Wendy-O Matik: California Poets Part 7, Four Poems

Wendy O-Matik

July 1st, 2024

California Poets: Part VII

Wendy-O Matik

Four Poems

The Clueless Ones

Cows circle in open fields,

conspiring about what to do to support the ecosystem.

Seagulls perch on steep rocky cliffs,

strategizing for the revolution.

Aphids congregate on the underside of crisp, green dino kale,

imagining their role in the uprising.

Salamanders settle onto sun-baked rocks,

educating their young on the importance of sustainability.

200-year-old elder blowfish meet with coral reef

in the warm waters of the Indian Ocean

and babble on incessantly,

brainstorming creative ways to save their shared habitat.

External parasites join forces with gorillas

under darkened forest canopies of western Africa,

debating tactics and procedural details, and

plotting ways to conserve and redistribute resources fairly.

Giant river otters of South America

network with crabs, shellfish, crayfish, frogs, and rodents,

scheming to rescue endangered species and cleaning up their waterways.

Mass migratory species stave off hibernation

in order to prepare for the impending global crisis,

while helping other more vulnerable animals along the way.

In the quiet early morning hours,

you can hear a frolicking chorus of crickets and cicadas

buzzing in a universal non-human language saying,

“All for one, and one for all,” as if they too had been read

The Three Musketeers in their youth.

There is an intuitive sense among them all

That no one is to be left behind.

Only humans

graze absentmindedly

or prefer to stand in line

for the latest sale at Wal-Mart,

with little regard or interest or worry

in saving themselves or the planet

from the inevitable onslaught

of injustice

intolerance

and predictable extinction.

White Wash

While sleep escapes her,

she lists her confessions.

I was conceived in part because of race

this was 1966

I was delivered in a white-walled hospital on white bed sheets

beside the spirit of thousands of white babies before me

amidst white doctors

and white nurses

while people of other races

held the janitorial jobs—

     scrubbing toilets, dumping garbage

     serving food, doing laundry

I grew up in a predominantly

white neighborhood

because white privilege bleached the streets

in the image of their choosing.

I went to schools packed with a predominantly

all-white student body with all-white teachers

and all-white administrators and all-white textbooks,

     transcribing a dominant Eurocentric colonialist perspective

whose white privilege excluded the accomplishments

   and contributions of people of color

because they were taught to do so.

White employers hire me

based on my privilege of white reflection.

I gain entry into places because of my white status—

     universities, clubs, bars, jobs, organizations of the elite

     summer camp, student exchange program

Because of my whiteness

I am excluded and protected

from gangs, juvie, prison, military service, racial profiling

and other lower socio-economic traps.

I am permitted unlimited access to

free drugs, parties, neighborhoods,

stores, and gated communities

without suspicion or second-guessing of my right to be there.

Because I am a gold card-carrying white person

with detailed, specified entitlements,

society serves me, and my white brothers and sisters,

without questions

respectively and accordingly.

I am alive and here today

in this white-washed apartment

owned by my white landlord

holding this job, savings account,

car, clothes, and all the rest

thanks to my sweet little white ass.

And believe me,

when I tell you,

that I never forget it,

nor the heavy accountability

that comes with it.

Adrift

I’ve become unmoored.

With no anchor to an attachment,

this life sinks and stifles at its own peril

Drifting

to pointless erosion.

Without a secure connection,

     all meaning evaporates

     all purpose voided

Blanketed in starkness

a new perspective emerges

made of fear and endangerment.

For 19 years

it’s always been the same dream.

I’m on a small, one-seater,

battered wooden row boat

far from shore with no current.

I am adrift and without oars,

shrouded in a dense heavy fog.

I am gripping a thick coarse rope

which is stealing swiftly through my hands,

shredding my palms raw.

When I look at my hands, the blood is dry.

The ribbons of my old world

      my former life

      my previous coveted identity

have been yanked away.

I can never have them back again.

Forever over.

In our current modern day reality

the disruption between the couple

is abandoned, forsaken

      no reconciliation can happen

      no room for error

But in the movies

and in each and every one of our fantasies

the lost partner

at the last minute is pitted against a fate

worse than hell itself

   Countless lives are at stake

   Countless measures are taken into calculation

And suddenly there is room for error

One partner imagines their life

is held only in balance by the other

who is reeling 50.2 miles out of bounds

derailing somewhere near a heavily populated area

with enough toxic substances onboard

to obliterate a small town of 650,000 people.

And the partner thinks... maybe...

    this whole argument

    this whole messy bullshit of an affair

Could have gone down entirely different... maybe...

In my fantasy

he has a change of heart

he sees an insular light of loss and forgiveness

and wants only connection.

She

of course in reality

never receives his new lost message.

This reversal of rejection never gets relayed.

This true act of heroic devotion is averted.

After 19 years of separation

I live in a mass grave of broken hearts.

It’s a different kind of modern day holocaust.

I’ve become a refugee of despondent dreams

I’m a shipwreck of failed relationship

after relationship

after relationship

after relationship

after relationship,

to show for after nearly two decades of effort.

Singlehood is nothing to brag about.

You become a survivor

but in the end

you know you won’t survive.

I have come to learn that aging

makes me cling more.

Singlehood brings fear of isolation,

my own fragility capsizing any hope.

So I’ve stopped watching romance movies

unless it promises that

someone dies

and love perishes.

A film simply must

mirror reality

if I’m to imagine any possibility of a life

beyond this smothering loneliness.

Origin 

the binary gender dilemma is not an easy one

I stumble over inadequate words

and pronouns

and the intention behind their secret agendas.

Because I am biologically woman,

I am a walking assumption

the moment I step outside the safety of my door.

Because society defines me

by my cunt

by my tits

by my uterus

by the number of children I can

or cannot conceive,

I have felt the pressures of social conformity

narrowing my choices in life.

Because I feel comfortable mentally and emotionally

with the fluidity of gender

within myself,

I am less boxed in than most.

With fearless lovers of mine,

We are an amalgamation of woman and man

man and man

woman and woman

all at the same time

We toss out our gender along with our egos

and role play in the unknown

We forget our gender

We dismantle our preconceived notions of the sexes

We fuck our sexually limiting categories

We suck and kick and bite and cry

our way through to distortion

blurring the paradigm

to fit our fantasy.

Which brings me back to the

revolution of bodies and minds

the physics of our empowerment

virgin touches the whore

brown eats out black eats out red eats out white eats out yellow

cellular meets molecular

type A+ sucks type O

planetary dark matter bumps into galactic anti-matter

intuition tops cognition

hormones fucking hormones

fucking single celled amoebas

the origin of all living things

In my fantasy

I cannot determine where my cock

becomes your cock

I cannot distinguish your fist from my pussy

From the primordial scream of our loving making

I am not concerned about our division of sex

our uncommon ground

our differences

I am sealing our fate in my ejaculation

because as a biological woman

I can

And because I am man enough to meet you half way

around the linguistic burden that we all share,

the borders of he-she-they-it

I lift up this final teardrop of our human essence

in reverence for the time to come

when you and I

cannot see or feel the separation

only the bloodline that runs in both our veins

as one.   

    Interview

August 3rd, 2024

California Poets Interview Series:

Wendy-O Matik, Poet, Spoken Word Artist, Radical Love Activist

interviewed by David Garyan

DG: You were Wendy Millstine but write under Wendy-O Matik. When did you adopt the pen name and what were the reasons behind the decision?

WM: I took the name, Wendy-O Matik, because it reminded me of what I learned about giving away my power to someone else. Many of my friends in the Bay Area nicknamed me Wendy-O. In the late 80s, I was in an emotionally abusive and possessive relationship with a guy who started calling me “Ms. Matik,” as if to call me by my first name would somehow humanize me. It was also at this time that I began writing as if my life depended on it. I was in my early 20s, struggling in a world full of contradictions and injustice, while trying to find an outlet for all this outrage I felt. It reminds me to never repeat that kind of abuse again. It reminds me how a negative situation can offer a window of writing to heal.

DG: Your 2002 book Redefining Our Relationships: Guidelines for Responsible Open Relationships has been incredibly popular and you define yourself as a “radical love activist.” In addition to the book, you also use workshops to promote the idea. What are the challenges and rewards of this effort and do you see any parallels between the work you do in this sphere and a poetry workshop?

WM: I closed my chapter on open relationships and radical love workshops in 2014. Prior to that, responsible open relationships was largely a revolutionary way of life for me. It felt liberating and empowering to facilitate open-minded folks to talk about our mutual relationship struggles and how best to support each other on this alternative path for seeking more avenues for love and connection. The challenges were trying to normalize an alternative lifestyle that many around you felt threatened by, as well as the negative stereotypes that follow. The rewards are about knowing you have choices and that monogamy isn’t for everyone. My workshops were all about normalizing our unique relationship options and building support networks. The parallels of my radical love activism work and my spoken word path overlap in terms of my desire to be an outspoken, fearless woman in a society that wants women to stay silent, maintain the status quo, and not exert or exercise our power.

DG: Apart from your work on the page, you’ve also recorded an incredible amount of spoken word material—both in the US and Europe. Can you talk about how you prepare for each session, the process itself, the amount of takes you tend to do, post-production, and so on?

WM: A long time ago, I was married to a sound engineer and musician. Without him, it’s unlikely that I would have had the opportunity and access to recording studios and his extensive sound libraries. As invitations arose mostly from connections in the punk scene, I was very fortunate to have someone who fully supported my poetry and fulfilling my dream to get my words out to the world through different media avenues. I never prepared for a recording session. I simply wanted to recapture the unfiltered emotional feel and intensity from when the poem first formed in my mind and spilled onto paper. Within a few takes, it was ready to go. I wasn’t seeking perfection so much as raw, authentic, primal, female vulnerability. Post-production was all on my former partner whose creative genius provided sound collages that went beyond anything I could have imagined.

DG: You’ve traveled quite extensively. To what extent are relationships different in the parts you’ve been to and to what extent are they ultimately about what we all want?

WM: I’ve traveled and had the privilege of listening to the stories of all different kinds of alternative relationships from people all over the world, from China to New Zealand, Canada to Europe. But at the end of the day, in every culture, it’s really about a powerful desire to give and receive love in all its many forms.

DG: How is increasing technological sophistication impacting radical love? Is the life-on-constant-display-and-demand paradigm leading to greater connections or in fact greater jealousy/anxiety? And do you envision the concept having drastically changed twenty years from now?

WM: This is a difficult question for me for two main reasons. After closing the chapter on open relationships, I also completely disengaged from all social media. So I don’t feel that I have a solid footing to answer this question, except to say that dating apps will not save our love life. I lament the days of connecting with people in person—a café, bar, club, social event—without faces plastered to a cell phone. I have definitely seen some positive and negative changes in my 25 years of being an active advocate for open relationships. On a positive note, young people are much more aware, non-judgmental, and accepting of alternative relationships than ever before. On a negative note, sadly, men have shown me over and over again that they tend to misrepresent, misunderstand, and continually equate open relationships to open sex by seeking absolute sexual freedom and sexual conquest—devoid of responsibility, commitment, accountability, and safety. It’s the reason I left the poly scene. My vision of radical love involved a love for building an expansive and inclusive community, love for the health of the planet, and so much more. In some ways, it feels like I failed in getting that larger inspiration and message across. Radical loving is so much more that collecting multiple sex partners, in my humble experience.

DG: The Bay Area has nurtured and shaped your writing really from the very beginning. How have things changed? What do you continue to be grateful for? And are there things that have gotten more difficult?

WM: The Bay Area has definitely influenced my writing and perspective, just as inclusive feminism, anarchism, environmentalism, non-conformity, and liberation and anti-oppression politics have shaped my consciousness. This greatly changed when I felt called to move to Sonoma County and live closer to nature. As I began to experience my true self outside of the concrete slab and constant unrest of city life, I found my calm place. Out of that peace, I stopped writing for a long time. The last decade I might write 1 poem a year. Today my writing consists of love letters, typically 2-3 a month, which I find incredibly gratifying and healing. Today, I am grateful for the freedom to love, live, and connect with good people and to be in nature. I still struggle with finding my peace within a culture of violence, misogyny, and hate. I’m deeply committed to working in community on antiracism issues daily, but I feel discouraged by how little impact and change has occurred.

DG: What are your favorite literary haunts in the Bay Area?

WM: I left Oakland about 13 years ago, but my favorite venue for poetry back in the 80s and 90s was the punk club Gilman Street Project in Berkeley. The best place for literary events where I live now in Sonoma County are often my local bookstores and libraries.

DG: You’ve pretty much killed the idea of Prince Charming arriving—at least anytime soon—and that was already clear back in 2008, when the East Bay Express ran an article about you. Are there certain qualities you look for in an ideal radical love relationship or is it simply a mistake to think along the lines of ideals?

WM: I currently practice monogamy but I maintain an open heart to love, despite the many short-lived relationships that I’ve experience. I’m still an idealist when it comes to love and a meaningful connection. I don’t believe in a perfect anyone or any type of relationship, but I do remain open to a kind partner with some shared core values. I cannot tell you with any certainty if this exists or if it’s a fantasy or if I’m simply a hopeless romantic. I can tell you that I grow a little bit more jaded and discouraged with each passing year and each passing relationship. A sustainable, committed, long-term commitment feels utterly elusive to me at this moment.

DG: Your poetry is raw and uncompromising, reflecting the essence of your ideals. Were you always comfortable writing this way or did it take some time and momentum to build up such courage?

WM: Thank you for your kind impressions. My first early spoken word influences were Lydia Lunch, Patti Smith, Jello Biafra, and Henry Rollins. These writers were unapologetic, uncompromising, confrontational, and raw. From the outset, I wanted to connect deeply, authentically, and emotionally to people through spoken word. I wanted to risk everything by offering up myself, naked, unmasked, and vulnerable. I feel nervous before every reading and enormous self-doubt. The courage only comes when I can imagine just one person feeling a small spark of emotion from one of my poems.

DG: Tattoos are a big part of your identity. When did you get your first and what was the most recent one?

WM: To be more accurate, tattoos were a part of my identity, self-expression, and sense of freedom. I don’t feel this way now. I’ve haven’t had a new tattoo in almost 20 years and it’s the farthest desire from my mind at this point in my life. I got my first tattoo in Bath, England, when I was 22 and the last tattoos were after a traumatic breakup with a long-term married partner. The tattoos at that time were more about bringing the pain to the surface in a physical form than for art’s sake. That single breakup is still the most emotional pain, grief and loss that I have ever known.

DG: What are you reading or working on at the moment?

WM: I’m always reading 2-3 books at the same time. On audio, I’m reading Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent by Isabel Wilkerson. I’m also reading There There by Cheyenne and Arapaho author Tommy Strange. And I’m a long-time devoted subscriber of The Sun Magazine. I’m currently working on a poem about my sister and my fathomless love and devotion to her. My greatest source of inspiration and satisfaction for writing comes from love letters to friends and family, more so than poetry. Living close to nature on an organic farm, where the farm animals outnumber the humans, has softened my heart and left me less angst-ridden.

I have to admit that the parts of the interview that focused on my past work around alternative relationships were challenging, so I did my best to bring it back to the present. My past that has had the biggest influence and impact on my writing was the punk music scene and that community from the 80s and 90s in the Bay Area. Since I haven’t lived there in more than a decade, I feel less connected to that community and more connected to my quiet country lifestyle on a farm. I often struggle with feeling like I’m not a “real” poet since I typically work on one poem a year, however, I write several poetry-infused love letters a month, where my writing gives me the most gratification and joy. Writing to and for others expressing my love and devotion has been incredibly powerful and healing for me.

Author Bio:

Wendy-O Matik is a poet, writer, activist, and the author of Love Like Rage and Redefining Our Relationships. Back in the 90s, she could be found doing spoken word in the Bay Area punk scene and touring with various bands through the US, Canada, U.K, Australia, and New Zealand. Today, she lives on an organic farm in Santa Rosa, CA, where she has coauthored 11 mindfulness meditation books and still dabbles in poetry from time to time.