Wild, Wild West

I live in the west
Continent and state
I live in the wild, wild west.

The cows still run
The dust still flies
The natives are still fighting to survive. 

The waves still beat
The trees still burn
The sky is still blue as turquoise.

But most of all
In the wild, wild west
The white man still

Scuffs his boots
Paws the dust
Climbs the fence
Swims the creek
Slings his gun

And tries to tame the wild, wild west. 


Written 7/31/19 after the Gilroy, CA shootings. 
Image from National Geographic.

Mirage

July 6, 2018. Likely the hottest day this year. My car, the one without AC, says it’s 111F outside. We race down the highway, trying to take off from the blazing planet like a bird. We’re up to illegal speeds, all the windows down (except the broken one), hoping the rush will create a breeze. Instead, it’s a motionless heat blanket, hotter than hot. So hot you can smell the wild fennel bulbs baking in the dirt on the side of the road. So hot that a deer carcass we pass looks blacked, like an honest to god barbeque. I’ve never seen that before.

I half expect the grasslands to spontaneously combust before our eyes. Every truck we pass smells like melting tires. Everywhere that skin touches skin feels like swampland, but every time I resettle a sweat-slick limb and create something like a stirring of the air, it feels like glory hallelujah. I expect to see the tiny metal lotus of my necklace searing a brand into my flesh, but reality denies me all the comforts of drama. I can feel the acid in my stomach beginning to simmer, making me sick. I want to get out and run in a panic circle, shouting the adult version of “fuuuuuuuuudge” like a wild animal that’s suddenly realized that its habitat is not conducive to life.

Instead, I drive on, afraid that if I stop the heat will be worse, an oppressive punch to the jaw that won’t let me up again. But I have two kids in the back seat. I pull off the freeway and park. I feel dizzy as the car slows. I step out, sway to the left, sway to the right. Yell at them to put their shoes back on. Why is it always the shoes? We make it inside where all I can say in answer to “how are you today?” is a demure, “toasty”, as the gal might be startled if I told her the truth.

For the first time in my life, I feel like I might be paying less than Starbucks is worth. Yelling is forgotten as I regain my humanity and we pretend we’re explorers in the Sahara. We make it the last 20 minutes home, where it’s a tepid 86 degrees. But the grande cup of ice we just got is pure liquid.

[artwork by Bjoern Ewers]

Our Lady of Sorrows

I carry your sadness around with me, like a blister in my mouth.

An affliction that I want to release to all that will listen, but that I feel I must let fester for a time in some sort of solidarity. That to keep your pain closed inside the drawer of my friendship is an honor that I suffer with dignity (even if I wear it on my face so obviously), before unburdening it into every passing ear, turning it into tabloid and dinner talk so that I can spread my horror over a larger area, like a caustic jam.

I become trembling with art and metaphor as I try and siphon off this parcel of sickness, burning in my gut, my heart, my esophagus, the forefront of my mind. If I can just skip it on down the river on little rafts the size of leaves, I can alleviate the pressure slowly, gently, quietly, without dropping a casket of missiles on the group of my loved ones who are usually sacrificed in this way.

What is the proper amount of time that I should wrestle and wretch over a sister's pain before I allow myself to let it fly away, become the past, and never have to feel it in 3D again? I can find no median between that and descending into the underworld where I immerse myself in others' open wounds, step by step, stroke by stroke, strum by strum, sway by sway, a black lamb bound to the alter of my own empathy, blood bubbling in the holy moat there surrounded.

I am honored when a friend shares what is tragic, and I ingest the poison as a gift. But it boils in my belly and wants to come up again. I am afraid that if I open my mouth it will come out and float before me like a demon, and in being given new life by my tongue, it will have the power to turn and and consume me, ratcheting its jaws over my head, choking on me bit by bit until I am devoured.

Today I climbed to the top of a tower overlooking the city, and I could see the clasped hands of Our Lady of Sorrows reaching above the heads of homes and establishments, parting the sky with her fingertips. I thought about a church named Sorrow and of the Mother who bore those sorrows. Seven daggers in her heart. What a grand and melancholy name for a church. Majestic and solemn. What sorrows must those walls encompass, what tragedies there enshrined. What sorrows were caused because of that place, what sorrows released?

She is like a vessel for the heartbreaks of her people, but unlike me, her walls are thick and hold all that anguish within, dutifully, steadfastly, in confidence. And when the candles are lit, the smoke of those sorrow offerings rise up through her steeple, through her upstretched, intertwined arms and are released unto her God, who in his infinite is absorbs them, even as they break his heart.

Photographs by Dmitry Anisimov

An Ode to 2016, A Hard Year

How do I approach you
Strange, Beautiful, 
Terrible, Shocking
Thing that you are 

Bombs on the ground
Drones in the sky
Exploded in my 
Pulmonary artery 

Flags of the planet 
At perpetual half-mast 
But I lift mine eyes
Up to the hills

To see where my help 
Comes from
I see a storm

I feel charged
Lightning bolt for a spine
Blood running in the streets
The fresh
And the coagulated
Life and Death mingling 

The pale horse 
Rears on its hind legs
I am small
Torn, Beaten
And in awe

I'm strangled by 
Humility
Anger
Confusion
Beyond my control 
I'm laughing 


Written 12/3/16 
Image Source
I don't know if it's just the Christmas season or what, but I feel surprisingly joyful and hopeful at the end of this year, despite how brutal it was in many ways. I have much to be thankful for in my personal life, even as I ponder and grieve things on a larger scale. This summer, it felt like the flags were at half mast more often than not, and it broke my heart that I lost track of why most of the time, it was simply the perpetual norm. I think we always assume that a hard year will get a fresh start when January 1 rolls around, but I'm realizing that all of these years are hard. 2017 may be incredibly shocking and devastating in our nation and abroad - I don't doubt that it will be. I do not leave this year with a feeling of hopelessness, but I want to acknowledge that for many people, and even for myself at moments, "our skin was a terrible thing to live in" (Laura Mvula). Bunmi Laditan wrote, "I think when we look back at 2016, what we'll remember most about this year apart from that it clearly didn't care about any of our feelings, is that it exposed the truth. If you were willing to let it clean out your closets, it did. Ruthlessly. It burned down all of the shaky bridges and showed us, me, what we're really made out of." May 2017 be a year of Truth, even if it hurts. 

Luna

Where once a solitary sphere
Twisted through star-studded storms

There comes a foreign halo
Suddenly, irrevocably
Magnetized to my core

A softly dimpled, barren canvas
In orbit around its aqua emerald mama

You'll dance with me in revolving arcs
Until someday,

A shooting star will pull you out
to sea, to see 

And you'll soar away in the arms
Of a shimmering, glimmering captor

There, meteors will gravitate 
Into the rotation of your new home planet
Precious unidentified objects
Waiting to be known 


Written 4/3/13 & 9/18/14 {image: John Byam Liston Shaw for The Garden of Kama,1914}
I first started writing this when I was nursing Ishmael, and we were constantly tied to each other in a 2 to 3 hour radius. It's both beautiful and exhausting. Especially as the mother of sons, I know (rather, hope and pray) that someday they hear the siren call of the woman of their dreams, and each will leave my orbit as they are pulled in to hers forever (though I can't help qualifying this by saying they'll still always be mine in a sense!). And then they'll have their own children orbiting around them, and I can't wait... 

How the Grinch Hated Autumn

For my annual ['09, '10, '12] "I hate fall, but I still try to see the bright side" post this year, I scratched out the part about seeing the bright side, and rewrote a classic to illustrate my true feelings. [original images: 1, 2]

Every gal in the States likes Autumn a lot
But there is one particular Grinch who does not!

The Grinch hated Autumn! The whole fall season!
Now, she'll tell you why. Yes, all the many, many reasons.

Staring at her Facebook feed with a sour, Grinchy frown
At the mountains of baked goods in chocolaty browns,

She knew every gal, Facebook and beyond, 
Was busy snorting pumpkin spice, dusk until dawn. .

"And they're hanging their corn wreaths," she snarled with a sneer.
"Next month is Halloween! It's practically here!"

Then she growled, with her Grinch fingers nervously drumming,
"There's just no way to keep Autumn from coming!

Tomorrow, I know all the girls and boys
Will wake bright and early, for butternut squash raviolis! 

And then! Oh, the weather! The windy, rainy, cold weather! 
If there's one thing I hate, it's mustard yellow chunky knit sweaters! 

Then all the gals, young and old, will sit down with their phones.
And they'll click and they'll share their soups made from turkey bones! 

And then they'll do something I hate most of all!
Every gal around town, the tall and the small,
Will yap about brand new fall boots and coats from the mall! 

Why, for twenty-two years I've put up with it now!
I wish I could stop Autumn from coming! But how?

Did the impossible stop the she-Grinch? Hah! The Grinch simply said,
"If I can't cancel Autumn, I'll imagine instead!"

She imagined sliding down chimneys, a rather tight pinch.
But if Santa could do it, then so could the Grinch.

She got stuck only once, for a minute or two.
But who's counting pounds after a baby or two? 

There she saw gourds, all carved in a row.
"These veggies with faces," she grinched, "are the first things to go!"

Then she slithered and slunk, with a smile most unpleasant,
Around the whole room, and she took every hint

Of dead maple leaves, slouchy beanies, 
logs in the fireplace, and premature Christmas listies. 

"Pooh-pooh to the crazies!" she began grinchily humming.
"They're about to find out that no Autumn is coming!

They're just waking up! I know just what they'll do!
Their mouths will hang open a minute or two
Then the gals all across the web will all cry boo-hoo!

"That's a noise," grinned the Grinch, "that I simply must hear!"
She paused, and the Grinch put a hand to her ear.

But alas, they just baked more pies, swooned over frost on their windows,
Went ga-ga despite the orange light, less sun, the end of our summers!

So the Grinch slammed shut her computer, to avoid the grinning faces,
The misery of fall color palettes, cider satchels, Thanksgiving dishes in their places.

She put her head under the pillow and squeezed shut her eyeballs,
To wait until next summer, and avoid as much fall as possible. 

Mississippi

As long as that lonesome river, is how far away you are

I didn't see it coming, so I cry my lonesome tears

In you waded, dressed in all your clothes

Singin', "Whole Lotta Love", just dancing to the eddies

And now you've drifted down that misty river

I'm standin' here on the bank, drowning in my own tears

Sometimes I get to thinking, 'bout all the things you'll never have

But also that you had more to give than most

It makes me think you weren't ready to go

Yet few others could leave on such short notice, as prepared

Like a jewel box, strange fruit, and sweet condensed milk

Your treasures sift through my fingers

And I'll have to let it be that way 

As part of saying goodbye

When the memory of you is strange and dusty

I'll go back to that river, and sift the sands for dusty jewels of you

2/14/13 ~ In loving memory of Liam Faegen Corcoran (6/28/89 - 2/11/13) and inspired by Jeffrey Scott Buckley (11/17/66 - 5/29/97)

Anemone

You stroke gently, with a strange and far away tenderness
You scrape the air like an automaton monkey-and-drum
You clutch at your skull like "the Scream"
You shake everything with uncontrolled ferocity
You wade through space like ocean floor sea weeds
You conduct your audience like a modern symphony
You swipe at my face with fearsome talons
You lunge at targets like a starving animal
You clench and grip with your sanity at stake
You grasp at phantoms in the aether
You sift through every moment, collecting
You swing wildly, painting dramatic arcs
You cling, dimpled, reverent yet fearless
You rest only in sleep or in unknown prayers
You sink those swaying anemones into my soul

I will take these hands into my own, and hold them
Then let them go to shape nations, sculpt hearts

For Ishmael, written 2/8/13 {photo}

Metamorphasis

I saw this book cover (decidedly cooler than the vision it inspired) on Pinterest last night and it must have stayed in my head because I semi-woke up in the middle of some early hour this morning and thought I should write a poem about how Kafka's story related to the feeling of pregnancy. I've gained considerable (though not unhealthy, I admit with a grimace) weight since becoming pregnant which is an entirely new experience for me and has been a more difficult self-esteem battle than I had expected. When I see my body, I mostly notice how fat various parts look and I'm a little shocked because I literally thought that was impossible for me, as vain as that sounds. I'd taken my previous shape for granted and never understood why so many women grumble about their struggles with body image. I did not particularly enjoy Kafka's Metamorphosis and am holding on to hope that I'll stop feeling like a worm and someday soon-ish feel like I've emerged from the cocoon. My poetry of late hasn't been hugely impressive either, but that's no reason not to write it. 













To give up my shape
is more sacrificial than I had imagined
and reminds me of Kafka
though there is joy in my metamorphosis

i'm further and further
from a back-up career in glamour
but your precious bulge about me
is worth the shiny scars

muscles, bones and joints
creek and squish around you
and my newly dimpled thighs
are horrifyingly worm like

i am busy focusing
on the promise of the cocoon
breaking away to give me you
and revealing my wings again

I've experienced very little glow
and only begrudgingly filled out my curves
but it will still be worth it
if I have to give away all my skinny jeans


written 9/26/12

The Tempest

you, my son, were a raging storm
churning in the sea inside of me

i imagine you with brooding curls,
a tempest in your spirit born of my anxiety

some days I am a fragile skiff
tossed and turned as you command the waves

in sheets of tears and torrents of laughter
and lightning stabs from your elbows

then suddenly, my son
you'll break through the grey
into shining, furious glory

The first poem I ever wrote you, 8-16-12  {photo}

War of the Roses

I can't say I'm really much of a rose girl, though roses have marked some significant moments in my life. I remember once buying a dozen peach colored roses on an overpass in Beijing for 5 yuan and taking extreme delight in having relinquished my money for something so fleeting. There were a few other momentous occasions in my life in which roses played a part, but my husband buys me tuber roses instead (which are nothing like roses) and there were no roses in our wedding. I actually quite dislike the smell or regular roses, particularly dried roses. Despite my general disregard for them, roses have stood out to me in the past week for the following reasons.



["Dance for me Wallis", incredible piece by Abel Korzeniowski, and the video happens to show one of my absolute favorite stills from the film]

I watched the film W./E. which is so lovely to me that I almost don't want to share it. I won't say too much about the movie itself here, but there is a scene in which a rather terrible husband tries to apologize to his wife with a bouquet of roses. All he says is "I was a jerk", and hands them to her. It struck me as a sweet, if inadequate, gesture of sorrow and repentance. A peace offering. It was all the more poignant when I read my  dear friend Michelle's latest poem, "White Roses."

there are white roses on the kitchen counter

a man’s surrender
to his wife & the result
of enough bitter thorns
drawing blood

the air is free to move again

as petals ripple like a flag
just short of victory

so many have smiled upon them,
oblivious to the casualties
that have taken place

i wait, as the injury
to the stems takes its toll
& the inevitable overtakes each bud

but in this moment,
there is peace in our house.

I was also stunned by these other-worldly rooms from the Christian Dior Fall Couture 2012 show. I'm not sure if they used any roses, but it's mesmerizing, whatever it all is. You can watch a video of how it all came together here. (image from here; tons more there as well)

This morning in church, I was letting jealous thoughts swirl around in my head. I can't remember struggling with jealously in years past, but recently it's come on full force and it something that I'm trying to work on. Just as I was getting deeper into my own dark musings, the band started playing "He is Jealous for Me" by John Mark McMillan and it suddenly dawned on me... Christ longs to have my heart and my time and my joy and my affections to himself, just as I long to be everything to the loved ones in my life. I had to smile to myself at the realization of my foolishness and the image of myself "as a tree, bending beneath the weight" of his jealous and passionate love for me. He is a lover that created each rose, and each tuber rose, not as a peace offering from a man who is flawed, but as an undeserved gift to a woman who is hopelessly lost without Him. 

US 101

The sparkling cesspool of humanity
What we call the view from speeding highways
The space between places
Where the rending, healing, growing comes


Gauged in your glowing speedometer
A celadon sea, a deep tooth ache
My love, don't think so hard, just find
Your way home by the coursing artery compass


That you feel beneath my skin
Calling us, like the warmth of our child's imagined smile
We're raw, spilled out, then curled together
Sheltered from every novel ending, every tragic ending


Now, pleasure in the knowledge of choosing
To let meaning escape, secret nuances 
Become lost in the ether of space, instead
Les Feux D'Artifice T'Appellent


I wrote this on 11/01/11 {photo, via Parker}

Shadow Box

I hope we die at the very same moment
In a tragic crash in the sky


Our last laugh ringing out like chimes
Snared in clouds, we didn't say goodbye


We'll be lost together, painlessly
Scattering our ashes into the sea


Smokes from the flames of our cauterized limbs
Mingling with salty ocean breeze


They'll bury our bits in our wedding day clothes
But temper your tears and your pain


Because all along we hoped and prayed
To return as one to the dust from which we came


I wrote this on 9/15/11 {photo, cover of Wye Oak's Civilian}

To A Young Friend

I wrote this poem on 4/16/11.


Someone once said we are white
But even a child can see
That our skin is more like light
Beneath the cover of a lampshade


And I imagine you pale
With flesh the aura of bone
Floating in an achromatic viel 
Eyes scintillating  in the deep like a gemstone


When I see your tiny face
Your hair patterned roses on your skull
Echoes of piano falsettos resound in this place
Memories blurring from how it used to be, when


"Our wound was as deep as the sea
Who could heal us?"
This our repeated plea
As we watched each feather form


Then, amidst white knuckles and feverish joy
We held you in one hand, marvelous
And whispered reverently, Boy, 
"Soon we will have lived so long ago".

MariaMichelle

This is a poem I wrote on 4/6/11. {photo}
doe, a deer. and my habeebti.
ray, rigid arms of thistle.
me, in an all consuming spatial void.
far from who i thought i'd be.
so trembling like pale fragrance.
la haunting melodies.
tearing exorcism memorizied.
this will bring us back
to do a flaming desert dance.

The Secret Poets Society

First day of semester #4 down. Stats threatens to be a perfect bore, but Mr. Restreppo for Sociology is the man. A lot of kids aren't getting into the classes they want or need which is frustrating. I did make the one class I was on the wait list for, but only one other girl got a spot out of 29 people on the wait list. Bad news bears! Both Jonas and Bradley probably won't get into at least one class they wanted. :( // I got home around 2:45 and made mac n cheese Rocky style (make the cheese sauce separately, with a whisk, and then stir together) and tested my pasta readiness by throwing it against the kitchen cabinet (if it sticks, it's ready) - oh, the things you learn in college. Then I watched an episode of House and promptly fell asleep for 3 hours. I still feel tired. // And now, for my world-changing social-art project, as promised (prepare to be amazed ;))... I call it "The Secret Poets Society." The idea is to write poems and slip them into the pages of library books to be found by strangers later. I don't know if it will take off at all, but I hope it at least has potential. Click here for more information or to become a fan on Facebook! Thanks for your support. {image via For Stars Will Rise Again}