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Time past, candles were for the rich.

Now, the poor light candles to be rich.

Kissers, campers, castles with kings,

alters, grievers and gourmet kings

light candles with purpose at night.

Slimeballs too, burn the night.

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Little itty bitty moon up there. After all, it is just you and the world.

Being bitten by ants or fleas? Sun in their eyes? Tearful joy at the wedding on the beach? Thoughts of their own time passing or that one love who got away?

A gloomy day in the suburbs. With Red Box, people can rent movies full of actors faking life and not talk to anyone, or get the movies mailed or sent via cable. Perfect.

A flea market in San Antonio. You like flea markets? Flea markets are odd shows of humanity. It is very much like watching humans in a fish bowl. What on earth are they so interested in? Is it part of the discovery need -- the endless need to discover, to search, explore, to gather objects to possess? All the things they buy end up back in the flea market or in the landfill, all used up, worn out, chewed on, broken, or maybe in some museum if rare or valuable. I bought a nice pair of Nikon binoculars. I need to know what is going on out there outside the fish bowl.

Here is the title poem from Virtual White Orchids. I thought I'd post a poem for once instead of musing on poetry.

Virtual White Orchids

A tiny gleam of star

within a hill of trees

by motion of a glance

is visible or gone.

Below the piercing star

a dirt road curves from woods

to open pasture grass

around a stone farm house.

Several thousand twigs

allow remaining beams

a momentary line

along a thinner thought.

Another glimpse can see

above the hill the stars

are virtual white orchids

not struggling with trees.

Discovery is always a great joy. We all want to discover something. Discovery is why people like art, why people enjoy making art. Any art is the art of discovery.

Today I discovered, when I was standing in the middle of an intersection of a two four-lane highway with my camera, stepping inbetween cars while I tried to get an angle before the light changed, that it didn't bother me if people thought it was strange that some guy was standing in the road with a camera. I felt like a kid, trying to capture something beautiful.

Where do you write? Here is my favorite place to write -- the kitchen table. The pen on the notebook is a Waterman fountain pen for which I paid $150 -- about 14 years ago. Also, I heard years ago, to write, just write the poem or story you would like to read. What you would like to read -- write it.

In Florida last month, I always carried my camera, and often stopped along the bike paths to take pictures. Above, the blue water of a calm lagoon reflects the beginning of the evening sky. I myself, am so often in a hurry, and it is still hard to slow down and take a look at things. The same thing goes when we look at people, noticing things we did not notice before, good or bad.

I am always amazed at poetry, how poets write poems in a weird non-human voice, how the poems "chatter ideas," and how they want in some desperation to be published, as if being published proves something. Of course being published proves something, but the intent seems to be published now, today, currently, poems that offer nothing of interest to living life, but packed full of "half-thoughts," tid-bits of incomplete angst like stepping barefoot on a wide slice of onion on a cold tile floor. Icky.

Here are the rules for modern poetry:

Don't say anything.

Avoid a story.

Stay clear of wisdom.

Do not be clear.

Politics is acceptable.

Political correctness is demanded.

Contort the language.

Prose is poetry.

Personal angst is art.

Trauma, negativity, gloom required.

Incomplete, obtuse vague inferences are 'arty.'

The 'subject' is sacrosanct. Any subject is good, even if meaningless.

Religious poetry is always perfect.

Poems in tongue, in code, mysterious, popular.

Private poetry vs public poetry -- unknown concept.

Far-fetched references mean sophistication, however phony.

Anger, resentment, bitterness, yelling, are theraputic, and dull.

Never "offer" anything in a poem. If you do, just who do you think you are, some phylosopher? Everyone is on the same "level," everyone is equal, and never criticize anyone or their work, because whatever any writer produces is "art."

There are many other rules for modern poetry, yet there are one or two who rise above these rules.

The picture above, ugly to some, beautiful to some.

One of the most frequent thoughts I think is how few people will make a real difference in your life. I can rewind my life, go back to crossroads, events with people that made great difference for my life from then on, and there are only a few important ones. Where would I be if that one person did not make the decision they made? There are many different levels of events, but the important ones are very important and very few, at least for me. I remember her decision; she meant, "no, I am not living my life with you." But my love for her has never left and still lights and shadows my every living day.

How much of every life is a delusion? Which of us deludes our self into living what we know is false? Everyone does this to some degree, I imagine. We live all day inside a huge bubble of importance above our heads, when there is no real bubble. Wake up and get real, there isn't much time.