Melody Gardot - Wicked Ride

Thanks to Marla

Almost

by Michelle Brea

"I was sentimental about many things: a woman’s shoes under the bed; one hairpin left behind on the dresser; the way they said, “I’m going to pee..”’ hair ribbons; walking down the boulevard with them at 1:30 in the afternoon, just two people walking together; the long nights of drinking and smoking; talking; the arguments; thinking of suicide; eating together and feeling good; the jokes; the laughter out of nowhere; feeling miracles in the air; being in a parked car together; comparing past loves at 3am; being told you snore; hearing her snore; mothers, daughters, sons, cats, dogs; sometimes death and sometimes divorce; but always carring on, always seeing it through; reading a newspaper alone in a sandwich joint and feeling nausea because she’s now married to a dentist with an I.Q. of 95; racetracks, parks, park picnics; even jails; her dull friends; your dull friends; your drinking, her dancing; your flirting, her flirting; her pills, your fucking on the side and her doing the same; sleeping together"

— Charles Bukowski (Women)

via Michelle Brea on Flickr

she was only a fraud

hiding behind her many devices
and
quite witchy after all


it's an unattractive trait this self loathing
one that should not
be put on
others
this much I know

melt my heart to stone

Thanks to Carlein

MCCLXII

Underneath (13)

BY JORIE GRAHAM

needed          explanation

because of the mystic nature        of the theory

and our reliance          on collective belief

I could not visualize the end

the tools that paved the way broke

the body the foundation the exact copy of the real

our surfaces were covered

our surfaces are all covered

actual hands appear but then there is writing

in the cave       we were deeply impressed

as in addicted to results

oh and dedication training     the idea of loss of life

in our work we call this emotion

how a poem enters into the world

there is nothing wrong with the instrument

as here I would raise my voice but

the human being and the world cannot be equated

aside from the question of whether or not we are alone

and other approaches to nothingness

(the term “subject”)(the term “only”)

also opinion and annihilation

(the body’s minutest sensation of time)

(the world, it is true, has not yet been destroyed)

intensification      void

we are amazed

uselessness is the last form love takes

so liquid till the forgone conclusion

here we are, the forgone conclusion

so many messages transmitted they will never acquire meaning

do you remember          my love my archive

touch me (here)

give birth to       a single idea

touch where it does not lead to war

show me    exact spot

climb the stairs

lie on the bed

have faith

nerves wearing only moonlight lie down

lie still patrol yr cage

be a phenomenon

at the bottom below the word

intention, lick past it

rip     years

find the burning matter

love allows it (I think)

push past the freedom (smoke)

push past     intelligence (smoke)

whelm      sprawl

(favorite city)   (god’s tiny voices)

hand over mouth

let light arrive

let the past strike us and go

drift        undo

if it please the dawn

lean down

say      hurt      undo

in your mouth be pleased

where does it say

where does it say

this is the mother tongue

there is in my mouth a ladder

climb down

presence of world

impassable       gap

pass

I am beside myself

you are inside me       as history

We exist         Meet me

SONG

SONG A whole summer I spent listening to that record.  So that the emotion would not leave it  I listened to it once a day.  If I ended up hungry I went out to walk.  The light sang that song in its way,  the sea sang it, a bird  spoke it.  In one instant I thought:  all this is happening to me so I might fall in love.  Then the summer went away.  The bird  dryer than the branch  didn’t open its beak again. © 2002, António José Ponte © Translation: Julie Flanagan

© Translation: Julie Flanagan

Photography by Abigail Berenika

La Double Vie de Véronique

Out of the rolling ocean the crowd

"Out of the rolling ocean the crowd came a drop gently to me,

Whispering, I love you, before long I die,

I have travell’d a long way merely to look on you to touch you,

For I could not die till I once look’d on you,

For I fear’d I might afterward lose you..."

-- Walt Whitman

Photograph by Jock Sturges

Norah Jones - Thinking About You

just so

"Drink a toast to the sun 
To the things that never come 
To the break of the day 
That is all I say"

xx

just two

Photography by Tim Walker