Francesca Lia Block poems

respectfully lifted from 2ktwelve.com

Extinction - by Francesca Lia Block

the earth was crying trying to cool

her blistered skin with tears

the polar bears died without their ice

those sad little fishes

the birds with burnt wings

what have they done to us

what will they keep doing how will they ever stop

the children ran from the bombs

continents reared up and the oceans swallowed people whole

the men wondered how to change anything without a gun

in the darkness women ate chocolate and wept

yearning for their unfound partners and babies

as if to be alone were the end of the world

and yes it felt that way

because we must all have someone to hold someone to hold us

through an apocalypse

what can we do what can we do we cried

how is this anything writing these poems of devotion

posting these images of transformation

winged dogs girls with clocks in their heads

how is this anything

holding our babies

and touching our lovers as if they were lost parts of god

this is all we can do

the night descends but love though vulnerable

indestructible

like the little girl with brown curls and sprinkled freckles

who ran into my arms today

i’m airplane, the saber tooth cat, she said

please play with me i won’t ever

leave

magick is radical - by Francesca Lia Block

this little boy says he can understand what cats say
and i believe him he looks like one
slight and feline black hair shiny smooth as fur
but he also tells me magic isn’t real
repeating what someone has given him
thinking it was a gift, a tool
magic isn’t real
only pretend

i know another little boy whose daddy tells him
you can do anything if you believe it enough

what if we all learned that at such a young age
like grammar and arithmetic
what if our parents teachers leaders believed it too
not the magick of tricks
or the will
but that true, pure stream of never ending
possibility?

could we fly? find our true loves? our true work?
end wars and poverty?

like my daughter who wrote in her composition book
i wish i had magick
if i had magick i would save
the world

the stuckist manifesto: Against conceptualism, hedonism and the cult of the ego-artist.

I remember liking this page when i first found it years ago, and wanting it to influence my lifestyle. every now and then I revisit it.

The Stuckist Manifesto 

some excerpts:

 The Stuckist is not a career artist but rather an amateur (amare, Latin, to love) who takes risks on the canvas rather than hiding behind ready-made objects (e.g. a dead sheep). The amateur, far from being second to the professional, is at the forefront of experimentation, unencumbered by the need to be seen as infallible. Leaps of human endeavour are made by the intrepid individual, because he/she does not have to protect their status. Unlike the professional, the Stuckist is not afraid to fail.

• The Stuckist is not mesmerised by the glittering prizes, but is wholeheartedly engaged in the process of painting. Success to the Stuckist is to get out of bed in the morning and paint. 

 The amateur, far from being second to the professional, is at the forefront of experimentation, unencumbered by the need to be seen as infallible. Leaps of human endeavour are made by the intrepid individual, because he/she does not have to protect their status. Unlike the professional, the Stuckist is not afraid to fail.

•  The ego-artist’s constant striving for public recognition results in a constant fear of failure. The Stuckist risks failure wilfully and mindfully by daring to transmute his/her ideas through the realms of painting. Whereas the ego-artist’s fear of failure inevitably brings about an underlying self-loathing, the failures that the Stuckist encounters engage him/her in a deepening process which leads to the understanding of the futility of all striving. The Stuckist doesn’t strive — which is to avoid who and where you are — the Stuckist engages with the moment.

mermaids

lilies of the valley nymphs by Basia_AlmostTheBrave

what is this world coming to and what am i to do?

“What happens to people living in a society where everyone in power is lying, stealing, cheating and killing, and in our hearts we all know this, but the consequences of facing all these lies are so monstrous, we keep on hoping that maybe the corporate government administration and media are on the level with us this time.
Americans remind me of survivors of domestic abuse.
This is always the hope that this is the very, very, very last time one's ribs get re-broken again. ”
― Inga Muscio,



“I believe that there will be ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those who do the oppressing. I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the system of exploitation. I believe that there will be that kind of clash, but I don't think it will be based on the color of the skin...”
― Malcolm X


“Without the light, no chance; without the dark, no dance.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Year of the Flood


“Human understanding is fallible, and we see through a glass, darkly. Any religion is a shadow of God. But the shadows of God are not God.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Year of the Flood



“The art of living... is neither careless drifting on the one hand nor fearful clinging to the past on the other. It consists in being sensitive to each moment, in regarding it as utterly new and unique, in having the mind open and wholly receptive.”

― Alan Watts


"All this seems marvelously futile, and yet, when you begin to think about it, it begins to be more marvelous than futile. Indeed, it seems extremely odd.”  -Alan Watts


“Our individuality is all, all, that we have. There are those who barter it for security, those who repress it for what they believe is the betterment of the whole society, but blessed in the twinkle of the morning star is the one who nurtures it and rides it in, in grace and love and wit, from peculiar station to peculiar station along life's bittersweet route.”

― Tom Robbins, Jitterbug Perfume




“Life is like music for its own sake. We are living in an eternal now, and when we listen to music we are not listening to the past, we are not listening to the future, we are listening to an expanded present.”

― Alan Wilson Watts



“This is the real secret of life -- to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.”

― Alan Wilson Watts



“Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.”

― Kahlil Gibran

 “Be wild; that is how to clear the river. The river does not flow in polluted, we manage that. The river does not dry up, we block it. If we want to allow it its freedom, we have to allow our ideational lives to be let loose, to stream, letting anything come, initially censoring nothing. That is creative life. It is made up of divine paradox. To create one must be willing to be stone stupid, to sit upon a throne on top of a jackass and spill rubies from one’s mouth. Then the river will flow, then we can stand in the stream of it raining down.”

― Clarissa Pinkola Estés,



“Your powers are what you always have with you. It’s one piece of knowledge we all share here. No matter how many dossiers the government keeps on you, no matter what data your enemies have collected, no one knows your powers the way you do. Everyone has seen them on TV. For everyone else, it’s a momentary fantasy. They don’t have to take them into the kitchen, the bathroom, and the bedroom. Or wake up in the night in flames, or sweep up shattered glass in their apartment, or show up late for work with a black eye. No one else knows where they itch or bruise you, or has tried the things you’ve tried with them when you were bored or desperate. No one else falls asleep with them and finds them still there in the morning, a dream that won’t disperse upon waking.”

― Austin Grossman, Soon I Will Be Invincible

good news and stuff i like

wild orchard: a food forest grows in seattle

sweden adopts a gender- neutral pronoun
swedish preschool eliminates gender

progress

queering the hip-hop tradition

merpeople

Meet Eric, 22, who lives life as a MERMAN swimming underwater in Florida's springs wearing a latex tail When Eric Ducharme slips into his handmade fin to explore the crystal clear waters of Florida’s natural springs as a merman, he says he’s mentally transported as well. So is the unique, eye-catching life of this Florida man who says he eats, sleeps and breathes mermaids while physically looking and acting like one as often as time allows.