Writers Blog Tour

Back at it!
This is my first post back in a while and I
would like to thank
ESTHER COHEN for the impetus by including me in a Blog tour about the "Writing Process".
Esther kindly introduced me in her own blog. She is a writer, activist, great generous human soul who
is one of the most impressive folks I have met. We met at the 77th street Flea Market where I was selling some hats and things, and we became fast friends.
Check out her entry and the rest. She will be reading her poetry this week here in NYC--- 

Read about New York
at Book Culture Bookstore
June 3rd, Tuesday
Joanna Clapps Herman
Esther Cohen esthercohen.com
Address: 536 W 112th St, New York, NY 10025
Phone:(212) 865-1588

HERE'S MY WRITING BLOG TOUR
http://esthercohen.com/writing/

So, we have been asked to try to pin down our own writing proceses.

For me
It used to start with an image,
"Dirty lace being dragged down the hallway on a nail of a cat."

Or a sound
"The crack of the bat shot through the cement apartment block and up 25 floors."

Then it started with declarative sentences
"I believe in Love"

or a stage direction
"PAOLO, a retired circus acrobat, now working as a part time fat man
snores on the porch. CAROLA, all curves and curls, tries to concentrate
on Dr. Phil on the portable."

Then, if my fingers itch or a shaft of light
catches the back of my eye
Then, I sit down
and the fingers know the way.

I suppose at this point I have internalized my process to such an extent that I am no longer aware of its steps.

I know that I cultivate awareness, have a ear for rhythm and words in contrast to the people who use them.I know that seeing the words in pattern on my screen helps me to understand what I write and why I write it.

I know when it is time to write, I write easily and I rarely write for practice feeling
1: there is more than enough debris in the world, and
2: out of respect for the words that are allotted to me by the cosmos for my use,
I like to use them only when they are ripe and will have an excellent life,
happy that they are in the right place, places carefully in the mouth of the right character
or the backdrop of a scene.

I know that I write as part of my larger job on the planet and
that my education has given me a craft
and my  heart now gives me leave
to write what comes.

That is enough for now.

Now I turn this blog tour over to two mighty worthy women.

Renate Mohr lives and writes in Ottawa and offers a particular perspective on her world.
Gutsy, wise and witty by turns, we met in Iceland at the Iceland Writers Retreat.
I am sure you will find her work will wrap itself around you and surprise you in the most excellent way. renatemo.wordpress.com

Mary Anne Dorward is a longtime friend and fellow traveler. Along with her successful acting, coaching, consulting and mothering careers she has embraced a world of adventure and constant challenge. She now lives and works out of Ecuador and you will learn more about her and her adventures there when you connect with her at www.footprintsinecuador.wordpress.com.

RAIN from the rooftop

Remember the Tom Lehrer song
"They're rioting in Africa... duh da dada da da da..."
i mean, egypt, bahrain libya, yemen ( no news there, they're all dead)
and wisconsin!
it is raining buckets here in california
scrubbing the skies
i walked in the rain for it seemed forever
and was wet through when i climbed on the bus
and waited under the awning for a ride
and then i was left there because my rides friend
had a stroke..
and intimate partners are spinning away from me like
drunken tops and
cryptic texts and
frankly... i need another respite in a monastery
or more drugs
do i live here or there
alone or in company
sodden or baked

the truly enlightened suffer for no more than 30 minutes
and me, i'm not even connecting
just observing and taking the ride
but jeez.... soul surfing is a light touch
hanging out in the weightless temple IS what is called for..
which is NOT Zen non attachment nor sedentary depression
but preparation for cloud surfing on shared rainbows

words in the air
snag on your shirt
okay?
indulge me.

The clouds..

..in Northern California are full and heavy
over the bay, pierced by double rainbows
and moist cushions
kind of like how i feel heaven

my friend is the same now
after forty years of life
so rich and moist
heavy with time

wise with the years
having wrung every thing from each moment

i see how caution keeps a watcher
me, a watcher,
as i finally step into the arena

an open heart can steady and balance
a body overblown and
goodnaturedly vengeful
simply paying back the disregard of youth
with the fuck you of age

bodies fall away
even in the fullness of decay
and eyes still pierce and skewer
and know where they belong just beneath
the heart

i am so young
time collapses and
arms cradle
and crush

Life as Story

One coast so much like the other
in our kingdoms by the sea.
Someone wrote something like that,
I am sure.
Life continues to present itself as bas relief
to the pulse underneath.
Tomorrow I visit with a man 40 years
ago I knew as young and strapping
and eager and brave.
And time will collapse and we will see how
our stories have cloaked us
and if the same pulse that we knew
as true blue apassionados
remain.

I wonder as I wander
Wow.

700 Days

I seem to have been up all night.
I have not been up all night since I was in college.
Or sitting on the front steps of Jim's Hollywood cottage
watching the dawn
having tried once again to make love
the two of us... gay and straight
so deeply in love with the other..
still trying to commune physically.
Fools.

We sniffed such beautiful aroma's that night.
The smell the color of pink morning.
Jasmine in February.
And breathing what we knew was love
 we fell more deeply toward each other.

And the night I sat at his bedside in the hospice,
just after I had wheeled him into the night air
to breathe his last breath of sweet
before his sister would come to smother him in his end..
that was the same smell that followed back in to the cave.
 I think he knew.
And then I left him to his crazy sister
and their familial murder.

I hear tell that the next 700 days are pretty important
in the expansion of the planet
and its consciousness.
If that's true... they got me.
Since I have been conscious over twenty four hours
and seem not to be willing, able or leaning toward a lie down.
I wonder if I am mad.
Quite possible of course.

I went to one of those rockem sockem
energy conference things this weekend.
I thought it did not affect me. And here I am.
I gave up trying to sleep a few hours ago and
turned on the television to receive the message
from Robert Frost looking
positively fifty
on CUNY All Night brainiac tv:
"whose woods these are I do not know..
But I have miles to go before I sleep.
     I have miles to go before I sleep."

Yes. This is apparent. There is a speeding up. A desire to get it out into the world.
To do the next play. To give the next gift. To love the next one deeply and long.
Longingly long so that we will twist and dance all through time and space
collapsing into each other and colliding with time as it folds in on itself and us.

I wonder if my body will hold out. There is a tugging even now
in my chest. Not certain if that is digestion or circulation.
My body a reflection of my mental state of course.
I cannot walk unless I walk.
My body stiffens with each move
I do not make
I cannot sleep unless I dream.
I cannot write unless I watch.

The next 700 days will speed us like
Little Black Pink Green Red Sambos
spinning  to butter.
Maybe I will land
and see what pinpoint I can report .

And who will read  I do not know
the woods are lovely dark and deep
but I have promises to keep,
and miles to go before I sleep
and miles to go before I sleep.

HOME AGAIN HOME AGAIN

The first time I came to Paris I was eighteen.
And somehow I knew my way around the whole city.
I still do.
It seems to be this way with Paris.

It has been some time.. maybe ten years.. since I have been here
but the good thing about old cities is
that they don't change.

I took the RER from De Gaulle at 10 this morning
after a week of cushioned friendship
in Rome, naps, walks, beauty, distraction and family
and this morning now back in Paris
and walked from Cluny
right up Blvd St. Michel and then Rue des Ecoles and there
Rue St Bernadin.. 50,  Residence Henri IV
our honeymoon hotel, and then again a stay with Sofie at 4 years old..
our carousel, puppet show and circus tour of France..

Stories... the floating lillies from the same florist on the corner,
the deux chevaux, afternoons in Luxemborg Gardens
ice cream on the Isle de France, a fleabag from Tale of Two Cities
off St Michel
dancing at twilight to the saxophone on the Seine
wine, cheese and bread tossed and ready for us
Notre Dame overlooking our new beginning...then..

I can still find my way past the Horse Butcher ( Chevaline.. oui, c'est vrai)
in front of the Hotel du Commerce
and the small marche at Maubert Mutualite Metro and then
a windy few blocks to
Shakespeare and Company,
a whole new set of students claiming exclusive rights to this generation.

A poetry reading there tonight.
I sat downstairs and listened
while a man my age grumpily read his Le Monde,
deciding that he is now old enough to be a French grump,
tho he is just finding himself at our age,
somehow ending up in Paris and continuing to construct himself..
maybe calcify himself as a right wing Parisian..
complete with ticks and cigarette stains and a baguette in his pocket
but also
with tell tale Grateful Dead teeshirt showing beneath his corduroy jacket.

I guess that's what we 're all doing
Continuing to define who we might be now, matching inside and outside
Upstairs and downstairs
pushing towards edges and cliffs
or stopping short.

Evie sighed on her deathbed: Oh it's been a wonderful life.

Yep.. and how fortunate to still have more to live
more to do.. or not.
Not in charge of that.

I guess that's what I learned more than anything on this journey.
There's a partner we need to acknowledge.. indeed that we are
we are inside and outside, fixed and changing and
the trick to avoid the calcification, the rules of how it is...
and then not.  Cause we are not in charge except as we are...

Thanks for coming with me-
here's some pix for those not Facebook friendly
I'll be adding a few more tonight.
Back in NYC tomorrow.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=27698&id=1778869555&l=9284c70c34

ROMA PIAZZA VENEZIA

SUNDAY 20 NOVIEMBRE
noon roma time
Bar Brasile
Piazza Venezia 5/A
Roma

All memory is illusion
so way the whoe who know
And so the past slips past
dasas and monkeys
German hopefuls and Irish aspirants
rain and heat
language and rhythm
cloud goddeses
red dogs
marble palaces and ebony skin
wrapped in vibrant defiance
yantras and space flights
Bhagavan afloat above the clouds
chapatis and curry
sweat and sewage
cheese plates and pfefferminze tea.
The deep resonant chants of the meditation hall,
the shout of strained faith rising up from
the synagogue floor in Rome
drowned by gossip and crying babies and
alora , ecco, bella.

Layers of life and stone
and cats and churches and
horns announcing passage in India
and vespas flirting with pedestrians in Roma.

Piazza Venezia
the white white columns
ants of people climbing stairs
stairs stairs to see the remnants of the past
the past palpable and illusory and
present in the cappuccino and
bright breeze.

Right now.

The bubbles in the acqua minerale
Fonte Primavera
tickles my nose
right now
and yes, memory may be illusion but
the deposit of memory into stem and cells
like garlic cloves slid beneath the leg of lamb.
That is not memory
That is weave and warp and woof and
fabric and of being and all at once.

Oh that Baba Ram Dass.
He knew a thing or three.