Saturday, January 29, 2011

can we have our ball back?

phenomenal woman

pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
i'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
but when i start to tell them,
the think i'm telling lies.
i say,
it's in the reach of my arms,
the span of my hips,
the stride of my step,
the curl of my lips.
i'm a woman
phenomenally.
phenomenal woman,
that's me.

i walk into a room
just as cool as you please,
and to a man,
the fellows stand or
fall down on their knees.
then they swarm around me,
a hive of honey bees.
i say,
it's the fire in my eyes,
and the flash of my teeth,
the swing of my waist,
and the joy in my feet.
i'm a woman
phenomenally.
phenomenal woman,
that's me.

men themselves have wondered
what they see in me.
they try so much
but they can't touch
my inner mystery.
when i try to show them,
they say they still can't see.
i say,
it's in the arch of my back,
the sun of my smile,
the ride of my breasts,
the grace of my style.
i'm a woman
phenomenally.
phenomenal woman,
that's me.

now you understand
just why my head's not bowed.
i don't shout or jump about
or have to talk real loud.
when you see me passing,
it ought to make you proud.
i say,
it's in the click of my heels,
the bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
the need for my care.
'cause i'm a woman
phenomenally.
phenomenal woman,
that's me.

-maya angelou

Thursday, January 27, 2011

one two three

late night whisper
conversations over
a wine glass sitting
at my feet and one
two three cigarettes
talking to myself i
don't have roommates
anymore they were
always on the porch
when i got home
we'd sit and talk and
chain smoke and say
things like how was
your day what did
you do how was work

then we'd talk about
our boyfriends and
how they were being
dumb or how they
were sweet they'd
tell me about their
classes and their
professors who
frustrate them or
administrators who
infuriate them or
their mentors who
love them i would
tell them about my
managers who
were mean or co
workers who were
funny or customers
who were rude and
we would vent and
laugh we could
talk we could talk
all night if we wanted
until one of us couldn't
stop yawning and
someone would say
i have to get up
early goodnight
goodnight goodnight

that's how it always
was when i had
roommates now i
come home and dad
always has a glass of
wine for me and when
everyone goes to bed
just sometimes i have
one two three cig
arettes and whisper
to myself.

Saturday, January 22, 2011

the soft animal of your body

you do not have to be good.
you do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert,
repenting.
you only have to let the soft animal
of your body love what it loves.
tell me about despair, yours
and i will tell you mine.
-mary oliver, wild geese

Thursday, January 20, 2011

orange

reflections of south park on the
adjacent window, on the face of
the performing poet.
light blue crystal moon,
hanging orange half orbs,
cerulean brick walls,
plastic chairs and hairs,
pomegranate cider
thrusting on the middle of
my tongue.
lace and haste,
fuzzy eyelids
for chase,
for john,
for justin,
but really
for shawn.
chalkboard menus and female
roves on an open microphone.
maroon velvet blazers
and band t-shirts
fluffy curly hair oh,
i love.
scribbling and open
sideways and old woman
singing 'it ain't so bad
bein' a bag lady...'
purple walls, backyards,
joe christmas, othello,
first impressions, greek gods,
greek positions,
inhibitions; laying sweetness
down next to herself in a
corner knit room, all alone
with a wing-backed chair,
singing amen.

Friday, January 14, 2011

the new zodiac

this whole new zodiac fiasco has people really freaking out. for me though, one who has never identified very much with capricorn, my new sign, sagittarius (the centaur) is a lot more jamie. now there is debate whether or not the new zodiac applies to those born before 2009. i don't really know. but i always loved these centaurs from fantasia, so i think i'll switch over to the sagi's.

cinderstrewnpacked

memory believes before knowing remembers. believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders. knows remembers believes a corridor in a big long garbled cold echoing building of dark red brick sootbleakened by more chimneys than its own, set in a grassless cinderstrewnpacked compound surrounded by smoking factory purlieus and enclosed by a ten foot steel-and-wire fence like a penitentiary or a zoo, where in random erratic surges, with sparrowlike childtrebling, orphans in identical and uniform blue denim in and out of remembering but in knowing constant as the bleak walls, the bleak windows where in rain soot from the yearly ajacenting chimneys streaked like black tears.

-light in august

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

salem, or

listening to other people's
conversations.
in coffeeshops. on buses.
killing time in salem.
like killing time in tucson.
only this time, alone now.
and winter instead of
summer.
flannel-clad and fitting in.
brick and bare trees
and wreaths
leftover christmas scenes
and indian street names
writing in chinese
restaurants, cold cement,
looking at my breath.
bridges, twinkle lights,
chemeketa street,
downtown parking
and the greyhound station.
"tu es ma soeurĂ¢me" i
said to her last night.
and "c'est tous"
our motto.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

mad about cate



men can't be friends with women.
they must possess them
or leave them be.

his & hers

erin & chad are little young marrieds.
they are also very dear friends of mine.
check our their blog, his & hers,
chronicling their life as young marrieds.
(their newest post features the womb!)

Monday, January 10, 2011

paper and feathers, or what happens when we meet?

stompin' my feet in high heeled shoes
to whatever music is playin'
i can't remember
swingin' you 'round my waist
hollerin'; laughin'
singing (shouting) rilo kiley
and beatles songs in the streets,
we always forget the words
and show tunes, i'm a theatre kid,
i say. makin' up characters
in the cab; on the street corner.
gettin' drunk on free wine from
art galleries and gettin' kicked
out of parties.
takin' pictures of allie's nests,
wood and paper and feathers
and your hair all woven 'round
the window and foggy winter
window, lily smokin' spliffs,
her ponytail up high; so high.
lookin' in windows, the girl
in the red dress smilin'; talkin'
waking up across town,
catchin' buses with whit as the
sun rises with long shadows
on the downtown sidewalk,
and the holes in my tights
carryin' my heels in my
hands watchin' the sun rises.
oh, it rises.

Saturday, January 8, 2011

on drunken eyes

reading simone de beauvoir
in a quiet, empty bar.
white zinfandel and
cigarettes are the
combination.
on tap.
hair that
is trying to grow
out
and
tangled.
gutting out the
house
for to sell with
strangers coming
by
unannounced.
sagging bookshelves
with weight.
dirty fingernails,
knives and plates.
seashell blue walls
with waves and waves
rushing in
on my drunken
eyes.
asleep.
new notebooks,
french verbs,
and mindfulness.
vintage cups and
vintage words
in pictureframes.
seeing things like
one year ago today,
hospitality and the
crescent moon.
moonshine.
frostbite, bend porch,
wes' hope for me.
new smells and long
trips.
learning
awareness and
selflessness and
ultimately
surrender to the
vision.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

happy new year

to live even one day.

"she had a perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out, out, far out to sea and alone; she always had the feeling that it was very, very dangerous to live even one day."

-virginia woolf, mrs. dalloway

eastward in oregon

young mothers in pajamas
snowboarders talking about slopes
ex-cons with ipods
chinese girls with magazines
snow and firs
cumulus clouds
at the back of a rickety bus
reading ferlinghetti,
light in august
and hungry
by the net of suitcases.