Brewed Beverage of Choice: A Pint of Brother Thelonius Abbey Style Ale from Northcoast Brewing
The past few days have been some of the most creative and thought-provoking ones in recent memory. First, I finally finished the biography of Lewis Mumford giving me a grand total of 1500 pages of material read and studied since the middle of August. To give you an idea of how grand a scale this is, 1500 is greater than the number of pages I have read and studied from January 1st to the middle of August.
Second, I am beginning to have dreams again. There are times in our lives where the dreams just end…they do not come whilst we sleep and we go on with our days regardless. But the past two days I have been shaken awake by the dreams I have been having. I am not to the stage of writing ‘em down yet, that will come soon enough. But I do know one of them involved snakes, which would be the second time this year I have had a rather surreal dream about snakes. (Something I will get to the bottom of, rest assured.)
Finally, during the course of my transits to and from work and walking the dog, I have spontaneously had poetry pop in to my mind. Creativity of this magnitude just sort of rumbles in like a summer storm in Wisconsin and passes just as quickly. It is something I have gotten used to in my 35 years wandering. And so without further ado, the poetry harvest (minus the one I did today…) brought by the storm of transit musing.
Poem #1
Through the brewery window
The autumn sun peaks
Enticed by the pleasant aroma
Of the morning mash
and the engaging company.
Poem #2 (thought after reading a book about Trappist Monks in Belgium and listening to Thelonius Monk)
The time spent mashing -
My morning meditation.
Diz, Billie, and the Monk -
My bop-harmony chorus.
No finer mass can be found!
And the last poem needs a bit of an introduction. The night prior to writing this particular piece I was watching the news (for whatever reason.) On it the visage of President Bush appeared. His stump speech, in so many words, was about how if the Democrats win in this election then “the terrorists have won.” The first thing that came to my head is, “How the hell can he get away with saying something such as that?” The second thing was, “How can there still be people in this country who actually believe that statement?” The most terrifying thing about that statement is that HE believes what he is saying.
President Bush Makes A Lousy Farmer!
We are calves
Waiting to become veal,
Chained to the floor by lies
And fear, held in place
Under the lazy eye
of Farmer Brown.