When you are an open vessel, when you are open to life and the living of it, then a lot of the impressions of this Earth, a lot of the dust swirling around in commotion, a lot of ideas and feelings are going to pass through you.
Feelings, feelings, feelings, swirling, swirling, swirling. Feel them full.
A pretty magical weekend. Nathan picked me up at my front door around 8pm Friday and we walked downtown for a beer at The Local prior to meeting up with his friends and seeing a brass band at the Dakota Jazz Club. Everyone was in a happy mood, we sat at a long table, crowded among others, a full house. The wine, water, beer was poured and shared; the frites and flatbread and escargot were served and enjoyed; the trumpets sang, trombones moaned, the tuba bellowed underneath. Continue reading “October Flora”
Half-hour interval before the wash is done. Write for 30 minutes — go!
For the past two weeks, I have been listening to Third Eye Blind’s eponymous album from 1997. I have no idea why, other than that the album rocks. I first purchased the CD, used, off Amazon at age 12 or something because I loved the song “How’s It Gonna Be.” These days, pretty much the whole album speaks directly to my soul. I envision myself painting madly, with full-bent feminine rage, to this album. The last four songs, especially the last three… wow.
I spent the day sleeping and reading, in turns, so at 8 p.m. I decided to get outside for a little while on this gorgeous July day. Continue reading “Bike Ride at Sunset”
Let it be known that I am not a food blogger. Publishing recipes to my blog is a current experiment in organization. For the longest time, I have had it on my to-do list to organize some kind of personal cookbook, some kind of handy reference to my favorite, repeatable recipes.
That just ain’t happening. Continue reading “Baked Salmon Filet”
As much as possible these days, I play the game of intuition on the weekends. I have designed a “no plans” lifestyle for myself, which allows for complete freedom of being during my non-work hours. The game of intuition, for me, means acting as instinctively as possible, moment to moment, from basically the moment I leave work on Friday afternoons until going to bed on Sunday evenings. Continue reading “A Saturday in the Life”
Whoever said that everything you need to know in life can be learned in high school English class was onto something.
With a light green pen, age 17, I copied the following information into my class notebook. Continue reading “Organized Innocence”
Sappho says that to die is evil: so the gods judge. For they do not die.
-Aristotle
What fuller beauty than beauty
willing to surface,
subtilement exposé, every
where to be found.
Many elements in my microcosmic corner of the universe have aligned such that the past 72 hours of my life have been a splendid pause of poetic experience. A pause because the heat of midwestern July and the lack of paid occupation allow for a comfortable lethargy, a slow motion of a still scene. Continue reading “for here there is no place that does not see you”
Intense girl stares down at paper,
zeroes in on the black heart of
her heroine. How must the
senses submerge? Ben Howard
sings “these small things, they gather
’round me, gather ’round me.” My
nail polish, black cherry, chips. Continue reading “Black Cherry”
may 7
sadness pervades my existence. I journal in the middle of afternoon, 82° blue skies in De Pere today, and the wind tours quickly. I should sit outside. I am so private. Continue reading “tea tree oil, sun spot freckles”
The afternoon of our desire,
the cat napping in the barn,
the carnival tears of merriment and
the mess of dreams in mornings
when things came to mind—this
density of living among the dead kept
flowers in our mouths after
each mean and powerful rain.
You were not like the others—you
stood there facing the wood like
nothing fell around you. There was
the backside of your body,
the haze around your head,
and your terrible calm amid
whatever braved a movement. In
any phase of five minutes you’d
steal the galaxies, take them
under your gaze, and you were
shameless as a voyeur,
ruthless as a pioneer.
–dkp
It occurs to me that one can be too conscious. The metacognitive processes involved in writing require, for those of us with hoarding minds, the same kind of patience, stamina, and downright courage it takes to clean out the attic, to assess the contents one by one. Continue reading “The Attic”
I recall Joni Mitchell once said something about the pressure she felt in youth, a surely mounting pressure, to be great–to make one’s expression dance in unison with one’s soul—, and I say “mounting” because these pressures accumulate with the years. Time tends to carry on like the breath of a sad singer’s song; the phrase finished, the sounds produced, she must then gasp for air in the intervals, if to continue the tune. Continue reading “The Wings”
There is a bell tower in the courtyard behind our apartment, and three minutes after I awoke to Erik’s soft goodbye kiss, it rang eight beats, like two measures in 4/4 time, to mark the 8 o’clock hour. And so the day began like a song. One, however jet lagged, cannot fall back asleep after such a composed start. Continue reading “A Home in Holland”
my father moved through dooms of love
through sames of am through haves of give,
singing each morning out of each night
my father moved through depths of height Continue reading “[my father moved through dooms of love]”
143
I pity those who dream the probable, the reasonable and the accessible more than those who fantasize about the extraordinary and remote. Those who have grandiose dreams are either lunatics who believe in what they dream and are happy, or they’re mere daydreamers whose reveries are like the soul’s music, lulling them and meaning nothing. Continue reading “The Dream that Promises the Impossible”
HERMAN MELVILLE (1819-1891)
On Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Tragic Vision 1851
There is a certain tragic phase of humanity which, in our opinion, was never more powerfully embodied than by Hawthorne. We mean the tragicalness of human thought in its own unbiased, native, and profounder workings. Continue reading “On Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Tragic Vision”
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE (1804-1864)
On Herman Melville’s Philosophic Stance 1856
[Melville] stayed with us from Tuesday till Thursday; and, on the intervening day, we took a pretty long walk together, and sat down in a hollow among the sand hills (sheltering ourselves from the high, cool wind) and smoked a cigar. Continue reading “On Herman Melville’s Philosophic Stance”
