Poetry: New Year’s Eve by Jimmie A. Kepler

 

New Year’s Eve

The old year will end
Its days are spent
December ends
January begins
The fireworks explode
And the ball drops,
A new year begins.

People shout,
“Happy New Year”
They hug and kiss
Sing Robert Burn’s
Auld Lang Syne
And silently sigh

New York’s Time’s Square
Fills with a million fools
They party and drink
To get their kicks
And watch to see
If they’ll be on TV
And be seen by you and me
As we watch from home
Too afraid to roam
And be part of the crowd
That is way too loud,
But having nonstop fun.

Between when the sun
Disappeared in the west
We become a beast
And party till it appears in the east
And then go home.

And the champagne flowed
While you danced all night
Your head might hurt
She wore a skirt
And the evening was nice
You shared your dreams
And resolutions too
Would they come true?
Do they ever do?

But we hope anew
It’s the thing to do
I think of me and you
What did the kids do?
They can start anew
Like me and you
And all the others, too

We wait for the parades
With their floats of roses
Made to impress me and you
Yes, it is true
Get their moment on TV.

Then the reality sets in
Time to go to work again
To earn our wage
The cost of being alive
With our bills to pay
No money for play

But our resolutions say
We’ll lose weight
Avoid political debate
Change the world this year
Be kind to our favorite guy or girl
And remember God.

But the old year past
Its dye was cast
And resolutions and dreams
Long forgotten
But for regrets
And lost bets.

You stare at the mirror
Think of what will be
From the past you’ll flee
Others think you’re crazy

But you can achieve them
If you’re not lazy
Maybe a diploma in your hand
A brand new gal or man
Or a best-selling book
In the mirror you look
Think of what can be
And maybe in the future
You’ll see me.

© 2011 Jimmie A. Kepler
“New Year’s Eve” Originally appeared in the January 2012 issue of Poetry & Prose Magazine.

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Poetry Site of the Week: Short, Fast, and Deadly

Welcome to Short, Fast, and Deadly. An eLit Mag where brevity reigns and the loquacious are sent to contemplate their sins in the rejection bin. Don’t be afraid. Write Short. Write Fast. Above all, write Deadly. You’ll be fine.

Short, Fast, and Deadly is published by Joseph A. W. Quintela. Fresh kills are posted on the 19th of the month, ostensibly because 19 is a prime number that ends in nine, which happens to be the most beautiful single digit number, and it’s best not to argue with us on this one, okay? Great!

Think you have what it takes? Then send us prose written in 420 characters or less (Yes, that’s characters, not words). Otherwise, just brew a cup of coffee. Sit back. Enjoy the carnage. You won’t have to pay attention for long. We promise.

Submissions

PLEASE NOTE: GENERAL SUBMISSIONS ARE NOW OPEN

Read the guidelines at our new SUBMISHMASH page and remember…

Prose: 420 characters

Poetry: 140 characters

Or else.

Source: http://www.shortfastanddeadly.com/

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A New Year, a New Opportunity

A New Year, a New Opportunity

As 2011 concludes, we can reflect on what might have been and on what was. As 2012 waits to greet us in a few days, we face a new year, a new opportunity. Let me point out the obvious. Success or failure starts right here. One of the ways we succeed is by setting goals. If you set low goals, your achievements will be low. If you aim high, you’ll hit high marks. The following are general goal-setting principles:

1.       Consider your God-given talents.

Yes, you have God-given talents.  I know a man who loved reading and writing. He didn’t get get first book published until he was 40 years old. He went on to have over 40 books published and win the Pulitzer Prize – James Michener.

2.       Consider your God-given drive!

Major accomplishments and achievements do not always go to the most talented but to the one who is sure that he or she can! Remember the phrase – Think you can, thin you can’t, either way you are right. I want you to think you can and then go do try. You just might do it!

3.       Consider the challenges God has placed before you.

Achieving your goals won’t be easy. They may appear as difficulties and impossibilities. Only as you face the possibilities will you learn that they really are chances to do something productive, to help you become a bigger, more well rounded, better person than ever before.

4.       Begin where you are.

What is important is your mental attitude toward where you are right now. “There’s a way” you think — and you’ll realize that every difficulty is a call to some personal triumph, which is made up of two words: “try” and “umph.”

5.       Consider your God-given values.

Will this bring the best out of me and benefit others? Here’s a warning and a promise: True happiness and success will come only as you live by the values that God gives and that honor Him as you live them

6.       Consider the resources God has– not those He has given you, but the resources He has!

It’s been said that the true optimist is the person who plants a tree under which he will never sit or whose fruit he will never eat. Don’t try to do it on your own. Rely on God and His resources. And remember, you need to follow all six principles.

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A Personal Note: My 37th Wedding Anniversary.

This picture was taken in May 1974 at Miss Benita’s high school senior prom. I was a junior at the University of Texas at Arlington. I have known her since August 1970. She was in the 9th grade when I was in the 12th grade at DeSoto High School in DeSoto, Texas. She started attending my youth group at church August 1970. I asked her out for a date on Halloween 1972. We married December 28, 1974.  I dated most of her friends before dating her. Happy 37th Anniversary. Love you Jimmie.

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Poetry: The Holidays Are Gone by Jimmie A. Kepler

The Holidays Are Gone

Malls full of people, shopping now
Going their own way, credit cards in hand
Decorations hanging, red and green
The holidays have come and gone

Malls full of people, crowds never end
Blank stares on faces, in lines they stand
Displays in windows, people stop and stare
The holidays have come and gone

Long time ago, on Main Street downtown
Streets full of people throughout the land

Malls full of people, both young and old
Walk store to store, Christmas bonus in hand
Back in the mall, some dressed for show
The holidays have come and gone

Malls full of people, babies fast asleep
Mothers with latte, talk on the phone
Choirs sing carols, perform on demand
The holidays have come and gone

Long time ago, on Main Street downtown
Streets full of people throughout the land

Malls full of people, cold north winds blow
Some children crying, tired and it shows
The food courts are full, no table clean
The holidays have come and gone

Malls full of people, soon they’ll be gone
Exchanging gifts, sizes and colors wrong
Postman leaves bills, then goes away
The holidays have come and gone
Now the holidays are gone

© 2011 Jimmie Kepler

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A Christmas Carol: In Prose, A Ghost Story of Christmas by Charles Dickens (1843)

A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol is a novella by English author Charles Dickens first published by Chapman & Hall on 19 December 1843. The story tells of sour and stingy Ebenezer Scrooge’s ideological, ethical, and emotional transformation after the supernatural visits of Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come. The novella met with instant success and critical acclaim.

The book was written and published in early Victorian era Britain when it was experiencing a nostalgic interest in its forgotten Christmas traditions, and at the time when new customs such as the Christmas tree and greeting cards were being introduced. Dickens’ sources for the tale appear to be many and varied but are principally the humiliating experiences of his childhood, his sympathy for the poor, and various Christmas stories and fairy tales.

The tale has been viewed by critics like T.A. Jackson and Paul Benjamin Davis as an indictment of 19th-century industrial capitalism, and was adapted several times to the stage. It has been credited with restoring the holiday to one of merriment and festivity in Britain and America after a period of sobriety and sombreness. A Christmas Carol remains popular, has never been out of print, and has been adapted to film, opera, and other media.

Context

In the middle 19th century, a nostalgic interest in pre-Cromwell Christmas traditions swept Victorian England following the publications of Davies Gilbert’s Some Ancient Christmas Carols (1822), William B. Sandys’s Selection of Christmas Carols, Ancient and Modern (1833), and Thomas K. Hervey’s The Book of Christmas (1837). That interest was further stimulated by Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s German-born husband, who popularized the German Christmas tree in Britain after their marriage in 1841, the first Christmas card in 1843, and a revival in carol singing. Hervey’s study of Christmas customs attributed their passing to regrettable social change and the urbanization of England.

Dickens’ Carol was one of the greatest influences in rejuvenating the old Christmas traditions of England, but, while it brings to the reader images of light, joy, warmth and life, it also brings strong and unforgettable images of darkness, despair, coldness, sadness and death.[7] Scrooge himself is the embodiment of winter, and, just as winter is followed by spring and the renewal of life, so too is Scrooge’s cold, pinched heart restored to the innocent goodwill he had known in his childhood and youth.

Plot

Dickens divides the book into five chapters, which he labels “staves”, that is, “(song) stanzas” in keeping with the title of the book. (He uses a similar device in his next two Christmas books, titling the four divisions of The Chimes, “quarters”, after the quarter-hour tolling of clock chimes, and naming the parts of The Cricket on the Hearth “chirps”.)

The tale begins on a Christmas Eve in 1843 exactly seven years after the death of Ebenezer Scrooge’s business partner, Jacob Marley. Scrooge is established within the first stave as a greedy and stingy businessman who has no place in his life for kindness, compassion, charity or benevolence, rudely turning away two gentlemen who seek a donation from him. He hates Christmas, calling it “humbug”, and refuses his nephew Fred’s dinner invitation; his only “Christmas gift” is allowing his overworked, underpaid clerk Bob Cratchit Christmas Day off with pay (which he does only to keep with social custom, Scrooge considering it like being pickpocketed annually).

Returning home, Scrooge is visited by Marley’s ghost, who warns him to change his ways (lest he undergo the same miserable afterlife as himself). Scrooge is then visited by three additional ghosts – each in its turn, and each visit detailed in a separate stave – who accompany him to various scenes with the hope of achieving his transformation.

The first of the spirits, the Ghost of Christmas Past, takes Scrooge to Christmas scenes of his boyhood and youth, which stir the old miser’s gentle and tender side by reminding him of a time when he was more innocent. They also show what made Scrooge the miser that he is, and why he dislikes Christmas.

The second spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Present, takes Scrooge to several radically differing scenes (a joy-filled market of people buying the makings of Christmas dinner, the family feast of Scrooge’s near-impoverished clerk Bob Cratchit including his youngest son, Tiny Tim, who is seriously ill but cannot receive treatment due to Scrooge’s unwillingness to pay Cratchit a decent wage, a miner’s cottage, and a lighthouse, among other sites) in order to evince from the miser a sense of responsibility for his fellow man.

The third spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, harrows Scrooge with dire visions of the future if he does not learn and act upon what he has witnessed (including Tiny Tim’s death). Scrooge’s own neglected and untended grave is revealed, prompting the miser to aver that he will change his ways in hopes of changing these “shadows of what may be.”

In the fifth and final stave, Scrooge awakens on Christmas morning with joy and love in his heart, then spends the day with his nephew’s family after anonymously sending a prize turkey to the Cratchit home for Christmas dinner. Scrooge has become a different man overnight and now treats his fellow men with kindness, generosity and compassion, gaining a reputation as a man who embodies the spirit of Christmas. The story closes with the narrator confirming the validity, completeness and permanence of Scrooge’s transformation.

Sources: My knowledge of the book and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Christmas_Carol

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Poetry Site of the Week: Umbrella: A Journal of poetry and kindred prose

Umbrella: A Journal of poetry and kindred prose

Mission
Kate Bernadette Benedict, ed.

Invariably the poems I love best provide an intense focus. They zero in. It is as if a single aspect of human experience steps forward into a cone of light and speaks its soliloquy. Nothing extraneous interferes. One could speak of this focus in many terms, as distillation or alchemy or integrity; as a process of economizing, particularizing or even husbandry.

My pet term is the “umbrella idea.” I envision a protected zone where a poem’s premise moves forward unimpeded.

Does the term seem strange? The root of the word “umbrella” is “umbra,” Latin for shadow, and this would seem to oppose that other compelling concept, the cone of light. Yet it is vital for a poet to occupy the darker places, the mysterium of the unconscious, the mythic, undertow-like forces that inform our everyday lives. In the shelter of the umbrella idea, a poet may explore these shadowy areas, give them their due, and shine a different kind of light.

Like a parasol or “sunbrella,” the umbrella idea also provides a cone of cooling shade, where no matter how intensely heated the subject matter, one may write from a position of objectivity. One sees clearly, without blinding glare. “Strong emotion recollected in tranquility” is how Wordsworth described the process of writing poetry. The umbrella idea contains that tranquility.

Sometimes, too, the umbrella idea is like a child’s bumbershoot, useful when skipping through puddles. It is not always necessary to be capital S Serious, and it is seldom desirable to write in deadly earnest.

To sum up, Umbrella wishes to publish news of the underworld, with its passions, confusions and frights; it also welcomes irony, humor, wryness, outrageousness, crookedness, and unalloyed joy. Its core equation: Idea + Imagination x Craft = Lasting Poetry.

Do you write under the umbrella? Then I hope to publish your work.

Even if you do get published, it is still common to sell your work through a website, which will require some sort of merchant services business to handle the transactions for you. Something like Paypal or Flagship merchant services would work as they can handle credit card transactions for your purchases. This provides yet another way readers can feel like they are in direct contact with you!!

What is an Umbrella poem also like?

• It’s probably short, no more than a page or two.
• It probably isn’t a prose poem (i.e., a poem written in paragraphs), though there have been exceptions.
• No matter what the overt subject matter, its real subject is the human condition.
• It has momentum.
• It has a distinguishing style which radiates freshness and deep imagination.
• If written in form, the form fits the subject matter; no one would call the poet’s choice of form arbitrary.
• If written in free verse, it is disciplined, with its own sonics and structure; no one would call it “prosy.”
• It employs Standard English punctuation, orthography and sentence structure. In general we are unmoved by punctuational oddity. We expect to see periods, commas and capital letters at the start of sentences. (Initial caps at the beginning of lines are not particularly loved but certainly acceptable.)

It has an umbrella idea!

What is an Umbrella poem not like?
Previously this section was very detailed; on reflection, your editor concluded that it sounded fussy. Very complicated formatting is usually not feasible here for technical reasons. The main bugaboos are pathetic fallacy (the attribution of human emotions to nature or things) and a common syntactical oddity in which conjunctions and participles are jettisoned in favor of clipped phrases separated by a comma (more at syntactical arrest). Poets are beginning to sound like tabloid headline writers, alas. We feel this is a radical stand and we are proud of it; poems exhibiting even one line of syntactical arrest (a term coined by your ed. and meant to elicit chuckles of recognition) have no chance of acceptance unless the author agrees to an edit. Otherwise, we are pretty much open to any technique or turn of phrase that fits the poem and its umbrella idea.

Prose is also a key element of Umbrella’s mission. Enthusiasms, experiences, viewpoints, misgivings, reverence, irreverence are welcome under the umbrella too. Please see the Guidelines for more information about the particular columns for which we seek submissions.

Umbrella isn’t intended to further academic careers; its mission is to bring a readership to fine poetry from all quarters. Therefore Umbrella is especially open to literary poetry written by poets who do not have MFA’s and/or who work outside of academia. If you are an academic who supports this philosophy, then you too are warmly invited to submit.

Source: http://www.umbrellajournal.com/mission.html

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Writer’s Life: Be Encouraged

One way a writer can become successful is by having a more established writer as a mentor. Writing groups can serve the function of mentor. Let me share an example of the influence a mentor. In 1919 a young veteran returned from World War I. He moved to Chicago moving into a particular neighborhood for the purpose of being close to the author Sherwood Anderson.

The young beginning writer was impressed by the critical praise for Anderson and his book Winesburg, Ohio. He had heard that Sherwood Anderson was willing to help aspiring writers. He worked to met Anderson. The two men became close friends. They met almost every day to read newspapers, magazines, and novels. They dissected the writings they read.

The aspiring writer brought his own works for critique having Anderson help him improve his craft. Anderson went as far as introducing the want-to-be writer to his network of publishing contacts. The aspiring writer did okay with his first book The Sun Also Rises. The aspiring writer was Ernest Hemingway.

Sherwood Anderson didn’t stop there. He moved to New Orleans where he met another aspiring writer. He took the young man through the same steps and paces of the craft. He actually shared an apartment with this young man. He even invested $300 in getting this writer’s first book Soldier’s Pay published. This young author was William Faulkner.

Anderson would later move to California and repeat the process with John Steinbeck. Thomas Wolfe and Erskine Caldwell were also mentored by Sherwood Anderson. Ray Bradbury says Winesburg, Ohio was on his mind when he wrote The Martin Chronicles. He basically wrote Winesburg, Ohio placing it on the planet Mars.

Only Mark Twain has had a greater influence in shaping modern American writing than Sherwood Anderson. Anderson didn’t do too badly, did he? William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway and John Steinbeck each won the Nobel Prize for Literature and there are multiple Pulitzer Prizes between them.

If you are serious about writing I encourage you to find a mentor or join a writing group. The encouragement of my writer’s group and critique group keep me motivated.

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Poetry Site of the Week: PigeonBike

“We are first and foremost interested in poetry. Short, long, new school or old school, it just has to be good. Is that subjective? Yes. It has to be PigeonBike good. Better? We also accept short (very short, think reading on a mobile device, or during a break at work short) fiction with a poetic slant. Some would call it prose-poetry. Before submitting, just ask yourself if it is PigeonBike good.”

Source: http://pigeonbike.blogspot.com/p/submission-guidelines.html

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Summary: The Martian Chronicles – Chapters Twenty four to End of Book by Ray Bradbury

Chapter Twenty four – The Watchers (November 2005/2036) first appeared in The Martian Chronicles. The colonists witness a nuclear war on Earth, from Mars. They immediately return out of concern for their friends and families.

Chapter Twenty five – The Silent Towns (December 2005/2036) first published in Charm, March 1949. Everybody has left Mars to go to Earth, except Walter Gripp — a single miner who lives in the mountains and does not hear of the departure. At first excited by his find of an empty town, he enjoys himself with money, food, clothes, and movies. He soon realizes he misses human companionship. One night he hears a telephone ringing in someone’s home, and suddenly realizes that someone else is alive on Mars. Missing the call, and several others, he sits down with a phone book of Mars and starts dialing at A.

After days of calling without answers, he starts calling hotels. After guessing where he thinks a woman would most likely spend her time, he calls the biggest beauty salon on Mars and is delighted when a woman answers. They talk, but are cut off. Overcome with romantic dreams, he drives hundreds of miles to New Texas City, only to realize that she drove to find him on a back road. He drives back to his town, and meets Genevieve Selsor as he pulls in.

Their meeting is the opposite of what he had hoped for in his dreams — he finds her thoroughly unattractive (due to her weight and pallor), foolish and insipid. After a sullen day, she slyly proposes marriage to him at dinner, as they believe they are the last man and the last woman on Mars. Gripp decides to run, driving across Mars to another tiny town to spend his life alone, ceasing all contact with Genevieve.

Chapter Twenty six – The Long Years (April 2026/2057) first published as “Dwellers in Silence” in Maclean’s, September 15, 1948. Hathaway (the doctor from the Fourth Expedition) is living retired on Mars with his family, even though everyone else has departed. Hathaway is a mechanical tinkerer, who has wired an old town below their house to sound alive at night with noise and phone calls. One night, he sees a rocket in orbit, and sets fire to the old town to signal the rocket.

Captain Wilder (also from the earlier stories about the Fourth Expedition) finally returns to Mars after twenty years exploring the outer solar system. They land and have a reunion with Hathaway, who is troubled by his heart. Undeterred, Hathaway brings the crew to his house for breakfast. Wilder remarks that Hathaway’s wife looks exactly as she did many years ago, as he knows her real age and knew her in the past. One of Wilder’s crew pales when he sees Hathaway’s children, knowing that the son should be the same age as he. Wilder sends the crewmember off to check some headstones that he saw when they landed. He returns, and says that the adults now before them are buried.

Wilder offers Hathaway a rescue back to Earth, but Hathaway’s heart fails and he dies, begging Wilder not to call his family because they “would not understand.” Wilder then confirms that Hathaway’s wife and adult children are androids.

As Wilder prepares to depart, one of the crew returns to the house with a pistol, but shortly after returns, having been unable to bring himself to kill the robotic family even knowing that they were not truly human. The rocket departs, and the android family continues on with its meaningless daily life.

Chapter Twenty seven – There Will Come Soft Rains (August 4, 2026/2057) first published in Collier’s, May 6, 1950. The story concerns a household in Allendale, California, after the nuclear war has wiped out the population. Though the family is dead, the automated house that had taken care of the family still functions.

The reader learns a great deal about what the family was like from how the robots continue on in their functions. Breakfast is automatically made, clothes are laid out, voice reminders of daily activities are called out, but no one is there. Robotic mice vacuum the home and tidy up. As the day progresses, the rain quits, and the house prepares lunch and opens like a flower to the warm weather. Outside, a vivid image is given: the family’s silhouettes were permanently burned onto the side of the house (as occurred at Hiroshima) when they were vaporized by the nuclear explosion. That night, a storm crashes a tree into the home, starting a fire that the house cannot combat, as the municipal water supply has dried up and failed.

The title of the story comes from a poem, randomly selected by the house to read at bedtime, also titled “There Will Come Soft Rains”. The theme of the poem is that nature will survive after humanity is gone, reflecting the theme of the story; that even the vast cities of humanity will eventually be reclaimed by nature. In the original story in Collier’s, the story took place 35 years into the future, on April 28, 1985.

Chapter Twenty eight – The Million-Year Picnic (October 2026/2057) first published in Planet Stories, Summer 1946. A family saves a rocket that the government would have used in the nuclear war and leaves Earth on a “fishing trip” to Mars. The family picks a city to live in and call home. They go in and Dad burns tax documents and other government papers on a camp fire, explaining that he is burning a way of life that was wrong. The final thing to go on the fire is a map of the Earth. Later, he offers his sons a “gift” in the form of their new world. He introduces them to Martians: their own reflections in a canal.

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