flight tracked

My love sailed by like a butterfly,

with metal wings and a worldly eye.

I waved him on to Albany,

with a “See you soon in Tennessee!”

(fun with words and flight tracker)

the new jim crow infographic

worth a look.

living in numbers

Sunday, August 22, 2010:

Number of times I've woken up after

oversleeping and sprung out of bed like a ninja: 959

Number of broken bones: 3

Number of scars, physical: 4; emotional: 947

Number of funerals attended: 7

Number of friends, Facebook: 744, real: 9

Number of cavities filled: 0

Percentage of people I can stand in the world: 3.5

Number of times I've laughed so hard my sides would bruise: 2,972

Number of times I've wanted to bawl my eyes out: 320

Number of things I regret: 11

Number of things I know: 918,394

Monday, August 23, 2010:

Number of times I've woken up after oversleeping and sprung out  

   of bed like a ninja: 960

Number of broken bones: 3

Number of scars, physical: 4; emotional: 1,293

Number of funerals attended: 7

Number of friends, Facebook: 800, real: 7

Number of cavities filled: 0

Percentage of people I can stand in the world: 3.4

Number of times I've laughed so hard my sides would bruise: 2,973

Number of times I've wanted to bawl my eyes out: 321

Number of things I regret: 13

Number of things I know: 918,390

-- claire lee

this modern love

he handed you a broken
heart not knowing it was
a gift. here is your work,

the bleeding heart said;

go do it.

- jw

like any good american

I bathe my television   in total attention   I give it my corneas  

I give it my eardrums   I give it my longing    

In return I get pictures     of girls fighting   and men flying    

and women in big houses   with tight faces   blotting down tears  

with tiny knuckles    Sometimes my mother calls   

and I don't answer   Sometimes a siren    sings past the window    

and summer air     pushes in     dripping with the scent  

of human sweat       But what do I care     I've given my skin

to the TV    I've given it my tastes    In return    it gives me so many    

different sounds     to fill the silence   where the secrets

of my life     flash by like ad space     for the coming season  

-- brynn saito

wardrobe

a couple weeks ago, one of my friends volunteered me to be a fashion consultant on a music video her friend was shooting, on the grounds that i have 'crazy clothes' and a 'good eye'.  i felt wildly underqualified but hauled a couple of big bags of shoes and scarves and jewelry and outfits to a church in brooklyn (a gorgeous set) anyway ... and it was a BLAST. hopefully i'll get to do it again. a couple images from the shoot below, video to come after edits.

a couple of my favorite outfits (a bit rumpled after the dance scene) ... 

the gold coat, sadly, is not mine.

new fabric designs

just opened a shop on spoonflower.com where i'm selling fabric designs made from my photographs.

here! http://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/forkeeps

the wolf reader

There were the books, and wolves were in the books.
They roamed between words. They snarled and loped
through stories with bedraggled wolfish looks

at which the hackles rose and the world stopped
in horror, and she read them because she knew
the pleasures of reading, the page being rapt

with the magic of the fierce, and she could do
the talk of such creatures. So one day
when teacher asked if there were any who

could read, she rose as if the task were play,
to claim the story where she felt at home.
The tale was Riding Hood, the wolf was grey.

The fierceness was the wood where grey wolves roam.
She read it round, she read it through and through
It was as if the wolf were hers to comb,

like those bedraggled creatures in the zoo
that, trapped behind the bars, would snarl and stride
as you'd expect a page or wolf to do.

- george szirtes

for you today

 

Of course there is a jackhammer. And a view, like Hopper,

but happier. Of course there is the newspaper—the daily

herald of our powerlessness. Easy go, easy come: thwash,

the next day another, an example of everything that gets done

in the dark. Like the initiative of the crocuses from a snow

that was, as it works out, warming them. Or in this case,

the strange October weather warming them. There were the

conclusions we jumped to. To which we jumped. There was

pain, and then there was suffering. Of course there was my

ambition to offer you the world, but one that I have rearranged

to make sense. Here are all the sensations of being alive

at the turn of the twenty-first century, here’s how they ring out

against each other, here’s how one brings out the sense of

another, here is the yellow next to the fathomless blue.

 

-- jessica greenbaum

what work is

We stand in the rain in a long line

waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work.

You know what work is—if you’re

old enough to read this you know what

work is, although you may not do it.

Forget you. This is about waiting,

shifting from one foot to another.

Feeling the light rain falling like mist

into your hair, blurring your vision

until you think you see your own brother

ahead of you, maybe ten places.

You rub your glasses with your fingers,

and of course it’s someone else’s brother,

narrower across the shoulders than

yours but with the same sad slouch, the grin

that does not hide the stubbornness,

the sad refusal to give in to

rain, to the hours of wasted waiting,

to the knowledge that somewhere ahead

a man is waiting who will say, “No,

we’re not hiring today,” for any

reason he wants. You love your brother,

now suddenly you can hardly stand

the love flooding you for your brother,

who’s not beside you or behind or

ahead because he’s home trying to   

sleep off a miserable night shift

at Cadillac so he can get up

before noon to study his German.

Works eight hours a night so he can sing

Wagner, the opera you hate most,

the worst music ever invented.

How long has it been since you told him

you loved him, held his wide shoulders,

opened your eyes wide and said those words,

and maybe kissed his cheek? You’ve never

done something so simple, so obvious,

not because you’re too young or too dumb,

not because you’re jealous or even mean

or incapable of crying in

the presence of another man, no,   

just because you don’t know what work is. 

-- philip levine