Prosed Trio

Hey Hey! Here's a Saturday post!

4/27/09

   This is my dowry. I am a wife, and my words are my proof of the paid bride-price. I write love because I am a lover. I have tried being not me, and it poisons. My words offer healing from my precious, God-beloved heart. He makes love to me through a sentence, a cadence, a sounded sound.
   Behold your handmaid, Lord. You show Yourself off in Your wonderful handiwork, and I praise You for the me You made.
   Ans here it is that I find I'm a kept woman. A beloved. A wife. A princess. A queen. God's temple and His handmaid. I will NEVER stop saying so.

Immersion

God can take a chord progression and baptize me in sound.

Imagine how it could be, a video of love and sound.

Candlelight in a dark room.

Not coupled, but dancing.

Not joined but connected.

And the camera moves around in a slow circle, never really below the shoulder. 

Together and separate. 

In the dark, but lit. 

And then the fingertips rise and touch.

The crescendo is simply a gentle kiss of the hand to the hand.

Teresa Mother

To a past mothering
Teresa and friends were there
I was there too
It was 1996
 Still engaged with
My sense of entitlement
And breaking out
Of my broken shell
We sang together
And ate together
And threw stuffed animals
In movie theaters together
She fed me more times than I could count
Denny's makes me
Think of her
I couldn't see
Her mothering of me
For the blessing that it was
And now that I am older
And consider that
Great time in my life
I see now
Her mothering of me


With words, song & prayer, TiMo
www.pmeqme.blogspot.com

Onward Looking

© Tiffany Monique February 2014

Me As A Day

From 1997 with love, here is your Saturday post!

Breathe me in like the morning

Take me into you

Let me watch you sleeping

So I'm the one you wake up too

Have me as a day

Wake up to my sunshine

My rays of warmth and love

See my ethereal beauty

Given by God above

Have me as a day

Take me as a beautiful day

As a powerful sunset

Watch me grow like a tree

Rooted in ground soft and wet

Have me as a day

Be a part of my moonlight

My beauteous evening star

See through my grace and gifts

And find in me who you are

Have me as a day

With words, song & prayer,
TiMo
Here's where you can read me:
www.pmeqme.blogspot.com

Yours Truly, Summer 2011
© Tiffany Monique

Freak of Nature Friends o' Mine

Hello there! Here's your Saturday post!

From 2009

I keep reaching new heights.

I keep refusing average.

I have

never

been average.

[In 2009]

I will

prove this fact.

I must now find and

celebrate 

my other 

fabulous

freak of nature friends.

As we 

celebrate

our differences

are 

renewing 

the perfected link 

of our imperfection.

Untitled

From 2015

A friend to me

Not a frenemy

I've lost my share of those

I know what it is to lose

A girlfriend

A real friend

The truth tellers

Not smoke blowers

I've lost those too

Like hangnails, true

And I find

I'm blessed to unbind

From the toxic

Willfully heartsick

And I'll mend

And strengthen my friends

The ones I've kept

The ones who never left

With words, song and prayer,
TiMo

2011 Remindering

Inspired by Miri G, and dedicated to her, because sometimes you just have to take a moment and play hide and seek with the words inside you.

Miri is one of the many brilliantes I met at my Goddard Spring Residency in 2011. She is part of the group of people in my life that, like me, share a love of letter writing. This art is something that is falling away, in light of the ease and speed of the digital communication all around us. Miri is one who writes longhand cursive with clipped curves, and excited punctuation. I truly enjoy not only what she writes, but the physical expression of her mind on paper. Each curve and line is a hug (she also doodles in the corners, so I get the fun aspect of her art imagery and art text). It is a long slow process, and I love it. Found this in my archives and thought I'd remind her... 

For Dearie Miri

As if a wind blew softly

and a leaf on the wind landed 

dancing

on the still water surface of my heart

I guess I heard the ping in you

I see you know this

The gentle ripple of love in my “good morning' to your story

to your poetry

to your words

to your own internal phoenix fire

resting patiently under the still water surface

of you

How quiet it is

how expectant

pregnant with a destiny that is

on the surface

unknown

but underneath,

fully engaged

With words, song and prayer,
TiMo

Tell Your Story

Excellence to you and yours! Here's your Saturday Post!

I come from storytellers.

Our history is such that our mundane happenings become performances in sharing with others.

Last night, my brother reminded us of how he wrapped his desktop computer in a pink woven blanket, wrapped it with duct tape (for handles) and took it on a plane to England, just to have it  fry due to a faulty converter on his first plug in. The memory always made me smile, but last night's remindering lit my laugh muscles on fire for about five minutes. I'm still smoldering with hahaha's.

And so, for him (and some other people) -  here is a reminder to tell your stories.

I wrote this for a group of ladies at Goddard College, and now redirect the point to all storytellers, griots, cantadoras and the like.

Find your chairs, your trees, your stages and platforms. Your audience is already listening, whether you see them or not. The sun is going down, and it is time.

With words, song and prayer
TiMo

Here's where you can read me:
www.pmeqme.blogspot.com

Nostalgia3

Nostalgic Moments from the archives (originally posted 7.6.11) -

Those of you who have received my homemade stationary have seen this kind of stuff.

Inspired by Miri G, and dedicated to her, because sometimes you just have to take a moment and play hide and seek with the words inside you. Whether professionally or personally, it is necessary at times to simply stop and hear your own internal ripples to inspire the unfinished written works inside you to move closer to the “done” den.

I am sitting in the office in Arlington, preparing photos for a restaurant review that will be published later today. At this moment, I am listening to Proust and the Squid – The Story and Science of the Reading Brain by Maryanne Wolf, narrated by Kristen Potter. Listening to this audio book and jumping about mentally I am, within a ten second loop, considering the restaurant review formation (mixing the images and text in a mental storyboard), the progress review for school (which is the main reason for listening to the Wolf audio book), the bible verses I listened to this morning, the bills that I must fill out for clientele, and my reply to my good friend Miri.

Miri is one of the many brilliantes I met at my Goddard Spring Residency. She is part of the group of people in my life that, like me, share a love of letter writing. This art is something that is falling away it seems, in light of the ease and speed of the digital communication technology all around us. I am one who appreciates being forced to slow down and take the time to taste each word in my head as I hear it, in my mouth as I imagine saying it to the letter recipient, and in my hands as I write it out. It is a long slow process, and I love it. Miri is one who writes longhand cursive with clipped curves, and excited punctuation. I truly enjoy not only what she writes, but the physical expression of her mind on paper. Each curve and line is a hug (she also doodles in the corners, so I get the fun aspect of her art imagery and art text).

“Dearie Miri” sent me a video the other day, but told me I couldn’t watch it until I received her letter, which was an accompaniment. It was an exercise in patience, and rewarded with a beautiful poem and awesome written art.

As I was writing her reply letter I began to write prose as well. The words made me feel beautiful and peaceful. Miri inspired me to inspire myself. Now I am off to write my restaurant review. 

From the last Restaurant Review for FW&D that I wrote. Isn't that smile DARLING?

But I leave you with a snippet of what I wrote to Miri:

I should be writing a Restaurant Review, but I feel stilled by the words in my heart.

As if a wind blew softly, and a leaf on the wind landed dancingly on the still water surface of my heart.

Ahhh, I heard the click in you. I see you know this image.

The gentle ripple of words in my “good morning love’ to your story…

to your poetry…

to your own internal phoenix fire resting patiently under the still water surface.

How quiet it is…

how expectant…

pregnant with a destiny that is on the surface unknown,

but underneath,


fully understood.

With words, song & prayer,
TiMo
Here's where you can read me:
www.alwaysalreadyalright.blogspot.com 
www.pmeqme.blogspot.com

Yours Truly, Summer 2011
© Tiffany Monique

Nostalgia2

Nostalgic Moments from the archives

I ain't gonna lie... I edited a TINY bit... call it, artistic license... (originally posted 7.18.11) -

I sold the bookcase I wrote about in a lost archive. It served its purpose. I am starting the mental processing that is required to leave the East Coast.

I am starting to look forward to spending time with my family, and get reacquainted with the physical location that was both my hometown and the first platform “from which to jump beyond myself”.

More than that, I am starting to look forward to the drive across country. I have never taken on such an endeavor before. Would you like to come with me? Let’s get in the car and go. We can take turns driving and be tourists in the great state of “wherever we find ourselves”.

From the road in my old Mazda 3 (2007-2013 R.I.P.)

This is not to say that I won’t make the drive without you. I've been dreaming about this drive. I am just starting the start to’s… start to pack, start to downsize, start to take stock of what will stay and what will go. I am starting to look forward to the destination, but I am also starting to look forward to the journey too.

What are you starting to...?

With words, song & prayer, TiMo
Here's where you can read me:
www.alwaysalreadyalright.blogspot.com
www.pmeqme.blogspot.com



Nostalgic Moments #1

From the TiMoBe Archives (5/4/11):

I ROCKED it on my Prom Night.


Commence Nostalgia…

With words, song & prayer, TiMo
Here's where you can read me:
www.alwaysalreadyalright.blogspot.com 
www.pmeqme.blogspot.com

Friday Poetry 10-11-13

Summer 2010, Washington, DC © Tiffany Monique

Two Weeks Notice
If overthinking were a job
I was a Chief Administrative Officer
And hating my position
I had a beautiful office
In a beautiful building
In the middle of a storm
Of my own creation
And I loved and hated
My own mind
My beautiful mind
My mental self-weapon
But
I put in my two weeks notice
I was not fired
Terminated for cause
I quit the job
So that my heart could beat
So that I could dream
So that I could love
So that I could create
And laugh and sing and dance
In the clear light of the sun

And some remindering...

 

 What an adventure!
Simply being my own self
How BLESSED I have been!

Yours Truly, Summer 1996, La Jolla, CA
© Tiffany Monique

Yours Truly, Spring 2009, Glen Burnie, MD
© Tiffany Monique

Yours Truly, Spring 2012, Santa Barbara, CA
© Tiffany Monique

Yours Truly, Winter 2012, Borrego Springs, CA
© Tiffany Monique

With words, song & prayer,
TiMo
Here's where you can read me:
www.alwaysalreadyalright.blogspot.com 
www.pmeqme.blogspot.com

Yours Truly, Summer 2011
© Tiffany Monique

Friday Poetry 7.19.13

Note to the Fallen
You are not allowed to give up on yourself
You are simply NOT allowed
She needs you
He needs you
They need you
I need you
There is nothing wrong with hurting
Pruning is not meant to be comfortable
Learning not to live by thorn
But by rose
Living outside the walls
Of your own comfort zone
You are not allowed to give up on yourself
NOT allowed
Here at the end of this journey
Just before your own coronation
Not of your entire journey
But of this moment
There are other adventures to be had
Far beyond this one
Far far beyond
You are not allowed to give up on yourself
You are NOT allowed to give up
The world needs you
You

From 2010 With Love
Cuando me sueño, uso una lengua que es solo mio
Una sonrisa, una palabra, un cuerpo tambien
Mi corazon esta fuerte, mi boca es grande
Mi cabeza es el mar, mis manos son montañas
Un chiste de sangue y hueso
Yo soy mi sueño
Mi sueño de yo

With words, song & prayer,
TiMo
Here's where you can read me:
www.alwaysalreadyalright.blogspot.com 
www.pmeqme.blogspot.com

Yours Truly, Summer 2011

Friday Poetry 7.12.13

A Sonnet on the Move

Let me join the ones to stand up like this
Takes a healing hold and a strength to be
Pressed into the truth I now try to live
No more falsehood, bluff, technicality
Couldn't truly live as afraid and false
Most eyes seem so clear. Why can they not see?
Thrill me with the past jealousies of all
I am. No longer bound to not love me
Will not lose again that much of myself
To shine like a sun lit with bitterness
Won't assign again my own heart to hell
The cost to be free is that I forgive
If hope is may call and honor my name
Let us now load cannons. Let me take aim.

Thoughts on
Looked back at milestones
Realized late bloomer flight
Walked back into the room of my life
And saw it was quite bright

Thought it wasn't good enough
Thought it simply wouldn't do
Listened to the them's and they's
Lived life so that they'd approve

But then

Regarded the army again
Realized it was small but tight
Walked around my armory
My battlements still built in light

Changed my thinking over time
Bloomed beautiful and true
See a different future now
So many more things I want to do

11 Years in Review
To all of the friends I've made since 2002
A year ago - Completed my Masters Thesis
Two years ago - Drove across the USA 1.5 times, ha!
Three years ago - Started graduate school
Four years ago - Went on a misadventure looking for Harriet Tubman's house - never found it
Five years ago - Sang at Artscape
Six years ago - Drove in major snow for the first time
Seven years ago - Lived a song lyric - "Got my kicks on Route 66"
Eight years ago - Learned how to shoot .22's, build fire pits, and love knives
Nine years ago - Sang in Soul City Survivors up and down the California coast
Ten years ago - Decided (with good reason) my #1 restaurant for life - The Palace Grill, Santa Barbara
Eleven years ago - Wrote music for a Carillon (Played by the UCSB carillonneur for years after).
WOW, what a ride! I'm excited about the next adventures!

With words, song & prayer,
TiMo
Here's where you can read me:
www.alwaysalreadyalright.blogspot.com 
www.pmeqme.blogspot.com

Yours Truly, Summer 2011

Friday Poetry 5.31.13

Bravery - Dedicated to Kriss Mincey

Never so beautiful as when you are singing
And believe me young lady, you've got beauty in spades
But more than that
It is your bravery I most admire
It is the golden power in you
Your chocolate brown soul
That says
I can smile and sing
America can see me
The world can hear me
I am inspired by your bootstraps
The very ones you use to lift yourself up
Cute like the sandals I saw you wear one time
Or the song in the basement
I heard you croon
When you were giving thanks
And your smile tells stories girl
Smart chic
Black nightingale
Tickle YOU love
Thursday night soul cries deep like music fingers
In the waves of oceans of ears
Fearless and fierce
Your bravery like an amulet
Your determination like a phalanx
You are a force
I am so humbled
And inspired too
Never so beautiful as when you are singing
And believe me young lady,
You've got beauty in spades

(c) 2011 Tiffany Monique

A Poem of Deconstruction, inspired by Ernest Silva
Visual vocabulary. Practical craft. Conspirators. Control. "Wars are fought for resources." Glass. Guston. Readable themes. Process of judgement. Abstract beauty.. Playful warfare. Somehow become animate. Personal commentary. Applied seductively. Painting the mask itself. "Are we beneath... are we the mask?". Paul Thek. Upheaval. Westerman. Deathship. People were curious. Passionate. Wooden wharf. Automatic weapon. Transformed objects. Elephant. Quixotic. "It impresses me". Simple inventory. Trigger associations. Goofed. "A constructed person".Volcanic. Dark sea. Visual resources. "Sense of vividness". Voyage. Abstract calligraphy. Homage. Beauty of shimmering. Ephemerality. "Tragic occurrences in the world". Superimposing. "Collisions of realities". Source imagery. Sound of the rain. Wonder. Highly saturated. Rewarding to me. "Conflict between nature & human nature... actor [is] image to pose a question... constructed to keep fear away." Synthetic quality. Unpredictability. Represent memory. Adventurousness. Evoke twilight. "Precarious balance between human nature and nature... destruction of something that is the same as you." Learn your craft. "Only become an artists if you have to". "Play it like this but then put yourself on top of it."

From January 28th 2013

Her voice is so soft, it belies her strength

A strength forgotten in the many maelstroms

I wish her power I can not give

She must take it
She must fight her way to stay awake

Where do they go 

These with voices gone

She whispers

Echoes of beautiful power

Sex, sass, strength, sufficiency

I've lost her

She lost her

I'm not the map

I'm not the way back

But I know she must go back

Back home to herself

From June 8th 2010 

I missed you hamstring.

Inner thigh tried to come between us.

We used to hang out with knees and calves at the beach, and in our dresses.

Old crones would call us provocative and promiscuous.

Perhaps we were.

But we are gonna hang out soon, and more.

You deserve your time in the sun.

A Dream in Prose from November 2009

I dreamed of a man. He was selling wares (the only one at market). Every one bought pieces that were shiny. I chose fabric. I didn't know when I chose it, but the fabric matched the man's. He and I wore dark crimson. I was trying to save a boy, a little boy. He fell against the wall, or perhaps he was thrown. The man calmed me, saying the boy was in no more danger. Then we regarded each other. He saw what I wore, or perhaps he just acknowledged that I matched him. We knew what we were to each other. A performer was behind us in purple. I did not trust them, because they'd chosen a shiny thing. They were jealous of the man and I matching, but they chose the shiny thing on their own.

From Fall 2009

The season is changing

The tide turning

But the dead do not rise

The road less taken

Is still taken

But the dead do not rise

Armies rage and conquer

Political

But the dead do not rise

Lovers come together

Love is lost

But the dead do not rise

Untitled

A closed window book.
A pursed lip with stern condescension.
It's Parisian smokey black & white mornings with cold damp war wounds and nearly silent rain.
It's a most sad song that catches in your throat.
The unselfish death of a dreamed life somewhere far away in your own back yard.
This... sanity.
This question.
This naked form not quite 17 and still apologizing for being someone's unrequited dreamscape.
A long walk still not taken.
A joke still untold.
An unchewed gum of a thing.
A masterpiece not started, and I just realized what I'm describing.

From 2009 With Love

I finally got my Windows Live Mail Configured but I forgot to stop the download of all previous messages... guess it's a good thing, because this poem popped up and asked to be revisited.

My Thighs (from 2009)

My thighs are beautiful and strong, but that's NOT all that I have going on
See the way the hips slide nice, well, that ain't all that should make you look twice
Sex appeal- got it.
Front and back too
But you don't have my eyes or point of view
And if that's all you want, I gotta move

I have the skills and desire to please, but there is so much more to me
My mouth is sensual and my tongue is strong, but I use it for conversation
Know what I can do
And do it well
But my sex is no longer for sale
I seek to celebrate all that makes me female

Not to be arrogant or proud, but I speak with out talking, and I speak loud
You wanna piece of me, dripping and sweet, but I am a meal- not a taste of meat
I'll no longer settle
I know I can wait
Because I want the soul to resound in my mate
And for him alone, my thighs were made to satiate
My things, my rise, my mouth, my crown
To God and then him will I happily bow down

--
"Well you know how it feels if you begin hoping for something that you want desperately badly; you almost fight against the hope...but it is no good trying to throttle this hope. It might- really, really, it just might be true. So many odd things had happened already." -The Magician's Nephew

See

What we notice versus what we notice…

Originally posted 10/25/09

I read you like a good book
You read me like a newspaper
I see you like a beautiful text
You see me like magazine ads
I see you see I see you see
Do you see
Do you see me
seeing you
Do you see you
See
I don’t see how you can read
Knowing the intelligence of this reader
Unafraid to divulge
But verbiage is
Semantic
Do you see
I see
I see you
I see and I see
Oh, I see
See?

On The Other Side of The Wall

Corporate Hierarchy Poetry for the VP from the assistant…

Originally posted 10/5/09

On the other side of the wall is me
Not in look
Not in carriage
But in music, like wind, and water and joy

On the other side of the wall is you
Not in status
Not in presentation
But in drive, like a train, and steel and stabs

On the other side of the wall is us
But on this side is seperation
Because you don’t want to know this truth
That I am on that side of the wall with you
And you are on this side too
Closer than air but can’t breathe through

On the other side of the wall is me
Womanly wiles
Feminine ways
Diva, Faerie, Heart and hand

On the other side of the wall is you
Macho macho
A real man
Dude, Homie, Logic and strength

On the other side of the wall is us
But on this side is seperation
Because I don’t want to know this truth
That I am on that side of the wall with you
And you are on this side too
Closer than air but can’t breathe through

Don’t misunderstand
I don’t want to be you
Don’t misread
I don’t want you to be me
I only want you to respect your location
Before the train leaves the station

Because
On both sides of the wall is us
On both sides, this seperation
Because we daily walk in this truth
That the wall must be
Certain like infinitely
And we don’t jump
And we don’t move
Not because we can’t
But because we don’t want to

Freeform for A Moment...

Tita McTavish is a dew drop fairy on the window. She insists on suffering in the heat. She won't just evaporate and go wherever it is she is supposed to go once that is done. She languishes away on the window, at noon, complaining nonstop about her plight in the heat and dust of Maryland in June. I feel bad for her suffering, but not really because she won't just let things take their natural course. She keeps saying something about having a point to make and a story to tell. I just want her to shut up and tell the story, or shut up and leave. The incessant babbling and bemoaning is getting on my nerves, despite her niceness, and the coolness of having a fairy on my window. That being said, I better get back to work before she gets me in trouble for paying her too much attention, thereby causing yet more showing off and spotlighting on her self-pitying state....