Red Coals Pulse Like Distant Stars

 4051.

Red Coals Pulse Like Distant Stars

The last light slips behind the ridge,
a thin ember of day still glowing.
Boots thud softly on the packed earth,
the air cooling with each step.
Evening begins before we notice.

A match flares against the breeze,
brief and stubborn in the dim.
Paper curls into orange petals,
logs shift as if waking.
Fire learns its shape slowly.

Smoke threads upward in loose spirals,
finding its own quiet route.
A kettle hums near the campfire coals,
steam rising like a soft prayer.
Night accepts our presence.

Tall trunks stand just beyond the glow,
their crowns lost to the dark.
The fire paints their bark in strokes
of copper, rust, and shadow.
Even giants enjoy a little warmth.

Voices soften as the flames steady,
words drifting like sparks.
Some tales are true, some nearly so,
all of them shaped by the night.
The campfire listens without judgment.

Logs collapse inward with a sigh,
a slow settling of heat and memory.
Red coals pulse like distant stars,
steady, patient, unhurried.
The night grows deeper around them.

The fire shrinks to a quiet glow,
its edges soft as worn cloth.
Ash gathers in pale drifts,
the remains of what kept us warm.
Nothing ends abruptly out here.

The final spark dims into silence,
leaving only the scent of smoke.
Stars settle into their places,
unbothered by our small rituals.
The forest closes gently around us.

Quintain Poems by Mike Garofalo, Volume 7

 3670.

Very tired now,
the orange sun went down,
a mood of dusk settled in,
The birds stopped singing suddenly;
I stopped reading, too fatigued.

 

3671.

Looking to Antiquity

Proceeding upstream
From here-now to way back when
Looking for causes
Tracking etymologies
Answering authentically.

 

3672.

A chickadee eats
in a still square feeder---
birdseed scatters

A squirrel eats
from a rocking bird feeder---
tail balanced

 

3673.

I'm a bald old man
with a white-gray beard
with bruises on my hands
with a clumsy gait to mark my pace
and restless tremors in my hands.

 

3674.

The steel bridge does not sway
Despite the high tides raging today.
As heavy fog rolls over the bay;
The fishing boats bounce in the docks.
In warm cafes---fishermen talk.

 

3675.

The southwest wind blows hard and cold
Blowing sand across Grayland's shore.
We bend and dig the fleeing clams.
Flashlights focus on wholes in the sand.
Sea and sand --- sand and clams.

 

3676.

Nothing said something astray
That captured meaning in silent ways.
Grasped the book I could not read
Of poetry in ideograms of Mandarin Chinese.
Reveled in the beauty of calligraphy.

 

3677.

Rising river snapped the earthen dykes
Tossing black rocks from side to side
Spring mud in the brown currents of the flood.
Trees and branches floating on by....
Picked up a trailer--- I hope nobody's inside.

 

3678.

I forgot the plot...
A green rubber hose uncoils
Seconds spray out the nozzle
Green leaves hung on thoughts
Watered memories of childhood gardens.

 

3679.

Waiting for Verbs at Sentence End

Spilled semantics:
Rubberbands on cautious adjectives,
Paper clips holding weak nouns,
Hissing phonemes in the trees,
Commas cutting the summer sky

Noise interrups the verbs
A subordinate clause broke its legs
White space expands a page
Fuzzy dashes spatter syntax.
What the hell does all this mean?

 

3680.

Tall tales of Tradegies:
Good unrewarded and justice denied.
Evil wins and injustice thrives.
No happy ending, a sobering sigh.
And, in the end, everyone dies.

 

3681.

sharp barks ring out
the dogs guard the back yard
stiff tails and ears up...

Wilting August heat
Brown leaves curl in the sun

 

3682.

The heavy Gates of Night unclose
As I walk the streets at dawn.
July ignites a vast Cauldron of Light.

Squirrels scamper across shadowless asphalt.
My hammer toe hurts again.

 

3683.

Steady Spring drizzle
Soaks roofing shingles
Moss drinks droplets
Gutter bleed trickles
Sidewals shimmer slicker.

Bundled Up:

Quintains, Tankas, Pentastichs, and Onions

Original Quintain Poetry By Mike Garofalo

Bundled Up, Volume 1
Quintain Poems 1 - 1,000

Bundled Up, Volume 2
Quintain Poems 1,000 - 1,500

Bundled Up, Volume 3
Quintain Poems 1,500 - 2,000

Bundled Up, Volume 4
Quintain Poems 2,000 - 2,500

Bundled Up, Volume 5
Quintain Poems 2,500 - 3,000

Bundled Up, Volume 6
Quintain Poems 3,000 - 3,500

Bundled Up, Volume 7
Quintain Poems 3,600 - 4,000

Bundled Up, Volume 8
Variety of Poems 4,000 - 4,500

The Poetic Investigations: Time: The Tick-Tock Tractatus by Mike Garofalo

The Tick-Tock Tractatus

Speaking About Time: The Poetic Investigations

By Michael Peter Garofalo, mpgarofalo, .m.p.g.

            

 

 

Sections

1. Time: time-space, movement, measurement

2. Past: memories, habits, fixed, specific, tradition

3. Present: now, here-now, day, duration

4. Future: maybe, planned, anticipated, uncertain

5. Passing: change, cycles, aging, growth, death

6. Beginning: renewal, starting, enthusiasm

7. Psychology: learning, experience, knowing

8. Middle: in progress, half-way, steady, living

9. Language: poetry, philosophy, ordinary

10. Silence: inexpressive, nonsense, illogical

11. Mystical: numinous, profound, intense, insightful,

12. Beauty: art, crafts, music, reading/writing

13. Social: ethics, morality, economics, manners, value

14. Philosophy: ethics, history, analysis, arguments, logic

15. History: landmark events, books/printing, memory

16. Eternity: forever, infinite, unimaginable, death

 

Preface

Key to Books Cited

Bundled Up Quintains about Time

Additional Notes

Speaking of Time: The Poetic Investigations

 The Tick-Tock Tractatus

Speaking of Time: The Poetic Investigations

By Michael P. Garofalo

            

                
        August Offerings, Red Bluff CA, 2010, MPG

 

 

Sections

1. Time: time-space, movement, measurement

2. Past: memories, habits, fixed, specific, tradition

3. Present: now, here-now, day, duration

4. Future: maybe, planned, anticipated, uncertain

5. Passing: change, cycles, aging, growth, death

6. Beginning: renewal, starting, enthusiasm

7. Psychology: learning, experience, knowing

8. Middle: in progress, half-way, steady, living

9. Language: poetry, philosophy, ordinary

10. Silence: inexpressive, nonsense, illogical

11. Mystical: numinous, profound, intense, insightful,

12. Beauty: art, crafts, music, reading/writing

13. Social: ethics, morality, economics, manners, value

14. Philosophy: ethics, history, analysis, arguments, logic

15. History: landmark events, books/printing, memory

16. Eternity: forever, infinite, unimaginable, death

 

Preface

Key to Books Cited

Bundled Up Quintains about Time

Additional Notes

12.6

The Gardening Sutra: Excerpts
Pulling Onions

 

 

A garden recreates itself daily; we seldom step in the
     same garden thrice.
We don't erase the past, we just build more and bigger blackboards.
The present is made from the past.
Time creeps, walks, runs and flies - it is all about moving things.
Chaos breaks its own rules to allow Order to play.

How can gardening be considered a "leisure time" activity?
Always leave extra time for unraveling the hose.
Gardeners turn into the soil their lifetime.
Time may wait for no man, but seems to muddle and poke
     quite slowly for gardeners.
Springtime for birth, Summertime for growth;
     and all Seasons for dying.

Put the right plant in the right place at the right time in
     the right way - and you won't go wrong.
Winter does not turn into Summer; ash does not turn
     into firewood - on the chopping block of time.
A garden flourishes in the mind's time of last season,
     next season, and now.
Gardening requires no commuting time.
In the right place at the right time,
     tomato worms on tomato vines.

Your pocket knife will be its dullest at just the right time.
Gardening is the right sport for a lifetime of pleasures.
Gardening sometimes takes a few hours of a day,
     but adds weeks of pleasure to your life.
The time you have wasted on your garden
     is what makes it priceless.
One purpose of a garden is to stop time in one place.

 

Annuals disappear, shrubs perish, trees die, and
     gardeners are buried; death is the flower of time.
In an instant there is nothing - Time produces Nature.
By the time you peel off five layers of reality,
     it's hard to recall the first.
It's a long time between my garden and the Pacific Ocean.
Time will tell, but we often fail to listen.

The "eternal truths" are sometimes clearly false.
Gardening teaches us to take our time, slow down,
     and wait in peace.
Gardeners learn to live in worm time, bee time, and seed time.
Time will not pass you, but it will follow very close behind you.
Preparation and follow up take up more time than doing the deed.

Springtime flows in our veins.
Silence - never misquoted, sometimes misunderstood,
     often meaningful.
Leave enough time for some pointless behavior
     to reveal your deeper desires.
The seed idea for "God" is springtime.
Things always go downhill, fall apart, wear out...
     the arrow of Time pierces everything.

 

Time prevents too much from happening at once.
A million years and a second have the same
     feeling for the dead gardener.
All metaphors aside - only living beings rise up in the Springtime;
     dead beings stay quite lie down dead.
Any gardener who is not using the scientific method
     will waste time and money.
Take the time to melt into the Details.

Time is rooted in Place.
Most of the time, we just borrow from the past.
Sometimes the present alters our interpretation of the past;
     most often the past surrounds and infects the present.
Time is on your side when you are young.
Leisure can open a window to the breezes of insights,
     and a clear view of the Trees of Time.

We get things done when there is little time left.
Our cash limits and time constraints both prune our gardens.
The second hand of time ticks on---
     measuring our past, time after time.
Beings are Becomings---for the time-being.

Perfection can be the opponent of betterment.
Without vagueness we are bored with literalness.
Borderline cases are where events become really interesting.
I may not be able to precisely define religious nonsense,
     but I know it when I hear it.

A coastline may be impossible to measure,
     but is still beautiful.
You can’t slowly boil the frog unless
     it can’t jump out of the pot.
A “heap” of something desired becomes an issue
     when the price is discussed.
Gratefully, shit happens!
The ten thousand things are more enchanting
     than the Silent One.

Walking needs earth, space, and the walker.
Sometimes, just one 'thing' is critical
     because twenty other 'things' are just so.
Gardening is a kind of deadheading---
     keeping us from going to seed.
Don't interfere, be still, and listen to the litanies of bees.

Tooth and nail, and the stench of a dead animal on the wind.
When life gives you onions, it stinks.
A rake is spaces held together by steel.
In the student's mind there are few possibilities,
     in the teacher's mind there are many;
          but only time to realize very few.

 

Mother Nature is always pregnant.
Time creeps, walks, runs and flies -
     it is all about moving things.
Dogmatists are less useful than dogs.
Take life with a grain of salt, and a icy margarita.
The best things in life are more expensive than you think.

Rather than "love mankind," I'd rather admire a few good people.
Some flourish when crowded together, others don't.
Garbage In, Compost Out.
It is more about You and Now, rather than Them and Back Then.

 

While gardening the borders between work
     and play become blurred.
When gardening, look up more often.
Just the right words can be worth more
     than a thousand pictures.
Death's door is always unlocked.
A flower needs roots; beauty a society of minds.

A callused palm and dirty fingernails precede a Green Thumb.
A working hypothesis is far better than a belief.
Only two percent of all insects are harmful.
Why are they all in my garden?
Create your own garden, the god's certainly won't.
That something is eternal is unverifiable.

Most laws of Gardening are merely local ordinances.

Too save some time, don’t let them get a foot in the door.
Some slippery slopes are actually improvements or fun.
Butterflies and bees flapping their wings don’t actually
     create hurricanes, but we are very thankful they facilitate
     the emergence of fruits in the billions.
Without metaphors we can barely speak.

Just because you reject the big request, don’t be
     fooled into accepting the smaller request.
Finding a middle ground for agreement may
     be just half of a solution, and the wrong solution.
Sometimes the wisdom of the crowd is quite unwise and unfair.

Chaos breaks its own rules to allow Order to play.

Failures, disorder and death are the
     Grim Reaper of Entropy at work.
Somehow, someway, everything gets eaten up, someday.
The meaning is lost in the saying - a nature mystic's dilemma.
Vigorous gardening might help more than a psychiatrist's couch.
A gardener is no farmer, he is much too impractical.

No garden lasts for long - neither will you.

Shade, in the summer, is as precious as a glass of water.
A wise gardener knows when to stop.
Gardens are demanding pets.
Unclench your fist to give a hand.
The little choices day after day are the biggest issue.

Gardening is but one battle against Chaos.
When life gives you onions, you ain't making lemonade.
Many friendships are sustained by a mutual
     hatred of another person or group.
Read until you go to seed.
What you see depends on when you look.

Beauty is the Mistress, the gardener her slave.

One's "true self" is changing and elusive.
A little of this and a little of that, and some exceptions -
     these are the facts.
Does a plum tree with no fruit have Buddha Nature? Whack!

BU3152, BU929, GC#9

Pulling Onions by Mike Garofalo
     Over 1,000 random quips, one-liners, sayings,
     and "insights" from an old gardener.

Process Philosophy

The History of Gardening: A Timeline From Ancient Times to 2000

The Spirit of Gardening

Months and Seasons

 

Tick-Tock Tractatus by Michael P. Garofalo

The Tick-Tock Tractatus

Speaking of Time: The Poetic Investigations

By Michael P. Garofalo

            

                

  

Sections

1. Time: time-space, movement, measurement

2. Past: memories, habits, fixed, specific, tradition

3. Present: now, here-now, day, duration

4. Future: maybe, planned, anticipated, uncertain

5. Passing: change, cycles, aging, growth, death

6. Beginning: renewal, starting, enthusiasm

7. Psychology: learning, experience, knowing

8. Middle: in progress, half-way, steady, living

9. Language: poetry, philosophy, ordinary

10. Silence: inexpressive, nonsense, illogical

11. Mystical: numinous, profound, intense, insightful,

12. Beauty: art, crafts, music, reading/writing

13. Social: ethics, morality, economics, manners, value

14. Philosophy: ethics, history, analysis, arguments, logic

15. History: landmark events, books/printing, memory

16. Eternity: forever, infinite, unimaginable, death

 

Preface

Key to Books Cited

Bundled Up Quintains about Time

Additional Notes

 

The Tick-Tock Tractatus

Speaking of Time: The Poetic Investigations

This work is licensed under a:
Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No-Derivates
4.0 International License.

2.  Past: memories, tradition
      habits, fixed, artifacts

 

2.1
Generalities, Questions, Quips

The past is a debt that the present
     can never repay.

The past is a heavy trunk we eventually
     use as a chair.

The past is a mirror that shows us everything
     but not the face we have now.

The past is the shadow
     cast by the body of the present.

The scaffolding of the world is built
     from the wood of yesterdays.

"We never remember days, only moments."
- Cesare Pavese

BU13

 

2.2
Muscle Memories

The silence of decades dead
        echo endlessly
in every muscle and vein...
Her kisses are remembered
by my tender love lips.

BU19

 

2.3
If You Have a Habit

If you have a habit
You acquired it in your past.
        Bad habits reside in the now.
New habits require:
        Six months of your future time, and
girt and correct actions all along.

BU2932

Atomic Habits. By Jason Clear, 2018.

 

2.4
Ghosts from the Past

I am a ghost
of walking memories
        a past embodied in me
        a past only visible to me
a past defining the real actual me.

BU2885

Yesterday, song by Paul McCartney

 

2.4.1
Evidence from the Past

                Time passes past the past,
        No forensic evidence remains,
No clue to catch that Thief of Time---
        Little evidence, so suspicious,
                Is nowhere and everywhere.

BU3259

Forensic Evidence

 

2.5
Memories Are Made of These

The sundial remembers the light,
     never the clouds.

Each hour is a door that locks itself
     after I pass through.

We remember the past as it
     was supposed to be.

A memory is a fact that has
     lost its ticking pulse.

The past is not a hitching post;
     It's a signpost or a guide post.

BU61

Another Brick in the Wall, Pink Floyd

Doctor My Eyes, Jackson Brown, Playing for Change

Time - Quotations

 

Table of Contents

 

The Tick-Tock Tractatus

Speaking of Time: The Poetic Investigations

 

3.  Present: now, here-now, day, moment

 

3.1
Generalities, Questions, Quips

The Pause is measured by the time
     it takes me to decide.

An Instant is Imaginary.

"Now" does not specify a specific time.

No time like the present.

One today is worth four tomorrows.

The present is a theater where the play
     is always in its final act.

Time is the only sculptor what works
     without a chisel.

Time is the loom, but the
     thread is purely our own.

BU295

Months and Seasons - Quotations

 

3.2
pristine possibilities

in every moment
today is created anew—
          pristine possibilities
     changing opportunities
          depending on you

BU14

How to Live a Good Life: Advice From Wise Persons, 2002-

The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle, 2004.

 

3.2.1
Precious Flowers in the Sky

To dance at the still point of the Time beyond time,
     Beyond pasts, within futures, this Moment
Now and forever, beyond minds.
     Not knowing of Who or why
We stroll in rose gardens, and Love.

BU2652

Precious Flowers in the Sky

The Gardening Sutra

 

3.2.2
Truths about the Future?

For the moment, Now, for me,
the world is the case.
Yesterday, the world was
actually the case.
Tomorrow's events are not the case.

Only the Present and Past are Actual
The Future is bounded by possibilities:
uncertainties, unpredictability, chances,
accidents, unknowns, contingencies ...
And quasi-informative necessities.

        God knows the future some say.
                I don't think that way.

Some statements about future events
Are neither necessary nor impossible
and have no truth value.

BU3338

Aristotle's Sea Battle

Problem of Future Contingents

Contingency

Reading Wittgenstein 1975-

 

3.3
Gertrude Returned to Oakland

"There is no there there"
For the Present is aware, that
the Past is no more, only
my obscure faded memories;
just nothing left here anymore.

BU3132

- Gertrude Stein

 

3.4
Many Meanings

'Is' is an insistent perplexity
of sometimes being identity
of sometimes being temporarily
of sometimes being actuality
Yes!, 'is' even postulates = equality.

BU3137

 

3.4.1
The History Told in the Present

     Mythical time
unfolds in present time
unravels in literal minds—
real, imagined, fictionalized,
     Always in Now-Time.

BU2872

 

3.4.2
Time Don't Care

          ticking my life away
indifferent clocks
          everywhere

BU 2649, GC §13

Cuttings: Haiku

 

3.4.3
The Hustles of Time

                        time runs
        does not wait
                        hustles fast
lingers not
cannot stop

BU2866

Bundled Up: Quintains: Volume 5

 

3.4.4
Pausing for a Moment

The Pause is measured by a spoonful of time.
He paused and loudly yawned.
Everyone paused for a moment of remembrance.
He paused and took a deep breath.
It was the pause that refreshes.

Pausing at Lake Quinault

 

3.4.4.1
Try to Name the Moment

'There is no
non-arbitrary way
to pick out what is meant by the
uniquely true
and real present moment."

BU3228, GC §31

A Brief History of the Philosophy of Time, Adrian Bardon, p. 91

 

3.4.4.2
45 Milliseconds

Our sense of the Present
Is not continuous.
It starts and stops in
small discrete steps;
Every 20 to 60 milliseconds.

Felt Time, by Marc Wittmann, 2017, p.27

Paying attention decreases the
milliseconds of awareness smooth flow.

We don't notice the jumps, like watching
a 35mm film at 50Hz, 30-40 frames per second.

BU3354

Film

Film History

 

3.4.5
Instant: Zero Millimeters Per No Seconds

An instant has zero duration;
unlike miles per hour
or meters per second.
Even a millisecond is much longer.
        An instant, like a point in geometry:
        Dimensionless, timeless, imaginary.

BU3047

Instant

 

3.4.6
Really! Nothing Changes?

Some old hold strictly to the Present
As actual given Reality.
                The future is nothing.
                From nothing comes nothing.
So nothing changes---claims Parmenides.

BU3029

- Parmenides (510 BCE)

 

Table of Contents: Index

The Tick-Tock Tractatus

Speaking of Time: The Poetic Investigations