Responses to Bob Goddard’s performance
Bob Goddard performed two original songs, with guitar
I am close to you as
close as breathing on word
I hear words cry Sailing
hunger sky fly
I see the left foot stamping
in time is important
No right or wrong
I’m hanging onto the
old apple tree in
the garden, I
remember as a child
-?
Man with a mustache
Mouth to guitar resonator
Sings of sea and freedom
Bodies of water
Body of sky
Body
Body cells twin chords
to dances in the street.
There’s a beat
And I’m listening.
-Ziji Beth Goren
Strum me towards memories adrift
street fairs – the aromas of onions & dough
the sound of laughter among the throng – I
stop to listen & remember summer bonfires
the smell of country air commingled
w/ sweet rain. Good times are often those
times when simple pleasures abound. Barbecue
me more tomatoes & fish, please!
-Kent Alexander
I don’t remember the words to
my own song
Off stage - on stage
Dylanlike
chin resting on guitar
left heel rhythm
only when its allowed
It’s summer
and I’m here again
at APE
where it all started
25 years ago
Tree of doctrine
I really could fly
Nobody had to be right
or in tune, or step
or agreement.
Remember?
30 lbs and many gray
hairs ago
Dancing in the Street
Anyone anyone
I meet you
where you are
where are you?
Now
In the APE gallery
25 years later
Full circle
Can it be once
again
A beginning?
I ask you
Can it begin again
Now?
-Heidi Ehrenreich
hurt hearts need to believe
I feel the pounding
pounding pounding
there's the truth
I tell the same tales
I'd rather dance
-Taiga Ermansons
Can you see me
standing out by the sea
I stand out by the railroad tracks
I see two different sides
from this mirror
I watch the night on the street
as it’s morning in my bedroom.
-Sara Lepkoff
I love when my feet dance
and play, tap, flap, rock
roll, lift, drop, turn, rubbing
on each other, all by themselves –
My body rests in a smile
of times gone by….teenage cells
awoken after years of responsible fun
…my face can’t stop smiling
my eyes twinkly eyes
soft sweet my heart
I love surprises
I love to fly
I love to float in the
ocean:
Floating in my body ocean
my chin rests.
-Pamala Lewis
Oceanic pathos of flotsam
a yet some then some wave over it all
watery sprawl collating crusts
& crests & troughs
our burrow borrow mooring immured
modular mortality lottery modality
- Karen Randall
The dance of your working feet
stomping the i n s i s t e n c e
of something dreamed so fervently;
there seems to be a tambourine,
and a million miles of world
with a heartfelt mission through it –
I feel leaves, stars, tears, falling –
and Soul – sound of your soul taking you
into that song & shaking you
so you can’t look away
you can’t be distracted
by anything less than what you lost –
what you came to find.
-Christie Svane
T shirt jeans guitar stool
feet keeping the beat Utopia
in here on our mats in our
circle of chairs old young medium
IDEA
out there the evil ones scheme!
-Melinda Buckwalter
I see myself thirty years ago
Before I knew
What I now know
Before I felt hopeless
About social change
I am listening to Leonard Cohen
Bob Dylan Joni Mitchell
I am teaching myself to play guitar
I am singing at coffee houses
Before I learned
not to sing at the top of my lungs
- Mary Ramsay
I have learned that I cannot be generous in the way of adapting to
another's language when I am preparing to speak my own language.
The eyes need to re-form space in an other way
or I do not have my footing.
It is all or nothing.
- Danny Lepkoff
Responses to Danny Lepkoff's performance
PERMANENT RESIDENT STATUS written on his chest, crossed out, stood a long while then danced
Gonna need an hour,
a week, to write about
this: passion and reaction
against injustice
make art work
like a drill
–penetrating –
like Kurt Joos’
Green Table.
The body finds its way
out of the prison
of immobility.
The body refusing
to be stopped.
- Christie Svane
Movement mysterious movement
we never really know what it’s
saying – a man, permanent
resident status crossed out on
his chest & belly – right there
that says more right there. Yet
I’m not sure he’s stuck
definitely stuck not coming
not going I’m thirsty too
and words get in the way …..
-Melinda Buckwalter
Gut wrenching
like the stories in the news
genocide
dismemberment
humiliation
hatred
I am imagining Iraq
I am imagining the streets of Springfield
I feel desperate to survive
I consider surrender.
-Mary Ramsa
Resident ––– status:
The insects are having their day
The locust orchestra in overdrive
The cicada harpsichord drone intimates
you can’t begin the dance until
you bite off more than you can chew
Newsworthy to notice
the ink he offers
the ink he drinks
our metronome percolates a roar
- Karen Randall
Happiness – Joy – Yes
it’s been so––––long
My body moving moving extended
I watch Danny
I watch my body
moving in new ways –
Dipping water
on skin
awakened my skin
fresh – cool – alive
I’m so thirsty
Skin ––– moving
Dipping water
on skin
awakened my skin
fresh – cool – alive
I’m so thirsty
Skin ––– moving
-Pamala Lewis
Death marches in single file up the barren
hillside. Shadows cavort like sinister
clowns – is that a prison in the
distance? What horrors await
those shackled to death’s waist.
Oh, the horror. The horror.
Apocalypse now, Abu Grabe – Mexican
borders. Close your eyes, it’s
bloody, my dear.
-Kent Alexander
Stopped but still standing
You’re still but moving
What cages you is breaking me
What frees me traps you
Don’t stop me
I need to be in
too deep
-Sara Lepkoff
It is that familiar feeling of not being able to do enough,
but
doing---that I enjoy. - Danny Lepkoff
It’s summer
the bees the wasps
the crickets
each silent step in
the garden
a message
Thank god for the table
the placement
the wine & water
the eat
gesture posture
suspension
thank god for the table
black
reaching
silent
wet
Impossible
Hold Release Flow
Repeat
Hold Release Flow
Release
Rapid
Repeat repeat repeat
The bees the wasps
the summer drone
repeat repeat repeat
the table
hide under the table
thank god for the table
-Heidi Ehrenreich
I am not this table
I am not these glasses
The newspaper corks the
words that are not.
I am dripping, the gears
grind, I am not.
I do not finish my sentence
in a flexed muscle.
Where are my friends
and companions.
When does the tango lesson
begin?
-Ziji Beth Goren
going coming going coming
completely concentrated me
moving dancing
forgetting what I’m doing transfixed
by the silent drawing
searching eden love
running away from pain
truly madness
Love kicked me the
first time blessedly it
has not done so
again. To be fair, I
ignored love when it
came to me but it
wasn’t my time then.
Now I’m happy. Now I’m
safe but maybe too safe
because I did lose something
Taken is not the right
word because nobody else
got it. I just lost
it. I’m safe in your arms
and…I miss the part of me
that’s gone.
-Jacob Lepkoff
I’ll just stay here
a while and let you see me
Right little finger out straight –
keeps tension in my heart
waiting to see where it goes
Flailing around one leg
releases me to watch what
you are going thru
Going forward, back to, go
this way, maybe yes
falling – good
the ground holds me
- ?
sound afraid sound will hurt my ear
don't judge
grandfather shot
aunt in gulag
concentration camps
what do American boys know
better than silence
-Taiga Ermansons
Responses to Kent Alexander’s performance
I’m looking for forgiveness
In sleep
In the voice of my child
In the season’s change.
Who do we turn to
When forgiveness
Is beyond
What the heart
Can hold.
There is a lullaby for each one
We need only let the breeze
Stir it into motion
When our back is turned.
- Mary Ramsay
I am on a ride with Kent
we’re in a car and he’s showing
me his world sometimes he forgets
to look where he’s going and
then he does one of those quick
jerks back onto the road! It’s
a little scary but I feel the
wind in my face my heart
races I see that place I would
have missed not being from these
parts I’m a little shaken
but safe when he drops me off back
in the parking lot shaken safe
-Melinda Buckwalter
OH, OH, OH, SHIT---TELL ME SOMETHING I DO NOT KNOW:
The feeling of your big belly smushed into me---press me.
I trust the thickness of your fingers, the size of your forearms, the
color of your shirt.
The truth in inside your shorts
The gentle and strong touch on the floor.
- Danny Lepkoff
fluttering hand at
your chest
allows me to set
more fully in
my seat
Oh Mother
what is a reality show?
-?
A shirt of many colors
goes many places
in a world of many faces
Tropical moment in
city streets perched
and missing. Don’t
worry. I have my feet,
my hair, the sweet
smell of music. Mother
is here.
-Ziji Beth Goren
Pieces that fall outside of dreams
Soft smile
open face
Submit or
Push away
Inspect
This (gesture)
This is my attempt to
speak
Frame
Forms
clear away
me – I’m looking
for my mother
She’s sifting thru
my fingers
Soft sound
I lean in now
A heart beat
A comfort
A gentle soul
-Heidi Ehrenreich
Are these tears
stolen from us?
Are these thoughts really
ours?
Is this love? We thought
we had hate.
What is ours, what
is yours to take,
who left that here
or this?
-Sara Lepkoff
I’m looking for that mother,
too, the one who’s leading the
condemned to freedom. If you
kept going the way you were
going I know you’d lead me
to her. She’s making alphabet
soup that we drink in dreams
and the words it spells in our
guts spill out in the silence of
our actions.
No-knock searches: well, it’s
naked now. I want to call a
panel together of people who
watched their countries descend
into this kind of madness, and
compare notes. One is with us
tonight. We need our collective
memory, we need our collective
hope, we need our collective
humanity, and tonight you hold
the mirror.
-Christie Svane
Hunter College 1968.
So afraid of not being happy.
All the same, does it make my cries cliché?
pop sorrow
open heart open heart
all wounded
witness
-Taiga Ermansons
With you
I’m with you–
Following – Present – Awake –
I’m Being with You
-Pamala Lewis
Realism is no thumbsucker proxy.
How the world is coined with one side
a shimmering trout fish
hula dance
unrehearsable torso twist,
& the other untraceable.
Whereabouts unknown.
The Kali
mother
Matron of chemical weapons
& no knock searches
traces a radioactive decay.
Our bright alpha particle drifting
off to sleep.
-Karen Randall
Responses to Pamala Lewis's performance
We watch each other
all the time
jumping breathing sounding our
own sounds
But what is behind
the curtain?
Up against the white wall
moving
our shadow
our sunshine
our silhouette
Why do we watch each
other?
What do I see
my shadow
my sunshine
my own mind silhouetted
against a blank white wall?
my stomach
my chest
my foreign language
that captures my
attention
then fades
-Heidi Ehrenreich
If only my straight black
back and legs could find summer.
Sounds stir my Russian blood
to speaking tongues, phrases
of throaty conviction,
rhythms of fire-water-soul.
At the end, I am still breathing.
I have stopped running.
Where have I arrived?
-Ziji Beth Goren
Azure natural dolorosa pelligroso piquant sequence
zoris aster nasturtium starburst embrace purpose
supple torque inertia myrrh vatic ruffle curtain blur
assured purr
-Karen Randall
I sit at a large wooden table – there’s
red jello and a small blueberry pie. Four & twenty
mirrors shimmy beside me while
the ghost of Henry Fonda watches
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
We’re clapping – there’s strong coffee &
conversation after. Could we dance afterwards,
please?
-Kent Alexander
Curling into your shell
As the sea whisks you away
and brings you back again
The mood of the sea changes
quickly
the silence and noise
the stop and start
-Sara Lepkoff
Big space
Big movements in my lunges
Never Know
Belly pulling me in
60 – it’s OK
What’s there NOW
Big breath
Getting it OUT – It’s OK to Stop
is it over – now? How many minutes!
Is it OK to show this…
upsetness– Is it too much?
Be Conscious staying conscious
enjoying–
-Pamala Lewis
There are radio stations in the sand dunes,
scrub growing at the base, and mixtures
of vinegar and lavender for the fainting.
How black can be smooth as a grand piano
or creased as an accordion or sleek & sinuous
as a cat: an accordion, a grand piano, and the
singing cats of The Aristocats my daughters
loved to watch when they were small, home
sick in bed, Zsa Zsa Gabor was the mother
cat in the house of a former cabaret star in Paris.
I remember being tired, like you, pulled by my
mother through the streets of San Francisco.
-Christie Svane
Deep air lasts for
igniting fire – that
groans &
needs, needing, kneading
- but not contrary but
hankering to find it.
I must find it I must.
-?
My car is broken
My car is so nice
Where did I leave my car?
Oh where is my car?
Did I leave it in
the parking lot?
I think I found it
-Jacob Lepkoff
So much made visible
Through the voice
Through the body
I travel to a land
of hillsides & goatherds
women covered in black
head to toe
Singing their own personal songs
of longing & entreaty
Blessing me forward through time.
-Mary Ramsay
There's the pounding there's the pounding
oh my god i'm moving from words to body
singer activist actor dancer –
that's what's happening to me –
entering my body – it's happening –
the painful emergence of body – – no words.
-Taiga Ermansons
I am reminded of the X Files where the old Indian
woman switches bodies due to a gravity warp
with a young fighter pilot!
I am reminded of the Westfield River and how it
changes course when it rains hard and fills up
I am reminded of a fluid of some unknown
specific gravity and viscosity but I recognize its
fluidness nonetheless wait long enough it
moves on to the next eddy the next
fall the next rapid next next and
finds shore
-Melinda Buckwalter