Opening poem for manuscript: The History of Butoh

The History of Butoh

In 1959 a revolutionary performance occurred in Tokyo, the collaboration of two dancers, Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno. Former students of a Japanese protege of German modern dance founder Mary Wigman, their dance was titled after Yukio Mishima’s famous homoerotic novel Forbidden Colors. Originally called Ankuko Butoh: The Dance of Darkness, this revised form was called simply, Butoh. The performance caused an uproar.

I am the wood floor

upon which they moved
A union of light and dark
shaped by fossils and ancestors

What emerged was this: a necessary push and pull
Unbodying of the physical
Images of the interior self

Through no technical prowess
No pretty postures or controlled emotion
no ballet slippers

This was not about lifting off the earth
This was dancing below the earth
The living communicating through the dead body

How did they become the dead body?
They shaved their heads
and painted their bodies white

White makeup went on
and the mask came off
The canvas was to be danced from the inside out

And while I have felt their weight
channeled their movement
You, reader, may never see
the same image as the dancer

Pasadena

heavy crafted homes
low and squat
one hundred years
on oak tree
streets many were
blighted but now
there are mahogany
or deep red
doors heavy drapes
drawn against bright
sky windows shut
out hot desert
wind close purple
mountains shaded trails
beckon do they
notice the wide
porches are now
vacant the warm
arid climate too
warm and arid
my home town

Redondo Beach after Patti Smith

no one to look for
Redondo Beach was
sand in bologna
sea creatures coming
out of big dredge pipes
that girl was there

no not that one day
no hearse and no shock
dismal ladies
always were there
that girl is gone yes
down by the ocean
starfish and jelly
that girl has died

Redondo Beach
another dimension
waves blur the dismal
down by the sea
water on blonde hair
sand in bologna
sat on a blanket
saturdays there

no hearse on this day
black and white pictures
women all sitting
wearing sunglasses
who’s in the water
look at her blonde hair
no more soft creatures
waves blur the dismal
gone gone away

1982 at The Bird House on 5th & Main

In 2003 the Los Angeles City Council designated formerly known “Skid Row” as “Gallery Row”

when the artists took over pigeons lived there
I paid $200 a month for a big empty space
and toilet down the hall
some of the artists were junkies
when I got home late I smudged off my makeup
hid my jewelry
and practically ran to the loft
I got many parking tickets on Winston St.
I had a party for my sister
people lit firecrackers and climbed the fire escapes
it pissed off the junkies
I got a tattoo around the corner
we wrote poem graffiti on the walls
had sex on the roof
hip cafes would have been good
we could have panhandled

The Los Angeles River of Desire

The Los Angeles River of Desire

It is a real river and against
what you would think
it does not desire water,
it has that.

It does not desire a concrete bottom, concrete banks
or mostly wonderful graffiti,
it has that.

It does not desire baseballs from Dodger Stadium
or horse manure from Los Feliz stables or cast off condoms
from it’s many lovers.
It has that.

It does not desire 400 tributaries
It does not desire being the boundary
between LA and the Eastside
it has that.

It does not desire a group
that is trying to release it
from it’s manmade constraints,
it has that.

The Los Angeles River
does not desire desire.
It has that.

Villanelle for Your Body, Sacred Things, May in Deadwood, Oregon

This disappeared from the net for awhile and I found it again!!

http://unfetteredverse.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2008-09-29T09:34:00-07:00&max-results=1

We Are Riding Once More – 3rd place winner…

http://www.poemeleon.org/mystery-box-contest-4-winners

I’m a Muslim Woman

For some reason, WordPress refuses to link this to a webpage, so you will have to manually go there = <

This is in issue i29, the first poem! Yippee!!

http://www.shortfastanddeadly.com/issue-29-27-june-2010/

Exploding

For some reason, WordPress refuses to link this to a webpage, so you will have to manually go there = <

http://www.washingtonpoets.org/owas/view.php?a=1246

Fata Morgana/Mirage

For some reason, WordPress refuses to link this to a webpage, so you will have to manually go there = <

http://miseenpoem.blogspot.com/