Category Archives: Uncategorized

on the quick: made it to oakland safe & sound. everything is as bright as you would expect it to be.

it’s lookin like the blog is gonna be the best way for the NYC heads to keep up with my further adventures. cool enough but the basic rules of the blog stay intact…
-if something beautiful happens in my life, i will probably blog about it
-if something goes haywire in my life, i probably wont
-i dont blog about my 9-5. pretty funny considering i dont have one at this second but you know what i mean.
-drama is best viewed with professionals on a stage or at the cinema, not on a blog
-the nebulous will be kept to a minimum
-inside jokes will appear frequently and will be properly footnoted
-yeah, i am still a manda todo

so, why in the hell would someone want to still read ye olde blog? i will promise to post all of my insecurities regarding my poetics. the process, the poems, the direction, the destinations and how it all gets jumbled up in my head. the fact that i have become comfortable with the title of “poet” in the last year or so is in no way keeping all my anxieties in check.

oh yeah, you can find poems from other folks here on occasion. generally, you’ll find poems that i enjoy but, on occasion, i may post one that i am not feelin in an effort to keep the dialogue on the critical tip.

i may start posting some og my own poems here from time to time. new locale, new habits. ya know.

this short update has gotten a bit long it seems and thats cool too since the blog still surprises me and thats a good thing.

love ya like a bagel loves cream cheese

“you are a city the sea assaults,
a stretch of ramparts split by the light
in two halves the color of peaches,
a domain of salt, rocks and birds”
Octavio Paz — Piedra de Sol (The Sun Stone)
translated by Eliot Weinberger

the last week has just been a whirlwind of emotions. i am very much
all over the place but in that good way. did some baby sittin duty
yesterday and got to have some extra chill time with my older sis and
her fam. it seems like all these wonderful coincidences keep poppin
up. then again, maybe not so coincidental.

gotta run and check out my last acentos for a while. i hear the
feature is all kinds of good ;-)

t-minus 24 hours…

In the sky there is nobody asleep. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is asleep.
The creatures of the moon sniff and prowl about their cabins.
The living iguanas will come and bite the men who do not dream,
and the man who rushes out with his spirit broken will meet on the
street corner
the unbelievable alligator quiet beneath the tender protest of the
stars.

Nobody is asleep on earth. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is asleep.
In a graveyard far off there is a corpse
who has moaned for three years
because of a dry countryside on his knee;
and that boy they buried this morning cried so much
it was necessary to call out the dogs to keep him quiet.

Life is not a dream. Careful! Careful! Careful!
We fall down the stairs in order to eat the moist earth
or we climb to the knife edge of the snow with the voices of the dead
dahlias.
But forgetfulness does not exist, dreams do not exist;
flesh exists. Kisses tie our mouths
in a thicket of new veins,
and whoever his pain pains will feel that pain forever
and whoever is afraid of death will carry it on his shoulders.

One day
the horses will live in the saloons
and the enraged ants
will throw themselves on the yellow skies that take refuge in the
eyes of cows.

Another day
we will watch the preserved butterflies rise from the dead
and still walking through a country of gray sponges and silent boats
we will watch our ring flash and roses spring from our tongue.
Careful! Be careful! Be careful!
The men who still have marks of the claw and the thunderstorm,
and that boy who cries because he has never heard of the invention
of the bridge,
or that dead man who possesses now only his head and a shoe,
we must carry them to the wall where the iguanas and the snakes
are waiting,
where the bear’s teeth are waiting,
where the mummified hand of the boy is waiting,
and the hair of the camel stands on end with a violent blue shudder.

Nobody is sleeping in the sky. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is sleeping.
If someone does close his eyes,
a whip, boys, a whip!
Let there be a landscape of open eyes
and bitter wounds on fire.
No one is sleeping in this world. No one, no one.
I have said it before.

No one is sleeping.
But if someone grows too much moss on his temples during the
night,
open the stage trapdoors so he can see in the moonlight
the lying goblets, and the poison, and the skull of the theaters.

Federico García Lorca

off for a few days to teach, learn and generally chill with some good folks. big plus is that this trip should make the next few days fly by.

t-minus 8 days

April 20, 2006
Thursday

Annual Day of the Poet workshop will provide area high school students with an opportunity to work with professional poets Dasan Ahanu, Aracelis Girmay, Lita Hooper, Stephanie Pruitt, Oscar Bermeo, Evie Shlockey, Quraysh Ali Lansana, Ebony Golden, Kim Arrington, Mara Jebsen and Rich Villar. Hosted by the High School Literacy Project of the Research Triangle Schools Partnership in collaboration with UNC-Chapel Hill’s Sonya Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History.

Time: 8:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m.
Place: Stone Center, Hitchcock Multipurpose Room
Contact: Raina Leon, rleon at email dot unc dot edu