my thoughts on sarah palen

.....I think hockey mom is great. it's all the rest of that crap she packs around with her in lieu of the experience she really needs that scares me. gun rights are good, Ok to kill each other or that moose in the back yard. I would really want to be armed if some sociopath decides to victimize me. Fat chance with my big mouth. And rape victims can bring children into the world with half the genetic makeup of the deviant that violated them. And she (our rape victim)will never forget that crime of violence every time she looks into her child's eyes. Right on.

e-mail from a friend

These incredible photos of a White Bengal Tiger named Odin. Odin is six years old and 10 feet long from tail to nose. Odin lives at a Zoo in Vallejo, California, near San Francisco. Odin was hand-raised at the zoo. And after he was weaned, his British trainer Lee Munro discovered his remarkable skill. When a lump of meat was thrown into a pool of water, Odin would happily dive in after it. 'He makes a funny face - and it's actually to close his nostrils to stop the water from going into his nose.' Not all big cats enjoy the water but for Tigers from the hot climate of South-East Asia it's one way to cool down. 'Plus they hunt in and around water. They're an ambush predator so they wait for prey to come down to the water.' When you actually see him dive underwater he looks so graceful,' 'Odin loves the water and he loves food,' he said. 'Not all big cats will dive and swim underwater even for meat treats. 'Munro said tigers were the most powerful swimmers out of all land-dwelling animals. Tragically, within our lifetimes, zoos might be the only places left to see these magnificent animals. A century ago there were about 100,000 tigers in the wild. Now there are just 2,500 adults, with the Bengal variety almost extinct. None has been seen in the wild since the last white tiger was shot and killed in 1958. White tigers are the most rare. They get their white color from an unusual and extremely rare genetic combination.

monsoon

and yet another Canyon de Chelly

the darker petroglyph's are Anasazi and the lighter ones Navajo. the hogan is also Navajo. I just love the cow. Unfortunatly, this picture doesn't really show the Anasazi 'glyph's very well. This is near White House ruins.

something to ponder

"People are dangerous. If they're able to involve themselves in issues that matter, they may change the distribution of power, to the detriment of those who are rich and privileged."--Noam Chomsky

More Canyon de Chelly

Juniper berries

conquistadors

There they go

you hear them

cruising down the alley

those shady young men

in their custom cars

boom boom boom

box

bigger than the back seat

baggy low rider pants

pockets full of felonies

waiten’ for a chance

lucky branded, tattooed

black sunglasses

you can almost smell

the south side summer

like a fire burning in their soul

a soul that got kicked to the curb

long before their birth

blue teardrops dripping down

stiletto sharp cheeks

watering

a heart of skin deep ink

on their iron chiseled chest

indelible Guadalupe no protection

for these midnight conquistadors

of unleashed passion

Don’t you see them?

aren’t they beautiful?

like jaguars

phantoms of the night

the stick people are at it again

poetry salon in Sedona, Arizona

reading reading read
work, listening, writing, comments
=
grand finale show





at Cafe Zelo Cosi


Clock wise: (sort of)

Carl Weis
Burt Cisneros
Sondraya
Gary Every
Shotsie Gorman

...and there were many more poets but my camera skills were lacking that evening. I was trying hard to listen to the show, watch the crowd, and prepare for my reading. Would words really drop out of my mouth, would those words even resemble what was written on the paper? Would the alliteration snarl up in a ball and get stuck? Would those metaphors confound and shrink into just a pile of stupid words? Would the audience find my visions too shocking? And in the end only a tiny little voice spit those edgy parables out. Where in the world has that tiny little voice been all my big mouth life?

My friends "The Kids"

aren't they beautiful?

I found my cat

She's been on the lamb since July 5th. Found her this morning in the dry wash by my house were the coyotes live. She was happy to see me as the Monsoon has been hitting us hard the last few days.

horse ears

The horse and I

The first thing we did when we got to Canyon de Chelly was to walk down 1 & 1/2 miles to the canyon bottom. And, of course back up. The next day we did a half day jeep tour with a Navajo guide. I was most informative and quite beautiful. Our guide had lived in the canyon all his life (probably 60 + years) and had been guiding the last 29 years. The one thing my friend Gary noticed was lack of chirping birds. At alot of the stops people would come out of their hogans with jewelry for sale. Well you know me. I also bought a sand carving. Most of the sandstone pieces were done in acrylic. They were of the petroglyph's mostly.

On our last day we decided to do a 2 hour horse ride. We had been over to the stables the night before and checked out the prices - reasonable. OMG what a treat. Our Navajo guide was female for one thing so she had a bit of a different slant on things, such as the importance of matrilineal clan for identity, marriage and sex prohibitions, hospitality, and cooperation. And the best thing, we could hear the sweet songs of the local birds without the roar of the truck engine. Next time I think the 8 hour horse ride is in order.

P.S. these 2 photos were taken by Gary Every.

best western

ruins

Me...

...just having too much fun

coffee at the canyon

www.changingwomancafe.com

spider rock

She chose the top of Spider Rock for her home. It was Spider Woman who taught Dine (Navajo) ancestors of long ago the art of weaving upon a loom. She told them, "My husband, Spider Man, constructed the weaving loom making the cross poles of sky and earth cords to support the structure; the warp sticks of sun rays, lengthwise to cross the woof; the healds of rock crystal and sheet lightning, to maintain original condition of fibres. For the batten, he chose a sun halo to seal joints, and for the comb he chose a white shell to clean strands in a combing manner." Through many generations, the Dine (Navajo) have always been accomplished weavers.

road trip

I'm going to Canyon de Chelly Monday. I'm so excited I can't sit still. Not that that is any thing new, but my life has really taken a swing back into the uncharted waters of spontaneity. Single and spontaneousness. I'm going with a friend who is as into this as I am. I believe there lies the key.

cat movie

and sometimes the picture has so many stories, one might get as lost as Alice in the rabbit hole.

some pictures just
don't have a story