here's a sing lyric I like, i haven't looked yet to see who it is:

"no more weathervane, i'm gonna be the wind."

good plan!

Your voice, with clear location of June days,

Called me outside the window.  You were there,

Light yet composed, as in the just soft stare

Of uncontested summer all things raise

Plainly their seeming into seamless air.



Then your love looked as simple and entire

As that picked pear you tossed me, and your face

As legible as pearskin's fleck and trace,

Which promise always wine, by mottled fire

More fatal fleshed than ever human grace.



And your gay gift—Oh when I saw it fall

Into my hands, through all that naïve light,

It seemed as blessed with truth and new delight

As must have been the first great gift of all.

I love the hour before takeoff,
that stretch of no time, no home
but the gray vinyl seats linked like
unfolding paper dolls. Soon we shall
be summoned to the gate, soon enough
there’ll be the clumsy procedure of row numbers
and perforated stubs—but for now
I can look at these ragtag nuclear families
with their cooing and bickering
or the heeled bachelorette trying
to ignore a baby’s wail and the baby’s
exhausted mother waiting to be called up early
while the athlete, one monstrous hand
asleep on his duffel bag, listens,
perched like a seal trained for the plunge.
Even the lone executive
who has wandered this far into summer
with his lasered itinerary, briefcase
knocking his knees—even he
has worked for the pleasure of bearing
no more than a scrap of himself
into this hall. He’ll dine out, she’ll sleep late,
they’ll let the sun burn them happy all morning
—a little hope, a little whimsy
before the loudspeaker blurts
and we leap up to become
Flight 828, now boarding at Gate 17.
-Rita Dove

This is my first memory:
A big room with heavy wooden tables that sat on a creaky
       wood floor
A line of green shades—bankers’ lights—down the center
Heavy oak chairs that were too low or maybe I was simply
       too short
              For me to sit in and read
So my first book was always big
 
In the foyer up four steps a semi-circle desk presided
To the left side the card catalogue
On the right newspapers draped over what looked like
       a quilt rack
Magazines face out from the wall
 
The welcoming smile of my librarian
The anticipation in my heart
All those books—another world—just waiting
At my fingertips.
 
- Nikki Giovanni

I am continually impressed with the amount of time that Steve Farley (Arizona State Representative, District 28, my district) takes to communicate to his constituents, and the manner in which he does so- very openly and honestly. In his most recent email I appreciated (even though I didn’t enjoy) the detailed account of how the recent anti-marriage amendment vote played out. I wish it were a political novel instead of reality, because it's very dramatic and Farley really puts the reader right there. Anyway, this made me appreciate the people who are fighting to do the right things in our statehouse.

(taken from the Farley Report #56, sent Tuesday, July 1)

I was parading the Côte d'Azur,

hopping the short trains from Nice to Cannes,

following the maze of streets in Monte Carlo

to the hill that overlooks the ville.

A woman fed me pâté in the afternoon,

calling from her stall to offer me more.

At breakfast I talked in French with an old man

about what he loved about America--the Kennedys.



On the beaches I walked and watched

topless women sunbathe and swim,

loving both home and being so far from it.



At a phone looking to Africa over the Mediterranean,

I called my father, and, missing me, he said,

"You almost home boy.  Go on cross that sea!"

hey, if you want a laugh you should follow me around for a little while. i went to the fitness center on sunday and did exactly this: 

treadmill 12 minutes
bike 3 minutes
elliptical 3 minutes
bike 3 minutes
non-strenuous swimming 15 minutes

that seems like a pretty mild afternoon of exercise, barely worthy of the title "workout," don't you think? my quadriceps beg to differ. apparently it's been quite a while since i really asked them to do much of anything and they are fighting back in a very painful way. 

i don't mind a little soreness, it feels good in a way, lets you know you worked hard, right? but this is soreness plus, maximum soreness, or something equally exponential sounding.

i know i didn't actually hurt myself, i would have felt that right away. this pain didn't come until the middle of the night when i woke up a couple of times and thought "oh, i'm gonna be sore tomorrow." that doesn't really describe it though, and this is where the humor comes in. 

it hurts to sit down. 

getting up is no treat, and i may have grabbed the file cabinet at work for a little extra help, but it's the sitting that is the worst and, i'm sure, the most amusing. once i'm down i'm ok, it's the lowering of my ass to the chair that causes painful protestation from my muscles. the less i bend at the knee the better, so i've been trying to sort of fall into my chair. this is usually accompanied by a none too delicate and somewhat involuntary exclamation. sometimes it sounds like "ooph!" and other times like "motherfucker!"

either way, you should check it out, get a laugh for your day. and could you bring by some extra strength ben gay when you come?

This has nothing

to do with

propagating



The species

is continued

as so many are

(among the smaller creatures)

by fission



(and this species

is very small

next in order to

the amoeba, the beginning one)



The paramecium

achieves, then,

immortality

by dividing



But when

the paramecium

desires renewal

strength another joy

this is what 

the paramecium does:



The paramecium

lies down beside

another paramecium



Slowly inexplicably

the exchange

takes place

in which

some bits

of the nucleus of each

are exchanged



for some bits 

of the nucleus

of the other



This is called

the conjugation of the paramecium.