Voices

Crazy.
Yes.
That voice inside my head.
The one proclaiming so much doom and gloom.
The one that leaves me spinning
and taking me down a road I really don’t want to go down.
Yes,
that one.
You know.
The one that tells you about how awful everyone is
and how you’ll never have this or that,
and how everyone’s life is better than yours.
Yes,
that one.
The one that makes you compare yourself to someone else
and you never end up winning the contest.
The one that makes you scared to try something new.
The one that makes you focus on the past and forget the future.
The one that says it won’t happen.
Ever.
Yes,
that one.
I’ve been listening to that one for too long.
I’ve let it drag me around in the mud,
in the gutters,
in the crawlspace where the cave crickets live
and the water is thick with mold.
I’ve been listening to that voice for so long
I forgot to listen to the other voices in my head.
Good voices.
Fun voices.
Nice voices.
Voices that tell me to lighten up and be merry.
Voices that remind me of how much I have
and how grateful I should be.
Voices that let me give love
and let me feel love from those around me.
Voices
that help me remember who I really am.
Yes,
those voices.

Broken

Perhaps he didn’t worship her properly
as she lay there in bed
with her bones broken
and her body bruised.
After all,
she was a rock star,
she had a right to be fussed over.
He was just an average filmmaker with an accent.
He hadn’t shaken anyone’s world,
ever,
except hers.
Now it’s over.
All her dirty little secrets are out on the table for the world to pick over
like shoppers at a yard sale.
An affair here.
A miscarriage there.
A broken promise.
Just sift through and you’ll find what you are looking for.
I wonder if she’ll ever do it again,
say, “I do”
to another man.
It hasn’t worked out very well for her
so far.
Has it?

Patriotism Is A Warm Puppy

Have you seen the new ads on t.v.?
The ones recruiting for the military?
You know the ones,
some poor kid is sitting on a couch in a uniform
while his parents talk about how proud they are of him
and what a better person he is now that he’s enlisted.
Or the one with the black family,
where the mom is combing one kid’s hair and the older son
is questioning her about why she questioned his decision to join the army
and she says, “that’s my job.”
Then they both smile.
It’s sick.
Patriotism is being sold like a warm puppy
or a Hallmark card.
No one is showing the bodies being blown-up and saying,
“Come join the Marines.”
Or the post-war aftermath of innocent people being decimated
and a quote coming up on the screen afterwards that says,
“Army, not just a job, an adventure.”
The worst part about the ads is
the way they are being marketed to the poorest, least educated part of our country.
It feels like the way cereal manufacturers market to kids on Saturday morning.
They know their audience and what buttons to push.
They know how to package it,
what words to use,
what color to make the box,
and how to make it just innocent enough
that the parents will say yes to it.
It’s all warm,
and real,
and sappy,
but if you read the ingredients,
it’s poison.
Same with these beauties.
None of the ads ever show a wealthy family with some rich kid
in the backseat of his parent’s Lexus
trying to decide between Harvard and Ft. Campbell.
Or a kid in a high paying white collar job choosing between Wall Street and the streets of Iraq.
Or some politician’s son choosing between
following in dad’s Gucci footsteps or eating dirt for the next year.
No, these recruiters are way too smart for that.
They pick the vulnerable ones in our society,
the ones who feel like it’s their ticket out to a better future
when it’s really their ticket to the morgue.
Don’t their families love them too?
Isn’t their blood worth as much as the blood of wealthy white Americans?
When did our Armed Forces become the poor-man’s green ghetto?
Fight on the streets for your gang or fight on the streets for Uncle Sam?
Makes you proud to be an American, doesn’t it?
Oh, sorry, I’m mean, don’t it,?

Out My Window

I am alone now
just the brown leaves blowing
across the brick patio.
Last night I slept sixteen hours,
my stomach full of Ethiopian food.
I dreamed of sex
and old abandoned homes
with decaying garages
and pools with Spanish tile
left full of filthy water.
I walked on vacant lots
and told myself the value of my home.
I listened to the crickets
and the robins
and walked the wrong way on black paved roads.
I sat on the grass and watched the ants
and felt the wind blow on my back.
When I awoke
I felt better than I have in days,
the grayness that I dreamed
was here
out my window
and the wind was starting to blow.

Scared to Touch Ground

The problem is me.
I am the strange play.
The possession.
The steel wool in bed.
The five-year-old who speaks rocks
and scars.
Each day I send myself
to July
to force open the picnic
and write postcards
to your lawn.
I slept last night
for the first time in weeks
and didn’t stop to dream of you.
I was flying a plane
that I couldn’t land,
scared to touch the ground.
But that was yesterday
when the rain came on hard
like a bull.
Today the air is soft and grey
cashmere,
feminine
as a Chinese flower
waiting to be picked.
How could I sit and swoon over you
like fresh bread
and let myself shrink
in so much dampness?
Now is not the time to ponder
or pant.
I must knock down the night.
Everything is possible
with a woman.
So do not be surprised
to see my dolls
nailed up,
because a woman
is untamable
even in death.

When The Wind Blows

Where do you go when the wind blows?
Do you curl up in a ball
and hunker down low
and wait for the fury to stop?
Do you stand up tall
and walk against the force
step after treacherous step
praying it will end
before you fall?
Do you find shelter
in nearby twigs and branches
and build a fort to live in
all the time watching from safe inside your hut
what is stirred up just outside your window?
Do you struggle against that which is inevitable
cursing the debris that falls in your eyes?
Or do you do nothing
but sit and let it blow by you
making yourself one with it all
until it passes?
Where do you go when the wind blows?

Naked Christmas

In the dream
I am naked
trying on hose
for two men,
one my lover,
the other his friend.
Black hose pulled
over red.
A short wool skirt
and high heels with straps wrapped around my ankles
like Grecian goddess shoes.
In the dream it doesn’t matter
that my lover’s friend is seeing my breasts.
I am not in the least bit self-conscious.
I am just dressing and undressing,
as if I were brushing my teeth,
and nothing more.
I am getting ready for something.
Some function
my mother will be at.
My hair is dark and long
and hangs about my waist
like poured chocolate.
My skin is so white,
so pale
I look like bread fresh out of the package,
untouched and malleable.
The two flit about the room
picking out blouses and skirts,
holding them up to me
imagining how I might look in each.
I am their doll,
their dress-up doll,
the one they never had when they were growing up
busy
playing with guns.
They stand and admire me,
their creation,
and nod in agreement.
Then the friend,
reaches in and touches my face.
His hand is cold on my skin.
He places a red ribbon in my hair
and drapes a pearl necklace around me,
adorning me
like a Christmas tree.

Death By Family

Going to see our families
is like picking out methods to die.
Death by suffocation.
Death by poisonous words.
Death by lethal injection of guilt.
It is always the same.
The deafening silence at his house.
The endless screaming at mine.
The innuendos
vs. the direct assaults.
Dodging silent bullets is much harder for me than it is for him
because I am used to live ammunition.
The sound of grenades going off every few seconds
is well,
almost comforting.
I know how to respond to such warfare.
I know how to duck, roll and take cover.
I can see it coming.
His family’s tactics are much more subversive.
The glance,
the weary “alright”
which never is
echoed from maternal lips.
The unknowing stares.
The backroom questions.
Everything under the table,
always under the table.
For me,
the dagger on the table,
picked up and thrown
across the room
is best.
Once it has sailed by,
all is well.
There is no more simmering.
Just the explosion
and the release,
then the egg nog and cookies.
His familiy’s war,
on the other hand,
never ends.
It just festers
year after year
shapeshifting into migraines
and silent resentment.

Poison Moon

A loss has taken place.
A bag of green.
A soft doorknob,
guilty as judge and jury.
Soon the light bulb will not shine
and what the fates have dealt will be so.
My little calf.
My poison moon.
The symphony holds the sun in its hands.
And when the bed proclaims tomorrow
I will drink from your cup.
I will find my way down
to your bed
and lay myself upon your pillow.
I will eat up the soft part of your neck and
pulse the blue from your sheets.
I will make myself a holy war for you to feast upon.
A chocolate heart
beating dark.
A pool of sweet
so tender
you will have no choice
but to drink.

The Twelve Days of Mucous

I have been sick in bed for twelve days.
But unlike the Twelve days of Christmas,
I didn’t get a Partridge in a pear tree,
or seven swans a swimming,
or five golden rings,
or even one lousy drummer drumming.
All I got was hot tea,
Mucinex,
throat lozenges,
anti-biotics,
miso soup,
and a trip to the doctor.
If you had told me twelve days ago
when the first tinge of this sore throat appeared,
that I would still be sick twelve days later,
I would have said “you’re nuts.”
Bur here I am
fighting off bronchitis now
and an onslaught of mucous
that is as never ending as those crappy Christmas carols they pipe in at the mall.
Each day I wake up
expecting to be well,
and each day I feel no better
than the day before.
I have been stuck inside this house for twelve days
except for two trips to the gym
to sit in the steam room
to open up my lungs,
and one trip
to the doctor,
which was a complete waste of time.
I wish those two turtle doves would show up soon.