Day 4 explores “bliss” captured through a photograph. Some definitions first. Bliss: (n) complete happiness, great joy, paradise, or heaven. Happiness: (n) feeling or showing pleasure or contentment. Joy: (n) a feeling of great pleasure and happiness. Paradise: (n) an ideal or idyllic (extremely happy, peaceful or picturesque) place or state. Heaven: (n) a place, […]
Yesterday I photographed the frozen Potomac for the “street” assignment. Today’s topic is water and I have opted for frozen water using some of yesterday’s pictures. Photo 101 prompts us to explore our relationship with water. Some years ago, every time I would cross the frozen Potomac River, I would think of the Bering Strait. […]
Today’s Photo 101 topic is the street. I drive on streets to get to work every morning, including this grey icy morning. I am about to get on the Teddy Roosevelt Bridge to cross the Potomac River into Washington, D.C. I am almost stopped as I slowly merge onto the bridge. This is a homeless […]
Future is time’s third act, time still to come. Only since time is of indefinite Duration, we gape ahead, holds hands to Eyes, to magnify or blind. This future Can never know me. We’ll never meet. We Never will, for when we do slithering Time has become present, which is so now, As to be […]
“Home is elusive,” per the Day 1 assignment of Photo 101. The featured image is the view from my office. I have been looking out on these buildings for 11 years. Over these 11 years, I have been in four different offices but all along the same corridor. This view is my favorite view yet. […]
In search of found poetry, I took a cue from Cheri Lucas Rowlands’ Fragments on Time: Found Poetry in My Dashboard and picked five lines from five different drafts of my own detritus. The featured image is my found poem. Even a small child can recount to you the various happenings – the assassination of […]
Index cards Large or small White or bright The thicker ones are better. I pull one out of its plastic sheath. The things that could happen Big things mountains of words Organized into thoughts could happen. I write one idea per card and then shuffle, Look at them in different orders. If I can just […]
Limbs are limbs, We think. But, I Don’t. When a Phantom Can hurt, A foreigner demand removal, How? The common element is paralysis not motion. Oppressed By arms and legs: “They don’t belong To me but keep Clinging to My Torso.” Tracking The first 21 Days Of life, vindicates The immediacy and The primacy of […]
In her mother’s womb she wrestled. Her bag of waters made Of hearty fibers, almost In a mermaid’s purse, she’s born. Black hair is spiked, blue eyes are wide, Mama could barely hold In her delight at this new child, Not fraught with any frailty. With powers so full since that first day, A little […]
Will I come to your side when you are no longer in my arms needing? I try though it feels stilted like cotton is in your ears. Sweet small boy that you were, molded to me like a sloth on a tree, Now you are tall and knobby like a young sapling: proud, no bend. […]
My first Abecedarian sequence I saw visually wrapped around on itself like in the featured image: A bronze cauldron does erupt forming a golden hole. (Inner juxtaposition) knowing, lamenting, mastering nothing. Praying, querying saves then underlies vastness. (Wanting) xenophobia yearns zoning. Here is an attempt at concrete poetry for the Writing 201 concrete poetry assignment. […]
Our plain face betrays the mitochondrial Eve in us. Father is an old word but mother precedes it. Who knows our longing when we first create fathers who eat us? Art answers: where might our conscious brains with lonely hearts fit? In separateness we hold together, like piano keys ‘ melody. Heaven(s) don’t mock us, […]
I discovered a new blog – Colors 52 – with beautiful photographs. The Colors 52 blogger lives in India and posted this photograph of a sunset on his related site earlier this week. I tried to paint it with pastels. It did not do it justice but it was fun.
At the whim of my elders I dangled on the travel. To the ends of the earth I was tasked, though I knew I’d unravel. They packed me on a plane. Jet lag left me insane. I drank wine every night and caroused and was graveled. Here is a limerick for the Writing 201 journey/limerick/alliteration […]
A brown coat hangs in A dark closet absorbing Dust. Will water help Or steam or fire? He Looks at her with all the words In his eyes. She hears And cries into the Soil. She thinks it will cleanse it Somehow some way. When? I will have to back into the brevity of a […]
The Blacklight Candelabra says: There’s much in nature that the naked eye can’t perceive without assistance . . . It shows us the magnified eye of a fly, which looks nothing like you would think an eye would look and challenges us to: Use words to accomplish similar revelations through magnification. I chose as a […]
The Blacklight Candelabra challenges us to create a character or a story based on this music: The old woman yells, “Sortez!” She pushes him with a broom off the back door entrance to the building. She has morning shopping to do. He is a nuisance. He stumbles up in his wrinkled clothing. He was once always […]
The Blacklight Candelabra challenges us to re-imagine a box of chocolates in writing form. A collection of unique and separate [writing] forms a greater whole. One rarely finds a single small piece of [writing] that ascends to the heights that the variety provides. I had been thinking for some time of putting the Abecedarian Sequences into a visual art form. […]
I had a close encounter with a dolphin once. The dolphin was not happy, though I couldn’t tell you how I knew. Horses stomp their feet and neigh with irritation. Dogs bark and growl. This dolphin had its smiley face and was still but I could feel her angst as though it was an assault. […]
The last millennial I interviewed wrote an essay in the Fall of 2013 as she was beginning her training for the NYC marathon. She describes the culture and structures along her favorite running route, the Williamsburg Loop. I love it and wanted to share. She agreed. Here it is. I’m training for the 2014 New […]
When I was a kid I was afraid of lava. I felt it was an imminent danger. At any minute I might encounter lava. Lava has recently come into my four year old son’s life, probably the same way it must have come into mine: school. Somehow he found out about lava and now when we cross […]
After doing my first interview as a practice in long form writing, I was inspired to make a mosaic of my subject. I first started this blog to practice writing, thinking I would focus on the personal essay. Over the past couple of months, though, I have been experimenting with other things, like writing on […]
I recently interviewed the wife of the first millennial. The featured image is a quick crayon drawing I made of her. I’m also working on a mosaic of her cameo to make a pair of it. I like doing interviews from a generational perspective. I may have to shake it up and interview a Baby […]
Sayings, singing songs like threaded words on Strings of twine around your neck. Not plastic Like the bright cheap colors in the super Market. On a farm of green and hay and Red barn doors, a child sits high above the Tilting windmills stringing gems, whistling joy. Perchance, the world looks bleak; perchance it is. […]
A brave calm darkens even fear. God harvests ideas, judgments, keys. Living miracles need only prayer, quandaries. Relaxing saves trembling, unarmed. Votive worlds (e)xonerate yesterday’s zealotry. This is an Abecedarian sequence. The featured image is “Study of Hands” by Leonardo Da Vinci sketched in 1474. The original work can be found in the Royal Collection, […]
A ballad courses, devotes evergreen favors, garners hearts. Inside joy (knells / laughs) mirrors noisy oils. Perhaps questions remain. Silence takes us valiantly wayward, (e)xhibiting zeal. This is an Abecedarian sequence. The featured image is “Fallen Jockey” by Edgar Degas painted 1896-1898. The original work can be found in Kuntsmuseum Basel in Basel, Switzerland. All […]
A few weeks ago, I interviewed a Millennial. I wanted to explore who he was from a generational perspective. He represents the American Dream, still alive today, I think. He talks about baseball and the Blues, of family and God, and his wife, of loving small town America, of the big and bright New York […]
To wake hellbent, the maelstrom funneled head: Inside “(no)” a curtain drops. But I say, “I’m okay now.” (The small deceits.) Instead Of, “See, the grey sky’s fraught? Rain’s on its way?” Ignored I am by me against my will. Self prison grows up hate to wind up thought. “Sleep snug smug shits” and sundry […]
Abundance breeds colony drones, earnest foragers, Goldenrods. Humming in jealousy, knowing lore’s manners, none of puberty quiet remains. Swarming (taboo) understands vacillation (wings), (x)centric yellow zones. This is an Abecedarian sequence. The featured image is “Self Portrait With Arm Twisting Above Head” by Egon Schiele painted in 1910. All work by Schiele (1890-1918) is in […]
Ava bends cold dreams. Ever (forever) glad hands, in June, kindly light masterful nearness. Oh, prose quite rarely sits. The unbent visions would (e)xonerate yet zest. This is an Abecedarian sequence. The featured image is “Portrait of the writer N.B. Nordman-Severova” by Ilya Repin painted in 1905. All work by Repin (1844-1930) is in the […]
A bright coat deigns every fall gallant. Horses, indelibly jaunty, kill laps (matted neighs). Orphans, pawns, queens, rabble-rousers, stand to Undo velocity. “Winner! Xerxes!” yells Zachary. This is an Abecedarian sequence. The featured image is “At the Races, Longchamps” by Pierre Bonnard painted in 1894. This work by Bonnard is in the public domain.
Abecedarian = “a 26 word prose poem” that “almost means something.”
We continue our review of Marx’s Introduction to a Critique of Political Economy. As a recap, Marx first treats “production” and sets forth some main ideas about production, in opposition to the classical liberal economists of the day: (1) the isolated hunter-fisher of Smith and Ricardo is not primitive or natural, (2) production is most usefully […]
Millennials are people born from approximately 1980 to 2000. Millennials are the fourth of the four currently living adult generation cultural groupings. They were preceded by Generation X (approximately 1964-1980), who were preceded by the Baby Boomers (approximately 1946-1964), who followed the Silent Generation (approximately 1927-1945). Millennials have been called entitled, narcissistic and perhaps the greatest generation of our time. […]
I thought, “I will abandon this car, this Hulking piece of metal. It won’t keep me Prisoner. I have legs, after all, I’m Made of flesh and bone, after all.” So I
We’re to honor those who gave us breath of Life. With might, I never thought I owed this Debt; since I sprung from my father’s head full Grown. Respect, obey, take heed, these things came
I heard once that thoughts are your mind breathing. I imagined my mind releasing thoughts like extra energy, so it could be well. This concept helped me come to an arrangement with thoughts that would come, unbidden, in meditation. I could watch them go by, like a car passing on the street in front of […]
Below is a summary of the second half of Marx’s treatment of production in his “Introduction to the Critique of Political Economy.” The first half sets forth that (1) the isolated hunter-fisher of Smith and Ricardo is not primitive or natural, (2) production is most usefully discussed historically as opposed to as a general economic term and (3) […]
They say to make the most of every day While youth says, wait, I move to squander years Youth loathes the dawn, when demons tend to appear In brown forms, they fly tugging at the scalp
The “Introduction to the Critique of Political Economy” is the opening to Marx’s lengthy unfinished manuscript, the “Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy,” or the Grundrisse. It was written around 1857, then abandoned by Marx, to be first published posthumously in Germany around 1939. Towards the end of his life, Marx supposedly viewed his […]
My son, I love you more than words could say. Judged I the wish for an obedient child, So long, you’d need but me to meet your day. My trickster boy with temperament as mild
I have an idea for a chapter in my NaNoWriMo WIP but I need your THOUGHTS. Yes, literally your thoughts. They will be the materials I sew together into a chapter in Kals of Qi. If I get sufficient responses, I will publish the draft chapter on 1874 First Impressionist Exhibition after the poll closes on November […]
I don’t want to write long, because of NaNo. Writing time is tight these days. The big news is my main character changed last night. Though I sketched out the plot and characters in October, once I started writing, the characters took the story in a direction of its own. Which is pretty cool. The […]
“We must seem so gauche to you, Niran,” she flushes excitedly, “after all the splendor of the Numu.” Iphigenia fans herself, shaking her head a bit, reeling from it all. Niran smiles at her, his face is kindly. Thein watches them both, from her corner. She turns away and looks out the tall windows to the […]
I do not remember the day you filled my mind with certainty. The day your dazzling clarity became irrefutable to my feeble mind. The card-board stand-up people bartered dead objects in strange and barren places. I could see to the end of heaven.
We do not perceive a species’ extinction or survival in terms of punishment or reward because such a judgment would have a moral quality, inappropriate to the beasts. Yet, we do not treat ourselves or each other with such tenderness.
I feel tingly in my hands and toes to think of tiptoeing down the hallway, down the stairs, into the kitchen for the fridge. Rarely do I undertake such a thrilling journey, knowing there is the darkness and the creaking floors and perhaps I will happen upon mice meeting up in three’s. I wouldn’t want […]
I used to think that I was the mask I put on my face. I was not duplicitous (then) – I thought my mask was my face. Until the day I saw my mask. In one moment, I took it off and held it in my hands. I had imagined it to be just right. […]
I never had imaginary friends. I have imaginary enemies, instead. They are not quite as fun. It’s really no surprise since I tend to predict the worst possible outcome and love engaging with doubt. The imagined adversity I create creates a soundless cacophony only I can hear.
I would not call myself a runner and neither would most anybody. I’m not really built for running of any type, neither sprinting nor long distance. I ran a marathon once, though. I got the idea from an advertisement at Marvelous Market near my building. It said anyone could run a marathon.
I am a lawyer by trade, and not one who enjoys reading judicial opinions in the common law. I’m not a fancy lawyer, you understand. When it dawned on me my first year of law school that reading opinions was a whole lot of what law school was about, I thought I had made a […]
I protect my desire for organization. I never want to get too honest about it. But, life has a way. A couple of years ago, I saw something on Facebook to the effect of “a clean house is a sign of a wasted life.” “It just couldn’t be,” I thought. And, at the same time, […]
I started this blog to practice writing. But, what keeps me coming back is reading other people’s writing. I want everyone I know now to blog about the project or activity or topic closest to their hearts. They don’t really want to. Fortunately, I have all the WordPressers who are already here! Including, Martha Hannah […]
I am a working mom of two awesome kiddos – Gus (4) and Teddy (5 months). My husband and I chose to exclusively breastfeed. That sounds weird to say. The truth is more like, I wanted to breastfeed and my husband was very supportive.
I have trouble imagining a vast and infinite world. Mark Aldrich asks in I, Toward a Metrics of Me: Am I my numbers? Am I my metrics of me? Everything in the world can be counted, and that number can be known and disclosed, but more often than not this one fact does not make […]
I could not wait to get home today to jump on the trampoline. I am not a circus performer or a child. We’ve had the trampoline since June; we bought it for our son on his 4th birthday. We didn’t put it together until a few weeks ago, as we needed to cut down a […]
We lasted 9 months in the deep burbs before we decided to move back. It took 4 months to sell our house. We lived in a furnished apartment for 3 more months in our old neighborhood in Arlington before we bought the house we live in now. I was ecstatic to be back in the old ‘hood and my old yoga […]
I got pregnant. I wanted to more than anything, but I was shocked by it all the same. I stopped yoga and all physical exercise as soon as I found out and was on bed rest for two months as well. I went back to yoga when my son was 4 weeks old and practiced […]
What I did next was surprising, in retrospect, and wholly self propelled. I had mistaken my soul stretching into my body for and end in itself.
I stayed in the forest for 9 years. Indeed, I lost my way. Just when I had given up all hope, I happened upon the path again, as though no time had passed.
I should have been a philoligist, like Nietzsche. I always want to know the etymology of words thinking it will clear everything up, but it never really does.
I was on my way to a party last Saturday evening, which sounds totally fantastical and fake, but there you have it. It is true. I was on my way to a party, alone.
I met Average Yogini in 2001 through mutual friends. I believe I was in attendance at her first or one of her first yoga classes at our mutual and beloved studio Edge Yoga! I feel proud, like I attended a birth of sorts. She was one of my inspirations for starting 1874, so I thought it would be […]
I like reading dreams. In a past life, I would be an old crooked lady in the Iron Age, reading dreams, interpreting omens, cracking eggs on black cast iron plates and stirring them around with my gnarly fingernails.
I recently saw a picture on Facebook with red words on a white sign: “Please Do Not Feed the Fears” (like one you would see at a zoo). I used to feed my fears very well. My fears were fat, well-fed, let me tell you. I used to shop at Whole Foods for them, making sure […]
Day 2 of Blogging 101: Why not just keep a diary, you say? I kept a diary when I was probably around 8. It looked kinda like this:
These are the existential questions that have kept me up at night since around the age of 5 . . . No, just kidding. I’m taking the Blogging 101 course and this is my first assignment!
A couple of years ago, a friend suggested I take a daily written inventory – a grown up diary, if you will. At the time, I felt overwhelmed with my life and, come to see it now, I was not very happy from day to day even though I had everything I’d ever wanted. One […]
Exhibition 1874 