Okay, we'll admit it. All so many
mouths and moussed-up hairs, tight
and tighter jeans sprouting out of
pink handkerchief ancestry into tanning
beds and Lady Gaga. You're absolutely
right, from the ohgodwhatwereyouthinking?
to the mygodhowbigwashe?
with mouthfuls of French and Spanish wines -
We all fall in line, just as you say,
one behind the other, behind the other;
Descendants of all of Europe's catty bitches,
we're queens of our country, inadvertently
owning the scene "with liberty and justice
for all," we say, even when we know it isn't yet, really.
And this one's ex-lover, now best
friend, is this one's best friend's new lover,
and star-struck, and love-crossed, our
bonds of brotherhood are made easier
because we're who we are - right again -
though you should know, since you know us so well,
we never really chose to be this way, did we?
7/12
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Out of the Closets, and Into the Streets!
I had no coming-out story -
for me it was a slow and gentle slide
rather than a leap - a hiding still,
a cautious peek around sharp corners
of the inner rooms of "every fiber of
my being." We shouldn't be coming-out
anymore, anyway - we should just be, just
be out in the streets; remembering,
of course, the places from which
we came, but focused now only on
ourselves, and the dance, like summer
childhood, when the fire hydrant breaks
and everyone, young and old,
celebrates amidst the falling water and
rainbows of the cloudless skies of future -
and all of it outdoors, where we are seen.
All of it movement. All of it
present.
7/7
for me it was a slow and gentle slide
rather than a leap - a hiding still,
a cautious peek around sharp corners
of the inner rooms of "every fiber of
my being." We shouldn't be coming-out
anymore, anyway - we should just be, just
be out in the streets; remembering,
of course, the places from which
we came, but focused now only on
ourselves, and the dance, like summer
childhood, when the fire hydrant breaks
and everyone, young and old,
celebrates amidst the falling water and
rainbows of the cloudless skies of future -
and all of it outdoors, where we are seen.
All of it movement. All of it
present.
7/7
The Train
"a swift carriage, of a dark night, rattling with four horses over roads that one can't see - that's my idea of happiness"
- Portrait of a Lady
I have to admit there's a certain beauty in Oklahoma.
The sun setting over the bush-tree hills that crest the creeks
and red-dirt gullies remind me so much of my childhood visits
to this state. The train takes us through wilderness, and I
feel closer to nature this way, as if the hills and trees had just
only moments ago parted expressly to let us wedge ourselves
through, only to close again once we have passed. Cows dot the fields,
still green under the golden sky as the sun sinks lower and warms the horizon
like buttered toast. The train's whistle blows, a sign that we're passing
civilization, and all heads look out at tiny towns, and suburbs,
gone as quickly as they there in the frame of each window.
The sun seems to warm the moisture in the air, and the fields
in the distance appear to steam like a Roman bath, reminding me
of the Smoky mountains behind a home my grandparents used to live.
Rolls of hay and grass stand like statues on the checkerboards of
shaved landscape. A car. A tractor. And rows of these round,
yellow sentinels - sometimes the surrounding fields look like
a green carpet, with hardly any texture of grass.
The train jostles us along, and my pen is often unsteady,
adding to the timeless feeling of grinding through the wilderness
for the first time, ignoring the signs of established life, and
the technology beneath and before me, to think myself a pioneer
out to investigate new lands and frontiers, to capture that horizon
and chase that glowing orb across the other end of those fields,
behind those trees. I fancy we might stop, and all of us
get out into some open field, and dance together under lamplight,
picnicing in the cooling, wet grass, amidst the orange and black
shadows of twilight. I wave at the setting sun's last goodbyes, and
wave at the tiny people as we pass.
I adore the train.
6/29
- Portrait of a Lady
I have to admit there's a certain beauty in Oklahoma.
The sun setting over the bush-tree hills that crest the creeks
and red-dirt gullies remind me so much of my childhood visits
to this state. The train takes us through wilderness, and I
feel closer to nature this way, as if the hills and trees had just
only moments ago parted expressly to let us wedge ourselves
through, only to close again once we have passed. Cows dot the fields,
still green under the golden sky as the sun sinks lower and warms the horizon
like buttered toast. The train's whistle blows, a sign that we're passing
civilization, and all heads look out at tiny towns, and suburbs,
gone as quickly as they there in the frame of each window.
The sun seems to warm the moisture in the air, and the fields
in the distance appear to steam like a Roman bath, reminding me
of the Smoky mountains behind a home my grandparents used to live.
Rolls of hay and grass stand like statues on the checkerboards of
shaved landscape. A car. A tractor. And rows of these round,
yellow sentinels - sometimes the surrounding fields look like
a green carpet, with hardly any texture of grass.
The train jostles us along, and my pen is often unsteady,
adding to the timeless feeling of grinding through the wilderness
for the first time, ignoring the signs of established life, and
the technology beneath and before me, to think myself a pioneer
out to investigate new lands and frontiers, to capture that horizon
and chase that glowing orb across the other end of those fields,
behind those trees. I fancy we might stop, and all of us
get out into some open field, and dance together under lamplight,
picnicing in the cooling, wet grass, amidst the orange and black
shadows of twilight. I wave at the setting sun's last goodbyes, and
wave at the tiny people as we pass.
I adore the train.
6/29
you came out as my mother died
You came out as my mother died -
two separate experiences exhaled
individually into the air that now
equals our lives together.
Maybe it wasn't the same hour,
month, or year, but what we call the past
is not made of separate days, or years,
but exists as a cloud gathering
collectively behind us as we move forward,
a fog touched only by our eyes when we
are dreaming. My mother freed herself
from the chains that bound her as you
escaped into the liberation of adulthood
and fearless identity - I watched her
leave and felt the ache as I grew away but
slowly toward the idea of what
you would become. Perhaps part of
myself was released when she died, the
part that parallels the freedom you
found before I'd even hoped for it.
She left, and maybe in some distant fog
she met your secret self, and nudged
you down your path toward me.
And she felt freedom in the
end of time just as you were plotting
your time's beginning, opening yourself
into a world where soon I would join you,
both of us feeling the pain of separation
and the cleaving, and the gnawing, with
the clouds of our past mingling, colliding,
into the turbulent, passionate storms
and driving rains of our present, that feed
the beautiful nature of our future.
6/15 (edited 7/12)
two separate experiences exhaled
individually into the air that now
equals our lives together.
Maybe it wasn't the same hour,
month, or year, but what we call the past
is not made of separate days, or years,
but exists as a cloud gathering
collectively behind us as we move forward,
a fog touched only by our eyes when we
are dreaming. My mother freed herself
from the chains that bound her as you
escaped into the liberation of adulthood
and fearless identity - I watched her
leave and felt the ache as I grew away but
slowly toward the idea of what
you would become. Perhaps part of
myself was released when she died, the
part that parallels the freedom you
found before I'd even hoped for it.
She left, and maybe in some distant fog
she met your secret self, and nudged
you down your path toward me.
And she felt freedom in the
end of time just as you were plotting
your time's beginning, opening yourself
into a world where soon I would join you,
both of us feeling the pain of separation
and the cleaving, and the gnawing, with
the clouds of our past mingling, colliding,
into the turbulent, passionate storms
and driving rains of our present, that feed
the beautiful nature of our future.
6/15 (edited 7/12)
5/25
When we're young, we're made of impressions
pressed into our pages like flowers.
Mine a lavender, a stargazer,
You a hibiscus, a dandelion, or sunflower.
pressed into our pages like flowers.
Mine a lavender, a stargazer,
You a hibiscus, a dandelion, or sunflower.
5/20
In another time, my mother was a child,
and in pictures she still smiles at me
with the childlike ignorance
of her painful death.
and in pictures she still smiles at me
with the childlike ignorance
of her painful death.
My Connecting Flight from Houston to Oklahoma City
The flight attendant asked the little girl in front of me if she was from "here," as we descended into Oklahoma. The little girl said "no," that she was from Oklahoma - of course, that's what the flight attendant meant, who smiled sweetly at what she thought to be childlike naivete, but it was amazing to me that the little girl had brought Houston on the plane with her. And isn't it true? That we're still a part of where we left only until we reach where we are going?
5/19
5/19
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