• Anniversary

    michael raven

    One of the few personal milestones I mark on this site is the anniversary of my sobriety.

    In ways it is much like a birthday. If so, I am seventeen years old today. Happy birthday to me?!

    I am lucky that there is rarely any temptation, even around others when they are drinking with me in the room. I would say that I am only tempted a handful of times throughout the year, if that many. And, when those moments occur, I find plenty of reasons not to indulge. When I made the decision to go sober, I was pretty close to bottom. The elevator didn’t go down much further.

    I can’t say I recommend following my path to sobriety, if you or someone you know is looking to dry out. My path could have killed me (cold turkey without supervision or a support network). My body rebelled, heartily and I was physically ill for the better part of six or more weeks while my body adjusted to a new reality. Pangs of illness for another six months as the cravings kicked in. I didn’t use AA or other support networks. I went solo.

    It was pretty stupid all around.

    Anyway. I post to remind myself of how far I’ve come since those days, not to get all preachy on folks. You do you. As they say it, I won’t “yuck your yum” if you drink, nor do I judge people on that metric.

    I hope all of you are doing well on this Wednesday.

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  • Zhuangzi quote

    michael raven

    “The fish trap exists because of the fish; once you’ve gotten the fish, you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit; once you’ve gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of meaning; once you’ve gotten the meaning, you can forget the words.

    Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so I can have a word with him?”

    — Zhuangzi, chapter 26
    translation: Burton Watson

    To consider:

    Which of us is still carrying the trap around after the fish is already in the boat?

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  • Burnout

    michael raven

    I will be taking a wee break from creative writing — primarily fiction, but I may step away from poetry for a spell as well.

    As Mr. Gumby said, “My brain hurts.“

    In all fairness, my brain hurts most of the time, especially when I examine most current events.

    That doesn’t mean I am done writing other things (sorry!) or abandoning my longer tale, but I think the creative end of my cranium needs a small rest. Rather than power through or deny it, I think it is better to just accept that I am “not feeling it” for the past few weeks, which is a strong signal to step back.

    It’s been a busy couple of weeks. Work and housework have exponentially increased the load on my mental capacity; the extreme levels of cat care (hours trying to get her to eat something, anything) followed by death of a beloved cat; the excitement of adding a new cat to our family, followed by the decision to add two new cats; the end of school chaos (choir concert, band concert, honor roll celebrations, school farewell because of a school board wanting to eliminate STEM and Fine Arts programs and the subsequent tears from the kids); planning weekly D&D sessions for the tweens so they can stay connected to their classmates during the diaspora following the school closure… Is it any wonder my brain is tapped?

    Besides. Aside from a day or two about this time last year, I haven’t taken a day off from writing something (occasionally multiple somethings) every day for about five or six years. Ahh, if only practice translated to perfection — although the perfection I strive for quite likely has got an audience of one. Lord knows I’ve scared most folks away with my efforts. I might as well give their eyeballs a rest from the Clockwork Orange levels of torture.

    And let me droogs enjoy a glass or six of their Moloko Plus without my interferences for a spell.

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  • Widget huckster sideshows

    michael raven

    There’s on thing that you quickly discover whenever you decide to do “research” online for “a widget”. The intended use for the widget in question is largely irrelevant. There is a truism that holds, especially in the age of the internet: “Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one.”

    And that’s largely an okay thing, I suppose, if it is a casual interest that drives the research. But most of those opinions are bought and paid for by the people who want to you buy their widget instead of someone else’s widget. Free widgets abound in exchange for opinions — usually “positive” is the unsaid, and occasionally explicitly stated, requirement — which makes me look at most of these widget opinions with more than a hint of narrowed side-eye.

    Negative reviews often have nothing to do with the widget itself. The box coming crushed in shipping is hardly the widget maker’s fault. Or buyer’s inattention to detail and buying the wrong widget for the intended purpose.

    (more…)

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  • under moon

    michael raven 

    making simple hard
    until it is hardly simple
    elder oak sitting, up high

    stretch broken wings to fly
    with throat graveled calling
    tumble on turns to fall

    see beyond seeing
    hear beyond hearing
    feel beyond feeling
    scent beyond scenting
    a taste of song stuck
    in craw

    a slip between mistletoe
    come at gloaming
    under our sickle moon

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  • Campfire Sessions — 07jun26

    michael raven

    Campfire
    Photo by Ville Palmu on Unsplash

    There is a temptation to go, dig a deep hole, lay under autumn skies, and let red and gold cover me before comes the fresh snow. Listen to crowing of crowns and screaming of the foxes. To listen to worms heading to slumber below.

    ymmi on spun webs watches.

    “What means this to you?” they ask.

    I shrug. Surprised, in a way, of ymmi watching. “I am becoming Wode,” I say.

    “You’re becoming silly, if you don’t mind us saying,” says ymmi. “You are already elder Wode. Wode as hell, as they said. What you need is Stone.”

    “I am becoming Stone, too.” It seemed a fair thing to say. I was not going anywhere.

    (more…)

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  • mostly nonsense iv

    michael raven 

    brown needles pine
    feral underfoot sent

    we slip shadow
    we slip threshold
    glide we to thin
    star the night

    flint the whisper
    that same deep lake
    as you, bone aching

    come now her winter
    crow call that her song
    to this now
    to this here

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  • rocking again;

    michael raven 

    unpluck the glass shards
    that dog these fingerbones
    let them crunch & grind

    all words fell deaf to ears
    all in the along, perhaps
    needles will let ears feel

    surrendering,
    i climb to wain slumbers
    giving over to rocking again

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  • Remember the webring?

    michael raven

    Depending on when you showed up on the internet, you may or may not recall a little something called the webring. For the uninitiated:

    A webring (or web ring) is a collection of websites linked together in a circular structure, usually organized around a specific theme, and often educational or social. They were popular in the 1990s and early 2000s, particularly among amateur websites.

    Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webring

    I was just thinking about how to bring that back interconnectivity and make discovery less reliant on algorithm. Digging into it, it looks like a fairly simple thing to add on as code and host in a subdomain (basically for the php “guts” to make it work) and, unlike the old-school webring, can be designed to be randomized with a cookie that gives preference to sites that having been visited that are part of the ring, rather than a next/previous circular arrangement. Yes, it puts the thumb on scale of sites you haven’t visited yet, but that is the only algorithm I would employ. Nothing directed.

    The nice thing, I can design it to be purely HTML, which would work on most sites, including WordPress and other blogging services.

    I was thinking of maybe doing a curated fiction writer’s ring, but I don’t want to do it if I end up being the only one participating (it kind of ruins the point). Are there any fiction writers who follow me interested in something like that?

    All you would have to do is add a simple bit of HTML code in your footer or sidebar to call the style sheet and the curated list.

    Let me know if you are writing fiction and are interested. Maybe I could cobble something together on the quick if enough hands are raised (meaning five participants, minimum).

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  • Half-Penny Thoughts — 05jun26

    michael raven

    For better or worse, the age of the internet has resulted in a homogenization of our lives. It has blurred boundaries in ways never before possible. Counter-culture is now the performative norm. Punk is dead; long live punk.

    It is tempting to put a sandal on one’s head in the way of Jōshū and then just leave the courtyard. Better yet would be if we could put the courtyard on our head and leave the walking to the sandal while we talk a bit about mū with a dog.

    If the normal position is resistance to authority to the point of mediocrity, there is little left to rebel against.

    (more…)

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