as we part

I leave next week for my six week poetry tour with the Incredible Kisspulpers. I haven’t been away from Oklahoma that long since I was 16. I will miss you and the way you say things like, it might could and I tell you what. I will miss your dustbowl grin and your
wide as wings streets. I hope to meet some fine folks along the way. Some folks that tell stories at least half as buttery as yours. I will bring back some sea shells and some evergreen needles. I will kiss your face when I return.

I will do three shows before I leave:

1) Dustbowl Art Market {Campus Corner, Norman} : 10-6 on Saturday August 29 I will be at Angela Chase’s booth if you would like a copy of the new book or cd.

2) Paralogia Lounge {Bricktown, OKC}: 8pm August 30
Sunset Sundays w/ band and food


3) WordPulp, {Queen of Sheba,OKC}: 8pm Sept. 3rd
Spence Brown and the Dudes, poetry slam, Ethiopian food


Please come out and give me a good luck Oklahoma squeeze before I hit the road!

Event Record

7am: In my dream we made love. I woke all twitchy like I had just stolen money from my moms purse.

8am: Looked at Vintage fashion blogs. Wondered why so many of the girls buy their clothes at Urban outfitters. I like brown buttons.

9am: Thought of your elbows. Contemplated moving to Finland to explore my Finnish ancestry. Taped ladders to my hands. Metaphorically.

10am: Ate toast. Wished I hadn’t. Glad I had. Read the paper.

11am: Thought of your neck and the place where it meets your chin. Felt a bit cumulonimbus. Like I might pour out at any moment.

12pm: Made my grateful list:
I am grateful for the lightening and the rolly polly I found in the window seal.
I am grateful for old clothes and brown buttons.
I am grateful for staplers.

i heartopus you.

The Red Cup Summer Concert

Kavi sang two songs and performed a poem. She couldn't get enough of the stage. I guess I'm gonna have to become a real stage mom. Look out Partridge Family. Here comes the Zunigas.
{photo by Laura Heller}

our first show together

Victor and I actually did our first show together in the 9 years we've known each other. It was at the Paseo Arts Festival and it was super fun.
{pictures by skip largent}

My Favorite Street Festival

This weekend is the Paseo Festival in the Paseo Art District. I have been coming to this festival since I was a kid. My mom had a booth when she was just starting out as an artist, and I would help her sell things like painted cowboy boots, whimsical rocking chairs and other functional art. Later, when she owned The Blue Moon, an art bar on Paseo Drive, I would help sell art and beer. My parents painted the Paseo Art District Mural at the end of the street and I’ve been doing poetry at Galileo’s for 10 years now.
It’s not like some art districts in other cities but for a long time it was all we had and
with the nurturing of artists and smart business men, its really become an oasis in this city, and well, its my home.

I also love this festival because unlike the downtown Festival of the Arts, this festival still has mostly local artists and musicians. It still feels homegrown. And this year, with Ed, the owner of Sauced, doing the booking for the South Stage, we are really going to see an eclectic mix of amazing local talent. My Tea Kind and Elephant Revival will be playing as well as Justin Witte, Jabee the Beautiful, Edgar Cruz, Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey and many others, including little ol’ me. I will be performing poetry at 7pm on Saturday.

Diane Cody, one of the organizers of the Paseo Festival, and a long time friend of mine, wrote this beautiful blog that I wanted to share excerpts of.

“Constructed in 1929, it was the second shopping district built by the brother of the creator of the Plaza, a much larger area located in Kansas City. It boasts stucco buildings and Spanish Colonial architecture.
It has seen many things, and in the seventies filled with artists and hippies, often one in the same, eventually earning a designation as an artist community. It is a soft spot for the creative and edgy in this otherwise conservative town. For me, it harbored the education in art I never completed in college. What better teachers are there than experience and exposure, coffee talk and nurturing by those practicing their passion? This is a community that allows for differences, and in doing so, understands each other….”

“It is these days before a festival when the magic happens. For almost a year ahead, meetings were held, entries sent, musicians booked, artists juried, then accepted or rejected, food vendors scheduled, volunteers sought. This making of an event that attracts thousands annually for three days that will delight and inspire, awe and entertain, is no small effort.
It requires the determination of mission and focus of volunteers with a common goal, when they may have nothing else in common.
It will require eighty trash barrels, hundreds of bags of ice, portable potties, electricians, signs, publicity, name tags, walkie talkies, posters and tee shirts, barricades and securtiy. All tip of the iceberg….A town inside this community will be born. Tents and stages will sprout from asphalt. A time warp of sorts, three days of escape and adventure will manifest.”

I hope to see all of my friends and family this weekend. In our quirky little home.
If you have never been to the Paseo District, it is located basically at 29th and Walker, close to downtown.

Some girls collect stiff dolls or tea cups or acrobatic hearts.
She collects boats. Keeps them lined up along her crooked
shore. Strokes their metal bellies, their wooden spines.
Picks at their salty paint. Each boat is named for something
lost.

Recess. Blue Blanket. Good Morning. Lassie the Fish. Greg.

She has never taken them out on the water. She is terrified
of whales. She instead sits by their side. Waxes their necks.
Reads poems about oceans. Lullabies them with the crest
and trough of her breath. But today she has decided how to
love them.

She will gather twine and cable. Gather wrench and ratchet.
She will snap planks, rip sails, smash open their use. Paste
their shoulder blades together with sap and brine. Construct
a night sized sculpture from their beauty. They will never
drift. They will never, ever drift away.

If Mother Theresa Were Found To Be a Child Molester

The paper moon would peel itself away
from its crusty glue axis. The cotton ball
clouds would drop. The fat tummy flowers
would leak magenta and cerulean all over
the wax grass.

Your entire diorama world-view would
fall apart.

There are cut out faces of saints and gods
taped to your poster board faith. They are
stacked and circled in a diagram of holiness.
In the center is your loyal heart. Ready to
climb the rungs.

You leapt out of a woman who prayed before
she even took a sip of water. Her face is pasted
right next to Mother Theresa’s. Your father was
the villain that every good hero story needs.
The dope dealer, the grenade. They play tug
of war on your shoulders.

An old woman once stopped your mother in
an airport and told her you would be a preacher.
Your mother welded this identity to the cufflinks
of your three piece suit. Brushed it through your
velvet hair, poked demons out through your feet.

All you ever wanted was to be good.

When I hold you, honest and dismantled,
all I know of you is good. All I know is a man
that so desperately wants to be sinless he would
go forty days without touching himself. Who curses
himself for thinking of another woman. Drinks
holy wine from little plastic cups because he
believes that molecules can contain blessing.

Your faith is that huge.

When I hold you, you are sinless.

conversations with cardboard barack

1.
you are propped up like a campaign smile
next to my mother’s fireplace. i contemplate
poking a hole in your paper teeth to watch
scared shitless pour out all over our hardwood floors.

2.
did you see the shrines?
she made the most beautiful shrines with glitter
and flags and your face glued like crucifixion
to each altar of Hope.

3.
i signed up for the recession today. i crumbled
up my travel plans, my Be Free In My RV plans,
threw them in the fire and warmed my toes with
their milk and honey smoke. i have a good job
afterall. who am i to be leaping around all faithful like
when there are people cashing their last unemployment
checks and you are holding a press conference in the desert,
your stone tablet blueprints heavy under your arm.

4.
my daughter says you should be president because
a president should be smart and handsome and because
you look kind of like her daddy. she doesn’t like how your
eyes follow her around the living room though.

5.
we are shopping for a cardboard Michelle. we can’t afford
to go out anymore so for entertainment we will cut
designer outfits from construction paper and tape them
to Michelle for each holiday. when we need to remember
that everything is going to be alright, we will bump your fists
together and play songs about change.

6.
i know you saw me crying. every now and then when i realize
you are actually our president, history comes crashing
down on my shoulders and i sob like the time i told my daughter
that only 40 years ago her father and i would have been felons
for marrying outside of our race. like the time the hundred year
old woman told the story about picking cotton to earn the poll tax
to vote for Franklin Roosevelt. i sob like Progress is no longer
just a poster hanging on our wall.

7.
my mother refuses to put you in the recycle bin. even after
the inauguration, she keeps you standing next to the
year-round christmas tree. she says after 8 years of heartbreak
and embarrassment she needs to see you every morning while
drinking her coffee and selling off the last of the shrines on eBay.

love poem for denver

I could be quiet for you.
I could be your open cup,
your student,
your Daniel San.
Mr. Myagi me, Denver.
We could speak in broken bodies,
street steam and heavy swallows of
mountain air. No need for slogans.
Pull the tags from my hip and claim me.
I will let you wet my tongue with splendor
and gulp you down like secrets. No shouting.
No banners. We move the same.
I, too, am a wilderness of street signs.
Teach me how to hold a yellow light in my
palm as easily as a sparrow,
I will slow down for you.

I know others have made promises.
I’ve made plenty of my own, but me and my land
fit like high water pants and its getting awkward.
I want to learn your rules.
Your stop/go method of breath.
Every step I take inside of you feels like the
break beat laughter of a monk. Your finger
runs along my rim and I am a singing bowl.
We make a good fit. We make nice prayers.

If only you would look at me, like you
did in that one parking lot moment. When
winter floated in like used dryer sheets, when
the day had been too long, and you were tired
of carrying the weight of hungry people.
I think you were honest when you said,
“I want to go on long walks with you.”
I think in that moment you were asking me to
drink from you. Like maybe our mouths were
the only lesson plans we needed, the only
place we actually belonged.

spiritual response to terrorism (marianne williamson)

With your thoughts, you can help build a system of spiritual quarantine for terrorists and would-be terrorists.
You don't have to know who they are. The Creator does.
Just do this.
For a minimum of five minutes every day, meditate in the following way:
Pray that anyone even thinking of committing a terrorist act, anywhere in the world, be surrounded by a huge golden egg.
The eggshell is made of the spiritual equivalent of titanium. It is impenetrable. Any malevolent, hateful or violent thought that emanates from the mind of the terrorist cannot get past the confines of the eggshell. Before the violent thought can turn into violent action, it is stopped by the force of this meditative field.
Energetically, the terrorist is quarantined.
On the inside of the egg, see a shower of golden Light pouring from the eggshell into the heart and mind of the terrorist. Pray for your lost brother. See him or her being healed by the force of divine Love, wrapped in the arms of angels, reminded of who he truly is.
Five minutes. Every day. Tell everyone you know.

rapid eye movements

You used to move so fast in my dreams.
A superhero blue, a blur of tongues.
You moved like you wanted me to chase you.
I would run along the dream conveyor belt,
past the drag queens and dancing owls, hoping
to find your waiting mouth.

At some point, you slowed down.
Your skin became warm. Your melodic snores
became Barry White doing Tai-Chi.
We would float in our sleep. You moved like you
wanted me to know you. I awoke feeling like I had
just painted a mural inside your cheek.

I think my dreams became too loud for you. I think
you snuck out through my eardrum, to find someone
who sleeps less emotionally. You move like you have
an apology to whisper. Like it sits in your throat waiting
for me to take it with me, into my vacant midnight.

bismillah

i awoke to a flood
of vowel sounds.
cursive, satin tongues
as fluid as our last kiss.
a scorched earth song
that opened me like a gift.
i couldn’t make out the words
i just knew it was You.

You are the root word
that all of our names come from,
7 billion syllables whispered
in our sleep. some days it’s just
static in our radio hearts.
i want to know a hunger so deep
it turns the dial to Your frequency.
i want to know a language
that sways like the humble tide.
my every breath is kalimah.

(i’ve never felt the need for a broker,
but i’ve never met a prophet i didn’t like.)

fashion an altar that smells
like September, a quiet veil wrapped
around my swollen lips,
cement eyes, fragile ears
the only thing i can lay
before You is questions.

why would i rather count the hairs
on his arm than the jewels in your throne?
why does his voice fill me like iftar?
Insha’Allah, i will crave him no longer.

strip me down to my longing
until it is only Your name i can pronounce
write my sins across my tattered stomach
and remind me they are all just invitations
for salvation

the nickel tour

We always say, excuse the mess.
Even if it is cleaner than usual.

With you, I knew I didn’t need to.
You would recognize the piles of little
paper strips, the brilliant lines salvaged from
other peoples poems, kept like fortunes.

You would see the broken mirrors,
the torn certificates, the thin whispery
ego hanging in the closet and say,
I have these in blue!

It wouldn’t seem strange to you,
that I frame things, like concrete,
funny flavored pizza and night air,
then hang them up as decoration.
I could see it in your picket fence grin.

When you laugh you lean back and lift
one foot off the ground, the gate swinging open.
Your voice is a porch,
your breath the wind chime summer,
I knew we could sip each other.
I just didn’t know it would taste so good.

Your arms formed a living room
around me, my head rested on your sofa chest.
We read all the poems titled Guest,
titled Come Closer, titled Release
and it started to feel like home, like
we might have already finished the tour
but we were just hanging out to see if we
could match up all the pieces.

Or maybe this was just one place
where we didn’t need to dim our shiny insides,
didn’t need to sweep any corners.
We could be dust and magic and tender skin.
We could just walk in, look around and say,

I like your style…

Damn baby, I like your style.

the rebels

Earth citizens have always been near sighted.
Blinded with mythic misconceptions that,
“We get it and we are the only ones that do”

We know what a king looks like, and that’s not it.
We know you are gonna fall right off the edge of that ocean.
We know of course… that we are the center of the universe
and that there sun revolves around us.

And oh, the traitors and misfits that dare to challenge
that rightness. Like Galileo, in 1633, on trial for heresy
forced to denounce the ludicrous idea that this big ol’
sun-ripened planet, actually moves. That it has no beginning
and no end and it spins like vinyl, like b- boys like
spirit sounds rising from prayer bowls…it moves.
And he told them what they wanted to hear, what THEY
always want to hear. That they are RIGHT.

And then quietly under his breath, like morning sneaking
into the covers with night, he proclaimed,
“AND YET IT MOVES…”

no matter how wrong we are, we still
move in circles like our rightness,
dangle in this electric cobweb of IS-ness
we are the disco ball that the cosmos
dance to, the bling they can’t match
We move, and thank God for the rebels
that stood in the face of stagnation and
shouted…AND YET IT MOVES.

See, Galileo had no idea that 400 years
later his name would hang over the door of
a little café, in a little Spanish village,
in a little town in the middle of everything.

and the rebels would gather there
and they would stand in spotlights
and speak unpopular truths, but this
time they wouldn’t mutter it under their breath
the would shout it and mold it, fold it into

origami religions, hold it under their tongues
like hymns of contraband, like Christians
drawing fishes in the sand, like Hebrew babies bundled
up like packages and slipped into their smugglers hands
This is where it all comes out. Secrets become an aftertaste
in the suddenly quenched mouth.

They said that poetry is only meant for books.
Dusty ol’ books sitting on the shelves of Universities.
They said that ordinary people, people without degrees,
without letters after their names couldn’t write poetry.
So some said Poetry is dead. It is a small island,
in the middle of a still lake, a moment captured
and imprisoned on the page… but us rebels
we come here week after week to proclaim
like Galileo, “AND YET IT MOVES.

love poem for self

(this blog is for prayers and poems...this is both)

There are a thousand blond hairs on your arm,
sprawled out like hippies on the lawn,
lying on their sides watching for new freckles
to appear like history in the sun.

You shaved your arms once because
you didn’t like the furry halo
they formed around your chubby limbs,
like an announcement that you were not made
of gold clay like the other girls in the 7th grade.
They grew back with resentment,
or maybe that was just you.

There is a small bump on your wrist.
A souvenir of an accident that now, when it’s
quiet, I kiss because it reminds me of women,
a dainty hinge of forgiveness

I won’t tell you how beautiful your hands are.
We know how you hate them,
how you cursed their dimpled stubs,
but have you seen them move like language?
Have you seen them palm a phrase, hand it to
the air around a stage, or serve as a runway for
kiss blown to child’s face?
Hold them open.

Let me love them.
Let me love your full moon belly.
The thick trunk of growth rings
that recedes in and circles out, an
earth song swelling, you are marked
as a life giver.

So baby, stop describing yourself
with names only fit for cattle and feed lots.
You are a labyrinth of miracles, make your way
through the bends and angles to the auburn nest.
Part the hedge with your fingers. Plant names like
home and adore, gratitude and wonder
Watch them take root, pulse with nourishment,
burst into a pleasure wilderness
Can you believe your body can do this?
I want to draw the map for you
Plot the points of perfection.
Dig up anything that doesn’t think
your Being is a highway that leads to everything.
Take your stories out of their case and dissect them,
remind you of the whole scene.

Like the crooked eyebrow, the jagged eyelid
that you despise. When you were in a car accident,
they took on flying glass shards to protect your iris,.
Your hips, spread wide as wings, served as the opening
for the two reasons you wake up in the morning.
Remember how soft your hair felt
when you had it pulled back against your neck?
When you put your finger down your throat
like a coat hanger, unlocked
1000 calories of anger, heaved and trembled
till there was nothing left.
Can you believe that your stomach can hold that
much regret?

Baby,
quit trying to fold your self up
into a flattened perfume picture of
a girl, you are as 3D as the rumbling
city streets. Parks, gutters and laughter.
When everyone else goes away, when
the audience has faded, watch the way the
streetlights reflect on pavement, the way your
sounds clash and move like progress.
Let me love you like I know you.
Let me love you like it would end wars
if I loved you hard enough.
Let me love you like no one has ever been hurt.
Like you could heal the world if you knew
what you were worth.

getting my shift together

i've created a new blog just for my shifting process. this
blog will be reserved for prayers and poems.

check it out!

getting my shift together

earth citizenry

Here are some things I’m ashamed to admit:

I just recently started recycling.
I still use paper towels…. a lot.
I have a whole shelf full of plastic bags.
I waste in more ways than I’m probably conscious of.
Last month, I ate fast food probably 28 times.

Maybe it’s a result of the Green Frenzy or maybe it’s just my own awakening process, but lately I’ve become startling aware of my bad Earth Citizen behavior. I always look with awe at those people that seem to have this eco-awareness thing down. Like they were just born wearing Tevas and hemp shirts and carrying their own canvas bags.

Or those who are less obvious, like some of my friends who live in what outsiders refer to as “the dirty kid compound” which is actually a cluster of houses within the same few blocks that are bustling with magical stuff like container gardens, rows of bicycles, piles of salvaged wood, compost toilets and busy people living life for a living.
(Sure they don’t bathe as ridiculously often as us “achieving” folk, but they also don’t waste 8 hours a day in a fluorescent-lit nonsense land.)
I spent last weekend with them, when my kids were out of town and I had scheduled a No Agenda weekend. It was like a reunion. I’ve known most of them since we were kids. We went through all the same phases: from 11 year olds who listened to NWA to 14 year olds who wore flannel and only listened to music no one had ever heard of before to 18 year olds, who settled into themselves and listened to whatever they wanted. Some of us ran like hell to get out of Oklahoma, moved to cooler cities like Portland or Boulder or Boston and came back when we realized it was too damn expensive and others (like me) got burned out on bong parties and waking up in piles of Milwaukee’s Best cans and decided to get married and have kids and do all that making of the home stuff.
Several of my friends trainhopped across the country and went to Survival Camps to learn how to make their own tools and eat off the land. Some made statements through graffiti, protested the WTO, went to jail for their loud beliefs. I made babies, tested my own survival capacity learned to meditate and read books about evolutionary enlightenment. We’ve struggled with addictions and bad relationships but mostly we have grown into our own Beings. We’ve found our art mediums, our causes, our delights and vices. And I guess what has remained the same in us all is an idea that we live in a world that needs a tune up and we are trying our best to get the tools and the skills necessary to help with the repair. Sometimes our ideas aren’t popular. Sometimes our small selves pummel our Big Selves into unconsciousness with boos and such.

So, that weekend, because the Universe is a ninja that knows exactly what I need, there was a Garden Party. The Central Park Community Garden was buzzing with friendly neighbor chatter and glowing sun warmed bodies. We ate freshly picked strawberries and baby green salads. We played on the sun dial and sat in the Earth Chairs sculpted from leftover sod. I felt so at home. At one point, I went to give a friend a hug and she spilled her pulpy carrot juice all over my shoe. We laughed and she showered me with apologies and I remember thinking, I really don’t mind all this aliveness being spilled on me. We talked at length about our new discoveries and plans. I asked her about her latest artwork and she said she got tired of painting on drywall and now she was just having really great conversations and taking good care of her cat. This girl makes art every time she exhales.
When we went over to wash our cups with the garden hose, I paused as I watched her wash her cup. She sprayed a bit of water into the cup then released the nozzle and swished her hand in the cup to clean it, then rinsed it one more time quickly. It was just a simple still frame that illustrated the mindfulness that I had been lacking in my own habits. When I started washing mine, I noticed the urge to just forcefully spray the residue out without ever touching it, but I swished and conserved reverently.
The evening was full of still frames like that. Things I picked up on that, if I hadn’t been seriously re-thinking my behavior lately, would have gone unnoticed. Like the bulletin board with the water bill pinned to it, $30.00 for a house of 6 people. And the makeshift room built from salvaged window panes and old doors, the sign sarcastically scrawled above the door, “shabby sheik”. There were signs posted everywhere to communicate the needs of the house.
“Your mama still don’t work here.”
“Turn the compost.”
“Don’t put paper products in the toilet, homies”
The most beautiful thing was the overwhelming creative energy that washed through the place. Like you could just hold your cup out and drink from it. Two girls banged on drums with out regard to whether they could keep a beat or not. Outside, three boys bounced from freestyling to hilarious graffiti stories and back again. I sat with a fellow poet and scribbled poems in the empty spaces of a photography book. Words just came out so willingly. As we sat with sweat beading up on our necks and smiles dripping from our mouths, I noticed that the major difference between this gathering and maybe one I might have with my “successful” friends, the ones with mortgages and important jobs and carefully coordinated accessories, is the shift of priorities. The conversations were not filled with remodeling plans or shoe sales. There were real life smells like lavender and bicycle- riding- body instead of apple pie candles and mountain air disinfectant.
The overwhelming concern with convenience didn’t lurk in every corner. Instead it was just the desire to be. To create. To not exist frantically.
Though there are still some comforts and conveniences I am not ready to trade in, the experience reminded me of some of practices in my life that are not in alignment with my values.

Stay tuned for more on the Evolution de Lauren.

Poem Baby

I said I wouldn’t eat sugar. Or ego, or light switches.
I wanted you to be healthy. Nourished from the curly,
fallopian straw of good language. For a while, I ate
only organic. Now I take whatever I’m craving.

Poppy rhymes. Clunky couplets. Half- strung synapses.
I wash down salty, abuse stories with crème soda love verse.
It’s amazing how many people rub my belly for good luck.
They can tell what you mean by the way I carry you.

My fist feels lighter when you leave me. Lonely really.
Open and bent from the duplication of cells, I don’t
pretend to know the divinity that goes into this process.
Just a happy vehicle. The names I give can’t contain you.

My kids are jealous. I don’t make you get your juice
by yourself. I’m happy to pull your pants up, kiss booboos
and talk syrupy to you. I prepare you for the day, send you
off and catch glimpses of your ancestors as you wave goodbye.



Note: I took this Poem a Day Challenge for April, thinking it would
end up a bunch of fragments and haikus. I was surprised at how much I was able to pull out and how many forms took shape that I never considered before. Writing without regard to performance was really fun. I loved especially reading the poems of other people who were taking the challenge and trying like hell to stay on par.
Now I have a little stash of poems I can go back and play with for National Editing Month! If you are looking for some great stimulation to get you writing. I suggest the Poetic Asides website: http://blog.writersdigest.com/poeticasides/

Sending: Bitter

We keep busy.
We hopscotch
emotion chalked
sidewalks. We’ve
skipped the honest
box for so long,
we’ve forgotten
the object of the game.

We keep friendly.
First base is screen name.
LOL down your pants,
Smiley face your shame.
It's so easy.
We’re so witty,
when we have a minute
to think between sentences.
Voices are just too intimate.

I’m unimpressed with sex.
Now I just crave connection.
I want you to tell me something
you wouldn’t have time to text.

One, two, three, four
I declare a thumb war,
used to be our hands laughing
palm to palm at our foolishness
Now it’s just our sarcastic
battle of messages.

We keep buzzing.
At the table, in the car
Reply as I steer.
Scene fades as I wait for
your return.
You are always in my pocket.
But you are never here.