in las vegas for the weekend.

stress.

image by: olly moss.

tgi-fing-f!

i can't believe i am saying that.

who feels the same?

hopeful.

another photo of mum & pops.

The Discovery of Sex

We try to be discreet standing in the dark
hallway by the front door. He gets his hands
up inside the front of my shirt and I put mine
down inside the back of his jeans. We are crazy
for skin, each other's skin, warm silky skin.
Our tongues are in each other's mouths,
where they belong, home at last. At first

we hope my mother won't see us, but later we don't care,
we forget her. Suddenly she makes a noise
like a game show alarm and says Hey! Stop that!
and we put our hands out where she can see them.
Our mouths stay pressed together, though, and
when she isn't looking anymore our hands go
back inside each other's clothes. We could

go where no one can see us, but we are
good kids, from good families, trying to have
as much discreet sex as possible with my mother and father
four feet away watching strangers kiss on TV,
my mother and father who once did as we are doing,
something we can't imagine because we know

that before we put our mouths together, before
the back seat of his parents' car where our skins
finally become one-before us, these things
were unknown! Our parents look on in disbelief
as we pioneer delights they thought only they knew
before those delights gave them us.

Years later, still we try to be discreet, standing
in the kitchen now where we think she can't see us. I
slip my hands down inside the back of his jeans
and he gets up under the front of my shirt.
We open our mouths to kiss and suddenly Hey! Hey!
says our daughter glaring from the kitchen doorway.
Get a room! she says, as we put our hands
out where she can see them.

By Debra Spencer

:::

and finally...

the matron lady herself.

bonfire mix.

missing the sisters.

timing is everything.

Gold

Pale gold of the walls, gold
of the centers of daisies, yellow roses
pressing from a clear bowl. All day
we lay on the bed, my hand
stroking the deep
gold of your thighs and your back.
We slept and woke
entering the golden room together,
lay down in it breathing
quickly, then
slowly again,
caressing and dozing, your hand sleepily
touching my hair now.

We made in those days
tiny identical rooms inside our bodies
which the men who uncover our graves
will find in a thousand years,
shining and whole.

Donald Hall

calm.

grateful.

happy thanksgiving!

like a writer.

Selecting A Reader

First, I would have her be beautiful,
and walking carefully up on my poetry
at the loneliest moment of an afternoon,
her hair still damp at the neck
from washing it. She should be wearing
a raincoat, an old one, dirty
from not having money enough for the cleaners.
She will take out her glasses, and there
in the bookstore, she will thumb
over my poems, then put the book back
up on its shelf. She will say to herself,
"For that kind of money, I can get
my raincoat cleaned." And she will.

Ted Kooser

one, two, three.

last night I attended a dharma study about returning to the elementary, the simple, and the neccesary - as opposed to the preferential.

how do you all "get back to the basics"?

just something to think about, as we move into this holiday : )

take up a blade of grass and use it as a golden Buddha 16 feet high.

the practice of Zen as a non-intellectual way of life.

Buddhist teaching & meditation practice is seeping into my everyday & my now. This only happened when I stopped reading and started acting… specifically, when I began daily meditation.

Things about Zen Buddhism (as opposed to other branches) I try and hold close:

Everything there is implies everything else. And all those other things… in turn imply each individual object…. (rough sketch: mutual interdependence).

And your life, however short, everything depends on it. If that did not happen, nothing would happen. In this sense, the whole world bears your signature. It would not be the same world… if it weren’t for you (Allan Watts).

A world where there is a you implies there is a me. And a world with a me means a world with a you. You cannot separate me from you or you from me, just as you can’t separate my hands from my feet (me, my understanding).

Zen mentality represented simply:

Student: mountains and hills… are they not all forms of the body of Buddha?

Zen master: yes they are. But it’s a pity to say so.

... which shuts this bird up. Happy Friday to you all!

written for omy!!! oobiedoobieboo.

belated wednesday & thursday,

two sick days : (

caught the california flu which always ALWAYS seems to be circulating this state.

although I am still grateful to live where I do, and not only because I walk around in a postcard, but because my neighbor is a beautiful lady who likes to babysit (dogsit) my baby (dog) while I run errands : )