Upcoming weekend in Fort Worth

FRIDAY things:
1. FREE screening of "Motorcycle Diary" (screenplay by playwright Jose Rivera!) - at the Rose Marine Theater. Preceded by the Professionals Supporting the Arts mixer in the gallery--always fun.

2. The Hip Pocket Theater play - about the falling thing that might be a UFO, and i forgot the title--oh well.

3. Ellen Fullman, creative musical brainchild who I knew when I lived in Austin. You might, if you were a lazy describer, call her "the Laurie Anderson of Texas". Okay, i'm a lazy describer. Anyhow, what drastically matters is 1) that she's brought her long-stringed instrument and set it up in a cow or pig or goat barn in the Will Rogers compound area; 2) she's gonna do some shows for us this weekend; and 3) that it's pretty freakin' amazing that--for once in my life--there's a cool show advertised on that L.E.D. marquee sign on the corner of Lancaster and University Drive. (Brought to you by Herb Levy, nice guy of The Other Arts)

** I'm going to see Ellen Fullman

SATURDAY things:

1. Puppet-making workshop (for children--borrow your niece or the neighbor's kid and take 'em to this) - it's FREE.
12n-4pm at the Rose Marine Theater

2. Go vote and look at a little lake at the same time. Echo Lake Park -- east of I-35 at Ripy St. Some folks are hosting a festival out there all afternoon as a way to make you fulfill your civic duty. It's actually kinda neat by the water.

3. Hispanic Women's Network of Texas is putting on this year's version of their annual women in the arts fiesta. Last year, there was great art, music, food/drink, and a silent auction. FREE, but they like it if you bid on the auction stuff--proceeds go to their college fund. Starts at 7pm-ish.

4. ELLEN FULLMAN, again. In one of those aforementioned barns. HIP POCKET play, again. It's the last play of the season,
the final weekend.

5. If you know Chris.Blay, go sit in his time machine before he whisks it off to Prague.

** I'm emceeing a memorial service for journalist John Gutierrez-Mier at the Sanders Theatre.


SUNDAY things

1. Slight hangover from tequila consumed on previous night at the memorial you hosted.

2. Drive to Cross Timbers @ I-35 North. Exit and drive east on Cross Timbers for about 10 minutes. See the huge pumpkin patch on your left. It's an annual festival. Eat pumpkin things. Buy pumpkins. Crawl through a huge maze made out of straw bales. Yodel.

3. 100 FRIDAS community art happening. Show up dressed as your favorite Mexican-German female painter married to a larger-than-life muralist. We need 100 people to show up--men, women, children! Get your FRIDA on. 5pm. Corner of Magnolia & Henderson Streets.

** I'll be documenting the 100 FRIDAS thing.


Have a lovely weekend!

Poem #290 of 365

"Our diaspora done died," quipped
a sculptor into his martini.

"And i beg to differ,"
piped up a classically-trained
singer with business cards:

"Just because we have lost
our critical habitat
and artist anchor-spaces,
ain't gotta mean
that we don't exist,
dried up and desiccated
as locust skins."

"Well," the martini-ing
sculptor revs up his
rejoinder, "we can
still meet up at
Central Market,
over asparagus and
bock beers and, and, uh--
we're on each other's
myspaces constantly
commenting--doesn't
that count for something?"

The vocalist erupts in
impatient trills, her satin-
clad arms akimbo:
"i don't want another
fuckin' social space
for artists to conveniently
convene, cavort, and
crescendo in chords
of frustration, bitterness,
and alcohol alleviation."

"i WANT solid, stable,
sea-worthy locales
for artistic production
and presentation."

"i NEED inexpensive
studio space and gallery
access. i NEED low-rent
performance venues and
rehearsal rooms. i CLAMOR
for non-patronizing local
press people who give a
shit about what i produce
and know how to describe
and discuss it. i CLAMOR
for a community of arts
patrons who will demand
that publicly-funded art
spaces be used for art
exhibits and shows rather
than weddings and alumnae
reunion mixers."

"How can you not want that,
how can you just keep
standing there, drunker
by the minute, relenting
and consenting, as your
city gives way to bulldozers
creeping up your domain?"

She sipped, finally, after her
dose of diatribe, and he
strode away quickly, soon
to forget the points of
her passionate pronouncement.

Minutes later, she saw him,
shaping cheese cubes
into sculpture, leaving
them atop the emptied
beer keg in hopes that
some drunk scenester
would happen upon his
impromptu creation
and perhaps
greet and high-five him
before offering
computer coordinates
for future myspacing
til kingdom come.

[Sculptor and singer are fictitious characters for this narrative poem. Any similarity to actual, existing artists
is purely coincidental.]

copyright 2007 tammy melody gomez

Poem #289 of 365

Rolling off the Santa Fe roof
and placing a bike between
my legs, the night became
younger with my sultry joy.

You had climbed off first,
off the roof of the house,
as friends were knocking
and wandering about.

As they greeted you and
joined you inside, I strapped
on my bag and took a long
ride. I passed cars of
laughing kids, and stores
with neon signs. I felt the
breezes caress my knees,
but never as nice as your
tongue ten minutes before.

I wandered into Wild Oats,
so perfectly named, and
picked up foods with
colors that would zing
in my belly, and I had
money for beers and
room in my bag, well-laden
to share with my crew.

When I coasted back
to the house, the
pad was rocking
with song and
stories, and I
pretended surprise
that our friends
were all there. I spread
out the feast and we
lapped and we laughed
at the cup of cool life
that we poured this
night and so many
nights in my summer
of Santa Fe.

copyright 2007 tammy melody gomez

Poem #288 of 365

I will help you become
a Brazilian actor on
American tv, but you
better not try to sell
me fast-food in one
of those slick advertising
spots where the hip
multi-ethnics love
them some Mickey Deez.

If that gluttonous
corporate behemoth
could pull it off,
it would not hesitate
to appropriate
your culture, put a fat
yellow M and C
in front of it and
sell it back to you,
triple-stacked,
over-priced,
and trans-fat-fried
as your very own
McSamba McAmazon--
deluxe super-sized.


copyright 2007 tammy melody gomez

Poem #287 of 365

With Breanna in the Hills,
we serenade our pores,
puffing and trudging
in strenuous effort
and breath
until our gait relaxes
to a smooth
momentum along the pathway.

Soon, the sweat comes.

She is taller than the
grass, but shorter
than the sky, but
I marvel anyway,
watching
her equalize with nature
in five minutes flat.

The concrete glaze
on her face dims
as the dirt path
kicks up crickets
mariposas and
grasses all around,
and I drop back
a bit so she can
acquaint on her own.

She allows a longing,
which is evidenced
by the sway in
her steps, a city
girl is loosened
on the praire
and finds pleasure
in this place.

I look up at her
face, because
she has grown
taller still, and
she pushes
forward, as if
finding home,
and I lift my
eyes up and
away, my
mouth closed
and small,
so she can
claim this
as her own
found joy,
and so my
words
will not
crowd out
the memory
she will make
of this meander
for herself
on her own.


copyright 2007 tammy melody gomez

Poem #286 of 365

I feel like the giddy
girl whose parents
might have left her
for good, swooning
happily outside
the tom thumb,
her thick brown
thighs clinging
irreversibly around
the fiberglass belly
of the sturdy
stallion she's chosen
to mount.

copyright 2007 tammy melody gomez

Poem #285 of 365

The buick needs some air for the Finnish line of male-dominated poetry scenes i am so tired of in the surreagionalism of my soul, yet the blanket of Netherland hills is reminiscent of the road i'd surmount to get my teeth on track, rhyming my muscles to the tune of Led Zeppelin guitar wails launching an 07 model Cad which you will never ever drive.

{mash-up on cars}

copyright 2007 tammy melody gomez

Poem #284 of 365

When white men are
sardonic and sarcastic
on tv to captivate their
comedy audience

it's not much different,
to me, at least,
from the usual way
your bewitching smile
and cunning guile

tries to fool me
into celebrating
my disinheritance
from my own homeland.


(happy...columbus day.)

copyright 2007 tammy melody gomez

Poem #283 of 365

What snake sleeps with you tonight,
curling in cold coils
on the sweet chest of your
deepest breaths?

How you allow this risky
partner into your lair,
gamble your crotch
on a rookie table!

I have called animal
control, so be forewarned,
the net and noose
will soon lurk your way.

And when I hear you moan
in this city, at last when
the slithering creature
has left your bed, I'll rest
assured that you're flesh
heats nothing but the
damp photo I've stitched
onto your nightclothes.

copyright 2007 tammy melody gomez

Poem #282 of 365

I gave up hope when
they reduced y'all
to numbers, money
in the bank for
buying airtime
for future
manipulative
campaign ads
that will try to
sell us a line
that's as fake
and irrelevant
as the sitcoms
sandwiched in
between.

(not looking forward to Election 2008...)

copyright 2007 tammy melody gomez

Poem #281 of 365

When I splash water,
I Kiss My Face
with lathering cleanser,
and I feel polished,
ready to cast my net
into a new ocean of day.

When I post a bulletin,
I Kiss My Space
with informing phrases,
and I feel published,
readily broadcasting on the net
into the world wide way.

Either way,
I'm showing my face
in a public space,
and you can choose
to play, read, join me--or not.

copyright 2007 tammy melody gomez

Poem #280 of 365

You are so close,
and this microphone
makes us closer,
and mama, I don't want
to pry into your life,
but there's so little time
to tell, y tus cuentos are
so sweet and you sugarcoat
the trouble and when you get
to the happy parts, well you
spend more money on
this type of candy.

As you talk, I pretend to
be distracted, feigning
a steadied poise that
dams up the things
I feel in
here. I have learned
so well to cough on
cue, trim the tears
that might stumble
my words. But you
do most of the talking
anyway, and as I hand
you the tissue box, you
do most of the crying too.

One day, we'll hit rewind
and I'll let the gates give
way, and your story will
come flooding by again,
floating in bays of
my saved-up tears.

copyright 2007 tammy melody gomez

Poem #279 of 365

To be flanked by two women with
tears in both eyes

is like clutching a wing of two
mighty birds who've paused
to sing in my ear

and though i'm caressed
by the coo
that i hear

it is vital that i turn away
let them soar
as their vision comes clear

i had taught nothing
but only served to
remind them how:

to let go of their fear,
see goals come near,
and to realize
that recovery
and discovery
of self
is what we
all should revere.

(para Leti y su amiga)

copyright 2007 tammy melody gomez

Poem #278 of 365

Find the man who held my hands
weeping for justice after the Rodney King verdict.

Find the man who kicked a car
as I clung to him top-speed on a Harley.

Find the boy who returned from Amsterdam
chubby but smitten, though I rebuffed him.

Find the kid who averted my gaze
saying he was afraid to see my third eye.

Find the cherub who sang Sherpa greetings
when I hiked down from seeing Everest.

Find the man who showed me the alleyways
and tundras of my sex.

Find the filmmaker who dragged my bag over
for the nonexistent contraceptives.

Find the blonde who snapped me nude
on the Zipolite beach one sunny afternoon.

Find the hippy who leaned over in Taos
and told me he liked my vibe.

Find the poet who had the funny piece
about his grandfather with a flyswatter.

Find the chef who smiled in New Orleans
and told me he liked my reading.

Find the Indian who drove around the plaza
repeating, Tammy Gomez is in town.

Bring them to my circle,
those who you find,
and we'll burn fire bright
and remember our histories
and compare our brilliance
to the sparks in the flames.

Time has separated you
from me, him from thee,
yet roads continue to
sprout which reconnect
us again once more,
inevitably.

(after meeting Tunde and talking with him for two hours before realizing that we had known one another in an earlier time in this very town--yet so long ago and so far away...)

copyright 2007 tammy melody gomez

Poem #277 of 365

i've seen arms and things jutting out towards me,
out of flipped-over upside-down windows
on impossibly slippery sunday streets
in downtown dallas.

through tightly-compressed elevator doors,
a generous last-second gesture
makes a skinny arm go numb with panic
and eyes go taut with pressure.

some day i too will stab some arms
into the sky and poke my things
in your direction
not so much
to scare you awake
as to
welcome you home.


(a med student tonight tried to hold an elevator door open for me--bad idea, good sentiment.
the flipped car thing happened in 2006.)

copyright 2007 tammy melody gomez

Poem #274 of 365

work out in a huipil
of brilliant colors,
with two shiny trensas
of indio black hair
trailing down your
back as you
pounce and pound
in the fitness room
like an urban
tex-mex soldera
of power and strength
with tawny shoulders
showing your muscle in
traditional ways

smoke the copal in your
incense burner with the
Buddha tiger lighting
your day on a
smoky path that
confuses you briefly
to test your muster,
to challenge your mind

work out in huaraches
with tire tread soles,
who can tell the indigena
that she needs to recycle
when her spirit is brought
up by cycles of past
ancestries which appear
to her as she blinks
with exertion,
squeezing twenty more
pounds of history into
a brain typically
weighing only 3,
the boys lift iron
weights but you can
impress with the
heft of your words,
the weight of your
wisdom, and bench-pressing?
she's small press
publishing and that's
no small feat

find your indigenous
pulse on the stairmaster,
but don't become its
slave, you have other
struggles outside the
gym which are gonna
sweat you, as you live
out a modern-day version
of the ancient stories
through brown open pores

and when the treadmill walking
makes your legs burn later,
remember the climb that
your ancestors had
up the pyramid steps,
in Tenochtitlan, Tulum,
glistening like buffed bronze
beneath the spotlight
of the sun's burnishing heat.

(after a mild workout at the community gym, wearing one of my favorite huipiles)

copyright 2007 tammy melody gomez