Out


Out of the screams
and trays and blue boxers
filled with poop.
Out of the hallways and wheelchairs
and macadamia nuts
eaten by the handful.
Out of the tears of parents
whose wretched children have disappointed them for the last time.
Out of the “Get well” cards and “Mother’s Day” wishes
tacked up on walls and strung across windows.
Out of the hallways,
and blinking light switches,
and nurses on skates.
No longer must I listen to the same questions.
The eternal tears of Christianity
and Baptisms escaped.
The circular mind
trapped in the same day
after day.
No more bland meals
cooked in margarine,
fried,
meat
on a plate,
vegetables
desperate to escape.
The cries of helpless all around
where no one comes to help.
Out of the depressed and the forsaken.
A Hampton Inn of Hell
tended by Ethiopians and Russians.
Out of the fake smiles by those in charge
and the knife stabs of attendants
when backs are turned.
Out of the wilted flowers
by nightstands
and raised toilet seats.
Out of the
irrepressible itch of spinals
and the deep plunged trail of staples.
Out of basketball playoffs
and nights arguing over brushing teeth
and changing pajamas.
Showers taken in protest.
Words exchanged without meaning.
Out of the blue.

Blackened Notes


Yes,
I am stupid.
I keep putting myself
into the fury of her anger
over and over again.
When will I stop and say,
no more?
When will I refuse to jump in
to the fray
and turn and walk away?
Once I sang operas,
lonely arpeggios
that ran up and down the scale
in search of tears.
I saw colors.
The blackened notes.
The thick thrill of voices.
I stood there,
motionless,
looking calm before my audience.
Disconnected from my voice,
and song,
A smiling pretty.
A sugar machine,
cranking out beauty
by the second,
while what raged inside me,
the fury,
the steel burning of years,
would not surface
for decades.
Now,
when the kitten finds the mouse,
she eats him.

The Bastard of St. Henry

The bells of St. Henry are ringing.
I hear them echo in the hills,
across the yard,
and into my window.
I am not Catholic
but I still like hearing them.
They sound celebratory
and remind me to remember the glory of life
when I have forgotten.
I imagine rich fancy weddings
and births,
and funerals of great men and women.
I see black limos,
and white dresses,
Priests dressed in their finest cloth,
and children running on the church lawn.
I have only been there once,
when my friend Sue’s husband died.
What a bastard he was.

Whatever Is Is

My mother used to always say,
whatever is is
and whatever isn’t isn’t.
I used to hate that expression because it did nothing to alleviate my fear.
But today I am trying to live by that very expression.
I am trying to live in the present,
in the black and white
and not let my head spin off into what if’s ,
what might be’s,
and what could have been’s.
It all becomes too complicated.
Too hazy.
Too grey.
Too terrible.
After my appointment with the dermatologist,
I turned to my sister,
the family doctor, for comfort and a second opinion.
She told me I was being a worry wart.
She said she doesn’t ever worry.
Well, maybe if someone told her she had Cancer
she might get worried,
but that’s about it.
I hung up the phone and realized she was right.
Gruff, as usual,
but right.
I am a worry wart.
And I spend way too many hours contemplating
and thinking
and re-thinking,
and Googling.
And the truth is it gets me nowhere.
All I can do,
is do the best I can do
and let God,
or nature,
or the magic tree fairies,
take care of the rest.
If I run out of money,
I’ll get another job.
If I have something wrong with me
I’ll get it taken care of.
If the house doesn’t sell, I’ll rent it.
If my lover leaves me,
I’ll survive.
The truth is,
the only thing I have to handle is this moment.
And today,
right now,
the sun is shining.

Peaches

No Work Today.
Or the day before,
or the day before that.
The old man just shook his head
as he stared at the sign
and kept walking.
Hands in his pockets.
He felt inside his old faded pants
for a few coins,
pulled them out
and stared at them in his deep wrinkled hands.
Then he shuffled down the street
in search of some pie
and a cup of coffee.
Something to wash down
the years.
A bit of sweetness in a day off
to a bad start.
He didn’t think about tomorrow
as he ate the peaches,
or about the fact that he had a little more than a dollar left.
He just let the buttery crust slide down his throat
and felt the cream on his tongue.
Nothing was going to ruin this day.
There was plenty of time to begin worrying again
tomorrow.

Long Gone

How stupid I was
to have lamented your leaving
even for a second.
The truth is,
I never loved you.
In the shower,
when you touched me,
I only pretended to moan
because I knew it was what you wanted to hear.
And in bed,
it was the same.
I gave you what you wanted,
when you wanted.
Your reward for pages written
was my mouth,
my thighs,
my cunt.
But you weren’t really touching me.
I
was long gone.
I
was
somewhere circling the room,
a headless body
floating,
too scared to look,
too scared to feel.
You see,
I left you first.

Bones Against Bones

Stop
and sway with me.
Old age waits
like a runaway horse
headed for the barn.
I need you
and the glory of a Sunday
on the beach
one more time.
Yesterday,
the deer was on the hill
eating leaves and branches.
She stood over C.C.’s grave
and whispered in his ear.
Bones against bones.
I swear I heard him answer.

Beautiful Dreamers

Three yellow sunflowers
lean their heads forward from the vase
as if listening in on a conversation.
They have stood there
since last Friday,
ankle deep in water,
hoping to charm someone with their beauty.
So far,
no one’s come.
Still they wait and they hope
for the mysterious
man,
woman,
or child,
who will walk up to them
and tell them
they are beautiful.
Only then
will they curl up
and die.

Quiet Rain

I do not want to call.
I do not want to hear
the latest:
gossip,
tragedy,
indiscretion,
psychic illumination.
I am tired of it all.
Tonight,
I
want
quiet.
I want to sit on my bench
and watch the clouds roll in
and wait for the
rain
to
come.

Christian Acts

I don’t know where I’m starting
or where I might end.
My legs are up on my desk
aching
from yoga and running
and walking around the track.
Today, I sampled myself sick
with Easter cupcakes,
English cheese and pizza
at the record store.
Now the healthy glow I had,
from my morning of exercise,
has faded into a yeasty brain fog.
My eyes have sunken and my skin,
just like Cinderella’s coach at the stroke of midnight,
has returned to its former state.
I don’t know where I’m going,
dust following the words
down the page
while the snow falls.
Tomorrow is Easter
and I still am not a Christian,
much to my mother’s sadness.
But I am a good person.
I celebrate love and peace
and kindness,
and I got a Honey Baked Ham
delivered to her for Sunday.
That must count for something.

Barking Dog

We have all spent years
trying to control him
with ropes,
and calls,
and tears.
It has gotten us nowhere.
He is still as stubborn and impossible
as ever.
A white-headed nut
deafer than deaf
refusing to get a hearing aid.
A man without a gallbladder,
eating salami and hot dogs.
A barking dog,
who doesn’t know
what he’s barking at anymore.

Positive Attitude

It wasn’t a cavity after all.
But I had already prepared myself
for him to tell me that it was.
Besides, what else could be making my tooth sensitive to hot and cold?
Every time I drank hot tea I felt like
I was getting electrocuted.
Isn’t that what they always ask at the dentist?
“Is it sensitive to hot and cold? Then it’s probably a cavity.”
I’ve heard that for years,
just like, “if he doesn’t call you back, he’s not interested.”
So after a couple of weeks of cringing upon contact,
my mind started imagining the worst.
Not only did I have a cavity, I had a cavity that was on the verge of needing a root canal.
I kept opening my mouth and staring at my back teeth in the mirror,
but I never saw anything, except for some kale and a piece of radish.
I poked a fork in my back molar,
trying to find a deep crevice,
but found nothing.
For weeks I looked and poked and imagined
the worst.
Finally, I called the dentist,
and prepared for the inevitable Novocain shot.
Should I take valium before I go?
No, what if I felt sick from it?
No sense in pre-medicating before I knew for sure.
Better just go in and be brave, I thought.
My regular dentist was out of town, as usual,
(probably skiing in Aspen or something),
so I saw one of the other partners.
I told him that my tooth had been bothering me off and on since last year when I bit into a piece of very cold seaweed in this Chinese restaurant in Seattle.
He looked at me strangely.
I expected him to ask me why I waited so long to come in.
Instead, he looked at me and said,
“Why would you want to eat seaweed?”
This coming from someone who is obviously a huge carnivore,
and one Whopper away from bi-pass surgery.
He blew air on my tooth, poked around, and then had me grind my molars on this carbon-like strip.
“Bingo”, he said, “you’ve got a bruised tooth.”
I didn’t know that a tooth could get a bruise, but if it meant I didn’t have a cavity,
I was happy to hear about it.
Seems I’ve been banging my teeth in my sleep he said.
He pulled out his drill and filed my top molar down a bit.
Then he had his assistant slather my teeth
with some de-sensitizing liquid that tasted like
(what I can only imagine)
paint thinner would taste like.
Sixty dollars later, I was cured.
I was cured.
No fillings.
No shot.
And no need to think the worst.

Valley Of Truth

All the pink and purple
gathering in the dark.
My stomach, a twisted rag
wanting release.
My eyes, two worn sockets,
dark and devoid of color.
The back of my head aches,
as if it had been hit by a baseball bat.
Where did all this grey come from?
The sky a thick blanket covering me,
drowning me over and over again.
I reach out for you,
because I am scared to reach out
for myself.
There is no consolation in your arms,
or voice
but still I call.
When will I learn there is only me?
Robins chase small black-headed birds away from the fence
while male cardinals jump upon their helpless mates
insuring offspring.
Where is the answer in emptiness?
Is it below the valley of truth?
This is my shadow,
my vision,
my world.
To walk alone
and not listen to any voice
but my own.

Everything And Nothing

I am floating,
ungrounded.
A girl made of linen.
Trying to hold onto books,
and weights,
and words.
Anything sweet and small
that will help me remain
connected to this earth.
The ant crawling on my nightstand.
The tissue clenched up tight
like a snowball.
The virtue of windows and wasps.
White legs
and feet.
The smell of wood,
and shoes,
and bathrobes hanging on metal knobs.
The sunlight at my back door.
Everything and nothing.

Saturday Afternoon

Saturday afternoon.
She is crying.
She says she wants to leave
Denver
and move down South.
She says she loves her daughter
but doesn’t know what to do.
She doesn’t like the cold.
Her skin can’t take it.
She says she hates where she is.
She feels like she is in prison.
There,
on the 6th floor,
in her two-bedroom apartment,
with the doors closed,
watching the snow come down,
while my father watches T.V. all day.
She sounds so pathetic,
and alone,
crying and praying for me.
I try to come up with ideas to help her:
Work on her art.
Walk-up and down the halls.
Practice one of her workbooks.
Go visit one of the women who lives in her building.
But she doesn’t feel like doing any of those things.
She says she doesn’t think she’s going to live much longer.
And I don’t know what to do.
I understand how she feels,
locked away,
unable to get free,
unable to flourish,
or find her way to where she is supposed to be.
I want to help her,
but the truth is
I don’t know how to help either one of us.
She never taught me the way out.
She never gave me the map,
the rules,
the book.
Now,
I feel as blind and helpless as she does,
I’m just thirty years behind.

Trouble The Wind

The last few days
have been nothing
but storms.
One threat after another.
They haven’t added up to much of anything
until today.
They said a tornado touched down at the airport
and for the last three hours there has been constant thunder
and lightning.
Centennial park is under water
And there is so much water coming down my driveway
Right now it looks like a Slip and Slide.
I’ve been on edge all day.
Last night, my power went out
and I lay awake in total darkness
sure that someone had cut the lines and was planning on killing me.
Thankfully, I finally fell asleep, and when the power came back on around 7:30 in the morning,
I realized I was still alive.
Now, the lights are off again,
just as the sky and my thoughts,
have turned incredibly dark.
I keep watching the news hoping the worst is over
and that whatever this thing is/was
has made its way to some other place
or worn itself out.
I used to just laugh at storms.
Trouble used to sit on the hill in the center of them
and watch the wind blow and the lightning come.
He never flinched,
until it started raining.
Then he’d come down
and get in bed with me
and we’d listen to the lightening together.
Now that he’s gone,
I feel afraid
when the wind blows.

Artificial Butter

The truth is
I hate MySpace
and Facebook and all those so called “friend” sights.
I am sick of trying to connect with people I don’t know
and don’t care about
all because that is what everybody else is doing right now
to feel connected,
to feel like they belong.
But I don’t think anyone feels like they really belong.
At least I don’t.
Having a virtual friend on a monitor
isn’t the same thing as going to the Dairy Dip with someone and
sharing a sundae,
or going to the movies and laughing while taking turns
at the big
tub of popcorn
with the real artificial butter on it.
Intimacy has been replaced by seconds
and pictures and abbreviations.
Short-hand emotions.
The art of the conversation is dying.
I don’t think anyone knows how to look anyone in the eye anymore,
unless it’s through a computer lens.

Turning Cartwheels

Consider
struggling into your mother’s pocketbook.
Invisible doll.
Yeah.
Cooking the witch,
white linen
and Hell bent?
Swim on your voyage
like a salmon,
but leave a light on
to find your way back.
Across the room
the hypnotist works his trance.
I am turning cartwheels.
The twelfth fairy.
A burgundy
religion
of sorts.
Inside,
I am like the wind
blowing and blowing
without direction.
How dark it is becoming.
Soon I will be in your bed
drinking from your cup.
A princess
painted in kisses and anger.
An insomniac listening to the clock
waiting for the unfortunate whole.
You say no weather reports.
No Sofa Blues.
No booze
waiting in neat rows.
We took our colors
and painted with them.
Green for the forest.
Red for the bed.
Each twig snapped
for the mice
under the blanket.
On Saturday,
I will crawl into the cupboard.

Too Old For Comfort

The couple that came to look at the house today
were too old to live here.
I could see that after a few seconds of meeting them.
Why their broker brought them here is a mystery.
The old man could never make it down the hill
with the trash can
and neither would be able to navigate the curve
of the driveway.
Didn’t they know my house was on a hill?
And over an acre?
I can just imagine what they must have thought
when they saw all that grass to cut.
He must have just scratched his head,
pulled his hat down lower
and shook his head, ‘no’.
And she must have looked out the windows
to the mailbox at the foot of the drive
and feared she would never be able to get her Social Security check again
without bypass surgery.
Still,
she told me how much she liked the house and
for a few brief hours I thought maybe there was hope.
Maybe the original tile bathrooms appealed to their nostalgia
or maybe the wood paneled den gave him visions of Sunday mornings
reading the paper by the fire with his slippers and pipe.
But it wasn’t to be.
The agent sent the feedback sheet saying they, “weren’t interested.”
So for now,
it is back to reality.
My perfectly clean home must wait,
along with my desires.

This One And That One

I think about why
some of them
are still available.
This one’s feet are too big.
That one has a funny nose.
That one won’t be big enough.
This one sheds too much.
That one isn’t cute enough.
This one doesn’t know how to “sit”
or “stand” or “roll over”
when told.
This one looks mean
because he has small eyes.
That one has too big of a head for his body.
This one likes to chew shoes.
That one smells funny and has bad breath.
This one is really timid
and stays away from human touch.
That one doesn’t know how to fetch.
Or thinks gardens are for digging.
All I know is
This one and That one like their belly rubbed.
And This one and That one
deserve love,
no matter how ugly,
stinky, lazy, stupid or lame.
If I could,
I would take all of them home
with me,
This one and That one.

Tamed Kitty

Woke up tired.
I don’t think I fell asleep until 2a.m.
even though I got in bed around 11p.m.
I think it’s those weird Chinese vitamins I’m taking.
They keep me up at night.
So this morning,
because I was so tired,
I didn’t get up at 6a.m. and check the substitute phone line
to see what jobs they had for the day,
and by the time I did get up,
around 7:20a.m.
there was nothing available.
It seems everyone has the same idea as me,
to work this week since you only have to work five days (instead of the usual ten) to qualify for the $100 bonus.
The only problem is,
when a job comes up,
rather than just grab it and take it,
I hesitate.
First, I mapquest it to see how far away it is
and then I look on my list
to see if it is one of the “scary” schools
that pays an additional twenty dollars
to any sub brave enough to sign up for it.
Then after I think about it for about three minutes and am ready to press the accept button,
the job is gone.
It’s happened two days in a row now.
I guess I lack that killer instinct or else I’m just not desperate enough.
I’m not willing to take anything,
just to make $100 for the day.
I feel like one of those lion cubs
who was taken from the wild and raised in captivity by pacifists in a commune.
My killer instinct, my ability to react, is gone.
When I see meat dangling in front of me on a string,
I don’t just reach out and grab it.
I look at it,
and then I play with it, and then I think about it,
and then by the time I actually decide I want it,
some other hungry mother fucker of a lion
has grabbed it and run off with it.
Tomorrow, I swear I am waking up early
and I am grabbing the first job I see.
(as long as it’s not in Antioch).

Dark Water

Purple pansies.
The ant is sleeping
in dark water.
Spring,
once buried in the South
now sings
tulips
and pies.
O,
what beauty
beneath the clouds.
I walk barefoot
picking up thorns and twigs
with my toes,
like a lost wood nymph
longing for a field of bluebonnets
to lie in.
Be still
and listen.
All of nature is here
waiting
to give itself
to you.

In The Cold Dark Mud

When I buried him
almost two years ago,
I forgot it was his bones that had stopped moving,
his heart that had ceased to beat,
his eyes that were black as empty nut hulls.
I forgot that I could go on a walk
and listen to the silence.
I forgot the beauty of mornings
and drives in the country.
I forgot the excitement of putting my head out the window
and sucking in the wind
as if it were for the first time.
I forgot the child-like wonderment of smells:
Pinecones and roses.
Honeysuckle and mint.
I forgot how to lie on my back
and let the sun bake warmth in to me.
For two years now,
I have been in that cardboard box with him,
buried alive,
struggling to find my way
in the cold
dark
mud.

Gone With The 'O'

I broke my ‘o’.
It happened last night
when the ‘o’ key on my computer
started acting weird,
like it was stuck.
I had to hit it harder than every other key
to get it to work and my wrist was getting carpal tunnel syndrome
trying to make words.
I decided I would try and fix it.
I thought if I could pry the key off I could look underneath
to see what was wrong.
It came off easy enough
but now I can’t get it back on.
I felt a wave of horror come over me just
like the time I cut off part of my eyebrows as a kid.
Or the time I got gum stuck in my hair.
Or the time I lost my baby tooth
down the drain trying to rinse it off for the Tooth Fairy.
What had I done?
I called the Apple store and told them what happened
and the kid laughed at me.
Yeah, snickered.
I couldn’t believe it.
He said I’ll have to come in for a technical appointment now
and then he said something about he hoped I didn’t break my clasp
or clip or something like that.
I hung up even more panicked than before.
Now there’s a hard plastic nipple staring at me where my smooth ‘o’ used to be.
And every time I touch it
it’s feels like I’m falling into a hole.
I miss my ‘o’.
You never know how important an ‘o’ is
until it’s gone.

Texas in April

There is so much to be grateful
for in this life:
The sun coming out this afternoon,
warming the grass.
The little black-headed bird
grasping the wooden fence
outside my window.
The people in my life who
have helped me and saved me.
The taste of fresh kale
and roasted cauliflower.
The redbud tree’s pink blossoms.
The feel of hot water on my back.
Longer days.
Spring.
The red cardinals’ mating dance.
The sound of my own heart beating.
The freedom to walk
and run
and skip
and jump.
Making love Sunday morning.
The New York Times in my bed.
The fluffy tail of the brown squirrel.
The way we can begin again
in an instant.
Texas in April.

Unleashed

Could I have a piece of
pie?
You know the kind -
Cherry red
or peach
Georgia Southern Baptist.
Sweet
and hot.
The crust a tender flaky
only for my eyes.
The curious girl stalks mushrooms
in her backyard
and never asks for more.
Not me,
I am a dream,
a target,
laughing in the hour of ghosts.
I want in.
I want the magical nightgown,
the human puppy,
strange
hands
touching
me
in
the
beans.
A pink dress
of magnolias
I can scatter at weddings.
Branches of blue
and purple
and polished chords.
I will not wait for the child
I never had.
I will inherit darkness
and daisies
and I will roll in both
unleashed.

Let It Pass

All week I have been sick.
It started last Friday in Denver
after I ate at this Indian restaurant my sister said was good.
Later that night I was nauseous.
By Monday,
I couldn’t eat much of anything
and by Wednesday everything I’d eaten
for what seemed like the past three months,
was pouring out of me faster
than you could say the word
“projectile.”
Now I have had stomach pains
so strong I have been unable to sleep.
Last night,
when I was writhing in bed for hours,
I was sure I had discovered what labor must feel like.
To combat the effects of whatever this is I have,
I have resorted to a variety of tools:
heating pads and hot water bottles,
Sprite,
apple juice,
white rice,
saltine crackers
Gatorade,
and even swallowing half a glass of baking soda.
None of it has helped much.
So this morning
I called the doctor
thinking I must have some sort of bacterial food poisoning.
I was prepared to go in,
and face the litany of blood tests and stool samples,
when the receptionist
told me there is a wicked stomach flu going around
and there is nothing that can be done for it except
to “let is pass.”
Easy for her to say.

Something's Coming

I can see it in the grey of the skies
and hear it in the robin’s call.
It is in the wind
blowing
the leaves back and forth without direction.
It is on the wings
of the buzzard
who sits on top of the metal highway light
like a lookout in a bank heist.
It is in the air,
moist with the future,
and in the slamming of my backdoor.
It is in the moment,
the hour
before
the grass turns green
and the water flows.
It is underneath the covers,
and in the rabbit hole,
persistent as a dog in search
of his buried bone.
Yes,
something’s coming.
Better shut the windows
and pull the curtains tight.

Listening For Blood

This isn’t the first time
I have sat
with my head
in my hands
waiting for words to come.
While others dine on Dim Sum,
my diet is consonants and vowels.
Each one more delicious
than the next.
Each one a titillating proposition.
It is like that with writers.
We can not help ourselves.
Our world is internal.
A zeroing in on the heartbeat,
a listening for the blood to flow.
We live for the sentence.
The ending.
The beginning.
And what comes in between
is heartache
and unbelievable
pleasure.
It’s a lonely world,
one that I would never trade for
a “normal” existence.

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.

Honey Boy

where are your lips?
Where is that sweet voice
I could glide down
like a spoon
covered in cobbler?
We have danced,
you and I
under the Southern moon.
My hair blowing like a curtain
dark and velvety
against your skin.
Honey Boy,
my honey boy,
take me
ice and all
into July.
Melt the fat from my breasts
and wash my loins
in your golden skin.
I am yours.
Braid my arms
around your body
and tie my legs up
with your joy.
Let me be your uncomplicated hymm,
the one you sing note for note,
the one you never can forget.
Honey Boy
let me gather myself in you
like a virgin’s gown
flowing and bending at will.
Lip on lip.
Tongue on tongue.
The sweetest drowning
I will ever
know.

Snow Day

When the snow came
down
we hid
inside
and snuggled beneath the covers
like two children
who stayed home from school
with sore throats.
I popped popcorn
and you made hot chocolate
and we let our feet find each other
across the white.
There we lay,
toe against toe,
you reading Ayers
while I read Grapes.
Each one exchanging sentences
as if we were in a tennis match
lobbing knowledge at one another
harder and faster,
with the hope theirs would be the finer discovery.
In the afternoon we fell asleep,
curled up,
my head on your chest
riding your breath,
your fingers on my thigh
pressing in to my flesh,
leaving
their
mark.

Fruitless Suffering

Why do I presume to believe
that by asking him,
“What happened?”
I am like a surgeon opening up a wound?
Perhaps he is not like me
and has not sat around in his pain
allowing it to fester
year after fruitless year.
Perhaps the loss of his wife is no more painful
to him than losing a pair of good shoes
or a favorite baseball hat.
I’m sure he will tell me losing his dog
was worse.
Maybe he is just as content to lie in the sun
alone
as he was to lie with her.
I don’t know.
But I automatically assume that everyone who lost someone
has to be suffering as much as I was.
What if I am the one who is wrong?
Maybe he is fine.
Maybe he will tell me he never really loved her
all that much anyway
and that he’s better off now.
He’s free.
He can leave his shoes out and his underwear on the floor
and a wet towel on the bed
whenever he feels like it.
He can see old friends and travel to L.A.
and read the New York Times till noon every Sunday.
He can leave his dishes in the sink for three days at a time,
even the ones with egg on them,
and wash the darks with the whites
and forget to dust,
and curse and burp and fart
as loud as he can.
He doesn’t have to see her family or listen to her sister’s gossip
or pretend to like her parents.
He doesn’t have to wonder where she is when she goes on her early morning jogs,
or when she’ll be home from Spanish class.
He can shut the door now
and not have to lock it
when he goes to the bathroom.
And he’s got the phone numbers
of seven blondes
he met at the grocery store
this past week in the produce aisle.
Yes,
the sparrow still is a young man
even when he has stopped
singing.

The Shoe

The sandy beach I dreamed of walking on
to pumice my feet smooth,
didn’t exist in Sanibel.
Instead, I found myself dodging shells
like I were walking on a mine field.
There were a few smooth patches to be found
but they only lasted long enough for the tide
to roll in and roll out.
The first four days of the trip were so cold
I came home with numb feet
from an early morning walk.
My ears stung
and my hands were a pale blue.
“This is Florida?”
I asked an elderly couple I passed.
It felt more like Alaska.
They smiled and nodded
knowing the question didn’t need an answer.
It was o.k.
my frozen morning walk
on the beach
was a good warm-up for what waited for me
back at the condo.
The silence.
The yelling.
The tension.
The sharp shards of language thrown at each other
like broken conchs.
This was no vacation I had gone on.
This was an episode of survivor,
except for the freezer stuffed with ice cream,
and the refrigerator full of supplies,
it was every man for himself.
One night
we managed to all be civil enough to one another
to play Monopoly.
We used to play it together when we were children.
I was the shoe.
I was always the shoe.
I hopped from Boardwalk to Park Place
to the B&O railroad,
holding my breath,
hoping I wouldn’t land on somebody else’s property.
When I got sent to jail,
I was happy.
At least jail was free.
I sat there in my isolation for three turns and watched them.
I watched my father try to remember which piece he was.
I watched my sister buy
a house for every property she owned.
I watched my mother lope around the board in cash-heavy oblivion,
incapable of reading a Community Chest Card without assistance,
and unaware of when it was her turn.
We were a weird,
weird foursome.
A reality t.v. show of our own,
that no one would ever believe unless it had been filmed for posterity.
We went on like this for two days
until I suggested we call it a draw.
My sister agreed and then insisted either my father or mother won
because there was no way she would let me win.
I didn’t care.
As far as I was concerned,
it was a never ending game
no one could win.

Second Chance

I am eating ice cream.
Lick after glorious lick,
sucking down the cool
on a winter day.
Friday I thought I might be dying.
A letter arrived asking me to return for more tests.
Now I know I am fine.
But for two days I thought about the road I might have to go down.
For two days, I read online about other’s struggle with Cancer.
I imagined myself in hospital rooms
and how I would feel when they told me the news.
I imagined the needle in my breast,
and the incision,
and the scar.
I imagined the mirror
no longer my friend,
but rather something to be avoided.
I imagined hair loss,
and constant fear,
and trying to find the bravest part of myself,
even when I was the most afraid.
My mind turned into a cesspool
of rationale for why I had given myself this disease.
I was the one who hadn’t put myself first.
I was the one who accepted the intolerable.
I was the one who took myself for granted.
I’ve been sick for the last six weeks.
Perhaps my immune system is compromised.
And yes, I have been under stress,
with my mother’s illnesses,
and the dog dying,
and three car accidents,
and my father’s decline,
and my sister’s accounting,
and the housing market.
Yes,
it was all so clear,
I had done this to myself.
Every article I read said stress causes Cancer.
My mind was racing faster than a BMW on the 405 freeway.
Now, I would have to change everything.
I would have to become that wish I had never been.
I would have to put myself first
and forget about the worry others had caused me.
It wouldn’t matter anymore
who did what to whom,
or how much was left
or why.
It didn’t matter how old I was or what I had or what I’d done.
All that mattered was
what I would do if
I only had six months.
The answer was always the same -
Write.
And record.
And put out music.
And make films.
What had I been waiting for?
How many more days did I think God was going to give me?
I told God I wanted a second chance
and that I regretted wasting so much of my life on
boyfriends,
stress over drivers,
warped floors,
grades,
realtors,
money,
worry,
and
the thousand other pointless mental mazes I let myself wander in to.
I decided that if God would give me a second chance I would change.
I would be
happy.

Backroom of Your Mind

Lift up your heads and sing.
Outside the squirrels are at play.
Outside the day is at hand
blueing the blue
with the sun.
Don’t be afraid to rejoice.
There is a garden in bloom.
There is a mountain of bees
swirling a sweet dream anew.
Do you see what is outside?
Have you forgotten the past?
I am the joker at play
riding the tide all at once.
Tear up your secrets you fool.
Let down the wall of your door.
Don’t keep yourself in the dark
when the larks beg for your call.
Lift up your heads now, I say
there are red berries to eat.
There is a circus in store
in the backroom of your
mind.
If you will only begin
to let the morning come in.

Diana Action Hero

I am in the den,
sitting in the paisley chair,
waiting for Ricky.
Two nights ago
I walked into a swimming pool
in the kitchen.
There was water on the floor and countertop,
water dripping off the edges like some fancy
Zen waterfall at a day spa.
Water everywhere.
I grabbed about forty paper towels and started mopping up,
running to the trash,
and then running back for more.
When I realized I wasn’t getting anywhere,
with paper,
I went and got my yellow beach towel
from the bathroom hall closet
and started sopping it up.
I couldn’t believe it.
We had just put a new faucet in because the old one was leaking
so we thought our problem was solved.
Now I’ve learned we haven’t solved anything.
Lately, that seems to sum up how everything’s been going.
Problem after problem.
Sometimes I imagine myself as a kind of cartoon Wonder Woman
in a video game
leaping over
giant holes,
while grenades and fireballs are being thrown at me.
With each hole I leap,
my score goes up.
But as the game progresses
the jumps becomes bigger,
the balls of fire,
hotter,
and the way out,
more and more unreachable.
I am tired of problems.
Problems that never resolve.
Problems that never should have been mine to solve
in the first place.
I want to sit down for once and know
that things really are fixed.
I want to feel the sun on my face and put my head back
and just breathe
without fear of a goblin jumping
down my throat.
I want to lay down my sword
and hand in my Warrior Princess crown
and instead pick up my guitar
and let the notes carry me away like they used to
when the only problem I had
was getting the dog
to lie down.

Searching For Milk

Oh muffin of blue and brown,
flax and wheat,
raisin and berry,
how did you get to be so perfect?
So warm?
So soft in the middle?
You,
who were once nothing but flour in a bowl,
are now sinfully delicious.
You,
who were once nothing more than plain ingredients
in separate containers,
have been mixed,
as if by some sorcerer’s magic,
into something to marvel at.
I see you sitting there,
row after glorious row,
in the glass baking case,
lit from above
like a high-school beauty
on her way to the prom.
You are there begging me to
pick you up and put you in the unmarked brown paper bag,
that waits on the white counter.
You want me to reach my hand in
and feel your hard crusty top
just so I will have no choice but to
make my way with my fingers
to
your soft
curvaceous bottom
fully knowing
that when I do,
I will be unable to stop
and
I will eat
way too much of you.
Oh muffin of crumb
and desire.
Muffin of peach and pear
and mango.
Muffin of cherry and chocolate,
oatmeal and pumpkin.
Muffin of cranberry
and boysenberry.
Do not tempt me.
I am weak.
Why just the thought of you leaves me
searching
for milk.

Crawling In The Dark

Last night there was a scratching in the attic.
A rap rap rapping.
A gentle gnawing.
Some animal made its way in
out of the cold
and into the pink insulation of my home.
How it happened,
I don’t know.
Lately it seems things keep happening.
One snafu after another.
One unexpected bill.
One unexpected break.
One unexpected animal
crawling around in the dark
looking for something on the inside
it can’t find anywhere else.
I for one, have had it.
I can’t seem to plug the holes quick enough.
Vegas.
Florida.
Nashville.
It is all one giant hole for me to fall into.
Condos
and deposits
and beds on metal frames.
Full size and mid-size
and vanishing seats on planes.
And no matter what I do
Someone will be unhappy.
I have turned into part travel agent,
attorney,
exterminator
and plumber.
When I transformed into this amalgamation
of nothing I ever wanted to be
is a mystery.
But here I am,
walking around with my butt crack showing
and nothing to show for it.
The worst part is,
no one cares how many people I’ve written
or called on
trying to make the perfect vacation happen.
No one but me
is capable of
undoing a ten-year–old crime.
And I have listened to recording after recording
trying to make a deal with the Strip.
Tonight I have on my exterminator’s cap and am running to Home Depot
to buy some high pitched device to drive the animal out of my attic.
I only wish I could drive
the animal out of my brain.

Dust For My Tongue

The broken tea bag sits on the counter,
its innards spilled out like some old rag doll
I used to play with as a child.
I look at it.
Lifeless.
Helpless.
And I ask myself,
“Where is the pleasure”?
It’s not in my cup.
I’ve only got clear water
mixed with some strange residue.
No bright green or
earthen brown
to meet my lips.
Just dust for my tongue.

Still Waters

You see that cup,
that one,
the one with the green handle?
You see it sitting there on its saucer,
the saucer my mother gave me?
I like drinking out of that one
and only that one.
It’s bigger than the others.
Yeah, I know,
it’s too big,
but it gives me somewhere to go.
It gives me room to get lost.
I think about jumping in to it.
Into the dark,
into the still waters
and feeling myself
sink.
It is so big
and so round,
it is as if I were drinking from a pond,
minus the lilies and toads.
I don’t know why I like it so much.
Maybe because it’s green,
or maybe because it’s the last of its kind.
All of the others broke a long long time ago.

Words and Windows

It’s getting harder to communicate with them,
harder to cross the line between sane and insane.
Harder to make sense out of words,
and windows,
and meals.
They are functioning on broken cylinders,
trying to pedal bikes without wheels.
Combing through memories with hairbrushes and nightgowns.
They think the answer is in cards and pills
and bottles.
What used to be easy,
say dinner,
is now an ordeal.
A decision impossible,
with utensils and knobs as foreign
to them
as if they had been handed tools left over from a NASA mission.
The simplest task,
like going to the store,
has become a maze they are incapable of running.
Mice stranded in a parking lot without keys to hold,
monkey-barring their way
hand over hand with the help of strangers
back to their condo.
Every day
the t.v.
in their living room
gets somehow magically screwed up,
put on a station that doesn’t exist,
like auxiliary.
Then it is left for days,
a black screen,
a mystery to them,
till someone from the outside comes
and with one simple click of the button restores it
where it stays on days at a time.
I fear for what will become of them.
They are the blind leading the blind.
Neither has much more sense than the other.
I worry that someday
someone will come and lead them away,
leave them
like puppies on some dirt road
to wander in circles and die.
And like puppies,
they won’t even know they’re in danger
until it is too late.

Out of Reach

There’s got to be a way out of this.
Out of this hole.
Out of this mess.
Out of this feeling
of helplessness.
Luna’s on the hill
staring down at my window.
She is backlit in the sun.
A black furry figure
running through the trees.
I look at her and wish I were seeing Trouble.
Christmas was spent in California
where there were no reminders of him
except for the occasional mention.
I spent the week hiding from those I didn’t want to see
and regretting seeing others.
There was no fighting
like in my family,
just an unrelenting silence
and the occasional slip of the tongue.
I learned about secrets I had supposedly violated
and I learned there are people I never want to see again.
Mainly I learned I don’t want to spend Christmas with either of our families.
When I came back
I walked in to the emptiness of wood.
The bald floor where his bed used to lay,
the silence,
the empty hill,
all greeted me with their sorrow.
This house is a box to me now.
A brick container
holding nothing but my bed,
my guitar
and my past.
Some days are better than others.
But the holidays…
I suppose they’re bad for anyone who has ever lost someone.
There are days when I have almost gotten used to life without him.
I am free to travel (though I haven’t).
and there is no one
disturbing me with the constant need to go in and out of the house
or bark at the squirrels outside.
There is no fur on the floor,
or muddy paw prints,
or dead rabbits at my back door.
but the minuses could never outweigh the pluses.
He was everything to me.
Everything.
He spoke my language
and I spoke his.
I thought I would have been out of this house
months ago.
I thought I would have found a way to Portland or New York
where I could start again
and finally bury the dead.
But I’m still here
and the dead is still very much alive.
It’s waiting on the hill
and running down the hall.
It’s everywhere I am when I come up the drive.
It’s all here
but completely out of reach.

Voices

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

Broken

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

Patriotism Is A Warm Puppy

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

Out My Window

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

Scared to Touch Ground

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

When The Wind Blows

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

Naked Christmas

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

Death By Family

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

Poison Moon

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

The Twelve Days of Mucous

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

The Sisterhood

This morning I finally succumbed to antibiotics.
I tried the last eight days to defeat the virus
that had overtaken my body with
good food,
rest,
and my own bed,
but my cough only got worse from all of my good intentions.
Last night the familiar rattle of bronchitis set in
and I found myself up coughing most of the night.
Today I am wheezing.
That’s enough for me to pick up the phone and start in with the heavy ammo:
Inhalers and Z packs.
It all started when I got pneumonia in my twenties.
Ever since then my Achilles heel is my lungs.
Now, whenever I get sick things head south real fast.
Usually, I end up with a bottle of antibiotics and an inhaler by my bed.
It’s an inherited defect.
Everyone in my family has weak lungs.
My mother’s had pneumonia about five times.
Her mother died of lung cancer and never smoked.
My aunt died of lung cancer.
My mother’s aunt died of lung cancer
and everyone in the group’s had pneumonia.
It’s like belonging to a strange sisterhood
where membership means a lifetime of difficult breathing.
I wish I were a member of something else.

The Yellow Bus

The yellow bus is capable
of everything
Summer.
I walk on a willow
swaying walnuts
and branches,
a woman on her back
split into bitterness.
Late my singing,
the back door opens,
and I am seized with greenery.
How petty!
First and foremost
you must ask,
why
have I eaten the icebox
and everything in it?
The plums were for breakfast.
Now I have nothing
but the smell of cleanliness.
It is a kind of borrowed pleasure
easily forgotten
with the setting of the sun.
And when tomorrow comes
I will be hungry again.
What then?
What will I eat?
The apples and cans and bottles of beer,
are no more.
The cardboard they came in
has been decimated.
The black shadows come between me
ribbed and slender,
waking me in the morning,
and still
all I have is crimson.

An Early Winter

This Fall,
Winter has come early.
Temperatures are already in the twenties at night
and the forties during the day.
The leaves,
what few strugglers are left,
hold on to their branches
like newly docked sailors
clutching prized Geisha’s.
The squirrels, a rare sight these days,
seem weary to relinquish their coveted tree holes,
and have already closed up shop.
Only a lone buck
makes his way into my backyard
to nibble on greenery
before disappearing into the forest.
Inside,
I am curled up too,
dreaming of a fire in my fireplace
and a cup of hot cocoa.
The thought of going out
even with the protection of
long underwear,
a hat,
gloves,
a coat,
and a scarf,
leaves me shivering.
Florida is looking better and better.

Short Poem

What's the difference
in the end?

I Me Mine

I have been reaching for other people’s words.
Frank’s
and Anne’s
and Mary’s.
They make their way on to the page
so easily
I forget they are not mine.
When I was sixteen and dancing for three hours a day,
words used to come to me all the time
like a flood,
a damn,
busted wide open.
They would spill out on to my page,
or napkin,
or whatever I had near me.
I would hear them in my head
when I walked down the school hallways
and later when I rode home in the back of my father’s Ford.
They were always with me,
my constant companions.
Now,
when I listen I hear nothing,
just the spin of my mind
revving over and over
like a car unable to get in to the right gear.
There are too many problems now
for me to listen to.
My mother,
father,
sister,
lover,
house,
dog.
I can’t hear myself think.
Or rather
I can’t stop myself from thinking
so I can just listen
to my words.
I remember the joy
of locking myself away
with pen and paper
and not coming out
till what was inside of me
found life on the page.
It was like an orgasm.
A relief.
A cleansing better than I could ever give myself
in the tub.
That relief kept me sane.
In touch with the present moment and myself.
It kept me grounded more than God
or my parents,
or any boyfriend ever could.
My words
were my salvation,
my oxygen,
my secret way out
by going in.
Lately I have been scared
to trust them
and they
in turn,
have vanished.
I do not blame them,
for abandoning me,
I abandoned them first.

Without The Rain

Without the rain,
the soft pitter of drops,
I would not exist.
It is like that now.
The sound I crave
is the least intrusive.
I have tried to get used to the idea
of wailing,
screams, and shrieks.
But year after year,
it is always the same,
the sound I long for
is whispered,
gentle
as a lover kissing my ear.
A softness
I can sink down into
and inhale
like pink clouds
on their way to sunset.

Ride

What are we doing?
What are we doing with our days?
Throwing ourselves into the traps of others.
Alcoholics and dead end relationships.
Spending hour after hour contemplating another.
Perfectly talented people accomplishing nothing with their lives.
Rather than explore themselves,
they are busy following their neurosis
into the gutters of stupidity.
Then they wonder how they got there.
I know,
I have been there too.
Hour after endless hour,
lost,
unable to feel myself,
unable to know which way is up.
What a sad sad existence.
The talented not satisfied
merely to create
art.
No,
that would be too easy.
What challenge is there in that?
We have to fuck it up.
We have to go down the hole of Hell
and serve the God of darkness.
Then only then,
do we feel we are alive.
It takes a brave soul to say,
“enough”, and reach for a different hand to hold.
My mind spins round like a carousel
and my hand reaches out for the colorful streamers
of family,
love,
and fear.
But I must not touch them.
I must hold on to the reigns
till the spinning stops.
I must stay on to my ride
and let the animal inside guide me.
I must be content with the steady up and down
knowing that when it finally stops
I will have gotten to where I am supposed to be.

Mayonnaise

Last night she called me in a panic
frantic to get to her class,
and unable to figure out how to get there.
She accused me of taking all her money
and seemed to have no idea how to call Access a Cab
or the other three transportation services I arranged for them.
She said it was my fault
and now she was going to miss her class.
It’s always my fault.
It was my fault that I loved my father more
than her growing up.
It was my fault I tried to bring order in to chaos
and honesty into a house of lies.
It was my fault
I was born half-Jewish
and reminded her of my father.
I had his eyes
and eyebrows and nose.
I had his sense of humor,
a humor she never understood.
I loved watching football with him,
and playing ping-pong at half-time,
and eating Oreo cookies together.
We both found humor in the tragic
whereas my mother would just find
the tragic.
Everything to her was a crisis.
A drama.
A three-act play
that had to be resolved in one act.
I guess I could sum it up like this:
My father and I loved corn beef and bagels
with mustard.
My sister and my mother were
mayonnaise all the way.

Yes, We Can

I can’t help but smile
now that it’s over
and he has been elected.
He,
the unlikely candidate.
He,
the rock star.
He,
the man who says, “yes, we can.”
I feel giddy inside when I think of him,
like a young girl at a Davy Jones concert.
He has given me back my faith
and my optimism.
I look at him
and think to myself,
“If he can, so can I.”
I think about him when I am at the gym
and struggling to do one more round.
He wouldn’t give up.
I think about him
when I doubt my future
and my finances and if I will ever escape
Nashville.
Yes, we can.
I think about him
when I want to throw in the towel
and say it is too hard
and I am too old
and I don’t have it anymore.
Yes, we can.
I think about his obstacles,
being black in a white world,
losing his parents,
having the weight of slavery upon his back,
and a world of prejudiced people to win over.
Yes, we can.
I think about his grace.
His humility.
His ability to put his mind on what he wants
when he wants.
Yes, we can.
I think about his eloquence.
His drive.
His determination.
His ambition.
Yes, we can.
I think about where he has set the bar for himself in his life
And where I want to set it for mine.
Yes, we can.
Yes, we can.
Yes, we can.
Thank you President Obama.
Thank you.

Eating Meatloaf with a Spoon

Waking up
squirrel
not just
black
or paper files
but amp loud
eagle.
The way lamp face stares
at you
when you’re hungry
and alone
in a new world.
How could it be
crying
furniture
in three corpses?
The old lady in the cafeteria
eating meat loaf with a spoon.
The dog lapping at the pail
cold
as a museum.
You think I want to end up like that?
I am delicate.
I am the Victorian
house
of rare antiques.
No mouth.
No birds.
No summer.
I remember Santa Monica,
Polly’s pies
and walks on the beach.
That was before my dog
and Tennessee.
That was before I learned to
hide my heart.
Yes,
once upon a time
I was.

Damn Leaves

I’m tired of all this fighting.
Drain women acting like Sarah Palin.
People accusing foul
mold
and water.
The stench of buyers and realtors.
Perfume.
Failing French systems
and the leaves,
all the damn leaves.
There is nothing here I want to cling to.
Nothing I want to call my own.
October came and left without a poem.
Just psoriasis.
Now it is November
and I have met more Southern men
than I ever cared to.
What’s another $5,000
if it means my freedom?
A whore is a whore
right?
One just spreads her legs
and the other drops her price.
I think about that
when I am propositioned in this market.
We have been taught to believe
the next man,
woman,
lover,
baby,
dinner,
will be better than the last.
So we pack and move
and fly
and run
and think
the answer is somewhere else.
Sure,
I want to leave as much as the next person,
I just want to be sure
I’m taking my integrity with me.

Tangled Up In Sheets

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

Insomnia

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

Days of October

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

bucket of bananas

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

Loneliness So Deep


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

Florida

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

My Head

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

Full Of The Dead

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

Cup Of Joe

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

Outside

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

What's In The Wind

I think about the crash of the markets in 1929
and the Great Depression.
I think about people jumping out of windows.
Men so desperate they cannot even bear to
wake up and see the sun
one more morning.
Families wiped out in a single day.
Men and women standing in bread lines
with no hope.
Children working in factories.
Long hours
toiling in filth
trying to keep heads above water
and eyes on God.
I think about all of this
and I am scared.
I am scared about what is happening to my country.
There is so much talk now,
but no one seems to have the answer.
$700 billion dollars thrown at a problem
like Pollock throwing paint,
waiting to see where it will land,
waiting to see if it will be a masterpiece
or shit.
I want to run and hide,
run and sit deep in the woods
and listen to the birds chirp
and never come out.
Outside my window,
the new wind chime
my lover gave me clangs
oblivious
to what’s in the wind.

Sell Sell Sell

Just when I think she is sane,
she surprises me and says something like,
“Mark is the devil.”
or, “Read the Bible.”
or “Only a very few Jews will get in to Heaven.”
This is the woman I took stock advice from last week.
This is the woman who told me to “sell.”
This is the woman I based my entire portfolio on.
I must have been crazy.
All my life
she has been in my head
like a dying bird,
flapping and screaming,
leaving me so exhausted I can’t see straight.
Now
I turn to her for advice?
What was I thinking?
Didn’t I know she was still
out of her mind?
Didn’t I know she has always been
out of her mind?
Why can’t I just accept that I am
on my own now?
That I have always been
on my own.
Outside my window
some truck keeps revving
its engine
over and over again
but never leaving.
Why doesn’t it just stop,
call for help,
and get towed?
Can’t it see it’s not getting anywhere?
I should wash my feet and nails.
Final as a plum tree.

Lipstick and Pit Bulls

The world is crumbling
before our very eyes
and we are too blind to see it.
Markets are crashing.
Liberties are being stripped away.
The global economy as we know it is collapsing
and we are being fed
lipstick and pit bulls.
I have had it with beehive hairdos and flag pins and
senile war heroes.
I am tied of babies and moral majorities
and patriotic crap.
I don’t want to hear another foul cry of sexism
from the party who hasn’t ever given a damn about women.
Keep your hands off my uterus.
Don’t come crying that you are the party of change
when you’ve voted with Moron for the last eight years.
Don’t come knocking on my door with your blow-up Barbie doll
telling me she’s a substitute for a Senator with a brain.
You teach abstinence.
That worked out real well for you,
didn’t it?
You say, “drill, baby drill.”
I say, you’re stupid and irresponsible
and you better think twice
because the amount of destruction you will cause to the environment
will far outweigh any benefit your drilling could do.
You say
fight.
I say enough.
Now is not the time for heavy-handed rhetoric
and muscle flexing.
We need someone with a brain.
We need a thinker.
We need someone who will take the time to listen to both sides.
Haven’t we had enough thoughtless, moronic leadership?
Haven’t we had enough lies and deception?
Aren’t we tired of being known to the rest of the world as
the gun-totting, murderous U.S.A?
When are we going to learn we don’t own the planet
and we aren’t the center of it?
I hope soon.

Fast Asleep

Another one bites the dust.
It’s like that now.
Couple after couple
falling down,
falling in to the abyss.
The depressed.
The Jew.
The Catholic.
The tailor and the Italian.
The drunk.
The squadron of bachelors
raped by wedded bliss.
They creep up
and reach their pitiful hands into the jeweled box.
They lick the fringe of pink,
taste the flower inside,
and succumb
to, “what’s for breakfast?”
Years
of mailboxes
and kids
and 4th of July’s later,
they are scratching their heads
and balls
and wandering up and down hallways
like lost pigs.
The dream.
The gate.
The colors,
all grey now.
Their sexless jails
leave them no where to go.
The bachelor’s dust
that once made them glisten so
is no more.
Where did it go?
Where did we all go?
Love affairs
sleep
hardly at all.

Steady On

Everything is collapsing.
The housing market.
The stock market.
Everything.
I keep telling myself not to worry,
that it all could be worse.
That I could be living in a hut
eating fried mud,
and running for my life.
Or be homeless from one of the past hurricanes.
I have food
and a roof over my head
and a car.
This morning I ate a peanut butter
and jelly sandwich
and mopped my floors
and scrubbed my tub.
I sat down in my chair and stared at the tiny maple tree
outside my door.
Nature doesn’t know
that the American economy
(and most of the rest of the world’s)
is in the toilet.
Nature doesn’t care.
The trees are still the same.
The squirrels are still busy preparing for winter.
There is a peace and constancy
to what is outside
that is very comforting to remember.
Winter, Spring, Fall, and Summer
all will come and go again.
And the trees and flowers will respond in kind.
I will try to remember this
and be like my little maple,
steady and calm
unafraid to face
what will come
trusting that even when things look their most bare,
all is not lost.

Distant Beauty

Last night
we were part of the problem.
We drove to a gas station to fill up
before the gas hikes from Ike got any worse.
On the way out of my drive
I saw a baby bunny, the size of my palm,
hop into the flower bed.
Then as I drove down the drive,
I saw the mother and baby deer
that have been coming to my yard for the past few weeks,
bedded down in the tall grass.
I don’t know why,
but for some reason
they seem to return here.
It feels as if they think they live here.
They graze on grass and leaves in the afternoon
in the back yard
and then sleep in the front yard at night.
It always just the two of them,
no other deer ever come.
It is such an amazing gift to have them here and watch them.
They are so beautiful,
and graceful,
and peaceful creatures.
I’d like to name them
and get to know them.
I’d like to touch them
and keep them in my backyard as pets.
But that would be wrong.
So I have to enjoy them when they come,
never knowing when or if
I will ever
see them again.

Money

What is all this talk about money?
Money corrupts the soul.
Money is the source of too much fighting.
Money is the diamond lost,
the red-haired toddler in the family portrait,
the one you want to avoid.
Money is a disease,
a possessed woman
thin and triangular
pulling you from room to room
by your balls.
Money is the blemished son,
the cracked daughter,
the veiled bride
ugly on her wedding night.
Money walks in cities
like a whore
taking all that it can get
and promising more.
I know of what I speak.
I once desired the tender green too.
I listened with glee to the sound of silver
in my pockets,
found delight in picking up the stray nickel.
Marveled at my luck when my stocks went up.
Now I know the truth.
Money is the divider.
It separates the haves from have nots.
The winners from losers.
The prisoner from the free man.
Money is the chain that keeps us bound
to mediocrity
forever.

The Body

I can not be the body now.
The question at the mouth.
The gravy well.
Eating soil
and chewing my heart
like a country without sleep.
I tried
eighteen
and the muzzle of oxygen and vomit.
I tried to control
the comings and goings
of rivers
(as if I could)
and have been left empty and older.
There are no more questions to answer
just the mud
on the carpet to clean.
There is always more mud to clean.
I wanted a birthday.
I wanted a cake.
I wanted a day without tears
and starts to wish upon.
I wanted to believe the kisses
and the pink hand upon my leg.
I wanted to believe it all would come true -
letters and words
and ornaments made out of silver and gold.
I wanted my garden.
Yet all along
the shoebox lay open
and the moon refused to shine.
The blackness a constant companion
for me to lick
like a scarf.
I wanted joy,
a hymn to take hold of,
a cloud to sail upon.
I wanted the eyes of a blue fish
swimming in the ocean,
sailing off into madness.
I wanted something that was only mine
and no one else’s.