My Hands

when i look my Praying Hands i see
i see The G-d that has bent my knee
i see The Way, The Truth and The Light
when I use my Praying Hands

when i look at my Praising Hands i see
i see the miracle of being me
i see The Way, The Truth, and The Light
when i use my Praising Hands

when i look at my Helping Hands I see
i see the Christ that has died for me
i see The Way, The Truth and The Light
when i use my Helping Hands

Cave

I came from the womb.
I was attached by chord to her

Later I found pen and paper, thoughts and spirit within
Is it all for a quest back to her, my mother within?
Can I defeat any foe the world has deemed
Is a threat to me, the paternal it seems…

Maternal body and Paternal body
From these I spawned?

Am I Maternal body, a historical discourse
in an ongoing battle
with Paternal Law- the semiotic as well?

Not needed, was a linkage between womb and me to create my art.
Babies are a creation of actions between two people, sometimes fueled by real thought.

Babies and art, art and babies
Who cares if they have rabies.
Yes, rabies, a disease.
A disease between maternal and paternal and what each means…

I heard a professor once say,
the limits of my language are the limits of my world…
So enough with this debate, get out of my way…

If sex has spawned the meaning of structure and desire,
I take my leave and walk
with Rilke and Shakespeare
as Orpheus guides us like Virgil,
back to Prometheus and his warm fire.

~Olga Cisneros

Sex vs. Gender

Family is where I stem.
Mommy was exchanged-
a mother with babies is more important than her name.
Mommy plus daddy, then came brother and others, is that what family is?

I am one of their cultural artifacts, through time I pass through ideas
Of boy vs. girl
And
Girl vs. boy…

Like a game of pong or air hockey I jockey
Myself into position…

Sex…
Top!
Bottom!
Am I still woman?

Woman vs. man
And Man vs. woman.
Which is more appropriate?

If Gary loves Harry and Sue loves June?
How is that taboo!?
Have things come too far too soon?

Time and evolution, genes are key…
Does that a gender make, one for society to take

for granted it’s what I see in the world around me.
Different people, different views,
STOP!

It is not all about me, everyone must see it is about us as we, a Union of you and I
Man vs. woman
Woman vs. man
Is that gender or sex I spy?

Ring Around Society

Sexuality is coextensive with power; one is one’s sex and, not the other.

Sex is produced within service of social regulation,and in control of sexuality.

Sex conceals and unifies artificially.

We all fall down.

Juridical model presumes power and sexuality.

Power only subdues and liberates sex fundamentally.

Sex is recontextualized with in sexuality.

We all fall down.

Notion of sex brought fundamental reverse,representation of power relationships to sexuality is invert.

Latter, not essential or positive to urgency.

We all fall down.

Sexed body not in need of deconstructions,sex to be subjected to social regulations.

Sex regulative and a power knowledge regime regulative; sexual regulation is refute.

Disappearance of sex, though intelligible.

We all get up again.

~Olga Cisneros

I Am Your Lover

I am your wife, My Love
The isha of you, my ish,
My adam, my mate, my love, My Love
Your rib my source, My Love

Bone of your bone, My Love, am I
Flesh of your flesh, My Love
I am yours and not my own
Whose name I bear, My Love

Yet, here I am alone, My Love
Trapped in my love, my life
Bound in promise to you alone,
To you alone, My Life

My life, My Love
Is to yours, My Love
My love for you, My Life
Tell me what will I be, My Love
Now that yours has taken flight

*ish – Hebrew for Man
**isha – Hebrew for Woman

~Barbara Rhyne-Tucker

The Path Late Traveled?

Time to change my life
Almost 40, time to wife
Run away from strife

Hoping union stays
The endless rollout of days
And lame toil, I pray

Do I really want this?
Societal pressures, Miss?
Seal it with a kiss

Plow ahead, don't stop
Broken dreams and tears to mop
Cracks of doubt to caulk

Learning to know "Me"
Before "Us" can become "We"
Goal: Join perfectly

Accepting self: rough
A job well done quite tough
Hoping it's enough

He accepts me now
Accepting myself is how
We'll join, "Our" life: Wow

~Riot.Jane

Prostitution

Prostitution

I’ve been charged with prostitution,
Now it’s time for restitution.
My sister prostitutes are whoring on the streets as sex slaves.
I say, I’m not like them, but look at how I behave.
I too did things against my will for pay.
They do sex trying to survive for today.
I chose to do it, just for the pay.
The pimps, the hookers, the Johns…
The exploiters, the submissive victims, the $100 down…
The brutality, the fear shattered lives, the seekers of cheap thrills.
This must all stop!
Let us rescue the victims.
The blame and shame must shift from the victims to the perpetrators.

How it all Began Back in 1989

Scared sick before beginning…way back in the beginning,
Fearful of a sexual appearing.
One week later, my career just beginning.
The young, muscle bound, man named Lori, appearing
As I massaged his riveting back
A squirming and aheaving appearing.
Oh my gosh, in his huffing and humping , the come appearing.
A week later, the man reappearing.
Lori again arearing.
I wanting to avoid leering
I tell him, “This must stop. I’m a fearing.”
Pointing at the clock he declares, “You owe me 15 minutes more.”
Naive and stupid, not seeking the door,
I’m shaken to the core
As I watch him shake his jake and ejaculate to his core.
In a shock and a daze,
I stumble to the john in a haze.
A release of pee and come go down the john.
The seed planted of times to come.

Mother in the Wild

This is a poem written by me several years ago. It details a year of experiences with my mother who was in the throws of a terrible addiction and living on the streets at the time. This was a difficult time for me as a daughter and as someone who very much loved and admired her. The poem is actually a difficult one for me to share with an audience but I feel that maybe someone, somewhere could read it and identify, either as myself, the daughter or other loved one or as the person addicted, needing love and help.

MellissaY

Mother in the Wild

You shake like a leaf in the dying Autumn orange and red and gold and I see your eyes wild looking everywhere for you savior. Save me. You say save me from the space in my mind in the dark because it’s so lost now. Daughter. Where did I put it? Hands like a child but the skin in shriveled and yellow and you bite your fingers where the nail used to be and you say “Where did the blood come from?” Brush your hair when I come to see to you and you can’t help the smell of sweat and dirt and have you showered these past days? Mother. Pacing the parking lot. You pace the dirt and the streets and the fix is always a breath away. It comes from the man on the corner or the woman in the house that falls down, falls down, but always it stays up. Cursed house in the neighborhood. Chilly breezes of the virgin winter and you shiver in shorts but you don’t notice the cold. Do you need a jacket and you sheepish and confidant you say, “I would sell it.” Looking for the fix again in the night air, you prowl in the alleys and the motel rooms and the eyes are always watching you. You say they track you to the store and the toilet and the corner across the street. Sweet breath of spring and you sit on the curb, convulsing from drugs in you and it’s taken over now. Moments like spasms and no conversation. Just slur and yell and awful faces and I say “Where are you?” “In Hell”, you say in this high pitched sing song scream. So come home…Dirty shoes and lifeless socks on your skinny legs and feet. Picking at scabs and chewing on some invisible thing. I wonder…what does it taste like? Salty summer sweat and you hang around the cars in this parking lot, this chill is on you like a natural movement. Like the graceful way you used to smoke your Dunhills or the curl of your pinky finger as you sipped champagne and I say “Do you need anything?” “Give me money and I’ll feel so much better”. Kicking up dirt as you walk away this raspy voice from your throat and I know there is no saving you for now. Maybe in the Autumn I can come again.

Hope of Better Days

I have hope of better days to come,
I know I can cope, I know I am not dumb.
To demeaning, demanding men, I refuse to succumb.
I have faith in myself and in God.
I have a plan to recreate who I am.
What the mind can conceive, the body can achieve.
I conceive of myself as a being of love and light.
I have the power to say no when it is wrong, and to say yes when it is right.
I stand on my own two feet, All the odds to defeat.
As all my demons retreat, The victory will be sweet.
Our camaraderie of knowing the rawness of life,
Unites us as one, to overcome our lives’ strife.
We have been beaten down and have made bad choices.
At Veronica’s Voice we create victorious voices.

Racing Thoughts

Veronica’s Voice awaits me Wednesday
How will I fair?
The truth to tell..…. Do I dare?
I hope I might bring love and light,
To bring some hope to my sisters and together relieve our plight.
We are all dealing with feelings of guilt and shame.
It doesn’t really matter, who’s to blame.
Be with me, my dear angels.
We’ll look at this from all angles.
But now it is time to release and let go…
A time to dream and travel to where ethereal winds blow,
And soften the blow
My thought will soon slow…
And sleep shall surely let me lay low.

Growing Up

July 6, 2004

To A:

Oh, take a drag and break my heart. You cried these crocodile tears and the blood ran down my legs and pooled all around me. You don't know anything of me and it was a lie was from the start. Your cruel hands perfectly sculpted in black and blue on my wrists and my neck and soul. Please don't pretend to break through my pretences, you didn't ever touch me wear it counts. My protective coating ripped away and tossed aside and yet I knew who you were, even with my innocence crying like a bawling baby, torn and hemorrhaging on the floor. You were not the first my love and could never have been the last. Salvation comes in the strangest forms and the steed isn't always there before we need to be saved. Sometimes it's little but an ambulance screaming in the night to whisk me away, broken, to repair me in some dirty motel room. Or a boy with brown eyes and a poetic hand to share my love of Ginsberg and fuck under Mexican blankets. Maybe a friend who shakes you loose from the grip of Valium and vodka, hurling you into a shower of ice saying, "You fucking bitch, you stupid girl." I will never be as you wanted to see me. Instead I am flawed and ugly and beautiful and full of remorse and never regret. Perhaps one day I will see you on the street and pass you by, not recognizing you because my heart and mind do know you. I imagine a time when I don't break to pieces when I wake in the night, shivering in the deep hot darkness; afraid of those shadows you gave me.