presents!

Realized I haven't posted anything in a few days... been so busy! Packet 3 went out today, stuffed full of new poems, and now it's lot's of photos to edit, my lecture to revise, then another photo shoot this weekend...

But I've come with presents!

Here's a new poem from Matt Hart over at the very cool LEVELER.

Also some very cool poems from Adam Fell at Phantom Limb. 

And then there's this, which needs no introduction or explanation. Just put your headphones on, turn up the volume, and enjoy.

I want to be adored

don't you?

"I Want to be Adored" Stone Roses cover by the Raveonettes from Cass Bird on Vimeo.

Also, yesterday someone told me I reminded them of Kristen Stewart. That's the fourth time in my life someone has told me that. She's cool. Though I was secretly thinking, "Thanks but I wish you would have said Julia Roberts.."

Then, I kid you not, later in the evening (I was photographing a wedding), someone else told me I reminded them of Julia Roberts.

For a moment it felt like all my problems had solved themselves. It was nice.

p.s. just realized I wrote "secretly thinking" -- are we ever un-secretly thinking? silly me.

xx

I first came across this poem about a month or so ago. It's so beautiful, I keep coming back to it.

GRADUALISM by Kenneth Rexroth

We slept naked
On top of the covers and woke
In the chilly dawn and crept
Between the warm sheets and made love
In the morning you said
“It snowed last night on the mountain”
High up on the blue-black diorite
Faint orange streaks of snow
In the ruddy dawn
I said
“It has been snowing for months
All over Canada and Alaska
And Minnesota and Michigan
Right now wet snow is falling
In the morning streets of Chicago
Bit by bit they are making over the world
Even in Mexico even for us”

source

Also, The xx!! Just got the new album. Will see them in concert next month... 

slow it down...

Peaceful/beautiful Saturday morning.

Slow it down.. Come back to bed...



Also, this amazing poem by Rich Villar as published in Thrush Poetry Journal.

#obsessed

Fuck, man, there is so much good art in the world! This is gonna be on repeat for a couple of days.



via The Killing Moon

p.s. The more I watch this, the more I realize this is a black and white version of how I feel when I write poems. Basically, this is my life.

rain shower!

"dance till you're dead..."

Those four words pretty much sum up my philosophy on life...



Also, be sure to catch the Perseid Meteor Shower these next few nights!

hot damn

Frank Ocean - music of the week



We'd flee to other lands....

Cass McCombs "You Saved My Life"

Beautiful video. Beautiful song. Beautiful morning.

You get the car, I'll get the night off...

I'm sure I've posted this song before, but here it is again, a live version that's giving me the chills. Love this band. Have yet to see them in concert...



You get the car, I'll get the night off.
We'll get the chance..
to take the world apart and figure out how it works.
Don't let me know what you find out.
I need a car.. You need a guide who needs a map.
If I don't die or worse.. I'm gonna need a nap.
At best I'll be asleep when you get back.

I want to see it when you find out what comets, stars, and moons are all about.
I want to see their faces turn to backs of heads and slowly get smaller.
I want to see it now.

I want specifics on the general idea.
I want to think what I should know.
Want you to do to me what you showed.
I want to see movies of my dreams [Repeat: x2]

I want to see it when you get stoned on a cloudy breezy desert afternoon.
I want to see it untame itself and break its owner.
I want to see it now.
I want to see it now

summertime sadness

say what you will about Lana Del Rey... this girl's got a piece of my heart.

DAUGHN GIBSON

just came across these amazing sounds. daughn gibson=music of the week.

PHANTOGRAM

I'm obsessed with this song.

obsessed

it's been so long since I've discovered a band and instantly fell in love. Tonight, that happened. Meet Alt-J:





Now dissolve me, two tabs on your tongue,
A herd of shepherds to herd the sheep, sleep now my only one.
Broken sweethearts who sleep apart
Both still pine for the other's side spine, spoon as sleep starts.
And pulse to pulse, now shush.

She makes the sound, the sound the sea makes to calm me down.

I am see-through, soap sliver you're so thin,
As I begin rubbing lathers up your state worsens on my skin.
And gold, fatless finger to lip, one two three four hush.
And pulse to pulse, now shush.

She makes the sound, the sound the sea makes to calm me down.
She makes the sound, the sound the sea makes, I am tired now.
She makes the sound the sea makes, knee-deep in the north sea (x8)

the universe inside you

"Each of us is conceived with a unique set of coiled genes 'primed' for realization. We are born with a desire to develop our resources and contribute our matured talents to the pool of human resources. This unfolding and becoming of an individual self is not only a biological activity--it is also a spiritual one. When we bring to life our unique personal contribution, we are active, local participants in the endless cosmic drama of the creation of ultimate meaning, as the universe, itself divine, 'becomes.'"

--Albert Pesso

Also, this:

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.

this

I'm tired of words, of talking to people.

I'm retreating inward, yet outward, deeper yet more expansive.

In the library, blasting Kurt Cobain through my headphones--

late night music & thoughts

If Evelyn wasn't sleeping right now I'd be blasting this through my speakers. 

p.s. Tomorrow is Evelyn's birthday, which means that about exactly three years ago at this moment I started going into labor, which, for those of you who have not experienced childbirth, is as unpleasant as all the stories you've heard. But seeing her, meeting her outside my body for the first time... I'm still trying to put it into words. The phrases "truly amazing" and "fucking weird" come to mind... 

Yeah, that about explains it.

24: photo diary

some photos from yesterday evening, before Laura and I headed out to see Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeroes.... (more of that to come)

"But friendship is the breathing rose, with sweets in every fold...."

--Oliver Wendell Holmes

color!

because i needed something to brighten up these rainy days... (and i guess the color on my head just isn't enough!)

watch this.