Blind Judgment

Blind,
I thought,
but now I see.
I see everything.
My cord,
curled up and connected.
The silence,
outside.
The way the wind chime bangs against the door.
I see red.
Cranberries
and radishes,
and dark cherry pie.
I see my doctor,
the one with the turtlenecks and European loafers,
the one I had a crush on,
the one I thought I knew,
now I’ve learned
he’s gay.
How blind I was.
I thought I could tell who was what.
Gay.
Straight.
Rich.
Poor.
Stupid.
Schooled.
But perhaps I haven’t been able to see at all.
I was so cocky.
So sure
I knew right from wrong.
But do I?
Does anyone?
There is so much rush to judgment
in this world.
This person lied,
so that means they are and will always be a liar.
That person stole,
so that means they are and will always be a thief.
This person threw a tantrum
so that means they are and will always be unstable,
and unworthy, and a child.
Where is the understanding in this world?
What do we know?
What do any of us know?
We all think we know so damn much
about everything.
What another person should do.
How another person should feel.
But what gives us the right to decide for others
much less even ourselves?
What if we have been basing our decisions on incorrect assumptions
and everything we thought about others and ourselves was wrong?
What would we do then?
Could we undo the switch?
Unplug the needle?
Bring back the dead?
Take back the word?
The deed?
The finger?
The column written?
It’s easy to make decisions.
Too easy.

The Jumping Point


I am trying not to let myself fall into fear,
the deep hole that is beside me
always waiting for me.
An open sore of sorts,
Oozing,
always there,
waiting.
I stop
and look at it.
Usually I have already jumped in
and am up to my waist in shit.
Floating empty bottles,
Half-eaten cans of dog food,
insects and refuse.
Yes,
that is what I swim in.
Not the clear beautiful waters of the Caribbean.
Today,
when they poked me five times,
trying to find blood,
I was already in it up to my neck.
And when the doctor told me
he was concerned,
about what he was seeing,
on what should have been a routine exam,
I jumped in head first.
Now, I am sitting in my room,
listening to the dishwasher
and trying to breathe.
I must clear whatever it is
from my lungs and nose
that I have inhaled.
It won’t be easy.
It never is
once I have
jumped.

Where the Lilies Bloom

It is simple
if you think about it,
never build a home in the ghetto
and tell yourself conditions will improve around you.
A ghetto is a ghetto
and no amount of mulch or dogwood trees can change it.
There will still be rats
and roaches and people yelling at one another on the streets.
There will still be broken bottles
and crazy drunks
and prostitutes ready to beat you up.
There will still be music blaring out of shacks
and low-rider cars thumping bass
and police with sirens patrolling all hours
trying to control the impossible.
There will still be cats up trees and pit bulls ready to eat them
when they fall.
There will still be cars broken into,
and windows smashed,
and Halloween without trick or treaters.
And there will still be kids with brown eyes staring at you,
wondering why you are in their hood
when you should be somewhere else,
somewhere cleaner,
and whiter,
somewhere
where the lilies bloom year round,
and everyone smiles
for no other reason
than to show off their perfectly straight teeth.

Even When They're Dead

All that is left is the stinger.
The rusty needle there on the floor,
waiting
to pierce flesh.
I walked by it last night
with my bare feet.
It could have gotten me then.
I thought I was safe.
I thought it had been put away.
Taken out.
Sucked up.
I thought my house was clean.
But this morning,
I saw it in the sunlight,
so red,
it glowed.
And I remembered what my mother always taught me,
they can still get you,
even when they’re dead.

Eternity

I am sitting in the blue chair.
The one we’ve had for fifty years.
The one I grew up in and crawled in
and played in, and ate in.
The one my picture was taken in.
I had just gotten a hair cut.
I had ridiculously short bangs
and a red face.
My eyes were watery
and I had on a red corduroy
jumpsuit
and white lace up Stride Rite shoes
to help my wobbly walk.
I looked like a scared animal,
like I had just come from the vet.
The pain was fresh in my face.
My lips red and inflamed.
Hair askew.
Eyes big as saucers.
I knew I had just been violated in some fashion,
I just wasn’t sure how.
Sitting in that chair now,
I can still feel my child-self
and wonder why my mother chose
to capture me like that for eternity.

Ignoring The Sun


I thought I knew
blue.
I thought the sun
was mine to ignore
and the rain mine
to languish in for years.
I thought the boy on the bridge wouldn’t jump
and the man in the cage
would find his way out.
I thought love was a tricycle that I could pedal with wobbly legs.
I thought all of this and more.
And I always thought I was right.
Now, I too, know better.
I cook my sweet potatoes in the pressure cooker
and blanch my greens for barely a few minutes in a half cup of water.
I wear sandals in the shower at the gym
and never shake hands with a sick person.
I take pleasure in wild rabbits
and walks with dogs,
and outwitting the housefly on my office window.
I am grateful for the mornings,
and that my parents are still alive to talk to,
and that I stopped
in time.

Strange Days

People are getting ruder and ruder.
Yes,
you heard me.
Yesterday, I was driving home from Chicago,
and three different times some asshole had to get right up on the back of me
and ride me like I was a cheap hooker.
One of them was a guy in a giant black Ford truck pulling a trailer.
The guy drove like he was nuts.
When I refused to get over, because there was no where to go,
except behind a slow moving semi carrying pigs,
he got even closer.
It was really scary.
I mean any closer,
and he’d be in my backseat listening to my Sirius underground garage radio station.
So, that’s when I slammed on my brakes.
The asshole didn’t like that one bit.
A few minutes later, he pulls out a badge and flashes at me.
I, mean, what the Hell?
He’s some cop on an undercover mission?
What is he, in pursuit of
some criminal while pulling a trailer at the same time?
I don’t buy it.
I don’t even know if the badge was real.
For all I know, the guy’s a security guard at JC Penny,
or a truancy officer at an elementary school,
or a food inspector.
But if he’s going to be flashing badges, I’m getting over.
Jerk might pull out a gun and open fire or something.
He flew by me and then proceeded to tailgate every other poor driver in his path.
What an asshole!
Then there were the two guys in the silver Honda Pilot.
They rode me too.
Every time I got over for them,
they wouldn’t pass.
Rode the Hell out of me,
then not pass.
Over and over.
What is wrong with people?
We drove next to each other for miles.
Neither had a clue that I was completely annoyed by them.
Weird.
The third one was this girl in a beat-up Kia.
She was on the phone,
of course,.
They’re always on the phone.
Weird tattoos.
Smoking.
One minute driving ninety.
The next fifty.
No consistency.
She rode me too.
Gesturing at me with weird fingers in the air.
I just shook my head.
I finally got off at a rest stop,
peed,
and drank some rusty water out of the fountain.
At least the attendant there was nice.
Of course, she wasn’t driving a car.

Zelma

Dear Zelma,
on the kitchen floor.
Are you sick?
Did you know that today is Tuesday
and the yardmen are coming with their blowers
and rakes?
Oh, Zelma,
I am leaving for Chicago soon,
off to eat linguine and clams
and scones from Sophia’s.
Remember them?
She baked the lavender right in with the berries?
I can still hear the rain.
How hard it came down
on the sidewalks that August day.
Sophia standing there with her broom,
shoveling water out of her bakery.
We rolled our pants legs up and walked down the sidewalk
barefoot
like a couple of kids,
laughing,
letting our shirts get drenched.
Your hair was long then
and fell down your back in perfect waves.
I marveled at your beauty,
but never told you.
We shared a Coke on a park bench
and watched the water lap at the shore.
Oh, Zelma,
December is coming,
then Christmas,
and you know what that means,
all the crap that comes with it.
I want a camera this year,
one with a long lens so I can take pictures of everything.
Mother always said I was like that,
didn’t want to miss a thing.
Oh, Zelma,
please get up.
Tomorrow we'll have pie.

Don't Go There

If I don’t begin now,
it won’t happen.
The phone will ring,
or I’ll wander on to the internet,
or a bill will arrive that will leave me spinning for hours.
It’s already happening.
I just heard the “ding” of an email.
Now, my mind is starting to wander,
like a chocoholic at a Brownie Festival.
I start the mental negotiations:
“I’ll just check this one little email.”
Or, “it’s probably trash. It’ll only take a second to delete it.”
Then before you know it,
I’m on Facebook,
comparing my life to everyone else’s,
and I’m checking the market,
and I’m calling my mother,
and I’m calling my boyfriend,
and I’m doing the laundry,
and I’m running an errand,
and then it’s five o’clock,
and I’m making dinner,
and I’m watching the Evening News,
and then it’s ten o’clock,
and I’m tired and nothing,
absolutely,
no writing got done for the day.
And then I turn off the computer,
and I feel disgusted,
and I tell myself
tomorrow will be different,
and when it isn’t different I am even more depressed.
And so it goes.
So this morning,
I’m not checking,
I’m not calling,
I’m not looking,
I’m not washing.
I’m just sitting at my desk with myself
and watching where I go.

Dragon Girl

The dragon in me
is always ready,
to share my sheets.
He is the beast of my thoughts,
envious
of others I entertain.
Ready to scream and splinter my flesh,
a messenger full of pistachios and blood.
He brightens my pulse
and breathes upon my neck with his hot hot breath
till my body sweats
cold.
If I could tame this dragon
I would be
bored.
If I could tame this dragon
I would be,
somebody else.
So I say to him,
“come, dragon.”
Come lie upon my bed
and sing your wretched song.
Sing it loud.
Sing it so the neighbors hear.
I am yours to take.
A naughty schoolgirl
waiting to be spanked.
Oh, dragon, of mine,
come and watch the rain with me,
the beautiful rain.
I will pour you cocoa
and we will eat scones filled with Devonshire cream
and honey.
And I will not complain
that you are too rough.
I will listen to your fierceness,
and guard it,
loving it forever.
I will take you out into the garden
and watch you crush lilacs in your claws
and I will watch the petals fall to the ground,
like purple rain.
And I will never forget you,
even when I am too old
to hear
you roar.

Dead Birds and Garlic

This is important,
like working hard
or beans with garlic.
I know,
you think you’ve heard it before.
Cheap nest
and dead birds,
and wallpaper with little roses on it
no one wants to pull down.
But this is different.
This is Hollywood.
You know,
Tinseltown.
The Biz.
This is where it all happens.
The sand and the glamour.
Silicone valleys and breasts.
Old women with shopping carts living in Santa Monica,
riddled by the sun,
still clutching their eight by ten glossies in their hands
while reciting lines to imaginary casting directors.
I know,
one of them lived in my laundry room.
She used to pee in the sink.
I’d come in and find her sitting in an old metal chair
with her face painted up like an insane clown.
Black clothes and ripped stockings on her feet,
wreaking of urine.
She’d tell me she was here for the reading.
“What reading?”, I’d say
“Gone with the Wind,” she’d gurgle.
“Oh," I’d say, “they’re casting for that next door.”

The Broken

Perhaps,
after all this time,
the problem is me.
I am the one who needs the slap.
The mailbox.
The empty dream again and again,
only to remind myself that pain is real.
I sometimes forget.
But how many times can a person bang their head against the wall
and still not believe it hurts?
Five years?
Ten?
Invisibility is a worm
crawling in the grass
waiting to be caught.
The chicken enjoys the hunt.
The worm,
not so much.
I have been looking at the same wine bottle for years,
too busy to see the cracks in it.
Now, I see them all.
I have been burning myself alive
with lies.
Mine.
Yours.
The New York Times.
Each day I tell myself
believe,
believe.
But believe in what?
In sadness?
In breakfast shells?
In cocoa powder on butcher block tables
waiting to be swept away?
In forests and gulfs and turtles
covered in waste?
In love?
You tell me
how much happiness can be found on t.v.
and under fingernails?
I have tried.
I have tried,
to be
and being is not enough.
Being leaves you stomped upon
by the ugly,
the
hungry, white-toothed animals,
clawing and scraping and snarling their way through this world.
There is no room in this world for the broken.

Dreamgirls

I sit on the back porch
and let the sun in my hair
and dream of Monday.
The burden of dark worry
calling me home.
So much of what I want is the hundred-year sleep.
The voyage of tongues.
The reassurance of love.
I have seen God,
in the bathroom of the Shubert Theatre,
during the intermission of Dreamgirls.
He came to me as a light
while I was peeing.
He told me how beautiful life could be
and I believed him,
for a while.

The Little Fucks

I sit at my desk and wait for the words,
the elusive creatures that appear for no reason
then vanish just as quickly
as they came.
Where do they go?
The little fucks.
It is a strange story
every writer knows.
One minute you are with God,
suspended.
The next, in a lifeboat
praying.
The sting of ocean on your face.
The nausea rising in your stomach.
The dance of uncertainty
your only companion.
Floating.
Always floating
with no land in sight.
The sun beating you into submission.
Paddles just out of reach,
taunting you like cake.
You lie down,
as if discovering wine
in the bottom of the boat,
and drink.

Blue Gin

It is early afternoon
on the neck of the dog’s grass
and I am a snapshot waiting to be rump.
Using up the shirt
and the silences of love.
How did I ever catch you,
thief that you are,
running down rooms
with lust and mercy
like a breeze in a cotton shirt?
You took me
in the hall
and lay me down like a flute
you could play for hours.
It was so easy, then.
The notes spreading from my legs
like blue gin.
Everywhere and nowhere.
The hurried grasp of breasts and bellies.
The dark dancer that I am
ready to rest in nails.
I leaned forward and took in your disorder,
bending and moving without reason
shifting away from my self
into old rooms and fields
I had long forgotten.
Now, I am frozen,
a little cot wrung over upon itself,
waiting for the next storm.
My mother frowns at me.
A shrunken hymn she cannot sing.
Where did I go?
Into the dog’s paw?
Or winter’s hard shrill.
I do not know.
For now, I am a buttercup.
Pink and yellow,
a nightie of kisses
dressed up like a broken doll
waiting for you to bed.

The Wise One

How they listen,
eyes turned,
heads cocked,
lips pursed,
to the man with the book and curled ears.
Here,
in the cloud-filled sky
on the coal dust covered hill,
they stand,
motionless,
while the rose curls,
and the cup vomits its contents
to the earth.
The wise one,
the leader,
stands on a trash can
extolling the virtues of sin.
The warped clown,
the doe-eyed death child,
the huddled mass
waits and hopes,
as if he could save them from their
shoebox.
But it’s a fool’s game,
murmured to candles,
dripping their days
on the rug.
Soon the rain will come
and the fish will starve,
and the peasants will vanish like bread.

Ambitious Bird

It is all a dream,
never spoken in my ear,
crumpled like a tissue
under foot
each night.
The same faces,
brooding and strange.
The back and forth lull of a record player.
The needle endlessly retracing its’ steps.
So many stars.
ready to send me love
if I could just accept.
Yes,
my silence lies on the bathroom floor,
a broken bottle waiting for me to walk upon.
But for now,
there is nothing but the lamb chops,
one glorious hunk after another,
an elaborate celebration for this ambitious bird.
My savings have been spent.
Tomorrow.
I must find a new house
to haunt.

The Real World

Sitting in the gardens,
watching the pumpkins grow.
There were people who smiled at me
and there was nothing to worry about
underneath the blue sky.
Everything was done.
The laundry.
Meals.
Baths.
There were activities taught by friendly people.
Spanish class.
Arts and crafts.
Even chair dancing.
There was a house dog
who rarely moved except when someone offered him treats.
And there was a glass display of multi-colored finches who lived in small nests,
that could entertain the residents for hours.
In the dining room,
there was Brigida,
a wonderful women who called everyone by their first name
and prepared a fresh fruit salad every morning for breakfast.
In the halls were seniors full of stories of the past,
some of them nearly a hundred years old,
who I swear were more alive than people half their age.
There were caretakers who really cared,
and an executive director who was as down home as grits and gravy.
It was such a kind world that it made
stepping out into the “real world” a rude awakening.
Outside the gardens,
were drivers honking their horns,
people fighting over parking spaces,
children screaming and throwing tantrums,
meals served by waiters who could care less,
lattes and burgers,
bills and credit cards,
careers to revive,
oil spills,
lobbyists,
homes to paint and clean-up,
papers to be sorted through,
cars to repair,
and endless internet obligations.
It felt like entering a war zone.
If this is the “real world,”
I’ll take assisted living.

No Ants In My Volvo

It’s hot.
So hot you feel like the pavement is baking
your skin.
Ankles, feet, toes, legs,
all melting away
as the sun keeps shining down.
It’s been like this for weeks here,
relentless.
When I was in Denver it was hot there too.
Now, two days after I’ve left, it’s sixty-five and grey.
And now that I’m not sitting on a plane bound for Oakland,
I wish I were.
I’m like that.
Always wishing I were somewhere else.
No, that’s not true.
Alright, well sometimes it is,
but not today.
I don’t wish I were on another plane right now.
The truth is, I’m tired.
Lately I’ve been feeling like a stewardess,
only coming home long enough to check my mail,
pay my bills,
and fly to the next city.
I’d rather be here in my own bed,
eating my own food,
sitting at my desk
writing.
Of course, if it were twenty degrees cooler I wouldn’t turn that down either.
But you can’t have it all.
So, I’m just going to celebrate what I have now.
A fan blowing on my legs.
A computer that always starts.
My parents in a place where they are cared for.
Enough food for me to eat.
A roof over my head.
And most importantly,
no ants in my Volvo.

Permanent Move

I want to move.
I’ve said it before,
but I am ready now,
really ready.
And I’m ready to do all the things necessary
in order to make that happen.
I have called the painter and the floor refinisher,
and I am going to find a good gardener.
Steve has come and put up the pot lid rack and the utility rack
and hung the drapes.
I have touched up the Cornsilk paint in the kitchen,
and the Drowsy Lavender in the
bedroom.
And now we have started the grueling process
of packing away most of our things.
I am doing all of this after coming back from seventeen days in Denver,
where it was so dry
my lips cracked,
my legs got sores on them,
and my right heel split open.
Don’t get me wrong,
I don’t like Denver either.
It is way too Cowboy and white for me,
but I did enjoy the beauty.
The sunsets.
The rivers.
The mountains.
There was a majesty to the place that is sorely missing for me here.
Nashville has never been home to me.
It was for a while,
when I needed to lick my wounds from L.A.,
but they have scarred over
and I am ready to swim in a bigger pond,
with more colorful fish.
I have grown tired of the hot summers,
and the stale air, and the accents,
all twang without substance.
I want to be in a real city,
where I can find restaurants that make sense,
and walk in parks and meet people who are
well….alive.
So this week,
instead of flying to California for a temporary fix from this ninety-seven-degree Hell,
I will stay here and put things in order,
so the next trip I make,
will be a permanent one.

Shorn Into Sheepdom

I liked it better before.
Before she took her scissors to me and “cut into the curl.”
I liked the way my hair hung down around my face
like a hippie’s from the Sixties.
I felt better that way.
Safer,
cloistered,
by the dark brown curtain
no one had opened in years.
Now I look just like everyone else.
Happy.
Bouncy.
A poster child for mousse and gel.
A walking wave of hair.
Mindless as the other people
who come in and out of that salon
day after day.
It’s my own fault.
I should have stopped when I was ahead.
But I didn’t.
My birthday is coming so I decided to splurge.
I wanted to make myself feel special.
The truth is, I was already special.
Now, I am someone else’s definition of that word.
I keep looking in the mirror,
trying to find myself,
but I’m not there.
This person in front of me
isn’t me,
nor do I want her to be.

First and Last

It isn’t the first time
I have swallowed biscuits and gravy
when I wanted cash.
The cool taste of nickels on my tongue.
The dark copper pennies
swirling round in my mouth like butterscotch.
I have eaten so much more
than candy.
Now, when I sit and watch the robin,
I wonder
how long
till he comes to my door
with his worm in his beak.
How long?

Black Oil

The oil,
the thick black goo of man
is everywhere.
Littering the sand,
turning white to black
and green to brown.
Pooling in the most remote of marshes.
Hiding in reeds and grasses.
The pelicans’ beaks drip with it.
They flutter in the thick black and drown
as if someone had coated them with melted chocolate.
They are innocents,
incapable of understanding how their world has changed,
forever.
They are incapable of flying somewhere else and
can not mentally understand the danger in front of them
when they land upon the water.
How sick I feel when I see them on T.V. night after night.
How terribly sick
it all is,
with no end in sight.
Just that vomiting thing
miles below the surface
never taking a break,
or slowing down,
and man’s futile attempts to stop what they created.
When will we learn?
We who crave oil
have created our own monster.
I think of Pensacola and the perfect white sand beaches I walked upon
last winter.
How pristine they were,
like the finest sugar.
I fear I will never be able to see them that white again.
But forget me, I can get in a car and drive away.
I can fly to somewhere that isn’t ruined.
What about the creatures beneath the sea?
Where do they go now that we have ruined the only home they have?
They can’t suddenly grow feet and walk upon the shore carrying signs of protest,
although I’m sure they’d like to.
There is nothing they can do
but slowly die beneath the surface
and wash ashore,
like trash.

The Crab and Me

On Sunday,
I walked on water.
It was low tide
and I went out as far as I could,
until the waves lapped at my knees.
I watched a crab
circle me,
pincers up,
ready to fight.
He was so determined,
the poor little creature.
He wasn’t at all intimidated by my size.
If I had been him,
I would have swam away as fast as I could have.
To my left,
a jellyfish floated nearby
oblivious to the crab’s impending challenge.
I watched them both,
marveling at how much life was all around me.
And for a moment,
I was a child again,
with not a care,
and all there was,
was the ocean,
the sun,
the crab,
and me.

Driftwood

Father,
with a life jacket on,
the waves ride upon us.
Mother is lost to the sea.
She sits staring out at the horizon
muttering scissors and wings
to the dolphins.
How strange to see the dead so very close.
Once we three swam in unison,
a six-legged-octopus, skimming along
the ocean floor,
breathing out and in
with the tide.
Now we are hobbled,
drowning in our own mouth,
smelling of broken kisses
and twisted coral.
A bleeding tangle,
breaking,
like driftwood gone by.

Pecan Pie and Dirty Clothes

They are in bed already.
He, asleep in his dirty clothes.
She, nodding off to some tired game show
she has watched for years.
Both in twilight.
Both fading faster than Sunday’s pecan pie.
Out of reach.
Out of reach.
How can I?
No, I can not.
I can only watch.
I have struggled for too long
trying to make it better.
Trying to make them
something
they are not,
nor ever were.
Still, I keep trying,
banging my head against the proverbial wall,
trying to wake them,
when all they want to do is sleep.
“Sleep is death,” I say.
But they can not hear me.
They are both deaf.

The New Neighbors

Two doors down they are moving in.
They showed up yesterday with their lawn mowers,
and their hedge clippers,
and their dreadlocks,
and their beat-up white Buick with the New York tags.
Today, a giant moving truck appeared on the street
full of all of their stuff.
For months the house had sat vacant.
The hedges grown up so high
you couldn’t even see the front of the house anymore.
Overgrown vines everywhere.
It had gotten so bad,
the neighbors were starting to snoop around.
So were the investors,
in their shiny cars,
hoping to grab a foreclosure.
Now, they’ll have to go elsewhere,
because this house is going to be occupied from a woman from Staten Island
and her kids.
Seems it was her granddaddy’s house and
now it’s going to be hers
and she just found out about it.
Personally,
I’m glad she’s going to get to keep it.
I only hope it stays as quiet over there as it did when it
was empty.

The Dragon Lady

There are dragons in the sky.
There
in the puffy clouds,
behind the windows of mangoes and beans.
Seeded and ready.
December dragons
flying in snow
hoisted above skyscrapers like heavy towels
rising up into the darkness of winter.
Funny dragons with tongues rich in aspirations.
Dragons of wine and loneliness.
Dragons of wool and red
stealing glasses and oxygen from
old ladies below.
If I were a dragon
I’d be yellow.
A banana of sorts,
ready to peel away
my metal sweater
and expose my pink nipples
to the world.
I would let the sun remember me.
Touch me.
Fry me,
until my skin were as tough as it had been when my scales
were intact.
I would breathe fire into the sky
and light up the night,
light up the jails,
light up the sea,
light up the poor and the forgotten
for all to remember.
Then,
I would breathe myself a sunset to lie upon
and wait for the earth to
begin
again.

The Mediocre

I am tired of incompetence.
Little nitwits who have nothing better to do than
to play games.
The biters,
the locked door inhabitants who scream foul
when they are the ones fouling others.
The crumb catchers who walk through this life
with bad hair and weak noses
ready to spoil the dreams of others.
Who do they think they are?
These reptiles wiggling with mediocrity,
carrying their pitchforks of hate,
forever tied to their nine to five jobs
like sea urchins sucking on the bottom of a ship’s hull.
What do they know about stars and worlds beyond their Buick’s and Pintos?
What beauty do they bring to this world?
They are content to shuffle through their lives with vision as narrow as a snail’s,
dragging their trail of slime behind them
everywhere they go,
so everyone can see where they’ve been.
I say,
put them in a bag,
put them all in a bag and shake them out.
No one could tell the difference between them.
They’d all be a pathetic shade of beige.
Beige.
No scent to them at all.
As indistinguishable from one another as sawdust.
Yes,
perhaps the most reprehensible in this world
are the mediocre.
I say,
no more shall I try to walk among them.
No more shall I try to fit in.
I am not one of them.
I could never be.
I know what it feels like to touch greatness,
to write
words so eloquent that I can barely breathe.
I know what it feels like
to hold something larger
in my hand
than a timesheet.

Dark Haired Rose

How long can I be the mole?
The dark-haired-drone
hiding in the rose bush
recanting my horror.
O mother,
who forsake me,
where were your arms?
Where was your touch
when I fell
and needed the earth?
Were you far away
in some concert hall
playing your violin,
and singing your tune of despair
in another’s bed?
Or were you frolicking in Paris
eating beef bourguignon
and fries?
What does it matter now?
Too many years have gone by.
The cat has caught it’s prey
and now must only wait for it to die.
As for me, I have died too many deaths already.
I must pull myself off the kitchen floor
and dance a new dance.
One of sky,
and stars,
and sun,
where the wax is fresh and the tiles are clean
and I can rock and slide all night long.

Escape From Lowry

She is convinced she is being poisoned.
“It is in the coffee and tea, “ she says.
“They give it to us to keep us sedated,” she says,
“but it won’t work on me, I’m getting out of here.”
I keep trying to convince her that she is not in jail.
She is in assisted living and she is free to come and go
as she pleases.
But she doesn’t believe me.
She is still planning her escape.
She has it all figured out.
She is going to sneak
out of her room,
walk down the hall,
take the elevator to the first floor,
walk past the front desk,
and
then go out on to the street,
where there are shops
and restaurants
and people
who can still
drive.

Green Hills

I did not go with him today,
to meet the weird man in the country.
The weird man didn’t want me to come.
Instead, I braved the Sunday crowds at Whole Foods
and flirted with the produce man
complaining to him there was nothing to eat,
which we both know,
there never is.
The strawberries looked lousy,
as did the kale and the apples,
and the organic oranges,
and why isn’t there ever anything in season in April?
It’s April!
Not January.
I walked up and down the aisles
annoyed by the throngs of other people
and their inability to navigate through the store.
Everyone either moved too slow,
or not at all,
or laughed too loud,
or had their snotty kids with them blocking the aisles
crying over cookies or pie,
dripping their viruses on everything they touched
with their mealy little hands.
I sampled some ridiculously overpriced,
melting gelato.
What I was supposed to get from it,
I don’t know.
But the sample sure as Hell didn’t make me want to buy any of it.
Neither did the woman’s sales pitch.
As I checked out,
I couldn’t believe I had driven all the way over to the Westside for this.
I could have gone to East Nashville
driven over the Jefferson Street Bridge,
and gone to our local health food store.
At least there I would have only been subjected to hipsters
and ineptness.
But, for some reason,
I thought it would be fun to go to Green Hills.
I was wrong.
I imagined myself sitting outside at one of those shiny silver tables,
reading my book and eating honeydew melon.
But the sky was grey and the clouds were already rolling in
and the wind was way too harsh to read a book in
without a struggle.
So I took my bag of organic beans and rice and salad,
and drove back to the ghetto,
and read my book in my 8x10 office
listening to the stackable dryer spin,
wishing I had never left home at all.

Just A Room

I never wanted children.
Just a room in a house,
quiet,
tucked away,
with a view of the ocean.
A room of my own
where I could let my words come and play with me
like lost puppies.
They would lick my face,
and nibble on my toes,
and remind me of the sweetness of my mind.
I would roll around on the floor with them for hours,
trying an adjective here,
a noun there,
watching stories shift from right to left
and back again.
Trees appearing.
Roads and fog
and the smells of lovers,
past and future.
The birds in chains.
The horizon bleeding in the distance.
Harlots and Jesus
and roosters crying all day.
And people wandering through their lives
with no plan at all,
forever young.

Cherry Coke Girl

Once upon a time
I was
beautiful,
white,
brown,
A fighter in a fight for something
bigger than taxes
and hatred.
A resistance girl
on a stool
smiling when I wanted to spit.
Drinking my Cherry Coke with a straw
and eating my grilled cheese
with one eye on the door.
I came to this world free,
and was enslaved by stupidity.
Me, the rare antique.
The bronze statue.
The paper fly
easily crushed by a glass bottle
or newspaper.
Where Do I Begin?
Can I slide down into my chair,
and drink in Summer
and green slushes?
Let my toes dangle in the water
and watch the dragonflies
in June?
Let my body float
face up
down the river
and
hope someone will throw me a line?
Give me a room?
Give me
a hiding place from evil?
A world of my own?
Last night I dreamed about you.
You and your money and your wife.
Your kitchen with its gleaming metal shelves
and designer colored walls.
Your little house
with the perfect mowed lawn
and the pink flamingos in the yard.
You,
and your perfect white world.

Slipping Away

What lies in the corners?
In the sleepy green memories of your mind?
The waking?
The moving?
The falling of earth and sky?
The endless sound of possibilities?
The coming and going of years,
like lonely children
no one wants to hold.
I know about solitude.
I walk alone,
down the path of nothingness.
Into the dark I call
home.
Did I make a mistake?
Did I turn left when I should have turned right?
Did I wander too far down my quest of loneliness
and prove myself right?
Where is my husband?
My child?
My somber morning?
Is it there in the rosebushes?
Beneath the elm?
Under the tomato plant I planted last Tuesday?
Is it around the corner?
Or just South of yesterday?
Time is ticking.
Time is ticking too fast.
No matter what I do.
I can’t get back.
I wonder if anyone can.
Tomorrow I will wake up one day older
and the feeling will be the same.
I am not in my life.
I am only passing through it.
I can not touch it.
Or change it.
Or move it
in the direction that I want.
It is all
slipping
away
without me.

Come Down

And what of tomorrow?
Should I let it slide
away into the grass
like the snake that it is?
Or should I reach down
into the folds of myself
and try to catch it?
I am thinking again.
A bad habit I picked up along the way
somewhere between walking and masturbation.
The rain is coming.
I can feel it in the wind.
All that dampness.
Waiting to explode.
Wanting to come
down
on me.

Melting The Years

It is better this way.
He,
on his side of the room.
Me,
tucked away in the back
away from the wasps,
away from the pollen
and the wind,
and the little children screaming on the playground
while their teachers bake in the sun.
We fall into holes too easily,
he and I.
Step in the trench and let one foot fall
and then before we know it,
we are dragging
mud and leaves
into our house.
The filth of the outside on our floors and in our beds.
The thoughts in our head
growing louder and louder,
keeping us down
until
they dictate our every move,
The lilies and the roses,
the buds of Spring,
wasted on us.
How easy it is to languish in our darkness.
Only to wake up older and dumber than before.
The hit in the head I took
has left me dazed.
Slow to react to the spider on the wall,
dying from insect spray.
We kiss
and when our lips touch there is nothing
to melt away the years.

Eggs On Toast

In the shadow of it all
sits me.
There,
curled up and wrapped
cupped beneath my building.
A broken order
coming in slow.
Eggs on toast.
The bottle guitar sliding down the road.
My belly aches and I am bent over in black
face.
The youngest of two
finding my way
across books and letters
a useless card on my desk
promising nothing now.
Outside, the voices cackle and fall
rough as wool,
drunk to all,
incapable of understanding
Spring
and its beauty.
The robin calls
a pink
scream
beneath a cherry moon.

Junkie

All that frosting sitting there in my eyes,
that sweet sticky stuff.
Cream cheese glaze with sweet potato.
The “healthy” choice.
I bought it.
Took it home in my little white paper bag
Like some kind of
junkie.
Bit into it,
face first.
Nose diving in to cream.
Inhaling the fumes.
Eyes rolling back in my head.
Sugar pulsing through my veins
leaving me
altered
and very stupid.
My vision blurred.
My head spinning.
A regular drug trip.
And they say this stuff is legal.
That’s a joke.
There’s no stronger drug out there than the white powder.
I know it
and so does every other five-year-old out there.
He sells them out of his house.
He and his six kids
and his wife.
He makes them in his living room.
Day after day.
Fourteen hundred an hour.
He is the Willy Wonka of death.
The master maker of diabetes.
The orchestrator of tight pants and bulging bellies.
And the people keep coming and coming.
Each one buying six at a time.
Carrying their little bags and their plastic trays.
The door swinging back and forth.
The addictions growing.
Lemonade.
Cookies and Cream.
Red Velvet.
Wedding Cake.
Chocolate.
Peanut Butter.
The poor helpless creatures can’t stop themselves.
And it is all legal,
this slow killing.
One hundred percent legal.
I vow I won’t be one of them.
I vow I’m not going back.
But I’ve made that vow that before.

The Strudel Makers

They are disappearing.
The old men who sit at counters and order nickel coffee
and tell their war stories of bravery against Nazis.
The women who drive Cadillacs and smell of perfume
and carry wooden canes.
The ones who ran hair salons out of their basements
and bought properties for just the taxes owed.
The ones who knew how to scrimp and save
and make the best peach cobbler ever created.
The ones who aren’t scared of these young thugs you see on the corners.
They’ll tell them to “straighten up and pull up their pants.”
Tell them they’re “acting the fool.”
I’ve heard them say so too.
I’ve heard them say things I would be scared to say,
these grandmothers will lavender hair
wearing the finest feather hats.
They sit in church and know what’s what.
They’ll grab a stick and whip you good.
They come from hearty stock.
Not like now.
Now, we are made of paper
and tin foil,
fast food,
disposable living,
blowing in the wind.
A watery stock susceptible to every disease,
virus,
and pill on the market.
They got by on liniments and creams,
Tonics passed down from mother to mother.
They never needed the assault of drugs we seem to need just to survive a day.
The strudel makers.
The ones with the touch.
The ones who could make chicken soup that was real
not out of a can.
The ones who learned from their mothers
and their mothers beforehand.
They are disappearing.
The original pasta makers,
and bread makers,
and pickle makers.
The ones who put quality ahead of price
and valued their name more than anything else.
Soon they will be gone.
And we will be left with a generation whose
only accomplishment is that they know how to “tweet.”

Back Again

I am back from SXSW.
Back from the throngs of party-goers
and hoards of headbangers and thirst quenchers.
Back from the never ending traffic and the ever elusive parking spaces.
I am back from the shabby hotel rooms and chipped desks
and bathrooms with exposed wiring.
I am back from sugar-laden breakfast and front desk clerks
who are either too tired or too indifferent to care.
I am back from plates of rice and beans and lard and chips.
I am back from noisy restaurants and rockers who all look like they went
to the same place for their haircuts and their clothes.
I am back from red lights
and girls too drunk to stand without the support
of their “boyfriends.”
I am back from vomiting in the streets and slutty looking women
slapping men who grab them.
I am back from sobbing and screaming and laughing.
And yes,
I am back from seeing and performing some great music.
But I can honestly say
I do not want to go
back
again.

The Parent Trap

At night
my mind spins out of control,
running the numbers
like a bookie.
If I had just bought a thousand shares
of Baidu
we’d have five hundred thousand dollars now.
If I bought five hundred shares we’d have two fifty.
And on and on.
Different combinations.
Different outcomes.
If ‘x’ then ‘y’.
If ‘p’ then ‘z’.
In all of the scenarios we are much wealthier than we are now.
I tell myself if I had done this,
everything would be fine now.
We’d have enough money
for them to stay in one of those
really nice assisted living places.
The kind with the fireplaces,
and real dining rooms,
and libraries full of hard cover books,
not cheap paperback romances
thumbed through a thousand times,
smelling of perfume and ham.
They’d be groomed and waited on like prized poodles,
by people who would really care about them,
or at least be really good at acting like they care.
Now, with the funds we have,
I feel like we are bargain bin shopping,
searching the aisles of Wal-Mart for price cuts
and rollbacks.
Hoping we can give them brie
on a Kraft-singles-budget.
It is all so awful.
I know I should be happy
that they can even afford to even go to one of these places,
but I’m not.
It doesn’t feel like it’s good enough.
I guess the bigger question is
why I have taken all of this on in the first place?
In the last few months, I have decided I must transform myself into Warren Buffett,
doubling and quadrupling what they have,
watching it grow on paper,
and then racing in at the last minute with cash in hand to save the day.
Why I think I must do all of this I don’t know.
I didn’t cause their problems and I can’t cure them,
but I still want to.
I want to
swoop in
and change the numbers.
Change the facts.
Change the last thirty years into something healthy and good.
Rewrite history and their choices with my pen.
Fix it all.
Her diabetes.
His Alzheimer’s.
Their lack of preparation for their “golden years.”
Make everything perfect.
I know I can do it.
Now, If I could just find my damn cape.

Naked As A Fish

I was an island.
A dumb howl
sinking in waves and shells.
A lapped-sore body
smelling of tongues and teeth
and tails.
A lonely
vomit of lava
slow to cool,
quick to anger.
Yes,
I could remember love
and the way the sun
would freckle my back
as I stood on the ferry.
The marks are still there.
Can you see them,
right below my bra straps?
The trips to Boliver,
in search of crabs
and wings.
The men and their eyes
glaring at me
on the roof deck.
It didn’t matter that August
was long and worried,
a dress bent brown,
like a rotten flag
hanging for all to see.
I was their lighthouse,
flickering for the hungry masses,
spreading myself open,
naked as a fish.

Lessons In Swimming And Taxes

On Thursday,
I am going to go meet with a professional
to get help with my taxes.
I’ve never gotten help from anyone before.
For the last fifteen years,
I’ve done my taxes myself.
I’ve done Schedule D,
and Schedule C,
and Long Term Loss Carryover.
Schedule A
and Schedule B
and the dreaded 1040.
I’ve accounted for every receipt and expenditure.
And after doing them for so long now,
I can honestly say
I feel pretty confident about my knowledge.
Still,
given that this year is slightly different from the others,
I think now might be a good time
for a professional check-up,
a fine tuning,
just to make sure
I’m as good as I think I am.
It wasn’t always like this.
I didn’t use to do my taxes.
My mother did them for my sister and me for years.
Then one day,
out of the blue,
she walked in with all the tax forms, threw them at me, and said,
“Here, you can do them now. I’ve had it.”
No explanation.
No sitting down with me and telling me that she thought it was important that I learn to do these things myself,
no guidance as to what to do or how to do it,
just an avalanche of forms coming at me.
Just like that,
she had thrown me into the deep and asked me to start paddling.
I did the same thing to my dog, Trouble, once – threw him into the deep.
A lake.
He’d never swam.
For some reason he thought he didn’t know how.
We were out on this paddleboat in Michigan and we decided it was time he learned
what he already knew.
We picked him up and tossed him in the lake.
The moment he hit water,
he started paddling in a panic.
He was terrified.
He wanted out.
He tried to get back up on the boat,
But couldn’t.
Paws flying.
Crazed look in his eye.
I jumped into the water next to him,
to calm him down,
and his long black nails ripped into my thigh.
“That’s just punishment,” I thought, as I felt my warm blood seep into the water.
When we finally got to shore,
he shook the water off his coat
and just looked at me
as if to say, “How could you have done that to me?”
I felt awful.
I knew immediately what I had done was wrong.
At the time, I didn’t know then where my cruelty had come from.
But I do now.
It was taught.

Still Home

Just when I thought it was getting quiet.
Just when I thought I might finally have peace
of mind,
it’s happening again.
A white paper arrives in my mail box
with the words “notice to vacate”
and once again,
I am back in January,
my mother running naked through the house,
my father at the Kroger.
Police
and sirens,
and doctors,
and needles,
and neighbors,
nosy neighbors,
and ‘For Sale’ signs,
and greedy funeral-home-made-up-looking-realtors,
and money moving,
and disappearing,
and bulldozers,
and dirt being raised,
and my childhood home falling,
and all the unrest,
coming and coming,
and no stillness,
no stillness
now for three years.
Trips to emergency rooms,
hospital stays,
screaming,
and pills,
so many pills.
Doctor visits,
and trips to the dentists,
and surgeries,
and rehab,
so much,
so much,
that I have almost given up
the thought
of ever having stillness again,
of ever feeling calm,
of ever finding
home.

Black Tea

Oh God!
I’m tired.
I’m so tired I just dribbled tea
on my pants.
Thank God, they’re black.
I’m so tired I could barely get through yoga.
Damn downward dog.
Last night I had a headache,
So I took an Excedrin.
And I said to myself, “if you take this now, this late in the day,
you know you won’t sleep.”
But I still took it, and sure enough,
five hours later I’m in bed tossing and turning and wishing I hadn’t done it.
My mind is going about a hundred miles an hour,
And my legs aren’t far behind.
I stare at the chandelier.
It’s so fucking still.
So silent.
I wish I were.
God, not sleeping sucks!
And there’s nothing I can do about it.
It’s like taking acid,
you just have to let it run its’ course.
But the thoughts keep going and going.
I turn on the light.
My feet are freezing.
I put on my wool socks.
Now, my feet are itching.
I scan the room.
My clothes are piled up in the corner.
The pilates machine is against the wall.
The humidifier is spitting out water.
Hiss, hiss, hiss.
The air purifier is doing whatever the Hell it does.
And I just lie there.
The lights flick on from the house across the street.
“What the Hell are they doing up?”, I wonder.
Can’t anybody sleep?
Yes, it’s 1:52 a.m.
And I have yoga in seven hours and eight minutes.
I tell myself I won’t go.
I tell myself I’ll sleep in late.
Damn downward dog.
But when morning comes,
I drag myself to class and tell myself it will help.
I grab a rice cake with almond butter,
throw on my coat and run out the door.
Now, I’m tied and sore.
I drink black tea.
I won’t sleep tonight.

Sweet Silence

They are dropping like flies.
One after the other.
Each one with an excuse:
A lack of time.
a commitment to a business,
a basketball game,
an inability to do the work.
I understand.
It’s scary.
To sit down and be with oneself,
to look inside and stay,
to write from the deep corners
where cobwebs and filth have remained
motionless for years.
Some just don’t want to go there.
That’s fine for them,
I suppose.
But I do.
I want
to purge,
to explore,
to exhume the dead
and see what they have to say.
I want
to wipe clean
my insides
till they are shiny and bright
as newly minted nickels.
I want to know what drives me,
the good and the bad.
I want to take it out and hold it in my hands
to the light of day,
and watch it bend and twist
and ooze.
Only then
will I be able to sit and watch the squirrels play
and not worry about what I should be doing instead.
Dip my hand in the lake and let the water drip
from my fingers,
and not wish for more.
Taste the honey on my tongue
as it falls from my spoon
and bask in its sweetness.

A Tireless Optimist

It is so hard to get them form point A to point B.
An appointment with Access Ride
can end up being a three hour excursion.
Getting them to move is hard enough already,
but when you get public transportation involved,
forget it.
It’s almost as if the universe wants them to slow down,
to slip into the cracks of their sofas
and chairs and just go to sleep,
never to be seen again.
“We don’t do that,” says the woman on the phone.
“Yes, I understand,” I say, but “could you make an exception?”
No.
There is no exception.
There is only an endless list of people who seem to want to make my life more difficult
And drive my parents to their graves sooner.
No followed by No followed by No.
I try to be he voice of sanity in all of this,
the one who says, “it can be done.”
Somehow.
But I keep getting kicked in the face,
told there is nothing,
no one,
only red tape and endless hoops for me to jump through.
No supervision for a man with Alzheimer’s
and a woman
with dementia.
They could be dropped off and left to wander,
or left sitting and waiting for a bus that never comes.
Still, I am on the sidelines cheering
with my pom poms,
refusing to walk away.
A tireless optimist
for everyone
but myself.

Watching

Tonight,
gazing at the stars,
the cold breeze in my face,
singing a hollow song
of fear,
I scream
for someone to hear
what I have always known –
Something is wrong.
It is there,
at the back door,
men with knives
and black masks,
coming in to cut your throats.
You tell me there is nothing there.
You tell me to eat my jelly sandwich
without the peanut butter
and be quiet.
You tell me to look away.
There are no men.
I am being silly.
I am causing trouble.
Why can’t I just sit and relax and watch t.v.
like the rest of you?
Yes.
That would be nice.
But
when the men come and slash your throats,
they will make me watch.
I will hear your cries.
And see your blood run
red.
And you will be gone.
But I will be left behind
to watch.
I am still watching.

N The Hood

I am in the ghetto now,
looking out the window at the Hackberry trees
instead of my dogwoods.
Here, the occasional cardinal or squirrel that drifts into our yard
is a blessing,
an abnormality,
an odd-man out in a concrete world.
But I am not complaining.
I am happy to be out of West Meade
and the cloying neighborhood children
with their overpriced scooters and water guns.
Men driving Porsches trying to hold on to their youth,
and women getting lifted in places their husbands rarely see.
This world feels real.
Alive.
Cats run free
in search of birds,
or mice,
or anything they can find.
Dogs bark,
left out in the cold
to fend for themselves,
and the bass of the Bloods
drives past my street
on Saturday night.
Yes,
some good writing will come
out of here.

What's Left

It is all on the left now,
piled up and waiting to move.
Cameras and pens and recorders and tuners.
four-tracks and cassettes and boom boxes
no one wants.
I have let myself get caught up in all of it,
tangled like a dolphin in a fishing net,
fighting and struggling to get
free,
unable to find my way out.
Dead.
Now,
I want nothing to hold me.
Not my past,
or bookcases,
or dressers,
or books.
I want to wake up in the morning
with nothing and no one,
and sit down to write,
knowing I have no one to answer to,
but my pen.

Note For Note

I am starting to question the costs of things.
The weight of tears and anger
against the fight.
The tolls of resentments against surrender.
I am slowly learning that the objects
and emotions I have carried around with me,
are no longer as valuable as I once thought.
The veil has been lifted
and I am learning that the weight upon my shoulders
has not been worth it.
People and feelings,
once held sacred,
are now nothing more than chalk marks on my forehead,
wrinkles around my eyes,
dark circles and dry skin.
How precious I thought they all were!
And how wrong I have been.
What I once thought valuable, isn’t.
And those things that I took so little notice of,
are now more valuable than ever.
So, here I sit, scared to let things go,
for fear I will never have another house or piano as nice as the one I have now.
For months I have worried about where I will live,
and in what,
and dreaded what my future life will look like.
For weeks I have worried that I won’t be able to provide a grand enough home
for my piano,
to honor the legacy my parents gave me.
That I have somehow failed as a daughter and a provider.
Now, I learn my piano isn’t as valuable as I thought it was.
Like someone who bought a Rembrandt, and is now learning they bought a Rembert,
or some other equally obscure and much less valuable painting,
I am disappointed and confused.
For the last few hours,
I have contemplated selling my piano.
Lifting some of the weight off my shoulders.
Starting over
with something different,
that suits my lifestyle better.
When I share this idea with my mother,
the first words out of her mouth are,
“you know you’ll never have another piano as nice as that one again.”
And in that very moment, I see,
everything.
That is where the voice came from,
the one that swirls round my head over and over again.
The one that keeps me tied to all my STUFF!
There it is,
as plain as the ivory keys,
I practiced scales on for hours.
It is her fear that I have ingested.
Her belief system.
Her song I am singing,
note for note.

Zombies and Puppets

I understand
the big white whale
in the living room.
The one that doesn’t speak.
The one that sits there
watching
it all unfold
like cardboard puppets.
We are all just
zombies,
brushing past each other,
never really touching,
always on our way
to somewhere else.

In Celebration of Less

Tomorrow it will begin again.
The cooking and the cleaning
and the eating.
When I was a child
my sister and I did most of the cooking for Thanksgiving.
We made squash casserole,
and turkey with stuffing,
sweet potato casserole with bourbon and marshmallows on top,
green beans,
mashed potatoes,
crescent dinner rolls,
fresh cranberry sauce,
a relish tray,
a cheesecake,
and sometimes my mother would make her tunnel of fudge cake too.
After four hours of cooking, the kitchen looked like a war zone.
Pots and pans everywhere.
A Sink full of dishes.
Smells of thyme and poultry seasoning,
sage, and cornbread.
My father would always walk in around ten in the morning,
after we had been up for hours,
Look at everything and say,
“girls, there’s too much food.”
To that, my sister would always reply, “no, there’s not.”
Then we would all sit down around two o’clock,
stuff our faces,
and then take a nap.
Looking back on all of it now,
I realize how lucky I was.
I never once had to worry about whether or nor that there’d be enough food
at Thanksgiving or enough presents at Christmas.
I never once had to worry about where the money would come from
to pay for my holiday.
I never made the association between the large house I grew up in
and my life of privilege.
The big white house was just my house.
And yes, I always wanted to give things to the poor,
and help out at homeless shelters,
but I don’t think I ever really took in what it felt like
to not know where your next meal is coming from,
or to worry about disappointing your family,
or to begrudge others for what they had.
The truth is, we were too worried about preparing our own Thanksgiving.
Everyone had to have their dish.
Nothing could be eliminated.
Especially not my favorite,
the cherry coke salad.
And my sister had to have her squash casserole.
And my mother had to have the bourbon sweet potatoes,
and of course, we had to have turkey.
No one was willing to give up anything
or there would be tears
and complaining.
But now I know,
my father was right,
we did have too much food.

Life Sentence

Why is it the words won’t come today?
I hate everything I write.
Nothing is.
It all is just.
And so I sit.
And erase.
And write and erase.
And go to the kitchen
to see what I can eat,
swallow,
cook.
Hoping
that when I sit down again to write,
someone else will have taken my place.
It has been like that lately.
My mind judges my words,
and all that I write.
It is a very cruel judge.
So unforgiving.
Sentencing me to insecurity and fear
with no possibility of parole.
I am on death row.
My last meal coming.
The sun setting out my window.
The guard with the key.
The clanging metal.
The long walk down the hall.
Leading to what?
Permanent silence.
No more judging.
No more fault finding.
No more wishing I were
somebody else.

On The Wall

Blank page
staring back at me,
an adventure waiting for my words,
I am not scared of you.
I welcome you,
like a mother awaiting her first child.
There is so much more for me to discover
than the basketball and grave.
There are roads to go down and get lost on.
Fields of green and blue.
Flowers blooming by the highway,
Indian paintbrush and bluebonnets.
Summer with heat and sweat and swimming pools
to dive into.
Chimneys full of black and birds
and soot.
There are airplane rides and trips to Italy.
Pasta and men with accents.
There are birthdays yet to come,
full of cake and ice cream and presents.
There are late nights in bed
and lights out with candles
and the feel of oil on my body.
There are memories to acquire and accumulate
and fold and paste into books.
There are sounds to breathe in,
like fireworks and laughter.
There are smells of Christmas mornings,
and Thanksgiving meals,
and rosemary and thyme.
Yes,
blank page,
I welcome you.

Empty

Tell me that it will all be o.k.,
that I will wake up from this so-called life
and find the door out.
I won’t tell you of my trials as a child,
or how God created love and suicide.
Or why the professor’s dog runs
and scratches
sucking at beer cans and bitches.
I suppose in two or three days
it will be different.
I will mail myself a letter
and leave out the pages,
just an empty envelope
will arrive in my box.
I will dump it out over and over again
onto my blue sofa,
attempting to solve its emptiness,
just as I have attempted to solve my own.

Fo Fo

When I look at him
sitting in the orange chair,
with his lips puckered out like a deranged monkey,
I wonder how much longer.
The man I knew is fading.
I can still playfully yell, “Fo Fo”, at him
and he’ll say, “Diana, leave me alone.”
I can still give him a hard time about his deafness
and he will respond without fail,
“If you need a hearing aid, get one.”
But the man I knew,
the man who made me laugh,
the man I shared football and basketball games with,
and “Who’s on first,”
is disappearing.
He forgets which room he is sleeping in,
which toothbrush is his,
where his underwear drawer is,
what he ate for dinner,
what day it is,
what pills he’s taken,
and he forgets when I tell him
I am leaving in the morning.
I come into his room to say goodbye.
He tells me he didn’t know I was leaving.
I tell him I told you yesterday.
He tells me I didn’t.
Then he tells me he will miss me.
I tell him I will miss him too.
I already do.

Brown Rice

It doesn’t matter any more if she sends it
or doesn’t send it.
If my eye clears up,
or if my thyroid is off,
or if the doctor who examined me is a condescending ass!
I am tired of scrimping my life
into little boxes of worry,
that are too small for me to breathe in.
I can’t go on like this,
tied up in knots,
wondering if I will marry or not marry,
reproduce or walk through this world alone.
Where is all that Goddamn brown rice
that is supposed to calm me?
Where are the lentils and tofu
and sweeteners?
Haven’t I given up enough already?
Hell, I’m purer than anyone I know,
but what has it gotten me?
Driving to deposit checks
and visits to Dr.’s,
waiting in line while some idiot,
who looks like he just got out of prison,
scoops up
filling for my burrito,
praying the plastic gloves on his hands
haven’t been in his crotch.
Fighting with water services,
and insurers,
and attorneys.
Driving behind drivers that don’t know where they are going
or how to get there or how to make a turn.
Weaving my way
through lane after lane of traffic
and tedium,
wishing someone or something would make me move.
It is all too much.
I can’t undo any of it.
I can’t make any of it right.
There is no one here to help me
but me.
And all the brown rice in the world
can’t make it better.

Solitude

Where is the black snake in the grass?
The one who was curled up on my brick patio
in the sun.
The one that slithered along the fence
outside my window.
Where has he gone?
I look for him when I am writing
and I see chipmunks running through the leaves.
I wait for his wide flat head to rise up
like a submarine coming out of the waves
and snatch any thing in his path
down
to a quick death.
I keep my eyes peeled
along the back fence
watching
for movement.
But all I see is stillness,
and the faded basketball
that has remained motionless
in the corner
since Trouble died.

Sleeping Salesman

I don’t like salesmen.
I don’t like how they slither
their way towards me
like creeping poison ivy.
They wrap themselves around me
and try to pull me towards their table
where they hope they will try get me to hand over my check,
or credit card,
or even,
cash.
They feign such concern over my well being,
such loyalty to my every need.
But the truth is,
they don’t really care about me.
They only want what’s in my pocket.
The minute I leave,
they will find a new mark.
Mattress salesmen are the worst offenders.
They’re like whores waiting for a customer
in a florescent showroom.
They pace back and forth in their empty stores,
full of pillowtops,
praying some unsuspecting idiot will come in.
Today, I was that idiot.
When I first walked in,
the salesman was all ears.
Then I told him I wouldn’t be buying the bed from him,
but from a store
in Denver.
You should have seen him.
He pulled away quicker from me than a hand on a hot stove.
His whole posture changed,
like a deflated balloon.
And that twinkle in his eye,
the one that met me when I walked in the door,
was now just mucous.
I felt it happen.
I saw the shift.
Gone was the façade.
Gone the dear uncle I had come to know and trust.
He no longer cared
about my back,
or my neck,
or who would be sleeping on what bed
with whom.
He just wanted me gone.
After all,
I was of no use to him now.
I was just a body.
A body
taking up his time and his space,
(even though there was no one else in the store).
He had things to do.
New customers to attract.
He tossed me out of there like a dust bunny
he found under the bed.
I wonder how he sleeps at night.
And what he sleeps on.

Brownie Batter Yogi

She told me there are yogis
who live on breath alone.
They can sit for days in meditation
needing only oxygen to sustain themselves.
I do not know if I believe her.
But then,
I watched her spin her stomach
round and round
like brownie batter.

Fall Amnesia

O.k.
so maybe this isn’t the first time
I’ve written a poem
about Fall.
Maybe it’s the fifteenth time,
or the thirtieth.
Maybe it’s number ninety-nine.
I don’t know.
I can’t help it.
Fall comes once a year,
and I’m a writer.
And every year there are yellow leaves,
and red leaves,
and brown leaves,
and leaves on the ground,
and leaves at my backdoor,
and leaves in my hair,
and leaves in my car,
and it’s always the same leaves,
well, it seems like it’s the same leaves,
and there’s always leaves to rake,
and bag,
and carry,
and they keep coming and coming.
And each year,
I sit with my journal in my lap,
and stare out the window
and take it all in.
That’s what writers do.
I notice the way a leaf curves,
or bends,
or points.
I notice the variation in color.
The subtle shades of red,
and orange,
and violet.
I listen for sound.
The rustle.
The crunch underneath my feet.
The squirrel digging for nuts.
The deer.
The hoot of the owl.
I look and listen and try to find
the poem in it all.
And as I sit there
listening and looking,
I realize I am getting hungry
for cool nights,
and pumpkin,
and apples,
and cinnamon,
and hot chocolate.
And
I wonder how it is possible,
that
even though Fall comes every year,
it is all still new to me,
as if I had never experienced
any of this
before.

Balloon Boy

It is easy to become obsessed
with the latest Balloon Boy drama.
To sail away with whatever crisis is at hand-
Family, boyfriend, hair, stock market,
job, agent, career, neck or mole.
But just like the balloon sailing up in the sky,
these so called crises, are empty when ripped open.
There is nothing inside of them but hot air.
Nothing to have wasted days or hours of worry upon.
What matters is the work.
The doing.
The sitting with and meditating upon.
The being still even when all else is going crazy.
It is too easy to get caught up in the next drama,
to watch the years get swept away
by some silver UFO that turns out to be nothing but a balloon.
Oh, yes, the years and hours lost are real,
but their captor is not.
Therein lies the lesson of the Balloon Boy -
Tell the truth.
Do honest work.
Don’t get caught up in the drama of others.
Don’t believe everything you see.
And most of all,
Reality T.V. – isn’t.

Suji

The writing comes from unwriting.
From sitting with the blank
and letting the truth creep out
one painful word at a time.
I think about living in L.A.
Fighting the cars,
and the sun,
and the blondes.
Giving in to the Valley girls
and the starlets on Hollywood Boulevard.
I think about palm trees,
and eighty-degree Chirstmases,
and how hard my body would have to be
just so I could walk down the street
without feeling inferior.
I think about Third Street,
and the Promenade,
and Ted Hawkins,
and the waiter at the Indian restaurant
who had a crush on me
and used to watch me write lyrics
and poems
while I ate Saag Paneer.
I think about the cliff
and sitting on the edge
watching the traffic
and the seagulls below.
I think about the rain
and how it never came,
and the homeless man
who lived in my laundry room
and ate out of the dumpster,
and the way the laundry room
always smelled like urine.
I think about USC,
and your old Honda,
and late nights fucking
in my bed.
I think about going back to L.A.,
and talking to agents again,
and
kissing asses,
and trying to act like I did when I was twenty.
That was before I knew
just how much
I hate the sun.

Puh-lease

Today they came and offered him
a hundred dollars.
“A hundred dollars for inconvenience,” they said.
Hell, it wasn’t inconvenience he suffered
when that woman plowed into him from behind.
Inconvenience is when you have to wait in line at a grocery store,
or when someone brings you the wrong meal,
or loses your dry cleaning.
That’s inconvenience.
This was more than inconvenience.
This was pain and suffering
and they knew it,
the little liars.
They come out to our house in their white Jeep with their clipboards,
acting like they know what’s what
when all they really know is what some fool in an office told them to say.
See, I’ve been down this road before.
I know the score.
I know the game.
They want to get away with paying as little as possible.
That’s how they can keep paying for all their fancy ads,
and the Jeeps that have their names on it.
Well, let me just say right here and now,
they’ve come to the wrong house.
A hundred dollars?
Puh-lease.

Worry Wart

I am a worry wart.
I worry about everything.
I worry that my house won’t sell.
I worry that my house will sell.
I worry about what will become of my parents.
I worry that my sister will spend all of their money and I’ll have to support them.
I worry about the stock market.
I worry that my father has cancer.
I worry about the gray hair I’m getting.
I worry that I will never get rid of the numbness in my arm.
I worry about my career and if I will ever make money.
I worry about getting married.
I worry about not getting married.
I worry about not having children.
I worry that if I have children, I’ll hate it.
I worry about where to move.
I worry that if I pick Portland we’ll be too close to relatives.
I worry that if we pick New York I won’t like the winters.
I worry that I’m not as talented as I thought I was.
I worry that I’ll never get to where I am supposed to go.
I worry that by worrying I am ruining my life.
I worry that I can’t stop worrying.

Sharks Kill

The sky is so grey today
it is as if it were full of soot
from some nearby coal company.
There is not an animal to be found.
They are all up in the trees
watching the sharks kill Beethoven.
Hey, get down from there!
You little whores.
Don’t you know the horses are dreaming
of horses?
I gave the water a drink
and waited for India to come out
from under the bed.
Tomorrow I will chase the ribbons
in my wallpaper.

White Writing

The truth is,
I hate writing
on a computer.
I hate the sound of the keys clicking
beneath my fingers
and the feel of cold
metal
on my wrists
like handcuffs.
I like the flow,
the softness,
of
paper.
The curl-myself-up in a chair kind of writing
that can only be done with a journal.
Sitting in front of a keyboard isn’t writing,
it’s being a secretary,
and I have no desire to be one of those.
I don’t want my page to glare at me,
or have a cursor blink at me
demanding direction,
or a swift ending.
I want the quiet of pen on paper,
the glide,
the flow,
the stream
of curled letters
leaning and falling
as they find their way into a world
of my creation.
I want to hear the sound of frustration,
paper being waded up,
crinkled,
a pen scratching out changes,
not a cursor running backwards eliminating
any trace of what could have been.
I want to leave an ugly mess behind me
for everyone to see.
I want the world to know
just what it took
to get me to
the end.

The Red Queen's Bidding

They’re out there.
The bastards.
Crawling on the holly.
Flying in and out of my gutters.
Winged henchmen
willing to do the red queen’s bidding.
I watch them from my kitchen window,
while I sit safe inside
eating my peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
One by one they come,
until there are
five, ten, fifteen
red bodied devils,
all lined up on my white gutters,
each one taking flight in some weird insectian order
like World War II pilots going off to war.
I want to scream at them.
I want to tell them to leave my gutters alone.
I’d shoot them from my window if I could,
but the screens are in the way.
They seem to know they are well protected
tucked in the gutter.
We both know it.
They won’t be happy
until I climb up on the roof in the middle of the night
with my flashlight
and attack them while they sleep,
face to face.
They want my blood.
Tomorrow morning we’ll see
who comes back alive.

Still Seven

I am out of paper.
Out of journals.
Out of pages to put down thoughts.
I have scribbled my last scribe.
Dribbled out the last adjective.
The last verb.
What does it matter?
All these thoughts and feelings
swirling around my head
like merry-go-rounds
gone wild.
I am still here.
Still extolling the same virtues
I did in 2001.
I am still here,
sitting in my room
with my back to the door,
looking out the window
at the squirrel and the bird.
I haven’t changed.
I am still seven,
twelve,
eighteen,
walking to school
dreaming of movies
and Academy Award speeches.
But everything else,
my parents,
my dog,
my sense of purpose,
has morphed into something else.
This morning,
the air is cold,
the wind ushers in fall,
and the leaves seem to laugh
with delight.
At last! At last!
Soon they will be bare
and it will begin again.
It is the unstripping
that brings me back.
The undoing of things,
of worries and fears
that keeps one young.
All is changing.
Even me.
I just can’t see myself.

Cycle of Crumbs

When I was there,
she yelled at me,
drug me down by my hair,
glared at me with malice.
When I was there,
I was her enemy,
her seed
of destruction.
The dark-haired demon
she could never nurse.
For years,
I wandered,
always wanting.
Now I know why.
She never loved me.
Now that I am of age,
my only revenge is to bear her nothing.
To end the cycle of crumbs
that brought me here.
I do not want to know the damage
I could bring to another.
I do not want her to live on.

Sisterly Love

Winter comes on
like an angry mistress
spewing her distaste
over being scorned.
Again and again
she bangs her head against the wall,
against the door,
against the unyielding foolishness
of sisterly love.
One minute wanting to include,
the next,
torn away at the seams by the dagger of
betrayal.
What to do?
What to do?
What to do?
No wedding day
with family.
No bedside grief of mourning.
No dreams of children to hold,
not with the fear of repeating the past
looming so large in her head.
Here in the garden
a bird flies into her hand,
the calming flutter of preciousness,
so young
and dear.
A winged angel,
bringing messages of comfort and joy
to soothe her thoughts and spirit.
She watches the grass grow
and wonders how it got so tall
without the rain.

Scum Sucking Yard Guy

What a little scum.
What a little creep.
Doesn’t call.
Doesn’t come.
Then when I do reach him
he tells me he wants thirty dollars more
to come cut the grass.
Thirty dollars more!
I always knew he was a jerk.
He always did a shitty job.
Barely picked up a stick.
Wouldn’t pull out a weed
unless I asked him to.
Throwing limbs in the neighbor’s yard.
Blowing clippings into my flower beds
when I wasn’t looking.
I never liked him
from the second I met him.
I just didn’t have anyone else.
But now that he’s gone,
I’m glad.
Really glad.
Things are looking up.
I hope he gets poison ivy.

Bearable

On Monday,
when the rain drums down,
I want a drink.
A bit of gold at my table.
Flowers in a vase.
Lace and white
as good as salt.
The sweet smell of cider
sweating in the sun.
Laughter everywhere.
The sight of a new lover
at my door
and stars,
oh so many stars.
I do not want these things
as a bird would want a worm,
or as a dog desires a bone,
but rather as a tree reaches for light.
These are not luxuries,
I tell you,
but necessities,
in this
black
cold
world
to make the unbearable,
bearable.

The Sun Is Poison

I am lonely
on the brown futon
with nothing but the wind beside me.
Selling sex in short dresses in heels.
What kind of life is that?
Here in my office,
the cardinal cries
and I listen
with eyes turned inward.
What do I see?
A girl,
lost
in the darkness of men,
unsure of her worth,
desperate to know love
like a sea clam closing
before she can climb inside.
Oh child,
with the painted eyes,
you are not so grown up,
as you think.
Let down your hair and walk
in the garden
with the rain.
The sun is poison.

Number 9

He was my hero too,
though I never knew him.
There was something about him,
his soft smile,
his quiet voice.
The way he led by example.
The way he gave to so many in need.
Standing on the sidelines
with his helmet in his hands,
he looked like a modern day warrior,
off to battle,
dodging players like they were bullets,
refusing to be taken down,
always fighting till the end,
wounded or not.
I cheered him on from my bed on Sundays,
screaming at the t.v.
And somehow, when he had the ball,
I felt like anything was possible.
Now, that hope is gone,
buried six feet under
for me and for everyone he ever touched.
No more Boys and Girls Club,
or backyard bar-b-que’s in Mississippi
for the neighborhood kids.
No more last-minute Santa wishes fulfilled.
Or help for Katrina victims,
or football camps for children.
No more words of wisdom for Vince.
All gone in an instant.
For days I have cried,
just like I did when Ted Hawkins,
another man I never met,
died.
I’ve tried to understand why I’m so sad.
And all I’ve come up with is -
he was my hero.
And heroes aren’t supposed to die
after being shot in the head by twenty-year-old girls
they’re having an affair with,
while they’re asleep on a sofa.
They’re supposed to die in tragic car accidents,
or in plane accidents making rescue flights to Bolivia for the impoverished.
And they're supposed to stay
on the pedestal we have built for them
until they die.

Fast Motion

It is all happening too fast.
The pop icon
and the angel
gone.
My extension in ballet.
Christmases and Thanksgiving.
What I believe.
Walking on Broadway
with the heat on my back.
C.C.
My thirties.
The pull of the ocean.
Italy.
Smoke-filled clubs.
The farmer’s market in Madison.
The drive-in movie in Smyrna.
Tick bites
and Stinky.
Night after night of Seinfeld.
Popcorn and White Sox.
Car accidents and burials.
My father’s Alzheimer’s.
Jack’s class.
3 a.m. nights in the editing room.
Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
without the crust.
Sitting on the kitchen counter in the Meyerland house,
eating white toast with butter on it,
while my grandmother cooks hot dogs and minute rice.
I see all of these images
as if I were walking with my head turned backwards,
a strange morphed creature
trying to understand where I’ve been
without looking at where I’m going,
all the while certain
I don’t like where I’ve arrived.

Female Symphony

Oh beauty,
you blow like a horn
in my face.
An apple of birth
for me to bite into.
I am the mother of sleepless
nights,
legs turning and dancing
without rhyme.
Once a girl,
now a woman
fighting off time
with both my fists.
A lonely salesman
writing about sadness
and cups.
I have tried the deep voice,
gotten lost in to be Read and Sung,
and questioned my own muses.
But where may I ask is my Florida?
The pink pillow fights?
The laughter of children and stockings?
Have I been so dead I have forgotten the sweetness of sugar?
Each day I wake up more tired than the last.
A burned mattress
devoid of humor.
It is time to stop the voices of dread.
Time to smell the daylilies outside my backyard.
They are there for me too.
I am so much more than one lifeless sound.
I am a symphony,
waiting to be played.
Hear me Roar.

A Mother's Love

She is evil,
this mother of mine.
One minute crying to me,
about my sister,
the next minute,
attacking me for not being my sister.
She has done this for years,
pit the two of us against each other.
Now my sister and I rarely speak.
We are all divided,
nursing our wounds
and wishing for a quick end
to this so called family.
The worst part is
that I seem to be incapable
of stepping out of the way of my mother’s attacks,
or even see them coming.
You would think after seven trillion times,
I would have learned something.
Instead,
I stand there,
open as a kitten,
waiting for her.
One time her stroke is soft,
the next time,
a needle to my eyes.
When she is through with me
I leave twisted and confused,
my head filled with her voices
and opinions,
my life a whirling jumble of darkness.
Perhaps I should brush my teeth with mud,
then I would finally remember what it tastes like
to swallow her shit.

Doctor Love

You would think after awhile
she might soften,
open her heart a bit,
lower her voice
and stop going at the world
with a club.
I have watched her hitting
and lashing,
her voice constantly on the brink of explosion,
the screaming teakettle.
I try to stay out of her way,
to dodge her bullets as if I were dodging War planes
in the fields of Vietnam.
I look back to see the bodies
strewn.
Men left in the dirt,
heads lopped off,
arms severed and bleeding.
Eyes vacant
and lost.
A terrible field of destruction.
And those are just the ones she’s dated.

Pregnant Pig

This is madness.
This reaching and falling back in to
the hole
over and over again.
The calling and hanging up.
The forgotten sun.
The endless discussion.
Repetition upon repetition.
South,
East,
North,
West.
This love of darkness.
I do not like to question my hunger,
or how far the wagon will roll.
But I have napped twenty-five years in a flutter.
A deep pregnant pig.
And what of it?
My doctor offers me nothing,
but the needle.
And that ain’t gonna happen.
X-rays and MRIs
and nurses gone haywire.
Paper bags full of drugs.
What good is any of it?
I am still the same.
No treatment can cure.
Monday,
the dead turn over.
Tuesday
the snow begins again.
Wednesday,
the nuns are in their habits.
So am I.
So am I.
Thursday
and God is a purple throat,
hoarse and ineffectual.
Friday,
yes, well,
friday is August
dressed like a fighter
with no place to go.
Again,
and again,
everything and nothing
has happened.
Saturday,
the moon.
Outside,
the ocean is still going strong
while I am sobs
and tears
and rainwater in a plastic bucket
till Sunday.

Lifeboat

I am old.
A forbidden child
climbing over the garden wall
in search of a view I never should have seen.
My body quivers,
and my legs falter.
I am alone,
a rare antique
in a world of then.
It does not seem possible that so much time
has passed.
Half asleep,
I am full of the echoes of Manhattan
and Los Angeles.
My dreams, that grew up in Texas under the summer sky,
the day of your face,
are borrowed.
And still,
I can not let go.
I see you everywhere,
wearing a red Burberry coat.
Your wife
beside you
refusing to speak to me,
or even acknowledge I exist.
I think of your children
and begin kissing your neck
over and over.
How many years
since the Hollywood Hills?
Since the night of the party?
You,
driving off,
a fish
in search of the sun.
Me,
sipping my broth,
lying about my life
and our future together,
floating about on the open sea
in a cement
lifeboat.

Eeyore's Daughter

When I was growing up the character I related to in A.A. Milne’s books was Eeyore.
He was the doubter.
The naysayer.
The one who bemoaned it all.
The sarcastic, melancholy little
donkey who was always losing his tail.
Eeyore thought that whatever could go wrong
would go wrong
and it did.
Pooh, on the other hand,
always expected things to work out
and somehow they did.
Pooh annoyed me.
Whenever I expected anything it never worked out.
When I expected a birthday party as a kid,
no one would come,
or my parents would fight,
and my dad would end up walking out
and my mother would go to bed crying and I’d be left
standing in the hall
with nothing.
Same for Christmas.
I learned real fast that I was going to be disappointed
by the people who supposedly loved me.
So I guess it’s only normal that I would relate the most to the character
who believed
the worst would happen.
We shared a common heartache,
Eeyore and me.
I sat alone in the corner of my room
looking out at the world through his eyes.
It was a bleak sight,
full of greys and murk.
Gone was the yellow sun
and the pink blossom of wildflowers.
Gone was the sweet smell of honeysuckle and roses.
In their place,
black and mud.
Fear and dread.
Now that I’m older,
I’m trying to change.
I’m trying to unlearn and be,
and hope.
In five days it will be my birthday.
The day I’ve dreaded most of my life.
But this time I’m determined not to succumb
to the past.
I will wake-up and greet the sun,
or the clouds,
or whatever comes that day,
even
if it’s a damn tornado,
and
I will eat cake and ice cream,
and I will tell myself I’m loved,
and I won’t spend the day
looking for my tail.

Ten Lines and Counting


Words and windows
year after year.
To understand doing
do.
I have turned cartwheels in the sand
only to find
feet.
The last time a cowboy
came to my door
I kept him six months.
So long
soldier of joy
and the solitary sun.
So long
short hand Mondays
and Southern Goddesses
squinting at the sun.
I have run satisfied
in my red dress
waiting for Jesus
and peaches to save me.
Outside in the rabbit hole,
Trouble sticks his head in my
Naked Christmas.
The pig and the blue.
Is this all there is?
Hold on to nothing
and hope for good?
Bird against bird.
It’s all a black
Testament
to the day.
A ten line poem
gone on too long.

Grasping At Clouds

I think about it all drifting away.
Being gone in an instant.
One minute here,
the next….
I think about those poor people
on Air France flight 447.
The plane shaking and coming apart
in the air.
Their last seconds.
Did they know they had reached the end
or were they told everything would be o.k.?
I think about screams,
and hands touching,
and eyes searching one another for answers.
I think about the last few seconds.
Bodies falling out of the sky,
crashing into the ocean.
I think about how fast it all goes:
My parents.
My childhood.
This life.
I start wondering if I am living it well enough.
I don’t think I am.
Too much energy focused on bills and cleaning
and tidying up corners.
Dental floss and lint traps.
Trips to Target and Costco.
Radishes and Kale.
Meanwhile, vast expanses of my life have gone unattended to.
I’ve spent too much time trying to please,
to be good,
to be responsible.
What has it gotten me,
besides a clean conscience?
Where are the memories
for my hope chest?
Where are the bridges I’ve jumped off of?
The African elephants I’ve seen on safari?
How many albums have I made?
Where is that documentary I was supposed to start?
Or that novel I’ve been threatening to write for twenty years?
How is it that life keeps getting in the way
of living?
I think about the people in that plane
grasping at clouds
as they fell from the sky
and I wonder about what I have been holding on to.