Prototype umbrellas

Prototype umbrellas near Castel del Monte in a magic night for Inspire Me Thursday.

Long before umbrellas, long before mysterious Castel del Monte, there were umbrella pines...

Back to near zero

These emotional ups and downs versus one particular person seem to have some regularity.
Intensity and certainty are inevitably followed by increasing uncertainty and doubt ... and then reverse certainty (that it's all artificial heat-up and all too welcome misunderstanding of signals on my part).
But ... there were smiles from her yesterday even though cold had seeped into my emotional feet.

Push

A digitally processed gouache sketch from 2003.
Since the original was mostly green, my initial intention was to use it for the previous green topic. But the scan struck me as boring. While playing around with the tools of digital editing, I arrived at this version, which shows what I'd call a dynamic push. The massive, bulldog-like body on the right – itself receiving a push from the right – is going to collide with the spiky* body on the left. The resulting crash should be interesting...
Now for Inspire Me Thursday's Push.

*Inspired by Santa Maria della Spina in Florence.

Solarized green

View from our window at Villa Valeria in Bari towards the Adriatic Sea.
A late entry for Inspire Me Thursday's Green.

Pigeon TV

The current situation in this office is as dubious as ever.
Should I stay or should I go?
Will I be able to come here much longer or will I be told soon that there no longer is enough work?
Why can't I simply take things as they are "right now", like the pigeons out there on the red tile roof next to the satellite dishes?
Hell, they're not even aware of them being satellite dishes.
The notion of pigeons watching tv and complaining about a shortage of channels suitable for pigeons.
What would they feature? Lots of cooing, lots of diet-related stuff, e.g. best ways to capture worms and edible garbage left on the ground. Reports on enemies. Involuntary sterilisation issues, the trouble with clay eggs that won't hatch.
But I digress...

Back from southern Italy

Vividity

The green hills of
Trulli country in
white spring blossom –
such allure from my
perch in Locorotondo’s
main piazza

– Leonard “Gone Puglia” Blumfeld

Written around allure, perch and vivid from 3WW.

Note
I wrote the poem from memory, i.e. from the memory of looking down onto the green hillscape from the elevated city park in Locorotondo, and had in mind numerous trees in white blossom among the scattered trulli (cute dwellings with cone-shaped roofs typical of that area of southern Italy – see picture below). When I went back to compare with the pictures I'd taken, there were hardly any trees in white blossom. However, there were plenty of such trees in other parts of the area I'd passed through. Memory can be a treacherous thing!

Ghost of a god

Ghost of a god photographed and edited digitally for Inspire Me Thursday.

Live from the office

It's stuffy and hot in here.
The outside world still can't quite admit that winter is over. There were occasional snow flurries this moring.
Some stubborn trees are holding on to brown leaves.
Two Russians are in the office today, but there's no Iron Curtain whatsoever. Apparently, all of Russia laughed about Mrs. Clinton's emergency stop switch present.
Need to get on with work, but had to blog off some boredom.*

– Yours truly, L.B.

* 'Boredom' is, of course, a word that's not allowed around here. Problems aren't allowed, either. Only challenges and solutions. What shall we call boredom then? 'Slight momentary lull in the general scheme of challenge'?

What’s it take

to cajole that sourpuss,
that scroungy being with his grey strandy beard
away from his sacred tree?

What a recluse he is, and oh what a temper he has
when disturbed, letting pretend-holy
anger strike me like lightning

– Leonard Blumfeld (© 2009)

Written from someone else’s point of view around cajole, recluse and temper from 3WW. It’s all Indian today, after a Holi festival last night with Bharatanatyam dances and Bollywood film karaoke, plus immersing myself into a few poems by Rabindranath Tagore this morning. No wonder then that this is by some poor woman whose husband has got it into his brain that he needs to sit under a big old tree, grow his beard and become enlightened.

Vortic exercise

I’d
like
to hurl
myself in a
swirl – hurtling into
synesthesia: sound, meaning, love.

– Leonard “Vorticist for a Change” Blumfeld

Notes
A fibonacci written for Swirl at Inspire Me Thursday.
Alludes to the vorticist art movement (and Ezra Pound, who coined the term) – without, I admit, knowing much about it beyond surface stuff.