This is the official blog of Northern Arizona slam poet Christopher Fox Graham. Begun in 2002, and transferred to blogspot in 2006, FoxTheBlog has recorded more than 670,000 hits since 2009. This blog cover's Graham's poetry, the Arizona poetry slam community and offers tips for slam poets from sources around the Internet. Read CFG's full biography here. Looking for just that one poem? You know the one ... click here to find it.
Phoenix poet Shaikh Sammad headlines Sedona Poetry Slam
The Sedona Summer Poetry Slam will explode at Studio Live at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, June 11, presenting three rounds of poetic competition as poets battle for pride and $100.
Between rounds, the audience will be entertained with a feature performance by Damien Flores, one of the top slam poets in New Mexico and a member of the 2005 National Poetry Slam Championship Team.
Shaikh Sammad is a poet, actor, vocalist, performance artist and activist.
A native of Newark, N.J., Sammad now resides in Arizona where he divides his time between the Phoenix metro area and Cottonwood in the Verde Valley. An avid gardener, he spends the majority of his time developing community gardens to feed residents in low- to no-income areas.
Additionally he has taken on the role of Youth Arts Program director with the Tigermountain Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit agency which encourages urban farming as a means of community development. He believes strongly that all people should have access to affordable, nutritious, locally grown produce regardless of race, gender, age, class or income. The stage is a powerful place to begin the exchange of ideas.
Shaikh Sammad, of Phoneix, features at the Sedona Poetry Slam on Saturday, June 11.
Shaikh Sammad stated in a press release that he "looks forward to sharing his messages of love, faith and community as feature poet at the Sedona Slam on June 11, 2011."
All poets are welcome to compete in the slam. Slammers will need three original poems, each lasting no longer than three minutes. No props, costumes nor musical accompaniment are permitted.
The poets will be judged Olympics-style by five members of the audience selected at random at the beginning of the slam. The top poet at the end of the night wins $100.
Poets who want to compete should purchase a ticket in case the roster is filled before they arrive.
The slam will be hosted by Sedona poet Christopher Fox Graham, who represented Northern Arizona on the Flagstaff team at five National Poetry Slams between 2001 and 2010. He has hosted and competed in poetry slams and open mics in Sedona since 2004.
The slam will be hosted by Sedona poet Christopher Fox Graham.
Graham has performed in 40 states, Toronto, Dublin, Ireland, and London, and wrote the now infamous “Peach” poem.
Founded in Chicago by construction worker and poet Marc “So What?” Smith in 1984, poetry slam is a competitive artistic sport. Poetry slam has become an international artistic sport, with more than 100 major poetry slams in the United States, Canada, Australia and Western Europe.
For more information about the worldwide phenomena of poetry slam, visit www.poetryslam.com and foxthepoet.blogspot.com.
Home of the Sedona Performers Guild nonprofit, Studio Live is located at 215 Coffee Pot Drive, West Sedona. For more information, visit www.studiolivesedona.com.
For people working in the arts, marketing, public relations or with nonprofit organizations, publicity is everything.
Learn the art of writing a press release from media professional Christopher Fox Graham, on Saturday, May 21, starting at 12:30 p.m.
Workshops taught by public relations professionals may focus on writing a press release, but as a professional newspaper editor, Graham approaches the topic from the other angle — representing the media professionals responsible for choosing which press releases to publish and where to place them in their publications.
Drafting an effective press release may seem an impossible skill to master. Press releases often lack key information, such as location, dates, costs or contact information. Others fail to provide sufficient background to be considered effective by the media outlets and news organizations that receive them.
Photo by Saar Inglebert
Creating an effective, informative, yet brief and easy-to-read press release is often more art than skill. A good press release provides succinct details to inform newspaper or magazine readers, website users and radio listeners about news events, offering just enough information to pique readers’ interest in the topic without boring them.
Using real-world examples, Graham will demonstrate the differences between good and bad press releases; how to transform a bad release into a great one; what media professionals look for; mistakes that will get your press release thrown out and how to avoid them; how to write an eye-catching and informative press release; and how to deal with members of the media.
The workshop is designed for artists and musicians trying to promote their work, public relations and marketing professionals, nonprofit organizers and business owners.
Graham is currently assistant managing editor of Larson Newspapers, which publishes the Sedona Red Rock News, The Camp Verde Journal and the Cottonwood Journal Extra. As an editor, his duties include prioritizing and editing press releases and helping to assign them to pages for publication.
Graham earned a bachelor’s degree in English with a focus on literature and linguistics and a minor in history from Arizona State University.
He has worked as senior copy editor for The State Press at ASU, copy editor for Larson Newspapers’ three publications, managing editor of the arts publication Kudos and a private media consultant.
Graham is also a writer and performance poet. Over the last 11 years, he has toured and competed worldwide in poetry slams, a competitive art form that is focused as much on how the language is presented as on the content itself.
This workshop takes place Sedona Community Center, 2615 Melody Lane, West Sedona. Seats are $30 for the three-hour workshop. For more information or to reserve a seat, visit the Sedona Area Guild of Artists website, sedonaareaguildofartists.com.
I'd pay to see this spoof trailer greenlit into a feature film.
Of course, I grew rereading a book of chess every few months (I think it might have been "Judgment and Planning in Chess" by Max Euwe), recording games with algebraic chess notation and playing for money in high school ....
at the bottom
of wine bottles in the kitchen
hide misplaced memories
those drained, hold relived sins
the unopened ones swallow thoughts of her
swimming in scarlet-violet soup
grapes drowned into sweet poison
each swig pulls me back to her
while killing a little more
recalled kisses stain lips
the weeping remembrances afterward
make driving while under her influence
an arrestable hazard when
Bereaved Aortic Collapse
rises above 0.08 percent
napping in a bottle of Chilean Bordeaux
are roadtrips when I held her snoring on my thigh
beneath high desert nights
along a blacked-out highway
cruising above safe speed limits
resting in the green glass of Moscato d'Asti
her laughter at bad jokes at my expense
when her reverberations
could shake this empty bedroom
scattering inhibitions from my skin
Near the neck of a narrow Napa Pinot Noir
are all the words I spoke
when I thought she was listening
when instead she was just drunk on the sound of my voice
and whatever vocabulary spilled forth
was vacant of content but rich in tone
in the base of cheap Boone’s Farm
is the bruise she left after hitting me
for teasing her too unsympathetically
I drink it knowing
it gives me a headache by midnight and the day after
hiding in the depths of a Beaujolais Rosé
are mornings when I should have risen
but stayed longer and longer in bed
to hold her snoozing brilliance
outshining morning sunrises
behind the label of Wakayama Ume
are the sweetest moments
only suitable for the poetry held private
sent only to her and burned thereafter
you will have to pry me from the grave for those
swimming in Argentinian Malbec
are her stories of cities I’ve never seen
the feel of cobblestone stained with peasant mud
echoes of foreign tongues bartering wares
and revolutionaries’ martyred blood
in the unopened, overly large Mosel Riesling,
is the promise that she would return
when all the quantum equations of quarks and photons
conspired with gravitons and gluons
to nudge her back into my arms
it remains uncorked until she meets me
but I may be buried with it someday
if one could slice open these veins
vines have stained burgundy my blood-red tributaries
I don’t have enough winekeys in this house
to drown in her
so I uncork the moments one by one
swallow them in short glasses
lose coherence in the overswelling libations
pulling me into the touch of her moments
flooding back through open mouths
dripping out into intoxicated fingertips
before, overcome by the inebriation of remembering
eyelids heavy in her photographs
burned backward from brain to retina
push the warmth of her back into hands
allowing me to sleep guiltlessly
but even then, she pours herself into be
squeezes out the wine
so I wake unintoxicated
but drunk on longing for her
and a hangover of memories
I can’t forget again
Cannon blasts from Fort Johnson across Charleston Harbor toward Fort Sumter at daybreak signal the beginning of the Civil War 150 years ago.
Fort Sumter sits in the mouth of
Charleston Harbor, South Carolina
1861
By Walt Whitman
ARM’D year! year of the struggle!
No dainty rhymes or sentimental love verses for you, terrible year!
Not you as some pale poetling, seated at a desk, lisping cadenzas
piano;
But as a strong man, erect, clothed in blue clothes, advancing,
carrying a rifle on your shoulder,
With well-gristled body and sunburnt face and hands–with a knife in
the belt at your side,
As I heard you shouting loud–your sonorous voice ringing across the
continent;
Your masculine voice, O year, as rising amid the great cities,
Amid the men of Manhattan I saw you, as one of the workmen, the
dwellers in Manhattan;
Or with large steps crossing the prairies out of Illinois and
Indiana,
Rapidly crossing the West with springy gait, and descending the
Alleghanies;
Or down from the great lakes, or in Pennsylvania, or on deck along
the Ohio river;
Or southward along the Tennessee or Cumberland rivers, or at
Chattanooga on the mountain top,
Saw I your gait and saw I your sinewy limbs, clothed in blue, bearing
weapons, robust year;
Heard your determin’d voice, launch’d forth again and again;
Year that suddenly sang by the mouths of the round-lipp’d cannon,
I repeat you, hurrying, crashing, sad, distracted year.
Alice Keeney/AP
The lights shine at Fort Sumter at 4:30 a.m. EDT to
commemorate the moment the first shots of the Civil War
were fired in Charleston on Tuesday morning, April 12.
The South Carolina ceremony Tuesday begins the four-year
national commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the
Civil War.
Confederate troops in South Carolina fired on Fort Sumter 150 years ago this week, April 12 and 13, touching off the American Civil War. There are more than 70,000 books about the American Civil War, so there's no need for me to touch on that aspect, but I think discussing the poetry from and about the period from 1861-1865 will be fun to explore between 2011-2015.
I can smell you on the wind
Blowing east from lands I’ve never seen
The taste of curry and wasabi
Hindu mantras, Buddhist chanting, Shinto incense
I will not voice my yearning
Will not explode my cells
At the thought of hearing your words
Sit still, swallow pride, bear indifference
Attachment is the Eastern sin
As vanity is Western and my own
You came to me in dreams
Erupted from a doorway
As though I would be waiting
And there I was,
Waiting
Like you knew I would be
I will proverbially cut out this overeager tongue
Dumb but undeaf
Anticipating your stories
From Delhi roads and Goa beaches
Sapporo suburbs, Hokkaido hillsides
Tell me your path
I am vapor and ears
Quiet, attentive
An audience
Wholly yours
“stop talking and fuck me”
she said
removing any choice in the matter
I always appreciated decisiveness
too often I let thinking
get in the way of living
some days I just want to be a tool
a flesh machine serving at the pleasure
of her pleasure
“I’m naked already,
stop trying to seduce me”
she said
and again my mind has wandered
overthinking the moment
calculating the mathematics
of how to move her limbs
in puzzle piece to my own
so she can link ankles behind my back
wondering if I should cradle her head
or let it flop over the edge of the bed
as her eyes roll back
her mouth agapes to breathe deeper
how to best redistribute weight
so my arm doesn’t fall asleep
or I jab her with an elbow inopportunely
will she keep her eyes open
lock them with mine
as the rest of us dances tandem
we’re all Machiavellian perverts
when sex is the prize
the way she coos and flirts
forgets to wear underwear on formal occasions
because she know how it drives me mad
the way I feign disinterest when she’s moist
and just wants to fuck, then sleep
some women want a piston with legs
jackhammer hips erupting sweat
a fuck machine intent on reaching climax
roughly, quickly, or fanatically
I am not the Kool-Aide man
trying to punch her through the wall
I am a terrible dancer
so I’ve honed other skills to compensate
I am too methodical for sport fucking
my talents aren’t in the rage of hips
through poetry or carefully placed wit
my tongue wingmans this endeavor
but with the same vivacity
as flexing beach weightlifters glistening in the sun
coaxing in a lover
the rhetoric of convincing a crowd of one
to toss her clothes atop mine on the floor
and explore what makes us different
the bargain is alchemy’s equivalent exchange
it seduces, so it gets to play
the curiosity of which parts feel best
the persistence to thy all the angles
the dedication to not yield until she climbs the wall
forgets how to form consonants
and epileptically writhes
knocking over a water glass, alarm clock
and tearing the sheets
she’ll forgetfully ask later
if she caused the damage
and I’ll offer to repeat my instigation
each time we practice
the equations of pressure, speed and friction
become easier to calculate
her variables more familiar
I’ll never master her handling
but it’s worth anther try
and another and another
“why aren’t you inside me yet?
I told you to fuck me”
she said
I keep forgetting the moment
stuck in my head and not with her
delete the man
turn off his mind for a minute
become her toy;
my arm will fall asleep, elbows will jab
she can keep her head up if she wants
it doesn’t matter anymore
she just wants me to fuck her
oblige, I can think later
New Mexico champion Damien Flores headlines Sedona Poetry Slam
The Sedona Summer Poetry Slam will explode at Studio Live at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, March 26, presenting three rounds of poetic competition as poets battle for pride and $100.
Between rounds, the audience will be entertained with a feature performance by Damien Flores, one of the top slam poets in New Mexico and a member of the 2005 National Poetry Slam Championship Team.
Photo by Eirik Ott/Big Poppa E
Damien Flores features at the Sedona Poetry Slam on Saturday, March 26,
at Studio Live, Sedona.
Damien Flores hails from Albuquerque, New Mexico. He received a Bachelor of Arts in English and Chicano studies from the University of New Mexico in 2009 and was recipient of the 2008 Lena Todd Award for creative non-fiction from the UNM English Department.
He was named "Poet of the Year" in 2007 & 2008 by the New Mexico Hispano Entertainer's Association.
Flores is best known as a member of four ABQ Poetry Slam Teams as well as the two-time National Champion UNM Loboslam teams. He organized the College Unions Poetry Slam in 2008 and is also a three-time ABQSlams City Champion.
His published works include "A Novena of Mud" and "El Cuento de Juana Henrieta," and published by Destructible Heart and Culture Lab Press. His work has appeared in Bomb Magazine, The Daily Lobo, Duke City Fix, and The Underground Guide to Albuquerque. Flores has also been anthologized in De Veras: Young Voices From the National Hispanic Cultural Center, Earthships: A New Mecca Poetry Anthology, The 2006 National Poetry Slam Anthology, and A Bigger Boat: The Unlikely Success of the Albuquerque Poetry Slam Scene.
Damien Flores is currently an educator in Albuquerque and hosts the Spoken Word Hour on 89.9 KUNM-FM.
All poets are welcome to compete in the slam.
Slammers will need three original poems, each lasting no longer than three minutes. No props, costumes nor musical accompaniment are permitted.
The poets will be judged Olympics-style by five members of the audience selected at random at the beginning of the slam. The top poet at the end of the night wins $100.
Poets who want to compete should purchase a ticket in case the roster is filled before they arrive.
The slam will be hosted by Sedona poet Christopher Fox Graham.
The slam will be hosted by Sedona poet Christopher Fox Graham, who represented Northern Arizona on the Flagstaff team at five National Poetry Slams between 2001 and 2010. He has hosted and competed in poetry slams and open mics in Sedona since 2004.
Graham has performed in 40 states, Toronto, Dublin, Ireland, and London, and wrote the now infamous “Peach” poem.
For more information or to register, call Graham at (928) 517-1400 or e-mail to foxthepoet@yahoo.com.
See video from previous poetry slams at www.YouTube.com/FoxThePoet.
Founded in Chicago by construction worker and poet Marc “So What?” Smith in 1984, poetry slam is a competitive artistic sport. Poetry slam has become an international artistic sport, with more than 100 major poetry slams in the United States, Canada, Australia and Western Europe.
For more information about the worldwide phenomena of poetry slam, visit www.poetryslam.com and foxthepoet.blogspot.com.
Home of the Sedona Performers Guild nonprofit, Studio Live is located at 215 Coffee Pot Drive, West Sedona. For more information, visit www.studiolivesedona.com.
A Plea to Kitsune Regarding the 2011 Japan earthquake By Christopher Fox Graham
the world splits open
cracking the rock, a loaf of bread
the angry sea pitches
rolls uphill turning beaches into seabeds
Honshu homes built with sweat
float inland as driftwood
resistant to Godzilla and Mothra
the rage of Akira
and a 1,000 manga disasters
but the Earth’s quiver
a shudder at climax
topples shopping centers and temples
rips roads from foundations
pulls down a country made of chrysanthemums
cherry trees weep as roots drown in salt water
Einstein’s mathematics harnessed
already wiped two cities into cinders here
and a third teeters on the edge
the pride of Bushido
the nobility of seppuku and honor
as poetic as any martyrdom
has suffered this country too much already
this is the nation that gave us
the word for “tsunami” after all
she may have been there
a Bento box and sushi
fresh from the sea
reminding her of an age
when she still had trouble walking
when she reached up for father’s hands
to cross the street in safety
I gave her a warning
told her to be careful
if there is a world of shadow
underneath this one
where djinnis and angels play cards with fate
shades and yōkais plan their tricks
fairies and daemons brew new magicks
I can only hope a kyuubi no kitsune
unfaded from the eaves
warned her on my behalf
to be near a doorframe
stay away from the beaches
stand firm when the earth beneath did not
I beg him to whisper tonight
that he wrapped his nine fox tails
around her limbs and torso
roundhouse-kicked the falling roof panels
or ceiling tiles or tumbling walls
kept debris from falling on her
left her pristine, unbroken and unblemished
until she returns to my country
and if he could not find her
could not reach her in time
would tell her she is beloved half a world away
by the dozens of us who’ve know her
that we long to know she is unharmed
she doesn’t even have to know it was me,
kitsune,
just pass these words to her
Always a smile
with legs to heaven and back
her kiss must be languishing
and a little sloppy
if she even kisses boys
I wonder if she knows
that my heart skips a little
when she smiles
always at a loss for words
I sound like a bad playright's dull love interest
a faraway caricature of a boy
made of static and cardboard
penciled in by an uninterested editor
as the protagonist girl
seeks some inner wisdom
my conversation forced and insincere
small talk just to dance in the reverberation of her voice longer
when what I'd rather say
is how we should turn our bodies into geometry
and strive to determine each other's hypotenuse
race to see who can calculate our quadratic equation
taste what makes us different
while dividing by zero
add one plus one
multiply thirteen times three
or subtract my age from a century
until the climax of our calculations
removes any doubt of mathematics' sincereity
or perhaps I'd rather
she'd unloose her tiger blood
leap on my in the midst of strangers
and make the Adonis DNA in my blood
cry out in sheer madness
or even share truer words
of what I really want to say
when my mouth is footless
let my language follow the sincerity of my smile
to speak with untangled tongue
Celebrate March Madness with some of the best of Sedona’s art scene at the Second Saturday Art Häus.
Collage art at February's Second Saturday Art Häus by Pam Paggao
This underground art event rotates between private homes in the Sedona area, offering visitors a night of intimate discussion with the participating artists, as well as other arts supporters and patrons.
Each month, the featured artists are challenged to paint, sculpt and draw a number of pieces to match the theme.
Previous Art Häus themes have included “Fight or Flight” and “Cowboys, Indians and Aliens.” Last month’s theme of “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre,” included art of candy hearts, broken hearts, real hearts and the infamous St. Valentine’s Day massacre of Chicago mobsters in 1929.
This month’s theme is “March Madness,” so expect art ranging from enthusiasm for college basketball to outright clinical insanity. The artists are free to explore themes as they see fit and produce several varying works depicting it.
Plan on edgy, humorous, and up-to-the-minute paintings exploring the off-the-deep-end crazy rants of actors Mel Gibson and Charlie Sheen, in addition to more conventional dabbling in the realm of madness.
Art by Brian Walker at the Second Saturday Art Häus on Feb. 14
According to a press release, the show highlights the work of Sedona’s best known up-and-coming young artists. The featured artists include:
Painter and sculptor Molly Berg, a Chicago transplant
Sculptor and painter Miguel Guzman from Philadelphia
Phoenix-born painter and pen and ink artist Jarrod Karimi
Milwaukee minimalist painter Timmy Kehoe, a longtime Sedona resident whose work is featured around the city
Pam Paggao, a collagist who hails from Chicago
Chicago-born painter Brian Walker, a longtime fixture in the Sedona scene whose paintings are exhibited in several galleries and on a series of bottles from a Page Springs area winery
“We all bring our own styles into the mix, which makes for a vibrant and sometimes controversial take on each individually themed show,” Walker said.
“The art can be as soft and compassionate as cotton or as edgy as a nic fit,” he said. “That’s juxtaposition of the show, how different each of our styles complement and contrast with each other. It’s beautiful chaos. It’s like creating explosions in your hands.”
The art of Kehoe, Karimi and Walker have all been separately featured in the Sedona Red Rock News’ Sedona Underground arts column.
Refreshments will be provided. This month, Second Saturday Art Häus takes place at 80 Birch Blvd., West Sedona.
some moment
between our last meaningful kiss
and the last time we shared a bed
you broke
the laugh is the same
stories haven’t changed
the proximity of your warmth
exudes the same radiance
but no one tends furnace
whatever I once loved
could not be without
the heart-skip of sight
somewhere between us has ceased
a stranger in a body
that once thrust itself beneath mine
rocked in rhythm to my hips
a tongue that dove into my mouth
like a toddler in the surf
a shadow lives there
inhabiting the shell
a squatter in a house
I longed to inhabit
secured a loan and put in escrow
I could blame the housing bubble
and economic downturn
the credit crunch
for the foreclosure
she made me outgrow you
swell into a man
with 44-inch chest
too large for your narrow sleeves
eager to teach
she gave me more in less
than you did
shoved me into high school
while you were at recess
you’re no different
the same mathematical equations
processed in a mainframe
grown obsolete with technology’s growth
but the girl you were
with fire in your belly
wrath in your chest
blazing roads into the constellations
dimmed in day
lost passion in dusk
and emptied all the contents on the floor
the stars are specks now
instead of destinations
while you forget to reach up
I learned to chart them
we are strangers
it only took too long to notice
I don’t know if I could have saved her
kept her skin intact
instead of the permeated husk
that bled out in my absence
and in the months since
has weaved her way back into my atmosphere
but a derelict devoid of reason
to find interest in the hows and whys she’s around
fruitless lovers and vapid moments
bear no interest anymore
not since the heroine protagonist
ceased to inspire the reader
your haughty lovers can think they've cuckolded me
then strut and preen their self-interest
forgetting how vents carry sound
or that recycling isn't theft
something can't be stolen
if it's already tossed aside
we can’t go back
not now
not with the paths overgrown
you still lost in the woods
and me overlooking the shining sea
I’ll remember our moments
but you’re still too forgetful for them to matter
but I can’t wait anymore
there are fire-bearing girls still out there
somewhere along this shore
reaching for stars
longing for a boy eager to meet them
if you reach this place
I will leave you markers to follow
show you where I’ve gone
but you won’t be coming
the signal flares I send up
merely light my way
because you only see
how they cast your shadow
you’ve stopped looking skyward
and my toes no longer touch the earth
She Would Have Been Three By Christopher Fox Graham
she would have been three I’m guessing I never wrote things down in a calendar especially dates I slept with someone I do keep a list of names I’m one of those because lovers’ last names are too often forgettable call them notches in the bedpost if you must judge me, Philistines pretend you don’t have a similar list hidden in shoebox written in code in a diary or recounted in living memory leaving no trace should death come suddenly we’re all whores those who aren’t, are virgins, saints or liars
I am no saint
she would have been three not sure of the months I never understood at what point a child is no longer counted in years as if there’s a threshold when time stretches into longer periods I am 372 months now I would have been 348 then, give or take
she would have been three could have been mine I was not her your only lover then I was a name on your list a notch on your bedpost
I only heard what happened secondhand years later flush of fluid damage within a loss, the swallow a haphazard explanation a medicalized synonym for bad plumbing to seemingly make the justification less crushing “your pipes, dear, just can’t hold water must have been the installation” you always bore a tough exterior but fragile around the edges I knew how to hurt you with flippant words about how you waste your time knowing now if I could unsay those things knowing what time would mean later I would chew them back into my tongue spit them back into my bowels until they dissolved into my blood and I could bleed them into a sink
I would do this
but breath has a way of mixing with air to make itself irretrievable hiding as ninjas among other atoms of nitrogen and oxygen if we only lived in vacuum
I can not ask if she was mine I was never meant to know told in secret confidence why you had grown so distant in vino veritas in nox noctis he assumed I knew had already heard through gossiping grapevine understood the absent months the quiet reemergence the unanswered messages ignorant of the earthquake that flattened your city
I can never know her name ask if it was Rachel or Penelope I always loved your name the way it rolled of the tongue like it was made to live there explore the space between us did you name her for your mother had she been born instead of bled nine months whole instead of shattering brevity you would have told me father or not
she would have been three standing knee-high now, with my eyes or those of a stranger but your smile
she would have been three but in her absence I have no name to call her so in mind when I imagine all she could have been and that she could have been my daughter I know the name I would have chosen
every morning, the finches feed outside my window they come each season their mustard seed brains containing physics equations of aerodynamics instantly calculating how to move weight and mass with the precision to dodge hawks and avoid power lines their grey matter specks contain songs passed down generations from father to egg to coax mates from other lovers the architecture of building a home from twigs where to house themselves inconspicuous from snakes and housecats on the prowl synapses hold cartography of this country tracking paths from one feeder to the next returning here with such regularity I should charge them seasonal rent or give them each a name
amid that mess of maps and math buried beneath sonnets of bird-speak oratory I can see their curiosity as some gaze back in my window and wonder where you went they remember seeing us bare skinned weekend mornings wrapped around each other as discarded gloves they were the only ones permitted to see us naked slumbering until past noon content together even if the rest of the world imploded beneath its angry weight only these feathered peeping toms could give testimony of how my arms sheltered you describe unbiased the concavity of man and woman their mathematics can still see the geometry of your trapezoid torso my lithe limbs four unclawed bare feet two unfeathered heads rising from beneath sheets my face buried in your raven hair
they come now and wonder why you’ve been gone so long ponder perhaps there’s a nest in another room they can’t see where you may be raising young or whether you’ve flown away gone north or south for the season but note the vast bed we shared still has space for you a wide ocean of sheets visited only by slim limbs reaching finding nothing to fill them then retreating home to my sides
they feed and fly on to their next destination wondering if they may see you elsewhere when they can tell you if you stray too far away too long you may forget you way home back to the warm shelter where they fell in love with how we fit together and gave them a reason to always visit
type, type, send
type, type, send
the revolution begins not with a bang
but with a text message
we weep with you, Wael Ghonim,
you did not sign a declaration
shoot a gun
nor take an assassin's bullet you ran a Facebook page
Egyptian secret police held you blindfolded for 11 days
promised you would be buried nameless, anonymous
as a Facebook event,
your ghost of Khalid Said
brought down a dictator
we weep with you, Wael Ghonim,
you unintentional revolutionary,
sob as the names of boys fallen
crawl across the screen
as Mona el-Shazly asks you to gaze up
swallow the Facebook photos and off-kilter photographs
taken at parties or late-night on-the-towns
images become epitaphs,
boys like us
who before Jan25
watched girls pass by
traded albums and downloaded music
called their mothers on birthdays
and never thought their country
would ever be theirs
if we could stand with you, Wael Ghonim, we would
embrace you as man to man
wrap arms around you to hold you standing
convince you to believe us
that your hands are clean
your soul is unstained
the blood of brothers and sisters on them
wasn’t spilt by you
use it to paint flags
touch it to your childrens’ foreheads
and tell them “this was shed for you,
by men and women who gave more than we did,
it is why you now have a voice
why freedom is more than a noun”
wash it off in the Nile
let it taste of the mother river
swim upstream to the sources
and down to the delta
tell all of Egypt
from Luxor tombs
to pyramid shadows
to the library halls in Alexandria
that your country is free
shake the earth
so dead pharaohs wake trembling
living tyrants flee from their thrones
we weep with you, Wael Ghonim,
we stood with you in Tahrir
we were the breath of bravery
you felt beside you
when the enemy rode in on camels
we stood beside you
five times a day
when you knelt to pray to Allah
we, atheists, Christians, Buddhists
Hindus, Sikhs, and Jews
we watched your back
stood guard in silence
we were the ghosts you felt
assuring you the world was listening
we don’t know your language
but understood each word
in your prayers because
“freedom” never needs translation
it feels the same
no matter the shade or age of skin,
we weep with you, Wael Ghonim,
because your tears are too heavy for one man
let us carry them for you
permit us bear their weight
because we could not physically stand alongside you
allow us sing our lullabies in 1,000 languages to your children
let us tell them our words for "liberty"
so no matter where they travel
we have that in common
we weep with you, Wael Ghonim,
because you are not alone
you never were
now, sleep,
guiltless
weightless
and free
Wael Ghonim is an Egyptian computer engineer and head of marketing of Google Middle East and North Africa who was living in the United Arab Emirates. He ran the Facebook page that organized the Jan25 movement to protest Egyptian President and dictator Hosni Mubarak. In January 2011, Ghonim persuaded Google to allow him to return to Egypt, citing a "personal problem." Planning only a six-day visit for the protest, he was captured by Mubarak's security forces and held blindfolded for 11 days and the protests swelled in Tahrir Square, Cairo. The day he was released, he appeared on DreamTV, where I first saw him.
The video is below. The last five minutes will bring anyone to tears.
On 9 February, Ghonim addressed the crowds in Tahrir Square, telling the protesters: "This is not the time for individuals, or parties, or movements. It's a time for all of us to say just one thing: Egypt above all."
The scholar Fouad Ajami writes:
"No turbaned ayatollah had stepped forth to summon the crowd. This was not Iran in 1979. A young Google executive, Wael Ghonim, had energized this protest when it might have lost heart, when it could have succumbed to the belief that this regime and its leader were a big, immovable object. Mr. Ghonim was a man of the modern world. He was not driven by piety. The condition of his country—the abject poverty, the crony economy of plunder and corruption, the cruelties and slights handed out to Egyptians in all walks of life by a police state that the people had outgrown and despaired of—had given this young man and others like him their historical warrant."
the world once fit in her hands she could hold it like a egg to break or raise into a feathered dream but the weight of world bent her back the taste of drugs warmth of a warm body the belief that like her mother she could not rise above left her swirling in mediocrity she owns the men who chase her they obey her whims unaware of their adherence to her religion
behind her brown eyes the fire burned curiosity sought stories macheted a path to my doorstep no world would halt her
but unrequited, unanswered she diverted course to smoother seas let the doom of days pull her to simpler courses the blaze forgot the taste of wood let the ashes swallow the rage to burn
extinguished flames smolder blacken the skies with the dreams she told me of near her longing eyes one can’t see the sun she stands broken tongue cut from throat unarmed Lavinia ignorant of the crime dancing delirious in Titus’ shadow
I share tea with Time tell him of the story lost in tragedy forgetful of the narrative try to wipe away the stain of her eyes how they burned into skin coughing on the smoke she passes me in shadows now forgets herself from her history the ancestry come ’round the egg broken underfoot
she wanted poems about clouds but never rose to meet them just curses the sky for damning her blames the heavens for circumstances over which they lacked control the faded fire lurks in photographs reflects in mirrors in moments unclaimed the girl who burned them gone into shadows her mother remade as Time marches on
She Loved Me Better On Paper By Christopher Fox Graham
she loved me better on paper it was easier to forgive my sins the ones deletable or ascribed to fast typing or bad penmanship on second reads it was simpler to prepare herself for previously discovered ones
she loved me better on paper flesh was too temperamental too harsh with spoken words too adaptive to her moods
when she got fed up with the content therein she could not close the pages and place me on the shelf then grow to forget the offenses, fondly recall the quotables reinvest herself in the mystery of footstep word after word marching reincarnate on the same path from moment to moment pull me back into her wearied hands and relive the story again from the beginning
paper was easier to throw away to set ablaze and watch burn skin, it seems, has a fouler odor scratches and scars don’t heal with the same cleanliness as those pencil marks needing erasure
even now, she still loves me better on paper prefers the me captured in moments frozen in ink on pressed wood pulp the notations she marks remain without my trademark forgetfulness or willful delusionary deception
in print, she owns me as she likes without having to concave her ego bend to match me in mutual reverence admit she, too, could be mistaken sometimes on the pages, she is always right, my errors unrepentable a good lover can shamelessly admit wrong confess to death-penalty guilt even when in the right
she loved me better on paper but forgets to understand those dead words will never breathe unchanging youth frozen immortally vampiric, they will one day suck the life from her pull her into the longing for more but unanswered they will be just a tombstone of text made by a dead man years ago
there is no ghost here, child, he does not inhabit these pages buried in your backpack or bookcase his soul is still dancing elsewhere breathing in the sunrises with wine-stained lips somewhere else, he kisses the moonlight and whispers to stars who’ll still listen about how he loved this girl
she adores those paper words but they can never hold her never caress her bare gymnast’s back soothe her into sleep wake her into daybreaks remind her why lovers always come in pairs
she loved me better on paper in the same way I loved her better in absence because our present was untamable it demanded too much compromise too much acquiesce to the other
she loved me better on paper but he can never say he was sorry never reiterate that love — the kind of love that forever tugs at all that aches demands a heart break itself open when she traipses through the mind from photographs — that kind of love does not require reciprocation saints, martyrs, crazies and dogs teach us this
while the flesh me has no one to say those things to just lets the words fall from his lips spill out into the ether crawl into new pages onto new paper so she can love it instead
revere, write, abide papers yearn for her it will suffice it must it has to
This poem obviously alludes to Shane Koyczan's "We Are More," performed at the opening ceremonies at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, and The Klute's "Canadian Dawn." The references are meant for Azami. If you do not catch them, do not fret, you are not meant to.
There is a Girl in Your Country: An open letter to Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister of Canada
Dear Prime Minister of Canada The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, PC MP
On behalf of your neighbor to the south, we surrender. Since you set ablaze our White House in 1814, we have tried to resist you we have mocked your accent rejected your poutine stolen your best actors filmed Oscar-winners in Vancouver and called it Seattle and neglected to learn the geography of your provinces
that ends today. invade us, we now offer no resistance. bring us your socialized health care your mandatory two-week paid vacations your high literacy rate and clean streets
we will begin adding extra “U”s to our words pronounce Honour, Colour and Armour as they are intended we will adapt our tongues to “A-Geinst” and “A-Boat” remeasure miles in kilometers pounds in kilograms turn our thermostats down to minus-15, in Celsius, not Fahrenheit and adapt our skins to the inevitable northern winds soon to blow hence,
just to show you we’re serious we’ll even submit to two years military conscription — even through Canada doesn’t have the draft — our kids would do better building Third-World clinics and schools rather than blowing them up
send your Mounties south we’ll great them with open arms, our citizens will drive just below the speed limit and start smoking copious amounts of marijuana, but do so responsibly as you so nobly taught us
we will begin shortening our sports from four quarters to three periods for nostalgia’s sake, baseball will stay at nine innings, but we’ll concede to call it American Cricket.
Dear Prime Minister Harper, welcome us as your brothers and sisters in the Commonwealth put in a good word for us with the Queen we will rename the U.S. Congress the Parliament of the United Provinces of Southern Canada — it was due for an overhaul anyway — and spend the next decade learning how that shit works let us keep Governor-General Obama during the transition until Her Royal Highness appoints a new French-speaker to the post
By first prefixing the pedestrian “USS” with the regal “Royal” the Royal American Navy will begin renaming warships and sail home to merely protect our shores
The Royal American Marines will inscribe “Toujours fidèle” beneath “Semper Fidelis” on all their stationary
in revenge for Terrance and Phillip, we’ll execute Trey Parker and Matt Stone to make amends but since capital punishment is banned in Canada, we’ll sentence them to creating tourist videos for the CBC
Once your conquest is complete once our schools have risen to your minimum standards once “Bonjour!” and “Hallo” is as common as “Howdy” and “ ’Sup dawg?” then I ask one favor one small request in payment to the unconditional surrender of our bald eagle sovereignty to your maple leaf dominance:
with the border fluid and immigration law a mute point I’m searching for someone
there is a girl in your country she is easy to overlook because she stays in the shadows avoids the cameras on busy streets though you can find her at festivals dancing barefoot at the center of the world as though the stars forged visas from heaven slipped passed the earthly border guards to stand in the plazas sleeve their glow in human bodies around her and dance until the setting moon revokes their passports calls them home to press their lips into constellations you will not know she is here until someone asks later if you saw the midnight sun swirling the street in the afterglow of the stage lights I’ll admit I’ve never seen an aurora but I imagine it feels like her laughter and I know why polar bears and icesheets stay north of the Arctic Circle because that’s as close as they can get to her
do not stake out hotels thinking she’ll slip in some night she can sleep in ditches, on strangers’ rooftops, the beds of pickup trucks or backyard trampolines, anywhere she can find 10 square feet and quiet until the dawn
instead, you can search for her on the wide open Trans-Canada Highway somewhere between St. John’s and Beacon Hill Park I know it’s 8,000 kilometers, so keep your eyes peeled if you see her, it’ll be by outstretched thumb first I know Canadian winters can be harsh but you will identify her by her smile because it will keep you warm no matter the season now, her unpasteurized joy will take longer first, she’ll get comfortable in the seat, ask you your history and wait for your story
speak slow, tell your story as best as you can recall she asks many questions and will cross reference your answers she will forgive a faulty memory as long as the words as spoken sincerely and know that even if she’s not listening to your every word she’s interpreting the sound of your voice so be honest do not lie to her she will see your fabrications before you can erect them sweep kick them out from under you and leave you splayed out on the floor before the lies can even leave your lips
she will play the role of stranger drop lines of prepackaged wisdom play her preshuffled hand of cards but this is still her shell, her way to test your defenses judge whether you’re worth a second try here, I can offer no advice — she still gauges me with every phone call — the game has no trick to win it; it’s a measure of character or honor something no one can give you and none can take away if you don’t have it, you can drop her at the next stop for gas, and thanks for the lift, but if she sees it, she knows you’re worth more than a ride
she will start to unpeel herself like cloves of garlic each one covered in its own thin armor let drops of stories unshelter their instruction she’s taken the hammer and nails of her ambition and realized potential to build bridges for the rest of us to walk across
and somewhere between Havana and San Salvador on the Black Rock City playa over a bento box lunch in Sapporo, her joy will hit like a hidden tsunami you didn’t see coming sweep you away from shelter or shoreline as those waters fill your lungs you’ll wonder just how you were so oblivious for so long how could you have not felt the energy she bottled
in her stories she will teach you that borders are lines drawn by men in office buildings who live a fluorescent fiction of a world still flat men who believe maps and flags and anthems mean more than blood and handshakes and laughter men who’ve never dreamed beneath stars she counts nightly men who’ve never felt the first kiss between sun and Grand Canyon shake morning reds into the eons-old stone men who’ve never heard peasants thank Dios for a vote that finally counts in a country that is finally theirs
in these life stories of her travels you’ll understand why she cast off worn shoes to walk barefoot in the dirt and spin fire from her arms in the desert but leave no footprints to follow just the earthquakes and scars in those of us who ache for her return the way zealots pray for messiahs in their late night confessions the day before martyrdom she’s a first-aid kit for boys like me who didn’t know they were broken-hearted before her she moves in like chess pieces on a board of checkers brings a Howitzer to knife fight lets loose a Pamplona herd in a china shop but will offer to sweep up afterward
I’ll admit her tomboy tongue blindsides on idle Tuesdays as if the ancient six-day week cleaved open just for her, added one more day and said “fuck the mathematics of calendars” if she could sleep for days cuddled in a boy’s arms she’d surrender the world but the urge to burn and rage at end of day pulls her back into the dreamlessness there are too many stories to live too many fingertips to touch tornadoes can’t stay stationary either despite the scenery
if you can’t find her on the road you can search the boxcars, ask hobos about a girl made of hula hoops whose pulse thumps in rhythm to railroad ties pickup all the hitchhikers you find and en route between points A and B subtlety ask if a dark-haired, brown-eyed dancer with weathered hands and a black bandana has recently shared a meal with them offered to manufacture a tutu or sew leg warmers from leftover sleeves
know that in summers she melts into the woods to reforest what we clear make amends for civilization’s sins with a shovel and bag of saplings: maybe this one will grow up to be a peace table, this one a roof for a homeless family, two lovers will kiss beneath this one, and their grandchildren will be buried beside its roots
Yukon men won’t admit it but they came century too early and weren’t looking for gold they came to clear the roads for her give the earth a wound for her to heal to train her surgeon hands
if all else fails, you can coax her into the open by leaving out a plate of melted cheese and fresh garlic I guarantee she is unable to resist them it make take years, so make it fresh every few hours and she’ll track you down one day
once you find her give her a warm bed with no annoying alarm clocks keep her unchained and unlocked left free to roam or return on her whim she may pilgrimage to ashrams or overlooks or cathedrals cut into stone awaken the third eye in prophets and psychics who’ve never looked too deep but foresaw her coming she instigates greatness in those too afraid to birth it themselves
she may still wander away in the day call down the sun and the moon to dance at dusk beg Orion to share her arms and press her lips against new strangers
but if she leaves you, do not chase her, she befriends guerrillas and revolutionaries who give her sanctuary like she was a daughter they will fight to keep her unyielding know that she growls back at coyotes chases them from her playgrounds and though she may ache for warm limbs beneath bedsheets she can find midnight outdoor air just as soothing she’s too fierce to hold on to too tightly she can bite open a boy she loves from the eyebrow down so imagine what she does to transgressors
I will not fault you if she leaves just let me know where you last saw her point me in the general direction of her last appearance she’s worth the pursuit whatever you may think of her she is more
Dear Prime Minister, if you vow to search for her if you promise to give it your all you can have this country take whatever you want from it import our monuments like the caesars did obelisks rename our parks after your heroes impose your laws or revoke ours redraw our states into a grid or the image of Pikachu it doesn’t matter to me anymore just demolish the borders between us erase the lines that divide
leave the office building to share the blood and handshakes and laughter without the nomenclature of nations dream beneath her stars feel the sun kiss canyons and mountains give us the freedom of movement to find each other because whatever you believe I think of her she is more
Between rounds, the audience will be entertained with a feature performance by Damien Flores, one of the top slam poets in New Mexico and a member of the 2005 National Poetry Slam Championship Team.
