Mali Rising Foudation - Fundraiser Benefit October 9, 2010

Mali Rising Foundation school house - mixed media: paint, rhinestones, printed paper, metal, and wooden animals

Mali Rising Foundation school house - side view

I decorated this house for the Mali Rising Foundation benefit this October 9, 2010. Each house will be part of the centerpiece at each table and patrons will have the opportunity to purchase them.

All proceeds will go toward building schools in Mali, Africa. The purpose of the fundraiser is to raise awareness and money to help build schools in Mali.

The event is open to the public, (but you don't need to be in attendance to help!). You can read more about the benefit here.

Poem Therapy at 3:12 P.M. October 4, 2010: Testy Pony - Zachary Schomburg

Testy Pony
Zachary Schomburg

I am given a pony for my birthday, but it is the wrong kind of pony. It is the kind of pony that won't listen. It is testy. When I ask it to go left, it goes right. When I ask it to run, it sleeps on its side in the tall grass. So when I ask it to jump us over the river into the field I have never before been, I have every reason to believe it will fail, that we will be swept down the river to our deaths. It is a fate for which I am prepared. The blame of our death will rest with the testy pony, and with that, I will be remembered with reverence, and the pony will be remembered with great anger. But with me on its back, the testy pony rears and approaches the river with unfettered bravery. Its leap is glorious. It clears the river with ease, not even getting its pony hooves wet. And then there we are on the other side of the river, the sun going down, the pony circling, looking for something to eat in the dirt. Real trust is to do so in the face of clear doubt, and to trust is to love. This is my failure, and for that I cannot be forgiven.

This poem was something of a sneak attack. Read it. That last line will get you. Until I got to the last line, I was thinking about my testy shetland pony, Rocket, that found every way possible to buck me off its back or send me flying into a barbed wire fence. That Rocket hated to be accomodating in the ride department, is an understatement.Perhaps because we had a bad first encounter.

The first time I was put on his back, I was five. I held on for my life after my big brother smacked the pony on the hind quareters with a stick and then chased us around the pasture brandishing the stick and screaming with laughter. From what I remember, my other siblings thought it was hilarious. It wasn't to either the horse, or to me.

Children are beasts, and I was once a child and served up my own dish of mean-spritedness. Children soon mature into beasts of another nature altogether.

I found Schomburg's poem at poets.org Poem-a-Day feature.

The Coffee Project: October 3, 2010

October 3, 2010

A few of you, and by few, I mean the tiny handful of people who receive the daily photos or even know about this blog, have seen these photos already. For those of you who haven't, and care, what I'm doing is photographing my father every time we meet for coffee, which is almost everyday.

Although we've been meeting every day for years now, I just started photographing him.

I wish I had been taking photos the last five years, but better now than later, or never. I started taking photos and sending them back in August and will probably just post them from now on, but once I figure out how, I'll post the earlier photos altogether.

In case you're wondering, he's the same Daniel from and my 2009 Veteran's Day post.

Poem Therapy September 27 12:08 P.M. - Navigating in the Dark by Erik Campbell

Navigating in the Dark
Erik Campbell

Papua, Indonesia

In this mining town in Papua the electricity
Has a habit of giving up at night, and this

Is a miracle of modern stasis, a secular Shabbat,
Reminding us of what is expendable, of how so few

Of us ever truly experience the dark. We are amazed,
My wife and I, with the heavy darkness

Of the no moon jungle, insect sounds lacerating
All illusions of silent places. “It’s so absolute,”

My wife says, and I like to think she means
More than the darkness; the naked places

Of ourselves we dress in sunlight, lamps,
And recorded music like antithetical

Blanche DeBois’s fearing a different sort
Of scrutiny. “We could pretend it’s 1940,”

I say, “put a Jack Benny tape on the short wave
And drink coffee, light candles.” She suggests

A walk outside instead, where there are dozens
Of others already out on paths bounded by jungle,

Stepping small and laughing loudly through various
Uncertainties; flashlights as eyes, ears like animals’.

Soon we are trying only to remember not to disappear
Altogether; everything is so absolutely, so darkly possible.

What is your definition or example of an absolute? It's difficult to think of absoultes. Even to consider absolutes takes a literal intake of breath, a slowing down to a halt. Perhaps this is so, because there's so much gray area between the absolute hemispheres of black and white of our lives, our realities.

I like the absolute black of a city block during a power outage. No ambient light fingering its way into your consciousness. It's only you and the darkness.

Text Message Poems 2010

As a writing warm up, I wrote this text message poem. This is my first draft, so of course I'll be back obsessively revising.

prompts:
nail-biting New York sadness moss Chicago tornado purple

The Sadness of Moss

Moss is Nature's equivalent
of nail-biting
compulsive and unnecessary
insistent like a tornado twisting
into the sky
its bruise-colored scruff
twisting like a parasite until it locks
into the host
feeds and spreads

Trancendence - Guest Poet at Lostmythologies

I'm happy to introduce guest poet, l'chaim. Around this time last year I posted The Guardian's "How to Write a Text Message Poem", and l'chaim and I exchanged text poems. This is from that exchange. Happy reading and please leave comments. Also, read my Text Message How-to post and send me a poem or two.

Transcendence
l'chaim

And as the stones roll and all breathing becomes labored, the
gods, the serpents and the ancestors disperse in silence to the ether;

And I am lost and alone, and slake hollow comfort from the
derisen that others have sojourned this generation ending path countless times before;

And as in nightmares of days gone by, I am swept out upon a
raging sea as treason at last consumes all hope and there is no peace, no shelter and there is no calm;

And the struggle will not cease nor ease and exhaustion devours all strength and i give in to the storm that has depleted and buffeted the spirit of my soul;

And darkness envelopes all thought and the torment disperses
and in rushes the winds of unsettled fury, and my mind is not my own
and for a moment I pray for nothingness and it almost comes;

And then i awake from the induced darkness and still the torment grows louder and Venus knows no rest;

And at last I am broken and as I surrender i quietly slip below the surface and leave the battle for another and almost serenly I am lost to the combatant;

And the generations of Boaz are lost and Yazidis is all that remains: wandering the stark horizon, seeking that which it thought it had found;

And then unexpectedly, a source known but lost lifts the shroud of darkness and parts the ether and bridges the chasim, and the Beauty descends, and a softness not known for ages is tasted and sleep at last is mine and i dream...

And I dream of a strong and firm love, A love that quenches my thirsty soul. I dream of glistening eyes and quivering muscles, And spirits colliding as bodies intertwine in the night. I dream of safety, and peace and love;

And the light comes and i awake on the surface and the sea is calm and the softness and Beauty remain and i am free. And the first shall be last and the last shall be first; and I am whole.

- l'chaim

How to Write A Found Poem

Directions:

1. Cut random words from magazines.
ii. Order and arrange to create meaning.
iii. Using the words as inspiration, write without editing for fifteen minutes.
iv. Revise the poem until you are happy with it.
v. Put it away for at least a week.
vi. Begin the real writing process: deep revision.

Example:

create
fete
love
grace
favorit
delights
glee
favorite
pleasure
breath
trust
play
romantic
fervor


Deconstructing Myself

I am busy constructing my own myth
weaving the cloth of narratives to drape
over my shoulders and call my life
the loom's warp and weft
holding the threads
a complex pattern emerging

I am busy deconstructing my own myth
pulling the threads from the cloth
like Penelope endlessly at her loom
weaving the funeral cloak
then unraveling the cloth each evening
to stave off the inevitable

I am busy restucturing my own myth
knowing that this life will not be kept waiting
while I dress the loom with a new narrative
that this life waits for no one
not even the dead