Forum Poems and Participant Testimonials

What Moves Us

PDF

Some moments
 history comes to us and says:
What do you truly want?

We tremble. Often we run.
 From the terrifying possibility
 that we could choose
movement.

That we could begin
 exactly where we are
 in all our screwed-up
imperfection.

Some days we stand
 before our world
 and the question
 vibrates the air around us:
What do you choose?

This day?
 This moment?
 This
 heart
 stopping
 glorious
adventure?

There's strong like patriarchy
 strong like institutions
 strong like two-billion dollars a day
 military occupations
 spiked with genocide
 anchored in neoliberal greed
 buttressed by terror
 designed to deliver 200-volt shocks
 on contact.
 Then there’s the strength
 of what flows.
 Tears, grief, memory.
 Blood, energy, breath.
Collective action.

The strength of what moves us
 opens our throats
 ignites our hips
 unleashes our voices
 puts the move back into movement
yanks the motion out of emotion.

Movement
 strong as a river,
 current of joyful resilience
 wave and curl
 crash and swirl
patterns that constantly change.

Movers who channel each day
 the courage of divers
 to plunge again
into this churning water.

Thankful
 for what yields results
 curious
about what does not.

Building lung capacity
 to finally embrace
 the wholeness of our struggles
exactly as they are.

Some moments, life asks of us:
What do you hope?

There's hope like a battleground
 hope that's all soundbites
 hope that rehashes a thousand manifestos.
 What we intend, believe, imagine
 what we propose and plan and dream
 what we say, expect, pretend, how we think
things should look.

Then there's the truth on the ground.
 What we show up for
 each day
 with our fearful, angry,tired, clumsy selves.
 With our complex, precious,
 wounded, brilliant selves.
 And we grapple with the chasms
 of all that’s gone before.
 Negotiate the heartbreak
 of decades of betrayal.
 We push ourselves to replace “but” with “and”, “no” with “yes”,
 steel ourselves to listento those who enrage us the most.
 We stretch our brains and wills
 until we feel it,
 to real hard analysis
 until we get it
 unpack systems, structures
 models ‘til we know
 what works and what does not.
What truly moves us.

Some days history asks of us:
 What are you making?
We draw the map.

Something that expands
 the definition of beauty.
 Something that loves by remembering.
 Something like mehndi that flows into
 a fist
 Something like justice that frolics
 through our dreams
 Something like skin that tells its
own story.

Some years, life comes to us and says:
 What do you know?
 Why we kept at it, for forty, fifty years.
Why we have never regretted it.

That this movement
 Still moves us
In our guts, our hips, our hearts

That this laughter
 this trust
 this earned and tried and tested respect
 is a house we have built,brick by brick
and it will hold.

Some mornings life wakes us up
 sets our hearts beating
 sets our nerves thrumming
 warns us
 we’'re about to leap
 into our iciest fearour largest growth
 our most piercing joy.
 Some mornings,
 We take a huge breath, say
 Yes
to it all.

Some evenings, life wraps us round
 in the softness of twilight,
 asks:
 What are you waiting for?
 Truth. Justice. Reparation. Healing.
 In our lifetimes. In our lifetimes. In
 Our
Lifetimes.

Each day, love comes to us and says:
 What will you show up for?
 What, in the end, is the truth of
 your heart?
 We answer with our bodies.
 We show up
 for the struggle.
 We show up
 for each other.
 We show up
 just as we are.
 Precious, flawed
 limited, magnificent
Human.

We show up
 for power.
 We choose
 movement.
 We love
by showing up.

For the Women of Project Pride

PDF

Once upon a time there was a voice.
 She wore blue jeans shaped lovingly
 to the fine fat curves
 of her ass,
 the bold strong swell
of her thighs.

She loved red.
 And Motown.
 And silver hoop earrings,
 and anything lemon-flavored.
 But most of all she loved
 the milky peanut butter smell
of her son’s small body.

She roamed the asphalt of West Oakland
 calling for her mother,
 trying to remember
 what her mother looked like.
 Her right hand pressed deep into the hollow
 just under her left breast
 where she kept an ache
she could not name.

You say: do you see me?
Look – and tell me what you see.

I’m looking at you now.
 The lovely tired contours of your bodies.
 The heaviness of your bellies,
 bellies that have ripened children,
 done the work of building life.
 Bellies that pack enough power to lift this landmass
 from Richmond to Hayward
 flip it over like a pancake
dump it into the Bay.

And if I know one thing on this scarred and terrible earth it is this.

Your bellies have one more life to birth.
Your own.

If I trust one thing on this scarred and merciful earth,
 it is this.
All love begins with seeing.

As I learn to write, I learn to love.
 Because to write anything,
 first I have to see it.
 In its wholeness,
 without resistance.
 In its detail,
 without judgment.
 And I’m looking at you now,
as you look at yourselves:

well enough,
 deep enough,
 true enough,
hard enough

to write yourselves,
well, and deep and true and hard

to love yourselves,
well, deep, true, hard

to be the wellness deepness trueness hardness
that will rock the world.

Once upon a time, there was a voice.
 She wore big baggy white t-shirts
 to hide the folds of her stretchmarked belly.
 She twisted her hair constantly, to quiet her fingers’ craving
 for just
 one
cigarette.

She loved hot dogs. And pepperoni pizza.
 And tap dancing and ocean spray in her face,
 and rosemary-scented shower gel,
 but most of all she loved the taste
of sobriety in her mouth.

She stood outside a bathroom door,
 calling for her mother,
 poking her fear through the keyhole
 with a fingernail bitten raw,
 her other hand over her ear
to shut out a scream she could not name.

You say: Do you hear me? Does anybody hear me?

I’m listening to you now.
 The place where you catch your breath as you read
clutch it in your chest as if CPS were coming to take it away.

I am listening to your hearts break
 over and over on the page
 listening to you re-make
your lives from shattered glass.

Listening to the music
 that still chuckles in your hips
that nothing has ever quenched.

Listening to your hunger
 that howls at the junction
 of 27th and San Pablo
 for lives that rise to meet
your largeness.

And if I believe one thing on this scarred and silenced earth
 it is the fire in your throats just waiting
for a match.

If I believe one thing on this scarred and singing earth
 it is the hosanna of your hands.
 Diaper stained, exhausted,hands that heft
 babies and strollers and cribs and parole hearings
 and 16 months more and god my back hurts
and who’s he with now and what if I never…

Hands that reach again and again for one
 word and lay it down on the page,
 reach
 for a second
 word, and lay it beside the first, and sometimes
 like a benediction
 the third is given to you, and you write –
 the dangerous
 sacred irreplaceable
truths of your hearts.

Once upon a time, there was a voice.
 Her eyes were radiant with hope and flamed with
 intelligence, her body was a living question mark.
 She breathed in the world around her, turned it
 over in her brain, asked: Why?
And for whose benefit?

Who makes money from this?
 And how do I
 fit into this
shit’s-so-wacked-it-ain’t-even-funny picture?

She loved blues.
 And drums.
 And every question her daughter asked, and soft cotton on her skin,
 but most of all she loved
 the muscles of her mind.

She had strong feet which had to party
 when the beats began.
 She shook her booty up and down
 the corridors of Project Pride, relearning
 what her mother felt like; re-defining
 what a mother feels like,
 re-integrating
what it is to be mothered.

Her stomach was round and soft with a contentment that she knew.
 Intimately.
 She named it
recovery.

You say: Do you feel me?
Can you begin to feel – what I must live?

I’m feeling you now.
 The stab in your knees
 at the top of the staircase,
 the rise of hairs on your arms
 in exact configuration of your baby’s body.
 The canyon in your pelvis
 when you open your notebook,
 step to the stage
and begin.

I’m feeling the yearning on your tongue,
 the chill in your toes,
 each day you choose, and choose, and choose again,
to live from joy, not fear.

I’m feeling the sadness in your spine for all the lost years,
 the warrior cry in your chest: never again!
 The hum in your very cells of coming home.
To yourself.

And if I know one thing,
 on this luminous, fragile earth it is this.
 You are all
 so
 beautiful.
 So fuc-king beautiful.
 You are the soil beneath the asphalt, rich dark loam
 where all life rises.
 You are the largeness you seek.
 And if I have one prayer on this naked turning earth,
 it is this.
 That you meet yourselves
 in the mirror.
 Name yourselves holy.
 Name yourselves power.
 Name yourselves true and terrified, blessed and bloodied,
 torn and reknitted,
 shattered and sanctified.
 That you rise into your voices,
 voices that have waited for you, like your children,
 like your hearts, voices that have always known,
 voices that have never doubted
 you
 would
return for them.

SCREAMING

PDF

I.

there are too many battles
 and too many wounds
 and I
I can’t take it

I don’t want to know
 that Inez Garcia was sentenced
 to life imprisonment
 for killing the man
 who held her down
while two other men raped her

I want to cover my ears and scream
 to block out the voices that chant
 that Piah Njoki had her eyes
 gouged out by her husband
because she did not bear him a son

I want to be free of the murder
 that pounds in my brain
 because six hundred women a year in Delhi alone
 are doused in paraffin and burned
 burned to death for the crime
of too small a dowry

I want to pretend it won’t happen to me

did you know that a student at Sussex university was raped on her
 first night in residence
 by a man who just walked
 just walked
into her room

I am not a part of this bleeding
 this scream
 I don’t want to challenge argue fight
 construct confront negotiate
beg for change

do you hear me

I want to retreat
 to a room filled with humans
 shut out the night
 the fear and pain
 hear myself stop
 screaming inside
 unravel my breathing ask
 in a very
 low
voice

dare I
 claim the right
 to a voice
 that does not
scream?

II.

so it wasn’t until I learned to fight
 I could be sexy
 the swing of my hip developed
in pace with my elbow strike

I grew out my hair
 as my flesh grew harder
 began to wear lipstick
 bare my shoulders
 as I learned to judge
 how fast to strike
and where

groin
 eyes
jugular

It wasn’t until
 I could walk down a street
 knowing I could turn rage into action
 that I could strut
 down the same street
 say with my stride
 yes I think I look good too
 yes I revel in my body
 yes I love the sun on my skin
 this body is mine
 the better I learn to defend it
 the better I flaunt it
from sheer joy

III.

for the truth of experience
 Is in the body
 when I am a fighter
 my body is weapon
 when I am a lover
 my body is food
 now my body
 is paintbrush
 story
 truth
 illusion
 sing through my limbs
like the shock of cold water

breathe me clear
 breathe me free
breathe me home