Murder Because (for Leelah Alcorn)

Murder because God is not a bludgeon to be used against your own children.
Murder because you couldn't stand the truth.
Murder because destroying a soul in the name of God is an obscene lie.
Murder because everywhere 
everywhere
everywhere
to be seen as feminine is to be seen as less.

Murder because you hammered nails through her wings and called it a cross.
Murder every time you called her "he".
Murder every time you used the name she knew was not hers,
and drove the despair in a little deeper every time you did.

Murder because of the rape of spirit that is conversion therapy.
Murder because you stuffed God's mouth full of your own lies.
Murder because this must not happen again.
Murder because you drove the sanctimonious unstoppable truck
that she stepped in front of and was smashed by dogma dressed up as Jesus. 

Murder again and again even after she's dead, through the things you say.
Murder because there is no bible anywhere that says it is better to bury your children
than to love them for who they really are.
Cisgendered, transgendered, genderqueer, gay, bi, or straight,
America's children are talking; don't let God be the only one who listens.
________

On December 28th, 2014,  sixteen year old Leelah (born Joshua) Alcorn killed herself by stepping in front of a truck. She did this after having told her parents that she was transgendered; their response was to declare her truth "a phase" and to send her to Christian conversion therapy. Feeling isolated and hopeless, she decided that ending her life was her only option. Even after her death, her parents spoke of their "unconditional love" for their "son." 

 

From The Curve Of A Blue Womb

From the curve of a blue womb,
the one at the far reaches,
but as close as the next breath or the first,
the last,
spun from the flung white shine of a million stars,
into this space as narrow as a letter slot,
delivered by a Divine hand into a bone bowl,
blinking,
sitting here, writing this poem.

From the curve of a blue womb,
by way of the jaws, the wound, the perpetual shriek
of the keeper, the watchman, the madwoman,
set into a ready cage,
stripped of language and sex,
set out to dry and called art
by blind idiots with broken hands holding dawn in a coffee cup.

Something has been making its way up the stalk of my spine,
by increments, by prayer, by instinct, by race memory,
an insect, an emotion, a soul-flag strung on a line,
lifted by animus, by glory, by reflex, by holiness,
a mouth on a face on a body on its way
from solar plexus and on out through lips as an anthem or a gasp.

I'm telling you these things in your arms, in confidence,
in darkness, in fear, in recklessness, in sound mind,
in breakdown, in nakedness, in touch, in aphasia,
everything that curls and weaves and strikes within me,
this storm passing over the island of your body-sanctuary,
and losing strength even as strength is gained,
leaving bootprints in blood all the way from the start of the circle
to its end, a path out of myself,
through an impossible gauntlet of everyday 
spiraling up from the half-lit heavy pool of me,
aiming for an element only dreamt of in fevers and in ecstasy,
promised by absent angels speaking from the aviary of flesh and spirit combined.

From the curve of a blue womb,
I come spouting rot, nonsense, paperback scripture,
recipes for holy observance, bank holidays, disaster, doubletalk,
finding only in your kiss a distillery for spirits and the restless dead,
the quick, the clever, the blessed, the crazy, the torn apart, the unsatisfied,
the wise, the wept, and simple coneflowers
tossing like anti-aircraft gunners in the breeze
at the foot of your steps,
inviting me to at last fall into them, 
into you,
into some kind of peace I barely remember,
and which only comes back, for a gorgeous moment
when I am loving you.
_______ 
 

Walk

I wanted to walk with you, but
I can walk alone.
You ever walk alone?
Nah, dint think so.

For a long time, every time I looked at you,
I saw
water for the thirsty,
and I was always parched.

Dint matter
if you got skinny, got fat.
Dint matter
what you said, it made my ears cock like I was back in the pack.

Guess you didn't want a woman who thought you were all that.
Guess you didn't want a woman who wanted you
like that.
Guess you didn't want a woman,
and I'm a woman--
one who would have told you all the redfire in her heart,
and never have taken it back.

I wanted to walk with you, but
I can walk alone.
You ever walk alone?
Didn't think so.
________

for Susie's Taking it To The Streets challenge at Real Toads. I hope this fits the bill.  

Rain Light

Come in,
kick down the damage door where the skull-pitch bitchsmile sits,
have some nail and screwdriver stew,
burn down the kerosene cloud,
and rain light
little knee-capped fire goddess,
rain light.

Come in, 
crap out,
call the cops, cancel the Christ, 
sidewind down the ventilation shaft,
and eavesdrop on the vomit-talk of the municipal madman
who claps the tune to this whole gladhand genocide,
feed the lion crouched in the cushions of corporate homicide
and sink like a stone.
Down is the new up,
some like it rough
we need to know now, sister
whether you've got this.

Come in,
come on,
run down the hot tip of the century hidden in a 
pitchman's penny eyes. Let a lung loose,
scream it, scroll it, tweet it, fuck it,
be Bo Peep of the broken water main,
drown this demon-deck in the miles-wide plastic tide
and rain light,
little mercury-silvered mer-goddess,
for all the god damn good it will do
and fuck's sake and forevermore,
shine and shiver and

rain light. 

________

This poem was posted January 29th but then I deleted it cos....well, cos it is so angry. However, I have been urged by several readers to put it back up, so here it is.

dog years

I love you in dog years, seven for one.
I love you in predictive quatrains and in the secret language of twins.

My love is revealed in weather anomalies,
sea changes, and the Rorschach of sunspots.

Here is the reason for my fingertips:
your hair, your skin.

Here is the sure sign of intelligent design:
your dark eyes, the smile at the corner of your lips.

In the madhouse, men think they are God.
Churches become madhouses for doing the same.

I am mad enough--I want to say to you, girl,
fuck my brains out, make me beg to get inside you,

marry me, tie me up, get me pregnant,
make the room reek of us and then write poems about it.

Kiss me in the middle of the mall, hold my hand.
Duplicate my desire in an uncontrolled environment.

Love me in dog years, seven for one.
Viva la revolucion.
______

 

 

not really a poem, but still

"Be that girl who never backed down."
Sounds good on paper.
Sounds fierce, but I don't know what kind of girl,
what kind of woman,
that could even be.

Never backing down is the stuff of certain mens' conversations;
you know, the ones with the flags in their back windows
just above the plastic beer coolers.

If you want love in your life,
if you want peace,
if you are wise enough to choose your battles and think,
then you must learn the art of backing down. 

There are words for those who never back down, and they aren't pretty:
bitch
blowhard
zealot
tyrant
Reverend
Grand Dragon
case #
inmate #
the Republican senator from--

Backing down doesn't mean giving up.
Those who have pissed off
the woman who prepares their food,
the woman who delivers their mail,
the woman who buys their wives' birthday gifts,
the woman whose hand rocks the cradle,
have found this out
no matter how long it took for the other shoe to drop.

Of course, there are times for not backing down.
The Sioux and Sans Arc taught this to Colonel Custer.
The women inside the Alamo,
who could have left, but chose to stay with their brave men,
demonstrated this.
There were no pop divas inside those adobe walls,

but there were willows at San Jacinto.
That's all I have to say.
_________ 

Bitch

I am not your bitch.
I am not the hottest looking bitch in this place
I am not one skank ass loose lip bitch
I am not here to take your shit
and I am not about to stand still for being called
bitch.

I will not dress to please you
smile to please you
go slack jawed stupid time airhead easy breeze to please you,
I will not deny my body
I will not deny my appetite
I will not deny my comfort
I will not deny anything except your entitlement you are so used to,
that you don't even know it's there
that you think is just normal business as usual
I will not play that
perpetuate that
suck up to that
just so your dumb ass won't think that I'm a
bitch.

Look at the crap that comes out of your mouth,
all the
bitch
nigger
fag
dyke
ho
that comes out of your cake hole,
all the
you are not the same
you are not worth respecting
you are not even human
crap that comes out of your face,
that allows you to not care
That allows you to beat and mistreat
that allows you to kill and brag and turn yourself to stone.
head heart skin fingers soul of stone.
I am not your bitch!

Look at all the poisoned puke from the pulpit
all the vile, excluding, tiny-minded, pseudo-holy
god in the image of man 
that's spewed out by smiling
clean cut
barbie blonde
well dressed
tenth tithing
bigots cherry picking their bibles
for something to justify 
their fear
their hate
their spiritual laziness
and all the righteous boil drain that says
you are not the same
you are not worth respecting
you are not even human.
I am not your bitch!

I will not change myself to please you, because
I am not your bitch.
I will not dumb it down, because
I am not your bitch.
I will love whomever I feel love for, because
I am not your bitch.
I will say "vagina" in a public place
on tv
in front of Congress
in front of God
I will say it
scream it
whisper it
and I will not be shy, because
I am not your bitch.

I will not be silent
I will not be obedient
I will not watch your gone-stupid summer blockbuster
unless there are two women, with names, who talk to each other in it
about something besides a man.*
I will not send my son to be fodder in your war
I will not sacrifice my child's life in order to spread testosterone around the world,
because I am a mother,
and I am definitely not your bitch.
I am a lesbian, 
and I am so not your bitch.
I am a Catholic woman and will call down the saints
to drag pedophiles out into the streets,
and to put a woman in the Vatican,
the White House,
the coffee house,
the whore house,
the big house,
every house,
BECAUSE WE ARE NOT YOUR BITCH!

We are flesh and blood,
heart and soul,
the keepers of the next generation--
they will not be your bitch.
With time, they will change the whole vocabulary of the world,
and you will join them,
or be left behind, irrelevant, cursing unheard against the wind.
_______

* the Bechdel movie test

A Howl for the Real Toads mini challenge.

 
 

 

 

A Simple Guide For Gentlemen Of A Certain Age On How To Avoid Summary Execution While Visiting My Favorite Sandwich Shop

• do not pontificate
• do not discuss the lottery. you are not going to win it. ever.
• do not discuss people you worked with twenty years ago at the plant. do not try to puzzle out whether they now live in east bumfuk or new slagheap.
• do not describe your old sports injuries. do not display them.
• do not share your thoughts about any of your ex-wives.
• do not discuss automobile parts/engines/makes/models
• do not hold forth about sports. any sport. 
• do not jingle coins in your pants pocket
• do not shout a conversation with your buddy five tables away.
• do not stand in the doorway with the door open during winter months while wrapping up your convo with your friend for fifteen minutes.
• do not tell war stories.
• do not complain about the price of a cup of coffee. do not announce that another shop sells it more cheaply. just go there. now.
• do not hold lengthy discussions of how best to get to east bumfuk or new slagheap if you are not going there immediately. 
• do not play "let's remember".
• do not discuss bow hunting. 
• do not turn to the mail lady who is trying to eat lunch, read her book, and catch thirty minutes down time, and ask if it is hot or cold enough for her, how much stamps cost, or whether she knows your cousin's friend's neighbor, who works for the east bumfuk post office (or maybe it's new slagheap). 

Use these life-saving tips. You're welcome.
_______

for Mary's Mixed Bag...pet peeves.

Nice

Nice to see you again.
Nice like slamming the door on my hand,
Nice like cramps,
Nice like kiss my ass.

I wish I had back every word I ever said to you,
So that I could eat them,
So that I could shit them smack in the middle of that sanctimonious crap you call sobriety.

Nice to know you're alive.
Nice like a stick in the eye,
Nice like fuck off and die.

Thought I'd forgive and forget?
Fat chance.
Nice try.
Love was the drug,
But hate is the high.
______

The Insatiable Sin Eater

There is not enough Ecstasy,
crack,
crank,
horse,
smack,
booze,

Not enough cutting,
starving,
bingeing,
purging,
burning,

Not enough cleaning,
cooking,
dusting,
decorating,
hostessing,

Not enough sleeping,
avoiding,
forgetting,
denying,

Not enough cars,
houses,
jobs,
promotions,

Not enough failure
not enough
failure
not
enough
failure,

Not enough men,
women,
fetishes,
perversions,
degradrations,
ten year old whores in Bangkok brothels,

Not enough fake smiles,
not enough
bullshit 
bullshit 
bullshit,

Not enough self-hatred,
self-loathing,
self-abnegation,
self-obliteration,

Not enough honors,
kudos,
compliments,
conquests,

Not enough shame
not enough
shame
not
enough
shame,

Not enough killing,
soul-twisting,
mindfucking
unholiness

to do what a little human warmth could have done
when we were wide-eyed and open
and asking for it.
_____


for A Word With Laurie at Real Toads

Come And Get It

Come and get it.
I will pull bones from myself and bang a dirge on the hollows.
Why the face?
You have broken them so many times, they snap out easy.
Come and get it.
Come and get it while it's hot,
On fire with the word.
Come and dig its glowing little happy ass right out of the slag heap.

I made a centerpiece.
It's still fighting, but only a little.
Talk to it.
Tell it that shit you always told me.
Sock it right in the kisser,
Then it will shut up.
It's still moving,
You're not trying.

Come and smile until nobody can stand it anymore.
Bake someone happy.
Shove them right into the brick oven of your love.
Frost them.
Fuck them seven ways to Sunday.
Come and get it,
I don't want it.
Kiss it and call it Charley, just get it the hell out of here.

Come and get yourself.
Take yourself home with you.
Be very happy with yourself,
And leave the rest of us stuffed in our vases,
Bloomless and thorny,
But still talking,
If only to curse you in this and every other language
Ever spoken in extremity by the damned.
______

Cindy & The Unfortunate Birthday Cake

Cindy did for the birthday cake.
Damn the thing anyway,
As if enough Bisquick and bullshit could 
Make her husband keep his dipstick where it belongs,
And keep her kids from going wrong,
And make everything as orderly as the numbered pages of a Redbook magazine,
Lined up flush and sequential,
Not loonbat crazy in the middle of the afternoon.

Cindy did for the birthday cake
With a ginormous honking big knife
Longer than a mother in law's memory,
And someone's got to answer for that,
For the gashes in the easy to clean table cloth
And the fucked up frosting
And anything and everything that Cindy faked since forever,
Like interest and orgasms and staying sober until five.

Cindy did for the birthday cake,
And it felt hella good.
____

for the dverse Tuesday night cattle call

my 300th Word Garden post of 2011 

Rant At 8 A.M.

I sat in the corner at AJ's Cafe,

With a biscuit on a shishkabob skewer, and a x-large coffee full of caffeine;

It spoke. It went:

Double, double,

Toil and trouble.

Drink me.



I'm your Alice, sugar.

I sat in the corner on a wooden bench at a wooden table,

And became a tree spirit.

My limbs suddenly grew the boardinghouse reach, and I rudely swiped shit from other tables,

Cracking blackberries like walnuts,

Delighting in the screams and inventive new curse words.



People stared but wouldn't approach me.

I sat in the corner at AJ's, writing a new poem--

The page began pale as a virgin bride, but I filled it up with bad notions, backtalk, bullshit and beauty so sharp the baristas wept.

Then it got up and flew,

Its still-white wings waving at me,

Its mother,

With my head of flapping crows, I use no product,

I am a feathered Medusa,

A vintage hat full of crafty crazy,

Here,

Let me set it on your head,

You will hear it sing.



Maybe it was mermaids, or somebody's ipod.

I sit at AJ's Cafe on a Wednesday morning--

I wait like judgement,

I idle away the hours,

I am just a girl,

I used to be sweet.

Pour out that lo-fat decaf bathwater, baby,

Come over here,

Live a little--

Drink me.

_________

Picking The Lock On Love

Don't talk to me about the glass being half full--

There is no glass.

Just me,

With my hair on fire as usual,

And even if there were a glass,

It would only be filled with steam

--crying on the inside--

Weak.

I was never meant for being a good girl.

If I were,

Would Goddess have jammed every pocket full with a thief's inventory?

But if I were meant only for petty crime and skulking,

Could I turn the basin blue

Every time I wash my face?

Would Impressionist ladies bloom on my skin every time I undress?

Would I find their dear and fanciful hats

On the Adirondack chair

As I slip out the back sliding door

Ahead of somebody's husband?

One

Is the number of stars

Who know me by name.

One

Is how many times you die

If you've got any guts.

One

Is how many avenues of escape there are,

Always.

But two

Fills my dreams like surf on stones.

And you,

Smoky-haired tease with the California soul,

You will never let them search you, will you?

A thousand--

Is how many times you told me there was taint in the resin.

Zero

Is the chance

You would ever stay with a charming thief,

Because

Your heart loves charming thieves.

Don't talk to me about the glass being half empty--

There is no glass.

Just me,

Blind between Dolphin Queen and fish skelly--

Crazy to keep coming back--

With my hair on fire as usual,

The smoke birthing ten thousand solitary nights

And one persistent perfect tireless

Little...black...cat.

_______

Heirloom

I am the little black cat

Who shocked your womb.

You have one.

I know.

I saw it,

With my steady yellow eyes in the half light.

A little dazed,

I circled around your feet,

Briefly,

Until I learned to hide among the cleansers.

Watching.

You could have founded a religion

Down in the basement laundry room.

I have always known

I am terrifically guilty

Of something...

Something...

I am the little black cat

Among the startling whites.

Look, I have brought the world back to you,

In the moments when I have not been

Drinking everything in sight,

Yowling behind cantinas

Or playing in traffic the way I always do.

I have slept with every woman

Who would mother me,

Because

I love foreign languages.

I am the little black cat

With her wild kittens, out in the barn,

And they are named

Confusion

Emptiness

Self-loathing

and Fury.

I carry them with me wherever I go,

As far as I can travel.

I carry them, one by one, tenderly in my jaws,

And I rename them

Isis

Athena

Boudica

and Cleo-catra.

We are the little black cats

Still alive and tearing up the flower garden

Despite the potent poisons

You set out for us, like gifts.

_________

Groundhog Day

Where's my god dam doll?!?!?

Birmingham Nursery Rhyme

I was brought up right--

I carry my mother in a little box

Wrapped in cotton

Under locks.

Weebles wobble

But they don't fall down--

Somehow I survived

A little angry, but alive.

It's just that, if you poke me.

I'll poke back.

Trust me, Pokey,

Gumby that.

I'm polite.

I say, fuck off please.

I wear no ink.

I believe in grace, poise, and a well-timed wink--

I carry a sap...

But it's pink.

__________

The Disappointing Child

I did not go to no Bryn Mawr,

I did not attend no

U-ni-versity of Mich-i-gan,

I did not become no doctor

Cuttin' people open

Lookee, ya got your

Spleen,

Your pan-cree-ass,

And so forth;

I'd like to

Cut ya open and see

Maybe that girl that wasn't me

Is still in there

Screamin'

Lemme out

Got dammit,

I wanna marry a CEO and have his

Devil babies.

I know I dint

Be that boy ya wanted

Collect 'em all,

Cos everybody knows,

Girls are not as good

They tend to be

Short

And needy

And

Wtf can ya really do with one once ya got it?

I drive

A shit car

Just ta spite ya,

I carry the

Got dam mail

Right out in public for anybody to see,

And how can ya

Brag about that?

How can ya

One-up the neighbors

With shit like that?

No CEO's

No devil babies

No PT Cruiser no Escalade.

I wanna

Kiss another woman

While wearin' a name tag

That says I'm yours,

I wanna

Not cut the grass

Til the city makes me,

I wanna hurt you

Real bad

For not opening your eyes and seeing

Me,

Your got dam devil baby,

Who is an angel with words

If you'd only

Get the shit out of your ears,

Lookee here,

Ya got your

Daughter

Live and in person

Right in front of your nose,

Yours, whether you like it or not,

Heart on her sleeve,

The girl who would have just loved to love you

If you would only have ever

Given me the chance.

________