Pencil Strokes

Does the fire ever burn out
or does the dust simply settle
around our heels?

I want to see the small villages of
India, the towers of Russia, the
mountains of Chile, the colors of Istanbul,
the pyramids of Egypt,
the forests of Nova Scotia,
the breathe of my
first born moment.

I had an inquisitive dream that your
pencil strokes were incapsulating
the city with 50 shades of people
watching from the river.


This is a downward spiral
but nothing is as real as
your embrace on an urban
curbside, the salt water
still pulsing through your
fingertips, the ones that
drew the map to our treasure.

God talks to me, nightly.
I am his messenger, we
all are, he says.

The dream reoccurs, this
time with my lyrics written
in the sky over Paris, Milan,
Berlin, New York, and home.

What if all the people in all
the world could see the pencil
strokes, lyrics, embrace, fire,
dust, heart, peace, truth?

What if I could see you
walk through my door now?

Military Brother, Single Mother, 7 siblings, Jose

outside at old Church
on Friday evening, Jose,
14, sobs in his mother's
arms, dressed in cap
and gown, his 8th grade
graduation.

She says
"do you know how much I love you?"
over and over, rocking him.

I stand there.
I am lucky.

The moment passes, his eyes
look to me, his art teacher,
and he hugs me too, the
weight of his future on
my shoulder. 

"the beautiful dogwood on Buena street had no other choice but to become the beautiful dogwood on Buena street.."

Jose can be anything. 

* Jose is Louie's Brother

JUST DANCE

 

A few days ago, I let the rowdy third grade class into my wildly colorful, somewhat disorganized art classroom at St. Ann School. The assignment was to listen to several different genres of music as they were played, and draw pictures that represented how the music would you make you feel. Louie, who would be taken out of class soon to see the counselor for sever disciplinary and emotional problems seemed particularly restless,  I called him over and told him he didn’t have to draw if he would help me to pick the music. He seemed intrigued, and slid over by my side. He began to pick from the dozens of cd’s,, fast dance music, slow jazz, and whatever else caught his eye. Then he picked up a Mozart CD and I slipped it into the player. The class went quiet, as Louie stood in the center of the room and began to dance beautifully, gracefully, jumping, turning, smilling. His classmates, astounded by what they saw, their rambunctious friend awing them with artistic brilliance right before their eyes. I sat there completely and utterly amazed at how much I was blessed to be in his presence at that moment, how much life had been given to me this year through the eyes, ears, voices, and dances of small Latino children on the south side of Chicago. 

i just want to be in a place where they are speaking french.

a man, speaking french, with a navy blue suit on and blue eyes
and he is my husband, at my first book signing and we are going
to have incredible sex outdoors that night, or watch our children
in a play about saving the sun from the galaxy hunters of a distant
land.

i want to be a mother, holding the hands of little creatures
with bright purple band-aids on their playground battle wounds;
i want to teach them to revolt against the 9 to 5 and run with me
and their father and our community of almost nudists to europe,
south america, and other romantic locations.

i see myself watching the theatrical pieces and paintings of my
artistic students, who are finding their way, with my help, my
tired hands grasping a hand made mug filled with green tea
in the rehearsal room on a cold friday in late March.


i hear foreign voices and it makes me want to run back
to Valencia and chase the boy who stole my chocolate.

i want you to know, that no matter how far we get, i love
you. i love you.

i love you.

A man needs something he can hold onto

I still don't know what loves means 

i was laying on a rock near a polluted river last summer,

the sun beat down on my body, and your eyes were somewhere

between my forehead and hip bones.

this hurt confusion and loss of innocence has pushed

me into a discomfort, a wanting and longing for a 

sweet reunion that may never come.

when i give up, will you be there, walking on a pair

of stilts, accustomed to traveling, one year older

and wiser and further away from me.

i just want to go back over that bridge, naked

singing, running from 9 to 5, and finding your

hands resting somewhere between my forehead

and hip bones.

i think you might be gay, i think you might be afraid,

i think you might be the only answer to my sick

and lonely dreams. 

idealistic romance leaves me wholesomely 

hanging on to nothing at all but a memory

in a black box that read "ARTISTS"  torn

on my Chicago windowsill.

Someone may discover my talent, someone

may give me a job speaking, starting the revolution,

but I don't want to start it without you....

Lent Reflection

Jesus Is Taken Down from the Cross: 13

I can remember, as a child, sitting next to my father in Church, and watching tears stream down his face while he looked up at the Crucifixion. My father also cried the first time he saw David’s Michelangelo in Italy, the first time I left home, the first time I rode a bike on my own. He was a crier, a man of expressive emotion, a person that inspired me to realize and feel connected to the humanity in all those I would encounter. This is perhaps the reason, that despite Jesus’ miraculous and divine nature, I am most drawn to his suffering, his time as part of mankind.

As Jesus died on the cross, he was bloody, breathless, weak and broken. The calm and loving hands of his mother and friends removed his body from the splintered bark of the tree he had hung from.

He was dead, heat slowly escaping him, as their tears must have mixed with his blood, their grief consumed them on the dusty ground, soldiers and crowds members walking away to continue on with their own lives. He was dead, yet
with his passing, it was realized that he had been loved on earth. Even if he were not God, even if he did not rise from the dead the next morning, this was a real and
true accomplishment in itself, perhaps the greatest accomplishment any of us will ever achieve. To be loved.

This year was full of challenges for me, and I think I can say, that a part of me died. Perhaps it was my nativity, my emotional immaturity, my attachment to the past, my unwillingness to accept the future. I struggled to be at peace, to be at my best, to be present, to be on time, to clean my room. Yet, during this struggle, this death of something inside me, I had new friends, new supports, new blessings holding me up, taking me down from my cross, preparing my body for re-birth.

My roommate Ed let me cry to him, and feel vulnerable, with a grace I had never encountered before. My roommate Eileen didn’t let me stay in the dark places for too long, pushing me with her spirit and optimism. All of my roommates, and the entire Amate community, were supportive of me, and although they may not ever know how low I actually got, it was all their hands that held me up.

My students and school community were also a remarkable blessing to me, although there were days that I was too weak to serve them effectively at all. Around Christmas time, several members of my small track team hugged me in my classroom, and told me they nothing more than for me to be happy again. My third and fifth graders promised to pray for me whenever they could. Sandra and Bryana, two conflicting eighth grade girls, sought my counsel, and told me how lucky they were to have a teacher that understood them. Erica, the school therapist, talked me through my toughest days, and always encouraged my strong points. A second grader, Ashley, gave me a book on Hope and finding God. My kindergartens wrote me a song on how I was their favorite teacher. Jacob, a seventh grader, who had been a real disciplinary challenge for me at the beginning of the year, came alive when I introduced him to poetry, and would slip me a new poem at least once a week with a proud smile on his face. Arturo, a challenged learner, in eighth grader, appreciated and thanked me for encouraging his breathtaking talent in art and music. Ms. Julia, the kindergarten aide, always spoke softely to me when she knew I was having a tough day. Ms. Heidi invited me to after school field trips and brought out my passion for the students at St. Ann School. David, Emilio, Nico, my fourth grade drama students, instilled in me again the power of a child’s imagination in creating art, and the innocence of learning new things each day. Kevin, a student with cancer, brought awe to my day with his undying enthusiasm and high spirits. My boss, and co-workers, presented undying patience and understanding as I struggled through my depression and uncertainty. My supports were boundless, and life giving, and although I wasn’t always able to receive these blessings with presence, my gratefulness was sincere and apparent. I may have stayed on the cross forever, if it were not for these people, who as my father had showed me years ago, had real humanity in them, just as Jesus had real humanity in him. Miracles are born, I believe, when human beings are at their best, serving one another, loving one another, fully alive.

I want to take this time to apologize to all of you for all the times I failed to be at my best, and thank you for all the times you removed the nails from my limbs, allowing me to die peacefully, so I could be re-born.

no doubt

I remember when California was a place where
all of my favorite teen novels took place.

A far off fantasy land that I have still never been to.

And because of prior commitments, my roommate
Eileen and I's dreams of catching our childhood favorite
band of all times ever No Doubt, in their home state,
has been crushed.

But we do have tickets, to see them in the heartland of America.
This is interesting. From a sociological standpoint, and I am actually
beaming with the idea of seeing middle America rock out, from the
city dwellers to the farm kids all under one hot sun.

I imagine it will take be back to my free concert days, pre-teens,
dead heads, pseudo goths, closet queens, bubble gum chewers,
slanted edge cheerleaders, wilde colors on their lips, hair, chests,
tounges....

No Doubt-July 2nd


Gwen---I'll be seeing you sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooon :)

i believe that the whole world is our canvas, and that the power for change lies in the hands of the people. everyday we sit and do nothing is another day that children go unfed, art dies to a bureaucracy, the enviornment folds under neglect, and our minds become trapped in a sentiment of non resistance. we must resist, together, peacefully, and realize that during the darkest times in history is when the people rose up together. rise up! wake up! BE THE CHANGE YOU WISH TO SEE IN THE WORLD!

Our current infrastructure does not allow space for our great humanitarian potential. We must not fight in jest, however, but realize our bonds as humans, that all of us have the same basic needs, and must work together to not only preserve our well being, but allow it to grow into more sustainable avenues.

Perhaps it is time for a new Renaissance, on a world-wide scale. Perhaps it is time for the rich to give up their resources, and the poor to be granted justice. Perhaps it is time for young artists to unite against the narcissistic and selfish tendency to use art only for aesthetics, rathern then the betterment of man.

We are worth so much, as a people. We are worth more than to brain wash one another. We are worth more than materialistic greed and loveless relationships. This is not about fighting the "man" but realizing the "man" is one of us too, and we must all come together to save our world from destruction upon itself!!!!!!

What can anything mean?

I have got this chance to write a story about my life.

My life, right now, is a messy room, with laundry and new clothes
thrown in every corner, a bag of hot chips on my desk, with
an old deodarant stick, thirteen dollars, an overflowing
trash can, a small blue and pink print, a drawing of
florence, a picture of a ballerina, blankets, lots of blankets
for lonely travelers, and my lonely limbs, quotes on the wall,
ones' i wrote, found, loved, or don't know how they got there.

i am sitting on my bed, there are four people waiting outside
my bedroom for me to come to a dueling piano bar somewhere
in cold, cold chicago. i am tired again. the week is on my elbows.
there are 11 youths in our basement, their leader told me they
are starting a movement, bringing different races together to
travel across the country. i gave them extra pillows. my roommate
is fliriting with my best friend who is soulfully playing the guitar,
and i hope to God tommorow I'll be able to prove to someone
that I am more than someone who's eaten too much in the
last four days.

Leo

Leo is from Ecuador, owns a cafe seven blocks from my school.

Sometime in November, he grew some kind of courage to announce,

"you know, the first woman i ever loved was an art teacher!" 

"she was the first woman i really looked at in California when we moved there, really beautiful, and alive, she thought about life and told us about how just perfect every small moment could be, you know? just like a fire, you know"

I looked at the ground, not feeling confident, red and blue paint crusted under my finger nails, the smell of cafeteria tacos seeping from my hair. 

Leo did not care I don't think. 

He is happy. He just nods. Laughs. 

He talks in a smooth voice about the photographs on the walls

and smiles if I tell him something that is not positive. 

 He always asks me where my boyfriend is. 

I ask him where his son is, the eight year old with

glasses that sometimes hid with the milk cartons,

asian HIV prevention kits, and

Mexican figurines in the back room. 

"Ahh, you." he'd say, and walk away.

I go to see Leo when my coat is feeling particularly

warm, my head particularly heavy, my days particularly

terrible

It's a sanctuary when I need to run from the monotony of a work day, run form the worries of having broken thousands of boundaries that week, by calling the wrong people, painting stripes in the art room corridors, drinking too much orange juice without my name on it from the teacher's lounge, missing home 6 more times then allotted in a day, wearing the same socks twice in a span of four days, yelling at a second grader for being a second grader, or after finding the old church, sneaking behind the alter , laying down, and crying.

Leo doesn't know about any of this. He just gives me free tea.  Usually green.

hot and delicious.

hot chips and jesus

Had I never started teaching 10 year old Mexican children, I may

have never discovered the pure joy of "hot chips."

They are just what they sound like.

Chips:lays, fritos, dorritos, cheetos (crunchy or soft),

and a variety of no-name brands, covered in hot chili

type powders, dyes, flavorings and colors.

Once the chip so much as touches your tongue, 

your sinuses instantly clear up.

I use to just get them from the kids, every now and again,

but I have recently found myself purchasing them from the

corner store/restaurant, a regular hang out for older Mexican

men, and me. The paint in there is orange, and yellow , and brown

and it's dusty, and there are a lot of products that have been sitting

on the shelves since 2004 or maybe before that and there is a sexy

girl behind the counter, a different one everyday, who speaks to me

in spanish and i try to speak back and i wonder if she likes hot chips

or where she lives. or maybe i don't wonder those things at all but

they sound pretty when i write them so like a lot of writers i lie to 

make things sound prettier or stranger or more fucked up or just

longer then they really should. 

This is not profound at all.

It may have been more interesting to tell you that

toady, outside my classrooma door I made a cross for Lent.

The top of the cross is a photograph, at least 10,24 in,

of a baby. the edges are painted in purple, and i added

in a black cross of ashes on the white pristine forhead

of the child.

one left arm of the cross is a mug shot of a middle aged black

woman, recently homeless, a mirage of different colors 

framing my strategic placing of the head.

the middle of the piece is the most beautiful essay i have

read in at least 5 years written by the most beautiful person

 i have known for at least 5 years.

the right arm is a collage of individuals from varying

religious traditions. most of the pictures are painted over,

accept for one tiny Brazilian boy, eyes wide with curiosity.

the bottom of the cross is an abstract painting i did sometime

in September of a woman falling down, one finger at a time.

underneath the cross is a small black mug, with a piece of

tape across that reads "sin collection" in sharpie marker.

the Bishop is coming to our school tomorrow, so

I am thinking this little project of mine may get

our school excommunicated or something, because

collecting sins and painting over a statute of Jesus is

most likely sacrilegious.....or at least in bad taste. 

The Park

It's not the smell of Lake Michigan.



It's a pond, in the middle of McKinley Park.
Some recreation office worker pours
thousands of fish into the muddy water
for families to catch on Sunday afternoons
in between soccer games and Mexican
barbacues.

It's warm tonight. 70 degrees. The whole
city has melted. We're outside again.


I walk by a house, a
pale yellow light illuminates the crib
of a baby.

Someone's beautiful baby. I
am overcome by the process
of man, the love and sex and
devotion and decite and pain
and reality and hummanity
all in one wooden crib from
a flea market, or Macy's,
or a relative's basement.

Maybe this baby is the next Jesus, King,
Marx, Malcolm X.

Maybe he is the next mechanic.

His brown skin is white, and pale,
and yellow, and red, and pink, and
raw and soft and alive.

I am alive, too.

Earlier I drank red wine in our court yard,
twenty or so raging youths blowing off steam
from work days , one new man for me to sing
an obnxious song from my childhood to,
wondering if he is interested in pressing his
lips against mine. In pressing his body against
mine in the room above our heads which
leads to the roof.
love and sex and
devotion and decite and pain
and reality and hummanity


I breathe out as I trip a stone in front
of the baby's window, the smell of the pond
seeping across the air.