Birds, Hunger, Self Promotion

Years ago I kept parakeets. My first was named Uncle Elmo. He was a sky colored bird and had cotton candy blue markings on his beak, which was how I learned he was a male. I loved that bird. He talked, better yet he cussed, he made strange noises, and he really seemed as if he was from outer space. I always felt as if Uncle Elmo was a bigger part of me, something of my spirit. He lived until I was about twelve. My second bird was named Delilah; she was sunshine colored with green specks of grass in her feathers, and she was kind of a bitch. She wouldn't sit on anyone's finger, she bit skin for the salt, and she would only talk at night when there was a cover on her cage, but I loved her because my friend's bought her for me for my nineteenth birthday as a surprise. And it became apparent to me, it was if she was the bad that lived inside of me: the rebellious, and she too was a part of my spirit.

I wrote a poem a few years ago, in which I imagined myself as Anne Sexton. I imagined her hunger and put a parakeet in her mouth. I, myself, may have had some similar fantasy, not because of literal hunger, but because sometimes it feels as if something bigger is missing. I titled the poem, "The Truth the Hungry Know (After Anne Sexton)," as she wrote a poem, "The Truth the Dead Know." My poem was accepted and is now part of Cave Moon Presses' fine publication/ anthology, "Broken Circles." Not only is it exciting to be part of a book, but it's even more exciting to be part of a book that reaches for a greater cause: to fight hunger and poverty.

Buy it here:

https://www.createspace.com/3668679

It's for a wonderful cause! I can't wait to receive my copy!

Found Art

Hooray for random metaphor in grocery stores! Because flowers = poetry. Because poetry should be consumed. Because life is romantic (if we let it be that way). I like that this is in the Safeway in Wheaton, MD. It strikes me by surprise every time I see it. I would love to see a whole store filled with poetry signs like this. In the bakery: Poetry in the making. In the meat department: Raw Poetry or Poetry and Beef. In the greeting card section: Poetry for all occasions. Yes!

Linked and Built Together

I've just begun to read Nancy Horan's "Loving Frank," a novel about the love affair between Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Borthwick Cheney. It's beautiful, but haunting and tragic, and with every page I further draw a personal connection. Today, I was reading on the metro ride home, and the line that stopped me most was, "Truth against the world." I read it over and over and said it out loud and made it my facebook status. I want to know what it means to me, I'm curious. In the context of the story line, it meant we must believe in our individual truths when the outside world embellishes our lives.

In a lot of ways, the story line in "Loving Frank" reminds me of Erica Jong's "Fear of Flying:" running away to a foreign country with a lover in order to discover oneself, and the discoveries one makes because of love affairs. Being deep within a woman's psyche we learn the sacrifices humans make to move forward, to reach discovery, but within those sacrifices, the deep hurt that is found and the blackness to the discoveries made.

When looking up, "Truth against the world," I fell upon this Frank Lloyd Wright quote, and it made me feel as if I am meant to be studying the man further as if I will continue to discover through his words and work (especially appropriate as I have been temping as a receptionist at an architect firm lately).

If you would see how interwoven it is in the warp and woof of civilization ... go at night-fall to the top of one of the down-town steel giants and you may see how in the image of material man, at once his glory and his menace, is this thing we call a city. There beneath you is the monster, stretching acre upon acre into the far distance. High over head hangs the stagnant pall of its fetid breath, reddened with light from myriad eyes endlessly, everywhere blinking. Thousands of acres of cellular tissue, the city’s flesh outspreads layer upon layer, enmeshed by an intricate network of veins and arteries radiating...

I have scaled these city walls

At the end of the work day today someone was whistling this song in the office. I couldn't see who it was, but the moment stayed with me as I walked to the metro. The whistling reverberated in my thoughts the same as it had sounded as it traveled through the cubicles. I imagined it to be the cleaning man who earlier in the afternoon waved to me in the elevator video camera or one of the architects thinking of the end of the day--in a dreamy mode, pressing their lips together.

On the walk to the way to Dupont Circle, over and over I sang to myself, "These city walls. These city walls." As a writer or artist, don't we all live for these moments? When symbolism is created unknowingly. When real life becomes like a scene from a movie or novel. For me, this is the reason to re-create real life moments: to put down in words what I imagine or experience for others.

Working in the city and living in the suburbs, I have a limited understanding of the "city walls" of Washington D.C. But with each passing moment, I take in the people surrounding, passersby as inspiration.

I love being in a place that feels brand new to me. A place where my observational levels are heightened. A place that inspires me to capture each moment I experience and turn it into poetry, even if the poetry is only in my mind. Even if it hasn't formed itself into stanzas, line breaks, rhythm. And to be reminded that art is made by art. That living and small moments that turn into ideas are the meaning behind art. To know that we all are searching for the perfect line and to be okay with admitting, "but I still haven't found what I'm looking for."

Today's Focus: Energy: The Ability to Do

Energy: The ability to do.

Poetry Cartoons! Yes!

All I need is somewhere I can feel the grass beneath my feet

Belle & Sebastian are my go-to for inspiration. Their lyrics never fail to take me into a lovely world, one with daydreams and reality that meld together, cloud-like.

The following two songs are by far my favorite and are on the endless playlist in my head especially as of late as we move into the summer season.

Little Lou, Ugly Jack, Prophet John
(From Write about Love)

What a waste I could have been your lover
What a waste I could have been your friend
Perfect love is like the blossom that fades so quick
When it’s blowing up a storm in may

Travel south until your skin gets warmer
Travel south until your skin turns brown
Put a language in your head and live on a train
And then come back to the one you love

Yeah, you’re great, you’re just part
Of this lifetime of dreaming
That extends to the heart
Of this long summer feeling

Quiet night you see the tvs glowing
Quiet night you hear the walls are awake
Me and you are getting out of the party crowd
Can I see what’s underneath your bed?

Can I stay until the milkman’s working
Can I stay until the café awakes
Do you hate me in the light, did you get a fright
When you looked across from where you lay?

Yeah you’re great, you’re just part
Of this lifetime of dreaming
That extends to the heart
Of this long summer feeling
All the history of boys
I invent in my head

Little Lou, Ugly Jack, Prophet John

What a waste I could have been your lover
What a waste I could have been your friend



Asleep on a Sunbeam
(From Dear Catastrophe Waitress)

When the half light makes for a clearer view
Sleep a little more if you want to
But restlessness has seized me now, it’s true
I could watch the dreams flicker in your eyes
Lying here asleep on a sunbeam
I wonder if you realise you fascinate me so

Think about a new destination
If you think you need inspiration
Roll out the map and mark it with a pin
I will follow every direction
Just lace up your shoes while I’m fetching a sleeping bag, a tent...
Another summer’s passing by
All I need is somewhere I feel the grass beneath my feet
A walk on sand, a fire I can warm my hands
My joy will be complete

I thought about a new destination
I’m never short of new inspiration
Roll out the map and mark it with a gin
Made my plans to conquer the country
I’m waiting for you to get out of your situation
With your job and with your life

All I need is somewhere I feel the grass beneath my feet
A walk on sand
A fire, I can warm my hands
My joy will be complete.

(What a cute little character at the beginning of this video! She, within herself, is inspiring!)