Like A Juggler's Dream

I've been practicing my juggling. I'm just now incorporating a fourth ball and it's going really well, I think.

My mother bought me my first juggling balls for my 21st birthday. I'd made a list six months before of things I wanted to accomplish in the next four years and juggling was one of those things. I thought I'd just master the basic three ball juggling moves and be done with it, but it was so much fun, I couldn't stop. It's been a few years now and I have a few tricks up my sleeve. It has definitely become something I'll probably stick with for a while. Juggling makes me happy.

My friend, Michael, in Golden, Colorado, is a compulsive song writer. He's of the Beatles generation (in fact, he claims he knew them, the Beatles, and was friends with John Lennon... I'm actually inclined to believe him. His stories were epic.) Every day I knew him and asked what he was up to, he inevitably replied that the muses wouldn't let him be and he was writing like a fiend.
I jokingly asked him to write a song about me and we laughed it off. He did. He brought it in a few days later, and it's one of the most beautiful gifts I've ever recieved. It's only words, I need to find music to accompany it, but it's overwhelming how much I love it. Maybe I'll post it here one day.

He coined the phrase "like a juggler's dream" in my song, and in doing so, he described my life with absolute accuracy. Many ups and many downs, with perfect moments in between. Perfect weightless moments.

Perhaps my passion for juggling is really just a passion for those hundreds of little perfect moments, orchestrating them and holding them in my careful hands.

Harmony

A seamless blending: imperial architecture reflected in modern structure, capturing the beauty and timelessness of our existence.

Abandoned

Abandon: (of Fr. abandoner); To forsake wholly and fully.

Graffiti in Sonnets- Reading

Two men playing chess on milkcrates in an alleyway.
At first glance they're thugs, no goods, degenerates;
Look again, they're scholars, poets, graffiti in sonnets.
Breeze kicks up.

Keep walking on, Sister Mercy. Keep walking on.

There's pride here, you can smell it,
like fresh ocean salty swell, it
fills the air. It holds you.
Leaves pin-drop.

Keep walking on, Sister Mercy. Keep walking on.

Snoozing

I Keep Inventing Four-Leaf Clovers...

A Rose by Any Other Name- Reading

A Rose By Any Other Name

1

Carolyn was broken,
pieces scattered around her bedroom,
her bedroom filled so with things,
so many things that you couldn't see the bits of her.
And she would sit
in the piles
of the things,
and for hours,
cut herself smaller,
smaller like
to disappear.

She had a long name,
like in a story,
and she wondered if she could be a story
like her name.
And so she wanted,
and so she wanted,
and so she was.

2

Emily had a great day once.
It started with a nervous breath
and ended in secret, like
a slipping away.
She found colour this day
like it had never existed before.
She found autumn leaves
on long winding country roads
and fresh,
salty breezes
from snow
over the ocean!
And it bursted
like RED
from black on white
and she was overwhelmed
to say the least.
"Throw open your doors," she cried,
"and greet the dawn!"

3

Joan moved away
to Colorado
looking for God and the mountains as well:
flat tires, coincidence, and lilies in tow.
And there's a lot to learn
about Joan.
She swam in karma,
she did!
And she took it down.
And she loved so hard
so hard that it hurt,
but it saved her!
And when she would lie at night and stare at the stars,
making wishes,
and find herself
fraying at the edges,
her heart heavy
like a water balloon,
dangling in her chest,
she would trace the lines on her skin
and find pride.
And being robbed blind
was nothing,
nothing,
to tarnish being given a life to live
gloriously free.
And so all of her dreams came true.

4

Heather dances always in gypsy dresses at the edges of your vision.
Someone you long to love,
she remains elusive,
and wonderful,
and bright.
Just knowing she's there
makes it irritatingly impossible
to have a bad day.
She lives
in a long-distance relationship with the world,
and it's appropriate;
for she might cast unintentional shadows
if she brought her light too close.

5

Augustana dreams of breaking hearts like summer winds,
but settles instead for
sculpting love
and edging her toe into the door to music instead.
Dabbler in everything,
master of nothing,
and loving every minute of it,
she remembered a girl she knew once,
and meditated on it for a moment.

6

Carolyn
is
better,
pieces in place,
only slightly precarious,
like a puzzle you've memorized:
it wouldn't take too long
to put the pieces back together,
should some great earthquake
cause them to fall apart in front of you.
Calm,
save for fits of
indescribable joy
which occasionally plague her,
she gives love.
She is love,
and a long name,
like honey on a hungry tongue.




Written Washington 2011

Going- Reading

A piece of paper with
scribbled words
stares at me from its pedistal like
the dishes from the counters do-
expectantly:
"Give me words,
make them dance.
Now's the time,
here's your chance
to make me stay,
make me sway.
Make them heard.
Give me words,
words,
more words!" it nags,
and yes,
yes,
I will.

Now, I do not profess to be
prolific in prose-
so let's call this
a paragraph.
Annunciation is key,
motivation is lacking,
and I
am
suffocating!
So, I'm going...
Don't say no,
I'm going!
Do not allude to your
amusement at me and my
eager emancipation.
Just putter through your hallways
because they're calmer than your mind,
while I,
in my frail fortitude,
fly fearlessly forward
for what awaits:
my destiny,
my fate!
In me lies a passion not easily cast aside,
a dream,
a scheme to get my way,
a map of my road
not yet traveled;
a knot to every loose thread threatening to unravel,
a blunt determination,
inextinguishable,
unfathomable,
unyielding to incessant degredation,
to the phoenetic pronunciation
of all my faults,
my ineptitudes,
what I fear you
might
just
see.
Do not attempt to dis-courage,
for I have none for you to ravage.
I will not go in spite of you;

but with spite
for every insult,
every assault on my own vernacular,
every spectacular failure that I managed to accomplish
and never let myself forget.
With spite,
you see,
for me;
or for who I used to be,
the old me:
She who sat with open hands
and empty eyes!
She will see once and for all,
who I have become!
How I make thunder with my hands and feet
and create worlds,
Worlds, I say!
with my words...

Don't say I can't do this...
I've said it often enough.
I now know I can,
I am sure of it.
Imperfect,
but worth it:
I'm going.



Written Florida 2008

Ratiug- Reading