Poem: The Voices Inside Your Head

The Voices Inside Your Head.

The voices in your head lie.
You are beautiful,
skin and soul alike.

The voices in your head lie.
Whatever you think you cannot do,
you can.

The voices in your head lie.
You are loved
by everyone except yourself.

The voices in your head lie,
no matter how loud they scream,
or how long, or how persistently,

They lie, and their lies
have only the truth
you give them.

================

The picture was taken in Botetourt County, Va, at Lord Botetourt high school. You can click on it for a larger version.

Tom

Poetry: Finding Your Voice

Finding Your Voice

It is in the silence you find it,
in moments like this
when you walk past the fog,
high on the mountains,
and see it freeze on limbs,
a perfect outline of ice
against the forests,

where every perfect outline
is made clear,
when you see life in detail,

not in the cacophony of life
which is like a stormy wind,
blowing here and there,
where you hear the wind,
not what is within,

but here,
now,
in the silence,
and finally,
learn to sing life loudly,
when what you are
crystallizes.

=============

The picture was taken yesterday up on Pawlet Mountain in Rupert, VT, where the fog had frozen over the night, icing each twig and limb. You can click on it for a larger version.

Tom

Poem: No Matter What (a Christmas Poem)

No Matter What

Here, it is cold, white and silent.
Steam from the river crystallizes
and collects on the trees
and the scene could be from yesterday
or a hundred years before.

Soon you will be home,
miles past this bend in the river,
to a place both new and old,
to celebrate a day
both new and old,
a celebration

of hope, of God's promise,
of his care not just for some world
or all mankind,
but for you, his child
whom he loves,
no matter what.

----------------------------

The picture is of a mill not far from my home in Vermont, just accross the NY border near Greenwich. I gave it the old style photo treatment to get the feeling of age. You can click on it to get a larger version.

Merry Christmas to all my readers. I am humbled that you all take the time to visit here. When I look at the map of where you come from each day, I am reminded that our world is large, but the human spirit knows no boundaries, and that we all share a common heart and common yearnings. Have a blessed holiday, all of you.

Tom

PS - Here is the map from yesterday:

Poetry: Stripping floors

Stripping Floors

You have to choose,
whether to strip the paint
in a flurry of sanding and dust and violence,
ripping every trace of the past
in a whirlwind of work
until the floors are pristine
and perfect, a showpiece
for magazine covers and people
who will never know anything different
than the presentation of perfection.

do it slowly,
pulling each layer of paint
off with paste and a scraper,
on your knees, prayer like
for days, knowing
the final result will be imperfect,
that flecks of paint past
will lie forever deep in the grain,
but at the same time, saving
the patina of the past
that reflects the past 200 years,
and shows the beauty of the journey.

You have to choose.

===============

The picture is of the first level of stripping of my living room/dining room floors. They are unusual, with the outer rim of flooring being spruce (shown) and the inner section (where you would lay carpet) being hickory (a rougher grain wood). You can click on it for a larger version.

Tom

Best TV commercials of the decade

The title says it all. Ad Age has awarded it's 10 best ads of the last decade. You'll probably remember them when you go see them.

Now, look at them with a different eye. What, do you think, made them so memorable? THAT's what you want in your marketing materials.

Tom

Poetry: The Road

The Road

It reaches, beckons, pulls,
long, never ending, always
there, always another one,
your private ocean

with horizons ahead,
hopes, love, dread,
a path

to, or from,
at times both,
a path

through rain and snow,
through dark, where
the path

can be seen only as far
as your lights allow,
a path

of trust, that it indeed travels
to the promised land,
again, and again.

=============

The picture is of a stretch of interstate 95 between Philadelphia and Baltimore. You can click on it for a larger version.

Tom

Don't Tell Me What to Do!

it may not seem a surprise to find out that less is more when it comes to managing creative type people. But now we have the research to back it up. Daniel Pink has done the research and is about to publish the book.

You can get a quick review of the idea in this article, or even better, watch him lay it all out on this video from the TED conference.

Pink is also the author of one of my favorite books of all time: " A Whole New Mind, or why right brainers will rule the Future." His new book, on motivation, is called "Drive, the surprising truth about what motivates us."

Tom

Poem: Therapy

Therapy

You thought you were finished
when you looked down
and saw the tiny patch of truth,
the tidbit of the original spruce flooring,
rich with color and grain,
rich with the true beauty
that lay beneath 25 years
of paint.

You are sure that those that came before
thought the paint an improvement,
and for a time, perhaps, it was
bright and new, full of color
that gleamed under the morning light.

But that paint no matter how carefully put on,
wears,
becomes scratched, and all the layers
of all the years, cannot forever
hide what is real,
and you may fight it,
or choose to open yourself to it.

It is hard work either way. more paint,
to hide the truth that lies beneath,
or taking the time to strip these floors
back to their beauty,
to embrace their age and scars,
their original beauty,
and you know

that you want that beauty in your life,
want it so badly you will do the work,
endure the chaos and smell and pain and time
to have it.

=================

No, that is not abstract art in the photograph. It is instead a tiny patch of worn flooring in the living/dining/library room I have been painting. The paint is done and I was going to move the furniture in this weekend. But she who I live, suggested I do the floors too while I had the room apart and the house in chaos. I resisted it, until I saw this little patch and saw what the floors were underneath. A richly grained spruce. Beautiful stuff. So I will live in chaos a little longer. It will be worth it to truly finish the room and have that gorgeous flooring to look at each day. (and yes, like the others, you can click on it to get a larger version.)

As I thought about that, it made me think of therapy, and how it is so much the same way. You make progress. You feel like you are there, but you keep finding places of potential truth and beauty in your life, and so you push forward. No wonder it takes years. And no wonder so many people give up. But for those who persist.... such rewards!

And so the remodeling poems continue for another week or two anyway. The photographs may not be art, but I am enjoying them.

Off to church.

Tom

Creativity and Faith

I like this post from blogger John D. Cook : " Creativity is difficult. When you are being creative, you’re living by faith. You don’t know what’s next because the created, by definition, is what’s never been before. So you’re living at the edge of something in which you’re not very confident. You might fail: in fact, you almost certainly will fail a good part of the time. All the creative persons I know throw away most of the stuff they do."

Is he always this thoughtful? Well, from the posts I read, he is. Good reading!

Tom

Poetry: Done

Done

It's done.
Two weeks of work,
moving furniture,
patching plaster,
priming walls,
painting
and it's done.

But just like therapy,
it's not really done,
for today the old furniture
will slowly move back into the room,
covering so much of the work
so carefully completed,
and you hope

that after all is said and done
that someone will notice
the transformation,
the brightness and joy
of a new color
bringing light into the room.

Perhaps you are the only one
who truely understands the depth
of the transformation,
for you have envisioned this
for so long,
envisioned the change
and brightness
that perhaps no one missed but you,

and so
you stand in the room,
empty except for color and light,
and soak it in, the fullness of it,
for just this moment,
and save the moment
in your soul.

=============

Yes, the rooms are painted. This weekend I will likely move the furniture back in. I'll probably entitle the last painting poem "the return to normalcy" since the rest of my downstairs looks like a furniture warehouse right now! And, yes, you can click on it for a larger version.

Tom

Re-inventing magazines

With all the excitement about Kindle and the Sony Book reader, what about magazines, which flourish on lush color photography and design. This article outlines what the electronic version of magazines might look like. Creativity at work! I won't spoil the surprise, but there are pictures and a video worth looking at.

Tom

The Creativity Habit

Twyla Tharp is best known as a choreographer, one of the most creative choreographers in the last hundred years. But she is interested in creativity in all it's forms. This is shown in her latest book, The Creative Habit, Learn It and Use it for Life.

Creativity and Habits may seem to be conflicting ideas, but she says they actually work together. Want to learn more? Check out this review from the News Dispatch.

Tom

Poetry: First Winter In Vermont

First Winter In Vermont

It is new to you,
this snow, this ice
that falls and stays,
that does not melt

before the next snowfall,
lying on the ground, white and cold
for stretches of time
you would have once thought unimaginable,

hiding the earth,
hiding the life below,
forcing us all to flee
to the warmth of our houses,
to each other

for a season that turns out
to be the warmest of all.

=============

The picture was taken at the outskirts of Rupert, Vermont. You can click on it for a larger version.

Tom

Kindling: well-designed, web-based idea management toolset

Creativity is often easy for a small company to develop and implement, and large companies often have large budgets and staffs to develop and manage innovation.

But what if you are a mid-sized company, too big for one or two people to be on top of everything, but too small to dedicate a lot of money and staff to innovation.

According to this review on one of my favorite sites, Innovation Tools, you might want to consider a new product called Kindling.

From the review, Kindling is "a simple, web-based idea management system that won’t bog down your employees, then you may want to take a look at Kindling. This application is already making a significant impact on the idea management space with its simple, no-nonsense design – which should be ideal for companies who want an inexpensive way to experiment with this enterprise technology."

Interested? Follow the links and learn more!

Tom

Poem: Therapy

Therapy

It is so much more than a new coat of paint.
You have to look hard at the room,
at the cracks in the plaster,
the color, the light,
the holes poked and never repaired
because they became nearly invisible,
part of the landscape
in the clutter of life that fills a place
over a lifetime.

You look at the foundation
to see where the shifts came,
and when and why, to prepare
the room to absorb the use,
wear and tear of the next twenty years.

You reflect on the white walls
and consider color: what hues do you want
to punctuate your days and night.
You want to be careful,
for in middle age you are more aware
how one room leads to the next
and how, as you examine everything,
your entire history of renovation,
this room will punctuate the next and the next, and.....

And so it takes you perhaps longer
than makes sense to those on the outside
who thought your room warm enough,
for you want more in your life
than a coat of paint,
you want renovation
from the plaster and lathe,
each hole patched,
each color looked at for long stretches
of time before choosing,
and two coats, not one,
of the best paint your meager budget can afford
to bring your brightness and preserve it
for a lifetime, leaving you with
the perfect palette
to live in for years and years
to come.

===============

The painting continues, and with it, new poems. Hopefully I will be moving furniture back in next weekend.

Tom

Poetry: Progress

Progress

A few days ago this room
looked complete,
filled with furniture, light, carpet...
pictures on the wall from your travels.

There were bookshelves filled
with a lifetime of reading,
and tiny reminders of your life,
knick knacks, completed the picture.

It was a place where you dined,
where you read late into the night,
where friends gathered for conversation
by candlelight.

But the pictures and furniture hid the flaws,
the cracks in the plaster, the holes in the walls,
the paint, faded and dull with age,
and so, you decided it was time,

worth the work to repaint, to fill the cracks,
repair the walls, hang new lights, restored
from your journey into shops over decades
of wandering,

and began, just as you began to repair
your heart and soul a few years earlier,
to reclaim the foundation and dreams
lost with time and age.

Slowly you move each vestage of your life,
tear it down, pile it up,
until the room is near empty, a shell,
raw, each flaw vibrant,

reminding you that too often,
progress is far messier, far harsher
right at the point
of redemption.

===============

Who knew painting a couple of rooms could be such creative fodder? You can click on the picture for a larger version.

Tom

Poetry: Paint as a Commitment

Paint as a Commitment

You have lived here six short months
and the old house with walls freshly
knocked through,
has begun to feel like home,

pictures and candles in their place,
your old carpets adding softness,
a place to eat and entertain,
but today

you spent the day moving,
taking down each book and
carefullying snaking the shelves
through other rooms,

rolling up the rugs,
straining to move tables,
sofas, and desks,
piling them up warehouse-like,

a catalog of life,
each item not a thing, but a story,
emptying the rooms,
preparing to paint.

And now the room is empty,
waiting for your hand to begin,
to carefully patch each plaster crack,
smoothing the surface, cleaning

the dirt of another time and person,
preparing for a color,
not the sterile white that has been your choice
for far too long,

but a gold, the color of warmth, soft
and inviting, a color that reflects
your new life, where paint is more than paint,
but a commitment.

=============

Yes dear readers, I am beginning to paint my old (but new to me) Vermont home. Living room/dining room/library first. That's what the picture is of, sans all the things that lived there until yesterday.

Below is what it looked like until then. We'll see how it turns out!

Tom

Poem: of Broken Barns

Of Broken Barns

You enter the clearing and see the small barn,
it's slate roof sagging,
it's walls twisted,
each window gazing in different directions,
a building so twisted,

so worn with age
and battered by the cold New England winds,
so broken by time's cruelty,
that it has no right to stand, and yet

it does, shelter still
from rain and snow,
it's black potbelly stove holds fire
and heat, like love,

always fueled from within,
a warmth belied
by the broken exterior
that is all you see,

unless you look past peeled paint,
beyond the half rotted clapboard,
past all appearances,
and in.

==============

This wonderful little barn, all warped and sagging, is one of my favorite buildings in Dorset, Vermont. You can click on it for a larger version.

Tom