Sometimes I Smoke Cigarettes

Sometimes I smoke cigarettes
I hold one between my lips
Loving it’s lightness.
I inhale big and hold my breath.
I get a little dizzy as the smoke
Buzzes through my insides.
I kiss the smoke goodbye as it
Leaves my lips,
Changing shape.

Sometimes I smoke cigarettes.
I do.
I smoke cigarettes
With a cappuccino
Warm in my hand
As Joni Mitchell
Cries out to me
From the record
spinning round and round.
I sit listening
so still.

About 352 days a year
I recognize smoke as poison.
I hold my breath when
Passing a smoker on the street.
About 352 days a year
I know what’s good for me.

But sometimes I smoke cigarettes.
I smoke and read old love letters.
I skim the pages of journals,
Pages of dreams past.
It’s then the sweet smoke
Travels into me,
Cradling my heart.
Sometimes I smoke cigarettes and weep.

About 352 days a year
I know which way is up
And I move in that direction.
About 352 days a year I say yes
And smile
And laugh from my guts.
About 352 days a year
I know it gonna be alright.

But sometimes,
Yes, sometimes,
I smoke cigarettes.

your BODY
is a LOVE LETTER
to GOD.

I'll Be Lighter Then

Looking at your tea
Still warm
I feel both it’s
Relief and emptiness
In being half drunk
Half consumed.

There are leftovers inside of me
That need to be
wrapped up
And refrigerated
But they sit out on the counter
Hoping someone sees them
Before they go bad.
They try to look delicious
But inside they know
Times a tickin’.

As I watch you walk down the stairs,
I see flashes of the film we created
The film that created us-
I used to know how it ended-
I used to be the writer.
What I didn’t realize was
Our hearts were the directors
And God is the producer
And the end
is locked in a vault in the sky.

I see glimpses of the years of footage to come.
You holding hands with your kids.
You walking down the aisle.
You losing your hair but never your bad jokes.
Thousands of cups of coffee
Miles of records
Tons of laughs
Bottles and bottles of wine.

But someone
A beautiful someone
Has been cast in the role
I always thought was mine.
The role I held like a blanket
Over my wild heart.

I thought it would keep me warm
But I couldn’t breathe.

My heart so full of fire
Began burning up the blanket
Til it lay in ashes around my feet.

As I lay here watching my pen dance
Across these pages,
I know this is where I should be
And you are on your own road now.

All that’s left are memories-
Just thoughts.

I’ll take a hot shower and watch them
Wash down the drain.
They’ll wave on their way
Down
Down
Down.
I’ll be lighter then.

Anais Nin

"And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."

Null and Void

Your kisses have lost their meaning.
They are null and void.
Every press of your lips against my skin
Feels like poison.
Every soft word
Drowns out the sound
Of the snake waiting around the corner.
There is nothing harder to hear
Than your praise
Which sweeps over me
And onto the next pretty face.
There is nothing harder to swallow
Than your lies
Which you mix with truth
Like tossed salad.
There is nothing harder handle
Than the loss of you
And my happy delusion.

I wonder if I dreamt you.

Pieces of thoughts
And fragments of affection.
All that is left
Are memories
Wrapped up in smoke.

To find your voice is the work.
To be heard is the skill.
And to inspire is the ART.

“You must not blame me if I do talk to the clouds.”-Thoreau

I see the boy in you

As you sit
Rooted in your chair
Making declarations
I see the boy in you
Softly smiling
Watching his feet dangle below.

I try to listen
To you
As you build up your walls
But I giggle to myself
When I see his tiny hands
Turning white
As he pulls himself up.
I see only his eyes
Peering at me
From the other side
Asking me to stay.

You play it cool
And he dances.
You lie
And he lets me know.
You rage
And he weeps.

And sometimes
When I’m very lucky
I see you both
Acting in the same moment.
It is those times
That keep me coming back.
It is in those moments
I know you
Because you know you.

And when that little boy is sad
And sitting in the corner
I want to be there
For him.
So he can crawl into my lap
And bury his face in my sweater.

I want to keep him warm
And kiss his forehead
And tell him how beautiful his tears are.

And when he’s ready
I’ll send him back to you
Lighter and brighter
And ready
To dance.

A Revolution is Raging

A revolution is taking place against the powers that be and there are two kinds of people participating:

1. People filled with spirit, passion, courage, and faith in their cause.

and

2. People who have no idea there is a war going on.

Both groups are equally powerful.

Be relentless in your you search for knowledge but
patient in your quest for wisdom.

The Violence Must END.

On the night of October 24th, in California, a 15 year old woman was brutally gang raped by 10 young men behind her school at a homecoming dance while lookers on took pictures on their cell phones.

In this article from Revolution Newspaper links are made between this event and the society that produces such horrible acts of violence against women and girls.

Support the Not-for-Profit bookstore, Revolution Books.

Heroine of the Week #1

Simone de Beauvoir
(1908-1986)
French philosopher, feminist, writer, woman

For her mind.
For her courage to express her thoughts
to an audience that was both
scared of her ideas and
in desperate need of her wisdom.
For her ability to make her ideas
accessible.
For her strong partnership
to her equally brilliant love, Sartre.
For the ferocity with which she sought out information.
For her revolutionary ways.
For her heart that had one eye
on the greater good.
For her writing that enlightens us
and makes her immortal.
For all of this
She is our heroine of the week.

"To show your true ability is always, in a sense, to surpass the limits of your ability, to go a little beyond them: to dare, to seek, to invent; it is at such a moment that new talents are revealed, discovered, and realized."

"One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman."

do not fail to read the poetry written in the clouds

This is the Time

It is becoming more and more important to for us to connect. In a system that does a very nice job of keeping us separate and dependent on it, we have forgotten our natural ability to connect to one another and organize.

Think about your group of friends. You may have a friend that is great at web design and another that is connected to social cause and another who is an event planner and another who is a writer and on and on. Clearly, you are friends because you have common interests or belief systems. Why not team up? Why no use your diverse set of skills and individual passions to create something that will be multiplied in the power of your unity?

What do you believe in? What is the change you want to see? What is the art you want to create? What is movement you want to support?

THIS is the TIME.

We are living at a very important time in history.
Old systems are crashing.
We are collectively shedding what is no longer useful.
We are creating space.
We have the opportunity here to create something new.

What’s it going to be?

Modesty is what they wrap us in
to keep us
small.
Get HUGE.