L U M I N A * N O S T R I

 A Spoken Word Response to Creativity Is Our Business's National Poetry Month Invitation Hear me perform it here You know, my shadow self she's a mean bitch. Takes no shit. Fights with big ass words and goes for anywhere she can land a hit. I've spent a lot of time  living that line "don't poke the bear." But today the sun is rising in a way that has me thinking no, let's go there. Try as  you might, Shadow, you keep  losing this fight. The larger  you loom, the starker contrast my light. Each huff and puff and protest when you don't get your way,  only deepen the valleys and heighten the ramparts that protect my play. You want this vice, that vice. You're over  there yapping about how worthless I am.  I delight in your deluge, it gives me something against which to take a stand.  I'm not gonna tell you to fuck off, or kick rocks or take a hike.  I'd rather use your hate as compost use it to take my sunflower seeds to new heights. ...

  So Goes the Song of Spring  Wild poppies blaze beyond the windowpane,  Springtime’s bridesmaids, their inner fires lit. Breezes blow cool and welcomed kisses  through every crack in this obtuse barrier.  Shade’s look begs that we stay a little while, lay a little while, let our bodies sing  like birds, together and separate if only for a little while.

When Did Your World Change? Was it the day you uncovered the oldest belief in your heart? That day when you found out it was something gray, covered in lint, left behind the drying machine where all your wet blankets have gone round till they are soft, fuzzy, smell nice so you wrap yourself in them.Did your world change when you realized your oldest belief is godless? That it has no shine? That it's like a film on every rock in your collection adding to their substantial weight?  Or was it after you realized it's what makes your body look like your mother's, it's what keeps you from finishing your book, it's what marched you out of your parents' house into the world and back again, loveless and shaking. Is that when your world change?  No, it was sometime later. One day, I took my courage, my high tolerance for gross, and I reached down and back, behind that same drying machine. I pulled the oldest belief in my heart out, and it was as limp as a lost sock. I was...