Tuesday, December 26, 2006

My Father's Many Funerals

(I'm still closed until the second, but today marks 20 years since my father died of lung cancer. This is an older poem, but is the only one I've ever written about him)





My father,
Superintendent turned gardener
in his retirement,
attended nearly every funeral
over his lifetime of losses in our
small southern town

'We must pay our respects,'
as bulletin in hand,
he sang farewell hymns
passed down from generations
of farewells chainlinked before us.

At age 83 he joined them,
the dry, warm seeds
for that spring's planting,
abandoned

Midweek...
A thumbnail of mourners,
I told myself.
No gathering suitable for
final respects he cradled
as diamonds in value.

The limo snailed up the steep hill
towards that tiny brick church
where my father
had taught Sunday School,
served as Elder,
taken communion,
bowed head in prayer.
Front pew
Same seat every Sunday.

Edging over the rise.
the limo offered first
steeple, spires.......car roofs.
Hundreds of car roofs.
A garden of color spilling
from parking lot into field.
Standing room only.

Respect, my father's winter harvest.
Our town's final gift.

Later, at my parents' home, I tucked
my father's seeds into pocket
to carry to my own home
for next season's planting.

I feel sure that he knew.

Pris Campbell
(c)10/2001


In memory of my father..you were the best!

Published inThe Dead Mule, An Anthology of Southern Literature,
Fall, 2002

(Thank you!!)

Monday, December 18, 2006

Closed until January 2, 2007

See you next year, folks!

Sunday, December 17, 2006

The new blogger.com version??

Has anybody switched to it? One friend did earlier and suddenly when I tried to comment on her blog it asked ME for a google sign-in password and didn't automatically recognize me. Every time I go to the dashboard now I get a message saying move to the updated version and adding that I'll have to sign up with a google address. I have gmail but I don't have a clue what they're talking about with the sign-in thing. I honestly wish blogger would subscribe to the philosophy of 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it.'

Oh, I'll put up a notice after the weekend, but this will be my last blog until January 2. Closing until the madness of the holiday mail, etc is over.

Happy holidays!

Saturday, December 16, 2006

Christmas Past



I found this old photo yesterday. I was just married to my first husband, a four year navy officer, back from Vietnam. In this photo he was stationed in Newport, R.I. for his last two years and I worked as a Psychologist there, as I did in Hawaii, when he was based out of Pearl Harbor.

I'd love to see any old photos you have of yourself from Christmases past. If you post them on your blog, let me know. I don't know if comments support images or not, but I don't think so.

Pris

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Interchangeable Goddesses released by Rose of Sharon Press

The below information has been posted by Rose of Sharon editors, S.A. Griffin and David Smith. Thank you both for caring enough for my poetry and Tammy's to do this book and for doing such a fine job!


Rose of Sharon Press is proud to announce the release of the debut book of its 3 Virgins Chapbook Series, Interchangeable Goddesses by Pris Campbell and Tammy Trendle.

Working independently, two women from different generations have combined to produce a collection of poems that are a direct shot into the center of the endless web of the mind and the body through power, disease, lust and tears. These poems are the glorious noise that exists between the silences, and are dedicated to the elimination of fear and all of its ugly limitations.

$8.00, postage paid. Make checks payable to S.A. Griffin. Available from Rose Of Sharon Press, POB 29171, Los Angeles, CA 90029-0171.

Saturday, December 09, 2006

Cradle (Haiga)

Click to Enlarge

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Snow in Florida??

Well, with the internet, anything can happen:-) Go to my website page below to see a page I created a couple of years ago. Yes, Virginia, it CAN snow in South Florida (if Pris is around).

Snow in Florida

Turn on your sound.

Pris

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Sunday, December 03, 2006

Not around much lately

I've not been able to post much recently. The fatigue and sore throat from this cold linger and the fatigue has been excessive. It's been hard to come back from this one.

In addition to that problem, the immunologist who has been treated my CFIDS for around 8 years now at a center an hour south of me is making drastic changes in his practice. I received a letter about that last week. He will be cutting down to a one man practice and the center as such will exist no longer. Before, there was a Physicians Assistant, a second doctor, nutritionist, Psychologist. Along with this change comes a financial one. As of next year, he will no longer be available for after hour calls (something I've never used ,anyway), but, more importantly, we will have to sign a contract agreeing to pay for any tests our insurance will not pay for and pay for any overtime on our visits. We won't be seen for another visit until this bill is paid in full.

A gifted immunologist, he does quite a few tests he's developed himself. I won't know until my routine appointment tomorrow if those haven't been covered or exactly what my financial responsibilities will be. He is also requiring all of us who stay with him to have a general internist. I've had a gyn and other doctors as needed for specialized problems, but in my search for an internist, despite the changes in seeing CFIDS finally as a legitimate disease, doctors still don't know what it is and , honestly, don't want those of us who have it in their practice. I have one lead left right now after not having messages returned, being put on hold until after 15 minutes I finally hung up at the doctors' offices whose names were given to me to try by my gyn, who is local.

A number of doctors, I'm discovering are going into concierge medicine. You pay thousands up front to be in their practice, though your insurance, or you, still pay for all visits. Two doctors I've called have gone in that direction.

My immunologist has chosen for philosphical/ethical reasons not to go concierge, but he says he can't make it financially anymore so we must share the burdon this way.

And meantime, our government officials have the best medical coverage in the nation, our insurance premiums go up and pay less...where's the fairness in this picture.

This has taken all of my energy to type. Right now all of this is piling up emotionally, but I'm taking it step by step and trying to sort things out as I can.

Pris

Thursday, November 30, 2006

Christmas In The Graveyard

Poinsettias & carnations sprout,
grave by grave, in my old hometown.
My parents. Doc Johnny.
The boy I had a crush on,
sixth grade.
Carlton
Skeet
Ella Ruth
Malley
A roll call of breathless days
I thought I could wrap in tinsel,
hold tight in my fist, but

hey, I'm just an aging ex-hippie now,
searching for one more mistletoe kiss.

Sunday, November 26, 2006

Piercing the Veil (an older one)



My crystal ball rests on the mantle,
a reminder of endless yesterdays,
hair flying past bared shoulders,
beaded earrings, bartered savagely
from Washington Square peddlers,
clinking in time to sandals slapping
over cobblestone trails.

A gypsy, they called me,
those men who bent to kiss the hem
of my skirt.

My feet now stick to one place,
velcroed by the gravity of lost choices,
sandals tossed to the trash
scarves folded into camphorwood chest
earrings, toys for my neighbor's child.

Yet, nights when the full moon rises
and the raven sings his sweet song,
I take my crystal ball into my lap
and gaze, eye to eye, at the glass.
I see the gypsy I once was,
the gypsy I still am.
My gift...
Me, returned to myself.
Welcome home, the crystal sighs.

Pris Campbell
(c)2002

Saturday, November 25, 2006

Some fun!

A friend found this site for creating all sorts of fun and unusual effects with your photos. Flickr organized the page. I was dabbling with it yesterday just to check out the magazine effects one, but didn't try to put together a polished (and hilarious) cover like she did. This is one created from a baby photo of my mother. I had erased the background and copied it onto a colored one. Voila. Mom flies!



The site is located at http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/

Have fun!

Pris

Friday, November 17, 2006

More music. A WOW~

One of my favorite cellists, Yo Yo Ma, first with the amazing Bobby McFerren (I have that CD and love it), then Yo Yo playing Dvorak. His commentaries are interspersed throughout. Enjoy!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIKdv0mjg6k

And this one...it's a WOW. Tango dancers interspersed with Yo Yo Ma playing solo tango on a deserted practice dance floor. Wild and temptuous!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJC2bOmAEn8

Pris

Wednesday, November 15, 2006

Newport Blues

Before the base shut down, and
the America's Cup migrated west,
they wandered the streets of Newport,
sailor hats cocked to one side
and a Gene Kelly spring in their stride.
War wasn't yet a teacher,
wiping their innocence clean.

My cousin came back from the 'big one',
just to be killed on the road by a drunk
with much better aim than the Germans.

After Nam, with my husband land-based in Newport,
I searched the cobblestone streets
like a crazy woman,for some hint
Dolph was still there.
Maybe I thought ghosts of old sailors
returned to the place their free fall began,
came to retrace their steps home.
Back to their mother's arms.
Back to a lover's embrace.
No different, really, in that longing
from any of us, when our own
life-changing wars begin.

Pris Campbell (c)2006

Monday, November 13, 2006

Music for a Monday

A musician friend sent me a link to this haunting duet, so I wanted to share it with you. I'm posting the link since the youtube videos push my right hand column to the bottom. This is an early video when these two were still together.

Richard & Linda Thompson :
A Heart Needs A Home (Thompson)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGhhAcjA-Ks

Sunday, November 12, 2006

Spotlighting artist Elena Ray

A friend on MySpace introduced me to the work of this wonderful artist. Enjoy!


The Bird Madonna







Butterfly Bridesmaid





See more of her work at Elena Ray Website

Friday, November 10, 2006

Ode to a Banana

Men frighten me.
They creep around,
take my measure,
denigrate my size,
claim men don't really
want big ones,
but say
Freud was dead right
about penis envy
in the 'weaker' sex.
I ignore them.

Women peel me
with gentle hands,
swallow me
with warm mouths.
I have given my life
more than once
for the love
of a good woman.

Once I starred in a movie.
W.C. Fields.
Mae West.
Lord, that woman
adored me.

Now that
was my finest hour!

(c)Pris Campbell

(this is a whimsical poem I wrote a couple of years ago)

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Angel Crossed

This is an older graphic, but one I like. The background is from the ocean near my house and the two headstones combined into the graphic were sent to me by Sue Baker Wilson of Katikati, NZ.

Sunday, November 05, 2006

Yes....sigh, more Bush

Set to George Michael's song, Freedom, I found this Youtube video at Michael Parker's blog. The Youtubes are so wide that they push down my right hand column, so you can go directly to the Youtube link HERE, or click on Michael's name, and watch it from the video already downloaded onto his blog.

Voting day is coming up. I'm curious if we'll come out with a Democratic congress this time.

Pris

Thursday, November 02, 2006

Receivables

Retainers back in her purse and
Frank long gone away,
she stole Previn, but lost Woody
to her own wide-eyed silent child.
Innocence ebbed from that street urchin's smile
teasing out legs-spread nude photos,
to scatter like dead leaves over the mantlepiece
for Mia to rake up and see.

Is my blood still to be spilled like hers was
for the passion filled debts of my youth
or mght some man with heart
big as the moon's belly
now safely touch me again?

I'm weary of paying the Piper,
want no more penalties.
No more interest due,
save
        in handfuls of fairy dust,
drifting and tumbling,
igniting the late afternoon sky.

Monday, October 30, 2006

By request....:-)

A friend on MySpace from Finland asked me to tell her a little about Halloween customs here since Finland doesn't have Halloween. I explained how it used to be and how parents now tend to throw Halloween parties at home for safety reasons.

In the eighties, when my old neighbors still lived here and their daughter was 8, I was honoured to be the only adult, other than' mom', at her party. I came as a gypsy. Krista (the eight year old) helped me fasten scarves at my waist, then rat my hair straight up and paint my nails black with some polish she had. I 'told fortunes' (always good, of course) but still scared one little boy to death with my outfit and he wouldn't come over:-)

This photo was taken before Krista applied the black polish. Look pretty scarey don't I??? My hair isn't that dark, but photographed that way. This scan is a little fuzzy since I did it from a paper print out I keep hanging next to my puter to scare away computer viruses. The original is buried in an album somewhere. Now, share your neighborhood or personal traditions for those bloggers living in countries that don't have Halloweenm too?? Help me out?

(Click to enlarge)

Saturday, October 28, 2006

I'm trapped in a pumpkin and can't get out!




Thinking of you all as Halloween nears. I'm still out of it so won't be posting regularly yet. Hey, think maybe being stuffed in that pumpkin might be my problem??:-)

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

Still have it....

...the cold. It's been over a month and every time I think I'm starting to feel better I'm down again, dizzy and weak. I can't remember when I've had one linger this long. Can't think to post and don't have anything in my drafts folder, which I sometimes do. I really do hate this.

Pris

Saturday, October 21, 2006

Brains Wired to Connect (from Newsweek)

(I read this one page article in my current Newsweek and it directed me to the online version. Well worth the read!)

Oct. 23, 2006 issue - Carl Marci was jubilant. After a year in therapy, trying to decide whether to propose to his girlfriend, he had finally taken the plunge—and she had said yes! As Marci recounted the story to his shrink days later, his therapist appeared to share the triumph with him. And it wasn't just an act. Marci, a psychiatrist himself at Massachusetts General Hospital, had wired himself and his therapist to special equipment that records heart-rate variability and "skin conductivity"—two measures that, taken together, indicate the ebb and flow of emotional arousal. When he examined the data later, Marci was stunned. Lines on the two charts rose and fell in perfect unison, revealing that his therapist was truly sharing his excitement. "It's no accident that we speak of being on the same wavelength with someone," says Marci. "In a moment like that, you really are."
continue article here.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Red Ones, Blue Ones

A trained corsetière,
my aunt measured
large breasts
small breasts
just blooming breasts
over the hill breasts
randy breasts
shy breasts
well used breasts
never been touched breasts.

At least once a week
she spoke of her dreams.
Balloons. Always about balloons.
Red ones     blue ones    white ones
all set adrift and rising until,
peak reached and deflating,
they fell to the earth in soft plops.
Like a late summer rain.
Like the sound of a boy's gasp
as he jerks off to a photo
bought for a buck.

Pris Campbell
(c)2006

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Time Capsule Site

This site came from a Kim Komando newsletter. I always feel safer checking out her sites since she's done it first. Anyway, it's fun. The links up top will tell you about the project and the 'contribute' link will allow you to upload photos telling of you now, your past, love, beauty, and other choices. A space allows you to describe the photo. If you search for 'pris' , I added some and used that as my keyword on all of them. They came up for me in a search. A jpeg of a poem or your art or anything really would be interesting.

Click on Time Capsule.

Friday, October 13, 2006

Munch is far more than his 'The Scream'

(click both paintings to enlarge)



Ashes by Munch

In this painting he laments the end of an earlier affair, his first, with the wife of a distant cousin. Munch will forever be known for his painting, The Scream. In reality, many of Munch's paintings told the story of his life and loves in colorful, passionate artwork.


Dance of Life by Munch

(taken from a site about Munch) A later love affair with Tulla Larsen was oppressive. He continually retreated from her, unable to respond to the intensity of her affection (Müller-Westermann 79). Knowing these biographical details, one might suspect that The Dance of Life is rooted in Munch's relationships with his early love and Tulla Larsen. The man in the center of the painting is Munch himself, dancing with his old love, Mrs. Heiberg. Tulla Larsen is displayed on the left wanting Munch's love and on the right side, she stands rejected by him. Munch's description of the painting in his diary supports this interpretation: I am dancing with my true love - a memory of her. A smiling, blond-haired woman enters who wishes to take the flower of love - but it won't allow itself to be taken. And on the other side one can see her dressed in black troubled by the couple dancing - rejected - as I was rejected from her [Mrs. Heiberg's] dance (Müller-Westermann 78).

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Surviving Plato's Cave

It's always the same...
this dream that opens up
before me, like the yellowed pages
of an old New York Times
and it won't let me go before
the last page is read and
the ending obituary wept over endlessly.
From outside, the house looks innocent enough.
Grand, even.
A President could live there, or
either of Trump's ex-wives.

Inside, the same dirty rooms
with the same perspiring paint
are lined, wall to wall, with plush dusty chairs
under a leaky roof and a foundation
that sags like an old lady's bottom.

I know, in every dream, that this house waits,
shaking and trembling,
to umbrella in on me, forcing
me to salvation in my secret hideaway,
my bomb shelter,
my Plato's cave,
watching the shadows move and
staring down the devil
until he finally casts away his eyes
in shame.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

For my first day back blogging...

Was getting well, then the cold came back and grabbed me again. Have been sleeping the past two days, but I have some things backlogged that I'd like to post so will do that until better again. Thanks again for everybody's well wishes while I was gone.

Two pieces of artwork I especially like:

Normally not a huge Monet OR a big Impressionistic fan, this one grabbed me.(click to enlarge)



Red Poppy by Redon. Google him. It's worth the time. His work is fantastic. I first saw one of his 'dream' paintings in the seventies at the National Art Gallery in Washington. My feet were rooted in place. I didn't want to leave that painting. This is one of his more staid ones, but his use of color in his art is amazing. Picasso's Blue Period came from studying Redon's earlier work...his sketches of gaunt, big eyed men, some of whom are almost identical to Picasso's figures in blue. To my knowledge, Picasso never attributed the influence. He simply stole the glory and ran with it.

Saturday, September 30, 2006

Still taking a 'get well' break but...'Cora Lee', this poem, came.

I wanted first to thank you all for your notes and also to post a poem written during this time off.

Cora Lee

Rag bound 'round your head,
brown skin dipped in sweat
you washed our dishes
our clothes
ironed starched collars
and fancy blouses
no Cinderella prince
would offer you in your lifetime.

Four years old and precocious,
I corrected your grammar, ran unbidden
down the path to your house,
watched you fry fatback
and flatbread, thought it a feast,
never dreaming, if offered the platter
you might have chosen steak instead,
never saw you sighing at the unjust breeze
or the angry hawks circling over the thick pines
behind your house, day's end, sore feet crying
on the graying planks of your porch.

Grown, I wanted to toss out my sorry's
like a pink net of flowers--like Judas,
to give back the coins, beg forgiveness,
undo the nails, dig out the thorns, but
you stood in your sister's door
a statue, already fading in the twilight
eyes as vacant as a barn after the cows
have been led out to slaughter.

Monday, September 25, 2006

I won't be posting again until Oct 10

As much as I've tried to avoid taking too much time away from this blog, since I enjoy it, I need to give myself a good two weeks to recuperate from this cold which has almost knocked me flat, not to mention the lingering back inflammation. I think less time checking the computer and trying to post when my head in la la land is the wisest thing to do. Thank you, Michael Parker, for offering me commmon sense in doing this when I didn't have enough to do it myself.

Leave poems, sayings, haiku, words of wisdom, but I won't be responding again till I come back. I'll miss you all.

By the way, in my absence, I have over a year's worth of postings you can feel free to explore, all the way from more poems, artwork, haiga, videos, family/communal living photos, fun sites, and opinions on issues.

Pris

Should the National Anthem also be sung in Spanish---the controvery.

An article in about.com presents a pretty even view of what is becoming a controvery splitting us down the middle again on the issue of the use of English in our country.

Quote from the first part of this article:

On Friday, April 28, 2006 several Los Angeles Hispanic radio stations joined a nationwide campaign to play "Nuestro Himno," which means "Our Hymn/Anthem," as a way to show solidarity for the May 1st National Boycott.
In response, President Bush told reporters in the White House Rose Garden, "I think the national anthem ought to be sung in English, and I think people who want to be a citizen of this country ought to learn English and they ought to learn to sing the national anthem in English."

Let's hope after those comments that Mexican Presidente Vicente Fox will still graciously invite President Bush to Mexico for continued commerce discussions that can mutually benefit both America and Mexico.

Let's also hope that Presidente Fox doesn't echo Bush's words and tell him, "I think that people who want to conduct business negotiations with Mexico ought to learn Spanish and out of respect ought to speak Spanish during business talks, if they want favorable business results."

- The Idea Behind the Spanish Anthem -

British music producer Adam Kidron, who came up with the idea of the Spanish anthem, shared in a written statement that the Spanish anthem was not intended to discourage immigrants from learning English or embracing American culture.
to finish reading this article, click HERE.

Leave your view in a comment. What do you think? Also leave your general location. It seems that people in the states bordering Mexico and residents of Florida where the trend is for the language to become more bilingual (including requirements in many places such as banks that the employees BE bilingual) have stronger views than in, say, Kansas.

Pris

Sunday, September 24, 2006

Those Lovesick Swallows

Just when you're sure
the moon isn't going to fall
and no parallel universe
will open, with the indians
and the buffalo wandering beneath
unpolluted skies once again,
he walks back into your life,
spins it around.
He kisses your mouth,
suckles your breasts
and carries you to where
pain can no longer follow,
to where those crazy lovesick
swallows from Capistrano
fold wings around you,
and the juke plays oldies
all night.


Pris Campbell
(c)2006


(Thanks everyone, for your concern. I'm better, but still really weak and goofy with this cold)

Friday, September 22, 2006

The Abuse Can Continue

Click on the title link above to see the irony of in this Washington Post article next to my poem in the post below.

I now have either a bad cold or the flu and am feeling a bit nuts with one thing after another. All I can say again is 'I shall return'. Right now the screen is a blur and I'm keeling over. I'm missing my blogging and visiting all the blogs I enjoy!

Pris

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Will The Last Living Saint Please Stand Up

It was only after my brother-in-law's visit,
two years past his time in that slaughterhouse
we called Vietnam, that I saw how the war
had affected my first husband,
safely riding out his own two year bloodbath
in a supply ship off the corpse
free green waters of this once beautiful,
but troubled, land we were sent to burn, tame,
napalm and slaughter.

God Bless America, land of the free!
Teach the young our enemies are subhuman
then send them frollicking on their way
.

My brother-in-law spoke of sheared-off ears strung on belts,
Cong flung like basketballs or mortars
from our copters,
the rapes,
the heads on posts,
the torture.

Oh dear God, I had to leave the room.

From the kitchen, I heard them both laugh
about one gook who begged for his life,
his screams like those of a dying hyena.

These stories brought more hysteria
than Carson
or sock it to me Hawn on Laugh In.

Civilian or Cong? If dead, he was Cong.
That was the rule.
Women clutching their babies, stabbed
raped, and shot counted as ten, no make it a hundred...
ten counts for each of the ten men who raped her.
These counts, 'proof' of our
successes in taming these noble savages.

Count 'em.
Count 'em double.
Count 'em triple.
That was the unofficial official word given these teens,
some still not needing a shave every day,
some with their mother's mailed cookies still
stowed in their rucksack.

My husband's spirit had fled along with his brother's.
This explained his long silences, the indifference
that had crept like a dark shadow over
our young marriage.

His friend, best man at our Pearl Harbor wedding,
raped me one night.
Out of the navy by then, too.
Me sleeping on their sofa
enroute to a meeting.
Told his wife, my close friend,
it was consensual.
Maybe he was dreaming I was a bar girl
waiting for him in Saigon again,
legs spread wide for a dolla'.

This was the war we were to learn from.
the war more men died by their own hand
from, than were killed by the Cong in those
searing, orange-coated, gateways to hell.

The bones of the dead rise in my dreams,
dress in their cast away coats of skin.
They are us, they say, and we, them.
They pull on their faces and it's my face I see.
May those without sin cast the first stone,
they chant.

Glass houses weren't safe havens, anyway.
No more than battlefields, home fronts,
or shivering behind the backs of wannabe
saints claiming they would've never done the same thing.

I'm still waiting for the real saints to rise up.

Turn on the house lights.
Toss away the crosses.
Sing hymns of praise.
Feather the ground with rose petals.

Perhaps glass houses will yet
be habitable again in our lifetime
and condoms, not war,
the preferred way to manage
our burgeoning population overload.

Saturday, September 16, 2006

Thought this was beautiful...

A friend shared the below with me, so I'm passing it on. The vids have pushed my right hand column down to below everything, but it's worth it. I'm still struggling but hopefully will soon be back in good posting form again.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Update

I was tested for a compression fracture yesterday since my bone density scores had fallen so, and don't have one in my low back (though old ones further up the spine). I'm grateful for that. I'm still inflammmed and in a lot of pain so all I can assume for now is that it's a fibromyalgia flare like I get in different parts of my body at different times. It's still almost impossible to sit, so....

I'll be back.

Pris

Saturday, September 09, 2006

Off for a few days

I'm having a major flare with my back and can't be at the computer right now much more than to answer a few email, so will leave my blog in my reader's good care. I shall return!

Friday, September 08, 2006

We continue to attempt to wipe out our planet!



(the following is quoted from this National Geographic Site, which includes more photos, one of which moves in for a close up shot of the poachers): Will we EVER learn??

The remains of slaughtered elephants lie amidst the trees near Zakouma National Park in southeastern Chad. Mike Fay, a Wildlife Conservation Society biologist on a National Geographic Society-funded expedition, spotted the animals in early August—two of about a hundred dead elephants seen during a recent aerial survey just outside the park's borders (National Geographic News is part of the National Geographic Society).

Although international ivory trade has been banned since 1989, elephant tusks are hot commodities on the black market. The tusks are actually elongated incisors. Since about a third of their length is inside the skull, the tusks cannot be fully removed while the animal is alive. Poachers therefore shoot into an elephant herd, cut off the trunks of any fallen animals, and hack out the tusks with an axe.

Monday, September 04, 2006

Happy Labor Day

...with a painting by Degas. The Green Singer



a bird
slices the silence...
twilight

Friday, September 01, 2006

Fading

Celibate for longer then Rip
Van Winkle's nap, it seems,
Sara dreams in technicolor,
breasts like round hills again,
legs wrapped like thunderbolts
around some sexy man's waist.
Sean Connery maybe, or
Denzel Washington.
She wonders if sex works like
heartbeats in animals, if
she used up her quota in her
too many men too little time
communal days.
She remembers when her face
blazed a fire in men's hearts.
Between their legs, too.
Now she's forgotten what an orgasm
feels like with a man still inside her.
She climbs out of bed, puts on her
Give Bush a Blow Job PLEASE sweatshirt
does not go near the airport
but joins other graying ex-hippie
women who wander the streets
and coffee shops after midnight,
minds still alert and longing,
bodies fading like ghosts
between every streetlight.

Thursday, August 31, 2006

Poem/Response Poem

About a year ago Arlene Ang dropped this poem into my comments as a surprise. Arlene is the former editor of the Italian edition of Niederngasse, as well as a wonderful poet and human being. Arelene, I hope you don't mind if I print this again. It still moves me so deeply when I read it.

On Waking with a Different Woman
for Pris


Imagine the morning:
that lost bracelet around
my wrist, sun filtered by organdy
curtains, tinnitis and sore
throat like distant sea
in a conch shell.

The bed is peeled of its
worn look, Schumann's concerti
softly thread through air,
my voice is back. Daffodils
in a crystal vase remind
me of yesterday:

the ten-speed bike,
propped against a rusted
steel cabinet, its tires unchanged
from the day I pedalled
across town for
breakfast at Janelle's.

The garage smelled
of fresh paint; I moved freely like
the top that spun only from
other people's hands. Giotto's
Lazarus on the wall
didn't make the room turn.

Imagine old friends
coming over for a barbecue
and I call everyone
by name. Sometimes it's so real
I taste their favorite drinks
on my tongue.


Arlene Ang 2005



Remembrance

Photographs of daffodils
flood my bedroom wall.
Yellow shades to pink
in the fading sun.

He brought me daffodils once.
I didn't hold his arm for
balance then. My top spun
too fast to topple.

Our days dance in circles now;
orbits rarely intersect.
Silence has become my ally.
My enemy, too.

Imagine...friends lift me
to my bike again, gears
oiled, tires repaired.
The ocean draws back
from my breeze.
Sea shells tumble.

Awake, salt still stains my cheeks.
My bracelet jangles with the
morning blue jay's song.

I think I will name him Schumann.


Pris Campbell 2005

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Pris at Thirteen

(posted on MySpace earlier today...if you read my blog there, you've seen it)

I stumbled across a diary I kept when I was 13 and re-reading it had me rolling on the floor in parts. Crushes. Friendships. Family. The diary all brings it back. Poignant in some ways, too. Life was so innocent then and family was still alive and something I never even thought about losing. The immortality of youth...



The above is me at age 13...no, my hair isn't all gone. It's in a pony tail. Three diary pages below. Do you have an old diary? Share if you did. Maybe I'll dig out the ones from age 15 at some point. Those are great, too ;-)

(Click to enlarge and remember, Windows resizes. Run your curser over the bottom righthand corner till an orange square appears. Click on it and the pages will be readable easily)


Monday, August 28, 2006

Tropical Storm Ernesto

It's out there pointing this way. Nobody yet knows if it will grow to hurricane force, but the possibility is again there. After the last two years here in Florida and watching the Gulf devastation, just the word is enough to send my stress levels up. We keep prepared at basic levels all during the season, but now we're gasing up the vehicles, making sure any prescriptions are up to date, getting a little bit of gas for the generator we finally broke down and bought for this year that will run the fridge and a small fan, at least.

Now we wait and see.

the wind
chases its tail
emptied beaches

Pris

Saturday, August 26, 2006

Martin Luther King: MIA

I'm looking for you, Martin,
I'm searching Selma, back-row
bus seats, filthy lunch counters,
Dylan's guitar, Hoover's files ,tapes
of your I Have A Dream march
through days when protest and love
beat within the same heart chamber;
days when we thought black
would meet white and white would
meet black in a role reversal melt
down of ivory keys played
on a Sunday organ in churches
pouring christ's blood into silver chalices
to hand out to whoSOEVER believed.

Where are you, Martin?
Do you sit, unseen, in laps
of the homeless, the disenfranchised,
the beaten and raped women,
the molested children and sad,
jobless men, telling them love
will still rule the world and no hand
will ever again be raised with whip,
chain or fist to innocent backs
and no lips will mark just-born babies
with a hunting dog's thirst for the kill?

Come back, Martin.
Take up your staff, strap
on your sandals. Lead us forward
to a salvation of arms outreached
in an endless ballet where princes
remains faithful and trapped swans
are set free by long journey's end.


Pris Campbell
(c)2006




Martin Luther King at the 1963 March to Washington civil rights rally, giving his I have a Dream speech.

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Marty McConnell Performance Poet

With a fantastic poem and as one of a series of def-poets performing on an HBO series. This lady is a powerhouse!

Definition of def poetry from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Def Poetry, also known as Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry or Def Poetry Jam, is an HBO television series produced by hip-hop music entrepreneur Russell Simmons. The series presents performances by poets who are established in the world of slam poetry, as well as up-and-coming ones. Well-known actors and musicians will often surprise the audience by showing up to recite their own original poems. The show is hosted by Mos Def. Def Poetry is a spin-off of Def Comedy Jam. As he did on Def Comedy, Simmons appears at the end of every episode to thank the audience. The show premiered in 2002


Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Hindsight and Dimly Lit Nights

Using her starry eyed, fairy taled fore
sight, Sarah steps into white pumps,
unzips her dream bag, and strides
down the magic carpet of
'I take thee' words, gumdrop sweet
kisses, and him hard inside her
sighing, their names embedded
in the bright lights of endless memories.

Using her swollen eyed, blind sided hind
sight, Sarah finds herself night
after night in their empty house--
a moth beating its heart out
against ticky tack wallpaper
and platefuls of cold dinners,
her once-brilliant wings torn, her vagina
a black hole of unfathomable loneliness
and no arm 'round her waist to hold her
when the lights eventually go out.


Pris Campbell
©2006

Sunday, August 20, 2006

Gigapxl Project

Most of us have digital cameras that take photos in the range of around 3 to 5 megapixel capacity. Now a GIGABYTE camera has been developed. Not only does this site show off the detail this camera can achieve, but it does it through a series of beautiful photos, taken in different locations here in the states. The gallery alone is worth a look-see!

Click on: Gigapxl Gallery

Below is a shot from the site of the Lake Superior coastline, but on the website, a set of increasing closeups are shown that let you see the incredible detail in the photo: (Click to enlarge)

Friday, August 18, 2006

Gory Story (thanks to Geoff Sanderso)

I'd sent Geoff the graphic in this, also telling him my dizziness that comes with CFIDS for me had abated enough to allow me to drive a short distance for the first time in longer than I want to think about. He put the two together and came up with this gem:-) Ahh...the English. Think we should dump their tea again??

Thursday, August 17, 2006

Eulogies and Other Things Forgotten

(this is one I wrote last year..tucked it away and just pulled it out for a revise today)


Coyly tucked beneath a virginal
sheet: electroshock mindfuck on wheels.
Convenient.
Rolled right to you.
Pizza delivery techno
in the mental death ward.

Other candles zapped, one by one,
it's Sarah's go round at the party.

Forgotten memories cram the room,
burst through a distant window.
Visions vaporize of an ashen man
sprawled on his suicide bed,
leftover pills, stardust, around him,
that note bequeathing Sarah
his Marilyn books still curled
in the crotch of his battered Royal.

Pris Campbell
(c)2006

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Happy Birthday Bukowski and Elvis

...and my good friend, Margie Stevenson!

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Billy Joel Sings Piano Man

You have to go to the site to see it, but it's fun to see Billy Joel from the seventies in this vid, set in a pub, singing Piano Man. This used to be one of my favorite songs, and I still love it. A lot of vids and movie clips are found at www.ifilm.com.

Click HERE to see the Billy Joel Vid. If you click on the lower right corner of the video screen after you hit 'watch' and it loads, the screen will go larger.

Pris

Sunday, August 13, 2006

Interchangeable Goddesses

He built my pedistal
in seven days,
seven nights.

He had a God complex, some said.

Used cement swiped from a site
down the street.
Polished my crown with his tongue.

Honeysuckle vines grew from the sky,
circled my breasts, my thighs.
Elvis left the supermarket
to croon Love Me Tender
each night.
No snake appeared, but

my crown toppled off
and the pedistal crumbled,
tossing me hard to ground.

When I whimpered, he shrugged.
Love can be blind, like
the man begging quarters
on Second Street.

My lover stole those quarters
for a train straight to Georgia,
built a pedistal for a woman
with flames in her hair, howard hughes
toenails gripping the cement,
wondering how long she had
before the swift rains came,
dissolving her own goddess gown
into pools of spangles to float
down some other gal's street

Friday, August 11, 2006

Just Another Roadside Attraction

There's too much on this site to go through in one shot, but a peek inside is well worth the time. Go to roadside photographs to find photos of the 'older America' that's managed to cling on by way of attractions, signs, and other things proving that the fast food chain places haven't yet run us over!

Here are three shots from the site. Click to enlarge. Thank goodness everything doesn't like a clone of something else...yet!





Thursday, August 10, 2006

Damien Rice

Damien Rice sings The Blowers Daughter.

The visuals in this video are as good as the song. Taken from the movie, Closer, staring Julia Roberts, Clive Owen, Jude Law and I'm blanking on the other actresses name who won an best supporting actor academy award for her performance (as did Clive Owen), this video was at the end of the dvd. Scenes from the movie are interspersed with scenes of Damien Rice singing to a woman standing beside a crashing sea. I loved the song in the movie. It opens and closes it and this vid is well worth the time.

Pris

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

sleepwalking

A friend who posts on Haiku Hut, along with me, has his computer in the shop, so we have a series of haiga going on the 'broken computer' theme waiting for him when he gets back--an experience I think we can all relate to. Anyway, this is one of my zanier ones :-) (click to enlarge)

Monday, August 07, 2006

Ocean Road With Clouds

(Click to enlarge)

This is a view of the ocean road three and a half miles to the east and just south of where I live.

Saturday, August 05, 2006

Chicken Feathers and Park Benches

At age six, my cousin became
an animal rights advocate
when she saw mother wring
our chicken's neck,
sending it on its John The Baptist run
across the back yard,
feathers flying
like a summer snowstorm.

She stopped eating chicken.
Opened their pen to let them escape.
Hid them under the house.
Wrote Santa to rescue them
in his sleigh, come Christmas.

Later, she found her own roost on the streets
as manic depression spread its wings,
darkened her sky.
She was raped twice on park benches,
traded her body in cold weather
for a few nights in some strange man's
warm bed.

She lived on a cot in a friend's walk-in closet for a year.

She refused to go home,
refused to stay with a mother
who'd abused her while my uncle,
the minister, sat,
fingers pyramided in silent prayer
to a god who was too busy to listen
to one child's scream.

My cousin would give you her last dollar,
her last cup of coffee,
probably her soul if you needed it.

The streets can kill you or break you,
but angels tread that pavement, too,
wings hid beneath unwashed clothes,
chicken feathers spinning in circles
around invisible, but well-deserved halos.


Pris Campbell
2006

Friday, August 04, 2006

Cuba, Land of Mystery

In this week's online National Geographic, a video taken in Cuba was introduced in the following way:

August 1, 2006—Cuban leader Fidel Castro has temporarily ceded power for the first time in his 47-year presidency in order to undergo surgery. But regardless of when he returns to power, Castro's mark on the country will remain for years to come.

Join National Geographic writer Jon Bowermaster on a 2002 assignment to explore Castro's Cuba, which has been closed to U.S. tourists for decades.


You can see the short video at this National Geographic link.
(a brief commercial always preceeds National Geographic videos)

Cuba, a place people escape from for a better life. Cuba, a land its people still embrace, despite the hardships. Cuba, a memory of the old days before the revolution and the U.S. was banned...Hemmingway with his cigar on a hotel patio. Most of all, Cuba, the home of Castro, a mysterious figure to us all. Did he save his country or did he destroy it? Who has the answer?

Wednesday, August 02, 2006

A rest day...

I'm back from a class giving lessons on how to give a daily shot of a one year med that will help me with my bone density. It was an astounding -3 in some areas of my spine when tested, making me a fracture just waiting to happen. I usually know either right away or else within a few days if I can take a med without having debilitating side effects, so wish me luck. I'm super tired, though. The class was a lot of lecturing about bone density etc before they ever got to teaching the shot. By then, my usual dizziness from CFIDS had kicked into overdrive and I was glad the nurse provided a rubber ball for us to practice on first. Plan to just chill today and hope Tropical Storm Chris decides not to aim towards us or the Gulf states.

Pris

Monday, July 31, 2006

Michael Stephens with a wee help from me:-)

The link for The American Dream on YouTubes is HERE

Michael gave me waaaay too much credit at the end. He located most of the photographs, himself, but I offered what I had and could think of from the net. This is his original composition and him singing. I think he did a spectacular job on the video. Well worth a look. (I just discovered in inserting the vid that if you go to the link, the video is much larger. I'd recommend that and am taking off the code for the vid here)

The video is both timely and timeless.

Sunday, July 30, 2006

A collaboration with Geoff Sanderson

...except that I sent him the photo of my cat early this morning and he did all the work. This cat was the stray who brought her babies into our garage before Wilma hit last year. We ended up keeping the whole group until the babies were weaned, then found good homes for the babies and adopted Sabrina. She's truly made this her home now. It's hard to get her to go out. The father of her children comes around every day and she'll go out for a while with him, but not long. Sometimes they lie next to each other on the back patio like two old friends. We finally started feeding him, too, as his sides were sunk in. He's too wild to ever be adopted so better to just take care of him without adopting him (shots, vet, etc) than sending him off to his death at the animal shelter or die of starvation. He was lying on the bench just below the window when this shot was taken.



(click to enlarge)

Smithsonian's People's Choice Portrait Competition

I love seeing portraits of people, whether painted or photographed. The winners have been chosen in the Smithsonian portrait competiton, which are photographs. Now, however, if you click on the portrait of your choice, the People's Choice Award will also be noted. The instructions are clear. Go HERE to the Smithsonian site. I've made my choice. I liked the one the judges chose as number three.

If you like, post the portrait title of your first choice in a comment.

Friday, July 28, 2006

Lisa Pierot: An incredible Woman

I just hung up from speaking to someone at our local paper, The Palm Beach Post, and I'm crying. I'm crying because I just found out that someone I never knew in person but had come to know in her weekly columns has finally died. It's not a surprise. She wrote about her battles with metastatic cancer, which kept recurring and worsening. I hadn't seen the Sunday Post consistently and she did take times off during heavy treatments, so I finally called. She died several months ago.

Many of her columns are linked here on her website,The Metastatic Life.

You would think columns by a woman dealing with a progressing cancer would be depressing. In some ways it was. She didn't sugar coat her experiences. What hooked me on this column was her unrelenting honesty. I admired her. She wrote of her mother's cancer and her wish to have her mother with her at her own death, but her mother died first. She wrote about everyday things and gratitude, pain, her fears, of her love for her children and friends. She wrote about her wish that her friend raise her young daughter after her death since her husband was a short-tempered man, one she would not judge to be a good parent. His reply to her was that he would win custody since 'she would be dead, anyway, and couldn't fight him' (it seems her judgment was right on there).

I'm sharing this because I'd like my readers to get to know her just a wee bit, and to memorialize her in this way, even if by reading only one article.

I still have those tears in my eyes. Lisa, you made an impact on thousands of lives. I don't know if you knew it, but I hope you did.


Pris

Thursday, July 27, 2006

The Pianist from the Movie

I seem to be into enjoying excerpts of performances I've found on YouTube. For those of you who saw The Pianist, you'll remember this scene where his family has been taken to the concentration camps and killed, his hiding place destroyed, his help moved away, and he's near freezing in a bombed out ruin with one can of fruit his remaining food. A German officer discovers him and asked him what he used to do. He tells him he'd played the piano. Before the war, he was solo pianist for the city orchestra and played also on the radio. The officer points to a piano that's been abandoned in the ruins and tells him to play. He sits. You wonder if he's still able to after all he's been through. Then comes this wonderful scene and the humanity of the officer is shown, as well as the beauty of this wonderful piece of music. Enjoy.

The Pianist - Chopin Ballade No.1in G minor






*******See Michi Gabriel's moving poem in Lock Raven Review dedicated to the pianist in this movie. She posted the link in comments, but I'm putting it here, too, so others won't miss it. The poem is so very painfully beautiful.

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Yesterday's News

They said I'd be back
on my bike in no time
after the knee operation,
but all I could see was a grey haze
stretched out over the horizon
like a Scottish moor or possibly
a giant spider's web, blocking
a future that no longer
included life as I knew it.

You're just nervous, they said,
but who can be nervous about
an eighth inch of cartledge
when you've had your appendix
taken , near bursting, after
a midnight vomit-hurling vault
to Emergency, or your uterus
ripped out of your body
and thrown into the bin
for discarded body parts.

I've never been back on my bike,
never returned to the old life.
Sometimes we sense these things,
know when the future lies waiting
with its sword drawn or perhaps
a soft fog to lull us, but nobody
wants the headlines ahead of time.
Best to wait till they're yesterday's news,
lining our garbage pails, and soft rains
bring only the good dreams again.


(Just accepted for publication in MEAT, edited by S.A. Griffin)

Monday, July 24, 2006

What shows up when you google YOUR name?

A few years ago, I was surprised when I googled my name, out of curiosity, only to find along with expected results, an entry I'd made in someone's GUESTBOOK a year earlier. I knew the search engines crawled sites, journals, etc, but guestbooks?? Good thing I said something nice, eh?:-)

At any rate, I checked the webtracker for my website today for the first time in about a month. My visitors come from almost anywhere imaginable, but google is the main search engine that finds me and usually with the key word 'inspirations'. (My site name is Poetic Inspirations). Today, I found some search results from dogpile and while, of course, this blog has also been showing for some time, I was surprised to find that one search had led to a COMMENT someone had made on this blog last year after Katrina hit.

Amazing, and it also tells you to be very wary what you say anywhere on a public forum. Who knows? I may find these words in a search engine one day.

Pris

Saturday, July 22, 2006

Brightman and Banderas do Phantom of the Opera

This is a tiny excerpt from a dvd special I just rented. A presentation in England of Andrew Lloyd Webber's greatest's songs. A wonderful DVD. Everything from music from Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, Cats, to Phantom.

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

The Piano

A friend posted this in the bulletins on MySpace.

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Yup, today be the day!

Then...

Here I am at my fifth! I'm the one clutching the presents for dear life :-) My cousin Dee, scowls beside me to my left. What a party! We even had a homemade cake!



and now:

I did this with my camcorder. Need a new one. All those pixels showing....

Saturday, July 15, 2006

Mipo Radio Weekend Show

Hope you'll enjoy. Among a group of good poems on the show, you'll find my reading of 'Innocence' next to last.


powered by ODEO

Friday, July 14, 2006

Haiga Collaboration with Geoff Sanderson

Click to enlarge.


I took this shot about a year ago late afternoon over at the ocean, after the sunworshipers had gone. I was struggling for a good haiku for it and Geoff came up with one that totally resonated with me. Here tis.

Contacting a U.S. Senator

This list of U.S. Senators with their mail message addresses is very helpful if you want to get a message through. On a recent Senate issue, I wrote the Senator who represents me. I'm sure the message I got back was canned, with so many people writing, but what I've been told in the past is that records are at least kept by Senate aids of the positions of people writing or calling. For me, this direct contact is a lot more meaningful than many (not all) petitions that circulate and, I suspect, often don't end up getting sent anywhere. Most don't even have instructions re where to send so they just disappear into the Internet.

Pris

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Enya

I enjoy Enya's music and her videos. Find them restful. This one shows her performing on Larry King Live a while back. Here are the printed lyrics to the song she sings, May It Be, that was the ending song for Lord of The Rings:
May it be

May it be
An evening star
Shines down
Upon you

May it be
When darkness falls
Your heart
Will be true

You walk a lonely road
Oh how far you are from home

[quenya: darkness has come]
Believe and you
Will find your way

[quenya: darkness has fallen]
A promise lives
Within you now

May it be
The shadows call
Will fly away

May it be
You journey on
To light the day

When the night is overcome
You may rise
To find the sun

[quenya: darkness has come]
Believe and you
Will find your way

[quenya: darkness has fallen]
A promise lives
Within you now

A promise lives
Within you now...



Monday, July 10, 2006

My Last Love Poem

I want some swaggering,
cock-sure man
to write me a love poem,
to say thou and thee
and cliché up phrases like
breasts like ripe melons
and eyes bright as stars.
I want him to rhapsodize
about love everlasting
and throw in some lust, but

I think those love-sodden
days have swept past me,
the gate short-ended and barred.
My face is a road map for aging,
breasts, a compass pointing south.

Do I settle for rambling
about the old days, drag
out photos of past lovers, list
how many ways we did it
to bored cat and dog?

There must be another John Alden out there,
saving himself until now.

I'll put an ad in the paper,
search noted bottles at sea, perhaps
take out a pen and write
that sweet poem, myself.

I'll dig out some Schumann, slip
on that special silk dress,
lather chartreuse onto nails,
both fingers and toes.

I'll tape the poem
to my bedpost, carve
it into my headstone,
where bluebirds can gather
and remaining friends sigh
she was adored to the end
when my body makes love with the worms.

.

Sunday, July 09, 2006

The Face of a country rarely seen

By now, regular readers have discovered that I enjoy many of the interesting sites Kim Komando sends in her newsletter. Another recent one featured a link to North Korea. As she describes it:

The real North Korea
One of the things I like most about the Internet is the ability to see new things. Since I love to travel, I often look at pictures of different countries. That's how I came across today's Cool Site. It's a photographic tour of North Korea. In case you're not up on geography, North Korea is a Communist country. It is radically different from its high-tech neighbor, South Korea.

The photos were taken by a Russian Webmaster. He took photos of forbidden subjects. That is to say, he took photos that contradict those published by the government.

The photos paint a bleak picture of life. The sense of isolation is overwhelming. Photos usually make me want to visit a place. In this case, I'm not sure I'd go there, but the photos sure make me glad to live in America!


End of quote.

Click HERE to see some truly interesting photographs! Note that when you reach bottom, there are more pages. It just depends on how much you want to see.

Friday, July 07, 2006

Cirque Du Soleil - Hula Hoops

From Kim Komando's 'cool site' letter for today:

Flexible Elena Lev
There are few things as engrossing as a good show. And in case you think I'm talking about television shows, think again!

I saw Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas a while back. It was amazing. If you've never seen Cirque du Soleil, you're missing out.

That's why I'm recommending today's site. It's a video of Elena Lev, a member of Cirque du Soleil, performing.

At YouTube, you'll see a video of Elena performing her famous hula hoops dance. I know – hula hoops? It is much cooler than you think!



I used to know how to hula hoop, but not like this! The woman is amazing. Well worth a looksee.

You can either go to this youtube link:

www.youtube.com

or play it directly here:

Thursday, July 06, 2006

dream (a haiga)




Click to Enlarge.

Saturday, July 01, 2006

Apple Pie

In one of my past lives
when I wasn't busy being
Cleopatra or Ivan the Terrible,
I sailed with the Pilgrims
to the New Land. Only eight,
I watched dragons lift nightly
from frothing seas, fins
flared magestically like a
fat lady's fan, hissing
and slapping their tails
till the sun gods rose red
with rage every morning,
driving them back under.

My mother called me a liar,
washed my mouth out with soap,
but I'll say this:
there was no Plymouth Rock and
Priscilla never married John Alden.
She ran off with a good-looking Indian.
Her grandson snatched Custer,
made him skin and cook buffalo
for the entire tribe till he died.
The army generals made up that story
about Custer's Last Stand to force Congress
to do more about the 'Indian Problem'.

Now, if I were a liar, would I come clean
about all that stuff and mess up
everyone's apple pie vision of history?

Friday, June 30, 2006

Michelle Buchanan's Plan

Please read the opening post in her new blog and consider her request. It's an excellent way to honour the men and women who've been killed in Iraq.

Go to Operation Poem.



Click to enlage and get some idea of the numbers of U.S. service men and women killed in different states, in Iraq, to date, from the Palm Beach Post.

Thursday, June 29, 2006

Innocence

It's kind of like learning
to slip your bra off under
your sweater so he can touch
you--those little tricks you learn
over the years in some dark Chevy
or maybe if you're lucky, a sofa.
He learns to come with his jeans on
begging for more and maybe you
come too if he slips his hand down
your panties and touches you just
right. You learn how to find
that safe line between teasing and pleasing
because once you cross to the other
side you can't ever go back and you
learn later that innocence is an aphrodisiac
and no boy will ever again quite love you
like he did that night with one hand on your
breast, the other down your pants, 'your' song
on the radio and the moon writing
its name on every heartbeat

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Duke Lang's blog: From a Penis museum to a deserted dance floor in Iceland.

Duke Lang is posting some of his travel journals on his blog on MySpace. You can go there to read them, but not comment if not a member. In this post, he visits an honest to god penis museum (they're preserved lol) and waltzes by the sea with his love, Disa. Well worth a read. Not only can this man write songs and sing, he can write with the best of them!

Duke Lang's MySpace post. If you click on his photo beside the post, you'll see his music profile page, but more blog posts are on the page, as well. The ones above it describe more ventures through Iceland on perilous roads with cabins in the most extremely deserted areas with food and blankets for stranded travelers.

He attached a photo of Disa on the dance floor he described. Notice the old speaker waay up top. Yes, they biked there! This post is magical.

Monday, June 26, 2006

The Oxford Project

Kim Komando's online newsletter brought an interesting site to her reader's attention today, and I found the site fascinating. Here's her description and the link:

It's amazing how time changes things. But, since time creeps up, most of us don't notice the changes.

That's why I find today's Cool Site so fascinating. Twenty-one years ago, Peter Feldstein took photos of residents of a small Iowa town.

Then, he returned and photographed the same people again. But this time, he brought a writer to record their stories. The result is an amazing slice of life.

It's remarkable to see the honesty in the photographs and stories. These people didn't pose for the camera. And their stories capture the essence and beauty of small town America.


To view this site, go to oxfordproject.com

Friday, June 23, 2006

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Making Eve (posted on my MySpace blog yesterday)

Spewed out of God's Sixth Day WIDE
open post utero mouth, these zygotes,
twin embryos, now grown, one buried
inside the other, tumblefall into Eden.

History's first birth defect.

That story about the rib?
History's first cover-up.

Nixon, listen up.
God did it, too!


No woman to ride side saddle
for long, Eve sharpens overgrown
nails, aliens her way free
through Adam's wimpy chest.
She flirts with the serpent,
finishes off the apple, tosses
Adam the worm and the core.

Original sin. What fun, she trills.

With a shake of her fuck-me frizzled
hair and one hand lifting an,
as yet uncarressed breast, she takes up
with a horny caveman. Their two dozen
mix-breeded children scope uncountable
later debates about Origins,
birth control, and the true
author of the Karma Sutra.


Pris Campbell
©2004

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

MiPo Print (OCHO) is out and it sings!!

The following announcement comes from Didi Menendex

Our new print companion to MiPOesias is now available.

http://www.lulu.com/content/337361

Contributors include:
John Korn
Jenni Russell
Jack Anders
Helm Filipowitsch
Ron Androla
Pris Campbell
Laurel K. Dodge
Amy King
Tom Blessing

If anyone is interested in reviewing OCHO, I will be happy to send you the PDF.

I will be mailing complimentary copies to a few of you as well.

Thank you,
Didi Menendez
OCHO and MiPOesias Magazine
www.mipoesias.com

NOTE: Several people have asked about the meaning of the journal's name. Tom Blessing was right in his comment. I just checked with didi. OCHO is '8'.

Sunday, June 18, 2006

Fathers Day (Click to enlarge)

I was lucky to have two good parents. My father died of cancer twenty years ago this Christmas and my mother followed him ten years ago this September. The first photo is their wedding picture and the second, one I especially like, was taken in the late seventies under the mistletoe in my old hometown.
I'm grateful for both of them. I'm thinking of you, Daddy, on Fathers Day!

Saturday, June 17, 2006

Our Hurricane Wilma kitten grows up!! (Click to see full size)

Those long time readers of my blog may remember the post I made last fall of the litter of kittens who rode out Hurricane Wilma in our house. The mother, a stray, carried her babies into our garage unseen when my husband had the garage door open, doing something in his van. The discovery was made when mom suddenly for the first time became insistent, almost desparate to run inside the front door whenever it was opened. Finally, my husband let her in and she headed straight for the garage where, yes, four tiny mewing kittens were found. In this first shot, Stubby (as I'll always think of her, though her name has changed) is lying on top of her sibs about four weeks after the storm hit.
Yes, we kept them until weaned, then found good homes for each one. I'm glad, since they were all adorable. The single shot is of Stubby propped up against the French Doors, looking up at me. Just adorable. It was hard to give them up, but we had to make a decision and decided mom was all we could take in, with a dog already king of the house at that point.

Recently, Steve did an A/C job for the kitten's mom and when he came home, he told me how beautifully that wee kitten had grown up. Today, we drove over, by invitation and I got to see our baby as a large cat. Those eyes are still beautiful!

The second photo is with Stubby and her new mom, trying to coax her out into the room. I think she thought we'd come to take her away again into the eye of Wilma, winds roaring around her, since she hid most of the time we were there. We did manage a few good fleeting shots and had the pleasure of seeing her at the beginning of her adulthood as a cat. Godspeed, Stubby. You were a pleasure to have in our home!

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Tommy In The Sky With Diamonds

(Some of you read this earlier on my MySpace blog)

Stars blinked in the sky
that was us, high
in blackened theatre seats,
Roger Daltrey screaming,
seeeee me, heaaaaar me.
Clapton strutted down the aisle
with his MM crazed crowd
banners waving, blood of the
scotch bottle bled for thee--
Elton pin-balling that Wizard
in three foot laced shoes.
Pot so thick you could
slice the air.

Tommy, in rock opera glory,
resurrected across
that hazy Boston banned screen.

Tommy, Tommy,
sing us up the mountaintop.
Tommy, Tommy
lead us to the revolution.


We fell into each other after,
grasping and frantic,
eager to stretch
that fire into forever.


~


I rented the video years later.
My neighbor napped right through it and
my husband cracked lousy jokes, but

I slipped back with Daltrey
to the commune and you,
our bodies sweat-tight,
reliving the night when Tommy
lit up the theatre on Beacon Street.


Pris Campbell
©2003
(revised 2006)

Curious...how many of my blog readers saw the movie, Tommy, or have heard The Who perform it?

Saturday, June 10, 2006

This is amazingly well done

A poem in flash, found as a link on the W.O.M.B. blog. W.O.M.B. in my right-hand column of links.

Cobweb.

Turn on your sound.
Pris

The link Brian Campbell mentions in his comment is Born Magazine for more of this type. As he says, this site is very difficult to navigate. Type in the last name in the box above poets. Choices will come up. Click on the one you want and hit the enter key. Good luck!!

Friday, June 09, 2006

Around the World

One of Kim Komando's newsletters features a site I'm still enjoying. If you like candid shots (and good ones) from all over the world you'll enjoy THIS SITE.

She describes it this way:
Today's Cool Site takes two of my favorite things and puts them together. That's right -- I'm talking about photography and travel.

You start with an interactive map of the world. Use the controls to zoom in or out on the map. Or you can click and drag to move the focus. You'll notice small yellow, orange and red dots sprinkling the map.

Just click on one of the dots. You'll get a preview of a picture taken at that location. If you're curious like me and want to see more, click on the preview. Then, you can see the picture in a full-sized window.

While you're exploring the photos, why not take a minute to upload your own? Anyone can do it!

---
NOTE: I found the instructions for upload on their forum. NOT obvious from the link. Here they are:
Follow the the steps 1) - 4)

1) Navigate to the location where you want to place your photo. You can use the controls or drag the map with the mouse pointer.

2) Click on the map with the left mouse button - the white bubble pops up.

3) Browse for your photo file. Enter title and description. If you want to upload as anonymous go to step 4). If you have already registred then select "I want to login". If you also want to register, select "I want to register". Fill in the appropriate data. All fields are required.

4) To upload the photo press "Submit" button.
----
I only had one pretty bad photo from the eighties of the main intersection of my hometown, Pageland, South Carolina, loaded onto my computer, but will see if I can scan more. On the map, find the Carolinas. Pageland is located on the South Carolina state line below North Carolina and below Monroe, North Carolina. Jefferson and Ruby are to its east and Kershaw to it's left. You'll see a bubble. That's where I grew up!!

btw: I couldn't get onto blogger at all yesterday to respond to comments or post them to other blogs. I see a maintenace is scheduled for tomorrow, so maybe the problems of the past two or three days will clear up after that.

Thursday, June 08, 2006

Your mission...if you choose to do it..

is to use one of the words in the below list in a comment you leave.:-)

Click to enlarge. I wish I had more, but can't remember where I found this batch.



I'll be off the the dentist for a deep filling down into the root, dragging this cold with me. Wish me luck everybody!

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

Wildflowers

When my cousin turned eighteen,
she asked if she would go psychotic
like her sister
and two brothers before her--
believe the Nazis had poisoned her,
that she was an unrecognized
minister from France,
or end up in an institution
until she forgot who she was when she went.

I was a psychologist,
but what did I know?
The moon could explode tomorrow,
or dinasaurs could come shooting
out of black holes to rule
our planet like Godzilla did.

My baby cousin,
the tagalong,
the tail at the end of the kite
the five of us formed
those Montreat summers,
flying down the steep mountain road,
breathless and barefoot
to plunge headlong into Lake Susan,
so sure life would bring wildflowers
to our hands, forever.

She was never poisoned by the Nazis,
didn't preach in France,
or knock her father flat to his back
on her rare visits home.

A tumor found her, instead.
Thick, like a vine, it slowly strangled her.

Her chair is empty now.
My phone never hands me her voice.

So sure she would outlive me,
I'd willed her the Family Bible
and grandmother's old chocolate set.

Maybe I'll list them on E-bay,
let somebody else
take over our family's hauntings, or

just maybe
I'll look for a field of wildflowers somewhere,
lie back, watch clouds
turn cartwheels through the silent sky
until dusk falls and petals
drop softly to pillow the ground
with memories.

Monday, June 05, 2006

Featuring Ron Moss



Ron Moss, of Tasmania, creates some of the most beautiful haiga I've had the priviledge to view. He has graciously given me permission to post two of his haiga on my blog. Thank you, Ron! Be sure to click to enlarge them and remember that Windows resizes, so watch for the orange rectangle in the lower right corner to see if the image goes larger. Click HERE and HERE to see more of his work.

Below is Ron's bio from one of his publications in Simply Haiku to give an idea of the recognition he's received, as well as a taste of his background. Personally speaking, during my association with him over several years posting together now at Haiku Hut, I'd like to also say that Ron is one of the nicest people you'd want to meet.

Ron Moss writes and paints. He's published in Australia and overseas in magazines such as Famous Reporter, Yellow Moon, Heron's Nest, Frogpond, World Haiku Review, Mainichi Daily News and received an honorary mention in the Japanese Suruga-Baika Literary Festival and a second place in the 7th Mainichi daily News haiku competition.

He also paints watercolours and haiku "Haiga" which have been published in Paper Wasp, HaikuHut's Short Stuff, World Haiku Review and which features a portfolio of his haiga. He's a member of Watersmeet Haiku Group in Hobart, Tasmania and the World Haiku Association and World Haiku Club and has recently won first prizes in Haiku and Haibun and placings in Tanka and Renga and also co-edits Famous Reporter's Haiku Section.

He lives at Leslie Vale, Tasmania with his wife Sharon and works in the film and video department of the archives of Tasmania. He is also a volunteer fire-fighter and an officer at his local fire brigade.Ron was recently interviewed on the NPAC website after winning successive Gold Medals for haiga


For a general definition of haiga, if you're not familiar with the form, click HERE.

Sunday, June 04, 2006

Haiga (Click to enlarge)

The beginning of hurricane season brought this to mind.

Friday, June 02, 2006

Black Widow

She undresses dresses nightly to the soft hoot
of hidden owls and tinkling wind chimes.
Perfumed and breathless,
she opens her arms to her new lover,
the old ones drained and scattered like
untended leaves in her trail.
They finally return to tired wives waiting
with burnt coffee and eggs
or empty apartments with beds
they can no longer bear to sleep in.

Her yard is littered with crumpled love poems.
It glows with spilt blood.

She spins silken tales for this new love,
weaves him closer with each word,
talons still hidden, demeanor as meek
as a coward's shadow.

He's a dead man walking, but
nobody's told him yet.

Pris Campbell
(c)2006

Thursday, June 01, 2006

A short note...

Today was dental day and the shots for deadening put me into lala land with my chemical sensitivities so I'm sleeping off and on and hoping to feel normal again soon.

In the meantime, today is the funeral of Michael Parker's grandfather. If you know Michael, or even if you don't, take time to read the obituary and eulogy he posted on his site. Michael has been a good friend to me.

Michael, whenever you return, know my thoughts are with you today as are the thoughts of so many others.

Pris

Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Before Salem...

A little more history...


Edinburgh, Scotland, 1998
Photograph by Jim Richardson


On a dark night, lights cast mysterious shadows on the Edinburgh Castle. The Edinburgh Castle has a long haunting past, one of which involves the Witches Well. Located in the northeast corner of the castle, the Witches Well commemorates the death of more than three hundred women. They were accused of practicing witchcraft between 1479 and 1722.

From the monthly National Geographic newsletter.

A friend recently sent photos of a drowning pond in Iceland where women dress in white each year and gather to commemorate the deaths of ancesters in that pond, women drowned because they were accused of having sex outside of marriage.


Wives were also expected to die on their husband's funeral pyre with them in some cultures and we won't even get into how Henry the Eighth handled divorce.

And yes, men have their share of torture, too, but it has never seemed gender related, with the exception of African American men in America, who were tortured/castrated and then hung. To my knowledge, there were no female tortures and hangings, though they met other types of abuse by the Klan. Tell me if I'm wrong.

If you can stand to look at these, the site, Without Sanctuary, tells the story of these men in photographs.

What's even scarier is that in the Salem burnings, the drowning well, and the lynchings, the persecuters all claimed to be good 'god-fearing' citizens. I'd like to meet their god sometime.