Grief vs. Joy, Rage vs. Hope

andrewgibby:

(For Emily Wonderboy Saavedra,

my tour manager/buddy/partner in poetry for the last two years,

in celebration of our final weekend of shows together.)

The fact that you are the most positive,

hopeful, joyful person in the entire world

makes the fact that we get along a goddamn miracle.

Two years into our friendship

I still ask you about being happy

in the same way my high school friends 

still ask me about being gay,

“So what do you do exactly?

I mean, how do you do”it”?

And by “it” I mean smile,

all the fucking time,

like your mouth is a glory garden

and your teeth are the tulips

you grew for the “Say Yes To Sunshine Festival.”

Were you born this way?

Or did your mother raise you to be a fairy?

A literal fairy, with the magic

and the dust that sparkles.

I was in the worst fucking mood

shipwrecking around the clashing waves of feminism

the day you called me, voice singing like a chickadee on a sunflower

to tell me you bought velvet shoes.

Who buys velvet shoes?

I have 16 handmade postman delivered

postcards on my refrigerator from you

and we live in the same town.

The only time I ever turn my frown upside down

is when I’m standing on my head in yoga class,

and I only go to yoga class

to infiltrate Om time with the question:

“I wonder if visualizing world peace

is just an excuse to sit on my ass?”

I swear to God if I see one more “Free Tibet” sticker on an SUV

my head is gonna explode into peace flag confetti.

But you aren’t even paying attention to the cars

with the bumper stickers that say,

“If you’re not outraged you’re not paying attention!”

Instead you’re meandering around on your bicycle

in a snowstorm

praising the ice on the streets for being so shiny.

I don’t even think you have a heart beat.

I think you have a heart kiss.

If think if you listened to it with a stethoscope it would sound like:

kiss kiss…….kiss kiss…….kiss kiss………

I’m serious.

You make Mary Oliver look like Quentin Tarantino.

I’d give anything for film footage of you

in your suspenders and mohawk

handing out love letters to strangers.

Or you walking downtown with your 20 pound typewriter

to type love poems for the lonely.

Nobody ever believes me

when I try to describe your hand-puppet theater

or your ukulele singing

or the ferris-wheel spinning of your parking lot dance,

not to mention all the videos you post on YouTube

of you bending gender into a bowtie with a tutu.

I walk through the airport 

my conscience in a constant fistfight with my own use of jet fuel.

On the plane I go off about the wars fought

for the minerals that make our cell phones,

while you compliment the flight attendant

on her pretty teal scarf.  She blushes

like all the world’s blood spill has just left the battle

to bloom a rose garden in her face.

How do you talk so kindly to everyone?

Including the manager at the front desk of the hotel

when we found that 2^nd poisonous mousetrap beneath the bed?

How did you not scream when homophobes

keyed our rental car in Florida?

I burst a blood vessel in my eyeball that day.

As I’m writing this it still looks like Rudolf’s nose

while you’re somewhere elfin around in a velvet suit

probably carving wooden toys for children

I’m tearing up my throat trying to tell the world

how Santa mines his coal.

I have always believed in thunder,

in the loud truth that shakes the fruit from the trees

while you have always believed in blowing kisses to the seeds.

I’d say I’ll forever be inclined to argue

for the fire of sacred rage,

but you’ve taught me

there is probably little chance for revolution

if we are all doing things the same,

if we’re all reading the same books,

underlining the same words

in the same lines

on the same page.

Unless of course, we’re reading Mary Oliver,

who said, “Imagine grief as the out breath of beauty

or the gesture of fish.

Swim for the other side.  Wage peace….

Learn the word thank you in three languages.”

Emily, thank you

from the top of my roaring lungs

to the tippy toes of your fairy feet.

I honestly believe in magic when I’m around you.

I believe in the heart kiss and in the heart beat

and in all the ways we stand up for love

that swinging chandelier in the shack-castle chest,

in all the ways we sing the word YES

into this dark dark dark infuriating

yet lovely world.

andrewgibby:

Don’t google your name.  Ever.   

Don’t “search” for yourself

on anything that glows in the dark.

Don’t let your beauty

be something anyone can turn off.

Don’t edit your ugly out of your bio.

Let your light come from the fire.

Let your pain be the spark,

but not the timber.

Remember, you didn’t come here

to write your heart out.

You came to write it in.

(via jswezey)

"Walking Around an Albuquerque Airport Terminal

After learning my flight was detained 4 hours,
I heard the announcement.
If anyone in the vicinity of gate 4-A understands any Arabic,
Please come to the gate immediately.

Well — one pauses these days. Gate 4-A was my own gate. I went there.
An older woman in full traditional Palestinian dress,
Just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing loudly.
Help, said the flight service person. Talk to her. What is her
Problem? we told her the flight was going to be four hours late and she
Did this.

I put my arm around her and spoke to her haltingly.
Shu dow-a, shu- biduck habibti, stani stani schway, min fadlick,
Sho bit se-wee?

The minute she heard any words she knew — however poorly used —
She stopped crying.

She thought our flight had been cancelled entirely.
She needed to be in El Paso for some major medical treatment the
Following day. I said no, no, we’re fine, you’ll get there, just late,

Who is picking you up? Let’s call him and tell him.
We called her son and I spoke with him in English.
I told his I would stay with his mother till we got on the plane and
Would ride next to her — southwest.

She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for the fun of it.

Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and
Found out of course they had ten shared friends.

Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian
Poets I know and let them chat with her. This all took up about 2 hours.

She was laughing a lot by then. Telling about her life. Answering
Questions.

She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies — little powdered
Sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts — out of her bag —
And was offering them to all the women at the gate.

To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a
Sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the traveler form California,
The lovely woman from Laredo — we were all covered with the same
Powdered sugar. And smiling. There are no better cookies.

And then the airline broke out the free beverages from huge coolers —
Non-alcoholic — and the two little girls for our flight, one African
American, one Mexican American — ran around serving us all apple juice
And lemonade and they were covered with powdered sugar too.

And I noticed my new best friend — by now we were holding hands —
Had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing,

With green furry leaves. Such an old country traveling tradition. Always
Carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.

And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and thought,
This is the world I want to live in. The shared world.

Not a single person in this gate — once the crying of confusion stopped
— has seemed apprehensive about any other person.

They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women too.
This can still happen anywhere.

Not everything is lost."

Naomi Shihab Nye, “Wandering Around an Albuquerque Airport Terminal” (via words-in-lines)

I love this poem.

(via popelizbet)

(via redoctoberrose)

Everyone who terrifies you is sixty-five percent water.
And everyone you love is made of stardust, and I know sometimes
you cannot even breathe deeply, and
the night sky is no home, and
you have cried yourself to sleep enough times
that you are down to your last two percent, but

nothing is infinite,
not even loss.

You are made of the sea and the stars, and one day
you are going to find yourself again.  

(Source: finnualabutler, via dontdosadnesss)

leandralocke:

(Source: conversationsinmarvel, via dederants)

lovequotesrus:

EVERYTHING LOVE

(Source: love-yourself-so-noone-has-to, via theysayallcatsaregrey-deactivat)

lovequotesrus:

EVERYTHING LOVE

(via theysayallcatsaregrey-deactivat)

lovequotesrus:

EVERYTHING LOVE

(Source: incked, via theysayallcatsaregrey-deactivat)

“No man is an island.” -John Donne