Mixed Signals

If I woulda known for sure, I woulda taken you in my arms, placed and slid my open palms up and down the skin of your back and become angered at the straps of your dress criss crossing against the path my hands were taking.

If I woulda known for sure, I woulda let my suited self be the area you could land your tipsy body within, allowing the plum silk of your second skin slide against the crispness of my collared shirt.

If I woulda known for sure, I woulda felt the backs of your arms with my fingertips and forced myself to hold your hands in mine because I wouldn't want to seem too eager.

If I woulda known for sure, I woulda let you unbuckle my buckle, so that the metal wouldn't get in the way of my second skin, so we could be soft against soft, feeling that heat from our heart beat pulsing in other areas.

If I woulda known for sure, I woulda let you slip my jacket off my stiff shoulders and let my concoction of cologne and sweat hit your nose when I went in to taste the day off the side of your neck.

If I woulda known for sure, I woulda let your bare feet stand on the tops of my polished dress shoes, let the sticky of your sweaty breathing feet suction on the tops and I would hold you tighter for more grip on the crevices of my surface.

If I woulda known for sure, I woulda let you kiss me, letting you taste the henny on my breath, letting me taste the wine on yours as you unbuttoned the white button on the top of my dress shirt… and the rest.

If I would known for sure, I woulda let my hands run down the curve of where your waist meets hips and find rest there to pulley up the rest of your dress, letting your whole body breathe in my moist change in weather.

If I woulda known for sure, I woulda kissed you back while playing with the fabric that covers all of your offering, as I offer my own prayers of thanks to God.

If I woulda known for sure, I woulda buried my face under your chin and placed a kiss to give an invitation to where your pendant lays to communicate back to me your pleasure.

But I undressed myself and let you undress in the bathroom, because I didn't even suspect.
Into our night clothes we went.


If I woulda known, I woulda asked you sit on my ass longer as you were giving me a massage, just to feel your curls skim my clothed but unbound back as you dug into my shoulders.

If I woulda known for sure, I woulda thought more intently of feeling the warmth and softness of your sweetness against the part of my body on which you were sitting…

If I woulda known for sure, I woulda turned around and reacted unabashed to the way you were using your hands to place light and sensual kisses on the back of my neck, around my ears, on my jawline, cheeks, head, neck, around my ears, neck, head, neck… If I woulda known for sure, I woulda kissed you right then and there, drowning you in the passion of lust coated tenderness.

But I let you slide off of me and let you slip into your tipsy tiredness.

If I woulda known for sure, I woulda grabbed your grabbing hand while you were sleep-searching for my dick and taken it as a sign that maybe, just maybe, you wanted me.

But I pulled myself further away from you, so you wouldn't regret that you tried to touch someone's stuff you might've not been used to sleep-walking into.

If I woulda known for sure, I wouldn't have thought that you were going to think I was taking advantage of the fact that you had no where else to sleep.

If I woulda known, I wouldn't have thought that those feather light touches on my head were a product of some syrup coating your insides like clouds over clear headed thinking and NOT a smoke signal of a kind of love.

If I woulda known for sure, I wouldn't have been so set on being a gentleman in my retreating from an intriguing woman in my hotel bed –

If I woulda known for sure, I woulda been a gentle man and scooped you in my arms as I evenly spread my weight over you, touching you only with the lightest touches of my lips.

If I woulda known for sure, I woulda let one thing lead to another until it go no more.

But I stayed on my side, as the red bull didn't help my skin stop buzzing from excitement that possibly, maybe you were attracted to me – again, I didn't know for sure.

All I knew was that this boy was ready to erupt years of pent up passion somewhere in Concord California.


In my bed, gay or not gay,
I would allow you.
To sleep.
To lay your head after a long day of tending to a friend.
To take away any worry that you would have to,
at that time late at night,
scramble to find a place to stay.
'You can totally stay here', is what I know I said to you.
'Rest easy', is what it meant.

In need of a bed,
I haven't been allowed.
To sleep.
To lay my head after a long day of being denied my very existence.
To take away the worry that I would have to,
at any time of night,
scramble to figure out if I was going to be able to stay alive or mentally sane.
'You can totally stay here', is what I wish to hear from anyone.
'Rest easy' is what I'd hear and want to believe.

Can the world be so mixed in sending out signals?

Can they say "pro life" when some of America hunts faggot babies like me?

Can they say "pro life" when some parents hate that they gave birth?

Can they say "pro life" when even after all being the object of hate and discrimination, I can be then only be an object of lust – because being in touch with your freak fetish is the in thing right now.

Can they say "pro life" without a blemish in their heart, when I I'm struggling to see myself as I clean off the layers of disgust, this dust they've blown on me?

Can they say "pro life" when I find myself searching for some sign that says I deserve to live, that I belong, that my life is worth the stress of this body, that I am beautiful, that I am handsome, that I am seen, that I am seen, that I am seen without remorse.

Can they say "pro life" when one of the babies has a hard time understanding that they are loved for who they are, and not what they do, not what they don't say.

Can they say "pro life" when I can't put into words EVER that it's hard enough believing in yourself. Try trying to believe that you're worth breathing. I can't put into any words what it's like not knowing if you exist because you never see your reflection I can't put into any words what wear and tear exists when your intuition is battling constantly with the ways of the world.

So yes, maybe I know too well how to maneuver in the streets. Maybe I know too well how to not make a scene, even when being me so often does. Maybe I know it like the back of my hand, how easy it is to go from standing up, to laying flat out on gravel. But I don't know a lot and in special places, I would rather not assume, than to know too well.

So someone make this easy, so I don't have to battle my intuition.

Someone tell me I'm handsome, someone tell me I'm worthy of being loved, possibly desired by someone who wants more than a fuck or more than to tear at my soul.

Someone tell me, cuz I get so confused sometimes. Someone tell me so I don't have to read no signs, so I don't have to decipher the signals. Someone tell me, Someone tell us…




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prDOWbeXRKM

http://myspace.com/mafias_child

Tis a Bucked Up World - Ode to Rickerby Hinds

Buck World Thanks
Partna, I just got back to LA and before I head into a whole nutha head space of work,
I wanted to tell you that I am now
Stuck in the place where Buck World took me
Grabbed me in and pushed me out
All at the same time

Like their hands
Trying to let it all go.
Trying to shake the shit off their skin

Like their fists near their ears
Quick
Movements
told me that they know better to listen to the lies they’ve been told
And thank god for you
For reminding them
Cuz sometimes when you’re young,
As wise as we see from the feet and movements of babes
They still need to know that life is about something.
And that
Their Lives
Are worth more than anyone really can comprehend.

I know I know
I can hear you say it wasn’t you
It was them
And how it was a privilege
For you to be inspired to dream to write to relearn in moments what it is to live
For a reason
Because for them and those they rep
These young dark eyes seen enough than most in a couple life times
To question why anyone would even wanna make them
And, yeah, it’s sick that it’s this
That’s never given as a fact when we question our system of injustice
But you created the avenue away from the heavy blocks of Riverside
You gave em that alternative route through what they already constructed
so they wouldn’t even need to look for signs for detours.

Performance
We all looking for bigger stages to play
We all looking to see who in the world feels us
We do it for the point of connection
We do it to teach and share
We do it to make sense
We do it to feel less lonely

And yeah, maybe you think, it’s only a small step
When considering every other youngsta who tugs us out of our dreams
And says “hey, what about me?”
But it’s the hugest step
Cuz it’s the ripple effect…

And, Rick, the piece was filled with love.
And I’m not tryin to put you on that pedestal
Just trying to let you know that a peer in this real to real art world
Saw you
And wouldn’t have expected any less
Cuz your heart, your touch is all up in there.

So shut up real quick and listen:)
No one trying to deify you
Just wanted to acknowledge that it’s folks like you
Who look after your community
With the pride of a parent
With the care of a true revolutionary
With the care of a true revolutionary
With the care of a true revolutionary

Cuz only the real ones know how to care.

Yet Another Prayer for Peace

I.

Walking along these debris-laden streets, I remember you.
Was a time when we held hands, down these streets
Once clean and comfortable in serene weather
Talking warm with our breath close to each other's lips
When night was cold enough that our words formed cloud pictures against the dark
You were the one who told me that
Language didn't matter, that
All was understood when it came to love,
Ours spoke loud
Like megaphones over thousands of protesters
Demanding a right-er way of life
Another way for us to live.
Hopefully a reason to.

Remember?
Love in it's grace, sweet and sincere
Was rough river waters and you were teaspoons of sugar
We mixed upon wading in each other
Churning creating foam
Dissolving into sweet still water
This love was not to be challenged.

II.

I have seen peace in both
the lush and barren landscapes of
Tibet, Sri Lanka, Iraq, Afghanistan
Sceneries of Serenity
Mirroring a suggestion for life.

In cement cities and brick building burroughs
Ignorance burns a fire that
Trigger happy fingers and drop happy hands
Take as a smoke signal to shoot and bomb.

Suppose'd entitlement permits for God's presence
To be misconstrued, confused, twisted, distorted
Where common folk believe what's been fed to them
And doubt or ignore
The spirits of negotiating
The signals of mediation
Believe that communication
is lost like
Gems thrown overboard in the middle of a
Deep dark sea
consequently forgotten
To where the wearisome believe
there is no such thing as a retrieval of justice.

The fairytale is told
from one fed-up generation to the other they feed.

And
These people are my relatives
Only understanding the concept of land
In a way that doesn't rationalize ill actions
But has.
So then we, our people, desperate
Take it upon ourselves to pray
Before wars and battles
Instead of praying for peace.

III.

Fortunate and not pushed to desperation
I pray for this peace in the form of
Love we once had
Long time ago, laden with cozy comfortability
Than this debris.
A love that rises above rallies and
Thousands of protesters
A love that is another prayer
That starts to exit mouth in warm breath
That creates clouds that make louder pictures
Than the words we may speak
Which talk to our existence as
Beings, children, landscapes of this earth
Which take on pictures-
Relaxed after a day in the fields of
Green where we lay content
With the foliage of earth plus sky
As our sustenance
Where clouds take on pictures of
Whatever our minds see
Whomever our minds want to see again
A type of peace our hearts wish for
May we be lovers in war, may we?
May we be prayers in war, may we?

Art Teachers

When I was 3, I used to watch my 7 year old sister, Krishani, play the piano.
I was also, by default of sharing a room with her, exposed to the Suzuki method of ear training. The Suzuki method, basically, demands that care-takers/parents make their children listen to the piano-music books on tape. At that time, my sister, while finishing up book 1, was also listening to book 2 and 3 tapes. The idea behind listening to the tape is to get the student familiar with the piece of music in order to help navigate their hands in the proper ascending and descending tones of the keys, as well as, having a tightly trained ear supplement their sight reading.

While my sister was in her lesson with Mrs. Meltzer, her piano teacher, I played the melodic line of a sonata to show Mrs. Meltzer what new “trick” I had learned. Mrs. Meltzer then told my amma that I had to start lessons too. From then on out, it was a love/hate relationship with piano lessons.

We would travel 20 minutes from our home in Lancaster to Mrs. Meltzer’s piano den in Palmdale. This calico half-shag carpeted den was filled with portraits of all the famous composers from all periods: Mozart, Chopin, Beethoven, Bach. Her husband, Herb, was a herbalist and vitamin supplier, so the place also smelled of vitamins.

Mrs. Meltzer was an excellent teacher to both me and Krishani. She had a particular and strict way of teaching, but she believed strongly in the Suzuki method- therefore she was a worked around our short comings (mine being sight reading) and got her students to play beautifully.

At some point in my adolescent years, Mrs. Meltzer moved to Quartz Hill and we moved 4 minutes away from her. I was applauded for my playing ability. Mrs. Meltzer, while happy over my playing ability, hid from other teachers that I couldn’t sight read for shit. She told me repeatedly that I was lazy at sight reading and then gave me too many sight reading exercises to do at home (which I hardly ever did). Her frustration over my lazy-ness, she told me, was over the fact that she saw more potential in me than some of her other students (who were forced into piano lessons as well) because of the emotion and feel I put into the pieces I played.

As a pre-teen, I struggled with a lot. I was trying to figure out how to live in Palmdale being “gay” in a white-supremacist, mason-run hick-town, having crushes on girls and not being able to do anything about it...amongst other things.
My sister passed when I was 13 and when I walked into my piano lesson, Mrs. Meltzer gave me a loving look, sat me on the piano and went right into the lesson. It was established that we were friends and her way of taking care of me was to put me in the music and out of my head. She was my beloved friend and I hers. I was her crazy student, so she would say with a chuckle. We sometimes talked about her life as a young jewish girl and her past short-lived desire to be a concert pianist. Even though she never talked about this desire much, I think she hoped her students would become concert pianists.

Lessons consisted of me, having not practiced a lick, going into her home, asking her to play the piece atleast 2 or 3 times and watching her hands. See, I already knew the piece in my mind. I just didn’t know how it looked (I liked visuals) and I LOATHED sight reading. She hated that I asked her to do that. She would roll her eyes at me, but continue anyway. She knew that I was stubborn in my discovery of the best way I learned the music. Did I tell you she HATED this fact?! But she worked around it. She would grumble complaints at me, but then to soften her up I would say, “Oh Mrs. Meltzer, I love you” and she would give smile and grumble some more saying “I don’t know what to do with you”.

I’d like to think I was her favorite student.
I’m pretty sure that I was, even though I wasn’t her BEST student.

At adjudication times, I would fail at the sight reading portions of the exams. On the other hand, I would nail the ear training part. But year after year, the judges were impressed enough with my playing ability to dismiss the fact that I sucked at sight reading and selected me to perform at conventions throughout California.

Mrs. Meltzer would always tell me, with a smile, “I don’t know how you got in…”.

During my teenage years, I looked forward to my piano lessons because we shared stories and music. She listened to my compositions and I asked her repeatedly to play compositions she had written in the past. She never did. She used to downplay the fact that she even composed once upon a time, saying that they were silly and that she didn’t remember anything she wrote.
I never stopped asking. Annoyed, she would tell me, with her hands waving in the air, to “never mind”.

When it was time to be adjudicated at age 15, I was wrapped up in college applications and couldn’t dedicate much to practicing (which isn’t saying anything new). I managed to pull it off, but didn’t get selected for convention, which I didn’t really mind. She had given up on the hopes of any of her student getting into the convention, but I think 2 of hers did, which is saying a lot.

At this point in our relationships, I used to go to her house and play song after song for her. Anything I remembered from when I was 3 till the age I was at, 16. She would fine tune different things in my playing, like when something was to be loud or soft, lively or subdued. She always shared the music with me as if it were a story she had translated. “Then this is where ‘this’ happens”…

As a side note, my mother took lessons in the vina (south Indian lute, predecessor to the Sitar) at different points in her life. She was never really any good (hey! She says so herself!) and then shifted out of it when I started lessons. Having musical knowledge help so much and it didn’t matter that I couldn’t sight read because this instruction was strictly ear training!!! I flew through, though, again, since I was 15 and dealing with college stuff, I couldn’t practice much. I was loving it cuz I asked him to tape the songs for me and I would listen to the tape over and over again. Something I was used to with Mrs. Meltzer and the Suzuki method. Murali Krishnan taught at UCLA at the ethnomusicology department and strongly recommend that I apply for the program. I did and auditioned on both the vina and piano (nailed Bach’s invention #13) and got accepted.
My vina lessons stopped after my first year of college because MK wasn’t teaching at UCLA anymore AND I was busy with activism and the beginning my spoken word/theatre “career” at that point.

Mrs. Meltzer’s husband died around this time and so everytime I visited my family in Palmdale, I went and visited Mrs. Meltzer. Her sons and grandchildren were also always around taking care of her and just being in the house, she had a lot of love around her always. I was also happy that she was still teaching so as to not be too lonely without him.

Her eyes would light up upon seeing me and then she would complain about her present students and how no one had time to practice because they were involved in too many extra curricular activities that their parents’ said demanded more attention. We’d play music, hang out and talk “where are they now” in regards to my sri lankan cousins who had also taken lessons from her.

When I moved to New York, I didn’t get to talk to her that much except for a phone call here and there. I visited her everytime I came to visit my family, but that became less and less. However, when I finally moved back to Los Angeles, I would ask her to help me learn new inventions (I love Bach, yes) and she would get me started.

A few years ago, she had undergone some major surgeries. Soon after, she was moved to a convalescent home. Her memory was suffering a bit, too. But everytime I made the trek out to Palm Springs to see her, she would cry upon seeing me come in and watching me go. I didn’t like visiting her much there, because I would’ve wanted to stay just so that she wouldn’t cry. Even under the best care, I’m sure it was hard not to be teaching or having full control over her environment. The last time I saw her, she cried over the fact that she couldn’t remember my name right away. I didn’t mind, actually. I saw the love in her eyes for me and who cares about someone’s name?

Today I got a call that she passed away.

I’m happy for her spirit to be released. She is free now.

She was an incredible woman. I may have not known her in respect to all the happenings of her life, but I knew her in my love for her. She was a strong woman- a woman who knew how to take care of herself and those around her. She was my friend-I always felt safe with her. She was my teacher-she taught me invaluable lessons in both music and life.

I love her for being my teacher and instilling in me a love for music.
If not for her, I wouldn’t be where I am today.
She was one of my dearest friends.
She understood me on a whole other level than other’s did.
She understood me artistically.
For a child who grew up with no validation for being creative.
For a child who’s community never supported their children’s artistic endeavors,
She was my oasis.

Rest, Fly in Peace and the Melodious Music of the Universe.
Mrs. Hilda Meltzer.