Tattered reams of movies
used as sheets, kicked off by the lazy birthday waltz
of your feet in dreaming–
a slow pedal kick through water or
twitch of shock when the old friend comes back
explaining “well I was never really gone.”

Three people are asleep in the theater,
each one missing a different plot
slow light disappear then lifting
across a cleft chin, cracked lips, furrow sloping into bridge.
Mistake and misery bypassed while
the rest of the audience cries or pretends not to cry
(the kind of thing we do because
we always assume that someone’s watching us)

There is a drift and leaving.
A departure that swells in us,
blocks out the other bodies, the traffic,
the kind of slumber that requires walking and function,
days of it you can stack into nickel pisas
the kind of mess you can make with you whole heart
the undecided blue of the room
(it could be early morning,
it could be just beginning night.

“Everything that isn’t urgent falls away in revision…”

“Poets aren’t rock stars. I’m not sure they should be. Poetry rattles you, and it’s hard to pay for that,” he offers.
“I’d hate to see poetry commodified. It keeps it safe and sacred.”
- Richard Siken

Saying Your Names
Chemical names, bird names, names of fire
and flight and snow, baby names, paint names,
delicate names like bones in the body,
Rumplestiltskin names that are always changing,
names that no one’s ever able to figure out.
Names of spells and names of hexes, names
cursed quietly under the breath, or called out
loudly to fill the yard, calling you inside again,
calling you home. Nicknames and pet names
and baroque French monikers, written in
shorthand, written in longhand, scrawled
illegibly in brown ink on the backs of yellowing
photographs, or embossed on envelopes lined
with gold. Names called out across the water,
names I called you behind your back,
sour and delicious, secret and unrepeatable,
the names of flowers that open only once,
shouted from balconies, shouted from rooftops,
or muffled by pillows, or whispered in sleep,
or caught in the throat like a lump of meat.
I try, I do. I try and try. A happy ending?
Sure enough — Hello darling, welcome home.
I’ll call you darling, hold you tight. We are
not traitors but the lights go out. It’s dark.
Sweetheart, is that you? There are no tears,
no pictures of him squarely. A seaside framed
in glass, and boats, those little boats with
sails aflutter, shining lights upon the water,
lights that splinter when they hit the pier.
His voice on tape, his name on the envelope,
the soft sound of a body falling off a bridge
behind you, the body hardly even makes
a sound. The waters of the dead, a clear road,
every lover in the form of stars, the road
blocked. All night I stretched my arms across
him, rivers of blood, the dark woods, singing
with all my skin and bone Please keep him safe.
Let him lay his head on my chest and we will be
like sailors, swimming in the sound of it, dashed
to pieces. Makes a cathedral, him pressing against
me, his lips at my neck, and yes, I do believe
his mouth is heaven, his kisses falling over me
like stars. Names of heat and names of light,
names of collision in the dark, on the side of the
bus, in the bark of the tree, in ballpoint pen
on jeans and hands and the backs of matchbooks
that then get lost. Names like pain cries, names
like tombstones, names forgotten and reinvented,
names forbidden or overused. Your name like
a song I sing to myself, your name like a box
where I keep my love, your name like a nest
in the tree of love, your name like a boat in the
sea of love — O now we’re in the sea of love!
Your name like detergent in the washing machine.
Your name like two X’s like punched-in eyes,
like a drunk cartoon passed out in the gutter,
your name with two X’s to mark the spots,
to hold the place, to keep the treasure from
becoming ever lost. I’m saying your name
in the grocery store, I’m saying your name on
the bridge at dawn. Your name like an animal
covered with frost, your name like a music that’s
been transposed, a suit of fur, a coat of mud,
a kick in the pants, a lungful of glass, the sails
in wind and the slap of waves on the hull
of a boat that’s sinking to the sound of mermaids
singing songs of love, and the tug of a simple
profound sadness when it sounds so far away.
Here is a map with a your name for a capital,
here is an arrow to prove a point: we laugh
and it pits the world against us, we laugh,
and we’ve got nothing left to lose, and our hearts
turn red, and the river rises like a barn on fire.
I came to tell you, we’ll swim in the water, we’ll
swim like something sparkling underneath
the waves. Our bodies shivering, and the sound
of our breathing, and the shore so far away.
I’ll use my body like a ladder, climbing
to the thing behind it, saying farewell to flesh,
farewell to everything caught underfoot
and flattened. Names of poisons, names of
handguns, names of places we’ve been
together, names of people we’d be together,
Names of endurance, names of devotion,
street names and place names and all the names
of our dark heaven crackling in their pan.
It’s a bed of straw, darling. It sure as shit is.
If there was one thing I could save from the fire,
he said, the broken arms of the sycamore,
the eucalyptus still trying to climb out of the yard —
your breath on my neck like a music that holds
my hands down, kisses as they burn their way
along my spine — or rain, our bodies wet,
clothes clinging arm to elbow, clothes clinging
nipple to groin — I’ll be right here. I’m waiting.
Say hallelujah, say goodnight, say it over
the canned music and your feet won’t stumble,
his face getting larger, the rest blurring
on every side. And angels, about twelve angels,
angels knocking on your head right now, hello
hello, a flash in the sky, would you like to
meet him there, in Heaven? Imagine a room,
a sudden glow. Here is my hand, my heart,
my throat, my wrist. Here are the illuminated
cities at the center of me, and here is the center
of me, which is a lake, which is a well that we
can drink from, but I can’t go through with it.
I just don’t want to die anymore.
- Richard Siken

I’m listening to Lucas Silveira cover Orbison acoustic, not yet tired and wondering when I will be, though I’m not keen on
bowing into it. For the past week I’ve been dreaming intensely–not good, not bad. Just intense. Speaking of intensity,
my therapist dropped some reality in my lap today(the kind I’ve been so busy with avoiding), and I spent the rest of
my day eyeballing other people in a curious way. As in where are they going, where are their scars, what of ailments,
relationships, phobias. Like I cracked open a book and ushered all the words in. I made eye contact with the inanimate too–
buildings, houses, fences. Concentrated on the humming in the concrete beneath my feet while the bus was passing.
I simply reminded myself to be a part of it. It as in everything, as the planet I’m on is not necessarily the one in my
head(the lack of vegetation, too harsh sun, smirking tundras). I’m on the actual one, where things are happening faster
than I can kick ‘em, and I better look up and enjoy it. Get the hell out of my head. Tell the worry not to wait up. I probably
won’t be back when the streetlights come on.

In the news last week, I fell over an article about Heidi Montag and her plastic surgery. She’s quite proud of it, and quite
forthcoming with the information–yes she spent tons of money to change her face, yes she had TEN procedures
done in one day and spent about $30,000 to do it, and yes. She would do it again.

And that’s all I will say about it. For the rest of this entry I’m going to praise the process by which we age. Naturally.

Here we go, 2010. Year for the pen. I have a bit of poetry coming out in various publications this year, and here is the
first one. I’m sitting among some personal favorites so I’m feeling good. Click below to read. My poem is on page 73.

link!

Wednesday, January 13, 2010
By Dan Majors and Sadie Gurman, Pittsburgh Post-GazetteIn the first hours after the devastating earthquake in Haiti,
while news reports of damage and death were still sketchy, three men huddled on the North Side last night to plan local
relief efforts.

“The first thing you do is share the pain,” said Luke Hingson, president of Brother’s Brother Foundation. “Then you share
the work.

“You talk to each other, and if you know anybody who has been affected, you feel sad about it. The next thing is ‘How
do we help?’ “

Mr. Hingson was meeting with Dr. Leon Pamphile, a native Haitian and executive director of Functional Literacy Ministries
of Haiti, and Russell Bynum, the organization’s chairman, to discuss what aid can be rendered now as well as what will
have to be done later.

“There is a strong connection between the people of Pittsburgh and Haiti,” said Dr. Pamphile, who founded Functional
Literacy Ministries, a Christian nonprofit organization, in 1983. “There is a strong desire to help in education, health
care and to provide hope for those who are hopeless.”

There are more than 100 Haitians living in Pittsburgh, many of them in East Liberty and Point Breeze. That number does
not include the students at universities, Dr. Pamphile said.

Many of those residents, he said, were calling him last night, desperate for any news from the island nation, which is
about the size of the state of Maryland, with a population of more than 9 million. News, however, was scarce as lines
of communication were disrupted by the quake.

“The phone has been ringing nonstop,” Dr. Pamphile said. “People are concerned, and they’re unable to get through.”

“Right now, we’re just hearing anecdotal stories about buildings being destroyed,” Mr. Hingson said.

The effort to help didn’t take long to get started, mostly because it was already in place. Churches and community
groups in Pittsburgh have been contributing educational and medical aid to Haiti for decades.

“We’ve been active in the country for 40 years,” said Mr. Hingson, whose charitable group has been headquartered in
Pittsburgh for 50 years. “We work with a number of groups in Haiti. We send medical supplies and other things through
Christian ministries. There is an enormous number of mission groups and medical teams that go to Haiti each year.”

Brother’s Brother has provided more than $3.4 billion in medical supplies, textbooks, food, seeds and other humanitarian
supplies to people around the world in more than 140 countries. It sent more than 50 medical shipments to Haiti last
year, Mr. Hingson said, and had already been planning to send another shipment before yesterday’s earthquake.

“There will be Pittsburgh hands on the ground in Haiti in about a week,” Mr. Hingson said. “These are people whose lives
have been damaged, and we have to help them. And then you have a rebuilding process. We’re talking about need, not
just today, but need four months from now, maybe years from now.

“We can deliver, because we have. But we don’t have the same personal connections that some other people do. People
who live in Pittsburgh who are from Haiti or have family there and have day-in, day-out connections there. There are
groups that have a daily interest in Haiti.”

Functional Literacy Ministries is one such group.

“We have had a medical and educational mission in Haiti for about 26 years now,” Mr. Bynum said. “We have about 70
reading centers there. We have a clinic that we just built in Thomazeau, in the mountains outside Port-au-Prince, in July.
And we already were in the process of getting a group to go to Haiti to convene with doctors there to do some medical
mission work.

“The doctors and teachers we bring in are native Haitians, so this is really hitting us very deeply. Because we know the
people.”

Another organization with local ties, the Friends of Hopital Albert Schweitzer Haiti, a nonprofit based in Point Breeze, was
working to help earthquake victims. The organization focuses on cultural awareness, as well as the health and economic
needs of people in central Haiti’s Artibonite valley.

Hopital Albert Schweitzer’s main campus is more than two hours from Port-au-Prince, near where the earthquake struck.
The hospital employs more than 500 people and has 120 beds.

Friends president Lucy Rawson said her husband, Ian, the managing director of the hospital, was driving home from a
village near the hospital when he felt his car wavering on the road. He was able to e-mail her about 6:30 p.m. Eastern
time, she said, but she had not heard from him since.

“He said his car was going from side to side on the road, and he ended up in a ditch,” Mrs. Rawson said. “He got out to
see what was wrong with the car, and all these people were screaming and shouting. He thought they were worried about
him. Then he realized they were worried about something else.”

Their homes and cars were shaking around them.

“He said, ‘We’re all OK,’ ” she said. ” ‘Surprised and shaken, but OK.’ “

Numerous charities are accepting donations to aid relief efforts in Haiti. Donations may be made to:

• Brother’s Brother Foundation - Haiti, 1200 Galveston Ave., Pittsburgh 15233, call 412-321-3160, or visit
www.brothersbrother.org.

• Functional Literacy Ministry of Haiti, 1064 Premier St., Pittsburgh 15201, call 412-784-0342, or visit the Web site at
www.flmhaiti.org.

• UNICEF also is helping with relief efforts. Call 1-800-4UNICEF or go to www.unicefusa.org/haitiquake

Proximity is always on the lip of my mind. If I’m walking somewhere, I think in invisible string–tethered to this, to
that and to nothing. Corners snapping connections and the bus coming drags another taut, reels me in and I get home
somehow, like a magic trick. I am here and then I’m there, and so my used-to-be present place is now another
then. It’s a game of vision and space. The only thing I think about when I am sitting still is the pilates teacher
talking softly and matter-of-fact about people who draw their shoulders in as if protecting their heart. She says you
have to sit up straight and push back, let the bloody beast be pulled to the ceiling on a string. You can practice this
and feel strong and proud of everything your body is carrying around–the guts, the thoughts, ghosts of cells once
regenerating now gone. I imagine them like the atom bomb fall out–shadows burned into the sides of houses.

Once I said to someone, “I think it’s all about my proximity to others that I focus on to keep me sane.” Whatever I
am between the things I can immediately define. It’s silly and true, really. Silly that I think this and vocalize it and
true that the line remains blank until I can flail out my threads and figure it out. The proximity. My here to your there.

Lately I’ve been spending a thick amount of time by myself, and I’m starting to see another side to
the nickel. Realizing the distance, the mattering distance, is the self from self. The solitude is taking string and
tying knots and staying close. Is it what we do alone that truly defines us? Those coffees at tables with books and
pens and headphone-less walks from the bus stop to the front door. After I take out the key but before I turn the lock,
the second the shower shuts off. That precisely solo and definite half of a breath that escapes us right then. I’m
talking about that. When I focus on those type of things I can’t help but feel some relief, as if the best chorus is in
an endless song–how you can have nothing to do with any of it yet own a universe.

I think about getting older at weddings, when I note the wonderful amount of gray in my hair and around kids, like
my niece. I like talking to her because I have to simplify things a certain way–I have to explain or ask with a certain
absolute, and I hear the wonder come back in my voice when we have an interaction. Last year I carried the
getting-older bit like a pinched nerve; I turned 28 and the state of the current dawned on me in a new way. At first
it was the coat that didn’t fit but choked me, or that amusement park ride where the floor drops away and you’re
clenched to the wall with force and speed as it continues to turn. A bigger hopeless than the usual insecurities. Is
this something that everyone feels at one point or another? I had to give it time, but I settled into it. After all I will never
fear a clock, only the blank pages and the moments wasted when I didn’t write. I say that with an affection.

Some may say these days we are too connected. That technology allows us to be anywhere and everywhere,
to find any person we are curious about, to put ourselves out there in playlists and blogs and instant messaging.
Sometimes I’m one of those people. Tonight? I’m not.Technology can beamazing. It can rock you back on your
heels and make you marvel and bring tears to your eyes. At least that’s my situation currently.

Here’s the background to the story: my paternal grandfather was a Pentecostal preacher. He built his own
church, preached there, and had a consistent congregation with him. Up until the age of 7, when my grandmother
passed away, I sat in the front row of that church with relatives–between my father and my sister. My dad would
sneak me Certs from a roll in his blazer pocket, and the testifying would scary me something fierce. I watched
the same aunt who taught me to roller skate shout in tongues and raise her hands. I watched others turn and
kneel to the pews and weep while they prayed loudly. When my grandmother was sick with cancer,
they brought her in a hospital bed, and some people prayed over her and I remember one man fainting.
I watched relatives sing praise, watched my grandfather kick and shout and come down the aisle, face turning red as he summoned the spirit. Yes,
it scared me. And yes, it colored my experience with organized religion forever. I could never sit still in church
after that–if the service was calm and quiet and organized, then I couldn’t respond to it. I felt awkward,
uncomfortable and scared. Though the atmosphere of my grandfather’s church scared me as a small
child, the chaos of that makes sense to me now, feels almost comfortable. It is what I remember.

My grandfather passed away about six years ago. I haven’t heard him preach for much, much longer than that.
Since I was a kid. On my last trip home, my dad gave me a website to an archive of sermons. There, in
the archive, was a link to my grandfather giving a testimony, and a song. 4 minutes and 11 seconds of his
voice, his power–this man who could preach himself into raw shouts. I’ve been listening to it over and over again,
in tears. My heart feels crazy. I miss him, and that time in my life…it’s so long ago and hazy now, but
right there when I listen to him. That feeling of being overwhelmed, of witnessing this indescribable
power. It makes me bring my hands to my face and sob, and I can’t explain why. I will never be able to give
it words because it is beyond my language. It’s the tucked away room in my heart that opens so rarely–a space
I can’t force myself into. It’s only revealed in the unexplained realm of experience, memory, connection, fear, and love.

I think about my family, and about how much I know of them, and how little I know/will ever know. Thinking I
will live my life unaware of some things, and I will live with the features before me–that the line
leading back is something I’m a part of and extend from. I listen to him and think: this is something I witnessed.
I think of the songs the goosebumps would give me, and I think of who I’ve been and who I am. These things
they are connected. I’m tangled in that thread.

I think about his funeral. It was the first time that all the grandkids had been together in years. We sat in a
row together and I leaned against my cousin’s shoulder, tired and devastated and chest shattered. Thinking
of my father and worrying about him. We all stood in the front together and each held a candle, and then my
grandfather’s brother and his wife stepped up and sang together. He played guitar. My cousin and I looked
at each other and he squeezed my hand. “My god the sound of them brings me back.” I nodded, because it did.
We both started crying harder as they sang this beautiful twanged and practiced harmony, a memory breathing
before us. I remember this more than anything else about that day.

I sit here listening to my grandfather shout and sing and my heart feels like it’s fighting to surface, as if
hearing its name called. As if wanting to answer.

The above = my dominant viewing spot for the past 4, 5 days. Another epic migraine. Except for the 6 hour lie on New Year’s
Eve, when I convinced myself I was well enough to go to a party, smile and fake it. I was, of course, wrong. I had the right
intentions, however–get some fresh air, seem some lovely faces, engage in conversation. Pain trumps intent though, and so I
left without really saying goodbye to people and woke up the next morning with the usual unexplainable ache in my noggin and
a healthy dose of guilt(for the lack of au revoir–that’s very unlike me). Anyway, I feel like I’m finally crawling out of it…
right in time to go back to work tomorrow. Time for another doctor, because this episode was just ridiculous.

So I started my new year by hiding how sick I felt from everyone around me. I’m over it. I haven’t been well enough to do
much over the past few days except think–think on the ground behind me a bit but mostly on what’s in front. I squared away
my first gig for ‘10, and I’m ready to do more. There’s a new class to show my dukes to, and a few projects that are already
stealing my heart. Learning to approach them with “I will” instead of “I want to.”

More after I obtain some rest and a day or two of painlessness.