As my first blog entry, I'm posting my two most recent poems (and the only submissions to literary magazine, so far...

this poem deals with potentially upsetting topics; read with care.

inspired by a line from a tara hardy poem (being a femme means finding the map that your grandmothers left you for how to survive and then wearing it) and the ensuing revelation that one cannot have a map when the past terrain has been disavowed.

On the evening of November 5th at Small World Coffee in Princeton, NJ, The Icarus Project’s Mad Gifts Art Show debuted. It proved an environment akin to the community from which it was borne: namely, an open, diverse, and creatively warm group of people. Many came specifically to support Icarus and see Mad Gifts – traveling from New York, Massachusetts, Philadelphia and other surrounding Northeastern areas – but the event also garnered locals who stumbled into the evening – sidetracked by the warm energy after acquiring their usual caffeine fix. The evening included spoken word, live music, and of course the perusing of the many inspired pieces adorning the café’s walls.

From http://forthelonghaul.org: I wrote this poem at 2AM; it’s dark, but no doubt a part of me as I stumble along in this journey of recovery. I have good days and bad, but no matter what I am happy to be alive.

Wonder

Sometimes i wonder,
why i even bother,
to engage in a world that doesn’t care whether i live or die,
because life is not an instrument,
measured and anointed.
Free will is a mere nuisance,
where control is the jurisprudence.
But then why do we even try,
if our mark goes unnoticed,
our trace goes un-tracked.
Our voice muted by the violence,
of an ever growing tyrant,
whose name shall go unmentioned,
but whose deed shall give all nightmares.

I understand you, I do. 

This is a fun one! Aloha, Cindy