Considering how much time I spend on Tumblr, it’s only natural that I will occasionally use it as it was intended: to share and discover creative endeavors. As a tool for people to access and respond to art in a consumer culture-friendly way, it really can’t be beat. Here are a few gems I found, loved, and reblogged in recent fits of excitement.

Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day

Don’t look now
I’m fading away
Into the gray of my mornings
Or the blues of every night

Is it that my nails
     keep breaking
Or maybe the corn
     on my second little piggy
Things keep popping out
     on my face
          or
     of my life

It seems no matter how
I try I become more difficult
     to hold
I am not an easy woman
     to want

They have asked
     the psychiatrists     psychologists     politicians and
     social workers
What this decade will be
     known for
There is no doubt          it is
     loneliness

If loneliness were a grape
     the wine would be vintage
If it were a wood
     the furniture would be mahogany
But since it is life          it is
     Cotton Candy
          on a rainy day
The sweet soft essence
     of possibility
Never quite maturing

I have prided myself
On being in that great tradition
     albeit circus
That the show must go on
Though in my community the vernacular is
     One Monkey Don’t Stop the Show

We all line up
     at some midway point
To thread our way through
     the boredom and futility
Looking for the blue ribbon and gold medal

Mostly these are seen as food labels

We are consumed by people who sing
     the same old song          STAY:
                                                     as sweet as you are
                                                     in my corner
Or perhaps                                    just a little bit longer
But whatever you do                     don’t change baby baby don’t change
Something needs to change

Everything     some say     will change
I need a change
     of pace     face     attitude and life
Though I long for my loneliness
I know I need something
Or someone.
Or…..

I strangle my words as easily as I do my tears
I stifle my screams as frequently as I flash my smile
     it means nothing
I am cotton candy on a rainy day
     the unrealized dream of an idea unborn

I share with the painters the desire
To put a three-dimensional picture
On a one-dimensional surface

-Nikki Giovanni

“Escape” – Jeremy Miranda

Honeysuckle

bees, my
skin smells
of sun, the
insides of
roses. I want

to eat that
light. Every
thing that
grows does.

-Lyn Lifshin

“Sleep” – Gustave Courbet

Old Lover Poem #54

Now, in retrospect
you run your course
like a mantra.
I am sure you are still
building gold-foil pyramids
and hiding out in them
til spring.
Your left eye (for love)
is two sizes larger
than your right
as you gaze into the mandala.
On your wall are paintings
which still do not
impress me.

I am certain
that your touch would still
turn my knees and elbows
back to wine, 
Old things I learned from you
float before me
always looking
like something else.

Upon waking
I will eat a huge breakfast.
Your paintings
are nearby
and you
are out in the garden
telling the trees and flowers 
that they too
are getting better 
all the time.

-Judy Kastner Skillman