Kizomba Karess by Tasleem

I am in love... his name is Kizomba, and he has swept me off, and sometimes on, my feet. I wish I could wake up to him every morning and sleep to him every night.
His embrace is like nothing I have felt before, his beat is in unison with mine, like we are two people moving as one, and it is easy to lose myself in his arms. Eyes closed, I surrender. Kizomba.

Don't hate me, but I am loving the rain today, 
especially earlier when it was a light sprinkle 
on my bare shoulders and cheeks. 
I didn't realize how much I needed its refreshment 
until it fell and I found myself smiling. 
Heavy rain now, but a lighter me. 
Must have washed away something that weighed on me, 
something that needed leaving.

Travelling by William Wordsworth... "This is the spot..."

Travelling
by William Wordsworth 

This is the spot:—how mildly does the sun
Shine in between the fading leaves! the air
In the habitual silence of this wood
Is more than silent: and this bed of heath,
Where shall we find so sweet a resting-place?
Come!—let me see thee sink into a dream
Of quiet thoughts,—protracted till thine eye
Be calm as water when the winds are gone
And no one can tell whither.—my sweet friend!
We two have had such happy hours together
That my heart melts in me to think of it.

She Let Go- by Jennifer Eckert Bernau

Without a thought or a word, she let go.

She let go of fear. She let go of judgements. 
She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head.

She let go of the committee of indecision within her. 
She let go of all the ‘right’ reasons.
Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry, she just let go.
She didn’t ask anyone for advice. She didn’t read a book on how to let go.
She just let go.
She let go of all the memories that held her back. 

She let go of all of the anxiety that kept her from moving forward.

She let go of the planning and all of the calculations about how to do it just right. 

She didn’t promise to let go. She didn’t journal about it.
She didn’t write the projected date in her Day-Timer. 
She made no public announcement. 

She didn’t check the weather report or read her daily horoscope.
She just let go.
She didn’t analyze whether she should let go. 
She didn’t call her friends to discuss the matter. 

She didn’t utter one word.
She just let go.
No one was around when it happened. 
There was no applause or congratulations.
No one thanked her or praised her. 
No one noticed a thing.
Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go.
There was no effort. There was no struggle. 
It wasn’t good. It wasn’t bad.
It was what it was, and it is just that.
In the space of letting go, she let it all be. 
A small smile came over her face. 

A light breeze blew through her.
And the sun and the moon shone forever more.
--------------------------------------
Here’s to giving ourselves the gift of letting go…
There’s only one guru ~ you.

I Failed Him and He Failed Me

I saw this poem the other day. The title grabbed my attention:

I Failed Him and He Failed Me
by Katie Ford

I failed him and he failed me—
Together our skinned glance makes a sorry bridge
For some frail specter who can't get through.

I failed him
but maybe it was the lamp that failed,
Maybe it was the meal,
Maybe it was the potter
Who would not intervene, maybe the clay,
Maybe the plateau's topaz, too steady to help,
Or was it the meat cut two days late, was it
The deciduous branch and its dull wait for bloom—

But I remember the small thing rotating in us
Towards hunger, how it did not fail to guide,
And that we made no request of our souls or all souls
Or the one perfectly distant soul
and so did not fail in what we did not do,
Never begging at the sky but moving
On the islands beneath it, hungry together by its rivers and bones.

Who told us we had failed
If not the human world gone wrong?
It was the world?
Ah, then we will fail again and again in the waters apart,
Bridging nothing, bridging nowhere
Towards what we, failures, are.

I decided to write my own version. Although the title is the same, I think the meaning of it is very different, maybe even opposite.  But I'll leave that up to your interpretation.

I Failed Him and He Failed Me- by Tasleem

I failed him and he failed me—
Destroying castles built over sands of many lifetimes,
Every grain swooped away by a single wave.

I failed him,
but maybe it was the lamp that failed,
revealing hidden strands of silver hair
or tiny wrinkles around my eyes

Or maybe I wasn’t perky enough or curvy enough,
Tanned enough or exotic enough.
Tummy wasn’t toned enough, or I didn’t jump high enough in the air.

Maybe it was my lack of strength. What did he call me? -fragile?
Or was it my free spiritedness,
"Which I know everyone loves’, he said, "but wouldn't fit my parents’ ideal."

He failed me
with his loving the sound of his own voice.
Those fabricated tunes, and repetitive chords
he played over and over were such a bore.

I stared at the guitar strings, wondering,
where the guy I had dreamed up had gone
-the one whose every note I had hung upon.

"I know the perfect place for ice cream," he said.
"Don't worry. We'll have fun."
But instead he left a bitter taste
I am still trying to wipe off my tongue.

He failed me,
At our first dinner at a fancy restaurant,
when he asked not once, but twice, to test out different wines,
as if we were still at the ice cream parlor,
and wine cost only a dime.

The waiter gave an impatient glance, 
I didn't know whether to laugh or run.

"I'm just really broke," he said during dinner,
while he sat taking photos of me with his new 1200 dollar Nikon.
"That was a good shot," he said. "It's the camera," he smiled.

Of course it is, I thought.

"I would love to take a girl out for a nice dinner," he explained.
And then preceded to describe how she'd walk, and talk and what she'd wear.
I think she had curlier hair than I did, and a sexier stare?

"I'll pay," he said.
"No, I got my part," I answered, shaking my head.

I failed him,
running across more than a country to see him
while he looked past me, as if blind.
But I continued to believe in him,
begging him for his time,

while she gave him none of hers.
-she just licked her lips, and strutted those hips,
which he decided to chase instead. 

I failed him.
giving too free, laughing too real, loving too strong,
I failed him, choosing him over me.
I failed him. I failed me.

© Tasleem

Ode to My Hands- by Tim Seibles

I read this the other day and thought it was just brilliant, so I wanted to share it with you.

"Five-legged pocket spiders, knuckled

starfish, grabbers of forks, why

do I forget that you love me:
your willingness to button my shirts,
tie my shoes—even scratch my head!
which throbs like a traffic jam, each thought
leaning on its horn. I see you

waiting anyplace always
at the ends of my arms—for the doctor,
for the movie to begin, for
freedom—so silent, such
patience! testing the world
with your bold myopia: faithful,
ready to reach out at my
softest suggestion, to fly up
like two birds when I speak, two
brown thrashers brandishing verbs
like twigs in your beaks, lifting
my speech the way pepper springs
the tongue from slumber. O!

If only they knew the unrestrained
innocence of your intentions,
each finger a cappella, singing
a song that rings like rain
before it falls—that never falls!
Such harmony: the bass thumb, the
pinkie's soprano, the three tenors
in between: kind quintet x 2
rowing my heart like a little boat
upon whose wooden seat I sit
strummed by Sorrow. Or maybe

I misread you completely
and you are dreaming a tangerine, one
particular hot tamale, a fabulous
banana! to peel suggestively,
like thigh-high stockings: grinning
as only hands can grin
down the legs—caramel, cocoa,
black-bean black, vanilla—such lubricious
dimensions, such public secrets!
Women sailing the streets
with God's breath at their backs.
Think of it! No! Yes:
let my brain sweat, make my
veins whimper: without you, my five-hearted
fiends, my five-headed hydras, what
of my mischievous history? The possibilities
suddenly impossible—feelings
not felt, rememberings un-
remembered—all the touches
untouched: the gallant strain

of a pilfered ant, tiny muscles
flexed with fight, the gritty
sidewalk slapped after a slip, the pulled
weed, the plucked flower—a buttercup!
held beneath Dawn's chin—the purest kiss,
the caught grasshopper's kick, honey,
chalk, charcoal, the solos teased
from guitar. Once, I played
viola for a year and never stopped

to thank you—my two angry sisters,
my two hungry men—but you knew
I just wanted to know
what the strings would say
concerning my soul, my whelming
solipsism: this perpetual solstice
where one + one = everything
and two hands teach a dawdler
the palpable alchemy
of an unreasonable world."
                                          -Tim Seibles

More magnets

This poem has been up on my fridge for a few weeks at least now.
It's another one I created with my fun little word magnets. You should get a pack! They are so addictive.

Rich life
like a sunrise
beautiful red light in our sky
a love surprise
gives change full thought
feels like flying
I could lie lost beneath every thick shadow
but he is always there
thought I can never see him
and his presence swallows dark days
for now there is only laugh-after
special mornings
and gentle night
fall as-sleep in a swarm of dandelions
and rain and him bring cool shivers.

(intentional misspellings to show how the magnet words came together to form new expressions or words that were not in the pack of magnets)

Lately, ...

"Lately, I've really wanted to give God a hug."- Tasleem

"Shall We Dance?"- A Too Cool Romance

To my great friends, Renee and Steve, on their wedding day. Thanks for inspiring this poem and reminding me what real love is all about.

...I believe that all great things and people that come together, are drawn together, and nothing can stop that. It's not about someone introducing them, or that they were in the right place at the right time. It's just destined to happen, no matter what. So it just clicks, naturally. And for all of you who have spent any time around Renee and Steve, you know that their connection is just that- so natural. It feels as if it has been there all the time. ...because, … well, …they were simply JUST MEANT TO BE.
...

“Shall we dance?” Steve asked with a smile.
“Of course!” said Renee; she liked his style.
Little did they know what lay in store,
as they headed out onto the floor.


For they weren’t just at any old dance,
Salsa at the Library held stories of romance.
Stacks of books in the room above hid,
historical tales of the workings of Cupid.


But Romeo had nothing on these two,
‘Cos Renee and Steve were between far and few,
a couple of young hearts set in motion,
driven it seemed by a LOVVVVE potion.


It didn’t take long for him to call her up,
“I need a few things for my place, and uhhh…a woman’s touch?
A table, some chairs- would you help me choose?”
“Oh, that voice,” she thought, “how could I refuse?”


She threw on some jeans
and a cute t-shirt,
And pressed her hair
with her pink straightener.


Out the door she was in a flash,
And after that day there was no looking back.
Each moment together was like heavenly bliss,
Must have been that first sweet kiss,


Or the night she just jumped onto his leg?
“I could kind of get used to this,” Steve said.
“She’s pretty cute, and spunky too.
Life with her is fun, it’s true.”


“I’m so lucky to have you,” said Renee.
“You’re funny, and always know just what to say.
Besides, I love your delicious cooking,
And you are pretty darn good looking.”


Steve said, “I like spending time with you too,
We should step this up a notch or two,
like share our dishes and appliances too?
I know, why don’t we live under one roof?”


So they moved in together, and created a home,
She pranced in pj’s while he chilled in the meditation zone.
And when they’d have dinner, or lay in bed,
she’d read to him, and he’d massage her head.


“There’s no place I’d rather be,
Even when watching Dr. Who on TV,
With you everything feels right,
I don’t wanna ever let you out of my sight,”
said Renee,… or was it Steve?


Okay, so maybe these weren’t their exact words
But play along ‘k? ‘Cos as you’ve already heard,
this is the story of the bride and the groom,
the couple we’re celebrating in this very room.


So let’s get to that exact part.
You know, when they decided to never be apart.


They flew to Maui where they soaked in the sun,
Steve found Koki Beach, where there was… no one.
“You dropped something,” he said, as they sat by the water.
Renee looked down, and you know what she saw there?
- something sparkling by the rocks at her feet.
Faster and faster her heart started to beat,
when she identified the thing as a ring,
and tears to her eyes did the sight bring.


Quickly Steve picked up on the cue,
and knew this was the moment he should do what he came to do.
“I’d like you to be with me for the rest of my life,
Will you be my beautiful wife?” he asked.
“Are you serious?” said Renee, “Are you sure?”
“Uhh… well, if you put it that way, I’m out the door!” said Steve.


“YES, yes, a million times yes,
Of all the days of my life, this is the best!” said Renee.
“Thank God, ’cos I wasn’t really going to leave,
but now that you’ve answered, I’m so relieved,” said Steve.


They hugged and kissed, bare feet kicking the sand,
And Renee admired the new band on her hand.
Steve said, “It sparkles, like your radiant eyes,
Let’s celebrate …with… some curly fries!”

“And ketchup?” reminded Renee
“Only the best for you, my fiancée!” said Steve.
They linked arms and skipped to the nearest bar,
And ate below the Hawaiian stars.


And THAT’S why they stand here, now man and wife,
So let’s wish for them a most magical life,
As today begins another chapter,
of their love story, happily ever after.

                                                                          ©Tasleem

Bones and Silence by Gerald Fleming

I woke up at 6am this morning, and couldn't get back to sleep. But I was too tired to actually get up and do anything. So... I checked my phone, just out of habit, and saw that there was another email from Poets.org in my inbox. When I clicked on it, this is what I found.  It was a great way to wake up. Started my day reflective, poetic, images personified in the most creative way.. mysterious, elusive, yet ironically clear.
I hope you enjoy it:

"A long time passes—long even in the understanding of stone—and at last Bone feels entitled to speak to Silence. There are prerequisites: proper depth, aridity, desiccation, ph balance, density, and a kind of confidence. No loam: say salt, say dust, say southwest Utah. And when the conversation occurs it is understood on Bone's part what to expect from Silence, so one could say that expectations were low, but such is a pattern of our thinking, and in this case the entire dry dialectic is different, and in fact expectations were high. There is a moon shining, unknown to Bone, intimate with Silence. There are mammals overhead, the noise of whose small feet are perceived or unperceived.

And after all this discursive talk, what at last does Bone say to Silence? What would you have Bone say to Silence? We could try Is there anywhere we can go for a beer? and that might get a little laugh, might qualify as ineffably human, almost religious. But we know better about Bone & Silence—need only look inside us, have the bravery to cease this chatter, this scrape of pencil on paper, to leave the rest of the book blank, get out of the way, let the conversation begin."
- Gerald Fleming

(from the book Night of Pure Breathing)

Poetry in Motion- Brandon Wint featuring Claude Munson

"There is a story in everybody, there is a story in EVERY BODY."


POETRY IN MOTION - Brandon Wint feat Claude Munson from Craig Allen Conoley on Vimeo.

A Short History of the Apple- by Dorianne Laux

The crunch is the thing, a certain joy in crashing through living tissue, a memory of Neanderthal days.
—Edward Bunyard, The Anatomy of Dessert, 1929

Teeth at the skin. Anticipation.
Then flesh. Grain on the tongue.
Eve's knees ground in the dirt
of paradise. Newton watching
gravity happen. The history
of apples in each starry core,
every papery chamber's bright
bitter seed. Woody stem
an infant tree. William Tell
and his lucky arrow. Orchards
of the Fertile Crescent. Bushels.
Fire blight. Scab and powdery mildew.
Cedar apple rust. The apple endures.
Born of the wild rose, of crab ancestors.
The first pip raised in Kazakhstan.
Snow White with poison on her lips.
The buried blades of Halloween.
Budding and grafting. John Chapman
in his tin pot hat. Oh Westward
Expansion. Apple pie. American
as. Hard cider. Winter banana.
Melt-in-the-mouth made sweet
by hives of Britain's honeybees:
white man's flies. O eat. O eat.

(-from The Book of Men, published by W.W. Norton & Co.)

Pieces of Me

Shoulders drop, deep exhale.
No one knows who I am here.
But I swear the wind just whispered
“Stay a little.”

So I follow the hand that gently guides me from behind,
An invisible touch
but powerful in helping me find
exactly where I am meant to be.

My heart is the only map
I need here.

Open. Many roadways,

But nothing to fear.

Instead, I skip to the beat of the sun,
Or the sway of the moon’s midnight hum.

I spill my dreams
to other wanderers on the street,
‘Cos their ears bear no judgment,
and not a secret do their lips leak.

Funny how sometimes it’s in these strange lands
that I feel more at home
than at family reunions,
or in the city in which I’ve grown.

Foreign soil and sands welcome me
as if I had treaded on them long ago,
felt their grains between my toes.
But somehow, I forgot over time,
that these places were once mine

That this is where I belong,
Singing my own song,
Under neither a canopy or roof,
But a wide open sky
with endless spotlights
- flickering “fly, fly fly!”

Voices sneaking under my skin,
A collective mix of all the places I have been…

They are tunes that will never die
Even after every goodbye,
something of each city-
even if just a tiny part-
settles deep within my heart.

Each journey- another piece,
leading me back to the start.
                                         © Tasleem

Dropping Keys

"The small man builds cages for everyone he knows. While the sage, who has to duck his head when the moon is low, keeps dropping keys all night long for the Beautiful Rowdy prisoners."-by HAFIZ

Thank you to the "stranger" who posted this on his profile on the internet. Whoever you are, you have great taste. I have never heard this quote before, but it is now one of my favorites. I love it.

If he were a colour...

(inspired by India Arie's "Complicated Melody")

"If he were a colour, he'd be mysterious midnight blue
I could feel him, with my eyes closed. I wouldn't even need a clue.
He'd feel like home- where I fit in, where I belong.
He'd be the last line to my every song.
If he were a sound, he'd be gentle windchimes, and waves- calm.
He would be the something real that I'd rest my head upon."
-Tasleem

QUIETNESS by Rumi

I try to make it so that a poem by Rumi is the first thing I read every morning.

Here's one that speaks to me, and I'm not even sure why. But that's what Rumi's poetry is like. You have to sit with it, or let it fall into place in your mind or heart over the course of the day, or week or maybe even longer. Maybe it will come to me in a moment of quietness or silence.

QUIETNESS

Inside this new love, die.
Your way begins on the other side.
Become the sky.
Take an axe to teh prison wall.
Escape.
Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.
Do it now.
You're covered with thick cloud.
Slide out the side. Die,
and be quet. Quietness is the surest sign
that you've died.
Your old life was a frantic running
from silence.

The speechless full moon
comes out now.

Magnetic Moments

Playing around with the magnetic words on my fridge awhile back, this is what I came up with. It's been up on my fridge for a few months now, but every now and again, I look back and am suprised to see the message. Today was definitely one of those days and I needed it. I guess there was a reason I kept it up there for so long:

dance hard and loud for
this is your turn to
rise out from the night shadow
& fly above like a
sun in our sky and
take this rich life by storm*.
(*last line inspired by LLCOOLJ's Mama's Gonna Knock You Out, no doubt-haha!: "I'm gonna take this itty bitty world by storm, and I'm just gettin warm!")
-------------

he has that light I thought
time swallowe-ed gentle but like a
beautiful surprise* full moon wander-ing
sculpture of change which know-s and
feels every dandelion fall
between me and him
love lost soon gives round to laugh-er and happy days.

(*most likely a subconscious "borrowing" of India Arie's song title Beautiful Surprise).

Sonnet #116

On this Valentine's Day, I thought I would share with you one of my favorite love poems. That Shakespeare was a smart man!:

Sonnet #116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

-William Shakespeare (1564 - 1616)

Rumi

I've been feeling a little lost and unsure of things in the past couple of days. I have nothing to complain about, but just didn't know how to fill the holes that seem to be popping up around me. No one else can see them, but I could feel them, and felt silly or selfish for not appreciating what I DO have. Sometimes, life can be like that. And you just can't figure out what it is you're missing.

But friends and poetry... company and words that pop up at the right moment- can switch something in your mind or heart. They can shift your thoughts suddenly, unexpectedly, but effectively. That's what a few lines from Rumi did for me today. I found a Rumi calendar in the bookstore, and just started reading the quotes at the back. So many of them resonated with me, lifting me up and helping me to focus and, as Rumi would say, they "opened my wings ...filled my cup... " bringing me back to what's important, to what's sacred:

"Something opens our wings. Something makes boredom and hurt disappear. Someone fills the cup in front of us. We taste only sacredness."- Rumi

So Far Gone

Reaching for something that's already gone
I wonder why I can still feel it
It haunts me though I've tried to forget
Someone tell me will I ever let
his memory and the dreams in my head
become just a passing fancy.
Cos right now I don't even think
I can breath
without whispering his name
or playing that game
where I see him come back
to tell me it was all a mistake
that he would never really leave me.

But dreams trick my waking world
until I only want to lay eyes closed
cos reality is too thick with hurt
to face right now.
His face is all I see
and way back then
is the way I want it to be again.
But my heavy chest
and the emptiness
remind me that
He's already gone.
I'm reaching, reaching for something so far gone.
© Tasleem

(inspired by the Daughtry's song September and the lyrics "Reach for something that's already gone")