7/31/2008

Chicago 1, or The New Journey Begins

This is just a quick "I'm-here-and-alive" post from my sister's swanky (air conditioned!) dorm in Chicago. After being delayed for two hours, the flight finally took off, and now my sister is insisting on cooking dinner, and I am not allowed to touch anything. I think this whole delay thing might be something of a theme in my travels.

In any case, this is the beginning. Chicago.

7/25/2008

"For the Bellydancers" up on Donna Mejia's Website!

My wonderful dance teacher, Donna Mejia, has posted my poem "For the Bellydancers" to her website! I'm honored that she chose to do so.

Travels begin next week! Stay tuned for updates!

7/23/2008

the first love poem I ever put on the internet

Love Dive
(thanks to Khary for making up the phrase love dive)

Diving
is not always a precise art.
They teach us to swim first
so our bodies will remember how to keep going
when our brains are full of shock and our noses full of water.

Diving is not always precise. But it is a choice.

There is no promise that the water
will open to greet you
instead of taking your breath with a slap.

And there is no assurance of a clean dive
that slips through still water,
leaving all bodies undisturbed.
No diver ever leaves a pool dry.

I dove for you like I knew you were watching
from below, waiting for our bodies
to break the tension.

Who am I to decide
when to create such disturbance?
Who am I to make waves?

What if I had left us:
air, body and water
in tranquil coexistence
without ever crossing borders.
Because when I leave, I will not return
the water my drenched body holds,
but neither can I take the waves.

And still, my heart persists:
Dive to her.
She is water,
reaching up to kiss your fingertips,
and each dive only lasts for seconds,
so make your waves by choice.

She is worth more than a graceless fall.

7/22/2008

notes for a poem

my mother says sometimes
she's so angry she rips her hair out
i wonder what made the trees so angry
they'd rip their arms out
maybe they just got tired of holding
all those leaves.

summer thunder left branches
all over
a thousand awkward limbs,
broken, the white insides
revealed through brown-gray skin
like Leo Thomas's shin bone in third grade,

the doctor took Leo's shin bone
and tucked it back into his leg,
wound it up in plaster and fabric
to heal

the men in green shirts came this morning,
bright orange buzzsaws and flatbeds.
the mess is gone,
but you can see where the trees point
the remnants of their fingers at you.

you, who cannot hear their crying
or bandage their stumps.

7/16/2008

It Never Goes Away

Warning: Holocaust Jokes enclosed. Difficult subject matter. Potentially triggering.

I often joke, with a kind of bitterness, that visiting Auschwitz broke my sense of humor. Since I returned from my semester of Jewish studies in Prague, I've been able to laugh at the very worst of Holocaust jokes.

"What's the difference between Jews and pizza?"
"Pizza doesn't scream when you put it in the oven!"

My laughs at these jokes are often punctuated by a sharp intake of breath, or a low whistle, a slow nod - some acknowledgment that it hurts. Part of me does not want to laugh at Holocaust jokes, but I do. I've already spent so much time hurting and grieving and mourning, and I still have nightmares about Nazis. This is the gift of cultural and familial memory, and right now, I want no part in it. I need to pretend it doesn't hurt. So I laugh, hard, belly clenching around the knife it wants to ignore. Some day, when it's farther away, perhaps I can take it out, face it, deal with it and put it to rest. For now, I can't - I know how dysfunctional I get when I even see a Holocaust movie, or read a Holocaust book. That's not the kind of work I need to be doing right now.

But there's a problem with my strategy. Every time I think I've desensitized myself, something comes sneaking past my defenses and rips me open, exposing all my grief and fury. This time, it was a conversation about a private investor in Russia, wanting to market a gulag 'experience' for wealthy tourists. This would include forced labor, being shot at (with paint-filled 'bullets'), planned escapes, etc.

I thought: how long before Poland relinquishes Auschwitz into the same hands? The idea of it made me sick. I burst out into an angry rant about disaster tourism, my family history, the academic obsession with the Holocaust and my experiences in Europe (see horseradish for more on this).

I hadn't felt so angry in over a year. I let her comfort me a little, knowing how little she understood, knowing how much she understood, and how much of her own cultural and personal pain I will never understand. In the light of the day after, I am still distracted, a little unfocused, wandering through this pain like...well, like I wandered through Auschwitz itself.

7/10/2008

A poem from awhile ago

EXCITING UPDATE!! This poem was just accepted by Zaghareet! magazine, and will be published in an upcoming issue!

This poem appears in my new chapbook,
stories of apples and bellies.

For the Bellydancers
(and Donna Mejia)

This dance comes from sword and sun-cracked land.
In her journey, she discovered oceans, thunderstorms, mountains of green.

She comes to you, shoes filled with motherland sand
so her feet will feel at home wherever they walk.

She appears loose in her skin. Too many women have asked to try it on
and tossed it back when they found it too big for their cameras.

Let your body be a place she can rest joyfully,
a peaceful ground of curves like the dunes she’s homesick for.

But from the back of the studio, I can see you avoiding your eyes in the mirror
the way my daughter does when she knows she’s about to be scolded.

I say nothing.

A dancer knows there is no greater punishment than her own shame.
Your body wants to please you, and you can only point to where it fails.

You demand the same from me:
break dance into a thousand scattered pieces for us to examine and collect!
See, teacher! Look, I got this piece, and this piece and –

No.

Our bodies hold language clenched like an immigrant child’s native tongue.
Your muscles lie silent. Start talking!

This is an immersion class. You will stumble.
Your spine will not take orders easily.

You and your body are speaking different languages, and I am not your translator.
I can only show you what can happen when you listen.

First, you will uncover beats:
your hips will twitch when they hear thunder,

your feet will fall into step with raindrops,
and your sapling arms will move with small breezes.

Dance is the art of making peace. A moving body only becomes a dance
when your blood-rivers refuse to carry

any more ships armed with self-hatred and harsh thoughts.
A body cannot roll without breasts, ribs, belly, hips and fingertips.

This dance was not born from your (white) body, but treat her like an honored guest.
Give her entrance to the place you’re afraid to touch;

she will not hurt you.
Let her play with you.

Tell her she looks good on you.
Tell her out loud.

She will wear each drop of sweat like a jewel in her crown, so work until you both shine.
Speak to your reflection as though you’re courting a queen

and if you’re kind enough,
she’ll ask you to dance.

7/04/2008

For My Sister

Self-Portrait
(c) LK Photography

I've been a member of the art-can-change-your-life club for a long time, but it's also been a long time since I believe a piece of art has actually changed the way I see things. This might be cheating, but my sister created a self-portrait that has completely revolutionized the way I see her. See her left hand, how it's bearing all her weight on her left leg? That one piece makes her look older than she has ever been in my mind's eye.

The revolution is this: she's not my little sister anymore. She's not anybody's little anything.

And only her art could've made me believe that so quickly, so resolutely.

7/02/2008

For My Parents (and grandparents)

"never trust a poet to tell the truth
because they lie to save their imaginations
from the inability of what is real
to bend itself to their words"

~Tony Brown

7/01/2008

For Shannon Leigh, 1987-2008

Dear Shannon,

I want to write you a poem.
A eulogy, really.
But I didn't know you.
I made plans to befriend you in Madison this summer.
I have a copy of your final chapbook.
It might even be signed, I don't remember.
I've told my friends that you died.
I keep thinking if I say it over and over again,
I might believe it.

The way I'm picturing it,
your tattoos started to glow
until they were so white-hot
your mother had to look away
so she wouldn't see the wings
bursting from your skin
like the breath she was praying for.

Journey on, sweet poet.

~Dane