DIG A DITCH

true:

2007-07-23T18:12:03Z

i spilled my breakfast this morning when i saw that tegan and sara have posted their entire album on myspace a day before it officially comes out tomorrow.
incredible.

A half honest poem:

2007-02-26T20:30:11Z

The Large Gray Cat

This year the landscape has swelled with sadness.
The rains, reservoirs, and tectonic plates have worked
together to expand life in it’s black and blue
ongoing.
The birds are all gray now, their throats have dimmed and
the sky hangs in heavy folds over trees thick with dew.
I have seen the asphalt turn black in the rain and
trees bend in the wind.
I have seen dead animals on the roads.
One, a large gray cat, around six o’ clock.
Night was beginning to bury the valley and its body still looked warm.
I could see the porch lights on the houses—
people setting tables for dinner.
They’d be watching TV later, their faces lit up.
And I could see them in their beds, turning over in the sheets
while that body hardened
to be discovered in the morning
already dead.
I have been boiling pasta, reading books,
watching TV, putting on socks at night
but I am waking up now.
I am putting on my shoes.
I am going out to get the mail.

2.20.07

showering twice a day makes you feel more feminine:

2006-07-10T20:49:15Z

I wait for my next class to start. ellensburg is hot and windy.
yakima is balmy and hot and tired.
i did not hunt for gooeyducks (geoducks) this year for the fourth. no lost glasses in the yard, sand under my nails, pikachu, or dock. i felt sorry for myself most of the day and then, later, justin came over and we watched the fireworks from the back fire escape. i've never been here on the fourth. it was exactly how it should be.
I don't like school but don't know if this is because I've already decided not to like it, or deep down, I just plain don't.
I'm ok for a little while now, I am optimistic and scared of the coming back down.
I've been trying to turn this sticky recyling heavy page of depression for a long time now, with some success. counseling seems to have helped, but I don't know if it is merely the passing of time, or maybe people saying yes to me when I need them to.
I am trying to move and don't want to. nowhere has coved ceilings and glass doorknobs and ivy on the kitchen window, but it's getting too dangerous to live here, too many police reports, and too much broken glass. tell me if you see a cheap apartment for rent with the right kind of windows. fuck fuck fuck
I've been writing again, because I have had to, for a class, and it's been good to get this heavy wheel turning again. I'm writing differently and don't like it as much, but it's all i've got. I won't write the very serious stuff about being all diced up and a poor quality person.
I'm ready for things to start going right and I'm ready for me to be able to notice them. so far, i've had a few good small moments.
soon I'll have a month and a half off of school and I am hoping that the winds will change.
I am building with very small stones.

after all of this

2006-05-30T03:30:21Z

discussing the way that subatomic particles respond to human thought and intention in the laboratory and the larger implications and principles this supports with my cousin today, he said that a japanese scientist did a study on the structure of water molecules after seperate bottles had different words eg. love, hate, etc. taped on them and after x numbers of hours the angles of the bonds, etc, had changed. so i am supposed to trust the chaotic order of the universe that is somehow keeping us afloat, but i am unsure how much free will to figure into it and how much that figures into the larger picture of order, and maybe i don't subscribe enough love into my life and so nothing is responding, and how much CAN one person love me when they go to sleep at night, and if i am creating my life and the universe responds to me and vice versa why are things so ugly, does time heal all things or do you just forget biologically as related to stress and forgetfulness and am i ever going to get better and what about death and smoothing out the wrinkles and my brother's wedding was so beautiful and love is so horrible sometimes and i am tied up in ticking of the clock in the same town in the same stacked bricks and maybe if i just put the word love all over my building and my legs and my clothes and just believed enough it would respond. if i'm seeing it all wrong then i need a new idea and if that doesn't work then i am all out.

Two Shows

2006-05-13T19:06:03Z

Tonight

with a bullet 9pm flight deck in yakima

Rocky Votolato (Macchiato) at central's new student union building
in Ellensburg, 7pm. free. the new sub is next to black hall, just up from the japanese garden.

ok.

a few things:

2006-04-28T02:18:57Z

well,
i haven't updated because i don't like to lie.
so.
school at central is robotic and lonely.
tyler, do you have any recommendations for engl dept professors?
also, i've only found one park, and it's plagued by toddlers, tell me where other, possibly franklin-esque parks are?
i haven't been writing, because i've been sad. but i am not sad all of the time. and i don't want any kind of comforting either, i've given out my fair share of good advice and can't take it right now.
it's a weird mix of hot and windy and unsatisfying in yakima and in ellensburg. i am talking to some highschoolers next week about poetry, i think this will be good for me. i need to remember why i do this.
my friendships are touch and go. but danielle is always close by.
i am sad about lindsay and jen. i am really very sad about it.
i am getting along. i am tired out from so much learning.

dig deep into the well

2006-02-16T19:48:17Z

today all of my insides are like pressed down grass.
I am trying to find my feet.
I am tired and broken up.

i am hopeful again.

2006-02-10T21:42:08Z

"WE CAN GO AND WALK IN THE MORNING,
WE DON'T NEED STREETLIGHTS,
JUST A NEW START." -ROCKY VOTOLATO

also

2006-02-09T07:50:12Z

poetry slam in yakima tomorrow night, thursday at six thirty. sign up at six if you want to read. bring 2 dollars to go in the pot for the final prize. Also, if you're reading, bring a solid 5 poems if you make it to the third round. Kendall hall as YVCC, a.k.a. the black box. I won't make it, but if anyone wants an unpredictable night of poems in a democratic fashion, check it out.

check this out anyone west of me

2006-02-09T07:37:58Z

Go to this dissle and
see all the readings coming up for the poetry pole anthology,
10 years of work collected on the poetry pole
in Jim Bodeen's garden from poets across the northwest.
These readings will be great and there are alot coming up.
look and find one close to you, oly, seattle, bainbridge, etc!

http://www.bluebegoniapress.blogspot.com/

(p.s. i'll be at the richard hugo house one this friday, so come see me, too.)

no end in sight

2006-02-01T02:47:45Z

it was raining today. I spent the day alone. i put on tegan and sara instead of violin. it's making me crazy. i went shopping today to distract myself. i went to antique stores and wanted to buy perfume. i got an alphonse mucha print that i usually wouldn't spend the money on. i bought it to document right now, instead. my mom and i bought baby clothes for my sister yesterday. our family will be bigger now. maybe everything will be better when school starts. i am refusing to watch the state of the union address right now. i think i need to take a trip. i think i need to get away. but i am tired of bouncing a ball against a wall.

week four

2006-01-28T05:18:04Z

Ten to Twelve

I learned that from one moon jelly there could come ten to twelve more,
and they break off like butterflies, loosening themselves from the rest
with their full open pulls.
And I’ve brought the bulb that was growing in my cupboard
out into the light, but cannot notice the growth now,
because I am inspecting it so closely every day,
for fear that I have brought it out too soon.
The little black cat that lives downstairs
is sometimes in the hall and sometimes on the sidewalk
as residents open the door for her
and coax her in or out.
The sunset tonight, through the screen on the window,
looked grainy like an old slide, and the layers of
clouds were so thin and straight that they looked
like they had been crafted, and the
orange was seeping into the blue of the sky.
I have listened to the same song all day and
push my fingers down how the notes go
up and down over and over again, it is still in my mind
down up up down down up.
Tomorrow I will wash my clothes in large washing machines.
I will pay a dollar fifty for the wash and seventy five cents for the dryer.
The clothes will be almost dry and I will fold them anyways.
I will watch the children with smeared faces and the women with long hair.
In a few days it will be a year since you gave me a red paper heart,
and I gave you one a few weeks later. The silk flower
you put in my purse then, is still there.
This week I have said I am tired of my own voice,
but really I want something new.
I am turned inside out, a rinsed clam.
Tonight, my own optimism will open me up in the dark.

Attn team Friends:

2006-01-20T04:15:09Z

Please, for the love of god, post more.
I still really care about all of you.

poem, because i skipped class out of guilt

2006-01-19T07:42:24Z

The Sad Eye of the Camel

The sad eye of the camel on your wall is also your eye.
Jesus, too with his sad eyes looks out to you, beseeching—
a sorrowful beseeching that is muted.
While Ian MacKaye on the opposite wall
sits with his head in his palms, bent over, alone.
In this last moment, before salvation, we have made an altar.
In this place the holy asks little of you.
The imploring comes at night as a whisper
like wind in the white tree outside.
The pleading is not restless, it is the moving of mouths
to a deaf child, quiet slow motion.
It is saying, when will peace come,
when will it come.

and on and on

2006-01-16T23:57:26Z

i still check this thing all the time even though there are hardly updates.
ritual i guess.
lately, i have sorted out quite a bit in my life.
starting with curtains and figuring out financial aid at central.
i'm going to the creative writing class at yvc again this year, just sitting in. this time though, i feel on the verge of tears upon leaving and rush out the door and don't banter or make friends like usual. I think i might be a little bit lost. but i have three new poems, so that is that.
i'm jealous that chelsea is in france, i'm sure it is glorious. rainy probably, and glorious.
i am finally partaking in the freaks and geeks craze, anyone who has more episodes should possibly watch them with me with two bags of popcorn and i will even make coco.
I have lost a couple of friends lately, but it seems like we saw it coming a long time ago and so there isn't any protesting i can offer or any more apologies or anything like that. It's just the way cards get dealt i guess. i kind of hate it.
I got a divine new camera for christmas since i mcguivered my last one and i love it. if any one wants to have a picture taking date i would love that.
i made a chalkboard that i love, too. I need to be producing more.
justin and i have been painting up a storm. after we finish up the kitchen it's all done. his little house has really shined up, I'm kind of amazed. It is going good.
central has a new program with creative writing that i will minor in and having a furtherance in that way, is comforting.
I don't trust myself, a lot.
Also, yesterday i was strangely happy and calm and my thoughts were like a metronome, a nice break from enormous swings this winter.
i got three new albums just now, the strokes new one, catlow (metric-ish) and also my favorite built to spill that i've only had on cassette all these years. I can't believe i've never had the luxury of repeat with this one. I can't wait.
today, I am not trying to DO anything.
and i also decided to keep isis for awhile more, thanks to a pep talk from yuri. she doesn't mean to be so bad. I think she needs a playmate, i've been extra playful and it seems to be helping.
I'm glad jen is back in town.
Sometimes I need a friend that doesn't work all the time.
I've been reading a lot, this has both helped with and contributed to, loneliness.
but i have a bulb growing in the cupboard and that is very encouraging.

i ate too much chocolate and i'm not sorry

2005-12-26T17:29:31Z

i hope you had a good good christmas
i'm sure i'll have an overly optimistic new year post soon.

the cold air will melt your hard heart away

2005-12-06T19:37:43Z

I am making myself update, i don't know how to anymore.
plus, lately, it's easy to be not completely honest, so i don't bother.

december is here and frigid, I stay nested in bed a lot.
I am happy, and only mildly to moderately distressed about college loans and scholarships, as I prepare for spring quarter, and people like terry martin huddle me in and tell me, "we will take care of you up there."

My mother is on a mild to moderate hunt for The Silver Chair as she is re-reading the Chronicles of Narnia with great fervor in anticipation of the film. I too, am anticipating it with great fervor, as Aslan was an actual hero of mine in my Judeo-Christian childhood.

Thanksgiving was uneventful and untraumatic.

I am taking every day with Justin as a gift.

I finished reading The Gift of Asher Lev yesterday, which follows My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok, and loved them a lot. I haven't ever read books quite like this and would recommend them very seriously. Crabtree told me about that, so thank you.

I have dismantled my digital camera, and was nearly successful in putting it back together, i will be getting a new one soon.

I am not good at Christmas gifts.
I do not even know how to keep vegetables in my refrigerator.

Today's Zen quote is, "Every morning I awaken torn between the desire to save the world and the inclination to savor it. " -e.b. white.

I have a lot of packages to mail, heidi yours is soon.

And in general, please tell me if you would like a book of my poems, I will mail it to you if you're not from Yakima, they are 15 dollars, profits go to Blue Begonia Press.

And the newest quote on my elephant chalkboard is jeremy gaulke speaking of yakima,
"Some of us just can't go ramblin' on, we need to stay where we are to pull all of the nets in when they're full."

Amen.

This years fall poem

2005-11-17T23:38:24Z

The Third Autumn

Chelsea has tattooed in very thin black lines,
text, on the inside of her bottom lip.
A slightly slanted hand printed
Alleluia
I think she has done this so that
praise will always be spilling out of her mouth.
I think she wants to do this to please the heart of god.
The leaves are turning again,
a bright sucking orange and red
turned deep mahogany cherry
cedar veined and gleaming.
And I am not sad—
only desperate sometimes.
Fist-clenching desperate.
You grit your teeth and
the air already in your mouth sucks down into you
in a fast aching gulp.
I write nearly three weeks ago
that I know that I could never stop loving you.
It’s the kind of thing that digs in deep
and plants itself— every cell a seed.
You can never drown it out
or dry it up because it will always grow back
like an ache and a fever.
And sometimes I need to comfort myself—
plant the same seed, trust its hardiness,
send it straight to your bones—
kiss you with fervor.
I will confess that I am so weak.
Our mouths, bright, in praise and leaves,
layering the city in our undergrowth.

keelykeely @ 2005-10-27T16:19:00

2005-10-27T23:19:47Z

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Silent and serene,
forgetting words, bright
clarity appears before you.

CHENG-CHUEH

Today at a stoplight, I saw a man riding a bike. Behind him he towed a red plastic scooped out kid-carrying contraption, where his daughter sat crossed-legged with an enormous cardboard box on her lap, while her small pink fingers gripped, on top of the box, a large orange and white frosted cake. As they bumped along the crosswalk, he, pulling, she reached up and held the cake as best she could.

And it is always near

2005-10-13T03:11:33Z

Well, lindsay has come and gone and fall is here.
Today, while in efforts to clean my third story high windows I knocked a jesus candle to it's shattery death and responsibly swept it up.
I have written a few new poems.
I was nervous at the reading on Sunday, and during the second set cried several times as the poets put their whole lives and every single sorrow people can't usually talk about on the page. It was really great. I think Lindsay and I felt very given to. I love Yakima.
I have received a total of twelve new albums in the past four days and am elated. All of them are ones I've wanted, two I actually purchased. I am waiting for Phil Elvum's latest, I think cat power, too, has a new one coming.
Tomorrow I get a massage from Danielle at her new business. It's going to be great. I've been buying enormous amounts of vanilla/cinnamon/spice/ candles and am drunk off of crisp warm fall-ish smells. i love it.
I've been re-doing my apartment and even found a divine matching nightstand for my antique vanity desk.
My dad's birthday is soon, and I have no good ideas. I'd love suggestions.
I worked a tiny bit on my Central application today.
Just you wait, I may actually go there someday.
I'm at a really good place in my life, and forget sometimes.
I have everything I need. I am so lucky to be loved the way I am.
my best friends take good care of me. everthing is always beginning. i am so in love. And, great news, I am on cassette 8 of 18 for John Steinbeck's East of Eden. I've never loved his stuff before, but I felt like I needed to give him another shot. It's very tragic, but strangely good, too.
I started reading Blue Like Jazz, but found the man putting down exactly the kind of spirituality I pursue and don't know if I can seperate myself enough from it to finish. There's a certain kind of elitism that really makes me sick.
A young man approached me in the dark while i was getting off work and with no one else around, i stupidly and fed-up ishly replied to his cat calls, "I'm not having a conversation with you. sorry." and got into my car, realizing that if he had had a terrible anger problem, could have punched my face in, but instead he only replied, "fuck you then."
Also, while coming home tonight, a pick up truck saw me crossing the street, and sped up to screech and squeal slamming on the brakes right in front of me. I just stopped and then kept walking like my life hadn't just been nonchalantly threatened. assholes.
fin.

Picnic Today

2005-10-09T18:05:25Z

The poetry pole anthology, 10 years worth of poetry posted on the pole, Weathered Pages, is having a big reading today with poets from all over the northwest.

Lindsay Brown and I will be reading with a ton of others.
It's a big picnic from 2-5 at the Allied Arts park on Lincoln.

It's going to be great.
Come if you want.

bob dylan

2005-10-04T16:33:45Z

We are always on our way home.

not one drop of rain today

2005-09-18T02:14:01Z

i got the new sigur ros, and feel just as GIVEN TO as i have the other times.
i have been in a sort of slump this last week, overly sad, i think the origin being a fainting experience, me never categorizing myself as the type of girl that faints, and a very thorough self-diagnosis began of weak/half great/second best ness, and from there a deep and somber quietness and then a climbing back up, like i always do. i've been doing this for years now.
in other news, my family won't really give an honest two paragraph response to the book, minus a teary vague conversation in the kitchen and a pull in close from the side type hug. I don't know where to go from here. But, it does not keep me awake at night, I worry that it should.
I am ashamed that i haven't finished my financial aid and application. It is a shameful thing. I am steeped in myself and what I've built here.
I am in love, too. And it is a great great thing. I've never been so right.
I finished dave eggers book of short stories. How We Are Hungry. I highly recommend it, and every other book I've been meaning to read. That man can flat write.
Kelsie and I had a grand explosive reunion, complete with hypercolor lipstick and saddle bags, complete with long hugs next to the belt rack. Kelsie, I love you so much. You are great.
Other things are building themselves back up, too. Friendships I'm plastering.
I have a lot to live up to.
I'm so glad for so much and so dissatisfied.
So, from here, we comfort ourselves and we accept our half greatness.
From here, we build very steep steps.

new poem

2005-09-07T04:20:00Z

A New Grief

Walking by the side of the house where I grew up
yesterday, I had forgotten entirely about the tree roots
that stem and snake out, exposed.
I would step on them like cobblestones as a girl
all the way around that tree.
And then the tree in the front yard where
we would put the home plate for baseball,
its two branches extending straight out like arms,
the left one cut off by my father years ago now—
I saw that its right arm has begun to grow a new shoot,
a thick one with bright green leaves, all tender.
My mother told me that the past two days
they had picked the pears across the road
and that it’s a lot noisier during harvest
from all the singing and yelling.
And then she said she will go over there
and get the pears they left behind.
They will be very sweet and freckled from the sun.

and

While I Am Still Asleep

In a poem I write for you while I am still asleep,
you have two brown wings. They are easy for you.
You believe in god. And the antibodies in your blood
are beautiful creatures with white shells that shine
like seashells, silvery and pink and
the color of sunset lies under your tongue.
And then, you are full of songs, all unwritten.
In this poem your underwings are soft
and when I hear your voice, you are still at home.
When we touch our palms together, they stick
like the sweat from ring around the rosy
and the smell of metal from the rocks and jungle gym
that gathers up in the creases when we cup them.

Keely Murphy
August 28th 2005

books and friends

2005-09-03T14:28:05Z

i'll be in the literary arts part (more specifically the alki room) of bumbershoot selling books today and tomorrow. come see me if you are around.