this, what i meant to say, when

you, staring at trees and i

watching through a window,

i’ve empty pockets.

there.

no inked mercies,

for i am bumbling bilbo,

i know you half as well

as i should like,

and, when… Read full post »

“I know the plans that I have for you, declares the LORD. They are plans for peace and not disaster, plans to give you a future filled with hope.”

Jeremiah 29:11

he lit a candle after Mass, and though i failed to explain why we were lighting… Read full post »

i am not used to silences
do you know the muteness that i speak of?
not the sheer nothingness of breeze and open windows, 
of turned off appliances, but
the mind one, when everyone is there but also gone,
an assortment of dressed up skeletons

silence is hope unnatural, undeserved
i have a hard time wi… Read full post »

august beacons

words will fail, become wild, thorny nothings inhabited by ghostly
bramblings

and i must away, to life and work, to figure out why eldest daughter is so 
much like me, to watch first born son complete his last year of junior high school, to… Read full post »

it is one of those odd moments in life. one minute you are going to put a new load to wash, the next your feet are carrying you to the night-ed backyard, the strains of a violin too alive to be a recording. and you realize the neighbor who just moved… Read full post »

I only remember it once in a while. That night it was raining. I gazed out my window, sitting cross-legged on the canopied bed that became a lifeboat. Safe in the middle of it, from monsters, or sharks, or spirits childish paranoia sought to imagine hidden under the bed.

Out on the… Read full post »

she yearned for Keats, and
love letters on white parchment, bleeding ink
the laborious detailing of desire in longhand
a slow exuberant taking
so many tears spilled to know this--
all fades
ink and blood and want
down dirty rivulets of our own making
‘twere better to be
Brother Death walking barefoot
smi/… Read full post »

memory is a frail thing
an old lady made of alabaster
a thin green-leaved vein on well-mortared walls
this waking--
the very nature of a ghost
as if blood ran doubly through the body
as if time had not willingly dissolved
an assemblage of mercurial snapshots and
referential phrases in a crowd

a dullness unrelated to attending the miracle.
date forgotten
memory spirited on muscle
i am no Giles, mocking stone
a basketful of tears unshed
the taking of books and placing them back Read full post »

on biting, earth-fleshed, velvet-skinned, darker-than-my-own, 
bliss of tartness
i am not there in my house, gleefully breaking fragile seed pods, eating tamarinds until lips almost break
(it’s the mock-vampire who bleeds)
not there i say, but in another house
a small, painted-white thing,
on al/… Read full post »

(i wonder if the dead read, what with all that time available) 

were i to cry
until dissolution
until misery laughed open-mouthed
the loss of all appetites, bliss--
stilled tumult of heart
space between ribs dull
gone the ache
a nice cavity emptied
cleaned
filled with cotton or straw
smelling sweet… Read full post »

the lifting of the head at a particular
moment, mind still delighting in the
gladness of the growing of green things
a sky rent, an almost sky, a grey sheet
bleeding brilliant white
a gliding visitor waving hello
and i am (0f) tamarind-fleshed earth,
staring unschooled at beauty
my own greeting, sluggis/… Read full post »

i sew a dress of regrets
sharp needle prickling skin
each blood drop a pearl
enough thread
for both of us

but were the Poet to sit
between you and I
share a laugh at passersby
what with their bags of ennui.

our wishes half-built, stifled
lest they escape, tell on us, the shame!
age learns to lock secrets away… Read full post »

if you asked me, a few years ago, I would most definitely have panicked, sent a veritable deluge of emails, imagined kidnappers and car wrecks

This life we lead, so fragile, so resilient. This community of strangers who are not so, we seek each other tentatively, in real life, exchange precious… Read full post »

i've begun that letter so many times

let's pretend this is an exorcism
of sorts, or that i am
in a confessional, this writing of things in journals
forgive me father, for i have sinned
that they might leave me alone for a while, that
debussy and nocturnes cannot cure,
i will not ask myse… Read full post »

and then, there was nothing,
no trees stood, no houses
just the vast stretch of drowned red earth,
dead eyes staring
brilliant blue sun laughing.

copyright 2011 vanessa seijo

were i not in such an atramentous mood
even your kiss can only subside
did pixels not show birdlike governesses
a stare too severe
bêtes noires i keep and feed
had i not walked too long this road
had i stitched a darker cloak
i’d be the yo yo lady in a berlin street
and call myself island girl/… Read full post »

and so if laughter bubbles up in my mouth
threatens to spill, drown us both
you in that pale shirt of yours, starched and proper
i, aubergine lips and nails
not a bit of white in me, you see
come, have some wine, forget

copyright 2010 vanessa seijo Read full post »

There were two interesting articles the other week regarding the writing of novels, and literary agents, and what publishers want.  Ann Nichols’s and Mauricio Betancourt’s works were featured on the cover and there was quite a lively discussion among writers, published or not.

Having… Read full post »

“It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn't use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like "What about lunch?"”
Winnie the Pooh

when you see  her
sleeping, folded butterfly lighted
on errant limb
a sun salutation bemusing moon
swaddled in fake cold air
a quilt loved to p… Read full post »

I decided to write my pre-radio interview jitters away.

See, I told you about the book thing.

And I told you about the radio interview thing.

But this here woman, who has no problem dealing with dozens and dozens of school-aged children at the same time, who can get in the… Read full post »

Monday

The government has decided schools will open.  Even with a hurricane warning given.  A disastrous move, they will backtrack that order in a few hours, sending frenzied parents into searching for their offspring.  Schools will let students out after lunch, roughly 11:00 a.m. … Read full post »

there, crowned by a westering sun, my daughter plays a baseball of sorts, a small retinue of uncles her private court, half excited about this, half afraid to let go

there, a malachite playground kept by the sheer will of a man who reminds me of Tom Bombadil, thunderous and genial… Read full post »

To be just that.

Maybe I don’t understand the politics of race in writing.

Then again, maybe I do, and use it to my full advantage.  Someone, call me a hypocrite.

There was a phone call, earlier last week, and I was told in no uncertain terms I need to… Read full post »