From EMERGENCY KIT

Folks, let’s drink ourselves to death in the party

let’s stay awake in our unending dream so that nobody

will take us for gone and cheat us out of our lives.

Tanure Ojaide

it was on the 2nd floor on Coronado Street
I used to get drunk
and throw the radio through the window
while it was playing, and, of course,
it would break the glass in the window
and the radio would sit there on the roof
still playing
and I’d tell my woman,
“Ah, what a marvelous radio!”
the next morning I’d take the window
off the hinges
and carry it down the street
to the glass man
who would put in another pane.
I kept throwing that radio through the window
each time I got drunk
and it would sit there on the roof
still playing-
a magic radio
a radio with guts,
and each morning I’d take the window
back to the glass man.
I don’t remember how it ended exactly
though I do remember
we finally moved out.
there was a woman downstairs who worked in
the garden in her bathing suit,
she really dug with that trowel
and she put her behind up in the air
and I used to sit in the window
and watch the sun shine all over that thing
while the music played.

-Charles Bukowski, A Radio with Guts

Rearrange a “Wife’s” affection!
When they dislocate my Brain!
Amputate my freckled Bosom!
Make me bearded like a man!

Blush, my spirit, in thy Fastness –
Blush, my unacknowledged clay –
Seven years of troth have taught thee
More than Wifehood every may!

Love that never leaped its socket –
Trust entrenched in narrow pain –
Constancy thro’ fire — awarded –
Anguish — bare of anodyne!

Burden — borne so far triumphant –
None suspect me of the crown,
For I wear the “Thorns” till Sunset –
Then — my Diadem put on.

Big my Secret but it’s bandaged –
It will never get away
Till the Day its Weary Keeper
Leads it through the Grave to thee.
-Emily Dickinson

“Best Mask?” By Shel Silverstein

They just had a contest for scariest mask,
And I was the wild and daring one
Who won the contest for scariest mask–
And (sob) I’m not even wearing one.

Inspired by a poem from Sara Marshall:

Adaptations

At the museum
one taxidermy lynx
perched on staged logs
ensnared me in its still
glass eyes, tall posture to

pounce.

I remembered being astounded once
by the disproportionate
length of their legs
in one of those poacher photographs
Bloodied lynx collapsed, hollowed
like empty Halloween costumes
across crude blue tarps -

their adaptations for
predation, their adaptation
for survival one in the same
a learned body,

a body learned to jump.

and for no reason,
there I was in my mind, bundled:
a coonskin cap, chicken wire box,
a drape of hare’s meat to tease you,
to cheaply trap you by your blood’s vices,
to contain your long legs when,
of course,

I’d love to say

I’ve let you loose, that I’d
let you pounce another
hundred times out of me
like that wild animal into
another world to be alone

though I’m afraid my body
also learned some things
it’s not so proud of.

Housing Crisis Las Vegas, NV

P O E M – “That people could come into the world in a place they could not at first even name and had never known before; and that out of a nameless and unknown place they could grow and move around in it until its name they knew and called with love, and call it HOME, and put roots there, and love others there; so that whenever they left this place they would sing homesick songs about it and write poems of yearning for it, like a lover; …”
by William Goyen, House of Breath

For this assignment, I took it personally. The country is over run with empty houses. I was on a street in Las Vegas suburban neighborhood recently where on one street there were 13 foreclosed / short sale properties. The ones pictured here were all in a row … 4 in a row. I stopped and wondered where are the families, lovers, couples, friends now? Where are these people living??? The houses are empty and sad, the street is empty. Neighborhoods are emptying out. Where are people moving to? I never thought of things this way until I recently moved into my own home… It is very sad to think of people loosing their homes.

The World Photography Festival offers photographers and its industry a fantastic 3 day program and features events such as talks by veteran photographers, portfolio reviews given by experts in the industry, exhibitions, screenings, workshops, daily live shooting stations and an industry symposium for all to attend and listen to renowned industry leaders talk about the current trends, issues and debates concerning photography today.

The Awards ceremony showcase is open for everyone to attend and will deliver a visual journey through many diverse genres of photography.

TIAPB photographers AND readers will receive a 15% discount on all tickets for the Festival and Awards ceremony event. Tickets start at £15 – £30 and portfolio reviews start at £60 for 3 sessions.

The promotional code you may use for the offered discount is SWPA15.

Confirmed leading industry participators this year are photographers Nadav Kander (UK), Bohnchang Koo (Korea) and Pablo Bartholomew (India), Chloe Limpkin (UK) (Photo Director of Harpers Bazzar), Aidan Sullivan (UK) (VP of Getty Images), Bill Hunt (USA) (Co-Founder of Hasted-Hunt Gallery), Trisha Ziff (Mexico) (curator and filmmaker), Zelda Cheatle (UK) Curator and Portfolio Manager of Tosca Fund, Roberto Koch (Italy) (Publisher of Contrasto and Founder of FORMA), Monica Allende (UK) (Picture Editor of the Sunday Times Magazine), Mark Sealy (UK) (Director of Autograph – the Association of Black Photographers), Michelle Dunn (USA) (Co-Publisher, Aperture Magazine; Editor-at-Large, Chronicle Books), Grant Scott (UK) (Group Brand Editor of Imaging for Professional Photography and Photography Monthly magazines), Scott Thode (USA) (Freelance Curator and Picture Editor), Sue Steward (UK) (Photography Critic, Writer, Radio Broadcaster and Photo Editor), Adrian Evans (UK) (Director of Panos Pictures Agency), Adrian Boot (UK) (Music Photographer and co-founder of www.urbanimage.tv), Jonathan Torgovnik (USA) (Photojournalist and Founder of Foundation Rwanda), Idris Khan (UK) (Artist) and many more to be announced.

Check out the website for updated news and more info! http://www.worldphotographyawards.org/festival/

On top of spaghetti,
All covered with cheese,
I lost my poor meatball,
When somebody sneezed.

“tourists Jan 2010″

Seeking Beauty by William Henry Davies

“…As long as I love Beauty I am young,

Am young or old as I love more or less;

When Beauty is not heeded or seems stale,

My life’s a cheat, let Death end my distress.”

“Has anyone supposed it lucky to be born?
I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.
I pass death with the dying, and birth with the new-washed babe….and I am not contained between my hat and boots, And peruse manifold objects, no two alike, and everyone good,…”
Leaves of Grass / Walt Whitman