V-A-G-I-N-A

Vagina.

Written Test

Until today, I had forgotten the feel of a pencil
cramped in pinched origami grip
slick royal yellow paint
taste and bounce of vulcanized pink nub
lick and shudder from metallic bicuspid crimped ferrule
graphite, measured number two, but always number one
From today, do let me
uncork my writer's block
by al dente red cedar
released as smell and sound
with overzealous sharpening

11:09 pm, Wednesday September 21

And so I wonder, what if he was innocent? And then I ponder, what if he were guilty? Then I question, what if neither answer answers the real question? Let live.

Update Status Prayer

Our monitor who art in journalism

Editor by thy name

Thy articles publish

Thy opinions do run

Online as it is in print paper

Tell us in the stories our local news

And forgive us our copyright infringements

As we forgive those who re-post our blogging

Lead us not into over criticisms

But deliver us from censorship

For thine is free press

And independent power

And the platform

Ever growing into a media conglomerate. Amen


by tambria moore

September 13, 2001 Seattle Center International Fountain Memorial.

It was quiet, a zen eddy of flowers tears and prayers.
Children were quiet. Sadness was the loudest presence there.
We walked wounded. No one pushed or prodded.
Some left flags, others flowers. Stuffed animals.
... ... Each dropped a piece of their American Dream
to the pavement.
The water cascaded.
A drum circle formed to beat our hearts for us.

rain

The sky is dark at suppertime, just as it was all day.
I can see the rain from my balcony.
It started by the church on the hill, the one with the red roof and stone facade.
Sheets of it obscured the green of the trees.
It was the wind that first gave away the rain's path.
Fifteen pigeons flocked and soared together following the wind's path.
They circled rooftops, dipped and swirled and then selected a roofline on my left
above Thames Greenery.
They lined themselves on the crest.
Some fluffed.
Some ruffled.
Some stoic to the pending storm.

Rain doesn't seem limited to cloudy days.
Sometimes a few silver drops fall from cyan heavens,
single tendrils of wet tinsel.

Today, the rain is a sheet.
A wet wall.

As if nearsighted, I place lenses in front of my eyes.
An artist's hand renders my view: Vertical lines scrape onto canvas before me,
clouds to pavement.
The wind tortures the artist's hand, drawing bristles left then right,
twisting and blurring now, muted green and canary yellow of leaves.
Dimming.
Darkening the tapestry before me
until it is just
Rain.
Dishwater poured from dishrag clouds.

Rain, when it happens is not pretty.
I do not look at the cold wetness as future contributions to a glass of Poland Spring on ice with a lemon twist.
I see it as the rinse cycle of our human condition,
Sloughing our waste and lazy filth into gutters, drains and estuaries...

Trapped rain can be a child's toy.
Memories of flat blue Keds slapping percussion on drums of wetness...
Puddles are dark.
Their darkness splatters in satisfactory splotches against summer whites at six years old.

Once, the rain obscured my humble bath,
Rinsed urine from my pregnant, homeless flesh.
A dirty bath, like a bird's taken in the gutter on that roof.
Desperate.
Cloaked.
Rushed.

I have walked in anger in the rain,
Felt the steam of my thoughts dissipate against its coolness
until the hot iron of my resolve,
my fears,
my aloneness,
were all drenched.
Extinguished.
Numbed to the point of homeostasis.
I've walked, one with the rain.

Note to self

Hey, why not write about those moments when you balked, or when tears stopped. Or perhaps when you laughed so hard you did pee your pants, but no one remembered what was so funny. Write about what you forgot to say. Just write.