Servitude
Does she have to be so mean, I wondered. Just because she’s a witch doesn’t give her the right to be so snippy. A witch, so what? Anyone could be a witch, she’s not the queen of England for fuck’s sake. Maybe I should have been a bit more careful with that bowl of rice, but how was I supposed to know she was count to have to stop and count each little grain? She wouldn’t even let me clean it up, she had to do it herself, snapping about how I wouldn’t do it right, that I’d have miscounted. Whatever. As if I don’t know how to count, as if picking up spilled rice was too complicated a task for the likes of me. If she’d stayed out in her beloved garden for another 30 seconds I would have had it cleaned up and she never would have even known. It’s not even a garden these days, more of an overgrown weed patch, all full of nettles and poison ivy. Hell, if she hadn’t come flying around the corner like a mad-woman and scared me half to death I probably would never have dropped the damn basket in the first place. Oh well. Let her count her rice, maybe she can cook it to for once. I’m not her god-damn slave, after all. I don’t know why I’m always the one who has to do all the cooking. And the cleaning, for that matter. Just thinking about scrubbing out all her nasty caldrons is making my fingers ache. Some of those must had been left sitting around for weeks! I don’t even want to think about what she’d been mixing up in them originally…love potions made with guts of toad and beauty teas brewed from burnt up bat wings. Yuck. Who drinks those things? I can’t believe people actually pay her for that crap. She knows as well as the next batty old broad that they don’t do damn thing. Personally I think she’s on a mission to create the most foul tasting, evil brew possible, just to see some sap actually choke it down. I think she gets her kicks from it. I guess it serves the suckers right, coming around here asking for love potions in the first place. And on top of that, they say she’s the best! She actually has a national reputation for this gunk she bottles. Lord above! What has the world come to when that’s what passing for magic these days. It’s just mad, I say, mad.
Inspiration
I’m Explaining a Few Things
You are going to ask: and where are the lilacs?
and the poppy-petalled metaphysics?
and the rain repeatedly spattering
its words and drilling them full
of apertures and birds?
I’ll tell you all the news.I lived in a suburb,
a suburb of Madrid, with bells,
and clocks, and trees.From there you could look out
over Castille’s dry face:
a leather ocean.
My house was called
the house of flowers, because in every cranny
geraniums burst: it was
a good-looking house
with its dogs and children.
Remember, Raul?
Eh, Rafel? Federico, do you remember
from under the ground
my balconies on which
the light of June drowned flowers in your mouth?
Brother, my brother!
Everything
loud with big voices, the salt of merchandises,
pile-ups of palpitating bread,
the stalls of my suburb of Arguelles with its statue
like a drained inkwell in a swirl of hake:
oil flowed into spoons,
a deep baying
of feet and hands swelled in the streets,
metres, litres, the sharp
measure of life,
stacked-up fish,
the texture of roofs with a cold sun in which
the weather vane falters,
the fine, frenzied ivory of potatoes,
wave on wave of tomatoes rolling down the sea.And one morning all that was burning,
one morning the bonfires
leapt out of the earth
devouring human beings –
and from then on fire,
gunpowder from then on,
and from then on blood.
Bandits with planes and Moors,
bandits with finger-rings and duchesses,
bandits with black friars spattering blessings
came through the sky to kill children
and the blood of children ran through the streets
without fuss, like children’s blood.Jackals that the jackals would despise,
stones that the dry thistle would bite on and spit out,
vipers that the vipers would abominate!Face to face with you I have seen the blood
of Spain tower like a tide
to drown you in one wave
of pride and knives!Treacherous
generals:
see my dead house,
look at broken Spain :
from every house burning metal flows
instead of flowers,
from every socket of Spain
Spain emerges
and from every dead child a rifle with eyes,
and from every crime bullets are born
which will one day find
the bull’s eye of your hearts.And you’ll ask: why doesn’t his poetry
speak of dreams and leaves
and the great volcanoes of his native land?Come and see the blood in the streets.
Come and see
The blood in the streets.
Come and see the blood
In the streets!Pablo Neruda
25 Things I May or May Not Hate about Myself…
1. I wait tables. I grew up in restaurants. I think this has shaped me in unfathomable ways. I have always allowed the people I work with to become my family, and I have always allowed myself to become very much involved with my job, often too much so. My best friend told me I was in an abusive relationship with my place of employment, and I had to laugh becuase she hit so close to home. I just gave my two weeks, and I cried. I know in my soul, I will always be a part of this industry.
2. I really like to run away from things. I’d like to do this right now.
3. In a perfect world, there would always be fresh flowers in at least three rooms in my house. There are giant lavender spider mums next to me as I type this. I buy flowers that I know were probably grown in Chile and heavily dosed with harmful chemicals before they were shipped half way around the world, in the dead of winter. I feel guilty about this, but continue to do it anyway.
4. I love nail polish. I view this the same way I view my love of cut flowers.
5. My red leather jacket is currently my favorite article of clothing. I have mixed feelings about this.
6. I’m in love with a boy who’s nothing but trouble and I’m sure he feels exactly the same way about me. I have mixed feelings about this also.
7. I feel a little crazy, most of the time.
8. My best friends are my life; I miss them both dearly.
9. I don’t want children because I don’t think I’m responsible enough to be a parent. But I secretly find myself thinking babies are cuter every day. Perhaps my biological clock is ticking…?
10. I do think diamonds are a girl’s best friend, because when it comes right down to it, a kiss may be grand but it won’t pay the rental on your humble flat or help you at the automat.
11. I’m not serious about number 10. I am serious about wage reform and a living minimum wage, however. I don’t think anyone, let alone any American, should have to choose between medicine and heat. I am serious about civil rights, women’s rights, and the right to choose, I’m serious about the right to healthcare and to happiness, and lately I don’t know what the hell to do about it.
12. I like to start things I can’t finish.
13. When I graduate with a BA in a year and a half, I don’t anticipate feeling like I know what I’m doing anymore than I do now. I’m okay with this, and remain convinced I’m doing the right thing. This may partially be because so many people have questioned me for doing it.
14. I like to read. I don’t like popular fiction. I don’t know why, or care.
15. I think anything miniature or small is cute.
16. I like to push things up to the edge; sometimes I push too far.
17. I miss Michigan. I miss in a way that tells me I can never go back.
18. I have seven tattoos. I expect to get several more.
19. I’m not afraid of all that much. I do have a serious phobia of hypodermic needles, and of anything which goes on just beneath the skin. It’s making me squirm just to write this. I know it’s irrational.
20. I love the sea. I love the moon. I miss the Atlantic coast. I don’t think I could live inland. I tried it once and it was ugly. I’m learning to love the Pacific, I’m learing to own its wildness, and as a result, my own.
21. I hate amusement parks, especially water parks. I cannot stress this enough.
22. I’m a consummate procrastinator. The only reason I’m filling this out is because I have some things which I need to deal with but can’t bear to face just yet.
23. I’m trying to figure out the difference between who we are and what we are.
24. I attach sentimental value to material things. I have a pair of porcelain lamps my parents found at an estate sale before I was born. They’ve moved with me from New York to Michigan to Washington. They’re both cracked. They need to be rewired and are most likely a fire hazard. However they still work and I’m using one of them right now. I plan to keep them for eternity.
25. I live in the moment.
Cherry Lips
Red-headed little bitch
let me tell you something.
Your sweet black-cherry lips
won’t stop the story I’ve got,
won’t save you.
free association
alter.sacrafice. pain.giving.martyr.dom.perignon.champange.celebration.
“Why you askin’ for a quarter, girl? You got a goldmine between your legs.”
Cunt.
by inga musico.
Read it.
All of you.
Can we take the time to get it right?
I’m a cut-and-paste poet; I’ll fake it til I know it, I’m a new world seamstress in wanton distress, ripping open my own sleek silk dress, a cast away in the middle of this busy port, too mad with love or longing to stem the losses or stop the reports, watching my ships sail in and out again, my women crying after their missing men, my steamboats running upriver, heavy with rum and gun runners, dirty with brand new money, and tired old honies, wheels churning and pouring in a liquid roar, I’m a freedom fighter in this endless war, I’m a sweet English captain with a raw pirate crew, I am me and I am you.
