Post 499 - Here are some more facts and findings about the way we live:
Almost all the economic news in America is good at the moment: the economy is growing again; company profits are up and mortgage rates down; retailers’ first-quarter profits are 26% above last year’s level, and banks have the best quarterly profits in two years; home building is up and property developers are snapping up land that already has infrastructure in place; inflation is at a 44-year low; and the Chinese are buying US government IOUs again.
Thirty-seven percent of eighteen-to-twenty-nine-year-olds are currently unemployed, the highest figure among this age group in more than thirty years.
In February, the number of employees voluntarily quitting surpassed the number being fired or discharged for the first time since October 2008.
In a poll conducted by Right Management at the end of 2009, 60% of the employees polled said they intended to leave their jobs when the market got better.
25% of Americans have no bank account and 70 percent of Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck.
The financial sector’s influence in Washington reflects its enormous donations and lobbying. Over the past two decades, it’s given $2.3 billion to federal candidates. It’s outdone every other industry in lobbying since 1998, having spent $3.8 billion.
The average annual cost of keeping a convict in the California prison system has risen from under $1,000 in 1970 to more than $52,000 today.
Los Angeles County jails are the largest mental health provider in the country.
Babies can receive up to 26 vaccines in their first year of life, a number which has doubled since the mid-1980s.
50% of your health is related to your behavior, 20% is related to your environment, 20% is related to your genetics and 10% is related to your access to healthcare.
The U.S. currently has a sick-care system, not a healthcare system.
Guinness World Records says a Minnesota man is the tallest in U.S., measuring 7 feet, 8.33 inches.
Today, a cheap cellphone has more computing power than NASA's mainframes had in 1969.
Five years ago, 19-year-old Stefani Germanotta was working as a waitress during the day and singing in dingy New York clubs at night. Today, as Lady Gaga, she has 3.8 million followers on Twitter and 6.4 million Facebook friends. Her music video, Bad Romance, has been viewed over 200 million times on YouTube, and is the site’s number one clip of all time. And she’s sold over 15 million albums and over 40 million singles worldwide.
A video on YouTube gets 50% of its views in the first six days it’s on the site, according to data from analytics firm TubeMogul. After 20 days, a YouTube video has had 75% of its total views.
Right now as you read this, you're moving at 660,000 mph. That's the speed of the ground you’re standing on as it moves through space.
A recent survey found that more than 520,000 people in England go to work hung-over every day. The average Briton turns up with a hang-over three times a month. As a result, they report making more mistakes and struggling to keep up with their workload.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Let Evening Come, a poem by Jane Kenyon.
Post 498 - Born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1947, Jane Kenyon spent her first two decades in the Midwest, attending the University of Michigan in her hometown through completion of her master's degree in 1972. It was while she was a student there that Kenyon met her future husband, the poet Donald Hall. After her marriage, Kenyon moved with Hall to Eagle Pond Farm, a New Hampshire farm that had been in Hall's family for generations and where she would spend the remainder of her life before her untimely death from cancer at age forty-seven in 1995.
About this poem, she said, "I went upstairs one day with the purpose of writing something redeeming, which is not the way to write, but this just fell out. I didn't have to struggle with it." It's my favorite poem of hers.
Let Evening Come by Jane Kenyon
Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.
Let the cricket take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.
Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.
Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go black inside. Let evening come.
To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.
Let it come, as it will, and don’t
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.
About this poem, she said, "I went upstairs one day with the purpose of writing something redeeming, which is not the way to write, but this just fell out. I didn't have to struggle with it." It's my favorite poem of hers.
Let Evening Come by Jane Kenyon
Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.
Let the cricket take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.
Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.
Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go black inside. Let evening come.
To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.
Let it come, as it will, and don’t
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.
How to coach star performers.
Post 497 - Among the people at Bell Labs and its competitors, Kelley and Caplan found that 85 to 90 percent of the extremely talented people hired never rose beyond average when it came to productivity. They also found that the 10 to 15 percent of hires who rose to “star performance” status were eight times more productive than the average or mediocre performers. The key to converting average or mediocre people to star status lies in determining and then coaching their competencies in nine areas. According to a Bell Labs study, here are the nine strategies of highly productive workers:
- Taking initiative.
Star performers go beyond just informing someone of an error, they correct it. The mediocre don’t.
- Networking.
Star performers establish their anticipated needs for outside input prior to beginning a project. The mediocre wait until there’s a need, and then look for help.
- Self-management.
Stars know that self-management goes beyond time management and includes management of effort and knowledge. The mediocre feel that time management is all that’s needed.
- Teamwork effectiveness.
Star performers are comfortable with being either a follower or a leader. The mediocre tend to push too hard for leadership roles.
- Leadership.
Star performers know that small leadership roles are as important as the bigger, more visible ones. The mediocre are often disappointed with smaller, less viable leadership assignments and, as a result, perform at that level while expressing their displeasure.
- Followership.
Star performers are aware of the value of following as well as leading and understand the need to contribute to the leader’s and the team’s performance. The mediocre are often difficult to work with in a team setting and focus more on getting credit for themselves.
- Perspective.
Superior performers are able to see how their immediate work factors into the big picture. The star performer seeks out other view points, like those of the customer, manager or other team members. Mediocre workers often seem to live in a world defined by the length of their own reach. They tend to have difficulty accepting thoughts and ideas from anyone other than themselves.
- Show-and-Tell.
Star performers are master presenters. The mediocre are PowerPoint specialists.
- Organizational savvy.
Star performers understand how they contribute to the overall performance of the firm and are able to navigate through the competing interests of an organization. The mediocre are often perplexed with organization politics and hide behind the mantra of not being a “political person.”
When coaching someone, start by asking four questions:
- What do I need to know about you and your role in order to be helpful?
- What do you need to know about me, and about my role?
- How should we best keep in contact with one another?
- How shall we address obstacles and challenges with one another when they occur?
Look for these three signs that someone is "uncoachable":
- He has no problem. If he doesn't want to change, he won't be able to. Don't waste your time trying to persuade him to see the error of his ways.
- He's in the wrong job. Ask him, "If the company shut down today, would you be relieved, surprised, or sad?" If he says "relieved," help him to figure out what's next. There's no use coaching someone who's truly unhappy about his job.
- Everyone else is the problem. It's impossible to help someone who blames everyone else for his problems. Move on — find someone who's ready to admit his problematic behaviors and accept your help.
Just before his retirement, the late Alabama football coach, Paul “Bear” Bryant, observed: “I’m just a plowhand from Arkansas, but I’ve learned how to put and hold a team together. I’ve learned how to lift some individuals up and how to calm others down, until finally they’ve got one heartbeat, together, as a team. To do that, there are just three things I’d ever have to say: If anything went wrong, I did it. If it went semi-good, then we did it. If anything went real good, then you did it! That’s really all it takes to get other people to win for you.”
- Taking initiative.
Star performers go beyond just informing someone of an error, they correct it. The mediocre don’t.
- Networking.
Star performers establish their anticipated needs for outside input prior to beginning a project. The mediocre wait until there’s a need, and then look for help.
- Self-management.
Stars know that self-management goes beyond time management and includes management of effort and knowledge. The mediocre feel that time management is all that’s needed.
- Teamwork effectiveness.
Star performers are comfortable with being either a follower or a leader. The mediocre tend to push too hard for leadership roles.
- Leadership.
Star performers know that small leadership roles are as important as the bigger, more visible ones. The mediocre are often disappointed with smaller, less viable leadership assignments and, as a result, perform at that level while expressing their displeasure.
- Followership.
Star performers are aware of the value of following as well as leading and understand the need to contribute to the leader’s and the team’s performance. The mediocre are often difficult to work with in a team setting and focus more on getting credit for themselves.
- Perspective.
Superior performers are able to see how their immediate work factors into the big picture. The star performer seeks out other view points, like those of the customer, manager or other team members. Mediocre workers often seem to live in a world defined by the length of their own reach. They tend to have difficulty accepting thoughts and ideas from anyone other than themselves.
- Show-and-Tell.
Star performers are master presenters. The mediocre are PowerPoint specialists.
- Organizational savvy.
Star performers understand how they contribute to the overall performance of the firm and are able to navigate through the competing interests of an organization. The mediocre are often perplexed with organization politics and hide behind the mantra of not being a “political person.”
When coaching someone, start by asking four questions:
- What do I need to know about you and your role in order to be helpful?
- What do you need to know about me, and about my role?
- How should we best keep in contact with one another?
- How shall we address obstacles and challenges with one another when they occur?
Look for these three signs that someone is "uncoachable":
- He has no problem. If he doesn't want to change, he won't be able to. Don't waste your time trying to persuade him to see the error of his ways.
- He's in the wrong job. Ask him, "If the company shut down today, would you be relieved, surprised, or sad?" If he says "relieved," help him to figure out what's next. There's no use coaching someone who's truly unhappy about his job.
- Everyone else is the problem. It's impossible to help someone who blames everyone else for his problems. Move on — find someone who's ready to admit his problematic behaviors and accept your help.
Just before his retirement, the late Alabama football coach, Paul “Bear” Bryant, observed: “I’m just a plowhand from Arkansas, but I’ve learned how to put and hold a team together. I’ve learned how to lift some individuals up and how to calm others down, until finally they’ve got one heartbeat, together, as a team. To do that, there are just three things I’d ever have to say: If anything went wrong, I did it. If it went semi-good, then we did it. If anything went real good, then you did it! That’s really all it takes to get other people to win for you.”
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
How to manage virtual teams.
Post 496 - Success in business increasingly depends on the ability to manage a team of people who come from different disciplines, who aren't at the same location or from the same culture, don't necessarily report to you, and may not even work for your company. So there's a growing body of research on virtual management. Here are some of the lessons being learned:
- Be able to walk before you can run.
Someone who can't manage a conventional team probably can't handle a virtual one either. Success in a virtual world means making the needs of team members a top priority. In our technological age, paradoxically, you have to spend more time managing people than in the past.
- Get everyone involved.
Teams that fail usually do so because they lack a clear purpose. So it's crucial that team members know and agree on exactly what they're trying to accomplish together and how they plan to do so. Experience shows that it's good practice for geographically dispersed people to come together and discuss these issues in person during a kickoff meeting.
- Spell everything out.
Take nothing for granted and test all assumptions. As my daughter reminds me on occasion, "Assume puts an ass between you and me." For example, at the beginning, test assumptions about how the team will communicate, what the term "quality" actually means in practice, whether meeting the schedule means the same thing to different team members. Check on what exactly people are signing up for when they make agreements.
- You can't over-communicate.
Once the work gets started, make sure team members don't become isolated. It's good practice for the team manager to stay in touch with the members every day and to encourage the members to keep in touch with one another. Familiarity builds trust and people who trust each other are always more productive.
- Learn to manage up.
Virtual team members often work on more than one team at a time, so the manager is often competing with others for an individual's time. It helps to have a relationship with someone higher up who can approach the right people and ask for help on your behalf. Look for an executive sponsor who's really committed to the team's success.
- Be careful about compensation.
Monetary compensation usually works best if it's tied to the success of the project and to personal performance. However, virtual team members are likely to receive different benefits from their different employers and it helps to make this explicit from the beginning. That way, team members can say what's important to them during the project in order to protect their benefit status.
- Manage conflict.
Since conflict is inevitable, keep a constant eye out for it and make every effort to nip it in the bud when it appears. Check email archives daily for signs of disagreements and if they appear to be surfacing, call the parties involved and talk with them in person rather than relying on email. As an early warning system, consider designating one employee to regularly go from site to site listening to gripes from team members and making these explicit so they can be dealt with.
And finally, managers and team members should bear in mind Oscar Wilde's observation that, "To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect."
- Be able to walk before you can run.
Someone who can't manage a conventional team probably can't handle a virtual one either. Success in a virtual world means making the needs of team members a top priority. In our technological age, paradoxically, you have to spend more time managing people than in the past.
- Get everyone involved.
Teams that fail usually do so because they lack a clear purpose. So it's crucial that team members know and agree on exactly what they're trying to accomplish together and how they plan to do so. Experience shows that it's good practice for geographically dispersed people to come together and discuss these issues in person during a kickoff meeting.
- Spell everything out.
Take nothing for granted and test all assumptions. As my daughter reminds me on occasion, "Assume puts an ass between you and me." For example, at the beginning, test assumptions about how the team will communicate, what the term "quality" actually means in practice, whether meeting the schedule means the same thing to different team members. Check on what exactly people are signing up for when they make agreements.
- You can't over-communicate.
Once the work gets started, make sure team members don't become isolated. It's good practice for the team manager to stay in touch with the members every day and to encourage the members to keep in touch with one another. Familiarity builds trust and people who trust each other are always more productive.
- Learn to manage up.
Virtual team members often work on more than one team at a time, so the manager is often competing with others for an individual's time. It helps to have a relationship with someone higher up who can approach the right people and ask for help on your behalf. Look for an executive sponsor who's really committed to the team's success.
- Be careful about compensation.
Monetary compensation usually works best if it's tied to the success of the project and to personal performance. However, virtual team members are likely to receive different benefits from their different employers and it helps to make this explicit from the beginning. That way, team members can say what's important to them during the project in order to protect their benefit status.
- Manage conflict.
Since conflict is inevitable, keep a constant eye out for it and make every effort to nip it in the bud when it appears. Check email archives daily for signs of disagreements and if they appear to be surfacing, call the parties involved and talk with them in person rather than relying on email. As an early warning system, consider designating one employee to regularly go from site to site listening to gripes from team members and making these explicit so they can be dealt with.
And finally, managers and team members should bear in mind Oscar Wilde's observation that, "To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect."
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
How to think smarter.
Post 495 - Since the days of Descartes, the 17th century mathematician, Western science has followed the belief that the mind and the body are separate. Although we now know that emotions and the mind play a critical role in our physical responses, many doctors still practice medicine as if this were not so. And scientists know surprisingly little about how to apply the new knowledge of the neurosciences in real life situations. However, current research is shedding light on a number of areas: the unreliability of memory, our capacity to keep learning as we age, the good that exercise does, and the harm caused by stress. Here are some more details:
- Accurately recorded memory is a very rare thing because the brain isn't interested in reality but is interested in survival instead. So it changes the perception of reality in order to stay in the survival mode. The moment of fixing a memory is so complex that we have little understanding of what exactly happens. We do know that our memory, such as it is, can be very easily modified by traces of earlier memories. So, it appears that our understanding of reality is approximate at best. Memory isn't fixed at the moment of learning, but repetition improves the odds of retrieval.
You can produce more reliable long-term memories by consistency re-exposing yourself to the information, and by a phenomenon known as "elaborative rehearsal." Elaborative rehearsal is relating new material to material that's already familiar so it can be more easily remembered. For example, if you're presented with a list of digits for later recall (4968214), grouping the digits together to form a phone number transforms them from a meaningless string of digits to something that has meaning. You can also improve your chances of remembering something if you can reproduce the environment in which you first put it into your brain. If you learned something when you were sad, you're likely to recall it better if you're also sad when you try to remember it.
- A lot of research findings connect exercise - especially aerobic exercise - with brain health. Since exercise is good for the cardiovascular system, it follows that it keeps the blood vessels in the brain healthy as well. There's a growing body of scientific opinion that a many Alzheimer's cases are vascular rather than genetic in origin. Research shows that people who exercise regularly are 50% less likely to contract the disease compared to those who don't.
- Stress causes the body to produce a set of hormones called glucocortoids (cortisol or hydrocortisone is the most important one in humans). These are good for short-term responses to stress but in the longer-term, they damage the body, including the brain. People suffering from depression, anxiety, panic disorder, malnutrition, and alcohol abuse are often found to have elevated glucocortoid levels in their bloodstream.
Stress hormones seem to congregate in the hippocampus, a part of the brain that's deeply involved in many aspects of human learning. As a result, people who are stressed don't do well at math. They don't process language very efficiently either and they have poorer short- and long-term memories. These are often the skills needed in business so stress causes people to be less efficient at work. Some studies conservatively estimate the financial costs in the U.S. of the lost productivity that results at more than $200 billion a year.
Now you know why 70% of us don't handle conflict or stress effectively. The decisions we make today for ease and lowered stress charge high interest rates. There’s no thirty-year fixed option on the price of reality. It’s a balloon note which always come due when we’re least able to pay.
One way to keep abreast of the many exciting findings emerging in brain research is to subscribe to the Scripps Research Institute newsletter at:
http://www.scripps.edu/e_index.html
- Accurately recorded memory is a very rare thing because the brain isn't interested in reality but is interested in survival instead. So it changes the perception of reality in order to stay in the survival mode. The moment of fixing a memory is so complex that we have little understanding of what exactly happens. We do know that our memory, such as it is, can be very easily modified by traces of earlier memories. So, it appears that our understanding of reality is approximate at best. Memory isn't fixed at the moment of learning, but repetition improves the odds of retrieval.
You can produce more reliable long-term memories by consistency re-exposing yourself to the information, and by a phenomenon known as "elaborative rehearsal." Elaborative rehearsal is relating new material to material that's already familiar so it can be more easily remembered. For example, if you're presented with a list of digits for later recall (4968214), grouping the digits together to form a phone number transforms them from a meaningless string of digits to something that has meaning. You can also improve your chances of remembering something if you can reproduce the environment in which you first put it into your brain. If you learned something when you were sad, you're likely to recall it better if you're also sad when you try to remember it.
- A lot of research findings connect exercise - especially aerobic exercise - with brain health. Since exercise is good for the cardiovascular system, it follows that it keeps the blood vessels in the brain healthy as well. There's a growing body of scientific opinion that a many Alzheimer's cases are vascular rather than genetic in origin. Research shows that people who exercise regularly are 50% less likely to contract the disease compared to those who don't.
- Stress causes the body to produce a set of hormones called glucocortoids (cortisol or hydrocortisone is the most important one in humans). These are good for short-term responses to stress but in the longer-term, they damage the body, including the brain. People suffering from depression, anxiety, panic disorder, malnutrition, and alcohol abuse are often found to have elevated glucocortoid levels in their bloodstream.
Stress hormones seem to congregate in the hippocampus, a part of the brain that's deeply involved in many aspects of human learning. As a result, people who are stressed don't do well at math. They don't process language very efficiently either and they have poorer short- and long-term memories. These are often the skills needed in business so stress causes people to be less efficient at work. Some studies conservatively estimate the financial costs in the U.S. of the lost productivity that results at more than $200 billion a year.
Now you know why 70% of us don't handle conflict or stress effectively. The decisions we make today for ease and lowered stress charge high interest rates. There’s no thirty-year fixed option on the price of reality. It’s a balloon note which always come due when we’re least able to pay.
One way to keep abreast of the many exciting findings emerging in brain research is to subscribe to the Scripps Research Institute newsletter at:
http://www.scripps.edu/e_index.html
Monday, May 24, 2010
Facts and figures.
Post 494 - Here are some current facts and figures about the way we're living and the choices we're making - and not making! Go figure....
1970 federal deficit, as a percentage of GDP was 0.3% - today it's 9.9%.
U.S. unemployment rate for ages 20-24 in 1970 was 7.5% - now it's 17.2%.
Estimated cost to taxpayers of TARP, adjusted for inflation, $117 billion.
Amount that U.S. banks charged in 2009 for overdraft fees - $38.9 billion.
Estimate of underfunding for state government employee pension funds across the US – currently greater than $3 trillion.
A recent Rasmussen Poll asked Americans: “Would you prefer smaller government with fewer services and lower taxes or more active government with more services and higher taxes?” By a margin of 64% to just 22%, Americans said they’d prefer a smaller government.
A few weeks ago the latest right-track-wrong-track numbers came out, and about 70% of respondents said they thought the U.S. was on the wrong track.
Estimated combined salaries of the top ten actor nominees at the 2010 Oscars, including winner Jeff Bridges for Crazy Heart - $20 million.
Salary paid best acreess Julia Roberts in 2001 for Erin Brokovich - $20 million.
Rank of U.S. among nations in internet connection speed – 18th.
Number of works of art by Picasso that have been stolen – 660.
Fine DOT can levy against a Boeing 737 full of passengers that’s stuck on the runway for three hours at $27,500 per passenger - $4,097,500.
With 73 closures so far this year, the pace of bank failures is more than double that of 2009, which was itself quite a brisk year for shutdowns.
Twenty years ago, the U.S. ranked 29th in the child mortality rate (the percentage of children younger than 5 who die each year). Today, it ranks 42nd globally, behind much of Europe as well as the United Arab Emirates, Cuba and Chile. The U.S., which is projected to have 6.7 deaths per 1,000 children in 2010, saw a 42% decline, a pace that’s on par with Kazakhstan, Sierra Leone and Angola.
In 2002, only 10% of multinational companies had software development and other IT work performed abroad. By 2008, 70% of multinationals had joined the outsourcing parade.
According to the European Commission, by 2050 the percentage of Europeans older than 65 will nearly double. In the 1950s there were seven workers for every retiree in advanced economies. By 2050, the ratio in the European Union will drop to 1.3 to 1.
Gross public social expenditures in the European Union increased from 16 percent of gross domestic product in 1980 to 21 percent in 2005, compared with 15.9 percent in the U. S. In France, the figure now is 31 percent, the highest in Europe, with state pensions making up more than 44 percent of the total and health care, 30 percent.
And finally, here's something I bet you didn't know:
The number of people the Bible says were killed in the name of God, not including Noah’s flood, Sodom & Gomorrah, or plagues and famines, adds up to 2,391,421.
1970 federal deficit, as a percentage of GDP was 0.3% - today it's 9.9%.
U.S. unemployment rate for ages 20-24 in 1970 was 7.5% - now it's 17.2%.
Estimated cost to taxpayers of TARP, adjusted for inflation, $117 billion.
Amount that U.S. banks charged in 2009 for overdraft fees - $38.9 billion.
Estimate of underfunding for state government employee pension funds across the US – currently greater than $3 trillion.
A recent Rasmussen Poll asked Americans: “Would you prefer smaller government with fewer services and lower taxes or more active government with more services and higher taxes?” By a margin of 64% to just 22%, Americans said they’d prefer a smaller government.
A few weeks ago the latest right-track-wrong-track numbers came out, and about 70% of respondents said they thought the U.S. was on the wrong track.
Estimated combined salaries of the top ten actor nominees at the 2010 Oscars, including winner Jeff Bridges for Crazy Heart - $20 million.
Salary paid best acreess Julia Roberts in 2001 for Erin Brokovich - $20 million.
Rank of U.S. among nations in internet connection speed – 18th.
Number of works of art by Picasso that have been stolen – 660.
Fine DOT can levy against a Boeing 737 full of passengers that’s stuck on the runway for three hours at $27,500 per passenger - $4,097,500.
With 73 closures so far this year, the pace of bank failures is more than double that of 2009, which was itself quite a brisk year for shutdowns.
Twenty years ago, the U.S. ranked 29th in the child mortality rate (the percentage of children younger than 5 who die each year). Today, it ranks 42nd globally, behind much of Europe as well as the United Arab Emirates, Cuba and Chile. The U.S., which is projected to have 6.7 deaths per 1,000 children in 2010, saw a 42% decline, a pace that’s on par with Kazakhstan, Sierra Leone and Angola.
In 2002, only 10% of multinational companies had software development and other IT work performed abroad. By 2008, 70% of multinationals had joined the outsourcing parade.
According to the European Commission, by 2050 the percentage of Europeans older than 65 will nearly double. In the 1950s there were seven workers for every retiree in advanced economies. By 2050, the ratio in the European Union will drop to 1.3 to 1.
Gross public social expenditures in the European Union increased from 16 percent of gross domestic product in 1980 to 21 percent in 2005, compared with 15.9 percent in the U. S. In France, the figure now is 31 percent, the highest in Europe, with state pensions making up more than 44 percent of the total and health care, 30 percent.
And finally, here's something I bet you didn't know:
The number of people the Bible says were killed in the name of God, not including Noah’s flood, Sodom & Gomorrah, or plagues and famines, adds up to 2,391,421.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Insomnia, a poem by Matthew Sweeney.
Post 493 - Here is another delightful poem by Matthew Sweeney and I dedicate it to all of you who have trouble sleeping. Maybe you believe Dr. Seuss's observation: “When you’re in love, you can’t fall asleep because reality is better than your dreams.” Now, that's a good reason to stay awake if ever I heard one ....
Insomnia by Matthew Sweeney
Everywhere it’s raining except here
where the mosquitoes thrive
and the car alarms wail at each other
all through the dog-moaning night,
and just before dawn that smell
of onions frying brings the image
of a fat ghost chef whose insomnia
is dealt with like this, making me
rush to the kitchen to catch him
but he and the smell are always gone.
And sleep has no chance at all then,
so rather than ride the toss-&-turning
horse I go naked onto the balcony
to count the lights left on in the flats,
trying to imagine who is up early
and who is late to bed, and soon
the night train will arrive from the north
to rest and be fed, the woken crows
will start the feral cats, and I will add
my wolf howl, then wait for the shouts.
Insomnia by Matthew Sweeney
Everywhere it’s raining except here
where the mosquitoes thrive
and the car alarms wail at each other
all through the dog-moaning night,
and just before dawn that smell
of onions frying brings the image
of a fat ghost chef whose insomnia
is dealt with like this, making me
rush to the kitchen to catch him
but he and the smell are always gone.
And sleep has no chance at all then,
so rather than ride the toss-&-turning
horse I go naked onto the balcony
to count the lights left on in the flats,
trying to imagine who is up early
and who is late to bed, and soon
the night train will arrive from the north
to rest and be fed, the woken crows
will start the feral cats, and I will add
my wolf howl, then wait for the shouts.
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