famine in the land

the average American child forty years ago could create pictures in his head when reading a written story. That child could easily elaborate, with descriptive details, on that story.

today, an alarming number of young children cannot paint any picture with words when they read a written story. they have no imagination. they possess no skills, no tools, to translate or communicate that written word. 

it is this fact that has changed the way some generations in America now value, or value less, written creations... and the author is no longer valued as a contributor of culture, entertainment, or values. 

when asked what children want to become when they grow up, the category "author" is no longer mentioned. children mention careers they know nothing about, valuing those that they have heard are the highest paying professions. 

where are the dreamers?

where is the imagination? 

how can we engage a generation of video-addicted children to expand their minds to create visual pictures in their heads as they read a series of words on paper or screen? 

this is one of the most important under-reported stories in America today. we need to intervene, to mentor, to bring children back to a place where they can imagine, they can picture, where they can create a story within their minds from the words and sequence of words presented to them on a page.

we need to address the famine in the land. 

there are many pages, many books, many written stories... but until a child knows how to convert those words within these books into images that create pictures within, they will lack critical skills needed to be imaginative, productive, problem-solving innovators. 

without a vision, the people perish.

A Far Fine Country (the first paragraphs)

 

He sniffed the musky air, broke off the bark of a pine, and darted through the bushes...as if looking for it. A wail, from somewhere on the ridge to the right...the reverb echoed inside his soul. He slipped through the shrub-boulder maze, passing rusty-red rhododendron, to the rock ring before his canvas green tent. 

Distributing bark and twigs inside the ring...blowing one last length of light, tinder crumbling before the whisper-like wind threatened to cool the pit...suddenly a drizzle descended, a mist bathing him. And with it, the sounds of the forest deteriorated into discord. In this dissonance, his heart raced, his head pounded, and his frame stiffened.

But deep in the gray green forests of the gathering darkness, the presence lingered, ever elusive. And though the mountains and the sky melted into the night, the presence hid where no man could hide, between the realm of the known and the unknown...

A canopy of tears emptied from the leaves above, and the hiker wiped his face. The cascade of drops caught the last embers unprepared, and doused his hopes...the fire died, and another stepped in to where the shadowlands had been. There were eyes behind the pines, red bullets that pierced the night...

in the space above

 The Ukraine-Russia War, the advancement of recreational drone technology, and the awakening of a people to their basic human rights, threatens to bring domestic havoc to the landowners of America.

The concept of domestic American air ownership, which was defined by the Chicago Convention of 1944, insinuates that every landowner owns 500 feet above the land they own. In this decade, however, drone technology is being used by some corporate entities, to assess and investigate property, as well as deliver goods to and from that property. 

My involvement in this argument for and against the use of drones in this privately-owned space came about in the last decade when a number of real estate and insurance companies decided that inspection and analysis by drone should be the new methodology for more accurate information gathering. Several companies I knew were aggressively planning for a drone-filled tomorrow, with camera-equipped drones buzzing around targeted properties, with or without the landowner's knowledge. As one engaged in property photography, in contract with various entities, I found this assumption that drones would be acceptable, if not preferable, to any commercial operation, a human relations nightmare. In the land of the litigious, this thinking could bring more lawsuits that anyone could handle or afford. It reflects bad business practices, not to mention a complete ignorance of air rights. 

Yet today there are commercial firms using drone technology as a method of information gathering and analysis. Not the majority, but a minority. While it may be a good idea in some countries, or even some cities, in my part of the world, it is a profoundly bad idea. 

We are, it appears, still living in the formative stages of the concept of domestic residential air property rights. But with the technology becoming more pervasive, those who want to use drones to investigate private property, will push the limits of the fair use of air space. The more invasive, the more private landowners will push back. And the more they push back, the more difficult it will be to investigate private properties for use for information gathering requiring assessments and damage reports that other technology cannot provide at scale, nor in a specific time frame.

Knowing what I know, having interacted with thousands of landowners over the years, I have not yet met one individual who would be pleased with a drone flying close to their windows, doors, roof, and dogs...in the USA, that technology is liable to be destroyed by the more irritated owner. 

If I showed up at a property, without an appointment and a legally binding contract allowing me use of a drone in their air rights, to photograph a property for a client, would I be using common sense? Would I be producing better quality analysis with less irritation to the landowner? No, of course not. I would be stirring up a hornet's nest- figuratively...and maybe literally.

embracing the essential

 on this Thanksgiving Day in the states, it is refreshing to see a whirlwind of activity embracing the essential traditional, that is, the bare traditional. 

in baking, that means a soda bread with honey, buttermilk, and a healthy flour. in sourdough, it means a mix using the same recipe that sustained the adventurers who crossed over the mountains to the Yukon in the days of the Yukon Gold Rush.

and likewise, on this day, when i pull down a copy of the Collected Poems of Robert Service, the poetry i read is melodic and on an essential level. essential an ancient basic, with all the wholeness intended, with no additives.

because here in the states, in what promises to be a return, a chance for reform, the people have risen up against post-modernity, that dark and cynical philosophy that includes Orwellian government aiding and abetting the poisoning of her populace.

we demand to be free. free from chemicals in our food. free from genetically modified non-food products tainting our supermarket faire. free from mass produced. free to embrace locally produced meat, vegetables, and fruit. free from agricultural subsidies that compromise the health of the people of a nation.

on this Thanksgiving Day, in America, we declare our independence from accepting what has been forced on us, and embrace the essential, the unadulterated form of food, the ancient and sustaining, not the processed and poisoning.

creating a style

 at one point in my earthly existence, i was at a loss for words. no matter the effort, i could not express myself in standard, English sentences.

 on a page.

it was like PSTD for a Creative, the frustrating mess of this world invading my creative space and leaving me impotent. It was like having semantic constipation, I could squeeze out a phrase, a word, a series of poetic words, but no semantic flow that constitutes prose.

so i wrote poetry, that hyper-emotional, but terse, word-flow. some of it made sense. some of it, i will admit, made little sense. 

to express myself, i fought Shakespearean license, that habit of creating new words or words one never uses. unfortunately, like a good boy ignoring the chocolate fudge on the plate, i eventually gave in to the desire, and out came the good, the bad, and the poetic. 

when my world became more settled, and the semantic flow more normal, the prosaic and the poetic came out of the word grinder in a form i did not recognize...it smacked of prose with a serious dose of poetic. too much alliteration. assonance on steroids. rebelling against fifth grade grammar. streams of consciousness with more dots than morse code. i recognized it for what it consisted of- poetic fiction.

and while it is one of the styles i write in, it is not the complete image of my work, it is not the collected works, nor can it ever be. I cannot imagine millions of readers plowing through Finnegan's Wake (the book, not the song) or The Silmarillion. No, I don't envision a movement, since it is not ever an "easy read," but I would be tickled if it did produce more than one other such author, so the form is not so much an anomaly in this present age.

 

poetic fiction

from one of my current works of poetic fiction

pungent...this air, a drink of oncoming forest...pine needles, soggy leaves, and moss underfoot.... he climbed the ridge trail. a guttural wail, the reverb from the next ridge over...the taste of fear. what the deep meant to harm, echoed inside his soul...he trembled. slipping through the shrub-boulder maze, he passed rusty-brown rhododendron to the site of his waning fire.

a cool whisper settled over the pit, where the day's remnants crumbled, threatening to dissipate into the darkness. a fine drizzle descended, and the forest view deteriorated into discord. in this dissonance, his heart raced, his head pounded, his frame stiffened.

but deep in the gray-green woodlands of that gathering darkness, a presence lingered. and though the sky and mountains melted into the night, the presence hid where no man could hide, between the realm of the known and the unknown...

he sat in his blue canvas chair and stirred the embers. the breeze. capturing branches above, the drops caught the ashes, dousing his hopes. there would be no warm meal tonight. 

he glanced at his tent, his home away from home, his shelter from any storm. the fire dead, he contemplated a cold piece of chicken left over from the Y Mart. a new day starts tomorrow, he mumbled...

but once deep in the depths of the valley, another stepped in to where the shadowlands had been. eyes came from behind the pines, red bullets that pierced the night.... 

a dead-end world

it is ten o'clock...on a dead-end street

the tapered end of a dimly lit candle

the walls cold from so many centuries

and far too few torches in the night,

memories of the dead-end world.

the Shannon, with dark and lovely tongue

laps the rock-rimmed barriers below

her tourists tucked in their cozy little beds

their buses airing in their own open bays

and far too few figuring hours in the night,

no memories behind the yellowed doors.

 

a micro-second of time

the list blew away in the wind before the welcoming doors of the grocery...that crumpled paper blown across the berm…

the doors open to brown eyes. feminine. like looking into a cup of warm cocoa. a longing there. or maybe hurt. much as you desire to look away, you cannot, you must not. they do not stare, they pierce….and you must look, but your mind tells you to turn away…turn away. don’t get involved.

but it is…you feel it in your gut, the ache, the offense. the well. the tender-well. you touch more than a surface. you cannot look away, even if…but you do not want to. you see her…the tattered threads at the end of her left coat arm, the scraped lip, the eyes that open too wide but close to protect…because you are near her. she makes no move to look up. you can hear her breathing. you can feel her breath. like stale tuna. you want to look away. you want to escape, you want to find time again. where is time? it is nowhere. she is here and you cannot look away, because she is pleading. but the words are not words in her eyes. so you walk, and turn to look, but she is walking away.

….did i dream that...or did that just happen?

as night invites himself in, the lights dim, and you find yourself yawning in the mirror. you have bags under your eyes. my eyes. you notice the gray hair on your shoulder and wipe it off. time slows. you see beyond the mirror. you see the pools of her soul, then the figure walking away. you look deeply, like a full breath in and out. in the waking night. 

why can't i forget?

but as you lay down, curled up in blankets, all alone, you pray…because it is all you can do. somewhere in the distance, separated by space, not by time, is another figure awake in her bed…

in a microsecond of time.

Fancy a Fudge or a Fine Tea?

 The sophistication, the ambiance! Like a feathery soprano spreading her voice...and her slender figure...in a melody against the Steinway, she bedazzles!

You step foot across an imaginary threshold into a fantasy land thick with rose petals and exotic spices from the East, and signs in calligraphy tantalizing your tastebuds...

Spice of Siam...Blackberry Ambrosia...Mandalay Mint...

You have just entered the most exquisite specialty shoppe in town and your figurine...because she is delicate like a glass managerie...is making her way oh so slowly toward your presence.

She presents you with the scent of the day, the finest grade of tay..tea...you will ever lay eyes on.

No, no, her eyes say, ignore that pine tar soap over there on the counter, I have what you want, what you desire, what you crave...

“Our flavor of the day,” she pronounces.

She has a cup for my pleasure, and I gulp.

It is as tepid as a first date with your third cousin. I try to wash it down but it reminds me of a somebody's mouthwash.

She quickly produces a cup of what appears to be a puddle-swirl of reddish particles of an almost "Brazilian Cherry" color.

“Try this.”

With hints of rain forest...an aroma that could be anything from ground cherry wood to dyed fiberboard particles....

“It is a Sassafras substitute, cultivated and dug in the Amazon Rain Forest, with similar medicinal and herbal qualities. I am sure you will enjoy.”

I thought about the European fruit and herb tea section and migrated to the back, passing Miss Air Cloud, a thin blonde with hair like an eraser...hunting for something like Bilberry or Blackcurrent.

But it was nowhere in sight. Burdock, Bombay's Best, Basswood, but no Bilberry. "European" had apparently been replaced by teas starting with the letter “B.”

I thought I had lost her, this wafer-thin whisp.

“I have a new flavor,” she said, startling me like a hyena breaking wind. “It is over here.”

A him...a hint of fish and garlic...brushed by.

“Barberry?”

“It is a simple wild fruit flavor. I think you will enjoy it.”

I took the bag from her hand and turned it over and over…

“And this is from…”

“The Amazon Rain Forest- I believe.”

“Are you sure?”

She studied me like a protagonist would study a toilet bowl on a football field, but I turned my back and made a great fuss.

“Wait.”

She made her way to a little table with assorted fudge. Then, she presented me with a three towered arrangement of Strawberry Tart Fudge.

And suddenly, the thin waif reminded me of a long-lost love, and I took my treat outside into the street, devouring each morsel with delight...

our calling, our passion

 your man in the alcove today, his face into the wind, was there to sell enough books to make it worth the drive. They- that ubiquitous they- had convinced him to drive the two hours, promising a table and a marketer's tent to showcase his works to the hungry masses...hopefully hungry for a collection of historical works. His competition featured an active potter, creating a vase...a half dozen mostly fine, and a couple of fading, beauties, selling candles and candy...and various sellers of trinkets and more dubious treasures. 

but the crowd this day at the street festival was largely peopled by characters of short height, and sometimes shorter memory- children and old people. The children gravitated toward food, fun, and the fascinating, while the older folk did actually stop to talk with the kindly man selling word-pictures from the past. He lacked the comforts of the promised tent, which had gone to another event for children, but did retain a tiny table, just big enough for a dozen smaller books. 

we had a pleasant conversation about the nature of our mutual malady, this passion that compels us to wake at strange hours with strange arrangements of words. Some, like melodious gas in the middle of night, pass eventually, and allow us sleep. There are others that take hours from our slumber, and when we do sleep, we awake having been through more than a few turbulent, tumble dry cycles. 

though mutually feeling disheveled this Saturday morning, we shook hands, and i shuffled off for the theatre. Inside the inner sanctum, i once again marveled at the monstrosity they called "the stage," a piece surely from the "industrial revolution" that would be perfect for a Dickens play. 

students were displaying artwork in the back aisles of the theatre, yet no one else managed to push through the theatre doors. 

it was the same across the street at an actual art gallery. Beautiful paintings, with impressive composition. But no admirers.

a few stranglers wandered around the food truck corral, but more wandered around the marketing tents fiddling with trinkets. 

i returned to my vehicle thankful for the hours i spent in and off the sidewalks, but with a refreshing reminder of why most of my colleagues and i create. we do it because it is our calling, it is our passion. We, Christian creators, create because we reflect our creator. And the more we create, and in what we create, we hopefully, share that passion that comes from the heart of a loving God.

 

earthbound

the trouble with autumn...

when leaves fall, it is i who falls.

this gravity, this pungency,

here, confined to a purgatory,

i am earthbound.

i've scratches on my legs

endlessly applying lotion

as the flies come and go

their lives endlessly slow

i've no escape from the pattern.

i do what i don't want to do

i say what i don't want to say

i am still earthbound.

silence still

it is in the ears, this quiet so sharp it is tangible, 

like a gentle breeze without the whisper

it has presence without form, power without speech

an abyss without depth, space, or time

it keeps me company when i am alone

like the empty rocking chair beside the fire

as i watch the embers, it sits silently still

then slithers away from the fireplace grill.

grandma's roses

the whole house smelled musty

an acquired taste for a twelve-year-old boy.

it lingered even in the flower bed 

where thin limbs wore green gloves

and she cut you with her sarcastic wit

for they were supposed to be her roses

though all i saw was something 

half dried, half barely living

as if trying to find another breath.

they belonged in between the pages

in a book with velum paper

not the memory of a wide-eyed child. 

i come from a long line of storytellers

 i come from a long line of storytellers. our history has been passed down through family tales, accounts recalled from a relative, with a frequent aside added, like meat to the skeleton, to explain what the original may have lost. Frequently, little was lost because of the necessity to store it mentally. When one is repressed by a foreign occupier, that foreign censor, who sees his own culture as superior, may attempt to obliterate any hint of color, of personality, to the subject's speech, including an ancient language predating their own.

This is what happened to my people. Written histories were destroyed, burned. Oral histories, along with their accompanying stories, survived. And thrived. And those stories passed down one to another, relative to relative, until this day. 

In the company of a great uncle, a seanchaí, I drank in the stories, made them a picture memory, a word memory, and a written memory. His body lies buried in a cemetery now...but the storyteller's tales, those remains linger in my mind. 

it is why my own tales tend to echo an oral storyteller, and i may actually reject what fifth grade grammar asserts is kosher. I cannot make a sacrifice on the altar of that drivel, because storytelling cannot be reduced to what may have been grammatically pure to the elementary student, or his...or her...teacher.

if the story cannot be read aloud in a way that, combined with a good imagination, paints a picture within the reader's mind, then it cannot be called a story in the sense of one told by a storyteller. While the written word- that product from our time- may vary greatly in form- there is still a connection worldwide to the basic storyteller's story, and I intend to continue to use this style to take the reader to another place, another story.

why i do not write "more of the same"

for those who actually visit the more popular social media sites where alleged poets and alleged authors seek to domicile within the confines of their structure, you will notice that my fiction work does not appear there. it is not by accident, or by censorship, it is because i do not choose to market my work in forums that produce, or coddle, more of the same. For more of the same is dull, tedious, and does not move a reader looking for something different. it is not my intention to gather an audience from those who want this skeletal prose and poetry. it is my intention to clothe poetry and prose with the description needed for a richer, more vibrant picture within the reader's mind.

if you seek a fuller, richer vision in your head, then you understand what drives me. that expression should be as warm and cozy as a tale that has transported you to deepest Borneo while you drink your tea and munch on biscotti in the dead of winter. it should do what no video can do, it should reach emotions and intellect that a visual picture cannot produce. it is why my poet's brush can be more challenging to the 21st century reader...the latter a consumer of what is told to him rather than what he imagines. 

when my fiction is more reflective of my desired style, i tend to produce a poetic fiction, elements of the poetic weaving into the DNA of the structure. it is, if one is not accustomed to it, much more difficult to write than much of the pathetic ubiquity that passes as popular fiction today. unfortunately for those not seeking a richer experience, this poetic fiction may read like Latin, a mysterious language one might recognize in part, but have trouble translating. 

but, if you desire something deeper, something richer, something different, you may find my tales taking you to places that you can picture more clearly.

slides of childhood

 the fragrance of ripe apricots dangling in the breeze

the fragrance of fencing lathered with a sticky stain

the fragrance of walnut hulls, shells decaying in the sun

my tiger cat slipping through the gold, green, and brick

the golden orange flowers among Mars-red bark remnants

a tricycle stuck in the mud-hole by the Garbanzo bush

the sprinkler playing red rover red rover come on over

flip-flopping, flip-flopping, not soon to be stopping

until chores are finished and we pack our toys

the shores our distant cousins when we are not there

our forever friends when the waves come in

as ocean waves of sea salt kiss our foreheads

but will no one remember when i am gone?

Degradation comes to town- an update

In an attempt to understand the changes happening in my own community, I determined to discover who was behind the purchase of two of our largest local hotels by a firm that seemed- from rumors- to be associated with an Amish couple.

The rumors about this couple did not add up, as rumors often do not, so I determined to find the truth, for the sake of truth. But rumors are like stained glass windows- they may look good on the outside but behind that window may still lurk a shadowy set of figures, especially if the buyers hide under an LLC.

If we compare the process to discovering where the spider is on a web, each silk is traceable after a gentle misting. Like observer, I went back to trace the web, from silk to silk, until I could find the spider, the one behind the LLC.

It led me to conflicting information, to a business first, and then a residence. Someone, as the brilliance of the internet will sometimes show, had linked the couple to a nearby management chain and asserted via the wide world web that the spider was, in fact, neither Amish nor Mennonite, but simply an "English" venture to make money in Amish Country and other locations in the Midwest and Florida.

Further "facts" posted online by a government entity suggested that the same couple purchased both hotels on the same date, using the same address, but different LLC names and a different arrangement. The government records indicated that the previous owner re-purchased one of the properties a month later for $50,000, which certainly looks like a mistake, but could give credence to the couple being associated, or a principal, in a venture actually managing hotels rather than buying them.

The truth is that the couple behind the LLCs, having a name that is so common in their area, and is one also used in association with the hospitality management company, are so ubiquitous to the region that I would have to speak with them directly to really know. And that, perhaps, is the moral of this ordeal, for if you want the whole truth, there is no excuse but to speak directly with the one purchasing the property.

I did discover further that the purchasers of the two properties have listed their address as a location next door to a series of cottages and a house used as a hospitality location, one that has been established in that area for decades. That fact, and the fact that the contact's name for that venue appears to be the same, suggest that the purchasers of the two hotels, are actually the managers of that long-time business in Holmes County, Ohio. 

Update: December 24, 2025:

There are many using the positive economic association of the Holmes County phenomenon, the Amish-Mennonite economic boom, centered in the now most prosperous area of rural Ohio, as a way to market themselves. The entity that purchased the motel came in, remodeled the structure and made it into dozens of one-bedroom apartments, primarily for low-income individuals.

Instead of a group of people wanting to help a community, they came in with questionable business practices and unwanted crime.

It is a shadowy, troubling entity that has brought a level of wickedness to the community.

Recently, a now-single gentleman, who lost most of his income following a painful divorce, was forced to seek residence within this renovated building. The individual was subject to an onslaught of waves of marijuana smoke nightly travelling throughout his corridor, resulting in the man seeking treatment in an emergency room because he suffered from the toxic effects of the drug and the medicine that he was taking post-operative.  

Unfortunately, law enforcement, either unwilling or legally unable to do anything about the invasion, harassed this individual rather than attempt to eradicate the criminal elements from breaking the law within that complex.

This week, I have learned that the poor man has been able to get friends to move him out of town to another apartment complex, one with a reputable history, and better access to amenities, about a half hour away. It is troubling that it has come to this, for him, and for me. His experience exposes the degradation of this part of Ohio under a corrupt political system and equally corrupt business climate. This, in an area I came to some years ago, believing it still held the old Appalachian values it once championed, seems to be increasingly changing to aa place with no culture, no standards, and no future...being replaced by a sickness that leaves me and others nauseous and wondering if we too should pull up stakes and move. But when you have invested in a place, in a slice of a community, only to become aware that the slice now has evil on its borders, it makes you wonder if your future would be better built back in the heart of Appalachia, the last bastion of traditional America. 

  

going against the morass

sometimes, at sea's edge, you can see a mass of seaweed, covering all beneath...plopping back and forth with the current as if to say "you will never see it, even if you wanted to" considering the deeper regions so close to shore. as a child, it annoyed me, and now as an adult, the same is true when comparing it with what the tide has brought in to the same region in the poetic spaces of social media.

frankly, much of it looks the same, smells the same, and insinuates that all should be the same. i have rejected joining the massive stench, and would rather be a piece of driftwood cast upon the shore. if my poetry is raw but has a stark beauty, then i have surpassed the formulaic chaos that passes as contemporary poetry by those who profess to write it. 

what good is writing if it is pretentious? if it reads like a jumble from a psych ward patient? if it gives off the same kind of lingering whiff that machine-driven poetry gives? 

discordance has never resonated with an audience like rhythm, alliteration, and meaning have throughout the ages. no matter who or who does not read my poetic pieces, i refuse to produce a mass of debris that should be thrown out with the night's garbage.