Wrote four solid drafts of poems tonight. It feels good. Revision time is here, lots of time looking at things line by line. I've decided to hold off sending stuff out until we get into our new apartment on Fenton.

I'm at the library reading and taking notes on furiaby ire'ne lara silva. It's a beautiful day! Will journal a bit as well.

In need of a scanner, which there's no way I can purchase now. Luckily I know someone with a scanner, so there's no excuse to keep putting off these book reviews.

At the library checking out a number of books on childhood sexual abuse and healing. Yesterday I was very embarrassed, but today I am feeling okay. Some things one must deal with and recognize shame doesn't have to be part of the scenario.

Will get to writing some poems tonight and revising as I'd like to send work out by or during September to literary journals.

Will comment soon on someone's manuscript, but I'm still too broke to mail it back, but will do so on the first.

One of the books I am going to check out is called THE COURAGE TO HEAL . I feel this book may be of some help to me. Lots of drama of late surrounding the past, but I am 46 now and able to care for myself. It's a relief remembering things and understanding where my anger came from. I have to forgive myself.

"All you need is love!"
Followed by "Don't Let me Down."

Will cook tacos tonight. I am still not writing and I owe someone her poems with comments, actually two folks. I will get to this tomorrow for sure. I have limited data usage on my account. Though I'm at Starbucks, it's too noisy to concentrate. Some lovely poems, indeed! Wow! I am honored to know so many stellar poets. I am focusing on them here on out instead of crappy ones.

What does dating by design mean? Someone let me know.

Thanks

Things are going f-a-n-t-a-s-t-i-c after a real downturn. I am going to buy a cd player next week and am relieved since I will be able to listen to music and write. Some people prefer absolute silence, but not me.

I need to start Ocotillo Dreams by Melinda Palacio and furia by Ire'ne Lara Silva. Then I will review Millicent Borges Accardi's Injuring Eternity.

I think I prefer to post Red, Red Wine, but I will post Flyleaf for now. I think I'm the only one listening, but I really like listening to the tunes.

Okay, I want to hear this one too.



Yes, I posted on facebook about how I indulged in red, red wine in October 2008- December 2008, maybe longer? I was not well. Now I'm free to read 100 Years of Solitude, hum and maybe take a long walk this afternoon. Be careful of that wine, it will make you crazy. ;) But seriously, I deeply regret my action and in-action at that time. I was really struggling. I think a lot of this is explored in second collection, but I need to work on it further I feel. I will cut a few poems out of the manuscript, which is a bit painful to the ego, but I think it's necessary.

Glad to be writing again.

Glad to be clear-headed.

Received some great comments on my manuscript today. Will work on it again soon.

Thinking a bit about how drugs ruin lives. There's not a lot one can do about either.

I know someone who is homeless and too proud to ask for help.

I know someone who is smoking out and ruining their life.

I have 4 poems up at Acentos Review.

I'm going to read Elizabeth Bishop tonight. I've also started ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and am loving it, though I have to read just a little bit at a time. My brain is more suited to reading poetry.

I also have a book review to work on, but I'll probably work on it tomorrow. I will glance at it a bit tonight.

I'm also going to try to write a bit, but it is hard as my cd player is broken, but I hope to buy a new one at the beginning of Sept. which isn't easy as I am living on a very limited budget, but I need my music!

Felt like listening to this song today. Will try to write a bit and cook dinner. Saw Maria Melendez at the reading last night! The reading was very good. I look forward to reading Melinda Palacio's novel. Yes, I have a need to communicate--- yes, it gets me into trouble.

I will journal a bit tonight as well and draw. These things, creativity in general, give me hope to go on when it seems life is some sort of cruel joke.

The dvd player on my computer broke :( Not good! I can't listen to my cd's now. Time to learn how to download music. Yes, I'm old.

Time to write a poem to this song.

Tonight I will go hear Melinda Palacio read from her new novel Ocotillo Dreams, which I will do a book review on soon.

I am still working, with help on another review, and have three more to do after these two. I have to find time to write my own stuff, and of late, I've had a lot of doubt about my ability, as so many of the poems I've written lately are fragmented. I think I'll post one I'm working on for now:

The therapist has her own issues and I’m falling and rising
With the sky, a white flood of clouds,
And the world but a dream, of high wires,
And this is the day we weep for glory-less days?
I was counting trees and began to forget.
Mystic mind, and it was in the forgetting that the wound
Festered in anger, and snap, the judgment fell through cracked.
I was as a child without love, a horse without bridle,
And the bees came in droves to the flowerless bushes.
Mike smoked his cigarettes like a right,
And the heat came down today in the blue sunshine.
The therapist has her own issues and I’m falling and rising
with the night. Starlight comes home in the Rockies, high.
The boyfriend of advice left you homeless in the light.
The therapist has her own issues and we’re falling and rising
With the sky, a white unfolding of clouds,
And the earth but a blue spinning, and the blackness still
As the slow crafted words of time, and time is an artist
With stillness who watches the world move: damselfly
Banking off the breeze and what’s a blue damselfly
Or a red one? The sky is still as a dream. And we are dreaming
Each night other worlds where the rain pours and shames.
The therapist has her own issues and I forgive her and we are rising and falling
With the rotten tomatoes flying, the jester but a trickster?
We are trading tickets to too long and the poem died a steady death
With its COPD breath. And the world but a dream of mighty l8ies,
And the local rabbit dodges cars in the parking lot,
And what is it we are searching for dear? I hate how he calls me dear.
I was counting bees and remembered old photos, how the old
Once ran young and confident. And here we are for a moment
Like a bullet shot from a gun.


I feel I have a lot of work to do on this poem, but I read it at Canon Mine last night and enjoyed the open-mic there, and it's rare that I enjoy an open-mic!!!

Drafts

Food Stamps

They send you paperwork that you can’t take,
Proof of something that doesn’t exist, is what they want.
Roomate’s freckled and frustrated, sighs and head shaking.
They send you a request for a lease you don’t have,
And you have to get the right paperwork to prove you are homeless,
After all. So you apply for Aid to needy and disabled, but
You must wait two months to be approved. Food bank time,
And you do not look forward to the Christian preaching
That comes with processed food and government cheese,
But you thank god and are thanking God finally
With the breeze and a cheap Pyramid cigarette, too strong,
But you are living now for $3.75 and puffing like there’s no tomorrow
You’re seeking a poem here where the fox thin as a vine
limps down the street, a crescent of bones and skin,
God’s- eye yarn and toothpicks, prayers that sigh.
This is the wonder of nature and it’s all the same.





Book Review without Bio

You are nobody of significance; your PhD, a piece of shit,
Turdable and non-refundable. The editor wants more details,
And at 1400 words, food stamps and state disability payments,
You want only the sound of an acoustic guitar with the breeze,
The large white cloud unfolding like a gator’s jaw.
Lady Creole had passed away, bent over in her rocking chair,
Wood-carved she’d bragged, gray hair spread like a fan,
Heart stopped like a torn dollar bill. You are pennies collected
And heavy as the winter cold. You are thinking, surely Lady Creole
Knew something of grace, thankful all the time.
You are nobody of significance; your Phd, a piece of shit,
Turdable and non-refundable. The editor wants comments
Of style and writer and you are the sad song, the trouble unfolding
Like your god-damned memory. Forgetting was but a snap
And quip, the rage of nowhere everywhere. Lips pursed
You paint sunflowers and black hearts, and wheeze for free.
Lady Creole and phenomenal fiction writer, dead on the scene.
Vincent gone at 35, leaving rumors of revolution, he’d made prof,
and you are the coffee cake and black mud brew you commiserated
over at the Denver Café, and we are changing day by day.
Lady Creole never finished her doctorate, told you, you’d regret quitting,
And now she’s dead, visiting the empty air.
You are somebody of significance, And this is the new poem
You will spend a lifetime writing.



Love

I fell in love with my father’s hard heart,
Fell for the quick reprimand. Dark moustache,
Slender tall walk through the house as if he were a god.
I fell in love with distance early: Don’t touch me.
I fell for the sky, the stars whispering lies.
I said surely god is alive. I was dancing in the clubs,
Sweaty and drunk, re-living forgetting.
There were no trees in the desert. We were tumbleweeds
And curse. We were 100 degrees and fervid prayers.
The irrigation ditches unromantic and filled with bullfrogs
And crawdads. We were counting Mexicans crossing over.
We were counting ashy clothes and beggars asking for love.
We stole clothes off lines, Harley’s off porches,
And we were living marijuana haze, and today poets
Don’t like stories. They are dancing naked to Ginsberg
And Blake, dear Blake’s gone electronic.

I'm feeling kind of amped up tonight. Will draw some and possibly try to write. I think I'm going to be up for a long time! Yay! I don't have to wake up in the morning!!

I have four poems up at NUMERO CINQ!

My review of Christopher Carmona's book beat is out in the hard copy of the El Paso Times today.

Wrote two drafts of poems and am getting ready to let loose.

Feel good!

My mom spoke to me about the difference between ability and fame, and my mom makes a good argument for seeking and striving for ability over fame. My mom is awesome!

Two reviews down, three to go!!! Happy Summer!!!

I'm at Starbucks again, and I just finished a review, but I've sent it off to be looked over carefully by someone who can catch those glaring grammar glitches etc.

Tonight, I write my own stuff.

I'm so free it's wonderful. I'm so soothed and relaxed that I'm finally really living. My case won't come up for another 8 months or so, and I so hope I get the social security as it would help me a lot financially. The main thing is we can't fit into boxes in which we weren't meant to exist. I think the clouds are gorgeous on this blue-sky wondrous day!!!

I can go up and down in mood, so I'll take this lovely day while it's here.

Blessings to all!!

Cheers.

Trying to type up a review, and I'm not doing so well with it as I'm playing this ridiculous online game and seem to be addicted to it. Need to type up a response to the manuscript I just read because the manuscript deserves such a response. Lots of good things happening despite the fact that I feel like crap physically. I need to buckle down and get some level of discipline. It's all for not, without discipline. It's time to get busy. And yes, I think I'm in love. Not good? All I can do is take things day by day. Okay. Day by day. One day at a time. I only get a certain amount of data usage monthly, so now I'm at Starbucks playing this game, when I need to be typing out a review!!! Okay, here I go-- time to get busy. No game until I've finished at least half of the review: here and now.