rain has been pounding texas, and although we are really to the northwest of where the worst flooding is, it's rained quite a bit here too. more than any may in our history, more than a usual annual rainfall. and in our town, the high dry flat plains, only a couple of inches make a huge difference, because we really have no sewers, no runoff system, no nothing.

i took a walk a couple of blocks down to the park where i usually go for my long walks at night. it was flooded - it's a playa, or a collector of water, but with a couple of inches, the park is almost entirely covered. dogs were treating it as if it were a lake, and dancing around the outside of the water. then, it started to rain more, and rain hard. i turned around and ran the two blocks back home in the rain; i'm a little wet now. one neighbor had fallen tree branches to deal with; we however had just a wet garage, and a badly flooded yard.

i've been working furiously on my poetry, but have run up against a block. haven't written one in about a day. i fell back into putting them in order; sometimes when i get a block, i just go and read ten or twenty of them, and i get inspired again. i'm always afraid my inspiration will run out, but in the big picture, that doesn't generally really stop me. i go a few days, and then it comes back. i can only hope it comes back again. lots of states need a complete makeover. i'm sick of reading the same old ones, and i just need to write a whole bunch more, so i can just push those out of the way.

one thing that means is that i often go about, in my life, with my head in other places. i try to conjure up the things that happened in those places, or even things that didn't happen, but could have happened. i am totally tied, sometimes, between the era in which i did most of my traveling, the seventies, and the kind of rainbow life of my fellow travelers, and the world as we know it now - a lot colder, more cruel, requiring more money at every turn. but i'll write about anything, anything at all, and sort it out later.

went out to tucson last weekend, memorial day weekend, for a memorial. in fact my cousins and some tucson musicians gathered for a memorial for a cousin of mine who died back in the fall. as a musician, he was an inspiration to many, and they had his fourth cd presented, offered at a table in a beer garden, where birds were enjoying the shade and one after another musician came and gave their testimony. finally i had my chance. they called all the cousins up and four of us played together, a beautiful and harmonious "make me a pallet" that i can still remember. i have a cousin and a sister who are professional musicians, or at least were, but i'm a little more on the amateur side of it; i play, i want to keep playing, and i'm grateful for the opportunity to play again, even for no money, on any stage. it may be part of paying one's dues, but, unlike my sister, i don't feel the requirement of having a good setup, before i start. i'll play almost anywhere.

with the rains here, and all over the southwest, things are looking dim for camping over the weekend. more storms are coming, even to cloudcroft, and the ground is saturated. i was about to pull out tents, sleeping bags, supplies, from the garage, but the garage has inches of water on it; i'll have to throw stuff away soon, and make an extra effort to lift things up again, away from the water. it's not pretty. cardboard that was meant for recycling is soaking it up, becoming heavy, and pretty soon it will fill with bugs. with the massive rains in the town, there is water in all the curbs, yards, parks, everywhere. and more is coming. it's a very wet spring, a constant deluge, an ongoing flood. and it doesn't seem to be abating much at all.

short stories

to pass the time

it's that glorious time of year when the kids still have school but i don't - so, ideally, i should be able to publish or at least get serious work done. i did publish one, e pluribus haiku, volume of 1000 poems, more about that later, and and on the way to republishing my original volume of stories, unloading. in fact four or five projects are almost done and could be published soon if i get on the ball. the remaining ones, however, may take a little more work to actually complete.

wild and glorious weather here, often cool, with unpredictable cloud formations passing over, combining, creating weather at any of three or four layers that we can see from the ground. i occasionally go outside and notice that even here, in the middle of the city, the air is so clear and blue that i'd be a fool to remain inside, and should simply figure out how to do my writing or computer work, whatever, out on the porch. other times it's so unpredictable we are left in confusion about how to proceed. a baseball game, for example, requires a kid to be dressed and ready forty-five minutes before the game, but once an enormous boomer was coming through right about that time. as we got to the field we saw big lightning cracking off in the distance; the game was already cancelled. once they see it, it's all over, i guess. but what i really want is for games to be cancelled only on tuesday nights, when i play bluegrass.

the laundry has gotten bad again; i call it mount kilamanlaundry, and i try to climb the pile at least enough to begin washing some of it and get it back in the house in a semi-clean state. this, endless coffee, and createspace are my new routine.

the extra dog found a home. she was our third, and she kept nipping at the others, the two dogs and three cats, who already own the place. she was nervous, and would spend her nights with her nose to the bottom of the closet door, waiting for the cats to be so foolish as to stick their little cat paws under the door, as they so often used to do. they, however, were not falling for it. it would be a long and restless, nervous night for my wife, who would often hold on to her leash even in her sleep, as she sat there intently focused on that crack at the bottom of the door.

planning on going to tucson soon. my cousin is having one more memorial, and folks are gathering there. looks like i'll see at least two cousins, and their wives, and that will be good; haven't seen many of them in a long time. the trip to tucson goes right through las cruces, and gets very scenic as it goes past geronimo's caves. more about that later also.

new story:
I Call Shotgun
enjoy! comments welcome, as usual!

poetry reading

part of the process of publicizing the new poetry book, e pluribus haiku 2015, involves going to all the weblogs and posting it. this year i have a poetry reading, and may publicize that as well, though i don't expect a whole lot of people to attend, outside of our own department and a few friends of friends who happen to teach and/or study italian, portuguese, german, spanish or french. these folks might be interested in haiku, and might be interested in american geography. chances are, they might be interested just to hear good performance poetry that combines the two, and if i'm lucky, i'll have a good time and learn some stuff.

absolutely stunning weather here, with clear blue skies, and cool nights, warm days, but for some reason, i've been feeling a sore back and walking like an ancient. my bones creak. my back hurts. i complain that this last third dog did it, but actually, just the totality of everything did it - four kids, three dogs, three cats, one with only one eye and huge sinus issues that makes you think she's about to die every minute. i'm glad i finally published the poetry edition (1000 haiku) because i've been working on it for years, to get it up to a thousand, and, though i envision working on / changing it every year to get a few hundred more, sometimes i just freeze up for months at a time and write absolutely nothing, and this could last for years, for all i know, which means that if i can possibly put forward a volume with a thousand, as i just did, this will be about the best i can do for a while, and hopefully will stand tall as something i did. while i was putting it together i noticed that the page, tlevs press, had over five thousand hits. Where'd that come from? apparently google just rates it high, as having stories, being genuine, sticking around for a while. i have a kind of stability. i don't know if it will translate to sales; i certainly hope so. and who knows what my own individual, personal, put-a-link-on-every-webpage marketing strategy will amount to.

with my sore back i just went to buy a gallon of milk and came straight home. but the town was hopping. it's almost time for finals, but people don't care about finals. they're out in force tonight: the weather's good, finals are three days away yet, they are afraid of being gone and/or working all summer, in short, it's time to get rowdy while one can, quickly, i suspect. meanwhile we've sold our house over a little closer to campus, and we have to do some serious moving, amongst the peaceful houses in this neighborhood, all six blocks, all that junk i was working on but unable to finish moving. some of it is supplies, camping supplies, other is just plain junk. maybe my back hurts because i'm still thinking about it.

the night settles on the wide west texas prairie. a kid is sleeping over in my son's room; they couldn't keep quiet, so i joined them. the girlies are down already. my wife, with the newest dog addition, is working on quieting down too. tomorrow is a soccer / baseball / groceries kind of day, but the weather will be beautiful, i'm sure, even though we're moving slowly but surely into the very hot season. not much dust this year. poetry reading coming. stay tuned!

e pluribus haiku 2015