claudiapena.com

The sign reads out to lunch, but there’s an x on lunch,
dinner on top of the word, but there’s a x on top of that,
breakkk… trails down and off,
finally, on whatever space it can steal and cozy up,
it reads: “Be back when I’m back.”

The concave tint of the taxi window doubles neon city lights
in 35 degree angles with a point of intersection somewhere in space
following the side door parallelly with an arc cosine equation
Intersections aren’t always clear, static, or rhythmically predictable,
mine keeps moving forward like the roll of a black and white film,
goofy little kiss made with mathematical intentions.

Logos was duct taped and thrown in the back trunk,
so nothing speaks–there’s no point to speech
Following hundreds of details in the duplex horizon with eyes wide open
where pictures are hieroglyphs slurped into interpretation:
I had forgotten what it was like to be an immigrant.

Predictability is easily translated:
where are you from and how long you been here?
Four months…four months and a world has changed
I know that I haven’t written but in my mind
the richness of the scene feels like my play:
i’m a writer, writing the script of my life,
while all the characters dance in their own free will
like the kiss’ complicated foundation following swiftly right beside me

Tonight the scene is New Years,
the phone is off, the email is shut, I’m where I’ve always been
and never realized how much I enjoyed it
When they ask my grandma where am at and what I’m doing,
She says, “It’s Claudia, she’s doing what she’s always done best:
working and studying…(stops)
you are planning to settle down sometime in the future, right?” (chuckles)

Every dating profile has been shut off
And today God sounds like the air paragliding down,
The skeletal of my year is planned,
The goals are posted and hashed,
Midnight is a three mile run and train, prayer and writing,
Time for really great beginnings.

Thousands of miles from home, family
and a Catholic service I can understand,
wanting to spend some time of fasting and reflection,
friends come into town just to spend the day with me
I overdo the turkey, eggnog, cranberry sauce, stuffing and beef
only to spend hours vacillating in euphoria and gastritis,
There’s this huge smile on my face
And tons of emails and calls:
where you been? how come you don’t write? when are you updating your blog?
So what has changed about my life?
I know that home is anywhere in the world,
friends love you at any distance,
and even though I have a tendency to overdo work
structure and downtime make a great balance.
Big kisses from my little hole in the wall:
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Thank you for letting me be my goofy self!

After friend and artist of the above picture JR Gonzales got 27 stitches in him, I had to post his work. Surely, it would go up in value.

FREE!! One of the best downloadable workout books from John Davenport at FitFirmBody the Four Week Turbulence Training. The advertisement is on the back page and I love all the different workouts and with color pictures.

W00t, w00t! Yes, the word has two zeros in it and made it to Webster’s word of the year. Wow, never knew pecksniffian was an actual word. View the discussion on Yvonne’s Writer’s Cafe. Also, check out the educational awards best use of the net: first place made a whole second life community with her students. As well as the most beautiful pictures in math for my math class.

You can, but I can’t. Check out my friend SCEF at Hip Hop is poetry and thank you for his continual support to the Houston Poetry scene!

Welcome artist and Led Zep enthusiast recently added to the blogroll, Mr. Giaccomo. I love the picture of the unsuspected students caught in the plastic of his installations. Hmmm…I think I feel a saran wrap piece in my classroom for some of those challenging cases!

Remember, the days when you just drove up to huge Barnes and Nobles and picked up the latest poetry book at 10pm at night for the heck of it? No, really? Good, then send an actual poetry book my way for Christmas! Subtlety is such an overrated tactic.

Coming soon, view my hundreds of pictures of Korea and Thailand (itching to add Palao) on flickr. Gotta get acquainted with my cam first and finish my classes…just one more week…must go on…to be continued….

She’s never quiet when anything is terrible but she takes true sadness when she can’t comfort pain. Going from EM nurse to project manager and hacker around the world, she’s lived her life to the fullest. Her bright green eyes, she says are German, against her African brown hair, look so beautiful. Today, she is dictating my exercise routine and I sit quietly and listen. Tomorrow, she will have 7 pound tumor taken from inside her viscera in a 5 hour surgery. One of many in the year to come. Sometimes, I feel like I came half way across the world to hold this woman’s hand. She reads my thoughts and says, “Because you needed a mother. No one knows what life has in stored for us.” Today is the celebration of La Virgen de Guadalupe and I miss hearing the taclas of the dried calabashes in church halls. The entry in my diary is short:

I’m wrapping my words around a wound that hasn’t bled yet
Dripping the rags like prayers to reach you
Hoping to be like marmalade yellow on lemon:
there even when you can’t see me

Far from here, my two friends have/are visited/visiting the operating table. I rely on textbook knowledge to ease popping static emotions on telephone –It’s just a body. It can heal. We’re just Lego parts on operating table. I just want you to think about how happy you’ll be afterwards.

Sometimes, living far away feels like wrapping a tree
Each revolution an onhmed color
and the smell of burnt camphor that I lay on the Virgin’s feet
Exhaled in each breath
fractally sculpting this pacific blue that will
travel the world and darkness to be there,
hoping so very much to be there,
like the single tree wrapped in rags in this sunset room…
Breathing and glorifying God,
Saying, “Everything will be okay,” in the mantra of your name.

Research papers pushed my creative writing to a slow pace, but I’m back. Thank you for hanging in there. The following picture is courtesy of J. R. Gonzales, writer of Houston’s Bayou City History. Thank you so much for your beautiful work:

In the calendar:

October 10th, 2006 - Continues strong in the educational world with the case of Megan Meier. No legal action can be brought against the adults who helped this tragedy happen but it does raise issues of ethics and morality. To see more of the story, and some graphic commentaries, please visit YouTube. I would like to hear more of this in the blogosphere.

December - International AIDS Awareness Month. CNN statistics show that there are 40 million people in the world REPORTED living with AIDS. In the USA, the African American population represent half of the cases, with DC leading the nation reporting 128 cases per 100,000 people. In a country where research has lead to the first virus blocker, many don’t test for fear. Let’s take care of our own, relate the information and encourage testing.

January 10th - Day of NO BLOGGING, but do pick up a book and read. Brought to you by NaBloPoMo and Gunfighter. Why? Because the average American will spend 2.5 hours in front of the tube and about 7 minutes reading a book. My book for fun and craft is The Wrong Word Dictionary by Dave Dowling, with a free quiz to see if you really need the book.

February 7th - Lunar New Year 2008: Year of the Rat and a time of warmth, reflection, gratitude and celebration. I’m looking forward to it!

July 14th - Blogging While Brown conference in Atlanta, Georgia is happening, following in the footsteps of BlogHer.com It’s neat to see the power of the internet at work.

Great sites I visit often: miltonramirez.com showed a beautiful video of Compaq founder at the Stanford commencement. Mr. Steve Jobs was kicked out of the company he built, going for broke and sick, but the man still made millions. Tenacity is so admirable!

What teachers talk about when students aren’t around: Learning a new language is very difficult. Most people will learn how to read, write and then speak a language since speaking requires instant memory recall. When out of the blue, a teacher turns on Nickelodian showing students to “own your farts.” There was a serious discussion whether or not to use it as a tool for discussion and participation. (LOL, it’s a tough business!)

However, the best (via Andy Carvin’s learning.now) video/website so far comes from a sixth grade class who got tired of Animal Planet’s: Corwin’s Quest, Jeff Corwin, mangling the Spanish language. TeachJeffSpanish.com is a great classroom without walls.