boundaries have been a huge theme in my life lately - osmosis was needed but leads to weakness, trees need bark to stand as tall and stretch both ways, to the wisdom of balance between sun and ground.
Fences
We both own the fence that stands between us--
some days tall planks that break up the horizon line,
splinters stuck in my soft feet and fingers
some days barbed wire, sharp confines
and skinny sticks I helped my father plant
and when the land falls away around me
and I'm not floating but falling, that fence
stands upright and I can never
see your face, I can never
find the gate, can't unlatch the limbs
that separate
from safety
if it were me I'd tear this aging wood
from the earth's heart, plant orange trees
and grape vines to bring everyone
out of their houses, to end this self-imposed
dichotomy, to start great conversation
and end the hunger
we constantly live with
but isolation is a two way choice--
how would we divvy up this fruit,
how do I know when empty space is all
that keeps you coming back to me-—darling if it
were my choice, we'd build a bonfire
and hold hands dancing, but
it never is. What lies between us is
a product of two wants, twin necessities
in the form of sturdy posts and
deep, deep holes that kill my back in digging.
Without a fence the roses would spread and
hummingbirds would sing in the morning and
I wouldn't miss you daily. Shoulds and wants cross
over until a stockade of fingers and thorns keep
us away, and for now trees grow tall and
pollen doesn't drift over barren fields,
and someday when the land is older,
the house paid off our hearts unlatched
the planks will wear away as something
bright passes between us, builds
something better in its wake
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Friday, July 24, 2009
salvaging
Keep falling for boys that can't love me,
trying to salvage what's left of us,
children of the age where the war is never won—
like backroad trucks pulled by magnets away from ourselves,
sold for spare parts.
To distant from that loss, of being wantneeded in the world,
I salvage
other things—
cedar planks by the railroad tracks
where bone-thin birds nest—
these once were a barn,
held sweet hay, thickropes calmcows
some young man's livelihood.
Piling them in my truck, each splinter
is a hail mary, a curse I let rest
against my teeth. The house of love
is not filled with velvet or satin,
covered in glitter or stripped clean of
bright hair, or even bound in black leather...
As a child I saw houses collapse in upon themselves
like trees falling, some ghosts's life
imploding nail by nail,
sometimes for years.
Houses came down and fences
went up. Dad told me how lucky we were,
to have redwood fence posts,
their invincibilities
while my life continually crashed down
around my ears, left my sparrow bones
ringing shrill as bells.
I could barely see over the
blessed golden grass
that fed each sweet-eyed cow of ours,
clambering over russet posts
I thought I could smell the sea,
the shaded dirt, baby ferns curled
like sleeping cats—I thought
why not build
with this
as the years got leaner and leaner
and the boards on windows I looked through
were torn at by breezes and typhoons,
sometimes pulled off by pianist's fingers and
doe-eyed promises. Saving relationships--
with my father, girl-dog, old car,
these boys that come to me all soft hands
and words that twist like willows
is a dusty age-long fight,
a journey by bus and foot pushing
a shopping cart, folks avoiding
your crusted crinkled eyes, and you trudge
up the road towards a dirt floor
and missing walls and sagging cross beams
and a single chair you could never find
a cushion for, thinking why am I trying
and how will I eat tomorrow,
staring at a pile of redwood planks
as boys leave helplessly,
wordlessly,
one by one.
Some step on nails,
some I send the dogs after.
They never think to bring tools
but termites, magpies come in their wake,
a reverse plague of reminders and constant cleaving.
When the fences go down
the houses will still
be falling, ravens always at the door
as I struggle to lift one
last beam
one steady once-tree
to keep the roof from caving...
trying to salvage what's left of us,
children of the age where the war is never won—
like backroad trucks pulled by magnets away from ourselves,
sold for spare parts.
To distant from that loss, of being wantneeded in the world,
I salvage
other things—
cedar planks by the railroad tracks
where bone-thin birds nest—
these once were a barn,
held sweet hay, thickropes calmcows
some young man's livelihood.
Piling them in my truck, each splinter
is a hail mary, a curse I let rest
against my teeth. The house of love
is not filled with velvet or satin,
covered in glitter or stripped clean of
bright hair, or even bound in black leather...
As a child I saw houses collapse in upon themselves
like trees falling, some ghosts's life
imploding nail by nail,
sometimes for years.
Houses came down and fences
went up. Dad told me how lucky we were,
to have redwood fence posts,
their invincibilities
while my life continually crashed down
around my ears, left my sparrow bones
ringing shrill as bells.
I could barely see over the
blessed golden grass
that fed each sweet-eyed cow of ours,
clambering over russet posts
I thought I could smell the sea,
the shaded dirt, baby ferns curled
like sleeping cats—I thought
why not build
with this
as the years got leaner and leaner
and the boards on windows I looked through
were torn at by breezes and typhoons,
sometimes pulled off by pianist's fingers and
doe-eyed promises. Saving relationships--
with my father, girl-dog, old car,
these boys that come to me all soft hands
and words that twist like willows
is a dusty age-long fight,
a journey by bus and foot pushing
a shopping cart, folks avoiding
your crusted crinkled eyes, and you trudge
up the road towards a dirt floor
and missing walls and sagging cross beams
and a single chair you could never find
a cushion for, thinking why am I trying
and how will I eat tomorrow,
staring at a pile of redwood planks
as boys leave helplessly,
wordlessly,
one by one.
Some step on nails,
some I send the dogs after.
They never think to bring tools
but termites, magpies come in their wake,
a reverse plague of reminders and constant cleaving.
When the fences go down
the houses will still
be falling, ravens always at the door
as I struggle to lift one
last beam
one steady once-tree
to keep the roof from caving...
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
"this is what summer should be"
a blackwinged brighthearted fairie ladygirl said about this poem... Not so sure.
-
deergirl summeride-
I know I'm free when I let the wind dry my hair on a sunset bike ride, some ghost-transplant from a mother-tea-tree-teacher time, a city truly connected finding roots in this sun-burn suburbs, let the summer storm air tie knots in my hair and leave them—as markers, a fence against fingers, tokens of a brook-smooth lightning-laced affection.
When the first thing
in my morning
is sleep.
Then sun-tea from stolen packets, my grandmother's glass jars.
That makes your face third— like bronze, like a charm— how I wish you were here, and not. How actuality ruins ideal; the sour taste of mixed teas steeped too long.
Know I'm free when the bike veers off the path as oleanders and jasmine sing my blood to summer and I feel no fear, only enchantment with the deadly fuschia blooms, only humble amusement at the wry twisting of my own course.
When my bike-body follows behind a young mother, quiet as Deer, her daughter smiling into my eyes just before I take that turn, around the twilight cedars, too quick for rational minds to catch. I'm a ghost, a deer-girl, the breeze gentler and sweeter on my shoulders—fuzzy nape of my neck—up those too-long-arms—gentler and sweeter than any touch yes even my own, and I wonder if you see me like that sometime—swift and dear and desirable, like a color or taste from childhood, a joy you could always feel—mother's first smile, your father's spicy-scented sweater you wore that first time to the coast, soft against six-year-old-skin, that decaying-salt-bright taste to ocean air familiar to you as cigarette smoke to me—how deep those images go—wool red, slate-gray mornings, freckled skin—I wonder,if that soul -secret isn't so much falling in love as it is chasing after it, some completeness we cannot name but even scientists pine for.
I know I'm free when I can see my beloved from across a meadow and pick my steps carefully (deer girl drawn to your salty skin, the grain of your bluesweet eyes, what salt waits behind them—vast, dry oceans my feet were made soft to cross) and I am still wary, no matter how much your dog-eyed soul tells me never fear, darling – rose and jasmine sing themselves under my skin a song of summertime without leashes, my tangled hair tying me to the foxtails, dry grass, fallen trees crisscrossing the meadows...
No matter how close I get I can never tell if there are ropes in your hands—I'm always prancing round, caught in some jewelled glass jar, anxieties hot from the sun, glass box of ideal and reality, sunset playing on the planes of your face like a running brook in my mind, a stream of things I wish were like the landscape flying by—deer-girl a ghost at your fingertips, mind far-flung even when our skin makes some wildflower palette put so close together—deer-girl almost out of reach, weighing jasmine blooms a cedar-rosemary-melody, a two-wheeled summer against a doe-eyed, fearful freedom...
-
deergirl summeride-
I know I'm free when I let the wind dry my hair on a sunset bike ride, some ghost-transplant from a mother-tea-tree-teacher time, a city truly connected finding roots in this sun-burn suburbs, let the summer storm air tie knots in my hair and leave them—as markers, a fence against fingers, tokens of a brook-smooth lightning-laced affection.
When the first thing
in my morning
is sleep.
Then sun-tea from stolen packets, my grandmother's glass jars.
That makes your face third— like bronze, like a charm— how I wish you were here, and not. How actuality ruins ideal; the sour taste of mixed teas steeped too long.
Know I'm free when the bike veers off the path as oleanders and jasmine sing my blood to summer and I feel no fear, only enchantment with the deadly fuschia blooms, only humble amusement at the wry twisting of my own course.
When my bike-body follows behind a young mother, quiet as Deer, her daughter smiling into my eyes just before I take that turn, around the twilight cedars, too quick for rational minds to catch. I'm a ghost, a deer-girl, the breeze gentler and sweeter on my shoulders—fuzzy nape of my neck—up those too-long-arms—gentler and sweeter than any touch yes even my own, and I wonder if you see me like that sometime—swift and dear and desirable, like a color or taste from childhood, a joy you could always feel—mother's first smile, your father's spicy-scented sweater you wore that first time to the coast, soft against six-year-old-skin, that decaying-salt-bright taste to ocean air familiar to you as cigarette smoke to me—how deep those images go—wool red, slate-gray mornings, freckled skin—I wonder,if that soul -secret isn't so much falling in love as it is chasing after it, some completeness we cannot name but even scientists pine for.
I know I'm free when I can see my beloved from across a meadow and pick my steps carefully (deer girl drawn to your salty skin, the grain of your bluesweet eyes, what salt waits behind them—vast, dry oceans my feet were made soft to cross) and I am still wary, no matter how much your dog-eyed soul tells me never fear, darling – rose and jasmine sing themselves under my skin a song of summertime without leashes, my tangled hair tying me to the foxtails, dry grass, fallen trees crisscrossing the meadows...
No matter how close I get I can never tell if there are ropes in your hands—I'm always prancing round, caught in some jewelled glass jar, anxieties hot from the sun, glass box of ideal and reality, sunset playing on the planes of your face like a running brook in my mind, a stream of things I wish were like the landscape flying by—deer-girl a ghost at your fingertips, mind far-flung even when our skin makes some wildflower palette put so close together—deer-girl almost out of reach, weighing jasmine blooms a cedar-rosemary-melody, a two-wheeled summer against a doe-eyed, fearful freedom...
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
yay genderlabel!
Hello I am |
activist, amorous, beautiful, big sister, blessed, brunette, confidant, Democrat, daughter, dominant, esoteric, female, female-souled, feminist, femme, friend, full of love, hippychick, intelligent, LGBTQIOPPS, lover, loving, man-loving, misstery, multifacetted, niece, outspoken, pan-romantic, panamorous, passionate, peopleemotional, peopleplatonic, peoplesexual, polycurious, priestess, pro-choice, pro-gay, pro-life, pro-sex feminist, queer liberationist, queer-friendly, queer-minded, quirkyalone, recreational gender blender, sacred whore, sapiosexual, self-defined, sex positive, sexy, she-geek, spiritual, survivor, switch, treehugger |
Who are you? |
After taking the "quiz" - mostly an interesting look into vocabulary and identity involving HELLA checkboxes - you can view the "who chose what" statistics. The interestingest thing I've done in a while - thanks to Sinclair for posting it!
Monday, May 11, 2009
women, poets: do not do this
“Do I fall for men not this girl’s father—as fuel? As a tonic for the waiting? As a way to ruin? As a way to subvert some painful remnant?
It is so easy to abandon the self—-as the lover becomes the constant daydream which life interrupts.”
From Kimiko Hahn’s “After Opening her Text” – from The Narrow Road to the Interior
Dammit, is there something on my skin?
Cut the mane, cut the cords, I look into menboys eyes
and see their soul, the space between Them and Everything,
like the emptiness between neurons—
love is a neurotransmitter of height, and bluebluesky,
and dark earth and skin-toned rainbows.
Love is the chain around my heart,
the locket that clicks: open, close,
swollen joints, like a bone spur, two synapses, a scent-memory…
The sea air in France.
Then San Francisco.
His cologne like redwood bark, sharp woody earth scent, soft as skin that’s never seen day.
Darlings need IVs of meaning into their energy ducts,
set their chakras spinning with wild food and OM and an open-eyed kiss.
They come giving me their feelings, their second thoughts,
and I don’t know what else to do but bury them.
Pick up the shovel and run. Send them back, reroute
faux passion: you think you can get that love from me?
Honey, you are higher than I thought.
Sink down, turn around, look to me for the road
but not it’s ending
both heart and hearth are in that pinpoint of life
that keeps you whirling like a pottery wheel,
you are the kenning and the poetry and the song that won’t stop singing.
Baby quit chasing me and take it straight—
I’m willow of wisp, I’m siren of the sick,
to fall in love with anyone but yourself is the ultimate sin,
put your hand in the fire and I vanish like dawn mists, like desire,
like smoke and your soul I am everything, nothing,
the spokes of the wheel and it’s ever-beginning—how can I inject this connection?
How to show you: run your hands down both our lengths and tell me they are not perfectly mirrored, that after wethey implode in a lightgasm of chance all is not rightfully balanced.
Close your eyes for two hours.
Bury yourself in a mountain.
Watch children, ocean waves, learn how to sew yourself up and roast good meat.
But I digress: think:
Priestess as psychologist?
My hormones are phosphorous
but darling you glow just as bright if you’d take those pennies off your eyes.
I can only sit back, assess, diagnose and confirm,
send you away with white bottles and smudge sticks and a message you may not even hear.
I can’t read for you, can’t dream for you, can’t fuck for you,
even from the couch you are sad enough to break my heart, but no…
Can love you, yes, but you’re choking on a culture that demands finding fullness in the other
and empty tv screens and blank hearts and hate,
spit it out and put something good in your mouth for once:
green clover,
the truly wanted, your lover,
yourself,
hold it there.
taste.
then relish the hollow in the back of your tongue, the lump In your throat.
Stop goddamn running and start godbless praying, baby, ask and ribbons will spring from your fingertips, bridges and railroad tracks and sturdy hands will grasp the farthest things, bright loving edges of a horizon, a fulfillment you thought you could never hold on to--
It is so easy to abandon the self—-as the lover becomes the constant daydream which life interrupts.”
From Kimiko Hahn’s “After Opening her Text” – from The Narrow Road to the Interior
Dammit, is there something on my skin?
Cut the mane, cut the cords, I look into menboys eyes
and see their soul, the space between Them and Everything,
like the emptiness between neurons—
love is a neurotransmitter of height, and bluebluesky,
and dark earth and skin-toned rainbows.
Love is the chain around my heart,
the locket that clicks: open, close,
swollen joints, like a bone spur, two synapses, a scent-memory…
The sea air in France.
Then San Francisco.
His cologne like redwood bark, sharp woody earth scent, soft as skin that’s never seen day.
Darlings need IVs of meaning into their energy ducts,
set their chakras spinning with wild food and OM and an open-eyed kiss.
They come giving me their feelings, their second thoughts,
and I don’t know what else to do but bury them.
Pick up the shovel and run. Send them back, reroute
faux passion: you think you can get that love from me?
Honey, you are higher than I thought.
Sink down, turn around, look to me for the road
but not it’s ending
both heart and hearth are in that pinpoint of life
that keeps you whirling like a pottery wheel,
you are the kenning and the poetry and the song that won’t stop singing.
Baby quit chasing me and take it straight—
I’m willow of wisp, I’m siren of the sick,
to fall in love with anyone but yourself is the ultimate sin,
put your hand in the fire and I vanish like dawn mists, like desire,
like smoke and your soul I am everything, nothing,
the spokes of the wheel and it’s ever-beginning—how can I inject this connection?
How to show you: run your hands down both our lengths and tell me they are not perfectly mirrored, that after wethey implode in a lightgasm of chance all is not rightfully balanced.
Close your eyes for two hours.
Bury yourself in a mountain.
Watch children, ocean waves, learn how to sew yourself up and roast good meat.
But I digress: think:
Priestess as psychologist?
My hormones are phosphorous
but darling you glow just as bright if you’d take those pennies off your eyes.
I can only sit back, assess, diagnose and confirm,
send you away with white bottles and smudge sticks and a message you may not even hear.
I can’t read for you, can’t dream for you, can’t fuck for you,
even from the couch you are sad enough to break my heart, but no…
Can love you, yes, but you’re choking on a culture that demands finding fullness in the other
and empty tv screens and blank hearts and hate,
spit it out and put something good in your mouth for once:
green clover,
the truly wanted, your lover,
yourself,
hold it there.
taste.
then relish the hollow in the back of your tongue, the lump In your throat.
Stop goddamn running and start godbless praying, baby, ask and ribbons will spring from your fingertips, bridges and railroad tracks and sturdy hands will grasp the farthest things, bright loving edges of a horizon, a fulfillment you thought you could never hold on to--
Sunday, May 3, 2009
naming the namer
names hold power - poets have often been called Namers in their archetypal work, in that they work with words, definitions, and the essence of things. in trying to work out my own identity, I first at what I call myself, and second at what others call me. This is a short piece based on that....
---
youngin', darlin'
tenderfoot
cries-like-a-girl, bookworm, fluatista, little one, fairy feet, eats-like-a-bird—-
((I wonder what that would mean now as I no longer fly fearful fleet as a 6 year olds are—still feather boned but not picking at my food and keeping to the flock – I tear into meat with a raptor’s beak and I am all eyes, I see, I devour.
I keep more
to myself.
Skillet, Kestrel
Tiger T-Sue T-Bird sweetling Teresita, treesaw
sweet pea, sweetheart, traysa, tres, tracer, Terese
longlegs, browneyes
sickie
sweet girl
angel, mine.
---
youngin', darlin'
tenderfoot
cries-like-a-girl, bookworm, fluatista, little one, fairy feet, eats-like-a-bird—-
((I wonder what that would mean now as I no longer fly fearful fleet as a 6 year olds are—still feather boned but not picking at my food and keeping to the flock – I tear into meat with a raptor’s beak and I am all eyes, I see, I devour.
I keep more
to myself.
Skillet, Kestrel
Tiger T-Sue T-Bird sweetling Teresita, treesaw
sweet pea, sweetheart, traysa, tres, tracer, Terese
longlegs, browneyes
sickie
sweet girl
angel, mine.
Friday, March 20, 2009
jar poem
poem that bubbled up from a friend's poetry and the fond memories I only barely have of "canning season". there seems to be a theme with putting puzzles pieces together. if only I could glue them in place.
---
His poetry right now is
a sweet sigh. In silk-steamy morning
light it shines sometimes, like
dewdrops that collect
then fall. such mundane breaking,
how we like to have things
put together— the simple contentment
of the top of a jar of jam—
that checker pattern
pulled tight.
crushed jewels of berries and
precious sugar, burnt fingers
steaming glass. poems that curve
like those jars—into my hands,
into the stinging water. My great-grandmother’s
recipe, elegant scrawl. It’s all
water-stained, worn to cloth, the
ruby-filled pot, cream paper,
the shining jars sitting on
my front step, waiting
to be taken, emptied, a sigh of ease
when the poem’s lid is tight.
Their gleaming sides studded with morning.
---
His poetry right now is
a sweet sigh. In silk-steamy morning
light it shines sometimes, like
dewdrops that collect
then fall. such mundane breaking,
how we like to have things
put together— the simple contentment
of the top of a jar of jam—
that checker pattern
pulled tight.
crushed jewels of berries and
precious sugar, burnt fingers
steaming glass. poems that curve
like those jars—into my hands,
into the stinging water. My great-grandmother’s
recipe, elegant scrawl. It’s all
water-stained, worn to cloth, the
ruby-filled pot, cream paper,
the shining jars sitting on
my front step, waiting
to be taken, emptied, a sigh of ease
when the poem’s lid is tight.
Their gleaming sides studded with morning.
in which the ocean crumbles
another "I have so much anxiety it sings me to insomnia" poem. I highly recommend Octavia Butler's "Parable of the Sower" if you want to experience the full-frontal panic-inducing apocalyptic beauty that brought this baby on.
A million times a day I go to touch myself—
hands warm from washing dishes,
the quick shower—
but forget, fingers poised partway
or find only slick ashes that stick
to your fingers, flake
into the measly dinner
my body a dogged reminder of
this constant cracking, crackling
the way glaciers slide of mountains
heavy, slow, and great.
Chaos is the whisper that begins
the cracking ice:
god is change. Conflict and order
yin and yang, here and not,
blank paper and that covered in
my shaky hand, blank face or
myself curled, sobbing –
A million times a day
I put a hand
to my own heart
as if to hush a child,
then remember—
what we learned that rainy Monday evening
that to suppress is to damage,
that to shush that I am
angry I am
stupid I am
afraid
Oh god how I hurt
is to press black memories into the muscles
like a branding iron—
hands sliding down my throat I remember
the ways to heal them—
shaking crying laughing
sweating talking raging
orgasm, I want to add to the list
on the board. Coming, and singing,
dancing, but my mouth makes no sound and the professor moves on.
I realize that we do these things
in the first six, crygasms and gigglefits
the song of soft talk and dance of your eyes,
when his face twists so angry I fear for
more things than usual.
I can’t bring myself to any of them.
Even the height of pleasure or the
low-slung weight of violation bring only
a fitful trying sleep and the welts
burn deeper, seep anew.
Black and white, yin and yang
conflict order—everything is
constantly falling apart—
schoolwork, poetry, my clothes
scattered like wind, money,
the tenuous threads of friendship,
when we hesitate to say love,
my health, my grandmother’s,
all our futures—
and I clasp it all together like hands
like ash being pulled by the wind
I grasp, it crumbles, I grasp
each morning and my breath
shatters the semblance of control
like ice in the leftover mug,
the maya I attatch to, illusion worth
breaking down for like when you
miss a lover’s hand on your stomach
in the icy dawn, to howl like ocean wind
for that regimented absence—
the same soda and vodka that
swirls in my grandfathers’ glass,
sea wind that braids herself
into me, urging my belly to soften
at each cresting wave,
sandcastles rising and melting again
but sometimes
it is too much
and the saltwater burns and my
bird-bones hate the riptide, the
winter sun of friend-family-heat is
so far away, too far for my
leaden legs and weighted heart
to push towards, like wheeling gulls
clean air, the blip of blue sky
as I scream ocean into my lungs and breathing
at once
doesn’t matter
and
is everything.
Everything
crumbles,
changes.
We build, it breaks, every minute
hour year second day every blink
and that is the only constant—that there are none.
I put my hand to my neck,
a thrumming necklace, the pressure
of possibility, a sweet
reminder - remember
to slow down,
catch up. Still no real release—
anxiety sits like a sunken ship
and fish nibble on worries
more ancient that this little body
of mine. What would it take—
warm hands on the skin,
lips against my curved shoulder
like blessing a ship’s prow—
to unlock it all— but still
there must be movement,
change; stillness
means sinking, means death.
There is no stopping.
Our blood will not always
beat in time, if this instant,
if at all, to kiss the thin skin
over my pulse is a plea, not a promise—
a question I can’t answer
in surety.
Waves recede eventually, and there
are branding irons, hammer-fists, at the bottom
of all the oceans,
waiting on every high ground.
The smallest mistake will undo me
into an unraveling fractal, uprooted oak—
a child’s hand-written note,
leaving a crisis at the doorway
a boy’s offhanded “hey, faggot”—
What I know I cannot save.
The same tears erupt when others echo
what my heart’s been singing, what I know
I can snatch away before it sinks.
Dialectical—two or more states
that cannot exist alone, that
reinforce each other. Conflict, order.
Father, son. Bitch, beautiful.
But do they necessitate? Can I ever just
breathe in, keep holding you, step
forward, swim upwards, grasp hands
like ropes and anchors?
Dialect varies by region, so what
are we speaking here, lips blue with cold wind,
what moon am I singing this to, what words
whispered against my salt-heavy skin
will bring a raging, shaking, healing sleep—
A million times a day I go to touch myself—
hands warm from washing dishes,
the quick shower—
but forget, fingers poised partway
or find only slick ashes that stick
to your fingers, flake
into the measly dinner
my body a dogged reminder of
this constant cracking, crackling
the way glaciers slide of mountains
heavy, slow, and great.
Chaos is the whisper that begins
the cracking ice:
god is change. Conflict and order
yin and yang, here and not,
blank paper and that covered in
my shaky hand, blank face or
myself curled, sobbing –
A million times a day
I put a hand
to my own heart
as if to hush a child,
then remember—
what we learned that rainy Monday evening
that to suppress is to damage,
that to shush that I am
angry I am
stupid I am
afraid
Oh god how I hurt
is to press black memories into the muscles
like a branding iron—
hands sliding down my throat I remember
the ways to heal them—
shaking crying laughing
sweating talking raging
orgasm, I want to add to the list
on the board. Coming, and singing,
dancing, but my mouth makes no sound and the professor moves on.
I realize that we do these things
in the first six, crygasms and gigglefits
the song of soft talk and dance of your eyes,
when his face twists so angry I fear for
more things than usual.
I can’t bring myself to any of them.
Even the height of pleasure or the
low-slung weight of violation bring only
a fitful trying sleep and the welts
burn deeper, seep anew.
Black and white, yin and yang
conflict order—everything is
constantly falling apart—
schoolwork, poetry, my clothes
scattered like wind, money,
the tenuous threads of friendship,
when we hesitate to say love,
my health, my grandmother’s,
all our futures—
and I clasp it all together like hands
like ash being pulled by the wind
I grasp, it crumbles, I grasp
each morning and my breath
shatters the semblance of control
like ice in the leftover mug,
the maya I attatch to, illusion worth
breaking down for like when you
miss a lover’s hand on your stomach
in the icy dawn, to howl like ocean wind
for that regimented absence—
the same soda and vodka that
swirls in my grandfathers’ glass,
sea wind that braids herself
into me, urging my belly to soften
at each cresting wave,
sandcastles rising and melting again
but sometimes
it is too much
and the saltwater burns and my
bird-bones hate the riptide, the
winter sun of friend-family-heat is
so far away, too far for my
leaden legs and weighted heart
to push towards, like wheeling gulls
clean air, the blip of blue sky
as I scream ocean into my lungs and breathing
at once
doesn’t matter
and
is everything.
Everything
crumbles,
changes.
We build, it breaks, every minute
hour year second day every blink
and that is the only constant—that there are none.
I put my hand to my neck,
a thrumming necklace, the pressure
of possibility, a sweet
reminder - remember
to slow down,
catch up. Still no real release—
anxiety sits like a sunken ship
and fish nibble on worries
more ancient that this little body
of mine. What would it take—
warm hands on the skin,
lips against my curved shoulder
like blessing a ship’s prow—
to unlock it all— but still
there must be movement,
change; stillness
means sinking, means death.
There is no stopping.
Our blood will not always
beat in time, if this instant,
if at all, to kiss the thin skin
over my pulse is a plea, not a promise—
a question I can’t answer
in surety.
Waves recede eventually, and there
are branding irons, hammer-fists, at the bottom
of all the oceans,
waiting on every high ground.
The smallest mistake will undo me
into an unraveling fractal, uprooted oak—
a child’s hand-written note,
leaving a crisis at the doorway
a boy’s offhanded “hey, faggot”—
What I know I cannot save.
The same tears erupt when others echo
what my heart’s been singing, what I know
I can snatch away before it sinks.
Dialectical—two or more states
that cannot exist alone, that
reinforce each other. Conflict, order.
Father, son. Bitch, beautiful.
But do they necessitate? Can I ever just
breathe in, keep holding you, step
forward, swim upwards, grasp hands
like ropes and anchors?
Dialect varies by region, so what
are we speaking here, lips blue with cold wind,
what moon am I singing this to, what words
whispered against my salt-heavy skin
will bring a raging, shaking, healing sleep—
Saturday, February 14, 2009
self-love day 09
Like a lot of single
Today is Self-Love day, and I've spent it helping elementary schoolers with science projects, falling more in love with this city, and getting my Shakespeare gender-bender on in true queer-English-geek form. And of course, memeing. (es de daisy, one of the upper echelon of awesome blogistas in my life.)
Self Love Day 09!
1.) Post one of them thar banners on your blog and declare February 14th as the day you not only love your one and only, but the day that you love yourself!
2.) Post one nice thing about yourself……then ask others to post one thing that they really like about you.
3.) Enjoy yourself!
So, something nice about myself:
This sounds arrogant, cliche, hella Xian, or all of the above, but: my faith will get me through so, so much. It seems strange to me when people say "My faith got me through it", as though it's a last resort or a crutch, as though life wasn't made of faith. I sometimes feel like I've got an umbilical cord to the Universe, providing a context and Eagle's eyes for all of my actions. It's a weight sometimes, especially in this culture, but always a blessing. My faith doesn't get me through things, it pulls me to them, the one untangled thread in the loom of crazy that sometimes inhabits my brain.
Also, petty-nice thing--I think I have really, really pretty hair.
Now is the time to ask--any lurkers have nice things to say about me, themselves, the universe, etc ad inf? Do so :) Mwah!-mwah!s to all my relations. -t
Friday, February 13, 2009
token 4th wave ode to my stretch marks
token 4th wave feminist tribute to my stretch marks
or
what they don't tell you:
-------------
they will fade.
first blood’s red
then pink
rose
silver
boys get them, too.
they come back.
deepen,
move with you
diminish
rise and fall like the tide,
daily scratches on a cave wall
Nobody good
will turn from them.
Not in locker rooms,
slumber parties,
fittings, yoga class,
the bedroom
your local gym
The fading light softens
our skin transluscent and
he draws his head down
towards mine, eyes creased
with worry and wonder—
Did they hurt? He asks and I
bite back a laugh at his somberness,
fingers eking out mysteries
from these divine/benign welts
No, never, I whisper, smiling
though everything else
did—these are reminders
of those growing seasons
that stretching and soft breaking
and melding together again
like beachside salt-water taffy
fit into too-neat wax paper
left in the sun to weep
cherry tears, melting in
some boys mouth,
bluntly spit out—
until you realize as that first
real lover
kisses each scar
that jock was too young for you anyway, you really like girls, father was a terrible communicator, boys are really hot, romance is everywhere, marriage is overrated, mother was right, poetry means ecstasy, buy it if it’s on sale:
the universe cheers for you
if you just close your lips
and listen to the creaking sound of growth:
the way their eyes widen as you unbutton.
one of your sighs.
His fingers on you, lightly, again
that astonished murmur
as you lose yourselves to lust
Can’t believe you didn’t feel
any of this—Oh, sweetheart
you have no idea—
they are just scars, to him. Yours,
which make them all the more
wonderous, but still. Simply
what was once whole.
One woman called them her minnows,
a flock of ever-fleeing silver
spinning through her body.
Another, fingerprints
place-markers on hips,
breasts, back, for where
her wife’s hands should be because
partnerships means sharing the dead weight
you thought you’d be carrying
your whole life alone,
sharing of the skin-gifts that
with a mirror, a certain skirt or tie,
made your eyes flash and
your heart grin,
limbs that made life with yourself
a little less lonely.
For now he traces the
small weights of my breasts—
pears beneath the skin
new-soft with spring but marked
with weather and wear—
he’s still hesitant,
heart measuring my words against
the nerve-endings, surface area
high school anatomy classes
and filched copies of Maxim
One day he’ll see his
bus driver’s stomach swell
like summer berries, her
soft smile as she punches his ticket.
he’ll study
his elder patient’s shoulders
his spine peppered with dimples
stretch marks from a 10th grade
growth spurt, pretend to
test his spine as they talk basketball—
he’ll remember at 17
the cramped back of the station wagon
how every girl’s scars sparkled
under the yellow streetlamp.
her body slack from want and innocence
the same way his wife
rolls out of their bed, unaware
of the graceful coordination between
solid calves and sloping neck and
milk-heavy breasts—
worries weighed in their lank hair
and sleep-soft eyes as she
stretches, nude,
life-scarred body extended in desire
for the top shelf,
an old college t-shirt.
he’ll realize in the waiting room
the steamy frontseat
amidst the warm, worn sheets
and you won’t have to
spell the words
with his fingers
on your stomach
you won’t
have to tell
him a thing—
or
what they don't tell you:
-------------
they will fade.
first blood’s red
then pink
rose
silver
boys get them, too.
they come back.
deepen,
move with you
diminish
rise and fall like the tide,
daily scratches on a cave wall
Nobody good
will turn from them.
Not in locker rooms,
slumber parties,
fittings, yoga class,
the bedroom
your local gym
The fading light softens
our skin transluscent and
he draws his head down
towards mine, eyes creased
with worry and wonder—
Did they hurt? He asks and I
bite back a laugh at his somberness,
fingers eking out mysteries
from these divine/benign welts
No, never, I whisper, smiling
though everything else
did—these are reminders
of those growing seasons
that stretching and soft breaking
and melding together again
like beachside salt-water taffy
fit into too-neat wax paper
left in the sun to weep
cherry tears, melting in
some boys mouth,
bluntly spit out—
until you realize as that first
real lover
kisses each scar
that jock was too young for you anyway, you really like girls, father was a terrible communicator, boys are really hot, romance is everywhere, marriage is overrated, mother was right, poetry means ecstasy, buy it if it’s on sale:
the universe cheers for you
if you just close your lips
and listen to the creaking sound of growth:
the way their eyes widen as you unbutton.
one of your sighs.
His fingers on you, lightly, again
that astonished murmur
as you lose yourselves to lust
Can’t believe you didn’t feel
any of this—Oh, sweetheart
you have no idea—
they are just scars, to him. Yours,
which make them all the more
wonderous, but still. Simply
what was once whole.
One woman called them her minnows,
a flock of ever-fleeing silver
spinning through her body.
Another, fingerprints
place-markers on hips,
breasts, back, for where
her wife’s hands should be because
partnerships means sharing the dead weight
you thought you’d be carrying
your whole life alone,
sharing of the skin-gifts that
with a mirror, a certain skirt or tie,
made your eyes flash and
your heart grin,
limbs that made life with yourself
a little less lonely.
For now he traces the
small weights of my breasts—
pears beneath the skin
new-soft with spring but marked
with weather and wear—
he’s still hesitant,
heart measuring my words against
the nerve-endings, surface area
high school anatomy classes
and filched copies of Maxim
One day he’ll see his
bus driver’s stomach swell
like summer berries, her
soft smile as she punches his ticket.
he’ll study
his elder patient’s shoulders
his spine peppered with dimples
stretch marks from a 10th grade
growth spurt, pretend to
test his spine as they talk basketball—
he’ll remember at 17
the cramped back of the station wagon
how every girl’s scars sparkled
under the yellow streetlamp.
her body slack from want and innocence
the same way his wife
rolls out of their bed, unaware
of the graceful coordination between
solid calves and sloping neck and
milk-heavy breasts—
worries weighed in their lank hair
and sleep-soft eyes as she
stretches, nude,
life-scarred body extended in desire
for the top shelf,
an old college t-shirt.
he’ll realize in the waiting room
the steamy frontseat
amidst the warm, worn sheets
and you won’t have to
spell the words
with his fingers
on your stomach
you won’t
have to tell
him a thing—
Saturday, November 1, 2008
a response to: people who say I worry to much
for acs
to worry for her,
einstien of strings and written word,
is to fall into a groove--my addiction to
defending what I hold dear.
A high school career spent in
worry and wonder,
my stomach flips when her parents name
flashes on the caller id
hoping it isn't time yet...
it's a habit habit habit I can't break--
spent hours last night staring at
our empty phones,
the clock in my head - 12 1 2 3 - he whispers in the dark
she hasn't come back yet
what are we afraid to say?
her mother at my doorstep,
have you seen her
our worries twin in the gray morning light.
teenage frantic phone calls,
clawing myself apart with anxiety
fear of and for another's life -
mis conmigos family of soul energy
intertwined like branches and shared sweatpants
all our mugs filled with bitter coffee.
always those I turn to, those I think I can walk away from -
how far would I have to go -
the reason I no longer need Adonis,
no more honey-eyed savior-heartbreakers for me--
Only my firefly self and lightbright friends
Listen:
if you found your wolf-spined lady,
your lion-eyed summerlovergirl
woke without them
what would you do at midnight?
spent last night dreaming of
the dark rain world outside,
a night haunted by men worser for
the year's wear
our naivete
what I should've done - should have asked for numbers,
called the house,
should have given her my pepper spray -
pray and how close those words sound
both defense and plea
my fire-souled manic girl of stringed things
would you have loved yourself a little more
if I had said it sooner?
better safe than sorry darlings -
how to say or show it? I love you and
I don't think I can ever worry enough--
to worry for her,
einstien of strings and written word,
is to fall into a groove--my addiction to
defending what I hold dear.
A high school career spent in
worry and wonder,
my stomach flips when her parents name
flashes on the caller id
hoping it isn't time yet...
it's a habit habit habit I can't break--
spent hours last night staring at
our empty phones,
the clock in my head - 12 1 2 3 - he whispers in the dark
she hasn't come back yet
what are we afraid to say?
her mother at my doorstep,
have you seen her
our worries twin in the gray morning light.
teenage frantic phone calls,
clawing myself apart with anxiety
fear of and for another's life -
mis conmigos family of soul energy
intertwined like branches and shared sweatpants
all our mugs filled with bitter coffee.
always those I turn to, those I think I can walk away from -
how far would I have to go -
the reason I no longer need Adonis,
no more honey-eyed savior-heartbreakers for me--
Only my firefly self and lightbright friends
Listen:
if you found your wolf-spined lady,
your lion-eyed summerlovergirl
woke without them
what would you do at midnight?
spent last night dreaming of
the dark rain world outside,
a night haunted by men worser for
the year's wear
our naivete
what I should've done - should have asked for numbers,
called the house,
should have given her my pepper spray -
pray and how close those words sound
both defense and plea
my fire-souled manic girl of stringed things
would you have loved yourself a little more
if I had said it sooner?
better safe than sorry darlings -
how to say or show it? I love you and
I don't think I can ever worry enough--
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Paralyzing Commonsense
"The paralyzing commonsense notion that everyone,
even the most radical of the radical, plays a role in the status quo
hides the subversive possibility that all of us--even the radicals--
can refuse our roles." - rtmag
A lot of stuff that's been buzzing in my head lately in terms of society has been voiced in the issues of "Rolling Thunder". The articles are incredibly interesting, and I suggest at least downloading the PDFs of out-of-print issues, if not buying the current ones.
This "Anarchist Journal of Dangerous Living" states (in Issue 2 available on PDF) that the only way to make a difference in society is to break from it's ranks - but that's not where S/He/It has directed me. Or has it? To most of "me", it doesn't make sense to change a society from the outside. Obviously we/I cannot mentally subscribe to culture/society if we want to break free from it, but can you really affect a huge change in something you're not invested in?
It really makes me take a look at my life from the witness point of view - I recently overcame a big ol' inner crisis regarding whether to continue my college education and what to study. I suppose that's all up for debate at any time (re: financial ability) but for now I'm here at school, making the most of the system while not locking myself into it. Just reading the "mission" statement makes me take a second (third POV?) look at my Self: as a student, consumer, queer, artist, lover, yogi, and woman. In simple identity--even choosing to NOT identify--how much am I a head in the rotation?
And while anarchy may strike me as a particularly angry and destructive way of reform, aren't rage and destruction part of the balance as much as creation and love?
As always, I mentally wobble between "I have no idea; I don't know" and "I have every idea in the world, I definitely know everything I will ever need". In words I cannot form yet, I know that on some level they are the same.
photo courtesy of xXPunk_14_AngelXx's photobucket. (Hah - ironic, I know.)
Saturday, October 11, 2008
autumn autumn autumn pt 6 million
Cinder and smokethe wind curls around the trees
the juniper bends
as if it were listening
I eat wind like hot honey. My sisters are writing about their season, our season: colors turning like flames, russet, gold, a brown sweeter than any boy’s eyes… I could dance naked in falling leaves, warmed by the trees with their crinkling summer coat, burning breathing what we wrote, high on pine needles beneath my feet. Folk singer’s guitar blends into itself, the same sadness: a city Fall is only smog, fog and peacoats and romance like cigarettes. I’m longing for bonfires the way I used to long for boys, heavy drums that rattle my ribs, to let autumn winds lift my feet off the ground and the night’s breathe move me like the top of a cedar…
Cinder and smoke
you ask me to pray for rain
with ash in your mouth
you’ll ask it to burn again…
Tonight we followed the ghost drums: out the dorm window, down yellow lit walks, past the empty auditorium, doors open, curtains dark… I’ve never noticed the way it is never night here, the way streetlights show the trees: ominous, unnatural wood mountains amidst steel and concrete… The sky is a strange composite, like me, of city and wild—there may be few stars, but you can’t take away that velvet blue, a soft inviting darkness, not the shadows of the tree against the sky, or the way every sound breaks loud and drifts up only to be lost in the void. But there’s still that everpresent streetlamp or car, everything lit from below, an amber darkening…
We found the drums in a gym, along with a vocalist and small ensemble of dancers. By day I would have mistaken any of them for a half-urban punk or another indie-jock… But here they were one, something both different and deeply primal. There was a man holding a bongolike drum, and a vocalist wailing Arabic or Farsi or some other language I must learn simply because of its age… And along with them, four men: jumping, clapping, dancing, all in time, the hypnotic tattoo punctuated by ay ay ays, their movements free and synced and amazing. I’ve come a long way in my poetry, but never enough to describe music… And this: this was bonfire music, nighdark barefoot, wailing and godsex and a people and war and a fierce, fierce joy. I don’t know if it had anything to do with Ramadan, or perhaps an Indian holiday? I know that I was the only woman there, without color, and that all I wanted to do was jump out of my skin, my bones singing like antennae and cattails and violin strings, how I’ve missed drums and rhythm….
Cinder and smoke
The snake in the basement found
The juniper shade
The farmhouse is burning down
So, this is our season, sister lovers... First Virgo, the grounding and the harvest, then Libra, the balance and thanksgiving, then Scorpio, the death, the birth, the reflection we take after the ghosts drift up, trying to remember themselves. Autumn makes me sing, to fly into winterdeath like a war eagle and come out in spring: on fire, to burn and go down in flames the next time the grasses dry.
In this city I dream of a cottage in green, to make good potions and cast circles and runes, to walk the woods barefoot in love. I sleep naked to feel skin on skin, that burning. I read the Wiccan Rede 13 times just for the rhyme and ancientness of it, ask the cedar tree to remember its home and maybe give me a little taste of those mountains, there’s a bonfire burning in my heart and blood is the drum. My lover and I circle it, high on the bone beat, madly in lust with everything that’s bright; I know them from somewhere long ago and ahead… We dance around this earthen star, heady with the balance and the change, building up the flame… For when others settle down to sleep we dance, we burn with winter and awaken the fire in the pines, the heart, the pen...
photo courtesy of http://www.albertdirectory.net 2001 photo contest - "winter fire stand"
song from sam beam's/iron&wine "cinder and smoke"
Monday, October 6, 2008
Constructing the "I"
What makes you fall in love with yourself?
(This may sound like the same question, but it's not: What makes [made] you fall in love with me?)
How do you prove yourself to yourself? To others?
My answer: I don't know yet, specifically. In my own mind I am an energy, a taste, a be-ing, but I think of specific things: my poetry, the sweetness of my own skin, a desire to serve, good listening skills... it's good, but am I really in love with it?
It's ironic that when in love with another (or as "another" we can be) things to adore just bubble up, but how often do we do this for ourselves?
So what makes you unique to you, what makes sends you head over heels everytime you look in the mirror?
I have no idea how this relates to our current reading, "The Tale of Genji" by Lady Murasaki, but it was what we discussed in my humanities seminar today. Interesting as all hell.
(This may sound like the same question, but it's not: What makes [made] you fall in love with me?)
How do you prove yourself to yourself? To others?
My answer: I don't know yet, specifically. In my own mind I am an energy, a taste, a be-ing, but I think of specific things: my poetry, the sweetness of my own skin, a desire to serve, good listening skills... it's good, but am I really in love with it?
It's ironic that when in love with another (or as "another" we can be) things to adore just bubble up, but how often do we do this for ourselves?
So what makes you unique to you, what makes sends you head over heels everytime you look in the mirror?
I have no idea how this relates to our current reading, "The Tale of Genji" by Lady Murasaki, but it was what we discussed in my humanities seminar today. Interesting as all hell.
Saturday, October 4, 2008
autumn autumn autumn
Oh, this season I was born in- coming back around to help me remember because heartbreak can take so much from you." (davka
)
These days I am high and beautiful and shining like topaz, hair bright as tiger's eye, soul glistening like magnetic slick-night hematite....
Samhain comes 7 days before my birthday - a week before 16 I finally let the life of Jesus slide off my shoulders and took on Their Mantle. The deepest part of me knew he had been a good man, a real person of God/s and that I wasn't doomed to hell (though I still had anxiety attacks about that fact for a few years.) Four years ago this fall I watched my own face in front of a mirror at midnight, lit only by candles, and was in love with the mysteries of Life and the Earth and my own candlebright autumnbronze self. Glowing, I spoke with my grandparents and great grandparents and the many mothers before me, asked them for guidance and blessings, and the flames guttered and danced in response. Every year, by candlelight, I draw cards or cast runes for the new year. We are so beautiful by candlelight, I thought, lit by heat that sleeps in our eyes. We glow.
I probably won't be able to do that this year, but I have finally set up an altar of sorts in front of the mirror in my room. Autumn is a nesting time for me: I long to can fruits and reap harvests and sing in the moonlight with my coven people, my urban tribe, I want to dust and sweep and pull out the down comforters... This year I am stuck in a no-open-flame dorm room. I guess I'll settle for naps in my shawl's scratchy wool, remembering the tongue of flames against my hypnotized hands and face, that heat, the ribbons of dusty smoke curling towards the rafters...
)These days I am high and beautiful and shining like topaz, hair bright as tiger's eye, soul glistening like magnetic slick-night hematite....
Samhain comes 7 days before my birthday - a week before 16 I finally let the life of Jesus slide off my shoulders and took on Their Mantle. The deepest part of me knew he had been a good man, a real person of God/s and that I wasn't doomed to hell (though I still had anxiety attacks about that fact for a few years.) Four years ago this fall I watched my own face in front of a mirror at midnight, lit only by candles, and was in love with the mysteries of Life and the Earth and my own candlebright autumnbronze self. Glowing, I spoke with my grandparents and great grandparents and the many mothers before me, asked them for guidance and blessings, and the flames guttered and danced in response. Every year, by candlelight, I draw cards or cast runes for the new year. We are so beautiful by candlelight, I thought, lit by heat that sleeps in our eyes. We glow.
I probably won't be able to do that this year, but I have finally set up an altar of sorts in front of the mirror in my room. Autumn is a nesting time for me: I long to can fruits and reap harvests and sing in the moonlight with my coven people, my urban tribe, I want to dust and sweep and pull out the down comforters... This year I am stuck in a no-open-flame dorm room. I guess I'll settle for naps in my shawl's scratchy wool, remembering the tongue of flames against my hypnotized hands and face, that heat, the ribbons of dusty smoke curling towards the rafters...
First Rains
First rains of fall are here in the South Bay! Happy new year!
The moment I noticed the rain falling I threw on the least amount of clothes possible (ie less to dry) and headed downstairs. It feels so real and right, to be soaked through and shivering along with the juniper and the pepper trees. And yeah, I’m in the middle of a city, and it’s probably acid rain, and I’m probably going to wake up tomorrow with extra eyes or toes, but it is worth it for the cleansing.
This is when the real Autumn begins. I miss the Falls of home, water running down the hills in rivulets, the culverts full and gurgling… Pulling on a yellow raincoat and too-big boots to slip and slide up the Little Hill behind the house, my hand small against the rough rusted water tank. Slopping through 2 feet of mud in the barnyard to get to whatever animals in the corral, the heady-earth scent of wet horse- and cowflesh slick against my cheek…
I grew up on a cattle ranch, where drought meant so much more than letting the front lawn go a little brown. The months leading up to the rains were full of worry, of “navy showers” and my father and grandfather checking the sunrise, the cloudfall, riding out on the quad each day to make sure the cows and calves had made it to water. Some days they brought back little black bodies of calves that laid down in the hot sun and never got up. The first rain would bring a little relief, a short coat of grass for the hills, and prayers for a wet winter.
We don’t do it for the money – my family works hard to barely break even every year … I’m not sure each family member’s individual reasons: it’s been tradition for the past hundred years, the need to be close to the land, that if we sold out our 80 acres would become a landfill and cookie-cutter houses. We’re stewards of the land and cattle, and if it means going a little thirsty, letting the lawn wither, that is fine. Putting something both higher and equal – the earth, innocent animals, the grass and the eagles—before yourself is a powerful thing.
When I’m waiting at the busstop after work soaked to the skin, or get my books wet on the way to class, I’m still going to thank the universe for this rain. Though this water may be poison or polluted, the earth is still trying to get her cycles back in order and I am so thankful for it, even as I dance between raindrops and feel my soul filling up like a crystal glass, even as my Self drinks her fill and the gutters gurgle and run overflowing…
The moment I noticed the rain falling I threw on the least amount of clothes possible (ie less to dry) and headed downstairs. It feels so real and right, to be soaked through and shivering along with the juniper and the pepper trees. And yeah, I’m in the middle of a city, and it’s probably acid rain, and I’m probably going to wake up tomorrow with extra eyes or toes, but it is worth it for the cleansing.
This is when the real Autumn begins. I miss the Falls of home, water running down the hills in rivulets, the culverts full and gurgling… Pulling on a yellow raincoat and too-big boots to slip and slide up the Little Hill behind the house, my hand small against the rough rusted water tank. Slopping through 2 feet of mud in the barnyard to get to whatever animals in the corral, the heady-earth scent of wet horse- and cowflesh slick against my cheek…
I grew up on a cattle ranch, where drought meant so much more than letting the front lawn go a little brown. The months leading up to the rains were full of worry, of “navy showers” and my father and grandfather checking the sunrise, the cloudfall, riding out on the quad each day to make sure the cows and calves had made it to water. Some days they brought back little black bodies of calves that laid down in the hot sun and never got up. The first rain would bring a little relief, a short coat of grass for the hills, and prayers for a wet winter.
We don’t do it for the money – my family works hard to barely break even every year … I’m not sure each family member’s individual reasons: it’s been tradition for the past hundred years, the need to be close to the land, that if we sold out our 80 acres would become a landfill and cookie-cutter houses. We’re stewards of the land and cattle, and if it means going a little thirsty, letting the lawn wither, that is fine. Putting something both higher and equal – the earth, innocent animals, the grass and the eagles—before yourself is a powerful thing.
When I’m waiting at the busstop after work soaked to the skin, or get my books wet on the way to class, I’m still going to thank the universe for this rain. Though this water may be poison or polluted, the earth is still trying to get her cycles back in order and I am so thankful for it, even as I dance between raindrops and feel my soul filling up like a crystal glass, even as my Self drinks her fill and the gutters gurgle and run overflowing…
Sunday, September 28, 2008
when it rains it pours, part II
these days I smell of darkness, the dank new earth—
whiskey sweat, melted butter. sweetness left to age.
these dorm halls are caves, but why I chose this tall building
in my hotbox cell I wake moist, every time
blissful alone warmness, only my throat rasping dry—
boy leaves room as I walk by from brushing my teeth
(communal bathrooms, mock intimacy, irony trails..)
I hear his tongue on his lips, words rolled around
in his teeth, wet, skin dark for one so young.
What did she say she found here—“This place is
a suckhole for subarbia”, and I know that’s what
shycasual boy is thinking, his room across the way from mine—
my soul stretched beyond injustice this town, these kids can feel—
wait
when did I become her? the girl with hips and the mystery,
woman of closed doors and eyes that reflect the fires under our feet—
the girl
boys
want. What happened, love? Who changed?
The honeyhaired child you fell for?
Unafraid of big love and frightened of fire? Now, the opposite—
If we met again, (meet) still don’t know what I do. I imagine it
most days: you invade, dumb predetor
seeking something deeper than jaguar's teeth you wear. my tongue lashes.
Goddamit, heart says, you hurt me.
Every boy I know would be so surprised,
not at the strength,
but those passions. the way I sweat malt whiskey,
love that smell of tobacco in his t-shirt,
need to sleep and seek caves. that depth.
I’m still not sure how they’d feel
about the wounds behind it.
whiskey sweat, melted butter. sweetness left to age.
these dorm halls are caves, but why I chose this tall building
in my hotbox cell I wake moist, every time
blissful alone warmness, only my throat rasping dry—
boy leaves room as I walk by from brushing my teeth
(communal bathrooms, mock intimacy, irony trails..)
I hear his tongue on his lips, words rolled around
in his teeth, wet, skin dark for one so young.
What did she say she found here—“This place is
a suckhole for subarbia”, and I know that’s what
shycasual boy is thinking, his room across the way from mine—
my soul stretched beyond injustice this town, these kids can feel—
wait
when did I become her? the girl with hips and the mystery,
woman of closed doors and eyes that reflect the fires under our feet—
the girl
boys
want. What happened, love? Who changed?
The honeyhaired child you fell for?
Unafraid of big love and frightened of fire? Now, the opposite—
If we met again, (meet) still don’t know what I do. I imagine it
most days: you invade, dumb predetor
seeking something deeper than jaguar's teeth you wear. my tongue lashes.
Goddamit, heart says, you hurt me.
Every boy I know would be so surprised,
not at the strength,
but those passions. the way I sweat malt whiskey,
love that smell of tobacco in his t-shirt,
need to sleep and seek caves. that depth.
I’m still not sure how they’d feel
about the wounds behind it.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
remove, rewind, slow motion
Poem taken down for two really good reasons:
This girl
helped to create
this mag.
It looks like good times. I'm pretty excited!
(thanks to davka for the heads up... Tomorrow I get to sit through three student assemblies and story-times, so I'm heading to bed... I haven't even started it, but I love my job. :)
This girl
helped to create
this mag.
It looks like good times. I'm pretty excited!
(thanks to davka for the heads up... Tomorrow I get to sit through three student assemblies and story-times, so I'm heading to bed... I haven't even started it, but I love my job. :)
Paths and Standards (whilst chanelling Pinkola Estes)
I will not brush my hair for you. I will not pull these haphazard waves into a smoothshiny sleekness, I will not put my mane under wraps. I will not press a pillow over the face of my hips and thighs so that I sway to your liking, will not take down the talk for you, will not wear heels to make my ass and back tight for you, I will not unfurrow my brow or unarrow my eyes or sheath my claws: I will not do anything that you wouldn’t do for me.
City-living is far more like a jungle than I’ve realized—I’m learning when to keep my shades on, when to look him in the eyes, when to run, to stride back…. Whether to judge a man by his gender or to trust, or to keep my head bent forward like he isn’t there. It’s like I’ve been walking this line all my life, blind, and now my eyes are open: when to turn on the impassivity, the knowledge of whom I can’t pin to the ground, that I have just as much right to be here—this dorm floor, this sidewalk, this classroom, this dark street—as you do. When to open those buffalo eyes their way, to open up enough that divine light can stretch from my eyes to theirs, like morning glory vines, the way smoke longs for the heights of the sky. When to defend and when to heal. Can you do both at once? Yes, yes, you must, something tells me. The same thing that tells me what girl has got her claws sheathed, when to go to bed, whether the shadow in my room is from moonlight or something far darker.
Something drew me to this city—instinct, my gut, my third eye seeing the poverty and injustice that lies wherever there concrete and cars outnumber life forms. The city that ties it’s Monterrey Oaks to stand upright, the city that just now finds it’s community gardens full of mercury and lead. The city that is the stage for immigrant rallies and Ginsberg and revolution…I know my calling is here, but what for, exactly? And how long? How long before my heart calls me back to the hills, to the sharpness of ground and true prairie-gold winds?
I’m not saying I don’t love it here—I’m walking my path, but I know it’s not the only path I could take. My life’s work, in my mind, was always a specific scientific computation: take path that offers maximum help to maximum people. Now, now it is more complicated: Where, exactly? Low-income housing? Veggielution? Immigrant education? Health education? Women’s rights? Advocate for battered women? I don’t know, I don’t really have a set of interests, except in the LBGT area… Social work has so many opportunities that the only way I’ll know is if I work in every one of them.
And then there are men. Oh, men, oh, boys. Boys make me forget my wild-womaness, my night-eyesight and my integrity. Boys make me want to frolic and laugh and forget, but I can’t: the lake of my soul reaches to earth’s corners, I get my fire from her roiling depths, so how can I forget her call? The boy-men here, I want them, but get to close and they scare me into running, fleeing without my claws and big-toothed-grace, tripping over roots in the night…. Alone, night, again.
But somethought bubbles up, lapping at the shore in waves: need, want, need, want, the three layers of myself: the lake, the trees, the sky. Water sinks as low as it can, as close as it can, seeps into earth like a lover; and sky, the wind of the mind flows confident as a stream, but the trees in between? My soul is in the earth and I cherish her like a lover, and my self, well, I love it too and am confident in my own being, but isn’t there something… closer? Something between self-love and earth-love? That missing piece sings in the trees a lonely song, the way redwoods do when their roots find nothing to cling to. There are only boy-men here, nothing substantive, but still my nose twitches and I find myself hunting, falling, forgetting… Cycle cycle spiral, samsara, great wheel, big red road…
My footprints sing my four directions song, my uncut mane whispers which way the wind blows, which turn is the instinct of my heart and my lust longs for her other and the horizon is but a haze, I can do nothing but follow that call…
City-living is far more like a jungle than I’ve realized—I’m learning when to keep my shades on, when to look him in the eyes, when to run, to stride back…. Whether to judge a man by his gender or to trust, or to keep my head bent forward like he isn’t there. It’s like I’ve been walking this line all my life, blind, and now my eyes are open: when to turn on the impassivity, the knowledge of whom I can’t pin to the ground, that I have just as much right to be here—this dorm floor, this sidewalk, this classroom, this dark street—as you do. When to open those buffalo eyes their way, to open up enough that divine light can stretch from my eyes to theirs, like morning glory vines, the way smoke longs for the heights of the sky. When to defend and when to heal. Can you do both at once? Yes, yes, you must, something tells me. The same thing that tells me what girl has got her claws sheathed, when to go to bed, whether the shadow in my room is from moonlight or something far darker.
Something drew me to this city—instinct, my gut, my third eye seeing the poverty and injustice that lies wherever there concrete and cars outnumber life forms. The city that ties it’s Monterrey Oaks to stand upright, the city that just now finds it’s community gardens full of mercury and lead. The city that is the stage for immigrant rallies and Ginsberg and revolution…I know my calling is here, but what for, exactly? And how long? How long before my heart calls me back to the hills, to the sharpness of ground and true prairie-gold winds?
I’m not saying I don’t love it here—I’m walking my path, but I know it’s not the only path I could take. My life’s work, in my mind, was always a specific scientific computation: take path that offers maximum help to maximum people. Now, now it is more complicated: Where, exactly? Low-income housing? Veggielution? Immigrant education? Health education? Women’s rights? Advocate for battered women? I don’t know, I don’t really have a set of interests, except in the LBGT area… Social work has so many opportunities that the only way I’ll know is if I work in every one of them.
And then there are men. Oh, men, oh, boys. Boys make me forget my wild-womaness, my night-eyesight and my integrity. Boys make me want to frolic and laugh and forget, but I can’t: the lake of my soul reaches to earth’s corners, I get my fire from her roiling depths, so how can I forget her call? The boy-men here, I want them, but get to close and they scare me into running, fleeing without my claws and big-toothed-grace, tripping over roots in the night…. Alone, night, again.
But somethought bubbles up, lapping at the shore in waves: need, want, need, want, the three layers of myself: the lake, the trees, the sky. Water sinks as low as it can, as close as it can, seeps into earth like a lover; and sky, the wind of the mind flows confident as a stream, but the trees in between? My soul is in the earth and I cherish her like a lover, and my self, well, I love it too and am confident in my own being, but isn’t there something… closer? Something between self-love and earth-love? That missing piece sings in the trees a lonely song, the way redwoods do when their roots find nothing to cling to. There are only boy-men here, nothing substantive, but still my nose twitches and I find myself hunting, falling, forgetting… Cycle cycle spiral, samsara, great wheel, big red road…
My footprints sing my four directions song, my uncut mane whispers which way the wind blows, which turn is the instinct of my heart and my lust longs for her other and the horizon is but a haze, I can do nothing but follow that call…
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Dream, when the day is through...
This beautiful family is what I want to dobehopeforstrivefor. I'm happy for others who experience happiness and contentment, in any way, but to me, this family is IT. I found their website through a computer programmy friend, who was really impressed/intrigued by the game Jason designed.
New favorite book: Saturday with Mez. A beautifully photographed and inclusively written board-book about breast-feeding. A non-gendered child (in the book, anyway), co-sleeping co-oping, really aware family!
This is what makes me hope for the future! (and, um, play video games.)
Their local community currency project, North County Notes
Jason's website
New favorite book: Saturday with Mez. A beautifully photographed and inclusively written board-book about breast-feeding. A non-gendered child (in the book, anyway), co-sleeping co-oping, really aware family!
This is what makes me hope for the future! (and, um, play video games.)
Their local community currency project, North County Notes
Jason's website
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