Body of Love - Los Angeles California

{http://soundcloud.com/soundslikerstin/bodyoflove}

Get out of your head, they say.

Get out of your house.

Get out of your comfort zone.

Well, I did all that last week, when I stepped towards the microphone at pspoets "Night of Love".

BodyLoveReadingEddieDirk

The bar was packed. The lights were dim. My heart raced high up in my chest. For a moment it was hard to read what I put on paper two days earlier. Something that surprised me while I wrote. Something I did not know was in me. Something I now know carries layers of my life in it.

It was really helpful that my best friends were sitting in the first row, at Gravlax. Once I started, everything just fell into place.

I felt the room go silent. After the last words I looked up, and I knew, my poem had touched some of those gathered around me. 

It is a very different feeling from sending a radio story or a print article out into the world.

I always avoided direct reactions to my work, to my words, to my voice. This is a new phase. It is terrifying, mind-blowing, exhilarating. 

My poem even made it into a poetry lover's home! I created an art piece out of it as part of Mar Vista Art Walk Community Gallery's 'Love Bites' exhibition. And it was sold the first day!

BodyLoveGalleryMe

Out of my head. Out of my home. Totally out of my comfort zone. 

I have no idea where this journey takes me. I can only recommend to do the same!

And here is the poem:

Body of Love

May smoldering coal sycamores

Line your thorny paths and

Meadows bereft of light

 

May rainbow marine layers

Arch from translucent skin

To old bones freedom

Smiling

 

May boiling water burn your hands

May raging desire tear the flesh off your nails

 

May you scream in your dreams

Swords stuck in your throat

Begging for someone to help

to bend down

to surrender with you

to love

In vain

 

May you shower in molten gold

May you cover your layers of fat and flesh

In money lava

May you find that you are alone

Always

 

May you tear your heart from your chest

May you carry beating blood in the palms of your hands

May you offer it to the flames of ancient pyramids and sacred wood

 

May you serve your soul on platters of rubies and diamonds

At banquets to Queens and Kings

Only to find thieves

Behind their elaborate masks of Hollywood smiles

Their perfumed disgust

 

May you stand naked between oak trees and pines

Hunters advancing fast

Arrows and rifles pointed at you

Bloodhounds following the scent of your sweat

 

May you hunch

Under stares of lions and three headed deers

Until you are totally bare

 

Then

Stand up

 

Let go of that armor

Let maggots and moist leaves

Fall off your skin

 

Stretch

Beauty

Grace

Exposed

 

The animal that you are

Scars on your face

Coal on your skin

Invincible

 

Stomp your feet through cold dirt

Until earth’s magma

Boils the blood in your veins

Fills your fingertips

 

Let the roar from your loins move cloud mountains

Send a shiver through the planet

Ring into the universe

 

Push off the ground

Spread your arms

Rule the world

Find companions of all shapes and forms

 

From ashes beneath you will grow

Flowers and creeks

Music and stillness

Oceans, valleys and hills

 

Know, that your wings

Your beaten flesh

Your skinned heart

Your burning blood

Are your body

With nothing to spare

Nothing to receive

Nothing to give

But love

 

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