This journal is now just for my art/poetry. I am not adding any more "personal" journals here, just art/poetry ones, but you can add me if you'd like to read my stuff. I like to invest in my LJ friendships, and it's hard to do that for a lot of people. Thanks for understanding :)

I need a fresh start.
My new LJ account is heartonsea.

I've only added my offline friends. If you are an online friend who would like to hear riveting, rambling tales of my days, add me, and you will be added back. If not, God bless and have a wonderful life!

I wrote a poem about my frustrations instead of jumping ship:

I should give up on my most basic dream
the one I've had since I was six
the dream of becoming a writer
because I have nothing of worth to say,
I have not slept in a cardboard box
or slept with an entire Turkish harem.
I do not have a beard I can stroke
and say wise things that shake the soul.
I refuse to cut off my ear or tattoo my arms
or run screaming through the village
with a Burger King crown on my head,
flailing my arms and screaming, "I'm the king!"
before plotting my own curdled demise.
No one gives a shit about my writing
because I'm not weird, I'm not worldly,
my persona is nowhere to be seen.
I'm just a boring, ordinary person
scribbling to record a boring life,
the one that so many people live and therefore
do not need to read about.

"A big lie." That's what Sudan's ambassador to the United Nations called a U.N. report that "over 1 million people are at life-threatening risk" due to the government of Sudan's decision to expel 13 aid groups.

But we know the truth: there is a dire crisis in Darfur. We can't wait another day for bold, agenda-setting leadership. That's why I just added my voice to a letter from the Darfur activist community calling on President Obama to take bold action for the people of Darfur, and I hope you will too.

http://action.savedarfur.org/campaign/jointletter

If we can get 50,000 signatures on the open letter by midnight tonight, the Save Darfur Coalition will bring copies to the White House during the March for Darfur on Friday. So don't delay—this could have a big impact!

Make sure President Obama hears from you!

The rainy season in Darfur is coming soon, and it will only make matters worse for those at risk without the aid groups. We must help the groups get access to Darfur again.

http://action.savedarfur.org/campaign/jointletter

Normally
I would get rid of it,
the porcelain angel
gazing from my shelf--
no use for gold-leaf wings
or white, pudgy cheeks.
But it was a gift from a little girl
who knew much more than me,
more about life and dreaming,
a woman in flowered, flared jeans,
dragging a baby sister along.
I stare at the little angel now
and remember how much I have to learn
about the smallest things in this world.

All the kids from my high school
have become empty to me,
vapors of what "people" are and do.
There are a few still solid,
living, breathing, filled
because I filled them with my love,
with my regard, my memories.
I think, as I hold these solid ones,
this must mean no one is empty,
that all the people are whole
at the hands and hearts
of the anonymous "loved ones."

Don't know if you've noticed, but I'm not posting personal stuff here anymore. Just like, art and poetry and not too sensitive of material ;] In news, someone interviewed me for kicks and giggles.

And here's a poem.

Landmark
I know I'm going the right way
when I see the serpentarium,
the giant sculpted cobra
sinking venomous teeth into skyline.
I wonder at the snake's coils,
considering how definitely they comfort,
and how indefinite this world is,
and how hollow the words
"good" and "bad" and "objective."

Guys, I cannot tell you how excited I am that JPG Magazine has been reinstated! The magazine is an extension of a website where amateur photographers submit photographs under certain themes; the best photos and photo essays make it into this awesome magazine, and the quality really is great. However, a few months ago, thanks to The Recession, the magazine folded, much outrage ensuing. Apparently, JPG fans made such a big stink on Flickr and other networking sites that investors became interested in the magazine, and JPG will be able to operate once more.

A great victory for art, for channels for amateurs, for the sustenance of creativity in bleak times. Huzzah!

For more details, check out the JPG blog.

A friend of an acquaintance
is a poet laureate of a zoo.
I can only imagine the keeper of monkeys,
the Grand Pumbah of Turtles
receiving a letter,
"hi, can your iguanas
be represented by my verse?"
Could I be a poet laureate of
a high-rise office building,
would a paper company write about me
in their annual report:
look, we support the arts!
The world is weird
poetry is easier
when zoos have poet laureates
and blogs are free
and anyone can print a book.
poetry is harder,
something I realized in the book store
where every poet in the shelves
was already dead
and I was thinking,
"if I'm going to pay fifteen dollars,
I want it to go to someone alive."
I asked the sales clerk and
she typed up the names in her computer;
no, they're not coming in or
wait til this september,
his new book is coming in.
Okay, where are his old books?
"Poor bastard" was my diagnosis
but then I remembered, the point
was not to sell books, to make money,
to leech the life out of art
in order to support a life,
the point was to say, be heard,
and that was free for the taking
somewhere in cyberspace.

Had my last sculpture critique ever today! It was so awful - four hours long. And for once, I was actually proud of my project:


It's cross sections of diseased tree branches. The red ones have been dyed with raspberries.

detail: