Speed Reading

And I'm stuck at this wall

making nothing at all

waiting out this is a cattle call

but I'm doing it

scream as loud as I can

-you're such a sensitive man,

tall, gloried egoless span

when you're screwing me-

Can I pull this apart

without destroying a heart

was I wrong from the start

when I asked that we

Hold on

hold down

the nausea that threatens to over take (it)

Hold on

hold down

and I don't know how much more I can take (of it)

We dance when we walk

and we sing we don't talk

our avoidances stalk

each other out till we

let the dawn wakes

from our glor'ous mistakes

and our tiny earthquakes

of denial and doubt

Gonna tear out my lungs

we're out of ladder rungs

and you're speaking in tongues

and I think that we'll

Hold on

hold down

the nausea that threatens to over take (it)

Hold on

hold down

and I don't know how much more I can take (of it).

I am nobody.

I walk the hall of many places

the streets of blooming and barren cities

and the molding of rooms full and empty

is my footpath.

These are not new haunts, or lurks, for me;

I have sat in the shadows of giants,

nursed at the teet of revolutions,

And spoken into the ear of power there

from my beige on beige perches and portals.

Those who possess kind words leave only

sheer slugs trails of personal expression and experience

My near invisibility intact when I, seated, am near

when the exchange of profession and proclamations

of projects produced are rung out.

My history, footprints, leave no trace there

and there is no reminders as to where I have tread.

BMI- Or...

BMI-

Or how your Denial of another girl's weight because she looks thinner proves my point.

The other day, I showed you a slide show

that I had seen.

It was of men and women- and

for humor's sake, a cat-

and listed their BMIs, along with their Heights

and Weights- or should I say, the components that

are used to calculate BMI.

To my horror, you agreed every time

a beautiful young woman

was labeled OBESE or MORBIDLY OBESE

or even OVERWEIGHT.

Until we reached her, a short young lady

with largish breasts and a bright label of OBESE

above her photo.

"She's OBESE? No she isn't, where are you

getting this???" you say.

I point to where her height (5'3") and

Weight (170lbs) is listed.

"That must be an old photo of her, there is no way that

she could possibly weight 170lbs!" and your denial of this

reality is a lead sinker to me.

"This," I explain, "is a photo project in which

people wer asked to submit

a photo of themselves and height and

weight at the time the

photo was taken. The point is that BMI is flawed.

That it has no conistent baring on the health of the subjects

and numbers don't predict a person"

You sputter then, and start to say that there

must be some reason why

the standard is still used- some proper data

must be recorded and consistent.

It takes me a long time to get you to understand that

BMI is a formula that is determined after recording Height and Weight

and that there is no reason

For this standard to keep on other than label someone's

fitness, for which purpose

it is useless- the point of this whole ordeal of

showing it to you.

This is after ramblings about measurements of necks waists

and heads- none of which are considered when little girls are given

a BMI in elementary school.

Little girls, just starting to mature, in a nurse's office with

a handful of other little girls

being measured and weighed on the mantis like scales

that always occupy that space.

As they step off the scales, and the school nurse tells her to put

her shoes back on as she calculates and then "publically" declares her

"Overweight" or even "Obese"

Maybe this isn't true anymore- I hope not, this public shaming of our

bodies just as they begin

to change and grow in ways we are trying to understand. I hope that

even if she is labeled "normal"

(which usage of the word is inaccurate) my niece is never made to

be given a label in the same small crowded spaces where I was shamed with

my body- height and weight.

Articulate

It is confusing when you say it-

Articulate.

Every time I hear it, I think

that maybe I do not understand the word

because it is not my experience of

how things rush out.

"1 divided into words or syllables meaningfully arranged"

Attempted.

I struggle to arrange these words

with only a "book" knowing of how they might mean

never knowing truly the meaning it is

arranging itself for you.

"2 Able to Speak" Sometimes or maybe even

Usually.

More often than I say, My thoughts

will not come into words, leaving me silently

wanting, tongue still yet wanting to

articulate out the within.

"3 expressing oneself readily, clearly, or effectively"

Hardly.

The words are sought for bitterly,

struggled with, and always- always- found lacking

in the ability of that first charge of

"expressing oneself"

Often these words are unwilling, jumbled, and ineffective to

Expound

the ideas that drive them;

my voice does not air readily the frustrations

laying between my thoughts and tongue

so you:

Fail to see the desperation of grasping for my words

Oblivious.

Failing to factor in affect

inconsistently portrayed, and routinely unprojected are

an accuracy of the emotion within, displaced

from line of sight.

That you do not hear my struggles does not mean they don't

Exist.

That I fail to emote them does not

end them. Just because you see meaning and effectiveness

does not mean that it is always as my

Intended pattern.

To Inspiration

I

I allow myself to wither
My passions separated out from
the lyrical
The core of thought desiccated
in prose
While I try to ferment these thoughts
unassisted
into words.

From time to time the dam breaks open
and my need for poetry to
translate
out my thoughts, unable to
contain
my scratch work in my head
any longer
to describe.

In this way the disparate parts of me
I segregate the elements that make me
my passion
from my thoughts, and so I dwell in the
facts and figures
moving out my emotions through a
vent hole
in private.

II

There is a time that a story can move
words without sound
dance more powerful without music
ecstatic exhalations of
power, emotion and thought in one
gigantic swoop of expression.

My own words trembled and failed to pass out
the encompassing effects.
But though my speech doesn't move
my thoughts do, my soul does
and, guided forward by the winds of fellows
already moving, I move too.

III

In 1969 (no jokes just now please)
Feminist Theorist Carol Hanisch declared
"The personal is Political"
A response to the idea that when a group
of people suffering under
oppression come together to discuss their
oppression, it is "Just group therapy."

Throughout the ages (maybe longer than we've been homo sapiens sapiens)
art has been a method of non-verbal declaration
Expression of our interior into the exterior world.
To dare to speak the unspeakable,
Expressing in words-
or without them- that which might,
in fullness, not lend itself to language alone.

We are taught (Or is it demanded?)

that our desperation is private, our personal

a secret to be shared in dimly- or fluorescently- lit rooms.

Our pain is somehow ours alone,

to separate experience

from the cause and conditions that

create and foster the framework upon which we are suspended.

Instead, someday (soon?)

can we not take our experience and, raw as art,

push out our collective ill-conceived self-loathing

acknowledging our unified-

and diverse-

experience, as people whose lives

before "without" defined, bloom from within identified out.

Dedicated to the performers of Sins Invalid- who inspire me not only to take my personal into public/political, but to take my experience- my "art"- there as well.

Analogy>Simile>Metaphor and Me

I. Analogy

Experience : is to

Once

I put my hand down

into a vat of wine that was fermenting

and felt the foam that was bubbling

up,

As the glucose broke down into

ethanol, and CO2 bubbled up

Exothermic

past the layer of sludgy

grape rinds.

:: as Emotion : is to

Often,

I read articles

constructed by "professionals", families

supposed allies in my life, that then make

my

Emotions active, rising my blood pressure

and the heat slowly releasing

from my skin

in waves, stomach acids

churning.

II. Simile

My emotions then rise within me

like

CO2 from fermenting glucose;

my skin and thoughts release

as

the exothermic reaction of fermentation;

My physiological markers of distress feel

like

the bubbling yeast felt on my hands.

III. Metaphor

My rage and indignation

ferments as I read the words my

oft called

(by others)

allies have written

about, for, in lieu of me.

I release out my CO2 exhalations

In effort to respond to those who would

speak "for"

(how can they?)

me and mine

the heat, passion, held in frothing.

Bubbling up within me, I try to

translate out this emotion and find my

words lacking

(can words ever?)

to express the

emotion, sensation, feeling of you

and your presumptions of how far I can take this.

____

If you would like more info on what fermentation is/does/means in wine making, try this article at everyday Chemistry.

Allied, Unallied, Re-Ally.

Allied forces grey and green and flying

Technicolor on the television

our memorabilia reflecting

reminiscing

that our father's father's (father's)

alliance was not based on the same

wants needs expectations

of our allies...

And today I sit in a sea wider

Broader than the Atlantic that frothed

at Nomandy when my "grandfather"

climbed

the beaches soon to be wet with

a fluid that is NOT ocean

contemplate wonder self-doubt

me as ally...

My ancestral family rose up out of

Normandy and conquered and pillaged

presumed dominance

over those whose father's fathers were kings

In the name of our own prides

to subjugate the pride of a culture still rebuilding from

the last invasion...

I have to ask myself if their blood runs

too hot within my veins? Does it

spoil

my heart beats, my ancestral privilege?

Does conquest or obliviousness run in the

double helix of my fathers and again

in me...?

As my Grandfather's brothers walked into

a camp teeming with death unpredicted-

unimaginable-

did they feel the foot of their soul sink

into the quicksand of realization?

Or did they allow pride to restablize

them as heros....?

When we cast our roles as heros

denying how we conquest or ally without

perspective

how is that any different than the ignorance

we declare ourselves fighting to conquer?

Good things do sometimes come from our ignorances-

but should they?

Poetry and the vision of thought

I pour out these words

to describe the state of being

in my head

before I can make them form

the language that you all are speaking

Hours Days weeks at a time they build up

till over washing into this flood plain

of poetry

before fermenting, bubbling, then

coalescing into words that make sense

or seem to

Until I realize I've misunderstood your language again.

Feet

The arch curling round

bracing around what is surely

those absences society sees in us

the lack- they say lack

lack, a word with so much of saying

that there is something that

should must be there

but isn't-

of eyes touching

easy embrace

the societally explained expectations

that lead only to disappointment

when pursued-

in my experience at least.

Instead there is that space

of each of us being our own

beings

and yet united

continued, flowing, unlimited

by the bonds of societal affection.

our skills and wants and needs

uniquely ours and yet

a part and parcel of the drive

or desire of one whole.

United only by

the touching of our feet.

In a full room

I sit by your side

till you set your hands on

my shoulders, and I relax

and indulge in the pressure of

your arms pulling me back against you

Leaned back without fear

and there was a feeling

unidentified till morn

of comfort, or pleasure, of you

giving in to the presence of me.

Disregarded

the averse to you

and me, we had not yet

embraced those sensations which

cause our agitation to cease,

In the presence of one another.

Silk-I felt it then

Against my back, my cheek,

my distress melting into

Nothing- comfort, the feeling here

of peace with who we are, you and I.

But I'll let this stand

- This is just a dream.

I know my place

But:

I worry if I don't try to drive

even if it means I crash and burn

I will be leaving the embers to burn

to ashes all that remains in this shell

an egg that upon cracking will

float off on a breeze.

Chicks are given beaks so that

they can crack their own shells

from the inside OUT into the world

A self determination that allows

the pheonix to blossom up again stronger

after one more self destruction.

If I do not crash (crack) myself

how can the flare of light come

as I push my beak out of my shell

to take in life anew?

Ode to Pittsburgh

I think Pittsburgh is beautiful.

I see in it a visualization of the struggle

of man versus nature and nature versus man

the urban decay at odds with

a more natural entropy

The steel and concrete

rusting and crumbling in the grips of a natural world

that wants to take it back.

In the little nooks and valleys

the abandoned children of industrialization sit

the aged metal as red now as the bricks

of the homes that once housed their blood

and now house the ferocity of LIFE

once abandoned, thriving

under even the least hospitable eaves.

I would say that this is a morbid love song.

but instead of the talk of death in life

and life in death

between two lovers as emotionally entwined

as the rust and root of this city

as the living things flourish unexpectedly

in the ruins of our pasts.

In the crevasses are hidden awaY

the skeletons of our (industrial) revolutions

safely out of mind of the eye of progress.

The victorian edwardian Industr-ian fingers

twisting through the trees that were once shaved

bald from the hills,

when the dirty coal chimnies smoked and raked the sky.

Traces of the old liveliness-

The culture and BREATH of our ancestors-

in the crawling brickwork and tiling

and the decaying steps

that once guided our fathers weary feet back home.

Our shared history, sometimes ignored or forgotten

by the very life that thrives

in it's place.

Maybe you need a special appreciation

for decay- but also an equal passion

for life- to hear the adoration in my voice.

For in every begining

every striving and thriving

there is the traces of our endings

of the sweat and tears

and blood shed on the tracks

of our ever onward progression.

And in every building overtaken

by weeds and youths

the windows shattered or the bricks decayed

is the stimulous for growth

in the same forces we decry today

as destruction, but

will laud tomorrow as our salvation.

When I fell in love with Pittsburgh

it wasn't for the shining lights

or the memories of being held there

so joyous I dared not breathe-

It was that in every corner

I could not help but see

LIFE and DETERMINATION

arriving from under our cracks.

There are no words to describe this driving light

as each moment of study and contemplation

bares more of my soul-

do not tell me because of my birth I am less filled with this light

That I do not know my own soul

or that my devotion is less.

What but devotion can lift my soul in song

in buzzing and passion and change

with each learning?

When the words of my soul flow out my mouth,

they flow with as true a force as any other's devotion

and set to flare the spark within me.

Why then is there doubt as to the motivations of my heart?

Can they not see the glowing of joy that radiates from my soul

As I sing beside them?

Or is it, perhaps, that my mother's path was not the same as my own

that the blood of her womb did not spark this light

through so rich a heritage?

When I sing with this tongue the words of my soul, do not doubt them;

When I speak, do not assume I speak them lightly;

When I dance, do not assume superficiality;

When I ask, do not wait until you too see my soul glowing

before you weigh my ferver as more than a feather's press;

I assure you, you wil see it shortly.

Tighter strung than a cat gut violin

high wire short cuts

undercutting the over extensions of my

str-etch

over trouble waters