Earmuffs

My ears are so cold
I want to use your warm sweet

thighs as my earmuffs

What is Real?

We studied connections
Thoughts versus the actions
Intent versus disconnect
Encouragement to go through the motions
“Fake it until you make it” motions
which might work in golf
or bread baking or painting
or deposition creation
Because hey! Going through the motions
practice leading to some kind of
sad almost perfection
some shift in perspective
alteration in perception
might yield real
or not

“What is real?” I ask, in my velveteen suit
standing outside, looking through the dirty,
streaked window, hazy with memories
wondering if I stop going through the motions
Will I be real then?

I can build a tower of indecision
walk never-ending cladograms
look forward and back
not knowing which is which
because it is all smoke and alcohol drenched days
and nights in the bar at the corner of
Whenever and Nowhere

I have a running tab
I can’t pay so I can’t leave

I smile, they tell me to smile
Women are supposed to smile
even when the dragon you shoved under my ribs
wakes up
gnaws on my lungs

I smile, I apply fresh lipstick
mascara
rouge
find another junction
another maybe
crawl because the dragon is sucking out my nerves
so I have no muscle command
only brainstem medulla responses

But I smile
and tell lies

-I’m fine-

-its all good-

-Thank you-

And sip my wine
balancing on high heels
pretending

-Really, I’m fine-

No one knows

-A-okay here-

I am waiting

-Yes, indeed-

To pull the cord and the blade fall

Chop

I won’t have to go through motions
any more

 

Miss Havisham

I call her Miss Havisham
Not to her face
We’ve never exchanged more than a few words
Good evening
Good morning
Lovely weather

She comes in very night
Sits at the same table
Coffee, regular
Rye toast
The waitress hollers to the kitchen
Whiskey down!
And Miss Havisham smiles at the secret code of diners

When the toast comes, sliced on the diagonal
Dripping with butter
The waitress hots up her coffee, asks
Anything else, hon?
Every night, Miss Havisham says the same thing
No, I’m good, thank you so much.

She sits, looking out the window
Lifts her cup to drink, surprised that it is empty
The waitress hurries over to refill the cup
Leaves a small pitcher of cream on the table
And a donut
On the house, hon, enjoy!

Miss Havisham smiles, takes a small bite

Staring out the window
Watching the cars buses bicycles
Bouncing down the avenue
Their lights flickering in the dark
Sometimes making the windows opaque
The street lights get brighter
The clock over the griddle reads 11:37
Miss Havisham sighs, puts on her sweater
Leaves a generous tip under the coffee cup
Opens the door to the dark alone
Disappears around the corner
Every night the same
Her shoes are down at the heels
Her sweater has pills
Her nails, poking through her gloves, are bare
The bills she left are crumpled singles, and coins

Good night, Miss Havisham
See you tomorrow, God willing
See you tomorrow

Tell Me How You Really Feel #27

I come home every
night, to a cold, lonely bed.
I fucking hate you
for dying before I could
divorce your Kool-Aid drunk ass.

Odi et amo.
You, always, my Lesbia.
Nescio? Why? Why?
I understand naught. You. Me.
Truth, strength, pain. Eternity.

 Feelings are for fools
I climb atop the dais
receive my award
shiny, new, EGOT. Worthless.
I place it with your ashes.

You’re not my idol.
Never were, never will be.
You were my dessert
I was yours. Now? A pillar
of salt, rubbed into my wounds.

Behind the steering
wheel of your car, I am blind.
Still, I avoid trains
other cars, and concrete walls.
You can rot in hell. Alone.

Sonnet 43's Bastard Child

I love you like bad poetry
like every beautiful phrase turned trite
every sonnet over parsed and overworked
every donut flung into the sky
only to fall to earth, with a jelly splat

I love you to the depth of the moon
and the breadth of a garlic bread morning after
dunked in coffee, regular, left to ferment
on the nightstand
like gum affixed to a bedpost

I love you like Shakespeare
recited by a once fine gentleman
holding a cardboard sign
begging for a sandwich, a tuppence
repentance

I love you in words silent
and clanking through
an ancient copper pipe
to a disconnected viaduct

I love you in prayer notes
tucked into the Wailing Wall
and in notes found
by an injured spouse

I love you in all the ways
we never spoke of
while we were both alive
and breathing was a kiss

 

 

Turn

Waiting at the red light
This is the turn
the right turn I took
so many nights
after the bars closed
after everyone went
somewhere
with someone

I, alone, in my car
waiting for the light to turn
but I hang a right on red
driving on instinct
on muscle memory
not sure if my eyes are open
at this after hours after hour
until I pull into your drive

And I don’t know how you knew
how you always knew
sitting on the porch
with two steaming hot cups of tea
on the small round table

Maybe its been a week
Maybe a month, two months, three months
Maybe yesterday
Since I pulled into your drive

You’re waiting for me
You open my door
fold me into you
I breathe you in

We stand
until I feel safe enough to sit
The tea has gone tepid
We drink anyway
We sit there, on your porch
the sky pinks
the stars disappear

 

1996

Your quilt, one of many

Stitched with tears, bakes in sunshine

National Mall grass

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.