Juliet Cook's Blog, page 60

NEW! Two collaborative poems by j/j hastain and I in Rabid Oak Issue 11!

I can’t decide how to name
the shape of this branch;
whether to object or celebrate
its brokenness.delighted to have two poems by j/j hastain & I included in Issue 11 of Rabid Oak HERE - https://rabidoak.com/issues/issue-11/two-by-juliet-cook-and-j-j-hastain/

Parts of last night's bad dream(s):

(I don't usually add "trigger warnings" above my posts, but I will say that the end of this post gets pretty violent, so if you don't want to accidentally read any details of physical violence, then you might want to stop reading once you hit the third paragraph, or at least before you get to the last paragraph)I'm not a huge Star Wars aficionado. I mean, I like the movies okay (especially some of the visuals of non-human creatures), but am not blown away by the movie's story lines. So I'm not sure why some giant non-human animal-like creature that I think was in a Star Wars movie appeared in last night's dream. It was weird looking, huge with extremely long legs, and fast moving - but somehow in the dream, it was supposedly some sort of giant sloth.The giant sloths were on the side of good, so I was watching them from outside my window, but then one of them suddenly turned into a lioness and jumped into my house and was right in front of me. The lioness was not necessarily good or bad, but she was an animal and if I made an attempt to run away from her, I would most likely be attacked and ripped into pieces, so I woke myself up.Then when I fell back asleep, I started having one of my disturbing dreams that involved tortuous human violence. The dream involved me and two other good people (good as in non-evil and non-violent). Me and the guy had taken this disabled woman into an office room (some type of medical or psychiatric office room,or at least that's what we thought it was), in order to try to explain that she had accidentally forgotten to take a few of her much needed psychiatric pills, so could she please be given 5 extra pills before her pill prescription was available for renewal. The guy who worked in the office opened a book full of paperwork, crossed off 5 words, and said no she would not be given 5 extra pills, because she was the one who had made the mistake, and in fact, now she would not be given ANY pills EVER, and then he crossed off the entire page, and said that what ever happened to her next was her own fault.At first I thought he was just some asshole having an assholish day and taking it out on random patients, so I tried to act tough and angry and insisted that he give our disabled friend the pills she needed. Then he started screaming at us, threatening us with violence, and it seemed like he was actually going to inflict violence, so I yelled "Let's go!" and we started running. But somehow he grabbed the disabled woman, stabbed out one of her eyes, and started pounding her in the face, and I felt like it was our fault, because we had gone in there to help her, but now we were just running away as she got tortured and possibly killed. Clearly, the guy didn't care about anyone's life, especially that of a disabled woman who had forgotten to take a few of her pills.

One more photo at The Cleveland Museum of Art, February 8, 2019

At The Cleveland Museum of Art, Georgia O' Keeffe exhibit, February 8, 2019

At The Cleveland Museum of Art, Georgia O' Keeffe exhibit, February 8, 2019

More photos at The Cleveland Museum of Art, February 8, 2019

At The Cleveland Museum of Art, February 8, 2019

Happy February! A new Interview about me and my poetry and my Malformed Confetti appears in the NEW Issue 47 of Rogue Agent!

Delighted to have an interview about my poetry writing process and other poetic thoughts/feelings (and about my new full-length poetry book, Malformed Confetti, published by Crisis Chronicles Press in 2018) appearing within the NEW Issue 47 of Rogue Agent, surrounded by poetry!Juliet Cook talks about embodied poetry and writing Malformed Confetti, HERE - http://www.rogueagentjournal.com/jcook-2

obsessively cold day

I got my brain a little overly worked up and worried (and obsessive and borderline paranoid) about the weather last night.I opened most of my cupboards, hoping that none of my pipes would get frozen or burst. I turned my heat up one extra degree, just in case I LOST my heat, so that my house wouldn't quickly turn freezing.Early Wednesday morning is my neighborhood's trash pick up day and I wasn't sure if I should even put my trash can out, because in addition to the coldness and wind chill, I wasn't sure if it was going to be too windy and I certainly did not want to walk around in the freezing cold looking for a trash can that got blown away. I probably wouldn't have even put it out, but my parents had stuck a big trash bag of theirs into my trash can - and since I only have one trash can now (do to my other one blowing away a few weeks ago), if I had not put it out this week, I would have accumulated too much garbage to fit in my one trash can next week. So I ended up taking it out earlier than usual, before it got really cold, but then I kept obsessively checking the weather and worrying about it blowing away.Then I got myself so obsessed and paranoid about the weather (while reading warnings about frostbite and hypothermia and death) that I started over-worrying/over-imagining what if I went outside to bring my trash back in, had a seizure while outside in minus zero temps with -30 wind chill, passed out in the snow, and died.I don't even like snow.Snow is my idea of hell, because it escalates the obsessive anxious bad parts of my brain (what if this happens? what if this happens? what if this happens? what if this happens? what if? what if? what if? what if? what if?).(I've also had some what if? what if? what if? uncomfortable thoughts going on about my health lately, but I don't feel like typing about that.) At least I was able to work some of my obsessively wind chill focused brain waves into some poem lines late last night.I also kept thinking (and still am) about homeless people being outside during these temperatures.I didn't sleep very well last night. I think I had been in bed for about two hours before some odd sound woke me up. It sounded like something was repeatedly rattling and rolling around outside and I was worried it was my trash can, and I couldn't fall back asleep.On at least two different occasions, I got up, put on a coat, hat, and thick gloves, and went outside to open my garage door and check that my trash can was still intact where I had placed it. It was, so I'm not sure what was repeatedly rolling around. Then a few hours later, still barely sleeping, I heard the garbage truck coming by, so I put my hat and coat and gloves on again and moved my emptied trash can into my garage.After that, I was able to sleep a LITTLE better.Shortly after I got up, I looked out my screen door window and saw another empty trash can (not mine) down on the ground in front of the side door of my garage, so then I wasn't sure whether to go outside again and put that one in my garage too or just leave it where it was. I ended up going out and moving it a little farther forward (instead of leaving it right in front of my side door) so that hopefully whoever's can it was might see it there. I probably would have put it in my garage if it had been windy, but it wasn't too windy at that point in time, and hopefully it doesn't get all windy tonight and blow onto the street and cause a car accident, because I don't want to go outside again, and risk having a seizure in the snow.Yes this is how my brain works sometimes, but at least it didn't escalate to the point of panic mode.

The First Myna Birds flock of 2019 has arrived with 15 Myna Birds!

The First Myna Birds flock of 2019 has arrived with 15 Myna Birds!

Creative beaks and wings and things by Eileen Murphy/MISH, Michael A. Griffith, Karen L. George, Dustin Pickering, Valerie Loveland, and John Grey

shiny, pointy party hats - pass through these ghosts - Something fleshy falls on my plate - Our U.S. president is a monster - Every stair I meet, I imagine falling, because I can tell the future - I repeatedly press the stop button - tiptoe toward pale blue - as a magic horse in the wind - The sun rises, vibrates light into inky night - Doubt is the flower that grows in my heart -Is it still a bomb if it clicks instead of ticks?
HERE -  https://13myna.blogspot.com/
orchid funeral by MISH