"legitimizing" poems
If (WO)men are the ones that suffer an exacerbated amount
Of the violence, the **** the abuse, and everything that comes
with and from struggle and alienation;
it is because of their femininity that men at times
have come to believe that their contributions soften institutions.
That at times throughout history neither capitalism, neoliberalism nor revolutionary experiments like that of Cuba have placed femininity as compatible
with progress or resolution.
In which case femininity must be hidden, silenced, or displaced with no purpose or place to belong.
Thus everyone closely associated with this femininity such as homosexuals, transgendered (WO)men, and "effeminate" males, (ignoring, subverting and negating the lesbian identity because of their gender) have come to be marginalized by a structural system of exclusion.
(WO)men carrying the highest burden for originating the associative distinction
Homosexuals battling to find love by constantly having to assert their masculinity
Transgendered (Wo)men afraid of expressing their through identity.
Lesbians fighting to legitimize their own identity separate from the directives ascribed onto them by virtue of being born women.
Males who are labeled effeminate because of their sympathy toward those who struggle and are alienated.
And every other individual who refuses to deliver to give a marker to their identity and a degree to their femininity.
Hold fast in your femininity and embrace the rancor that society grants you
As a homosexual I speak with you brother and sister, not for you
Realize that our self-ascribed degrees of femininity and identity are as revolutionary and transformative, and thus necessary, as those of Che Guevara, Mohammed Ali, Harriet Tubman, or the Dali Lama.
That because we have decided to embrace our degrees of femininity, problematic to any movement, at one point or another, we have inadvertently decided to align our selves with those who are alienated the most by the systems in which they live.
So that in this way we must make our struggles deliberate and political. Let our degrees of femininity become legitimizing banners of solidarity for anyone who suffers in any corner of the world.
Mar 10, 2013
Mar 10, 2013 at 12:48 AM UTC
soiled.
here there everywhere.
regular like.
verb and noun,
he, both.
soiled, soiled.
verb, noun.
*****
a stupid~sounding word.
say ***** *****
***** three times fast.
what is a sound of *****
intimate.
what is the color of *****
every color that leaves you,
or even begins you,
soiled, sullied, tainted.
sweaty.
the intimate man did not intimate.
his stains were visible.
no need for polite,
needless the charade,
of legitimizing intimacy,
there for all to see.
they were no longer
intimate.
he did not know why,
after awhile,
he didn't care.
pretended intimacy,
which was a ***** thing,
a stainless steel cutlery
kind of *****
a reflection visible only to the
eye of the beholder.
cutlery was never clean,
soiled, after but one use,
think.
in the mouth, with the hands.
such intimacy,
that, they still shared.
an easy pretense.
terror.
terror is intimate
and *****
lived in terror.
not constant which implies periodic spaces.
no breaks.
the terror soiled him,
you did not need even be intimate with me.
sweaty,
see, smell it.
taste it,
even better!
though the terror was deeply intimate,
in the skin embedded,
I told ya,
easy visible.
easy to avoid the intimacy of
terror.
clean, silky clean intimates,
changed regular,
changed nothing.
intimacy was a Cain mark.
his private, public.
his public, privy.
more?
more.
shame.
shame is intimate.
there are so many kinds too.
the shame of soiled.
the shame of disrespect,
the shame behind closed doors.
the shame of public humiliation.
the shame, the stink, of failure.
the shame we share in ways
we wish not speak of.
the shame of bad grammar,
shame leaves you soiled, *****
terrified.
shame on you for having read so far.
but you can boast
you knew me when,
you knew me
intimately,
bad and well.
you knew
that you did not know
anything about me,
even though,
we had been
at least
this one time,
intimate.
who is soiled now?
Nov 9, 2014
Nov 9, 2014 at 4:04 AM UTC
The Emperor's new shoes
Painted imitation leather, polished and treated with care
admired and envied, all eyes drawn, especially yours.
Look at me, envy me, look how I dance.
Look at my silhouette marvel at how I make you feel,
Throw yourself to me, l make you feel so true
We are elite .
Walking stronger, dancing so much faster
How fanciful I am you,free unaffected
How do I make you look and feel, the emperor's new shoes,
Legitimizing your nobility
But how I pinch, and how I hurt you, how contorted you’v become,
How you twisted and bent to fit with me,
contrived , like me ,our artificial natural .
Your need for me and performance reflecting my own.
This illusion , only granted by me.
You never really chose, i led you to believe you are some king.
Your allegiance will not be rewarded the crest has to fall,
You can not always dance for me .
Remember i am painted and cannot become worn ,
I will not become comfortable for you,
I will not become misshapen from accommodation and give.
I will not shine if you dull me, my radiance is painted ,
Only you my emperor masked our deceit.
Now i leave you barefoot .
Jan 27, 2014
Jan 27, 2014 at 4:11 PM UTC
In old New Orleans
Musical lumberjacks
Legitimizing their axes;
Just piano, clarinet,
Bass and the drums.
Bringing jazz back
And then some.
The cat could play
That skinny long black horn,
Hotter clarinet than
Anybody ever born,
He kept hitting notes
So pure and high
We felt each note
In our eyes!
And, if you chance by
Remember this,
They don’t allow dancing.
But when the drummer
Makes works those skins
And makes them talk out
There is plenty of toe-tapping
And nobody ever walks out.
Then, when the guy
Plays that bass fiddle
He adds an underscore
To top bottom and middle.
It’s an underbeat of grace
That will fill the rest space
And the hearts of all
In this overcrowded place.
Vintage jazz roars out
Of an old, old piano
Played by a happy madman
With fingers afire, he knows
He’s got them hooked;
He’s making them wild
As he wails on those keys
He looks out and smiles
And he puts the Satchmo touch
On those old-timey songs
And once in a while
They ask us to sing along.
For the past forty-six years
Those ugly plastered walls
Have never hear so many
Gratefully rendered curtain calls
From an audience of clerks and swells.
On Bourbon Street’s Fritzel’s.
Through hurricanes and beers
Like stepping back a hundred years.
Fats is still playing, Bessie singing
Original jazz music is still swinging.
Feb 25, 2016
Feb 25, 2016 at 6:50 PM UTC
sometimes i wonder
is this all we could have been?
this mundane little bubble
and all that lies therein?
all there is to do,
all the places we are needed
all the problems we have caused
and the progressions we've impeded
soothed by the exchange of a small piece of paper
for useless items we're told we need
to fit into an image of a generic person
complicit in a culture we immortalize and breed
or others by their own conviction
in a set of rules older than this
to tell them how to make decisions
and promise them eternal bliss
each taught not to question preachings
or face some form of indefinite sanction
to remain obedient to a master
legitimizing the subsequent action
i don't understand.
how can this be the epitome of civilisation
so full of ignorance and hatred
we fail to see the beauty that surrounds?
how can this be the epitome of human intelligence
that we need glass screens for communication
and lenses to record our every movement?
how can this be the epitome of the human existence
that inequality is perpetuated
and poverty ignored?
one day you will realise what it is you have done
in your desperate bid for power.
you doomed the endurance of your kind
for the sake of one, tall tower.
Dec 14, 2013
Dec 14, 2013 at 4:50 PM UTC
He was real.
Made of blood.
Made of bones.
I shut my eyes
to see more clearly.
The illegitimate legitimizing
of a woman.
I tasted salt
and a cold body.
You tasted regret
and a sleeping beauty.
Dec 12, 2012
Dec 12, 2012 at 6:53 PM UTC
I'm always moving too fast
Always kissing too fast and too hard
Moaning, ******* heartlessly and blankly
Eating too much and not at all
Leaving people I need
Initiating relationships I can't keep
Arguing fights I won't win
with you everything slows down.
Walking like it doesn't matter how long it takes as long as we're touching
Imprinting myself with bruises or wearing your shirt so it smells like me
Losing track of time but making each moment worth being late
Legitimizing every pain I've suffered and then letting me let it go
be slow with me, i never want to Stop when i'm with you.
waste your time on me.
Dec 8, 2014
Dec 8, 2014 at 12:55 AM UTC
This is a poem that I wrote long ago,
To tell you that I know
I've always known.
But do you know?
Do you already know deep inside of you
That when the time comes for me to go
You will step away from all those hopes and dreams
And pretend to be a selfless martyr?
Do you already know
That you asked me to be yours forever, all those times,
Just so you could keep me until I will have to go?
Do you know that I was trying to keep
The entirety of my love away from you
Until you asked me to consider,
Really take the time to consider
Legitimizing our love?
Of course you know.
But do you also know that words fade away
If they don't have actions to be rooted into?
Do you also know that if by now
You haven't had the courage to make me yours,
I see you plan to let me go in spring?
To say to me: be free. life awaits you.
I think you know.
You know that is no martyr's deed
That is just a man who loved
But who did not love enough
A man always with the right words in hand
But with no deed to prove them.
The right words to get you pretty prizes
A fancy glass of exotic Champagne
That you sip and you finish and you place back empty on the waiter's tray.
Finalement, c'etait du consommable.
But that I was wrong
And everyone else was right
That, I did not know.
Aug 28, 2016
Aug 28, 2016 at 9:43 AM UTC
It still hurts.
But not in the way that it used to.
I do not love you like I did
You know, the "in love" sort.
I love you in your being
The person that you are.
But the romance faded with the years
That have passed in our separation.
It does still hurt
In seeing you with her.
Seeing the way you love and cherish
The way at one time I thought
You might still do me.
I watch the way you two just work
You fit perfectly side to side.
I wonder if maybe
Through me
Is how you knew she was for you.
Maybe what we shared
That was once so special to me
Helped show you that she
Was what you needed
No longer legitimizing
What we used to be.
Mar 8, 2017
Mar 8, 2017 at 1:35 PM UTC