Poem #242 of 365

Silhouettes against the sky
swarm in the night,
and they are swatting at
air so dense like liquid gold
in lava streams.

How gravity would have its
way with you, my lovely
dancers, how you would
plummet in demi-plie
and ront de jambe, while
gasps from the ground
would greet your collapse.

But, alas, you are airborne
and never to descend, as
I crane my neck to enjoy
your stretch and reach
towards the beam and ledge,
concourses of concrete
not so easy to caress.

Yet delicacy, fragility
is the frosting of this
frolic and I applaud
how you transcend
the land with such
aplomb and trust,
as you thrust your
chest skyward while
blood rushes toward
the downward wing.



(in honor of Sally Jacques' breathtaking aerial dance spectacle Requiem (Blue Lapis Light) , which I first witnessed in Austin in the summer of 2006)

copyright 2007 tammy melody gomez

Poem #241 of 365

I shout big with my eyes
as I watch the pastor
count his plate and
the town go to the
dogs when the dogs
don't even want it.

Don't even want it,
the money, the
grandeur, the glamour,
the steadied hands
clipping his doghood
and his coat.

I genuflect with my
thumbed nose as
I see the headlines
tattoo cynicism
onto the belief
system of a
21st humanity

wrought with centuries of betrayal,
befuddlement, sloppy seconds,
and a soap opera trailer
for a life history.

One day that species,
the one of the dog,
will evolve to a stature
so it can know to
invest its inheritance
well, and leave the old
bones, old saws,
properly buried in
a time capsule of
dark denial.


(on the second anniversary of the Katrina disaster)

copyright 2007 tammy melody gomez

Poem #240 of 365

Helmsley's dog gets $12 mil

New Orleans struggles to rebuild

Helmsley's dog gets $12 mil

New Orleans struggles to rebuild

Helmsley's dog gets $12 mil

New Orleans struggles to rebuild

Helmsley's dog gets $12 mil

New Orleans struggles to rebuild

Helmsley's dog gets $12 mil

New Orleans struggles to rebuild

Helmsley's dog gets $12 mil

New Orleans struggles to rebuild

Helmsley's dog gets $12 mil

New Orleans struggles to rebuild

Helmsley's dog gets $12 mil

New Orleans struggles to rebuild

Helmsley's dog gets $12 mil

New Orleans struggles to rebuild

Helmsley's dog gets $12 mil

New Orleans struggles to rebuild

This is not a natural disaster

This is a human disaster


copyright 2007 tammy melody gomez

Poem #239 of 365

"Even my worst days as Attorney General have been better than my father’s best days."
- Alberto R. Gonzales, during his resignation speech


Well then,
does that mean
that being a humble, hard-working,
farmer in the field
can never be as
honorable as being a
deceitful ass-kissing
pin-stripe bureaucrat
who
has
undermined
U.S. justice as we used to
know it, and mashed
up words to
thwart the Geneva Convention,
suiting his own pathological
purposes?

You arrogant piece of well-shod
mierda! How dare you even
try to measure your father's
livelihood and labor rewards
against the dismal and despiccable
history of your public service life.

Desgraciado!

There is not a flyswatter in existence
that can flatten your ego as it so
needs to be flattened.

But this stupid little poem
coming at ya now, Alberto,
is sure gonna try.

copyright 2007 tammy melody gomez

Poem #238 of 365

mercy

i am standing on the gleaming cold tiles
in the over-refrigerated Mexican-themed grocery store
when i would rather still be twisted in my
bedding in my lazy room
and it is too early to be faced with
perfectly-packaged products of commerce
hoisted to perpetual shelves
of seduction
and shopper education,

but turning a corner into a new aisle
smacks you with gag-worthy
smells of cologne and Jergen's,
aftershave and Right Guard--
all the fresh morning people,
brisk and upright,

while all i want is to be on my back
swelling in dreamland,

and my weight is not steady on the
balls and heels of my feet,
in a half-awake daze
i sway--

and i long to collapse on the
make-up applicator brushes,
white puff cotton balls,
and landfill plastic pampers.

and then, of a sudden, there
is a beautiful swell of sound
and it is piano, a gentle palm
spooning my frame.

Moby music has been chosen for this
soundtrack of morning, and i am lulled
into ecstatic stupor as i bend
at the waist, careful not to
fall asleep and fall over
in a gravity swoon,
and i am not falling
but am straightening up
with one medium-size 2.5 pound
bag of Alley Cat food in my arms.

This purchase episode takes
on a dawning elegance,
as Moby's song woos me
through the Fiesta speakers
and accompanies me to the check-out clerk,
who is soft-spoken and wet-lashed,
no doubt the kiss of morning mascara,

and i count my coins
without wrestling my purse
to the floor,
and the echoes of music
fade behind me as i step
through electric doors

to ponder an elder man
who dances in his wheelchair,
with his own gentle awakening,

before the harsh din of day
will work to drown or diminish
his own
pitch-perfect
early morning song.



copyright 2007 tammy melody gomez

Let me see how busy I'm getting...yep, that's busy.

1. I am both performing for AND emcee-ing raul r. salinas' benefit & tribute on Saturday, August 25th, at the MACC (Mexican-American Cultural Center). Have been rushing through my copy of RAULRSALINAS AND THE JAIL MACHINE: MY WEAPON IS MY PEN. I had no idea that raul has been friends with Antonia Castaneda since she was a student at UT-Austin. This amazing book includes the full text of letters that raul both wrote and received while in the pinta. I also love reading the essays, music reviews, and literary musings he wrote to pass the time and keep sharp his mind while he was locked up. Skimming through the book the other day, I happened upon an essay raul wrote about Ornette Coleman. Very cool. I still have NO idea what exactly I'm going to perform for the benefit.

2. I was just invited to perform a few poems at the upcoming "Femme" all-woman showcase, presented by FWAC (Fort Worth Arts Consortium) at the Wreck Room, 7th Street, Fort Worth. That show happens on Monday, August 27th, 10pm. Free admission.

3. I am not doing anything (that I know of...hahaha) at the upcoming Gallery Night in Fort Worth. I'm relieved.

4. I am not reprising "Spillway Sonata", my butoh performance piece which commemorates Katrina/Rita survivors and victims. Not this year. But I'd like to revisit the piece sometime again, maybe in 2008.

5. Looks like I'm on the schedule for the TEXAS BOOK FESTIVAL in late October-early November in Austin. Dagoberto Gilb and Christine Granados are busy coordinating the showcase/presentations I'll be a part of. Apparently, I'm doing some reading/workshop on local campuses (St. Edward's University and maybe a high school as well). It's all good. I miss my HECHO EN TEJAS camaradas--such fun and talented people. I've loved our after-after parties too.....that's when all the poise and airs of elegance get dropped, and we learn who the hell we actually are as people. The memory of dancing and singing along to cheesy Fleetwood Mac songs with Dallas Morning News writer Macarena Hernandez at 2 in the morning in McAllen--for godssake---is one memory that I cannot seem to shake.

6. My biggest deal is the bicycle play: SHE: BIKE/SPOKE/LOVE. September 22nd, 2007 - World Car-Free Day. I work on this production nearly every single hour of every day--been this way for over a month now.

7. I want to ride my bicycle....to Micronesia.

Poem #235 of 365

I’m taking back the white robe, the
one with the hood.

I’m making it safe for Tex-Mexican girls,
cuz it’s a sexy design.

Last night, it slipped my mind that other
folks, another history, had snagged it, had
stamped their brutal scab upon it,
making it ultra un-fashionable,

I had forgotten that certain costumes in
history are associated with target
population segments of misery,

and those are pockets I'd rather not
stick my little brown hands in.

But now I insist on that white robe,
because my poet-friend Crystal
loves to sew and she offered to
make anything I wanted and so
"white robe, with a hood, long to my
ankles" is what I requested,

innocently forgetting that
my sartorial selection
is so tainted with the baggage of blood.

Laughter, yes, later, I laughed
at my lapse in recollection and
at my naked innocence, yet I now return

to my bold nagging desire: I want a homespun
white floor-length linen robe, with a hood,

so I can walk the beach in it
and feel the sea mist on my face in it
and live unceremoniously in it.

I'll certainly not be dragging men to their death in it
nor burning white crosses in it, because

I’m making it safe,
I’m taking it back,

I'm taking back the white robe,
the one with the hood,

gonna make heads turn
in that
white robe,
with the curvilinear hood.

I'm making it safe,
with a sexy design.

I’m wearing it THIS century,
and we'll ALL LIVE to tell about it
(because I won't be dressed to kill).


copyright 2007 tammy melody gomez

Poem #234 of 365

I don't want to point out fish
because you lost a tankful.

I don't want to mention dogs
because so many have died from your life.

I don't want to mention home
because you're sleeping on borrowed beds.

I don't want to take you skating
because you're living on thin ice.

There is nothing now for me to say to you
that won't remind you of loss and death and

the spinning with no brakes as you skid.


copyright 2007 tammy melody gomez

YOUR OWN WORDS - Dallas Morning News feature

They asked me to tell 'em what I'm reading right now & why. Here's the link to the feature in today's (Sunday, August 12th) Dallas Morning News.

Check out the photo--indoors in my "green" library room.

text from the article:

YOUR OWN WORDS

12:00 AM CDT on Sunday, August 12, 2007

Tammy Gomez
Poet, playwright, publisher (Tejana Tongue Press)

What she's reading: Mahcic: Selected Poems, by Tomás Riley

Why: "This book of poems, published by Calaca Press in 2005, was recently mailed to me by Riley himself, who is a friend and colleague based in the Bay Area. Mahcic is the name of Tomás' first-born son, and the poems, reminiscent of the best work of Victor Hernandez Cruz (Snaps) and David Henderson (De Mayor of Harlem), show the scope of interrogations a 21st-century first-time father cannot help but make as he reckons with sociopolitical and family history. A swollen, visceral, tri-cultural, spanglish mash-up, spilled-out dictionary of words that fell just right, make your noggin go tight with a homegrown cool mint light that I like."

edited by Lesley Téllez.

5th Annual Noche de Macondo at Esperanza Peace & Justice Center in San Antonio - Friday, August 3rd

Esperanza & Sandra Cisneros invite you to...

  The 5th Ånnual
           Noche de Macondo

FEATURING

Joy Harjo

www.joyharjo.com

(Hey, by the way--did you know there's a "nativewiki" site? You can read more about Joy Harjo at this nativewiki link. I LOVE Joy Harjo, in case you didn't know. A MAP TO THE NEXT WORLD, IN MAD LOVE AND WAR, THE WOMAN WHO FELL FROM THE SKY. Wow. I would've gone earlier this week to take a workshop with Joy, but I had to be here for my bicycle play performance. So many JOYS, so little time. I've introduced her before, at a very under-attended reading she did at Waterloo Ice House on Lamar St. in Austin. It was quite embarrassing, actually, cuz the promoter(s) did very little to publicize and Joy looked very flummoxed for a minute--but soon came back to her graceful poise and whipped out some great poems. I also interviewed her for live and simultaneous broadcast on the radio and the internet. Pretty cool. What a day that was, at Alma de Mujer. At least 4 of my living heroines were out there, on that beautiful spread of land west of Austin, at that moment: Joy Harjo, Winona LaDuke (running mate with Ralph Nader, as you may recall), Millilani Trask, and Roberta Blackgoat. Wow.)
 
Esperanza Peace and Justice Center
Friday, August 3, 2007 • 8pm

featuring the poetry and music of

Joy Harjo
w/ guitarist Larry Mitchell

and poetry and performance by Macondo Writers:
Tammy Gomez (emcee)
Monica Palacios
Yael Flusberg
Liz Gonzalez
Carlos Cumpian
Daisy Hernandez
Angie Chau
Jackie Cuevas
Alex Espinoza
Lucha Corpi
w/ Sandra Cisneros






$6-$10 Suggested Donation
Arrive on time!  Standing Room only expected! (no doubt, no doubt)

Books available for sale by performing writers & Resistencia Bookstore,

For more info, contact the ESPERANZE PEACE AND JUSTICE CENTER - one of my all-time favorite spots in San Antonio...!

Esperanza Peace and Justice Center
922 San Pedro Ave  •  San Antonio TX 78212
(entrance on W Evergreen, 1/2 mile north of downtown)

210.228.0201 || www.esperanzacenter.org ||