Even Love

Green light came down from the heaven of the jackals
and crisscrossed the room where the bed was slightly
disturbed, sheets damp, curtains swaying, curtains
on which strange birds were painted, their wings striped
and half-opened, birds of paradise with long tails
like umbrellas. The moon-colored bed that
the bodies floated on was tender as skin
itself. Even love, in some way, could be said
to be so wasteful, which was what the jackals waited for,
fed on with their thorny fur and snarls. Tongues
hanging, covers already tearing where they lurked,
lamps overturned where they prowled for something spilled,
circling the bed, snapping at air and lace, foaming
over seed or blood on the pliant white soil.

Anne Marie Macari
first published in Shenandoah, vol. 51, no. 4, Winter 2001
republished here from Poetry Daily 28 March 2003

TEDxSoCal - WIFE The Grey Ones

The Couriers

The word of a snail on the plate of a leaf?
It is not mine. Do not accept it.

Acetic acid in a sealed tin?
Do not accept it. It is not genuine.

A ring of gold with the sun in it?
Lies. Lies and a grief.

Frost on a leaf, the immaculate
Cauldron, talking and crackling

All to itself on the top of each
Of nine black Alps.

A disturbance in mirrors,
The sea shattering its grey one--

Love, love, my season.

by Sylvia Plath

Searching for Debra Winger

For one of the elective courses I designed and taught - a course called Women in Film, I chose this documentary to show the class. It is one of my favorite films and it just speaks to everything that is wrong with media, Hollywood, men, and especially the sexualization of women - by men and women. I've embedded some clips here, but it is so worth renting on Netflix or buying - I watch it every few months just to clear my head of all the nonsense going on around me, the world, to remind myself that there are intelligent, beautiful, sharp, witty, sane, civilized women out there.  Enjoy...

Searching For Debra Winger

https://youtu.be/SwPrvziXN5g

Whole Milk for All

Rachel Maddow, yet again, has begun tonight's show with succinct brilliance. Using a clip of the Supreme Court proceedings from today of two exchanges between judges and attorneys, she perfectly framed today's significance and searing energy.  Ruth Ginsburg, pint-sized powerhouse that she is, stole the show and showed those conservative bullies who's the brainiac on the bench.  

Yes, Rachel, skim milk is delicious; and Harvey Milk, by way of celestial allusion, makes an appearance for all milk by the example of his legacy, your stellar journalism, and the Supreme Court's little dynamo, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg . Ms. Kaplan was also brilliant with her "Sea Change" response. And Roberts knows in his heart that this is the time, long overdue, to not give, not permit, but to stop holding back the gates of divine progress. 

Flip it, Roberts!!  

I need a quote of Kaplan's response to "Bowers ... Lawrence..I don't think that gay people have that power..." 

I am on the transcripts page for the hearing. When I find the section I mean to quote, I will put it up here. Until then, Keep Moving Forward.     

The Catch : Poetry Everywhere : Video : The Poetry Foundation

The Catch : Poetry Everywhere : Video : The Poetry Foundation >

This is one of my favorite poems by Stallings. Many, many more.  Archaic Smile is the book I chose to have the class read for my senior poetry workshop course in college.  A.E. Stallings inspires me to try to write formal poetry. I think this video really does justice to the poem.

Enjoy The Catch BY A.E. STALLINGS Something has come between us— It will not sleep. Every night it rises like a fish Out of the deep. It cries with a human voice, It aches to be fed. Every night we heave it weeping Into our bed, With its heavy head lolled back, Its limbs hanging down, Like a mer-creature fetched up From the weeds of the drowned. Damp in the tidal dark, it whimpers, Tossing the cover, Separating husband from wife, Lover from lover. It settles in the interstice, It spreads out its arms, While its cool underwater face Sharpens and warms: This is the third thing that makes Father and mother, The fierce love of our fashioning That will have no brother. A. E. Stallings, "The Catch" from (: Poetry magazine, )