Our small fears "I'm not good at looking at art"

"I'm not good at looking at art" I have had more than one person say this to me.  

Oh everyone, never look at a piece of art again and wonder what you are supposed to feel or do 
or see
Feel what you are feeling, think what you are thinking 
Never pretend again to be interested if you are bored
Stop being polite
lets go back to the day of throwing tomatoes if we are disappointed. 
Stomping our feet to ask for a beat.  
If you don't understand the conversation ask a question or leave 
Leave 
be brave and leave now scared humans

Everyone cry with me again 
Oh we who hold the power to blow the shell of our planet up over and over again but are to scared to tell the artist that we are bored
To scared to tell the doctor we still hurt
to scared to not go to the meaningless job
to stop buying the tools of the slave master
to scared to admit our own part in the rape 
to go against the pressure of friends
to scared of pain or death and rejection. 
We are lost
Our powers go spinning out so so far beyond our own small lives. 
Our stories no longer fit into the reality
We have woven ourselves into a tangled web of lies 

I'm hungry for you to admit what is happening
What happened
I'm hungry for you to know what it feels like to be me or them 
or for you to share what it really was like for you
To pour spill your ache out like the gush of water breaking
To vomit it onto the floor no hiding anymore. 
I am so hungry I can almost taste your scream in my mouth
behind your swallowed words

Human of the world be the artists, be the rebels 
be the angels
scare me with your beauty and ugliness
rise up into the sky with your own billowy dreams 
and sink into the earth with the lead of your pain
save me 
with your truth

Person so unlike me

Person so unlike me
learned in the forces of abusing power
addicted to feeling above
liar
offensive
abuser
controller.
Trying to get the world to swirl around you
and your small vision
splintered understanding.
Surrounding yourself with perfect beauty
painted skin
shiny screens, plastic and gold leaf.
try to hold it still
try to keep it
as it melts to the ground.

Coat yourself with young beauties
who open themselves up for you
push your children out
who's sweetness you drink
and try to parade as yours
and then discard.

keep trying to steal into
to burrow into the perfection of woman
pussy
sweet warm
forgiving
opening
loving
beautiful
pussy
keep trying to grab it
because you know
that is where the truth is.

you were pushed out of a woman
from a womb filled with fluid.
They are the crack in your facade
you need them.
you need us.
You touch skin because
you
are just like me
wanting only
to know
you are special
and lovable
That you are ok
that it will all be ok.
that the mother will welcome you back.
You want only to return.
You know you are as gross as your shit
you are as sick as the flu
you are heading for death.

I will meet you someday
in the ocean of life.
In the smear and the mud.
Someday I will make love to you
lay beside you
in the swirl of
atoms
be kissed by the same sun light as you
and forgive you
and hold you
as the scared child you are.
And life will laugh at us
and how ridiculously far from the truth we walked.

Fuck the shame and the quiet

fuck this culture
and all the cages and lies
I'm so bored and sick and tired of seeing so many souls in cages
bodies holding back their dance
eyes hiding their longing for love or holding back their tears
are you uncomfortable if i say the word boob?
or grossed out when i talk about the dogs poop?
shy about your clumsy body?
your fat, the stuff of life, your bones or shape?
worried if you smell?
because fuck it.
fuck it
fuck fake nails and deodorant and hair spray
fuck business suits, white teeth and saying the right thing
fuck diets and not jiggling or boob implants
fuck being quiet.
fuck holding it in.
you came out with shit smeared on your body
your sacred body
bloody and weak
you cried to be held
your body is here because breasts make milk and babes suckle
your here because your mother and father fucked
in love
or in longing
or even in pain
maybe even in violation, rape
your here because the earth rips itself apart and makes new mountains
because new pine trees grow after the fire passes
your here because bodies rot and go back to the earth
you are here because bees do make love to flowers
because we have longing to taste another between our legs
your here because fucking super delisious guacamole come out your ass a day later as shit.
its the fucking same for everyone
so get over it
there is nothing to hide
we all know it
so fuck the shame.

your here to live and die
to rage and scream and fight and love
your here to dance and sing
your here despite the fact that your parents ate all the lies
your here even if your grandpa was the biggest asshole there was
your here in this world of slaves and abusers
lovers and mothers
blind followers and corrupt leaders
believing that private ownership of water and land is real
your here as the guns hold up the lies.
but really
our earth belongs to the air and the birds
and to us
our bodies belong to us.

so stop believing the lies
stop listening to this fucked up culture that tells you to hide.
look like shit
or shine your beautiful self over everyone
smell like sweat
wear that old shirt or the glitter in you grey hair
show me the hole in your front teeth,
let your smile and your history written in a thousand small wrinkles shine
make all the mistakes you can
love whatever sex you love
tell me a bad joke
dance off beat
sing out of tune
and yell your corniest poem to no one
tell me how you really feel
what you fear
cry
like there is no hope
and love me
like there is no tomorrow.

Are you strong enough to break?

It all started
with a tear
a separation, a leaving

Are you strong enough to break?
sturdy enough to give in?
to melt away?

Its ok if you are not,
if you curl up in a ball
hugging your knees to your chest
wrapping your body around the unbearable pain
protective sheild of your back turned out
eyes closed, blind to anything more
lost in your own universe
of hurt and harding to protect yourself

Are you strong enough to stop
resisting?
to face
the ugly truths?
the beautiful truths?
the lies?


Face the sneering lips of hate
face your life filled with fear and lonliness
face the bombs shattering lives
face the hopeless circle and smallness
time eating away at your teeth and eyes.
that all you love will die.

See your hands changing
turning
like leaves in the fall
see your beautiful body
drying
ready to fall to the ground
to break apart and crumble into the dirt again.

One more beauitiful time
play your fingers
upon my body
the melody we have never forgotten
until you melt me into the sheets
through the mattress
through the wood of the floor
and the structure of the building
down threw the cement of the basement floor
back into the cold clay beneath
push me deeper still
push my back through the depth of the earth
back into the fiery core
that melts away my turtle shell
protective coating
sears it off
burns right through me
a fire that eats away through my back to enter my heart,
melding, feeding, the pain
that knows
i am nothing
i am everything
and I am going back
back
back into the earth.

Perhaps they are right
there is such a thing as reincarnation
and one day you will be born again
as a lizard
you will crawl over this earth again
slowly, your body strong and sturdy
and perhaps one day you will, feeling the cool breeze,
turn your head
slowly
and your eyes will turn to me
you will see me
a glorious tree
with a million leaves glittering
fluttering
flashing, graceful and green
in the sunlight
and you will again wonder at my beauty
and we
will love
again

This is a poem

This is a poem for love
for the power
of  words

This is a poem for you 
beautiful horse on the side of the road
eyes are as big as the moon
that I slid by for one brief moment
and we saw each other 
who I will never see again
you who are loved by someone else
a person I have never met
you eating grass
now
in a field I will never walk across

This is a poem for all the people I smile at who look at me blankly
maybe just in to much pain or fear to even see me longing to share with them
maybe wondering why I love them for that moment at all
or knowing that i don't really
and that I will walk on
and forget them.

This is a poem for you
for all the love I would smear on your skin
how I would slam my heart into yours
smash myself into your everything
and then after kissing you
lay at your feet refreshed
washed 
curled in my pain 
in our beauty
longing to go back to our mother earth
and fearing nothing more

This is a poem about how sunlight love strands tangle in my heart spreading out flailing floating from my body into the air around me
up into the clouds and dark star light
raining back 
dripping into empty fields
missing lonely hearts
filling puddles
resting on the tops of the trees

This is a poem for all the people i don't know
a billion leaves shaking in the wind, glittering
the grains of sand deep under the beach, 
below my feet as i walk
that i will never touch or see or know

This is a poem for
you
dying
now

for the bodies being washed with love
being zipped into plastic bags and being taken away
by workers who take away bodies every day
being lowered into the ground, 
covered by earth

This is a poem for the dead cats
on the side of the road
and the people who don't know your dead
who will never stroke on your tense warm bodies again
but will pet another's

This is a poem for those of us just glad to get through this day 
and the dark of last night.
and for those 
who have already 
let go. 

You will be gone

You will be gone.
In all likely hood
there will not even be a street named after you
and even if there is, it too will crumble one day, the sign will break and no one will care.
Your cells will be in the soil
and the rain
perhaps the river of your life will be flowing through the veins of your descendants
but you, you will be gone
forgotten
beyond the knowledge of dirt and rain.
The curly hair of your beard will have rotted away.
No one will remember the way your hand moved in the air as you gestured
or the lilt of your voice,
the scowl you made after you bashed your thumb with a hammer
hopping on one foot in sympathy
then flicking your wrist.
No one will hear you sing your song again
You will never moan again, salaciously licking the creases of another body.
No one will hug you
or yell at you.
Your house will never fall apart again.
No one will knock on your door.
Soon, perhaps as soon as you blink your eye
you will be gone
melted back
into everything.

Some days the dance is beautiful
some days it is bitter sweet
or full of pain and being alive
somedays the dance of all of us is so full
reasons to fight and fling and move forward
things to push against
and celebrate
try

But some days the long dance
is just long
and for a few minuets you just want to sit down
and rest
but still the laundry needs to be hung.

All we all want
is to be seen
and loved
to connect

See me sunshine
see me leaves
hear me cicada far away in your tree
I am here
so full of longing still
so full of sadness too
for all that is alive
and all that is dying
all the hope that is not in me
or others
for our long dance of meaningless life