persistance

with bloody hands i shape the clay

of imperfect ghostlike figures

looming in the shadows

with hunched shoulders

or dancing, wispy banshees 

their eyes averted from 

the bright-buttoned drum major 

that is the work for daily bread.

I imagine giving them all up, 

freeing myself by cutting the tie--

I see my own hand severed at the wrist

the tunnel of lonely ghosts howls. 

Copyright Jamie Laurens and Waste and Praise contributors. All rights reserved by individual artists.

The elephant in the room

A month stands between us

and the breaking of our hopes.

If it is to be here,

let it be a temple elephant

painted with the regalia of Lakshmi,

like the two-ton devotee of Vishnu

who danced from foot to foot

shaking her chain of bells, who

for a rupee coin tapped her fleshy nose

on the crown of my head,

blessing me while I carried

the first seed of a child.

Yes, I say, let there be

this elephant in the room

while we try to stop wringing our hands.

Let it be the one who blesses us in the void of unknowns.

Stay close, where I can

feel the bristles of your

boar-thick hair, scrubbed skin.

Let me marvel at the height of your toes

the wrinkles of your knees,

touch the insides of your ears

with tender admiration,

as harmless as a

fly buzzing around your

monumental, unmovable presence.

Let it be your room after all,

when you live here more than we do.

You take over, sleep leaning on the couch,

toss mattress and pillow stuffing in the air

in search of things to eat.

Step carefully when passing

from room to room.

Your mahout with stoic gaze and reed

can stay here too. Your presence grows

the size of what we contain.

In the space we expand for you

all are welcome

to share our dumb-struck awe,

our uncertain fumbling hands,

the kind eyes tinged

with dark, unknowable things.

Your own gaze the wiser

upon the blessing and the blessed,

you see beyond artifice

into what truly is.

Surely you, if anyone, can bring us some solace

while we tiptoe around you,

caressing you fondly,

asking if you are enjoying your stay.

Copyright Jamie Laurens and Waste and Praise contributors. All rights reserved by individual artists.

i didn't write from india

because the smell of curry leaves wafted up from the canals
the children squatted to piss on the side of the road
the kites soared and dipped on the beach
the fishermen hauled up nets like miners
the lights flickered like a flirting distant shore
the ice cream trucks lit up the night
the flame soared high,
the smell of smoke burned nostrils
the pineapple wallah smiled though toothless
and the street child patted my hand though empty

because the temple walls felt smooth under fingers
and the yellow turmeric brushed a glow into the women's skin
because we went the wrong way to do pradakshana
because we found holy relics washed up with shit and sand
because the old woman chanted four of a thousand names of Durga
while the priest circled her with butter lamps, poured roses at her feet

because the sour sweet hot
cool cotton candy fish Limka lentil cakes
imam songs grins train whistles namkeen snacks had us all distracted
as did the fruitless, fleeting beauty of our existence

and the words couldn't pin them down,
didn't have time, what with the
measuring of an elephant's foot,
the angle of repose for a bat,
the size of a monkey's baby teeth
the circumference of Ganesha's belly,
and the purity of coconut meat said to reflect the soul. They were
preoccupied with the counting of threads, cords, and fishes,
the chime of an ankle chain,
and the clink of bangles said to make
the unborn baby listen

preoccupied with the statues depicting
Hindu horse, Muslim tiger locked in an ancient grudge
and larger than life testaments to faith,
the grieving shaving their heads in remembrance
the heart lifting outward at the call of a song,
and the prick in the palm of a comb

the words lined up
in pilgrimage with other pilgrims
to form inward awe
and to chant thank you in three tongues.



Copyright Jamie Laurens and Waste and Praise contributors. All rights reserved by individual artists.

mountain stream

for my father

Rivulets of tiny red veins
stories in rock.
Moss climbs ruddy cheeks.

The sad almond
of a water-blue eye,

chest rising
like a cleaved stone

the split in your thumbnail
the seal of hard work,
the splinter of wood,

the slight wheeze in the stream
of breath, an old friend

the high-rise of ribs and trunk,
the search for motion,
the eye taking in the scene.

Nearby, the
call of a wolf.

You are water curved
around elements of wood and stone,

by that stream
a bird of prey sits perched
on a branch, at rest.

My words have spooled
in a tangle about my feet

but here there can only be footfalls,
and silence.

For you, this song of praise.


Copyright Jamie Laurens and Waste and Praise contributors. All rights reserved by individual artists.

Snow Breath

When I was a child
after a good long walk outdoors
he would pull me in for a hug
and the breath from his airways
smelled of lungs scrubbed
clean by fresh air and pure sky.
This was my favorite smell.

Not long ago I realized
that the passions I pursued
fell in my father’s footsteps
the way my footfalls followed his
and used his imprint
as we walked through the snow
and pursued that air
over the contours of the land.



Copyright Jamie Laurens and Waste and Praise contributors. All rights reserved by individual artists.

found directive

"You are the dance,
and life is the dancer."
-Ekhart Tolle

We are because we are.
And life holds us
in its form--
glides
tilts
aches
and pauses us,
occasionally holding
our faces
to the audience
like apples.

waste and praise: definitions

I took this new title photo when I was out biking with friends, scoping out neighborhoods in a still unknown environment. It was a beautiful Sunday. We came to the river overlook in Brooklyn Heights. There were four men leaning over the railing. I'm not sure if you can see it in the photograph, but they are two conservative Jews and two priests, huddled and admiring the view.

Are they caught in a moment of praise?

As they look down at the highway and industrial site concealed from view, they must also see waste.

In our modern life where we have made so much waste, it is time to make praise. Must we also praise the waste?

praise: |prāz|
verb [ trans. ]
express warm approval or admiration of
to express one's respect and gratitude toward (a deity), esp. in song
Thesaurus: commend, express admiration for, applaud, pay tribute to, speak highly of, eulogize, compliment, congratulate, sing the praises of, rave about, go into raptures about, heap praise on, wax lyrical about, make much of, pat on the back, take one's hat off to, lionize, admire, hail, ballyhoo; formal laud.


waste: |wāst|
verb[ trans. ] use or expend carelessly, extravagantly, or to no purpose; [ intrans. ] poetic/literary (of time) pass away; be spent;adjective (of a material, substance, or byproduct) eliminated or discarded as no longer useful or required after the completion of a process
Thesurus [adjective]waste material: unwanted, excess, superfluous, left over, scrap, useless, worthless; unusable, unprofitable. Waste ground: uncultivated, barren, desert, arid, bare; desolate, void, uninhabited, unpopulated; wild.

The necessary byproduct of our existence; emotional, physical, intellectual, verbal, transcendental, unintentional, intentional. "Eliminated or discarded as no longer useful or required after the completion of a process." Is waste then the silence after a poem? The slough off of words?

We all create waste.
So let us all praise.

a trap-door poem

Morning Prayer

Sun, find me behind these blinds, between

These construction towers of sugar and brick,

Find me among these bodies, these thin-armed plants,

Give me a decent chance to scream at the honking drivers to

fuck off, or at least a good shot at their yellow behinds as they

Skulk through crosswalks like teenagers when it's not their turn.

Tell me how once I was baptized your child by young and

naive parents in a high mountain stream,

Named in the good faith that I would stay close.

praise: little snowman

when my husband was was two years old
he took the laundry powder
and spread it all around him on the floor

of the house.

he beamed up 

at his dismayed mother

and said: 'Look! I made snow."

waste: losing

I knock things over.
Dishes slip out of my hands
and break against the sink.

In the past that was it,
I would break dishes
as my life broke itself
from its holding,
become clumsier,
and sigh unsurprised
as another mug bit the dust.

Now I have gone from the old
flea market cup
to your best watch
in a pretty twelve-foot dive,
blood-red nail polish,
vinaigrette,
and eggs.

Crimson polish pools cling to the floor
like blood,
brown balsamic huddles
in an oil cell by the door,
the eggs tip and mica white
holds out against the stone counter.

I have taken to admiring my work
and lean in to inspect
before setting to clear it up,
a conciliatory gesture,
the good hand shaking the clumsy one.

The phone one day soon
will ring with her last breath,
ring itself right off the wall.

A fine mess.

i stepped in

on a return to the beloved west; to its wildflowers, rocks, and glaciers, i wound switchbacks around my waist, tiptoed past a mountain goat, wove a hand through small waterfalls, and smoothed over fields. this was where the flowers pressed together and hushed among the grass, making my feet into antelope feet, my eyes into a low-flying bird's. i came into a gentle slope of valley and gaped at the way the glacier slung like an arm into its little lake, gave birth to itself in water.

i began a new, naked tradition, stripping off boots and shorts and stepping in slowly, like husking corn. peeled my body into the skin of the water so cold it burrowed beyond my skin. it seemed to beam off layers of city and self, leaving what was left of the tiny core humbled and trembling. a few timid strokes and my feet came off the soft, muddy floor, and i was water borne, and wild. The cold pinched my lungs at the base, my breath quickened, but the shiver was singular and deep. ecstatically alive.

i always wanted to emerge new and fresh, like starting over. but often the feeling lingered as i pulled socks and shoes back on, and left with the cold. probably for the best.
after a few swims, the buzz wears off, and like in any repeated act that is seeking, when seeking turns to grasping, the desired payoff fades. we turn inward out of necessity more than out of reason.

in the city sounds, where on a good day i can hear the heartbeat tick of the changing lights, it takes a sly move to evade exhaustion's choke-hold. you have to have a place you want to go, where you can be beholden to nothing, especially yourself, and definitely where you can look up. you take in that expanse of blue, beyond the grasp of all things, and creating from that blue the water that makes the glacier, and the glacier that makes the water, you remember the mountain days and step in.

waste: Calligraphy

I catch the curve
of calligraphy on the delicate skin inside your arm

an incomplete circle,
your memory of Japan

a trace of all this time
and things that go, and then come back around.

The sun catches the red in your hair,
as it did when you leaned on the balcony
into southern light ten years ago.

I certainly don't imagine
the kiss you remember; I have forgotten it,
and how you chose her,
I have forgotten that too

and the dim soft light of the loft you shared
as I awoke to write and let the lovers sleep
and watch the minutes alone
spill like marbles across the tiles.