Poem: lake feeding (written in 2000 or 2001)

lake feeding

I sit by the lake on the brick wall, legs crossed and grown pale and hard with chill, like iron rails.

The turtles don’t appear on the smooth green-black surface, only a sudden ripple or two, far out.

I break and throw a cracker anyway, nibble on the last part myself.

The stunning pink and purple sky of moments before has settled now into subtle hues of blue, white and a faint orange glow above the darkening water

The cold is numbing but I love it out here

A sudden splish and plop and a soggy, ragged square of cracker has disappeared.

A minute’s wait and then another is gone, and then another

I see the small explosion as a spot of water rises up to momentarily become solid and transparent as glass, then settles to liquid ripples

But I never see the fish, a brown glint at the most.

I marvel at their quickness, never seen but expertly nabbing their target, hardly ever missing

I wonder, too, at the split-second from floating cracker to empty water

All is veiled by the water’s darkness.

It is beautiful, but I have things to do, and the evening chill is growing

The bricks feel like rough ice.

I struggle to my feet and step off the wall, with one last glance for the faintly glowing sky and dark lake

The unclaimed bits of cracker will remain, float uselessly, slowly turn grey in the impermeable water.

- Kat Finger

I Recommend the Following...

Thoughts in my head one minute, blank slate the next moment...ADD is not helping me be a writer right now.

However, I always wanted to do random things on a blog (a decade or so ago, I dreamed of having my own website - but this is MUCH easier). I wanted to make lists of things, recommendations of things, etc.

Here are a few things I highly recommend that you, dear reader, check out / try, etc.

~ Listen to old radio detective shows, like Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar and Pat Novak For Hire and Line Up. A) they totally RULE, and B) they are great company / background for when you're doing chores, or walking around the block, or driving, or trying to fall asleep, or wrapping gifts when it's Christmastime, or waiting for an appointment, or whatever. I especially particularly recommend the following Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar episode "The Royal Street Matter".


* Put blueberries in your chocolate ice cream - tastes great, especially if it's dark chocolate flavor.

> Any time you're near a fountain (of reasonably large size - not a water fountain that you drink from), especially if said fountain shoots streams of water in arcs, try to keep your eyes on one droplet of water from the moment it shoots out of the nozzle, up into the air, over the top of the arc, and down again into the pool of water. Of course, you can't really latch your eyes onto just one droplet of water without binoculars - but do try to keep your eye fixated one piece of the water's stream, as specifically as possible, up and over.


This will freeze the water for a surreal few seconds, and it will feel like you're looking at stop-motion photography -- but in real time. Like this!

It may sound goofy, but if you try it, I'll bet you'll find it diverting and possibly even fascinating, as I do.

+ If you like the book Jane Eyre, and you are at all geeky or a fan of fantasy or sci-fi, then you owe it to yourself to read Jane Slayre. It is SO well done, and I really enjoyed looking through both books simultaneously and seeing which parts of Jane Slayre were word-for-word the same as the source material, and which bits were much the same but slighly altered to fit the situation.

Also, if you were always a little (or a lot!) turned on by Mr. Rochester, I suggest you check out the book Jane Eyrotica. Yep, it's what it sounds like. ;D

* Any Bryan Ferry and/or Roxy Music fans in the metaphorical house? You should know, if you don't already, that the Bryan Ferry Orchestra put out a CD of many Ferry and Roxy songs RE-DONE AS 1920s JAZZ TUNES. Yes. They. Did. The CD is called The Jazz Age, and it is SO awesome!

To wit: here is "Virginia Plain", by Roxy Music:

and here is "Virginia Plain, by the Bryan Ferry Orchestra:

So...there are a ton of other things that I notice and enjoy, which I'm not sure that everyone has taken the time to notice and enjoy. I plan to revisit this topic quite a bit. (I'm also one of those people who delights in using a jukebox to play Amateur DJ to the entire restaurant.) When will the next post be? Who can say? To quote Dirk Gently: "Pray God I am not too soon!"

One of the podcasts I listen to and love is called The Great Detectives of Old-Time Radio. I shall emulate the host.

This is Kat Finger, signing off.