Tuesday, October 24, 2023
MY EARS SPEAK A PROPHECY OF STILLNESS
Thursday, October 5, 2023
Warriors Gear, Remembering, Mind Playing Tricks On Me, Outrunning Starb*cks
At one point in time, and this is a funny memory; the word around was that the owner had pre-emptively put a Warriors Championship t-shirt on the rack. This may have been the year following a Warriors championship. I don't know & can't quite call it.
It may have been the season
when the Dubs broke the record for wins in a single season, previously held by Michael
Jordan’s Chicago Bulls. I think the Warriors only lost 9 games that season.
While Chicago’s record was only 10 losses during regular season play; when they set the record in the 90s, in a
season when this Chicago team would go on to win the ‘ship. Ice the cake and
throw back the champagne.
Long story longer, this corner store was my go-to for all things snack and drink related for a number of years. So naturally, I also supported their apparel arm of the business. Over the years I accumulated and donated a plethora of Warriors, 49ers and San Francisco Giants gear. And it's a corner store, these aren't exactly Gucci edition Dubs championship shirts. All to the good though, it isn't the shoes you're walking in that matter; it's where you're going in them. When I'm wearing a Warriors shirt there's just a different energy, like a fresh hair cut or your kicks after you lift that last dash of the toothbrush, and they shine.
In any situation, today I was reminded that one (or more of these shirts) may have been from the years where the Warriors fell short. They had such a brilliant run during those years that I forget which years they won the ‘ship and which years they fell short. I mean, when they made it to the finals or conference finals but couldn’t ice the cake. As I recall henceforth anyways round about yonder. This may or may not be accurate, there were a couple years like this.
So my thought this morning was, before I rock
any Warriors gear, I need to Google exactly which years were the championship
years and which years they fell short. I’d be remised to be walking out and
about town with one of these pre-emptive money grabs at the North Vallejo
corner store on my back, ha.
I say all that to
say, memory is a funny thing. The Geto Boys monumental song Mind Playing
Tricks On Me from the 1991 album, We Can’t Be Stopped harkens. Human
beings may never fully understand the capabilities & possibilities of the
human brain. And then there’s the mind. Which is a whole 'nother mystery & tupper ware full of worms. Which, from my perspective, may or may
not be located in the brain. I think of the mind as more universal. Something
more celestial, without a central “seat” in the body, rather I view the mind as
“something” our species taps into, intuits…yeah, we tap into “it” or perhaps
are tapped into “it” via some form or fashion—the brain being an integral part
in this exchange, although who knows whether or not the brain is the focal, or
even main vantage point.
I like to think
the heart has a mind. And what about the cells within the heart? Surely our
species does not perceive cells multiplying and allthat—don’t call me Shirley—but
all of this is made available via awareness via the mind.
At the end of the
day, I probably won’t Google all this. Too many interests, not enough time.
Although I haven’t watched a Warriors game in a few years, I probably will
continue rocking the t-shirts. Not because I’m a big-time Dubs fan, although I
do like this team quite a lot. I wear these t-shirts because it’s a little
glimmer of home that I can carry with me. The Golden State. The Warriors. It
also has a nice ring to it, something I feel in my bones as guidance for the
heart beating in my chest.
![]() |
Jason Richardson, 2002 Slam Dunk Contest |
I’m reminded of things and people who aided in my evolution. People and things whose evoluton I also aided in. Lumpia at a garage sale. Any garage sale to be certain, if the garage sale didn't have Lumpia for sale on the side, there probably wasn't anything worth purchasing.
The Vallejo Bookstore downtown. Redwood Street with it's hustle and bustle. I’m reminded of streets and sounds and scents that activate
something within my psyche that I am familiar with, something like belonging.
I’m reminded that I belong. Sure, home is where you are at. Although, how much
of home is where you’re at? How much of home is where you’re from? I’m from
California, so I enjoy remembering when I lived there. Remembering the people.
The vibes. The trials & tests. Yadda. And this unequivocally & unquantifiably
aides in my present state of being. Somehow, some way. Through & through a
lot of reflection & mystery. What is it about remembering that somehow can
act as a lamp post in the present moment?
How much of memory is lamp post?
We’re surrounded by darkness, and we don’t even know it. The weight of the world.
Saturday, March 11, 2023
Review: PROMISES OF GOLD by José Olivarez
PROMISES OF GOLD is a testament to the truth that it is always possible to lay claim to a poetry of your own, a poetry that is whole-heartedly filled with goodness, a poetry that creates and cultivates a love for oneself & other people to witness, to feel, and connect with; and ultimately: to move for & take action with. I’m enjoying the questions of and for authority. I’m moved to ask my own questions. My spirit is moved by the poet’s reflections on tenderness, masculinity and toxic masculinity. On what it means to be family. On what it means to be Mexican. On what it means to be American. On what it means to love, as a man, and as a human being trying to make sense of existing and being alive in a seemingly ever-maddening world.
This collection is a clear example that poetry, at its root level, is here for us as human beings to witness ourselves, one another, to fuel one another’s spirits. To nurture our being-ness and bring us together, as inhabitants of this planet, as people occupying similar and different spaces and places on this humungous rock hurling through space. And that to a creative person, to a poet, this is an intrinsic part of being alive, of sharing in this brief and fleeting human experience.
As the poet explains in the introductory author’s note, PROMISES OF GOLD started out with a desire to write love poems. Love poems to the poet’s beloved, love poems to family members, love poems to friends and homies. Then the pandemic began. Then the uprisings of 2020 began. Then the poet became reflective on capitalism’s brutality, on the injustices of the prison industrial complex, on authority’s pervasive illusion, on the violence of borders. Then, then, then, and then.
“But because I am who I am & because we live in the world that we live in, I wrote this book instead” - José Olivarez
It seems as if the poems that are not explicitly “love poems” are incognito love poems. After reading “American Tragedy,” the first thought that came to my mind was: fuck the police. After reading “Poem Where No One Is Deported,” one of my reactions was: fuck la migra. So, I really see these poems too, even though not “explicitly” love poems, as love poems. If only with a grander, more encompassing vision of love than what is considered “typical.” After all, what place does anger have in love and in loving? What is love’s relationship to justice? What is the capacity in my love to hate racism? How true can one’s love really be if it excludes seeing precisely how fucked up the seemingly cyclical nature of control and oppression can be and really is?
And I enjoy this about Olivarez’ work as well: as a reader, I felt invited into a conversation, and really at times, invited to walk in the speaker’s own shoes, to see what he sees, to feel, as close as humanly possible, what he feels.
Along with the brilliant Mexican
humor woven throughout this collection (See: “Ode to Tortillas,” “Eating Taco
Bell with Mexicans,” et al.), this collection is overflowing with lines and
poems that reach straight through the chest, through the breastplate & ribs
and finally to the heart, squeezing the heart to life. Not unlike when a
handball is squeezed and it creates a brief concave and then, when let go of,
the ball intrinsically reverts back to its spherical shape and is once again
bounceable. This is what I’ve found in my experience with PROMISES OF GOLD. The
heart is touched, the heart is squeezed and given pause, the heart is let go of;
and the heart resumes its shape to keep beating. I’m reminded of the Jay-Z
lyric: like a roundball you bounce back. PROMISES OF GOLD did this, does
this, and as I visit and re-visit these poems, PROMISES OF GOLD continues doing
this for my heart: from page to page my heart bounces to life’s rhythm, time and
again.
- Daniel Cyran