Peter Norman Day Weekend Tribute In Poetry

Finding myself in the position of being a featured poet at Words Out Loud in Rockville, Maryland (USA) at the start of Peter Norman Day Weekend*, I had to do something to honor the holiday.  So I clumsily told the story of the three men on the podium that day when the medals were awarded to the 200-meter sprint winners in the 1968 Olympic Games.  And I read a poem I had written for the occasion.
     As that moment was about both human rights and friendship, the poem I wrote was about how friends affect each other's lives.  During the reading of my poem, I presented a montage of photos, including a photo of Tommie Smith and John Carlos (the solemn, gloved men on the podium) carrying the casket at Peter's funeral in 2006.
     What an icon of friendship that moment is. 
     I have yet to title the poem.  Though the poem was written for the occasion of Peter Norman Day, it was inspired by a friend of mine.  💛  A modest man who probably would not want to be named here.

If there are alternate universes, and they include
versions of me who would never meet you,
let's pray good things happen
to those versions of me anyway.

Let's hope the me in Universe B
lives his own example,
shining and unbroken,
that the me in Universe C
finds pixies and heroes
and levitating chinchillas
to guide him.

Universes D and E may choose
to be perfect duplicates of one another
in their glaring omission of my having met you.
They instead provide Tesla Coils to shoot
the good sense into me, the good sense
that would otherwise be instilled
by your gravitational
presence.

In this Universe
I walk more compassionately
and with a lighter step,
in the beam of
your kindness
your sacrifice
your patience
your friendship.

                                 ©Rocky Jones, 2017

Me at my gig at the Words Out Loud reading at Artists & Makers in Rockville, Maryland.

Absent-minded while I was being photographed, I am covering up the badge I made with my badge maker, but you can see, like, four of them I made sitting on the table at the lower right of the picture.  They are replicas of the OLYMPIC PROJECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS badge that Peter, John, and Tommie wore that day.


* Yes, Peter Norman Day falls on a Monday this year, and it happens to be a federal holiday weekend in the United States for different reasons (genocidal reasons [Columbus Day]), so, federal and many state workers get Peter Norman Day off and get to honor the holiday for the whole weekend.

What if i were to realize that i can text from pho...

What if i were to realize that i can text from phone to blog?

Nature's Most Majestic Big Bumbler

Is this really a "first-of-its-kind study" or more of a Sunday-afternoon, front-porch epiphany?  

Scientists have decided that blue whales have been around so much longer than ships, they don't know how to move out of the way when ships are moving about.  Blue whales have always been so much bigger than anything in the water, they have never had to move out of the way of anything.  

Read Yahoo Article Here

Not only are ships bigger than what these whales are used to encountering, they are also much more physically unforgiving.  They wear their skeletons on the outside.  So collision tends to kill these big whales.

By the way, ships can bite my ass.  Why does the whale have to detour?  Whose neighborhood is it, anyway?

This research-revelation points out something beautifully simple: Introduce a new problem for an animal, that animal needs an opportunity to learn by trial and error.  Problem is, the error kills the animal.  No new trials.  Poor old creatures.  By the time they learn new behaviors, everybody involved in ship-travel will be extinct.  Or at least a man can dream.

            ::.
      (\./)  .-""-.
       `\'-'`      \
         '.___,_^__/

Power out. Scary winds. No www cept upload to blog.

Power out. Scary winds. No www cept upload to blog.

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Once a coffee shop where poetry gods were hatched

Once a coffee shop where poetry gods were hatched

What r these that look like bits of catRpillR in my soup?

What r these that look like bits of catRpillR in my soup?

[UPDATE: later inspection showed it was corn that seemed to be scorched in spots.  On purpose or not I don't know]

Photo Prompt: "Photograph your favorite thing in your house."

Mostly I failed.  I preferred to photograph what caught my fancy immediately, rather than truly favorite things.  These clowns represent, perhaps, my creepiest things. 

Photographed in various degrees of shadow.  

I couldn't just do an innocent shoot with these criminals.

These guys, aside from color schemes, are dressed identically, and have the same face.

Doubles and twins interest me on several levels.

This photo series maybe emphasizes the oddity of it.

But besides oddity, the concept of doubles resonates with me

maybe because of the other self concept.

Whenever I hear of twin separation, like when one twin dies, I find it disturbing; 

I feel it deeply, whether it is someone who loses a twin as a child, 

a teen, an adult, or in infancy.  Elvis Presley had a stillborn twin.

Philip K Dick had a fraternal twin.  A sister.  She died at six weeks.

Accounts of how this affected him are down right bizarre, leading me to believe that

sometimes non-identical twinship can be as powerful a kinship as identical.

...................Wow, just read this: the "K" in Philip K Dick is "Kindred".  

I have known the pain of severing ties with people I had deep emotional attachments to.

Think, if that person was your twin...

This pair seems to be grown-older versions of two rubber baby figurines I picked up in a 

dollar store maybe 15 years before I bought these.  Two very sad, depressed looking babies.

The babies so symbolized my personal dread and woe in life that I had to have them.

Below, you'll see a death figure,

I think it was an earring or necklace in its early days,

had rhinestones for eyes once.

I don't know what the twins think of it.