I don't want all the things.

I don't want a diamond ring
I don't want a backyard, or a big house
I don't want a wedding with everyone we know
I don't want you to not be you

I want simple, and quiet
Something that says "for keeps"
On your knobby broken fingers
With fat Elvis in Vegas, in white

I want a porch or a stoop, a place to sit and watch
Space to lay down, take a bath, wash the dishes
I want music, and windows, and light
And you, just you, only you

Poem of the day.

Sonnet 43

I search for your trace in the faces of others,
in this rough, winding river of women,
in their braids and barely submerged eyes,
in their soft sliding steps skating out on the foam.

Sometimes, I find I can make out your nails:
fugitive, oval, children of cherry-trees.
Sometimes it’s your hair I catch flowing by,
burning into water your portrait of fire.

I searched, but no one else had your heartbeat.
No one else had your light, or your dark forest clay.
No one else had such delicate ears.

You are whole, exact, you are one apart from many.
And so I’ll go with you, traveling and loving,
a wide Mississippi into a feminine sea.

 

Pablo Neruda (Translated by Paul Weinfield, 2013)

A beautiful thing :)

Anthropologie sweater from Field Flower

Two and a half months ago, I closed my poetry journal. It has remained on the floor beside my bed, and I have had no desire, or need, to open it, until today. I didn't want to look at all the poems I'd written for a man I no longer love. I didn't want to see the proof that I didn't know enough to say "good-bye". I didn't want to see my tears in words, all over the page, remembering how I cried through most of them, cried through nights for years, wanting the feeling inside of me to leave. But it never left.

It has now left, and I am reborn. I am solid and sure. I am open to radically new things. New has entered my life in a way I never expected, but has been an incredible gift. One day, the burden was lifted. And now there are things I do not know. There are things I have not planned. I am free in a way I've never been. It's a beautiful thing.

Joseph Brodsky.

Grow accustomed to the desert as to fate/lest you find it omnipresent much too late.

~Joseph Brodsky 

Someone sent me these poems a few years back, and the second half of the audio has two of my favorite poems by Joseph Brodsky, a Russian poet. There is something so beautiful about the idea that there are other people who exist in the world who understand the depth of being (as much as it can be understood, of course) and who are able to put pen to paper and make something of it, or maybe they create meaning with the writing itself. I dunno. Anyhow, listen if you like. The reader has a beautiful voice and cadence.

'angsty' is a fun word :)

These surprisingly sold in a few days from my Etsy shop, which rarely happens.

The last few days have been amazing. Between reading, angsty puzzle-doing, and some painting, I've reached a really good place. I've figured out some things about my life, like long-term, super important kinds of things, and those things make me feel more at peace with who I am, blah blah blah.

I've decided that doing puzzles will be my new angsty project, instead of angsty poem-writing, since that pile just keeps getting bigger and only brings me more of the aforementioned angst and longing, etc. So now I'm going to do less meaningful things with my time, less emotional things, like puzzles, and reality television, and responding to angry emails via eBay. I'll leave you with this amazement that awaited me this morning in my inbox, followed immediately (and happily) by my response.

Weird stranger: Hi, Just a suggestion! THIS PICTURE ON THE COFFEE MUG IS NOT OF A TURKISH CHARACTER, BUT GREEK!!! A little common knowledge of national costumes would reveal this fact!

Me: Hi. Just a suggestion. WRITING IN ALL CAPS MEANS YELLING. YELLING AT SOMEONE YOU DON'T KNOW IS RUDE. A little common knowledge would reveal this fact!

I did miss some exclamation points. Oops.

Merry New Year!

Fun vintage children's book - Circa 1967 :)

dwelling means to stay
present, grounded in the body
planted in the land
your toes becoming long and thin
longer and longer until no one
can pluck you out

you may have started as a weed
a foreign plant, unwanted and ugly
but you have made yourself at home
in this black asphalt
gray cement
and brown dirt
here you are - you are home

And I shall write.

Isn't this an amazing mug? I wish I could give it to everyone.

Esperanza means to wait -

Oh if I'd known this alternate definition,
I'd have suffered patiently,
to wait for healing, and precision

God exists within this pain -
she, triumphant in this waiting tumult,
years passing with each day

Inside my cold and wasting heart,
blossoms bud in silent reverence
for this Abba others cast away,
to ease their confusion, disbelief

I am quiet in my closet,
marking down with lines each day,
waiting for my esperanza - hoping God will find her way

I wrote this poem a few years ago, when life was bleak and I wanted something to hold on to. I was looking for God, or meaning. I was looking for a reason for pain. And I found that sometimes there are no reasons, that to truly accept the depth of evil, deep down in your soul, is suicide, and all we can do sometimes is love one another, and speak truth, and hold hands, and all that good mushy gushy hippie stuff.

Much love.

Upside down.

I got a few Vera scarves that don't quite scream "Vera!" This is one of them.

this love has made me
undone, loose from my bones
like a yogi, upside down

I've been inspired by Heidi to put some poems up on the blog. But poems are so raw, so exposed. I feel naked in all of my poems. I guess that's the point, in the end. That's why it's art. But it's difficult. I'll say that much. The funny thing is, people see me as open and honest. And I suppose I am. But there's a whole lot more to me than I put forward. That's why I can afford to be so open. What seems open to you is not full-on exposure to me. This allows me to protect myself, all of the vulnerable parts.

Anyhow, in the interest of being a writer, I think I'll try to find some poems that I feel okay about posting. Obviously it will take me a while, since it took me ages to post this one, but I strive for growth, so...peace out.

Rilke, as ever.

Books about the rain for an elementary school classroom :)

You who never arrived
in my arms, Beloved, who were lost
from the start,
I don't even know what songs
would please you. I have given up trying
to recognize you in the surging wave of
the next moment. All the immense
images in me — the far-off, deeply-felt landscape,
cities, towers, and bridges, and un-
suspected turns in the path,
and those powerful lands that were once
pulsing with the life of the gods —

You, Beloved, who are all
the gardens I have ever gazed at,
longing. An open window
in a country house — , and you almost
stepped out, pensive, to meet me. Streets that I chanced
upon, —
you had just walked down them and vanished.
And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors
were still dizzy with your presence and, startled, gave back
my too-sudden image. Who knows? Perhaps the same
bird echoed through both of us
yesterday, separate, in the evening...

Ahead of All Parting: The Selected Poetry and Prose of Rainer Maria Rilke

Edited and Translated by Stephen Mitchell