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

 

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

 

 

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.

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.

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.

 

 

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.

Sweater

I started this many, many years ago. Poem, prose, poem, prose. Not satisfied. Unfinished. After 8?10? years of 'not there yet' I realized the narrator had more to say, a conclusion. So I paused, listened to the words behind the words, to what happened after the Great Ending. And then I knew.  While we can't go back, we can't keep turning ourselves into pillars of salt. we can keep a few pieces, light a candle, sing a reprise. 

Opening another box of clothes, winter clothes this time-

How many years since I needed winter clothes,

since I lived in a land of slush and ice-broken trees?

Here, despite the perpetual August of Florida,

I wear long sleeves to protect myself from

excessive air-conditioning

or perhaps to hide the knife calligraphy

paisley tribal keloids

trailing around my wrists

handwriting on concrete walls

not yet driven into.

I place more shirts on

another shelf and take

another pile out of a

maw-gape box.

 

Where did that come from?

How in god’s good name did that end up here?

I’ve moved so many times since then, since that life,

at least a dozen times in the past year alone,

from car

to shelter

to bedsit

to short stay

to extended stay

to here,

finally,

a place that I can call my own

and now this? 

 

That old fisherman sweater he wore.Once.

Fifteen? Twenty? years ago.

It still smells of him.

 

That sweater. My fingers tremble, reach out

to the sweater that escaped Goodwill

and garbage and abandonment

to the sweater that somehow hung onto

 a fragment of a shadow of me

to the sweater still in the box and

I stroke it with fingertips. 

 

Kiss them,

as if they had just touched the Torah, the holy book, 

pick up the sweater, hold it to my cheek, eyes closed.

Kneeling by that box, swaying slightly,

time slows to stop.

 

It still smells of him,

testosterone musk and the chemical reek

of stage two alcoholism.

Rising bile squeezes my trachea,

his hands around my throat,

fingerprint dust in my nose,

so hard to breathe, let alone think.                 

Rubbing my face on it, inhaling him,

the texture of him on my skin,

remembering it as a Proustian call,

as a seismic vibration,

as a marker in my DNA. 

 

His Jack Daniels-coated tongue against mine,

now moving over me, lapping at the whiskey,

spilt by clinking glasses,

the whiskey pooled in my navel,

white powder fueled laughter

emerging between numbed kisses. 

 

I can feel him.

 

Oh god, I remember.

I am doomed to remember.

 

I stand, slip my arms into

that sweater he wore,

that sweater he wore

once

and only once,

and made his own. 

Hands trace the cables, in out, in out, in out.

Pull it down over face, neck, torso, smooths

the soft cotton over breasts that he touched,

held, loved, so long ago,

pulls the sweater all the way down to my hips. 

Lean against the wall,

as his phantom grinds against me.

                       

I slide down the wall to the floor. 

Wrap my arms,

warm sweatered arms

around my knees and bury my face in them.

I drown my lungs in nicotine ghosts,

a beached creature seeking oxygen

in an alien place. 

 

“Mama, mama, we’re hungry. We want lunch.”

My children call from the next room.

“Just a sec, sweeties.”

I pull that sweater off,

drop it on the floor. 

“Mac and cheese or sandwiches?” 

Happy Birthday Sweetheart Part 3

My husband is fucking me

      while I think about my dead ex-lover

how you swore you’d never leave me

        never say no to me

        never forget me

But you did

        you left me

        you forgot me

        you said no to me

in the acid cold of a summer breeze 

And I never got to tell you

         how sad the cup you used

        for drinking evening coffee

        laced with Kahlua

how sad it looks

         porcelain stained

        a chip on the base

how sad

        sitting on the top shelf of the cupboard

        behind the wine glasses.

 

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.

Red Wheelbarrow for William Carlos Williams

So much depends upon                                           Sept 29 2015

a red wheel barrow

glazed with rain

beside the white chickens.

Dust road shimmer, another dry afternoon

Cloudburst enough for runnels

And rotting spilt grain,

A week’s worth of grain

On the ground, near the coop

But not enough for new corn

Or unshrivel beans.

She sends the children,

Barrow tippers of grain, now

mixed with rotgut bottles in the

knobbyshade tree roots,

to a neighbor, and watches

the chickens peck peck peck

at precious scattered gold.

Yellow marks and cigarette ‘O’s

on her arms and ankles

wait for new color.

There was no money to paint the house

but, soon, she would be vivid as sunset.

Waiting for the Rapture

You tell me,

with a certainty I envy,

what you'll change,

what you’ll do:
Stay awake,

watching the clock click random numbers,
as the ducks,

a family of old Muscovies,
Gramps and Tricky and Jeanette and

Ambrose, who has only part of one foot

because feral cats ate the rest,
curl up under the tree next to

the retention pond filled with

fish hiding under the algae
to avoid becoming cormorant breakfast,
southwest breeze rippling the moonlight reflection.
You'll stay awake while I sleep, half on top of you,
just like every other night.
"Not a blessed thing different," you say.
"Not a blessed thing."

Wellwood D14

He’s pushing up daisies through the hedgerow
I waited too long before, too long since
The blip in my life that was us
Grey roads and heat wave ripple air before,
tree root broken sidewalks and tsunami wind since
I lie down, partly hidden by the bushes
Soon, I will take his hand and we will push up daisies together.

Houses and Homes and Promises

I'll build a home with you and we'll never need a king size bed.
We've both been there. We've learned.
I think so anyway. I like to think so, that we've, that I've, learned.
And I promise to smile when you come in,
no matter how busy I am,
no matter how distracted,
because.

Random

Time weighs too much. Not a volume measure, but an endless press.
Way back, breakfast bile.
No more. Now I eat happy,
Faith trust pixie dust.

Wrongness is past life.
Wake to joy, right, comfort. No tears.
Love hope charity.

Six points make a star
that lays above my heartbeat
to keep me aware.

Anywhere But Here

"Not everything is an omen. You don't have to ascribe meaning. Let it be what it is." He reached out-oh, that's a symbolic choice of words, maybe I can use it somewhere- and pressed me against him. I was limp. "You have to stop this. You're going to make yourself sick again. Why won't you let me help you? Why can't you trust me?"

Eyes closed, I breathe short, shallow breaths, willing myself away, anywhere but here, anywhere but with him and his ardor. I am afraid. His intensity makes me afraid. It is easier to go back to what I was, to the evil familiar than to believe. He pulls me onto his lap and rocks me, face buried in my hair. I can feel the heat from his palms against my thigh, against the slope of my hip.

"Do I need to get a mirror? You are the only person I know who can lower their temperature at will, still their heartbeat to almost... Don't do this to me. Don't stop your heart beating. Don't go away. Baby, please, you're my joy, you're what I never dreamed of, you're my fantasy girl in every way I know and in ways I didn't eve know were possible."

I feel the wetness on my cheek, where his face touches mine. I used to cry all the time but he doesn't know that. He cries more than I do, at least, more than I do now. Hell, he does everything more than I do. Intense, plunging with his whole self, an adrenaline junky, tempting me with caves full of bats and fool's gold and diamond dust, hairpin turns and double parachutes, while I hang back, hover at the ocean's edge, salt to my ankles and no more.

Until the hurricane force of him drenches me, flays my flesh and leaves me clean, raw, new.

"I can't. I'm afraid."

"You've been afraid your whole life. Me, too. Now, with you, I feel right. Please, baby, I am yours, I am so yours, all of me, anything you want, anything I can give you. Let me be yours. Let me give you an iota of what you've given me."
He is so hot against me, hands searing my open wounds. The cynic is back and tells me, "Its hormones and madness, hot flashes and confusion," while the child crawls under the blanket of his heat and falls asleep, safe in his arms. I open my mouth and he salts the cinders on my tongue.

Resonsibility

If you save a life, it is yours.
If I save you, are you mine?
To have and to whole?
Are you?

And You Will Know Them by Their Shadows

Harken to me, the Eternal.
Lift up thine eyes, for this, this, is the land I have given unto you.
You shall beget children here, and your children will beget children in their time,
And this is the woman whom I have chosen for you who will bear them all.
This woman, lovely as a statue, as a graven image,
who you will worship on your knees as you did the golden galf.
You will woo her with betel juice and almonds and honey, sweet, aromatic, sticky,
and sing songs which are pleasing to her for she is the fated one.
You will sacrifice the fatted calf to her, to this woman, in her whore shoes,
the angle of her foot, her leg and the broad hips you will bury your face in
and pray, hands clasped around her thighs.
You will adore her as you have adored no other before, nay, not even me,
the Eternal, your God. You will put her before me, to be the mother of your people.
You will cup her breasts, weigh them, and when they are heavy with milk,
you will have suck of them.
Arise, turn now, and follow her.
Lay down your trivial amusements for she is the anointed one.


NB: this is what happens when i'm given a random bible verse to read

Truth

Until you accept your ugly
have faith to let your guard down
Until you know you can let the one
see what you bury under the broken toys in the garage
Until you stop inflating, glorifying, lying
trust the mirror in his eyes won't slit your veins
until then
until then
until then
you will look, try to stay above the high tide mark
and pray no one sees the clay feet inside your Armani shoes
when you stop
when you let the demons out of the box you call your heart and know
know
that the one will slam the lid so Hope stays,
then you'll have truth.

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.

Work

Pull a random note, any note, do anything at all with it.
Just to get from here to there. Or anywhere.
Anywhere. Everywhere.
Desperate to get anywhere.
Good bad indifferent, go anywhere.
Mean median mode. La mode et mean.
Life is cruel. No matter how cruel, no matter how much it hurts,
what excuses life conveniently throws down
[Liar! You put your own stumbling blocks in your path.
When they aren't there, you build them. Liar!]
You find more.