Away With the Faeries

Down From Heaven

2012-02-17T08:59:00.000-08:00

She fell.

She fell far, down onto the earth,
a creature of mist and dreams,
angelic.

She was lost in the ruin
of a house once grand,
a house that lived when Detroit
was king.

They found her, they took her,
this creature of the Otherworld.
Into foster care she went,
into uncaring hands, cruel hands.
Into loving hands, into
homes but never home.

She forgot
she was a creature of dreams
and fell into mist.
Like a child's bubble
in the summer haze, she
shattered.

Into Space

2012-01-19T09:32:00.000-08:00

A word I used to hear all the time--freak. As in 'you're a freak,' 'freakface,' 'creepy freak,' 'freaks like you...' It doesn't bother me, not anymore. Not since I became a bird.

Not since I learned to fly.

Crouching low, balanced, sliding downhill. Faster and faster, faster. Staying balanced, arms back. Arms like wings. Going faster, going down. Getting ready, waiting while moving; still while flying down the slope.

Then...

And then, that tiniest sliver in time, the one that says either you will fly or you will crash. The moment the inrun ends and I spring. Into the air, the sky holds me, cushions under my skies, my wings.

And I fly.

Away from gravity, away from those old hurtful words. I AM a freak. I am a bird. I am a ski jumper.

And I can fly.

The Golem

2012-01-19T09:26:00.000-08:00

Whispered words. The names
of G-d.
Spirit and earth.
Above and below.
Awake
in dreams.
A spark, a breath.
The Golem
becomes Life.

Tornado

2011-05-27T03:57:00.000-07:00

Standing naked before the storm
I could only stare at
the jumble that once been people's lives
and grin helplessly.

Death was quick.

Place

2011-04-24T13:50:00.000-07:00

always
back in dreams
home

Microfiction on Freedom

2011-03-20T13:06:00.000-07:00

Alone,
except for a river,
A river that led North.
Wade in the river.
Freedom,
her Soul cried.

Microfiction

2011-01-24T12:39:00.000-08:00

Home was just
the stretch of a hand away.
All she had to do
was trust that
she could walk on water.
Water turned to mist.

Carnival

2011-01-20T10:56:00.000-08:00

Dancing horses,
spinning tops.
I lost myself
in the carnival
and found my childhood.
Again.

Microfiction

2011-01-10T10:21:00.000-08:00

Things that are ugly
are not always so.
Things that are dark
are not always evil.
And a life that is gentle?
The beast embraced the beauty.

Microfiction

2010-11-08T05:24:00.000-08:00

Come away, said the trees.
Come away into the dance, away
from pain, from suffering.
The child listened,
the child went
into the woods.
Away.

For Microfiction Monday

2010-10-25T03:04:00.000-07:00

Stan loved Ida.
Ida loved Jane.
Jane loved Bob.
Bob loved Stan.

The only thing they could agree on
was a love for beer.

Microfiction

2010-10-11T05:39:00.000-07:00

She rode the train, a child hobo.
There was no going back, no moving
forward. Carlisle had raped her Soul.
She rode the white man's horse.

A note to this: Carlisle was the most notorious Indian school at the turn of the century, forcing Native American children to leave their families on the Rez and was a form of cultural genocide that the US gov. used.

Try

2010-10-04T01:40:00.000-07:00

a strong wind
rushing over the mountain
soaring wings

Microfiction

2010-10-04T01:35:00.000-07:00

Pegasus dared. Flying against reason,
against restraints.
The dreamers rode his back
to freedom.

Micofiction

2010-09-26T16:55:00.001-07:00

The child had been placed in the water.
The water had parted, but not like Moses.
He didn't walk like Jesus.

Roads

2010-07-05T11:27:00.000-07:00

a ribbon of gold
a haze of heat shimmer.
straight west
the path to promise.
another road to follow.
what lays over the hill
every turn an adventure
traveling, never stopping.
the call of the road
this American dream,
riding the backs of monsters
riding freedom

Lonely

2010-07-05T11:19:00.000-07:00

All my days I dreamed
ants tickled my feet,
unloved by her.
I looked like my mom,
my mom who had no family.
a scar across her neck
whispering to stop,
not to return until dusk.
my mother cried lonely
society failed her.
girls don't go to collage
lesbians are ill.
we escaped from the world
moving, always moving
then she left.
sucked the blood through my teeth.
she never held us close
solid but not there
freezing into stillness.
in dreams there is death
sitting alone, sitting lonely
imaging things that keep everyone away
everyone lonely

A Sestina on Icarus

2010-06-06T12:06:00.000-07:00

You flew too high
to that place called the Sun.
You never should have tried
on things like wings
made of wax and dreams.
Of this your father should have foreseen.

Had you foreseen
this instead of getting high
and forgetting your dreams.
Where did the Sun
fade on life as fragile as wings
that all had tried

just like you tried
in a world foreseen
not to end on wings
but in a glory on high,
the father blessed by a Son
while we fall into dreams.

You ignored the dreams
in a fever of the tried,
forgot the Sun
blazing as foreseen
by the Mystic standing high
upon the mountain, where wings

soar, or sore, wings
of falcons, messangers of dreams
to fly and fly high,
reminding us that we had tried
to wonder that which was foreseen
in the patterns of the Sun.

Always it falls to the Son
to spread his wings,
to fulfill what was foreseen
in his father's dreams,
and that he had tried
but he flew too high.

Even the Sun has troubled dreams
of delicate wings that failed and tried
to ignore what was foreseen and fall on high.

haiku for our holly tree

2010-04-08T10:28:00.000-07:00

sunshine
golden through holly leaves
silhouette

Chaos

2010-01-19T13:30:00.000-08:00

a star falls
in death a birth
the black hole

OSI

2009-07-14T07:35:00.000-07:00

I stand
in the crowd
lonely

OSI

2009-01-27T09:11:00.001-08:00

Dreams fade
dying in reality
not realized

For Rob Geraghty, rest in peace my friend.

http://www.kidderminstershuttle.co.uk/search/4054775.A_tribute_to_Rob_Geraghty_and_the_music_of__Meg_/

Read Write Poem--prompt 54

2008-11-27T11:24:00.000-08:00

So the prompt was to break all the rules....so why not a monologue/prose poem?

>.<

------------------------------

So why can’t women study, I ask. It’s men’s work, they say. This study of Talmud and of Kabbalah, this is not for you. Why not take the classes directed for you?

Why not?

Why not indeed. I glance unhappily at the class list, eyeing with well-placed suspicion at “women’s classes.” They should be subtitled “how to cater to you man and lose your brain.” Call me crazy but I just don’t think that I was created by the Infinite One to spend my days pampering to some lazy man and having his babies. And don’t give me that tired old line about how important it is for the woman to keep the house Kosher.

A great Rabbi once said that if G-d had not given us Torah we would have still learned it from the teaching of the animals and the whisperings of the trees. The Baal Shem Tov himself spend years learning the language of birds and Rabbi Slomo taught that one needs to learn from all the trees, the grasses, the animals and the stones. Even Rabbi Nachman said once to meditate in the grassy field and allow the grass to awaken the heart.

So, I think to myself, if all the great rabbis spoke of Nature as teacher, then who needs those old men at shul? Why not go to the source itself and turn to nature? Rocky Mountain National Park isn’t a million miles away and my folks will be out all day Tuesday, so why not skip school and drive out there?

I can’t believe my parents sometimes. Like this whole religion thing; why join in with the Chabad? They make the Chasidim look like some gay-rights-marching-Peta-protesting-John-Kerry-voting-Move-On-organizing wannabe. I mean, get a grip people. That Rabbi Soloway is just up the street and he teaches Talmud to women, why can’t we hang out with his congregation? And he gets visits from Reb Zalman. But if I ask my mom she’ll go into some pseudo (more like psycho) tirade in Yiddish about what a horrible daughter I am.

And she doesn’t even speak Yiddish.

So, screw it. Tuesday’s here and my car’s got gas, so I point the old girl in the direction of Long Peak and off we go. The Never Summer Mountains guide us along the road through Longmount, Ed rattling her engine in misery as she remembers her glory years on the east coast, before she was expected to drive at the altitude small planes usually fly at. I pat her steering wheel and promise her an oil change soon and don’t tell her we have to climb a bit higher than Boulder’s 5,000 foot altitude.

It only takes an hour to get to the Park. Long Peak’s massive cone is just ahead, surrounded by the jagged mass of granite that are the Rockies. All around, giving us relief from the sun’s radiation attack, are tough old pines with groves of Aspen striking out like a flame here and there.

It’s something about them, y’know? Yeah, I think I’ll do my meditating/praying/whatever you want to call it under them. Once I asked my mom if I could take a meditation class over at Naropa University and she had a fit cos they’re Buddhist and all. But who cares? G-d, she’s so uptight and even if I had ended up a BuJew it’s not so bad. Sarah up the street is and she’s way cool. And anyways it’s not like Jews for Jesus or anything.

We drive a bit more, Ed and I, until I see a particular grove of Aspens. Not sure why that group is calling me but it is. Ed sputters and stalls out in the parking lot, eternally grateful for the rest. I leave her and walk across the pavement and over the ragged rocks. The Aspen grove is small compared to the pine forest all around, their bark gray and sleek next to their craggier cousins., their heart-shaped leaves golden.

I walk until I see one that draws me in. She’s just slightly bigger than the others, the bark on her trunk a bit more jagged. Under her leafy skirt I sit.

And I wait.

And I stop.

At first it’s the constant nagging voice, it slips away, to be replaced with the russle of golden leaves. Then goes the tense muscles in my body. They’re replaced with stronger roots, smoother skin.

Barkskin.

The granite underfoot is warm as I slid through it, grabbing a hold, steading myself in the wind. My sister Aspens clasp onto my feet with their own. Through their dancing leaves they greet me as their youngest.

As do the Pines, their voices a gentle whisper. Raven calls out a cheeky hello before settling onto one of my branches.

The winds come.

And the storms.

My golden mane blows away. Snow settles onto my gray branches. My sisters comfort me through the worst blizzards, assuring all that the avalanches can’t reach us here.

The snow melts; the life giving water sinking deep into the soil. My feet drink it in. Sap begins to trickle in my toes, then tickles up my trunk, onto my branches. Small buds sprout over them, ready to burst into life.

I burst.

Blinking, opening my eyes, what’s happened?

Oy, I’m me again.

But I’m not.

When I lean forward, losing physical touch with my sister tree, my long brown hair covers my face, only now on the tips here and there, golden bits like a leaf slowly turning color. The hair my Tallit I give thanks to Ein Sof, the Infinite One. I thank my sisters and my cousins, the Pines and Raven and the mountains themselves.

As I wake Ed from her restful slumber I say my farewells.

But not for long.

Who needs classes when the real teaches are everywhere?

OSI: Gift

2008-10-30T05:46:00.000-07:00

Sunlight falling
golden on the forest floor
though autumn leaves.

-----------------

Another gift, not in poem form, is advise I was given once by my dad on a day where everything seemed to be going wrong. In my dispair, I blurted out 'it can't get any worse!'

His advice?

'Oh yes, it can.'

It held me in check this last weekend when a pipe burst in our bathroom and flooded it, half our bedroom and the living room. And then later in the day we noticed one pupil in our son's eye was more dialated than the other, and off we all rushed to accident/emergency.

That was Sat. Sunday saw a lving room with flagstone flooring that seems to have survived Niagra Falls tumbling onto it and our son seems to be well in himself and to just have odd eyes.

Hopefully, all's well that ends well, as they say.

Thanks dad, I love you.

OSI: Never Ending

2008-10-22T03:35:00.000-07:00

The love of a mother,
the dance of cranes,
the sun's rising,
the howl in the night,
the courage of a horse,
the blaze of a maple,
the silence of snow.

All these and more
a glimpse of God.

Photo Friday

2008-10-04T11:33:00.000-07:00

Autumn is here again....and we never had summer over here....

Fleeting

2008-09-28T09:56:00.001-07:00

on water
a friend looks back
no more

Photo Friday

2008-09-26T11:25:00.001-07:00

Done when I still knew where my little plastic fisheye was. :-(

One Single Impression--Autumn

2008-09-23T13:23:00.000-07:00

in the crisp air
the cry of geese on high
frost dancing on glass

Fiction Friday--toy

2008-09-12T10:58:00.000-07:00

They found the boy wild in the wood. He was naked and mute. The rummor that he was with wolves melted into the forest much like the creatures themselves.

The natives had long told of the boy. Only now had some learned men come, to capture him for study. No one asked him if he wanted a life of domesticity; no one asked him what he thought of men's clothes, men's food, or men's ways.

The learned men thought him an extraordinary discovery, a blank slate in which they could inflict their scientific studies. They were from the culture of the enlightenment, after all. In their supiority they never thought to feel for the boy. He was triply cursed; an Indian, a feral child and not even raised by his own kind.

They took him to a house in their town. One room was to be his own, one was for their experiments. In one corner of his room stood his only companion, a dappled rocking horse.

In their own time the boy and the horse talked. Of course the men would say he was incapable of language and the rocking horse was only a toy. But, they weren't the boy and they weren't the horse. The boy told the horse of his life with the wolves, of being free; his former life. The horse told the boy of a life imagined, a life of freedom.

At night, when finially left alone, they dreamed. And in their dreams they were free.

One Single Impression--defenses down

2008-09-10T14:49:00.000-07:00

Standing naked
waiting your approval
hoping
you like what you see
hoping
you love me.

Pen Me a Poem--Hurricane

2008-09-10T14:48:00.000-07:00

a trickle
on the dessert
birth
of the hurricane

Haibun for Fiction Friday

2008-09-05T16:39:00.000-07:00

Mt Koya was cold. So cold it froze
the offerings to the Gods.
The Gods were so cold they knew nothing of
the suffering of the monks.

In the shadow the monks lived, in the
coldest corner of the coldest mountain of Japan.
This knowledge came to Akira the morning
he found the tofu offering frozen dried to the alter.

Akira watched the cranes fly through the sky
of ice, as white as the peak of the mountain.
At night he dreamed and in his dreams he became
one of the birds of heaven.
And he flew someplace warm.

The dream would end the moment the cold crept into
the plain room where he slept. It curled around
his toes, and his fingers. It nipped his slender
nose and kissed his eyelashes.
And he knew that Koya-san had caught him back again.

Frozen deep
in the heart of the mountain
dreams.

Haiku for Totally Optional Prompts and One Single Impression

2008-09-04T03:35:00.000-07:00

Birds gather
suspended in sky like clouds
going home

-----

Since one prompt was 'time to leave' and the other was 'spectacle' I thought they worked well for the same subject, birds flying south for winter.

Fiction Friday--stolen object and OSI--seeds

2008-08-22T17:30:00.000-07:00

An acorn I stole.

You can't steal an acorn, I can
hear you say. Oh, but you can, I would
answer. I know.

It belonged to an ancient oak, in the forest
on the mountain of the Sugarloaf. My nan
showed it to me, she said
the forest had once been people,
poeple who grew tired,
tired of the swiftness of life,
busy life no longer worth living. And
so they had stopped.

Stopped to listen to the wind;
stopped to protect their brothers with four legs, their sisters
with wings. They stopped to connect their roots
deep into Mother Earth.

That's what I wanted, to stop.

And so I took an acorn,
to swallow and become one of them.

And be connected.

Haiku for Totally Optional Prompts

2008-08-21T09:50:00.000-07:00

calling out
the dead from the grave
hidden heart

2008-08-19T10:47:00.000-07:00

Photos of Sion and his dad.

Read Write Poem--in the moment

2008-08-19T10:22:00.001-07:00

softly down
leaves dance in autumn
rain falls.

One Single Impression--prompt 'homecoming'

2008-08-17T14:18:00.000-07:00

Haven't tormented anyone with my 'poetry' for a bit, so with little Sion playing with his binky and eyeing me and the cat, I'd thought I'd give it a go with a haiku.

Mated for life
first bud of spring
birds return.

And if I haven't said it yet, thank you to everyone for your words of encouragement. Thanks!

Fiction Friday

2008-08-15T06:28:00.000-07:00

Prompt is to write about a stolen conversation.

Hi.

Eh...hiya.

Dead air. Then, um...how are you?

The voice on the other line full of indifference when it only says, I'm fine, allowing for more dead air. Painful air. An air so thick that the shy one on the other line can touch it, their child-like crush shattered.

This won't do, Sian thinks. And so, she steals it. This is what she does.

Sian steals words.

Hard words, hateful words, cruel words, abusive words, she steals them all. I hate you. I'm leaving you. You're not good enough. No one likes you, go kill yourself.

All these Sian has taken. Every hurt word, every cruel intention, she stuffs them into her hand bag.

A small whisp of a woman, no one looks twice at her. No one sees her theft. At night, in that hour when everyone last peson is asleep, she takes them home and cooks them over her fire.

There, she leaves them for the day to simmer down, to fall apart, to be transformed.

Wiil you marry me? Let's be friends. We'll love you, no matter what. Let's start a family.

I love you.

These are the words she gives back.

Sian knows every word, even the smallest one, counts. Everyone makes a difference.

Words heal.

For Weekend Wordsmith

2008-08-05T12:23:00.000-07:00

Born curious,
wondering,
touching everything,
tasting, listening, breathing
deeply.
A slave to none.
Society interrupts,
don't, stop,
you can't, you
shouldn't.
Don't touch,
taste, listen inward;
don't think.
Breath shallow.
A slave to all.

a day late for Sunday Scribblings and a haiku for One Single Impression

2008-08-04T11:29:00.000-07:00

Do I have to? My last words of English.

Do I have to go to bed?

No amount of whinging swayed my mum. Sent to bed for the crime of being a boy. And perhaps for being a bit on the cheeky side.

The first hour I spent reading a Harry Potter book, I forgot which one now. Being high summer, I didn't have to resort to any such methods as using a tourch under the duvet. It wouldn't go completly dark for another hour.

Around 10 I heard my mum go to bed herself. I gave her another half hour. When I was sure she had to be asleep I quietly put my jeans back on, then tip-toed through the house and out the back door, the one that lead through the garden.

The garden.

Perhaps no one but a child knows what dangers lie in the garden. I should have known better.

My mum loved her plants. She filled her garden full of them. Peonies, poppies, roses, sunflowers, all sorts. The foxgloves reached over my head, as did the granny's bonnets.

That's why I didn't see them at first. They weren't much bigger than me. Maybe that's why I thought the first ones were kids, like me.

Hello, the first one said, from her seat under the rose bush. Only that hello wasn't in English.

I know that now.

And I understood her in the way that only a child can understand.

Her voice was soft. I almost mistook it for the wind stirring through the oak tree at the end of the garden. In the blue of twilight she looked like a little girl until I blinked, looked closer. Her skin was brown and rough, sort of like the rose, or the oak's bark. Her hair would have made the buzzard pair in the woods further back proud.

And her eyes. Like wolves' eyes, they were.

Wild.

She grinned, a wolf's grin. And she beconned. Away, further into the garden. A part I'd never seen before.

Then I saw the others. They were like her, some were different. Some were more like the flowers, some like wild things.

I went with them. Why, I'm not sure. Maybe it was becasue they seemed like me. It could have been because under that wild look, there was a gentle way. Maybe it was just because it would be like something Harry Potter would do.

It doesn't matter why, I went with them.

Into their world.

Skipping
wisdom of a child
the Fool.

For Fiction friday, 3WW, and Sunday Scribblings

2008-08-01T10:11:00.000-07:00

Serena could gamble with the best of them. The ponies were her passion; Saratoga her shrine. Every year she came to upstate New York for the entire six week meet.

Exacta, trifecta, pick 6, daily double, these were music to her ears; the Racing Form a feast for her intellect. Track conditions, Byer speed figures, grade of race, distance; her eyes pored over each minute detail every night back in her hotel room allowing nothing to be omitted.

Every morning she woke at first light, to rub shoulders with jockey agents at the local bagal shop, and then enjoy her breakfast sitting in the hallowed clubhouse seats while the lady at the loudspeaker announced when a famous horse would step onto the track. Serena had seen them all--Ginger Punch, Inside Information, Fourstardave, Easy Goer, Hansel, Alysheba, Lady's Secret.

After, she went back to get ready for the afternoon. A leopard print dress was her favorite outfit, the sleeveless one that cinched at her waist and then flared around her knees.

She was a woman in a man's world. She could wear what she wanted, do her hair as she wished; there were no female eyes to criticize her and how she looked. Here, at Saratoga, she could do what pleased her.

True, this was a temporary world, but this was her world, the time when she came alive.

The time when she became complete.

3 WW

2008-07-25T04:31:00.000-07:00

The words:

avoid
class
sticky

'Hurricane Survivor'

The heady bar in a past life was a place with class, an airport back when women came dressed up and in stockings, and men wore stylish hats. Around the tired building was a forest of banyans and banana trees, their fronds still in the sticky air. In a few hours the sky would be static with thunder and wind. When the hurricane came to Key West, the old building would not be a place to avoid, but would come alive in a party of bravado.

Friday 5

2008-07-25T03:46:00.000-07:00

The words:

trellis
appearence
deect
youngster
laundry

The old trellis,
its roses and clematis long dead,
the once dignified appearence
now shabby with the neighbor
lady's laundry hanging
over the top; to the youngster,
the boy with the black hair,
he saw not the look
or any such defect, but
an adventure,
a place to play
and a place
to dream.

For Fiction Friday

2008-07-25T03:39:00.000-07:00

The prompt was to create a character around an illness we've had or have, and (try) and make it humourous.

Once upon a time Anghared had strep thoat. For three days and three nights she lay in her bed, fevered. And seeing spots.

The doctor said they were a result of the fever. Drink more fluids and don't worry, my love.

But the spots, they wouldn't go away.

Anghared saw them on the bus; she saw them on the train. In the halls of university; at band practice. Even on her favorite stray moggy.

Why fight it, she thought.

In a weekend her outside became as her inside. Spotted dresses; spotted shirts. Spotted shoes; spotted dog. Even her flat was spotted; large spots on the walls, smaller spots on the duvet and shower curtain.

Anghared lived in a kaleidoscope of spots.

And she lived happily ever after.

One Single Impression--prompt 21--Rest

2008-07-25T03:38:00.000-07:00

Breathing softly, his
hand clutching a favorite toy,
my son sleeps, I watch.

Poefusion--Friday 5

2008-07-21T12:08:00.000-07:00

The five words for the week were:

clobber
encourage
scrawl
wail
hay

I've been thinking a lot of Saratoga racetrack lately. It opens this week. From the time I was 12 until just 5 years ago I always went with my dad, until his death. The last 7 years I got to work on it as a photographer. Memories of it are all bittersweet now, I long to go but my dad won't be there anymore.

One story I got to do was about the old timers on the track, mostly African American grooms and exersize riders. This peom is rough (very rough) but it's a tribute to them and the stories they told about growing up in the south.

All my life
I've been a fighter. Had
to be, a black man
in the south can't survive
otherwise. Can't show
it outside, But in me
is a cry, a wail
of pain.
An anger so deep
it'd feel good
to clobber that smug look
from those white folks'
faces. An act
of suicide, that.
Took a job as a groom, my
way out of the south,
the smell of horse
and hay, the rhythm
of hooves on track my
savoir, encouragement that life
wears a smart hat
and scraws art on walls;
it isn't hunched shoulders
or Nazi salutes or
a Southern bell's simpering smile.
A snort from my charge,
a nuzzle on cheek, I watch
her work 22 and change,
and dream our
future.

Write Anything--Fiction Friday

2008-07-18T06:40:00.000-07:00

From their site:

'Pick a character who loves the dark, and tell us why. Avoid the obvious choices: stealth, monsters, sex, and anything else you immediately thought of.'

It was the Park. The way the trees danced in the moonlight, the taint of sulfer in the air, the slightest of rumbles as Old Faithful paraded to her wild brothers and sisters; this and more is why young Susan loved the night.

She loved when the moisture began to rise from mother earth in the afternoon, singling the end of the day. She loved when the tourists retreated to their cabins or tents, or just left, leaving the land once again to the elk and the buffalo, to Raven and Coyote. And when the wind rose, teasing the ancient Pine and the playful Aspen, she knew that night was coming.

Before was the between time, when the world turned blue. Pale blue, like a tropical sea, then deepening until all was bathed in velvet. In the between time, the spirits mingled with the physical, the ancestors with the living.

Soon, the moon would rise, the milky way be revealed. An owl would hoot, perhaps an elk bellow for a mate. And then, deep in the night, the wolves would come, howling their welcome.

This is what Susan loved most of all.

Write Anything Fiction Friday prompt 63

2008-07-16T09:43:00.000-07:00

(This has to do with writing about an unlucky character and turning that bad lwc into good.)

You would think with a last name like Cohen a really traditional first name like Rebecca or Sarah, or a some hype Israeli/Hebrew title like Shalom or Arielle would be the way to go. But no, my hippie dippy mother gave me the name of Skye.

Skye Cohen.

What a title.

To make matters worse, she foolishly falls away from the usual Boulder crowd and decides that, in order to 'find her roots,' she turns to the Chabad shul. Suddenly my tie-dye Birkenstock-wearing mother is now a hair-hiding-black-stocking-wearing Orthodox-type.

And she's a single mom.

With a daughter named Skye.

Call me crazy but this doesn't sound like the most clever move in the world. In the space of a month our quiet life of just mom and daughter and calico cat has become a bedlam of other head covering female types invading our house on otherwise quiet Pine Street and turning the place upside down in order to make my poor mom as Jewish as they can.

I mean, I don't mind that my mom wants to be more traditional and spiritual, it's just the way they go about it. Like, we were raised Reform but these women act like that's akin to being some snake-handling-speaking-in-tongue-type deep in the heart of West Virginia. All my mom wanted in the beginning was to be able to study mystical Judaism and the holy books but they convinced her she should concentrate on keeping her home kosher and other wifely duties.

Speaking of the holy books, it's because of them that the end of my world began to turn around. It all sort of happened this last thursday, just after school.

It came about because I knew those annoying women would be about this time of the day, and also because I liked walking close to Naropa University and catching a glimpse of some of the Tibetian monks that teach there. I like seeing happy spiritual-types and not smug-oh-so-superior ones.

It was after turning right onto Pearl Street and deciding to spend my unused lunch money on a brownie at Blue's Bakery (mmmm....chocolate brownie with carmel melted on it and sea salt sprinkled in...I ask you, who could resist?) that the beginning of my salvation began. As I passed the Co-op just beside Blue a small group of people wandered out of the study hall in the Co-op, the one next to the vegan cafe. I had my eyes cast down, and so at first I didn't notice that they were all holding text books in Hebrew, one of the texts of the Talmud.

Jewish texts.

The Talmud, no less.

And in the hands of women.

Now, if they're allowed to study, why not me to? I stopped at the flyer in the window, pretending to read it, just to get a sneaky look at these people. They sure didn't look like my mom and her posse. Seeing my rather timid glances, one lady smiled and said hello.

Like the perfect fool, I stumbled over a simple reply like 'hello' and instead pointed at the black book in her arms.

'Ah, are you interested in learning the Talmud?'

Hardly believing my luck, I nodded yes.

She smiled. 'Rabbi Goldburg gives classes every other thursday. You're welcome to join in, if you like.'

'Yes, but I don't own any texts.'

'Ah, we have photocopies for people in your situation.'

What, people with weird mothers? Great!

Hardly believing my luck, I felt myself nod and agree to faithfully come to the next class. Now, of course it's during the last hour of high school but I wasn't going to let that deter me. I'm doing this, damn it.

The nagging females in my house didn't even annoy me after I floated through the front door. A chance to study Talmud. I can't believe my luck. I took my non-kosher brownie (I can't even remember buying it) and wandered upstairs into my room.

A chance, a real chance.

How lucky am I?

One Single Impression--prompt 20--Myth

2008-07-15T15:33:00.000-07:00

Raven steals the sun
black wings illuminating
trickster heals the world.

Weekend Wordsmith--prompt 'Crowded'

2008-07-14T04:48:00.000-07:00

She dreams of colours,
primary colours,
dancing,
laughing, singing,
alive.
She dreams of crowds,
sweaty,
heaving, loving,
alive.
She dreams of senses,
delicate, spicy,
perfumed.
Alive.
She dreams.

Friday 5 from Poefusion

2008-07-13T09:11:00.000-07:00

Every friday at Poefusion there is a prompt of five words, for you to write a poem or story to. Last fri the words were:

grandfather
photo album
post office
broken window
folder

This poem is rough but I've no time to rewrite it (it's a bit hard to write whilst also entertaining a 3 month old), and as I said in the last post, if I think about it, I'll never write at all, so this is my way of trying to get creative again.

The boy with no ties
to family,
no mother to praise him,
no father to encourage, no
grandparents to spoil him; this
boy watches the social worker
with the folder
and wonders why
it isn't a photo album
for him.

If it was, what
would they look like, his family.
Would his mother be pretty, his
grandfather kind?
All he can see when he thinks of family is
a broken window where bullets came in,
a stained and dirty mattress to sleep on,
the t.v. that never was quiet.

The social worker glances at him;
the woman who can read minds.
She's seen it all before.
When she thinks of his family
all she can see is a rage
as red as the post office van
that passes the office.
Her thought to strike them down in vengeance.
Instead she offers this
boy a present,
a book instead of an album.

Knowledge instead of pain.
Love in place of indifference.

One Single Impression--prompt 19

2008-07-13T04:16:00.000-07:00

Okay, this is crap, I know it's crap, but the thing is...if I don't jump now and just do it then I'll lose my nerve and never do it. So this is my first attempt at Japanese poetry via the OSI prompt 'Through a Window.'

Falling gently down,
the girl from the window lands
soft, a down feather.

A slip was all it took for
her to know that she can fly.

2008-04-25T04:37:00.000-07:00

I set up this blog to inflict my 'creative' writings, photography and maybe some sculpture onto the general public for freedback and/or torture. So hopefully things won't be too terribly bad......