Sunday, October 28, 2007

The women are walking

to work, in shoes they bought
this past weekend, at the store
on the infamous boulevard/platform
of the aristocracy, knowing the click of their
heels sounds more like the victory ring of a cash
register than something (not) seen in their eyes.

The women are walking

on sidewalks in their neighborhoods
where they peer into the windows of
houses not their own, where families
not their own look different and somehow
the same.

The women are walking

in the morning, trying to lose the baby fat
they accumulated last year that their husbands
can’t help but comment on even though they
know it’s “messed up.”

The women are walking

too close to the charcoal colored pavement, also known
as the street, in hope that a drunk
driver will lose control and side swipe them, which
everyone would say “was such a tragic accident,” which
appears much easier for people to live with than
the curiosities post-suicide(s).

The women are walking

with headphones on so they can hear a chorus line
or simple ballad that makes more sense than
the morning headlines (sitting there, back on the coffee
table at home just waiting to depress the hell out of anyone
and everyone).

The women are walking

on hiking trails in the forest, instead of aisles in church
because g*d in the trees and on the moss is more accessible
these days than God at the altar, in the cup and bread, or living
vicariously through some middle age priest who fucks women
half his age while preaching grace.

The women are walking

in the downtowns, with signs in their hands that display
the word “NO!” all over them: no to war, no to reproductive
regulation, no to companies that deny a living wage, no to rape,
no to environmental degradation.

The women are walking

into the arms of each other, because there’s nowhere else
to go, nor would they want to go anywhere else because
these arms hold the whole world up while the sky is falling.

The women are walking

a way.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Love In Color

I recognize:

strands of hair,
a baby grand that sits on the south side,
marble walls with diamond tiles,
a woman in the portrait that hangs next to the clock,
husband's jacket slumped over the dining room chair,
the eyes of her, that peer at me, allways, even if only in my head,
a semi crumpled lunch bag, on the counter, in the kitchen,
the skirts and blouses, the earrings and eyebrow toners,
sun spots on her hands, more wrinkled now than before,
dead leaves, layering the sidewalk on Lee Avenue,
leather seats in an Acura on highways too long from home,
picture frames
framed pictures
thick, desiring soil, in the back yard where she plays,
the afghan throw, on the couch, pleated gold,
my prayer beads, both aesthetic and pragmatic,
layers behind and beneath the blonde,
the time keeper that tocks and ticks, on the west side and in my secret spots,
book shelves covering the white-washed walls, in berkeley, in Cofoid,
sweaters, holding me when she is not (t)here

all these things

my mother's brown

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Nebuchadnezzar

Sent soaring in the sky,
after being dropped off
at eight fifty eight a.m.,
he arrives at eleven forty a.m.,
--barely--he says.
Because the Santa Ana Winds are
raging in the South, where fires
blaze and occupants vacate, where
the vulnerability of thirsty hillsides
actually become of interest to folks
not in the real estate business.
"The plane cheered when we landed safely"
he says, trying to communicate how scary
the whole thing was without losing his
masculine edge.
"I could see all of the fires from the sky"
he says, warning me about the issues of
proximity: my mother, his mother, our childhood
homes, schools, play-spaces, and memory lanes.

I interpret his codified language
and know
the layers of smoke, piles of ash,
fire truck sirens, relief workers,
and fearful inhabitants of my home-land
are proliferating by the second.

I recite the most over/under rated prayer:
"Oh my God"
because something burns
in here too.
At once a visitor and native,
I'll be back tomorrow, to see,
if the fourth one, unbound and unharmed
will show up, again, to walk with us,
in these e(x)ternal flames.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

For the Sake of the Shine

if you are found wanting, still,
after having stood barefoot on wet grass
when the dawn surrenders its last hopes of illumination
(because it forgets the stars are coming,
because it forgets the stars always come)
just before it takes that long, resigned--yet courageous--breath of
its own made-up death, then interrogate and iconoclastically confront
the measuring apparati you have been instructed to love,
and the myth of uniqueness that locks you in mental quarantine.

Remember, the stars always come
without any invitation, for the sake of the shine.

Friday, October 12, 2007

9 children were killed in Iraq yesterday by US armed forces.

9 CHILDREN

The terror we sow is the terror we will reap.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Glory

General Commentary on Things

I would just like to say, during this brief pause between classes on the hump-est of hump days, that my Hermeneutics course with Marion Grau kicks ass. I've never been so comfortable and humbled in the face of my own ignorance as I am at CDSP on Wednesday mornings. My student colleagues bring the heat, and Dr. Grau is...well, see my title. The entire thing is a beautiful collision course.

Secondly, the clouds in the sky @ 6:45pm on Tuesday October 9th, 2007 were beyond belief. I just happened to be driving over the Bay Bridge at a time when I could see them--in all their multi-colored/multi-shaped bliss--descending over the canvas-like skyline of hills, houses & water, which confirmed for me yet again that the industrial spread has NOTHING on the spontaneity of nature. And yet the confirmation was only possible via contrast. Agh yes, the spaces in-between the in-between places...

Lastly: I love my mother and all the ways she shows up in the arrival of autumn. If you don't know her, you should. So proud to be her product. Read that theologically and (somehow) not...

Monday, October 8, 2007

Leaves on the Ground

There was one death--
a loud determining death--
that etched itself into my consciousness
so flagrantly
some years ago
that now, every time something dies,
it's just the loud determining death happening again,
only this time, I am different: older & more reflexive,
yet somehow incapable,
amidst all my psychoanalytic verbosity,
to separate my father from all the others.

Fall cracks itself wide open
by allowing things to die.

I want to be like that.

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Sabbath

Stop.
To know you haven't ended in a while.
Stop.
To regain the place in you that doesn't run.
Stop.
To collect your breath.
Stop.
To give others a chance to touch you.
Stop.
To be still and know.