News Flash: EASTER SUNDAY CRASH!
Computer Meltdown!
Bookpuddle is down. Down, I say!
[Remember that one scene in "So I Married An Axe-Murderer" where Mike Myers, playing the role of his own father at the wedding of himself, comments on the Bagpiper that has expired in the middle of playing "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?" Myers, in harsh Scottish brogue bellers out "We've got a piper dooon! I repeat! A piper is doooon!"]
Great movie.

Well, yesterday my laptop, yes, the Mac [go figure] went doooon!
It went way dooooon! I repeat, My laptop is dooooon!
When I try booting up, it sounds like a herd of mice are eating a bag of potato chips just under the keyboard. It's terrible. SCREEN IS BLANK.
My first thought [I swear to God] was just to fill Jack's food dishes up and then jump off my balcony!
I am an Internet cafe here, reporting.
So I am not sure how long it will be before I am up and running again.
I am very very chagrined over this.
I will miss you all!
Sincerely,
Cip

Today is my mom's birthday.
She is 76 years old today, and I love her.
She is not all that well [physically] as many of you may know [I've mentioned her illness before]... but this year, at her Birthday Party which was combined with an Easter Sunday celebration at my sister's, my mom, when blowing out the candles on her cake, made a wish.
She said it out loud.
It was that everyone there would be with her for her 90th Birthday!
And then my sister said, "Mom, you're not supposed to SAY the wish out loud, or else it won't work!"
And mom said, "Oh come on. It'll work. It'll work!"
Which is very similar to something I have been muttering whenever I think of my laptop-computer, lately...

[CYBER-UPDATE: I am writing this from a Library computer. My laptop is incarcerated in a Mac-Hospital for the Terminally Unbooted! It's a place run by a bunch of nuns!]

************

Wow!
Umm… that was an easy fix!
My computer was not as ruined as I had thought it was.
I admit. I panicked.
And who can blame me?
There is nothing funny about a black screen!
But what I have to say about the recovery of my computer may be of profound importance to other Mac-users out there. So, listen up!

But first… just a little story that once again proves I am “mentally challenged.”

Let Me Kiss Your Tongue

What happened next, I love.
No questions. You did not hesitate.
Someone may have had something to ask.
But, oh. Dearest.
In that certain darkness, my eyelashes playing horizon
Drinking, drank up the spectacle of that glistening muscle
Emerging from your full-wet lips,
On my sentence.
No clarification.

Wow! I’ve had the most relaxing weekend
Ever. While winter has been frosting the
Windows and filling the driveway, my
Friend and I have been lazing about
In the hot-tub talking, reminiscing
About so many things. Listening
To a lot of terrific music. Also
Just generally catching up
With each other. Eating
And laughing 2 much.
At one point, I even
Wrote a poem, &

The First Time

What would you say to my
I love you?
For the first time.
We once wondered.

Tell me to take it back?
Rewind the tape? Or
Say it again? Louder?
As I recall, there was indeed
An echo, but never louder.
Not once did you hear it
Louder, than the first time.

human

i looked up.
they had made their webs
in the rafters,
these two silent architects.
so i knocked them into a foil pan
where they lightly clattered.
exoskeletons, spinning
and disoriented.
so i sprayed aerosol on them
in great amounts, until
swimming to the center of the pan
they found each other,
grappled,
and broke their own necks.
i heard it.
two faint snaps.
i did not look up

Cranberry Lake

An August sun baked our canoe
Where we had beached it, in the sand.
And, taking your small hand
Toward shade, I led you.

Or was it you, me,
Who followed, who led,
When gaily laughing, you said
This bunch here are portabellini?

This bunch of what? said I
Dumb as three brooms.
These here, see the mushrooms
‘Neath the tree where they lie?

How do you know this?
When I stopped you were shaken -
Thinking me angry, mistaken

1. Snow is fun until Christmas but then I am ready for it to melt.
2. I'm looking forward to things slowing down just a wee bit so I can enjoy time with friends and family.
3. Books are the best present ever! (Just in case my family is reading!) ;)
4. One of my favorite old tv shows is M*A*S*H .
5. I'm done with maternity clothes?!? (First thing that came to mind, sorry)

Ouija

So I turned to a road atlas, in lieu of your
Vanilla limbs. My finger along interstates
Ran and I said, These are her veins.
In blue, lakes and rivers showed their wet
Spots and again, my fingers, searching,
Sought.

Where is a park, where we can hide away?
I’m not familiar, I complained, and just then
I felt, Ouija-like, an assistance.
Here. Follow me, and
I followed, sleep-walking but never more
Awake. Here, further a bit.

You and I were in Green River.
I said I am a stranger here.

Two Decisions

Look. I walk towards you, and the
World gets closer. Or further away.
Which is it? Did you take a step
Back?
See. I look up as I approach
And the clouds scatter. Or form.
Which is it? Did you take a step
Back?
Hear. There was a bird that sang
Just then. Or there was silence.
I am not sure now, did you
Hear it, too?

While that fountain played with us
And threw us in and out, I made
What is known as a decision.

‘Never Again’

These feelings can’t reach the frozen core.
No, chilled and shaken… you turn from the sun
And I cry, and I wonder how one
Lengthy coolness can come from so brief a storm
You never feel warm
anymore.

These feelings don’t end where they begin.
No, spilled and taken… they never flow back
And I die, and I say for the lack
Of a better word ‘Why?’ This one way emotion
Like river to ocean…
‘Never again.’

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Aneurysm

This is how I want it to be. While reading Hardy
I turn to her and tell her how good she would
Look in that blue dress she did not buy today.
And I see that smirk, the one that knows
I will get it for her tomorrow anyway. But just as
She adjusts the pillow behind her head, reaching
For her fourth volume of Proust, the same thing
Happens to her. And we lean into each other,
The calico cat not even stirring at our feet
As our books fall forward.
And that candle she lit, flickers.

© Ciprianowords Inc. 2008

Apostrophe

Life’s one.
Remember how long we were confused about it?
Do you? I recall asking
Your opinion of the Fall.
You argued for myth, and I stuck to
Fact. So much, I damn near convinced myself.
The serpent was not even a snake, you said.
And I asked how you knew this.
I was there, you said.

Worms

We went worm-hunting, we did, me and you, we did.
Thing is, when a man is to go fishing, he needs the worms.
And so, my great God, I dug ‘em as though my last three lives
Depended on a damn-good basketfull right now.

I dug, and scraped, and so did you.
Until we found a few, curling and lost. Disoriented worms,

Blackwing

Poison lies in wait, not about
To fill three trumpets with spit
While someone beats a drum. Not
Quite. It knows to tread softly up

To My Princess

I’ve heard he rides quite well, and in the sun
his armor gleaming
Would blind you if it wasn’t for the fact
that you were dreaming.
You’ve pictured him a thousand times
and when he calls, you’re ready.
(He seldom thinks of you and when he does
you’re one of many).

Now I’m not one for armor, and my horse
is prone to shyness…
Yet every thought of you contains the words
“Your Royal Highness.”
Let someone else daydream in vain
for Kings they’ve never seen.

Toilet Paper

This morning, elbows on knees
I gazed at a roll of it,
Wondering what the ancients did.
Long ago. Way before toilets even.
And which came first, the toilet
Or the paper?

All we really know is that
Everywhere, ubiquitously,
There is some -- or so we hope.
But it is even beyond hope.

Looking Behind

I

Especially on quiet, satiated evenings it will happen.
Walking down the street I will suddenly stop
And turn toward a sense of myself approaching me.
Not of being followed or stalked, but quite the opposite.
The impossibility of pursuit. As though I alone exist
And my steady apparition.

II

Phantasm

I walked across a field last night
And though you were not there…
The scented, memory-laden
Mists of you were in the air.

And these were scattered by a breeze
Whose message was the same…
For distantly were whisp’ring
Aspen leaves that knew your name.

And even when the gathering winds

I Do It Again

The toe pads of my cat are pink as a fairy gown,
And sometimes I tug on the tufts of white hair
That emerge between each, and he looks at me
Thinking thoughts in English, lacking the vocal
Ability of course, but the message could not be
Clearer, Must you do that?
I do it again.
A twitch. Narrowed lids.

Waiting

Rhymes with weighting, and makes me heavy.
You know I am going to keep believing in you.

The first half-hour I was embarrassed, I guess.
Felt there should be no reason for me, waiting.

I smiled at people, as they passed me by.
And An hour passed, and I put a hand to my chest.

Your Love For Me

If you the hills chant and me in them run
To find naught but tree and shadow
Conspiring, and an owl hooting ridicule,
What will touch my face, then?

The Extra Ones

We are told that he chose five smooth stones.
Young, and ruddy faced, in 1 Samuel 17:40.
I would have imagined jagged ones to cause
Greater cranial damage, but who am I?
This sling was not even the type you draw back on.
It was the kind you whirl about your head.
I know, because there was an artist’s rendition
In the book my mother read, as my eyes fell shut.

So an army cowers, as the boy runs forward,
Taunting this oaf! “This day the Lord will hand you
Over to me.” He kicks the dirt and spits, “And I’ll

I saw this at CJ Hill's Blog and had to do this!

What Be Your Nerd Type? Your Result: Literature Nerd 

Does sitting by a nice cozy fire, with a cup of hot tea/chocolate, and a book you can read for hours even when your eyes grow red and dry and you look sort of scary sitting there with your insomniac appearance? Then you fit this category perfectly! You love the power of the written word and it's eloquence; and you may like to read/write poetry or novels. You contribute to the smart people of today's society, however you can probably be overly-critical of works.

It's okay. I understand.

THE NET

I made you many and many a song,
Yet never one told all you are --
It was as though a net of words
Were flung to catch a star;

Well, here I am on the final leg of my holidays.
Still visiting. Still having fun. Still eating.
But come Monday, it is back to the coal mines for me. Tomorrow I will be boarding a plane and flying back home. Back to my meowing Jack, and the snowbanks I left behind in Ottawa.
At the end of each year I like to reflect upon the books I have read over the past 12 months. I reminisce about each one and see which come to the forefront as being especially memorable and worthwhile.

Kookiejar started this and then it spread like Chicken Pox in a Daycare. I had to do it too!

Here's what you do:
Set your Mp3 player on shuffle and write the title of the first song that comes up as an answer to each question no matter how stupid it sounds...(savvy? Here we go.)

IF SOMEONE SAYS "IS THIS OKAY?" YOU SAY?
1234 (Feist) That's how long you got until the sheet hits the fan, dawg.

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF?
Tom Sawyer (Rush) Though my mind is not for rent, don't put me down as arrogant.