isabelle 6/30

If I have a daughter
on the day my daughter is born
I will give her a bag of rocks
and I will teach her to carry them everywhere
peacefully placing them in purse and pocket
like most women do with tampons
then I will teach her to throw them
at castles
glass ceilings
and oncoming tanks.
In that bag of rocks
my daughter
will find her strength.

I want a daughter
but on the day my daughter is born
I will give her a machete
with polished handle and burning steel
then I will cut a piece of her away.
I will let it dry up and calcify under kitchen cabinents
while the rest of her is left to scar
to heal
to harden
to hate
And holding that machete
my daughter
will find her heart.

I wish I had a daughter
to be born from giant clams
to be raised by wild wolves
fly across oceans skies
then burned at the stake
I need a daughter
to finish what I have started
I need a daughter
to save me.

When I am a mother
on the day she buries me
I want her to cut away my heart
and fill the open rot with rocks
she can carry my token instead
let it weigh her down
let it blister her fingers
may it rumble and rattle her empty core
still she treads on worn path
And deep within that grave
I will find
serenity.
And she will find
freedom.

a man like sirius black 5/30

I want a guy like sirius black.
Tall, skinny and pale.
A man who is true
a man so in love with heroics
he is all too ready to suffer death fighting next to a friend.
A man to wake every morning for 10 years
to face another rigorous death eater soul sucking day
like a Guatemalan tranny hooker.
A man born to roam
And a man born to beg

But instead I got a muggle.

I want a couple of guys like the weasly twins.
Thats right! A couple!
Men more concerned with our amusement than the news.
Men who fight tyranny with humor
content with the confines of the blacklist dropouts
in order to seek sillier, more scientific pastures.
Men who understand that limitless creativity
and joy are worth more than money.
And even in the depths of our darkest days
it pays to laugh a little.

But instead I got a muggle
a man so ordinary
he owns the pairs of slacks!
All brown…

I want a guy like remis lupin.
A mild mannered man
but beneath breathes a beast!
Ravenous and blood thirsty
A man who slices through my flesh
as easily as he slices through pink panties.
Dirty and sleepless
Yet ever so the patient man.
Never to give in to the curse that claims him.

But instead I got a muggle!
A man to keep it down
to keep clean correctly
and water the lawn
god forbid to hear what the neighbors think!

I want a man like neville longbottom
the quiet one. The sensitive one.
And yet the all too eager one
irreverently rolling in rough rack retribution.
On the only woman
as crazy as his parents.
The man who gets the bloody nose
who gets the twitchy leg curse
and drops the prophecy should be a loner
but stout hearts gain an unparalleled unity.

But no!
Instead I got a muggle.
A man who only appreciates art when it hangs on a wall
not when it screams at you!
A man who doesnt care for a foul mouth
a bad seed or out of the ordinary.

I want to be hermione granger.
A filthy mudblood so obsessed with overcompensation
she often leaves love lost
for a thick textbook and warm fire.
A cat lady by calling
and a woman of worth-working
she is a fool for falling for such a feeble fitting.

So maybe wanting is wasteful
when we all suffer the same blight.
And I am more like hermoine than I care to admit.
So let me love my muggle
and not a dark beast, a nerd, jokesters or convicts
and let me be his strange imbalance in his ordinary world
even if he called harry a homo.

two weeks notice 4/30

So I dont write poetry anymore

and its not like I stopped writing on purpose

I am just in a kind of transition.

Like going from blue to cube.

At which point inspiration recedes from fingertips

I am staring at a blank screen.

A blank page

that have magical properties

to turn themselves into lifelong tunnels of light.

Jobs, babies, master degrees, new homes

fuck…

today I would rather make cookies.

As of today,

I am putting in my two weeks notice.

All of a sudden 5 kids, a farm full of goats

and a fat husband to come home to

doesnt sound too bad.

So fuck you

I am retired.

I am old

give me domestic bliss

so what if I am a sell out

me and kobe and saul will all hop on the bandwagon together

content with our starbucks and big macs.

I know, I was so hardcore

with the protests and the free palestine

fuck it,

there is always some kid to do that

my socio-political movement was killed by

skinny jeans and sad music loving hipsters

eh, let them have it

I wasnt doing much with it anyways.

Plus, the gays are out and about now

we have a black president

we have a black president who likes spoken word!

shit, I am happy.

I know we have a bunch of wars sill raging

and explosive deficit

and schools in my state just went to shit

well…more shit

but trust me,

there is some really pissed off

angry ass teenager right now

listening to some angry punk band

like Against Me!

And I dont know who that is

because I dont listen to music anymore

but I doubt its actually political

just malcontent with suburban life

but whatever

that kid is all pissed off

smoking way to much dope

dropping out of school

and looking for something to do with his dissent

well kid, listen to me

listen!

Take a pen and write it all down

and when you arent writing it down

you ball your hand into a fist

and pump it as much as you can.

Read up on some che, some cesar

join the commies

become a vegan

and harass republicans as much as possible

enjoy it kid,

it wont last long

you got like 10 years of steam in you

mine has run dry

just puffing along on the smell of stale cigarettes

but I cleaned up what I could.

Its your mess now

heres the broom.

get to sweeping

and update your status often so I know how its going

but dont ever call me or write me

let me just run into you

at some weezer reunion tour

that I am enjoying to relive some 890′s good times

and you are at to hear some classic rock

no, I cant grab a beer with you

I have to relieve the babysitter

and finish my people magazine

leave me alone kid

I’m retired

The Bitch in the Back 3/30

This is for the bitch in the back
who told me last week that I was her favorite poet
and she doesnt care how many time she has heard 12 bricks
thats is just as bad ass as the first time she heard it

Bitch,
haven’t you ever had cotton candy on a rainy day?
Then maybe you would know
I am a 2 bit hacking cumulative
of a white nikki giovanni
and subdued beau sia
I am the make up of poets past
a you tube imaglm
stuck between black panther radical
turned intellectual survivalist
asian raged evolution to azn anchorman
both so in tuned with racial identity
they becomes figments of
fairy hood reality
I have stolen their angst and made it my own
and another face in the crowd
refers to me as ‘crazy white girl poet’
eh, it could be worse.

this is for the bitch in the back
who said I was as fearless as all women should be
that this raw feminism should sweep over us
like a tidal wave and we start a new

Bitch,
read more ms. magazine
then try to survive a new england class on gender identity
the shit that shaves your head
tapes down tits
bars babies from the butcher
fuck the ear-piercing and circumcisions
we are a maelstrom of mutilations
today we go natural
and we go militant
a year of hard lezzy labor
leaves masturbation over conversation
and the pussy in me broke out and broke down
now I fall to me knees at a shudder of masculinity
fantasize about leaving domestic bliss
seeking sequined stripperdom.
My internal feminism
is either dead or outdated.

this is for the bitch in the back
who said she just comes to listen
bought a five dollar free hole shirt
and told me she was my biggest fan.

Bitch,
10 years ago I started writing
7 years ago I was in transition
5 , I was abused
3, I was trapped
2 I found home
1 fell in love
yesterday I retired
tired of forcing feelings that prefer forgetfulness
reading hate mail from another imbalanced artist
picking up poets
patting their backs
then paying the poetry bills
when did slam become my home life?
But I like selling you the picture, dont I?
ms. bitch in the back?

This neo feminazi
perpetually pissed off
sexually sadist
over controlling cunt.

Thanks Bitch,
you make me blossom.
If I didnt write out the crazy white girl
I might become it
And if you didnt listen
I might step this stereotype
out the door.

torture porn 2/30

I want to get into torture porn
I have never seen one of those movies
but I am sure I dont need to
my head writes its own script in rape scenario hedony
it includes a lot of black latex
duct tape
a horse crop
and a lot of “no. please. stop.”
fuck safe words
I want to bleed
fuck handcuffs
I am into piano wire
fuck spankings
get a god damn paddle
cuz I may have never seen Saw 3
but I doubt its gonna give me any new ideas

I want to make snuff films
but I dont just want to pick up some whore
watch you cum on her tits
so I can meet her herpes riddled face with a bat
fuck it! dig into her after we finish her off
let me watch as you squeeze from her
the last bits of warmth
that last tall boy could afford
Let us cut the sin from her eyes
and identity from her fingertips
lay her to rest in shallow rio waters
then do it again the next day
but this time with a goat
admonishing animal abuse adultery
that achieves more hate mail
than the michael vick fan club

I want to be a stripper for a week
and not a nice one
an alameda stripper
covered in dollars and warm beer spittle

I want to be your high school english teacher
who would rather end up in prison
than deny herself another
justin beiber look a like

I want to be the pretty pin up
squeezed into corset confines
who will twist my hourglass in any pose
just for another flash of the bulb

I want to be hosed down in the garden
your sadomasochist demigod.
Your homemaking whore

I want to be able to pull my self over
this evolutionary fertility zone
that plagues my mind as simple
passionate lust
dirty mind tricks
philosophical fantasies

Because….

If I thought about saving the world
as much as I think about satan worshiping sex
we would be living on the moon by now

if I thought of how to be a better mother
as much as I think of ways
to break into your house and suspend myself from the ceiling
I would be a Teresa

fuck, if I actually fucked as much as I think about fucking
you would be dead from exhaustion and I would be happy
i’d also be starving, sleep deprived and broke.

But fuck…
it dont mean
I wont try to get us there
and it dont mean
we cant try new things
these things
all things
anything
but anal.

our history 1/30

Do you remember where you were when you learned that slavery was real?
When your parents sat you down and explained to you
that the horrific dramatizations on tv
werent just sensationalism
it was our history

Do you remember when they told you there were no more indians?
Just poverty on reservations
turquoise jewelry
miniature dream catchers to catch the ghosts
you pass
as they hang from review mirrors

or that wars arent as heroic as they are in movies
and they told us that world war 2 was the greatest war
but do you remember when you found out that it never had to happen?
That we knew about the death camps back in 1939
we had the layout of the railroads and the locations of those death factories
and we sat back
and waited
while 8 million jews, gypies and homosexuals died.
And do you remember when you read
that when we Finally got there
we set them free
except for those with black triangles
who were treated with one way tickets to prisons and asylums.

Do you remember how upset you got?
How you cried until you choked?
The ulcers that burned through you
as you churned over those images
of children being bayoneted
and families forced off cliffs
boys with diamonds and no hands

do you remember fantasizing about time machines?
How to fix things, if only…
if only you had a shotgun to take to 1847 auction.
A bag of dynamite in Cambodia
How about 3 dozen AK47′s for Geronimo’s warriors.
Time machines would make it all so easy to fix.

But do you remember when you finally gave up on those fantasies?
When you started to make a plan
when you heard a higher calling…
and you werent sure if it was unbridled idealism
the spirit of god
or just the guilt that you were never meant to carry.

Remember the first time you held up a fist?
When you stopped buying sugar from places in the caribbean still using slave labor
refused to buy paper products from companies helping to knock down the rain forest
the day you marched in your first protest
and demanded every last soldier come home alive…
home.

Because you have done enough reading
enough crying
and enough praying
and god be damned if this is going to happen again on your watch.
This will not be my history!

Do you remember the day you first heard the name matthew shepard?
And you didnt know anything about him
other than he was gay
and he was dead.
After that,
that articles came in a fervor….
another gay teen
another Gay Teen
ANOTHER GAY TEEN
dead.

And the ulcer bursts through with the same velocity it did when you heard that slavery was real.
But this time
it was on your watch.

I remember the day I figured out that genocide doesnt end
that slavery still exists for girls
war endures
and child labor marches on
just like our history

there is no time machine
and I dont own a gun

but someone
somewhere had to say stop

remember the days
you learned to say stop.
You learned to scream it?
You wrote it on poster boards and held it up in town squares
so that even god could see
STOP!
And it didnt?

Do remember the day you realized
they were finding a woman in a dumpster almost everyday
when we marched to those big gates and screamed stop!
And it just got worse.
Now its not just women and they arent in dumpsters
its entire families and they are at the corner store
they are next door.

Do you remember when you screamed stop and nobody listened
so you just watched
and hoped
that one day
there would be time machines.

My resume!

Sorry blog readers,

but i am dedicating my blog to my job search. Please feel free to look over my resume and refer me to anyone you know who may be hiring in the el paso area.

please follow the link… https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AeJKdIDTF_m5ZGdqbnd2NjJfOHY1anJzNmZn&hl=en&authkey=CIa4qZ0J

much love,

jen

poetry night

i am a poet. just a poet. i like to write and then i like to read it aloud. i never thought much about it.
so i think its funny when i scan my facebook and pick out all the poets with their crispy new headshots pasted to their profile. are you an actor? are you a rockstar? or are you just so beautiful that it had to be shared?…
is it an art i practice or just rehearsal time? am i writing or writing to perform?
the man at the bar says, i got to hustle. got to hustle to make that artist money. i tell him i am not interested in making money off my art. he says its a shame. eh. i would like to think that if i ever meant to make money off writing my degree would be in publishing. i dont have a printer. never bound a book. never charged someone to watch me read aloud. but now i gotta hustle.
hustle hustle.
take that headshot. put on a show. perform. rehearse. perform.
and the poetry is the job. and the bueracracy that comes with it.
and i get tired.
and on tuesdays, sometimes, and i dont want to go. and if i do i just want to crunch numbers. chit chat. and drink a few beers.
then he tells me, i get one night off every 2 weeks. thats poetry night. it might be a job. but its all i get. so stop bitching.

free free palestine.

maybe its cuz i spent the beginning of my poetry career writing angry shit fantasizing about strapping bombs to my chest and walking onto a bus. maybe its cuz i have been to one too many seminars on palestine. maybe its the marches. maybe its holding my hand up for hours screaming, chanting…”no blood for oil!, bp, mobile, exxon, shell, take your gas and go to hell, free free palestine!”

free free palestine!

free free palestine…

and all at once through a friendly football game, a meet up at the bar…my screaming, my chanting, my fist through the air…it all disappeared. it all went to shit. it didnt make a difference.

because we are all sitting around the computer watching youtube videos staring at some southern man with his hand up the ass of a dead terrorist.

i used to march in parades
i used to hold my fist to the sky
free free palestine!
free free palestine…
now i am alone.
now i am alone.

and i remembered the time we met you up at the bar and you dared all the girls at the table to go hit on what you affectionately referred to as “the muslim across the way”. and i did what my father taught me to do with people like you…smile, and talk slow. i said, “you know, he isnt a muslim”. you said you didnt care what he was but he shouldnt come into bars looking all weird with his turban and beard. i smiled bigger and talked slower. i said, “muslims dont wear turbans, shikhs do. the length of his beard and the hidden hair behind white bandages suggest he is a shikh. not a muslim”. and you ever so charmingly chimed in that perhaps i should be the one to talk to him cuz you didnt care what religion he was, only that he was the weirdo at the bar. as you stared…as you stared. i thought of comparing your burnt skin color to his. i thought of rubbing my now silent boyfriends beard and distinguishing the little length between them. instead i did as my mother taught me. i smiled and shut my mouth. not interested in wasting words.

i used to march in parades
i used to hold my fist to the sky
free free palestine!
free free palestine…
now i am silent.
now i have a boyfriend and a beer.

now i watch youtube videos of comedians with their turbaned puppets. i wonder how funny it would be if his hand was up that of speedy gonzalez, george lopez, that WB frog or buckwheat. would we be laughing. would we be watching. my agitation has forced me to leave the room. and the ever silent boyfriend is starting to get mad that i never have a good time out with them. but all i can think about is my precious 1/16th of an acre with 3 bedrooms. all the food i could eat. my college degree on the wall. 3 TV’s. and a healthy son with more toys than he ever has hope of counting. and the security of knowing that today there are no mortar shells. no bombs from the sky. no kidnappings. no rape. no executions. no mass displacement.

i used to march
i used to hold my fist to the sky
free free palestine!
free free palestine…
now i have 1/16th of an acre and people i dont want to upset.

in this fantasy….a love poem.

when i am driving i listen to the radio and i have fantasies of singing these songs on american idol. so i get excited when outkast or stevie wonder and especially death cab come on. i am in a green dress. i am playing the piano. and in the finale i have a million gay men march onto the stage as i belt out “the origin of love” from the hedwig soundtrack.

i have fantasies of winning an oscar and telling my 9th grade algebra teacher that he in no way helped with this. and telling my parents they had everything to do with it.

i like to think about being brangelina.

i like to think about him.

i think about marrying him on the roof of the plaza and i am wearing the same dress princess leia wore at the end of Star Wars: A New Hope.

i fantasize about telling off that puerto rican bastard he knows at a crowded christmas party. and everyone turns around when i ask him exactly what makes him so intimidated by girls…or is it just white girls…or just the girls stooping his best friend.

but i dont day dream about falling in love anymore. havent done that sine i was 16. just sex. used to think about it with the hot drug dealer from the movie “Go” or the guy who plays lex luther on “smallville”. now i mostly think of it with him. being a stripper and doing it with him. being a librarian and doing it with him. being his student and doing it with him.

i have a fantasy that we die at the same moment. that heaven does not exist. and rather than living among the clouds or timeless energy we get to do this all over again. but the next time we meet when we are 4 as i move in next door to him. and our lives are spent making treehouses in the carolina forests. after that we meet as teenagers of different indian castes. the next we go into politics. the next we are japanese. and we do this again and again and again.

but you know what my favorite fantasy is?

it the one where i invent a time machine and i go back 11 years to my old high school and find myself zoning out in ms. towers’ english class. i want to sit down next to myself and say “hey its me..i mean, you”
and she’ll be like, “yeah, i know…i was waiting for you”

and i want to look dead in her eyes as i try to spout out only the important stuff in the few minutes i have with her.

like that the next 11 years is going to be the most amazing and testing time i can convey. that she doesnt even know how to cry yet. and she doesnt know how to truly love. but that can wait til later. cuz right now she has to get all that drugs, partying, lying, running away and fucking out of her system…so just go with it. because love comes in time. love does not find you. you find it. and the person she thinks is the one…is so not the one its not even funny.

and the person who could possibly be the one is quite probably sitting in the next room and like almost everyone in the room knows him. but he has this stripper, drug, juarez, fucking thing to get out of his system. so, he should see to that.

and you will find him when you are ready. because love is a waiting game. a game of chance. a game of timing. so sit tight. get in your car and drive. and dont come back.

and when the sadness consumes you and you cant imagine tomorrow getting any better remember that you dont deserve a person who would sit and watch you cry. or a person who would leave you at the club. a person who is late. and if it feels shady…it is shady.

patience and you will find him. and when you do…you wont even know it. cuz had it not been for the shots, you prolly would never have given him the time of day.

life has a way of kicking you in the ass….learn to enjoy it.

and i run out of the room as the clock ticks on my allotted time with her. she jumps onto her desk and screams at the class, “who is he?!” and just like it was before…it remains silent. perhaps the smart boys in the corner will have the last laugh.

she will prolly slouch into her seat as she begins to understand that she has no idea what i was talking about.

i will arrive home and realize nothing changed or maybe everything changed. i graduated from Ole Miss. I am on my second stint with the peace corps and exchanging letters with my uptight Oxford boyfriend whose snogging the nanny.

but still…i will find him.