Books. Books. Books.

This week I bought a few (more) books on_the_cheap.

Gift for my 'friend'
Einstein on Race and Racism By Jerome, Fred/ Taylor

Gift for me~
Jean Auel's

1. The Clan of the Cave Bear
2. The Valley of Horses
3. The Mammoth Hunters
4. The Plains of Passage
5. The Shelters of Stone

Gift for my sister friend~ The Spirit of Haida -Bill Reid

Oblivion- By David Foster Wallace

My first life disappointment

Interesting how odors tap our early memories. This morning while uncapping a bottle of vanilla extract I traveled back to what was perhaps my first life disappointment.

Think I was five years old nosing through my mothers spices when my eyes settled on a brown bottle of vanilla extract. I removed the cap from the bottle, brought it to my little nostrils and they took in the most tempting aroma yet to be encountered in my short five years on this earth. I opened my mouth and greedily swallowed a good amount of the vanilla extract. The taste of bitterness my mouth experienced threw my entire existence into a state of shock and confusion.
I'm sure it was on that day that I had my first acquaintance with two emotions in the same moment....disappointment and bewilderment.

-Carol

Photo Synthesis

Photo Synthesis

Mother I am your blueprint bleeding purple
irises into a spirit bowl of moss.
Your lined face melding defining mine.
As we look into the camera our eyes frame
a portrait of our ancestors looking back in
time.
The shutter clicks flashing us blind and I
see my ancestors holding mirrors before my
face, offering me no wisdom.
We are a race, a line of voids coming to be
out of a thousand fragments of mirrors.
Cracks and missing parts, warps and chips,
reflections only partial, reflect us. A
thousand pieces wavering spaces in between,
inner flaws, shards, splinters, cutting,
grinding the edges of our souls defined by gash.

We are synthesized.


Carol Brown ©

---

Criticism received on Photo Synthesis.

Try using a synonym here and there. I sense there is real feeling behind it. For my tastes, take that as you may, it needs a little ironing. The first two lines seem awkward. I feel there are too many and it overloads my brain. The first line ends with the word "purple" which can be an adjective or noun. My brain goes into noun mode until the first word of the second line meets my eyes and I realise it should have been an adjective. Even if the line break was different to accommodate clarity I would still feel it has too many ideas in a bunch.

Again these are my two cents and maybe there's a reason I only have that much.

What I do in my own poetry when that happens is to add another phrase to give more space to the reader. Dilute it if you will.

Like this sort of...


Mother,
I am your blueprint bleeding irises,
as purple as an emperor's robe,
into a spirit bowl of moss.

There's a lot in this poem. I like it.

Heart Strings

Soupspoon spent every extra moment he had trying to learn the guitar, because Willa had once told him that "a woman's heart strings is di-rectly tied to the strings on a guitar."






From Walter Mosley's novel- RL's Dream