Ad Libitum

Dorothea and Her Doors

Annette Marie Hyder — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 17:58:38 GMT

There were red doors, blue doors, green and yellow, weathered doors with wood as smooth as satin. Doors with microcosms of their own in wood lice, mold, lichen and gold colored ants in the cracks and crevices of their parts. Warped doors, broken doors and doors with no discernible doorknob (although the ones you could see were glass knobs and brass, fancy and simple wooden latch). She had pictures of them all and every one had been lovingly captured by her camera and her photographer's eye and I was charmed at first by this diversity of doors thematically primed for a profusion of porches and limitless limens. The doors stretched like so many trunks in an endless forest but I found myself, on getting to know her better, finally lost in her maze of endless possibilities with no room in the subject field for an actual choice, just door after door after door and now that I think of it -- all of them closed.

Copyright Annette Marie Hyder

Follow up: Your company, a crown of thorns

Annette Marie Hyder — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 17:45:08 GMT

Image Copyright Annette Marie Hyder

Your company, a crown of thorns
Previously published in NEWSPAPER TREE
By Annette Marie Hyder

For the guy I got seated beside
at the posh dinner party
who wore his religion like a robe
of righteousness
and thought I should take shelter
under its voluminous folds.

Your eyes
are Starry-Night-by-Van-Gogh blue.
I wont use the cliche of storms
brewing in your eyes
or talk about the fragility --
the vulnerability -- of your ears
how your gestures are all hard swirls
and religious fervor, soliloquy
to a zealot's unique perspective.

But I will say
that I can't take my eyes off you
can't stop staring at how life
and the enjoyment of it
(by others) has you posturing
just short of spreading your arms on a cross
to complement the stigmata of your voice
raised like a blemish and bleeding on the air.

Your teeth flash halos of hate
as you try to turn my wine into water
lessen the loaves
subtract the leaven of pleasure
from this experience
leaving it flat like matzo bread.

I tell you I think nails are better used
for building things
than for celebrating wounds
while you masticate martyrdom
and sip on saintliness.

You see my words as candelabras
of confessions glowing in the room.
My tapers were lit long
before you sat by me
and tried to bask in their warmth.

I won't tonsure my tongue for you.

You look like something that should be hung
on a wall somewhere
as a warning or example
of what too much sanctimony will do.
But you're not some piece of art
depicting the germ of belief driven violence.
You're real.

Opponent, proponent

I wrote this poem about "the guy I got seated beside at the posh dinner party". I haven't seen him since 2008 and ran into him last Sunday night at a play. He looks exactly the same, acts exactly the same and is just as much a trial to be around. The big difference? He is now openly bisexual and just as much a proselytizer/prophet/program pimp for his current lifestyle as he was an opponent of the sinfulness of carnality when I met him.

You might think that it was a waste of time running into him and having to listen to him -- again. But it was edifying in that it highlighted and underscored for me that some people just don't change. Not really. They have the same mannerisms and conceits, the same modus operandi as they ever did. Their script has changed, yes, but they remain the same (bad) actor, just with a different role in the ultimate reality series of life.

Personal transformation is a rare act indeed.

Sunday Things: Full of Crow

Annette Marie Hyder — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 18:15:39 GMT

Full Of Crow Press And Distribution is an umbrella literary/arts organization that includes Full Of Crow Online, Press, Distribution, Blink Ink, Fashion For Collapse, The Sphere, Crow Radio, and more.

From the Editors of Full of Crow:

"We are looking for content that is bold and unapologetic, presented in thoughtful and purposeful ways. We like work that touches on the surreal, the mythic- enduring themes and images that are rooted in something deeply personal but connect to something transcending and universal. As many editors say, we know what it is when we see it."

Caw!

I have three pieces in the new issue of Full of Crow, spoil the day, shiny things, and earlier, then, now. The Full of Crow Winter Poetry Issue is live and you can see it here: Full of Crow Poetry, January 2012

Also, just for fun, check out this crow that likes to go sledding!

Video courtesy of YouTube user penelopakristi from Russia

Link of interest:
Awesome post on the above sledding crow video by Alexis Madrigal at the Atlantic Monthly Magazine

Copyright Annette Marie Hyder

Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2012

Annette Marie Hyder — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 18:26:44 GMT

"A voice in the wilderness..."
By Annette Marie Hyder

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. -- Isaiah 40:3, King James Version (Cambridge Edition)

Your voice rushes in the reeds of our consciousness
your words, like thunder, warned of an approaching storm
promising not destruction but blessed relief.

See how your words have changed the landscape of this nation
how the green can't help but curl into being
in the most unlikely places. In a dry parched land
a nightingale still sings.

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Martin Luther King Jr., quintessential spokesman for equality, calling for the crooked to be made straight and wrong to be made right. May your words always shine bright, burn in the hearts of those hearing and light the way for all.

Links of interest:

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2011
The Seattle Times Martin Luther King Jr. website

Excerpt from The Seattle Times Martin Luther King Jr. Website:

"Martin Luther King Jr. has now been dead longer than he lived. But what an extraordinary life it was.
At 33, he was pressing the case of civil rights with President John Kennedy. At 34, he galvanized the nation with his "I Have a Dream" speech. At 35, he won the Nobel Peace Prize. At 39, he was assassinated, but he left a legacy of hope and inspiration that continues today.
This Web site, first created by The Seattle Times in 1996, contains the story of a remarkable man, images of a tumultuous time, and perspectives of politicians, academics, students and the many, ordinary citizens whose lives he touched. We invite you to explore it." Link

Red Shoes, Dolls, and Merrow Trees

Annette Marie Hyder — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 05:02:19 GMT

By Annette Marie Hyder

Some day my impulsivity, my spontaneity, will be the storybook red shoes that dance my feet right off of me.

I am not the handless maiden, but I might as well just be, for all the grasp I have wearing gloves of naivety.

In the courtyard of my thoughts, a tree lined twisting maze, there is an Ariadne thread. I find it in your gaze.

Sometimes given context dolls are scary things; after all, they started out as idols and the kind of gods that let you carry them are likely full of pins.

I am more inclined to seek the benediction of your smile than look for hope in talismans or relics full of guile.

In a forest full of merrow trees there is the underwater sheen of moon kissed waves that lave the very heart of dream.

Copyright Annette Marie Hyder

The New Year Tree (a Branch of Yggdrasil)

Annette Marie Hyder — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 23:29:00 GMT

By Annette Marie Hyder
New Year's Eve 2012

New Year's Eve is when the ground of time itself is magically primed and you can take all the bad and ill-will in your life, shape it into a seed and bury it.

What you are really doing is planting that seed and because of the nature of the confluence of the past and the present what will grow from that seed -- if you bury it well -- is not more of the same of that from whence it came. No, what you will get is The New Year Tree and on that tree are the flowers of possibility. These flowers and the fruits that spring from them are imbued with transformative promise for the future.

The flowers morph right before your eyes from trembling bud to globed fruit swinging on the vine
and though the fruit that hangs the lowest looks good to the eye you should climb that tree to reach the "pears", "apples" and "figs" that nestle near the sky.

Embrace the tree, feel its rough bark against your sensitive skin, shimmy up the trunk pulling yourself up by the lower hanging branches (they are silver overlaying gold and the glittery dust off them coats and shimmers your skin). Once you have a perch, it is like most other things, a matter of doing the same thing again and again and again (life itself being a series of subsets of recurring patterns and repeating routines) but with more skill, agility and grace as you learn/move up the tree.

There are inscriptions on the leaves that make them look like banners bearing mottos or the fortunes from Chinese fortunes cookies rustling in the wind; they say things like, "Pluck the fruits of refreshment and enjoy them as you climb.", "May your way shine with the beauty of movement." and "To err is human, to fall angelic."

Bees bright with gold against their black sides hum from their hive while the bold squirrel named Ratatoskr watches you climb.

Each level up offers a clearer view from your place upon the tree. There are hammocks swinging in the breeze, woven from the softest feathers; you can watch sunrise and sunset from your perch upon the tree. The moon will personally come by and serenade you. Birds flutter and a snake whispers through the leaves beckoning for you to stop climbing, to come and take your ease.

Nothing wrong with that -- if that is what you want. But the way to the top, although it becomes treacherous, is lofty and proud; a ladder to the heavens. I'll see you in the clouds.

Happy New Year!

Copyright Annette Marie Hyder

Sunday Things: Life goes on

Annette Marie Hyder — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 02:23:00 GMT

Forced bulb Amaryllis kits for sale in St. Paul, Minnesota

Irrepressible, irrefutable, irresistible life

Life goes on. Under the neon lights of a big box store and in the midst of the rush and crush of shoppers, these flowers, meant to be bought for someone to nurture into blooming, just went ahead and bloomed on their own. They were not going to wait around on a shelf for someone to recognize their potential for beauty. So without their intended audience, participation from a human agent or favorable circumstances, life blossomed.

These flowers
Annette Marie Hyder

stretch their necks
like elegant flower swans
ruffle their feather petals
and sing
in their quiet way
of the beauty of life.

Links of interest:
University of Minnesota: Forcing Bulbs for Indoor Beauty in Winter
How to get your Amaryllis to Flower

Copyright Annette Marie Hyder

Headdress of Days

Annette Marie Hyder — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 20:38:06 GMT

Annette Marie Hyder
(Thanksgiving 2011)

It seems to me that I wear the days
as a sort of crown
or a headdress, a headdress of feathers
where the feathers of greatest beauty and significance
are loved ones
and the beaded ornamentation
multi-colored and brilliant
is made up of the many acts of kindness
large and small
that have been hand sewn and finger knotted in.

The length of this headdress does not, paradoxically,
increase with each day but rather with each new thing
that I have to be thankful for.
These new things are the feathers
that fan out from the top and cascade down.

And so it is that I am measuring time
not with minutes and seconds
but in gratitude
as feathers sweep my steps,
lay a hush on my surroundings
and whisper
hallelujah
as I go.

Copyright Annette Marie Hyder

Thickets

Annette Marie Hyder — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 00:43:43 GMT

Annette Marie Hyder

You bring me words
sweet and succulent
hold them in the hands of your mind —
hands scratched by thorns
and with dirt beneath their nails.

Your mouth is a basket overflowing
with hand-picked berries just for me.
Your eyes show me flashes
of fur, of feathers
in the thickets of your thoughts.
Vines cover every branch
in sinuous, sensuous green.

You want me
to walk with you
in the wild wood.
I want those berries
your thorn-scratched hands
and your basket too.

Copyright Annette Marie Hyder

Autumn Bridge

Annette Marie Hyder — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 02:47:27 GMT

Annette Marie Hyder

The autumn forest
wet with rain
is a lucid dream
where all the colors
shine like glass
that has been polished
in the wind.

Every leaf is a door
that shakes and shudders
trembling to be opened
and behind which stand
all the trees of time
immemorial.

Fire and rain blend,
become a gateway
or a bridge
spanning from one season
to the next --
inviting one to cross.

Copyright Annette Marie Hyder

Wanderers

Annette Marie Hyder — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 23:34:06 GMT

Annette Marie Hyder

Tambourines sound in the air
as the trees shake their leaves
like Gypsies dancing
in red skirts and belly chains
winking with gold coins
copper medallions
and purple paste-cut gems
that tremble in the tempo of the wind
and the wind is the music that is the end
of the summer and the fortune teller's
crystal ball of winter to come
both rolled into one.

The seasons are wandering players
and carry their backdrops
scenery and props
from place to place
trace their winding footsteps
across wagon loaded years
colorful with the freight
of experience.

When the play is over and done
the show will yet go on
the theater of nature
will still be doing business
long after I am gone
happy
to have gotten a ticket.

Copyright Annette Marie Hyder

Sunday Things: Prayers on 9/11

Annette Marie Hyder — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 23:30:08 GMT

Annette Marie Hyder

When I think of people around the world
in temples, mosques, cathedrals and fields
sending their prayers -- like children running
up a mountain slope
like paper lanterns filled with flame
lifting against a dark sky
like joyous shouts and the most lowly of lamentations
braided into a Rapunzel braid or a flying carpet
with which to ascend the heavens
and see the breaths of so many exhaled in a wish for good
blowing out, not a million birthday candles but, a myriad acts of violence
it seems to me that the final word of such supplication
culminating into one bright spirit of morning
and the dawning of a new day
is Amen.

Links of interest:
Daily Herald Gallery: Honoring 9/11 around the world
CNN: World finds unique ways to mark 9/11 anniversary
Catholic Encyclopedia: Amen

Copyright Annette Marie Hyder

The airplane --

Annette Marie Hyder — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 23:16:28 GMT

Annette Marie Hyder

that big eater of happiness
swallowed you in one gulp
and flew away with you in its belly.
That big "now you see it, now you don't" prestidigitator
parlor-tricked you out of sight

but even worse
is that it didn't have me for dessert
or put me into the big black top hat of the sky
to be pulled out like a rabbit
by sleight of hand trick
to land me next to you --
the most beautiful bird ever
made out of a magician's white scarf.

Copyright Annette Marie Hyder

Keep talking

Annette Marie Hyder — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 02:57:35 GMT

Annette Marie Hyder

Awash in the whitecaps
of your words
my resistance is a fleet
of paper boats
that sinks
gently unfolding like a sigh
or a whisper told under water.
My boats drift to the bottomless depths
lost in a sea of persuasion.

Copyright Annette Marie Hyder

Nooked!

Annette Marie Hyder — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 02:17:01 GMT

My publisher informed me that the Nook version of The Real Reason the Queen Hated Snow is now up at BN.com.

Click here to see it online.

I checked it out in-store at Barnes & Noble and was pretty excited to see it on Nook after typing in my search for "The Real Reason the Queen Hated Snow".

My daughter tried to take a picture of it but because of the electronic screen on the Nook she got wavy lines -- just like with a computer screen.

I'm a book lover. I love the heft, the smell, the rustle of pages. Even so, I am crushing on this Nook and wanting one badly. I'm Nooked!

The CNET NEWS gadget blog, CRAVE, says the Nook is arguably better than Kindle. The Real Reason the Queen Hated Snow is available on both Nook and Kindle as well as in print.

Pro Nook Reviews:
CRAVE
WIRED
Tech Crunch

Pro Kindle Reviews:
Geek Speak
A Bibliophile's Review of the Amazon Kindle
CNET

Pro Print Reviews:
Listverse: Top Ten Greatest Inventions
The Huffington Post
The New Yorker

Copyright Annette Marie Hyder

My two cents

Annette Marie Hyder — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 01:27:43 GMT

Annette Marie Hyder

You are shiny
but I'm not looking for just a pretty penny
passed from hand to hand
still warm from other fingers
and rubbed smooth as wet soap
to flip, heads or tails
into the next stranger's pocket.

My pockets are deeper than that.

Copyright Annette Marie Hyder

"Dress of books (yes, please)"

Annette Marie Hyder — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 03:46:46 GMT

Photo courtesy of resonatingtales.tumblr

Put me on
tanka
Annette Marie Hyder

yes, turn my pages
trace my title down my spine
ink-smear your fingers

shape my words with your lips, tell
me a story of your own

Copyright Annette Marie Hyder

Clouds of cool, pillows of refreshment

Annette Marie Hyder — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 02:24:38 GMT

There was something I was waiting for last night and I just couldn't fall asleep because of the waiting for it. I wondered what it was that had me so expectant and then it hit me.

When my mother remarried for the first time after my father died, she married a man much older than herself, one who had been in the Navy. His name was Elmer, Elmer Stinpinchky.

He always had (and I don't think this a "Navy guy" state of mind -- just his own parsimonious personality) special little money-saving things for the whole family to do. Like, he wanted us all to take "Navy" showers (a special routine he learned in -- you guessed it, the Navy). That's where you get in the shower, turn on the water and get wet and then turn off the water. With the water off, you soap up. After thoroughly soaping and washing, you turn the water back on and rinse. Then you turn the water off -- immediately -- and get out.

My younger brother and I constantly flouted this shower rule and Elmer, in turn, constantly berated us bitterly about it. He habitually harassed us about it because, guess what? He was listening at the door to gauge our compliance. I know, right? Pretty creepy. My mother asked us to comply with his rules and we always assured her we would and probably had every intention of obeying our mother -- until confronted with the actuality.

To this day I take v-e-r-y long showers.

Well, his concerns for household expenditures extended to every aspect of daily living and, of course, to the running of the air-conditioning. We lived in Florida and he refused to run the air-conditioning during the day (when it was the hottest). At night he set the temperature for a delightfully refreshing 80 degrees Fahrenheit. My younger brother and I hated this with a passion. Elmer's arbitrary control of the cool air was a challenge to us -- a cannon shot over the prow of our childhood sense of right. He pricked us to our very cores and provoked us to rebel by making us lie in the sweltering heat waiting for the air-conditioning to come on so that we could fall asleep to its comforting song.

The fact that he had very keen hearing, was a light sleeper and could immediately pounce on any air-conditioning infractions didn't deter us once he had whipped our hearts to mutiny. It really became an all-out war with reconnaissance and special missions on our part against his temperature tyranny.

Elmer and my mother would go to bed and as soon as we heard him snoring, I would, or my brother would, creep out into the hall from our respective rooms and adjust the temperature. This would result in, most times, the enemy charging forth from his room and bellowing about what bad kids we were and turning the temp back to what he wanted (oh, and the horror of seeing him flap around in his boxer shorts and t-shirt as he ranted and brandished his fist!). But sometimes, oh sometimes, he would sleep right through long enough for the air-conditioning to whisk us off into dreams on a cloud of cool.

Finally, tiring of the nightly skirmishes, Elmer came upon what he thought was the perfect solution and which, I admit, at first brought bitter defeat into our hearts: A Honeywell TG511A Universal Thermostat Lock Box...

Image courtesy of the Honeywell Company

Product description from the Honeywell site:

"Make sure your temperature settings stay just where they should be with the Honeywell TG511A universal thermostat lock box. Compatible with a wide range of thermostats, this lock box protects against unauthorized temperature changes while still permitting temperature monitoring. It also shields your thermostat from unintentional damage as well as wear and tear."

But we were not deterred indefinitely. We discovered that touching the thermostat was not necessary to triggering the thermostat. A bump against the wall would trigger the mechanism by jostling the delicate spring system by which the arrow indicator maintained its balance. So, once the lock box was installed we all slept the better for it. Elmer could sleep secure with the knowledge that he held the key and we, we could sleep in comfort once his snoring began and the wall had been gently bumped goodnight.

Last night, on the heels of such hot weather I might have mistaken myself for being back in Florida and with humidity licking at the windows, last night I was waiting for the air-conditioning to click on -- just like when I was little.

Copyright Annette Marie Hyder

Something to cool off with

Annette Marie Hyder — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 21:12:02 GMT

Yesterday, Moorehead Minnesota's heat index was the highest anywhere in the world, according to The Washington Post. With the oppressive heat we've been experiencing here in Minnesota, I thought I'd share a cooler vista, a cold perspective from earlier this year. Feel free to fan yourself, metaphorically, with the following:

Winter landscape

Photo Annette Marie Hyder

Unpredictable
Winter 2011
Annette Marie Hyder

The rain was falling like soft tears
but has hardened now into snow—
this can often happen with the heart
as well as with the weather.

Copyright Annette Marie Hyder

The long Minnesota government shutdown nightmare is at an end

Annette Marie Hyder — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 20:05:42 GMT

Reports are rolling in that the 20 day Minnesota government shutdown is over:

NYDailyNews.com: Minnesota ends 19-day government shutdown, Gov. Mark Dayton signs $35.7 billion budget deal
MyFox9com: Dayton Signs Budget; Minnesota Government Shutdown Ends
Business Week: Minn. lawmakers convene to vote on ending shutdown

Copyright Annette Marie Hyder