Landing Page
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The landing pages are to be used as topic-introduction sections of the site, which debrief the reader on the particular category of posts.
Don’t fall in love with a woman who reads
Don’t fall in love with a woman who reads,
a woman who feels too much,
a woman who writes…
Don’t fall in love with an educated, magical, delusional, crazy woman.
Don’t fall in love with a woman who thinks,
who knows what she knows
and also knows how to fly;
a woman sure of herself.
Don’t fall in love with a woman who
laughs or cries making love,
knows how to turn her spirit into flesh;
let alone one that loves poetry (these are the most dangerous),
or spends half an hour contemplating a painting
and isn’t able to live without music.
Don’t fall in love with a woman who is interested
in politics and is rebellious and
feels a huge horror from injustice.
One who does not like to watch television at all
Or a woman who is beautiful
no matter the features of her face or her body.
Don’t fall in love with a woman who is intense,
entertaining, lucid and irreverent.
Don’t wish to fall in love with a woman like that.
Because when you fall in love
with a woman like that,
whether she stays with you or not,
whether she loves you or not,
from a woman like that, you never come back.
~Martha Rivera-Garrido
Poetry
- A Dog Has Died by Pablo Neruda
- A Moment of Silence – by Emmanuel Ortiz
- Alone – Jack Gilbert
- Behold this view of “The Four Noble Truths” – Jake Agnew
- Don’t fall in love with a woman who reads
- Failing and Flying
- Feel Mo
- my brain and heart divorced ~ john roedel
- Tryst with Death – Gina Puorro
- Wage Peace – Mary Oliver
my brain and heart divorced ~ john roedel
my brain and
heart divorced
a decade ago
over who was
to blame about
how big of a mess
I have become
eventually,
they couldn’t be
in the same room
with each other
now my head and heart
share custody of me
I stay with my brain
during the week
and my heart
gets me on weekends
they never speak to one another
– instead, they give me
the same note to pass
to each other every week
and the notes they
send to one another always
say the same thing:
“This is all your fault”
on Sundays
my heart complains
about how my
head has let me down
in the past
and on Wednesday
my head lists all
of the times my
heart has screwed
things up for me
in the future
they blame each
other for the
state of my life
there’s been a lot
of yelling – and crying
so,
lately, I’ve been
spending a lot of
time with my gut
who serves as my
unofficial therapist
most nights, I sneak out of the
window in my ribcage
and slide down my spine
and collapse on my
gut’s plush leather chair
that’s always open for me
~ and I just sit sit sit sit
until the sun comes up
last evening,
my gut asked me
if I was having a hard
time being caught
between my heart
and my head
I nodded
I said I didn’t know
if I could live with
either of them anymore
“my heart is always sad about
something that happened yesterday
while my head is always worried
about something that may happen tomorrow,”
I lamented
my gut squeezed my hand
“I just can’t live with
my mistakes of the past
or my anxiety about the future,”
I sighed
my gut smiled and said:
“in that case,
you should
go stay with your
lungs for a while,”
I was confused
the look on my face gave it away
“if you are exhausted about
your heart’s obsession with
the fixed past and your mind’s focus
on the uncertain future
your lungs are the perfect place for you
there is no yesterday in your lungs
there is no tomorrow there either
there is only now
there is only inhale
there is only exhale
there is only this moment
there is only breath
and in that breath
you can rest while your
heart and head work
their relationship out.”
this morning,
while my brain
was busy reading
tea leaves
and while my
heart was staring
at old photographs
I packed a little
bag and walked
to the door of
my lungs
before I could even knock
she opened the door
with a smile and as
a gust of air embraced me
she said
“what took you so long?”
Poetry
- A Dog Has Died by Pablo Neruda
- A Moment of Silence – by Emmanuel Ortiz
- Alone – Jack Gilbert
- Behold this view of “The Four Noble Truths” – Jake Agnew
- Don’t fall in love with a woman who reads
- Failing and Flying
- Feel Mo
- my brain and heart divorced ~ john roedel
- Tryst with Death – Gina Puorro
- Wage Peace – Mary Oliver
Poems by Others
Within this section of my website – I showcase pieces of poetry that are written by others, which I find to be particularly worthy of further reflection and sharing.
Poetry
- A Dog Has Died by Pablo Neruda
- A Moment of Silence – by Emmanuel Ortiz
- Alone – Jack Gilbert
- Behold this view of “The Four Noble Truths” – Jake Agnew
- Don’t fall in love with a woman who reads
- Failing and Flying
- Feel Mo
- my brain and heart divorced ~ john roedel
- Tryst with Death – Gina Puorro
- Wage Peace – Mary Oliver
Short Trips
Venturing forth upon voyages and various viewings.
SHORT TRIPS
Women
Celebrating the power, beauty, wisdom, leadership of all women, and of “womanly” aspects. Okay, okay, maybe some regretable brutality too.
WOMEN
Indigenous Matters
I work at honoring and protecting indigenous cultures worldwide, particularly in North America, a.k.a. Turtle Island,` and particularly in Massachusetts, named for the Massachusett People, one of the indigenous nations that occupied the current state that bears its name. I wish to walk the talk and not just talk to talk of restoration of rights and preservation of culture, knowledge, and belief. As the child of immigrants and invaders now living on the unceded land of the Nauset Tribe of the Wampanoag Nation on Cape Cod I hereby declare the message in the following video as a worthy and meaningful statement:
Adventures & Attendences
This photo was taken on New Years Day, 2012, the year I began this website, at the Remtuck Temple outside of Gangtuk, in the Himalayas, in Sikkim. One of the locked doors at the Temple had a sign written in English, which seemed very odd to me. it read, “No Entry without Purpose.” I’ve tried to follow that guidance wherever I go, and whenever I enter.
The black and white picture was taken in 1964 in the Moslem Bosnian village of Lijesnica. The men are all part of a Catholic village work crew that was in Lijesnica on this day when they spilled the blood of the goat they slaughtered on the roof rafters of the house they were building before joining the peak and celebrating with a toast and the young anthropologist. Zhivali!!
“… it is not through the great skill of the hunter that success is achieved, but through the hunter’s awareness of her/his place in Creation and relationship to all things.” Indigenous American (Crow) wisdom
About this website:
This site was begun in 2010, designed with the intention of helping a half century of written work escape the bounds of its voluntary imprisonment … and, inasmuch as i had been actively traveling three or four month a year for the past few years in SE Asia, India, Africa, and the South China Sea, to also serve as a vehicle for recording and sharing my thoughts and observations as i travelled ’round the planet.
There are three main categories of writings on this site – poetry, travel writings, and other writings (commune stories, memoirs, non-travel stories, and select journal entries). I thrill to the fact there is so much fabulous writing and art being generated these days – in books, magazines, journals, on the web, and elsewhere – TV shows, student created works, plays, fascinating blogs, sculpture, and just plain old good visual and verbal art and intimate essential conversations. I almost resisted adding to the onslaught by not posting these materials, but the jailer was old, looking at death on the horizon, and tired of enforcing the restrictive rules. Besides, the prisoners were deemed by the highest authorities to be as rehabilitated and presentable as they ever would be, at least those that made it out into the blogosphere, mostly all harmless I trust, and restless for a taste of liberty and fresh air. This is also a legacy for my descendants and relatives all. If you want to be more directly in touch with me please go to or visit my FB page.
ADVENTURES & ATTENDENCES
Political
“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.” Plato
“Do not get lost in a sea of despair. Be hopeful, be optimistic. Our struggle is not the struggle of a day, a week, a month, or a year, it is the struggle of a lifetime. Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.”
John Lewis – Freedom Fighter, February 21, 1940–July 17, 2020
Journal Entries
I have kept a personal journal since my thirtieth birthday. Often it reads, regardless of my chronological age when penning it, like a repetitive and embarrassing adolescent reverie about relationships and experiences that, even if I don’t ultimately burn it, I’m surely not publishing. Distinct from that journal, I’ve also penned a number of true autobiographically stories that I’ve included here as well as some entries I imagine my journal might have contained had it been written before I was age ten.
