jacicita’s Neighborhood

First

A carpenter, he explained distinctions
between wood grains, planing my
seventeen year old skin with his palm.
But I lost the words, taken instead
by how touch could undo me. The air
smelled of mangos that June night, sharp,
burningly sweet. Or maybe that was me,
my white painter’s pants peeled down.
Beside us, the ocean mimicked
my boyfriend’s motion and our breath,
on that treeless beach in Queens,
as I buried what was left of childhood.

~Ona Gritz

***

It's been a very long time since I posted here, hasn't it.

Mostly that's because I have no idea what to post here. All my personal and day-to-day stuff goes in my LJ, or in my paper journal. With a public blog like this one, I feel like I should be saying something of interest all the time--or that I should at least be focused on a particular theme, like education or folk music or spirituality or photos or things I make. I don't know. I wish I had some room in my head to think about it.

When the Glass of My Body Broke

Oh, mother of sex,
lady of the staggering cuddle,
where do these hands come from?
A man, a Moby Dick of a man,
a swimmer going up and down in his brain,
the gentleness of wine in his fingertips
where do these hands come from?
I was born a glass baby and nobody picked me up
except to wash the dust off me.
He has picked me up and licked me alive.

Hands
growing like ivy over me,
hands growing out of me like hair,
yet turning into fire grass,
planting an iris in my mouth,
spinning and blue,
the nipples turning into wings,
the lips turning into days that would not give birth,
days that would not hold us in their house,
days that would not wrap us in their secret clasp,
and yet, hands, hands growing out of pictures,
hands crawling out of the walls,
hands that excite oblivion,
like a wind,
a strange wind
from somewhere tropic
making a storm between my blind legs,
letting me lift the mask of the child from my face,
while all the toy villages fall
and I sink softly into
the heartland.

~Anne Sexton

The weirdest song titles in my music collection:

1."They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back From The Dead!! Ahhhh!," Sufjan Stevens
2. "A Lonely Grain of Corn," Uncle Bonsai
3. "Come Back To Us, Barbara Lewis Hare Krishna Beauregard," John Prine
4. "Fhqwhgads," Strong Bad
5. "How Do You Spell Chunnukkahh?," The LeeVees
6. "I'd Like To Walk Around In Your Mind," Vashti Bunyan
7. "I Used To Play The Euphonium," The Born Again Floozies
8. "Let's Save Tony Orlando's House," Yo La Tengo
9. "Nightgown of the Sullen Moon," They Might Be Giants
10. "One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces," Ben Folds Five
11. "Royal Canadian Kilted Yaksmen," Ren & Stimpy
12. "Sing Me Spanish Techno," New Pornographers
13. "Sister Mary Catherine, Rock & Roll Nun," Erick Rudiak
14. "Standing in the Shadow of Ellis Paul," Kevin So
15. "Stop Talking About Comic Books Or I'll Kill You," Ookla The Mok
16. "Take The Skinheads Bowling," Camper Van Beethoven
17. "Would You Still Love Me If IWas In A Knife Fight," Scotland Yard Gospel Choir
18. "My Pink Half Of The Drainpipe," The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band
19. "The Present Tense Tureen," Moxy Fruvous
20. "The Pointless, Yet Poignant, Crisis Of A Co-Ed," Dar Williams

as freedom is a breakfastfood

as freedom is a breakfastfood

or truth can live with right and wrong

or molehills are from mountains made

-long enough and just so long

will being pay the rent of seem

and genius please the talentgang

and water most encourage flame

as hatracks into peachtrees grow

or hopes dance best on bald men's hair

and every finger is a toe

and any courage is a fear

-long enough and just so long

will the impure think all things pure

and hornets wail by children stung

or as the seeing are the blind

and robins never welcome spring

nor flatfolk prove their world is round

nor dingsters die at break of dong

and common's rare and millstones float

-long enough and just so long

tomorrow will not be too late

worms are the words but joy's the voice

down shall go which and up come who

breasts will be breasts and thighs will be thighs

deeds cannot dream what dreams can do

-time is a tree (this life one leaf)

but love is the sky and i am for you

just so long and long enough

ee cummings

At the risk of losing any anonymity I have over here, I direct you to Chicago Acoustic Underground, where you can download an episode featuring...well...me, my guitar, my songs, and my nervous laughter. Direct download right here. Enjoy.

This is probably my favorite duo and my favorite duet of all time: Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer singing "Kate and the Ghost of Lost Love." Enjoy.

Dave Carter with Tracy Grammer - 05 - Kate And The Ghost Of Lost Love

Dave Carter with Tracy Grammer

Davetracy

Funnily enough, my dad just bombarded me with about 100 old family photos, and I've spent some of tonight putting them up in a Flickr gallery.

Just to give you a taste:

ma carey in her younger days

man, is my family irish.

one of my favorite pictures ever.

the lives of the cowboys

grandma h. and family

i am the tantrum queen.

i want to ride my bicycle

i love the seventies

So that cross-posting thing was a bust. Sorry about that.

Here, have a Vox Hunt answer.

I've set up cross-posting with Livejournal to see if it works any better than using a vomit-prone syndicated feed. This is a test of the cross-posting feature. This is only a test. If this were an actual Vox post, I would tell the nice Vox Hunt people that I wish I could sing like Florence Foster Jenkins, and then I would embed an mp3 of her singing the Queen of the Night's aria, which is only slightly less annoying than the noise that usually follows a test of the Emergency Broadcast System.

This concludes our test. Thank you, and goodnight.