Professional (Gratitude Poem #13)

The first time I spoke to Katie was on the phone. My beloved sister comrade Sydette told me to talk to her "wifey." Witnessing the most beautiful supportive and kick-ass friendship and sharing a loved one with Katie made me feel connected to her and appreciative even before I finally got to meet her in person. We went through some things we probably should not have had to go through in the city of Boston, but the clarity remained. Katie is a person who shows up for the people she loves. And she loves to love people.

I am happy to have a loved one that is so good at BEING a loved one and to live in a world where Katie is showing the planet what love means and that love will prevail!!!!

I love you Katie!!!

And for your own love poem based on Audre Lorde's "Marvelous Arithmetics of Distance" and to support my journey to learn more about the meaning of love from Audre Lorde and the brilliant loving black feminist Gloria Joseph join the journey here: http://alexispauline.chipin.com/praise-the-lorde-st-croix-dream-trip

Professional

For Katie Kuhl

After Audre Lorde’s “Do You Remember Laura”

path grows slick with tread

well-read commute to be your word

boroughs and sidewalks align

names provisional

single-minded purpose

to get where you go

to love who you love

like its your first job

and the only one that matters

gather your tools

something soft

something sweet

something that smells really good

first aid for the spirit

stat pack for head and hands on call

i think of you as a professional

in my mind you are in transit

somewhere in the city

on the way

to love

way I see it

that’s all you do

show up in love

show up to start the clock

show up to turn the light on

show up ready to blow up

anything resembling harm

you heal

with the force of sheer determination

a daily clarity

an urgent walk

saying

no matter who hates you

I will love you

more often

count on it

love becomes a regular miracle

dependable continual here

it’s a numerical strategy

endurance

say it matter of fact

nothing can hurt you

for longer than I will love you

when the world forgets what it even meant

by capitalist die fuck of never care

i will still be here holding your hand

reminding you

you fucking rock

you are how I know love wins

sun has nothing

seasons fall out the sky

water dry out into gills on our backwards ribs

asteroid hit

whole thing fall away

and you will still show up

purse filled with something sacred

something soft

something sweet

something that smells really good

genocidal apathy

structural ignorance

and the deadly arrogance of greed

have lost already

they should have got you first

picked you for their team

but they didn’t know what we know

Katie was the guru that trained the care bears

how to open their hearts

Valentine’s day is plagiarized

a co-optation of the ironic element of a 7 point plan

for annual love generation

left on the floor in a daydream

Katie had on the train

they must not know

what we know

but they will soon find out

if it is not love

it cannot last

Katie is on the way.

Through (Gratitude Poem #12)

Lorde I had to heal myself this morning. Some unexpected expenses for this dream trip, and every conversation I have in my head about scarcity had me off-hilt and scattered for a moment, but then I get present to the abundance of my community's infinite forms of support and I remember that everything is love!

Lorde I had to heal myself this morning. Thank heaven, Black Canada and the internet for Leah Burke.

Leah, you are a healer in my heart telling me to breathe. You are the ready medicine of love exhaled. Indigo ingenuity in every moment. Knowing you is like living on a reservoir of self-made and resurrected black women healing. Knowing you is lamaze breath transubstantiated into music and music transformed back into presence. I learn so much from you. I have felt so held by you, surrounded in your lovingly chosen song choices and playlists that don't be playin' at all when it comes to the sacred work of lifting a spirit. This is how you were with me the entire time I was writing my dissertation, the long afternoons where the best I could do was to dance around the house and scream sometimes. Julia genuflects when I speak your name: "Leah. You know Leah, who made the playlist on Quirky Black Girls..." You are so magical, Moya and I wonder sometimes how much we must have saved up in the quirky karma account to deserve you and your gifts. Thank you for exemplifying the the most crucial piece of information I know for sure right now: love is infinite and many forms of love do many miraculous things, but the love of black women gets us through.

Love you.

Always.

Lex

p.s. For those just now eavesdropping...amazing Black feminist writer, scholar, organizer, and beekeeper Dr. Gloria Joseph has invited me to St. Croix to visit her and to commune with the spirit of Audre Lorde. There is nothing to say but yes. My versions of yes include writing a poem inspired by a poem from Lorde's last published collection "The Marvelous Arithmetics of Distance" for every member of my beloved community of support that donates to the dream journey!!!

Learning how to sacrament dollars back into love: http://alexispauline.chipin.com/praise-the-lorde-st-croix-dream-trip

Through

For Leah Burke

After Audre Lorde’s “Party Time”

play the muscled anthem

our dirtiest mamas

thimble tongued

pierce our lungs into home

if we can breathe through this

anything can live

strut past funeral into bloom

lower rents bend hell by brazeness

if we can hear

the Lorde try to tell us

something

try to tell

hell bent Bumpurs real

Lorde speak blue rattle death whisper waking up

if we can hear and breathe and heave and hold this

Lorde she tryna tell us something

secret newspaper blood

blue black ink wrote over

chords stole strung broke

try ta hear it

stitched ragged and roadside

breathe through this

stained kitchen wall

whole hipped hands suspended into swagger

breathe through this

police dog polemic

drum resurrection

like if you could run and sing at the same time

strum tears into weather

don’t stop

that sound that sob

that washes festered sight

breathe through sore throat

scalp evaporate

heat rising wet stepping up

rhythm paid and slayed

wade in grapejuice over heal

who sings

must have heard how to exhale

who sings hooded hallelujah hung

who hear who hear hoot holler

who hear holler whole who home

who heave heat hear who haunt

who happen who hold hit who home

who home who home who home

who who who who who who

shh shh shh shh she home

Lorde know

who she

breathin’ through.

Dance (Gratitude Poem #11)

Good morning family!

This is the dance party of my dreams, aerobic workout of gratitude! To get to dance to the tune of Audre Lorde's poetry with so many loved ones is such a gift!!! I can feel Audre Lorde doing a very shoulder-centric dance of affirmation and I can't wait to dance in person with Gloria Joseph in St. Croix! I am completely excited that ride or die, eternal summerian, profoundly brilliant publisher and cherished friend Jess Hoffman has joined the dance party!

I remember when I first met Jess Hoffman in person. Maybe there is nothing that can make you appreciate the miracle of an anti-racist white feminist more than accidentally visiting the most racist white feminist space that you couldn't imagine. Or maybe I would have appreciated meeting Jess and her amazing embodied love on any sunny or rainy day regardless. Either way Jess's role in my life worth more than the sum of my renewed and transformed faith in editing across difference, and my deepened gratitude for anti-racist white people working actively to transform the communities they love so critically. Being friends, comrades, collaborators, loved ones, sisters, teammates, bandmates, and dance partners with you, Jess (yes I am suddenly shifting the second person to directly address YOU, Jess!) is like a favorite song coming on in the community powered radio of my heart. I think the meaning of our friendship is politically important and has lessons for our community, like the friendship between Audre Lorde and Adrienne Rich (if I dare compare us at this young age to two of the greatest poets and teachers ever), but more than that, our relationship is an experience that I treasure. I light up at the sight of you. I feel peace and affirmation from knowing you are out there in the universe reading from the same page I am reading from. I love being alive in community with you!!!!

And for any of you who want to join the dance party...check out: http://alexispauline.chipin.com/praise-the-lorde-st-croix-dream-trip

Dance

For Jessica Hoffman

After Audre Lorde’s “Making Love to Concrete”

dance in the particular

one city wide

one city steep

long state breaking off

sleek with squashed statement

you live here

on the scribbled embroidery

of the inescapable

dance in the particular

where well intended bridges

sing whole notes to back pain

invite your own becoming

stretch like a thin girl

not afraid of being wrong

not pretending to be necessary

these shoes for steep

these shoes for wide

walking across love

and wanting to be barefoot

dance in the particular

like you already know

like the desert revelated

baby sprung

email proof-reading

detail divinating

fingertip mapmaking

garden fresh breathing in

twelve year old memory

star tail tracing

summer start

you always were

you are

socialist with your lessons

skylight with your smile

forgiving without giving up

and up and up and up and up

you are

you already are

Such Rainbow (Gratitude Poem #10)

To my beloved sister comrade, conspirator, co-editor, new-age pen-pal, teacher (did I say sister? did I say comrade?) Mai'a Williams and my sweet cyber god-daughter Aza...how many ways do you make my world brighter? Mai'a and Aza you are my touchstone for revolution, my family on the scene, my lightning rod for what revolutionary mothering looks like as a practice on the scale of the universe, of the weather, of the planetary possibility of love. Rainbows in the desert. Mai'a: our relationship reminds me of the truth, that energy is not limited by space or time (or the legality of skype)! Aza: big-haired-cyber-auntie loves you and black feminism lives!!!

Speaking of energetic miracles...look how a farflung community of loved ones is airlifting an ancestor worshiper home into the arms of Audre Lorde with the sheer power of their faith: http://alexispauline.chipin.com/praise-the-lorde-st-croix-dream-trip

such rainbow

For Mai’a and Aza

After Audre Lorde’s “Prism”

no such rainbow

light breaks prayer

listening for plague

peals back skype longing

no such hell

no such wake up bell

untrue

there is a prism

crystal walking

revolutionary refract

there is a vision of pink hair

and cheering

girl voices squared in Tahrir

don’t sleep

if you don’t know

you don’t know

how hustle blows wind to

sand cut clarity

how late nights flame artful into home

how moonlit blessings

from silenced gods

make it all possible

we are taking such brightness to bed

dreams to art

we are choosing to clash open in color

glass our wishes into poems

art to dream late in morning

sand moon into glass

sleeptalking prayer

bruised gift of the future

we are holding it in our fists

burnt tribute of realness

we are wearing it on our faces

we are catalyzing sun

we are waking up ready

for such rainbows as this

Lasting (Gratitude Poem #9)

Family! I feel like I am on the best possible version of "Alexis Pauline Gumbs" this is your life. This is my life!!!! Gratitude overflowing. We have actually reached and exceeded the goal of my chipin fundraiser. Which means my plane ticket to St. Croix to visit Gloria Joseph and re-baptize myself in the legacy of Audre Lorde is paid for!!!!! Yippeee! AND...I would never deny myself the honor of writing a poem for any of you, so if you want to contribute to food and other expenses of the trip feel free to keep chipping in here: http://alexispauline.chipin.com/praise-the-lorde-st-croix-dream-trip

Maura Bairley was the first boss I had that made me want to grow up and the first adult I trusted to tell the truth everyday and not be broken by it. When I was some sort of vaguely defined work-study assistant at the Barnard-Columbia Rape Crisis and Anti-Violence Support Center (which Maura helped to found and also to shepherd into its own department complete with a robust brilliant staff and, peer advocates, crisis responders, and full-steam peer education programs that empower people of all genders to make moves to end violence...) I marvelled that someone like Maura could exist, and be happy, and be so nice to me on monday mornings!!!!! Working for Maura also meant being surrounded by posters of Audre Lorde, books by genius feminists of color on a regular basis. Osmosis is real.

One way to say it is this:

Maura actively created holistic structures to end and respond to sexual violence on a campus where I survived sexual assault. Maura has actively nurtured structures for queer black feminist transformation in my communities that I benefit from every single day. Maura has built a model for whole, real, resplendent survival just by living the truth of her own life and letting some of us be witnesses. Maura, you have saved my life over and over again just by living yours.

And here is another way to say it

Lasting

For Maura Bairley

After Audre Lorde’s “Legacy-Hers”

to crack the code of your giving

measured presence daily truth

all at once your unapologetic self

enduring miracle

intro course

on how bright Black women

stay survive

and whole

i showed up

to study you with awe

a stark believer

stumbling half grace

at twice pace

to seek rest in holy war

to learn you by immersion

watch you cherish crossfire path

deep and marked with slender bones

hear you breathe a structure of tears

into undrained heroism

neat next steps

feel you conjure peace in uncalm air

unflinching at terrible

having known something worse

believing in so much better

must be there was some slow and sacred music

you could hear

centered in collusion

clear ancestral chorus

lifting you into the most urgent now

unrushed clarity

making space

to you it was just showing up

to me it was the proof that life was livable

the proof that we would win

what I didn’t know

i needed

to keep

on

being

me

the gift

not being first

and lasting.

What It Means (Gratitude Poem #8)

Dear Family,
These poems are supposed to be gifts for you, but they are such gifts to me. Thank you for the miraculous opportunity to be present to the radiant truth that I am surrounded by abundant brilliance and priceless people!!!
This poem is for Mecca Jamilah Sullivan who I see not at all often enough, but who I am always present to as a fellow traveler. Before we ever met our friends in common (especially La Marr Jurelle Bruce) KNEW that we should know each other. Ours is a relationship like that of many sister-comrades in conversation across wide space, but with such affirming proximity of spirit! And so it is an honor to dedicate this poem, inspired by one of Audre Lorde's several poems to her sister-comrade Pat Parker, to the great writer, scholar, performer, activist, Mecca Jamilah Sullivan!


And guess what! We are 86% of the way to our goal. If you want to join the chorus of angels that is affirming this blessing of a trip to visit Gloria Joseph in St. Croix and commune with the spirit of Audre Lorde and to be near a beach for two much needed weeks chip in here: http://alexispauline.chipin.com/praise-the-lorde-st-croix-dream-trip


For Mecca Jamilah Sullivan

After Audre Lorde’s “Girlfriend”

read your cybernetic name

like air traffic neon

landing stripped to faith

a way home in the dark

taken * delicious

just plain right

need to know

that all year long

another presses pencil to bone

pushes black keys to re-cord chords

otherwise forgotten

badly madly radly

in it

spirit in flight

let’s make a phone book

a hotline

for those of us who know

this is what it means to live

forever

silence pregnant born again to witness

beloved voices haunting into word.

breathe (gratitude poem #7)

Greetings Family!
Seven is a blessed number and I am SO blessed to have the love of my sister-comrade Adele Nieves in my life. We have created dances in honor of each other, traveled highways and the internet to witness each other's brilliance and NOW I am so proud that she is immersing herself in an amazing journey to continue to deepen her work as a healer in our community informed by indigenous traditions that have been suppressed and with accountability to our whole beloved community. Adele is like a lightening rod to transformation. I feel everything she learns impacting the world immediately!!!! Send Adele blessings for focus, clarity and sustainable inspiration as she engages in what I would describe as deep delicious healer bootcamp university!

And if you want to join Adele in helping with my dream-come-true trip to meet Gloria Joseph and get your own love poem based on Audre Lorde's Marvelous Arithmetic of Distance chip in at: http://alexispauline.chipin.com/praise-the-lorde-st-croix-dream-trip


breathe

For Adele

After Audre Lorde’s “The Night-Blooming Jasmine”

star breathing
water blooming
you are a flute song
seducing form to transform
itself

walk searoad
baptize baskets
veinwave powersurge
to reiki ringing hands

sunmade staccato
there are no strangers
can be no enemies
each challenge
unequal to bright embrace

chisel truth in sand
where the only way to walk
is to know for sure
to remember through the center of your days

sweet need known
flower flown
winged work working it out

if they couldn’t tell
now they know they know
the world gets baptized
when you get saved

breathe stars
bloom water
sing sun

Circle (Gratitude Poem #6)

Family!
Vanessa Jackson is a person who shapes herself into sunshine, sweetening her purpose by creatively contributing to everything she believes in. I have benefited from Vanessa's belief in abundance enough to know that while many people give gifts, Vanessa at this stage, IS a gift to our community and our ancestors. I am so grateful to be living in a world that Vanessa claims as sacred! Today celebrating the launch of Vanessa's Full Circle: A Woman's Return to HerSelf program, I offer this poem.

For any of you other glorious gifts out there looking to sweeten purpose into love by supporting my journey to visit Gloria Joseph and commune with Audre Lorde and getting your own dedicated poem...join the love circle here: http://alexispauline.chipin.com/praise-the-lorde-st-croix-dream-trip


Circle

For Vanessa Jackson’s Return to HerSelf

After Audre Lorde’s “Construction”

sky rebirth sound

wake you up walk

face full with signs

sign for sistering

stand forever

sign for seeing

full days fertile

silence reborn

into sound

the sky

of your sweet soul

listens

signposts to heal

soothseek

spirit as salve

so

sky sounds like you

waking walking

healing holding

life as loving

and then doing it again

therefore

if we build our present

out of gifts like you

truth resounds

forever.

To Be Brown (Gratitude Poem #5)

It is an honor to write a poem for my soul brother Darnell Moore whose donation put us over the 50% mark in my lovefilled fundraising for my dream trip to St. Croix to visit Gloria Joseph and reconnect across water, time and plane with the spirit of Audre Lorde! It's even more exciting because Darnell too is on a dream journey having just recently purchased his tickets for a collective funded and black feminist ancestor mandated solidarity journey to Palestine. I love being spirit siblings with you Darnell!!! May we always support and affirm each other in the work of making our ancestors proud!

If you want to support the journey and get your own dedicated poem inspired by one of Audre Lorde's poems in The Marvelous Arithmetics of Distance check out my fundraising page at

http://alexispauline.chipin.com/praise-the-lorde-st-croix-dream-trip

love,

lex

To Be Brown

For Darnell Moore

After Audre Lorde’s “Thaw”

we season language

into sweet potatoes

deep heavy whole

with so many rooted eyes

we reason lust

into underground

unbroken something else

always saying reach

all around us

worlds are cracking

shells are breaking

birth is calling out our name

down here we grow

syllable by syllable

digging affirmation

watering prayer to

ancestor mud

you and me brother

we know

who the ground will wake

into all our green belief

when the sky will recognize

our measured blues

how the people will dance

into heat shaped light

you and me brother

we remember why

and

what a bright thing it is

to be brown.

Gratitude Poem #4

Beautiful ones!!!

Daily gratitude is growing my soul! It is an honor to write a poem for Jeter a visionary example who has blessed my life ever since the start of the Mobile Homecoming Project and taught me that we can truly choose our family and watch them emerge! Thanks so much for supporting my dream trip home to Audre! And anyone else who wants to chip can jump on here: http://alexispauline.chipin.com/praise-the-lorde-st-croix-dream-trip

For (Debra Renee) Jeter

After Audre Lorde’s “Syracuse Airport”

I hear

women from California

need no secrets

just clean drawers

to hold new knowing

I hear

the sun-ready intergalactic

among us know

what one and one makes

in the time of what looks like

too much

or

she who knows her joy

will find it every day

no matter who

is watching