Sitting in the corner
by himself, no one around
Sat a man, all old and wrinkled
Lips were moving, but no sound
Came forth from this man's mouth,
his lips all cracked and dry,
You could stand right there and listen
And hear nothing if you tried

Each day I walked the prison yard
this man sat in his place
Never talking to another
Just staring off in space
He sat, just sat, and sang his silent songs
No one else could hear but him
The men around the prison said
"He's just Old Crazy...him!"

He was kept upon another block
Not the one where I made home
He'd been there for eternity
Back when cars still had big chrome
I dare not ask why he was here
Some things you didn't do
so, I sat there watching this man sing
And I thought "just who are you?'

He'd sing his songs come rain or shine
Never looked out past the fence
The world out there meant nought to him
It held no consequence
The 809 would pass each day
Whistle blowing in the air
The rest of us, stared dreamlike
And we wished that we were there

But the old man in the corner
didn't blink or even look
Even though as the '09 passed
The ground around us shook
He held his place in silence
Rheumy eyes and cracked old mouth
Held the secrets of his lifetime
A man of wisdom from the south

I got the will and walked on up
to where he sat and sang
And back behind the others stood
And I could hear a few say "Dang!"
I stood there, right in front of him
And I couldn't hear a word
Except the soft and gentle cooing
Like a tiny, baby bird

I realized the sound was him
It was his singing in my ears
It was soft and smooth and gentle
It was almost bringing me to tears
He looked clear on, right through me
Sang his songs but did not budge
I blocked his way upon his exit
And I said "It's not for me to judge"......

I could hear the loud collective gasp
From the crowd who'd formed behind
And when they saw me stop his exit
They must have thought I'd lost my mind
I asked him in a gentle voice,
so no one else behind could know
about why he sang so silently
Like an angel, soft as snow

He said, "You know, I have no name"
"I've been here long enough, it's gone
"My name now is my number
"Although they sometimes call me John"
"I just don't know, if John is me
"he was from another time"
"So, I forgot just who I used to be
"And I sing my songs and rhyme"

"I used to have a name, I'm sure"
"But, now I need it less and less"
"They only need it for my marker"
"I'm dying here I guess"
"It makes it easy to get by here"
"When they think you're mad as hell"
"They just leave me to my corner"
"And to me that's just as well"

I thought a bit and smiled
At this man, who'd shared his tale
And I hoped I never lost me
That my name was not for sale
I refused to be a number
Although I knew that in the end
That I too, would die in here
And it would be easy without friends

So, I picked myself a corner
One where the man and I could see
I would sing to him in silence
As he would sing to me
The old man died a few years back
But I still sit and sing the same
I think I know still, who I am
But I'm not sure I know my name...

I write, edit, then post.
Delete, edit, then post.
My fingerprints are toast.
Spectral as a ghost.
I used to leave them
On things of ease,
But now they're stuck,
On lettered keys.

Is there that much of a edit , drop out, dead zone that the most important things expressed in as much in as several weeks and done so in thoughtful conclusion, seems to have gone unheard while seated or standing , moving in the same places of my home that I am heard when I rant to gather the parts and pieces and turn the churn to rid the plotted roles cast for sorrows and fill them with the rounded wheel and the circle to end back on myself where I find mine own lashings as sharp yet the truth far more palatable than the build up to the shift, change, the turn on myself and explanation of my learned lessons so as to walk one through a creepy Halloween type thing that , oh, lets admit it, I work hard at what. explaining my foolish thoughts?, or at saying what you already know, and probably find rather rehashed over and over.
Truth is, I wish I could dive into the colors of my mind and yours but, seems I am some how, allowing others wishes to dictate the outcome as I wait for them and watch the anger build , threats meander, and think I actually had a moving way of looking at it that might help someone other than my own silly ***.
Sorry. I suppose, it was a drop out time, funny, how editing seems to be a heavy instrument in this, unless I am wrong, well, not like I have ever heard or seen my own foolish self anywhere , which causes its own interesting concerns to self. ugh, lol, at least I am in a good mood and btw I may be weird, but if you are a good person, never take anything I say as directed at you, please, , for it is not, I need your stable and steady self to help me get through this whole thing, cause truth is I am alone even while being surrounded by people, and soon it will all make sense, I hope, . I truly hope so, and if not, then, well, then we are all susceptible to the events that have cast us into a relationship , one That I have come to except and even miss and despise, and even dislike letting you down, and that may seem strange, but only seems natural considering. And yes I have no issue nor need to make you happy, I just have a need to help some thing in this even if its a, do not do this, cause I am a fool, sort of help. and , well. this is sad and pathetic, and yes there are times I wish I could read or hear what I have said, cause I truly need to go over it cause I am trying to learn and remember as well as the fact, I do listen to myself and that is 90% of how I have problem solved my entire life, so, yeah, I am that pathetic, but it has really done me good. and that is all I need to worry about in that regard. but, I do give  a serious ****. and hope, that I am not so edited, because, I do cover and preface more than most might think, and well, it would be a shame if all that were cut out, cause I need it most. and it is truly very sad, sick and messed up, what has happened to myself and my wife and family even separately, and this is really not fun, and I wait politely for her to make a few more head way moments and try to keep my head on straight, while thinking I have ran out of ever being able to discern friend foe, good bad, other than the Lord helping my alone and foolish ***. if not for God it would be far worse than we could ever imagine.

But who am I kidding? it all wont matter in a thousand years, but to me it matters in a million as it does now.


Guns N' Roses - Patience lyrics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMmX9G8JP38


tired causes us to find comfort in our failures and our alone, sometimes so muh we secretly hope ,,, well, it is a far more true hope I have that those whom say love, and share the air i breath find as much effort as i feel,,, feel that i have put forth, however, i as all people find myself in grandiose proportions and fail to realize, that though a pat on the back is not needed, just the thought that it isnt so one sided in all of life, is that little lie i find myself leaning toward, more and more each day, why? because i am as weak as you and truthfully, far weaker than you may have ever thought, and if it wernt for my disproportionate out of balance sense of right and wrong, duty and being a good person, i would probably, ,,, i will always see failure where ever i find my name or efforts, this is just a fact, and none to be freaking out about, just a deep, pulling sad that we all have inside when we actually consider the real cost and efforts we muster up, and , well, i realize, i am not the best at anything, and apparently that was the point so others with less self worth can see that even this fool some how made it to this point by the grace of a higher power in its love, but, yeah, ridicule and well, embarrassment as well, as mockery for withstanding my own fake *** , even if my fake is due to the real horrors one runs from, well, i tell myself that, so i dont have to face the fact that i forgot yet again and feel asleep and failed to help the last people i tried to help, in fact ****** myself even worse it seems. even though it is so ******* insidious you will be hard pressed, finding a outcome that even the pin ultimate uber hero, becomes the fool and tossed in the trash as i seemed to have though myself far too offten, only to ego up and walk all about like i was fine and free, totally oblivious. and the stain of realizing my girls have been harmed and i could not ,,,, yeah. like i said. hard pressed to find a hero, that could withstand the fracturing and games. but i tried, more than once, more than this time, and at least this time, people seem to actually acknowledge that there is something strange and it is not only my crazy ***. but then again. i have done this more than i care to say, hell, you may have an idea beyond what i allow myself to except, for the pain and um, can be far too much to digest a millennia all at once. lol, no i am not sad, facts and truth do not make me sad, they liberate, but not dancing a jig, for many reasons, though **** it. I want to soon, and care not, i just hope tangible effort is also found in measure on both sides of this thing for mine, and my wife can say i measured well in effort, but i just feel like my efforts dont match my ,, her,,, any of,, well, maybe i have too high expectations of others and a low self image while tired is just seeping in. but We all have eyes that see and ears that hear, and i hope in the end that i and she can say, late start but not of the heart of the matter and the labors efforts hold measure. ,, i am a hopeless one aren't i? well, that is part of the point. you would hope and pray i do it for you if you were in her shoes and long gone and written off and used by so many , right, and if i failed to give such, it would devastate you, as it would me. cause I was long gone and far worse, but you reached out to me, to help. so, well, um, thank you, for your patience and understanding my confusions and blind voids as i tried to make sense of all that is not ever going to make sense.

While I don't suffer, or suffer from
Normal, eurocentrism, northern malaise,
Nor, academia, a blood disease,
I do mind manners in which doings
And not doings are done or aren't,
As it brings life and light to them,
Or it doesn't, for those most attached
To living or dying are most closely death.

This while acid rain from your closed eye
And an acre of rainforest falls each second.
Thus Earth's tears bleed for all you see is gray.
As machinations of travailing winds,
Miraging, veil, mirror narcissistic nihlistic
False-ego as self, do "..we(e),.." evince to be?
A republican chides, "put another poet
On the barbie", his idea of conservation.

Prump has had his exec. branch criminally:
Edit the official video and script of his
Helsinki news conference where tutin was asked,
"Did you help prump become president and did you
Have your gov't do the same", with tutin's answers,
"Yes I did, yes, I did..." + premeditatedly separate
Latino families at the border to torture them,
Dictate that "if they want to see their kids again
They have to sign away their rights and leave".

He just said, "don't believe what you hear, see",
Almost a quote from Orwell's '1984', in which
Is written, "this dictate of the gov't was most
Important of all, don't believe what your ears
Hear or your eyes see".  Since altright universe
Invaders were installed in the Blackhouse we've
Known things will only get worse, what other
Reason could his "military parade in 11-18" be for
Except military rule, will the American daymare end?

A thought sometimes forms

I live too much
yet I do too little.
    Woken at strange hours,
never asleep.
       Rapt in raps
       or wrapped in riddles
Chained to links
or hammered to handle
    stubbed to bone
Mens et
               Manus

There is time yet, I swear
        To flourish
To dream

        To make
To be
        To do
        To create

Will I?
We'll see
There's time yet to tell

Be yourself, they say
    The best you you can be
But once more— Will I have time
        To edit

I live less
        I do less
    Portfolio: empty
    or at least, locked away.
        Excitement too.
            Blank slate
Blank palette
Is there any paint?

Can I truly make
        excitement saturate?
Will I be able to place
        value as I see fit?
    Can the world be hewn slimmer, slicker
Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

Tis daft I think, to amuse such a notion
But not necessarily so daft to be wrong
Emerson called it misunderstood,
Shaw found it unreasonable
But ay, theres the rub
That bed once made, must be lain in and
all dreams which might be had are alone not enough

Bloom effects don't work outside the movies.

Ideas are trash, these are recession times
Deflations made them a farthing a dozen
                                  
                        ­       Started 10.03.11
                               Unfinished
                               D.B. Guy

it comes
when you're reading one of those books
written by pseudo intellectuals buried
in their despondent lookout on life

comes when
       They're writing on human's self-sabotaging nature,
when they're peeling
layers off and off, revealing the
truth of ourself like they're
       gods,
Hermes the messenger, or angels, Michael,
bringing to us thoughts we'd never have grown organically
     that's what they believe,
          what they tell themselves as they prune their feathers with pride
as they impregnate you with the god honest truth
and how did you live before knowing this?
it's been with you all along, kicking and breathing and pushing
     you just didn't know it, yet,
but now you can as
they preach their outlooks like it's a message that
changes everything, that your life will implode as your mind
wakes itself up -
     they try to baptize you
          gripping your throat with their
     carpel tunnel fingers, reading glasses
slipping down their noses as they lean over

you, watching their words pour into
you, their victims' throat, as they will it
and all the while they blame
you, because:

Humans make themselves miserable
     They write
They bury themselves in all they hate and
choose to burn all they love until
they're alone and self-loathing and scarred
unrecognizable
     They write
Of our hatred for humanity
for every single individual that surrounds us and
How we surround ourselves with them
with crowded supermarkets and lanes of traffic because
they fuel our suffering and
That's all we crave
     They write
On our thirst for blood
our lust for ****, ******, war on
How our society is fueled by violence and how
we bathe in it with a grin
stretched across dry  bleeding lips
sharp teeth that rip through our neighbors' flesh
with delight
     They write
that we're alone in suffering and surrounded by hate and
we're wild animals driven to war
out of boredom and
That's human nature in a nutshell
That's the truth revealed
          nasty, gritty, honest
     They write
and that's when

it comes, that gnawing in the
     pit of your stomach, that
scratching in the back of your mind
     that claws its way
          down into your throat where it
     *squeezes

Money keeps the world going round
while it straps us down.

money gets us what we want and when
but loses the mother we need

money makes us buy beer and hold hands
but it made Jesus flip ****

money is what we go and earn while
fathers cry because the

money could buy them bread but
not their lovers back.

money can buy lust and ***
and along with that a STD

money is earned but only
burned on sports and dvds

money can be lucky if
money is the only way out

money creates and destroys,
monopolizes and liberates.

money says things the
same way twice even though

money reads in "God We Trust" but
it should declare "trust in you".

odd. i see two chairs.

one room and one room
  
keeping the herd
while the nether
keeps the
paired.

a brute union of tough love and apathy
and middle-class *******
chafing on the sun drenched schema
of our dispossession.
like clever lads with epilepsy
only
the lights change
when
the frequency of
your questions
overclock the
enchilada.

the whole thing. baked in alaska.

striking a match
with a land
slide.

but absolutely, "no slide rules ".

every thing
to scale.

so the truth expands as you extend humility.

like an olive branch
in your boulevard
of baroque
naps.

life, is how sleep gets up in the morning. to yawn at the dream.

and
never quite
seem to remember
to tell

but recalls

Progress

4:26 am. Got out of bed.

Feeling really low again. Envy at my sister's good fortune and new friends. She is getting ahead, she is in a good place- but we are not and I am definitely not. Everything in her life presently makes her happy except me. She never trusted me because I dated G. Now I don't trust her either. I don't want anything from her. I finished the story. She didn't edit. She hasn't offered me anything from her end. "Jotted down some notes" is all she said. She did that in college with all her professors, and got As. It isn't fair. See, she does things whenever she feels like it and IF. And she doesn't trust me? I stopped asking her to do anything. If she wants to she can. I did my part.

I don't know where my life is taking me. I am working ******* little ropes that come at my direction-- but I am not even sure if they are worthwhile endeavors and if they will turn into anything. I just know I have nothing else.

I consider contacting my ex, F. Why him? He's the only one messed up like me. L is married with a beautiful baby and that woman he left me for, G is probably already married by now to that other stunning girl. But F will always be alone.

He doesn't want me. Why should I contact him? I had told myself I won't contact him until I at least got a full time job. He's an Ivy League P.H.D scientist at Penn researching the brain, traveling, making intelligent beautiful friends, and doing triathlons successfully (of course the smart ones are successful at many things). However, he still has trouble finding the "one". He's ******* 37. No one is ever good enough for him. I wasn't good enough for him. *******. He's broken like me. No, he ignored me. I won't contact him. ******* can contact me if he wants to.

I realized I have no friends. None at all. I used to think I had so many friends. Mostly men that just follow me around for a while and then leave me when they realize they aint getting this *****.

There's K, but he's J's ex's friend- so our friendship is limited. There's my sis S, who I meet once every other month, but she doesn't always respond to messages (and I rarely text her anyway). There's Je- she and I meet twice a year and we don't really connect anyway. She has other best friends and I am not really in that circle.

Cas- she is academically successful(valedictorian) and has a job, but frankly she is a bit slow. Can't explain it. Plus she bailed at me about the apartment thing and strangely she doesn't like me to meet her other friends in intimate settings, she just likes meeting people one by one. Like she's met my friends and got some of their numbers, but for some reason has never provided me an opportunity to meet hers. Maybe she feels awkward introducing me since she and I met online? Since she's not philosophical or an intellectual, I don't understand the point of meeting more than once a month if it's just me and her. I like her, but she always seems high without actually being high. I feel like I have to go out of the to meet her, but she doesn't have any energy at all.

Ro- the verbally abusive drunk? Let's face it. It's a mutually beneficial- two lonely people who have no friendship compatibility uplift each other relationship- but he's actually of the the more interesting to talk to people . Then there is Chr who just flirts all the time and fights. I swear his ex wife drilled some holes into his brain. He's just rude. He acts nice, but he's ******* nuts inside. Then there are those occasional people that text you Happy New Year. When I was in a relationship, I was so consumed by it that not having friends didn't matter. I have no friends. I am completely alone. Always have been. In law school, in elementary school, in middle school- I was always the only one who sat alone.

I like sad music. I just listened to the Hollywood version of Les Miserables- one of my favorite all time literary pieces and the beautiful Selena Gomez' new single Heart Wants What it Wants. I love to hear singing melodically, softly, simply of their pain. Every single singer in that musical has a painful story. The innkeepers in their desperation, Javert, of course Fantine, Jean Valjean, and the most relatable Eponine. And the sound of the violin. And the harp.

5:13 am. Let's talk progress.

Today I finally had the trial tutoring session. It was Algebra 2. The girl who is my tutee, she is sweet and extremely hard working. As and Bs in Algebra 2 weren't enough for her. I prepared extensively. My own Algebra 2 teacher was terrible in high school. He flirted with the pretty girls and bragged about himself. I got As for nothing. We spent most of the semesters on the same one or two chapters. I've always wanted to good at everything, to redo and master everything. Maybe this is my chance to become good at everything I **** at.

I am teaching myself before I teach her. I am supposed to be proficient. I had to begin on a surface level pace today. She and her mother both seemed happy. I touched on all her first semester topics. Next week is the second trial session. I will learn more and teach her in depth. If all goes well, she will end up being my client and I will be assigned more tutees. If only I could make a full time job out of this- I totally would. Each session pays well. Of course, the first two sessions I give are complimentary. After that.

This is a gamble. If I don't get enough clients- I will still have to manage the ones I have, invest a lot of time into studying for assignments, and then still make enough money to qualify as full time- then I will be scrambling. I can't imagine possibly getting between 6-8 hours of tutoring every day, since most people get out of work after 5pm and I have to travel around for sessions. I hope it's possible. I would work very hard.

My plan is to ace this Algebra 2 tutee preparation. I have a week to make myself more of an expert.

I have to go to more networking events. Sign up for Asian Film Festival & World Affairs. Meet people. Get connected. Make friends.

Keep reading current events, legal issues, technological advancements, and foreign news.

Re-reading my previously written Step 1- Embodying Positively helped me by reminding me to trudge forward and remain strong and positive, for both my own sake and the sake of the people in the world.

6:02 am.

I am going to do a second 5k this December. My first one ever was last month. Second one in December will be progress. I've got to start practicing again.

I gave up sugar instead of meat for Advent. I felt it was much harder, but more rewarding. Today is my third day of the no sweets diet. I did have sweet iced tea and a pretzel with sweet cream cheese, but I will stop those too. I might allow myself to have just one iced tea a week- moderation is more effective than going cold turkey and messing up. This is a huge accomplishment as I am a sugar addict. I look pretty fit, except a little tummy that goes up and down and only noticed by closest family members and friends.

I need to be fit for my health, to be the best I can be, to be fit, for a future potential job in the FBI or PO.  I only get up once a night to *** now. Some nights I used to *** 6 times a day. Is that an indicator of future diabetes or what? Consuming a lot of sugar can lead to a lot of internal diseases including infertility and cancer. If I can give up sugar for one month, I may try to keep doing it. Wow.

6:27 am. Go to sleep, T. Good night moon. Good night stars. Good night Mercury. Good night everyone.

.........

12/16/2014

Went to an Asian Law Society event last week. Made a couple friends, excited to be a member and get involved. Also met a guy, hope he's Catholic so my parents will accept the relationship if I decide to go out with him. He's emotional, Korean American, and verbal- a Gemini. Interesting but probably just as crazy as me. I am looking forward to getting to know him.

Just finished my weekly career discussion group, this is my second week in attendance. I was about to give up on the group, but John one of the members, who is a runner (and I think out of work firefighter), reached out to help me by emailing my resume around to different people he knows. He's the reason I decided to keep coming until I find a job. We shall see what happens. I have a tendency to jump around to things and not see them to fruition, but I am working on developing strong skills.

Today, I am feeling grateful. I live in a generation in which globalization is both a positive and negative thing. However, today I feel positive despite all the problems. There are so many opportunities, and I just have to figure out to unlock the how.

If I had to give my son advice,
To, on his little life, shed light:
I'd say don't do drugs, and if you do.
Do Class C in the mornings,
And Class A's at night.
If you're gonna do it, do it right.

If I had to give my son advice,
To save his little heart from pain:
I'd say never love at a distance;
Your heart will succumb to a lonely bind.
For words, are far too nervous,
and probably won't get there on time.

If I had to give my son advice,
So his smile remains a genuine jewel,
I'd say be sure to marry a writer.
Smile as much as you possibly can,
And if they feel it worth defending
They will rewrite, and edit out your problems,
And give you a happy ending.

I could bask in the sunshine
and edit Alaska,
climb Kilimanjaro but
I let others do that and I go into the deep
on my own rhyming rainbow,
watching colours keep dripping,
I should be tripping,stripping the acid run
and taking more out of fun.
I should edit Alaska.make the ice flow much faster,
I am a disaster but
I haven't happened yet.

I've given poetry readings where less than a handful of people were present. It's a humbling experience. It’s also a deeply familiar experience.

"Poetry is useless," poet Geoffrey ****** said in a 2013 interview, "but it is useless the way the soul is useless—it is unnecessary, but we would not be what we are without it."

I was raised a Roman Catholic, and though I don’t go to Mass regularly anymore, I still remember early mornings during Advent when I went to liturgies at my parochial school. It was part of my offering—the sacrifice I made to honor the impending birth of the Savior—along with giving up candy at Lent. So few people attended at that hour that the priest turned on only a few lights near the altar. Approaching the front of the church, my plastic book bag rustling against my winter coat, I felt as if I were nearing the seashore at sunrise: the silhouettes of old widows on their kneelers at low tide, waiting for the priest to come in, starting the ritual in plain, unsung vernacular. No organist to blast us into reverence. No procession.

Every day, all over the world, these sparsely attended ceremonies still happen. Masses are said. Poetry is read. Poems are written on screens and scraps of paper. When I retire for the day, I move into a meditative, solitary, poetic space. These are the central filaments burning through my life, and the longer I live, the more they seem to be fused together.

Poetry is marginal, thankless, untethered from fame and fortune; it's also gut level, urgent, private yet yearning for connection. In all these ways, it's like prayer for me. I’m a not-quite-lapsed Catholic with Zen leanings, but I’ll always pray—and I’ll always write poems. Writing hasn’t brought me the Poetry Jackpot I once pursued, but it draws on the same inner wiring that flickers when I pray.        

• • •

In the 2012 collection A God in the House: Poets Talk About Faith, nineteen contemporary American poets, from Buddhist to Wiccan to Christian, discuss how their artistic and spiritual lives inform one another. Kazim Ali, who was raised a Shia Muslim, observes in his essay “Doubt and Seeking”:

[Prayer is] speaking to someone you know is not going to be able to speak back, so you're allowed to be the most honest that you can be. In prayer you're allowed to be as purely selfish as you like. You can ask for something completely irrational. I have written that prayer is a form of panic, because in prayer you don't really think you're going to be answered. You'll either get what you want or you won't.

You could replace the word "prayer" with "poetry" with little or no loss of meaning. I'd even go so far as to say that submitting my work to a journal often feels like this, too. Sometimes, when I get an answer in the form of an acceptance, I'm stunned.

"I never think of a possible God reading my poems, although the gods used to love the arts,” writes ***** Howe in her essay "Footsteps over Ground." She adds:

Poetry could be spoken into a well, of course, and drop like a penny into the black water. Sometimes I think that there is a heaven for poems and novels and music and dance and paintings, but they might only be hard-worked sparks off a great mill, which may add up to a whole-cloth in the infinite.

And here, you could easily replace the word "poetry" with "prayer." The penny falling to the bottom of a well is more often what we experience. But both poetry and prayer are things humans have learned to do in order to go on. Doubt is a given, but we do get to choose what it is we doubt.

A God in the House Book Cover
Quite a few authors in A God in the House (Howe, Gerald Stern, Jane Hirschfield, Christian Wiman) invoke the spiritual writing of Simone Weil, including her assertion that "absolutely unmixed attention is prayer." This sounds like the Zen concept of mindfulness. And it broadens the possibility for poetry as prayer, regardless of content, since writing poetry is an act of acute mindfulness. We mostly use words in the practical world to persuade or communicate, but prayers in various religious traditions can be lamentations of great sorrow. Help me, save me, take this pain away—I am in agony. In a church or a temple or a mosque, such prayerful lamentation is viewed as a form of expression for its own good, even when it doesn't lead immediately to a change of emotional state.

Perhaps the unmixed attention Weil wrote of is a unity of intention and utterance that’s far too rare in our own lives. We seldom match what we think or feel with what we actually say. When it happens spontaneously in poetry or prayer—Allen Ginsberg's "First thought, best thought" ideal —it feels like a miracle, as do all the moments when I manage to get out of my own way as a poet.

Many people who pray don’t envision a clear image of whom or what they’re praying to. But poets often have some sense of their potential readers. There are authorities whose approval I've tried to win or simply people I've tried to please: teachers, fellow writers, editors, contest judges—even my uncle, who actually reads my poems when they appear in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, where he used to work.

And yet, my most immersed writing is not done with those real faces in mind. I write to the same general entity to which I pray. It's as if the dome of my skull extends to the ceiling of the room I'm in, then to the dome of the sky and outward. It’s like the musings I had as a child lying awake at night, when my imagination took me to the farthest reaches of the galaxy. But then I emerge from this wide-open state and begin thinking about possible readers—and the faces appear.

This might also be where the magic ends.

• • •

I write poetry because it’s what I do, just as frogs croak and mathematicians ponder numbers. Poetry draws on something in me that has persisted over time, even as I’ve distracted myself with other goals, demands, and purposes; even as I’ve been forced by circumstance to strip writing poetry of certain expectations.

"Life on a Lily Pad" © Michelle Tribe
"Life on a Lily Pad"
© Michelle Tribe
At 21, I was sure I’d publish my first book before I was 25. I’m past my forties now and have yet to find a publisher for a book-length collection, though I've published more than a hundred individual poems and two chapbooks. So, if a “real” book is the equivalent of receiving indisputable evidence that your prayers are being answered, I’m still waiting.

It hasn’t been easy to shed the bitter urgency I’ve felt on learning that one of my manuscripts was a finalist in this or that contest, but was not the winner. Writing in order to attain external success can be as tainted and brittle as saying a prayer that, in truth, is more like a command: (Please), God, let me get through this difficulty (or else)—

Or else what? It’s a false threat, if there’s little else left to do but pray. When my partner is in the ICU, his lungs full of fluid backed up from a defective aortic valve; when my nephew is deployed to Afghanistan; when an ex is drowning in his addiction; when I hit a dead end in my job and don’t think I can do it one more day—every effort to imagine that these things might be gotten through is a kind of prayer that helps me weather a life over which I have little control.

Repeated disappointment in my quest to hit the Poetry Jackpot has taught me to recast the jackpot in the lowercase—locating it not in the outcome but in the act of writing itself, sorting out the healthy from the unhealthy intentions for doing it. Of course, this shift in perspective was not as neat as the preceding sentence makes it seem. There were years of thrashing about, of turning over stones and even throwing them, then moments of exhaustion when I just barely heard the message from within:

This is too fragile and fraught to be something that guides your whole life.

I didn't hear those words, exactly—and this is important. For decades, I’ve made my living as a writer. But I can't manipulate or edit total gut realizations. I can throw words at them, but it would be like shaking a water bottle at a forest fire; at best, I can chase the feeling with metaphors: It's like this—no, like this—or like this.

So, odd as this sounds for a poet, I now seek wordlessness. When I meditate, I intercept hundreds of times the impulse to shape a perception into words. Reduced to basics, the challenge facing any writer is knowing what to say—and what not to.

• • •

To read or listen to poetry requires unmixed attention just as writing it does. And when a poem is read aloud, there's a communal, at times ritualistic, element that can make a reading feel like collective prayer, even if there are only a few listeners in the audience or I’m listening by myself.

"Allen Ginsberg" © MDCArchives
Allen Ginsberg
© MDCArchives
When I want to feel moved and enlarged, all I have to do is play Patti Smith's rendition of Ginsberg's "Footnote to Howl." His long list poem from 1955 gathers people, places, objects, and abstractions onto a single exuberant altar. It’s certainly a prayer, one that opens this way:

Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!

The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy! The nose is holy! The tongue and **** and hand and ******* holy!

Everything is holy! everybody’s holy! everywhere is holy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman’s an angel!

Some parts of Ginsberg's list ("forgiveness! charity! faith! bodies! suffering! magnanimity!") belong in any conventional catalogue of what a prayer celebrates as sacred. Other profane elements ("the ***** of the grandfathers of Kansas!") gain admission because they are swept up into his ritualistic roll call.

I can easily parody Ginsberg's litany: Holy the Dairy Queen, holy the barns of the Amish where cheese is releasing its ambitious stench, holy the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Internet. But reading the poem aloud feels to me the way putting on ritual garments must to a shaman or rabbi or priest. Watching Patti Smith perform the poem (various versions are available on YouTube), I get shivers seeing how it transforms her, and it's clear why she titled her treatment of the poem "Spell."

A parody can't do that. It can't manifest as the palpable unity of intention and utterance. It can't do what Emily Dickinson famously said that poetry did to her:

If I read a book [and] it makes my whole body so cold no fire ever can warm me I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only [ways] I know it. Is there any other way.

Like the process of prayer—to God, to a better and bigger self, to the atmosphere—writing can be a step toward unifying heart, mind, body, universe. Ginsberg's frenzied catalogue ends on "brilliant intelligent kindness of the soul"; Eliot's The Waste Land on "shantih," or "the peace that surpasseth understanding." Neither bang nor whimper, endings like these are at once humble and tenacious. They say "Amen" and step aside so that a greater wordlessness can work its magic.

Over countless months by design,
a great firework he did make,
Constructed from lies and deceits,
and by turning all truths to fake.

Honest men of morals that believe,
that truth by righteousness will always win out,
By established rules and ethic as tools,
seek to quell the falsehoods shout.

They believe the pyrotechnician,
a fool of doubtful mind.
For they cannot see the plan he holds,
hidden by deceit of such evils kind.

Divided is the great citadel,
where once truth had walked without fear or care,
To become the protected sanctuary,
to the lies that now thrive in there.

He buys the time for his plan,
that has not altered not one bit.
While good men go on as before,
thinking they have hold of it.

All of this by his design,
since from too many days ago.
He has cast you all as characters,
in this his fatal show.

When martial law is imposed,
by the power you afford him still.
Remember that you had the chance to choose,
for truth's flag to fly steady upon the hill.

We made plans in college
We'd graduate, then teach
But, a phone call from the doctor
put those plans out of reach

I remember sitting quietly
As I heard the old man say
"You're going to have a baby"
I guess Life Gets In The Way

Life Gets in The Way my dear
Life Gets in The Way
We'll put our plans on hold my dear
Until another day
Don't worry, things will all work out
No matter what folks say
We just have to face the fact my dear
That Life Gets In The Way

You quit to raise our children
We had two, one on the way
It's funny just what happens
When Life Gets in The Way

I remember that fall morning
The news the doctor had to say
It still hurts me to remember
When Life Gets In The Way

Life Gets in The Way my dear
Life Gets in The Way
We'll put our plans on hold my dear
Until another day
Don't worry, things will all work out
No matter what folks say
We just have to face the fact my dear
That Life Gets In The Way


Time has passed, there's grandkids now
Like you, they love the beach
Kelsey, Michael's  youngest
Wants to grow up and to teach

I wish that you could see them
As they run around and play
But, Cancer took you from me
Because Life Got in The Way

I think of you, your smile
And how you'd look at me and say
We will once more be together
Unless...Life Gets In The Way

Life Gets in The Way my dear
Life Gets in The Way
We'll put our plans on hold my dear
Until another day
Don't worry, things will all work out
No matter what folks say
We just have to face the fact my dear
That Life Gets In The Way

The hour is slim!
This is the tangled time,
the time that heavy
with want
becomes the jaws
for open thighs.
Her tasty flesh renders
the cleft of wet truth.
Persephone can slake,
can shatter my ache,
when,
enthralled against
the serpent earth
with
legs knotted,
we
lay tangled in ancient ruin.

re-edit
words  Tommy Carroll

imagine retiring before you're 30,
with the great european disneyland
in switzerland waiting for your desires,
god... i stopped celebrating my birthdays
deliberately, so that each day is like
a birthday before the day i die:
motto: oh ****, here again, *******!

so i started brooding on the concept of
monism, dualism and trinity
in chemical terms eradicating theological
impetus to salvage from one (e.g. the buddha,
the christ, the moses without a surname like jesus)
the multitude: mostly fishermen and tax officers
and thieves... jesus... what a selective society you
knit and picked, huh?
i was thinking of carbon monoxide
(C≡O)... so when counter-structures on the
elemental level become coupled in a scenario
of being identical, bypassing non-super-imposable'ness
(disregarding chirality), they can spawn
exponential growth named cancerous economics!  
and methane (C and H x4)
ethene (H2C=CH2) and ethane (H3C-CH3)
trinity's degenerate nature... oh right, so you're playing
dumb but not farming, you're the required
audience in front of the digitalised combine of colours
in a shady room? plato would call that coloured shadows
where no messages are deciphered given the doubt
that they're even passed for the excommunication
of corrupt politicians and the clergy... you know:
french / russian revolution *******.
oh i want a thinking embryo not attached to my body,
i want it so bad that i can compare myself
to elijah's command: execute the priesthood of baal,
because they can't conjure anything,
just paedophilia and mumbles and sugar puffs at breakfast.
well there's all that, what was i talking about?
rambling on many cobwebbed talking matters later
it might appear like Alzheimer's... right the active
ingredient of cigarettes: carbon monoxide,
(C≡O), not like carbon diaoxide (O=C=O),
a trinity in one person creates a fourth dimension,
imagine the interstellar (movie) capsule of quantum-space
of humanism interpreting the crucifix wearing
a cosmonaut suit rather than adam's fur...
it's like that... so apart from carbon monoxide providing
the suffocating dizzy carousel of the cigarette dragged
quickie high, you get the nicotine i thought was
actually a placebo substance, a palette of tobacco akin...
still alice* was a bit **** to be honest,
she was trying to salvage her strongest areas of
personality, she specialised in linguistics,
in phonetics and what not (etc.),
if she suddenly changed course with her interests,
rather than retreated into the laziness of:
all consciousness and thinking is about memory and
memorisation, she was challenged by schooling's
expression of memory: the times table: 2 x 2 = 4, 2 x 3 = 6,
and personal memory, the imprints on other
people, rather than civilisation's imprint on
the person in question: civilisation = the existence of money,
tribalism = you scratch my back, i scratch yours.

He says "Geek Poet!
Leave the politics alone
Stick to Pop culture"

Cousin.
Politics ARE Pop culture.
don't you see?

in a world where businesses
buy natural disaster insurance
In fear of presidential tweets
McDonald's burger vending machines
You think this isn't dystopia?

We play games to escape.
where can we go
when the "real world"
is just as scary
upside down?

Tell me, Cousin.
Where do you write your poetry?
is it safe?

Do you surround yourself with muses?
back turned to a naked woman?
is there whiskey on the bar,
A journal,
your favorite pen?
Your cell phone,
clentching in the public restroom?

because no matter where you are.
that sanctuary
is a ******* pillow fort
compared to the Fort Knox
of an artists imagination

politics ARE pop culture
China is throwing unfathomable
amounts of money into Propaganda
targeting millennials though memes.
Fish don't see water, remember?

You are telling me
I can't write about politics.
There are Americans
who have never voted,
Radical left and right facebook profiles
protecting and attacking A Racist,
selfish, blemish on our history.
you wonder why we are scared, Cousin?

You want to know why I am so loud?

I watch Men step alligator shoe
out of Boston limousines
Slicked back hair straight
from wolf of wallstreet
belligerent screaming
"I do what I Waaaaaaant!"
"She does what she waaaaaaaaaaaaants!"
"We do what we waaaaant!"

This is the world
we're escaping from.
Excuse me if I break
from the zombie jokes
The vampire romances
Focus on the dead bodies
in our own city, Cousin.

Our demons are real now.

dystopian literature
called for the 2017 election
as far back as the 1930s'

Senator Buzz Windrip
from "It can't happen here"
by Sinclair Lewis
makes promises
to "return America to a better time".
back in 1935

buying validity for his ideas
in airtime on the radio,
tarring those who disagree,
as tools of mother russia,

dismissing woman,
as silly socialists.
naming the press
"a lot of irresponsible wind bags."

In the book "Parable of the talents",
Octavia butler Predicts a "Pox" In 2015
Wiping most of the population.
President Andrew Steele Jarret
promising to return the country
to an "Older Simpler time".
She wrote this book in 1998

Want to learn how to defeat Trump?
Read "Our Twisted Hero,"
by Yi Munyol

Read "In the Heart of the Valley of Love, "
by Cynthia Kadohata

All of these Dystopian fantasies
Prepare the Geeks
to rise up and fight.
Pop culture is the only thing saving us
Knowledge is the only thing saving us
Standing up,
Making art,
Being loud
is the only thing saving us
from the red button
in the orange hands
of the man who NEVER Had
the best words,

Because we do.

Repeat After me:

We The Artists
The Geeks who shall inherit
Swear to protect our words.
We will not bow,
bend,
or break.
Ink is the blood of prophets
The voice is a weapon

Excuse me if I fight
For education over distractraction.
Forgive me for preaching
Art as our gospel.

you can't Incite Revolution
by throwing dice at ghosts.

I am sick of being tall
because my friends
are too busy crawling
I'm putting all my stat points into
inspire

Let me incite placebo healing
for a small fraction
of the tortured
anxiety pretzels I walk along
each day.

I will spit
on anxiety paper-cuts
from this paperback of bigotry
in our future history
labeling myself neosporin prayin'
God,
PLEASE
let me be charismatic enough.

Heidi Williams


If I edit language, call me poet, a word-smith if I pro it.
But if I edit music, there's no such name, no tags of respect
just beats to collect, sometimes trash that collects.
I'm a trash collector, musical dumpster diver,
producers dump their trash
I turn their trash to treasure.
Treasure hunter, trash tuner.
There's beauty everywhere
to the eyes of see-ers, the the ears of hearers.
Seagulls see trash and turn obsessive, possessive.
And we feed the other birds, but shoo them away,
but once winter comes,
we hear seagull sounds, and we feel the beech.
We listen for summer in seagulls.
We listen for oceans in seashells,
but I can hear waves in my headphones,
and I can change the tide when the trash comes.

the brother was my age and not a looker. my parents were nervous about displaying him and slicked his hair back lovingly. their hands were careful and if they touched they did so without independence.

I had other presents but I was thinking about the blood in my body and about Stephen. Stephen was an across the street foster I for a summer could not separate from. his nose was constantly chapped because his parents found he had no manners at the table and would have his older sister sneak up behind him and hood him with an empty feed bag. I went in with Stephen once saying his sister had called him a ******* and his parents liked me enough that they soaped her mouth in front of me then tied a string to her seemingly always loose front tooth and then tied the escaping end of the string to the **** of an open door and slammed it. because of our honesty Stephen and I were allowed to watch a movie where a white man and a savage pressed their wrists together after cutting them. the movie looked away from the cutting so we improvised. it didn’t make us any closer. I knew this for sure when on the night Stephen ran away I didn’t wake up without having to ****. it was my dad found him days within the week making boxes a mile gone at a pizza shop because he said his name was Billy and would work for free.

     I looked at the brother and couldn’t see it being so without my blood. I explored shyly but with faith and was heartened when I could feel in the heat of his elbows all the time he’d been born with.

Marathi Muslims
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Marathi Muslim
मराठी मुस्लिम
Regions with significant populations
• India • Pakistan • United Kingdom • Canada
Languages
• Marathi • Urdu • Hindi• Varhadi• Khandeshi
Religion
• Allah-green.svg Sunni, Shia, Shia Ismaili
Related ethnic groups
• Marathi people • Muhajirs • Arabs • Persians • Pakistani people• Pashtuns • Jats • Khoja • Lohanas
The term Marathi Muslims is usually used to signify Marathi Muslims from the state of Maharashtra in North-western coast of India, who speak Marathi as a mother-tongue (first language) and follows certain customs different from the rest of Indian Muslims. Marathi Muslims are very prominent in industry and medium-sized businesses. Many members of this community migrated to Pakistan in 1947 and have settled in Karachi and Sindh, contributing greatly to the general welfare and economy of Pakistan.

According to 2001 Indian census,[1] There were 10,270,485 Muslims in Maharashtra and constituted 10.60% of the state.

Marathi Muslims belong mostly to the Sufi tradition. Visiting the tombs of Sufi saints is very important to this community.

See also[edit]
Islam in India
External links[edit]
Marathi Muslims
60% Muslims in Maharashtra live below poverty line
References[edit]
Jump up ^ Indian Census 2001 – Religion[permanent dead link]

the story went as though
she'd always known the sea
and trusted in its depth
to mellow any ill, caress her
open lovingkind as in a dream.
and dream she would upon the waves,
having settled into floating reverie.
she'd close her eyes and inhale being
there among herself caressing only
ocean, only breath, all sunlit space
to draw her earthly trials gently out.
softened beachside noise would fade
and let alone her ears to hear
the water oneness dipping clear
and deeper in the troughs, for distance
from the stranded holidays,
the beachy noise of seaside frills
and bear her boyancy to rest
in lilting motion, peaceful cresting sleep
atop an intercontinental,
earthsize water bed.
her trust profoundly spanned
the trans-atlantic rift
and any rift to set apart her undulating
ancient ocean mastery. moon
and sun were kneading vastly where
her snores were lost in starfish whispers balancing
the tidal volume set
to always fill and keep afloat,
or otherwise to wake in
sputters and a salty throat.
her body settles into swinging comfort
napping over waves so deep the shore recedes...
... what bright, kind, clarity cascaded in your dreams?
what heart you had, embracing open quiddity,
never sinking nowness breath alert in lucid sleep
and water surface mystic skyward shallow course?
to merfolk gazing up in wonderment
you limply crossed their bouncing sky,
just another flight of fancy in a world of mystery?
did you dream you were a whalesong
sphering out to carry sadness sonorously? did you
school the many impulse-thoughts to clump and flee
the jaws of time? did you bask in light
and find a shining womb of self
to nurture once again and labor out anew?
did gravity make sense to you?
i float sometimes and live that question true.
sleeping far you drifted out and out and in and out of view
and whistles drowned in gathered drama fear
'my grandma! my grandma!'
screamed my cousin at the lifeguard
sweating ******* and leaping over stroke to spash
into your side a breathless shouting mess for you to calm
and ask 'what's wrong?' and angle slowly back to shore
in fits of giggles, bubble laughter at commotion's reach.
they blink in crowds, standing herdlike on the beach.

and now you swim your last,
another summer day.
like any other i awoke
and fed you eggs, so soft
     (at first it wrinkled my nose),
but taste is strange, and slimy works
just fine sometimes,
like in the absence of teeth.
she never liked her dentures,
     (she said she couldn't taste her food)
and gummed her frozen dinner meals with a smile,
like it was the greatest thing in the world.
     (in fact she'd often say, 'that was the best meal i had ever had',
     and with a force that made me happy to suspend my doubt)
and who am i, judging
that which you select? your pills,
your diapers and your vote,
your shows, your nursery rhymes,
your crown manipulation,
your age?
i use abjection well,
as something not unlike a whetstone for denial.
performing daily rituals i abhor
i retrain and edit, revising social eyes:
dilapidated fictions, safer norms
and mores tailored to a loan
with interest from the self.

she didn't call herself a 'nudist,'
though she lived beyond the fence
living **** for decades saying
'i'll never leave, i love my home.'
we played dominoes 'til noon
'another kind of indoor game, one on a side'
her interpretation of my being there
changed soon, like my aversion
for the liquid yoke she buttered with a spoon.
our neighbors loved her and i,
and to meander down our path,
lay their towels and sit
like all there was to do was visit.
lunched,
she hobbles from her plants back to the sink,
and filling the cat dish, stands
century-old arms akimbo
in the doorway, with a sigh to wake the sun.
being of caretaking was never so fun.
holding hands i help her over roots,
around the rocky sections, through
the easy path and level now
she hobbles sure, the cane a decoration
for her pride at being old and young
at heart and quick at stories overtold
in grooves to satisfy the sense of time.
greetings shower us with beaming smiles,
inching to the sandy edge. denuding,
joining everyone, we stand engulfed
in air. modern digambar to don
a vaster cloth of letting be.
skinny dipping grandma, and me.
the water slips around
her fraglile skin, human driftwood
knotted with a smile.
a grand mother slipping through akashic cracks
to undiscover friends their seeing core.
they wonder at the shore
of hoary plight
and wonder on, once we're gone.

i started this poem
when i was
nearly 23
i'm 24 now
almost 25
but i still feel
like a child.

19
trying drugs,
loving the man
who would **** me.
and i'd forgive him
take him back into my arms
let him touch me anywhere
just to feel something.
afterward
he smokes
and smokes
and smokes
apologizing
through a haze
of drugs and
shame. he spoke
useless fragile
words and i drank
them up eagerly.
they tasted like
whiskey,
valerian,
and ice.

when i'm 20
i find a therapist.
no more drugs;
still loving him.
i slide a new slate
across the kitchen
table just for him.
but it's cracking
as his fingers
pick it up,
shattering in
place. he moves
from stone
to skin. rips
and tears
until i'm
finally
split
too.

21
still in therapy,
i tell him
it's okay
that he
cheated
because
it was
all
about
the drugs:
not me.
but when i
tell him how
much it hurts
he says
maybe you
should work on that
in therapy.
i lean into
his side
but being
near him
never quite
feels the
same and
i ache for
comforting
sin.

i'm 22 when i find out
that being pressured
into *** after
saying no twice
isn't consensual
and he's not
round anymore
but at night
i hold my breath
terrified that he'll
appear. in my
dreams there
are flash
backs lying
in wait, even
though i've
begged for
some dream
less sleep.

when i'm 23
my third or fourth
therapist
tells me
she's sorry that
i had to go through
it all. and she listens
as i fade away and keeps
listening until i
can feel the earth
at my feet
once more.
she's a good
sort. i'm sad
when she
moves.

24 creeps
upon me
like a scratchy
sweater. i want to
shrug it off of my
shoulders, but it's
too cold. i'm no
longer the things
that happened
to me in that
darkening room,
and at twilight
most nights
i no longer find
myself thinking of
him.

i feel so old.
my bones always
hurt, the cat's food
is so expensive, and
i always have chicken
in the freezer. but
i can't bring myself
to eat. the medications
keep the ache at bay
but i feel it waiting.
at least my cat always
purrs when i feed him.
makes me feel
a little
loved.

my chance to grow
got pushed back a
few years
and i probably grew
anyways, unknowingly
pushing back against
invisible walls waiting
for one to finally give.

i hate that i'm here
trapped in adolescence
i hate that i'm still
writing about him
about what happened
and how much it still
hurts me.

maybe when i'm 25
i'll try to edit
this poem.

Daisy (12:57 AM):  Please please please...
Daisy (1:02 AM):  I was laying down earlier, and without asking me any sort of permission, the image of Nathan with some other girl in his arms, in his room, laughing smiling, the whole idea came vividly to mind, and it crushed. It felt like someone stood on my chest and stomped. My computer was making aim noises and I didn't want to talk to anyone, I got up anyway. Now it's later, and I've shoved the thought from my mind. Now I'm alone, everyone's gone to sleep, my hair is clean, I'm alone. Damien Rice's voice pours out my speaker and my eyes overflow. I guess once I finally thought I was really really over him, it had to come back and hit me in the face. I'm so sick of sounding so stupid. It doesn't even make sense,
Daisy (1:03 AM):  I shouldn't be tied to him after everything. My soul is crushed.
Daisy (1:06 AM):  Sobs reach up my throat and sneak out of my mouth, filling the air, thick with sorrow, like fog. Like cigarette smoke, like smog, from thousands of cars. Why is it that i have to suffer like this for one who left me so abruptly. "I still think about you every day that passes." He said to me, and i probably believed it. He doesn't know, and thinks everything I say is some stupid dream, he answers me skeptically and full of scorn. I could scream, with my back arched in pain. Let all I ever had to say come out of me in one fluid motion.
Daisy (1:11 AM):  These are answers I'll never get. Learn to live like your very own bone marrow has been stripped from you. Week and empty.

The goo-goo gaggle gobble grammar
New eggs standing in a roe
Alphabetting the Blurb is Cuckoo
School kid robots on the go
Fopdoodles questing for an ology
Dilly-dally on Patagonian trek
Mead-merry escalators of industry,
Or dudes who lakh in debt?
A billion ****** bridegrooms
In taffeta take-away
Cherry-picking for the species
From the matrix DNA
Muggles meet at midlife
For a Royal English tea
Swapping apps for homemade yogurt
Just a wee bit too PC
And so the dames riddle their speechcraft
On the doublespeak roundabout
Before Alzheimer's wicked edit
Skirts the bone-house bounders **out

Come as you are,
              not how you ought to be

It’s the tail end of fashion week in Paris, the busiest week of the year for fashion buyers.

When I meet Clodagh Shorten, owner of Samui, the game-changing boutique that put Cork on the fashion map, she’s already been here four days and is on her tenth buying appointment — there’ll be at least another five before she leaves in a couple of days time.

These appointments, private bookings with designers, allow her to get up close and personal with the clothes that have just been showcased on catwalks.

She’s deciding which pieces will best suit her customers.

Today, we meet at Schumacher, the stunning German label known for its easy chic look.

A beautiful white space, with lush cream velvet sofas, bare walls and white rails (nothing here to distract from the main event — the clothes), this room, prime space in Paris, is rented by the designer year-round just so they have the right venue to sell at Fashion Week.

It gives some indication of the power Fashion Week wields.

Clodagh is here with her right-hand woman, Samui manager Mary-Claire O’Sullivan.

There are two rails — the keepers and the ‘ones that got away’.

They’ve already seen this collection in London.

Today they are here to fine-tune.

This is unusual, Mary-Claire explains — at most appointments, they are seeing the clothes for the very first time.

“This is a big spend,” they tell me, and they’ll stay as long as they need “to get it right”.

Piecing together a collection is something akin to a jigsaw puzzle.

All the items are photographed — later they will be analysed back in the apartment they rent during Fashion Week.

The mix has to be right.

So the coats, a sleeveless waistcoat, are moved to the rail on the right.

They won’t make it to Cork.

Coats were already picked up this morning at another appointment.

Like I said, a jigsaw puzzle.

Two models are on hand to try on clothes when requested — I hear ‘can I just see this on one more time’ a lot.

There’s no haggling over prices in these sales negotiations — it’s all too civilised.

The price is set, as is the instore mark-up. These lauded designs must cost the same the world over.

Clodagh and Mary-Claire share a language and a wavelength. They can finish each other’s sentences and, while I don’t so much as sniff a hint of tension, they tell me they can disagree on buys.

“Clodagh doesn’t want a yes woman,” Mary-Claire says simply.

From Schumacher, Clodagh leads the way through the Parisian cobbled streets, phone held aloft, Google Maps to direct her.

Her wheelie bag is constantly behind her — inside there’s the laptop for orders and a camera for instant access to photographs of collections.

Her calculator is another permanent fixture in the showroom.

Today, Clodagh is dressed in an Australian label coming soon to Samui, Ellery. The lush black fabric sways and moves with her body; an outfit like that makes you really appreciate her eye for fashion. It’s sensational.

For this 5.30pm appointment we are heading to see another new label for Samui — Paskal (Clodagh will wear a piece from this line tomorrow).

The Ukrainian designer is looked after by an agency so in this showroom there are pieces by a handful of brands.

Again, the setup is the same — private appointments, models on hand.

Clodagh and Mary-Claire have to be more careful here — this is a new label and it’s more fashion forward so black is prioritised.

Not every client at Samui will wear this line. Every purchase, I realise, is a gamble.

“We’ve made mistakes, of course we have,” says Mary-Claire though you get the feeling that could be a rare event.

Pieces bought by these two women rarely end up in Samui’s sales rack.

They know their customer, plain and simple.

There is so much trust there, some clients are simply sent collections each season, allowing Clodagh to make the call for them.

So much of their day is spent discussing various clients (never by name in my presence) — what they might like, the best size.

It is effectively the ultimate personal shopping experience.

The number of items and sizes are limited, so customers know they are truly getting one-off pieces.

As we leave, kisses over, the agency head tells them, “you’re our favourites” and you just know it’s not empty fashion talk.

People genuinely love Clodagh and Mary-Claire. And they respect what they do.

Samui is open 16 years now. Clodagh mastered her trade at Monica John before stepping out on her own. Mary-Claire joined her eight years ago.

It has been one of the few boutiques in Cork to not just survive the downturn but to positively thrive.

As the economy spluttered around her, Clodagh very masterfully decided to go high end.

First came Moncler — the top people here had to come and view Samui to see if it was the right match for their esteemed label.

It was — and, increasingly, doors began to open.

Carven, Marni, Rick Owens — people really began to sit up and take notice of Samui.

Now labels are often vying for space on the shop floor. Still though, it takes work to secure the big new names.

Clodagh spends a lot of time on planes, networking, meeting the key players. And it’s not as simple as a visit to Fashion Week twice a year either.

These days pre-collections are key too: these pieces will be on the shop floor for longer.

So Clodagh and Mary-Claire travel in January to Paris for pre- collections, Milan in February for Moncler, Paris in March. The same cycle begins again in June for A/W pre-collections, with S/S Fashion Week in September.

Clodagh is always pushing, always striving for new.

She was devastated to say farewell to Transit, the brand with her from the very beginning. It was simply time for a change she tells me.

They love seeking out new labels, nurturing them, sharing them with their customers.

The next morning we meet at 9am for Dries van Noten.

Clodagh stocks around 50 different labels, most exclusive to Cork. This Belgian designer is one of them.

Here again is a very fashion forward line.

There’s a minimum €20,000 spend here, and that’s the amount Clodagh and Mary-Claire can play with.

This is a much busier showroom, a slick operation. Buyers are everywhere, the models weaving between them.

They are assigned a seller and a table, laptop at the ready to secure the sale.

Sophie, today’s seller, walks them through the long rails and talks to them about the collection, the fabrics, the colour, the catwalk, the vision.

Clodagh and Mary-Claire repeat the process a second time alone, a third time again with Sophie.

There are little standing breaks for coffee — refreshments and lunch are provided by the designer.

Clodagh and Mary-Claire know to carry snacks everywhere. The buying process can be a long one; Dries could be an all-day event.

The price point is much higher here so, again, each piece has to be carefully thought out. Checked and checked again.

These A/W deliveries will land in store in July.

Watching them make their Samui edit on that March morning, I just know the Dries selection will be a show-stopper this Autumn.

I leave them to sign on the dotted line, wishing them success for the rest of their gruelling schedule as I head for Charles de Gaulle.

“People don’t realise what goes into this,” says Clodagh. And she’s right.

None of us can possibly grasp what it must have taken for one woman to put Cork on the fashion radar.Read more at:http://www.marieaustralia.com/short-formal-dresses | www.marieaustralia.com/red-carpet-celebrity-dresses