Library Nooks

Memories of here with my mother

Did we sit and read, look at pictures?

Each book another color, different binding,

faded, new, embossed.

Love for words sacred source

a place with books always

a haven

a heaven.

When pain and hunger clawed

she lost herself in words

crawled into the pages

under the flyleaf.

Will I tell her story?

Will I tell my own?

Each book another color

Walls of books surround us

I transcribe the echoes of her whispers

write our stories

and am

Happy

House Arrest

The blinds shake and he flings open the door,

“You, I should have known you.”

A former roommate slides past me,

empty sounds, that he’ll be back

in a few days,

with groceries.

Trading places with me, ceding me possession

of the vestibule and life within,

we’ve danced this dance before.

The call of ‘change partners’

with a nod to me or him and a puzzlement

to others.

Where would I be if not here, if not now,

folded into arms that pull me to

the comfy chair

head resting against mine.

We sit, quiet together.

We are very good at being quiet together.

After a long while, I ask if he’d prefer

donuts or muffins.

He replies that he limits himself to

half an espresso per day so

It doesn’t matter,

as long as I come back,

come back soon.

With comfort silence in this cacophony nightmare,

I kiss him, on the mouth, and pinky swear.

The Quiet is Underwhelming

We’re too silent now. I know, we promised silence, misguided thing that silence is, thinking silence is the same as comfort, that silence is the absence of strife.

It’s not. It’s just silence.

Except when it is another symptom of yet another cause, another reaction to another unknown.
Walls, gates, moats,
Wagons, caves, motes.
We build so much, wanting something different.
We know what we don’t want, everyone knows what they don’t want-or they think they do.
That is the easy part, knowing what you don’t want: vanilla ice cream, brussels sprouts, sardines.
But doing something you don’t do so you’ll get something you don’t have...

It’s time.

I’m taking down walls, storming gates, crossing moats.
I’m slipping between wagons, searching caves, removing motes from our eyes.
From both our eyes.
Put away stubborn, pride, inflexible. Put away fear.
How could I think less of you when I am so so far from the shadow of perfect myself, staring at perfect’s ass, so far behind I am in a lapped field on the verge of being pulled?
Beat down stubborn, pride, inflexible-more you does not mean less me.
The fallout and backlash anticipated, those are just shards from another goblet thrown by someone else, not me, never by me, and missed by the vacuum cleaner.

I’ve been there.
So take me to the common ground and we will open out mouths, let words pour out, smudge the chalk art in the driveway and the lines in the sand, cross the boundaries leading to a new place where no one cowers in the closet behind the winter coats and worn out sneakers and crumpled scraps of gift wrap.
We’ll go there, speak untested, unafraid and be silent together later.
　
　

Naegleria Fowleri [Brain Parasite]

"Work gives life meaning, a sense of purpose, makes you feel your day was worth something."

Crashes in my head, tide roiling over the boardwalk, pulling human detritus out to mid-sea where passing cruise ships will wonder just how THAT got out there, turn the panaceas into so much white noise.

Work locks the demons in the closet, skinny fingers claw under the edge, desperate to reach the doorknob so they can come out and guide me to the TECO oven and sing me a lullaby , perchance to dream of happier days.

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...

Life is Rolling Thing

I’ve found I can live with anything
Pain
Grief
Scars
Torment of a broken soul
Seizure of a schism heart
Yes, I can
Yes, I have
but I can’t live with fear
Icicles in my eyes and paralysis of my hands
and pulse of blood slower slower and so cold
oh my god, the cold
No, that I cannot live with
So
I can live without you
a bone splitting I can take, take easily, take fine
just fine, everything will be fine
but the powerpoint possibilities you flash
hypnotize me to sleep, perchance to dream
of a place I cannot, will not go.

First, Last

"Alright, but this is the last time." There is never a last time, not with him, not with her. Every time is a first time or an again time or perhaps a last time for today, but never ever a last last time.
I love my disciples.

Adjusting the clinchers, I made a mental note to refurbish the linings. The padding was thinning out and that could be, if not dangerous, certainly uncomfortable. The zippers, too, needed a quick spray with WD-40, and the safety locks. They weren't as smooth as they should be.

I like my zippers quiet.

They look so pretty hanging there, nude except for their matching cuffs, hoods and those heavy, heart-shaped lockets attached to their collars, sweat running the formal lacework design I'd painted on earlier, a touch of whimsy provided by horsehair and Trimtex acrylic paint. I'd considered doing a sharpy design a la Jigglypuff, but removing sharpy from flesh is tedious.

Leaning back in the swing, I kicked until I could grab the handle by the switch-pad and flick it.. It would have been easier to walk, but the swing, a cutaway tire, amused me. It was so iconoclastic, so irreverant, to have an old tire swing here. I'd picked up a rotating clothes rack at a dry cleaner's going-out-of-business sale and it had proven to be one of the best investments I'd made in terms of furnishing my studio: inexpensive, unique, multipurpose. They swayed as the rack rotated through and around the room, toes a few inches from the floor.

Then Clara sagged and her foot caught against a sawhorse and broke off.
Oh, dear. That will never do.

I stopped the conveyor and picked up the foot. A clean break, quite dried out. I poked Wilhelm's limbs and torso. He was dried out, too. Were they that dried out when I painted them the other day? I'm not sure.

I released the clamps and removed the hoods. Yes, those zippers definitely needed a spray of WD-40. Folded them neatly into a barrel and threw Clara's foot in after her.

No more play time for them after all.

When we got to the dump, I rolled the barrel to the edge of the sludge pond. Gave it a gentle nudge. "Ready for a ride, children? Alright, but this really is the last time."

Contract Work

"Maynard stumbled over the slick, lichen cover rock. He was sure he had clambered over the same rock an hour before but who knew in this dense fog; he could barely see his hand in front of his face. If only he hadn't given in to that inquisitive urge to turn of the main highway and satisfy his curiosity. What a stupid decision that had been..."

"What a stupid decision? That's an understatement. Oh fuck, are they paying me enough to read this crap? No, they're not. Didn't even do basic spell/grammar check on this and now I'm supposed to do that and content edit?

"I can't even look at this, it's so full of mistakes. It is hurting my eyes, I want to put needles in them! Look at that screen, red, red, red, underlines, green, tick marks. Where am I supposed to put my edit notes, tell me that one.

"It's as bad as reading the Slantinel! Okay, fine, maybe not that bad. As bad as the New York Times, that once great grey lady who has sunk so far she buys copy from Huffpo/AOL.

"How much time did I budget for this anyway? One hundred twenty-one thousand words, single-spaced, 10.5 font. That comes out to 400 pages at a 12 font? I gotta get new glasses. Oh fuck, this turdlet isn't even a doc. The asswipe sent it as a pdf, now how am I going to work this? Enough. Where's my phone?

"Hey, Rik, I opened that project you subbed to me. Yeah, that one. Rik, did you look at it? No, Rik, not the word count, the content. Did you look at it? Didn't think so. It is so bad it is Braxton-Hicks contender. Fine, Bulwer-Lytton, dark and stormy night, yadda yadda.

"We agreed to what as my percent? Uhh huh. Well, I think we have to rethink this. It's a lot bigger than we were led to believe-and a whole lot uglier. Really.

"No, can't do that, not at this price point. Rik, it wasn't even spell-checked. I am staring at a checkerboard screen of red and black. Or maybe a backgammon screen, I dunno. Cribbage? Very not funny. So it's copy and content work. Fix the basic errors and then cut it down to ninety. That's a 25% cut. Which shouldn't be hard, having read the first paragraph. Easy deleting drivel, but making sense of it, seeing if there is a plot and character development here? I think the difficulty will be not cutting it by 75%.

"Rik, the protagonist is named Maynard. Do I really need to say more?

"Yeah, yeah, I love you, too. You're my hero. I'm your muffalato? In your dreams. Fine, get back to me later, big guy, would you? I've got youporn to watch, at least that doesn't make me ill. OMG, I can't believe it! Rik, Rik, it's the midget hooker! I'll send you the link. You're welcome. Well-cum. That, too.

"All right, I'll close this. There it is already.

"I love the smell of roasting flesh. It so much reminds me of bacon."

"I like this one. Great first line. Thank you, honey. Later."

The House on Orange

My fake blond beauty sits, on the curb, head on her knees.
Open the back door, get into the car. Please get into the car. Please get into the car.
Please.
Get into the car.
Can you stand? Can you crawl?
Sway against the car, mascara smears, matted hair and a bruise on her collarbone,
visible through the tear in her shirt tell me more than I want to know
but not enough that I need to know.
Do I need to know?
Does it matter, will it make a difference if I know what nightmares are coming?
She curls into a ball across the back seat, thumb in her mouth,
as if she was still 18 months and not 18 years old.
The more things change the more they remain the same. Trite but too true.
Don't waste your breath apologizing, I know you're sorry, ever so sorry for everything,
for fucking up, for getting into trouble, for costing me so much in time and energy and money
and some parents would say the money is the last of it but they don't know.
This is just another 5 a.m. emergency pickup after too few hours of sleep and
if it takes too long and I'm not at work on time I'll be terminated, no questions or explanations.
The job market takes no prisons and gives no ransom.
Any absences or lateness are automatic cancellation and I don't know whether I'm more afraid of that,
of losing this crappy job with the only redeeming quality that it keeps us from homelessness for a few more months or if I'm more afraid that I'm not going to have a daughter to scream at any longer for being a stupid fucking idiot who is wrecking her life with her self-destructive behavior, that this emergency pickup will end in some city-run, Medicaid accepting hospital instead of a ride home and soaking her clothes to get the vomit smell out.
I just don't know.
I don't know anything, ever.
I make a U turn and head for home.

Beyond the Pale

Outside the circle across the tracks
all the ways that I am wrong
peeking in through breaks in the hedgerow that I cannot cross
salt marked lines stronger that any surveyor post and rope
Back to my corner where I anneal with
Furriers, tanners, blacksmiths, scribes and other dressers of the dead
we all live beyond the pale
just visiting this planet
making little scritches where we can
trying to prove we exist
and that we matter

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

Brave New World II

I don't want to see blank pages anymore
They remind me of my life, too much so
and when they're filled,
well, that's even worse
"What are you saying?"
"Is there anything here?"
"Why this particular word?"
Farcical
Going into the kitchen to slice onions, instead.

Rish rush shel ha mayim

Can't understand the sounds, joyous throb in my ears
as I wade into strange waters and dive under,
one last time, reciting al hatevilah, v'kayam b'maahmaro, shehehyanu.

I give up the oceans and climb, cold air pain replacing thermals.
Peeking around the mountain I choose to shield me,
I see streaks of golden dark bouncing off the edge of a broken tunnel.

"Just hold on, baby, just hold on! You close your eyes!"

Close my eyes? That means trust.
It means giving up control,
or at least the illusions I have of control.

Swallow fear, pride, facades and let the stomach acids dissolve them at their own pace.
Meantime, I keep my cadence, clinging to the handles, lean my head on his back,
eyes shut tight and whisper,

I am. I will. I can. I do.

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.

Who am I? Not who you think.

He doesn't love the public me,

pinstriped, pinned up, buttonholed me
or the decked out deshabille pimped out me
or even the "I can do anything" uber-competent me.

He loves the baaaad me.
The one splashes in puddles and loses her keys
and rips her clothes and breaks her nose,
and stamps her feet because she wants it RIGHT NOW.
The stuck at eight-years-old, mud-smeared, gap-toothed, scabby-kneed me,
leaving a trail of broken cups and crayoned walls,
hiding under the bed, afraid of the monsters she played with in the morning.
The me who bites her lip so no one will see her cry.
The me who stole a chocolate bar because she was hungry.

Yeah. That one.

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.

Never Ask a Question If You Don't Want to Hear the Answer

"I really like that purple lace." He reaches over and strokes her thigh, high up, then cups her ass.

"You know, these panties have a story." She wriggles down towards him and puts a pillow under her chest.

"Yeah? You're pulling my leg. No, I'm pulling your leg. Will you tell me?" He bites the back of her thigh. "You never tell me your stories, it's always, ‘Oh that's history, you'd be bored,' or ‘I don't want to discuss it,' or ‘It's unpleasant remembering.'" He bites her again. " Did that hurt?" She shakes her head. "Not even a little? You never tell me anything, you're so need to know basis I wonder if you're actually a CIA agent."

She shrugs, as much as it's possible for someone laying on their stomach with their head propped on their hands to shrug, and turns to look at him over her shoulder. "Of course not, I don't speak Russian or Arabic, I can't be a CIA agent. I just like to horde my words. I don't waste them. Watch, I want to turn over, my shoulders hurt." She flips over and puts the pillow under her head.

He flutters his eyelashes at her, ducks his face into her groin for a second and then looks up. "Please? Please tell? Pretty please with sugar on top?"

"Fine. I went to every Wal-Mart around here looking for my size, every single one."

"You went to Wal-Mart?" He hyperventilates for a few beats, holding his hand over his heart. "You went to all the Wal-Marts? To buy panties? And you admit it?"

"Stop or I'll stop. No, don't stop. Yeah, that's better." She pushes his head back down. "Good. I was there grocering when I saw them on the rack near the umbrellas. So I looked for my size. That purple lace, how could I resist? Of course, they didn't have my size, they only had extra-extra large, if they did have my size there wouldn't be a story now, would there? Wal-Mart, home of the uber-queen-sized. Stop, I'm talking!"

"Mmmfffle mmmfffle. I thought you didn't want me to stop."

"Men, you're all the same. No, you're not, you're actually surprisingly competent. Anyway, I looked the next time I was there. And the next. And the next. It became an obsession, a quest, a purple lace Holy Grail. Oh, god, that's good. I looked for these panties every single time I went to Wal-Mart, every single one of them, and there's how many around here? Three, four?"

He sighs, sliding his fingers under the lace trim, sliding his fingers along her thigh where his lips had been moments before. "Three in a five mile radius, four in a seven. That's devotion to the cause. So much trouble for a pair of panties, but so worth it. They're really nice."

"Yeah, they are. It's kinda almost a pity." She reaches down and strokes the cotton covering her lower abdomen, snaps the lace band a few inches below her navel. "It is."

"Oh?" He walks his fingers to the hipband and starts to tug them down.

"Only wearing them for maybe an hour. They're so comfortable, too."

He pauses in his ministrations and smiles. "I'm sorry, but much as I like them on, I like them better off. Maybe next time?"

"That would be a first. I've worn them lots of times. I've had them about two years now, but every time I put them on, before I know it, they're off." She smiles a dreamy half-smile, eyes almost closed. "The color's stayed so true and the elastic still has snap."

He does a rapid calculation. She's had them two years. They've known each other for about eighteen months. He's never seen them before although she's worn them ‘lots of times.' How could she have worn them ‘lots of times' and he's never seen them before and ‘before she knows it, they're off'? When did she wear them? Where? Why? What memory put that smile on her face? And most important, who? He starts to open his mouth to ask, but clamps it shut again.

There are some questions you don't want to know the answer.

Too Close for Comfort

She doesn't understand what is right in front of her
How could she? She's too young too small too innocent
but they are ... distracting
It disturbs her, the way they fall into each other
heads almost touching, an intimacy thick as buttermilk
their voices softer than the fall of her hair
eyes flickering in the ambient glow of respective laptops.
He shifts his legs so they encase her knees, leaning into him.
She squints, absolutely sire there are sending little bitty tentacles out,
and she doesn't understand it at all.

Victoria Falls

He hears me calling in the water rush, door very deliberately left unlocked
Translating the storm to ‘help me', he breaks my solitude, appearing through the steam mist
Knowing he'll find me fetal curled, scalding the lunatic day off my skin,
skin covered with scars over scars over scars over scars, he squeezes inside
Picks me up. I cling, blind and weak as a baby opossum
Words spoken are lost in the susurration of the shower, grief swirling clockwise down the drain

Veganism

"I can see it, the vegetable man. There are a whole bunch of pieces, people portrayed by fruits, flowers, precious gems I think, but my favorite was the vegetable man. The cherry tomato eyes, onion cheeks, cabbage ear and the eggplant forming his beautiful Roman nose and brow. I can't remember the artist's name, Giovanni Archibaldo or something like that, but we can google it later. There are many examples of his work on artmuseum.com and artchive.com and folio.com. I think there's a folio.com anyway, I'm not sure about that either, but I know there's a artchive.com." I sighed and rolled over onto my stomach.

"I can think of other things to do with vegetables. If you'd like." His fingers slither over the veins in my arms and pause at the scar on my shoulder. "Fruits, sauces, ice cubes and, of course, eggplant. We can go shopping at the farmer's market. I'd like to roll a kiwi on you, drizzle honey down your thighs and just imagine the ecstasy you'll experience with an eggplant. Or two." He smiled wickedly.

"You're silly. I'm talking serious art here, museum art."

"We're naked. It's hard to be serious when we're naked. Besides, it's vegetable art."

"It is hard." I run a fingernail along his skin. "Never mind the farmer's market. Let's just toss a salad with what we have here."