Massive Head-wound Cory
Massive Head-wound Cory
cory posts today...first time this month. he's losing hair but not feeling too funky, i gather. what cory is for sure is spunky. and a father-to-be. read his blog to find out the flavor. then send healing energy thataway. okay. :) cory.
- posted by barbara @ 8/28/2003 09:27:00 AM  0 comments

 
My Turn: We
My Turn: The Bush administration is playing fast and loose with our rights. We are only beginning to understand the full impact of the Patriot Act - which was shoved through Congress in the aftermath of September 11 - on our civil liberties. Federal agents can now search your home and office without your knowledge, and force your bank, your doctor and even your library to turn over their records about you.
- posted by barbara @ 8/28/2003 03:28:00 AM  0 comments

 

looking through, sizing, enjoying the pictures i took on sunday, this one caught my eye unexpectedly. it seems to have a ghost in it.
i am serious - i am talking about the roundish sorta "defect" in front of micah's face. but my camera doesn't do that.

i've already sent my [psychic] daughter in law a copy asking her who was on the boat with us. we'll see. comments so welcome; it's been so long since i went to the webpages where these incidences are logged that i cannot remember what the thing is called. and i could be just crazy.
this was also taken sunday
- posted by barbara @ 8/28/2003 02:46:00 AM

 
face36

- posted by barbara @ 8/27/2003 03:55:00 PM

 
only questions.
at what point do you lose your soul? i think it must be gone before
you murder the young woman as she crosses the street, before you
rob the single mother of her grocery money to lose it at the
racetrack, before you pull a gun on the stranger whose car you
covet. so how did it get lost, and do you get it back? will
prison time redeem a soul if there is no remorse? are you
still culpable if you are psychopathic or schizophrenic and
essentially unable to know what you did is wrong, was wrong,
stays wrong? if your victim dies, what can you do to further
justice? and if you lost your soul before that are you going
to give a flying fuck before the end of your life?

do you still know right from wrong? what are the devices you
employ to sidestep your guilt? how long must you suffer before
you can love yourself again? and when you die, do you just die,
do you go to hell, have you proven yourself worthy of heaven?
if you lose your soul and commit a terrible crime is all the
rest of your life pretty much shit because of it, especially
if you are not held to account for your crime?

all i have are questions...and theories. answers...pretensed,
believed, not known.

Grey

Questions my companions, and cats.
We make art, not me.
Wonder saves my soul from atrophy,
Wonder buoys my brain and
Keeps it bobbing, alive on flux.

Flux and questions comprise the tide
ceaseless as any I have witnessed.
I stand on the sand and I'm rocking
Grief to sleep in my arms.

The world turns sideways;
I wonder on night. I've not managed
The black as well as the light,
Or the light as well as the black,
or the grey that leaks into
and out of the days like water -

Grey flows warm flux. Inevitable
as any tide, any sunrise,
any turtle in any sky.
Full of itself offered a medium.

See what can you do
with grey

Hand me a brush, we'll paint.
We'll see.
amen


.........
well actually that is not all i have. i still have my soul and puny and defensive and scaredycat as it is i think i'll keep it. it's me.
- posted by barbara @ 8/27/2003 09:39:00 AM  0 comments

 
after midnight

- posted by barbara @ 8/27/2003 09:00:00 AM

 
The Dick List: BILL G****** (Brooklyn, New York)
The Dick List: BILL G****** (Brooklyn, New York): Bill is an asswipe disguised as a sweet, unpretentious quirky sorta guy who just wants to hang out & have fun with ya. Truth is, Bill is a compulsive liar. He lies to the world about his best friend, a female, with whom has he has a love child he actually thinks nobody knows about. He also lies about his former business partner, a female, with whom he had a 3-year sexual affair right under her husband's nose. He lies about having no use for a nuisance friend who's resurfaced—an ex-girlfriend—meanwhile he's telephoning her twice a day & taking her out behind your back, telling her she's much more fun to be with than you are. He lies about being poverty-stricken when in fact he's loaded, but doesn't want the mother of his love child to find out and bang him for support payments. He denies his true sexuality: he is bisexual but won't confess even though you catch him red-handed! And finally, he does all this to you while professing his undying love, telling you that you're the best lover he's had ever had in his life and that you're the only one he ever wanted to marry! WHAT A DICK.

okay. i've read enough now...
- posted by barbara @ 8/27/2003 02:41:00 AM  0 comments

 
The Dick List
The Dick List
don't ask me why.
- posted by barbara @ 8/27/2003 02:28:00 AM  0 comments

 
Kern River Golden Trout Resort
Kern River Golden Trout Resort
our labor day plans...i cannot believe that nowhere on this entire website is the address of the place made available. they have maps - but the maps don't tell me how to get there from here. that's dumb - i think i'll complain. on top of that, there is NO SMOKING in any of the rooms!

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrgh

hey, i'll deal. this one's for rory.


i need to get to the cemetery. there's a poem i want to write. it's about crying. about not running away from the crying, not trying to stop the crying. i cry as much as i have to, no more, no less. so you know, i cry a lot. :)

the title of the poem is either "sometimes i'll cry" or "let me" - but the poem? is being very much brat today and for several days in fact. i can't catch it godammit! it's clever too because i have such a clear idea of what it should say but the how of what it should say? is in it, and hiding like a very much brat.
- posted by barbara @ 8/26/2003 02:03:00 PM

 
What the Hell Happened Last Night - Photos: btezra
What the Hell Happened Last Night - Photos: btezra

excellent provocative surprising photos. check out the baseball diamond with the rainbow
- posted by barbara @ 8/26/2003 12:20:00 PM  0 comments

 
birthdays
08-26-95:
"Here we all live in a state of ambitious poverty" -
Juvenal, 47-138 A.D.

08-26-95

I am 40 years old
I am fat
I am cold
I am profoundly alone
I am lazy
I have no home
I am driving, driving
I have a goal
I want to be living!!

I am 40 years old.

I feel like if I drive another inch I'll collapse into dust. The wheels and doors will fall off the car.
I just want to go up, up, up. But I must climb there.
I'm here in this house of you're-not-wanted crying on my 40th birthday. Andy's not here because Lifer can't stand him, Bekah's not here because she can't stand me, Rory sleeps and I'm $79 overdrawn and broke.

But there's nothing for it but to go on. Things don't just stop. My redemption's right around the corner. I maybe won't have to stay at this place that leaves me heavy and sad and feeling rotten.

one year later:

08-26-96

It is 1-ish, I am 41. I went to Palmdale again today and there is still no furniture in our home. Nonetheless for the first time in 15 months I prepared a meal for my children in my kitchen. Tomorrow I may rent a refrigerator; it's hell without.

Later -----

Andy is cooking my quesadilla. John may come over - but at any rate I have 75% of my progeny and Bekah wrote me a poem:

"No one but a mother could devote
so much time
No one but a mother could be
so caring
No one but a mother could
give as much support
No one but a mother could be
happy cleaning poo
And, no other mother could
give me more love
That's why I'm happy my mother
is...
You!"
-by Bekah Zask
08-26-96


A chip off the old block, eh?

later still.............

Rarely do I have them all-
Save this for POSTERITY:

John 6'0" - I still look at this
Bekah 5'4 1/2" - crew in righteous awe -
Andy 5'3 7/8" - I made these people! and
Rory 3'5" - their beauty is rife.

And as you can see, 3 of them are taller than me. What a great example of how "a little while is a long time."

Five years after that:

Forty-sixth Birthday, First Occasion

"No blessed leisure for love or hope,
But only time for grief."
- Thomas Hood, The Song of the Shirt

08-27-01 2:29 a.m.

Oh, Bekah, the other night I agonized to you about whether the give and take of love still goes on between us as I seem to experience. Tonight on a webpage about another murdered child , the mother said very much the same.

I would still much rather have you, Bekah so you know amen and ever, ever love til all energy ceases. one sleepy mama I am I am

Bekah I sang happy birthday to myself the way I expect you would: "happy birthday dear MAMA, happy birthday to you." Otherwise I wanted none of it essentially. No wrapping no candles no singing. No forced faux joy.

Just less than two months ago it was your birthday. Look at how my little girl has grown up so much! She's a woman...you blew out all 21 candles like it was nothing. Joy was for real. My family together, happy - I was so, so fortunate...all of my children reasonably happy and healthy as well.

Now I'm unfortunate. My daughter murdered savagely on a street in San Pedro. Left with contempt to die... oh Bekah! you are missed. desperately I could hear the drone of a child's cry, think from upstairs. A siren in the distance. Integration. Absorption of experience, events that cannot be altered. This is planet earth peopled by humans. On this planet time passes in one direction; forward. As it does so people pass from it as they die.

As time continues forward, necessary distance. No new memories unless you count the moment I found out, the funeral, the tears, traffic report, emotions, people.

Your mother insistent that she has lost so much, whether a pretense to normal is ever attempted and/or achieved. Your mother struggling in darkness too abject to describe, struggling with grief in its truest most raw and powerful incarnation (child's death) - learning along the way.

You, wrested so rudely away from this planet, oh I can speculate and weave charming scenarios but what is hard is that I seem to need to believe them in order to bear myself away from the pain and its alternative.

It must be absorbed, your murder. I want to progress past the place where your absence, death, mode of death define the person I am. But when I do that what will become of you and our trans-dimensional love swaps?

I already lost you when you died. Can I keep your loving spirit inside, where grief and horror presently reside? A person wrested with violence away from this side, can I feel you forever from the other side, cherish you, walk straighter because you are by my side?

Will you fill the hellhole with love from your radiant soul, with enough certainty I am allowed to be whole? That warmth, energy, those virtual hugs, while all I will ever want is you back on this planet with me? Questions are tough, but no worse than this reality: my daughter is gone. A murderer took her away from me. If I can recover from her loss remains to be seen -

It is 4:24 now Bekah and I've just been wailing. I know what my question is today but how long 'til the answer is revealed - even if that alone is an aspect that can or will be decided by me - is unclear.

Nothing new in other words. Question number 2 is why don't I concede, capitulate, give in? Not to the grief and its holes residing where my daughter used to be, not to the mourning which does and must continue to be practiced actively, but just to a little bit of sleep?

I do not know an answer for me right now. Day by day. Hour by hour. Minute by minute. Your mother learns the news that you are dead. amen

Wee Hours
08-27-01 almost light

Watch her scribble maniacally,
it's a scrambling away from reality
that she cannot change
So she rambles rapidly
Through many pages to prove
She can adjust her response
To what cannot be, and is.
She can change herself, learn to be
An entire human being
Risen like dough leavened by loss
The loss of one human
Who happened to be her everything.


Morning Poem, Mourning Poem
- Angry -

almost light rouses me/I am crazed indeed/I want my daughter here with me/I want her motherfuckers bring her to me/will you adopt vengeance pray justice for relief?/I want my daughter down the street/laughing with her friends - she's supposed to be/bastards, bastards, how dastardly/can a single fate be can many fates be?/and why do they all have to visit me!/what is the fucking matter with me?/am I grown up yet, no, do I have to be?/do I have to be when all I ever cared about was taken from me/turned away from me turned back to me/grew up by me only to be/MURDERED stripping each inch of reality/of all sense, there is no sense left to me/yes this may be insanity/but fuck you world you forced it on me/when you murdered my baby away from me

Today:
put another candle on my birthday cake, i'm another year old today!

48. okay. for the record i will say as i turn 48 that i have recently taken a long walk off a short pier. so far, the water is semi-fine.

bekah has proven herself to me so well and so, i say, thank you bekah-la you are the very best.

i think i may never be able to just categorically say it, but gawd DAM i am definitely closer measurably. that is, to the day when bekah's presence is more vital to me than her absence. that is to say, recovery...closer than ever and again thank you bekah amen

- posted by barbara @ 8/26/2003 08:55:00 AM

 
hoist

my son and his family as the boat was hoisted into the water for grandma barbara's birthday[it's actually tuesday but andy's leaving that morning] fishing trip. later, a barbecue and an ice cream "turtle" cake and my wish is supposed to come true. it did, it will. faith is high and that's all right by me.


and i even caught a fish! hua! lol
- posted by barbara @ 8/25/2003 12:28:00 AM  0 comments

 
FindLaw's Writ - Dean: The Bush Administration Adopts a Worse-than-Nixonian Tactic
FindLaw's Writ - Dean: The Bush Administration Adopts a Worse-than-Nixonian Tactic

John Dean discusses the bush administration's "outing" of a covert CIA spy because of her husband's insistence on speaking the truth regarding the recent never-shoulda-been war.
- posted by barbara @ 8/25/2003 12:16:00 AM  0 comments

 
AlterNet: War on Iraq
AlterNet: War on Iraq: The invasion is complete, Saddam Hussein is either dead or in hiding and George Bush has proclaimed victory. We are now in the phase labeled 'reconstruction,' but which looks and sounds more like 'occupation.' The war, however, is far from over. The future of Iraq remains uncertain, as does much of the Middle East. Nor do we know which nation will be the next target of the Bush administration's 'war without end.' But the mainstream media is already eager to move on.

hopefully that last statement is getting less true as the writing on the wall spreads to the sidewalk.
- posted by barbara @ 8/24/2003 11:59:00 PM  0 comments

 
barry


it isn't about you, it's only named after you
that was after you
...

you know.
it isn't FOR you, it's only named after you
because it happened after you
after you

...

you know.
it's just a thing that needed a name
and so i named it after you
that was after you

...

you know.
- posted by barbara @ 8/24/2003 11:43:00 PM  0 comments

 
KnoxNews: Columnists
KnoxNews: Columnists: The French were right.

The liberals were right.

The peaceniks were right.

True conservatives were right.

Veterans opposed to the war - I hear from more of them than you might imagine - were also right. They said this war was based on lies, and it was. They said this war, like most wars, would lead to more chaos and killing, and it has.

Don Williams, founding editor of New Millennium Writings, ends this editorial in the Knoxville News: Well, Iraq is Country X. Bush is its ruler.
thanks to Maru for pointing out this story that demonstrates that some conservatives are beginning to see the light with respect to the travesty known as mr. president.



- posted by barbara @ 8/23/2003 04:19:00 PM  0 comments

 
Doheny Days World Music Festival
Doheny Days World Music Festival

this is where i wanna go. he said, "Don't worry, i make it up," and after letting him wait for one day i called back asking how he planned to do that. time will tell. it's saturday now, and for some reason everything negative cannot touch my skin this morning.

some reason. and smile.
- posted by barbara @ 8/23/2003 10:12:00 AM  0 comments

 
tyler pic

the intrepid tyler, number two grandbaby
- posted by barbara @ 8/23/2003 01:00:00 AM  0 comments

 
Man jailed after school incident
Man jailed after school incident: A man was arrested early Thursday after police found him taking nude pictures of himself at a Torrance elementary school.
chuckle...:)
- posted by barbara @ 8/22/2003 11:46:00 PM  0 comments

 
Thanks for Signing the Petition
Thanks for Signing the Petition
recall the president
- posted by barbara @ 8/22/2003 01:17:00 PM  0 comments

 
We don't do peace
We don't do peacei wish we did
- posted by barbara @ 8/22/2003 12:54:00 PM  0 comments

 
The Eek-A-Mouse Eeksperiencei
The Eek-A-Mouse Eeksperience
i wanna be eeksperienced, i never have been eeksperienced, i probably won't be eeksperienced.

i could get pissed though. you never really know.

- posted by barbara @ 8/22/2003 02:55:00 AM  0 comments

 
jimmy...
rewrite from a week or so ago? comments more than welcome :)


Jimmy...

My dream came a poem
Like the poem
I was saying to him:

Lines.
Colorful lines,
Verses, on a page.

When he got up
To break his sweat,
A line fell off of the balcony...

When he got up
To brush his teeth,
A whole verse disappeared in the hall.

I slept the poem peacefully
Only as long as that warm man
Lay beside me.

Finally lost it completely
When Jimmy, dressed, said,
"Gotta get to work."

The poem passed away audibly
As I struggled to consciousness,
Getting out of bed

Before achieving it.
Now Jimmy knows
I'm crazy:

I poem in my sleep
And babble dreams
At daybreak

I wonder if
Jimmy will ever
tell me what I said


- posted by barbara @ 8/21/2003 07:53:00 AM  0 comments

 
dot lizard dot com: ::one:: what this is
dot lizard dot com: ::one:: what this is

a really good writer, and a woman younger than myself but with more than a little in common with me; though i am thinking she's more. whatever it may be, except maybe bereft. but of a writer, and of an insomniac, and crazy. and so on. anyhow i have been going daily to peruse her blog, digging into the archives, etc. this woman can write.
- posted by barbara @ 8/21/2003 07:07:00 AM  0 comments

 
aNdy
Through Andy's Eyes

andy's coming home tonight! andy's coming home...for five days, and i will be so happy to see him.
- posted by barbara @ 8/21/2003 05:42:00 AM  0 comments

 
JOHN and MARCIAS FABULOUS FINDS eBay Store
JOHN and MARCIAS FABULOUS FINDS eBay Store

marcia - one of two friends i've kept forever...love you! :)
- posted by barbara @ 8/21/2003 04:13:00 AM  0 comments

 
DigitalCatharsis
DigitalCatharsis
so annoying. i keep getting mail about how something i sent had a virus attached...but i didn't even send it. aargh. apparently there's a virus that just uses the email addresses from the infected computer. i have no idea whose computer it is though. sucks - plus what is also being sent under my name is porn. i do not traffic in porn.
- posted by barbara @ 8/19/2003 08:23:00 PM  0 comments

 
freeport
Lyrics:
So fare thee well happiness
Cause I got blues
And I got a lot of patience baby
That's a lot of patience to lose
I'm a woman
waiting for due time
now I've been treated bad
When I was a freeport
& you were the m - a - i - n - oooooh - d - r - a - g, uh.

laura nyro was my put-upon woman singer. those old albums were played til the jackets turned into dust when i picked them up and the vinyl flew into the floor for a few more scratches. i can hear this song in my head today. it's not the new kinda funk, it's the old dreaded funk, and it sucks frankly.

Too Many You's:
today i present as the essential bruise:
clad primarily in blacks and blues,
shirt, jumper, tights and shoes,
positively funereally i cruise
through a traffic jam of undeniable clues
to the doorway of the old, dreaded news:
today i was beat up, felt those rusty screws
trespass a heart jerked and dried into snack-sized chews;
read a prophetic headline: 'faithless man woos,
"trusting woman bound to lose"

i was stood up. sumbitch. lied to, bullshitted...and i thought i was going to a concert, which i have not for years already. so that's it.

You took my heart misery
You taught me blues
Well I got a lot of patience baby
That's a lot of patience to lose
i'm mad at my country,
now I've been treated bad
When I was a freeport
& you were the main drag

i will not indulge much longer...when i began replacing the vinyl with CD's i somehow ended up without christmas and the beads of sweat. did i think i would never feel flattened by man-fed bullshit again? probably. i probably thought i had enough to suffer through already, had paid my dues, blah blah bullshit...what i have never been able to figure out is why not just tell the truth, or never say anything in the first place? i mean this thing was promised and more than once. whatever.

now i have written it - was i thinking i wouldn't have to write it to stop stewing over it? hah.


testify
- posted by barbara @ 8/19/2003 02:20:00 PM  0 comments

 
silhouette

silhouette

with a poem playing around in my mind, even a short story, a novel, a screenplay, or a proposal, i paint, paint, paint.

i do not know why except perhaps it is related to ego blows. when i feel lonely i summon bekah and hug her memory. then i paint. and paint.
- posted by barbara @ 8/18/2003 01:05:00 PM  0 comments

 
If Bush Really Wants to Investigate the Cause of the Largest Blackout in American History, He Should Start with the Vice-President, Tom DeLay and Hims
If Bush Really Wants to Investigate the Cause of the Largest Blackout in American History, He Should Start with the Vice-President, Tom DeLay and Himself - A BuzzFlash News Analysis: CLAIM

'We'll have time to look at it and determine whether or not our grid needs to be modernized. I happen to think it does, and have said so all along.'
- George Bush, 8/14/03

SAN DIEGO - President Bush said he will order a review of why so many states were hit by a massive power blackout Thursday and said he suspects the nation's electrical grid will have to be modernized. [LINK]

FACT

In June of 2001, Bush opposed and the congressional GOP voted down legislation to provide $350 million worth of loans to modernize the nation's power grid because of known weaknesses in reliability and capacity.

our president lies as if it's okay to lie...has anyone else noticed that? is that okay?


steps
- posted by barbara @ 8/16/2003 12:16:00 PM  0 comments

 
trust lies liars me
trust lies liars me
i'm not where i hoped to be, but am where i feared i would be; i am at loose ends as well and AARGH! to quote my son, i need to get the fuck out of this place...
- posted by barbara @ 8/15/2003 09:02:00 PM  0 comments

 

one of the best kitty pics i ever took as far as i know. these are two of the last of the kittens; lola, luke, and bekah-la are all fixed. i've been thinking lately that if these cats do not outlive me i'll just switch to, and stick to, turtles...
- posted by barbara @ 8/15/2003 04:43:00 AM  0 comments

 


bekah's 23rd birthday present has moved on after a weekend during which john and denise and the boys were not home. it stayed for one month. one month for bekah, one month for bekah's mom. amen
- posted by barbara @ 8/15/2003 04:34:00 AM  0 comments

 
A Picture's Worth - essays on photographs of personal significance
A Picture's Worth - essays on photographs of personal significance
spreading the word - miracles do happen
- posted by barbara @ 8/14/2003 10:01:00 AM  0 comments

 
Police shift wanted driver
Police shift wanted driver

$25,000 reward offered for another killer who just kept going
- posted by barbara @ 8/13/2003 07:41:00 AM  0 comments

 
hua
notes from a sailor.

so, i started broadcasting. today concluded day two of the course that will either lead to a triumphant enlistment as a navy journalist or four and a half years of mindless torture as an undesignated seaman. its been boring as hell so far, as it always is when i start a new part of training. anything new always requires hours of briefing done in powerpoint. i hate powerpoint. i swear, it could be a form of torture. if someone has information they are unwilling to share, just give them a powerpoint lecture about why they should give up the information. and whenever they fall asleep, make them stand up in the back of the class. if you can make it last more than two hours i guarantee itll work.

i seem to have the remarkable ability to sleep with my eyes wide open and the amazing skill of keeping my eyes locked on my instructor during deep
dreams. others are not so fortunate and get to stand in the back all day.


my class is funny. all the navy people who were in writing except one are in there with me. the one couldnt class up because the class was full. all the
old army and air force people and most of the marines are gone. four marines remain and there is a slew of army people fresh out of boot camp. they all got out friday and man, i have never in my life, not even during my four months on this army post, heard so many people say "hua" so often. it doesnt help that i have a navy instructor who has decided that he enjoys saying hua as well. some of us navy students have taken to saying "Aaaargh!" whenever they say hua. ive seen it done before, and usually the army adapts and starts acting like pirates. all the soldier students here envy the navy, mostly because the army isnt allowed to smoke during advanced training.

so, thats all the rucus thats been going on at the defense information school here today. ill be home in one week and two days. see you then
love Andy
- posted by barbara @ 8/12/2003 11:00:00 PM  0 comments

 
Remarks
Remarks
my spiritual beliefs as shared on July 6, 2002, during a headstone dedication for my daughter on her 22nd birthday. just converted to html today for the very first time. :)
- posted by barbara @ 8/12/2003 05:13:00 PM  0 comments

 
multicolored flower

multicolored flower
- posted by barbara @ 8/12/2003 12:05:00 AM  0 comments

 
Sky and Telescope - Mars at Its All-Time Finest
Sky and Telescope - Mars at Its All-Time Finest ...on the night of August 26-27, Mars will be closer to Earth - if by only a little - than at any time in some 60,000 years

my birthday celebrated by mars...ain't that sweet.

my own private godzilla
- posted by barbara @ 8/10/2003 06:31:00 PM  0 comments

 
Pinprick
Pinprick: I'd wake Bukowski from the dead
And we'd kick Mickey Rourke's ass
For turnin' him into Snagglepuss

ray sweatman's got links on his blog to all these poems and they're by and large just terrific reading; i recommend.
- posted by barbara @ 8/10/2003 05:33:00 PM  0 comments

 
Your Red Robe
Your Red Robe

just barely revealing the chaotic joy that infuses the lover and the joy when the poem is good, simmering under the surface just barely not sloppy or embarassing but jubilant just underneath couched in allusions even to eliot and the romantics and just fucking good, or so i say. and poetry is where i go to church i feel santified and correct just now. was i fallow am i lazy does it matter do i care. yes i care, but maybe not enough. when it really is a matter of thinking too much that is what it is...when its worry its worry but i have other, better, more thinks around here.

i am the little curly haired blonde being held by my mother, back in - 1957? 1958? i was born in 1955...with this sunday sort of nostalgia tapping at me...

Frank & Marie, '60s

a peek into the rumpus room:
the martini shaker
stuck to the table
meant it was a fine old night

if daddy wasn't home,
the fight did not end.
his ship had hit the harbor
when those boots

pounded the porch,
when that bear
of a man burst
through the door

a welcome storm
in a drought
with cash & kisses
& sighs

that dropped on us kids,
til we thought
innocently
of manna,

Innocently, of course,
never having been
to church
or synagogue

or shrine
but that shrine
of Sunday
mornings after Martini nights

when we got
to fetch cup on cup
of black coffee
and cigarettes

from the drawer
(right of the kitchen sink)
& were allowed
to be part

of the cacophony
of ashes, spent love,
the Sunday paper
on the bed.
- posted by barbara @ 8/10/2003 05:24:00 PM  0 comments

 
Derek Teslik for Governor of California
Derek Teslik for Governor of California
- posted by barbara @ 8/10/2003 10:38:00 AM  0 comments

 
B.E. Mercer-03
B.E. Mercer-03

Now a real artist is a writer at thought cafe. good stuff
- posted by barbara @ 8/10/2003 09:01:00 AM  0 comments

 
Doug's Dynamic Drivel: Going to a dance
Doug's Dynamic Drivel: Going to a dance: The Japanese are far less hung up about sex. Of course, unlike the west, they don't have the 'benefit' of two thousand years of a religion telling them how sick, sinful and perverted sexual impulses are so those forces are largely absent from their society.

adventures in distant lands.
- posted by barbara @ 8/09/2003 07:06:00 AM  0 comments

 
Raise The Fist! - wire/-----74814smallsherm.gifIMG.article
Raise The Fist! - wire/-----74814smallsherm.gifIMG.article: Remember, fascism and a police state doesn't come all at once, it comes piece by piece. How far will we allow it go until we are all locked up in concentration camps.

an amazing and frightening story
- posted by barbara @ 8/07/2003 05:56:00 PM  0 comments

 
city

- posted by barbara @ 8/07/2003 05:24:00 PM  0 comments

 
taos cemetery

- posted by barbara @ 8/07/2003 05:19:00 PM  0 comments

 
TOMPAINE.com - Operation Oil Immunity
TOMPAINE.com - Operation Oil Immunity: In other words, if ExxonMobil or ChevronTexaco touch Iraqi oil, it will be immune from legal proceedings in the United States. Anything that could go, and elsewhere has gone, awry with U.S. corporate oil operations will be immune to judgment: a massive tanker accident; an explosion at an oil refinery; the employment of slave labor to build a pipeline; murder of locals by corporate security; the release of billions of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The president, with a stroke of the pen, signed away the rights of Saddam's victims, creditors and of the next true Iraqi government to be compensated through legal action. Bush's order unilaterally declares Iraqi oil to be the unassailable province of U.S. corporations.

in case the bureaucracy-speak of the actual order is difficult as it is for me, this explicates the meaning of the executive order 13303.

it seems to me that this should be illegal? please comment...
- posted by barbara @ 8/05/2003 08:58:00 AM  0 comments

 
FR Doc 03-13412
FR Doc 03-13412:Section 1. Unless licensed or otherwise authorized pursuant to this order, any attachment, judgment, decree, lien, execution, garnishment, or other judicial process is prohibited, and shall be deemed null and void, with respect to the following: (a) the Development Fund for Iraq, and (b) all Iraqi petroleum and petroleum products, and interests therein, and proceeds, obligations, or any financial instruments of any nature whatsoever arising from or related to the sale or marketing thereof, and interests therein, in which any foreign country or a national thereof has any interest, that are in the United States, that hereafter come within the United States, or that are or hereafter come within the possession or control of United States persons.

the executive order...i get the impression that gw's having fun with this presidency...throwing wars where there need not be war, issuing declarations that serve his interests, his father's interests, and the interests of his oil rich cronies.

that is NOT the same as the interests of american citizens. this man makes me so, so sick. he has got to get BEAT if he's not in prison by election time...
- posted by barbara @ 8/05/2003 08:40:00 AM  0 comments

 
Khilafah.com - Outrageous Bush Executive Order on Iraq Oil Must Be Investigated
Khilafah.com - Outrageous Bush Executive Order on Iraq Oil Must Be Investigated: "from Jerusalem"President Bush has issued an Executive Order, so far completely unreported, that purports to grant broad legal immunity to oil companies operating in Iraq. The Order is, on its face, outrageous, and should be investigated.

Executive Order13303 , issued on May22 ,2003 , claims to be essential to Iraqi reconstruction efforts. A cursory reading of the Order indicates that its real purpose is to protect oil companies by giving virtual impunity for any activities undertaken relating to Iraqi oil.
- posted by barbara @ 8/05/2003 08:25:00 AM  0 comments

 
23 Balloons

bekah's bouquet of 23 baby blue balloons soars upon its early release...what can't be seen - at least i don't see it - is the scissors, intended to keep the bouquet on the ground and failing miserably and immediately, hanging from the bouquet. it is there, though - i wish i could learn some day where the bouquet came to rest, and if any person recovered the scissors...,:)

anyway it did give us one good laugh on her birthday.


- posted by barbara @ 8/05/2003 06:52:00 AM  0 comments

 
Driver sought in deadly hit-and-run
Driver sought in deadly hit-and-run
i get so sad. san pedro seems to breed "hit and run" drivers. but these were people they "hit" and now they're dead bodies.
- posted by barbara @ 8/04/2003 09:49:00 PM  0 comments

 
Dante's Inferno Test - Impurity, Sin, and Damnation
Dante's Inferno Test - Impurity, Sin, and Damnation
The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Third Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Moderate
Level 2 (Lustful)	High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Very High
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Moderate
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	High
Level 7 (Violent)	Moderate
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	High
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

i ended up in the third level of hell...interesting test. never mind that i could teach dante a thing or a few about the nature of hell. he longed after beatrice, right? HA! i've longed after THREE men in my life, i mean had a broken heart three whole times [i feel this is remarkable and don't much care for what i feel it says about me - but whatever. it's history]. and then...the worst. the unkindest cut of all. i shout from the depths often into the void, but i still live and this is what i think is good about me: i still insisted on living.

bekah i miss you and love you forever amen
- posted by barbara @ 8/04/2003 02:27:00 PM  0 comments

 
ZEN JUDAISM by David M. Bader - Introduction
ZEN JUDAISM by David M. Bader - Introduction

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Forget this and attaining Enlightenment will be the least of your problems.

i may need this book; at any rate it is going on my wish list.
- posted by barbara @ 8/04/2003 05:44:00 AM  0 comments

 
WTF Is It Now??
WTF Is It Now??: ...in the summer of 2001, Mr. Bush disbanded the US intelligence unit tracking funding of Al Qaeda.

so much interesting news...is the mainstream catching up? because we should be shitcanning gw pretty quick here it would seem.

maybe corruption has been rampant in government forever, but if so, certainly it has rarely if ever been so exposed. to my [teensy] let's go USA, let's go. [that's a cheer]

Maru also provides a link and a few priceless excerpts from "Zen Judaism," which i plan to go check out right now.
- posted by barbara @ 8/04/2003 05:31:00 AM  0 comments

 
miracle
from an email to a friend
Bekah's 23rd birthday was July 6. on her birthday bekah gave us a very special present, a miracle as far as I am concerned. Here's what happened, but you need to know about bekah and turtles first.

[bek's best friend] was the butterfly; bekah was the turtle. this was something they shared from the days of notes passed to and fro in high school. when bekah died we buried her with one of her turtle collection pieces. john and i both have tattos memorializing bekah, with turtles. since her death i collect turtles as a means of working through my grief, to keep her memory near.

we even put a turtle on her headstone.

john and his family live in no. redondo near Vail and Robinson, a fairly dense suburban area, a good two hours away from any remaining habitat. they do have a huge backyard. on july 6, 2003, when denise and micah walked into the back yard they discovered a living, foot by foot desert tortoise had moved into the backyard.

john called me right away and his voice was full of awe. you know turtles don't just meander around the streets of LA. i have never in my life known of an instance where one just took up residence in people's yards. especially not on her birthday!

so. we spent hours at the cemetery, released a bouquet of 23 balloons into the sky, etc. afterward i wanted to take pictures of the turtle, but we couldn't find it. it appeared to be gone. i was disappointed but i comforted myself that anyway if it belonged to a neighbor, still it chose bekah's 23rd birthday to stray into john's yard, so i still took it as a sign from bekah.

the next morning at 7:30 or so denise called breathless saying, "i'm sorry to call you so early, but i didn't want you to miss it." rory and i drove right over. i laid down on the grass in the backyard and that turtle walked right up to me, and let me touch the top of its head and its legs when it came near. it has moved into the backyard and remains, a part of the family as far as we are concerned.

i don't know why the story hasn't been picked up by the daily breeze, LA times, CNN, etcetera. i sometimes think that people have as hard a time believing in miracles as i do believing in god. anyway here's a picture of the present bekah gave her family for her 23rd birthday:



the second anniversary of her death, July 19, i was traveling home after six days in taos, NM, where i attended a writers conference and visited my friend whose 17-year-old son was murdered on 07-20-00, one year minus one day before bekah. it was a good trip overall though the teacher of my work shop was not all that great and i was more committed to spending time with my friend than participating. :) at any rate i still plan to try and get my book published.

- posted by barbara @ 8/03/2003 04:30:00 PM  0 comments

 
Welcome to Kansas, Dorothy
Welcome to Kansas, Dorothy
a collection of ray's satire. check it out, laugh, and sigh. sigh :)
- posted by barbara @ 8/03/2003 04:07:00 PM  0 comments

 
Night
Night: Night

I want to prowl the night like an energetic ghost -
Want to plumb the facts out of the past
to hug the night like
Night hugs the desert
As if it could last -
When the day holds sway
I want to know
I did not waste
in the hours before

I'll be
the Night blooming jasmine
I'll be
the Cactus at dawn

In the heat I'll be
Sand or sweat
salt or sunburn
not gone.not lost.
not diminished
day does not take a history
light does not sour me, nor erase
energy the night
insists upon lending me.
- posted by barbara @ 8/01/2003 09:18:00 PM  0 comments

 
Poetry Super Highway Contests
Poetry Super Highway Contests

now i'm torn between wanting to join the contest or submitting to be poet of the month again...it's been four years since i was, amazing how time slips away....

hear the music? taos. these days i am such, such a lagger, and in true character i lolled around on the morning of july 13. i had not looked at my airline ticket since the day i bought it back in may, i think, but was pretty sure i was scheduled to leave in the morning.

with that in mind at about 5 am i finally pulled it out...OHGAWD!!!!!

my plane was leaving at 6:45 am. i was not even packed.
shifting directly into panic mode i made it to the airport by 6:37; the folks at the ticket counter laughed at me when i expressed my desire to be put on my original flight. not a chance, they said.


more later. it's my last night of freedom and i feel compelled to spend at least part of it away from these walls.


- posted by barbara @ 8/01/2003 06:38:00 PM  0 comments