Original Publication Information:
Suedomsa the Magazine December 1997 Volume One,
Issue Two
For Bill T. by Amy Tyson
"The 'still/here' in the poem, 'For Bill T.' is not a typo. It is
referring to a dance performed by the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance
Company called 'Still/Here' that deals with issues of death, disease and
dying. The movments of 'Still/Here' (choreographed by Bill T. Jones (who
is HIV+)) are based on movements that terminally ill people used to
express their feelings when taking workshops with Bill T. Jones. It is
really interesting stuff and highly controversial because of the whole
issue of 'is Bill T. Jones exploiting the dying in his choreography?'
Anyhow, now you know that 'still/here' is a non-typo."
For Bill T.
Now is the time for the making of our poems, my mortal friends.
Now is the time for the dancing of our walks.
This moment of now when movement receives the body and caresses
the air and space with the language of our
still/here flesh.
Here we are, here.
Lay us down to memory -
Lay us down in poetry, then
Lay us down alone.
But stay here in our memory dance,
my mortal dancing partners -
Now is the time for the making of our poems.
Heinz 47 by Dara Shifrer
My future is looking to be one long bleak road of succumbing to normality
and typical-ness. It gets worse every day - country music isn't
that offensive and thrash is only tolerable on really pissy days.
A few years ago, as long as the days flowed by with enough Dara in them, I
didn't worry that the future wouldn't. Now that I find myself practically
begging to have all the trappings and responsibilities of being an Adult
thrown at me, I'm wondering if something went terribly wrong.
There are all of these hugely desirable but unlikely images of life
drifting in my head and my life is just not comparable. My life isn't
horrific or pathetic, and it definitely isn't grand or severely
intriguing. Those are the base creators of the lives I crave. They're
not the sort of things you're "groomed" from childhood to be or the things
you pursue with your great potential and super-duper leadership qualities.
They just happen.
A streetwise bartender in an old dusty slutty bar somewhere in Mexico. A
possession-free, carefree wanderer skipping over towns as if they were
streets. A long-skirted mountain recluse who reads books by the ton and
practices witchcraft on the neighbors. Anything with a smidgen of daring
or romance or oddity! A housewife who only cleans house at 3 AM on a full
moon night.
Suddenly, it's not enough to fill my days with little tiny grandeurs.
I've got to start making a real life in exactly the way I want now,
because I have this horrible fear of reaching 30, 40, 50 and saying,
"What? For who? Why?" Maybe I'll never shake making my bed in the
morning, facing forwards in the elevator, and saying "God Bless You" when
people sneeze, but there's another seething pile of goals underneath my
nice safe ones. The inglorious but glorious life happenings that are a
happy twist of fate or an intentional fast leap into unmarked paths.
