I wrote this theme poem while living in San Francisco. Most of my work at SF State during the two years I went, along with the rare poetry books, were destroyed- thrown away- so I could board a plane. I don't have the same brain that I did when I was 23, but I can do better now at 31.
1.
We melted into each other like colored candle wax,
warm like a child's day dream
intertwined in sleep.
I named him Arch Angel Gabriel,
but never knew his real name.
2.
Blond hair, platform shoes,
dirty receipts found on cement corners and gutters reading "number 365",
black men with guitars strumming to a secret rhythm,
red traffic lights leaving glowing lines,
caught conversations that say,"But after two lines of coke..."
3.
I don't belong here,
why should I change my clothes to have your love?
4.
Ah, these people are like trains,
strangers,
a procession without flowers,
a line at an administration building,
strangers.
I want to take hot showers with them.
5.
Women with protruding pelvic bones,
ivory flesh,
They may consume your soul and make you whole,
with an open mouth kiss.
6.
Break his nose-blood in a straight line going into his mouth,
what color red would come out? fresh over those lips (like a Spanish gambler),
the action gives him such a function,
clinging to my skin, under my clothes, under my act,
take my white glove and come home.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Water
I have always wanted to go to one of those Baptisms they have in the South. Singing and praying and clapping. The holiest person holds you as you fall without abandon into cold water, newly saved and cleansed. You trust this person. They are there to catch you,to embrace you, and their love vibrates through out your body.
About this time last year I went to a flowing river where the pine trees grow in diagonals out of mountainous ground. Cold green water made up the rapids. Water flowing forever. I was with a boyfriend then, just a year ago. I did love him then. I remember this thought clearly as I was reading a chapter of "Trout Fishing in America" by Richard Brautigan, and felt the heat burning the top of my shoulders, my bikini was cold while sticking to my flesh, and his smile.... there was music in our lives. I tapped my 30 year old body quickly over the hot rocks of Northern California and slowly dipped into the green river, after the rapids, where the water was clear and still. I dunked my head under completely.
When suspended in water I freeze that moment. The water was so cold, pure, organic. There are no rules while under water. You are just suspended under the same substance that takes up 70% of your body. The substance that dominates our planet, our body, our life force. I held my nose under that silken green water; what I consider sacred, and dunked my head all the way back, making a wish, dropping to my knees so I was far enough to pull all my hair back in one fast motion. Then I surfaced, my hair back, coming up just plain happy. It's like being in the womb. All the elements are intensified. Both water and love are essential to life.
The same memory came from dunking my head in the Finish Hot Tub in Arcata while I was with this same man. I knew the moment was just a point in my life, but I savor all that is good. I dunked, I did handstands, I swam like a fish, I opened my eyes and noticed tiny jet bubbles. I saw the man I thought I'd spend the rest of my life with when I rose to the surface. That day while we were in the tub together he said he would dedicate a song to me.
Now we are separated. A quick fight with no talk to give any type of closure. Those water moments are just what they were to me then; suspended in time. No song was made. All promises broken. Being an English major I do like the metaphor of fresh, flowing, summer water, and two lovers alone together in nature, with flowing water over our feet and legs, and that's it. There was flowing water, and next to my feet I noticed when the water trapped it became stagnant, dirty, unhealthy. Metaphors again. A lot of promises were broken, but love what you have, then move on to more love.
I did not listen to the rules above the surface. That was my mistake. I was underwater and in love. But you need to come up for air. Underwater feels like I can do anything. Above the surface you take that nature and apply any metaphors to your life. Like the river, I'll always be flowing, another man in the same love. No, a higher love. My personal evolution has skyrocketed after leaving this man behind. Our lives should flow always, to remain fresh, not stagnant.
"We live, as we dream, ALONE". This is a positive thing, though I'm all for immersing your soul in love.
About this time last year I went to a flowing river where the pine trees grow in diagonals out of mountainous ground. Cold green water made up the rapids. Water flowing forever. I was with a boyfriend then, just a year ago. I did love him then. I remember this thought clearly as I was reading a chapter of "Trout Fishing in America" by Richard Brautigan, and felt the heat burning the top of my shoulders, my bikini was cold while sticking to my flesh, and his smile.... there was music in our lives. I tapped my 30 year old body quickly over the hot rocks of Northern California and slowly dipped into the green river, after the rapids, where the water was clear and still. I dunked my head under completely.
When suspended in water I freeze that moment. The water was so cold, pure, organic. There are no rules while under water. You are just suspended under the same substance that takes up 70% of your body. The substance that dominates our planet, our body, our life force. I held my nose under that silken green water; what I consider sacred, and dunked my head all the way back, making a wish, dropping to my knees so I was far enough to pull all my hair back in one fast motion. Then I surfaced, my hair back, coming up just plain happy. It's like being in the womb. All the elements are intensified. Both water and love are essential to life.
The same memory came from dunking my head in the Finish Hot Tub in Arcata while I was with this same man. I knew the moment was just a point in my life, but I savor all that is good. I dunked, I did handstands, I swam like a fish, I opened my eyes and noticed tiny jet bubbles. I saw the man I thought I'd spend the rest of my life with when I rose to the surface. That day while we were in the tub together he said he would dedicate a song to me.
Now we are separated. A quick fight with no talk to give any type of closure. Those water moments are just what they were to me then; suspended in time. No song was made. All promises broken. Being an English major I do like the metaphor of fresh, flowing, summer water, and two lovers alone together in nature, with flowing water over our feet and legs, and that's it. There was flowing water, and next to my feet I noticed when the water trapped it became stagnant, dirty, unhealthy. Metaphors again. A lot of promises were broken, but love what you have, then move on to more love.
I did not listen to the rules above the surface. That was my mistake. I was underwater and in love. But you need to come up for air. Underwater feels like I can do anything. Above the surface you take that nature and apply any metaphors to your life. Like the river, I'll always be flowing, another man in the same love. No, a higher love. My personal evolution has skyrocketed after leaving this man behind. Our lives should flow always, to remain fresh, not stagnant.
"We live, as we dream, ALONE". This is a positive thing, though I'm all for immersing your soul in love.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Insect Gangs
Maybe it's Africa, or maybe it's South America, somewhere exotic. A certain species of ants manages to form a two foot ball and roll down hills, consuming all life in their way. For this blog and what my point will be, lets call that an "Ant Drive-By".
When my oldest brother and step-sister heard in their classes that ant species do not like different species, they did what I considered was a shockingly mean experiment. They took our family ant farm, and dropped a fire ant from our nearly two foot ant hills found behind our home inside the ant farm. In seconds the foreign ant was torn to pieces, limb from limb.
#As a side note, that farm taught us that ants can die of frustration. Take my word for it. We just shook their home 3 separate times and after all the work of restructuring their home, they died. That is the extent to how mean we got to animals as children, and I just observed. I'd be an accessory to murder.
People are viscerally territorial. Take the town of Big Flat, California: off the 299, population less then 100 people. I moved there with a man I dated off and on for almost two years. He lived there for over seven years before my two week stay. The locals did not accept me. At first they had no reason, they were just literally illiterate jerks. I tried so hard to be liked it was ridiculous. They would do things like mention they were driving to Redding (at the time my friend's first baby was having her one year birthday) and in the presence of my boyfriend say they would take me. After he left for a grand mother's funeral in a different state, the rules changed. I knocked over and over. It was my best friend's daughter's first birthday. I could hear these adults get quiet when I knocked. They would hide. Adults. At this point I was desperate for a friend and felt so foreign and detached. So I started to buy beer in the morning. I went to take their dog- the dog on a one foot lease that never went on walks- for a walk for once. The dog ran for freedom as soon as I untied him and I had to ask for help retrieving him (took all of 5 minutes from the owner, who now had a reason not to like me.) Nothing makes me more angry then animal cruelty. I was there for two weeks. When my boyfriend got back and saw the town did not accept me, he did the cowardly thing: went with the crowd. I moved.
The same in L.A. Ant brains. I had not a single friend. I became a cheerleader to a reject who had all these wonderful ideas about talent and being a team. I sunk into depression from lack of exercise, which lead to seek happy chemicals, which lead to fights, and eventually I left and never looked back. I think this man was more of an ant because he knew I left a stable life for him, and if the roles were reversed: if he was a guest in my family's home, I would have treated him like a king. Two against the world. He is probably still living with his parents. I came back up to Arcata, got a job, started running, quit smoking, had not been this happy since; a long long time. So it was a blessing in both cases.
High School was a baffling time to anyone who ran into me, because I was not in a click. So the main question I was asked was, "What music do you like?" I value being unique. I am drawn to unique people. I am not part of an ant farm. I have no role.
There is a similar themed blog in here about being around very smart people, who I had coffee with from a girl who brought me with her to their after-school coffee shop. They too rejected me for being shy (I had just moved from the East Coast to Redding, California) under the pretext of wearing a Banana Republic T-shirt (with pride, it was my step-sister's treasured shirt and my favorite gift from her.) I never returned to that coffee shop again.
Follow the music. Ants may listen to it, but just for the abstract hooks. You have friends in literature characters, artwork, ideas, theories. There are lots of others out there to meet. Too many to fall in love with if you really open your eyes.
Having the freedom to be unique is something I actively treasure. There is no Caste system here. I can listen to The Nitty Gritty Dirty Band if I wanted to (but I don't.) I will think twice about moving into someones territory again, but true love does not act that way. Class, dignity, love: they transcend us from our primal behaviors. Class, dignity, love, and understanding. Follow the music.
When my oldest brother and step-sister heard in their classes that ant species do not like different species, they did what I considered was a shockingly mean experiment. They took our family ant farm, and dropped a fire ant from our nearly two foot ant hills found behind our home inside the ant farm. In seconds the foreign ant was torn to pieces, limb from limb.
#As a side note, that farm taught us that ants can die of frustration. Take my word for it. We just shook their home 3 separate times and after all the work of restructuring their home, they died. That is the extent to how mean we got to animals as children, and I just observed. I'd be an accessory to murder.
People are viscerally territorial. Take the town of Big Flat, California: off the 299, population less then 100 people. I moved there with a man I dated off and on for almost two years. He lived there for over seven years before my two week stay. The locals did not accept me. At first they had no reason, they were just literally illiterate jerks. I tried so hard to be liked it was ridiculous. They would do things like mention they were driving to Redding (at the time my friend's first baby was having her one year birthday) and in the presence of my boyfriend say they would take me. After he left for a grand mother's funeral in a different state, the rules changed. I knocked over and over. It was my best friend's daughter's first birthday. I could hear these adults get quiet when I knocked. They would hide. Adults. At this point I was desperate for a friend and felt so foreign and detached. So I started to buy beer in the morning. I went to take their dog- the dog on a one foot lease that never went on walks- for a walk for once. The dog ran for freedom as soon as I untied him and I had to ask for help retrieving him (took all of 5 minutes from the owner, who now had a reason not to like me.) Nothing makes me more angry then animal cruelty. I was there for two weeks. When my boyfriend got back and saw the town did not accept me, he did the cowardly thing: went with the crowd. I moved.
The same in L.A. Ant brains. I had not a single friend. I became a cheerleader to a reject who had all these wonderful ideas about talent and being a team. I sunk into depression from lack of exercise, which lead to seek happy chemicals, which lead to fights, and eventually I left and never looked back. I think this man was more of an ant because he knew I left a stable life for him, and if the roles were reversed: if he was a guest in my family's home, I would have treated him like a king. Two against the world. He is probably still living with his parents. I came back up to Arcata, got a job, started running, quit smoking, had not been this happy since; a long long time. So it was a blessing in both cases.
High School was a baffling time to anyone who ran into me, because I was not in a click. So the main question I was asked was, "What music do you like?" I value being unique. I am drawn to unique people. I am not part of an ant farm. I have no role.
There is a similar themed blog in here about being around very smart people, who I had coffee with from a girl who brought me with her to their after-school coffee shop. They too rejected me for being shy (I had just moved from the East Coast to Redding, California) under the pretext of wearing a Banana Republic T-shirt (with pride, it was my step-sister's treasured shirt and my favorite gift from her.) I never returned to that coffee shop again.
Follow the music. Ants may listen to it, but just for the abstract hooks. You have friends in literature characters, artwork, ideas, theories. There are lots of others out there to meet. Too many to fall in love with if you really open your eyes.
Having the freedom to be unique is something I actively treasure. There is no Caste system here. I can listen to The Nitty Gritty Dirty Band if I wanted to (but I don't.) I will think twice about moving into someones territory again, but true love does not act that way. Class, dignity, love: they transcend us from our primal behaviors. Class, dignity, love, and understanding. Follow the music.
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