good-bye to open sky, cactus in my eye
waves of sage, joshua trees & yucca
streets lined with days-eyes, sunflower-yellow

we are cover girls (not that kind) holy
roller tumble past Hoover Dam
sing spring in. conglomerates. no stops required for
right turns. lanes shift. safety first. do not pass. reduce

speed. past the MGM Grand. signs “trust me you can sing” alcohol.
a margarita equals a fruit a day. beef, booze and brothels.
prison areas. hitchhiking forbidden.

colors daydream, push through cherry-blossom cloud
sink in pink. last night i could not turn myself off. desire pummelled
out of my body. my brain is not up to it. knees to knees. bum to tum. breathe
into backs. loose & relax.

‘words are blows’ mz. queyras writes.
we are afraid to press the tv button on
road-weary. a semi rev’s. butts in. gasp.
steel myself. pahrump. rv’s bruise the horizon.
under the sky, monochrome / aluminum

in Over Creek
everyone should have their lights on.
i am uncomfortable with slow drivers.
i am a boiling pot. cringe. smash n’ pass
i don’t like cars that drive too close to us

i feel we will be sucked in under them
& when you open your legs, sunglasses.
we play tug-a-war, are women-at-war with a shrunken mattress cover
& the two hundred american we have lost
in the Tonapah Station

something’s afoot. reset the odometer & the sir-charge on gas
a truck on the highway. we stop for directions. yikes. he’s peeing. wait.
too late. his j. cash shirt. a handy diversion. cat-flirts
i am in addis ababa as we fire past the Top Gun Drag Strip

where we forget to look out the window
& feed our inner bear at the Black Bear Diner. ketchup time
take our eyes outside
my slim jim & jerky dangle from my pocket
dog licks her cud, sucks ‘em back
that bad news bear

cat’s got her tongue

& she is an explosion
she puts her head on a shelf
eats shit on a shingle
pilsbury grand frozen biscuits
& gravy

twists, counterposes
all day long by the pool
unshaved legs, deodorantless pits
recalls amber dawn’s “there is room.
say it with me. we do fit.”

she does mouth to mouth on a bee
dreams all day long of hummingbird wings
while you sing “break down’s alright”
cheap thrills and lip trills
crack

crone crow throat, the only
pictures on the wall are of her
in this, the oasis of women, where one
hollered only yesterday, “if you butt in, i will beat the
hell out of you”

she ran away from home by the age of three
the earth centuries behind her
found in a railway yard
her partner ****s magic back into her
body

she slows down for a mouse on folkstone road
can’t forget the doctor whose friends had **** up their arses
or the paramedics that carried the dykes conjoined to VGH
fist stuck, inject the butt

set them
“free, free, set them free.’’

i am standing on the creosote-smelling dock at Cultas Lake near Vancouver, BC. it is July 22nd, 1971, my 12th birthday and my friends thought it funny to throw me into the lake upon awakening. i was thrashing in their arms, screaming, as they manhandled me down the stairs of the cabin and tossed me off the dock in my pj’s. remember those with the trap door at the back of them?

an old rattlin’ snake, a sonoran sidewinder, came worming up Andante’s and Gale’s driveway at Superstition Mountain Resort the other day. was the snake attracted to their spiritual energy? the dedicated field agents of the Apache Junction Snake Removal relocated it to the open desert.

not so at the bonfire meeting i went to last week. the boys got rid of that one in a hurry – chopped its’ head off and threw it in the back of their pickup where an hour later, i saw it still gyrating.

my book launch at Changing Hands was a really rich experience. i am so grateful to all my friends, to new friends and many writers who showed up for the open mic following my reading. La Frontera Trauma Healing Services have asked me to read from under the influence at their Take Back the Night Rally and March in the Phoenix Civic Space Park. i really appreciate men and women  who share their courageous struggles to help us heal.

and Mr. Quinton Prunty, my young artiste friend from the hood, whipped the video of me singing at the Women’s March on Washington at the Capital in Phoenix onto my website. check out the sights, i mean the site, at catmacmusic.com.

this Sunday is the Superstition Mountain Resort Memorial Rememberance and Plaque Dedication. all of the women who have passed away here in the past 30 years will have their names read out and the gong will sound. eight new plaques will be put in the wall for the women who have crossed over this year, at the end of the dog run of pink stone under lodgepole pine.

we come here to be kids again, to recapture the joy we felt at summer camp. games week starts here tomorrow with scrabble, darts, badminton, pingpong, ladder ball, the talent show and the sock hop. we can get through anything in community when we remember to play and nurture ourselves. like pop over to the hot tub. gosh, it’s good to be alive again, i mean, a kid again!

 

so much fun playing our own love songs in the Sevens Bistro in Scottsdale last Friday. met some new buds. some came to my book launch at Barnes and Noble the next morn.

hell came to pay home a visit again. the eyes of winter. her crushing burden. that snowed in feeling while the raindrops that tickle my roof, are like someone tiptoeing upstairs.

so what, in the so-now-what-phase? get out of the house. work on book two. it’s written. just needs re-ordering. and, succumb to the need to feel still, to imagine.

sh. a song coming on:

chorus:

you’ve got to fight for me sweetheart
when the pins are down
you’ve got to fight for me sweetheart
for me to be around

verse:

what’s within you
is stronger than what’s in your way
heed the gifts when they come in
& give yourself a break

if you can not change the rain, listen to her rail
if you can not change the wind, readjust your sail

who’d’ve thought a technique could reprocess one’s brain
wherein feelings of negation vanish but memories remain. the strange exchange doth rearrange.

gone but not forgotten

catmacmusic.com

Mac & The Kat fb page and reverberation

 

  if i dare to put my knee brace on & a foot forward on the pickleball court, the hours spent all alone banging the tennis ball against the side of blueridge school and the fights over tennis matches with my best friend lur, charge through my arms.

if i dare to shove my xmas arse filled with santa’s goodies in a chair at starbucks & play with my new wordpress site, i might drop my media items into your open ears and wide eyes.

if i dare to waltz around apache junction in a florescent orange shirt that says “dink responsibly at the pueblo” cuz’ male anatomy’s become part of our vernacular.

can u feel my fear, my friends? can u see how i fling it into the clouds are music. no more microwaved coffee or used pieces of dental floss clinging to my socks. brussel sprouts are omnivorous, are an indirect threat to global warming.

i’m protective of my oranges. out of the rabbit hole. feel the power. like princess leia. her mother, debbie reynolds, died the day after her passing. maybe it’s orchestrated.  bowie. prince. ken mclaren. jen scott’s dad. & poor george michaels who never wanted to be outed.

you haven’t seen the sky for a few months and i the rain.  the world turned the day after cohen died. he felt like a chained parrot on stage. margo says “it’s like the 1930’s” but we ain’t through yet.

at the stroke of midnight, the cactus girls silenced us. jennifer got on her knees at the new years dance and presented an engagement ring to judy. they held each other, judy cried on jen’s shoulder while women formed a circle around them, singing “love will build a bridge.” tears of light on cheeks.

“look to this day. love’s got a hold of us. o happy new day. this, the narrative of truth. we taek a cup o’ kindness.

(it all tastes like chicken in the end.) they’re laughin’ here down in lesbian la la land, as i ring in the new year, in days of auld lang syne my dears! ya can’t stay down long. over ‘n out