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.

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 

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.

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.

Dreams

Its not a dream
you are exactly

what you were

as you were

Its not a dream

Its a nightmare

Date Night

We tried something different
Set on saving, changing, tweaking
this thing between us
that wasn’t a relationship
that wasn’t a friendship
that defied any name we chose
if that name wasn’t Passion
 
Together, we had that aplenty
layers of now, silk layers
upon layers on top of more layers of
silk, with a tensile strength greater than steel
yet it dissolves with friction
The geometric progression, the Fibonacci spiral
lightening scorching our flesh
blood thundering
counting the seconds
syncopating our heartbeats
even when we were miles apart
 
But we, you, I wanted to try something different
something normal, human, ordinary
We rode the 6 train downtown
to some rancid art theater
Sid and Nancy
A nice normal couple in a rom-com
until they end, overdosed
in the notorious Chelsea Hotel
 
That could be us, you say
Your hand on my thigh
spreading your fingers
singeing me through the denim
I am lost in last weekend
my eyelids flicker
But we’re not punk rock gods
Or heroin addicts, I reply.
You breathe, The before.
The day before, that could be us.
 
I am melting into the worn seat
more stains and sticking to the floor
blending with decades of spilled soda
 
I close my eyes, your mouth on my neck,
The music, the smell of butter
When I open them
we are ordering vegetarian chili
You tell me you’re meeting up with friends
in Alphabet City and kiss my knuckles
and you’ll call me tomorrow
I take the train uptown
to find my car
drive home
alone

Four Truths and a Lie

My daughter steps past him

not seeing him

But I do

I see the huddled form

not much more than the

ratty moving blanket

He’s wrapped in

against the odd Florida chill

 

My daughter steps past him

not smelling him

but I do

When he rises and staggers

standing between the dumpsters

to pee the reek of

urine and alcohol and unwashed

carries on the breeze

 

My daughter steps past him

not hearing him

But I do

The hacking glob of sputum

padding of his bare feet

hand thudding on the

wall holding him upright

echo through the parking lot

 

My daughter steps past him

asks me

Have you seen him?

The homeless guy, with the ragged blanket?

Really skinny, has dreads?

I give him a dollar most mornings,

but today he wasn’t here

Yesterday either …

 

My daughter opens the car door

strokes her baby’s hair

Have you seen him?

EmmaLee

Eyes closed, does not matter. Anywhere, everywhere

Change, deny, anger, grief. Cannot escape, still

I see the shadow of your tomb there.

 

Remember tears of a time when every hair

you lost trailed hope by the pitchful

Eyes closed, does not matter. Anywhere, everywhere.

 

And apricots and placebos and clinicals were

the daily dosage locking up the door.  Still

I see the shadow of your tomb there.

 

Moonface,  bloated Sobibor.

your purpled flesh, bones now fragile

Eyes closed, does not matter. Anywhere, everywhere.

 

Counting months, counting up to safety year

drop and shatter the magic eight ball

Eyes closed, does not matter. Anywhere, everywhere

I see the shadow of your tomb there.

 

[Un]Happy Birthday, Sweetheart - Excerpt

It was 4:25 am. He put on jeans and a sweatshirt, went downstairs. Might as well get coffee, he could stretch that for an hour or two, until it was a reasonable time to get dressed for real.

He opened the door. She was sitting on the stoop, on the next to the top step, leaning against the rail.

“I’m sorry, I am so sorry, I couldn’t sleep. I was so lonely, I am so lonely, so sad. I … I … I came here. I’m sorry. I was going to leave as soon as it got light. Before you got up. You weren’t supposed to see me. I wanted to be someplace I didn’t feel hated.”

He sat down, put an arm around her shoulders so she could rest against him. She was skinny, skinnier than he’d ever seen her. Every time her life wrecked, she lost weight. She probably weighed less than his dog. 

“Are you hungry?”

                She shook her head.  “I don’t remember hungry. I’ll leave.”

                “I’m sorry for leaving you. Stay. At least until daybreak.”

                “I understand. I do. I want to leave me, too. Here.” She opened her purse, pulled out a magazine.  “Here. It is safer for me if I don’t have that.”

                He held the magazine. One chamber was empty. Which meant, maybe, that she still had a bullet in the gun.  He didn’t want to ask, didn’t want to know.

                They sat on the stoop and watched the stars cede their light to the sun.

Chris Dance

The first thing I saw when I woke was Chris’ face

Eyes still shut hovering on the inside

That bright orange; a Warhol Chris

Pressed into my eyelid

Haloed with blues and fours

Chris’ face, before the accident

Before the crush of metal

Before the diesel fire melted

The asphalt and flesh into one

Chris’ face, and a slowly turning wheel

 

There is a ghost bike there

A tree swallowed part

Gardenias drape the rest

At the turning of the year

I clean the leaves and spin

The wheel

Still see Chris’ face against the inside of my eye

 

I am old now and clippings are brittle

The ghost tree is tall grown through

The wheels don’t spin

I sit on the roots

Chris dancing behind my eyes

 

Chris dancing …

The last thing I saw before I slept

Was Chris’ hand

Reaching for me to dance

Winner, 1st Place FSPA 2021 June Owens Memorial Award

Published in Cadence 2021

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.

 

Three Seasons of Glass

                                                                   

Scratching at the glass

the casing the sills

I suck the tiny

lead paint infected

wood flakes

from under my nails

feeding the pica that will kill me

sometime in the future.

Snow builds up on the grilles

ice patterns on the panes

hold my hand to melt another pattern.

It is cold here, almost as cold as out there

no one looks my way

no one looks at me

no one sees

no one remembers

me, licking the glass, waiting.

Rain makes new designs

wearing off the dirt

press against the glass

banging head until welts form.

Blood trails bookmatch the rivulets

Harder. More blood.

I see the sky,

deeper blue behind the rain,

as I wait and wait, for sun.

Wool Jacket

You never said a word.

“What did you do in the war, Daddy?”

“I was in Italy.

Four years in Italy.

I came back, mostly in one piece.”

I button the heavy wool

suitable for mountains and trenches

but not the Florida sunshine.

Go outside to smoke a cigarette

blowing smoke rings

like you taught me.

The match glow highlights my bones

so I look like you.

Silent, too thin, lost in that hell

which left you with a limp

a long skinny scar

from midspine to thigh

and a Purple Heart

you kept in your sock drawer.

“Nothing to say, baby girl.

I went. I came home.”

I mash out the cigarette in a seashell

and bury my face in the musty wool of

Daddy’s war.

Winner 1st Place 2017 FSPA Lt George Birkner Memorial Award

Last Call

I hear you calling,

you and my friends

from the old neighborhood.

They want to play stickball

and shootzies

and war, pretending

the dirt mounds in the junkyard

are foxholes.

But we didn’t know from foxholes,

not then, not yet,

not for a few more years, anyway.

You’re all calling me to come,

come out and play,

tell us about Big City Adventures

and small city escapades.

I hear one soft voice

inside all the other voices

sometimes reading with me

and I correct your pronunciation

of the harder words.

I hear one voice, your voice,

calling me,

come, come out,

it’s time to come out and play,

your voice,

my baby brother,

my best friend.

I heard your first cry

and your last whimper

and your call.

Adonai Dayam Ha-Emet - final version

Adonai Dayan ha-Emet          

God is the One True Judge                            

Aveinu Malkeinu,                                                                 [Our Father, Our King]

Once, if I were honest, more than once, much more,

I wish I still lived alone

Just me, my pens, my books

And the ducks, murmuring under the street lamp.

Train whistles,

Who’s ready? Who’s willing? Who’s able?

            All Aboard!

Aveinu Malkeinu, Chaneinu V'aneinu                             [Our Father, Our King,

But I do not live alone.                                                       Be gracious and answer us]

Other people, things, inhabit this temporary home,

            Of bodies and offal

            On the search for real

I, responsible for detritus, distracted and rerouted

By not alone. Home is a vial of ash.

Ki ein banu ma'asim.                                                                   [For we have little merit]

In my heart, I am always alone.

Ase imanu,                                                                                     [Treat us with kindness]

Midnight.  I feed the ducks, throwing stale bread upon the water.

At sunrise, they sit on the edge of the eave and

Stare through the pane.

I am afraid that they, hungry, will break the glass.

Tzedakah vachesed,                                                                    [And be our help]

I am a walking suicide.

Ase imanu, tzedakah vachesed,                                                [Treat us with kindness,

I am more alone than I am with,                                                 And be our help]

More surprised when not surprised by the shadows of others

As they talk in the galleries

And I make tea and sandwiches

And salt the buttered bread

Memory of the dead and nearly dead and

Might as well be dead and draped mirrors

Playacting that I connect with those I serve.

Vehoshiyeinu.                                                                               [And save our people]

The conductor holds the door, impatient,

Calling me night after night.

All aboard! Where’s your ticket,

Reading the numbers inked

on the inside of my forearm.

The ducks sing Adonai dayan ha-emet                                   [God is the True Judge]

And then I hear nothing.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Adonai dayan ha-emet: God is the True judge

Baruch atah Adonai, elohainu melach Haolem, dayan ha-emet.

The Hebrew blessing on hearing of a death :

Blessed is the Eternal One, Ruler of the Universe, the True Judge.

From the High Holy Day Services, a Prayer for Forgiveness

Aveinu Malkeinu,                                Our Father, our King,
Chaneinu V'aneinu,                             Be Gracious and Answer us
ki ein banu ma'asim.                          For we have little merit.
Ase imanu tzedakah vachesed,           Treat us with kindness, be our help
vehoshiyeinu.                                     And save our people.

Aveinu Malcheinu, be gracious and answer us, for we have little merit.

Treat us generously and with kindness, and be our help.

Natural Causes

I want to die

Of natural causes

Not from flying debris

Not in a plane crash

Not from a bomb

Or falling off a mountain

                When passing a truck

                On a road blocked by massive boulders

Not from being hit by a train

                Or a trail derailing

Certainly not by brake failure

Natural or sliced

Of a car or bicycle

Not from a pill and alcohol cocktail.

From natural causes

In my bed

Feeling my ribs pierce my heart

And the blood seep out

In pretty spatter patterns,

Yes.

Although a gun would also

Leave a lovely spray.

The Median Divides the Here and

Another night to forget

another night with the man who will not be named

Hamelech Malchai Hamlochim-

or so he acted, and so he thought-

Another long trip back to the house-not-home because

I was never asked to see the morning

car redirected, traffic crawls past flashers

battalion of emergency vehicles

even Jaws of Life! slicing open a belly up Civic,

wheels still spinning.

And then I

And then I

I know that car

Where’s my phone and I’m pushing buttons and

I Don’t Know

And my ex answers.

What the hell are you doing calling at 3 am?

She’s upstairs, asleep.

Like you care.

Bitch.

Pale ribbons, soggy bears, rivulet ink paeans,

marking a long ago night to forget.

Families move away, move on,

The crypt island shrinks, as the road is widened

“to facilitate more, faster, travel”

Now, barely large enough for one faded cross,

crooked with years,

three new crosses join it.

My baby is asleep in her bed.

The hand-me-down Civic is in pieces.

Shadow reaches from my stagger

I find my keys and drive to the house-not-home

But still more of a home than where 

Heated Arguments

At 105 degrees, the body shuts down.

The blood has boiled away, leaving skin tight to sinew,

Oxygen starved muscles and bones.

Mine boiled away long before that,

Mine boiled away on the long trip here, seeking a wet savior

Every movement frantic, every movement slower to stop.

The pointless journey of self flagellation that put my heart

Through a meat grinder leaving a pile of scarlet mixed

With pieces that do not pass FDA approval.

I stand in judgment, fun house mirrors of me,

As jury, defendant, prosecutor and gavel pounding judge.

Order in the court.

The folded note, passed from trembling hand to trembling fingers,

Held by me, for me, waiting to be opened and read

Suicide by proxy, running into a hail of bullets,

Jetes and plies punctuate a full split on the floor and

An arabesque .

Overpriced macchiato that I won’t drink provides a shield,

I will watch and I will wait and I will fall and I will fail

To reach any conclusion except I am lost.

The Meaning [lessness] of Life

One more in a long line of one mores
Aphorisms swirl through the brain, trite and treacle,
knitting a shawl that wouldn’t keep a newt warm
No, not even a newt
There is so much rejection before "I can’t take it anymore" sets in good and hard
So good and hard all I want is to be amontilladoed in
before I hear dirges of accept and utilize, accept and utilize
Accept and utilize is a curse, not an inspiration
before the good cop bad cop shuffle has me confessing to crimes
I haven’t even heard of and couldn’t imagine

If I turn it inside out, struggle, nails claw chalkboard, to make this another learning experience
I am too old for this BS anyway
But if I do-
There is a truism, that fishing is like life
Not the cast your reel and you will surely catch something
Not even the teach a man-or woman-to fish and you’ll feed him for a lifetime
but my own variant,
My own, "If I don’t do what I’ve always done, I’ll get something I haven’t already got"
Maybe

Teach a man to fish and you’ll feed him for life
There is no bait
There is no hook
There is a broken reel
The ocean is so dense with salt, so full of tears, it cannot sustain life
So teach me to fish, hookless, baitless, broken
Let me cast my reel into barren water and watch me pull in a 1978 Bridgestone tyre
Watch me

Amabo te, fame deliria. Videro finem, exitum...
Da mihi piscis, piscis, amabo te. Lac humanus beneficii, amabo te.
Just give me a fish, just for now, to fill my mouth with sweet
calm the spasms for a little while
feed me enough for today, I won’t ask again tomorrow
I know I’ve worn out whatever welcome I had

Amabo te. I am the chum. Please.
　
Even if life is perfect in chance, in equity, in fairness,
[Who said life was fair, anyway?]
all the skills/training/certification/experience
when chance or unspoken paradigm intercede
and move a half meter to my left for the catch du jour
while all around, dozens doing pretty much similar with similar get
nothing
again

Life is a banquet, but most poor fools are starving,
while mouse rejected crumbs litter the table
and the Maid of Honor, never a bride, is the designated driver of a limo,
gas tank hovering on empty, who can’t even numb the hurt with Patron


translation:
Please, I am delirious with want. I see the end, the final end...
Give me a fish, a fish, please. The milk of human kindness, please.

They Say

They say it’s easy to see, looking backwards
They say every chicken finds it’s own roost
They say if you wait long enough, it’s all good
They say, they say, they say it’s god’s truth

Well, I say I don’t want to wait no more
I’m sick and tired of passed over
I’m going through that door
No more searching and waiting on four leaf clover

The say sunshine rises to the one who heard
They say keep working at your post
They say it’s hidden in the word
They day, they say, they say prayer is for the just

Well, I say I don’t want to wait no more
I’m sick and tired of passed over
I’m going through that door
No more searching and waiting on four leaf clover

They say it’s a matter of getting the right card
They say change rumbles coast to coast
They say if you believe it’s not hard
They say, they say, they say love God the most

Well, I say I don’t want to wait no more
I’m sick and tired of passed over
I’m going through that door
No more searching and waiting on four leaf clover

Well, I say I don’t want to wait no more
I’m sick and tired of passed over
I’m going through that door
No more searching and waiting on four leaf clover