“ACTIVIST”
In the middle of the Pacific Ocean
there is a mass twice the size of Texas
formed entirely from the trash of plastic.
There is four hundred pound sea turtle
about about to swallow what she thinks
is a jellyfish.
We say jellyfish have no hearts.
We say we do.
Jesus said “Forgive them father
for they do not know what they doing.”
Is that true?
Do we not know what we have done?
Over five million people have died in wars in the Congo
fighting for the minerals that make our cell phones.
A tactic of this war is to rape the women,
then cut off their lips and arms,
and AT&T can still convince me
to reach out and touch someone.
Last night I went on a date to see the movie “Black Swan.” With about 20 minutes left in the movie I ran out of the theater. Running out of a theater because you’re afraid of a scary bird woman is not the sexiest way to impress. I sat in the car whimpering like a wounded hyena until the movie ended and my girlfriend came to make sure my lungs were still working. Scary movies are not for me. All night I dreamt I was in a mental hospital in Pennsylvania with a Dracula doctor who wanted to give me a lobotomy. I was trying to figure out if I’d write better or worse poems with a lobotomy. My mind is not my friend. My heart, on the other hand, is my bff. Even in my most give up of give up moments my heart keeps chipping away at the brick. All these walls are gonna fall someday and there I’ll be, a hoodied tulip smoking a bubble gum cigarette and french kissing the junkyard dog -who’s really just been trying to scare the fence away. Holy holy, I could swallow a meadow right now. Set all the clocks to icicle melting time. Icicle melting time is good and slow. Last night in the movie previews someone said, “Unless you love, your life will flash by.” I liked that a lot. Whatever movie that comes from I wish I’d seen that one instead of the scary bird woman film. (I take back what I said before…..you can be scared and still be sexy. Remember that.)
I have weather veins.
They are especially sensitive
to dust storms and hurricanes.
When I am nervous my teeth chatter
like a wheelbarrow collecting rain.
I am rusty when I talk.
It’s the storm in me.
I’ve been performing poetry for over 10 years. I always get nervous. That’s why I stopped reading poems off of paper. My hands would shake too bad to hold on to the page. I heard once that the degree to which you are nervous for an event is the degree to which you respect it. If that is true, I have an enormous amount of respect for every stage that holds my feet these days, and yes, I think that’s true. There are few things in this world that make me feel more blessed than a room full of people with generously open ears and hearts. So many mornings, like today, I wake up and think, “I cannot believe I am doing this for a living!” That said…lately I’ve been thinking about a show I did in Brooklyn years ago. It was a small space, somewhat of a house concert, but not quite. I was performing with musician Chris Pureka, who is a good friend. It was in my first year of touring and because it was a small room and a small space I treated the show as such. When I read my poems I read them to fill a small room and didn’t give them the energy or the heart I would give to a larger
crowd. After the show Chris called me on my energy….told me that if I had intentions of making any sort of career out of poetry I could never ever treat ANY show like a small show, reminded me that every audience deserves the full presence of a performer , and anything less is a real slap in the face to the integrity of the art. In all the feedback I’ve been given throughout the years, that night sticks with me the most. Check out chrispureka.com –go to a show—and see what I mean. Love.