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.