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Archive for the ‘poetry in motion’ Category

Bones About It

Posted in beat poetry, corona, covid, mindfulness, ordinary madness, poetry, poetry in motion, prose, Uncategorized on December 8, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Equate me with foot dragging on carpeted stairs to squat quick & pensive at the outlet-God of cheap-thrill shock-therapy, for my inner-child needs a cold-water start to wake up from the monotonous boredom that’s got us all tangled up; dragging beneath the slowest car, riding on puro rims- over potholes & pits, with a blackout blotch smeared right over arrival time.

2 weeks that bled into 2 months, that bled into 9 months- at present, that bleed still. A vacuous wound unresponsive to tourniquets, & the pressure persists, but no mind, no mind.

I used to take my thinking-saw when I’d grown into my shadows & saw my skull open to let my head-moths fly around & land in unlikely places, & write about what came home, attached to their feet. I’d witness a white crow 2 times in an unmistakable flock of black ones & felt closer to the mystics; and stranger to common concerns like days of the week. I touched magic more often but also got my feet dirtier in the process. You can’t walk through a long field & not step in shit.

I struggle with recognizing my own web of fault. Have I trapped myself in the monotony or am I too close to my own nose to see my victimhood in having little to do for months? Everyday is a grand Groundhog of reminder, edging margins of subtle variation.

And now with cold cold air to wrap reliably around my leggys & weave it’s way through my hair & around my scalp, & penetrate my body top down & bottom up- I trap further into myself in inaction & the dullard’s company of a grey, cloth couch. My guitar will call & I will answer, but where once I had magic beans that rolled around my pockets of song snippets & poetry shreds I had hung without protest- on thin blue lines of spiral bound pages; storing them like orphans hoping to get chosen when I pull up in my petticoat & emerge from my Cadillac Roadster with clicky heels & feather hat. Dahling~ I am ready for you now. Prepackaged sentence pluckery. Those beans- where are they now?

My tea leaves carry-on unread, for my cup filleth & filleth again, I sip on & on all day long, working with my hands, trying & forgetting, repeat repeat repeat- to steady my mind- & search for cheap thrills or expensive thrills or I’m-open-to-suggestion-thrills-please-change-out-my-tea-now-I’m-ready-for-a-new-flavor-of-thrills.

Time is my sweet, yellow dog growing older. It passes without asking or telling, as it takes without the same pleasantries. One day we’ll look back with rosier lenses, while now we must find our way through the darkness of the un-knowing. Generating our own sparks again.

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Confused Kitchen

Posted in cooking, creativity, fiction, food, musings, poetry in motion, prose, random, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on January 31, 2018| 10 Comments »

 

Pea soup on the stove
stinking up the place.

If someone were to pop in right now
I’d say “I’m making pea-soup” to explain the smell
Save from embarrassment.

I’d invite them to stay and eat
I always make too much soup.
Who makes just enough?
Is there such a thing?

If they came over they’d notice the piles of papers.
I’d apologize.
I’d say “I’m normally cleaner”. And mean it. Because that’s how I see myself.

How do people maintain their paper piles?
Does anyone? Are there small files that the rest of people hide in another room?

The papers sit next to the boxes to be considered for recycling.
They get walked out incrementally. There’s no rush aside from the guilt
So much tree-waste.
I bought reusable cloths dipped in beeswax to use in lieu of foil.
My tupperware collection is nothing to sneeze at.
This throw-away culture is shame.

If a tree came over right now
I’d extend my sincerest condolences and I’d blush and admonish my own self
I’d say “I try”, though I’ve heard there is no trying.

There’s doing
and there’s not doing.

Once I had a teacher who pulled a tissue from the box.
He told us to try to pick it up, as he let it fall from his hand.
We scrambled for it.
I don’t remember who picked it up, but it was safe and upon the return to his hand
he said “See? There is no trying. You do or you don’t do”.

The tissue was used only for a lesson.
If that tissue walked through my door right now
I would refrain from rubbing my nose on him.
I’d fear him absorbing too much pea soup, so I don’t think I’d extend the offer.
Plus I need to slumber peacefully
without perplexing dreams about animate tissues eating my home cooking.
Though I’d say something like “I’m sorry for your purposeless life and that you must go
hungry
dry
and used in nothing but a questionable metaphoric lesson”.

If someone came over at the same time as the tissue and tree came
I’d have a lot of explaining to do.
And I’d have to do it, according to law, as there is no try.

Maybe I could blame it on the pea soup.
Distract them with health food.
Apologize to it later.

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Considering Wall Witnessing

Posted in art, musings, ordinary madness, photography, poetry in motion, prose, random, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on January 26, 2018| 2 Comments »

Is anyone out there known to have learned skills of building just so that they could destroy, to start anew? If these walls could talk. If they could absorb.
Would they swell, well, wail?
With grief of past renters? Laden with uncomfortable memories of someone’s poor sitcom taste? Or  spooked by the inability to comprehend an old tenants’ idolatry? Or find humor in and joy of private dancing with the likes of us they contain?
Are they pleased with the blush-colored tiles that coat their kitchen parts?
Do they revel in the bed banging against them ferocious, and ache for more as well?
Because if everything has energy, then there stands a chance at a secret life that we know as much of as to think that birds just migrate without communication, but magnetism and instinct? Greedy, narrow, humankind.
So then, am I their favorite thus far?
Should I lean up against them and divine their favorite music? It must be Nina- the album with her in front of a pond in Central Park…
The walls. Inert and unable to grow, only wither in time. Unable to self-fortify. But- able to hear? God ears? You are probably not alone.
Turn off your halogens. Be true be true! If someone or something is always the witness, could you really be you?
You can find a hammer and smash till you’re blue. Or bang out a window to let the air through.
If these walls could listen. If they’ve been listening all along- how would you do? IMG_8144 (2).jpg

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Let Be Wild

Posted in musings, nature, ordinary madness, photography, poetry in motion, politics, prose, random, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on November 22, 2017| 6 Comments »

Trees; an affront to imposed rigidity and structural predictability,
contrasting the angles raised of long blocks that contain them,
(parks- a slight, conceding effort;)
defying street boundaries;
interrupting, inconvenienced by countless collections of 90 degrees;
spreading roots with great effort, nonetheless.

oa
To be well and free against the opposing absolute and certainty of man-made resolve, in an immediate world of molds and intended order.
In a time where plans are steadfast; where chance is made scant;
lessened; unappreciated, threatened by homogeneity.
I will sing the songs that rise up from beneath my feet, that the pavement has not permeated. I will sing the songs that are not mine to keep.
I will sing what comes forth, be I know not from where.
Songs to soften, with hopes of bringing broader breath to asphyxiated systems surrounded in soil.
Songs to ease the rattle of drilling for more more more when all is what we’ve already, collectively got.
Songs to hug at the earth burdened by those who appreciate her not, yet tug tug and tug relentless at her spine, yes.
Everyday. Back breaking acts in detached formation. Embroiled in entitled ideals.

When did people learn that nature was to be conquered and what happened to their songs?
With trees so tall to walk beside, how can they not feel a hum?

oaaoaaa

 

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Exhuming Creativity & Shots at Luster

Posted in creativity, inspiration, musings, nature, ordinary madness, poetry in motion, prose, random, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 12, 2017| Leave a Comment »

There is a well of surface-scraped-depth within me.

I know.

And maybe you too.

I need to know what gems lay deep, bound by body basalt; encased in black rock; kidney crystal. Clinging to crags. Affixed & sturdy.

Formations of luster; robust & ripe; uncomprehended in fullness.

And it worries me.

How to mine myself for precious bounty?

Am I made of softer stone? Might I chip?

What earthly instrument would act as chisel?

How much wonder, precision & intent is required for self-extraction.

To mother words.

Arrange them & categorize.

The placement in a great pantry of order, positioning strategic visions; moving over pink salt, second hand plates, glass jars, almond flour, the old orange juice press, wayward spices- to arrange enigmatic & even alien feelings that can use the generosity of air-time to dry upon the lacquered, shaded kitchen shelves still shieldable from light with manageable doors.

That can benefit from this. To breathe & to steady.

The place my private mind has kept sacred & mysterious, precisely where X marks the spot, though barely tended to- not having intended to gloss over them or feed the deterring, fleeting, faux shiny distracting forces; shielding fears of my own discoveries & the responsibility that comes from choking- one day- upon an throat full of undigested diamonds.

How do you do bounty?

We are each equipped with inherent, ancient farming techniques.

How to learn treasure.

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Lightning House 

Posted in art, creativity, fiction, inspiration, love, music, musings, ordinary madness, photography, poetry in motion, prose, random, Uncategorized on August 2, 2016| Leave a Comment »

lightening house

Forty years.
Forty frosty, colorless years where which the silence had built, grown, & settled upon them like a heavy, deep-season blanket.
Forty years.
Forty of them; where the walls observed no good morning, hello, how was your day, did you hear about this, did you hear about that.
No congenial exchanges muttered.
The couple passed each other in the hallway, or might occasionally find themselves waiting for the frying pan, the television, or shower to be ready for their own use, impatiently. Wordlessly.
The beginning of the descent into the static, mute, existence resulted from no particular fight, but more of a long, blue-hot-burning that built, seemingly to the point of no return, & a terrible, despairing feeling of being stuck together in the house of pulled, private shades & blackened, hollow photos.
The house with the yard where the neighborhood children wouldn’t fetch their balls from. The house of anger. And the house of dashed dreams.
Throughout the time of the Big Freeze, one had taken up quilting. The other had become an origami savant of sorts. One had developed a fancy for cherry everything: pies, ice cream, liquors, preserves… The other: a determined reader intent on hungrily devouring all on the topic of the Ottoman Empire & it’s collapse.
Still- no sound uttered.
Their love for music had once untied them. United them.
Like sun slathered honey, smelling of dewy mornings, feeling like cut-back-fresh wisteria vines pointing & sun bound, they’d  listened with their then-warm-hearts & looked with soft-watery-eyes to the other half play. Nimble fingers. Fluid attachment to sound, to manipulation of keys, breezy build ups, unpredictable yet so-good-wow-crescendos.
Life times had come. Gone. Come. Gone.
There they were, embroiled in a semi-coexistence where none was to share any thought; the icey quiet had crept into all the pockets of possible return, all too long ago.
But. If. Ever.
And never with a nod or a pre plan- they were ever to find themselves on the porch at the same time…
The music. The sound generated. Together by the dueling keys. The compliment of their knowing hands crashing down upon the ivory.
Creating the wildest, sensible cacophony of exquisite sounds, speaking leagues through keys into the sky; could’ve convinced the ethers to rain. They would. They wanted.
Would have the porch sitters abandoning stoops.
Would stymie the squirrels in their gathering.
The birds would settle in. And watch. And absorb. And the music was goddamn living.
All the lives that were tampered down & tucked in & brutalized with nothingness through out the years.
There & then.
Life.
And then.
Without nod, or gesticulation, the songs would conclude.
And the door would creak open.
The floor boards would give their predictable sighs.
The television would roll on in careless fashion.
But those: the only sounds that remained.

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You’re in the Jungle Now

Posted in art, creativity, inspiration, love, music, musings, ordinary madness, poetry in motion, tagged , , , , , , , on May 9, 2015| 4 Comments »

What’s the method to your madness? You know- the one where you pick at the scab or reactivate the cut again again, or bang your ever forever perma-bruise; only this time instead of puss coming out you get a fine, silky, viscous magic thread of your own musical splash.
Splash splatter shit.
All over your walls.
Hope your carpets’ not too absorbent, ma’ dude.
This welcomed mess; The kind you’ve been keeping your chin up for and doing all your positive visualization practices and your “this too shall pass” breaths. You’re totally pumped because boOm- your muse showed up just when you were trying to name it and give it form, and now all you want to do is make it suiting, stitchy clothes and dress it up like an angel. But it’s no angel, darling. You traded your soul for you art. And you knew that already.
Why do artists carry the cross? Why so encumbered? So fickle and burdened? I’m feeling a Stevie Ray Vaughn song coming on… something about sales… so dust off the wax and we can get those memory cells back on board. I don’t know that you’ll need them if you’ve got the right momentum, but a brain buzzing and flexing with optimal potential only services the rest of us too.
Good luck riding the rocket. And naming the fuel source. And being aware of when you gas up. Because the moon- she waits and the broom is busy.
Draw a picture for me when you get a second. I’ll be here trying to identify my own individual sound. For now all I know is that it’s likely set in minor chords… and probably a really sexy rhythm section.

ed40

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Tramps pt. 1

Posted in art, creativity, fiction, graffiti, musings, ordinary madness, poetry in motion, random, tramps, travel, tagged , , , , , , , , on November 24, 2014| 2 Comments »

Some people will never know peppermint tea.
There will be a wedge between them and this.
These are the same people who seldom see downy pillows, subject to innocent giggle-moment feather loss where that one puffs out. Where your head lays down, and then out it comes, or put on a fresh pillow case, and out it comes. Hardly a thing to notice; yet a subtle representation of rest and comfort. And it falter-sways to the floor. Maybe it’ll attract the curiosity of the nearest dog, causing a little head cock, that feather.
Perhaps these people saw and knew those pillow-feather moments once, but that was a long time ago and many trades have been made. Far, ever farther from places with such bed-luck.
The people of no tea. On land where whistles represent alerts grander than hot water proclaiming readiness. More of a can-cup, heat sourced from over shabby fire scraped together with treated lumber that busies itself turning concerning hues. The tea peace idea replaced with Jimmy Dean’s neans with factory in Milwaukee, where disgruntled employees full of creaks and muscle spasms (who also remain in the dark on peppermint tea) slowly mill. Replacing tea-soft-moments in nuzzling chairs with pink cheeks, down the line to dusty denim around the fire and hardened cheek bones. And scrapes and scratches and scars. And hobo songs. And plastic bottles and hooch. And whiskey-wet ground in respect to those gone before.

Hobo hobo hobo song. A life unknown and not very long. Plenty adventure, enough wrong. Find a quick home, then move along..

Where hopes of red headed waitresses taking orders in diners in light blue dresses for 3 lucky dimes worth bring steaming cups of bottomless black coffee and extra sugar packets in the next town- soon to dream about her on the way to the next one after that. Though no rush of course, though not slow enough for that dern peppermint tea.

Tea has to be held just right. Tea is open wide and higher maintenance than one might realize without being given the right platform. It’s booze that comes in a bottle neck. And it’s booze that warms longer. It’s swishless. It’s tip resistant. You can’t hold tea in an open train car. The racket movement that stays rumbling in kidneys even with two feet on solid earth. Tea wouldn’t know how to act. The stars governing the sky with exposed souls beneath it, roofless, riding rails, bargaining, whittling, asking for mercy, sharpening shank, or challenging the night’s deep abyss with a staring contest.
Tea wouldn’t know this life. Too soft and soothing. Never told in conjunction to characters like Nebraska Pete or Bozo Rider.
Some people will never know peppermint tea.
There will be a wedge between this and them.


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The Irony of Loveless

Posted in art, love, musings, ordinary madness, painting, photography, poetry in motion, random, Uncategorized on November 16, 2014| Leave a Comment »

I thought I told you not to ask me twice, because I blush when I can’t recall your birthday, or to ask about how your knee is feeling today, or if you worked out your most recent car issue…
It doesn’t stick and I have never known myself to be less invested in  someone I do care for, and it frightens me about myself- making me like you less.
I can sense your hands extending my way even when they are busy making lumps of your pockets, or interlocked, white-knuckled, behind you. I can feel the buzz of your questions, when your mouth forms a perfect, airtight  line. Your eyes- a welcoming brown and asking of me things that I can’t & won’t promise.

You ask me to be honest so I do and I am, but keep digging you do. You forget my humanity, in beta, treating me as though I tuck a cape secretly into my dresses; forgetting that I can only love you when you are happy in full & not look to me to fulfill this unspoken, expected duty to make flush your holes- pocked with insecurity. You forget how hard it must be for me to tell you constant disheartments, lest you never remembered- let alone realized.

Hurting the kindest person in the room. A bee stinging a bee. Squash blossom strains cross pollinating: creating a mealy, deceptive, lackluster hybrid. A dog, a tail: perpetual circling.

Your accolades stroke me, cocoon me, croon to me, make me sweet on you when you are not light enough to blow off the tower in response to my altered breathing. Your enviable sincerity. In my mirrored comparable to you this would equate to ghost netting/ nothing to show.

But love is it’s own world that hasn’t handle bars; and to grip and grasp- a fruitless way to hang on. Because it all boils down to feeling. Feeling with out the illusion of urgency. Feeling and truth commingling. And the foresight to not fear your intuition.

I disappoint myself in light of you. In your shadow I cannot commit and reciprocate. It’s tragicomedy. To want love so bad/ and be incapable of return. I do love you, but not how I would if I could.

glow hand

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Boom Trigger Lady

Posted in creativity, inspiration, musings, poetry in motion, random, Uncategorized, tagged , , , on March 31, 2014| 14 Comments »

Her favorite name for candy was Starburst.

Her favorite name for a recycling company that she had recently taken notice of was Cloudburst.

These expulsions. They could bring her to her knees; drive away demons. These slightest of suggestions.

Days where everything had meaning: Lights turning green were indicative.
If a dog barked twice.
For a tangerine peel to come off, maintained in one connected piece without coming undone beneath her fingers.
If the penny tossed while feeding the meter turned up on tails. Everything told something.

Everyday she wore items that fit the same description. Khaki shorts, tie died shirt of some sort, gauzy white scarf. A purposeful precaution should she turn up missing, she’d be easy to describe. Her fears over-arching; ever present. That head of hers- full of responsibility. Slippery shaped thoughts akin to greased palms, just as hard to hold.
Thin veil between psychedelic induced psychosis and one slipped into her drink. So suspicious. She could be found on the beach, laying in a tangle, trying to distinguish between which kind.

Luckily there were the calming elements. The source could be from a passing truck with the simplest of messages. Or the cold-awake-wide-open feel of ocean. Ocean. Ocean. It’s own sentence. Paragraph. Novel. Her biggest self. It tousled and it soothed.
And snails. How she loved them. The time they took. The swirl continuum. The iridescent remnants. Did they even have a destination? A model, indeed. “Be more like the snail”– something she would breathe and drive into the bottom of her belly. Someone had to own the mantra. Be more like the snail. Time is on my side. Even if this was said in rushed fashion it provided a balloon’s worth of weight off her back. She had these things. Palms unneeded. It could be nice.

This woman was the first person to be recognizable in containing a purposeful aimlessness. What an achievement. Her town’s people thought she a gentle kook: All weary smiles. She knew they knew of the springboard that lay within. Of this she was sure. Unhingable at any moment sans notice.
But what are their skeletons? She wondered often.
A good question, though not everyone’s dance like hers.

A doe-eyed doctor once told her to give up the sauce. She had taken to drinking spirits because of the name implication. The potentiality of unknown company. Another soother. Absinthe was a no-go, of course. Too close. Too witchy. She knew the limits. But challenge herself she did, and lessen her mania she had, when it came to cutting back on such a vice. Good job good job, said the voices from her sidelines, despite her bag being no stranger to a buttery cognac. Remy Martin just sounded like such a protector.

The sound of things. Eyes being the first line of defense, only once approved would her mouth take it on.  No sense in tempting fate.
Explosions always on the horizon, lest they be unuttered and ignored.
Only a sunburst could make way.

bernal

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