A Reading From The Book of Timothy

It was explained to me
That at the Austin Poetry Slam
Among the regulars
There are 3 types of poets:

Writers, Competitors, and Performers

And if you aim to do well here
To win the love of audiences and judges
The esteem of fellow poets
You gotta be a little bit of all 3

But everyone's got a strong suit

Take the writers
These are the ones who think in metaphor
Who never once in their lives have just woken up in the morning
But who every goddamn dawning are wrenched from the oblivion of somnolence
They never see a stop sign on the road without thinking of the syntactical signification ... of pausing
If you tell them your heart is broken they will help you understand
By way of clocks, drums, shattered glass, oceans, demolition crews, Muhammed Ali, chemistry, or Pokemon
Bless their hearts.

And then there are the Competitors.
They are here to win. They are not here to not win.
If they do not win, they must know why.
Was it score creep was it a biased panel of judges
In the next round should they make the audience cry
Or should they make the audience pee themselves with laughter
What liquid should they elicit from the audience
They acknowledge that slam is a game of strategy
And they are tactical geniuses
Bless their hearts.

And then there are the Performers
I count myself in this number
We are the former theatre and debate kids
Who aren't into improv but who cannot wait
For three more minutes of your undivided attention
We thrive on the "Hey Girl Hey" and the "Spit Poet"
And the "I like your dress"
Because we wore this dress hoping you'd like it, and it's not a costume violation if you say it
We are in love with the microphone
And we can be exhausting to be around, but we are totes worth it probably
Bless our dumb, adorable hearts.

And while cataloguing poets this way might be slightly oversimplifying things
I have seen it born out in my time here
And if you think about the poets you know
I think you'll recognize most of them in this list

I say most of them.
Because I would like to offer up a 4th type.

I will call them the Heart poets
Because they are here, week after week,
To share their hearts with you
And to listen to yours.
These are the poets
Who offer first a kind word
And second a kind poem
They see hurt in the world
And they don't spit about it because it's trendy
Or because they hope you'll applaud
They're here to say love aloud

And sometimes they sing a poem
And at first you're like "That's weird"
But then you're like, "FUCK YEAH. MORE OF THAT."

If it were not for these poets,
We might sometimes get lost
In the search for applause
In our ambition
In gazing at our own navels

Heart poets make us purer
They remind us why it is important to be here

Thank God we have a Tim
Bless
Bless
Bless his heart

Tarot for Tara

Ten of cups

We overflow

There is family here and joy

He is the sway in your hips

And the whirl of your hurricane heart upward burst forth into a rainbow

Some presence you have never had before,

Your yes to life

The hanged man

Is this not what we are here to learn?

How to be and hang

How to glow, at peace in a moment pregnant with possibilities

(Look upside down! See how we dance!
How we tree our way into breaths

We are tall for the coming sapling

Heart open, chest broad, in the now)

Six of wands

A victory

Health and a crowd around you

A tribe, your tribe to wave you forward

Keep them near, honor their love

For you and for this new life

They buoy you up

Nine of swords

What keeps you up at night

What good life is worth staying awake for

What tiny-lung caterwaul says you

You and you, the protector and the light

No better cause for worry, this Lilliputian miracle

Nine of pentacles

Now in a garden replete with growth

Redolent in the overflow of a toddling consequence

Perhaps there are snails

Perhaps some weights heavy on your shoulders

And perhaps the garden is not unencumbered as it once seemed

But the truth of beautiful harvest remains

When you have brought forth life

What you reap is love

And love and love

Gloria, In Excelsis

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

“She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me.”

"In cases such as these, a good memory is unpardonable"

I have seen Pride and Prejudice, the one with Colin Firth, approximately eleventy-zillion times, give or take.

And not because it's dreamy to watch Darcy broodingly swim in a lake at his estate at Pemberly in a way that is totally extraneous to the plot but allows him to emerge from the lake disarmingly dripping and attractive.
No.
Rather, I've seen BBCP&P so many times because it is the best way to spend time with my grandmother. Two decades ago, she began to go blind, and decided to to re-watch movies she had seen before so that she could still see the movie in her mind's eye, if not on the screen, and like a homing pigeon, she always returns to Pride and Prejudice.

So for many years now, if I wanted to chill with grandma, it meant watching this movie over and over again, to the point that I see your ability to quote scenes from The Princess Bride or Napoleon Dynamite, and raise you the entire 6-hour BBC mini-series adaptation of Jane Austen's most popular novel.

We watch Darcy scorn Elizabeth, and she says, "Oh he's proud, but just you wait."
She knows that everyone who is proud eventually gets taken down
We don't get to say how
Sometimes the eyes go first, sometimes the bowels
Sometimes the memory.

She forgets now.
Pieces of her life get wrenched out like pulled teeth
They're pulling all her bottom teeth out next week.
She'll be under anesthetic when it happens but when she wakes up there will be throbbing holes where bones used to be.

She asks if I remember my uncle, her son who died when I was twenty. If I remember Russell, her second husband who died when I was eleven. If I remember my grandfather, who died just after my mother told him she was pregnant with me.

I tell her I will remember.

I will remember that she was a Sicilian matriarch. A New Orleanian survivor.
And when she dies I do not expect to inherit anything but this:
I make gumbo the way my father does, the way she taught him

First you make a roux
And you stay with it. Don't leave. Stay and stir. Watch it.
Don't leave or it will burn.
Don't leave.
Don't leave.
She is going anyway. I cannot stop her.

So as she goes, I will let my memory become selective too. I will forget how she shat herself at the airport and I tried to clean her up without making her feel embarrassed. I will forget that I never wanted to know whether or not she had lost most of her pubic hair. I will forget that there are so many things now she can't remember. I will forget how scared I am of losing her

I will remember her calling me her baby. I will remember her humming Sinatra. I will remember her saying a rosary for me.

And anyway, in cases such as this, a good memory is unpardonable.

Little Lullaby for JackieRose

The whistling dove tucks her head in her wing
In the morning she'll rise up and fly and sing
She'll meet all the gifts the new day will bring
But for now she tucks her head in her wing

The lion cub begins to snore
In the morning he'll rise up and pounce and roar
He'll prowl as he never has prowled before
But for now the lion cub starts to snore

The arctic fox nestles in her burrow
In the morning she'll rise up and stretch and go
She'll bound and she'll leap in the pillowy snow
But for now she nestles in her burrow

The gosling sleeps under his mother's breast
In the morning he'll rise up and leave the nest
He'll peep and he'll flap and he'll swim with the rest
But for now he sleeps 'neath his mother's breast

And you, my love, are tucked in tight
In the morning you'll rise up and greet the light
You will play and grow be happy and bright
But for now it's time to say goodnight

Upon My Return

Hey, denizens of the ballroom,
How's it going?
I haven't talked to you in a minute
More than a minute
It's sloppy language, I know
And that's one of the cardinal sins, sloppy language
Maybe not as cardinal as wasting words
Which is what I'm doing now...
I'm stalling...

I asked for this microphone, and someone lent it to me
Along with three minutes
Three minutes to speak my heart
My sandpaper knees knocking about so that I can turn
To you, unlace my stitches and say
"Here is where I have been hurt"
or "Here is my dream for how things could be"

And it's possible. You beautiful body of strangers
You listen, take in, snap or give scores
Hiss only in the case of true jackassery
But mostly you uphold

And so I got to thinking I was good at opening up
Because I have told you secrets
About the important things in my life
Like question of God, my fear of fat,
my unquenchable baby fever,
and my lust for musicians...
The important things...about how I am trying to be better at being a human.

I thought if I showed you my weak spots
It meant I could claim confidence, like
I AM AMAZING AT VULNERABILITY.
Eat it, Brene Brown!

But I'm seeing this girl,
Have been for a minute, ok more than a minute
And she's really talented at being a human
And one night we're having a conversation about biting
--you see, I'm a biter
And I don't just mean for sexy times
I mean, I bite often, as a way to say hello or I missed you
It's actually pretty normal, I read online how
there is evolutionary cause for our urge to bite things that are cute--
Anyway, I'm stalling. We're talking
And she says, "I trust you."

Like it's easy
Like falling.

And I want to say, "Is that a good idea?
Do you know how many times a day I get lost driving places I've been before?"
Getting lost is like falling. It's easy.

But trust...to open up to a person who is inches away
Without blinding stage lights or the expectation of snaps
To tell someone whose breath heats my cheeks
That I'm afraid of infertility or that when I hear Catholic hymns I ache like
There's a dull thud in my teeth and a heavy door closing
The kind made of old wood and carved with images of saints
How I believe she is a miracle
And that she loves me is a miracle
And how strange it is to be a person who doesn't really believe in God
but does believe in miracles

To say those things is like falling in a different way
Like falling in.

And I think I'm here tonight because, comparatively, it's easy
To give away pieces of myself to strangers
To pretend we know each other, only to go home in separate cars
is easy.

So I'll consider it practice.
I will say things to you until it's less scary
to say them to her.
I am a work in progress. I am often afraid.
But I'm here. I trust you.
It's like falling in.

Hey Mama

My friend Kayla is a midwife, and when I see her she says, "Hey Mama."

And I remember working at a restaurant
when I was nineteen.
Half the kitchen spoke Spanish
and the other half spoke Arabic,
but they all called me "Little mama."

I liked to imagine it was because I carried
the things they made,
brought them out to the world,
but I'm pretty sure it was because
they didn't remember my name.
"Order's up, little mama."

But this now
it's different from how Abdullah and Santiago said it.
I show up, and you say, "Hey Mama,"
I feel lit up like an angiogram. Like you can tell
exactly what in me is about to burst.

I want to say, "No.
You got it wrong.
I am empty real estate. Toxic assets.
I never gave my marrow to another human.
I'm not awake like mamas. Strong like mamas.
I'm not choke out weeds and tiger rake like mamas."

I thought I would be by now.
I thought my hips were wide for a reason.
and I was meant to split open like a watermelon
to let life come swimming out
But my juices run for nothing
and I bleed a little more every month
And the only thing pregnant
is the pause, when I don't know how to answer.

What does it mean, Kayla, when a midwife calls you Mama?
Does it mean you see all women this way?
Are we all this kind of hale vessel
You know, I've been mistaken for pregnant before.
It wasn't nice.
And I realize that's not what's happening when you say, "Hey Mama,"
But all the same, I need you to know that I'm a salted garden
Nothing grows here
And if I cannot grow things,
then what is all this bosom and baking and active listening for?
How woman am I?

So I've come up with a list of other things it can mean
when you say "Hey Mama."
Like, it could mean,
"Your boobs look amazing."
Or
"Your skin and hair are glowing
and you have the patience of a thousand
red-vested Buckingham Palace guards."

Or maybe it could mean,
"The thing you're carrying is heavy and it hurts
And if it needs to come bleeding and squalling
into the world, I will hold your hand while you scream
and remind you to breathe."

Hey. Mama.
It's ok.
Keep breathing.

Just In Cases- The Language Barrier Poem

Used to be, when I was sad, my moose of a brother would squish me. I mean literally, lean his entire torso on me until I was flat on the floor, all of the air pressed out of my lungs, and then he would say:
"HEY DANIELLE. What did the big volcano say to the little volcano? I LAVA YOU!"
And prone on the ground, unable to breathe, I would know, unequivocally, that I was loved.
Even if it wasn't comfortable or helpful, it was true.

These days it seems it's not so clear.
I say the word love thirty times a day.
And half the time I don't even know what I mean
I love my mother
I love breakfast tacos
I love those earrings
I love Arrested Development
I love that Lorde song, And we'll never be Royals (Royals!)
I love Grumpy Cat

According to the internet
and this guy Gary Chapman,
there are different ways we express and receive love,
Called the five love languages,
Gifts!
Quality time!
Words of affirmation!
Acts of service!
Physical touch!

And we don't all speak the same one.
No wonder we get confused.
We're all tower of Babel, giving our preferences and declensions in different tongues
My mouth is guttural, a churning fountain of mud
And you're waiting to hear "Kiss me" in Italian
When the only verb I know in Italian is "eat,"
So I tell you "Mangiami!" and hope you don't slap me

There are times I am trying to say to you,
"I'm lost and I just want one thing to be sure of"
But you hear,
"Can you hold my purse?"

And other days you say,
"Rawr means I love you in dinosaur!"
And I hear a fucking cute cartoon
But what if you meant something
with more hot breath and claws?
How would I even know?

I have stood atop the clock tower,
Calling until my lungs would burst
"Que je t'aime, que je t'aime, que je t'aime!"
Like one day you'll just wake up knowing French

I'm exhausted by this language barrier
So I'm hiring a couple of translators
Ones who speak the love languages
I know how to work in.
So our next conversations will go like this:

Il est arrivé lentement
It happened slowly
-I preheated the oven to 350 degrees-

Si lentement, je ne l'ai pas realizéSo slowly, I didn't realize as it was happening
-I took from the pantry my containers of flour, salt, yeast, nutmeg, cinnamon, pecans, white sugar and brown. Butter, eggs, and milk from the fridge.-

Je suis arrivée comme une éléphant dans un jeu de quille. Lourde comme le plomb, et maladroit, je n'savais pas quoi faire avec mes bras, mais tu m'as rendu lègere comme le papier.I arrived on this scene like an elephant in a game of bowling. Lead-heavy and clumsy, I didn't know what to do with my limbs, but you made me feel light as paper
-I combined dry ingredients with dry, wet with wet. And then all together. I kneaded the dough until my fingers were webbed and sticky. There was flour in my hair, under my fingernails. Patience lets all things happen in their time, so let it rise.

On dit, qui sème le vent récolte la tempête. Mais toi, tu étais le vent violent que je voulais laisser rentrerThey say, if you sow the wind, you will reap the storm. But you, you were the gale I wanted to let in
-For the filling, I mixed the butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and pecans, spread it out over the dough, and rolled it up tight. Again I let it rise, and then bake. Sometimes waiting is the hardest part. When was cooled, I drizzled the sugar and colored . The entire house smelled warm and yeasty.

Tout ce que je veux c'est que tu me renverses. Trempe-moi jusqu'à la moelle.All I want is for you to blow me over, soak me to the bone
-"Here," I said. "I made this for you."

Cookie Monster

The idea behind Skinnerian Neobehaviorism,
or operant conditioning,
is based on positive reinforcement.
The surest way to reinforce a behavior
is through a system of rewards.
My dog Sufjan is a big fan of Skinnerian Neobehaviorism.
Example: when Sufjan refrains from
jumping on guests entering my house,
he is rewarded with bits of hot dog.
My life is better because my guests aren't being assaulted,
and Sufjan's life is better because hot dog.

And though we humans like to think of ourselves
as far more complex creatures
the truth is that operant conditioning works really well with people, too.
Humans are more likely to continue a behavior if they
are being rewarded for it.

Example: when I was a kid, I had a chore chart,
and I got stickers for doing things like cleaning the bathroom.
Today I clean the bathroom not because I'm dying for
one more Lisa Frank rainbow tiger cub, but because
I actually believe in the importance of personal hygiene.
But it took a little while for that understanding to evolve.

I bring all this up because I was recently left with a bitter
taste in my mouth from an encounter I witnessed second-hand.

The argument was that it's annoying when people in positions of privilege
acknowledge that privilege, and then get rewarded for it.
That they shouldn't get cookies for that.

At first I was offended. As a white person having realized the ways she has
unwittingly benefited from institutionalized racism, why shouldn't I
have a forum to discuss wanting to reject that system, and
to discuss the process of sussing out how to do that?

And then I remembered how I sometimes get annoyed when a guy stands
at this very microphone and gets mega-audience praise for
saying that violence against women is unacceptable. I roll my eyes
because women have been saying that for a long time, and why
should he get a cookie for saying these things? He gets rewarded
because it's so novel for a dude to acknowledge the patently obvious
fact that rape is a terrible idea. Oh good. You figured it out. Yay.

I have these inclinations, too. The instinct to expect that everyone
has had the same life exposures I have.  But the truth is,
not everybody got to take Discourse in Feminism, or African Diaspora
Studies courses at college. Not everybody got to go to college.
Some people did go to college and it reinforced their shitty opinions.

So I've decided. When a person gets up on this stage and states a truth,
even if that truth has been crystal clear to me for a long time,
I say, they get cookies.

I mean, we're speaking metaphorically here. There's no finite number of cookies.
It's not like we're going to run out.
There is no limit to the praise we can give our fellow humans.
No limit to how we can lift each other up
when we get better at seeing each other as people
wading through a thousand different labels of
race, gender identity, ability, sexuality, nationality, language,
We're just people trying to navigate a world we inherited
and want to make better.

So yes, dude who is JUST NOW figuring out that "bitch"
is not a respectful way to address a woman.
Yes, friend who recently stopped adding the phrase "No homo"
to the end of every paragraph.
Yes, white girl who wants to change a system that rewards her for being white.
And yes, dear friends who have been screaming your throats raw
trying to make these truths heard for a long, too long, time.
You get a cookie.

And if somebody tries to say that you don't, come over to my house.
I'll be baking all evening.

Gallows Birds

The dog made a jail break while I was away.

He dug under the fence and went exploring the drenched avenues.

My neighbor caught him, dried him off, and brought him into her house.

She called the number on his collar and demanded a reward for his return.

I paid the dog's ransom, laid bricks in the hole under the fence,

Deposited him in the tub for a thorough rinse.

His only regret of the evening, I think, was the bath.

How tiresome, these humans, with their rough and patient scrubbing.

Gluttony

From my infancy I wanted to taste the world
Try out everything on my tongue
Grass and tables and mama's hair and
educationally engineered teething rings

I know I am not unique in this,
in wanting to find out fox holes and mirrors
and electrical sockets
(which maybe explains some things)

Today, the window of what I will allow in my mouth
has narrowed, which is, arguably, for the better.
But there are tastes I have missed.

I  have let in sugar and starch, syrup and sauce,
sluiced prodigally in place of the salt of someone else's secrets
I let savors come slushing down my throat
hoping to hush what hungers there
But it will not be stilled, this fevered yen.
It's not enough, maybe never enough
but what's enough?
I don't think in this lifetime I will ever feel
Full
but in the meantime there is taste.

Have you ever put something in your mouth
and known it was holy?
Come to my house some evening.
Bring a bottle of whatever you like.
I will show you how I pray these days.

There was a moment in my life
I stopped believing in God
and started believing in salt.
That whatever is alive grows
and dies and nourishes something else
And that includes me
I have only so many years
to let the world in through my mouth
Before I am served up cold
So instead of praying, now I have learned to add heat.
I braise and boil, and roast and broil
I steam.

I cannot promise you salvation
But come into my kitchen
It will be redolent with the sizzle of onions and hymns
There's voodoo in my tenderloin
Don't you fall in love with me
And say I didn't warn you.

We will offer libations and smash our glasses
And learn what it means to open
You will taste like Alleluia
and I will taste like Amen
And maybe that's close enough to holy
for now