i feel like i don't know how to talk to this blog right now. have been sucked up in school and the poetry blog and writing and wanting. have been writing about the sea. i came out here, after being landlocked my whole life, knowing something would have to happen, wondering what the ocean would do to me. what is happening? water. all of it, everywhere.
that's all for now. no earth, no border, no centered edge. i'm ready.

fucking grammar

damn, i really let this go for a while. ah yes, the blog...how are you?
what to do? when u feel it all? can't type when typing is breaking. clap of cowbell. if i am obtuse, forgive me. i was only going to stay a small while. nonsense for no reason, isn't it? oh so often. soften. this one in that.
try this: make it fast. begin at the top of my syntax, loop fingers like pocket-holes, stay in close contact, full out rebellion. the light that hurts to see. i cannot tell u what i mean. bending the corners to fit a different place where my concerns are apparent. i curl at the edges. fins of transparent red fish. a gill, breathing.
walking in the evening, a similarity is countering. a wall is hardening. mortar and spackle. semi-soft appetite. the star-like light of fireworks. the ripple of reflection and trying to make sense. the failure. the repetition of slight water. a most constant ringing, a welcome lie. to turn in a circle: telling the thing from the inside, out. eye against eye. sucked into water-funnel, funnel-cloud, tornado, maelstrom. after effect, on the avenue, the way the sun shines now.

"The time is always ripe to do good"-MLK, Jr.

How will you say you spent this day? Whatever happens, a day to remember.
I woke up at the wee hour of 7 and washed my face and brushed my teeth. I was on the 3rd day of my period. I ditched work. Meg came to pick me up and she and I watched the inauguration at Cafe Pena in Berkeley. There were tears and gospel and latte and JOY! Then we were on to Revolution Cafe in West Oakland to meet up with Shelly. We sat in a circle, computers on laps, and half-watched the inaugural coverage (parades, etc) and half-wrote poems. Later, we decided to go for a walk. And when Meg suggested we walk in my neighborhood, I thought she must be joking. But she wasn't and we did.
I swear, I don't know if I can get tired of those two. And I can't really think of a more wonderfully luxurious/deeply challenging way to have spent this historic day. From dramatic firsts and songs of triumph, to poems for the dead and mandates for the living, I do not think I could have served my country better than I did today. I took up my duty, as I see it, as I have accepted it, with a full-bodied engagement. I sat in community with my colleagues and we thought, long and hard, about what it all meant. We chatted and scribbled and asked questions. We attempted to notice what was happening and how. I am a poet, amongst poets, and today, I say it proudly, we did our Job.
I will never forget the way he smiles, o dear, and throws the ball right back at us - this 44th president of the United States. And while he is proud that we have chosen him, he is working hard to remind us that it only implies that we have chosen ourselves. This man with the deepest appreciation of service is bound to lead the way, in boldness, and with the courage to change what isn't working. May his example infect us all with an unshakable sense of urgency to carry out the ends of justice and unfettered joy in this world. Now is the time.

Mercy, Raining Down?

My fucking goodness, it's a strange world. I am NOT listening to the Chet Baker station on Pandora, as I often do while sitting in my room. I am listening, for once, to the "silence" of West Oakland. There are helicopters and many police sirens. I'm watching them, like bright dragonflies above downtown. The fan I sleep with (for, holy fuck, "white noise") is called "Hawaiian Breeze". It is a silver-ribbed, squat R2D2 of a fan with one named eye.
Colorado was quiet. Was snowy winter.
There is a protest going on. I am not there because I feared violence. I am here, on this white computer. I am retyping what I misspell. Delete. Delete. I am fond of short sentences, strung together like a garment of lace. I am not ashamed. Can you see my ass? From where you're sitting? Can you?
Sat in Revolution Cafe today. Went to the post office. Drank $2 wine. My mother says my writing ( the work I recently gave her) is unclear. "I must confess sometimes I miss the point when it reads so poeticly. Seems pretty abstract sometimes, but it was good."
She loves me. Still, how does a writer lose her own mother, you may be asking. Fuck if I know.
I found out tonight that I am getting another poem published in another magazine called Monkey Puzzle! SO strange to write. Do you all understand that you are obliged, as I said to Paola today, to read my shit from here on out? I have a lot more to say, I assure you. This is only the beginning.
Today, they arrested Johannes Meserhle, the young, white BART officer who murdered Oscar Grant, in Tahoe. My fucking goodness. I saw graffiti, two days ago, that said "arrest Johnnes Meserhle". Now what/
Helicopters. oh, polarized state! I like the notion of ending with a prayer: In name of the things that connect us. In name of the things that don't. Like the howl of a train, at night.

For Oscar and Others

Wow. Blogging is intense. Can't really stop once you start. Or reading other people's. It kind of feels like going up to your rooftop and yelling your news into a big black megaphone that you are sure all your people can hear. It feels like a big ol' relief a lot of the time. An unbound journal.
All my roommates are out of town right now. My phone is cut off. I am broke. It's weird to be in this house all alone, and kind of scary. I cleaned up, had a session with my beloved Georgia Rose, and went for a long walk up and down Mandela Parkway, singing my head off to the workout mix I made for Angie. Then I came home and cooked a pot of pintos and some basmati rice. I was about to eat, but I really wanted some tortilla chips to go with my rice n beans. So I decided to walk up to the 99 cent store on the corner. I considered not going because it was already dark and shit has been crazy in my neighborhood lately, but it's only 2 blocks, so I went for it. I got: sour cream, chips, half & half, and pasta sauce. The woman in front of me in line was taking a really long time, flirting with the cashier until she found out he was married and then he asked to hold her baby and finally she paid and I wasn't in a hurry, so I just waited patiently. By the time I walked out of the store, I could see police lights in front of my house. I was like, oh damn, not again. As I got up to my house I asked one of the several cops what had happened and he asked if I lived here, pointing to my house. I said yes and he told me there had been a shooting. Apparently, the bullet ricocheted and only hit the guys' ear. Too fucking close for comfort, man. He was sitting on the sidewalk in front of my house, surrounded by cops. They hadn't caught the perpetrator. It was a drive-by. And I had only missed it by a couple of minutes.
I am numb, by the way, as I write this. It begins to feel like TV when this stuff happens so often. I mean, just last night I watched the video of the BART police officer shooting Oscar Grant in the back at the Fruitvale station on New Years Eve. It's just too much to take in. Too much to let be real in a bodily way. I mean, I HAVE to leave the house. I HAVE to go places. I can't be terrified all the time, so it feels like all I can do is shut down. I know that's not true though, and I am resolving to keep on putting my mind on this terror in session so I don't stay numb. But right now, I'm alone. I can't thaw out now. And it's like, who do you trust? The fucking cops are the ones who shot Oscar Grant. The fucking cops are the ones who shot the guy Meg saw killed. And then there are drive-bys. Utterly random murders. People dying. Just getting ticked the fuck off as though they were already on a list. The After-Thanksgiving-Shooting was in the middle of the day, same exact spot as this one, at night. That spot is directly out my bedroom window. That window is right above my bed. That bed is where I sleep and write and hope to one day fuck. It's where I am right now.
I took that OK Cupid "dating persona" test and was really bothered by the question that asked whether you would rather 10 people die, or die yourself. Tai Amri was laughing at me for getting so riled up, but I was like, no! fuck this shit, I don't want to know this about myself. I was gonna skip it. But then I read the next question, which was the same question, but with 10,000 people instead of 10. So I went back and answered as best I could under those artificial circumstances: me over 10 people, 10,000 over me - now I ask you, how did that math get worked out? Who formulated and executed that equation in my mind? What do we do when we don't like the answers we give, but don't want to change our answers, either? How THE FUCK do you calculate that kind of a question? On what criteria? It is just absurd from the very get-go. I want to live. And I want all of you to live. (The particulars eating away all semblance.) Oh heavy, heavy head.
It shouldn't be a question, doesn't have to be. ALL people deserve to live. Could we just say that, and then go from there? Wouldn't that be alright? But "deserving to live" is a highly interpretable statement. For me, "deserving" must demand a practical way for that living to find existence. There is too much of everything for there to be not enough. Capitalism, won't ya come down already! I'm about ready for the wealth to start getting spread around like John McCain was so afraid of. Wouldn't that be a nice change of pace? Friends, I'm numbed out, but really pissed off way deep down.
I came home from Texas with a zip-locked baggie of my grandmother's "ashes". She is little calcium pieces and gravel. It looks like a bunch of stuff that came from a beach somewhere. Shells, beat to roundness on the shore. Bleached and ashen. The skin is gone. Dried and drying. A hole, closed back up. I don't know what that means. That I used to rub lotion on Gramma's dry skin, that Oscar Grant's mama used to kiss his real head. And now, rocks. Rubble. Stones. And if that kind of change is possible in one body, soft to hard, why not also for our hearts? I pray, oh god, for melting.