I am Swiss cheese, Part I

I've found the more positive the blog message, the more people respond. While I think it's a heaping pile of bullshit to only acknowledge a person when they're happy, I'll nonetheless try to even the score by sharing some of the good. It's a difficult thing to write a blog when you are writing a book, writing for yourself, writing letters, penning edits and e-mails day in and day out. To write the truth (here) is nearly impossible. Days go by that are entirely consumed with felonious activities and the tremendous secrets of friends young and old. I can't share their secrets, nor the emotions these secrets contrive, not here. Frances (my alter ego/fictional memoir character) can fictionalize them, SHE can tell you the truth by changing the names, the weather, the date and time, whereby skewing pinpoint accuracy. I write as Frances quite often these days. It's much easier to tell the truth about yourself, to yourself and to your audience when you can displace your own ego and filters and write as if it all weren't happening to you but to some poor sap you encounter on a cross-country bus trip.

Let us begin shall we? I've taken up slam poetry as of last week, performing at night on makeshift stages with second rate microphones. Monologues of truth I dare not tell in the Midwest or in a memoir until long after everyone I love is dead or has forgotten me. Unabashed, I can declare all outrageous truths that belongs to me and the audience, oh the audience, they snap and clap, cheer, praise, shout "AMEN!" "TELL IT!" and "HALLELUJAH!" They nod, smile, grimace- they react to my words as I react to theirs- with intrigue and anticipation. Silence is respected, lyrical genius in celebrated. Last Wednesday I performed for the first time, this is what I read at the Starry Plough in Berkeley:
**The last stanza is directed to a biracial man who read a poem the week prior**
This is what Berkeley was suppose to look like
From Kansas wheat fields where I peered over sunflowers stalks
To see your golden poppy skullcaps
And through her dishwater sunshine streaked hair
To the West
To the Sunshine State
Where I could kiss her with my hands in the
Dishwater or dandelion tea remnants.
The ebony emcee said this stage is our church
And where I come from
The only safe black men were found in church
On Wednesdays and Sundays
Where I knew that no matter how white washed Jesus was
He was never the color of bleach
Like the hair of the woman I was forbade to kiss
Or the vanilla wafers they shoved down our throats
As we rehearsed the Bible verses
Of a mercilessly judgmental God
Who created none of the us the same
Yet all of us equal.

This is what Berkeley was suppose to look like
When God said go forth and prosper
He didn't specify "go forth and fuck"
 What he said
What he meant
Is what Berkeley looks like
This place
Where my fairy fag
Truman Capote genius
Bukowski brilliant best friend
Can shroom his way down a sidewalk
Arm in arm
With his militant muff-diving Harper Lee
And wonder
How does my ass look in these heels?
Rather than the abomination he feels
He felt
When we stayed up all night
And debated in those small town prairie cornstalks
If this is what Berkeley would really look like.

 Last week
He said, I have to wonder
 If half of me
Ever owned half of me?
Well sir, I ask politely
This beaten, abandoned, molested, raped, deserted minority
Wants to say stop focusing on the negativity.
You are the cosmic miracle of both dark and light
Deep and strong,
Wise and lovely
And that
And this
Is what Berkeley was suppose to look like.

My success that night was significant and while words ran short this week, I intend to return to the stage and perform until I transform, and then speak of truths in the present rather than solely in the past. I have found a place that genuinely feels like home. My hair has grown long and fuzzy and natural, the only style I possess is unintentional curls that seem to have sprung up and out and all from nowhere. The last of my makeup crumbs are reserved for special occasions. I've begun quite the sweater collection but otherwise my jeans and shirts and dresses and shoes are secondary, aged to perfection, holey like Swiss cheese.