Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter

Sunday, June 26, 2005

I come out here in the heat and breeze
out here where nature is at its best,
where in the morning a three-quarter moon
can still be seen as dawn breaks
within this line of vision.

Out here where the chattering of myriad birds
all hail a new day and compete to be heard
over the roar of a window unit and the
squawk of a parrot from the next lot over.

I come out here to write in the heat
where a breeze is more than a welcome friend,
where pilgrimages are made to these flowering plants
several times daily by bees and wasps,..

Out here where small peices of bread drop like
clockwork from a balcony somewhere overhead;
a treat for squirrels and their feathered homies.
I come out here to absorb and process
and find new ways to see.

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

It seems like I haven't posted in forever...
Yesterday was the first day of summer, and last night's first full moon of the season... It came up low over the trees, you could barely see it. The day before, it was vanishing low as well. It's been really nice out too, the weather has cooled some (for the moment) and it's made for great sleeping weather.

They were shooting a commercial at the Pet Shoppe yesterday. I tried to stay out of their way, lol.. last week I was told that I might have to be in it if they didn't have enough people for the shoot. (Crossing my fingers I would be left alone, lol) Then in the afternoon, they come through my work area in the back "Well are you ready to be in the commercial?" I say, "... not really." :P Eventually he got someone else to use, what a relief!

Who needs a ferret when you can bond with a kitten?? Oh I still enjoy the ferrets at the Shoppe but I couldn't see having to keep it in a cage whenever nobody's home. And you'd have to watch them like a hawk to keep them out of danger, not to mention how they love to chew on stuff - and possibly swallow something harmful. I've been researching them for a while, there's just too many things you have to watch out for. You have to "ferret proof" your house even more than for a small child, cause they can get into places out of natural curiosity, and mischief - that could prove fatal - especially if no one knows they're there. Always a chance of them getting stepped on or smothered :( I wouldn't be able to deal with that. Sooo... when I noticed a super deal on some of the domestic kittens yesterday, I couldn't resist.
He's a super energetic flash of fur I'm calling "Bono" at the moment. I toyed with some other names... Pablo (Neruda), Vincent (van Gogh), Buk, Morrison (Jim or Toni) Lorca, Garcia, Giovanni... quite a list there, lol.

I've left many of the groups in Yahoo recently. There was one group in particular, well a couple that I was having problems in, so I decided to leave entirely. Then I got to thinking, I'm in so many as it is... I ended up cutting my list way down, just so I could focus more on the ones that mean the most. So I apologize if anyone's wondering why I up and quit their group for no aparent reason. Maybe sometime in the future, I'll rejoin a few. But at this point, it's not likely.

Last weekend I was lucky enough to get a DVD of Def Poetry 2nd Season... Robert brought it home last week, so I spend a good part of Saturday getting an overload on "spoken word" lol. Monday we popped in a tape of Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window. I've never seen it before, but I've always liked Jimmy Stewart. So that was pretty cool. Then last night after getting the kitten, we stayed up to watch Soylent Green and Westworld... Its funny that they showed those back to back like that 'cause years ago when those movies came out the first time, they showed them in that order at the drive in. Lol, I remember that line from the movie..."Soylent Green is people, it's people!!) Like that skit on SNL years later when they made fun of it and turned it to "Soylent Blue."

Saturday, June 18, 2005

A Double

Who
takes the
prize today
and with what low
tactics have they earned
such small victories?
In themselves these
golden idols have spun
hypocracy,
fractions to
be called
"mine."

Friday, June 17, 2005

Go Anywhere

Go right, go left
there is no high road there
I'd rather find the place
where the grass is greener
on all sides of the tree
where even the reversals
can uproot themselves
and call it a day.
A new day has begun
and so I find moments
of the smallest victories
borne of temperance
unwarped by the base
urges of the right
always in the right
even when they're wrong.

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Douche Envy

Merlin ma'am, I mean man...
A gentle spam by any other name
would still spit rhymes that bring him shame.
Now he's spinning his tires like a Nova that don't run,
thinks he's on fire putting together the sum
of all these lyrical points not making sense.
Gotta wonder how some fools can be this dense.

And I suppose
he's beside herself now...

I could have called you a cross-dressing freak,
wearing cosmetics you stole from the brink
of your sanity, or maybe an ex
who got wise to your flaming confusion of sex.
Now you stand at the mirror, your image a gender swap,
ain't no woman like the one you're not.

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

I Believe In Statements

I don't believe in the apathy of militant vegans
who tell the world passion is unreal, uncool...
This is where I'm from. This is where I stand today.

I believe that what you believe and what you have
done so far is in direct conflict with how your
actions explain what you can and what you will not do.

I don't believe I care to know the schizoid differences
between your myriad personae; a reclining Buddha and
wanna-be rapper, but I can guess the bottom line of them
all having found their comfort zone of unwillingness
to take positive action... on anything.

I believe in how the power of words spoken,
words read, words imagined
can rush a flame so spiked in adrenaline
it can blind one against his own humility.

I beleive in perspective,
I'm just a poet.
I believe in perspective.
This is where I'm from.
This is where I stand today.

I also believe
the reason this verse
is worth so much is because
its free.

I can't believe that when walking home
from work I spied a Chief's sticker
on a car with Jersey plates
which illustrates how rabid some
fanatics can stoop when completely
beaten at their own game.

This is
where I'm from.

Sunday, June 12, 2005

Don't laugh - I was listening to ABBA nearly this whole weekend. Last night Robert and I sat down to watch a documentary on them and their music, Thirty Years of ABBA. There's now a stage production in several different countries, with the title of one of their songs, Super Troupers. I don't think they had a mediocre song in thier entire career, they were all hits. Well of course I posted the lyrics to some of my favorites of theirs in Bailey's, my poetry group. Every weekend there's a chance to post lyrics... so they were my choice this time.

Before that, we headed up to Target for some gardening stuff, came back with all kinds of supplies. I'm still amazed at how nice it is just to be able to go and bring something back for the house whenever you feel like it. I couldn't even think of doing that for such a long time. Its still new to me, but so nice. Already we have some flowering plants, geraniums and impaitiens, small pots of false aralia, and hedera ivy, which tends to climb so we got some bigger pots for them, a trellis for the ivy and a window box for some more flowering plants. Little by little its looking so nice out on the balcony. We go out there after dinner a lot to read and just sit and relax after work... I love that.

Finally caught up to the first show this season of Def Poetry. I am so exited by all that. It was Robert's first time to see anything like that, and he was duly impressed, I must say. I think he's hooked now as well, lol. Highlights: Avery Brooks doing a piece written by Ossie Davis, and Dave Chappelle doing some humorous bits about Ashton Kutcher. Next week I think they'll have Lemon on there, and Georgia Me. They're both good, but we're both secretly looking forward to seeing Suheir Ammad and Beau Sia. I'm tellin' you, don't miss any of these shows if you can help it. Def Poetry rocks.

Things are jumping at the Pet Shoppe, they got in about half a dozen new ferrets last Thursday, a baby conure, some cocatiels and enough parakeets to fill another huge birdcage. So things are getting busy... I'm trying to keep enough time left at the end of the day to be able to handle some of the added stuff they keep talking about. That would be the fish and reptiles. I'll keep the updates coming!

Friday, June 10, 2005

Where Were You When The Muse Hit The Fan?

My boyfriend tells me
we gotta keep low,
can't sit on the front stoop like before
enjoy the breeze, a reprieve from the heat.
There's been a rash of death-defying
rhyme-bys lately in the area.

They could come at dusk
or just before bedtime.
A slow cruising Mazda
or BMW.
As in stop motion anime
or deja vu matrix time
unnaturally out of sync
like a mad Godzilla line.
The glass descends and there appears
a moon in the window by mistake.
Oh wait, its just somebody's face.

Someone yells "Run!" and we scatter like flies
before its too late and we get hit with bad rhyme
but now the sequence has begun and in the back of your mind
a little bird tells you:
Time... Is on my side... Yes it is.

And the Buffalo stance has dropped his Buffalo bomb
letting the chips fall short where they may.
"The one good thing about these rhyme-bys, Hon
is that Buffalos never have good aim."

Friday, June 03, 2005




It was payday, so Robert and I went to the bookstore a few days early to pick up some books we had ordered.. the ones by Lorca, Camille Paglia, and a biography on Eudora Welty. We also found some classics, Dr. Zhivago, which Robert had always been meaning to read... He also found one called Russell Simmons Def Poetry Jam (pictured above) Well, to me its a "classic." The poems in there, some of the same ones from the earliest beginning of the series - have a double impact on me because while I'm reading them over again, I remember seing each poet do the performance. So now I'm eagerly awaiting the fifth season of Def Poetry on HBO, which btw starts June 10th. I can't tell you how this one show brings such life back to words.. makes poetry accessible for so many.. Is proof positive that poetry is not dead, but alive, kicking, a scream, a whisper, taking names and coming back for more. I love this stuff!

A belated Happy Birthday to Beau Sia, whose celebration was yesterday... (one of the original members of the Def Poetry cast, and also one of my favorites)

Since we were at the mall yesterday, we I decided to show Robert the pet store where I work.. gave him a tour of the place. He was thoroughly impressed, how spacious it was. They used to be inside the mall itself, now they're at another location closeby and its got so much more room. So we browsed the entire front of the store, spent a lot of time at the dog and cat windows... the bird cages.. and of course the ferrets, lol. For some reason they were much more animated than usual... granted it was a little later in the day from when I'm usually there.. I guess they figure after a certain time, they turn into "show ferrets"... running, jumping all over the place... showing such excitement. Really funny to watch, and we had a good time, just being there.

A friend of mine from Kansas City (who's recently moved to California) is starting a poetry e-zine. He's been talking about this for a while now.. well the idea has been running for about a year, and now things are starting to fall into place. So if anyone wants more info on this, check out the recent post by epsilonakaeric at my poetry group Bailey's Java Cafe http://groups.yahoo.com/group/baileys_java_cafe