this would be the part where I say something profound.

hello
to you out there. hi.
how are you?

who are you?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

The Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?




- Mary Oliver

reflection,
suspension,
the ripening of pears.

Blue or Green

- James Galvin

http://youtu.be/kzINcFCZc3s

Immortal Jellyfish



 the link to immortality

A collection of teacups
to bathe in
 

s u s p e n s i o n

 

s  u  s  p  e  n  s  i  o  n
suspected infidel, those nagging
fears tearing
at pink silk lining.
Lined against what--
wind, soil, rainwater,
the passing of time?
Creasing skin, a slower decay.

'Twas the Night Before the Election

It's the last night before the Presidential Election and things in New York are unusual. Governor Cuomo signed a bill that allows residents to vote at any of their respective borough's polling stations in wake of Sandy's destruction. This morning, the New York Times revealed 34,000 local students have no school to attend come Wednesday. Temperatures are dipping close to the freezing point and there are still large areas without power and heat. To say times are tough is an understatement.

It's at this point and on this blog where, unlike Facebook, all readers come by will, that I will stake my ground. President Obama inherited a mess of challenges and has made headway on some of the most important issues that we as a nation face in this trying period of human history. Healthcare, Welfare, Medicaid, and Global Warming are issues that cannot be ignored. To believe, for instance, that we're having any sort of conversation regarding birth control and the right for a woman to have access to crucial cancer screenings at Planned Parenthood in 2012 is appalling for both women and men.

The reality is, most of us Americans will bat an eye at a Prada dress that costs $3,000 or an annual checkup with a $700 bill attached. The majority of independent young people (meaning those who support themselves from 18 years old on--without help from mom, grandma, or pops to cover college costs, or that first (and subsequent) broker's fee) can't afford to live in a country that won't move forward. Do you know how expensive it is in New York City? What percentage of our incomes many of us must spend in order to live in halfway safe neighborhoods? Do you know how many fabulous twenty-somethings in New York still wave daddy's credit card around?

I didn't have it rough growing up, but I also realized at 18 when I moved to a small Southern town how different life can be for a large population of people that look nothing like me, think nothing like me, and click their R's with a foreign clack. These were my neighbors, my friends, the patrons who visited downtown vintage shops and bay side restaurants. Within the potpourri were plenty of young people who shared my ideals and, like me, graduated from college a few months shy of America's great economy tanking. The Titanic sunk for a second time.

We need to be concerned now more than ever about education, infrastructure, and healthcare. Our insatiable consumption of oil must end. Practices like fracking and drilling will only exacerbate an already fragile global climate system. Sandy was a terrifying and eye-opening experience. We're fucked if things don't change; if we don't embrace the fact that we CANNOT go back to 1999, where gas was $1.00 and reality TV was relatively harmless we're actively poisoning our future. That includes our wetlands, our children's minds, and the strides we've made towards racial, sexual, and gender equality. I'm appalled at the barely veiled racism seen in the annals of this campaign trail. America, we're better than this.

This election is not about restoring comfort. It's about what we have to do to survive.

 

you never know what's on the other side

What of this love?

Where do I put it?

Having Intended to Merely Pick on an Oil Company, the Poem Goes Awry

Never before have I so resembled British Petroleum.
They--it?--are concerned about the environment.
I--it?--am concerned about the environment.
They--him?--convey their concern through commercials,
in which a man talks softly about the importance
of the Earth. I--doodad?--convey my concern
through poems, in which my fingers type softly
about the importance of the Earth. They--oligarchs?--
have painted their slogans green. I--ineffectual
left-leaning emotional black hold a self-semaphore?--
recycle. Isn't a corporation technically a person
and responsible? Aren't I technically a person
and responsible? In a legal sense, in a regal sense,
if romanticism holds sway? To give you a feel
for how soft his voice is, imagine a kitty
that eats only felt wearing a sable coat on a bed
of dandelion fluff under sheets of the foreskins
of seraphim, that's how soothingly they want to drill
in Alaska, in your head, just in case. And let's be honest,
we mostly want them to, we mostly want to get to the bank
by two so we can get out of town by three and beat
the traffic, traffic is murder, this time of year.
How far would you walk for bread? For the flour
to make bread? A yard, a mile, a life?
Now you ask me, when are you going to fix your bike
and ride it to work? Past the plain horses
and spotted cows and the spotted horses and plain cows,
along the river, to the left of the fallen-down barn
and the right of the fallen-down barn, up the hill,
through the Pentecostal bend and past the Methodist
edifice, through the speed trap, beside the art gallery
and cigar shop, past the tattoo parlor and the bar
and the other bar and the other other bar and the other
other other bar and the bar that closed, where I swear,
Al-Anon meets, since I'm wondering, what is the value
of the wick or wire of the soul, be it emotional
or notional, now that oceans are wheezing to a stop?

- Bob Hicok

Airborne

I let my heart hang with you.

It's grown with each encounter,
beating,
thumping,
pumping liquid life and profound love.

And when you leave
with each deployment
it seizes all control,

expands to ridges, peaks of sandstone,
valleys dark and deep.
This tiny chest explodes,
expands,
emits an elemental something

that floats across oceans,
past cities,
and overhead your head.

In heat, find comfort in its shadow,
in cold, warmth from its great size
while I, carved, cool, and shivering
blink winds to keep it far.

Precipice

I am hanging at an angle,
dangling a tiny toe
above an azure pool: