Gregarious Expressions

You figure if you just keep moving, maybe you’ll be able to get away
maybe even return to that time before you learned to worry
before the restlessness took hold.

You had been educated and you wanted to make a difference
but they didn’t take you seriously.
All they could see when they looked at you was sex —
that proud nose
unapologetic eyes blinking equality
lips full of suggestion and longing for adventure.

The first time you sold yourself was as a mail order bride
to a rich husband in a far off land,
because where there is money there is freedom.
You gave him two children —
it’s not your fault the boy died —
but the husband drank like he didn’t know how to love anyone
and didn’t even try to hide the mistress.
What ever was wrong, you were to blame
so you kept moving
and the movement turned into dance —
the only way to stay sane.
Dancing filled you up with light
so you shone like the sun —
eye of the day — Mata Hari.

You escaped with the girl
until he broke you, took her from you,
and there was nothing left to do but survive.

You joined the circus and posed for artists
and kept dancing, always dancing now.
Casting off the shame they tried to make you wear
you beguiled audiences with long braids and lots of leg.
You let millionaires pay the bills,
told exotic stories, the Oriental fantasies they wanted to believe were true,
and when cheap imitations and critics tried to pull you down
you danced offstage into the arms of one after another powerful man.

Uniforms could not protect them from your charms —
you crossed borders —
they could not resist you,
and so they killed you
even though they could not prove you were a spy —
because you were not afraid,
because you would not stop moving and they couldn’t pin you down.

You sold yourself to them but you could not be controlled
and so they punished you for you for your lack of scruples.
It was your fault they succumbed —
femme fatale, seductress —
dancing women are dangerous
double dutch double crossing double agent.
Dancing your way to death,
you looked them in the eye,
15 October 1917,
as the sun rose in a shower of bullets near Saint Lazare.

— ag
15 October 2015

Three days before her second wedding and our friend looks stressed.
Expectations running high
striving to create the perfect day
as if any one day could do justice to the salvation of a love
so powerful it pulls two lives out of their individual orbits into one intimate propulsion.

The best days are never the ones that are supposed to be.
They are days like today.

Finding a dime on the sidewalk is a big deal in my family –
legend says my grandfather leaves these coins for us
encouraging messages from the other side –
you are on the right track
keep up the good work
i am proud of you.

Running late but you called and you are coming for me
and so I stop
to take another photo of another beat up old TV left on the side of the road
trash ignored by the Public Works
another treasure added to the collection.

I’m crouched down playing with angles and you drive right by
looking before you catch me in the act of art.
Getting into your car still so full of love from the night before,
having slept so fearlessly
full of your chicken and kale
soul smiling in the peace that flows in
stretching into the sunyata as ripples of orgasm subside.

I inhale the sugar of a brilliantly pink clouded cotton candy sky
so impossibly vivid my brain still buzzes hour later.
Autumn has the best sunrises.

And then to receive such a gift
from our wise fool sainted guru
celebrating me of all people
my three years reborn
in Zen watercolor pickerelweed lake stalks
rising tall into a warmth that’s barely started to light the sky.
To be so appreciated by this one person
we all so admire is overwhelming.

I drip happy tears sitting next to you
feeling so safe in your care
my child comes out to play
so excited to be alive on such an special ordinary day.
These are the best days –
decorated with joys we never thought to pray for
the proof God loves us
because (s)he knows all we really ever wanted were days like this
(even when we dared to ask for cliches instead)
accidental magic stepping forth from unappreciated corners
heads spin trying to take it all in
we are dizzy
just being alive.

-ag, 14 october 2015

Hackers (and creative people in general) should never be bored or have to drudge at stupid repetitive work, because when this happens it means they aren’t doing what only they can do — solve new problems. This wastefulness hurts everybody. Therefore boredom and drudgery are not just unpleasant but actually evil.

-From How To Become A Hacker by Eric Steven Raymond

for anonymous

The spring’s fresh green buds would sprout undetected
under fall’s crumpled fists
had nature not released her spent leaves to the wind,
revealing the minimal elegance of bare winter branches.

It is tempting to hold on
to let the newspapers of our past pile in the corners so high
they bleed out into the middle of our rooms
cluttering our present so densely we cannot find our away through to the future.

We are scavengers bringing home every desperate scrap of affection —
all the love and attention they never gave us when we needed it.

You don’t want to go in there
such a mess I’ve made inside.

Faded curtains drawn so as not to see the dust
clinging to boxes of defenses we cannot bear to throw away
and wishful souvenirs of things that never happened.
Buried up to our necks in reservations.

You are not the image your mother tried to make for you.
You are not a klutz
who has no common sense
who can’t tell her left from her right
who always has her face in a book
(as if that were a bad thing.)
You are not the braces, bad hair cut and acne scars.

Ok, so maybe you are a bit of a nerd
and you can’t hold Utthita Hasta Padangustasana (Extended hand-to-big-toe pose)
So what’s wrong with that?

You don’t need to remember every trauma
every dirty look
every bad name
every promotion you didn’t get
every time there was no one there to hold you while you cried
every time you found the courage to stand up for yourself but got pushed back down anyway
the shame of shabby hand-me-downs and clearance rack couture
the stupid mistakes
the things you shouldn’t have said.

When you got your period first and the other girls at camp whispered about the tampons in your suitcase
the days when you thought you might never see him again
the days when you didn’t think you were strong enough to take it anymore
the time you drank too much and he date raped you
the time you drank too much and he date raped you
the time you drank too much and he date raped you
the time he ripped up a condom package in your face because it had been a month but you still weren’t ready
the night he picked you up and threw you across the room because you didn’t love him as much as he wanted to be loved
the time you drank too much and drove home when you shouldn’t have because you didn’t feel safe
every time he didn’t know he loved you until it was too late

every time you moved and had to start all over again
and you told the kids you hoped would be your friends where you had been
and they told you to stop bragging and walked away
Or that time in fifth grade when the boys told you to call Thor’s might hammer “maboner” instead of Mjolnir
and you did because you didn’t know any better
and you wanted them to like you
you wanted to be in on the joke
you wanted to laugh with them instead of being laughed at
but it turned out they just wanted to make fun of you.

Beyond driving home a point in a poem about emotional hoarding,
this memory is garbage.
It will never come in handy.
It will not make you stronger or braver or less vulnerable to future attacks.
It’s time to throw the motherfucker out.

The fissures running through your heart like earthquake fault lines
are not less likely to rip open if you stand there staring them
frozen in the fearful shadow of yesterday’s pain,
remembering the why not over and over again
trying not to feel anything new.

There is no get out of suffering free card
death is the only exemption
maybe
unless what’s next is worse
and you come back without the benefit of the hands you didn’t use
the dreams you failed to pursue
the chances you didn’t take
the love you failed to give.

Drag your bags of exhausted excuses to the curb
and make space for truth to stretch out.
It doesn’t matter who you were:
become who you want to be.

–ag

He asked me how long he had been asleep,
but I wasn’t counting the minutes.
I was listening to his struggling breaths
fighting in vain to relax into an effortless rhythm.

The last thing he said before slipping into silence was,
“I’m so tired,”
So why not just let him sleep?

I could be still for as long as it took
with his chest against mine
the beat of his heart so forceful I could not hear my own.
Stretching my leg down the bare length of his body
with subtle care not to interrupt
this much needed rest he wouldn’t let himself have on purpose.
It didn’t matter how long because I would be still
as long as he needed me to lay with him
in that mid-morning peace.

I thought about the kittens curling up together
for warmth and for comfort-
this is what animals like us do naturally.

I thought of weekends at The Lake,
afternoons when we weren’t allowed in the cottage
while adults were napping.
In the back of my pubescent dirty mind –
(I had already watched soaps with Grandma after school
We had already discovered Mom’s Playgirl magazines) –
I assumed nap was a code word for fuck,
that sleeping together meant sleeping together.
You can’t fool me with your biblical knowledge.

But maybe they really were just tired,
up too late around the bonfire the night before
maybe even hungover,
not quite ready for the hair the dog.
But probably, it was both.
A break from the work of landscaping and barbecuing
and a little afternoon delight to relieve the stress,
climaxing into a shower of Zzzzzzzs
a slip into sleeping serenity for as long as it might last.
No need to set an alarm
or count the minutes.

-July 3, 2015
ag
  

“In the beginning you improvise only the order of the details and their rhythms. Then you change the order and the rhythms and even the composition of the details. This must not be premeditated, but dictated by the flow of your own body. You must find this spontaneous line of the body, which is embodied in the details and goes beyond them but which at the same time maintains their precision. If this precision is absent, then it is useless and the result can only be a sort of prisoner.”

(Thanks to Mike Daisey for the recommending the video!)

I recently recorded a couple of poems I’m thinking about performing on Saturday at a Breaking Ground Poets benefit event in hopes that listening to the piece over and over again would help me memorize the work so I don’t have to stand up there reading from a piece of paper. Even the smallest piece of paper is a barrier between audience and performer.
I’m not sure I’m going to be able to reach that goal but after posting the recordings because what the heck, I made them, I found I’m getting an unexpected warm response from people who’ve not been so inclined to comment on my written posts. I think I’ll record a couple of more pieces before the week is out, maybe asking those who can’t make the fundraiser to consider making a donation to the BGP Brave New Voices travel fund. -ag

The journey is not over.
Gotta keep moving forward the rest of this life.
But a pit stop at the tops of molehills
to celebrate the miracle that we are alive at all
is not only excusable;
it’s endorsed.

They say it’s not about winning
just doing your best —
when the world is trying to silence you
sit you down
shut you down
put you in your place,
not being ashamed to exist is victory.

Success is learning not to shy away from the sound of your own voice
not wincing at your distorted reflection
as you pass through the glass and metal cityscape
ebbing from and flowing to Sisyphean wage slavery.
Graciously accept the compliment
even though you don’t need his affirmation
because you nurture and love yourself now.

I’m not afraid of death,
only not having lived enough.
What is enough?
Is it ever?
To live with enough curiosity and awareness
enthusiasm, applause and hope
enough courage, love and forgiveness –
that is enough.

I’m not afraid of making mistakes,
dropping and breaking your precious vase,
but rather, not brushing up against the boundaries
not getting close enough to smell the
burnt popcorn dumpster fart skunk vomit
burnt hair morning breath of failure.

Better to trip and fall; scrape knees and cry.
Better to jump in the puddles;
wander off and pick flowers on the
dangerous paths our mothers warned us about
and make awkward wildflower and weed bouquets
that wilt before you get to Grandma’s

than remain dry and unsoiled
unbruised in your safety bubble
not leaving a mark
sneaking nondescriptly away,
no evidence that you were ever here at all.

-ag