Psalm 61:1-4
1 Hear my cry, O God;
Attend to my prayer.
2 From the end of the earth I will cry to You,
When my heart is overwhelmed;
Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.
3 For You have been a shelter for me,
A strong tower from the enemy.
4 I will abide in Your tabernacle forever;
I will trust in the shelter of Your wings. Selah
See Psalm 61 NKJV.
Yondercast on UStream 004 – About “About”
I’ve been playing around with a live video website called ustream.tv. Here is the latest video I recorded there. Thanks to viewer PepperRadio for inspiring this episode by asking me to pronounce the word “about.” 
Three more videos available at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/yondercast
The Other Shoe
That poor kid. I wonder what he’s thinking right now!
Ever heard the phrase “waiting for the other shoe to drop?” Well, there’s a kid in my subdivision who is waiting for the other shoe to drop. Literally. It’s actually kinda funny. Here’s what happened:
My bedroom is on the third floor of my apartment building. In my opinion, it is the best room in the apartment. It catches the afternoon sun, has a good view of a neat piece of highway infrastructure called the Skyway, plus lets me see planes flying to and from the nearby airport. Occasionally I even see air force jets if I stick my hear out the window as soon as I hear them! Sure, my subdivision’s playground is right outside my window, but most of the time I can ignore the yells of playing children. Not a problem.
Well, today I had the window open because it’s been a warm day. My shoes got soaked the other evening during a rainy walk, so I had my mostly dry shoes in the window to dry out completely. The shoes were leaning against the screen. I was hoping that any breeze coming into my room would air out my shoes.
I was cleaning my room, when I heard the loud roar of a jet! I looked through my window, but I could not see it. A few minutes later, I heard it again, so I went to the window, yanked aside the screen and poked my head way out. I did not see the jet, but I did hear my right shoe hit the ground. And I did see a startled kid standing fifteen feet away, staring up at me.
As I left my window to retrieve my shoe, I heard the kid being asked by another kid, “Where did you get that?” He said something about it coming out of “that window.” When I got down to the sidewalk, the kid was holding my shoe in his hand. (Good thing it was dry by this time!) He mutely handed it to me, and didn’t say anything when I thanked him. When I got back to my room, I looked out the window, and the kid was still there, staring up at me. I laughed out loud. My, what must that kid be thinking? Was he waiting for the other shoe to drop? Was he waiting for something else to come flying out my window? He must think adults are very strange people.
Snack Man
The man who just refilled
the snack machines
at the bus terminal
is now standing at the
wide-open back doors of his van.
He is carefully cutting and flattening
his emptied cardboard boxes.
He is working neither slowly, nor quickly;
he is working at his happiest pace,
at the speed of pressed khakis and blue work-shirt.
Finally, he loads his dolly into the van,
shuts the doors
and departs.
He leaves a visible space.
Yondercast 032 – Poetry is Dangerous!
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/yondercast/~3/idLHqAlWiMw/yondercast032.mp3
Warning to New Listeners:
Some of you don’t like to be touched, even by a drop of rain.
Poems, stories and songs are a way of touching and being touched.
Therefore, some of you might want to leave. Nobody will laugh at you if you do.
Poems:
- Outside, Inside by Daniele Rossi
- For Better or For Worth by Phatty Matty
- Night Shift by Shane Shennan
Music:
- Danger to Wake You by Blake Morgan. Provided by music.mevio.com.
- Soulful Battle by Crush. Provided by music.mevio.com.
Thanks:
- Thanks to God for the compulsion to write strange poems.
- Thanks to my Muse for long and meaningful conversations.
that Dark
I don’t read a ton of poetry. I’ve got a nice-looking volume of selected Emily Dickinson poems, just sitting there. I thought I should start opening it up occasionally . . . and today I found a thought-provoking poem:
The feet of people walking home
With gayer sandals go -
The crocus – till she rises -
The vassal of the snow -
The lips at Hallelujah
Long years of practise bore -
Till bye and bye, these Bargemen
Walked – singing – on the shore
Pearls are the Diver’s farthings
Extorted form the sea -
Pinions – the Seraph’s wagon -
Pedestrian once – as we -
Night is the morning’s canvas -
Larceny – legacy -
Death – but our rapt attention
To immortality.
My figures fail to tell me
How far the village lies -
Whose peasants are the angels -
Whose cantons dot the skies -
My Classics vail their faces -
My faith that Dark adores -
Which from it’s solemn abbeys -
Such resurrection pours!
I like the last stanza especially. I think it’s talking about Heaven. Those three final lines are striking to me. She seems to be talking about how human intelligence and recorded knowledge can’t explain angels or heaven. But for her, not knowing (aka “that dark”) gives her room for faith.
Source: version 1 of “The feet of people walking home,” via Wikisource.)
We’ve Got a History
Here is some wonderful new strangeness! Three notes about this poem:
- The second stanza was composed to the drone of a floor-cleaning machine.
- This poem is the polar opposite to the sentiment of my Picnic Weather poem! Thank goodness!
- Since this poem has stanzas written for a female voice, I can’t read it on Yondercast all by my lonesome. Ladies, please apply to shane@yonderman.com. I would be ever so pleased.
Now, back to your irregularly scheduled poem, entitled “We’ve Got a History.”
[Female voice] When?
When, when, when, oh when?
When did you first know?
When did you first know that you had flown?
When did you first know that you had flown into love?
When did you first know that you had flown into love with me?
[Male voice] It was that bright day we flew across the ocean,
or it was the night we sailed the seven seas.
Or,
remember the endless frozen lake
on which we flew those gigantic kites?
Or,
remember the warm summer
we tamed those ferocious bees?
[Female voice] Oh, I remember.
I remember well.
Well, what was it about that ocean and those seas?
What was it about massive winter kites and becalmed honeybees?
What was it about me?
[Male voice] I remember you
never fearing your albatross wingspan;
you spread your wings and flew like a natural.
I remember you
never having too few sails;
you weren’t scared to throw up lots of canvas, even in a storm.
I remember you
never lacking for kite string;
when your kite reel spun to the end,
you just tied that end
to the beginning of a fresh reel.
[Female voice] And what about the bees?
[Male voice, rapidly] You were never stung.
[Male voice] Um, why did you fly into love with me?
[Female voice] Oh, I’ve always had a thing for
long-winded introverts with strange hobbies.
Night Shift
You want to know
why I do
that strange thing
I do?
Here’s why:
Walking home from work
late one night last fall,
Passing under the highway
named for the queen,
Using the temporary sidewalk
hastily thrown together for me,
Seeing construction workers
scurrying under harsh work lights,
I somehow recognized
the Joy of hard hats and work boots.
How could I possibly recognize
that?
I’ve never constructed a highway in my life!
I’ve never deconstructed a bridge.
I’ve never poured a sidewalk,
not even a single square of sidewalk.
But my brain knows
the adrenalin high of making stuff.
The inside of my brain knows bright work lights.
My brain remembers nighttime employment.
My brain understands the shift from
waiting-all-day
to sudden vigorous activity!
Since I automatically empathize
with the manic energy of concrete construction,
maybe
construction workers
understand my wild poetic energy.
And that’s why I leave recordings of poems
where constructions workers will find them.
Yondercast 031 – Check Your Messages
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/yondercast/~3/laYdk48MQTQ/yondercast031.mp3
This episode contains a poem about love and hope, a poem about running and freedom, a poem about rainy weather and relationships and a poem about nighttime birdsong and insomnia.
Poems
- The first poem is “Beautiful Ocean” by Phatty Matty.
- The second poem is “Running Free” by anonymous.
- The third poem is “Picnic Weather” by myself.
- The fourth poem is “Few” by myself.
Music
- The background music is “Maenam (Jami Sieber)” from “Music from Braid” by Sieber, Kammen, Fulton and Schatz. (This album contains music from video game Braid.) It is provided by Magnatune.
- The song between the third and the fourth poem is “Thanks” by All Mighty Whispers. It is provided by Mevio’s Music Alley.
- The song after the fourth poem is “Miniscule” by A Single Voice. It is provided by Mevio’s Music Alley.
Sound Effects
- The answering machine beep is answeringmachinetapes.wav by NoiseCollector. It is provided by the freesound project.
- The first answering machine snippet is pastorSteveSpeaking.wav by nicStage. It is provided by the freesound project.
- The second answering machine snippet is am beep.wav by NoiseCollector. It is provided by the freesound project.
Picnic Weather
Rainy day,
and here you stand,
picnic basket in your hand!
I’ll never get used to you
and your changing weather;
sometimes you’re too chilly for me,
but more often you are too warm, too humid,
too close for comfort.
Not that you are unusual;
I recognize that I’m the eccentric one,
the one who strangely embraces stasis.
(Some say my stasis is mere stagnation.)
Let me describe you,
as I’m not entirely sure
that you’re ever seen yourself
in mirrors unwarped by the weather.
You are brown-eyed blue-eyed green-eyed summer-eyed,
with some red-haired autumn-ness somewhere in your genes.
You are pale like winter, freckled with small, dark birds,
yet you smile like a long-awaited springtime rainshower.
Your tattoos are a breakneck slideshow of nature photographs;
your piercings change as rapidly as windblown pine needles.
So, that’s what you look like right now,
if you don’t like it, just wait five minutes.
I’ve taken to listening to the half-hourly forecast
whenever I’m wondering about you;
the radio’s weather reports
correspond directly
to the dramatic physical changes
in your appearance.
As for myself,
I have eyes like double-paned windows.
I have short hair like brown carpet.
I have skin of neutral wallpaper,
beige, no patterns,
and certainly no tattoos.
I smile like television.
My body art consists entirely of small, pink bandages.
I’ve always been like this.
So, excuse me
if I cannot see a future full of picnics for two.
My variety of optimism anticipates life staying stable;
I don’t invite climate change into my interior world.
I would need a change of clothes
if I picnicked with you
in this cold rain.
And it wouldn’t stop there;
you would probably want to
picnic next
in warm sunshine!
Picnicking with you,
out in all weathers,
would require
my body temperature
to rise or
drop
or at least fluctuate
by fractions of a degree.
Where in the world
would I find safety
if not in the constant temperature
my own body?