song/poem/lyrics for the week

this is an attempt to define my stance on religion as per a recent post and comment earlier today (please see below) that lead me to listen to some xtc. here's the lyrics to "dear god"; very apt words in today's world...

Dear god,
Hope you got the letter,
And I pray you can make it better down here.
I dont mean a big reduction in the price of beer,
But all the people that you made in your image,
See them starving on their feet,
cause they dont get enough to eat

From god,
I cant believe in you.

Dear god,
Sorry to disturb you,
But I feel that I should be heard loud and clear.
We all need a big reduction in amount of tears,
And all the people that you made in your image,
See them fighting in the street,
cause they cant make opinions meet,
About god,
I cant believe in you.

Did you make disease, and the diamond blue?
Did you make mankind after we made you?
And the devil too!

Dear god,
Dont know if you noticed,
But your name is on a lot of quotes in this book.
Us crazy humans wrote it, you should take a look,
And all the people that you made in your image,
Still believing that junk is true.
Well I know it aint and so do you,
Dear god,
I cant believe in,
I dont believe in,

I wont believe in heaven and hell.
No saints, no sinners,
No devil as well.
No pearly gates, no thorny crown.
Youre always letting us humans down.
The wars you bring, the babes you drown.
Those lost at sea and never found,
And its the same the whole world round.
The hurt I see helps to compound,
That the father, son and holy ghost,
Is just somebodys unholy hoax,
And if youre up there youll perceive,
That my hearts here upon my sleeve.
If theres one thing I dont believe in...

Its you,
Dear god.




now, what are we critiquing here? the notion of god that we have constructed in language and deployed through ideology or something else, beyond language. my guess is that it's the first and not the second.

how does one write one's life?

"Every three years I discover again
that No I knew nothing before.
Everthing must be dragged out,
looked over again, The unexamined life
is the lie, but still
must I every time deny
everything I knew before?"

Dorothy Allison, "The Women Who Hate Me."





i have been proofing a narrative project for dev and it's really stunning. she does a really good job in attempting to capture the essence or shall i say essences of her life. how we come to know ourselves as subjects is an enigma to me. as i was reading dev's narrative i was putting myself in the place of the author. how would i write my life...to me it seems like a psychic version of cleaning my apartment...overwhelming. hopefully one day, i will have the chance to try but right now i wouldn't know where to begin.
i know from experience that many gay/lesbian/queer/transgender/transsexual persons start with coming to terms with identity. to be sure, coming out stories are a really good place to begin because it seems that seeing at least through what appears to be dissonance is key to rooting oneself in "place" even if this "place" is extremely mobile or transient.
i thought to myself, where would i begin. would i begin at the coming out intersection. by comparison, my coming out was not so much surrounded by dissonance than by complicity. i never felt compelled to jump out of the closet...i just opened the door and sat down in the open. my mother pats me on the shoulder and kisses my cheek while my father tells me that there were a lot of "gay" guys in the marines and it is no big deal. i guess i feel fortunate...can one begin a story from a point of consonance? i don't know...so i look, i look for dissonance to begin a story.
i do remember when i knew that i was "different" from the other kids in my school. 7th grade for me was the kicker. i had a crush on john miller...i was also attending a very strict, fundamentalist, bob jones university supporting "christian" school. my social science teacher, mr. laws (i'm not joking that is/was his name) brought out an article where two men were "gay bashed" in our town by a group of sexually repressed skin heads. mr. laws told us that god didn't like violence per se, but he could understand why someone would want to bash in a gay person's head...and he balled up his fist as he said this and i felt as if i were a sheet of paper being crumbled up in a hand. as he went on about the job of rationalizing his feelings to make it fit with his christianity, i thought to myself, "wow, i better keep my mouth shut or else i will either get seriously hurt or killed." i can remember that moment as truly feeling what it meant to be afraid.
i never told my mom or dad. i graduated from this school, so it wasn't like this was the first time i would have to endure homophobic tirades or calls for violence upon difference. but i remained silent.
i grew up methodist and my parents were not religious fanatics. they put me in this school because they somehow knew that i probably wouldn't make it in public school...not intellectually but physically. this christian school was also known for its academics...and to be fair, i did receive a good education. by the time i graduated i had the equivalent of an a.a. degree from a community college. academically, my education helped me advance in the university setting. but the silence that i learned was and is most profound. the most valuable lesson that i learned in life was invisibility and silence...to walk into a room and not be noticed, to be gentle, to be kind but most of all be ready to run if i needed to. which, come to think about it, was why i probably liked track in high school...especially cross country...i could out distance most if not all of the jocks, i knew i could run for a long way and not stop...sometimes i feel as if i haven't stopped yet.
so maybe if i am to write about my life i need to write from a location of silence... or, perhaps, maybe that is why i can't.

poem for the week: contemplation

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why (Sonnet XLIII)
by Edna St. Vincent Millay


What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

poem for the week

When a friend dies
by Marge Piercy

When a friend dies
the salmon run no fatter.
The wheat harvest will feed no more bellies.
Nothing is won by endurance
but endurance.
A hunger sucks at the mind
for gone color after the last bronze
chrysanthemum is withered by frost.
A hunger drains the day,
a homely sore gap
after a tooth is pulled,
a red giant gone nova,
an empty place in the sky
sliding down the arch
after Orion in night as wide
as a sleepless eye.
When pain and fatigue wrestle
fatigue wins. The eye shuts.
Then the pain rises again at dawn.
At first you can stare at it.
Then it blinds you.

to be or not to be...that IS the question

on my friend will's blog (http://www.rhetboi.net/sordid/)he wrote:

But the way I see it is this: I can go to Target at 10:00 a.m. when there are no lines, and that, to me, is a great thing. I can choose to work at 8:00 a.m. or 11:00 p.m., and I can choose to teach summer school or not (well, not really, since I need the money, but it's still technically a choice); I can do much of my work in this hotel room or at the local coffee shop and am not bound to my window-less office. I ain't got it bad, and that's good. But it could alway be better . . .

i don't think that i need to be reminded of this at a better time. it's near the end of the summer and it's that time where you're in between student loans and starting the teaching work load. i hate the concept of money. i quess i could fool myself by saying that it's a "marxist" thing but really its a "i don't like to so i won't manage my money" kind of thing. very frustrating, not only for me but for my family cuz the no money thing prohibits me from going home very often...which, to be quite honest, i don't loose too much sleep over cuz the family really stresses me out anyway.
but, back to the topic at hand. i have often found myself wondering "what in the hell am i doing?" i quit a really good job (that i was getting burned out on but that's neither here nor there) to pursue a career in the academy. upon further reflection, i don't even think it's that. i think this was a way for me to get back to chicago. i mean, when the opportunity presented itself i thought "wow, this is great." what i didn't consider was the drastic change in life style. i'm entering my third year in this program and i still haven't gotten used to the life of a fulltime grad student (money issues aside). i mean, i can't even seem to manage my time. writing, for the most part, is excruciatingly difficult...not in the sense of a writer's block but in that i have all of these ideas swimming around in my head like little fishes and when i go to grap them they just slip out of my grasp...schooling in some dark corner of my mind. i'm also completely astounded at the amount of knowledge that i do not know that i probably, when all is said and done, cannot know and i become overwhelmed. i read texts and i think to myself what can i possibly contribute to any conversation.
i don't know what kind of ideal i had coming into this but, at this point, i can't see myself in the academic field....i can't see myself in anything at the moment. my therapist told me the other day..."it's ok to run away from something just as long as you have another something to run to." i think that's my problem, i don't think i have had anything in my life that i honestly wanted to run to.
but will's post did help me see that i could, at least if not temporarily, see the incredible amount of freedom that i will have in sculpting a niche in the academy that i would not otherwise have. perhaps, i need to create something to run to instead of looking for something to run to. i just hope that i will be able to do it.

poem of the week...the work of nostalgia

Michael Lassell's (circa 1985)

How to Watch Your Brother Die

When the call comes, be calm
Say to your wife, "My brother is dying. I have to fly
to California."
Try not to be shocked that he already looks like
a cadaver.
Say to the young man sitting by your brother's side,
"I'm his brother."
Try not to be shocked when the young man says,
"I'm his lover. Thanks for coming."

Listen to the doctor with a steel face on.
Sign the necessary forms.
Tell the doctor you will take care of everything.
Wonder why doctors are so remote.

Watch the lover's eyes as they stare into
your brother's eyes as they stare into
space.
Wonder what they see there.
Remember the time he was jealous and
opended your eyebrow with a sharp stick.
Forgive him out loud
even if he can't understand you.
Realize the scar will be
all that's left of him.

Over coffee in the hopsital cafeteria
say to the lover, "You're an extremely good-looking
young man."
Hear him say,
"I never thought I was good enough looking to
deserve your brother."
Watch the tears well up in his eyes. Say,
"I'm sorry. I don't know what it means to be
the lover of another man."
Hear him say,
"It's just like a wife, only the commitment is
deeper because the odds against you are so much
greater."
Say nothing, but
take his hand like a brother's.

Drive to Mexico for unproven drugs that might
help him live longer.
Explain what they are to the border guard.
Fill with rage when he informs you,
"You can't bring those across."
Begin to grow loud.
Feel the lover's hand on your arm,
restraining you. See in the guard's eye
how much a man can hate another man.
Say to the lover, "How can you stand it?"
Hear him say, "You get used to it."
Think of one of your children getting used to
another man's hatred.

Call your wife on the telephone. Tell her,
"He hasn't much time.
I'll be home soon." Before you hang up say,
"How can anyone's commitment be deeper than
a husband and wife?" Hear her say,
"Please, I don't want to know all the details."

When he slips into an irrevocable coma,
hold his lover in your arms while he sobs,
no longer strong. Wonder how much longer
you will be able to be strong.
Feel how it feels to hold a man in your arms.
Offer God anything to bring your brother back.
Know you have nothing God could possibly want.
Curse God, but do not
abandon Him.

Stare at the face of the funeral director
when he tells you he will not
embalm the body for fear of
contamination. Let him see in your eyes
how much a man can hate another man.
Stand beside a casket covered in flowers,
white flowers. Say,
"Thank you for coming" to each of several hundred men
who file past in tears. Some of them
holding hands. Know that your borther's life
was not what you imagined. Overhear two mourners say
"I wonder who will be next."

Arrange to take an early flight home.
His lover will drive you to the airport.
When your flight is announced say,
awkwardly, "If I can do anything, please
let me know." Do not flinch when he says,
"Forgive yourself for not wanting to know him
after he told you. He did."
Stop and let it soak in. Say,
"He forgave me, or he knew himself?"
"Both," the lover will say, not knowing what else
to do. Hold him like a brother while he
kisses you on the cheek. Think that
you haven't been kissed by a man since
your father died. Think,

"This is no moment not to be strong." Fly
first class and drink scotch. Stroke
your split eyebrow with a finger
and think of your brother alive. Smile
at the memory and think
how your children will feel in your arms,
warm and friendly and without challenge.

metal meets cello

so this morning i go to "crooks and liars" http://www.crooksandliars.com/ political blog to catch up on the news and i noticed that for the music selection they have posted videos of Apocalypitca: a quartet of men playing metalica songs on their cellos. the first one is slow and kind of pretty

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSMXMv0noY4&eurl=


but the second one is where they let it all hang out

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rej7o4x7BUg&search=Apocalypitca

i especially like the crowd surfing and the head banging from the audience members. those european kids are soooo POSTMODERN!
wow, i wasn't into metal when i was young...i find it quite interesting that metalica has given themselves a make over...cutting their hair, dressing up all gq style but still playing the same brash and edgy music that they always have. but these cellists seem to complicate this a bit...their hair is long (except for the one guy) and they look like what metal is supposed to look like (culturally speaking of course) while they play metal music in a refined, classical style. it's odd, these guys look the way metalica sounds like but play metal music the way that the metalica group members look like (aesthetically, that is). i think this is what we would call mixing up the signifier and the signified...now if only the twain should meet...or should they?

(long) poem of the week...or past weeks ;-)

Dorothy Allison


The Women Who Hate Me
Dorothy Allison

1

The women who do not know me.

The women who, not knowing me, hate me
mark my life, rise in my dreams and shake their loose hair
throw out their thin wrists, narrow their already sharp eyes
say "Who do you think you are?"

"Lazy, useless, cuntsucking, scared, stupid
What you scared of anyway?"
Their eyes, their hands, their voices
Terrifying.

The women who hate me cut me
as men can't. Men don't count.
I can handle men. Never expected better
of any man anyway.
But the women,
shallow-cheeked young girls the world was made for
safe little girls who think nothing of bravado
who never got over by playing it tough.

What do they know of my fear?

What do they know of the women in my body?
My weakening hips, sharp good teeth
angry nightmares, scarred cheeks
fat thighs, fat everything.

"Don't smile too wide, You look like a fool."
"Don't want too much You an't gonna get it."
An't gonna get it.
Goddamn.

Say Goddamn and kick somebody's ass
that I am not even half what I should be,
full of terrified angry bravado
BRAVADO.

The women who hate me
don't know
can't imagine
life-saving, precious bravado.

2

God on their right shoulder
righteousness on their left,
the women who hate me never use words
like hate, speak instead of nature
of the spirit not housed in the flesh
as if my body, a temple of sin,
didn't mirror their own.

Their measured careful words echo
earlier courser stuff, say

"What do you think you're doing?"
Who do you think you are?"

"Whitetrash
no-count
bastard
mean-eyed
garbage-mouth
cuntsucker
cuntsucker
no good to anybody, never did diddlyshit anyway."

"You figure out yet who you an't gonna be?"

The women who hate me hate
their insistent desires, their fat lusts
swallowed and hidden, disciplined to nothing
narrowed to bone and dry hot dreams.
The women who hate me deny
hunger and apppetite,
the cream delight
of a scream
that arches the thighs and fills
the mouth with singing.

3

Something hides here
a secret thing shameful and complicated.
Something hides in a tight mouth a life too easily rendered
a childhood of inappropriate longing
a girl's desire to grow into a man
a boyish desire to stretch and sweat.

Every three years I discover again
that No I knew nothing before.
Everthing must be dragged out,
looked over again, The unexamined life
is the lie, but still
must I every time deny
everything I knew before?

4

My older sister tells me flatly
she don't care who I take to my bed
what I do there. Tells me finally
she sees no difference between
her husbands, my lovers. Behind it all
we are too much the same to deny.

My little sister thinks my older crazy
thinks me sick
more shameful to be queer than crazy
as if her years hustling ass,
her pitful junky whiteboy
saved through methadone and marriage, all that
asslicking interspersed with asskicking
all those pragmatic family skills we share mean nothing
measured against the little difference
of who and what I am.

My little sister too
is one of the women who hate me.

5

I measure it differently, what's shared,
what's denied, what no one wants recognized.
my first lover's skill at mystery,
how one day she was there, the next gone;
the woman with whom I lived for eight years
but slept with less than one;
the lover who tied me to the foot of her bed
when I didn't really want that
but didn't really know
what else I could get.

What else can I get?
Must I rewrite my life
edit it down to a parable where everything
turns out for the best?

But then what would I do with the lovers
too powerful to disappear, the women
too hard to melt to soft stuff?
Now that I know that soft stuff
was never where I wanted to put my hand.

6

The women who hate me
hate too my older sister
with her many children, her weakness for
good whiskey, country music, bad men.
She says the thing "women's lib" has given her
is a sense she don't have to stay too long
though she does
still she does
much too long.

7

I am not sure anymore of the difference.
I do not believe anymore in the natural superiority
of the lesbian, the difference between my sisters and me.

Fact is, for all I tell my sisters
I turned out terrific at it myself:
sucking cunt, stroking ego, provoking
manipulating, comforting and keeping.
Plotting my life around mothering
other women's desperation
the way my sisters
build their lives
around their men.
Til I found myself sitting at the kitchen table
shattered glass, blood in my lap and her
the good one with her stern insistence
just stanidng there wanting me
to explain it to her, save her from being
alone with herself.

Or the other one
another baby-butch wounded girl
How can any of us forget how wounded
any of us have to be to get that hard?
Never to forget that working class says nothing
does not say who she was how she was
fucking me helpless. Her hand on my arm
raising lust to my throat, that lust
everyone says does not happen
through it goes on happening
all the time.

How can I speak of her, us together?
Her touch drawing heat from my crotch to my face
her face, terrifying, wonderful.
My saying, "Yeah, goddamn it, yeah,
put it to me, ease me, fuck me, anything..."
til the one thinkg I refused
then back up against a wall
her rage ugly in the muscles of her neck
her fist swinging up to make a wind,
a wind blowing back to my mama's cheek
past my stepfather's arm

I ask myself over and over how I
came to be standing in such a wind?
How I came to be held up like my mama
with my jeans, my shoes locked in a drawer
and the woman I loved breathing on me
"You bitch. You damned fool."

"You want to try it?"
"You want to walk to Brooklyn
barefooted?"
"You want to try it
mothernaked?"

Which meant, of course, I had to decide
how naked I was willing to go where.

Do I forget all that?
Deny all that?
Pretend I am not
my mama's daughter
my sisters' mirror.
Pretend I have not
at least as much lust
in my life as pain?

Where then will I find the country
where women never wrong women
where we will sit knee to knee
finally listening
to the whole
naked truth
of our lives?

what does YOUR birthdate mean?

so i found this neat little website from a random blog that i visited...i thought it was kind of nifty. here is what my birthdate means:

Your Birthdate: January 22

You tend to be understated and under appreciated. You have a hidden force to do amazing things, doing them your own way. People may see you as strange and shy, but they know little. Your unconventional ways have more power than they (and even you) know. Your strength: Standing up for what you know is true Your weakness: You tend to be picky and rigid Your power color: Silver Your power symbol: Square Your power month: April

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

here's the link in case you're interested

http://www.blogthings.com/whatdoesyourbirthdatemeanquiz/