*picture is a stark open rural new mexico landscape, in the center of the picture is an old wooden roadside sign up high on wooden supports thats says "pigs", along side it runs an barbed wire fence with old wooden posts and off in the distance is a large hill and beyond that is a mountain range.

navigating pain

On a good day
I get to dance
Just for a minute,
2 minutes is bliss
not like I used to but oh the rhythm and the sway slight
but a ride down a river so sweet
air
has me in her arms
rhythm meets me half way through the fog
grabs me
makes me.

random fabulous

me, in my room, where the air is a little more like air...

finished scarves...they are for sale! There are 4 of them. 2 are a bright lemon/lime with dark teal or light blue hand stitching at the ends. 2 are a bit wider and are a medium teal blue woven with an aloe green warp. price range is 40-55 dollars.

soft fuzzy tri-color llama yarn...also for sale...but really/also just showing you all because its fun to show and tell.

and then below are some examples of the gorgeous movement art from Dignidad Rebelde . political art gets me all excitied....

occupying the occupied and proof theres life beyong traffic and dryer vents.

right now i'm stuck in my room waiting for the neighborhoods fucking laundry to be done but i managed to climb the mountain this morning...well my little car did...

my struggling for oxygen brain has been busy with this whole occupy wall street situation. How with a slight reframing, ok maybe a major rebuild, but with some shift and recentering i would be so much more excited....and you know, its exciting, but i've been digging into my hestitancy around it. my discomfort with the use of the word occupy, since as far as i can tell this is NOT an ironic statement about first nations people reclaiming stolen land and  all the rest of us rising up to dismantle america and fuck nationalism and all that. my discomfort with the american hollywood capitalism induced phenomenon where we...even radical folk...have to fucking NAME everything, coin a phrase, market it and watch it spread. occupy wall street, occupy santa fe, the battle of seattle, another fill in the blank is possible (my snark is showing now but i'm stuck in my room n cranky so...). my discomfort with the  white middle class able bodied core these protests are built on. worry that its a set up... a set up for the rest of us who are uneasy, have criticism. a set up like a western ghost town movie prop....all building fronts no buildings.
i want this to really be something big. thats lasts. that is precisely about a poor peoples uprising that at its core is folks of color and queers and crips...
but white supremacy runs deep. it colonizes. it occupies and re-occupies. and capitalism, hot damn, it'll swallow potential amazingnesss up and spit it back out at us so fast...so fast.
so yeah, shift the base, the message. the heart.

and even here stuck in my room waiting for the laundry fumes to let up, i can feel the collective busy brain, the hive mind. its a good thing.

find myself

standing out in front of the house on the sidewalk at 3 am in my socks and pjs staring up at the sky.
so quiet.
as quiet as it gets here. and the air is almost clean. and theres no people. yet.
eventually i feel the cold from the pavement creeping into my feet.

i know i'm not doing well when  i do stuff like this.

with the sun comes the cars, and laundry fumes...its saturday. a big laundry day for people.

i'm scheming for a refuge, which ultimately cannot be the sidewalk at 3am.

if i could get a little land with a scrappy little cabin i would. i fantasize about it being this resource to share with other chronically ill folks i know. consider doing this whole online i'm a good cause fundraising thing that seems to kinda work for folks but i just can't seem to get it together.
possibly because deep down i'm not convinced that i am...a good cause.

or i've got too much stubborn trashy pride.
right...in my socks, on the sidewalk.

the other refuge/recovery idea is a little rv. like an old toyota. but i wonder about the triggering -living in a car-factor and if i'll actually make use of it and if it would actually be helpful.

slammed lately. a short dirty (but scent free!)laundry list: unable to board a flight to oakland to see friends, or even do mundane things like errands or eating out or grocery shopping. discovering my father died, i happened to do a google search for his absent ass and found his obituary. serious neck pain...seriously. nothing gets done.  now my cat is missing...i got her when i first moved to the mountains, she's been with me for all of it. seems the city has swallowed her too.

oh sigh. insomnia does not wear well on me.

gonna put some shoes on and get in my little car now and drive. get over the mountain before the sunrise and keep the quiet with me.
xo

we grew up really poor

she said from behind the register

every year my mother would celebrate Christmas by putting a new layer of vinyl  down on the kitchen floor

by the time she passed away the floor was thick with layers of new start we’re gonna be just fine vinyl pride.

sometimes out back

a host of sparrows explodes from the tree top outward in all directions
i can feel the lift of it
the stirring air and for that brilliant skyward moment
it all lifts with them
the heavy growl of traffic
the dangerous hum of humans
all the well lodged voices in my head that condemn me
trash
waste
sick
crazy
useless
its all your fault echoes
of my own voice falling in the heat from the bed
toward the dirty carpet
when
will this
be over
the sounds they all lift
with the birds
exploding stirring up ghosts and history and
a sense of tomorrow
when
theres a chance of change as good as a rest
i want to take off toward
and outward
take off lost and happy
take off years
of lonely
keep this feeling well lodged inside
my chest
my chest brimming
with sudden hope sparrows.

outta dodge

i managed to peel my ass out of the house, out of the city, yesterday and into the pecos river valley. just kinda drove. felt city blech shed from my body. my chest. my eyes. got to connect briefly with the northern new mexico that i love, that i miss. the stark, open, stunning quiet.

i thought i'd share some photos of my restless crip journey...

*photo is of an old red wooden barn, on a bright sunny blue sky day with the red rock mesa in the background.

photo is of the pecos river where it is dammed and theres is a long and low waterfall.

Photo is of the acequia madre winding through tall grasses and trees.

photo is of irrigated green open fields below the red rock mesa under a blue sky sunny day.

photo is of an old metal girder bridge above the still, dammed water of the river. bridge is reflected in the water. bright blue sky, tall grasses border the water.

 

this last photo is of the pecos river, shallow and winding through tall grasses. above the water is a rocky hill covered in juniper trees. 

squash flower

its been especially hard to grow things this year, what with the high winds well into summer, the serious drought and now also the hot hot hot days. and many perennials are struggling after such a cold dry winter. its no picnic for plants out there. so amidst the fires and the sense of certain doom this was a welcome sight...

after

 an early summer morning of deeply hot sex
lying limp and sweaty on the bed staring at the ceiling while my lover fetched tea and toast
topped
with high country choke cherry blackberry raspberry darkest purple preserves
i thought of the swallows in the mountains
the path of their flight
how i'd stand in the pasture look up to the sky get lost in their swirling dipping circles
their deep blue wings and golden bellies
i could smell the air the trees
could feel the open space in my chest
i could feel the mountains in my chest
lover brings me swallows in flight
tears streaming like a slow breeze
memories touched in my belly
made golden
made deep blue circles of light
 topped
with tea and toast
spread thick with sweet purple fruit.

tequila

 and I don’t mix well.

I’m susceptible to its' pull out to sea

a choppy lost sea tossing me about

its fun at first 

then I crash into ragged rock beds staggering and sick

as a teen tequila would take me in a bar

land me crashed in a strange bed with a stranger man

I’d wake at dawn with no memory

No memory of the sex I had obviously had

Stomach turning tossing with bile up and out the door to hit the street 

with no idea where I  was

Where my car was

No memory of the drive

Tequila in the backseat to nowhere all night driving

Throw me thru the car window

Land me in a hosptal with a broken neck

Bring it on. Tequila don’t mess. Drink the sea swim the brine

rocks will meet me right where I’m craving impact.

internalized #2

Will the bitterness be with me till I die? Will it engulf me? 

i’ll just take that bitter bow like everyone else I’ve known. Take my bow with a grin and a fuck you.

Take it.

I’ll try and fail try and fail

lower the bar, my expectations, again and again

Like my mother who, with only 20 years on me , is already thinking about dying. 

where is she gonna live while she dies.

That’s all that’s left to do. Where is she going to live.

Where will I live? How will I die?

40 years old feels like 40 stories high on some shaky rattling scaffolding.

My heart, hope, my life my skin cracked and vulnerable like the high desert soil.

Bitter dry.

A footprint stays for years. Years I carry the footprints.

oh the bees.

"Salvation. Appreciate life to save the world."
(Photo and caption by Hongsik Kim) photo is of many bees flying around outside the hive. the vantage point is from the ground with a fish eye lens, looking up toward the blue sky and  mid day sun which shines through their  bodies making them glow yellow.

the best chicken.

i'm a total chicken nerd...i know. (video is a close up shot of my wellsummer chicken in my arms then i set her down on the ground and she walks away.)

internalized.

I’m always surprised when people give me a chance. Trust me. Are interested in me as a person. 

Why? I’m no good. Only looking out for myself, really.

 Really.

Believe me when I say this.

Surprised when someone smiles, says love you!

Me?

No no…I’m a nasty bitch, really.

I’ll cut you down to size when yr back is turned

Cut you loose with the flip of a transient on my way switch.

Don’t mess. don’t trust me

I’m only looking to get to tomorrow.

catching my breath

So here I am in the middle of nowhere. Relatively speaking.

Cholla like trees here.

Lizards wait and watch.

My foot steps the loudest thing here.

 Crunch crunch crunch.

The gate latch.

 Clachunk.

Wind mill sounds like weeping.

The wind like ocean waves

Ravens cutting the sky.

The dry and endless sky.

Been here for a couple days and I’ve just gone between the bed, the kitchen and the courtyard.

Exhausted. Unwell. Dragging my body from place to place light headed breathing shallow.

The silence makes me sleepy.

Occasionally I weep for just a minute and it gets drawn into the breeze diluted and then lost to the open sky.

no cars.

No laundry, cleaning or mystery fumes. No humans speaking or making noise. Just space and air.

And my dog. i love my dog.

And just like that its raining.

The smell of damp earth fills my parched head and lungs makes me feel a bit queezy with the dank  weight of water.

I feel relief.

Relief for the coyotes and birds.

For the trees and the cracked land

I feel tired

The skies low and heavy blanket saying

Sleep now poet

You just sleep now.




*photo is a close up color shot of  the brown, dry cracked high desert ground. there are a few smalls clumps of stubbly grass spaced apart here and there.

retreat

i went out to this place outside moriarty n.m. for a handful of days, a little house...well, huge compared to my old house in chacon but you know, a good size, comfortable but not fancy or pretentious in any way. Its on a few acres but backs up against a vast expanse of high desert. for me it was a desperately needed break from all kinds of pollution. the air was amazing. a writers retreat is what Lisa wants it to be sustained as and for that i think its just perfect. no internet, which scared me a little but wow, it was really nice to free up my brain from the web. felt like a detox, on lots of levels.....and i wrote a bunch altho nothing got finished exactly. i wasn't there long enough! i want to go back.
i so enjoyed packing up my little car and heading out there with my dog . I loved that it was only 70 miles away, all on back roads.
some of what i wrote are basically blog posts but since i was webless i had to store them away for later so i'm posting them now!!!! of course i'll post the bigger pieces and poems as well when it feels like they are " finished". deepest thanks to Lisa Gill and her mother for making my stay there possible.

getting some air with agatha

one of my - not losing my shit while i live in the city- damage control tactics is to try try try to get out of the damn city and walk/sit in the open, humanless spaces. agatha loves it too. its wild how distinctly different i feel when i drive back into town. like i've got a sheen of resilience around me. particles of quiet breathing accumulated in the woods.
* video is at first of my dog agatha, who is white with black eye patches and floppy ears, sitting with me in the woods on a sunny day, then a view of the creek we are next to as well as the big trees all around the creek. 

 3rd Space unites with other Phoenix LGBTQ organizations to collaborate on a youth empowerment through art event with queer, homeless and undocumented youth

#11

last night

instead of sleeping

it was important

I tried to recount all the places I slept 

as a teenager

so I didn’t have to go home

Home was that hard for me then

Counting doorways and men’s beds like sheep

but not sweet

Like old doors creaking open

Foyers to apt buildings

Back seats

Under trees in the park.

Strung

So tight

the morning sun

would strum me

decades later

I still

can’t sleep

without drugs

and I never  ever

ever miss the dawn.

#7

risk what it is to say

this isn’t working for me.

 I need my life to change.

#6

risk

what is it to whisper

so softly

 we’re gonna get through this

 everything is gonna be ok

what it is in the daylight

risk hoping in the daylight

whispers for the night.

word lube

so a dear fiercest friend encouraged me to try and get poetry to come the fuck outta me...cuz it hasn't been....by giving the -30 poems in 30 days- thing a go.
i'm gonna try. even though everything is really really hectic and i'm super ridiculously cripped out and strung out and hangin' on. whats a better time right?

would love to think i'll post em all but i'm not gonna stress it. heres the first one.

old skins rousing in my old car with the pavement saying lost lost your lost trash ,look around as you slither this shit ain’t funny anymore.

threadbare but holding

people
they're threads
strands of color and texture in and out of my life

its a loose weave
the air passes through
but a weave none the less
in my deepest grief and despairing
moments pulling at me to disappear
i try
i try to picture this fabric
gold and teal
some threads of red and deep warm browns
flimsy the light shines through might not keep me warm but if i pay close attention it wraps me up
wraps me tight
connects me
to the other hearts beating
roaming
wrapping themselves in threads of memory
cloth of desire

snowy sick day with agatha

apparently if left home alone to my own devices during a snow storm when i'm not feeling well... I make videos of my dog.