contemporary poetry

Blue is black
a dialog without words
buried under
rubbly vowels
chipped mountains
stand letters

Who are you talking to?
it sews itself inside you
says John
line drawings
trains
simplistic like

Do you have a philosophical bend?
past social agreements -
I don't know enough
but
how much do you really know?
how much does anyone know?

a girl
sentimental
not that
giant fart in the room
left by silent assailants

[Inspir]ation

Crumbs in my bed

fallen from my head

that's where I am

not in an attic

nor looking out a window

a hair

a kernel

left behind

reminding me where I live

here

not in total fear

clear that I am mass

plus velocity

plus acceleration

spinning round this plane

framed by four walls

call it what you will

until you see me

here

The sky is clear after the storm. Not much wildlife on the coast today. Waves of cranes fly overhead, and then seagulls appear in flocks of 3 to 13. The occasional bee lands atop the purple wild flowers in full bloom along the unstable Encinitas cliffs. Not much happening in the water, except for birds in the distance swooping down to fish for their lunch. A large boat heads north in the gray distance and a red chopper heads south above the active blue waters. Not a silky silver sea today. No, we have pale blue skies and a vast steeliness to match.

All of this goes on while a war is waged in Libya and thousands grieve for the dead and injured in Japan. The rush of water here is peacefully calm in its natural thunder. I wonder what the big Tsunami sounded like there?

I've struggled to keep this blog active because I'm not very good at concealing my life events from my writing life; they are one and the same. And as any writer knows, our essence always comes out, somehow, in our writing, whether we like it or not. We seem to leak who we are and how we really feel in every form of communication, especially in writing. Many try to hide behind their wit or sarcasm, but experienced eyes can always detect the truth behind the lies.

We'll see how this year's blog posts unfold. For now, all I can promise is to try to remain faithful to this forum that seems to disappear into the ether. However, with my ever increasing need to create an income, my musings tend to be brief. A sad state for me, that's for sure. I could live in the land of poetry forever, but sadly I must emerge too often to attend to the practical aspects of existence, not just the existential.

Thanksgiving was an interesting day. Mom ruined the stuffing by laying out the bread on Downy soaked kitchen towels. The strong scent and taste of fabric softener permeated the entire stuffing and after just one bite, my appetite was destroyed and the dinner was a total bust. The bright side is that I ate way less than I normally would and saved a ton of calories.

One of my best friends went home for the holiday. She enjoyed a festive 50 person Thanksgiving! Wow, I'm so envious of that. Since I've lived on the west coast and most of my family is on the east coast, my holidays tend to be a meager gathering of orphaned friends and my mother.

My best guy friend told me that his family experienced a bit of drama when his grandmother left in a huff because her dog wasn't allowed to roam freely throughout the house. His parents just got new furniture so his mother set up an area for the little dog to hang out but the dog was miserable, hence so was his grandmother, so they made an early angry exit.

Now, my friends are planning Christmas. Who knows where we'll end up or how many there will actually be. Holidays are a tricky affair and never seem to go as planned whether they are had in the usual places or during a trip.

The Christmas after my dad died, mom and I decided to go to Vegas (of all places) for Christmas. We wanted to be as far away from tradition as we possibly could. That plan was foiled when every hotel was gilded in gold and decorated with towering trees, lit up for all to see. Families were there with generations following in toe. We were faced with our reality of spending the holiday, just the two of us, alone in Vegas. We vowed never to do that again!

This year was filled with many, many changes. Old and new relationships rekindled, a few false starts and one delicately balanced in the process of ending, most likely. It is always my intention to tie up the end of the year and evaluate any served purposes. I like to start the new year fresh. No sense in dragging along a corpse (or two) into a new beginning. Besides, you can't move very fast when carrying the dead.

My cousins are facing the painful and inevitable loss of their father who's been battling cancer for a couple of years. First it was bladder cancer, then lung. Now my uncle Bob has a brain tumor and the doctors have officially given him 2 months to live. My heart aches over his suffering and the sad process of letting him go. I curse this world when the inescapable sorrow beats relentlessly at the door. It is out of our control.

His cancer brought their family back together again, which was a great, unexpected by-product of such a horrible situation. I just hope their strength can withstand the next agonizing weeks as they watch him deteriorate slowly. My whole being cries for them today.

As October is slipping away, I must honor my commitment of posting at least one new post a month. So, this is it. It is astounding how much writing I do and yet I can't seem to squeeze this in more often. However, the incredible fatigue and blurry eyes remind me that there is only so much that one can accomplish in a day.

Do you ever wonder how certain people seem to have boundless streams of undying energy? I wish I knew their secret. Today during my midday beach walk, I had to seriously push through the aching legs and the wind drag. I'm blaming part of it on the Santa Anas that suddenly raised our temperature and skyrocketed the pressure. Part of it also belongs to my hormones this week and part is just sheer fatigue.

My latest assignment is to try to keep up with a whirling dervish. A very lovable dervish, but a whirlwind, nonetheless. Well, actually that's only part of the story. My actual job is to write copy and develop content for a website launch. The whirling dervish is the guy in charge who is one of those boundless energy types I was referring to earlier. I don't know how he does it. And some nights he doesn't even sleep! Yet he manages to carry on with a smile on his face. In fact, he's so charismatic and playful you'd never know he's been running at 100 mph. I know he must be exhausted; I wonder how he does it?

As my eyelids grow heavy and a yawn crawls across my face I wish I was one of them. I'm doing my best to keep up with all the exciting events as they unfold and still manage to fit in the stuff I need for me. If I can keep up my yoga practice and continue to produce great work, then I'll consider that a victory. And if my blog suffers for a little while, well...

I just read the most interesting short story by Midge Raymond titled Two Lies and a Truth. In it, two friends consistently play a game where each has to guess which of the three statements is true. The interesting turn of events occurs when one friend discovers the other is cheating with her boyfriend. One break-up leads to the original friend cheating on the other friend with the same boyfriend. What a dark and delicious turn of events.

What strikes me most occurs at the end when the previous girlfriend, who is now the "other woman," admits that she has no illusions about what she's doing and no longer believes in "fantasies, in loyalty, in happily ever after." She continues, "What I believe now changes and morphs, the truth fluid and malleable, ebbing and flowing the way friendships bend and stretch but rarely break."

Boy this passage has my mind reeling. Is this the ultimate destination for us women? Do we eventually arrive at the realization that there really is no absolute truth? Do we have to make peace with the fact that everything we thought we knew and believed actually turns out to be false? Like, loyalty in friendships and partnerships and the happily ever after mythology. The other end of this existential dilemma resides in the acceptance of the disillusionment and the twisted revenge. I mean, the previous "cheatee" is now the cheater. She boldly embraces her ex's improved treatment of her, now that she's the other woman.

What does this say about relationships? How many are based on a lie or a series of lies?

Years ago, I ended a friendship. I couldn't stomach being drawn into my friend's web of lies. She was lying to her husband about her huge financial mismanagement and expected me to lie with her. I couldn't do it. I wouldn't do it. I had to walk away from that friendship because I couldn't accept that my friend could be so cold and calculating with her supposed beloved. Naive, yes, but crooked no, that's just not me.

I knew my friend married him because he as a doctor and would be a good provider. He was a good provider and never expected or required her to work. That, however, was not good enough for her, she wanted more. She not only wanted more, she took more than he could possibly make in order to keep her in the lifestyle she wanted. Due to her unbelievable expectations, she got them both into tremendous debt - and he was clueless.

Years have passed and I no longer know what happened to that couple. I always thought that when the shit hits the fan, it was going to be one hell of a mess. But, you know, I wonder if he still isn't living in some form of denial. Even after he realized he had married someone a little different than he thought, he was loyal to her. I wonder if he still is?

My question now, today, is: Are there any genuine relationships based on total trust and absolute honesty? Or is that too just another fantasy I have to outgrow?

Remember back in grade school when all you had to do to become best friends with someone was to basically declare it? "You're my new best friend." And your friend would agree and it was settled. BFF's forever, or until you got in a big fight and found a new besty.

In romance, a boy would ask a girl to "go with him," where exactly usually meant to his bedroom, when his parents weren't home, to make-out. Or to the movies, or roller skating and it always included lots of hand holding and the wearing of his jacket. The girl would say, yes, and it was a done deal. You were a couple. Remember those days? Today, things are very different and I'm not really sure why.

At this moment, I have several sets of friends in uncomfortably ambiguous relationships fraught with entirely too much hidden, unspoken realities. It seems like we've become a "go with the flow" people, to our own detriment I suggest. Don't bring it up, don't rock the boat or he/she will disappear, seems to be our mantra.

But, my question is this: Why be engaged in a delicately balanced relationship where you must constantly stifle your needs for the sake of the relationship? How can that be happy or satisfying? Well, it can't in my opinion. So many people rush into relationships merely because they don't want to be alone, to then later find they are in a very unhealthy and unfulfilling situation.

Right now, I have several friends going through a separation or a divorce. I know the emotional toil they are experiencing as they try to find themselves again after the damage is done. My heart really goes out to them. We've talked about how much the fantasy never matches the reality and how we are fed visions of fairy tale endings that never seem to work out.

My friend, who's been married for 30 years, encourages me to find someone to be miserable with and just be miserable together. He says, if you can find someone who makes you laugh, then that's the best you should expect. After all, as the years go by, the other stuff fades anyway. At least, according to him.

I read a recent poll that asked women what made them most happy and they responded with: sleep, rest, eating, sex and a few more things that may surprise you. But not one of the items on the list included marriage.

I can't help wonder, is marriage just broken? Have times changed too much, too rapidly, to keep pace with an institution based on the ideals of yesterday? Were people really happy then or did they just not know any different? And if marriage is outdated, can a solitary life be a happy one?

Any thoughts? I'd love you to share some.