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Look!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/kairon13

I need to give it a cool name though - any suggestions?

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Farewell, Mary Travers.  Journey on the wings of dragons.

To celebrate the legalisation of same-sex marriage in Vermont, they've renamed their Tubby Hubby ice-cream in their Vermont stores for the month of September.

;-)

I've made a few errors in the transcription, which I can't correct because you can only transcribe someone else's voice post once, I've discovered.  So if anyone else would like to tidy it up I'd appreciate it.

For those who are on Bookczuk's friends list, you'll probably have heard her voice post by now.
If you haven't, or if you're not on her list, I'll just let you know that two close members of her family are very much in need of prayers and vibes - whatever you can send.
I've created a candle group at Gratefulness.org for those who want to light a virtual candle for them.

Turn your words into pictures with Wordle.

This is how my poem 'Mirror Dances' comes out.

Open mic went really well, tired, a Bit tipsy. Going to bed, will updare tomorrow.

The best of me is a bestiary

You say ‘beast’ like it’s a bad thing,
An epithet for screaming headlines:
“Beast Attacks Women”, “Cage These Beasts Now”.

But I celebrate the beast in me –
The best of me is a bestiary.

I celebrate the boneless cat-stretch, unashamed and sensual –
Stroke me right and I purr.

I celebrate the magpie lust for glitter
(Oooh, shiny!) –
I bring you pearls and crystals for your nest.

The best of me is a bestiary

I celebrate my inner squirrel
Hoarding provisions against a harsh winter.

I celebrate the butterfly flitting without clear direction,
Moving from brightness to brightness.

The best of me is a bestiary.

I celebrate my tiger fierceness –
Provoke me and my claws unsheathe.

I celebrate the sisterhood of the elephant -
A vast, slow loyalty.

The best of me is a bestiary.

I celebrate (often) the sloth.

I even celebrate the cockroach,
Stubborn, uncrushable.

The best of me is a bestiary.

And I celebrate the unicorn, the dragon, the chimaera,
The magical, the fantastical –
These beasts are in me too.
 
I celebrate
The phoenix rising from my own ashes.

I am going to my first poetry open mic evening in about 7 hours.  I am intending (if my bottle doesn't go) to read a newly-written poem, plus an older one if I have time.
And I'm beginning to think "Why the **** did I say I'd do this?"

Confident performance vibes would be much appreciated.

'Suffering for your beliefs is called "principle". Making other people suffer because of your beliefs is called "being a jerk"'

(Seen in a comment in 'Ship of Fools' in this thread)

What is this I see in my spam folder?  Why, it's my first swine flu medication spam!

How neatly a cat sleeps,
sleeps with its paws and its posture,
sleeps with its wicked claws,
and with its unfeeling blood,
sleeps with all the rings--
a series of burnt circles--
which have formed the odd geology
of its sand-colored tail.

I should like to sleep like a cat,
with all the fur of time,
with a tongue rough as flint,
with the dry sex of fire;
and after speaking to no one,
stretch myself over the world,
over roofs and landscapes,
with a passionate desire
to hunt the rats in my dreams.

I have seen how the cat asleep
would undulate, how the night
flowed through it like dark water;
and at times, it was going to fall
or possibly plunge into
the bare deserted snowdrifts.
Sometimes it grew so much in sleep
like a tiger's great-grandfather,
and would leap in the darkness over
rooftops, clouds and volcanoes.

Sleep, sleep cat of the night,
with episcopal ceremony
and your stone-carved moustache.
Take care of all our dreams;
control the obscurity
of our slumbering prowess
with your relentless heart
and the great ruff of your tail.

Pablo Neruda (Translated by Alastair Reid)

The Seven Of Pentacles

Under a sky the color of pea soup
she is looking at her work growing away there
actively, thickly like grapevines or pole beans
as things grow in the real world, slowly enough.
If you tend them properly, if you mulch, if you water,
if you provide birds that eat insects a home and winter food,
if the sun shines and you pick off caterpillars,
if the praying mantis comes and the ladybugs and the bees,
then the plants flourish, but at their own internal clock.

Connections are made slowly, sometimes they grow underground.
You cannot tell always by looking what is happening.
More than half the tree is spread out in the soil under your feet.
Penetrate quietly as the earthworm that blows no trumpet.
Fight persistently as the creeper that brings down the tree.
Spread like the squash plant that overruns the garden.
Gnaw in the dark and use the sun to make sugar.

Weave real connections, create real nodes, build real houses.
Live a life you can endure: Make love that is loving.
Keep tangling and interweaving and taking more in,
a thicket and bramble wilderness to the outside but to us
interconnected with rabbit runs and burrows and lairs.

Live as if you liked yourself, and it may happen:
reach out, keep reaching out, keep bringing in.
This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always,
for every gardener knows that after the digging, after the planting,
after the long season of tending and growth, the harvest comes.

Marge Piercy

To A Teacher