I am 73 today and like most of us I'm happy to be celebrating another birthday. But I also realize that we never know how many more we will be fortunate enough to enjoy. I have continued to write quite a bit and have been told by many that they feel my poetry is better than ever. I hope that is true and I will continue to post old and new poems as well as comments on life and the world as long as readers seem to be enjoying it. I would, however, appreciate a little feedback on what you find you like best on the site. Please send me some feedback to glennkc@aol.com.
Thank you.

Just a brief note on some good news. My poem, String of Hearts, just won  first place in the latest New Hampshire Poetry Society contest. I will put it up on the blog as soon as it has been published by The Poets Touchstone.
Also, Around Concord Magazine, just did a three page color piece on my poetry and photography in their fall (current) edition. The article and some additional poems can be found at www.aroundconcord.com and also is on my Facebook page.

One of the interesting things about the state of affairs in the world, is how the vestiges of colonialism and imperialism continue to impact international events.

We see it in the illogical demarcation lines in the Middle East, the wreckage in much of Africa, the mixed messages in the United States towards Mexico, Cuba and Puerto Rico, and the many scars left by Spain throughout Central and South America.

The British Empire was probably the most successful in gradually evolving from an empire into a Commonwealth of Nations. But they, too, had many failures as evidenced by their impacts in the Arab world, Kenya, South Africa, Pakistan, India and Ireland. And even in places where they had a somewhat successful presence, they had much for which to apologize.

I traveled a great deal in the 1960’s, 70’s and 80’s, and had a chance to see, first hand, the transition of many of these places from colonies to nations. It was a bittersweet period. The world was changing faster than our ability to adapt.

On one of those early trips, I wrote a variety of poems about the places we visited. They were almost all post-colonial parts of the Middles East and Africa. I saw the beauty of the Seychelles, the poverty of the Sudan and Eritrea/Ethiopia, the confusion of post Mau-Mau Kenya, the barren emptiness of al-Masira, Oman, the developing storm in Aden, and the magnificence of the Suez Canal.

It was an interesting testament to the long term ramifications of what we do as nations and as citizens of the world. It was once said that “the sun never sets on the British Empire” and it was true. But the sun eventually sets on all of us. We are currently creating more issues for our children to resolve: more issues that actually had their origins in this same era of empire-building. Great anger and many actions remain to be resolved. We need to ask ourselves if what we are doing is rebuilding a better world or creating future nightmares. We will all be judged by what we leave behind for future historians, and even poets,that  to analyze.

Since much of what I have written today involves the Middle East, I will leave you with a poem Entering the Gulf (Daydreams, Snap Screen Press, 2004) I wrote at the time, and which involves a great deal of symbolism. I do believe, however, that my comments from 1966 have stood the test of time.

Glenn K. Currie

Entering the Gulf

The ocean’s surface boiled,

Alive with red sea snakes,

Wildly striking out at

The churning of our wake.

The foam grew thick with blood,

Welling up from below,

Hell’s gates broken open,

Releasing venom’s flow.

These serpents seemed to guard

The entrance to this sea,

Warning those who pass here,

“This blood will flow from thee”.

Suddenly they were gone,

The Persian Gulf lay dead,

Silence like a gunshot,

So quick the vision shed.

The quiet like a veil,

Drawn o’er the Earth and sky,

An eerie, empty mask,

Concealing angry eyes.

The land then came in view,

It’s rage burning the air,

Desert sands spewing flames,

Black blood flowing everywhere.

Susanne and I just returned from two weeks visiting the Maritime Provinces of Canada. The climate was perfect, the food was great and nobody seemed to care about conflicts of interest, bribes, emails or Trumpisms.

It’s been a little warm since we got back here in New Hampshire but it’s supposed to get a little warm in August.

The fish are jumping and the corn is high. Corn is important here. There is nothing better than New Hampshire sweet corn grown in northern New England and freshly picked.

To my readers from overseas, and there seem to be a lot of you, I would suggest a trip to New Hampshire that runs anytime from mid-August until mid-October. You have a chance to eat some truly wonderful fresh produce, take some spectacular photos and watch the world change colors.

Did you know that the state of New Hampshire has more land under forest now than it had two hundred years ago? If the world is starting to feel a little crowded, we provide a great change of pace.

We have been invaded by a few city folk who want to make us just like New York or Massachusetts, but, fortunately, the majority have worked to maintain our special status. We are a population that likes to find its own path, and refuses to be stampeded onto the crowded paths. We cherish independence, ethical living and the use of common sense. I hope we can sustain that despite all the negative vibrations that emanate from much of the world around us.

Sometimes it is easy to lose perspective in our lives. I wrote a poem a few years ago, Wandering in Cemeteries (Riding in Boxcars, Snap Screen Press, 2006), that will, perhaps, remind us of what is important.

Glenn K. Currie

                  Wandering in Cemeteries

Monuments to those,

Who spent their lives

Worrying.

Living in comas.

Hidden now

Beneath the covers.

Monuments to those

Who raged inanely.

Angry at the weather,

Or the news.

Passions wasted,

On passing storms.

Monuments to those

Burning their lives away

In the furnace

Of somedays.

Ashes carefully saved

In time’s vault.

Monuments to those

Seeking immortality.

Striving for greatness,

Interrupted in their quest.

Their only mantles,

The first snow.

A city of souls,

Filled with regrets.

Unfinished stories,

Written in stone.

Read by those

Wandering in cemeteries.

I haven’t written much lately because I honestly didn’t know what to say.

I am depressed by the state of our country. We seem to be incapable of understanding the world outside of our borders, and we seem to be incapable of understanding each other.

Instead of coming together when we are threatened, we make ourselves even more vulnerable by turning into a bunch of bickering groups more intent on the destruction of each other than the safety and welfare of our country.

It all seems to be about what goodies the government can provide, or what controls the government should put on our private lives. Here’s a message for all of you. If Sharia Law becomes the law of the land, you won’t be getting any goodies and you won’t have private lives. I know, you think that can never happen. Well, if we keep fighting among ourselves, belittling our military and police, and pretending that we are impregnable to outside and inside threats, we will wake up one day, ruled by someone who isn’t afraid to make decisions and hates everything we stand for, which, by the way, isn’t very much anymore.

Our leadership in Washington over the last two decades has been dreadful. We wobble among the choices of incompetent, ineffective and embarrassing. And what do we get from our political parties in this crucial period? They have basically fled the scene. We were hoping for candidates who could bring strong character, leadership, competence, common sense, logic and an ability to unite our nation. Instead we have two people who are self-serving, untrustworthy, partisan, vengeful and downright scary to most of the public.

I don’t even know what to hope for at this point. We are coming apart at the seams, and our designated new leadership would rather dance on each other’s graves than look for ways to form a common front against outside threats, and work to recreate our national sense of unity.

I don’t have any answers. Our political parties and our voters have betrayed us. No matter who wins in November, we will be poorer as a nation. We have chosen to be angry, greedy, grasping, vengeful, petty, untrustworthy and unforgiving in our choices and put ourselves in a position where the entire world is afraid of the outcome. We should be ashamed of ourselves. And let’s hope that is the worst of it.

Sorry. I needed to get that off my chest. I will try to come back from a brief vacation with a renewed sense of humor and maybe some new poems.

Glenn K. Currie

We spend a lot of time up at York Beach in the summer. It is one of the great vacation  places in the area for parents with kids in different age groups. No one needs a car to participate in the various attractions. There is a petting zoo, carnival, batting cage, several basketball courts, a large grassy area for frisby, wiffleball, soccer, etc, live bands in the gazebo in the evening, a total building dedicated to video games and skee ball, and bowling and go carts. It also has a terrific playground. But in the end the real attraction is a very gently declining beach that makes for great time for even the youngest beachgoers.

A while ago I put my observations of the beach residents into a piece that was used in the Concord Monitor. For those who may have missed it I include it here. It is also among the many pieces in Granite Grumblings (Snap Screen Press, 2011).

I hope you have some fun with it and I hope you have a chance to get to the beach this summer.

Glenn K. Currie

Getting Ready for the Beach

I have spent parts of the last thirty years at York Beach, Maine (sometimes also known as Concordville because so many Concord residents vacation there). It is a great place to go for a change of pace. I like the sounds of the ocean, the cool sea breezes, the excitement and activity of the area, and the ever-changing scenery (both on the water and the sand). For years, however, I have been trying to figure out what motivates individuals to spend all those hours actually lying on the beach. I couldn’t understand why theoretically normal and sane people would find pleasure in oiling themselves up, and then alternately frying themselves in the hot sand and freezing in the numbingly cold waters of the North Atlantic. I was unsuccessful in obtaining a government grant to pursue an analysis of this (apparently they were already over budget for theses kinds of projects). I decided, however, to continue with research on my own, as a service to my fellow man.

After years of study, and many long hours with the binoculars, I believe I have been able to classify, in general terms, some of those who seem so addicted to blistered skin, sand in intimate places, and heart-stopping, cold water baths. I thought it might be useful to share some of the results of this research with you prior to the arrival of the new beach season. This might allow you to better evaluate the situation if you, a normal person, were to suddenly find yourself surrounded by a broad cross-section of certifiable crazies at such a beach.

The following categories comprise the major groups of beach dwellers. They are listed in no particular order:

1)Polar Bears. There are people out there who actually like to swim in freezing water. Some of them can be seen on TV in the winter, diving into holes in the ice. This is part of their training program so that the York Beach water doesn’t seem too cold. I suspect that their brains were fried in a previous summer’s heat, and now they have the uncanny ability to actually thrive in water that makes the rest of us turn blue. Most of these people have been preparing for years for this test, their bodies are well-oiled, and the tide tends to rise when they go in.

2)Max-Tanners. These are people who use the beach to release their inhibitions. Many of them wouldn’t be caught dead in a revealing blouse on Main Street, but will basically strip down to their underwear as soon as they are standing on sand. The theoretical rationale is that this is the only way they can get a really good tan. The actual objectives vary from impressing boyfriends or girlfriends, to enjoying the sense of freedom and release that comes from running around nearly naked. There is a kind of selective amnesia related to this, and that is probably a good thing. It definitely adds life to the beach scene but can be a real mixed blessing. There are some cases where there is more to meet the eye than the eye is ready for.

3)Voyeurs. Many beach-goers fall into this category. They come to see everyone else. Unfortunately beach etiquette demands that they also wear bathing suits. This can be particularly unpleasant. One ameliorating factor with this group is that they burn easily and therefore often cover up fairly quickly. They also tend to have very short attention spans, except when confronted with world-class max-tanners. Since York Beach is not Malibu, they often get bored and hot, and wander into town to buy ice cream and add to their collection of ugly t-shirts.

4)Perpetual Motion Machines. A wide variety of kids add excitement and variety to the beach scene. These youngsters have been resting up all year for beach day. They are impervious to cold water, are quite good at warming up tidal pools, love to splash those who wander too close to the ocean, and kick sand in food and drinks as they run over bodies and drip on towels. They are relentless in their activities, never sleep and have great lungs, which help maintain a decibel level that appears essential to maintaining the chemistry of the beach.

5)Beasts of Burden. These are mostly out-of-shape fathers who are on an involuntary conditioning program. They don’t actually spend much time on the beach, but they can be seen making frequent trips between car or cabin and the established beachhead. They carry inner tubes, folding chairs, shovels, pails, towels, big hats, cushions, binoculars, beach umbrellas, radios, wagons, strollers, blankets and a wide assortment of toys. The kids mostly ignore this stuff and the mother generally is too busy to use it, but it definitely contributes color to the setting. Most of these trips are scheduled at the hottest part of the day.

6)Unofficial Assistant Lifeguard. There are always a few of these guys on the beach. They roam back and forth looking for their lost youth. They can be identified by the tiny little bathing suits that they wear, and the tendency to have more hair on their backs than on their heads.

7)Mummified Remains. These are veteran beach goers who were left out in the sun too long, and are now a permanent part of the landscape. They are there when you get there, and they are there when you leave. They never seem to move, and probably own that piece of beach by virtue of squatter’s rights. With luck, they will wake up before the guys with the metal detectors come by and try to grab their earrings and keys.

I hope that this summary of my years of beach study will be useful to you in understanding the dynamics of this primitive culture. Obviously, most of you do not fall into any of these categories, but are, instead, just normal, healthy people looking to get away from the hot weather. And if you are also interested in doing scientific studies of beach culture, York Beach is a pretty good place to start.

The following piece was published this morning in the Concord Monitor. I am sure most of you will recognize the characters. Hope you have some fun with it. If you know a Congressperson please don't hesitate to forward it to him or her. They need some help.

How to Fix Congress

I spend a lot of time thinking like a ten-year-old. Not only does my wife tell me that I often am a ten-year-old, but it is part of the job requirement in getting in touch with the characters in my children’s books.

Recently, I was settling into my title character to work on a new part of a future book, when I began to think about the upcoming election and how totally inept our Congress seems to have become. I wondered what little Glenn might have to say if he were asked how to fix the seeming inability of Congress to function.

The following might have been some of his solutions:  

1)      I think we should make all the Congress people sit together like they do in school. Miss Fernapple said all the boys can’t sit on one side and the girls on the other. She says that would be segregation and she mixes us all up with each other. Now I have to sit next to Snobby Donna and even do some projects with her. She’s still a stinky tattle-tale, but I don’t put cockroaches in her locker anymore. If all the Republicans and Democrats had to sit next to each other, maybe they would do better on projects too.

2)      All the Congress people should have to go to lunch together and eat the same stuff that they serve us at school. I bet they would get tired of the turnip salads and tofu burgers real fast, and maybe then they would bring back pizza and chocolate chip cookies, and be in a better mood to work together.

3)      Congress people should have homework just like we do. Maybe if they had assigned homework they would read their bills before they pass them. I think civics and geography homework would also be good for them.

4)      I think they should have to ride to and from work on school buses. Those seats are really uncomfortable, there are no seat belts, and the shock absorbers are so bad that they would soon vote to fix the roads and bridges.  Buses would also probably cut down on traffic and pollution in Washington, and make parking easier. There might be some bullying on the buses, but Mr. Mullins would fix that fast.

5)      Miss Fernapple makes all of us turn off our phones in class. I think this would be a good idea for Congress, too. My dad says that if the Congress people actually had to listen to all the stupid speeches they make down there, maybe some of them would shut up.

6)      They should require better attendance. I get detention every time I skip a class. I think Congress people should too, unless they have a note from a responsible person.

Good luck finding one of those in Washington.

Glenn K. Currie

Mr. Currie is the author of  A Boy’s First Diary and Surviving Seventh Grade in which these characters deal with many of the real and important issues in life.(www.snapscreenpress.com).

Also, a reminder that through the end of June my three collections of poetry are available at the counter of The Works in Concord at half price with all proceeds going to the Children's Literacy Foundation. www.clifonline.org provides lots of info about this great organization.
Glenn

Just a short note to let you know that my new poem "Charleston Tears" won first prize in the recent New Hampshire Poetry Society contest and will be published  in the next issue of "Touchstone". I will publish the poem here as soon as it is published there.
Thank you to all of you for your interest and support.
Glenn K. Currie

I am exhibiting my poetry and photography at The Works in Concord during the month of June. It is a fundraiser for a favorite charity of mine, the Chidren's Literacy Foundation ( www.clifonline.org). My books are available at the counter for half price this month ($10) and all proceeds will go to CLiF. Since I know all my readers are not local I will also make this offer....any books that you order through my website, www.snapscreenpress.com or directly to me at Glennkc@aol.com will also be available at half price this month and shipping within the US will be free. Again, all of those proceeds will also go to CLiF.
Thanks for your consideration.
Glenn