{muttering to drown out the TV mumble from the next room}

I could burn the hunger out, dandelions
torched before they go to seed / I hear
a once-lover's voice in the hallway, my teeth
ground smooth as pearls. once the seeds
are roasted they can't germinate / good thing
or this bed would be a bed
of sunflowers

 

{Boston ramblings}

so here I am in Boston, city of my birth, the night before the big official Democratic National Convention starts. when we arrived at 1 a.m. Friday night I couldn't figure out why the airport was so dripping with flags. blame it on the fact that they ran out of pasta by the time they got to my part of the plane, and I refuse to eat the scary chicken.

anyway, we performed for the College Democrats last night, at their opening ceremonies. in case you didn't realize this, politicians can really talk. like for a long time. and say say say the same thing over and over. it was a long night, and we were on last, after a videotaped message from John Kerry himself.

high points of the night:
- Al Sharpton's speech
- Ariana Huffington in her hip green shirt talking about the shadow convention of 2000
- sitting in the green room with Al Sharpton, watching the simulcast as some Congressman said in an effort to amp up the crowd, "are you jacked up? I am SO JACKED UP right now!" in a tone that implied that he believes "jacked up" to mean "excited." I thought Rev. Al was going to fall off his chair laughing. it was a moment.
- having to stop every few minutes in our performance because of the rampant applause

then Beau and Mayda and I found a bar, Beau received a marriage proposal from a homeless woman, and we went home to the JANKIEST DAYS INN EVER. this place is a step above a Motel 6, I swear, and I know I'm spoiled but that's the trade-off when you don't get to live at home, you get very picky about where you sleep and right now I'm sleeping across the street from a McDonald's and a Super K-Mart and what we thought was an abandoned factory but as it turns out is an ice skating rink. sigh.

the walls are so thin that a phone conversation by the woman in the next room woke me up out of a sound sleep at 7 a.m. exactly to WHOM she needed to speak so loudly at that hour is beyond me, but she also got room service (I don't think they actually HAVE room service in this hotel, but there is a restaurant that will deliver) at 7:13 a.m. sigh.

oh, and Robin reports that through her, her friends in Canada have picked up on my habit of saying the word "sigh" out loud. how random is that. and internationally so.

 

{latest crazy}

retribution

maybe hornets. maybe the hum of vacuum cleaner
in the apartment above, water resisting in pipes, refrigerator
buzz. what's coming, refusing to come, gone. it's as if
you don't believe me when I tell you

voices but no one's here. the running pushes blood
to the necessary places, my knees
two pipecleaners but how many times

frogs have deceptively simple tongues. like a snake,
the scent organ flickering. why bother veining
the fake leaves with plastic. fooling no one
none of the time. CNN, the Newlywed Game,
my unwashed sweat. where are you.

dishes in the sink, no water yet today, holes
in the mainline, they say
it's the new oil, I know there's gold
in my stomach, boiling.

could we run. thousand-legged from the
technological deathmarch toward cellular
can you hear it we are not alone. shoot the TV
hide the children kingdom come give us this

day our daily notice how Washington's eyes never move
on the dollar but follow the Knights of Columbus became
the Freemasons so we fear Friday the 13th as if burning

at the stake were reserved for factual crimes now listen
to Ethel Rosenberg slump in her chair listen
as the fire eats Joan's stolen dress listen
to Rachel Corrie's bones pestle under the bulldozer
Matthew Matthew Matthew the fence

forgive us our trespasses so much noise the whispering
no wonder the dead walk angry the wind is coming
no more water get ready they say, laughing.

{oh, the humanity}

my computer has a virus. insert weeping and gnashing of teeth here. I've run every search and destroy program I can get my hands on, and now I'm going to have to call the dreaded repair place that is only open 9-5 Monday through Friday and see what they can do for me before I leave town again on Friday. it has disabled my windows media player (doubly sad since I have no stereo in this apartment) and is messing with AOL and all other functions at a clip.

time to back up everything critical. this is EXACTLY what I want to be doing on a sunny Saturday afternoon. sigh.

on a happier front, somebody's trying to cast Roger in an anti-war musical (how crazy is that) and louderARTS may soon have a new slammaster. ooooooooooh the mystery. the intrigue.

{ain't THAT America}


yes, that is an original copy of the Declaration of Independence worth 8 million dollars, surrounded by drag queens. any questions? 

from the Human Rights Campaign:

We did it! Just moments ago, the Federal Marriage Amendment lost in the Senate by a stunning, bipartisan vote of 50-48. We won this historic victory for two reasons: First, because the politics of division don't work, and second: the votes were on our side.

But the real reason we won is this: You. You and every fair-minded American, gay or straight, who called, e-mailed, faxed, visited, tracked down, and otherwise urged your Senators not to write discrimination into the Constitution. Thank you. This amazing moment belongs to all of us. Please, share this victory with all the friends and family you talked into fighting with us. We join in celebration with each of you. The campaign to defeat this amendment has been a top priority for HRC and with your amazing efforts over the course of many months, today we won this round of the fight. Thank you - again.

What's next: I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't remind you that it's not over. Our ultra-conservative opponents are determined to spread their discriminatory agenda across the country. Fasten your seatbelts, my friends, because the months ahead are going to be challenging indeed:

Next week, the House will take up the issue of marriage equality as well. Expect a fight. Expect vicious words and fierce debate. And expect to speak up, loud and clear, once more.

During the next three months, no fewer than 11 states - and possibly 13 - are facing ballot initiatives to write discrimination into their state constitutions. HRC will fight these initiatives shoulder to shoulder with state and local GLBT leaders. We'll let you know how you can help.

And of course - like you, we will be actively working to stop discrimination at the source by electing equality-minded legislators around the country. We're glad to know you will be with us in that battle, too.

All of this work starts tomorrow. For today, I will take a moment to appreciate this hard-won victory. I hope you'll join me.

Many, many thanks for all you have done.

Cheryl A. Jacques
Human Rights Campaign President

P.S. For all the details about this important vote, please visit our web site: http://www.hrc.org

To see how your Senators voted, please click here to visit the Senate website - the vote was Roll Call Vote 155.

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/vote_menu_108_2.htm

{revision/expansion: better or destruction?}

incantation for the hard road

red, hum, the light, out-walk death, safe passage. safe passage.
light walk, safe red, humming, passing / hum safe rumble
distance walking death-safe passage out
red hum passage rumbling lo though we walk
death-red passage hum walk passing safe think passage
through the valley of red light exploding humming walk out
this red safe passage light (death) surrounding

fear no evil

*

this is where the bomb broke through the ceiling of the shelter.
here is the outline of a woman holding her child, disintegrated.
there's a reason you don't see this on CNN. this is our doing.

*

some stand. some fall under bulldozers
driven by men just doing their jobs, just
following orders under a Rafah sun, red hand
after red hand on the wheel / some fall. some sit
in the blue glow of computer screens trying
to write it down / begging an anonymous god
for words

*

do not invoke Sysiphus. not Achilles or Icarus
/ no pale myth of warning.

*

what night holds / is not red. not / moon at all but
a child's shiny shoe, metal sliver, hot-faced men, some
petulant fists, candles (safe passage), this night our guess
at being something not so mutable, not
so easily led, someone
who does not surrender

*

this is a boy with two fingers in the shape of peace.
yes, he knows what it means. it's Baghdad
and old men in cafes are sure Americans must not know
what's happening

*

some stand red-palmed under the moon and some
take planes to countries that have already almost
killed them to bring back stories

*

(safe passage)

*

we fuel. we burn through daily and wake
anyway, we hummingbirds dreaming of Sisyphus knowing
there is another side to the mountain, we go on.
listen: a face that toils so close to stone is already stone itself

*

the key, Achilles, is to regard the heel as a gift

*

/ we push. know the heart's invisible work mends
not just itself but the world's heart, that bad engine
struggling, and his and hers and is fuel, that the wind relies
on the hummingbird's speed and what seems like stillness

is Sisyphus' first breath and shoulder to stone again
/ we are not myth.

*

what gives, Icarus? there's work on the ground

*

/ fling our fist-sized hearts into the void
and push, believing. knowing the stone we roll uphill
leaves a clearer path than one made by walking

alone / we do not explode. become the stone
we push, cheek to rock, a kiss, a hummingbird's faith in levitation
our belief in the other side we will never reach
teaching us all we need to know about joy.

***

note: italicized line is from The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays by Albert Camus; translated from the French by Justin O'Brien, 1955; Vintage Books edition of 1991.

{Digges & fahrenheit}

after picnic-ing in Washington Square Park and workshopping with the Vision Into Art folks and eating some crazy dinner, we went to see Fahrenheit 9/11.

there is almost nothing I can say but just go see it. even though none of the "funny" parts made me laugh, even though we emerged emotionally exhausted, even though maybe everyone in that theater already had some vague notion of this nation's abiding and increasing spiral into corruption... it's necessary and devastating.

the good news is that it was showing in three theaters, and the Urban Word poet we ran into at the concession stand said that they're selling out almost every show, so he has to work overtime.

this poet has to work OVERTIME at a movie theater because of a DOCUMENTARY. this is good.

I'm re-working some of the free-writes from these VIA workshops and Roger and I are hitting a museum today, so let's all hope that I have new poetry to post soon. like tomorrow would be good.

wow this post is uninspired. um, hold on.

The Way Into Stone
by Deborah Digges

I hate to think how long I must lie here
face down, kissing myself
into the stone, or into the wood
becoming stone buried in water.
I hate to think how long it's going to take
for my dream silos to empty,
wind inside the bright theaters,
all that I am translating into stone --
my love for the taste of semen and the smell of my hair --
I for whom waiting does not come easily.
Nothing in my experience will say
what terrors last, which wear smoother than sea glass,
which love, which bitterness survives the frieze.
I have no gift for this waiting.
And yet I would be stone.
I would be stone by Philistia's gates
regathered for another execution, stone
which the builders refused
become the headstone of the corner.
I would learn to wait
the better to be stone, the many fallen into one,
cycloptic, deaf to the bells sounding that the soul has birthed
the last of her three children.
What do I know?
I am loose matter, sense and approbation,
the spirits of a house with six doors
slamming, merely the imprint of the autumn
and the dragonfly.
But it seems to me, when called upon to sing,
a stone is something to be listened to.
And that the coming of its song
sees all the words in books blackening
against their origins,
and the meanings rushing backwards as light
climbing the eight octaves.
And the roaring ceases in the ears of the drowned
at a stone's first heralding,
and cell by cell, the prisoners
make move to themselves in the asylums.
Oh yes, a stone's a mockingbird.
And midway through its aria
most of the angels flee the earth holding their ears,
and the beloved weeds are envious, and the trees,
summer or winter are longing to be stone,
and the walls would crumble to be stone again,
and the lilacs give up their color to be stone.

***

the form -- the stretched and surprising metaphor threading, threading
and the meaning -- what lasts, to last, to wait and wait for stone, what we trade and hold and release

{surreality & switch}

I'm back in NYC for the moment, and at the moment, back in the Teachers & Writers office. highly surreal. the louderARTS slam team is rehearsing and I am here because the VIA workshop ran too long for me to make Oscar's award thing or the after-reading. sigh.

OK, so here's the poem I've been working on of late. As always, comments welcome!

switch

1: Julius

forgive me mother for I have sinned as if the switch
were my own hand, my teeth electric like stars
or barbed wires running temple to temple / she is dead
and I said nothing / until the first switch clicked
we believed a stay was coming. how could it be:
death for note-taking, the state's lie that we knew anything
about atoms? maybe plenty we're “guilty” of but not
that / and her? nothing. a trick, lure, all we could do
was turn it back on them / oh, it was the lock-
lipped promise (no names, no names) that killed her
and me next, the boys pulled away by car mouthing
one more day until I thought my jaw would break

2: (a friend)

otherwise,
they could never have looked at each other
again.
anything else would have required that they be
two entirely different people.
naming
wasn't an option. though I thought if they gave just one,
even a false one,
it might have saved them, not left those boys
orphaned.
but they were as likely to do that as to turn into polar bears
and run.

3: Ethel

could you kiss your children with a rotten mouth? send whom
to the chair in my place? no mother dies gladly but the boys,
they know that we love them. it's enough

4: son #1: Michael

we were raised to question everything but their innocence.
at night I'd lie in the backyard that took us in
and count the stars that hung like teeth / nobody said
how they died so I thought of her hanging, him maybe
standing before a firing squad. in the movies,
nobody brave dies like that.

5: Ethel, again

this is my grave talking. my tombstone, all mouth now
as I couldn't be then / I believe revolution comes in minutes
and inches / I was too small for the chair, they had
to kill me twice / what does that tell you

6: Ivy Meropol

I grew up watching the Picasso of my grandmother
say nothing. I do not confirm or deny
that the photographs told me not to ask
my father too many questions.

until this year, when I split the camera's eye open
like a half-healed scab, he'd never spoken to the man
who sold my grandparents for a cell key and his own neck

I am making a documentary of this

7: son #2: Robert

flashbulbs.
Edsels.
barbed wire,
crayons.
red flowered aprons.
raspberry jello.
telephones.
elevators with round white push-buttons.
electric stoves.
rubber-soled shoes, linoleum, hallways.
pillboxes.
collar stays.
the static between radio stations.
anything getting smaller with distance.

8

we really thought we'd make it. when the rabbi came,
I was sure I'd see her again

9

Julius seemed in better shape so I took Ethel first. her hand
so small in mine

10

going into it, she knows. knows
going into it, knowing the go
will not be. easy, she goes. the going
an into parallax gone. she. easy. will be
gone, an easy parallax, being. gone already
into ease. an into not gone but parallax, turn,
going, will into knowing. known. she turning
parallax already easing into gone, please, turn,
being not. into the already being being
turn. in a small way, it was as if she knew
the electrodes would slip and death jump twice.
gone the easy parallax, the already not being.
she knew, and in the knowing, nothing
already was.

11

I am making a documentary of this.

12

when it all started, Stalin was Uncle Joe, stopping
the Nazis. now we're prey again. remember us
in soft-soled shoes and the kitchen, trying. yes,
like that. quiet now.

{in one door, out the}

I haven't unpacked from last week, so now I have to unpack and re-pack today, so that I have appropriate clothing for New York. no word on what we're supposed to wear for that show. there is something very wrong about my life. it might have something to do with shoes.

{better now than}

I am in better physical shape now than I was at 21. (ran the canals today)
I am a better poet than I was at 21. (was I poet then, at all?)
I am more sure of who this incarnation is than I was at 21. (where she's going, not so much)
I would not revisit 21 for more than a day, even given the chance.

why this obsession with decades?

great birthday moment (even though it came the day before): at my cousin's graduation/birthday party, I walk into the kitchen. my mother is speaking with a friend of my aunt's who says oh, are you the one getting married? and I say no, I'm the one who's NOT getting married. (note that both my sisters are engaged.) she says, oh that's OK, you're young. (pause.) how old are you now? and I say, 31. (pause.) oh. (pause.) well, you don't LOOK 31! (laughing a little) and I say,

that's because I'm not married.

now I'm going to make dinner and then go to the beach to hang out with the moon.

{sometimes the madness is not external}

it's July and I'm 31. how do these things happen?