Monthly Archives: April 2013

Many Years

Posted on by

In this good place I have paper
and ink but not the sound
of your breathing. I have
the sound of trucks passing
and the birds that sing at dawn.

The sun shines all day
but the owls called from a tree
that I cut down out of spite.
I have mulberry trees
and deep shade in memory
but I have forgotten the little
lines around your eyes.

I see that I should stay
for many years, until death
quickens me to energy
and gives me particles
of laughter to remember you
in the next good place.

J. Kyle Kimberlin
4.28.2013

Creative Commons License
Many Years by J. Kyle Kimberlin is licensed
under a Creative Commons Attribution-
NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

We Are Dissolved

Posted on by

This is one of my favorite poems by me. The emotions are close to the surface, but still flitting about in obscurity.

I’ve posted it before, but just gave it a polish. And as far as I’m concerned, if I change a word or a punctuation mark, it’s fair game to post it again if I want to. Don’t you agree?

I can’t do an audio right now, because the PC I use to do that is in the shop for a new motherboard.

Water Melts Sugar

Water melts sugar. Sunlight
in February melts the dull fog
on the bald canal. We are
dissolved, standing on the bank
searching the dark water for gar.
They drift away.

Fog dulls the hearing. There –
is that dog barking ahead of us
or behind? No matter, we have
no need of dogs now, or fish.
We have everything.

You know, sugar is good in our coffee
and on berries when the summer comes.
But look – I think I see one
swimming in the swift, cold deep.

Creative Commons License
Water Melts Sugar by J. Kyle Kimberlin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Right Behind You

Posted on by

I mean I’m following you too, as far as you know. 

A lot of bloggers have been following Metaphor lately, and I appreciate it very much. But you might be wondering why I haven’t followed back. It’s because I usually don’t sub by email. I use Feedly to sub to feeds; until recently, Google Reader. I have a lot of WordPress blogs set up there. So that’s what’s going on. 

Apropos of nothing, I really wish the owner of this coffeehouse would throw down a few bucks to pump in some heat. It’s a beautiful spring day, but it’s like a refrigerator in here. Still, thanks for the free wi-fi. 

Link

Is the news bad for our heath and well-being? And should we – can we – give it up? 

I’ve been consuming the news on a daily basis since the days of Watergate, but it has never made me feel wiser or more confident of my place in the world. The news of today’s bombing at the Boston Marathon made me feel physically anxious. Still, I feel a duty to my fellow humans on some tribal level to stay connected consciously with the bad stuff that’s happening. Is it possible to sever that connection without feeling stupid or guilty?

The Guardian says: “News is bad for your health. It leads to fear and aggression, and hinders your creativity and ability to think deeply. The solution? Stop consuming it altogether.”

News is bad for you – and giving up reading it will make you happier »

If you are not a news consumer – or you are an avid one – what are your thoughts? 

Remembering Jonathan Winters

Posted on by

I don’t know what year it was, but my Sheltie Tasha was young, so I’d have to guess mid 1990s. We were walking on Coast Village Road in Montecito one day, and Jonathan Winters came up to us. I mean I saw him nearby, recognized him, but intended to leave him alone. That’s what I usually do when I see a celebrity: I leave them in peace. I could claim that it’s because they have a right to a personal life when they’re not working. But famous people make me nervous. Still, Jonathan Winters changed his course and walked up and started talking to me about my dog.  

Tasha was exceedingly cute. But that’s not why we talked for awhile, about dogs and what a nice day it was, etc. We did because Jonathan Winters was simply an uncommonly nice guy.

My parents have a good story about meeting Winters one evening years ago, in the Carrows restaurant in Carpinteria. They struck up a conversation, he sat down at their table, with his wife, and they talked for a long time. He was so friendly and likable; not a molecule of the self-importance or conceit that it’s so easy to associate with celebrities.

Tasha and I saw Jonathan again in Montecito on another day, and we chatted again. I think I said something like, “Thank you for making us laugh.” I hope I did. Because it’s not as easy as it looks, to get that reaction. I imagine it’s something you have to be good at, without the effort that would make it false. And it’s even harder – just by being yourself –  to be remembered for being openly, spontaneously gentle and friendly.

jonathan-winters-photo-from-mgn

The Horse That Threw Me

Posted on by

On March 31, I posted that I was back in the saddle, having experienced a significant problem with my desktop computer. I guess I should follow up and admit that I’ve been on my butt in the dust this whole time. The PC wasn’t fixed as I thought, after all.

A couple of days after replacing the hard drive, I began to experience problems starting or waking the PC when it had been off or in sleep mode for a while, It would freeze just as Windows began to start, and it might take multiple tries to boot up. Then it would run fine, until I shut down or allowed it to sleep again.

Two days ago, I pressed the power button on the tower. It lit, the computer began to hum, it went off, lit and hummed again, went off. It did this several times before I held the power button down to force shutdown. When I tried again, it booted OK.

So today the machine is in a repair shop. On the phone, the technician speculated I have a bad installation of software; a glitch in the drivers. But since the problem I described was happening well before Windows could even begin to try to load, and I had updated BIOS, I think the problem is with the motherboard.

[Sigh] The manuscript of my first chapbook was typed and mailed, and there are times when I long for the simplicity of those days. But then I wouldn’t be able to share this instantly with all of you. There is no doubt our newest technology is helpful, worth time and money to human society in general. It is bringing the world closer together. But I think the time has come for consumers to demand that people who make technology stand more firmly behind it. For at least 10 years.

The only explanation for failing hardware in a 3 year old PC is that it has a 1 year warranty. Computer companies know better than promise more, although they can make things to last when they try. The PC at the shop is a 2009 HP p6130f, quad core, 8GB of ram, 1000GB hard drive. Today I pulled from the closet a 2001 Dell Dimension 4300, 18GB hard drive, 384mb RAM. It’s 12 years old, so Dell would’ve done OK with a 10 year warranty. It runs very slowly, but it’ll get you down the road, without throwing you off in the weeds.