Remember When I Had A Blog

From This Unapologetic Body

2011-06-01T20:56:00.003-04:00

(I first posted this in Feb 2011 on Sonya Renee's brilliant The Body is Not An Apology page. Fascinating how we can turn back to our own words for perspective...)

The sexy I work so hard to own

will never be reflected in your neon eyes

Not in the teetering balance of your morse code

when you switch fractions from morning

to night and back again

I know how to trick you into believing I’m less

Into retrieving different calculations

based on time of day and your attitude

But I’ve never been the type of woman

to get caught up in the mathematics

In relating equations and numbers

to anything worth valuing

I find words a more distinctive gift for this

So, I’ll write to you-

Dear Lousy Worthless Number On My Scale,

Stop pretending you are my compass

Don't mistake time I've spent with you for empathy.

You have exposed me, torn me open for so many instances

I've stopped counting the scars.

So stop trying to make a fool of my insides

Stop being the judge I weigh above all others

Stop smiling at me while I'm naked

or changing your mind too quickly.

I have spent years in the swell of this body

This exposed ocean of sleeve-wearing heart

and too-thin skin. This heaving muscle

of a chest and curved outer layer.

So make peace with me. See me.

Judge me on my words

and not my formulas.

My Prayer for the Bulldozers

2011-05-01T14:14:00.004-04:00

May the sun-stained anchor of your body
find peace in the dusk

Engines idled and blades lowered

may you turn gnarled wings back into yourself

as a cease fire from the dust storm

as a pressed crane offering of hope that
somewhere there is purpose in your golden wings.

We have watched you caterpillar yourself
innocently yellow across this land

But I see the razed houses in your irises

the shaken tears of civilians on your cheeks.

I know your drivers will say

“we were just doing what we were told”

when foaming mouth roaring into the city you
snapped bloodlines, displaced humans

from necessary shelter.

I know a woman whose house
was wiped away by your blades.

Two days later, she was handed an invoice

for the parts, time, labor
for the very maize monster

that made her a homeless statistic.

How do we explain what you’ve turned into?

How you have become annihilator instead of farmer?

You were meant for so much more than excavation,

than intimidation or destruction.

You have the tools to till this land,

make it ripe for blooming

To move dirt into hungry mouth craters,

Build hills from which we can once again
feel the breeze or watch our children grow.

So my prayer for you is this

The time is now to end the demolition

Stop tractoring yourself over any hopes of peace

Come down from your cockpit and join

us at the table

Learn to use your words.

Breakfast

2011-04-21T09:57:00.006-04:00

I woke up with the fiction of your lips still
cementing the roof of my mouth
Upstairs, the neighbors are skipping morning
around the espresso machine
I play asleep to the bacon breaking sounds of the skillet
But up above they are heavy like daybreak and your
pin needled arm is preferring my side of the bed
So I’ll be content with an arm cloaked morning to
watch the sun split over your resting temples
To have a gently heaving body remind me of the blood
floating through my own, that warmth, that vulnerable.

Your sleep is tying a knot in my geriatric knee
It’s the good kind of pain that

reminds me breakfast is soon

So I will dedicate this moment to the eggs we will crack,
the way we will wrestle the upstairs neighbors
with our tea kettle and kitchen karaoke
“Baby” will be the safest love song for sleepover friends
so we will find it on the radio immediately
Make microphones out of yolk dripping spatula
And blow out our shattered lungs before
the coffee is even cool enough

When the circuits of your body finally snap
I will secure the prospect of morning meal and
feel comfort in your sleep smelling voice,
how it still sounds like everything that came before it.
I don’t have a name for this move yet
but I know that coffee stained stomachs and doorways
can make for more constraint and sorry
than I tend to build my mornings from
and dawn will stop serving breakfast soon.

So I will boil water for French pressed conversation
Will suggest eating in bed like couples would
but blame it on the roommates
I will call this move “insurance”
Risk losing my entire Sunday to the well-perfected omelet
To your breath on my hand over crosswords
To the clanking sound of perfect pans being excavated
Or to the caffeine jolt of your body when
we finally leave the stove alone for awhile.

April Inspires

2011-03-31T22:38:00.003-04:00

NaPoWriMo has begun! I will not be writing a poem everyday this year, but rather writing when I feel inspired. I want this April to be a challenge in a unique way so instead of doing the daily thing, I am charging myself with the task of writing about the things that scare me the most. It is not intended to be sad, scary or heartbreaking (some of the things that scare me are actually really beautiful... like being pregnant!) but rather to get a little more personal than I usually do in my writing. To scare myself with honesty perhaps (and hopefully get something good out of it). So, here goes

VERTIGO I

Equilibrium is a daydream

I woke from years ago.

Mistook the sky for ground and

learned to walk under water

They don’t know about my dizzy.

About this whirling ocean I call breathing,

hurricane eye of a girl.

Negotiating commutes for carousel rides

Horizon obstacle course days

that leave me crawling

just to keep the skin from bursting open.

Too often, I’ve gotten a glimpse of this world

as it begins to unravel

Smoked this singed wire sparkplug of a brain

just hoping to suck the balance out.

But I don’t know life without this tilting

This sky without fire.

My sky bleeds like new tattoos

I am freshly inked and floating

Spinning three long years

hoping for a small glimpse of texture

For the fabric that once kissed

my cheek to sleep at night and

reminded me how beautiful

the world was when

it just stood still.

DC

2010-12-08T09:38:00.004-05:00

I am riding your black veins at midnight
Through the deflated artery of bicycle skeletons
And empty PBR boxes.
Barback lovers spilling out under lampposts
and blending into dawn as we coast
the mystery slick road that leads us home.

In the morning, we will find ghost stories
at the bottom of our Mimosas
And decide if it’s a good day for the museums.
But inevitably end up, like we always do,
At the drum circle in Malcolm X
Sunday paper prostrate and never enough
blanket space for all the
people who want to be close to us

These beats beckon in
children and picnicking couples
Acroyogaists and Hula Hoopers
And that one middle aged woman who
wraps a Sari around her belt
and calls herself Africa
Never misses a beat.

My city,
She dances with her heart on fire
She is barista eye candy and local celebrities
Lunch on a government per diem and
dinner on half priced appetizers
She is liberation dance parties and
Connect 4 games over a shot and a Natty Bo
She is more than Barack and Michele.

DC is Busboys on a Sunday or The Fridge on a Tuesday
Or Bloom Bars any day of the week
She is Ben’s Chili Bowl on Inauguration weekend.
The rotating bike lanes and Circulator Route
She is house parties where we forget our day jobs
And day jobs that make us care about living.

Living here feels fleeting enough to want to stay awhile
Enough to feel like someone, some of the time
Feels like everyone is in their 20’s and exceptional
and east coast educated and
all. about. the. journey.

Oh, my beautifully fragmented city
You are the S9 showing up at just the right time
And all those folks who still don’t know where the 43 goes
You are morning runs with the
trash trucks and homeless patio clingers
You are ubiquitous party attendees
and anything I read on BYT

When predictability sets in
You show me that newness can be
uncovered, even at home
That lucky is just the beginning of
what I feel for you, for this.

For the stages I can call home and spokes that get me there
For expanding friends into close-to-heart dwellers
For always having something to celebrate
and someone to do it with

You have made me a solid
You have reshaped my stubborn bends
And made me something worth gifting.

Tonight, I am biking down your moonlight
Grateful for the cool enough weather and
pulsing beat of my tired chest
Reminding me that this is how you
bring oxygen back to my heart.

Why He Comes Back Every Year

2010-03-02T09:58:00.006-05:00

The blue sky sleeps beside me at night in a

puddle of blankets. The kettle howls on the stove like a

frantic child answering a question in History class. Daylight

escapes faster than fireflies in the summer. Hold on.

He is growing out his beard again and it reminds me of

unfinished poems. There is a frail peacefulness

in this Sunday afternoon- I hold it in my palms careful like

white holds the yolk; one puncture away from chaos.

We sit with hands clasped and thank god for feeding

all the world’s children. Through the window, I wonder

what it would feel like to see the sky fall for the

very first time. I am still the little girl

mimicking snow flakes for ways to navigate gravity.

When He Left

2010-01-28T10:29:00.007-05:00

When he left my arm was still sleeping
This premature bed we shared was stirring early
and there was something about this morning that
felt like “you should probably go now.”

He woke up somewhere between
headache and slumber
and snuck out through the path of Sunday sunlight
warming my hardwood like an exit sign.

When he left I reset the alarm for the afternoon.
Thankful that our back door locks from the inside,
grateful that I made it to the bathroom before my
roommates caught the seat up like a question mark.
Stared at that spot on the wall that
knows my eyes too well
and went through my number in my head.
It’s creeping closer to 15 these days.

But I always say it’s 8.
8 is a decent person’s number.
8 is a figure left flat on its side to feel infinity
drip into the morning sunlight, tingle on my spine
knowing next I’ll feel that pit in my stomach
but for now I deserve the warmth of my blanket-
the reminder of how nice my naked body
feels underneath it.

Even though what’s to come is the emptiness of
where he barely was to begin with,
even though my comeback for “you deserve more”
will always be “I know.
So tell me where to fucking find that”
So I fuck. Because that’s fun.
And productive in a way that feels much better than
wanting, waiting.

When he left my lips were numb from
menthol and kissing and the scratches
on my back were proof of last night’s
inertia now scabbing over.

These sometimes lover scars-
I hold them close like heirlooms.
Tell myself that these are what life’s
pleasant wounds are made of,
these are the stories we control creating.

When he left, we didn’t give this night
more weight than it deserved
And so we didn’t exchange numbers
And so we didn’t lean on formalities or goodbyes
And so he didn’t put on his underwear
And so I didn’t worry about getting in touch to return it.

I just hoped he would keep this between us
Because in our lit hurricane of a windstorm
In our need for something refined and raw
We still were.

It was still respectful
It was still between two good human beings
It was still comfortable and mysterious enough
to make it exciting.

And maybe while the momentum of our night
was wearing off into sleep
I held him a little longer than I should have,
dreamt about the brunch we would
linger over in the morning
and kissed him as he drifted off to sleep.

And maybe I’m not really the kind of person that’s okay
with silent slipped out goodbyes.
They linger pungently on my morning
like orange juice after teeth brushing-
hang awkwardly over the air of my afternoon.

And maybe I could have lived with knowing
where you were about to go
A kiss on the forehead or a purposeful nudge to
wake me just long enough to see you leaving.
A sign that would somehow spell out a goodbye,
even though we both know you were
never coming back.

Goodnight

2009-12-14T10:02:00.004-05:00

Even though I am alone
I still remove my bra like a
shy sixth grader at summer camp,
afraid of an errant nipple exposed to fellow bunkmates.
I arch back and under my shirt to remove the hook
before pulling the straps down and out each arm like a
straight jacket escape in dress rehearsal.
I reach up the front of my shirt and
pull it down in one dramatic swoop,
feeling the weightlessness of breath in my exhale.
Stretch my shoulders back just to
remind myself what skin feels like.

I never like brushing my teeth.

About once a week, I don’t do it on purpose.
I will be out and the night will be winding down
and I will think “I’m not going to brush tonight.”
I am the fucking boss.

The clothes for sleeping are tucked behind my pillow
and change weekly with the sheets.
Lately they include socks which are inevitably
kicked off in the night
but feel so amazing in those moments before slumber,
when I rub my feet together and up my leg
to the beat of to-do lists and a day replayed.

I have rituals to calm my brain.
Sometimes I have a little conversation with god.
Sometimes I masturbate.
But I always think about the things I am grateful for-
the things that propelled me into
happiness or thought or uncomfortable feelings
or fullness or awareness in my waking moments.

Then I lean over
Rearrange the pillows so they arch
in that memorized way
Curl up my body into a ball with my blankets
or a partner
or the bear gifted to me at birth.

My lungs grow fat with that last vocal sigh-
I am ready to leave the world behind for a few hours.

Anddddd.... we're back!

2009-11-04T13:30:00.012-05:00

Holy shyt. I can't believe nearly two months have gone by since I last updated. I can't really find the right excuses for this, although my favorite blogger has fallen into the same pattern so it must be something in the water.

What is new with me you ask?

* Tara B, Gowri K, Jonathan B-T and I heard the musical stylings of Niggy Tardust (aka, Saul Williams) and got to afterparty with the fella at Liv. One should never stay up that late on a Sunday night, but it was well worth it (despite "afropunk" maybe being my least preferred musical genre ever).

* I attended J Street conference for both professional and personal reasons, despite the great poet debacle. Though I was at a wedding for their revenge performance at Busboys and Poets, I heard it was great. As far as J Street goes, though it was not as provacative as I would have liked, I think there may just be hope for a voice of peace, hope and coexistence in the American lobby. Salaam.

* I had the best performance of my life at Spit Dat two weeks ago. In the craziness of getting ready for J Street, it seemed fitting to perform a piece that touched on my feelings about Israel. Dwayne B remarked to the crowd that the first couple of stanzas could easily be about DC. Word.

And coming up:

* I will be leading my FIRST EVER POETRY WORKSHOP at my house on November 11th at 7pm. Would love to see your beautiful faces.

* On November 12th, mothertongue turns 11! We are having a FREE show at the Black Cat at 9pm (come at 8 to drink with me). Support women and local artists!

Thanks for not giving up on reading this (and for not let me give up on writing it)!
New stuff to come soon!

New Sh*t!

2009-09-16T16:18:00.002-04:00

My brother and I are working on a new project. 10 weeks. 10 topics. We each write and maybe they'll be a chapbook down the line. For the first week our topic was "The End of the Summer."

Right before your leaves turned orange
I thought about the peach I ate last August.
That lone fruit you handed to me right before
our summer expired-
it tasted like an apology.
Like every note spoken between us
What you gave me then was edible,
disposable like seasons.
It couldn’t stay around longer than my lips would let it
But I let it.

And now summer is molding into another Fall
Reminding me how, in a second, rain can thin
out the humidity in this city.
How the convexity of air between every sapling kiss
can stale my lungs again.
You left in a sand storm
boots up like a hero
Asking me one last time what god meant to me
and I told you she lives in this limbo
This time when the next season seems
like nothing but possible.

The sun is creeping behind the clouds earlier these days
Makes it easier to sink into my bed without your
memory hanging in the daylight
Dusk reminding me of secrets passed
between open mouth breaths
Intentional
Piercing
Cold like this makes it impossible to remember warmth
The memory of your season is out of my grasp again.

Like teeth on a too ripe peach
My brain is sinking into mush
Puddling into something that used to be whole

This is what the end of summer brings each time you leave
We are seasons too brief for memory
And the candid shots of coasts
we used to dream about together

Just two orange Polaroids,
disposable as the wind.

Come Support Me at 11th Hour Slam. Busboys on 14th. Fri 9/11. 11pm.

2009-09-10T12:11:00.002-04:00

I will be competing in the slam this Friday Sept 11th at 11pm (but to actually get in, you have to get there at 10) at Busboys & Poets on 14th and V. Have I practiced yet? No. Have I memorized any of the pieces I'm doing? Heck nah. This is why I need your love and support to sway the judges. I'm making it my goal to get on the National's team this year and every point counts! Only $5!

More info: http://www.busboysandpoets.com/events.php

I wear my sunglasses under the chuppah

2009-09-01T21:27:00.009-04:00

It was a sunny southern wedding ceremony for my dear friends Jamie and Steve who got married this weekend on a farm outside Chapel Hill, NC. They asked me to write and recite a poem for them at their ceremony as a modern and progressive translation of the Sheva Brachot (Seven Blessings) that are traditionally recited at Jewish weddings. Heres at it:

Today nature’s hand is creeping

up from the earth like a golden flower
Reminding us how much richer the soil is today-
the mountains inching a little closer to the sky.

The kisses of wind to skin remind us

what alive feels like today
Let the silence of earth be the pause

needed to reflect on the blessings of our years
Let the shadow of clouds drifting blue behind us
allow the collapse of sky to drip into our lungs.

Breathe
The earth is inflating with our wholeness today
The genuine human spirit that we are lucky
enough to hold in our palm
Clutch it with your heart
but allow your hands to be forever open-
to welcome, to love, to accept.

Let us find comfort in the one who inspires us today
Holding ourselves up to a mirror that reflects

consciousness of the world’s fusions and fissures,
awareness of the creation that comes from within
that makes life tangible, attainable, possible.

It is with each new phase in our lives that we sing back,
listening for the echo of our soul to
reverberate in our ribcages.
Reminding us of what has been
Reminding us that true completion of each moment
is necessary for flight
Necessary for finding true tranquility in the peace

of life’s connections

It is the beauty of life’s connections that unify us today
Each somehow touched by this blending of souls
Whether it is she, a smile stretched like a canvass, wide-eyed and never failing in finding life’s highest altitudes
Or he, patient, tender, a world behind those kind eyes
It is by them that we truly see

the wonder of cycles repeating
Of waves crashing at the right second
to bring us to this moment.

It is with singing that we are reminded of the lightness
of voices lifting into air
Unifying creatures into community
into harmony
Into the hope that if we follow your footprints
Living each day with fullness, awareness and giving
We too can find the kind of love that sustains

that nourishes
And that brings us true and gratifying peace.

Notes on the Other Side of Silence

2009-08-20T12:24:00.002-04:00

One.
Someday you’ll wake up and realize
you haven’t been sleeping
Her morning breath whispered in my ear half asleep
half a bottle of wine still sloshing in my eardrums
Last night we ate guacamole out of a tortilla boat
and talked about other coasts
I said I’ve been afraid of flying lately
Afraid of the sky sucking me back up
into where I came from
And she says that’s completely ridiculous Sarah-
You come from the earth dammit
And I believe her
This is the only thing that’s made sense to me in 93 days.

Two.
When I try to see into tomorrow
the only postcard I get back is a wall
So he asks me to tell him what my bricks are made of
I don’t know I say
he says TRY
and I say I don’t know
and he says TRY
and I say one
is for the visionary that lives under the bridge in my lungs
Two is for the day I wake up inflated with your prologue
Three is for the voiceless, broken, can’t make sense
of why this is important
Four is for the fear that the bricks are always present
and that God is not inside these clouds
Five is the clouds, beating chaos into my mornings
Six is that broken girls don’t make good lovers
Seven is that I will never fly again, never love the sky again
never hold the hand and feel that I
deserve that warmth again,
I fear that I may never look at my reflection
in the mirror or the clouds or your eyeball
and know that is me again.
I feel that I may never feel like me again.

And it’s funny, really, his silence
Im waiting for him to pull me close, closer and whisper
“Baby, Lets deconstruct this Babylon together”

Three.
The bombshell in front of me at the Post Office
is wearing Seven Jeans
For Man-fucking-kind I think
Her painted toes remind me how pathetic I am, I think
She puts her padded manila envelope on the desk
smothered in hearts and kisses
And asks them how quickly a first class package
can arrive in Iraq

Nobody really has all their shit together.

FREE mothertongue show 8/19 @ Black Cat @ 8PM

2009-08-17T13:30:00.003-04:00

It's August, it's hot and mothertongue is going recession friendly for their summer show. Come support DC's women's spoken word group at the Black Cat on Wednesday August 19th at 8pm. The show is FREE, Jenny C. Lares is featuring, there is an open mic open to all and donations ($5 suggested) benefit WIN (Women's Information Network).

For more information on the show, check out the facebook invite.

What happens when you ask your waiter for a prompt

2009-08-09T21:52:00.005-04:00

Gowri K and I met for a long overdue Sunday afternoon at Tryst today. With no inspiration of our own brewing, we asked our waiter for a jumping off point. Turns out, he had almost died on his drive to Adam's Morgan from Virginia. So here goes "I almost died." Also much thanks to the wonderful bartenders we sat next to who bought us shots of Blue Curacao (?). Random but tasty.

I almost died this morning

Twice

The first time I got lost in the soundtrack of your

breath as we slept.

You whispering in my ear with each

dip in your dreaming.

I forgot what my breath tasted like.

Forgot that the nutrition of your touch, your limbs

Felt essential as hearts beating, breaking.

I wanted to forget about that rhythm and try

your lungs instead

But morning reminded me of time, rhythms.

I knew we'd eventually rise to burnt toast and crosswords

And the moment on the stoop when I want to grab you

and run away to under the covers.

See I almost died today.

Twice.

I arose and went back to sleep.

But in those moments before consciousness

before the day's hissing latte machine or somber music,

with your breath playing that hymnal in my ear,

briefly before daylight stole you away

I lived.

Like A Wave

2009-08-05T22:29:00.005-04:00

Like a wave, when they came, they came like a wave

Like the ocean floor rolling sunken treasures

over their skin and in and out of their

salted fingernails

They came like winter

Too soon to get used to cold current

ripping through icicle lungs

They came like a wave

Two by two and in every variety

There were miracles then

Etched in the sand and coral-

the stories of floating fisherman boots

and lost caverns.

They came like the blazing sun on beaches

Fading everything in the path of its glow

They came like a wave

I hope you glow like that

They came like a wave

Don't forget their candle flickered underwater

and warned us of trespassers

Of bottom-feeders looking for some oxygen.

I pray for the wave to roll over your tentacles

and give you peace

The sky cannot haunt you here.

They came like a wave

With tides like lullabies

to rock them back to slumber.

When they came

They floated to shore with the afternoon

Slept naked on the beach with sand and starfish

When they came, they came like a wave.

A New Poem!

2009-07-27T21:53:00.005-04:00

To be sampled this Thursday at Spit Dat (1351 U Street- Capoira Center- 8pm). Written for final performance of Capturing Fire 2 the week of August 22.

God or Something Like Her

I don’t pretend to be close to God
But there are certain times when prayers rock me golden
Like yellow beats
Move me like trees swaying in the DC fall
as the branches bare themselves

I am naked
in these moments
Exposed to the most of my soul
And the breath of my skin
heavy with goose bumps and weakness.

“Is God in there?”
I ask in this seconds before sleep comes
When the harmony of voices has sped out of my universe
And I’m left wondering if that was a religious experience

or just a poor man’s version of soul

I toss in sleep
With nightmares of gravity
And the clouds hanging above my slumber
haunt me like grey ghosts.

I wake to the applause of my insides
slow like necessity
I don’t know how to keep this fresh
How to take the down tempo beats blasting
And have them bring me to a higher being

Like lost cities or childhood
I am just trying to bring me back to civilized.
To God or something like her.

Rock me with your lyrics
Dream me into infinity 1000 times over
If I wasn’t so afraid of death I would have done this by now

Sink into the reservoir of blues, greens, spirituality
Beautiful like rain pounding the humid city

on an August day

Like renewal
Like understanding real and not distance
Like lifelong strangers asking if you need a hug

No bitch, I need a voice
I am mute with hallucinogens
Can you stomach that?
Your prayers can’t make my blood thicker or richer
But it can make me feel whole again
like orange peels or the West Coast
Like long drives or phone calls that end with I Love Yous

Something about this feels real
Like love, ache, breaking, body

I move with the beats, rhythm
Feel the spirit of the music in my veins, bones
I am just working on understanding the lyrics.

Gowri K and Sarah L feature at Sparkle! Wed 9pm!

2009-07-20T15:46:00.006-04:00

Gowri K and I will be featuring (performing 4-5 poems each) at Sparkle, a queer-friendly reading for all, at Busboys and Poets on 5th and K at 9pm on Wednesday July 22 at 9pm.

Hosted by Danielle E. Come enjoy/support/ listen/ read on the open mic. $3 gets you in.

Come support us in both of our first features!
More info.

Exquisite Corpse II

2009-07-14T13:17:00.009-04:00

Another corpse, courtesy of Evan C.
There is a beat in the
back of my neck
That tells my limbs when to dance
Tells my eyes when to glance
And guides my legs as they leap.
I want to learn to skip again
Float like my child brain and
Bones remember how to fly
And lips recall the lie
That held our bodies down
Pinned down like necessity
Before our muscles told us to move more
After we layed and splayed and run our bodies sore
Before, before, before
We were ever born.

Lately

2009-07-06T09:29:00.001-04:00

Lately
I read the emergency procedures as I
ride the red line to Dupont
Pluck heroes from the crowd and sit closest to them
Breath anxiety in and out of my lungs while

Talya is coming out of her coma in Mumbai
They say she looks like Natalie Portman’s shaved head now
and that reminds me of Seattle

But I’m back in DC
Worried about voltage
About the inertia running a river like lava under our seats
I pound music in my temples to occupy the space there as

Talya’s temples
brain
crack
skull
fracture
As Eastern antidotes ease her into coma
And I hope she doesn’t sleep long enough
For her parents to
have two special needs kids now.

I don’t know how to breathe in the world anymore
Lately the heaviness of humidity is an elephant in my lungs
And there is injustice and lost souls and
zombies inhabiting grown men’s bodies and
celebrity corpses
fucking
everywhere

And I breathe

Wonder about the people I will keep closest
If they will really only stab me in the front
Or if they come up cold like carcasses from the gravel
I worry about what I can’t see in my periphery

And I think I need to have sex.
Emergency sex
Saturday afternoon with no roommates or formalities sex
And I can’t sleep.

My eyelashes flutter to the beat of a broken commute
And the burial shrouds that crowd the space
where their breath used to be
Lately I’m thinking about the screech of metal
Taking folks to heaven instead of home.
I’m dreaming of Talya’s post week long nap and
Sleep filled eyes waking to hospital lights
bright with confusion
As her shaky hands touch the cracked cactus
where her foot long curls used to be

Lately
We are all trains bound and gagged for glory
On tracks tangled and demented by time
We are all just surviving this
All just bracing for impact
It’s up to no one to tell us how to breathe right again
So we exist on empty lungs and diesel filled skulls
Convinced we are headed to purgatory or worse
Convinced that we can learn to breathe underwater
Convinced our ignition is lit by burning emotion
And not funeral pyres.

And we breathe.

Because lately in our bones
that’s the only thing we all seem to know
for certain how to do.

Oh, Hello Again

2009-06-29T07:18:00.002-04:00

I've been lazy about the blog lately.

But now with summer creeping in and the second edition of the Capturing Fire writing workshop taking up my Tuesday nights, hopefully there will be some more writing happening. First up, take Dwight Okita's Letters I Never Wrote and write your own letter from your dark ages.

dear child,

When you run your back is butterfly wings

the hiss of a hurricane as it touches down heavy

but lord knows you are no cyclone

no force freight training through a town

you frown and bear the weight of thunder

echoing through doors and hallways

of tiny dollhouse dreams.

Sitting at the edge of the banister

you pump scripture into your brain

while friction grows louder in smashed plates

in memories of infant swallowed hard like sidewalk chalk

or taken easy like stained glass shadows on

cobblestone streets.

We retreat to cocoons

when the loud is no longer music.

Soundwave slaps ricochet off silk-

reminding us of the wholeness of sound

as we plea for unexpected silence.

For the secrets of metamorphosis to expose us

until the day we can once again,

beautifully as magic,

pray heaven back into our bones.

Lyrically Handsome

2009-06-03T10:28:00.002-04:00

Come to Spit Dat open mic tomorrow night (Thursday June 4)! Formerly at the former Mocha Hut, now meets every Thursday from 8pm-11pm at the Universal Capoeira Angola Center (1351 U Street NW) in alley right after you pass a Karate center on the north side. This is quickly becoming one of my favorite open mic spots.

And if you read the last post, both Gowri and I will be sharing some new writing from Sunday.

So come! Only $1!

Exquisite Corpse

2009-06-01T13:21:00.004-04:00

Gowri and I met this Sunday to do some writing. Both out of practice and out of it in general, we decided to kick off with the session with an exercise of writing known as an Exquisite Corpse. She started with two lines and folded over the paper so I could only see the second line. Then I wrote two lines off her one line and passed the paper back to her with only my second line visible. We did this until we got to the end of the page and here's what happened. Not too shabby.

blades whirring making breeze
blow right by me wind walking
let your dust get in my eyes
i no longer see right through you
but can you see into me into
the guts whose substance is beyond beauty
you are the cancer of my organs
until everything inside is dysfunctional and black
don't look back look ahead it's not
useless to make plans just don't get attached
don't marionette yourself to this
pretend, with me, that we never have to play grown up
just sit by me 'cause time will
take its toll on us whether we move or not
pay the toll man, phantom and weary
pass go and collect what's left of your pieces

Sue Me. It's a Sex Poem. or How Slaw Survived May Haitus: Writing

2009-05-18T21:03:00.005-04:00

You and me are a corpse’s cocktail
Punch drunk with hazy,
we dance floor make believe
Like our bones are
drenched in venom

We are rum and diet and a dance floor
Reality made sticky with sweat and So Co
and eyes darting at our hot public mess.
Your hands
just might be my favorite mixer.

We are a Sex on the Beach or the bed or
the bathroom of this bar.  
Blue Moons at BBQs in Bloomingdale on Sundays
Broken bottles and empty boxes of wine
We lie to ourselves when we say this
is just recreational.

The occasional flaming shot electrifying
firecracker nights
Or sipped slowly so we sober this a little better
The bite of whiskey with Coca Cola
classic and predictable
Like this.

The changing tides of Manhattans
or Martini’s once sweetened
taken straight up
with age.

We are Capirinias to get exotic
Mojitos to feel toxic
And Long Islands when we just want to stay local

You and me
are the late night happy hour special
An Extra Dirty Martini with no meal since breakfast
The Bitches Brew straight on till
morning’s Bloody Mary

Or the occasional High Life,
sipped in showers
Before porch sitting afternoon on couches
Smells placed potent under my beak,
easing me back to consciousness.

We are tequila’s burning plateau before elation

So drink me baby
Sing my veins back to electric
Taste my body raw and depleted
Drip into my shell
Whole and open

Our breath is silent-
as we tiptoe into creaking floor board bedroom
For another too-loud-for-neighbors night
Smash Hypnotiq hour glasses on nightstands
Pretending we never have to wake
to tomorrow’s hangover.

Day 28: My Hometown

2009-04-28T09:02:00.003-04:00

My hometown rocks bombs made of paper and steel
It is equal parts pomegranate and salt water
Rummages through ashes of hopes and history
and tourists lined up for a view

My hometown weeps for steady soil and handshakes
Unbroken promises or steel embedded dreams
It is the dream of antiquated generations and
adolescents and sometimes
even me

My hometown’s rockets speak Russian
and whiz through Diaspora
It is a fingernail in the much larger
ocean of the universe
But it sticks on my lungs like the
labored breath of its shade
The smoke of Jaffa or the
symphony of sirens as the sun sets
on another week

Here
echoes are the only thing we can all agree on
The neutral nature of sound when it drips off tongues

Like the notes spoken when you ask if I’m Jewish
Upon my yes-
“It’s pretty fucked up what’s happening in Israel”
Word
But I am not the Gaza strip
Not the walls of women wailing as their houses are leveled
Not the dismantled boy whose healthcare
is on the other side of a checkpoint
I am more Rachel Corrie than the bulldozer
I am never the bulldozer
Or the soldier who’s only Arabic is “STOP or I’ll shoot”

I do not hold a PhD in conflict resolution

But I do know this

When my eyes roll back for sleep
there is a firework of a Tel Aviv
sunset burned on my resting corneas
Wholeness exists for me only in the
desert of the south
Or the shuk on a bustling Friday
Scents of roasted chick peas and
spiced teabags
Real and comfortable
like home

My hometown taught me how to coexist over
Arak in Ashkelon bars
Wake to shakshuka with sabras in hotel rooms
And worship stars for peace from bomb shelters
my students used as a library
in the Golan

So when I wake up at night
sweaty with nightmare
It is my hometown anthem pumping in my eardrums
Like the soundtrack of my own funeral

My hometown-
I
am
tethered to you
So please, for my sake,
Could you learn how to behave?

Day 21: Cocina

2009-04-21T16:44:00.005-04:00

My lover and I are in the cocina with spices
While outside rain patters on
tin roofs and Subaru Outbacks

The soundtrack of our city

Seattle does not speak Spanglish
It is whiter than the tortilla he pulls
from the Mission package
to set on a pizza stone for flaming

These are when our embers were still lit and ignited
Fingers stained and dripping from tobasco and tomatoes
We stuffed our comfortable mouths as we
picnicked under covers
Licking leftovers from our lips
Too careless to turn down the heat

That was a year ago
I’m in a new city now
still learning to temper my taste buds
with avocado and cuervo

Learning how to tap uncapped Cayenne
instead of dousing with flame
Learning how to not down shots
until you’re a pile of Pico in a stranger's arms

Tasting it on my tongue a breath longer
Reverting back to recipes when needed
For these are just stories of the past too

Tasting onions and peppers cooked careful
Not charred until the smoke
heavy and hazed
sticks in your lungs for a whole year

I’ve now found the tablespoon
The glass measured, not guessed

I am not a woman of methodology
But I do believe that patterns can be broken
Recipes altered
And new afternoons birthed from the flame
of a single and subtle spark.

Day 20: Paradise.

2009-04-20T14:07:00.002-04:00

In paradise there are no colors
We do not exist in hues or layers
The lion sleeps under the heaping plume of sky
And secrets only run blood deep

We are the savages

The jaws of rabid animals
Eaten and worn by the wanderings of our past
Now resurrected into present

I find you there

In the field built for choosing
You were the restless one
The naïve and tempted
Coaxed by wet palette promises

Perhaps the forbidden fruit was an orange
Burning her tongue the way acid does
A flame lit by saliva
Extinguished by our always
But we are the smokeless

We carry our lanterns late into the night
And tiptoe back into covers before morning
spotlights our sins
Before time makes another smoke cloud
of our skin and curves

Cradle us like saplings
But let us walk with our heads high and heavy
Find a cage
Then let us sever our way out of it
We are safer in enclosures than open spaces
Seduce us with immortality
then push us off bridges
Suffocate us with mud
We will break through the earth with guns blazing

Burning tigers ignited in your palm
Until the lion is extinct.

Day Half Way There: Love, That Red Disease

2009-04-16T14:30:00.006-04:00

Love, That Red Diease
Cherry is the color of love when it is new on bed sheets
and pillowcases
It is the line drawn towards the island
Now so far off my latitude my memory convinces me that

only ocean is there
I listen to its waves through old shells and memories lately
Echoes of the past drawn up like curtains
I’m always looking at things from the inside out
Always convincing myself next season will be better for

waves to wash away foot prints and ride
This is the cycle I am tethered to
The predictability of tides
Weathered and thick with sand and glass
Something as seemingly random as the

location of moon, sun
Patterns that keep us sane or unhinged
Depending what fog you’re sifting through
I’m sifting through memories lately
Through ocean floor carcasses and fisherman boots
Through heart attack grips and pigeon holes
I’m sick with equilibrium exposure and unsure shore
Just waiting for proof to convince me, briefly
That I am still at sea.

Day 14: Don't Be Afraid

2009-04-14T11:54:00.008-04:00

Love to Gowri K for this prompt "Don't Be Afraid, Finally We Are." Though I thought my final product was kind of lame, I vowed to stay at it with posting. Here goes a raw attempt at politcal poetry. By Sarah L.

Don’t be afraid of the institution that birthed freedom
We are the Obama loving anti-pat Americorps sleeved
Nation of doggy tails and eyelashes.

Finally we are free.

Don’t be afraid of the grip of patriarchs
Squeezing you to believe that you are
a Cameo silhouette
A faceless monogram

Finally we are more than itemized deductions.

Don’t be afraid of being a martyr

Finally we are more than suicide bombs and ash

Don’t be afraid that alternative is a
sly tongue for reformation
That we can rewrite the buzz words that blanket the past
That flags wave high every day, not just the ones
when it’s convenient to block off streets

Finally we are realizing that rainbows stretch as far as Iowa

Don’t be afraid to declare a state of emergency
as your reason for taking a sick day
There is too much soil to dig typewriter hands in to
Too many words that you must put in this world

Finally we are realizing what cannot be puzzled back
together from a desk chair.

Don’t be afraid to speak loudly
Too loudly
Don’t be afraid to write
Don’t be afraid when granted the opportunity
to open your mouth
Like pliers
Like anchors to hinge awareness on

Finally we are all speaking the same language.

Day Whatever: The Pelicans

2009-04-13T16:20:00.005-04:00

Done trying to catch up but back on track. Apologies; this ones from the bell jar.

The Pelicans
When the pelicans brought her back from the rain
She still couldn’t find her knees
Lipstick leaked from her mouth like blood
from his temples
and the grave of mascara under her eyes
spelled hunger

At her best she was wife
Grunge rock diva
Demented mother
Their chaos complimented each other

And now there are pelicans
Piecing together this Iris like
Cinderella’s helpers

She is the gray mannequin of cloud
over the Puget Sound
The dull whisper of depression
When your status becomes widow

The pelicans only gift to offer up
was warmth
A sliver of comfort
A strand of milder climate
A fraction of balance
But even they fight to keep themselves
above water sometimes
Even they are beautiful and broken,
wishing they could pull pistol from his
nicotine stained hands
Instead of pools of thread to piece together this
once porcelain ragdoll
This once odd but unbroken
Strange but secure
Drug-filled bones
once tempered with love

They cannot change the methadone mush of her brain
The mashing misfiring that makes her a rock star
They cannot change the recreational habits of a girl
The dripping beats of mascara
Or her divided past

But the pelicans move her flesh back to life
A beautiful reflection to look at in the mirror
As she pulls her wedding gown out of the closet
Rosey cheeks spinning like tiaraed princess
One last time she gives her breath a chance

And collapses into a lake so deep
not even the Pelicans can find her.

Day 8: The Bread of Poverty

2009-04-09T09:45:00.001-04:00

The bread of poverty greets me outside of
Whole Foods on my way home
Tries to sell me Street Sense and
I never see anyone take out a dollar
Not even me
Unless I promise my friends I will
And even then
It sits in the corner of my room collecting dust
Like my tax returns.

The bread of poverty is hiding under freeways
Pulsing through this city like it’s part
of the blueprint
We’ve gotten so good at tucking it away
Inside alleys of new condo buildings
In particular parks where the Central Kitchen van stops
To hand out breakfast
Where no one passes walking to work

It creeps from the park to our front stoop
On nights I pull the door to our complex shut behind me
The bread of poverty has a prosthetic hand that holds a
Starbucks cup outside of Starbucks
and doesn’t say a word
It is in the mushed porridge brain of the women
with bullet hole hair in Dupont
And the still-cold DC nights that
shiver me to sleep.

Day 7: This Is Why You're Fat

2009-04-07T15:09:00.003-04:00

She eyed my granola yogurt mixture before the grainy neon
digital lights on the microwave read 9:00 AM
Before my coffee
Before boredom slipped into another poem
Penned slyly in Outlook email

She spoke

Told me her daughter was about my age
about my coloring
about my size
Yes, my daughter has a weight problem
Like you

Like you

Like these are the moments we are told to clutch saliva like an heirloom
And choke on spit scorn teeth that want to scream
LADY.. I’m a size 10
8 on good days
Women like you
Are MY weight problem

Women like you sculpt mannequins out of tear stained pillows
and tell yourself their perfection
Warn pretty girls of blueberry stained smiles
Lips tasting every bite like we never cried tears
after pie-filled bellies

Broken
You craft our hands into delicate munchers
Daydreaming about plates next portion
Week’s next menu
Until we could no longer distinguish hunger
From addiction.

Women like you
taught us what emptiness feels like

The gradual and gnawing pain that grows deeper

in our stomachs
Until we convince ourselves this is what
thin is

Fattening ourselves on the moment
Like indulgence was a playground we’ve
been missing since youth.

Day 6: A Haiku for Passover

2009-04-06T22:29:00.000-04:00

Do you think about
The slaves, praying to their gods
to never be free?

Day 5: Write About One of Your Heroes..

2009-04-06T21:47:00.002-04:00

In My Other Life
In my other life I actually used my journalism degree
And dug births out of burials
Didn’t care who listened
Just happy my editor
wasn’t always in my own head
Saying Not Enough
Not Ever Enough

In my other life
I crossed oceans and craved content
Cried when I learned children could be traded like
baseball cards
Gave myself a voice through ink
Instead of microphone
And wasn’t always anticipating the reaction

In my other life
I understood
I was born with a heart that beat steel
So I could report and not react
Write and not respond
And somehow feel like I could do more
Could Always Do More

I used to dream about the stars
About the folks at home draping papers over
steaming morning toast
Instead of burning corneas
Like the burning piles of garbage in Kibera

In my other life
I could tolerate this stench

Catching Up: Day 4

2009-04-06T21:24:00.003-04:00

As I said, the computer was at Apple over the weekend. Despite the delay, I prevailed:

A District Discography
U be hipsters and half smokes
Caps on sideways
Fruit-infused tea and french fries
Obama’s image on every facade
So we never again lose this history.

Madame’s Organ is a clever name for a bar
In Adam’s Morgan
Tryst wishes it could be Seattle
And Big Bear nearly nails it but
I would never walk there alone at night

18th splits my hood from the barillo
and looks much better
with the lights on

I know about the 43
The liberation dance parties
The drum circle in Malcolm X

I wonder whether the pile of blankets at my bus stop
Has a person sleeping under them
And think about how many worlds
exist under the District stars

Day 3

2009-04-03T13:06:00.005-04:00

Fact: This is not a new poem but fairly new and performed at the Salt Lines show.
Fact: My computer is being loved on by the lovely (and oh so cute) men of the Pentagon City Apple store and will be out of commission over the weekend. I will catch up on the days on Monday at work.

My tax bracket

Breeds transient men

Looking for women to fix their broken resumes

and pauses between plane rides

They cling to us like life rafts

Couch surfing and begging

for a shore to call home

A place to lay baggage that never seems

to properly unpack

A chest to lay aching heads

that promises to be comfortable

And recession proof

I never knew when I moved to this city that

passing freight trains would be the solace I’d crave

on the other half of my hand hold

The draft only felt after they had moved on

to the next town

I downed shots with boys who promised preaching Obama

Would get them a job in the administration

Men who told me only I knew their next destination

Free spirits moving towards opposite hemispheres

Waiting to spit other tongues with

vocab words in back pockets

Books

Maps

Backpacks

That somehow crowded their bare schedules

where I thought I should be

And somehow

I hold on

Always the obedient anchor

The one that never seems to know when to jump ship

Never seems to notice the moorings thrown from their shell

with a clear warning of momentary

I grasp to it

Ask it to graze my sands and secure

To touch something lost and beautiful

Lost in this ocean

Ask for something that will give me some

Better oxygen

He holds me

Asks me to confirm that we are in fact official

l before asking me if I’m okay

Not knowing where he’ll land in a month

a day

Casually mentions the application he sent to Peace Corps

That morning.

And I rethink my theory on free will

There are just too many damn patterns

But perhaps it is me

I am an impossible pupil in the art of being chill

Never content for waiting for phone calls or next steps

I dream murals out of doodles

Have sleepovers way too quickly

And convince myself that this is all just fodder for poetry

Or romance

Or my own twisted mess of a little black book

Just like every

woman

my age

Right?

I just crave

the chaos
The ruthlessness

The kind of dudes that adhere to no ones schedules

And, mostly, the excuses that come at the end

that have nothing to do with me.

30 Days, 30 Poems: Day 2

2009-04-02T20:39:00.005-04:00

Thanks to a little prompt from D. Arrindell:

Where I'm From

Where I’m from parents still spin vinyl on dusty record players

Kitchen counters full of organic, non-perfumed hand soap

Cause the suburbs makes everyone allergic

We’re told not to yell up rooms or down stairs

But listen to TV too loudly

While lazy D bangs everything

but the drumset in the basement

There are crispy leaves falling from firecracker trees

where I’m from

Illuminating the old houses and the pitch black cul-de-sac

While kids play recklessly outside houses with

unneeded alarm systems

And you never hear the Prius coming up the street

where I’m from.

Memories are stuffed in shoeboxes and never albums

We smoke prime times on the hood of our Jetta and

Imagine a night without stars

Hand me downs riding open streets with

Case Logic ripping up

The rear view

30 Days, 30 Poems: Starts... Now

2009-04-01T20:02:00.002-04:00

Today at around noon, I recieved an ominous reminder from facebook. I had been tagged in a note from my friend Daemond that read "NaWriPoMo Challenge Day 1." For those of who only speak English, that is National Writing Poetry Month. In April, poets challenge themselves to write 30 poems for all 30 days of the month. Sigh. Though my year long writing venture ended back in February, I am going to try hard to keep this one going.

This first comes from a prompt on Denise Jolly's myspace whilst I was stalking her before the Salt Lines show; I am an ugly...

I am an ugly adolescent

Sitting jagged legged, high top

On the front stoop of the school

I am the track star's right fibula

Strained and tired

A rocket exploding

Step by step

I am the P Hall lockers

Ignored dents and ridges

Easily decoded and used

Abused

Like mascara

On the dance captain's blink

A chiseled jaw of not quite grown men

Standing next to bleachers

Waiting to be counted

I am gym teacher's heart palpitations

Before she has to teach sex ed

I am the kid with the boner

The unadulterated nervousness

of the pixie cut girl who reads Nabakov

I am tears streaming down the face of those

broken

Homecoming

floats

I am the lead in the play

The drum major's final pause as arms rest calm

at his side

I am just waiting to graduate

This & That

2009-03-23T09:10:00.007-04:00

There is a BIG show coming up as part of the Salt Lines tour. Andrea Gibson (former WoWps champ), Denise Jolly (Seattle slam..what), Tara Hardy (Bent Writing, Seattle Slam, general amazingness) and Sonya Renee (Indiv. National Poetry slam) will be performing at The Warehouse on Sunday March 29th at 7pm. And who is opening? DC's own Capturing Fire, including yours truly and 5 other DC poets. Going to be dope. $10. Tickets at door or email Regie Cabico to reserve: regiec@solysoul.com. Come!!

As I've mentioned a few times, this past weekend was PSI's Women of the World poetry slam in Deetroit, Michigan. Rachel McKibbens was named Woman of the World. She is pretty darn bad ass and I was lucky enough to workshop with her last year when she was passing through Seattle to feature in the Grand Slam. Here is her on Def Jam a few years back:

Natalie Illum: A Remember When Feature

2009-03-11T08:57:00.004-04:00

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my friend Natalie is less than two weeks away from the Women of the World poetry slam. She has been spitting in venues all over the city in preparation and her stuff is just hot out the oven. A government monkey by day and the most current past president of Mother Tongue, from DC by way of Upstate NY, Natalie Illum:

just cause...

I wish I could write you a poem
that removes the monkey from your back,
A poem that sends the ghosts in your spine
to heaven. But my words are tiny pebbles
in a much larger ocean of sound; they sink
rather than save the drowning.

The monkey wears a heart-shaped locket.
You cannot reach it to steal it back
into your own chest. Inside
the locket is a picture
of your lover, stolen
from a year you can no longer
touch. Such is the nature
of longing; it's always
behind you.

The ghosts are more proactive.
They haunt daylight from your eyelids,
so that every prism is in shadow.
They drink your tears like water, pull
at your scabs like a fresh stabbing
of pain. But your body is not a trench
for some dying calvary. Blink
Harness the sunshine

like Icarus, for a moment,
the ghosts will melt. Borrow
their sheets for wings. Bribe
the monkey with enough
fruit to sweeten its own hunger;
Breath in

your broken locket heart. Thread
muscle through the metal chain of her
leaving. Exchange suicide for more
oxygen.

Now run to every e-mail, letter, postcard,
hug, story of how your words
kept someone else's soul from limbo,
someone else's mind from shatter.
Your true heart is a tether, strong enough
to keep people from plummeting;
from scraping their fists on
mountains of broken ribs

has they reach for Orion.
This too is your legacy. Look up.

The sky is clear tonight.
The metal cage of your heart
is pumping something that sounds
like music; the ghosts have stopped
invading the marrow of you. The Lover
you carry within you. If the monkey
returns, fill your fist with pebbles.
Throw.

Believe that you will make an impact.
Write it down as a wish, like this poem
for you.

Capturing Fire

2009-03-01T22:11:00.006-05:00

For the past month, I have been spending my Monday nights with the wonderful people of Capturing Fire, a workshop of DC poets led by Sparkle's own Mr. Regie Cabico. The nine of us gathered for two hours once a week to write, look at a s-ton of amazing poems and workshop each others pieces.

And, in the the spirit of Sparkle, we talked about sex. A lot. I honestly often left class more hot and bothered than is apropos for a Monday night.

Anyone who knows me well, knows this is a subject I talk about. A lot. But for some reason it's never translated into poems. I've never written an 'Erotica Poem' in the purest sense, mostly because I feel it comes out trite and disjointed; never the message I'm trying to convey. Still not there yet on a great piece, but it's all about the journey, no? For now, the beginning of something that could be. Based on the prompt of 50 things that turn you on.

beards & boys with a social justice bend

air blown in my ear, even if it’s the accidental
aftershock of a whisper
my face being held by hands larger than my own
built up kisses that feel like they belong
under bleachers

the smell of almond
the taste of beer on your breath
dancing
being pulled in closer
dancing
because this is our element
dancing
because carefree is sexy
deliberate
the first raw attempt at a handhold
mystery

making eyes
for hours
at the black cat

compliments
knowing something others don’t know
knowing something exactly eight other women know
shared showers

hole sings Malibu live
shane on showtime

visual
talkative
messy

the smell of sweat & nature
your sleeping breathe in my ear

rum & diet & a dance floor

Chayay

2009-02-24T09:43:00.004-05:00

At 25, I learned that I had grown into a thrashing toddler

Teeth biting down hard on the fist of anyone
who called me girl
Crooked
An oceanliner not yet sunk
but always looking for the next coast
I learned what beautiful looked like
Could hear the Atlantic calling me
back to its waves so I let it
Lived for weekends and solitude
And often became jealous
of my own life.

At 22, I learned about rain and poetry
And the medley of the two that makes my heart pulsate
On nights when they bounce off concrete in chrous
Climbed new heights with fists thrashing clouded air
Caught a fish
Made my apartment into chaos after loved left the city
I was just learning what alive feels like.

At 18, I took shots with my friends to
celebrate Trey’s birthday
We were just sharing in the groove
Slept in southern mud
Read more than my brain’s stamina
could keep up with
Called everyone my best friend
And learned that the Midwest’s drone
was rubbing off on me
And I let it.

At 16, my car and my voice took flight at the same time
I found warmth in the spotlight
Read a book that made me question the girls around me
Questioned every boy around me
and that first one just a year later
I tucked those thoughts in the back of my books
Became the English teacher’s pet
And danced on lakes at sunrise.

At 12, I realized that being fat in middle school was
really going to suck.
So I became alternative instead.
Broke through locker-walled wombs
with Adidas kicks.
J had my back on the tennis courts after school.
Taught me how to share smoke
through a paper towel holder.
Back when Slurpies were just 75 cents
And boys were just people too
And girls only knew your tolerable secrets.

At age 8, my brother and I built sandcastles out of
make believe in the front yard and I
Never understood why Beatrice thought
Ramona was such a pest
Until space was something I needed
But didn’t have the words to claim yet
So I curled up next to books and invisible rocket ships.
Hoping to find myself in them.

At age 4, I knew who I was
Drew pictures of princesses and played
Hide and Seek with my Dad
in our townhouse
Listened to our parents thunder in the kitchen and knew
that would be our forever lives
Like glued-together chaos was a life we hadn’t chosen yet.
But knew we could claim like we were old enough to
possess anything of our own.
Except our fort built daily out of blankets and chairs.

Busboys and Poets: Tomorrow Night!

2009-02-12T11:31:00.003-05:00

Ladies and gents-

Tomorrow night, Friday February 13th, I will be slamming at Busboys and Poets (on 14th between U and V) at 11pm (I'll be there at 10pm to sign up and 10:30 is a good time to get there to ensure a seat). Mostly giving my friend Natalie Illum a little friendly competition before she heads out to her second bout of Women of the World (WOW) slam in Detroit.

Don't worry. She'll kick my ass.

Spoken Word.

2009-02-09T14:02:00.006-05:00

Break me open with your words
Capture the flame in your mouth
Spit it out like a dragon
Cremate me

Burn me with your verse so I can
squish the word on your tongue
Before you lick me with it

I want to be licked

Like a child’s first carnival ride
Spinning like tires on dark concrete

It’s summer in the city in February
Drum beats bass life around the park and I want you
to whisper what this means
Always lost in this place between cerebellum and saliva
Shape it for me.

Craft the warm air and cigarette ash and perceived timelessness
Of this afternoon
Into tangible
Let it well up in my throat so I will remember to
choke on this memory later.

I need your dragon flames and carnival rides
Your cracked lenses and chipped voice
Inching on taste buds
Like hips creeping up to drum beats
I need something that tastes more alive for a change.

So break me
Don’t be afraid of what might thump from your chest
I’ve swum with mermaids in tar lagoons and
picked saccharin from the teeth of small children
Don’t let the prison of spit be your excuse

Don’t excuse the candidness of voice with apology
Set it free
Bring us closer to understanding
with iron cast words
and apologies

Cremate me
Beat me like drums

Give me a reason to want
To return to dust.

Speaking of Apologies, My Favorite...

2009-02-04T21:10:00.004-05:00

Bassey Ikpi's "Apology to My Unborn:"

The Hardest Poem I Have Ever Written

2009-01-29T00:13:00.009-05:00

This was beyond tough. Thanks to James D for forcing it out of me.

Apology

There are no words to cover braces coiled teeth

Spitting adolescent angst
War wounds of middle school warfare
You wore
Like you had walked the halls yourself
Like a warrior

When the sun bore you a daughter you knew someday she

Would bloom
Like turmoil
Backlash not understood
But you braced for misunderstanding
like a viking

Grinned and bore the pain of child’s
Curled lips or
Unsettled restlessness.

I was always the restless one
Never tolerant of idle
I brought light into the house like pixie dust
Put on skits for house guests and
Played fire engine with the tree in the front yard

Giggles filled the hallways while you clung to

every last laugh
Never on the inside of the joke
Never one of the girls
Though secrets and heartaches passed

notes through our hallway
Never scribbling the needs of hands veined with
Child and husband bearing.

And me
Illiterate to notes etched in cupboards after bedtime
Like my consciousness was limited to
daily explosion between temples
The thunderstorm of 14 that crashes down

on the house like a
screaming cyclone
And you
Always the last remaining ship after the waters had settled.

There are no words to scream adult guilt into the
inherent selfishness of daughter
I’m not sure my body could take anyone

being as mean to me as I was to you then

In those days of misdirected personality
And misguided attention
In those days when turmoil crashed

through our kitchen like neighbor’s dogs
sniffing for something bleeding and torn

to sink their teeth into

I cannot apologize
I cannot find words that say

I wake up sweaty with nightmare
Of my someday child
ripping through the house like a torrent rainstorm

I want to tell her I will be the harbor
Dig my feet into sand and wait
Bracing for the storm of her forgiveness.

Gauntlet: Thrown

2009-01-10T18:29:00.005-05:00

I've been writing lately. A lot. This holiday season was the first I haven't traveled in years and somehow I found myself in our living room, writing veraciously like a boy scout trying to start a fire. Just go with it.

This holiday season also brought a challenge from the one who can always push me in my writing, Mr. Daemond Arindell. He invited me to a facebook Poem-A-Day 2009 Group to write a poem everyday for the next year. Do I think I'll last the whole year? No sir. But the motivation to post each day, the inspiration from the others on the challenge and the informality of the poems themselves makes it something I've been looking forward to. At least for the past 10 days.

Finally, today I wrote one of the best poems I've written in a long time. I'm actually just super thrilled with this piece in a way I haven't been in awhile. No prompt or title, just gave myself time to make something out of thin air....

Most days, I wake up writing

Grinding my teeth like typewriter keys for thoughts
Buried in my head like they’ve been stewing overnight
Like heavy eyelids are coriander for the curry
So I sleep on it

Try to keep my brain from seeing this as anything
more than a poem

I see rain clouds in your confidence
But you tell me it’s tired.
And I accept.

Knowing we are the few that dream in metaphors and rain clouds
Knowing
not of a simple morning
a simple postcard,
a simple heartbreak
But rather the earths frictionless canvass cracking open like
jagged lipstick on light bulbs
A lazy head nod cocked to another day
Opening the backlit edges of clouds like motion
And we let it.

Like boomerang ping pong balls of expectation
Poems
The size of postage stamps just to tell me you wish I was there
And I do.

Like the night my rhythm came to a screeching halt
Turntable’s heart attack causing one monotonous scratch
Across the inside of my lungs
Like air was an electricity only you possessed
And I was powerless.

Like wishing the pen had power
Or even the powdered dust perched on the inside of my mouth
If I knew vivid came at such a price
I would have put this down long ago.

Given it to you.

Told you that some days you’ll wake up writing
Cursing inertia like back aches
Feel wrists cracking like marble chewed molars
You won’t remember what you once thought insane was
You’ll scream

Wondering what time of day it was
The moment your mind made the universe
So explosive.

Sparkle & Purple

2008-12-29T23:18:00.008-05:00

Before the poem, another great event going on Tuesday Dec 30 at Busboys & Poets at 5th and K. Sparkle is a queer driven reading and open mic that will start at 8:30 pm. and will be hosted by Regie Cabico.

A hot little poem bout me:

My life is a hot mess too untamed for Crayola definitions
Purple
The sunset of summers spent on hallowed back porches
Splintered tongues twisting around
Eggplant shells
Secrets captured in wooden walls

Orchids dancing through the garden
Carefree, Rare
Hard to raise
O’Keefe

Relief
Like female

My life is a sprinkler’s sunbeam reflection
Clinging closer to greens than blues
That hue
That keeps the splash behind my eyes
Reeling

On nights I fight shadeless dreams

My life is that sacred cup
The perfect buzz
Bring it to your nose
Inhale
That’s some good shit

My life is purple
Propelled permanently towards the next freeway
Past comfortable
And straight on till morning.

Plucking past lives like orchids
To create the radiant light
That is my life’s backlit TV screen
Glowing off
Your now sleeping face.

Purple haze
Purple nonsense
Dancing around #107
That moment that sheds the reds ad blues
From my day’s hand worn blisters.

Purple heat
Screaming through the walls of the apartment
Like static.

Like something barely palpable
But violent violet
Like magenta

Like a shade so familiar
Yet so undefined.

District Winter

2008-12-21T22:37:00.003-05:00

Written in a workshop last Thursday. The prompt was something vague about seasons and detail.

This apartment has a view when the leaves hit the ground
It opens up like red and orange bursting like
Full-bellied angels before the winter hits the city

I see clearly now

My eyes wet and foggy with the resistance of yet another season
Life
It’s just brief jogs between floor board heating and
You
You’re all radiator heat
And fleece blankets

You spell out warmth like the braile behind my eyelids spells discomfort

You comfort my limbs
Make me whole again before spring rushes in without notice

See, I’ve lived in a place without seasons and I’m a girl afraid of change

Afraid of revolving four times around the sun four times yearly
Like I’m always looking for the next season

I want to stay here for a minute
Here in this bare trees and barely breathing
Here in this cold dancing the edge of snow globe
Here in this sheepskin boots and thick stockings

Here in this cold comfort of reds and oranges
Half lives coming to and end
Like summer always seems to too soon

But I’ve stopped missing her

Stopped wishing black ice was puddles to jump through
Stopped tugging on my scarf, praying for tank top
Stopped praying for time to give me back more sunlight

I’m here
Swirling in the surf of yet another cycle
But present at best

Basking in the gloom
And the view
From my apartment.

Letting cold rush over me like juice of a baptism
Never forgetting to let it
Leave me
Breathless.

Karen Effing Finneyfrock in DC Tomorrow Night!

2008-12-16T15:45:00.005-05:00

MotherTongue DC will be hosting Seattle poet (originally from DC) Karen Finneyfrock tomorrow night at 9pm at the Black Cat. Okay, so it's $8, but it supports a great local nonprofit, Our Place DC which helps formerly incarcerated women get back on their feet. A few of them will perform on the open mic (and so will I) and Karen is worth it people.

As for Finney, one of my favorites. "My voice turning 20 years younger in my throat. My voice growing a mermaid tail and a unicorn horn."

Voice to the Voiceless

2008-12-09T21:57:00.006-05:00

Daddy Comes Home Today
Daddy comes home today
And my ears hang low, and they wobble to and fro

And I can throw them over my shoulder like a continental soldier

and then I can be like my Dad.

Strong and tough and brave and good and smart and the best.

When Daddy left for his army vacation Mom told me he was going to I-rack.

Mommy has a spice rack

Baby Julie has a diaper rack

I have a stuffed animal rack

And Daddy has an I- rack.
That’s an inside family joke I think is funny
but I feel silly when Mommy tells it in front of other people.

I kiss Iraq on the map on my wall every night before I go to sleep.
I try to squeeze my lips really tight so they don’t touch Syria or I-ran, but my Mommy says people there could use my goodnight kisses too.

Daddy told me how to tell my left from my right.

Sometimes I get it wrong

But tonight I will kiss Daddy on his right cheek

And whisper “I missed you” in his left and he will know that I am smart

Just like Mrs. Jacobs knows I’m smart when I name all the US State Capitals in alphabetical order by state.

Smart
like winning the geography bee last month

Only this time it will only be Daddy cheering for me and it will be

the greatest.

Daddy comes home today
And I will sleep safely for the first time since he left.
Because Daddy really knows how to look for monsters in all the scariest places.

He looks in the closet

And under the bed

And just outside the window.

He looks in the air conditioning vent.

Tonight Daddy’s hug was the best I’ve ever had in my life.

It was like a thousand hugs all in one and for a minute

I thought I couldn’t breathe

n a really, really, really good way.

I fell asleep in the car and wasn’t awake for Daddy to put me to bed

But I feel safer already just knowing he is here.

I am safe and

Daddy is home and

everything is the

best.

But Mommy is different since Daddy is home.
Her eyes aren’t as shiny.
Her jokes, less funny.
Her smile, hiding in her pocket like Megan’s Girl Scout song.
And it's weird—
But she seems more alone now that Daddy is home.

Can I tell you a secret?
Tonight I heard crashes below my bed

Below where the monsters sleep and into the kitchen.

I didn’t leave my bed.

I tried to be a big boy.

I pulled the covers over my ears
and recited state capitals to fall asleep.

In the morning I ate my Lucky Charms out of Mommy’s good bowls

because something very, very, very bad happened to my Dinosaur ones.

Mommy had this purple spot under her glasses that I tried to ignore

But as she sat across from me at breakfast, reading me Peanuts from the funnies

it was all I could see

think about

stare at.
Did Baby Julie hit her when she was changing her diapers?
Did she run into a wall?

Did this have something to do with the crashes I heard last night?

With Daddy’s voice rumbling under my bed the way thunderstorms do on nights

When they are competing with monsters to see who’s scarier.

Daddy’s voice
Daddy’s voice
Daddy’s voice is meaner

Tonight I tucked myself in.

I can’t check the scariest places by myself

So I just squeezed into that tight place in my covers

And made sure not even a hair was sticking out

Tonight I am hiding

from the monster

in my mommy’s bedroom.

This was a poem written while I was working for an affordable housing organization. One of the families we worked with was a mom who, with her six kids, was forced to flee from her husband after he suffered PTSD from his time in Iraq. I wanted to tell the story of one of the children.

The Point is Not Me, The Point is the Poetry

2008-12-08T15:59:00.004-05:00

So people have been asking me when they can see me perform (and by people I mean 3-4). The problem is, I am not yet of feature status, open mic lists are unpredictable and I usually don't know what what my plans are until I'm doing them. But today I thought to myself, screw it, I am going to start putting events up. Even if I don't make it on the mic, it will be cool for everyone to know of upcoming poetry events.

I had been emailing with Danielle of MotherTongue earlier this morning and she let me know she would be performing at The Guerilla Poetry Insurgency open mic tonight at 7pm at Bossa in Adam's Morgan (my new neighborhood)! I will try to make it on the open mic list in which case I will perform the Seattle poem. I think.

Tomorrow night is the regular open mic at Busboys and Poets on 14th & V. It starts at 9pm, but you should get there at 8pm for wristbands, getting a seat, etc. Very cool poets and a cool vibe there, but Bossa will likely be more low key.

I am pretty excited about tonight so please don't hesistate to join. TK and I will be there at 7pm.

Short. Sweet. Truth.

2008-12-02T17:17:00.001-05:00

Backward glances
Fixed over fingers
Lingers with the scent of you
And the stench of everything that comes after
Every time you walk into a room.

Love, Not H8

2008-11-30T10:24:00.005-05:00

Big things are happening here at Remember When. Thanks to a very dear friend of mine I finally got my act together on this whole embedding videos nonsense. Turns out, its easier than rhyming words with 'our.' I think it dynamically changes the layout and hopefully will make it easier for people to watch the videos of poets featured here.

As for poets featured here, they are mostly from Seattle. I realize that and I am dealing with it. I just have an incredible bias towards the amazing shit that touched stage every Wednesday in oh-so-city-fringe Fremont. The truth is, there are incredible poets all over the country and world. Bringing you one of them in 5,4...

Andrea Gibson. A queer Denver poet who was the first gal ever to win The Women of the World Poetry Slam. She also performed a few times this summer with the Junkyard Ghost Revival, an amazing group of PNW poets. For me, it is always great to see women on the stage and especially one who is so compelling with her words. I saw this piece a long time ago and it ripped me to shreds. The truth is, it's not sad or heart wrenching in the way some other poems are. It's just truth. Plain and simple. As Sharpies bleed from Prop 8 posters and this issue inevitably takes the backburner to other world crisises, I thought it was appropriate to share this poem. As for the bastards who voted for Prop 8, Andrea Gibson totally made me gay, so apparently they do recruit!

The Backup Band of My Soul

2008-11-23T23:34:00.007-05:00

There is really no rhythm to this poem or slam-ability, but there is still something I really like about it:

The solo of my soul is provided by the sweet song of some strung out hip hop hippy girl
Her grill gleaming in the green of my emerald heart.
My misguided steps make her voice fall apart

The lesbian twins of my contorted stomach sing backup in melodic circles taking turns with the harmony, always there to catch their twist and drop in rhyme
Their perfect pitch keeps me in line.
My soul delicious
Impossible to define.

Drop beats
Turn this garage band into Prima Donna
You can do this
Cue the music.

The mellow undertones of the drums bring the beat back
Put me back on a straight path
And the spotlight drops on a girl.
Young, beautiful, Snow White features.
Arms flailing, fingers barely big enough to grab drumsticks
Licks her lips
Takes a glimpse at the crowd
She knows she can handle this.

She is brave, wise beyond her years
Her eyes swell with tears

This is no longer a dress rehearsal for an audience of two
In the audience is you
You close your eyes
And let the the music wash over your memory.

Arising from the looped chorus of our creation
A voice booming from each speaker
A surround sound sure to make your ear drums swell
Your sickness well
You to hear the music
Stop the nuisance
Become the sound
That is me.

See I can sing the humility out of any man when I’m alone
But I rock worlds to islands
Leave the strongest crying
Make that flutter in your heart turn into convulsions
Bring phat flows of fancy with that drop from percussion

I can make you dance
Put the beauty back into your step, into me, into the world

When the backup band of my soul

Plays center stage to this girl.

Lauren Welch Knows All My Secrets or My New Favorite Poem: Take 2

2008-11-20T21:54:00.005-05:00

My dear friend Lauren gchatted me at work earlier this week to let me know that Danny Sherrard
was reading "my new favorite poem" on a "very Seattle" video on YouTube. Confession: This video is the reason this poem has become my favorite. Confession: Danny Sherrard is the reason I do anything in life. Seattle's own rock star reading the Archipelago:

And if you want to get your world rocked: The Distance.As for my excuses, I promise I will post my own stuff soon. Lots in the head and little time to put it on paper but I will get there. Soon. Promise.

My New Favorite Poem

2008-11-18T12:56:00.005-05:00

I hope to one day be as brilliant as the last line of this poem.

The Archipelago of Kisses
By Jeffrey McDaniel
We live in a modern society.
Husbands and wives don'tgrow on trees, like in the old days. So wheredoes one find love?

When you're sixteen it's easy
Like being unleashed with a credit card in a department store of kisses.

There's the first kiss.The sloppy kiss. The peck.The sympathy kiss. The backseat smooch. The we shouldn't be doing this kiss. The but your lips taste so good kiss. The bury me in an avalanche of tingles kiss.The I wish you'd quit smoking kiss.The I accept your apology, but you make me really mad sometimes kiss. The I knowyour tongue like the back of my hand kiss.

As you get older, kisses become scarce.
You'll be driving home and see a damaged kiss on the side of the road, with its purple thumb out. If you were younger, you'd pull over
Slide open the mouth's red door just to see how it fits. Oh where does one find love?

If you rub two glances, you get a smile. Rub two smiles, you get a warm feeling.
Rub two warm feelings and presto-you have a kiss. Now what?

Don't invite the kiss over and answer the door in your underwear.
It'll get suspicious and stare at your toes.
Don't water the kiss with whiskey.
It'll turn bright pink and explode into a thousand luscious splinters, but in the morning it'll be ashamed and sneak out ofyour body without saying good-bye, and you'll remember that kiss forever by all the little cuts it left on the inside of your mouth.

You must nurture the kiss. Turn out the lights. Notice how it illuminates the room.
Hold it to your chest and wonder if the sand inside hour glasses comes from a special beach.
Place it on the tongue's pillow, then look up the first recorded kiss in an encyclopedia.
Beneath a Babylonian olive tree in 1200 B.C.

But one kiss levitates above all the others.
The intersection of function and desire.
The I do kiss.
The I'll love you through a brick wall kiss.
Even when I'm dead, I'll swim through the Earth, like a mermaid of the soil
Just to be next to your bones.

A Horrible Haiku for My (one day) Hipster Husband

2008-11-14T14:57:00.002-05:00

penned on the red line. bitches.

scruff, gruff, of the earth
heart worn sleeves, eyes pierce, calming
wake up next to me?

Politics Aside

2008-11-09T22:40:00.004-05:00

This is a poem I was asked to write for a celebration of Israel's 60th Birthday in Seattle last Spring. I performed it at the slam that same week and I was oh-so-politely publicly ridiculed on stage by the featured poet, a Jewish girl whose views on Israel were different than mine. She thought.

Everyone who knows me well knows that I have a special place for Israel in my heart and have spent many of my summers in recent memory in the Middle East. While I've wrestled with religion over the past few years (story, poem, novel for another time) I still hold a strong affinity for the culture, people and distinct 'ness' that is Israel. At the same time, I do see clear human rights and democratic issues in that land and am always looking for discourse on this issue (I mean, I work for the New Israel Fund!) I felt very polarized by the poet's comments that night, feeling nervous about performing this poem to a sea of liberals who cringe at the "I' word without really listening to the common thread of the poem.

On a happier note, it is worth noting that Buddy Wakefield came up to me that night to tell me how great he thought the poem was (and to ask what "goy" meant...!). My Israel poem (in a safe space..):

A few summers ago I took a group of college students on a tour through Israel

On our fifth day

We found ourselves in Yitzhak Rabin square

The vacant quad that echoes songs turned to screams from the day
That day
When history defied itself to bring Jew against Jew

An event so rare, yet so poignant, in our lineage

The Israeli soldier accompanying our trip recounted the events of that day to the sea of co-ed ears

Exchanging suntan lotion and invisible notes about how cute he was

I stood in the back so they could listen better

But his story eyes pierced me to the front of the class
This soldier was staring right into me as he told his story
Because he was certain that my 22 year old

Self-proclaiming Zionist heart had a clue what it was like to be him
What it was like to be Israeli
On that day

Because I was 11 when it happened,
And these students were barely 7
So sliding across the top of their sunburnt scalps

Comes this look
This understanding he thinks I have
This call looking for a response

Only I don’t know what to tell him

His country crumbled that day
And even the forced picture of peace shattered

Like light bulbs on wedding days

The image of our presidents hands playing tug of war with the hands of their two leaders
Was nothing more than a Superman boy hoping to get his parents to sleep in the same bed again.

I went to bed that night

My 6th grade mind filling with more questions than answers

Felt my moms tears when my Dad said “hug your mother,"

And promised myself I’d learn all the words to Hatikvah in the morning.

Promises empty like regret
Like threats
Like bomb threats that ended an Israel event I went to that year
Like the bomb shelter this soldier would later write me emails from
when fighting escalated in the North
While I was back safely in Seattle throwing lassos around stars
Hoping to pluck luck out of the sky for him

He’s spit dirt for his country and never asked questions

I can’t conceive what its like to be born fighting
To be conceieved a pre-meditated soldier
To modern history’s seemingly endless war
To stand on not-quite firm

Not quite solid

Not quite anyone’s soil

See I've never questioned the certainty of my own backyard

So this look he’s giving me
Can be repaid with nothing but an awkward glance
With hopes of peace measured in more than months between fighting
And maybe we connect on that basic level

But his eyes reflect the blue of the Kinneret

The ribbon tied around our fingers reminding us “never forget”

The flag shrouded over his friends buried on Har Herzl

Eyes blinding me with the 112 degree shade of this Tel Aviv afternoon
Begging me to remember why I love his land
This land

Yes We Effing Did: A Remember When Feature

2008-11-07T07:08:00.003-05:00

When I turned to my friends at 11:04pm on Tuesday to say "let's take to the streets," all I meant was "let's pop champagne on your stoop before I pass out on your Mt. Pleasant couch." My only regret from the night is not joining them on their adventure to U Street, White House and essentially every other block that seemed to be flooded with people. However, the energy in DC right now continues to be palpable. You cannot ask someone simply how their day is going without a large grin and exuberant response (of course, I work for a human rights foundation, so this may be a bias..).

So in honor of Tuesday night's events, I couldn't think of a better feature than Barry himself. He wrote these poem's while on a brief tenure at Occidental College (can't keep up with dude's geography). There is so much I to want to say right now but I think I'm just coming down from it all and need some more time to process. For now, our feature for this week, Mr. President Elect (baller), Barack Obama:

Pop

Sitting in his seat, a seat broad and broken

In, sprinkled with ashes

Pop switches channels, takes another

Shot of Seagrams, neat, and asks

What to do with me, a green young man

Who fails to consider the

Flim and flam of the world, since

Things have been easy for me;

I stare hard at his face, a stare

That deflects off his brow;

I’m sure he’s unaware of his

Dark, watery eyes, that

Glance in different directions,

And his slow, unwelcome twitches,

Fail to pass.

I listen, nod,

Listen, open, till I cling to his pale,

Beige T-shirt, yelling,

Yelling in his ears, that hang

With heavy lobes, but he’s still telling

His joke, so I ask why

He’s so unhappy, to which he replies...

But I don’t care anymore, cause

He took too damn long, and from

Under my seat, I pull out the

Mirror I’ve been saving; I’m laughing,

Laughing loud, the blood rushing from his face

To mine, as he grows small,

A spot in my brain, something

That may be squeezed out, like a

Watermelon seed between

Two fingers.

Pop takes another shot, neat,

Points out the same amber

Stain on his shorts that I’ve got on mine, and

Makes me smell his smell, coming

From me; he switches channels, recites an old poem

He wrote before his mother died,

Stands, shouts, and asks

For a hug, as I shrink, my

Arms barely reaching around

His thick, oily neck, and his broad back; ’cause

I see my face, framed within

Pop’s black-framed glasses

And know he’s laughing too.

Underground

Under water grottos, caverns

Filled with apes

That eat figs.

Stepping on the figs

That the apes

Eat, they crunch.

The apes howl, bare

Their fangs, dance,

Tumble in the

Rushing water,

Musty, wet pelts

Glistening in the blue.

I Have No Idea What It Is, But I Want It

2008-11-02T20:57:00.004-05:00

Ryler Dustin is an amazing, Seattle (shocking) poet who regularly ripped it up at the Seattle slam and was on the Seattle National Slam Team in 2007. This poem is nothing short of genius although if you are left at the end wondering what the heck it is all about, you're not alone. The thing that I love most about this poem is that you are just along for the amazing ride and usage of words, whether the context is clear or not. The killer line for me is "not like suicide but like setting himself free/ when the nurses fell back like you did from me." Just. Genius.

Change is Cerebral First

2008-10-27T17:31:00.005-04:00

This weekend, Jenn and I ventured to Ohio to visit our good friend Aaron, who has set up shop in the Obama headquarters for the last two months and will be there through the election. It was a great experience to canvass with Toledo folks, meet all the transplants who have literally put their lives on hold to work for this campaign and just to feel the energy that so many have about putting Obama in the White House.

One thing that continues to amaze, appall, befuddle me is how much of a role race is playing in this election. While there are a number of people whose opinions are clear on electing a black man as president, I fear that there are possibly even more individuals who, behind the closed curtains of their voting precincts, will choose Candidate White over Candidate Black. Some version of the last line of this poem has been in my head for weeks, but the rest of it finally came together over the weekend (no fault of the good people of Ohio, just finally had time to put in perspective). It also truly is a yell-and-scream-I-got-some-sh*t-to-say slam poem, so it may not translate as well on paper but I’ll try…

We touch pavement

Rock signs for change

Grip to the inevitable hope that we have come to put our faith in

As my neighbors draw the shades

Draw back themselves into a world of 50 years ago

Unable to admit why Hope is not enough for them.

Fists knock doors

Knock air

Knock the wind out of me as the monsters under my bed come to life

This Struggle often reserved for my eyes unseen streets

Is in dress rehearsal on our global stage

And I’m wondering what section of the bus is reserved for me.

Reserved for this girl whose feet are touching down on the streets of Toledo

Like they were Montgomery’s 1950’s concrete.

Words of another dreamers tongue ringing in my ear

Now perched on the surface ready to break spit

But squeaking out in a whisper I can barely translate.

We are armed for discourse about the Issues but not the Issue

We are complacent in our space to stay away from this

While we should be breaking open our voices to scream

“We did not fight for ignorance!”

We did not fight to have our hands shake with fear of Color being the bottom line

As hands silently unravel the work of past generations and mine

Retying it into a firm and solid slipknot-

I cannot comprehend that we are back at this

That this 11^th hour pipe dream is as black as fists

We have progressed so little in our quest for progress

Yet we are willing to settle for less

If it means we can tape our tongues and give voice to the racist.

I’m left wondering what defect iris has eyes seeing nothing but skin tones,

what heartbeat thinks that matters.

I hear a man who is pumping motivation back into the veins of my generation

See a protector of my life-giving body, a world I would want to bring life into

Taste the success of teachers who can harbor their craft and still afford to eat

Smell the Middle East sands settling into dust with the memories of soldier’s feet

Touch the face of the college student who never saw a diploma as an option

I cannot imagine what you see.

And I fear that my hands are too shaky to change your mind.

To stop Southern teenagers from shaving their heads and cutting this off at the source

To try and show them that hands can hold change

Even if their palms are a different shade.

But I am left with only one week

And as results hang in the air

Like nooses on Alabama trees.

All I can dream to say is Yes We Can

Yes We Can

This mantra

Once inspirational, now making me feel numb

Wondering if this candidates slogan should echo the words of

We Shall Overcome

Remember When I Had Fan Mail?

2008-10-21T23:10:00.003-04:00

My name is Sarah L and I approve this message.

Julia's Slam

sarah's blog is really tight

with poetry, thoughts and lots of insight.

it's more fun than facebook, one step up from TV

it's seriously entertaining and cliche-free.

when you're bored at work or chilling at your pad

read sarah's blog- it's pretty rad

- the lovely and talented, Julia Unger.

It Only Has To Make Sense To You

2008-10-19T21:40:00.008-04:00

This poem is ridiculous.

While a wise man once told me that your poetry only needs to make sense to you, I still find this poem way too outer space to perform most of the time. Yes, it's fun. Yes, the two or three times I have performed it, I've realized that there are some lines that people can relate to. Otherwise, it's serious nonsense.

I love this poem but often finding myself wanting to brief the audience beforehand on the even more ridiculous prompt that led to this poem, asking at the end "now do you get it?" So since this is my blog, with my rules, I am going to do exactly that. The prompt to the poem (as well as I can remember it) is at the end.

Maybe you will get it. Maybe you will just enjoy the ridiculous.

Rooftop Chitchat
The dark back alleys of Boston's side streets Daddy's arm chair you in their shadow
You are alone in this city with nothing but your art
You're Mommy's Reading Room to Robin Hood arrow nothing
But beautiful and profound things with cameras and stages

We hot cocoa with extra marshmallows as we Chuck Taylor to your Cambridge apartment
You yap-box snap snap about Cracker Jack knapsacks that I can't free prize from
But guys tend to do that
Rooftop chitchat about their own interests
Long after women are on the first floor.

You grandma's gold bangle jangle with your hands
A true actor in every sense
Your voice box click clack would be gone if you were last pick in freeze tag
Could not emphasize the fire-red door next door two nights ago
Could not "you'll poke your eyes out!" to the kids in your theater workshop
Could not Oscar, Emmy, Tony your life

Your hands are Dinosaur Night Light Lite-Brites
Baby Belugas in the Deep Blue Sea
Green shag taxi cab me to 7 and 9 years old
42nd Street on Broadway
An optical illusion we thought
We had never seen
Knee, Leg, Foot, Hips
Take me to our DC Suburban upbringing that you vocally shun and desperately miss
To your backstage

And you're my brother
And for a moment I'm not sure which pajamas mom told you to wear to bed
A textile so distinct from my own
Me- yellow, fleece, footies
You- cars, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, flesh

For a moment I am jealous
Or is this envy?
I always get the two confused when my heart plays cops
Brain plays robbers
Emotions call us down to dinner

Your intensity is contagious as we sit in your apartment
You- wide-TV eyes on your craft
Me- Kristof crossword my New York Times morning

Eyes caught
Awkward love
Baseballs in oversized mitts

"Will you thank me in your acceptance speech some day?"

You look up at me, tearing yourself from your commitment to your page for a moment.

"Sar, I accept you already"

Prompt
Write about someone you know well. They are doing something with their hands. Include an exotic place (Boston?). At some point, they look at you and answer in a way that shows they have only understood part of the question. Turn all your verbs into nouns. Drink a bottle of wine.

Ain't Nothin But A She Thing

2008-10-17T13:15:00.006-04:00

For months, I have been hearing about this woman's poetry group that Talya's former boss' partner Ruth (breathe) founded here in DC. On Wednesday, Talya and I finally ventured to the Black Cat for Mothertongue's 10th Anniversary open mic and event. It was really the energy, vibe and intense poetry that I've been searching for in this city and it was wonderful to be surrounded by smart, beautiful women especially since there are really so few represented in poetry (end fem rant). Excited to get involved (and super excited that they are bringing out Seattle poet Karen Finneyfrock in November)!

Freedom Brain Dump

2008-10-13T22:01:00.007-04:00

This weekend I escaped the Beltway to explore the wonderful, progressive and charmingly Southern town of Carborro, NC (thanks J & S!). I left feeling rejuvinated and ready to write. And then, there was horrific traffic on 95 and I barely had time to finish my Sweet Tea before plopping into bed at 8:30pm. All the motivation I could muster for writing was a 10 minute brain dump (think: guts of the poem, rought rough draft) on defining Freedom. Enjoy and hopefully it will turn into something real someday!

Freedom Is...

Some say it is when you have nothing left to lose
But I say it is everything to gain and nothing but a backpack of future
It’s a peace sign giving the finger to everything

It is forgetting the reflection and acting how you feel
It is feeling beautiful because your veins tell you to
And ugly because you’ve acted that way
And content because you are not a child anymore
And happy because you may be turning out to be a good thing.

It is a world most will never know
And that few don’t even know to forget.

It is the moment your religion becomes less of a box and more of a globe

It is silences becoming comfortable
And words less conscious

It is realizing the infinite possibilities of your single life
It is never being afraid to say you deserve nothing but genuine

It is buying a bikini for the first time

It’s your heart
Moving mountains and planets and rib cages
Just by letting your voice out of it’s cell
It is speaking on the mic like you’re on the podium to the universe
Giving reason to the dictionary.

It is my heart
Ringing on the downbeat just to make sure I don’t miss the moment
As deliberate as the suns’ rise and set
As essential as lifeblood and hair
As beautiful as sky and grace
And wonderful as the
possibilities before us.

He's Not Flash, But He's Fast and His Name is J

2008-10-10T08:19:00.004-04:00

As I said in the opening post (about a day ago..), I really hope this can be a space for other friends, poets and poet friends to share their work. So following an open plea sent to my friends, poets and poet friends, I was thrilled to almost immediately receive an email back from my good pal, Justin Searns.

J is one of those people who has a natural gift for writing. His poems are incredibly powerful, every word deliberate. I won't say too much about this poem (and just for kicks, I'll let you guess where the clinic is...), but I will say this: when J sent this to me it was the first time there was a title attached to it. Gravity. Perfect. This is the line that rings in my ears for days and the image that really haunts me from this piece. Please show him some love via comments-- I think this poem deserves nothing less.

Without further adieu, from Portland by way of Denver, Colorado, Justin Searns:

Gravity

This clinic is dirty. Dirty like the hump of trash we set on fire outside.
This clinic is dirty. Dirty like the mouths of goats sifting through that smoldering pile. This clinic is dirty. Dirty like the needles we keep herded and separate.
This clinic is dirty. Like a cheap day care is hectic.

It is out-of-control dirty. Inertia dirty. Newtonian physics dirty.

And I,
I’m just a third year college student.
Ineffectual and impotent.

I’m writing a research paper, so all I can do is

Scribble notes
Talk
Breathe

Cling to the back of Sophie’s white lab coattails
in front of me.

Assist her, the only doctor for 50 miles with the lumbar puncture in bed seven. Look over her shoulder at X-Rays back-lit by sunlight.
Keep her company as she burns tobacco sacrifices to the gods of stoicism.

This clinic is dirty.
Like Ward 6.

The unventilated Tuberculosis room.
Where an old woman from across the aisle locks eyes with me,
so I swear to keep it secret that she wore nothing but gravity.

That her shoulders folded back like clipped angel wings.
That her head rocked forward, a cradle to her country.
Double bent heavy under the base of this
pyramid scheme.

This clinic is dirty, like the backs of her knees,
slung over the side of that steel frame stretcher at an impasse.

To stand up and try walking or
lay back down and
try dying.

We move on, to pediatrics, so Sophie and I can check up on a half-calendar life
5 pounds later.
His mother is propped against the edge of the bed twisting an IV between her fingertips like an umbilical cord.

All three of us wonder
how something so small can be so shrouded in shadow,
when months earlier, he was being forged in light.
A boy, too frail to raise his eyelids
cradling death in his hands like it was his fucking birthright.

Sophie, don’t hold eyes with me. I don’t want you to see this inner complexity,
for how some doctors can lose their humanity,
so easily.

This clinic is dirty, like a broken condom.
Like a catchement area of 700,000 people
and an HIV rate of 45%.

This clinic is dirty, like the politicians.
Who misplaced it’s funding exchanging full coffins
for swollen coffers

If cleanliness, is godliness.
Then god grew tired of this place long ago.

And now this tin roof palpitates, these asthmatic windows wheeze out warnings, these walls harbor no welcome for weakness, so I collapse outside them,
Screaming into the wind at people
8000 miles away.

Wondering how far my voice can carry on air.
Knowing folks back home won’t see life like this,
except in soul-shiver nightmares.

This clinic is dirty and my backbone has left me.
So I crawl my way back down the hill home,
eagerly.

I lose myself.

Forget my day.
Pour some tea into my cup.

Wondering
Why we are all so certain.
That we know which way
is up.

About A Boy I Knew Once

2008-10-07T12:25:00.004-04:00

Seriously, I'm 12...

You make me physically uncomfortable
Like a thong
Like a night that goes on too long, laced with alcoholic visions and poor life decisions

You make me uncomfortable like the morning after

Uncomfortable like the first time I saw Jordan Catalano lean when I was 14
Or the first time your best friends shows up in your not so little-kid dreams
Or me trying to fit in to size 6 jeans

Like the first time you make a promise you know you won’t keep
Or sitting in the middle seat, admitting your defeat
Or the first time I let a new boyfriend touch my feet

Or like when you know you’re hanging out with people cooler than you
And wondering if they know too
Or when you still haven’t gotten your period and it’s day 32

Uncomfortable like biting my tongue when I know too much
Or Sunday morning exit strategies because last night I needed a touch
No not your touch
His touch
But I had to settle for a touch just to make this loneliness a little more
comfortable

Uncomfortable like the heart palpitations I get when I think about turning 25
Or riding shotgun with my best friend from New York who never learned how to drive
Or the impulse
To have our hearts broken just to know we’re still alive.

Uncomfortable when I hear your name and the word itself transfixes on my brain
Seeps through my veins
Causing the syncopation
of casual conversation
to come out in stutters

The anticipation of seeing you makes me sweat

And smile

And practice conversations we may exchange between our lips
Because this delicate dialogue is too scary without a script.

Uncomfortable like the secret we share
That under my palms of sweat and flirty glares

This concoction of curiosity and chaos
that is our trademark brew
I secretly revel in the joy of knowing

that I make you uncomfortable too.

Don't Think, Just Write

2008-10-06T17:11:00.002-04:00

I took a writing class in Seattle taught by Daemond Arrindell, Seattle's Slam Master and a generally wonderful person. Class after class, Daemond would give us prompts to inspire our writing but remind us to just let the pen take control. No worrying about what our words would sound like later. No thinking. No crossing out words. No idle pens. It was poetry boot camp.

Armored with a homework prompt from Daemond, I recruited J Searns, a fellow aspiring poet and generally wonderful person, to set up a two-person writing circle outside El Diablo cafe in Queen Anne. Channeling the instructions from Daemond, we set an alarm to limit the writing, quickly glanced at the prompt and..just..wrote.

The product? While normally these writings turn out to be a brain dump that need serious editing later, this afternoon actually produced a poem that has gone through little edits and seen the stage many times since it's conception. Enjoy & Comment!

Hunger

The pit in my knees that lets me know I’m weak for you

Allows me to rise and face the day

I want nothing but this moment

Want only to open the door and find you clumsy on the bed

Engrossed in my gaze

Entangled in my sheets

Enveloped in my kiss

In love

With the sun and stars that we plucked from the sky to erase this 24 hour cycle we call day

To just be.

We take this moment and swish it in our glass

Hold it on our tongues

Promising our memories that we will never forget this.

My fingers play an empty tune on the invisible harp strings that lead to the hollow after-life of your ego.

My hands, slender but strong, peel you open like a grapefruit until you are exposed.

And I taste the sweet juice of what lies underneath.

We know that this is brief.

But we would sacrifice excitement if the universe had not been jealous enough of this moment to steal it away from us.

We know that time

Like the

Fast forward, playback, mute, slow faster faster slow of this biography is selfish

And we spend hours remembering to remember

To hold on

To never forget

To always always remember

To breath in and out

Breath it all in until

It’s gone

Until time is the only witness to what this is

To the brief but immortal moment where the world forgot about history and just created this

Creation.

I wonder what that first bite of apple tasted like.

If Eve’s aching middle left her doubled over like elephants—too burdened with the weight of memory to stand proud and strong, defiant.

A woman

Empty in the wake of a man who created her

You etched me out of nothing

And now to nothing I return

Vacant like hope

Blank like my gaze searching for your eyes, finding only sockets

Empty like your side of the bed.

Hollow like the promises we made to always be this moment.

Remember When I Had A Blog?

2008-10-06T00:16:00.003-04:00

Sunday nights have always been dangerous for me.

My best friend in college and I would consistently get the “Sunday Night Blues” after our whirlwind weekends, usually cured with bad movies, fleece blankets and Tostino’s Pizza Rolls. Tonight, with my weekend schedule making it impossible to sleep before 2am and my laptop taking up shop next to me in bed, I decided now was a good of a time as any to start a blog. Really? Really.

The background: I just got back from living in Seattle for three years where I was exposed to this crazy world known as Spoken Word Poetry. It pretty much changed my life and if you haven’t checked out a slam: GO (steps down from soap box). April is arbitrarily the month where poets test the limits of their writing and challenge themselves to write a poem for each day of the month. I had been thinking about starting a blog then but decided that tonight, October 5, 2008, is close enough to April for me. Thus, Remember When I Had A Blog was born.

I’m hoping this can be a place to share some of the poetry I’ve been working on, display other people’s work and hopefully share musings/ comments/ general judgmental observations on life.

First poem has literally never been seen/ heard by anyone but me and I just finished it last night. I wrote it for my last time on the open mic in Seattle but never finished it there. Enjoy & if you got something to say, comment!

For the Place I'm Coming From

I never was the type of girl who dreamed of moving West
Always harbored my post-college dreams somewhere between Chelsea and the Village
Never dreamed I would be 3, 000 miles away from Atlantic summers swinging off porches of every memory I had before 3 years ago
When the itch to leave comfortable kept me up at night, kept me haunted with nightmares of lonely
of far
but soon reminding myself that cheap thrills come in giving ourselves goose bumps
So soon I was dreaming of a new air in my lungs
Pressing deeply on the lips of some new city

Seattle

Where a .org girl could afford a drinking habit and an apartment in the city
Where hipsters are not just trust fund babies in disguise
Where everything was anything but familiar
Thank you for being anything but familiar.

Thank you

For the first sign of spring hitting you like Rainier hovering over I-90,
Leaves you breathless
Like rain
Like Colin Meloy’s music and Buddy Wakefield’s words.
Like the Olympics ground swelling with these verses, making it feel like home

Seattle

For baristas with a truck full of stories and nothing but ears to sing them to
For this Hill having a story to tell and a hidden mystery to prove it
For the most interesting souls
The raddest tattoos
The sincerest of eyes

Thank you

For Sunday afternoon latte art watching people’s lives bounce off the Bauhaus Balcony
For poetry beaming through windows of now-vacant theater basements
transforming
conforming
To Seattle’s new look but always remembering the power of its core
To those who convinced me to go to that first slam and licked my ears with wounds that still pray to heal

Thank you

My 12 season cycles of Seattle echo in my ears like the whirl of a rainstorm
And I’m up at night with phantom pains of limbs that live 3,000 miles away
With only the sky to hold us together

A forever dot in my constellation
Guiding me towards the coast I once called home.