George Oppen

Parked in the fields 
All night 
So many years ago, 
We saw 
A lake beside us 
When the moon rose. 
I remember 

Leaving that ancient car 
Together. I remember 
Standing in the white grass 
Beside it. We groped 
Our way together 
Downhill in the bright 
Incredible light 

Beginning to wonder 
Whether it could be lake 
Or fog 
We saw, our heads 
Ringing under the stars we walked 
To where it would have wet our feet 
Had it been water

-The forms of Love

audio. 

these two albums saved my life over the past two months

Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings, 100 Days 100 Nights

Rocky Rivera, Rocky Rivera

when a lot of shit hit the fan, & I needed some powerhouse women to help me remember the powerhouse woman I am, Rocky & Ms. Jones came to my rescue.

 

 

n



Sarah Silverman on the only kind of voter fraud happening:

let my people vote

sometimes my friends post the best stuff on facebook. 

melancholy neon text installations

Found these gorgeous installations online while doing my near daily google search of animated gifs for my tumblr (whatever you need to say, you can say it with a gif).

They are done by Korean artist Lee Jung, and there is something so terrible and isolated and longing about them that I find each image devastating.

I posted some others on my tumblr (which is full of animated gifs right now). They're just stunning. I am completely mezmerized. 

Found on This Is Colossal 

Lee Jung's website. 

N 

thursday

I'll be participating in my first reading this thursday, 20 September 2012 in the Lang Cafe (65 W. 11th Street) at The New School in celebration of the release of the first issue of Eleven and A Half Journal (which I was an executive editor for in my final year at Lang College). The launch is from 6 to 8 pm, and will feature a selection of contributors reading their work as well as an open mic for current students to read.

The issue is avaible for pickup in the lang college dean's office (65 W. 11th St, 3rd floor).

Eleven and A Half Journal on facebook.

three mirror shots & a pigeon waiting for a train

ink

a little under two weeks ago I had a moment of bravery & went with a friend to finally get my much longed for mini-tattoo (which I now call my mini-ink). I picked Fine Line tattoo on 1st Street for a few silly reasons:
1: they accept walk ins & since I was pretty terrified I didn't think I could handle making an appointment.
2: they were/are within walking distance of my work. for days I thought all day about going after work & just getting it... finally, on a tuesday, I did!
3: they are the longest continually running tattoo shop in manhattan, & were a bootleg shop when tattooing was illegal in the city. that's pretty cool.

so, I headed over there with a friend who has a couple of tattoo's herself & decided to get it done. we had to walk around the block once, & I made my poor artist resize the thing three times (sorry!), but I did it!

now, I am a person with pretty much zero pain tolerance & a deep fear of needles, & I can tell you right now... this DID NOT HURT. I was amazed! seriously, after it was over I said "that's it??"

Funny side story: two lovely ladies from the Columbia school of journalism were doing a piece on the shop... which I am in. Looking crazy & terrified the whole time! Check out their slideshow (complete with awesome audio) on vimeo!

muriel rukeyser

Effort at Speech Between Two People. 


 :    Speak to me.     Take my hand.     What are you now?
      I will tell you all.     I will conceal nothing.
      When I was three, a little child read a story about a rabbit
      who died, in the story, and I crawled under a chair     :
      a pink rabbit     :     it was my birthday, and a candle
      burnt a sore spot on my finger, and I was told to be happy.

:     Oh, grow to know me.     I am not happy.     I will be open:
      Now I am thinking of white sails against a sky like music,
      like glad horns blowing, and birds tilting, and an arm about me.
      There was one I loved, who wanted to live, sailing.

:     Speak to me.     Take my hand.     What are you now?
      When I was nine, I was fruitily sentimental,
      fluid     :     and my widowed aunt played Chopin,
      and I bent my head on the painted woodwork, and wept.
      I want now to be close to you.     I would
      link the minutes of my days close, somehow, to your days.

:     I am not happy.     I will be open.
      I have liked lamps in evening corners, and quiet poems.
      There has been fear in my life.     Sometimes I speculate
      On what a tragedy his life was, really.

:     Take my hand.     Fist my mind in your hand.     What are you now?
      When I was fourteen, I had dreams of suicide,
      and I stood at a steep window, at sunset, hoping toward death     :
      if the light had not melted clouds and plains to beauty,
      if light had not transformed that day, I would have leapt.
      I am unhappy.     I am lonely.     Speak to me.

:     I will be open.     I think he never loved me:
      he loved the bright beaches, the little lips of foam
      that ride small waves, he loved the veer of gulls:
      he said with a gay mouth: I love you.     Grow to know me.

:     What are you now?     If we could touch one another,
      if these our separate entities could come to grips,
      clenched like a Chinese puzzle … yesterday
      I stood in a crowded street that was live with people,
      and no one spoke a word, and the morning shone.
      Everyone silent, moving … Take my hand.     Speak to me.

53 days without you

& still the laughter
doesn't bounce, though
it lives again—hidden
behind my top two teeth.

tuesday

& I forget the curve
of your left nostril

friday

& I remember again
the pinch
of your bottom lip

somenight

I won't wake
expecting

© natalie raymond 2012
inspired by Muriel Rukeyser

Blogger Night Out / Fashion Night Out afterparty

Sometimes I really love living in NYC. Like when friends of mine (Lydia Hudgens) get me in to fashion night out afterparties at cool soho lounges! Spent last night at RSVP on Watts street for the Blogger Night Out after party, wearing a $3 H&M slip as a dress, & $200 TBA hikers. (The height of class). I was channeling, via the 90's, Courtney Love & Winona Ryder....

@RhapsoDani on twitter

 @lydiahudgens on instagram.

I think I look a little too happy to be Courtney Love though....

n

p.s.
follow request me on twitter! @natalieraymond

"the work that a poem does is transfer of human energy, and I think human energy may be defined as consciousness, the capacity to make change in existing conditions."

-muriel rukeyser

via tumblr. 

west indian american day carnival

images via @natalie_raymond on instagram

Went to the West Indian American Day parade today with a friend. I've gone most of the years I've lived in Brooklyn. It's such a cool celebration, & the costumes are AMAZING. Plus, there's no where better to grab some delicious strawberry daiquiri's or pina colada's! 

n

love quotes

But I love you, sir:
And when a woman says she loves a man,
The man must hear her, though he love her not.
-Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 

Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; re-made all the time, made new.
-Ursula Le Guin.