Beer Coffee Water Saline

It all tastes off
not right
not smooth
not as remembered
bitter gritty
acid sour spoilt
IPAs, glory of hoppy sharps
mouthfeel of rusty spikes
soothed by
milk stout thick sweetness
a curdled stinking mug of last month

Coffee is mud sluice over ancient cobbles
Water the perfect neutral, pH 7
foams like baking soda and vinegar
childhood science Vesuvius
in the mouth

All that is left is a saline drip
Bypassing the mouth, the taste buds
laced with morphine
And
It
Is
Closing Time!
Last Call!

There is no after-hours club
Cocaine and Xanax in every candy dish
Jack and Jim and Jerry, vying for attention
entranced by the steady hum of
milliliter per second
Waiting for cold toast with margarine
served by Perky Smile
with a side order of
endless repeats of
forgotten game shows 

79

How hard can it be to turn seventy-nine words into something compelling?

Staring at the computer screen, blank notebook, random word stained napkin,

i am lost

My hypergraphia has abandoned me.

My excuses and distractions are a staggering pile.

The right pen, the write pen... how did i do it, back then?

Biting pieces of the bleached, recycled napkin, i chew and swallow my words.

I keep my eyes closed, knowing that when i waken this will be gone. 79

 

 

Gears of work, family, study, worry and fear

grease that does not act as lubricant but is sand gritty between the teeth

on the cobblestone road I ride, always uphill mountain pass

that throws me to the ground, torn and filthy

dragging the remains of a life as I hear the time limit passing me

I look for my salvation in a wasteland of online games

until the electric is turned off and I crash for one last time. 79

 

I can wallow or I can rise above

I can stay or I can escape

My choice how I deal with the crackers

all the symptoms not cause inherent in this as in everything else

Tired of drama games power plays

keeping eyes on the bigger picture in the empty frame

I’ll cede the point in a lose-lose situation

what else can I do?

My options shrivel

fall away like oak leaves in October

It’s all about the crackers. 79

 

Lucky numbers line the walls of my brain

lined up like prom night wallflowers in their too tight dresses

waiting to be picked, clutching a blank dance card

wanting to be that night’s jackpot

Discards litter the floor

bits of carbon scratch off stuck everywhere

I sit, mesmerized, watching the computerized balls drop

one

by

one

spinning my future into a web that I pray will be a future

No matches

None

I sigh and reach for the kool-aid. 79

All My Roads, Pt 6

I wake, confused
you are not here
the space beside me cold
I remember, I am away, not home 
It is natural that you are not here.

Soon, soon
the bed at home will be empty
your space grown cold
without your fevered restlessness
labored breathing
middle of the night stagger to the toilet.

It will be cool and smooth
books and papers and laptop
will reclaim the space they ceded you
or I might slide back to that side
given to you during some long-forgotten illness 

Perhaps, someday, I will mistake a street person
For you, wearing one of your old shirts.

 

Penzoil II

At a high enough speed
One corn muffin, please
I stare at his mouth

 A car can drive upside-down
The waitress sets the muffin down
If we were at his place

Can a motorcycle? A bicycle?
Could you toast this, please? And more butter?
We’d be kissing, his hands fumbling

 At a high enough speed? Hmm …
I spread the butter
At my shirt, my hands in his hair

 A motorcycle, yes. A bicycle?
The butter melts, filling all the
Slamming the door, stumbling

I don’t think human power can do that
Crevasses with sweet richness
To his room, his bed

Humans can’t break that barrier
The muffin crumbles
I clutch his vial, hidden in my pocket

The moon sets
My coffee is cold
Mist snakes through the columbaria
It is Tuesday.

The Ring

Tonight, I sleep with a cadaver.
My husband, the denier, as the CLL
strengthened by long term COVID
consumes him, pound by pound.

Your wedding band,
indestructible titanium and carbon,
surface marred and scarred
sand blasted, acrylic chipped,
ungloved victim of some abandoned project
lies in the dirt, flung from fingers
shrunk, shriveled, from
hands once full and strong, thick with muscle,
now trembling.
Even the swiftly shipped replacement
two sizes down
spins freely with each movement.

I slide the pristine ring
onto my left pointer finger
so close to mine
so far from mine.
It knows this is not its place.
I move it to my other hand
settle it on my right ring finger
My flesh seizes it.
I can fight no more,
knees crumple and I
rest my head on your chair.

It is cold.

I light candles, adding one
Confused by the array
Who are they all? Who do I remember?
Who still lives in the life after life
as they are remembered by me?
Does my confusion erase them?
Does it erase me?
Who am I if I am not?

So many doors locked behind me
abandoned homes
sad dreams
distorted memories
overwriting some truth
that no one knows any more.

I feel your hands take mine
I see you, and so many more
waiting for me in the forever
home that will be a home
I drop the key down the sewer grate
and walk into your embrace.

Reading Tea Leaves

Aisles of tea, pushing an empty cart

staring at shelves, paralyzed

the wrong tea, the wrong tea

small bags and large bags and loose leaves

and distillates and

single servings

and and and

if I take the wrong tea

 

I drive, gas gauge blinks

empty alert

but I drive

backseat trunk passenger seat filled

every tea

strainers filters water boilers

Strip mall parking lot, empty except for

homeless shopping carts and

third shifters of the dark

temporary haven

I can’t go home

There are crackers waiting to be dunked

crushed salt for the wrong tea

 

Safer to sleep in the

shadow of the lower bagmen

who haven’t scored notches

who don’t have teardrop tattoos

 

than to face those hands

pantomime communion

wafer in wine

bread in hemlock

crackers in tea

Three Seasons of Glass

                                                                   

Scratching at the glass

the casing the sills

I suck the tiny

lead paint infected

wood flakes

from under my nails

feeding the pica that will kill me

sometime in the future.

Snow builds up on the grilles

ice patterns on the panes

hold my hand to melt another pattern.

It is cold here, almost as cold as out there

no one looks my way

no one looks at me

no one sees

no one remembers

me, licking the glass, waiting.

Rain makes new designs

wearing off the dirt

press against the glass

banging head until welts form.

Blood trails bookmatch the rivulets

Harder. More blood.

I see the sky,

deeper blue behind the rain,

as I wait and wait, for sun.

Borrowed Pajamas

You borrowed a too big tee-shirt

when you spent the night

so big it grazed your knees.

It shrank in the wash.

Now, it barely brushes your hip bones.

It shrank

over the long years

of borrowing and

not borrowing.

The neckline which hung off your shoulders

settles nicely on your collarbone.

Your face fades from the mirror

while I brush my teeth.

I fold the shirt

place it on the closet shelf

shut the door.



3rd Place, Gwendolyn Brooks Award 2020

Adonai Dayam Ha-Emet - final version

Adonai Dayan ha-Emet          

God is the One True Judge                            

Aveinu Malkeinu,                                                                 [Our Father, Our King]

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!

Aveinu Malkeinu, Chaneinu V'aneinu                             [Our Father, Our King,

But I do not live alone.                                                       Be gracious and answer us]

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.

Ki ein banu ma'asim.                                                                   [For we have little merit]

In my heart, I am always alone.

Ase imanu,                                                                                     [Treat us with kindness]

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.

Tzedakah vachesed,                                                                    [And be our help]

I am a walking suicide.

Ase imanu, tzedakah vachesed,                                                [Treat us with kindness,

I am more alone than I am with,                                                 And be our help]

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.

Vehoshiyeinu.                                                                               [And save our people]

The conductor holds the door, impatient,

Calling me night after night.

All aboard! Where’s your ticket,

Reading the numbers inked

on the inside of my forearm.

The ducks sing Adonai dayan ha-emet                                   [God is the True Judge]

And then I hear nothing.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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.

From the High Holy Day Services, a Prayer for Forgiveness

Aveinu Malkeinu,                                Our Father, our King,
Chaneinu V'aneinu,                             Be Gracious and Answer us
ki ein banu ma'asim.                          For we have little merit.
Ase imanu tzedakah vachesed,           Treat us with kindness, be our help
vehoshiyeinu.                                     And save our people.

Aveinu Malcheinu, be gracious and answer us, for we have little merit.

Treat us generously and with kindness, and be our help.

Road Trash

Sparkles of early morning light distract so I stop,

pull out of traffic onto the grassy embankment

wondering what tidbit discard  did I find,

there, on the edge of noisy busy nowhere

with no pedestrian access.

Only cars trucks buses exceeding the posted speed limits

by a radar detection margin

and the occasional bicyclist, traveling slow enough

for aberrant markers pass along  this byway to tourist heaven,

littered with fast food debris and other:

Shattered keyboard from a child’s computer

keys scattered, wires and circuits and

chips loose, curly plastic connecting the stylus.

A few feet away, a stuffed dog,

chewed, worn, weathered, loved, at some past time.

Which was the anger and which the revenge?

And who how much more I have had it up to there!

did not stop for wails of regret

to retrieve these precious

because it was lesson time?

The dog is missing an eye.

I reassemble the readalong,

tether the dog with the stylus,

and mark their passing with wildflowers,

another roadside tragedy.

Brave New World

When I was a child, I wasn't afraid of technology
There were faraways to be discovered
moons to walk on
dimensions accessed only through the wonders of light and sound waves.
Now I stare at the skittering phone, black hole life
It falls to the floor, still vibrating
I match it, quiver for quiver, terrified of the other end

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.

Heated Arguments

At 105 degrees, the body shuts down.

The blood has boiled away, leaving skin tight to sinew,

Oxygen starved muscles and bones.

Mine boiled away long before that,

Mine boiled away on the long trip here, seeking a wet savior

Every movement frantic, every movement slower to stop.

The pointless journey of self flagellation that put my heart

Through a meat grinder leaving a pile of scarlet mixed

With pieces that do not pass FDA approval.

I stand in judgment, fun house mirrors of me,

As jury, defendant, prosecutor and gavel pounding judge.

Order in the court.

The folded note, passed from trembling hand to trembling fingers,

Held by me, for me, waiting to be opened and read

Suicide by proxy, running into a hail of bullets,

Jetes and plies punctuate a full split on the floor and

An arabesque .

Overpriced macchiato that I won’t drink provides a shield,

I will watch and I will wait and I will fall and I will fail

To reach any conclusion except I am lost.

Glass Slivers and Glue

Ship in a bottle, relic

Of a visit to a whaling museum, relic

Of a relationship once

as whole as the spigot,

small piece hidden

under the carved wooden stand,

bottle turned to conceal

its unwholeness.

Glass slivers and glue

Applied with fine brush

toothpick

canting needle

But all the precision

Concentrated in his fingertips

Cannot make one

That which is broken.

Goodbye Girl

He stood over the shredder, feeding it, watching it gulp his former life, their life and spit out confetti destined to soak up bird poop and urine in the bottom of a large cage.
It gulped so hard it pulled the papers from his hand, reminding him of the plant in "little Shop of Horrors’, of quicksand, of the days she nursed their younglings, their frantic sucking, the milk spurting everywhere and her becoming thinner and paler as their bellies rounded hard., excess spewing out their little bottoms an inhale later.
He fed more into the shredder.
Her bank card.
Her checkbook.
Her photos.
Her passport.
Her notebooks filled with lies.
Her flashdrives, disks and tapes.
All that contained her, the machinations of her multi phasic mind.
He fed it.
When the hopper was full for the third time, he went out back and dumped the bits and bytes into a hole, shoveled dirt over it and turned the tarp. It was, if not a good feeling, certainly satisfying.
He called the girls to lay violets on the mound and, slowly, slowly they walked back into the house, one by one.

Sushi: A Fish by Any Other Name is Still a Fish

Cunt.
Lying, cheating whoremonger.
He’d rather sit there, staring, contemplating a ‘relationship’
with her. Not me.
I scroll my email logs, going back.
Fourteen months, twenty-three days.
So many broken promises in those fourteen months, twenty-three days.
It made me not like myself, the me I was with him.
The needy, whining, shutting my eyes to truth, ignoring the elephant conga line snaking around the room, head pounding me I became with him.
If I don’t respect myself, why should he?
If I don’t value myself, why should he?
Why should anyone?
So many broken promises in those fourteen months, twenty-three days.
The last trip, the test trip which I didn’t know was a test and was doomed to fail, questions written on decomposing paper with disappearing ink, letters rearranging themselves faster than a speeding bullet which stops in the cinder block wall behind my head, which ended in a bout of hepatitis A for me after eating oysters in August.
The realization that he was emailing her from my computer and clearing the cache in a futile attempt to keep me from knowing he was making plans
with her. Not me.
So many broken promises in those fourteen months, twenty-three days.
You want her, you want to fill your belly with sushi?
Go ahead. Eat. Eat as much as you can.
Eat, and when you are hungry an hour later, eat some more. Enjoy.
But she won’t take fourteen months, twenty-three days of broken promises to move on.
I have lost my taste for raw foods, for duplicity.
Give me hard-cooked eggs, pasturized milk, blackened catfish and grilled bok choy.
No more broken promises. Ever ever.

Me and Maybe You, You and Maybe Me

I photoshopped myself into your life
I was your buddy, your girlfriend, your wife
Played with shapes and shadows
Put myself in the highways and byblows

I cut and pasted into your past
Made myself your first and last
Call me crazy, call me obsessed
Call me, call me, call me, call...

Do you know who I am?
I’m your strawberry pudding and jam
Can’t you see where I belong?
Where you’re weak, I am strong.

Do you hear angel harps?
I am your flats and your sharps.
I’m the one you can’t escape
No such thing as coincidence, I am your fate

You’ll be fine, shh, hush, now sleep
Accept, let me in, breathe deep

I cut and pasted into your past
Made myself your first and last
Call me crazy, call me obsessed
Call me, call me, call me, call...

A Promise is a Promise is a Promise

A campaign promise
is not a champagne promise
is high gloss lipstick over veneered teeth
is not a testament of intelligence, integrity, talent, education or, most certainly, sobriety
is a curtain over honesty with hypocrisy smirking around the tiebacks
is not a vow of devotion but a paean to opportunism
is drawn and quartered by all comers in a bukake baccanal
is what I won't make you because you deserve better.

Holocaust Pantry

Eighteen cans of lima beans
Thirty-six rolls of paper towels
Stacks of tuna
Four can openers, none of them electric
A whole case of powdered milk
Blankets
Fire extinguisher
44 and ammo
Lots of ammo
Matches
Candles
A framework of five gallon jugs of water
Paper pens pencils
Hibachi grill
A 3 quart and a 5 quart pot
Two cartons of pasta, sealed in plastic
A door that looks like part of the wall
Because you never know.

Who Are You?

Red print on my cheek,
A perfect match to your palm,
tells it's own story.