The winter of my discontent; a poem in progress
Starbucks @CentralSquare
Watching the morning go-to-work parade.
Cars, trucks, buses and bikes.
Could be a circus, though not quite a midway.
But it is a midway, through.
A is for away.
B is for bus.
C is for cute girl, getting on the bus
that takes her away
to the circus,
or maybe a midway.
D is for destination, that place
where everyone seems to be going,
or not.
Paul didn’t make it to Spain, but
things turned out okay, I think.
E is for ergodic, as well as
erotic. It’s how we choose, mostly — a way with words.
Away, now!
F is for flow.
Cars, trucks, buses and bikes,
cute girls and everybody else.
Red light, green light, and that big orange mitt,
blinking,
with a number next to it,
translated, means to the cute girl and everybody else, “You have 34 seconds to get to the other side!”
(At the same time, the message implies that cars, trucks, buses and bikes will soon get their turn.)
Everyone gets a turn,
a right of way.
G is for generosity:
The parade at Central Square, free lessons on life, real-time, generous in proportion.
Counterbalancing fear and control, with ease
Thinking out loud
Learning the lessons of Abbie Hoffman: New systems of influence
Story, decisions, systems of influence
Thinking out loud
Story, decisions, systems of influence
An epistle for Pepe (and the Conference on Honduras)
Governance grows like poetry goes
From A Poet’s Alphabet, The Weather of Words, Mark Strand
Q is for the questionable in matters relating to poetry, lines or images for which no precedent comes immediately to mind and whose virtues seem equally elusive. In time, our wayward lines and images may become our greatest successes, the true signs of our authorship. But when we are young we are slow to trust ourselves, preferring to sound like more established writers. For that is how we make sure that what we have written is indeed poetry. Eventually, we learn to mistrust what is patently derived, and we cultivate what we first perceived as weakness. It is the oddity of our poems, their idiosyncracy, their lapses into a necessary awkwardness, their ultimate frailty, that charms and satisfies.
Margaret Wheatley and Deborah Frieze (2006) write, “When separate, local efforts connect with each other as networks, then strengthen as communities of practice, suddenly and surprisingly a new system emerges at a greater level of scale. This system of influence possesses qualities and capacities that were unknown in the individuals. It isn’t that they were hidden; they simply don’t exist until the system emerges.”
The Conference on Honduras is local effort.
The Conference on Honduras connects networks.
The Conference on Honduras strengthens communities of practice.
The Conference on Honduras is a system of influence, qualities and capacities worth creating.
The Conference on Honduras, in Copan, Oct 6-8, 2011.
Michael Strong: The disruptive technology is YOU
TEDxUFM: Michael Strong – Socratic Practice as Disruptive Technology