Ghost Knife – Two tankas

I had forgotten
the sharp knife of loneliness
that carves grey into
flesh, bone, leaving gaping holes
Nothing fills them. Nothing. Nothing.

 When will I remove
my wedding band? When you stop
ignoring my words.
Searching for why, for answers
to questions I never asked.

Air Brakes Cranks

One more thing you took when you left:
Simple pleasure of turning the cranks.

The shop smells of rubber
sweat, molten metal, grease
crowded with every kind of
bicycle possible
standing in racks on the floor
suspended from the ceiling
leaning against each other
in a beautiful disarray
of type, size, color, purpose.

Jersies, vests, shorts, bibs
socks, gloves, shoes, clips
water bottles, bottle cages
tubes, tires, pumps, wheels
tools, levers, lights
baskets, panniers, racks.

Helmets.

So much joy in this little shop
Another home, back then
in the beginning
in the middle. 

Now?

In the aftermath of the end?

When lava tears fall
melting
choking
obliterating
friend and enemy alike?

 It is just another place.

Alienation.

Anomie.

Upheaval.

I leave, without buying anything
without saying a word.

Roses are Red, Violets are Blue, Who the Fuck are You Anyway?

I can’t see you Friday,
I’m Busy.

 Maybe we can spend time together
SaturdaySundayMondayTuesdayWednesdayThursday
Perhaps Next Friday?

 No. I’ll be Busy then, too.

And Every Day After That.

Click.

With a click of the phone
my world went dark.
Everything that had ever happened
everything that ever happened before
everything ever ever after that moment:

Commentary.

 Every action, rote, pointless.
Icicles form from my breath
shackles of meaningless guide me
dying to know why.

The Sky is Falling

The meteor shower was fierce and beautiful.
Fiery rocks streaked across sky
Red-gold-orange rainbow, howling
landing somewhere beyond.
There would be ruins in the landing:
Craters, fires, the dead.

 Where we were, miles from the edge
of the city, we gazed up up up
raptured by glitter trails.

Someday, those fierce rocks will land,
devastation will be our death.
But that day was not today
had not been yesterday
and likely would not be tomorrow.

 We stare at the showers of sparkles
listen to the howl shattering pitch
feel the sparks as they rain down
on our hair, cheeks, outstretched hands
a fast, yet gentle sprinkling.

 No, not today, not yesterday, not tomorrow.
But soon, sooner than we can plan for.
We were children, and we were ignorant.

Sugarloaf

You convinced me
I could climb, I could summit
If I wanted to, if I was willing
to learn, to dedicate myself
to push though the distractions

 Now the distraction is
your ring on a cord
an amulet nestled between my breasts
I struggle with what was easy
when I was younger, naïve
and you were my carrot

It is lonely at the top
that was philosophic murmur
My lonely is me, alone,
talking to your ghost
railing at your ghost
You don’t answer

Sunrise fog blurs the winding trail
You shimmer, the long ago you
merging with the you I drafted
a school girl entranced by a tenured professor
merging with the you I married
merging with the you of ash
in a box in our bedroom

I stand at the base of the mountain
Gazing up and up and up
We left our names, painted on a fence
at the water stop
If it is there, the names are faded

I am here, I am faded
I hear the echo of
Amazing Grace
drifting down
to wrap around me
to walk beside me
to whisper hineni
as I trudge up the slope

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

Rainbows of Shattered Glass

Once upon a time, there was a novelist.

            More accurately, once upon a time, there was a wanna-be novelist.

            Even more accurately, it was a dark and stormy night and a young man, a wanna-be novelist, awoke, the thunder, counting the seconds til the lightning hit, the rain whipped trees crashing against the window panes, the steady drip-drip-drip  of the leak from the skylight in the hall, the leak that only leaked when the rain came down at an oblique angle, or when the wind changed direction  and carried blackened dreams off into some wilderness, leaving ambition and hope a gritty puddle on the tiled floor, the leak where the flashing had eroded and never been repaired or replaced, even though the roof had been completely re-shingled.

            And then the electric went out.

            And the novelist, excuse me, the wanna-be novelist, took his notebooks and his pens and his pencils and the big, black Mag-Lite, the Mag-Lite Daddy gave him when Daddy caught him lighting candles in the closet to keep the bogums away, the Mag-Lite that didn’t always work anymore because once he dropped it in the intracoastal when he was scavenging. He took his blanket and Baby Moose and  Oye, his favorite stuffed Eeyore, the small one that fit in his pocket so no one knew he still carried a stuffy everywhere and hid in the hall closet, way down in the corner with the old sneakers and out of season clothes covering his head.

            And he waited.

            He waited for Daddy and Mommy to come find him and tell him it was okay, he could sleep in their bed, but maybe he’d like some cocoa and toasted jam first?

            He waited a very long time.

            He was eight.

            Maybe it was a long time or maybe it was an eight year old’s perception of a long time.

            But it was once upon a time and then and now.

            His college professor explained, “The enacted reality is reality.  So it doesn’t matter if it was a long time or if it felt like a long time. It matters how you remember it, because either way, it was a long time to you while you were living it and every time you recall it.”

            He was eight.

            And he was scared of lightning and thunder and rain and things that reminded him of lightning and thunder and rain, like when Mommy and Daddy argued and doors slammed and the police came with the blue whirling light on top of the car and the police lady gave him a grey elephant to keep Baby Moose and Oye company and then someone swept up all the broken glass that sounded like drip-drip-drip, not tickle-shatter-tinkle when it broke and washed the bloody footprints off the tile floor and told him he could stay in the closet as long as he wanted and not come out until he was ready.

            He waited a long time, or perhaps it felt like a long time.

            He was eight.

            But now there was someone tapping at the door, asking him to come out, come out of the closet, come out of all the closets he hid in, that it was safe and nothing was going to hurt him or Baby Moose or Oye or Mastie the elephant. Prince Charming was here to rescue him, to take him away on his Victory, off to the castle on the hill, where they would live happily ever after in a Neverland of their own invention, where rainbows sprinkled glitter snowflakes and the thunder didn’t come at all.

            The end.

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.

Green Tea with Honey

‘There is a ghost in the machine!’

I sip my tea, green tea, avoiding his eyes
After three years on and off
on and off
on
and
off

I avoid his eyes
avoid looking at all the parts of him
that made me want to drown
made me want to crawl to the surface
from the dark Scottish loch
into his bed
because my bed
no matter who else is there
is too big without him.

 All I said was, ‘Oh?’

 ‘No matter where we are
every single day
I can’t, I can’t
many miles away
so close to me
unfilled chasms
deep blue sea
your song, our song comes on the radio.
Every Fucking Time.’

 All I said was, ‘Oh?’

 and shrugged
turning to look out the window
avoiding the helix of his ear
neck
collarbone
flat squared fingertips.

 The song ends, another begins

 ‘See! Different album, but still his.
You ride with him once, just once
he offers you a seat
and now – he’s everywhere.’

 ‘The train was full and
I was holding a large painting.
He's a gentleman, in New York.'

 My ex
my sometimes ex
my sometimes now
refills my cup, adds honey, stirs.
It is brimstone and treacle
being near him, hot and sweet and gall
curing nothing and everything.

 I know we’ll end up back at his apartment
We’ll be together
wrapped around each other
because I can’t stand losing you
I know I should never see your face again
but every time I close my eyes I see your face.

I fill the chasm with tears and regrets
and dance alone
for I am too fragile
he is the shape of my heart.

 I kiss him.

 The song changes.

 I am already crying inside
on infinite repeat
crying inside
crying inside
crying inside.

I am crying.

 

 

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.

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.

 

Future So Bright I Gotta Wear Shades

Someday

we'll stay at a cabin again
rent an RV

ride through Tuscany

paint 

dip our wheels in the Atlantic and the Pacific

make crock pot chili

have an international night

throw coins in a wishing well

ski

get sunburnt at Playalinda

share an IPA flight

harvest tomatoes cucumbers scallions

ballroom dance

You promised we'd take

classes

in ballroom dancing

Dress up, wear nice shoes

sultry make-up, scarlet lips

Ballroom dancing

and you'd spin me 

round and round and round

Prospect Park 1985

It was summer
and then

it was winter

and then

summer again

Standing on the bridge

gazing down at the water

fast faster to some distant river.

It never freezes over.

The tales tossed into the rapids

carried away

churning foam obscures

anything too heavy to be 

swept away

but some secrets stay

caught in the rocks

I know what's down there

I saw it

Before

He loves me

he loves not

he loves me

he loves me not

rose petals fall from my fingers

float downstream

as sweet smelling as a funeral trellis

Christmas in New York

    We got up early, grabbed hot drinks, poured them into a thermos, a bag of snacks, piled into the car.  Lots of on street parking, because, you know, Christmas suspension of alternate side rules, a brisk walk, because even if it was warm, warm in NY in December will be glove weather, south to Rockefeller Plaza.

    The Tree, that giant spruce, covered with balls bigger than me, is deserted, the ice rink still closed, the shops silent.  It is easy to circumnavigate The Tree, admire the windows at Bergdorf and Bonwit and Tiffany and the origami tree at JAL.

    People lounge on the steps of St Patrick's, waiting for 10 o'clock mass, or perhaps they've been here all night, perhaps many nights.  The streets start to fill. Southbound cars slow to admire The Tree, the windows.

    It is time to move.

    We walk back to the car, stopping at an open coffee shop, for tea, scones, a croissant. We drive north, headed to the only museum open on Christmas day, the Jewish Museum.  Tonight, we'll go to the movies, eat Chinese food, fine tuning our traditions.