Me at the beach...ha ha...tricked you...French Riviera beach....oh to be skinny again...but I want to keep my b-----s!  

Naming

I told Christina last night that I am going to name my first child "Cairo." So? What's wrong with that? I can still be obsessed with Egypt if I want to be :) I think it's a cool name, don't you think?

And "Alexandria" for the second. Now see, there's nothing unusual about that one.

I'm not too old. Yet. There's still time. LOL. Oh, I digress into silliness (one of my good qualities I think).

K. Really going now!

Bye peeps XO

Going to the Beach

Ok. This is going to be a rambling post before I leave for the beach today. I'll be back tomorrow night. Finally going to make it up to my family's cottage in Port Dover. It's cold and somewhat rainy today, but the sun is peeking out, so I'll brave the lines at the bridge and GO. My whole family is there (or at least a lot of them---I have a BIG one) because it is the weekend (Friday 13th) when thousands of bikers descend on the little town. Should be some great photo ops. I am looking forward to that.

I was thinking today that I am at the edge of a creative plateau. I've been here before. I can feel the new things pushing their way to the edge with me. I've been at this same place for quite awhile. Stuck. Writer's block. Music block. No playing or singing or dancing since school. And no poetry until very recently. And for years, I stopped being enthused about my photos as well.

How do I know I am moving past that? Well, this blog excites me more than any of the others now. I take my camera literally EVERYWHERE (you never know). I've been jotting down writing notes on napkins and the backs of envelopes and dropping whatever I am working on and scribbling poetry before I forget the lines that appear in my head. I sing again. I mean really sing. My voice is back (after losing it completely 100% last year---it's back altogether, finally). I am thinking (and starting to sketch out) of the series of accapella hymns I've been contemplating for years. In four parts. Using sacred texts from a number of traditions. I feel like paring everything down. Shedding. Just the voice. Just the bare minimum words in poetry. Just the feelings in story. Just the flash of movement and light in photos. No perfection needed anymore.

It's been going on in my personal life too. Fighting with people who I wouldn't have dared to stand up to before. Standing my ground. Really, defending myself. It's absolutely necessary for me to grow I think, personally, and artistically. Saying what I feel and mean, not without fear, but feeling it and doing it anyway. Because it's the only thing to be done. Truth is always best. Even when it seems to cause chaos in the short term, it really feels right in the end.

So Y and I are through. I feel it. Not because he has decided it, and not because I won't ever speak to him again. But because I need someone to know me. He doesn't, though he says he does. The truth is, he's mad (because I have been standing up for myself over and over) and he'll come back, but I won't be the same. Because I can't be that "girl" anymore. Part of me wants to be, but the truth is I need to move past that.

For me. Zenchick says that when you don't know what to do, you must let the dust settle and things become clear. I have really taken that advice to heart this past year. It's good advice. Let things settle and things do become clear. It's been a struggle, because I do like to figure and talk and process and fix (the social worker in me--always). So it's been hard. But the times I've been able to do it, just sit. Just wait. The universe takes care of it all. It's an amazing concept. One which I am finally integrating.

So this weekend I am letting the dust settle (and there is a LOT of it...lol) (irked my mother to no end that I'd rather let dust settle than clean when I was little---maybe I already knew about letting things settle, even back then--just forgot :) When I come back, I'll clean house. I've been doing it in relationships. Now it's time to do it practically speaking. I need to clear things out physically now too.

I've been so consumed with getting a fellowship or working abroad for the last year. Maybe as someone told me, I was meant to stay here. I don't know why and I rebel against that idea, but it seems that's the plan for now. I wasn't ready. I needed to get things in order, clean house. And probably, when I do, I won't feel the need to go like before. I'll still want to, but it won't be necessary.

I feel excited. Like something wonderful is coming. I haven't felt that way in a very long time... :)

From my short story "Would Live On"

I hung up the phone. It rang intermittently for about an hour, until I pulled the cord from the jack. In the silence I re-read my journal. All the things he had said were scribbled throughout, amidst fragments of poems and songs, quotes and observations. I read them over and over until they blurred beneath the strain of my tears.


...you are resting in..... my heart like a stone... maybe....... you were sent to me..... blessing from God..... how can you... when you know....... what's between us it's like we are......... soul mates or something.... I need you..... I need you how can...... you are resting..... I....... don't know what I'm doing.... I'm......... questioning everything.......... we're connected at the sou..........l.....tell me ...c'mon let me...... read it..... I missed you.... courage like desire.... you know you want to.know...... the worst thing you've ever done mingled......with yours forever.... and forever I am sorry she'll change..... her.... mind forever dust..... writing... everything down I'm not............. going to just stop being....... friends.... with you.... I can't talk..... about this now or I'll cry...... that's so beautiful at a point where I need......... to look at all angles of things funny.................. how you wrote.......... that........ and then we saw........ each.... I knew.... someday forever dust courage why can't it just be...... simple why all these twists..... and turns.....when did we get........ so close first......... dive into a cool pond........ I don't.... talk to anyone else like........ this did you..... miss me just you....... come and see........ me you are resting.................. my dust courage desire....... mingled......... with don't...... be mad you're breaking......... my heart Sylvie sorry....... I am........ rain......... against my window......... you don't...... understand do.... you hate....... me I don't know.......... how I......... feel courage........ desire sorry........ blessing...connected........ soul.... friends.......... just......

I laid on the floor of my apartment for hours, stretched out then curling into a ball. I was like a starfish in the tide, squeezing into myself as the water flowed away, then reaching out as the water returned. This was the way it happened, the way we ended. Me reveling in his words, then dying as they faded away. Eventually I packed the journal away and didn't look at it anymore. The book would someday turn to dust, even though I knew that his words would live on forever.

AUC Press

So I got my American University in Cairo Press catalog the other day. No, I never requested it, it just decided to show up on my doorstep one day, after I applied for the Fulbright. And before I applied at the library there (twice, I might add) (they haven't heard the last from me).

It was one of those things that seemed like a sign, but CLEARLY was not. Anyway, I was looking it over today at work, and of course, every single book that I would be interested in ordering (which by the way, I am currently at their website and they don't have these listed there---only the ones available outside of Egypt) you can only purchase in Egypt or the Middle East.

This frustrates me to no end. Of course, I could ask one of my friends over there to buy them and send them to me. But still... ugh... and the funny part is, that they are books that are pitched as being enlightening for other cultures. But we can't get them here.

It's not like I haven't been trying to get there. I have. Stories for another time.

Both at Brown

Because I am nosy, I was looking up Bob Creeley at Brown (where he left UB for...abandoner!) and found that one of my other favorites is there too! Sigh...Carole Maso...am jealous...want to study there now!

:)

Want to drive away from it all... 

more... 

and still more... 

Which brings me to more blurring-of-the-light photos... 

Which might end like this (lol) 

...or a hazy-beer-drinking night with Carrrrrlos  

As ooposed to a wine-tasting hanging with Christina kind of Saturday... 

It's a Grey-Goose-three-olive kind of weekend 

And he's going to kick my a-- for this one. Too bad :) I like it. Best laugh ever :) 

More taking photos while I shouldn't (driving). Along the ramp to the 990 from UB. 

City Hall through the rain 

Days Park in Bflo 

Light Passing

Light falls across
his face
in dark corners of a tomb
from before
searching these deserts
vast and hot
her breath shortened
by storms of dust
floating in the beams of light
that shaft passing
across his stoney face
--only this allowed--
to be that light
her breath almost extinguished
she waits
as the sun does
for the earth to turn
that exact moment
she can fall against him
light
heat
color
--hoping for stillness--
knowing of course,
he will move.

Excerpt from "Vacancies"

I have a whole book on how to write sex scenes in fiction. Imagine that, an entire book. Because as far as I am concerned, they are just about the hardest thing to do well. I am not talking about erotica, that's something different. I am talking about the weaving of natural sounding sexuality into a story. It's not as easy as it may seem. This excerpt came about organically. I didn't know I was going to write a sex scene until I was in the middle of it. I don't know, "it just happened." ;)

There was a light snowfall that evening and Jack and I sat sipping beer in the family room. A waning moon made its ghostly appearance in the sky before the sun had completely set and Jack got out his guitar and began to finger pick a song that sounded familiar. He spoke the words in a whispery voice instead of singing them and I reached for my camera. Come hear Uncle John’s band, by the riverside, come on along and go along, he’s come to take his children home.

The view from my camera was Jack’s chest and the body of his guitar. I didn’t want his face or his legs, just this framed portion of the heart of him covered by the center of his guitar. I moved closer, slowing down the shutter speed so his fingers would blur in the final image. He stopped playing but I continued clicking photos. He took off his sweater and his shirt then, so that the gray hair on his chest shone a slight blue in the dusk that was permeating the room. He took off his jeans without a word and moved closer to me. I could see he was excited, but he turned away so that I could only photograph his buttocks and thighs.

I loved this part of him, loved that he knew what I wanted even before I knew. Time seemed to slow with the winding down of the shutter speed and the diminishing light in the room. I slowed the shutter so far that only one more stop and I would have to get the tripod. Jack moved slowly for the camera and for me, as though he were dancing. We didn’t speak and he finally removed all of his clothes and then I told him to stand by the window, where I could see the last reflections of the lake behind him. Pale flashes from the water trickled in the window and this time I moved back to capture Jack’s entire body.

The cold metal of my camera became warmed under my touch and I pressed its rectangular form into my cheek as I depressed the shutter again and again. Jack barely moved, except to walk closer to me as I finished the roll of film. I set the camera down on the couch and stood to meet him. He leaned over to kiss my neck and I reached out to touch his chest. Jack began to finger my breasts and I gasped the way I had that first night in the foyer of his apartment building.

I felt drawn to him but I stood still, back six inches from him, so I could watch his thick fingers play with my nipples through my turtleneck sweater. I fumbled with my own pants and bra beneath the sweater. He ran his hands down my sides and lifted the sweater. Now he moved closer to me and we arched toward one another, stumbling, and fell on to the couch. I was hungry now for him, watching him pose for me, watching the light play against his bare skin. All the time in between our lovemaking I could conjure up this feeling if I just memorized what he looked like, what he felt like.

I straddled him, underwear still on, and felt his hardness. He moaned and tried to pull my panties off but I resisted. It was fun to tease him. He pulled my hips toward his face and I shifted close enough so that his tongue could just touch the place I had become wet. He kissed me lightly there and then stopped.

“Mmmm…I liked that. What are you doing?” I swayed my hips slightly in the air, trying to coax him back to the spot.

“Let’s shoot this Zin. Let’s shoot us having sex.” Jack whispered in the singing voice that wasn’t really singing. I started to say Okay, but he slipped a rough finger between my legs and I shuddered, settling on him, my breasts hovering over his head and his other hand reaching for my back to hold me next to him.

The lake became a black scrim behind us as all sunlight extinguished from the air. I could only see our shadows cast on the massive windows by the ebbing fire, the rise and fall of my body on Jack’s, the coupling of our lips and legs. The camera lay next to us on the couch, its eye open, yet unable to document the eventual expiring of our desire into one another.

My Novel

I know what my friend's are saying as they read this.

FINISH THE BOOK!

Green When I Cry

What is cool about my eyes is that they actually turn a very deep
green when I cry. They are mostly brown in the center, with green
around the edges (my whole family has either blue or green eyes---no
one seems to know where I came from) but when I cry, the green seems
to take over. I suppose that's cool anyway. I like it.

I heard from the artist grant people today. I knew it would come fast,
because they are making a decision by September 1st. Of course it was
a long shot and they sent a very nice note saying that perhaps I would
be more suited for their new "Scholars and Writers" fellowships.

But I don't consider myself a scholar. And I guess others don't
consider me a writer. Now that's not true--just rejected ego talking
there I suppose. People ask me why they haven't seen my writing
anywhere recently (ie:poems) and I have to say, not only was it
because of grad school, but also because I can only take bouts of
rejection, then I need a break. What people don't realize (at least in
my case) is that for every thing published, you have to endure 5 times
as many rejections.

Rejection makes me tired. This has been the year of rejection;
personally, artistically, and professionally. What I want to do is run
when I feel like this. But I won't. I'll stay put. Cry and move on.

Maybe just that little trip I planned but then cancelled, then
planned, then cancelled...

Just the words...

We were all children once
peering out
while others looked in
the rooms of our childhood blur until memory
follows us like ghosts
what else but this colored past
could make us forget
and love again.

And love again
could make us forget
what else but this colored past
follows us like ghosts
the rooms of our childhood blur until memory
while others looked in
peering out
we were all children once.

The Other Photo Poem

Is here.

and love again... 

could make us forget 

What else but this colored past 

follows us like ghosts 

The rooms of our childhood blur until memory 

Peering out...while others looked in 

We were all children once... 

Second Book

The second book I distinctly remember reading in bed, during a snowstorm. It made me cry. Not only because the subject matter was so intense, but because again, I was overwhelmed by the way the author reinvented the use of language in fiction. I loved the idea of poetic narrative. Of an ethereal sense of the world. Dreamlike.

Toni Morrison's (who I find very difficult to read at times, but immensely worth it when I am able) book Beloved stopped me completely. I had to close the book and close my eyes and just sit. Still and quiet. I could only read the book in bits, because of its power. What she does with the story, how she re-invents it through different eyes, and then through the use of language all broken apart, is a perfect metaphor for the subject of slavery.

Both of these books inspired me to incorporate some of this dreamlike poetic narrative into stories of my own. One is a full length manuscript and the other is in a short story. Neither compare in any way to these two books, but I like this use of language so much, I needed to weave it into my own writing somehow. Perhaps I'll post some of mine later on. For now, theirs is preferable.

All of it is now it is always now there will never be a time when I am not crouching and watching others who are crouching too I am always crouching the man on my face is dead
his face is not mince his mouth smells sweet but his eyes are locked
some who eat nasty themselves I do not eat the men without
skin bring us their morning water to drink we have none

Two Books

Today after posting about some other favorite poets, it made me think of other writers who I like. There are a few that stand out in my mind, and really, it's just two books that made me gasp the first time I read them. The type of books that make me stop, because they are so intensely beautiful, that I cannot bear it. I can only read them in small fragments. They are overwhelming. It's as though I have just learned to read again. That's the feeling these two books gave me the first time I read them. I want to go to bed with them, sleep with them under my pillow, read the words over and over. Have you ever had that feeling about a book?

The first book is Ava by Carole Maso. This book was mesmerizing. It was constructed like a piece of music. With words and phrases reverberating over and over throughout the book. Surreal and exquisite. It's the mind of a woman who is dying. It's her last day. I love this book. The imagery and words are precise and evocative. I believe it's called "narrative poetics." This crossing the boundary from poetry to prose to really, musical construct, just amazed me. I had never read anything quiet like it. Lovely.

They are singing low in my ear, now. In the morning garden.

He grew old roses.

So what's the war about? someone asks. In brief.

Impact me. Impact me harder.

She finds herself on her thirty-third birthday on a foreign coast with a man named Carlos.

Never stop.

He is worried the city will get better---but not for awhile, and not before it gets worse.

How are you Ava Klein?

What answer would you be interested in other than the truth?

Make a wish.

The blue and purple in your black hair, Carlos...

I wrote you fifty love letters.

I ran through broom and wild sage.

We took the overnight train.

Eric Gansworth - Onondaga author

Eric Gansworth - Onondaga author

Eric is one of my friends from High School. Yes, we managed to make it through. He's a great writer, and even though he looks a bit menacing in his website photo ;) he's really not. But he surprises you (in a good way) when he recites his work. Very powerful speaker. His books are wonderful as far as I am concerned. He's been really great to me too--writing me a letter of rec last year for the "Fulbright" (I can actually say that word now...)(I should have taken your advice Eric, with respect to the manuscript--I think the other advice I got was not as well-informed---however---onward). One thing that was funny about that, was that he wrote in his letter an opinion of me that was surprising. I never knew he felt that way about me, but it was a good thing. Really nice. Anyway, he's a great poet, writer of fiction, and a painter as well. I like seeing someone succeed in all these arenas.

Interview with Donald Hall

Interview with Donald Hall

This man is another one of my favorite poets. I particularly like his accessibility and attention to the word. His book "Without" is about the death of his wife, and he writes about it with such honesty and yet not oversentimentally.

Humor

One of my friends told me, after reading excerpts from my novel, that I should write something funny. Another friend said my "other" writing blog was a waste of time (where I frequently make an attempt to see the humor in things) and I should concern myself with "serious" writing. Well, ok. You decide. I've been posting the serious here, how about something a little lighter?Such as making fun of myself a bit. Like this:

So I wore my NEW SHOES today to work. Yes, that's right. I found a little black dress and beige jacket to wear, and threw on my coolest shoes EVER! I was so proud of myself, slipping along in them to my car. I slid in behind the wheel (beautiful as always---don't hate me) (and despite Y has flipped out this morning...I didn't even do anything this time...) and drove to get some coffee on the way to work. I could feel the envious eyes watching my feet as I tapped into the store. I could see the men stare at my shapely legs.

I pull into the parking lot, and get out of the car. Gingerly pointing one toe after the other. Lightly stepping on the pavement. A man in the car next to me says "Great shoes!" (I am NOT making this up!) I said "Thank You!" through my tear-stained eyes (Y's fault) and I think "Well, today might not be so bad after all." The man says "I thought you'd appreciate hearing that!" :) (his wife is VERY lucky!).

I start the long haul across the parking lot, coffee in hand, large bag over the shoulder. Suddenly the pointy toes seem unweildly. I feel like I am being pulled over by the bag. I get to the sidewalk, thinking I must look ridiculous in these shoes. I can't WALK in these. Then it happens. Is that man who complimented me still behind me?

I come down on the sole of the shoe, but not the kitten heel on my right foot. I SLIDE across cement. I go to my knee. I see people inside the building staring out (or think I do). There is a girl behind me who asks if I am ok. I tell her I am just learning to walk. Ha Ha Ha. I am embarrassed. What a goof (me).

All happy that a MAN liked my shoes and then I FALL ON MY KNEES. As though I am begging. Symbolic maybe. I get in to the building and try to salvage a little bit of pride. My knee is scraped, but somehow it's not bleeding. My coffee didn't even spill at all. That's something.

I sit down and check my email. Y's written and it's not too nice. I write back, cry at my desk, leave my I-don't-care-that-my-employer-studies-obesity-HoHo's out in the open. I don't care who sees them today. I have cool shoes, but I am sad...

And finally...when all else fails...I draw cartoons. This one is in honor of my recent shock. Cartoons are my art of last resort, when nothing else quite will do...lol...they never fail to make me feel better. Only for me :) 

Get A Good Poem Out Of Him

Sometimes my friends and I (or my mother or whoever) lament my poor luck with a "permanent relationship." To say I've dated every kind of man, is well, really an understatement (I exaggerate on occasion). But I have been through the mill. Just when I think I can't possibly meet anyone stranger than the last, I of course, do.

Why? Why? Why? My friends commiserate with me, we laugh, we rant, and finally, I write about it. It's a joke now, that I have the experiences I do so that I can write about them. That is the purpose. Because there is no other reason.

What I mean, really, is that in order to make sense of my experience, I turn it into art. Then it doesn't seem at all a waste (when many times otherwise, it would seem that way). If I can get a good poem out of a man, then I am satisfied. That sounds ridiculous, but it's the truth.

I know also, that when I can finally write about something, it's over. I feel another novel coming on with this one. A poem isn't going to suffice. And I realize, it's over.

And finally...it wasn't my intention to write about anything too personal on this blog (since I have another anonymous one for that purpose), but I guess that was expecting my real life not to coincide with my artistic one. Of course they are intertwined, and my real life cannot help but intrude upon my life as an artist. They are one and the same.

Favorite Poet Number Two--Marge Piercy

Another of my favorite poets is Marge Piercy. I think I have most of her books of poetry, except for maybe the most recent one (graduate school superceded any ability to read for pleasure in the last two years). I can't say enough good things about her poetry. She writes in a very visceral kind of way, with metaphors that are so non-cliche and sometimes very in-your-face, but also very lovely too. I love her poems about love, making love, and this one particular poem about a deer dying in a woman's arms. I could barely read that poem, but I had to nonetheless.

Anyway. One of my favorite poems, which I think is applicable for me now, is called "Bridging."
An excerpt (but you can find the whole poem at that previous link):

Being together is knowing
even if what we know
is that we cannot really be together
caught in the teeth of the machinery
of the wrong moments of our lives.

Here are some more poems for your reading pleasure :)

The Picture Show

Like a rising mist
four footsteps glided
across burgundied tapestry

her free hand traveled
along the worn carved edge
of staircase bannister,

wide and winding toward
the place reality escapes
onto thin sliver of revolving reel.

His free hand waved
toward teasing billies
still, the braw young man

and his pretty lo'ed girl
ascended the stairs
toward edited couple harmony.

(I wrote this poem after my grandmother told me that grandpa's friends would tease him about dating her, because she was a bit younger than him. She mentioned one time in particular, when they went to the movies together :)

Netta and Bill. My grandparents walking to church in Scotland. I love this photo of them. It's sitting on the bookshelf in my grandma's living room. She still wears her wedding ring, even though he died two years before I was born. 40 years ago.  

Robert Creeley and Thomas Swan

Two things before I sleep tonight.

First is my meeting and coffee with Robert Creeley several years ago. In that meeting he said to me, after we discussed some of my poems he had reviewed, that I needn't bother getting a degree in English or an MFA. He said that to write well, I simply needed to "Read, write, and listen." Those words were a comfort to me then, and changed the direction of my poetry, back to the more organic form I was writing in before I sat in the "workshop." Talking with him, he was so laid back and generous with his stories. I just felt an affinity for him. For his person. He was the real thing. Afterword, I corresponded with him for awhile, until really, he left Buffalo for Brown University last year. Anyway, he's been an influence on me. I thought of him today, for some reason, which I don't understand.

Here's an excerpt from an interview, in which he discusses the "obscurity of poetry" (something I've also discussed recently in correspondence with a fellow poetry appreciater). My grandmother can recite poems learned in her childhood as well...

JA: I was wondering if you could speak a little about the relative obscurity of poetry. I mean, throughout the ages various poets have made it a goal to connect more with the mainstream; all said and done, at least in modern times, this has not really happened. What is it about poetry that renders it, in terms of popularity, so obscure?

RC: I know it's been said a lot, but once more can't hurt; that is, there are many modes and manners of poetry, and the obscurity you speak of has to do with that most familiar to those using an academic frame or definition of what "poetry" is supposed to be. Think of obvious parallels with music, i.e., there are composers whose work frustrates the interest of the public and those who very much attract it. It's all "music," and it all has its particular uses and occasions. For example, I'd think of Bob Dylan as having written a substantial amount of poetry. Likewise there's dear Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who seems happily to be understood, and I see Garrison Keillor says "Thank you!" on the back cover of his book just now published. Poetry has not been obscure for all that long, really. In many cultures it's been both the record and the manifest of the culture's habits and history. When poetry got relegated to the classroom, sometime at the turn of the last century, as you note, then a lot of public interest dropped away. My grandmother, in contrast, could recite poems by the hour sans any instruction in their circumstance whatsoever.

And then there is Thomas Swan. My former music director. I had one dream of him after he died. Just once. He was healthy again, and standing in the choir rehearsal space at church, while I stood in his adjacent office. I was upset over something, and I refused to cross through the threshold of the door to where he was. He was vibrant, as though faintly illuminated from within. I finally crossed over to him, from the office, the work world, to the creative space. I started telling him about whatever it was that was bothering me, and he stopped me, and calmly said "Don't be afraid Brenda, everything's going to be alright." I woke up then, and wrote the dream down in my journal at 4AM. I thought of him today, and that dream. I've never dreamed of him since, but when I am upset over something, I usually think of that dream. Two months after the dream, I quit my job to write my novel, even though I was scared to death. Nothing has been the same since then, in the best way possible. I took the leap. He was right, I didn't need to be afraid.

New Web

I am particularly happy with the new design of my personal website. Very very picky, am I. I see one little tiny thing I need to change. But it can wait until tomorrow. I finished my project. It's been delivered. Yet another possibility out in the world.

Is It Life Imitates Art?

Once, a long time ago, I wrote a short story. The story was based on an event that happened to a friend, very very loosely, and very much my imagination. About a year after I wrote that story, it pretty much happened to me.

I don't understand how this happens, but I read about another writer (I wish I could remember her name now) who wrote about a husband dying of a heart attack while playing tennis and then a year later her husband died in almost the same exact way.

I find it interesting that I posted those three poems yesterday, which really when you look at them, chart the course of a failed love affair. I had no idea what was coming this morning. None at all. In fact, I have been happier lately than in quite awhile.

Strange how we know some things without possibly being able to know them. Or is it that our art is so connected with our internal compass and intuition, that things appear there in our artistic expression, as a reflection of those deeper things we know, but cannot face?

interesting artistic coincidence

TIMING

My timing has always been bad. I attribute this trait to my
grandfather (the photographer) who waited for hours in the snow and
cold to capture on film the collapse of the Honeymoon Bridge over the
gorge in Niagara Falls. He and his friend were tired, and they went to
get coffee, and hurried back. Only to find that in that short span of
time, the bridge had collapsed. He missed the shot. We have photos of
the aftermath, but not the actual movement.

What makes me think of this, is what just happened today. It's
happened before with this particular person. Someone I love very much,
but who seems to find the moment when I have a grant due or writing
project deadline or something important to me artistically, the time
to discuss our major issues. Or not discuss them, as the case may be.
Today is one of those days I have a creative deadline. And today he
decided to have an emotional upheaval.

I can't quite decide if this is inspiration, being in the state of
grief, or if it is immobilizing. Sometimes pain really does make me
more creative, but other times it sends me into shut-down mode. I
suppose some people equate pain with artists. But I like to think that
the moments I am most creative, are when my timing is perfect, when I
am in that "flow" that has been written about.

When I think about it, my timing isn't bad this time. He's the one
with bad timing. Maybe I am moving away from being the one who misses
opportunities. Now I just have to move away from other people with
that problem.

It's been a long day already. But I will complete my project. It's the
only thing sometimes. Today that is true.

Shoes in the light. I have no explanation for the rays of light floating through this photo. The blocks of white are mine, but those filmy white scarves of light are not. They appeared in the camera after I took the shot. :0 

My shoe collage 

Love Poems

In the spirit of the previous post, I will post some of my favorite silly love poems I've written. The three below are just a few (I have MANY). The first I wanted to use the word love in as many ways and as many times as possible, since it's incredibly hard to write a love poem that is anything unique. I went out of my way to use that word in every line. I do like the result.

The poem below it, is of course, sad, but it's about loving and not being able to tolerate love. A strange place to be in, but it happens. As it happened to me. Sometimes love is more pain than pleasure (as anyone who's really loved, has experienced, though it doesn't change that one loves).

The final poem below it, is about loss of love too. But this one is about the physical sensation of grief really, about what it feels like to lose someone you love. Not so much about the emotions, but about that gut-wrenching hole left, when say, someone dies.

Anyway, here they are.

For IV

Love you
love loving
you love
are love
with love
I love
and love
your love
which loves
all love
loving each
takes love
love me
kiss love
love touch
make love
my love.

Unfolded

Loved you
left love
in parking lot
folded pink
note in last
handshake
then turn
for once
did not glance
back as you
called out
only half-waved
knowing
you hadn’t yet
unfolded
the petals
of that deadly
flower
where I say
I am in love
leaving you
I am in pain
needing it
to be just me
not three
where I ask
for the forgiveness
you still
haven’t granted
me.

You Have Left

an unclosing wound
unhealing
it persists
this pain
jabbing under
breastbone
like arrows
or dagger
spiny point
of starfish
buckles me over
stabbed version of myself
animal now
all talking
figuring
processing
through
what is left
is bleeding
losing you
can feel fine
flesh of fingertip
trace its way
down crest of bone
beneath cheek
like a tear
once wiped away
what is left
is this losing
wound of you
what happened
how does not matter
only the pain
rumbling
tectonic plates
clavicles heaving
pain shooting
like a star
momentary down
from dark sky
of chest
I feel
its fire
burning
away
eventually
you.