Tuesday Poetry Post- Dinosauria, We by Charles Bukowski

Mr. Bukowski saw it coming didn't he?  I particularly like the line "Into hospitals which are so expensive that it's cheaper to die"

Dinosauria, We



Born like this
Into this
As the chalk faces smile
As Mrs. Death laughs
As the elevators break
As political landscapes dissolve
As the supermarket bag boy holds a college degree
As the oily fish spit out their oily prey
As the sun is masked
We are
Born like this
Into this
Into these carefully mad wars
Into the sight of broken factory windows of emptiness
Into bars where people no longer speak to each other
Into fist fights that end as shootings and knifings
Born into this
Into hospitals which are so expensive that it's cheaper to die
Into lawyers who charge so much it's cheaper to plead guilty
Into a country where the jails are full and the madhouses closed
Into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes
Born into this
Walking and living through this
Dying because of this
Muted because of this
Castrated
Debauched
Disinherited
Because of this
Fooled by this
Used by this
Pissed on by this
Made crazy and sick by this
Made violent
Made inhuman
By this
The heart is blackened
The fingers reach for the throat
The gun
The knife
The bomb
The fingers reach toward an unresponsive god
The fingers reach for the bottle
The pill
The powder
We are born into this sorrowful deadliness
We are born into a government 60 years in debt
That soon will be unable to even pay the interest on that debt
And the banks will burn
Money will be useless
There will be open and unpunished murder in the streets
It will be guns and roving mobs
Land will be useless
Food will become a diminishing return
Nuclear power will be taken over by the many
Explosions will continually shake the earth
Radiated robot men will stalk each other
The rich and the chosen will watch from space platforms
Dante's Inferno will be made to look like a children's playground
The sun will not be seen and it will always be night
Trees will die
All vegetation will die
Radiated men will eat the flesh of radiated men
The sea will be poisoned
The lakes and rivers will vanish
Rain will be the new gold
The rotting bodies of men and animals will stink in the dark wind
The last few survivors will be overtaken by new and hideous diseases
And the space platforms will be destroyed by attrition
The petering out of supplies
The natural effect of general decay
And there will be the most beautiful silence never heard
Born out of that.
The sun still hidden there
Awaiting the next chapter.

*photo by Haszczu

URL: http://able2know.org/topic/91839-1

23 Weeks

Dress: Free People (SOOO comfy!!) 
Boots: Seychelles
I also have on this green agate and tulle necklace which I made.

Cold Lake, Warm Fire

We took a mini vacation and spent some time on Lake Michigan in good ole Union Pier.  The Lake seemed like an ocean, the leaves are all gone, we kept warm by the fire, and D made me a wonderful dinner last night.  A lovely finish to a great Thanksgiving holiday.  Now I'm swamped with orders to fill and prepping for the Renegade Holiday fair in Wicker Park this coming weekend!

Dailies

October 12, 2010

4x6 inches
water colors, ink, thread and marker on Strathmore water color paper

From my new project

Black Friday-Cyber Monday SALE!!

I'm having a 15% off ALL items over at both my Etsy shops now through Monday!  For my blog readers I have a special 20% off sale!!  Simply enter the coupon code BLACKFRIDAYSPECIAL during checkout now through Monday and you'll get 20% your entire order!!  My charm necklaces and charm ornaments make perfect stocking stuffers or holiday presents because they are customizable.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am so thankful that I am in love and have a little baby growing in my belly.  I'm thankful for my family and our health,  and to be in the mid west for this holiday.  I'm thankful for my little Woody Guthrie, books, poetry, music (especially Bob Dylan) and art. 
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

*vintage photo from the 1959 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

Little Feet and Schnoodle Noses

 

The other day I found myself in the baby clothes section of a store, picking out for the very first time the clothes my daughter will be wearing.  I was standing there, crying, by myself, tears of joy, completely overwhelmed with happiness and disbelief that I was actually buying baby clothes for my own baby.  My daughter's little feet will go into these tiny shoes.  It's incredible.  So much to be thankful for.

The photo below just makes me laugh.  Woody has to know where I am at all times.  This could not possibly be a comfortable position for him.  Every time I leave the room, I come back to find his neck crooked over the arm of the couch so he can keep me in his line of vision.  Our silly hero.

Tuesday Poetry Post- Gray Room by Wallace Stevens

Tuesday somehow slipped by me without posting the Tuesday poem.  I think I was a bit distracted by our first Bradley Method class, acupuncture, feeling a bit under the weather and  preparing my shop for the big holiday season.

I choose this Wallace Stevens poem because on Sunday, while nesting (cleaning the closet) I stumbled upon a piece of paper with these very words that  D had copied down for me.

Gray Room

by Wallace Stevens

Although you sit in a room that is gray,
Except for the silver
Of the straw-paper,
And pick
At your pale white gown;
Or lift one of the green beads
Of your necklace,
To let it fall;
Or gaze at your green fan
Printed with the red branches of a red willow;
Or, with one finger,
Move the leaf in the bowl--
The leaf that has fallen from the branches of the forsythia
Beside you...
What is all this?
I know how furiously your heart is beating


Painting from here

Schnoodle Heros

Ladies and gentlemen we have a hero in our family.  On Sunday D and I took Woody for a walk over to Jimmy Johns to get us some lunch.  On the way over, Woody started heavily sniffing these huge concrete barricades, so I took a look at what he was going nuts over, and saw a patch of fur breathing, up and down, up and down.  After immediately freaking out and calling D over (he of course thought it was a giant rat, (he has some PTSD after some serious rat trauma at his old house in Bucktown which resulted in him living in a hotel for a bit and then selling his home.)  It looked like part of a cat to me.  It was unthinkable that an animal could possibly be scrunched in there right next to the road UNDER a concrete barricade.  This just so happened to take place in front of the Humane Society where we got our sweet Woody, so D went in and told them and they rushed out and the guy FREAKED out and went into full rescue mode.  Within minutes, 6 people rushed out with gear/nets and they got the cat out.  It was still alive.  My little Woody saved that feline.  So when we got home naturally we put a medal on him and paraded our little life saver around.  All in a days work he said, all in a days work.

22 Weeks

Ok, so I ended up doing an outfit post afterall.  Whenever I get sick, I get weepy, and I started feeling sorry for myself which is ridiculous, so I decided to put on something that made me feel good.  Something other than my soft pink fluffy robe.  (That makes me feel good in a different way, so cozy.)  So I stuffed myself into this little number, my motivation being the 65 degree weather we are having today!  It's incredible. 
I'll most likely be back in my robe in about an hour.

Confetti

I'm sick so no guitar lessons tonight, no outfit post, and no medicine to make me feel better which I am not particularly enjoying.  Oh well.  This weekend D got the nesting bug and got rid of half of his belongings!  I hope that whole nesting thing comes my way soon.  I'm the one with all the craft stuff piled in our closets that I refuse to part with.  I may need the 2,000 craft pom poms I purchased wholesale several years ago to encase our couch with little soft poms, who knows.  I've been thinking about how I am going to have to get very diligent about keeping some of my messes contained.  I can't have buttons, pom poms, and tiny chokeable things laying around for much longer.  That makes me think of when I spilled an entire jar of beads on the floor.  After the initial round of explitives and frustration at having dropped this, I was overcome with the beauty of all these little colorful gems on the floor and pulled out my camera.

Friday Music Muse

I'm learning how to play the Iron and Wine version of Such Great Heights on the guitar now.  Such a pretty song.

I am thinking it's a sign
That the freckles in our eyes
Are mirror images and when we kiss
They're perfectly aligned

And I have to speculate
That God himself did make us
Into corresponding shapes
Like puzzle pieces from the clay

And true it may seem like a stretch
But it's thoughts like this that catch
My troubled head when you're away
When I am missing you to death

When you are out there on the road
For several weeks of shows
And when you scan the radio
I hope this song will guide you home

They will see us waving from such great heights
Come down now, they'll say
But everything looks perfect from far away
Come down now but we'll stay

I've tried my best to leave
This all on your machine
But the persistent beat
It sounded thin upon listening

And that frankly will not fly
You'll hear the shrillest highs
And lowest lows with the windows down
When this is guiding you home

They will see us waving from such great heights
Come down now, they'll say
But everything looks perfect from far away
Come down now but we'll stay

*image from here

Underlined: Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer

This book shook me.  The movie did too.  I underlined so many passages throughout these pages.  I loved all the literary references, I loved reading about climbers, and really enjoyed learning about the life of Chris McCandless.  I am an easy cry when it comes to movies, but I have never cried so hard after seeing this film.  D and I went out to dinner after seeing it, and I was still sobbing and couldn't even speak for quite a while after.  It hit me so hard because the main character reminded me so much of my younger brother Adam,  it just scared the heck out of me.

I really love these passages:

The accumulated clutter of day-to-day existence--the lapses of conscience, the unpaid bills, the bungled opportunities, the dust under the couch, the inescapable prison of your genes--all of it is temporarily forgotten, crowded from your thoughts by an overpowering clarity of purpose and by the seriousness of the task at hand.  At such moments something resembling happiness actually stirs in your chest, but it isn't the sort of emotion you want to lean on very hard. p 143 (talking about solo climbing)

I of course loved finding out that Alexander Supertramp was a runner!

McCandless viewed running as an intensely spiritual exercise, verging on religion.  "Chris would use the spiritual aspect to try to motivate us," recalls Eric Hathaway, another friend on the team.  "He'd tell us to think about all the evil in the world, all the hatred, and imagine ourselves running against the forces of darkness, the evil wall that was trying to keep us from running our best.  He believed doing well was all mental, a simple matter of harnessing whatever energy was available.  As impressionable high school kids, we were blown away by that kind of talk."  p 112

Dailies

October 10, 2010

4x6 inches
water colors, ink, and marker on Strathmore water color paper

From my new project

I HEART Sewing

Here is a new version of my I HEART Sewing Charm.  It hangs from a 20" sterling silver chain.  Available for $18 in my shop.

You Are Here

My sister-in-law just gave me the book in the photo below.  It was written by Zen monk Thich Nhat Hanh and is about the power of mindfulness.  The words are like gold to me.  I'm so thankful she passed it my way.

Tuesday Poetry Post- Neglect by R. T. Smith

Neglect

by R. T. Smith

Is the scent of apple boughs smoking
in the woodstove what I will remember
of the Red Delicious I brought down, ashamed
that I could not convince its limbs to render fruit?
Too much neglect will do that, skew the sap's
passage, blacken leaves, dry the bark and heart.
I should have lopped the dead limbs early
and watched each branch with a goshawk's eye,
patching with medicinal pitch, offering water,
compost and mulch, but I was too enchanted
by pear saplings, flowers and the pasture,
too callow to believe that death's inevitable
for any living being unloved, untended.
What remains is this armload of applewood
now feeding the stove's smolder. Splendor
ripens a final time in the firebox, a scarlet
harvest headed, by dawn, to embers.
Two decades of shade and blossoms - tarts
and cider, bees dazzled by the pollen,
spare elegance in ice - but what goes is gone.
Smoke is all, through this lesson in winter
regret, I've been given to remember.
Smoke, and Red Delicious apples redder
than a passing cardinal's crest or cinders.



*I took this photo a few weeks ago at my parent's house when my brother built a gigantic mesmerizing bonfire.

21 Weeks

Black Shirt-Target Maternity
Vest-H&M
Crochet Necklace-Jewel Lace from Etsy
Jeans-Pea in the Pod
Boots-Miz Mooz

Art Mind

We spent the weekend in Michigan with one of my brothers.   I was cold pretty much the whole time.  My body does not warm up too easily.  It did get nice and warm during my blissful run on Lake Michigan, when the sun was starting to set and the sand was so flat and no one was around.

  Those three little white sculptures above are my absolute favorite.  I got them from Artmind (on Etsy) and they are a part of her 99 Feelings Project.  I bought Torn, Divided, and Pain.  No I was not in a tortured mood when I bought them. The decision was based purely on aesthetics.  Aren't they lovely?

Cozy

Doesn't this hand knitted slip cover make this the most cozy looking chair in the world?  You can buy it at Biscuit Scout's Etsy shop.

Cherish

 

I've been concentrating on living in the moment and savoring the little things.

The Fifty States Project

Georgia is done!  The print is available here for $25 and the original painting is available here for $70.

Made-Up Nature

Yesterday was warm and sunny.  I never realized how much green I am surrounded with in this concrete land I live in.

New Charms

Here are a few more new charms I just added to my shop.  Only $16!

 

Tuesday Poetry Post- The Cord by Leanne O'Sullivan

Even though this poem was published just six years ago, it seems dated because phone cords are practically extinct, which makes the symbolism even more powerful. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Cord

Leanne O’Sullivan

I used to lie on the floor for hours after
school with the phone cradled between
my shoulder and my ear, a plate of cold
rice to my left, my school books to my right.
Twirling the cord between my fingers
I spoke to friends who recognized the
language of our realm. Throats and lungs
swollen, we talked into the heart of the night,
toying with the idea of hair dye and suicide,
about the boys who didn’t love us,
who we loved too much, the pang
of the nights. Each sentence was
new territory, like a door someone was
rushing into, the glass shattering
with delirium, with knowledge and fear.
My Mother never complained about the phone bill,
what it cost for her daughter to disappear
behind a door, watching the cord
stretching its muscle away from her.
Perhaps she thought it was the only way
she could reach me, sending me away
to speak in the underworld.
As long as I was speaking
she could put my ear to the tenuous earth
and allow me to listen, to decipher.
And these were the elements of my Mother,
the earthed wire, the burning cable,
as if she flowed into the room with
me to somehow say, Stay where I can reach you,
the dim room, the dark earth. Speak of this
and when you feel removed from it
I will pull the cord and take you
back towards me.

*photograph by Brandon McKinney

20 Weeks

Here I am in my new maternity skinny jeans which are the most incredibly comfortable pants known to mankind! I am not a big pants person because they make me super uncomfortable and I don't like the feel of buttons digging into my stomach ever, but I feel like my world has been changed due to these pants and I plan on wearing them forever.

Shirt-H&M
Skinny Jeans-7 for All Mankind maternity line
Shoes-Cole Haan

Dailies

October 9, 2010

4x6 inches
water colors, ink, and marker on Strathmore water color paper

From my new project