Angels / bad signs / near misses / hit and runs

Someone asked me about my angel chapbook at the poetry reading, and then on the ride home, I'm listening to my IPOD alphabetical by song, and I get to the series of Angel songs, 12 total. Although I first counted 11 and that felt mystical. Two of the McLachlan ones are identical, so maybe 11.

Angel-Belly
Angel-Eurythmics
Four different versions of Sarah McLachlan's Angel
Angel Bell - Cranes
Angel, Angel, Down we go Together- Morrissey
Angelene - P.J. Harvey
Angeles - Enya
Angeline-Faithless
Angel's Weep-Mythos

Then I made Dana Teen Lomax cry, talking about her father's death, but I don't think it was in a bad way, but it is recent.

Then walking home, right at my intersection, I saw a very bad car crash, the car was upside down, hit and run, but I heard they caught the guy.

The guy who'd been in the upside down car, was fine sitting on the sidewalk, someone was telling him tomorrow your ankle is going to hurt a lot you have a lot of adrenaline right now.

There were all these boxes all over the place, like he'd been moving, in the process.

There is not much you can do about bad signs, but just know it is coming.

Cool! I'm a revolutionary!

Devoting one’s life to an activity with little chance of bringing any sort of significant cash reward is a revolutionary act within the virulent capitalism we inhabit.

Completely harmless — no threat — and so completely allowed. But my power, I think, comes from the fact of not buying in to the competition, the market place, somehow creating peace and art in a sphere outside the sphere of power is itself a power. I may not be noticed much, but I am outside their power structure, which may make them slightly nervous, but not so much since I am broke so what can I do (until I start Occupying some street or other). Also thinking being in a sphere outside the power-marketplace sphere, in my space they cannot hurt me. The safety of not playing the game.

Eleven Eleven Reading on 11/11/11 with 11 poets.

Really liked Eric Selland, but he is very academic type, a little unconscious of anything outside of that, and went way over his time limit. He asked rather late, am I over my time? And a woman in the audience said Yes! But he went on like he didn't hear her, and then Hugh finally got up and went over towards the end of the aisle and started clapping at the end of the next poem, so everyone else clapped and the poor guy realized he was done.

I liked what he was reading a lot. Lots of translations of Japanese haiku, which he says originally was one line, it was only through English translation that they became 3 lines, to fit with the english language. He wrote in the kindof abstract poetic style I love. "Self as grammatical formality" "To confront interpretation" a lot of lines with that device - "To..." "To..." is that called something? "The body, geology of the unimagined" (not sure if I'm remembering that one right). I'm not sure if that is him or the Japanese poets originally but I'm going to look for his books...

Also liked Rusty Morrison, she is always deep, mostly talking about death. I was thinking during her reading how there is so much pain in everyone, in all of us, and how at the same time, we make this stuff, this poetry. What are we doing? The life force attempts itself. Loved seeing Jessica Wickens again, who I read with a while back, does Twitter poems. She has a book too I need to find.

Regretted not making the Black Surrealism thing at Poetry Center at the same time, and MISSING Will Alexander! How could I? But got my cool African-american poetry fix through Amaud Jamaul Johnson, who I'd not heard of and want to look up his books now. He read in a very slow paced way, which made me feel spiritual, sat up straighter, aligned my bandhas. Felt focused. "It's all pie-chart & phylum."

The rest of the people were the prose writers so I really have nothing to say but they were funny.

Have been wondering the place for yogis in the Occupy movement. Haven't heard any teachers mention anything in regards to it until Marie today says The Silent Revolution begins, or something to that effect, which is only a reference by inference. Wondering if there are many churches or spiritual group directly involved? Haven't heard of it but I am really an outsider to it. Maybe not this:

http://www.facebook.com/occupychurch

I'm not part of it mostly because of no time. Work + Commutes=12 hours every day. Also yoga will always take precedence to a march, usually even to a poetry reading, or socializing. I can't go without, so really there is really no time. And I think also perhaps a slight aversion to going, although I agree with everything in spirit, don't think I actually want to be there in the midst of all those people, rubber bullets, and tear gas. I will just be meditating over here.

Also even though it is mostly non-violent on the activist's parts, it seems not quite; received a pamplet at the poetry reading last night, and there seems to be a discussion about whether non-violence or violence is the way to go. Yikes. From that I understand my aversion. How to Occupy while honoring ahimsa. An essay on ahimsa in activism would be very interesting to read.

Yoga teacher, Rene, said you should be able to balance in Tree pose or Utthita Hasta Padangustasana, even during an earthquake! I never can balance. I used to be so good when we would do everything all in a row, my ankles were so strong. Tree, then Utthita, then dancers pose, then Ardha Baddha, then warrior 3. Whew! I should try and do that sequence on my own some time, 5 breaths each.

Did Garbha Pindasana for the first time in full lotus, but now with the arms through the legs. It is kind of easier. My hips are finally starting to open up, but only on Sundays. Craving more Primary Series'. ironically, because we do the second/third series mixed all together Rocket series usually, when we do the primary series, I feel like this is so wacky and wild, but it is the most traditional series there is.

Rene said "notice the fluctuations of the mind" and I felt so happy because that is SO Patanjali. And how breathing calms the mind, and to notice how it does, and something about the way we control what our body does, so we can control what our mind does. And finally feeling free of my emotional problems of last week. But it will probably start all over again tomorrow.

Probably the best poetry reading I've given to date, I mean the one I felt the calmest, and most serene, was the one at Loretta Clodfelter's house in Oakland. sitting on the floor, barefoot, wine glass bedside me. But I'd had a major acupuncture for nerves treatment a day or so earlier, for anxiety. Need to remember to do that again. I though my recent readings were just horrible. But I didn't do acupuncture beforehand.

Read Derrida all weekend, but it wasn't that great. This essay all on Heidegger's Hand, which really seems to me a silly subject. But it is Derrida so it is kind of cool. There was a lot of German so I may not have understood it all. Also a lot of Derrida, so I many not have understood it all.

Taking this Chinese herb for my congestion problems plus fatigue, and woke up at 7am this morning HYPER, didn't know what to do that was quiet and wouldn't wake my roommate, so I rearranged my to read pile, I made it worse seemingly (much longer), but instead of having all these different categories of to read books,(different small piles) I put them all in a linear pile (very big), and the plan is to only ever read one book at a time. I think I will feel less frazzled. This thing leftover from grad school, where I want to read every book in its entirety, but maybe I don't have to, if I'm not feeling it, and fell like I want to switch to something else, maybe I just will put it in the bookshelf, and never read from it again. Until such time that I am dying for it.

John Taggart and C.S. Giscombe

Grooving out on the bus reading this poem from New World Journal that David Highsmith let us take, much more so than I was feeling about him in the reading, I think it might be his masculinst reading style that makes me feel incapable of paying an ounce of attention to him. But the poetry is actually nice with this repetitive lyricism thing.

From "That This May Be":

"As if no one no one were seated beside you no one beside you as if you were alone yourself completely alone in a room a room without Ezekiel as if you were completely alone in a room in a finite room as if no one were seated beside you when a tongue when a tongue feeds a train when a violet tongue feeds a violet train into a violet room when a tongue feeds a train into a room made all violet in waves of a wide wave on wide wave of a as in father mist of a thousand waves over you ...."


He talked so much in his reading it felt almost more like a lecture which was nice, albeit also masculinist stance-ish. He mentioned Robert Duncan and Oppen as two of his major influences, and then later on after reading a poem with the line "walls do not fall" he started to talk about a third influence, and I knew, just knew, it was H.D. But then he said it was Zukofsky. Oh, just Zukofsky. I felt SO disappointed in him.

Then he spoke of a 70 page poem that couldn't make it into Is Music, so it went into There are Birds, called "Unveiling/Marianne Moore." I frowned.

C.S. Gisocombe, I can't remember as much because he didn't upset me. I liked how he had a project about trains. Trains as sexual and trains as racial. Want to read more of him.

Love a 2 hour beginning yoga class where we do handstands, but I didn't get home in time to make it to the grocery store. Had three fails, with random stuff in the pantry. The German potato pancakes with applesauce seemed great until I realized I followed the directions wrong, mixed the egg with the package and then added water, should have mixed the egg and water together first, then put the package in, totally not mixing and disgusting so I threw it out and made a bowl of baked beans, which seemed great with my twist off french wine, until I realized it tasted wierd and looked at the can and it expired over 6 months ago. Third try spiral noodles with butter, and wine. Hard night except have discovered James Blake on Spotify and Love Him. It's like ambient experimental R&B? Totally headphones in bed kind of music.




My scoliosis spot is screaming and my rotator cuff is acting up again, and my left knee is hurting. Maybe its the rain. I feel I should stay in bed for a week but I have to work a 6 day work week.

The difference between exhaustion and fatigue. One is kind of funny, the other, utter despair. I want the funny kind where its alright because it is temporary.

Destroyed myself this weekend trying to do vinyasas in half lotus - I kind of did it, but now. Right arm is spazzing and left knee ham string, probably not related to that actually, but also doing yoga utterly fatigued. Slept 11 hours Friday, couldn't believe I slept so much, so set my alarm to get up at 9 on Sunday (more than 3 hours later than my usual time) and I was sound asleep. Think I'm getting CFS. And I have to work a 6 day work week this week, and I have no sick or personal time left.

I have all these texts just waiting for me to put them together, and so in a month, with only rewriting and obsessing over forms, I have a second full-length manuscript ready, sent it out to an open reading submissions period, but even if that doesn't pan out just cool having it and can send out to other places... So now I'm working on my third manuscript.

Blogs

Reading blogs again, having figured out Google reader, and wow, I feel so satisfied reading words. That become paragraphs, how odd!

I want to learn the history of my street.

There is a war on teachers?

I love this project of Michelle Detorie's.

Love reading these on facebook, had no idea they came with pictures!

Not going to yoga, is somehow relaxing, I'm "being" tonight more than doing. Ironically.

Incisor teeth

Re: Amy Winehouse. We need good drugs, and we need them to not kill us. Don't we have scientists?

I asked God for an epiphany about my life while I was lying in the dentists chair, and all I got was Life is suffering and misery, try to stay stoned as much as possible.

Nitrous breathing meditation: around breath 12 I started to feel really good, around breath 30, really horny.

I'm not going to have any juice in the morning, I am drinking it all right now, and having a little fear of no juice in the morning thing going on.

Told my boss I couldn't work overtime on Saturday because I am being interviewed for a radio program, and she didn't respond and I realized she thinks its a job interview!

Thinking of getting back into mudras.

Is it because of twitter that I actually think in snippets now?

After the procedure, they asked me to rinse, and I spit, and I spit out a screw, a very small screw, and I asked is that a screw, and the dental assistant looked at it and said yes but I think its from the sink.

And I think now, it feels sort of deja vu, like maybe I've spit out a screw before, but I can't remember, and why am I spitting out screws, and second of all, why are there screws in my mouth at all!

I know I'm exhausted this week because I haven't been able to move my kundalini at all. But a few weeks ago (maybe I was ovulating) I was splitting it in two, not splitting apart, but splitting like branching off, growing. I guess that is good, I think eventually my whole body would just be kundalini fire, or could be, but not sure I'll ever have that energy.

Also wanting to get back into sahaj marg, i need a cleaning very bad. I don't know any of those people anymore though.

For me that split second that changes everything, lasts so long.

And finally, guitar music, with the lead singer singing "C'Mon" over and over again, is just not proper dentist office music, is it?

ADVENTURE STORY

I called in sick, I am sick. Because it is Friday and I leave my cell phone charger at work during the week, to play Pandora all day, I now have no cell phone charger all weekend. so clearly I have to buy one. I would think that I need to. But I feel awful. So, adamantly refusing to go downtown where it would be pretty easy to find I think, I wander through Mission, dizzily. First I went into Community Thrift, got a great yoghurt maker there once. I don't find any that fit, but am trying them all in this crate located under the regular phones. Then this guy brings this small tv over and asks me do I think it is black & white, or color? I don't have any idea, I say. I have no idea. He wanders off, a little later he comes back, do you want to watch a black & white movie with me? I do my Tenderloin-learned I cannot hear anything you say and have no consciousness that you are even speaking to me thing. He wanders off.

Then I walk down thinking to try the T-Mobile store -- why, in a neighborhood that refuses to let in american apparel and apparently starbucks, and even peets, is there every single cell phone company in existence? And why is there a Chase? Is there any Mission Community Bank or Credit Union?

Although I am the only customer in the store, the T-Mobile people don't help me, seemingly not noticing me, wrapped up in their own conversation, and it looks like their chargers are for their phones, as far as I can tell, so I wander out.

Then I think, Mission street. I go down and try the Goodwill. Taking a number 8 for my bags, and remembering to slip my cell phone in my pocket, I try all their cell phone chargers, but none of them work. I almost buy a wall clock that looks like a disco ball. 99 cents. This whole time I am dizzy, slightly naseous, and pretty sure I am going to faint at any minute.

Then I go over to the dollar store, they may have elctronic something. They have a phone section, but only old school phone type things.

Then I'm walking along Mission street, thinking to give up and go home, and I see actually there are a lot of stores on Mission street that have the word Electronics on the outside. I go in one but he says no, we don't have those. There is mostly DVDs. Then I see a pawn shop, maybe, who knows. They don't, but the guy is magically informative, this guy has answers. What a relief. He says go down to Giant Value, and there is a guy with a table outside, he sells phone chargers. I go three blocks down to Giant Value, and there he is. I ask, doubtfully, do you have cell phone chargers? It all looks like car phone chargers. Yes, he does. I show him my phone, it is the kind it looks all usb-like, he says no problem. He takes one out of the box, plugs it in, plugs it into my phone, and magical red lights pop up. Yay! Then, oh, how much? He probably does not take credit and I am wary of how much cash I have on me. He says $10. I look and don't think I have enough, but then find a hidden $5, which means I have exactly $10. Magical Story! All True.

The awful, new commute, to Pleasanton, for my job (50 minutes each way) is exhausting, but great for getting some reading done, and, I've been writing a poem every day between Castro Valley, and West Dublin, perfect with the rolling hills, and 9 minutes without a stop. So was websearching to find any history of the area, for a title, and came up this, it is a census designated area, being, not an actual town, and the citizens, actually voted against it becoming one, considered "unincorporated" and I thought, oh cool, I'll name it Unincorporated, or Unincorporated Community, but then I just realized Craig Santos Perez, totally beat me to it, and how much more hip, his Guam, vs. my um, Castro Valley? Nerd. So now I don't know what to call it, still.

Like how film directors, but themselves in one shot of the movie, I put the words to my secret texts in my poems. Like a secret hint, otherwise un-alluded to.

Feel annoyed with too many days in a row at yoga, and everyone who is beautiful and perfect, and have these seemingly beautiful social lives partying out with each other all the time. I'm now craving people with defects, so back to the poets I go. No yoga today, just writing. Want to feel unhealthy actually, cookies and coffee all day long. Bad posture in the darkest (very dark) corner of the cafe.

Reading Agamben's Profanations, after Laura Woltag's recommendation:

"Linguistically visible"

"Every woman has her Juno."

"Every true celebration — an abolition of time."

"There is no thing that with a twist of the imagination cannot be something else." WCW, Kora in Hell



Printing my Dusie chaps finally; Have printed 14 copies, need to do 100-150... it is legal sized and they keep falling off the printer because they are too long and I lost the printer extension piece.

two separate distinct naps today.

Did my taxes, pretty sure the lady made a Blatant Error; I'm going to have to look it up, pretty sure she was incompetent, or lazy. Why don't I just do them myself!!

Feel destroyed all weekend, in a no more ardha baddha stuff kind of way, with a limp. I kind of like because it means I did something, but don't like it so much because I can't do too much more at the moment...

Listening to Catching up with Depeche Mode on vinyl and drinking a Racer 5.

My favorite Asta class right now is Fridays 6:30-8:00, never a lot of people and really really intense. Had the heart pounding through the entire body reverberating thing, which I haven't felt in a while...I got to the area early tonight so I went into Four Barrel Coffee, had a coffee, read Baudrillard, "Why Hasn't Everything Already Disappeared?" and wrote deep stuff about duality and the real in a notebook. So went to yoga kind of caffeinated. Thought I'd be falling over left and right because of it, but only did in utthita pada hastasana, which was kind of falling over for fun... but the standing split series I was on it, for some reason, totally focused.

Have been doing 20 minutes of yoga everyday at lunch in the exercise room at the new work site, no one is ever in there, and Wednesday I think it was I did marichyasana c with the bind for the first time, that is a weird awkward feeling, could only do the left though. now I can't do it so I don't know why I could then. The pose is teasing me. But think 20 minutes a day in addition to my nighttime yoga practice is really improving things?

In the middle of printing or about to print 3 different chapbooks. Need to just order mass quantities of paper online so I don't have to carry it all, but do want to go to Kelly's paper tomorrow to get peach legal sized cover stock, also cuz I really need to see it. The text papers and white cover stocks I think I can just order.

Our bathroom window just fell out, onto the porch, fell out...broken everywhere, and now cold in there.

I kind of think that everyone that works at Bi-Rite is "good people." I don't even feel offended when they double charge me.

Reading also E. Tracy Grinnell's "Leucadia" and I wrote down "landscape as voice," not sure if truly applicable to the book or not but I like the possibility.

Everytime I go into the Big room, start thinking, I start crying. Maybe its the SuperMoon.

Sort of freaks me out that I had psychic yoga dreams the whole weekend Larry died.

Dream 1: I'm coming to class and another teacher of mine, not Larry, is leaving the earlier class, but he is exhausted laying out on this old red couch completely wiped out.

Dream 2: I'm at yoga to the people, and I'm randomly out of nowhere doing handstands in the middle of the room, over and over I do it, just floating there in mid-air.

And finally an epiphany; the way yoga is supposed to mean union, or to yoke together... I've always felt these disparities between my yoga life and my poetry life, like the body vs the mind and they are fighting each other. But I realized when one of my teachers called me out (in front of everyone!) to name the sanskrit of the pose we were doing, and I didn't know because it is the hardest one to know, triang mukhaikapada paschimottanasana, and felt sad I failed my teacher, but its ok, because now it really fired me up to learn all the sankrit names now, I know that one, and then this weekend I spent several hours learning the opening chant to patanjali and I know it now. Intellectual side of yoga! And funny, went to a poetry reading and two of my poetry friends are apparently studying sankrit, just because they love dead languages I guess, and i realized that is the fulcrum that unites my two worlds! I think a truth is there is no duality, really, but it is yoga that strips away the masks and boundaries that cover that truth. If we think there are disparities it is only because we haven't looked deeply enough.

OM
vande gurunam caranaravinde
sandarsita svatmasukhava bodhe
nishreyase jangalikayamane
samsara halahala mohasantyai

abahu purusakaram
sankhacakrasi dharinam
sahasra sirasam svetam
pranamami patanjalim
OM

Reading on Buddha's teaching on co-arising.

This weekend I'm doing proofreading, working on a project called Autobiography (not mine), actually it is two projects, parallels of each other. Also need to get my Dusie chap done. It's so still in process, takes forever!

Counted all my writing projects, and there are 9 chapbooks and 7 book books.

I'm saying project, not intuitions or simply poems a la Lasky, because, I realized, they are not really poems. Its a hybrid form that you just wouldn't call poems in the same way that Lasky writes individual poems. I don't know what the word is but writing project seems to cover it.

I don't have any music in my head right now, but because of the stupid easy listening station we listen to at work, I had a dream I was at a 1970's-esque Rod Stewart concert.

Period. So I may only go to yoga to the people this weekend, because they don't do inversions, although Amma said we shouldn't at all for the first three days. But I know, I think that would wreck my body.

Dreamt Jared Hayes was in a rock band, and I'd just bought his CD to cheer up my mom, but it was a little too rock n roll for me. My mom's husband had just died, who is dead in real life, and I was like didn't he already die once before? Also the poodle died. Lots of sadness and clutter everywhere.

Been sick off and on for 6 weeks or so, ever since that stupid never again flu shot. But its ok, I'm processing. Stuff. I have a thing I'm thinking about that would solve all my problems, almost all, but I would have to make some concessions.

Very little yoga practice this week; some home practice, but too much phlegm, which is entirely disconcerting when upside down. Did use the neti pot maybe 83 times this week. There is a lot, a lot of my phelgm floating through the pipes at the credit union.

Also, including the day job, worked 13 hours on Wednesday and 12 hours on Thursday. $$$$

So tonight I am staring at the ceiling and watching Vertigo. I've kind of been watching it for 5-7 days. Searching for a youtube of either the psychedelic dream sequence scene, or when she says something like, only one can wander, two together are always going somewhere.

Searching for vintage clothes fashion blogs. Dreaming of money.

Disturbed by the birds and the fish, how is no one mentioning BP?