bluejay in winter

the sky looks like a polluted ocean outside the window and the writer sighs at overused metaphors. 

sheets of paper pour from the printer and the daughter can smell the ink all the way in the kitchen.

the pie on the oven has a crack down the center; she can never bake the way her mother did. 

she rests her head in an oven mitt hand and listens to the windows rattle behind their screens.

the mother's cross hangs around the writer's neck and he rubs his thumb against the golden christ.

in march the ground is snow and what isn't slush has been coated with dirt and homeless man's pee. 

the printer runs out of paper and the writer tries to recall whether he has another ream in the closet.

the daughter notices the hum has stopped and decides to help the writer find some more paper. 

but the writer has lost interest in the novel and is staring outside of the window at a bluejay.

the daughter walks to his side and tries to read over his shoulder; last time she asked, he refused.

the bluejay weaves through the air like confetti and spirals down toward a berry bush in the yard.

both writer and  daughter try not to think about the day its roots took to soil but they do anyway.

the bluejay's wings knocks against the branches that the mother pruned with scissors from the shed.

the daughter reads about a young woman with sunglasses; she guesses that it's supposed to be her.

the young woman with sunglasses is trying to escape from a block of ice but she can't get out.

the branches shake as the bluejay struggles against the gust to get back to his mate in the tall oak.

the mother's cross sways as the writer leans forward to watch the scene in the noxious sky.

the young woman with sunglasses closes her eyes and awakes twenty years later in an inferno.

landing on a tree limb the bluejay offers his mate a berry that he's caught on a twig in his beak.

the daughter coughs and puts a hand to her chest; she worries about asthma and heart attacks.

the writer knows that if he were a bluejay 

eating berries with his wife in a tree 

then he would never need words again.

Seeing Both Sides on Wall Street

Like a typical Pisces, I have the tendency to look at both sides of an issue, and often can't make up my mind about which side I agree with. When it comes to the Occupy Wall Street movement, I agree in theory but not entirely in practice.

 While I agree that our economy is in shambles and our country at a low, I'm not sure that simply occupying a park will really solve any of those problems. As a college graduate looking to go to graduate school and currently working full time, I know what's it's like to have loans. To worry about your future. To believe that the 1% are running the country while the 99% slave away below the windows of the Park Ave. mansions. I agree with the sentiment of the protestors that something needs to be done and I agree with their right to protest and free speech. I believe that the protest did help raise awareness in this country about the great disparity between the wealthy and the rest of us. I believe it did spark other protests and the beginnings of a discourse in the country. I believe it does make an important point (or, several points, since many of the protestors seem to have different ideas of what's the best strategy and what the real problems are).

But these protests, I believe, should not create unsanitary or unsafe conditions in the community. These protests should not create an unnecessary burden on taxpayers, which is what it's doing. Who is ultimately going to end up paying for the police force needed to evict them or clean up the park? It's going to come out of taxpayer money. And when rumors of weapons, feces on the ground, and sexual assault come into play, the community is bound to react with complaints, and the movement will lose support.

At 1 a.m. on Tuesday morning, police conducted a raid on the protestors in Zuccotti Park, awaking most with blaring klieg lights and, later, forcible eviction, according to a New York Times article. Many protestors simply picked up their belongings and left, although a core few tried to stick it out in the center of the park. Others broke into a lot belonging to Trinity Church with bolt cutters. After 2 months, the protest in the park came to and end. And although protestors have been allowed back into the park and say they won't give up the fight, a judge ruled that they couldn't camp out or bring tents or other gear into the park, which had been designed as a 24-7 recreation center for the community. At about 7 a.m. this morning, the Daily News live blog reported that only a mere 25 protestors had remained or returned to the park. 

Like most people, I know how hard it is to get involved. To stray from your daily habits and speak out. How can we break into a system already dominated by the individuals in power? How can we send a political message when we need money to influence any politicians in the system? Who is left that's not corrupt? Who is left that actually cares about democracy and equality in this country? These are tough questions to answer, and if anyone has a solution, I'd be interested to hear it. I wish I knew what we should do to take back our country, but I don't. So until there's a better alternative, I'll support the protestors in the park, because at least some protest - whatever form it takes - is better than none at all.

Daily News Live Blog of OWS

I'll have a post about this soon, but for now, join me in checking out The Daily News' live blog of all the action going down at Zuccotti Park.

Song of the Day

This is one of the songs on the upcoming Los Campesinos! release, "Hello Sadness." The album marks a clear change from the interchanging male and female vocals of their past releases, and the vocals are actually sung rather than their typical speak/scream method. I can't help liking this song because it's so catchy, but I wish it had been created by some other band.

In The Studio

The guy's in Friday's Nightmare have recently spent time in the studio working on a new EP of their genre-defying songs. But last night, they were in The Studio quite literally - that is, The Studio at Webster Hall! They played for about 30 minutes, and were followed by their good friends FigureHead.

Check out some photos from the show, listen to some tunes, and be sure to visit their band page for more information.

Todd on drums and glockenspiel <3

Ilya on guitar

Zim on bass

a reaction to communism or possibly to sorrow

"Take a body to water, take a body to tundra

just take me with you as well." 

                                               - Los Campesinos, 'To Tundra'

the highways intersect just outside of Kópháza
and the cars zoom around a round-about
just about a mile from the house where she grew up

with chickens in the yard 

she walked a mile across town to get to school

and from school to the factory where she learned to sew

cross stitches and lace doilies

she continued making them into old age

she never told anyone about her daddy's sickness

about the lone orange she received for christmas

about the mother in law who called her princess

and spat in her face

in Kópháza, the summer sun burned hottest at noon

but it was night when she crept from her house

before the highways were ever built

and snuck across the border and escaped