3 Poems in Eclectica’s July/August Issue

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scarycrow

I’m delighted that the July-August issue of Eclectica includes three of my Scarecrow poems. Last year I bought a book on corvids (crows, ravens, jays), thinking that I’d likely produce a few poems centered on these fascinating birds. But as I started writing the first one, the Scarecrow’s voice eased in and took control. Thus far we’ve collaborated on about a dozen pieces. Such is poetry…

66 thoughts on “3 Poems in Eclectica’s July/August Issue”

  2. Pingback: 3 Poems in Eclectica’s July/August Issue — O at the Edges – JromoCompany.com

  7. Congratulations!
    BTW: Since you have inspired me not only to get over my fear and start writing poetry for the first time, I just begun writing what end up being my first book of poetry, and have even worked up the courage to submit something to Mockingheart Review (a joke in haiku form).

    So thanks for continuing to birth poems and giving me all that encouragement.

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      • I am the kind of guy that when I say I will do something I do it. Period. Inner doubt (which exists) be damned! I didn’t get to this point in my Life by believing my inner doubt, and am not going to do it now.

        As I have said before, my artistic life truly began with my first lessons with Ornette and was forged in the refining fire of judo training in Japan. As is the custom, judo dojos are neither air conditioned nor heated, so as the wilderness so the dojo. I have had to train in heavy cotton judo clothes in 40F heat, and 20F cold… meaning I have had to train for hours either in physically dangerous heat or be thrown full force down onto frozen mats nearly as hard as concrete.

        This is where one learns of Yamato Damashi… “Japanese fighting spirit”, whose true form (that I was taught) is ferocious perseverance in the face of insult, denial, injustice, deceit, poverty, ostracism, loneliness, and heartbreak.

        Inner doubt wages a war of attrition on one’s heart over the course of an entire lifetime. Laying on the frozen tatami mats after taking a beating, exhausted and demoralized, and having your sensei merely look on with a grunt of approval either breaks you or awakens you.

        That grunt, like the sudden chortle of the nightingale I told you about earlier, was an awakening tone, and it broke through my lower self to reach the place Fear tries to permanently keep us from from. I broke through the barrier of pain and arrived in a lush meadow.

        We all forget that place and eventually wander back to being scared again, BUT… I once again have found my way back through your poems, which have coaxed my poems out of hiding.

        Yamato Damashi is the ‘Great National Soul’ Amaterasu O-Mikami (Sun Goddess) bestows upon us when we humbly seek her wisdom without thought of gain or self.

        大和魂! I will write poems! 🙂

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      • Oh, how I know inner doubt! I learned years ago that the only way to defeat such doubt is to face it head on. My greatest challenge was music – I joined a mandolin orchestra because I wanted to learn how to play ensemble music and how to read music. I was the only beginning mandolinist, and was the least experienced and most definitely the worst player (a number of professionals, including a (now) multi-grammy nominee were members of the orchestra). It was difficult, as I wasn’t accustomed to being the absolute worst of any group – in work, sports and writing, I’d always considered myself, like a child from Lake Woebegone, above average. Ha! In all honesty I should have given up. I was not good enough, and I knew it. But I worked at it (I am a bit obsessive in nature), and my classically trained organist wife drilled and coached me nightly in musicianship, and I held my own at our first performance. I reached that lush meadow, my proudest accomplishment to date. You have a history of overcoming inner doubt, and I have no doubt that you, my friend, will write wondrous poetry.

        BTW, “Scarecrow Listens” was written with you in mind.

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  12. the soliloquies of Frankenstein’s monster come to mind, but of course, with a more contemporary material for topics. “celebrating the territories
    of the unmeasurable, the unnamed” is a very strong line in a series of strong lines, but this made me gasp with delight. as always Robert you never cease to impress.

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  13. I couldn’t help but reading with thoughts of the Wizard of Oz in the background. So many beautiful lines, but this contemplation of death and existence is my favorite: When I cease to be, will I remain or dissipate, return in another form or explode and scatter throughout the universe, the residue of me sizzling along the starways for eternity or perhaps just the next twenty minutes. Congratulations, Robert.

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  27. Seems like a neat publication, Bob. Congratulations once again. Oh, but when are the poems from the scorpion’s point of view? 🙂 I wonder . . . But seriously, a great trio there (and bio; soon yours will be too long to publish!). I’m fond of author bios; besides pointing me to markets, they give me ideas (that the world can later have foisted upon it).

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    • Thanks, Leigh. I really like Eclectica, having first stumbled upon it some fifteen years ago! I don’t doubt that a scorpion poem will appear one of these days. Well, I think the bio was a little long, and generally provide shorter ones. But yes, I like being pointed to unknown markets!

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