Al Regreso

I have returned to some of my most favorite places in the world. I am writing from San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas after spending two days in Xela. I am returning to so many things tangible and intangible. Estoy contenta y no falta nada. It has been three days and I have already completed two poems. One is in English and the other Spanish and, for now, the one in Spanish will not be translated.

1.

You slid right through my fingers
right through my lips
like words never spoken
between 4am bathroom trips and
bare-assed bathroom tile sits
wailing

Failing to recover
the clots of you that sank
beyond the curve of the toilet drain.

Your blood in mine stained
the blankets and sheets
streaks of loss marked my thighs
dried up cries became empty sighs
an empty womb and a wound
that will reopen month after month
in remembrance.

I sat staring out the window
for a long long time
as the soft white snow
covered everything.

2.

En un momento
cae el sol de mi cielo.
En otro minuto
subo a volar.
En el cielo tan oscuro
vuelo con mis propias alas
en el cielo mio.

Vuelo y descanso en las nubes
porque son mias tambien.
El viento viene, el viento mio,
y me agarra de las alas
y me carga a los destinos nuevos;
nuevos pero bien familiares
lugares que conozco
pero los que nunca he visto.

Acá me encuentro.
Me encuentro agradecida
por mi cielo sin sol,
por mis alas
y mi viento que me deja a volar.
Me muestran como descubrir,
el la oscuridad,
que soy la luna
la luna de mi propia cielo.

Morning Prayer

The beginning of movement

this melodic moment

suspended

between two worlds

words without syllable

or syntax

some call it ‘surrender’

I say that sounds too easy

and yet not simple enough.

‘Suspension’ seems somehow more appropriate

or perhaps ‘morning prayer’ will do.

Blast from the Past

I have been seeking distraction from school work quite regularly lately. My distraction of choice today has been thumbing through the stack of old journals on my bookshelf. There seem to be hundreds of little one-two lined thoughts scribbled into margins and unedited poems on napkins stuffed into the journals' cover pockets. Resurrecting these journals feels like discovering old photo albums of my most personal memories.

Here is a little untitled, unedited bit I found from 2008. Upon reading it, I remembered exactly where I was and what was happening when I wrote it. Bisbee, AZ at the Stock Exchange bar listening to Dylan Charles and his band play their hearts out.

To be free

on two knees

empty

like the metallic pause

of the trumpet's cry

or the saxophones weeping.

To live in loss

as if it was ever

not so.

It's the same as letting go

of anything

of everything

you never had.

Like the love

that has not yet filled

or fit

the contours

of your insides.

Releasing can be relieving

but it can also be deranging.

Listen up,

don't you sit still, child,

tap tip tap your toes

nod and bob that head

switch and sway those hips.

The trumpet and the saxophone

will tell you all you need to know for now

this sound.

My Sweet Lorde

As the end of a semester approaches it brings with it urgent demands of my time and attention. And, as is in my nature, I am meeting this full of resistance and rebellion. Don't fret, I'm still getting shit done, but I am redefining how I am going to do this whole nursing school thing. I am finding little ways to do things my way; little beautiful rebellions to keep me crazy.

One of my most worthy distractions has been discovering and delving into the work of Audre Lorde. I am currently reading a book of poetry by her called Black Unicorn. I keep having the urge to rub my face on its pages. That's the only way I can describe how I feel about her poems, I want to rub my face in them.

Here are two of my many new favorites.

Chorus

Sun

make me whole again

to love

the shattered truths of me

spilling out like dragon's teeth

through the hot lies

of those who say they love

me

when I am done

each shard will spring up

complete and armed

like a warrior woman

hot to be dealt with

slipping through alleyways

of musical night people humming

Mozart

was a white dude.

Fog Report

In this misty place where hunger finds us

seeking direction

I am too close to you to be useful.

When I speak the smell of love on my breath

distracts you

and it is easier for me

to move

against myself in you

than to solve my own equations.

I am often misled

by your familiar comforts

the shape of your teeth is written

into my palm like a second lifeline

when I am fingerprinted

the taste of your thighs

shows up

outlined in the ink.

They found me wandering at the edge

of a cliff

beside the nightmares of your body

"Give us your name and place of birth

and we will show you the way home."

I am tempted

to take you apart

and reconstruct your orifices

your tongue your truths your fleshy altars

into my own forgotten image

so when this fog lifts

I could be sure to find you

tethered like a goat

in my heart's yard.

Girrrl, you crazy!

I have always been uncertain as to what makes one crazy. Some of the most intelligent, creative, interesting and vibrant people I have known in my life have been, at some point, deemed mentally unstable. It seems as though sanity is a sort of tight-rope walk on an invisible chord. Some learn from those before them and/or society how to walk this tight-rope with relative ease and stability while others try, fall and never quite seem to get back up again. The former are considered sane while the latter are insane... pretty straight forward, right? But there is a third category and it is a most perplexing one. It consists of those who know how to balance upon this invisible chord and yet choose to fall from it and then rise back upon it. They continue to fall-rise-fall again and again in some mystical dance their entire lives. We call these people artists, mystics, geniuses, crazy people. And, there are many of us.

I have decided to re-post a poem I wrote in 2009 for my kindred crazies.

Ode to Lunacy

It was not asked for
but accepted
Peculiar preconditions
Delicate dispositions

Such senseless states
Tending us toward
Seasonal psychosis
and teeter-tottering tendancies

To those blessed accursed ones...twos... seven thousands
Unaccounted for
Bound beyond margins becoming
The spines of hard backed
History books

This is for those who see
Differently
Whose knees bounce
Ardently
Keeping time with
The movements
and music
Of their mind

Let these lines be an ode
To those
Whose hands and hearts
Make the beauty we only dream about
Whose lives are like
Broad daylight
and its under appreciated honesty

From those of us who
Know we've known
Only half-lives and lies
We thank you.

A Personal Geography

There is a place above the navel

and below the breastbone where

There is an old woman looking out a window.

There is a newborn child

held by its mother.

There is a mother holding

her child that will never be born.

There is a woman wading in a stream;

there is a puddle up to her knees.

There is an urge to throw things out.

An empty cage

A singing crow

There is what I believe myself to be

And there is all that I do not yet know.