rory and chase, again with that strange case of blue eye.
Posted by Hello
- posted by barbara @ 10/29/2004 12:00:00 AM  0 comments

 
Ports O' Call Village, San Pedro, CA
come here this weekend...friday at 5 pm, a candlelight vigil, and the rest of the weekend, a festival, carnival, with speakers and rides and it is all for the cause of Justice for Murdered Children.

one of their poster girls, bekah zask, 7-6-80 to 7-19-01
Posted by Hello
that's a good cause, and you can have a good time while you're at it, okay? see ya there...



another one of their poster girls...bekah zask, 7-6-80 to 7-19-01
Posted by Hello

- posted by barbara @ 10/28/2004 07:29:00 AM  0 comments

 
To Andy on His 21st Birthday

younger days...
Posted by Hello

To Andy on His Bar Mitzvah
I commend you son
(I won't say you're the favorite one)
But I will say this:

You came out of me and were placed
Still wet in my arms
And though you had just weathered

The trauma of your own birth
You gazed at your mother
With a calmness that transcended age.

And for all of these thirteen years
You are the one
Whose affection arrived without judgment

Whose smile was vital
Whose tears stung like leather straps
That whipped me on the inside...

I commend you, son, with love and pride
But no surprise
That was always you
And will always be you.

i'm fallow, wordwise, and the boy is 21 years old today. i love you andy...mom

modern-day, my son in 2004 after his navy boot camp grad
Posted by Hello
- posted by barbara @ 10/25/2004 04:45:00 PM  0 comments

 
chase-ee with his new flannel

chase-ee with his new flannel jacket...
Posted by Hello

...and something i've never encountered before: BLUE eye?
- posted by barbara @ 10/24/2004 06:30:00 AM  0 comments

 
* BlogExplosion
so i joined the explosion. amazing what a writer's block can drive one to. i've been painting so much i've wondered if it's a sign that i'm soon to die, that nature is just letting bekah and me do our thing in a burst before i burst and die. maybe it is actually that bekah's fixing to "move on," and when she does the painting will cease for me; i will be done.

at any rate, these days the whole time i'm painting - most of the time these days it seems - the pretentious snob bitch, call her BAH-bra, stands upon her high horse within my treacherous mind and declares it all shit.

shit
Posted by Hello
"It's all shit - you're simply lazy," she says. i mutter to myself, paint some more. in all honesty, an awful lot of it is shit. it took me to the age of 40 to say "I am a poet," without feeling just as much the dilletante, but i did arrive at that moment when i believed it of myself; though every word, or clump of words, i generate, is not poetry. sometimes it is embarrassingly bad, so bad i throw it away [trust me that is BAD, cause i save everything i write]. some lousy lines, and some lovely lines, have been left languishing in drawers for decades and sometimes even now i find a home for them.

so who knows? the question is so subjective, especially in the realm of abstract art, more so yet when you are me or somebody like me, without much learning and little exposure. i like what i like and i let that be enough when it comes to painting...with poetry, though, that's somewhat different, because i find i cannot be so indifferent. sure i write to stay sane and always have, but additionally i possess a deep reverence for the medium. i have studied, read fairly widely, with discretion learned in classroms. a good poem can make my day, my night, whole months of my life...and though i do believe that i have achieved a few of them, undoubtedly it is much too few and the remaining poems, though i share them, like and even love them, well, there are just a bunch that are not as good as i aspire to. maybe none of the poems i have written are that good...i dunno. fuggedaboutit.

in spite of all that i am visited by yet another irony - it's one i'll go ahead and be friends with. i've never earned a single cent from my poetry. been published barely, and sporadically, and mostly not in print [though i believe this situation has more to do with my ... laziness, or unhealthy ego, take your pick]. and without even trying i've sold FOUR paintings. ain't life a kick? thank you yvette!
- posted by barbara @ 10/24/2004 05:24:00 AM  0 comments

 
Screw You Guys, I'm Going Home!
perhaps the first chapter of a novel. the writing here is very good. must read more, read all the way through. and i don't even know any one's name, except the brother. thacher, and the sister sophie and i'm not sure she's even still alive. and the writer, whose comments are not working: Kimberly Chisholm
- posted by barbara @ 10/22/2004 04:40:00 PM  0 comments

 

cinderella's tree
Posted by Hello
- posted by barbara @ 10/20/2004 10:03:00 PM  0 comments

 
Massive Head-Wound Cory ? Oncology Appointment
still healthy - which is how it should be
- posted by barbara @ 10/19/2004 04:47:00 PM  0 comments

 
bush resume
As I wrote this I started realizing the problem with our current president. Rewarding excellence and limiting failure is a deeply held value in America, especially in conservative circles. It is essential that we recognize the competence of juniors and promote them. By promoting our smartest, most efficient, highest-skilled workers to positions of responsibility we don't just reward them: we reward ourselves as we benefit from the good decisions they make in their new position.

Bush is the antithesis of this story. From Yale to the Champagne Unit to Harvard to Arbusto to Spectrum 7 to Harken to Texas Rangers to Governor to President, his failure was rewarded with ever-greater responsibility as the sphere of those damaged by his incompetence continued to expand. And that's how we got where we are today: the entire world is paying the piper because nobody had the guts to pull the brakes on this man's train of unearned, undeserved privilege.


ok
Posted by Hello
- posted by barbara @ 10/16/2004 06:59:00 PM  0 comments

 

just another face; no look in the eye
Posted by Hello
- posted by barbara @ 10/11/2004 07:20:00 AM  0 comments

 
Life As Art: from Possibility X Media

flowers
Posted by Hello
John has put me on his page. as an artist even.

i like it. just do
Posted by Hello
i like it
- posted by barbara @ 10/10/2004 09:31:00 PM  0 comments

 
Yahoo! News - AP Poll:

YEAH!

man it'll feel good not having an idiot for president.

- posted by barbara @ 10/07/2004 08:19:00 PM  0 comments

 
Reality Bitchslap
yes, CC, i do love the shirt
- posted by barbara @ 10/07/2004 07:22:00 PM  0 comments

 
Elderbear's Den
elderbear has a terrific essay by e.l. doctorow about gwbush. it says so much i have thought and felt during this administration.
- posted by barbara @ 10/07/2004 06:40:00 AM  0 comments

 
AlterNet: War on Iraq: A 'Transition' to Failure
There is no better proof of the consequences of the Bush 'plan' than the grim reality on the ground three months after the so-called 'transition' of power. Since June 30, U.S. military casualties have risen dramatically. The death rate for non-Iraqi contractors has doubled. The Iraqi resistance has quadrupled its forces.

Alternet also reports that the democratic candidate for vice president won his debate with cheney, whose continued presence in public office is kind of hard to figure, considering it's his own company that is raking in the bucks from their war. stomping over the bodies of the young and the innocent. starving the children and turning them into orphans. destroying the cities of iraq and the lives of its citizens. cheney is getting rich. richer, richest off of that. clinton was impeached for cheating on his wife, and this president and vice president cheat on the whole country, even the world, and still hold office, run for re-election [oops - make that ELECTION, since they were not elected in 2000], act as if they are respectable upstanding people, and are treated by and large as if they are.

bullshit. they are warmongering greedy s.o.b.'s who have done enough destruction - they need to be gone from office, like four years ago.

there's so much information out there, and though i do generally gather my news regarding gw and his cronies from sources such as alternet, i also read vanity fair every month, and every month i learn something new, shocking, and disgusting about the current administration. this month it's how low they will go in florida to make sure republicans win elections:

The 2000 Supreme Court decision that put George W. Bush in the White House capped the most disturbing and confusing fiasco in recent U.S. political history. Through the eyes of the shocked clerks of some of the justices, Florida election workers, and an outraged African-American community, David Margolick, Evgenia Peretz, and Michael Shnayerson get a clear look at how voters were disenfranchised—and investigate the chance of similar chaos next month.



no.
Posted by Hello
- posted by barbara @ 10/06/2004 03:11:00 AM  0 comments

 
Writings by Solange
[bumpng up since no comments from the other day, and i think it's important enough to warrant another try]

we met through a yahoo writer's group...ironically enough, she posted a poem about the heartfelt gush of thanks she experienced when she saw the wrecked car her son had walked away from. the poem alluded to that "phone call" that every parent dreads...i totally related to her poem, and wrote to her about an incident when my oldest son john was about 14, and a manhattan beach lifeguard called me at work when he scagged himself in the leg one day. how the caller seemed to slow his words as he announced who he was until nearly panicked i shrieked, "Is my son all right!" - how i gave that lifeguard a quick education on how to approach parents when calling regarding their children. how it was easy to feel so thankful knowing that our children are simply the most precious of all.

the day after we exchanged emails inspired by my friend's poem celebrating her son's escape from a brush with death, my daughter was murdered. i was informed of her death by my ex-husband, via telephone.

it must have been a year or close to it before we both went back through our emails to verify that we indeed had shared this communication the very night before that dreaded call rang in my living room. how justified the emotions of the elated mother whose child has miraculously escaped from a potentially deadly wreck without a scratch. how validated is the dread at the ring of the phone when civilized people have all gone to bed.

she's been a true angel; she kept us alive. gave me a job for which she overpaid me extravagantly when i was too devastated to do for myself or my young son. i always describe her as my benefactor/employer, but in reality she is a great and wonderful friend, writer, champion, mother, poet.

in 2001 when bekah first died she lived in las vegas; last year she moved to florida. this weekend her new home in fort pierce was, as she described it to me, "totaled." now her kids are in NY and she is in a hotel room with a similarly displaced friend and i would really love to help her back just a little bit.

Entering Spirit is her book. if you click on the link and buy solange's book i guarantee you won't be sorry. It's a polished, fully illustrated [with fine art from an artist solange found and courted in order to pursue her vision for this book] book of poems that express my friend, her faith, her love, her spirit. she is beautiful and as i write is spinning in shock many miles from her children; yet yesterday when i spoke to her, she was comforting me instead of the other way around. "the kids are all right," she said, "and I went insane with frances. Why are you crying barbara?" she left a message on my machine after i had done the same, "You have to laugh..." as she went on with details about the destruction to her home and belongings, the fact that she is in FL after having sent the kids to NY, etc., the steady maniacal laughing of her friend in the background made it all seem surreal. i think this barrage of natural disasters, in the form of back to back to back hurricanes, and the loss of just about everything, must engender initial responses similar to those experienced during a time of tragedy. i think that the loss of a home and the complete disruption of the life of a family qualifies as a tragedy. yes the kids are all right, and if i could get bekah back i'd sign up to lose my home in a hurricane every month for the rest of my life, but still. a tragedy, a disaster, and as with most of the victims of any such occurrence, these people did not deserve this. i want to help.
consider buying her book? thank you

- posted by barbara @ 10/03/2004 02:07:00 PM  0 comments

 
The Lone Star ICONOCLAST - Editorial, Opinion of the Publishers
a small portion of the endorsement article:
We should expect that a sitting President would vacation less, if at all, and instead tend to the business of running the country, especially if he is, as he likes to boast, a “wartime president.” America is in service 365 days a year. We don’t need a part-time President who does not show up for duty as Commander-In-Chief until he is forced to, and who is in a constant state of blameless denial when things don’t get done.
What has evolved from the virtual go-it-alone conquest of Iraq is more gruesome than a stain on a White House intern’s dress. America’s reputation and influence in the world has diminished, leaving us with brute force as our most persuasive voice.

SO! his own "hometown" paper doesn't want gw anymore.

i'm gaining some hope. reading some blogs, of bloggers who can still stand to to look at and listen to gw. and from what i have read, kerry won their first debate going away.

a little more hope. it COULD happen; we COULD be relieved of the presidency of gw in november...it JUST MIGHT be true, that kerry will win, bush and his buds and his brother and his parents will not be able to change it.

cross your fingers and especially, VOTE
- posted by barbara @ 10/02/2004 08:40:00 PM  0 comments

 
About Desire...a chapter of the book
The grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail; because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets.
-Ecclesiastes xii. 5.

------

11-19-01 11:37 p.m.
The Rolling Stones: You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometime, you might find you get what you need...ah, baby.
Chopra: Perception is the first and most important step in turning the raw data of the universe into reality.

Okay...if it was not perceived...whatever. I'll keep going on the assumption that this is not just a massive daydream taking place within a breath of some being I cannot perceive and have trouble imagining.

Bekah! This ain't no joke. It is a nightmare, but it ain't no dream. Reality turns from one moment to the next. When something disastrous - catastrophic - murderous - tragic - immutable - happens, Reality changes.

And yet I see the furniture is the same...the one missing is the one they tell me is dead. That is my girl, and I grope my way in darkness to some plateau where peace will join me and free my smile for the rest of the world...and the rest of my life.

Although she will not inhabit either again, except by love and spirit.

Desire has been known to taint my perception in the past. Maybe it should not surprise me then that your death continues to catch me off guard. Now Desire is something I would love to bury deeper than your bones daughter. I would just as soon let Desire go....

Let Desire go? Oh no oh no Desire cries, will you let me stay if I step away from your perception? Who would you be without me taunts Desire you who thought you'd title your first book "Wants"?

I've been overly attendant to wants in my life. Been complacent that needs would always be fulfilled. And I dance a tortured tango with Irony. Fall with relief into the arms of Epiphany when it cuts in. Desire has taken me many places in my life and in my mind. But it never did make a person who was not, next to me.

Upon reflection I recall that the relinquishment took place a couple of years ago. After the last time I tried to make a go of it with a man. When I ended the relationship I was encouraged to find that I did not die of Desire, that I was there all along, that I was who I missed while I was with him.

At that time my daughter was just come of age.

Having delivered four healthy children I never dreamed that Desire would apply to a 21-year-old female that I had made and raised...and these days I find that all other Desires were but the petty wishes of a spoiled child inspired by a lifelong diet of fairy tales.

Desire defines me but offers today to step back and let me grow? I do not really know Bekah, mostly (I should admit) I am just watching the ink flow.

Push-ups. Stretches. Exercise. I will want my girl until I die. Nothing can change that. Desire is equal to alive - one thing that seems nearly universally believed and portrayed regarding death is that Desire lasts no longer than a minute in the rarefied realm of pure spirit.

So okay, Desire, come sit by my side. Know you are vital to who I am while alive. Then run and inhabit a different soul when I die. Because over there all that is needed is provided while wants stay here with their human Desires. The Stones musta been talking about death, and I always thought they meant life. Silly me, but hey! I got pretty old on that misinformed faith.

All I know today Bekah is that for the rest of this, your mother's life, it cannot be true, because I cannot have you. If I ever needed a single thing, I need you. amen
- posted by barbara @ 10/02/2004 02:01:00 PM  0 comments

 
Underground Stream
a week or so ago i posted a painting i made, called "my tree," and this fellow virgo found it and left me the most wonderful feedback i've had in my painting life [i'm almost 3 years old now, i guess]: I adore this tree, this painting. I do see the turtle but I think more wonderful for me is that the image is filled with snakes symbols of eternity,of the endless circle of life. I also love the colors - it is a small miracle of a painting.

so i went to reciprocate of course, find out about this person who "adores" a painting done by me [well i won't get into how bekah's influence is in my opinion what gives any worth to any of my paintings]. she is an artist, a writer, all kinda good stuff.

ililani. her name is very hard to remember lol.
- posted by barbara @ 10/02/2004 01:23:00 PM  0 comments