Sara Waxman...

is exploring LINCs of universal truth. including (but not limited to) Shakespeare, Myth, and Creation ~ don't be fooled. there are such things as dragons, you only have to look up to catch one in your palm ~ wrote the president ~ brain is slip-sliding out her ears ~ that boy can still make you swoon ~ likes pizza and beer. and terrible cop dramas. too much, in fact ~ is barefoot with a beer for her last night in the Big House ~ DO NOT EAT A HABANERO PEPPER NO MATTER WHO DARES YOU. GODDAMN ~ grilled salmon, eggplant, port mushrooms, and chilled wine + some sun = fantastic ~ i can't believe my mother is cursing on facebook ~ your past and future precisely divided. don't take another step ~ barefoot, still ~ wants nothing but the stars ~ end days, day's end, tomorrow's start ~ thinks facebook bday wishes are the best. that and balloons in the bathtub ~ is a summer thunderstorm ~ river wild, river child ~ has my fly been down this whole time?????? ~ is thinking of....

in the making

updates from 2009

New Moon

Slivered almonds,
A half pear.
A long walk
Spiced nostrils,
Fresh cut pasta
24 shrimp
and parsley.

facebook

I feel you there,
blurred around the edges.
Can you feel me here,
this patience game
I'm playing -

A swell at the base of my spine,
an act of divinity or
the dorment
beast waking
with the sunrise -

For every misstep taken
I lie in waiting,
for a time when
the hopped, mist edges
of gold fill your lungs.

When the sky alights
with fireflies,
miles away you kiss
another's misguided flame,
ask questions with no right answer;

and flit across fingertips.

A Prayer Worth Posting

Green, is
the color of envy, and
so is her jacket, so
in its folds remember, the
strength needed, by another
to match breathing, calm
your nerves to sleep, think
who would do this for you, and
who would you in return, imagine
who to care for,
sit

face

be
there for, pace
yourself until you've
mastered, the art of
digesting deception, and
well meaning intentions,
as the moon doesn't lie
and neither will dreams -

so let the green of her jacket
melt into the grass and pass
through the earth until it
is absorbed by space and
the infinite beyond.

Five Year Plan

You ask
as the ambulances pass,
What's waiting?

and I deflect,
throw back

after seeing
a broken man
lying by the
side of the road,
a strong woman
in grey uniform
standing at his side.

What's waiting?

Flashing lights to our right
to the left, no sirens yet
the tears nearly brimming
I pull back
to the river, the churning
waters of Dimple
and the flip of the raft.

What's waiting for
you is your son
awake, happy
waiting for you
waiting to walk

and instead of what's waiting
I think on what we've just left -

Two years spent
dreaming and scheming
wasted hours in
negative space -

instead
now
finally
after an eternity
the strength,
the power of
the river
churns my
day to day.

I don't want to
dream of what's waiting,
of my five year plan.

I want what I have in
the space we've just left.

Match.com

The locals describe the festival as a "modern day Woodstock". It's earthy, and dirty, and reminds me of my youth group days, where as teenagers, we used to sit out under the stars at retreats and talk the night away. Bonnaroo has (I think) about 100,000 attendees each year (maybe more). All camping, dancing, drugging, and sunning together. There are three stages and three tents where bands play, the main stage is the "What Stage", the second largest playing space is the "Which Stage", there's also "This Tent", "That Tent", and "The Other Tent". There are vendors lining the paths, a ferris wheel, and a freak show with fire eaters and a peep show.

As you walk to the freak show, you'll pass a community art project tent. Hanging from the trees above are giant raindrops. They have wooden frames, and are hung from wire cabling. On blankets outside the community tent (and on tables inside) people paint squares, mixing eco-friendly paint on cardboard palettes. As days pass, the raindrops become covered in cardboard squares painted in water tones: shades of blues, greens, yellows. As they finish, artists turn in their squares and the workers twist a nail through the top of each piece, then attach each to a raindrop. Later when a raindrop is completely covered, workers fly them up into the trees.



One of my squares was an interpretation of the henna painted on my arm - the earth meeting the sea in swirls of blue and green, never touching, an inch or less from meeting. My second, a dedication to one of my favorite songs. On it was a big blue head with a golden crown. Later at the Phish show, someone was passing around name tags, and I became, "Prince Caspian". During Phish's second concert, the song was played in the second set.

But what I will remember most happened in the lull between Phish's sets on the last night. Allison, Carl, and I sat where we stood for the first set. Then small talk: We are all from Philadelphia, although Allison and I have never met Carl. Carl is a stand up comedian by night. I work at People's Light by day. Allison works at the National Constitution Center...Then Carl asks if Allison knows Nora Berger-Green, who got him an acting job in The Laramie Project at Arcadia. And I remember that he was the best thing in that show, that we couldn't stop asking "Who is THAT?" And the only answer we ever received was "He's a Grad student." So, Allison says - "I'm directing a piece called Four Dry Tongues. Would you want to be in it?" I say, "Do it. You were the best thing in Laramie." And so Allison casts a piece for the Philadelphia Fringe at Bonnaroo, in Tennessee. A part she has been turning over in her brain since weeks before the trip, and which she was never quite able to cast. On the trip home she asks if I will Stage Manage/Assistant Direct, and I say yes.

almost broken

Mirror, you are cracked
seven years bad luck.
Snapped shut, denied a last cigarette.

Thirteen splintered edges,
seven refracted pieces,
carried in a purse.

Mirror, you are shattered,
cracked, refracted beyond repair.
Seven years, now seven sutured scars.

untitled

Currently
stretching
a giant carrot
across the room.

As it twist turns
from orange to purple to blue,

remind the students
that a white wall
can be any color they choose
because

white reflects all color into light.

The Disintegration of Matter

The persistence of memory
Splitting
across conflicting schools of thought –

Suspended over the exterior world,
I am
immersed in the interior
landscape of the mind.

The uncertainty principle of
the exterior world
criss-crosses against
my father Freud
to a point where
all I can see is
a wedding dress
and broken glass.

The barren landscape
points in no other direction but
towards nuclear physics
and the annihilation of
Hiroshima.

wordplay

my mouth
runs away
from my brain.

the other day
i inadvertently
mentioned
in a question

that i thought
my boss suggested
i sleep with her husband.

A Face I Will Never Forget

Today
Frannie and I met for lunch.
New Wave Cafe
has excellent salads
and bacon crisped
with charred edges
that melt in your mouth.

I saw Bones across the street.
I noticed his ribs first, his foster mother second.
She stopped at our table on her pass
back to their home in Queen Village.

He has the sweetest eyes
when you pet him
he looks up to you,
it's as if he knows
that this moment
is forever,
that this day
is the only one,
and your hand
on his head
is all he needs.

If you stop
he will wait
for you to come back
for your finger tips
to find his chin.
All those scars
aren't getting
deeper, nor lighter either,
and they can wait -
for he is his namesake,
he will always
be Bones -

But for one moment
on the corner of
a clear, crisp day
with a breakable sky,
Bones has his moment
and I have mine.

Mr. White;

i built a wall.
it was exhausting.
but i also got to build angle wings.
and create a human sociograph, bar graphs.
i took a journey
where i met a woman
from the 1800s who wore gloves
to hide the red dye on her fingertips.
she told me she is leaving her husband
and of her dye brush,
hidden behind the house,
left for her daughter to find.

i'm working on completing the story.

i noticed how in philly
the sky comes to the tip of the trees
or the flat of the rooftops
depending on which side of my axis
you stand on.

never the ground.

i talked to david bradley.

the something we created
was filled with overlapping voices;
poetry,
cardboard symbolism,
child's play,
musical instruments
created out of the floor.

i built a wall to protect myself
but stripped down to uncover
Lady Jane.

it was

exhausting.

the moon shifted
it's telling yesterday.

always smiling right
before they leave-

maybe it's not
a Warning,

the hazed grin,
laughing whisper,
of limitations,
all his misgivings -

but instead
a reminder
to stay me.