vendredi 31 décembre 2010

apology


Photo by Jamie Rood (permission pending). Jamie took this photograph somewhere in the Texas panhandle.


for Stephen

we hopped into your 50s chev
and away we went
you from your french horn
second seat miami orchestra
me from my boredom and wrath

you were 25
and i was just 15
yet i made you love me
to follow my every command
by exercising your anxieties

you were so easy to
jerk around

i channeled god
as we road the north
florida borders
the scent of jasmine
wafted in and found us

yet i felt nothing
but heat and death
and wanted nothing less
as we disappeared
into texas

helotes that tiny town
with so many men
your army friend who
laughed at you and left
we never knew where

i told you about the
apocalypse and you
bought every word of it
but little did you know
that i was going under

under the knife
as i seized and cramped:
in the recovery room
i called out your name
i want my husband!

i gave you religion
and you gave me
gonorrhea
i suppose i deserved it
for using you that way

but the scar is still there
after 40 years

mardi 28 décembre 2010

flashpoint


there's nothing black and
white in this life
if not hues of rainbows
there are infinite grays
and shades of past
and future lives
complicated questions
irritating subtexts
and massive attacks
like losing everything again
standing in the rain
with your old yellow backpack
and a paper sack with an
empty cigarette pack inside
a signpost to boston
and not one car on the road
and yet you go on
and on and on and on
in the great undertow
with patterns of light
that your feet just seem
to follow as if
driven or guided
or whatever finds you
safe and alive

dimanche 26 décembre 2010

for charlie sonnier, forty years on


i remember sitting in your
small room in worcester
a year after our separation
you seemed so timid and tender
and i missed your small hands on my body
the way our long noses fit together
as if the universe had created us
like a puzzle one for the other

you took your guitar into your arms
and played albeniz and bach
gone were the blues of robert johnson
you carefully lifted a record from its sleeve
and reveled in the voice of cleo laine
singing "friendly persuasion"

i was so touched by your evolution
and knew in my heart that
it happened because i left you
took my broken raped tortured soul
and moved to webster
where i wept over your loss for years
remembering your strong hands
and how they loved and healed me

forty years on
i still find myself thinking about
your beautiful french-italian nose
the way you played my body
like you played guitar
with that plaintive love and longing
that continues to make me
a better person

samedi 25 décembre 2010

a very bad christmas


when your whole family
thinks you're a fraud
and it's christmas eve
and you're driving home
in the pouring rain
after being yelled at
by your eldest son
for always being sick--
"not her fault," says your husband
"whose it then, god's?"--
after you've passed the day
in the endodentist's office
having a root canal on your
second front tooth after two
days of nerve pain from hell
and all you want to do
is come give your grandson
his christmas presents and
see and share his christmas joy
show each of them your love
but it's not good enough...

when you've driven for
four hours to see your mother
in spite of nausea and exhaustion
and all she does is taunt you
for being lazy and stupid
because you don't get, never have
that she's weak and half-blind
a recognition missing from your
relationship all these years
she's a bitch and she knows it
why not take her advice and
go away and leave her alone!
whatever you do won't be
enough, for example
the "new yorker box"
you made by hand is
clearly shelved, as she sits
on her porch with a cigarette
and her third vodka and tonic
and you're hurt but silent
as you shut the apartment door
start the car and drive 
the four hours home.

you ask your husband
to call your youngest son
because he won't take your calls
rejects your emails
tells you you were the
worst mother on earth and
writes on his blog that his
father, dead one year, is his
hero, the father whose abuse
drove you to your first
nervous breakdown, threatened
your life and beat the love right
out of you, and now at christmas
you who always use your
illness as a crutch, after you
spent hours on the phone
helping him through anxiety
attacks and bad breakups
and you know now that it will
never be enough, not after
you asked that same father to
shelter him and he told your
boy terrible lies about you
and now at 25, he won't talk
to you and all you do is worry
because the motto on his
myspace page is: i think i'm
dying, really...

and you sit next to your husband
bumping along at 55mph
sick as a dog on christmas eve
blinking in and out of consciousness
and you wonder how to go on
when the people you love the most
don't believe you're sick, only
believe you're crazy
and it's all about them
and how your unreliability affects
their plans, your mother is yelling
just don't come! if it means
she'll have to wait another day
even if you stay a day extra
or your son is yelling, just don't
come! if it means that you won't 
be able to spend the night on
his couch, even if you love him enough
to come after a root canal
to spend time with your grandson
oh how he loves you and grandpa
he called a week before just
to make sure you got there,
and you promised.

what have you done wrong to be
so utterly dissed by your family?
and if your family can't understand
what about the rest of the world
that doesn't have any attachment
to the wretched and disabled?
your husband grabs your hand and
squeezes it. you don't need words
as you ride the mountains
toward the coast, your sadness
and anger palpable as sandpaper.

mardi 21 décembre 2010

pensée libre

taratata...
hougrah!
je me sens femme
sans borderlines
sans fin
sans zeitgeist du temps

femme dans tout les sens
blanc de l'innocent
noir du profond
femelle mâle
petite graine d'un enfant
idiot savant

bordella mortelle
médusa
milagra
mistah sistah
wicked witch
phénix aux cendres

see me fly, papa
hear my name, mama
taratata 
hougrah!
je me sens:
femme

samedi 18 décembre 2010

A Fragile Peace


I'm brokering a peace 
with myself everyday,
negotiating the pitfalls 
of redundancy:

A warmed half apple 
sweetens my blood,
i'm up and moving, feeding the cat,
watering the plants:

They've outgrown their pots,
lying on sticky counters,
and I make a mental note
to buy new ones
once i can leave the house again
and face the bevy of stressed faces
dashing down the snow-white 
aisles that blind me,
once i can pick up the dried sticks, 
the tinder of this illness, 
and put them aside.

I might even make a bonfire
and invite the whole family over:
We can celebrate the coming year
the way we used to,
with a large red Le Creuset 
of my Christmas stew,
myriad guests and neighbor kids
running through the rooms,
the exchange of gifts
bought with hard-earned dollars
from the work I loved
before the crippling started;
but it started long before 
I was conscious of it.

As I sit down to rest
and gather that fragile peace,
I shuffle through the piles
of unread books:
the best sellers, healing
manuals, and chapbooks
of friends and confidants.
Perhaps this will be the year
that I join them, the year
I can concentrate long enough
to gather my manuscript
and submit it.
I'm making progress,
tapering off the narcotics,
writing poems for it.

I hear the water boil for
my umpteeth cup of tea,
and I'm again on my feet.
The cat straggles behind me
hoping for a treat:
I give her one, pulling
open the foil and dumping
a few squares on the floor:
I scratch her raised-up bottom
and she purrs, with that ruh-ruh-ruh
she makes while she's eating.

Back at the couch,
I scan the satellite guide for movies:
A Christmas Story, Miracle on
34th Street, A Lion in Winter.
I will begin them all before
Christmas comes, I'll lie
back on my pillows and fall asleep:
I'll dream the plots as if
I were writing them.


My daughter-in-law Vengie and me, Christmas '09 

mercredi 15 décembre 2010

politique de noël 2010





her white-headed boy
her brave son, as she calls him
will not be detered from
his stated purpose
walled underground
in a solitary cell
awaiting bail that
may never come

julian's mother
knows what's going on
as a secret grand jury
is being cobbled
together in virginia
probably close to
bradley's holding cell
in quantico, the prison

both mothers must be
brokenhearted this christmas
must hope that all the
wise men gathering
round their sons
can save them from
a public crucifixion

an early easter threatens
not the birth of truth and justice
but the end of it

mercredi 8 décembre 2010

A Working Class Hero: John Lennon on his 30th Anniversary




"If you want to be a hero, well, just follow me..."

Thanks so much to my friend Paulette Thomson for remembering this song, so poignant on this 30th anniversary of John's death by the hand of a lost soul. The line above is so ironic in retrospect because it's a path that few would choose, a path made from the actions of heroes, people who sacrificed vain glory and lived fearlessly in order to see a better day for others, ordinary people like you and me who did the extraordinary.

We raise our hands to the sky and demand, Why, in the end, are the great souls of peace and justice murdered? I think we already know one answer: because they and truth stood in the face of powers that will do anything to silence them and maintain the imperialist status quo. Religious powers. Political powers. Powers of the powerless driven to irrational acts.

The documentary "The U.S. vs. John Lennon", written and directed by David Leaf and John Scheinfeld, details the file the FBI kept on John Lennon. The final shots that rang out on December 8, 1980, were as politically brutal as those that struck Gandhi, John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Bobby Kennedy. I'm sure there are millions more heroes throughout history whose names we will never know. For then and for now, we salute you. ~LT


Working Class Hero
(John Lennon, 1970)

As soon as you're born they make you feel small
By giving you no time instead of it all
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all

A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool
Till you're so crazy you can't follow their rules

A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

When they've tortured and scared you for twenty odd years
Then they expect you to pick a career
When you can't really function you're so full of fear

A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
And you think you're so clever and classless and free
But you're still peasants as far as I can see

A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

There's room at the top they are telling you still
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
If you want to be like the folks on the hill

A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be

If you want to be a hero, well, just follow me
If you want to be a hero, well, just follow me






mardi 7 décembre 2010

transitions

it's 4:40 and dark as mud
they've changed the clocks
to accommodate the
bean counters
no one likes their beds
calling them at 7
and each one knows
there will be no recovery
inside where it counts

everything will stay
heavy and off balance
until the maiden comes
with her bloated apron
of seeds and wildflowers
for summer wheat
and after the scattering
lays herself down
and accepts into her own
the sun's great body


edvard munch, winter night, 1923


lundi 6 décembre 2010

Trouble - Cat Stevens

une chanson qu'on se sent dans l'âme...





samedi 4 décembre 2010

Des Armes / Weapons (A Translation)

by Léo Ferré as covered by Noir Désir. The French rock group broke up as of 12/01/10.




Des armes, des chouettes, des brillantes
Des qu'il faut nettoyer souvent pour le plaisir
Et qu'il faut caresser comme pour le plaisir
L'autre, celui qui fait rêver les communiantes

Weapons, fantastic things, brilliant things
Things it's necessary to clean often for pleasure
And that it's necessary to caress as if for pleasure
Also, what makes the communion takers dream

Des armes bleues comme la terre
Des qu'il faut se garder au chaud au fond de l'âme
Dans les yeux, dans le cœur, dans les bras d'une femme
Qu'on garde au fond de soi comme on garde un mystère

Weapons blue like the earth
Things it is necessary to keep warm in the center of your soul
In your eyes, in your heart, in the arms of a woman
That you keep in the center of the self the way you keep a secret

Des armes, au secret des jours
Sous l'herbe, dans le ciel et puis dans l'écriture
Des qui vous font rêver très tard dans les lectures
Et qui mettent la poésie dans les discours

Weapons, in the secret of days
Under grass, in the sky and then in writings
Thing that make you dream very late in your readings
And that put poetry into our discourse

Des armes, des armes, des armes
Et des poètes de service à la gâchette
Pour mettre le feu aux dernières cigarettes
Au bout d'un vers français brillant comme une larme

Weapons, weapons, weapons
And poets in the service of the trigger happy
Lighting the last cigarettes
At the end of a line of French poetry shining like a tear


trans. Laura Tattoo
12/3/10

mercredi 1 décembre 2010

Happy Birthday, Alain. Live forever.

A video I made for the 2010 birthday of Alain Bashung (Dec. 1, 1946 - Mar. 14, 2009).





lundi 29 novembre 2010

Tous


Angst par Edvard Munch


combien faut-il payer
pour ce blouson de soie
couvert de roses noires
supermarché oriental
splendeur bouddhistique
ce domaine impénétrable
sans visage en avant ou derrière
seulement ces os blanchâtres

combien faut-il payer
dans cet âge sans rives
sans lignes sans territoires
sans blousons africanos
asiatiques americanos indiens
sans demeure au soir
une maison pour appeler le vôtre
pour détendre ici et là

je ne garde pas mes pensées
je pense sans arrêt sorcière
bande son en rond vous savez
les adolescents et
leurs plats du jour
vous en souvenez-vous
je me souviens des miens

dans votre chaise orange
la reine de tout le monde
ou c'est ce que vous avez pensé
je peux vous dessiner un village
mais voyez vous ne l'aimez pas
je vous assure
la marque de tout mal connaissant
mal connaissant

pas d'excès pas d'excuse
pour vos massacres de damas
pas besoin pour le sang
qui coule entre vos doigts
mais nos fleuves coulent de rouge
c'est incroyable parce que
vous me juriez
que rien de sang
ne coulera plus jamais
sur celle notre terre maman

je ne garde pas mes pensées
je pense sans arrêt sorcière
bande son en rond vous savez
nos adolescents et leurs disques
plats du jour
Vous en souvenez-vous
je me souviens des miens

vous nous avez menti
c'était vrai c'était faux
mais c'etait notre ignorance
n'est-pas?
mes pères mes mères
mes sœurs et mes frères
mes militaires
nous sommes tous les meutriers
tous les voyageurs
et chacun seul à jamais
nous sommes ni dieux ni déesses
soyez reveillés
soyez reveillés
soyez reveillés
...tous

samedi 20 novembre 2010

ex nilio


“Betsy Mac Call plays with Blythe Somat in the cemetery”. Copyright Alice Odilon 2010 . 


 for Alice

i've watched her create
her flower dolls and cutouts
bosnian brides runaway girls
creeping morning glories
laconic paper lilies

she surveys the landscape
summoning out of the artifice
their primordial gardens
their dark hallways
and ghostly apartments

slowly she composes the sets
simplifies the devices
lowering the chandelier lights
choosing b&w over the
red of their mortal wounds

she encourages them to
think for themselves
and when lacan flower power
meets vestal somataforme
the plot thins and thickens

one has no face to turn to
for she is scarce to herself
thinking of only others
another prefers her weapons
her anorexic angular edges

it is not an easy work
nor is she ever paid for it
but studiously painfully artfully
from their darkest elements
she summons her girls back to life




Calla Lilies by Jiang Tiefeng (permission pending)

vendredi 19 novembre 2010

wrestling the angel

she feels like she's spending
too much time on facebook
when she should be writing
the tome that will make
her famous.

what's with this fame thing
would all be well if that
mistress came to her door
recognized her genius
graced her forehead?

she read that depression
often stems from the fact
that people want to be famous
of course, she's not like
that at all.

she's a natural poet
she has the sea inside
she's not knocking anybody
although claims it's enough
to blog her own poems.

she can't deny the jealousy
when friends publish (again)
can't help but doubt herself
and wonder why she's still
self publishing.

yet she never submits
never addresses the failure
just lies on the couch
and plans the little volume
that will be priceless.

dimanche 14 novembre 2010

almost driving




i took an old highway tonight
through evergreen and scotch broom
one of those quaint coastal roads
that weave in and out of little
towns like mist and vernonia

I drove to escape my boredom
and though it never worked before
escape is a heavy metal in my blood
fueled by boxes of guilt
i piled inside the trunk
enough to last the winter
if i could keep myself driving

in florida the back roads 
smell of jasmine and oranges
in oregon it's douglas fir and rain
the sliver of moon didn't light the sky
but it was a sign nonetheless
until it rotated behind me
other signs were rusting in the rain
as i snaked my way through
horny mountains

i took my music player
from a soft denim sack
and played the songlist i made
the day before i left
bashung and bashung again
for i knew he would sing about the pain
that i dared not verbalize
swallowing two pills against its swell
they made me work
the gas pedal and the brake

i was driving toward a new life
a little hideaway
on the side of a cliff
where each day i could decide
whether to jump or to live
where a lamp might be lit
and words added to it
but my little drive was never
about writing poems

there would be no little house
no perfect moon
no ocean lookout
no final requests for
whale crossings or bouillabasse
only split second decisions

it was about turning stoically around
and finding my way home
unloading the guilt boxes (again)
turning on the television
and awaiting a conventional death

like all ghost dolls
i once knew how to drive
i was going places
until malady came and stole my brain
left me bored and in pain
but like a cruel joke
left the car in the driveway



mercredi 3 novembre 2010

storms of love





muffled and tumbling
i'm still part of it
i lost the bulk of it
shot the shit with it
ruined myself
thrashing fits for it
biting tits for it
throwing myself into
l'orage d'amour
like a hungry animal
ferocious blasphemous
irascible

but with human heart
and human body and
no evolutionary lexicon
to lean upon
gale winds ride at
nightfall in the gulf 'twixt
disaster and love
LOVE capital
no marks or bearings
now sexless lying here
fantasies flying there
l'orage d'amour
not wanting blood now
yet bloodless starved

am i still a moron
saintly apocalypse
idiot moon
full and white
sky of red wine
bread into body
nullifying each dichotomy
with life
briny stinking life
that pulls itself
out of the seabed
hand to mouth
tottering sea urchins
muffled tumbling
still a part of it
swabbed and scrutinized
in the ever changing eye
of the telescopic
l'orage d'amour?

samedi 30 octobre 2010

sous la voile




oh la le jour gris 
et de la pluie parterre
une tristesse dans le cœur
des pensées funèbres

femme voilée
parmi la foule
qui hurle sa haine
des musulmans

"soyez libre, la femme"
vient la chant
"ne te cache pas
 sous la voile"

mais je me sens bien
dans cette cachette
c'est moi et dieu
à l'aveuglette

mais qui n'est pas
sans vision n'est-ce pas
cherchant avec ses bras
dans cet océan noir?

qui n'est pas seul
avec son cœur dur
sous la voilée
de la solitude?

ne me craignez pas
ni me jugez trop
je ne me montre comme
vous qu'in vitro



vendredi 29 octobre 2010

magic loss and something else


the ten mahavidyas


i remember the magic of the dawn
just before the light came on
as the first bird broke into song
and summoned awake all
the mystical birds

i lay with open eyes
and felt the great longing
seep into my sleepiness
awaken in my veins
the passion of a new bride

i turned my lightbox on
and opened a book
my eyes floated back and forth
from page to light source
ringing the pineal bell with joy

i would crawl to my altar then
and light the cold ghee wick i had
prepared the night before
i would sound the individual altar bells
awakening each sleeping muse

then cross legged on a mat
the length and breadth of my body
i would pick up my japa mala
the flower garland of my offering
each bead the essence of desire

om namo narayanaya
my surrender as sweet as
sandalwood and myrhh
each seed a butterball in my mouth
and a rolling wave of my ecstatic heart

for hours i would sit straight up
and move the day's light
from my head to my foot
mentally chanting the mantra
i had long asked for in prayer

i repeated every day
this wonderful formula
and i knew a peace that
humans long for in the chaos
of their years on earth

oh i remember the magic
no mountain too high
no valley too low
a middle path in the wilderness
and no intruder of laziness or lust

i remember the healing that
passed through my hands
and the men and women who came
for just an hour of that magic
letting their sadness melt away in tears

            ***

i took my foot off that path
when reality set in
with unpaid bills and lights turned off
I had to go back into
the land of human work

i maintained my sweet heart
but not my holy thoughts
i no longer had time for the
the daily practice before dawn
lightbox defunct mala untouched

my starved olfactory nerves
soon were filled with cigarette smoke
and the pineal gland was hampered
as i trudged each gray. damp morning
like everyone else to my cubicle 

i thought i loved the work
helping the hundreds who called
who asked for their status
i talked them out of death sometimes
and i lent them my good energies

for two years i served this cause
until my body grew weak and ill
deep pain from out of nowhere
starting at the base of my neck
and extending the length of my arm

and then took over every inch of me
the way mold spreads in a tiled room
its tentacles extending into each crevice
a million points of pain as if
hell itself had invaded me with fire 

filled with tears i said goodbye
to all the darlings with whom i worked
they waved from their chairs
and wondered if my replacement would
come soon enough to save them

             ***

are there two lives in this life
one of magic and one of loss
the elders say there is but one
and that you can enlighten yourself
by walking the path of selfless service

i thought i was better alone in
the four walls of the temple room
drinking in the nectar of
the lightbox and the dawn
sitting tall and singing birdsong

how surprised i was that
illness had taken over my world
i now missed both the action of work
and the daily morning practice
as i slept in chains of pain

no strength to get up and
call client or god
just a long day in and out of
the shadows on my bed
not a middle path exactly

not magic, not loss
but something else:
perhaps i've wished for too much
was too attached to the magic
and had to learn what human was

what so many people
must live with everyday
i am not special or chosen
i have a human body
that must be taken care of

the lessons of magic loss
and something else
are not linear but redundant
we reinvent ourselves because
there is no one answer to it all