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.

Sorting Session

It's very important to understand that everything that exists—the whole universe, including each and every one of us, is a manifest or material expression of that which does not exist. From nothing came something. The unmanifest became the manifest. From emptiness, from the void, this whole material universe, which eventually gave rise to life, emerged. – Andrew Cohen, What is Enlightenment Magazine



It could be a big glowing ball. With tentacles.
A circus inside a baby’s ribcage. The flaming
string section of a Kosmic Goddess. It could
be cytoplasm and quantum particles and all
of those really gooey scientific things we like
to dissect. It could be thrones and right hands.
It could be tired of our probing eye.

See, me? I always go with The Nothing.
I can always get back to that. I can take a long
warm sip of You, taste the Galaxy in my hiccups
and lie back , full of Nothing. I can look around
at the chaos, the audiences, the news reports and
see that emptiness that holds every molecule.
The colors sometimes get brighter. At times,
there is some peace but it’s not always comfortable.

Awareness is not soft clouds and rainbows. My
guru, who sings bluegrass and wears western shirts,
told me, sometimes it’s like sitting in someone’s farts.
If you are stuck in a car, you just have to accept what
you are perceiving. Have allowance for all of Life.
Its not as easy when you are smelling burning flesh
and oppression. Choose not to cut off your nose.

It could be the moment you spring to action. It could
be two breaths fogging hope on the windshield. It
could be choices. The space before the choice or
the sigh after the choice. It’s all just choices man.
It could be You explaining that big ol’ ball throbbing
at the earth’s core, the tentacles and everything. It could
be me laughing and the quick small silence just before
You move onto the next idea.