a word on poems.

Meet Tara and Carolina, two dancers we had the pleasure of working with while in residency at the University of Florida who happen to be poets. Tara’s words string together effortlessly to put you in a place, in the middle of an experience, to feel as if you were there. Carolina pours her heart into her prose- which is the story of feelings, the kinds that can and cannot go on. It is an honor for us to share their work and to continue our mission of sharing the multi-dimensional art and minds of the movers we work with.

Enjoy!

-DZ

Tara George

Harlem (winter)

A subway busker who looks like my
dad plays Buffalo Soiler on a white paint bucket. 

For a second, I miss my homes— 
only for a second. 

I think that this is how Hokusai must have felt
when he looked out on Mount Fuji.

I miss my stop—again.
I am late to class—again.

Kids play with dirty snow, 
safe in their Black Mecca.

Hades (last day of winter)   

Persephone looks out on the 

Lower East Side from a rusted window sill.

Her lover’s breath is hot on her back; 

He smells of late-night-pomegranates

 and the Earth.

She traces the bident inked on his arm. 

Their three-legged Shepard mix

snores heavily by the door—some watchdog.

Persephone shivers in the late winter air. She

curls herself further into her lover’s arms.  

Kore he mumbles, teetering on the

edge of consciousness. Your feet are so cold.

He turns over. He sleeps like the dead. 

In the morning she will leave him for the foreign heat

of a southern spring.

Durham (summer)

They sit under the open bathroom window, 
wet hair dripping on the tile floor.
They take in the competing sounds of
traffic noise, a new, old Dolly Parton CD,
And a party down the hall. 

Marnee relights the bowl. 
She exhales. The smoke
mixes with shower steam rushing up and out
through the window netting into the thick night air. 
She leans her head against the cool sill, eyes closing. 

The frat boy from 133
stumbles in wearing a bedsheet as a toga. 

Evening, ladies.
Evening, Stesichorus.
The fuck did you just call me?
She said get out of our bathroom dumbass. 

Kelley checks her watch. It’s 12:00.
Although she can’t remember — 

Is it AM or PM?
When it’s dark out does that mean AM or PM?
I can’t think in this fucking heat.

Carolina Arango

Bring me back

The path down this road has been long for me. 
I was not needed by this road to exist. 
It has existed all on its own,
Like you.

I wonder if I will ever venture away. 
It feels like home for now. 

Like me,
I have existed all on my own,
You are not needed by this road to exist
This path has been long for you as well. 

But will you stay? 
Maybe it isn't home for you.

___________

The river comes back into view
It’s been a blur for a long time now 
I never thought I’d see it again 
I have been in the dark for a really long time now

Lost in thought
Lost in myself
That's probably what released me into darkness.

I was preoccupied with ideas of where else it could take me.
The river once made me feel fulfilled.
It took me to unexpected places.
Part of me wants to go back, 
Live that adventure one more time.
I just don’t know I have the strength to face it’s waters once more.

photo with the cast of Tableau Rèvolution at the University of Florida