This showed up on Facebook and on LJ (thanks, G) this AM:
"Dear Slam Family,
In October of last year Brenda Moossy, my beloved friend and partner in slam, was diagnosed with lung cancer. The doctors discovered it was inoperable—after they opened her up. Since then she’s done various trials of experimental chemo, with little success. Last week she completed her third week of radiation therapy. Tonight she told me she’s begun hospice care, while still living at home.
She would love to hear from her friends in the slam community and asks y’all to say prayers for her, or send healing energy, or whatever else feels right. If you want to write something that reflects what Brenda and/or her poetry has meant to you it would be a huge gift for her and, she says, for her son and two young grandchildren. Short or long, prose or verse, something serious or just an anecdote about a silly shared memory—anything you are moved to communicate would be deeply felt and appreciated at this time.
Brenda’s email is habibi1@swbellnet. She’s quite weak and in constant pain despite pain meds, so she may not be able to reply.
The odds are long, dear ones, but if we send all our collective love and healing energy her way she’s got a better chance of beating them.
Love,
Lisa"
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Absolutely her own voice, utterly unlike anyone in Slam before or since; that big voice, that drawl….those words that came from the ground up and yes, Brenda, you made me want to see the stars too…one of the voices in my head that is a permanent touchstone for where I want to be as a person and a poet. I recall doing shots of tequila with her as we watched the famous naked pool party of NPS 1997, hanging on every word of every performance I ever saw her do, watching her go places no one expected when she stepped up on stage, seeing people who’d never heard her fall in love with her as she read…
Send what ever you’ve got — love, prayers, strength — to this woman. Even if you don’t know her. Even if you don’t usually do this. Please.
Here’s a taste….
Anaconda, Largest Snake in the World, Kills by Constriction
a kaddish
I.
It might have been you
in that dream
in that car
piloting the white convertible
like a land-locked plane
over the Austin hills…
you, straddling the white line
at 3AM, screaming "DO YOU LOVE ME?"
The wind sending your words
like a banner behind you.
Itmust have been me sitting
buck naked on the rolled up top
my arms flung out
my legs spread wide
feet looped behind the seat
Safety from flying
in the face of the sky
each time there was a dip
in the Bee Caves Road.
Anaconda rolls like water, boiling…
II.
I used to wonder why you liked to roll
with me in the boneyard.
Why the scent of pine and rose
and honeysuckle sent you coring
deep thru my flesh like a burrowing mole
looking for the sweetest root.
How you never noticed that I shivered
in the heat of summer when you parted my legs,
that the scent of decay preceded you
pushing to my womb before you
leaving a layer of death, salting the soil.
I used to wonder how the sight of me,
rocking into cold marble,
arms grasping the monuments
bleeding on red granite,
could make you weep…
could make you cradle me,
rock me, singing,
"Baby…Baby…Baby"
Anaconda rolls like water, boiling
coils loop around ankles
living tattoo
III.
I have opened like a bowl for you
I have split my skin like a wet, ripe husk
muskmelon orange
tomato red
sweet warm pulp, blood purple
I have moved aside,
leaving you room to crawl
inside
my skin
a shell
I have said, in jagged whisper,
"Do you love me?"
My words falling down my mouth
like pebbles down a well.
there is no peace
there is no peace
there is no peace
Anaconda rolls like water, boiling
coils loop around the ankles
living tattoo
slipping ‘tween the thighs
curling up the spine
squeezing fat from tissue
marrow from the bone.
A stealthy thief ….Anaconda
steals my sleep like thunder.
Dark Matter 
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