house photo

i was wondering why i was waking up so early without the aid of my alarm. and then realized that i was hearing a muffled stairway scramble, a hushed hallway shuffle. i peeked at the clock which said 6:13 and my mind did that early-morning reasoning: you know when you reach to remember if today is a work day.

it was house picture day. they only way to get everyone in the photo was to do it at dawn's early light. next i heard reb's "mar mar!" call from the hallway and realized that picture day really was happening. and that musta been what the chalkboard had meant all week: bed head required.

some were dressed in business attire. yoga attire. teaching children attire. others had on robes and messed hair. i saw reb's jaguar print slippers. "my sister sent them to me!" she said. "it's the only kinda pyjamas i have. otherwise i just woulda been naked."

so there we were, three rows deep.. sixish across. heather held wizard who is recuperating from yet another catfight wound and limps. i sat on shane's lap, reb sat on mine.

in a matter of days, cholla is moving on... heading eastward to the hot phoenix desert. in a matter of weeks (many weeks) jeff and rebecca are heading eastward as well after a working stint in either australia or europe. reb needs to see her neice and nephew grow up. monica and dan both have new houses they have bought, yet still live in our sweet little co-op.

and then there is wizard who is pushing 12, 13, 14. somewhere in there. and his legs aren't as bouncy as they once were. that was noted when he thudded off of sarah's lap a few house dinners ago. but i can't bring myself to think about that right now.

on the flip side, there's the young blood, the new wave. jason and crew. we have new housemate jen who is a kick-in-the-pants and continues the alpha female tradition (my theory: all women at the stab are alpha females).

but most importantly we have coffee at this very moment and i am going to go get my second cup. and then it's on to start the day.

overheard

god love ernie, the massage therapist.

overheard

ernie: people forget that we are 99% gorilla. And you gotta feed the animal.

April 10

Today is the birthday of Niels Dahl-Jenson. Niels and I became inseperable friends when I moved to Santa Cruz way back in the day. Motorcycle rides, music, hanging out drinking coffee. When I think back to living in SC there's no way for me to picture it in my head without Niels. Then I moved to SoCal and he moved to Denmark. We kept in touch for a year (or more?) and then... I don't remember how things began to dwindle. Maybe the atlantic ocean just sucks postcards and good thoughts into its MidAtlantic Shelf. I bet there are loads of unread mail piled high there. Nevertheless, I can't pass a Tenth of April without thinking of Niels and what a great friend he was to me.

Ogden Nash

Three poems from today's poet: Ogden Nash. If he were younger I think he might want to marry me.

My Dream

This is my dream,
It is my own dream,
I dreamt it.
I dreamt that my hair was kempt.
Then I dreamt that my true love unkempt it.
— Ogden Nash

Everybody Tells Me Everything

I find it very difficult to enthuse
Over the current news.
Just when you think that at least the outlook is so black that it can grow no blacker, it worsens,
And that is why I do not like the news, because there has never been an era when so many things were going so right for so many of the wrong persons.
— Ogden Nash

Pretty Halcyon Days

How pleasant to sit on the beach,
On the beach, on the sand, in the sun,
With ocean galore within reach,
And nothing at all to be done!
No letters to answer,
No bills to be burned,
No work to be shirked,
No cash to be earned,
It is pleasant to sit on the beach
With nothing at all to be done!
How pleasant to look at the ocean,
Democratic and damp; indiscriminate;
It fills me with noble emotion
To think I am able to swim in it.
To lave in the wave,
Majestic and chilly,
Tomorrow I crave;
But today it is silly.
It is pleasant to look at the ocean;
Tomorrow, perhaps, I shall swim in it.
— Ogden Nash

Two poems

here are the two poems that i had to delete yesterday, due to blogger's bugs. ;)

The first (from yesterday), Carl Dennis won the Pulitzer on Monday for his collection of poems in Practical Gods. The second (from Monday), a part of Gertrude Stein's Stanzas in Meditation.

The God Who Loves You

It must be troubling for the god who loves you
To ponder how much happier you'd be today
Had you been able to glimpse your many futures.
It must be painful for him to watch you on Friday evenings
Driving home from the office, content with your week—
Three fine houses sold to deserving families—
Knowing as he does exactly what would have happened
Had you gone to your second choice for college,
Knowing the roommate you'd have been allotted
Whose ardent opinions on painting and music
Would have kindled in you a lifelong passion.
A life thirty points above the life you're living
On any scale of satisfaction. And every point
A thorn in the side of the god who loves you.
You don't want that, a large-souled man like you
Who tries to withhold from your wife the day's disappointments
So she can save her empathy for the children.
And would you want this god to compare your wife
With the woman you were destined to meet on the other campus?
It hurts you to think of him ranking the conversation
You'd have enjoyed over there higher in insight
Than the conversation you're used to.
And think how this loving god would feel
Knowing that the man next in line for your wife
Would have pleased her more than you ever will
Even on your best days, when you really try.
Can you sleep at night believing a god like that
Is pacing his cloudy bedroom, harassed by alternatives
You're spared by ignorance? The difference between what is
And what could have been will remain alive for him
Even after you cease existing, after you catch a chill
Running out in the snow for the morning paper,
Losing eleven years that the god who loves you
Will feel compelled to imagine scene by scene
Unless you come to the rescue by imagining him
No wiser than you are, no god at all, only a friend
No closer than the actual friend you made at college,
The one you haven't written in months. Sit down tonight
And write him about the life you can talk about
With a claim to authority, the life you've witnessed,
Which for all you know is the life you've chosen.
— Carl Dennis

Part V
Stanza XXXVIII

Which I wish to say is this
There is no beginning to an end
But there is a beginning and an end
To beginning.
Why yes of course.
Any one can learn that north of course
Is not only north but north as north
Why were they worried.
What I wish to say is this.
Yes of course
— Gertrude Stein

yum = tabouli, couscous, and chicken salad mixed together. might not sounds scrumptious but it sure hits the spot.

damn i am chatty today. i need a partner in loitering-in-cafe crime.

grr

i feel compelled to say that blogger fucks up. a lot. i don't know what happened to the last entry that i posted it, but it ran into the poem i posted for today and i had to delete it and the previous two entries and still the problem persists. seriously sucks. PLUS, the site is down a LOT. Grrrr.

super furries

i am in slobbery love with super furry animals. seriously. i'm sitting here at work and can barely concentrate because i just want to get lost in these old songs. strange mix of today plus 70s bowie. imho. am in super daydreamy mood today. someone please pull me out of it.

Stanzas in Meditation

From Stanzas in Meditation
Part V
Stanza XXXVIII

Which I wish to say is this
There is no beginning to an end
But there is a beginning and an end
To beginning.
Why yes of course.
Any one can learn that north of course
Is not only north but north as north
Why were they worried.
What I wish to say is this.
Yes of course

— Gertrude Stein

The tips are still quietly buzzing

Looking up SLO Town links to see where Emdot fits in the Google Scheme of Things (number two, thank you very much), I came across some Weird Al Yankovich SLO Town lyrics. I haven't heard the song, but the words are good enough.

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

Two of my best friends and favorite people on the planet have blogs nowadays. These two should meet. Carrie, Carsten. Carsten, Carrie. ;)

Carsten makes me believe in soulmates. Or maybe that there are so many wonderful people to connect with out there. Our correspondence (if ever condensed) could be boiled down to a virtual Me-Too Fest. He lives in Berlin, before that Montreal, before that a suburb of Toronto, before that Denmark and before that Scotland. He is funny and humble and talented and incredibly wonderfully opinionated. There's a lot to look at on his site, but if you just want a read, check out his blog.

Carrie is this gentle caring creature with a wicked lockerroom/bathroom brand of humor. Carrie is the type that makes everyone feel comfortable, without even trying or without betraying herself. Carrie and I used to work together, but she has jumped ship to follow her dreams of being an actress. Her troupe will embark to europe soon for a summer tour. Talented, smart, pretty, and able to belly laugh for days (hey, she's a superhero!). That counts for a lot. You can catch her thoughts at Drama Queen. I miss her to the point of not really even being able to think about it. Good friends are hard to come by.

****************
Sixth song written! In 30 minutes! (Why am I writing like Fred Milton?! Hey!)

This one is called either "Get Right In" or "Everybody Knows" or "Storm Clouds Come," I haven't decided which yet. It's very dust-bowly, dry and dusty, god-lurvin' and a-storm's a-comin' type. I sang it to Ryan and Jen while they ate lunch. Dave leaned his head out a window to ask "O Sister Where Art Thou?"

Poor Dave and Shane, wallmates in Ye Ol' House o' the Co-Op, are subjected to my on-and-on-and-on guitar goings.

I just got my guitar back from Blue Note. The Scots guy who works there said, "this is an interesting guitar you have. How did you come about it?"

I was glad he thought it was interesting because I love my guitar. It's my second guitar, as well as the second one given to me. It has history, first with ShowBiz Nis, an old mate of Steve's, my scottish ex. Legend has it that Showbiz wrote many songs on it. Then it was Steve himself who wrote a million songs on it. He brought it to America. He let me keep it here.

It's a Levin. And the Scots guy at blue note said "this was the guitar to have when I was buskin' in London." More reason to love it. And love it I do, which is why I took it in: to get it patched up and put back together. It's a beater that is for sure.

It has the sweetest sound. But, since getting it back from Blue Note it sounds brassy or metalic... something that I'm having a hard time putting my finger on. I'll let Bret at work have a look at it and hopefully he'll give me some insight on how to bring the sweet sound back.

Meanwhile, my fingers have those satisfyingly purplishly-indented-guitar-string grooves happening. The tips are still quietly buzzing.

Always for the first time

Today's poem comes coincidentally via RyanH., who read it out loud to me and Diana over morning coffee and tea. Last week R's friend Nico passed the Breton book on to Ryan at McCarthy's, our downtown Irish pub/dive bar. Ryan said that there he was, drinking beer, surrounded by noise and yer typical brew-ha-ha (pun intended), nose deep inside the breton.

Then I thought, how great to have a friend who'll read you poetry out loud over coffee and tea Sunday morning.

It is beautiful here today. Finally Spring weather. Sunny, bright and all the flowers hopping. And the bees buzzing. The wisteria has opened it's doors to the Big Bee Hostel once again.

Meanwhile, back to today's poem.

Always for the first time

Always for the first time
As if I hardly know what you look like
You come back at a certain time of night to a house at an angle to my window
A completely imaginary house
Where from one second to the next
In the unbroken darkness
I expect it to happen again the fascinating ripping
The one and only ripping
Of its facade and my heart
The closer I come to you
In reality
The more the key sings in the door of the unknown room
Where you appear for me all alone
First you are totally fused with the brightness
The fleeting angle of a curtain
It's a field of jasmine I've gazed on at dawn on a road just outside Grasse
With its diagonal of women pickers
Behind them the shadowy falling wing of stripped seedlings
In front of them the T-square of dazzlement
The curtain invisibly raised
All the flowers come back in a tumult
It's you in the grip of this long long hour never troubled enough till you fall asleep
You as though you could be
The same except that maybe I'll never meet you
You pretend not to know I watch you
Amazingly I'm no longer sure you know it
Your idleness brings tears to my eyes
A cloud of interpretations surrounds each of your movements
It's a hunt for honeydew
There are rocking chairs on a bridge there are branches trying to scratch you in the forest
In a shop window on the Rue Nortre-Dame-de-Lorette there are
Two beautiful crossed legs trapped in long stockings
That flare out at the center of a big white clover
There's
Only for me to lean over the cliff
Of the hopeless fusion of your presense and your absence
I've discovered the secret
Of always loving you
For the first time

— Andre Breton

There but for the Grace

It could have happened.
It had to happen.
It happened sooner. Later.
Nearer. Farther.
It happened not to you.

You survived because you were the first.
You survived because you were the last.
Because you were alone. Because of people.
Because you turned left. Because you turned right.
Because rain fell. Because a shadow fell.
Because sunny weather prevailed.

Luckily there was a wood.
Luckily there were no trees.
Luckily there was a rail, a hook, a beam, a brake,
a frame, a bend, a millimeter, a second.
Luckily a straw was floating on the surface.

Thanks to, because, and yet, in spite of.
What would have happened had not a hand, a foot,
by a step, a hairsbreadth
by sheer coincidence.

So you're here? Straight from a moment ajar?
The net had one eyehole, and you got through it?
There's no end to my wonder, my silence.
Listen
how fast your heart beats in me.
— Wislawa Szymborska

This Is Just To Say

Today I choose William Carlos Williams. One of my favorites. ;)

This Is Just To Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

— William Carlos Williams

To a Poor Old Woman

munching a plum on
the street a paper bag
of them in her hand

They taste good to her
They taste good
to her. They taste
good to her

You can see it by
the way she gives herself
to the one half
sucked out in her hand

Comforted
a solace of ripe plums
seeming to fill the air
They taste good to her

— William Carlos Williams

overheards

regarding my moment of Supreme Absent-Mindedness

marya: it's been a long week.
bill h.: sounds like it's been a blonde week.

Wanna be a poet or just feel like being inspired by one?

Read an article about Philip Levine.

(yes is a pleasant country:)

yes is a pleasant country:
if’s wintry
(my lovely)
let’s open the year

both is the very weather
(not either)
my treasure,
when violets appear

love is a deeper season
than reason;
my sweet one
(and april’s where we’re)

— e. e. cummings

Overheards

i hesitate in sullying the fine quality of recent poetry posts. however, you gotta report what you gotta report. this one comes from the bowels of the overheard-gutter-talkin' work environment....

marya: scroll-lock? that sounds funny.
john: yeah. my scroll-lock itches.
jim klo: that's almost as bad as the palm theater being next to Me Heng Lo.

April is National Poetry Month

More from the Shambhala weekend... (with permission)

[Practice is so hard]

Practice is so hard
It's uncomfortable
And boring
I never get it right anyway
I want to watch T.V.
Or have a little chat
And then I remember
I'm not doing it for myself
I suppose I can sit
A while longer

— William O.


[They say death comes without warning]

They say death comes without warning
I'm not so sure
The color of the persian carpet flower in the sea
The sounds of the mockingbird at 3 AM
The smell of garlic and onions cooking in butter
The subtle flavors of a rich wine
The feel of a silk shirt

These must be warnings to a warrior for they cannot be distraction

They are the celebration I am longing for
They are the ache in my heart, the tear in my eye

— Pat L.

Mad Girl's Love Song

Mad Girl's Love Song is not a well-known Plath poem, and is definitely not one of her more notoriously dark or abstract poems. But for me it has a sweetness and a realness that has always made it one of my favorites.

Mad Girl's Love Song

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade
Exit seraphim and Satan's men
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

— Sylvia Plath

April is National Poetry Month. And in honor, I'll put up a poem a day.

This weekend I did Shambhala Training Level 3. We were asked to write a poem about our experience.

Shambhala Training in Three Levels

Level One
I watch the white shape dance on the carpet
A flitting white spot from a gap in the blinds
It turns into lips that smile and speak words I can't hear
And like my thoughts, this illuminated dancing light
(that escaped onto the carpet)
Dances, and changes, and flickers, and entertains me

Level Two
My old mind had such control I thought that I existed
I let my fears take root and hold and watched as my hopes persisted

But then one day I got the word that these were not real things
That hope and fear were future tense, not what I was experiencing

Hope is simply speculation and fear's not in the moment
This was such a revelation, I've decided to embrace and own it

Level Three
I want to show you love
(and I want it to look like this: no defenses

I want to show you space
(and I want it to look like this: no defenses

I want to show you courage
(and I want it to look like this: no defenses

I want to show you that I'll show up
(and I want it to look like this: no defenses

— Marya F.