Another worthwhile blog post from my friend on personal finance: It All Started With a Handful of Powdered Drink Mix: Entrepreneurs See Opportunities Others Miss
Bonus: that post includes a stanza from the poem Opportunity by Walter Malone.
When two people converse
But always on the second’s turf,
How does the first know
Whether the second cares?
They conduct an experiment—
Be their own turf king,
Stop conversing until where
Changes, not when.
But what if all conversations
Between the first and the rest
Are because he initiates?
How can he know the problem wasn’t just him?
And so was born
An innocent experiment:
He shall begin no conversations
No not one.
The antisocial element
Is quite perverse,
But perhaps this verse
Will wipe away the tears
Should it prove that the problem is him.
© 2014 H.K. Longmore
Posted in poetry
Tagged communication, consequence, coping, counting the cost, frustrations, karma, law of restoration, poem, self reflection
It is meeting time.
Distracted by passers by,
Listen and observe.
I observe this one
Coming and going again.
The meeting goes on;
This one goes again.
My body soon shivers hard;
No explanation:
I’m indoors, it’s warm;
Winter has yet to strike here.
But still I shiver.
She returns once more,
A sweater now adorns her.
Shivering explained?
Posted in poetry
Tagged bliss and glad life, empathy, haiku, impressions, introspection, karma, law of restoration, Muse, poem
I am the sea:
You can count on me
To transfer gravitational energy
From the moon to your coastal property.
I am the ocean:
Strong currents flow
Beneath my surface, moving
Marine life faster along their route.
My currents
Influence the weather;
Sometimes to your delight,
Other times my influence is to your dismay.
I am the sea:
Bound only by the shore,
Each crashing wave wears rock away;
My rip currents pull your sand to me, day by day.
© 2014 H.K. Longmore
Two children meet on a beach;
For their sand shovels reach.
A castle they build,
With dreams it’s filled.
But the filling of the moat
They leave to the sea.
And the sea is pleased:
On the castle he dotes.
He reaches the moat with each high tide,
With each high tide, the moat is complete.
With each low, the heat competes
For the castle’s mastery.
Continue reading
Posted in poetry
Tagged bliss and glad life, commitment, communication, poem, relationships, resilience
My first book, Vain Imaginations, is now available on Smashwords. Several poems you may have read here are included, as well as several that I have not posted here.
Posted in Uncategorized
She has deliveries to make.
She rounds the cubicle walls,
Her voice lilting
As she greets each person.
Sometimes by name,
Others with a hello,
Always with excitement;
Her enthusiasm is evident.
I consider plugging in my headphones
So I’ll not know when she arrives;
But no, I know what to expect.
I choose to leave the clutter on the desk.
She enters my domain,
Not a word is spoken.
Gingerly she holds the booklet
Between two fingers:
I am a leper,
My disease flaking from me;
The fibers of the booklet
A transmissive medium.
She must minimize her contact
With that filthy rag
Lest she contract
What I have.
So I seek the doctor’s couch
In the spinning iron ore
Spread throughout the globe;
I inquire to find the prognosis.
But the diagnosis accurate
Comes from the heart;
It is as I presumed:
I am not a leper.
© 2014 H.K. Longmore
Darwin city skyline from East Point Reserve by Bidgee
If I were a high school English teacher, I’d have my students write a compare and contrast essay on the Hoodoo Guru’s song Tojo (lyrics) and Santa Never Made It Into Darwin by Bill Cate.
First I’d have them listen to Tojo, with a printed version of the lyrics in front of them, and write their initial impressions of the meaning. Then I’d play for them Santa Never Made It, with the lyrics to reference. Then I’d ask them:
The relative sizes of the United States, Cyclone Tracy and Typhoon Tip, the smallest and largest Pacific tropical storms recorded, respectively
Hideki Tojo
I’d award some bonus points to students who accurately describe who Tojo is; slightly less points for making a good guess. I would also possibly award various levels of bonus points for various levels of answering the question, “What would be required for a computer to understand either song?” It’s probably a good thing I’m not a high school English teacher: my students would have too much fun. Or I’d get fired for not following Common Core.
Meeting time in ten,
Processing ceramic-ly
What nature demands.
Mind is occupied
By blue and white striped candies
And red and purple.
Things and time pass by;
Level failed, I try once more.
How much time is left?
In panic I check;
Two minutes is all that’s left:
Skip some rituals.
© 2014 H.K. Longmore
Posted in poetry
Tagged candy crush saga, consequence, counting the cost, poem, punctuality, ritual, timing
Leftovers find their way
To a paper plate in the microwave;
The container finds itself
Filled with soapy water.
Peach looks good,
Though bruised.
Paring knife supplied
Leaves bruised flesh behind.
And I’m near ready to eat.
But lo! There in the sink,
Another’s bowl soaks,
Now with leftovers and peach flesh.
The choice seems simple:
Do nothing, and risk that this other
Gets her feelings distressed;
Or, wash and deliver it to her desk.
I choose the latter,
Not wanting to hurt her,
Not even in the most harmless way;
Bright and fresh and clean,
I bring the bowl her way.
But she’s not there.
I kindly place the bowl on her desk
And return, unlike a house-elf,
On my own two feet, to the lunchroom.
I hear her voice as I depart,
Turning, I see: several yards away, she saw me leave.
“No matter,” I think,
“She’ll see the bowl and know.”
Quest completed,
I’m now seated;
My mind begins
To haunt me again—
Exploring possible thought paths
She might have started down.
Racing, racing around in circles,
A frenzy stirred up inside:
Fearing her wrath,
Or a giant frown;
An injured porpoise, I see tail heterocercal
As HR pulls me aside to chide.
Oh, to have been that house-elf,
And snapped my fingers to avoid this bind.
“Silence! Let me eat in peace!”
I yell into the void in my mind.
© 2014 H.K. Longmore
Posted in poetry
Tagged consequence, heterocercal, leftovers, lunch, poem, relationships, self reflection, service
For me, the problem with starting a poem on WordPress is that if I don’t get time to complete it then, in the heat of the emotion, while the words are rattling around in my head, bouncing off my skull bones, it gets stuck in the Draft status for ages.
With several such poems over the last few months, I finally said, “This next one I’m finishing before I do something else.”
| Summer’s Tail… on Teepee Valves | |
 | Esther Longmore on Not In |
| The Impact of Therap… on Out to Lunch | |
| Summer’s Tail… on Teepee Valves | |
| Ow. | Henry Hurdles… on Teepee Valves |
What of Columbus?
unworthy of a federal holidaya despicable rascal. See this “article” on the oatmeal and this one on vox.com. I saw the oatmeal article last year. A friend who is a teacher shared it with me. The following is what I shared with her, and now with anyone open minded enough to not jump on the revisionist bandwagon without long contemplation and deep investigation.Vicki Jo Anderson, while researching many historical figures over the course of several years, discovered that
Of Columbus, Anderson writes:
Her source for the Columbus quotes is:
Columbus, Christopher. Letters to King Ferdinand & Queen Isabel 1496 Raccolta Collection. Raccolta di Documenti e Studi Pubblicati dalla R. Commissione Colombiana, pel Quarto Centenario dalla Scoperta dell’ America, Appendix Roma 1894, p. 270.
I am not saying by this that he never did anything bad, just that he may not have been as bad as recent history writers make him out to be.
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Posted in commentary, quotes
Tagged Christopher Columbus, Columbus Day, communication, Letters to King Ferdinand & Queen Isabel 1496 Raccolta Collection, misunderstanding, taking quotes out of context, Vicki Jo Anderson