LOVER

it's been so long since I've written here. Writing elsewhere. There's so much happening and so little changing, things are just becoming more themselves. These chronic illnesses are deepening, M-pire's rope is tightening, and so much is just falling apart. Collapse is never as finite as we imagine, it just keeps collapsing. I'm still alive, though, and that has to mean something. Because I demand it. So. Onward -

"The Heart of It" acrylic on canvas, 5"x6", 2003, EAU

Found this old photo of this work in my painting studio from another lifetime, so long ago. Wondered, where is it, this magnificent canvas? O, yeah, Katrina. 

I lost 20 YEARS of work - so much work - in those rotten levee break floods & I have NEVER "recovered", much less painted like this again. It killed something in me. What a tragedy! I'm a terrific painter. Just never had the stomach for it, the mechanical ability to do it all again. Goddammit.

People love to judge from the outside of trauma but you motherfkkrs do NOT understand. & you should spend your time actually trying to learn how, cuz not understanding THIS (& all it entails) is criminal. 

Invalid Invalid

The pencil must be razor

sharp or it’s too hard

to push. The pen

must be very sharp and fluid

also, or it will be a mess. Not too

fluid though, or it will be

a mess. Since when

 

did I need special conditions

to exist? Levees

don’t collapse in a day, it takes many

days that seem fine while underneath

the ramparts are slipping. Sifted

 

right through the body of my

being, health did. For the longest time

 

you live like you’ll never die and then

like you will. Maybe it’s better

to just keep running except

I want to float. Life is bigger

 

and smaller than imagined. Nowhere,

nothing, everywhere, everything – pain

oppresses the light, rest

is my resistance. All we can do is

 

what we can with the hand

we’re dealt. My ancestors,

spirits, guides and

ghosts – drumming

their fingers, cracking

bones, waving dandelion fluff - have always

given me enough but just. That used to feel

luxurious but now, scant. Is care ever

as prolific as we wish? My words

 

are dull, this poem

ordinary, nothing

I say will make anyone

love me, not with this

illness. Special things elude me and special

is ubiquitous. Listen –

 

conditions have never been

worse, why try

to understand? It’s not like I ever

quit. Pull my hair back, clean

the altar, refresh

the offerings, please them. Fickle, steadfast,

stingy, generous – no

matter. You get what you get, be

glad or at least grateful. It doesn’t matter

that you’re so sick you fall down. Your survival

is holy, the burden

clears a path -   

 

Eli.Underwood_DetroitMetroTimes_FictionAndPoetryIssue

disability visibility

I want people to become more conscious of their fear about disability & how it clouds their ability to connect to the disabled without the distancing defense mechanism of pity.

I tried

I was boots on the ground in SE Louisiana doing community advocacy work and oiled bird rescue during the whole BP disaster. I saw horrific suffering and the destruction of so much, with nothing but corrupt & complicit political response. Obama, with giant BP campaign donations, refused to declare it a National emergency, so necessary funding for relocation and unemployment to the affected community was never approved. EPA & OSHA, bald faced liars. I saw prisoners bussed in to do cleanup without proper protective gear, and I was there when massive clouds of banned & toxic dispersant were dropped onto the oil, just to make it sink to the floor of the Gulf. Out of sight, out of mind! I held dying pelicans in my arms, drove hundreds of miles back & forth with sick birds to the bird cleaning sites, I heard cries of dolphins dying in oil, and of the families whose ancestral waters and work were forever destroyed. I saw them develop terrible infections & permanent respiratory damage, forced out of family businesses & homes.

 

My dr told me, "In 7 years, we'll have waves of patients with 0 history of cancer, developing cancer," & guess what? It happened to me. Breast cancer, with 0 family history or genetic markers. As the anniversary of my mastectomy approaches, I feel it all.

 

The ecology & people of Southeast Louisiana are poetic and haunting and fierce and disappearing. I watched whole roads get eaten by coastal erosion caused by the oil industry, who the State of Louisiana STILL doesn't make pay state taxes, or develop prep or funds for inevitable disasters. I stood with culture bearers as ordinary rains brought toxic chemicals onto their gardens and flooded their yards, "This flooding didn't used to happen," and next - forced to relocate. Like me, yes - I was forced to move because I can't afford the climate crisis of the Deep South anymore, on any level. So, yes, grief, on this the 14 year anniversary & nothing has changed, it's only gotten worse.

viva palestina

Gagging on my cereal, body BURNING for the kids, starving. How can anyone allow it? They'd have to be dead inside. They'd have to have one mind: the conqueror's. To strip kids of their humanity, a mind has to be SO small, unquestioning. How do they live with unquestioning minds?!? With complete confidence in their ONE IDEA: that they are SUPREME & the rest of us are dirt. The thing is - for some of us - dirt is the holiest of holy beings. So that's it, then - there's them & there's us, and we worship Earth. & we want the kids to EAT. What a shocking thing, to simply want kids to eat.

O, the grief, the anguish! Nervously tapping their forks on the emptiest of plates, plates sparkling clean in the middle of a dusty bomb site, plates that look like they've never ever had food on them. Children clanging their silver forks, eyes hollowed, begging, begging us not to starve them. We have failed. Humanity has failed and we all deserve to starve, but not them

I pray & pray for doves to carry them honey & milk, dates & warm bread, strawberries, tomatoes, watermelon. Eggs & polenta & tea with cream & sugar, rice & beans & more rice, rice pudding, soup and more bread. So much bounty that they have to lay down and sleep under blossoming trees full of sweet singing in soft gentle breezes with no drones or bombs or hunger, just summery grass and naps. Then wake to more - salted fish & more rice & greens & apples. I pray them love

and beg their forgiveness which we must spend lifetimes trying to earn that they never ever have to give. Which we will never deserve. Let us suffer, let us starve. Let them live & dream & be the whole world, it's their turn forever, now -

NEX BENEDICT

Trans kids, non binary kids, 2 spirit indigenous kids are worthy of love & respect & deserve, you know, the basics anyone else should get: to live.

I watched video of a tiny girl crying, shaking, hyperventilating, terrified to cross a road in Rafah cuz of Israeli snipers killing people all around her. A paramedic, beautiful loving gentle man, knelt, calmed her, held her, helped her breathe. I've never seen such love. A few hours later, Israel bombed his ambulance and now he's dead. The girl will be dead soon, too, or if by some miracle she survives the bombs, snipers, dehydration, starvation, disease, toxins, Covid, cold, no sleep, no school, no safety and by some miracle manages to live freely on her homeland, or escape to anything that isn't a concentration camp, she will be traumatized so deeply for the rest of her life that her dreams and gifts will never be her own, not really. We are not supposed to live in a world with this much extreme violence & suffering, and I will go to my grave carrying her, and him, and all of it, all of it

 

BLOOD SOAKED FLOUR

It's extremely nightmarish to see happy food posts on social while our government slaughters people (with weapons our taxes pay for) we're forcibly starving as they run for bags of flour dropped from the sky