I never indulge in rhyme or stanza unless I’m in bed with the influenza. -Quintus Ennius
Four flat tires
and the lights went out
The body simmered and stewed
but was still cold
There was no easy breathing
or ‘life is but a dream’
A squirrel in the tree outside my window
showed me all the things I couldn’t do
______Colleen Redman / Poets and Storytellers United
1. Give me a break or a smash hit?
2. I’m the kind of person who wishes they put crossword puzzle books in hotel rooms instead of bibles.
3. “Inside the word ’emergency’ is ’emerge’; from an emergency new things come forth. The old certainties are crumbling fast, but danger and possibility are sisters.” ―Rebecca Solnit
4. How Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is helping doctors understand long COVID with Dr. Lucinda Bateman: “It’s a clinical diagnosis, it’s considered a post-viral syndrome… the presentation is defined by severely impaired function and inability to maintain activity without illness relapse. That’s called post-exertional malaise. And those are the hallmarks and symptoms of CFS, along with the core symptoms of cognitive impairment and disordered sleep, sometimes pain… More HERE.
5. Joe calls me a Sleep doula. I recently realized the amount of time I’ve spent rubbing backs to help others fall asleep, my sons when they were little, my grandsons and Joe, but as a long long hauler, I have disordered sleep myself (see above).
6. I hear you say, “lazy” / when you learn my secret ambition / is to find a couch and lie on it / My secret symptom of modern perversion / like Agent Orange or Gulf War Syndrome / IT’S ALL IN YOUR HEAD / Tell that to the babies with no limbs / to the vaccine injured kids / Tell that to the mercury in my mouth / or the hormone fed antibiotic filled mad cows… – excerpt of CFS Poem from the early 90s.
7. Break out, break down, break up or break through?
8. Tap or Pat?
9. It’s a trilogy! Coming Soon: Poems from the Dark Room, my third book of poems in a series is a retrieving and integration of coded memories, a proof of concept retrospective show, held to the light, poem by poem. It’s a poetry memoir and travelogue of aging that delves into personal and universal themes where depth psychology and death mythology meet.
10. It might have started when I was four-years old / when my father read The Snow Queen to me / He never finished the story / about a sister in search of her brother / Her red shoes floated down the river / I’ve been looking for them ever since / Vertigo is not an Alfred Hitchcock thriller / Not as bad as a glass shard lodged in your eye / It’s more like trying to stay warm in the cold / while searching for ways to describe snow… Read VERTIGO in its entirety HERE.
11. This was also the first year that I wasn’t covering the Halloween Costume Party and taking pictures for a photo spread for the local paper. So I was free to enter the costume party contest for the first time. We entered as a duo. I had to work on getting Joe to save his psychedelic bellbottoms for the party. He thinks they’ll make good yoga pants and might show up in them sometime soon at the grocery store… More from My KIND of Halloween HERE.
12. “The idea of God is an absolutely necessary psychological function of an irrational nature, which has nothing whatever to do with the question of God’s existence. The human intellect can never answer this question, still less give any proof of God. Moreover, such proof is superfluous, for the idea of an all-powerful divine Being is present everywhere, unconsciously if not consciously, because it is an archetype.” Carl Jung
13. “Pain that is not transformed is transferred.” ―Richard Rohr
___________Thirteen Thursday
The Big Lebowski was there (on the left).
For more than 20 Halloweens Joe and I have been dancing to The KIND at the Pine Tavern Restaurant, but it was recently sold to members of a revival church and, sadly, our KIND at the Pine days are over. The traditional KIND Halloween Costume Party happened this year at the Milk Parlour, a live music venue and bar on Draper Road in Blacksburg.
The KIND always draws an enthusiastic dance crowd who dance and sing along to the mostly Grateful Dead songs played. There was a small contingency of Floyd folks who drove the 40 minutes for the fun. We also met some interesting ghouls and made a few new friends. One guy came up to me and said, “I didn’t marry you, but I love you.”
This was also the first year that I wasn’t covering the Halloween Costume Party and taking pictures for a photo spread for the local paper. So I was free to enter the costume party for the first time.
We entered as a duo. I had to work on getting Joe to save his psychedelic bellbottoms for the party. He thinks they’ll make good yoga pants and might show up in them sometime soon at the grocery store.
The prizes were big, starting at $100 dollars. We didn’t win but I think our friend Ash won something as Charlie Chapman.
He calls himself “Black Waldo.”
The Scoobie Doo gang was also a band. They picked up some instruments and played.
Joe never met a stranger or an Avatar Air Bender that he didn’t like.
I hope everyone’s enjoying Halloweeeen!
My mind is a blizzard in a snow globe
The drifts pile up
Sometimes they lean to one side
The leaks are inevitable
when they melt
I bump into door frames
and hold on to walls
I avoid unplanned moves
Crash but don’t fall
It probably started when I fainted
and hit my head on the gym floor
It knocked out my pigment
and set the stage for darkness
when I was thirteen-years old
The doctor told me
‘people pay a lot of money
for a white streak like that’
but I missed my brown eyebrow
and sunscreen caused my face to swell
Sometimes the mix-up
helps me speak like a poet
when words come in dizzying display
They land in unexpected order
like square pegs don’t fit in round holes
It might have started when I was four-years old
when my father read The Snow Queen to me
He never finished the story
about a sister in search of her brother
Her red shoes floated down the river
I’ve been looking for them ever since
Vertigo is not an Alfred Hitchcock thriller
Not as bad as a glass shard lodged in your eye
It’s more like trying to stay warm in the cold
while searching for ways to describe snow
______Colleen Redman / Poets and Storytellers United
1. The picture above is my camera’s version of a butt dial.
2. Joe and I broke a record this weekend by going to Dogtown Roadhouse to dance two nights in row. First, we saw the Chris Timbers Band and then the Seedpickers. In describing Chris Timbers to Joe after listening to some videos on youtube, I said, “He kind of sounds like Big Head Todd.”
3. Sure enough, they played a Big Head Todd song. They also played Free Fallin, one of my favorite Tom Petty songs, along with some originals.
4. I think it’s no secret that I like rock and roll more than bluegrass. The Grateful Dead song that the Seedpickers did was worth the price of admission.
5. You’ve heard of a trail name? Well, Post Malone (Austin Post) got his stage name from a rap name generator. I looked up mine and it said my rap name was Lil’ Suga Lips!
6. Baggy or saggy?
7. Somber or sober?
7. Talking About Death Won’t Kill You. Last week I went to a death café, hosted by the Blue Ridge Green Burial to share ideas, fears, experiences and to discuss legal details and spiritual and philosophical issues around death. I was there for just a short time when I said to myself, ‘these are my kind of people.’
8. “Instead of “nana,” I should have been called “gaga” because I was crazy about those little grandboys. With two sons and then two grandsons who are now teenagers, I’ve had to experience empty nest syndrome twice!
9. But the music dates weren’t over after two nights a Dogtown. On Sunday, we biked on the Blue Ridge Parkway and had lunch in the Villa Appalaccia, where we enjoyed the music of Max Embers, a 2021 American Idol contestant who made it to the last twenty-something competing performers.
10. Max performed Free Fallin’ too.
11. Joe sang Brown-eyed girl to me and we danced to Max’s rendition of Tennessee Whiskey, which one of the bands at Dogtown (can’t remember which one) also did. The song confused me because it sounds exactly like Etta James’s I’d Rather Go Blind that Leon Russel and Rod Stewart both recorded in the 70s, but the new version had different lyrics. Also, both songs have the line “I’d rather go blind” in them.
12. A New Venue: From Outer Space to a warmer place HERE. Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree on the soapbox at the Floydfest Poetree where my poet friends and I once upon a time read poetry. HERE.
13. “You gotta resurrect the deep pain with you and give it a place to live that’s not within your body. Let it live in art. Let it live in writing. Let it live in music. Let it be devoured by building brighter connections. Your body is not a coffin for pain to be buried in. Put is somewhere else.” Ehime Ora
___________Thirteen Thursday
This is the soapbox at the Floydfest Poetree that my poet friends and I once upon a time read poetry on. See HERE.
One of these things is not like the other. See HERE.
A Floydfest sentiment.
Joe helped to build the Pink Floyd stage in the Beer Garden, which included some repurposed lumber that came from a Salem roller coaster.
When he helped build this hut in the festival’s Global Village it had a thatched roof!
So many good memories to look back on.
We don’t seem to be able to bike on the Parkway without stopping at the 20-year Floydfest site, which is scheduled to move to next year.
Check out my Floydfest blog posts and Floyd Press stories over the years HERE.
An upside-down parasol of pink
A sleeping eyelid
waiting to blink
From bashful to bold
it flutters open and closed
and sometimes it turns
the other cheek
____________Colleen Redman / Poets and Storytellers United
1. It’s that time of year where we live on the scenic Blue Ridge Parkway, which means tourists enjoying the fall foliage and apple picking, a yearly tradition for Joe and I.
2. Apple picking sacrament /is the irony of Eden / The body and blood / of holy communion / Fruit of her womb / round red blessings / I’m humbled in the presence / of Eve’s holy host. – poem written sometime during the ‘90s.
3. Apples played a part in Joe’s and my first meeting. See HERE.
4. I presented Joe with a poem at our wedding at the Saddle Overlook. He presented me with an apple that I proceeded to ceremoniously eat. See HERE.
5. I often personify “poetry” in my poems, and by “poetry” I mean an elusive entity that, like with dreams, is an extension of self. When I write about writing poetry I’m expressing my desire to be rejoined with the encoded part of myself and the with work I was made to do, for which I have no blueprint.
6. This year’s stash.
7. But then went back the next day with Joe’s hiking pack and found the Red Delicious tree. After years of not producing, it was overflowing with bounty. It was the best year for apples in general that we have seen in a very long time.
8. The yearly apple picking is usually topped off with the watching of the sunset, as it was this year. See HERE.
9. When our eyes become / adjusted to darkness / we call ourselves poets / The ones who stand / too close to the speakers / listening for the hum / of the world’s forgotten song / We wait for falling stars / to burn in our laps / for dread to pass / and time to stop… Read When We Wait More Than We Write in its entirety HERE.
10. THIS is not supper for The Three Bears. It’s Liam and Joe’s regular camp ramen with buffalo jerky. The hot noodles went well with popcorn that was popped over the open fire… More on Rock Castle Camp-out HERE.
11. Joe call this picture “Highway to Heaven.”
12. Harvest Moon shopping list for apple crisp: raisins, honey, oatmeal, pecans and walnuts, pastry flour and eggs. Our hens have stopped laying.
13. “Time never challenged the Indian or worked against him. Time was for silently marking the passing of season. It was a thing to be enjoyed.” -Tim Giago
__________Thirteen Thursday
We gave Hopa Joe the camp name “Camp Champ” because he was the most experienced hiker/camper of us and because he got the whole camp-out going.
Liam helped Joe put up the tents.
This is not porridge for The Three Bears. It’s Liam and Joe’s regular camp ramen with buffalo jerky.
The hot noodles went well with popcorn that was popped over the open fire.
Some scary ghost stories got told. We got in our tents and sleeping bags at “hikers midnight,” which means 7 p.m. I read some of Tom Brown’s Tracker out loud to Liam until we all got tired.
Morning has broken with eggs, sausage, hot tea and nana’s special oatmeal.
Liam was our best firekeeper. He collected and burned a lot of bark when our newspaper supply got low.
He also helped wash the breakfast dishes.
While I hung out with my furry friend.
“Are you flying a kite?” I asked Joe. See HERE.
The last thing to come down was the hammock.
Joe laid our gear out in the sun to dry. He says he’s “one happy camper!”
