families are minor keys like Ramadan and honesty is powerful it crumbles like rusks
it sticks like hitchhiker skin just having some laughs during backlit dinners
dusty flat feet deserted and hiding thin wrists under medium weight jackets
lagging speech hesitating in ritardandos which are just that beautiful
letters are pieces peeling tumbling like pumpkins and bobbing like puppets
last year I saw you sit in filtered sunshine the room was like a cave but you
inspired it with flowers once I exchanged email addresses with a complete stranger
who intimidated me I didn’t like it and wished he was still bent and blooming
conviction it settles in an instant in the time it takes hangnails to bleed
in the time it takes to try honesty in the time it takes to go to school and come home
arched eyebrows like bird feathers from the rump while Satchmo’s lips buzz
anxious and psycho just please no more lists or anger or any of that teeth clenching business
only when we are alone and leaning real far away from yellow clouds
I didn’t miss it when you moved away just scratched my chin and slouched a little in my chair
JANE SHIM, UPenn 11'
NATURE
Chiura Obata
There are worlds of experience beyond the world of the aggressive man, beyond history, and beyond science. The moods and qualities of nature and the revelations of great art are equally difficult to define; we can grasp them only in the depths of our perceptive spirit. - Ansel Adams
LOVE VIGILANTE
it has been 7 months since the break-up. how time flies. i am single but it doesn't mean i don't love or care for someone, and it doesn't mean that others don't love and care for me. what is most important, anyway, is to love yourself first before you love someone else. it's good to know who you are, and to be comfortable with all the things that are not you - because what's not you makes you. but i am extremely happy being in Phil's body, having his thoughts, being moved by the things that move him, smiling at the things that make him smile. i am glad that i am here in this body because Phil is a good guy. and the fact that i am happy with myself, confident and understanding of my powers, and limitations, i don't have so much to worry about and so i can truly help and focus on others. if, during a week-span, i have made one person giggle or smile to themselves, or have them think of me in a beautifully complimentary way, i can keep going living life and being happy not thinking about civil war in Somalia, or the endless poverty happening in the ghettos, or the crazy conservative extreme fundamentalist christians bringing down our country, or the fact that i do not have a "girlfriend."
PUNK IN THE BEERLIGHT
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec said it best: “One should never meet a man whose work one admires. The man is always so much less than the work.”
CERTAINLY
isn’t waking up as easy as cautious sips of velvet foam and espresso, that regular cappuccino held with two cold hands on a bench before work while purple and maroon hummingbirds visit still dew-covered petals of tulips, and the buzz and hum in your ears of lawn-mowers as they release a musky scent of fresh death ?
isn't work as simple as taking notice of a grocery bag the color of beaches fluttering in the wind and to write it down without any precise or particular reason or rhyme, just to have it for later?
isn't god just a breeze, moments of epiphany as you listen to the patterns of guitar in your favorite song, or the line-breaks which break your heart in your favorite poem, or the clutch and grasp of your grandmother's hand as she gasps for her last breath?
isn't love something as obvious as the sound of cricket's chirps and the moistness of the grass and the silence that passes on a random picnic day with wine and a baguette and olive oil to dip it in, with that particular person, who could be anyone at that moment, just basking in the company of another human?
and life is as easy as gentle and moderate, serene and temperate and tranquil as all those things as life is love and god and work and especially waking up. isn't it as simple as waking up?
isn't work as simple as taking notice of a grocery bag the color of beaches fluttering in the wind and to write it down without any precise or particular reason or rhyme, just to have it for later?
isn't god just a breeze, moments of epiphany as you listen to the patterns of guitar in your favorite song, or the line-breaks which break your heart in your favorite poem, or the clutch and grasp of your grandmother's hand as she gasps for her last breath?
isn't love something as obvious as the sound of cricket's chirps and the moistness of the grass and the silence that passes on a random picnic day with wine and a baguette and olive oil to dip it in, with that particular person, who could be anyone at that moment, just basking in the company of another human?
and life is as easy as gentle and moderate, serene and temperate and tranquil as all those things as life is love and god and work and especially waking up. isn't it as simple as waking up?
SUMMER BABE
the song summber babe has special meaning to me because not only is it the first real pavement song i fell in love with, it is also presently summer. the song is quite wonderful and i can't help but feel utter bliss when i listen to it.
it makes me feel as if i am seven, riding in the back of a station wagon - the kind where there is a row of seats facing the back, so when you open the window and the wind is rushing in you are traveling backwards and you can see the people behind you and their happy or sad faces
also makes me feel like i am with my dad playing golf on the course and i am trying to flirt with the much older cart girls who thought i was pretty cool for a 16 year old
and playing with my dog in the summer when my allergies were very very bad and i cried from being frustrated by sneezing, scratchy throat, and itchy eyes
or of the time i went down to youngstown on a perfectly summer day and stephanie and i went out to this lake where there was a giant drain hole pipe thing that created a mini whirlpool like from the odyssey and we didn't say a word or sit close to each other but it was as if we were one
something about listening to summer babe in the summer that just makes me very happy and regains my trust in the world and myself. something about growing older that makes you recognize how soon things can pass, how easy it is to get over something. something about it which prompts me to forget about whatever else is in life and enjoy.
it makes me feel as if i am seven, riding in the back of a station wagon - the kind where there is a row of seats facing the back, so when you open the window and the wind is rushing in you are traveling backwards and you can see the people behind you and their happy or sad faces
also makes me feel like i am with my dad playing golf on the course and i am trying to flirt with the much older cart girls who thought i was pretty cool for a 16 year old
and playing with my dog in the summer when my allergies were very very bad and i cried from being frustrated by sneezing, scratchy throat, and itchy eyes
or of the time i went down to youngstown on a perfectly summer day and stephanie and i went out to this lake where there was a giant drain hole pipe thing that created a mini whirlpool like from the odyssey and we didn't say a word or sit close to each other but it was as if we were one
something about listening to summer babe in the summer that just makes me very happy and regains my trust in the world and myself. something about growing older that makes you recognize how soon things can pass, how easy it is to get over something. something about it which prompts me to forget about whatever else is in life and enjoy.
PATIENCE
stuck in traffic but with the knowledge that i will move on; sitting in an airplane for hours waiting to get home and get a hug; yearning for a flower to grow and bloom from a tiny, pale seed
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