Waiting for the kiln to cool: a poem

I unintentionally deleted an important Powerpoint file that I have spent hours and hours working on, and then in an effort to clear up space on my laptop, I emptied the Recycle Bin. I've tried assorted recovery suggestions, but it's gone, gone, gone.

Alas.

Losing the file made me realize how woefully disorganized my folders are, so I'm doing some housekeeping today.

Lo, I found a free-floating poem I wrote a while ago. It's now tucked safely into a folder where I may or may not ever find it again, so I'm putting it here, so it can live on da blog with assorted other poems. Pretty sure I had a melody in my brain for it, but that's deleted and emptied from my mental recycle bin, oh well.

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Waiting for the Kiln to Cool

Oh I’m waitin’ for the kiln to coo-oo-oo-ool;

Temp’s gotta drop first--I ain’t no fool!

I worked too long on chipmunks, vases, and cups!

To lift the lid now risks thermal-shock blow ups.

Well, I say that’s the case, but truth be told,

Sometimes impatient, feeling risky and bold,

Throwing caution to the wind, anti-erudite,

I peek inside the kiln above two hundred Fahrenheit!

And the pots, they go

            Ping,

                        Ping,

                                    Ping.

In the warm air of the

            Spring,

                        Spring,

                                    Spring,

So I shut the lid, and I

            Sing

                        Sing

                                    Sing

about waitin’ for the kiln to cool….

More exuberance

Claymakers had a Valentine's themed fundraiser fest back in February. S and I went with TS. The fabulous Poetry Fox was there, and T commissioned a poem for me. It's remarkably on-target. Exuberance isn't always easy, especially on dreary rainy days like today, so it's helpful to have this wisdom from the Fox to reflect on.

Poem

WTF Were the Grown-Ups Thinking?: 

A Poem for College Undergraduates Nationwide 

Dear young adults, please do us proud 

Of your budding social graces 

As now you move, a giant crowd, 

Back to your campus places. 

Please use your smarts, do as you vowed: 

Stand apart at least six paces, 

And t’ prevent a covid aerosol cloud, 

Wear masks upon your faces. 

Be brave, stand up, don’t just stand by 

When peers flout common sense. 

Your health’s at risk—and so is mine— 

the dangers are immense. 

Say “friends, by now we all know why 

Masks are the best defense 

Against th' contagious coronavi- 

Rus. Don, or go I hence.” 

If peers reply, "We've none to wear 

Until our laundry’s done," 

Now's the time to show you care 

By offering to give them some 

From your stash—you're so prepared 

This problem to overcome! 

But if “Ne'er!” they shout, then do not err: 

Swiftly from them run. 

I know you’re young, I know you’re strong, 

I know you're kind and wise. 

Most of you know right from wrong, 

Yet still I agonize. 

Choosing well th’semester long 

Will be, ‘tis no surprise, 

A challenge. Thus I beg you, throng: 

Mask! Distance! Sanitize!

The unexpected guest: a poem in two parts

I.
Cat plays at my feet,
tickles my leg
once;
twice;
thrice.
I look down to tell him to stop,
and see he's too far away
to reach my shin.
How is he tickling me?
Mid-wonder,
something skitters inside my pants leg.
Palmetto bug?!
I shake my leg forcefully,
flinging it away.
It squeaks.
Mouse.
I try to rescue it before the cat can kill it, but
the mouse is small and fast and
takes refuge behind the fish tank.
Vigilant cat stands sentry, while my shin
replays the memory of where
the silken paws
climbed.

II.
Vigilant cat!
You waited patiently,
ears cocked,
pupils wide,
hours long.
The mouse waited too,
then, tricked by your silence,
emerged from behind the fish tank.
You pounced.
Mouse pounced.
I pounced.
We danced together erratically
on tip-toes until at last
darkness fell
in the concave form of black polypropylene,
no longer single-use plastic.

Bewildered rodent rests now
under a giant oak tree,
blinking in the sunlight,
panting,
a fang hole in its side.
A mortal wound?

The poet ponders:
Will mouse live or will mouse die or
will mouse find its way back up my leg?

The time has come

‘The time has come,’ the Walrus said,
     ‘To talk of many things:
Of school—and work—and camping trips—
     Of children spreading wings—
And when to leave a trusty gig
     To learn what else life brings.’

‘O Org’nist,’ said the Carpenter,
     ‘You’ve had a pleasant run!
But after nearly fifteen years,
     We understand—you’re done.
Go! Make some waffles! Sleep past dawn!
     Hike! Backpack! Bye! Have fun!”

The Clay's Lament

Sometimes folks in the communal pottery studio leave their clay on the plaster part of the wedging table to dry for a bit, and then they forget about it. Tonight, an accumulation of dried out clay lumps inspired this:

The Clay's Lament

~ in tragic verse ~

High atop a mountain born,
Across millennia, ground and worn,
'Til rested I in a riverbed,
For thy art then harvested.
My life, once formed, was all too brief:
My form, once lived, brought thee but grief.
Now on th'wedging table, I:
Abandoned here, out to dry.
Will no artist's hand or eye
Alter this cruel destiny?

A Poem on the Occasion of an Adult Child's Declaration of Artistic Calling

(written with Love by its Parents)

Dear child, we are so very proud
to learn upon this day
that you have chosen to pursue
a life in art--in CLAY!

Some wise words now we offer you,
lest you come to woe:
CLEAN UP THE MESSES THAT YOU MAKE
IN THE COMMUNAL STUDIO!

Show the other starving artists
with whom you share space
that you are not a bum, oh no:
CLEAN UP, FOR GOODNESS' SAKE!

Clay dust is quite dangerous
when it is inhaled.
Silicosis will torment you, dear,
until your lungs have failed.

That is why we try to practice
keeping down the dust.
Washing out the filter after
spraying glaze? A MUST!

Don't expect the other folks
to clean up after you.
Rinse out the sponges after use;
wipe up your spills and goo.

Don't just stop there: now’s the time
to LEAD! Said one clay pundit:
"leave the studio cleaner yet than
as you previously f[o]und it."

Make your parents proud, my dear:
CLEAN THE F&*% UP WHEN YOU’RE DONE.
Etiquette, health, safety?
They're good for everyone.

Cat lessons

Blazing amber 

kitty eyes-- 

behind them, 

sentiments so wise: 

"The sun has set, 

the crickets chirp, 

now is the time 

to get to work! 

You humans need 

to learn a lesson 

beyond this

legislative session. 

There are still 

bigger fish to fry, 

more important 

things to try!" 

If Schroeder could 

but English speak, 

he'd say to us, 

"Let go your pique! 

Stop surfing 

NC politics! 

Forget th' impending 

'pocalypse! 

The situation 

may seem dire, 

but focus, focus: 

aspire higher!" 

He drops a fuzzwad 

at our feet, 

meows forcefully, 

"get off your seat! 

Now learn a skill 

with real merit: 

I'll teach you how 

to fetch a carrot!"

Chickodils

One of my favorite poems is "Daffodils" by William Wordsworth. In a fatigued but heady moment, after staying up late at Claymakers inhaling kiln-room fumes, glazing chicklets, and sending the first mini-whistle flock into the kiln, I pillaged Wordsworth's rhyme scheme, yielding the poem below. The poetry gods exacted vengeance by striking down the flock: I had hung the birds on a bead rack (two ceramic posts across which multiple high-temperature metal bars rest) that supposedly could handle a cone-6 firing, and every bar sagged and fell off the posts. The result? Fused chicklet-kabobs. The resilient poet has yet to engineer a bulk (i.e. full flock vs. individual bird) firing solution, but in the meantime, I offer the poem publicly to let Euterpe and her sisters know I will not be deterred. (Not that, you know, I'm dropping the gauntlet or anything; I would never diss a Muse.)

Chickodils

I wondered to myself out loud,
How that same self to entertain,
When all at once I thought: a crowd:
A flock of birds to play a strain
With notes chromatic, diatonic,
Up scale, down scale, enharmonic.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle o’er the fruited plain,
I threw a flock in one long line,
For weeks the focus of my brain.
Three dozen made I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

Their fipples are a pain to make,
But when they resonate—what glee!
A potter could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company.
I made—and made—but little thought
What wealth the flock to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
I play a bird! Notes low and high
Bring music to my solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure quickens,
and dances to the well-tuned chickens.

Generation upon generation

Part of the legacy of my brilliant grandmother Woozy is this story about my uncle Bob--a story for the generations. As Heinrich Heine put it in Dichterliebe, "Es ist eine alte Geschichte / doch bleibt sie immer neu" ("It's an old story, but it remains ever new"). Heine, of course, was poetizing about unrequited love, not good books on the john, but I like to think both Woozy and Heine would approve. E, we're on to you.


"Dinner time," Wooz called.
"I have to make a BM" said Ahbut Dafoots Botsybee. So they all ate up the soup and crackers and meat and potatoes and sweet corn and green beans.
"Dinner time," Wooz called.
"I'm not finished," said Ahbut Dafoots Botsybee. So they all ate up the lettuce and scallions and green onions and radishes and cucumbers.
"Dinner time," Wooz called.
"I'm not finished," said Ahbut Dafoots Botsybee. So they all ate up the strawberry shortcake with whipped cream.
"I'm finished," said Ahbut Dafoots Botsybee. "It was a VERY LONG BOOK."

Pythagorean cups

I am pleased to report major developments in the Geek Lab: we re-engineered the Pythagorean Cup! Also known as the Cup of Tantalus, the Pythagorean cup punishes gluttony. Fill the cup a modest amount, and the drinker may consume the beverage in peace; overfill it, and it siphons all of its contents into the drinker's lap.

My 2012 Session 1 Claymakers "Pottery for Geeks" class mostly eagerly took on the redesign of the Pythagorean cup. I made a simplified test model, based on images from Wikipedia:

Image by Nevit Dilmen

A hole at the base of the central cap allows the cap to fill as the cup fills. Once the liquid reaches the top edge of the inner pipe, it flows down through the center of the cup. Because of the cap, the outflowing liquid can only be replaced by more liquid, not by air, and the entire contents of the cup siphon out.

The test model worked extremely well, but several of us opined that the big round thang in the middle was unsightly and would arouse gluttons' suspicions.

After some geek conferencing, we decided to incorporate the siphon into the handle. I threw a few thin tori and kluged them into siphons. In the image below, the cup on the left siphons its contents from the cup into the inner torus, up into the outer torus, and out the bottom of the handle. The cup on the right siphons from the cup into the front torus, up into the back torus, and out the bottom.
Aside from the handles looking clunky, it took significant effort to align, seal, and disguise the holes between the torus segments, and neither handle siphoned particularly well: both lacked sufficient water pressure for a satisfying drainage rate, and the curved handles sent water dribbling onto the undersides of the cups rather than straight down--that's Newton's first law for you. While Acme Klein Bottle sells a cup that siphons efficiently through its handle, these torus-handle models are duds.

The next design merely shifted Pythagoras's unsightly siphon from the center of the cup to the edge. The siphon was significantly easier to build than the torus handles, but remained unsightly. I attempted to distract the glutton's eye by covering the outside of the cup with tessellating lizards and positioning a lizard over the siphon, taking inspiration from Escher's Reptiles (1943).
Wanting to further minimize the obtrusiveness of the siphon, I explored a final siphon experiment modeled on Acme Klein Bottle's Tantalus wine glass. The handbuilt, relatively small siphon was trivially easy to build, although the frog decoy perched upon it took a while to make.
The lizard cup beat the frog: excellent water pressure made for smooth and rapid decanting. I suppose the frog cup might function acceptably during a gluttony emergency, but insufficient water pressure makes for a halfhearted dribble. With further tinkering--for example, making the inflow side of the siphon wider than the outflow side--the simple siphon* might yet prove worthy of replication.

Always the rebel, Schroeder Cat managed to drink out of the bottom of the cup.


*Simple siphon met a python
Going to the fair;
Said simple siphon to the python,
"Will you drink my ware?"
Said the python to simple siphon,
"You've poured one drink too many";
Said simple siphon to the python,
"But look, I have not any!"

Learning the classics

Calculus fans that we are, we have learned how to maximize sleep while minimizing our weekday morning routine. S and I get up at 7:45; we wake E up at 7:50 and consent to "just one more minute" before forcing him out of bed at 7:55. He gets dressed ("hurry up dude, it's 8:00!"), brushes his teeth ("hurry up dude, it's five past eight!"), eats a leisurely breakfast ("dude, focus! focus!"), packs his backpack ("yo, dude!"), and slides on his already-tied shoes ("dude, we're going to be late!") in time for us to pull out of the driveway by 8:17. We turn into the school parking lot at 8:27, which gives him three full minutes to walk to his classroom and still be on time. Surely two of those minutes could have been spent sleeping.

The consequence of this carefully honed routine is that E spends the ten-minute drive to school staring vacantly out the car window, while I'm still pumped up on the adrenaline it took to get us out the door. Occasionally we'll exchange pleasantries about the weather or analyze another driver's crappy driving (a gift passed from my father to me and now from me to my son), but usually conversation is minimal. "I'm tired," E explains, when I nudge him to talk. I understand: it takes time to get the mental wheels moving after you've been asleep for 10.5 hours.

Then a school assignment injected some verve into the morning drive: E had to memorize the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, so we learned the Schoolhouse Rock version together, and spent two weeks singing it on the way to school. When we got to the point where we could both recite it without singing, and without pausing after "ensure domestic tranquility-ee-ee-ee [2 3 4]," it was time to move on.

"You need to learn some poetry," I declared. "If you can memorize the preamble, you can learn some poetry."

--"Do I have to?"

"Yes," I said. E still hasn't figured out that he doesn't have to do everything I tell him.

--"No."

"Yes. Do it. It'll be fun!"

--"Uhhh..."

"Here, repeat after me."

I chose a classic to start him off:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
At three o'clock he had his great fall.
The King set his time machine back to two;
Now Humpty's together and good as new.

After two attempts, he had it down. "There, OK, I'm done," he said, and went back to vacant staring.

The next day we moved on to another rhyme from The Space Child's Mother Goose:

Little Jack Horner
Sits in a corner
Extracting cube roots to infinity.
An assignment for boys
To minimize noise
And produce a more peaceful vicinity.

Done. Easy. The next day, it was time to pull out the big guns.

"OK dude," I said, "it's time to learn 'Jabberwocky.'"

--"But I already learned some poems."

"Yes--and they were fun, weren't they? You're doing great! Now you need to learn 'Jabberwocky.' Ready?"

--"No. Why do I need to learn it?"

"Because you know I'm going to recite it over and over again until you try."

By the time we pulled into the school parking lot, he had a good start on the first stanza, but he was still skeptical.

--"So why do I need to learn this?"

"It'll give you something to say at parties when you don't have anything else to say. Trust me, it's very useful."

It only took another two days before he got tired of the stanza-per-day method and zoomed ahead. At home, I showed him the page in my well-worn copy of Through the Looking Glass. Was it any coincidence that the spine had broken in half, years ago, right on that very page? We held it up to a mirror so he could read it, and there was no going back.

Last night, E dug out his cape, built himself a Tum-Tum tree, and hung a Jabberwock from the stairwell. Needless to say, I'm thrilled that he seems to enjoy this most excellent poem as much as I do. Perhaps in a few weeks, he'll be willing to move on to Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout (who would not take the garbage out).

Incidentally, if you listen carefully at the beginning, you might hear the Jabberwock meowing behind the camera.

Instruction:

Instruction:: A Found Poem from the Tag of S's New Bike Saddle

Instruction:

The saddle makes different conditions
that depend on the weather and ridders
weight by using

The new saddle will be quite stiff,
after ridding 500-800 kms, it will
become more supple and as like your hip

The leather saddle should be
maintained by leather grease
when it be exposed to the sunshine
and rain

Or it is advised to regular
application leather grease about
once a month after ridding so
that can extend saddle's life

please use a waterproof cover to
protect it when the saddle is not using

Found poem

I just realized the Labels tag cloud on this blog makes a pretty swell found poem. I particularly like the phrases atmospheric firing attitude, camping cats, cursing dialects, downtown dreams, energy fish, heavy machinery holidays, möbius strips neighbors newspapers, obscene heat obsession, and the elision of spring style therapy things with things you blow in tolkien--plus that the poem ends with y'all. Here's the current iteration; parse it as you will.


L A B E L S

acrophobia airport security assumptions atmospheric firing attitude adjustment backseat conversations bats beach bedding beloved child beloved engineer bifocals blogging breathing bugs camping cats chickens church colloquialisms common cold consumer culture creative nonfiction cultural differences cursing dialects diatomaceous earth disappointments don't try this at home downtown dreams education energy fish flowers food friends geekitude gender germany good causes grammar heavy machinery holidays homework house houseplants hyperbole intentional homophonic misspellings jury service kiln klein bottles large numbers maintenance math mendelssohn mental hygiene mice modal auxiliary verbs museums music möbius strips neighbors newspapers northern obscene heat obsession opera organ overreacting pedal piano poetry plastic pollen pottery preparing pronouns punctuation recycling religion roadtrip safety in the pottery studio schumann sentence fragments shoes signs size sleep soccer southern southern insults spring style therapy things you blow in tolkien town gown relations trash untapped potential USA weather y'all

The Two Towers: a recitation on females therein

The dramatic midpoint have I reached: the end of Tolkien's The Two Towers; through the myriad preparations and battles of Book 3, wherein was saved Helm's Deep, and then southward through Book 4 to Minas Morgul. En route encountered I yet two more females with names, and learned much of race (the discussion of which must wait), and of the need for slow plebes to attach themselves to hereditary leaders of great strength, wisdom, and handsome boldness (which also must wait), and of the ancient linguistic origins of Yoda's subject-verb reversals. Now eagerly up stand I, clasping my hands behind my back (as is my charming rustic habit whenever I am about to "talk Tolkien"), and recite thus:

Ladies? Few. All pale, of course, in Galadriel's radiant light.
Up next we meet fair Éowyn, who trembles within sight
of virile Aragorn. Perhaps new sexual tension's nigh?
We'll have to wait until Book 5 to find out if, how, why.

She does not say much, Éowyn; grave, thoughtful is her glance;
Hair like gold, and dressed in white, she later puts on pants:
Fearless and high-hearted, she will lead in Théoden's lieu.
Alas, ten pages text, no more: her Book 3 role is through.

In Book 4 enters one more lass, less stunning than the rest;
and yet she stuns: her will's her own: to sunder is her quest.
Antithesis could be her name, for ('tis an ancient view)
a woman's either beautiful or evil through and through.

Bloated, fat, she feasts upon whatever happens by:
she spins her web, snares Men, Elves, Orcs in lair up near the sky.
Shelob would like to suck the blood of swooning Frodo too,
but Samwise stabs her underside, releasing yucky goo.