[music plays: “Bolero” by Maurice Ravel, performed by Mark Holt and Savannah Hatcher]
Hello, and welcome to Daddybuck’s Notebook. I’m Lindsay, and my grandfather, who we called Daddybuck, was a creative genius. In this podcast, my goal is to find the beautiful things he made and share them with the world, and with you. I’m also going to be sharing some of my own works with you, paying it forward from the inspiration he gave me. So let’s get started!
Let’s start with today’s Poetic Inspiration. Here’s a poem by my Daddybuck, John S. Townsend, dated August 25, 2004.
“Bug Barkers”
[music plays: “Lindsay’s Theme” by Mark Holt, performed by Mark Holt]
In summer a laprobed Collie
And friend Doberman with spring steel rump
Horse trot about their yard
In perimeter precision
Bodies dogfood fueled from heavy bags
Expensive.
Their care from vets and groomers
Expensive
To fuel their responsibility
And bark at bugs
And bark at bugs
At bugs
At bugs
And bark at bugs.
[music fades out]
So I really love this one. I remember, the first time I heard it (I’m pretty sure this was the first time), I think he sent it to my mom. And I remember her reading it aloud to us and we all fell over laughing. Because we knew those dogs! My grandfather had mentioned them before, and my sister and I had run along the fence in their backyard, watching the dogs play and race us, backwards and forwards, from the next door neighbors’ yard.
Back then I had no idea how annoying dog barking could be to an older person just trying to take a nap, but if I didn’t know, this poem taught me a lot about that feeling. Thing is, Daddybuck didn’t really complain overtly about things like that. He’d, you know, he did get annoyed with stupidity, with technology that didn’t work, typical old man stuff… but underneath that typical old man, there was always this humor. It was like as he got frustrated and annoyed by these things, he also could see himself getting frustrated and annoyed. And all that ridiculousness? He was part of it. I would us the word humble, but that doesn’t really cover it.. it was amusement. At himself, along with everything else! You know, from what I remember.
In the moment where I know him, the moment of this poem, he wasn’t ranting. He was acknowledging. These dogs thought they had a noble mission, and so, he was observing. Annoyed, maybe. Resigned. And constantly amused.
So. Now I’m going to share something that I wrote… tonight, just recently, right now… inspired by this piece.
This one is called the “Screen Starers”.
[music plays: “Lindsay’s Theme” by Mark Holt, performed by Mark Holt]
By nightfall the deep voiced human
and his mate with backscratch nails
grumble-mumble back into the house
Back into my protection
Eyes red-dry behind thick glass
Expensive
Backbones bent from non-exertion
Preventative
Yet still they lay at end of day
And stare at screens
And stare at screens
At screens
At screens
And stare at screens.
[music fades out]
If it’s not obvious, I haven’t exactly run that poem by any sort of editor. That’s the perspective of my dog, Thane, seeing me and my boyfriend come home from a long day at work in the IT/tech/analytics field, and go right back into sitting down and staring at our phones, despite having a very long day of sitting down and staring at our screens. I can just imagine how frustrating that is to a puppy, who would much rather keep playing in the basement or continue going on that walk as long as he possibly could and does not get what we have to be so tired about.
Thank you for joining me on this episode of .. Next week I will pick another piece from the notebook. Until then, I’ll leave you with my favorite poem, alos by my dat. It’s called “Creativieity.”
CreativityIf you could create
New word or new shape
Put your mind in a box
And watch it escape.[music plays: “Bolero” by Maurice Ravel, performed by Mark Holt and Savannah Hatcher]This podcast is made possible by me, currently! I don’t have any sponsors. But I would like to thank Mark Holt and Savannah Hatcher who provided the gorgeous music that you heard on this podcast. Mark Holt was on cello; you can find him on Instagram @markrva. Savannah Hatcher is also on Instagram @hatcher.savannah, and especially she’s on Youtube, where she’s got some great music videos playing violin. The pieces that you heard were Bolero by MR and Lindsay’s Theme by Mark Holt.Thanks again, and stay creative.[music crescendos, then fades and ends].The poem “Bug Barkers” was written by John S Townsend, copyright date 2004. The poem Screen Starers was written by Lindsay Holt, copyright date March 9, 2019. This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. This means don’t sell it, but feel free to share it, and keep the inspiration going.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Lindsay, Written Down 