The Purpose of Thorns

The restless weed

there in the grass

begs for me to pluck it.

It eggs me on

as if to say,

“I dare you.”

I am not so easily led

to violence

without thought.

If I were to look closer,

I might see

the stillness,

the shyness,

the purpose,
of so many thorns.

Amnesia

It’s as if I can’t remember,

can’t keep it in my head

how horrible they were (are)

to me.

Some weird sort of amnesia

in my brain prevails,

driving me back

over and over again,

as if somehow by going back
some part of me thinks
I can

change it,

transform it into what I want it to be,

what it never was.

It’s insanity.

Nothing but insanity.

They are content to sit

and watch

T.V.

to waste their minutes

in front of the T.V. fighting

over the nut container,

and who screwed it on wrong,

and what’s in the box,

and why neither of them knows how to shut the window

or turn on the microwave.

They,

the ones who were supposed to protect me,

were too busy arguing to notice

I was floating face down in the swimming pool.

And when they finally did notice,

they didn’t jump in,

they just yanked me up by my hair.

They,

the ones who were supposed to love me

wrecked birthday parties and Christmases

with complete abandon

year after year.

Nothing mattered but them.

Nothing ever did.

I was there to wait on her

and placate him.

There was never a me.

There wasn’t room.

I just wish I could remember that

the next time I even think about hopping on a plane and coming out for Thanksgiving.

My Mother's Womb

The dark hole

I crept from

breath by breath.

Out into the sun,
out into the light.

The doctor’s hand

upon my throat.

The smell of nitrous

and alcohol.

The long tunnel.

The black.

The endless black.

One cord
cut,

but never severed,

pumping

me full

of blood

and fear.

Your breathing.

deep inside mine.

One,

but not one.

Always out of sync.

A dysfunctional rhythm
I could never right.

Dark Blood

Let me taste your blood,

Dark blood.

Let me hold the sweet salty

Liquid

In my hands.

We have walked

Side by side

For too long now.

You breathing out

Me breathing in

A black motorcade with no end,

Let me taste your blood,

Dark blood.

The kind that waits 

Ready to fall

Drop by perfect drop

On to white sheets

Into my mouth

On to my tongue

Better than wine

And stockings.

Let me taste your blood

Dark blood.

Not the kind wasted on menses

And paper cuts,

Or scraped knees

Found at the park.

No, I want the good stuff,

the deep stuff,

the stuff that lives inside,

the stuff that can’t be seen

without a little

effort.

Let me taste your blood,

Dark blood.
That’s what I want.

That’s what everybody wants.

The Cat 'Neath The Shack

The cat

who lives underneath the shack,

creeps out.

Gingerly.

Looking for birds

and mice

and anything he can eat.

At first,

it isn’t clear

what he will find

as he slips through the tall grass.

The birds

see him first

and immediately begin squawking

at his approach.

They alert one another

and swoop down at him,

giving him fair warning.

The cat doesn’t seem to care.

He continues creeping.

He has his eyes on something else.

A little grey mouse.

A small,

shaky creature,

trapped by a blue flower pot.

The cat moves in.

The mouse freezes,

hoping against hope.

A scream.

Then,

silence.

The cat goes back to she shack.

Content.
For now.

Pat

Today was her last day.

Pat.

I couldn’t believe it.

I came in ready to be stuck.

Ready for it all to be painless

as usual,

but it wasn’t.

It hurt this time.

She told me she was leaving.

Moving to Florida.

West Palm Beach,

to be with her husband

who had been offered a great job.

They were going to live in a camper

and pay off their debt.

Save up

and buy a house.

And she was going to go back to doing administrative work,

wasn’t even going to tell anyone she could take blood.

I had been coming to her for over three years.

She’d gotten me through the quarterly

blood tests.

She was the first one who had success,

when four others had tried and failed.

I’ll never forget the first time they put me in her chair,

trembling and crying,

and scared.

So scared.

But she wasn’t scared.

I heard her say, “I got it.  I got it.”

And the blood came.

After a few months,
I went from shaking every time I saw her,

to laughing.

We’d talk about Christmas,

and Summer,

and how hot it was,

and everything but the needle in my arm.

She was my “go to girl”.

Her gray speckled hair.

So no nonsense.

She’d always count “one, two, three.”

Usually, I barely felt it

and every time when it was over with

I would say to her,
“Pat, you’re the best.”

And I would mean it.

Why couldn’t anyone else

take my blood

the way she could?

Why couldn’t anyone else understand

my veins,

my small veins?

The others were so ham-fisted,

determined to dig into me

with forks

making me more frightened.

Now she is leaving,

and I am starting over again,

trying to find another Pat.

Maybe it is just one more sign

that it’s time for me to leave Nashville too.

Nothing stays the same.

Not even Pat’s blood test.

This afternoon, I pulled off the pink arm band where she stuck the cotton.

And for the first time ever,

there was a faint purplish bruise 

beneath the insanely small red

pin prick.

She left me
something to remember her by.

Paper Moon

There is a paper moon shining on me.

White and small

and glossy.

The kind that smiles when it would rather

cry.

The kind that bends down low in the summer

and lets its bottom hang

out

on to the fields,

and streams

and squirrels

and bees.

The kind that sizzles in the water,

but never makes a sound.

A brave moon.

A warrior of sorts,

casting light

where there never was light before.

A moon that says, “fear not”

for there is always hope,

even if it is as thin as paper

and could blow away
in an instant.

Miss Clarke

I am a hurdler,

jumping

over the mundane.

The infractions of the mindless.

The gesture of the hostile.

The unkind word.

The unmapped plan.

All threaten to leave me spinning

in a circle,

endlessly. 

Have I spent time,

where I shouldn’t?

In front of the t.v.

and the computer,

“googling” my life away about trifles?

How many times have I checked the weather

in places where I am not,

nor am I going to be

any time in the near future?

My virtual reality.

Why am I pursuing that which I do not want?

Information about people I do not care about,

nor will I ever know.

It is as if I have turned myself into a large trash dumpster

tossing meaningless data into my brain

over and over,

forcing it to work,

forcing it to sort,

forcing it to recycle,

and spew,

and make sense of,

when it is overworked already.

Any thought that comes in,
I indulge.

Any question,

I explore.

If I took in food,

like I take in information,

I would surely weigh five hundred pounds

by now.

And yet, I do not bother censoring what I put in to my brain.

Why?

Perhaps,

if I keep myself busy enough,

distracted enough,

exhausted enough,

I won’t have to face

Myself.

My art.

My life.

Blind But Not Forgotten

It is all gone.

Lost.

My package.

My vision.

The way I used to feel

Before the marble

Fell.

Gone.

Christmas is coming

And I don’t want

A tree.

I don’t want packages or candy,

Or stockings,

Or anything at all,

But to be able to see again.

It’s funny how your wants

Can change in an instant.

What used to be fun,

Isn’t.

What used to be easy,

Isn’t.

Now, I squint in stores

And make my way down aisles

With a look on my face so contorted

It makes the clerks ask if I’m o.k.

“I’m not,” I tell them.

I have a concussion.

And being in your store

Is like surviving a war.

Only the bombs going off are screaming babies

And the bullets are silver shopping carts

Coming right at me.

And the rows and rows of merchandise 

are a colorful gibberish

I can not translate. 

I hate my debilitation.

And yet, here I am

With no end in sight.

When a man walks quickly behind me

On his way into the same store,

I shudder.

Does he know?

Does he know?

Does he know I am impaired?

Does he know how much his pace scares me?

I am frightened he will run over me. 

I am moving as fast as I can,

Trying to make sense of the

Unsensable.

Trying to see what

Is only a blur to me now.

Just like all those damn Christmas tree lights. 

Coming Down

I am here,

here in the house with the lopsided floors

and the crooked roof

listening

to the whistle of the train

and the hum of my hard drive.

It is raining outside,

coming down

in quiet drops,

somewhere between a mist

and something grander.

This morning I got out of bed

in a haze,

a Benzo haze,

dragged myself to the kitchen

and made oatmeal

with blueberries and molasses.

I nearly burned it.

I am out of practice,

used to letting my lover do all the cooking.

Now, I cook and clean

and wish I had never gone to New York,

as if wishing could change anything.

Day After Day

What are we doing here?

Here on this planet?

Marking time with our jobs

and our bills and our trivial pursuits.

Working out,

being more,

doing more,

and for what?

We stuff ourselves

with food, and language

and books,

and try to pretend that any of it matters.

I do not know what any of it means,

anymore.

What are we supposed to want?

A new car?

A new house?

Another pair of shoes we can put in our closet

or under our bed?

Recognition?

What are we doing here?

Does anybody know?

I asked the man on the corner,

the man with the bottle in his hand.

The man who drinks everyday

and has urine on his pants.

He didn’t know.

I asked the man in the office

on the thirty-ninth floor.

The one in the Armani suit

and the lizard briefcase

and black BMW.

The one who fucks his wife on Friday

and his mistress on Sunday.

He didn’t know either,

although he thought he did.

What are we doing here?

What are we doing here?

Getting old?

Getting fat?

Marking days off the calendar

with a red ink pen.

It’s all the same day

after day.

It makes no difference.

It makes no difference.

In Search of God

I am the night,

a virgin,

turning back the clock

hoping to find God

before it’s too late.

I have made a vocation of it.

Sitting at bus stops,

waiting in trains,

always searching

for what I once knew so easily.

Across the hall,

the music plays

a symphony to my bones.

But where is he?

Chasing kites?

Or dragging s stick along the shore,

leaving a trailed message in the sand

no one can decipher?

Perhaps he is in the trees,

changing leaves from green to gold

or bruising squirrels with acorns.

I do not know.

Tell me anything.

It is virtually guaranteed,

I will soon forget.

The Chickens Of San Martino Spino

It is still a mess

outside.

The jackhammers.

My files.

The digital roar

of words,

makes me

anxious.

I long for Italy.

Gelato on a cone,

and the chickens of San Martino Spino.

They sat in the grass

pecking and clawing,

immune to the world

around them.

Rusty-brown bodies,

producing perfectly tan colored eggs,

that when cracked,

revealed

a brilliant orange yolk inside,

and tasted like no other I have ever eaten.

Rich as cream,

as if the sun had settled in my mouth

and I had swallowed it whole.

How good it all was then,

before the gallbladders

and sores.

Running from town to town.

me and my guitar,

The taste of pesto on my lips.

Hiding beneath blankets in October,

and longing for November,

when the heat would come on.

I can hear their clucking now.