Aimee Herman's Blog, page 31

an ode to the flatlands

photo by Raluca Albu

Dear Nebraska,

I coveted your squares. They were unshaky and so green. And brown. And itchy. In New York, I notice the bricks and windows that shield the sky from full-frontal nudity. But your sky was a true nudist.

I inquired about your routine. How you got to be so…flat. I have been pushing myself down for quite awhile now, training my body to be like you (even before I knew you) and when I remove my clothes at night, my curves always come back. How do you keep yourself so smooth, Nebraska?

I wanted to lay in your grassland, but there were the chiggers. And ticks. So I fantasized about your blades of green against my back, tickling my ankles, which I always had covered because….well…..the chiggers & the ticks.

I wanted to tell you that I didn’t think we’d get along, but by the time I left, I wanted to ask if we could be exclusive. I was ready to try monogamy with you. But I never said this because I knew New York would always slip its way into my mind.

I wanted to tell you that I stopped being so afraid of your mites and insects. I stopped fearing heights and loneliness. I gave away some of my secrets. I even let you see me naked. That night in the water with several other planets watching without judgment.

There is still so much I want to say to you. So I write them down and float them toward your flatlands. Toward your birdsongs. Toward the artists.

Filed under: WRITING | rambles Tagged: "aimee herman", Art Farm, artist residency, love, meant to wake up feeling, Nebraska, ode to nebraska, poetry

an ode to patti smith

dear patti,

I fell in love with you when I read your words about Robert [Mapplethorpe] and I grew jealous of your photo shoots and memories. And then I read your poems. And listened to the moan of your voice, rocking out into microphones. When I moved back to New York, I searched for you. Knew that we’d collide, but wondered when. Then, one Thursday or Tuesday, you read from a book at St Marks bookshop and I went there with some poet friends. Patti, I thought this would be our moment of meeting. This would be the time our eyes would meet and you’d notice the poet in me and the rebel and even the sad and you’d grab me. Patti, you’d grab me with your skinny arms and bring me into your chest. You’d kiss me. Not like first-base-French-style, but just like from one poet to another. And you’d rub your years into my skin and we’d run away together. Patti…..this did not happen. Because when my friends and I got to the bookshop, we could barely fit in. The place was Times Square crowded. I nudged myself behind some bookshelves and for an hour, I listened to you read, with the view of just your nose, between the stacks of books. Just your nose, Patti.

 

Tonight, I get to celebrate you without you (because you are in France or the Netherlands or somewhere too far to make it here.) But just know that because of your magic, many poets and writers will gather to read you. And sing you.

Where? you (may) ask.

Cornelia Street Cafe at 29 Cornelia Street in the West Village/ NYC

And what time? you (may) wonder.

6pm. And though it’s $8 to enter, that does include a drink.

So, who’s reading my words? you (may) inquire.

Madeline Artenberg, Meagan Brothers, Megan DiBello, Daniel Dissinger,  Gordon Gilbert, Aimee Herman, Selina Josephs, Gabriel Levicky,  Lulu Lolo, Jess Martinez & Zita Zenda

Filed under: SHOWS | video, WRITING | rambles Tagged: "aimee herman", Cornelia Street Cafe, Daniel Dissinger, Gabriel Levicky, Gordon Gilbert, Jess MArtinez, Lulu Lolo, Madeline Artenberg, Meagan Brothers, Megan DiBello, NYC Patti Smith reading, NYC poetry reading, ode to Patti Smith, Patti Smith, Selina Josephs, Zita Zenda

how to catch a butterfly

I am painting a window pane, which I found on the street many months ago. The time of day is passionately hot and I secretly love the singeing of my skin from the aggressive sun.

Chosen paint colors are turquoise and green like grasshopper or grass stain. I am slow with my strokes, meditating on the spread and merge of hues.

“What are you painting?”

I look up and see a kid who I immediately feel a kinship with because I cannot for the life of me calculate their gender.

“Oh, just this window. I found it awhile back just waiting on a curb to be thrown away.”

“Cool. I love this garden,” they say, referring to the one surrounding me. “I always visit it. Just looking in. But…I never steal.”

“Well, no worries if you do,” I say. “It was planted by one of the tenants here.” I point to the building I’m beside which my partner resides in and I tend to sleep in as well. “Anyway, so much was wasted. So many herbs and vegetables, so if you want to take, you can.” I say this knowing they won’t.

Suddenly, the young one’s attention gets stolen away by butterflies.

“I catch them,” they say. “You know the best way to get one?”

“No,” I answer.

“Grab it from behind. But the white ones…they are the most difficult to catch.”

I watch as this kid slowly remains still, pinches their fingers together over wings and catches one.

“See?”

“Wow,” I say. “Nice job. But…what do you do once you catch them?”

“Put ’em in a jar. I’ve got a few already. Do you have a jar?”

“Uh…” I don’t really want to encourage the enslavement of such beautiful creatures, so I shake my head. “Sorry.”

We chat a little longer. Mostly about butterflies. How they mate. The plants and flowers which they tend to yield to.

I listen. I listen, as I think of a beautiful oil painter in Nebraska who reminded me that so often people swallow their words, living in silence until…until someone warmly rotates their volume to loud or loudER. Some people just really need to be heard.

The young one leaves and I continue painting. My skin drips into a pile of early summer sweat below me. I want to splash in my perspiration but instead, pick up my window, which has rapidly dried from the sun, head upstairs and write.

 

Filed under: WRITING | rambles Tagged: "aimee herman", butterflies, meant to wake up feeling, Nebraska, painting, poetry

Thank you to Wild Age Press for publishing 6 of my poems

Six poems by Aimee Herman: Part one

For the entire month of June RESTLESS is celebrating Pride by featuring work exclusively by LGBTQ writers. Check out the “Pride2015” tag for more.

that film strip

You were absent that day there was a filmstrip on how to get through all this.

You were absent that day they taught about blood, bisexuality, and body hair.

You were absent that day they explained how to survive an internalized attack.

You missed out on a presentation on safe oxygen intake and the symptoms of geniophobia.

You never learned how to properly handle men or the aftershock of aged parts.

You often forget to wash your hands because no one advised you on this.

You missed the tutorial on how to insert a tampon, make a proper casserole and the dangers of oral sex.

You haven’t owned a hairbrush in over a decade. You have more knots on your head than historical dates memorized. You were absent that day, remember?

You rarely look both ways when crossing intersections. You forget about stop signs and traffic lights because, again, you were absent that day.

You were absent that day they talked about appetite suppressants, strength training and the appropriate presentations of assigned gender. Yes, you’ve experimented with hair barrettes, but you still do not understand control-top pantyhose or garter belts. Must I remind you, you were absent that day.

You were told it was epic. You were told that filmstrip addressed every topic you always wondered about: the consideration of hymens, toxic shock syndrome and preservatives. Why did you have to be absent that day?

Three people fainted. But their collapse may not have been connected to the filmstrip.

Everyone was quoting it! Some had even created parodies. You tried to memorize the summaries but everyone spoke too softly to be remembered.

You had stomach flu or a test you forgot to study for, one of which caused you to be absent that day.

There was no make-up day to watch it.

Some say that filmstrip no longer exists. Some tease that it never did and that day you were absent was nothing special; you are just looking for a reason to understand not knowing.

 

here is how I lived in my body that day

It was a day unlike Sunday, but it was Thursday and it was raining but it felt like sunburn. There were bees dressed as mayflies and there were two humans dressed as three puddles placed in the middle of a forgotten street in the summertime, but it felt like three weeks before winter. All the shop windows revealed reflections of hummingbirds and hunger pains and everyone forgot to notice the signature in the corner from the one who arrived at all this imagination. At two minutes past four in the afternoon, someone tripped over a collection of bones in the shape of a singing gazelle. Later on, there was a bruise sharing the colors of fuchsia and slate strung in the sky like a constellation that no one seemed to care about. Reluctantly, there was a conversation about bulbs forgotten in flowerpots, left by a compost station near a market on a Wednesday that could have been a Saturday, but was not. That is how I lived in my body on that day.

 

 

Aimee Herman is the author of two books of poetry, meant to wake up feeling (great weather for MEDIA) and to go without blinking (BlazeVOX books). Aimee has been published in various journals and anthologies including Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics,Bone Bouquet and cream city review. In addition to being a writer, Aimee is a professor at Bronx Community College and with Poetry Teachers NYC. For more words, go to: aimeeherman.wordpress.com.

Filed under: WRITING | rambles Tagged: "aimee herman", body, gender, genderqueer, LGBTQ poet, Pride month poetry, queer body, Wild Age Press

How to Try on Words

Some mirrors have built in self-esteems that bulk up the emaciated version of your own. You look and no longer notice the distortion of your chest or belly or thighs or gender.

Some mirrors are like that friend who only has good things to say even when there is nothing good to say.

Some mirrors remind you everything you are, zooming in and IN and IN to really emphasize each and every flaw discomfort.

You walk into a dressing room with 7 words; the maximum allowed. You alternate sizes because you can never keep track of what numbers you are. You feel excited because so many stores are full of words that do not match you or speak you and here, you have found many that seem to be comfortably appropriate.

There is a blue word and a button down word. There is a striped word and a long-sleeved word. There is a cotton word and a linen/poly mixed word. There is a word that is too difficult to pronounce, but you have read it before and it is exactly what you have been looking for.

So, you begin. Removing just your shirt and undershirt because these words are topical. You take a deep breath because you often forget to breathe when shopping for new words. You ignore the bulge of your skin, the yellowing of your skin. The burns and scars. You ignore the way your nude often ruins your mood. Again, you breathe.

You slowly remove each word from wooden hanger and try on. You pose and twist, researching your angles. You use tongue against teeth to articulate each word off your flesh.

Not this one.

This is definitely not right.

You refuse to get discouraged.

All words back on their hangers, you put your clothes back on. Breathe. Exit dressing room.

You hand all words back to attendant and force a smile. You look around at a store full of vocabulary and feel the frustration of being unable to connect to what they were selling.

Outside, you breathe in spring. You romanticize the season soon approaching. Suddenly, you inhale a word. Blink in two more. Your lungs expand to take in five more. All free. All one-size-fits all. All gender neutral. All encompassing. All pronounceable.

Sometimes you just can’t force the words to stick to your skin. You have to let them come to you.

This is how you try on words.

 

Filed under: WRITING | rambles

how to find (your) wild

Dear Art Farm,

Here in Nebraska, the ticks confuse beauty marks, but humans grow closer through each inspection of skin and lift of cotton and hair.

In Nebraska, mosquitoes engage in foreplay. Ignore signs of disinterest (bug spray and swatting) and stick to skin until until    until    penetration

Here in Nebraska, a poet falls in love with a band saw, meditates on the circular movements of electric sander.

In Nebraska, the stars wallpaper the sky.

Here in Nebraska, mice collaborate with an oil painter through midnight parade of paws on paper

In Nebraska, happy hour is whenever one calls on it, as wine drips onto tongues, slow and tired from farmed imaginations.

In Nebraska, the poet’s body (shy coward in the city) digs itself out of clothes and skinny dips in a lake. Breaks up with binder, pressing down gender of flesh just for a moment in order to free the wild within.

In Nebraska, shovels become totems. Holes are dug to remind the humans how deep this earth goes. To remind the humans how trees begin.

In Nebraska, raccoons replace house pets. So do spiders, wingless flies and mice sneezing on cayenne pepper.

In Nebraska, artists & writers find themselves as they find each other.

In Nebraska, stories are pressed into palms and given away over cups of coffee and long drives from one town to another.

In Nebraska, we become the wild life. We become wild. We become. We become. Free.

Filed under: WRITING | rambles Tagged: "aimee herman", Art Farm, farming, gender, Nebraska, poet, wilderness

fear of / no longer fearing

Sometimes we need to say yes in order to remember that we can. That fear is just a stamp we can remove because perhaps the postage has expired. Perhaps fear is just a word now, with all the meaning thinned out and ghostly.

How long have you been haunted by STOP signs and hiding places.

On a sunday in june, you put on your rain boots to walk in the tall grass, which hides tiny mites which crawl beneath skin. Yesterday, this fear would have kept you inside.

On this sunday in june, you walk with a group of artists into an open field where somebody one day built a ladder going to nowhere, rooted into the ground with concrete and soil. And on this sunday, you slowly ascend with eyes gazing forward. With each climb, you think of yoko ono. Her curled staircase twisted and trembled. But even then, on that thursday in may, you traveled. Up and past fear.

Also, on this sunday in june, you swing from a carved unicorn hanging from a barn, floating without ground. High up, you swing. Thin, pointed horn made of wood between your legs, which you stroke and remember.

On this sunday, you say yes and forget about what frightens you. You take off all your clothes and rub your scars into nebraska. You kiss the wind with your toes. You remember how to be alive. Like this.

Filed under: WRITING | rambles Tagged: "aimee herman", Art Farm, being alive, breathing, fear of heights, meant to wake up feeling, moving past fears, Nebraska, poetry

how skinny is your swim…

dipping skinny         
          venus spotlight
 
 two billion ways to
         locate stars
 
limbs fly through water
        : propellers of flesh strokes
 
lips
        singed from mosquito wings
 
soft water dried from ember
         flight of bonfire spirit animals
 
moon light too shy
         to compete with planets
 
but if it were to slide
         into view
 
its gleam would stop
          on breasts, milky drips
 
terrible swimmers, but 
         floating
 
nipples like hooks digging in
         to tread the rest along
 
Filed under: WRITING | rambles Tagged: "aimee herman", Art Farm, beautiful outdoors, bodies, meant to wake up feeling, Nebraska, planets, poetry, skinny dipping, stars, water

the sexual orientation of my hands

My hands cannot remain straight.

I am constantly aware of this each time I try to cut a piece of wood using mighty band saw. I am wavering.

I’ve never wanted to be more straight in my life. Here, in the midwest flatlands, where nyc sirens have been replaced by scratching paws of raccoons living inside the walls of this house called victoria, and crickets and frog gulps and ticks singeing beneath flames, I am deeply aware of the way I measure and move.

When I use electric sander to smooth out the wood, my hands dance freely. I do not need to move in straight lines, instead I glide in circles.

But when drilling holes, which must be perfectly symmetrical from one side to the other, I notice how deeply un-heterosexual my line is.

Does this make me an incompetent not-quite-but-wish-i-was carpenter. Must things really be so straight all the time?

When I walk, my stride shifts. My crumbs, if dropped, would create a jagged pattern documenting where I’ve been. When I speak, even my words curl, somehow making their way into coherency, but definitely not (and I assure you) through a straight line.

Perhaps I only want to be straight because I think this is the direction things should go. But so much of nature is not straight. Even the fields, perfect one-mile radius on each side, may appear straight but if studied long enough, one would see it’s homosexual (queer) lines. Because of footprints and the tall tall grass. And the ways in which the earth just shifts sometimes.

OK. I’m cool with my homosexual shake. My meandering zigzag lines. Even with the uneven slicing of saw, I still installed some beautiful, smooth shelves. Installed in free-standing cupboard, originally meant for coats. Now, a home for ceramic plates and bowls.

Filed under: WRITING | rambles Tagged: "aimee herman", Art Farm, carpentry, farm life, gender, homosexual, meant to wake up feeling, midwest, missing the city, poetry, queer, writing residency

an affair with fingertips

You count fourteen crime scenes in your fingerprints. Perhaps more, but your eyesight is raw and does not cooperate with squinting or glassware.

On left pointer, a slice from paper. From book about contagious diseases during the mid-80’s.

Thumb is bent; you lose track of the swirl that seems to be slightly off-kilter in comparison to the others.

Your thumb, you conclude, is the rebel of your hands.

Ring finger on left hand is contemplative. It is nude of silver or circles and wonders what it would be like to weigh more.

Right hand is more weathered. Pre-arthritic but preparing for the worst. These are the fingers you are most intimate with. These are the fingers which pull out your language. These are the fingers you balance your imagination on.

You spent eight years ignoring your middle fingers, then gave both away (one at a time) to all the men who stole your spit and soul.

Your mate fondles the callus on finger on right hand. Rubs it like a fortune teller’s glass seeing eye. Says there is enchantment in the hard skin, created by all that you’ve created.

Filed under: WRITING | rambles Tagged: "aimee herman", body, body poems, love, meant to wake up feeling, poem