"The Q — Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

???!* (for Q)



Anything
but change;
determined executives (...)

falter
grimacing, hallucinating
insane justices — knowing

love
minces no
onion. Poets, Q,

reason(s)
sweetly, transcendentally
unaware, vining wisdom's

Xs —
youthfully zealous
about barren (childless)

determination.
Exegesis. Found
grains (harvested) inside

jars,
kitchens lovingly
managed, organized poeticly.

Q
realigns, structures,
travels underworld, vincible,

wax-winged —
xenogamy, yoked.
Zoroastrians avow: between

creations,
death; evil
finalizes good hearts.

I
just know
love — mates, not,

original
purgatory. Q
resides — serenely — trusting

under
victimless walling.
X-axis, y (youth) ≠ z (zest).

Anything
but change.


~ Lorna Dee Cervantes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Abecedarian Hay(na)ku Experiment:

"Towards A: New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"B Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"C-ing Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet to D"

"Towards E's New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards An Effin' New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards, G, A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards H's New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards the Alpha bet's New Beginning of I"

"Towards J's New Beginning of the Alpha bet Towards D"

"O', 'K Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards L: A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards M's Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"N' Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"O, Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards P, A New, Beginning of the Alpha bet"

* It's one-a-day, folks!
more hay(na)ku at Eileen Tabio's, inventor of hay(na)ku form (1/2/3 word tercets) & at Didi Menéndez' group blog, Café Café. Go there to read my comments to Pris regarding this suite.

Good Poem By Conversationalist: Alex Stein - "Song of the World"

Song of the World



Distinction means echo,
and I don't like that.
There are enough parts,
already.
How is the river di-
vided from the sea?
By our distinction!
All the earth is sea,
and all the men and women
just watermuck that arose
from the sea and walked.
We are a vegetation
of the moon, perhaps.
Our dreams are certainly
fertilized by something
other than sap.
Something lighter,
thinner.
Something more like
the moonlight itself.
Something more like the
moonlight that plays across
your white skin, and something
less like your wife.
This light I hold here,
beneath my hand, something
more fragile than life.


1996
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Alex Stein

told us "Leda and the Swan" is the greatest lyric poem in the English language, perhaps it is not. I incline more torward Auden's "Lullabye," all but the last stanza. Love poems and poems about "spirit," those are all I write. There is a huge world of signs and symbols out there, I suppose, I don't know really. My voice is limited to a tiny little sphere of influences: Eros, Cupid..Eros, Cupid...and Eros...oh, and Cupid, as well..." More at Kimera.

See our conversation together at The Michigan Quarterly Review: Lorna Dee on Memphis Minnie, Genocide, and Identity Politics

. If you like the interview give a shout out to MQR and send them a subscription. And check back for future postings of snippets of another long conversation with me, Alex and the best unpublished novelist I've ever met (Ali, I haven't read your novel yet), Fred Baca. (Unpublished signed conract in hand — due to his refusal to change the main character, a well-rendered "white" woman, into a Chicano. Ha! And you thought chicano writers had it easy, just using their religion, and "cashing in on their ethnicity. Xiish.) Interview will soon be published, but, with their permission, I'd like to post some sections of it. Hmmm, perhaps Alex would allow us to post a section of the conversation he had with poet/artist, Cecilia Vicuña, and presented at the Latina Letters Conference? Stunning and interesting.

Alex Stein is the author of one of my favorite books of prose poems he calls short tales, DARK OPTIMISM, and busy writing his dissertation in Creative Writing at Denver University, currently titled, A Book of Tellings. A librarian, he lives in Boulder with his two children.

Tibetan Book of the Dead

Scroll down to read my "fok wil" entry. There is a Tibetan Book of the Dead class that begins wednesday night and proceeds every w night for, I believe, 49 days, the time period of the first bardo. I had been considering taking it (investing) at Naropa. The class is also designed to help people help others to deal with their own, as well as a loved one's, journey.

My father lay in state, for lack of a better phrase, for five days. I believe I saw and felt his Spirit (mindbody) pass after the indigenous & Tibetan rituals were performed and the chants & songs sung. One of the last things he said, the day before he died, was "I'd like to learn more about the Tibetan Book of the Dead." He's studying now.

$125. Wednesday night.

Dougie MacLean For All -- 'It Seems To Me It Doesn't Matter ...'

'... how much shit goes down — as long as you've got lots of good friends around who care for you, you can, pretty well, handle most things.'

~ intro to "This Love Will Carry" on Dougie MacLean LIVE.

Saudi Sad Quotions

Someone from Saudi Arabia came to the blog searching "sad quotions" and stayed to read — in Arabic. jaja Makes me happy. Peace on in sadness.

"Towards P, A New, Beginning of the Alpha bet"

+++++ (for P)


Ah!
Blissful, complex
digression, expressionable fancy,

grafting
holidays, icings,
jealous knowings, love:

marriage.
No oppressor.
P questions relations:

savory
tuteleges undone,
vile wizardry's X,

young
zipperless avatars
bewildering chosen (determined)

ex-
F's. Gee,
hardly intelligent, July's

knowing
lustful milkings
now otherwise. P,

questful.
Reserved (satiated)
to unimaginable venom.

Who
(x-yesterday's
Zeus, ashen, bored)

chooses,
determines eligible
for G=d? Hallowed

intellectuals
jacking-off, knowledge
limitless, more, not

objectless?
P quakes,
resists summer treatings;

unfolds,
victimless, waiting,
xeroxed yet zealous.



28/8/05 14:30  

~ Lorna Dee Cervantes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Abecedarian Hay(na)ku Experiment:

"Towards A: New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"B Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"C-ing Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet to D"

"Towards E's New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards An Effin' New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards, G, A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards H's New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards the Alpha bet's New Beginning of I"

"Towards J's New Beginning of the Alpha bet Towards D"

"O', 'K Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards L: A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards M's Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"N' Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"O, Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

* It's one-a-day, folks!
more hay(na)ku at Eileen Tabio's, inventor of hay(na)ku form (1/2/3 word tercets) & at Didi Menéndez' group blog, Café Café. Go there to read my comments to Pris regarding this suite.

"... traffic will be good but that's the heart of the rush hour ...'

"Heart of the Rush Hour"
book title?
subtitle?
section?
poem?

(in case any one want to know how a poet works)

Commemorating August 29* — ¡Ajua!

And celebrating (remembering) everyone associated with the coalition wherever you are wherever you were whatever you did. Without you this blog wouldn't be. Nor I. Gracias a Lalo eternamente for not letting me live with a thousand masterpieces hanging only from my mind. Paz & Tierra. Mexica tiahui! Educate. Reflect. Act.

*Click on the usual suspects for more links & knowledge about the August 29th Chicano Moratorium. NO WAR. BASTA YA.

fok wil . . .

reads my word verification for posting comments to Sisyphus Walking sittin' in a cafe this morning

I laugh out loud

Yes this means I am human

& well-read

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
grieving the death of a stranger's sister at 1:20 pm yesterday afternoon
I don't know the time zone
I cry a lot
what I didn't cry for my father
2:20 pm
in the spring
thinking of summer
if there was a brilliance
Godlike on a sun-struck afternoon
burned
indelibly
into someone else's
strange life
estranged
in an afternoon
death on
a sister
I imagine
a sister
I don't have
I've lost my touchstone
she writes
from a place never seen
but touched
from death on

"O, Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

!*@*! (for O)



Actually
brave — courage
denied evidently fared —

grieving
hard, I
just know love

makes
no opening,
poetry quits rhyming

suddenly.
Towards, under,
virtually waiting, x-

yawning,
zipless — actually
being changed, determined,

excellently
foreign (grieving),
hardly intellectual, just

knowing,
living mindless,
numb. O promises

quirky
rest, saturated
trails under valleys

west,
x-home-ly, yet,
zenophobicly, actually, borrowed.

Can
determination (enough
for grief, hidden)

instill
joy knowing
limitless miles? Navigating,

O
positions questions,
requiring straight truth.

Unrequited.
Voiced wittingly,
x-yielding. Zounds!



~ Lorna Dee Cervantes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Abecedarian Hay(na)ku Experiment:

"Towards A: New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"B Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"C-ing Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet to D"

"Towards E's New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards An Effin' New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards, G, A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards H's New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards the Alpha bet's New Beginning of I"

"Towards J's New Beginning of the Alpha bet Towards D"

"O', 'K Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards L: A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards M's Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"N' Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

* It's one-a-day, folks!
more hay(na)ku at Eileen Tabio's, inventor of hay(na)ku form (1/2/3 word tercets) & at Didi Menéndez' group blog, Café Café. Go there to read my comments to Pris regarding this suite.

"He's rare. He's one in about as many as we're spending on the war."

Leonard Cohen Can Come Sleep At My House — Anytime

Buy Cohen*

My Franklin Planner Monthly Focus: Habits

"You shape your habits, then your habits shape you."
In case that says anything about daily abecedarian hay(na)ku, meeting deadlines ("lifelines") and actually writing & sending off a poem for a contest (Winepoetics' Summer Pleasure). Could answering email be far off? Getting ready for moon, sun & planets in Virgo to go be a filing fool in time for fall. Gee, ya!

"N' Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

..... (for N)


A
bored child
defies everyone, fidgets,

grouses.
Hurried instantly,
just knowing love-

making,
N obliges,
poetryless, quickly registering

sameness,
trios, unctuous
visions. Why X?

Ya!
zip. . .
... ... ...


~ Lorna Dee Cervantes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Abecedarian Hay(na)ku Experiment:

"Towards A: New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"B Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"C-ing Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet to D"

"Towards E's New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards An Effin' New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards, G, A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards H's New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards the Alpha bet's New Beginning of I"

"Towards J's New Beginning of the Alpha bet Towards D"

"O', 'K Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards L: A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards M's Beginning of the Alpha bet"

* It's one-a-day, folks!
more hay(na)ku at Eileen Tabio's, inventor of hay(na)ku form (1/2/3 word tercets) & at Didi Menéndez' group blog, Café Café.

Xicanerati: Henry David Thoreau; Or, The #1 Reason This Chicana Poet Loves Thoreau

Please $upport Greg at The Blog of Henry David Thoreau and check out Henry's eyes! Thanks, Jack. Sorry, Greg, once again couldn't resist lifting the whole thing.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sunday, August 28, 2005

Thoreau's Journal: 28-Aug-1851

The poet is a man who lives at last by watching his moods. An old poet comes at last to watch his moods as narrowly as a cat does a mouse.

I omit the usual—the hurricanes and earthquakes—and describe the common. This has the greatest charm and is the true theme of poetry. You may have the extraordinary for your province, if you will let me have the ordinary. Give me the obscure life, the cottage of the poor and humble, the workdays of the world, the barren fields, the smallest share of all things but poetic perception. Give me but the eyes to see the things which you possess.

posted by Greg at 12:22 AM

2 Comments:

Jack Saturday said...

Greg, I'm lucky to have found your Thoreau blog a few weeks ago, because instead of waiting for a daily entry, I got to feast on a month's worth at a time on summer evenings, making a wonderful classic blue-sky summer on Vancouver Island even more memorable. Damn it, I've come to the end of this beautiful forest path.

Can't thank you enough. You have enriched my summer. I'll look at your other offers as time goes on. Don't just now know what kind of job you do for money, but as far as I'm concerned you've earned some great spiritual reward for the labor you put into this project. I am as inspired by your labor of love as by the heaps of jewels I have taken home with me "without a wheelbarrow" from Henry. I'm going to ask the gods and Henry himself to release you from anything that keeps you from your own Thoreauvian longing for freedom and nature.

Here's a large version of your pic of Henry. I read that he was struggling with tuberculosis here. Look at his eyes!

www.theworldowesyoualiving.org/PAGES/thoreaufullsizepage.htm

Again, thanks for this humble and wonderful work.

--Jack
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
HDT - Best of the Old Sincerists? ¡Qué viva Frank O'Hara!

"Unconscious Mutterings #134 On 8/28/05"

1. Girlfriends:: lie and dogs are
   
2. Here to stay:: me with you
   
3. Call me:: ok?
   
4. Frustrated:: to a frizzle
   
5. Public school::  late
   
6. Glitch:: in the viaducts
   
7. Cheese:: in the choice
   
8. Director:: of this Theater of the Real
   
9. Pivotal:: to a mountain
   
10. Exclusive:: of you
    

< / ol > /on< e >ly

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
write your own madness at Luna Niña's Unconscious Mutterings
(I just try & make them into instant unconscious poems)

"Towards M's Beginning of the Alpha bet"

**$** (for M)



After
borrowing cash,
divorced, exquisitely, from

gardens,
helmets, insular
jests, knave love,

M
notices one
pair: quark-like, relaxed,

sexual
to undying
vigor — willfully "X"

yet
zany again.
Baffled, cashless, determined

entirely
for giving
heart in June —

knowing
love, M
notices open poppies,

quintillion
rivers sunning
towards undivided vessels,

waterbound
(xeric youth!)
zeroes after boredom.

Crashed.
Diametrics evidently
forgotten, grieved, horded.

I
just know
love, M notes:

open
paragraphs questioning,
reasoning, satiating, transforming

u:
vowels wide-open,
x-like, yawning — zapped.


~ Lorna Dee Cervantes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Abecedarian Hay(na)ku Experiment:

"Towards A: New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"B Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"C-ing Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet to D"

"Towards E's New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards An Effin' New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards, G, A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards H's New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards the Alpha bet's New Beginning of I"

"Towards J's New Beginning of the Alpha bet Towards D"

"O', 'K Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards L: A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

* It's one-a-day, folks!
more hay(na)ku at Eileen Tabio's, inventor of hay(na)ku form (1/2/3 word tercets) & at Didi Menéndez' group blog, Café Café. (*Peace to Katrina. Hoping for rest & news. Tony Thomas? Heck to all hurricanes!)

Another Good Poem (hay(na)ku!) - Ernesto Priego, 'This/ you, we/ know. . ."

at Never Neutral

Good Poem by William Allegrezza

Must see how Bill dwells in the timespace continuum and breaks the text barrier. Click on his link of him reading the poem. Must click here to believe.

Rosie O'Donnell's Love

See Ro's collage movie (.mov), "Life As Art". And, visit her at home, http://www.rosie.com. Life is Art.

Xicanerati: Anthony Robinson, Best of the New Sincerists; Or, 'The New Sincerity--Waxing With Odysseus'

posted today at Pamela's Musings, check out the roots of sincerity before reading post:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Lorna Dee Cervantes said:

Perhaps "good poetry" is both: sine cera, without wax & sincerus, genuine and not adulterated.

The best, and co-originator of "The New Sincerity" SOP, Anthony Robinson, exhibits this in the best of his poetry (the last half of his poem to Joe Massey posted on his blog, eg.): both "without wax" & genuine, in the figurative as well as literal sense, "and not adulterated" or what I've called (every mag's a manifesto) "rooted in the earth and rendered in blood" — a Nerudian movement within a selected marble.

It's the quarrying I quarrel with with Tony, and the polishing. He objects to my suggesting his "planks" need "sanding" (as opposed to some lesser poet's fabricated fibreglass board needing waxing — do I smell an MFA?) when what I mean to suggest is that one can not have one without the other, real marble hand-selected AND (imagine this as google search) real, educated (in the small-e James Baldwin sense) hand-polishing. Why? Well, in order to produce the "masterpiece", the fine art object instilling shock 'n' awe upon its host so that he frees the slave who produced it.

Xicanismo, if you ask me. ¿Y qué?

The best of the "New Sincerists" is Chicano, if you ask me. (And who ever does? Or considers?) (And, believe me, he doesn't want to know, [grin] or ask me—I look like his mother. And only if I were bestowed with the fine planets of a Ron Silliman could I write about it in coherent prose; although, this IS the season for me to wax prosaic while on my sabbatical.) Definitely, what I call, for lack of a better word in any language I know except perhaps my extinct Chumash: Xicanerati. (But he spits tacos, tortillas & gorditas at me at the suggestion.) It's an "Y qué?" sensibility. Or rather, an attitude; a resistance to wax and a fight to the truth for truth sincerus. And who is this? If not a Chicano Poet, Reyes Cardenas, http://chicanopoet.blogspot.com, in particular, the best of the best in any school when he's good, when he's on the marble. Y qué? Does Silliman speak & a thousand hits a day rain down like manna upon paperless Papalote? Does Silliman see it? And what of it? What are you going to do about it? ¿Y qué? It's about doing your best with what you got — in spite of them.

That's what I want. The marble. Or, lacking that, someone to talk about the marble. Wane with the wax, already. Ya! Show me the poetry. I showed you mine. But don't moon me, already. (Speaking in the general, throughout, Pamela. Not you.)

Tell me where to find the marble. I'll tell you how to polish. ("'Tis not a thing to learn/ inside a day" ~Dougie MacLean) Sometimes you have to cut into an inferior stone. Sometimes the stone finds you. Show me the stone.

The marble and the touch. Earth and Blood. Y ya con Truth&Beauty®, that Super of the Self so common to the malls/mawls of outrageous fortune. Enough of the schools, exclusive to fish, those of the Big & Little complex complacent in their universities and canteen (cantina?) journals collecting cv accumulations like Green Stamps for a Blue Guitar. Bring back the book! And the publishers of real good poetry (build them a boat! buy 'em a new motor!) Back to building with earth and blood, the kind that grows, not the mud that destroys and maims depressively. It puts the people in a do-nothing mode. For life.

Publish as a verb, not a noun. Poets, unite! Chuck class and poetry!

Sometimes grit is all you need, sometimes only a soothing splash of water will do, sometimes the doing is in the knowing, sometimes the knowing is in the doing, sometimes you find it just the way it is; ad publicum verbatum (ad ver botten!) ad infinitum i finesse finis.

and so one. But, for the

marble, the hand, the heart of the stone, and the selection (((The Quest!))). Sincerely.

Like a Chicana,

Lorna Dee

(Guess it's a manifest-esto, gee! Don't know my own strength. "New Sincerist?" "Isn't that the Bullwinkle School of Poetry?" Robert Hass, co-inventor, 1973, "If you're worried your poetry's sentimental, or worse, stupid, try it out on your friends using Bullwinkle's Poetry Corner voice. If they laugh, it's corny.")

1:13 p.m.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*post-script moral: When in doubt, OED. Search for the vein, the artery, the aorta, the cappillary action. Know what to do with each. And, when.

A Beloit Crumb

Read all about it at Mackenzie's Analepsis! Tell us about your own disgusting rejections here. ("Pubic hair!!") Let them eat their own cake. Don't save you the crumbs. Bakers, unite! You have nothing but grease to suffer. Sling it! (All agree, student/teacher papers don't count! We're all a little hungry & blurry-eyed.) The evidence:

"Towards L: A New Beginning of the Alpha bet" (8/25-26)

***!! (for L)


A
Beloit crumb
determines eligibility: flaked

grain
heedlessly insinuating.
Jack-of-Knowledge, L,

moves
nations, opportunists,
poets, questioners, reasoners,

students
transitioning unimaginable
virginity (waiting), x-youthful

zippy
actresses, barkeeps,
changelings. Determining eligibility

flagrant
(greasy haired
innocence) Jack-of-Knowledge

L
maintains normality.
Opening preternaturally quilled

radiance,
supple transoms
unfolding velvet wisps —

Xavier's
aspirations blubbering
crumbs determines eligibility

from
gritty heathens.
Instead, Jack-of-Knowledge,

L
misses nothing.
Original, poetic, quarrel-free —

real —
sensuously tied
until victimless wisdom:

(X≥Y).
Zymurgy: a
brewing, crumbless drafting,

entire
fermenting grains
harvested in Jack-of-Knowledge,

L's,
moonlit nebuli.
Open, porous quillwork,

residual
strangeling trapped
until vested, 'waiting

X's
yeses. Zymotic:
A Beloit crumb

determines
eligibility; flakey,
greasy hierophants! Ineditable

Jackals-of-Knowledge,
love! Marginalize
not. Poetry. Open!


~ Lorna Dee Cervantes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Abecedarian Hay(na)ku Experiiment:

"Towards A: New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"B Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"C-ing Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet to D"

"Towards E's New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards An Effin' New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards, G, A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards H's New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards the Alpha bet's New Beginning of I"

"Towards J's New Beginning of the Alpha bet Towards D"

"O', 'K Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

* It's one-a-day, folks!
more hay(na)ku at Eileen Tabio's, inventor of hay(na)ku form (1/2/3 word tercets) & at Didi Menéndez' group blog, Café Café. (*Peace to Katrina. Hoping for rest & news. Tony Thomas? Heck to all hurricanes!)

"O', 'K Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet" (8/25-26)

""""! (for 'K)



Absolutely
believing change
determines entropy, far

gone,
hurrying, inviting,
joyful 'K loves.

Meanwhile,
no one
patient, quizzical, relational,

surprises,
transmits unaware
Valentines, wishes, XXXXs

zipped
across bedlike
closures, disclosures, envelopes'

flirting
glances. Hurrying,
insisting, joyful 'K

loves.
Meanwhile, no
opportune person — quantum

resident
stranger — trumps.
Univited visitor waiting,

X-Filed
yarded zealot
after bedroom changes

determining
entropy far
gone, hurrying, inviting.

Joyless,
'K loves.
Manages. No one

particularly
quaint relying
situationally, tremendously, upon

virtually
windowless x-like
youth — zebra-assed black

chasmed
death — entropy
far gone hurry.

Invitingly,
joyfully, 'K
loves. Meanwhile, no

O' . . .


~ Lorna Dee Cervantes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Towards A: New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"B Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"C-ing Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet to D"

"Towards E's New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards An Effin' New Beginning of the Alpha bet" (hay(na)ku experiment)

"Towards, G, A New Beginning of the Alpha bet" (abecedarian hay(na)ku)

"Towards H's New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards the Alpha bet's New Beginning of I"

"Towards J's New Beginning of the Alpha bet Towards D"

* It's one-a-day, folks!
more hay(na)ku at Eileen Tabio's, inventor of hay(na)ku form (1/2/3 word tercets)

"Towards J's New Beginning of the Alphabet Towards D" (abecedarian hay(na)ku)

**... (for J)



Accidently
bold, chivalrously
dutiful, exquisitely fragile,

gracefully
hollowed, intuitive
J knows love.

Mutually
numbed, opportunists
parallelled quite resplendently,

sexually
transcendent, unusually
virile — winsome, xxx!

Yet,
Zeus - Ammon.
Between challenges, D

engages,
flirts, greatly
humanes J, knowing

love
mines night's
ore: photons, quartzite

(radio
signals transmitting
undivided vigor, wit,

xxx!)
Yet, zest
accumulates, burrows, caves.

D
ellaborates, figures,
gifts — hoping J

knows
love, mainly
numb, perishes. Quits.


~ Lorna Dee Cervantes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Towards A: New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"B Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"C-ing Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet to D"

"Towards E's New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards An Effin' New Beginning of the Alpha bet" (hay(na)ku experiment)

"Towards, G, A New Beginning of the Alpha bet" (abecedarian hay(na)ku)

"Towards H's New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards the Alpha bet's New Beginning of I"
* It's one-a-day, folks!
more hay(na)ku at Eileen Tabio's, inventor of hay(na)ku form (1/2/3 word tercets)

"Towards the Alpha bet's New Beginning of I" (abecedarian hay(na)ku) (revised 8/24)

&&&&& (for I)



Anything
believable challenges,
drives. Everything fallable

gains,
heightens. I
just know love

manuevers
nothing, otherwise
proposes, quarrels, resurrects.

Surely —
tarpits, underwire,
virtuous widows, Xs,

young
zephyrs, adolescents,
bored child-driven enterprises,

future-seers,
gimme heterosexuals.
I just know

lovers
make noise
openly, proving quiescent

reservoirs,
sensual taverns
underneath vast waterfalls.

X-ray,
yes, zealously,
any bay's cavern,

dividing
entire frozen
glaciers. Halving. I

just
know living
mainly nightens. Over

paradise,
questions rise
sinuously, testily, unsure.

Valuable
wasting, x-acto
yapping, zippering autumn

both
closed, dumbed,
elegant. For giving

home.
I just
know love means

news,
orals, plurals,
quinces, ravishing silhouettes

to
underscore virtually
whimsical xerox youth —

Zanzibar!
Anything believable,
challenging everything, fallable,

gainfully
heightened: I
just know love.


~ Lorna Dee Cervantes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Towards A: New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"B Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"C-ing Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet to D"

"Towards E's New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards An Effin' New Beginning of the Alpha bet" (hay(na)ku experiment)

"Towards, G, A New Beginning of the Alpha bet" (hay(na)ku experiment)

"Towards H's New Beginning of the Alpha bet" (hay(na)ku experiment)

more hay(na)ku at Eileen Tabio's, inventor of hay(na)ku form (1/2/3 word tercets)

"Towards H's New Beginning of the Alpha bet" (abecedarian hay(na)ku)

^^^^^ (for H)



August
begins charging
down eccentric futures.

Gradually,
H intimates
jealousies knowing lovelorn

Mays,
Neverlands opening
past quiet retaliations,

sacred
times unfolding
vast windswept xeric


years,
zestful acres
bearing canvasses designed

exquisitely.
Finding galleries,
H imagines jailers,


kites
loving motion,
nests of passions,

quotidian
reasons seasons
trail, undulating veils

waving
x-like yards,
zephyrs, a bare

charm
darning entire
fragments. Green, H

interests
just knowing
love's major net,

open
plan, quitting
ruses, savage treachery

unloving
vellum waste,
Xmas yardage zizzle

atom
bombing, charging
delirious eloquent favors;

gaining.
H interviews
July's knight, lingering

midway,
naturally open-hearted,
permeable, quilled, resusitated.

Simple
tomorrows unmatched,
vidicated, wary — x-axes

yawning
zenith. August
begins charging: dawning,

everything
fielding gold —
H intimates July

knowing
love, maiming
never, opening precociously


~ Lorna Dee Cervantes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Toward's A: New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"B Toward's A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"C-ing Toward's A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Toward's A New Beginning of the Alpha bet to D"

"Toward's E's New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards An Effin' New Beginning of the Alpha bet" (hay(na)ku experiment)

"Towards, G, A New Beginning of the Alpha bet" (abecedarian hay(na)ku)

more hay(na)ku at Eileen Tabio's, inventor of hay(na)ku form (1/2/3 word tercets)

HELP! Susan Kelk Cervantes - 'Motion Granted for San Francisco's Frida Kahlo' - Declare Cervantes Home Studios A Cultural Landmark!

Motion Granted for San Francisco's Frida Kahlo

Susan Cervantes with supporters
Beyond Chron
Alison Stevens Rodrigues 22.AUG.05

Longtime resident, artist, and pillar of San Francisco's Mission District, Susan Cervantes, claimed a victory last week when a judge ruled that she did not have to leave her home of 35 years – yet.

In response to the three-day eviction notice that landlords Douglas Wong and Pearl Yee served Cervantes in July, no fewer than 50 people assembled at 9:00 a.m. on Friday to rally against it, and similar evictions that have been sweeping the City. For half an hour, tenants rights activists and Susan Cervantes supporters stood in front of 400 McAllister, refuting the displacement of artists and poor people, before Cervantes and her attorney stood in a court room and received word that their motion to take the eviction to trial was granted.

Widely acknowledged for her part in creating hundreds of murals in the Mission, including those along the Women's Building and Balmy Alley, Cervantes is known locally for her commitment to the Precita Eyes Arts and Visitors Center, of which she is the founder and director. The Center, which is one of only three community mural centers in the United States, brings art into the daily lives of people through its offering of classes, workshops, and low-cost supplies to both children and adults. It also has served as a starting point for more than 20,000 students and tourists who have taken the eight-block Mission Trail Mural Walk offered by the Center.

"She's such a fixture in the neighborhood," commented Ted Gullicksen, president of the San Francisco Tenants Union. "That's why this eviction is particularly egregious."

Despite her significance as a cultural cornerstone, and the significance or her work as historical and artistic references, Cervantes might be forced to leave the home where she has paid rent for more than half of her life. Located just a short distance from the Center, her apartment has been more than just a place to live; it has served as both a studio for Cervantes and her late husband Louis, and as the birthplace for two of their children.

"It is sacred and holy ground and should not be demolished," said Cervantes, adding that for the landlords who want her to leave, it seems that making an investment is more important than human life.

Wong and Yee bought the three-story property at 398 Precita Ave. in July of 2005 and gave Cervantes a three-day notice to leave. Because the previous owner had converted the bottom floor, zoned for commercial use, into a residential unit, they claimed that her residence was an unlawful use of space.

Representing Supervisor Tom Ammiano, Tomas Lee said, "I don't think those evicting [Cervantes] know the contributions she's made to this city or the respect she's gotten in the artistic community worldwide."

Gullicksen explained that the first-time landlords are using the wrong "just cause" for their eviction. Had they gone about the process correctly, he continued, they would have issued reason number 10 of the 14 just causes for eviction under rent control. According the SF Tenants Union Web site, number 10 states that "the landlord seeks to demolish or otherwise remove the unit from rental housing use, has obtained all the necessary permits, and does so without ulterior reasons and with honest intent."

"Demolishing a unit can take a while," noted Gullicksen, adding that the landlord(s) must give the tenant 30-days notice in addition to obtaining the appropriate permits. The tenant may then argue the case and so the process can take even longer.

"But with an illegal-use just clause, which is what [Wong and Yee] used, a landlord can give just a three-days notice," Gullicksen said. "It's a classic example of a pretext eviction. They're trying to get Susan out because of her low cost of rent."

Community activist Richard Marquez pointed out that the Mission is always on spectators' lists because the cost of housing there is often half of what it would be in other areas.
"The Mayor seems to be working toward gentrifying the city – people are charging outrageous rent and the low- and no-income can't afford it," said longtime Mission resident, Iris Biblowitz. "That's why we're seeing more and more low- income people having to leave San Francisco,"

If evicted, Cervantes said she would likely be one of those emigrating, which is why fellow muralist, Marta Ayala, attended the rally. She recalled that when Cervantes' husband, Louis, was alive, he and his wife were the people that artists went to with their queries and conflicts. "They were the Diego and Frida for us here in San Francisco," said Ayala, referring to Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, who had been influential Mexican artists.

If Cervantes leaves, Ayala insisted, the muralists of San Francisco will not know where to go. "We don't want to get lost."

Meanwhile, Cervantes' attorney, Raquel Fox of the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, said she was pleased with the outcome Cervantes' first court appearance, and Cervantes herself promised to continue putting up a fight.

"We will continue the struggle for everyone," said Cervantes, adding that what is happening to her is just a microcosm of the injustices going on all over the world.

http://www.precitaeyes.org
~ Alison Stephens Rodrígues

398 Precita Avenue Cultural Landmark Status

download petition to declare bottom floor of 398 Precita Avenue a Cultural Landmark: petition.pdf

"Towards, G, A New Beginning of the Alpha bet" (abecedarian hay(na)ku)

!!!!! (for G)



Anonymously
brilliant, cornily
disappointed everytime, fated

G
halts in
July's knowing looming

moon.
Novice, operatic
poetry, quilts resplendent,

settling
trancelike, upsetting
vision's whirl, xyster

(you)
zealously abrading,
boring, chaffing, doubting.

Enthusiatically
(fatally) G
heartens, intuits, jumps

knowing
love mirrors
next openings, persuasions,

quests —
river sleeping
tenuously underheart, vital

wish,
xeric yonder
zenith above bays.

Changed.
Doubtless, entranced,
fragile G heartens

in
July. Kangaroo
love making nimble

opportunities
playing questions
regarding silken treasures,

undulating,
vixonlike, wanly
xanthic — youthfully zealous!



~ Lorna Dee Cervantes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Towards A: New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"B Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"C-ing Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet to D"

"Towards E's New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards An Effin' New Beginning of the Alpha bet" (hay(na)ku experiment)

more hay(na)ku at Eileen Tabio's, inventor of hay(na)ku form (1/2/3 word tercets)

"Unconscious Mutterings #133 On 8/21/05"

1. Fan:: of a falling star,
   
2. Scum:: sucker, heart handler,
   
3. Lily:: of a Martian moonscape,
   
4. Humid:: to the touch,
   
5. Ghetto:: blaster, harbinger of a night,
   
6. Remember me?:: You,
   
7. Polished:: to an A, I
   
8. Compose:: myself against the wind,
   
9. Squish:: my feathered thoughts of
   
10. Future:: falling.
    

:: Oh!


Do your own at Luna Niña.

"Towards An Effin' New Beginning of the Alpha bet" (hay(na)ku experiment)

*!*!* (for F)



After
bed, charged
delirious, Effin' F

guarantees
home-runs, innings
justified knowing long

marveled
nuggets of
passion, quarter run-ins,

staged
tied uniplays:
vinyl, wax, X-

yard
zephyr. After
bed, chin ducked,

Effin'
F grieves
hollow insides, June's

knowing
loveless mangles,,
needing or purposed.

Quite
reduced, solemn,
treed, unacknowledged vile

waiting
(x ≠ y).
Zeal after bed,

changed,
derailed. Effin'
F grabs hubris,

instigates,
just knows
love minxes never

opine,
poeticize, question;
resigned, següed, transcendent

until
virility weds
("x + y = zoo").



~ Lorna Dee Cervantes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Towards A: New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"B Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"C-ing Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

"Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet to D"

"Towards E's New Beginning of the Alpha bet"

more hay(na)ku at Eileen Tabio's, inventor of hay(na)ku form (1/2/3 word tercets)

IMPEACH! VOTE FOR ART!

impeach
Originally uploaded by Rosie O'Donnell.

See Ro's "Work4Peace" movie of her "b4 the war" collages
& check out Crawford Peace Camp updates
& JoeTrippi.com for more info & to sign Cindy Sheehan's petition.

"Let there be Peace on Earth/ And let it begin with me." ~ The Artist's Way.

Support art. Support Artists! Help declare Cervantes home in San Francisco, artists' studio, birthplace of the Precita Eyes Muralists Community Arts Movement in the Mission, a CULTURAL LANDMARK! Please help! Susan Cervantes, widow of my late father, Visionary artist, Luis Cervantes is facing immediate eviction from their Precita park home of 35 years! For more info click link here.


http://www.precitaeyes.org

On Losing My Father's Home

no words
~~~~~~~~
(scroll down for more info.)
Help, if you can.
Precita Eyes Mural Center http://www.precitaeyes.org
(The flowers are from Cesar Chavez's grave)

"Towards E's New Beginning of the Alpha bet" (hay(na)ku experiment)

+++++ (for E)



Autumn
brings changes,
desires. E forgets,

giddy-
hearted, inking
jots: knowing love


musings,
notes, oracles,
poems — quotions, registers,

solemn
tracts unfolding
virtually, winsome X +

yesterday's
zeal and
barren crone dawn.

E
forges (grim
heartward insular journey)

knowing
loveless mornings,
noon's outward positioning,

quota's
ransom, strange
tired unions — virtuous

waiting.
X, yesterday,
zealously achieved, broken-

chorded
dimwit. E
forgets, gainfully heaving

inside
just knowing
love manages, nudges —

obvious
perplexing quest
riveting season's trysts

un-
veiled, willow-worn:
X yet = Z.

Autumn
brings changes,
divides. E folds,

grins,
heartens interior
justices knowing love's

mirage,
needing oases,
palms' questionings, romantic

strophes,
tercets unending,
vining, winding, X's

youthful
zeal — about
beginning, changing, determining

E.

ARTIST EVICTION! - 'Justice For A Maker Of Magic & Miracles' - Susan Cervantes (Beyond Chron)

Justice For A Maker Of Magic And Miracles

Allen White 19.AUG.05

The people of San Francisco should say thank you to Susan Cervantes. For 35 years she has been making magic and miracles. Now she needs a miracle and some magic. Susan Cervantes is a special kind of San Franciscan. She is the product of a city where people, some of the weirdest off the wall folk you could ever imagine, create magic and miracles like nowhere else in the world. These mothers of creativity are united by their gift of giving, their capacity to love and a talent as unique and different as the eyes of their beholders.

Susan Cervantes runs the Precita Eyes Mural Arts and Visitors Center. For more than 25 years, Precita Eyes gave help and guided young people to create more than 200 murals on walls across San Francisco. Most San Franciscans, at one time or another, find themselves delighted by these colorful celebrations of culture adjoining the walls of our city.

This woman, Susan Cervantes, educated young people, taught them how to create art and provided the knowledge to facilitate their display. We learn the center she created is the only resource in Northern California for low-cost classes and arts supplies for young muralists.

As Susan Cervantes creates beauty, others in this city reek ugly. They remind us San Francisco is also residence for some very nasty people. These people fail to care or understand miracles and magic are products of struggle and sacrifice. For every maker of miracles and magic others hide in their shadow ready to exploit, to profit and to hurt for personal gain.

Those who charge racial profiling in the war on terror do well to not look at economic profiling when identifying property owners in the war on greed.

To those who care about people, prepare yourself to get angry. To those dedicated to justice for all, get out the armor, its time to get ready for battle. To the good guys who own property, don't read further. The fact is, here we go again.

Enter Douglas Wong and Pearl Yee. They recently bought the building Sue Cervantes lived in over half her life. Forgive the injection of image profiling, but guess what they did next?

Douglas Wong and Pearl Yee have served Ms. Cervantes with a three day notice to vacate her home. Are you surprised? I wasn't!

These property owners aimed a dagger at the heart of a center where makers of magic and miracles were created*..for almost 35 years. Should Wong and Yee prevail, Precita Eyes is history and Sue Cervantes will be forced to move out of town.

Thankfully, San Francisco is also a city of justice. In San Francisco, justice is rising up to give power to those who find themselves helpless. When good people lose, justice is not served. Hurting others for financial gain is justice denied.

We value those who make magic and create miracles. If ever a city existed where the meek shall inherit the earth it is San Francisco. Simply stated, Susan Cervantes deserves better.

I truly believe living in San Francisco carries with it special responsibilities. We benefit from the struggles of many who came before us. Long, hard battles have produced a city like no other in the world.

Make no mistake about it, every reason for making San Francisco special can be taken from us. There is someone, some group, ready to act in an instant to take from us every single reason why we live in San Francisco.

What is happening to Susan Cervantes is absolutely wrong. I hate it because it represents the worst of San Francisco. I believe a strength of San Franciscans is our ability to understand the laws of morality trump all other.

Should Mr. Wong and Ms. Yee have a legal right to act, that right is diminished by their disregard for what is decent. If Mr. Wong and Ms. Yee succeed, San Francisco, and all of us who live here, are worse, not better.

The question today is what can we do to help Susan Cervantes? How can the people of this city make right this wrong?

Today, I don't have the answer for Susan Cervantes. I don't know her. In fact, I don't know Douglas Wong or Pearl Yee.

I do know there is justice. I also know there is a maker of magic and miracles who knows the answer.

~ Allen White

"PROTEST (Fri., 8:30 a.m., 400 McAllister, SF) Against Eviction of Precita Eyes Mural Director"- Susan Cervantes (HELP! Is It Dwelling or BU$INE$$?)

Protest Against Eviction of Precita Eyes Mural Director Tomorrow

Susan Cervantes
Raquel Fox 18.AUG.05

When does San Francisco stop being San Francisco? Can you imagine the City without its murals? Neither can we, so we ask that you come and join us on the steps of 400 McAllister, Friday, August 19th, at 8:30 a.m. to protest the eviction of one of San Francisco's premier muralists and community activists.

It's no secret that the higher cost of living, increasing rent, and out-of-control housing market in San Francisco is changing the make-up of the City, driving out artists and working-class people. Now, in what may be the ultimate slap in the face, long-time veteran of the Mission District, Susan Kelk Cervantes, who has been a central force in the creation of hundreds of San Francisco's murals in the Mission, including the treasured artworks on the Women's Building, Bernal Heights Library, and Cesar Chavez Elementary, is facing eviction.

Despite having lived in her home for over 35 years, Susan Cervantes and her family received, via a three-day notice, an eviction from her new landlords, Douglas Wong and Pearl Yee, who purchased the building in July of 2005. They claim that her residence was an "unlawful use of the space" because the previous owner, in the 1960s, had converted a bottom floor, zoned for commercial use, into a two-floor residential unit.

Susan is the Director and Founder of Precita Eyes Mural Arts and Visitors Center, responsible for the creation of murals, connecting youth to art programs, providing educational tours and much more. She has given her life to art and states, "I gave back everything I had, all of my income to promote what I believed was important- light and color and beauty and the sharing of public space that belongs to everyone. We tried to preserve culture and bring art . . .and now I may have to leave."

If evicted, Susan Cervantes stated that she may have to leave San Francisco due to the high cost of rent, and her absence at Precita Eyes may result in the organization's instability. This would place San Francisco's support of the muralist tradition in jeopardy.

Many in the community are rallying behind Susan, including Jeanne Derrah of the Precita Valley Neighborhood Association who stated, "Susan's eviction would be devastating for her and for our community after all she has done for us."

Please come and join us to protest and say in a unified voice to the courts and the press that San Franciscans refuse to be pushed out of the City! We value the contributions of the City's artists and say no more unfair evictions in San Francisco!

When: Friday, August 19th at 8:30 a.m. Speakers will start at 9:00 a.m. Court hearing at 9:30a.m. Where: Steps of 400 McAllister, Court House. Who: To get involved in organizing efforts, please contact Bobbi, of Central City SRO Collaborative, via e-mail at Barbara@thclinic.org or stopsusanseviction@yahoo.com.

Please also check www.precitaeyes.org for further updates.

PROTEST in SF 8/19 - Susan Cervantes - "Cultural Cornerstone of the Mission Faces Eviction" (Beyond Chron)

Cultural Cornerstone of the Mission Faces Eviction

Susan Cervantes
Casey Mills 12.AUG.05

"Ask any San Franciscan to name their favorite things about this city, and the murals of the Mission almost always find themselves near the top of the list. Tourists from across the globe wander down Balmy Alley and gaze at the colorful celebrations of culture adorning its walls. Yet now, Susan Cervantes, a woman who painted and helped bring over 200 of those murals here, could be evicted from her home of 35 years.

Cervantes currently lives on Precita Avenue, just blocks from where she runs the well-known Precita Eyes Mural Arts and Visitors Center. Cervantes founded Precita Eyes, a non-profit devoted to creating, celebrating, and involving youth with murals across the city. For more than 25 years, the organization has led tours of the Mission’s murals, held festivals celebrating their contribution to the city, facilitated the creation of new murals, and involved youth in the art form.

Considered a cultural institution of the Mission by many, the Center is responsible for bringing hundreds of murals to the neighborhood and Bay Area, as well as teaching thousands of interested locals and visitors about the murals’ history. The Center also serves as the only resource in Northern California for low-cost classes and arts supplies for young muralists.

“She’s been in the community for the longest, working in a medium that is highly valued,” Jennie Rodriguez, Executive Director of the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts. “She gives opportunities for everybody of all ages to learn and participate in this artistic discipline, and we really value her skills and her contributions to the community.”

Now, however, the future of Cervantes and the Center appears uncertain. Cervantes received a three-day notice to vacate her home several days ago, issued to her by Douglas Wong and Pearl Yee, who recently bought the building she’s lived in over half of her life.

Should the evictors prove victorious, Cervantes said she would most likely be forced to leave San Francisco because of the high cost of rent. According to Cervates, her absence would leave Precita Eyes “unable to operate in its previous state,” including the probable cutting of several of its programs.

The threat of eviction has left Cervantes shocked and confused, particularly because she feels she’s given her life to her community, only to receive the reward of being removed from it.

“I’ve never been in any other place than San Francisco that supported art and community so much,” said Cervantes. “When you get that kind of support, you want to give back. And I gave back everything I had, all of my income to promote what I believed was important - light and color and beauty and the sharing of public space that belongs to everyone. We tried to preserve culture and bring art…and now I may have to leave.”

Not only does Cervantes have strong connections to the community, but her personal connections to her home run deep as well. Two of her three children were born in the building she’s being evicted from, and her husband delivered the youngest in their living room. Cervantes lost her husband recently, and he passed in the same place.

Cervantes and her husband, also an artist, designed and began many of the murals they’ve painted throughout the Mission in their home. In fact, the home’s ability to serve as a studio as well as a residence presents the reason for the possible eviction.

Back in the late 60s, the buildings owner converted the bottom two units of the three-floor flat into one unit. This meant merging the bottom floor, zoned for commercial use, with the second floor, zoned for residential, creating what the new owners call an illegal unit.

Cervantes’ attorney, Tenderloin Housing Clinic's Raquel Fox, hopes to fight the eviction due to irregularities in the eviction notice. Yet regardless of the eviction’s legality, Fox says the building’s owners have displayed a disregard for Cervantes’ rights and emotions seldom seen.

“This is a harsh and cruel approach to the displacement of a legacy of this woman,” said Fox. “This family has contributed so much to the mission, to the arts community, to women’s rights, and this is her thank you – get out!”

Members of the arts community agree, expressing concern about the loss to the city Cervantes would represent.

“This is the kind of institution that needs to be anchored in the community so we can continue to work with them,” said Rodriguez. “With the recent general displacement of artists in the community three years ago, it’s concerning. If they have to move away, we’re being left without an artistic service that is so important.”

Despite the hardship, Cervantes says she is trying to keep an open mind about the situation. Yet she says she still finds the idea of leaving her home and community as hard to think about.

“I just find it really sad,” said Cervantes. “We’ve always felt we were secure in our home. My husband’s studio is even still intact with what he was working on before he passed…to leave would just break my spirit.”

~ Casey Mills

"Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet to D" (hay(na)ku experiment)

* . . . * (for D)



All
believing, changeling
D encourages falling,

gaining,
homing, instigating,
just knowing love:

many-
named, opening
preternaturally, quixotically, rationally.

Stumped —
the unloved
vast waste — X

yet
zero, a
border crossing, D

enters,
fragrant grain,
homely in July's

knowing
light; mooning
noon's obvious parody,

questioning.
Resources scourged,
tethered unaware, vanity's

wish:
X = young.
Zealous above boredom,

Changeling
D encourages,
finds gifts, hands,

institutions
(just knowledge),
love, marriage, (nestings)

origin.
Pretty quotes,
reasonings slipping tenuous

underglows
visioning waves
xeroprinting yards . . . zenith,

acres
bothering current.
D entrances, figures,

guesses
halycon imaginings
juicing kiwi lustings:

memory.
Overdue . . . .

LD More Scientific Than Emotional?

Very Well-Rounded You have: 70% SCIENTIFIC INTUITION and 62% EMOTIONAL INTUITION

The graph on the right represents your place in Intuition 2-Space . As you can see, you scored above average on emotional intuition and above average on scientific intuition . (Weirdly, your emotional and scientific intuitions are equally strong.) Your Emotional Intuition score is a measure of how well you understand people, especially their unspoken needs and sympathies. A high score score usually indicates social grace and persuasiveness. A low score usually means you're good at Quake. Your Scientific Intuition score tells you how in tune you are with the world around you; how well you understand your physical and intellectual environment. People with high scores here are apt to succeed in business and, of course, the sciences.

My test tracked 2 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender : You scored higher than 99% on Scientific You scored higher than 99% on Interpersonal

Link: The 2-Variable Intuition Test written by jason_bateman on Ok Cupid

LDC, Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Norma Cantú at Latina Letters Conference

Great Writers - Check out their works
Originally uploaded by Lizard666.

Thanks, Liz!
(note DRIVE: couldn't put it down!)
click pic to go to others
(note hair: SA, You bring out
the Africana in me!)

"C-ing Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet" (hay(na)ku experiment)

$$$$$ (for C)



After
bed, C
drinks ecstasy far

gone,
harlequin insight
jarring known loves,

millionaires
nearly over
paid quaintly, rarely

seen,
treasured until
victory. When, xylophones!

Yellow
zinnias affect
boredom's chance droll

encounters,
flirtation's grimaces
harrowing in June's

kitchen:
luminous moon
nearly over, petering

quiet
reasons summer
transits unknown violet

waiting —
xenographic yet
zoic. Automatic. Beautiful

C
dreams, engenders
flame giving hearts,

inner
July, knowing
love's many nurturings,

openings,
perched quail
rearing simple treasures,

unseen
visions, whimsical
xerographic youth — zealous.

Ana Castillo's Praise for DRIVE: The First Quartet

"This is what it means to be a poet, I tell myself, reading the thick, rich poems of Lorna Dee Cervantes' new collection. A poet is a "one winged dove." She is a "copper kettle," a "tuna-tamed tiger" and the "thundering of a hummingbird's wings." These images and many more are among Cervantes' treasure trove of poetic labors. If you love poetry, you've come to the right place. Throughout these pages, be prepared to feast your heart. "

             ~ Ana Castillo

"Unconscious Mutterings #132 On 8/16/05"

1. Idiot:: love
   
2. Rocket:: recorder
   
3. Liability:: let it be you
   
4. Harmless:: harmed
   
5. Stringy:: & unstrung
   
6. Theater:: wisher
   
7. Gwyneth:: lost
   
8. Use it or lose it:: wear it
   
9. Sonic:: heartbeat
   
10. Pucker:: up: pure.
    

O 'l> Pour.

"Unconscious Mutterings #131 On 8/16/05"

1. Complexion:: of the sun,
   
2. Teach:: us to love.
   
3. Back to school:: in the heart,
   
4. Months:: ago, long days
   
5. Nominate::  a favorite,
   
6. Favorite curse word:: favored cur
   
7. Concerned:: with a pet hair,
   
8. Better:: for it, past.
   
9. Escalate:: Reach up!
   
10. Unveil:: a sullen apple,
    :: ol' heart.
    

"B Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet" (hay(na)ku experiment)

~~~~~ (for B)



Able,
B cabins
doubt, excellence founded,

guaranteed —
habitual. Inside,
just kow-towed, lit;

managed.
Necessary openings,
positionings, querulous ratchetings

sawing
troubles' undulations,
vexes, wisdoms, X,

youth.
Zipping above,
B covets doubled

evidence,
futures gained.
Heaven: intuited judges

knowing
mansions, nestled
origins, piquant questions

residing,
silent. Trusting.
Until venom's way

x-rays
youth's zero.
Amply, B carves,

designs
empathic fairytales,
gnome's heroic iterations,

Jupiter
knowing limitations,
mastications, needs, oughts,

presences,
quests. Religion's
suicide, travelers' undoings,

visitations
'waiting xeno-
zenith. Afterwards, B

changes
drought's entirety:
fields, grazings, houses.

Instantly,
just knowing
(love) minds — nestled

open
poppies! Questioning.
Re::Set. Tried.

Until
veils whither,
X-acto yes: zirconia!

Artfully,
B changes,
douses, empties, fires.

"Towards A New Beginning of the Alpha bet" (hay(na)ku experiment)

Lorna Dee Cervantes
(1st poem after the book!) (1 of 26?)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Towards A: New Beginning of the Alpha bet

***** (for A)



A
begins cautiously
dragging exhaust, feeling

gone,
hearing in
jonquil's knitted lap

music,
names, orange
poppies quieting real

statues,
tenuous unformed
vowels, wasted, X-ed,

zooed.
A burrows,
courageous, determined, energized,

fearing
G=D heard
in July's knowing

maple —
noticed, opulent
possibility quizzing returns;

sleeping
troubled until
Venus winds, "X"-s

Zeus.
A believes
cartons diminish everything,

flatten
gorges, heighten
interiors just knowing,

liking.
Memory: nimble
oscillating puppet, quicker

reality
sulking thinly,
unlit vase, wicked

xerox
zenith. A


(love
is missing)


8/15/05

IN PRESS!

I just got off the phone with Bryce (who's cell # is currently over $500) and the final acknowledgements have been dusted off the shelf, skimmed from the scraps of pages of "Brownie Points" and typed up into email. (Ha! Can an updated cv be far behind?) I even got the con safos in. And, I almost forgot the most important acknowledgement: myself for a "rare limited edition" of Play published by MANGO Publications in 1999. If you've got it, hang on to it. It will be worth something in some years. Long as the cat doesn't pee on it. Hey! It happens.

Book is in the hands of the printer. As is.

I'm waiting to cry. Okay. here I go. Hot tears. Ugly face. Good tears. Like watching good schmaltz on tv. Or, when that guy from the Greek famine won the Boston marathon in 1940-something (1960-something) (?) (it's a number) in order to buy food for the population. Or, whenever I watch Extreme Makeovers: Home Edition. Some are 6 Kleenex episodes. Got my box downstairs. Got my hands.

Interviewer: How do you know when a poem is finished?

LDC: I cry.
~~~~~~~~~
currently hearing Marc Cohn: "While the lights of the city/ are shining below/ Gonna hold on to you/ Girl, and never let go/ while everyone else is just/ walking around in their sleep/ Baby, let's dig down deep."

"because the fortune said that/ The time is Now"

Author's Note to DRIVE: The First Quartet

I am influenced by painters. Irving Norman, in particular, whom I once met when I was about 18 when I wrote a poem about one of the major images in his show, face-masks, that was exhibiting in the San Jose State Student Union gallery where I was giving a poetry reading and read the poem. He was there, when I looked up and said his name, and I gave him a copy of the poem & he invited me to a party closing the show. There, a young woman had questioned him before a tryptic (think Bosch): three individual paintings which create another composition, another solid image, when hung together—of a futuristic warscape, mostly blood and ash colored dominated by armies of armored behemuths that must have inspired Star Wars. She asked him: "Do you really see the world this way? Just brutality & greed? Do you really believe that people can be so awful?" And he just cried. Silent tears streaming down his face for an uncomfortable 20 minutes. What a number on an arm can tell about a paint smear on cloth. An artist only paints what he sees. An artist only paints what she was meant to see. Intent. The after-image of grey felt by Beuys blooms into a colored mural in someone else's life a continent away, a heart away. That close.

I am not driven, so much, by intentions, as I am stunned into being by intent.

One starlit night in October I was sitting with my dear friend, Dylan Morgan. Dylan of the wide Texas mind. Dylan who first introduced me to Eduardo Galeano's Memoria de fuego. Dylan who read books and painted everyday. A friend of his had copied all of his paintings for the year, some 400 of them, and they were placing them in small binders. I looked through all of them, some I knew from the painting of them, some from their description or the set they belonged to: Kathe Kollwitz, Tamayo, contemporary photo-docs, . . . I stopped at a small painting of a man playing the violin seated among the espinas of a cactus in a field of Van Gogh yellow. Something about his face, some challenge: to do! I set it in front of me. I wanted to buy that painting. Next was a blurry vision of boys & drunk men in a cantina. Next, a faceless war scene; a man holding the lifeless body of a child. The last was one of the last in the pile: "DRIVE!" I thought—a woman wearing my grandmother's scarf on her head holding her hands in front of her on the steering wheel of the go-nowhere car. I stared into that pic, those starfish hands, deciding. Somewhere inside, the printer in me, the craftperson, my grandmother said: "This would make a great cover!" (Something about the immediacy of the "arrow" on the right that drives one to act, to open.) And I laid it out on the floor in front of me with the others—in the form of a Tarot cross. I was moving to Boulder. It was always my intention to purchase some of Dylan's paintings. Soon I would have a salary. Dylan interrupted my ruminating by handing me a book by Argentinian poet in exile, Juan Gelman. I opened it at random to a poem that would change my life forever, that's how much it spoke to me: "You Are." I sat there, stunned, gonging, my thoughts in a stammer. I picked up the four and gazed at them, in the order they appear in this book. Not deciding. At the last, I said again, thinking of my favorite lived line of poetry by Robert Creeley: "DRIVE!"

And knew I had a book. I had four. And, a face.

The books are intended to be read in any order the reader desires. They are bound together in this edition for affordability and for carrying them with you, perhaps, like me, under some tree. Bound so that you don't have to worry about getting them dirty, books intended to be consumed with wine & cheese, pita & hummus, Soyrizo & tortillas organicas. A book that could serve as a table, a plate, a platform.

They are all, like us, distinctly different from the others but linked to some common phenomenology, some base language of Spirit where we thrive, an inheritance of disparate images, the over-abundance of flowering & decay under history & chance; this United State.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
posted by Lorna Dee Cervantes, 8/14/05, at 4:38 PM to http://lornadice.blogspot.com

For Dad, Visionary Artist, Luis Cervantes (11/1/23 - 4/27/05) ~ "5"

About Play - Author's Note

Play owes its being to Natalie Goldberg for a variation of her writing exercise in Writing Down the Bones. We write down the first thing we think of: a writing topic, a word, a phrase ("First thought, best thought.") and place it in a hat. We pull out a slip of paper and I time-keep: seven minutes. Then, we each read our poem out loud, either in a circle or "Quaker Meeting Style", as the Spirit moves us — but all have to read what is written. We go in rounds of 4 or 5. No comments. Just hearing the variations. Soon, the imagery and music interweave. Some of these poems are made up of 20 or so "shaggy" or "buttery" words written on the black-board. A few, are made up of random words taken from various poems (as indicated by the titles).

I call these my "7-Minute poems." All are unrevised except for punctuation. All are spontaneous, with given titles. They are centered spokes in the wheel, as they remain.

Note to David — Author's Note to Letters to David: An Elegiac Mass In the Form of A Train

from Journal Entry — April 25, 1984



Today, goddamned David Kennedy drank himself to death. After holing up in a Palm Beach hotel suite he was found on the floor of his room between two king-sized waterbeds.

Two beds! It rang through my ears like a mantra. Two beds. $250 a day he paid for that room & most of the time he stayed in the downstairs bar. Cops couldn't find evidence of any hard drugs, only the vodkas and grapefruit juice the bellhops said he drank steadily from 8 in the morning until 12 at night every day.

I picked the paper off the kitchen table which is mostly littered with my books from the night before: Prescott's Conquest of Mexico & Conquest of Peru, The Fall by Albert Camus, an aesthetics anthology, Portrait of the Artist As A Young Dog by the Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas, A Handbook of Style, The MLA Guidelines for submitting papers, Nathaniel West's Day of the Locust, Marcuse's One Dimensional Man. I start reading the accompanying articles about the trials & tribulations of life as a Kennedy as I pick up my, by now, lukewarm coffee and head back to the room, over-stepping the fish-hooked shards of glass from a broken lightbulb.

"When he was only 12 years old, young David stayed up in his hotel room late at night and watched his father on television. A family friend found him seated in front of the set switching the channels to the different news broadcasts to watch the tape play over and over. The friend recalled that there were no tears, only a look of stunned horror."

"The day before, on a family outing, the senator had saved David's life when the boy was being swept away in an undertow."

I remember the day Robert Kennedy was assassinated. I remember it better than when the President was shot. I felt it more. I was in the seventh grade, and that was the first year I was ever truly aware of politics or the wars of the world. That was the day the next door neighbor poisoned my pet cat to keep it off her lawn. I remember the sweet smell, like bitter almonds some say but to me it smelled like she was was vomiting rock candy. When I found her I could tell by the way she looked at me that it was too late to save her. I didn't even bother to call anyone. Just held her stiff, wretching body & I remember I didn't cry. I felt solid, smooth, like ice but dry, warm. I remember the sun that June morning. It burned the hairs on my arms & I remember how strange the heat felt, like needles of radiation entering in through the pores in my skin. It was numbing me. I held her on the ground. She was too convulsive to hold in my arms and I tried to tell her that. The ants around us were swarming as if excited by the smell of her cooling flesh. I stopped watching her die and smashed ants. Sick. They were so many frantic kamikazis. I wondered if it was a sin. So much minute life snuffed out could leave a blotch on my soul like murder.

I put the paper down and go to the desk by the window. Under it is a cardboard box where I keep a lot of old stuff. In case there's ever a fire, I plan to heave it out & then jump out after it. I don't even have to look for the diary. I know exactly where it is. I reach in between the notebooks and pull it out. I turn the leaves to the page as I lie back in my bed. "June 2, 1968. Today, Robert Kennedy was shot! Kitty died."

That was the day I learned the word: apocalyptic.


~ L.D. Cervantes

Dylan Morgan - From Author's Note to DRIVE: The First Quartet

I am not driven, so much, by intentions, as I am stunned into being by intent.

One starlit night in October I was sitting with my dear friend, Dylan Morgan. Dylan of the wide Texas mind. Dylan who first introduced me to Eduardo Galeano's Memoria de fuego. Dylan who read books and painted everyday. A friend of his had copied all of his paintings for the year, some 400 of them, and they were placing them in small binders. I looked through all of them, some I knew from the painting of them, some from their description or the set they belonged to: Kathe Kollwitz, Tamayo, contemporary photo-docs, . . . I stopped at a small painting of a man playing the violin seated among the espinas of a cactus in a field of Van Gogh yellow. Something about his face, some challenge: to do! I set it in front of me. I wanted to buy that painting. Next was a blurry vision of boys & drunk men in a cantina. Next, a faceless war scene; a man holding the lifeless body of a child. The last was one of the last in the pile: "DRIVE!" I thought—a woman wearing my grandmother's scarf on her head holding her hands in front of her on the steering wheel of the go-nowhere car. I stared into that pic, those starfish hands, deciding. Somewhere inside, the printer in me, the craftperson, my grandmother said: "This would make a great cover!" (Something about the immediacy of the "arrow" on the right that drives one to act, to open.) And I laid it out on the floor in front of me with the others—in the form of a Tarot cross. I was moving to Boulder. It was always my intention to purchase some of Dylan's paintings. Soon I would have a salary. Dylan interrupted my ruminating by handing me a book by Argentinian poet in exile, Juan Gelman. I opened it at random to a poem that would change my life forever, that's how much it spoke to me: "You Are." I sat there, stunned, gonging, my thoughts in a stammer. I picked up the four and gazed at them, in the order they appear in this book. Not deciding. At the last, I said again, thinking of my favorite lived line of poetry by Robert Creeley: "DRIVE!"

And knew I had a book. I had four. And, a face.

Praise for DRIVE: The First Quartet from Martin Espada

Quote for Drive: The First Quartet

“This is a landmark work. Lorna Dee Cervantes is not only an important Chicana poet; she is an important American poet, and her voice comes to us again, after many years, at a time when we desperately need to hear that voice. In fact, there are many voices here: the voice of protest against the atrocities committed in the name of coffee and bananas, the voice of the suffocated poor in the barrio and Latin America, the voice of girls fighting to survive on the street, the voice of jazz from the 78s of the past, the voice of praise for ancestors and the next generation, all voices of the most profound energy, compassion, strength, wisdom. 'Come and see the blood in the streets,' Neruda wrote. Lorna Dee Cervantes knows the blood in the streets and the blood of the heart, the blood that spills and the blood that keeps us alive. Come and see.”

--Martín Espada

An Awfully Serious Girl Has Finished Her Book!

Yeah, me, too. (YEA!) But I mean Alison Stine, an Awfully Serious Girl has finished her first novel today. Agents line up here. Read my comments here to read about how I'd save her from the gutter, if necessary (a safer vow than the most common) just so she can do what she does and here. Follow the link to read a well-crafted poem.

And to read about this Awfully Serious Girl Shape-shifted Into Po' PoMo Mommy read Teresa Ballard In the Early Hours of Sky. I do. Anybody for a Po' PoMoMommy group blog? Not gender or inclination inclusive, but full-time parenting poets. Anyone who can relate to the line: "You just can't proof the new american epic while having a 10 year old screaming for french toast ("NOW!")."

And, who would you save from the gutter, if you had the choice to choose from anyone (alive) in the world? Humor me, and answer. I'll be off-blog for a while designing, proofing & awing.

The First Quartet

"I am not driven, so much, by intentions, as I am stunned into being by intent." (from author's note to DRIVE: The First Quartet)

The First Quartet: Age 25 - 50.

The Poets Quest. I want to write that, now, and so, I do.

And, it begs the question: "There is a next?" And, another, unvoiced, "There is another?" "To Whom?" An answer immeasureably quantum when squared. The Philosopher's Choice? The Next.

I don't want to finish this book.

I realise that now. Or, as it was expressed to a dear friend, "These things change as we do." But now that it is realized, noted, noticed, I must. And so, for the context, and the sub-

-there is a text. And the post. (off to it soon)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Some praise for the First Quartet, four days into the next:

1) For my mother, Rose, for the thorns & through the bramble, for loving me unconditionally. For saying; and all the ways she found of saying until the day she died: "That girl is a genius!" Whether it was true or not. For the lap of words, unconditionally, for the daily ritual read to me from the page, off the voice, tethered to the head or heart. For trusting—because she did not.

2) For my mother for loving my father, unconditionally, until the day she died, for saying more than once: "He was a real man" and meaning only the opposite gender, but in truth: A man walking in truth. There is such. But for the bramble and the thorn. The bruise and the blush.

3) For my father, for never abusing me.

4) For my father, for that "inner thing", for trusting the way it's done, its many-way. For his Susan, his true companion, for teaching me to hold to the Light; for his loving her until the day he died.

5) For my grandmother, who taught me to laugh, for her silent sexuality and her hidden tears, for her garden. And this talking to birds until the day I die, unconditionally.