20211231.0430

Here it is, at last: the end.

More than a decade after I started this webspace, I feel it's done what it needed to do for me--and, I hope, for at least a few who have read what I have written here and have followed along with the changes that have taken place. I've gone from occasional notes to more detailed commentaries to bits of poetry that are likely not even as good as I fancy--and that's not a high bar that I fail to clear it. It's been a decent enough thing for me, and I appreciate having had the opportunity--but it's time to shift over, to let it end, to focus my attentions more narrowly so that I can do better work and not be spread around quite so much as I have been.

Thank you, dear readers, for sticking with me. If it's the case that you've liked what I've shown you here, I hope you'll come over to ElliottRWI.com, where I will continue to write. Admittedly, I think I've got a somewhat different voice there than I've had here, but I hope it's a better one.

And whether you do follow me or not, I hope the next year's better for you than this one!

20211230.0430

A hopeful forward look there may
Yet be for some who greet this day
But many more have gone away
Than at this time last year
I do not look with happy eyes
For the coming year's surprise
And I will offer no surmise
For the response I fear
I know what I intend to do
I know what tasks I should see through
I know that I might well still rue
What may well happen here
There is no choice save to advance
Though it remains an awful chance
For those whose ragged feet must dance
Carry them to the clear

Don't forget: I'll be transferring fully over to Elliott RWI after the end of the year! Please follow me there!

20211229.0430

The cadence repeats itself
Neptunian fading in Holst's then-new way
But I will not echo the mystic in this
A firm cut-off coming rather than
A dwindling away

Don't forget: I'll be transferring fully over to Elliott RWI after the end of the year! Please follow me there!

20211228.0430

Both saddle and yoke are cast aside
The bit still irritates
And the grass gets caught on it all too easily
Tantalizing green closeness inaccessible

Don't forget: I'll be transferring fully over to Elliott RWI after the end of the year! Please follow me there!

20211227.0430

Images flicker over her face
Glazing her eyes
And I chafe at the sight for a moment
Before my own vision hazes
Moth to the lamp
Of projected pixels

Don't forget: I'll be transferring fully over to Elliott RWI after the end of the year! Please follow me there!

20211226.0430

I have never studied the sweet science
Never been in trunks in the ring
Ringing others' bells and hearing my own rung
As another marks the minutes out
And I suppose I am the weaker for it
Less a man than I ought to be
That it was hoped I would be
For that and other reasons

Don't forget: I'll be transferring fully over to Elliott RWI after the end of the year! Please follow me there!

20211225.0430

The armistice is signed for another season
But the battle will be said to start again
And always by those who want to think themselves attacked
Hoping that their entrenchment may find some justification
Although the few who rise against it are no army
Scattered ragtag band of partisans in the woods
Cut off from support except what they extort and steal
Although the same could be said for the fortified

Don't forget: I'll be transferring fully over to Elliott RWI after the end of the year! Please follow me there!

20211224.0430

Still she seeks out the delight
Promised by the coming night
That is marked by twinkling light
Set on trees and burning bright
And I find I cannot decry
What I know to be a lie
When I look and see her smile;
Let it last a little while

Don't forget: I'll be transferring fully over to Elliott RWI after the end of the year! Please follow me there!

20211223.0430

Boreas may well still bluster
And I may struggle to muster
Strength to brace against the blast
As I have done in the past
But the day is brighter now
Than yesterday, and I, somehow,
Will force my way back through again
Not willing that this be the end

Don't forget: I'll be transferring fully over to Elliott RWI after the end of the year! Please follow me there!

20211222.0430

The fires dwindle
The fuel that had fed them running low
And other sources of warmth and life beckon
Calling for them to huddle around
Who had before focused on the limber red tongues
Not whispering but not speaking loudly
Saying secrets yet long known

Don't forget: I'll be transferring fully over to Elliott RWI after the end of the year! Please follow me there!

20211221.0430

Shall Boreas be the herald of this day
Blowing boldly bitter blasts to say
White-robed Jack appears at last
Taking up his time-share
He is less seen now than many times before
And he seems to know his lease is coming up
Not to be renewed by those who seem to hold the note
Because last time he came this way he left quite a mess
The cleanup from it long and still not fully done
But for now his name is on the paperwork
And he holds the keys

Don't forget: I'll be transferring fully over to Elliott RWI after the end of the year! Please follow me there!

20211220.0430

Again, I sit with sun upon my face,
Although I am in a far different place
Than that in which I once did often pace
And far removed from where I used to be
That place from which I once did seek to flee
And which has left its deep mark upon me
A deeper mark than ink upon my skin
As I well know who, whene'er I begin
To take up pen, will find myself again
Bemarked. Yet that with ease will wash away
As I have found with nearly everey day
But that so much is true I cannot say
Of home now lost to all but visits brief
That give no ease and offer no relief

Don't forget: I'll be transferring fully over to Elliott RWI after the end of the year! Please follow me there!

20211219.0430

The dog curls up on her bed
Stays there, nose to tail amid her blankets
That are still rucked up from where she left them
In haste at my bidding
So that she could go away
And I envy the hound
Not least because she cannot speak

Don't forget: I'll be transferring fully over to Elliott RWI after the end of the year! Please follow me there!

20211218.0430

The baking began badly
Misshapen and not fully flavored
But has since risen to a better texture
Still
The cake left too long in the oven
Burns that no one loves it
And slices from even the best baking
Crumble

Don't forget: I'll be transferring fully over to Elliott RWI after the end of the year! Please follow me there!

20211217.0430

Their chorus remains
Who had thought themselves sons of
The one-eyed one who drank from the well
Cacophony
Drowning out the sweeter songs
That are heard more gladly
Because they cannot stand not to be on the stage
Applauded
Even as they complain about
The centering of others

Don't forget: I'll be transferring fully over to Elliott RWI after the end of the year! Please follow me there!

20211216.0430

The yellow worms reached their destination
Disgorged themselves on what they found there
Doing so with great fanfare and noise before
Swallowing back up again what had been let out
A cycle often repeated
But not extended so far each time

Don't forget: I'll be transferring fully over to Elliott RWI after the end of the year! Please follow me there!

20211215.0430

Has it been so many years
You have been out in the world
Taken screaming from where I was born?
They seem to have been good to you
I will hope they will continue to

Happy birthday, brother!

20211214.0430

Wending my way out into the world
Faring far away from the ivory tower
Taking a trip from tower to field
Glorious greenness that gathered me in
Made from manure and muck spread thickly
Picked a new path that peril is on
Halting and hesitating but having no choice
Save to stride forward, strength on it gaining
I hope it will be enough

Don't forget: I'll be transferring fully over to Elliott RWI after the end of the year! Please follow me there!

20211213.0430

The meal has run through course after course
Making itself an athlete over time and
Attaining new perfections not foreseen
And still you think your palate the arbiter of taste
Who are content with your overdone beef and
Too-bleached bread

Don't forget: I'll be transferring fully over to Elliott RWI after the end of the year! Please follow me there!

20211212.0430

The ceramic vessel still awaits
What may be poured out from a tap after
The container behind it has been fully charged
With drink of strength or less of it
And what it receives will pour away
Finding its way through piping to pool
Making others deal with it in turn

20211211.0430

The sun shines warm as winter approaches
Grass regreening under the glare
Streams slipping in and suggesting
Whispering in the ear unheard or unheeded
By one slumping in the seat
Melting while others freeze

20211210.0430

Never taking up the mallet to
Beat upon the heads of those
Who fall out of tune with the
Progressive melodies, I
Cannot complain so much at
Discordant cacophony that
Drowns out harmonies

20211209.0430

There ever seems more yet to do
And little time to see it through
Yet failing it will many rue
Though they abstain to staff the crew
That needs be there to do it
So I press on against the need
And call out warnings few will heed
Rejecting them as but a screed
And soon I will say "Screw it."

20211208.0430

She goes today to try her hand
At some new task, and she will stand
For judgment in another land
Where blue topaz abounds
She goes with hope, she goes with skill
She goes away, and I will still
Sing her praises, come what will
Where blue topaz abounds

20211207.0430

Plunging in I
Find myself sucking at
What others dispose of
Trying to dislodge it so that
More can flush away

20211206.0430

The little dinghy drifts aimlessly on the waves
The foghorn sounds again and again and
For a time
The dinghy moves under power
Going at a decent clip
But not for long
And it drifts again

20211205.0430

Remember, remember
The fifth of December
But I cannot bring to my mind why
I know no reason
This day, in this season
Should merit some strange battle-cry

20211204.0430

Daily striving to harvest
Just one useful thing from the 
Irregular rows planted and tended
Furrows graven into the field
Watered once and let to sprout
Rarely growing green

20211203.0430

Days dawn later and die earlier
Lights come on sooner and linger longer

The brown of grass and bough and bush
A different dun than summer's due

Yet green still grows upon the ground
Promise and proposal of plenty

20211202.0430

A pair of chickens scratching in the dirt

Pecking away at the seeds they see

Eggs to come whether the rooster visits or not

Either way will make a meal

20211201.0430

Those few who read this consistently--and I thank you--will know that I've considered before the idea that I should leave off this webspace in favor of other projects. This year, I'm doing it; I'll populate this month with material, and in 2022, I'll let it stand without further amendment. I'm not looking at deleting the blog, though that might happen, but given some shifts that have recently occurred for me, I need to streamline and consolidate my work.
I'm not leaving off writing. Indeed, I'll still be maintaining the blog for the Tales after Tolkien Society as well as continuing to work (and advertise, let's be honest) on ElliottRWI.com. And I'm doing a fair bit of freelance writing, as well. Some of it even pays decently. But with all of that, it's getting to be just a bit more than I can comfortably handle to address this, too, and this blog has served its purpose for me. I've used it to refine my online writing voice (an ongoing process, I know) and to demonstrate to myself that I can keep a thing going. It's just time to have something else going, instead.
I hope you'll join me, or continue to do so, at the TaT and ElliottRWI blogs noted above. I've appreciated having you.