We Shine Like the Sun - New Orleans Suffers...

When The Bones Get Cold  -  By Lorna Crozier

My husband sends me hummingbirds
from his eyes. Only he and I know
he’s going blind. For him, I don’t get old.
His fingers, chapped from gardening, sand my skin,
bring out the grain he cannot see.
I am made beautiful by loss. The moon, too,
grows more far-sighted. Its light compliments:
the smallest birds don’t disagree. There’s a sweetness
that comes from accepting what I am,
not a mountain, not a river, not a tree.

 – From  What the Soul Doesn't Want, Freehand Books, 2017

~~~~~~~~€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€€~~~~~~……

Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.

Leonard Cohen

The wise old Oaks in City Park, New Orleans, where more people are dying per capita than NYC.

You never know you are shining until death is just around the next corner.  Drive slowly. Know. Accept.

Do this as soon as possible.  Live your life holding God’s Hand, looking forward.  Forget your lack of a childhood due to the monster child molesters, the drunks & the neglect.

I grew this magnificent being.  How can I not love myself????????????

T. S. ELIOT, I love you.

My sweet Moon, customized from a Blythe doll by the talented Anna Bell in Prague, Czechia.

My sassy Tee Joy, customized by the amazingly creative Sandra Coe in Detroit, Michigan.

 Inga Rose customized by Gerakina Pastogianni in Thessaloniki, Greece. Purse by me.

There is a Pain So Utter - Emily Dickinson

Two weeks post surgery.  Staples removed later that day. Ouch!

There is a pain -- so utter -- by Emily Dickinson

There is a pain -- so utter --
It swallows substance up --
Then covers the Abyss with Trance --
So Memory can step
Around -- across -- upon it --
As one within a Swoon --
Goes safely -- where an open eye --
Would drop Him -- Bone by Bone.

~×~×~×~×~×~

I'm hobbling without the walker, but with a cane.  It feels like there's an iron fence post implanted in my leg.  Trying to bend it is excruciatingly painful and feels impossible.  No pain, no gain is what they say in physical therapy.  It's very hard to cause yourself pain on purpose...almost impossible, but necessary to progress.  I get highly nauseated every time I do my exercises or walk.  This experience hurts worse than childbirth...

Please pray for me & my family.  We desperately need healing... God Bless.  ~Marion

In the Fields of Time by Mahvash Mossaed

I am moon; you are sun.  Colored by Marion.

IN THE FIELDS OF TIME
By Mahvash Mossaed

Walking on an eggshell,
With a piece of cloud on a string as my kite.
I am going nowhere, lost in the fields of time.
Running around, looking for a good wind.

I have a body which will not last me long.
I have a soul which wants to come out and fly.
And I know when I go back where I came from,
when I go back home, God will be there waiting for me.

But for now I will fly my soul like a piece of a cloud,
or like a kite, while I am running around in the fields of time.

~π~π~π~π~

I succeeded in getting up this morning.  Now, to make it through another lonely day.  The flowers need watering and the cats need to be fed.  There's that... 

~π~π~π~π~

"As we do at such times
I turned on my automatic pilot
and went through the motions of normalcy on the outside,
so that I could concentrate all my powers
on surviving the near-mortal wound inside." 
                       ~ Sonia Johnson

~π~π~π~π~

"There is no coming to consciousness without pain." 
                       ~Carl Jung 

~π~π~π~π~

Life is suffering. ~Buddha

~π~π~π~π~

Psalm 126:5, 6 - "5 They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.

6 He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him."

Got Them Transcendental Blues

Luna, a painting by my husband, Ray...  Original by Oleg Zhivetin

Transcendental Blues 
(Steve Earle)

In the darkest hour of the longest night
If it was in my power I'd step into the light
Candles on the alter, penny in your shoe
Walk upon the water — transcendental blues

Happy ever after 'til the day you die
Careful what you ask for, you don't know 'til you try
Hands are in your pockets, starin' at your shoes
Wishin' you could stop it — transcendental blues

If I had it my way, everything would change
Out here on this highway the rules are still the same
Back roads never carry you where you want 'em to
They leave you standin' there with them ol' transcendental blues

~•~•~•~•~•~•~

Steve Earle singing this song:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=icaBLF2U9FI

Longing & Grief, A Paradox

Your heart was my home & you left, stealing my home---I grieve

~×~×~×~×~

Though I am in Kyoto

I long for Kyoto---

Song of the nightbird.

                                        ~Basho

~×~×~×~×~

Praise Song by Lucille Clifton

This poem is for Meghan Markle, now the Duchess of Sussex.  Her wedding was beautiful, a fairy tale come to life...a prince & his lady riding in a gorgeous horse drawn carriage---but the photos of her sweet mother sitting all alone in that long, empty family pew at the wedding was heartbreaking.  She looked sad, lost & lonely.  I wish they'd had someone, anyone sit with her... Surely Meghan could have found ONE or TWO cousins, aunts or uncles to accompany her mother?  :-(

Broken, weird, kooky families are everywhere, I know.  I come from one, have one, but I don't have the entire world watching me.  Most families have the occasional crazy aunt or the stray weird brother, but to have no one at all is, well, bizarre.  I say all this to share my favorite kooky relative poem by the magnificent Lucille Clifton.  I love her aunt Blanche, a real hardcore survivor --- xo

~÷~÷~÷~÷~

Praise Song
By Lucille Clifton

to my aunt blanche
who rolled from grass to driveway
into the street one sunday morning.
i was ten. i had never seen
a human woman hurl her basketball
of a body into the traffic of the world.
Praise to the drivers who stopped in time.
Praise to the faith with which she rose
after some moments then slowly walked
sighing back to her family.
Praise to the arms which understood
little or nothing of what it meant
but welcomed her in without judgment,
accepting it all like children might,
like God.

Some Prolixity

I love reading James Lee Burke's books.  He's been in my forever top 10 for well over 20 years. 

Lots of Snapdragons this year

Spider and excellent web looking down into in my half empty water barrel.

Sunny, in the Azaleas loving her John Lennon shirt from Spain.

Tee Joy and Pink, chilling in their outfits made by an Italian artist.

Molly, in her new outfit made by a London artist.

Blondie, wearing her outfit created by a talented Canadian graphic artist and doll collector.

Tee Joy and Sunny, sisters from Detroit, customized by an artist who also makes Blythe clothes.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Some quotes for Domestic Violence Survivors

                           

 

In Someone's Shadow - May 17 Poem

I'll die living in your shadow, my only home.

May 17
By Rod McKuen

I believe that crawling into you
is going back into myself.
That by the act of
joining hands with you
I become more of me.

There are no whiskey bars
for dancers like ourselves,
and so we move into each other
like drunkards into open doorways.

My need for you is near addiction.

No sailor ever had tattoos
growing on his forearm
the way your smile
has willed itself back behind my eyes.

It will not dissolve.
It will not divide.
For I am nothing if not you.

~from:  "In Someone's Shadow", pages 20, 21

~•~•~•~•~

You Can't Take the Sky From Me

Candy Rose & the Cheshire Cat.

~•~•~•~•~

"She was wearing an old summer dress as a nightgown, but in the mornings it could work as a dress again, if you just tossed a cardigan over it and put on shoes.  In this risky manner, she knew, insanity could encroach."  ~Lorrie Moore, from "Wings" in the Paris Review #200, page 137.

~×~×~×~

"Time rushes towards us with its hospital tray of infinitely varied narcotics, even while it is preparing us for its inevitably fatal operation." ~Tennessee Williams, "The Rose Tattoo"

~∆~∆~∆~

Ballad of Serenity
(Firefly theme song)

Take my love, take my land
Take me where I cannot stand
I don't care, I'm still free
You can't take the sky from me.

Take me out to the black
Tell them I ain't comin' back
Burn the land and boil the sea
You can't take the sky from me.

Leave the men where they lay
They'll never see another day
Lost my soul, lost my dream
You can't take the sky from me.

I feel the black reaching out
I hear its song without a doubt
I still hear and I still see
That you can't take the sky from me.

Lost my love, lost my land
Lost the last place I could stand
There's no place I can be
Since I've found Serenity

And you can't take the sky from me.

Candy Rose

Those eyelashes!

See?

Snoozing.

~*~*~*~

A Miracle For Breakfast by Elizabeth Bishop

• Sestina - a poem with six stanzas of six lines and a final triplet, all stanzas having the same six words at the line-ends in six different sequences that follow a fixed pattern, and with all six words appearing in the closing three-line envoi.
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  

(I won't lie: this poetry form is way too much like a Math word problem & seriously fucks with my brain.  Elizabeth Bishop was a total genius & this poem proves it.) xo

Imagine the colors in God's crayon box!!!  (My watercolor pencils.)

A Miracle For Breakfast

At six o'clock we were waiting for coffee,

waiting for coffee and the charitable crumb
that was going to be served from a certain balcony
--like kings of old, or like a miracle.
It was still dark. One foot of the sun
steadied itself on a long ripple in the river.

The first ferry of the day had just crossed the river.
It was so cold we hoped that the coffee
would be very hot, seeing that the sun
was not going to warm us; and that the crumb
would be a loaf each, buttered, by a miracle.
At seven a man stepped out on the balcony.

He stood for a minute alone on the balcony
looking over our heads toward the river.
A servant handed him the makings of a miracle,
consisting of one lone cup of coffee
and one roll, which he proceeded to crumb,
his head, so to speak, in the clouds--along with the sun.

Was the man crazy? What under the sun
was he trying to do, up there on his balcony!
Each man received one rather hard crumb,
which some flicked scornfully into the river,
and, in a cup, one drop of the coffee.
Some of us stood around, waiting for the miracle.

I can tell what I saw next; it was not a miracle.
A beautiful villa stood in the sun
and from its doors came the smell of hot coffee.
In front, a baroque white plaster balcony
added by birds, who nest along the river,
--I saw it with one eye close to the crumb--

and galleries and marble chambers. My crumb
my mansion, made for me by a miracle,
through ages, by insects, birds, and the river
working the stone. Every day, in the sun,
at breakfast time I sit on my balcony
with my feet up, and drink gallons of coffee.

We licked up the crumb and swallowed the coffee.
A window across the river caught the sun
as if the miracle were working, on the wrong balcony. 

Elizabeth Bishop

MEN by Jeanann Verlee

MEN

want to fix you
save you
or fuck you

I can't be fixed
and I don't care to be saved.

Jeanann Verlee, from:  "Racing Hummingbirds", p. 58

~×~×~×~×~×~

This is a fabulous book of poetry and this poem made me laugh out loud, a rare feat lately.  xo

The Moonlady

January 31, 2018 full blue super blood moon

tangled amidst the trees...

Same beautiful Moonlady...rising.

Failing and Flying by Jack Gilbert

A collaged journal I made...

Failing and Flying

BY JACK GILBERT

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.

It's the same when love comes to an end,

or the marriage fails and people say

they knew it was a mistake, that everybody

said it would never work. That she was

old enough to know better. But anything

worth doing is worth doing badly.

Like being there by that summer ocean

on the other side of the island while

love was fading out of her, the stars

burning so extravagantly those nights that

anyone could tell you they would never last.

Every morning she was asleep in my bed

like a visitation, the gentleness in her

like antelope standing in the dawn mist.

Each afternoon I watched her coming back

through the hot stony field after swimming,

the sea light behind her and the huge sky

on the other side of that. Listened to her

while we ate lunch. How can they say

the marriage failed? Like the people who

came back from Provence (when it was Provence)

and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.

I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,

but just coming to the end of his triumph.

Jack Gilbert, "Failing and Flying" from Refusing Heaven. Copyright © 2005 by Jack Gilbert.

More Than Sixty by Jack Gilbert

Beside my chair...

More Than Sixty by Jack Gilbert


Out of money, so I'm sitting in the shade
of my farmhouse cleaning the lentils
I found in the back of the cupboard.
Listening to the cicada in the fig tree
mix with the cooing doves on the roof.
I look up when I hear a goat hurt far down
the valley and discover the sea
exactly the same blue I used to paint it
with my watercolors as a child.
So what, I think happily. So what!

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird by Wallace Stevens

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
By Wallace Stevens

I

Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.

II

I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

III

The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV

A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

V

I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

VI

Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

VII

O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?

VIII

I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.

IX

When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.

X

At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.

XI

He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.

XII

The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.

XIII

It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.

From:  "Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens" by Wallace Stevens. Copyright © 1954

~*~*~*~

~*~*~*~*~

I have no words.

More Loss, 2017 - Year of LOSS - RIP Sophie-Cat

The Universe/God is tearing me open & emptying me out this year---heart, mind and soul---for some reason.  I do not know why.  

First I lost my husband due to domestic violence & Meth (divorce), then my alpha-cat, Catfish, had to be put down because of an ongoing severe kidney condition a month or so ago.  Today, my precious, kind, gorgeous, green-eyed 20 year old Sophie had a horrible seizure and a stroke and couldn't walk.  I had to have her put down at noon. I couldn't watch her suffer any more or keep her here for my selfish love. I am heartbroken and in shock.  So much loss!!!  My animals have become my family, my friends and my healers...

She was my comforter cat who slept cuddled under my arm and who would come and lick the tears from my face when I cried.  I already miss her supremely.  It won't really hit me until a few days from now when her loss become a presence like Catfish's did.  

Having pets is about love and loss.  I have so many Sophie stories, though.  I'm going to write them down today so I won't forget.  When she was younger, she liked to climb very tall trees and get stuck in them...chasing squirrels.  Twice we had to call tree services to come get her out of a Pine and a Sweet Gum tree.  The first time, the guy took off his shoes and literally shimmied up a Sweet Gum tree barefooted to the TOP, grabbed Sophie and shimmied down.  I wish I'd have had a movie of it, but it was before cell phones.  It was a thing of beauty, the way he climbed that tree.  Then Sophie bit him.  :-)   She was a mean bitch when she wanted to be...the alpha female.

Earlier this morning, I read Tao, Chapter 11, about emptiness.  I guess it was karmic.  RIP, my precious friend, Sophie.  

My beautiful girl, Sophie, who gave me JOY & LAUGHTER for 21 years.  

Sophie, my comforter, is in cat heaven with her many cat-relatives.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Tao - 11

We join spokes together in a wheel,
but it is the center hole
that makes the wagon move.

We shape clay into a pot,
but it is the emptiness inside
that holds whatever we want.

We hammer wood for a house,
but it is the inner space
that makes it livable.

We work with being,
but non-being is what we use.

~*~

Gorgeous Queen Sophie, crossed the Rainbow Bridge today.  

Elegy by Linda Pastan

My witch balls, reflecting Autumn...

Elegy

by Linda Pastan

Our final dogwood leans
over the forest floor

offering berries
to the birds, the squirrels.

It’s a relic
of the days when dogwoods

flourished—creamy lace in April,
spilled milk in May—

their beauty delicate
but commonplace.

When I took for granted
that the world would remain

as it was, and I
would remain with it.

“Elegy” by Linda Pastan from Insomnia.