The entertainer

gold leaf bulldog enthroned on a suede rug

helium, harlequin, persimmon

Dear Ursula,

Bamidbar

Photograph courtesy of Adir Darmon

Ready, Steady

Let the games begin

Beaver ceiling

Slieve Bloom pines cast juniper notes.
She lands, crown of bees, in the silent wood.

Portrait of the Artist

Et ignotas animum dimittit in artes.

A metamorphosis.

Two good

Found 2g memory sticks dating back to 2006 and roasted golden beets in tin foil cocoons. Jaune, they have sprung out as le belle papillon.

Cernay la Ville

May this heat sweeten fruit come harvest and leave the lettuces for shade.
The black-top is molten.
Mind wanders to a farm house, oak table set in blue china, sea salt in a tin can.
I steamed broccoli that night with dinner but only the middle son touched his portion.
Father was in a way and everyone looked down to stay out of it.
We played ping-pong in the tall grass. Two returns and the chase.
A vos marques, prets, partez.

More in a paper bag state, but this is new and pertinent.

Architects May Come

I am ground in a graphite tunnel leaving eraser shreds as breadcrumbs to find my way back home.

A little of this

I enjoyed this last week and had it read to me today for good measure.

I am sketching out a day to saunter near this, it may inspire a greener thumb or watered paintings. That day has nothing to do with the day I'm planning to visit this, though.

After weeks and week of learning to play this I'm now looking forward to playing that.

Parallel Lines

Twelve four" squares one" apart.
T square, walnut halves, lead pointer, blue painters tape.
Amnesiac, 'Little Green', Eli and Jerry.
My toes are cold and painted as I throw a silent fit.

On a Hike

The soles have worn to leather and on we walk into the vertigo of towering trees.
Thunder claps.
Dancing on, quickly stepping between logs and stones, my breath slows with you beside me singing.

Dream Catcher

White linen peony picking

Frisbee

For Adir

Minor Chords

6 :42: 6 :3: 4: 2
4th fret, 4th string
3rd fret, 2nd string

6 :42: 6 :3: 4: 2
E minor

6 :42: 6 :3: 4: 2
G

6 :42: 6 :3: 4: 2
E minor

6 :42: 6 :3: 4: 2
G with 2nd fret, 4th string
1st fret 2nd string

6 :42: 6 :3: 4: 2
E minor

6 :42: 6 :3: 4: 1
G

Repeat until its not true anymore.

The Flemish

Flat country for fine cycling to a fruitier selling imports.

The dust from sanded doors frosts the tip of my lashes.

It is quite nice, isn't it, to wake up to the bagpipes?

Dem Bos in

It came in the form of four squares, corners upturned and soft.
Six strings and two cucumbers.
Attractive wallpaper.
I looked toward the eight ball and read poetry.
Watercolor paints and a postcard.
Copper back-peddling to brake in the rain near the Abbey just in time for jazz.
Sprite green leaves, lilacs in Muinkpark, geuze.
Now on the otherhand, I am going into the forest.

Alvaro

I am looking for a little divine inspiration. 

First Friends

Miss. Scurry, the ever patient listener and herder of frolicking children

Places

Can't leave a place while it's bad.
Means there's too much hidden you need to uncover first.
Can't walk away after an argument.
Too angry still. Been building up too much resentment or guilt or whatever other bullshit you aren't brave enough to admit.
Gotta stick it out. Gotta stay during the awkward silences. Not the golden ones. Not the strolls of the fragrant imagination, but the worries. The ever churning mill of loathing and egotism.
Must wait it out.
Gotta let the sands even after a rough night of choppy seas.
It will even out.
You don't always have to run crooked.

What about the places that never got mean?
That never showed you fear or fatigue.
What about the company that always flowed smoothly.
Calmly, slowly.
It's hard to leave.
It's comfortable here.
I'm comfortable here.

He's tying his tie.
All ready.
Last candles burning behind us.
We'll walk upon the cobbles looking down at our feet.
Wouldn't want to roll an ankle.
Wouldn't want to get hurt. 

Come, my friends,

photograph courtesy of V.Castillo

Come, my friends,

'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.

Push off, and sitting well in order smite

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

Of all the western stars, until I die.

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,

And see the great Achilles, whom we knew

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;

Alfred Lord Tennyson Ulysses

If its Tuesday, it must be Belgium

It's time for jumping jacks and a cabbage salad.

Scotland is in my future. 

Guilo the Hospitable

It would take a cafe band and some fresh iced tea to retell the mystical journey that was Brava.
I will try my best without the tea.

We arrived by ship at midnight.
Four of us climbed into the back of a pick-up truck with port crew and a mattress held between our knees. 

The days sped past in the beds of half-backs and cement trucks. 

Daylight tramps were hyphenated by sleep atop the staircase of an abandoned Red Cross, in an ATM bureau and in the den of a ferry guard named Guilo. Thunder and business hours kept our dreams well tailored.

We bathed in Feijon d'Agua, natural pools cozied into the rocks on the Western shore.

The grotto floors were spotted with fossils and ink-black urchins. 

We escaped the current with only the slightest surface wound, quickly healed by local Grog. 

Fresh sugar cane and yeast borned the mist settling from the hills and rained into tiny coconut skin cups. 

Krioli kindnesses spill smoothly under such cloud covering. 

We ran and rested, laughed and prayed.

Cold beers rose cold sunrises and a ferry carried us away from the fora.

Adieus bid we each turned in our directions and scratched the mounds left by mosquitos all the way home.

Adventure lingers stale upon my breath as I yawn and fall into another island slumber, pricked by sunburn and sprite.

photographs courtesy of C.Bach

Redemption Song

Trekking up Pico de Fogo is my Ngarahoe redemption.

One perfectly conical volcano for another.

MmmmMm, the sharp sour smell of Sulfur steaming through the cracks at the summit.

And it only took three years to get to the top.

                        photographs courtesy of C.Bach 

Repose

Shrouded grey clouds permit the workings of a rainy day.
Long legs bent behind me as I lay limply upon the couch, soaking in the late summer romance of a novel set in the mountains of Iowa.

A travel photographer pulls into a long dirt driveway to ask the farmer's wife for directions.

His keen eye and slender body find a forgotten woman.

Pages turn themselves. The mind dressed in a long floral skirt runs through pastures of high grass.

I rub the top of my feet together and rest my chin into the other palm.

A green pick-up truck follows the spine of rural byways to covered bridges and reddish sunrise streams. Painted scenes are captured by wide lenses.

My head becomes heavy and I find myself reading sentences twice. I fold the book and rest my cheek upon the sleeve of crossed arms.

I can hear the neighbors and their washing boards, the sea beaten and swirled in the rocky coves below the windows. The walls are open windows.

Thick, sweet air washes into the room and over me.

The heaviness of late morning lifts though the book stays closed and limp.

The subtle beauty of bare footsteps lead me across the tiled floor toward the misty open windows.

I lean upon the sill scanning the grace and aching romance of the ocean.

I sigh the sigh of gratitude and fall softly back into the doorway of the barn on RR 2 in old Madison County, Iowa.

Pensao Casa Monte Amarelo, Cha das Caldeiras

White ceiling paint cracks.

Peonies and pansies tied in bows upon the bedspread draw from the femme fatigue sprawled upon the pillows.

Two candlesticks burn in ice-cream goblets.

Pink shadows slip into soft whispered stories of a childhood in a coastal county, of a bamboo raft built for one eager Panda.

Doors and frosted windows detailed with smooth curves of molding.

Fast friends and old friends fill the room with laughter. Some of the twilight mirth echoes down the hall.

A breakfast banquet sits in the corner freshly coated with the paint not wasted on the ceiling.

This time tomorrow

Where will we be?
On a spaceship somewhere sailing across an empty sea:
-The Kinks

Boa noite e sonhos cor de rosa; xx

Uva

In the beginning there was a little purple grape.
She hung more or less happily from her vine.
Each day the sun grew stronger and she became darker, sweeter.
As the winds blew south, she moved south, to Sinai.
There she found herself alone and afraid.
She was an American grape, you see.
American grapes are told to be afraid of turbans and the dark skinned men who wear them.
She stayed in her hut on the shore of the Red Sea and cowered.
After two days her fear had melted and dripped away and she felt free.
She returned to the sun and again grew darker, sweeter.

This little purple grape soon heard a call from a bright red tomato in the north.
She remembers this tomato from the nursery.
They were seeds together. Fed by the same university. Later sent off seperately into the fields.
The tomato promised adventure and good company.
North she went, that little purple grape. Always a sucker for fine conversation.
Their vines interlaced and together they grew darker, sweeter in the sun.
They set their moveable roots down into the land of Jordan.
The red sand was very hospitable, Always offering sugared Sage tea.
The tomato grew very fast, and the little grape was much slower.
They kept themselves at a reasonable pace and enjoyed the sun together very much.
Eventually he ripened, big and red, and found himself at a market in Jerusalem.

Alone again, this little purple grape.
She overheard some other grapes talking in a foreign but familiar tongue.
They mentioned some grapes that had been put into bottles and kept for a very long time.
This intrigued the little grape. What answers must lie at the bottom of these bottles!
She went to find out for herself.
After winding through many valleys on the kindness of many vines, the little purple grape landed softly in Madrid.
The people in Madrid eat a lot of Ham, she noticed. And they talk very quickly.
Luckily, the little purple grape did not come for conversation.
It started to rain and the little grape grew juicy.
She slipped along the cobbled streets and found a place with many, many bottles and many, many people eating ham.

A very tall glass with a very thin stem sat down beside her.
She sat up nice and straight and looked as if she was thinking very serious thoughts.
The glass was filled and introduced the little purple grape to several delicate secrets.
The little purple grape enjoyed this very much. She emptied the glass and her thoughts did not seem so serious.
Her cheeks became red and she slipped off into the streets.
She filled herself with music and cheese and fell asleep happily.

Soon she will visit Lisboa, where there are even more grapes in even more bottles.
Some of the grapes are enriched. They are sipped out of small glasses and this makes them fancy.
Soon after the little purple grape will sail south to Africa. Here there are many things that are dark and sweet.
She will have a lot of time to ripen in the sun and will assuredly grow deep and purple.

The future of this little grape is uncertain.
She thinks she would like to grow old and wrinkle.
Raisins are very nice, aren´t they?

If Pleasure be Happiness

Photo courtesy of J. Katz

It is midnight

It is midnight in Madrid.
The streets are greyed
by sleeping shop windows
and rain.

Madaba

There is laughter in the land of Moab.

May Moses rest in peace.

Wadi Rum

Lips rouged by desert rain

Ferried North by Saudi train

Whisper melted cliffs of gold

To keep the ancient ocean.

Kabbalat Shabbat

Last evening, dressed in white, a room of seekers met for a gospel. We gathered for a Hallelujah, to light candles, to bless bread. I first met this bread as 5 kilos of flour, a dozen ashram eggs, white granulated sugar and salt. I sat with it as it writhed from the hook. Later to watch it rest, to rise. I watched with warm, sweet eyes as the oven door closed it inside. After the heavy desert sun had set, I knelt before the room and made grace upon the golden challah. I tore from the braid, rubbed it in salt and let the blessed bread fill my belly full.

Amen.

An Offering

Boker Or

I went away and with that I feel the pleasure of returning to you.

May our reunion be warm and light.

Desert first.

Sufi dancing in the Negev

Baha'i Gardens

Haifa

The Seventh Day

Dressed modestly I stand, neck craned, beneath the towering bricks of the Kotel: the Western Wall. Women read from their books of prayer and place notes of desperation between the cracks of the calcite. A circle of young girls and young women and old women gather and begin to chant hymns, blessings. Men are heard through the divider, the tops of their covered heads are seen as they spin and skip about. Leaves in trees rattle, the rain drops fall heavily. A gust of wind rushes in from the east.  The wave falls upon the wall and sweeps back, pulling the crowd farther from shore. The feeling is tangible.

I walk to the stone basin where men mechanically wash away the evenings workings. Ariel and Jonathan stand with me. We wait for Lazer, aged thirteen. With Peyous curled beside his ears, a black hat and floor length coat, he greets us in the company of three older men in similar fashion. Away we are swept like small pebbles and legless crabs through the arab shuk. Spices and carpets heavy from the warm rain sag and we rush by. We are late for dinner. Rabbi Glazer is waiting. 

MooooOoo

Resting on the ties of ropes, nested into a hammock outside a hand-built cedar guest house on the Moshav of Avnei Eitan.

Round and round

Bus 417 from Barcol, Ramat Bet Shemesh (lit. 'house of the sun') to Tachanah, Jerusalem

Tachanah on the 943 to Nahal Samad, Raananah

Raananah to Tiberius, Tiberius north to the Golan

Wheelbarrow

I've been leftoutintherain.
I've been rustingundertheporch
collecting driedleavesandbrushandworms
and my joints have turnedtodust.
My woodenlimbshavesplintered,
I couldn't carry a branch ifyoudraggedmesideways
down the yard.

Let it pour.

There are potatoes roasting

A three month old girl is sitting in a chair that bounces slowly with a smooth, steady tempo. She dawns a suit of red velvet.

A three year old boy is fanning cards and pencils over the apartment's tile floor. He has already forgotten the trauma of the big red balloon. He is chewing, with an open mouth, dry sugared cereal.

An eight year old girl is in the bath, lathered and rinsed {and again} with handfuls of soap and a bottle's full-exhale of shampoo. Her day clothes are limp and scattered across the bathroom floor; pajamas awaiting her, folded, on the sink.

An established young gentleman is dicing sweet bell peppers in the kitchen. He yawns, rinses a cucumber and continues to chop with a knife that needs sharpening.

There is a mother with rolled sleeves moving from bathtub to kitchen, smoothing out the creases in the carpet and soothing wounds of lost balloons. Her voice carries into the corners of the high white ceilings and she lifts her nose to make sure the potatoes aren't burning.

Bet Shemesh, Israel

I am just a little olive growing darker in the sun

I'm far from the sea in the valleys of Jerusalem and the wind tempts me westward.

Effet mer.

In the Beginning

was the word.

A restless Life

Breakfast

Fashion Show

In a dimly lit bedroom,

clothes scattered,

outfits repaired,

imagination running

rampant through

the drawers and closet

of my childhood.

Mom and dogs cuddled

under my sheets reading

Traditional Home.

Together we are listening

to Hoots and Hellmouth.

Must love the mandolin

and the green hat-wearing

player who won a bit of my heart

in Chicago.

My NYC family,

they're playing

City Winery

on February 19th.

Check 'em out.

Breakfast Redacted

Kale, parsley, fresh beet juice, frozen blueberries and a small piece of over-boiled cauliflower leftover from lunch yesterday,

a few ounces of water and BOOM, you have a mostly inedible, molten brown fibrous {smoothie}.

I chew down a third of it and strain the rest leaving me with 6 ounces of

surprisingly sweet and predictably bitter green drink. I feel {better} already.

Paired with yesterday's brown rice, I mash up a banana and blend the two into a porridge-esque puree.

Topped with a dollop of fresh yogurt, straight off the shelves of Stew Leonard's, it is a breakfast fit for a {queen}.

I now need to lie down, I'm feeling pretty {tired}.

There is something I've got,

Nobody can take it away...

I drizzled olive oil in my hair to condition my scalp, slapped on a scully and went to take rest. Upon rinsing I had hair softer and bouncier than I had felt in months. Let us, if we may, define bouncy. Perhaps through comparison: A trampoline is bouncier than a diving board, just as a mattress is bouncier than a sleeping bag. Let us note, especially in the case of the mattress, that there must be room for the springs to recoil and again, rebound. The classically dry waves of hair, now fully saturated with triacylglycerols, have found delight in expansion. I am sporting, however proudly, a helmet of poofy, silky locks and glad, very glad that it's raining and I've got nowhere I need to go.

There's no place

Shhhhh.

Just sit quietly and listen.

Pranayama

I am taking an average inhale before I dive inside.
A gasp doesn't so much fill the lungs as the cheeks and I'm really going for depth here.
I've decided against kapalabati, fire has its time, and here not its place.
As for alternate nostril breathing? Purification will sort of.. take care of itself.

In Chicago

There was quite a bit of walking, and a bit of sitting down.
A deep dish pizza happened, as did bus riding and window shopping.
I was inspired once in Myopic Books, and twice at the Green Eye.
Tonight, as last night I will sleep on a couch of a once-stranger, Samantha.
Secrets were shared over tacos; heartbreaks.
It should be a distance before either of those two, again.
Had a good hairday and met a tiny dog named Lucy.

the egg salad in ypsilanti, michigan is divine

oh, to taste the delicious madness of anonymity

Not one, but two: Hawks.

Route 32 brought me from my gravel drive across the Newburgh Beacon Bridge,
{for those of us who care about cartography, that's north and just slightly east}.
I took myself up the Taconic Parkway, for the sake of beauty and with the quiet
hope of seeing hawks on the greener shores of the Hudson.

Albany was gross with buildings, traffic circles, chain hotels and luckily,
I made it onto Route 9 near Saratoga Springs before the Rush. Two-lane
Americana at a most conservative 40 miles an hour, 9 opened up the conversation
of public rests and the appetite that was growing gently inside of me.

As if sent by the divine brewer himself, I passed through Glenn Falls, NY
just as bladder and stomach met to stage a coup. They found salvation at
Davidson Brother's Brewery.

160 miles later: I find myself circling around Saint Laurent and the similarly
sacred Denis in Montreal's snowy Latin Quarter.
How sweet the streets look, powdered and plowed! Bonne soiree, Quebec.
It is most lovely to see you.

Shall I Part my Hair Behind?

Light of Heart and Fancy Free

I read my horoscope in the Chronogram and not only

did it tell me everything I wanted to hear, it was also true.

I guess I will leave tomorrow instead.

With this extra morning, I re-fluffed the blankets I so violently kicked off

in the middle of the night, curled the legs in towards the chest and easily

slipped back to sleep.

I drank stew out of my favorite bowl when the daylight finally

brought me from underneath the quilts. The warm lentil puree

tempted me back into bed.

Fought the urge to climb back upstairs. Instead sat outside

on the splintered wooden steps. Thinking to myself that I needed

more air in my front left tire, I saw a tiny flying bug. I realized, briefly,

the impact of our warm days and wondered at the future of our climate.

Upon returning into my kitchen I noticed that there was

a strange presence in the corner, near the bananas.

Clever design, that AeroGarden.

Coming Right Up

1 jar of chunky peanut butter

20 manicured nails, clipped and unpainted

8 and a half dollars worth of flashlight batteries

3 overnight bags filled with oatmeal-colored sweaters

10 days of silent meditation

deep sigh of relief

Good morning

A wake up from my beloved New York Times:

delestage: power cut; a term used to identify the routine of rationing food in the Republic of Congo where one fourth of the population goes without meal, nor bite of bread, three out of seven days a week. The heads of household delegate which children may eat on which day, a single, solitary meal. Other days, those children go without. It may be important to note that the Republic of Congo is geographically lush and tropically fertile though the major government funded industry is petroleum. There is little support for agricultural production. HOW, how, how and WHY in a world where there is so MUCH, where there is such EXCESS, are there hungry people?!? HUNGRY people. HUNGRY children. Who is in charge there? Who is letting this happen?

I don't know what to do.

Between you and I

The more I see you, the more I want to see you.

Castaway on the Moon

Mom couldn't finish watching it but Marley stayed closed and curled by my side as I drifted romantically toward Seoul.

Loneliness lives in all of us. Sometimes he wears a different hat and calls himself winter,

other times he dances through the night leaving you in stark white silence.

Tonight, though quiet, is sweet with longing and just a lil' bit o movie-fueled love.

Sweet dreams, mes amies.