Poetry: Is Critical Thinking Obsolete?

Once upon a time, there was no Google. "Playtime" was when children played with empty boxes, pots and pans, or just about anything that could be found, and they had to use their imaginations the entire time and they drew on both sides of their brains to solve problems. 
There was a time when flying a kite meant learning to build one and what materials could be used and even that there needed to be a tail. 
There was a time when "speech" and "debate" were special classes and in those classes, students learned to research, to not find facts only but to think of arguments and how to evaluate the information they found, and to find a few good reasons that supported their argument. Then they learned to consider counter arguments and to find disconfirming evidence or the merits for the opposing view, and then, find further evidence to counter those. Plus, they learned to document their findings and provide accurate attribution; and, just as important, not to plagiarize.

We need to help our children today:

• learn to pretend; 
• to solve problems on their own and without Googling; 
• to question and analyze what they hear and read and not take everything as truth just because they found it on the internet or because someone said it; 
• to learn how to solve all sorts of problems and then test their results for evidence their answers are correct; 
• to be able to present dual perspective arguments; 
• to be able to find and discuss the costs and benefits of each position; 
• to eventually be able to figure out what new data would help resolve a controversy.

We need to help our children learn how to not just survive but to lead or feel confident on selecting a leader using critical thinking.

© Is Critical Thinking Obsolete?

Mimi Wolske

All Rights Reserved

houses built on the edge of ambivalence

where origami occupants’ dreams are

filed in loose-leaf gliders while plumped

breadcrumbs nick their interests when rivers rise, swell

bowler gods and kitchen goddesses

rally around a dark apostrophe

or a fire-starting catastrophe

like flies and bees ‘round freshly picked wedding bouquets

whether words squared and re-used in a scrabble game

by the photo-op holocaust without substance

or the punctuation with questionable content and leaky leaks

both entice the gods and goddesses with broadcasted-war decisions

will time lick it wings or slap them flat

against its ancient pendulum of a body

or will snakes in the grass and pigs’ ear purses

manage to reach insouciant, perilous, uncritical-thinker constituents

Poetry; What Do You Look For In A Poem?

Poetry is a craft, as well as an art, and the skills required are demanding. Does it have to make sense? Maybe, but not always and not to every reader. 

© Refrains, Trains, and Blood Stains

Power-drunken swain;

No more dirty martinis.

No praise for burning bridges.

No lingering of warring breaths.

Duplicitous thoughts are

Transported from damning platforms

To complicity to brain enemas and keep

Chugging like an iron commuter.

Fragile viles discolored by

Hyperbolic rhetoric blacken souls.

Drained life juices soil terra firma.

Liquid words smudged across walls.

Mimi Wolske

All Rights Reserved

I’m Vulnerable When Disseminating in Eustachian-Colored Lingerie

© I’m Vulnerable When Disseminating in Eustachian-Colored Lingerie

In what vat are the grapes of wrath stored?

I’d like to know so I can dispose of it. I’m tired of seeing the results from its drunken state.

Unfortunately, prejudice of every kind, in every form, entails some to expose their intolerance and hatred and to burn the rest of us with wrath’s toxic waste.

Where is it written we must Darwinize these Satanistic characteristics as inborn truths and behaviors?

Can’t we all, all Americans, all humans, posit the peace and love genes?

Can’t we all spasm and belch and regurgitate the poison of hatred?

If not, then someone else please take my seat, ride proxy for me on this pendulum, take my place and run this last race in a world spinning like a tilt-a-whirl that’s about to tilt off its axis.

Set me free.

Mimi Wolske

How Much More Can She Give?????

(Wo)Men, It's Your Lucky Day!

Seriously!

Two New Poems and A Flashback Micro Story

© You’re A Natural

Mimi Wolske

All Rights Reserved

My every intention,

Oh, dare I mention

It? Draw your attention.

I swear, I am ashen

With embarrassment,

Blushing and barely cogent.

What wonderment!

Never say you’re insentient;

I’d be mortified!

Yet, still intensified,

Is the lust in my heart tied

To yours? Who’s to decide

If your erection

Caused my affection

Or if natural selection

Sent you my direction?

© Give Your Words Flight

Mimi Wolske

All Rights Reserved

when the words you think are louder on paper

then write and let the world read your poetry

share your commitment to your words with the world

it is not a hobby to count the rains and name their droplets

let your anger’s ashes burn on the pages of your work

don’t keep them hidden in your ark

which is nothing more than a paper boat… a prison

let the world read your words of love sitting on a page

like clothing shed on the floor of your lover’s bedroom

the world will save your thoughts from a coffin

GO HERE (LINK BELOW) FOR FLASHBACK MIRCRO STORY "SHE WHO REMAINS": 

http://mimiandmona.blogspot.com/2015/07/mimi-mona-micro-story-she-who-remains.html

Sunday's Murder of Crows by Mimi Wolske

I know; this is sooo 2010, but here's a Throwback Thursday Poem from 2014

©Sunday’s Murder of Crows

Mimi Wolske

Mimi Wolske - Mona Arizona™

October 2014

All Rights Reserved

sometimes, more often than not,

I wake wondering Am I a vampire?

metallic taste--more than one spot--

covers my teeth; they require

a sweeping tongue, long on spittle,

short on the blood it can taste.

teeth clenched, they’re almost brittle.

it’s what I do at night, lay in waste

and nightmares of you alone,

in Mexico without me,

a murder of crows after your bone

and you cry for me as them you flee.

If you cock your head left a little, you will see the world through your favorite color. Cock it a little to the right and suddenly words spill from you to hypnotize others. That's creativity and it is you at your best.

© EXPOSED

Mimi Wolske

All Rights Reserved

’Twas the season of the thawed, frostbitten

pen and brush and a mad woman’s long-kept

secret in the attic of her temple that began with

words and hues losing power because they

were never spoken for ears to hear nor

brought into the light for eyes to see.

She danced around in a half-hidden war zone

on the edge of the universe worried whether

a room crowded with critics would or could

appreciate the life and love she breathed into

her children left hanging on bland walls and

bound in inked pulp to be plucked from tabletops.

(art: American artist Michael Volpicelli creates detailed portraits of people and animals out of written words related to them.)

Tumbleweed Contessa Is Angry and We Are Declaring War on You

I wrote this poem June 6, 2016 (posted it on Facebook on June 7th) after hearing about the Stanford (swim team) student, Brock Turner, who RAPED and documented (photographed her nakedness and sent to members of the Stanford swim team) and how the judge gave him a MEANINGLESS 6 MONTHS in JAIL... She was UNCONSCIOUS! Brock Turner said he was an innocent boy from Ohio (seriously?) who got drunk because of peer pressure. When a couple of grad students came upon the rape scene, Brock Turner got up and ran. One grad student chased down Brock Turner and two others came and helped hold Brock Turner until the campus police came. When the student who chased Brock Turner down was asked whether he thought Brock Turner was drunk or not, he said that Brock Turner "could run" and "was not slurring his words at all". During the trial, Brock Turner LIED LIED, LIED to the judge and Defense evidence was provided to the judge BEFORE his judgement.

© We Are Declaring War on You

Mimi Wolske

All Rights Reserved

We’ll shed no tears for you

We’ll spend restless nights in fear

But we’ll never give a flying fuck

About the unrecoverable loss

Of your oh-so-brilliant future

That your male counterparts

Use to shame every victim

For such a slight indiscretion

An obscene six-month sentence

For the trust you stole from your victims

For the rape with blazon disregard

For your egregiousness that

Left them too terrified to sleep

For the feeling of worthlessness

Your left them with along with

Bruised and bloody reminders of your crime

Every victim becomes revictimized

With not-so-honorable judges who

Are clearly more concerned with

Your life than with your victims’

BUT we women are uniting and

While we cannot tattoo you with a scarlet R

We know you’ll grant us the same

Forgiveness for our slight indiscretion

As we plaster what was printed in

The printed news and the electronic news—

Your photo, your name, and your despicable,

Unforgivable, heinous crime—everywhere

With the warning to every female

Never Trust This Person, He

Will Rape You Will You’re Unsuspectedly

Drugged Or Just Innocently Sleeping

It's not just Women who are raped; men are also raped; BUT EQUALLY HORRIFYING IF NOT MORE SO IS THAT DEFENSELESS-INNOCENT-WEAKER-THAN-ANY-ADULT CHILDREN ARE RAPED!!! So, why is any rape victim treated as the assaulter in the courtroom, as the enticer, as if they do not have a life, as if they are not innocent, as if they are guilty of something?

Here's a link to the letter from Brock Turner's RAPE VICTIM that constricted my throat and brought tears tumbling down my cheeks:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/katiejmbaker/heres-the-powerful-letter-the-stanford-victim-read-to-her-ra?utm_term=.shPXgkQOD#.rsgE8Y9B4

Jilted Lover

What on earth just happened?

Disrespect!

It was not you. You did nothing wrong.

© Jilted Lover
Mimi Wolske
All Rights Reserved



It hit her

The way a bullet finds its target
Quickly
Leaving a wound constantly digging

Unlike a messenger
Don’t shoot him
He delivered hurt-to-the-bone
Passive-aggressive
Gone-without-a-word
Heartache

She’d forever remember this pain
From a typical player’s
You’re-such-a-sap message
You’re-a-piece-of-art-people-will-
Pass-finding-it-unstimulating
Missive

Shrugging days later
She hung a blank canvas
In a popular gallery
Propped it with a strategically placed broom

Presented her own provocative admonition



(Untitled, 2009, Canvas, wood, and plastic, Maurizio Cattelan)

Poem: MY GRANDMOTHER TOLD ME TO ALWAYS GIVE A BEGGAR MONEY BECAUSE YOU NEVER KNOW WHO IS AN ANGEL

Prejudice. 

When taught by a loving grandparent, learning not to judge people by their looks was a positive lesson. 

Today we say, "Never judge a book by its cover" so often it almost has no meaning any longer... they are just words. 

But, when something grabs our attention and our lesson comes from that experience, it is a lesson not easily forgotten nor dismissed.

© MY GRANDMOTHER TOLD ME TO ALWAYS GIVE A BEGGAR MONEY BECAUSE YOU NEVER KNOW WHO IS AN ANGEL

She said that the first time I saw a man

Who had no legs selling pencils for ten cents;

He sat on a two-foot-by-two-foot piece of wood

on four rollers and held out a tin cup.

Impossible not to stare at the misery

Pleading with my five-year-old soul for a dime,

I thought of how she patiently combed my curly hair.

Rain fell like quarters smacking the muddy yard;

The comb flipped from her hand onto the front porch

Just as thunder shook the small house.

She told me to get the comb, but afraid of lightning,

I shook my head; she gently pushed me out the open door.

Just as I stooped down and took the comb

Into my small hand, lightning flashed and

Thunder crashed simultaneously. I made

In back inside in one leap. She laughed.

Our maid slept downstairs, in the basement.

We got baby chicks from someone for Easter.

One, maybe both parents hated them. Grandmother

Told them they should keep the peeps in the basement.

Those peeps brought back memories of the squeaky

Square of rolling wood used by the beggar man.

The maid, being superstitious, strangled the chicks—

She wrung their baby chicken necks. We cried.

I had a dream that night about the legless man
and of thunder and lightning storms;

I thought our maid strangled his legs. She did not

Know that he had wings… That he was an angel.

Mimi Wolske

All Rights Reserved

Tumbleweed Contessa Poetry: © When I Was A Child

© When I Was A Child

I called her yellow and she

danced with the breeze,

her head bowing and nearly

touching a carpet of green.

she stood straight once again,

her face to the heavens. Face up,

she smiled at me as I stooped

to pluck her from the ground,

as if she were a small gold finch

or a tiny, singing canary, with

a quick swoop of my hand.

There you are, my dandelion.

But, those bright eyes the color of

buttercups or daffodils pleaded

not to hurt her and force her

colorless blood to flow, and

she promised if I waited,

white and silky, wispy wings

would sprout, yellow would fade;

then I could pluck her up,

close my eyes to wish as

I faced away from the breeze,

and then blow on her, I could

watch her dance on the wind.

but when that day arrived,

she appeared as clouds around

the moon or a lace collar and

I decided I would keep her.

Mimi Wolske

All Rights Reserved

 (picture #2, painting Of Dandelions and Dreams by Jimmy Lawlor)
(picture #3, Marie de GARAY - 1861-1953, Catching Canaries, oil on mahogany panel)
(picture #4, dandelion - Angela Bartlett, Colored Pencil)

(all paintings, drawings, photos not attributed to any artist do not belong to me and are the sole property of their individual owners)

A Tumbleweed Contessa Poem: sometimes the ceiling drops on her

just another day, another dollar-two-fifty

for wind-blown, euphonious  poetry

Mimi Wolske

All Rights Reserved 

© sometimes the ceiling drops on her

she never knows what chapter she’s in,

she never understands the plot, and

she never knows what to do next.

whipping out her pair of used scissors

like an old gunslinger, she

cuts down snow-licking sunflowers

before they become massively dehydrated;

it’s her own private blend of

brain-hatching unhappiness.

there she squats sobbing tears of dirt,

legs bent like a grasshopper’s

with her knees at her shoulders,

her arms tight around those coltish legs

as if to prevent them from

wandering off and leaving her.

stretching for an explanation, trying

desperately to fall into

the rhythm of the story, but

she never knows what chapter she’s in,

she never understands the plot, and

she never knows what to do next.

(painting by Michael Cheval)

Tumbleweed Contessa's Poetry: MEOW

When You Face Journey And The Unspeakable... The Unthinkable Happens 

© Meow

backseat face journeys witnessing
pigeon dung pigeon dung
white splats on terracotta tiles
red splats on the windshield
dying pigeon on the driveway

feral cat slinking low

P O U N C E

Mimi Wolske
All Rights Reserved

Face Journey is when you are talking with someone or watching something and your expressions tell the story of what you're hearing/seeing.

(photos are not mine and are the sole property of the owner)

Poetry: ©The Wind Scratching My Window Reminds Me, from Letters I Never Sent to You

©The Wind Scratching My Window Reminds Me

from Letters I Never Sent to You

Mimi Wolske

All Rights Reserved

She took the horse sailing again. Well, the three-year-old has horse panic attacks every time he gets near a plane.

I pressed one of the flowers, from the bouquet you sent, between the pages of a large book the way you used to press my body into anything that resembled an ocean of sheets.

The flowers are so beautifully pastel, so fresh, so recently cut, they remind me of how moonlight lit your face and stuck like pollen, or like an ocean being beached.

I wonder, do you plunge your face through that sun-deprived skin to search for lost intentions or have you abandoned them, one and all?

The rain began falling just now. It’s welcome and if I were younger, I would go outside and dance in the desert heat-blistered white drops. Instead, I’m where I prefer to be as I write another letter I will never send, lounging on my chaise as deliriously happy as Cleopatra on her barge and sending you all the love she freely and openly gave to Mark Anthony.

As always, I end with All My Love.

Fifteen Stitches

What screws us up most in life is this picture we have in our heads of how it is suppose to be. What really happens is the one left behind is painted out of the picture even though that person is clearly equal and a collaborator.

© Fifteen Stitches

chaos spilled across the paper moon

opening the window and abandoning

the weights of life he found inopportune

fall into the arms of sweet dreams

the vigilante air held hostage

loving words she dared not utter

he misunderstood fragments of shared moments

and incomplete life puzzles

kneeling in the cathedral of him

collecting and saving broken-heart stitches

the way a child keeps fireflies in a closed jar

she longed for another lullaby

by Mimi Wolske, American author, artist, Renaissance Woman

All Rights Reserved

(painting: Don't waste your tears by Catrin Welz-Stein)

Words Become Lessons I Will Learn

You love and loathe her/him simultaneously. So if s/he is such a snake or a wolf, or the ultimate deceiver, why are you still there? Walk away. They won’t change because they are selfish. They want their cake and eat it too. It’s easy to always think of only herself/his self, which makes it easier to think less and less about you while you think more and more about him/her.

© Words Become Lessons I Will Learn

Mimi Wolske

All Rights Reserved

I read your text again today.

Your words kiss the boundaries of being,

Scream your soul’s conversation,

Say to me, “I am here”,

Even when you are not.

But, they are only words;

I have heard a surfeit of them,

As well as your breathy vows

And that staccato sotto voce

Declaring in my ear you are mine!

No words carry the same meaning.

You stumbled through my sentences

While someone else lay enjoying

The presence of your heart

And spoke to you in an

Unknown lover’s language.

But I find your words are

A wondrous and rare thing,

So I keep them in a small machine

To remind me they are as mechanical

As the small box that plays them back to me.

No words carry the same meaning.

You Are mu And That Is Equal to Zero

A few dimensions of “characterological coldness”:

aloof, apart, stand-offish, impersonal, disengaged, uninvolved, closed, shut-down, detached, distant, remote, haughty, self-absorbed; emotionally unavailable, unresponsive, indifferent, uninvested, unfeeling, unemotional, affectionless; unsmiling, cold-hearted--as in “cold fish” or (even worse) an “iceberg” or “ice queen”, lacking in empathy and compassion, angry, hostile, critical

© You Are mu And That Is Equal to Zero

Did your inflated ego get bruised?

Your puffed up pride in yourself

Is as shallow as a loaf of yeasted bread.

Such a myopic, self-centered focus

Prevents you from seeing the bigger,

The accurate picture. Will you ever

Be able to stop focusing on your

Own needs to see there is something

Deeper, more meaningful? My dear,

You are not the purpose to existence.

Your ivory tower is brittle from

A lifetime of puerile resistance.

Take off your paradoxical socks;

Let your bare feet feel real grass.

Mimi Wolske

All Rights Reserved

© I’m Just A Philanthropist with An Old Soul or Every Day Is A New Day with You

It’s Still National Poetry Month

The first National Poetry Month was held in 1996.

“Poetry lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of the world, and makes familiar objects be as if they were not familiar.” — Percy Bysshe Shelley, from A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays.

© I’m Just A Philanthropist with An Old Soul

or

Every Day Is A New Day with You

Mimi Wolske

All Rights Reserved

You can’t go back again

And expect everything to be the same—

You stole more than trinkets.

Still, I replay you and me;

It’s a loop of happy reveries.

Spring again and I’m shedding

All the unneeded parts of my

protective coat without a second thought.

Now, with the dust jacket removed,

all I see is our story,

Not the actors in it.

Just as a room full of students

Sharpening their pencils,

Or Mom frying bacon early in the morning,

You are one of my favorite smells...

Burned on my memory until the end.

(painting: Quentin Massys, Netherlandish, Ill-Matched Lovers, c. 1520-1525)