GREENING MOMS.

To the caregivers of this newest generation, to people who nurse the planet with more ideas than deeds, here is just a little encouragement which appeared on the Green Mom's Carnival, too long ago for me to track..It's slightly altered for the continuing crisis which may become force of habit. And for the climate which is sure to continue changing along with the hapless inhabitants gravitating upon the surface.

Yes, yes, i know that this is the beginning of the next season! I know that many will struggle to catch up with bills, these little pieces of paper, printed on the backs of trees and the rear section of your brain. No, i refuse to feel sorry, the season will come, the season will pass, and all will resume at the best possible pace. So let's make it an ecological feast to begin the new era.

To be a mother in times of financial uncertainty is a challenge to be met with joy. Oh yes, pleasure comes in small packages. Now is the door to a whole new behavior for many, what an opportunity to sneak in the change that so many have wanted to implement. First you must arm yourself with facts.

Headline news foretelling or demonstrating the economic downturn must be saved as wrapping paper for the smaller gifts. Sunday cartoons can put some cheer in the mix. Free advertisement media make excellent rolled up logs for the fireplace, (caveat) don't light them if yours is one of those fake ones. Clippings of ecological disasters make an easy diary of my planet for school projects, engage, engage.

The larger photos of starving children can be left upon the coffee table for open discussion -- “Mom, who's that on the table? -- No one we know, just another life in another place -- Why don't they have enough food for them? -- because it costs too much to transport the grain to their country-- so why don't they grow it there? -- climate change has created havoc everywhere -- so what are we supposed to do about it? -- well, drive less, eat more foods from local sources and save on utilities? -- oh, Mom!”

When all the depressing news have reached their intended audience, quickly introduce the good news, and there are many in magazines like Ode, Yes or Mother Earth, as well as ENN and green sites online. Softly steer the subject of conversation to renewables, “hey look at that sun! it shines everyday -- exactly, so would it be smart to save for solar panels for our house? “save? -- yes altogether, we can contribute.” “does that mean i don't get my game set?...

I have witnessed parents agonizing over the effects of advanced advertising on their children. My only advice is to turn the television off, or select documentary and nature shows, current events may add to the reasoning skills if watched along with ( reasonable) adults. Each one of us can help in our own way -- but what can we do? I hear the stress hormone levels rise like a disturbing tide-- Buy less -- walk wherever we can -- take lunch in a bag -- clean up the riversides. “But Mom, the other kids are gonna get things and play -- so are you, really healthy lunch and a beautiful healthy river to swim in without fear of 'floating foreign matter'...

So, you're not convinced yet? The work is too intense, the argument too intimate, it challenges your values, your habits, your spending traditions? Worry not, Mothers are well placed in the care system, they are idea changers, cooks and engineers, they can do wonders from the ground to the sky. Watch the effect of each action for one single week, preferably wordlessly. Then quietly introduce simpler foods along with the usual fare, like greens on the pizza, broccoli in the pasta, onions everywhere. Simpler cleaning methods are an easy area to implement on, replace toxic cleaners with green products, and next go hard core with vinegar and baking soda to shine everything from windows to baths. As the doors close against the cold in your hemisphere, warn the family against indoor pollution, add a sweater and lower the thermostat by 2 degrees as a game plan to save for that renewable energy of the future.

Let no one deter you from having a successful season, make it known that no matter the dire economy, you are going to put forth the best dinners and parties possible. Squirrel away some nuts and goodies to cheer the hungry hordes. Save all the shiny paper you can to impress the natives with impromptu decor--and use all that spare imagination to make a personalized fest of your very own. Emphasis on personalized this year. What a great opportunity to come home to values which have been buried under escalating commercialism.

Happy selves to you, empowered with the comfort and intimacy of simpler days. Yes, yes, i know, it's the beginning of that year, wrap it up in elegant resolve to make it with -- just love and lots of it.

Review of a play by Rob Plath: We' re No Butchers.

WE' RE NO BUTCHERS a play by ROB PLATH: EPIC RITES publisher.

If a review is a dissective process of a literary work, the play “We' re No Butchers” by Rob Plath needs a radical vivisection. The critical eye can peer straight into the guts of the antagonist and into the mind of the hapless protagonist as they struggle through typical family dilemma. The use of plain language pulls the blinds of social intimacy. Plath becomes master of chaos.

Though the cover of the book spells dark and foreboding scenes, it is not the connotation of the skull artworks on smooth black background which influences the reader's perception. Neither does the sketch of a human skull atop of a canine one on the back page essential to the plot. But; the underdog does come out from the couch cushions to point at the ills of interactions.. Is it the title which draws the reader to the desperate context of this piece? No, it is the poignancy of the dialogue throughout the ten scenes.

While the subjects move from movies to Papal death, the temperature of conversation only cools down between bites of ribs and wings. The palpable details of table hierarchy demonstrate placement within family ethics... “let him grate his own cheese—he may be a faggot but he's not a boy” . No phrase stands out above the din of discord. No thread unravels the strangling fabric of family life in this tightly written text.

The play begins on a Sunday morning; older man smokes, younger one engages in argumentative insults which set the scene for an accurate portraiture of a stratum of America many are aware of but may not wish to visit live...This could be Poland or Greenland, human relations vary little across the socio-economic spectrum. The cultural specifics act as a mat of understated sarcasm under the feet of the players.

Few who have lived through the constrictions of crowded life can honestly describe the active participation of all individuals involved. Narrow walls bounce emotions and reverberate inadequacies in painful distortion; the psychology of idleness exacerbates perceived gender ranking. Enter Butch who becomes irate the instant he believes anything challenges his intellectual standing and privilege table to cable.

Then Dante must adjust his honesty to adapt to new surroundings, he dances around inane issues without losing balance, unless chemistry plays a trick on truth; best not to drink and talk, not healthy!Ah but Mia: dutiful Mama plays her role to perfection. She could explain the rise of obesity to any cardiologist, and pull rank on a social case-worker if need be. She knows her place and maintains it. Mia hangs dearly onto small romantic icons and larger religious ideals as she brews the daily stew..

It is easy to picture Otto in a white T-shirt stretched over excess. His skewed paranoia mimics concern over health and wealth in disproportionate examples. Salt and butter logic overcome rigid conservatism. He and the rest of the world may never budge from the sixties plateau..a veritable sitcom tableau in a single act. Most disconcerting is the collusion to block off care for the living, in word and deed.

These four characters smell ordinary yet breathe universal..Blame makes the rounds to land upon the designated scapegoat. Values arrange themselves about a broken Norman Rockwell knick-knack or the evening news. Moods swing unpredictably predictable in a bar scene. Good times dilute effect long enough to drive the play into its downward spiral. And the last act is achieved at a cost to re-establish status Quo. Welding joints to cement their common strength, feeding each other' s myths and hang ups as relief.

Pack mentality revealed, the kennel behavior of the Alpha group shows the dominant male and the intricacies of the balancing act of the coddling female determined to nurse their illusions to the inevitable conclusion. The caring party once more a renegade always outside the tribe, outnumbered.

Man, the animal will often forgo liberty to protect gain. Solidly entrenched in static holdings, the inflexible party will create chaos rather than lose whatever he identifies with..be it a ceramic angel or a certain song. Vying for position in the family nucleus is a dangerous sport with frigid rules. No matter the face or name on the T-shirt, the strength of the unit is what matters the most afterall, OR is it?.

Rob Plath has been widely published , he now lives in New York..with a cat named Daisy.

REVIEW of JOHN YAMRUS, DOING CARTWHEELS ON DOOMSDAY AFTERNOON

A review of " doing cartwheels on doomsday afternoon"
John Yamrus.
Epic Rites Press.
117 pages of poetry.

No caps necessary to dress up the day in this title for a reality refresher in lean black and white observations, devoid of fluff and puffery. John Yamrus “doing cartwheels on doomsday afternoon” serves clean offerings of dis-intellectualized drills through strata of acquired wisdom; these are restful renderings in a society grown fat with metaphor. The thin ecology of language distributes sustainable ideas in clear glimpses through open doors.

The book cover as plain as the man within, the text format unadorned on smooth paper to leave space for reflexion; it represents subtle proportions in each accurate character. Titles lead and read straight into text, into flawless context, waiting for voice, silent or aloud, by daylight or by night light..only names are capitalized and ego is shaven to unassuming status by avoiding the almighty 'I' presented as simple i, author, observer of self and other.

The short verse format leaves much white on which to play the sharp poetic vignettes of everyday tedium. Endurance, perhaps the consistence of truth is coupled with a steady dose of humility, and yes, a dash of fun--
"they're winning, you know,
taking potshots at intellectual poetry...
safe"
The long poem "she's ashamed" brings words to their knees and poets to their feet...

This book -- has a firm sense of place, it seeps through like rain in sand, sweet rain, acid rain or occasional sewage of crude conditions. Sounds drip and scatter, no song or dance, only footsteps of men about their days. In a bar room John Yamrus describes musical taste with acute humor. In a bedroom he needs few words to convey the moment.

This book -- holds a fine sense of folks, It is defined by the lack of vulgarity in its descriptive language of ordinary beings living; dogs and wives, men and writing, poets and publishing. A smile sneaks in the eye of the reader as John easily deflates miracles in a demystified history of common people. No heroic survival, only the smack of revelation in the usual relations with the drinking, loving or hateful family of man.

This book -- hugs you, bear hugs in bars, dog hugs in easy chairs...it embraces you in flat assimilable clichés of bare honesty; no tricks, no secrets, no sugar added. Doomsday is every day and it happens as you read -- happens as you sorely realize that you live -- no apology necessary, this book loves you, drops all pretense for you. Short enough, compact on shelf, it sits next to abandoned Eric Fromm or yet unread Neruda--- But this one, you pull out for a sober look at life on the ground once in awhile: That is sturdy, scarce poetry!..

John Yamrus holds a solid grip onto reality poetry; he has been widely published in notable venues and translated in several languages, has written 17 books of poetry and two novels as well.

information available through Epic Rites Press, Alberta Canada.
www.epicrites.org
www.spdbooks.org
or Small Press Distribution. Berkeley California

nadine sellers; reading others.

A Taste of Hemlock by Michéle Vassal: Review

A taste of Hemlock by Michele Vassal: Review

A Taste of Hemlock, by Michéle Vassal: Salmon Press, November 2011,Ireland. Pages of passionate humanescence and a blue eye on the land; it touches the darkness moist and fertile beneath spare contemporary, yet, timeless verse. The author harnesses a wide range of sensual tools to gather continuum against tides of madness. Linguistic influences convey a perennial state of spirituality in reverent tones of cultured awareness.

Storms and stars scatter the static impermeable resolve of the writer. Throughout her poetry, she sows the emotional landscape and reaps insightful language. Michele Vassal accepts the responsibility of communicative arts, she remains ever true to her quest for refined expression. Never shy of truths discovered along pain and adventure in a crowded world replete with poets and musicians drumming their lives in a vacuum above the mass, Michele stands firmly within her sensual realm, refining a multi-dimensional artistry. Music claims her voice, rage or whisper.

Throughout defining imagery the reader may follow the curve of spiraling womanhood in reference to motherhood, daughters and lovers and by extension the connection to nature ever-present .

Aroma permeates sensory memory, culinary alchemy performs a mystical duty in conjured images of steaming “Khilii Couscous”. Total tactile involvement evident in the phrase.
“ and I rub with burning hands the steaming grain in argan oil, rolling it until it separates like seeds of sand between the fingers of the Sirocco”.
Ancient numeric significance deepens text in such focus
“and seven is the sacred number I fold in the stock fragranced with thirty six spices”.

MichéleVassal's poetry often follows the whims of weather and moods: In Under the Dog Star, an unforgiving sense of expectancy wells up strong and urgent.
“when
you sit at the edge of stillborn storms swollen and taut”.
To be sunk in persistent detail along the spare lines, unsolvable.
“anything can happen
and wine will sour on your tongue”
Taste co-mingling with immutable truth.

Helix plunges the partaker into visceral integrity, a bold knowledge within the intimate spectrum of selfhood in sketches of the universal feminine.
“ pulsing helicoidal dreams”


Sacrifices” alludes to human plight; I hear the cries of Medea echo above dry wars in foreign lands, and mothers alternately bemoaning or cursing in a litany of helplessness. No, the author does not impart anything but strength and outrage in context. The reader derives agonizing travail along the tragic path.

“Because our children are our enemies and always have been
we have sacrificed them to our malign lusts---
and they die for our crops
and they die for our oil”

Blood spills in the recollection of layers of relationships, conflicts and wars and yet, mystical strength persists in texture, in the resurgence of attention to living detail of a microcosm of animal cognizance, of herbal acquaintance; this long knowledge one acquire through “little deaths” and elusive peace.

An inebriating feast of repetitive words, or alliterations and cascading sounds envelops the mind with hypnotic momentum. Then the next page takes the lead to sensory immersion on an exotic revival of adventurous forays in rare climates. The Dancers of Ain Taya trace such a tale in ethereal quality. Train to Brittany meanders through vicarious presence.

The title poem “ a Taste for Hemlock”; a flawless sequence of short verse. It distills the complex, the communal drive to inevitable death at the end of a systemic melancholy thread.

“defining desire and death” a conceptual, movable verse, disperses its acquired wisdom beyond the dull ache of long pain, above the throb of ritualistic grief. The verdant background of the book cover, the glistening cerulean undertones understate pure, passionate, pleasure.

Winterizing Fellows

As Europe was suffering record cold temperatures from Sweden to Portugal; animals of the Americas were busy responding to the call of the howling wind.
A snapping turtle hides in mud, the last of the milkweed vine bugs retreat under the dead leaf mat, and humans run to the store to buy caulking by the bucketful to insulate their nests.

Climate challenge stirs the mind, and nature responds. Carpets are littered with ladybugs, the native red ones and the majority of the invasive Chinese orange shelled ones; they are looking for a cozy home to survive the brutal wintry conditions in the plains. Next spring, the native ones will surely rise above the crowding and re-adapt to their new neighbors in the food competition game.
The local snappers and painted turtles will scramble to the creek bed and grab the minnows and crayfish under remaining slabs of ice in the swift muddy run off from the upstream rains.

I don't worry about the animals, I have seen so many perish and others subsist, that reinforces the theory of survival and movement. The ones which can't exist under harsh conditions find the impetus to move on to thicker thickets or muddier waters.

The balance will prevail if left to essential instincts, morphing, and natural circumstance. This year, I did not see many bees or praying mantis, oh, a few on the clover, mostly drones or carpenter bees. One, one single honey bee at summer's waning time, when sun shone and the drowning rains finally stopped.

Whether by pesticide, by mold or virus, the beekeeper's world has suffered, but the fruiting season was so plentiful due to wind dispersion and moths or butterflies, that wasps had a chance for a fall feast before Thanksgiving. lawns were littered with decaying apples and pears, raccoons and opossums were competing with the woodchucks for the all ground buffet.

Skunks and squirrels grew fast and abundant, by the evidence of roadkill in town and on country roads, the creatures of the wilds rushed from berry bush to orchard, braving traffic. The avian raptors barely had time to adapt to the influx in swift mammalian growth afield. The ones flying above the voles, the cottontails and moles, were surely encoding their reproductive organs for a future surge in numbers as well. Spring litters should be numerous and healthy.

Next year, the moth will be ready for its young to devour the forest, the black snake will readjust to the recent invasion of moles in town yards. Hawks will roost in the oak uphill and the four or five vultures will soon be multitudinous spots circling on the thermals over the valley. Fox will bring their playful kits out of the abandoned barns around, sow bugs will roll out of the decay.

The river will scrape its sides and rush across the clay fields to spoil man's best plans; upsetting the dreams of another bumper crop of corn or soybeans to sell by year's end to the ethanol kings and the high fructose moguls in the center of the earth, perched in towers of importance.

So much to make out of cultivated mono-cultures, so little paid to the rest of nature below. And yet, I have faith in the restoration of balance, in the renewal of disheveled order among the plains. The Osage orange drop to the ground, the last frost has matured the remaining persimmons for the eager foragers. Corms and small native berries covered the ground as an offering to rodents and birds.


I hear the distant call of playful coyotes, laughing across the gully, knowing the paralyzing effect they have on their furry victims below. Good night to the season, for tomorrow, snow...And rest for all that live in perennial expectation.

Bagging out..

bag ladies.

In every city i visit, i find stores and entire aisles dedicated to the art of the satchel. Leather goods, plastic arts, all materials are represented in as many styles as lifestyles. Somewhere about the bustle of alleys and parks, i invariably notice women carrying bags in various stages of decay. Some push carts which are loaded with bagged possessions. Container and content part and parcel of same.

The bag has become a symbol of affluence, the more luggage, the more riches. But the baggage becomes the burden of this age. We soon are strangled by the multitude of ever thinning resources, which must be contained for fear, they will eventually possess us. Zippered, tapered, locked and snapped, Guccied or Vuittonized, trends and fashions clutter the wallet and the market—not to mention, the very planet we tend to say we love...

Sure, no designer purse will exterminate the Florida alligator. No single briefcase will decimate the Brazilian cattle. But the flimsy little bag which steams up your veggies and isolates your tub of chicken livers from the nearest Super- Mart will definitely cause some poor fish to die prematurely from ingesting pelletised plastics in the Ocean.

It is not a case of importance, but one of quantity. The US uses bags at an alarming rate; 100 billion in one consumer country; that amounts to 1500 per person. 12 billion barrels of oil, are used to fabricate the flimsy things to carry more futile objects and processed items. These bags will live between 400 and 1000 years in a multitude of stages, strangle wild life, choke fish and ducks, and finally wash down rivers to break into microscopic plastic particles to end up as carcinogenics in the meat of your favorite food chain item.

Talk about end game and product, could man have designed a more perfect multi-generational food chain reaction? On purpose? The trouble with us is that few scientists bother to compute the complete life cycle of each invention. So now we are faced with the results of a marvelous convenience, the plastic bag. I don't have a medicine pouch to wave at the problem, but i do have numbers to demonstrate what many are doing about it.

Around the world in eighty bags, the satchel chronicles.

Australia: phased out bags end of 08 -- Bangladesh: ban and levy on plastic bags-- Britain: the Prime Minister pressured law makers to eliminate bags -- China: began to phase out June 21st 08 -- Ireland: charges 29 cents per bag -- Europe has had fees since the 80s -- Uganda has imposed a ban on bags -- US. California and New-York impose recycling in major stores. San Francisco first US city to ban bags by April's Earth day, and many stores try the barrel-by-the-door to entice recycling – eco-minded town councils wave arms to improve the city's aesthetics by pleading citizens to limit usage of disposables..good luck on training the masses!.

Progress - progress, too late and not enough, where to start? The EPA claims that it is up to local waste management to deal with it. Do we have the necessary self discipline? Can we overcome the rebellion over ecologic authority? I do see signs of a growing concern. The reasoning may be faulty; but if it will steer people into an act of conscience, hey? Aim for the sensitive areas ( pocket and charge card)

The local Hy-Vee store in our small town offers re-usable green bags for $1.00 free on certain holidays..It is not a social disgrace to carry your own bag. No jaw will drop, nor bag boy faint for the honorable act of self discipline. I have a multitude of bags, donated library book bags, second hand gadget bags with fancy logos from one major advertiser, take a photo of yourself holding the free advertisement and earn a free coupon from the company's . com website. Do you have a nylon catch all and stagnant travel bags? They' re light and easy to save and carry. There is no excuse to keep using plastic grocery bags.

Well, yes there is, how about the multitasking tips for the spares you already have accumulated? A classic, inside out scooper, or rain hat, a Stuff picker-upper, or stuff thrower, stuff storer. A wild edibles collector, refrigerator cleaner. Quite handy for isolating wet bathing suits in the SUV or for those ripe tennis shoes, or yet the hot and sweaty vacation clothing . Some folks even cut bags in strips and make trailer-park-art rugs, knit or crochet at will, i am told they last, uh? Forever. And to top this off, Halloween mini costume, you use your own imagination for that one; I don't practice anything involving too many sweets and screaming children in close proximity...

Paper or plastic? Pulp or oil? one is biodegradable, one is not--one is heavy--one is light. Neither offers a solution, so get out that gaudy beach bag with the long lived shells and blooms sewn on it, and go forth to dazzle the store clerks with your new-found conscience, or just break down and spring a buck for a sturdy little green bag.

From my alter ego, the bag lady, Madame Pochette, happy bagging, you' all!

Between Abbey and Rimbaud

Between Abbey and Rimbaud.

Yellow sun hanging on the horizon, sage aroma cleansing desert air along a ground hugging zephyr. I am surrounded by sounds of fall, a blue racer slinking to the edge of the salt pond, a last avocet pecking for surviving fish, a lone coyote venturing for an early meal of packrat or roadkill. Dry bunch grass crunching under step, i listen to faded pages flapping against my chest, leaves in a whirlwind.

I paid the price of 3 slices of bread for a tattered paperback of tradition in literature; a single dime which i had found in a parking lot in town. The money was light in the loser's pocket, yet the book rests, long and heavy upon my shelves.. And now authors part pages like open arms, to refill the reader in times of empty. I cannot peruse but a few lines in my will to absorb the direst of thought, minute details hurling images from a lake of words pooled behind my eyes.

A continent apart in another time, another tongue. Memory bidden, transcends form and texture to land upon mind and suspend all others. Two lines and i take flight across frontiers and centuries, unhampered by inventions of man, the current, my only connection.

Dry crumbs fall silently upon my lap, i reach for the canteen full of warm water, swish through teeth, throw back my head and listen to the lonely throat swallowing, begging for more. I pick up a stray cracker, grab a long muscle from the jack-rabbit leg; still tough from a night under hot stones in the sand pit oven outside. The old hare relinquishing essential protein, i make note to send thankful nods to her progeny, I may need them someday; for mine.

I have no hunger but for the single line, transfixed by bird song and empathy. Once the sand stirring wind has passed and consciousness afresh, i am fed and cleared of mundane concern by the light of some stranger, known of others, transcribing another life on paper, for me, another famished unknown at the end of the phrase.