the stranger: “women in politics: same as it ever was“

i noticed a trend about six months ago, when the Obama race-baiting started to kick into gear. and i couldn’t help noticing that madame hills started it. more specifically, her over-zealous and over-compensating husband, who i was a huge fan of about….oh, six months ago. the arguments for singular mistreatment are being ignored by many, and no one wants to cover a story about how bad everyone is treating the senator from new york, because let’s face it, this mudslinging contest started because the “turn” that she “deserved” began to look less and less like a sure thing, and the hillary clinton campaign went virulently negative on one of the most promising and inspiring politicians that my generation has ever seen.

brett makes an excellent point in comment #5**: if a person was in fact not possessive of the qualities which others claim they have, then i suppose some piece of this argument would be more convincing. all the same, as a Black lesbian (do not read radical) feminist who was all set for another Clinton in the White House last May, i have come to realize a few things.

you can’t always expect things to work out the way you want to, but hoping that they work out for the best is our birthright. if you’d ever been victim of racial prejudice or been called a n—–r or been referred to as a “stupid c–t” because you voiced an opinion, it’s easy to become jaded and slide into bitterness. this post to me reeks of bitterness. as a matter of fact, almost every democrat that i have known or met in recent years has been bitter. that’s what eight years under an idiot will do to you. this bitterness is also indicative of every hillary clinton supporter i’ve met, and i don’t really understand that.

any reference to specific non-racialized coverage of obama must be on blogs that i don’t read. or in news wires that i don’t read. because, um, i’m pretty sure we just spend three months vetting obama’s pastor. who, last i checked, is NOT running for president. the speech he gave denouncing rev. wright made my heart ache for this man who’s never met me, because that inherently inexplicable relationship between a pastor and parishioner is hard for so many people to grasp. it’s truly like denouncing a member of your own family.

my friends and i are all about to graduate from college. most of circle is politically apathetic, but this democratic race going on for as long as it has put the idea of politics in their minds. i have been awestruck by how Barack Obama has aroused a near primordial passion for the potential greatness of this nation. i’ve had people who don’t like reading anything call me up and tell me about how excited they are after reading “the audacity of hope.”

my bottom line is this: this man is going to be our next president. you are faced with the option of continuing to exude enmity and contempt for the political process. or you can just have some damn hope. it’s not hokey, and i resent feminists who imply that i’ve betrayed something by supporting the first ever African-American president, over the first ever female president. i choose my friends based on who they are, not the color of their skin, or their genitalia, or their sexual preference. i think it’s shallow and juvenile to ignore substance in choosing your friends OR in choosing your president.

to be only concerned with making history is simply ludicrous…it will get made regardless.

**”There’s a fundamental flaw in your argument, which is that Ms. Clinton does, in fact, possess many of the wide array of negative character traits she’s accused of. It is sexist to automatically call a woman a bitch, without regard to whether she is one or not; but it is also possible to be a bitch. If you’re not willing to see how the pressure of the campaign has brought out the worst in her, that’s your problem, not Obama’s.

It is also ridiculous in the extreme to attribute to Obama the opinions of random nutjobs on the web. Not voting for him because some of his supporters are idiots — especially in the blogosphere, and the talking-head TV arena, where loudmouthed idiocy is frequently the only thing on offer — is really stupid.

If the difficulties of a woman in politics were as extreme as you pretend, Clinton would never have become a Senator. And the fact is, she DID become a Senator because she was married to a powerful man. But you have a double standard there — accusing a woman of riding her husband’s coattails is sexist EVEN IF ITS TRUE.” 

it’s simple and incredibly intricate.

rather, it’s more emotionally taxing and yet more emotionally accessible than prose.

I love the words, the rhythm, the banter between each syllable.

I like to read it out loud when I’m in the bathroom or lying in bed.

I let each locution roll out of my mouth, like a seven-year old rolling down the hill on his parents’ farm in Virginia somewhere.

Anytown, USA

I like America more than I let on.

that’s why I read poetry. 

it kicks me in my soul.

I like to read poetry because it makes me write poetry. I was reading the Paris Review this morning, as per my usual daily constitutional. I’ve gotten to the point where I read great lines, and mark them down in my journal. 

also, I very much enjoy time-lapse photography. that’s utterly random. 

This faintly haunting memory of a feeling that

Escapes the commonality of ordinary language.

All that I have retained is the scar of that faceless nameless emotion,

Not nearly enough for which to compose prose. 

Now as the air about me is heavier than I am, 

Thick with a choking biting taste of underripe citrus.

Now as a draft from somewhere, I can’t tell, sweeps nearly through me, 

Hinting of oregano, saffron, coriander and cayenne.

Now as I feel a heart-stopping pinch in my chest, a stitch of sorts 

In my lungs that makes breathing nigh unbearable,

Now as a tire tests its brakes, squealing across the freshly hardened asphalt

That I have just walked across, to get to this place, this room, this empty

Room. 

There is a troubling atmosphere in this place.

The odor of vacancy, of sawdust, of old metal, of dry stale air.

It is so ghastly still that I must be imagining that aural instigation,

What sounds like the wind from the rustling wings of perdition.

I suppose it is also odd that I sit here, with no real reason or purpose.

My mind is working, struggling to get at it, with a Herculean vehemence, 

A palpitating sponge seeking to osmose all of life, life as it stands,

Life as it stands in this empty, empty room.

And then, it was not so empty, as if the vacuum of the void had been

Shut off with the flick of an omnipotent light switch.

I waited now, waited for the reaction to me, sitting in the room 

That was no longer empty, but nowhere near full. I set my gaze 

In that direction with a ferocity that surprises me,

An emulation of the force of a black wooden mallet

Beating a stubbornly bent steel nail into a wall of alabaster Jerusalem stone.

The savagery of my silent paroxysm prompted a step back, and then another,

Until the room was empty once more. Thus was I witness to the 

Ravaging of my soul by my self, to the separation of all that is from all that ought to be.

To feel, to smell.

Functional in its use as my sandals.

Brown, a deep dark chocolate sort of color.

They were suede, once, or a kind of rough version

Of leather. Now they have taken on a

Sort of soft, supple texture.

My feet feel them, caressed by this new texture.

Frequent usage expected, lengthy travels appreciated.

The straps have remained the same, binding

The feet to the sole. The under-sole, that which

Takes a beating from the elements so the feet

Don’t have to, the soul of the shoe.

Thin, gripping, protective like a rabbit’s foot,

But so much more effective.

Feeling the thong that touches all parts at once.

In the writing, I have thought of the places

They have taken me, the people I have seen while

Allowing my toes to bask in the atmosphere.

I must apologize to my sandals, they have never

Felt snow. But they have felt hundreds of grassy

Fields, hills, dirt from all locales, sun, rain,

Perhaps even a little bit of hail.

They have felt what I have felt, the presence of the divine.

The most resounding of feelings, love, in a

Completely physical submission. In a darkened,

In a darkened room of sorts, the furtive whispers

And professions of this abstract emotion, the manifestations of such

Emotion. My sandals were there.

Rejection, heartache, betrayal, desire unrequited,

Impatience with love, reciprocation, frustration

With love and loving. My sandals were there, they felt it all.

Arrested truth is not a thing we like to see.

I’d much rather see the false than deal with reality.

At the end of things, wouldn’t we all?

Not enough confrontation, not enough tears.

Advocates swing their briefcases up onto conference room tables.

The locks click open, the papers begin a rustling dance

That will last for three months.

Half a key-lime pie sits uneaten

In the refrigerator. Half the linens in the closet are missing.

Half a bucket of fried chicken lies in gnawed-on bones in the trashcan.

The windows are open halfway.

The tiles are cracked on the bathroom walls.

The large mirror is cracked in the top right corner.

The candle is cracked from the impact.

The last thing cracked left its bloody residue.

The scars, that’s what can not be forgotten.

Sure, the house has scars. Half-decent repairmen can erase those.

The one on my chest. The one on my right hand.

The ones on my back.

The passage of time has a profound

Effect on the body. They are smooth remnants of what happened before

A little jagged. From fingernails. From a hot iron.

From an angry lashing thick black leather belt.

Rolling away now, done with this in this time and in this place.

What comes now, in this stanza, is my earned moment.

I am told I can say whatever I want, whatever I feel will help me escape my emotions.

But I have nothing. Just cynical apathy towards a past not quite forgotten.

Consequential peons.

Not a burning, fire smell. More like a thick

Yet concise spiciness, which tickled the nostrils 

Rather than setting them aflame.

There is nothing shattered, and yet I hear a breaking.

A smoky haze traveled your body in my dream.

Fluttered over your cheeks, seemed to pause at your

Lips, which parted to allow your tongue to wet them.

Flowed past the curve of your neck, passing over wonderful

Shoulders, wisping

About to your hands, your knuckles, your fingertips.

Where I get stuck, after a pit stop at your navel,

Is the cool form of your legs, the way your calves fit into

My hands, the tremendousness of your thighs.

If a love is what you want,

Then here is hate and lies and deceit.

Here is the inspiration for your desire

The dam’s opened valves, the flooded

Thought makes at the doors of your soul.

Here is the aching crush you crave,

That inefficient fancy, that overwhelming self-sacrifice

Into sunlight and darkness. And I dare you to finish

What you’ve started. Because here, Friction,

Here is where I rise above the honesty you bring

Daring through the reality, here is where I triumph

The blood’s warm life, triggering

My brain’s understanding of the rifling I have

Inside of me, each dance of the joy

Wrung deeper, because here, Friction,

Here is where the world ends, every time.  

It is not, as they say, the source of all that is evil.

Rather, it is a garden of earthly delights,

That which appeals most to the range of human senses.

Women and men dance about fitfully, fearing the feel of fabric to skin.

Holiness is approached with the Apple in front of naturally

Phallic fountain springs, flesh-colored contraptions about

In the form of abominations.

Man-sized bunnies lie with compromising women, 

Swine dressed as nuns embrace gluttonous men,

Indiscriminate relations are the order the day.

Hedonism is encouraged, becoming, requisite.

In the strangest of places, a face of wisdom peers at 

The staged course, with its eyes, with its ass.

Observing what the monsters already know, what the souls question.

Lights search for fathers who have left, mothers who have quit,

Children who wander the streets seeking out mayhem.

Heaven is the color grey. Spell it with an e.

Billboards forewarn drivers of the dangers of alcohol

Consumption while operating a vehicle.

Would that there could be some correct prepositional usage.

A mini-cathedral is home to a school and rehab center.

Even on this bus, the pungent odor of a fresh coat of paint invades 

My nostrils. The taupe masks the near ritualistic gang markings 

That adorned its outer walls only last week.

The ride takes me through one of several ethnic microcosms in this city

And as the doors open at the next stop, in wafts the spicy earnestness

Of early-prepared jerk.

I would rather not guess what animal died to make this meal.

The clouds blacken the sun, and with it

The joy of schoolchildren. The conversations of one pair

Belies impending truancy. Don’t get arrested, kids.

Just before the bus turns out of Little Haiti and into Wynwood,

On walks a young man, from the retirement community bus stop,

Blasting rap music from a shoulder-top boom-box, circa 1987.

Hey, I like Timbaland, too.

The warehouses have come into view. At the marble-cutting company,

The grinding of stone on stone leaks in through the bus’s closed doors.

The McCarthur Dairy trucks, that have been running since 4 am,

Return to the plant and cut off our bus. 

Auto-repair shops roll out blasted ’92 Camrys

Looking worse than they did when they got there.

The coin laundry up ahead, across from art gallery number 1,

Is clearly invested in the color peach.

Driving under the first overpass, the posts are

Alive, with octopi and squid of varying species.

The best part of my ride? Dracula Video Rentals.

I can see downtown over the next causeway.

A nest dotted with the blood that drips from their jaws.

I find myself shepherding a pack of camels,

In the sense that a drunk nurses a Corona.

Letting go is most natural, but holding on violates who I am.

I can’t deal with mental duress; my brain becomes saturated

Beyond the observable levels of peace.

I don’t know how to build an ark.

My imagination is purple & running, working down a sweat from cardiac arrest

He trips frequently over the baggage I leave at the door.

He fights to the death on a daily basis with my obsessions.

Thank God for the strength of imagination, or all would be lost by now.

The Census Bureau of my heart reports in.

After a mass dispatch, the results were being processed.

Apparently, I need to learn some self-control.

Maybe a little more wouldn’t hurt.

A tribal rhythm, brings to mind flames.

Tears carve raging rivers down my face.

Doors close all over the place,

Slamming violently, causing the building to shudder.

Somewhere, a baby cries out for Mommy.

Palms slick with the juice of irrational fear, 

As thoughts fall out of my ears,

I can hear them as they hit the floor.

The arms can’t bend right so that I can bite my nails.

Ligament and muscle turned to yogurt,

Bones that were supporting me transformed to sand.

Teeth chatter so hard that the glass windows breaks.

The shattering sound is oddly calming.

And the only thought that I can make coherent,

The only thing that stays with me,

Is that I may have forgotten to turn off the stove.

They are simply less easy to understand.

Regular love is a battlefield, a force of two egos, clambering,

Struggling, fighting for the moments that make the heart

No longer able to be sustained by the constraints of the chest.

Upside-down love is simply not this poetic.

It is a yellow legal pad of words and symbols that appear

Written  in a foreign tongue, with no comprehension by either party.

It is the space between words.

It is the blacked-out portions of a secret, top-clearance file.

It is a cinder block.

It is the splinter that you get when sanding down the 

Wood to be used on your new deck next week.

It is dishevelment when you wake up and realize that you’ve

Slept in your clothes from the day before.

Regular anger is a fire that burns softly, until an event

Triggers something, embraces the spark, fuels the flame.

Upside-down anger is putting your socks on backwards,

The little pouch of heel that sits on top of your foot.

It is spelling the word “clock.”

It is a pale seafoam on the walls, lilac on the furniture,

And cerulean on the baseboards.

It is a hairline fracture running the length of a hall of mirrors.

It is the frantic trembling of one’s fifth toe.

From the water and lays out like a blanket over the city.

Mangy dogs that seem to travel in packs traverse

The streets as if they were the owner.

Shoddy chunky asphalt peeks up in the streets,

An example of mountainous terrain in a place that sits at sea level.

The salty air of the bay sweeps in, spreading the

Thick grey fog around, like a knife spreads icing across a cake.

A bright green lizard, the length of a man’s shoe,

Creeps down from the upper branches of

Near artificial faun, trans-planted in front of one

Of many dark steel structures, skyscrapers that don’t quite reach the sky.

Living in the city that is my home is a blessing and a curse.

What’s wrong?

Well, I quite simply hate myself today.

Why, a good bit of purging is just what you need! We’ll heal that GAY right out of you!

…Even the men of Sodom…called out unto Lot and said, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? Bring them out unto us, that we may know them.

I bought us both a bracelet. 

That is, we were to each have one.

I lost mine, and never gave her hers.

Were we doomed from the start?

Reaching out to her,

I felt a great sucking in my chest,

A gaping, oozing wound that threatens to ravish my whole being.

It causes me to cry.

…Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind. It is abomination.

A more abysmal way to be

Had never before been imagined.

One day, to feel so sure

The next, to feel naked in front of an army of flame-throwers

Would that I could see some end to it.

Would that there were some reprieve on the horizon.

But no, more condemnation leaps forth

From the ink from this pen, right off the page, into my eye.

Egg on my face. I am actually a fool.

If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death, their blood shall be upon them.

It ended like the last curtain call

To the last showing

Of what was once a truly great stage piece.

It never felt less like it was than it did that last time.

And you sit, you wonder, you imagine

Is it possible, plausible, within the realm of reason

Can it be that anyone is this selfish?

Can anyone cause this fracture of your soul with such ease?

Maybe it’s your soul that’s the problem.

There shall be no whore of the daughters of Israel, nor a sodomite of the sons of Israel…for even both of these are abomination unto the Lord thy God.

I begged her.

After all the betrayal and the temptation and the guilt and the torment, I begged.

I plead for a fraction of what I deserve.

I felt cheap, used, like less than a person when she said no.

I felt…like the other woman.

All this hatred can’t be healthy.

A mere four hours ago, make that 24…

I had such love, such unconditional affection for her.It’s easy if you think about it.

She has this gorgeous ability to make you feel like you’re flying.

Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanliness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves…for this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even to their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature. And likewise also the man, leaving the natural use of the woman burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error…

I’ve been thinking in dots.

Spots of thought have flooded me for hours, snow in the desert.

I’ve wished only for clarity.

I’ve wished only for silence, for peace.

It seems like the pain is never-abating.

It’s a sickness, a storm, a cesspool.

To be free is as simple as uncluttering the noise in my eyes.

Everything makes my heart stop, my limbs freeze and tingle, my throat choke with the force of all my nerves.

But I love her.