in the cowboy strumming his electric guitar
and the young fat apple-cheeked boy in a hooded sweatshirt,
in the brother and sister picking pinons in the mountains,
in the kids
burning rubber on their bicycles in the church parking lot,
in the two elderly women dressed in black
with iron strong hearts and hummingbird soulwings,
old and new merge, expand and spread,
riding tractors and low-riders and Harleys, t-shirt and leathers,
lost in fiesta crowds or alone on a porch,
still using woodstoves and suspenders, still working at the railroad yards,
in greasy and smoke-charred overalls, capped and stubbled,
decaying hundred-year-old ranch houses crack and splinter on the prairie,
while grandchildren of farmers who lived there
march in urban streets chanting no war no war,
and newborns scream their arrivals,
and fathers with wrist chains and tattoos
cling to their little loves at parks,
and the circle widens and expands and ripples
toward every closed gate, with tribal drums beating,
gourds blowing and rattles rattling
we are here, we are here, we are here,
hue hue te otl, hue hue te otl, hue hue te otl,
that we have always been here.
Unfolding my lips to sing your beauty and resilience
an agave giant petals
holding you all like desert raindrops,
moistening your thirst for freedom and respect,
quenching your hearts to bloom at every entrance
gate and door
in every city.
JULIA
I am Julia,
a little girl
who breathes in air
and feels butterflies in my stomach,
who skips the dirt paths
between friends’ houses
and hears songs in the earth
whispering their love to me.
I kiss you—
my lips are red blossoms
trembling with dew.
I don’t know where I get this happiness
to praise life, to praise my mother and father
to deflect mean energy that would bruise my soul
to celebrate the sparrow’s chirping,
to pray so hard sometimes
because I see how people hurt
and in the songs of my blood
I am able to sing their words for them,
share my songs with them,
they stand at my door,
mouth agape in awe
of this gift to feel their heart’s hurt.
When my cousins’ father and mother abandoned them
in their yard I hold my cousins’ hands, grasp them tight
whirl them in mine,
we turn we turn we turn
join with all creatures
living in life of the moment, to release our suffering,
surrender ourselves to the breeze
is what I teach and spirits have taught me.
And to fight—
not with fist, not with angry words, not with mean attitude—
but the way yellow sunflowers fight their way up to sunlight,
the way the trout flail their way upstream in the Chama river,
the way the elm and cottonwood trees unclench each mighty leaf at dawn
to defy the dark night,
welcoming dawn with a fluttering dog’s wage
welcoming sunrise with barks,
welcoming sounds and creatures and
people dashing on errands,
welcoming them with a singer’s
open-mouthed first note from the heart.
I fight for life
for you to speak, for you to step into the circle
and tell your story.
That is what my open arms
and my laughter convey
when I see you.
I am young, strong, Julia, innocent and loving
beautiful brown eyes and long black hair, with caramel skin
my body is scented with sage and cedar
inside my womb butterflies scatter into the day
my eyelids are crow wings
my pulse a cawing at dawn
the palm-reader’s omens
of things to come—
there will be rich people who do not like me
because my heart is worthier than their gold,
others will scowl in rage that I lie
when I accuse them of injustice,
but the sun and moon as witness
when I see them pale faced, reclined in their coffins
on silk pillows, I will kneel and ask the saints
to carry their souls from one to the other worlds
safely,
knowing that the only real journey is truth
how we get from one truth to greater truth.
I am young,
I cuss, I doubt, I am afraid,
because this gentleness I give to you
is a truth I learned from summer seasons being alone
and valuing my heart, this compassion I give
to the drunks, the addicts, the street kids
is like the biblical woman who washed Christ’s feet and dried them with her hair,
so my journey is me
washing my people’s feet, being accused by the men of whoring,
serving my man, loving fully,
and all the books and magazine articles written to empower
to rise and denounce my men,
rebel against their stupidities would only
leave them alone, would only leave them stranded
on their journey, and I am journey keeper woman,
I help you to understand your way, that you must take it,
that you must fearlessly turn the corner
you most want to ignore
to help you face what you will deny,
that is who I am, you Julia, strong Julia,
lovely Julia . . .
whose black hair weighs heavier than gold
on my shoulders . . .
and my man’s hand is always in it, turn over the gold,
weighing it, offering it to the sun
sniffing like a coyote
who senses his ancient roots
and becomes certain in his destiny, fortified in his fate,
and then moves on in his journey
toward the creator Spirits
unfolding his life story . . .
I have always known these things—
my true beauty is practicing my people’s ways
teaching them the Spirit song
that will make them strong men, strong me . . .
It is on Saturday nights, when the stars are wide apart,
available to all gypsy women
and I was all of them—
yes, the young one who spent hours putting on makeup
who spoke with her brown eyes,
who brashly used her hand to touch
the way a flamenco dancer’s hands strike lightning
in every gesture,
I was that girl with eyeliner, lipstick
that would make red roses envy my erotic glance.
And I taught
gangsters how to kiss,
I taught men
who usually held
chrome plated .45s
in alleys against an enemy’s head
how to hold a child’s hand gently.
I was that girl who leaped up in mother’s living room
watching Zorba the Greek on TV,
clapped my hands and yanked my father
from his chair to dance gypsy style,
while my brothers laughed and my mother
disapproved of my flamboyant, shameless
clapping and hollering . . .
you see, I needed to live
I needed to fill the space of my living with me, with engagement,
contributing to those stars in the night sky
with my own light—
I have always been one
to weep for heroes and heroines,
I have always loved priestly gangsters,
those men and women who defy authority,
who come out of their skins
haunted by a need to express
their rebellion
by gun, by word, by song
let there by rebellion—
I am Julia, lover of priests and gangsters,
I dance with loneliness this evening, with the notes of accordions
fingers smelling of whiskey and woman’s vaginal juice
punching the white and black keys somewhere in Bulgaria,
in some city where children grow to be men at five,
and young girls know love at seven,
in a cabaret in Indonesia where the streets
smell of recent war, powder and death and lawlessness
and in this environment,
the voices that sing, the bodies that dance,
do so because it may be their last and do so
with all their heart, still dreaming of flutes
somewhere among those stars, this Saturday night,
when most people are out on dates,
when if you look out your window, see them—
a world of people passing in the night,
but so few look to the sky to see the stars
that I see, that you see, that dancers and bar girls and poets
see in faraway countries.
What do the stars say, why do we gaze at them?
Because, when it has come to our lives,
the tarot cards have lied,
the diamonds were false,
the smiles were contrived,
because in our hearts we smelled horse manure
and loved it more than money,
because we are the people who ride at night
on stallions with broken legs,
we are the people who fly at night
on wings that have been broken,
we are the people who have escaped our captors
and never reached our homeland.
So I, Julia, dream of love tonight
I, Julia, am the woman who left you with your dreams stacked on the table
weeping in your beer, I, Julia,
was once so beautiful that poets who loved me
grieved for years with memories of hours we shared intimately,
until their love for me interfered with all their loves,
my face appeared before their lovers’ faces,
my hands they held as they held their lovers’ hands,
my thighs they opened as they opened their woman’s thighs,
my tongue they tasted as they sucked their woman’s mouth,
because I left each of them with a story
of a woman’s heart and what she sees gazing at the stars,
yes, what she sees gazing at the stars.
I am Julia, woman of many women, trumpet-hearted woman
that maddens the bull, el toro, red-caped woman
bloody sword woman, I am Julia who has cut each man’s heart in half
and squeezed his blood into my palm like an orange and drank it,
for days my sweat smelled of man’s blood,
how our love was a furious life and death ritual,
how in gypsy cantinas late at night
after glasses of corn whiskey
I lifted my skirt and rubbed my ass
and danced,
until all the men turned from their tables and cried Bravo!
and the young women just into puberty, glanced at me
with hunger in their eyes,
the hunger of starving thieves
wanting to share a piece of bread
I, Julia, was the bread,
the bread broken into a thousand pieces to eat
I, Julia, was the priestess singing mournful dirges for the dead
I, Julia, was the dove at dawn celebrating a child’s birth
I, Julia,
am woman of many women
am voices harmonizing, am thrashing river currents joining,
am the worn guitar lonely fingers have cried their passion out on,
am woman giving you myself
in a hundred different ways
and in the way tonight I give you myself
is in these stars, these stars in the sky,
gaze at them, go to your window and gaze
step outside and gaze,
pause and look up,
and see Julia . . .
woman of many women
see Julia . . .
THIS DISGUSTING WAR!
There’s a madness in me this morning—
feels like I have two hands on each side of my face,
I’m a young colt for the first time with a saddle on my back
and my eyes are maddened with rage and fear
and I’m tossing and yanking my head back
from these two hands
that keep trying to put a bridle on me,
nor do I want a harness
around my head!
I want to kick, scream, run and out gallop
the fucking wind.
But the molten lead slowly hardens around my bones
and the cry of freedom in me
keeps racing down my arms—can’t get out here,
the cry hurls itself against my chest—I can’t get out of my head,
it scurries up my neck—can’t get out here,
and I know what it is
times like these I want to open a bottle of mescal
and pour a nice large drink in the afternoon heat
and sit back on a bench somewhere in Arizona
snug my cowboy hat down so the brim shades out sunlight
and shoot rattlesnakes all afternoon,
shoot at cars passing; shoot at hawks and eagles and vultures circling above
shoot at INS prowling the border for Mexicans,
spit black tobacco at my boot tips
and shoot the scorpion trying to climb up my pants,
then heel crush a tarantula—
this feeling is the gift the Universe gave me,
the desperate need to express myself,
the audacity and gall to think I have the right
to call down the Gods and face them, confront them, defy their rule,
question why they made this world in the way they did,
not understanding any of it,
the cry in my bones, encased in hardened lead so it can’t escape,
the cry in my toes that have walked so many paths,
the cry in my loins that have fucked so many passionate women,
the cry in my mouth that has spoken so many prayers,
> the cry in my hands that touched so many beautiful things,
the cry in my eyes that had seen such violence,
the cry, the Horrifying, All-Engulfing, DARK cry
that cries out to God and Creator and Universe
why did you take my brother,
why did you murder my parents
why did you allow those children in the orphanage to be raped,
why did you allow those innocent men in prison to die
in their spirits,
why
must you Universe crush and smash and destroy what is beautiful
give so little understanding—
I defy you, turn my back on you and weep the human cry
weep the heart-choking cry, throat-gripping, lung-constricting
weep for those you didn’t give a damn about!
If ever God gave me the courage to hold court,
I’d send those Pentagon generals to hell
stuff a billion dollars up the asses of the Defense Department contractors
and float them off the shores of the Pacific,
because if you don’t know how to feel compassion
if you’ve been smugly pampered in your moneyed privilege
if you think you’re better because of your billions and never knew
the fear of not having money to pay for food and utility bills,
if your life has been a Tom Cruise/Britney Spears carousel ride,
if life never challenged you because mama and papa
napkin you every time you spilled milk down your chin
if you can lie and cheat and cynically sneer at the less fortunate,
I’d love to shoot you,
I’d love to cage you up and starve you
I’d love to bed you down with scorpions
and corrupt senators for a month,
not feed you a thing, not hear you cry pleading screams,
dismiss you as a human being,
tease with electrocution, not enough to kill you,
but keep you shaking and screaming
and I say this,
because you are accountable for countless murders and rapes
you have spawned on this land an evil that continually seeds new evil
in innocent children, in the streets, in homes, in schools,
in fields, in the air, in the heart, in the soul
until even religious leaders and presidents have become
evil prophets millions bow down before in terror—
I can’t
I can’t! I can’t!
endure the killing of Palestinians, Iraqis, Bosnians, Serbs,
Israelis, Latin Americans, Africans
Singing at the Gates Page 14
