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Posts by Lexine

Published poet, short story writer, and now novelist! My 1st eBook The Playgirl is out now!

These Cool Poems: BHM 2025 Edition

It’s Black History Month, and can no racist or fascist ever erase that fact! Let’s kick off the month with some poetry honoring BHM, shall we?

“To America” by James Weldon Johnson

How would you have us, as we are?
Or sinking ’neath the load we bear?
Our eyes fixed forward on a star?
Or gazing empty at despair?

Rising or falling? Men or things?
With dragging pace or footsteps fleet?
Strong, willing sinews in your wings?
Or tightening chains about your feet?

*****

“Hope” by Clara Ann Thompson

The saddest day will have an eve,
     The darkest night, a morn;
Think not, when clouds are thick and dark,
     Thy way is too forlorn.

For ev’ry cloud that e’er did rise,
     To shade thy life’s bright way,
And ev’ry restless night of pain,
     And ev’ry weary day,

Will bring thee gifts, thou’lt value more,
     Because they cost so dear;
The soul that faints not in the storm,
     Emerges bright and clear.

********

“Dreams” by Langston Hughes

Hold fast to dreams 
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

All poems from Poets.org

Staying Sane In Uncertainty

It’s my Saturday and also MLK Day today. Something else happened and I have no idea what became of it. I’ve chosen to stay home and stay off Bluesky (my lone social media outlet now), opting to do some cooking, yoga, reading, listening to KCSM Jazz 91, and lots of lazing around. I only turned on the TV to reconfigure my internet, and if I’m gonna watch some TV, it will be for sports or a movie on the TCM Channel. Eventually, I’ll find out what became of that other event, but I’m choosing not to get worked up about it for now. Anything to maintain what’s left I have of my sanity. And staying sane is what I gotta do in this supposed new era of, as I call it, unprecedented fuckery.

This is not the first time I’ve had to do so. When I realized the household I was growing up in was a toxic, abusive hellhole, I chose to distance myself from it, working more and staying out more. The sanity I reclaimed when I left the people I once called “family” and went no-contact with them was freeing. I was glad to have like-minded friends to vent to when W Bush got reelected in November 2004, and before he went off the leftist deep end, Michael Moore and his documentaries that decade spoke the truth. Social media had yet to exist, and (IIRC) mainstream media except Faux News wasn’t kissing the ring of the then-powers that be. There was also The Daily Show at its prime, giving me laughs to mask the pain in seeing my generation fight and die in a useless war. (You’ll never see us elder millennials sane-wash W Bush; we still haaaaate his warmongering ass!) And I don’t know how I managed to maintain in November 2016/January 2017 (probably the weed), but I did and I’m still here with my sanity that’s about to get tested yet again. *sighs*

Edited to add more to this entry! 

Kings Over Crooks

It’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day–the lone event worth celebrating today. Given what’s happened to this damn country in the past three months alone, this holiday hits different this year. Through ongoing education and activism, the beliefs of MLK Jr will not only live on, but will assist those who choose to resist the incoming tyranny. After all, it’s better to honor a king over a felon.

If you’re choosing to stay at home today like me, give his Letter From Birmingham Jail a read. (It’s free!)

The Vegas Trip, Pt. 4: Rocking The Vote

(Side note: I notice that many of my pics from past installments of this series is no longer showing up. I recently had an issue with the photo hosting site I uploaded my pics to (they blocked my account for no good reason and I still haven’t heard back from them), so I moved all my pics to a new site and y’all should see them now!) 

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I didn’t expect my Vegas trip to get political. I had already voted prior to my trip, and while I knew I couldn’t escape it  given that my trip occurred the week before Election Day, I thought my trip would involve politics, aside from flipping off all those unsightly Trump ads. I even had my Halloween plans set: go people-watching around the Strip and Fremont Street while dressed as Regina George from Mean Girls

Then I found out that thee VP herself Kamala Harris was going to appear at a rally in North Las Vegas. On Halloween. My janky Regina George can wait another year, for I wasn’t going to pass up on a historic opportunity! 

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New Cover Alert!

I have my reasons why I changed the cover of my chart-topping bestseller (in my dreams) The Playgirl. Yesterday marked the end of my book’s exclusivity to KDP Select after being on it for 14 months, and, with its return to wide distribution, I felt like a cover change was needed. If you’ve been keeping track, yes, this is not the first time I changed it. And if you’re a cover collector, here’s another one to add to the trove!

If you’re wondering about the image I selected for the cover…I wanted something that embodied the salaciousness and drama of my story (which has not been changed, by the way). Somehow, I never considered using illustrated stock photos for cover art until recently. (My last cover was a photo of a nude woman silhouette, edited to make it look almost illustrated.) And when I eyed that simple yet striking illustration, after looking through pages and pages of stock photos, I thought, wait…I think I found her. After playing with fonts and line placements, I had done it again. I gave my story a new face. Compared to my last cover, it’s quite minimalist. And I actually like it!

Credit to Dasha Kovtun on Dreamstime.com for the artwork. It’s coincidence that the green lashes and dark brown locks of the illustration mirror the look of my green-eyed brunette protagonist. And this time, I’m sticking with this cover!

ETA: she’s now back on Wide Distribution! And on the jungle site too.

The Vegas Trip, Pt. 3: The 40th

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I turned 10, 18, and 20 at home in the city I was born in. I celebrated my 21st at some waterfront restaurant in SF with my first-ever drink, my 25th in Santa Cruz, and my 30th in LA, trolling Dodger fans after another SF Giants World Series victory the day before. I had plans for my 40th since 2022, but none of them didn’t involve Vegas. I thought I’d go to Hawaii, or Europe on one of those seven-day European tour specials I’d see on Travelzoo. Some plans don’t come to fruition due to life’s curveballs hitting my head, however. (I felt like I’ve taken a lot of those curveballs to my head this year.) And then there are the rare times in life when I hit a grand slam. Finding a great place in Vegas at an amazing weekly rate on my exact travel dates was one of them. 

I usually stay home on my born days, simply to avoid my special day being potentially ruined by assholes being assholes. But I also have this thing where I need to get a massage wherever I travel. In-home massage is costly as hell, so I found a good deal via Groupon at a massage clinic in Summerlin. The soonest opening they had on their schedule was, yep, on my birthday, so I ended up going out. The drive wasn’t bad, I didn’t encounter any assholes, and the massage was amazing. 

I stayed home the rest of the time, though I took some time to explore the rest of the hotel. 

My suite is up there. No, UP there!

It looks like Vegas paradise, but trust me, it was coooooold that day. 

I had the option to go to LA again for my 40th, but there was that pesky blue baseball team and its fans. Naturally, there just had to be a World Series game on my born day, and a closeout game, too. Ten years ago, I sported my Giants hat while roaming the streets of LA, proud to be repping the winners. (Not once did I get jumped, if you can believe that.) I guess the evil gods of that blue baseball team must’ve remembered that because ten years later, guess who would win the World Series, and on my 40th, too? (And thus begins my revenge story!) 

I eased my nerves in my private, jacuzzi-style bathtub, and it was a huge bathtub. With actual jacuzzi jets! The lights were mine, by the way. 

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