Dedicated

'Dark to Light' painting by Raewyn Alexander now in Adam Gillitt's collection in San Francisco

Last night at Poetry Live, where I went to see a South American poet, Saray Torres de Riddell read in Spanish and English,  http://www.poetrylive.co.nz/http://www.poetrylive.co.nz/  and enjoyed her performance, some of the open mic poets were also excellent and I was sorry I had to leave early. I read these two poems below which I posted here as third or fourth drafts some time ago. I think they're finished now, (as much as a poem ever is quite edited).

These are dedicated to my friends in America where I've just been for a month, in Hawaii, (Anne Kennedy who I met up with there and know from home, by the way, has a book launch 10 May at Alleluya Cafe back in Tamaki Makaurau Auckland, Aotearoa NZ  - The Darling North - love the title http://beattiesbookblog.blogspot.co.nz/2012/05/darling-north-by-anne-kennedy.html, also, then I met my long-time online writer friends in San Francisco, Seattle, Iowa, Chicago and New York.

Meeting good people who you get along with and know a great deal about, friends you've only known online previously, is quite a wonderful experience. Understatement. Ha.

They kept me alive in some respects, now I think, looking back on what I wrote myself through over the last 12 years. Yes, I owe them my life and my sanity, (such as it is), I sought them out because I really needed to find them and was drawn by what I loved. Good writing. I can never thank them all enough, either.

We're artists, wizards and true stars, (we demand attention in various highly original ways, like the album I'm alluding to there http://www.allmusic.com/album/a-wizard-a-true-star-r17093/review ) and revealed much to each other over those years. Some of us others could call geniuses, (these things being somewhat subjective) and some pretend geniuses, http://www.pretendgenius.com/ but anyway we wrote about things in a certain way, critiqued severely, played hard and being highly sensitive we can still annoy or disturb each other or ourselves so much we have to disappear for a while, *puff of magic dust and sound of bells* this is no ideal arty paradise we inhabit and have built together, but a real-life gooderness, (besterness, or funnerness). This while we all share a strangely similar background too in some ways even if we live flung across the world, (yes, there are more of us elsewhere), which I discovered, but there's no need to reveal that here since it has almost nothing to do with the work.

Suffice to say we have a great deal in common beside our love of writing and many talents. I could tell before I met them this all was so, just had no idea how true or in what ways it would be proven.

So exciting. It was a real adventure.

I'd do it all again in a moment if I could.

Soho NYC April 2012

Wish I could be there now and see them all once more. Here back at work editing my short story collection, (soon to be on Kindle), helping out a local business with their PR and gearing up for my classes with Leisuretime Learning, (enrol now for May, do), http://www.leisuretimelearning.co.nz/course-catalogue/13-writing-creative-essay and so on, after my first holiday for 20 years as I've been saying, (but I realised today it is actually 23 years since I had a holiday, ha), things are certainly vastly different to what they were while traveling and meeting my wonderful friends for the first time ever in the vast U S A. What an enormous, idiosyncratic and diverse place. The country is breath-taking, grand, wildly organised and in many respects terrifyingly efficient with some stunning creative aspects which I gloried in.

Be happy for me. Believe me I've had enough sadness and trouble. I do not need any more.

I want this blog to inspire others to also follow their wish to connect more strongly with people they like and get along with, to seek out those who can enrich their lives for the better.  That give and take is the best antidote to any ill in existence - isn't it?

This is the best thing I know of, I'm sharing my experiences to provide ideas for others to also use. Please, do. (Love from me).

Now, I feel happier than I've been for a long while since my getting to know those fine people better, and also due to the effects of being on a large land mass which is so densely populated in places, yet empty in others and so intently run. I think it is possible I do not suit living in such a small place as this, my birthplace, even if I love my country and the people here. But for now anyway I cannot leave and can only write about what I love for the people who love me, (whoever you may be). Yes, this blog is really all about love.

There is a little movie at the end, too with some shaky footage from Centennial Park in Seattle. Apologies for my filming, I am still learning how to use the equipment. Eeep.

Two rewritten poems from earlier, as performed last night at Poetry Live.

The Sainted Ties of Seattle

near mountains closed with snow

many splendoured arrived slowly this time

the way concrete pours

or a stone's marked then sliced from a hillside

could say more but this is on

later or even while

someone cut one down with the alms of their handcraft

lipstick kisses on Jimi's granite relief portrait

a woman wandering for nothing bad

her woven steps as visible as ribbon water

kitten stories while the road keeps us

boisterous daffodils and a reach of white tulips

we rode the gravel of talk

under a motorway where earth eyes one hubcap

button for the scent future

---

difficult to say obvious strange

imagine these words are not in English

spoken by people at neighbouring tables

they're audible and understood

and yet I accept the need

to ignore them

even if they speak directly about something I love

or know

why the wind blows

sunshine

needlework subjects

childishness

battles to save what we imagine

lovely skin and a kiss

old age

we burn and everyone else notices

no one offers to throw on water or sand

until we laugh

halfway across the new world

a weight of voices in the tumbled clouds

other places I'm going yet

reputations and expectations are security guards

moats of messages

I'm a pottery urn

the light from under a door

and someone else's mother

stop making me 

up

terrified of my own tears

someone warned me I could faint in hot air

this latest restriction

conversation closed down for summer

people send out blossoms in funny stories

and we'd never walk upon them - would we?

is it too dangerous to even imagine?

cards instead

we play for points

add them onto the age we went through 

growing into ancient children

in public like a song title

and so now we sing

each with different words

simultaneously

both

made new by travel 

everywhere I run

across the walls

my arms stretched out for the centre

wishing I could hold 

you close

                                                           --- written on the hill overlooking picturesque Davenport, Iowa

---

This is a video on link below of a certain deer statue in Seattle and also, of Rainier Mountain, (which was previously called Little Tahoma Peak) from Centenial Park. Amy took me here and to other places which she loves, (it was a real privilege, thank-you).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpW3LOxQ4KI&feature=youtu.be

1892 - Waterhouse - Study of a Mermaid