I halt
stand staring at the tree outside of my apartment
say sincerely
I wish this was an orange tree
you know, I could come out into this front yard
pick the fruit
like when I was young and we
with our small grasping hands picked
the lemons and the oranges
off the branches of the trees in our own backyards
instead of some alien [...]

Often they congregate close enough to cough
Yuck germy humans
Heavy cell phone conversations
Islands of egoism
All walks of life
Acting like
It’s totally normal
To follow the rules
To be all ears on
your attention please
Final boarding call
Recorded, not a human voice
They wait in line
Watch monitors
Buy starbucks
Are getting old
Stroll stride trip pass by
I, crosslegged,
criticize the human choice
To follow rules
Like anyone good
and bored
Your [...]

darling,
I am conflicted.
part of me is enjoying the building
anticipation
of kissing your full delicious lips in just four days
there is the almost pleasurable agony in the length and space between us that makes
the waiting
that much more intense
that sets my whole being into this burst of excitement
that I don’t have the heart to extinguish
yet there is [...]

there is the absurd question of semantics
left
to wrestle with
limbs so lifeless
heavy tree branches
gnarly natural monsters
difficult wrestling
left
absurd to wrestle with the question of what is left
there
nude or naked in the muddied interpretations
of ideologies, communist/democratic/polka
dotted/
never powerful enough
to make a difference
bruised/battered/left to
lose form
or strengthen
or be difficult to distinguish
from any other abstraction
whereever you are
the world loves ideas because
the [...]

So I’m getting pretty used to not having a life…what with working a full time job M-F (and many Saturday school Saturdays) and taking three classes…I have time to hang Wednesday night (which I have designated my swim night and therefore sacred) and Friday night (open to whereever the most magnetic forces pull). Saturdays are [...]

MY FAVORITE PARTS ABOUT BEING ALIVE TODAY
signing up for a pool membership that scans my hand and makes me feel like I’m on The Jetsons
fantasizing about long swims that start with a shock of cold water and slowly warm up to become meditative
questioning whether empathy is more continuity or change, some internal ability to empathize [...]

A song is stalking me. About a week ago I was all kleenex and madness…and I asked my roommate Jason to play a song, any song… I was just so desperate for a distraction, something to get my mind off of things…and of all the possible permutations in the endless playlists one could rummage through, [...]

“That last half an hour of studying was fucking pointless.”
I kept rereading about crimes against humanity and missing the subtle differences between various definitions and switching back and forth so frequently between that and writing really terrible breakup poety that at one point I was confused about what I was looking at, notes or confused [...]

I just wrote a long blog about the purpose of life, at the repeated requests of a friend, and alas, the internet gods have destroyed it…I have no idea where it went.
I was pretty happy with the original, and I have no time to rewrite it completely so this will be the purpose of life [...]

Ola Hadi, September 25, 2009

Please,
I.
I begged you
to take an hour
and go down the street
instead of to a war zone to escape
your inner battle
for me
for you
for your worried mother
to see someone who can help you
see you though this low valley
that’s got you going in unpredictable
directions, self medicating,
and aiming cut-throat questions of what is it
that makes you [...]

Both my last blog and this one have featured Ted Washington and Shabda Alexa Sanchez. They reappear in inspirational blogging part 2….
Tonight I went to a Local Authors shmooze fest at the Downtown local library of San Diego. It was really nice of our local librarians to put on, complete with a medal, snackage, AND [...]

I went to a concert the other day…while I was there my friend Ted was showing my friend Shabda and I a book called “The Case for God.” I’m used to reading Dawkins but I admit to human ignorance enough to not be an athiest. I am borderline. Shabda is a recent convert to Roman [...]

“Ola Hadi became the first Puna Press author to read at Borders! We have placed books at Borders before, notably ‘Barzilla’ at the Mission Valley Borders, but this was the first in store appearance. It went well. We sold some books and Ola read to the people. She read my favorite poem from ‘The Moon [...]

“This will be the first Puna Press author to have an event at Borders! Ola really wanted this and it is now a reality. This will be big fun and the space is awesome.”

pitch black bitch
by Ola Hadi, August 30, 2009

at first, the thirst for you was manageable
my body unaffected by your loud appeal
unpredictable, deceptive Fortune hunts for fools
altered my ears and turned against me with her crooked wheel

left Love fallen, crushed beneath its weight
a fragile angel fatally impaired
by a melody too sweet to [...]