Roll Call

 

 Looking at numbers again; a chill evening, the first for the summer.

 

Windows closed and breezes staunched, I delve into this garage sale lap top and take it through its paces - slowly. I don't want to break a sweat. 

 

Perusing the statistics at HBS I begin to muse over their evolution and meaning. Miles Runs the Voodoo Down on YouTube through a pair of hard-wired JBLs. That and a glass of cheap Riesling keep me quiet. 

 

The day and hour seem pensive. The week has been, too. The light ever more golden, evening comes too soon. The season is changing, though still I may remain as others come and go.

 

 

 

For all time visitor rolls to the blog, the USA takes the lead. Not surprising in itself despite trying to hide my accent. The stridency must give it away.

 

An individualist trait some perceive.  Not my first misspelling, either.

 

I recall Melissa's Red Dragonfly inspire's for its passion and unique view, Carole MacCrury for her lyricism, gentle Adelaide her patient prose,  the consistent form of Bill Kenney as well the many guises of Angie Werren.  Then Hortensia, John and I, her frailty and his courage,  transcendent through all things, comparing notes and symptoms, linking verse for verse.

I'm too immature to contend for most acceptances to have rubbed shoulders with many more.

Once near the top, Ukraine and Russia exchange rank and move down two places as Germany leaps above. I'm reminded of lovely Valeria, with the hat I once complimented, one of two ex-pats and a loner writing renku. And young Leon't whom I befriended, not his real name, after he and his shit-poster buddy trolled me online. We've lost all of any contact nigh on five years. Funny to mention in third person, don't you think?

I seem to recall two Russians at the helm of British haiku, both different as night and day. One a staunch Atlantacist, convinced of the West's supremacy who would hear nothing critical of his chosen Knight exceptionale'.  The other, likely a refugee from the Anglo/American banking cartel's attempt to strip Russia of every resource possible. Despite the inevitable failure, they haven't stopped trying.

Some would call this a form of insanity.

Ramona Linke was my first contact in Germany, subject for a feature in A Hundred Gourds, distinctive for more than its place in the alphabet I had hoped, since I rarely contributed again. Does she still toil over easel and pen? Simone Busch is online; I should look there.

Then there's a gentleman, Kamphuis, I believe, of some ill repute who ran a server from an abandoned bunker somewhere, only to be visited by three hundred storm police for crimes most egregious. He forgot to review his client's content. We have laws for that, you know.

 

A devoted coder, he prefers to remain Anonymous. His observations in real time were fascinating throughout the emerging growth of social media. Vowing to never be banned was not quite the same ever again.

The real Schadenfreude belongs to Singapore. That many clicks, extending the blog's visibility, tells me a keyboard locked shut on someone's device. I don't feel I've earned them. The added restrictions, I should say.

France is a surprise. I didn't think they understood the language. But I'm projecting. 'lest it was that exuberant Vietnamese, his haiku memes as loud as he was affable.

 

China seems a constant, unseen behind a wall of willows, yellow dust engulfing pacifists and provocateurs alike. 

I argued with a Swede over milliliters rise in glacial lake water once. A naturalist, as well an herbalist, he could not approve my Denialism of the climate science. They do say that Al Gore will appear and whisk you away in the night, never to be seen again. I had heard of the Blood and Gore.

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Yet he lauded my stance for trolling the Atlantic Council, on its own page, no less.

We both must have been as high as kites.

There are a number of fine poets in Canada. I've collaborated with a few, wittingly or not. Nearly lost on an expanse of lake, I once guided a small watercraft home by identifying familiar trees noted on our way out. 

 

 Let it be obvious Tanka has never been my forte. 

 

 Canada has never overtly displayed Colonialist ambitions, although the numbers, and recent history, juxtapose a tendency to reign over "Others". 

(to be con't)