music & poetry & VCFA update

Summer residency is quickly heading toward its bittersweet end.... Today is a low-key day in terms of scheduled readings and lectures... All that's on my schedule today is lunch with my advisor and a reading. The afternoon of the fourth is always like "the weekend" -- there's the prose v. poets softball game, and a catered picnic, and the talent show.... basically everyone is encouraged to take the afternoon and evening off. I don't think anyone needs much encouraging!

Last night was the graduation dance party, which was much needed. After being in my head so damn much, I was craving some loud music and an opportunity to MOVE MY BODY. So fun. I miss my speakers at home.

A friend shared this song with me the other day. I'm hooked:



Do you remember the late morning
when we went back to bed,
when we found the first position
and every muscle rested

I do remember that I already knew
it was the last time,
the last time for first positions
the last time you'll be mine

Aaaaoo aoo aoo ao
Aaaaoo aoo aoo ao

Do you remember the scars I showed you
the stories I told you
how I always said forever
when you aksed me to stay true

do you remember when we forgot
how to smile at each other
to believe that the other
wants only whats good for you

Do you remember the late morning
when we went back to bed,
when we found the first position
and every muscle rested

I do remember that I already knew
it was the last time,
the last time for first positions
the last time you'll be mine


And here's the poem I'm especially loving today, "Inside Out" by Diane Wakowski 

I walk the purple carpet into your eye

carrying the silver butter server

but a truck rumbles by,

                      leaving its black tire prints on my foot

and old images          the sound of banging screen doors on hot   

             afternoons and a fly buzzing over the Kool-Aid spilled on   

             the sink

flicker, as reflections on the metal surface.

Come in, you said,

inside your paintings, inside the blood factory, inside the   

old songs that line your hands, inside

eyes that change like a snowflake every second,

inside spinach leaves holding that one piece of gravel,

inside the whiskers of a cat,

inside your old hat, and most of all inside your mouth where you   

grind the pigments with your teeth, painting

with a broken bottle on the floor, and painting

with an ostrich feather on the moon that rolls out of my mouth.

You cannot let me walk inside you too long inside   

the veins where my small feet touch

bottom.

You must reach inside and pull me

like a silver bullet

from your arm.