Even More Vagabonds

Second Outlet, Same Outlook

[monochromeonsienna]

“A woman who is willing to be herself and pursue her own potential runs not so much the risk of loneliness as the challenge of exposure to more interesting men — and people in general.”

— Lorraine Hansberry

[ofvagabonds]

Bennington College: Kalopsia: Rachael Meyers, "Educational Microaggression"

April 22, 2014 Bennington College Kalopsia: Check All That Apply

[ofvagabonds]

Low-Fired

  I don’t mind my skin, my grayish-ochre,

but I was little when I asked my mother.

She said I’d been low-fired.

  In terracotta, my arms feel smoother.

So brown I am red and drying softly –

Soft enough I let it draw in moisture

  like elephant skin, but me,

my skin, so I’ll drip little shy

driblets on the forearm and surely

  turn red again! And yet it dries

that soft beige that is so familiar.

At the wheel I can coat my own thighs

  and stand, dripping, two fleshy pillars

only as tough as my leather shoe-straps;

But I could get used to this color.

  I wonder: if my joints collapsed

and smacked my jaws to the concrete,

could I suck red from the puddles and cracks?

  But the ground is as arid as my leather bound feet

and turns beloved drips to a gagging chalk.

Colors dry on concrete like thumb prints in the heat.

  Drop me in the mixer, Mother, with the Redart and Talc –

I’ll climb into the kiln and burn this soft skin to rock.

[scienceisbeauty]

Are you suffering a long Monday? Click the image to put the concept of time in context and relieve this pain by yourself.

More: exploringtime.org

[lovecraft-deactivated20210405]

here is today.

[npr]

Happy Monday, everybody. -L

[ofvagabonds]

REALITY CHECK

[vintageblackglamour]

Nina Simone would have turned 80 years old today. Born Eunice Kathleen Waymon in Tryon, N.C., she changed her name to Nina Simone (“Nina” meaning “little one” and “Simone” after the actress Simone Signoret) after she began singing in bars early in her career, something her Methodist minister mother none too subtly referred to as “working in the fires of hell.” This photo I am sharing today is my favorite of Ms. Simone, a stunning shot by Pittsburgh photography icon Charles “Teenie” Harris, circa 1965.

[tmz-deactivated20180730]

If you put Katy Perry’s face on Paula Deen’s head… it’s still Paula Deen.

[npr]

Something to think about this afternoon. — tanya b.

[ofvagabonds]

OKAY YEAH

[explore-blog]

More Than Human – Tim Flach’s extraordinary portraits of animals.

[collectivehistory-deactivated20]

A lot of Dutch girls who were part of the resistance slept with German officers so they could get crucial information. After the war, they were called “moffenmeiden” (Krauts-girls) and they were shaved and ridiculed. 

[ofvagabonds]

Amiri Baraka Baraka Baraka Baraka Baraka Baraka Baraka Baraka Barrrrrrrrrrrdddrrrrrrrraka ka ka ka ka kaaaaaaa.....

[ofvagabonds]

An Utterly Unstoppable Jayne Cortez Masterpiece of a Poem

Rape

For Inez Garcia, Joanne Litte - Two Victims in the 1970s

.

.

What was Inez supposed to do for

the man who declared war on her body

the man who carved a combat zone between her

breasts

Was she supposed to lick crabs from his hairy ass

kiss every pimple on his butt

blow hot breath on his big toe

draw back the corners of her vagina and 

hee haw like a California burro

.

.

This being war time for Inez

she stood facing the knife

the insults and

her own smell drying on the penis of

the man who raped her

.

.

She stood with a rifle in her hand

doing what a defense department will do in times of

war

And when the man started grunting and panting and

wobbling forward like

a giand hog

She pumped lead into his three hundred pouds of

shaking flesh

Sent it flying to the Virgin Guadalupe

then celebrated the day of the dead rapist punk

and just what the fuck else was she supposed to do?

.

.

And what was Joanne supposed to do for

the man who declared war on her life

Was she supposed to tongue his encrusted

toilet stool lips

suck the numbers off of his tin badge

choke on his clab trap balls

squeeze on his nub of rotten maggots and

sing god bless america thank you for fucking my life

away

.

.

This being wartime for Joanne

she did what a defense department will do in times of

war

and when the piss drinking     shit sniffing guard said

I'm gonna make you wish you were dead black bitch

come here

Joanne came down with an ice pick in

the swat freak motherfucker's chest

yes in the fat neck of that racist policeman

Joanne did the dance of the ice picks and once again

from coast to coast

house to house

we celebrated day of the dead rapist punk

and just what the fuck else were we supposed to do

.

.

.

1982

[todaysdocument]

[ofvagabonds]

December 5, 1882 J. G. Krichbaum patents his device for indicating life in buried persons.  

I've been needing one of these.

[ofvagabonds]

Beauty, Nina Simone

[criminalwisdom]

The Gentleman’s Guide To Amputation Via Dangerous Minds

For the real deal see our previous post: THE GENERAL METHOD FOR AMPUTATIONS

[ofvagabonds]

To My Twenties

Long After Kenneth Koch

  I am a cat and

I am getting old and

I am knitting the scarf I just spilled coffee all over.

  I am writers’ block, because I once said “this is what depression means.”

  I am the blankness of the out-of-doors. I have trees growing out of my back and they itch. If trees and things are leeches and barnacles

I am the weed in dandelions.

I am night swimming. I deserve a quiet night.

  I am just procrastinating my thirties.

  I am the late paper that never gets written

I am the marginal pass.

              I am not a college student. On days like these

  I am the constipated sky. I don’t know how to snow.

I am the ozone, and

I am late for my AA meeting.

I am a very tall ladder. Something is hauling a very long rope up my back and oh, is there a needle in its pocket?

I am only the intelligent things people have to say. They let me into their clubs and very shortly after their beds.

I am really old books, not really new books.

              I quit doing drugs. I’ll start again. I am drugs.

  I am the president of the United States. I have a problem with cigarettes. People either trust me or they don’t.

  I am fingernail polish.

I am red fingernail polish. There really isn’t any other type of fingernail polish.

I am the razor in the bathtub. I make girls bleed, and I like it.

I am rich.

I am right between her legs.

  I am a warm, flat beer. I drink lips on Fridays, tongues on Saturdays, and

I am an overhang.

I am Thursday. I park my car at the high school.

  I am movement, and I’ve become lethargic.

I am more or less a couch.

I am the color brown.

  I am fat in a pan with loose bolts

I am so hot that I could be bedazzled.

I am a little t-shirt. I don’t fit but

I am usually tried over warm, hard nipples.

  I am a splinter and a finger too.

I am of course a vagabond. I have the strongest teeth because of my beef habit.

I am a loaded gun.

              I wish I were inadequacy. I would slide down the cliff because

I am a dull ice pick.

[ofvagabonds]

Short Story

The girl likes to drink moscato sugar slipping up her bloodstream and he likes that he wants to buy her moscato she smells sweet. In high school everyone is in love. Agony, in its purest form a good weekend, excess. Car batteries always die. The music kills them on the sand by the fire. Girls and boys and girlboys and boygirls stop to engage the engine in its last scream. Engines are always happy to die for love. Love died when the sweet girl rolled into the fire. Nobody died except love. That was a good weekend. School is just another word for sex. She stroking his smooth blond hair that does not have knots, he stroking her smooth blond body that does not have hair. In college no one ever labels anything. Girls and boys and girlboys and boygirls pace around like moles in the late morning sun. No one wants to sit long enough to feel their asses get numb. The girl once went to the sticky floored room on balls of her sweet little feet. He wasn’t labeled so when she tapped him, cheeks casually pinked and tightened, she was surprised to find a salty mole in a t-shirt. Sugar dropped from her hand and the floor got stickier. The weekend was over and so was college. Education is just another word for masochism. In French the only word for upbringing is éducation. Life doesn't have another word.

[ofvagabonds]

Wink D'alantern in the Shed

When we fell in love

Chicago compressed with heat on my lips dry as some red worms charred hips bricks they oscillate  against this cracked brown curb you heated me up ts-ah kept me orange with just a little black  breathing sulfur under my tongue if only I didn’t have asthma on nights like these we were under Van Buren trying to push 2am into the coals “blow on it baby” and I know it sounded dirtier coming from me three is a crowd tonight beside the elevator all hot blooded men have forgotten a lighter a dollar have forgotten their script on the 29 bus forget rats hares glazed brown and white  drip salt over their little sweater teeth below the street I know there are a lot of good things to say about the way shins burn under jeans

but please can we talk about anything else the daily reminder of free ice skating in the park never got out in time the night we turned the river around barehanded and bellies out took a big gulp as we pumped all our shit into the Mississippi the begetter Old Lady Leary the way we all get singed when Obama and Oprah decide to come home  I want to take it like it’s mine to ignite but damn if I just got here and yet there he is Rahm Emanuel turned like an angry escalator he’s indulging all the locals burning me with a hand underground still I never really got what time to stop getting off  at Harrison on red you and me and the sulfury walls of Van Buren still curling around with good fingers knuckle-less and no one in the room knows where they’re coming from In March is the breathless emerald flood of everybody who showed up for Flogging Molly I am not drunk enough I crumple my legs with the whip-lashed outside when the gray sky cracks hard and hot the concrete is crowded by rusty headless legs they stampede  and I sit inside them wait for your crooked arms to strike the Sears tower I always liked to watch  you sink your teeth into it  you start the garden I am in  irons as the buildings drip with wet clay finally safe  from the old cow in the barn drowning is something bad that can also happen to us it seems like Van Buren  will just barely be engulfed If I only stayed there you’d be in me now  like coals slipping into soot

[awesomepeoplehangingouttogether]

Patti Smith and William S. Burroughs