Mapping Home

by HAUNTIE

Body

A meeting place between the many times that came before it
These times, the trajectories that brought me to be here now

Body

A passing form
like a flower
the slowest moment of rupture in a single time

in time—body as memory
through time—body as home
with time—body as matter

i am body, yet i do not claim body
i never meant to sever with ink

What is the act of mark making, if not to define?
And what is definition, if not without exclusion?
What is exclusion, if not the cutting of matter?

The abstraction of cartography occurs
when the difference of parts is blurred
and lines are no longer visible
and place is not but visceral.

21 November 2004

 

my words are impoverished,
i don’t make cents here

a mouth that has no reason,
has no season

how sad it is that life is bent,
on how well you spoke

 

a bull’s thistle and a fox’s tail
 

You had taken your leave when the white man asked You to
You had taken your stance when the white man threatened You to
 

johnson’s grass and a lady’s thumb

 

and when their life tipped,
at the end of your rifle

they forgot their words—gook
they forgot their hate—freed

 

in a morning glory among witch’s grass

the heavens from above see all, she says


 

21 November 2004

A Simple Trajectory

by HAUNTIE
 
Some time ago pale bodies slipped into Indochina and harvested
slave bodies to sow opium and mine silver. These slaves developed a
dependency on this unsustainable and temporary economy, becoming
heavily addicted to this intoxicating flower. Some no longer planted their
own food or raised their own livestock. A body from this time was that
of my grandmother’s. Impoverished—she was—mind, body and soul. 
Strung out on the tar of this little flower, forgetting how and when to love
her children. A body that came to life through hers was my father’s. And
so it was that this boy would walk miles to school with maybe, sometimes
hardly ever, a palm-full of rice and a single chili pepper to sustain his body
for the duration of the day.
                           Night would fall,
                           and day would rise.
Then a secret war crept up so loud white minds shut it out
and all of humanity hushed it from the West to its East
and my grandfather went to war on the side that would win
doing these things, they couldn’t believe in
and maybe it was that they won, maybe
but the shackles of this flower brought my mother to my father
and the shackles of this flower brought my body to America
 
“Here I am,” i’ll say.
Here I am and I have to stay.
 
What are you? Where are you from? What did you come from?
 
i am a potent flower
stringing out your mind on the line after line
from the womb of a history birthed from white memory
i am American
i am good at forgetting
 

Meeting Place

by HAUNTIE
 
i am straddling memory and the present tension
muscles turning into stone from the weight of time
how do you understand me in all of your knowing?
 
i am standing at crossroads
and there are many of them, one on top of the other
and they are not flat
and i could not just lie on the ground to rest and breathe
 
but i would like to
 
to survive i must stand and hold them all together
with my feet pinned down like a needle binding seems
so that when people cross me
when they cut these paths
we can speak
and we can be together
for a moment in time
 
this is how i feel about myself.