"Pioneer Women, Man..."

Whenever I feel that my life is a struggle, I just think of my great-grandmother who married "down" for love (or desire). She married a scrappy, stubborn, philosopher/share-cropper and created and raised 5 children in a dusty one-room shack in East Texas... If she could survive that, what do I have to complain about? She is at the core of my (admittedly mythical) self-identity of a DIY Pioneer Woman.

Identity is an Illusion

You heard me. Identity is an illusion. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Power, however, is real. But it comes in many more forms than we typically recognize.

So, ditch the identity, and find the power. That's my recommendation for 2008.

Antonio Wins

You,
King
of my little
world,

your smile so wide,
I wrap our home in it,

your laugh so warm
it could heat the house
all winter long.

Your music so true,
your eye so sharp,
your kitchen improvisations
so deft I could create
a million-hit internet
cooking show featuring
just you.

I would cross an LA freeway
on foot just to be
near you,

just to walk
down an empty road
or back alley
at your side.

Your massive, gentle, warm hand
touching my cool cheek
sends a nuclear fission-like
glow down my spine.

Your lush lips
draw me in
and upside down
until all the change
falls out of my pockets
and the clock loses time.

I am yours.
Queen
and subject.


~MH

Library

Stepping out
into the musty dark
of rotting leaves
I leave my objects within,
searing embers, disappearing,
their smoke-dust still coating
my fingers and nostrils
caking my tongue

I have eaten words,
inhaling them,
iron gall ink
and parchment,
mineral pigments
and tooled leather
for lifetimes

every syllable
crumbling
as I lift it to my mouth
shifting ash
sifting down
drying my vision
with an alkaline pale

Parch

I was born
parched

skin shrinking
on fragile skull

an empty pan
in an electric oven

scorching air
billowing out of
a black Chevrolet
on the fourth of July

I've raised myself
as sagebrush
on dry self-denial

true to the absence
of refreshment
true to the shriveling
of tongue and womb

and the burning of skin
at noon


~MH 1998/2007

Nightingale

I drove by 1982
last summer

Your house
was unkempt
overgrown and neglected
in a suburban decay
kind of way

No pony-tailed
Tom-boy
training-bra
Atari-girls

No imaginary intrigue
no television fantasies
buried under I Hate Pretty Pony
mattresses

No chess or cello,
or plank-walking
over ravines
No sleuthing or storytelling
No trespassing mischief
No BMX bikes over dirt hills
or making little brothers cry

Hard to imagine
This was the locus of
intricate realms
we created together

Our imaginings were
so much better,
levitated above
the listless, oppressive
sameness of
a pressed board
cluster of houses
in an alfalfa field
in Nowhere,
USA

No big-wide-world
waiting as seen
from six-foot homemade stilts
No sugar highs
on Big Gulp Slurpeez

Just wall-to-wall beige,
Country Tchotchke
and fake stone facades

In another lifetime
you would be 19
and pregnant,
marrying your
Super-Smart self
down the river
for fear of
loveless solitude
or maybe
hope of
love's fullness
complete

You, the only other
Sharp Girl
Brimming with opinions
and clever insights
Cello, channeling
your brilliance,

Calling you
from 1982

Return/al

In the cool dust
of the round room,
I return

Home is the place
that I am.
That I am with
the Grandmothers
of ten thousand moons.

We work
with our hands
and sit
near the ground.
We build fires
and grind corn.
We grab snakes
and roast them.

Our bricks, sun-dried,
are strong
and lasting,
forming perfect circles,
portals for smoky light shafts,
ladders to the other World.

Dust gathers
and scatters,
but I remain.

My father walks away,
testing my will.
He is surprised at
my resolve
and doesn't understand
that, or how,
I know
where
I belong.

Up the smooth-worn
ladder, in the
earthen room,
closer to today
than before
I returned.

~MH, 11/2007

Viking Ship, Interstate 70, 1976

We are alone except
for snake eyes beaming by
every twenty minutes or hour.
their wakes invisibly mingling
with ours, like molecular
conversations

Our cocoon floats,
escorted by the moon,
our private spotlight,
as mountains,
trees, and deserts fly by
at varying quicknesses

The sky opens wide
Lunar landscape beside us,
and there: a Viking ship
frozen on sandy seas
Stained luminous
in moonlight, and dwarfed
by steep cliffs and
cascading foothills,
skirted by a ribbon of black
highway snaking off to meet
the invisible horizon
and circle the moon

Derelict and noble
Otherworldly, if not
for its dependability
This ship, with hubcaps
for shields,
in a waterless land,
a fixed mark,
On the trip to my parent’s
parents’ house,
And my first
taste of wonder
at four

~MH, 2004

Has it really been April since I've posted?

hmmm... It's not easy being a blogger. People that say it's too easy don't know what they're talking about. There are all of these obstacles and intervening factors. My universe conspires to keep me from posting. Perhaps the only things working in my favor are being alone on a Friday night, friends and mate either far away or occupied. Good music helps. Perhaps that's why I haven't posted in so very long. I inadvertently deleted more than half of my tunes from Napster lite. Yes. I use Napster. I carry the torch of the defeated file-sharing mastermind. But I am not a subscriber because that's a scam. I buy probably 10 excellent tunes a month for $.99 per track and then accidentally delete them. So that when I finally get around to emailing tech support 6 months later, and discovering how to recover them, I can have that glorious experience of being reunited with my prodigal tunes. It is a really nice thing to appreciate your own music and musical taste after a hiatus. It's like looking in the mirror and liking what you see. It's recognition in the purest sense. Here's a sampling of what I'm listening to today:

Passion Sources (produced by Peter Gabriel and inspiration for soundtrack for "The Last Temptation of Christ")
eccodek - "In this Drum a Secret"
Esoin - Working in my Sleep Clothes (whole album)
Angie Stone - "I want to Thank You"
Marianne Solivan - everything she sings and how she sings it is great - totally hot ticket
Cassandra Wilson - "Go to Mexico"
Dawn Penn - "You Don't Love Me"
Handsome Boy Modeling School - "I've been thinking" (featuring Cat Power)
Jeff Buckley's rendition of "Strange Fruit"
Marvin Gaye - What's Goin' On (whole album)
Medeski, Martin + Wood's rendition of "Hey Joe"
Nina Simone - "Come Ye"
Nina Simone - "Feelin' Good"
Norah Jones - "I've got to see you again"
The Roots - "Thought is Like Freestyle"
Carmen Maureira - "Besame Mucho"
Junior Walker and the All-Stars - "Cleo's Mood"
Nouvelle Vague's version of "Ever Fallen in Love?"
Gnarls Barkley - "Crazy" (gotta succumb to the top 40 once in a while, you know)
Gotan Project - "El Capitalismo"
Gotan Project - "Lunatico"
Gotan Project - "Mi Confesion"
Alice Coltrane - "Journey in Satchidananda"
Femi Kuti - "Let's Start"
Caterina Valente - "Malaguena"

You have nothing but spindly limbs and a dream...

Thanks to agentmatr1x for posting this homage to librarians on YouTube: