Decide (Gratitude Poem #16)

Tema Okun is the angry white woman the founding fathers were scared would come to life, even as they did everything to create the critical, cynical, hopeful, teacher that she is. Present to the contradiction of the moment and choosing like an artist to keep every piece of the contradiction unresolved. As it should be.

Tema's work as a white anti-racist educator and organizer and an anti-Zionist Jewish activist and an erstwhile member of the UBUNTU writing group has been a resource in my life for conversations about Palestine and June Jordan, the structural possibilities of autonomous educational space, the dynamics of fear, classroom exercises, university teaching evaluations, the value of time in the day or night for art, the sound of a new year and more. Together, with their chosen family member artist Ellen O'Grady, Tema and her partner Tom have been providing free, abundant meeting and organizing space in Durham for years...making a home for many Eternal Summer of the Black Feminist Mind and Mobile Homecoming Events including Queer Black Sunday School, James Baldwin's 86th Birthday Party, the Lucille Clifton ShapeShifter Survival Rebirth Summer, the MotherOurselves Bootcamp parts of Indigo Days and so many that I can't even list them all.

Tom and Tema also journey to Palestine yearly as part of their solidarity work towards a free Palestine and the just world that would require such freedom. I have learned from watching Tema and Tom in action that space is a crucial resource with infinite possibilities and place is a deep catalyst for accountability. I'm thrilled and grateful to share space and community with Tema and Tom and so excited that they are part of my journey across water to the US colony where Audre Lorde wrote so passionately about imperialism, disaster economics and the teachings of the wind.

If you want to join that journey home check out: http://alexispauline.chipin.com/praise-the-lorde-st-croix-dream-trip

love,

lex

Decide

For Tema and Tom

After Audre Lorde’s “Domino”

List the names

Gaza

Darfur

Wounded Knee

Grenada

line them up

sages in skylight

carry water

past horizon

carry blood

past identification

carry bone

past bleach and sun

worship backbone

intend neighbors

travel past home

to here

cats know

the full moon means

stay up all night

waiting for something

to be different

and then realize it is you

imagine it is you

wanting to weep

upon reflection

decide

it is you.

Enough (Gratitude Poem #15)

If you are lucky enough to visit Christy's home you will see hearts everywhere. Photographed collected. Naturally occurring hearts. If you are lucky enough to know Christy you will learn that love is naturally occurring and can be supported and grown and found an cherished. I am proud to be in community with Christy and to have learned so much about love from her graceful example!!!!!

And if you happen to find a heart, carved in a tree, written in sand, in the shape of a leaf....take a picture and send it over. And if you happen to have the ability to send over a donation for my dream trip to follow my heart home to St. Croix into the zone of Audre Lorde rememory and the hospitality of Gloria Joseph join the chip in here: http://alexispauline.chipin.com/praise-the-lorde-st-croix-dream-trip

Everyone who donates will get their very own love poem based on one of the poems in Audre Lorde's "Marvelous Arithmetics of Distance."

Hooray!

love,

lex

Enough

For Christy Tronnier

After Audre Lorde’s “Oshun’s Table”

if you go deep enough

and don’t rush

the river floor

is tiled with heart shaped rocks

high enough

stars curve in and meet

wide enough

fruit transforms

seed cradle overlap

herb garden reach out

rice round ripe

patterns left from rain

moon winks

butter melts

toast opens

out the corner of your eye

everything knows your face

love

the proper name

of the spontaneously chosen people

trustworthy brave

fed by your vigil

assembling every bite into ritual

every room into sanctuary

everyday into altar

and you do go

deep

high

wide

enough

for all

of us.

to walk it (Gratitude Poem #15)

When I met Lamar I was thanking my ancestors. We were speaking on a panel together at the first ever Triangle Black Gay Pride. He had just moved to the area to get his PhD. He was a "yes" out of the corner of my eye, a brother-in-waiting, a bridge to all the other black poet peace petals on the planet. An ancestor worshipper like me.

We celebrated James Baldwin's birthday together, with words and more than words and promptly laced our lives together into time and space traveling non-stop affirmation. I love you Lamar! You amaze and inspire me. And your role in this community of praise, preacher, prophet poets in this community is crucial, and irreplaceable!

And for all the rest of you walking this dusty road of do-it-ourselves legendary status, I am fundraising for a once in a lifetime opportunity to visit St. Croix to re-immerse myself in the spirit of Audre Lorde on the invitation of the amazing Gloria Joseph!!! Every person who donates gets a love poem from me based on one of the poems in Audre Lorde's final published collection of poems The Marvelous Arithmetics of Distance.

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

to walk it

For L. Lamar Wilson

After Audre Lorde’s “Dear Joe”

we like our legends

dead

our luminaries weak

enough

to fit between

the lines

but you brother

lilting perfect

flower stem tribute

believe in us so

damn

daily

you

throw dirt on the road

to walk it

you stowaway crawlspace

for love

you crooked crossroads

where gender falls

apart

where midnight grasps the hand

of the mourning and wakes up

walk it

say fuck the pretense

this my name in cursive

dancing across your face

this kiss the cool cheek of essex

faced away from joe still waits for

burning up

this the light sprite of just right

who will pronounce your name love

and then love again

until you learn it

refuge from the name drop sun-tea of striving

you touch ghosts

the way they want

to be

touched

swirl the jangled street

into homecoming

here to recognize

the small place

where skin can meet skin

is infinite

and we might live

but that is no reason to give

up

and we might die but that is no reason to

stop

you

lean heavy in the drunkening sweep

of shared air

tar thick days restarting

glean caress out of tree branch missing sky

you

dry mud tracks to tears

stretched legion to come back through

heaven lifted to laces

you

dirt road enough

to walk

Daughter Defined (Gratitude Poem #14)

Greetings Family!

In the times we live in there are so many ways to recognize your tribe. Asha French reached to to me first across the strong connection of mutual black feminist loved ones as a mother. From across the cybernetic clearing I am watching Asha build and nurture given and chosen family in ways that make me believe in black feminism as a daily practice even more. This is for Asha and the tiniest member of the Crunk Feminist Collective, both teaching us so much every second of the day!!!!!

And as I think about defining daughterness (sic) I am again washed over in gratitude for all of you and your support for this step in my journey of chosen daughtering in the legacy of Audre Lorde as a black feminist ancestor and Gloria Joseph as an exemplary elder. Thank you so much for supporting me to accept Gloria Joseph's invitation to go to St. Croix and to build with her and learn more about that part of Audre Lorde's life!!!

I learn so much from writing each of these poems...so for your own dedicated love poem inspired by a poem in Lorde's Marvelous Arithmetics of Distance join the love movement here: http://alexispauline.chipin.com/praise-the-lorde-st-croix-dream-trip

Daughter Defined

For Asha French

After Audre Lorde’s “The One Who Got Away”

beyond glamour

wholeness waits

season-all magic

last seen at no matter what

last heard singing life saving lullabies

last known for kissing the future

the bottom of the day will swell

to fit the dreams packed in

beyond what is fair

or combustible

morning will press up at the sun

life smell bright

faith ransom itself home

daughter

is that dangerous word

that silences guilt-mongers

forcefield to bloodhounds

cutting the air out of any selfish sound

daughter is the name

that means you will grow

moonbeams in a windowsill

dig rootcellars into books

float friendships across clearings

she means

look how she possible

anything worth it

jar water miracle

love lining lace

daughter means

whatever happens

yes beyond yes

beyond

yes

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.