LOVER

RUBATO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So deft, I love her

trans/form

While in silence

Great wings surround brilliance

My body is a book 

Byzantine, onyx, quicksilver, I am not who

You think I am, do you know 

 

Wiping spots of blood on black sheets

Made its way into dreams

Being fascinated

 

With the entirety, giving

Up insanity, driving

For the sake of driving, I have no plans

To look my rapist in the face

He's dead anyway

 

Swiftly, espresso

Into the lexicon of survival

Understand that in the grand war, my sword/voice

Was enough. Between the

 

Escalation and

The story

Something's tethered to the past and something

Burns free. Anticipation

 

A shark could tear you apart, a bear

Could eat you raw

Relating to power

The source of pain is gone

 

High heels, machete, I am

Still alive

In conversation

 

Wondered, fresh air, hope

Is the thing that comes

before the really terrifying thing, persevere

 

Excavate

Something hard to explain

Takes place and pain

Becomes keys

 

 

Genius makes it look so easy

Tyree Guyton, from his "Cage" series

Homeward

Parsed from roots, launched to volant, gallant

woman in denim and boots

landing in arms of beds in woods that breathe

one moment, a moment, completely 

free there in lake country

cherries, blueberries

pines, creek, cabin, prayer

thank you

please

 

I will stand in the sites

of my wretched traumas, crack

open the chest again (a furnace)

because I can take it, run (power)

my hands over and through (vision)

threads/web anchor me to earth - I stand

on clouds (survivor). Burrowing down

into the land

that birthed me

re/memory, culled, culling.

Can you feel my grown spirit soaring. I'm just a dream

 

my ancestors travel, every bone

a wish, swallowing

wonder

thunder

wood

birch

crow

wolf

deer 

owl

bluejay

hound

horse

rabbit

snake, alley

cat. Opal

 

wound

healed

shield

puissance

frazil/thaw

petrichor/in advance

blood

of my arrival

the songs/I write

sing

 

because no matter

anything

the truth that commands

I'm the singer

axiom 

identity

 

 

 

find her here

A Girl/Reflects

Holga, 400 TMax, continuous film strip

@EUnderwood

 

IT IS

 

 

 

 

 

THIS IS AMERICA 

There's so much to say about Childish Gambino's "This Is America", and also to feel. It doesn't matter what I think, he's got the floor. I'm fascinated by how with each watching, the violence is less traumatic to me as a viewer - like everything else on loop in this world, we get used to it. And though some critics argue this is desensitizing, I experience it as a grounding in reality -

the less freaked out I am about the lived reality for people of color in America, the more capable I am of honestly bearing witness and taking action to support them.

Numbing can be energizing.

White tears don't solve a damn thing, and my job as it turns out on the planet at this time is to be a legit accomplice in the fight against racism (sexism/etc). Not a talker but a doer. I couldn't do it until I shed my sensitivity, and keep shedding - a "sensitivity" that in and of itself is a byproduct of privilege. So waking up, yeah.

The artistry of the work as a whole is stunning - no matter where you stand on it being "good". I'm especially blown away by Sherrie Silver's choreography, and Glover's performance of it - it's utterly conscious and wildly committed. The provocation is to feel, despite, and I do.  

Here's some better writers than me on the subject:

Doreen St Felix

Watching us watching him

as I was feeling -  

This kind of empathy means viewers cannot, really, just be passive observers. The video’s juxtaposition of carefree dancing with carnage and disorder, the vacillation between the gospel-Afrobeat hybrid and the harsher, sparse rap reflects the discord in the audience’s bodies, our faces perhaps displaying discomfort while our bodies betray us. In doing so, “This Is America” perverts the positive potential of dance’s collective nature, taking it from something celebratory to something far more disturbing that implicates us all.

 

Ernestine Shepherd, 76 year old bodybuilder, my heroine

NEW ORLEANS IS DEAD, LONG LIVE NEW ORLEANS

May 2, 2018

Dear Council Members,

I’m writing regarding the Sun Yard development debate slated for May 3rd’s council docket.

I’ve been living in Bywater for 10 years, and New Orleans for 25. As a Katrina survivor who lost everything and returned to rebuild and heal, I’m deeply invested in this city, in every sense of the word it's my home.

That said, I’m writing today on behalf of my neighbors who you haven’t or won’t hear from: the infirm elders, the folks taking the bus to work, the folks watching the kids of the people at work, Edwin our can man who lost his apartment to AirBnB and had to move to Slidell, Willie who lost his apartment to AirBnB and slept on the steps of the Alvar Library for a few weeks before he just disappeared, Austin who’s been rendered homeless by AirBnB and is now living in a recliner on Dauphine – the people who are responsible for the soul of Bywater who’ve been directly, horribly affected by the relentless “development” of this small, residential community.

Their lack of representation in the dialog is infuriating. They don’t engage because nobody listens to them – not the Bywater Neighborhood Association and certainly not city government. Well, I listen, and I’m carrying their message – I know it’s under the wire and I’m late to this game – but I, too, am a hardworking local fighting to keep a roof over my head, with not a lot of extra energy to spare. With that in mind, I pray you have ears to hear.

“You don’t know who your neighbors are anymore,” Kelly said to me last night, leaning on the porch railing, a broom in her hand. Kelly is Miss Mary’s daughter, Miss Mary runs these streets but you won’t see her on the news - her family's been here for generations, and they’ve seen Bywater change so fast since Katrina it makes the head spin.

40% of our rentable houses are now short term AirBnB rentals, the corner store is gone, friends are gone, and new businesses care more about Instagramming tourists than their local employees. I hear rolling suitcases more than I hear, “Good morning baby”, which is not the New Orleans of dreams or songs or culture - it's not recovery or growth, it's exploitation. It’s the New New Orleans of the white, privileged, upwardly mobile, and they’ve colonized Bywater like nutria – I wouldn’t say they’re ugly but they’ve changed this landscape for good.

The reality is that short term rentals are an ongoing issue that our city government has yet to figure out. It’s not all bad – I know folks who can pay their bills because of renting rooms out, and that’s legit. AirBnB is HERE, dealing with that productively should be the council’s priority. Adding the Sun Yard to the mix will only push the wheel that is pushing the real New Orleans community out harder.

I was chatting with a new neighbor who is pro-Sun Yard and she said, “I want a hotel for my parents that’s close by!” This oblivious entitlement defines the problem: this new resident is friendly, she has nice dogs, but she isn’t connected to Bywater or her neighbors in any substantial way. If she were, she would know that there are THREE excellent, locally owned B&B’s within walking distance of her house. Do the Sun Yard developers care that their hotel could ruin these local businesses? Do they mention this in their "impact" graphs?

More infuriating – why should her luxury problem be solved by destroying the character and structure of this community? Why do her needs trump Edwin, Willie, Austin’s – three men who were heartbreakingly pushed out of the only neighborhood they’ve ever known, disconnected from their support system, vulnerable and forgotten? Does it have to be that poor people really don’t matter?

Remember: there’s a gigantic ho(s)tel development going up in Bywater that’s already been greenlit by City Council – against the wishes of the surrounding community. It’s going to have a nightclub and a massive amount of rooms. Condos are being built on Burgundy that tower over the surrounding houses – they tore down live oaks and fig trees to put up what is, contextually, a monstrous structure that has zero connection to the community - this is textbook gentrification in action. Who will be able to afford them? Answer that question and you will know who it is that’s being disenfranchised in all of this. How soon before there’s Carnival cruises docking down at the Bartholomew wharf and between their loud speakers and more packs of tourists with cellphones and the skyrocketing rents cuz it’s so “desirable” to live where there’s so much “action”, and Bywater will be officially dead. NEW ORLEANS STILL DOESN’T HAVE A SHELTER OF LAST RESORT, but no shortage of boutique hotels. Does anybody in a position of power care about this imbalance and injustice? How will your actions answer this question?

Bywater has real charms that are hanging on, and I’d like to preserve them. There are shadowy spaces for cats and oddballs, there’s sinking bars for day drinkers, churches with Good Friday processions - people know my name, my dog’s name, my current state of love or loss – we share food, we take care of each other in storms. We live here for the quiet Sundays, the community, the connection – so that even if you’re lonesome, you’re never really alone. It’s a soulful community that's been colonized and exploited to the point that the very attraction of it is disappearing like fog on the river, and still: we matter.

I implore you: if you don’t actually live in Bywater, if you don’t want hotels eating up the property on your block, please prioritize the residents arguing against the SunYard. Don’t be fooled! These developers are just another hungry group of outsider venture capitalists wanting to profit off the allure of a Bywater address. Stand up for the real people who can’t live here anymore, and for those of us hanging on by the skin of our teeth, who have dedicated our lives - through literal hell and high water - to New Orleans. The true future of this city depends on US, can we depend on YOU? I hope the answer is yes.

Sincerely,
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Please know I’m a registered voter, and an active organizer who gets people to the polls. I campaigned hard to get some of you voted out in the last election, and succeeded, because you failed to represent your real constituents. To keep your job, remember: big dollar developers should never be your priority – your priority should always be Edwin, Willie, Austin, Miss Mary.