My First Blackout Poem

I just did my first blackout poem for this month’s contest.

The ‘Top-Notcher’

The closing scene of the celebration
placed them above the recent Games
the Committee and a few guests for Oyster
did not want to launch The water,
however, the steamer volunteered

When the party was safely landed,
the Committee marched home whistling
I am an institution and are all

the long lingered long
splendidly One by one
all words of welcome were to
the visitors with a smile and a handshake.
bear and deer antlers and skin
I want to say one word you feel is
the literal truth, the history
the biggest feat that has ever been

Now that we are here we must not forget
how proud we are of the straight shooting.

and the yell that went up
worked through the crowd
to the front of the window

Well, we’ve won and the less talking we do the better.
‘Remember,’ drop the business and go to work

At A Loss Over Data Loss

It became clear to me today that I lost almost everything when my iMac hard drive died last week.

I both can’t stand and can’t help continually remembering and imagining all the songs, poems, journal entries, photos, and myriad documents that I had created and collected over the last three years. I have a few backups from over a year ago, but mostly I seem to have lost all the recordings I’ve made in the last two years. I am an idiot.

And so I start from scratch, again, and am glad to be focused on what I need to record, un-distracted by all the old stuff I had. And I am so glad for having made this site my archive; it’s safe from my unstable systems. And now I have a fresh terabyte, which I was amazed to get for $150 at BestBuy. Time to fill it up with a new album.