stream....

contemplation : perspective
insight into me is the only thing I am reading.
I threw away half a dozen
and its becoming clear
when I say
lover of all things
I mean
all things good
not lover
what is that phrase
out of the wood work?
they file
like morbid memories on parade.
to remind me I suppose

there has to be someone
who wants to be where I am
in body, mind and spirit
not just body or belief

write it off
like a tax credit
file it for yet another year
or never review the paperwork that all looks dismal
i'm growing a collection of bad paperwork
the latest to fall out of the briefcase
seems harmless
but I know from late years experience
it's a trap
they want collection



theres honey on the trap
and I love the sickeningly sweet taste of honey
but I refuse to dunk my head into the disarming abyss.

amazing


It's beginning to make me ill.

someone who seemingly has more experience than me in these matters tells me, "well you have an exotic face"

exotic...

Take me at face value then i guess is what my face says to them.

He said to me... what if all our relationship was based on... was sex.

apparently not so strange. Though there I was mending future plans in the back of my seemingly unknowing mind.

when really... chalk it up to all the bad paperwork. Every sheet thats been filed.

I turn to the guy who seemingly knows more about these things then me. I find even words that we cling to that a man has said about whom he loves to be paper thin. Hearing a simple few phrases

I realize
I am not the one who should be negotiating for my own emotions.

I think back to when my grandmother lived and how she wove me tales about gentlemen. As progressive as she was I think she instilled in me an idea a concept that has never been valid.

I have got one friend on his way to becoming a doctor and I think about all the time spent with heavy handed words from him that I resented. Looking back I can say I know one person who had my best intentions in mind.

maybe its just the memory of the original piece of paperwork
of bad filing
of poor investment
who is tapping me on the shoulder
now

like a funeral reminding you
be thankful for your life
be thankful for your health
be thankful for your friends
be thankful for everything you have
and everything you don't

still from my perspective....

I keep writing poems and deleting them. for fear.

Possibility and Perspective

Todays overall theme was possibility and perspective. Two things I'm not exactly itching to think about in relation to my life but know I must. I called up a girlfriend today frantic... I get myself in an emotional tizzy some days worried about, well gosh just about everything. She told me ... Larrin a word of advice, just live in the now, you are too smart of a girl to be worried or concerned about any aspect of what lies ahead. She was right and I calmed down instantly. Really we only have so much control over what unfolds in our lives. Why waste energy worrying about the what if's and the what should be's and whatever else. Just accept, be happy, live the life you love. In whatever facet that means to you at the moment. So I went on my merry way. I went to school and plopped down in my first class...poetry. Something I do on an every day basis but when faced with a classroom of tightly sat snug as a bug students faced with words and phrases like.. "his hot breath stung the fleshy interior of my thigh as he...." ( you get it)... I get a bit squeamish. I chose the least steamy poem I could find in the book that was given to me that apparently was completely sex related. It was short sweet and the dirtiest thing I had to say out loud was... "she liked licking the salty sweat off of rough necked men." OK got that out of the way right... well then we discussed the theme of the class for the semester.

Possibility.

the professor goes on to tell a story about two shoe salesmen who go to a foreign country to weigh out the prospects of potential shoe buyers.

No one in the country wears shoes.

one man writes back... "absolutely dismal. No prospects, no one wears shoes. "
the other writes back
"wonderful business opportunity, desperately in need of shoes."

moral of the story... having perspective on the possibilities that lie before us.
It's all in the attitude of the viewer. How prospective a situation is or an investment... a period of time. The possibilities are what you deem them.

So shes telling us by next week we have to write a letter in the past tense to her... explaining all of the things we have accomplished and achieved in our personal and professional lives by December.

DUDE! I was just getting good with the idea of NOW ... now you want me to think that far ahead.

I'm at a loss. I honestly have had so much shift in my life... where I live, who I have become, what I do for a living... etc has all just happened to me. I let life happen to me I haven't tried to go against the flow in any way and maybe thats my downfall just following my emotions at any moment but then again its put me in quite a state of independence and freedom.

I am awfully bad at pulling the brakes on life and I'm terribly awful at accelerating it in any way. So to write about the state of my life come December is mind blowing.

she wants us to use the idea of possibility in our writing. Don't just explore a perspective from your eyes look through someone else's kind of deal. So in the coming days i will attempt to see the world from a different angle.

I will attempt to write a poem from someone else's perspective.
ideas will be appreciated.

Much Love to you all:-)

I still step over the cracks.

Just to be sure I don't break my mothers back.

I walked today all the way to my farthest client which is quiet a distance and I found myself falling into an old habit which I still do on occasion. I step over the cracks in the sidewalk.

even the breaks where each cement block has been poured... I step over them too.

When my mom was ill when I was growing up I figured she had enough wrong with her and I really was more of a burden it felt like then something she wanted so I tried in the very beginning to be very careful even with the superstitious sayings. Mom was superstitious too.

I think now its more of a game to entertain myself while walking in the city... I don't always do it. I think I do it usually when I am focusing on my desires, my outlook on my life...

I found myself doing it today... I was listening to my ipod a soundtrack for the walk and obstacles presented themselves... baby carriages, delivery boys on bikes, etc... and each time I would twist around them while listening to the music and avoid the cracks

just funny thinking about it... I often do it and don't realize it until blocks later.

step on a crack
you'll break your mothers back
step on a line
you'll break your mothers spine

Mom's not around but inevitably I am still trying to do my best in all areas of life. Even walking apparently.

New song... accapella for now.

i was talking to your father
he said like son like father

when your driven wild with passion
you get many miles of distraction

and the devil done told me
he took your soul
long ago
but every now and then
a little winged friend
brings a smile
to the darkness

so claim your spotlight
and drink your whiskey
put a crease in your eyes
and don't you miss me

cause the devil done told me
he took your soul
long ago
and every now and then
a little winged friend
brings a smile
to the darkness

so lift your glass for the last round
I drink my friend
to an early end
you have found
I dont know
if ever the light
will shine through
on you
but I pray somehow
you break unbound
out of the darkness

cause the devil done told me
he took your soul long ago
and every now and then
a little winged friend
brings a smile
to the darkness

In dreams

who knew you could actually will yourself to dream about something you wanted.
I wonder if dreaming about it then ruins your chances of it unfolding.

I once dreamed something into exactness. Well almost ... reality had less of the fuzzy edge halo.

but that was only once and it was such a small occurrence. There are lots of way's I am sure you could explain it away.

I feel sometimes that fate drags me by my nose just to point my eyes at something I have seen so many times before and it says ..."look."

god that was such a good dream... I wish I could have kept sleeping only I don't quite know how it might have went from there. The only part that seemed real or possible was the one moment in which everything fell into place. The appearance of celebrity characters and the odd way I arrived at my destination... via my dad's old Mack Truck... was highly unlikely and to boot I am not a willowy platinum blond with long perfect hair.

It could be that living day to day on an idea is enough... weather or not it comes to fruition or not.
I have been doing it so long anyway without really realizing it.
It's been the soft place in the back of my mind.
Where I would rest my head and enfold myself if feeling troubled.

I wish
I wish

the weight of words. lord.

and what would happen

if nothing else. It's a nice place to dream.

pssst.

I always hope on the night.

its a long way to travel for hope.

but my feet always take me there

and the car shifts itself into gear.

dreamin a lil dream.

maybe it's a little dream I had.

oh what a sleepy head.

Walking the Dog

this image comes to mind
staring at the begonias
and a slow smile creeps its way across my face.
we are sitting at a table in a restaurant
we have our serious
date face on
honestly I can't be sure if we are asking the typical questions
the picture is just so unbelievable to imagine
as if we would have serious faces

trying to imagine
how anything other than fumbling around you
and dropping in unexpectedly
would be
I trip over the curb
and am sprayed by the sprinkler I had barely noticed.

I shake it off continue back into the daydream
sloshing through sidewalk puddles
just to get back to you

there was a moment
when I was startled, I remember.
waking nervous...
that my head was really laying on a revolving track
with the moment you woke
being the shot gun sound
and you were off out of the gate.

surprised to find
I woke
and you asked me
what was wrong
holding me
so I could fall back into
my daydream
of reality

that moment lingers daily.

I am buying a vitamin water
near the train tracks
and a long low whistle
is rumbling past...
freight

i can not see what is in the containers
and yet
all of me wants to jump aboard.
I'm not fairing so well with heights
so I stay off to the side.
I think a little breeze will do me well

and besides
your still making faces
from across the table at the restaurant
and I am giddy with the embarrassment
of trying to be taken seriously.

........................................................


I love Brooklyn storms... they are so much more intense than out on the Island. They are so loud and forboding but afterwards it always feels like something new is occurring. Like we were all sitting here waiting for that. To remind us something better is headed for us. The lightning is literally flashing outside the window. The Thunder feels like a strong hand trying to tell me what I have already known. The rain just keeps me still. Calm in all of the fuss. A perfect moment to do a little more daydreaming.


.....................

even with sleepy lids
serious words of relevance
and I take them in
put them in my pocket
revisit them
every moment I get.

what they will do for me I am not sure
there are never too many unexpected smiles in my day
so I keep them there
to remind me.

The Future Perfect

This is a dream collage. You stick all you're dreams on it... no matter how outlandish. I would say the craziest one I have got is the Pulitzer. This is a sketch of how I would like it to be. Doesn't mean I won't take or want other variables... I just have the general ideas on there... as a reminder.


The things I wrote in are....

~ I want to travel everywhere!
~Dad~fuel to keep kickin
~A family of my own
~Communication is... Love is... ( a two way street).
~Lovin my curves
~Puss!
~Tranquility


::sigh that was fun::


yay jen for pushing my butt to do this lil project. It was fun!!!

Summertime by E.B White Plusbished in the New Yorker in 1944

Summertime this year is a ripe girl who finds herself forsaken by the boys, the ordinarily attentive and desirous boys. They are no where to be found; they have disappeared, the way males do seized by some sudden mechanical flirtation, some new interest of a passing sort.
Summertime is a girl who knows they will be back and is conscious that she herself is irresistible over the long term, that her beauty and her accommodating ways have lost no fraction of their power. We had summertime practically to ourself the other afternoon, and in our guilt we lay with her in the name of all who were temporarily denied that privilege, admiring her incredible poise. The scent of her clothes was unmistakable; her sea, her sand, her sky wore the same look as ever; the insects which are her private minstrels sang the same seductive measure. We have never seen a discarded female more sure of where she stood than summertime.


.................

I love this little piece. It makes me envious of summertime. As if it were a real entity. It's hard to even want to type a word after having retyped that. No one can compare to White. You are all thinking is that... E.B. White... who wrote Charlotte's Web? It sure is. The story is a bit more than a children's tale about a spider and a pig.

::sigh::

makes me want to go out and lounge about with summertime. While shes still here.

maybe I will be back later with something of my own. I'm a little dumb founded after reading his work though...

answering letters

My mother wrote letters to me that she never sent. I found them when she died. I'm guessing I was never suppose to read them and the other daughters have the satisfaction in knowing (or really not knowing) they don't even exist for them.

You can't will things to happen. They just happen or they don't. So i suppose if you live your life in the gray always afraid to step out into the sun, you can never feel how warm it is on your face.

So what kind of appeal can be heard in that sense?

and how do you answer it.

It's funny
I have kept my self at arms length from people who I knew would only hide even if they cared.
Funny I never thought they cared.

I keep myself away from my aunt Janice for that reason. She becomes cowardly. Her emotions shut down
and if she has anything to say its only things that push me away. Its worked. I don't know how I can remind her of Linda (her sister, my mother)... but I suppose somehow I do. It could be it is not a coincidence I ended up in Brooklyn, Linda lived in Manhattan for quite some time... "figuring it out."

I pushed dad to talk to me yesterday. I asked him, are you ever worried I won't find someone ... or I won't be hapy. He said a flat ..." no ya know la, whatever?"

I think dad missed the boat on what ...."whatever" means as "a saying"

he told me it was part of the emotional wheeling and dealing you go through.
Which I knew already...
I just hope hes still wheeling and dealing when and if I find the right person. It would really suck to be totally orphaned on what is suppose to be ... "the happiest day of your life."
........................................

the white sheet crinkles as it wears
tacked to the refridgerator
never reading it
always passing it
a reminder
of unanswered thoughts

the ink is dripping off the page
who wants to be a sage?
knowing all profound and complicated answers
speaking with the sharpest tounge
tap the rib cage
with the pitch fork
do you hear a hum?
are you out of tune
would you find room
in that hallowed cell

the floorboards creak
but secrets they do not keep
only the echoed sound
of where feet pressed
I tap them with a calloused finger
to hear the hollow sound

how do you answer an appeal
if judgment calls you
ripping pages from your thoughtbook
you collect the puzzle
and arrange it
and the words are sounding stranger
as you say them
outloud

...............................

when I write these days I feel like such a tool. haha but it gets things put in a different perspective in my head. So it helps me... and it either makes you go...wtf? Isn't she a weirdo....
or in some rare cases... people like it.


either way its OK. I haven't done it in so long... and actually its good practice because I am going to be forced to take a poetry workshop this semester...
why not get a head start?


~<3

Safe Harbor

A song written about that person... whomever... not that much unlike "searchlight" but a whole lot less cooler.

Mines just got boats. Makes me think of when I was riding the Fire Island ferries every day in the summer... and one day we got caught in a storm. We had to make sure we didn't run a ground. The waves were so high. I don't know how Captain pat... haha... got us out of that one but we made it.

I always make it.

....................................................


will yourself near
and call my name
come by my side
and watch the light dance across the bay

I've got a safe harbor
for your rockin ship
come by
drop anchor
you'll be glad you did

cause theres a stormm
headed up the shore
and you'll need a safe harbor
to make sure
you don't run a ground again

come ashore slowly
the tides don't know me
they may think your out to sink
my boat
but I know
you just need a safe harbor

for your own

trying not to stew in this warm
pot
I've been placed in
and I'm cut up like the carrots and onions
and trying not to tear

the pot rattles
with the passing train
and the whistle sounds
to signify a time and place

but I'm not quite done
staring at this speckled pot
through the holes
and your a little out of reach
on the counter
by the peas
to know if you're
seasoning sweet

.............................................

I want to be tipped over
just ladle me out
the temperature on the stove has gotten colder
they've abandoned the house


...............................................

The Story

So these are my parents. Mom's looking rather close eyed but in all of the pictures from when they were younger in general... dad always looked like he adored her. I'm pretty sure dad's life dream when he was younger was not to be a truck driver. According to him though he would probably tell you a life of running with the mafia didn't really sit all too well with him either... only because he loved my mother and her three daughters a bit too much. With my father you kind of have to fill in the blanks... theres all these crazy stories but you're not quite sure how it all came together but there is one story that I love the most. How mom and dad got together. I wish I could upload the picture my dad gave my mom in the beginning, when technically they were both married to other people and extremely religious. (Looking at my dad today this kind of makes me laugh... as if any religion would calm his inhibitions). The picture is just of my dad and he looks super Italian... hes got the nose, much pointer then than it looks today and hes wearing sunglasses and his stance ...its so classic. On the back written in pen it says...in faded ink...."love johnny"

its such a classic story too. He was bet a pack of lucky strikes that he couldn't get my mother into bed. She was a waitress at a diner and he was a regular. I'm pretty sure if my mother is anything like me... she was a sucker for him and the rest is history. The thing is... about them.. and I could easily see this going another way ... they were both pretty intense people. If the relationship dragged on and one of them caught a glimpse from someone else I'm not sure what they would have done. I am also not sure because even in my dad's worst moments when he was arguing with my mother he never took the light out of his eyes. Only once did I see it happen and we ended up parked in front of mather hospital all night me and my mom in his old green monte carlo... so he could "cool off."

mostly though he did absolutely anything for her. Save one thing... he drank a lot. Still does. oy....

anyway I have been thinking a lot about them. Wishing I could get my head on straight. Have something just wake me up and shake me down and be like... this is it.

this is where you need to go... what you need to do.

Has anything ever looked so good you thought...well its a trap.
You get into it it looks divine.. flowery almost...
like a freaking story book ending
and then you later realize
the coating was only so sweet
the people aren't real
the love is just the batter once baked it may taste bitter

and there are some things... only small things that seem non-negotiable. However you say to yourself... well I kind of would like to just feel pretty pure for a change anyway.

theres so much more to the scenery than the trees and the sound and the crash of it almost all flying right by.

so...

but I have this problem
I want to bottle it
and save it
until I get this feeling out of my system

that I am string and unwanted
somehow tampering with kindness
somehow
bold and unsturdy
and really oddly
just an object


an idea

and I am always
just an idea

I want to feel

real

......
you all know I am speaking metaphorically just for me?
well I know some of you derive your own meaning from it and its great....
but I may just continue on this way....
....................

sometimes I feel like a vending machine
like in that ani difranco song
origami
..................................

I have restarted twice
twice
I have rebooted myself
thought from the beginning
mapped it out
but obviously I should have thought more clearly way back when

and now I am so careful
so careful
that it may hurt
more than it did before

so careful because
I can not take this any more.


underneath all my smiles and jokes I am a serious person
with serious goals
they may be outdated
like from 1952
but
for such a serious person
I should have thought all of this through

I need to eat something.

I have no butter for my bread
and no one to butter it.

I'll have to put jam on myself
but its not as sweet