A New Poem: “Street Car, Sweet Heart, Sweat Hard”

I love your Spanish talk.
The soft ground around you
Hovers as you walk.
Chinese flowers grow out of me
like dreams lifted under a bed
of yellow Lantana and grapewood rosevine.
Midnight and a sleep walking Sun
dip its claws into the milky Moon.

She blows a serenade and makes a note in her diary: March 14th;
Or was it the other day when we played through the woods in the synagogue’s court?
I kept my diary clear
with liquor? hidden there.

All those cars have resisted, and those children inside us have died,
but the moist oil still grasps at the roots of the darkened cells.
(It’s old, and the unmarried couple inside still snuggle closely to the foot of her screaming limb.)

Once a bold, minted Moon?struck the head like a bell and turned us red,
And the merry men of the next town whistled “Dixie” all the way down
to the smoothed River’s bed.

A maestro, that dark little secret, always dancing and standing still.
(She, seh, was the dear. May we call you dear? Take our collective blue beard hand.)

Governor rubs the chocolate chip lips of white faces that read: “never washed hair.”
Steers calling sisters for dates and the narrow alley was our field with its
one chilling little blade.

All the sorcerers were baked
Inside a street lit with humiliating desire.
That moment never turned or backed up when the future,
blinded, uncaring, unknowingly,
decided to run us over.

Someday they will tell me she still lives there,
every soaked board still crying, trying to pull out the rusty nails
of the last conversation made,
and yet, still, even with all the talk,
That she is never at home.

A New Poem: Sonnet #2 “Sunfather”

Sunfather

Red Wave Petunias shower over clay,
All things can open up and show their light.
A life becomes transparent in warm May.
Transparent to transcendence born from night.

Their eyes the leaves foam into greening smiles
to Father Sun and Mother Sea of dream.
They feel the music, sibling Wind breathes miles
through body, bread and crown beneath the stream.

It is the night of meeting ringing gold
that dance and sing in drippings of the womb.
A rushing waterfall that drapes us cold.
Our salmon hearts dive in the unseen room.

We sprang out from the sea by silent sounds,
And fire ringed God’s swung open spirits’ clouds.

© 2007/2009 Stephen Pickering

(there still will be a bunch of iteration to do on this one. I finished it, not hurriedly, but in one sitting because of the importance of composition.)

How to Successfully Quit Smoking

Quitting smoking is a simple process if you are educated and practically impossible if you are not.

The key insight is that nicotine is a physically addictive drug. It hijacks the dopamine reward system in the limbic area of the brain.

  • The only way to successfully quit is to abstain from all nicotine intake for 72 hours, 3 days.

The main reason people fail to quit permanently is because they are duped into believing that the painful physical withdrawals they feel during those 72 hours is going to be with them forever, but the truth is after 72 hours, you are free.

After 72 hours the physical withdrawal feelings, which are very real, go away. Then you will coast through the next week and a half. After 14 days the neuronal system is completely healed. There’s no trace of nicotine in your body and your sense of smell comes back.

Nicotine patches don’t work because nicotine itself is the physical addiction. And quitting “gradually” not only doesn’t work, it can be the biggest hell you put yourself through because it only keeps the withdrawal pain alive for an extended period.

It’s important to remember that during these 72 hours your not going to be constantly in pain. You’ll have three or four separate cravings a day that if you look at a clock, only last about 5 minutes. You’ll have a craving first thing in the morning, at noon, in the afternoon, and then one other at night.

It’s absolutely critical that when you begin your “quit” you must physically get rid of all nicotine in your house, otherwise when the physical cravings come you won’t have the strength to resist. Don’t put them in the trash can outside or you will find yourself digging through the trash first thing in the morning. You must physically destroy them. Physically break them up and flush them down the toilet or take them to a bin further away than the nearest convenience store.

Remember you’ve only got 20 minutes total of pain a day for three days, and then you are home free. It’s very simple, if you follow these few simple rules, and impossible if you don’t.

Also, after your quit is in place and your feeling good, you must remember, and this is not an exaggeration, if you even take one smoke after this, which would be out of choice and not physical addiction, you will be immediately hooked and have to go through this whole process again. Nicotine can’t be casually integrated into your life like you see in the movies or like the Carrie character seems to do in “Sex and the City.” For 95% of the population nicotine is physically addictive with one single dose.

(Information learned from personal experience and the nicotine cessation expert Joel at WhyQuit.com)

Most Useful Firefox Extensions

FireFox 3.5 just came out yesterday




  • Feedly – The Ultimate Home Page. Feedly weaves your favorite content into a fun, magazine-like start page.

  • Xmarks – Synchronizes your Bookmarks and Passwords across all platforms
  • NoScript – Provides the most powerful security available in a browser

Courtesy of Net @ Night Episode 107 with @ambermac and @leolaporte