-
all over the place
there is always so much to report and yet i neglect to write it all down ( Read more... ) -
Updates
Yesterday, a friend of mine's dad was missing in Haiti, today they've found him and he's okay. I am so happy for them. I do wish the news was as good for everyone else there ( Read more... ) -
Poetry Exercise
In my class, one of our exercises was to go to a cafe or a bar or somewhere loud and busy and try to write a description of our surroundings while being open to any interruption and writing it down - overheard speech, music, etc... The idea being to open yourself up more to what the Outside... Here's mine, really unedited and unpunctuated. Written ( Read more... ) -
(Untitled)
In an e-mail to me, a friend wrote: "you've always been a little too ethereal for a standard issue work place". I think this is the loveliest compliment I've received in a while. -
Airstream Dream
I handle wet clumps of laundry, tugging it from the resisting metal ring. I fold wrinkled piles of sheets, crinkled pillowcases. I clean the kitty litter, wiping away stinky streaks of yellow, sweeping stray pieces of sand. I chop olives, tomatoes, and parsley, boil water for pasta. Each small chore that will have to be redone over and over. I ( Read more... ) -
The slow rhythms of an Italian train...
A train cinches a mountain’s waist, rusty brown wrapping around summer green, rhythms soothing in their rickety uncalm. Sunlight through transparent leaves, the train inching its way toward its destination. I yet again failed to look at the arrival time when choosing my train and have wound up taking the über-local, cutting through small peasant ( Read more... ) -
(Untitled)
afternoon tea and a handful of walnuts to the tune of lucinda williams. spent the afternoon driving the late night virginia roads of my mind, reliving nights some 15 years ago, all thanks to a soundtrack that kept playing on pandora that took me back to the full moon's light over curving roads, Virginia woods, back when i brimmed with hope for ( Read more... ) -
Brooklyn Rooftops
One of the glorious things about the warmer weather is that it gives me and M. more space. Our tiny, cramped Brooklyn apartment gains another floor - our roof deck. The rooftop is shared between the top four apartments in our building, and each apartment has its own designated portion. Most of the roof is just plain tar, but M. built a really nice ( Read more... ) -
April...
April in New York has been gloomy and grey, wintry mornings complete with January's coat. Forsythia blooms bright and hopeful on the side of Brooklyn's traffic-clogged streets, a few daffodils scattered around her skirts. I'm running on empty, too many months of work, transitions, and the only escapes since September being family-focused, and thus ( Read more... ) -
The language of poetry
I’m trying to keep my poetry reading mind sharp for my upcoming workshop on the prose poem. I was reading Naomi Shihab Nye the other night when M. walked in and said hello. I didn’t respond immediately because my brain was wrapped around the task of grasping the meaning of a line, and so he spoke again thinking I had not heard him. When I pulled ( Read more... )