Loubird\’s Library

Autonomous Literacy

Archive for the ‘culture’ Category

Absences

Posted by loubird on November 18, 2008

I apologize for having been very slow on my responses lately and barely posting at all. Basically I’ve been dealing with that whole transition from undergraduate to graduate thing. You know, feeling like somehow, in the space of several months your mental capacity is supposed to have suddenly progressed leaps and bounds. As though every professor is supposed to think that every word out of your mouth is nectar from God and that the undergraduates should likewise be gazing up at your glowing halo of knowledge. When the opposite is the case it can be quite a downer. In fact undergraduates frankly intimidate me and professors at times make my  mouth freeze in a pucker from which no words can escape.

I suppose it’s not all doom and gloom. I am enjoying myself. Once again being immersed in books and knowledge and other people interested in similar things..and…my mouth pucker does tend to open every so often and sometimes, maybe, perhaps impress some people.

Posted in college, creative writing, culture, graduate, learning, professor, society, student, university | Tagged: , , , , , , | 6 Comments »

Internet Friends

Posted by loubird on April 23, 2008

Well, this weekend I’m driving about 6 hours away to a different Northwest city to meet a good friend whom I’ve never seen in person–unless you count via our mutual friend’s webcam. Ah the age of the internet!


I started out hating the internet. As a late teenager, early twenty-something, I was pretty much a hippy. Plus, all I saw of the internet were dorm-mates wasting their time chatting in AOL chat rooms, while I was out meeting new people and experiencing the world of Berkeley. I did use email but very sporadically and I’d wax poetical about the evils of using the internet to have a social life. Now of course, I have two very good friends, both of whom I met on the internet.


So what happened? Well, I firmly believe in synchronicity, call it God, call it the Force, Fate, whatever. But somehow we all meet the people we need to meet no matter what and who knows, the internet may very well be that medium. Now, to my defense, I didn’t meet them in chat rooms. I met one, “Lionel” on World of Warcraft–neither of us play it anymore. I met the other “Carrie” on a poetry critiquing forum. Somehow, we all became fast friends.


Interestingly enough, my boyfriend at the time really befriended “Lionel” because he was younger and going through some tough times. “Lionel” even came to visit us. Then, after our poetry brought us together, “Carrie” was interested in meeting my other internet friend who lived in the same city she did. I introduced them via instant messaging and let’s just say the rest is history. Now when I visit them they have been sharing an apartment for the past year. It is really amazing though to be witnessing “Lionel” grow up via the internet.

Posted in creative writing, culture, Poems, Poetry, society | Tagged: , , | 2 Comments »

Labectomy

Posted by loubird on March 25, 2008

“Labectomy,” he smiles,
and wonders at the colored candies
in his palm
reborn as a baby
bruised in white coated arms
yet he cries for the frigid comfort
of the hospital


He gropes blindly for answers
within his rebellious body
wishing to discipline
the illness like
his alarm clock


His body calls to its estranged
friend for understanding
but his ears hear selectively
that bodies are weak
vessels to use, to sculpt
and somehow he thought
the fault must lie
with the sculpture.

Posted in culture, health, hospital, labectomy, Poems, Poetry, society | Tagged: , | 5 Comments »

On Sled Dogs and Memory

Posted by loubird on January 24, 2008

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In sled dog territory, I remember the many times
my mind raced in Leary-like ellipses.
I remember how I used to think.
The years appear through the end of an old paper towel tube,
like the one I’d find my way around the house with as a child.
I know I’m not many days past spring chick,
but already I see the years crumple up in tin foil,
un-recyclable balls of faded patterns.
Memories can be friends, but memories are more present than past.
Was I ever really that optimistic?
Did I wander about on these first two rungs waiting for a net?
I remember an awareness of death’s existence
that adults said did not exist in people my age.
I remember dancing on rules like they were best friends
that sometimes I needed and sometimes I didn’t.
I remember a past that no longer exists
and my memory is more present than past.

The past no longer exists.

My past is an old friend who’s moved on.

The past no longer exists.

Posted in art, creative writing, culture, memory, Photographs, photography, Poems, Poetry | Tagged: , , , , | 5 Comments »

Corporate Blood Loss

Posted by loubird on December 20, 2007


The veggie party plate molded slowly in the

bland, refrigerated innards of the office break room,

symbolizing years of cheap paper plate parties

and pepsi in plastic cups.

We wait 358 days for a lap in a snack maze

to a stale soundtrack of

“where’d you buy that new polo, Derek?”

and

“we finally finished our patio Laurie!”

Two days of freedom follow and then

back to the backstabbing antics of the snack maze.

Manager #1’s repressed homosexuality sours his sighs

Manager #2 sours the whole room with his tea-laced breath

Manager #3 moans about his trips to New Zealand and the Caribbean

SOUR SOUR SOUR SOUR!

the yogurt’s past due

the half and half curdles

the ants chain themselves to their shitty PCs for 15-20 years.

I see everyone dragging around moaning,

blood comes out of their noses.

Too much blood loss is bad for your health,

in fact, over the years, it can cause death.

 

Posted in career, city, city life, creative writing, culture, Poems, Poetry, power, society | Tagged: , , , | 2 Comments »

One of those old poems from back in the day

Posted by loubird on November 23, 2007

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Craziness, like an unopened forty visits at night

worrying, like a paranoid mother,

that her children may not be dreaming,

tucking the covers around their chins

whispering sweet nothings

about boot grinding and whippings.

So they rose with mouths frothing

the memory of the muddy road 

fresh on their cheeks,

without really meaning to 

the children exploded and populated

the galaxy with their pulsating bodies.

A milky way flowing away from mother’s tits

and splattering on the black

of the deathless universe

drip dropping farther and further

until the blackness did not look so black

but encrusted with mother’s milk

and peppered with children sliding and spitting

everyone slurping furiously before the curdle

too busy to notice that the white shower

was over.

Mother, after all, was far away by then.

Someone opened the bottle

and the white crust was stained

with sour brown,

glass shattered across the white mesa

with milky boulders and mountainous cliffs.

The children scattered as they puked yellow,

forgot the milky path in the brown cushion,

splattered marshes and trees while they

forgot the high places.

Then the first drip of dark red

cut a river between the children and

sprouted unknown pools and fell into 

new tributaries.

A fog of heat dissipated over the

white and spotted brown

and fell again onto the faces

of the dreaming children with jagged

knives of brown glass in their hands

and so they stood until 

one-by-one they dropped off into

dead sleep

to find refuge from their

splitting headaches, pounding temples

achy limbs.

Posted in alcohol, beer, creative writing, culture, party, Photographs, Poems, Poetry | Tagged: , , , , | 4 Comments »

A Quiet Stir

Posted by loubird on November 6, 2007

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A pregnant, purple sky waits while
glowing automata dance like fireflies
with the loitering darkness.
A lone star still hangs above the fog,
we hold our breath–
soon sidewalk sleepers will be
expelled from their doorways
and cardboard cushions.
As you lift your modest veil,
we rub sleep from our eyes
and thoughts of rush hour, skyscrapers,
excel spreadsheets saturate our minds.
We lose the virginity of the city’s early morning
and buses inevitably bustle by
taking our dreams to concrete
as we rustle up our monthly tuition
for your twilight university.

Posted in art, city, city life, creative writing, culture, Photographs, Poems, Poetry, san francisco, society, sunrise | Tagged: , , , , , , | 5 Comments »

Poem for Heredity

Posted by loubird on October 9, 2007

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There’s a tree planted years ago.
A seed sown when progenitors scattered,
stretching across winds
with optimism on their lips.

Some found a furrow for their plow,
a bridegroom in a far off land.
And maturity ebbed and flowed
through an era–

Progenitors beget progenitors
and eternity of rearing and teaching
lengthened towards
an undetermined twilight,

a fragment of this chain clusters snugly.
The gift of bygone forbears endlessly
opened by new parents,
and the chain sustains.

The gently curving ratio, golden even in unscientific dreams.

Posted in art, creative writing, culture, family, Photographs, Poems, Poetry | Leave a Comment »

 
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