6.16.16

A lot has been said about the recent tragic events in Orlando, and sometimes when there is an incident I feel like I can't say anything. Maybe I'll be taking space from someone who needs to speak, or time away from someone who needs to hear. Maybe it's not my cause. Maybe no one cares about my opinion (mostly this). There are a lot of people who do want to say something, and that is good. Our words on paper help us remember the moment, for good and bad. Memory is important, but fallible.

Seattle's alternative newspaper The Stranger has a segment entitled "Poems of hope and Grief for the Orlando dead".  Poems featured within are some chosen to heal, or to make sense of the feelings following a senseless act. I like their selections, so I'll share some of them in full. Here is Someday I'll love by Ocean Vuong

Ocean, don’t be afraid.The end of the road is so far aheadit is already behind us.Don’t worry. Your father is only your fatheruntil one of you forgets. Like how the spinewon’t remember its wingsno matter how many times our kneeskiss the pavement. Ocean,are you listening? The most beautiful partof your body is whereveryour mother’s shadow falls.Here’s the house with childhoodwhittled down to a single red tripwire.Don’t worry. Just call it horizon& you’ll never reach it.Here’s today. Jump. I promise it’s nota lifeboat. Here’s the manwhose arms are wide enough to gatheryour leaving. & here the moment,just after the lights go out, when you can still seethe faint torch between his legs.How you use it again & againto find your own hands.You asked for a second chance& are given a mouth to empty into.Don’t be afraid, the gunfireis only the sound of peopletrying to live a little longer. Ocean. Ocean,get up. The most beautiful part of your bodyis where it’s headed. & remember,loneliness is still time spentwith the world. Here’sthe room with everyone in it.Your dead friends passingthrough you like windthrough a wind chime. Here’s a deskwith the gimp leg & a brickto make it last. Yes, here’s a roomso warm & blood-close,I swear, you will wake—& mistake these wallsfor skin.


At the Old Place 
Frank O'Hara 

Joe is restless and so am I, so restless.
Button’s buddy lips frame “L G T TH O P?”
across the bar. “Yes!” I cry, for dancing’s
my soul delight. (Feet! feet!) “Come on!”

Through the streets we skip like swallows.
Howard malingers. (Come on, Howard.) Ashes
malingers. (Come on, J.A.) Dick malingers.
(Come on, Dick.) Alvin darts ahead. (Wait up,
Alvin.) Jack, Earl and Someone don’t come.

Down the dark stairs drifts the steaming cha-
cha-cha. Through the urine and smoke we charge
to the floor. Wrapped in Ashes’ arms I glide.

(It’s heaven!) Button lindys with me. (It’s
heaven!) Joe’s two-steps, too, are incredible,
and then a fast rhumba with Alvin, like skipping
on toothpicks. And the interminable intermissions,


we have them. Jack, Earl and Someone drift
guiltily in. “I knew they were gay
the minute I laid eyes on them!” screams John.
How ashamed they are of us! we hope.

Crush a peal (its powder)

Christopher Soto

the night rory died, he moved the chair, his blonde locks fell
& we will never be the same


i moved to the beach, thrusted my hands into the mud
broke the jaw of every clam, hoping to find him


his pearly smile, like a broken necklace, thudded to the ground
scattered across mahogany floor


he kissed open the stitches of my gums & draped my teeth
on a necklace over the shy of his breasts


new lovers plagiarize, say awkward things, and yearn
they ask to see my pretty smile


but who smiles when the sky swallows its stars

In the Loop

Bob Hicok

I heard from people after the shootings. People 

I knew well or barely or not at all. Largely 

the same message: how horrible it was, how little 

there was to say about how horrible it was. 

People wrote, called, mostly e-mailed 

because they know I teach at Virginia Tech,

to say, there’s nothing to say. Eventually 

I answered these messages: there’s nothing 

to say back except of course there’s nothing 

to say, thank you for your willingness 

to say it. Because this was about nothing. 

A boy who felt that he was nothing, 

who erased and entered that erasure, and guns 

that are good for nothing, and talk of guns 

that is good for nothing, and spring 

that is good for flowers, and Jesus for some, 

and scotch for others, and “and” for me 

in this poem, “and” that is good 

for sewing the minutes together, which otherwise 

go about going away, bereft of us and us 

of them. Like a scarf left on a train and nothing 

like a scarf left on a train. As if the train, 

empty of everything but a scarf, still opens 

its doors at every stop, because this 

is what a train does, this is what a man does 

with his hand on a lever, because otherwise, 

why the lever, why the hand, and then it was over, 

and then it had just begun.

Lin-Manuel Miranda of Hamilton fame is known for freestyle rapping to audiences, and delivered this timely sonnet on reception of his Tony award:

My wife’s the reason anything gets done
She nudges me towards promise by degrees
She is a perfect symphony of one
Our son is her most beautiful reprise.
We chase the melodies that seem to find us
Until they’re finished songs and start to play
When senseless acts of tragedy remind us
That nothing here is promised, not one day.
This show is proof that history remembers
We lived through times when hate and fear seemed stronger;
We rise and fall and light from dying embers, remembrances that hope and love last longer
And love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love cannot be killed or swept aside.
I sing Vanessa’s symphony, Eliza tells her story
Now fill the world with music, love and pride.

This is a lot of material, and somewhat disjointed, so forgive me for takings someone elses' work to put this together and merely sharing it. I'd love to hear what other people have written (eta: found this really great, but long, entry by Mick Powell called cadencia, do go read it). One facebook friend shared a little quatrain, I wanted to link him to my last post, but that felt really stupid. I don't want to be one of the self-promoters who are constantly badgering people to watch their stream or whatever, not that they shouldn't, I just can't do that. So it felt wrong to be like YEAH SO TRAGIC READ MY BLOG. Or whatever. Hicok's words seem the truest right now:

" there’s nothing 

to say back except of course there’s nothing 

to say, thank you for your willingness 

to say it. "