the low road by marge piercy

the low road

what can they do
to you?  whatever they want.
they can set you up, they can
bust you, they can break
your fingers, they can
burn your brain with electricity,
blur you with drugs till you
can't walk, can't remember, they can
take your child, wall up
your lover.  they can do anything
you can't stop them
from doing.  how can you stop
them?  alone, you can fight,
you can refuse, you can
take what revenge you can
but they will roll over you.

but two people fighting
back to back can cut through
a mob, a snake-dancing file
can break a cordon, an army
can meet an army.

two people can keep each other
sane, can give support, conviction,
love, massage, hope, sex.
three people are a delegation,
a committee, a wedge.  with four
you can play bridge and start
an organization.  with six
you can rent a whole house,
eat pie for dinner with no
seconds, and hold a fund raising party.
a dozen make a demonstration.
a hundred fill a hall.
a thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter;
ten thousand, power and your own paper;
a hundred thousand, your own media;
ten million, your own country.

it goes on one at a time,
it starts when you care
to act, it starts when you do
it again after they said no,
it starts when you say we
and know who you mean, and each
day you mean one more.

when you talk to water

when you talk to water

“we found the friction of ice to be very high.” -dr. miguel salmeron

be prepared

for the water to talk back

be willing

to ripple like

undulating fingers &

tiedye rubber bands of light

in a lapping calmness

the water met me at the edge

slowly drinking the day,

hiding under the evening ducks

wish, swish, i pour

longing straight over the rocks

to the end of the exhale

(the universe is the best

matchmaker known to itself)

cold & unloaded i

stand up quickly but wait!

the water!

has a voice it jumps into me

be prepared

for the freeze

even the scientists can't 

explain why, it's slippery, 

these things happen, sense 

comes late and will not be

rushed

lower temperatures have a way

of behaving: strangely, like pressure

so test it with skate & shanty

cube that loose state 

of crystalline

pay clear attention.

nerves get built from cycles

of protection, from strong 

surface reflections. go 

deeper, see god, see liquid

and need, see understanding

remember the potential for merging

remember.

contained boundaries can appear

empty or full, more than half

a heart given. remember.

it all expands, evaporates, returns

this is a toast

to earth and to ice

be prepared

for the thaw

12.17.11

this one turned into a song.

covered mirrors

the bitterest fruit hidden under the biggest blanket i could find

here we were, me with her, the reflection forbidden

to pain to gut to uplift to sincere

now gut now kiss now weak goes knees in virtual directions

now gut.kiss.weak.knees

where is this thing going around and around

feels like a hand up my shirt or between her knees i’m frisked it's official

so the letter gets sent, the girls get called, the horses fly out the gates

the mixtape is a copy of a day in the life

the mixtape was a copy

the day was a copy

the life was a copy

the kiss was a cop

holding someone under arrest

or was it a bad joke with a false gun

were you committing crimes

the interrogation had no smoke

who polices these

who polices these

who polices these

parts? you know what i’m speaking of

who polices these

who drives this vehicle with no plates into foggy nights

who plays the fool the fall guy the lookout the hit man

or was it never a hit

didn’t make it to the radio

didn’t dial up a friend

maybe it was just a distraction

the real suspect was spit

shining a mirror

under a dark blanket

face puckered sour,

grieving

march 2011

i hate to admit it but i don't know shit

a poem by e.e. cummings

here's to opening and upward,to leaf and to sap
and to your (in my arms flowering so new)
self whose eyes smell of the sound of rain

and here's to silent certainly mountains;and to
a disappearing poet of always,snow
and to morning;and to morning's beautiful friend
twilight (and a first dream called ocean) and

let must of it be damned with whomever's afraid
down with ought with because with every brain
which thinks it thinks,nor dares to feel (but up
with joy;and up with laughing and drunkenness)

here's to one undiscoverable guess
of whose mad skill each world of blood is made
(whose fatal songs are moving in the moon


#42 from 100 selected poems

ballast

ballast

my past fits into a bin

in three separate clothed sizes

the stoned the sexed the overgrown

& felt under

my variety of lies,

they squint

fall out of me like prizes

the computer virus

the computer spams

she pans and pants and pots

the commuter spasms

fucks the fall! & the decent

all i have is

all i have

all i have felled

or falling even

ever eventually

weathered

or wanted

exposed

among

the elements of friend

and don’t foe this up

and don’t admit this fall

you fallen heart you felt me up

i’ve tumbled to my own demure

for better yet it's chaste it's worse

forget by forgiven

think of him

or her

think of this

or them

and that too

blame me for

numb luck

struck doubt

trucked off

lost cows

it is serious

it is seriously

all my fault

this singular circularity

this that doesn’t die

i’ll go blonde trying

and blue to deny it

here it is it never left me

and i i i it it it

can’t be ringedly written

or resembling wrongth

you must be shaded in fields of wine

and acres of grape juice

will suck thumbs again

will suck thumbs again

in silence will suck

this thump

thump

thump

up

2007

to work is to keep pace with the earth

ritual by susan mitchell

susan was my poetry mentor at florida atlantic university

ritual

as one who casts the word bread upon the word waters, testing
as one who not believing something will rise up from
those waters, but not disbelieving either
casts out her voice 
as one curious or hungry or filled with longing breaks
off just the crust of a word, throwing
the way she threw as a girl when everyone
told her that was not the way
to throw and expecting little or nothing
looks into the blackness but the waves
are not black they will be deep
scummed violet and bronze
like a memorial forgotten
                                     would it have made a difference
if she had cast the word thread upon those waters
unspooling what she spoke     sewing
knots and tangles into waves and might
thread return to her as dread or even dead
as one who does not know what it is she wants
but wants her wanting sanctified
and anointed with myrrh and futility     black
the waves are black and laced with white
shrouds which pass
                                         into nothingness and the way
a snowflake vanishes
into the waves her voice cast out from her
she has wanted so long such a lifetime not
knowing what it is she wants
as one who has eaten joy for no good reason
with no idea where it came from
and wept in her sleep forgetting afterward who
embraced her but the next day feeling the loss
as one who casts word after word
into nothingness fillets ruins of foam cresting
so the word lover vanishes into water
and with it go fervor and savior forever
and elixir 
                         as one who keeps opening and closing
so the word birth is buried in earth so
the word breath is lost in death
as one who waits to see the eyes of water
roll back into depth, who waits
to see the depth rolled back and parted so she
can fly through and thinks she sees wings
and knows herself deluded
even though she sees
                                             as one who marked off
her wanting who staked its boundaries and let
nothing cross over to staunch or squander it
as one who says I want therefore I am
as one who saw the word bread float in the word water
before they both sank under
the weight of her wanting
as one who thought she saw something leap
but it may have been the word motion coming back
to her shadow for shadow
what is the hunger to know the other's
hunger built up like an altar
sacrifice she understood the blood
of her hunger wanting hunger for hunger, its
teeth in her flesh the word flesh the word hunger
as one who the more she looked saw less
what little there was she messed into more mess
there was no depiction in it
what would it take to register the quickness
the alacrity to blow out
the candle of the waves the word candle
the voice of the waves the word voice
the living face of the promise of the voice

Susan Mitchell, Best American Poetry 2008,
from The American Poetry Review

the strange winter of 2012

the strange winter of 2012

walking everyday is a must.

to the left,

a glimpse of dead milkweed,

snow in its mouth.

up up,

two birds, an airplane,

brown tree tentacles, brilliant sky, bluebright.

and right,

away the edges of yahara river freeze in clumps

slowly, savoring.

head down,

calf-deep snowsteps, shoeprints of joggers,

booted children, collared dogs.

tempo, pace, staccato sciatica,

swing arms, shake a body out.

one bridge wears a blanket of giddy sparkles,

unshoveled under observant legs, joyful eyes.

take this, the winter says

it's your power back

1.14.12

an excerpt by vatsyayana

-->

from the kama sutra

here some learned men object, and say that females, not being allowed to study any science, should not study the kama sutra. but vatsyayana is of the view that this objection does not hold good, for women already know the practice of kama sutra, and that practice is derived from the kama shastra, or the science of kama itself.  moreover, it is not only in this but in many other cases that though the practice of a science is known to all, only a few persons are acquainted with the rules and laws on which the science is based. . .

again, persons do the duties required of them on auspicious days, which are fixed by astrology, though they are not acquainted with the science of astrology.  in a like manner riders of horses and elephants train these animals without knowing the science of training animals, but from practice only. . .

a female, therefore should learn the kama shastra, or at least part of it, by studying its practice from some confidential friend. . . 

the following are the arts to be studied, together with the kama sutra: singing; playing on musical instruments; union of dancing, singing, and playing instrumental music; writing and drawing; tattooing; arraying and adorning an idol with rice and flowers; spreading and arranging beds or couches of flowers, or flowers upon the ground; colouring the teeth, garments, hair, nails, and body, i.e. staining, dye-ing, colouring and painting the same; fixing stained glass into a floor; the art of making beds, and spreading out carpets and cushions for reclining; playing on musical glasses filled with water; storing and accumulating water in aqueducts, cisterns, and reservoirs; picture making, trimming, and decorating; stringing of rosaries, necklaces, garlands and wreaths; binding of turbans and chaplets, and making crests and topknots of flowers; scenic representations; stage playing; art of making ear ornaments; art of preparing perfumes and odours; proper disposition of jewels and decorations, and adornment in dress; magic or sorcery; quickness of hand or manual skill; culinary art, i.e. cooking and cookery; making lemonades, sherbets, acidulated drinks, and spirituous extracts with proper flavour and colour; tailor's work and sewing; making parrots, flowers, tufts, tassels, bosses, knobs etc. out of yarn or thread; solution of riddles, enigmas, covert speeches, verbal puzzles and enigmatical questions; the art of mimicry or imitation; reading, including chanting and intoning; study of sentences difficult to pronounce; practice with sword, single stick, quarter staff and bow and arrow; drawing inferences; reasoning and inferring; carpentry; architecture, or the art of building; knowledge about gold and silver coins, and jewels and gems; chemistry and mineralogy; colouring jewels, gems and beads; knowledge of mines and quarries; gardening: knowledge of treating the diseases of trees and plants, of nourishing them, and determining their ages; art of cock fighting, quail fighting and ram fighting; art of teaching parrots and starlings to speak; art of applying perfumed ointments to the body, and of dressing the hair with unguents and perfumes and braiding it; art of understanding writing in cypher, and the writing of words in a peculiar way; art of speaking by changing the form of words, by changing the beginning and end of words, adding unnecessary letters between every syllable of a word, and so on; knowledge of language and of the vernacular dialects; art of making flower carriages; art of framing mystical diagrams, of addressing spells and charms, and binding armlets; mental exercises, such as completing stanzas or verses on receiving a part of them; composing poems; knowledge of dictionaries and vocabularies; knowledge of ways of changing and disguising the appearance of persons; knowledge of ways of changing the appearance of things, such as making cotton to appear as silk, coarse and common things to appear as fine and good; various ways of gambling; art of obtaining possession of the property of others by means of mantras or incantations; skill in youthful sports; knowledge of the rules of society, and of how to pay respect and compliments to others; knowledge of the art of war, of arms, of armies, etc; knowledge of scanning or constructing verses; arithmetical recreations; making artificial flowers; making figures and images in clay.

Kopis'taya by Paula Gunn Allen

-->

Kopis'taya
(A Gathering of Spirits)

Because we live in the browning season
the heavy air blocking our breath,
and in this time when living
is only survival, we doubt the voices
that come shadowed on the air,
that weave within our brains
certain thoughts, a motion that is soft,
imperceptible, a twilight rain,
soft feather's fall, a small body
dropping into its nest, rustling, murmuring,
settling in for the night.

Because we live in the hardedged season,
where the plastic brittle and gleaming shines
and in this space that is cornered and angled,
we do not notice wet, moist, the significant
drops falling in perfect spheres
that are certain measures of our minds;
almost invisible, those tears,
soft as dew, fragile, that cling to leaves,
petals, roots, gentle and sure,
every morning.

We are the women of the daylight; of clocks and steel
foundries, of drugstores and streetlights,
of superhighways that slice our days in two
Wrapped around in glass and steel we ride
our lives; behind dark glasses we hide our eyes,
our thoughts, shaded, seem obscure, smoke
fills our minds, whisky husks our songs,
polyester cuts our bodies from our breath,
our feet from welcoming stones of earth.
Our dreams are pale memories of themselves,
and nagging doubt is the false measure of our days.

Even so, the spirit voices are singing,
their thoughts are dancing in the dirty air.
Their feet though the cement, the asphalt
delighting, still they weave dreams upon our
shadowed skulls, if we could listen.
If we could hear.
Let's go then. Let's find them. Let's
ride the midnight, the early dawn. Feel the wind
striding through our hair. Let's dance
the dance of feathers, the dance of birds.

claiming space

because i was talking about her tonight, 

and the lessons i was determined to learn....  

claiming space

retracting her spine & shining

                           her teeth

                           they poke

a growl emits a bark escapes

                           back

                           the fuck

                           up

double exclamations take it up

a notch we've gone to level seven

& beyond that still

we're leveling & i'm in-breath

in-breathing hold & holding

still she gives no room just back the fuck up

take it back i won't i'm not getting

Louder or MAYBE I AM

in my tiniest, gentlest

voice i say, hard truth

8.18.09

from a recent mixtape

three poems by lucille clifton

untitled

this belief

in the magic of whiteness,

that it is the smooth

pebble in your hand,

that it is the godmother's

best gift,

that it explains,

allows,

assures,

entitles,

that it can sprout singular blossoms

like jack's bean

and singular verandas from which

to watch them rise,

it is a spell

winding round on itself,

grimms' awful fable,

and it turns into capetown and johannesburg

as surely as the beanstalk leads

to the giant's actual country

where jack lies broken at the

meadow's edge

and the land is in ruins,

no magic, no anything.

incantation

overheard in the hospital

pluck the hairs

from the head

of a virgin.

sweep them into the hall.

take a needle

thin as a lash,

puncture the doorway

to her blood.

here is the magic word:

cancer.

cancer.

repeat it, she will

become her own ghost.

repeat it, she will

follow you, she will

do whatever you say.

from shapeshifter poems

4.

the poem at the end of the world

is the poem the little girl breathes

into her pillow     the one

she cannot tell     the one

there is no one to hear      this poem

is a political poem     is a war poem     is a

universal poem but is not about

these things      this poem

is about one human heart     this poem

is the poem at the end of the world

on the path to your house

like candy, like death

 these moments can harden a person, turn a fire into a freeze

 someone is lost, buzzed, high, tricked.  a body crumbles with excess

 trapped in metals, teeth, salves and saviors

the way the tongue burns for more, there is no saccharine ending

but aren't the ladies lined up like jawbreakers in a candy store?

 don't drink the sun don't drink the distraction

 even the shadow appears delicious

 this is a reminder of all the pretty things

 between here and they're still

 walking back and forth without permission without

 cotton candy, diabetes, crash & crumbs, your words

 the snow will cover, the dogs will lick

 sugar rivulets & rivers, white creeks & sweet lakes

molding you and killing you.  full hands and skilled hearts and empty cavities and

1.8.12

an excerpt by audre lorde

Excerpt from Use of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power

The erotic functions for me in several ways, and the first is in the power which comes from sharing deeply any pursuit with another person. The sharing of joy, whether physical, emotional, psychic, or intellectual, forms a bridge between the sharers which can be the basis for understanding much of what is not shared between them, and lessens the threat of their difference.

Another important way in which the erotic connection functions is the open and fearless underlining of my capacity for joy, in the way my body stretches to music and opens into response, hearkening to its deepest rhythms, so every level upon which I sense also opens to the erotically satisfying experience, whether it is dancing, building a bookcase, writing a poem, examining an idea.

That self-connection shared is a measure of the joy which I know myself to be capable of feeling, a reminder of my capacity for feeling. And that deep and irreplaceable knowledge of my capacity for joy comes to demand from all of my life that it be lived within the knowledge that such satisfaction is possible, and does not have to be called marriage, nor god, nor an afterlife.

This is one reason why the erotic is so feared, and so often relegated to the bedroom alone, when it is recognized at all. For once we begin to feel deeply all the aspects of our lives, we begin to demand from ourselves and from our lives pursuits that feel in accordance with that joy which we know ourselves to be capable of. Our erotic knowledge empowers us, becomes a lens through which we scrutinize all aspects of our existence, forcing ourselves to evaluate those aspects honestly in terms of their relative meaning within our lives. And this is a grave responsibility, projected from within each of us, not to settle for the convenient, the shoddy, the conventionally expected, nor the merely safe.

these warm january days

I'm perfectly able to hold my own hand,

but I still can't kiss my own neck

 

I wanted to give you everything

but I still stand in awe of superficial things

humanstruction

humanstruction

it's a sheep's

brain tomorrow not the sheep's

best day i'd say

without sleep & the nurse

is blurred by slippery

eye muscles, closing in

three vessels full of red

this little god

in me seeks your everlasting

subordination this little science

seeks your biggest

synapse locked down

who went where after the

dumpster of books & paychecks?

note this, they yell take

me serious they pace

teach me heal me give me

boundaries be my best

education my most trustworthy

flake be my last hand

hold it

you are an institution

hold this

you are a moment

dissect:

this midline is warm

can you

feel it

3.27.08

the most beautiful song i heard today

and it's a love song to myself

i was

i was

your drug

of choice most of

the time your enabler

too, like the moon in scorpio,

capricorn, in half, your hair, my

fingers, i was bitten by that apple

shot by the trigger finger, this live

body in a corpse pose i was trying to

break it down bust out blast off be real

i was not in your veins i was everywhere at once

speaking in circles and trapezoids and parallelograms

constructing beauty out of leftovers, unable to turn red

wine into clear water, i could not perform enough miracles

loaded on sex and seduction and just the right amount

of your rejection i was never on my own

two feet wearing pink shoes you didn't

like i was not quiet in bed during

any hot activities or cold fights

i was bearing your bitter load

drinking with my eyes shut

wandering with quiet pens

through journals at night

you were too afraid

to look in your own

corners too fearful

to see your father

the detached

lonely addicted 

puppy dog

face

in the mirror

1.2.11

which came first?

which came first?

she throws away the basket

i take it and load my eggs

all cracking splitting discharging

the dream of chickens has passed

the hope for balance has gone

who settles, who calls it

a two year night? i have

piled them high

as my lover.

i am trapped

aware, prepared to feed

lonely, circling

ready to refuse touch & eyes

i lie.

i am not ready.

i have been hungry for months.

april 2007

burning the old year by naomi shihab nye

Burning the Old Year

Letters swallow themselves in seconds.   

Notes friends tied to the doorknob,   

transparent scarlet paper,

sizzle like moth wings,

marry the air.

So much of any year is flammable,   

lists of vegetables, partial poems.   

Orange swirling flame of days,   

so little is a stone.

Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,   

an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.   

I begin again with the smallest numbers.

Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,   

only the things I didn’t do   

crackle after the blazing dies. 

from Words Under the Words: Selected Poems (Far Corner Books, 1995)