i have a strong urge to pick up my cell phone, scroll down my list of contacts and find someone to talk to. i reach for my bag, then pull my hand back, remembering how this hour, the sixty minutes between 12:53 and 1:53 this Saturday afternoon, is my only time to draw. my three-year-old son is with his mother a few blocks away, she may call at any moment to demand i take him back, to say she’s feeling tired, sick, fragile, who knows what her excuse will be today.

should i draw my eyelashes as they really exist on my face, or less dramatically? they’ve always been too long for my taste, and straight and unruly, crashing together at unpredictable angles. i look over at the woman, she is lying on her back, using her gunmetal gray purse as a pillow for her head, reading a book. on the cover, the name Salman Rushdie, she’s a polemic. her beauty is unsettling, strange–her features are small but intense; the jawline gentle and understating the wide brown eyes, their corners upturned, grave and discerning, the nose a tame enough shape but its endpoint unmistakably Indian. the lips of medium fullness, pink and quiet, mouth relaxed and resolute. she wears a wine-colored dress, an intoxicating burgundy, and a necklace of raw, roughly cut garnets. her hair spirals in tendrils around her face, a blackish copper under the white Berkeley sun.

she knows i am looking; she ignores my gaze, my charcoal, my moving hands. as if a glass wall stands between us, impenetrable to sound or sight.

this woman is alone, why? royal in her red dress and gems, her wind-mussed raven curls, reading a thick volume in the center of a college town, why has no man, no woman joined her Saturday outdoor reverie? the heat rises in me, my hands stop their charcoal dance, i stare at the eyes, the hair, the lips that promise seduction and certain satisfaction of mortal desire. the space around her curvaceous body, trapped in its scarlet dress, is so open, so empty. i am a man, i am subject to this type of musing. weak to the injustice of a woman this whole, this timeless, having only the company of an old Rushdie book on this first Saturday in June. anger buzzes around my head, dizzying and red like the garnets along the curve of the woman’s neck.

my cell phone, sitting beside me on my bench, erupts into its pop-rock ringtone, loudly shattering the moment. the woman glances my way, unaffected, immediately turns back to her reading. it is my ex-wife, calling at 1:29, reminding me not to be late. not to be late, which means, in her language, come early to take our son away. i put my charcoal back in its box, feeling suddenly drained of inspiration.

i look one last time at the Indian woman in red, her eyes blink as she turns the page of her novel. she gives me a small, unencouraging smile. i push my sketch pad back into my bag, get up, turn my body in the direction of my ex-wife’s apartment. as i walk away, i close my eyes and try to recall the stranger’s face, her spiraling hair, her supine posture, the blood red of her necklace and dress. next saturday at 1:53, my hands will have time to bring her back, in charcoal lines, to the People’s Park, lying in the shade of a large poplar tree. alone, so alone.

© 2010 tahminah zaman

the curiosity of your lips–pink ambassadors to a mouthful of white capricorn teeth, beautifully square and even. your knees beneath my fingers, as if there were no denim between my fingertips and your skin. knowing those joints, the hardness of their bones, would fall victim to my touch. maybe i loved you, after all, for your helplessness against me.

i regret nothing, certainly not the lesson in futility. a hundred lifetimes spent hearing words that stabbed like knives, acid raining into my growing heart. that first saturday, your breath tasted of nothing more bitter than coffee, no pain had yet been delivered from between those white, even teeth. that, like so many other realities, came later.

eight weeks after i leave you, i sit alone in bed under a down blanket, hoping it doesn’t storm tonight. praying sky’s tears don’t drum against the roof. i don’t want another reminder of those nights, last december, when it rained hard for twenty days in a row, a painted wood ceiling above us, making love to the man who lied to me, who said he wanted to live his life by my side and father my children. who convinced me that distance and my own deficiency were the reasons i had never seen his family, his hometown, his true self.

the sky is black and clear, the night cold and the moon new. a light shines in a neighbor’s window; i am not the only insomniac grieving at midnight. it is tomorrow; the sun held back for another five hours, but morning here. keep the darkness still; let the sweetness of loss absorb completely, let those wasted lifetimes coagulate, echoes of a single utterance — one that could not be silenced. speech unable to resist the temptation, the glory, of sound.

© 2010 tahminah zaman

i live here for three weeks & realize one day on the sunny sidewalk on my way to the local coffee house that i am walking with my keys in my hand. my right hand, the way i do when i’m walking alone after dark. fingers fingering the sharp points like i’d caress a lover. almost cutting myself on the edge.

an afternoon of lemon yellow light & this distrust. i finish my descent down the hill toward high street, thinking of the men who clear a path for me on these macarthur boulevard sidewalks. who stop to tell me i’m pretty & then get out of my way.

i’m safe here, i think.

where am i?

my fingers are still rubbing my keys.

where am i? i’ve lived in this neighborhood before. on campus at mills. the gunshots on seminary avenue, on the other side of the college, hid from me the serenity of the oakland hills. now the absence of berkeley traffic noise and my fear of opening the front door at night could abate a little. i had returned to the laurel district, after all, for peace.

there’s something about those keys planted between my fingers, prepared to strike. there’s so much rage in my bones, fighting to reach the surface of my skin, i almost want someone to hassle me. i almost want to make a scene. i know if it happens, i will spill blood.

where am i? where are the nasty roommates who leave crusty food all over the kitchen? their snide side comments dripping with poison. the racket of late night BART trains whizzing by toward the freeway. the muggers who live around the corner. the purple house where they give away fresh produce on fridays.

once i reach the coffee shop, i put my keys away. between a novel & my wallet. i sling my purse over a chair. order my single decaf americano. watered down espresso for my picky stomach. that’s the table where a fiancé told me he fucked a prostitute while away in L.A. that’s the spot me & my lesbian lover, during my junior year of college, matched the amount of coffee in our cups with cold half-&-half. across the street is the apartment where we breakfasted before sex on saturday mornings, listening to KPFA. down the street is where i had my first-ever date with a woman. the taquería where i made her taste dark Senorial grape soda for the first time. right there, the bar & the burger stand where a large black man accused us of being lovers. “y’all are doin big things up there in college, ah?” big things. indeed.

the laurel district used to make me pine for whoever my lover was at the time. now, these streets are mine. i am making my home among these memories. these realities of struggle & slow ascent. the history of my consciousness. the years my rage was vented into politics, before poetry came back to redeem me.

at the laurel bookstore i read my work publicly for the first time. it was that year, 2004, that i decided to fuck becoming an intellectual property lawyer & write more poems instead.

after five years, i still don’t know where i am. but since my last major breakup, these streets have seemed to embrace me rather than stifle. love rather than chase away. i accept the love of the laurel the way i accept the love of those who have called me theirs somewhere among the names of these blocks: maybelle, fruitvale, hyacinth. love that didn’t outlast the macarthur boulevard concrete but was love nonetheless.

whose path will i cross next? fondling my keys between the fingers of my right hand, i walk toward 35th avenue, where a fresh salmon steak & my future await.

© tahminah zaman 2008

                                                             is fine

                                                             brownskinned thick or thin

                                                             luscious ageless luminescent

walks with a twist

in her hips

& hypnotizes

with her many costumes

& disguises

wears glasses or fake hair

while keepin it real

& all my oakland women

got a little thug in ‘em

sorceress       alchemist       scientist

professor       mama       goddess       lover

bus driver       schoolteacher       fashionista

graceful     tasteful     tough     pretty     wise

© 2008 tahminah zaman/N.A.M.A.A.Z

sales of ecstasy pills

over coffee

on shattuck.

jars

boats

of x

also known as skittles

chicks flying from richmond

to L.A

to get better prices

for their work

talking about money,

begging for another

phone number.

talking about jeans

& grills for teeth:

ten diamonds on top

ten diamonds on bottom

caring about the shit

they care about

the expendability of men

the price of pride

& beauty

the value of a woman’s money

negotiating the darkness

of secret economies

& self-defense

making a living from death

© 2008 tahminah zaman/N.A.M.A.A.Z

wassup for 2008? the stars say i’m going to fall in love (yikes!) after february. no leads yet as to whom that might be with. i’m supposed to meet tons of new people this year, so the possibilities are truly without end. this year is a #5 personal year for me (add the month & day of your birth with 2008; add them all until you get a single digit–example March 3 or 3+3+2+8=16=7), a year of freedom from the past & changes (to find out what this year will bring you, see http://www.astrology-numerology.com/num-personalyear.html). meaning, leave the history in the past. word…2 ur mother.

 everything i worked for in ’07 & before is going to pay off this year. it’ll be my one year of two semesters of graduate school. a long year. but more fluid progress toward my goals & gaining recognition & recompense for all my planning, diligence, & precision. my poetry’s gotten sharper these last 11 months. went from writing tortured love/hate poetry to finding my true path & integrating that into my written works. i’ve taken on the project of documenting the collective recovery of my people. i’ve started by chronicling my own process, which has connected me to so many people, perspectives, & new items of information. has put me in touch with folks who share my struggle(s). seems that people will always be the most valuable resource. any one person could never write down the wealth of her own knowledge & wisdom acquired during a lifetime. life is the opportunity to share oneself with the world.

there’s always more to share. 2008 is sure to bring a couple of major experimental performance venues. i have been having the best time showcasing my new works to diasporic south asian communities around the country this past year & can’t wait to do more in oakland, berkeley, san francisco, los angeles, new york city, toronto, & maybe chicago again over the next 12 months.

i continue to give knowing that my destiny has found me & that my life will unfold into extraordinary colors & textures over the next years. that with much honest labor, all i want i manifest effortlessly–paradoxical, i know. but it works.

’08 manifestations:

health

relaxation

deep love (deep everything)

tantric enlightenment

wealth

good work

stamina

balance

expansion

success

precision

i’ve never anticipated the new year with this kind of intent. i haven’t indulged for a long while in empty new year resolutions & extreme methods employed to chase–rather than to create–balance. which i’ve got & maintain thanks 2 having 3 planets in libra. 2008 will be an exercise in establishing security & maintaining stability thru chaotic integrative moments where all my roots will be thrown into relief. my weaknesses underlined. it’s going to be a year of adapting to happiness 4 real.

i’m ready.

 bismillahirrahmanirrahim