How does the world stumble into things
bleary-eyed and stubbly I wonder,
and is much like re-invention?
Look in my backyard for a minute:
a spacecraft up on blocks.

How does the world justify things
ugly and a thousand feet tall,
and is it much like denial?
Look in my backyard this morning:
a highway.

How does the world teach things
like how to lie, duck, and cover,
and does it much like backtracking.
Look in your backyard this morning:
a fly in honey.

I finally figured out what bothered me so much about you. It’s the way you’re so concerned about protecting yourself. I mean, no one … has a bad thing to say about you; and I’m guessing that’s because you’re so careful not to rub anyone the wrong way.

It occurs to me this morning that though I don’t have very good taste in women, I have excellent taste in rings. I’m trying to figure out how to make this into a career.

Primary colours have always fascinated me. Although red, green, and blue are only one primary grouping (as additive primaries), it’s probably my favourite, and helps me divide this weeks ten entries into convenient groups of three, three, and four, as blue would be my pick of them all. That said, we begin with red:

Red Poems

Ashraf of arch.memory sends in a poem most certainly in the red spectrum. He says,

Now my life is much too serious,
and yet the world around me isn’t.

You can read this line among others (should you desire, and I would argue you should very much desire) his poem “Cats”.

Daniel of Paper Tigers writes a black poem, but a very red one. In “Black Lung”, he asks,

While cursing coffers
That line their pockets
And the backs of their eyes

Danny from Diary of Silence sends in a poem very obviously meant for this week’s Ringing (how did he know, I wonder?). In “Cecilia’s Red Tears”, he paints and writes:

The red is falling
from a silken mask

Green Poems

It’s like you all knew the theme would be colours. Am I freaked out? A little. Erin of Poetic Acceptance presciently writes a poem called “Garden Still Life”, a brave place,

where, despite being twisted
and misshapen by the weather
the rosemary thrives

Robert (certainly not an Average Poet) goes ahead and makes the dictionary pay for its years of torture. But in a good way. In “Elemental Extrication” he finds that

Drops of buoyancy in the sea
cleanse away bleak misery,
determination’s bracing mist
invigorates my amity.

Tom, who is fighting Against Boredom, is in love. He writes simple words in “her reverse angelic”, but manages to explain how

she is slight but not softspoken: her words are teeth to shoulders.
she is a psalm unlike any i have seen written on my bedpost.

Blue Poems

Katy of Something Katy made me choose between four different poems this week. I went with the most familiar to me, because who doesn’t like familiar things? She writes in “Let’s Pretend”,

let’s pretend to be friends again -
_____we always wanted to be.

The other poems, of course, were just as good.

Hitharien of It’s Clever, But Is It Art? sends in a poem that coloured me blue, if only because I find a great deal of my history in the words. Though “Untitled”, the story of Dan is,

after so many months of anguish
with his eyes upon her face
that have been blind for years
the disease breaks forth

Billy the Blogging Poet (may I refer to him as The Godfather?) sends in this piece, that as I read it decided itself for me as blue instead of red. Thus, when he writes “On Dogs And Poets”, I see blue:

Poets, like dogs we fight for scraps,
little bits,
crumbs brushed off the tables
of the stars we emulate,

Last, but not least of all in my humble opinion, Daniel Barkowitz sends in a poem called “Maybe”. I’d like to think he’s asking a question. Like maybe we should start up a collective of poets named “Daniel”. Seems to be a good name. Quite apart from that, he writes,

Maybe it’s the turgid
way I have these days
of moving with my pre-
arthritic leg, my own
unbending in this humidity

To that end, I end this Ringing. You may colour your own thoughts on how the combination of the above makes the world vibrant - I won’t do it for you.

A note for Ringing#9: Katy has asked me to inform you that there are some submission guidelines to go ahead and work around. Have fun!

If one year we have zero tornadoes and the next year we have ten, there’s no trend there. There’s an anomaly. Next year we will most likely go back to having very few, if not none at all. You don’t get to make long-term predictions with a couple years of data.

Maybe natural disasters have been increasing in frequency and devastation. But let me advance another theory instead: natural disasters appear to be more frequent simply because of a massive, connected population. Any disaster is going to affect more people than any other time in history, but will also be instantaneously transmitted to the furthest reaches of the globe.

Sure, it looks like earth is becoming more violent; I don’t know if it is or not. I haven’t seen hard data, or any other type of data for that matter. But you know how it is: perception is more powerful that information anyways.

• I just lost an entire post. How… disappointing. This will, then, be brief. Very brief.
• Tonight, Taste of the Danforth, preceded by feeding homeless people. Feel free to come. Much fun.
• Someone should make a free, ad-driven personals site. Why not? It can be done. Or, just call a spade a shovel and dedicate a quarter of MySpace or Craigslist to that very purpose.
• Yesterday I wanted to marry coffee. This morning I want to donate all my organs to the job of keeping it alive.
• How are regular people supposed to understand the difference between categories and tags? Why should they care? This is where Folksonomy just breaks right down: people are lazy, people are stupid, and people are apathetic.

Milo walked his dog like it was war,
keeping frontline troops supplied with footsteps,
six to the count. Every morning a heartbeat
after sunrise he’d be out there,
counting the colours until he’d got all nine.
Leash taut, he’d say, “Lord, you’re a showoff
aren’t you: take a finger but give me
a thousand mornings like this.”

His border collie had an eye out for pigeons,
zig-zagging like she’d just stumbled
out of bed, hungover from a full moon.
Every morning she’d be tugging Milo
a little farther afield, chugging like a dull
calculator counting all the birds.
Panting, she’d say, “Lord, you’re a tease,
now aren’t you: make twenty-three
feathered flying meatballs,
and one leash.”

There’s something strangely upsetting slaving over a rush job for an entire day, only to find out that we not only lost our shirts on the job, but that it wasn’t even for a customer we, you know, like.

Man up.

I’ve written a few pseudorandom verses recently. Branching out with my songwriting or some such. Less emoting (love that word), more storytelling.

1.

So maybe I am crazy, but am I writing you down?
I’ve never met you in any of these past or future towns,
but you resemble something that I’ve always wanted,
so can I be crazy about you?

2.

It’s so sad to see
you make a door
where the wall used to be.

Where’re you going to run
when its hinges
start coming undone?

Can I lend a foot,
can I condescend?
Find compassion in
the camera lens.

3.

Blood running down her face,
and chemical tears on the floor;
was she born again today?
I don’t think I could love her more.
The way she looks all torn
like book lent out too much.
Was she born again today?
She’s a foreign war to touch.

No, not beards. Bards. Ringing of the Bards VIII is set to take place this Saturday or Sunday depending on how hungover I am from feeding the homeless in Toronto on Friday night. [Editor: when *dan said this he was grinning that funny grin, so why don't you go ahead and mark it a joke]

There are no submission guidelines for my particular incarnation of the Ringing, but there will be for next week. If you’d like to participate, send me the URL via the contact form above or by emailing scatterfingers@gmail.com which is co-incidentally how you can IM me via Gtalk or any other Jabber-enabled program.