Raw Lou

I think about you,
Lou.
You
who dreamed,
you who
struck New York with your chords
and dirty drums.
You who slipped inside me
and froze my tears.
I kneaded the bread of your lips
in my ear,
the milky dreams of your song.
The hungry perversity of raw genius
plaguing my dreams.
You could melt the darkness
with your voice.
The irreverent beat
refusing to appease the middle class.
No apologies.
The masses missed
what I knew.
But you
continued
pressing the cave of bees,
poking the windows with your fists,
plugging my socket.
The cacophony of voices,
Jesus,
The man,
the carpet roses
refusing to die,
laughing like a fish
on the dresser.
You who controlled
your destiny
with your hands in your pockets,
you never worried
what they said.
You’ll go mad
before you let them silence
your Sunday.

Three Weeks Gone

At the beach
I thought I saw you
playing in the waves.
I squinted into the sun
and I saw your black body
running after seagulls.
When I lied down on my towel
I felt you sitting next to me,
wet and sandy,
and I imagined you looking out at the ocean
and listening to the waves
marveling at God’s creation.
Now that I am home
I see you on the hill,
eating grass,
digging up my flowerbeds
and darting from tree to tree.
I feel you in the den
and when I step on the spot where your bed used to be
I swear the floor is still warm.
At night when I pull up into the drive,
I still expect to see you,
but there is nothing
but silence,
horrible silence.
I find myself doing all the things I did when you were here.
I still shut the gate so you won’t get out
even though you're three weeks gone.

The Return Of The Rabbits

I see you
in the shadows.
You,
who stole my heart.
You,
who tripped me with your baby teeth
and small black body.
I see you
in the grass
running with the squirrels.
They are here now
eating in peace,
covering the hill like frost.
They are here
delighting in the safety they have found
now that you are gone.
Soon the rabbits will return
and the grass that covers your grave
will grow long and tall.
Everything will be as it was.
Everything,
except you and me.

Imagine

I imagine him running in a corn field,
endless
and yellow
on the hunt of some poor animal he has sniffed out.
I imagine him
hitching a ride to Mexico
wearing a sombrero
and eating tacos by the dozen
with Patch.
I imagine him running free
down the beach
kicking up the sand
and chasing the seagulls so hard
not one of them will dare to leave the safety of the sky.
I imagine him
sleeping
on the blacktop
like he used to
the wind blowing his black hair.
I imagine him telling me,
“Come on, mom,
stop crying, let’s go play.”
and me getting up with his leash
to take him to the park
or on a walk.
I imagine I hear his bark in the morning
and his tongue on my face
waking me.
I imagine he is with me
every moment of every day
I imagine so hard,
I swear he is still here.

For Trouble

It is so quiet here
without him.
It is as if the world has stopped
but I know it hasn’t.
There is no more early morning “shake”
of his dog collar.
No coming in at 6:15 to wake me with his nudge and his paws
like Peter Pan’s nursemaid.
No bark demanding his breakfast,
or sad brown eyes begging me to go on a walk.
There is no “big yellow ball” being thrust at me
while I am trying to write,
or nudge of his head knocking my hand off my guitar.
No hair on the floor.
No response when I say the words, “walk” or “park” or “bath”.
There is nothing here to let me know he is here.
I think of all the times I was too busy writing to play with him,
And he would entertain himself on the hill with a stick he had found.
I think about all the trips I took where I left him at home with a teenaged dog sitter.
I think about how much he licked me when I cried
and all the times I told him I loved him.
I think about his spirit,
throwing himself against trees and fences trying to catch a squirrel.
I think about his focus
and his concentration
and his funny ballet like walk as he would approach a squirrel.
I think about the backward look he would shoot me when I would try to “help” him hunt,
the look that said, “Mom, back off, this is my territory.”
I think about all the times he never gave up
when I would have given up long ago.
I think about the times he rolled in manure
and I had to give him a bath,
which he hated more than anything.
I think about the bath I gave him last week,
never thinking it would be his last.
I think about him up on that hill
buried three feet below in the cold
and I hope he is o.k.
I hope he is somewhere else,
catching all the squirrels he could ever want
and playing with Patch.
I hope that somehow I am with him
and that he isn’t afraid.
And I hope he will always be with me
no matter where I go.
He was my best friend.
And I love him
more than anything in the world.

The last Cowboy

stands at the wall
and says, “Shoot me. Shoot me.”
The last cowboy
keeps his gun in his holster,
bullets rusty,
trigger permanently frozen in place.
The last cowboy
says he has seen one too many sunsets,
chased one too many Indians,
kissed one too many women.
The last cowboy
is tired of traveling
to places like Mcgill and Tonopah.
His back aches from hours on his horse
and his eyes are full of dust and sun.
The last cowboy
wants to put his feet up
on something other than a barroom table.
The last cowboy
wants a good mattress,
not a night under the stars.
The last cowboy
knows his whiskey too well
and doesn’t want to wait
to see
what the world will become.

SpiderMum

The yellow Spider mums in my Polish vase
are worth much more than the four dollars I spent on them
ten days ago.
I changed their water,
and trimmed their stems,
and now they are as fresh as the day I brought them home.
They have been revived,
brought back from the dead.
I never expected they would last this long.
I thought I would have to throw them out last weekend
like I did the white mums I bought at the same time.
They were covered in mold
stereo
and put in the trash bin
with tuna cans and carrot tops.
But these Spiders are survivors.
I see them parrot in the sun,
their round heads bobbing in the wind
Southern Belle style.
They are not going fruitcake anywhere.
They are here for at least another weekend
maybe even two.
And when I go to the store to buy flowers again
I will think Spider.

Close Call Yet Again

Last night
I was almost killed.
A kid,
barely fifteen or sixteen,
driving a Land Rover,
lost complete control of his car
and careened into my lane
forcing me into oncoming traffic.
For a few seconds I was sure that this was it.
I saw my life flash before me.
I saw the ambulance come
and I heard my bones breaking upon impact.
I honked my horn at the car coming towards me
and swerved back into my lane
missing the head on collision.
The kid,
drove ahead,
and waved at me as if to say, “sorry”.
“Sorry.”
like he had just spilled a Pepsi on my new dress,
or forgotten to say excuse me when he burped,
not almost killed me.
I pulled up to the light trembling.
I wanted to get out of my car,
grab him and say, “you idiot,
do you know what you just did?”
But instead, I just sat at the light trembling
and scribbled down his license on a receipt I had from
Star Physical therapy.
I tried to calm myself.
I was o.k.
I was just freaked out.
It all happened so fast.
No warning.
Two more seconds one way or the other
and I would have been dead
and that would have been that.
No going to New York to live bohemian
for a couple months,
no relocating to Portland or Seattle for the good air,
no fourth album,
or poem of the day,
no more ballet
or walks in the park with the dog.
No more trips to the beach
or drives to Chicago for Calamari.
No more wishing I had done things differently.
My life would have just been over.
April 2, 2007 at 5:15p.m.

Dead Elephant

He says I only need a handyman
and a couple of Mexicans with a Clorox bottle.
He says I should never quote him
or use his name
and that he’s speaking “off the record” to me.
So many people have been trying to rip me off.
Thirty thousand for this.
Nine thousand for that.
I have been pushed back and forth like a dead elephant
floating in the river.
It is refreshing to finally have a person come
who is a person,
who still knows what it means to tell the truth.
He told me not to worry
and to wait till I have a real problem.
My father tells me the same thing.
He says, “You have no real problems. You don’t know what real problems are.”
I guess he’s right.
So today I am going back to writing and listening to the birds
and being grateful for my small “problems”
while they still are small.

Nothing Needs Fixing

Nothing needs fixing
right now.
Not the floor,
or the roof,
or the dishwasher,
or my heart.
Nothing needs fixing
this moment.
It is amazing how much time
I spend
trying to fix things.
My mother.
My father.
My sister.
My boyfriend.
My finances.
I could spend entire days
trying to make things better.
but the dog will still be dirty tomorrow.

Somewhere I Stopped Laughing

When I think of all the choices I have made in my life
I feel sick.
Here I am
and where I have got
is not where I want to be.
Did I go out for lunch
one too many times?
Or worry about whether one of my boyfriends
would call
or whether he needed a root canal
when I should have been worrying about my own teeth?
Just how much time have I spent bemoaning a review
or fretting over someone
who was rude to me?
How many nights have I gone to bed early
feeling like it is too late for me
promising myself I would work harder the next night
and when the next night came
I was in bed again?
All of these days, weeks, months
have added up to years
and here I am,
where I do not want to be.
I pray to God
to help me find a way out.
I thought I was doing o.k.
Doing the right thing.
I thought my life was going along fine.
But somewhere
I stopped being the youngest in my class.
Somewhere
I graduated from college years ago
And stopped using the three years of training
that I called my M.F.A.
Somewhere I stopped believing that my dreams
would be a reality.
Somewhere I stopped laughing.
I feel like I am standing in a crowd of hundreds of people
all rushing in different directions.
They are all “going somewhere”
while I stand there
trying to speak,
trying to ask for directions,
the paper in my hand,
the one that tells me what I need to know
and who I am supposed to be
in this life
falls to the floor.
And I can not get it back.

Men With Tools

There are men
across the street from me.
Men with tools,
hammers, saws and drills.
Men who sweat
and urinate in plastic outhouses.
Men who eat fast food lunches at eleven
and go home by four.
Men who can fix things.
They are the kind of men I need for about an hour
and then never again.
I watch them
day after day
going in and out of that new million dollar house
with their tool belts strapped around their waists.
I watch them like a dog in a butcher shop
salivating
over what I can’t have.
They are so close,
so touchable,
and yet
so out of reach.
It isn’t fair.
I only need one.
Just one
with his big drill,
to fix my backdoor,
and put on that new mailbox,
the shiny black one I bought at Home Depot
the realtor says I so desperately need.
It wouldn’t take long.
Why a man like one of those could do the whole job
in probably fifteen minutes,
thirty at the most.
They’d hardly miss him at the big house.
And then, I swear,
I’d put him right back
Just like a kleptomaniac
who stole a sweater and had a change of heart.
It wouldn’t hurt anyone,
wouldn’t cost anyone anything.
After all,
he’s getting paid by the hour.
What difference does it make if he’s working
over here or over there?
He’d be doing a good deed.
He’d be doing such a good deed.
Why it’s almost wrong of me
not to ask.
Who am I to keep that man from having the opportunity
to feel good about himself?

Perhaps it’s the mailbox

why my home won’t sell.
The realtor across the street seems to think so.
He says it’s the first thing people notice
and if the mailbox doesn’t look good
people assume the house isn’t good.
Maybe he’s right.
After all,
my mailbox is plastic and tied on to the metal post with a strap
which covers up half the stick on numbers.
Maybe that’s giving people the idea that the entire house
is falling apart.
Makes sense to me.
Faulty mailbox equals leaky roof,
cracked driveway,
and overall dilapidated house.
Right.
If I believed that I would have a mailbox built out of marble
at the foot of my driveway
with numbers made out of fourteen karat gold.
Come on.
Is that what they are teaching in real estate school?
“If the mailbox is lame, go to a different house.”
The truth is,
a couple of years ago
a car full of kids drove by and knocked my mailbox down with a baseball bat
as part of their high school graduation celebration.
It’s a Southern tradition,
like eating grits with eggs
and throwing puppies out of moving trucks.
So rather than buy a new one,
which would probably get knocked over again
next May,
I had my roofer try to fix it.
When he couldn’t reattach it,
he took a bungie cord and tied it around the mailbox.
It’s held on for three years now.
I’d kind of forgotten about it
until the realtor pointed out its’ uncomeliness.
But still, even with a questionable mailbox,
I find it hard to believe that's what's keeping my home from selling.
Nevertheless,
this week I am putting up a new mailbox,
a ten dollar shiny black metal one from Home Depot.
That should get the offers rolling in.

What's Missing

Stop it!
Stop it right now!
Stop running.
There is nothing out there.
Nothing in the malls,
or on the clothing racks.
Nothing in the perfume bottles
or in the pockets of furs.
Nothing in the smiles of strangers.
There is nowhere you can go
that is better than where you are now.
No beach.
No mountain.
No spa.
Nowhere.
Take a look.
I dare you.
Open up your window
and see.
See the new leaf sprouting on the maple tree.
See the red cardinal flying from limb to limb in search of love.
Listen to the plane flying south above you.
See the white moth banging against your panes.
Yes,
all of it is here,
and it doesn’t cost a dime.
God has laid a bounty before you
and you only complain of what’s missing.
The only thing missing
is you.

What Was

Since last July,
when my sister and I were forced to move my parents’ our of their home in Texas,
I have been homeless.
Yes,
I have a roof over my head
in Nashville,
but Nashville isn’t home.
Home is Wade Hampton.
Home is 713-464-8774.
Home is where I lost my baby teeth.
Had my first period.
Kissed a boy.
Home is where Mattie told me stories about the big white cat
who would eat me
if I walked across the freshly mopped floors.
Home is where I would run
whenever someone was mean to me at elementary school.
Home is where we ate Thanksgiving dinner,
and opened Christmas presents,
and had Shipley doughnuts on Saturday morning
while we watched Bugs Bunny cartoons.
Home is where I hid in the closet,
where I dreamed of being a star,
where I learned I didn’t matter.
Home is where the arguing
was as constant as the t.v.
It was never great,
but it was home.
Now I am like a bee
whose hive was knocked down
from the tree.
I am hovering,
and buzzing
and trying to make sense of what isn’t there.
I have no place to land,
and no where to go,
and I can not recreate what was.

Things I like

White roses.
Yellow roses.
The sun on my back.
The sun on Trouble’s back.
Hot water.
Seventy five degree days.
Spring.
Tulips springing up.
Empty parking lots.
My wind chime rustling.
The happy chirp of robins.
An unsweet ice tea with a chocolate chip cookie.
Peach cobbler.
Walks in the woods.
Driving to the beach on a whim.
Time alone.
The smell of sesame oil on my skin.
Cloudless days.

The Unworthy

I listen to their calls,
the same repetitive sounds
like the thoughts in my mind.
My yellow daffodils.
The red cardinal by the holly.
Trouble asleep in the dirt.
The bushes alive with the rustling of nature.
It is like that here.
Settling down into myself
I am leaving the world of worry behind.
There has been no call from the woman with the check.
No word from the broken.
Yes,
I am doing it again,
giving myself over to the day
and it’s troubles.
Now,
I must sit on the couch and confess
to the page.
Now I must find what I want,
once more,
regardless of who or what or how.
For most of my life,
I have let the unworthy lead me.
I fear I will never leave this place.

White Roses

White roses.
Curved over glass.
Heads soft as marshmallows.
A bridal vase of yellow, red and white.
I see you in my dreams.
So soft,
so soft.
The ruffled lace of virgins’ gowns.
I dream of holding you,
your sweetness filling my nose.
How still and beautiful you are.
If I could paint you,
capture you,
remember you,
I would keep your image in my head
and recall you
on days that are bleak and sallow.
White roses
do not die.
Such loveliness should never
be forsaken.

Breathing In Chicken Fat

I am so excited.
I can barely sit.
I am leaving this town.
This boring, stale,
close-minded town.
I am leaving the cicadas,
and the trucks and the tobacco.
I am leaving the anti-abortion stickers,
and the pro W people,
and the phonies who promise
but never deliver.
I am leaving the doughnuts,
and the toothless
and the slow.
I am leaving suburbia.
I can feel it now,
the water.
I can hear the traffic,
the buses,
the cabs,
the trains.
I can see myself on that bridge,
that balcony,
eating Chinese
that tastes like Chinese,
feet in the sand,
watching the sunset
with the harbor below,
shopping
at real stores,
dining
and not leaving nauseous.
I feel so free,
like I am starting the next chapter of my life.
Whatever it will bring,
I know it will be better
than breathing in chicken fat.

FSBO

I am ready to pull it down,
take in the sign
and forget it,
resign myself to this hill,
and the pollen,
and the mosquitoes,
and the drivers.
Twice now I have been offered an opportunity
to leave
and didn’t take it.
Once,
from a psychotic buyer
from L.A.
who offered me a low bid,
and now,
a month later,
I have a thirty-month renter with two kids ready to move in.
Neither are all that I had hoped for.
The renter can’t pay enough
and the buyer,
well the buyer was
nuts.
But still,
I wonder,
what am I waiting for?
Is it the noise of New York that scares me
or the fear of the rain of Seattle?
Maybe I’m just scared that
I wouldn’t be any happier there
than I am here.