Snow photos / Poem: Bloodletting, not to be confused w/blood libel

Spooky! I was spooning out these frozen raspberries for dinner when the phone rang. It was a recorded message about a voluntary recall from Nature's Promise, packagers of not only the rasps but also the frozen peas and greenbeans I am eating right now (the corn is from another company). I mix it in w/hot spaghetti and it melts for a nice quick dinner.

Recall is for fresh salad greens, the very kind I buy.


View from kitchen window. Red rose is from my b'day dinner at Tavulo's Italian Restaurant. Ada and Rich drove us there one snowy Saturday nite. The rose still lives and so do I.


View from the backporch. Trees form a buffer zone from industries on Davisville Road. Scott and schoolkids cut thru my yard to get to Davisville which leads to the world beyond, including the train station.

Front of my house


Woke up to this winter wonderland.


Test photo by Scott after my camera failed to operate. We'd been outside, it was night, and the mother deer and child were in my front yard. I went inside - actually found my camera - and got out there quickly but the darn button wouldn't work.

As mentioned earlier I'm finding some of the poems and prose I wrote and trying to get them published. Anywhere! Here's one I submitted to a poetry contest at Montco Community College. I'd won one or two awards from them but disappointed this didn't even make last runner-up.

Everything has a story. I used to see the doctor for whom the below Denise worked. Very competent man. But I could not stand his receptionist. So, all things being equal, I chose another physician who I'm even happier with.

IN HONOR OF MY BLOODLETTING

Here is my left arm, Denise,
take it,
the one where the perfect vein for
shooting heroin
pops out.

I never shot heroin,
Denise,
too afraid
but always wondered what it felt like:
Euphoria:
the hawk
soaring overhead
readying himself
for the
kill:
furry fieldmice,
the feral cat.

I rest my arm on the table
eyes fastened
on the aquarium ahead
golden fish and black mollies
float through high-up castles
parading their same seemingly
endless tune over and over again
while a tiny hermit crab with
wheels on his bottom
shoos along the prickery sand,
a man of balance and calm desires.

Is it coming out, Denise?
She’s a’comin, you say,
in your rubber gloves,
I glance over at the tube
as my wine of life
splashes merrily into a glass container
then gaze back at the aquarium
where the fish comfort me
their bliss spilling over
becoming mine.