“Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.” ~ Albert Einstein

Author’s Note: In April of 2024, I began attending a writing workshop lovingly hosted by my friend & fellow writer . Twice a month, she opens her house to us, feeds us three original prompts, gives ten minutes to respond to each, & encourages gentle feedback. I’m endlessly grateful to this group for keeping a fire lit in me… This is one of my responses!

When I was first invited to a local writing workshop, We Write Daily, I wasn’t sure whether I would ever write again. I was back in my hometown after being away since graduating high school, found myself living with my folks at age 36, & felt like a failure in more ways than one. Although my thesis was published as a book of poetry, I hadn’t been able to make moving abroad work, & couldn’t find a job as a professor even after eleven years of university studies. It took getting settled into a routine—after cycling through several different positions at public & private schools—before my confidence came back enough to be in community with artistic peers once more. I went to my first group session two years ago…

I’ve called myself several things—the moniker poet being chiefly among them, & the one I’ve identified with the longest. But I’ve also called myself a peacemaker—for reasons I won’t get into here, except to say that I rarely live up to this label… Rather, it is something I strive to be. Peace felt like something that needed to be created, rather than something that was created for me as a child. I became the best example of what peace looks like to me, which was provided by my mother’s parents—the grandparents I spent my summers with. Creating a home that feels safe & full of warmth has always been my biggest goal in life—one I’m striving to achieve with the help of my beloved fiancé, who also fiercely defends this feeling.

In the palm of the hand of a child making a wish. In the center of a flower unfolding itself petal by petal. In the woven architecture of birdsong in the morning. In the dew in the grass, & the sweat pouring down your face—in your face, there it is, a glow that never leaves. In the sound of rain. In the warmth of an animal sleeping on your lap. In the prints left behind everywhere you have been. In the grave, it gets buried with the bravest of us deep underground… In the sound of your voice—when you finally answer after I’ve called so many times just to say that I’m desperate without you beside me. In the silence after sex… In the stillness of your eyes… In the heartbeat I could listen to forever. In the thought of us leaving this place holding hands. In the thought of us staying, because this is where the world hides peace. 🕊️

“One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams.” ~ Salvador Dalí

Author’s Note: When I first started this Substack, I was sharing poems from my first book—yet it evolved so rapidly into a space for my photos, prose, & other pieces that I never really finished posting all of the content from that collection. Below is the middle of the longest & most experimental poem in that manuscript—but you can start by seeing the previous part.

I’ve identified as a surrealist (artist & writer) for as long as I’ve been aware of the movement… Except, in literature, it appears under a variety of monikers (avant-garde, experimental, imagist, realismo mágico, & so forth). Of course, there are differences (dreams vs. fantasy, subconscious vs. supernatural, etc).

You pick up the phone to discover « surréalisme » has dialed your number, & is asking to speak with you. It whispers into your ear, & deconstructs your mind…

The difference between what you see & what you recall, what you experience & what you dream, begins to blur… A snake eating its own tail becomes an apple.

I first visited The Dalí Museum with my mother over twenty years ago. I love exploring museums with her, because I always get art history lessons out of it. Also, because she stands before the paintings for a while… Giving me ample time to scribble notes into my journal about the ones I find most evocative.

The phone is weeping into your ear again, while a clock made of hands screams the time. Another nightmare buzzes around the room before landing by the bed.

By the time you awaken, the walls have melted like candle wax & puddled into each other. You scoop up the molten colors & try to mold them back into reality.

The last time I went to this museum was with my partner for my 37th & 40th birthdays. I took fewer notes, & simply relished standing before the artwork. These days, I don’t think in words (or at least, in poetry) as much as I used to. The images bubbling forth from my own subconscious don’t have names yet.

Seashells rattle inside your skull. You shake your head to get them out, & they tumble through the window-shaped hole in your heart—then turn into sand…

Your body is an hourglass marking the passage of time, every grain a memento mori—a reminder of the inevitability of death for your life to have any meaning.

Surrealism is the art of resisting something—usually reality—in an attempt at seeing or reaching something greater than the reality which is being resisted. Dreams fascinate the surrealists because, in them, we defy reality both easily & naturally. It’s the dream world setting that sets the genre apart from others.

You crack open a lobster tail & miniature moths fly out, splattered in blood. The ants are making a feast of the grasshopper, surrounding its body like a frail nest.

Boat as an eye, fishhook in a human head, naked woman as a mountain range… Every word an act of violence, every act of violence a word caught in the throat.

The art of writing has something in common with the act of dreaming: We can impose our own rules & create beauty out of emotions, instincts, & memories. Personally, I’ve always preferred artists who stretch limits… Artists who defy our expectations of what should be considered art (& displayed in museums).

Your mind is stuck on a single image like a projector sputtering on film. Woman with a face like a disappearing wall through which you can begin to see the sky.

Woman with sky as face. Woman wearing your face as her own. You face your reflection in the mirror, & the entire room shatters & then clatters to the floor.

I love what is reassembled from other things to present us with something we’ve never before seen anywhere else. The surrealists do this effortlessly—taking apart everyday objects to reassemble them into different shapes, or to fashion them into brand-new things as though they always belonged that way.

Picking up the pieces, you reassemble them into recognizable shapes. Then, you begin to assemble them into new shapes—ones you barely recognize from your

previous life. The pieces take on a life of their own, until it is your life that has taken you apart & reassembled you into a shape you barely recognize—but new.

Considerations { excerpt }

Consider, O Lover, my throat

white as cigarette paper.

The crushed lavender of my knuckles.

My heart, a dulled

needle threaded through

too many patterns.

Lover, they were stitches of pain

you undid me of;

There is blood gone rancid in me

you can not move.

But how we comb

and comb the night for jewels

to stack around one another,

to cast in the mold of our love.

That dandy, the sky, enters blue-suited

sun like a scotch in hand

as I consider the brevity of a lion;

How many flies can touch at decay.

Consider the road, long

and forked as the Devil’s own tongue.

Consider the Devil, burning

every bridge; Placing

in every tree a black bird.

In every bird a black thought.

<< Voici mon secret. Il est très simple: on ne voit bien qu'avec le cœur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux. >> ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

dans Le Petit Prince

The sun was setting on a Wednesday in February, & my father was driving me to our local library to hear give a reading. The event was scheduled to begin at 8pm, but I’m just going to presume that I was running late (as usual). I knew something was wrong by the way my dad answered the phone, or rather, from the hesitation right before he said hello—when he wondered why my uncle would be calling him. I could sense what he was about to say next by the way his voice cracked, & his eyes crinkled in that way that means he’s trying not to cry… “Se murio Borges—” were the only words that came, but I’d already understood from his body language that my grandfather was gone. By now, we were almost at the library… So I told my father that I still wanted to go to the poetry reading. Yet the truth was I didn’t want to be there when he broke the news to my mom: This was her own beloved father, after all, who she adored with all of her might.

On Thursday, we boarded a plane already dressed in black—in order to travel directly to the wake. I remember this flight feeling dramatically different from the ones we took together when I was a child. My mother was dignified despite her grief—a stark contrast to the sobbing & wailing my father described upon breaking the news the night before. We disembarked, & headed straight for the funeral home—a place I’d never been to before—to find my grandmother. I knelt before her. She looked hollowed out… I was informed by somebody attending her that she was on a strong dosage of benzodiazepine, & that there were smelling salts close at hand. “Estamos aqui, abuela” I said as I laid my face in her hand… But she had a faraway look in her eyes, & only nodded vaguely like she wasn’t really registering who was there, much less which grandchild had spoken. My cousin knelt at her other knee—neither one of us able to leave her side all night.

On Friday, family members were invited to speak at the funeral if we wanted to say a few words. I hadn’t prepared anything for the occasion, but I held in my hands a copy of Le Petit Prince translated into Spanish. Of all the books which my grandfather shared with me, this one had the most profound impact on my life… I had purchased the particular copy I was now holding with the hope of reading it to him one last time. Instead, I read a chapter to a weepy audience at the service—fumbling awkwardly through some of the Spanish. Afterwards, my father kept making jokes forbidding me to read anything at his own funeral—but I had done what I needed to do to make myself feel better. The hardest part was watching my grandmother as the coffin was lowered into the ground—but this didn’t come as a surprise. What surprised me was the second hardest part—watching her walk into & break down in my grandfather’s now empty bedroom.

I have sparse memories of that Saturday & Sunday—spent drinking homemade hot cocoa with distant relatives, or friends who couldn’t make it in time for the funeral itself. I remember long talks with my cousin, Maria, who along with my mother & myself were spending the nights with my grandmother. We kept vigil with her caretaker, Zora, who had been the only other person present to witness the exact moment of my grandfather’s passing. We each had our way of holding space for my grieving grandmother. Mostly, we shared stories until she uttered his name in such a way that it indicated she couldn’t go on talking—so then we’d simply sit & listen to the silence of his absence in their apartment… There was some laughter. There was some television. I tried to press on with my work—it had been a busy season leading up to this, & life has a way of pressing onward—so I found myself in contact with Gulf Coast to which I had promised five poems.

I sent the journal a few fresh poems—including one I’d titled “On the Morning of My Grandfather's Funeral” & the only edit which the editors requested was that I change this title. So I re-sent it as “Abuelo” (which was printed in 2016, & then later reprinted by Verse Daily). I should note that this was the first time I used Spanish in any poem which I’ve had published. I will also confess that the piece was indeed written predominantly during the service… Not during the wake the night before (with his body on display), nor during the procession & lowering of his body (which happened so quickly). I’m unsure why I feel the need to mention this detail, except I do have a history of writing poetry during church. Usually, I scribble esoteric lines into the margins of a service pamphlet. This time, entire verses tumbled out between the stabs of sorrow. I filled a page in my notebook—tears punctuating the feelings I managed to capture whenever those tears held.

If I could say anything to my grandfather now—well over a decade after the last time I saw him, took these photos, wrote this poem—it’s that I still get emotional every time I think about him, look at him through my eyes, read my own words about grief. He was many things to many people, & he continues to represent so much which feels irreplaceable. This past decade without him began like a grain of sand beneath my fingernail, but has grown into a mountain inside of my chest—it’s something I simply live with. It’s still difficult to discuss this loss with those who knew him well. I’m not sure grief is an emotion our meager words can ever do justice. I just know that I tried—all those years ago—to use language in order to parcel through & attempt to cope with mine. I sincerely hope that none of you are currently coping with loss, or have found yourself grieving as of late—but if so, perhaps this piece will bring you a modicum of comfort & squeeze your hand.

~ Abuelo ~

Qué poco sabemos, al final. Que un barco
puede detenerse en la orilla del mar, hasta que

lo vuelca, al fin, aquello que más ama.
Que el amor es la fortaleza sin muros

y jardines sinuosos. Que el tiempo nos roe
hasta los huesos, y luego hasta el espíritu puro.

Y que el dolor es una especie de iglesia: es
así de escaso y así de limpio. Es la rosa azul

sostenida en el agua clara de la mente, es una
canica de miel sellada dentro de una jarra

de sal; es, de esta manera, dulce en su esencia.
Pero mi lengua se vuelve piedra. Y mi corazón,

una piedra que intenta sacar leche de otra
piedra. Aquí está tu cuerpo, dulce y solemne

testigo. Aquí está tu corona de silencio.
Aquí está tu mano, una especie de voz

en la oscuridad. Aquí está tu piel, una flor blanca
que florece y vuelve a florecer. Es solo

la luz agrietada que ahora nos separa, una
puerta silenciosa que has atravesado. No eres

tú él quién se ha ido. Es el cielo, bajado
ahora, el que ha venido a caminar contigo.

*

~ Grandfather ~

How little we know, in the end. That a boat
can stall at the edge of the sea, until it is

overturned, at last, by what it loves most.
That love is the fortress with no walls

and winding gardens. That time gnaws
us down to a new bone, then to pure spirit.

And that grief is a kind of church—it is
that sparse and that clean. It is the blue rose

held in the clear water of the mind, is a
marble of honey sealed inside a pitcher

of salt—is, in this way, sweet at the core.
But my tongue is made stone. And my heart,

a stone trying to draw milk from another
stone. Here is your body, sweet and solemn

witness. Here is your crown of silence.
Here is your hand, itself a kind of voice

in the dark. Here is your skin, a white flower
blossoming and blossoming again. It is only

the cracked light that now separates us, a
quiet door you have passed through. It is

not you who has gone. It is the sky, now
lowered, that has come to walk with you.

*

Published by Gulf Coast in 2015

Reprinted in Verse Daily in 2016

“Blessed are the Peacemakers…”

from the Beatitudes of Jesus { as recounted in the Gospels }

How do we write from the heart? This is the question that has been on my mind lately… Ever since I realized that I was writing out of grief once again. Grief is an all too familiar feeling, so writing became an all too familiar refuge. Silly of me to think the days (& nights) of needing such a crutch simply to survive were well in the past. While living in Paris, I even went so far as to start proclaiming that I officially “quit” calling myself a poet (because I stopped identifying as one).

Although I ceased my writing—even as some of my best ideas were coming to me—the world hasn’t ceased its cruelty. As I turned towards a calling that felt more important for me to pursue—that of becoming a councilor—it only deepened my desire to be a source of healing & strength for others. For a time, I thought & told many that it was poetry which saved my life—but it was my own willingness to get well that did… Writing was merely the instrument which I chose to pick up.

It worked well (for a time)… It was a sharp tool, & could make deep incisions. It felt like I could dissect my soul on the surgical table of the literary arts, & it felt good to do so. Great, even—especially during the discovery of my process, & the composition of a first book—until the process itself started to feel soulless. I was no longer writing for myself, but for an audience… For accolades & awards that I tossed aside & promptly forgot about in order to pursue/produce a fresh batch.

I still remember those early days of discovering poetry… How potent it could feel—how like magic in the trembling hands of a student struggling in nearly every other subject at school… I was a teenager, but I was dangerously treading water in many ways—academically, emotionally, physically, psychologically, sexually, spiritually: I was beginning to drown, & I was beginning to lose my belief in God—alongside every good thing in this world—as I had already lost faith in myself.

The first poem I wrote (worth its salt) was in response to the prompt to write a poem as though it were a prayer. As a freshman college student who had just left the church—by moving away from home & existing outside familial obligations for the first time—I’d never considered such a blasphemous thing before… So of course, I decided to dive right off the deep end. I went for the most well known prayer of all: In one sitting, I rewrote the Lord’s Prayer as a modern narrative.

This piece ended up being my first real publication (in Issue 128 of TriQuarterly which was still in print & which my professors told me was cause to celebrate)… Naturally, I thought: “I must be onto something here!” & decided to explore this newfound way of expressing myself even further… I had known I wanted to be a writer since I was a child, but what I immediately realized & most enjoyed about poetry as a particular genre was this profound similarity to prayer (& to music).

So writing poetry rather quickly replaced closing my eyes to say a prayer before bed, & I found myself more replenished in the solitude of this act than by most acts. Thus, I found myself in the company of poets, pursuing it as a path almost fervently… There came a time when I even called poetry my only religion, & in truth it had become exactly that. Yet the only other poem I produced which took the shape of a recognizable religious text is the one I present to you in this post.

Even after I stopped attending church regularly, the way I dealt with my more conservative family members—or fielded the questions of those whose opinions I still greatly cared about—was simple enough… I told everyone who asked that I still believed “the words in red.” As anyone who has owned a red letter edition of the Bible knows, I’m referring to dialogues attributed directly to Jesus Christ (& this was often sufficient to end the interrogation on the subject of my salvation).

Truth is, I’ve always found it easier to be irreverent about paternalistic figures (especially in monotheistic religions)—because of my distaste for authority, & my own trauma with both my parents. But I’ve always had a fondness for the more mischievous, misfit son who often causes a ruckus in the name of justice. When I rewrote the Lord’s Prayer, I remember feeling angry. But then I wrote my own take on this section of the Sermon on the Mount, all I felt was deep grief & loss…

~ The (Other) Beatitudes ~

Blessed are the wingless, for their bones
are not hollow—but heavy with want.

Blessed is whatever flocks homeward,
as well as whatever remains—as I do—

for the winter. Blessed are those who
shoulder up. Blessed those who suffer

no fools. Blessed what is in me to tip
an intimate scale of guilt, and blessed

that guilt—for it knows no immediate
bounds. For it made me better than I am.

Blessed is the solemn animal that weighs
every question asked, finally, by the river.

Blessed is all the debris that waits inside
of our monuments. Blessed is your body—

big enough for the both of us. Blessed
are my hands for falling upon all which

they don’t understand. Blessed the moon,
bled white, bandaged in silk. Blessed too,

the stars—for it is with the mercy of carrion
birds that they dip their long fingers in silver

and pick her carcass clean. Blessed is the sea,
graveyard of time. Blessed are the black waves

that congregate like mourners. Blessed are those
who have done their weeping, and are quieter now.

August is hot, but teeming with life!

~ August ~

August carries a flute of bees,
drums up the heat. I have seen

a crow consider a heap of straw
with more sense than I have

considered entire days. Seen an
old dog care for a roll in the grass

even more than it cared for this
thing called dignity. Even a few

misplaced seeds have grown taller
than I’ll grow. What of me is worthy

to sit in the red shade of an oak
and its desire to touch at more sky?

“In what language does rain fall over tormented cities?” ~ Pablo Neruda

Whenever I mention that I’m a poet—or that I’m a writer, but refer to poetry as my primary genre—I find that folks often follow up with one of two questions... One of them is, “What kind of poetry do you write?” and the other, even more anxiety inducing one is, “What are your poems about?” Sometimes I do sense a genuine interest in the response—but most of the time it feels like I’ve just been tasked with providing a streamlined elevator pitch for reading poetry in a world encouraging us to do anything but.

As a result, I’ve had to resist the urge to answer (rather flippantly, I’ll admit) that my poems are about everything and nothing—which, to be honest, feels closer to the truth (or at least more succinct) than getting into a conversation about whichever existential subject I’m currently exploring. Yet when I take an honest look at the pieces I’ve polished and published, I do see certain themes which either feel entirely cliche or are embarrassing to admit aloud to another stranger I’m profiling as a potential reader…

For example, I find that I write a lot about loneliness.

I’ve already spent so much of my journey hiding behind my words—which was necessary in order to be able to hear my voice clearly above the others—that lately I’ve been less interested in acquiring readers than I have been in letting them in behind the scenes... I already posted the list poem from my book oddly titled, “What My Loneliness Does” but today I wanted to feature what I fondly call its sister—or, one that came out immediately afterwards like a response to the haunting call of the first… They belong together.

I shouldn’t neglect to mention how influenced both of these pieces were by Pablo Neruda’s final masterpiece The Book of Questions, but I would rather save gushing about that gem of a book for another day. It seems everybody is lonely nowadays—with some even calling it an epidemic in our country—yet the news comes as little to no surprise in this digital age of social media, distancing, and anxieties. Reading taught me that loneliness can also be a beautiful state of being—one that engenders exploration and self-expression.

One that can help make us come alive to ourselves… 🤍

~ Where My Loneliness Goes ~

Pace sideways, on
pointed crab feet.

Skin me. Like the quick tongue
of a hunting knife.

Curl the floorboards.

Open like a sail and let the wind
fill it, like a man given to belly.

Migrate through my body,
to it’s warmer parts.

Wear the mouth of a blow up doll.

Father the bees.

Grow roots, then teeth.

Like the snow, blanket
softly everything.

Unfold the days. Fold them
up again into paper cranes.

But the experience I had with a cicada on the very first day of this month was, in fact, a fascinating one—as well as a beautiful exercise in sitting still. I had to resist the urge to touch this little kindred spirit until after it kicked off the exoskeleton—and then I only let it latch onto my hand out of fear for its safety if left to dry its wings on our driveway overnight. I tried to leave kin in the safest place I could find—not to mention the only tree it would latch onto—before bidding it both goodnight and good luck. 🪲

When I finally came back inside, I found the ending of this poem (written a lifetime ago) weirdly pertinent—not to mention befitting my bewildering evening. As much as I do wish I’d reworked this particular piece a bit more before the book went into print, lately I’ve been working to make peace with what is. I’ve also become willing to entertain the possibility that poems are messages written not from our past selves to the future—but maybe more like missives from our future self into the past… Words to be followed like a trail of breadcrumbs leading forward. The meaning of poems would therefore need to be unlocked over time—I wonder how much sense I’m making here? July is a month that ends the way it begins—and I wonder when (if ever) I will meet the black-haired girl…

~ July ~

July, quiet as ants in the sugar.

A black-haired girl will arrange

candelabra for the dead, will

prepare her words for the

great distance, arranging them

like passengers… She hopes

that life is a thing she can slice

open at the round, hopes that

it is fleshy and sweet. The

eager foxes nod to one another.

The cicadas have sung their

skins cleanly open under a sun

as dry and polished as a fossil.

I made sure to stop and see as many of the friends who helped encourage me during the writing of the book as possible—in order to personally deliver their copies to them. After my last reading, and on my 29th birthday, an ex turned friend confessed he wanted a line of my poetry tattooed on him—and asked if I would accept this (plus a tattoo of my own) as a gift. I was delighted by the idea!

Shortly after that tour ended, so did the relationship I had just packed my life up into boxes and already shipped across the country for… I had no other plan, just a book of poetry in hand. I remember taking these selfies that winter without a receiver or spectator in mind. Simply contemplating the image I projected as a poet—with this newly minted typewriter tattoo on my thigh and a broken heart.

~ What My Loneliness Does ~

Pace sideways, on
pointed crab feet.

Skin me. Like the quick tongue
of a hunting knife.

Curl the floorboards.

Open like a sail and let the wind
fill it, like a man given to belly.

Migrate through my body,
to it’s warmer parts.

Wear the mouth of a blow up doll.

Father the bees.

Grow roots, then teeth.

Like the snow, blanket
softly everything.

Unfold the days. Fold them
up again into paper cranes.

“I will be the gladdest thing under the sun! I will touch a hundred flowers & not pick one.” ~ Edna St. Vincent Millay

April showers brought May flowers—that seem to weather the storms of June with ease, or simply fall to the ground to nourish and make room for all this new growth… The season between the spring and summer has always been my favorite—regardless of where I’ve been planted—because I love the rain even more than the welcome sun (and yes, because of the flowers), but also because you can feel the stirring coming straight from the center of every living thing...

There is a luscious darkness to this season as well—it exists to counteract all the light—and we encounter it whenever the storm clouds roll in… Or we encounter it within our own selves—find ourselves wrestling with it as the nights get shorter and give way to the slow but steady lengthening of the daylight hours. Death seems more stark alongside such colors—blue skies make the clouds look bone white while green shoots through the rot and brings hope with it… But also losses, also grief.

We’ve aged during winter—perhaps we’ve thinned out or gotten softer—but to fear this process is to fear life itself, to fear living. I’m learning to trust my body’s own seasons and even to forecast the worst of its storms… Time continues to escape me—since I can get lost for days on end in the details—but I don’t turn away from the effects it has on me now. I try to embrace them… If decay is what feeds these flowers I love so much, then may my own bones burst into such a display someday.

Well, I haven’t exactly done a spiffy job so far, have I? February and March have come and gone—and we’re already well into April. As usual, I’ve been completely derailed by “top secret” (mostly useless) side projects, and seem to have gotten myself stuck in an endless loop of planning (as in sorting through all the photos) rather than posting on any sort of regular basis. 🙊 But, I digress… One must, after all, in this day and age of clickbait and seconds-long attention spans. So instead of apologies and excuses, I offer a few small tokens for the altar of your eyes in the form of mostly nonsense* :

I’d like to clarify that the first two photographs aren’t actually nonsense, but dear to me… They were taken by a multi-talented photographer whose path I was fortunate enough to cross because she was moving to Paris around the same time I was returning stateside. Our overlap in France was brief, but left a mark—and during an excursion to the countryside, snuck those photos while I was blissfully unaware. Yet I think that’s precisely why they rank so high among my favorite portraits ever taken of me: She managed to capture the most elusive—but at ease—Ceci of them all. 🙉📸🤍

“Do you hear the snow against the window panes, kitty? How nice and soft it sounds! Just as if someone was kissing the window all over outside. I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently?”

~ Alice { Chapter 1, Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass }

January

January has the calloused hands of
a gardener and pulls the greenest

out of me. The sky is a new colt
on legs so slender they buckle still.

If the sun rolled back like an eye,
it would see the mind of God.

If my own mind circled nearer
to the things of this world,

it could see that in Winter too,
there is Spring—like a song in

the throat of a bird before taking
wing from the cage of sleep.

“Surrealism is destructive, but it destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting our vision.” ~ Salvador Dalí

Author’s Note: When I first started this Substack, I was sharing poems from my first book—yet it evolved so rapidly into a space for my photos, prose, & other pieces that I never really finished posting all of the content from that collection. This is the beginning of the longest & most experimental poem in that manuscript—but you can continue onto the middle here.

It seems as though being an artist who wishes for one’s work to remain in the public eye means not really getting a say as to whether or not one personally wants to remain in the public eye as well. In the cult of celebrity, the personal is a central ingredient… But the internet (meaning the resources funneled to and the marketing surrounding it) also forces the contemporary artist to find their brand—a term which remains understandably uncomfortable for many.

I remember when it was only a matter of finding one’s voice, but (in the spirit of getting with the times) I suppose it’s worth remarking that recently my father said to me in his brilliant Spanglish (which I won’t even attempt to recreate because I really should’ve written this gem down) that my brand was “basically, minutiae like little insects.” Rather than being insulted, it was one of those rare moments I felt truly seen by him… I can’t remember what we were talking about, but it certainly wasn’t social media—or even marketing.

Nevertheless, he’s spot on.

My entire life, I’ve been endlessly fascinated by the natural world—and insects have proven to be a particular fascination, whether I like to admit it or not… But it’s their symbiotic relationship with everything that enchants me—for they are the true builders, gardeners, movers, and shakers of this earth. I’m glad to find a similar pattern among certain Surrealists—artists whose vivid portrayals ask audiences to reconsider their reactions to the least of these. 🐜

Considerations { excerpt }

Consider, O Lord, how You sit

atop the sky; like a man

in a glass-bottom boat.

Consider sky elsewhere;

Worn thin as a mattress.

Consider the women, marbling

in their corners

the men with tongues of bronze; How

you tool the silence around them.

Consider the rolling wheel of Spring

the Summer, a haunt of blue;

How the rivers roll up

like prayer mats.

Consider my Lover;

The yellow church of his skin, the clean

wells of his ears;

How the notes of a song come to him

like birds descending

on a power line; How

in his absence

I am of two throats

each of them cramped.

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Ruth Nyambura: eco-feminist from Kenya. "we are in an era where [[people in]] power are not afraid to blame..." those that are not at fault. "it's difficult to talk about" the politics of race. black and brown people all over the world are being blamed for the failures of capitalism, patriar…

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