Blog Entry, too, without rubber chickens

Write your words here.......>>>>> Blog entry, Too (A Musing Note, but no rubber chickens, seen or felt)
And for my next magical trick, I’ll write my second blog entry.

I have a file of Random Thoughts that I collect and I want to share them, a few at a time, with you, perhaps calling them Thoughts of the Moment (as opposed to Thoughts of the Day to avoid the interpretation of posting one per day). Here’s the first one on my list:

To age by distance, stepping each day in its turn... see the miles I've come ...

I like the image of measuring age by the amount of travel accomplished with each day being a single step and the thousands of days I’ve lived adding up to over 4 miles. (Hey... he’s old!) This is also a haiku poem, which is a form I enjoy utilizing. The three lines are in sets of 5-7-5 syllables, and while more traditional haiku have a reference to Nature, the mechanics are valid, even though I have it written across one line to diminish the poetical appearance.
Here's another 'Thought of the Moment":

Define your world by the dreams you pursue and let the smiles in your heart light your way.

I don't think I need to explain or add to that.

I’ll quote another ‘Thought of the Moment’ in my next posting, and try to limit such to one per posting, as I don’t want to run out (to the Thought Store to get more) too soon.


I have written three books in three styles. The first is an epic, 60 page poem, titled Record, about traveling through a strange and involved dream. The second is a collection of short stories which I have titled Making Sand or Zen and the Art of Foolishness. The third is a derivative of entries from my journals between 1975 and 1988 which is titled Endless Shifting Sand or Keeping Score in the Big One (ESS). This last is my most recent creative pride and joy and I (finally) finished the last of several rewrites a few weeks ago and am now looking for a publisher. It is in a new and strange style, an avant garde genre that is comprised of randomly offered surreal imagery, double-entendres, word plays, puns, references to eclectic subjects and factual occurrences from my life, all blended, mixed and mingled in a sort of stream of consciousness hodge-podge. The intent of the book is to entertain in these aspects rather than in story line, plot, character development or conflict and resolution. It is certainly not for everyone, but, for those people who enjoy the English language and its ability to be twisted upon itself, it is a wealth of entertainment. There is a reader’s group on Yahoo that deals with it. If you are interested in seeing what I, and others, have to say about this creative effort, the direct link is http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ESSReaders
Feel free to check it out and join if it interests you.
I will post some excerpts from ESS to show what I’m referring to. Wait here a moment, I’ll be write back...
Okay, I'm back... I hope you didn’t have to wait too long. Here’s a paragraph taken randomly from ESS:

Preterfluxive maunderings lose rigid patterns of slowing grid in awareness to a peek of perfection upon which I sit. The view is nice, but it's really too high up to focus on the story line. The odds for duration continue evenly, comfort is only a matter of (re)adjustment. How heavy can a thought weigh upon the brow (still out on the street) of late night wonder wander? I seek to key this spell of inaction and be freed to lock in tight when hands walk slower in the shadows, dark and steady on. I strain the mess to write in sense but am only washing away the grit and not the grime. A solitary candle lightly floats past the still sill, dressing the mood in a subtle touch of ambience among the cymbals, trumpets, silver sheened tubas, saxophone wielding belly-dancers, a twenty-one gun salute, the Overweight Catholic Bishop's Yodeling Club, five double-charged recoilless cannons and an impatient bellboy … anything for a little attention. I studiously ignore the parade so that they eventually exit up the chimney in a huff, clearing the air back to a steady calm, and leaving behind, to keep my ringing ears company, the crinkled whistling of several hidden crickets which had hopped out of the Bishop's voluminous robes, as well as the littered strew of sheet music, broken instruments, gouges in the floor, bullet shells, bullet holes, cannon shells, steaming craters, crumbling walls, piles of hymnals, rusty Bibles and the bellboy… ("What?... oh, excuse me… look, here's a quarter and that's all I've got, now go ring that thing somewhere else.") Bug off: the clocks in the surrounding area answer (the unspoken question) with an alarming enthusiasm that forces me to seek some (other kind of) peace and quiet in an entirely different line of subject… as usual.

Strange stuff, no? I enjoy the absurd, the unexpected, the disjointed and the word play punch line, such as the bellboy being told to ring somewhere else. I make sure to have specific, concrete details (thanks to Miss Swan, my High School English teacher) for the reader’s imagination to envision, thus putting him (mentally) in among the action. I did the same with my first blog entry with the references to travel scenery. Make it tactile, make it real, give the reader something to hold on to. ESS is full of such workings, as well as a variety of other literary vehicles, and I love taking them for a spin across the literary highways of imagination!

Today’s blog entry has been/is a somewhat more informative and less creative effort, but I am trying to lay some backgroundwork for those who are not familiar with me or my creations. I will endeavor to be more spontaneously creative and inventive next go ‘round.
Catch you on the later on.
Written by Michael Steven Platt 4-02-09