Ever Thine. Ever Mine. Ever Ours...

I know I'm not the only one who swooooooooned throughout the first Sex and the City movie. Love. Drama. Friendship...there was just so much awesome. Yes...Big revealed what an immature jerk he could really be, but he redeemed himself and made it up to Carrie with some bling and the shoe closet of her dreams. haha. I would have forgiven him too :)

Anyways...just found the full words to the poem Carrie used in her vows...double swoon! Beethoven was one romantic guy!!

When I Became A Man

BY Phil Allen

"...Before I became a man

I was much shorter
Not just in height but in spiritual insight
Because I never had a picture
Nor did Pixar ever have a film
Showing me what God’s man really looked like

But when I became man
Oh, When I became a man
I learned how to love Father God right back
Even though I’m good at falling short of the glory
I reflect on my story
Through my praise I’ll self publish a testimony..."

Want to know more about Phil? Click here!

93 Million Miles

Mraz is oh so good! His lyrics always read like poetry and always come exactly when I need to hear them! If you havent gotten his new CD, please please please do!

93 Million Miles
BY Jason Mraz

93 million miles from the Sun, people get ready get ready,
'cause here it comes
it’s a light, a beautiful light,
over the horizon into our eyes
Oh, my my how beautiful,
oh my beautiful mother
She told me, "Son in life you’re gonna go far, and if you do it right you’ll love where you are
Just know,
that wherever you go,
you can always come back home"

Tuesday Nights

Tuesday Nights Outside The Church of Gustavo Adolphus
BY Taylor Mali

An odd assortment of men  

Stands outside the church  

(every Tuesday nights)smoking,  

Their common addiction  

Stronger than Jesus

I want to ask what they come for 

And whether they find it  

But am afraid, perhaps,  

That having once been told,  

I will need it too.

From his collection The Last Time as We Are

Run Through these Streets with Me

Milos 
BY Anis Mojgani

Be a river with me;
Be the storm;
the bend in the path;
the front porch; the heat in the south;
be a boot full of banjo strings;
a fist full of written songs;
a mouth full of chocolate dust.
When they come to take us,
stab them between the eyes.
Do not take your hand from around mine.
Make a fist with the other, and punch spines like guilds, spit, sweat, kiss them like a grandmother. How will open mouthed terror love filled?
And when they come to cut out hair and ask to hear penance come from inside us,
say with me loud and trembling,
but loud and clear that:
"i have already emptied myself. I kissed regret goodbye, took the hands of another backwards angel, and rode backwards into the rain"

Full words here!

Happy Resurrection Sunday!

Easter says you can put truth in a grave, but it won't stay there.  ~Clarence W. Hall





Image Source: http://resurrection-brentwood.org/

Why does the caged bird sing?

From the Depths

Last night, instead of sleeping, I re-read Oscar Wilde's de Profundis. For those who don't know, its the letter a heartbroken Wilde wrote to the lover who denied him, betrayed him and got him thrown in prison for two years for gross indecency. Not the most upbeat book choice, but misery loves company. It's crazy how much it can hurt, even when you know it's the right move. All I know is that love is one messy thing. Ask poor Oscar. Love landed him in jail...

Anyway...After a nearly sleepless night, waking up to a tear-stained pillowcase and finally putting myself together enough to say "Amen," I have decided to focus on the task of getting reacquainted with myself... Who was I before? A fiery, brazen woman, I think. Or maybe a hopeless fawn looking for exactly what I eventually found? Was I ever an entity of my own? Or have I always been so weak, a simple echo of someone else's song?

The sun is starting to come out now and I'm starting to feel a little bit lighter. The sky has not fallen yet. I am still alive. Friday's hailstorm didn't blow away this tired body of dust and bones...and I still have poetry!

Rachel McKibbens. le sigh. Her writing is perfection and this two year old poem spoke all the way to my soul this morning. It feels a fitting welcome back to the world of the creative, the emotive, the single...


Happy National Poetry Month!

Last Love

BY Rachel McKibbens

To my daughters, I need to say:

Go with the one who loves you biblically.
The one whose love lifts its head to you despite its broken neck.
Whose body bursts sixteen arms electric to carry you, gentle, the way
old grief is gentle.

Love the love that is messy in all its too much,

The body that rides best your body, whose mouth saddles the naked salt
of your far gone hips, whose tongue translates the rock language of
all your elegant scars.

Go with the one who cries out for his tragic sisters as he chops the winter’s wood, the one whose skin
Triggers your heart into a heaven of blood waltzes.
Go with the one who resembles most your father. Not the father you can
point out on a map,
But the father who is here. Is your home. Is the key to your front door. Know that your first love will only

Be the first. And the second and third and even fourth will unprepare you for the most important:
The Blessed. The Beast. The Last love. Which is, of course, the most terrifying kind.

Because which of us wants to go with what can murder us? Can reveal to us our true heart’s end and its thirty years spent in poverty?
Can mimic the sound of our bird-throated mothers, replicate the warmth of our brothers' tempers? Can pull us out of ourselves until

We are no longer sisters or daughters or sword swallowers but, instead,

Women. Who give. And lead. And take and want

And want

And want

And want

Because there is no shame in wanting.

And you will hear yourself say: Last Love, I wish to die so I may come back to you new and never tasted by any other mouth but yours.
And I want to be the hands that pull your children out of you and tuck them deep inside myself until they are
Ready to be the children of such a royal and staggering love. Or you
will say:

Last Love,
I am old, and have spent myself on the courageless, have wasted too many clocks on less-deserving men, so I hurl myself at the throne of you
And lie humbly at your feet.

Last Love, let me never roll out of this heavy dream of you.
Let the day I was born mean my life will end where you end.
Let the man behind the church do what he did if it brings me to you.
Let the girls in the locker room corner me again if it brings me to you.
Let the wrong beds find me if it brings me to you.
Let this wild depression throw me beneath its hooves if it brings me to you.
Let me pronounce my hoarded joy if it brings me to you.
Let my father break me again and again if it brings me to you.

Last love, I let other men borrow your children. Forgive me.
Last love, I vowed my heart to another. Forgive me.
Last Love, I have let my blind and anxious hands wander into a room and come out empty. Forgive me.

Last Love, I have cursed the women you loved before me. Forgive me.
Last Love, I envy your mother’s body where you resided first. Forgive me.
Last Love, I am all that is left. Forgive me.
Last Love, I did not see you coming. Forgive me.

Last Love, every day without you was a life I crawled out of. Amen.
Last Love, you are my Last Love. Amen.
Last Love, I am all that is left. Amen.

I am all that is left.

Amen.

thx to Jaha's World for the words!

So I Slowly Whisper I Love you 32 and a 3rd Times

My love is halfway across the world this Valentine's Day, so I can especially relate to this super sweet poem. It speaks of long distance love in a world where people are only allotted 167 words, each day. Tweet Tweet :)

It's in one of my fav poetry compilations - The Last American Valentine from Write Bloody Books. Perfect VDay present for yourself!!

The Quite World
BY Jeffrey McDaniel

In an effort to get people to look
into each other’s eyes more,
the government has decided to allot
each person exactly one hundred
and sixty-seven words, per day.

When the phone rings, I put it
to my ear without saying hello.
In the restaurant I point
at chicken noodle soup. I am
adjusting well to the new way.

Late at night, I call my long
distance lover and proudly say
I only used fifty-nine today.
I saved the rest for you.

When she doesn’t respond, I know
she’s used up all her words
so I slowly whisper I love you,
thirty-two and a third times.
After that, we just sit on the line
and listen to each other breathe.

SciFi Books Recos for my Fellow Nerds!

Check out NPR's latest list of top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy books! So many of my favs made the list :) How many of these have you guys read?

1. The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkien

2. The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, by Douglas Adams

3. Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card

4. The Dune Chronicles, by Frank Herbert

5. A Song Of Ice And Fire Series, by George R. R. Martin

6. 1984, by George Orwell

7. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury

8. The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov

9. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley

10. American Gods, by Neil Gaiman

11. The Princess Bride, by William Goldman

MORE Literary fun :)

Levis pulls riot ad and classic poetry used to sell jeans

I love when poetry take center stage. I love when words written many years ago still ring true, generations later. I love when a poetic classic is made relevant again, even if it's for commercial purposes...but I cant say that I loved this new Levis ad. There is just so much wrong with it...

And just as past campaigns have relied on the words of phttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifoets such as Walt Whitman, “Legacy” enlists the Charles Bukowski poem “The Laughing Heart” as a call to arms. Read by a narrator with a grizzled voice (not unlike Tom Waits), Bukowski’s words are instantly transformed into ad copy, becoming a lyrical ode to the art of jeans selection, boiling away the author’s artful intent and recontextualizing it as a sales pitch.

“Legacy” marries protest imagery, emotive music, and the words of a literary underdog in an attempt to realize Wieden + Kennedy’s vision of high commercial art.

- source Forbes.com



the laughing heart
BY Charles Bukowski

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

The Psalms

The Psalms
BY Thomas Merton

When psalms surprise me with their music
And antiphons turn to rum
The Spirit sings: the bottom drops out of my soul.

And from the center of my cellar, Love, louder than thunder
Opens a heaven of naked air.

New eyes awaken.
I send Love's name into the world with wings
And songs grow up around me like a jungle.
Choirs of all creatures sing the tunes
Your Spirit played in Eden.
Zebras and antelopes and birds of paradise
Shine on the face of the abyss
And I am drunk with the great wilderness
Of the sixth day in Genesis.

But sound is never half so fair
As when that music turns to air
And the universe dies of excellence.

Sun, moon and stars
Fall from their heavenly towers.
Joys walk no longer down the blue world's shore.

Though fires loiter, lights still fly on the air of the gulf,
All fear another wind, another thunder:
Then one more voice
Snuffs all their flares in one gust.

And I go forth with no more wine and no more stars
And no more buds and no more Eden
And no more animals and no more sea:

While God sings by himself in acres of night
And walls fall down, that guarded Paradise.

The Weakness in Me

This uber short piece was wholly inspired by Joan Armitrading. I even borrowed the title from her oh-so-popular hit of the same name. Thanks Joan :) Hope you like it!

The Weakness in Me
BY Susan Baba

There is a mountain of evidence to condemn you
The jury has spoken
The judge has ruled
But I, your executioner and victim in one
When I am faced with the choice between loneliness and retribution
Would choose to pardon you
Again and again
If only to have something to hold on to tonight

"to write your memories on my heart too"

Memory
BY Susan Baba

Tell me the places you’ve been.
I want to write your memories on my heart too.
I want to see that starry and faraway look
And travel to that place with you.

The first sunset –
You were so tiny beside the vastness of that Arabian coast
But you never would have known it from the power in your voice.
You were not scared.
You stared down the sun
Made it quiver in its boots
And, when you were finished,
You coaxed the moon out to play with the tapping of two sticks.
Your baby sister did not understand
But I promise I will.

Take us back there.

To the first day you learned that you were invincible –
You swung higher and higher
Everything below looking liked patchwork and pebbles
You leaned forward,
Let go,
And jumped regally off of the swing set.
No cape, but you were just as majestic.
No parents and their cautious hands below to catch you
Just you and air and courage.

Take us back to that place.

Where the timbre of her voice rang even in your dreams
She was a flawless first love.
Her hair smelled like Magnolia blossoms and her smile made it all make sense.
You wanted to kiss her forever
But she turned her face too quickly
Took a step away from you and never looked back again.
Tell me how it pained you to let her walk away, without so much as “I love you” or “goodbye.”
How you vowed to keep walking too,
In the path of your own choosing, this time.
You must have thought the world was ending then.

So, tell me how it ended.
How many “hallelujahs” it took to lead you back to yourself and onto my doorstep.
I want to know.

You are a man.
A brave and collected soul.
You come to me worthy of much admiration
But, I know your path was not always straight
That you fought your way through thick forests
That made you look around for your father’s arms
Let's travel back there.
Feel the intensity of those things already past.
When you go back to those memories,
Take me with you.

Welcome Back Susan!

I am back!!

But only a little bit :)

I will be posting sporadically, but I'll be posting. Promise...at least once weekly. Missed you too much to stay away for a second longer.

smooches!
sb

To Be Known

A quick howdy, after a long absence. Hope you likey :) My bf sent it to me and I just had to share with all of you beautiful people! Ah to know and to be known. Isn't that every heart's desire?

enjoy!

The Eye of Soul
BY Oliver O. Mbamara

I judge you not by what you wear,
Whether your garment is of rag or riches,
Or your skin is of a color white or black,
Whether you wear some gold or trinkets,
Or decorate yourself with stones and diamonds,
I see you with the eye of Soul.

I know you, for who you are inside of you,
Not for your smiles, for smiles could be false,
Not for your looks, for looks could deceive,
Not for your appearance, for that won't last,
And not for your clothes, for that only covers.
I see you with the eye of Soul.

I am a friend to that you inside of you,
Indifferent to your dose of limitations,
Forgiving to your human flaws of character
Unyielding to rumors and gossips about you
For the eye within sees even more,
I see you with the eye of Soul.

Say What?? New Spoken Word Site!!

Ah Google. It's pretty darn awesome what you can find by simply typing "spoken word" into your search engine :) This week, I discovered Poetryspeaks.com. This one stop shop let's you check out poet bios, videos, and order mp3s of poets reading their work!!

The site's search capability lets you find what you need by searching the poet's name or the name of the piece. If you create your own account (which I did, pronto!!), you can customize your page, show love to your fav poets, and post why you think poetry rocks, as part of their "Why Poetry" project.

An all around awesome place to explore!

Discover new poems and old favorites on PS·Voices.
Experience slam and spoken word poetry on SpokenWord.
Want an audience for your poetry? Upload now to YourMic.

Hymns are Poetry Too!

So many songs have the smooth and beautiful quality of a poem. This is for sure one of those. The lovely piece "Come thy Fount" was written in 1757 by Robert Robinson, when he was only 22 years old!

Whether read or sung, the words have an undeniable quality that always makes me feel God's presence.

Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.

Sorrowing I shall be in spirit,
Till released from flesh and sin,
Yet from what I do inherit,
Here Thy praises I’ll begin;
Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Here by Thy great help I’ve come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.

Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood;
How His kindness yet pursues me
Mortal tongue can never tell,
Clothed in flesh, till death shall loose me
I cannot proclaim it well.

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

O that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see Thy lovely face;
Clothed then in blood washed linen
How I’ll sing Thy sovereign grace;
Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,
Take my ransomed soul away;
Send thine angels now to carry
Me to realms of endless day.

Say Yes!

BY Andrea Gibson

when two violins are placed in a room
if a chord on one violin is struck
the other violin will sound the note
if this is your definition of hope

this is for you
the ones who know how powerful we are
who know we can sound the music in the people around us
simply by playing our own strings

for the ones who sing life into broken wings
open their chests and offer their breath
as wind on a still day when nothing seems to be moving

spare those intent on proving God is dead
for you when your fingers are red
from clutching your heart
so it will beat faster
for the time you mastered the art of giving yourself for the sake of someone else
for the ones who have felt what it is to crush the lies
and lift truth so high the steeples bow to the sky
this is for you

this is also for the people who wake early to watch flowers bloom
who notice the moon at noon on a day when the world
has slapped them in the face with its lack of light
for the mothers who feed their children first
and thirst for nothing when they’re full...

Happy Birthday (Haiku) to You!

In the spirit of being haiku-literate, by boo and I wrote this fantastic poem inside a friend's birthday card. Ok...maybe fantastic is a bit overboard. lol...but it is a poem...by the loosest definition possible.

These haikus are not as easy as you think..

:)

Birthday Greetings
BY SB and MD

Hey, pretty lady
It's your birthday, O-M-G
Hoping your day rocks!