Sorrow's Uses

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox





The uses of sorrow I comprehend
Better and better at each year’s end.

Deeper and deeper I seem to see
Why and wherefore it has to be

Only after the dark, wet days
Do we fully rejoice in the sun’s bright rays.

Sweeter the crust tastes after the fast
Than the sated gourmand’s finest repast.

The faintest cheer sounds never amiss
To the actor who once has heard a hiss.

To one who the sadness of freedom knows,
Light seem the fetters love may impose.

And he who has dwelt with his heart alone,
Hears all the music in friendship’s tone.

So better and better I comprehend,
How sorrow ever would be our friend.

pretty much an odd day. no damn good words. they seem to be on the tip of my tongue, but the only ones i've strung together mock me. they are not me.

i hate this. it isn't good for me in many ways.

Homeward Bound
P. Simon, 1966




I'm sittin' in the railway station
Got a ticket for my destination, mmm
On a tour of one night stands
My suitcase and guitar in hand
And every stop is neatly planned
For a poet and a one-man band

Homeward Bound, I wish I was
Homeward Bound
Home, where my thought's escaping
Home, where my music's playing
Home, where my love lies waiting
Silently for me

Every day's an endless stream
Of cigarettes and magazines
And each town looks the same to me
The movies and the factories
And every stranger's face I see
Reminds me that I long to be

Homeward Bound, I wish I was
Homeward Bound
Home, where my thought's escaping
Home, where my music's playing
Home, where my love lies waiting
Silently for me

Tonight I'll sing my songs again
I'll play the game and pretend
But all my words come back to me
In shades of mediocrity
Like emptiness in harmony
I need someone to comfort me

Homeward Bound, I wish I was
Homeward Bound
Home, where my thought's escaping
Home, where my music's playing
Home, where my love lies waiting
Silently for me
Silently for me

just because...

nasty NASTY winds all night.
there are things scattered up and down the street.
thankfully i still have the power on. lots don't.

Wild Orphan

by Allen Ginsberg






Blandly mother
takes him strolling
by railroad and by river
--he's the son of the absconded
hot rod angel--
and he imagines cars
and rides them in his dreams,

so lonely growing up among
the imaginary automobiles
and dead souls of Tarrytown

to create
out of his own imagination
the beauty of his wild
forebears--a mythology
he cannot inherit.

Will he later hallucinate
his gods? Waking
among mysteries with
an insane gleam
of recollection?

The recognition--
something so rare
in his soul,
met only in dreams
--nostalgias
of another life.

A question of the soul.
And the injured
losing their injury
in their innocence
--a cock, a cross,
an excellence of love.

And the father grieves
in flophouse
complexities of memory
a thousand miles
away, unknowing
of the unexpected
youthful stranger
bumming toward his door.

New York, April 13, 1952

i liked bella!





• I am not being facetious when I say that the real enemies in this country are the Pentagon and its pals in big business.

• The inside operation of Congress -- the deals, the compromises, the selling out, the co-opting, the unprincipled manipulating, the self-serving career-building -- is a story of such monumental decadence that I believe if people find out about it they will demand an end to it.

• About Bella Abzug,

by colleague Mim Kelber: She was honored for her championship of the world’s women, human rights, the poor and oppressed, and most of all for her people-nurturing vision of a healthy, peaceful planet.

All this pitting of sex against sex, of quality against quality; all this claiming of superiority and imputing of inferiority, belong to the private-school stage of human existence where there are "sides" and it is necessary for one side to beat another side, and of the utmost importance to walk up to a platform and receive from the hands of the Headmaster a highly ornamental pot. As people mature, they cease to believe in sides or in Headmasters or in highly ornamental pots.

-Virginia Woolf


A Room of One's Own

crow tracks in my yard. i love my crows. they are beautiful and bright and
very human-like. good and bad.

Mad Girl's Love Song

by Sylvia Plath







"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

going above freezing.

happy 60th birthday mikhail!

the joke



my wife thinks


ho, snicker, ha


even before the punchline



no really my wife thinks

wipes away tears of laughter

she thinks,
pause------ a glance over shoulder

fucking and cooking
snicker snicker

are 2 cities in china and

she she
SHE

doesn't know where they are
badum bump

fucking, har har,

some joke
some jokers

almost as GOOD
as this "chinese" poem!

moving slow again, so is my computer.

nothing much going on today except that bob and layla are thrilled that
i took some of the sliced turkey out of the freezer and they (of course)
get some.

Love doesn't make the world go round,
Love is what makes the ride worthwhile.




~ by Elizabeth Browning ~

coldcoldcoldcoldCOLDFREAK'NCOLD!!!!!

Blonderrific Hair!

Why did the blonde run out of shampoo?



She kept following the instructions:



lather, rinse, repeat!

R.I.P.



bacon

1998-2008

Credit buying is much like being drunk. The buzz happens immediately and gives you a lift... The hangover comes the day after.



Joyce Brothers

i have to STOP watching snbc when i'm bored and too tired to do anything else but "window shop" on my t.v!

i can pass on most of their jewelry

(actually i "pass" on all of it because last i checked i'm not one of the olsen twins cash wise or other)

BUT dammit, there are some italian yellow gold pieces, simple but elegant and some cameos in different shells or stones or porcelain that i could covet til i grow older and greyer than i am now!

does me no earthly good and is beginning to become a bad habit and i've got enough of those.


(and the e-mails from the site are even more tempting!)

http://vetvoice.com/





been awhile since i mentioned them here.
some good stuff there.

can't see to get moving. odd, i'm usually well into my day by now.
i was up on and off working on a poem but the topic cut too close to my bones and i tore up the notes and pitched them into the garbage dumping used coffee grounds in on top for good measure!

NINE HUNDRED AND THIRTY FIVE LIES

and counting!

Be a bud sitting quietly on the hedge.

Be a smile, one part of wondrous existence.

Stand here. There is no need to depart.





Thich Nhat Hahn

sometimes i really LIKE the answers i get on these little silly blog things.

stayed in tonight. too cold. so, i just took a HOT bath (trying to get my blood moving) and i'm ready to get my comfy blankie and settle in with keith at 8!

Your Personality Profile

You are elegant, withdrawn, and brilliant. Your mind is a weapon, able to solve any puzzle. You are also great at poking holes in arguments and common beliefs. For you, comfort and calm are very important. You tend to thrive on your own and shrug off most affection. You prefer to protect your emotions and stay strong.

The World's Shortest Personality Test

1st two blogthingys of the new year!

Your Vocabulary Score: A-

Congratulations on your multifarious vocabulary! You must be quite an erudite person.

How's Your Vocabulary?

yes, i took this photo off of
my profile and put up an avatar? think
that's what it's called. the eye looks a lot like mine
and the photo doesn't look like me since i changed my hair color.
me, i'm surprised that i figured out HOW to make the avatar and swap the photo
with it. i had some free time and some curiosity so...







this be the old me. one last time
for old times sake.

Mrs Moon
by Roger McGough






Mrs Moon
sitting up in the sky
little old lady
rock-a-bye
with a ball of fading light
and silvery needles
knitting the night

the full moon last night and this morning made the wandering here worthwhile!

Today is the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. As they did last year, NARAL Pro-Choice America is calling it "Blog for Choice Day" and asking pro choice bloggers to post.


This year's topic:


why it's important to vote pro-choice.




why? because i remember what it was like before roe.
why? because a woman/girl's, YOUR grandma's, mom's ,sister's
daughter's, granddaughter, best friend's, worst enemy's life
is worth so much more than a potential life.

i'm not just talking their physical life, but their life in general.
yes, their health, their emotional health, their ability to have children later instead of becoming infertile from back alley procedures. it's their LIFE.

i'm talking too, about the old "wages of sin is death." attitudes.
that was a national shame back then. it's just beyond belief now and yet, i've heard it, just not in those words.

why? because it's my body, not yours.
it's they only thing that truly belongs to me
just as your body is the ONLY thing that truly belongs to you.

why? because dividing cells do not equal a life to me.
if it does to you. that is your choice. i respect that.


please respect mine.


i tend to ramble, but i am sure you know that by now.
but, it's a heartfelt and personal blog.

i saw this over at tcr's blog

http://littlebangtheory.wordpress.com/

he got it from a friend's blog and i'm sharing it with you.

i've watched it over and over again. there are not enough words. perhaps it is that
i can not find them. thanks to my friend for posting it so that i might find it.

yes, i am pro-choice.
if you are not i respect that and hope that you will
give me the same. thanks.

a song from my friend mick!






you can listen here...
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=4860&content=music

WOW is it cold and getting colder.
the kind of cold where the weather people tell you to
use some common sense and bring your pets inside!

my cats here, layla and the mighty bob, are indoor cats anyway
but for pity sakes, if you have outsiders bring them in.
thry might moan about it. our beagles always did when i was young.
they liked their pens and complained loudly on the nights
we had to bring them in.

me, i plan on not moving from my house.
my little sweetie is coming and staying over night and we are loaded up here
with chocolate milk and other goodies!

keep warm!

a sound of snowflakes


in this dark
a long time to go til dawn.
warm spring memories are hiding in
a shadowed corner alongside

cobwebs and regret.







(finally, a little bit of a poem for you all
and for me.)

In January

Ted Kooser




Only one cell in the frozen hive of night
is lit, or so it seems to us:
this Vietnamese café, with its oily light,
its odors whose colorful shapes are like flowers.
Laughter and talking, the tick of chopsticks.
Beyond the glass, the wintry city
creaks like an ancient wooden bridge.
A great wind rushes under all of us.
The bigger the window, the more it trembles.

friday's funnies from bob!

bob here...

"yes, i know it's thurs. night. i'm planning on sleeping in tomorrow!"








Contemplating Cats



There is no snooze button on a cat who wants breakfast." --Anonymous

"Thousands of years ago, cats were worshipped as gods. Cats have never forgotten this." --Anonymous

"Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't get eight cats to pull a sled through snow." --Jeff Valdez

"In a cat's eye, all things belong to cats." --English proverb

"As every cat owner knows, nobody owns a cat." --Ellen Perry Berkeley

"One cat just leads to another." --Ernest Hemingway

"Dogs come when they're called; cats take a message and get back to you later." --Mary Bly

"Cats are rather delicate creatures and they are subject to a good many ailments, but I never heard of one who suffered from insomnia." --Joseph Wood Krutch

"People that hate cats, will come back as mice in their next life." --Faith Resnick

"There are many intelligent species in the universe. They are all owned by cats." --Anonymous

"I have studied many philosophers and many cats. The wisdom of cats is infinitely superior." --Hippolyte Taine

"No heaven will not ever Heaven be; Unless my cats are there to welcome me." --Unknown

"There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats." --Albert Schweitzer

"The cat has too much spirit to have no heart." --Ernest Menaul

"Dogs believe they are human. Cats believe they are God." --Anonymous

"Time spent with cats is never wasted." --Colette

"Some people say that cats are sneaky, evil, and cruel. True, and they have many other fine qualities as well." --Missy Dizick

"You will always be lucky if you know how to make friends with strange cats." --Colonial American proverb

"Cats seem to go on the principle that it never does any harm to ask for what you want." --Joseph Wood Krutch

nothing so far this morning.

very cold. very tired.
colder this weekend.

Hone Tuwhare (1922-16 January 2008) was a noted New Zealand poet of Māori ancestry. He is closely associated with The Catlins in the Otago region of New Zealand, where he lived for the latter part of his life.



"... a lovely old man who
began life as a boilermaker but
wrote a bit in his spare time who kept
on making poetic comments, who
travelled the world, acclaimed by
Academia, but never lost the common touch,
who was appointed New Zealand Poet Laureate
and now he has died aged eighty five.

I was so sure he was immortal."

Waiata



( waiata is a member of the pk list and she is a fine poet. she let us know of this man's passing today. sad to say, and embarrassing in a way, most of us had never heard of the man til this morning.we missed out but perhaps now we can come to know him thru his poetry. the poetry world tends to be, at times, very much segregated, for my lack of a better word. it can be very insular. geographically as well as type wise.that is one reason i am grateful to the pk. it is international.
me, i'm eclectic in almost everything and the more i can learn and embrace, the better. i'm sad for this man's passing, sadder still that it took his death and lovely waiata to let us find him.)





A selection of Hone’s poems



No Ordinary Sun
Tree let your arms fall:
raise them not sharply in supplication
to the bright enhaloed cloud.
Let your arms lack toughness and
resilience for this is no mere axe
to blunt nor fire to smother.

Your sap shall not rise again
to the moon’s pull.
No more incline a deferential head
to the wind’s talk, or stir
to the tickle of coursing rain.

Your former shagginess shall not be
wreathed with the delightful flight
of birds nor shield
nor cool the ardour of unheeding
lovers from the monstrous sun.

Tree let your naked arms fall
nor extend vain entreaties to the radiant ball.
This is no gallant monsoon’s flash,
no dashing trade wind’s blast.
The fading green of your magic
emanations shall not make pure again
these polluted skies . . . for this
is no ordinary sun.

O tree
in the shadowless mountains
the white plains and
the drab sea floor
your end at last is written.
Hotere
When you offer only three
vertical lines precisely drawn
and set into a dark pool of lacquer
it is a visual kind of starvation:

and even though my eyeballs
roll up and over to peer inside
myself, when I reach the beginning
of your eternity I say instead: hell
let’s have another feed of mussels

Like, I have to think about it, man.

When you stack horizontal lines
into vertical columns which appear
to advance, recede, shimmer and wave
like exploding packs of cards
I merely grunt and say: well, if it
is not a famine, it’s a feast

I have to roll another smoke, man

But when you score a superb orange
circle on a purple thought-base
I shake my head and say: hell, what
is this thing called aroha

Like, I’m euchred, man. I’m eclipsed?
Toroa ~ Albatross
Day and night endlessly you have flown effortless of wing
over chest-expanding oceans far from land.
Do you switch on an automatic pilot, close your eyes
in sleep, Toroa?

On your way to your homeground at Otakou Heads
you tried to rest briefly on the Wai-te-mata
but were shot at by ignorant people. Crippled.
You found a resting place at Whanga-nui-a-Tara;
found space at last to recompose yourself.

Now, without skin and flesh to hold you together
the division of your aerodynamic parts lies whitening,
licked clean by sun and air and water. Children will
discover narrow corridors of airiness between,
the suddenness of bulk. Naked, laugh in the gush
and ripple — the play of light on water.

You are not alone, Toroa. A taniwha once tried
to break out of the harbour for the open sea. He failed.
He is lonely. From the top of the mountain nearby he
calls to you: Haeremai, haeremai, welcome home, traveller.

Your head tilts, your eyes open to the world.

To a Mäori figure cast in bronze
outside the Chief Post Office, Auckland
I hate being stuck up here, glaciated, hard all over
and with my guts removed: my old lady is not going
to like it

I’ve seen more efficient scarecrows in seedbed
nurseries. Hell, I can’t even shoo the pigeons off

Me: all hollow inside with longing for the marae on
the cliff at Kohimarama, where you can watch the ships
come in curling their white moustaches

Why didn’t they stick me next to Mickey Savage?
‘Now then,’ he was a good bloke
Maybe it was a Tory City Council that put me here

They never consulted me about naming the square
It’s a wonder they never called it: Hori-in-gorge-atbottom-
of-hill. Because it is like that: a gorge,
with the sun blocked out, the wind whistling around
your balls (your balls mate) And at night, how I
feel for the beatle-girls with their long-haired
boyfriends licking their frozen finger-chippy lips
hopefully. And me again beetling

my tent eyebrows forever, like a brass monkey with
real worries: I mean, how the hell can you welcome
the Overseas Dollar, if you can’t open your mouth
to poke your tongue out, eh?

If I could only move from this bloody pedestal I’d
show the long-hairs how to knock out a tune on the
souped-up guitar, my mere quivering, my taiaha held
at the high port. And I’d fix the ripe kotiro too
with their mini-piupiu-ed bums twinkling: yeah!

Somebody give me a drink: I can’t stand it

Site by Steele Roberts Publishers

Winter solitude

Matsuo Basho




Winter solitude
in a world of one color
the sound of wind.

a familiar poem, but true.




Time Is
by Henry Van Dyke






Time is
Too Slow for those who Wait,
Too Swift for those who Fear,
Too Long for those who Grieve,
Too Short for those who Rejoice;
But for those who Love,
Time is not.

even the magic 8 ball mocks my writer's block!

everyone that knows me, knows that plan nine is my favorite movie:

Maila Nurmi aka


Vampira, Dies.






RIP

cold and getting colder.

still haven't written anything but a few notes
scribbled on paper.


we've had some excellent poems submitted for c&c on the list tho,
so i've had a grand time reading them and seeing them progress!

i found this over at kona's. i was surprised at my results!

Your 80s Hunk Is

Bill Gates

Who's Your 80s Hunk?

cold, dusting of snow.
took mom to the cemetery yesterday.
dad's army plaque was finally put up.

odd, i found his grave the other day even tho it wasn't marked.
just had a feeling and it turned out to be right.


me, i plan to be cremated and i'll be blow'n in the wind!

a smile to remember


we had goldfish and they circled around and around
in the bowl on the table near the heavy drapes
covering the picture window and
my mother, always smiling, wanting us all
to be happy, told me, "be happy Henry!"
and she was right: it's better to be happy if you
can
but my father continued to beat her and me several times a week while
raging inside his 6-foot-two frame because he couldn't
understand what was attacking him from within.

my mother, poor fish,
wanting to be happy, beaten two or three times a
week, telling me to be happy: "Henry, smile!
why don't you ever smile?"

and then she would smile, to show me how, and it was the
saddest smile I ever saw

one day the goldfish died, all five of them,
they floated on the water, on their sides, their
eyes still open,
and when my father got home he threw them to the cat
there on the kitchen floor and we watched as my mother
smiled

Charles Bukowski

back! haven't had my computer since yesterday evening!

my son-in-law eric, bless him, has been working on it trying to get it to work faster.

it does now, but not enough to suit him, but for now he's got me back on and has threatened my computer with some sort of violence later on at some point.


me, i'm just glad to be back. i got up this a.m. and couldn't use my computer and my whole routine was thrown off!


meanwhile, my daughter showed me the video below. i just had to share.

enjoy, zombie lovers:

i have been having such a GOOD time this weekend birthday!
jim( dr. bennett) and i are only 3 weeks apart on our birthdays so now we are the same age!he sent me grand birthday wishes too.

this is from stuart nunn, another member and very good and knowledgeable poet:



Happy Birthday to you
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday dear Sherry
Happy birthday to you.



everyone has been so cheerful and kind.
it makes me feel good.


an EXTRA special thanks to mick who sent me
my own birthday song. mick, you never fail to surprise. ; )


and now, i shall shut up about my birthday and wait for my little sweetie to visit
and have some cheesecake.


yes, i gave in to the lusciousness of that picture and this a.m. got a "chocolate tuxedo cream" cheesecake! it truly must weight 5 lbs.

i know it will cause some havoc with my tummy but i could not care less!

this is a birthday poem for me from a fellow pk poet.
my thanks to him and to everyone there. they are so very special to me.








56

We're pleased that you had such a wonderful time,
And that fiftysix years has come round this time?
But as we all know you're just twentyone
So someone, somewhere has got it all wrong

They probably got all their figures confused
With a five and a six which is so often used
You feel twentyone and you are far from dense
With your thirtyfive years of experience.

Happy Birthday Sherry

Reg Weaver

they say it's my birthday...

Anais Nin Quotations :







• There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.


• We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.


• Life shrinks or expands according to one's courage.


• Living never wore one out so much as the effort not to live.


• Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.


• Ordinary life does not interest me. I seek only the high moments. I am in accord with the surrealists, searching for the marvelous.


• We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another, unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another.


• There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic.


• Anxiety is love's greatest killer. It makes one feel as you might when a drowning man holds unto you. You want to save him, but you know he will strangle you with his panic.


• I write emotional algebra.


• We write to taste life twice, in the moment, and in retrospection.


• To write is to descend, to excavate, to go underground.


• I am in a beautiful prison from which I can only escape by writing.


• My diary is a mirror telling the story of a dreamer who, a long long time ago went through life the way one reads a book.


• The poet is one who is able to keep the fresh vision of the child alive.


• The final lesson a writer learns is that everything can nourish the writer. The dictionary, a new word, a voyage, an encounter, a talk on the street, a book, a phrase learned.


• Man can never know the kind of loneliness a woman knows. Man lies in a woman's womb only to gather strength, he nourishes himself from this fusion, and then he rises and goes into the world, into his work, into battle, into art. He is not lonely. He is busy. The memory of the swim in amniotic fluid gives him energy, completion. The woman may be busy too, but she feels empty. Sensuality for her is not only a wave of pleasure in which she has bathed, and a charge of electric joy at contact with another. When man lies in her womb, she is fulfilled, each act of love a a taking of man within her, an act of birth and rebirth, of child-bearing and man-bearing. Man lies in her womb and is reborn each time anew with a desire to act, to BE. But for woman, the climax is not in the birth, but in the moment the man rests inside of her.


• Only the united beat of sex and heart together can create ecstasy.


• I have the right to love many people at once and to change my prince often.


• What I cannot love, I overlook.


• Dreams are necessary to life.


• Dreams have helped me to live.


• Eroticism is one of the basic means of self-knowledge, as indispensible as poetry.


• We don't have a language for the senses. Feelings are images, sensations are like musical sounds.


• The body is an instrument which only gives off music when it is used as a body. Always an orchestra, and just as music traverses walls, so sensuality traverses the body and reaches up to ecstasy.




• Don't let one cloud obliterate the whole sky.



• Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings.



• I postpone death by living, by suffering, by error, by risking, by giving, by loving.

found out about this from gloria over at
the pittsburgh women's blogging society.

http://pghwomenbloggers.blogspot.com

give it a look, o.k?

they have such a hard life! ; )

tomorrow is my birthday.
i'm trying to decide what sort of a cake i want.
right now i'm leaning toward some type of a chocolate cheesecake.

as i always have said. if your birthday falls ANYWHERE near the weekend , you get the ENTIRE weekend.

plus, because i have poet friends all over the globe, even in new zealand and australia, i get entire days at different times! too cool!

thanks to everyone that sent me birthday congrats and good wishes already.

you guys are the greatest!

friday!









Blonde Joke of the Day





Okay, pedestrians!





The traffic light wasn't working on the corner of Broadway and 72nd Street, so the blonde stood with a large crowd of
people waiting to cross, while a cop directed traffic.

Finally, the cop blew his whistle, motioned to the crowd, and shouted, "Okay, pedestrians!" The throng surged across
Broadway -- all except the blonde, who stayed on the corner.

When the walkers were safely on the other side of the street, the cop moved the cross-traffic through the intersection. Half a minute later, he stopped the cars on Broadway and sent
the 72nd Street traffic into motion.

Again, he got around to the blonde's corner, where by this time she had again been joined by a crowd of people.

Tweeeeeeeet! "Okay, pedestrians!"

The crowd crossed the street, but again the blonde stayed put. She looked at her watch and tapped her foot but never budged from the sidewalk.

Finally, after the cop yelled "Okay, pedestrians!" for the third time, the blonde shouted across traffic, "Yo! Officer! Isn't it about time you let the Catholics

an explanation for my friends and readers overseas and in other states:

jan. 1st. allegheny country had a drink tax shoved down our collective throats.
it really affects the little bars and pubs and clubs that border on other counties around here. the club i belong to is just such a place. it's very close to the borders of 2 other counties that DON'T have the tax.

i don't drink much but i like my club and the whole deal just freaking stinks.

worth the view.
thanks, bluegal!






http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H43ghNZ_Ygk

well HAPPY HAPPY JOY FREAKING JOY!!!!!!!

(oooohhh BABY!)


just got an e-mail announcement from dsw shoe warehouse!

(or as my friends affectionately call it "dsw shoe whorehouse!" )


they are opening up an on-line store!

HOORAY!!!!


i've been mightily pissed off since they closed the one in ross park mall.

SHOOOZZZZZZ!!!!!

i like to read this one.









How Is Your Heart?


Charles Bukowski






during my worst times
on the park benches
in the jails
or living with
whores
I always had this certain
contentment-
I wouldn't call it
happiness-
it was more of an inner
balance
that settled for
whatever was occuring
and it helped in the
factories
and when relationships
went wrong
with the
girls.
it helped
through the
wars and the
hangovers
the backalley fights
the
hospitals.
to awaken in a cheap room
in a strange city and
pull up the shade-
this was the craziest kind of
contentment

and to walk across the floor
to an old dresser with a
cracked mirror-
see myself, ugly,
grinning at it all.
what matters most is
how well you
walk through the
fire.

EVERYTHING IS BROKEN

(Words and Music by Bob Dylan)

1989 Special Rider Music





Broken lines, broken strings,
Broken threads, broken springs,
Broken idols, broken heads,
People sleeping in broken beds.
Ain't no use jiving
Ain't no use joking
Everything is broken.

Broken bottles, broken plates,
Broken switches, broken gates,
Broken dishes, broken parts,
Streets are filled with broken hearts.
Broken words never meant to be spoken,
Everything is broken.

Seem like every time you stop and turn around
Something else just hit the ground

Broken cutters, broken saws,
Broken buckles, broken laws,
Broken bodies, broken bones,
Broken voices on broken phones.
Take a deep breath, feel like you're chokin',
Everything is broken.

Every time you leave and go off someplace
Things fall to pieces in my face

Broken hands on broken ploughs,
Broken treaties, broken vows,
Broken pipes, broken tools,
People bending broken rules.
Hound dog howling, bull frog croaking,
Everything is broken.

i have to tell you the reaction i got to my red hair yesterday from my little 3 and a half year old granddaughter:

she (giggling as she runs up my walkway) " what you do to your black hair??!!"

me " i colored it."

she " you use a RED CRAYON??"

giggle, ho, ho, giggle


and then hugs and kisses!

2 p.m. just got my Internet back! guess that wind storm early this morning screwed something.
i have well over 100 e-mails to sort thru not counting the ones from this blog.

at least the sun is finally out! : )

The Dictators


by Pablo Neruda





An odor has remained among the sugarcane:
a mixture of blood and body, a penetrating
petal that brings nausea.
Between the coconut palms the graves are full
of ruined bones, of speechless death-rattles.
The delicate dictator is talking
with top hats, gold braid, and collars.
The tiny palace gleams like a watch
and the rapid laughs with gloves on
cross the corridors at times
and join the dead voices
and the blue mouths freshly buried.
The weeping cannot be seen, like a plant
whose seeds fall endlessly on the earth,
whose large blind leaves grow even without light.
Hatred has grown scale on scale,
blow on blow, in the ghastly water of the swamp,
with a snout full of ooze and silence

it was 66 yesterday. we will break another record today.
i feel like the weatherman here but i just had to share!


nothing else new. jotted a few words and a few thoughts on my handy notepad here.
have to call the cemetery later. my dad's army bronze marker is in and there but
hasn't been put into place yet. it's been 6 months! mom called last night having a hissy.

i can't blame her.

What's in a sherry? That which we call a rose
By any other sherry would smell as sweet.

Which work of Shakespeare was the original quote from?

Get your own quotes:

yes, it is.

warm and wet for most of this week.
we should break records from the 30's!


i'm gradually getting used to seeing myself in the mirror.
i think i will like the silver/grey when it finally all grows in.
the red/blonde is still foreign to me. grey, i understand.


i won't be changing my picture on my bio until i am all grey.


started kicking around a few ideas for a poem, maybe 2 different ones. not sure and
i won't try to force it. that never works for me.

Snowbanks North of the House
by Robert Bly


Those great sweeps of snow that stop suddenly six
feet from the house ...
Thoughts that go so far.
The boy gets out of high school and reads no more
books;
the son stops calling home.
The mother puts down her rolling pin and makes no
more bread.
And the wife looks at her husband one night at a
party, and loves him no more.
The energy leaves the wine, and the minister falls
leaving the church.
It will not come closer
the one inside moves back, and the hands touch
nothing, and are safe.

The father grieves for his son, and will not leave the
room where the coffin stands.
He turns away from his wife, and she sleeps alone.

And the sea lifts and falls all night, the moon goes on
through the unattached heavens alone.

The toe of the shoe pivots
in the dust ...
And the man in the black coat turns, and goes back
down the hill.
No one knows why he came, or why he turned away,
and did not climb the hill.

geeeeezzzzzz, almost forgot!

HAPPY RUSSIAN CHRISTMAS!


been so preoccupied with my damn hair that i almost forgot
even tho my cousin linda is having christmas dinner with her daughter's in-laws.
luckily my buddy steven just reminded me.

woke up.
looked in the mirror.
wondered who that woman was.


humm, wonder just what she'll do?

well, i DID IT!

my hair is now a reddish blonde which will be all blonde after it fades a bit and i have my next haircut. bless linda. she got most of the dark, dark brown/black bleached out and made it a strawberry blondish color with only a few darker tips in the back. it's hard to detect the silver grey of my roots now and eventually it will be all grey with each cut.

i keep looking at myself.
i do not look at all like me.
my hair has been the color it was since i can remember.

i feel odd but i'll get used to it.

it looks 100 percent better than the 2 inch skunk line i had.

this is a good competition:








POETRY KIT
POETRY COMPETITION
To celebrate Liverpool as European Capital of Culture in 2008


supporting



Liverpool Methodist Youth Exchange





This is a poetry competition with a difference. First of all, the prize is publication on the front page of Poetry Kit where it will be seen by the 10 thousand visitors we have each day, there will also be a few other goodies to show our thanks, but no cash prize.. Secondly although there is no set fee to enter, there is a catch;



Over the next two years the Liverpool Methodist Youth Exchange programme will be organising an exchange of young people with the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos Islands in the West Indies. This is an ideal opportunity for a group of young people to learn about each others cultures and to be involved in community projects. In 2008 a group from Merseyside will be spending a month in the West Indies living with families and working on projects. In 2009 the same young people will host a visit to Merseyside of a group from the West Indies. To do this we need to raise a considerable amount of money. So the entry fee is a donation of money to the "Liverpool Methodist Youth Exchange". It can be as little or as much as you want or can afford.



Entries to our competition should be accompanied by a cheque made payable to "Liverpool Methodist Youth Exchange" and we will pass it on to them. Alternatively you can send a donation directly to them at T.Halls, Liverpool Methodist Youth Exchange, 72 Vaughan Road, Wallasey, Merseyside, CH45 1LP. If you wish to enter by email you can, to info@poetrykit.org but let us know that you have made a donation to the Exchange. We are also looking for prizes that you may like to donate, books CD's, DVD's, anything really, and we will be giving those as prizes in this and other competitions and also using them later in the year for a poetry sale, raffle or lucky dip, again to raise money for the Exchange. So please help.



Now the competition; There will be six competitions over the year, each one of two months duration. Anyone making a donation will be eligible to enter each subsequent competition, although you can make a donations each time you enter or even if you don't. At the end of twelve months all of the winners and runners up will be considered for a special edition of our on-line magazine, Transparent Words.



Poems can be of any length or subject. There will be six competitions during the year, those making a donation are eligible to enter all of them if they choose. The closing date for the competitions are as follows;



31st January 2008

27th March 2008

31st May 2008

28th July 2008

30th September 2008

30th November 2008



Entries received after the closing date will be considered within the next round of the competition.

After each closing date a winner will be chosen and their poem will be published on Poetry Kit.



Entries should be sent to



Poetry Kit Competition

50 Princesway

Wallasey

Merseyside

CH45 4PR

U.K.



or may be submitted by email to info@poetrykit.org

Please remember to make any cheques for donations to;



Liverpool Methodist Youth Exchange



or can be sent through Pay Pal to a/c compact4pk@btinternet.com





Donations of items as prizes as explained above can be sent to the same address. The competition will be judged by the editors at Poetry Kit. The editors decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.



If you have made a donation, however big or small you can send up to three poems into each round of the competition.



At the end of the year an overall winner will be announced.



General rules

1. The competition is open to anyone.

2. Poems should be in English, unpublished, not accepted for publication, and must be your original work.

3. Poems may be on any subject and in any form or style. They must be typed black type on a white plain background..

4. If typed each poem must be typed on a separate sheet of A4 paper. All poems are judged anonymously and should not bear your name, nor any other form of identification. On a separate sheet of A4 paper you should give your name and address, and a list of poems submitted. Poems submitted by email must be sent as a word attachment which do not carry any form of identification. In the body of the accompanying email there should be a name and address, inc email address and a statement saying that a donation has been made and the way in which it was made. You do not have to tell us the amount.

5. Please enclose a stamped addressed envelope for receipt of entry if required (marked RECEIPT) or for results sheet (marked RESULTS) This will not be sent until all of the competitions are complete.

6. Up to 3 poems may be submitted for each of our competitions on payment of a donation. Cheques and postal orders should be made payable to Liverpool Methodist Youth Exchange

7. The winners will be notified on the Poetry Kit website and by email. No person may win more than one prize. The prize-winning poems will be published in Transparent Words after November 2008 The decision of the adjudicator will be final, and there can be no correspondence concerning the result.

8. Entries should be addressed to:

The Competition Organiser, Poetry Kit, 50 Princesway, Wallasey, Merseyside, CH45 4PR
or by email to info@poetrykit.org