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 

Wasteland's Last Call

Last Call never feels
like last call, tomorrow

waiting, in silence

I finish my book

2 am, you stagger, smiling

I drive, stone sober

Sunday Times crosswords

not enough to build a life

nothing is enough, ever

The liquor, smooth sweet smoke

over ice, slides from your mouth 

into mine, I shiver, afraid

I reject the call

your photo blinks off the screen

last call, now silence

27

Three cubed

That is how many times

today

I reminded myself

that invisible disabilities

deserve my patience

and love

and all I want

is to be free

of this burden

and all I fear

is that day is

coming

soon

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.

Modern Labor Saving Life

How did they do it, get it all done, before all the labor saving devices came about?

Did they have a more integrated life, living more fully in the here and now,
different sets of priorities, fewer priorities and calls on their time
or was it the half-empty bottle of tequila on a high up shelf
that got replaced every other Thursday?

Just Another Night in Paradise

It's a slow night, here
Few patrons to pay patronage to those seeking accolades
If not money, support, stipends, then at least applause
I stare out the window, restless
When can I leave, when can I leave
Cold air blows on my thighs.
They'll be warm later.
Personal heating blanket will wrap around them later.

Dirty Little Secret

He was my dirty little secret, except he wasn't little and if he was a secret, he was a very badly kept one, secret not because no one knew about him, but because everyone chose to ignore his existence in my life.

But he was dirty. Oh yes, he was dirty, as dirty-minded as any teenager could be with a worldly older woman as his sub rosa lover, a woman who was willing and eager to do anything and everything she'd ever thought of or seen before. He was prime, a juicy fig plucked down that I could sink my teeth into, bite down, chew and swallow, and he loved it. I was more fantasy flesh than any of his compatriots could even imagine, let alone aspire to and I was his. So yes, he was dirty.

Another facet of my fragmented life, everything in it's compartment, sharply separated, no overlap, nice and tidy. I like keeping things orderly. I like the concept of separation of church and state and I practiced it with great enthusiasm. I had my state, my public side, and I had my church to worship in. He was my church and I got down on my knees and committed sacrilege to make your hair curl and your stomach churn.

Until, years later, it all came crashing down, when the letter I wrote, telling him it was over, it was all over, over to the extent that I doubted it had ever been, that I wondered if it had all been a wet dream powered by a fevered imagination, the result of too much anesthesia at the dentist or too many donuts after a night of reefer, the letter which took "Dear John" letters to heights never before or since seen, the letter which I never mailed but kept, relished in rereading, treasured words, 24K calligraphy on cheap looseleaf, was found.

By my kids.

Through a Glass, Darkly

Was it live or was it memorex?
There was no way to determine if they were in St. Pete, Palmerton or that kingdom of fakery-DisneyWorld.
Did it matter?
Not a whit, not a ha'penny, not a fig.
As long as they could ingest enough liquids to keep their blood alcohol levels above the legal limit, no one cared what universe they were actually tottering through.
A young girl passed, skipping rope. "Step on a crack, break your mother's back. Step on a crack, fall into the black. Step on a crack, find something you lack." They watched until her voice faded into the mist, then turned away.
Arms around each other's shoulders or linked, swagger alternating with stumble, they sang their own odd medley of verse, straight up, on the rocks, over easy, as they proceeded down the streets.
Until Josephenia, hanging off the end, tripped, her arm slid free of Bartholomew and she fell head first into a puddle, breaking up the reflection of confectionary building as if the water had splashed up to melt the sculpted fondant and french meringue rosettes, tripped into the puddle and kept going, until she disappeared completely, leaving only a few bubbles to show she'd ever been at all.
The others blinked, shrugged and continued, just a bit more careful to avoid the fissures in the asphalt.

Chop-a-matic! An ode to Ron Popeil and Billy Mays

They're Bright! They're New! They're Creepy as Hell!
But Wait! There's More!
With voodoo, you get eggdrop
and Styron doesn't crack, chip or absorb odors
Safe and Machine Washable
Non-toxic if consumed by pets or small children
Multipurpose-the more you use it, the more you'll like it!
And the more ways you'll find to use it!
Handling various thicknesses with elan and an upward thrust
Includes a safety guard to ensure that there will be no contact
between fingers and flesh dissolving anal fluids.
But if you prefer dessert,
spelled with two ‘esses' because dessert is so sweet
as opposed to desert with one ‘ess' an arid lonely place,
this little faggot cookie press will do the shaping and squirting for you
with precision and just a flick of your Bic.
Where's Martha?
Jail is such a happy place for some of us.

Vera Told Me...

Small. Ordinary. But that woman promised it would change her life,
remove the worries, prevent the clenched teeth marks on the calendar, soak up the fears.
Oh yes, soak up the fears.
That woman promised.
After the last time, never again.
He promised, too, but he lied.
“It’s my right.”
“You promised.”
“I’m your husband.”
“You prom-”
A black eye settled that discussion.
She fingered the innocuous foam cushion.
Insignificant. Soft. How could it?
Would it?
Would he...
Dear God, let it be so.
Dear God, I’ve tried and I’ve tried and the priests can’t help or they don’t help and I’m doing what I can. I’m doing my best, God, every day, just trying to get by, I am. I swear I am.
Dear God, how much can I thin the soup before it’s not soup, before it’s colored water and salt?
Dear God, forgive me, but it’s a smaller sin, much smaller, it must be, isn’t it, God?
Dear God, please don’t let it hurt.
Dear God, please let that woman be telling the truth. So many lies I been told, lies and lies on top of lies, rubbish piled up where the trash collector don’t go because even he’s scared of being here long enough to give it a proper sweep.
Dear God, how can this be wrong?
“Momma? Momma, you alright in there?”
“Oh, sweetie, momma’s fine. Just give me another minute or two.”
Dear God, let this cup pass them. Please let my girls grow up safe and whole and, dear God, may they never know what I’ve done.
“Momma? We’re hungry, momma. Can I make tea?”
“Right, love, put the kettle on. And take out the jam. We’ll have a bit of jam on our biscuits tonight, won’t we, lovey? Yeah, that’s a good girl. I’ll be right out. Thank ye for minding the little ‘uns. Now, let’s all have a wash up and then we’ll have our tea. Yes, you can put a teaspoon of jam in the tea. we’ll have us a little party, now, won’t we? Just lovely.”

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.

We're Not in Kansas Anymore

Ellis Amber-Eyes stares out,
little girl lost in a bed of poppies
perchance to sleep, perchance to dream.
The Scarecrow and the Tinman
Brainless and Heartless, leave her there.

How could anyone be so stupid, leaving a child alone, unprotected
in a world of backed up sewage and mold encrusted corners?
How could anyone be so cruel, leaving a child alone, unprotected
trails of candy and lost kitties to be found?

But Ellis Amber-Eyes, smooths the grassy knoll, lays herself down in the poppies,
thick scent cozy tucked up to her chin.
She won't remember her dreams.

If she's lucky.

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

Tazo Haiku

He drinks my tea, hot
not iced, when I am not there
to feel me inside.

Dream Lover or Wednesday Night at Austins

Every week I turn up there just to hear that voice
Get my fix, get inspired, get HOTT-that voice
That voice telling me things
Making me feel things
Want, oh yes, that voice makes me want
makes me go home, alone and....
I hear it, talking me through it.
That voice coming from that mouth
that mouth, ta geulle, ta geulle, that mouth

i want that mouth between my legs where my hands are now
no se branler, no. ta geulle,
embrassez moi, embrassez moi, lèche-moi, lèche-moi
descendre à la cave et et et
baiser moi, baiser
je serai votre amant de rêve

oh that’s an oxymoron
but say it again
je serai votre amant de rêve

A dream lover doesn’t exist
of course a dream lover doesn’t exist
but that voice tells me he is somewhere
that voice would be my dream lover
that voice sings to me

oh robyn
oh robyn
je serai votre amant de rêve, votre fantaisie, votre jouet
je serai n'importe quoi que vous voulez que je sois
mmmmm...

I will be your somewhere
i will be your whiskey drinking, tattooed, pierced, six fingered, pre-op transexual one-legged oatmeal wrestling midget.

Thank you rocco
love ya man

Hemophilia

Don’t look at me. I am invisible.
Don’t want you.
Don’t want you to know me, find me
see me inside myself, all built up scar tissue.
Don’t touch me!
You’ll tear the scabs and I’ll bleed.
Oh, I will bleed and bleed and bleed
tears of blood stream from my eyes.

My brother cried blood when he died.

Hover over me
Heat touches me before flesh.
Oh gods
Settle into me so slow, so careful
Am I that fragile?
Every bone broken and set,
it hurts, it hurts to breathe.
Cry out. Not in passion.
In pain. In fear. I cry.

Why are you here?
Why you and not not not-
why?
No ghosts. Push them back,
back into their corners, boxes, closets.
Lock them up and throw away the key.
Huh. You can’t lock up ghosts.

Stop taunting me with kisses, remembered touch.
Ghosts. Shadows. Stop.

Help me forget.
Dip your fingers in the whitewash, cover it.
I am fevered, raw, exposed.
Kiss me, oh god, kiss me.
Make it all go away.

Please...

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.’

And A Happy New Year

i don't believe in prefacing my work. each piece stands or falls on its own. but its been a roller coaster week, much emotional turmoil, culminating in yet another instance of verbal abuse. so, in honor of my birthday, anniversary and a tip of the glass to pandora's box , i present.....

“Un cerveza, por favor.” Just one little beer, how could it hurt, hurt any more than she did already? She rubbed her abdomen, its internal soreness aggravated by its external sunburn.

“One beer, miss, with lime? Corona, Dos Equis or Especiale?”

“Especiale con cal, por favor.” That’s so funny, she thought. La gringa se habla espanol and el mejicano speaks English. Without an accent, too. What a twisted world. She gazed out at the plaza, her eyes protected from the glare by her “Jackie O” style sunglasses.

The midday sun was fierce, white-hot, leaching the bright embroidered dresses, serapes, ponchos and oversized sombreros of their color. The gray adobe landscape misted before her, the individual pieces melted into an uneven dust covered lump. It looked to her like a raisin studded Christmas pudding in a snow of confectioners sugar, the sweet sugar hiding the alcohol soaked evil of the dessert.

A Christmas pudding I’ll never taste again, god willing, stuck here in taco and tequilla land. She lifted the beer, surprised to find it empty.

“Un mas, por favor,” she called to the waiter.

“Yes, miss, and will you be dining with us this afternoon?”

“Si, un taco de aquacate con crema y un carne de puerco con chile verde.”

“Thank you, miss, I’ll bring your beer and your lunch will be ready shortly.”

The plaza entertainers processed through the courtyard, a troupe of eight men and women in fake, polyester Aztec garb, accompanied by three midgets in loincloths and body paint. The midgets did a series of acrobatic tricks on a trampoline, while the troupe performed a desultory sword and sun worship dance. It was a hackneyed show, suitable to the heat and lack of an audience.

She sighed again, removed her sunglasses and rubbed at her eyes with a twisted napkin. The green and purple bruises were stark against her tanned face. No, I won’t have any Christmas pudding this year, will I, she thought to herself, and a happy fucking New Year, too.

Homage to Hemingway

Hemingway is credited with writing the shortest short story ever, "For Sale: Baby shoes. Never worn." Every time I read, hear that, I get a chill. Chill? Oh, tell the truth. You don't get a chill, you are ruptured, torn. Your guts are pulled out, displayed, stabbed over and over and over with a dull, jagged knife. No quick clean cut, too simple. This is fluttery edges that never realign, never heal. They keloid, ugly scars like bloated leaches.

Tell the truth for once about how you feel. Me? Tell the truth? You talking to me? The great liar, the greatest liar denier crier ever born? The truth. Huh. What an alien concept. Truthful Robyn, oxymoron.

Fine.

But I don't have to. It's all written down and out in my own illegible cursed cursive that even I find hard to read at times. Especially when the paper is wrinkled, a testament to tears, to what is missing. Here's to you, tears! To you tears. Here's to u-tear-us. Here's to a uterus with scarred walls, too many ridges for a placenta to attach. Here's to a uterus that shakes free whatever it decides has no place within. Here's to you.

You tear us limb from limb and push us out bit by bit, drip drip drip. Days and night, drip drip drip, slow seepage of blood and amniotic fluid as you proceed on your sickening, funereal mission, slowly expelling your dead, one scoop at a time.

Hand me a shovel, let me bury it once and for all. Rapid shoveling, no more of these individual scoops. Weeks, or does it just feel like weeks, until the blessed doctors, oh blessed 100, 99, 98, 97, 96 going under, that sweetness, until they finish the job.

Can't even finish expelling your own dead, you useless u-tear-us. A vestigial organ, a void, no point to having you if you can't do what you are meant to do. 95, 94, 93 and under. Let it be over, let it be over once and for all.

It is written.

Spike.

Eagle.

Drummer.

And Lafite. Grenoble. Clover. All here, the empty books. The oh-so-empty books.

"For Sale: Baby shoes. Never worn." Six words.

"Freecycle: Pregnancy diaries. 3/4 empty." Five words.

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Cemetery

I was thinking about my brother this morning. Yes, I realize I think about him every morning (I think about you too, Big Brother, but I do not discuss you here.) but a favorite incident has been tickling my brain the past few days. David was a character. We all have slightly twisted senses of humor, ways of dealing with our past that some may find a bit off-setting.

We have more dead than many people of our generation. Well, perhaps not now, not now that I am a little old lady, much closer to my demise, so close I can smell the cordite and treacle, than I am to my beginning, but when we were in our twenties, it seemed we were the only two who had more relatives in Wellwood Cemetery than in our phone book.

Every time ten people in my phone book die, I replace my phone book.

I have had many phone books.

I don't keep a physical phone book any longer. That is another story.

So, David and I would often talk of our dead, our ghosts, speak of them and to them. I still do. He still does. We had a nice little chat yesterday morning. He agreed that the new purple sheets were a really nice shade of purple and reminded me to wash them before first use. And I better watch out, the last time I had purple sheets, I was five years old and ended up head to toe purple hives. I replied, these are sheets, not sulfa drugs. Which also turn me purple, FYI. As do other medications, but not penicillin. I am such an old fashioned old lady. Give me a poultice of moldy bread, that'll fix me right up, good as new. But I digress.

Back to David, who was also allergic to sulfa drugs but took large dosages of them during the week before he died, blood pouring out of every orifice in his body, the morning after they would not let me see him, his visitor passes already in use, his phone line dead. I stood there in the hospital lobby, so desperate to go upstairs, making such a scene, hoping they would have rachmunis on me. They threatened to have me arrested, sent me out into the night.

The doctor called me at 6:15 the next morning.

I was already awake, waiting.

I was already awake, waiting when my mother called to say that my dad had died.

I was already awake, waiting when my uncle called to say that my mom had died.

I was already awake, waiting when Kay called to say Richie had died.

Is that why I never sleep?

Am I always waiting for the phone to ring?

Alright, Robyn, you wanted to tell a tale, stop staring at the computer screen. The flickering diodes hold no answers, no insights. The warmth and pressure of the laptop on my thighs will have to suffice as an answer, a comfort. It is the closest I get to losing myself in physical pleasure, the solace, my drug of choice to make it all go away for a while. It is the closest I get to not being alone.

David was widowed. After a while, he dated. He would meet men in bars or at clubs or wherever and decide whether or not they were worthy of going home with him. When the first throes of mourning had passed, the random faceless fucking of shloshim, he resumed his selective tendencies and decided to pursue a relationship. After a third or fourth or fifth date, he'd determine whether or not to introduce the person to his family.

"I want you to meet my family."

"Wow, I am honored. Great. When?"

"Now is as good a time as any."

The person hopped on the back of David's bike and wrapped his arms around David, thinking, oh wow, I am going to meet Kid Sister and Most Amazing Niece and maybe even Long Suffering Brother in Law. This is great, I must really rate.

And they took off. Down Eastern Parkway, Linden Blvd, onto the Southern State they'd fly, exceding whatever the posted speed limit was (you thought I was the only one who exceeds the speed limit? Daddy and David were each ticketed at over 100 mph.) until they turned in at the gates of Wellwood. David would continue, much slower, pulling up in front of our parents' tombstones.

"XYZ, I'd like you to meet my parents. Mom, Dad, this is XYZ. Okay, Grandma and Aunt Ettie are right over here and then I'll introduce you to Jeff and Erica. And Cousin Irving, he's in the front. Oh. You thought I was going to introduce you to Kid Sister? Maybe later."

Depending on whether the person politely introduced himself to the granite markers, helped trim the bushes, laid pebbles on the base of each grave, how the person responded to David's dead determined whether he would get to meet David's living.

Not a bad way of winnowing the wheat from the chaff.

Maybe one day I'll tell you about David and Vita's list of repairs.