In the year 5000

I.

i am an open book. and these pages – swept over by alpine gusts, weathered by thunderstorms and sunshine, eroded like rocks in mountain streams…
eventually sand or clay — our closest manifestations of time on earth.
Ice is far more distant.  Mountains, oceans, even gorges, nearly unfathomable.  but i won’t get lost in the caverns of my memory:  those are for the bears to sleep.  i would rather not bother with details.  a book is a simple organ, unencumbered with perception or necessity.  it is purely for the sharing of words.

II.

i am many open books.  books of expectations, categorized in to Self and Others. Failures, subcategory: Regrets, subcategory: Lessons.  i am books of dreams.  Books of theory.  books of desires.  Books of fears and self-criticism.  Books of plans.  i am books of habits.  and i will erode little by little, just like the pebbles on the banks of these rivers.  wind and water wearing away at my skin, muscle, and bone, until I settle like clay in the delta.

III.

in my pages there is a Theory of Imbalance.
tomorrow is a perpetual trick played by my book of habits.
but comfort is conditional and subjective
care is more than meeting our basic needs, it is responsibility to self which is responsibility to the collective: a philosophy of stewardship.

IV.

work is my body actively engaging in movement that brings us into the future we want
nourishment happens in conjunction
growth happens in relationship

V.

One day we wake up
drink hot tea
the list has burnt to ashes
just like the walls we tore down yesterday,
and we really see

how beautiful life can be

in a year that has no number.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2016 North Dakota

2016

North Dakota

Guerra espiritual

Donde nació el mundo Lak̇óta, en el corazón de la Isla Tortuga, el sol sale por las praderas congeladas y cubiertos con nieve. Las luces del sitio de construcción para el Dakota Access Pipeline brilla veinticuatro horas cada día, siete días por semana, sobre los cuerpos de los antepasados. Una voz viene del otro lado del río Missouri, despertándose el campamento en la madrugada: “Get up!…Get up! What are you here for?” Así comienzan los días: tempranos, con canciones de oración, a veces todo el pueblo meditando en por qué están acá, pero las luces nunca responden a la pregunta.

El viento brama con la grita de los protectores de agua sagrada. Los fuegos sagrados queman con la intención de generaciones pasados y futuros. Desde la primavera personas vienen de todo el país y de todo el mundo para unirse a la lucha contra la serpiente negra, que quiere devorar la sangre de la tierra madre y envenenar las aguas de nuestro mundo.

Todo el pueblo está trabajando con varias misiones, pero comparte los objetivos principales: proteger y sobrevivir. Alrededor de la puesta del sol, una grita corre por todo el campamento: “¡Guerreras al frente!” La policía está al otro lado del bloqueo, como cerdos en un cerdito, con órdenes de defender la serpiente negra, que les paga sus salarios de alquitrán. Unos jóvenes indígenas están de pie enfrente del gentío, llevando el peso de 500 años de resistencia con coraje. En medio del caos, un tambor ceremonial late y unas mujeres cantan con ritmo antiguo que el gas lacrimógeno, ni el spray pimiento ni el manguera del agua no puede callarse.

En la mañana, el sol sale como siempre por las praderas congeladas, una voz despertándose el pueblo con oraciones Lakota que hacen eco a través del río de tiempo, y las luces se ven por lo que realmente son: mentiras ciegas de los hombres de trajes, nada mas que fantoches de la serpiente negra que quiere matar el cuerpo de nuestro mundo y envenenar las venas de su madre.

2016

North Dakota

Spiritual War

Where the Lakota World was born, in the heart of Turtle Island, the sun rises over the frozen, snow covered prairies.  The lights from the Dakota Access Pipeline construction site shine twenty four hours per day, seven days a week, over the bodies of the ancestors.  a voice comes from across the Missouri river, waking up the camp at dawn, “Wake up! … Wake up!  What are you here for?”  This is how the days start: early, with songs of prayer, sometimes the entire village meditating on why they are here, but the lights never respond to the question.

The wind howls with the cry of the water protectors.  The sacred fires burn with the intention of past and future generations.  Since the Spring, people come from all over the country and the world to join the fight against the black snake, which wants to devour the blood of the earth and poison the waters of our world.

Everyone in the village works on various missions, but they all share the same primary goals: to protect and to survive.  Around sunset, a shout runs throughout the entire camp: “Warriors to the frontline!” The police is on the other side of the blockade, like pigs in a pig pen, with orders to defend the black snake, who pays their salaries of tar.  Indigenous youth are standing up in front of the crowd, carrying the weight of 500 years of resistance with courage.  In the midst of the chaos, a drum beats and women sing with an ancient rhythm that neither tear gas, nor pepper spray, nor water hoses can quiet.

In the morning the sun rises like always, over the frozen prairies, a voice waking up the people with Lakota prayers, which echo across the river of time, and the lights are seen for what they really are: the blinding lies of men in suits, who are nothing more than puppets for the black snake which wants to kill the body of our world and poison the veins of your mother.

 

Inspired by Eduardo Galeano.

Trigger warning

“it’s not my job to explain the intricacies of the fact that you classified me being triggered as ‘projecting male issues’ on to you. the problem is the patriarchy. male dominance accompanied by the fragility of the male ego. and your reaction, whether or not you like it, was not on the feminist side of things. “

I.

I moved your hand away

I moved away

I said I don’t Know

I said Nothing at all

Maybe I was all over you

or maybe I was unconscious

 

I said it was not okay in the morning

because I am not the only one

And you hugged me

Tried to make me feel better

You didn’t want me to feel bad

 

I said I’m sorry.

I’m not trying to blame you.

 

Somehow convinced myself

like so many other women

that this was my fault

 

And it wasn’t until later,

upon reflection..

 

II.

I said something,

maybe you didn’t hear me.

 

III.

I screamed something,

should I say it again louder?

 

IV.

I moved your hand

and somehow it just gravitated right back

to where you thought it belonged

 

And later on, I sat down with you nicely, smiling,

and told you that you need to work on that.

 

You seemed to think it was instinct, human nature.

Well, let me tell you something buddy

patriarchy is not the natural order

This body is sacred earth,

and does not merely exist for your pleasure

 

So wait a goddamn second.

 

V.

I should have gotten up and left.

 

VI.

I should have punched you in the face.

 

VII.

I should have screamed instead.

 

VIII.

I have been indoctrinated into patriarchy

just like you have

there was a notion that I was teasing you

and you deserve to get off

there was this idea that ‘we had already started’

Yes, I have been indoctrinated into patriarchy

just like you have

 

IX.

When I told you what happened

You said carry pepper spray

 

X.

When I told you what happened

You said why were you out alone?

 

XII.

When I was standing at the bar,

you put your hand on my hip

and asked me where the restroom was

 

XIII.

I slept in your bed that night

So, what you can like something of mine on facebook

but can’t even ask me how i’m doing?

 

XIIII.

You walked up and started talking at me

as if I was just waiting to hear you speak

 

XV.

 

Don’t fucking interrupt me.

 

 

 

 

 

Field Trip

it’s interesting how we all can just pick a plant with no hesitation

 

my skin feels like the flesh of my heart

raw

I can’t contain my heartbeat

When we all share the burden of history it’s not too much to bear.  

 

an entire tribe does not just become extinct

sometimes we have to pull the truth out
from behind the veil of generations

colonization

genocide

displacement & extermination

 

maybe we should all brush up on a little bit of Seminole history.

the yamassee, a confederation of people from many tribes, rebelled against the missions and rose up against the colony, fought and killed slave catchers. the guale resisted. the people did not just die, nearly to extinction, a few running off to cuba. some people survived, the tribes resisted, the Seminole people aren’t called the free people for no reason

many people were slaughtered during the Spanish and British invasions

so, is it extinction, or is it genocide?

 

oh what a beautiful flower

that blossoms in these tannic cypress swamps

inland from the coast of Georgia

 

what interesting plants grow in these brackish waters

 

oh what a beautiful flower

 

but what interesting facts are missing?

what words are lacking from our vocabulary?

 

perhaps it’s easier to forget than to remember

about the history of the missionaries and

and the history of the settlers

or, maybe it’s easier for some more than others

 

all I ask

is

that we all remember

what should not be forgotten

 

all I ask

is

a simple sentence of acknowledgement

as to what land we are walking upon

where are we

really

in time and space

for how can one expect to know the plants without knowing also what these plants have seen and what they have survived against?

 

my skin

feels like

the flesh

of my heart

 

my pores

open

to the winds

of change

 

I know I am not alone

in my heartbeat

but sometimes the silence is deafening

Ninkasi

Ninkasi, the goddess
has a beautiful body
beneath smooth brown glass
clothed in intricate turquoise and
pitch black.

Ninkasi,
her name as flowery
as the hops
that brush my lips…
You greet my tongue
like an old lover.

Ninkasi,
Sometimes I like to brood
from the vantage of your back porch.
Blood boiling,
the flame in my heart voracious
and devouring
every tree and shrub
growing and rooted in
this cavern of my body
cause in this organ I have no fences
in my heart
to keep out wolves,
no borders to cross, no border patrols,
no doors I can open or close,
only time and distance…

But I admit,
Ninkasi,
sometimes I like the agony of
remembering
your soft caresses
the next morning.

And your fingers,
Ninkasi,
are like antique doors
so polished and pristine,
that they would seem
to defy the laws of friction and gravity.

Or maybe it was just a dream
but I woke up slow,
remembered your love
– quick, thick, and bittersweet –
like the nectar in that bottle: destined to empty.

Bitterfruit

Allow me to be bitter

but not so much so

to absolve the sweetness

I was born into

a struggle I have yet to understand

For I stand in a current of resistance

in ancient waters flowing

Growing like a bitter weed

through the cracks of the concrete

Allow me to be bitter

but too much to

sink my teeth into

ripe fruit

and let the juice drip

sweet

down my chin.

 

Allow me to scream

out of anger but not out of judgment

Allow me to bring some urgency to our comfortable and convenient

freeway entrances and traffic jams

 

Allow me to weep

to collapse on this earth beneath a tree

to let the salt run down my cheeks

in public

Allow me to cry

out of the depths of the pit of my stomach

and the pain in my back

but never pity

 

Allow me to carry anger

like a sword on the hip

not a dagger in the belly

So I will carry it proudly

like a gift

with the strength and power

of a bear standing behind me.

 

And allow me to raise my fist

like a bitter fruit

ripened on the tree of Struggle

born of dry, compacted soil,

when my arm becomes a branch, raised in gratitude.

distance

is there something our bodies know

that we don’t understand?

consciousness distanced from the fabric of living

egos resistant to the essence of knowing

far from sure of ourselves

there’s every reason to love

our bodies (bodies, bodies)

yet we

distance ourselves (distance ourselves, distance ourselves)

 

from the truth

from each other

from ourselves

from our bodies

cease to be one with what our bodies know

cease to be confident

accepting of yourself, ourself, myself

I am distant from what I once accepted

true, now the ever present interrogation of reality

the constant questions

electrons?

movement?

energy kinetic?

confessions

!.
had a few too many beers
will open legs for older men
ate too many cookies in the middle of the night
watch porn in the afternoon, sometimes
and there was whiskey in the mountains, whiskey on the bus downtown,
taco tuesday tequila tragedies
i still remember glass breaking on cement and
glass breaking on spiral metal staircases
and sunset, after sunset, after sunset
confession:
i
slept through sunrise
again.

Soliloquy

I sit in a chair on the stage, facing the audience. alone with my self, in my body.

My head is down, body slumped, eyes dark, mind empty, heart cold, blood hot.
feel the Struggle. feel Resistance. It is apparent in my body.
search for words to bring me understanding where there seems to be confusion. search for truth in mystery. let go of my boundaries now. recover from something. Shed something, let something go. Burn something. Throw shit around, break glass. Smash the chair. alone with my self now. breathing hard, like thoughts racing. face myself, face the audience, face reality. Eyes crazy.

[CUTS…]
a knife cutting/blood dripping/flowers snatched
[MOVEMENT…]
river flowing/body dancing/rain

Words, Open yourselves raw and bare to me. Cuts like quick breaths. Movement like the people changing. Change, constant. constant Cuts like scissors breathing. Movement. Words speak to me! Speak for me. I speak words like cuts, and movement because Cuts and movement speak to me. Why, CUTS and MOVEMENT? Why speaks to me. Why speaks to me like movement. It speaks to me like blood pulsing. Why speaks to me like endless movement. Repetition. Words, speak to me. Tell me your innards. Speak to me of your history. Etymology. Your past, your path. Speak to me of your origin. Speak to me of breath. Speak to me of Life, birth, death. Speak to me of why. Tell me why. No, speak to me of silence. Why, is like endless movement. Water pouring, rushing, falling, rising, steaming, screaming, pouring, entering the gulllet, leaving the body, returning to the sea, the tides, the water. Movement. Breath. YES, but WHY CUTS? CUTS cuts me like knife edges. Like hair falling. Like endless paper snowflakes and a flame flickering. Like fingers bleeding. Cuts anger, sometimes. Like something changed, someone hurt in an instant. I am not the only one whose tongue has spoken words like cuts and movement. Cut hair is change. Change is movement. Spare some? Move beyond what was change yesterday. Move beyond what time is into the present. Move still. Be still. Be movement. MOVE, Movement! Be the cutter of ties. Cut ties like emergence. Freedom. Cuts, speak to me! What is your meaning? Why is your movement? What has been lost, plummeted into concrete like pianos crashing? what has been stripped, left raw and vulnerable to the elements…what has been left new, clean, fresh? What is left behind for birds to find in the garden for their nests?

Smolder my body

Smolder my body
like a
brief moment
of passing
through

burn to ashes
the glow of embers
reminiscent of Movement
or Motionlessness…
Stasis: Serenity or Paralysis?

burn my throat
or blur my vision?
with a certain cynicism
of a sensual persuasion
need to bleed myself
empty
of
breath