Birds. Well, kinda sorta.

Weird Play-doh bird meets weird modelling clay bird.

I, um...

I think that maybe I need to get out more.

Yeah.

Afternoon Poems

Afternoon poems are different.
While nights speak of darkness
and warn of mornings
afternoons only know that they are hot
and lazy
and should have worn a hat.
Afternoon poems meander through the brain like old rivers
remembering old floods
but too trapped in yesterday to want
the rush of young foreign streams.
Afternoon songs are mumbled songs --
snatches of showtunes with teatime philosophy
and no more memorable
than a friendly round of Name That Tune.
Afternoon poems do nothing for the soul
and yet
when dusk brings on its shadows
and forebodings
watch the mind plead for just one small touch
of afternoon.

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I haven't been writing poetry for a while (got bored with myself, to be honest), but in honour of National Poetry Month I thought I'd pull up something from the notebook archives just for... well, I was going to say fun, but does this qualify as fun?

Maybe. I guess.

This one's part of a longer cycle called Life on the Small that, according to my notes, was written back in 2005. The rest of the poems in the group are uneven -- I'm being charitable there -- and from the style I can guess that I was writing at the patio table on a hot summer day. And, apparently, didn't bother to go back and tighten things up afterwards.

Ah well. There you go. The verbal equivalent of the five minute doodle you usually see here. If you're desperate for more of this (whatever this actually is), just hit the poems label below or on the sidebar.

Um... something in watercolour and Sharpie

I... dunno. It's colourful?

I had sat down to draw something but then decided I wasn't in the mood to doodle. Apparently I was in the mood to trace around paint splotches.

I really just don't know...

Happy Easter, I guess.

Last year's clematis leaves in pen and ink

Today's doodle was brought on by the Illustration Friday prompt fleeting. I suppose dead (so dead they're crispy) clematis leaves could be looked at as the leftovers of summer's fleeting memory. They could be, if a person wanted to go all Last Rose of Summer on the subject...

Me? I just like the lines, so I purposely kept this very simple (maybe too simple? It's almost an abstract, really).

That, plus (here comes the honesty part) the fact is that I don't have my Micron with me so I was using one of those new Sharpie nylon-tipped writing pens. Not a bad feel, actually, but a bit too thick for details unless you're working pretty big. Which I wasn't.

Enough typing, already...

Talisman in various pens

Today's rather silly doodle was brought on by the Illustration Friday prompt talisman. The original of this fellow (which is a plain, brown, crudely carved wooden... erm... thing?) lives in my purse, and has done for years.

It was given to me by an elementary school friend who was moving away. I'm not sure why she gave me that particular little gem -- it really is homely, and I don't think it had much meaning to either of us -- but for some reason it's stuck with me. It's gone from purse to purse over the years. Every time I switch to a different one, the wooden thing (should I think of it as a talisman from now on?) follows right along.

Is it good luck? No, not really. Would bad things happen if the talisman got lost somehow? Only in the sense that it would probably mean my purse is lost, too. Do I care whether I have it around or not? Not especially. I think at this point it's had a good run, is all, and there's no harm in the run continuing. Is there?

As you can see, I had a little help with today's weirdness. Max, who has spring in his brain and thinks he should be outside, killed some time by watching me doodle on the bed. He's... no help at all, really. He likes to chew on the pen caps, though, so I suppose that he at least gets some entertainment out of the process.

Oh, and in case anyone's wondering... the flamey whatsits on the doodle were done a la five-year-old entirely on purpose. Why? I don't know.

Same reason I have the talisman around, I guess.