Sarah, the woman I love. This is her. Or, to speak precisely, a photo of her. One of my favorites, in fact. Taken about three years back, I'm guessing, during a business trip to San Juan by one her staff. I wish I had been the one to snap those flashing blue eyes, that smile. . .

Looking at herself in this shot shortly after I loaded it as wallpaper on our PC, Sarah was struck by the Mona Lisa nature of the smile lighting her face.

Indeed, what is that smile revealing and what is it hiding? How far can those shiny blue eyes see? Her smile seems to say, all the way.

William Blake has something to say on the subject of smiles mysterious and profound:


The Smile

There is a smile of love,
And there is a smile of deceit,
And there is a smile of smiles
In which these two smiles meet.

And there is a frown of hate,
And there is a frown of disdain,
And there is a frown of frowns
Which you strive to forget in vain,

For it sticks in the heart's deep core
And it sticks in the deep backbone--
And no smile that ever was smil'd,
But only one smile alone,

That betwixt the cradle and grave
It only once smil'd can be;
And, when it once is smil'd,
There's an end to all misery.

- William Blake, 1803 -

". . .an end to all misery." Yes. That's what I see in that smile above, a promise of love beyond conception, and the mystery ever unfolding.

I love that smile, that face, the magic behind those eyes. I can do naught else.

Millay has something to say about love and those women possessed of supernatural charm:

Witch Wife

She is neither pink nor pale,
And she never will be all mine;
She learned her hands in a fairy-tale,
And her mouth on a valentine.

She has more hair than she needs;
In the sun 'tis a woe to me!
And her voice is a string of colored beads,
Or steps leading into the sea.

She loves me all that she can,
And her ways to my ways resign;
But she was not made for any man,
And she never will be all mine.

- Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1917 -

She has given herself to me, though, that one in the photo - in blood and spirit. She has given me these many years her magic chalice from which to sip or drink my fill. I am blessed by Love.

Or am I only dreaming? Certainly when I look into those eyes, I am.

The response to the first ever Notes From a Life in Progress give away (see below) has been something less than underwhelming. In fact, it has not happened at all. I figure I made the trivia questions too difficult and plan to address this issue at a later date. Until then, the contest remains open if you think you know the answers.

The first in what promises to be an infrequent at best contest give a way series!

As promised in my brief but sincere post of the 18th (see below), I am giving away two (2) copies of a locally produced (in the city of my birth, San Jose, Ca) arts magazine.

The publication in question is called Deeptapioca (web site hasn't been updated since 08/02 despite more recent paper and staple editions), first mentioned in this space just about one year ago upon my sending their their way a batch of poetry. They ended up publishing one of the pieces in that batch, eventually. The poem in question has not been posted here (as of this writing) but looooooooong time readers may remember one or two mentions regarding the creation of the piece.

Now is your chance to read the published poem. In the pages (with ink!) of Deeptapioca. I seem to recall one of the editors describing the magazine as a"grass roots effort". Indeed, this is not a glossy professional rag but a small magazine with a big heart, distributed free within the Bay Area. My poem, Satori (almost), illuminates page 10 of issue 4, Vol. I, 2003.

I have, as it seems I have intimated before, two copies of this edition to reward to any two bloggers who can answer some Notes From a Life in Progress trivia questions.

The rules are simple, few, completely arbitrary and, of course, made to be broken:

- I am requesting that all participants belong to that sub-species of humanity that has evolved slowly into being since the advent of Arpanet, homo blogus, or The Blogger. You gotta' have a blog to get a magazine. If I don't know you, please include your blog URL with your answer.

- Only one "prize" per participant. You can answer all the questions you want but only one magazine, not 2 nor yet none, will be given you.

- Any and all answers, in order to be considered, must be submitted via e-mail. Please click on the word communicate here or at the top of this page and send your best guesses away.

- All answers will be organized by date and time. First correct wins.

- You must answer, and correctly, one of the questions below. All answers are ripe for the finding in my archives over to the left and bottom of your screen (The Filing Cabinet). Or you can try your luck with a Google search.

The questions:

1. I have discovered two male poets/writers in the past year or so and have subsequently blogged about them and their respective works. What are their names?

2. In what year did Sarah and myself meet and how?

Okay, each question is a compound but the answers are out there. Those looooooooong time readers (you know who you are, I guess) may have an advantage over newcomers to this life in progress but only if they have been paying attention. I will, of course, require a mailing address if you win.

Have fun!

This, That and Another

A big thank you to Tracy who, on the occasion of her 30th birthday, gifted her blog friends with music. The USPS delivered my copy safely, Tracy, and I have found the disc quite spinable.

***

Rana, over at Frogs and Ravens (whom I discovered a while back via the venerable Tom Shugart), yesterday posted a haiku about being woken from sleep by the "croaking" of a crow - echoing a theme (interrupted sleep) I had written about in my journal on the 15th:

2 a.m., car door
SLAMS - scaring dreams from my head
to the pillows edge.

***

Stay tuned, or tune in later, for the first ever Notes from a life in Progress give away. Up for grabs: two copies of a local (San Jose, CA.) arts magazine featuring a poem by your truly. Details to follow. . .

From the journal:

5/19/03

walking home tonight
scent of Jasmine, in the lot
a burst of sparrows

and, of more recent vintage:

7/11/03

Hidden in the green
among sharp pine needles,
a black fly prays.

Yesterday:

Stolen from the sun
heat seeps from gray cement, warms
the soles of my feet.

Is League of Extraordinary Gentlemen an all too ordinary movie?

It seems that The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen opens today. When I first learned (some time ago) that Alan Moore's pulpy but literate adventure was being translated to the big screen, I entertained some hope that it would not be so badly mauled as the last of Mr. Moore's masterpieces to be adapted from the comic page to the silver screen - From Hell.

Moore's From Hell is a meticulously researched and deeply philosophical/metaphysical reading of the infamous Jack the Ripper murders and the history that rippled all around those grisly crimes (rendered in superbly gritty black and white by Eddie Campbell). The movie which bears the same name as Moore's graphic novel resembles the source material in name only, completely dumping Moore's deep insights into history, human nature and the occult in favor of a dumbed down mockery of his story. (The sole highlight for me of From Hell, the movie, is the scene in which we see Johnny Depp soaking in a bathtub while smoking opium. Yikes!)

I had hope for League of Extraordinary Gentlemen because, while chock full of obscure literary allusions, the story as penned by Moore is basically a straight forward one of adventure and action. It would seem a simple and natural enough endeavor to recreate LOEG as a film, though the thought of Kevin O' Neill's rich artwork being replaced by shiny moving pictures is a tragedy of some kind.

Well, as the television commercials for the LOEG film began to fill the airwaves, the hope I had for the film began to wither. By the 410th time this commercial had assaulted my senses I was beginning to become convinced that the movie would be just another all too typical bloated summer blockbuster. The review of the film in today's Chronicle confirms that fear.

. . .the story's heart -- or director Stephen Norrington's focus -- is the action, and these scenes are no better than the usual.

We get fights, sometimes several simultaneously, with frantic cuts to keep us apprised of their progress. And we get machine-gun sequences, in which the machine guns never hit anything because the targets jump out of the way and the bad guys never adjust their aim. That wouldn't be sporting. Such scenes constitute almost half of "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen," and it's the half we could do without.

- 'Extraordinary Gentlemen' unite to save the world, and Sean Connery almost saves the movie", Mick Lasalle, The San Francisco Chronicle -

I read all reviews with a grain or two of salt and will, of course, withhold final judgment until I have actually seen the film. That judgment may be a while in coming as I will most likely wait 'till the film is available for grabbing from the shelf of my local video rental shop - where it will only cost approximately three dollars for Sarah and myself to be disappointed, not $16.00.

Bonus Link - Notes on League of Extraordinary Gentlemen #1 (Jess Nevins' painstaking annotations of the first series)

Following is an old one, mostly. I only just tacked on a completely new tail end - it's the first time I've ever been satisfied with the piece as a whole. Maybe that's why I'm presenting it here for your eyes. Or, could be, I'm throwing this up because it's late and I am in no mood to blog ( can the pages of the Oxford be far?) about many of the things really on my mind:

Gratitude for the fact that Sarah seems to be ok, based on the recent viewings of her insides.

Musings and fears about mortality and love and this whole sad and beautiful world, heavily influenced by the news that my stepfather has prostate cancer, my mother has suffered multiple minor strokes and has a mass in her throat (biopsy this Thurday), and my Grandfather (also step) was recently hospitalized for low blood count.

Yeah, I think that's it.


Walkin' Blues

I've got the black man's blues.
I�m wearing the white man's shoes.

I've walked farther than I can tell.

I've flown with angels on borrowed wings.

I gave my car keys to the Devil
and let him drive me to Hell.

I'm no sinner.
I'm no saint.

I could fill a book with the things I ain't.

What I am is a man with the world to roam
so long as skin covers these traveling bones.

I'm moving night and day.

I've got the white man's blues.
I�m wearing the black man's shoes.

I've walked farther than I can say.

The Bells hummed behind me.

I closed my eyes and listened. Having heard The Bells speak once, long ago, I thought they might do so now. The sound intensified minutely, almost imperceptibly I thought, as I closed my eyes. Still, I felt the golden tone (like the memory of Robin's knowing hands) on my body more than I heard it. No words formed but I was not disappointed (never by The Bells) as the warm effusion thrumming from the Elfin alloys caressed me with shining kisses upon my face, up and down my quivering, shivering limbs, upon my gently heaving breast. I am blessed to be home, I thought, and foolish to wander.

Standing there, tilting on my heels amid the greens quiet glow and washed in a sound that honey might make, I saw vague forms rise up from the amorphous shine and swirl behind my eyes. The Bells ceased as a face took abrupt, if murky, shape on the screen of my closed lids. Sudden stink of putrefaction curling the air and now words were spoken, but I didn't want to hear these.

"I'm cold, Rouen. . . cold as stone. . ."

The face behind my eyes swam into sharper focus, gazed into me with a sadness so vast I felt my bones shrivel and dry before it. I opened my eyes and tried to recall the blessing I had known only a moment before. This, too, was home.

From the well, rising dark and hoary from the edge of the green, there came the cool splash of water and a curious squelch-thump as of some wet thing ascending the ancient well, one mossy stone at a time.