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Sunday, January 29, 2017

Porthole




Porthole 

Scream silk burlap 
pee smokey smell
jump another log 
bull horn over swell.

Drug rave monsters
without pure marrow
are cauldron condors
who darken the sky.

Wings block light
thunder earthquakes
shock therapy blight, 
propaganda news fakes.

Touch electric wires
charges connect
killing the last
few that are left.

Build a fire 
 jewel hope heat  
frost from pyre,
hold friends close.

Under down comforter
we are immigrants.
raven sound trumpeter
Muslim, Jew, Protestants.

Sulfur pots of rust
stolen geyser promises
speak out you must
algae grows in silence. 



Porthole window open for firing cannons, to admit light, and air.

Copyright 1/29/2017 Caroline Gerardo



Friday, January 20, 2017

What is Citizenship?

On Inauguration Day

What Is Citizenship?


Right to vote
Responsible to care
Risk to wrote
React to beware

Ready to give
Raise to defend
Race to live
Realize to end

Read to children
Reach to mentor
Recommend to amend
Resist to anger


This Inauguration Day I'm hopeful, ready and here.



I march for the women in my life.
May you have opportunity, health care, and options
to grow in this great country The United States of America.
Womens' March #womensmarch
I march because my daughter must carry mace in her purse because we live in an unsafe country. In America women who are raped are questioned about what they drank or what they wore. I march because although I began in 1988 working in job that was only men and I mentored other women and pulled them up, I know it's not enough. Corporate hierarchy is still 99% men. Men are paid more than women. Men are going to take away the only inexpensive health care for millions of women, claiming that Planned Parenthood is all about abortion, but costs for this are 3% of their budget. Women who can't afford pap smears, cancer checks and birth control will go without. All insurance costs go up, this is from out medical and pharmaceutical companies.
I attended a Women's College. I was an athlete in undergraduate school before Title Nine and worked out with the men's team. I'm old now but I experience cat calls. I march because I believe in God and country. I march because prejudice in America is real. Though my hair is blonde, I'm a minority in a white man's world. I march to call you out when facts are untrue. Don't take away my rights. I'm not against anyone. I march for constitution, the Presidency, and to hold you to the law.



Rain at home

Oak tree at home

Sunday, January 15, 2017

Black and White Lining Up


Black and white baby calves with their Mom-mas.
Three day weekend for projects.
Cross off the accomplishments on your list.

Weeded hillside and planted five pounds of sunflowers.
Italian White, Lemon Queen and Red Sun reach up to
touch the Wolf Moon the other night.
Rain helped in the work, making the soil let go tap root filagree,
bristly mallow and bermuda buttercups. My hands ache. I like the
cheerful yellow buttercups but they are toxic to livestock. This
reminds me of outlet covers, baby proof dishwasher and cutting grapes
in halves. Caring is habit, makes me happy.

One of the Polish chickens, Red McRib recovered from "self poisoning."
She persists in eating succulents until drunk. I removed the plants; but,
she obsess on other dangers. Naughty teenager.
Update: tried a tiny pony tail on her to test if lack of eyesight is the
source of her crazy behavior.
Here's a video of her behavior:


Last weekend her party endeavors left
her shaking and blurred vision. Red black and gold
feathers scattering everywhere in a dervish.
She spent the week in the screened porch.
Isolation is hard on chickens.
I set up a soft box inside a huge plastic bin, and forced her to drink water and eat every two hours. Red's back with the crew, but not back to normal.
More skiddish and crazy yelling than before, sigh.

Below is a Kiger Mustang stallion. He visited a neighbor and is on his way
to Utah. These majestic horses are amazing.  He nods his head, yes.

I asked Dave Malone to edit the Climate Change novel, I'm still playing
with titles. Okay leave me a comment: Vote - 1. Climate Change
2. The Great Drought 3. you make it up the story is about a woman
prepper in the future when water is drastically scarce.

Began the next long form novel, and booked a studio for
the Audio book. The year ahead I have my plans written down. News
media has distracted us all. I'm reading everything, mis-trusting main
stream media- frankly all print propaganda. Stay positive. Keep your
eyes open. Be extra kind to others. Big hugs to you all.

Intercontinental Hotel Friday night I will be sipping a Rob Roy
meet me there




Copyright 1/15/2017 Caroline Gerardo

Saturday, January 14, 2017

Love Past


Photo of You Looking Frail


Days blur
saw a photo peeking
frame frail skin dull same
saw  hunch walking
game google search name
saw posture fleeting

Memory fur
pick fuzz balls
man once now sand
pick bird calls
band lines the land
pick your falls

Past stir
heal all pain
shove aside love
heal us sane
dove cares above
heal core obtain

Copyright 1/14/17 Caroline Gerardo poem and photographs

Thursday, January 12, 2017

Light Your Soul


Sky grey:  
sun in your heart.

Rabbi Saul not thrown from a horse
Midday prayer en route to Damascus
Blast of light calls to believe in Christ

My car:
flashlights, baseball bat, pump jack,
shotgun, stock man's rain slicker, 
scooby snacks and mani jewel hope.

Your trunk:

Altoids, gym bag, space blanket, 

firefly flares and water bottles.

Danger ahead:
Bokii and Barchenko
mesh Buddhism communism.
Faith keeps lips from drink.

Himmer and Hess
sought Shambhala.
Fear stops press from speak.


Nightmare fears of the day:
teeth fall out chewing gum
chased by wild gendarmes
palm oil Nutella is poison.

Throw off orange jumpsuit
Cease texting while driving
limestone cave cannot save
Slap attorney seeks to ruin. 

Be ready:
hand to the suffering

Be pure:
reach again to connect 

Saul became Paul
devout and caring

Light in your soul


Copyright 1/12/2017 Caroline Gerardo



Tuesday, January 10, 2017

Homeless Moon



Homeless Moon Poem

New moon pulls seeds burst

Son huddles under 
blue plastic tarp, 
calls it a condo.
Teach him to watch clouds,
hovering over sea is trouble.
Cash acts a backpack pillow?

New moon pulls seeds burst

 Gold fall and 
green Faiche Stiabhna,
whisper its name
Tell him to write the recipe
hiding in a concrete crip.
Was the message hidden? 

New moon pulls seeds burst

Passerby ignore homeless
brown under nails,
smell like porta-potty
Speak mentor of roots,
a silky sound dulcimer.
Can you find empathy?

Crystal ball's blind 
if he gets off the street. 
Phases of moon encourage
a child to grow and flourish. 
He's seven. 
Dark blots the light.


Caroline Gerardo copyright 1/1o/2017 

Saturday, January 7, 2017

Speckled Stars

Rain brings challenges
Drought took hundred year old oaks in low lands.

Weed starves meadowpads
Mallow taproot gets her claws deep in the compost.

Steer avoid Russianthistle
Windwitch (tumbleweed) bakes in ricotta cheesecake.

Hand pain farming
Rose wax, jojoba, calendula ease cracking skin.

Planets dodge meteors
Filaree throws her seeds unwanted under stones.

Bones recall youthdew
Burclover, pigweed, flea bane of the past.

Breathe treasure oxygen
Prickle molecules of ancient lungs teach gardening.

Text message milkyway
Acronyms jumble instead be here holding me. 

Speckled Stars Poem

Caroline Gerardo 1/7/2016 
Copyright all rights reserved images and poetry are mine

please share but give credit










Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Rise Up


Rise up


Bones of the day
sleepless, no finger in dike 
rain returns they say
night fears bow childlike

Rise up 

morning requires work
scoop the poop
count weight as a clerk
no regime coop

Rise up

New Year awaits
face the regime 
iron prison gates
sing of dreams

Rise up

sing loud, wave fist
don't let them take
all that you kissed
let them eat cake.

Caroline Gerardo 1/2/2017 All Copyrights Reserved


Monday, January 2, 2017

Meteor Shower Tonight

NEW YEARS Fireworks from Shattered Comet


Aeschyus' first tragedy
conkers fall from the sky
wasn't a Persian war
opening with crossbar

Quadrantid meteors 
are ancient anchors
Astronomers missed 
reveal dawn's mist

twilight tomorrow 
plasma gives bravo
north east ascend
warm with a friend

Pomegranate splay
dawn becomes day
touch the stars
fireflies in jars. 

1400 GMT on Tuesday, Jan. 3; that corresponds to 9 a.m. Eastern Time, 6 a.m. Pacific Time.  Get up early or stay up all night. I'm excited, where I live has no ambient light.
Early the break of dawn, the radiant of this shower — the spot from which the meteors appear to emanate — will be ascending the dark northeastern sky.  
meteor shower tonight - give or take a few hours around 5 AM 
Caroline Gerardo copyright January 2, 2016



Sunday, January 1, 2017

Goodreads Book Reading Challenge

2016 I did the Goodreads Reading Challenge. It was fun to keep track of
200 books (well to record most of the books I read this year). There are about 30
I started but either lost under the nightstand, left out on the porch or couldn't struggle
through emotionally. Some books take a great deal of time - all year I worked on Roland
Barthes Empire of Signs. Sentences spun in my head as I weeded in the garden.
Other books were literary, poetry, thrillers, comic books, new releases for friends and
wild and crazy.

Here is list of books, I owe a few reviews, when will I have time?


https://www.goodreads.com/user_challenges/5010900/


I'm going to do the challenge again with same number count goal.
Writers should ALWAYS be reading, listening to spoken word readings and
writing. Long form, poems, short stories, notes, letters, handwritten and
online... Put on your writing hat, mask, costume, superstitious mask but
just write.

Caroline Gerardo
4986531. ux70 cr0,17,70,70
Blank yyib header maxres
2016

TOTALS
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200
books
44,337
pages
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Img totallarger 2x

Peeling Back the Trees... by Erik Anderson
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SHORTEST BOOK
12 pages
Peeling Back the Trees...
by 
LONGEST BOOK
733 pages
The Collected Stories
by 
The Collected Stories by Lydia Davis

AVERAGE LENGTH
235 pages

MOST POPULAR
480,801
people also read
All the Light We Cannot See
by 
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Peeling Back the Trees... by Erik Anderson
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LEAST POPULAR
1
person also read
Peeling Back the Trees...
by 

Stone Boats by Elizabeth Taddonio
HIGHEST RATED ON GOODREADS
Stone Boats
by 
it was amazing
5.00 average
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MY 2016 BOOKS

Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now by Maya Angelou
The Heart of a Woman by Maya Angelou
Aimless Love by Billy Collins
Catherine of Siena by Catherine of Siena


Post Meridian by Mary Ruefle
St Catherine of Siena by Pope John Paul II
Why I Wake Early by Mary Oliver
it was amazing


Burning Bright by Ron Rash
Peeling Back the Trees... by Erik Anderson


Her book by Eireann Lorsung
Cry Me a River by T.R. Pearson
The House of Sleep by Jonathan Coe
Gweilo by Martin Booth


Transubstantiate by Richard   Thomas
it was amazing
The End of the Alphabet by Claudia Rankine
Nine Gates by Jane Hirshfield


Bone by Bone by Carol O'Connell
The Year of Living Dangerously by Christopher J. Koch


New Collected Poems by George Oppen
Paris Trance by Geoff Dyer
it was amazing
At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom by Amy Hempel


Debt by Mark   Levine
The Gallery by John Horne Burns


The Rain Before it Falls by Jonathan Coe
Lorine Niedecker by Lorine Niedecker
The Wilds by Mark   Levine
Dora by Lidia Yuknavitch


The Dwarves of Death by Jonathan Coe
The Essential Rumi by Coleman Barks
I Want Burning by Coleman Barks
A Thousand Mornings by Mary Oliver


One Foot in Eden by Ron Rash
How We Became Human by Joy Harjo
The Killer in Me by Margot Harrison
really liked it


Journey by Moonlight by Antal Szerb
Mallory's Oracle by Carol O'Connell


This Boy's Life by Tobias Wolff
it was amazing
Commons by Myung Mi Kim
Cry Father by Benjamin Whitmer


Too Good to Be True by Benjamin Anastas
The Good Lieutenant by Whitney Terrell


Incarnadine by Mary Szybist
Kaputt by Curzio Malaparte
Hummingbird Sleep by Coleman Barks
People on a Bridge by Wisława Szymborska


The Shell Collector by Anthony Doerr
Horoscopes for the Dead by Billy Collins
Into That Darkness by Steven  Price
The Tin Horse by Janice Steinberg


Brother's Keeper by Glen R. Krisch
Cold Quiet Country by Clayton Lindemuth
it was amazing
And Her Soul Out Of Nothing by Olena Kalytiak Davis


Tampa by Alissa Nutting
Tender Hooks by Beth Ann Fennelly


The Wings of Joy by Sri Chinmoy
Hollywood Car Wash by Lori Culwell
The Hand of Poetry by Coleman Barks
The Wisdom Of Sri Chinmoy by Sri Chinmoy


Omens in the Year of the Ox by Steven  Price
His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik
Karmic Traces by Eliot Weinberger
it was amazing


Dura by Myung Mi Kim
Granted by Mary Szybist


Five Point Someone by Chetan Bhagat
A Fist of Permutations in Lightning and Wildflowers by Alyssa Wong
Blood Dazzler by Patricia Smith


The Second Life of Samuel Tyne by Esi Edugyan
The 3 Mistakes of My Life by Chetan Bhagat


Secure the Shadow by Claudia Emerson
Dancing on the Edge of the Roof by Sheila    Williams
Native Guard by Natasha Trethewey
Silent Hall by N.S. Dolkart


View With a Grain of Sand by Wisława Szymborska
I'm the Man Who Loves You by Amy King
Commentaries on the Vedas, the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita by Sri Chinmoy


Citizen by Claudia Rankine
Don’t Let Me Be Lonely by Claudia Rankine


Peace Is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh
Bellocq's Ophelia by Natasha Trethewey
Robert B. Parker's Lullaby by Ace Atkins
Anatomy of Keys by Steven  Price


The Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri J.M. Nouwen
What a Carve Up! by Jonathan Coe
The Shade of My Own Tree by Sheila    Williams
Uncanny Magazine Issue 10 by Lynne M. Thomas


A Book of Luminous Things by Czesław Miłosz
Sailing Alone Around the Room by Billy Collins
it was amazing
Gourd Seed by Coleman Barks


Great with Child by Beth Ann Fennelly
If Birds Gather Your Hair for Nesting by Anna Journey


The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin
Vulgar Remedies by Anna Journey
The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate by Ted Chiang


Uprooted by Naomi Novik
She by Michelle Latiolais


Fools Crow by James Welch
Almost No Memory by Lydia Davis
Falling Awake by Alice Oswald
Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang


The Cows by Lydia Davis
An Arrangement of Skin by Anna Journey
Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollock
The Door by Magda Szabó


The Sandman by Neil Gaiman
The Year We Left Home by Jean Thompson
Above the Waterfall by Ron Rash
it was amazing


The Indian Lawyer by James Welch
The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart by Robert Bly


Flying Higher by Michael Damian Thomas
Wanderlust by Rebecca Solnit
Scarlet Tanager by Bernadette Mayer
My Lovesick Zombie Boy Band by Damien Walter


In the Devil's Territory by Kyle Minor
it was amazing
As Long As Trees Last by Hoa Nguyen
The Industry of Souls by Martin Booth


Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Collected Stories by Lydia Davis


Lunch Poems by Frank O'Hara
Why I Am Not a Painter and Other Poems by Frank O'Hara
The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock
it was amazing


Haunted Houses by Lynne Tillman
The Beauty by Jane Hirshfield


Red Juice by Hoa Nguyen
Commonwealth by Ann Patchett
Dispatches by Michael Herr
Upstream by Mary Oliver


Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
it was amazing
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Madness, Rack, and Honey by Mary Ruefle


The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
'Til the Well Runs Dry by Lauren Francis-Sharma


Landscaping for Wildlife by Jen Karetnick
Late Wife by Claudia Emerson
Staring Into the Abyss by Richard   Thomas
The Gallery of Vanished Husbands by Natasha Solomons


Midwinter Day by Bernadette Mayer
Crave by Laurie Jean Cannady
it was amazing
Vistas of Many Worlds by Erik Anderson


A Little White Shadow by Mary Ruefle
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz


Leonard by William Shatner
Exigencies by Richard   Thomas
The Wallcreeper by Nell Zink
A Confession by William F. Aicher


think tank for human beings in general by Jordan Castro
Dart by Alice Oswald
Scattered at Sea by Amy Gerstler
Join by Steve Toutonghi


Into the Heart of the Country by Pauline Holdstock
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
it was amazing
The Thunder Mutters by Alice Oswald


Butcher's Crossing by John  Williams
Only by Blood and Suffering by LaVoy Finicum


More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera
Crazy Brave by Joy Harjo
it was amazing
Radiance by Catherynne M. Valente


Unmarked by Peggy Phelan
Walk Through Walls by Marina Abramović


The Trouble With Being God by William F. Aicher
Come, Thief by Jane Hirshfield
Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? by Frans de Waal
Garments Against Women by Anne Boyer


Here, Bullet by Brian Turner
The Dancers Inherit The Party by Ian Hamilton Finlay
really liked it
Lab Girl by Hope Jahren


Grit by Angela Duckworth
Extensions by Myrna Dey


You Are the Message by Roger Ailes
Glory over Everything by Kathleen Grissom
Thunderbird by Dorothea Lasky
The Land Where Lemons Grow by Helena Attlee


The Sellout by Paul Beatty
Edna Poems by Laura Theobald
The House Girl by Tara Conklin
She Had Some Horses by Joy Harjo


The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
Forty Stories by Donald Barthelme
it was amazing


What My Hair Says About You by Laura Theobald
American Genius by Lynne Tillman


Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien
Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel
The Heavenly Table by Donald Ray Pollock
Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire


Voluptuous Dream During an Eclipse by Elaine Kahn
it was amazing
The Spy by Paulo Coelho
A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny


Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen
The Motion of Puppets by Keith Donohue


A White Trail by Diana Cohen Krantz
Women in Public by Elaine Kahn
Young Americans by Jordan Castro


The Marriage of Opposites by Alice Hoffman
I'll Tell You in Person by Chloe Caldwell


Maria Lassnig by Kasia Redzisz
Stone Boats by Elizabeth Taddonio
The Fire This Time by Jesmyn Ward
Marlene by C.W. Gortner


The Black Hour by Lori Rader-Day
The Gunslinger by Stephen King

MISSING BOOKS?
You can easily add books to this list by setting the Date Read for each book to any time in 2016.
Completed square
You read 200 out of 199 books.
101%
101%
Congratulations! You're really good at reading, and probably a lot of other things, too!