true people true people
Ain’t nobody who loves me…
Ain’t nobody who cares…
Ain’t nobody who loves me…
who’s there.
Ain’t nobody who hugs me…
Ain’t nobody who shares…
Ain’t nobody who hugs me…
who’s there.
Lonely, feeling lonely
I wish you weren’t the only
one who knew how alone I am
or how I’ve been feeling so…
Listen to this original over here
Do you really want to play this game of Go?
The board is set up. I know that you know
how to place each piece; take my territory.
Oh, answer me please, I’m down on my knees,
Don’t go with the breeze.
The table is set, the dinner’s been prepped.
Your eyes are dry but I know that you’ve wept.
Is the fish well done? Am I doing you right?
Let’s not tonight – I’m all out of fight.
We slept on broken lights.
The pillows are fluffed, the bed has been made.
The sheets are smoothed out but we lie where we laid.
We sung our secrets yet live out the lie.
I wish I could cry. I wish that your sigh
was a Rose Parade floating by
Do you know how to say ‘enough is enough’?
No way we could tell Love could be this rough.
Like a turbulent sea or a frequency,
the waves break us free. Oh, can’t you see?
You’re drifting away from me.
Listen to The Way She Goes over here
It must have been a saloon
The way she looked at me
I thought my death come soon
And she would sign the deed
I wanted to get to
the other side of your bedroom.
Now I’m looking at the scripture of my own doom!
Oh, oh, oh!
Oh, it’s the way she –
Oh, its the way she goes!
I don’t know why…
I can’t even try.
It’s been a wild ride.
On the Otherside,
you can see inside yourself.
Come along with me and see for yourself.
Kiss me one last time ‘fore I break the spell.
It must have been a saloon
The way she looked at me
I thought my death come soon
And she would sign the deed
I wanted to get to
the other side of your bedroom.
Now I’m looking at the rapture of my own doom!
To know how to change a mind, you must learn how to change a river.
One way to change a river is to introduce wolves into the ecology.
In 1995, the rivers of Yellowstone National Park were riotous and inhospitable. Along the banks of these turgid rivers thrived large herds of deer who lived an idyllic life. But this docile scene papered over an invisible violence.
Scientists, ever the gods of violence, introduced wolves in order to displace the deer. Imagine the hatred they must have felt towards the wolves for robbing them of their absolute liberty. To the privileged, equality feels like oppression.
The wolves were the de facto defenders of the forest. Those trees quintupled in size in just six years. Their roots embraced the river, caging it. Their branches welcomed new birds, new songs. They fell into the shape of dams, built by beavers, who could transform rot into home.
A more egalitarian ecosystem emerged where all could share in the gamble of life alike. Perhaps the deer secretly understood that their life of leisure was rapacious and unsustainable. Or perhaps they were bitter with spite like a general waging a war of attrition. One wonders what stories deer tell themselves.
We call this process widespread trophic cascade.
To change a mind, you must learn how to change a river.
One way to change a river is to introduce wolves into the ecology.
In 1995, the rivers of Yellowstone National Park were riotous and inhospitable. Along the banks of these turgid rivers thrived large herds of deer who lived an idyllic life. But this docile scene papered over an invisible violence.
Scientists, ever the gods of violence, introduced wolves to displace the deer. Now, imagine the hatred they must have felt towards the wolves for robbing them of their absolute liberty. To the privileged, equality feels like oppression.
The wolves’ purpose was to defend the forest. Those trees quintupled in size in just six years. Their roots embraced the river, caging it. Their branches welcomed new birds, new songs. They died in the shape of dams, built by beavers, who could transform rot into home.
A more egalitarian ecosystem emerged where all could share in the gamble of life alike. Perhaps the deer secretly understood that their life of leisure was rapacious and unsustainable. Or perhaps they were bitter with spite like a general waging a war of attrition. One wonders what stories deer tell themselves.
We call this process a widespread trophic cascade.
Similarly, for new pastures of understanding to emerge, there must be a widespread cognitive cascade.
To change a mind, you must know how to change a river.
Thoughts flow like water flows like rivers flow like rapids sometimes violent sometimes placid.
For every social justice movement to succeed, there must be wolves with teeth and trees with roots to strike a balance of violence in our tributaries of thought.
There must be patience for the slow growth of sustainable systemic change but also understanding for the violence of urgency. Because injustice affects real people in the real world right now. That’s why black lives matter right now. Why we must be idle no more when never again is right now.
For anything to have changed, Martin Luther King Jr., needed Malcolm X and Malcom X needed MLK.
King understood that the language of love could unite peoples against systems of oppression that were and are invisible to all us coddled white moderates, who freeze on matters of race like deer caught in headlights.
Malcolm X saw how racism was a forked-tongue language whose were themselves violent, whether they be a susurrus or a screech. He knew a Million Man march could not stop the local lynch mob, who understood only the lash of their tongue.
Together, despite their differences, the forest and the wolf bent the arc of the moral universe towards justice and became, for all of us, the better angels of our nature.
When I was young, Carole was one of those kind mothers who would take you in as one of her own in a moment’s heartbeat. It’s hard to emphasize how precious that sentiment can be. Like the shade of a tree or the firmament of the earth, the roots she laid down in our community became the ground that I walked upon. Carole made this world firmer to the touch for me. More real. More like home. The truth of this can be seen by how many of us have a similar recollection of her warm and reassuring presence. I am sure that every one of us has sheltered beneath the canopy of her concern and consideration for our well-being.
Carole cared. She cared about the people around her, she cared about her family, the friends of her family, their families. I do not actually know where that line ended for her. From what I saw, it seemed to stretch off into the horizon.
The last time I saw Carole was last Christmas. It had been a minute since we last spoke and she was radiant with joy to see me. Radiant and critical in the way only a mother can be. Was I taking care of myself? How was my trip? Had I eaten? Would I like anything to drink?
I was delighted to see her again, flush with the vibrant glow of a Christmas evening, so full of life and curiosity. We talked about books, what had changed, or not. And I see now how those simple questions, that amicable joy at reunion, that matronly glow is what made Carole such a pillar for our community. And I see now how the roots she had so slowly fostered will continue to sustain the forests of our families. I see now how the canopy she had matured all her life will continue to shade us from the harsh sunlight of a capricious world.
To Carole, who was a forest of kindness unto herself. I will miss you. You will remain familiar in my home, in my heart, in my friends, in my family, and in my community. You have left more than a mark – you have left a foundation of trust and love. And we will never forget you.
This poem was found at the bottom of a ditch, behind a weeping willow, crumpled and buried in a hole. I followed a black Rabbit here (code name Richards) in the dead of night to find it. I followed her because she praised soft men with a soft tongue and she had the bloodshot night-vision of a poet, peering deeply into the darkness, into the quietest corners of the soul.
She was the kind of woman who could look down upon my life reaching for meaning the way a gardener could glare down at a plant and remark, “Thirst is good for you right now.” Even though that stare would feel as hard and dry as the noonday sun, it would translate to: “I believe you will grow.”
Rabbit reminded me of Hilda Doolittle’s Sea Rose. This rose survives beside the harsh ocean by sucking salt out of sand and turning thirst into the fragile fragrance of wisdom. Like a sea rose, the hard women in my life have always drawn me towards their aroma because it smelled real and true unlike the cloying, sweet perfume of the spice-rose. For if anything is true, it must be made of this world and I know of no world that smells so sweet – shorn of its thorns.
Show me what it takes to survive in this world, hard women. Show me the bark of your skin and the bite of your fruit.
For I know it takes a certain kind of hardness to smile at yet another bad joker begging for your eyes to lock. Will his punch line be a Trojan Horse designed to open the purse of your person? Some men dip their tongues in silver simply so they can pick the locks.
It takes a certain kind of hardness to raise a waking life into a walking nightmare and to teach that child how to dream in your stead.
It takes a certain kind of hardness to soberly see the world with punch-drunk double-vision: as you see the world and as the world of men chooses to see you.
To the hard women, I see you see me too. My eyes trace the secret scars in your smile like lipstick. I smell the acrid scent of resentment for men obsessed with the good sense of their own flatulence.
Men, I know the content of your character by the nature of your desires. But only you will know what you have sold to stoke the coals of a lustful fire.
Men, I want you to know this world bears down on women the way an ocean tide collides upon the beach. After an eon, each grain of sand is sculpted into a hardened work of art. There lies fertile soil for the rare sea rose, growing roots in this shattered shoal despite the violent undertow.
And if you were guided by your nose, you would not retreat,
for a sea rose by any other name would smell as bittersweet.
A letter to my closest friend.
I never knew how important you would become in my life. As with all things when you are young, it started out so small.
Remembering our origin is like remembering innocence. Where every experience felt like a potential beginning to something new and amazing and exciting.
I sometimes long for those days, when fantasies about the future came to me as swiftly as songs to a swallow.
I’ve been thinking about your friendship a lot lately…Mostly because of how much you’ve become a crutch, maybe. It honestly sucks to think that sometimes even your friends can hurt you in the long run by just being too darn helpful.
I have been seeing you regularly for over a dozen years and I got this new piano so we could be closer together. I’m learning how to play using only the black keys. On those days, I can get away with pretending that I have escaped my high school, that social purgatory where I would listen to you for hours on end planning my escape into adulthood.
I remember that time I wrote down a phrase I heard from you which said “Do the hot-dog dance!” and how that gave ammunition to my bullies and how it ostracized me from my peers. As if sharing a special part of our fragile yet blossoming friendship was effeminate or “kinda gay”. To this day, I struggle to introduce you to less involved friends. And I still wince every time I hear the word “faggot”.
It’s been a lonely day and so I want you to sing with me late into the evening once more. Let’s sing some wild tune, maybe a sad ballad, or that one bossa nova piece in Portuguese we know.
Do this for me and I will take care of the piano, the guitars, the bass, and the drums. I will take care of the didgeridoo, the harmonicas, and the electric violin. I will treat my voice with rich olive oil and keep all our instruments in tune.
I will do all this because I care for you. I care for you because you have been there when no one else ever was. You have been there to show me beauty and grace and forgiveness and rage whenever this world has pressed its cruelty and indifference upon me.
If I had to be stuck with anyone in this world, I am glad it’s with you.
Thank you Music for always being there for me.
Father, I’m not sure what to call ya. Dad won’t stand,
Cause what Id rather have is a friend.
All my life, you fed me stipends instead of good sense – leaving me to tie up the loose ends of my messy youth and that may sound confused but only ’cause you’re not used to the wild ways a child appraises truth. Im not obtuse –
I always knew you were in cahootz with crude capitalists – you bump fists with fiscal fascists. You can’t cap and trade on climate change – its far too vicious, so fuck your wishlists!
The mining industry needs their free trade screed to feed their growth expectancies. You can’t see you’re greasing up once-green pastures for rapacious masters. Goddamn Old man, you on the attack, got mother Nature on her back when you shake hands with the damned from Goldman Sachs! Matter of fact, something must be missing for you to be digging the next seven generations such an early grave.
Growing up, all I ever heard you say was:
My house my rules sit down behave do as I say not as I do Im telling you Im through with these clownish tirades! Face the corner eat your dinner sit up straight, don’t make that face – you must be a humble winner. Hate the sin but love the sinner. And bulk up, I choke up when I see you thinner than your sister. Chin up, I raised you to be strong so you wouldn’t wither.
Amazed, I would naively kneel, learning how to pray, too juvenile to understand why my Mother couldn’t let you stay and because of their shared pain, I aged apart and away: too shallow were the roots of your religion, too hollow were the suits who signed off on your commission – I’ve been missing something I never even knew I had. This too shall pass.
You were gone too far too long when I was too young too soon for my two brothers and not to toot the horn of my ornery sister but she’s been torn apart too by the same half-farcical patriarchal diatribe that we had to contrive to fill in the details cuz in the end, you tried and failed to be my father, my Dad or my friend.
As the youngest of four, I was raised on questions.
You see, I was always last to understand, and so, I inevitably asked a lot of questions.
Like: what do you mean I shouldn’t lie?
or Why am I in trouble?
or Why don’t you want me to tell the truth?
or Why are you crying?
Who’s that? and what does that letter mean…for us..for you…for me?
But despite my insistent, wondering nature, there are many things I still do not know about my family.
Like…
Why my brother seems so much like my father, his face striving to cut those same sharp cheeks; to furrow a similar brow. I wonder how his mind must have captured and sealed away stark, signpost, still-life reliefs of my father’s way of being angry, a man who, for me, remains shrouded still in the penumbra of my secondhand memory. Did my brother need my father’s love to fill his heart so much that he mimed out angry outbursts as if they were no different from other words of kindness? When we were children, I must remember: my brother was also just a child. He knew not what he was doing.
Other questions nag still.
Like…
Why did my grandmother stay with her corpulent, boorish abuse for a husband when we blocked them in the parking lot of the assisted-living apartments with our vehicle – a slapdash intervention to prevent their surprise reunion. How did she resist the entreaties of her family as we contentiously pursued a condescending intolerance the like of which was unfamiliar to my quaking voice, in a winter not yet frigid enough to have me shaking like some last leaf of autumn. Weeks later, my grandma foisted up an answer. She said she stayed because of loneliness. All that time. In a house across the street from the graveyard. What is loneliness?
Did my grandma’s bullheadedness have anything to do with why my mother and sister were butting heads, or why my mom told me to tail my sister who was running out of doors to slam? She should have known I couldn’t keep up with her. Lacey was so much more my senior, colossal, with great strides and the rebellious brilliance of a teenager enthralled by her own presumptive independence. There was a question I remember asking myself repeatedly, after I was spotted by her and I failed my mission. I remember asking, “Why couldn’t I have been a better ninja?”, even though I returned home unnoticed by my mother.
Now, it seems to me the worst poems are written with unanswerable questions so I will try my best to rationalize some mystery.
I say, In all these lurid vignettes poorly lit by memory’s shadow, there was true filial love when we could remember to forget the faults of our family. Where pride, arrogance, and envy all dissolved in the acid of our jokes, the umami of thanksgiving dinners, and in the ambrosia of songs whose words we all knew like secular scripture. Yet, taken together, these questions remind me, in my youth as in my adulthood, I know nothing about my family.
Veuillez entendre le poème ici
Ce poème est écrit en Français parce que mon frère ne parle pas français.
Mon accent peut provoquer des regrets, mais c’est le seul moyen d’expliquer mon secret.
Il est vrai que le langage amène l’âme à parler jusqu’à ce que la langue devienne plus musclée que le coeur, à force de partager nos torsions de langage.
Mais, comme un voyage ou comme nos premières peurs, nos heures sont limitées. Et c’est avec cet aveu clair que je raconte mon histoire cachée derrière la poésie voilée.
Sans paix, mon frère était méchant parce que mes parents ont séparés quant il avait seulement sept ans.
Ce fut un moment imprévu qui n’a jamais été résolu. Le fossé entre mes parents est encore absolu.
Ensuite, pendant ma jeunesse chez ma mère, mon frère a perturbé la santé de ma mentalité avec sa colère chaque matin.
Il était circadien comme le coq qui crie au soleil : « je vole votre sommeil »
Et il aurait beugler avec un visage vermeil: « Michael! Fuck off! »
Mais, je sais que nos identités sont enracinées dans les histoires de nos parents, chance, et nos croyances. Ainsi, l’ensemble de notre volonté et puissance est tissée dans une rivière de la causalité. Nous avons la liberté mais nous ne pouvons pas nager en amont. Nous ne choisissons pas notre nature.
Avant ma naissance, il y avait déjà des fissures entre ma futur mère et père. Le désespoir, dedans un poème ou devant le miroir, ou entre deux amoureux, vole la chaleur de nos feux spiritueux.
Et quand on a froid, il ne prend que les ombres des mois d’hiver, quand les nuits sont plus sévères, pour partager un silence avec les secrets qui habitent dans notre conscience. Et ces idées nous gèlent de l’intérieur.
Alors, je crois que mon frère a eu des engelures à partir des querelles frigides entre mes parents.
Comment pourrais-je donner un sens à sa froideur envers moi ?
Un glacier ne pousse que dans des eaux glaciales.
J’espère qu’un jour mes mots peuvent lui faire fondre mais de nos jours, je gèle quand je lui parle.
Et je sais que le changement est lent donc je vais essayer d’être patient mais jusqu’à ce qu’il m’écoute avec du respect, je ne serai pas en mesure de lui parler en anglais.