Tangled Up In Sheets

It is like that now.
You,
on your side of the bed,
curled up,
Sprawled out,
Like a ‘y’.
Me,
fighting myself
night after night
until exhaustion wins.
The ballot cast.
The small ‘x’ placed
before the name
of our savior.
We walk hand in hand
by the pumpkins
kissing fall along the way.
How did we get here?
You say
it was luck.
I am not so sure.
Tomorrow it will rain
and the small drops will fall
on the yellow mums.
Be still
and listen to the night.

Insomnia

Nighttime has become a ritual
of agony.
Me,
lying in my bed,
legs dancing uncontrollably,
sliding from corner to corner,
up in the air,
twisting,
back and forth,
as if I were doing the Cha-Cha.
Hour after hour,
ticking by,
trips to the bathroom,
and kitchen.
Drinking and peeing.
staring at the moon,
and the light on my windshield.
It is the same,
night after night.
In bed by 10p.m.
exhausted,
only to wake
after thirty minutes
and find myself unable to sleep.
Three days passed
and I am more tired than ever
and still,
no sleep,
just dancing.
I think of Hans Christian Anderson’s
tale of the girl who wore the red shoes.
She couldn’t stop dancing
till they cut off her feet.

Days of October

Sunday,
when the bells ring,
I will think of you.
Memories of the dead,
rising up
like pearls
released from their shells.
As I sit there,
in the silence of the sanctuary,
I will drift back
to the days of October,
my brown leggings
and flannel shirt,
your blue eyes,
our chance meeting,
on a milk crate.
We still touch
and kiss
and light-up like Jack-o-lanterns
at the sight of one another.
We have survived loss -
grandparents
and dogs,
and dreams.
We have seen buildings collapse
and countries at war.
We have walked upon beaches in Italy
and shared meals fit for Gods.
We have known the passion of carnal love
and settled in to the comfort of certainty.
We have danced our dull hearts new
never forgetting
the rhythm of night
or one another.

bucket of bananas

I am leaping all over the page today
like a Mexican Jumping Bean stuck in a can.
I have been from one subject to the other,
one phone call to another.
I can’t seem to get centered.
Maybe because I didn’t sleep last night,
or maybe because I skipped meditation this morning.
Big mistake.
Tom Verlaine is staring at me
giving me that disapproving look he always gives me
when I can’t finish a song
and when I’ve let too many extraneous things get in my way.
Sorry, Tom.
I’d like to say it won’t happen again,
But I can’t.
I’m starting to see what I do.
Stating to see what actions and thoughts are leading me away
from where I say
I want to go.
I always thought my actions and words matched.
No.
My thoughts and actions match
and unfortunately my thoughts can’t be trusted.
My thoughts are like untrained monkeys
always pulling at me to come this way
or go that way.
No wonder I am confused.
It is time to tame the monkey mind
and stop listening.
Yes,
I must go buy a bucket of bananas
immediately.

Loneliness So Deep


I am in a loneliness so deep
even the blue of the sky
cannot cheer me.
It is like that now.
The whitefish sandwich dredged in cornmeal
and hot sauce.
The smell of new books in vendors’ hands.
The rush of people,
the thinkers of the South
on their way to lecture.
All of it feels empty this Saturday.
I stroll the halls of the library,
climb marble stairs one by one,
soothe my hunger in chocolate
and coffee
and Dickinson.
Nothing helps.
I feel upside down
and alone
removed from him,
removed from his smile.
I am hooked like a heroin
addict
unable to think of anything else,
unable to quiet my mind.
When did it happen?
When did I become so lost?
I am scared
of who I see looking back at me in the mirror?
Where did I go?
I must step back and watch myself.
See what I do
to comfort myself.
What I reach for.
It is only by going through
that I will get to the other side
I know that.
I know that.
And yet,
I do not want to go.
I want to stay.
I want to stay in my cocoon
forever.

Florida

I tell myself you are in Florida
on an island with no phone.
I tell myself you are lying in the sun
soaking up warmth.
I tell myself these things to keep from crying.
I do not like forced separation.
I am scared.
Scared of everything.
Scared to feel my own skin.
I am watching my breath and thoughts tailspin into a panic.
Over what?
A phone call?
You are here.
You are fifteen minutes away.
But it might as well be four thousand miles
because I can not feel you.
I can not see you.
I am searching with blind hands
over books and chairs
and jeans
for your body,
your voice,
when I can not
find my own.

My Head

In this circle
there is no way out.
Just the tide pool
endlessly rounding,
never opening up.
Each road a dead end.
Each path a lie.
When the wind blows past
I scream, “take me.”
But it just goes on by.
I plot my escape
like a man on death row.
Which guard is the weakest?
Where is the key?
Which fence has the least barbed wire?
The morning is always the same.
The anxiety greets me first,
then the fear.
I run around like a chicken without my head,
searching,
searching
for what became of it.
It is not in my lover’s hands,
or my friends,
or my families.
Perhaps it has rolled under the dining room table.
Yes,
I’ll go look for it there.
My green eyes stare out at me
and a small voice says,
“kneel down.”
But I am scared to look.
I am scared to see myself.
What if I turn to stone
and am more paralyzed than I am now?
What if what I see is so ugly
that I never recover?
But I must look.
I lift up the dining room tablecloth
and there under the wooden legs
is my head.
To my surprise,
it is not so frightening.
It’s rather small and vulnerable.
“Come in.” it says.
I sit under the table and lower the cloth.
“Where have you been?”my head says,
“I’ve missed you.”
“I don’t know.” I say.
And I really don’t.
We sit like that for hours,
my head and I,
giggling
like a couple of schoolgirls.
Then I get up to leave.
“Come back again,” my head says.
I will.

Full Of The Dead

I want it gone.
Sold.
Cut out like a tumor
I never have to look at again.
I want to be on my way
with the sun in my face
to my new life.
I want to be there already.
New York.
Portland.
Seattle.
Anywhere but here.
I want to wake up
with my future in my hands
and see myself sitting
in some Brooklyn pizzeria,
or Portland coffee house ,
hooking up with a new band,
and writing poems about tacos and immigrants.
I want my courage,
body,
blood,
to find its way
home,
the way little streams
find bigger streams
and end up in rivers
joining the rush
of something bigger than themselves.
I have been stagnant
in Nashville,
like water in a bird bath,
full of the dead,
slowly drying up
into nothingness.

Cup Of Joe

I’ll settle for a cup of coffee
in my hand.
Rats on Hollywood Boulevard,
a seat at the circus,
and fat under my shirt.
I am not aiming high.
How can I?
I am only trying to keep myself alive.
Nothing matters when you’re poor
and pale,
but pennies.
And who can count that high anyway?
Not me.
A little bread,
a chunk of butter.
What more does one need?
The best days are your last.
The ones caught burning in water.
The ones on postcards
of all those places
you never went to.

Outside

It is quiet.
In the background
the clock ticks
on the kitchen wall
and the refrigerator hums
with life.
Outside is a different story.
The trees are as still as paintings.
Leaves and limbs frozen.
There isn’t a squirrel,
or a bird,
or even a red wasp.
No Fall butterfly
or young fawn grazing.
Just the endless green.
It is as if someone
stopped the world
and forgot to tell me.