What the Eye Sees

work in progress

The mote in my eye conceals the flaws

The words from your mouth reveal. In awe

I sit, dazzled, glazed, until the claw

Of doubt creeps out to unseal the door

Where the hidden goblins congeal and  store

the deep, despairing pain I’ll feel if anymore

Of this mote in my eye unseals.

The motein my eye conceals the flaws

Of all you do, the lying, the deals, and more

As your tentacle fingers steal food from the poor

Lawyers connive, in suits and heels, to pour

Fire waves fed with kerosene, and ravens caw

At tent towns under darkness seal. And when I saw

If I saw, through tears, the movie reel with music score

Of Truth in memory and Justice to heal, this festering sore

As the mote in my eye unseals.

Celeste

“Unfortunately, there is no mistake,” she said, closing the file.

“You can’t do anything? Anything?”

“I can call around, see if there is space at one of the courtesy hotels, but we’re booked.”

I looked at my friend. She shrugged. “Fine. We’ll stay. Two beds, right?”

“Your reservation is for a king.”

Celeste whispered, “It’ll be fine. A king bed is huge. Let’s stay.”

But I didn’t want the bed to be huge. I was going to be in the same room, the same bed as Celeste, for three days. Agony. 

“It’ll be fine. Chill. We’re going to have a good time here, I promise. You’ll pick up all sorts of new skills, meet lots of people. For me? Please?” Celeste smiled, the dimple in her right cheek peeking at me.

“Okay, fine. Let’s just do what we came here to do.”  The desk clerk handed us the keycards and vouchers for complimentary cocktails to compensate us for the inconvenience.

Great.  A conference I didn’t even want to be at because I’m not a writer or a poet or an agent or anything.  One room, one bed, and alcohol. Lots of alcohol. Celeste had picked up a few boxes of cardbordeaux, some white zinfandel, sangria and a case of some limited edition IPA for me.  Our plans were to get plastered together, but not to be plastered together. Man plans and gods laugh. Ha ha.

She put two six-packs and the white zinfandel in the mini fridge. “I’m going to donate the sangria and the cardbordeaux to the greater good, take them down to the office later,” Celeste said as she lined up her toiletries in the bathroom and hung her clothes in the closet.  “Two big towels, two hand towels, two washcloths.  That’ll be fine. I’m going to shower. Be a doll and get some ice, I don’t think five minutes in the fridge will do anything for it.”

I filled the ice bucket and returned to the sound of running water and singing. Celeste liked to sing in the shower.  She claimed it muffled her atonality, but that wasn’t true.  The atonality, not the muffling.  I loved listening to Celeste sing, in the car, on her porch, and now, in the shower.  It was a nice change from listening to her cry.

Celeste cries a lot. With me, anyway.  Guess I’m the shoulder of choice for this girlfriend did that, that boyfriend did this, her parents sucked, her job was meaningless, her friends were thoughtless, yadda yadda.  Singing was sweet.

I filled a large glass with ice and zinfandel, opened an IPA and drank.  The water stopped, but Celeste continued singing, something about a hippopotamus for Christmas, then segued into Rascal Flatts’ “Broken Road.”

And then she opened the door.

Celeste was naked except for the towel wrapped around her hair.  A pair of Dias de Los Muertos skulls surrounded by roses were tattooed over her mastectomy scars.  She smiled.

“I told you there were just enough towels. Oh good, I’m so thirsty. How ‘bout them Mets?”  She picked up the glass sipped, and winked at me.

It was going to be an interesting three days.

Why I Love I-4 Traffic

And I thank the stars and the moon

And, most of all,

The traffic gods

Who blessed me

With a child,

Who, chatting with a friend,

A young man, newly married,

But on his own,

single for the weekend,

chatting,

“Oh we haven’t had a girls night out

Since 

The 

Wedding!”

Chatting on phones

Filled with films

And distractions

And traffic reports

From WESH drones

Decide

That they’re too mature

To fight the crowds

On Saturday night

When there is server life

and real estate deals

And anyway

There is no after party, either.

Waking,

I see the headlines

See her car out front

Text the young ones

And go to the new technology of

“Safe Check In.”

My son is there,

With a rainbow flag and a black ribbon

across his beloved face.

I breathe.

I breathe,

Grateful that poor planning

And construction and the curse

Of turnpike traffic crawls

And I-4 gridlock

Gave me more time to love my children.

I bring cases of water to the line at

The Big Red Bus.

I cannot donate.

It is too soon since my last donation.

It is too soon.

I climb the stairs,

Kiss her sleeping shoulder

Remembering the Towers,

Fallen icons of our other home

And light a candle

For the fathers

Who dread the phone that will not ring

this Father's Day,

The phone that will never ring again.

Rain Through Painted Glass

Thin scratch in the paint covered window

If I tilt my head

                more

                                more

                                                more

and squint

perhaps

I’ll see a raindrop

Before

I never thought about the sky

clouds and glitter in the dark

rain was a frowning slippery road to grumble at

torrents of elevated humidity and flood calling cards

leakstains in the corner above the door

Before

I never thought about the wind

knocking down branches and rooftops

now blue tarp covered wrecks

rare scattered days of open windows

low drone of the neighbor’s motorbike

Before

I never thought about the rancid heat

killing new plants and inciting passions

even when the only passion is the next fix

sweat soaked shirts peeled off in the shower

like orange skins dry scent rising

But now all I have is

Time

to think

and squint at the scratch

in the painted over window.

Teshuvah, Tefilla, Tzedakah

Ashamnuh:

Once, if I were honest, more than once, much more,

I wish I still lived alone

Just me, my pens, my books

And the ducks, murmuring under the street lamp.

Train whistles,

Who’s ready? Who’s willing? Who’s able?

            All Aboard!

Bagadnu, gazalnu ,dibarnu dofi:

But I do not live alone.

Other people, things, inhabit this temporary home,

            of bodies and offal

            On the search for real

I, responsible for detritus, distracted and rerouted

by not alone. Home is a vial of ash.

Heevinu, v'hirshanu:

In my heart, I am always alone.

Zadnu:

Midnight.  I feed the ducks, throwing stale bread upon the water.

At sunrise, they sit on the edge of the eave and

Stare through the pane.

I am afraid that they, hungry, will break the glass.

Hamasnu:

I am a walking suicide.

Tafalnu sheker:

I am more alone than I am with

More surprised when not surprised by the shadows of others

As they talk in the galleries

And I make tea and sandwiches

And salt the buttered bread

Memory of the dead and nearly dead and might as well be dead and draped mirrors

Playacting that I connect with those I serve.

Rashanu, shichatnu,Tiavnu, tainu, titanu:

The conductor holds the door, impatient,

Calling me night after night.

All aboard, where’s your ticket,

Reading numbers inked on the inside of my forearm.

The ducks sing Adonai dayan ha-emet

And then I hear nothing.

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Teshuvah, Tefilla and Tzedakah[Ma’avreen et roa ha’gezeirah]

Repentence, Prayer and Charity Temper Judgement’s Severe Decree

Adonai dayan ha-emet: God is the True judge

Baruch atah Adonai, elohainu melach Haolem, dayan ha-emet.

The Hebrew blessing on hearing of a death :

Blessed is the Eternal One, Ruler of the Universe, the True Judge.

Ashamnu-we have tresspassed

Bagadnu- we have dealt treaturously

gazalnu-we have robbed

Dibarnu dofi- we have spoken slander

heevinu- we have acted perversly

v'hirshanu-we have done wrong

zadnu- we have acted presumptuously

hamasnu- we have done violence

tafalnu sheker- we have practiced deceit

rashanu- we have acted wickedly

shichatnu- we have dealt corruptly

tiavnu-we have committed abomination

tainu- we have gone astray

titanu- we have led others astray

Arbor Wist

Arbor Wist

Spread wide, I drape the arbor

With scent and scattered petals

Shadow evocation of little girls with

Frill filled baskets.

Bored, alone, I gaze across the path,

Over the stone wall

To the St Johns

That now deserted waterway

Once a hotbed of commerce.

A sculler crew plies their craft

Stroke stroke stroke

The murmur of the drummaster beating galley time.

A child stands on the wall,

Her mother paralyzed with fear

Until a stranger throws an arm out,

Swings the child to safety

And carries her off to the sprawling banyon tree.

I hear him say, climb here. Mama, come, she’s fine.

The stranger approaches me

Takes a seat on my concrete bench

Dabbles his toes in lily pond

Staring out at the amber sky.

He turns to the woman,

The woman I hadn’t notices in my sculling revery.

She clasps an open copy of Virgil’s Aeneid.

The murmuring was her voice, slow Latin,

Rounding the words.

He turns to her, intent on her profile,

the curve of her nose

the length of her fingers on the page.

Leans over and brushes the scar on her shoulder with his lips.

I drop some petals on her book

And close my vines around them.