Jelisava

Six word stories from HSF'12 / modge-podged on muslin

Wrote, read, illustrated. Poetry in motion.

June's "Down The Shore Moon" rising over the ocean via J's camera / June 2013

i throw hail marys/
and prepare my hands to catch/
the falling blessings/

~ @kilowattpoet aka Mr. Enlightenment

Shadows on the path / June 2013

...

Gods of living water
Let down their hair
And now you must follow
A craving for shadows

~ an excerpt from "Clotilde" by Guillaume Apollinaire (his brief career influenced the development of Futurism, Cubism, Dadaism, and Surrealism and the legend of his personality—bohemian artist, raconteur, gourmand, soldier—became the model for avant-garde deportment)

Thanks J / May 2013

"The world is an illusion,
the society a stage,
so let us dance,
in our best costumes
till we drop."

~ Raqib Shaw

Easter Poetry Brunch / March 2013

... and so I wish for you that you would open your heart and let [this gift] flow through you, that everyone whom you ... meet on this day will be blessed by you; just by your eyes, by your smile, by your touch -- just by your presence. Let the gratefulness overflow into blessing all around you, and then it will really be a good day.

~ C's Reading paraphrased from Benedictine Monk David Steindl-Rast

Tulips glow in the late winter sun / Dec. 2011

"Last night I dreamed -- blessed illusion --
       that I had a beehive here in my heart
  and that
       the golden bees were making white combs
       and sweet honey from my old failures."

~ Antonio Machado (thanks Mitza)

Colors on a peaceful late fall morning / New Jersey / Nov. 2011

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there.
And the Drano won't work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up
 
waiting for the plumber I still haven't called. This is the everyday we spoke of.
It's winter again: the sky's a deep, headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through
 
the open living-room windows because the heat's on too high in here and I can't turn it off.
For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking,
 
I've been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those
wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve,
 
I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it.
Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning.
 
What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss--we want more and more and then more of it.
 
But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass,
say, the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a cherishing so deep
 
for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I'm speechless:
I am living. I remember you.

~ What the Living Do by Marie Howe

The miracle of spring, the power of a manifesto / April 2011

"Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection."

~ from Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front by Wendell Berry

This is what your brain feels like while reading through the maze of "ten-forty-anna"

Tax Return Instructions Haiku:

Income from sources
both legal and illegal
is subject to tax

~ Exact phrase from 2010 Form NJ-1040 Line-By-Line Instructions for "Line 25 - Other"; page 28

(Really? I can't believe it actually says this. Does New Jersey condone illegal income? Can you shed some light Mr. Christie?)

Just before late summer sunset at the chapel in the sky / Sept. 2010

“Out of this same light, out of the central mind,
We make a dwelling in the evening air,
In which being there together is enough.”

~ an excerpt from "Final Soliloquy of the Interior Paramour" by the poet Wallace Stevens (born in Reading, PA)