The Coming of the Toads

A Notebook – Since 2007

Month: December 2012

  • A Cat’s New Year’s Celebration

    “Are you napping through the New Year again?”“Have you a better suggestion?” “Par-tay!” “Surely you jest.”
    “Are you napping through the New Year again?”
    “Have you a better suggestion?”
    “Par-tay!”
    “Surely you jest.”
    “We’ve been invited to a New Year’s celebration. All the cool cats will be there.”“The gentrified cats, you mean?” “These are hep cats, the kind you should get along with.” “Get along is for doggies.”
    “We’ve been invited to a New Year’s celebration. All the cool cats will be there.”
    “The gentrified cats, you mean?”
    “These are hep cats, the kind you should get along with.”
    “Get along is for doggies.”
    “We’re supposed to bring noise makers. I got this kazoo out for you.”“What are you bringing?”
    “We’re supposed to bring noise makers. I got this kazoo out for you.”
    “A kazoo? What are you bringing?”
    "Ever hear of rock-n-roll?"
    “Ever hear of rock-n-roll? Hee, hee!”
    "Move on over and let Jimi Cat take over!"
    “Move on over and let Jimi Cat ring in the New Year with some rockin’ hallelujah cheer!”
    “I think I’ll stay home and reread ‘A Cat’s Christmas in Wails’. I love the part where the cats attack that little punk with the snowballs.After that, I’ll get out some old Sing Along with Mitch records. Maybe I’ll ask Archy and Mehitabel over.”
    “I think I’ll stay home and reread ‘A Cat’s Christmas in Wails’. I love the part where the cats attack that little punk with the snowballs.
    After that, I’ll get out some old Sing Along with Mitch records.
    Maybe I’ll ask Archy and Mehitabel over.”
    “You going to the party?“I’ve way too pooped. I've been blogging all day long. I think I've got the Blogger's Blues."
    “You going to the cat’s New Year’s party?
    “I’m way too pooped. I’ve been blogging all day.” “Sounds like you’ve got a case of the Blogger’s Blues.”
    "OK. I'll go to the party on one condition.""What's that?" "I don't have to wear one of those silly hats. And I don't have to go outside in the cold at midnight and blow that silly kazoo. And I don't have to have fun." "Yes to all of that. And no New Year's Kiss for you, either." "OK, OK, maybe the kazoo. The kazoo for a kiss." "Happy New Year!"
    “OK. I’ll go to the party on one condition.”
    “What’s that?”
    “I don’t have to wear one of those silly hats. And I don’t have to go outside in the cold at midnight and blow that silly kazoo. And I don’t have to have fun.”
    “Yes to all that. And no silly New Year’s Kiss for you, either.”
    “OK, OK, maybe the kazoo. The kazoo for a kiss.”
    “Happy New Year!”

  • Tierra

    Tierra

    I found the Tierra poster in the “free stuff” at a yard sale last summer. It had a glass cover and a thick backing but no frame. The glass was ragged along the edges and dangerous. It’s been sitting in the basement where I was going to reframe it. I cut my thumb on the glass. I ended up tossing the glass and hanging  the poster with stick pins.

    What is folk art? As opposed to fine art, I guess – no training, naive, which of course is seldom true. What is perspective? To behold. There seems to be an impulse for art, an instinct, a need. What do we do with our art, our symbols and images? Where do we find it? How do we integrate our art into our lives, art we pass down to our children that they can pass down too, something we don’t have to go to a museum or church to peruse and requires no special training beyond apprenticeship, something that is part of our daily lives. Symbols break, topple, and images fade away. Behold Tierra in 2013.

  • Plumbing & Writing: A Review of the Literature (at the Toads)

    Sky Plumbing
    Plumbing in the Sky

    One of these days, I’ll craft a post equal to one of my Dad’s plumbing jobs. Meantime, here are a few past posts that mention the improbable connection between writing and plumbing:

    Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life

    E. B. White and the Plumber

    The Elite and the Effete: From Access to Egress

    A Portrait of the Plumber as a Poor Speller; or, Wrong Word

    A Plumber’s Noir

  • Find a New Year’s Resolution at Berfrois!

    Poem WalkingNew Year’s resolutions sounding redundant? Bored with the idea of giving up potato chips and dip for another year? Discouraged just looking at the stationary bike you got for Christmas?

    Read the Toads post “Why Read Poetry?” at Berfrois, and make poetry a New Year’s resolution!

  • A-caroling we will not go…

    Christmas MusicDoes anyone go caroling anymore? Apparently they still go caroling in Australia (see Carols by Candlelight). But I’ve heard no carolers in these parts for some time now. I fear it’s a gone tradition here. I wouldn’t mind hearing some carolers outside our place. Susan would have some wassail brewing. I grab my guitar and tell her I’m going out to do some solo-a-caroling. Give me that guitar, she says. You’ve had enough wassail for one night.

    So, no caroling. Meantime, we get the Christmas music out. This year we keep coming back to one of those Starbucks compilations, Making Merry. Willie Nelson opens with Norah Jones on “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” featuring a steely guitar and a briefly haunting harmonica break, just enough to bring the chill in, the reminder that Christmases, for all their warmth, all become a Christmas past. Another standout on this CD is Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass on “My Favorite Things,” which ends, oddly enough, with some sort of James Bond theme riffing. But it is cold outside, and I was in Fort Huachuca one winter, and can tell you it gets cold down south too. Anyway, baby, it’s cold outside here now, so to dispel the chill, I put some Elvis on and the place starts to warm. A couple of good ones on this It’s Christmas Time CD, like “Santa Bring My Baby Back (To Me),” and “Blue Christmas.”

    What am I going to sing with my guitar if I go out a-caroling, Susan asks. Come on, baby, I say. I’ll be Barenaked Ladies & you can be Sarah McLachlan and we’ll do a cover of their uptempo “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.” We’ll both be arrested, Susan says, and not by God. Oh, well, I say, and put on the classic Vince Guaraldi Trio doing the jazz inspired A Charlie Brown Christmas.

    John FaheyWe saw the great, original, finger-style guitarist John Fahey at the Ash Grove in Los Angeles many Christmases ago. The New Possibility came out in 1974 (Takoma Records), and includes the far-out pieces “Christ’s Saints of God Fantasy” (Hopkins-Fahey), and “Lo How a Rose E’er Blooming” (Praetorius). Popular Songs of Christmas & New Year’s, with Portland’s renowned guitarist Terry Robb, came out in 1983. Some very cool medleys, and “The Skater’s Waltz,” and “The Waltz You Saved for Me.” Maybe I can talk Susan into a New Year’s waltz, if I can’t go a-caroling.

  • Heart’s Apron Sestina

    Heart's ApronOozing down the sinuous sleeve the heart’s blood
    tempts the jackdaws to table to dine
    each bird a caddy for another’s purse
    whose ears exceed hearing and have eyes to eat
    who renounce not their heart’s guards
    but pronounce things with ease and clarity

    if left to their own corrections
    sop with erasure the heart’s brood
    I ago did watch one eye that pursed guard
    too hungry to alone dine
    for the ears on the word’s feast
    a three egg amulet protects the purse

    but there’s nothing in the purse
    the notion needs correction
    so we can sit down empty and eat
    something other than this soul’s doubloon
    good grief alone better to dine
    than suffer the guarded guards gardening

    the ones who taught the heart’s guards
    deluge ago to spend with lavish the purse
    so that today’s diners
    might eat correctly
    in a sacrifice bloodless
    at an ordinary eatery

    so with consciences clean let’s eat
    bring us the menus guards
    and napkins for these touchy emotions
    unbuckle the rope that holds the purse
    let it all hang out but with good manners
    for our purposeful dinner

    ago then we did dine
    on hearts on sleeves we did eat
    though correctly
    under the apron of the guards
    who held our purses
    and allowed aloud no drooling

    but this rectitudinal dining in and out
    fills with bile and drool of toasts and teas
    drop your guard forget the purse let’s flee

  • A Cat’s Christmas Carol

    "'Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro' the house, Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse."
    “‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all thro’ the house, Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.”
    That's because I'm standing on his tail, hee-hee.
    That’s because I’m standing on his tail, hee-hee.
    Why can't you just sit on Santa's lap like everyone else?
    Why can’t you just sit on Santa’s lap like everyone else?
    What a mess! Who put the lights away last year?
    What a mess! Who put the lights away last year?
    Dig it! We got a Christmas card from Jimmy Carter!
    Dig it! We got a Christmas card from Jimmy Carter!
    Remember the year that cat in chains showed up? Claimed to be a cat from the past. What's the past? I asked.
    Remember the year that cat in chains showed up? Claimed to be a cat from the past. What’s the past? I asked.
    Won't Susan be surprised when she opens this one! The cat of Christmas present...hee-hee...
    Won’t Susan be surprised when she opens this one! The cat of Christmas present…hee-hee…
    Is this a good place for this one? Why do you have to hang on my head?
    Is this a good place for this one? Why do you have to hang on my head?
    "Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night."
    “Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.”

  • Waltzing with a Loon to the Tune of a Whippoorwill

    Moondance 1Henry’s loon waltzed into the room laughing
    laughing laughing at the phony moon
    rising over the pond-like screen
    laughing at Henry, at me, and at you too
    who scorned the whippoorwilled
    who loon-waltzed our way across the fall season

    who tweeted twitted twisted and tallyhoed on
    but what stilled the waters the antithesis of laughter
    came the calm call of the whippoorwill
    calling up to the ballooning moon
    to Henry, Huck, Hank, and all of us who
    waltzing across a lightbox screen

    click click click the path of the reen
    and fail to see the turn of the season
    while flashes YouTube and you too
    laughing laughing laughing
    at the simple simple single moon
    who waltzes with the whippoorwill

    to the epizeuxises of the whippoorwill
    the yoke on me preening for the screening
    in a full no half no quarter no moon
    in the turning turning turning of the seasons
    as the lone loon laughs
    at Henry, Huck, Hank, me, and you too

    yes at you too you too you too
    whistles the only whippoorwill
    as the moon falls fades the laugh
    and across the pond fills the screen
    white going going gone the season
    of the wry loon waltzing with the moon

    with the dry improbably wry moon
    then on the far shore you too
    out of rhyme out of sync out of season
    running running running for the whippoorwill
    and across the pond comes a single scream
    that echoes epizootically laughing

    out of season the waltzing singing loon
    laughing woo hoo! woo hoo! woo hoo!
    the poor loon waltz in a pale fall screen