Today’s issue is dedicated to Ruth Gordon! What a firecracker! Tonight I decided to do the Cat Stevens song, “If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out.” The character, “Maude” from the movie, “Harold and Maude” made such an enormous impression on me, this whole day should be dedicated to her glorious soul.
Quote:
Song: My Tuesday video series covers the song of the week! https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2464801173804147
Dear Humans! There is so much news. There have been some ups and downs over the last week – but today, I’m high on life! The last few days, I have been compiling and digitizing old poetry I wrote back in the day! Some of it absolutely sucks! (That’s my judge-y adult being unfairly mean to my little teenage self who was just hurting a lot and didn’t know what to do with herself.) Nevertheless, there’s a TON of material. I found songs I’d not finished, my eccentric, fairy-tale prose… love letters to my old boyfriends, dreamy poems about my girlfriends and their amazing selves, there’s even a poem about a fuzzy little spider. Here’s that one:
Little jumpin’ spider
i saw you by the window
oh little jumpin’ spider,
biggest I ever saw
hairy little arms, squinty little eyes,
fuzzy and twitchy, black as night time sighs
fangs I couldn’t see
oh but I know
they were waiting just for me
oh little jumping spider
I’m gonna take you out
cause you know I can’t have you
here inside my house
~ July 9 2014
Another poem I found was one I wrote while falling in love, it’s precious to me:
Oh. Dear Honey.
You know just how to say
The words that make my insides play
The truest forms of pristine feelings
They escape me through my Smile
They exit through my Exhale
They permeate me in the side of this Time
You’ve awakened a thousand sleeping Fairies
A million bells of stillness are now ringing
An eternity of rustling leaves and moonbeams
A rousing on deep waves of blue and green
I fear not, my eyes are open.
Smooth
Silent, like the wings of a night bird
Calm, yet floating on the clouds of sunset
Giving in to the excitement of the tide
Pushing and pulling and swirling and mingling
Miners, sailors, and gems of old
sing their songs to Us, stories untold
Phantasms in the dark, wrapped inside ourselves
Safe and tender perceptions
Your voice in my soul
I needn’t search for your smile Shadow
Its imprint has been signed onto the whole side of my spirit
I hear you.
You don’t have to speak
I would not be afraid to open my eyes
in your downhill stream
Let us fly
Fly away far into the day
Explore each cave
Sing new songs
Make new Love
~ August, 2010
Amazing… I love poetry and painting. Right now, I am in the midst of a new watercolor/ink painting right now. There was an old wooden calligraphy boxed set at the Goodwill the other day, it’s now in my home. So much sharing to do, so much more to transcribe into digital format. Once everything is entered, then begins the editing and placement of letters in exactly the right place. Truly, I want to create a poetry book and for it to be an adult pop-up book. Many of my friends and also my sister have done self-publishing; I may go that route, though it is expensive. I will also pitch the idea to some publishers and see what happens! Last week, a fellow professor at Alamance Community College suggested that I submit some of my poetry into the faculty writing contest. The prospect was exciting so I obliged. Maybe they’ll like them! I’m going to paste the ones I entered here – so you can read all 4 of them as well. 🙂
1. Status Update:
Anita Moore
‘s turning a corner ~ a path to health and clarity
A non-doldrum roar of cleaning it all the fuck out ~
body and spirit ~ love and truth.
I have strands of positivity reaching into the future
I am envisioning that enlivened journey of my Self.
The yellow-brick road leads to Anita’ville,
the badass grateful go-getter,
with a no-stop’em medidationary attitude of the Now-Tao.
There are lilies on my tongue and roses in my nose, golden light shining right out of my ass.
Purging and seeing what’s real and what’s not.
Keeping in the checkmark those stories I tell myself and refuse to listen to the ones that aren’t true.
No assumptions. No generalizations. Be specific. Be on point.
Be loving and trusting and open and true.
Be the brave believer and the courageous vulnerable one.
Be clear and focused and heart-of-gold style out there ~ and right here.
Breathing and walking and singing and plotting my own enigmatic Now.
This world needs more love and active voices of the light,
in the streets, in the claiming of what we deserve ~ clean water and fresh air to breathe,
true voices and something we can believe in: system-change, not puppet change.
Seething with light-force, I know I am in the heart of God.
I am in the heart of God. I am in the heart of God.
2. Decisions and Serendipity
To sit
feel the breeze on my skin
coughing and chatter
cars rolling by
birds hopping, pursuing scraps
the baby talks, indistinguishable from the noise, yet distinctly knowable
Feeling pensive
sure of where I’m from
choosing to go forward into the
u
n
k
n
o
w
n
no compass
no map
only my own encouraging word
co-mingling with my discouraging chorus
Nodding
a tip of the hat to the Builder
the Architect of this vessel
I see that entity as me
still small
yet more vast than I can possibly imagine
Others see her
historically I have not
Such privilege to get to sit down in an empty room
choose to listen
rather than speak
I can taste my dreams
I can hear the music
It’s not above my head, heaven IS.
it is within
3. Little Girls
We are born fearless, named after our grandmothers
Then we are hushed, beaten and ashamed
We then built walls, taller than we’ll ever be
Beyond the clouds, those walls protect you and me
Then we grow up and learn to see
those walls which fortified us, kept us from being free
They’ve become a cage, we must find a way to escape
To get to the light Beyond our enclosed landscape
We inherit the strength and strife of our ancestors
generations of oppressed children in cages
Self-built and outsourced
yet, we blame ourselves for so much more
What if I told you it’s all okay?
What is you had permission to thrive?
What if in an instant, you tore down your walls?
What if you believe you can fly?
I’ve been beaten, assaulted, invaded, invalidated and thrown
Boundaries a foreign concept, and now I’ve learned
That I have a right to one or two of my own
It is my time and time for you
This ripeness of this moment will free you
Like it has freed me, all you have to do is surrender
to the sacred survivor inside you
That little girl who saved you
who gave you the tools to save yourself
She is your higher power
She is your salvation
Treat her with respect and compassion
Cradle her when things become tough
She carried you, now you must carry her
She didn’t deserve her oppression
She didn’t ask for a beating
She called out for help and her mother never answered
She has you now, her protector
I knew a dual world
Two extremes in life
A cradling and an abandonment
A vision of everlasting love and a nightmare of neglect
A plethora of mentors and guides, a whole population of me-shaped limitations
A society meant to hold me down and also the privilege and the choice to rise above
I am finding my way back to the Looking Glass
A child of Neptune sternly placed among the ills of Life
Too forcefully unsupported and left with your homemade guilt
There is true wisdom in these fantasies
Yet they were too early extinguished, I am finding my way back now
You can also find yours
The path to the box of liquid filled rainbows
The visions lie beyond what we can see
The inspiration my little girl has left for me
She still has her key, it was hidden and now is bright
Shining by the light through the keyhole of the drawer where she buried it out of sight
4. The Muses Groove
This rhythm is rolling, rolling around inside
my undulating chest and heart
Sitting at this wooden table
contemplating it not being real and part of me…
and part of you…
.
and I’m not really touching it…
it’s touching me.
The music changes
I dream of being a poet
I dream of being who I am
I dream of making music
unabashedly humble
grateful to share this gift with the Greats
To only for a moment think of all those who laid the path before me
those brave and enduring souls who
pebble by pebble, note by note
stroke by stroke, experience by heartbreakingly joyful, or painful, experience, tapped in
They tapped in, not out
Some through Divine Spirit intervention,
some through straight-up booze.
Whatever the avenue, whatever the teacher,
it brought about my ancestors of music and word.
They walked that road.
Creative muse lingers just outside our reach
we must take heed
We must cook up that stew
be ready when the salt falls from the shelf
to delightfully enrich our slippery, sensuous, slimy, salubrious, sacred soup
So thank you.
Thank you Greats.
Thank you oldies, thank you newbies
thank you to those who have yet to be born.
Thank you for learnin’ me to open up
stand up straight
be connected to the ground
lift my head and sing – those notes are not mine, they are Ours.
If you’ve made it this far, I hope you enjoyed it! Adieu for now! Crystal Bright and I will be doing a show together in Greensboro on November 12th. Other than that show, I’ll be recording in the studio, painting, and compiling/editing poetry! Y’all have a beautiful week.
Love, ALM
anita lorraine moore 