Category: ain’t that the truth

“Friday evening in the universe” (Kerouac).

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Yes, it’s early, late or middle Friday evening in the universe. Oh, the sounds of time are pouring through the window and the key. All ideardian windows and bedarvled bedarvled mad bedraggled robes that rolled in the cave of Amontillado and all the sherried heroes lost and caved up, and transylvanian heroes mixing themselves up with glazer vup and the hydrogen bomb of hope.

 

(-Jack Kerouac, from his narration of the short film “Pull My Daisy,” part of which you can watch right here, with Italian subtitles, black and white versions of late afternoon Manhattan sunlight, and Kerouac, rambling long and short and narratively.) (I just learned how to embed videos on my site thanks to this really cool person’s daily song website. One small step for panache perhaps.)

Something like a manifesto (mine).

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(this poem garnered significant oomph from frankie, who read me a poem in my bathroom during my 25th birthday party.) (it was a poem she’d written on her 25th birthday.) (oomph also derived from frankie and ryan’s poetic manifestos, both brilliant, stunning.) (additional oomph supplied by russian writers, who were always writing manifestos.) (for maximum oomph factor, read this poem Out Loud!) (end oomphnotes HERE.)

Towards a (Goddamn) Manifesto

Yes: there can be two pedestals.

Why not. Are you one of those

lazies that asserts, This is the only

 

life I could have lived? Are you

people still around? Shoot

I’m up  to eight by now, or

 

seven if two are too close

to count as separate. Not

separate people, mind you,

 

but lives. I won’t narrate them

to you (you’d judge, you always

do, you with your marriage vows

 

and your psychoanalysis, your

black-and-whites and weekday

underwear). Listen up: sometimes,

 

on the weekdays, I don’t wear

underwear. Other times, I name

birds, hug for long times, shovel

 

mango into my mouth, kiss my

palm three times, have sex,

regret potato chips, mop, or

 

wear moccasins. I can’t decide

some days how to fly the damn

coop of my own brain. Other days

 

I’m up there in the bath tub,

lavender bath salts, Erykah Badu

on, crooning, I bet nobody ever

 

told you all you must hold on to

is you, is you, is you. One day,

all of you won’t read my letters.

 

They’re my god damn property.

If you’d asked, I would have

written. Anyone who’s written

 

knows that. Some people I love

have beards and one of them

willingly showed me her

 

pubic hair in a bar’s bathroom

because I was worrying about

how shaved is so god-damn

 

normal and that woman is my friend.

And I said, Thank you so kindly

for sharing. I feel—better now.

 

Like how a salad gets better

with cheese (plain truth). Like how

some people who didn’t come

 

over to my house very much

if ever in high school are now

hearing about my updated feelings

 

on things. Like how I tried to stop

saying “like” in my sentences

a year ago and it worked. God

 

bless my own damn self, you

know? And bless the adults

who taught their children how

 

to skip by pure example. I know

we can’t extend the word “queer”

too much because there’s a political

 

struggle for gay rights and we

all need to be lining ourselves

up for equality but G-damn,

 

I feel queer sometimes. In that

good way that no one tells you

about. I have been throwing myself

 

at the world now for many moons.

My scars are from a canoe, a field

of celery, and a chicken pock. No

 

blood I can’t get back. I drove

a tractor once in France and

it sure was relaxing after all

 

the bales of hay I’d been heaving

on it’s bed, but I got lonely

for the people down below. I worship

 

and love more than one deity,

more than one human, animal,

font, and meal. Just because I adore

 

an old man walking  around the block

with ski poles and a bicycle helmet

doesn’t mean there’s less of me

 

to go around. In fact, there’s more.

Love breeds love, you dig? Perhaps

we only say the word where

 

others deem it right (mother,

lover, old friend, loyal pet), but

LOVE, my friends, resides in

 

more than one arena and we can

form it at our leisure, this earthly

pleasure admits allllll ages.

Poem I have memorized (Terrance Hayes).

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New York Poem

In New York from a rooftop in Chinatown
one can see the sci-fi bridges and aisles
of buildings where there are more miles
of shortcuts and alternative takes than
there are Miles Davis alternative takes.
There is a white girl who looks hi-
jacked with feeling in her glittering jacket
and her boots that look made of dinosaur
skin and R is saying to her I love you
again and again. On a Chinatown rooftop
in New York anything can happen.
Someone says “abattoir” is such a pretty word
for “slaughterhouse.” Someone says
mermaids are just fish ladies. I am so
fucking vain I cannot believe anyone
is threatened by me. In New York
not everyone is forgiven. Dear New York,
dear girl with a bar code tattooed
on the side of your face, and everyone
writing poems about and inside and outside
the subways, dear people underground
in New York, on the sci-fi bridges and aisles
of New York, on the rooftops of Chinatown
where Miles Davis is pumping in,
and someone is telling me about the contranyms,
how “cleave” and “cleave” are the same word
looking in opposite directions. I now know
“bolt” is to lock and “bolt” is to run away.
That’s how I think of New York. Someone
jonesing for Grace Jones at the party,
and someone jonesing for grace.

photo taken headed uptown, disposable camera, December 2011

Poem (mine).

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Small House Poem
for Ellie

In this little house
all you need is a little

bit of everything. Little
vase (little flowers),

little pan to heat
the onions on, little

soap to balance on
the whitesink’s edge.

There’s a little bit
of magic to a space

so small it makes
a dog look like

a prince. A little
terrifying is a room

that serves as all
the rooms and yet

lying on the bed
one can watch the stove

stay silver for as long
as sunshine reaches

for the sill. There
are days inside

each day that I
might call a little

lifetime. Blessings
are the clergy’s way

of naming little
joys. How long until

the little things
amass and try

revolt: little marching
dishes hightailed

for the hills,
where ants the size

of ants line up
along their little

mountains, heedless
of the fullsized

mounds that rise
above their heads,

eyes tilted down
and focused only

on each other,
the little things

that matter aren’t
little things at all.

Girlspeak (San Diego/Atlanta).

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C: It’s as if someone handed him a Magic Hat, but he was like, “Nah, I’m good with this Natty Ice.”

T: It’s like if someone gave him a pressed sandwich with Portobello mushrooms, sautéed onions, and fresh cheese from a goat and he said, “No thanks, I’ll just have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”

C: Exactly! Go fuck your pb and j!

T: YEAH! Who turns down a panini??!

she gets it right by me (sonia sanchez).

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Welcome Home, My Prince

welcome home, my prince
into my white season of no you
welcome home
iiiiiiiiiiiito my songs
that touch yo/head
iiiiiiiiiiiiand rain green laughter
iiiiiiiiiiiiin greeting
welcome home
to this monday
iiiiiiiiiiiithat has grown up
with the sound of yo/name,
for i have chanted to yesterday’s sun
to hurry back with
his belly full of morning
iiiiiiiiiiiiand you have come
and i cannot look up at you.
iiiiiiiiiiiimy body
trembles and i mumble things as you
stand tall and sacred
so easily in yo/self
iiiiiiiiiiiibut i am here
to love you
iiiiiiiiiiiito carry yo/name on my
ankles like bells
iiiiiiiiiiiito dance in
yo/arena of love.
you are tattooed on the round/soft/
parts of me.
iiiiiiiiiiiiand yo/smell is
always with me.