And one more...

My poem "Oregon Morning" is featured at Strong Verse this week.

Publications

I now have four poems up at The Adroitly Placed Word, including audio for three of them. That's right, you can hear me reading my work out loud (no laughing please).

I also have two flashes in the current issue of Staccato, a print mag out of Athens, Georgia.

Dog Days

Dog Days

The day we went fishing was a good day.
Poles in hands, hats on heads, no shoes
to slow us down. We dropped our lines
into the water where shade fell
like cool air from an icehouse
and let the cicadas do the talking for us.
Our mothers knew better than to wait supper;
we knew better than to come home too long after dark
without fish for tomorrow’s breakfast.

Photo: Boys fishing in a bayou, taken by Mary Post Wolcott, June 1940.
Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division.

Finished Objects

What have I been knitting lately?

Long Stone's Journey into Day

My apologies to all my blogging friends who I haven't visited (or at leasted commented at) in a while. I had a kidney infection last week, along with chronic mid-level pain from a kidney stone. This Sunday, the pain become very suddenly acute, resulting in a trip to the ER.

5 1/2 hours, 1 IV, 1 CT scan, 1 X-ray, and an unknown quantity of painkillers later, I came home. I've had a lot of stones and this was right up there with the worst pain I've ever experienced. Conversely, the painkiller they gave me was the most ineffectual one I've ever had. And to top it off, they just kept giving me more and more of it instead of switching to something else.

The scans showed a 4 mm stone and not a darn thing they could do about it except manage the pain (which they weren't doing), so I decided to come on home where at least I could lay in agony in my own bed. The stone finally passed around midnight after one last brief hurrah of excruciating pain.

I'm still fairly knocked back by the whole ordeal. I feel as if I've been beaten up from the inside out. It took most of the day yesterday to emerge from the narcotic haze they'd put me in at the hospital while failing to make me 'comfortable'. I feel clear-headed today, but sore as hell and completely wrung out. I have no interest in writing, only a smallish interest in knitting, and an overwhelming urge to lay down and sleep, sleep, sleep.

I did take a picture of the boulder, but I'm not posting it because that would probably drive away the couple of people who still read my blog. Use your imaginations. Four millimeters is a decent size for something moving through a very, very tiny tube.

Back with knitting news and pics soon...

Dreaming at Midnight

Dream
Originally uploaded by Pumpkin Chief.

Midnight (tanka)

Mournful moment when
night becomes day becomes night
again as we stir
in our sleep dreaming the world
into reality’s guise

Randomness and (mostly) good news

Just when I needed it most, I got an acceptance. And not only that, but the piece was instantly published. You can read my flash Love is the Firmest Foundation, a flash told in four micros, at edifice Wrecked now.

My August flashathon has begun and it's off to a good start. Lots of participants and I even managed to write something today. Hooray!

The not-so-good news is that I'm still dealing with the kidney stone(s) as well as a probably kidney infection. But I've seen my doctor and got some meds, so hopefully this will all pass soon.

I've gotten a decent amount of knitting in while I've been sick. It helps to have something other than the pain to focus on. Emma's mermaid outfit is getting close to completion, and a surprise I'm working on for the girls is coming along slowly but surely. I finished my mom's socks and am making a couple of dishcloths to send along with them. I'll post pics when everything is done.