Dragon Scales and Fireflies
Jul 12, 2013Book of Aliases
May 10, 2012
Author Updates
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Blog postToo many death have happened too soon. In the last week we lost Derick Walcott and, just the other day, Chuck Berry. It leaves me feeling just barren. Here is a poem I've written to help me cope with this feeling. If you are feeling somewhat empty from all this too, i hope it will help you also.
emptiness
too much silence sits waiting
doors close and open
with the absence of knowing
surf thunders but
the poet of that life
sends manu -
Blog postif you vote you say you count
if you dont you say you wont
aint nobodys business but your own
Russell Ragsdale's original poetry -
Blog postThis is not, nor was it ever intended to be, a blog about political issues. The main focus here will always generally remain art (more specifically, poetry) but I have another thing to add to my last post. If my television is on and anything relating to Donald Trump comes on, I immediately change the channel. When you think about it, the people who run these stations are concerned with ratings. If Mr. Trump makes them go up, then they will play more of him. Therefore I suggest you do as I
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Blog postHonestly, I don't care what either the Kardashians or Donald Trump have to say. I didn't care in the past and there is nothing inherent in them that could make me care in the future. When the next opportunity to vote comes I'm going to vote democratic if I have to vote for the donkey. The mindless machinations of the Republican Party are too manipulative and seemingly nefarious to interest me any further. If I have, by personally so doing, taken the air out from under Mr. T then he may floa
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Blog postevery year misplaces dreams
sand that shifts
in the tireless wind of time
but it is the province
of winter mornings
to smell fresh
spring seems to answer
anticipation that crawled
out of a warm winter bed
still if infinite variety stales
so do rumpled summer days
in their comfortable litany
then it changes
on that first crisp
autumn morning
pages on the -
Blog postI am starting a challenge because I have something I want very much. I am going to give myself exactly a year to get an apartment in Paris, France. I want to be able to live there part of every year for the rest of my life. So by April 1st of 2016 I will purchase an apartment in Montmartre (the 18eme arrondissement) of Paris, France. I will start a new blog to track the progress and you may keep track of how I’m doing on this challenge by checking what I post there. Wish me Luck and on wit
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Blog postI am intensely introverted, which is very functional when it comes to doing my writing but if there is ever going to be any reason for me to write that goes in the direction of the social, I must consider social interaction as a potential necessity. I run the danger of being a rather conflicted person because I both love and am troubled by my isolation. This, however, no longer bothers me too much as I have come to realize just how fragmentary I am as a person. It is the reason I wrote Book
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Blog postHere is a moderately close reading of a poem by Emily Dickenson for you to enjoy. I love the subject of transformations and this is a poem that deals with that subject.
MY cocoon tightens, colors tease,
I ’m feeling for the air;
A dim capacity for wings
Degrades the dress I wear.
A power of butterfly must be
The aptitude to fly,
Meadows of majesty concedes
And easy sweeps of sky.
So I must baffle at the hi -
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Blog posti hear the sax
coming up the
ladder from hell
i hear the sax
swerve and
stretch the scale
i hear the kid
awake and crying
all the kids
with sewn up lips
becoming what
i hear the sirens
ambulances
cop cars on the move
i hear the
calliope of games
kids play
to forget
to get anger out
to be alone
with others
i see -
Blog postThe American child has never been able to be more powerful. Why are they struggling so? Why is this puzzle unable to come together and assume the birthright for which it was born? Who is to blame?
When we look for blame we are further fragmenting and thus becoming weaker. The answer is that we must accept our differences. There is no need to integrate all these disparate parts; just we must not continue to try to carve ourselves into the pieces that are only part of who we are!
In -
Blog postFifth day of gratitude:
1. I am grateful for music. I grew up singing. Yes I studied the piano for a while and after that I took up the cello but, all through this time and long after when all my instruments were gathering dust, I was singing. I sang in the choir at church and when I started high school I was able to go to classes in the school choir as well. It was the school choir that gave me an introduction to musicals. My voice has great volume when I want it to and I suspect -
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Blog postDay Four
1. I am grateful for my chemistry teacher who was wise enough to let me utilize physics in my experiments. I wish I could remember his name but I can still clearly see his intense, happy and energetic face as I look backward into the blurry mists of my long ago days in high school. In my mind I was combining those two disciplines already and he was able to let me design my own experiments so that I could pursue the way those two work together to make the world all around u -
Blog postThird day of gratitude:
1. I am grateful for Sherlock Holmes. That may seem a bit strange to you but if A. Conan Doyle hadn’t created this character I would have had to find some other reason to obsess about that old consciousness question: what is going on around us? In the stories about Holmes we learn that nobody really knows what has happened when something a bit mysterious is taking place except for dear old Sherlock. If he hadn’t appeared from Doyle’s pen we all might sit com -
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Blog postSecond day of gratitude:
1. I am grateful for memories of speed. The past is made up of the gamut between pleasure and pain but fortunately we tend to forget unpleasant things that are not associated with strong impulses such as regret. So, with the exception of an occasional twinge, when I turn to the things I remember I find myself experiencing the pleasure of running like the wind and nobody can catch me. There is raw power in that because they all knew I could easily catch them -
Blog postFirst day of gratitude:
1. I am grateful for the happy child that is inside me. It is often regarded with suspicion by adults that I spend time like an older friend with children. Truly, as an older person, I find myself also in need of the intellectual stimulation of mature conversation with friends but it is the simple joy of play and the genuine laughter of children that I also sometimes need. The adult world can be notoriously disingenuous and cruel and this is not to say there -
Blog postHere is my contribution for the 24 hour period around and about June 16th 2014:
bloomsday
what a thing to feel
to wake up before dawn
at the end of bloomsday
babbling like coleridge
and know that penelope
is considering marriage
of the second kind
and realize we have
been away for too long
that we must
sack our own halls
pretty much in disguise
and slay the trai -
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Blog postHere is the text to accompany the video for this poem. I hope you find this entertaining.
dart
there is a
dart in your dress
just a dark dart
sewed in a dark dress
thats all
what did you want
a fold in the
space time continuum
a place fluttering
with the moths of
memory
where you and
i struggled
with this dark obstacle
maybe stretched
a stich or tw -
Blog postwalking into the yard under blue sky
in mid day warmth feeling a whisper of a breeze
and stepping arms wide into a picture of a day
Russell Ragsdale's original poetry -
Blog postHere is the update of the book description I just put on my Amazon author page:
Book of Aliases is the history of too much possibility within one person. It is an attempt to deal with the fragmentation of a puzzle where the pieces don’t all go together yet we somehow still manage to perceive ourselves as a cohesive single individual that other people should be able to understand just as well as we seem to think we do. All this is in spite of the fact that there are moments where we -
Blog postI rarely write 5-7-5 haiku as that is such an artificial standard that was once imposed on writers in English but here is one anyway:
window ledge snow falls
sprinkling its white on the fresh
steaming sheet below
Russell Ragsdale's original poetry -
Blog postI've been exploring the themes that come under the heading of win at all costs. Here is my latest addition to that collection. This one explores the idea that changing our blood (doping, et al) is good and maybe even necessary from some kind of perspective. I hope you will enjoy!
win
i rise to a contest
its in my blood
years of sports training
starts with running away
starts with fear
as i get more confident
it becomes a ta -
Blog postHere is my last small stone for the January challenge:
there is a history in my blood
but also a hope that burns
to write one more poem today
Russell Ragsdale's original poetry -
Blog postHere is another small stone, the last one of the month perhaps:
this month i promised myself things
things in limbo floating like clouds
things undone and this is their eulogy
Russell Ragsdale's original poetry -
Blog postHere is another small stone for today:
the year of the horse is
already here but im still
doing last year gangam style
Russell Ragsdale's original poetry -
Blog postHere is another small stone for today:
(for Kim Addonizio)
Sisyphus goes into a bar and
orders a shot which he immediately pounds
the barman asks want another
Russell Ragsdale's original poetry
Books by Russell H. Ragsdale
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