Jazz

I’m slipping down into the disconnect,
into the quiet
sideways
mind
of notes
squawking like chickens
arching and bending
into so much disharmony.
The non-rhythm of rhythm.
The back slide of voices.
The cool kettle of drums
and tinkle of high hat.
The back and forth slow of sound,
like water on glue,
hanging on
for a moment,
then falling
down,
down,
down.
Catch me
if you can.
Under the red
neon light
I am sputtering,
staggering to my feet,
leaning like a drunk man
from side to side,
trying to make sense of the room,
trying to undo the years.
The smoke wafts and curls around me like
a hot schoolgirl.
And now
the slow slow burn
of forbidden
love,
settling down into the inevitable.
Wake me brother.
I am having a
bad
bad
dream.

Candy

Candy apple.
Candy coated.
Candy lozenge.
Penny candy.
Candy doll.
Candy heart.
Candy mint.
Candy bear.
Candy colored.
Candy tart.
Rock candy.
Candy cane.
Candy corn.
Candy heart.
Candy lips.
Candy face.
Candy kisses.
Candy bar.
Candy wrapper.
Candy eyeballs.
Gummy candy.
Candy planet.
Candy worm.
Cotton candy.
Candy spiders.
Candy lab.
Let me be
your
candy tree.

Seed Bear

She only wants me to carry her seed,
to bear a child of her son’s name.
She wouldn’t care if I died in childbirth
as long as their name lived on.
I know that.
I have watched her
slither from room to room
gushing over her grandchildren
like some hungry boa
ready to consume them all
one by one.
Her eyes
bulge with desire
and expectation
as she quietly calculates
how many more there can be
in her fold.
She, who has professed the miracle of motherhood,
is lifeless
as a blackboard,
empty as a Texas well in Summer.
She,
the giver of life,
gives no life.
She,
the creator,
has created only guilt,
and shame,
and fear.
I watch her watching me
and I know
it is not me that she wants,
but my uterus.
The only way she can justify
her existence
is through my blood.
Yes,
she wants another one
who will look
just like her.

Come Out

Spring is coming.
I can see it in the green shoot
of the daffodils
and on the robin’s wings
as he builds his nest
just outside my window.
The trees,
once bare
as newborns,
are now threatening to bud.
Motion is everywhere
from the bird to the squirrel to the
mouse.
All of nature is alive
yelling to me –
Come out!
Come out!
Come out!

Apples and Onions

There is very little I can do
in all of this
but let go.
I woke up
yesterday,
on a bed,
blankets and sheets ripped off.
The blue of the sky in my eyes.
The sound of metal
in my ears.
The onions
and apples
recovering from their fall.
Many a great man
has walked backwards down boulevards
in search of love
only to come home
empty handed.
For now,
I must wake up early,
brush my teeth,
and keep my mouth shut.

New York

After a week in New York,
coming back to Nashville
is like checking in to a funeral home.
It’s dead here.
Dead on the streets.
Dead in people’s cars.
Dead in the restaurants.
There is no 3 a.m. Chinese dinner.
Or real Italian linguine cooked by Sicilians.
Gone are the East Coast accents
and with them,
the thick slices of pizza dripping with cheese.
No smell of subway stations
or rodents.
No four hundred square foot apartments going for two thousand a month.
No corn beef piled high
on real rye bread from the Lower East side.
No Patisserie Claude and his incredible apricot tarts.
No café con leche served by Dominicans in a coffee shop that has existed for twenty-five years
where no one speaks English.
No empty faces to get lost in
and wonder why about.
No one sitting across from you on the train,
fighting to stay awake,
lunging forward and back,
teetering on the brink of falling.
In Nashville, the pleasantries eat you alive.
In New York,
you feel like you could scream
if you wanted to
and no one would care.
It would be o.k.
even acceptable.
Here,
you’d be put away in a second.
In New York,
anything can happen.
A gang of street kids can take over a subway
and put on a loud rap show
and you’d be forced to listen to it because you’re on an express
train and you can’t get off for another forty-seven blocks.
Here if you played a radio too loud
your neighbors would call the cops on you.
In New York,
you can see neon in Times Square
and you can dream that it could be your name in lights one day.
In Nashville,
neon is reserved for fast food restaurants
and nudie shows,
and a good bagel is only a dream.

If I Were A Dog

My next door neighbor’s dog is barking
again.
At what,
I do not know.
But he keeps barking
over and over
and it’s making me nervous.
I’m imagining intruders.
I’m imagining someone coming up behind me and strangling me
like they did to Grace Kelly in Dial ‘M’ For Murder.
I’m imagining the cord around my neck and my slow death.
It feels so real I turn to look over my shoulder,
but no one is there.
Still more barking.
Why does he keep barking?
I do not see anyone or anything.
No strange car.
Or man.
Or animal.
Nothing.
Bark.
Bark.
Bark.
What is wrong with that dog?
Maybe he’s insane.
For years he’s barked at me
every time I walked down my driveway
to get the mail or go on a walk.
And for what?
He knows who I am.
He’s seen me a thousand times.
And still he barks at me.
Why?
He chases every car
and bus
and tricycle
that goes by.
And what does it get him?
If I were a dog
I would go over there and ask him
why he does what he does.
Then again,
if I were a dog,
I would probably know.

In Living Color

Remember
all around you,
the coming of color.
The hand leaving the bed.
The love letters
in the Dead Letter Office
taking up space.
The evening classes
monstrous as childhood.
The fall of heroism
and spoons.
The wild breath of animal near the fire
questioning its very existence.
Everywhere you look
tulips and chocolate.
Red and velvet.
Purple and yellow.
The colors of passion exploding in stores.
The crinkle of plastic and ribbon.
How droll it all is.
I think of you
watching the tide.
The color of blue
in your nose and on your lips.
The sea in your hair.
Your feet trodding along in the sand,
lost.
Your white hair,
short,
clipped by a butcher.
The color fading from your eyes
with each passing day.

Home Again

Now that I have a desk
I feel like writing again.
It is so weird that just the act
of having somewhere to sit,
somewhere to go
can make the difference.
My office chair
that once sat in the garage,
collecting spider webs
is now parked in front of my new
particle-board Target desk.
And while it’s not made in China,
it certainly is not Century furniture either.
But, nonetheless, it serves its purpose and
I feel like I finally have a home.
For weeks I wandered from room to room,
feeling lost and displaced.
I tried writing in my bedroom,
hunched over my computer in bed,
back curved and aching,
my eyes falling asleep
the entire time.
I tried the den where I sat
in a chair with the dining room table chair across from me,
trying to use it as a desk,
all the while knowing I was getting nowhere.
I tried my office where my old desk used to be.
I sat on the futon with a low bamboo coffee table in front of me
trying to get something out creatively
before my body gave up.
Another ridiculous proposition and position.
Without my desk I have been lost.
The discipline of where to go,
was gone.
Just like in ballet,
it is the very act of reaching for the barre
that gives meaning.
Mind and body are unified,
knowing
from year after year
the routine of what is to come.
Here,
it is the desk.
The wood.
The chair,
that provide structure
and ultimately,
the path
to words.
True,
it is not the desk I’ve always dreamed of having,
and I probably won’t even keep it.
But it is a desk.
I can get my legs under it and
I can go to it at night
and in the day.
And it is there for me,
my silent companion,
waiting for my every word.