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If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning.

-- Catherine Aird

7/9/08 04:06 pm



It is never true
That a person
Can never completely fit.
Some space fills
Upon every attempt.
Angled face,
Corner catching on edge,
There is still a projection,
A piece inside,
Sinewy as a distant
Cut of meat,
Not wholly appropriate
For consumption;
Enforcing its presence
Without grace;
Canceling shadow
With its shape;
Like the mass growl
Of a rising river,
Like each word
Of an awkward sentence.

5/8/08 01:26 pm - Bi Dinner Club, May 11th


Normally we get together for dinner on the 2nd and 4th Sundays of the month. This Sunday we're doing something extra.

At 3pm on Sunday afternoon, May 11th, we’ll be gathering at a secret location to do paperwork regarding living wills, legal documentation that is often overlooked or ignored by people, the documents stating your wishes in case injury puts you in a persistent vegetative state. Don’t leave your loved ones to guess what your wishes are in the event of an emergency! Worse yet, don't let this important decision fall to a family member with different values than yours. Send email to me offline and I will give you the location of our meeting. We’ll gather together, drink a little tea, and go through the paperwork together.

After that we'll have pizza at Zante Pizza at 6:30pm, everyone is also welcome to join us there regardless of whether you're coming to the earlier event

Details at http://www.joniverse.info/bidinner.htm

4/3/08 01:07 am


Birds do not rise indelicately
In disregard for the land below.
Each bears an instinct of gravity,
Wired respect for the fall they know,
More a wing’s breadth from Calamity,
Than a gift that Freedom could bestow.

There’s some among my lovers, my friends,
Over the edge of the maps they held,
Who dream of the power that flight lends:
In airy fountains, their lives propelled;
From predators’ arms, escape transcends;
From weary hearts, doldrums expelled.

While looking up as I walked today,
I saw only seagulls in the sky,
Who, once the Earth had fallen away,
Did cast about with a wary eye,
Searching for safe perch above the fray,
Seeking respite to which they could fly.

3/3/08 04:16 pm - Last One


Because I had to think about it: Leap Day; Saturday, March 1st; Sunday, March 2nd; and Monday, March 3rd, 2008.


It seems too much a thing of old Athens,
Or an ancient myth from feudal Japan,
To cast ourselves, desperate, into the sea
Ever since our childhood textbooks told us
That we heaved ourselves onto shore long ago,
Sodden footfalls from Paleozoic oceans.

But the truth is, the sea receded from us,
Fell far away, dried from around our wet limbs,
And we were left to struggle in the sand,
Wishing we could be underwater again,
And breathing air was our coping strategy,
Instead of being our great, genetic triumph.

Pelagic salts carried along in our blood,
We survive now, wearing old marine echoes:
Our touch, still fragile, in long gossamer threads;
Our thoughts, lonely things, blind from stalking the depths;
And the haphazard way in which we merge our lives,
In three dimensions, torn by tides and currents.

2/29/08 12:48 am - 1 More in February

Thursday, February 28th, 2008

The differences between
Desire fulfilled
And derision flaunted,
Between relative design
And absolute disarray
Are dwarfed by 
The differences between
Expectations held
And expectations met,
Between being an exception
And being exceptional.

2/28/08 09:38 am - 2 More in February


For M, Wednesday, February 27th, 2008

Ixtab

We respect their need, warriors and mothers,
Their peace when you reach out to them,
But it is hard for us to understand
Why the others come to you.
Why you spend so much time with them,
Their darkening cheeks, cold hands,
And what they ask of you,
That connection through the rain,
That path through the jungle.

We would spare you the time you pass there,
Press our hands over your eyes,
Whisper warm in your ear,
When they call for your escort.
Not for the need they task you with,
Nor for fear of the mist beyond,
But for what you bring back with you:
The fog of the veil in your lungs,
The echo of their final words.

We would fetch you from that road,
But the canopy is a thick, green carpet,
The vines and trunks, to us, a solid wall.
The tropical haze confuses our eyes
And we are roared deaf by the sonant life.
We are lost in our prayerfulness
Diligently ignoring the hand of the guide.
We are wandering in our prayers
For your safe return home. 

2/26/08 05:54 pm - 3 More in February

Tuesday, February 26th, 2008
 
Future and Memory flank the memorial
And both do so with their wings
Covering their eyes
Future is blind because, well,
No one can really know.
Memory hides her eyes, though,
Because that is the only way
She can live with herself.

2/26/08 12:40 am - 4 More in February

Monday, February 25th, 2008

I like it when we fight
And break things,
That feeling when a coffee cup
Sails loose from my finger tips,
Like a bet I’ve made,
And when it hits the wall,
All those pieces
Tumble like diamonds.
That ashtray you never miss with,
The iron one,
Graces me like a kiss
You can never take back.  
 

2/24/08 11:34 pm - 5 More in February

Sunday, February 24th, 2008

She cooked for him,
Like he was an old dog,
Beat to Hell by his last three owners,
Found at the pound,
After the teen boys
Had gotten into some fireworks,
And they told her there
They had to guess his age from his teeth,
And that he probably didn't have much longer
But that it would be nice if someone could,
You know,
Help him get by for a while.
Probably not much longer.
She cut the crusts off his sandwiches,
Popped some corn,
And made him a limeade.
 

2/23/08 11:22 pm - 6 More in February

( Saturday, February 23rd, 2008, Long Behind the Cut )
 

2/23/08 12:07 am - 7 More in February

Friday, February 22nd, 2008

I left that city
Left you behind
Pictures of you
I’ve packed away
Lost your number
Your voice gone too
Just that pendant
Your gift to me
Tests my fingers
With sharp corners

2/22/08 12:00 am - 8 More in February

Thursday, February 21st, 2008

There’s safety here,
Subtle sensations, crystal cast.
There’s safety here,
Such stark salvations, below fear.
Faint expectations, cannot last,
When these temptations, will have passed,
There’s safety here.

2/21/08 12:30 am - 9 More in February

Wednesday, February 20th, 2008

It’s easy to forget until you see them,
Disembodied Romans staring distantly,
Buddha smiling to you from the 14th century,
Ra, gems plucked from his eyes, blind eons.
This stretch of years we crawl across
Marked by the leaps of these artifacts
Sun to distant planet, that distance we see.
Our steps so small, a mouse to a rockslide,
A match to the conflagration of a city,
Dust before others turn their eyes to us.
Our steps so small, we can only hope
That, by turns for each other, we bear witness.

2/19/08 09:39 pm - 10 More in February


Tuesday, February 19th, 2008

We’ll ride the balloons
Leave this gray economy
Below winter ice

2/18/08 07:44 pm - 11 More in February

Monday, February 18, 2008 

Dissect a person’s feelings
As you would open an apple.
Wash the surface carefully.
Cleave it in half quickly,
With just a single cut.
Pare tissue from the core,
Surgery in small strokes,
For the piece you want.
Tell stories about the seeds,
And the poison they contain.
Think of what you’ve heard
Of those past, cast to Earth:
Sir Isaac Newton, William Tell.
Of those myths, down from Heaven:
Out of the basket of Idun,
In the juggling hands of Paris.
Finally, take a wary bite,
And spend the rest of your life
With the knowledge you’ve gained.

2/17/08 06:44 am - 12 More in February

 

Sunday, February 17th, 2008

An array of words,
Some so out of control,
A snowfall in winter,
Crazy in shifting wind,
Words light like flurries,
Cutting different angles,
Pausing in the air, rising,
Until they tumble,
Rest on the ground,
Cold and delicate.
 

2/16/08 08:54 am - 13 More in February

 Saturday, February 16th, 2008

She said, "When you are gone,
You send more email to my doctor,
Post more blog entries to the dog,
Send more text messages
To the burger place down the street,
Than to me."

He said, "Those are
The only untied wounds,
The only open plotlines,
The only broken spaces.
That I am good enough
To fix."

2/15/08 10:26 pm - 14 More in February

Friday, February 15th, 2008

Sometimes it seems,
Just out of perception,
Just on the edge of hearing.
There is a hiss in the air,
Wear on the track
That the needle has been running in,
Deep trenches in black vinyl,
Furrows for the wagon wheels
Of this song.

2/14/08 08:58 pm - 15 More in February

Thursday, February 14th, 2008

Choking on feathers
Valentine celebration
Fear my grand pillow

2/13/08 04:46 pm - 16 More in February

Wednesday, February 13th, 2008

Another Dream

Last night, I dreamt
I was inspired to write
A fantastic book, a novel.
I knew that I was going to fill
The clean, white sheets of ruled paper,
With page after page of my words in longhand,
And thrill people with my prolific output,
Amaze them with my brilliant prose.
The book was going to be about
Kittens in cowboy hats,
Solving crimes.

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