Today

(inspired by Feed, a Newsflesh trilogy book, authored by Mira Grant)

Today
I listen
to this book
wonder what it’d be
like to lose everyone you
love and didn’t want to bury.

Thankful for

(a Thanksgiving poem)

My friends,
my family,
my colleagues in the struggle
to free our people.
The people, everywhere, who are Occupying.

The knowledge that the arc
of the moral universe is long,
but it bends toward justice,
according to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The fact that I have been around
to witness so much of it,
when I was supposed to die
a bunch of times,
but I guess I inherited
my mom’s stubbornness,
Because I'm still here.

Poem in 60 Seconds

(Actually true today, but I kept my word to the Center for new Americans)

A minute
to write
short poem,
keeping word.

Marching...

We marched by multitude
of Wall Street Banks
Some got arrested
for occupying the inside
of ATM
large burly white men,
not a brown face
among them and I looked-
hard.

Funny that,
because this was the
most faces like mine
I’ve ever marched with
in hundreds of marches
during the previous two decades.

Post TDOR

(in honor of Transgender Day of Remembrance)

How could
I not realize
that 221 trans people
were murdered in 2011?

How could
any sheriff think
that a murder involving a shot
to the head and possibly being
dragged behind a vehicle via rope or chain
is not a hate crime, even in Arkansas?

How can
we dare to think
that marching with candles
and songs
will ever be enough?

Nov.18th Poem

Note: Scott Lively is an American author, attorney and ex-gay activist. Lively is the president of Abiding Truth Ministries, a conservative Christian organization located in Springfield, MA.[1] Abiding Truth Ministries is classified as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Some white, male counter protester
when I gone to join friends opposing bigotry,
homophobia, and other bad things,
dared ask, “What are you doing here with these people?”

As if someone in a wheelchair
couldn’t possibly think for herself,
have opinions,
have sex
possibly- oh, my gosh-with someone who also had a vagina or
double oh, my gosh- was also in a wheelchair
or- triple oh, my gosh- both.

What I should’ve said is,
”Because Mr. Lively is misrepresenting Jesus,
and I object.”, “Because these are my people,
not these people.”, or simply, “Fuck you!”

What I did instead,
was say, “I bisexual.”
and watch him take
three steps back.”

It was most satisfying.

Another Occupy Poem

Hacker housemate
tells me about violence
at UC Berkeley Occupy.

I rush to Facebook,
check on friends…
feel reassured…

Can breathe!