Winter Nights Enlarge

Now Winter Nights Enlarge
by Thomas Campion


Now winter nights enlarge
This number of their hours;
And clouds their storms discharge
Upon the airy towers.
Let now the chimneys blaze
And cups o'erflow with wine,
Let well-tuned words amaze
With harmony divine.
Now yellow waxen lights
Shall wait on honey love
While youthful revels, masques, and courtly sights
Sleep's leaden spells remove.

This time doth well dispense
With lovers' long discourse;
Much speech hath some defense,
Though beauty no remorse.
All do not all things well:
Some measures comely tread,
Some knotted riddles tell,
Some poems smoothly read.
The summer hath his joys,
And winter his delights;
Though love and all his pleasures are but toys
They shorten tedious nights.

The Danger Of Writing Defiant Verse..Dorothy Parker

The Danger Of Writing Defiant Verse
BY
Dorothy Parker

Buy Parker's Poetic Works


And now I have another lad!
No longer need you tell
How all my nights are slow and sad
For loving you too well.

His ways are not your wicked ways,
He's not the like of you.
He treads his path of reckoned days,
A sober man, and true.

They'll never see him in the town,
Another on his knee.
He'd cut his laden orchards down,
If that would pleasure me.

He'd give his blood to paint my lips
If I should wish them red.
He prays to touch my finger-tips
Or stroke my prideful head.

He never weaves a glinting lie,
Or brags the hearts he'll keep.
I have forgotten how to sigh-
Remembered how to sleep.

He's none to kiss away my mind-
A slower way is his.
Oh, Lord! On reading this, I find
A silly lot he is.

Bloggers Block

Incase you hadn't noticed....I've got a real case of blogger's block. I did what I usually do and roam around the internet reading other blogs to get inspired. That usually works. One little sentence or even a cooking recipe can jog my memory into something that happened to me.

Usually a good tool but not lately. Making sure I am politically correct leaves very little room for imagination. I don't feel that I go out of my way to offend, but I do. Someone will find something offensive about anything. They usually tell me in my comments section which is what I encourage.

I've been called on the carpet recently on something I didn't write, and made the appropriate acknowledgements to the Los Angeles Times. But that wasn't good enough. Apparently I must do a maya culpa and fall on my sword simply because I found this particular article interesting.

The week before that I posted the "Get Over Yourself" article and that was written by me and found more folks agreeing than disagreeing. But there is always the exception....for that benign article as well.

You can't please everyone all of the time...that is a given. You can't control what your readers will say in response to one thing or another. Yet blogging has become more and more restrictive. You now must police your readership and call them on something utterly childish or insensitive in their beliefs.

I wholeheartedly agree that if something gets out of hand and personalities are trod upon "call the offender on it". I did do that, but feel too much like a school marm disciplining rather than teaching. What a bloody waste of time. "IF you can't behave you can't come to my sight anymore". huh...we are all adults, why not act like one.

Misunderstandings are at the crux of these petty outbursts. Either make yourself perfectly clear in your article or you invite this type of squabbling, and time consuming making nice. I don't make nice too often, I rather use the 'delete' button and get on with it.

Think about it....you are talking to perfect strangers, so why wouldn't objections be raised? Take care of it, clarify yourself and if that does not satisfy click, click and they are gone.

Don't get me wrong...there is always room for improvement. There are acceptable ways of voicing your opposition without becoming a shrew spewing personal attacks. Let's grow up! Writer and reader alike.

Although I began by stating my blogger block I will close with the idea that this has become more of a burdon than a relaxation excercise. Careful, careful careful you just may have stepped on someone's toes.

Drive carefully, dress warm, and don't forget your umbrella.RD

Biscuits for Shelter Dogs

Biscuits for Shelter Dogs
Posted by Janine Allen at Wednesday, January 13th, 2010.



We all have had to make budget cuts in recent times. Here’s a way for dog owners to help shelter dogs without having to reach further into their pockets.

Barkin Doggie Biscuits will donate an equal amount of dog biscuits to a shelter for every amount of biscuits that you order. Check out their three delicious choices of fresh mint, pumpkin and peanut butter. A nice way to share the wealth with puppies less fortunate than your own.

Rescue Me Dog commends any organization or individual who helps make the lives of shelter dogs a little more comfortable.



WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE? You can, as long as you include the following, complete statement and a link back to the original article:

http://rescuemedog.org/dog-blog/biscuits-shelter-dogs/

Written by Janine Allen CPDT, Rescue Me Dog's professional dog trainer. Janine's passion is working with people and their dogs. She provides demonstrations for those who have adopted shelter dogs, lends email support to adopted dog owners that need information beyond our Training Support Pages, and aids shelter staff and volunteers in understanding dog behavior to increase their adoptability. Copyright 2010 Rescue Me Dog; www.rescuemedog.org

The Sleeping Mind

THE SLEEPING MIND

Come wander through my sleeping mind

See what treasures you might find.

Memories of so long ago

A pristine world clad in pure snow.

A voice that rang with lovely song

That spoke of love when I was young.

Bypass the long dark corridor;

Look not beyond the painted door.;

For there waits agony and pain.

These are the demons in my brain.

I cry aloud for God to hear

And ease the torment that I fear.

Why did such evil come to me?

I was blinded and could not see

Satan waiting in dark disguise

Laughing as he bespoke his lies.

The doors of Hell were opened wide;

When God at last came to my side.

With God's help my demons were banished.

Satan and his cohorts all vanished.

I was free to fulfill at last

God's plan for me which was vast.

To write the words that set man free;

To live in peace and harmony.

~Florence Picciotti

Get Over Yourself.

Here it is....the first day of the brand new year 2010. Isn't it great to type out these numbers? So easy. I respond on some inner level to 'even' numbers. I like them,I always choose them although I've never won the lottery with them they give me comfort. That is how I feel about the upcoming year. Not ridiculously over the top but I do see some light at the end of this tunnel.

Keep this in mind "Fool! The Ideal is in thyself, the impediment too is in thyself: thy Condition is but the stuff thou art to shape that same Ideal out of: what matters whether such stuff be of this sort or that, so the Form thou give it be heroic, be poetic? O thou that pinest in the imprisonment of the Actual, and criest bitterly to the gods for a kingdom wherein to rule and create, know this of a truth: the thing thou seekest is already with thee, ‘here or nowhere,’ couldst thou only see!"
— Thomas Carlyle (Sartor Resartus)

Ain't that just the truth. The adult pout is out. Each and every situation I have ever written about and you have experienced mentions at length the negative. And why not .... that is so much more entertaining, amusing or companion to the written word. The lesson learned....not so earth shattering. If nothing else it broadcasts to everyone your narrow mindedness, your shallowness to ignore the obvious.

I speak from years and years of experience. And the statement "it could'a been worse " is just as bad. The telling of the tale should be spontaneous, off the cuff and with appropriate humor as well. The contrived, researched tale told as truth and spontaneous fools no one. It resembles a sophomoric book report that you are passing off as real life.

The pout is out.....means that we must make a 180 degree turn and an earnest search for that crumb of information that may ultimately light up someone Else's light bulb. Perhaps something can be gained when you are told this flight is totally booked and you find out later it crashed in the Rockies.

Doing for others, not always humans, gives us much satisfaction, subject material, and insight into human nature. The enemy in my eyes is the social networking epidemic of the unadulterated me, me generation. Here is the forum where you can talk about yourself til kingdom come.

Initially you pull readers in but slowly but surely they go on to the next messiah, inventor, sage. And why not? You bored them to death.

Come on....it is the fresh start of the new year and its time to get over yourself. RD