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Seaglass Strange

by Red O'Hare

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1.
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."
2.
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.
3.
Ends & Means 02:30
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.
4.
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.
5.
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)_/¯
6.
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.
7.
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.
8.
Time Travel 02:35
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.
9.
Tree of Life 01:36
“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.
10.
No Children 01:51
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.
11.
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
12.
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.

about

For anyone loved wrong and strange.

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released June 7, 2019

Recorded by Brian Bauer at Shady Pines Media in Portland, OR.
www.shadypinesmedia.com

Photography for Album Cover & Track Covers by Callie Bowen
www.calliebowenphotography.com

Released with assistance from Igor Brezhnev at Lightship Press.
www.lightshippress.com

Album Cover & Track Covers Design by Igor Brezhnev
www.igorbrezhnev.com

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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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