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.

Wednesday, Yes

Wednesday
Yes
Tomorrow
Is
I will be
Older
And then there will be
Thursday.
Can you Imagine?
Where do we go
to get out
of the
rabbit
hole?
Two college graduates.
Two girls with masters and M.D.’s
How could it be
that our lives
have turned out
so.
You, in foreclosure.
Me, without any prospects.
We turned left
when we should have turned
right.
Woke up
one hour
too late
for too many years.
Ate the large bag of potato chips
instead of the fruit salad.
Is it so?
Is it so?
I want to forget.
Houston,
the closet,
the mud flying
in my mouth.
I want to sink down
into quiet
like a hot bath
and drop everything
that has ever hurt me
Watch it
run
down
the drain.
I want to know
how much of it is
truth
and how much
just
a
broken
groove
I let my mind spin
in
over and over
I want to be free
as the butterfly
outside my window.
Stopping at pink
and red
and yellow.
I want to stop wondering
What if?
What if?
What if?
And just fly.

Close Enough To Touch

Two deer,
a mother and her fawn,
came to my backyard this morning.
I had been missing them,
wondering where they were
and if they would return,
when suddenly,
they were back.
It had rained all night
and the yard was alive with new growth.
Overnight,
Trees seemed to have sprouted branches and leaves.
Squirrels and rabbits ran and hopped in every direction.
It looked like some kind of “after party”
from the set of Wild Kingdom.
Even the birds dropped in to say hello.
I watched the mother deer stand protectively by her offspring,
with ears as wide as saucers.
They looked up at me,
the baby an exact clone of the mother,
except smaller and much crazier.
She ran from tree to tree
in wild bursts of uncontrollable energy,
like Trouble used to as a puppy.
She bent her head down
and tried to jostle with her mother.
Occasionally her mother played back with her,
but mainly she just stood watch.
I ran and got my camera and started taking pictures of them.
I called the fawn to me
and remarkably,
she came.
I couldn’t believe it.
I felt like some kind of Dr. Doolittle
talking to the animals.
She was about fifty feet away from me now,
looking at me,
wondering what kind of creature I was.
Her mother followed behind her,
much more wary.
Both stood there staring at me,
while I stared at them.
I wanted to touch them.
I wanted to let them know that they could trust me,
that I wouldn’t hurt them
like other humans,
that I wasn’t some idiot with a gun,
just a depressed writer with a camera.
But when I reached out to them
they ran up the hill and disappeared.
I tried not to be unhappy,
but rather remember,
for a moment,
I was almost
close enough
to touch.

Love Loaf

How do you keep love fresh?
Do you wrap it tight in cellophane
like a loaf of bread and stick it in the freezer
to keep it safe?
No, to do that would leave it hard
and dried out.
Do you place it on the counter to mold and decay in the sun?
Or do you put it in a Tupperware container where no air
can touch it and it slowly loses all its life?
Do you crumble it in your hands and scatter it on the blacktop
for all the birds to eat
and fly away with?
Do you pick at it,
taking only the parts you like and leaving what doesn’t suit your illusions behind?
No,
the best way to keep love fresh is to slice it
one glorious slice at a time
and then give it away
one glorious slice at a time.
It won’t have time to get old.
And the lives it touches will be filled with such overwhelming
sweetness
they’ll have no choice but to pass it on.

Windows and Telephone Lines

When she came
in her long brown dress
I thought, “yes.”
Gold dripped from her ears
and feet
as if she were some winged Mercury
who had just stepped inside my house.
She was pleasant enough,
but revealed nothing,
She kept her thoughts close to her vest
like a skilled poker player.
If she were in Vegas, I wouldn’t know if she were holding
Queens or Threes.
I wouldn’t know if she had a straight flush or a hand that should be flushed
down the toilet.
I watched her walk up and down the halls,
eager to tell her about neighbors or schools or my favorite things,
like some kind of crazed Julie Andrews,
but instead I didn’t say a word.
When she returned to where we were standing,
the only questions she asked were about windows and telephone lines.
Cryptic.
Uneventful.
Then she got into the black car of the white-haired man and disappeared,
leaving me with no more knowledge
than I had before she arrived.

Better Than Normal

It’s four o’clock
and I want coffee.
I want to jack myself up
like an old car getting it’s tire changed.
I want to feel the rush of speed
coursing through my veins.
I want to get off.
I want the cream on my lips
and the mocha in my mouth.
I want the sensation of hot and cold
and sweet swirling around inside of me
like Fred Astaire.
I want to feel better
than normal.
I want to feel caffeinated.
And I want to feel it now.
But it’s too late.
I can’t touch the stuff
past noon
or I can’t sleep at night.
I am four hours too late.
I am into the dead zone now,
the time when I have to force my eyes to stay awake
on their own
without the aid of anything
stimulating.
No chocolate.
No green tea.
No coffee.
Just water and club soda
for me.
I’m sensitive.
Fuck sensitive.
I want some coffee.

Lady Bug Morning

This morning I found a ladybug on my kitchen counter.
She was
on her back
like an overturned canoe.
At first I mistook her for a cereal crumb
and nearly squashed her with my sponge
but at the last moment
I saw legs.
Cereal crumbs don’t have legs.
And they don’t move.
I flipped her over,
right side up,
and looked at her little round spots.
I watched her slowly walk across the blue counter
as if she were walking across an ocean.
Yes,
she was back on her journey,
as if she had never been upside down
at all.

How To Piss Off A Life

1. Live in the past.
2. Spend all your time worrying about things you can't control.
3. Be jealous of everyone who's more successful than you.
4. Find fault with everyone else.
5. Abandon your goals.
6. Fall in love.
7. Lose your sense of humor.
8. Compare yourself to everyone else on the planet.
9. Refuse to try anything new.
10. Repeat steps 1-9.

Eyes of A Poet

Stop!
Listen to yourself
going on and on
like some kind of fruitcake,
some kind of kook.
Do you think you have time for that?
Do you think you have time to waste another second
with your mental masturbations?
You don’t I tell you.
Your navel isn’t all that interesting.
It’s round and it collects crap in it just like mine.
So stop staring at it.
There’s a world out there that needs saving
and who’s going to do it if you don’t?
Who?
There are people dying in Africa
and dogs being put down in shelters.
There are dolphins being slaughtered in Japan
and poor people being taken advantage of by big business.
There are corporations running our government
and leaders so ingratiated
to them they are incapable of holding them accountable.
We
have become a nation of pill poppers
too drugged out to do anything,
much less remember anything.
We are pumped so full of caffeine
and fast food
we have become hostile and repressed and exhausted
and wired all at the same time.
We spend more than we make.
We have forgotten how to love
or why the bird flies.
We have been lulled to sleep
by mindless television shows about other people’s lives
while our freedoms are being systematically eradicated.
We
never talk about the real issues
but rather,
are constantly diverted into corrals of minutia by the media
like ignorant cattle.
We are scared of making a mistake.
Scared of stepping outside the box.
Scared to forget about ourselves
and remember what matters most.

Up and Down

I’m falling asleep
sitting on the couch,
even though I don’t want to.
My head is drifting to one side
like a ragdoll.
I can’t help it.
I couldn’t sleep last night.
I tried to,
but I had too much tea during the day,
which did nothing to keep me awake
when I actually wanted it to,
but did plenty to keep me awake
when I wanted to sleep.
As a result,
I barely slept
last night.
Today,
all I want to do is sleep.
I tried to take a nap,
but the moment I lied down
I woke up.
So I got up.
And now that I am up,
all I want to do is lie down.

Vacationless

It wasn’t much of a vacation.
Sleeping on sinking red velvet couches.
Waking up in pain every forty minutes,
our backs screaming in protest.
Too tired to explore the day.
Walking from location to location
in a caffeinated haze.
Thoughts of canoeing,
or hiking,
or even driving to a nearby lake,
way too strenuous to contemplate.
I’d like to blame it on the couches,
but it wasn’t any better when we had a hotel room.
The Courtyard we stayed at
was attacked on Friday night by a swarm
of family reunions and weddings.
What was one a nice hotel on Thursday,
had been transformed into something resembling a Frat house
by Friday evening.
Voices laughing in rooms all hours.
Photos being snapped
trying to freeze the moment,
as if mad futuristic paleontologists
had been set loose in the hotel lobby.
A fire pit raging out of control outside my window
while voices peaked and fell
hour after horrible hour.
Each morning I woke more exhausted
than the next.
It got so bad
I started to believe I had PTSD.
I began anticipating the next
door slam,
shoe drop,
scream,
laugh,
or digital photo flash.
By Sunday morning I had large dark circles under my eyes.
It wasn’t pretty.
I must have looked really bad
because the hotel didn’t even charge us for two of the three nights.
What could they say?
What could any of us say?
We drove the 500 miles back home
in silence,
both too exhausted to speak,
both wondering where our vacation went,
both happy to be back in a real bed
where no one would be
slamming,
dropping,
screaming,
laughing,
or
flashing.

Fortune Cookie

I feel like a hot fortune cookie,
crumpled in,
stuffed with a message
I can not see.
I know it is there.
I just have to look inside to read it.
It says,
“Tomorrow brings more of the same,
better get used to the rain.”
Yes.
A dire prediction at first glance,
but when I think about it,
it is really quite funny.
I must learn to carry my sunny yellow umbrella
no matter what is thrown my way.
There will always be more of the same.
The trick is to let it slide off,
like rain water,
and keep on walking.

Ugly Little Toad

I haven’t missed speaking with her this week.
The lies that come out of her mouth,
ugly little toads,
warped
and naked
staring at me with a murder’s look,
are almost too much for me
to endure.
It is a horror
to realize
that what trust there once was
has vanished.
We were so close as children.
Hiding in the closet,
sharing secrets and dolls.
A united front
against the enemy,
our parents.
We made the rules and broke them.
A Lord of The Flies
of sorts,
set in Texas,
with T.V. dinners and take-out.
The governing body,
our parents,
never had a chance
against us.
They lived in the land of oblivion and denial,
lost in a haze of depression
and valium
and the occasional Sergio Mendez album.
Now we fight over them,
like a pig,
captured in the wild.
Each one struggling to hold on to a leg,
Each one determined they know
the best way
to cook it.

I'm O.K.

When I am in her room,
I am safe.
The days of panic,
the mornings of fear,
seem distant
standing on that purple mat watching her eyes
stare back at me.
She is the voice I have been missing,
the soft cool sound inside my head,
the one that tells me everything is alright.
When she is beside me
I can slow down,
I can be.
I can stop to feel my toes and take time to plant my feet.
I can be with my breath knowing she won’t leave
and neither will I.
I never knew calm before her.
I never knew safe.
I never knew let go.
I always thought I had to run like a cockroach,
scurrying from room to room.
70miles per hour.
100 miles per hour.
Never being still long enough to feel.
I wore myself ragged over every crisis big and small.
All because no one ever said,
“you’re o.k. You’re o.k.”