Alexandria Ocas 12:22PM To: Cassie Premo Steele > Reply To: Alexandria Oc... › Some news ALEXANDRIA ¡OCASIO! CONGRESS NY-14 CORTEZ Some news, Premo: Thanks to your grassroots support, Alexandria has raised more money than any other member in the House of Representatives this cycle! We wanted to take this opportunity to thank you so much for being a part of this movement for a better world. This is no small feat, given that our average donation floats around just $16. But with your help, we're able to organize across NY-14 and the country:

I love that AOC calls me Premo. Like the kids at Saint Mary’s Elementary in Winona, Minnesota, used to do. Like I’m cool like that.
@aoc.bsky.social 💙

Lenny Bruce in the truck with his mom while they went for a joyride to see the conjunction of Mars, Mercury and Saturn just before dawn on the first day of his 13th year

There is a kind of shade
Before dawn when the
Lights of the world come
On, and you might think
It would have a gold or
Orange glow, but it’s closer
To jade, because as we get
Older, we must fight
Becoming jaded to take
The chance of letting
Our hearts flow in green
Jeweled abundance.

#vss365 #jade

Lenny Bruce and his moms Cassie and Susanne

Happy Birthday to Lenny Bruce! A dozen years of love, fluff and truffle pigging!
#DogsofBluesky

Baby Beluga in the undersea
Dances to the soft beats
Of spa music with her family
In an aquarium west of me,
And if you listen carefully,
You can hear her singing
To her larger pod in the east:
“Water is rising, rising, rising,
And one day we will be
Home and together again.”

#vss365 #undersea

Thank you, Aspen! 🌳

Thank you, DeRicki! 💙

iv. The way is steep, even after 14 miles in the car, and we keep stopping to catch breath and let muscles rest, but when we make it to the top, we stop and another kind of breath comes out. Helen, you flat-topped, big mouthed dame. Rainier, we can see the cojones of your cherries even from here. Hood, you watch over the women and pull back only when we say it's good. Washington, you rise majestic but we know you wore a wig and we wonder what underwear you hide under that snow. And Jefferson, we can hardly see you at all, like coyote, you stole knowledge from your sisters, took credit and did not mourn what you saw fall. —from “Falls,” one of the poems in Cassie Premo Steele’s collection about her honeymoon with her wife in Oregon, titled Beautiful Waters (Finishing Line Press, 2017).

Perhaps no trickery
More slippery upon
The back of Turtle Island
Than that of Coyote,
Who takes and takes
Without giving back
And steals what he
Himself cannot make,
Like some billionaire
Bros who have adopted
This modus operandi,
Taking ever increasing
Pieces of our American pie.

#vss365 #trickery

Cassie’s granddaughter sniffs roses along the walkway during a late afternoon neighborhood stroll

Each year
When the sun reaches her
Equinox temperature,
She bestows investiture
Upon the earth and flowers
So everyone, even secular,
Feels a reservoir
Of bloom again.

#vss365 #investiture

THE THING WITH FEATHERS | Part One: Birth | Chapters 5 and 6 "Naming Time" and "Death Is Like Love"

The latest installment of my new #novel — about #birds, #environmental #science, #climatechange, what #leadership means, and how to create #hope — is out now!

open.substack.com/pub/cassiepr...

What if
Underneath
The seafoam
Is a life form
So wise we
Only dream
Of this
Intelligence
Through artificial
Means—
And yet here
They are
Already
Our family
And now
Singing?
Are we
Listening?

#vss365 #seafoam

Lenny Bruce in Monument Valley

Irises in yellow bloom and a greening forest around a pond

Cypress knees in front of the beaver pond that inspired my novel Beaver Girl

Yard sign in Forest Acres, South Carolina, not a place normally seen as a bastion of resistance: PRO-AMERICA ANTI-TRUMP

Signs of spring in South Carolina

4. Care to impart any writing wisdom? Well, the master's tools can't dismantle the master's house. Audre Lorde taught us that. And we listened and nodded our heads. But did we really listen? Did we really do what she said? Aren't we using the same tools? The hammer of competition. The saw of not enough. The screwdriver of objectification. The drill of violence against self and others. The whole collection of wrenches of push and strive and hurry up it's late. These tools will not help you as a writer. Or a human.

There’s a hammer in the sky
If we don’t want it in our eye
We must learn to let it fly by

#vss365 #hammer

Image: from an interview with the publisher of my #environmental #novel, BEAVER GIRL: Audre Lorde, hammers and my take on the inherent violence in striving as a #writer and #human

This is my grandbunny and she is the cutest five year old ever! 💜🐰💜🐰💜

Happy birthday to me!!! I’m 5 years old today!!! 💗💗💗🐰🐰🐰🎂🎂🎂😊😊😊🎉🎉🎉 #BunniesOfBlueSky #RabbitsOfBlueSky

Spanish moss hangs from live oaks at the Penn Center on Saint Helena Island, S.C. “Still Here: Honoring our history on Saint Helena Island in SC's Lowcountry” BY CASSIE PREMO STEELE SPECIAL TO FREE TIMES "So you're telling me," Shirley said, "that two of the most important educators in American history were lesbians?" "Yes," I said. "Though I don't know if they would have used that word."

Today’s #vss365 is about the #word lesbian in history and the ongoing silences in African American and Southern communities.

Read the full column here:

www.postandcourier.com/free-times/o...

@postandcourier.bsky.social #SouthCarolina #history #diversity #inclusion

Thank you so much for your kind and careful leadership! 🩵

On Suicide in San Francisco There is a bridge and it's gold And named for the small mammal And saint of birds but no chirps Can be heard here or there or Anywhere in the back end of Civilization, so called, because They've left the primitive behind Like the Willendorf and all asses They mounted in history to take Their place at the top of that Ladder or bridge or code with Privilege like pre-cum dripping Off their penises never big enough For the land and body they deign To mount and pillage and take over And loop function out on the edge Pushing us instead of jumping Themselves because they made us And make us return to repeat we Do all the things they themselves Should do should have done and we Are done it's not even a killing Anymore it's a saving and a saying Done done done done done done. Cassie Premo Steele Columbia, SC 103

My #vss365 for today is my poem, “On Suicide in San Francisco,” which appeared in Samfiftyfour Literary, Issue VIII, November 2023, page 103. #loop
@samfiftyfour.bsky.social #poem #poet #poetry #poetrycommunity

Haha, he hasn’t had a grooming since before the new year, so that’s definitely on the to-do list now that he’s given me the best birthday gift of getting better!

Much better! Thanks so much for asking!

Thank you, writer friend! 💜

Lenny Bruce waits while his mom writes

My writing altar

The letters I write
While sitting tight
In the light and dark
Ignite the spark
So I walk the walk
And not just talk
My soul purpose

#vss365 #letters

Today is my birthday! Me in my senior prom dress, 3 invitations, and a poem

cassiepremosteele.substack.com/p/today-is-m...

Cassie in her writing room wearing her teal taffeta prom dress from many years ago

It’s my birthday! 🎂🥳🎁🪐♈️

Oma and her granddaughter on the front porch

Yesterday was an amazing day for our family. Not only did the girl score her first ever ⚽️ goal to win the game - my wife also ran her first half marathon in 14 years! 🏆So proud of my little intergenerational queer family and happy to hydrate them with as much water as they need! 🏳️‍🌈

#vss365 #water

Congratulations! 🎈

Lenny Bruce outside

Lenny Bruce inside.

Lenny Bruce tryna help your percentages.

Roy is the favorite character of my wife and me (mine?) and now we are thinking of watching the whole show again for my birthday weekend because Roy.

BELIEVE!

Cassie’s granddaughter and Mommy high fiving after her first ever soccer goal!

This is my granddaughter-
I’m Gaga over her-
And today she scored
Her first ever soccer goal-
And won the game 2-1!
Way to sink it, innit?

#vss365 #sink