Bookmarks List/Bedside Table

Currently enjoying:

• This beautiful, beautiful piece (by A. Papatya Bucak in Brevity) that reads like a manifesto for the writing life. You'll be happy you read it.
• Another wonderful piece (by Lisa Fay Coutley in Passages North) on writing, place, and longing.
• Anne Valente's An Elegy for Mathematics (Origami Zoo Press). A poetic, innovative book of so-called "small stories." Read one of the pieces, "He Who Finds It Lives Forever" online at Necessary Fiction.
• Lynda Barry's syllabus (kindly posted by Austin Kleon). I wish my syllabus looked as fun as this!

And you, friends? Happy weekend!

Undivided Attention

Undivided Attention

Flood of attention to bathe this land
to eddy around the beloved
and all else will be still

The field in the morning
is most beautiful when you look out over it
alone

Make of your mind a tilted bucket
Also tip the field

This is the pre-elegy
As it turns out you and this land share most things

Lunch Break

Lunch Break

I rearrange the mountain so I can disappear in it
just for my lunch break There is an opening in it
like the doggy door through which the bags are fed
at baggage claim onto the carousel Think of how many
mummies could fit inside of a mountain The pyramids
are gifts from humans of the past A mountain
can be conjured from the dust and made into
a casket Every body is a suitcase With every brick
a builder says We were here before

Marks

Marks

A stone means one thing in isolation
and another grouped A place can follow
you home in its stones by sneaking into
your pocket or palm or shoe Two or more
stones grouped together on the ground
and a person has tried to leave a little
of themselves behind Later that human
can think of that assemblage of stones
under the pines that stare out into the water
or in a row on the ledge of a headstone
The self can be scattered and not diminished

On Creativity: How Does It Feel...

So, I've got questions for you, fellow creative types (I'm working on a little project.) When you are creative/when you make art, how does it feel? What sensations or emotions register as you create art? When you make art, do you feel more present or less present? What kind of a mental space do you envision (if any)? What, if anything, is consistent about the emotional space from which you create? Thanks for any thoughts you choose to share.

Also, orange you glad it's almost the weekend? 

The Aloe Vera Grows Ragged

The Aloe Vera Grows Ragged

Break the barbed plant to heal a burn.
The aloe vera grows ragged but
is not wild.

Plants are half-asleep.
Sleep is what breaks time into sentences,
drowsiness is how sleep reaches for us.

Sleep is a many-tentacled thing.
Everything is a many-tentacled thing.

Jungle Gym

Jungle Gym

Today I care for every iteration of the self
even those that are reckless and wasteful
even those that are timid

Today I buckle the vegetable lo mein into the passenger seat

At this intersection, always the same two cars
the pale blue one and the white one

At the empty playground
the jungle gym hoards the last of the snow

Recent Earworm: Janelle Monáe's "Dance Apocalyptic"

Cannot get this song out of my head, which is not necessarily a bad thing. So catchy!

What songs are living in your brain these days?

All of the Faraway Places

All of the Faraway Places

All of the faraway places laugh and
clap. It sounds like a bushel of cannonballs
shuttling down into valley. A horde
of echoes. Can’t you come here,
the faraway places are giddy
for a glimpse of you in your kayak.
A dusty bazaar with reams of scarves.
A watchmaker’s shop carved into
the side of a mountain. A beach
without humans for fifty years.
The swamp likes you. The grove
likes you. The cliffs like you.
All of the faraway places find you
dreamy. Changeable creature, dangle
your legs over their edge. Don’t you
trust the world with your body.

Cows in Trees

Cows in Trees

The iron fence is blushing
unequally

The oldest parts of the fence
distinguishing themselves with the most rust

What is damp and still
or moves very slowly

calls out to life
presents itself as a home

Think of the shaggy green
sloth emerging from a tree

The Universe Consoles Itself

The Universe Consoles Itself

The rain speaks to the bricks
And the ivy also speaks
to the bricks but with
the urgency of collar-clinging
love

Snow and ice speak to the street
Potholes speak to the cars

The black cat speaks to the metal fence
in sneaking beneath its hem

The darkness speaks to the trees
and the houses hear

I speak to the moon by looking at it
while I scrub the colander in the sink

Whoever else looks at the moon
from now on
and from all of time before
we are speaking to each other

A Wolf Is a Pack

A Wolf Is a Pack

Behind every wolf
is another wolf

These wolves are almost the same
but there is a little distance
between them

Alone, the wolf is a pack

just as behind every person
is another person

The ones in front want to be recognized
The ones that cower behind
all they can think about is what they want

Inspired by...the flying ships of Luigi Prina

Please enjoy this amazingly charming video of architect and artist Luigi Prina (via ArtNau....see the article here). Doesn't it make you want to camp out beneath those beautiful ships, drinking coffee with Luigi?


          



To learn even more about Prina's work, read the original article here on Blinking City.

Museum of Flowers

Museum of Flowers

The leaf was designed to fly
even though it was born as a leaf

It is not a mean joke
It is the sweetest joke

Before it belonged to this world

it slept the warm, dark sleep
of the pre-world-greenhouse

Picture the tropical rainforest room
at the museum of flowers
with no space between each plant
and the lights off

and no edges
to any plants
or to the room

a vat of nebulous contentment

The Cookbook Is Indignant

The Cookbook Is Indignant

The recipe says
Mind you, it is difficult to be patient

The recipe says
You must leave the crust alone with its thoughts

The recipe says
All pasta not from Italy is a floppy towel
and should be flung aside
You call that disgust

The recipe comes from the future
from the best selves of a history-bound people

Before the recipe you are lowly

And in your bowl there is place
and love and the sun
and tyranny and bones
and the quiet, definitive power of a blade

The Beach

The Beach

We find the lovers on the beach
We have placed them there

They draw the water over themselves
like a duvet

One will touch the other’s hair
with wonder

They think of the ocean
pulling the world apart like taffy

If the earth dropped out
their entwined bodies would fall

with stunning velocity
Heavy statues

plummeting through deep space
They tell each other

about how all things will halt
Also about how things will go on

in a way they imagine
They have seen the sun clamber up

to its perch in the dunk tank
They will bring a blanket around their

pressed together shoulders
The beach will get up with them when they leave

The Student

The Student

But I don’t want to be a student of fear.

                                 What would you rather be a student of?

I don’t know.
Love.
Adventure.
                                                        You’ll have two teachers.

I mean, I’m grateful--
          
                 Your teachers are Fear and also What Scares You.

So you’re saying it’s too late to shift my studies.
   
                                                             You chose each other.
                                            Your training has already begun.

Ok, fine. Is there anything I can be doing differently, to
make this more enjoyable.

                                                                It’s a good question.
                                                                                          No.

So, I should just keep doing what I’ve been doing.
   
                             That’s right. Keep watching that darkness.
                                                                 You’re doing great.

Happy New Year: Know Your Chicken

From me and my beloved chicken tape dispenser (thanks for this many-years-ago birthday present, Heather!), Happy New Year!

Please let this image dispense one of the following pieces of chicken-themed wisdom:

a) Hope is the thing with feathers that says "bok bok."
b) Don't be chicken in 2014. No offense to the chickens.
c) This year, cross any roads you damn well please.
d) Divvy eggs up amongst lots of baskets and when you count them remember that they aren't chickens just yet, friend.

Let me know which suits you best. You got to know your chicken.

Deep Magic

Deep Magic

Sitting still to look with better eyes.
It’s how we beckon to the deep magic.

Call the trees down from themselves.
All places shall become leafed and needled.

Snap and make kissing sounds to the
stones. The closest ones will wobble closer.

You can’t build your house here.
The deep magic will have no neighbors.

We take what we can take while we are here.
You watch the rocks and the pond. I’ve got

the fog, the poor posture of the trees.
One day, far from here, a tree will shrug

and I will see it. You will find a rock in your
pocket. It’s the deep magic checking in.

Sleuth

Sleuth

The snow floats down and up

and the clouds swim east

and the gasoline in the pump

rushes into the hip of my car

beneath my hand and what I think

Nancy Drew really signifies

(along with all the other young

detectives) is the certainty

that there is continuity to the world

and that all things gone missing

or misplaced will reveal themselves

to us in clues