just a little tidbit for all of you who read my site. my friend, my mentor Mr.Adrian Louis, dedicated a poem for me in his new book Evil Corn which you can find through his website. just click on his name. the poem is called Post-Traumatic Skin Disorder from a little joke we both share. i've been reading evil corn for two days now and find it funny as hell as well as unique and powerful in only the way Adrian can be. check it out, you will really love the poem Arse Poetica.
ciao. j.w.

wannabe

i used to be able to walk
downtown pine ridge
anytime i wanted
but now i can't even go a block
without some dumb young cock
flashing like a siren
the affiliation he's representing
even children have that
hardcore attitude
and i think "better black than white?"
but either way it does me no good
because i know how quickly
things can become ghetto
as we bust out our windows
and spray paint our walls
names emblazoned to show
who has the scars
in a culture barely preserved
saran-wrapped, gangsta-rapped
while the rest of America
sits in the spoils of war
it’s so easy to become hardcore
especially when there is no one
around to hug you and love you
and to say “I’m proud of you,
i believe in you”
we are all just wannabes
trying to be a little different
and it doesn’t matter whose best
or who comes in second
we should never be ashamed
of our own skin
and if it’s a choice between black or white
then I’d rather fill my own color in
because my family fought hard
and even though they’ve all fallen
i’m gonna climb out of their beercan coffins
and rise from their cigarette ashes
and make them feel proud again

zoo world

i have found myself being the minority again
as people in shopping malls
and down the school halls
look at me like i'm a zoo
and what will i do?
but play a stereotype
that fits their perceptions
of what they think is an indian

i grow tired of their zebra thoughts
because it is not always so black and white
sometimes chamelion, sometimes ape-like
because every person that's not caucasian
is caged into some type of
ignorant version of what we once were
i am not seen as my own person
as someone puts me into another category
-asking, "are you indian, mexican, or asian?"
check your mark here
it's a zoo out there
it's a zoo in here

because i am seen as some loon
--drunken baboon
and so you will find me swinging
in a jungle gym
you have already defined who i am
but still somehow
two shades away from being a homosapien
it's a zoo out there
it's a zoo in here
after all a monkey
is still a monkey
no matter what it wears

and so the indian puts on a suit
and stands upright
and speaks polite
only then can the white collar world
accept this version of an indian
while the rest of the savages
can just stay on the reservation
where the tourists come
and look around
like people at a zoo
and should we go bananas
when the truth is finally peeled away
to show the past atrocities?
but see-saw-forget it all
as America expects us to live quietly in peace
it's a zoo out there
it's a zoo in here

dandelions

she used to pick potatoes
and other vegetables
along with her dad
she grew up like that
she grew as big as she could in a shack
next to a huge farmhouse
where there were plenty of rooms
to store the dreams
only she could've imagined

and then came seventeen
in the mid-seventies
she had to harvest her sins
she had to bring another life in

my older brother
who would sit
for five minutes at a time
in the field
being potted
next to one potato,
two potato,
three potato, four

it is no wonder
that my brother
never stays planted
anywhere

his roots don't grow
his roots don't show
he has put on a covering
of gangsta talk-black slang
often times he's mexican
because he can't
settle for being just Indian

it's just not enough
there's a new way for being tough
and it doesn't involve
warrior-like ways
because our warriors
have withered
like picked flowers
dandelions

i too had become that way
as a fool i used to say
"i am yellow but will soon be white"

i am yellow but will soon be white

reckoning

i saw some boots
pointed witchy like yours
and i looked for a buckle,
a moustache, and a horse
-smell like yours
but it was only a manufacture
of you
like manure from a cow
and i got some on my shoe

somewhere out there is a cowboy being born
and an indian becomes less than
tell me dears how do you take your porn?
do you like it soft or prefer it hardcore?

do i dare to call you pa?
do i dare become a squaw?
i remember your Hitler moustache so well
every bristle that cut was my hell
and i'm sure that we'll both burn
because this world has no pity
for an Indian scorned

i used to shovel horseshit
got used to being called a faggot
because i was no more of a man than you
but you were always less than
and never equal to
though the sum of your parts
were more than a pound of flesh
i tried to weigh your heart
and found you had already devoured it

i found Custer in your hair
and the wind told me to beware
as the day of reckoning
was soon coming
and i fell on wounded knees
and i prayed to you
like you were a priest

but i was no more of a pilgrim
anymore than you liked an Indian
perhaps that is why you
pound, pound, pounded me
like a drum
to pump more blood
back into that pale-Cotton Mather-heart of yours
don't tell me you've got another treaty to treat me better
-i've already heard it all before

i put my foot
in a boot
like yours
and began to sway
like you sway
or was it like a horse?
backs are still backs
whether standing erect
or down on all fours
i began to follow your tracks
that looked kkk
mine only looked like
y, y, why's
that i made with my chicken-like legs

and i began to strut like a young cock
and picked at the scraps of me
that were between you and the rocks

this is an older poem of mine that i wrote a few years back
about how it was like living in pine ridge at my grandpa's old house
and it is a place where i still go to in dreams--but they are never pleasant ones.
I believe that there are certain places that can truly haunt even though it's been
years or even decades.

JW.


Pine Ridge Wonderland


in a two bedroom boxhouse
colored like an institution
a mile outside of Pine Ridge
my family and i lived
long before it burned down
it was a place nobody wanted to stay at
because it never felt lived in
relatives rotated
-in to drink
-and out the door when the alcohol
was gone
the floor was usually coated
with dried sticky beer
and there were so many holes
in the walls
i always wanted to climb into them
like the rabbit hole in
someone elses wonderland
and sometimes in was out
in that house
i'd end up eating with the roaches
and dreaming of someplace better
the laughing howling fools
would always return with their beer
and play their suicide sing-alongs
of old country songs
and i wanted to get out
of their wonderland
before i got trapped there
and become like them
but so many years
of crawling in and out of
those holes
i couldn't help but fall back in
and their whole world
was my looking glass
and I could no longer cast
my own reflection

I wanted to talk a little about a couple of things I am published in.
The recent thing that I appear in is called GENOCIDE OF THE MIND which thanks to my friend Marijo Moore who helped me get published in that. My segment is called "Indians in the Attic" funny I know--but it serves a purpose. The other thing i was published in was an issue of Red Ink I put two poems in there one was called "Not Chinese" and "for Dorothy". I am putting together a manuscript of my poems and I am almost complete with it all. I just need to squeeze out a couple more poems.

linoleum heart

i used to walk barefoot
on the linoleum
the sticky beer stuck to me
like men's stuff sticks
there's a kind of dirtiness
one can get used to
i know what lies
in beercans
i used to collect them
when i was a kid
until that night
a man knocked down my pyramid
i know what lies
in the gazes of drunk men
i've collected them
i collect them

i remember playing
with toy cars
i used to crash them
on the linoleum
the way they crashed
him-my dad
who was just an outline
with nothing to fill in
not one crayon
i knew how to draw mom
but how did i draw you dad?
i drew others instead

i used to lie on those older boys
the way ink lies on paper
i could never understand it
maybe it was a metaphor
maybe i was just a good whore
daddy
they never told me different
so i played it
like something innocent

no one ever pays attention
to what stays on their floors
a flake of skin, a pubic hair
dead insects and little bits of food
i used to collect them like treasure
and taste what was good
i'd lie on the linoleum
tracing every pattern
until big boots came in
splattering mud all over
my brown skin
was like that
they'd sweep it
and mop it
my mouth
became the bucket
others tried chlorine
was baptised
but never stayed clean
they didn't want
to pull me back up
so i remained with the soap
scrubbing my skin raw
in the tub
i saw
that i was naked
and i got the blank
sheets all wet

now i'm diseased dad
from all the flesh
i've had
and i'm scratching
i'm itching
but like a dried up pen
nothing comes out
no matter how many times
i confess a sin
for what heart holds him?
and i don't stick
like linoleum
everyone just slips
from my grasp
and i never bother to ask
i just let it all pass
and stand above
naked and dry
as everything meaningful
leaks on by

snap

i held you between
my fingers
somewhere between
all the beer and cigarettes
and my skin became
yellow with the thoughts
rotting and maybe even dreams
rotting
and the only thing that's coming
that's still beating
are the bar flies buzzing

i kept you for too long
like preserves in a mason jar
and no matter how many times
i crash a car
i still walked away
with thoughts of you
i couldn't drop you
just like i couldn't drop
the bottle of stereotypes
that i was holding
or was it holding me?
i couldn't really see

do you have any idea
just how many times i tried
to find me sitting at the bar
instead i got a booth full of you
and it was every booth in every bar
i tried to wash you down with the booze
and i tried to put you out in an ashtray
but you lingered in my fingers
as i thought of how many times
these fingers touched
just as much
as how many times people
wrote how many poems
of this exact same thing
and i've always hated repetition
and i hate you too
but i'll do me justice
and write only one poem about you
and i just hope this doesn't make any sense
i hope you get lost in the metaphors
or typing errors of so many meaningless words
of "I heard that one before"

i wish i could kill you quickly
like a haiku
but three little lines are not enough
to destroy you

but no more sonnets
no more "oh woe is me"
i cannot be
another one of those poets
losing their voice in the echo
because we've already heard this poem before
perhaps i could lose this
in an anthology
where no one can find you
and then it won't matter to me

i just want to slam you
the way i slam words but
this kind of misery must never be made good
because this is not about you
this is about me trying to be understood

perhaps i could turn this into
a beat and we can all snap snap snap our fingers
just like every other beatnik
but i'd want to break those fingers
and then i wouldn't lose you in the shtick
i just want to snap inside because you are inside
still lingering but perhaps if i snap
my own fingers
i will come to
i will come to
and forget about you

c.JoelWaters2004

wasna

i used to eat wasna
when i was a kid
and many times after that
in my dreams
spiritual food some might say
while others warn
don't take food from the dead
in your sleep
it's a trick you see
to take you to the other side

i loved to eat it as a kid
because it looked
like sand
and so i'd pretend
that it was

unlike all those mudpies
made from pee
that other boys
made me eat
as a child i built up a tolerance
to unpleasant sights and smells
or like putting certain things
inside the mouth
the boys told me
"See, this is what men and women do
it's as simple as tying a shoe"
but i never tied and i never denied
because if you do all the other children will hate you
and then you cannot play
"you look pretty like a girl"
ok, i must be one of them
and we'd all play pretend
it's so easy
to be codependent on boys
on men
they make you
want to believe in them
like santa or angels
-and angels have wings
most certainly so
but angels will never do
dirty things
like them
and if they ever went too far with playing doctor
on my body
or playing mommy and daddy
i used to pretend
that i was dead
but boys
poke dead things
with sticks
and yes it's sick
but everyone wants to believe
in innocence
and i just wanted to believe
but nothing made sense
because once they were all done with me
they'd hurry and bury
the things they no longer wanted to see
and no one could play cars anymore
no cops and robbers
only death threats and beat downs
because that's how things were played out
in our town
and i took them threats
like food from the dead
but nothing ever came
for me

sometimes
i still eat wasna
in my dreams
and the boys still use sticks
to poke at dead things

the outhouse

the outhouse
still stands
behind my grandma's house
as a reminder of where i come from
of where i've been
and that it was not so long ago
that we used to use it
the way the government used us
no flush no flush
it still stands there
piling up
like a reminder
that my family in pine ridge
still uses one
my grandma lives on
the rosebud reservation
i'm tired of saying
where i come from
i live in spring creek
but that is not me me me
i just want to flush
the toilet
so i don't have to keep smelling
my poverty
on the potty the potty
so i party
and i have a good time
getting wasted
so i don't have to think of the waste
that is coming out of me
that is becoming me
i just want to write good poetry
but i tear the words
right off of the
roll of the role
that i played as a student
and i ball up those
words like toilet paper
and i use the world
to wipe my ass
because let's face it
anyone can have a toilet bowl mouth
and no matter how many times
flushed or hushed
it's still the same shit swirling about
but it doesn't matter right now
because that outhouse is still
behind my grandma's house
and i just can't flush
these words these thoughts
of what i am and what i am not
and does it define who i am
and what i am anyway
is but just another poet
who rephrases rewrites reverts
verse after verse
recycled shit
and dammit!
i just wish
i could flush this.

c JoelWaters2004