Reading Rainbow

Coming across this piece by Olaf Hajek I immediately thought of Reading Rainbow. If you were born in the 80's or earlier you definitely know what I'm talking about. There's something quite conforting about being read to. Thanks dude from Star Trek!

Black Hole

Black Hole
In my way I pray, black hole take me away
and if it came today and sucked me away
I would jump right in and say
"Tomorrow is here today!"
in my way I pray, black hole take me away.

Mantra bound this skyward train,
like fanning flames
and I squeal out as I kneel and
summer rain.
But with this storm comes newly
born exit mundane.
mantra bound this skyward train,
like fanning flames...

Matt Himes from Shep and Me

photo by yours truly.

It's Only Natural

"Tears begin in the heart,
but some of us deny the heart so often, and for so long,
that when it speaks we hear not one but a hundred sorrows in the heartbreak.
We know that crying is a good and natural thing.
We know that crying isn't a weakness,
but a kind of strength.
Still,
the weeping rips us root by tangled root from the earth,
and we crash like fallen trees when we cry."

Gregory David Roberts, Shantaram

A Poem

We who are
your closest friends
feel the time
has come to tell you
that every Thursday
we have been meeting
as a group,
to devise ways
to keep you
in perpetual uncertainty
frustration
discontent and
torture
by neither loving you
as much as you want
nor cutting you adrift.
Your analyst is
in on it,
plus your boyfriend
and your ex-husband;
and we have pledged
to disappoint you
as long as you need us.
In announcing our
association
we realize we have
placed in your hands
a possible antidote
against uncertainty
indeed against ourselves.
But since our Thursday nights
have brought us
to a community
of purpose
rare in itself
with you as a natural center,
we feel hopeful you
will continue to make unreasonable
demands for affection
if not as a consequence
of your disastrous personality
then for the good of the collective.

Phillip Lopate

This poem made me laugh out loud. It also made me wish I could read it to some people in my life I just can't get rid of.

Page Turners

Having all this time on my hands has reconnected me with my inner bookworm and I must recommend two books I've been reading that have been quite hard to put down.



The first is a graphic novel, which has garnered alot of attention and later became a movie, Persopolis by Marjane Satrapi. A memoir in graphic novel form, it tells the story of the author growing up in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution. Funny, dry and poignant it's about how a young girl can survive a war while also surviving adolescence and growing up during a time of political upheaval in a world torn apart.


Shantaram, by Gregory David Roberts, is the story of an Australian bank robber and crack addict who escapes prison and flees to India. The novel follows his life transforming experiences in the slums and in Mumbai. Largely fictional, the story is based on the author's real life experiences as the protagonist.
This book I've been reading off and on because it's a bit longer and the intensity of some of the chapters (revolving around inprisonment and torture). With not much to go, it's definitely become one of my all time favorites. The author writes elegantly and really transports you to India and into his character which is ultimately seeking redemption. I'm a sucker for stories about redemption and lost souls trying to find themselves(Lost!).

Romance by Miranda July

"I made orange juice from concentrate and showed her the trick of squeezing the juice of one real orange into it. It removes the taste of being frozen. She marveled at this, and I laughed and said, Life is easy. What I meant was, Life is easy with you here, and when you leave, it will be hard again. The day felt like a birthday, our first, and we ourselves were the gifts, to be opened again and again.
...we pressed our legs against each other's legs, and these, too, were radically different sizes, and our curiosity was blossoming like a rose, we wanted to know, we really wanted to know, all the unknowable things about each other and how we were the same and how we were different, if we even were, maybe nobody is. We wanted to strike lightning in dark waters, to see, if only for a second, the entire world that lives down there, the ten millions species in amazing colors and patterns; show us life, now. We pressed our stomachs and lips together, and these too, were different sizes, but my lips were roughly the same size as her ear, and her arm, when wrapped around my waist, felt long and, more important, was warm.
We grew still and stared at each other. It seemed incredibly dangerous to look into each other's eyes, but we were doing it. For how long can you behold another person? Before you have to think of yourself again, like dipping the brush back in for more ink. For a long time; you didn't need to get more ink, there was no reason to get anything else, because she was as good as me, she lived on earth like me, suffered as I did. It was she who looked away and pulled the sheet to her chin."

One of the standout paragraphs from Miranda July's collection of short stories No One Belongs Here More Than You. I just finished the book and these past days it's fit perfectly into my melancholy mood.