... to rest and I used it well
for errands
and visiting
lunches
lamb
and tabouli
exhausted I begin again
some mornings
I rise to the challenge hampster
the clear edge of a beautiful dawn
crisp
in one of the Carolinas
Charlotte
and the flu
raging molasses in my muscles
my blood
my chest tightens
and my throat errupts
coughing is no joke
beef and broccholi
theraflu
one tangerine given to me by a girl
spinning tunes on a table
nights are always hard
the degree of difficulty increases when you are ill
and moving
in bus and plane
no trains on this trip
this side of the Atlantic
I wish I had the constitution
for drugs
or large amounts of alcohol
I understand the need for drowning
pools of wet oblivion
beckon
only I do not have the guts to go
suffer through this body being
unfaithful
fickle
changing its mind
I wish I could be like a juniper tree
constant and beautiful
I miss myself
wide-eyed
and filled with the hope of a young wonder
today
is a day for reckoning
and it is almost two months since I have been in love
and I am not convinced that I was
without poetry
without the blinders of being too close
I wish to reassess
my definition of falling
apart
or in love
or from grace
time to back-track and begin the race again
court me
lavish gifts on my own body
baths
and scented lotions
I vow to have a massage every time I have
the urge
I will procure
things of color
and blaze them fury
through my day
remind myself
that there are things blooming
elsewhere
hibiscus
and croton
joseph coats
and marigolds
sunflowers even
things are not dead everywhere
things
are not
dead everywhere
hope lingers sturdy in places like Johannesburg
and my apartment
and Munich
and Cologne has not seen my breath in too long
hello Lisa
and Larah
my loves existing dual in so many cultures
you are as beautiful
as the first snow imprinted with the feet of children
laughing
I long to see you
Brent
Anna
my sisters in Jamaica
Racquel
it was good to hear your heart yesterday
Chaun
thank the gods for instant messages
Janelle
I am so proud of your hands busy
with the business of growing up
growing up
stunning
I am coming home soon
for a sit-down by the sea
maybe a festival or two
some escovietched fish
a piece of jerk something
maybe
and a whole lot of laughter
and memories
from a time we will never have
but new memories have to be made
and there is only
so much space in the belly of spirits
till next time
I am here
surviving the craze disguised as the flu
Staceyann
As it is with epiphanies
the knowing
burned electric for eons
anecdotes traded
not about hearts
or cunts
or ambition
but about poetry
and how my chest would not exist without it
words became bond
and wrapped solid
around my craze
tonight
I was brave
allowed me to see myself
with kinder eyes
I am doing fine
my own throat reassures
without the raw flesh of invulnerability cloaking my misgivings
I was honest
revealed the saddest parts of my effort
as human
mundane
lonely
alone
I am committed to being singular
trying
not to fall in love
with any potential
dream
larger than these small hands of cartilage
can sustain
banal
boring and blatantly besotted with the curve
of gut attached to clarity
I sat frightened
in a nondescript chair
promised my shoulders
to regret nothing
but my own
intention
I will allow my body
only
what I consciously choose
this is what I have a duty to do
fall in love with
myself
before I let another motherfucker touch me
to glow brilliant on the inside
to be sure
to know this carnal measure
as whole as dominion over breath
I will not die compliant
belief broken and hollow
I have been thrown out of love too many times
for any whispered word to be magical
twinkles and twilight
are illusions
the night need not be dark
for a conjurer of fantasies to fly blind
into meaningless hope
love in this century is hard
it takes prisoners
whole legs
even when you decide you will not join the fray
being your best self
requires
petites mortes
tiny stakes twisted through brave hearts
what is it about your own
spirit
that scares you
mirror mirror in my pocket
gift me a vision
to lay true in this locket
pictures are not alive
you said
photographs are not always warm
you laughed
drunk
neglect
beautifully flawed
I will have to learn
to forgive my most errant self
take me home
to my own body
scented with its own failures
no one is owed the pleasure of my screams
without emotional precedence
let me be
body bucking
buckling under the weight of a lack of feeling
I am not porcelain
the slick bathtub is here because I wished it
no one need see me
wet
smoothed slender by lavender
rosemary
mint
sleepy
and slipping into oblivion
this isolated bliss is reality
informed by choice
my own voice remembers
twenty one
twenty three
twenty five
the years before I learned to love other arms more than my skinny elbows
bending
to make more room
for me
my other parts
irreverent
forgotten now
twenty six
eight and thirty
thirty one
how I have grown small
these last hours
days
weeks turning months
stretching toward the a future I cannot yet know
old transvestite time
grow me
knees and ankles
angled towards a beginning
curl me invincible
infinite
incredible
if only because the lines of me
have outgrown
the deadened root of these lessons I have yet to unlearn
in the spirit
of things germinating,
Staceyann
We perish each alone
and the mantra loops infinity round
my wrists
buttons snapping sailing
into the unknown
home is where the heart hurts
a boy named Robert
once whispered the like
into the curved cochlea of a young girl's giggle
and I remember you well
skinny man
with gentle hands
I dated you twice
first
when you were fifteen
again
when you were forty
two men
different times
I remember you now
both called Roberto in Spain
it's all good the phrase
I hate most today
sounds like oblivion
or denial
or lies
never has it been all good
even when we read Toni Morrison
and drank red wine
in my bathtub in Brooklyn
the nuances were missing
a texture of feeling
how does one say
sensibility
a sense of knowing there is more than this
moment
I do not miss the parts that grazed metal
on my ribs
but I do miss the way you ate chocolates
my fingers ached over in Belgium
and I still catch myself
laughing at
you frowning
me camera in hand
I have way too many pictures of my heartaches
candid
unwilling shots
at the way we never were
I conjured you
more than you will ever be
and I suffer now
mourn a self
you never had the courage to wear
always in my throat
the disappointment
the gulf
between the beauty of you
and the impossibilities
we dreamt
today
I will do laundry
banal
await the scarf I lost in a cracker barrel
say thank you to Jeb
who found it
it was a good day
lost and found
disparity
image and reality
I am most beuatiful
when I am not being watched
all soap bubbles and my own laughter
no bathtub here
but we are creatures of hope
perhaps Iowa
will have the curved soup-spoon
to cradle the body
of a small bitch brooding the bedlam
of a life that lacks
simple
a cubicle
predictable hours
colors that go together on a runway
today
the bedspread is not horrible
and there is a dictionary
on the bookshelf
today
I do not have to leave this borrowed room
this tiny tomb constructed
in chicago
I will not die
today
I will think of the Amigas Latinas
the way we laughed last night
how we consumed our similarities
rice and beans
cha cha cha
CC and her babies
Avery
and his body moving manic
alongside mine
tomorrow
is not promised
so I cannot mourn
if it never comes
in the spirit
of bodies that survive such aching
Staceyann
It is cold here
wet
winter is here
almost
and we are almost
home
those of us who call New York home
can hardly wait
two weeks
to be in our own beds
hotels are simply not my thing
Scott Peterson
found guilty of murdering his wife
his child not yet
arrived
and Arafat is laid to toss about
under
ground he did not wish to be buried by
Something is wrong
when the leaders of societies not supported by Bush
is treated without dignity
I hate Saddam
but he was still the leader of the Iraqi people
who deserved more than such scant respect
that white
gloved hand in the mouth of a people
looking for lice
vermin
these brutes who chart the angry fate
of the disenfranchised
how this present American administration
resembles the structure is remains committed to tearing down
how the people of the Middle East
are portrayed without dignity
everyday
today
at Yasser's final homecoming
I saw a nation
struggling for symbol
I heard CNN
refer to their grief
as mob
their outpouring
as frenzy
I saw a multitude
reaching for itself
in memory of a time when their lives
were theirs to laugh
or sing
or sit in the sun at noon
pray
watch the small children to play on ground
not landscaped by war
and all I am hearing is the question of who will rise
to protect Iraeli lives
still under threat
no talk of the nation taken
the dark curls of lives stolen
thirty seven years
of occupation
this brutal inhabiting of a body
this struggle is older than my battle with my own body
aging
time passing and no talk of returning home
for refugees
and children of refugees
sitting in a French Bistro in Dupont Circle
Lebanon
Brooklyn
Jordan
Martinique
Beautiful women with music in their names
born Palestinian
born Black
we laughed and I finally ate french fries I liked
good wine
and loud laughter
and hope
tongues looped languid round the stories
of belonging
and the poetry
this existence is nothing
if not poetry
our lives
long splintering haikus
and verses
broken indiscernible lines
lineage
with dates missing from the women
tell them to me
your stories
this
is what I have always
wanted from you
the cracked edge
of what has just begun to harden
we must
if nothing else
tell our stories
for when the smoke
clears
and it will
for it always has
the children
then adults will be reading them
nothing is more important
than the tales we mark illegal on these oppressive walls
the caves will be here
long after the rats in New York City are dead
the stories will
stand witness to what really happened
after the rock and rubble and rhetoric
right will prevail
but we must in this era do our part
so the voices yet to come
will have more than a legacy
of memory
to measure what truths
they will hold as history
in the spirit
of things not silenced
Staceyann
... we got work to do...
an itty bit of a quote from We spent the 4th of July in Bed
Suheir Hammad
So now
the smoke is clearing
we are coming to
realizing the bulidings are in broken pieces of steel
and bone and effort
it has been confirmed
the forces we have fought for decades
are powerful
and persuasive
the tragedies are numerous:
if another woman chooses to love me
I cannot yet marry her
my right to owning my body
stands compromised
wire hangers and kitchen tables lurk scalpel
behind these iron curtains ahead
there is talk of drilling in the arctic circle
(just in case we don't kill all who oppose us
in Iraq)
the Christian fundamentalists
are dancing in the streets
Islamic fundamentalists are doing the same
the war between these extremists
remains on course
Bibles/Guns/the Quran
hate
mistrust
joy at the profits to be mad
the blood that reminds us of martyrs
and crucifixions
dead
white
male
poets
we can refer to words written decades ago
the mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day
all the saints agree
the day of () death was a dark cold day
things fall apart
the center cannot hold
mere anarchy loose upon the world
where do we begin
with June Jordan
Sometimes, I am the terrorist I must disarm
with Audre Lorde
your silence will not protect you
will not protect your 2.5 children
your fence
your underfed body
Ruby Nell Sales tells me
we must begin dialogue with the women who voted for Bush
they have to know
he intends their bodies no good
Audre and Pat Parker
and June Jordan wrote pages of poems
essays
stories never no one wanted to tell
Audre and Cancer
her journals
her body ravaged by the crossing over
Nina Simone Sang
till her breath was no longer here
I will remember I have my voice
my body
my breath
I will remember
I am not alone
I will aligne myself with bodies
of like mind
and I will fold my rage into Haikus
and belt them sonnet
into the changing skies
I have arms
and legs
and promise and intent
I am alive
and that makes me able
and that my dear is the way
to start the new rebellion
in love
and the anticipation of the task ahead
Staceyann
My woman left me
and George W. Bush is the president of the country
in which I live
and fight
no fucking tonight
as I am wont to be emotionally entrenched
before I do such things
prude that I am
it’s ironic that I am
illegal
as married to any lover who has left our Union
in ELEVEN states of the Divided North America
better to be single in world like that
better to have friends and miss Nina and her rage
how I miss Nina
Ain’t got no use
no money
no schooling
no class
no country
no mother
no father
no children
But I got my hands
my legs
my heart
gonna keep it
I got my life
this room in Huntington, West Virginia
reflects the window
lamenting the climate of hate
no water
no food for the faces poverty-torn
and without hope
they voted overwhelmingly
Republican
white bodies mostly
trapped in this bizarre fantasy
Kerry has conceded
all night long I watched the numbers
and wondered what would Nina say if she were here
woman with salt in your voice
say something to me
crying in a tub of mint
eucalyptus
and hope
I fell today
lost my balance/slipped/almost broke something
wet and sobbing I checked
my left pinkie
finger and right knee
spirit flagging and shaping itself toward
the memory of Nina and how she might have felt
under Regan
or Nixon
or segregation
god grant me the grace
to speak with courage tonight
grant us sunshine
and the compassion to love each other better than this
gather me soft
and show me my life’s work
show me again
how love is hard and permanent
kiss me with the kisses of thy mouth
for your love is better than wine
Solomon had the inside
track on the bluebird
I am scattered and in need of reassurance let us hold each other tighter harder
frail as we are in this dark hour of rain
and skies too heavy for one heart to carry
rest your right auricle
against my left ventricle
let our beating be one rhythm
of survival
and song
journey with me
far beyond this generation and what we have already lost
we will have daughters
let us band our wrists together
for their tiny wombs not yet formed
their bodies
loving mirrors of the self
let us look toward the legacy we were given by Audre
and Pat Parker
and Zora
Rosa Parks is still among us
let us say no to this trampling over the future
of those too afraid to struggle
the noose cannot tighten if we continue to breathe
breath
against hope folded in fortitude
Bush is only a man
no empire can last forever
look at England flailing under the hand of such visible ignorance
everyday bucket go
a well
one day
the bottom must drop out
let us see this fork as a way to mover forward
in all possible directions
fear not
for behold I bring you good tidings of great Joy
in the city
is born
a new understanding of our struggle
Guerilla, my love
my arms
my legs
my home
my heart
my feet
my finger will heal
and so will the parts of me
I cannot yet bear
to touch
in hope and a body believing,
Staceyann