YEAR OF THE BANANA
Collected Poems from 2015
by Kalmia Traver
Second Edition
© 2024

a peeling of bananas
light the candle
lift up and out
momentarily 
of that skin
and see 
the next thing
and then
dive down
and pounce 
on it

PREFACE

Welcome to the second edition of Year Of The Banana! In 2015 I started a "poem-a-day" practice and the result was the first edition of Year Of The Banana, self-printed & published in December 2015 and distributed to friends and family as a holiday gift. I was proud of myself for making my first poetry zine, and I never thought it would go much further than that. Now we find ourselves in 2024 and boy did we really peel this banana! Me and Alex Toth's band Rubblebucket has unpacked these poems and re-worked them into an album of songs (Year Of The Banana, 2024, Egghunt Records), our 7th studio record.

Thank you to Alex for the idea of setting these poems to music and for his awesome songwriting contributions. In this second edition of the poem book you'll find 2 new ones: STELLA THE BEGONIA (2022) and FOREST BATHING (2020). Both were started as part of our pandemic-era "song-a-day" songwriting workshops, and we included them on the record because we felt they fit, so here in this book you'll find those lyrics alongside the original ten poems.

I feel really honored to have these poems re-visited and re-cycled, but more than that I've adored being back inside them. This album-creation process has been like opening a time capsule to a me that was recovering from a scary cancer experience by coming into the present moment & naming/describing exactly what my guts needed. Writing poems for me has always been a way to "astral-travel". Creating something out of nothing is a process of honoring the little quiet body messages; "going all the way" with an idea that might lead to a paroxysm of desire or a cave under the earth or the top of a grassy cliff 100 feet above an endless sea of rippling purple. It's my belief that we *are* the planet we're on; we're indivisible from Earth; and so exploring our own body messages and imaginations is just as adventurous and legit as climbing the tallest mountain. That's the reminder I'm receiving 9 years later, and I'm excited to share it with anyone reading this: peel our own banana, taste our own sweetness.

Kalmia Traver

June 18, 2024

TIME FOR THE RATTLESNAKE

Do you have time for this rattlesnake?
Do you have time to draw his every scale, 
(really, every single one)?
How the light hits his back
as he basks in the saw palmetto?
That exact faraway look in his Earth eyes?

No.

The whole wide world is beckoning
and every single place 
but here
has you in it 
drawing the rattlesnake 
with perfect nowness and contentment 
on your face and his.

BIKING BROADWAY
(BROOKLYN)


It's a really pristine day for tasting blood in my mouth.
The sun is shining and the air smells like gingerbread,
as in battle,
as in the moment where you accept your discomfort.
The world’s surfaces shine angularly
and reflect the bright heat,
moving without touching,
moving without touching.

This is a dry miniature
future sci fi set 
that was meant to be marshy.
Oops!
Who forgot the trees?
Who forgot the cups to catch the water!?
In this desert
no no
In this white lit city
railroad tracks thunder above
they pierce actually,
and I am 
riding the shadow stripes
which flash
the need for shade 
against the 
terror of winter.

Eyes shut or squinting
I
disappear
into this poem,
write this poem,
heart beating,
hands gripping the pant leg of life.

You can make a valid premonition, 
just make it happen.

You can lift off at any time.
The earth is so hard and fast,
like scissors or a beautiful ice queen.

You can close your eyes
and swim in light,
that is possible.

But don’t forget to
come back, 
don’t forget to
to live to tell the tale.

LOOKING FOR THE MORNING GLORY BLANKET

I’m still here
and it’s still misting 
just the way I like
The nasturtiums are growing big again
and even though sawdust crepes the sonic intimacies of our room
and the thorns of anywhere but here
pluck and tick our skin at 60 beats per minute per minute per minute per minute per minute per minute per minute per minute
leaving ink black blots to cover up the old scars
And even though hospitals have risen 
sometime previous to our birth
in monolithic deathly bladerunner-esque glory
and gaze at us stoically with two beady red eyes 
from the wet crotch of 
confusingly heavenly
mother earth
who covers herself with flowers in rebellion
while people die for free 
and sell hair-ties that look like anal beads
on her, 
and people make mixtapes and burn incense, 
and people run over people on her, 
and they shoot people on her, 
and they hold healing sweaty dances, 
and look at their eyes 
and they don’t look at their eyes 
and they hold their breaths and improvise, 
and try to crawl out of their skins on her, 
and breathe the stale air
again and again 
day after day
on her
Ahhh
She finds ways to blanket it all
in mist
and
morning glories
and today I’m 
looking for that 
blanket
That’s all

WORKING FROM HOME


There’s a story in there 
knocking around
a forest with pools of ink
billowed down on to 
cliffs below clouds above clouds
and some kind of sacrifice
is happening
The pink blood
runs in dusty tracts
tossing up miniature fairy dust

We have some little twigs in there,
moss fronds, seed beads,
eraser must, pin tips, 
sunflower germs, various worldly sands, 
teacup shardettes, dehydrated ejaculate (♂&♀),
flannel lint, origami folds, miracle tape,
neon earplugs, pinecone, ant carcass,
sumac fur, wax drips, incense ash,
street particulate, wires, used matchsticks, 
and the likes of crayola shavings 
all crowded and cresting on
these flash floods of spilled sanctity

Let us follow it to the fun zone
and immediacy
just the whirl of the word of the world and the wicked woulds
Just the shaved and the shorn and the 
shores of the universal plane
Somewhere in here is a boring lesson
about the path to joy
and what colors it is
and what overlapping truths make mysteries again
and what ven diagram of different perfect Japanese fabrics
would move the people the most
to utter and upmost immediacy
and joy and nowness
who are trapped inside 
and for whom the beach is not an option
And how to monetize that

And how to overtake that monetization
occupy it
tent on it
probably have sex in the tents
and then cook a little breakfast 
in the orange pre-dawn breeze 
of the likes of 
Union Central Ft. Green Idaho Square
or New Orleans Alaska State Fair
or Texas Colloseum Giants Beefstake Park
or what have you

It’s marvelous to be alive
That’s basically what 
I’m saying

DRAGON FIGHT 

There was an enormous dragon fight last night
Green blood poured from the top of the towers
and rained on our heads
We woke up in bed
locked in ferocious embraces
deafened and defeated
wet with love
I fingered your lips
and tears poured out
Glass baubles emerged from your arms
The bed fell away
only all of us
in a green sea
Scorpions on the mantle
watched as the most horrific words
flew like lit pixies
intoxicating back and forth
from my tongue to yours

And this happened in every house
We fed our greed 
with lascivious compliments
back and forth for the scorpions to witness
Sweet pillow nothings
sweet pillowed indigo lily breasts 
thumping 
Pirouettes of cunnilingual excellence
and vain bravado aimed purely
for the lover’s third eye
Our whole city was alight

On the streets
far flung lovers 
drenched in sickly green
gathered in
doorways and underpasses
and convenience stores 
the night kittens
in black denim
and jars of beer
to argue and shriek
and then kiss hard
with cigarette breath
pushing their bodies into their bodies
hard
so as to break the walls
and the bones of their bones
for hours
on end
kissing
and fighting
in turn
with a frequency
not dissimilar to
to the entire hum of everything

Throbbing in volcanic ash
the dragons twisted and clawed
heaved and howled
At the tops of the towers they flew
at times disappearing behind clouds
which would then light up violent green 
and quake 
quite literally
like clouds never do
At other times the sky would go so silent
and only black stars 
and ash floating everywhere
as the monsters surged up
clear out of planetary pull
and we all were left
by the same path
we were visited
on fire
&
alone

THE SORROW THAT COMES WITH LOVING

When we embrace:
The barely perceptible eye movements.
The barely perceptible toe movements.
My mother as a child laughing and free, 
jumping off the dock, 
picking up her little sister, 
wearing cotton leggings.
The depth of sorrow that comes with loving.

THE WORM IS RIGHT HERE 

We are not so humble of a creature

When I hug you 
your shoulders melt into mine
and I feel your spine
delicate as a child
fairy princess
delicate and warm
as if you ran 20 miles today

And I think about 
the woman who threw the paint on you
that night at the J’ouvert 
and said “Why you so clean?!” and 
hugged you and bounced all up over you
and you said I never wanna be clean again
and when you put it like that
I don’t either
But I do want to be that woman

To feel your scaffolding melting
against mine
skin wrapped perfectly around it
as present as a present
that will continue to give 
throughout the full span of exactly 1 life

So go now and be
a warm worm tunneling softly through the cold night
of non being 
singing thanks with your silky body
forcing new cracks
hacking smooth and blindly 

The worm is around the block where 
she just bought bakers chocolate,
but you won’t find her there

She’s sliding through water 
diving down deep,
but you’ll never guess which ocean

She’s feeling herself
lost in velvet
in a room whose door is a window

So go now and feel yourself
now today
sit in heat
with your own soft frame
and that’s where 
we can finally 
be together

THIS POEM STARTED IN UNSOAKED TEA LEAVES

In the curly black
and spiky autumn
of my and my friends souls
I am looking for a friend
another 
to share sips of tea
and puffs of smoke

To go all the way with

So when we talk
it’s our grandmothers talking
and our children talking
and I can observe how things were back then
Did street cars go by?
Did leaves fall and hit
the earth with the same distracted dip?

How was it to be a woman,
really really?
Was it fine? 
Did we dream and be savages 
wild and free 
clits out
making plans
despite tangles of cotton slips

Did we drive to meet each other
take each other into our kitchens
exchange a meaning
so secret and marvelous
that it would grow to stand in us
over time
iron 
sinew
Would support our punches
Would support our mothers milk
Would flow out our pens
as black as yin
An uglyness so pure
so all-absorbing
earth salt marsh
where the fish spawn
brave in it’s birth face
humble in it’s orgasm face

And if you don’t know what I mean 
I hope you learn
the freedom there is
in bowing down 
to kiss the mud
and rocks

WHITE RIVER VERN

lush life
boner
christmas trees
boogers
barney
aimless afternoons
in spill form
baseball bats
pit stains
iron taste 
in mouth
swirling river water
bus stops
no 
train stops
amaranth flowers
bitter leaf
sour stalks
mom
polka dot diner
car rot smell
vinyl torn
baseball caps
sunkist
renewal
neck braces
finger braces
burger and fries
wet streets
hiss
with passing cars
like waves 
on an ocean
jungle gym
mulch 
broken boomerang
grassy
doesn't come back
clay banks
ancient plastics and rust spots
two rivers converge
and swirl
and
at that point
it's me
vern
fern
and i'm
taking a break

GRANDFATHERED IN

There is a beach
tucked in between billows of self-assured dainty cream puff
platinum cufflink moss shingles, 
I’m telling you.
White trims upon trims upon obtuse angle porch roofs 
overlap each other
with perfect grandfathered precision 
in pedigree gated circles, 
probably empty and wind-howled in winter
but probably deluxe-mannered conversations about assets
have been happening all summer here on 
those green sloped arched loping lawns which spill into the 
harbor with a desperate eyebrow-waxed wink.
I’ve been supposing it one week a year
all my life.
Anyway.
I get to go here, and the
walk is soft, the light dazzly.
At night I hear wind not ceasing through cedar bay and oak
and on days like today 
I barefoot hop towards a wild fruit opportunity
up then down the secret path which opens to ocean.
The clothes fall off 
and then I’m on that sand
the wet part
trying to feel someway.
The tide is low, it goes way out 
to the chop of many colors,
the sun cuts it all sideways,
and there is a dull creak in my bones which I wish to erase
by diving into a 
bobbing prism,
a wet chest-deepness
made of weight greenly,
and I hover 
pretending I’m in a dream flying
or that I’m totally ok
because ~it’s fine~
we’re allowed to pretend that, even just if momentarily.
Here comes the different part:
A black boulder has appeared, where I never saw one, 
never in all my life’s summers.
But it’s floating
A hay-bale of saturation, jet turquoise
almost grazing my shoulder, unmistakably huge and 
startling, hulking, life threatening?
It’s floats turns into glides, and if it’s a shark
do I stand my ground like one should with grizzly bears?
Now I wish I had stayed 
dived down danced with it,
the northern stingray pitch brown against the sand,
curious about this world, 
this warm cream puff silent 
ache dancer, 
this green spilled grandfathered-in 
water monkey
this well-mannered desperate 
wink archer
Befloated and befloating
beheld and beholding. 

STELLA THE BEGONIA
by Kalmia Traver and Alex Toth

"I love you baby"

That's what I say
when I wake up in the morning
with a sun ray
lighting you up. I say
"Hello Stella the Begonia!"
I know I'm not alone
I Know I'm not alone

Your heart is pumping;
my heart's pumping too.
When I see the way you're leaning into living
it makes me want to lean towards living too.
That's what I wanna do,
that's what I'm gonna do.
Stella, do do do.

"I love you baby"
That's what I say
when I go to sleep at night
with a moon ray
lighting you up I say
"Hello Stella the Begonia!"
I know I'm not alone
I Know I'm not alone
You make me want to lean towards living too
That's what I wanna do
That's what I'm gonna do
Stella, do do do.

Oh Stella you're an angel
Oh Stella you're a starlight
You show me how
the infinite whispers of the universe
are all whispering
one thing:
love
love
love!

FOREST BATHING

beauty
come to me
like a meteor
like petrichor*
mablinducene**
paint me totally green

mablinducene**
paint me totally green
head to toe
like the petrichor

*
petrichor
noun

1 a pleasant smell that frequently accompanies the first rain after a long period of warm, dry weather.

**
mablinducene
noun

1 a word kal made up that refers to the ephoc on earth coming up where humans start being kind to each other, ourselves and more-than-human world and we turn around climate change and repair our relationships and fruitfully extend a legacy of queerness, transness, matriarchy and freedom that has been underground in our roots longer than the legacy of patriarchal harm has been on the overground