All Along The Watchtower

Mercy

2012-02-12T22:09:00.002-08:00

Lazy days beat work as the small proper wade without fire or sleep.
Stress is stress and is a heavy destination. All humor collapses,
love what you want: the grim, the stagnant, the elicit.
They all come without sleeves or boxes.

{ r e w r i t e }

2011-11-19T20:03:00.000-08:00

I F Y O U O N L Y K N E W T H E V I E W

From this San Francisco Avenue
under a January jasmine moon
timed stoplights at every block
border the edges of the ocean.

Waves sink the shore with curved smacks
receiving and retrieving our debt and promises
The tiny levy, this tiny avenue, is all that protects you.
If you only knew this view.

c h i l d r e n b i t i n g c h i l d r e n

2011-07-04T22:00:00.000-07:00

children biting children with fangs and metal.
young children eating old children,
disrespecting their elders.

don't eat your parents.
instead, stop looking at idols.

we pick, but we never really choose.

c l i c k i t y c l i c k

2011-07-04T21:47:00.000-07:00

we can all die on her birthday for a sparkle,
a spectacle of stars that break through the sky like bombs.

s o f t b a b y r a b b i t s

2011-06-27T22:26:00.000-07:00

Soft baby rabbit watching rapid ruptures in the sea.
Your songs make me want to shoot myself in the foot; banjo
folk vocals with too many djinn.

The beach is over there, young baby rabbit.
That girl you're eyeing is asleep in the stars.
On this sad evening she's hungry for your fate.

The trouble with love is its other face

2011-06-22T19:19:00.000-07:00

Run For The Roses

Lyrics: Robert Hunter
Music: Jerry Garcia

Reach for the sun, catch hold of the moon
They're both too heavy but what can you do?
Reach for the stars, smack into the sky
You don't want to live but you're chicken to die
Chicken to die

Chorus
Run, run, run for the roses
Sooner it opens, the quicker it closes
Man, oh, man, oh friend of mine
All good things in all good time
All good things in all good time

Reach for the rose, get caught on the briar
You're warming to love, next thing there's a fire
The trouble with love is its other face
You just want the cup, you don't want the race
No, you don't want the race

[chorus]

Run for the money, caught short on the rent
Big ideas but the money's all spent (note 1)
If you got the do-re, I got the mi
And I got a notion we're all at sea
Yeah, we're all at sea

a n d t h e n s o m e t i m e s . . .

2011-06-20T23:57:00.000-07:00

it's good to get a little sand in bed.

Catnaps at DP

2011-06-15T22:05:00.000-07:00

A: The Sapporo tastes like piss after the Four Loko. Not a good combo.

B: UGH, no. Fourporo, gross.

A: Fourporo? Ew.

Into the Wind

2011-05-22T21:48:00.000-07:00

The sky is turmeric.

Spring Equinox

2011-03-23T16:26:00.000-07:00

The Vernal Moon gives enough
so that she may take enough.

Remember your blessings,
for they are counted.

Asleep in the syrup

2010-11-09T16:16:00.000-08:00

Moths nudge my skin, sparkling behind the shadows.
In Chinatown, the bridge across the bay sinks into the east,
while the memory of our love sinks into the west.

I grab the tops of parking meters,
so not to lose my balance
my fingers are like icicles.

My dear, I have lost you. But one can only hope
that you find yourself within your reconciliation
between the moral and personal dilemmas your
demons have tied you to.

A jar full of happiness

2010-10-18T08:12:00.000-07:00

Sparkling Beverage Napkins

Her heart hung like the skeleton head above the bar
brazier to fucking brazier, a jar full of happiness
was round and pint-sized.

Glitter on her lashes
ice cubes in place of her heart
infinity was lost in San Francisco.

"Standing on the shoulders of giants," she whispered into the jar,
"sadness is ubiquitous. It's time to get off the train,
I'm getting dizzy."

Nobody reads this stuff anyway. . .

2010-10-02T23:08:00.000-07:00

B.R.O.K.E.N.L.O.S.T.L.O.V.E.
A tale told through GRE vocab

the soul absconded
the heart abjured
the body abstained
emotions into an abyss
contact was abstemious
distance an accretion
the mind acidulous

from the acme of love to its nadir
his every pore adulterated
advocate for couple, long gone.

she left for the aerie to mend aesthetically and soulfully,
not to be affected by his fledgling urge to aggrandize his reputation.

hearts will regenerate with alacrity and alleviate all folly,
she must abase herself and amalgamate the spirit with
the fervor for art and passions, that is true love.

leave him to his ambiguous ways
let his soul amortize the pain
the liquor, the small-time fame,
an antipathy created between the plaque in his lungs
and arteries; inside he is apathetic

heart, spirit, and mind will ameliorate
no need for analgesias or anodynes
her path will become analogous with her heart
she will no longer feel like an anomaly without him.

.

*

This was written in the wee hours of 1.1.10:

The morning vapor a grey fleece over the ocean,
dawn rises over the Great Highway.

There is a movement to the dawn, a place where you speak in spirals.
You chant promises on this day, 24 hours to doze on your reflective past.
Last night we all died for a minute.

It's a process, a new beginning, a chance.

I fill my silver silence in prayer;
grateful and at ease knowing that I will do good.

The creative spectre returns to the hanging dawn.
There is something picturesque about this coast,
the constant movement from the beach to the full blue moon
on the very first day of the year.

We will shed our demons on this beach
and throw them to Poseidon
justification that it's over.

The languid sun breaks windows
filling the grey spots in the sky.

If you only knew the view

2010-08-29T23:43:00.000-07:00

From this San Francisco Avenue
under a January jasmine moon
timed stoplights at every block
border the edges of the ocean.

Waves sink the shore with curved smacks
receiving and retrieving our debt and promises

The tiny levy, this tiny avenue, is all that protects you.
If you only knew this view.

Aversions Unfinished

2010-03-31T01:08:00.000-07:00

She screamed to him. He could not make out her words through the velvet rains that fell like coins between them. It was an old, cruel world they were up against.

"Leave the peace for my being. As much as I want to satisfy you, I must stay true to my selfish self."

He dropped to his knees and turned his palms towards the falling rain. He could hear the windows shake. He would not let her pass. They were a legend, a destiny.

"I believe in love. I refuse to lie to myself about that, and I refuse to believe, to acknowledge that you-" he paused. His head was a flood with her lyrics, her tiny notes she'd leave tucked between dollars in his wallet, or taped inside the bathroom mirror. He felt the earth stop its rotation around the sun. "I refuse to acknowledge the fact," he slowly continued, biting into the rain, "that you cannot love."

m.e.m.o.r.y.

2010-02-03T22:58:00.000-08:00

Memory carries the dead from cemetery to dream

row jimmy

2009-12-26T23:28:00.001-08:00

end of days

2009-12-26T18:31:00.001-08:00

The Handgun

You're not any more or less innocent
than the gutter giving gifts

When you deconstruct thought and emotion
narratives separate from your mind
as if you were changing your handwriting.

Watch your timeline escalate to the summit
of Olympus or to the dismal depths of Hades

It is your gift to be heard, to correspond,
to exist in this channel of thought
where you distance yourself from the voodoo life can harvest.

if y'all wanna talk poetics read this:

2009-10-03T14:46:00.001-07:00

http://www.culturalsociety.org/RJ.html

Ronald Johnson

"Hurrah for Euphony" was written during the semester Ronald Johnson taught creative writing at UC-Berkeley in 1994, a position that allowed him very temporarily to move back to his beloved Bay Area from Topeka, where he felt he had been exiled, much like Ovid before him (though RJ's was a financial rather than political exile). Initially, he wrote "Part I" of this piece for his poetry students. It was first published in a UC-Berkeley anthology entitled Re/Mapping the Occident. Later, he expanded the piece considerably (for RJ, at least), publishing "Part II" in the special Ronald Johnson issue of Chicago Review (I recall RJ telling me that Thom Gunn helped him revise this part of the essay).

This is the first time the entire piece has been published. Ronald Johnson did not write a great deal of prose; furthermore, of the prose he wrote, none of it besides "Hurrah for Euphony" could be described as poetics. As such, this piece, written after the conclusion of ARK, and composed in the midst of writing his elegiac "Blocks to Be Arranged in a Pyramid: In Memoriam AIDS" and the final concretions that make up The Outworks, stands as his defining statement about the craft of poetry.

— Peter O'Leary

Hurrah for Euphony
Dedicated to Young Poets

Part I

Content finds Form, as a leopard prey. Take the path which branches, for the best word is always at a crossroads. Words are what poetry is made of, tools. Thumb the roots of any word in a (large, preferably) Webster. No harm going further afield, or digging down, for there is new territory. Agassiz would have his students calculate every particle of soil clinging each root — and write exactly about it, and more exact again.

Words conjoined, just so, in a sequence make rhythm: give life, just as a fiddler’s bow on gut. Study Jazz — invention within convention. Though, unlike music, which is abstract, poetry should be quick with specifics. A jamboree of the senses jarring us into naming our own circus, perimeters, it should be. Conjured from eye, ear, and intellect, words are best when they push and jostle, sharpen wit, condense wisdom. No verse is free in the tireless wash of sea on shore, wind about, salt in the blood, moon above. All else is blague and jargon.

Measure. William Carlos Williams called it "variable foot," formed by homespun idiom. Webster says the word includes proportion, degree, "Means to an end" and, in mathematics "A number contained in another number a certain number of times exactly." In music, air and movement divided, and in poetry "The arrangement of the syllables in each line with respect to quantity or accent: rhythm." Word next to word on the page should unify everything around it, as if a chemical solution making crystal phrase. This is the process of The Muse, and thereby unwinds the poet’s maze.

The task is to thread the labyrinth, rattle the Minotaur of truth. At the heart of the labyrinth, as in fairy tales, are three wishes which will be answered. Beware asking to be a poet! Cast off in the plethora of unruly English, head above waters, singing like the cut-off head of Orpheus is your fate.

Once there was a child who was born with stubby wings at the shoulder blades. One said "someday these will be great pinions and you will fly." Another said "stand up straight or people will think you have a hump." All great things are done by the force of opposites. Preparing his argument with Milton, Blake sat with his wife Kate, both nude in the back garden, reading Paradise Lost aloud. Each poet should become Adam, naming everything new. We tell the archetypal. Face the sun, your shadow will be sharper. Condense everything into a ball, and throw it.

Part II

The shaggy and ecstatic, the concise and elliptical, Walt and Emily are the twin fonts of American poetry. And Protestants, like our founders, in the sense of protest against status quo — both grounded in scripture but bound for rapture. They redefined the world around them, Walt wanting to create a voice for the Nation, and Emily hugging inner horizon.

To gauge their stature only read the poems of Emerson and Thoreau, two of our most original prose writers. And don't ignore the chance to learn from their prose (nor Ruskin, whom Proust studied). A poet might find profit by a study of their pithy fine distinctions — in Emerson's case also disjunctions — Yankee dictions, surprise like possums under every bush. Consider Thoreau writing "to make the earth say beans" after a day of hoeing, as fine a line as Dickinson or Whitman, any day. I've learned more from the wit of Henry James than all the ironies of T.S. Eliot.

Books are one of the paths. When I read Elizabeth Sewall's The Orphic Voice I knew I wanted to be of that order of writer she talked about. I'd met my myth: Orpheus and Eurydice, and that proved a honeyed terrain. Myths gather gossip of the race distilled as a story, a story moreover which involves us all. Find any books you can learn from and re- and re-read. I never am without Hugh Kenner's The Pound Era. With only that as a map you could find your way. I spent years reading in the two huge volumes of the Dover Edition of Thoreau's Journal to sharpen my eye and how it intersects with text. I learned how Henry David could set down the miniscules, then slip right into the unconscious, speculating about snakes in his stomach or eating a red raw muskrat. Don't worry, if you read, books will find you.

Another path is to simply see as much as possible, be sentinel for incidence. Jonathan Williams and I walked one whole summer The Appalachian Trail from the end in Georgia to New York, me with binoculars around neck, and bird and tree and flower guides between us, to consult at fireside. To become your own Audobon! And if you only hear one winter wren or veery in descending ripple through the dusk, it's worth sore feet. Gary Snyder teaches the same lesson: wait and look and listen, and hike to get there. Kenneth Rexroth claimed that any poet worth his or her salt should know the names of plants and habitat of whatever moves around you. He would stride out, thrashing a clump of greenery with his stick, giving its history, inspecting each sprig of the extraordinary. He knew whose bones were in the land. Was it Sherwood Anderson who said: "Don't write a line you wouldn't read aloud in a cornfield"?

A third path is by the ear. Let sound lead the line. This is one of the binges I learned first (luckily) as a poet. If you abandon strict meter and end rhyme, something is needed to give backbone. I gathered it from Jonathan Williams who has appropriated it, with a satiric twist, from Charles Olson. This is what Olson means by "by ear, he sd." Let sound gender sense. If you put your attention there, on sound, rhythms, the intellect begins to have its play, and before (literally) you know it you've begun to write. This needn't be anything Sitwellian or esoteric — consider W.C.W.'s "stiff curl of wild carrot leaf" in which consonants carry the line. Or Basil Bunting's "the thrush in the syringa sings" in which you also hear the gentle breeze. Louis Zukofsky had the best ear in the business.

Olson credits learning from Edward Dahlberg that "perception must immediately and directly lead to another perception." Image heels upon image, all musculature — and cut out the fat. Irascible autodidact that Dahlberg was, I found he was at his most charming with a student to tell stories to and chafe against the universe. A prophet in our own time, now little listened to, though the later books equal any of the great prose stylists. I also learned from years of friendship with Robert Duncan, sharing ideas and energies. His practice of trusting the unconscious gave me strength, iron to go on. We struck sparks together. Any beginning poet: take a Mentor or more, then develop friends to share ideas with, fellow travelers, hobo poets along the way. Kick up your heels!

At the beginning of the century paint began to be manufactured in tubes the artists could carry easily outside, and thus was born Impressionism. The typewriter changed prose (with Henry James) and poetry (Pound, Williams, Cummings) found a new challenge in loosening up the page, freeing the left margin. Perhaps our beginning was the painter Degas remarking to Mallarmé he'd always wanted to write a poem, but could never get an idea for one. Mallarmé's answer was "Poems, my dear Degas, are not made out of ideas, they are made with words." I would add, yes, but ideas are their armature, the unseen engine, what makes the merry-go-round go round. Learn to use words first — later you'll have ideas.

I believe in form and make up my own rules. Without, it is all too like what Robert Frost called "playing tennis without a net." Of our immediate forebearers Wallace Stevens made blank verse brand spanking new, Marianne Moore stitched tapestries of rhyme and reason, Zukofsky translated the sound of Catullus rather than his sense (allowing eye and ear to refocus), and classically trained E.E. Cummings became an acrobat of the alphabet. Pound saw, via the typewriter, how to set out a page that breathes. Gertrude Stein reconnected all the lights on the Christmas tree so they'll forever twinkle, W.C. Williams banged his head against the question of form all his life and came up with answers of sorts — when in doubt he would always follow his ear. He attempted, like Whitman, to give voice to a mostly inarticulate land. Nobody has improved on the Creeley/Olson dictum: "form is never more than the extension of content." I've learned most from those seekers for new form, but I respect traditionalists such as Louise Bogan and J.V. Cunningham, and these days Thom Gunn, for showing that the vein of gold was not all worked out.

Olson warned against adjectives as leaking energy from matters at hand, and on the whole he is right — distrust anything which impedes the flow. Though a rigidly placed adjective can illumine, as in Donne's "a bracelet of bright hair about the bone." Only with "bright" is the line indelible. William Carlos Williams was right: "no ideas but in things, " and these are nouns. Poems ought to jostle with things, nouns naming and imagining. "It is a privilege to see so / much confusion," as Marianne Moore calmly points out while listing intersections of Dürer-like observation, in the guise of conversation. Nouns are the bones of poetry. It is verbs which give muscle to your work, and make it move. Every time you re-read your poem check it for verbs, then see if there isn't something more vivid, more precise to turn the screw. Remember one thing leads to another, so search for the inevitable and definitive. Metaphor is the flesh, as Webster defines it from the Greek: "a transferring to one word the sense of another." Poetry without metaphor is like music without a melody, blood without breath.

Blake insisted all art, visual or verbal, should have a "wiry bounding line." He said we should take an abstract and give it form and human sinew, voice. He believed the perfect world was the imagination. You have only to connect with it, the more you see, the more you can, led to another Eden.. Another Protestant: a-turn-the-bible-end-on-end-and-see-what-shakes-out, Blake is Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson in one, etching his vision of the way it really is. For him this was scary and ecstatic, but he left a blueprint from which your own aesthetic could be constructed. Like Pound, at first it's best to read about him rather than to read him. Thom Gunn says his first entry into The Cantos was through Canto XLVII. With me entrance to Blake was The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.

Every poet should have a notebook at hand to record fleet impressions, gifts to the ear, heretofore unnoticed precisions. I tend now to capture words and phrases, but when I was young I kept a note book of mostly quotes from reading which have stood me in good stead over the years. Anything which attracts your attention will be needed , believe me. This is your nest egg, hope chest, buried treasure. I know, you can stuff your computer, but it's best to keep your hand in, and write it out, for we can't rule out the importance of script as connection with the Muse. Sometimes the hand has an eye in the palm, as the American Indians remind us. Grab a frontier!

By indirection, or to tell a story? Though it's not my way, tale-telling is (after son) the oldest way to use words. You can re-tell the fables, or flesh out your own. Frost is the obvious tutor here, but there's no lack of those. Read Golding's translation of Ovid's Metamorphosis, and recently Galasso's The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, a book as yeasty as The Orphic Voice, for stories of the tribe. But there are also those who have made-up their own fables, like lively Stevie Smith in England, or Kenneth Patchen, a homegrown Blake from the 1930s through 1950s, a true American product.

I'm probably the last typewriter poet, one informed by the keyboard and its possibilities. I can scribble in my notebook, but I only write when I type, and compose by length of line on an 8 1/2" x 11" sheet of paper. This itself, a form. The next poetry will be written on a computer, and as I type this, new forms are being created. One of the things to consider here is "fractals" by which a fragment repeats the configuration of the whole. Would not a computer throw up slant rhyme and correspondences? I can't answer this but I can offer two poems of Louis Zukofsky's which fractal nicely:

Crow’s-foot, sieges,
Tears, bare way,
A god’s egis,
Catspaw spray. (1)

Succinct as Homer, and with as many meanings, in faultless rhythm. Also,

Strange
To reach that age,
remember
a tide
And full
for a time
be young. (2)

This is a perfect lyric, form and content elegant as a shell, and like a shell you can put it to your ear. Hear the three mysterious g's, the echo of tide in time. Poems like these only arise if you are attuned to strains of the language — strains in both senses of effort and melody (as Zuk points out elsewhere).

A poet asked me recently about how I worked. Here is an example. I wake every morning either with a song in my head, or a phrase. These I hum and ponder until they seem worked (or played) out. One morning it was "riddle iota sublime." Obviously meant as a direction for my next Spire, and I puzzled it out (one Anglo-Saxon word, one Greek, one Latin) an edict for either scientist or poet: render radiant sense from smallest thing. When you are thrown a line like that you've got to live up to it. So I added the lines "and know no more / than when cast forth garden." The rest came, night by night, via "America the Beautiful," to the end of bells from the Sunken Cathedral "set in great hymnal font."

"In our beginning is our end." Almost all my poems have announced their first line, and then a few lines into the work a line is somehow important but "out of place." This is usually the line which gives resolution to matter at hand. It helps, I think, to know your destination. In The Different Musics I decided to make each poem a leap in the dark and see where I wound up. Its last poem, "The Unfoldings," invents new formal devices as it goes along, and was luckily ended by hearing over the radio: "The next sound you hear will be that of two galaxies, each the size of our own Milky Way, colliding in space, 500,000 light years away." So use what means you can devise.

There are poets you cant mimic: Hopkins, Eliot, Dylan Thomas (though once I heard a young painter, who had probably only heard Ferlinghetti read aloud, recite Hopkins, and it was a revelation of transposition). Modernism has mostly left a path of affinities. Of these, Pound, H.D., W.C.W., Zukofsky, Olson, Creeley, and Lorine Niedecker all leave you on your own horse, but teach you how to ride. Because abstract, politics and economics are Scylla and Charybdis to a poet. War numbs writing, love leads to excess, though it can be fodder for the future. Also, except for Zukofsky's valentines and late Williams, love is a patch overworked. I know, in the throes it seems inevitable, but it's best in icy retrospect. The contemporary poets Michael Palmer, Charles Simic, Kathleen Frazer, and John Taggart are useful for learning sundry live tactics.

And most useful, I believe, is the study of Basil Bunting's Briggflats. It soars and whittles away into what Zukofsky called the upper bound of music, as well as the lower bound of speech. And this, always using the sharp Anglo-Saxon word over a mellifluous one. He specifically grounds the work in Scarlatti, and other wiry music. In crisp cadence, it follows the sweep of seasons, past and present, as major a poem as "The Wasteland," but one unknown to most. He loved to drink fine whiskey, tell stories from his time in Samarkand, and dandle a girl on his lap. And you can compass it, unlike the big poems of Pound and Olson and Zukofsky. Consider:

Thorns prance in a gale.
In air snow flickers,
twig tap,
elms drip. (3)

Each verb initials activity by sound. "Prance" is a metaphor, then "flickers" for eye, and "tap, drip" for ear. Grounded in little things, it has also a grand human measure, even to a stride through Hell.

Be an enthusiast. Though it's a hallmark of the artist, or scientist for that matter, enthusiasm is, at century's end, considered "uncool." It is one of those fiery words which have come steadily down in the world. Originally it mean "to be inspired by a god." A poet should become an enthusiast for vocabulary, diction, phrase, be like the Chinese sage Pound applauded who had the side of his bathtub inscribed "Make It New." To make whatever new you need to know what came before. Only then may you pick your own pastures and genealogy, your myth (as you go deeper), align your skies. Simply as possible find your terrain and build upon it. You'll need a cornerstone, so look sharp.

Unless you are a precocious genius like Rimbaud, it takes about ten years' work (as to become a doctor) to find your mature, unmistakable voice. This is a signature so infallible that two or three words peeled off an Egyptian mummy reveal us Sappho, just as would a tattered page of Marianne Moore, a scrap of Pound. By then you've become you're own critic, know where to trust your instincts, say what you have to say and get off stage. This is work (or more properly play?) of quite lone obsession, not an "annual sonnet to the Spring." Then, then you will resonate along the chain of ancient chime. You won't become Yeats or whoever — you may possibly become you. Your task is to change the world by word alone. As Guy Davenport writes: "there were no waterfalls before Turner and Wordsworth, no moonlight before Sappho." So weed unnecessary words, remember it is always easier to destroy than create, an image ought to be like a just-picked apple.

__________

1. Louis Zukofsky, Collected Short Poetry (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991), p. 113.

2. Ibid., p. 97.

3. Basil Bunting, Collected Poems (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 52.

© 2002 The Literary Estate of Ronald Johnson. All Rights Reserved.

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silence is a better way to listen (revision)

2009-10-01T22:46:00.000-07:00

there are different crumbs settling
bits of gravel, wind, and dirty fingernails

stay and i'll offer you a cup of tea
to soften your grey heart.

there are different kinds of love
that sets us apart from others
he or she or you and i might take
precedence or secede.

4 a.m. turns the stars away
and the silence is clean.

wasbash avenue

2009-10-01T22:04:00.000-07:00

chicago jellies in the rain slithering
through the el stop. wrinkled windows
beam from store fronts and apartments
$1.99 croissant specials in hand

blue red brown purple orange green lines
smear these routes daily like dangling party lights.

when i arrive home to logan square
i'll bend down low to conceal the bruises
i've been walking on.

even freer...

2009-10-01T21:56:00.000-07:00

they're sleeping inside the music
and dragons are tickling their toes
they've vaccinated themselves into cryptic warriors.

it's a dream inhaled with a torch
a sleep that lives in sleep without a doubt.

there is a heroine braided in universe and sitar bells
they've got smiles on their turntables.

this masked dream they believe cradles their hearts
like a kaleidoscope. close your eyes
and you'll see the other place better.

you know what maps your reading

2009-10-01T21:52:00.002-07:00

kidnapped by laughing mountains
and rocky vines your observations
are like pulled triggers. nimble
and numb as you leave the last
mid-western fall you'll ever see.

.......

2009-10-01T21:52:00.001-07:00

even though we share the same language
these words are mine.

my muse home

2009-10-01T21:48:00.000-07:00

my muse cannot be yours
the inspiration worn serves my spirit

and if my muse is your reality,
then my dreams are not mine

can't you see my love is not a coyish jig
but like a root that splinters while you picnic on top of it?

you cannot have my golden fleece.

tectonic stand still

2009-09-28T12:17:00.000-07:00

the birds yelled from the redwoods outside
inside hearts are broken like the kitchen dishes
splattered heirlooms on the tile.

we know this cursive won't happen again,
it is unreachable.
.

eid-ir-fitr mobarak!

2009-09-20T01:13:00.000-07:00

i'm not the best muslim of course
but, i do know that tonite (today)
marks the end of ramadan.

i didn't fast or deny myself of sweets (like lent),
but i did make sure to pray extra, ya know?
talk to our beloved. give my respects,
be extra nice to others and myself
hope for payment or interest, for good.

saturn return haiku

2009-09-07T22:50:00.000-07:00

savory pulse past
bonita banditas wait
for el dorado

awaiting the muse

2009-08-25T08:40:00.000-07:00

it was because of the fragments
lost bits of metal rusting, slowly
breaking away like a dying leaf.
the language had to change,
that yellow pin on her jacket,
the jade hope held in her eyes.
we were writing from experience,
not waiting to become famous,
but to be discovered.

i took care of us, mothering virgo.
only losing myself in the fragments,
the discord. bits of space falling
through the park.

in order to believe again she had to rewrite,
and reread to regress to the missing places
awaiting the muse with no where to go,
but inside.

forgiving fiction

2009-08-13T12:06:00.000-07:00

a yellow and red afghan, supremely knitted, escaped from my mind/
it was coming clean and my art needed me to stay awake

basil over my eyes
my sense of smell has become a deep well
a gift like an eastern european sunrise,
marble and snow.

great stars

2009-08-06T01:14:00.000-07:00

don't sell my soul, takin' it and putting it in ya pocket.
stealing from me when i sing for all your sins.
you all watching me like a feather on da stage,
but let us rejoice over (for) our brown skin.
i cry every time i try to write this book, hip
to hip, side to side.

for the sake of the day: i present onions

2009-06-01T20:53:00.000-07:00

(draft # a million)
this piece is not finished like everything else.
but i need to see it.....

the smell of onions burned from my sweater
my uncle's eyes filled the yellow stairs,
where i hid from the heart attack.

onions are onions like the rest:
ginger, mint, basil, radish and parsley.
onions over the linoleum kitchen, sauteeing
the floors a soft caramel.

outside it is winter and we all have colds.
at the top of the stairs i stood listening
to the soft calls of my uncle, komak*.

onions are onions.

my mother fed us turnip soup with onions
our house was yellow like an onion.
my palms melted to the banister
like a dream, a fantasy.

onions are with me even when i sleep.
my teeth crooked, but white like an onion.

the aroma danced on the stairs like a pot
of simmering shallots. it was his first
christmas in america. he was here for
open-heart surgery. an herb garden
drying in the afternoon.

*komak: "help" in farsi.

now i'm learning

2009-04-26T12:31:00.001-07:00

my story. the story of nations i never
learned.

never take the best...

2009-04-16T23:11:00.001-07:00

in verse

a house in silence doesn’t sway
the dark between orchids
a soft place, deaf & breaking
there are so many things
that we cannot see: like the wind
coming over the mountain or each
others heart(s) beating.

i can’t see you smiling when i’m asleep.

dream maker::heart breaker::

2009-02-06T20:09:00.000-08:00

dear usa:
it doesn't bother me that the olympic
swimmer who took all that gold in beijing
smoke(s)(ed) cannabis sativa. really.
please take it off the news. i'm bored. really.

dear usa::
free palestine.

dear usa::
it hurts. all of it.
a tiny ship sinking
the seas haven risen + we are taking
breaths.

dear usa::
why do people cheat?
i am just a product of parents that camefrom a trench in history.
their time + place a revolution
there are many children of immigrant americans
becoming americans. becoming ambidextrous themselves
like heart bets + wooden shoes.
square dancing fields,
hallways of scoliosis
pregnant lockers + lost lovers.

dear usa::
i'd be honest i'd be lying
if i said i never cried for my country,
but i'd also be lying if i said that i've never
really felt patriotic childhood. a hope.

depression makes everything heavy.

with inspiration things will change

2009-01-11T15:21:00.000-08:00

things are constantly changing.

like earthquakes, sometimes we feel them + sometimes we don't.

this blog will be changing it's focus...growing + expanding.

::please stay tuned to see what evolves!

skeletal infrastructure

2008-12-13T13:39:00.001-08:00

we were meant to break
under the weight of our emotions,
a labyrinth today is like dreams
yesterday our world was skyscrapers
today we are bone + arrows singing

::end the occupation now::

2008-11-01T02:54:00.000-07:00

end the occupation now
please pass the pomegranate
"do you know about motorhead?"
i know i have a headache
didn't we buy advil today???

......compiling drafts......

2008-10-19T16:25:00.000-07:00

there are crumbs everywhere
bits of ourselves we've left:
gravel, and wind, and dirty fingernails.
there are different kinds of love
that sets apart [you and i] from others
he or she or you and i
might take precedent and cause
family to stay and offer a cup of tea
to soften your grey heart;
4 a.m. turns the stars away from the ocean
from inside endorphins rush
to make the unclean unimportant
and silence is a better place to listen.

...if only these waves...

2008-10-12T02:57:00.000-07:00

if only these waves were as clear as the moon
i see them bouncing from the water
where are you?

if only these waves were as clear as the water
our sky sound-proofed
would you see them then?

if only my life was like a seahorse
you'd miss my scales then...

for reals?

2008-10-02T20:35:00.000-07:00

did SP seriously refer to israel as "a peace-seeking nation", really?

i have so much to say at the moment that it'll take me a little time to gather my thoughts and relay a cohesive affective piece of prose.

a limit

2008-09-26T18:59:00.001-07:00

there should be an age limit for those who run for president of the united states of america.

watching from

2008-09-24T21:49:00.000-07:00

watching from a novel draft
already spoken and things happen to dance
would i really write this for you to read?
i couldn't possibly,
or could we?
or if so we could?
other places and people we'd seek
i wish i'd taken myself seriously
or that you'd seek me out
or not.....
and the certain rhythms and emotions to scout
to feel, to dance about

obamarama--can i have a beer now?

2008-09-14T00:44:00.000-07:00

i've been meaning to write a blog in reference to this blog title for a while....

this election has to be the most important presidential elections of my lifetime thus far. bush vs. clinton; bush vs. gore; bush vs.kerry. bah! nothing seems as dire as a democratic brother and a whitey running together against right-winged republican grampa (who can't lift his arms or use the computer!!!!) and a really scary female from alaska (and it has nothing to do with her inexperience; its her BACKWARD views i run away from). (ladies, don't be fooled by her!)

rebuplicans and democrats: i don't like either one of you. BUT, i have to pick one over the other. i have too.

obama you're my devil of choice.

my universe has gotten better; the state of our world is getting worse.

i purged this evening. products from my life. from age eight to eighteen. purses and totes unpacked from an adidas duffel bag crowned with my sister's ex-husband's id tag from a flight six years ago.
i unpacked pieces of myself. from an old raver backpack to a north face sack full of maui. the old memories i purge.

i'll stop for now....

A REVISION!

2008-09-13T21:54:00.000-07:00

Magellan's Archipelago

I.
heaven knows your winded face
weathered wrinkles failing
my voice left imagined calls
in a place, your imagination, i couldn't find
but I’d find Tierra Del Fuego on a map,
glaciers swollen softly into the sea;
Ushuaia singing from a choir of dead
prisoners building railroads...

II.
The distance between our worlds is a phenomenon
I am like a feline on the fence
that demands answers from poetry
and releases them with a stolen fist,
and a broken bicycle

...something in the works....

2008-09-03T21:52:00.000-07:00

Magellan's Archipelago

I.
heaven knows your winded face
weathered wrinkles failing
unanswered calls leave my voice
your imagination is a place
i couldn't find on any map
but I’d find Tierra Del Fuego on a map,
glaciers swollen softly into the sea;
Ushuaia singing from a choir of dead
prisoners building railroads...

II.
The distance between our worlds is a phenomenon
I am like a feline on the fence
that demands answers from poetry
and releases them with a stolen fist,
and a broken bicycle

tahoe

2008-08-24T18:35:00.000-07:00

we are in tahoe.

i am ready for a creative excursion. let's see what i come up with.......

let iran play!

2008-08-16T21:19:00.000-07:00

http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/beijing/basketball/news?slug=aw-nbairan081608&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

this is ridiculous....has the embargo begun? i'm proud to be an iranian and like many others like me most iranians have an extremely rich sense of national pride. we have to. we are responsible for things like civilization, known for things like our rich sense of poetry and art, and not to mention that stuff called uranium. i'm kidding about the last one.

anyway, there are lots of things we are known for. look us up. we are in the yellow pages. our women can drive and no, i don't come with a dowry of goats or sheep. Although, I do come with a dowry of gold, sweets, and a devout islamic grandmother.

Colleagues

2008-08-13T11:57:00.000-07:00

Listen to my fellow New College Writers Alumni on KQED Writer's Block Segment!

( i'm still trying to figure out how to make the link work) so for now copy and paste in browser window!

http://www.kqed.org/arts/programs/writersblock

bravo kelly, mg, and amy!

it was time

2008-08-12T15:00:00.000-07:00

it was time for a minimal upgrade. actually, i think i'm slightly overdue in the upgrade department but baby steps, baby steps, doostam. sooo for now we settle with some bubbles. i aspire to inquire within and discover how my bubbles can be glittery purples--just you wait.

now, i have to go and wash this acai goji berry green tea masque from my face.

the bus stop

2008-08-04T22:37:00.001-07:00

Angels don’t touch no liquor

Cowboys and Iranians
cooperate their imaginations:
love keeps the angels around
grey cityfolk can never forget
the concrete whiskers they sprouted
from matzo ball nights and trampolines
capturing the starry nights of youth.
Where are our angels?
trouble-making cowboys
with their raw eggs and coffee
drinking without a breath
or without a branch.
Losing angels into the wood
the devil angel light
matronly grievances decay
grey cityfolk modern rustic urban
the bathtub in the kitchen
working on tables
dresses full of whiskey
costumes of men
Chanteuse living paycheck to paycheck
memories across the map
respect your ghosts at the bus stop
take it away, baby.

always a series of rough drafts (part 2)

2008-07-31T12:00:00.000-07:00

A poet discovered a new notebook. brown arrow and narrow
vain and in the perspective of consideration
a lovesick comic dreams
visions of a hill
imagined from golden fingertips
a left-handed poet
a siren
scruples within treasure
drunk
dirty
breath of whiskey and rum
skin through sight where no one sees

lazy days beat work
an intimate apparel
second hand quality

seven is the magic
seven years later we were openly discussing the open
capitalization around my personal trauma. The day when terror
was the pilot and flew into buildings.
All those fireman...
where were you that morning?
what's your holocaust story?

The small and proper wade
without fire
sleep a heavy destination
stress is stress
humor collapses
love what you want
grim stagnant elicit
information without sleeves or boxes
coffee and chocolates to help
with those rough landings
an eternity of smiles
passing everyday
just a daydream
a fairy tale
don't tremble this cursive

now it'll never end

2008-07-25T12:58:00.000-07:00

I'm waist-deep in resumes and cover letters. seeking a job. i feel like the last five years of my life have been a constant job search. totally fucking blows.

anyway, while i type away at creating the perfect resume and seeking the right job you can watch this youtube (my new friend) clip from a new favorite movie of mine.

IT IS

2008-07-21T23:59:00.000-07:00

Elizabeth Hasslehoffbeck is a dumb pollack. Please throw elizabeth, mario lopez, and heidi & spencer into a large scary volcano.

thank you.

edit, edit!!

2008-06-23T20:51:00.000-07:00

Just like a gypsy

We were bad and stuck. God was mad, throwing fists of wrath down.
We were stripped, awkward, and alone.
Silent and accented, we whispered amongst each other waiting for something to change our damned luck.
Perhaps it started with bad decisions on their part. How could it be ours?
We were born into these things we had no voice, no opinion over.
Their choices had been made before we'd even been consummated. We. werejustpassingthrutime.
_____________________
A heart will not mend broken fragments
(without a hefty transplant)
in the dark or alone
smiling and forgetting the smile the tree would crack
In the land: the earth burned like a foil in an oven,
in her kitchen oven, that turned walls the color turmeric and kept
family secrets behind the criticism of other judgments saving
mistakes for mistakes and love was something conditional.....

When I write the clouds fall from the sky

The trees shake in the rhythms,
the surprise, the shakes

they are all broken for the moment.

catching when nobody cares

2008-06-05T11:24:00.000-07:00

Stories from an unknown author:

"She was recalcitrant, common, used-up and up for strike. A woman like this didn't sleep anymore, she only lead. Arduous and sprinkled with love perfume she was a new American western even before she knew it."

2008-06-05T02:06:00.000-07:00

is anyone else as disturbed as i am about the wwf comercials about the polar bears?

.....somewhere.....

2008-05-22T23:00:00.000-07:00

"Cluttered space needs to be set up the right way."

"We could just pull a Lincoln; or a Monty Python."

Somewhere between green and clean two cupcakes sitten pretty; frosting shiny.

"Take a picture."

Words kept between teeth.

"Where was I? Padam; Padam!"

"Remembering the in between like sand."

Bitten, by many......

2008-03-30T15:05:00.000-07:00

We were bad. And we were stuck. God was mad, throwing fistfuls of his wrath down at us. We were stripped, awkward, and alone. Silent and accented, foreign, we whispered amongst one another waiting for something to change our damned luck. Perhaps it started with bad decisions on their part. How could it be ours? We were born into things we had no voice, no opinion, and no power over. Their choices had been made before we’d even been consummated. We were just passing through time.

A heart will mend broken fragments
in the dark and smiling and forgetting
remembering the dark smile the tree had
In land the earth burned like foil in an
oven, her kitchen oven, that turned walls
into tumeric and kept family secrets
behind the criticism of each
other judgements saving mistakes for
mistakes and.....
love was something conditional
When I write the clouds fall from the sky.

The trees shake upon feeling the rhythm
the surprise, the shake of the clouds.

They are all broken for the moment.

Happy Nooroz!

2008-03-21T08:13:00.000-07:00

Well, since 2008 hasn't been great at all I'm hoping that the Persian Eid will bring better luck.

Let's keep our fingers crossed!

if you haven't

2008-01-26T21:49:00.001-08:00

If you haven't already checked out the link to the ghettro, you betta!

check it check it!

Personal Response to Persepolis

2008-01-22T21:47:00.000-08:00

Jan 21st, 2008

My 30th birthday is a revolutionary anniversary. This evening, I had the pleasure of watching "Persepolis" by Marjane Satrapi in a small theatre in Palo Alto, Ca. When I read the graphic novels I felt my heart flutter from my toes to the top of my head: "how extraordinare!" I thought. Well, the movie gave me the same feeling except amplified by 10.

I have nothing negative to say about Satrapi's memoir. Flashing frame by frame before my watering eyes, I was moved. To laugh, to cry, to analyze, to imagine (all to say the least)) a life in Iran that could've been mine. I bring this back to my 30th birthday. I turn 30 the same year the Iranian revolution does. And now, two years before this strange anniversary Iran is back.

We are the headlining act in the "Axis of Evil", the top country crucified by the US government, the next region on the precipice of war and strife. And for what? Uranium? Oil? Power? We sure as hell aren't as rich as the Saudi's....

Things are different than they were thirty years ago. We are no longer infants. We, too, have struggled, worn masks, lost our native tongue and nature to MacDonald's and Snickers. betsy, mike, and joe have tee peed our houses and egged our cars, harassed our children (ahem ahem) at school. Gas station attendants shot on the job, women and men discriminated at the market, restaurants, in their own neighborhoods.

Thanks to your revolution we have landed on your shores, America. We brought our intellect and colorful culture to your dismal world. Wrapped in pomegranate persian carpets (that's for you, Amir) and bundles of saffron, our gold jewels and the call to prayer have landed in your suburbs, bodegas, and local car dealerships.

YOU made us leave, America. YOU thought our revolution would be your loophole to swoop in and harness the skeleton of civilization. To sneak in with your automobiles and fancy military equipment.

I wonder if you thought you could borrow us the same blankets you borrowed to the native americans many moons ago?
America, you always turn your cheek when the time comes for peace. You are running out of excuses.

THE HOLOCAUST: Armenian
Palestinian
Rwandan
German

THE OCCUPATION OF PALESTINE

VIETNAM VIETNAM VIETNAM VIETNAM VIETNAM VIETNAM VIETNAM VIETNAM VIETNAM VIETNAM VIETNAM VIETNAM VIETNAM
Why were we in Croatia again? There's no oil there...oh yeah, was it the Commies?

Iraq: Part 1) Saddam says hello
Part 2) Saddam goes to hell

You made us leave you made us leave You made us leave you made us leave You made us leave you made us Leave
you make our new home

HAPPY NEW YEAR

2008-01-08T19:45:00.000-08:00

I decided that after 28yrs, I'm too young and still talented to "make something" of myself.

2008 will be great. I'll try to move forward even though my outlook on US Foreign Policy is quite dismal.

say it again, 2008 will be great. It has too.

2007-11-10T12:02:00.000-08:00

The day begins to slowly fade
i'm sleeping in the corner
quiet and grey
this will not go quietly
or unannoucned
we will be loud
like the Vegas Strip flashing
spades and clever diamonds
you will sigh a soft sigh underneath
a shaded independent video movie store awning
you'll begin to realize the actual potential
of my terrorized urbanized mind
away and awake the caffeine is never a mistake
your breath is like a seat-belt holding me in place
you sparkle like moonstone

The Sun Never Sets on the British Empire

2007-11-05T20:10:00.000-08:00

I pray for Pakistan. I pray for Iran, Afghanistan, Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq....and Cuba, and North Korea and any country that our government castigates whether it is due to nuclear weapons, government, and/or religion.

I am livid. The media frenzy drives my heart to speeds I thought I'd not be capable of feeling. What the fuck, America? How many times do we ASK ourselves that question?!!

We aren't the United States of America. We are the United States of the sly British Empire. We are following the same steps of the empire. Conquer and destroy. They conquered the "new world" americas. They reaked havoc in India and now, the new empire, the American globalized Empire is trying to take over the middle-east. The next frontier.

I am shaking. I am fucking shaking and I'm fucking pissed. Israel makes me sick. Our foreign policy makes me sick. The War On Terror, The War on Drugs! What about the War on Child-Molesters, or the War against preventing Aids?

I'm not thinking clear. This poet doesn't think clear when upset. We just see things in images and emotions. Talk to me later about this. I'm pissed. I'm pissed because there always has to be something, a cold war, an embargo, a hostage crisis. What about the crisis that happens everyday on the streets of San Francisco? Or Chicago, Or Hammond, Indiana, or East Palo Alto???

Western Society treats foreign policy the same way they view medicine. Fuck prevention and let's find a cure for the problem. Perhaps we'd be better off if America took a good long look at the sickness and diseases occurring on the internal level rather than the external.

Oh yeah, i forgot about that green stuff that makes the world go around. And i wish i was talking about weed. but i'm not, it's money. it's all about money and penis envy.

okay. i'm done.

A time I remember oh so well.....

2007-10-26T00:52:00.000-07:00

The Night They Tore Old Dixie Down
(J. Robbie Robertson)
As Sung by Joan Baez:

Virgil Caine is my name
And I drove on the Danville train
'Til so much cavalry came
And tore up the tracks again
In the winter of sixty-five
We were hungry, just barely alive
I took the train to Richmond that fell
It's a time I remember
Oh, so well

The night they drove Old Dixie down
And all the bells were ringin'
The night they drove Old Dixie down
And all the people were singin'
They went
Laaaaaa, la-la-la-laaaaaa
La-la, la-la
La-la-la-laaaaaa

Back with my wife in Tenessee
And one day she said to me
Virgil, quick come see
There goes the Robert E Lee
Now, I don't mind I'm choppin' wood
And I don't care if my money's no good
Just take what you need and leave the rest
But they should never have taken the very best

The night they drove Old Dixie down
And all the bells were ringin'
The night they drove Old Dixie down
And all the people were singin'
They went
Laaaaaa, la-la-la-laaaaaa
La-la, la-la
La-la-la-laaaaaa

Like my father before me
I'm a working man
And like my brother before me
I took a rebel stand
Well, he was just 18, proud and brave
But a yankee laid him in his grave
I swear by the blood below my feet
You can't raise the Caine back up
When it's in defeat

The night they drove Old Dixie down
And all the bells were ringin'
The night they drove Old Dixie down
And all the people were singin'
They went
Laaaaaa, la-la-la-laaaaaa
La-la, la-la
La-la-la-laaaaaa

The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down

Lyrics: Robbie Robertson
Music: Robbie Robertson

Played by Jerry Garcia with most of his solo bands from the 1970s to the 1990s

Virgil Caine is the name and I served on the Danville train
'Til Stoneman's cavalry came and tore up the tracks again
In the winter of sixty-five
We were hungry just barely alive
By May tenth Richmond had fell
It was a time I remember oh so well

Chorus
The night they drove old Dixie down
And the bells were ringing
The night they drove old Dixie down
And the people were singing, they went
La la la la la la, la la la la la la la la, la

Like my father before me I will work the land
And like my brother above me who took a rebel stand
He was just eighteen, proud and brave
When a Yankee laid him in his grave
I swear by the mud below my feet
You can't raise a Cain back up when he's in defeat

[chorus]

Back with my wife in Tennessee when one day she called to me
Virgil, quick come see, there goes Robert E Lee
Now I don't mind choppin' wood
And I don't care if the money's no good
You take what you need and you keep the rest
But they should never have taken the very best

[chorus]

a few of my favorite things.....

2007-10-23T17:40:00.000-07:00

Dire Wolf

Lyrics: Robert Hunter
Music: Jerry Garcia

In the timbers of Fennario the wolves are running round
The winter was so hard and cold, froze ten feet 'neath the ground

Chorus
Don't murder me, I beg of you don't murder me
Please don't murder me

I sat down to supper, 'twas a bottle of red whiskey
I said my prayers and went to bed, that's the last they saw of me
[chorus]

When I awoke, the dire wolf, six hundred pounds of sin
Was grinning at my window, all I said was "Come on in"
[chorus]

The wolf came in, I got my cards, we sat down for a game
I cut my deck to the queen of spades but the cards were all the same
[chorus]

In the back-wash of Fennario, the black and bloody mire
The dire wolf collects his due while the boys sing round the fire
[chorus]

Stagger Lee

Lyrics: Robert Hunter
Music: Jerry Garcia

Based on the traditional song "Stagger Lee", "Stagolee" or "Stack O'Lee." Robert Hunter wrote a version that he performed solo, and Jerry Garcia subsequently re-ordered the lyrics and rewrote the music for the Grateful Dead's version. More recently Bob Weir has also been performing some of the older traditional versions with Ratdog.

This is the version as performed by the Grateful Dead::

Nineteen forty, Xmas eve, with the full moon over town
Stagger Lee shot Billy DeLyon and he blew that poor boy down
Do you know what he shot him for, what do you make of that
'Cause Billy DeLyon threw lucky dice, won Stagger Lee's stetson hat

Baio, Baio, tell me how can this be
You go arrest the girls for turning tricks but you're scared of Stagger Lee
Stagger Lee is a mad man, and he shot my Billy dead
Baio go get him, or give the job to me

Delia, Delia, dear sweet Delia D
How the hell can I arrest him, when he's twice as big as me
Well don't ask me to go downtown, I wouldn't come back alive
Not only is that mother big, he packs a forty five

Baio, Delia said, just give me a gun
He shot my Billy dead and now I'm gonna see him hung
She waded to DeLyon's club through Billy DeLyon's blood
Stepped up to Stagger Lee at the bar, said buy me a gin fizz love

As Stagger Lee lit a cigarette, she shot him in the balls
Blew the smoke off her revolver, had him dragged to City Hall
Baio, Baio, see you hang him high
He shot my Billy dead and now he's got to die

Delia went a-walking down on Singapore Street
Three piece band on the corner played 'nearer my God to thee'
But Delia whistled a different tune, what tune could it be
The song that woman sang was look out Stagger Lee
The song that Delia sang was look out Stagger Lee

Row Jimmy

2007-10-21T13:48:00.001-07:00

Row Jimmy

Lyrics: Robert Hunter
Music: Jerry Garcia

Julie catch a rabbit by his hair
Come back step, like to walk on air
Get back home where you belong
And don't you run off no more

Don't hang your head, let the two-time roll
Grass shack nailed to a pine wood floor
Ask the time baby I don't know
Come back later, gonna let it show

Chorus
And I say row, Jimmy, row
Gonna get there, I don't know
Seems a common way to go
Get down and row, row, row, row, row

Here's a half a dollar if you dare
Double twist when you hit the air
Look at Julie down below
The levee doing the dopaso

[chorus]

Broken heart don't feel so bad
You ain't got half of what you thought you had
Rock your baby to and fro
Not too fast and not too slow

[chorus]

That's the way it's been in town
Ever since they tore the juke box down
Two bit piece don't buy no more
Not so much as it done before

Re:Learn:I am a slow learner

2007-10-20T13:24:00.000-07:00

I finished a writing program six months ago and finally! my juices are back. For months, I couldn't bear to browse through the work I completed during the two years spent in grad school. Engaging new material was not an easier quest. Now, with the help of Charles Olson's "Projective Verse", I am entering the a stage I'm calling re:learn.

I don't think I paid enough attention in school. When I'm in school I have trouble absorbing all the material I'm studying...especially theory and criticism. Now I'm at the point where I need them the most.

So I'm re:learning poetics.

And what got me into this electrifying state--Camille Paglia's Break Blow Burn. So thank you.

It's a nice refresher, my brain is back-combed into a beehive of literary redemption.

( i still have trouble spelling though, and my grammar is mess)

My revisions are rolling..............

untitled clip

2007-10-17T21:49:00.000-07:00

khafeh sho!

other places trading weapons,
trading masks, grand machines
re-circle the world losing
angels into the woods

other corners trading weapons,
trading faiths

the earth, a flood

Estimated Cloud Stop #10

A life you’ll only know through pieces
of my memory recorded on mix-tapes and broken hearts,
snowy highways and a jalopy you’ll never see,
dj sets you’ll never hear—break dancers and bartenders
I’ll take to the grave ,
tell me, have your toes skinned their tips
in the crevice on Lexington Ave across from Arrigo Park?
The same park where roommate #1 got mugged,
in the same neighborhood where roommate #2 had sex
with a busty blonde and roommate #3 on the living room floor?
Have you bought socks from the black man in the grey parka
on the corner of Roosevelt and Des Plaines Ave? 12 for six bucks?
In between these vignettes, I stopped...

a new twist

2007-10-07T16:24:00.000-07:00

10.6.07.

The Monterey Boat

Tiny places, chicken wings
with sticky arms, she tried
to make change. They were done
watching each other through pints
of guinness and ice-cream.
She loved him from her toes,
and she couldn’t say so,
but thanked another lifetime
for giggles in cigarette smoke.
She couldn't shake her sugaree,
faraway blue and green,
yellow with hunger. Her other
personalities were in trouble
smiles went cheaply
from room to room

hit me with music

2007-09-17T18:03:00.001-07:00

Here begins the latest installment of my templates. I'm pretty stoked to work with this new medium--it's a lot less messy.

2007-09-15T17:50:00.000-07:00

okay, so here's my latest template. Now, I just need to get some colored pencils ASAP and then the real schizzo can begin......

1.42am 9.16.07.

The place imagination feels guilt
a dream I cannot touch
abrasion--solid, soft and peachy;
cobbled porch crooked and crawling
with ants these dreams will take you
places you wish'd you'd never
smell a scent from there/here,
the page you always turned too quickly;
the reality of globalizations that threaten
you from feeling yours--today,
it's in the garbage
and the toilet simultaneously
shiny and matte
under different lights.

here's an oldie, but goodie

2007-09-13T21:19:00.001-07:00

beat suite

Above my head—
weary hills and a golden freeway,
that’s a cinder in her thumb,
over the donut shops and injera-baked side streets,
the mowers that cut our grass and pick our grapes,
over the native tongues of BMW, Burbank, Benz, Disney,
Venice, palm fronds, seaweed, yerba mate,
over the bass drops, beach musicians trying to make a buck,
root down, reggae, turntables, sitars,
over the shouts of Chemist, Chestnut, Morrison, Pharcyde,
Breakestra, Social D., Wilson,
over the San Andreas depth of diversity
paving freeways to the sky,
selling tourmaline for ganja,
boardwalked vendors cry
over the dolphins on the horizon, the gulls in their hair,
straw purses, bismuth, aquamarine, oil paint, djembes, birds of paradise, silicon, sage, turquoise, churros and soft- serve,surfboards and sprinkles,
over knitted merchants,
worried, but pleasant to bargain with,
over a siren on roller skates, squeezing notes from nylon string,
—with a cry that will not cease:
Two-fifty a piece!
Two-fifty a piece!

2007-09-07T13:05:00.000-07:00

Even in the heat of the summer she liked to run warm water on her feet. She'd sit on the white laquer edge of the tub and think about the dark ages her family had miserably conceded to. It was as if each member acheived a sublime fate of depression and failure all at once, together. All, except for her.

She was pudgy, educated, and extremely unsophisticated. One might even call her country or backwards. Her family came from a long line of woodcutters and carpet weavers. Their tiny village was nestled somewhere in ancient Persia. But for her, today and everyday, the wisodom of her grandparents washed away with the sound of cars rushing north and south along the Highway 101. She could still hear them as she turned the faucet softly to the left and let her feet sink into the lukewarm water.

Her toenails were red and chipped. She poured a few drops of castille soap onto the palms of her hand and began to massage the bottoms of her feet in a circular motion.

when your wing is broke

2007-09-04T22:49:00.000-07:00

when your wing is broke
sing sing to that jaded bling
take notes from the sky

the greatest has passed
the soon to come too soon sweet
moondrops dust lazy tears

we spend our time here
shivering cherry blossoms
soft petals gone away

in the glass house

2007-08-21T23:17:00.000-07:00

a sleepless heart mends her broken fragments
in the dark and smiling forgetting and
remembering the dark smile the tree the
land the earth that burned like foil in an
oven her kitchen oven that turned the
walls the color of tumeric keeping family
secrets and saving mistakes for
mistakes

before we all become backstock

2007-08-13T13:28:00.000-07:00

They were bad. And they were stuck. God was mad, throwing fistfuls of wrath at their family. They were stripped, awkward, and alone. Silent and accented, foreign, they whispered amongst one another waiting for something to change their damned luck. Perhaps it started with bad decisions on their part. How could it be ours? They were born into things they had no voice, no opinion, and no power over. Their choices had been made before we’d even been consummated. We were just passing through time.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAMPSON!

2007-08-07T23:07:00.001-07:00

SAMPSON turned 2 on august 1st. Unfortunately, I was too hung-over from celebrating August 1st (for no particular reason), to recognize his birthday and blogger about it. so i'm doing it now. a week later.

I feel kinda bad because I didn't really regard Sampson's birthday as much as I should've. Now Sampson, my beloved pitbull, has turned his back on me.

Well, not really, but I think certain 3rd-party volunteers are whispering vicious rumors into Sampson's ears about things I could've done better. (Like Tito Disgracias, the 3rd)

Alright, is this getting too personal? doesn't really matter cos' i'm the only one who reads this sh*t anyways......

and yes, this is personal.

for the record, sampson rocks.

good day.

Today was August 1st!!!

2007-08-01T23:22:00.000-07:00

Today Was August 1st!!!!

Why is that exciting? Because I said so. And I like finding reeaaalllly old moetry ( poetry) of mine. I am going to post some of the bad bad bad stuff===because it is hilarious.

BUT, here is my freestyle for the day:

you're like a needle in a haystack
messin with me like a heartattack

****************************AHEM************OKAY****************TRULY************OLD********AND*********IMBORED******

(this piece was my very first and only published piece to date. It was published in the literary magazine of the community college I went to. Big Up, William Rainey Harper College, Palatine Illinois)

GLASS

It's crooked outside
and there's a story brewing
in the midst of dining hours
Passing by the guitar strings I'm chirping on
you reminisce back to the moment
when your fingers held the rock
star-studded microphone; the canopy
of your anxieties. Stuck in the middle
pudding built of wet cement and sandpaper
blow rubber nonesense bubbles
at your face. There are some honey-
coated dreams rolling in your sugar
dough waiting to fall
from the glowing end of your greenleaf
and simmer around the red ring
of my wineglass
The realization begins to knock--
you aren't reaching the final madness
of your stages it's still the beginning.
Can this piece be cheesy? American and Provolone
masks laugh at your peyote-colored cheeks
icy weather breathes frost
in your eyes clouds split
and melt. The pressure gets
to your head. Migranes wiped
with baby wipes and glitter handfuls
don't stop you from eating green pistachios
and the little chocolate Easter eggs.
Have you lost your way?
Maybe you should god bless
my sneezes and engulf yourself
in a bottle of salt water and change
your name to Aerial.
All the while, I'll still be here
waiting to burst into song
and unwind.

(Circa 1999. I was 19, you fools, 19.)

A little bit country A little bit of rock n' ro ro

2007-07-31T10:29:00.000-07:00

I love the beach. I especially love the beach on cloudy days. This is what happens when I go to the harbor. I tried to draw something realistic. But I needed a fine-toothed instrument, like a pen or a pencil, in order to complete that task. And all I have right now are these darned oil pastels. So chunky and messy. Anyways, it was hard for me not to be abstract. But ya know what was cool....was that as I was sitting and watching the warm fog roll around the harbor, the sea birds (pelicans, seagulls, and lord knows what else) dive around and catch fish I heard some nice reggae music coming from somewhere. I turned around and heard it coming from Sam's Chowder house. We got a free show! Rad! So then my picture got kinda groovy and less gray as the music filled the harbor. Good times. And I think I'm going to have to go back and get some chowder!

a lickle things from my time apart

2007-07-24T22:00:00.000-07:00

concurrently

2007-07-20T23:50:00.000-07:00

The Batter Has Cracked.

the earth fissured
continents weep
flora&fauna burn
but burn is like birth
rebirth, remember, mama?

There are voices in my ears
chanting mantras from violet
mandalas over and over and infinite.
Crystal stars run
the earth spins
my work here is mediocre
dragging.

************************************************************

Not your ordinary case of.

I realized what my problem is.
I’m not from anywhere.
I am not from anywhere.

My life my past my train has run.
Home is not here or there
a city, a suburb, an old oak tree.

Some people live for leaving
places forever behind
the mysteries and the miseries.
For others, the road is a search
looking for a place
to put behind them. A name
where their bones came from.

I am not from anywhere,
not lined paper, or picket fences.
There is an anchor on my heart
terrified and rusty
it has nowhere to land.

I am not from here, there,
or anywhere, looking
over the shoulders of different skylines:
DC to Chicago to Pomona to L.A. to
San Francisco to…

So why do I have to defend myself?
When I have no answer no point
when I say: I want to
float
on
and up
and fast
around the city streets
corners and flags
diners and banks.

I am not from anywhere
I know I still exist somewhere.

satellite of love

2007-07-12T21:04:00.000-07:00

from Estimated Cloud Stops....

experimental.

my feelings caught
in the comfort of a pattern
that does my brain likings
the softness of chalk
and the pinkish clay ignite
the sensors re:tell my toes
what it feels like to run
along the bottom of a creek

channeling our border

the dated milky spout
sifts through a bouquet
of inferences like a miner
striking tourmaline

blending and pressing ink

and chalk and clay
tickle flowers
dusty mountain roads
border the desert
my afghan
my carpet
a palace

estimated cloud stop #9

and some more art

2007-07-10T21:01:00.000-07:00

New Art!!!!!

from Estimated Cloud Stops

2007-07-10T20:27:00.000-07:00

Khafeh Sho! (shut up, or choke yourself!)

Other places trading
weapons, trading faith
choking on grandeur
the world losing
angels into the woods
expenses re-circle
hells mission
to syria, other corners
trading weapons, trading masks

the earth, a flood.

do ya feel tha burn?

2007-07-07T12:15:00.001-07:00

Here is the progression of my moped burn status. Currently, I am at one week-post injury. I went to the the doctor yesterday and they gave me a thick white sulphur creme. So the wound is covered in white puff. But it hurts like mofo.
(oh and i'm so embarrassed about my hairy legs...but oh well, can't do nuthin' about it!!!)

un-happy 4th?

2007-07-04T14:39:00.000-07:00

Dear Diary,

America, un-happy birthday. This holiday, with its, bbq's, beer, and scantily clad folk draped in redwhite&blue,--I'm over it.

I've been over this unhappy day for years. Fireworks are scary. Sure, they are trippy and the colors and patterns are cool; but come on fireworks=bombs. And other places, not celebrating their fake birthday, are dealing with the real fireworks. Except when these fireworks land they ruin homes, land, kill people, ect...

Maybe I'm a downer, but today I don't feel celebration. I feel unhappy about the origins of my country.--I kinda feel like an anti-4th nazi. But i can't shake the guilt, the coca-cola, and the in & out burger (from last night) I have about this "celebration".

Today is also the birthday of a friend of mine. I will gladly celebrate that.

Diary, do you even understand what today represents? When did free-will become supersized?

xoxo
me

Art Fun

2007-07-03T11:51:00.000-07:00

Draft 1.1

2007-07-03T11:25:00.000-07:00

Each ventricle and chamber trembled,
you've fallen asleep through memories.
You've dismissed the words
you forgot to promise, you (kept)
never, say again.

How a song, this song,
from a word, an album
'Disintegration', a word
I can't spell without looking
away, an album that rhymes
with disassociation. The letter
I procrastinate, the earth
I leave beneath my feet
and between my toes quiet
silk cries from a place? An elbow?

On this side of two oceans
it is hard to breathe from one air
those aren't just mine, this side, that side,
of two oceans.

shame is where the heart is

2007-07-01T23:52:00.000-07:00

The heart attack

A vat of simmering shallots
the yellow light burned
I stood at the top of the stairs,
and listened. He squinted
his eyes, softly called komak ,
and held his palm towards me.
My hand slid up the banister
and to the light switch
I locked eyes on his frame, unraveled
like a fallen ribbon.
My chestnut hair was short
and awkward, my teeth were crooked
but white, like an onion.
I shut off the light
and walked backwards
into my sister’s room,
any room, where I could hide,
where dark would swallow me,
under a bed
or a chair.

******************************************************************************

From Roses

Petals drop like shells
on ruins in ruins
smell the ruins
fire and skin dancing
brown, white, red&blue
eagles with propellers
spitting on the same week
the same night
the same summer.

We are split here
dripping, losing&gaining
oil, cookies&nuclear families
greenhouses
trees
peaches
bees
rails
plastic
missiles
the muddy sea.

Need another -ize

2007-07-01T23:21:00.000-07:00

Its getting possessive

The lines on the page get closer to one another
so close, that i can't fit my sentences within their boundaries.

Life does not fit in boundaries. For centuries
bigger better faster ways
have created to accommodate
those that feel squished out
to fit in. If they globalize,
capitalize, and imperialize
[perhaps] they will erase
those boundaries
and try to make tigers out of gazelles.

manifesto deuce

2007-07-01T23:17:00.000-07:00

[ ] is a way to embrace individuality and diversity through education.
In [ ], and any form of creative [ ], I believe that we build our union with the page. And, it is during this process where one can begin to claim an identity they have yet to discover.

Words are our originals. Our thoughts might not always be original, but the structure and the syntax one uses to tell a story is theirs and theirs alone.

i didn't even remember

2007-06-26T19:32:00.001-07:00

Funny thing. Well, first I don't know who is going to ever read this....2nd, how come I don't ever remember even setting up a blogger account? I dunno.

Well, I guess this is my blog. And I guess now I will have to think of things to say, or things to write, so people will read them. And then I also have to find the people who will read them.

I am a recent grad that is looking for a job. Not very exciting. But, I do have a lot on my mind and I guess THIS will be the place to put them. And no, I dont have a myspace.....

all along the watchtower

2006-02-12T11:31:00.000-08:00

greeting creatures,

travel well. replace those electrolytes.

one love
sprout