Category Archives: personal blog

Get Your Golden Shovel! No. 02 (a collaborative series)

This is an invitation to all of you poets (or potential poets, which is all of you) out there to join me in a new collaborative series I’m calling “Get Your Golden Shovel”. Here is how it works.

Each Saturday in February (as an initial experiment and then I’ll decide whether to continue), will be Golden Shovel Saturday. I’ll post a prompt consisting of one or two lines from a well known poem on Saturday, then we all will create a new poem using the Golden Shovel form and share it with each other. I think it will be very interesting to see how different each of our pieces are despite pulling from the same source of material.

What is the Golden Shovel form, you ask? The Golden Shovel form was created by the poet Terrance Hayes, whose poem “Golden Shovel” (from his 2010 collection Lighthead) is based on Gwendolyn Brooks’ “We Real Cool” which references the phrase “Golden Shovel”. Check out the “rules” here. There is also an example provided.

If you missed the first prompt, check out all the contributions from the community in the Week 1 Round-Up. Feel free to contribute yours anytime. It was a great poem line prompt with lots of creative potential.

Enough said. Here’s our second prompt. Enjoy!

Golden Shovel No. 02

“Cocoa in pods and alligator pears”

The Tropics in New York by Claude McKay

You can either post on your own blog and link to the prompt post so that we can all see it and further share, include it in the prompt post’s comments section, or post on twitter and tag me (@montyvern).

While there is not any hard deadline, the intention is to share your Golden Shovel poem during the prompt week before the following Golden Shovel Saturday. I’ll target posting my own poem along with some of yours with links in a round-up post ahead of the following week’s prompt.

That’s it! I’m looking forward to seeing what we all come up. It should be a bit challenging, but hopefully fun.

Be well,

Monty

Get Your Golden Shovel! No. 01 Round-Up

Last Saturday I posted the first “Get Your Golden Shovel” prompt as a collaborative project for our writing community. In this round-up, I share my golden shovel poem as well as those that were contributed by the community.

What’s a golden shovel poem? It’s a poetic form originally created by Terrance Hayes. Check out the rules here.

I want to give a big thanks to each of you that were willing to give this first experiment a try:

@gigglingfattie (No Love For Fatties)

Kathleen

Edward V. Fuller

@midlifecatlady64 (MidLife Cat Lady)

Sam “Goldie” Kirk

Eric Drury (The Thoughtful Beggar)

The Dreamgirl Writes

Golden Shovel No. 01

“Time says hush. By the gong of time you live.”

The Gong of Time by Carl Sandburg (Honey and Salt)

Hurry, Hurry, Hush

By Monty Vern

Rushing waters of our time;

Ebbing tide says

Hurry, hurry, hush.

Un-lived memories race by;

Yanked away by the

Quickening gong

Of

Our impatient time;

Shh! Will you?

Let’s pause a moment to live.

Guests’ Poems:

It’s just now about that time

He leans close as he says

Drowsiness fills the apartment with a…

by No Love For Fatties

It is time.

No one says

“Hush”

by the by.

Even the

ringing gong

of

So much time.

Not even you,

by the days you

live.

by Kathleen

Pangs mean it is time

The body says

Now hush

We are close by

Near to the

reverberating gong

Thinking of

passed time

with you

Honoring you by how we live

by Edward V. Fuller

Ah, The days of Time

The wind, it Says

It’s time to Hush

And listen, By

Focusing on The

Sound of the church Gong

Which reminds you Of

How much Time

There is Left

For you to Live.

by MidLife Cat Lady

‘There’s no time,’

she says.

‘Hush,’

I reply and just walk on by.

Because…

by Sam “Goldie” Kirk

In youth we confidently flirt with time

As it goes on we must do what it says

Wrinkles gained with a quieted…

by Eric Drury (The Thoughtful Beggar)

And here is one with a twist on the form (after all, creativity rules over rules):

Friends are chosen family, so choose wisely

For they come to know you intimately…

by The Dreamgirls Writes

How cool was that! I love seeing all of the different takes on this. If you want to give this line a try feel free to leave your poem in the comments below (or link your post to this one).

Thanks again to each of the guest contributors. Stay tuned for next prompt coming soon. Everyone is welcome to join in.

Be well,

Monty

Daily Droppings: “She Didn’t”

Special thanks to Sandra from What Sandra Thinks who has created a series of daily prompts for the month of February, which are the inspiration for this series.

The prompt: “She Didn’t”

The answer to the question I was too afraid to ask was…

“She Didn’t”

Be well,

Monty

Off This Caged Wheel (a poem)

Off This Caged Wheel

My mind’s pallet has turned grey;

Emptying me of anything positive to say.

All color stripped from life’s scenes;

Moody clouds obscure the sun’s beams.

Under their dark cover I lay shivering, so cold;

Tired of the constant toil, feeling too old.

Seeking sleep;

To hibernate beyond the deep.

I’ll take the devil’s deal;

I want off this caged wheel;

Off this caged wheel.

Be well,

Monty

Radio (Sunday Scribblings)

Peckapalooza over at The Confusing Middle runs a weekly prompt called Sunday Scribblings. This weeks’ theme is Radio. Check out his post and join in the creativity!

Sunday Scribblings #92 – Radio
“Radio” – originally published in Monty’s Very Short Shorts

Be well,

Monty

Daily Droppings: “So Hot”

Special thanks to Sandra from What Sandra Thinks who has created a series of daily prompts for the month of February, which are the inspiration for this series.

The prompt: “So Hot”

Steamy Nights

Originally published 10 July 2021|Monty’s Blahg

As the weather turns hot and steamy, my thoughts turn to the summer of 1996.

Married two months, but still living separately, I travelled from Fukushima, Japan to Shanghai, China to visit my new wife. Our marriage had been a quick civil affair in Shanghai and I’ve written about it previously. It’s a true lost in translation story that I’ll re-share another time.

The day after receiving our marriage certificate, I’d left for a three month work assignment in Japan and so we’d had very little time together as a married couple and hadn’t yet established a home together in Shanghai. It was in late June 1996 when I arrived back in Shanghai for a visit. We spent our days looking for a place to rent under the high hot sun and our nights sweating in my wife’s non-air conditioned apartment trying to sleep under the moonlight. 

For those of you not familiar with Shanghai, it is known for having relatively cold winters and hot, muggy, rainy summers. Having grown up in Vermont, a decidedly cooler environment, I found the Shanghai summer climate stifling hot and humid. I’d equate it to how I felt when visiting Georgia or Florida in the states. 

As I write this I’m sitting in my Shanghai Garden under an umbrella. Listening to all sorts of birds and bugs chirping. Today is relatively temperate at 90F/32C but the heat index makes it feel like 106F/40C. It will drop a bit at night, but not enough to make it comfortable. Meanwhile, in my childhood home state of Vermont today’s high is anticipated to be 73F/23C. So, basically what I‘m saying is that my body was not equipped for the steamy Shanghai summer weather back when I arrived that late June in 1996.

My Shanghai Garden – June 2021

So what do you do when the weather is so hot and you don’t have air conditioning? You can open the windows to catch any available breeze, but then you let in all the leftover dust from the day’s construction that was still hanging in the air (Shanghai was and continues to be a thriving construction zone). You can use an electric fan…and we absolutely did. It buzzed loudly next to the bed. But blowing air around that is hotter than your body temperature doesn’t do much good. The answer, as I learned a bit painfully, was applying a bit thermodynamic thinking. In this case, that meant sleeping on surfaces that would conduct the body heat away from your skin. I believe the practice of sleeping on grass-woven mats, wooden slats, or even concrete floors is fairly common across Asia when air conditioning isn’t available (or is just too expensive to run). For us, we were using a woven bamboo mat called a “xiezi”. 

Xiezi technology has varied over the years. From the roughly woven bamboo mats of that time…to “mahjong-style” bamboo mats…to modern mats that are of a composition that’s a mystery to me but quite flexible and soft. Even with air conditioning we use a xiezi for sleeping during the hottest months to this day. The worst design by far was the mahjong-style mats. They provided the best cooling, but if you moved, the bamboo tiles would pinch your skin so badly that I would wake up with welts all across my body. The rough woven bamboo mats of 1996 were not much better. At least for a western man like myself that sports a bit of body hair. Unless I slept absolutely still, my leg hair would get caught between the strands of the mat and be yanked out with any movement. After one week on that bed my knees were bald and my eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep (I don’t know about you, but I don’t sleep well knowing that I’m about to be plucked). The modern xiezi are merciful and my knees are fuzzy again.

After the steamy, mostly sleepless nights, I was exhausted as we travelled across the city to look at various apartments. To me, location didn’t matter. To me, the number or rooms was irrelevant. All I cared about was making sure that the place had air conditioning. I’d come to Shanghai hoping for some steamy nights with my hot wife, but not like these. I was miserable. My wife on the other hand had very specific requirements and we ended up having to do quite a bit of searching to find what she wanted – a well located 3-bedroom upper level apartment with a bright, modern look (and, yes, air conditioning) . I had no idea why we needed three bedrooms, but I agreed out of exhaustion and an innate understanding that I best listen. This was her hometown after all. She would know best.

I’d later find out that the apartment was a great choice. Location was critical due to the heavy traffic and this was right on the shuttle bus route for my work. The upper level apartment collected less construction dust and the modern surfaces were easy to keep clean. It had air conditioning. As for the three bedrooms, well, surprise to me when on moving day her parents showed up. As an American, this never even occurred to me. As a Chinese, it never even occurred to my wife otherwise. Twenty-five plush years later we are still all living together. That’s the happily-ever-after part of the story. But it wasn’t always so smooth. That’s a topic for another time.

Be well,

Monty

The Blogger Games II – Week 2

Paul, over at the Captain’s Speech hosted the first ever blogger games last year during the Summer Olympics. It was a fun time. The competition was fierce and although I made the podium once during the five week games, I didn’t place in the end. Well, the time is nigh for that to change. Peckapalooza from The Confusing Middle, one of my fellow contestants in the first games, has negotiated organizing rights with Paul and is hosting The Blogger Games II just in time to coincide with the winter games.

The Blogger Games II – Week 2 (The Confusing Middle)

Before we begin, I must remark that last week’s bronze medal showing was a disappointment. I know, I know, I should be grateful for a medal. But scoring only three points out of a total ten points available was a bit of a shock to my system. Not only that, but I was shaken to my core with the discovery that Peckapalooza puts mayo on his hot dogs! How can I be confident in any answer moving forward knowing that Peckapalooza isn’t like any other human I’ve ever known? But after thinking about it for awhile, I figured out my new strategy. I’m going to guess against my intuition on every question this week. Given that my intuition only yielded my three points last week. I’m expecting this strategy to earn me at least six points. Let’s see how this works out.

THE 10 QUESTIONS & ANSWERS

1. Why was Peckapalooza not allowed to participate in intramural flag football in college? A) He had asthma B) He was a dropper C) He was too slow

Answer: A) He had asthma. So the most logical answer here is that he had asthma, but obviously the answer can’t be that logical so it must be one of others (probably he was a dropper). But going with my new strategy I’m back to he had asthma.

2. What position did Peckapalooza play in 7th grade baseball? A) Short Stop B) Catcher C) Right Field

Answer: A) Short Stop. My intuition is that the correct answer is right field (same position I played in 7th grade baseball by the way and I was a terrible baseball player). So again using my strategy, I’ve got either short stop or catcher left as options. I usually would opt for B since the last answer was A to avoid repeated answers, so I’m going with A.

3. What injury did Peckapalooza sustain on New Year’s Eve, 1999 while roller skating? A) Dislocated Shoulder B) Sprained Ankle C) Broken Tailbone

Answer: A) Dislocated Shouler. I’d normally have selected broken tailbone here as it would have allowed me to make a bad joke about Peckapalooza breaking his ass, but alas my strategy will not allow this. So it’s once again “A” – that makes three in a row.

4. Where did Peckapalooza attend his first Major League Baseball game? A) Fenway Park B) Yankee Stadium C) Camden Yards

Answer: C) Camden Yards. I’d love to think it was Fenway Park which is where I saw my first MLB game. Perhaps even the same game vs. the Seattle Mariners when Boston lost the game 9-1 (I was being a little contrarian brat and routing for the Mariners). It was bat day too so I went home with a little souvenir to commemorate the Red Socks stinking performance on that day. So, I’m going with NOT Fenway Park.

5. What is Peckapalooza’s favorite movie about baseball? A) A League of Their Own B) Field of Dreams C) Bull Durham

Answer: C) Bull Durham. All of these were excellent movies, but I would rank order them from best to least as 1st Field of Dreams, 2nd A League of Their Own, and 3rd Bull Durham. So I’m going with Bull Durham.

6. Who was the home team at the only NHL game Peckapalooza has ever attended? A) Washington Capitals B) Philadelphia Flyers C) Carolina Hurricanes.

Answer: C) Carolina Hurricanes. It’s time to go with another C to make three in a row. My first NHL game was NY Rangers (home) vs. NJ Devils and it was crazy at Madison Square Garden. Before that I’d seen some practice games by the Islanders. Overall, I’ve probably seen about 8 games, including one NHL pre-season game that was played in Shanghai a few years ago, but I don’t recall the teams.

7. Which college athlete did Peckapalooza often run transactions for while working as a bank teller? A) Russell Wilson B) Andrew Luck C) Robert Griffen III

Answer: C) Robert Griffen III. Breaking the threesome with a fourth “C” answers. I was tempted to break strategy and make some joke about Wilson, the volleyball, but alas I’ve got to stick to this scientific experiment to ensure I can interpret the results correctly for next round.

8: What local bowling alley did Peckapalooza bowl at in his Saturday morning youth league? A) All-Star Lanes B) Lee-Hi Lanes C) Hilltop Lanes

Answer: C) Hilltop Lanes. Another “C” answer but this time its just happenstance. Obviously you can’t have a bowling alley on a hilltop, so the answer can’t possibly be Hilltop Lanes (so therefor it must be).

9. Which sport would Peckapalooza support in becoming an Olympic sport? A) Ultimate Frisbee B) Calvinball C) Competitive Cup Stacking

Answer: B) Calvinball. What the heck is Calvinball? I’ve got absolutely no intuition on this one so a pure guess.

10) Why did Peckapalooza attend every Girls’ JV Soccer home game as a freshman in high school? A) His cousin was on the team and was his ride B) He had a crush on a girl on the team C) His earth science teacher was the coach and gave her students extra credit for attending

Answer: B) He had a crush on a girl on the team. My intuition is he was going for extra credit so…

Monty’s Turn:

Last week I veered off from the specific questions Peckapalooza raised so in keeping with the spirit of my strategy this week, I’ll address each question straight on:

Did you play any sports when growing up? I mostly played soccer (indoor and outdoor) competitively. I also tried one season each of basketball, baseball, and cross-country skiing.

What did you like/dislike about gym class? My favorite activity in gym was floor hockey by far. My least favorite was line-dancing.

Which sports do you like to watch/follow? My most preferred sport to watch live is ice hockey. American football is the best for tv viewing. I’m not following any sports to closely these days as I’m on the wrong side of the world for the sports I’m interested in.

Have you ever gotten hurt playing sports? My only broken bone was an injury while playing football at recess during the 8th grade. It was a hairline fracture of the wrist which I landed on after failing to make a catch.

Be well,

Monty

Picture This (a Paint Chip Poem)

No Love For Fatties invites us to join in on her Paint Chip Poetry by creating our own poem inspired by the paint chip colors of the week. I think this is a really creative and fun idea so I’m giving it a try. Check out her original post and join in too if you feel inspired.

Paint Chip Poetry

Be well,

Monty

Chopsticks (a belated Sunday Scribblings)

I’m late! I’m late! I’m so very very late!

Apparently some days back it was National Chopsticks Day. I’m guessing this is in the US, since everyday seems to be chopsticks day here in China where I live (who would have thought?). Anyway Peckapalooza over at The Confusing Middle runs a weekly prompt called Sunday Scribbling and despite being late, I want in. Much appreciation for the inspiration.

Chopsticks
“Dancing Chopsticks” – originally published in Monty’s Very Short Shorts

Be well,

Monty

Daily Droppings: “In the Closet”

Special thanks to Sandra from What Sandra Thinks who created a series of daily prompts for the month of February, which are the source of inspiration for this series.

The prompt: “In the Closet”

“In the Closet”

Be well,

Monty