petals

I had a funny poem awaiting me in my inbox yesterday. Matt thought it was much better than the “po-ehm” he wrote last Valentine’s… I’ll let you decide.
———————

Collards is green,
my dog’s name is Blue
and I’m so lucky
to have a sweet thang like you.

Yore hair is like cornsilk
a-flapping in the breeze.
Softer than Blue’s
and without all them fleas.

You move like the bass,
which excite me in May.
You ain’t got no scales
but I luv you anyway.

(more…)

Ahh!

First of all, to start things off, graduation was wonderful. I didn’t cry, though I almost slipped once or twice. It’s so sad to see everyone leave! “Take care of yourself… We’ll keep in touch… We’ll hang out this summer” Yeah yeah, we all say it, but the harder part is really doing it. It makes me feel awful that, this time next year, the people I consistently keep in touch with from high school I will probably be able to count on one hand. Give me an excuse to come see you! Ahh, I’m going to miss going to HSPVA. Switching high schools halfway through was one of the best decisions I’ve made yet.

Now, I’m off for a wedding weekend.

Today, Matt’s two friends Mike and Christine are getting married down in Galveston, and he’s asked me to go down there with him.
….And tomorrow evening, a friend’s mother has hired me to play for ceremony and reception…. in Brenham, at the Texas Rose Emporium. I’m going to be spending significant amounts of time in the car- I wish Matt would give me my CDs back 🙂

Congratulations to all who are getting married and graduating this weekend!

So, hey everyone, I guess I’m graduating tonight.

7pm @ George R. Brown Convention Center, Downtown Houston, if you care to see it with your own eyes.

There is a petrified fly on my window sill.

I wish I could open my window- let the night into my room. My room gets so stale, I feel as if I could bite into the air and it would crunch like styrofoam in my mouth. I hope to never live in a basement, I would wizen without windows.

I feel so in-between right now- stifled and precarious and unsure. Unfortunately my mind is always ahead of me or behind me, my thoughts so diffused over time and places I am unable to amass them. I can never think straight.

But you know, sometimes change is good.

Awesome! I just found once-lost transcription of an interview I did with musician Carol Morgan for a project I did a couple years ago- the topic, Jazz History and it’s influence or something along those lines. She is a wealth of knowledge.
————–

Sarah M. Williams interviewing Carol Morgan
Saturday March 30th, 2002
University of Houston- Downtown

SW: For the sake of the interview, would you please state your occupation as well as any credentials you might have.

CM: Okay, well, my name is Carol Morgan, and I am… I like to be though of mostly as a jazz trumpet player, but I am also an educator. I teach at San Jacinto College, its north and central campus- trumpet and jazz improv. I studied classical music and jazz in college at the University of Texas and later at Juilliard.

(more…)

Man to my right.
He’s round, he’s plain.
He’s autistic? Or his brain
has been stunted from
lack of stimulation. He speaks
loud and s-l-o-w-l-y.
———

He’s lonely. I can tell.
His days blend together, in need of
something distinguishable.
something edifying,
interesting,
enlightening,
inspiring…
“I used to go to church when I was a kid”
he says…. “but now I only go for the AA meetings.”

As I furtively listen, his life unfolds to my ears
poetic injustice makes itself known

Home is a box with no holes, a container with a plastic lid, a cell in which he
cannot seem to find the key
Where he can stay up as long as he likes
(the nights are endless)
Chatting it up with Jay Leno, who’s audience loved him so much
They offered to buy him another drink.

“But I like Good Morning America… Channel 13.”
He only wakes up because Diane Sawyer is
the only female in his life
Otherwise his days meld together,
his body not knowing when to rise.

He meets people all the time, but he is lonely.
It’s in the way he says hello to a man with a dog.
It’s in the way he asks a man with a bag to “take a seat”
“Sorry…. gotta run. See you at the meeting?”

He used to go to sunday school.
I went to a Baptist church, he says…. But now
I only go for the meetings.

I am inspired by the Night.

enveloping, fresh darkness
everything has a different meaning

the light air and cooled smells are poetic to my senses
making me fluid
my movements lighter, unseen

so ephemeral, so unending
time becomes a variable
and I am the only constant.