{"id":96,"date":"2013-09-16T19:00:42","date_gmt":"2013-09-16T19:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/freaksoftechnology.com\/?p=96"},"modified":"2014-02-10T00:21:50","modified_gmt":"2014-02-10T00:21:50","slug":"some-play-on-the-words-greatest-hits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freaksoftechnology.com\/?p=96","title":{"rendered":"Some Play On The Words Greatest Hits"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>JM Littenberg<br \/>\nSome Play On The Words Greatest Hits<br \/>\n.<br \/>\n.<br \/>\n<strong>Hack (Allen Ginsberg Tribute)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by Everquest.<br \/>\nSearching, with glare strained red myopic eyes,<br \/>\nflying aloft fiber optic spines,<br \/>\nliberated from the corporeal cells of your world<br \/>\nto become infinite, anonymous, living spirit!<br \/>\nYet, in effect, motionless.<br \/>\nLocked in stasis,<br \/>\nfrozen in front of screens<br \/>\nor behind the wheel.<br \/>\nDriven to distraction by playlists<br \/>\non the way to jobs that promise nothing but the next paycheck.<br \/>\nAnd they give nothing in return,<br \/>\nsave their bodies and their time,<br \/>\nor lives,<br \/>\neither way, it doesn\u2019t matter, I want to take you in my arms,<br \/>\nsqueeze out the pain,<br \/>\nwash away the stink of dirty blood,<br \/>\nand teach you how to love.<br \/>\n.<br \/>\n.<br \/>\n<strong>My People (Do What It Takes)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The daily wake and bakers<br \/>\nThe morning, noon, and night pill takers<br \/>\nThe bent behind their desk hip flask fire drinkers<br \/>\nThe after class gas huffers<br \/>\nZombified<br \/>\nAcrid bloody monsters<br \/>\nBurnt out husks following the wind<br \/>\nAll the people on the street alone<br \/>\npurposefully talking, who don\u2019t even own a telephone<br \/>\nThe uninvited<br \/>\nThe whispered about<br \/>\nThe blessed, catching the AM Express<br \/>\nThe brilliant frantic scrawling<br \/>\nThe narrative drifters<br \/>\nThe urban dog walkers lost in song<br \/>\nThe shut in<br \/>\nThe cast out<br \/>\nThe long gone<br \/>\nThe freaks so far out there isn\u2019t even a word for them yet<br \/>\nThe chronically fucked<br \/>\nThe had just about enough<br \/>\nThe despised<br \/>\ngetting together<br \/>\nthrowing a party in the street<br \/>\nnot even caring about the cops barreling down with orders to break it up<br \/>\n.<br \/>\n.<br \/>\n<strong>360 BPS<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I am<br \/>\nmy friends<br \/>\nyou<br \/>\nand the rest of them<br \/>\nall<br \/>\nstruggling to keep up<br \/>\ndrowning under the weight of too much stuff.<\/p>\n<p>Things<br \/>\nspilling out the Internet with autism rocking always-so-much-fucking-more<br \/>\nfalling off the bloated shelves of strip mall super stores<br \/>\nstuffing full kitchens, beds, baths and beyond<br \/>\nstraining, groaning closet doors.<\/p>\n<p>Racing down manic caffeine spirals<br \/>\ndizzy with excess<br \/>\ntexting, tripping, driving way too fast<br \/>\nspeaking in tongues, dripping<br \/>\nspitting out half chewed trash<br \/>\nnever stopping except for Stopping Class<br \/>\ncoming soon, just you wait<br \/>\nshh, grab a seat in the back&#8230;you\u2019re late.<br \/>\n.<br \/>\n.<br \/>\n<strong>Still The Ghost Laughs<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Still the ghost laughs<br \/>\nBeware queer child<br \/>\nBefore the door flung wide<br \/>\nRevealed, reviled<br \/>\nVerdict lying in wait, waiting<br \/>\nAll this time<br \/>\nHate, hating what they cannot define<br \/>\nnor dismiss<br \/>\nThe open space between what\u2019s mapped and what exists<br \/>\nYou live on the cusp of it<br \/>\nWearing masks<br \/>\nOne day they\u2019ll come<br \/>\nAnd you\u2019ll be dragged away in chains when it\u2019s done.<br \/>\n.<br \/>\n.<br \/>\n<strong>I\u2019d Love To Sit and Chat<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019d love to sit and chat<br \/>\nListen to your advice and \u201cjust relax\u201d<br \/>\nReclined on the sofa<br \/>\nMidday lips around your hookah<br \/>\nAnd talk in lazy tones about this and if and that<br \/>\nOur days, the prices paid to disobey<br \/>\nUnhurried, in the now, knowing<br \/>\nReading by feel the cracks in the lies<br \/>\nAnd maybe how we make others pay to fill our pantry<br \/>\nDespite our best effort<br \/>\nBecause the system, shit, and radical monopolies<br \/>\nBecause you can\u2019t spend all day gardening but you got to eat<br \/>\nBecause you can\u2019t spend all day hammering and nailing<br \/>\nMolding, placing, sawing, sowing, erecting ceiling walls and flooring<br \/>\nBut you need someplace warm and safe to sleep<br \/>\nWhen it rains<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019d love to sit and chat<br \/>\nBut I have like maybe twelve good hours this week to do all that:<br \/>\nPiles of laundry and dishes and groceries and cooking and cats<br \/>\nRegular meals to take with all those acquired over the years vitamins<br \/>\nAnd eke out a foothold to climb up the triangle<br \/>\nTo meditate and stretch and breathe<br \/>\nTo exercise and write-it-out and visualize<br \/>\nAnd read up on the holy word spell dripping off the specialists lips<br \/>\nAnd friends and the never ending links they send<br \/>\nGoddess bless \u2018em<br \/>\nAnd click on it until the hunt to get well makes me sick<br \/>\nSearching with glare strained red, myopic eyes<br \/>\nBecause there\u2019s only me to blame if I don\u2019t try<br \/>\nTo eke out a foothold and climb up the triangle<br \/>\nAnd read the news<br \/>\nThe real news<br \/>\nWritten on the back of burning toilet paper<br \/>\nStrewn screaming from the mouths of passing eighteen-wheelers<br \/>\nCaught in the gears and ripped<br \/>\nShreds stuck on the high dry bramble flowers<br \/>\nKindling fires on the side of the freeway<br \/>\nI pick up the pieces and make a map<br \/>\nTo find my friends and people like them<br \/>\nTo conspire to create some space out of the petrol filled air<br \/>\nTo knit a home from the marrow sucked dry of broken bones<br \/>\nTo thwart your words<br \/>\nSo that the hurled slurs fall short<br \/>\nAnd rain sweet tintinnabulations on the roof<br \/>\nLike a Caribbean steel drum<br \/>\nStars on our heart<br \/>\nWe build our own sun<br \/>\nChimera shinning in the glare<br \/>\nI\u2019d love to see it \u2018til it\u2019s done.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019d love to sit and chat<br \/>\nbut I can\u2019t because this poem took up most of the morning<br \/>\nAnd spat out a shrill early warning<br \/>\nThe clocks ticking<br \/>\nAny second, any second now the pain will come<br \/>\nAnd the laundry and the groceries and the bills and the litter and the meditation and the yoga and the revolution will have to wait \u2018til later to get done<br \/>\nBlessed later, mythical later, panacea goddess of the well and able<br \/>\nAlways there to greet them on the other side of whatever vacation, setback or sick-day they\u2019ve taken<br \/>\nAnd yes I know again for me later will come<br \/>\nBut come late, too late for me to salvage all the things I\u2019ve begun<br \/>\nFor later ain\u2019t as soon for me as it is for some<br \/>\nAnd sometimes later finds me searching back over millennium<br \/>\nA million miles and horizon lines<br \/>\nBehind heat shimmer mirages dancing on desert feet<br \/>\nBent on burning hands and knees<br \/>\nSifting through the sand<br \/>\nSearching for my keys.<br \/>\n.<br \/>\n.<br \/>\n<strong>Reasons to live<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>To give and receive love<br \/>\n   with my&#8230;<br \/>\n      cats<br \/>\n      family<br \/>\n      friends<br \/>\n      their pets<br \/>\n      and all the creatures I will find dear but have not met yet<\/p>\n<p>To tend my garden<br \/>\n   and think new thoughts<br \/>\nTo see plants shoot up in the spring<br \/>\nEndless summer days<br \/>\nThe leaves changing color in the fall<br \/>\nSnow falling from a pregnant white sky<\/p>\n<p>To be in love again<br \/>\nTo love myself again, first<br \/>\nTo learn<br \/>\nTo recover<br \/>\nTo laugh<br \/>\nTo forgive<br \/>\nTo try and understand<br \/>\nand maybe once again, to help build castles in the sand<br \/>\nthe midday heat and grit between our teeth<br \/>\nsalt and water<br \/>\ntouching your skin<br \/>\nand feeling electricity<br \/>\n.<br \/>\n.<br \/>\n<strong>Naked<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I am everything, and as such I am nothing<br \/>\nBut I am also my body<br \/>\nHungry, lazy, tired, cold, hot and sweaty, manic up all night thinking about lines and inflections<br \/>\nOr early morning gotta get up but not right now heavy cat petting sessions<br \/>\nOr just content, shut the flea mind down, post-meditation quiet reflection<br \/>\nI love you for the flavors, sights and sounds<br \/>\nOh the places we go<br \/>\nBut you know&#8230;<br \/>\nYou have hurt me like a scar that won\u2019t heal<br \/>\nPitted, red raw<br \/>\nI love you but I can\u2019t look at you too close<br \/>\nOk, I\u2019m just gonna say it \u2014<br \/>\nI take my glasses off before I look in the mirror<br \/>\nI keep my back to the wall when I\u2019m naked because I\u2019ve been jumped by my own reflection too many times<br \/>\nBeat to the ground<br \/>\nScraped knuckle asphalt skin<br \/>\nIn pain, crawling, limping, picking up a stick to lean on, calling a friend in tears, I need a ride home<\/p>\n<p>I know now-a-days we are all supposed to be so proud of our bodies<br \/>\nLove our bodies<br \/>\nBecause, yes!! That\u2019s the most radical thing a trans person can do in this culture!!!<br \/>\nSo I try, I really do<br \/>\nBut it becomes just another boxing match with my head<br \/>\nSinging me to sleep with songs of what could have been<br \/>\nBut never will be<br \/>\nBecause<br \/>\nBecause I was never asked to decide<br \/>\nBecause I couldn\u2019t quite jump off that cliff<br \/>\nBecause I was scared<br \/>\nI was twelve years old, and I was scared<br \/>\nI knew what was coming<br \/>\nI told myself this was it<br \/>\nNow or never<br \/>\nEither way I\u2019d be an exile<\/p>\n<p>The question was:<br \/>\nDo I get to keep my mother\u2019s warm hands, stroking my hair, touching my face, making me eggs just the way I like them<br \/>\nDo I get to keep my father\u2019s strong arms, lifting me gently from the back seat and placing me in my bed still sound asleep<br \/>\nDo I get to keep the quiet comfort of my dog\u2019s understanding eyes<br \/>\nDo I get to keep my family?<br \/>\nOr do I get to leave with my body?<\/p>\n<p>And I know this doesn\u2019t make good copy<br \/>\nDoes not sit well at all for a member of a radical, trans-fabulous organization<br \/>\nBut I\u2019d rather be hung by my own people<br \/>\nA traitor<br \/>\nThen slowly choke on the rope that\u2019s been hanging around my neck<br \/>\nThe rope that\u2019s crushed my larynx and constricted my breath<br \/>\nUntil I can\u2019t even speak, only croak<br \/>\nAnd I can\u2019t fill my lungs, only keep from blacking out<br \/>\nThough sometimes my head hurts so bad that blacking out is the same thing as a cradle made of angel wings<br \/>\nHold me as I fall asleep to harp strings and the singing of angels<\/p>\n<p>I wake up every morning<br \/>\nAnd I smile \u2014<br \/>\nTwenty-four brand new hours before me<br \/>\nI vow to live fully in each moment<br \/>\nAnd to look at all beings with eyes of love \u2014<br \/>\nAnd I try, I really do<br \/>\nLaying in my soft bed<br \/>\nUnder warm covers<br \/>\nBathed in morning light<br \/>\nThe cats crowning my head<br \/>\nBut every morning there comes a point<br \/>\nwhen I look up from brushing my teeth or open my mouth to speak<br \/>\nAnd I feel it<br \/>\nThe rope around my neck<br \/>\nPulling me back<br \/>\nBack into the angry teenage room I escaped<br \/>\nAnd the silent vow I didn\u2019t mean to make \u2014<br \/>\nTo never again smile with the open, sober joy of a child<br \/>\nI\u2019ve twisted, contorted, struggling to free myself<br \/>\nBut now I\u2019ve gained the grace to accept<br \/>\nAll the days<br \/>\nThe week, the months, the years,<br \/>\nAll the decades it\u2019s been in place<br \/>\nChaffing<br \/>\nUntil the rope and my skin are the same thing<\/p>\n<p>But I\u2019m not the same<br \/>\nI\u2019ve learned, I\u2019m learning to balance on this tightrope<br \/>\nBetween the past \u2014 which cannot be remade<br \/>\nAnd the future \u2014 which cannot be controlled<br \/>\nI\u2019m learning to love now<br \/>\nI\u2019m 41 years old<br \/>\nAnd I\u2019ll tie no more ropes around my neck<br \/>\nIf you want me you\u2019ll have to catch me<br \/>\nAnd feel my wet hot breath against your chest as you tie the knot<\/p>\n<p>This is the truth<br \/>\nI stand before you naked<br \/>\nTake me as I am<br \/>\nOr leave me be<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>JM Littenberg Some Play On The Words Greatest Hits . . Hack (Allen Ginsberg Tribute) I\u2019ve seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by Everquest. Searching, with glare strained red myopic eyes, flying aloft fiber optic spines, liberated from the corporeal cells of your world to become infinite, anonymous, living spirit! Yet, in effect, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freaksoftechnology.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freaksoftechnology.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freaksoftechnology.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freaksoftechnology.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freaksoftechnology.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=96"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/freaksoftechnology.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97,"href":"https:\/\/freaksoftechnology.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96\/revisions\/97"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freaksoftechnology.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=96"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freaksoftechnology.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=96"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freaksoftechnology.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=96"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}