Joy Harjo's Web Log

I will be appearing with several other Hawai'i performers in the Honolulu offering of the show THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES, one performance only at the historic Hawaii Theatre on Sunday, February 15th, 2004 at 8:00 PM. Other performers include: Lois-Ann Yamanaka, Nora Okja Keller, Brenda Kwon, Tanisha, Cocoa Chandelier, Grace Alvaro Caligtan, Amelia Borofsky, Selah Geissler, Kasi Nunes, Jaquie Yang, Luciana Tarantino and DJ Primmitiv. Directed by Kathryn Xian and Steve Kealoha Wong. Tickets are on sale at www.hawaiitheatre.com. Can also charge by phone: 808/528-0506. Box office purchase: 1130 Bethel. Reception party to follow at the W Hotel. 90% of proceeds of the show benefit local domestic violence prevention, 10% donated to V-Day Juarez, Mexico campaign.

HOW DO WE GET OUT OF HERE, OR, REALITY SHOW

What are we doing in this mess of forgetfulness
Ruled by sharp things
Baby girls in stiletto heels
We call it real.

What are we doing napping through war
We’ve lost our place in the order of kindness
Children are killing children
We call it real.

How do we get out of here
Smoke hole crowded with too much thinking
Too many seers and prophets
of prosperity
We call it real.

c Joy Harjo, Mekko Productions Inc.

This is the near final copy of the lyrics of a song I'll be putting down in the next few months for the new Native Joy CD.

Others will follow.

Enjoy.

Strange world. Where lying is the predominant virus.

THE LAST WORLD OF FIRE AND TRASH

Open:
I don’t know anything anymore
or if that cricket is still singing
in a country where crickets are banned.

Verse:
I’m Indian in a strange pastiche of hurt and rain
smells like curry and sweat
from a sunset rock and roll restaurant.
A familiar demon groaning with fear
has stalked me here, ruins poetry, then
I let his swollen pride commandeer.

Chorus:
Here is is, oh fearful one.
My desires have turned into a small mountain.
Of dirty clothes, sax gig bag, guitar
books, shoes and grief
to be packed and carried
from one raw wound to another.

Verse:
Beneath the moon rocking above Los Angeles
or outside the stomp dance fire of memory,
I told him, you can choose to hate me
for going too far, or for being a nothing
next to a pretty nothing like you.

Verse:
I can’t get betrayal out of my mind,
out of my heart
in this hotel room where I’m packing for home.
I’ve seen that same face whirring
in the blur of a glass of wine
after the crashed dance,
the goodbye song
in the last world of fire and trash.

Chorus:
Here is is, oh fearful one.
My desires have turned into a small mountain.
Of dirty clothes, sax gig bag, guitar
books, shoes and grief
to be packed and carried
from one raw wound to another.

Verse:
The most dangerous demons spring from fire
and a broken heart, warning of bittersweet aftershave
and the musk of a thousand angels.
And then I let that thought go running away
because I refuse to stay in bondage
to an enemy, who thinks he wants what I have.

Verse:
The last council of peace was disrupted by this fearful beast
as I fled from the house of my mother
through this severed country.
I turned my cheek as my head parted through a curtain of truth
as most humans do when erupting from the spirit world to this gambling place--

Bridge:
And I send prayers on tobacco skyward
on smoke.
Release the suffering.
(Repeat in Mvskoke language.)

Coda:
I refuse to sum it up anymore; it’s not possible.
I give it up
to the battering of songs against the light,
to the singing of the earnest cricket
in the last world of fire and trash.

October 2003/January 2004 West Hollywood copyright Joy Harjo

"The Last World of Fire and Trash" (with many rewrites, always rewrites) is now a song and will be included in my new CD project Native Joy. It is a solo project. I will be going into the studio in February. Look for it by my birthday, May 9th of this year!

Also start back at UCLA next week. Will be teaching a poetry workshop every Tuesday afternoon.

And in rehearsals to appear in The Vagina Monologues along with Lois-Ann Yamanaka and Nora Okja Keller at the Honolulu Theatre on February 15th. Come and see us.

It's a new year. (Though every day, every hour, every minute is a new year.) Let's celebrate.