"A great many people think they are thinking when they are really rearranging their prejudices."
—
William James
(via thelittlephilosopher)
(via journalofanobody)
This all began as a bulletin board for nonsense, but after almost 9,000 likes (and only a few hundred posts) I'm beginning to see this as a huge--and wonderful--waste of my time.
Ask me anything
May 19, 2013
May 18, 2013
There's a poem in there somewhere
So. I’ve decided to blog. I’m not quite sure that I’ll keep up with it. I guess I’ve done it in the hopes that I’ll find some motivation to keep writing regularly. Part of that motivation is dependent upon having an audience (perhaps; I can’t be sure). At any rate, I know that a few of you (my followers here) are literature and poetry folk, and so I invite you to check out the link above. I will try to publish new poems regularly, and I’m sure I’ll put up some old ones, as well, that I’ve tweaked (and perhaps twerked) into more appealing verse.
Thanks for reading :)
May 18, 2013
There's a poem in there somewhere
So. I’ve decided to blog. I’m not quite sure that I’ll keep up with it. I guess I’ve done it in the hopes that I’ll find some motivation to keep writing regularly. Part of that motivation is dependent upon having an audience (perhaps; I can’t be sure). At any rate, I know that a few of you (my followers here) are literature and poetry folk, and so I invite you to check out the link above. I will try to publish new poems regularly, and I’m sure I’ll put up some old ones, as well, that I’ve tweaked (and perhaps twerked) into more appealing verse.
Thanks for reading :)
May 18, 2013
A man nobody knows or misses -- hrodebert
…and she laughs her
(what now passes for a)
school-girl laugh,
“—it would shatter,
Oh
My
God…”
“That’d be blunt force trauma to the head,”
another among the group adds,
as they sit around
the skeletonized remains
of a man nobody knows
or misses,
passing his skull all over the place.
Upon closer examination
of the rearticulated specimen,
an inexact, yet detailed history
is constructed;
his bones show severe trauma
as well as crude—
quite crude—
medical intervention.
“The limp of a twice-shattered leg,
dental hygiene commensurate with the lowest levels of poverty,
fused cervical vertebrae allowing no rotation of the head,
and an irregular opening (antemortem) on the right temporal plate of the skull showing signs of bone growth…”
the professor recited, well-practiced, almost worn out.
“His remains were discovered fully skeletonized in Memphis in1985.”
“He had been dead approximately one year.”
“We have estimated him to have been in about his late-fifties at time-of-death.”
“He was born in the early- to mid-twenties.”
“This man has seen war…”
A too-brief silence falls over the group.
“But that’s so sad,” she whines—
“Do you think it was Vietnam?” the other one chimes in,
begging to be made into a spectacle,
as they sit around
the skeletonized remains
of a man nobody knows
or misses,
passing his skull all over the place.
May 17, 2013
"
As I get older, as time goes by, I care less and less and less about whether someone can talk pretty. I care about action. At the end of the day, I don’t care how well you can articulate your perfectly punctuated anti-oppressive political points, I don’t care how many buzzwords fall from your mouth, I don’t care if you name-drop a thousand acronyms or theorists – I care if you will show up. I care if you will fucking show up.
And I know that showing up is complicated when you struggle with whether or not you can get outta bed. Sometimes showing up means biking to a friend’s house with coconut water & ginger ale & Saltines when she has stomach flu. Sometimes it means sharing your leftover pain meds from your emergency root canal when a friend has a pain spike. Sometimes it means making soup in a friend’s kitchen, stocking his fridge & freezer, blowing him a kiss across his bedroom & miming tucking him up under his sheets, because you can’t actually tuck him in or kiss him good-bye, because your own immune system is fragile enough as it is. And sometimes it means texting a little emoticon heart from your own sick bed, where you are laid up with a shoulder that aches so bad when the weather gets damp (which is a lot in San Francisco), or stomach that can’t digest a fucking thing, or clogged-up sinuses, or a throat on fire, or a wet raspy cough. Sometimes it just means saying Honey, I love you. Honey, my sick heart reaches out to your sick heart. Honey, I wish I could be there, and I can’t, but I can do this. You mean the world to me. Sister. Brother. Love.
"— (via howtohaveabody)
(via close-to-the-knives)
May 16, 2013
(Source: theduramater, via fuckyeahexistentialism)
May 15, 2013
May 14, 2013
"You think you are alive
because you breathe air?
Shame on you,
that you are alive in such a limited way.
Don’t be without Love,
so you won’t feel dead.
Die in Love
and stay alive forever."
because you breathe air?
Shame on you,
that you are alive in such a limited way.
Don’t be without Love,
so you won’t feel dead.
Die in Love
and stay alive forever."
— Rumi (via farishtah)
(via edgarwhitmanwilde)
May 14, 2013
Following his release from Guantanamo Bay, Sami Al-Hajj, a (former) Guantanamo Bay detainee, dashes towards his eight year old son Mohammad and swoops him up in his arms, hugging him and planting tender kisses on his face in their first reunion after seven years.
After being imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay for seven years, during which he was repeatedly interrogated and tortured, including being physically, sexually, and psychologically abused, Al Hajj was released without any charges held against him.
Al Hajj, a journalist for the Al Jazeera network, was arrested in Pakistan in 2001 while on his way to do camerawork for the network concerning the war that had recently broken out in Afghanistan. It has been speculated by both Al Hajj’s lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, and Reporters Without Borders that the main reason that he was incarcerated for so long was due to the US Miliary’s desire to make him an informant against Al Jazeera, as most of Al Hajj’s interrogations consisted of American interrogators questioning him about the (Al Jazeera) network.
While in Guantanamo, Al Hajj wrote a poem titled Humiliated in Shackles to his son Mohammad:
When I heard pigeons cooing in the trees,
Hot tears covered my face.When the lark chirped, my thoughts composed
A message for my son.Mohammad, I am afflicted.
In my despair, I have no one but Allah for comfort.The oppressors are playing with me,
As they move freely around the world.They ask me to spy on my countrymen,
Claiming it would be a good deed.They offer me money and land,
And freedom to go where I please.Their temptations seize
My attention like lightning in the sky.But their gift is an empty snake,
Carrying hypocrisy in its mouth like venom,They have monuments to liberty
And freedom of opinion, which is well and good.But I explained to them that
Architecture is not justice.America, you ride on the backs of orphans,
And terrorize them daily.Bush, beware.
The world recognizes an arrogant liar.To Allah I direct my grievance and my tears.
I am homesick and oppressed.Mohammad, do not forget me.
Support the cause of your father, a God-fearing man.I was humiliated in the shackles.
How can I now compose verses? How can I now write?After the shackles and the nights and the suffering and the tears,
How can I write poetry?My soul is like a roiling sea, stirred by anguish,
Violent with passion.I am a captive, but the crimes are my captors’.
I am overwhelmed with apprehension.Lord, unite me with my son Mohammad.
Lord, grant success to the righteous.And yet, there still remain many more innocent Afghan & Pakistani men imprisoned at Guantanamo.
(via close-to-the-knives)
May 14, 2013
"There is no shame in being hungry for another person. There is no shame in wanting very much to share your life with somebody."
— Augusten Burroughs (via yasodhara)
(Source: theselittlewondersstillremain, via journalofanobody)
-
“A character is never the author who created him. It is quite likely, however, that an author may be all his characters simultaneously.”
-
-
-
“honey, i’m home!” i yell. the honey does not respond. it cannot talk
-
-
Books For a Buck at Housing Works’ Annual Street Fair - Markets - Racked NY
Open Air Street Fair is coming! Sunday,...
-
do she got a booty
-
