thinking in meter

i'm writing down lists, writing prompts, recipes, books to read and notes from my interview with heidi about her process. i've been writing in cursive and remembering the third grade when i learned how to do that. i'm looking over nick's rules for writing that he scribbled in my journal two weeks ago but i don't know if i'll follow them. he believes in the re-write and i don't. i've been yawning in late morning and listening to the sounds of this old house and the pigeons outside. i've been cross legged on the couch and hearing conversations, holding temptations and being quiet. like gazing across a room and piercing through spaces and people. sitting on the porch with a beautiful view, nighttime, city lights and corner walks. yawning on the couch and not knowing how to end this. wondering what to do with my day, an open ended question that never turns out to be too extraordinary, but hopeful and yawning and cold toe annoyances, watery eyes, long mornings drifting into evenings. looking up poetry rhyme schemes and wondering how i'll ever stick to them, thinking in meter, in iambic pentameter, in fancy wordplay, in nothing at all. just lost in words and definitions, paragraphs, epitaphs, stanzas and quotations. lost in sheets of paper, computer documents with lines of characters, rows of sentences when the meaning's obscure. biting my lip, furrowing my brow, bleeding from my cheekbone; finger frustration. patience. i can't even read and that's what worries me. i need some wine and jazz music with my dad or a long road trip with no destination or some devastating news or music that moves me. i'm not sure. but i need, i need, i need, i need.

happy memorial day

it's summer time.

LET'S PLAY.

sunflower sutra

I walked on the banks of the tincan banana dock and
sat down under the huge shade of a Southern
Pacific locomotive to look at the sunset over the
box house hills and cry.
Jack Kerouac sat beside me on a busted rusty iron
pole, companion, we thought the same thoughts
of the soul, bleak and blue and sad-eyed,
surrounded by the gnarled steel roots of trees of
machinery.
The oily water on the river mirrored the red sky, sun
sank on top of final Frisco peaks, no fish in that
stream, no hermit in those mounts, just ourselves
rheumy-eyed and hungover like old bums
on the riverbank, tired and wily.
Look at the Sunflower, he said, there was a dead gray
shadow against the sky, big as a man, sitting
dry on top of a pile of ancient sawdust--
--I rushed up enchanted--it was my first sunflower,
memories of Blake--my visions--Harlem
and Hells of the Eastern rivers, bridges clanking Joes
Greasy Sandwiches, dead baby carriages, black
treadless tires forgotten and unretreaded, the
poem of the riverbank, condoms & pots, steel
knives, nothing stainless, only the dank muck
and the razor-sharp artifacts passing into the
past--
and the gray Sunflower poised against the sunset,
crackly bleak and dusty with the smut and smog
and smoke of olden locomotives in its eye--
corolla of bleary spikes pushed down and broken like
a battered crown, seeds fallen out of its face,
soon-to-be-toothless mouth of sunny air, sunrays
obliterated on its hairy head like a dried
wire spiderweb,
leaves stuck out like arms out of the stem, gestures
from the sawdust root, broke pieces of plaster
fallen out of the black twigs, a dead fly in its ear,
Unholy battered old thing you were, my sunflower O
my soul, I loved you then!
The grime was no man's grime but death and human
locomotives,
all that dress of dust, that veil of darkened railroad
skin, that smog of cheek, that eyelid of black
mis'ry, that sooty hand or phallus or protuberance
of artificial worse-than-dirt--industrial--
modern--all that civilization spotting your
crazy golden crown--
and those blear thoughts of death and dusty loveless
eyes and ends and withered roots below, in the
home-pile of sand and sawdust, rubber dollar
bills, skin of machinery, the guts and innards
of the weeping coughing car, the empty lonely
tincans with their rusty tongues alack, what
more could I name, the smoked ashes of some
cock cigar, the cunts of wheelbarrows and the
milky breasts of cars, wornout asses out of chairs
& sphincters of dynamos--all these
entangled in your mummied roots--and you there
standing before me in the sunset, all your glory
in your form!
A perfect beauty of a sunflower! a perfect excellent
lovely sunflower existence! a sweet natural eye
to the new hip moon, woke up alive and excited
grasping in the sunset shadow sunrise golden
monthly breeze!
How many flies buzzed round you innocent of your
grime, while you cursed the heavens of the
railroad and your flower soul?
Poor dead flower? when did you forget you were a
flower? when did you look at your skin and
decide you were an impotent dirty old locomotive?
the ghost of a locomotive? the specter and
shade of a once powerful mad American locomotive?
You were never no locomotive, Sunflower, you were a
sunflower!
And you Locomotive, you are a locomotive, forget me
not!
So I grabbed up the skeleton thick sunflower and stuck
it at my side like a scepter,
and deliver my sermon to my soul, and Jack's soul
too, and anyone who'll listen,
--We're not our skin of grime, we're not our dread
bleak dusty imageless locomotive, we're all
beautiful golden sunflowers inside, we're blessed
by our own seed & golden hairy naked
accomplishment-bodies growing into mad black
formal sunflowers in the sunset, spied on by our
eyes under the shadow of the mad locomotive
riverbank sunset Frisco hilly tincan evening
sitdown vision.

-allen ginsberg

moonlight serenade

happy

every time i'm happy again i feel this sense of relief. and there's almost this subconscious belief in my head that finally. finally i'm happy, as if i reached it, and here i'll stay forever. but we're not promised happiness forever or for even an extended amount of time for any portion of our lives. and listening to a sad song reminds me of this. reminds me that i'll be there again. first i think, thank god. thank god i don't resonate with this right now, i just couldn't bear it. but then my second thought is, *sigh* just wait, because i'll be there again. not in a way that makes me depressed, just reminds me that nothing lasts and that i will have to ebb and flow with what i'm given. there are different attitudes with which to approach life and there are seasons of "this time it's different" but i never want to think that i've reached a point of perfection or plateau because even happiness becomes mundane. and even happiness can turn into a blind zen that eventually means nothing.

"happy? anybody can be happy. what purpose does that serve?" -bob dylan

my car was towed

yesterday i had a car towing adventure. and when i picked it up, it had a parking ticket on it as well. to add the others i have, just for fun. but today, everything is paid off, my car is back in my possession (and parked on the westernmost side of my street, so i won't get a ticket tomorrow morning) and i have just about ranted all i can about the concept of towing (nobody should have the right to TAKE my car!!!) anyways...

i couldn't go into work and it turned into one of those "fuck it let's go to disneyland" type of days, which i didn't, but wish i could have. if only it wasn't such a far drive.. sometimes you just do NOT feel like sitting in traffic on the 5.

besides that i've spent most of the week (when i'm not at work) lying around on my bed or sitting on the couch trying to write or do something to catch inspiration. lately its just been bob dylan. bob dylan records, bob dylan documentaries, bob dylan biopics, bob dylan youtube videos of press conferences. i can't stop. i can't even read these days. and although i'm not big on re-reading old faves, i've been itching to do just that. i think tom sawyer has been whispering at me to pick him up again. love that book. i think the only thing that has felt creatively inspiring is getting dressed in the morning. people tell me to do drugs to get inspired but i respectfully disagree. writing is my anti-drug.

well, goodnight kids. until i can write something worth your while, read this...because this girl does not blog enough: let's talk over toast

visions

please give

me all your writer's block tips. i'll take any and all suggestions.

burqa

poetry is

"poetry is words that are empowered that make your hair stand on end; that you recognize instantly as being some sort of subjective truth that has an objective reality to it because somebody's realized it. then you call it poetry later."

-allen ginsberg

swinging madly across the sun

tonight, i'd love to be harmonica'd to sleep

wizened magic-man

via ellymarie

naima

today i realized i do not have any john coltrane on vinyl.

and that is a tragedy.

howls in the bones of her face

we sit here stranded though we're all doing

our best to deny it

necessity

lately i've been doing things like listening to music that makes me wanna groove. good music, happy music, even if it means listening to the same song on repeat in the car on the way to work just so i can sing it over and over again and imagine i'm a folk singer. things like first aid kit and led zeppelin and wilco and lauryn hill and katy perry and joni mitchell and eminem and fuck "guilty pleasures." i do not feel guilty about my pleasures. i do things like walk to the goodwill by my house and always leave with something good and right now its this big black grandpa sweater and i don't ever wanna take it off. and everyday i am chipping away at this brick wall of writer's block and yesterday i took pen to paper and instead of writing words i started drawing something pretty. lately i do things that make me happy without worrying about impressing people or being intellectual or feeling bad that i spend so much time watching friends or that i ate two veggie burgers in a row. i do things like paint my nails almost on the daily and wear perfume to the grocery store because it just makes me feel so lovely. lately i've been treating myself well like sleeping when i'm sleepy, staying up late when i'm laughing, kissing when i feel like kissing, telling stories when i feel like talking; to whoever will listen. i make silly faces when my face feels like it needs to start moving and making sounds when my body needs to exhale. i scream when i feel like i need to scream. i like doing things that i like. its like yawning or sneezing. they feel good and are totally necessary. and i feel good. and i am totally necessary.

hey lady

play

i live here.

sweetness

just when it has seemed i couldn’t bear

one more friend

waking with a tumor, one more maniac

with a perfect reason, often a sweetness

has come

and changed nothing in the world

except the way i stumbled through it,

for a while lost

in the ignorance of loving

someone or something, the world shrunk

to mouth-size,

hand-size, and never seeming small.

i acknowledge there is no sweetness

that doesn’t leave a stain,

no sweetness that’s ever sufficiently sweet ....

tonight a friend called to say his lover

was killed in a car

he was driving. his voice was low

and guttural, he repeated what he needed

to repeat, and i repeated

the one or two words we have for such grief

until we were speaking only in tones.

often a sweetness comes

as if on loan, stays just long enough

to make sense of what it means to be alive,

then returns to its dark

source. as for me, i don’t care

where it’s been, or what bitter road

it’s traveled

to come so far, to taste so good.

-stephen dunn

des arbes terrible...

it might be physically impossible not to fall in love with this little girl.

barely a smirk

walkin' down swiftly alone in the street

alleyways with pools of water and gravel

towards a house with a porchlight

sitting on the kitchen floor

coming home late in the night

crowded street corners

psychedelic images on the side of a

city building

sleeping in late, avoiding the light

with cool arms that graze

upon the midnight blue of the

soft mountain that is you

long hair

and putting on sweatpants to

roam about the house

reading sonnets

picking albums

drinking lemonade

lounging like a medieval

woman on a sofa with round

body shapes, drooping

eyes, long eyelashes,

barely a smile,

barely a smirk,

ready to be painted.

black ode

your beauty is a thunder

and i am set a wandering - a wandering

deafened

down twilight tin-can alleys

and moist sounds

"ooo wee, baby, look what you could get if your name

was willie"

oh, to dip your words like snuff.

a laughter, black and streaming

and i am come a being - a being

rounded

up baptist aisles, so moaning

and moist sounds

"bless her heart. take your bed and walk.

you been heavy burdened"

oh, to lick your love like tears.

-maya angelou

throw my ticket out the window

eventually, something will

i've had such a busy week i've hardly had time to blog. i went to mondays at ten for the first time, dead set on preparing something for next week and then all of a sudden it was friday and my plans for memorizing something quickly shot out the window but what the hell. i squeezed in some extra work for a tv show on wednesday in between restaurant shifts, getting ready to train for my next position, went to the LA artwalk and danced like crazy to my new fave LA band seanshan and saw robbie delong play a set at noize kontrol in the most random industrial neighborhood in huntington park last night. i was all set to go see cat on a hot tin roof tonight which was screening at the hollywood forever cemetary but i fell asleep instead. i've had a long week. tomorrow i'm getting a tattoo from my friend's tattoo artist who is having an open house and doing free tattoos as long as they are small and simple. then before you know it, it's monday again and i still don't have a new poem because i have such bad writer's block. i keep consistently writing in my journal every raw and boring detail of each day hoping that by the act of writing something will eventually come. eventually, something will. but it just hasn't happened yet. in fact, every page i end up writing, "but if only i could write a poem." i just really really want a new poem. and there doesn't happen to be one in me right now.

look no further

it's good to keep lists

-david bowie - ziggy stardust

-carole king - tapestry

-wilco - being there

-side 2 of sgt. pepper

-sam cooke

to my pretty mama

happy mother's day!!!

to my dear friends

who are graduating from college today:

i know most of you would much rather be graduating from hogwarts with a much different degree and i know most of you have heard me say these things before but here it is: a list of the best things about being done with school.

1. you get to read for pleasure again! novels! poetry! feminist studies! harry potter! comic books! whatever interests you.

2. your time is your own....when you come home from work, you can relax. you don't have the evil cloud of HOMEWORK hanging over your head.

3. you now have an alma mater.

4. the month of may was created for grads to party.

5. early rising might happen for work but not for class! and especially not for chapel (apu grads)

6. when your younger-still-in-school-friends are doing homework you can think in your head "neener neener neeeeennnnnerrrr!" (but don't say this out loud)

7. you can put your bachelor's degree on your resume and you won't be lying.

8. i can't think of anymore, but 1 & 2 are definitely the best....i'd make a list of the worst things, but we don't need to get into that, this is supposed to be a positive and uplifting post.

so congrats grads! i will be at apu, my alma mater, tonight cheering you all on! 4+ years of this place is quite a feat and i'm so proud of all of you. i've seen how hard you have worked and how you've changed and learned and grown in your field of study. i really hope you feel like the world is your oyster, because it is.....even if you end up working in a restaurant for a while.

self

in this season

the most important thing

is to keep revealing myself to myself

and rambling

i'm thinking about things like

paper and glue and chapter two

for me and you and patting heads

and patting backs and kissing cheeks

and cheering and screaming and

linked arms for pictures on a football

field and stadium lights glowing and

glowing all of their faces shining

and relieved and happy and flowers

from parents and onlooking siblings

and cousins glowing happy and

flowers. i'm thinking about sleeping

in a pile of clothes on my bed and

flipping through vogue when work

is slow and scribbling french questions

and red lipstick and black and leah

and how did she like paris. i'm thinking

about summer tans and beers in the

backyard barefoot and concerts and

cemeteries and grass and city skylines

and smog and early mornings with

the sun in my bedroom and happy

birthdays and plum apple cheek kisses

and wavy hair and adventure books

and looks and cook books and world

harvest baskets of food and good

moods and rambling and rambling

and rambling and rambling and

rambling

bravo my good man

via the sartorialist

let me live

"let me live, love and say it well in good sentences."

-sylvia plath, the bell jar

honest you do

suivez-moi

you can now....follow me blog with bloglovin'

i am a goat

read your birth chart here.

today i learned my sun and moon sign are both capricorn.

which means i am very capricorn.

i also learned many more things, and that's so

capricorn of me.

she can put down in writing everything that her imagination and intuition dictates.

where books are kept

"i have lost all sense of home, having moved about so much. it means to me now - only the place where the books are kept." - john steinbeck

inspiration/motivation

the thing about being happy is that it's harder for me to write. no inspiration or motivation for that matter. the only things i happen to scribble down are incessant lists and i also have the necessity to write things down as soon as they enter my head because i'm a lot more forgetful these days, which is why i've been to target about four to five times a week and also why i burned the pizza last night. (note to self: set a timer).

for the sake of being able to write - here are some things that make me happy: coming home to tin & gina listening to my dinah '62 album, evenings off, hand drawn animation, nail polish, the sunlight in my bedroom at 7am, freckles, a virtual flight over california, getting lost in my new neighborhood, midnight snacks in bed, funny tweets, being near my friends.

take my advice and find one teensy tiny thing everyday that you look forward to. even if its just the feeling of taking off your hat at the end of your shift and shaking out your hair. that's one of the best parts of my days as a cashier.

slaughter house five

the space between us

yesterday i took a fifteen minute nap and when i woke up, the world had changed. bin laden was dead, obama had addressed the nation and the idea of an end to a ten year war hung in the air.

facebook and twitter had blown up with the announcement and then the subsequent opinions. patriotism. expressions of god blessing america and the encouragement of death, destruction and violence in the name of revenge or justice or something like that.

and there were equally passionate ideas on the other side, stating their disgust of said opinions, declarations of a desire for peace, of a need to mourn all death.

then i texted my brother ryan, who was a soldier in iraq and his opinions on the news were what i really cared about. he said he identified with this: "do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and do not let your heart be glad when he stumbles." proverbs 24:17.

i was overcome by sadness. the debates on the internet themselves represented the two opposing sides of war to me. the rash, the harsh comments, the glorification of death, the sadistic and bleak outlook on war and human life sat heavy on my shoulders.

i poured myself a glass of white zinfandel and sank into the couch listening to joni mitchell's ladies of the canyon and the second sides to both rubber soul and sgt. pepper and was reminded of the importance of artists through times like these and that having enough people to step forward and continue the art of creation with the energies of love and peace might be the one tiny hope we have sometimes.

with our love, we can save the world