excelanoproject

[excelanoproject]

Taj Mahal

Hanging on the wall  was a photograph he took of a lion.              I asked him how he got so close, and he replied that the lion told him he could get really close,  as long as he took a good picture.  My mother asks me if I’ve written about Bruce yet. I tell her “No.” I’m not lacking in language,  Just afraid that I’ve been living my life in service of a man I never knew. But Bruce was in the army, so Maybe he’d understand. I imagine he never shook Uncle Sam by the hand. But if he had, Uncle Sam probably would have stood up a little straighter. I want to make peace with the pieces. Eyes  like the bullet casings we collected at the funeral, Cheeks crisp as the crust of September, Bones too ornery and orchard to fit the confines of “grampy,”  so we call him Bruce. When I am seven,  I tell him he’s my special friend. He tells me I’m his special friend too.   August, 2004: he presses a ring into my palm. It’s from India, where he served in the war. It’s made from seven silver bands that fit together just-so.  He teaches me how to solve it. September: leukemia gorges his marrow to mincemeat. Mom isn’t at home very much. October: The doctors tell him not to stand,  so he folds into the driver’s seat and revs the engine to see me one last time. I am thirteen, and from the Bat Mitzvah bimah,  I know little of adulthood, only that I hope some boys will slow-dance with me at my party. I notice Bruce, a bit jaundiced, but smiling. He made it. I smile back. November. On the hospice form, he checks “other” next to “how are you feeling,”  and writes “philosophical.” An urn on the dining room table. I write “childhood hero” in the dust of a man  I never said goodbye to. They fire shells in his honor, My grandmother flails between rows of blue tombstones. I try to trace the ghost of my grandfather,  and slice my hands on the jigsaw.   Bruce.  I swear one day I’ll visit Arlington. I’m sorry that it’s taken me eight years to face you. Did your hands shake when you took photographs. What was my mother like in high school. Where did you learn to talk to lions. Why must this poem taste like surgery. I have forgotten how to solve the ring he gave me. Heirlooms, like grief, don’t come with instructions; they are rich with mud and salt water. Hanging on the wall was another photograph  he took of the Taj Mahal,  a monument built in memory of a great love lost. Bruce. This poem is not a monument, Nor a resurrection. I know nothing of marble. We sleep in alphabets. I keep a picture of you on my bedside table. This is my attempt to face the lion. 

solo by Hannah Van Sciver, fall 2013 show: Raindance

[excelanoproject]

POMES COMING!

Did you see Raindance? Itching to see the pomes? Poem text will be posted on our blog over winter break, followed by video. Stay tuned! In the meantime, we will be reposting some old favorites. 3/4, Excelano.

[excelanoproject]

Raindance: this Fri and Sat at 8 pm, in Dunlop auditorium (on Penn's campus.) Buy your tix before we sell out! event info: https://www.facebook.com/events/212632015585928/?ref=br_tf online tickets: http://excelanoproject.ticketleap.com/the-excelano-project-presents-raindance/ see you there.

[excelanoproject]

Y'all better get stoked for this show. We'll be releasing more photos tomorrow. https://www.facebook.com/events/212632015585928/

[excelanoproject]

The Orchard

‘The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” I cringe when told this and I can’t be alone. I find the droll proverb Appropriately pithy for the topic, pits included Is a persistent troll of the reddit thread of my Soul. OK it’s true that, like my father, I indulge my wells of anxiety, and I have an aversion to building Ikea furniture, but My relationship with my parents is strictly corporeal, not arboreal. And even if it was, speaking metaphorical I pray the twisted branch From which I plopped Was perched on a steep pitch. And the apple rolled away, away, away. I love my family But please don’t Place my heart’s best bet to be some limp palimpsest Of my father’s signature over my Crayola calligraphy. I measure my life in snapped crayons. And every time like a car crash whip lash, At neck break speeds our bones burst forth and contract, I went from itchy turtle necks, To necking tall girls, but the nick of time draws blood, So let it flow, without parental dam. You’re damned if you dam. When death comes to you, will your life be a log jam? Will the autopsy report find young hopes and nightlite dreams under your liver tucked in like a sleeping child who hasn’t awakened to the dawn. Will you watch from above as each buried treasure is  Removed from your very dead chest plate, to glitter in the sun? Portentous, yes, but with human potential of such high potency, the stakes are all. Just remember, Your father is not a tree, but an apple, too. His sunfaded skin blotched from dreams botched, Failed plots, lovers debauched, Forget-me-nots that were forgot. Imperfect, of course, Just one apple in a field of millions. The results of inertia on the same endless plain And all of us bruising just the same.

by Michael Scognamigilio, '14

[excelanoproject]

"Pope-Picking Poem" by Siraj and Seth

#throwback to Split No Lightning

[excelanoproject]

See You When I See You

you will realize on a monday. it will approach you like a rock. not the kind that swings a wrecking ball into your body. not skull shattering like the stone that killed goliath, no – just a rock.   one you have smoothed to circular perfection in the dip of your palm. but you will realize on a monday that marbles like these cannot climb uphill. they only know how to roll away from the one that holds them – so you let him go.   it’s nearly tuesday. you don’t know whether to call this leaving or arriving, just that you always leave when something good for you arrives.   strong girl, don’t you dare let the faucets on your face drip. has no one ever taught you not to waste water?   strong girl, wonders   does he care that you’re moving to philly at all? does he even recognize a suitcase when he sees one? he must think a girl who packs this light isn’t planning to stay for long – and he’s right.   you pack light so you don’t land heavy. empty easy so it’s hard to accuse you of baggage, let alone make it into yours.   strong girl, don’t drive by the places the two of you have gone. you think more about the places you have not. less about the summer, now about the fall –   let me tell you about the fall.   it was a thursday. you met at bar louie. he laughed at your lack of alcoholic knowledge and so ordered your first legal drink.   that night, swooning over two bottles of blue moon you both agreed that wolves are misunderstood. like all living creatures, they just want their howling to be heard.   but strong girl assumes the beast in a man before examining his hands. prefers her meat medium rare so she won’t feel half alive when he later claims too much of her on his plate. anticipates the darkness that will remain after he shovels a tunnel through her body and forgets to hang the light at the end.   you will spend that friday night indoors packing up all your shit. sober, but somehow saturday morning coughs you up in its hangover, hung up on how it’s over,   unstrung by the doubt that it ever began.   strong girl. scribbles her autobiography on the bedroom walls hoping that someone will want to read about her life without letting them become part of the story. you learned three romance languages only to refuse the language of romance,   so you better believe, next week, you’ll eat alone in public. stand on the subway though there are plenty of seats around. insist on splitting every bill, even if it means running after the waitress. grind your teeth. chew flesh down to the bone. hide your marrow from charity until you believe life is worth saving, let the blood run.   let the blood run through the doorway of his apartment on a monday and say,   see you when i see you.  

by Tiffany Kang, '14 Performed at the Anis Mojgani Opener, 8/13

[excelanoproject]

Slipping Out

We were talking about excess. How you can say too much and do too much and eventually everything is pooling  over the edges and life becomes too much to hold in two hands and then it gets all confused and he said   She can’t really think that. She can’t really think I’m gay. Right?   He never heard it pointed at him. The word was swift and sharp as it slit him. I could see his skin peel open. The word gutted him, cut him cleaned him until he was pale as bone standing  in front of us and I could see his underlying everything.   The word spat at him and his mouth opened round like it was trying to swallow a knife and  he said   She can’t think that.   But the lamp beamed a little brighter and for a moment he was alone in a spotlight   dangling at the bottom as if  he was caught on a fishing line. Alone, hooked on a word.   But should a man ever see his bones? Ever see what’s actually under all that flesh muscles excess. What’s hidden deep where he never has to see it. Never has to feel it. Never has to even look it in the eye. But I did.   I saw him slip from skin, the gleam of raw marrow,   The shine of bone, the freshest truth.   Bare   He was never supposed to be this exposed.   Never this simple.   So he fell back His skin glued itself. He splattered like a fish thrown back into water. He even shivered, until his frame slid into its glossy casing, right under the surface. He back into his shielded scales, going back with the pools of other fish. Adding more and more layers to cover up the scar.

by Camara Brown -- Class of '17 Performed at the Harrison "Extended Play" Open Mic, 10.18

[excelanoproject]

EP newbs Michael and Camara made their debut last Friday (at the brand new Extended Play Open Mic in Harrison)!

Missed out? no worries. we will be posting their poems here shortly!

[excelanoproject]

Meet our newbs! Michael Scognamiglio ('14) and Camara Brown ('17)! Stalk the hell out of them. /Here ends the EP tumblr-hiatus. Get pumped for more updates soon! (info for our new monthly open mic series, and for our spring show!)

[excelanoproject]

Mama Excelano killin' it. 

[excelanoproject]

Interested in Auditioning for EP?

Click here for more information!

[excelanoproject]

EP with Anis!

A big thank you to Anis for an amazing performance at Penn last night! EP had a wonderful time opening for you and bringing you back to Philly. Shout-out to everyone who came out to see the performance. You all are the best audience that anyone could ever ask for!

[excelanoproject]

Street Lit

Putting a message on a wall can be a much more effective way to reach the masses than expecting them to go find a book and learn it themselves. Some men just want to watch the world learn, regardless of medium. This collection of street arts details some memorable lines from famous books, hit the pictures to see which author and title, if you didnt already recognize them immediately.

(via: BuzzFeed)

[excelanoproject]

Supernova

I want to be an actress, and she wants to edit films, which says a lot about our relationship.  We are both storytellers.  I just need an audience, she just needs a keyboard, and we’ll both end up poor. I know calendars were invented to make the future feel familiar, To make days feel like degrees around a circle. But despite your gravity, our time together is not shaped like an orbit. You’re leaving. I’m not afraid of April or May. only the day that copper wire, purple lipstick and Starry Night stop being metaphors, so darling- I’ve made you something. I ask only for your ear in return. March. On the yesterdays I’m afraid of tomorrows, you say, “Today, I will love you forever.” When the tulips bloom, I’ll be in the closet, screen printing the future across one hundred Campbell’s soup cans. You’ll laugh, and say Rauschenberg is more my style. In the morning, I’ll think of Van Gogh’s ear, in transit to his ex-lover. Do you think it could hear the words of the other love poems in the mailman’s satchel?  When the ground thaws, I’ll be frying chicken in my apartment. Come over, and I’ll teach you how I get the spices right- (The secret is no measuring spoons.) April. You gave me a bonsai sugar maple for Christmas, which refuses to grow, despite my best efforts. but I’ll keep misting the soil.  When the temperature rises, I’ll envy the air for holding water, when our love cannot. When the ground sprouts infant weeds like whiskers, I'll stop shaving, in an attempt to make harmony with change. Our love has always been precocious. We cannot blame it for learning to run, we cannot save it from stumbling. May. Theatre is a protean effort, best-suited to the stories that flicker before our eyes. They leave behind no evidence. Film is an exercise in sculpting amber frames  round the images worth preserving. Poetry is the mattress where love leaves ink-stains. I’ll let our love be a mattress. I’ll leave the recitation up to Rorschach. I‘ll demand nothing else from it, save for this: After the applause. When this poem has waned its way into a relic. Walk outside. Look at the stars. Remember that wherever there is light, there was once something burning. Unfold this poem. Resist the urge to squint. Fly this final page like a thought bubble. Let the light of bodies already departed fall across its face like a stray glance, a stray hair on a bed frame. Not a eulogy, not a history, just a poem. A mattress where love once left ink stains.   by Hannah Van Sciver solo, EP Spring 2013 show: Split No Lightning

[excelanoproject]

just popped up in our tumblr stream. Killing it, Team Yates!

ode on manic pixie dream girls - lauren yates

[excelanoproject]

Being Human

It’s probably not safe to eat a pomegranate when you’re falling in love.   The choreography must get a little messy once you exist in the bed of a noun like that.   And it’s probably not safe   to toss the mattress to the floor to strip all the sheets,   waking the word from his sleep   & then ask him   to slow dance between the two pantries of vowels   in his kitchen, the mouth   of the refrigerator’s door wide open & moaning.   It’d be impossible for him   to place one of his letters around your neck            or a serif quivering beside your waist                     like a thumb that recognizes       it’s tracing an old scab,   because you are just a poet   & he is just a word with no hands.   So it’s probably not safe to give a noun like that a body   or leave a word as tenderfoot & sloppy & terrifying as love                    to its own devices.   Don’t expect him to sit idle in the house of your poem.   He will grow outside the margins, design his legs like the fleeting ships   of your father, the mimicry of a man who could only   treasure you in the distance of oceans.             And since it’s a little dangerous not knowing what it takes to own a body,   This love —clumsy love, careful love,          watch where you’re going, damnit love—   will waltz all over your humanity, ask too many questions   about the textual history between you & all those other words,   why you have never written a poem for him.   And it’s probably far from romantic      for a poet to acknowledge   her fear of a single word,  which is too bad because love   rarely looks this embarrassing & ridiculous.   So if you are ever lucky enough to be dancing with a noun like that,   in the kitchen of a curious love,   a gargling toilet type love,   a let’s fight like giraffes and make up love,   a holy love,  a love that has been blemished, tell him you are afraid.   And when he asks you      what it’s like    being human   let him spin you out & bring you in   and while you’re learning how to write this poem   love will be busy unbuttoning the pages of your shirt,            unzipping your flesh,   & flushing out all the particles of dirt,          & sweat & shit & ugly  that brought you into existence.   Out loud, he’ll begin to read each name written on the lines   of your lungs so he can know all the other nouns   who built the cage around your hideous organ   that’s begun to splatter its history all over the rug.   When you look at the mess he has made out of you,   at the inches of red,   the instruments of all that human you’ve been itching in, be still.   Let your skin blush  in the inexplicable way only skin does when a soul rushes through the veins:   Know that love is where you came from. Collapse into him   as the first poet did with the first word,  terrified & trembling as they were   but still, both like a wreckage of angels dancing the day the other was born. by Victoria Ford Solo, Spring 2013, Split No Lightning