cbelle '05

Little Update

I will probably be archiving this site soon, and starting fresh. I haven't put up anything substantive in some time, mostly because my enthusiasm dwindled and I am not really a dedicated diarist by any means. I am rethinking the purpose of this site and will be coming up with a new format. Originally, I saw the site as a venue for some of my writing that I otherwise have no outlet for. I would like to include more photos and references to stuff I am currently researching, in the interest of creating dialogue with those who may be reading. So look for big changes in the next month or so...

Until then, I hope you are all well and in good company.
xoxo, CBelle

BIG TIME CATCH UP

not so many words here, too much to tell, many new pix all over the place, fill in the blanks...

(this man could be my dad)

the News

My daughter is Native American. Her tribe hails from East L.A.. They have no reservation, they have a community center in a city in the Valley that is now mostly Chinese. They would like to have a casino, so they have chosen the city of Watts to stake their claim...

double vision

Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

...song from within

People singing; people with song mouths connecting with song hearts; people who must sing or die; people whose song hearts break if there is no song mouth; these are my people.
-Carl Sandburg

are you wild or are you free?

hells yeah!:::
http://www.insightmag.com/Media/MediaManager/impeachment.htm

and then some:
dignity

since I had boots
I’m just like my grandpa
full of pride
strutting
looking for guns to shoot
and horses to ride
then being resigned
to a place of my own
in the barn
most likely
to tinker and drink
to scratch away
at a fiddle
to make like
I don’t know
any better

the mice are my
company
_________________

Out with the Old, In with the New

SCREENTEST

Everyone is leaving-they think something will happen: they wait: they grow restless, they shift, cough, wait some more: laugh at the tedium, wonder what is expected from them: grow angry.  They've been gypped-nothing happened and nothing is going to happen, anytime soon.

"This is it?"

But this is not a film still or a photograph or a moment frozen in time-something is happening, under the surface.  Tremors, submission, breath, electricity, light; the image is burned on the retina as the screen goes blank.

I'm sure Andy was looking for the real good cocksucker of the bunch.  Voyeur: butterflies pinned and looked at from every angle.  Their passiveness reciprocation, matching the audience's wondering gaze.

The when nothing happens is when it gets sexy.  The little lick of the lips, the eyebrow lift, the dangerous look.  There are 23,000 paintings in every screen shot.

FEEL THE BURN

Move ON

the tyde is terning
all the way to the east coast down to the dead sea
of the Gulf of Mexico
heads are popping out of holes
hey WTF
you can't pull that shit on me
anymore
go back to where you came from
black dog, scraggly
dead eyes, blind
running ragged
looking for the bone
sniff the pile of shit
and move on

24-79-48-26-13-47-92-61-18-3-84

bug out

toothache

Hills spill into the sea there...

the feeling of vertigo
the sea so steeply below
running and stumbling over roots
that bad feeling
when someone points to the sky
there the jets are assembled
they are hovering like wasps
a hysterical mechanical swarm
awaiting orders, poised to kill
face not the screaming warbirds
duck into the underbrush
but the trail opens onto
a chasm of tanks and men
a stinking hole dug from the earth
in the future it will be
filled with mudpuppies
a concrete pond reclaimed
a sacred pumpkin lake
Look up again-the sky is
filled with pebbles
a giant riverbed of agate, midnite blue
in between the stones and the
black shapes of space-
the harriers.

ONe Up

like the way  it gt to be so crzy

so much like that it hurts

all that  waiting, remains...

buckle down,
use my time wisely

forever and ever

that's a good long time

I could be anywhere right now

but here I am

standing facing the sea

and wondering wht's in store???

ted rebel>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

TRINE (circa 1996)

some river underground
causes us to breathe
in shallow temples curling
half-pants mountains
trembling raindrop
currents matching
fingers tapping
surruptitious
my left leg lame as
curses threaded, while
the other one begs
in dog's language
baby come here
come here

Guadalupe

Alicia/Bodeguita

Wherein I had a crush on a girl, went crazy for a day, pondered my soci-political role in society and failed to save a teenager from her fate.  It was a film that never got made-so now it exists on this page.  The tape loops and jerks and show Alicia twirling round and around the signpost.

Across the street from the corner store
where Popeye got shot, right below my window,
a lazy day unfolds. 
What is she waiting for?
The car that drives by full of homies:
she-tough girl-yells What up MUTHAFUCKAS!  Laughs
and turns around the signpost again.
She won't talk to me except the time
she wanted to borrow a dictionary.
And she told me
her aunt jumped out of my window when the house caught on fire and
that's why they don't live there anymore.
Sometimes she goes away.
Her father tells me she got raped, had a dead baby.
I don't remember what she wrote on our door but I knew it was her.
I touched the chalk lightly.  How many traces of her in this world?

....................................a pair

oxblood and abalone 
oilcan and putty
mercury and iris
ironwood and sky
sandstone and halogen
your eyes meeting mine

 

Who's afraid of the red, white and blue?

what does it mean when you have a dream and the dream shows itself to be in reality, plaster on chicken wire, a false front where once you thought it a meaningful resonant mystery?  It's a laugh, that, to be relieved of the too serious pondering, the melodrama, but what of the awakening?  It is rude in the way that falling in love is cruel.  All too soon the morning comes and the laundry.  Sleep does not bring the answers that I wish for.  Look behind things to get a glimpse of what we're missing, infinity.  Are we only allowed so much vision?  That must be temptation-to see all-to see behind the curtain, as it were.  Why must we?  Why do we yearn for the great beyond, dream of the stars, the great escape...annihilation.

a few of my favorite things

boys who pop wheelies
in tube socks
and old ladies with braids
the flick of a wrist
the cracks between things
middle of the afternoon baths
headlights on my bedroom wall
the empty desert, pre-dawn

diamonds on my windshield
tricked out rv's
patched up jalopies
anise, queen anne's lace
free jazz and old weavings

nothing can calm me more
than thinking of a dirt floor

morelia

she touched my arm
the way they used to
politely pointing out the details
in the picture
hiding a giggle
as if to say
that's the way it used to be and

I wasn't there but I remember
how sand got all in your hair
and the look in your eye
when you almost fell over
on your bike
and the sun on your face
when you smiled while
I walked backwards

"Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul." -- Edward Abbey

seadogs & swordfishman

seadogs
rising up out of the sea
ridgebacked and shaggy
in the shale caves
where I am resting
swordfishman
sees thru eyelids
sundrenched and salty
only seeking heat
finds me

SWAP MEET GOLETA

Things I've never done or wished I hadn't

charmed a snake
said I do
(twice)
gone to Kathmandu or Mongolia
hopped a freighter
hurled a harpoon
put my head in a vise
swore to tell the truth
and lied
sent an urgent telegram
dropped a bottle of perfume
been sent to prison
met you

Don't threaten me with Love
let's just go for a walk in the rain.
                             -Billie Holiday

........................ancient poetry

               

               
               
               
                In him floods
                turned in all directions

                like rivers-red
                and copper-dark,
                running all ways
                in a man,
                upward and down.
                            -unknown

Fragment of a story penned by my father in So. America around the time of my conception

"What is there to tell them!  I tell them that I have my art, and that that and a good place to live are all I need".  "I think I'd better have a drink"  do you want one  she said and started towards the gate mumbling "Do you live here?"  "What do you do all day?"

He usually told them, but then, he only met the ones he liked.  to talk to  He was thinking of a girl who said she live a rich inner life.

"Do you live here?  What do you do all day", he said, chuckling to himself as he looked at all the prints on the wall.

No More Workhorse...

I put my cash $$
up a lazy river
a place to rest awhile...superstitiously
it landed halfway
between
    Drugstore Heaven
            and   
    Girl Tremors
in a book called
They called her Styrene
so far so good
I will wait and see
if my deposits produce
dividends and
my ends I will meet.

obligatory salutations & hallos

hello and welcome to my world of hijinks, whoever you are.  Today is the day when we set about repairing our past mistakes and informing the future generations of our lackluster attitudes towards outer space.  My opinion has always been: seldom seen, summarily dismissed.  Should you disagree, I refer you to my colleague, who may or may not care more deeply about the subject at hand, Mr. RJ Singasongforme.  My feeling is that, given time, the friends of mine who find this site will enjoy seeing the fruits of my labor, perhaps even partake of la grande cuisine fermenting in the vats as we speak.  xoxo, Calico