remedy farm dozen

June Jordan #2

now, i won't go so far as to say this my favorite poem of hers... i don't think its possible to pick just one. but man-o-man its close. it does that hairs on the skin rising thing to me...not a lot of poems do.

she was brilliant.
enjoy.


INTIFADA INCANTATION

I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED
GENOCIDE TO STOP
I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED AFFIRMATIVE
ACTION AND REACTION
I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED MUSIC
OUT THE WINDOWS
I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED
NOBODY THIRST AND NOBODY
NOBODY COLD
I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED I WANTED
JUSTICE UNDER MY NOSE
I SAID I LOVED YOU AND I WANTED BOUNDARIES TO DISAPPEAR

I WANTED
NOBODY ROLL BACK THE TREES
I WANTED
NOBODY TAKE AWAY DAYBREAK!
I WANTED
NOBODY FREEZE ALL THE PEOPLE ON THEIR KNEES!

I WANTED YOU
I WANTED YOUR KISS ON THE SKIN OF MY SOUL
AND NOW YOU SAY YOU LOVE ME AND I STAND
DESPITE THE TRILLION TREACHERIES OF SAND
YOU SAY YOU LOVE ME AND I HOLD THE LONGING
OF THE WINTER IN MY HAND
YOU SAY YOU LOVE ME AND I COMMIT
TO THE FRICTION AND THE UNDERTAKING
OF THE PEARL

AND I HAVE BEGUN
I BEGIN TO BELIEVE MAYBE
MAYBE YOU DO

I AM TASTING MYSELF
IN THE MOUTH OF THE SUN

a little vacation babble

so the women who have bought this place are arriving soon to do some work on the house (like wiring it for electric) and so i am going to have myself a little vacation in santa fe since they are willing to feed the critters while i'm gone! this is huge for me....i haven't ever been away from here for more than 2 nights in a row, and even that is rare. I'm practically surgically attached to this place. And everytime i've been away i'm always worrying about the animals up here on their own.....so this is a treat.

i'm gonna eat lots of different food, take a millions baths, see friends i haven't spent time with in forever,look for a new pair of glasses, eat more food, go to a thrift store and pretend i'm a city person again just for fun....

anyway....i've got to clean this house and mind the chickens....i'm getting 3 or 4 eggs a day right now!
i wish you all a peaceful day.

The wind returns, why am i still here? and carhartt sells out.

ahhhhh so today theres to be 40mph winds for my enjoyment. lovely.

aside from the obvious logistical advantages of staying here a bit longer, like i'm here already and its free and my animals have their routines all worked out and my next destination is not yet available to me, on a deeper emotional level i'm feelin' kinda despondant and poopy.

huge on the list of reasons to sell ye ol' high mountain farm was to not put up with another winter here....esp. the wind. oooooo....it just rubs me the WRONG way. what i'm esp. not looking forward to is the combination of slightly melting snow/mud and high speed blowing snow. I'm traumatized with memories of sliding around trying to tame the huge tarp over the hay bales or slipping falling to my knees on my way back to the house with my arms full of firewood.

I've run the -i can do it on my own- mountain queer super crip theme right into the ground.

sigh.

in other news....i was all excited to buy myself a new set of carhartt clothing for winter....my old carhartts are so worn out and thin....and granted, its been a while since i've bought them cuz they last for freakin' ever, but i was really bummed out when the package arrived in the mail and i tore it open only to find that the quality just isn't what it used to be AND the tags said "made in mexico"....?????????? now, the whole freakin' point of proudly wearing carhartts is that they are union made and last for ever right? so i looked into it and lo and behold only a very small percentage of their clothes are union made any more. They closed 3 factories in the last year and moved them to other countries where the labor is cheaper. CRAP. and esp. shitty since the whole theme of carhartt is "clothing for the american worker"....fuckers. My stepdad lived in his when i was younger, and he's a union organizer....i wonder if he knows about this.....
so anyway.....whats a hard workin' mountain queer to wear?

lost and found#4

so i have finally finally finally spruced up and printed out my poems and am sending off the resulting manuscript to albuquerque where lisa gill, most amazing poet, will be my editor. She has been very patient with my chaos. In the process of print and sort, i rediscovered this older performance piece.....


DAMAGED GOODS

I had these really vivid rape memories a few nights ago
they were these full on
no control
body memories
and it was this movie scene that
triggered
fingered my pain lying dormant
and I cried
and I thrashed
and I flooded with this molten grief
cuz I was her
and the nightmare of cold and shaken
and she was fear
and the nightmare of body taken
this nightmare opened before me
and inside me
it spread to saturate all that I am
and everything I do
and in the same breath that I say
“why are people so fucked up?”
I can also say
”no wonder people are so fucked up”
and I can also say
abuse
is a common fucked up ground between us
sadly
but resisted a face to strength and resilience
sadly
but we make the most of each day survived
cuz we’re damaged goods
sweetheart
you and me
and everybody I know
damaged goods
you know like bruised fruit
or barren land
or some old car with tics and dings and rusting parts
beyond repair
and we ache and we stretch
and we ache and we stretch
and we’re relapsed
and collapsed
and perhaps
just a bit too desperate for some fucking peace and quiet
and when damaged becomes survival
where is the living?
when damaged becomes survival
where is the here and now?
and I watched my damage on the screen before me
I listened to my damage whimper and fear and love
and I saw my damage with her ass in the air
so I’m asking you
how far have we come?
when I am her
and you are me
and we are fear?
thick
red
bargain basement fear
how far have we come
in a life of dodging pain?
how far have we come
from battered?

sunflowers and me

the woman i got ye ol' airstream from took this photo of me while i was at her place. Its so rare that anyones around to take my photo but me, i figured i should share it.
She grows flowers for market and that there bucket full she sent home with me as a gift. I was smitten since i just love love sunflowers...so much joy and strength in them.

the arrival

alright...after much drama that i won't bore you all with, the airstream has arrived.
now that i can be alone with this big ol' thing i'm wrapping my brain around how old it is and the work it needs....yeesh...a bit overwhelming. good thing its cute.
.... the worst bit is the part of the floor that is rotten, which i knew about but hadn't given much thought till now.
i made the mistake of checking out some dudes vintage airstream restoration site and that just made me feel even more overwhelmed.His version of floor replacement was to completely gut the interior, including the interior walls and not only remove the old floor but also all the insulation as well as sanding and rust proofing the main frame. i'm not in this to make her mint and turn it around for a buncha cash....i just want the rotten floor bits taken out and replaced....but still, its yet another project on my daunting list of things to do.
and i suspect the rotten floor area is the source of the "old trailer smell"(aka mildew), since under the floor is all this 50 yr old insulation thats also been getting wet....
i did find a place that sells vintage trailer parts and located a new door gasket, the absence of which has caused all this rot over the years.
once the floor bit is fixed it'll feel much better inside.what'll also help is to get some help leveling it....right now it feels like a jiggly rotting fun house....

but its a diamond in the rough.very rough.hell its 14 years older than me and i'm pretty worn out...so i can only imagine.The thing i love about its age are all the funky little dated bits like the cupboard hinges and the magazine rack and the lamps.

but hey the propane and electric work..so...mas que nada.

fault line ramblings

today i let the sheep into the garden. we'll have a freeze soon enough and everything in there is pretty much overwith. I'm drowning in squash. I did discover that godiva loves squash, unlike the others.
and the chickens love cantelope.

and i'm trying so hard to relax...really i am. I can't shake the feeling that everything could fall apart any second... change completely and leave me scrambling toward a new destination...a new last minute plan.
i feel like i'm livin' my life on a fault line.
it all keeps shifting beneath me and i'm using all my energy to continuously right myself to the new ground.

i look forward to the tight grip of winter. can't do much about nothin' in 3 feet of snow.

my fever i've had for days finally broke today while i cleaned out the barn. i got so damn hot and i was soaking wet and tears filled my eyes.
but now i feel much better.
for dinner i had...you guessed it....squash.

i miss a good kiss.
you know....a really really good kiss.

fulfilling my destiny

If i've re-learned anything over these last few months, its that the world of housing is treacherous if not impossible to navigate when one is poor and has environmental illness. So, to lessen the scariness i ventured down south about 200 some miles to a little village called lemitar where i found myself this lovely 1956 airstream overlander....a whopping 26 ft. in length and relatively safe for me to be in since everything is 50 some years old and the woman who has owned it has been scent/smoke free and only used non-toxic cleaners.
so i bought it.
now, wherever life may take me i will have a little space to be that won't make me sick.
I've managed to avoid fulfilling my trailer trash destiny so far in life, but i'm now prepared to embrace it.

lo and behold

the very first egg.
its almost a lavender color with brown speckles on it.
not sure who it came from.

very exciting!


beyond the egg things are sooooooo hectic and changing every moment. yesterday i thought i was moving to a farm over the mountain but today i'm moving down to the rio grande valley.

i'll be so glad when i'm moved.

this little egg made my day.

oh, wouldn't it be lovely

its been 2 and half years now since i left an abusive relationship.

2 and half years since she beat the crap out of me as some last resort when it was obvious i was finally leaving for good.

she still lives down below in this small valley and now that i’m leaving here i have to admit to myself that i’m really happy to be getting free of this tiny community that she is a huge part of. won’t have to run into her in town or bite my lip when someone goes on and on about how great she is cuz of this or that...or worse yet, have one more person imply that i should get over it and figure out how to get along with her unaccountable ass.

in the aftermath of our separation i refused to consider leaving my home just because she lived in the valley.....i wasn’t going to give her that much power. For months i would cringe everytime the phone rang or a truck came up the road. Instead i’ve stayed and toughed it out up here, determined to get myself back. to trust myself, my decisions....to trust other people.
But even now, i keep everyone at a distance. I’ve lost track of how many people i could have gotten close to, had sex with even...but the reality of them in front of me proved too much to handle....all that flesh and emotion and endless possible hidden agendas...

i had a brief, immediate, overnight sex thing with my mechanics sister last summer and that was fun...until five minutes after we fucked and she began hounding me about sleeping in my bed, which i rarely agree to...only with someone i’m very very comfortable with, and even then its rare. This was a constant struggle with my perp-ex. She was convinced it meant i didn’t really love her. which eventually was the truth, funny how that works. But in reality its about disability and nothing more.

So there i was with this woman in my bed i didn’t know from a hole in the wall getting all up in my sleeping/disability business, pushing my boundaries and although i liked her, i couldn’t get rid of her fast enough.

i’ve tried to convince myself that i’m better off with a drama free life of mucking manure and spinning wool into gold...right? My brain is mostly good with that idea...my body...not so much.

but wait, this wasn’t supposed to be about sex and all that messiness so much as my self concept and the narrative that now follows me in my head wherever i go.

See, i really believe that the real damage done from that 6 year relationship was emotional. The slow but relentless wearing away of my sense of self. Emotional abuse is gravely underrated, and i would say far more common than most people would care to admit.

I feel compelled to write about this after my journey to the title company the other day to close on the sale of my home. Now, an office has never been a comfortable environment for me....all kindsa class and crip stuff comes up right? Like i’m poor and dirty and loud, opinionated and socially chaotic...the great unwashed. And if i think real hard i can remember a time in my life when i didn’t let it get to me, in fact i thought it was a good laugh when uptight folks would get all bent outta shape around me.

Like one time on a plane ride home from san francisco the avon style woman in the seat next to me kept her face buried in a perfume ad in a magazine for the whole flight....i thought the irony was beautiful since there i was wearing a respirator to ward off the toxic, scented hellhole that is a plane ride.

or the time a whole gaggle of suits and ties got up and left their table in a cafe to get away from me....funny stuff.

Only time i feel indestructibly vulnerable these days is on stage... in mid-poem.

but here i was in the very sterile title co. office, nervous and sweaty and keenly aware of how old my clothes are,the stains on my shirt and jeans, the dirt under my nails and on my feet. i didn’t know what to do with myself, my words, my hands....i felt like i was 12 at yet another new school.

I’ve realized that her opinions still haunt me. My once stroppy, confident, piss off self is still buried under an awkward damaged worn down libido. Staying alone on a mountain, scraping pride from poverty hasn’t healed this, just protected me from the hard truth.

“you’re going to wear THAT shirt?”
“why would you say that in front of all those people?”
“have you showered?”
“i’m tired of hearing about class”
“you need new shoes”
“we need to clean you up”

i was her pygmalion fantasy come true.

so i start to wonder if somewhere inside me was indeed a need to be cleaned up...approved of. That, dammit all, despite my best efforts, i had internalized all the classism the world threw at me my whole life. And she was there to feed that need. Empty promises of full kitchen cupboards,daily comfort,horses in the pasture,trips to scotland and dinner parties with cakes and tea.
At a price....of course, and one i could never afford to pay, since it required the demolition of erin.

No surprise when i left her she called me thief and whore. Back to the gutter selling flowers where she found me eh?

This all hit me like a brick when i got home from the title company, surprising since i rarely think of her anymore. But now i’ve crossed the threshold into a new life, i’ll be moving to a new place where she will never be, has never been, where theres no ghost of her throwing things or shutting me out in a snowstorm or kicking my dog cuz i “made her mad”.
so when i got back from closing and i walked into this little house that has held all of this and looked around, then looked at the folder in my hand with all the papers saying Sold Sold Sold ,something snapped and tears rushed up on me and i’m screaming “fuck you fuck you fuck you......”

layers peeling away

you never know what you’ll find beneath scar tissue you’ve come to call skin.