The XX Communicator acts locally, broadcasts globally. Find out the latest ongoing/goings-on in realms such as: literary spoken word; (r)evolutionary culture and politics; community activism via performance, publishing, direct action, and education. In 2007,
a special feature was the DAILY POEM project.
Here's another call for research study volunteers from the University of North Texas Health Science Center. I get wind of these ever so often, and I actually participated in one study (lower back pain was the focus) this summer, and was compensated to the tune of 30 bucks for every time I went in for "treatment". Not bad, considering I was lucky enough to not be in the control group, and so I actually did get back (manipulative medicine, as well as ultrasound) treatments. Contact info about this particular study is included below.
MALE RESEARCH VOLUNTEERS NEEDED: Healthy men who exercise regularly, ages 18-35.
Description: Adult male volunteers are now sought to participate in a research study entitled: "The Effect of Fitness on Cardiac Work and Cardiac Efficiency with and without cardio-selective beta-adrenergic blockade."
The purpose of this study is to investigate whether blockade of specific proteins located on the heart, called ß1 adrenergic receptors, effect how hard the heart works during exercise. Participation in this study will include administration of a drug that will inhibit the ß1-adrenergic receptors. In addition, we will measure various cardiovascular variables such as: heart rate, blood pressure, cardiac output, oxygen consumption, and thoracic impedance. These measures will be made while sitting, and while performing moderate and strenuous cycling exercise.
We are recruiting men who are of average fitness or are competitive runners, cyclists, triathletes, swimmers, and other athletes.
All subjects must be disease-free, drug-free, and between the ages of 18-35. Total time involvement in this study will be about 8-10 hours over a total of two days. Participation in this study is completely voluntary, and if you are a student or employee of UNTHSC your participation in this study will in no way affect your academic standing or employment. All subjects will be compensated for their time and effort.
If you are interested in participating in this study as a research subject please contact Megan Hawkins at mhawkin@hsc.unt.edu or 817-735-2088.
As the bottle empties, my belly expands, and I am pregnant with suds in the sleek dark night, and I wonder about trade-offs and more significant siphonings and apportionings,
as when the mailbag empties and becomes less burdensome on the postman's shoulder while our mailboxes swell with bills, and the gasoline fuel burns out of a car to exhaust to zero, and as the refrigerator, once well-stocked, now holds two jars of pickled things--and camera film.
But an open book, in the hands of a studious child, only the book can feed and fuel and give and emit, filling a mind, enlarging an intellect, without itself thinning, emptying, lessening.
It is the vessel that stands fresh with water for the brain, every day, every page, like an ever-youthful generous sage.
Lazily cradled in colorful hammocks, Zack and I swung in the midafternoon shade.
I had just finished a slice of cake, home-baked and sold by a barefoot local who peddled her wares, from palapa to palapa, to the turistas.
I was one of those, for the moment.
Humming Billie Holiday songs and lamenting no lost time.
Zack offhandedly asked what day today was.
I don't know, I replied. November something.
You know, he continued, I think that Thanksgiving is someday this week. Maybe today, maybe yesterday.
Oh, really, I hadn't thought about it.
Yeah, he said, as he stared at the Pacific, lulled back to another relaxed day of not talking much.
Well, happy thanksgiving, if it's today or even if it's not.
The rhapsody of the cool blue waves tranquilized, and I drifted off to more thoughts of being completely content with where I was, what I had, and who I was with.
(about that endless day around Thanksgiving, 1990, Zipolite, Mexico)
i've never written that configuration of words before, i've never ever seen them together like that on a screen.
somehow, a finality. and i wish i'd not typed them flat-out like that, wish i hadn't been cursed to read them on the screen, looking so official and certain this afternoon.
how do i undo this, that which has been written and allowed to set in as factual truth?
maybe i can scramble the message, make something new in these words to discern instead:
"uncle in dying Abilene"
"Abilene dying, uncle in"
or further, mishmash the letters to quite distance myself from cancer and suffering, familial loss and pain:
"lean, ying, nun, Abe"
"undying clean Nile"
but, ultimately, cuz it's best that i face fully what he has already known:
I generate lists constantly because they help keep me on track as shorthand for: longer lists, future things I want to write, and images and events and conversations I want to implant firmly into memory. I am constantly writing on small pieces of paper, receipts, unpaid parking tickets when I'm in the car. Usually, it's to capture some nuanced impression--with just a few written words--that's been made on me by a song or conversation on the radio. I imagine that drivers in the next lanes over think I'm a kook for scribbling behind the wheel, using the dashboard as desktop--but only when the traffic light's red.
On that note (no pun intended), I want to spread the word about a very cool contest created by Sasha Cagen, whose many "jobs" also reads like a laundry list: writer, editor, quirkyalone-movement- leader, and world's leading to-do-list-ologist. Sasha maintains a very quirky blog called the TO DO LIST BLOG, which evolved out of her zine about to do lists. Sasha's quite the darling of sub-cult community-making, with big-name contributors to the book (including Nick Hornby) and big-media (Anderson Cooper, for example) attention to her to-do-ology.
Okay, here's the info, as excerpted from one of Sasha's blogposts:
THE WEIRDEST LIST Contest
"To celebrate the book's release, I'm sponsoring a contest: The Weirdest List. Send in your weirdest to-do lists (real authentic lists that you wrote or found in the course of everyday life, please, nothing constructed for publication). I'm interpreting to-do list broadly for the contest, just as I do for the book. . . so this could mean life list, ideal mate list, possible goldfish names, etc. Weird can mean the entire list, the title, or a single odd item on it. Sometimes the most intriguing lists are entirely banal and mundane until the eye gets to that very cryptic item.
Here's how it works: Send a scanned jpeg of your list to todolistblog AT gmail.com by November 30. Please write "WEIRDEST LIST CONTEST:" in the subject line before the title you give your list. Readers of todolistblog.com will vote on the winners in the first week of December.
The top three vote-getters will win signed copies of To-Do List: From Buying Milk to Finding a Soul Mate, What Our Lists Reveal About Us (published by Fireside, November 6, 2007, 256 pages) and limited edition copies of "To-Do List," the print magazine where this project got started. . . in addition to bragging rights for having written or found the weirdest to-do lists ever."
Tonight, at a "fun-raiser" event at the Embargo Club downtown, an officer representing the FWPD made it official: "...by unanimous vote, the Fort Worth Police Department endorses Juan Rangel for City Council, representing District 9." Sal Espino, current Councilmember, was on hand for the announcement and pronounced that, because the Fort Worth Professional Firefighters Association also endorses Rangel, "he is THE public safety candidate".
I approached Rangel a little later to ask him if he thought that urban gas drilling was as much a "public safety" concern as having well-compensated and -trained firefighters and police officers protecting our neighborhoods. You think he was gonna answer 'no' to that? I sincerely hope that Rangel can walk a little faster, to keep up with his talk about his opposition to gas drilling in our 'hoods. He did unequivocally state that he will do "everything" he can to keep gas wells away from schools to "protect our children."
Thanks to stellar Embargo bartender Jem for the custom-designed mojito-esque margarita he freebied me. Owner Andrew is sporting a big bushy beard which I've dubbed "his winter coif." He kinda liked that.
Leave my Aung San Suu Kyi the fuck alone. Leave my Benazir Bhutto the fuck alone. Leave even ole Hillary the fuck alone.
(written the week that the world kept messing with these women who are trying to stand credible as political leaders, and yet are being affronted by government manipulations, outright violent aggression, or sexist bullying)
He pulled a pointy pepper from his pocket and offered it to me, and as I ran off to finish my walk I wondered what kind of cooking would I stir up with this pepper in my pot stewing so hot.
And would my mouth burn? A lot. A lot.
(with thanks to DO for sharing from his garden harvest today)
Mari, Tania, cantando, pateando-- bring us your stomps, bring us your songs.
Mari, Tania, tan apasionadas tirando tantos jaras-- hitting my heart with voice, hitting my heart with dance.
(Mari Carmen, an amazing flamenco singer, and the sublime flamenco dancer Tania Malagon, were my personal favorites of the "Estampa Espanola & El Cafe de Chinitas" dance performance presented by the Daniel de Cordoba Bailes Espanoles ensemble on Saturday, November 17, at the Rose Marine Theater. More info on them at flamencodallas.com.)
I took issue with my tissue, which reeked of a strong chemical smell straight out of the package.
So I had a talk with Brandy, and she responded with professionalism, no bathroom humor for her.
So now Fed Ex is picking up my bathroom tissue, in a special envelope mailed to my house, and I wonder if the world's going to the toilet if flagrant saboteurs are dousing toxic fragrance on my Angel Soft rolls.
[From "Brandy", a consumer response specialist, Georgia-Pacific, Atlanta, Georgia: "Thank you for contacting the Georgia-Pacific Consumer Response Center. Georgia-Pacific places tremendous importance on the opinions we receive from our consumers. We have recorded your concern in our database as having detected an unusual scent or chemical odor in the product that you purchased."]
With a rep from the League of Women Voters moderating, Juan Rangel and Joel Burns faced a standing-room only live audience of mostly Latino/a professionals at the Chicano Luncheon this afternoon at La Trinidad Methodist Church in the Northside of FW.
For a not very riveting 45 minutes, J & J kept measured expressions on their faces as they responded to prepared questions, with Pastor Flores (of La Trinidad) keeping time cards at the ready, pre-empting any longwindedness. Nothing really surprising in the presentations/responses by J & J, except for the fact that they professed to agree on a couple of issues, particularly urban gas drilling and development along the "Hemphill Corridor."
Both seem to have finally woken up to the troubling potential of gas drilling rigs in urban (near schools, football stadiums--as in the case of TCU, public parks, and future passenger rail lines) settings. Both called for a scrutinizing second look at and possible rewrite of the city's ordinance for gas drilling in FW. This is one issue that J & J know they cannot ignore during this election. 'Bout time.
Today's candidates forum was videotaped for repeated broadcast on FW Community Cable Television. I suggest you tune in--i think it's Cable Channel 31 (for Charter and One Source subscribers) and Cable Channel 36 (for you Verizon customers), starting as early as tomorrow, Friday, November 16th. It's worth watching, at least once.
And on December 11th, it's definitely worth voting.
my mother is in the doorway and my eyes have just opened to the day i think she wants a hug but she gives me a skirt and coerces me to try it on
as we make a little conversation and i try to elevate her spirits while she repeats
5th and morphy 5th and morphy.
he did it it to his own mother he killed his own mother
and i remind her not to dwell on the tv news, especially when it can drown in despair along with you in it
but she is stuck on repeat and so i hug her, admonish her, figure her out in my half-waked state of understanding.
iii.
there is seaweed across his cheek and the tide is moving in and out lulling them to slumber, she wears a tight cardigan, faded mustard, over a flower-patterned dress. she may have been taken over with a deep cough, bubbles in her lungs, and her toes keep floating up to be tickled by the foam. he is her son and silent, staring at the horizon where the greying sky meets the sea, but briefly lays his lips to her head, filling with ocean and fins of the end. as the waves pull and push, their dance becomes a steady lullaby of teetering, a little to the right, a little to the left. he is rocking her, he is rocking her, he is rocking her to death, he is rocking with her to death.
iiii.
that ocean laps so close sometimes. rocking me to reality. doorways and cryptic visits from mothers happen in morning time, and i live two blocks from she who was rocked to death.
copyright 2007 tammy melody gomez
[Police Arrest Man Suspected Of Killing His Mother With Rock - November 15, 2007
FORT WORTH, Texas -- Forth Worth police said they arrested a man Thursday morning who they suspect was involved in the death of his mother.
Police said they suspect Erasmo Herrera, 24, beat his 75-year-old mother, Juana Herrera, over the head with a rock in front of her home in the 1400 block of Fifth Avenue.
Neighbors called 911 and the mother was taken to JPS Health Network, where she died just after arriving.
Herrera ran away, but police caught him a short time later.]
[Molly Fallis and Ramsey Sprague sent along the following announcement about upcoming protests at Will Rogers Coliseum, where the Shrine Circus is currently presenting shows. Some of my own thoughts can be found below the announcement.]
From Molly: "This is something I feel very strongly about and wish I could attend but I'll be out of town....PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD!!! At the very least, please don't support animal cruelty and exploitation. Going to this kind of circus IS NOT some childhood right [sic] of passage! There's a zillion other things you can do with your kids for fun! Don't take them!!! I went as a child and figured out on my own that this shit ain't cool! Peace! Molly (thanks Ramz)
I've added a couple of links...tell me if it looks like these elephants are living happy lives and having fun...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMlS3KG7nRM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9akKP6RPbY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7u1uTNdp2c
ever wonder how they learn all those tricks???"
----------
WHAT: Peaceful Educational Outreach at the Shrine Circus
WHO: ALL COMPASSIONATE PEOPLE in the DFW Metroplex (If those who care about animal abuse don't come, NO ONE will speak for these frightened and abused animals). Isn't this worth 30 minutes to one hour of your time?
WHEN: REMAINING EVENTS ARE----
Friday, November 16, 6 PM, (doors open 6 PM, circus starts 7PM) Saturday, November 17, 5:30 PM (doors open 6 PM, circus starts 7PM)
WHY: Animals in the circus are tortured, not trained, into performing.
Animals do not naturally ride bicycles, stand on their heads, balance on balls, or jump through rings of fire. To force them to perform these confusing, physically uncomfortable and often frightening tricks, trainers use whips, tight collars, muzzles, electric prods, bullhooks, and other painful tools of the trade. Educate the public that intelligent, social animals are deprived of ALL their natural behaviors and forced to perform silly tricks for humans.
Speak up for the animals who have no voice!
IF NOT YOU, THEN WHO? IF NOT NOW, WHEN?
WHERE: Will Rogers Memorial Coliseum 3401 W. Lancaster Ave. Fort Worth, TX 76107 Look for us leafleting along the sidewalk at each gate and at the ticket counter.
CONTACT: Margaret Morin at dogs_good (at) yahoo.com or 972-578-0370 or 972-571-9603 (cell # for day of circus use only, please)
DIRECTIONS: Take I-30 to Fort Worth, Exit University. North on University. Turn left on Lancaster and look for tall tower.
Thank you. Margaret Morin Vegetarian Network of Dallas www.vegnod.com
++++++++ my thoughts: +++++++++
Just a few days ago, I read that Nazi officers, as part of their training, were given live animals to feed, care for, play with, and name. They were eventually forced to kill these animals that they had bonded with, without expressing any emotion. No wonder the Nazis were able to callously perform the heinous torture and murder of thousands of human beings.
+++++
As a child, I was taken to circuses now and then. I often felt queasy during these shows, and never quite understood why. The clowns scared me, with their garish antics and exploding devices. And to see the animals lumbering and galloping in circles, through hoops, or into nets made them seem like heroes to me--surviving the crazy challenges that their handlers were subjecting them to. It was a metaphor for survival in an illogical, uncomprehending and unsympathetic world.
+++++
An Austin poet named Kevin used to perform a poem titled "Smashing the Butterfly". It was profound. The poem was about Kevin's experience as a horse trainer, working with a veteran who knew the tricks of "breaking" a horse. Through the course of the poem, we learn that this experience was very traumatic for Kevin, and certainly for the horses. The upshot of the poem is that, as you smash the spirit or will of the creature with which you are working, you are--at the same time--killing something within yourself. Doomed to be broken. Amazing poem--I wonder where Kevin is today?
It was standing-room only on September 22nd, when we unveiled this show in FW. Come see what Fort Worth theater critic Mark Lowry calls "extreme theater". Basically, it's hiphop/spoken word at the intersection of theater & bicycling. Is that complicated? Well, not really, but it sure makes for a helluva fun ride to watch. Make reservations at sound_culture@hotmail.com TODAY !
Two Shows Sunday, November 11th. 2pm - matinée performance 7:30pm - evening performance
Sanders Theatre at The Fort Worth Community Art Center 1300 Gendy St, Fort Worth (The southeast corner of Lancaster & Montgomery)
Admission (at the door!) $5 for those who bike, bus or walk to the theatre $10 for those who arrive by automobile
This experimental play features poetry, lyrical dialogue, freestyle and choreographed bicycling, video sequences, and a turntablist.
"Extreme production fascinates with variety" - Fort Worth Star Telegram
strapped to a drip and drool napkin i force my mind to conjure some people, challenged folk, who can gain my sympathy as i strain to forget that i am in a dentist's chair
Aung San Suu Kyi
Benazir Bhutto
they are losing a country they are losing their country they are losing the battle for democracy in their country
and i am only losing a tooth. one naturally-decaying tooth.
jesus, these butterfly wings are the on-ramps to superhighways for chicano/a progress towards liberation. education and enlightenment.
the tiny little sticks connected on top are utility poles strung together, electrical wire stitches of power, as we get sewn together in hopeful expression like so many bright flashes dotting the landscapes across tejas
con honor y esfuerza.
(considering an original artwork by Jesus "Cime" Alvarado of El Chuco (El Paso), Texas)
Delivery of nouns happens without the basket or the sack.
There is naming in your mouth, and I will read that list when you finally kiss me.
I ordered the verbs: caress, thrust, stroke, and hold,
yet the market cannot bear this love, assign a value to this rust.
Bring me the water to fill my mouth, gargling to filter distress, deny, distaste.
I make room for your nouns in my clairvoyant sway, opening doors to air the day.
Finally: thicket, trunk, trust, and tremble.
I climb the noisy trunk of your body, lose myself in the tremble of your heartbeat thicket, and stretch along your length as far as the rumor of love can trust.
The quetzal feathers magically appear in my outstretched fingers, and as my hand closes upon them, a force greater than me sweeps me up off my feet and suddenly the feathers have swollen up within my fist to become an entire shimmering wing which carries me higher and higher to the land of my beginning.
I close my eyes to keep this dream alive and to let myself release the fear, for the winds have graciously parted to make our flight both smooth and sweet, and by now I can tell that one wing has doubled to two and soon a tail and head emerge to form a complete magical bird.
As I climb up the muscled back of the quetzal, we aspire to even higher elevations, and I do not question an uprise. I have glimpsed down below and recognize this terrain, a mountain place of winged fish and fluorescent frogs, where I have forced my dreams to take me again and again.
We are cascading now, one feather at a time, a shower of plummet, and I feel my arms open wide as if I too were a bird. We race, the feathers, the beak, my body, my smile, to the place of my dreams. I will be landing soon, as the campesinos raise their eyes to welcome what they have been dreaming for centuries. One upon another, our visions will blend and, when I touch Mayan ground, my arms will remain open, as I fly towards the deepest embrace I have ever dreamt, ever known.
(thanks to Ozomatli for the musicial pep talk, and to my dreams which often carry me to my ancestral land)
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.
"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.]
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...)
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)
I've gathered my clothes about me, shivering in my sweat, wondering what season it is when the night is near, the sun brings light but not always the heat, and I am confused in this month because I am too hot outside and too cold inside, and I long for the certainty of winter.
6 questions for the bored and listless to answer in MySpace:
1. the monkey on your back, what is its name? 2. the monkey on your back, what is its name? 3. the monkey on your back, what is its name? 4. the monkey on your back, what is its name? 5. the monkey on your back, what is its name? 6. the monkey on your back, what is its name?
My tics have grown up and become orgasms, little gulps and blow outs of efficacy and naughty exhaust.
What have yours grown up to become, and why are you at the equator, relinquishing laughter?
Bring your well-heeled doctrinaire purposes to my tavern of bliss, be served up a pint, clasp your knees around the barmaid.
Let me see you unravel your past as you remove the watch from your pale wrist and trade it for uncertain futures in the darkness of the misnamed happy hour.
I never saw someone reach his mouth to devour the storm as you did, my friend, on rainy today.
You cuddled the trunk of a tree and allowed the pressure of a man's shoulder to comfort you too, as your mouths upturned in wizened thirst.
I took no time to notice the configuration of puddle as I twisted my feet to turn from the car and join you, and be with you in wet.
You offered a song, it was the mist of your smile, and I felt worshipping words touch my own lips, and the rain licked our clothes, sealing them to skin.
Dreamy in mud, I could not leave you to mirth in isolation, as that shower washed away everything but the sweetness in our lives.
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)
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)
"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.
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.
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.
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).
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."
(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)
I make mudras, with a flick of fingers, sleight of hand,
trying to make water, shower magic, reveal itself, sluice in spills.
I am waving my hands to and fro, like a Copperfield pro, and the wide-span mirror reflects me in mirth.
How silly I appear as water does not whet my appetite to come clean.
A few drops, a spurt and then abrupt it stops, my hands suddenly freeze as poised as a pair of hands in prayer, but nothing is brought.
So I flourish again, gentle to the left and gentle to the right, two soaped palms in flight, waving like wands and trying to make the water, create the spills, enjoy the rinse.
(i sometimes get amused, at times annoyed, with no-touch sensor water faucets)
I cooed you to sleep with volumes, terms tan carinosos as to sugar the hardest stone, but you were such a jewel, the perfect baby brother, and it was almost hard to believe that you were here for real.
Baby in blue, that was you, a brother blue ideal in knitted booties, plaid cotton hats, and suits for baby gents out for daily strolls.
We taught you to walk, with guiding arms uplifting your grasping pudgy fists, until one day, surprise for all, you showed us your brave steps amidst the rusting machines at the nighttime laundromat.
Up and down the street, you wildly played, and I envied you the many friends your same age living along our block, maturing at such an equal pace.
You showed yourself as leader, the boo boo that commanded activities in all front yards, but everyone was charmed, sno-cones and slurpees lured you to their welcome mats.
Your hand-stitched batman cape was a security cloth and it clung from your neck all summer as the archives prove, you perched in trees, against blue impalas, crouching by the curb.
So what made you cry and forsake the cape, tell me: when did you lose the hero super powers, and what light inside your deep brown eyes lost its wattage, and made you go dark?
i cannot be a blonde-haired ambassador of intercultural goodwill, running interference between cooties from this country and that.
i cannot be a blue-eyed fairy godmother, all bibbidy-bobbidy boo, waving a wand over stinky foreign policy dookie, with dimples in her smile.
i cannot even be a lincoln log cabin back-to-nature philosopher whose writings bring humility and moderation to introspective consumers.
all i can, however, manage to muster, in this equinox of debate, debacle, and downfall, is a robust optimism, sundry hope, and a one-way rant to the heart of hearts within your body-- where i might make medicine that revives your engine so you can help me problem-solve some solutions and slow this meltdown way the fuck down.
I look for the diaper change fold-down table whenever I hear you speak.
Your infantile leadership is a baby's soggy nappy on our Constitution, and we need to change you now.
There is no need to airbrush in the crocheted bonnet, it is perceived easily when you point and mug for press corps nannies.
One day, you will get the dose of formula that will help you grow up out of that pompous playpen,
the White House you've made your Jump House, and time-out in the corner might someday wean you off the tit of our national integrity that your greedy mouth has just about sucked bone-dry.
Abdullah cupped the phone to look at me, and squinted before he spoke: "Are you Catholic?"
"What are you?"
I've seen characters from the Koran scrawled on the inner wall of his mechanic's garage,
and he has just spoken about a tall blonde blue-eyed woman,
so I guess it's time for him to learn some things about me.
I pause for a moment, and enjoy his curiosity, but then plainly state,
"I was raised Catholic and even went to Catholic school."
"That was the past, what are you now?"
Again, a pause, to not seem convicted, but to evidence a contemplative weigh-in.
"I respect people, other religions-- whatever they believe--I know you are Muslim, I know people who are Catholic, Jewish, Baptist."
His squint softened, but clearly he wanted clarity.
Again. "For me, Buddhist philosophy has been very useful, to help me manage my emotions, my responses to things and people. Buddhism has taught me more about compassion, forgiveness, humility."
"What is that," he asked. "I've never heard of that." His "heard" sounds like "heared". Nonetheless, he is clearly listening.
"Buddhism originated in the Far East, India, Tibet, Nepal."
Clarity shown in his face: "Oh, you mean, like, the Buddha. So, you are for the Buddha!"
"No, I don't worship the Buddha," I continue. "It's more the philosophy, the ideas, that are important to me."
He begins to nod with tentative understanding, and I feel this first conversation about belief systems is done for the moment. I want to pay my money and drive away.
Abdullah worked on my transmission, he serviced it in more ways than one.
How can you delete Sekou? How can you trash that file?
I’ve saved so many things that have gone useless, dead beyond dust.
Birthday ribbons, old holiday cards, a cancelled stamp, a souvenir pen.
But-- Ken, Devin, Michael, you’re still in my yahoo address book, and I cannot bear to strike you off.
How can I push a key to erase you like that, so thoughtless and dismissive?
It will have to be accidental, I'll have to be drunk on Shiner or tequila shots, and I'll be singing high-volume and slightly off-key. I'll conjure some chaos, so it appears inadvertent.
I'll hit delete and delete and delete.
Of course, in the hard drive of my heart, you'll have permanent folders. Forever to no end.
[Thinking of Sekou Sundiata who died yesterday. He was a poet-mentor of mine died and i am a bit out of it, i've just felt like drinking and listening to his cd over and over. I can't believe i will never see him again. He was in austin a few months ago, and i really really wanted to go see him/his show, but stupid scheduled crap here kept me from going. Now i'll always have that regret........]
I just got the news a few minutes ago from Lorna Dee Cervantes, via her posted bulletin on myspace.
I LOVED/still love Mr. Sekou Sundiata. He was a mesmerizing soul with a soothing voice. His poetry was infused with jazz aesthetics and he was impeccably rhythmic, eloquent, and humble.
I last saw him in Taos, New Mexico, at one of the last Taos Poetry Circus summer festivals. He was very chill, though always ready to engage. A very beautiful brother...
He liked my voice--he said it was "smooooooth."
We met in Amherst, MA, at a hiphop aesthetics symposium on-campus at UM. He and I were randomly assigned to the same dinner table at the opening banquet. Turns out, he spent little time at the table because he was the keynote speaker/performer. This took place midway btwn. 911 and the invasion of Iraq, so times & temperaments were pretty turbulent.
I gained permission to record Sekou's presentation on minidisc, so you know i'll be listening to it tomorrow. What he spoke of was comforting, empowering, yet unabashedly charged with a righteous indignation about the mistakes of our nation's leaders. A standing ovation, yes, we gave Sekou one of those.
You can access an mp3 of Sekou reading "the sound of the memory" at this site.
"People be droppin 'revolution,' just like it was a pick-up line, you wouldn't use that word if you knew what it meant: it ain't pretty, it's bloody, it overturns things..."
Thank you for the inspiration, Sekou. The rest of us poets will carry on with your legacy in our hearts.
Tammy ______________
Dear Fam,
We regret to inform that our dear Sekou has passed. Today, there are no words. It is a devastating loss for us and the poetry community but even more so for his family. Please keep them in your prayers. _______________
An official statement from the family:
At 5:47 AM on Wednesday, July 18, 2007, my beloved Sekou Sundiata passed away.
On behalf of Sekou and his family, thank you all for your expressions of love and support and for your prayers. Cards can be sent to 296 Stuyvesant Avenue, Brooklyn, New York 11221
Details regarding funeral arrangements and donations will be forthcoming.
Maurine (Kazi) Knighton ________________
Message from the members of New York City-based spoken word troupe UNIVERSES:
Be thankful that we knew him. He blessed us with his voice, his words told our stories, and his energy lit a room the moment he stepped into it. Be grateful. Celebrate his life and expect that we will see him again, one day.
I wrote a script that's got legs. Very hot legs, and they wiggle seductively from under the bedsheets, and they run with muscles of lava vocabulary, hot and thick, you can't not hear them.
I'm working on a film idea that's getting uppity. It wants a crown and calls herself queen. I tiptoe into her living quarters so noiselessly on the mornings I want her to speak to me. She insists I work on my knees, deep into the day-for-night day.
I have a dance concept in my head that wants to be an apple. It's got crunch and it might leave you with a sweet taste in your eyes if you get to watch it. This dance falls on your head to make you stop and realize, and maybe make you writhe out of that straitjacket that keeps your physique locked down in postures of societal correctness.
I have a melody in my mouth that is a planet. She wants to whirl around the earth, singing herself to sleep and bliss. She casts shadows on part of me, but awakens me to light in other ways. She has rings around her that are tambourines keeping the beat. She wants to make dancing fools of all of us.
All my creative acts are pompous, elegant, majestic, and planetary. I call them names, they give me head. We whistle at one another, thinking that each is in need of taming. They have a leash for me. It keeps me on the right path, typing these phrases, humming these songs, stepping these dances, acting these lines, shooting these scenes. It is a long, long leash. I am testing its length, and so far I have made it to upper Mongolia, the Galapagos Isles, the Nubian desert. I roam far to find my legs and crown and apple and planet. All the while they are in my head.
But I continue roaming anyhow, so long as that leash is long, so long.
your subject line made me tense up, made me curious and concerned.
this penetrates deep and gives me pause.
it hurts to hear young people hurting, though we all know and must accept that human life can be fraught with dragging-down moments, regardless of age or social context.
apparently, you have lost someone, you're hurting moaning mourning...
i am sorry you are i am glad you are
in that place of feeling something deep and uncontrollably irreparable.
or so it seems in the moment.
most important, in that moment, you are ALIVE, HUMAN, because you have a heart.
your heart works! celebrate that.
if you feel anything, even if it's pain, that shows you're alive & open to the potential of your life.
put your hand on your heart, and give it some thanks, say "Hey heart, thanks for feeling something, thanks for beating unceasingly for me. Now, please help me feel something different: calm, relief, expansiveness, acceptance, and help me become curious about the next moment, to love."
write again, soon, lemme know how you work through the moment(s).
Who makes the moon take dainty steps as it hastens toward the letter o?
And will it respond when i ask to dance in its light, a chance to tap like that sliver of silver?
Who will join in investing a heartbeat, a twilight surge, to summon a love that upswells, and shows the shadows as unnerved?
I ask too many questions in the dark, so willful is my mind under the pull of the lunar tide.
It brings some fullness to the sky as the eyelids flutter on our rounded faces, but when the midnight shows its hour we'll howl with glee and moonshine traces.
I'll have nothing to do with you. I have cut off my arm to not hold your hand. I am bleeding on the sidewalk, but that's okay, it will be considered art by morning. It will be titled "Red blossoms from angry skin" by curators with MFAs and New England accents.
And I will not invite you to the wine-and-cheese reception.
i don’t know who is the more flippant with food...the kid who stuffs the defrosted frozen meal, warmed-up just enough to call it cooked, into a bag and shoves it at you through a shop window,
or you as you grab it away, toss it into the passenger seat as you rev into drive, and then tear off the wrapping, to stuff the tasteless product into your never-satiated mouth.
when these actions summon a burp, you pronounce yourself full, you call yourself fed.
You snapped a picture of your pup with an imaginery camera between your thumbs,
and I imagine the boxes that could fill a store if all the fascinating childplay games you have
thought up in five decades of life could be packaged and shelved in a vivid shop that would probably
have to be named something like Moms R Fun or She's a Child For Life.
I would have a membership discount to that store, and I'd browse continually to see what has been added to the inventory. My laughter would echo against the walls and ceiling, and my imagination would brim with joy.
So, keep snapping make-believe pictures and drawing smiley faces on the piles of wood in the neighbors' yard, and dressing your dolls in our baby clothes. I love the kid you remain to be and I know my mom will always let me go over to play at your house.
I write this with a sense of urgency, as our elder-poet, the Chicano educator and activist raulrsalinas, has experienced a noticeable decline in physical health within the past six months.
As you read this, there are two important things being organized on behalf of honoring raul--while he is still with us.
In Austin, where he has been working steadily for decades, a benefit/performance is being scheduled for AUGUST 25th, 2-7pm, at the MACC (Mexican American Cultural Center) downtown.
As well, some of us are trying to get fast-track approval from the City of Austin (Parks & Recreation Dept.) to have a room/space within the MACC named after raul. You can read the letter I submitted in support of this initiative [see below].
Many of you have worked, studied, performed, and, yeah, partied, with our dearest raulrsalinas. If you have ever wanted to show him gratitude and honor for whatever he has shared with you, now is the time to send him a note, give him a call, or--very much needed now--mail him a check.
The programs (Red Salmon Arts, SOY--Save Our Youth) which raul founded long ago are desperately in need of more solid financial footing. If you can help in this capacity, that would be wonderful.
But--as we are also a people very rich in spirit, your prayers, good wishes, and white sage burnings--your good vibes will always be a blessing.
Warren Strauss Director Austin Parks and Recreation P.O. Box 1088 Austin, TX 78767
Dear Mr. Strauss:
I am submitting this letter in support of the initiative to officially honor writer, community activist, and educator Raul R. Salinas by designating a space within the Mexican American Cultural Center (MACC) with his name.
To permanently attach Raul R. Salinas’ name to a space/room within the MACC will be to honor the legacy and commitment of Salinas, who has positively influenced and inspired many many people.
As a literary artist, social activist, and a three-time Austinite (I now live in Fort Worth), Raul R. Salinas came into my life as an elder-teacher who motivated me to have a public life as writer and poet. My first time to ever give a public reading in Austin was at Resistencia Bookstore in the early 1990s. Since that time, Salinas has given me advice and good counsel, and has shown me the depth of his commitment to the Austin community-at-large, and its at-risk youth in particular.
No one could forget Salinas’ voice, powerful yet compassionate, as he led workshops in the Gardner-Betts Juvenile Detention Center or offered lectures at St. Edward’s University--where he recently taught several courses.
As a community activist, Salinas’ leadership has been crucial in many initiatives and campaigns, including the campaign in support of the establishment of the MACC itself.
Resistencia Bookstore, a vital community arts space--featuring wi-fi internet access and a literary reading series--would never have come to exist without the vision and tireless dedication of Salinas.
Salinas, as Austin living legend, has forged an enduring reputation among Hispanic/Latino poets and writers, youth advocates, and social justice workers throughout the state and nation. As a matter of fact, just yesterday I received a book of poems by a San Francisco-based writer which includes a poem inspired by Salinas (Mahcic: Selected Poems by Tomas Riley, Calaca Press, 2005).
It is my sincere hope that you will agree that Raul R. Salinas now deserves to be honored with a special naming ceremony at the MACC, so that generations of Austinites henceforth will remember Salinas with the reverence and respect that his life’s work deserves.
Sincerely yours,
Tammy Gomez
writer/playwright, producer and founder of Sound Culture
Mercury, you fucked with me and made me penniless in the shopping mall of your mercy. Why make a mockery of my humble yearnings and selfless pursuits?
I did what you asked, I floated dispassionately on your waters, without raising my voice or the bet on the table.
Why weren't you able to be lenient with this never-did- nothing-to-hurt-you lady, why did you make me sweat stress through my pores?
I have survived your last hellraise, yet I am downhearted and ill--and even my voice is raspy, unclear.
But I'll see you in the heavens, someday, and I'll turn retrograde on your ass, and you'll be sorry, yeah, I'll make you one sorry celestial rock, no matter if it's predicted or not.
I glanced out the window into the night and saw a huge bus make a wide turn, around the corner it came and if the driver had just sneezed in that instant, i swear the bus would have come crashing through the glass panels,
but no, it turned smooth and the driver was calm as he nosed the bus onward to its next stop.
And then, i noticed the two words on its destination sign, and my heart leapt at the same time as my feet wanted to spree: San Francisco.
This bus was heading towards San Francisco on this late dark night in a dull town of restless people sweating in toil to make rent and pay bills, with thoughts of vacation being just thoughts, but tonight in a split-second this bus came as a promise for me.
I will go to San Francisco within the next year, and I don't care if the bus driver sneezes the whole way there.
Definitely, I am sleepy now. I can barely keep my eyes open, but my brain yelps a few words. As I type, there is laziness in the strokes, as the bed wants to fetch me from the corner of my eye.
I struggle to finish, and complete this verse, but my yawns outnumber the discursive jolts, and I just wanna be in my bedclothes curled up wih my dreams, so I can wake fresh with poems tomorrow.
Watch the animals when they agitate, sprint from one room to the next, they prick up their ears and tails when all is seemingly quiet and still.
When the birds twitter and fidget from one bush to the next, and seem to be chirping in their screechiest voices, i take it they are on high alert.
But when a cat jumps in front of your car and it's stretched full-length like a breathing accordion mid-song, you wonder if it wished to be struck, seeking exit through your headlights,
as you slam on the brakes to save its life or maybe your own.
Two Shows
