Aquariosity

Auden

An image for my Goddaughter...

Phoenix Fabrik

PHOENIX FABRIK

The workshop of my Creative Capital Project, PHOENIX FABRIK, was recently completed at Pillsbury House Theatre in Minneapolis.  The cast included theatre legend Vinie Burrows, Barbara Duchow, Rhonda Ross and William Sturdivant.  We also had the design team of Kimberlee Koym and Mike Wangen.  Photos are in the album on the left of the blog.

BOOK OF DANIEL

I've created a photo album to the left with images from the Book of Daniel project.  All photos are by Bret Brookshire.  The piece was performed April 24-27th at ALLGO in Austin TX.  Text by Grisha Coleman, Erik Ehn, Rachel Harper and Robbie McCauley.  Lighting design by Kevin Holden.  I performed with Walter Kitundu as the characters Daniel and Brother Malcolm on the Postcard.  More to come.

a story (from Phoenix Fabrik)

from the wall. shout. say. "make me.
new"
(bones, meat, blood, teeth, heart, skin)
eleanor? she do.
branches for bones,
cotton for meat,
copper pennies for blood,
dry corn for teeth,
rock for heart,
crocodile hide.
skin.
done all this.
and found the missing key.
when the time come
for to make him walk?
make him dance?
make him remember his name to her?
(Shaz)
he say.
"eyes. need eyes. those eyes. her eyes."

Copyright 2004, Daniel Alexander Jones

[CHECK OUT IMAGES FROM PHOENIX FABRIK IN THE PHOTO ALBUM @ LEFT]

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CLICK THE CREATIVE CAPITAL LINK ON THE LEFT. THIS IS AN EXCERPT FROM THE NEW PIECE.

[Crackling in the pith of the old box. Its dim light is a suspect mouth.]

RADIO VOICE. Shumann’s dolls are prided for their tenderness. Their weight. Their blushing skins. And above all… The brightness… the depth of color of their eyes. You will hold them and you will learn how to hold a real baby. You will hold them and your muscles and bones will bend and curve to coddle them. You will train your shoulder to nurse them. You will coo and gurgle for them. You will make space for them to breathe. You will not mash them. You will put your mouth and your nose closely to them to breathe soft and moist on their tender faces. You will make a hero of them. You will hold them tender to your nipple to suckle them and their tiny cold mouth will dime itself around you and you will dream the milk trickle treacley pink milk river rushing rushing rush.

Shumann’s dolls are prided for their sweetness. They are strawberry sweetie dolls. They are the cherry ripe cherubs. Lemonade piss and syrup spit. Other dolls will curdle dreams. Never Shumann’s. Shumann’s dolls bring sweet cream dreams. Tender butter tongue dreams. Tender smooth baked bun dreams. Shumann’s dolls blush you sweet, flush you rosey sweet in the plump of your middles they tend your dreams these tender lambs nuzzling your edges as you sleep. Sleeping sleeping nuzzle snoozing lips... liebchen.

[Crackle of static and somewhere in the recesses a tender waltz is hesitantly remembered. ]

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

TIME

Tomorrow, cusp of dawn, ruptured by past sighs.

WRITER'S NOTE

Earthbirths is based in a jazz aesthetic. The use of naturalism by actors or directors will not serve this play. Dialogue, movement and image are meant to function through dynamic interplay as the characters make the internal external. They give testimony, like solos in a jazz song, both simple and complex - always, always moving on. The story springs from Harper’s prelude and gains its fullness in a circular, cumulative fashion.

•KNOW•

(Darkness. Sound of footsteps. In the recess of the space the movement of a lantern. Softly, light falls on Harper, who appears to be floating in space. We can see nothing else in the space, save the lantern, which grows dimmer as Harper speaks.)

HARPER. Only time I know my father?
I'm sitting at the bottom of the stairs.
Don't know even if he know I'm there.
Twilight.
Outside sounds
hum low.
Nicky, Ako,
jump rope.
Kevin shouts from five houses down about somebody's mama.
Wind turns the leaves - shows the silver - tells of coming rain.
Sitting on the bottom stair.
Don't know even if he know I'm there.
Twilight.
Mom upstairs
feeding my brother,
washing my brother
getting my brother ready for bed.
Warm water,
talcum powder,
hang in the hallway.
Not dark, just deep.
Curtains are ghosts.
Twilight.
My father in the black chair.
Feet, hand, chin, eyes almost closed.
I'm a shadow on the stairs behind
Don't know even if he know I'm there.
Just know him cause
she's
here.
Her voice lifts out the record player
in the corner,
with the scratch and pop of needle in groove.

(SINGS) Them that's got shall get,
them that's not shall lose,
so the Bible says and it still is news,
mama may have.

Only time I know my father...
she
haunts the room,
makes the breathing easy,
makes the softness on his face,
slow and steady.
Eyes closed almost...

And it still is news...
Then blue
and almost not at all,
the sound
comes
from him.
Bass notes catch in the wood. Mama may have...
Notes set in my eyes. Papa may have...
Sound of my father and her together.
Flood the room full night comes on
First drops
of rain
fall.
I am safe.
Something about my father and Billie
makes sense.
Something holy
for which there are no words,
only sound
sound
sound through to the hiss and scratch
and record's ending skip skip crank as the arm
moves and sets clacks off and the silence moves back in.
I'm sitting at the bottom of the stairs
Don't know even if he know I'm there
Feel the cold creep in
Aware now
Of someone else
watching us both
Something out there
moving closer
closer still.

(Loud caw of raven. Harper disappears. Saturated light tones fill the space and the shapes become visible. The staircase is articulated. In a sudden flurry, Captain tumbles down the stairs and lands face down in the dirt. Harper appears at the top of the steps. He holds a rope which has been made into a makeshift lasso.)

HARPER. I'll reach you, but you've got to hold on. You've got to hold on. I'm seconds away. I'll radio for help. We won't let them get away with this!

(Harper throws the lasso. It flies up into the air and is pulled from his hands.)

HARPER. Daddy?

(Black.)

MISS LADY. I think you should know your Aunt Mabel died today.

Copyright, 1994, Daniel Alexander Jones

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

SCENE ONE

[Aleta stands at the center of the back wall. Lights up on her as she sings.]

ALETA
my bones so full of dreams
cities sprout from my lips
strange faces fall from the gaps in my smile
they open their mouths
they sing to me
my universe blesses me
brings my dreams
to light

[Aleta snaps her fingers and light falls on the edges of the proscenium, revealing Harris and Rufus.]

HARRIS AND RUFUS
La Chanteuse Nubienne!

ALETA
Songstress of great renown!

RUFUS
Shakes her shimmy with the best of them.

HARRIS
Learned her trade the old fashioned way!

RUFUS AND HARRIS
Bickfords Colored Minstrels!
Sand-dancers extraordinaire!
Terrifying side-show sites!

ALETA
Moonshine Blues.

HARRIS AND RUFUS
Five pennies to look but not touch!

ALETA
Please Please Love Me Daddy Blues.

HARRIS AND RUFUS
Touching’s extra!

ALETA
Who’s that flying through the air?
So far away from here up there...
Across Atlantic’s thick blue skin,
Across to where it all begins...

RUFUS
Seems to me we crossed over on a boat... wasn’t no plane...

ALETA
Seems to me, this is my story... London!

[Harris and Rufus depict the scene of arrival at each city.]

HARRIS
London!

ALETA
No, Berlin!

RUFUS
Berlin!

ALETA
No, Paris!

HARRIS
Paris?

ALETA
Yeah, Paris.

[***********GREAT BIG DANCE NUMBER************]

[Harris and Rufus help Aleta out of her dress, and prepare her bath.]

Outdancing,
outsinging
all them other ones - in the colored revue.
Wasn’t the star before we got there,
but I was once we did.

Now, what of love in this God forsaken land...?

HARRIS
She get a letter sometimes...

RUFUS
Letter or a note.

HARRIS
...She get a letter.
From one of them men
in the audience
at night.
Shhhhh. They ain’t trying to know her.
She think she special,
that’s all.
Told her...

RUFUS
He told her.

HARRIS
...“They ain’t trying to act like you special -
‘less they want something off of you.”
Act like
they ain’t never seen a thang like her before.
But they seen plenty,
believe
you
me.

RUFUS
Plenty-plenty.

HARRIS
So, they sends her a letter...

RUFUS
Or a note.

HARRIS
...They know she can’t read.
They laughing at her from the get go
and she don’t know it.

RUFUS
She don’t want to know it, most likely.

HARRIS
With her flowers
and her greased up head.
Just a fast girl
away from her mama’s hands.
Puttin’ on airs.
Call herself a lady.

RUFUS
Entertainer ain’t no lady.

HARRIS
So
I take these letters in there to her.
See...do she pretend to read them?
Or... do she ask me to read them to her...
while she
paint her face
or
take her bath.
...Used to be
I wouldn’t tell her for real what they wanted.

RUFUS
He wouldn’t neither.

HARRIS
Take the letters...
shut the door.
But they find a way to get to her.
And she come back with stories.

RUFUS
Do she ever! Talk about them men like they a dog.

HARRIS
Tell the story.

RUFUS
They bringing her jewelry
or rosewater.
She
talking
‘bout
how
they all hairy,and all...
all...
small...*
you know...

[Harris overlaps his line (*)]

*HARRIS
Start to be, them same men
come in...
watch her get dressed.

RUFUS
All them different faces.

HARRIS
All the same face.
Act like they don’t even see me.
Like I’m some old thing.
Like she ain’t as black as me.

RUFUS
Me either.

HARRIS
Then one night, we come in here and it’s a line of them men out the door.

RUFUS
Door open - out come one just buttoning up his pants.

HARRIS
Out come one... in go the next.

RUFUS
He go in smilin’ - come out five minutes later, lookin’ like he lost his best friend.

HARRIS
Out come one... in go the next.

RUFUS
I just said “what y’all doin?” He say, “she lookin’ for the perfect fit.”

HARRIS
I put an end to that!

RUFUS
Sent them men on!

HARRIS
Walk in there, say “YOU CAN’T COME OVER HERE, CAUSE ALL THIS SCANDAL - ACT LIKE YOU AIN’T HAD NO MAMA!”

ALETA
Over here? I make the rules. ‘Sides, “entertainer ain’t no lady.”

Then, come this one letter...

HARRIS
This man

RUFUS
He come to see the show two times in one night.

HARRIS
Different this one.
Different as silk from burlap.

RUFUS
I’ll bet he have an aeroplane.
He look like the type
would have an aeroplane, I’d say.

HARRIS
I wasn’t even gonna read that letter to her.
She snatched it out my hand.

ALETA
I would be... placed... pleased...

[Harris takes the letter from her. Aleta strains to be patient, and he takes his sweet time.]

HARRIS
Your magnificent songs...
lift me
high into the air.
I would be pleased to have your company
on the forthcoming Sunday.
I will bring you for a ride in my aeroplane...

RUFUS
Told you.

ALETA
Write a letter for me.

RUFUS AND HARRIS
(sing) do-de-oh-do...

ALETA
(sings)
Fragrant are confessions
that I’ll whisper in your ear
You’ll return promises
through your pretty teeth
I’ll kiss them from the corners of your mouth
as we lift toward the sky

Copyright ©2001 Daniel Alexander Jones NO PART OF THIS MAY BE READ OR REPRODUCED WITHOUT PRIOR PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

LUNA. Birthday Cake! Nicky.

[With a flurry, LUNA and LIGHT all become NICKY. LUNA speaks her words and both aspects of LIGHT refract and echo her movement. NICKY's tale is a record breaking 200m race.]

NICKY. No-no-no let me tell it, let me tell it! Your cake was chocolate and your mother had that little shiny boat on top with all them little shiny Japanese people ‘cause... who? Yeah, ‘cause her friend had brought them from Japan - your brother look like he Japanese. Don’t neither of y’all look black - you look like your mama - but anyway remember she put them on the cake and then put all these candles on there and anyway we had had some cold pizza ‘cause your father had to walk and get it in the snow and we had ate that when they go in there to get the cake and we all start singing Happy Birthday and then they walking in with the cake and your father went like this and one of the candles knocked into that boat and that boat blew up and caught all them little Japanese people on fire and they started melting and the fire was all high and your father was like “Dammit, Dammit!” and I was like you betta put that down and finally your mother grabbed it and threw it in the sink and put it out. I didn’t eat none of that cake!

•PUBLIC•

[One aspect of LIGHT fills a television screen, becoming JULIA CHILD who details a recipe. As she speaks, textbook images of bones connecting to bones, muscular patterns, veinous systems, nerve networks, etcetera, flash behind her.]

JULIA CHILD.
Dry Ingredients
one cup cocksucker, sifted
2/3 cup candied hands, held so
one box powdered, cocoa-flavored, mama’s boy milk
pinch of salt
grated rind of one mulatto
zest of hand-on-hip

Liquids
3 tablespoons boy spit
8 “faggot”s up against the locker, juiced
2 tsp. extract of “faggot” w/knife-in-face
1/2 tenderized queer
2 tsp. semen (best frustrated and fresh)

Mix dry ingredients. Add liquids. Stir. Pour into pans lined with fresh morning sheets, dream-stained. Note: you can test them for freshness by smelling; if you sense confidence, discard. Bake in a slow oven until it bounces back when you touch it, or until a stick inserted into its center comes out clean. Bon Appetìt.

[Television light falls into static, which falls onto LUNA who is a ten year-old boy lying on his bedroom floor. The windowframe under which he sleeps rises into the air. As he speaks pale blue-green light seeps up from the floor and fills the space.]

LUNA. I lie in pain. Sleepless, as my bones grow. My father enters silently in the darkness. With cool alcohol, he anoints my legs. He anoints my ankles. He anoints the soles of my feet.

Copyright ©1996 Daniel Alexander Jones NO PART OF THIS MAY BE READ OR REPRODUCED WITHOUT PRIOR PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

MANSI.

A short poem, to cleanse the palate.

I'm a tough walk
like this
Came in landing feet first
Don't waste my time;
I've already been met by a thousand gap-toothed monkeys
Each with a separate plan for me
all drawn out in straight lines
I could tell too easily by the way they was leaning
I had been done did that
too many times to mention

So I move right along to clarity
Which involves none of them
Which involves on straight lines designed
To pull me from my own story

So I come here
Nights
Write love poems on small slips of paper
I put them in jars
with flowers
and spices

So I breathe, baby

Thank you. Tonight we remember Jacob. A boy who knew how to dance. He was my friend. I read him my poems. I'll share his favorite one with you tonight. Theres a lot of him inside of it. It's entitled Mansi's Dance.

[MANSI's body responds like a fine instrument to her phrasing. We should taste her words, feel their temperature. MATTEO enters, inconspicuously, and watches from the alley.]

Men come here
They hear about my powers
How I can change things
Grit my teeth, bring my feet down
Turn concrete to marble
Dirty puddles to rippling seas
Chainlink fences into wild reeds
They come here
Say
They want in
Hear
I sweat honey out my hard dances
Hear
I could flush up their face in one full night
Hear
Come morning?
Couldn't hardly tell them from sky

Men come here
Wait outside
Looking for the last earth mother
Looking for transformation in my sure words
Their blind spirits soften like clay at the thought
of my hands
my hands
my hands
Men
Stay outside
wanting
I watch full - a tree woman
witness these dim lights
fluttering across this lot
Men
think themselves half-people
come to me
For other halves
hang their heads in shame
knowing
my full living
ain't no different from what living
should be
but
they
are too soft
to stand full like me

Men make me earth mother
I make them a requiem of sure sounds
Sit at my window
Watch them flutter
When it grows dark
I'll climb down
and bury the jars.

Copyright ©1998 Daniel Alexander Jones NO PART OF THIS MAY BE READ OR REPRODUCED WITHOUT PRIOR PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

from Phoenix Fabrik

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CLICK THE CREATIVE CAPITAL LINK ON THE LEFT. THIS IS AN EXCERPT FROM THE NEW PIECE.

[Crackling in the pith of the old box. Its dim light is a suspect mouth.]

RADIO VOICE. Shumann’s dolls are prided for their tenderness. Their weight. Their blushing skins. And above all… The brightness… the depth of color of their eyes. You will hold them and you will learn how to hold a real baby. You will hold them and your muscles and bones will bend and curve to coddle them. You will train your shoulder to nurse them. You will coo and gurgle for them. You will make space for them to breathe. You will not mash them. You will put your mouth and your nose closely to them to breathe soft and moist on their tender faces. You will make a hero of them. You will hold them tender to your nipple to suckle them and their tiny cold mouth will dime itself around you and you will dream the milk trickle treacley pink milk river rushing rushing rush.

Shumann’s dolls are prided for their sweetness. They are strawberry sweetie dolls. They are the cherry ripe cherubs. Lemonade piss and syrup spit. Other dolls will curdle dreams. Never Shumann’s. Shumann’s dolls bring sweet cream dreams. Tender butter tongue dreams. Tender smooth baked bun dreams. Shumann’s dolls blush you sweet, flush you rosey sweet in the plump of your middles they tend your dreams these tender lambs nuzzling your edges as you sleep. Sleeping sleeping nuzzle snoozing lips... liebchen.

[Crackle of static and somewhere in the recesses a tender waltz is hesitantly remembered. ]

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

TIME

Tomorrow, cusp of dawn, ruptured by past sighs.

WRITER'S NOTE

Earthbirths is based in a jazz aesthetic. The use of naturalism by actors or directors will not serve this play. Dialogue, movement and image are meant to function through dynamic interplay as the characters make the internal external. They give testimony, like solos in a jazz song, both simple and complex - always, always moving on. The story springs from Harper’s prelude and gains its fullness in a circular, cumulative fashion.

•KNOW•

(Darkness. Sound of footsteps. In the recess of the space the movement of a lantern. Softly, light falls on Harper, who appears to be floating in space. We can see nothing else in the space, save the lantern, which grows dimmer as Harper speaks.)

HARPER. Only time I know my father?
I'm sitting at the bottom of the stairs.
Don't know even if he know I'm there.
Twilight.
Outside sounds
hum low.
Nicky, Ako,
jump rope.
Kevin shouts from five houses down about somebody's mama.
Wind turns the leaves - shows the silver - tells of coming rain.
Sitting on the bottom stair.
Don't know even if he know I'm there.
Twilight.
Mom upstairs
feeding my brother,
washing my brother
getting my brother ready for bed.
Warm water,
talcum powder,
hang in the hallway.
Not dark, just deep.
Curtains are ghosts.
Twilight.
My father in the black chair.
Feet, hand, chin, eyes almost closed.
I'm a shadow on the stairs behind
Don't know even if he know I'm there.
Just know him cause
she's
here.
Her voice lifts out the record player
in the corner,
with the scratch and pop of needle in groove.

(SINGS) Them that's got shall get,
them that's not shall lose,
so the Bible says and it still is news,
mama may have.

Only time I know my father...
she
haunts the room,
makes the breathing easy,
makes the softness on his face,
slow and steady.
Eyes closed almost...

And it still is news...
Then blue
and almost not at all,
the sound
comes
from him.
Bass notes catch in the wood. Mama may have...
Notes set in my eyes. Papa may have...
Sound of my father and her together.
Flood the room full night comes on
First drops
of rain
fall.
I am safe.
Something about my father and Billie
makes sense.
Something holy
for which there are no words,
only sound
sound
sound through to the hiss and scratch
and record's ending skip skip crank as the arm
moves and sets clacks off and the silence moves back in.
I'm sitting at the bottom of the stairs
Don't know even if he know I'm there
Feel the cold creep in
Aware now
Of someone else
watching us both
Something out there
moving closer
closer still.

(Loud caw of raven. Harper disappears. Saturated light tones fill the space and the shapes become visible. The staircase is articulated. In a sudden flurry, Captain tumbles down the stairs and lands face down in the dirt. Harper appears at the top of the steps. He holds a rope which has been made into a makeshift lasso.)

HARPER. I'll reach you, but you've got to hold on. You've got to hold on. I'm seconds away. I'll radio for help. We won't let them get away with this!

(Harper throws the lasso. It flies up into the air and is pulled from his hands.)

HARPER. Daddy?

(Black.)

MISS LADY. I think you should know your Aunt Mabel died today.

Copyright, 1994, Daniel Alexander Jones

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

SCENE ONE

[Aleta stands at the center of the back wall. Lights up on her as she sings.]

ALETA
my bones so full of dreams
cities sprout from my lips
strange faces fall from the gaps in my smile
they open their mouths
they sing to me
my universe blesses me
brings my dreams
to light

[Aleta snaps her fingers and light falls on the edges of the proscenium, revealing Harris and Rufus.]

HARRIS AND RUFUS
La Chanteuse Nubienne!

ALETA
Songstress of great renown!

RUFUS
Shakes her shimmy with the best of them.

HARRIS
Learned her trade the old fashioned way!

RUFUS AND HARRIS
Bickfords Colored Minstrels!
Sand-dancers extraordinaire!
Terrifying side-show sites!

ALETA
Moonshine Blues.

HARRIS AND RUFUS
Five pennies to look but not touch!

ALETA
Please Please Love Me Daddy Blues.

HARRIS AND RUFUS
Touching’s extra!

ALETA
Who’s that flying through the air?
So far away from here up there...
Across Atlantic’s thick blue skin,
Across to where it all begins...

RUFUS
Seems to me we crossed over on a boat... wasn’t no plane...

ALETA
Seems to me, this is my story... London!

[Harris and Rufus depict the scene of arrival at each city.]

HARRIS
London!

ALETA
No, Berlin!

RUFUS
Berlin!

ALETA
No, Paris!

HARRIS
Paris?

ALETA
Yeah, Paris.

[***********GREAT BIG DANCE NUMBER************]

[Harris and Rufus help Aleta out of her dress, and prepare her bath.]

Outdancing,
outsinging
all them other ones - in the colored revue.
Wasn’t the star before we got there,
but I was once we did.

Now, what of love in this God forsaken land...?

HARRIS
She get a letter sometimes...

RUFUS
Letter or a note.

HARRIS
...She get a letter.
From one of them men
in the audience
at night.
Shhhhh. They ain’t trying to know her.
She think she special,
that’s all.
Told her...

RUFUS
He told her.

HARRIS
...“They ain’t trying to act like you special -
‘less they want something off of you.”
Act like
they ain’t never seen a thang like her before.
But they seen plenty,
believe
you
me.

RUFUS
Plenty-plenty.

HARRIS
So, they sends her a letter...

RUFUS
Or a note.

HARRIS
...They know she can’t read.
They laughing at her from the get go
and she don’t know it.

RUFUS
She don’t want to know it, most likely.

HARRIS
With her flowers
and her greased up head.
Just a fast girl
away from her mama’s hands.
Puttin’ on airs.
Call herself a lady.

RUFUS
Entertainer ain’t no lady.

HARRIS
So
I take these letters in there to her.
See...do she pretend to read them?
Or... do she ask me to read them to her...
while she
paint her face
or
take her bath.
...Used to be
I wouldn’t tell her for real what they wanted.

RUFUS
He wouldn’t neither.

HARRIS
Take the letters...
shut the door.
But they find a way to get to her.
And she come back with stories.

RUFUS
Do she ever! Talk about them men like they a dog.

HARRIS
Tell the story.

RUFUS
They bringing her jewelry
or rosewater.
She
talking
‘bout
how
they all hairy,and all...
all...
small...*
you know...

[Harris overlaps his line (*)]

*HARRIS
Start to be, them same men
come in...
watch her get dressed.

RUFUS
All them different faces.

HARRIS
All the same face.
Act like they don’t even see me.
Like I’m some old thing.
Like she ain’t as black as me.

RUFUS
Me either.

HARRIS
Then one night, we come in here and it’s a line of them men out the door.

RUFUS
Door open - out come one just buttoning up his pants.

HARRIS
Out come one... in go the next.

RUFUS
He go in smilin’ - come out five minutes later, lookin’ like he lost his best friend.

HARRIS
Out come one... in go the next.

RUFUS
I just said “what y’all doin?” He say, “she lookin’ for the perfect fit.”

HARRIS
I put an end to that!

RUFUS
Sent them men on!

HARRIS
Walk in there, say “YOU CAN’T COME OVER HERE, CAUSE ALL THIS SCANDAL - ACT LIKE YOU AIN’T HAD NO MAMA!”

ALETA
Over here? I make the rules. ‘Sides, “entertainer ain’t no lady.”

Then, come this one letter...

HARRIS
This man

RUFUS
He come to see the show two times in one night.

HARRIS
Different this one.
Different as silk from burlap.

RUFUS
I’ll bet he have an aeroplane.
He look like the type
would have an aeroplane, I’d say.

HARRIS
I wasn’t even gonna read that letter to her.
She snatched it out my hand.

ALETA
I would be... placed... pleased...

[Harris takes the letter from her. Aleta strains to be patient, and he takes his sweet time.]

HARRIS
Your magnificent songs...
lift me
high into the air.
I would be pleased to have your company
on the forthcoming Sunday.
I will bring you for a ride in my aeroplane...

RUFUS
Told you.

ALETA
Write a letter for me.

RUFUS AND HARRIS
(sing) do-de-oh-do...

ALETA
(sings)
Fragrant are confessions
that I’ll whisper in your ear
You’ll return promises
through your pretty teeth
I’ll kiss them from the corners of your mouth
as we lift toward the sky

Copyright ©2001 Daniel Alexander Jones NO PART OF THIS MAY BE READ OR REPRODUCED WITHOUT PRIOR PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

LUNA. Birthday Cake! Nicky.

[With a flurry, LUNA and LIGHT all become NICKY. LUNA speaks her words and both aspects of LIGHT refract and echo her movement. NICKY's tale is a record breaking 200m race.]

NICKY. No-no-no let me tell it, let me tell it! Your cake was chocolate and your mother had that little shiny boat on top with all them little shiny Japanese people ‘cause... who? Yeah, ‘cause her friend had brought them from Japan - your brother look like he Japanese. Don’t neither of y’all look black - you look like your mama - but anyway remember she put them on the cake and then put all these candles on there and anyway we had had some cold pizza ‘cause your father had to walk and get it in the snow and we had ate that when they go in there to get the cake and we all start singing Happy Birthday and then they walking in with the cake and your father went like this and one of the candles knocked into that boat and that boat blew up and caught all them little Japanese people on fire and they started melting and the fire was all high and your father was like “Dammit, Dammit!” and I was like you betta put that down and finally your mother grabbed it and threw it in the sink and put it out. I didn’t eat none of that cake!

•PUBLIC•

[One aspect of LIGHT fills a television screen, becoming JULIA CHILD who details a recipe. As she speaks, textbook images of bones connecting to bones, muscular patterns, veinous systems, nerve networks, etcetera, flash behind her.]

JULIA CHILD.
Dry Ingredients
one cup cocksucker, sifted
2/3 cup candied hands, held so
one box powdered, cocoa-flavored, mama’s boy milk
pinch of salt
grated rind of one mulatto
zest of hand-on-hip

Liquids
3 tablespoons boy spit
8 “faggot”s up against the locker, juiced
2 tsp. extract of “faggot” w/knife-in-face
1/2 tenderized queer
2 tsp. semen (best frustrated and fresh)

Mix dry ingredients. Add liquids. Stir. Pour into pans lined with fresh morning sheets, dream-stained. Note: you can test them for freshness by smelling; if you sense confidence, discard. Bake in a slow oven until it bounces back when you touch it, or until a stick inserted into its center comes out clean. Bon Appetìt.

[Television light falls into static, which falls onto LUNA who is a ten year-old boy lying on his bedroom floor. The windowframe under which he sleeps rises into the air. As he speaks pale blue-green light seeps up from the floor and fills the space.]

LUNA. I lie in pain. Sleepless, as my bones grow. My father enters silently in the darkness. With cool alcohol, he anoints my legs. He anoints my ankles. He anoints the soles of my feet.

Copyright ©1996 Daniel Alexander Jones NO PART OF THIS MAY BE READ OR REPRODUCED WITHOUT PRIOR PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

MANSI.

A short poem, to cleanse the palate.

I'm a tough walk
like this
Came in landing feet first
Don't waste my time;
I've already been met by a thousand gap-toothed monkeys
Each with a separate plan for me
all drawn out in straight lines
I could tell too easily by the way they was leaning
I had been done did that
too many times to mention

So I move right along to clarity
Which involves none of them
Which involves on straight lines designed
To pull me from my own story

So I come here
Nights
Write love poems on small slips of paper
I put them in jars
with flowers
and spices

So I breathe, baby

Thank you. Tonight we remember Jacob. A boy who knew how to dance. He was my friend. I read him my poems. I'll share his favorite one with you tonight. Theres a lot of him inside of it. It's entitled Mansi's Dance.

[MANSI's body responds like a fine instrument to her phrasing. We should taste her words, feel their temperature. MATTEO enters, inconspicuously, and watches from the alley.]

Men come here
They hear about my powers
How I can change things
Grit my teeth, bring my feet down
Turn concrete to marble
Dirty puddles to rippling seas
Chainlink fences into wild reeds
They come here
Say
They want in
Hear
I sweat honey out my hard dances
Hear
I could flush up their face in one full night
Hear
Come morning?
Couldn't hardly tell them from sky

Men come here
Wait outside
Looking for the last earth mother
Looking for transformation in my sure words
Their blind spirits soften like clay at the thought
of my hands
my hands
my hands
Men
Stay outside
wanting
I watch full - a tree woman
witness these dim lights
fluttering across this lot
Men
think themselves half-people
come to me
For other halves
hang their heads in shame
knowing
my full living
ain't no different from what living
should be
but
they
are too soft
to stand full like me

Men make me earth mother
I make them a requiem of sure sounds
Sit at my window
Watch them flutter
When it grows dark
I'll climb down
and bury the jars.

Copyright ©1998 Daniel Alexander Jones NO PART OF THIS MAY BE READ OR REPRODUCED WITHOUT PRIOR PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Earthbirths (excerpt)

TIME

Tomorrow, cusp of dawn, ruptured by past sighs.

WRITER'S NOTE

Earthbirths is based in a jazz aesthetic. The use of naturalism by actors or directors will not serve this play. Dialogue, movement and image are meant to function through dynamic interplay as the characters make the internal external. They give testimony, like solos in a jazz song, both simple and complex - always, always moving on. The story springs from Harper’s prelude and gains its fullness in a circular, cumulative fashion.

•KNOW•

(Darkness. Sound of footsteps. In the recess of the space the movement of a lantern. Softly, light falls on Harper, who appears to be floating in space. We can see nothing else in the space, save the lantern, which grows dimmer as Harper speaks.)

HARPER. Only time I know my father?
I'm sitting at the bottom of the stairs.
Don't know even if he know I'm there.
Twilight.
Outside sounds
hum low.
Nicky, Ako,
jump rope.
Kevin shouts from five houses down about somebody's mama.
Wind turns the leaves - shows the silver - tells of coming rain.
Sitting on the bottom stair.
Don't know even if he know I'm there.
Twilight.
Mom upstairs
feeding my brother,
washing my brother
getting my brother ready for bed.
Warm water,
talcum powder,
hang in the hallway.
Not dark, just deep.
Curtains are ghosts.
Twilight.
My father in the black chair.
Feet, hand, chin, eyes almost closed.
I'm a shadow on the stairs behind
Don't know even if he know I'm there.
Just know him cause
she's
here.
Her voice lifts out the record player
in the corner,
with the scratch and pop of needle in groove.

(SINGS) Them that's got shall get,
them that's not shall lose,
so the Bible says and it still is news,
mama may have.

Only time I know my father...
she
haunts the room,
makes the breathing easy,
makes the softness on his face,
slow and steady.
Eyes closed almost...

And it still is news...
Then blue
and almost not at all,
the sound
comes
from him.
Bass notes catch in the wood. Mama may have...
Notes set in my eyes. Papa may have...
Sound of my father and her together.
Flood the room full night comes on
First drops
of rain
fall.
I am safe.
Something about my father and Billie
makes sense.
Something holy
for which there are no words,
only sound
sound
sound through to the hiss and scratch
and record's ending skip skip crank as the arm
moves and sets clacks off and the silence moves back in.
I'm sitting at the bottom of the stairs
Don't know even if he know I'm there
Feel the cold creep in
Aware now
Of someone else
watching us both
Something out there
moving closer
closer still.

(Loud caw of raven. Harper disappears. Saturated light tones fill the space and the shapes become visible. The staircase is articulated. In a sudden flurry, Captain tumbles down the stairs and lands face down in the dirt. Harper appears at the top of the steps. He holds a rope which has been made into a makeshift lasso.)

HARPER. I'll reach you, but you've got to hold on. You've got to hold on. I'm seconds away. I'll radio for help. We won't let them get away with this!

(Harper throws the lasso. It flies up into the air and is pulled from his hands.)

HARPER. Daddy?

(Black.)

MISS LADY. I think you should know your Aunt Mabel died today.

Copyright, 1994, Daniel Alexander Jones

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

SCENE ONE

[Aleta stands at the center of the back wall. Lights up on her as she sings.]

ALETA
my bones so full of dreams
cities sprout from my lips
strange faces fall from the gaps in my smile
they open their mouths
they sing to me
my universe blesses me
brings my dreams
to light

[Aleta snaps her fingers and light falls on the edges of the proscenium, revealing Harris and Rufus.]

HARRIS AND RUFUS
La Chanteuse Nubienne!

ALETA
Songstress of great renown!

RUFUS
Shakes her shimmy with the best of them.

HARRIS
Learned her trade the old fashioned way!

RUFUS AND HARRIS
Bickfords Colored Minstrels!
Sand-dancers extraordinaire!
Terrifying side-show sites!

ALETA
Moonshine Blues.

HARRIS AND RUFUS
Five pennies to look but not touch!

ALETA
Please Please Love Me Daddy Blues.

HARRIS AND RUFUS
Touching’s extra!

ALETA
Who’s that flying through the air?
So far away from here up there...
Across Atlantic’s thick blue skin,
Across to where it all begins...

RUFUS
Seems to me we crossed over on a boat... wasn’t no plane...

ALETA
Seems to me, this is my story... London!

[Harris and Rufus depict the scene of arrival at each city.]

HARRIS
London!

ALETA
No, Berlin!

RUFUS
Berlin!

ALETA
No, Paris!

HARRIS
Paris?

ALETA
Yeah, Paris.

[***********GREAT BIG DANCE NUMBER************]

[Harris and Rufus help Aleta out of her dress, and prepare her bath.]

Outdancing,
outsinging
all them other ones - in the colored revue.
Wasn’t the star before we got there,
but I was once we did.

Now, what of love in this God forsaken land...?

HARRIS
She get a letter sometimes...

RUFUS
Letter or a note.

HARRIS
...She get a letter.
From one of them men
in the audience
at night.
Shhhhh. They ain’t trying to know her.
She think she special,
that’s all.
Told her...

RUFUS
He told her.

HARRIS
...“They ain’t trying to act like you special -
‘less they want something off of you.”
Act like
they ain’t never seen a thang like her before.
But they seen plenty,
believe
you
me.

RUFUS
Plenty-plenty.

HARRIS
So, they sends her a letter...

RUFUS
Or a note.

HARRIS
...They know she can’t read.
They laughing at her from the get go
and she don’t know it.

RUFUS
She don’t want to know it, most likely.

HARRIS
With her flowers
and her greased up head.
Just a fast girl
away from her mama’s hands.
Puttin’ on airs.
Call herself a lady.

RUFUS
Entertainer ain’t no lady.

HARRIS
So
I take these letters in there to her.
See...do she pretend to read them?
Or... do she ask me to read them to her...
while she
paint her face
or
take her bath.
...Used to be
I wouldn’t tell her for real what they wanted.

RUFUS
He wouldn’t neither.

HARRIS
Take the letters...
shut the door.
But they find a way to get to her.
And she come back with stories.

RUFUS
Do she ever! Talk about them men like they a dog.

HARRIS
Tell the story.

RUFUS
They bringing her jewelry
or rosewater.
She
talking
‘bout
how
they all hairy,and all...
all...
small...*
you know...

[Harris overlaps his line (*)]

*HARRIS
Start to be, them same men
come in...
watch her get dressed.

RUFUS
All them different faces.

HARRIS
All the same face.
Act like they don’t even see me.
Like I’m some old thing.
Like she ain’t as black as me.

RUFUS
Me either.

HARRIS
Then one night, we come in here and it’s a line of them men out the door.

RUFUS
Door open - out come one just buttoning up his pants.

HARRIS
Out come one... in go the next.

RUFUS
He go in smilin’ - come out five minutes later, lookin’ like he lost his best friend.

HARRIS
Out come one... in go the next.

RUFUS
I just said “what y’all doin?” He say, “she lookin’ for the perfect fit.”

HARRIS
I put an end to that!

RUFUS
Sent them men on!

HARRIS
Walk in there, say “YOU CAN’T COME OVER HERE, CAUSE ALL THIS SCANDAL - ACT LIKE YOU AIN’T HAD NO MAMA!”

ALETA
Over here? I make the rules. ‘Sides, “entertainer ain’t no lady.”

Then, come this one letter...

HARRIS
This man

RUFUS
He come to see the show two times in one night.

HARRIS
Different this one.
Different as silk from burlap.

RUFUS
I’ll bet he have an aeroplane.
He look like the type
would have an aeroplane, I’d say.

HARRIS
I wasn’t even gonna read that letter to her.
She snatched it out my hand.

ALETA
I would be... placed... pleased...

[Harris takes the letter from her. Aleta strains to be patient, and he takes his sweet time.]

HARRIS
Your magnificent songs...
lift me
high into the air.
I would be pleased to have your company
on the forthcoming Sunday.
I will bring you for a ride in my aeroplane...

RUFUS
Told you.

ALETA
Write a letter for me.

RUFUS AND HARRIS
(sing) do-de-oh-do...

ALETA
(sings)
Fragrant are confessions
that I’ll whisper in your ear
You’ll return promises
through your pretty teeth
I’ll kiss them from the corners of your mouth
as we lift toward the sky

Copyright ©2001 Daniel Alexander Jones NO PART OF THIS MAY BE READ OR REPRODUCED WITHOUT PRIOR PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

LUNA. Birthday Cake! Nicky.

[With a flurry, LUNA and LIGHT all become NICKY. LUNA speaks her words and both aspects of LIGHT refract and echo her movement. NICKY's tale is a record breaking 200m race.]

NICKY. No-no-no let me tell it, let me tell it! Your cake was chocolate and your mother had that little shiny boat on top with all them little shiny Japanese people ‘cause... who? Yeah, ‘cause her friend had brought them from Japan - your brother look like he Japanese. Don’t neither of y’all look black - you look like your mama - but anyway remember she put them on the cake and then put all these candles on there and anyway we had had some cold pizza ‘cause your father had to walk and get it in the snow and we had ate that when they go in there to get the cake and we all start singing Happy Birthday and then they walking in with the cake and your father went like this and one of the candles knocked into that boat and that boat blew up and caught all them little Japanese people on fire and they started melting and the fire was all high and your father was like “Dammit, Dammit!” and I was like you betta put that down and finally your mother grabbed it and threw it in the sink and put it out. I didn’t eat none of that cake!

•PUBLIC•

[One aspect of LIGHT fills a television screen, becoming JULIA CHILD who details a recipe. As she speaks, textbook images of bones connecting to bones, muscular patterns, veinous systems, nerve networks, etcetera, flash behind her.]

JULIA CHILD.
Dry Ingredients
one cup cocksucker, sifted
2/3 cup candied hands, held so
one box powdered, cocoa-flavored, mama’s boy milk
pinch of salt
grated rind of one mulatto
zest of hand-on-hip

Liquids
3 tablespoons boy spit
8 “faggot”s up against the locker, juiced
2 tsp. extract of “faggot” w/knife-in-face
1/2 tenderized queer
2 tsp. semen (best frustrated and fresh)

Mix dry ingredients. Add liquids. Stir. Pour into pans lined with fresh morning sheets, dream-stained. Note: you can test them for freshness by smelling; if you sense confidence, discard. Bake in a slow oven until it bounces back when you touch it, or until a stick inserted into its center comes out clean. Bon Appetìt.

[Television light falls into static, which falls onto LUNA who is a ten year-old boy lying on his bedroom floor. The windowframe under which he sleeps rises into the air. As he speaks pale blue-green light seeps up from the floor and fills the space.]

LUNA. I lie in pain. Sleepless, as my bones grow. My father enters silently in the darkness. With cool alcohol, he anoints my legs. He anoints my ankles. He anoints the soles of my feet.

Copyright ©1996 Daniel Alexander Jones NO PART OF THIS MAY BE READ OR REPRODUCED WITHOUT PRIOR PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

MANSI.

A short poem, to cleanse the palate.

I'm a tough walk
like this
Came in landing feet first
Don't waste my time;
I've already been met by a thousand gap-toothed monkeys
Each with a separate plan for me
all drawn out in straight lines
I could tell too easily by the way they was leaning
I had been done did that
too many times to mention

So I move right along to clarity
Which involves none of them
Which involves on straight lines designed
To pull me from my own story

So I come here
Nights
Write love poems on small slips of paper
I put them in jars
with flowers
and spices

So I breathe, baby

Thank you. Tonight we remember Jacob. A boy who knew how to dance. He was my friend. I read him my poems. I'll share his favorite one with you tonight. Theres a lot of him inside of it. It's entitled Mansi's Dance.

[MANSI's body responds like a fine instrument to her phrasing. We should taste her words, feel their temperature. MATTEO enters, inconspicuously, and watches from the alley.]

Men come here
They hear about my powers
How I can change things
Grit my teeth, bring my feet down
Turn concrete to marble
Dirty puddles to rippling seas
Chainlink fences into wild reeds
They come here
Say
They want in
Hear
I sweat honey out my hard dances
Hear
I could flush up their face in one full night
Hear
Come morning?
Couldn't hardly tell them from sky

Men come here
Wait outside
Looking for the last earth mother
Looking for transformation in my sure words
Their blind spirits soften like clay at the thought
of my hands
my hands
my hands
Men
Stay outside
wanting
I watch full - a tree woman
witness these dim lights
fluttering across this lot
Men
think themselves half-people
come to me
For other halves
hang their heads in shame
knowing
my full living
ain't no different from what living
should be
but
they
are too soft
to stand full like me

Men make me earth mother
I make them a requiem of sure sounds
Sit at my window
Watch them flutter
When it grows dark
I'll climb down
and bury the jars.

Copyright ©1998 Daniel Alexander Jones NO PART OF THIS MAY BE READ OR REPRODUCED WITHOUT PRIOR PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

La Chanteuse Nubienne (Excerpt)

SCENE ONE

[Aleta stands at the center of the back wall. Lights up on her as she sings.]

ALETA
my bones so full of dreams
cities sprout from my lips
strange faces fall from the gaps in my smile
they open their mouths
they sing to me
my universe blesses me
brings my dreams
to light

[Aleta snaps her fingers and light falls on the edges of the proscenium, revealing Harris and Rufus.]

HARRIS AND RUFUS
La Chanteuse Nubienne!

ALETA
Songstress of great renown!

RUFUS
Shakes her shimmy with the best of them.

HARRIS
Learned her trade the old fashioned way!

RUFUS AND HARRIS
Bickfords Colored Minstrels!
Sand-dancers extraordinaire!
Terrifying side-show sites!

ALETA
Moonshine Blues.

HARRIS AND RUFUS
Five pennies to look but not touch!

ALETA
Please Please Love Me Daddy Blues.

HARRIS AND RUFUS
Touching’s extra!

ALETA
Who’s that flying through the air?
So far away from here up there...
Across Atlantic’s thick blue skin,
Across to where it all begins...

RUFUS
Seems to me we crossed over on a boat... wasn’t no plane...

ALETA
Seems to me, this is my story... London!

[Harris and Rufus depict the scene of arrival at each city.]

HARRIS
London!

ALETA
No, Berlin!

RUFUS
Berlin!

ALETA
No, Paris!

HARRIS
Paris?

ALETA
Yeah, Paris.

[***********GREAT BIG DANCE NUMBER************]

[Harris and Rufus help Aleta out of her dress, and prepare her bath.]

Outdancing,
outsinging
all them other ones - in the colored revue.
Wasn’t the star before we got there,
but I was once we did.

Now, what of love in this God forsaken land...?

HARRIS
She get a letter sometimes...

RUFUS
Letter or a note.

HARRIS
...She get a letter.
From one of them men
in the audience
at night.
Shhhhh. They ain’t trying to know her.
She think she special,
that’s all.
Told her...

RUFUS
He told her.

HARRIS
...“They ain’t trying to act like you special -
‘less they want something off of you.”
Act like
they ain’t never seen a thang like her before.
But they seen plenty,
believe
you
me.

RUFUS
Plenty-plenty.

HARRIS
So, they sends her a letter...

RUFUS
Or a note.

HARRIS
...They know she can’t read.
They laughing at her from the get go
and she don’t know it.

RUFUS
She don’t want to know it, most likely.

HARRIS
With her flowers
and her greased up head.
Just a fast girl
away from her mama’s hands.
Puttin’ on airs.
Call herself a lady.

RUFUS
Entertainer ain’t no lady.

HARRIS
So
I take these letters in there to her.
See...do she pretend to read them?
Or... do she ask me to read them to her...
while she
paint her face
or
take her bath.
...Used to be
I wouldn’t tell her for real what they wanted.

RUFUS
He wouldn’t neither.

HARRIS
Take the letters...
shut the door.
But they find a way to get to her.
And she come back with stories.

RUFUS
Do she ever! Talk about them men like they a dog.

HARRIS
Tell the story.

RUFUS
They bringing her jewelry
or rosewater.
She
talking
‘bout
how
they all hairy,and all...
all...
small...*
you know...

[Harris overlaps his line (*)]

*HARRIS
Start to be, them same men
come in...
watch her get dressed.

RUFUS
All them different faces.

HARRIS
All the same face.
Act like they don’t even see me.
Like I’m some old thing.
Like she ain’t as black as me.

RUFUS
Me either.

HARRIS
Then one night, we come in here and it’s a line of them men out the door.

RUFUS
Door open - out come one just buttoning up his pants.

HARRIS
Out come one... in go the next.

RUFUS
He go in smilin’ - come out five minutes later, lookin’ like he lost his best friend.

HARRIS
Out come one... in go the next.

RUFUS
I just said “what y’all doin?” He say, “she lookin’ for the perfect fit.”

HARRIS
I put an end to that!

RUFUS
Sent them men on!

HARRIS
Walk in there, say “YOU CAN’T COME OVER HERE, CAUSE ALL THIS SCANDAL - ACT LIKE YOU AIN’T HAD NO MAMA!”

ALETA
Over here? I make the rules. ‘Sides, “entertainer ain’t no lady.”

Then, come this one letter...

HARRIS
This man

RUFUS
He come to see the show two times in one night.

HARRIS
Different this one.
Different as silk from burlap.

RUFUS
I’ll bet he have an aeroplane.
He look like the type
would have an aeroplane, I’d say.

HARRIS
I wasn’t even gonna read that letter to her.
She snatched it out my hand.

ALETA
I would be... placed... pleased...

[Harris takes the letter from her. Aleta strains to be patient, and he takes his sweet time.]

HARRIS
Your magnificent songs...
lift me
high into the air.
I would be pleased to have your company
on the forthcoming Sunday.
I will bring you for a ride in my aeroplane...

RUFUS
Told you.

ALETA
Write a letter for me.

RUFUS AND HARRIS
(sing) do-de-oh-do...

ALETA
(sings)
Fragrant are confessions
that I’ll whisper in your ear
You’ll return promises
through your pretty teeth
I’ll kiss them from the corners of your mouth
as we lift toward the sky

Copyright ©2001 Daniel Alexander Jones NO PART OF THIS MAY BE READ OR REPRODUCED WITHOUT PRIOR PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

LUNA. Birthday Cake! Nicky.

[With a flurry, LUNA and LIGHT all become NICKY. LUNA speaks her words and both aspects of LIGHT refract and echo her movement. NICKY's tale is a record breaking 200m race.]

NICKY. No-no-no let me tell it, let me tell it! Your cake was chocolate and your mother had that little shiny boat on top with all them little shiny Japanese people ‘cause... who? Yeah, ‘cause her friend had brought them from Japan - your brother look like he Japanese. Don’t neither of y’all look black - you look like your mama - but anyway remember she put them on the cake and then put all these candles on there and anyway we had had some cold pizza ‘cause your father had to walk and get it in the snow and we had ate that when they go in there to get the cake and we all start singing Happy Birthday and then they walking in with the cake and your father went like this and one of the candles knocked into that boat and that boat blew up and caught all them little Japanese people on fire and they started melting and the fire was all high and your father was like “Dammit, Dammit!” and I was like you betta put that down and finally your mother grabbed it and threw it in the sink and put it out. I didn’t eat none of that cake!

•PUBLIC•

[One aspect of LIGHT fills a television screen, becoming JULIA CHILD who details a recipe. As she speaks, textbook images of bones connecting to bones, muscular patterns, veinous systems, nerve networks, etcetera, flash behind her.]

JULIA CHILD.
Dry Ingredients
one cup cocksucker, sifted
2/3 cup candied hands, held so
one box powdered, cocoa-flavored, mama’s boy milk
pinch of salt
grated rind of one mulatto
zest of hand-on-hip

Liquids
3 tablespoons boy spit
8 “faggot”s up against the locker, juiced
2 tsp. extract of “faggot” w/knife-in-face
1/2 tenderized queer
2 tsp. semen (best frustrated and fresh)

Mix dry ingredients. Add liquids. Stir. Pour into pans lined with fresh morning sheets, dream-stained. Note: you can test them for freshness by smelling; if you sense confidence, discard. Bake in a slow oven until it bounces back when you touch it, or until a stick inserted into its center comes out clean. Bon Appetìt.

[Television light falls into static, which falls onto LUNA who is a ten year-old boy lying on his bedroom floor. The windowframe under which he sleeps rises into the air. As he speaks pale blue-green light seeps up from the floor and fills the space.]

LUNA. I lie in pain. Sleepless, as my bones grow. My father enters silently in the darkness. With cool alcohol, he anoints my legs. He anoints my ankles. He anoints the soles of my feet.

Copyright ©1996 Daniel Alexander Jones NO PART OF THIS MAY BE READ OR REPRODUCED WITHOUT PRIOR PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

MANSI.

A short poem, to cleanse the palate.

I'm a tough walk
like this
Came in landing feet first
Don't waste my time;
I've already been met by a thousand gap-toothed monkeys
Each with a separate plan for me
all drawn out in straight lines
I could tell too easily by the way they was leaning
I had been done did that
too many times to mention

So I move right along to clarity
Which involves none of them
Which involves on straight lines designed
To pull me from my own story

So I come here
Nights
Write love poems on small slips of paper
I put them in jars
with flowers
and spices

So I breathe, baby

Thank you. Tonight we remember Jacob. A boy who knew how to dance. He was my friend. I read him my poems. I'll share his favorite one with you tonight. Theres a lot of him inside of it. It's entitled Mansi's Dance.

[MANSI's body responds like a fine instrument to her phrasing. We should taste her words, feel their temperature. MATTEO enters, inconspicuously, and watches from the alley.]

Men come here
They hear about my powers
How I can change things
Grit my teeth, bring my feet down
Turn concrete to marble
Dirty puddles to rippling seas
Chainlink fences into wild reeds
They come here
Say
They want in
Hear
I sweat honey out my hard dances
Hear
I could flush up their face in one full night
Hear
Come morning?
Couldn't hardly tell them from sky

Men come here
Wait outside
Looking for the last earth mother
Looking for transformation in my sure words
Their blind spirits soften like clay at the thought
of my hands
my hands
my hands
Men
Stay outside
wanting
I watch full - a tree woman
witness these dim lights
fluttering across this lot
Men
think themselves half-people
come to me
For other halves
hang their heads in shame
knowing
my full living
ain't no different from what living
should be
but
they
are too soft
to stand full like me

Men make me earth mother
I make them a requiem of sure sounds
Sit at my window
Watch them flutter
When it grows dark
I'll climb down
and bury the jars.

Copyright ©1998 Daniel Alexander Jones NO PART OF THIS MAY BE READ OR REPRODUCED WITHOUT PRIOR PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Blood:Shock:Boogie (excerpt)

LUNA. Birthday Cake! Nicky.

[With a flurry, LUNA and LIGHT all become NICKY. LUNA speaks her words and both aspects of LIGHT refract and echo her movement. NICKY's tale is a record breaking 200m race.]

NICKY. No-no-no let me tell it, let me tell it! Your cake was chocolate and your mother had that little shiny boat on top with all them little shiny Japanese people ‘cause... who? Yeah, ‘cause her friend had brought them from Japan - your brother look like he Japanese. Don’t neither of y’all look black - you look like your mama - but anyway remember she put them on the cake and then put all these candles on there and anyway we had had some cold pizza ‘cause your father had to walk and get it in the snow and we had ate that when they go in there to get the cake and we all start singing Happy Birthday and then they walking in with the cake and your father went like this and one of the candles knocked into that boat and that boat blew up and caught all them little Japanese people on fire and they started melting and the fire was all high and your father was like “Dammit, Dammit!” and I was like you betta put that down and finally your mother grabbed it and threw it in the sink and put it out. I didn’t eat none of that cake!

•PUBLIC•

[One aspect of LIGHT fills a television screen, becoming JULIA CHILD who details a recipe. As she speaks, textbook images of bones connecting to bones, muscular patterns, veinous systems, nerve networks, etcetera, flash behind her.]

JULIA CHILD.
Dry Ingredients
one cup cocksucker, sifted
2/3 cup candied hands, held so
one box powdered, cocoa-flavored, mama’s boy milk
pinch of salt
grated rind of one mulatto
zest of hand-on-hip

Liquids
3 tablespoons boy spit
8 “faggot”s up against the locker, juiced
2 tsp. extract of “faggot” w/knife-in-face
1/2 tenderized queer
2 tsp. semen (best frustrated and fresh)

Mix dry ingredients. Add liquids. Stir. Pour into pans lined with fresh morning sheets, dream-stained. Note: you can test them for freshness by smelling; if you sense confidence, discard. Bake in a slow oven until it bounces back when you touch it, or until a stick inserted into its center comes out clean. Bon Appetìt.

[Television light falls into static, which falls onto LUNA who is a ten year-old boy lying on his bedroom floor. The windowframe under which he sleeps rises into the air. As he speaks pale blue-green light seeps up from the floor and fills the space.]

LUNA. I lie in pain. Sleepless, as my bones grow. My father enters silently in the darkness. With cool alcohol, he anoints my legs. He anoints my ankles. He anoints the soles of my feet.

Copyright ©1996 Daniel Alexander Jones NO PART OF THIS MAY BE READ OR REPRODUCED WITHOUT PRIOR PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

MANSI.

A short poem, to cleanse the palate.

I'm a tough walk
like this
Came in landing feet first
Don't waste my time;
I've already been met by a thousand gap-toothed monkeys
Each with a separate plan for me
all drawn out in straight lines
I could tell too easily by the way they was leaning
I had been done did that
too many times to mention

So I move right along to clarity
Which involves none of them
Which involves on straight lines designed
To pull me from my own story

So I come here
Nights
Write love poems on small slips of paper
I put them in jars
with flowers
and spices

So I breathe, baby

Thank you. Tonight we remember Jacob. A boy who knew how to dance. He was my friend. I read him my poems. I'll share his favorite one with you tonight. Theres a lot of him inside of it. It's entitled Mansi's Dance.

[MANSI's body responds like a fine instrument to her phrasing. We should taste her words, feel their temperature. MATTEO enters, inconspicuously, and watches from the alley.]

Men come here
They hear about my powers
How I can change things
Grit my teeth, bring my feet down
Turn concrete to marble
Dirty puddles to rippling seas
Chainlink fences into wild reeds
They come here
Say
They want in
Hear
I sweat honey out my hard dances
Hear
I could flush up their face in one full night
Hear
Come morning?
Couldn't hardly tell them from sky

Men come here
Wait outside
Looking for the last earth mother
Looking for transformation in my sure words
Their blind spirits soften like clay at the thought
of my hands
my hands
my hands
Men
Stay outside
wanting
I watch full - a tree woman
witness these dim lights
fluttering across this lot
Men
think themselves half-people
come to me
For other halves
hang their heads in shame
knowing
my full living
ain't no different from what living
should be
but
they
are too soft
to stand full like me

Men make me earth mother
I make them a requiem of sure sounds
Sit at my window
Watch them flutter
When it grows dark
I'll climb down
and bury the jars.

Copyright ©1998 Daniel Alexander Jones NO PART OF THIS MAY BE READ OR REPRODUCED WITHOUT PRIOR PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Ambient Love Rites (excerpt)

MANSI.

A short poem, to cleanse the palate.

I'm a tough walk
like this
Came in landing feet first
Don't waste my time;
I've already been met by a thousand gap-toothed monkeys
Each with a separate plan for me
all drawn out in straight lines
I could tell too easily by the way they was leaning
I had been done did that
too many times to mention

So I move right along to clarity
Which involves none of them
Which involves on straight lines designed
To pull me from my own story

So I come here
Nights
Write love poems on small slips of paper
I put them in jars
with flowers
and spices

So I breathe, baby

Thank you. Tonight we remember Jacob. A boy who knew how to dance. He was my friend. I read him my poems. I'll share his favorite one with you tonight. Theres a lot of him inside of it. It's entitled Mansi's Dance.

[MANSI's body responds like a fine instrument to her phrasing. We should taste her words, feel their temperature. MATTEO enters, inconspicuously, and watches from the alley.]

Men come here
They hear about my powers
How I can change things
Grit my teeth, bring my feet down
Turn concrete to marble
Dirty puddles to rippling seas
Chainlink fences into wild reeds
They come here
Say
They want in
Hear
I sweat honey out my hard dances
Hear
I could flush up their face in one full night
Hear
Come morning?
Couldn't hardly tell them from sky

Men come here
Wait outside
Looking for the last earth mother
Looking for transformation in my sure words
Their blind spirits soften like clay at the thought
of my hands
my hands
my hands
Men
Stay outside
wanting
I watch full - a tree woman
witness these dim lights
fluttering across this lot
Men
think themselves half-people
come to me
For other halves
hang their heads in shame
knowing
my full living
ain't no different from what living
should be
but
they
are too soft
to stand full like me

Men make me earth mother
I make them a requiem of sure sounds
Sit at my window
Watch them flutter
When it grows dark
I'll climb down
and bury the jars.

Copyright ©1998 Daniel Alexander Jones NO PART OF THIS MAY BE READ OR REPRODUCED WITHOUT PRIOR PERMISSION OF THE AUTHOR

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.