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http://www.saunalahti.fi/msiivola/jan/index.html

THESE THINGS VARY

Breathing in, breathing out

Can be a sigh, a sneeze

A shout.

These things vary

By degrees

And breath

Persists… Read full post »

The grass grows green, turns brown.

The Sun goes up, goes down

In flaming orange, turquoise.

We live on.

No choice.

One more loop

Around the planetary chicken coop.

Expectations arise,

We try our best.

No surprise.

Novelties on a cosmic scale,

We shudder,… Read full post »

 The Norse god Thor was said to carry a hammer which he could throw with deadly accuracy from his place in the sky to kill or maim and the hammer would obediently spring back to his hand after the strike. Thor was invulnerable.

Those… Read full post »

Nature designed us to touch, see, smell and listen to the world full of objects and sounds and scents and sights. When the animals we now know as people learned to talk something strange happened. Touch and smell and sight could all be made out of… Read full post »

Alan Seeger, an American poet born in 1888 died in the First World War in 1916 fighting for France as a member of the Foreign Legion. His brother was the father of Pete Seeger, the American folk singer. Before he died he wrote a memorable poem which, ironically, was a… Read full post »

They call me Frank these days

And the name implies me many ways.

My character is blunt, somewhat unswerving.

My features rather crude, I am a creature

Of many parts, they say, unnerving

In random chaotic fashion. But, anyways,

I function.… Read full post »

LOVE POEM

An “L” alone is two lines

Joined at right angles.

Not much to see,

And, sounded, has the hum

Of a stalled electric motor.

An “O” is like an empty egg.

A simple shape

That turns… Read full post »

 There is, in the New York Times, a regular column under opinions dealing with various ethical and philosophical issues and I read it because I find myself very frequently disagreeing with the proposals and conclusions offered. There is a subsection to this wherein readers can con… Read full post »

A MESSAGE FROM YOUR CHRISTMAS RABBIT

A NEW ERA

We bunnies have been allocated a special place in the yearly schedule and have done well in that slot. That is why we have become disturbed in the inefficiencies in the manner of… Read full post »

Although the only unidentified flying objects I have ever personally encountered were in energetic arguments with my wife when her volatile temper was stimulated, lately there has been some rather strange testimony from believable sources that perhaps are worth consideration. If these p… Read full post »

George Orwell

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-in… Read full post »

Election time is fast approaching when the public is given the standard choice between incompetence and disaster. Much of the public has an adventurous turn of mind at the moment and seems tempted by disaster which, if nothing else, is bound to stimulate adrenalin… Read full post »

Having reached the age when most women are no longer physically attractive and most men are no longer physically competent we survivors must make do with the reasonable other capabilities and accomplishments granted living things who have managed to maintain existence through the hail… Read full post »

There’s a coffee shop down the block where I live. A greasy spoon, yeah, but the coffee’s OK. Scar, the guy who runs it has a red line down the left side of his cheek, a scar which is why everybody calls him… Read full post »

My thoughts, when fashioned into words,
Words which twist and interlock
And echo on themselves in rhyme and beat,
When sounded, ring like choruses of bells,
Or waves that swirl and separate and meet.

Words and thoughts, when married into form,
When joined and folded into shapes
Wherein… Read full post »

I happened on an arthropod,

A jointed legged fellow,

Who sang a tragic little song

Which ranged from shriek to bellow.

It glared at me with facet eyes.

It gnashed its sideways jaws.

More threatening, I=d say,

Than many mother-in -laws.… Read full post »

I live alone in a one-room apartment with a small attached kitchen and a bathroom with a shower. Alone except for my companion, Humphrey, who fell at my feet five years ago after being kidnapped from his home by… Read full post »

I graduated from Stuyvesant High School with an average sufficient to get me into CCNY – The City College of New York. The college had two branches, both in Manhattan. The downtown branch at 23^rd Street was a business college. My brother graduated… Read full post »

When the family first landed in Manhattan we stayed at an apartment in a brownstone on the south side of East 30^th Street just west of First Avenue. On the corner was a brewery and across First Avenue was the psychiatric division of Bellevue Hospital. In the… Read full post »

People seemed interested in my previous recollection of Brooklyn. Here is the first part of a continuation when my family made the move to Manhattan in 1937.

New York City before World War II was quite a different place from today. The Hispanic influence was relatively minor. There… Read full post »

As a man one is supposed to maintain both a stiff upper lip and an upright pisser to exhibit dignity and virtue and never admit one can cry. But the thoughts and dreams of not having Walt Kelly in a world desperately in need of someone… Read full post »

War is a very profitable enterprise requiring immense devotion and technical expertise and something that should be entered into with overwhelming caution for its final product is basically horrific tragedy. The faces shown by the New York Times are gut wrenching. These are you… Read full post »