Why I Got Rid of Most of My Friends

not really secrets- 2003 and other dates

You looked for me but could not see
I was hiding inside poems invisibly
protecting vulnerability

it was after the fact
I felt your arms and wings
around me
it was there you found me
in poetry invisibility
darkness helps you see
the mystery

my beauty is slipping away
strangling me and eluding you
I have sorted out some feelings from your moods
I am finally clear whose pain is whose
I am in awe of your courage
and surprised at how soft you are
present, glowing, real

then my beauty slips back inside
so I feel less need to hide
please accept silent apologies
for all mistakes, past and future
I have made or will make
know we will have chances to
eliminate unnecessary suffering
but do not take it from me
go find out for yourself

we could talk politics
we could talk race and religion
gender and bigotry
we could talk until our breath runs out
but I would rather just be
I would rather let you see
what I see
reflect back to you your own divinity

Original beauty
let your masks crumble, one by one
allow my walls to dissolve
exposed and raw like the heart of a flower
you might reveal a gentle power
into my patient gaze
I have been waiting for days
our bridge to freedom
not yet discovered
I reach for you like a sleepy child in a trance
long for you to join this kind of dance

Never wanted to frighten you away
that is why I was waiting
but I know secrets I am dying to tell
And they are not really secrets
just forgotten truths.

discernible messages

your meaning has been eclipsed
 by the otherworldly intention
all that I have been able to perceive
and
I open to you
only to have doors shut in my face
but I am changing
the story
changing
whole heartedly
every step of the way
every minute of the day
more and more
I even know what to say
I humble myself to
the silences
I discard the dreams
that do not contain discernible messages
I watch for the signs
change is always coming
change is always here

mad love from the start for you - 2003

2003.

the world is peopled with people
so many that we are sinking now
but it does not matter so much
so the mountains below
and the heavens above
join  me in song
timeless
glorious

it is worthwhile to love
but only if you throw your whole body
and being into it
no looking back

I love the ones who have chosen to ascend
who have lived through personal hell
who have lived to tell
they got life experience wisdom early on

why else did their souls choose bodies?
karma mystery, racist history
blind and stubborn present times
all add up to the equation of the circumstance
I love the ones who dance
along borders of fantasy and reality
compassion unfolding
intentions golden and hearts align
along the true design of what is to come
I love the ones who choose to ascend
I got poems in my heart for you
mad love from the start for you

from 2004 : what is to become of us?

Mother
I am not ready to make babies
my hands are soft
the poems from these fingers
are her children
river message for humanity
curing infertile spirits
making whole what has been divided
she blessed our work with water vibrations
clear and vibrant
blue ribbons and cowrie shells at her feet
no longer silenced
whisper into a deeper breath
Yemoja, Yemaya
your Rivers are Alive
but these wars rage on in a land
where greed began
so long ago
so long ago

Father, am I not here to be
Always in the place of poetry?
prayers have been sold for gold
it was all foretold
in the book of pages, by eternal sages
yet your names ran over the lips
of those who chose to mask intentions
now Military forces run Nile blood from their sources
the Almighty and those who call upon his name
who do acts in the name of Allah
who awaken stagnant powers from slumber
all for a chance to pull the new number
scores of bodies in mass graves
pacifying the devotees as slaves
yet the same tombs, the same temples
that Egyptian Pharaohs oversaw
are not exempt from the higher law

Hot desert winds leading Mohammed
to alchemize, to catalyze
changes occurring in a rapturous daze
in the eyes of sedated ones
agitated ones
in the daze of rapture
shifting the gears of the goddess
lying raped and forlorn
her gentle body torn
by the empty broken traditions
passed on for generations

Now only the rivers must cleanse
what will follow
Be hollow
streams of conscience, of consciousness
the world has not yet seen
what is to become of us?

Chapter from "I will be dust I will be rain" (a work in progress)

Welcome to my Twenties and early Thirties

I spent a whole lot of time at this point wandering the city, being some sort of version of a beatnik poet, but clearly shoved into the wrong era for beatnik existence. Yet and still, I persevered. I kept moving. I spent time in Golden Gate Park by the carousel, I pounded pavement in the Mission, and also in the Lower Haight and all the while I was driven to write poems and sometimes chants that I felt compelled to share at the open mic poetry nights I found along my path.

How do you know you have reached some measure of success as a person who perpetrates counter culture? It seems that the accolades of modern society revolve around mostly academia or in the context of what are considered “real jobs” where one may land a coveted promotion, and so on. When I was asked if I wanted to be featured, that was the warmest introduction to the stage as a poet that I could have gotten. So naturally, I sought more experience in the blossoming spoken word and performance art scene that was permeating the Lower Haight.

In this day in age, in the United States, a person of my background is expected to achieve a certain level of success. In order to do that, you have to believe in that very much promoted type of success, you have to believe it matters, that it is for you, that you fit inside of it somehow.

I never really believed in it. I may not have always had some other type of success or goal to focus on instead of it, but I never bought into it. I got as far as finishing a B.A. degree and then applying for a Master’s in Social Work. I applied to several different schools. I took a trip to Boston, to talk to people at the University about their program. I flew to England with my mother to meet people at King’s College in London, where they offered a Master’s degree in Comparative Religion. I remember sitting at a restaurant with my mother and trying to talk about the concept of “World Rejecters.” She had no idea how depressed I was at that time, how much I wished I could reject the world.

She responded by asking me, “Oh, do they talk about that in the literature?” How I hated the place I was at that moment. How I hated this Ivory Tower version of me that was looming over us at that time. How I hated this expectation of incredibly pretentious dialogue about subjects only the super privileged people who were overly saturated in elitist scenarios engaged in. I could not bring myself to fashion my mind into the type of mind that ends up perpetuating conversations or diatribes that are not much better than mental masturbation, while the rest of the world burns. Yes, I know that the rest of the world lacks authenticity in a big way, and deep down I know that I am nothing if not authentic, nothing if not disgusted by elitism, and to step into that world would have been to step into wretched terrain and ugly territory I wanted more than anything to flee, to run from and never, ever look back.

That is exactly what I did. I blame nobody for that time in my life. My mother was only trying to help; she was showing she believed in me, my academic abilities, and my intelligence. I do not fault her for not understanding my struggle at that time because, poet that I am, I am still sadly at a loss for words when it comes to this sort of confusion and angst. I do my best to capture it, when I feel relaying it may do some good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

walk away 2014

I remember the first piece I saw you perform
at the open mic in the lower height
where we first made contact
it was entitled "statistics"
and you were making strong statements about
the overwhelming diagnosis epidemic
how children all seemed to be considered to have disorders now
what about indigo? what about crystal?
you hated when cell phones took over
you told me years later how you cried
at the switch the culture made from
human relating to human, face to face
to cold, disconnected technology oriented
fast paced consumer capitalism
you ranted about so many things
I would listen
and agree.
I assumed we were a similar kind of empathic fierce poetess...
I would speak my mind too...
and we drifted after that first meeting
for years...

Until I walked by the outside benches and tables
at a Berkeley food market
and you called out
"Imaya!?"
I sat down and we caught up. you were holding the journal that
we agreed to write to each other in,
I mentioned I had a c.d. you had made
we seemed to be rekindling the friendship.
we discussed how hard it was to make deep connections
with women our age in the Bay Area.
we lamented this fact, and I was fooled into thinking
we found solace in the friendship we were building together.

you called me up in tears
(how many times?)
just hearing my voice helped
or so you said
I had no reason to question your sincerity
you were on fire about the patriarchy
you spoke ferociously about rape culture
this was what I used to determine your worldview
but worldview does not make up
the most critical ingredients of friendship
so when I was sexually assaulted
I called you
needing your voice to help
and you had no time for me
I had to send you an email after some time had passed
telling you how I felt you had not shown up
which you denied
and then told me you had just decided I was fine
and gone on with whatever else you needed to do
that was the beginning of the dissolution for me
to realize I had to run after you to get your attention
after being sexually assaulted, wait, was it not you
who gave me Eve Ensler's book "in the body of this world"
raving about how she told the story of women who suffered
and survived all kinds of assaults
and yet here I am, needing companionship, sisterhood,
and I struggled to move past that
people make mistakes
it is not worth describing those last few texts we sent
to each other
nor is it necessary to continue resenting
what I now realize was apparently a huge
misunderstanding
and I am so sorry I misunderstood
I thought there was basic respect
between us, enough so that
were we to go our separate ways, there would
be a legit understanding of why
so I have to create my own closure
having strange dreams as my psyche works out
how painful it is to be abruptly abandoned by
someone I let in so incredibly close to
the warmth I provide those in my inner circles
and it hurts worse than those experiences
with the men I dated and told you about
because you were the one I truly trusted
and that seems to have been
the main ingredient in this misunderstanding
trust was not warranted
trust was not appropriate
trust was trampled on
and yeah, it is hard to make deep connections with
women our age in the Bay Area
and the sacred covenant I had created in my heart
for the sisterhood I had hoped we were forging
has all but disappeared
remnants of it on the ethers
so as I always do, I release you, I release me
wish for nothing but
your healing, happiness, peace and freedom
and as I always do
I keep the faith
that this sort of lesson
will bolster my confidence
to see through people when they are showing
certain kinds of true colors
that indicate
I should walk away
before being
tossed away
and my life
will get better
with each step
toward new
and actual authentic
experiences....

Information to spill

(I hear that)
people must learn
to find the peace
so elusive
so possible inside
the code must be broken
the way the code
has always been broken is
by those who have spoken
out of turn
getting ready to burn
why would you fear
burning
when the world just might stop
turning
when this whole illusive trip could be over
at any point
you stand there, smoking a joint
with time to kill, with information to spill
you always did reach out with the wings
the representations of complete freedom
with nothing to lose but so much to choose
we have choices and voices it would seem we have
all but abandoned so what's the plan then
are there higher powers that give us all these pretty flowers
are there pretty flowers that insist
and keep strongly indicating
some fantastic high rating
for some untouchable deity
requiring some measure of piety
leaving me wondering
why won't you smile at me?
back to the beginning
needing that essential elusive peace inside
taking all our senses for a ride
so plentiful so abundant
this fertile desire to manifest
a goal that has repeatedly been put to the test
the confidence, the knowing inside
that flow
and source
indicate infinity
so if you call on them
they are never busy
they lack gender race orientation of any kind
which lends to their everyday ability
to orient to suit your design desire need
it is you they will feed
as you stand there
against the wall
time to kill, information to spill
smoking a joint
about to make a point
arrive at a truth
shed some light
find an end to a fight
a solution
so bright