Watermark

Mariah's Shoes

The first barefoot day.

Cats are Better than Baseball

A couple of weeks ago, a baseball site linked to Watermark, and my stats increased by 50% in a single day. That was nothing -- !nothing! -- compared to this: more than 100 visits from Carnival of the Cats since entering my Friday Cat Blogging post. Again, these folks do not show up on my referrer list, since they all go directly to the Spike post. I had no idea this was such a big deal.

There are some fun posts linked there (you should go see.) My favorites are File Under Silly and Smart Cat.

The Neighbors Debate

When discovered by the social worker,
the yellow rabbit was nibbling blooming
dandelions, violets and clover
on the neighbor's lawn. The growly, circling

cats did not disturb it. The rabbit hopped
up to the cats and touched twitchy noses.
The cats dashed, lickety-split, and dropped
into hunting-jungle-tiger poses.

The neighbors schemed. Chased & caught & caged,
unperturbed, the rabbit washed its face.
The prison guard said "Let it go."  "Not wild,"
the social worker warned. "And think, the child

who lost it, crying all night," the day-care
worker sighed. The rabbit combed its hair.

   

~ a silly sort-of-sonnet, in honor of the day ~

(Unlike some of my poems, this incident really happened, and each person's occupation and opinion was as described.)

Googlebombing (again)

JewJewJewJewJew

See here, or here, or here, or here . . .

I did this some time ago, on my sidebar, with links to a variety of sources; but on checking today I see that this effort has still not been successful. I am dismayed.

JewJewJewJewJew

small poem

doves
in the dead
spruce

Friday Cat Blogging

SPIKE

I discovered Friday Cat Blogging over at Trish Wilson's Blog, and through her found Carnival of the Cats.

Instead of writing about Spike today (perhaps some other Friday I will tell you about his . . . unusual . . . ummm . . . attachment to a teddy bear), I am going to send you to Cats Are Evil, which puts it much better than I could.

{ Watermark is three months old today }

Snapshot 07 April 02004

On television, war, murder,
head-on collisions. In the garden
tulips, daffodils, chickadees.
Heavy machinery turning dirt

in the neighborhood park.
Window washers, tree-
trimmers, grey snake sliding
across the path. All Spring's

workers. Crows riding uncertain
winds. Mosques and synagogues
exploding. Here, in this small
city, streets cordoned off

an entire afternoon --
bioweapon bomb scare.
And the woodpecker drilling,
drilling the power pole. 

A very rough (even raw) draft. Comments welcome.

Pain

From Erin:

I think maybe pain is not something that happens to you, like a lightning strike, but something you are, like a dream.

And this.  Go.  Now. 

Kinja & Montana Blogs

On reading this post at plasticbag.org, I decided to try out his suggestion for using Kinja -- so I have added a Kinja digest of Montana Bloggers to my sidebar.  One click, and there they are, including this one.  The plus is that this digest includes those that don't have RSS feeds.  The others are also on my Links page, via Bloglines.

Somewhere I saw a "Montana Blogger" button that I would love to steal, but now I can't find it again. Any pointers?

Speaking of Montana Bloggers, Big Sky Dave over at Better Living Through Blogging wants to see where we blog. These are my blogging spaces (mostly reading blogs spaces), with stand-ins (click for larger view):

   

UPDATE:  Kim at Revolving Duck has generously allowed me to "borrow" her     button, which now serves as the link for the Kinja Montana Bloggers Digest.

Sunday Morning

Erin has posted a very nice little erotic poem at Vivid, which reminded me of one of mine.

I will follow her lead, and put mine behind a cut-away tag, so you can "skip it if that kind of thing bothers you."