NOT YOU, NOT ME

My tongue heavy,
I am choked
Grasping for salt water
bodies sweet.

the distance grows
thick
like black milk honey,

An omission.
chapped lips, and vertebrae in
all the wrong spots

something clearly lacks.

The River

Elise's reading Jack Gilbert poems

Jet's reading about Frida
I'm reading Marguerite Duras
We are lying around on large warm rocks shaped like us
The river roars right by
As we read in silence
Together
This was one of her favorite spots too

first gift

a wall.
bare,
beige.
catch your heat.
press you cool.
and outside,
rain.

Colonic for the colonial

We're western.
You're here, we're here.
So let's relate.
Why are you here?
Let's not relate.
It makes no sense for you to be so pleased,
Here,
A terrible voice,
an unfair cadence rocketing about the conch,
dim fade, reverb staid.
Glass blown mind made pure and willing
for the feedback loop of bluey colonial scoff.
Grandad and his switch,
Mum, dad all checked out and gone.
Gold clogged, silver fatigued.
A puke on my hands,
glistening, trembling streaks,
chilli crab residue,
the pause before I find you -
Ya-ya-ing, yawing,
as you were,
yawning.

Seventythree To Go, Mrs. Dalloway

When the cousin you could lose without much regret
sends you a gizmo, via email, to calculate how many days you have lived,
(did i say without regret? did i say self-actualizedly?)
and the number turns out to be
seventythree
short
of
20,000
(did i say leagues under the sea? did i say miles for an oil change?)
....
A party must be planned for two and a half months hence.
Remarkably close to my 52cd birthday/I'm thinking underwater theme?
submarine sandwiches, pickled octopi, corners lit with lava lamps,
or maybe just a play on julesverne
jewels, vernal, green jewels, emeralds, ah,
suddenly we are back to Oz,
ok, an Oz theme...
munchkins, small appetizers, poppies, opiates suspended from the ceiling, sentimental songs,
the movie playing in the background, maybe upside down,
flying monkeys outlined in chalk on the floor,
(therapy has got to have SOME results)
Mulish kick, must the cousin be invited?
Planned my wedding in a much shorter time.
Mulish kick, didn't invite the cousin to that, either.

Dorothy's Biographer Struggles With Why Witch?

The look on her face
good witch or bad witch?
Never, why witch?
Not, You Don't Belong/Which Way Should You Leave?
Not, Dog owner
Not, Braids Offend The Great and Powerful Oz/Lop Off Its Head
Not, Even In Oz We Know Dress=Girl
Never, Miranda! At Last!

The 74 years' question exhausts the subject.

The biographer corks her pen, ties the curtains fluttering too close
to the bed where Dorothy rests, under green eiderdown,
blue-ish skin sagging over frail hands too arthritic to handle an egg.
The transplanted Californian stares out the window where the real confusion began.
Did this wood square a reality too grey to ever re-enter?
Would this ancient, crazy biddy ever give  an answer
one could hear uninterrupted
by chicken noises?

Song of the Fels-Naptha

Song of the Fels-Naptha,

     Golden Bar of Sodium Cocoate          

                                                          (apologies to Longfellow)

In the corner of piled up laundry

little bar of useful stringent

rumbles with the big machine.

Sing out your kitchen chatter!
while our necessaries

spin with river force

edgy threads unweaving, 

wads of fuzz adhering to the wide and slimy lintel

behind the round screen, reading rain,

then sudsy sudsy briskly busy

You must shout over the washing machine's chunking about,

shout Hallelujah! Rinsed and Revivied!

Praises be to machinery agitato

to the internal rapids and snowy show of its
morning Zumba

carillon of metal swishes,

every skin cell

sweat drop

bit of ink

loosed

 and

free

Promissory Note

In the act of being that which sent myself something. Receiving what it is in haze and being sent up. Vague idea about what I should be doing, when I should be doing it. When, when, why? Still locked to the law, operating a personal assessment, a dark sheet of paper, handed over, sadly skimmed with a blank, infirm scrawl. A personal assessment, running me through, a self-criticism. A conference on what I have done and how it was wrong and what I will do and when it will be wrong. Flapping for a gambit, losing the thread, sweating profusely as a volunteer; few know how to ask me, and when.

its like

down the street

up the street

down the way

up the way

down the stairs 

up the stairs

basically, 

not

nordic skiing. 

Get somewhere you can let your hot steam off. 

I'm in a pink diamond, my face and skin and hair floating all around my face, connected from my beaming heart, everything else is a cold blue lake. 

I've collected a love token and now I'm on fire in a perfect shape. No one can see me except for those who play the game which I'm pretty sure is just me. Is it a secret then? That I am the only non-person-shaped explorer in my neighborhood, and possibly in the whole world too. 

I rub myself on a tree, over on Evans' yard, feeling the bark-skin making prickly noises on my tights, and making the side of my face pink like I've been sleeping on my side a long time or got into a scratch war with my brother. 

There is a soccer ball sleeping in the gutter near the park. I run up and scoop the dirty ball into my arms, holding it like a baby and giving it some mad mother dirty baby kisses, getting elated and pulling my whole self up onto my toes like I can fly away just on the feeling of this ball. 

There are dogs. I bid adieu to the dogs and walk on. I know they are a rude bellwether to ending. 

I get a wild burst in my eyes and yell out loud down the street. Crows lift from all of the trees. I go pink fading diamond go, and walk on. 

Masked Intruders

Raccons steal the doormat from Helene Cixous.
They eat her red lipsticks, and track mud typographically
across her gravel path.
She does not notice them, or hear them, or seem to see them,
even when they sluice a manuscript in her small mossy trough
beneath the outside taps. Even when they waddle right over her shoes,
which are unmatched, and equally chic.
She says, "Where is my favorite victim?" a repetition from a lecture at UCBerkeley,
and the visiting scholar chuckles through the kitchen window
where she is finishing the washing up.
Cixous leans back over her laptop, uneven feet nosing at the stones.
She curses the impossible choices:
Does she want to UNDO TYPING or CANCEL?
Neither is a choice not offered.

Circling Like Aching

can't break off the -ing endings
from the zero-ing in, how the pain scoots along
then slips up the arm, evil ferret, critter-ing in the head
knocking over piles of worries/ shelved, a mishmash,
never filed orderly-ish, cleverly humping over the chest,
lipping at the other breast, circling, like aching,
only worse
like the tomorrow you cannot have,
the was and the did

Last Days of the Matriarch Butterfly

clings to the trunk with a zillion other flubbers

not ready to go on, not ready to ease up the flex-

ing motion that had always served so well,

still thinking ahead to moisture, to sun, to the tilt of the planet,

not thinking deeply, as that distracts from the flubflub

flub of the groove of airspace allowed by neighbors

not missing the sweetness of past field flowers

or the joy of contrast in the woods, or by the sand,

just steady on the bark, under the branch pointing South

giving lift to the next tigered patch of citizens,

giving all that can be spared,

with just a little marmalade pot for tomorrow

Commakazi

Still with us, sigh,
the faux comp instructor 
whose heart's desire...
uniform comma usage
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

comma soldiers, in formation

2/
Fie on thee, faux comp instructor!
Pry thine mind to thoughts provocative,
expression vocative,
vocation polka-dotted....
................................
And cut the crap,
brave some rhetoric,
grow some nuts,
brain, heart, and stummich.

3/
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,   "     ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
,,,,,,,,     "        ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,   "   ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

making waves
the comma way

comma comma comma, comma comma comma,
ooh! making caterpillars, the comma way!

,,,',     ',,  '',,,,  ,,,'   ,',,,
renegades in comma families
(sometimes more than one!)

a comma walks into a bar, the bartender says, Hey we don't serve commas here,
and the comma says,

Gin and tonic, easy on the splice

making ical
the comma way

4/
nothing can come between u,s

making tragedy
the comma way

5/
ammocammocammocammoc
backwards commas
mud sounds
grasshoppers chewing for the microphone

Burning Sandalwood

This baby tunnels, plows, thrashes, flops, lifts an entire
torso with amazing baby-abs, arms in the air, olympian of bedtime,
rubbing face in my sweater, in my neck, twining my hair,
heaving up up up from sleep, like Shamu, corking up from the
natural state, the water, the dream, the arms breast soft so soft...
NO! won't be suckered, won't be suckled, won't stop walloping
legs against mattress, won't stay down, must haul up the crib rails,
must jump, again, jumpjump, more jumping and that does it!Heart
pumps faster! Eyes flutter open! Awake again! squeaking the springs
squealing for the nanny slipping in the blankets,head hits mattress,
sleep crashes back,fought off, shakes head, renews vigor,
jumpjump, eyes bright now! Room is dark! Lava lamp glows!
Baby glows, jumps and glows, squeals, jumps, and glows...

vanilla

strain heave wrapt vanilla white sheets throes of vanilla plain mort reincarnate re-enlighten light strong waft vanilla vanilla where did thou come from? i am fond of thee i gasp for survival fittest most fitting a la petite mort vanilla conceive thee i shall carbon bonds clitoral fragrance carbon molds clitoral quintessence

Thanks for the love

Former lover,
I want to say thank you for leaving.
For giving me reason to cry.
I couldn't fathom how you'd leave me when you pledge me your forever.
But that was then, this is now
A new day
I have found a new way
Better yet a new love
One that I have always dreamed of
All those times when my toungue tied up and waterfalls would wash me into invisible
When there was nothing more to be said
I ran so fast and furiously from my pain
& right into her arms because
She waited.
Never in the same place twice.
But always with arms open wide
inviting me to partake of her.
She doesn't embrace me,
she engulfs me.
From the tips of my toes to the top of my head.
She the best.
My reason for breathing.
Spark to my flame.
She drowns out your pain like a shot of novocane but mixed with cocaine.
Cause i can't be clark kent in her presence
no known weakness' remains.

She's all you said was wrong but proven right
Its the opposite of what i get from you caused by what i get from you. She is cataclysims of  emotions, she is the suns rays warming oceans.
She is the change of the tides,
she brings the strength to my stride,
she makes everything alright when I am staring down the barrel of a shotgun begging for life to end. She takes time and allows me to take mine.
She gives me pause.
A reason to remain still and calm until peace comes from the pieces you broke me into.
So lover i want to say thank you. For leaving me broken and angry. Releasing your grasp
so I can be free
and find the love I found with me.

Love & Light,

C. Joi Sanchez
www.jsanschez.wordpress com

Caterwails

Close my eyes to the cost of pet-keeping
 Sleep away daily regret
 that a menage of mewers
 make me weep out of doors
 kitty-kitty? one lost kitty?
 in the dark.

Goodnight Nobody

Bedtime negotiations with an almost three year old
 thoroughly modern self-actualized listened-to moppet.
Eysha simmers down tapping her jammy-feet on the wall,
 waving her pink horse flashlight about the ceiling
she sings Old McDonald "...she hadda farm,
, an' on that farm she had uh ELEPHANT, eieiOOOOOO,..."
(she'd saved her cookie for Nobody
she'd brushed her teeth faster than Nobody)
she knows she is somebody 'cuz Nobody is a ghost.
 Maybe I am Nobody? she is suddenly alert.
I say Maybe, but I am not a ghost.
Very sleepy, she lifts her head to turn and nod to me.
You can be NoGhost, Miss Per.
 Her head drops down, her feet slide still.
I love my coronation,the robe and crown 
warmer than ermine, lighter than air.

hi sophie

bibuybb

my anal gifs

i wrote zit

Nameless seaside ghost town...
That's where I go when I see the moon
Living in an abandoned firehouse with you 
You're in your own little head in a field of sunflowers 
And there's blood in your mouth and there's rats all over town
(C): Take me out to the beach and I'll tell you my secret name 
Take me under the sea and we'll derail the trains 
Let's run away into the caves I still love you I still love you baby
You're in your own little box with ribbons in your hair 
And there's dust in your mouth and worms in the air 
Hideous city of unknown words... 
That's where I live when I go to sleep 
In an abandoned firehouse with you. (C)

My Look

the cold weather makes it hard
to dress appropriately
too cold for tights
but my jeans don't go with my new boots
the metal jingles when i walk
i want to wear my turquoise tshirt
but it has a tiny red spot on it
some kind of juice
or alcoholic beverage
from years ago
i own too many sweaters in varying shades of turquoise
so i choose the grey sweater with a hole in the sleeve
just above my armpit
my hair comes next
the curls less curly lately
longer than it has been in years
becomes easily knotted when i lay against my pillow
i put it in a ponytail that emphasizes the uneven cut
and now i look like high school
all over again

Nancy

when Nancy was 13 she played piano in the homes of white folk
while they gabbed and barely listened

when Nancy was 21 she was a concert pianist
and filled the halls with sounds of her sweet music

when Nancy was 23 she married a church going man
and they stayed together till death did them part

when Nancy was 32 she marched with Martin Luther King
and stood up for her rights as an African American woman

when Nancy was 74 she retired from teaching
after 30 plus years of working with young adults

Where is your hall pass
I don't have one
Why not
Because we don't need them anymore
we're in a new school now
It's called freedom