Poems | Kristiane Weeks

painting by Edward Henry Potthast, Wikimedia Commons

Meltdown

Under emeralded blades
she sings glow
tuned to radio breath,

winded city into underworld

she lines paved highway with
radiating lymph nodes,
five-footed rabbits.

Monologue with holed
tongue, lick green

taste of Rocky Road Flat
flavor, lick fuzz of weaved dream-weaver
lineage hooked into
Ginsberg rant on canker-hex,

who else stands in nuclear
hands, fingers painted with tiny
brush, dip, dipped with poison?

Pinhole poison, hers is not the hand,

dip, dip, blued dot, dot
invisible ink
spread out like black holes,
star spaces wait
to show them up,

make them eat soil
soaked with thousands of years of

skeleton sludge,

at least these pucks are

shaped into anniversary cakes.

QUESTIONNAIRE for a REVOLUTIONARY

What are the sounds of change?

How many land sounds are cueing you?

What sound do you hear on the Mexico border?

What cries are you ignoring?

What is going on?

What is the sound of war?

Are you listening for boots in sync?

What is your battle anthem?

Is your tempo fast-paced or slow?

If you lay your head on the grooves does it heal or hurt you?

What sound releases you to run free?

What are the sounds of protest?

What is a protest song?

How many protests are songs?

How much is thoughtlessness preventing revolution?

How do you make the revolution care?

What instrument would you choose as your weapon?

What color is your instrument of choice?

Does a voice amplify your instrument’s power?

How closely are you listening to survive?

How often do you listen to those who haven’t survived to keep you keeping on?

Is “keeping on” a protest?

How many protest sounds will it take to make a revolution?

Are you asking the hard questions of your community?

How Do You Listen To Survive?

How closely do you listen to sirens?

How well do you know the footsteps beyond your bedroom door?

There are many kinds of listening, that is beneath feet

the listening that is under this beneath. The listening that happens when your neighbor opens the apartment door to leave, and the listening when they close the door at the bottom of the stairs.

The listening of drips through gutter, tick of clock, carbonation to hiss from bottle (or not).

The listening when wind picks up or stops. The listening between waves huge intake breath, (a vacuum of silence) then roaring smash. The listening of bee wings, snorts from pup nose.

The listening when you wake and your lover is away from the bed, where are they? What are they doing awake without you? Listen for the kettle to bubble, or toilet to flush. Listen to the soft sound of door slowly closing as they leave.

I listen to the shouts through the streets, I listen to the birds bleat through wildlife refuges, I listen to the local news and listen to the chatter at the bar, and I listen when my favorite barista says his landlord is a Boulder rich-kid dick.

How closely do you listen? There are many kinds of listening, but they are all for survival.

Once, to survive writing a term paper, I listened to Andrew Bird’s tenuousness on repeat. Survival is partially through music.

Do you ever listen to those who haven’t survived to keep you keeping on?

Like Jeff Beck’s “Hallelujah” or Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black”?

When Alex died at 25, I listened to Silverstein. It was one of many bands we saw perform at the shithole-in-the-wall pool hall venue on the outskirts of Jacksonville.

When I was informed Eric died at 28, I was listening to Modest Mouse’s latest album, Strangers to Ourselves, and I kept it on repeat. Sometimes I kept just “The Tortoise and the Tourist" playing over and over, hearing again and again: Wake up, get ready/ Such a wonderful trip's ahead/ We get dressed as ghosts/With sheets taken from the bed/Inside our socks we hide travelers' checks/ We are tourists of the dead…Kristin Prevallet wrote once don't read something that already makes you feel dead, and this I would also say for music to survive. It can be cathartic to sit in your Modest Mouse space for a while, but don't get stuck there.

And if survival is carrying on through a time pressuring you to stop, then carry on through listening to chatter of friends, listen to the wind through meadow, listen to the creek.

To carry on, I listen to Bob Dylan, I listen to Prince and The Army of Love, to carry on listen to Queen, listen to Lakeside, listen to David Bowie.

Listen to voices with passion who demand “let’s dance!”

                                                   Avocados in Mexico           

Don’t move to Mexico.

Don’t move to Michoacán, don’t move to Jalisco

although there are mountains

and ocean sides

and coconut ice cream                       

fresca!

and mangos on sticks…                                       

muy fresca!

and skeleton statues in windowsills smiling
wearing hats full of orange and lime and magenta flowers

hugging each other

in harmony,

Oh, harmony!                                                                           Oh, harmony!—

And the avocados.

Don’t get me started on the avocado

trees lining the hills,
lush like blooming hand-fans arms gently palm back and forth

the large lime-like gems hanging in the salted air..

America, when will you be angelic?

And, you know, almost thirty-five percent of the world’s avocados
come from Michoacán.

So much creamy guacamole.                                                      So many creamy 

dreams…

Yes, the desire to be an avocado,                  warm and free-hanging, in Mexico
might be rather high right now,

wanting so desperately to be
on the sunny side of the wall…

College English Professor, Jim Wilson on President T***p: “I want to write you all a note of hope, but, all I can think of is run, hide. How does one plan a Brexit anyway?”

Don’t plan a Brexit.                                                                  Don’t run or hide.

We weren’t born in the land of the free to run away

although there’s a line somewhere
about picking yourself up by the bootstraps…

is that about running away?                                                      

Yes, it is ok to be sad
and feel like running away,                                     disappointed, torn, heartbroken.

Avocados calling us, wanting us

 to get away from a country so convoluted with

                                                                                                                             

poverty

picking avocados                                                                                                             egocentricism
peeling avocados                                                                                                                       racism
making avocado ice cream                                                                                                                            militarism
avocado gazpacho                                                                                                                     fascism

America, when will you be angelic?

No, wait, don’t leave.  

We are tired of rotting flesh of this land, torn open.

Re-torn open. Full of holes and fires
and toxicity flowing under this thin skin.

What were the United States’ foundations built upon?

Black loam splattered over golden grounds,
creeping quick like ivy

Long-covered and thrown away,
the United States we never were—

No, wait, you can move

Make a movement

We can come together   

together to rise                                                                           together to rise

from the graves of this decayed country,

America, when will you be angelic?

A movement:

Power to un-define that which
has been defined for this country

erased. No longer needing to be
a country of singularity.  

Don’t be afraid.                                                                       We are not nothing.               

We are done.                                                                                      We are we.

Revolutions never happen at elections, anyway,

it is the in between where society
can fight against
(or with!)                                                                                                               Establishments

so now it is time,
use Merino wool and lace

thread together                                                                                  tie together

sew together                                                                                      bind together

Yes, communal hands to braid
virtuosity, kindness, selflessness

Let us be like the avocado tree,

spreading our roots wide and far,

who, in a container can only grow about seven feet,

but if given roots outside

can grow tall, to thirty.