The Return of The Prince

And now,
behold,
the return of the Prince
with the sword,
and the key,
and the steed,
and the robe of illusion.
I have walked beside you
into the mud and muck
waiting
oh, waiting for you to lift me
and let me ride beside you.
But that was a dream,
a fool’s dream,
a little girl’s dream
lost
on deaf ears.
You are not a knight,
but a worm
and I am not a Princess,
but the ground
you slithered through
night after night.
So here we are
in the forest,
you balding,
and older,
me,
paler in color,
the rose of my cheek
fading,
my lithe form
rounder,
and softer.
My eyes tired
with age.
Why did you ever come at all?
You said,
“let down your hair.”
And I did.
You said,
“give me your heart.”
And I did.
You said,
“Let me see you naked.”
And I did.

The Gingerbread Men

The gingerbread men come
one by one
tumbling madly
dream after dream
lipsticked and stone faced
into my bed.
Their short stocky arms
pull at my flannel,
rip buttons off
egos.
I see their wide mouths,
their red wide mouths,
sucking at my flesh,
pulling limb from limb,
biting my neck,
seeking revenge for Christmases past.
Now it is my turn
to feel what it feels like
to be eaten alive.
One bites my neck
and red icing oozes out.
Legs.
Toes.
Hands.
Arms.
Gone.
It is all gone.
And I am not dead
yet.
Out my window,
the moon
no longer a wife,
slips like a ghost
behind the branches,
too afraid to watch.
Come morning
there will be nothing,
not even a crumb.

Time To Be Free

It is time to get quiet now.
Time to get still.
I have been up for almost two hours,
picking up clothes,
putting away dishes,
and paying bills.
I have run from room to room
calling and faxing
and vacuuming.
I have eaten crackers to calm my stomach
and peppermint tea
to soothe what the antibiotics have destroyed.
I have checked email,
and cancelled appointments,
and fed the dog.
And I have done all of this with incredible ease
as if I were an octopus reaching my
tentacles into every room of the house,
and into every part of my existence.
It is easy to do things.
Things don’t matter.
And yet they must be done
in order to live in this world.
The problem is
I want to do more than things.
I want to walk in the woods
and smell the pines,
and hear the sound of leaves crunching
beneath my feet.
I want to lie on the grass
and dream of clouds
and let my mind wander
into plays and songs yet to be written.
I want to taste hot chocolate
And pecan pie
And leave my worry behind.
I want to be free.

Absolute Grey

Today is so grey
It feels like I am dreaming
and haven’t awoken yet.
Everywhere I look
there are cars
pulling in to parking spots.
Rushing.
Trying to get through with Christmas
in time for Christmas.
At my home,
my decorated tree
sits in the corner with no presents underneath it’s branches.
It looks like a Southern belle,
dressed in her finest ball gown,
lifting her skirt to show off her bare ankles.
It’s shocking.
And yet,
I don’t mind.
There is a stillness here.
A quiet.
My headphones rest in the paisley chair
across from me.
My tea cup
sits at my feet
still full of green tea.
It is all so still,
it is as if we had all been frozen
into a Christmas memory,
one that Rockwell would never paint.

Kodak Moment

Pretend
the photograph
is the future
and there is nothing
looking back at you.
No toilet overflowing.
No underwear on the floor.
Birds fly like elevators up five floors
smack into windows,
then careen backwards
into hospital casseroles
where they are served to unsuspecting patrons.
A moment.
Frozen in space.
Black chips on the table.
The way your lover looks at you
before the apple falls.
Hands holding dishes and spoons.
Pumpkins smashed on sidewalks.
What if there were nothing in the frame
but emptiness?
What then?

Patch and Trouble

Patch died last night.
Hit by a car.
When I got the call I ran down
and saw her standing in the grass by the road,
visibly shaken.
Trouble was near her.
They had known each other for over ten years,
run off together
for hours at a time.
Run through mud and leaves and limbs
and hills.
Terrorized squirrels and neighborhood cats
like a couple of Southern teenagers.
Every morning at 5 a.m. he would wake me,
run across the backyard to the house next door,
and stand there barking and crying till they let her out.
Then they would take off together and come home in the evening
by five o’clock.
It was like that for years.
Gone from morning till night,
even later in the summer
when the sun hung around.
All the kids in the neighborhood who saw them
said they were in love,
and that they were married.
In a way,
they were more married that most couples I know.
For Trouble, there was never anyone else
but Patch.
So when Patch died last night at the vets,
I wondered if Trouble knew.
I wondered if somehow when he saw her being picked up
and driven away in the back of the Subaru
he knew it would be the last time
he would ever see her again.

The Power of Pine

Christmas came to me
with broken dreams and branches.
A three dollar tree
made beautiful with ornaments from my past.

New Again

The truth is
I don’t want to write.
I have bored myself silly.
I am tired of my problems and your problems
and all the problems in the world.
I’m tired of hearing about the war in Iraq,
and the AIDS epidemic,
and another sex scandal
by some politician that everyone knew was gay anyway.
What does it matter anymore?
How many more lives will be lost today?
One hundred?
Two hundred?
Is it me or has everything become too rote?
There are no surprises.
Cell phones have taken away spontaneity.
Any new “news” in the world
reaches us within seconds of it happening.
The squirrel in my backyard
runs from fence post to fence post
and knows none of what I know,
yet seems far more content.
Somewhere,
all of it,
and I do mean all of it,
has gotten old.
Even the holidays.
Christmas
means hanging up the same old decorations,
getting out the same box of Christmas cards
and sending them to the same people
year after Yuletide year.
All of it has left me feeling empty.
I don’t feel Christmassy,
even though every mailbox, street lamp
and commercial is telling me to.
I have drunk Eggnog,
eaten peppermint candy,
and gone to the mall to see Santa,
but I feel nothing.
It is always the same.
I wish someone would invent something new.
Santa has a weird twin brother
who takes away gifts
or there’s an entirely new Saint we discover.
A hidden Saint.,
one who brings world peace
or ends poverty.
I don’t know.
None of the old things are working for me.
I am smothered in tinsel,
and fruitcake,
and cherry pie,
and pine needles.
My stockings are hung up with care,
but there’s nothing I want,
unless someone could give me a gift
to make me feel new again.

In The Pig and The Blue

In the woods
I have wandered,
in the pig
and the blue
and the small Queen
Ferry.
So much has happened.
I can never say.
Look,
gather the dust
around you.
Put your head out the window
and feel the sun on your lips.
Taste the sea.
I have crossed that bridge
in all modicums of daylight.
Each morning is different.
Coming home
I saw the pinkest sky
as if the world were on fire.

Speed Poem

How fast can you write a poem
And let it flow
And let it rock
And forget about the words
And the tones
And the sunsets falling over the hill on
those cold winter nights
Just let the words come
Like breath
Like the deep birth of moons
And scorpions
And forget about the hours
And the moments
And the little man in the corner
writing down names
and notes on your life.
Just write
Write fast and hard
Like the hawk swooping down
To catch the squirrel
Then standing motionless over his catch
Refusing to move
Even when the lights of an old Volvo
Are shined on him.
Even when people point
And whisper
And stare.
Be
The poem
The words
The shadows of light
On the green of the hill.
Forget
What it feels like to feel
To taste
To touch
Just be the vessel
And let whatever comes
Come.
How fast can you write a poem.
Faster than you thought
You could.

Blueberry Girls

To break the ice,
we buy her tamales
and I play ping-pong with him
before I leave him at the JCC
just like they left me at camp
when I was seven years old.
I always hated camp.
I hated the counselors,
and the kids,
and the food,
and the rules.
I hated the secret sign language the girls used
during “quiet time’
when they were supposed to be sleeping in their bunk beds.
I hated getting dressed when it was freezing outside.
And I hated how alone I felt
picking blueberries and wild mint
in the woods.
I rarely befriended anyone
except for the occasional
weird outcast boy-girl
who was equally miserable.
Together we would talk about the other kids
and all the things we hated about them.
But the truth is,
if either one of us had ever been accepted by the “in” kids
we would have dumped each other
faster than the fake mashed potatoes
we threw into the trash bin
night after endless night.

Chai Chai

When I look at them
I see death.
Her frail thin body
moving from side to side
like a broken puppet.
His sore ridden body
and lost eyes
searching for something he’ll never see again.
I watch him,
trying to find the words
he used to know so effortlessly.
His mind,
is like a record player,
stuck in the same groove
playing the same stories over and over:
63 million shares of Columbia pictures
that he sold too soon,
going to Las Vegas to win a million dollars at the dice table,
how he quit college to help his sick father,
working eighty hours a week in the grocery store
before I was ever born.
singing
the Polish chai chai song
every time I pour myself a cup of tea.
It is always the same.
Twenty-four hours a day.

Tomato

Last night
in the pot
I ran
into the hole
into the yellow.
The smoke house thoughts
attached beyond beauty
like a rock.
Can
you believe it.
Certainty is the lie.
Remember
the truth changes
like cheese
left out on the kitchen table.
One day I bleed silver
like a sardine,
the next
the dragon takes me.
All of this pain is an envelope
I should have licked closed.
It’s all the same.
My head.
Your mother.
My body.
When a man sits down
to save his tomato,
run.

What Remains

I am sitting in the small yellow room
looking out the window.
The broken fence leans against the good one.
The brick outdoor fireplace,
built eighty years ago
sits stoically in the ground.
I imagine all of the steaks and ribs
and chickens that have been cooked on it over the years.
It holds stories,
of backyard parties,
wakes,
Fourth of July’s,
affairs,
divorces,
and births.
I imagine the backyard full of black men and women
dressed in their Sunday best,
laughing and playing the blues.
White dresses blowing in the breeze,
Easter hats of pink and blue,
the squirrels darting about eating leftover
crumbs of corncakes and sweet potato pie.
I see an old man sitting on the back porch
playing his harmonica,
drinking Wild Turkey,
yellowed eyes and fingernails,
knowing what he has built
will remain
even after he is gone.