1. |
Fix Her Upper
02:59
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Beware the people.
who make a project of you.
These Flip This House
Love It Or Leave It pricks
will declare a coat of paint
could really bright up the place.
Scuff your worn floorboards,
they smudge your banisters.
They will ask condescendingly
about the wood paneling.
Quietly note the ample storage,
murmur about your good bones.
Lament the sagging back porch,
sigh at the garden, lush and tangled.
They’ll suggest cutting down the trees.
"It'll bring in so much light."
Because they can’t comprehend
the pull of buds in spring
or the secret green
of wide leaves in summer
or the round fruits mounding
Between wild roots and flowers,
the hills of leaves that pile
thick and wet in fall.
How the gray outlines
of bare branches
curling toward winter sky
turn you melancholy and kind.
They will offer insult
couched as advice.
Knock down retaining walls,
mallets arcing through your dust.
They will insist the destruction
"will really open it up in here."
Then wonder why the bathroom
collapsed into the kitchen.
Inquire about the wiring,
roll their eyes at the linoleum.
Ask how hard it would be
to put in new pipes
They will bemoan
the wallpaper in the bedroom.
Complain the clawfoot tub
is just so hard to clean.
They will, in their hurry
paint your windows closed.
These people
do not know you.
They might think
because the shape of you
reminds them of a place they lived
they'll know where you creak.
Because they know why the light
in the hallway sometimes hums,
that they can predict
where the drafts will creep.
They will try to shore you up
against old storms
Weathered
in harsher climes.
They will gut you.
Sand down and stain
all evidence you’ve ever
been occupied.
Try to exorcise the precious ghosts
of those you sheltered long ago.
Empty the attic and basement
of any history not their own.
But in all the years
they ambled by
feeling so sorry
for your leaning walls
clucking at the undergrowth
brushing at your panes
feeling charitable as they assessed
your potential market value
It never occurred to them
That you were fine, for ages
until they shuffled to your door
Knocking meekly, card in hand.
“Hello-
this place
she just has
such good bones."
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2. |
The Stories We Carry
03:46
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Our DNA, a double helix
is just a way we carry tragedy.
Ancestral sorrow, we re-mix,
a gift unto our progeny.
Most of my grief
is not my own;
The screams of six million
echo in my bones.
My father’s people are The Chosen
And oh! I believed.
I learnt about the pogroms
sat upon my daddy’s knee.
At ten they showed me pictures
of corpses piled gray.
I saw the gates at Auschwitz:
‘ARBEIT MACHT FREI.
My father’s father
died when dad was nine.
Red, the vaudeville carney
made a widow of a bride.
The carnival was on the road
way the hell out west.
My Zayde died in Idaho
and I am quietly obsessed
with what he was thinking
when his heart began to pop.
When it clutched, seized, and stuttered…
did he feel it stop?
Did he cry for his kids?
Did he weep for his wife?
Did he know that he was dying?
Could he see the sky?
My father’s in his seventies
the boy’s a long time grown.
I know beyond the age
he wants his daddy to come home.
Swathes of this terror
are hereditary
and my instinct for pain
has become necessary.
Tomorrow’s sorrows always
stem from yesterday’s.
Perhaps I yearn for burden
to coddle, carry, flay.
My mother’s youngest brother
died at sixteen in his room
strangled by a hammock
on an August afternoon.
David was my grandma’s favorite
of the four she bore
and I don’t think that she recovered
from that sick suburban gore.
I’ll always wonder if he knew
that his end was there,
with that rope wrapped ‘round his throat,
growing faint from lack of air.
Did he hope someone was coming?
Did he think about his plans?
In his final moments
did the boy become a man?
My mother met my father
and sometime in ‘83
she phoned her brother Hoyt
cuz she was pregnant with me.
Now my uncle liked a drink or ten
but his diabetes did not,
so drunk that night he went to sleep
and never did wake up.
My mother’s parents divorced
around when David died.
Grandpa moved to Georgia
and he found himself a bride.
His new wife found a little boy
abandoned, all alone
stranded in a laundromat
and so she took him home.
My darling Uncle Paul
was a very special child.
Touched by angels his mother said,
some said ‘simple’ or maybe ‘wild.’
It was raining in Dalton
on a late December night.
Paul was walking home from church
and someone beat him ‘til he died.
He lay there in the cold and wet
and the rain washed his blood away
and I hope that little boy
went to his God that day.
My family history is littered
with men who died before their time.
I know this grief is not unique
but I have made it mine.
The loss that I have made my own
will never burden me.
What am I, but once was?
I am a vehicle for stories.
I am proud to shoulder
these legacies of sorrow.
Most people in these tales?
They have no more tomorrows.
We are the stories that we carry
and the ones we find in our mother’s eyes.
We are the tales our fathers told.
We are those who died.
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3. |
Ends & Means
02:30
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I.
I drove you to the bus station.
I watched your
piss-yellow hoodie,
your stupid fucking hat,
your broken boots
stagger through
shining double doors.
Lit fluorescent
you became a stranger.
I screamed, my throat
scraped knuckle raw
the whole ride home.
II.
I wear our life together
like Pompeii wears Vesuvius.
Your fury, ash and pumice,
my twisted supplication
suspended in ancient stone.
I remember how it felt
to bend and beg
a volcano not to blow.
III.
It is hard
when the one you love
is hands that choke
is fists that clench
is punches
they said they pulled.
Is the mouth that spits
‘you are a liar
and you are a whore
and I can do better.’
The teeth
that bite and bellow
‘Why can’t you just be
fucking happy.’
IV.
I wear the years
since I saw you
like iron wears flame.
You made me
so much stronger
and I am grateful
all the same.
But just because
in the fire of your anger
i was forged like steel
beneath the hammer of your hate
I became a shining thing.
These ends, they do not justify
what you did to me.
It doesn't mean
you taught me
anything you meant to.
It doesn't mean I believe
you were ever being kind.
It just means
I’ll always wonder
the myths you're weaving now.
How you big-fished
my middle-class parents
into millionaires
our 3 bedroom house
into a mansion
and me
into the most beautiful girl
in the world.
It just means
your father's voice
drowned out mine.
It just means
you fed your monsters
til they loomed larger
than love.
V.
I drove you to the bus station.
Watched you
lopside stride, staccato-
I used to love
the roll of your shoulders
street-kid strong silhouette
and in Greyhound twilight
the sound of your boots
shuffled
your good-bye.
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4. |
Tilting on Barstools
01:09
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It took a bottle of whiskey to stomach
where we never went.
It took some self-flagellation
but I did it in the end.
But I am holding your hand now
or you’re holding mine.
We are stumbling drunk
and I am lost in your eyes.
God knows she loves you
and God knows I’ll defer.
We’ve got from now to last call
cuz god knows you love her.
I am built for self-destruction
and I think you are the same.
We are tilting on barstools.
We are playing dangerous games.
But what you need most
is probably a friend.
Not some stupid girl
only mourning an end.
We hold hands like we’re drowning,
not like we’re in love.
The bartender sees it
and I see her just shrug.
So from now to last call
we’ll pretend all is fine.
I won’t pretend I’m yours
if you don’t pretend you’re mine.
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5. |
I Don't Wanna Be Mean
02:30
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Look-
I don't wanna be mean,
but you are not the first bro I banged
who deemed me of value
months after the SS Handjob
left Drunk Text Harbor.
Pulled out on a tide
of thanks for the ride
Sails full of a fair and fuck you wind.
I don’t wanna be mean
but I wasn't gonna wait for you.
I’ve clocked my ten thousand hours
I’m a goddamned expert by now.
Waited at bars I didn’t like
at shows for bands I hated,
for boys that said
they might stop by
with stars in their mouths
with smoke in their eyes.
And yeah, I made sure
to walk by places you’d be.
made sure you saw how my hips
swivel, sway, and swing
Checking my reflection
in storefront windows
Then drinking dumb
‘til I turned numb
and there you were,
with teeth like grinning stone.
I don't wanna be mean
cuz I think you've spent
one too many nights alone,
but just because I was kind
it does not mean I was in love.
I know I’m not
everybody’s cup of tea,
but when we’re cold
we all want something warm,
don’t we?
I don't wanna be mean
Because I know
you were dealt blows
like a slow war.
Because to the girl
who has your heart
you are nothing more
than a flightless bird
that could not help
but love the sky
so if you don't wanna be
a last resort
Why the fuck would I?
I don't wanna be mean
because I know
the bottom of the bottle
is a lonely place to be
but y o u?
You don’t get to settle for me.
It's not that I think
I'm better than you.
I just know I am better than this.
And I don’t wanna be mean
but you are cafeteria pizza.
You are well whiskey.
You are particle board TV consoles
You are wood laminate
You are socks with sandals
You are airport hotel conference rooms
on a Tuesday.
and there is nothing
actually wrong with that.
But I
I am the shape of winter
I am the arc of canon balls.
I am more
than the shadows I cast
and I am more
than the things
you want from me.
I don’t wanna be mean
But . . .
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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6. |
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In Portland, the daffodils
jawed yellow in January
I found their broken necks
in February snow.
City streetlight starfall
broke your second story window.
Oil slick rainbow rubble
colored your swayback bed.
I fell for you like
blossoms in false spring.
I mistook instinct for faith.
I confused hope for love.
It’s taken til now to stomach
that the way you love
is the American Midwest
on first family vacations.
McDonalds myopic
Denny’s dependable,
Holiday Inn homogenous.
Kroger convenient
But the way I love
is seaglass strange.
I don’t miss people, I mutter
their names when I am lonely.
Tongue them bloody
til the parts
that chip my teeth
wear smooth and round.
I have stuttered your name
into broken hands and mirrors.
I have worn this memory
a soft and milky blue
I told you once I loved like art
Some works in progress,
some resplendent on shelves.
but all kept safe and snug.
I told you once
you loved like trees
but you cannot love the fruit
if you do not love the seed.
I loved you like
flowers will love a sun
that shone too warm,
Too bright, too soon.
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7. |
Boots & Teeth
01:10
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I smile at everyone
and nobody trusts me.
I smile at everyone
and nobody trusts me
but all I can absorb
is a solid, stomping reverb
up from asphalt
through good, hard soles.
How did I forget?
What it was to own the landscape
from my feet to the horizon.
Twin rings expanding outward
with every stride
step
stride.
A decade has leaked by.
Cracks in a dam.
Maybe I’m done
with staunching the flow
maybe it is time
for some other direction.
These wounds, they are old,
coddled infection.
I am through nursing
these scars, red and sore
and I am finished cursing
who I was before.
I smile at everyone
and nobody trusts me.
I smile at everyone
and nobody trusts me
but all I can feel
is good boots on the street.
Maybe, not smiling
just showing my teeth.
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8. |
Time Travel
02:35
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Sorrow makes for thin places.
The air pulses and suddenly
I am 3 in Mama Latory’s kitchen.
Swiss cheese and tomato soup
Cool teak flat under my palms,
the sound of glass in a low sink
or soft Virginia lilting,
I am 6 in my grandmother’s house.
I hear the click-swish-hush
of hard heels on old tile,
Hebraic corridor murmur
I am 12 and learning my Torah portion.
A change of wind
brings hot pavement scent
I am 14 and scuttling
through hallways like gauntlets.
Cracked fluorescent sunset
I am 16
and chain-smoking at Starbucks,
riding the train in bright, thick shoes
The light curves gray and sharp.
I am in Good Shepherd Cemetery.
I am 19 first week of January
and we bury her again.
I smell wet leaves and I am 21 in Olympia
choking “if you're going to hit me, sweetheart
please close the windows
so the neighbors don't hear.”
When the ground is soft,
I am 23 and learning how things grow.
I am trudging through acres of mud.
I am wide and strong like old trees.
I see blizzards and I am 25
Colorado snow in my thin shoes,
My father weeps
as we bury his only brother.
Old Kentucky bitter as bile,
I am 27 in Oakland,
falling into bottles
like I used to fall in love.
I believe people can be haunted
the same as houses,
that we fashion our phantoms
from the things we have lost.
So revel in the thin places.
These ghosts are gifts.
We can travel through time
on the back of bending light
Watch your life unfold.
A series of stuttering snapshots.
The taste of blood can take you
a hot wind can guide you.
We are what we remember.
I remember my grandmother's voice.
I remember kitchens
safe and clean and warm.
I remember hallways
in synagogue and in school.
The smell of green earth,
my first burn of whiskey.
We are every age and time
We are time-lapse-star-sky,
and we not just the things
we had to do to survive.
We are every person
we have ever been
and we
are still alive.
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9. |
Tree of Life
01:36
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“No children
among the dead.”
I breathe thick and grateful
At least there's that.
Beth Hillel Synagogue,
I have never been here,
not to any in Portland
Double doors spread like hands
People spilling
like water through palms.
Kids in kippot
dance near doorways
I am tense
Sick silent screaming
I want them behind walls
Want to tell them
Stay away from the windows
Stay out of the open.
We cannot get inside
there are so many people
Watch the livestream
from the stairs.
I hear the songs
that made me gentle every Shabbos
render pulsing rage
into something cold and sharp.
How dare you
measure my people's strength
by how much pain we can endure?
Watch the branch break and wonder
at all the weight it bore.
We were struck at the roots
And we rise and bloom like spring
We are praying in rain like walls
We are not holding our tongues.
My people have moved mountains
and been buried beneath them.
These tragedies
are a centuries culmination
Strange fruit on old trees
This hate is nothing new.
Rome didn't fall in a day.
Watch it burn and warm your hands
by the licking flames
and these can be our end times.
“No children
among the dead.”
At least
there is that.
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10. |
No Children
01:51
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I have chosen to not have children.
It is not that I don’t like kids
Because I do.
I find the fucking delightful but
Ok let me back up.
I was born in March of 84
In a stunning show of optimism on my parent’s part
right the fuck smack dab
In the middle of the reagan administration
And if my father didn’t think the world was ending then
I can sort of understand why he laughed at me
After he asked what my long term plans are
I said survive the trump presidency
And then
Well what does it matter
Everything ends in twelve years
it would take a miracle
It would take a mighty God
To fix the things that are broken.
And I do believe in God
And I don’t believe in miracles
Not really
And sure sunsets are miracles
And babies
Babies are miracles
And I believe that.
Because we can use all the metal straws (I do)
We can reduce reuse recycle (I do)
We can walk or bike (I do I do I do)
Doesn’t change the fact that
71 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions
Are from 100 companies
And I promise
None of them care about us
We are not irredeemable
But this damage is not reversible
And if any fight is worth fighting
This is the one
I have chosen to not have children
so I can protect the ones that are here.
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11. |
Fucking Coffee
01:53
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I've been steeped
in my Jewishness.
As obvious as inherent
as inevitable
as air
as waves
as sun.
But in the hard far back
is Grandma Mary cooing southern
Sweet and sharp and liquid
Appalachian melody
She grew up in the Congo
And I have forgotten
Her name in Tchluba
She sang me happy birthday
Every year in Swahili
until she couldn’t.
Grandma was strong
She was swift and brave
And the stories she told me
Are as much a part of me
As the dusky feel of
Hebrew prayer
As the Ashkenazi lilt
I wear naked in my throat.
And I always thought
I had to choose.
I always thought
I could not be whole
Without being
parts of something.
No one is "part" anything
The gestalt cannot be dissected
Flayed flat
for your convenience.
Would you know
what butterflies are
If you only ever saw them
pinned and still?
Would you understand
the shape of trees
unless you saw them
twist in wind and sun?
You do not call bread
flour liquid salt yeast
because we all understand
that together
they are more
And more
And more than that
You cannot separate
You cannot delegate
I cannot say my
father’s blood makes me
anything my mother’s doesn’t
And this should be
As obvious
as inherent
as inevitable
as air
as waves
as sun.
You don't call coffee
part beans
part water
You call it
fucking coffee
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12. |
This Is Your Anthem
02:12
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To so many
you will only ever be
what they can take from you.
They will hold your face in their hands
but be blind to the curve of your cheek.
They will gather
your moon-stained hopes
your unkissed mouth
and make a cadaver of you.
Pride will not fill your heart or belly
but it will help you stand strong
when your spine splits in sorrow
when your bones fray with rage.
It will sharpen your teeth
on a whetstone
of the righteous.
It will sustain you
for a time.
Anger, it will keep you warm.
A fire in your wrists and throat,
but you will burn, child
so square your shoulders now.
Make your body all right angles
your hips turned quiet fury.
Within you heaves
an entire ocean.
So drown all the sailors
made fearless by fair winds,
ungrateful for the blessing
of all your calm seas;
They forgot
you are salty and wild.
Tear their boats from stem to stern.
Remind them of the pull of tides
and all the ships
you sank in storms.
Your lips are twin pistols.
Turn your tongue into the trigger.
Speak your gunpowder truth
and then hear mine:
You are so much more
than what you are to someone else.
You are so much more
than just the scars that shaped you.
You are more than the days
you flailed in grief
you are more than the nights
you failed relief.
You are more than your body
and the hands that bruised it.
You are more than your care
and those who abused it.
Child, your mouth
is a fractious fire,
your hope
is an unending ocean.
They go on and on
like you
on and on
like you
like you
they go on.
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Red O'Hare Portland, Oregon
Red O'Hare is a Ashkenazi Jewish American poet from Oakland, California where she featured twice with Bay Area Generations. A product of Presbyterian missionaries from the Belgian Congo and Eastern European carny folk, Red has been performing poetry for 20 years. She works in a bakery and is compiling a list of people who want her dead. ... more
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