Practivist of the Week - YOU! Help save The Forest Cafe!

Refuge

The Forest Cafe is an Edinburgh arts community institution.  This is sort of oxymoronic in that no one involved would call it that, it is not funded like an institution, nor is it solidified in any way as such.  It is revered as one by the artists who have been showcased there and the people who have been lucky enough to see them.

The list of musicians, singers, poets and promoters I would not know if The Forest Cafe had not been among the pioneers of the Free Fringe movement in Edinburgh is easily in the hundreds.  Let me try some out on you:  Jonny Berliner, Kevin Molloy, Kal Lavelle, Ed Sheeran, David Goo, Folk-A-Dot, Gideon Conn,  iKToms, Ali Whitton, Melv -- and so many more.  It would be heartbreaking for me to think about my life without the people I met there.

The Forest functions as a cafe, gallery, performance space, free Fringe venue, artist grant provider, record label, publisher, rehearsal space, darkroom, recording studio and just about anything else you might be able to come up with and propose to them.  It is an all-volunteer vegetarian collective.

Upstairs at 3 Bristo

The building in which The Forest resides is up for sale and the community is joining together to help them purchase the building.  This is both a radical and necessary move.  An old church, the architecture allows different spaces for different purposes - cafe/gathering space, gallery space and an upstairs with high-ceilings that feels like a sacred performance space.

Says Fundraising Co-ordinator Harry Giles:

"Forest's spirit of independence and free access has supported thousands of artists from across the world -- painters, musicians, poets, performers, and much else besides. It runs pretty much entirely on the love and dedication of the community, and that, to me, makes it an endlessly exciting and inspiring place to be."

LA's Brenda Petrakos at The Forest

This is not a last-ditch effort, but a proactive campaign to ensure the future a pioneering space that has served a community.  It is in fact a chance for The Forest to become even more independent, create more beauty and be even more meaningful in its community.

So how can you help?
Easy - click on any of the links.  You know you want to.


DONATE - This can be a one-time or a monthly donation - even a very small monthly donation.

SIGN THE PETITION - Speak out and be heard.

VOLUNTEER - Get involved!

And as always, pass the word along.  This is how we build a world that looks like us.

26/30 - Best Friends

BEST FRIENDS

Inside my belly

lives a 6-year old

exuberant dark-haired

pig-tailed girl

I never met before

I know her now

because every time she thinks

I am going to see you

She starts jumping up and down

excitedly getting ready to run out

When we see you

she jumps out of my belly

hair bouncing

face smiling

Did you know

there is a really cute and sweet

6-year old boy who lives in your belly?

He jumps out smiling, too

She grabs his hand

They run off

They couldn’t be happier

We stand awkwardly

I stare off at her

I don’t know if you even see him

They don’t seem to need us

They don’t care that we don’t know

what to say to each other

or what to do

They only know

they were born to match

My spirit

and yours

they are best friends

they run and jump together

always holding hands

never breaking bonds

they are giggles and puddles

and rolling down grassy hills

They do not notice our cement

our look-aways

our unable to express

When called

She comes back reluctantly

they know it is time to go

She will jump back in my belly

and as I walk away

I can feel her telling me

this is not the way home.

c. e. amato

4.11

25/30 - The Laugh Dream

THE LAUGH DREAM

so far :

seduced me

with your smart

overwhelmed me

with your sexy

delved me

in your deep

in the dream:

you kiss me mouth hello

this has not happened before

you have decided something

people notice

you get up on a stage

do scene with a woman

fresh

come sit down next to me

now you are wearing white terry cloth robe

tied with belt why

before I can whisper in your ear

‘we need to shoot that’

you kiss me again longer like you can

I look at you not knowing

gossips are internetting

yes there is definitely something going on around here

nobody told them

you bow your head down to me

for some of that good white girl understanding slowly

reluctantly place right palm on your head

give you what you have not asked for

now they are sure we have been secreting for a good long time

(what they are seeing is conception

not birth conception)

you raise your head

I must look at you with confusion

you say something

you say something so damn funny

poke hot air balloon wide open

make fun of us both right there so well with so few words

say in my voice

‘I seen your sexy – it don’t impress me like that’

and we laugh

we laugh teeth

that makes them angry

if we can laugh like that it’s fine

if we can laugh like that together it’s all fine

So OK.

Yes.

let them say what they like

c. e. amato

4.11

Monday's Quote - Roche

"You never know where your spiritual self is hidden. We’re told to find it through the discipline of practice. Because this is meditation, and not the Army, your impulse to rebel against discipline is as important as your desire to change yourself for the better. You may have noticed in the past that when you try to get yourself to do a self-help program, you wind up tyrannizing yourself. Then you rebel against the tyranny. The rebel becomes a saboteur of your program because you left her out. The way through this is to embrace the rebel right from the start."

- Dr. Lorin Roche

I've been reading Dr. Roche's columns in LA Yoga for a while now.  They are always interesting.  This one seemed especially appropriate for spring, when my inner rebel starts acting up!

Celebrate your inner rebel!

24/30 - "La Luna"

“La Luna”

Overheard Conversation in Spanish 

Translated by E. Amato

(Who Does Not Speak Spanish)

He:  Work was really long.  And The Moon – she did not call me back.

She  You know how she is.  Besides, I heard she was in Spain.

He:  Her feet are in Spain, but her heart rides the Galaxy.

She:  The moon has no feet.  Everyone knows this.

He:  Well, that’s clear, but then why doesn’t she call me?

She:  She has strong pulls.  Perhaps you are not one of them.

He:  Well, I would like to go to Spain.

She:  Of course, if only to see The Moon in her own light.

c. e. amato

4.11

23/30 - 5 Dresses

5 new dresses into trying to get you back

With the necessary accessories

the price tag for the first attempt alone

was well over 100 bucks

It was a bold statement

requiring red lipstick, going

against my current natural trend

while at least 3 people

used the word beautiful

It didn’t matter

You never made it to that party

their words fell hollow

I wondered if you’d view

drunken facebook photos

think beautiful too

or just:

she looks kinda faded

Something like 5 outfits

added to my bulging suitcase

have been texting you to say:

this is me trying to show you

I have changed

without benefit of red carpet

glamour squad

Harry Winston on loan

I keep trying to pull off

Oscar Night Stellar

just to get you next to me

long enough to see

that I am sorry.

That I fucked up,

done wrong,

quit too soon,

mistook your sincerity for naiveté,

your attention for neediness,

your excitement for weakness

and your Adoration

Well it invaded my Lonely

Asked me dream where I’d only been feigning sleep

Kept saying I have something to show you

to my seen it all before

Promised a kind of devotion that made me

Damned uncomfortable

I didn’t know

I would grow to love you so much

from afar or just almost close enough

the outfits empty soldiers

limbless cannot touch you

they stand to speak for me

yet utter nothing

I do not use my mouth

my hands are paper cranes that cannot unfurl

I spend too much time wondering

If I have the right

to Disturb you.  Again.

Spend gazes out bus windows

on how you could ever trust me

and why you remained friend

Want you back but so sure

there is another she better

hasn’t hurt you once already

doesn’t have my learning curve

or overflowing baggage.

Maybe I am not best for you

new outfits roll off you as

I imagine you wonder

why I don’t donate that shallow money

where it’s needed so deeply

If I were you, I’d untag me in all your photos.

So I keep not speaking.

They call me brave

but I have rendered myself fearful

Just keep planning outfit

after outfit

Hoping you’ll look through

all that armour

See me standing before you naked

Thinking

Love.

Love.

Love.

 c. e. amato

4.11

22/30 - Write Me

WRITE ME

strip me back naked

words your only tools

find me thesis topic sentence

line break

I want you

to write me

this lack of distance

myopiates my vision

renders efforts meaningless

but you

you could say what I mean

you could see through saran wrap

designed to burn flesh from these round hips

your vision of me could just be 20/20

I am not asking to be muse

just mirror me real time portrait

with flaws

show me my sentence

you know how to do this

you have literary prowess

truth me in black and white

proof me no edits

I am adrift in a sea of metaphor

fish me out

dry me off

set me down on a firm bed of

simple subject verb predicate

It gets so flowery out here sometimes

especially in spring

what I am craving is straight up meaning

If necessary go back to cave painting

As long as the weight of things

stops getting lost in translation

Write me Marilyn’s suicide note

Write me confession of JFK’s assassin

Write me the mind of an Israeli soldier

Write me everything I can’t grasp

This whirl is too much

Gravity is losing the center

I have lost perspective

So write me

please

you who really see

I beg your clarity

for something longer than a haiku

less arduous than sonnet

write me

one good solid paragraph

that’s all I ask

even one stanza of my obituary

something I can read

and understand

minus mental gymnastics

unreliable narrators

self-serving commentary

selective memory

Write me true reflection

like the first time

you saw your face in a lake

clear fresh wonder

Write me that

if you can if you will

write me trust exercise

fall and catch me with your words

I will submit to your precision

then watch me

and see if I bloom

in the eyes of your truth.

c. e. amato

4.11

21/30 - man crossing street

(I'm running out of reserves and so many of the rest of the poemlets don't seem all the way cooked...here's a shorty.)

man crossing street

sunday morning early on a sunny brisk

carrying glass cup latte and scent of bacon

drag of cigarette

across kentish town road

how nice to be a man

who smokes while drinking coffee

cooks and eats bacon

crosses street without looking

certain he will not be harmed.

i couldn’t do it.  not any of it.

c. e. amato

4.11

20/30 - Call Me Kate

Call me Kate

I am scared but receptive

I am a merger in the form of a body

I am not your mother’s princess

I am as perfect as normal allows

I am alright with the primping and preening

I even like the photo spreads

I am my mother’s princess

I strive for meta-normal

neither boring nor enticing

neither affectionate nor detached

too much grace or wit

can be dangerous

I will be wife mother

daughter I will always know my role

each room will tell me

each house has a script

I will not be sacrificed on any altar

as I will not totter in my heels

or slouch under weight of robes

I am a tiara

Make no mistake

I am not an agenda

nor anyone’s idea of

what has come before

or what must need be now

I will grow old with certitude

of events running as they should

of needs being consistently met

of the glory of the honoured bargain

How many people

get to say that

anymore?

c. e. amato

4.11