon, what an imagination!

My life is still a little like a Dr Seuss book. A combination of sense and nonsense, a river of words many of which are not found in any dictionary, and a love of funky individualism. If you can learn to recite ‘I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew’ you will not only have done a great deal of excellent exercise with your tongue and lips, but will have learned some fabulously bodacious new words and a sensible life lesson to boot.

Childhood is a long way off now. Can you think of what influenced you way back then? Mum, Dad..sisters, brothers, those are a given. What else? Teachers? A coach? A film star? Friends? Taking a look at the small stitches that knit us up can be a surprising revelation of how just a few hours or few words made a lasting deposit. Who knows what makes certain people or events stick in our minds? Sometimes just a short unexpected connection with someone leaves us impacted right into adulthood. Good or bad. And it never stops. We take new things on board every day.

And that means...yes me, yes you. We’re not Oprah, Orwell or Obama, but we still influence other people, probably without even knowing it. Authors like Dr Seuss are well aware that they make an impact, no doubt they write with that well in mind, but I don’t think most of us are aware that unless you’re a hermit, just about everything we do affects others. Perhaps it seems like a big responsibility to bear. It’s certainly something to think about considering that modern motto: “Do whatever you want, as long as it doesn’t hurt anybody else.” ... I’d be happy to change that motto to “Do whatever you want, as long as it doesn’t affect anybody else.”

Live obstinately or obediently..  or ostentatiously, outrageously, originally, orderly, openly, or outstandingly, or omnivorously... do it your way... but...

Know that it does matter. Ok? ;)

Taken from Dr Seuss's ABC