Three Months Two Days

It is a calendar quarter
plus two days
since you turned to me
whispered, I loved your words
before I even met you.
You are complicated
but not to me.
To me, you are
my heartbeat
my home
Mine.

I cradle your head
your skull
against my side
feel your breathing
slow
stop.

I slip the ring from your finger
the ring I slid there eleven years ago.
It fits my thumb.
I pull the blankets over us
but can’t get warm.

So How Should I Presume?

I will roll my pants above my ankle
like the old man, his hair getting thin
wading out at the shoreline
sand rising between my toes
then falling away, with the pull of the tide.

I, too, am old
and walk alone, like the cats
barriers only I can see keeping me apart
the observation space of garbled sound
fractured light casting yellow fog
the taste of tea in the galleries
served with honey
thinly sliced lemons translucent as
the morning smoke that licks the brickwork.

A wedge of crumb cake, taste it
the smoke whispers as it traces the helix
of my ear, so soft I cannot tell if
the whispers are English or Italian
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse
searching for synapses
closing the pathways
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo
nestling down for the long winter to come.

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.

Enigma Machine

Doorways, hallways, coffins of possibility

if you press the buttons in the correct sequence

if you solve the enigma riddle

stop the cypher shadow mushrooms

lasciate ogne speranza voi ch'intrate.

 

A small black bird

Turing, chained by love unspoken

never spoken.

He breaks his vow of silence

vow of fear, vow of thwarted need.

The lid will slide over his shrouded form

over the coins pressed into his eye sockets

gently smother his breath

as the raven mutters a prayer

scatters a beakful of dirt.

Moving Day

They empty my closet

sorting shirts and pants and dresses

into piles

for Goodwill or

The Women’s Shelter or

Some Memory Bear.

The papers and books get tossed

into a soon-to-be pyre.

Furniture, cookware, tumbled, trashed

The fridge. They remove a plate of cookies

cookies I made, cookies I saved

for you.

Cookies from a holiday party you never attended.

Another plate, another party of one.

The freezer is full of cookies

Saved from all the parties you

never attended. You were too busy.

Into the trash.

They divvy up ‘the good stuff.’

You take nothing,

click the lockbox as you leave.

Published in Poetic Visions Poetry Competition & Exhibition 2020 Anthology - Museum of Art - Deland

Sunrise, Sunset

My son stands, hip deep, in the Atlantic

thin flowered dress plastered to his thighs

walking along the surf, pushing his curls

behind his ears, the long, thin fingers

topped by  bitten nails.

Delicate eyebrows shade his blue eyes,

the same shade of blue as mine.

I am mesmerized by his beauty.

Blessed with ignorance

that he has already started

weekly injections

into those pale thighs.

In a few months,

the blood will stop flowing

from his shriveling uterus.

My son turns, smiles,

blows me a kiss.

A wave drenches him

and he laughs.

For his 18^th birthday,

he changed his name.

I say kaddish for my daughter-dreams

and rock my new born son

in my arms.

2nd Place, Gwendolyn Brooks Award 2019

Published in Revelry 2019

Catulli Carmina 101: A Play in One Act

Catullus has returned to Rome from delivering the eulogy at his brother’s funeral.

He is sitting at a bar, about to be cut off. His friend is trying to get him to leave.

                                                                       

You think I’m a pathetic little turd?

Pfft! I’m not.

I’m something much stranger

much sadder

than that.

A Hack.

Yes, a hack.

Paid by the verse

by the line

by the word.

Joy to the newly wedded virgins – ha!

Sadness to the mourning widows – ha!

Enlightenment to the beardless youth – ha!

Success to those who pursue – ha!

Redemption to those who repent – ha!

Please don’t insult my intelligence

by believing in

my output.

Why do you think there are cliché phrases?

Formulaic thinking?

Repetitive images?

You think I’m not better than that?

Excuse me while I sip my wine.

You’re such a kidder.

Except for …

the words I write for me

and the words I write for her

but I won’t discuss those.

Barkeep! More wine.

Shoo. Leave me in peace.

Ave atque vale, frater, ave atque vale. Shoo.

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.

The Future is Invisible and So am I

     "You know, we’re at a crossroads? That things are going to change, evolve? Whether we want it or not, change is inevitable. Trite, but true, and the changes outside are going to impact us. How we deal with them, cope, in the end, it’ll be okay, we’ll be okay."
     I hear his voice, words I wish I heard, but it is all imaginary. He says nothing, staring at the papers, document sets, email chains, the bottom piece removed from a Jenga pile and the resulting crash.
     He says nothing.
     That is my position, silence, not his. My standard operating procedure, mode du jour. He has no right to usurp my place in the relationship, no right to mystery, circumspection, privacy, reticence.  How am I supposed to respond? Do I take his role, wiggle my ears, turn cartwheels, cajole? I am clueless. The endless ramble voice I wish I heard strangles whatever my tongue might dance.
     "This is a good thing. It’s time, more than time and now we’ll be able to move forward to another level, we really will. Just think, baby doll! No. don’t think, babe, feel! Let yourself feel, babe! I love you and this is good, it’s all good. You’ll see. I’ll be fine, we’ll be fine, more than fine, better than ever."
     But the fantasy in my head, whispering sweet nothings, protestations of eternal love and rose strewn silk sheeted beds and microchip diamond rings, the voice promising tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, stays there, in my head, hammering my brain, not swirling down my helix to caress my tympanic membrane. The ossicles spin, measure and cut in a padded room.
     He says nothing as he folds the papers back into their standard sized envelope, adorned with a certified return receipt required edge, nothing as he scrolls the numbers in his cellphone, nothing as he fills a duffle bag with pants and shirts and socks but not the photos he took of me.
     Nothing as he throws the bag into the back of the car.
     Nothing as he turns the corner.
     Nothing as he gets onto the Interstate.
     Nothing as he watches the odometer climb.
     Nothing as
     Nothing as
     Nothing as
     The air conditioner clicks on and the temperature drops a few degrees, startling me. I lift the needle from the scratch, worn through to the turntable, on the 33 rpm. I suppose I could burn it to a CD or MP3 player, but what would be the point?
     It will still be stuck in limbo.

Ropes and Ties that Bind

Every rope wants to be a noose
they lie there, so politely curled in on themselves
just waiting
I’ve watched them
when they think no one is looking
just past my peripheral vision
casting a shadow
as they test the ceiling rafters

More and Other HBKs: They are Everywhere and They Look Just Like Every Other House

"Hey, Miz W, what's gone on in your life since I saw you last? How are the girls? They working? Both still living with you or has Gwen moved out again?"

"I'll tell you, they are a blessing. You know, Gwendolyn has a great position at Price Waterhouse."

"She got it? Oh that's great, she wanted that so bad."

"Mmm. She loves it there and they love her. She is getting it all there."

"Well, she should. Smart, hard-working, talented, beautiful, good tempered. Lot like her momma, if you ask me."

"Thank you, child. All Jesus doing."

"Amen. And how's Genny? She back in school?"

"You know my Genny. She, she jess needs a little more time to get acclimated than some folk do, a helping hand on her back to guide her a bit, but she do right once she gets points that ways."

"Leastwise it's a helping hand on her back and not on her backside, like some need."

"Child, you do make me laugh! But yes, a gentle push now and then to keep her moving on her track, plenty of others could use the same but no one to give it to them. She's in this program, part work, part school. Likes it well enough, pushing papers around and around. Don't know how Gwen or I would feel about that, we like talking too much to real people to push papers or do that Internet frou-frou stuff, but it suits my Genny just fine."

"Be proud, momma, she hasn't had it easy. She is doing so much with what she has, be proud. And what's going on with you? Teaching, selling, training? Where are you living now, every time we talk it's somewhere else."

"I tell you, child, that is true. I have had no luck the past few years with living places. We've know each other five, six years now and I've lived in more places than that but right now we're down in Kissimmee, real nice two bedroom apartment."

"What about that big house you were renting, over down the street, the one that was all redone for you? Gwen told me you had new carpets, appliances, a garage even..."

"That house? That house! That was the Original House of Bad Karma, Hunter's Creek! You know they had to repaint the outsides three times cause the red kept bleeding right through the grey, cream, whateverall color they were trying to paint it!"

"Wait. You mean the house you moved into last year was THAT house? The one across the street from the park? Back of the fence, I mean the divide?"

"Yes, child, that one!"

"Oh no, Miz W, if I'd known that was the house, oh if I'd known, I'd've warned you right then that place is evil! I rode past it, sure, but on the other side of the street. I didn't even like driving past it, could feel it clawing out at me. You know it had two major fires? You know people died in those fires?"

"Yes, they told us before we moved in. More and more on top of what was already there. Getting new blood to feed it on top of the old, pulling down on itself anyway it can. That second floor they added, it was not right, not ever. We looked at that house, we went in through the front door and said, this is nice, this is very nice."

"How long were you there? Wait , as strong as you are, how'd you ever move in?"

"Few weeks. Work was still going on when we saw it, that's why we never did see the garage til after. Place had been empty for a year or so, we got it all new and shiny.

"And then we went up to that second floor. Whatever it was in the garage, it came right up through the floor, cold cold cold, room was so much colder than the rest of the house which sounds like a good thing but no, believe me, no."

"You know this whole area is built on Indian burial grounds? Or so I'm told?"

"I believe that, why not? That house, the fires and the stains... My Genny, she swears something slammed the door on her hand and one time she was going up the stairs and something grabbed her and pulled her and she fell over backwards, nearly broke her neck. We moved out after my Genny got pulled that night. Next morning, we just packed right up and called the owner and told him he could keep the security."

"Smart. Expensive, but smart."

"You should've seen it, like the Amityville horror all over again. Stuff dripping down the walls, nasty mold growing up from the floor. Course, that could have been from the hurricanes, they went right over although maybe the hurricanes were more and the same. Mm-mm, the noises... All hours of the day and night, there were these noises that came from the closets.

"We didn't move any stuff up to the second floor, that was going to be Gwendolyn's own private apartment, but then she decided to room with Genny, that it just was too much trouble to be going up and down the stairs when she works such long hours. I don't even want to think what would have been if Gwen or my Genny had been sleeping up there. I don't want to think about it.

"Miz W, that scares me, you living there, even if it was just for a while. Please tell me the new place is better?"

"Better and boring. Boring is good. I don't know why folks is always badmouthing Kissimmee, it's old and sturdy and boring and the rumors of it being full of crackers, well, I'm from New York but I have family from Ocoy or and my kind don't live there."

"Ocoy?"

"Ocoy, up past Colonial, where the Turnpike crosses it."

"Ocoy? Ocoee!"

"You say Ocoee, I say Ocoy, that's how the Cherokee pronounce it, or that's what my granddaddy claimed anyways. Me, I still wouldn't live in that part of town, but some black folk do, now. Yes, child, that house, surprising to both of us that I didn't smell the angry in it."

"It was hiding."

"I hope it stays hidden, good riddance and far away. Meanwhile, we all gots to live while we can. More air we blow here, good air that is, righteous air, rich oxygen air, more air going round to light God's candles and snuff Satan's right out."

"You burn bright, Miz W. You give those girls of yours a bit hug and kiss for me. Let me give you some articles I clipped for them, but you bring them next time.

"Thank you darling, I'll say a prayer for you, too."

"Amen, Miz W. Can't hurt, especially an old reprobate like me."

"No, can't hurt, child, can't hurt a bit."

Oxygen

Given a moment to breathe
I’ll take gulps but find no oxygen
The insta-harden holding my lungs hostage
If it is not out there, where will I find it?

I can choose to believe or I cannot
Doesn’t matter what you say or do
I close myself and open to
A reality? A future? I can create
or I can stay closed.
I think I will sleep a while longer

All My Roads Pt 7

"From Orlando, take I4 east." Take it until you can't go any further, until you've gone off the interstate, off the road, off the sand and right into the ocean.

Take the ocean until you hit land again. That may be Greenland or Africa or the UK or somewhere else. It really doesn't matter where you end up exactly, as long as you keep moving, heading east into the land of the rising sun, that golden orb which blinds you if you gaze at it too intently.

Not all things that glitter are gold. Some are dross, base metal, some are pyrite, fool's gold, and some are, well, some just are. Glitter, that is. Some things that glitter are just glitter, little flecks of metal you can stick on valentine's or birthday card with Elmer's glue, or sprinkle in your hair to catch the strobe of a disco ball. I learned that long ago, glitter isn't necessarily gold, during my infatuation, my transition time with hamelech malchai hamlocheim, the king of king of kings, the man who would be king, king in his own mind and universe, anyway, that was for certain, and for a blaze, as long as it takes a match to strike and burn, king of mine, ruling my emotions with a toreador's flourish, ole!

If you go long enough, past the ocean, past the first landfall, still moving east, always east, past the oared ships of the Aegean, remnants of a mighty kingdom now sunk beneath the sands and waters of time and tide which wait for no man or woman either, covering memories with salt dust while the holder of those memories wonders if it's safe to blink, you find a greater landmass.

Keep on east, snows and desert, hop a ride on a camel or an elephant, take a train or three, Orient Express, Tibet Express, bullet train, heading east right across the Bering Strait. Look for that overland passage Prester John spoke of, that Sir John sought, the one that crushed the Erebus and filled all with Terror. Or maybe, instead, risk everything with the absurd passion of the besotted and shoot south right off the tip of Africa and set yourself up for a repeat of Shackleton, the ever rising sun now a shadow gazing over your left shoulder, shading everything you do, casting darkness alternating with blue glare so sharp you can't even see your own hands as they work. Maybe you'll be crushed as I was crushed, as my endurance was repeatedly crushed by the ever shifting pack ice I couldn't and can't escape, that I carry with me as my boon companion, still.

Anyway, look for that overland passage, the opening in the sea ice, quick, quick, and maybe you'll escape before it grinds you down and turns you so far around there is no north or south or west anymore, just east, east, east. Keep moving even though north is south now and you're so far from the equator you have to zigzag back to your point or place of beginning, if that matters.

"Take I4 east."

Or you could just take it east until you find a turn off that takes you home.

You can find a home.

You can make a home.

Your home can be anywhere or anything or anyone.

Because some things that glitter are gold, 24K, warm to the touch, reflecting your own affection back to you, and soft enough to reveal your own fingerprints when you press your hand down on it, your personal tattoo, brand, mark, malleable enough to spin into a cloak you can pull around and use to keep out the chill of setting suns.

Some roads lead you home.

It’s Better to Light a Candle than Curse the Dark-Or is it?

She’s lost time. Here, in her box, her special place, there is no clouded noon or sequined night, no visual clue of the natural rotation of the Earth, no calendars with little boxes filled up in runes and hieroglyphics, then ‘X’ed to note another day completed. Not that it matters, how she, herself, marks another day down, another day counted out in this latest cycle. If she doesn’t count, does she count? If she stays in here, where there is no time, does it stop?

There are signs any passerby could remark on, verifying that time has passed, that she’s changed in these months, but not how many or how few grains have trickled or whether the grains running through that narrow opening are salt, sugar, sand or nuclear pellets.

Only her Master knows that.

Master knows everything about her. Master tells her on a need to know basis what day it is, or if it’s time to sleep or eat or drink the luscious soup exclusively prepared for her. Master controls her because she is inexperienced and ignorant of all things and she likes that, not having to think, only having to react. As long as she listens to Master, everything will be fine.

That’s what everyone tells her: listen to Master and it’ll all be fine, it’ll all be okay.

So why did Master leave those matches? This box was her dark place for resting and being, just breathing. In, out, in, out, breathe breathe breathe. Are they to tempt her or encourage her? She can light one and see, but does Master want her to see? Besides, what is there to see? The only thing in the box is her. Does Master want her to ignore the matches, continue in her self-imposed darkness?

She turns around and wraps her arms around her knees. She rests her head on her forearms, trying to find a spot where the pressure on her ulna won’t hurt. When she had hair, long, thick strands of hair, it padded her head. Master took away her hair and flesh, leaving her bony and hairless, spare and beautiful. A distillation, granite after the artist chisels away the parts that impinge his vision. Master is a laser perfecting her every cell.

She lights a match, but blows it out after she sees the bruises, the purple splotches that never heal. Did Master want that, want her to see? The box helps her pretend them gone. It’s easier if she waits in the dark. A few more months and the pretending, the box, the rules will all be gone.

She smiles. She is so tired. Master wants her to sleep. She lights another match. It burns where she used to have fingernails. Master took those, too, because she used to scratch and gouge herself trying to get to the bugs crawling underneath, fire ants and beetles and even tiny lizards frilling their throats and swishing their tails. They lived in the fat layer between her muscle and her skin.

Better purple bruises and naked fingers and bald scalp than the vomit, oh god, the vomiting, and the nasties and the trails of hair falling behind her like breadcrumbs leading her to a place that is no longer home, outside the box, a place her body visits while she waits for Master’s voice to say, “It’s time, Aimee. Come.”

She lights a third match. It flickers. She pulls it close to her face, trying to focus, then puts it out in her mouth.

Separation Anxiety

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder
Well, perhaps, for some, for persons wiser than I
Not me
Too many absences from my life to add another
Expect I'd be used to it, absences
Gaps in my life like spaces in a bookshelf,
where the adjoining books fall over, spread out, trying to fill in
They don't
The shadow is still there, pulling me, reminding me something once...
How do I ignore what isn't there?

Maybe they were talking about absinth

Today... Solipsism Returns!

Happy birthday to me
Happy birthday to me
I'm finally fifty
maybe it's about time I grew up.

Happy New Year, Readers

It's been just over 18 months since I started this blog. Life has changed in so many ways. A friend commented that my work no longer reeks of anger, of fear. I hate to disabuse him, but they are still in me. They will always be in me, a part of me.

But he's right. I have changed. They are no longer in the forefront. They've moved to the back, to a manageable place. I take them out, look at them, inspect them, wonder what was wrong with me that they were my best beloved companions for so long.

Not now.

I have other traits to keep me warm, not the illusion of dry ice.Every step takes me closer to where I need to be. They are not the path. They are not the goad.

They are the memory and I don't live there any more.

Really Bad Poetry and Getting Worse Every Day-6th revision

My beloved, with great precision in wording, remitted to me a missive
I prayed it was to give me a decision and it be neither dismissive nor derisive.
Holding that page he had touched, reading it, again, hoping against hope, but
my heart, my soul, my infinite infinitesimal being, all those he had cut
It was sincerely antithetical to me, all the quick and the sloe
was I merely parenthetical? Nothing? I have nowhere to go
but up. O! I cannot bear it. I am rent from inside out. Down is so very very far.
The queen of hearts cries, Off with her head, rip out her soul. The elevator car
stops at the bottom, at the open maw of the shaft.
Crawling out, I climb aboard the terrible, waiting raft,
Holding my eroded dreams in my trembling hands. On a sea of molasses, we drift away
Those dreams drip from my fingers as tears drip from my eyes. O! horrid selfsame day.
I, upon my raft, float along the bubbling, rancid, foul-smelling Styx.
Care I a whit or a ha-penny? Nay. It is a far better thing I do. My life is nix.
I am a rotting corpse now, you see
It’s the only way. It’s what had to be
because my beloved, oh my darling, my best and only beloved sent me a letter.
And the letter was ‘no.’

August is Extremely Slow

Arriving at the outpatient clinic at the ungodly hour of 6:25 am, I enter into utter chaos. I wish. Seriously reader, this is Floriduh, not NYC. In NYC, any outpatient clinic adjacent to an emergency room entrance would be an obstacle course of gunshot wounds, stabbings, heart attacks, strokes and those who, lacking medical insurance or a primary care physician, use the ER as their GP. No. Wait. That was NYC in the bad old days. Now, post Guiliani, post 9-11, ER's are as eerily calm as the forested mountains of Idaho. You can't hear the buzz but you know it lies just under the surface, coiled and ready to strike.
In any case, I enter a ghost town. There is no one at the entrance, the admitting desk, in the corridors. I wander the halls, wondering how I'll get into the clinic. Maybe it's an omen that I should just turn about and leave. It is a medically indicated procedure, but not a medically necessary one. Preventative, ergo optional at this time. I can leave and continue the family tradition of acting against medical advice. I remember the results of my parents and brother opting to ignore their physicians' preventative treatments. Suicide by inches.
I stand there, in that deserted hallway. Turn. Turn again. Consider my options. Which, truthfully are more limited than you might think, as I have no escape vehicle to jump into and take off for parts unknown, exceeding the speed limit just enough to not be accidental. Suicide by inches? Oh no, that is not for me. When I go, if I opt out earlier than my five year allotment, it will be in a blaze of glory. Full tank of gas, skidding head first into a pylon and exploding with sufficient heat to melt whatever I crash into. Or just having the good luck to be on a structurally deficient bridge at the exact moment it chooses to collapse. When I was a child, I envied those who died on the bridge at San Luis Rey. Only a friar questioned their innocence, their reason for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, since there is no such thing as coincidence. I wanted to be one of them, feel the rush of free fall, of knowing that sooner than I could count it would be over.
I turn, in that deserted hallway, pondering my most recent brush with sudden death. How I knew I would be alright, that it was not time. There is a security in knowing it is not yet time. I can live life as the Shakers did: Do your work as though you had a thousand years to live and as if you were to die tomorrow. Put your hands to work, and your heart to God.
Except I know I will not die tomorrow or the next day or the next day after that. I have a reprieve. I still have some time to squander in idleness, although not as much as most. I cannot afford to waste time in illness. Ignoring medical advice will result in more intervention in the long run, more tests, more examinations, more poking prodding sticking drawing. More fear. Ever so much more fear. Chilling, paralyzing fear. Despite my outward calm, my blithe assertion that it is really just cosmetic, preventative, the memory loop playing is of my doctor twenty years ago asserting that, if certain changes were to take place, this procedure would have to be done.
Change happens. The exact changes I was warned about. And I am here. Turning around and around, ever so slowly in the deserted corridor of a hospital triage area. Making myself dizzy, giddy with dizziness, to cover the gut wrenching fear I try so hard to deny.
"Ma'am, can I help you? Were you looking for the main entrance to the hospital? The cafeteria? Outpatient surgery?"
I blink, startled. Look at the nurse as if I've never seen one before.
"Ma'am?"
"Oh yes. Thank you. Outpatient surgery, please. I'm supposed to be here at 6:30."
"Well, you're right on time. Let me get these doors and you just go right on through. Someone on the other side will guide you."
"Is Virgil waiting for me, then?"
"Virgil? No, he's not on duty this morning. I believe Kathy and Julia are doing intake."
She presses a code for the doors. They swing open. I smile my thanks at her and step through to the other side.