Tuesday, November 22, 2011

an etsy christmas

so instead of buying big business this christmas,
why not instead buy small business?
support the folks who are trying to make a living doing
what they love and with an entrepreneurial spirit.
a more personal touch with a handmade gift
(your hands or someone else's),
or a unique vintage piece.
my own shop is here: peach vintage + homemade.

personally, i'm after these hairbows from nostalgia bows.
red or mustard yellow please!


here are my other favorite shops:

- wooden cut-out home decor from decoy lab

- huge selection of vintage clothes from time bomb vintage

- paintings and collages by lindsay eller of littleaches

- more unique vintages pieces from my friend brittan at the sylists own

happy shopping!

Sunday, November 20, 2011

i am a love

i am a love.
you are a lovely.
i am a bug.
you are bugging me.
i am a leaf.
you are the stem.
if i break off in the wind,
i promise to find you again.

the prince

a favorite.

happy reading to you and yours.

a paddle in the river

i've been drawing the taj mahal for you
in my class that i'm quitting.
because you are you and i am me.
and there's all this stuff floating around
in the air, unspoken. all these unsaid things,
sentiments, beliefs. breathing in largely,
wholly, slowly, safely. with the bottoms rims
of my eyes burning like onions
looking at my red knuckles while sitting still,
completely unmoving, perched, fingers curved,
at the piano ready then lifted in mid-air in the
sigh before the concerto begins.
fingertips spreading fast over capital letters
and punctuation and pupils that move side
to side. i keep wishing i could look at myself
from outside my body and give her a good
little pep talk, the kind i know i need.
but instead i look out of the colored glass
window and think about nothing at all.
i keep wishing i could trade something
to have nadyne back like some bargain like
some little kid who'd make any deal, feels
guilty for being bad. i swear i'd bring her back.
listening to african percussion, feel my lips
congeal with spit, try to swallow take a
deep breath, fill my lungs though its my
heart that feels its full, no more room in here.
all my one liners i thought of in the car
gone now which makes my nose scrunch up.
and then i'm criticizing myself again and getting
angry. and i can't articulate myself and getting
angry. i don't think i could explain the
kind of headache that comes from death.
or the way in which you turn your face to the
sun and decide to be happy anyways.
and oh, nadyne again. and is it strange that
after halloween i thought about how i'd love
for her to visit me but she was in my dream
where i held her like a baby.
its like you keep showing up.
just like i keep waking up.
but this room feels brown and like a soft
brush against my cheek with sniffles in the night.
this room reminds me of christmas and
sitting cuddled on the floor admiring the
books, putting my fingers in between pages
and feeling the weight of 200 more and the pressing
of a book cover
and peeking at typefont. the letter A.
this room reminds me of cartoons and sober
late nights with few words and the piano,
again, from down the hall, in the distance,
unfamiliar notes as something is created.
creation. my hearts desire. the envy of.
ability. skill. hearts in motion. hand's devotion.
creation.
and i see my life's purpose like a paddle in a river,
like a deep pull through clear water, pushing
and gaining and finding the truth.
in a novel when you feel overwhelmed,
when you forget the people in this play
are actors on a stage and
what will the poet next will say:
your moment of truth -
a millisecond
but its under your skin
and deep in your pupils
its circulating your veins
and forever in your brain.
and this is what it feels like, in this room
like an early morning shower or the
way my sweater slipped over my head
sleeping with clocks ticking and eating
food on a bench.
and so not only to create,
but to find.
to look for; seek.
like death, like a room, like a book,
like my picture of the taj mahal i'm
drawing you. like quitting.
and i'm always giving myself this pep talk
and trying to be more forgiving.
where every wretched moment is a valid one
and puts me closer to the truth.
what i'm seeking.
where i'm paddling to: truth.
a real second of time
that comes in the form of an honest
reaction. instinct.
your impulse, something real which is
why we are breathing in largely.
wholly, slowly, safely.
last week i took up painting.
for nadyne. and for my truth.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

reality bites

"and when he found out that he had cancer he decided to bring me here and he gave me this big pink seashell and he says to me 'son, the answers are all inside of this.' and i'm all like 'what?' but then i realize, i realize that the shell is empty, there's no point to any of this, its all just a random lottery of meaningless tragedy and a series of near escapes. so i take pleasure in the details, you know? a quarter pounder with cheese, those are good. the sky about ten minutes before it starts to rain. the moment where your laughter becomes a cackle. and i sit back and i, i smoke my camel straights, and i ride my own mountain." - troy, reality bites

the kind of things

i need for myself. and you probably do too.
beaujolais. beauty & the beast on mute. big bands on vinyl.

"our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. it is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. we ask ourselves, who am i to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? actually, who are you
not to be? you are a child of god. your playing small does not serve the world. there is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. we are all meant to shine, as children do. we were born to make manifest the glory of god that is within us. it's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. as we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." - marianne williamson

"i wish i could show you when you are lonely or in darkness, the astonishing light of your own being." - hafiz of persia

"live in the world you wish existed." - monica ganas


stockins






life has been really hard for three years.
wtf.

Friday, November 11, 2011

untitled

among some talk of you and me
with mint tea at my lips and
strong hands at my back like we were
humming in the dark, together; deeply.
the color of a nighttime ocean.
always telling myself
to stop thinking so much, while rifling through
the one dollar book bin with chipped fingernails
and broken sunglasses, heaved sighs for standing
up and holding a long blink to let the violet
settle in and i saw that moonbeam again and
"and." yes, "and." i think my favorite words is and.
and ain't no worry, it won't be long, she sang,
yes won't be long til
we're drowned at the bottom of the soft blue sea
with heads on seaweed pillows, there for eternity
where your golden mouth will sing forever to me
and amen.
walking up the street again,
and i can smell you on my sleeve like you were
here with me, again the long blink
and amen.
she asked me if my painting was of jacaranda trees
"yes, they are" she said. putting her hair behind her
ear and walked into the kitchen.
warm mint tea.
cascade.
open fist.
nadyne.
sweeping.
running in place like the dirt ground in a faulkner
novel. muddy alleyways and death.
muddy waters.
faces of deep south and wringing out aprons
on porches.
heaven.
oh, purple jacaranda tree,
bending softly to me.
black bark and feeling moss on
the northfacing trunk of
oh guide me home.
repeating my name to
stop thinking so much.
hunched over a one dollar book bin,
chipped nailpolish and broken sunglasses.
standing up. feeling novels between my ears
and clinking bracelets of the cashier.
darkness come early,
the sincerity of whispers,
cooling hot meals, oven mitts.
the color orange.
among this talk of you and me.
among my failed attempts at villanelle's
and sweeping sonnets to the street.
no.
i won't have fake candles or skip chapters;
no, you won't go to paris without me.
no, now i know you'll miss it here.
you'll miss me.
like how i smell you on my sleeve
while standing in the street.
like photocopied pages and tiny
notes in the mail.
verses.
chanel no. 5.
fabric.
fingertips.
cassette tapes.
cardboard cutouts of flowers and
hanging wreaths.
just talk of you and me. mysteries.
skulls and poison, the last lesson.
and my sleeve.

Monday, November 7, 2011

on loss

i am listening to tchaikovsky quartet no. 1 in D by the borodin string quartet on vinyl in my living room. jane austen sits next to me as well as the letter and poems typed out on one of those vintage type writers written by a friend probably on his floor late in the night. he is talking to me about my "writer's block" problem and at the end of the letter he tells me to do what i want in the moment all the time no matter what, and not just with writing either. i think i know what he means but then again i think i don't. (he probably imagines me having the urge to write and then resisting it due to self-consciousness or something like that but really the urge is never there anymore). but there are these poems and some of them say the word "she" and whenever anybody says the word she in a poem i always imagine the she is me. i imagine that i affected their life so profoundly, even for a flickering instant, that they wrote about me. subtley. i think i like to have that affect on people, floating in the background like a ghost. not important enough to remember always, or to be invited to the party but, looking back at me with retrospect, worthy of a small mention in a simple poem.

i just got off the phone with him actually. we talked about the recent death of my friend, nadyne. we talked about my writing. i told him i've taken the pressure off of me. that to experience loss is allow all the words to drain out of me. and without judgement on myself, without any pressure or expectation, i wait for this so called "writer's block", perhaps just a myth, to be gone from me. if even just for a moment, for one poem, for one sentence, for one word. for the right word at the right moment could mean everything. like cash's chapters in as i lay dying. short and perhaps the most meaningful. and so i am letting myself empty. i am letting grief play its part in my living life and my written life. what do you say when your friend falls 30 feet to their death? nothing. you don't say anything. because i can't even begin.

i forgot

what are these?

Sunday, November 6, 2011

i hope

when you come here, it feels like a living room.



the ambience of love
we all
sit in his orchestra,
some play their
fiddles,

some wield their
clubs.

tonight is worthy of music.

let's get loose
with
compassion.

let's drown in the delicious
ambience of
love.

- hafiz of persia

caddy

She smelled like trees.

sunday mornin'

music & book pairings.

a little southern gothic with Faulkner's
The Sound & the Fury to the sounds of

*The Louis Armstrong Story Volume 3 - Louis Armstrong and Earl Hines
*Harry James plays the songs that sold a million

Saturday, November 5, 2011

i could be in london

by tomorrow

graveyards, or today

this perpetual smell of burnt rubber
on my way home and walking down the
street to latino market on the corner
near my house. my LA of burnt stars and
burnt street signs, weathered tail lights
and gaze eyes; weathered sighs.
in the backseat i looked back at her
in my rear view mirror responded to her
question "why?"
"why" she said and i said "i don't know i don't
think hollywood is for me, man."
and julia too, with her face toward the open window
of an alvarado/sunset breeze says it's all so diluted,
so far away from the point.
sailing down the boulevard, catching all the greens,
getting in bed late after spin the
bottle, after skirting up the alleyway to my
friend's tiny house where i left my
wine bottle in the kitchen, my portrait
on the kitchen wall and we await nick who'll
be arriving by bus on thursday afternoon and
not a day too soon and it's alright - it's ok, it's all just
for a season anyway and we write letters everyday.
and it's been a time warp of backwards
and forwards but who cares anyway
because you can't take it with you and each time
i compare myself to someone else i lose
a little bit of my soul so i made a deal i
wouldn't do that anymore. i'd rather sell
the shit i don't need to make ends meet than
be stuck in your cubicle six days a week.
and aren't we all just waitin' for things to turn
around? occupy LA is hollerin' just
ten minutes away,
but it's also right here - right where i'm standing
and don't you ever want to walk up to some
people and say "it must be nice to be you"
but we are all fighting great battles
and if it's not this one it's that one,
if it's not here it's there,
and soon the first will be last,
and you can't run away from it jamie i keep
saying and "i'm hangin' by a thread" she keeps
saying and me too.
drivin' across the 10 freeway with those
looming blue black clouds over pasadena
mountains - hollywood sign, griffith
observatory shining under heavenly golden
sun, green hills where i hear my old souls
of past days that sing through the night,
through the graveyards, through the
chainlinked fences, the parking lots
and the small groups waiting for buses in
the dark. and i'm saying fuck this nostalgia
and embrace the morning.
new eyes and new jaw
and a new way to feel your tongue in
your mouth and a new way to smile and
a new reason to smile,
and is it ok to feel ok?
and i've been thinking what is this place
about anyway, these streets, these homes,
everyone tryin' to make it out on top,
or to come out even. to be discovered.
yes and maybe i'll be discovered in the
food 4 less on western, maybe the liquor
store by robbie's house. maybe. maybe.
but maybe the point is we live and die here.
we eat and love here. get married and
baptized here. smoke and drink here.
everyday wake here.
grieve here.
and getting discovered
in the in between.
i'm discovering me. and the best thing i
can do in this season is keep revealing
my self to myself.
i gave a different kind of kiss today
and sold my guitar today.
i don't need them.
i saw a bird fly away today and the sea
calm it's waves today.

my feet hurt today.

i was an open field today.

i buried my friend today.

i closed my eyes and the cement
became one in my veins,
rushing like fast mad traffic,
like intersections about to
explode, like blurring streetlights
of red, yellow, green and every
color in between and the whish,
breeze of the color in me and
slow down, breathe
and
walk with your arms sideways and
play a new game and see the winds
change and be a new brave.
and oh my city, be still my heart.
protect me under the lamplight
by my parked car.
remind me that each moment is truth,
that love can find you.
that definitions are sometimes needless,
that your books hold seeds,
that you need less.
remind me of the boldness that i have
or that sweet is sometimes sad.
oh, remind me that i still have more
to say, that he will find a way.
be still my heart and protect me under
the lamplight by my parked car in
my city while i wait for a change
gon' come.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

things i don't need

i just can't seem to keep up i don't know
which album is the newest and greatest thing
to listen to nor do i know the silhouette of
the season or if my hair should be lighter or
darker. i like waking up early even though my
roommate thinks i'm crazy. i want to wear big
sweaters every day and listen to the same iron
& wine album when i fall asleep. i'm selling all the
things i don't need and loading the film in my
camera properly. i'm wearing jeans to cover up
my bruises and purposely trying not to text you.
i'm hoping i make friends at my new job because
i just couldn't bear the loneliness of shifts without
talking. i have a problem with collecting striped
shirts. i am crossing my fingers my film doesn't
come out blank. i'm making sketches for paintings.
my classmate said i should give hollywood a go.
i scrunched my nose at her.
i am trying to be most truthful.
today i thought, at least my life isn't boring.

whale sounds to sleep to

swimmer with humpback whale
by wayne levin