It’s live, and you can find it here.

The latest edition is online here. Enjoy.

I read a poem this evening I wrote not so long ago. I remember the exact circumstances of it, though I’ve forgotten so many others. Coffeehouse at someone’s house. Can’t remember whose, but it was all wood and slats on the inside. We left our autos in a nearby church carpark and had went inside: it was a warm house somehow. That much I recall. There were people there I’ve all but forgotten now.

People are so temporary. They leave, you leave, they leave you. Any way round, temporary. I haven’t even got a handful of them left.

Farther back, even, there was another group of friends. Before that, another. Before that yet another. I almost can’t fathom the person I was then. Compared to the person I am now? We would have fought bitterly, I think. So much has changed; me most of all.

I’m not wallowing so much as tracing my history. I’m twenty-five. I feel like I’ve barely crested eighteen. Yet I can count at least seven distinct groups of friends that I’ve had since I was actually eighteen, some of whom I still see occasionally, but most of whom have drifted off wherever people go.

Maybe it’s the distance: I’ve never had a group who was physically close to me. It’s easier disperse when you have to drive an hour to actually see them. And as I get older, I find myself finding distance more and more of a bother. How do you keep up any sort of relationship when it’s a bother to have to actually see them? I mean, convenience is nice. Next-door neighbors as friends are nice. It’s not that I don’t want to have to expend effort, but at the end of the day it’s nice not to have to.

But in the end it’s amazing what a few words jotted down in an old blog can do. I was such a child back then. And being a child wasn’t so bad.

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!

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.

The latest Ringing of the Bards poetry carnival is online at Poetic Acceptance. By all means, have a look! It’ll be quite worth your while, I promise.

Plus, Erin likes my blog’s name, making all the pain worth it, if only for the warm and fuzzies.

This week’s Poetisphere/Poets101 Poet Of The Week is none other than Katy Acheson of Something Katy.

Go therefore and read poems.

I know, I’ve lapsed in my PotWing lately, so here’s the latest and greatest.

This week’s Poetisphere Poet Of The Week is: Poetic Acceptance… click on it and read away.

dan (relapsing?)

Yes! It’s that time again: the Poetisphere Poet of the Month has once again dropped like a ball from heaven.

I encourage you to all go and check http://feithline.com/journal/ out. Stay for a while. Make some comments. But most of all enjoy

dan (PPOW!)

That’s right… you heard me. Andrew is our poet of the week! Check out danweasel.com (click here) to find out what I’m talking about, and Poetisphere (click here) for a better idea of what we’re doing here.

dan (and here we go!)