Lazy Hazy Days of Summer

Actually this is Spring Break in Ft Myers, Fl, my senior year. A shot of my boyfriend. I spent the break with him and his sister, one of my closet friends (and still is).

Now, if he'd been a poet, he coulda been a contender for our calendar:-)

More lazy days of summer...(yes, I had out the old album)



This was one of my friend and me (I'm the one with no glasses and the vamp look)sitting on my boyfriend's car at Daytona Beach. I went to Stetson, which was less than an hour's drive away, so on weekends when there wasn't too much else to be done, off to the ocean we went!
Pris

Picasso Head Redux

I added this top one after doing the one below. Time 5 pm. This one was all done in Piccasso.








This SITE is fun to play with. Try one, post it on your own blog and leave a link in the comments section.

I added the upper text and border in my graphics program. Everything else came from the program.

Pris

The Great Yogurt Conspiracy

In September 1972, two founders of the Federation of Feminist Women's Health Centers, Carol Downer and Colleen Wilson were arrested for allegedly practicing medicine without a license. Their Los Angeles Self-Help Clinic was raided by the California Department of Consumer Affairs and the Board of Medical Examiners. The Self-Help Clinic presented the local medical establishment with competition. Concerned with the potential loss of revenue for the local physicians, one doctor, three uniformed police and several plainclothes investigators confiscated four truckloads of supplies and equipment, in order to shut down operations of the women-controlled clinic. The reason for the arrest? Downer had inserted yogurt into the vagina of a women's center staff member.

The trial became known as the, "Great Yogurt Conspiracy" and was a crucial turning point in the women's health movement. Downer was found not guilty by arguing that applying yogurt as a home remedy for an ordinary yeast infection is not practicing medicine. The verdict reinforced women's control over their own bodies and established that at-home methods of self-care are, indeed, lawful.

Excerpt from THIS ARTICLE. The rest of the article gets more technical about yeast infections if any female readers care to read on.

This was during 1972 when self help and women's consciousness raising groups were in high gear. Anybody remember those? I helped set one up, but it was two hours away from my commune and a four hour commute was too long to sustain after a workday, so I just went the four times. Times to remember with fondness. Times that helped make things better for women nowdays, I hope.

Pris

Upheaval

That late Kansas summer, a tornado
sucked the air out of our lungs,
caved in windows, knocked over a barn,
stole furniture and dishes
from the woman two houses down.
When the air finally sat still,
you poured warm chocolate across my back,
feasted until your tongue resembled tornado dust.

I said I wanted you to hold me.
You rushed inside me instead.

At dawn, as you buttoned your shirt,
leaned over to kiss me,
my body still shaken from the upheaval
and my feet slipping beneath me,
I realized you would always
be my wild place, not my stable ground.

Pris Campbell
©2002


Published in Peshekee River Poetry Journal, Fall 2003

No Wednesday Post

I've gone to the doctor to offer up my usual 3 to 6 vials of blood to be secretly drunk by a lab tech in the attic.

Pris

Ghost Riders

Hands stroke under my sheets,
drawing lost loves
back to haunt.
They piggyback old wants
onto your cries.

You say the forever words
when your lips cover mine,
yet when I'm astride
I see ghosts
ride you, too.

Pris Campbell
(c)2002

published in Blackmail Press

Keeper of the Heads

(this is one I wrote a few months ago)




Nights, when the rain falls like bullets
and lightning shocks the ground with bomb-white flashes,
the heads in my basement talk to me.

My grandfather tells me I'm such a good girl.
My mother asks if I want rice.
My grandmother offers to brush my hair.
My father grunts in his sleep.

They speak for hours about the old days;
days before Ho Chi Minh lifted his fist.
Before the French. Before the Americans.
Days when our land rose in green stair-steps
to kiss the morning heat, and flowers
formed a rainbow along the jungle's edge.

My brother yanked their bleeding heads
off the posts surrounding our slaughtered village,
ears sheared clean for the Americans' belts.
He and I had been sent searching for roots.

I brought them here, well hidden,
even from my G.I. husband, the man
I seduced, married, and ultimately killed,
the man whose house I still inhabit.

Blood taken for blood given.

He never knew I killed many before him
during my days first as orphan, then bar girl.

My looks saved me.
I'm still beautiful, though silver weaves through
my hair like tears.

Tears for our trampled rice paddys.
Tears for our streams bubbling with blood.
Tears for the slain water buffalo and barren trees
leaning into a sky burned orange by Napalm.

Tears, too, for lost innocence and
hands that will never again wash clean.



Pris Campbell
©2005

Our 'Most Intruguing (and Sensual) Male Poets of 2006 Calendar Update

The original post about the calendar can be found HERE on Jenni's blog, but if you're interested, post a comment on this thread where we can find it easily. Or, write one of us. Remember; proceeds will go to charity.

Pris

Morning---too darn soon!

THIS was too large to fit into the space, so go to my website link for a view of my morning.:-)

Pris

Letters home..

My Aunt Orpha had saved an old letter my mother, three cousins and another aunt wrote her when I was 15 and we made our first trip into 'yankeeland'--specifically, Belleville, Illinois. Of my mother's five sibs, all remained in the South except for Uncle Bayle. He married up north and raised his two daughters, Ann and Jane, there. This is page two of the letter. It makes me smile, so I posted it.

Pris

webcaming it

Ages ago, my tech friend put a little program on my desktop that , when I click on it, it turns on my webcam, snaps a shot every 60 seconds, and then FTP's it up to my website. Well, I rarely turn the darn thing on since I usually don't look..let's say presentable for the world to see when I sit at this machine, but hey, check. You won't see me there for any time, but I do put it on just to update my pic ever so often. Webcams of the world, move over. Pris is here!

Click HERE to see.

fingers
tapping slowly over the keys-
a zombie awakens!

Owning the Beach

Along the strip of Ocean Boulevard leading from the south end to Worth Avenue in Palm Beach, there runs a beautiful strip of ocean and deserted beach. A small shoulder on the road allows enough room for a biker to use, but not for anyone to pull over to gaze at this beauty. The owners of the huge shuttered homes across the boulevard own this beach. They guard it well, with fences and padlocked gates, some of the padlocks rusting from lack of use.

In all of my years bicyling along this strip, before I got CFIDS, I never saw a soul on the beach. Later, by car, I've never seen anyone, either.

It's legal to walk on the beach below tide line. No-one can own that. I once had a friend who took that walk, beginning on the northern end, at low tide, and barely making it to the other end as the tide was coming back in to territory owned by the rich.

To own something and let it go so unappreciated...To own something that beautiful and not let anyone use it, even when you don't. To me, that's a crime.

My opinion.

Pris

Update on the Most Intriguing (and Sensual) Male Poets of 2006 Calendar

We have ten poets committed now and a number thinking about it. Time's running out. We looking for a few more good poets willing to participate and have a good time doing so. The calendars will be on sale at cafepress and the proceeds will go to benefit CFIDS research, the illness that I deal with and for which scant research funds are available. This very kind suggestion was made by Jenn and Didi.

Now, go to the Jennijack link in my righthand links column for an even more detailed update.

Pris

Songs Unentitled

What would my dead mother say,
knowing I still mourn you--
you, the same one who tore
my flesh open, leaving dank
blood trails for the squirrels
to track through, come morning.

What would my father say
from her side, worms
lifting their heads listening,
if I told him you still sing
in my dreams, barefoot
and sprawled at my bathroom door,
suds bubbling over the hole
that once held my heart,
that same heart that danced
Sambas whenever your
hand brushed my cheek.

Thank you, Michael!

See Michael Parker's Blog entry, dated July 19, for a wonderful tribute and poem he wrote for me. Thank you, Michael! Such a beautiful thing for you to do.

Pris

Dreaming.....

Accepted for publication in Simply Haiku

Somehow, when I look at this haiga it makes me think of past loves. Over the years, there've been a number of men I loved or thought I loved at the time. With some, the feelings ended when the relationship ended--or before, actually. Then there's that one or two who linger. It took me years to stop thinking about the man I lived in the commune with. We'd been together a bit over five years. One day he came in and told me he was leaving in two weeks. Already had an apartment. Since he married six months later, he may have already had another person in his life, too. I thought he was the love of my lifetime. I still had occasional dreams about him ten years later. It turns out I was wrong about him being my great love and time finally faded him, thank god. I have a friend who still occasionally fantasizes that she's again with a man she was crazy about in her late teens early twenties. She knows if she actually saw him, it wouldn't be the same at all, but....

What's the longest you've pined for someone? What made their hold on you that powerful?

Pris

It's the big day and from now on I age regress!

To save load time, I put this image on a link now. Click HERE to see the neat shower cartoon posted here yesterday.

It was posted on the Bag End posting board as part of my birthday celebration. Any excuse to dunk me under the shower lol.

Next year my age goes back by ten years. Hey, if I live long enough, maybe I'll become Cleopatra in another lifetime.

Okay, okay. Two blogs about my birthday. Enough already!

Pris

A Day of Rest...Sigh

Overdid yesterday, folks. Unless I rally later, nothing new and exciting will appear in today's post today. I'm just gonna crash, ignore everything and loll out.

Hey, tomorrow's my birthday! I think I've only had three or four actual 'parties' on my birthday, in my entire life. This is the first:-) I was just turning five. My house is behind us and the little girl next to me is trying to hog my cake lol.

Calling Hot Male Poets

Jenni and Pris will be doing an calendar featuring male poets. The calendar will be printed up and on sale through cafepress. We're asking for volunteers. No pay. Just for fun. One man will be chosen for each month of the year. The proceeds will go to charity.

Our cover poet has already been chosen and what a start!

A sensuous photograph. It doesn't have to be in boxer shorts (but go for it if you want), but something sexy! A swim suit or comfortable jeans both work great. Young or older poets, we'd like both. And you don't have to have the 'perfect' body.

Send us 2-3 choices of full body shots to jenninot@aol.com with cc to campris@bellsouth.net. Submissions are to be in by Oct 1st. Send a good size. We'll resize to fit on the page!

If you're chosen, you'll be asked to sign a release and a send us a poem to be posted beside your photo. Previously published poems are fine.


Join the fun???

Identify yourself clearly in the RE section. We don't open mail we don't recognize at all. Poets we know will more likely have their mail opened.

Didi mailed around the announcement link on Jenn's site so go HERE to see all the commotion and wish lists lol. Add a comment in either place.

Tech Tech, Here Comes the Tech!

My friend, Lloyd, is coming over today to help me find out why I've had the blue screen of death three times this week. The message I get back is that it's a corrupted modem driver, but those Windows messages are ultimately guesses. Leave me a story of the craziest thing you've ever done so I'll have interesting reading when I come back online later today??

My driver is fixed. I also now have cleartype installed on my LCD monitor..yes,it makes a difference and I'm also now a volunteer computer that can be used when idle in the same group Lloyd's in doing cancer research.

I'm also pooped. I'll be back tomorrow.

I also see that, so far, nobody has any exciting stories to tell. Lucky guys, you're out living them today:-)

Pris and her Wicked Stepsister

Jenn

Jenn asked what a waterbird is. I posted this on her blog and promised a photo (Jenn, had the grass been shorter, the feet would've shown. Found no shots of them out on the street. It's dead-end, so they wander there, too. Sorry)

Water birds can fly, but they have webbed feet at the end of long skinny legs and tend to nest in reeds along the water and not in trees. Typically, their legs are longer and skinnier than a regular bird's and they have longer necks for diving for food, as well as wondering through yards for bugs. The webbing isn't obvious from a distance, like a duck's is, but get close enough, you see it

Selling Our Wares

Boston. Early Seventies. My friend and I were leaving to go hawk our male nude calendar at Harvard Square. During these years, only one other calendar had come out with bulked-up guys dressing like the milkman or the postal carrier. BOOring. We asked our friends to find our models and also asked men we knew. Regular guys. Interesting faces, not Mr. Hollywood.

We developed the photos in a makeshift darkroom in my bathroom, had to hussle hard just to get someone to print it. We didn't make a cent, but it was fun...and oh, the escapades we had doing this. One of the funniest was photographing one man in an old graveyard out in the country at dawn. I mean, who other than us would be there that early? Here come a group of little ladies headed our way. Have you ever seen a guy put on his pants and run at the same time??:-)

Good thing we got the shot first!

Another slice of the pie called Pris.

Soda Jerk Days

We Are Not Afraid

The We're Not Afraid site is a wonderful collection of photographs, based in England and containing photos from all over the world. It's a message to terrorists that the human spirit is still very much intact. This site is well worth a visit.

I sent this one to the site, taken about a year and a half ago.



Pris
A friend just sent this link to the BBC NEWS commending this website.

Rebels

It's been a great many years since he was killed, but he and Marlon Brandon were the classic rebels of their time. I thought I'd continue with my 'bad boy' theme today. Why do they appeal? How do they push our buttons? Do you recognize this face?

Fast car. Fast car.
Liz in his thoughts,
the reek of his last
same-sexed lover still
on his sheets.

Fast car. How fast
can it go? Rev up
the motor. Let
out the throttle.
Full speed around
that next curve.

If he flies at the speed
of light, will he disappear
into the moon's belly,
he wonders?

He stubs out his last cig,
chugs down more Daniels.
The ghosts still
won't slip off
his shoulder blades.

He's two people,and even
this fast, loud
mouthed
little sports car
can't make the one
he hates go away.


Pris

PS on the 'bad guy' post two down For Keros

Keros posted a link to his blog in comments, after posting that the photo looked like him. I thought he was kidding. You've got to see it, so I'm making it a hot link right HERE. Read his profile, too. An incredible story. An incredible artist and poet, too.

Home

It sat across the street from the High School, where my father's office was located. He was, first, Superintendant of Schools, then District Superintendant. We weren't allowed to buy the house, but we had to pay rent for the twenty years my parents lived there until they bought their own home at the edge of town. By then, the School Board no longer required that the Superintendant be within 'slingshot length' of one of the schools.

My room was the upstairs one over the porch and my friends and I would climb out through the side window at night and lie on that slant, staring at the stars and dreaming of our lives when we grew up.

a thousand
diamonds to chose from...
midnight sky


Question for my readers. Did you grow up in one house or many? What do you remember most about the house that felt most like home? In mine, a closet was located on the upstairs landing just before the left-hand ninety degree turn to the last three steps to the upper floor. The closet door was just below waist high for an adult. The only way to get into the closet was literally to crawl in, since there was no way to add stairs in such a small location.

Sha Boom

Have you ever known this guy?



Tell me about the baddest, sexiest guy or gal you ever dated or pined after as a teenager.

Mine was named Billy Hicks and his hair was like this, only brown instead of black. Elvis pout lips. Bedroom eyes. Dumb as hell. He had flunked and was two years older then the rest of us. I sat beside him in ninth grade Civics class and couldn't think of the lessons over the beating of my heart. The crush lasted about two months, but oh, the fantasies during that time!

Pris

Hurricane Dennis

It's already cost lives and homes in Cuba. We're on the East coast, but this is just a taste of how wide the effects of the storm are.
Click HERE, HERE, and HERE, to see some shots taken just after dawn this morning. The blurring is due to low light and tree movement. The clouds are like a race track overhead.

Pris

Ash

In our youth, mouths still plump
with unspoken truths, you tattooed
your heart on my breast, lay
beside me on sagging mattresses
in cheap coldwater flats.
Trees curved sideways from
the blast of our innocence.

Our feet took different paths, but
I never forgot you.

Now, ash in my hair, mouth puckered
from too many soured kisses,
we find each other again.

You kiss my tattoo, faded and scarred,
bring my breasts close to your chest.

Trees move in the rising winds, dip
branches low, sing songs of a quieter
celebration deep into the sighing night.




Pris Campbell
©2004

Art: Venus by Ingres

Fish Fish

This photograph was taken by Sue Baker Wilson near her home in Katikati, New Zealand. Does it inspire a haiku or perhaps a short verse?? If so, post it in a comment.

Pris

Hurricane Dennis Update

Storm Update: The hurricanes are starting earlier this year. I'm in South Florida. East Coast. It looks now as if Dennis will go up the Gulf side and miss the state, but the Keys already are in warning and Miami, an hour and a half south of us, has been warned of tropical force winds today.

Here in the greater West Palm Beach, we've had wind gusts off and on and forecasts for heavy rains and thunderstorms. There are still signs down here and there from last year's storms and many trees gone forever. No fun living along a hurricane's track. I'm pulling for the people in the upper Gulf states!

Thinking of our English friends!

He thinks he can bring down
all giants with his slingshot,
so he tamps powder tight
into bombs nightly, recites
a litany of hate as his evening
prayer, tells himself all who
are not him or like him
are evil, laughs while
the rest of the world mourns.
This terrorist...this hero
of Dante's Ninth Circle.
His feet are already ablaze.



For all victims of terrorism everywhere,
and, most especially, our English friends, this day.

Scheherazading Rapunzel--posted earlier but removed and revised.

(recasting an old fairy tale)

My hair has grown to the ground
waiting for the one with the ruby
tongue, his hands weaving false
promises into the empassioned air, but

four empty summers have passed by now.
Another man stands underneath my window.
He has caught my tears with his fingertips
and kissed them, tossed me fresh rice cakes,
lathered with honey, as a treat.

Hair finally within reach, he
hesitates, begins his climb.
Do I cut my Repunzel braid? I ask,
and wait faithful in this tower forever?

His eyes light like black opals
as he draws near, bidding me,'say yes'.
A redbird circles his head.
I think of Beth's blood and her
loveknot, her highwayman dead
on that ghostly galleon-lit road.

I know that death can come from
loving flamboyant, sweet talking men,
but Mother told me to always believe
fairy tales do come true.

I'd rather opt for this new tale, Mother,
than one filled with unraveled promises,
dwarfs, or a toad that wants kissing.

I set my scissors aside, toss
out my wedding gown; it billows
among the clouds. Yes,
this one will be my faithful Scheherazade,
my mongrel to bay at the moon with.

From My Window Redux

I belong to a yahoo World Haiku Club Multimedia group. Members of the group come from all over the states, including Hawaii, Japan, Australia, Canada, and more. We post and comment on haiga. Recently, a member thought it would be fun to post views from our windows, with at least one shot including a portion of the window, itself, so we could catch a glimpse of each other's everyday world. She's collecting them on a page to share.

If you click HERE, you'll see views of my front yard after a rain, during a rain (it rains a lot in Florida!) and my backyard, as viewed through the panes of my French Doors.

If you'd like to share your own window view, post on your blog and leave a comment with the URL.

Featuring Didi Menendez-Mary Brown Eyes

Sweet Mary Brown Eyes

Mary bought herself new running shoes
Mary bought herself three new DVDs
Mary bought Smirnoff orange flavored vodka
Mary drank two glasses with crushed ice while she watched the first DVD
Mary put her new running shoes on
Mary put Crosby Stills Nash And Young Best Hits on her Sony
Mary listens to Judy Blue Eyes
Mary does not understand the Spanish at the end of the song
Mary was born in Cuba
Mary knows how to speak Spanish
Mary does not shove her language to degree earned non speakers
Mary knows that sometimes they totally fuck up the language
Mary lets them
Mary does not understand Crosby's guajiro
Mary says hey it is like what Silliman was trying to say about Coolidge
Mary says ala Bandstand, its got a good beat and I can dance to it, I?ll give Coolidge a 7.5 Dick
Mary prefers to dance to Bukowski
Mary runs harder when the do do do do do do do do at the end goes full swing
Mary runs underneath a mango tree and starts to run backwards so she can see how well hung the tree is
Mary could jump and dunk for a mango
Mary turns around and keeps running
Mary is not addicted to alcohol
Mary has been addicted to the internet for 10 years
Mary wants to reach out and touch him as if he were a mango
Mary rewinds Judy Blue Eyes
Mary listens to it's getting to the point, I am sorry, Sometimes it hurts so badly
Mary must cry out loud
Mary is lonely
Mary keeps listening, don't let the past remind us of what we are not now
Mary keeps running


For Prissy

(the italics mean I took from the lyrics of the song Judy Blue Eyes by Crosby Still Nash and Young's lyric)

Thanks for the poem, d. I love it! Readers, check the cafecafe link to the right for the main blog didi manages. Many good poems there, reviews and announcements.

The Exhibition

My collaborator is away, but I thought I would display this one until he comes back and we make a final decision. This is about 80 percent size. To see it full size, click HERE to go to my site page.

Geoff took this photograph near his home in Yorkshire, England.

Pris

Florida Sky

Seen over our 'winter' months...

Independence

I'm directing you to a poem on my site today since it has animation and music. It's one I wrote last year after watching the Boston celebration. I spent six years in Boston and watched the Pops celebrate, complete with cannons, during those years. One year stood out in memory. I was with the man I lived with in the Commune, my first marriage over. I was giddy with love. The stars were out. The night was magic.

So many years later, watching it on tv, those days were a distant memory. Click HERE to see the page. IE blocks music sometimes so you may have to allow that to hear. If you feel more comfortable going into IE and visiting the page directly from your browser, the URL is http://www.poeticinspire.com/independence.html

Here's to the English. If they hadn't gotten us so mad we wouldn't be free:-)

Pris

Thirteen

One person, commenting on my haiga a few posts down featuring a photo at an 8th grade dance, asked which one was me. I took the photo. So....here I am at 13. My hair's in a pony tail. No, I'm not half bald:-)

The Clark Coolidge Debate continues......and continues.....

A few weeks back, Ron Silliman devoted a six page (printed out) post slapping me on the wrist for not appreciating the poetry of Clark Coolidge. It seems that post has reveberated around the web. Read HERE for more. Find the small link among others under the first larger link list entitled 'A WDS Tribute to Silliman' for a take off on Silliman's original post. (Clark C is still coming up on the Silliman blog--see my links to right--in a post two days ago).

Is there some reason we are not allowed to not like Clark Coolidge?? Were I to say I didn't like green cars would there be such a rukus?

Pris

Hop-skipping through time

Ashes

You arrive home
to this house, this brown
suburban house, made of crushed
autumn grass and old bottles.
I wonder if you'll notice that
the ghost in the chair isn't me,
but you rush out to play with
the dog, tossing indifferent
red and blue balls to the horizon.

The ghosts asks how your day was,
spreads lips to a grin, pretends
stones still can beat as hearts
before dying.

Ash pile at your feet, but you
don't see your trail til
you turn, and vague memories
drift of days when a flame once
roared high in your fireplace.

Powderpuff

All the rain has brought out the blossoms on my front yard powderpuff tree. I planted this tree twenty years ago when it didn't reach to my waist and here it is now, so beautiful.

Pris

Dangerous Places

(an older one)

I must take care not to peer back
through that gray slant of time
to when we lay arm against arm,
bodies flushed and moisture still seeping.

People I love march into places
I'm not yet ready to go.
They do not return in this lifetime.

My body has grown cautious,
fearful of high curbs and large dogs,
irritated by the squeals of small children.

I avoid mirrors,
magazine articles on aging
and women who dwell on their bladders.

Outside, my husband weeds.
Gray hair sprouts from his cheekbones.
He swats at it, as if a pesky fly.

My heart does not leap when
sweat draws his shirt tight
or his pants slip to show cleavage
I once traced with my forefinger.

He senses I watch,
glances upward, then away,
his gaze falling like autumn rain
onto the waiting weeds.


Pris Campbell
©2002


Published in Blackmail Press-2003