Poetic Resistance | ਕਾਵਿਕ ਵਿਰੋਧ Kāvika Virōdha

FRESNO SUNSETS

Last week they stole the car
but it was ok
cause the cops found it
The tank was low
so they didn't go far.

It was parked down by the strip mall
You know the one
with the Verizon store and Fallas Paredes
 The one where I stole that tacky belt I threw in the dumpster as
soon as I walked out.

The strip mall with the Jons where you can just grab Christmas trees and no one stops you. The guard too busy day dreaming while sipping champurrado and watching ladies.

You can literally walk down the street, get on a bus holding a Christmas tree and everybody acts like they don't even see you.

Mama got the car back.
She said that she didn't even care
that she had to get two new tires. 
Arshad hooked her up, 2 for 40, 
used but still they're good enough. 
Mama clicked her tongue.
She said what am I gonna do? Get mad? 
I'm too tired for that.

That day she stayed later with me
So we could eat together.
She's been leaving early to take the bus to her
Late shifts.
But now she's got the Corolla back.

All I had to do was
Put the leftovers in the old yogurt containers
Take out the garbage.
Do my homework
And go to bed.

Make sure you lock the deadbolt on our bedroom door.
Every time she left, she always say that.

Raul comes home right after mama leaves. 
And he always eats our food.
He tells me to shut the fuck up about it too or
he's gonna tell her that I sneak out at night.

I say Fuck You.
You don't even know how to eat subjee and roti.
But mama says be nice to him. 
We couldn't afford a place if he wasn't here.
He works at Walmart too, has the shift before her.

Whatever.
He's just another roommate
And they always come and go
And they always eat our food

It's not like I do anything when I sneak out. 
Just me and Gabby walk down to the Circle K
We're bored.
What am I supposed to do?
Stare at the wall outside, the wall of the other apartment building.
We don't have
Cable
A T.V.
A cat
A view
Nothing

On Sundays mama doesn't work.
We go to Gurdwara in the morning
Then on the way home
Stop by the fields and buy boxes of mangos
and strawberries as big as my hands.
Mama always negotiates. 
10 for everything, sometimes 8.
She's teaching me that.
She says in India no one pays full prices for nothing.

On Sundays she oils my hair
Then her hair
And after we eat mangos
And spicy Cheetos she brings from work.

We walk to the laundry mat next door, our hair shining in the sun.
There I watch T.V. while mama reads books in Punjabi.
I help fold the laundry and carry it home carefully.
Trying to keep the stacks from toppling.

The dusty Fresno sunset
glowing up mama's dark brown cheeks
soft and warm.

Mama, soft and warm.
Her tired body laying next to me
In the little bedroom we share.
Mama, soft and warm
smelling of mangos and strawberries and spicy Cheetos.
Mama, soft and warm
smelling of cumin and ghee and laundry soap.
Mama, soft and warm and everything.

TS 5.08.17

CUMIN SEEDS

Push Push Pull
Push Push Pull
Twist knead

Bricks warming in the small courtyard
Mid day sun
Enveloped in bitter almond and browned cumin seeds
Pores beading in the rising heat

Dark dusty amber topsides and below
brown pink calloused shells
Holding your ribs which dance as you kick and laugh
Firm fat of legs
Kicking in rhythm
Big dark eyes lined with blackest kajul

Clicks and clicks of tongue
and songs of
Old women on moons spinning cotton on wooden wheels
And babies swinging from mango branches

Mangos tart and green
Like the parrots that fly above
Calling
Catching your eyes
But you quickly lock back into the ones that
Look back inside you

Push Push Pull
Push Push Pull
Twist Knead

Almond oil and cumin seeds

Push Push Pull
Push Push Pull
Twist knead

Gold circles singing along to every
Wrist flick and steady movement

Through almond oil and cumin seeds
You’ll come back to this
This every push
This every pull
Every twist of wrist, ankle, thigh

You’ll grow, lanky and lost
You’ll search for more
But this is all you’ll need

The arms
The feet
The dark chocolate hands
The dark hair like shelter
The big eyes that know every thing

For now, every cell is gathering
Gathering the map, gathering the seeds

Push Push Pull
Twist Twist
Push Push Knead

TS- 2.13.17

BACK TO YOUR SEED

it’s 2:30
maybe a little later
and you know it’s coming
the hum
vibrating first in your ear
then growing
spreading
neck, shoulders, belly, backs of knees
you open your hands
you’ve trained yourself now

when you were just a stripling
you tried to move
tried to resist
but now you wait for it
and it comes
most nights it comes

through your walls
above your bed
it hovers

it has a color, a dusty rose
and you slip inside
slightly warm

it’s small and fits only you
confined and stagnant
but it’s perfect
the pinch and pressure sooth you
 curled inside like an embryo that’s dropped, in it’s last stage.

there you linger, suspended
you wait
and wait

and then
it comes
the flood
every atom shifts and opens
allowing endless space
space for every nerve cell to multiply endlessly
synapses overflow
allowed to take over
nerve shock remedy lulling you

every failure, every moment of every mistake playing out
a trial

step by step by step
a long relentless fire

TS-2.12.17

BRUJAS

Did you really believe that witches need to live in the woods?
Can only live there.
Where did you get that idea?
Tucked away in some forest
Away from you and me.

There are brujas on every bus stop of this city
Just look out
From your cars
Or next to you on the seat

They push strollers covered with soft thick baby blankets
They walk with bags and bundles
They laugh eating omelets and drinking coffee
They scrub your feet and paint your nails
They lay under bridges and freeways

.......

A vibration runs through this city
Down to the core, beyond the molten and all that extraneous stuff
Like a jawbreaker, the tiniest little seed inside, pulling

Concrete is porous
Merely a tightly packed crumble
Waiting to crack when she’s ready

A constant conversation
If you listen
If you feel

You don’t even have to stop,
It’s happening anyways
While you cook and clean
While you push and pull
While you click and clip

......

At night
When they come down from the hills
Which are really not so far
Griffith, Elysian, maybe Angeles
They come in packs, but mostly solo
They stand behind your doors, yipping
You think they’re there for your cats
Or your little dog who quivers

But wake up sisters
Get up from your beds
Look out, look out your windows, of small thin panes of glass
Walk out your doors

They want you
They call you to come
To take you
down Sunset or La Brea
under the Moon and Venus and North Star
through ally ways
And streets only they know

To secret paths that run under this dirty River,
They take you to streams of sweet sweetness
Bitter with sweetness

There under the river they gather
The sisters who come, riding on the coyotes
Brujas
Gathering together to be
To simply be

Together
Free

-TS 2.1.17

PART I

The bed sat high above the ground
That was the first thing she noticed
The first of many

It became a game, the noticing, the noting, a list
The second was color. She couldn't find it
the color
Even the plates, the pants, the food, the damn carrots.
Even the carrots were fading
Literally fading in front of her as she went to stab them

The only way to survive this
would be to let it all fade

Fade so soft into the grey days of no snow, no leaves, no green
No nothing

Fade so hard even the syllables and drawls would blend to become
Clicks
Ticks
High pitched laughs

Fade so deep to allow her to replace the shelves of Bisquick and Trix in the Hy-Vee.

The half broken wheels of the metal cart into bells

The cart skidding on the cold shiny floor to become soft, warm earth
Smelling of rain, burning trash, feces
human, dog, cow
Smelling of wet trees and
Dirty drenched sweaty bodies pressed up against each other
In buses
Taxis
Markets

The noting was a place to keep this list
Store it away so she could replace
Survive

-TS 1.30.17

what it would to be a bird
moving above these invisible borders
as all species, as all plants, as all organisms
migration at the core of our search, our survival, our right to claim our space
to not be erased
like seeds scattered to find ground
to grow
to arrive
to exist

-TS 1.28.17