Author Archives: JMN

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About JMN

I live in Texas and devote much of my time to easel painting on an amateur basis. I stream a lot of music, mostly jazz, throughout the day. I like to read and memorize poetry.

Didactic Doggerel

Posted on April 29, 2018 by JMN

The Smallest Black Hole You wonder what you’d find in a black hole? Your other sock? A dime? A baby mole? I’ll tell you where you will find none of those: In Cygnus X-1 only darkness shows. A star one … Continue reading →

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Idle Doggerel

Posted on April 29, 2018 by JMN

Drawn and Quartered “Everything was everywhere.” (Joplin, MO tornado survivor) It was as if Mother Nature Had thrown the town under a train. It skidded hard for good measure, Smearing acreage with guts and brain. Uncle Alvin would do a … Continue reading →

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Written in the 70s — He worked

Posted on April 28, 2018 by JMN

He worked on her [***], balled into a striving that sweated their two bodies [***], past caring where she was, if she had [***] [***]. She was beginning to signal [***] in her eyes, her [***] was tensing. But all … Continue reading →

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Five Quotes About Poetry

Posted on April 28, 2018 by JMN

“It’s the poet’s business to make poetry out of the unexplored resources of the unpoetical.” (T.S. Eliot) “I would sooner give the laurel to vigorous error than to any orthodoxy not inspired.” (W.B. Yeats) “A poem by its nature operates … Continue reading →

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From Memory

Posted on April 28, 2018 by JMN

“Ozymandias,” poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley, http://www.poetryfoundation.org This sonnet triggers a puff of schadenfreude. It’s fun to imagine that, given time, the desert swallows braggarts. (Copyright 2018 James Mansfield Nichols. All rights reserved.)

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This Is Stag Country

Posted on April 26, 2018 by JMN

Lamont Ledbetter buys the jerseys for the Birch Sidewinders every year. Well, not him personally, but the Stockmen’s Bank over in Birch where he’s president. We’ll play Birch at homecoming. Tuck Ledbetter is a starting corner back for the Sidewinders, … Continue reading →

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Social Math — UK

Posted on April 25, 2018 by JMN

The venerable Henry Purslane Chichester, Sir Alistair Chichester’s ancestor, is much remembered in Chichesterton-Upon-Hogg for having wrested Henry’s Bog from the Burlingame clan in 1427. (A diehard remnant of the Burlingames still refer to it as “Burlingame’s Bog.”) Henry’s Bog … Continue reading →

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Listening to…

Posted on April 25, 2018 by JMN

Patricia Barber. I hear a lot of her music on my streaming sources. This amazing artist is prolific, and sings unfailingly fresh-sounding covers of standards, like the one I just heard: “Bye-Bye Blackbird.” Her vocals and arrangements and accompaniment are … Continue reading →

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Written in the 70s — Góngora

Posted on April 25, 2018 by JMN

Góngora – Mallarmé – Joyce Hopkins and the Arabs under threat, constant, of the blade sweetened whetted-sweet blade who self-denied the host second-chanced fall the same weak one, none such weaker language tongue on verge (of) tongue simply rung toward … Continue reading →

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Written in the 70s — Formalism

Posted on April 25, 2018 by JMN

FORMALISM…. finger any one food and say, ‘That’s what does it.’” What does is it his mind, the life-shaper. The main struggle in my life is for form — its own form. Definition; delimitation of boundaries. How necessary is solitude, … Continue reading →

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