shadows in the distance-- light

we're always meant for goodbye, again.
#sixwords




my poetry blog :: chandeliers on the floor
jerry yoon :: image

the story of an hour

words distort my clock
hands swift-- at times-- stopped forget--
at times-- watch the hours
.

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which reminds me. please see my previous post titled the story of an hour and take a few min to read my very favorite short story of all time from which i borrowed the title the story of an hour by kate chopin.. it's haunting-- delicate-- touches me every time i read it.
.

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ok... gotta go or i'll be late for tutoring with miss abby at our cafe.... x c

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chandeliers on the floor :: haiku
image :: mrs french flickr

flashlight :: flash fiction :: sparks fly

i'm so invigorated by the concept and implications of the 'flash fiction' buzz. though i mostly write 'flash non-fiction' or 'flash reality fiction' or 'flash haiku' the notion surrounding this movement-of-sorts has me excited-- exhilarated-- like the h&m the zara of writing, and i'll take one in every color. now. right now.

.

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i've been participating in flash fiction via my blogs and especially twitter, and on my down days it's the only thing that lifts me up. i will write more about this later, but for the moment it's keeping me on my toes, with the instant ability to generate inspiration and ideas, create, share and have rapid feedback from generous and talented writers-- i think i've finally found my place.

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this is just a flash-fiction news flash, i will fill in what i left out in a later post-- right now i've gotta run-- {well gotta get ready in a flash, then run}

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cok optum-- x c

lovely images :: carla coulson

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::blue sweater haiku::

the bright blue sweater
lightens my dark exterior
don't always wear it



::blue sweater #haiku series::

my haiku :: here
julia galdo :: image

the girl, the boy, behind the shadows

chantal by cristian el chico de camisa morada

so my friend cristian likes to walk around with his camera and take pictures of everything and then never share them... i am now forcing him to slowly share them on my blog {until we get him on twitter or flickr or his own blog} today we came up with the name 'el chico de camisa morada' for obvious reasons, he was the guy sitting with me in the cafe, the guy in the purple shirt, and there it was, he had a name, he just needed to stop hiding behind the shadows and the camera and share his work!

so while i was forcing him to get in the light... i decided i would make him write his very first haiku ever, while sitting at the table with me in the cafe. each of us would come up with a haiku to accompany this photo, and as cristian came up with the words 'the girl behind the shadow' we would each use this in our own haiku. long story short... the cafe closed, and 'we' hadn't finished yet ;) ;) so we sat in my car in front of the cafe for the next hour or so, finishing up the haiku. i told him if my 12 year old students could do it, so could he, and after mumbling some excuses about english not being his first language, it all came out very well....

the dark secret life
the girl behind the shadows
lived-- reflections--

by cristian el chico de camisa morada
{his 1st haiku ever}


that road not taken
the girl behind the shadows
hiding-- could have been--

by chantal the girl behind the shadows

then i got back home and on twitter, where i've been encouraging other friends to write haiku, a game of sorts that i've started with @Dr_Wes called #haikutherapy where he's trying to build his haiku-writing stamina and so little by little we write together. he writes the first line {5 syllables} then i take it from there. this has proved successful and therapeutic for the both of us. a few minutes after i returned from writing or rather forcing cristian to write, i had a line waiting for me on twitter by the good doc himself: superficial talk. i couldn't believe how well this would fit with cristian's second line, and thus the following haiku was born::

superficial talk
the girl behind the shadows
never said a word

by @dr_wes, cristian & me
{collaboration is a beautiful thing}

chantal by cristian el chico de camisa morada



:: out from the shadows he will come slow but steady 'el chico de camisa morada' ::

friday

andrew crane paints. he even does art on concrete..
with words and numbers and immense creativity.
i'm excited to check his site every day.
and.. he's a really nice guy.
go! look at his work!!! now!!! x c

::chandeliers::on::the::floor::

carla coulson photo

during an unexpected detour {i still haven't arrived anywhere that even remotely resembles what i thought i'd have found by now} i tripped over a lot of things lying in my path to.... wherever i thought i was going...

for instance, a month or two ago i was looking for a challenging poetry lesson for one of the young students that i tutor in writing. the idea of haiku crossed my mind and five seconds after she complained about the constraints of 17 mere syllables, we were both hooked on the complex simplicity, the lull and force of writing haiku, of capturing moments in the same rhythm and a completely different light. flashes of light. glimpses of what i might otherwise not have told you, honest, courageous, brief, touching, strong, gentle, funny, poignant, subtle breaths of what was almost overlooked and whispered words of longing lost, held, found...

i've been writing haiku and sharing here and there, mostly on twitter, and in the meantime, have met some amazingly talented, creative, inspiring, supportive, fun and generous poets, writers and all-around interesting people, thoughtful and funny, i love funny, i need funny... and with some gentle encouragement that sincerely touched me, i've created a sparkling new blog to catch my fallen words shattered hopes scattered thoughts exhaled pieces together and molded into 17 syllables. 17 syllables that posses the potential to-- well-- you fill in the rest--

because the experience of haiku is personal, unique to each individual who reads it and different in the next moment if you choose to read it again. and haiku is accessible. anyone can find a laugh or a smile, a pause in a hectic day, a moment of peace, reflection, perspective, as your own thoughts echo in the deceptive depth of a single haiku.

most of you just haven't tried yet. i intend to change that. this is my effort. so please stop by ::chandeliers::on::the::floor:: and introduce yourself, and come back..often.. i'll post haiku and short poems {maybe some longer ones...who knows, go crazy!} throughout the day. i love getting to know all of you and your work. find me on twitter and we'll play #haikuwordgame together! i'm kinda shy so you might have to say hi first haha. i will start a list of twitter poets on my new haiku blog to keep the conversation moving.

so please enjoy the charming and charismatic nature of haiku poems that wink at you just when you think you're not looking. don't just read the few collected on my blog-- read as many as you can find. moments of your lives will forever be reflected and changed. {repeat if necessary}
x chantal {aka @inotherwords_c on twitter}

a sapphire remembrance is all i own--

Five miles above the Atlantic,
you fall into dreaming.
Somewhere between Paris and San Francisco,
the sky turns the color
of sapphire.

by a fellow twitter poet {sam} who wrote this for me last week.
{encore merci sam!} to see more of his sensitive and inspired writing
check out his blog or follow him on twitter @semaphore1

image via jerry yoon photography

ashes and wine

been a bit ailleurs this week {ie somewhere else} was literally supposed to be in santa barbara visiting my sister... and then the jesusita fire started, and everything got...smokey, so to speak. so i didn't go to santa barbara and instead kept my eye on the fire, the evacuations, the devastatingly captivating images of the fire in the mountains and streets of a place i'd once known as home. beautiful and nostalgic images in my mind of my years spent in the gorgeous town of santa barbara were dominated, more than anything, by my constant concern for my sister's safety. and i twittered a lot. and i don't mean anxious chatter or jittery fidgeting {though restlessness abounded} but i mean literally twittered about the fire, read constant updates on twitter, and got way too much information for my overly active imagination that proceeded to run away from me.

anyway, during the worst night of the fire, sometime well after midnight as they were still evacuating people, i needed distraction but couldn't look away long enough to find one. and my dad, lost for any way to really help me calm down, said in a serious-bordering-on-exasperated tone "why don't you, just, write some poems or something." alas it's not easy for an engineer integrated circuit designer dad to have an overly creative, imaginative, emotional, sensitive {etc..} daughter, but he tried. and in fact, about a half an hour later i found myself absorbed in turning the verbose, redundant thoughts that were overwhelming my mind at a furious rate, into simple, sleek, perfectly shaped haiku poems.

if you haven't noticed, i've been a bit obsessed with haiku lately. it all started just with me attempting to find a fun form of poetry to work on with one of the girls i tutor {hi olivia ;)} and then i got kind of hooked.... because the challenge of streamlining my thoughts into seventeen syllables became fascinating, and rewarding. and helped to clarify, and speak louder than i'd anticipated, and set these thoughts to a new rhythm. then i worked on haiku with another one of my students {hi abby :)} and we were all hooked. at times the rhythm lulls me into..something...somewhere else...

and especially on this fiery night, it soothed my fears a bit. and took me away. i posted the haiku on twitter each time i wrote a new one, one after another, hoping that anyone else who was worried about the fire, might too, find some element {other than fire :)} of comfort in the brief words. and how gratifying to hear from readers that in fact, they did.

here are some of the poems i wrote during those tense days in the beginning of the jesusita fire in santa barbara, and a few of the spectacularly calamitous images of the fire. the flames were all along and above the 101 freeway, and my sister said that while driving on the freeway beside the fire, it was hard to look away {though dangerous, as she was driving} from the dramatic view.

and all along, the song ashes and wine by a fine frenzy has been playing in my head... {santa barbara is known for its vineyards} and in fact, funnily enough, it's playing on my sterio as i type this. 'don't know if our fate's already sealed. this day's a spinning circus on a wheel ... there is nothing left to say but is there a chance, a fragment of light at the end of the tunnel, a reason to fight? is there a chance you may change your mind? or are we ashes and wine. the day's still ashes and wine, or are we ashes..'

it's the not knowing
and knowing what you know won't
stop fire from burning

a sky so dark, thick
air, smoke hard to remember
yesterday's calm blues

we sit and wait, i'm
here on twitter while she's there,
watching fire and news

it's the little things
you want to hold on to when
it's time to let go





she sees fire light the
mountains, sky, smoke in her eyes
close mine, i see her





ash falls from the sky
gentle like snow nothing's as
it seemed anymore




you don't feel until
it touches you, don't see 'til
you look in their eyes



images via latimes and noozhawk

dizzy glimpses

image here

my mom said something about a whirling dervish the other day
and suddenly i couldn't hear anything else she was saying
because i was struck with this thought, this image, as my head spun
with the realization. how better these days, than to stand back
and watch my situation from a far, to equate it to a mere dance,
one that others don't often understand but continue to watch
because they wonder what will happen and can't seem to look away,
all at once perplexed, paralyzed, skeptical, transfixed, confused and captivated.

and thus, here i stand,
a whirling dervish of headaches and anxieties
dressed up in flowing prescription medications,
swept up in occasional blurry glimpses of hope,
downward spirals of despair, with a restlessness
that leaves me questioning how i'm still standing,
a caress soft and warm, a gentle breath of air
and deliciously dizzy spins at desire....

or in other words, in the more concise form of haiku that seems to be
twirling about {not to mention twittering about} in my head these days....

•

a whirling dervish
of occasional dizzy
glimpses at desire

•

haiku is a city and laundry looks best drying out the window of an old building, weathered and worn and painted a beautiful shade of green...

© Eni Turkeshi Photography

funny and intriguing the things, places, people, images etc. one stumbles across on the internet in this current social media explosion.

the other day, in the midst of a blossoming love affair with haiku poetry {after trying to inspire my students to play around with it} and sharing a bit of it on here, i noticed a visit on my blog from a place called haiku, hawaii. i thought to myself how rather ironic it was that, in my current obsession with writing haiku, haiku had paid me a visit! as fate {i mean it must have been fate that brought that visitor here on the particular day i made my haiku debut, what else could it possibly have been..?!} thus, as fate would have it, my haiku was visited from someone in haiku {call me ignorant, but i didn't know such place existed, learn something new every day!}. so then i went on twitter to tweet around a bit, and sure enough, had a new follower from haiku, hawaii {by this point i thought fate must be working overtime..} well come to find out just today, a week after all of this, this individual who resides in haiku, sent me a message that she had seen my blog show up in her google alerts for haiku {as in the city}! how very cool, and kind of funny, and now i wonder if i should question the role that fate played in all of this, or simply see it, from any angle, as a sign to share another haiku today. and so here we go:

and with those few words
i'll never be able to
unless you listen

and one more thing, while on this subject, i also had brought to my attention by another twitter follower, the website twihaiku where you can post haiku on the site that simultaneously appears on twitter as well. @twihaiku it's kinda fun. {the first haiku i posted was made haiku of the day yesterday..hmmm so ya that is kinda fun, kinda cool..}

and about the green building laundry part of this rambling post's title {if the picture didn't give it away yet} i discovered a new very fav flickr friend yesterday {ok well it was more like 3 in the morning today, but who's keeping track} her name is eni turkeshi of eni turkeshi photography, her photos are fantastic capturing 10.5 years of color, movement, light and character in istanbul and also her beautiful hometown of tirana the capital city of albania. check out her photostream and also her blog. she has a poignant view of place and a warm and kind spirit. love her images, you will see more of them on here in the very near future.

ok, that's enough out of me for a while. as you can maybe tell, i had a headache earlier and took two different kinds of my prescription headache medications, so i'm feeling a bit...well, better on va dire...

bonne journee, tesekkeur eni, and more haiku to come...i'm sure. x c

last night. in 140 characters {more or less}

so last night i twittered: subtle, quiet relief. suddenly saw things in a different light & no one knows but me. not sure how i'll feel tomorrow..but somehow it's ok.

then later i wrote.. 4:28am. sometimes people let you down.

and then.."arrange whatever pieces come your way." virginia woolf

followed by.."life is in between the trapeze bars" helen keller

then..and tonite it was time for plan b.

and finally...."one of the great discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn't do." henry ford

oh ya, then i posted the post before this one, that says..



......and so goes any typical day {or late night} in the life of moi, up - down - twittering - around the corner - and back again for more.


images: 1}leigh, jkldesigns 2} julia galdo 3} debi treloar 4} katya de grunwald

twittered moments

i twittered this just now, and then kept thinking about it,
and anyway, sometimes, there are just those moments,
or hours if you're lucky, you know, moments when everything's
the same....but it's all somehow different.....maybe i'm not making
any sense, but, well anyway those moments when you're in them
and even when you turn around and look back again and watch them..
those moments can be pretty good.

{image, again, by julia galdo..my new fav..}