Barbara Jane Reyes has spent the last 10 years in Oakland slowly uncovering the city's mysteries. As I continue making my home in this city," she says "poetry helps me slowly feed my growing roots here. The sense of community in Oakland, the strength of families who have been here for generations, who continue to thrive amid urban development is something I admire about this city."

Reyes is the author of Gravities of Center (2003) and Poeta en San Francisco (2005) for which she received the James Laughlin Award of the Academy of American Poets. She is currently an adjunct professor in Philippine Studies at USF.

West Oakland Sutra for the AK-47 Shooter at 3:00 AM

After “Blue Light Lounge Sutra For The Performance Poets At Harold Park Hotel”
by Yusef Komunyakaa

the bang gotta be
so loud ears can’t
hear simple prayers
all night long casings
clink on the pavement
& color the street silver
so loud fragments of gut
& flesh cling to the plak-a-plak-plak
you unload your magazine
so loud windows shatter on babies
the bang gotta be
so loud you can expend bullets
& not feel emptied
till you are no more
than an endless round of ammunitions
on rival turf
you load your magazine
hold that trigger
so loud all the dollars & drugs in this world
can’t placate your bang
to ricochet against the concrete
the bang gotta be
so loud you can’t
just remove bolt and carrier
& pack it out of sight
crime in the city
modern man in the firing position
you gotta get zeroed
in on every desired range
so loud the trigger locked
in pull unloads like a runaway gun
into it into it so loud
killing is pre-conscience
the bang gotta be hard
killer bang to hear
& know the adrenaline
we are made of die young
cause if you wanna howl
this rifle be ready
to let the devil use your head
for a target

No, I am Not Yours

After Bob Kaufman’s “I, Too, Know What I am Not”

No, I am not Vaseline smile of working girls, singing
     through gritted teeth.
No, I am not your sorry stepchildren hiding
     in corrugated metal boxes.
No, I am not ghost of the assassinated senator, locked
     in his crucifix pose.
No, I am not wheezing of Manila’s wily pickpockets,
     in broken shoes.
No, I am not monsoon fruit of Oriental flesh tenders,
     with skanky lingerie.
No, I am not worship of sacred blue passport, in hallowed
     INS halls.
No, I am not crack pipe hopes of hopeless street walkers,
     traffickers in legs spread wide.
No, I am not garbage dump litanies of devout Catholics,
     in crowns of alcoholic prayer.
No, I am not chlorine bleach sighs of silent toilet scrubbers,
     in unventilated gasps.
No, I am not kisses of syphilitic sex vendors, smiling
     through antibiotic lips.
No, I am not illiterate worker’s minimum wage sunk
     in his slumlord hell.
No, I am not cry of newspaper pigeon, winged trash in flight
     from leafblower bullets.
No, I am not rales of Avian flu, amplified
     by tobacco addiction.
No, I am not stumble of broken English, inarticulate
     in racist America.
No, I am not report of silenced women, helpless
     in the soldier’s disease.
No, I am not reflection of your darker self, alone
     in the almighty dollar.
No, I am not wombs of Filipina maids hatching
     more Filipina maids.
No, I am not the whistle of streetcorner whores with cribs
     of hungry mouths.
No, I am not curse of immigrant children, bent
     under broken parents.
No, I am not kiss of tropical breeze,
     unconditional Pinay love.
No, I am not the aping of you, escaped from your captivity.
No, I am not anything that is anything I am not.

Worry

After Juan Felipe Herrera’s “Don’t Worry, Baby.”

I worry about capitalism and poetry in 21st century global culture
I worry about mail order brides looking just like me
I worry about Filipinos named non-ironically after western empire
I worry about downtown coming into Manilatown to tear it down
I worry about vers libre and clever use of figurative language
I worry about Doveglion’s not any someone no one who is everyone
I worry about running and running hiding and hiding
I worry about brown bodies blurred into the background
I worry about blogging broadcasting nobody’s business but my own
I worry about glossy naked mannequins glossy naked missiles
I worry about starred striped stripped siliconed surgeried starved
I worry about open caskets open trade open mouths got nothing inside
I worry about bronze hero statues gleaming foreign invaders
I worry about singsong spoken word DJ in a box
I worry about nowhere insight now here in sight
I worry about bourbon tongue serpent tongue borrowed tongue
I worry about terrorists tabloids reality TV
I worry about working hard you’re in charge you’re our GNP
I worry about the almighty dollar the peso’s power is poor
I worry about polyethylene landfill chlorofluorocarbons and SUV’s
I worry about geography pornography and fast food religion
I worry about modern world economy mass graves in ditches
I worry about ghosts sugar cane whispering machetes swinging
I worry about choosing this location choosing me
I worry about horn section funky yo check it
I worry about Check Point Charlie blues reminiscence
I worry about first wave immigrant suburb love white love
I worry about people sleeping on pigeon park benches
I worry about Jesus Christ medicine addiction
I worry about one love one song one mic
I worry about knocked up locked up fed up hold up
I worry about no job no lies no rap no key
I worry about squad car summertime siren song
I worry about dirty dog candy shop suckas like you
I worry about ain’t nothing free street corner hustle
I worry about ain’t nothing new imperialist nostalgia
I worry about new school old school school of the Americas
I worry about bricks bricks bricks and mo money
I worry about military recruiters and the cost of war in Iraq
I worry about mapmaking border crossing marking our turf
I worry about “women’s work” national debt stateside trash
I worry about eating disorders lingerie catalogs skin whitening products
I worry about Europeans Google searching “naked fucking Filipina”
I worry about Ave Maria fashionista Starbucks barrista
I worry about turn it up roll it up burn it all down
I worry about west coast kickin guerrilla punk rockers and bboys
I worry about our city streets not being named after us
I worry about watching from the sidelines transcribing and forgetting
I worry about “the pure products of America” I think that might be me

In the City, A New Congregation Finds Her

She keeps safe our memory when nothing’s committed to stone.
Sibilant selvedge woman, thread and knots talkstory woman.

She whose memories not paperbound, lover of midnight words.
Scrawled myth upon flesh woman, indigo testimony tattoo woman.

We bring her spirits we’ve captured in bottles.
Fire water woman, imbibes the spirits woman.

We bring her dried tobacco leaves and tea.
Exhales the word woman, fullmoon weaving woman.

She looses her thick hair from its pins and coils.
Litany liturgy woman, stitching suture woman.

She settles into her favorite chair, she always begins like this.
Soul gatherer woman, spiderweb songbird woman.

She breathes steam from tea, steeped stems and petals.
Piece and patchwork woman, down home cookin’ woman.

She crushes anise stars, sweetens nightmare into reverie.
Stone by stone woman, singed and soot woman.

She cups glazed clay between cracked hands.
Silver winged bird woman, riverine dream-filled woman.

She rubs together palms callused, she who conjures for us a feast.
Sugar tinctured moonwoman, twittering songstress moonwoman.

She whose eyes widen with black thundercloud and sea.
Salt luster sirenwoman, winter solstice madwoman.

She whose voice billows and peals, she whose eyes gaze nowhere.
Howling nomad madwoman, cut the bullshit madwoman.

Her lips release language not of paper sometimes (we think) she forgets.
Older than the ocean woman, sargassum and seashell woman.

She who has kept vigil always, she of the wing-kissed sunset.
Sipping starlight woman, before there was a nailed god woman.

You can hear more of Reyes' work on April 22, when she reads at USF MFA Writing Program’s Lone Mountain Readings. She also has an essay forthcoming in the collection Poets on Teaching (University of Iowa Press, 2010) and a third book of poetry, Diwata due out this Fall.

Reyes is also co-editor with her husband, poet Oscar Bermeo, of Doveglion Books, which launches this year. She blogs at http://bjanepr.wordpress.com.

Oakland Poets is our weekly feature highlighting The Town's talented wordsmiths.  If you know someone we should feature or would like your work considered, email Kwan@oaklandlocal.com.