Unabashed Anglophile's Journal

5:05am: What is this painting...
I found this painting and have no idea who painted it or what it is called. I feel like I should, but I don't. Who is going to help me????

3:53pm: A friendly reminder
Just in case you forgot, it's only two weeks until my birthday. In case you wanted to get me something and were torturing yourself about what, may I offer two lists I compiled?

Amazon

The Things I Want

8:48pm: glittery christmas!
If you would like to receive one of my super awesome Christmas cards this year, you should comment on this post.

AND if you think I don't know your address you should probably send it to me.

10:05am: something good
I don't post in forever except to do a meme. Wonderful! Contrary to popular belief I do read lj and if you would like me to post more, you should give me topics to post about...

You can tell what I have too much of in my iTunes.

P.S. Did I tell you that I love the Genius thing on iTunes???



( Music Meme )

2:02pm: leaving on a jetplane and a car and a bus and a train...
Yours truly is heading out...

The States: We're stepping back into history and heading to Colonial Williamsburg and Jamestown.

Europe: Prague, Vienna, and Budapest.


If you want anything like postcards, magnets, or pressed pennies let me know...

9:23pm: a strapping 60 year old
That's my dad:

Running Connected

9:47pm: don't let me fall in love with you
If this isn't a meme, it should be.

I'm in the midst of a mental crisis and these are the ten songs that are making my work worth living:

01. Car Door by Joe Firstman

And I'll open up your car door every time, as long as you can reach over and unlock mine...If you don't steal all the damn covers, you're gonna be alright with me...

02. Wedding Dress by Matt Nathanson

Even at my best I want to let go...

03. Save Your Best by Steve Reynolds

Chart your course for the coast for we won't be lovers and then leave it undone...

04. All The King's Horses by David Geraghty

Love goes down the drain differently at the other side of the world to me. I still wait there, that's what I'll do and keep a spare seat for you...has the bridge been burned that draws the way home for me...

05. Back of My Hand by Gemma Hayes

Come on and give me your heart, write it on the back of my hand and say it's forever. Well we never really said goodbye, kinda left it in the air and as the train pulled off I knew you loved her more...

06. Answering the Door by Rachael Yamagata

If I could save you boy, I'd do it a thousand times...

07. Waves and the Both of Us by Charlotte Sometimes

I want the moon and the stars. I want the whole nine yards. I take off your shirt, you pull up my skirt...

08. Wedding Song by Joe Firstman

And Jesus came running and Moses came too to watch as you danced through the noon, they watched as you danced through the afternoon, may I watch as you dance through the noon...

09. Miss Ater by Sally Jaye

The rain in Sylvester falls harder than anywhere like the devil's got his fist on your house and the dirt road and tobbacco fields looked the same for all these years like God forgot to finish this town...

10. If You Want Me To by Kyler England

Lying beside you don't want to lose this reckless feeling, scared out of my mind, what does it mean that look in your eyes...

9:34pm: i want to getaway
I need to go somewhere...preferably outside of the country, but I'm willing to go domestic. I have tax refunds burning a hole in my pocket...now all I need is a travel companion...

WHO WANTS TO TRAVEL WITH ME???

8:41pm: the swell season
Monday night we went to see The Swell Season (Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova) sing most of the songs from Once and some excellent extras.

The following are some notes in my head...


- Could Marketa Irglova be any cuter? She looked like a little doll. And she brought her sister up to sing....so cute!!!

- Glen is an intelligent, funny, articulate, witty, handsome man.

- Seriously!?!? A three-hour set...straight through...!?!?!

- The connection between those two is electric.

- Two Van Morrisson covers!

- A Radio City Music Hall sold out and interactive crowd.

- He compared the human heart to a lion driving a train on ice into rocks.

- Acoustics! Glen sang a song with no microphone. Just him and the guitar and it could be heard throughout the building.

- I love the Irish! Boys especially!

( Pictures )

10:16pm: The Office: Did I Stutter?
Some (hopefully) non-spoilery bullets from tonight's episode:

- Seriously!?!? Could I love Darryl any more?

- Newsies!

- Jim Halpert is my dream man.

- Stanley!

8:40pm: i don't feel like running but i can't stay
April is National Poetry Month and today is the last day of daily (or so) poems. I bring a humble offering...


    From the deep
humidity here I
sweat you out of me as it's too hot to
cry and I'm tired of swallowing
tears. I drip with the
anxiety of always being the
sad girl
With pretty eyes I melt
With the fear of forever
being The Hurricane From The East
instead of the badly needed
rain.

******************************************************

I am
longing for a simple life
with a boy who smokes, but
doesn't drink
who won't ask me to marry him 40
times a day
who won't
make me swallow my tears
the boy who
lets California teach him
a lesson,
but leaves when the instruction is finished
to sit on the front porch swing
with me
until we're 70.

******************************************************

    You look
pathetic on your
knees and my answer is
treason to your ears, but you're a
Bible Fearing Man and believe that after 40 days and 40 nights
there will be an olive branch.

    You ask again for
My Signature
My Blood
To Possess me with Your Name
To Fall asleep together
   you to be
My Last Love

    You look out from under shadowy eyes to say that you
Choose only me
Want my babies
To be yours, but

I look better in this sunrise love of
    ours
When you need me
But when the pink fades
And my vampire bitter cold appears
I'll make you sad

    wouldn't you rather
Want me than
Have me only to
Lose me

************************************************************

Long legs shorter than her dress
Pink bee stung lips
Licked by honey dripping tongue
Hair in her face

He's barely holding on

In mid-conversation with another man
He walks over and grabs her hand
Palms on her face
Blue eyes meet green
Thumb pushing stray hairs
Kissing her forehead and
Walking away.

5:19am: these globes and maps are all around us
April is National Poetry Month.

Topography
by Sharon Olds

After we flew across the country we
got in bed, laid our bodies
delicately together, like maps laid
face to face, East to West, my
San Francisco against your New York, your
Fire Island against my Sonoma, my
New Orleans deep in your Texas, your Idaho
bright on my Great Lakes, my Kansas
burning against your Kansas your Kansas
burning against my Kansas, your Eastern
Standard Time pressing into my
Pacific Time, my Mountain Time
beating against your Central Time, your
sun rising swiftly from the right my
sun rising swiftly from the left your
moon rising slowly from the left my
moon rising slowly from the right until
all four bodies of the sky
burn above us, sealing us together,
all our cities twin cities,
all our states united, one
nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

10:16pm: amid a crowd of stars
April is National Poetry Month.


Map
by Marin Sorescu
translated by Michael Longley and Joana Russell-Gebbett.

First let me show you with the pointer
The three parts of water
That can be seen very clearly
In my bones and tissues:
The water is colored blue.

Then the two eyes,
My sea stars.

The driest part,
The forehead,
Goes on carbon-copying
The wrinkles
Of the earth's crust.

This island of fire is the heart—
Inhabited, I seem to recall.
If I see a road
I think that's where
My legs should be,
Otherwise the road wouldn't make sense.

If I see the sea
I think that's where my soul should be,
Otherwise its marble
Would not make waves.

There are of course
A few other bright spots
On my body,
Such as my thoughts and experiences
Of tomorrow.

With the senses,
The five continents,
I describe two circles every day:
The merry-go-round around the sun
And the roundabout
Of death. . .

That, more or less, is the map of my world
Which will stay unrolled a little longer
In front of you.

8:02pm: she laughs in the crowds while her heart is all alone
April is National Poetry Month...and I missed a couple of days due to...stuff going on...

Friday 25 April

Mandala
by Melissa Morphew

The former tenant
glued her cabinets shut.
It took an entire Saturday
with hammer and chisel
to break the silicone seals.

He felt like an archaeologist
half-afraid of what he might find—
a shrunken head, a mummified hand,
discarded snake skins,
an embarrassment
of old love letters and patchouli .

But there was nothing—
just a scrim of dust, dulling
the blue and pink cartoon cats
who pranced upon the faded shelf paper.

So why? A fear of roaches or rats?

Would he wake one night
to find a bleary-eyed possum
ransacking his stash of Ramen noodles,
his cache of Uncle Ben’s long grain and wild rice?

He asked the landlord,
who shrugged. “She was an artist.”

And every time he reached
for some cumin or red wine vinegar,
he couldn’t help but wonder
whether she owned any dishes.

He imagined her—parchment thin,
head shaved like a Tibetan monk,
living off water and light,
high on turpentine,
attacking her canvases in a frenzy
of brush strokes which would leave her drained,
sated with pure pigment—
cobalt blues and cadmium reds.

Or perhaps her medium was colored sand—
month after month cajoling each grain
into a labyrinthine whorl and braid,
the Eight-Petaled Lotus of Smashana-Kali
laid out grid by painstaking grid
upon her living room floor.

He checked his vacuum bag for clues—
shards of glass, shredded peacock feathers,
a bit of skin, lizard bones, thistle stings,
a fiber or filament which might explain
such deliberate emptiness—

how any human
could court the echoes
of volcanoes and wishing wells,

the insistent drum
of her heart.


Saturday 26 April

The Curve of Her Thighs
by TJ Daniels

I never saw
the curve of her thighs.

We were never intimate
she and I.

But I know
as sure as I'm alive...

That I'd love
the curve of her thighs.


Sunday 27 April

Humidity
by Michelle Soares

The air is sticking to my thighs like evaporated honey sweet smelling breeze enough to lift but not move.
I am here rooted to this spot astutely aware of the unsteady course of me.
Watching Divinity dance in the horizon and finally hearing her song

BLASTING.

Im like astral projection understanding the value of grounding but mentally moving through shades of midnight
and the ethereal tones of heaven lighting my path.
Oh the humidity is thick and the sun is scorching my shoulder blades but the earth is cool and im rooted so i will never burn.
Yes the air is sticking to my thighs like evaporated honey sweet smelling breeze enough to lift but not move.

7:50pm: the world has gone angry and some people never learn
April is National Poetry Month.

Maps and Charts
by David Lewis Paget

For part of your voyage, Captain
I was there at the helm with you,
So young, and the world had flowered,
I caught my breath at the view;
But you stood grim, determined
And saw what I could not see,
You spoke of the storms and tempests
That I had coming to me.

Your words took shape, exploded,
Then burst at my head and heart
Like shooting stars in the sunset,
Like embers, glowed in the dark,
I lost so much of their meaning,
Ignored so much that was said
Your thoughts flashed bright on the water
Then dimmed, went out – despaired.

You tugged at my understanding
Set course for the verities,
I stood for so long behind you
That you merged with the skies and seas,
The breeze snapped long at the mizzen
The spinnaker billowed and flared,
I questioned the ship’s direction
But I doubt if you even heard.

We parted one brave morning
When I took a ship of my own,
Then you drove alone at the sunset
While I made sail to roam,
We’d each glimpse sights of the other
At sea, and in seaports new,
When we’d spark our flints together
As my understanding grew.

Then my storms and tempests claimed me
As you’d said they would at the start,
And sparks came back of your warnings
As I set my course by the stars,
And I tried to grasp your secrets
That had glimmered and glowed in vain,
But you’d set a course for the sunset
And never came back again.

So now in my darkened cabin
I pore over maps and charts
And I set each course for the helmsman
To look for your many parts,
I know that the journey shortens
As the planets wheel and turn,
And you wait for me at the sunset
Where our maps and charts are burned.

7:11pm: did you doubt the curve of the earth and every word...
April is National Poetry Month.

Woman Playing Guitar
by Larry Kimmel

Her breast
fit
like a fruit

in the curve
of the small guitar,

and I
would have been
her Picasso,

some
Spanish afternoon.

7:49am: slave to british boys who make british noise
artic_fox over on brit_actors posted a picspam of British Boys in honour of St. George's Day!

GO LOOK!

oh! the pretties!

7:32pm: i remember drinking pink champagne from your pink high heel shoes
April is National Poetry Month...


...and I'm back...

Becoming Pregnant
by Dónall Dempsey

We each
bake a cake.

Mine.
Precise ingredients.

Yours.
A snip of this
a snatch of that
a little what’s what!

“Trust me! ”
(you say)
“I know what I know! ”

Yours..rises
fluffy with delight!

Mine.
Refuses to rise
a hollow crown.

“Ah…did the big man’s cakeywakey
not risey! ”

You mock.

“You can eat
...mine! ”

You say in a Marie Antoinette way.

I am still despondent.

“Oh come here! ”
you comfort me

feeding me hot soft crumbly cake
from your mouth to mine.

you lead me up stairs

“Now, let’s see
about a bun
in the oven! ”

12:54am: art always serves beauty and beauty is the joy of possessing form
April is National Poetry Month.

I'll be away for a bit, so I'll post several from Boris Paternak as compensation.

Parting
A man out of the courtyard gapes,
Not knowing what to say.
Her leave was much like an escape.
The house is disarrayed.

There’s chaos all around the room.
He cannot comprehend,
Because of tears, because of gloom,
The damage’s extent.

He hears a ringing in his ears.
Perhaps he’s going mad?
How come the notion of the seas
Is growing in his head?

When icy windows block the light
And one can barely see,
The suffocating grief is like
The desserts of the sea.

He dearly loved all of her traits
And he and she were close,
Like shores are intimate with waves
Along the whole wide coast.

Like rushes, after passing storms,
Can drown in the tide,
So drowned all her features, forms,
Within his soul that night.

In time of conflicts, struggles, when
His life had lost its sense,
The wave of fortune brought her in
To him out of the depths.

Through obstacles, in a frenzied stir,
From hazards they had steered.
These waves had carried, carried her
Until they brought them near.

And now, she suddenly took off.
Yes, she was overpowered!
The parting will consume them both,
By grief, they’ll be devoured.

The man now overlooks the place.
Before she left, she tossed
Out of the cupboard in a haste
Her dresses and her clothes.

He wanders, and until the night,
He folds the stuff she scattered.
Into the drawer on the side,--
Her scrap, her sewing patterns.

Next to her work, he slowly kneels.
The needle’s pointing up.
Before him she again appears,
And he begins to sob.

( Winter Night )

( Meeting )

5:27pm: do not fear death so much, but rather the inadequate life
April is National Poetry Month.

Parting
by Bertolt Brecht

We embrace.
Rich cloth under my fingers
While yours touch poor fabric.
A quick embrace
You were invited for dinner
While the minions of law are after me.
We talk about the weather and our
Lasting friendship. Anything else
Would be too bitter.

8:10pm: that i was holding you like you were mine
April is National Poetry Month.

spoke joe to jack
by ee cummings

spoke joe to jack

leave her alone
she's not your gal

jack spoke to joe
's left crashed
pal dropped

o god alice
yells but who shot
up grabbing had
by my throat me

give it him good
a bottle she
quick who stop damned
fall all we go spill

and chairs tables the and
bitch whispers jill
mopping too bad

dear sh not yet
jesus what blood

darling i said

7:57pm: music meme
Stolen from voleuse

List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they're not any good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying now, shaping your spring. Post these instructions in your LJ along with your 7 songs.

01. Chitown Tonight::Joe Purdy

02. The Summer Dress Step::Cameron McGill

03. Life is Beautiful::Vega 4

04. Rise::Will Dailey

05. As Lovers Go::Dashboard Confessional

06. All the Wild Horse::Ray LaMontagne

07. Like Lovers Do::Heather Nova

9:28pm: i don't care anymore who sees this mess 'cause you're the only one i'm trying to impress
April is National Poetry Month.

Summer in the South
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

The Oriole sings in the greening grove
As if he were half-way waiting,
The rosebuds peep from their hoods of green,
Timid, and hesitating.
The rain comes down in a torrent sweep
And the nights smell warm and pinety,
The garden thrives, but the tender shoots
Are yellow-green and tiny.
Then a flash of sun on a waiting hill,
Streams laugh that erst were quiet,
The sky smiles down with a dazzling blue
And the woods run mad with riot.

9:33pm: where your last breath and word had been sighed
April is National Poetry Month.

Before Summer Rain
by Rainer Maria Rilke

Suddenly, from all the green around you,
something-you don't know what-has disappeared;
you feel it creeping closer to the window,
in total silence. From the nearby wood

you hear the urgent whistling of a plover,
reminding you of someone's Saint Jerome:
so much solitude and passion come
from that one voice, whose fierce request the downpour

will grant. The walls, with their ancient portraits, glide
away from us, cautiously, as though
they weren't supposed to hear what we are saying.

And reflected on the faded tapestries now;
the chill, uncertain sunlight of those long
childhood hours when you were so afraid.

9:59pm: so rain on the pretty ones...
I have made another executive decision (if you know me, you know I make many).

Joaquin Phoenix is hands down one of the best actors, maybe even my favourite...AND incredibly HOT!!! What can I tell you, I'm a sucker for scars.

His sister, Summer Phoenix, is possibly one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen!

( Click for the Pretties )

It's been almost 15 years since River died? Seems close to yesterday...