david schein ii
A Lovely Treason
by David D Schein II
Slam Poet seeks Artistic and Fun-Loving Woman
Elderly Man Behind the Diner in a
College Town
If the Apothecary Was Closed for the Holiday
II. Leaves in Fall, Floating in Wind
Independence Day Weekend, I-64
Music Soothes the Savage Beast, but the Minstrels have Gone Astray
Response to “Poets Against the War”
Language of the Stars and Moon
You Wanted to Know why I am Here,
Bothering You Every Week
On Traffic Lights and Other Matters
of National Security
Forward, by the
Author
To the Reader
A Lovely Treason is the culmination of nearly four years of
writing. The story of Otis picks up
where A Perfect 30 left off, but does not take us as far as I initially
thought it would. I expected I would
continue to tell his tale, then leave off somewhere convenient. Instead, I found myself pulling sharply away
from him. “Patricia”, as you will see
later in this book, scorned my use of pseudonyms, and I think I took that to
heart. After the Patricia Set, I stopped using false names for my characters, with
the exception of a few pieces here and there.
I stopped “changing the names to protect the innocent”. In life, we are all innocent, or we are all
guilty, depending on how you look at the glass.
I have contemplated, lately, dividing this volume into
smaller books, to reduce the price, or even dull some of the weight. There is a continuing story being told
through these pages. A storyteller must
decide when to stop one story and when to begin the next. I wonder if I should insert a pair of covers
between the Patricia Set and the rest of the tale. Should I pause during the lull of the Christine Incident? I have decided to allow the full girth of
this tale to be told. I am even
tiptoeing into another part of the story with the introduction of Rebecca. Unfortunately, I find there are parts
missing. I can do nothing to report
them right now. They are beyond the
reach of my pen, and may remain so for some time. Someday, I hope t7o be strong enough to sing the things I cannot,
now, whisper.
As a writer, I am trying to push myself in new
directions. In this volume, I am
including several writing assignments, such as a short story (“When Can I go
Swimming?”), a non-fiction vignette (“Of Traffic Lights and Other Matters of
National Security”), and a large section of American Haiku/ Senryu. I believe I have grown as a person and as a
writer over the last four years, and I hope that shows through my writing. Like The Otis Series, Other Issues,
and A Perfect 30, A Lovely Treason is laid-out chronologically,
by order of writing. Some pieces aren’t
fully completed, but when is a poem ever truly finished?
The title of this volume, “A Lovely Treason”, comes
from a line in Stargirl, by Jerry Spinelli. Jerry was an early influence of mine. Friends with my father, Jerry and his wife, Eileen, were two of
the first “real writers” I knew. When I
was younger, my father, my sister, Anna, and I visited them at their home in
southern Pennsylvania. I got to pet
their chinchillas. When we left, Jerry
gave Anna and I, each, copies of books of his.
Anna received There’s a Girl in my Hammerlock, and I received Maniac
Magee. Both of these books are on
my shelves in my room. Both of these
books influenced my writing style. Both
of these books influenced my outlook on life
A few months ago, I was perusing the local shopping
mall for a new skirt when I came across Stargirl on a table outside
Delia’s. Attracted by the light blue
color, though I didn’t know what was the book, I approached it, took it into my
hands, admired the pea-colored stick figure and caution-tape yellow star
embossed on the cover and then paused when I read the two, simple, words above
what was apparently the title of the text.
“Jerry Spinelli,” they said. I
was floored. Without replacing the
book, I went inside and put out my nine dollars, receiving a transparent,
blue-tinted bag and a receipt. I began
read her that night, finishing the next evening. I can easily say Stargirl is one of the best novels I have
ever had the pleasure of reading. I am
astonished Jerry does not claim the co-title of “poet,” like his wife, or
“storyteller,” or anything else, for he is all of these and more. Thank you, Jerry, for being such an amazing
writer and for sharing that with us all.
Returning to the task of this letter, reader, I ask
you to be patient. Not just with me,
but please be patient with your communities and yourselves. We are all human. In our divinity, we are imperfect. In our divinity, we are impure.
Please know I appreciate you taking the time to read these words,
thoughts, blessings, curses of mine.
You are the reason I have had the courage to perform the alchemy of
converting blood and tears to ink on paper.
Be well.
-gran
Acknowledgements
Without the support of my peers in the poetry community, none of this would have been possible. Without the love and care of my family and friends, I don’t think I would have had the courage and strength to survive this.
I want to thank the subjects of my foolish meanderings, especially Meaghan, Christine, Sarah, and Jayne. There are no words to describe my appreciation for you and the lessons I gleaned from our experiences. Thank you for your love. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your words. Thank you for your pain. I do love you. I hope that never changes. I wish you all nothing but strength and serenity. Be well.
One month, to the day, after Meaghan and I said goodbye, my grandfather, Leo Schein, surrendered to the undiscovered country, on 5 July 2001. Granddad, I thank you for your strength. I hope I have made you proud. You are missed. You are loved. Sleep well.
Mom, Dad, Ken, Anna, Gina, thank you. I don’t know how anyone could reasonably ask for a more supportive family than you have been to me. Though I have been nothing, if not human, to you, you have all been nothing, if not saints, to me. Thank you for your love and support.
To the late Rob Templeton, sleep well, my friend. Thank you for your tireless ability to brush aside my self-deprecating bullshit. Thank you for reminding me that, by very nature of the fact I am here, I have earned my right to be here. My daughter will know your name.
Missy… damn, kid, you did it… finally! I don’t know a better man for you. Woman, take care of your man, and tell him he better return the favor. God knows some of the lessons we learned on rainy nights in Houston have resurfaced again and again and you are always on my mind. Tell that man of yours to take a job here in Baltimore so I can see you more often. I want your kids to call me granma.
To the audience at SLAMicide and DC Slam, thank you. Please continue to support what we do, and please continue to give us this magic to support. You are all beautiful.
Finally, thank you, Brooke, for your encouragement. You rock. The mermaids stand with you.
I know there are more people to thank. My frailty imparts forgetfulness. You know who you are. If you think I am not talking about you, you are wrong. I extend thanks and praise to everyone reading these words, everyone hearing these words, everyone mentioned in these words, and everyone who is no longer with us to share these coffee-table prayers. Fallen heroes live on in the blood of our pens and the ink of our veins.
Dedication
A Lovely Treason is dedicated
to Chris August.
For more than a year, now, you have been a friend, a crutch, a shoulder, a rock, and a testament to humanity, to friendship, to love, to brotherhood, and to being a man. Though we call with different names, I know God hears us both. I believe you are the answer to so many of my prayers, questions, and meditations. You are truly a reason to believe in providence. So many times, you have put up with my bullshit. So many times, you have refused to put up with my bullshit. You have helped me resist mediocrity. You were an acquaintance when you arrived at SLAMicide and started slamming, and I was amazed by your eclectic passion. When we became friends, I realized you are more than a spastic art-fag, that your eccentricity is the only way for all that love and cynicism to seep out. Otherwise, you would shatter into dust. Your flesh and personality is one huge pressure-relief valve. When I was crawling out of the Christine Calamity, you were there with a helping hand. When I was flirting with the Sarah Situation, you were a not-so-easily ignored shoulder-pope, warning of the likelihood of disaster. When that prophesy proved true, you were the one to whom I could raise my voice without worrying you would misunderstand. Thank you for allowing me to scream out my frustrations. Thank you for not letting me yell for too long. Thank you for telling me when it had become too long. Thank you for not accepting my mediocrity. Thank you for not letting me sit down before I was done.
You are an amazing poet, performer, person, friend,
and so much else. I am glad to have you
in my life.
a
lovely treason
I
am a poet in the Baltimore Area. I work as a loan officer for a mortgage company.
I have self-published three collections of my poetry as the president of an
independent production company. I also participate in/ host Poetry Slams. My
favourite poem is "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock". I enjoy a
wide range of art forms, but have found my niche in performance poetry. In
accordance with the modern-bohemian description I have acquired, I can be found
most nights sitting at diners, making and talking to friends. This is not to
say that I can't have fun. I love snowball fights, skinny-dipping, playing
football on weekends with friends, fountain-hopping, and working on my cars. I
am not religious, but I am reasonably spiritual, and hold similar beliefs to
those of the Hare Krsnas. I consider myself open-minded and welcome to new
things. I love learning. I also love teaching. I do not believe in violence as
a disciplinary measure, nor do I believe that we are slaves to our biology. I
do not agree with the NRA, but I do feel that Charlton Heston is one of the
greatest men of our day. I do not believe in socially-conditioned gender roles,
and can often be found wearing skirts/ sarongs/ wraps. I hate foot-wear, but
feel that if you must wear it, do it right. I agree that spandex is a
privilege- not a right. I feel that the abs region will tell you everything
about the physical activities, but the eyes will tell you everything about the
internal activities. I am against discrimination. I am against the
death-penalty as a system, but accept that it is in the system currently, and
should thus be utilized to the extent for which it was designed. I am not
pro-abortion, but I feel that more respect needs to be shown to women who
choose/ require the procedure, and they should be protected by constitutional
amendment. I am against extremists. I like cats and dogs and have two of each.
I am envious of women for their ability to create life and carry two heartbeats
or more within them. I want to experience post-partum depression. Obligation is
the bane of my existance. If I do something, it is because I chose to do so-
not because you told me to. After I return and complete school, I plan to teach
High School English and Theatre, preferably in the central Baltimore County
area. Physically, I am appx. 5'8'', slim but strong for my size, brown wavy/
curly just-past-shoulder-length hair, grey-blue eyes, and flexible compared to
most of my friends. I am not a virgin, but I am clean of any and all STD's. Due
to a pregnancy-scare, I believe strongly in birth-control and am a strong
supported of chemical birth-control; if there were a pill I could take, I
would- I think it's more important to go upstream and restrict the ones who can
fertilize many, as opposed to the many who can carry (usually) only one. I have
no piercing or tattoos, but have plans to get two tattoos. I consider my life
an open book and that their are no taboos in conversation. Nicotine and
caffeine are my two vices. I smoke cigarettes and drink lots of coffee, but
that's about it. I do not use illegal drugs. I do not drink alcohol. I do take
medications responsibly. I am not against the moderate use of drugs and alcohol
by my friends or peers in general, but I do believe in the responsible use of
them if one does choose to partake.
Ideal
Person - I am looking for a woman in her late teens/ early twenties that would
like to go on a date. No obligation, no expectations, just the two of us.
However; that woman must also be open to the possibility of a long term
relationship. My taste in women is open, by my preference is that woman should
be confident, intelligent, and witty. She must enjoy art in whatever manner
strikes her and have a wide range of knowledge, and be able to carry on a
conversation. She must be able to sit at diners for hours, and be able to cope
with my ADD. She must also be able to harness that short attention span. She
must have a good idea of who she is and where she is going. She must have
passions. She also needs to be active. Willing to get dirty working outside or
in the garage. She must be able to physically "hold her own"; she
must be able to carry one end of a couch. She must be able to play football-
not necessarily well, but willing to participate. She can't be too strict about
schedules and must be willing for spontaneous escapades and random road trips.
If she doesn't like chocolate, that's okay- it means more for me. I like a
woman who smokes, love a woman who knows the beauty of a perfect cup of coffee.
I don't mind a woman who drinks moderately, or one that uses drugs of a
"friendly nature"- so long as it is not a regular occurrence or an
interference between her and anything else- especially her responsibilities.
Physically, my preference is 5'2'' to 5'8'', slender to average build-
generally petite, but strong for her size, brown hair, brown eyes, smooth pale
to tan skin, moderate sized breasts- they must fit the frame, piercing and
tattoos are intriguing and welcome. Slim abs. Must be reasonably flexible and
fit. I like a firm rear that is in proportion to the rest of the body. I like
curves. She needs to enjoy cuddling. She must be able to share a pillow and a
blanket. She must acknowledge the difference between 'sleeping with someone'
and 'having sex' with someone.
- - - - -
As an actor, I have often wanted to combine two of the things I love- Sex, and the Stage. My fantasy involves finally accomplishing this.
I run a small independent production company in Baltimore. I had just started dating a woman named Reilly. Having regaled her with my stories about my writing leading to the company, I wanted to show her my pride and joy which was our head office and dinner theatre.
We enter and I show her all around; the office, the dressing rooms, the prop rooms, the tech-booth. Finally descending upon the stage, I begin to describe the play that we are putting on. The set is of the interior of a suburban home, not unlike "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe?" We had set up walls representing a well-kept house. There is a coffee table, a throw rug, and a giant, tan, very cushy Couch.
At this point, Reilly decided that she didn't want to talk anymore. She grabbed me by my belt loop and pulled me to her lips. Within seconds, we were redecorating the set with our clothes; reupholstering the chairs with my pants, her bra becoming a lampshade. I attend to her breasts, admiring the soft skin, the firm tissue, the ripple of areolas, and the rising of the nipple as I paint her with my tongue. Her breaths become deeper as I move south, discovering her like Columbus, exploring her like Magellan. I find a spot on the side of her abs that makes her entire body shudder. She begins to moan as I make my way back up, giving attention to her neck and her ears, making her breathing become erratic; pulling in air between pauses of ecstasy.
She pulls away suddenly, pushing me on my side. Smiling an "I want you" smile, she throws me onto my back. Turning the tables, she makes me shake as she explores me, finding my buttons, and exploiting my vulnerability to the power of fingernails on my skin and lips on my nipples. She kisses her way down to the number one member in my fan-club, licking every inch of my rod, gently showing some attention to my gift-bag. I start to twist and moan as she takes all of me, sucking hard, teasing the tip with her tongue, moving like an acid dream. She is an absolute master, and in what seems like an instant of time, but an eternity of pleasure, I release with the power of a fire hydrant hit by a truck.
Pausing only seconds to catch my breath, I pull her to me, kissing her deeply. I can taste myself within her lips, and this excites me to no end.
Breaking the kiss, I head south again, stopping at the Gibraltar that is her breasts. I move between them- licking one while caressing the other. Her entire body is now twitching between light biting and soft suction on her erect nipples. Bidding farewell to her soft peaks, I meander toward her stomach, her hips, her legs, her power. Gently experimenting with my tongue, I cause her already ripe crown to rise more, the heat becoming intense. I continue licking her, pinching lightly with my lips against hers, pushing my tongue inside of her, moving faster and faster, holding her hips strongly as they begin bucking wildly. She grabs my hair with both hands, clamping her thighs around my head, breathing faster and deeper, in rhythm to my ministrations. Her breathing starts to flutter, as she starts to shudder. Like an old Mustang driving by, the roar of her orgasm starts soft- almost imperceptible against her wild movements, though building quickly. Suddenly her breaths stop, she becomes rigid. This freeze lasts only for a second before she explodes- heat burning my cheeks, her fluids streaming down my neck as I try to lap them up, a scream of pure pleasure erupting from her throat, her body vibrating with enough power to light Las Vegas for a month.
Releasing her thighs' grip on me, she grabs my shoulders and pulls me back to her. As I move up, she guides me in, sliding me between her. We move as one, both rocking in time to our solid breaths. Both completely covered in sweat and each other, we are slick and move well together, accelerating the thrusts, both moaning heavily now. She has her legs locked around my back and pulls me against her before letting me pull away, almost to the point of exit, then pulling me back in again. Faster and faster we move.
With both arms and both legs, she holds me against her and we become one in her beautiful screams and her vibrations. As she is ravaged by orgasm, I explode again. Our juices mix and run down both our legs, our heartbeats fluctuate in unison, our movements now halted as we revel in this other-worldly energy. I can feel our energy mixing, the electricity between us electrifying every inch of our bodies.
Still grasping each other, our breaths beginning to calm, our heartbeats returning to normal, our bodies slumping in release and exhaustion. We hold each other in this passionate embrace, kissing gently, feeling the cold air of the theatre against our evaporating sweat and excitement.
We take our time getting up and getting dressed, getting distracted several times in the process. As we finally walk out the door, heading back to my car and then my apartment, I start to wonder how I am going to explain to my Stage Manager why we need to buy a new couch.
- - - - -
Points pondering picking
Coffee pouring
Like a last breath
Before a kiss
I sip.
But I am only wasting time.
Onward to all great things
All things unknown
I realize the obsession
That once so possessed me is present no more
And in its place is simply
Existence
No regard for
Here or there
Or even where
My road will take me
But comfort is found
In coffee grounds
At a concrete bar
In a bookstore
- - - - -
We sit in pews as if in church
We wait for the interrogation to begin
And I hear their whispering behind me and to my right
But are they my neighbors?
Are they strangers?
Do they know me?
Do they know themselves?
More ‘strangers’ enter at the rear of the courtroom
And I am so nervous,
I am afraid I’ll vomit or pass my morning coffee where I now sit
The altar boys read in the front row
Uniforms tight across broad shoulders
And I fear my car will be towed if this takes too much longer.
I wonder what will happen.
I could describe this monastery of law,
But it would do no justice to the blind shadows and the divine imperfections.
Small things;
Mismatched chairs, missing flag, cables strewn wildly across counters.
Another altar boy enters,
Sits right in front of me,
I see that he has something on his back; under his shirt.
And his ears stick out.
And church is starting late.
This judiciary papal servant is hesitant.
My head is spinning.
I should have slept.
My eyes are burning.
Maybe they are red and I will be thrown out.
Add yet one more boy- the four musketeers.
Complete with Walter and Irving.
And the questions remain unanswered.
Only a response to the second attack
Still no knowledge of the first possession
I just want to go home,
Shower
And sleep.
This is leading to nothingness.
And if he has admitted to the second theft, but not the first,
Then who has Phillip?
Who has the road gear?
Who violated me?
The first could have been anyone,
But how did he get in the second time?
I was careful.
I locked my doors, right?
The line grows longer as “The System” tries to turn the stopwatch to secure a penalty box.
And I wonder how much these barristers are getting paid to be here.
More accusations fly behind me.
Does anyone know what’s going on here?
Where do we begin?
A woman has started sorting through the endless stack of papers.
I realize that I burned my tongue this morning while sipping at the coffee shop.
And I wonder if confessions really purify the soul
Or if they are only an excuse to sin on a clean slate,
Having cleared your plate of gristle.
Everyone seems confused.
My head is spinning
And I am tempted to take a nap.
We had a good conversation,
From NYPD to the BQE to the LIE
- - - - -
Snuffing out my cigarette, I realized I’ve been stood up.
When crushing out dying embers, three lost souls spilled from the ashtray.
It’s hard to think of new reasons I’m alone when the pitying eyes peer down at me repeatedly.
My hair has lost its hold.
My skin has lost its luster.
And I have lost my appetite, waiting for you to arrive.
Ex-lovers enter and walk by whispering to their new love about how I’ve “let myself go”.
Never one to give in that easily, I smile and wave,
Feigning congeniality,
Restraining tears.
This is so humiliating.
I am glad I brought my AmEx.
I pay for my coffee,
Tip the waitress well,
Leave you behind with my balled-up napkin
And my empty coffee mug.
- - - - -
I’m crushing hard
The way you talk
The steps you walk
And the way you hold me when we hug,
It’s crushing me.
I’m crushing hard.
Through your eyes,
I see originality,
A way of rewording clichés so they seem brand new.
Don’t dye your hair,
Crush that Clairol box!
I’m crushing hard for you.
Voice is smooth,
But with a little scratch like a vinyl record.
You spoke of nebulae while I made a cappuccino in my kitchen.
I am foaming milk for me.
I am crushing hard for you.
Read to me again;
I want to know who you are when you’re alone.
I want to know what you see in your sleep.
I want to be your lunchtime daydream.
I want to be able to give you flowers and maybe get some from you, too.
I want to be the one you write silly, undelivered letters to.
I want to see your eyes light up when I walk in the room.
When someone puts their arms around your waist,
I want you to know that those arms are mine.
I want to walk dogs together.
I want to have snowball fights with you,
And make snow angels,
And make snowmen in lude positions.
I want you to have a crush on me.
- - - - -
And I
wonder: do I dare?"
and I ask
myself
did I
talk too much about myself?
did I
show her that I noticed the luster of her skin?
Was I a
gentleman?
I think
if I was not these things
If I did
not do these things,
that she
would have left.
And still
I wonder
"do
I dare?"
I think I
should have asked her for her number
but I
didn't dare yet
I felt a
stone in my throat,
and
needing to free it,
I had to
walk away
I watched
her on the couch
sleeping
so peacefully,
and I
wanted to curls up with her,
but
instead
I placed
a blanket over her
I noticed
the way she moves when she talks
the way
her eyes mouth the phrases
as the
tongue paints them into the air.
I was
there on the bed
she was
there on the bed
we were
there
on my
bed,
but a
world apart
and
wanting to make that journey,
but
fearing that even eighty days
might not
be enough
fearing
the possibility of rejection,
I turned
away.
returning
to her,
I could
only see the curve of her back
I could
see the profile of her breasts,
two
inches of skin separating her shirt from her pants,
and those
two inches were beckoning me.
Her leg
draped casually over her other leg,
and how I
miss being able to reach for that
but do I
dare?
how I
miss being able to join into that
but do I
dare?
how I
miss being able to fall into deep eyes
but do I
dare?
In the
room the women come and go
talking
of Michelangelo
and we
read Eliot in the living room
discussed
his word choice
and she
curled on the couch saying nothing
and I
wanted so to join her
but I
didn't dare
so I left
a blanket
and a
smile
and I
went upstairs.
- - - - -
“Why do you like me?”
She asked as she sat on his thighs with her arms around his waist.
He blushed and leaned in to kiss her, to which she withdrew and asked again,
Without moving her lips
He stuttered an answer, leading to the truth:
“You have something behind your eyes that calls to me”.
Satisfied of her question,
They roamed across carpeted floors in their rolling embrace,
Winding up on cotton sheets,
Conversing,
Sharing stories and lips
With hands on hips and tongues on fingertips-
Then a halt.
She gently pushed him away, holding herself back.
They talked until her smooth skin soothed him to sleep
He smiled at the way she breathed
And the way her feet made the sheets quake.
When she, too, rose, he saw a sun rise in her eyes
And he practically dies just thinking about it.
She curls into him, and they talk a little more
Before rising and descending to make sure they aren’t
Being rude.
- - - - -
He stood there painting words in our eyes
And my heart capsized at his story.
He was there on a concrete stage with the world as his audience,
And we stood until our feet slept and our eyes flared with amazement,
Watching him slide through non-sequiters like Gemini.
He told us of the solid love of just one of a few good men.
A love so strong…
A love so powerful…
An explosive love that possessed him to shed wind through her heart before doing the same to his own head.
He told us of the way things used to be:
So free,
But that was before the Sirens beckoned him
Against the rocks
And beat him until his
Sea – ing
Ran red.
As a hippie compelled with the love perpetuated by the Leary that is not Dennis, and the pain described by the William that is not Clinton,
He would not raise a fist to give himself shelter from the bombing raid that was their motto:
“Serve and Protect”.
And he told us of his fifteen-year walkabout that taught him a few things:
A) Brothers will deny you three times if Their Father was not the one who was buried.
I) If it has a ground-level entrance, they will lock it or knock it down.
D) The dumpster behind Safeway gets emptied every Tuesday night at 3 AM.
S) The hardest thing in life is not guilt, not forgiveness, neither prayer nor penance.
The hardest thing in life is living with the One Thing, that when you have It, No one will give It to you; and you can Share It with anyone, but you can never
Give It Away.
- - - - -
It’s that same feeling…
Like…
Vodka.
Except this time I am drunk and I haven’t yet had a sip. There’s the burning in my chest and I want a drink so bad-
But I resist
And hold back
While I hold her back
In the palms of my hands
(which are covered in oil)
(but her skin is so smooth that I don’t even need it)
She tenses as I touch
As I chase away the tension
With the rhythmic kneading of her dough
Like…
Marbles-
I am spinning her in my hands
And I want to reach inside her
I want to BE one of the marbles in this pouch
But I touch another hard muscle
That is growing harder from the fear
While I am growing harder from the energy
And it is getting harder to think
Because
Now she is sitting up-
Now she is talking-
Now she is touching my hair-
Now I am falling forward-
Now I am falling for her-
Now I am-
Now she is-
Now WE Are-
And there’s that fire again
Searing my lungs my heart my skin my lips
She is touching my hips
And my hand grips
Supple flesh as the sweat drips
From my side
And I am sweating even more on the inside
Because this bag o’ marbles
Has spilled onto her side
And over me-
She is passionately
Embracing my tongue with her own
And I am so afraid-
Am I a good kisser?
Does she like the way my lips taste?
Do I have bad breath?
Does she want my hands again
On her back
Pulling her into me
As she pulls me against her
And we are
runningrunningrunning
Toward a destination not far from here
And yet on the other side of the clock
And the world
And she is walking away
But spins
Steps
Whispers…
“Thanks for the coffee.”
- - - - -
Speechless and stumbling
He stutters forward
Toward her
Shapely form
Sitting on the floor
Of his living room.
He drops his packages
Drops to his knees
Drops his resistance
To her power.
Cupping her head in his hands
He drinks from the
Holy Grail that is her lips.
- - - - -
It is just as my first time on the mic.
I am so nervous and my heart is sounding a cacophonous battle cry.
I am stepping up to the microphone
I can hear my breath, heavy on the sound system, echoing from the walls to the coffee cups
The air is thick and smoke-lined but I am breathing fine and I can
SMELL
The poetry from across the room.
I bring my lips to the microphone and the speakers squeal in feedback and I hear heavy breathing as the poetry strips me of my armor and I lay bare- shattered in ecstasy and I can’t move-
I am so Nervous.
And I want to be poetry- I want to be ONE with her
But I am afraid, so I throw myself into a silver-screen fantasy
Running from the reality of the stage
and the inspiration steps back-
huddled in disappointment-
so I disrobe my words-
that only the truth be evident
and no more hiding from my self.
I see that this mistress,
Poetry,
Is a LIE,
An ACT,
A Façade.
This Art is Life and
This Microphone is Truth and I want to become ONE with the Truth- I want to embrace this Life and my senses peak- I am living in clip. I wrap this Art into me and I am thrown around the stage, but I am the only audience and I see that
Poetry is Art and
Art is Life and
I Understand now they are ONE and THE SAME and I want so bad to do Art justice with the perfect poem- to paint a Tchaikovsky ballet on this stage with my words and the sounds from the mic get louder and I embrace Life and I dance with the Microphone stand and my lips are spreading a filmstrip on the mic and I want so bad to Be that Perfect 30 I want so bad to be ONE with this Life but I am so afraid so the only thing I can do is Tease Life with my fingertips and the point of my pen and I am so afraid
That Life will deny my inspiration
That Art will shun my devotion
That Poetry will discard my love as meaningless ranting
And I will be left
Naked and Shivering
But I tread forth like Cortez in Mexico
And I am so afraid,
But I gather the strength to throw life to the mat and pin poetry to the wall
Diving in with reckless abandon
I am naked but for my sweat sheen as I make three minutes last an eternity
Because time and space are suspended while we flow through assonance and alliteration
Onomatopoeia and syllabics and I am so afraid of finding rejection from Life and being denied three times by Art or destroying Poetry and all that she is
So I focus-
On paying homage to Calliope
I drop to my knees to both feed and share nectar and ambrosia
And the microphone drips with honey and sweat as I continue my dance of praise-
Gratitude to the gGods for placing this Poetry, this Art, this Life in my hands and in my heart and in my soul
And in my pleas,
I beg her not to stop-
To give me more
To never stop blessing me with my muse
To never stop flooding me with inspiration
To never stop feeding me lines like a drug-addict
Because these are my sin-dens
These are my squatter’s rights
This room
This stage
This microphone
Silence
Pause
Shudder
When I catch my breath and the judges have quieted themselves
I return to the stage
And it is
Constant
Unwavering
Never stopping
And yet new and always different
But somehow familiar
And STILL I am so nervous
I remember stealing shots of Stoli from my Dad’s liquor cabinet
And even that feels like a dream
A film about ghosts
And I move southbound
On the roller-coaster of Poetry
As Art continues to lick my ears and pull at my heart
I feel like Oedipus when I sing
Because I am making love to Poetry and Life, but I am of this Art, and I revel in the touch of her words. I slay the daemons of fear and the vodka-fire rages in my chest as I bury myself for the fifth time into this Life and I am wrestling with the microphone- trying to make the eternal sound, and I don’t feel OM, but I feel that this is right- this Life and I are ONE- we are Righteousness Forever-
Sannathana Dharma
We are Righteousness Forever
So I am on my knees in reverence to this Art form that is Life and we are swirling in some astral place I cannot feel the stage anymore I have no flesh I have become ONE with Poetry and for a moment
it is pure art
pure energy
the only sound is my breath on the speakers
the only touch is my lips on the microphone
the only smell is my sweat on the stage
the only energy is my love in this art.
- - - - -
I miss the seductive teardrop of your navel.
It’s salty taste like to blood of your ancestors
And the ocean at dawn.
I hunger for your touch on my shoulder
Sitting peacefully
listening
- - - - -
Conversations with sleep
Are interrupted frequently by
Insomnia
Thoughts of
Your eyes
Your hair
Your touch
Your skin
Your power
Over me
On the inside of my eyelids
I watch you converse
See you scribble disoriented poetry
In your journal
Hear you snore
ever so softly in your sleep
as our bodies occupy the same space
our hair still wet
from the artificial summer rain
of my tile lagoon
- - - - -
Close your eyes
Listen to me
close your eyes
open your heart
listen to me
to be with you I have suffered
to be named Montague
because we danced
Close your eyes.
Open your heart.
Listen soft.
These words I have chanted a thousand times
In a hundred languages
None that have translated
I have held onto visions of your hair for hours of twilight sleep
Where thoughts of
Bruised knees and
Coffee bars
Play across my ceiling
I wake up after bare seconds of sleep
Searching the sheets for you
And longing to feel the warm afterglow of your body
Begging to hear the soft padding of your feet in the hallway
And with glances across long rooms
And soft touches
- - - - -
She says “drive you crazy bitch”
And laughs at my reaction
So I shift into first
And pop the clutch-
Sending smoke screens to the past
She says
“drive you crazy bitch
I don’t care where
Anywhere
Nowhere
Somewhere
Who cares?
Just Drive”
So it’s pedal to the floor
Radio cranked
Windows down
Wind in hair
And the open road
Radio stations fade
So we have discs
And Ani says
“You just gotta drive”
And the mistakes on the past generation
Fade like the radio stations
The bruises on my arm from discipline
Have healed
The welts on my backside from belts
Have disappeared
The animosity I once felt for those lessons
The time-outs
The grounding
The chores
Has changed into gratitude
For teaching me how to live
She says
“Drive you crazy bitch
Anywhere
Nowhere
Somewhere
Who Cares?
Just Drive”
“You just gotta drive”
and I see within her so much of that resentment
but I know she will be a good mother
I see strength beyond words held back by a need for confidence
I see in her femininity that bridges the gap of our gender obligations
I see in her the power of creation that I will never know
I see in her love waiting to be unearthed in the archeological dig of our lives
I see in her the voracious intellectual appetite of youth coupled with wisdom beyond years
She says
“Drive you crazy bitch!
Nowhere
Somewhere
Anywhere
Who cares?
Just drive!”
Ani’s on the radio,
Telling me to drive
And the mistakes will fade the way 103.1 fades in Baltimore
I apologize when my truck breaks down and she simply replies
“Fuck you.”
“Fuck you and your apologies.
If this is the product of your choices,
Your so-called mistakes,
Then so is my presence here
And I’ll be damned if that’s a mistake!”
Today there is only asphalt and the open windows
The sunroof welcomes blinding rays of glory from the sky as the clouds part to grant our way to tomorrow
She writes incessantly in the passenger seat,
Scratching out the potholes
And we’re heading to New York,
South to unlock the doors
West to the sunset
East to the sunrise
Anywhere but here
Not running from,
But running to something.
We’ll know when we get there.
She says,
“You just gotta drive”
- - - - -
I can’t say I won’t leave her
Because she is alone.
I can’t say I won’t hurt her
Because she has bruises from someone else on her heart
I can’t say I won’t lie
Because she has never heard truth
She leans into my touch and pulls me to her kiss before she walks away to the car.
I watch her, noticing the curve of her hips, outlined by her wind-blown shirt
Her hair flickers gently in the breeze, like willow groves in cool spring sunsets
We talk about deities and politics over coffee and cigarettes in diners all over this town
“That’s ‘cause I’m a…
Sister, I’m a…”
In poetry, I often wish to whisper, “I love you,” but I fear that will lead to the pain of the past
The fire rages in my chest, thinking of ways to show her that I am here, open to her.
To show her I will never leave until she tells me to go
To show her I will never be untrue- in words or deeds
To show her I am scared to death of these feelings crashing down upon me like the Red Sea to Egyptians, but that I am extending my hand in the hope she will hold it.
I want to Show her I will give her the stars if she asks for them, because words are meaningless these days.
I can’t Say I won’t leave because she has been alone before.
I can’t Say I won’t lie because she has never heard truth.
I can’t Say I won’t hurt her because the bruises on her soul from knuckles not of my hands are still healing
I can’t Say I am scared because I need strength, but I don’t know how to ask for help
I can’t Say any of this.
I am no warden, and my arms are not steel bars,
But she steals my heart every time she enters my cell.
The thought that I was ever without her is absurd, the way our world according to Euclid is a red rubber ball, but the whole world said it was a saltine.
It feels Right when she is in my bed.
Our skin touches and in the place of skin,
There is pure
energypoetryelectricitylove
I awake to her, soft and delicate, curled sweetly in her dream
And this feels Right.
I can’t fathom the thought of anyone else in her place, anyone ever having been there,
Anyone but her
In my fantasies, I can see that we will be together happily for eternity
In my fantasies, I can watch our children play and grow and go to school, while I teach next door
In my fantasies, I can picture anniversaries spent on balconies along Lake Shore Drive, Central Park West, and Montrose Boulevard
In my fantasies, I can see us managing our coffee bar, while the artisans and freaks paint each other green under our lights
In my fantasies, she is the milk to my cereal
The butter to my bagel
The sunset to my evening
Bob Dylan around a campfire with friends
The Marshmallow on my s’mores
but I can’t say any of this
and I know not the way to show her these things
so if I am sometimes quiet,
you will know why
my tongue bears my teeth marks.
- - - - -
I saw your face lit by pale moonlight
While we sat on the shoulder of the highway
We joked about ice cream and weight gain
While we waited in the back of my truck
Fantasies about ways to greet the driver danced with the smoke that filled our lungs and my car and for a few moments, I could not see anything beyond the windows.
We were alone
Separate from the rest of the universe
I could see more nights like this-
Nights in a car visiting all the places we’ve never been or to which we wish to return
Nestled on the shoulder of I-10 somewhere between Texas and tomorrow, we’ll feel the sun rise, blanketing us in a new day.
We’ll deep-dish while spooning.
We’ll find a place where we won’t need a car,
But we’ll have one anyway as a Plan “B”.
- - - - -
And whatever became of foreplay?
I stroke your legs under the table,
One to either side of my knees
And gripping the supple flesh of calves tells the story of sacrificing time and distance for reverence and worship within the temples of our flesh.
We wander through the evening upon magic carpets of conversation at fire-side gatherings, poetry readings, and coffee-houses – the temples of mind and spirit.
I have faith that there is salvation within your eyes.
I believe that I am gGod
And you are gGod
And we are gGod
And we are Titans when we love.
We are comfortable under a pure white sheet with fluorescent lighting the corner of my room, vibrating to the music of Cat Stevens
“ooh, baby, baby, it’s a wild world”
And the other song really is about a mouse-
If you believe it to be.
I know that this ink is the blood that courses through your veins,
And that when I taste you,
I can taste the blood of a million poets before you
Within you.
- - - - -
What it all means, I know not.
The day hidden by rain clouds, I wonder the lessons to be learned by living my life and loving my labors.
I see that, even in a rainstorm, fires can rage, sending tendrils of flame into the air.
Prayer or penance?
Does the rain threaten to quench the lovers’ thirst, or does the fire rebel against the darkness?
Exorcisms on unnamed daemons in the chambers of insomnia
Washing away fears with Captain Unisom and another wet pillow
I am afraid of my shadow,
So I use a 300mg blue shield everyday
To stay well
And turn the other way
Our shadows have become one in the cloudy noon,
Mingling with those of the automobiles and the diners
And in that unity, I become afraid.
She says, “The rain means nothing tonight. Let the fire burn. I can’t promise it will be burning in the morning, but for now…”
And trails off as she nestles into my arm.
She calls me her daemon, her left ventricle, her right lung, her softest parts.
My heart stops, my breath freezes.
I pull her closer, thinking that if I am inside her,
If she is inside me,
The rain could stop.
But, ‘Certain things, like cold, do not wash away,’
And my breath is still frozen as I try to take my place in her chest, begging for an end to the rain.
On days like this, I forget to wear my One-by-Three and my Two-One-None armor, and the rain soaks me, also.
I try to be her shelter, to pull her into me, to instigate the blaze ever further, but,
‘The world is an animal’ which I must tiptoe around while she walks with palms upturned, stretched out, waiting for it to ‘lap up with a street-growl-hiss… to take a sniff’.
Journals provide fitting quotes to anecdotes and poetic notes we share at diners over coffee cups and ashtrays. No bill, but four dollars down and the short trip to my house.
And I want to be fodder for the flames, to live like Daniel forever in this room, and Cat can scat with Bob and Ani and REM can overtake us, swallow us in to dream forever in this white-walled fortress that knows no darkness
that knows no shadows
that knows no rain.
It has been too long since that ‘archeological dig’. I am still counting the marbles, but I have left the excavation- afraid of what I might find. I can afford that no more. I will return to the temple, take one of those marbles, spin it in my hand, ‘place it in [my] mouth, ricochet it tooth to tooth’.
The rain comes and it goes- and the fire wavers uncertainly, still being fueled by bloodstreams in the mist, as I ‘take up arms against a sea of troubles’ hoping ‘by opposing [to] end them’ and ‘we will be free once more. We will be Free once more. We will be… free’
To live forever in this room, in these sheets, burn the tools and place their heads on platters, for this excavation will take place exploring bodies ‘with blunt fingertips’ or sharp nails ‘maybe nothing is sharp enough’, but we will explore minds with irises and pupils. I want to dive into the wishing wells of her eyes, so I pull her closer.
Words fail me, leading me to steal the words of other poets to pull together my incoherent thoughts. So I pray that she still drinks ‘from [my] breath on her lips when we kiss.’
- - - - -
And the pain comes screaming through her pen as she writes words that no one will read.
And who are you to say these things? I’m no child; hell, I’m smarter than you. These whales fly over Rodney because my tongue is in a mason jar.
We had a date to watch the sunset,
But because she was Gretel, not Hansel, I am forced to be a ‘love-struck Romeo’ without a balcony.
Roses wilt on car seats in the hot pre-summer sun and my guitar strings fade a little toward flat from the heat.
I should have been at work but the overview was too slow, and my heart too fast, so I find my old balcony, only finding the Nurse.
We talk.
We laugh.
We eat.
I find fuel for new flames, and throw in my onion smell and her eggs, and a bit of salsa- just for an added touch.
From where I stand now, her window is to the East and I keep our date though she rests for now and the sun is hiding behind the West.
Padding down the hallway in my naked socks, having pulled everything over my face, I found a mirror and seeing that I was a raccoon, I transformed into an angel with just a sweep of my hands.
And they say I can’t send messages to the stars because I can’t tip the judgment that far.
I sense my own stench, having not bathed in so long, and I start to smell…
Onions.
Quit asking me so many goddamned questions! I don’t have the answers you’re looking for, but I have the ones you want to hear, of the ones I need to hear, why isn’t he here, why is she near, why am I so full of fear?
This shit can’t fool me! You fucks are children!
If I want to pour my heart out into my journal, what’s that to you?
And don’t you dare go into my room, don’t you dare go into my diary,
Pandora, don’t open that box
So there are no more questions, I’ll pretend to take in all of this bullshit they serve, and I’ll purge my thoughts on my own time.
And, damn it, I have a date,
Don’t you see?
He’s waiting for me
He saved me a seat,
He couldn’t possibly
Be that great,
Could he?
‘He’s singing the streets a serenade’ ‘cause I’m late.
I wonder if she can see me down here.
Did she hear my laments for our love?
Can I hold her tomorrow?
This is scary, don’t you understand?
Love is scary, man!
I’m so far out of the loop, because I’m still a Montague, though her nurse helps me sneak in.
Who knows what thoughts she sees in her head when she sleeps in her bed? I cannot be led into that chamber of dreams.
It seems to me that her seams are splitting, so I wean myself from our social group.
I sleep for both of us, taking a pillow and a puppy as a poor but adequate substitute for her body.
I finish my song and notice that the sun has fallen.
“There he goes,
There he goes again
Racing through my brain
And I just can’t contain
This feeling that remains”
Because I stood him up, he’s getting on with his life, and that’s just one more man to walk away from me.
He leaves roses, like this is a mortuary or a cemetery.
And this is why I greet him in costume; meet him in disguised affectations-
So he won’t have to spend picnics alone in the sunset while I watch from my window.
But I’m here, aren’t I?
When I say, “I love you,” I mean that I will help you when you fall.
It means that you can say anything, and I will only love you more.
For
That is real.
That is love.
Don’t you think I’m scared, too?
Don’t you think it scares me to think that I am willing to put my life in the hands of someone who doesn’t even want her own?
If you can’t trust that I won’t run from you, than what do you mean when you say you love me?
And no, I’m not mad.
I’m just sad
To think that you mean so much to me but so little to yourself, but so much to me.
You are incredible and beautiful when you sleep and when you wake, so how could you take that with you?
Yeah, it’s selfish, but I want to hold you, to have you.
I want you to come on to my house.
I want you in that chair in the sunset and I want to hand this flower to you, instead of placing a wilted bud on a sign that it’s time for me to go-
For now.
Your nurse is calling you to dinner.
Sleep well.
And remember, I don’t run when I’m afraid, otherwise, Tybalt would still walk among us.
I leave these flowers and these lines as a sign
that I’ll be back tomorrow.
- - - - -
Mon petite chou,
Needless, but said anyway is that this was definitely an unexpected barrier to our relationship. Nonetheless, I think it is a necessary step. Regardless of how we may feel about each other, we as individuals must be healthy in order for any relationship between us to be healthy.
So, ENJOY! Experience! I know I’ll sound like a cross between Stewart Smalley and Richard Simmons, but this world has so much to offer if only we can see. So many people love you, among whom I am one, and we want nothing more that to see you healthy. I want nothing more than to see you smile. And, yes, of course my insecurity wants me to think that I could not have had an impact great enough to make you smile that much, but I believe you when we kiss. I understand in your touch.
You have had a profound effect on my life, simply in the few weeks we’ve known each other, and for that, I am and will forever be grateful.
At this point, having already received so much from you; compassion, affection, self-esteem, love; I can ask nothing more of you than to use this time to get well.
Yes, it’s on foreign soil, with strange neighbors, but the environment you were released into is not healthy for you, or conducive to your mental well-being.
And there are no fingers to point. Pick yer nose. Relationships are two sided. Part of getting well at this point is to recognize where you contributed to the unhealthy homeland environment. I have done the same with our relationship, for what its worth at this point. But, rather than focus on past mistakes and indiscretion, we all (you, your mom, me) need to focus on growth and stability- that you will return to an environment that can support you.
You are so incredibly talented and intelligent, funny, beautiful, soft- you have so much to give and share, but perhaps you gave too much, or didn’t see how much the world is offering you. At this point, as I have already said, Be Selfish! Right now, it’s all about you. Want it or not, we’re giving you all we can. I am throwing tools at your feet, but it’s up to you to pick them up and use them. Family is the bulldozer of all big toys, and you may not see it, but all the anger and frustration your mother deals with and deals out is because of how much she loves you. Otherwise, she would not pressure you to do well; she would not have kept your art stuff from kindergarten…
I don’t know… I am kind of trailing off at this point, but the point I am trying to make is that you can make it. There is so much for you to look forward to, and I hope that this time finds you well.
Do what you need to do.
I love you.
- - - - -
It’s a cool summer night
And I make wilted dandelions explode
With wishes for music
We’re swimming naked in this world,
Hidden in the darkness
Through the clear water,
I can see my toes
We wander,
Hand-in-hand,
Through the slimy mud until the water begins to pool in my navel
We turn, lock eyes, both so high we’re afraid to look down
Count of three and drop to the side
Rise like typhoons from the water
Screaming in joy
Screaming for air
We swim to a tree on the other side of the shaded cove,
Into the moonlight,
Where we talk,
Each breath sending ripples into the star sheen of the lake
The conversation tenses and relaxes,
Words like mood-swings about our pasts and our destinations
I sit on a fallen bough,
Looking down into a pair of eyes that ask to kiss me…
But I know I shouldn’t allow that.
Obligations to people far away hold me to my answer
And the eyes’ mouth begs for a story
I begin to tell those ears about trial and error in past relationships,
Then I listen for a while
Our histories have become faerie-tales for midsummer nights
As our bodies move near and far around throbbing heartbeats
We return to our clothes,
Where those hands dry my goose-pimpled flesh with a t-shirt
Again, there is heavy air, and we take our time getting dressed.
Sitting in the car, we turn on the heat to warm our skin
And our conversation continues to wander across the vast expanses of our lives
My heart is pounding as I reach for a pair of feet,
Massaging the tension from the toes,
And drawing moans from lungs
We dance with the various junk in the car,
Settling back on the deck of the station-wagon,
My head on a shoulder,
An arm around my back
I can hear a heartbeat surging below my pillow
And I feel a pair of lips on my forehead
Choosing to forget my obligatory response to this question,
I change my answer,
Pulling against a jaw line that opens to my kiss,
Allowing me into a mouth
As four hands scan limbs and clothes for answers to more questions that go unanswered by words,
Letting actions imply and confirm intent
Sweat drips down the inside of the windows
As body heat rises and clothes drop
Not a single inch of skin isn’t kissed and caressed fluids mix along the folds of skin and upholstery
We take turns being Atlas; each lifting the world above our heads plunging down into each other we are floating in the pre-dawn air of this automobile and rug burn becomes a forgotten reality
Flesh moulds together
Sweat sears eyes
Nails plow skin
Teeth pinch ridges across the terrains of our bodies
We drink of each other to replace lost fluids
We tremble in excitement when thighs hide eyes
We roll like pool balls
I throw ribs down
Leaning above a bare chest
Tasting pale purple and glistening red
Hours jog by the windows,
And we hear their footsteps on the pavement
I duck down every time I hear the beasts roll by,
Laughing at the absurdity,
But I forget soon enough-
Distracted by the pulsing of hips and lips and fingertips
I want this to go on forever,
But I know this will end all too soon
The sunlight casts rainbows across our bodies,
Reluctantly returning our clothes to our salty landscapes,
We pull away into the sunlight,
Chilly as the sweat still evaporates from our eyes
I hear that I taste exquisite,
And reply that
Those lips were the first to know
- - - - -
Sitting at the bar of the Nuyorican,
Thinking about a poet who should own that mic,
I long for her.
I miss poetry whispered in our sex,
While moonlight sang to us through the window.
I miss the soft of her love
Her hair
Her eyes
Her skin
Dressed loosely in t-shirt and ripped jeans
She would curl on my couch while I cooked a pair of cappuccinos in the kitchen
And in my memorial thoughts,
My chest burns
With desire for her touch
In her silence are unlit candles and Jackson Pollock journal entries of ink and blood
Anarchy and Adultery burn alphabets into her footsteps,
Though the DJ assures her that only the act was illegitimate
I cry because she can no longer weep
And the pain has seared blisters into her fingertips
Making her unable to use the tools we so gingerly place at her feet
As offerings
She thinks- incorrectly-
That she has done wrong,
So she sends herself to bed without her supper
She doesn’t think she has earned her breakfast, either,
So she refuses to keep it down,
Choosing to hold in her pain,
Instead.
Fear and dissolution build walls faster than lovers can build shelters
And she gathers an army of blue lullabies to sing her a reggae hymn.
To the syncopated beat of the rum
And the steel drums
She changes into light robes,
Being considerate to those who might have to
Dis- Cover
Her.
Scanning her room for what she hopes to be the last time,
She reminisces on concerts and record stores,
Diners and coffee bars,
Poets and playwrights,
Celibacy and sex,
Grease and grass…
Hearing the upbeat
Of her downplay,
She pads down the hall
To tell her mother goodnight.
Waking to the blinding sunlight
Of the emergency room
She adds this attempt to the list of failures
That already plagues her self-esteem
- - - - -
“If this is flying,
I shall never really take to it.”
-Whinny the Pooh
They say that,
In love,
We are birds
Soaring through melodious days
And clouds
And skies;
That red stars paint the air in dreams;
That there are no secrets between lovers;
That no pain is too much to share;
That no hurt is too much to bear
what happens when we stop flapping our wings?
- - - - -
I whisper the words to
“Goodnight Elizabeth”
under my breath,
knowing that she is out of ear-shot,
no matter how loud I might scream.
I pray that she is happy.
I hope that she is okay.
My world may never know.
- - - - -
For Leo Schein
2 August 1928 – 5 July 2001
As the wax filled the mold of the moon,
He told us that it was time.
Turn on the radio.
Leave on the lights.
Lock the door.
It’s been that way since before man took the small steps to build the form,
Why should things be different now?
Though he knew his hands would not turn the key the next time.
Thinking now, I know that all the other times had been practice.
Reconnaissance in the Undiscovered Country,
Origami Cartography for the real
Ship-out Date
Candles were lit and Rabbis called;
They knew it was to be the longest night.
He knew whose voice was on the line.
It told him not to worry,
That it was time.
No more pain.
No more fear.
In his hands, he held love; Wife and Child.
He nodded,
Signaling for the windows to be opened,
And the door to be closed.
He said
This time,
Turn off the lights.
Turn off the radio.
There’s no need to lock the door,
Just hold in the memories by closing it lightly.
-----
Overlooking the water’s reflection of a full moon,
We lay him to rest
We-
His wife, with whom he shared half a century of love
His six surviving siblings, some of who knew him his entire 72-year life
His seven children, who knew him as Father, Provider, Caretaker, Commanding Officer, and Friend
His 16 grandchildren; we knew him as many things, also.
I knew him as a Navy man who devoted his life to his family and his country. Working on the ships, he knew astronauts and discipline.
He was a storyteller, and I remember the stories… A sick father and a slab of meat… a trip to the swimming pool and the sister of his intended date, who went in her stead… reading material and red cheeks at the PX…
His freedom came immediately after his country’s day of independence.
There will be no more battles for him to fight- there is more than one way to beat Leukemia. He did it without tubes or tools. Sometimes, we must surrender to win.
-----
Under a moon waning like our sorrow, I will leave the smell of azaleas behind.
I shall be naked, with only the tattoos of memory covering my skin.
They say that when we are gone, we have yet to be forgotten, and that is truth.
He left us with a legacy that will stretch across this road until long after my own wheels have stopped turning, and I will not forget.
I will remember those eyes and that accent.
I will miss being chided about going back to school, and cutting my hair.
We will leave this city like an exploding star; all to our own galaxies.
And like the dust of stars, we are all of the same energy.
The blood that fills these veins is the same blood that flowed within this great man.
The love that fills my heart began with the love that filled his.
Love that we have all shared, share now, and shall continue to share until long after this moon has begun again.
- - - - -
Two lines of starshine
Form on the blacktop of I-64
Heading into Richmond
Fluctuating between 80mph and dead
The only convenient thing being
The rest-stop-sized shoulder
So I can pit when we stop
- - - - -
Depression sets in quick,
But the writer’s block lingers.
I am not afraid to be this man before you.
I am not afraid to lie in my bed to this woman because I cannot sleep.
I am not afraid to lie to your eyes and claim to be fine.
I am not afraid to lie on my floor until the parquet absorbs my flesh and I won’t worry about work or my car or how she’s doing today.
I am not afraid to be naked, whether literally or figuratively because
this is my body
this is my blood
one blood
one body
This is mine.
love me
leave me
fight me
fuck me
fear me
I am not afraid of
your thoughts
your deeds
your words
your looks
but I am afraid of my room;
the hollow of my bed
the blank stare of depression,
looming beside my nightstand
I am afraid of the chaos of anxiety in the bar-district of my chest.
I am afraid of this ink revealing the truths behind my metaphors.
My fear leads me staring down the barrel of
Number nine
And with her,
Two months have brought me from
Two thirds of this
And yet I feel like
Half a man.
I am afraid of realizing the futility of my tears and my fears.
- - - - -
and the chair is empty beside me.
I am whole,
But my world is incomplete without you.
When she was in my bed, I knew it was wrong.
This is not My Bed.
This is Your Bed,
This is Our Bed,
And she does not belong here.
You belong here,
On this bed that has traveled years and miles with me.
This bed found its home beneath your skin.
I belong within your kiss.
The world needs you.
I found the end of the sidewalk when you went away.
Sixty days without your voice,
Sixty nights without your touch
My morning is empty when I wake
Next to the absence of your body
We dropped phrases that were never picked up,
And I wonder what could have been if you had heard.
Like chocolates in a box, you chose the dark when I offered you a cordial.
You never truly understood when I said,
“I love you,”
In a thousand ways
In a hundred languages,
When I begged you to stay.
The world needs you.
I am whole, but my world is lacking.
The sidewalk should never end.
This is the part where I should hum a hymn of loss,
But you are not dead.
A tornado carried your body from this place,
But you dropped your memory here.
Your scent lingers in my closet and my car.
I can still feel your hair,
I still see your eyes when I close mine,
And your touch still rests on my skin.
I am whole.
It is my world
That is broken.
- - - - -
Subsequent turns at a diner jukebox
Deliver us hours
Of cancer-death and distraction
We sit and contemplate the greater meaning of
Saturday cartoons
It is the loss of our youth that we mourn
- - - - -
Mr. Murphy,
Please allow me to start by thanking you and your family from the bottom of my heart for opening your home and your lives to Meaghan. I appreciate your care and concern, and I trust that all is well.
I am sure this letter comes as a surprise, but this method was necessary- due to Ms. Murphy’s animosity toward me. Know there is neither malice nor hostility on my part toward Ms. Chris; frustration, yes- but only good intentions. I do not criticize her feelings, because I understand from where they stem, and I hope that one day she and I will be able to sit on a balcony in laughter again.
Due to the “Ken Harris Incident”, a detective with the Cockeysville Precinct of the Baltimore County Police Department has contacted me. Detective Reddy has informed me that Ms. Murphy would consider any contact from me to her an act of aggression, and that she would take what she considers appropriate counter-actions. Because I cannot go through her, I have chosen to contact you directly.
The most legitimate reason for my communiqué is the retrieval of a serviceman’s journal that was in Meaghan’s possession shortly before her situation back in May. It is a small, green journal with the diary of a soldier during what my memory tells me was World War II. The journal belongs to my housemate, Denise, who would like it back. There is no extreme rush to have it back on her shelf, but at the very least, she would like to know the status of the book.
Unrelated to the journal, I am curious as to the status of this situation. When Meaghan left, she said the plan was for her to return after four to six weeks; however, according to an extremely inflammatory letter from her mother to my mother, there are no plans whatsoever for Meaghan to return to Maryland. Please understand that I am not trying to manipulate the situation. I understand the brevity and the sensitivity of the factors involved, and that this letter alone might be inappropriate, and if I am imposing, I apologize. The end result of all of this talk is that I have no idea what is going on. I had a quite a lot of unexpected err… shall we say “developments” during that week back in May, and in my stupefied, confused state, I fear I may have missed some information. What I would like to know- at the very least- is if and when should I expect to see Meaghan again?
I still care very much for Meaghan and I miss her a great deal. I am still prepared to do anything in my power to support her. I am not simply referring to the factors involved in the attempts back in May. Rather, I am now looking at simple day-to-day support and mutual growth of and between two individuals. I accept that a relationship may not exactly be the best thing for her right now, which I can understand; having several times been in those shoes she so delicately wears, so I will respect any decisions made. She and I would of course need to talk and get to know each other again before the possibility of a relationship is even discussed. I have been going through a great deal of introspection over the past three months; analyzing so much of what happened between us. I never saw her sad. By that, I mean to say that I saw her sad, but “I had a bad day” kind of sad, not depression. I need to see that the young woman I love is still somewhere in there, or know that woman never existed except in my perception.
In addition to simple life, I want to help her spread her talent and career to whatever degree she may wish. At the same time, I feel I have much to learn from her writings and philosophy.
Meaghan is an extraordinary young woman whose talent surpasses even her own understanding. I know that she feels that fire within her, because I have seen the flames through her eyes and her pen. She simply needs a small boost, and a little courage, things she was not receiving enough of prior to the incident in May. But, as Og Mandino says, “The past is dead. Let the dead bury the dead.” Plainly, my desire is to see her again, but I am making no demands. As we agreed, we are playing by your rules. I do not want to do anything that might endanger Meaghan.
My wording in reference to Meaghan is awkward because I do not know how her recovery is progressing. My fear is that she is still the beautiful, stubborn little woman, and is not taking to it. My hope is that she has embraced the program, and whatever support is available, and is the accelerated little fireball I saw on so many nights. My assumption is that she is progressing at a comfortable rate, adjusting to a long-term mode of thinking; is not harming herself internally or externally, and that she is eating a much more controlled, and healthy, diet. Meaghan is a very special young woman, and I know that whatever happens, she will go far in her life.
I know that recovery takes a long time, so I am trying my best to not impose. My personal experiences, I feel, are helping me with patience and serenity in this entire situation. I, myself, spent years getting healthy after I got clean. I know that I will never be rid of my addiction, and that it- as well as all of life- is a constant work-in-progress. By the grace of the powers that be, I now have over five years clean from drugs and six years clean from alcohol. Over those six years, I have seen many people come and go from ‘the rooms’. My comrades-in-arms have had to witness as addiction, depression, and other diseases have pulled our brothers and sisters into the past. I just pray that Meaghan is not one of those sisters.
Obviously, as is acknowledged by the fact that your eyes are on these words, I lucked out with the address. Please accept my apologies for the intrusion, but I could no longer sit on my hands, and I saw no alternative short of visual confirmation. To save gas money on hunches and possibly a very bad decision, I chose the good-old USPS.
As you said, we’re straightforward men, and in closing, I will cut out all of the extraneous crud.
I miss Meaghan. I want very much to know how she is doing. Yes, I want to see her, but I know that is a decision that is not mine to make. I am upset that I have been cut off, but at the same time I understand, and I do not resent you or anyone else involved- not even Ms. Murphy. I am sad that I am not able to spend her birthday with her. In April, I began planning a big celebration for her, which may still happen, just in a diminished form, and without the guest of honor.
If you are concerned about Meaghan’s privacy, the “Official Story”
is that she and Ms. Murphy got into a huge fight the week before Memorial Day, which led to the decision for Meaghan to live elsewhere. She went to her “Uncle Joe’s” for a week or so, while waiting for you and Mrs. Murphy to arrive into town. While she was there, I had moderate contact with her. A day or so after your arrival, Ms. Murphy decided the whole ordeal was my fault, and thus I was banished. It is still in question as to whether your arrival and this sudden change of mind and spirit on Ms. Murphy’s part was a coincidence. You and I spoke the Saturday after Memorial Day and the subsequent Sunday. Meaghan was able to convince Ms. Murphy to allow her to come over to say goodbye, which she did on the evening of Tuesday, 5 June. Meaghan said at that time that she was going to spend some time with you and Mrs. Murphy out in Kansas, to allow time-off from Ms. Murphy. She estimated that she would be gone for four to six weeks, at which point she would return. Meaghan and I mutually agreed not to put our lives on hold, and that we would examine the situation upon her return. While walking her to the car, you and I formally introduced ourselves, at which point, you jokingly said (while pointing to your eye), “Look in my eyes… I just wanted you to see the face of the son-of-a-bitch you were talking to last weekend…” You followed that with a jovial handshake, and then I watched as Meaghan walked with you to a large, tan, land-yacht. And I watched as she rode away.
As you can see, the “Official Story” is as close to the truth as it could be without compromising Meaghan’s privacy. Everyone knows how hostile their home was. She will tell them the truth on her own time, when it is appropriate for her to do so. There are only a small handful of people who know the truth about that week, or rather the whole situation. Among them are- I believe, Ken Harris (who was informed by a leak from other sources and with whom, by the way, I have had absolutely no contact since Memorial Day); Shira, Meaghan’s best friend; Kristy, who was in the General Psychiatry ward literally next door to the Center for Eating Disorders, where Meaghan was. I have also spoken to friends of mine in NA and AA who have dealt with or are dealing with the same issues that Meaghan presented. None of them have ever had any contact with Meaghan nor are they regular companions of mine. So again, privacy has not been compromised. I would not talk to anyone about a topic so sensitive to myself if I did not trust that they would respect the anonymity that was given to them.
If you feel it would not be inappropriate, please let Meaghan know that I wish her a happy birthday (I will light a cupcaked candle on Sep. 6th) and let her know that I miss her.
Again, thank you forever for supporting Meaghan when she most needed support. Thank you for being there for her when I could not be. Please let Mrs. Murphy know that my unwavering appreciation applies to both of you.
I humbly await your response.
- - - - -
You have expressed that you hate that I
have named you "Patricia" for the Otis Series, but I have yet to
figure out how to do it any other way without calling the pieces things like
"Meaghan 1, Meaghan 2...” I am considering just using the sub-titles for
them, but I then think of how to rectify this set with the rest of the
series. I realize that may sound like
playing to the whims of the audience, but ours is a song that I want to
sing. I want them to hear. If you have any ideas, I would love to hear
them. (No.... that's not a cheap ploy
to hear your voice...)
By the way: the name Patricia is
because of Patricia Smith and Patricia Johnson. Smith, as you know, was the winner of the first four NPS Indie
Competitions. Johnson, if you remember,
was the winner in (I believe) '96 or '94.
They are both AMAZING poets (in case you forgot) and Patricia Smith is
an amazing woman. She is strong,
beautiful, smart, caring... she reminds me of you. Her father, by the way, is also- rather WAS named Otis. He is dead now. Regardless, that is why I chose the name Patricia for that
character in this play.
Speaking of which, I miss your
poetry. Hell, I miss you! But, I also miss your poetry. You are such an amazing writer, and I would
love to see what else you have written.
We didn't do enough of that.
Reading to each other, that is.
I want to read your fiction piece when it is complete. I am anxious to see what you are so excited
about. I could see that you were
incredibly proud of it, and I would like to experience this, too.
As far as why this is so early, I
wanted to get it to you now while I have the cash on hand. I am going to be getting a new place soon,
and that may take almost all of my next check, so I figured I might as well do
it now. So, y'know, have a great
Halloween and whatnot. Get your mom
something pretty. Whatever...
Oh, yeah!! I have a gig on Wednesday!!
1614 Eastern Ave, about a block West of Broadway, down in Fells Pt.! It starts at 9 pm, so I'll probably be there
anytime after 8. It's gonna be rock
bands, emceed by the talented Rob Templeton, formerly of Saint Louis, and yours
truly, Dave Schein!! Rob was on the SL
Slam team a while back, and even hosted it for a while. HE IS FUCKING AMAZING!!! We're going to be releasing Pixie's book,
"American Oddity", that night as well! It is going to be Sooooo kickass!! In case you can't make it, I have included her book on the CD in
.doc format. I hope that doesn't cause
any problems with your computer. If it
does, I am sure that Pillow will be more than happy to let you use his to check
it out. Also, the Library might afford
some assistance in printing it out.
There is, of course, always Kinko’s.
If all else fails, you can get a copy from me (please!) or from
Pixie. You know my number.
If this CD has a lot of dead tracks,
they are a result of the documents.
Just skip through them on a CD Player.
As far as I go...
My therapy has finally started up
again. I am to see Richard every week,
usually toward the end of the week. It
felt good to discuss my Grandfather with him.
We also talked about my Father and the relationship that I have with
him. Dad is doing well, but I know that
he hurts. I hope those are wounds I never
have to know.
Speaking of which, how is your
mom? How is your relationship
lately? Is she still writing notes to
explain her anger to you? I sometimes
wish she would write one to me. I would
like to know what it is that still fuels her burning rage toward me. I wonder if she and I will ever share an
omelet again, or if she will keep me in the same regard that she holds for your
father and Stephen- if I may be so bold as to compare myself to the two of them. I know that would be assuming I hold such a
large place in her consciousness and her hatred, but I feel that I am a
pariah. I don't know how to handle the
thought of someone with that much of a negative desire toward me. I often have dope-fiend fantasies of just
walking up to the door one day and talking to her. Of hiring a mediator so she and I can negotiate her hatred and my
confusion. I accept that I fucked up
that night at Ken's. I accept that I
fucked up that afternoon at your house when I told her. I accept that, yes, I did make many mistakes
in our relationship; that WE made many mistakes during the course of our
relationship, but I don't even know what it was that I did to make her change
her mind about me in such a violent manner.
I just don't know.
Anyway, I also talked to Richard a
little about you, us, your mother, the whole situation. I appreciate the fact that he doesn't seem
to be taking a side in the matter. I
keep toying with the idea that he should meet you and/ or your mother. I dunno... stupid brain-dead thoughts of a
post-teen American. Maybe that is what
I should title my next book. I saw Dr.
Vimalananda a little while after Richard, and he asked about my sleeping... I do have a great deal of difficulty falling
asleep, so he suggested Trazodone, a mild Anti-Depressant Sedative. It fucked me up to think about it, even as
simply an option, but I decided that I should at least try it. I have been to enough meetings and I am
secure enough in my recovery to take medication responsibly, so I might as well
attempt to have a proper sleep schedule.
What that means, though, is that I need to start going to bed at a
reasonable hour. I haven't had any work
at the office, so I tend to sleep a lot more than maybe I should. I also am drinking regular coffee again, so
my Wellbutrin freaks out because of that.
Fortunately, the Neurontin keeps me from having attacks. I almost had an anxiety attack
yesterday. I could feel the surge of
fear and aggression building in my chest- so strong that I wanted to knock a
hole in something simply so I could then hide in it. It was not a pleasant sensation, if you know what I mean! The Traz works great, as long as I have a
full eight-hour time slot to sleep for.
It is actually pretty cool the way it works. It doesn't knock me out, it just makes me really tired, but in
that "I’ve been awake WAAAAAAYYYYY too long," kind of way; my eyes
dry out, my skin feels heavy, I get a faint headache that I just want to sleep
off... I fucking HATE the whole
"Better Living Through Chemistry" thing, but I recognize that my body
simply CAN'T do this on its own. It's a
frightening thought, but I know that- at least for now- I need this.
I just thought of something else: you know a lot about what I saw during the
relationship, the 'incident' in May, and this summer, but I know very little
about your side of the whole thing. Was
I good to you? Was I good FOR you? Why did you cry that night when we worked on
the car? I theorize that it was the
fact that I said I was proud of you, that you had done a great job. Did you receive enough praise when you were
younger? Do you know how proud of you I
was? Do you know how proud of you I AM? Could you feel my love? Do you know that I have been in love with
you since I read that poem? Even though
I theorized all sorts of things about it, that I now think were incorrect, I
could see that I wanted you. I WANT
you. I want to be with you. Do you really love me? Not that I doubt your words, just that my
insecurity and fear needs to hear it.
If so, when did you start to love me?
Are you in love with me? Has
this really gotten to that level?
Should you wear the name of Capulet?
Does the crest of Montague adorn my home? What are your ambitions?
Where do you want to go? Will I
be invited? If and where do you want to
go to College? Do you know that I will
always love you? I will not presume to
assume where our paths will take us, but I like to think that our paths will
coincide again. I am not trying to
influence your decisions or your thoughts, but do you want that, too? If and where do you see us again? Will there ever be an "us"
again? If so, do I need to wait another
311 days? Do you know how badly I want
to give you your dreams on silver platters and velvet sheets of stars? What do you want most in the world? What color are your dreams? Is Vanilla your favorite flavor of ice
cream? Do you still smile when you
remember that night in the back of my truck after it broke down? What do you want as your profession? Could you see yourself with a high-school
English teacher? Do you want to help
run a coffee house/ bookstore? Do you
think I should offer drive-through service at that coffee bar? I think it would be great to sell someone
coffee, a colache, and a book- all at the same time- without the customer even
getting out of the car! Hell, I would
have the equipment and the main office for fP/GKr there at the coffee bar, so
it would be beautiful! Hire local
artists and students, donate the left-over to a shelter- shit have a small
shelter in the basement, have excursions to get jobs, clothes, and community
betterment projects... as you can see, I have so much going on in my head, I
will NEED a good woman to help me bring all of this to fruition. Not for selfish reasons, but rather I want
to share all of this with someone. I
want to share this with you! If this is
what you want, of course. If not,
that's okay, too. I want to see you
smile. I want to love you for years to
come. I want to lose my marbles with
you (see Talaam Acey "Marbles").
How old were you when you learned to tie your shoes? What is your favorite cartoon? What is your favorite movie? Where do you feel safest? Where do you feel most vulnerable? What color is the moon when you close your
eyes? When are you going to get your
license to drive? When do you plan to
move out of that apartment? When that
day comes, if the air is right, will that move put us in the same living room? Do you know that these are just
questions? Do you know that I am not
asking for a commitment? Do you know
that I am only asking these questions because I can think of them now, but
never when I am in your presence? Do
you know that that bothers me tremendously?
I can never think of words when I am with you. I stumble for some semblance of coherence when we talk. Do you know that my flesh burns with desire
for you? Why did you always cover
yourself when we walked around in my home in our carnal suits; without our disguises
of the skin? When we were naked of
clothing, were you also naked of your emotional disguises? Did you continue to hide even then, or was
that really you? Why did you cry that
night that we first made love? Did you
consider it love? Was I gentle? Did I ever hurt you? Did I ever lie to you? Did I hide from you? What could I have done better? Do you know what your touch does to me? Did you like the way I touched you? Do you know that I reveled in your
taste? Do you know that though I have
rearranged and redecorated, even gotten new sheets, that bed still belongs to you-
and that feeling is sometimes hard to ignore when I choose to compromise myself
simply to have company in my bed? Do
you know that I learned my lesson regarding that feeling of territorial
betrayal? Do you want to recover the
copies of my books that your mother shipped to me? Do you still write to me?
Did you write for that good little Kansas boy, Dusty? What about him do you like? Did you say the word "love" to
him? Did he say it to you? Was he good to you? Is there meaning behind the hand prints on
the behind of that pair of jeans? Was
he claiming possession of you and that behind?
Did he teach you new tricks? Did
I treat you well? Did you make him
scream? Did he make you moan? Did I?
Do you still have Ganesha? Does
he still have his pouch/-resting mat?
Does he sit in or on that grey piece of leather? Is he hidden or is he in a prominent
position? Do you understand the
messages behind the songs I chose to put on "Meaghan's Myx IV"? Do you like those songs and those
bands? Would you like another CD? Do you like my stories that I pawn off as
poems? When will you explain your
position on my "poetry"? Do
you want my lips on your arms? Do you
want my breath on your neck? Do you
want my heartbeat on your hand? Do you
realize how grateful I am to have had you in my life? Do you realize how grateful for you I am? Do you smile when you think of the times we
spent together? Do you smile to think
of future encounters? What do you see
when you think of those future encounters?
Are there any times that we shared, thoughts of which bring tears or
anger? Do you like cheesecake? Cherries?
You spent the rest of your first life in this body with me. Do you want to do the same this second time
around- when the time frame isn't premeditated? Do you still believe in the non-existence of a Higher Power? What about gGod and Politics? Do you want to be that "good woman"
I spoke of? Do you know that you are a
good woman? Do you know up until the
week of your rebirth, the only complaint I really had about the relationship
was your mother and her restrictions?
Do you know that I became accustomed to that- to the point of
appreciating the midnight curfew- that way I was able to go to bed on time, and
have a reasonable sleep schedule. I
have since broken that, by the way. Do
you know I still have your key? Would
you care to join me for Thanksgiving Dinner?
Christmas Dinner? Kwanzaa? Chanukah?
New Year? My birthday? Tuesday?
Friday? Did you like my
cooking? Did we ever have pancakes? We never did finish watching
"Quills". That was a great
shirt you were wearing that night. You
are so unbelievably beautiful. Do you
know- do you realize just how beautiful you are? Do you know that you don't need makeup, but I accept that you may
choose to wear it. Do you believe me
when I say that I am in love with you?
That I love you? That you are a
wonderful and amazing woman? That you
are beautiful? That I love the way you
sleep? That I loved waking up to
you? That I want to have that again? That it is not a "possession
thing"? Did you question Ryan's
motives when the two of you were dating?
The fact that a man whom I obviously hurt (indirectly) then is dating
the woman I love? Do you know that I do
not hate him? That I give him the benefit
of the doubt- accepting that I fell in love with you, some little kid in Kansas
fell for you, so why shouldn't this cat?
I do wonder if he did it to hurt me.
If so, did he realize that that was pulling you into an unrelated
situation and that if he hurt you, I would do everything in my power to rectify
that? That half of Towson would assist
me in that? Do you realize that when we
started dating, most of northern Baltimore was against our relationship, but
when they met you and saw the two of us together, they saw differently? Do you know how many people love you? Do you see why I was so confused when I
visited you in the hospital, your "Uncle Joe's"? Do you see why it destroyed me when your
mother turned? Do you see from where my
powerlessness and despair stemmed that day?
Do you know that I do not hate your mother? That I am frustrated and confused, but pure of motive in regards
to her? That I hope nothing but the
best for both of you? That I would like
to think that I factor into that? Why I
say I never saw you sad? Why I was
exasperated at the fact that you were fucking with the staff? How long had you been active in your
addiction? What brought on your initial
drugs of choice- the self-mutilation, the pills, the booze, the bulimia? How long had you been preparing your
exit? Why didn't you say anything? Even that afternoon at the bagel shoppe when
you said, "I'm just having a REALLY bad day," why didn't you give me
some kind of clue? I remember feeling
odd about the fact that you didn't kiss me when we said goodbye. Do you still have the pin I gave you right
before you went out to use the phone?
Did you mean to leave your bag in my car? Did you mean every word when you told me that you love me? What chance is there that we will be able to
share a pillow again? And not in the
figurative sense, as in the fact that we currently have a mutual friend whom
you dubbed "Pillow", and I continue to call him such.
I don't know... these are but a few of
the ponderances that tend to keep me awake.
I miss you.
I love you.
Until next time, goodbye.
Je t'aime
beaucoup.
-Dave
- - - - -
I think we should write protests against bush trying to spread bad poetry (dickenson). We should protest for local changes; improvements to schools (stop teaching bad poetry; i.e. dickenson), universal health care, state-sponsored events and organizations to better the community of America. That is on what we need to focus.
By protesting the war directly, you assholes are bringing down the morale of the entire country. Shut up and DO something. Plant a tree. Teach your neighbor's kid how to speak french. Volunteer at a homeless shelter.
It doesn't do anything to bitch and moan about a fight that will most likely happen regardless of the circumstances under which the fuse is ignited.
BUT- if we start bettering ourselves, focusing on being productive members of society, focusing on our goals, whether that goal is teaching, building, or demolishing- whatever it is, it helps our nation.
Bush has taken us off course with his crusade. No. This is not a crusade. This is not religious, this is cultural. This is political. He is trying to do what Ronald Reagan and his father did in Russia and the Balkan states. Yes, look at them now, fighting amongst themselves over long dry rivers of discontent, but they are free to fight. Milosevic did many "bad" things. I, personally, feel he "should" be in jail, for what he did was "wrong". Is that to say, if we hadn't helped free them in the 80's, those people would never have died, and Kosovo, Sarajevo, and that their families would be intact?
I doubt it.
These things need to happen.
Nationalism helps us focus on our neighbors and our homes, trying defend that for which our fathers died. These fights are nationalistic pissing contests with forgotten direction and misguided intentions, but without them, we as humans become disenfranchised from our neighbors and stop caring about the consequences, stop caring about schools, health care, welfare, and we simply become apathetic simians roaming the earth in home-made clothes.
yeah apathy... oh... who cares?... whatever...
We need to re-focus our attention on domestic abuse of power. We need to have a gathering of poets for more, new books in schools. "Poets for Universal Health Care". "Poets against State-run schools". "Poets for a state-run School System". "Poets for Poetry".
We need to distract THEM.
We need to make them look at us as responsible people. Not as protest crust punks screaming from the same alleyways in which they sleep because they "won't contribute to a capitalist society...". If we demand these things, they will listen. They will give us some cash to shut us up (read: ::fake cough:: 'reparations' ::fake cough::). Then they will continue choosing the threads with which to weave a carpet-bombing.
I once saw a sticker, "It will be a beautiful day when Schools get all the money they need for books and the Air Force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber."
Let's aim for that.
Bush has sent us- as a nation- off course with this war. Though I disagree with his methods, he has used the timing of everything as a rationalization and justification for his vendetta. From the tragedy grew the festering gangrene across our nation of anger and hatred, a thirst for the blood of the murderers who robbed us of our families, our security, our sanctity. He acted in the way he and his advisors determined was the best for us as a nation; as a family.
From the battle in Afghanistan, he has rid the world of the Taliban's foothold, forcing the remaining members to flee and hide as rats on a ship. The women of Afghanistan are free. The PEOPLE of Afghanistan are free.
And that is good.
In his continued zealous rage against the people who would so heinously massacre his country, the Greatest Country in the World, the country he swore to protect, he has gone too far, some say. The most powerful man in the world has been shot four times. He got back up. How do you think he feels? Do you honestly think he is a heartless android on a mission to kill all the prisoners, force women to dark alleys with coathangers, and finally demolish the countries who have plagued us and the rest of the world for decades?
He is still a man, regardless of the methods used to buy his throne. Imagine the terrors he must have been feeling for the last 511 nights. Think about the dreams he must have.
So, on February 12, let's go to DC. Let's protest her child abuse (dickenson). Let's ask her to teach our students poetry other than that which our parent's parent's parents were taught back in "The Old Country". Teach them Burroughs, Rexroth, Berg, Smith (Mark), Smith (Patricia), Spinelli. Introduce them to writers they can touch. Teach them poets, dead or alive, who did something. Let's ask her about that mark on your arm that won't go away; she must know the answer, because she seems to be doing well without healthcare. Oh, LB can afford HMO... Lets ask her when the potholes on my street are going to be fixed. Let's ask her where I can get fuel for my Hydrogen-powered car. Let's ask her for a couple of bucks so I can feed my cats.
I don't know about you guys, but I could give a shit about lower taxes- if that money is being given back. My roommates, my friends, my neighbors all spend so much money every year on health-related expenses, more than that damn tax rebate/ refund crap GW pulled. He is trying to pacify us so we won't realize how badly we need better roads, more teachers, more schools, more free clinics, better lighting in parking lots. I know most of these things are not controlled at the state level, but at the State level.
Healing starts closest to the wound. Lick our wounds and ask for some aid. Let's lift our country, not commit to sabotage.
Make things better, not worse. Bring hope, not a perverse mirroring of our leaders mistakes; they are fighting battles that can have no victor, as well are you. You are Tiananmen Square, trampled underfoot. The machines make more noise than voices.
Leave the machines to the storm troopers and drones in the front lines, valiantly serving causes in which they may or may not believe, but they know they are right, whatever the choice may be. They know they fight on the side of honor. True, they may be wrong, but why yell at them?
Let's whisper in the ears of our neighbors, our community leaders, our congressmen, our cabinet, our president. Do not waste your time fighting a fruitless battle, for even if you do temporarily pause the war, my city is still in ruins.
Where were you when we held the Baltimore International Rhythm and Drum Society Festival? Did I see you in Minneapolis at the last National Poetry Slam? Will I see you in front of a classroom someday, teaching my daughter things out of brand new books?
No? Yes? We shall see.
The end result is this: whether we scream in anger to stop a fight, or scream as a rally to clean our streets, the outcome is beyond our control.
I will say this, though: "fuck this war".
-----Anna < > wrote:
Ø Hello friends:I don't normally do mass emails but this is one instance where numbers really matter. February 12 is a National Day of Poetry Against the War. First lady Laura Bush cancelled/postponed a poetry symposium set for the 12th, because she realized that 3,000 + poems would be presented to her against the impending war in Iraq. Her defense was saying she didn't want to "politicize" her event. We are keeping the date and making it a national day of protest. Is there any art form more political than poetry??? Please read the article below from the NY Times. I just went to the poets against the war web site, http://www.poetsagainstthewar.org/default.htm which only went online 3 days ago and has already gotten 17,000 hits. This is remarkable! Let's keep the momentum going - even if the Bushes want to hide the public's outcry against this war, we will find another way to make our voices heard! Sending you peace and love –Kelly With Antiwar Poetry Set, Mrs. Bush Postpones Event By ELISABETH BUMILLER
- - - - -
she said it was hollywood
the canadians consoled them when they heard her accent
northern
almost baltimore
with a midwestern hint
their eyes widened with fear and disbelief
and then the smoke
surprise
not a cigarette
a symbol
once two brothers
one shot
two shot
smoking like a twisted butt
pushed in the ashtray between
battery park
and midtown
flattened
afraid of flying
they lie down in their bedrock
with the hearts of thousands
the cries of multitudes and
snap
wake up, america
who you gonna blame?
who you gonna scream at
to yell obscenities for your
lost children
lost sleep
lost tears
lost years?
who you gonna call first to see if they made it?
who you gonna reach for tonight?
who's gonna come home tonight to your empty bed?
how many homes will be emptied for estate sales?
how many mothers will cry tomorrow?
how many brothers will walk into stale apartments when they finally hear?
how many goldfish are still upside down above eviction notices for the unpaid rent of a now-vacant room in the bowery?
these are questions without answers
some willscream "forty-two" at the top of their lungs
until the mice hear them
but it's absurd
Albert Camus does modern-day politics
he'll say it was the sunlight reflecting off the glass and steel
just a cigar with wings that needed a light
wanted to ignite the southern sky
well, icarus, you won't win
like sisyphus, you push your boulder
once
twice
three times
pausing on the fourth to take a nap somewhere in pennsylvania you flew too low this time
and they line the streets screaming
"we will overcome"
and chanting
"never forget"
but this is not about that
this poem is about life
this poem is about love
she tells me of her drive home from Montreal
while we sit
sipping coffee in a diner
smoke-filled section
sugar spilled on the table
as we always have
- - - - -
I don’t say this because I
wasn’t your pity.
fuck pity
and i’m not saying this
because I feel I need your ears
i am saying this because it’s
not easy, tonight
the blonde girl asked me what
happened
and i could only say it
wasn’t the time or place for a story.
my pills won’t let me cry
it’s just not that easy
it isn’t easy tonight to
think about her
she didn’t say goodbye
and it’s not as if i didn’t
already have trust issues
but how easy is it, tonight,
to believe what some new girl says?
i am grateful about the fact
I have learned to walk away,
so i guess i should say thank
you
after all, how can anything
be disappointing, now?
i don’t understand how she’s
changed.
though she rose Tuesday
morning,
when she went to sleep the
night before,
some part of her really did
die
maybe she realized she has a
job to do and she wanted to get back to work
maybe she, for just one
instant, believed in the force that brought her to me
the same force that sent her
away
the same force that woke her
the next morning
the same force that brought
this ink to this page to your eyes
maybe she feared there would
be an angry mob if she didn’t wake after the second night
maybe she realized her job
was done; it was time to move on
she saved my life, and maybe
i returned the favor
i would like to think so
i would like to think she is
well
i would like to think she
knows i am, too
i would like to think she
knows i am and will always be grateful to her
i would like to think she is,
at least somewhere, grateful to me
i would like to think these
things
because if i can see her as a
sad girl
hiding herself from me
because she was afraid and
she just couldn’t take it anymore
couldn’t fake it anymore
didn’t want to make it
anymore
then I could understand why
she didn’t say goodbye
then, it might be okay
then, I wouldn’t feel guilty
then, I wouldn’t blame her to
save myself from damnation
maybe i am seeking redemption
maybe repentance
maybe absolution
maybe understanding
because it’s not easy,
tonight,
to accept she’s gone.
- - - - -
cigarette ember heat
draws past my teeth
floating away into the misty evening
black sky
twilight street
incessant questions in my mind
but never in my mouth
planted firmly in my resentment
fear and insecurity
burn tears across
the flesh-cape of my soul
all this,
when once, you called me "Eliot"
And we wonder,
who waits for us at the other end of the line?
whether the line of ants,
the telephone,
or the line at the grocer
there are nights
I lose sleep over things I have done
there are nights this process of
doubt, remorse, malice, complacency,
and, yes, even forgiveness
is too exhausting
and I find my pillow before i find serenity
always,
on these nights,
i wake up tired and sore
because I am hurting
and I am scornful
and I am afraid
and I am angry
and I am in love with you
and I know I did everything i could
and I know your mother would rather die
than realize she is wrong about me
these lips once breathed love upon your name
these hands grasp at the fears that torture and tear
the thoughts that keep my eyes open
even three days since sleep
i drew questions
trying to get to know you,
but, instead, i pushed you further from my sight
you deny me twice in person
walking away toward some piece of a
peace of mind
mingling with liars
lying to lovers
and others who lie for them
you demand i address you by your name
but i don't know who you are
so if this ink is my liar-smile
then your name shall stand
because your smiles were lies all along
did you lie when you said you love me?
did you lie when you made love with me?
with what do i fabricate these memorials to your words?
is this your exorcism,
having named me your demon?
"your left ventricle
your right lung
your softest parts?"
fingertips grow calloused when run ragged
tired
worn with age
plunging below the surface
but nothing is sharp enough
nothing is strong enough
to dig these maladjusted malignancies
from beneath my thumbs
to allow me to release this tightrope from which I fell
but now hold so close in the hope you might ask me to dance once more
though i accepted the position of
dust puddle
in the shadow of your closet,
you walked away
allowing me to be inhaled by the vacuum of
a silent telephone
and a barren doorstep
i commit sins in
our bed
in
our room
with
your photograph
still in
my top-drawer
next to
your poetry
and mine
our poetry
and our memories still rumbling around in my head
so I run from the skeletal remains of this house
hoping to find solace
in the echoing chambers
of bare walls
forming empty rooms
which will be Mine
stale air
and smoke-stains
will run
as I try to move on
as I pretend to roll along
with all of this rolling behind me
like tin cans on pavement
if you want me to stop,
speak up.
tell me I am no longer the reason for which you live
and I will burn pyres for the death of those dreams
you know i am strong enough
because if you lie to me
as you have so many times before
i promise
i will believe
but words of hope
followed by blank pages
breed chaos
with which I can do nothing
but scream angry words at myself
in failed attempts
to learn
how not to love you
- - - - -
We have played all these characters behind steering wheels and dash-board homes. Pieces of Naruda making a puzzle that only a shift of the head or hand or heart or hurt can do what the kings men could not. I have measured out my life with coffee spoons that never knew sugar.
And so now begins the healing; the re-education of atrophied emotions and words to form the lips of this graceful tongue. I will whitewash your pearls painted on my bedroom walls and prepare for another oyster.
This is the shock of being right.
This is the surprise of guessing the real killer long before the blood has been shed
But there was no blood here
Only coffee and chocolate
I talked tonight about gGod and politics, like you and I did when you told me you had lied.
The insense of my actions leaves me wondering if I could have changed this. My ceiling is black from smoke and the charred embers of incense rods and cones can’t help me see any clearer.
I know I no longer will jump at the phone to see if it is you. I have always loved you, but it is my turn to be selfish.
We found each other
Groping in the dark for something to light the way
You say I made you think twice about giving up
The question pounded around in your head
Until you fell off the wall
Your disappointment at your failure made you flair in distress
And still I say your strength is impressive.
Everything was a choice to which you gave your everything.
Even your weakness was a decision.
Now I have something tangible to which I can hold on.
You cut the tightrope,
Letting me down for the last time,
So now I can choose how to land.
- - - - -
who bred this pensive demon?
the creature that questions your love for me
the one that questions your capacity for love at all
the one that brings this lack of peace
begging to know what i believed
and what was truth
we danced
twenty two days after my lips
first drank from the grail of your mouth
and now you say i was the aggressor?
now you deny
to my face
any responsibility
for the greatest thing you will ever know
you took in your hands
the most gentle thing
that you will ever touch
and you lied to it
broke my spine with
your smiles
your ink
your touch
in my arms
you knew for the first time
what is love
in your countless centuries of existence
the person hiding from me now
is not the woman i once knew
is not the woman i still long for
in the howl of the night
this woman disguising herself as strong and bold
is even more a coward than her mother
and even more a liar than her other
this is not the sweet child who once talked of exorcisms
i am still your softest parts
for you have imparted them to me
you are petrified marrow
sucking the tar from your fingers because you fear to inhale
i am still your left ventricle
for i am what is left when you are dry
i am still your right lung
for the only words you ever breathed within
without me
were wrongful airs
apparent to all but me
so arrogant are you
you would take a god to the wall
shattering the symbol of strength
you gave me
when you loved me
and i gave you
when you needed him
everything that has happened since you came part of my life
has been for you
yet now, you take advantage of some frightened boy
who knows not even how to spell the incantations
we chanted in hurried nights of secret love
always, in the morning
i would return you to the pond
where we would part
you went to her in amphibious clothing
and lied about your sickness
and she believed you
just as i did
because we loved you
because i still do
i still want to cup your head in my palm
i still want to feel your breasts against my chest
i still want to drink your sacred tears
i still want to feel the heat of your thighs
intertwined with mine
because i want any time i could possibly command
to be locked in your heart
though, i know it can never be
i question whether you still confess
your little red secret
to the gods in whom you place no faith
does this boy who is your man
know the way you looked at me?
it is fitting i would meet the destruction of my god’s face
at the same place you and i knew as sanctuary
now a home forbidden to you
it is just as fitting
you would now carry about a puppet you met in jack’s vagina
because i am everyone who was not there
and could not hear you write me off one last time
i am the man who would risk
falling to concrete just to answer your call
simply to hear you say
love was the money in the payphone from which you rang
a thousand miles away
even if only for a moment’s worth of time
in this puny existence
so you could remember that which makes it all worthwhile
i know you will never be happy
you will never know solace
you will never be whole
you have violate the one thing more universal than mathematics
the one thing more valuable than gold, oil, or spice
the one trust that can bring peace to homes
the one thing i always believed in you
the one thing i never doubted about you
the one thing i never questioned in your touch
the one thing that made it worth waiting and the pains of seeing you die
the one thing that remains after these softest parts have been disembodied
the one thing that is still part of the air i breathe when i call your name in the damp coldness of the night
knowing you are dead
but still you walk
the one thing that can make us all whole-
love
- - - - -
Liquid coal burns bitter
Down my throat
Into my belly
Struggling to keep my eyes open
In the sour darkness of silence
You appear with diamonds in the souls of your eyes
And stargazers sewn together as your skin
How, with fire-hair and electric skin,
Did you surprise Artemis
And, so doing,
Steal the sickle of the moon?
With the grace of ten-thousand butterflies
Floated you down to my door
Clearing the overgrowth of solitude from my walls
So confident,
You robbed sunlight of herself
And, to show off,
You wear her on your face with your smile
Daring her to try to escape
I won’t ask why you came here,
But I am asking you to stay
You called out to me
Will you call my name
The way I want to howl yours
Running feral through my bloodstream
Swimming through the forest
I want to feel your naked flesh against my back
Your hand on my chest
Your breath upon my neck
With whose hand do we draw the line
Between fear and desire
Who decides to say
“I Dare”
Instead of turning about
To descend the stair
Is there a way to reveal these thoughts
Without hiding behind these beautiful warriors of ink?
I want to know what you smell like at dawn
Before the taking of tea and cakes and ices
I want to feed your dreams
About cows and a drowsy father
Somehow draw out the warmth of your skin into my room
And never be cold again.
- - - - -
i didn't leave construction equipment at your door this time because i am not sure what we are building
it is all so beautiful
you are beautiful
i am beautiful
the moon is beautiful as
one third of a candle drips its way across the water toward our naked bodies
struggling to walk across rocks and algae-covered timbres
your small breasts curve upward
with your raised arms as you
pull your hair from your eyes to watch the clouds drift peacefully above us
you shudder as a shiver sends glitter from your glistening hip
like a disco dance floor and i want to touch you,
but you are ripples on a pond
and to touch the surface only makes the waves run away
it is all so beautiful
we sit on a folded blue cloth with baby tigers covering us to keep us warm
were it not for the movement,
the lake would seem frozen
a mirror of the sky
the moon a thousand strikes of light across the surface
and we shiver together
teeth colliding
resonating like makeshift drums in subway tunnel stops
and street corners
you are curled fetal
and your back is a wet stone staircase
you lean into my touch
unafraid, welcoming.
lightly, afraid, i kiss your neck
you are frozen in time
as i make a photograph of this moment
your hair is short like the roaring 20s
and is still wet
and i run my fingers through that rainforest
feeling your energy
pulse beneath my fingertips
before i can ask to touch your lips
you say it's time to leave
it is so beautiful
forests flying by at 50
bugs reflecting off headlamps
now 60 as we ride onto the blacktop rollercoaster
now streetlights at 75
feeling like batman
but i want to take time
make this last
to simply be
hear you
now
but i won't waste your time
won't you wrap your waist around me?
take my head in your palms and pull me into you
i don't know how to say these things
instead i turn
stealing flowers from the highway
hoping to make you blush
i couldn't see you,
but i know i heard you laugh
and i know you heard my invitation
you are so beautiful
standing there in my t-shirt
pale legs disappearing under the grey cowl
your slowly-drying hair
curls flirtatiously as you sprawl across my bed
place your head on my chest
i want to love you
we flitter in and out of consciousness
i realize you will still be here
when the sun and i wake up
so i turn off the light and crawl back into bed
next to your sleeping beauty
the morning is so beautiful
and the air is cool as we run down charles st.
singing because i have no radio
and you say this is you at your worst
when you have just woken up
i laugh, saying to myself
i have seen you dressed up
and i have seen you naked
and i call you beautiful
i have see you awake
and i have seen you asleep
and i name you beautiful
i have seen you full of energy
and i have seen you groggy and disoriented
and still i see you as beautiful
you are so beautiful
as you prance across the street to your home
and i drive away
- - - - -
you can lead a pen to paper
but you can’t make it bleed
i am not a poet
i am a writer
with Arabic numerals
and a European alphabet,
i corrode paper wherever i can find her
tattooing these bleached flecks of bark
until my fingers ache
and my well runs dry
hunger borne on my sleeve like a black armband
we cannot live our lives on diner napkins and stale notebooks
but we can try
i can point to an isolated piece of land on a map
and name her “Noman”
i fear the day my shrink shows up
at a slam when my words take flight
because i am not a poet
i am a storyteller
chanting incantations into the damp light
of coffee-bar basements
telling the stories of nights spent in the arms of a random lover
each week a new fantasy
some even dare to mingle with reality
when i choose honesty upon the page
but it is all occluded with metaphors and imagery
deception trying to lead you to thoughts i cannot bear
because i am a liar
not a poet
omission
half-truth
misdirection
angels envy my powers of illusion
as i make my life look good on paper
i can draw sympathy or pity
malice or contentment
remorse and contention
all with a flick of my pen
a spattering of ink
across the faces of both lover and fighter
because i am both
yet neither,
i am a poet.
- - - - -
for
Chris G.
In times of doubt, a belt will usually work just as well
Darkness breeds the fear of things unknown,
Pushing thoughts of ambition to the wallpaper
We threaten ourselves with success,
Knowing failure and the concern it brings are unwanted disturbances
Always something sturdy
We don’t want the sky to fall
Etiquette teaches us when we should say things like
Hello and goodbye
And how to do such things
In times like this,
We don’t want to offend people and sour their opinions of us
Be sure to stand squarely
We wouldn’t want to lose our balance
It would be quite embarrassing to be found unconscious on the floor
At this point,
Thinking clearly is irrelevant
The decision has been made
But I have questions:
Why didn’t you say goodbye?
Why did you shave your head?
Why here?
Why now?
These are questions I have asked too many thousands of times
Questions I thought I wouldn’t have to ask you
But here I am
Chanting inquisitions into the starlight
Alone
Wondering where you could be
Where have you gone?
And I will go on asking these things
Until I see the inscriptions of memories passed into the darkness of youth
How long was your hair before that night?
Did you sprinkle hair-crumbs to find your way home?
Or did you throw it into the air like smoke
As a distraction while you ran?
Why did you run?
From what did you run?
I will ask questions
For there are no answers to these ponderances because you aren’t there to give me that peace.
Instead you kicked the chair to the side
Or, maybe simply stepped with both feet from your podium
I can only wonder the sick music your floor must have made as the chair skittered to the safety of the corner
The soft moan of the rafters suddenly beset by your meager weight
What did they say when they cut you down from your dross?
What did they say when they lowered you into your bed?
Were their questions as insistent as mine?
Why didn’t you answer before these questions needed to be asked?
I would like to end this letter with a question mark
Because I still have no answers
I now ask myself if I could have changed anything had I known you were walking in the shadows
Of your fear and self-doubt
Because you need to know I have been there
I have stared at tile walls with prayers to gGods I stopped believing in my head
Begging to plunge my bones into the grout-encrusted cracks to pull those bullshit thoughts past my eyes
I have run knives across my teeth
Contemplating the removal of my tongue
So I could never plead for forgiveness I didn’t earn
I have tamed horses with my veins
And lightening with my nose
Running from my reflection
I have often wondered
If a belt would work as well as rope
Because I never learned to tie knots
I have smoked the darkness into my lungs
Until everything was the inside of my sheets
Because I was afraid to turn on the lights of my room
I was afraid to ask for help
I was afraid to say anything
Because I was afraid to miss the comfort of sadness
But I learned I have a job to do
And I can’t help those children
Trying to teach English from a casket
But I know that fear
I know that darkness
I know there was another choice you could have made
But you made
That
Choice and we can only sit
And hold each other’s hands
In our confused heads
As we bless you goodbye
- - - - -
I am not the catalyst to this reaction. Maybe it is the coffee, maybe the poetry, maybe the fog slinking in from the sea. We are motionless in the myst, and I want for to hold your hand,
but my hands are numb and can't move.
The air chills our breath and I can see your words wafting toward me. There is a pounding in my chest from fire drums and I can't look at the embers in your eyes without wanting to run with you,
but my legs are numb and can't move.
I want to speak your name; to caress every syllable with a carnivore's grace; to taste every movement of the teeth and tongue; to lick your ears with whatever feeble sounds I can create with this thin body I am trying to ask you to touch,
but my lips are numb and can't move.
these
unthinkable things I will blame on you.
Choosing to allow her to sway your will and not grab that which you want,
allowing the water to weather your hide and penetrate to shape your thoughts
and wants. why didn't you fight for me
when you had the chance? Why didn't you
tell her?
These
unspeakable things I will blame on her.
She allowed her own insanity to destroy what you wanted and you
needed. She knows I was good to and for
you. She knows I loved and still love
you.
These
Unspeakable things I will blame on myself.
In my misguided attempts to save things that were not and are not mine
to save, I destroyed those same things, throwing you from my touch and my
sight. Out of rebellion against the
fear and pain I felt, I betrayed your trust, ever further plowing into you and
tearing apart what you thought you knew.
love
comes and goes; fading like characters carved into a wall that has been left in
the elements for far too long. the
message becomes convoluted and volatile.
from love stems hatred; from hatred comes remorse; from remorse comes
the memory of love lingering in the soft-lit corners of the heart, though the
heart has long since ceased searching for meaning in the words of a false
gGod-of-love, following now the prophet of a new religion, showing the failures
of former gGods and the shortcomings of blind faith in small women who smile
too much and always have a good answer to every question. the followers of new religions try to
rationalize their progress as hatred for the false prophets and lying smiles of
the former faith.
there is a great deal of fear involved with past relationships and the aftermath thereof. This fear, for some, stems from the desire for closure conflicting with the knowledge that closure may not occur in the desired manner; thus closure must be postponed until such time as the desired outcome is at least remotely possible.
219 Fairies dance in my mind whispering questions in the darkness chanting Michelangelo as they walk in and out of rooms padding across the canvas of the insides of eyelids. These sprites are not crazy, no. They are more in touch with the true meaning of things left unsaid than the lips that hold in those thoughts. These petite alabaster butterflies can see into the hearts of men and pull down the shades of illusion. This orchestra of painted creatures plays a tapestry on my bedroom wall, illuminating the words on pages no one dares read for fear of being too weak to release the images from their eyes. 219 Fairies flitter far and near like waves on Cape Cod and sunsets in the desert.
These sprites are not crazy, no. They are more in touch with the true meaning of things left unsaid than the lips that hold in those thoughts.
There are things I'd like to say to you, but I know not the words. Words are meaningless these days, but nonetheless, I wish I spoke that language of the stars and moon; the one where I can say "I love you" and you will hear and understand.
If I lied and said,
"I love you,"
would you believe me?
If I cried and said,
"I miss you,"
would you let me back in?
If I tried to believe
I don't know you,
Could I walk away?
- - - - -
and, yet, somehow i had no idea what you meant when you said
"come in, you
sexy-mother-fuckin'-
love-muffin"
enter
spin
turn the lock
fold the 4x6 notepaper so it fits in my pocket
and walk into your empty living room
half expecting to see you sprawled
naked on your bedroom floor
you greet me with a smile
you are unpredictable in your ways
as we sit and look through
your eyes at the past
before going to your kitchen to play
with dough and electric fire
I ask if i am supposed to stay
and you say
the choice is mine
when i awoke and dressed for work
there was no kiss goodbye
and i was afraid i had misunderstood
the messages in your touch
when you randomly grab
my anticipation
with your fingers
- - -
- -
you're
trying to hold on to the past
but
you have both hands cuffed behind your back.
what
is imprisoning your heart?
Is it
the two princes here before you,
each
wanting to be your king?
But
who am I,
when
his name still marks your days?
And
who am I,
when
his two faces still watch you while you sleep?
And
what happens when I share your pillow?
Does
he turn the other cheek,
or is
he frozen in your past,
being
pulled behind you with your shackles?
But
who am I?
I am
just some product of the '80's and '90's
in
White Suburban America.
A
hippie, sure, but thanks to you, I took a shower today.
A
Christian, no, but I do believe in gGod.
I also
believe in reincarnation
and
soulmates
and
monogamy
and
marriage
and
good steaks
and
taxes
and
cable tx
and
feminsm
and
you
I
believe in the way we kiss
I
believe in the things you say to me when I am afraid
I
believe in your breasts when we are naked
I
believe in the potions we make when we become one body
So
what could I possibly ask of you when you seem to give me everything you are?
I want
you to be the mother of my dreams,
to
weave them with the strands of your hair
to
roll photographs of happy families
and
laughing children
and
the two of us
and
stick them my ears while I sleep so
I can
see them on my eyes when I wake,
superimposed
above the monotony of everyday
I want
to feel your skin around me
I want
to feel your skin inside my chest
breathing
with me
I want
you to sing my dreams to me
like
an indian sage
telling
the story of the
lotus-footed
child
these
are my dreams
and
dreams are the prayers of the soul
direct
from the well-spring
free
from the fears of consciousness.
I
dream these things for us.
I
dream for you to be happy
a dark
room in your basement will produce
the
tangible artifacts of your memories
as you
follow in the footsteps of
Annie
Leibowitz or Herb Ritz
or
even just your lens.
I
dream for myself a life pouring my blood
to
teen-aged elders from whom I will remember
what
it is to be this young,
a
post-modern, post-teen outcome of
Transformers,
He-Man, and the Powerpuff Girls.
And I
know this passion is a challenge,
but we
will not be 1986
we
will not get this high
only
to explode because of an overlooked
and
frozen piece of our propeller
I know
because it has happened before
I know
I am wrong sometimes
I know
I am not this time
just
as I know our king
placed
his crown upon his own brow,
handed
by his brother,
but
those are the facts and I can't change the truth
and I
can't make you dream about me.
I
can't be the orgasm of your soul
if
that parking space is reserved
for
the former head-of-state,
but I
can be the better man,
and,
though I prefer to wear a skirt,
I can
still wear the pants
if
that's what you need.
I have
washed my face and my hair for you.
Can
you not paint your walls and wash your hands for me?
- - - - -
for Rob Templeton
i am
that i am
that i am
i am that large gay man in the wheelchair weeping tears the size of fists as the pressure pushes against the inside of my head and my heart hangs heavy against the underside of my chest
i am mark twain
miles rides the el while waters croons a blue note while we are gathered here to get through this thing called "life"
while YOU are gathered her to get through this thing called "life". i said
oh, momma
we been dancing too long
i said
a-oh, momma
we been dancing
for way too long
momma, won't you lay my head down?
I think it's time to go
poppa's calling from saint louis
he says it's time to come home
we bathe on the shores of the american ganges, humming holy hymns to fallen heroes who will one day be the mythical characters i will one day tell my children so they will sleep well knowing there once was a bull named Templeton who sang the blues in a baltimore basement
how his powerful legs could once lift him onto a stage
how i saw him walk once
or twice
or a thousand times
but in his last days he chose to remain seated while we took for granted the medicinal jazz our feet make while we keep dancing.
like Zeus, he watched us, and sang about us, knowing that if he stood, the pillars would indeed collapse
the pressure's cooking like a kettle on the fire
i said i need you, momma
i said the pressure's cooking like a kettle on the fire
i said a-oh, momma, we been-
we been-
i can't
i can't find the word
i know it was here
i know it is...
i know it is...
i said i need you, momma
poppa's calling from saint louis
he said it's time to come home
we been
dancing
too long
- - - - -
Fanatics never run out
of money
followers
or breath
They can nationalise countless numbers to be their voice
each willing to die for 'The Cause'
so that's who i want as my block leader
that fanatic
not the local pimp
which is why i say we need more people like
bin Laden
running our communities.
We need to harness that inspiration,
that perspiration
motivation
dedication
But we need to put it toward healing,
not hurting
We need money and power and influence
and a whole army of followers
not ready to die for the cause
but to live for it-
We can't fight if we're dead
It seems
sometimes
the only things for which our children are willing to live or die
are sex
drugs
and everything that comes with
the sex and the drugs
except, of course, the consequences
They're pulling the heavy artilliary out of the classrooms
to go squat in alleys
huffing glue or riding horses
all the way down Plano parkway.
Instead of their grey software,
they're packing chrome hardware
thinking they're "hard"
if they wear a piece
and place pornos in their backpacks
where they should be packing the heat
of a history textbook
or their english homework
but they're not going home to work
they're working each other on the streets
thinking life must be a game
since it's so damned cool to be "a player"
MTV, BET, and now even CNN are telling me so
and if it's on TV,
it must be the truth, right?
But who am I to talk?
After all, while pretending to try to achieve an education,
I pissed away my time at parties
watching my peers piss away their parent's Wall Street winnings
at a Thirty-Thousand Dollar per year
private university
After all, how can I hope to change the world
if I won't first change myself?
That is why i say we need leaders;
we need someone to pull us down from our horses
and up from our houses
to howl a battle cry into the night for our sons and our daughters
to remind our children and our selves our most powerful weapons are beneath our skin
to bring us together, not as Three-Hundred-Million
terrified voices, but as One
solid and unrelenting
calling out so loud
we all forget our names and races
but remember what our place is
whether it's teaching high school English
travelling the world to experience something other than
the Discovery Travel Channel
or just being a celler-dweller here in Baltimore
trying to feed my cats and crawl my way out of debt
But, I ask you to understand something:
when I was a senior in High school,
i realised I need to be one of those fanatics
i need to be in front of the class, not just in the top Ten percent
I have since come to the understanding
that while I am currently still a cricket singing in the subway somewhere
one day, I will conduct entire orchestras of small bodies
with huge potential
that is my dream
that is what I will live for
I am that fanatic
this is my dream
this is what I will live for
I am that fanatic
This is what I will fight for
and I need to know:
Who's with me?
- - - - -
Companion to “Dirges of What you Never Were” by Chris
August
cold hands
weak in the snow
sweat freezing on my brow
as i walk through the rain
pretending not to notice
the cracks in the pavement
stepping over broken glass
a streetlamp flickers
and cuts off
and i think of your eyes
as you blink
and close
and turn
but never step away
simply standing silent
in my doorway
and i don’t know what to do
i want to clutch your shoulders
and throw you to the ground
i want to pull your hands
into my head and my chest
so you will see the tumors
festering inside
because you don’t talk
you don’t touch me
you don’t looke at me anymore
your stare is occupied
but your thoughts never vacate
to travel to my hands
so I can eat your words
that they may bring rest
and you can finally step away from this
from the pain i’ve caused you
and from your own frozen presence
we need to take this thing we share
and place it on the steel slab
so we may free our hands of this
- - - - -
pink and grey,
my hands are scarred from this
simple actions
the turning of screw
flipping of switches
folding of sheets
i have no cables to pull for you
no dice to throw
question my authority on these things
you will see i don’t know, either
tell me the answers to my dilemmas
and i will scoff at you
but help me find the ransom
to the things keeping me awake
because sometimes i find myself
plunging my fingers into flesh
with neither reason
nor direction
and when they find my own skin
my fingers become
pointless objects
and redundancies
occasionally making music
or journeying across the pale landscapes
of neighbors bodies
but not much more
sometimes,
i wish my hands were trumpets
sometimes flashlights
sometimes love, itself
they are pink from cold
and grey from working so hard
to grasp at thin whisps
of promises and assumptions
so quick to lunge for opportunity
in inexpensive endeavours
of transportation
comfort
pleasure pain
perversion
passive smiles and pleasantries
blown away with cigarette smoke
because i want more
because i am looking forward
to those latter stages of life
when there is no more
“i will”
only
“i have” and “i am” and “i do”
and i do
love all those pretty things
who have come and gone
and i know i am but a flicker in their memories
passed into the back of their attic
to collect dust and mites
but that is good
that is who they choose to be
i am not the same.
- - - - -
It's cold in my bed as I struggle for sleep
I am alone
and my knees sit uncomfortably atop each other
as I roll onto my side,
thinking incorrectly that this will help me find sleep sooner.
I lie here with my eyes closed but my heart open.
I am letting the thoughts roll through my mind
the way truckers roll through Virginia at 3am.
My bed is cold and every time I shift my weight,
I am greeted by the frosty wasteland.
The sheets are torn,
but from age,
not lovers.
The pillows offer little comfort,
but I clutch one,
I place another at my back,
and still another under my head.
I place one hand on my chest and the other on my crotch.
Removing the hand from my shivering breast,
I reach out to my nightstand and place my hand on the silver fire,
armed with bullets of nicotine.
I use the flame to find the light switch.
I confirm- as I do every night- that the shadows are of the lamp and the computer,
not a voyeuristic lover.
I debate getting a cup of coffee,
but I have work in five hours,
so I decide against it.
It's cold in my bed as I struggle for sleep.
I do not want to be alone.
I want to feel firm womanhood upon my back,
fingers through my hair,
and a hand that has fingernails on my chest.
I want to wake to a pair of brown eyes framed by dark hair,
and a bed that is still warm from the burning love of the night before.
But tonight it is cold
while I wait for dreams.
- - - - -
i want to ask you to swim with me
i want to carry you with me
being carried by you
being carried in the wind
i want to touch you with the heat of a thousand summer suns
with the cold of northern lakes
i want to sing you a joyful girl
a campfire
a patchwork quilt
i want to listen to you tell me stories of unicorns
city streets
constellations
- - - - -
For Gina, my little Cricket
it's really not that big a deal
8th grad graduation
still not quite tall enough to reach the cookie jar atop the fridge
still frowned upon by most everyone over the age of 14
you can't go to "R"-rated movies
you can't drive yourself to the skating rink
life won't even let you cross the street
without holding someone's hand
so, it's not that big a deal
a commencement ceremony
pomp and circumstance
hour long speeches and walks across mile-long stages
for what?
a scroll of paper that gives you permission
to get shoved into lockers next fall?
the name even states this is only a beginning
so why all the fuss?
pump out your chest
pull back your shoulders
hold high your chin
and dig in
ready for what's next
the aptly-named processional
reminds us that now you are responsible
for what you do
what you say
what you think
what you are
you'll stand up
walk across that stage
and step down
just like you have done these last three years
and you are about to do it again,
raise yourself to the stage of High School
land of pimples and the varsity quarterback
cheerleaders
SAT, AP, GT, IB
competition for scholarships
prom
dating
all resulting in but another
commencement ceremony
it's not changing the world
it's only choosing your path
you'll do another four years
followed by a job or college or exploration
you will find yourself
and in doing so
you will change
but, in changing yourself
others will follow your light
this is a beginning
as a beginning
it is an acknowledgement of
time and her power
it's funny, though
no matter what befalls us
when we wake up
it is always today
tomorrow never comes
yesterday is like a viewmaster
and every night when you lay down your head
you are pulling the orange lever
waking, there's a different yesterday and a new today
so, today is the best day of your life
and so it will always be
we can't keep saying
i'll do it tomorrow
leave that behind along with
the awkwardness of 6th
the middle ground of 7th
and this transitional 8th
today is the only day you have
and yes,
this is the part where i get
teary-eyed and preachy
telling you thinks you already know
i love you
i'm proud of you
it is wonderful to see you
so strong
so beautiful
so talented
with lenses,
all lights can be sharp
and so with focus,
you cill carve like a laser
through all who would try to grind you down
your first and most important job
is self-preservation
put your fingerto your neck
if it pulses with the liquid fire of life
you are doing a perfect job
everything else is icing
everything else is a bonus
everything else is a gift-
that's why they call it the "present"
anything you want of need is within your grasp
visualise it being in your hand
when you open your eyes
it will be ther
you know what you need to do
so go out and d oit
just do what you need to do
to do what you need to do
today
you are being released into adolescence
the land of puberty and perceived imperfection
but also the stairway to more todays
there is no elevator to adulthood
so keep taking those steps
huge bag of books on your back
huge list of assignments on your mind
all leading to another graduation
on another today
so,
i guess this is a big deal
this is paramount
today is the most important day of your life
today is the best day of your life
may you always remember that
and that i am proud of you
and that i love you
and every today
is the best day of your life.
- - - - -
streetlamp light shimmers
through the camera's eye
as i walk across brick
in an impressionist painting
focus is lost watching numbers
float by on the face of my wrist
as footsteps and engines collide
in a symphonic revolution of night
we wonder if california is exciting or painful
but minneapolis is daring us as we sit motionless
with the potomic air in our lungs
light another cigarette
watch the people shimmer
pay your check
walk away
- - - - -
For
Anna
"All Things Being Equal"
-Nothing Ever Is
"you've never experienced this rollercoaster we call 'The Pilot'".
guiding us up and down
the loop-de-loop
the turns
some call it a disorder
others call it simply life
still more say it is refusal
to accept life
who's to say what is the real answer?
some say ambition bites the nails of success
but at what point do we stop dreaming
and start doing?
i beg these questions
because i fear my own complacency
i see you wandering
and i say you've never experienced it
because it seems
at times
you ARE the pilot.
you are at the helm
riding seaward
waves like irish hills
never hit the breaks in the middle of a turn.
i had built my life around you when we were young
you were the constant
and now you move so fast
only pure energy can propel you at such speed
but i hear your doppler phonecalls
and coffeebar emails
proclaiming the joys of freedom
this is how you found your ground
your constant
-in motion
everything is relative
and maybe to you
I am the reckess one
grasping at a piece of land
you force acceptance when I say
i want to be the landlord
and you say you are again heading east
to capture man's dream of
commanding the winds with
bedsheets and a yard-stick
i can only utter
i love you
and watch you walk away
you keep stressing time
time
time
you're not going to see me for at least a few years
but that means nothing to me
even time is relative
how fast does time travel in your universe?
i don't understand you
maybe i have become so trapped in my small world
becoming smaller
focusing on my eyes and ears
not concerned with yesterday
and the so-called mistakes
so common with every age
but associated with the
foolish days of youth
maybe it is because of these things
i don't realise what you mean when you say years
i have grown so used to your transience
it no longer seems strange to hear you
say goodbye
but now i want to drive
now i want to get out of her again
i want to make phone calls and set dates and meetings
shows and events
but maybe i am afraid
maybe i have become so used to having a bed i really call mine
and a home i call my own
i don't understand the state of flux
in which you live
and i don't know if you can see i have finally achieved part of my american dream
even if it is simply slowing down and already having money in my pocket when i get paid
and i love this solid footing
but everything is relative
and maybe you need to feel
swaying planks
and spray mist of air
for you to feel safe
and it's this law of relative relativity
that bothers me
i want to synchronize swatches
and see where the dials land
when you do, too.
- - - - -
i can feel it behind the door of my small, smiling, blue faced shield
lurking like a murder in the shadows of my closet
hiding under my bed
sleeping in my shoes
waiting for me to venture out
one foot over the mattress
down to the floor
two feet
remember: toes go in first
waiting in the dark of my boots?
stinger bared?
i tend to avoid these thoughts in th same way
we tell ourselves there is
nothing sneaking about in the unlit portions
the monsters are really shadows
cast by the night lamp on the wall
- - - - -
For
Anna
Ilyaimy. Be Well.
this is when it hits me
in these moments of silence
thinking of you
staring at glossy 3x5 photographs of a smiling and playing blonde girl who doesn't realise
how great she has become
or how much greater she will become
and these thoughts are powerful enough
to break through my blue army
and allow me to quencg the thirst of memory
with oceans upon which you will glide
returning home,
Persephone
going back to your earth-mother
of the days when there is no shore
to which to swim
only a cloud-filled sky
where my dreams reside
waiting for me to pluck them down
your dreams await you like fish
prepared for your left hook
right into the gut
of things better left unsaid
you wake up and make your bed
so you can't sleep in it
so you can never quit it
with your will in action
and i don't know how to show
i love you
when i can't see you
and even your foreign letters
can't put you in this room with me
- - - - -
for
stephanie
we have come to shed ourselves of our sin
to shed our skin
to cleanse our hands and our palettes
we have no conception of time because time doesn't matter
she wrote me letters and poetry
and i kept them
i wrote her letters and poetry
and she still speaks of them
with fondness to her friends who never knew me
though she speaks ill of me to herself
so she won't feel bad
we come to put down these memories
like lame horses
rabid dogs
comatose relatives
we come to pull the plug
she loved me more than i can describe
and i loved her with everything i was
i knew nothing but her skin
i tasted nothing but her smell
in my morning evening night coffee
we still speak well of each other
we still speak of those times with reverence
and longing
though we know it would have ended soon anyway
or, at least we say that to ourselves
when we are alone
in the twilight just before sleep
so we can shut our eyes
we come to tell you of our conquests
our tales of reverie and joy
we come to invite you into our pasts
to sit like children in their
granma's kitchen, waiting for a pie
or a story
or a game of solitaire
I would watch her sitting at her kitchen table
playing Klondike for hours
no variance
shuffle, deal, three up...
her husband handed my father a gun and said,
'keep my little girl safe with this'
and my father agreed
we come to expect applause
we come to ask why our fathers
aren't always here
he come to ask where were our mothers
when we needed them
we come to ask why we must learn to walk
when crawling was fine before
i awoke to the screams
thinking nightmare
then assuming good sex
then knowing the howl of terror and pain
they stood at the top of my stairs and told me
there had been a threat and there were now police
in my house
in my home
and she kept screaming
we were told to open the windows, which we did
she was hitting the officers when they brought her downstairs.
he came down later, very sedate
pepper-spray will do that to you
she was released that night, and came back
to my house
to my home
he was still in a cell, 'making friends,' as she put it
and he would most likely be there for a while
i told her she couldn't stay
she said she knew
i told her she needed to pay
she said she couldn't
my house is sad now
she tries to protect us
and is sorry something hurt us
inside her walls
and she was powerless to stop it
i told her it wasn't her fault
and thanked her for being here
we have come to cry
we have come to laugh
we have come to bitch
we have come to break things
we have come to break knees
we have come to get laid
we have come to find love
we have come to drink coffee
pay our check
tip well
thank the waitress
and leave
when all is said and done
that is all
and that is good.
- - - - -
i do not like the silence
there is fear in those quiet
moments
and so i write my foolish
meanderings
and i tell my foolish stories
how we are named
lose our touch
forget to say ‘i love you’
and are all destined to be
alone
i am the only one who can
save me
i am the key to my salvation
thus, i am god
thus, you are god
she is god
we are god
we pray to false idols in the
hope
that prayer will open some
door inside us
he, with the elephant face,
is but a mirror of our own
perfection
he, with bleeding wrists,
a model of honor and
restraint
there are times i crucify
myself
because i have no wish to
move on
is this perfection?
these moments are short,
ineffectual children
passed into the dust of the
past
we speak of them as if they
are still alive
tell their story as a war
hero
a tall man
a mother obsessed with
cleanliness
but when we are done
have we affected anything?
when you talk to me
i feel as if you know i am
listening
i believe you when you
breathe
you reached for me
put your arms around me
held me in
and i was afraid
i reached for you
put my arms around you
held you in
and i was afraid
most people consider these things
harmless encounters
but there is healing in touch
i was never taught how to
show interests
i run on instinctual
reactions and impulse decisions,
robbing fruit
or molding notes into
coasters
pushing digits in plastic
because i don’t know what
else to do
i know i don’t need to
impress myself upon you
but i fear you will forget
about me
that is why i don’t wait for
your call
in my perverse optimism
i have determined you will
never call
you don’t know my jellical
name
will never cry out for me
through the walls
in this way
should you happen to stumble
across numbers
with my name above them
i will be surprised
i will be wrong
i live for the times i am
wrong
only then can i be humble in
the faces of gods
only then can i grow
i cannot learn if everybody loves
me
i will never change
but when i am shunned
when i am turned away
then i can begin to evolve
into something more beautiful
they say they know what is
poetry
that poetry must allude to
questions
and imply answers
but, i have bluntly described
my dilemmas
and forthright asked
questions
i don’t even wish answered
but this is a poem
i have already determined i
am god
and in my divinity
i declare it to be as such
and it is good
but i have already determined
you are god
and in your divinity
you will decide if this is
poetry
or just the meaningless
ranting
of a lesser deity
this is not a love poem
this is not a manifesto
this is but a letter
never meant to be sent
this is a definition
not a disclaimer
a decision made
without debating the
consequences
i would like to think i wrote
this for you
but i admit
i might be wrong.
- - - - -
I've been dreaming lately
I saw her as she came in through the bathroom window
modern artist-come-punk
hair hanging in her eyes
some held back by a bandana tied around her head
blonde, black, red, purple
she is young
but can buy her own cigarettes
she has a Marlboro hanging from her lips
as she looks over at me
insisting
i push her down
onto my bed
feral with desire
we tear each other's clothes
digging through cotton and leather fields
to find the supple and ripe
fruits of our longing
I run my hands along her smooth flesh
remembering all the times i experienced this
through accidental brushings
we shake each other
as we shake, ourselves
i lift her by her thighs
bringing her to my lips
tasting her wine
making her whimper
i will have trouble sitting back for days
while the scratches on my back heal
we rotate and turn
as if weightless
she takes me into her mouth
while i continue to drink of her-
and then
it happens
i awake to my crowded room
and my empty bed
i reach to the far side of the sheets
and they are static
cold
unruffled
neatly in place
just as they were
when i went to sleep
there is another dream
in this,
she is perfect
ink cannot do justice to a painting
and she is a degas ballerina
to describe her would be an insult
i don't know who she is or was
i only know I love her
i embrace her
kiss her forehead
hold her into me
feel her breath on my chin
and we lie together
holding hands
and stroking the hair from each other's face
i, about ownership and deities
and she about cows and a drowsy father
we are on a fall-colored couch
possibly a futon
fully clothed
her sandy-brown hair runs
in smooth lines along her back
my curly mass
gets tangled in our fingers
and we stay there
for what seems like days
passing with seconds
too soon
I open my eyes
and she is there
smiling
beautiful
vibrant
she greets me
prompts me to get up
to get dressed
to go with her
it's time for the dreaming and sleep to end
- - - - -
Sit a While
Smoke a Cigarette with Me
I want to Kiss your Mouth, Babe
I can't describe to you
how strange it is for me
to look at you
and know your name
the way you have known mine
for years
your skin is smooth
my lips glide across your belly
and i wish i could drink you in
inhale the scent of your hair
your skin your breasts
your cigarette exhale breath
i breathe
you place your head on my shoulder
falling into me
and this time
there is no barking from the chaperones
only the sound of our breathing
and the serinades of cats
clawing the carpet
and nuzzling my legs through the blanket
through my answer of a single question
you say you have me down
and i think
you might be right
as the car drips oil in the pan
cooling
you tell me not to leave
you pull my hand to you
and lean to kiss me
ignoring better judgment
i go with you
irresponsible as it may be
i am not overly concerned
with what will happen tonight
i want to wake up to you
so haunting
these nights i sleep alone
i stripped my bed of her clothes
to mix with mine
so i could imagine my naked body
sliding along your soft skin
on nights we shared
passion
kisses
bodies
I'd like to say 'hearts' too
at least
i believed you when you kissed me
and i fall into that faith
further every moment
anticipating the next kiss
the next night
the next morning
i awaken to your beautiful eyes
smiling down at me
let's quit our jobs
old or new as they may be
and drive
through Northampton Furnace
around the res
swimming down city streets
sitting in the sun
together
as she performs a disappearing act
and we are the only audience
she becomes you
tired
your eyes bleary
we are almost home
don't worry
lay your head on my arm
we ride together
toward another day
how can we laugh about solomon?
divide and conquer
there are strange thruths at
2:30 in the morning
without enough light to see the colour of your eyes
six dollars and change gets me a handfull of keys
one for me
three for you
i used mine to get to work
you used yours to sneak into my room
concerned about the neighbors next door
whom you can hear through the walls
you tell me about this in the same breath
as the indian woman
asking 1350 for the house
next to the one for sale
you warn me there is
50 50
your children will be ill
i say i understand
i say it's a risk i am willing to take
so long as you are, too
and you'll go with me
you nod and smile while the light
reflects in a star from the rhinestones on your sunglasses
you smile as you walk away
memories of horrifying doctor's visits
and twisting wrists
and i smile as i drive away
building a better me
recounting the terrifying
but exciting
conversation from the night before
and you smile as you sit down
tired and giddy
stomach sore from too much mayonaise and bread
and not enough vegetables
and you hold my hand
and you smile
and you understand
and you forgive
and you accept
and you remember
and you make me laugh
and you make me think
and you make me smile
and you continue to smile
and you wait
and you laugh
and you pout
and you smile
and you love
and i pain to ask if you love me
and you know i am trembling
because i am afraid these feelings
may be true
you see them in colour
but i see black or white
and emergence from the darkness
will breed the vibrant hues painting your dreams
but my dreams are greyscale
fluctuating bright and dim
as the teacup spins
erratically within the circle
pushing
throwing me against you
me into you
you onto me
and this
is what i always wanted
in this dark room
lit simply by the lights of
these outdated modern marvels
top-load the film
maybe even push play
i want you to stay
tonight
tomorrow
pull on a tee-shirt
push off your pants
put your arm over my side
and your head on my chest
i hold you in
trying to answer your questions
trying to find the questions to your answers
but i have none
but one
and you answer it every time you look at me
and if only io could show you how much you mean to me
i might learn how you smile
some say
if you rub your skin
blood will come
pushing your fingers away
but there are others who know this same action
will promote the growth of new skin
toughening
strengthening
building over the scars and fears
which is why every time i see you
i only want you more.
- - - - -
i can smell you on me
under my skin
in my mouth
i sweat your sweet sour scent
if i close my eyes
i can see you in the moonlight
your soft curves lit ever so gently
- - - - -
for Melissa and Brent
Strickland on their wedding
if i could hold beauty and pride in my hands
you would be my offering
memories of joyrides in a blue truck
and growing pains in winter rains
colliding within our eyes
as i watch you gracefully
take these final steps
toward womanhood
years ago
we made plans for what would happen
should this day never arrive
how we would take these
candlelight promises
and make a life
as i watch you
holding your father's hand in a way you have always dreamed
and a way he secretly hoped might never happen
the sun radiates from your chest with your joy
he takes your hand
and as you speak the last words you will ever say alone
the promises of love and adoration
cascade down your cheeks
washing us all clean of our fears
and the stark realization of life's progression
only yesterday
we were children hiding in closets
above stage lights
stealing furniture
and sneaking our of class
to drink iced tea
and scream down a highway
running from adulthood
and now
we watch you boldly step forward
into that realm of which
we always joked
and wrote notes in class
i know one day
i will join you
and we will cruise in that pink cadillac
taunting the teens who have all the courage
and ego we had at their age
and i know you will continue to know me better
than i know myself
- - - - -
when i die
i want people to celebrate
throw a party in honor of life
and respect the fact they still have it
there is to be dancing and laughing
and a band playing loud, peppy tunes
it's called a wake
i want a graveside service
conducted by one of my friends
that way my guests won't have to drive two places
traffic doesn't have to get all messed up
and someone who knows me will ding my praises
and wish me farewell
i will, of course, compile all of this in my will and testament
along with the whole
who-gets-what
and with whatever is left: yardsale
open first to family and friends
then to general public
with the proceeds to benefit some charity
diabetes, heart disease, or MDA
give what's left to the salvation army or village thrift
back ot the funeral for a second:
the fineral and interment
should be on a heavily overcast day
i don't want it to rain,
because that would be too melodramatic
but the sun and i never got along too well
and with everyone wearing black,
i don't want it to be excessively hot
at the end, someone should yell
"let's get pissed!" in their best irish accent
a few people can say it, if they want,
even if they don't have a good irish accent
i want another party after the burial
open to everyone
even those who never knew me
if i have a wife and children
i want someone there or on-call
to help them with general tasks
like laundry and cleaning and cooking
until she and they are ready to do these things, themselves, again.
be patient with them,
as i am sure they will not be favoring politeness over grieving
five them love and support, not criticism
if i do have a wife and children,
i want to save them a seat near me
so when they, too, leave this world,
they can be laid to rest with me as a family.
- - - - -
i am
because of you
you brought together these tattered limbs once discarded into the sewers and graveyards. you used threads of love and needles of ambition to piece me together
you took my head in your hands and painstakingly assembled the parts of my mind. you labored endlessly to clean the dirt and hair from my face and you tore open my eyes so i could see the way you struggled for love for me
from these scattered pieces you gave me life breathing into me when we kissed taking me in when we touched. pushing me more, you kick started my own ambitions, rising like blood through my skin
soon you became afraid of me; of what i meant. you ran from my touch and my sight hiding from me while i tried to find who you are what you do from where you come everything
you made me this!
are you not proud of your creation? with you i reached critical mass and without you i continue to grow, but for what?
you? once, i thought so, even told you i would do these things- to humor you at the very least, but if you aren't here to see me grow, i will not grow for you
them? they never mattered. since my creation they have simply been and audience to my rebirth and a tool to help me grow. they are neither motivation nor sustenance, and they will never be the reason for which i exist
me? these things are, indeed, for me. i can befriend flowers, make them float on ponds, teach birds to fly, and clear rivers of their dams. because you gave me life, i have been able to teach myself these things. i am the creature from which you run because i represent your strengths and you flaws
you run from yourself and i will still be here
growing
without you
but i want to rip off this clothing and shave my head. all of this reminds me of you, a time i thought you loved me, a time i could look into your eyes as those of an artist, with passion and honesty
i never conceived of you casting me out of your lab into the shadows of angry city streets but here i am hiding from the eyes of others because they will leave me, too
i wanted to help you. you made me this. i just wanted to return the favor.
- - - - -
love me one last time
enter my arms
hold me in
exhale in moans as we touch
press your lips to my flesh
and i promise i will drink you
love me one more time
skin against skin
become one with me
pull me into you
and i will do the same
i didn't treat you as a princess
like you wanted
i worshipped you
and in the shadows
i still do
everything you give me
is a blessing
- - - - -
I want
an instant cure; a pill to take to white wash these graffiti-covered walls in
the blink of a life.
I want
to take these pens; plunge them through my chest and hands and feet to relieve
this pressure.
I want
to be able to think about you without being afraid; to understand what you are
not trying to say.
The
most painful thing for a man is not feeling unhelpful and powerless,
but
feeling unwanted.
So, I
sit here, arms outstretched, thinking about you, waiting for your voice to call
out and request my futile presence as I know you won't.
Are
you waiting for me to balance this rock before you take my empty hand?
I am
huddled in the shadows, arms like flightless wings; in one hand, a stone. The other, simply empty; waiting.
And
how long will we play these spy games; divulging secrets through cryptographic
languages and magicians' tricks and informants, and I know I have been here
before.
This
place is still warm as I return to the shadows. Like before, I stay with my emptiness and my boulder; sometimes
waiting, other times crying out my own frustrations as I watch it fall from my
hand and my perch again.
So
here I am again, standing on the shore in my jesus christ pose with my
offerings, arms tiring, hands and heart getting heavy, waiting for you to take
my hand so I can be your rock.
- - - - -
i have dedicated my life to making things more clear, to perfecting my images painted onto your eardrums. i do this so the pain i feel every day, from the swelling in my knees to the swelling of my heart, won't have to be felt by someone else.
you dedicate your life to control. you rein in your emotions and your inward feelings of doubt, remorse, and pity
i have a short attention, so to focus, i must obsess.
you give up too quickly. to quote "there's no way i can finish it on time, so i am not even going to bother with it." when i ask how was your day, i receive a generic "fine" or "alright" which i know means your day was another filled with pain and anger, which you'd rather not think about right now
and, like a term paper, you gave up on me too quickly. determined i could never be finished, you chose not to bother. you chose to frustrate yourself with my inadequacies; we don't talk but you shut me down when i try to start. we never go out but you always had things to do in
and now, you try to rest well underneath a sulfur moon- you told me you still wet your bed, sometimes, with tears. and you cast shadow puppets of doubt, remorse, anxiety, and dismissal on what was once my side of your bed- for weeks, i slept with baskets of clothes on what was once your side of my bed so i wouldn't realize how empty is the ocean without water. for weeks, your clothes remained undisturbed in your drawer, only shifting when i would add another treasure to your tribute.
recovery is difficult, but to do so, we must work through the cycle of pain strength joy and dissolution. just as a broken bone will not heal without use, so i will not heal until i have learned to walk on these feet torn by your eggshells and numb from your waters
though i once would lay myself at your feet, i am not a dog, and maybe this is the "bang" he said would never happen, because i will not go out without a whimper.
- - - - -
I try not to think about her too often; obsession isn't healthy. But, who am I to talk about 'healthy'? I smoke cigarettes, don't get the proper amount of sleep, eat horrible food- hell, sometimes, I won't eat for days, only to then binge for three days straight. These things aren't related, I know, but many things in this life aren't necessary.
Love, for example; Love is completely unnecessary. We can meet people, procreate, raise a family- well, have children, at least, and provide for them, and see them off to have their own children someday. We can do all of this without Love.
Love, however, is often not a choice.
I didn't choose to love her. Hell, I tried not to love her; she was too young, I was too broke, and her mother was too crazy. But, she was too beautiful, and too smart, and too talented to resist.
I fell in Love with her before we even shared our first kiss. It was not the first time I had been in Love, nor would it be the last, thankfully. I remember exactly how it happened: coming home, throwing my jacket on a hanger in the closet, getting ready for bed, then remembering the note she'd torn from her journal and handed me before scampering the last flight of stairs to her mother's apartment after the poetry slam that night.
It was that poem. It read me, and pulled my pages from my heart as if I were made only of feathers.
The next time I saw her was the night I first brought my lips to hers to breathe new life.
We went together for three months, during which, among other things, I got evicted and moved into a tiny bedroom in a tiny house in a different part of town.
I worried about her, but knew she was alright- she was always alright. She was so cool. Cynical to her core, and she smoked cigarettes and drank coffee, and could down a tequila-and-coke without even flinching. I didn't condone her drinking, but still, that's intense!
I didn't even realise how much she drank, and this was after she'd slowed down, because of me. And the booze wasn't the only secret she kept locked away in her firebox, but I wouldn't know that until the end.
Her mother was there when I got home. She was very flustered, and said she needed to talk. What followed reminds me now of the time I fell off the jungle-gym; flat on my back, gasping for air and coherence, "at least we know she's safe," she said.
That's a difficult statement to which to respond; clear as broken glass, and just as cutting.
Over the next few hours, she told me all the things I should have seen already: the booze, the pills, the cuts, the starving, the purging, the bottle of unisom with a bacardi chaser.
She'd had no intention of waking up, but there she was, alive and walking, with a season-finale cliff hangover.
She spent a week in a local center for eating disorders, after which she went out west to stay with family for a time; she needed a rest.
When I saw her again, she was different- still the same beautiful artist, but she was real this time. The girl with whom I had fallen in Love had been a lie, and that lie was still lying on the carpet of a third floor apartment above the mulch in which I had written Pablo Neruda lines and carved out, "Je T'aime". The same place she tore a page from her journal before scurrying up the last flight of stairs.
"Nothing is free,
and yet,
I have draped myself here at any cost for an audience with something off the wet, naked, street-
your voice has crept into me.
And I dance
when I am a deer in your headlights."
- - - - -
i wanted to greet you with a kiss
to pull the patchwork stars from your jeans
and paint them in your eyes
i settled to simply hold you
and in that instant eternity
i suddenly wasn't hungry anymore
if it wouldn't have meant burning the chicken
i would have liked to stay there
holding you
until we became marble for a museum
- - - - -
for
Anna and Geoff Morpurgo on their Wedding
If i didn’t know it was midnight,
i would swear dawn was around the corner.
the animals are talking wildly about
something-or-other
and it is bright enough to read without a lamp
some of us read fortune cookies
others tea leaves
still more keep faith in prayer beads
and magic spells
i hold no such illusions in my moonlight eyes
i read history books
i read the story of your birth
written across our mothers
face, hands, and belly
i read the story of your childhood
adorned with photographs
and crushed aluminum cans
on a patio in a southern suburb
clay masks carved out of your
pre-adolescent life
when we couldn’t go next door
to the park and playground
down the street
to the dairy queen
or through the neighbor’s yard
to the pool by the lake
without permission
your teenage years,
when you first discovered boys
and i first discovered
you were cool
going to dad’s office
next to the summer camp
where we taught the other kids
Maryland
is not ‘in’ another state
riding around playing
“Name that tune”
“…and artist and album”
“…and for bonus points, year”
and imitating the
squealing of tires
and the changing of gears
as we exited to the feeder street
try as i might,
i never did get any older than you
so i stay behind
reading the romance novel of your travels
all over the world
all because of a few simple choices
you made
when you were still learning to drive
back then
you ignored road signs
opting, instead, to follow landmarks
now you read compasses and maps
declaring I AM HERE
pointing to a well-defined point
miniscule in the mire
of a formless mass
simply titled “Time”
and this is where i stop reading your history
as you have yet to write it
if i didn’t know it was midnight
i would swear dawn was around the corner
the animals are chattering frantically
about something-or-other
and the night is bright enough
to write this with neither
lamp nor candle and i write
my pen is stammering
about something-or-other
and the moon is making faces at me
as i try to pay tribute
to someone who has everything
you are the product of the sea
the maker of the winds
and i have traveled here
to watch you defy the laws of physics
to witness as you,
a woman
whole, strong, and independent
join with him,
a man
whole, strong, and independent
to become one
whole, strong, and independent.
- - - - -
i can feel these curves falling
and rising like the sun toward a mid-winter's day
I look out
down the street and across this suburban landscape
and everything is flat
stretched out
warped
in your direction
as if you are a star
as if you are the center of my universe
as if you are the essence of my very being
as if you are GRAVITY, itself...
but you can't be
you are more than that.
you are the math.
me? I am simply words.
trying to make sense of you,
trying to understand you,
i am tearing myself to pieces
each an offering to you
peeling layers of skin
praying for your blessing
i am tearing myself to pieces
for you.
trying to find the infinite
trying to find the infinitely small
trying to show my world to you
I am tearing my self to poems
trying to be sonnet
trying to be predictable
so you can meet me at the end of my final, rhyming couplet
but I guess I do not rhyme with you
I am fragments
trying to be haiku
trying to be senryu
trying to fit all these things I need to say
withing three simple bars
i am fragments
you are the math
and i know there is a hole
in my heart
in the shape of your smile
but I know
I am still whole
without you
i am tearing my self to pieces for you
offering them to you
offering them to these teeming multitudes
giving away parts of me
without diminishing in value
because, Subtraction,
you are not here.
I am trying to swallow every drop of life
i can bring to these lips
but still, i fear I am withering away
as i give away parts of me
and you are not here to
sew me back together
to make me the sum-total
of the man i wish to be
you are the math
I am simply words
I am simply that scared,
17-year old boy
sitting in calculus
struggling to understand you
struggling to make some sort of sense of you
but you
are indivisible.
you will never be
less than you are
right now
to me
you will never fracture
as I have done
as I am doing
for you
You are the math
and I am trying to remember
and I know I can't multiply without you
because I am not even a fraction of the man I want to be
because I know I am not even a fraction of the man you want me to be
but still
i am tearing myself to pieces,
trying to break down this praise chorus
into the phonemes and morphemes
I can rearrange
so I can one day speak your name
so I can one day scream your name
I am tearing myself to pieces for you
you are the math
I am simply words
I just wish I could have been the numbers
so you
could make sense
of me.
- - - - -
she
said she needed space
so i
watched her walk away
the
tiger-lily sun reflecting
off
the icy pond of her rear windshield
and i
wandered back to my cave
with
the space between breaths
and
footsteps
growing
longer
i think
about these visits
and
agree with her:
maybe
we should space them out
a bit
more
but
what are we
if not
animals
feral
and obsolescent
all
sharing the same space
and
what could i give her
to
satisfy her delusions?
i
tried to give her
all
the stars in space
but
she wasn't satisfied
because
i never yelled at her
and
there wasn't enough space in her heart
for
her fear and my love
as if
i wasn't afraid, too
as if
i didn't stay awake at night
terrified
that i might be wrong
and if
only i could fit through the space between
the
door and the floor
i
could disengage my heart
from
this like a red balloon
floating
into the space of the sky
but i
promised her i would take care of her
and
she broke that same promise
letting
the lies slip like her cigarette smoke
from
the space between her lips
with
her tan camel perched
between
her finger tips
now
scattered ashes
crushed
into the space between footsteps and concrete
with
this relationship falling
like
scattered bones on a record cover
she
said she wanted space
then
kept me close like a record needle
of a
turntable collecting dust
so
close, but never filling the space of her groove
never
scratching my way around her circumference
journeying
ever closer to her center
making
her scream
a
clarinet rhapsody like her first orgasm
rising
ever so high,
to the
doorstep of space
but
no.
instead
i hear brubeck
tripping
through the space of her sunroof
as she
pulls out of the parking lot
- - - - -
electric teardrop
envelops and protects you
crying in a smile
desires remain unspoken
and, therefore, unheard
i have always been afraid to reveal
without the magic of a greeting
though i already know your name;
could sing it through the halls
and walls of this room
i hesitate to tell you how this happened;
my detour along my way coming here
my scaling of the neighbor’s fence
the delicate press of my toes against the wet blades
reaching out, fingers extended like whiskers
concealing in my palm the small shears
touching fragile silk with my rough-hewn skin
a selfish man completing a selfish act
then darting away, a hawk from the surface
of a lake still rippling in mourning
and yet, now i shiver,
afraid to bring the act to its conclusion
afraid you will not be holding my hand
when the curtain is drawn
afraid your slender piano keys
will not accept the crimson buds
i imagine how one of these orphans would look
draped between your fingers,
the dark flesh of the arrow dangling
as if a soldier, cut down in battle
i picture you placing it upon your pale smile
pressing it lightly against your pout,
your full lips revealing nothing
as you inhale the scent of my invitation
and when it lands,
will your eyes be closed or open?
your hair is a brilliant waterfall
hiding those picture-frame caves
barring entrance from the unknowing
make me your pupil
take my hands into your own
teach me to hold you
are you irish crystal?
fragile, forged from the heat and labor,
spun and twisted, filled and emptied?
would i balance you between my knuckles,
swirling only what i pour into you?
are you a diamond orb?
hard, invisible, priceless
allowing me to read what is beyond you
keeping me ignorant of the beauty you are keeping inside
rest, you, there upon your perch
the fingernails of the goblin king
now you are snake, now you are peach
now you are anything i want
except mine
are you an iceberg?
withholding much more than id
but stabbing at the ferrous facades of fellow travelers
journeying before me
tell me, did they paint a wounded rabbit
across your snowy, shaking wrist
when they, on burnt knees, kissed your rings?
i apologize i have not had the courage
to ask to pay tribute to
your alabaster cheek,
your alpine breast,
your vanilla waist
your paper thighs
if i had been born with steel between my teeth
i would use these thorns and my ruby ink
to draw this as calligraphy
across your spine,
carry you over the arctic peaks of this
cowardice and confusion
to glide softly down on the other side of fear
like feathers of a comforter
i saw you smile once
i would like to think i can bring that sunrise to your lips again
possibly to see it in the moonlight of a night swimming
perhaps in the shelter of starshine outside your door
maybe carved into the face of my pillow
etched upon the cloth of my skin
inaction will make fools of us all
what will you do with the chance
this song was written for your ears
to steal away from you this time
to steal away with you next time
every poet is a thief
i have risked being shackled
simply to deliver this message
i have risked being shot down,
a pigeon protecting the prey
or simply in the way,
having presented you with these words
i pray you would throw me to the ground
pierce me with your glance,
tell me i have crossed this graveyard in vain
i would retreat in pride,
having heard your trumpeters' declarations
having felt the caress of your gloved hand
having learned the lesson of your eyes
how many times now
have i called your name, and still,
you have not heard once
- - - - -
wintry landscape
silent drip, azure water
secret and wooden
we were a secret
your mother was the enemy
and i loved you like a spy
through winter nights at the fire
i serenaded you and our friends
then passed along the shell to
another who bore my same name
you were sitting lotus
wearing a black shirt and a tan jacket
blue jeans and a shiver
i sat behind you
my thighs forming a mug
and like coffee, you flowed into every crevice
my legs around you
you reached down
took my trembling fingers
into your steady palms
and declared
"you are cold. put them in here to keep warm"
as you silently brought me inside
your jacket
my arms around your chest
wrapping you like a fur pelt
the tips of my pens
cupping your breasts
and I did not freeze
as i held you that night
and i held you there
like your life depended upon me.
once, when your employment
was crumbling around you,
we waltzed through the door
with their paper and plastic
i sang to you one night,
trying to imitate
the timeless recordings
at the Cote D'Azure
and it meant everything
in those spaces between being one
and having to take you home
and i sang to you
like my voice would always wake you
when i came home to an empty house
you stayed with me
we carried my world across a city
you had begun before i had even arrived
your tiny frame carrying your weight
in furniture and boxes
without the help of the yellow man
who was afraid, for me, of you
you came with me that night
we loved bruised knees
into a box spring
you were a panther
creeping across my floor
as if stalking my flesh
tearing into me when i drank from you
pulling me in when i poured into you
we washed away the stains of our sins
praying the water would purify us
dripping from the wall into torturous mornings
and i loved you like you would die that night
and i loved you like you were my heartbeat
and i loved you
like i could make you stay
but the winter landscape snow
melted into sullen rivulets of mountain tears
the trees crying for you
because i could not
that day your mother
appeared at my door
she could only say
"at least we know she's safe"
and she said that so convinced
as if announcing it
could somehow recall death
and cancel it out
as if she were god's messenger
only appearing too late, and yet
i would receive no ceremony
there was no wooden box
for me to lay you down
no brown study over which we could mourn
we could only visit you
in those halls of sickness
watching through the thick glass
as your body paraded around
in someone else's smile
i stood by that wall waiting
for you to let down your hair
waiting for a day i would never see
walking into your room
under close scrutiny
i made you laugh
i made your mother smile
i made those younger imitations of you
believe there was a chance they would get better
and i prayed you would get better
and i begged your mother not to exile me
and i prayed you wouldn't turn away
and i begged for understanding
and I prayed
like i could bring you back
- - - - -
Pity a poet
would stain, bleach, water this art
down to Love or Death
tell me:
are you love or death?
helping others lie about their age and beauty
are you, yourself
without that façade
of matte and gloss
are you unstained
unfinished
rough
will you scratch at me
and rip my skin with splinters?
will you rock with me
let the paper caress the
knots from your grain
guided by my pink and grey palms
will we steam you into
a pocket shaped for my torso
to set before a screen
will we be moving faster
than the pictures?
and what if you are painted?
is it camouflage?
perhaps impressionist flecks
intricately describing your
hidden cheek
is it a warrior's mask
imitating demons
to exorcise your enemies
and would you wear it when we meet?
are you paper doll
or tended marble?
i imagine the tender
below your ribs
how you would jump
if i kissed you there
wrapping my arms
around your equator
sculpting your spine
an arch tightening
becoming bronze
or are you simply smoke
fog licking at the window panes
before drifting somewhere else
whose eye would you burn next
if you will not let me breathe you in?
Taste your innocence
Inhale your earthy incense
Smell your inner scents
- - - - -
let them believe i am smiling
let them believe i am not in pain
let them believe i will stand here forever
if you ask me to-
your greatness gives me life
your brush creates my hair
your masterful hand caresses every lock
applies the slightest touch
give me some of my blackness
some brown some bronze
my powder skin my cinnamon lips
and the teasing texture of shadows
i will stand here forever
if you ask me to
lie about my age
tell them i am 42
tell them i am infancy
tell them i am old enough
costume me in your paint
pretend i am not a little girl
you saw on the street
in the market by your home
i will stand here forever
if you ask me to
i want your fingers to massage
the ribbons around my ankles
tie the bows around my waist
pin your rose to my image
tell me: am i twirling or am i falling
and the other woman; who is she
and if i stretch out my arms
could i ever pray to touch you?
i will stand here forever
i will hold this position
i will go on loving you
if you ask me to
- - - - -
This afternoon, I went to see The Passion of the Christ, with some friends of mine- well… one is a friend, another is an acquaintance, the third is a friend of the first friend, and the fourth is a girl I would like to get to know. After the movie, we were going to go down to a patisserie in Fell’s Point. Becky and I hopped in to Luceille, my silver 1986 Volvo 240 DL. Our friends hopped into their little black Honda, which we were to follow, since neither Becky nor I knew the way.
To get to I-83 South, to go into the city, we took Northern Parkway, one of the main thoroughfares through the north end of the city. Crossing an intersection after the girls, we ran a red light, and we joked about getting a ticket and being fugitives from the law. I half-joked about how much fun that would be, going on about receiving threatening phone calls while visiting our relatives and about MPs waiting at the airport. Of course, when you get that kind of phone call, the only appropriate response is that you’ll go willingly, but that you’d be a liability and ‘they’ can’t afford that, so the voice on the other end of the line asks for a fax number…
“True story,” I told her. She giggles. I don’t think she understood. All of that really happened. I went on to tell her what I meant.
When I was a senior in high school, I was seduced by the United States Armed Forces Recruiting Station, Navy Division. They convinced me to enlist in the Delayed Entry Program, and I would ship out after graduation to go work on an aircraft carrier or submarine, maintaining the engines. I was going into the Nuke Field.
Because I was seventeen when I enlisted, I had to have my mother’s signature allowing me to enter into a contract; my father had refused to sign. I don’t remember why. On 31 August, 1998, I signed my contract and swore my oath of service to the United States Navy.
I was so proud of myself. I felt I was going to perform a great service to my country. I would make my neighbors and my granddad proud. My then-girlfriend, Alexandra, was offended by the whole thing, saying I was serving my country by betraying my self. Mr. Bowerman, my English teacher for the first few weeks of school that year, lost his temper and swore at me; even in the short period of our acquaintance, he knew I was a pacifist and that I had no business on that I.D. card.
Over the course of the three or so following months, I went to the Recruiting Station once every two weeks for the DEP meetings, where we met current Navy personnel and ran drill in the back lot. I had questions about my position there, but all the resistance I had felt from my peers had faded. Alexandra had moved to Vermont in early September to attend Middlebury, and Mr. Bowerman had suddenly disappeared later that same month. I attended the meetings with enthusiasm, for which I was praised by CPO Pineda, my Recruiting Officer.
During this time, I was making back-up plans, in case things didn’t work out between Uncle Sam and me. I continued to perform well in school, earning high marks in my classes, and fulfilling my duties as Student Director of my school’s drama department, Technical Director of the theatre/ auditorium, and president of our Junior Achievement corporation, Iota Enterprises. I was very busy. All of this looked wonderful on my resumes, of which I sent two, along with applications for admission, to Hampshire College in Amhearst, MA, and Goucher College, in Towson, MD. Both schools later accepted my applications, but Goucher offered me a $10,000 scholarship and I would be able to live at my mom’s house, so I would not have to pay for room and board.
In January of 1999, around my 18th birthday, I was a member of my school’s team competing in the Academic Decathlon, a yearly interscholastic competition of tests covering ten subjects. It was a two-day event, with meals both days. Over dinner on the first night, I impressed my friend, Ryan Gibson, with my tales from the Navy, and how proud was I about the whole situation. I told her about being scouted because of my ASVAB scores, being stalked by the ROs trying to get me to talk to them, finally being bribed by the offer of dinner at Denny’s, going from there to the station to talk, etc…
Halfway through a sentence about the subs and the carriers and the bases and the schools and the job offers-
It hit me: “I want to teach. I need to teach. I need to teach high school. I need to teach high school English. Screw this Navy thing… I’m going to teach.”
Of course, Ryan had no idea how to handle this. But, I did.
I got my truck out of the shop a few days later, which gave me a few days to be sure I hadn’t just had a piece of Dickens’s mashed potatoes, and on the 17th of January I went to the office at Antoine and Pinemont, just off Houston’s Northwest Freeway, I-290. I informed CPO Pineda of my decision, delivered my reasons, and reminded him of his assurance I could walk away if I gave him notice at least 60 days prior to my ship-out date. I wasn’t to ship out until 7 July, so I was giving him almost 6 months warning. He asked if there was anything he could say to make me say. My response was a simple, apologetic, “No.”
He stood, and walked me to the door. We saluted. Then we shook hands. He would take care of everything.
I believed him. I assumed everything was fine until, of course, I received a call in March from CPO Gustavo, Pineda’s replacement at Pinemont. He was very angry with me and wanted to know why I wasn’t attending his DEP meetings. I reminded him I had withdrawn, to which he barked, “This is the United States Navy! You do not just walk into someone’s office and say ‘I’m Out’! You swore an oath! You signed a contract! You’re mine.” He went on to inform me that if I missed the next DEP meeting, he would have me arrested as Away without Leave, or AWOL.
Scared out of my mind, and terribly confused, I conceded. I also tracked down Pineda. His recommendation, however, was not the brightest. After a half-baked apology, he suggested I attend the meetings like a good little soldier, maintaining that I would be moving to Maryland after graduation, not mentioning that I was going so I could attend Goucher. Before I left, I was to receive transfer orders to the Baltimore office. When I arrived in Maryland, “just don’t check in. You’ll get lost in paperwork- you’ll be fine…” he said.
The embarrassing part about this is I went ahead with that, thinking everything would work out as he said it would.
After graduation, I moved in with the family of a friend of mine, a few miles north of my dad’s house in Houston. I would be moving to my mother’s at the end of the summer. After graduation, I simply stopped attending the DEP meetings, having completed the front-end of the transfer paperwork.
In late July of that summer, I went to Connecticut to attend a wedding in my mother’s family. While I was there, my mom came out into the yard, with a very confused look on her face. “I thought you said you had this whole Navy thing taken care of …”
Shit.
“Well… there’s a very angry Officer Gustavo on the phone, and he’d like to talk to you.”
He was not happy with me. “Angry” was an understatement. He sounded like I had just run over his dog.
Apparently, he’d been called by the Baltimore station when I hadn’t checked in. This was now two weeks after I should have shipped out. He had tracked down the fact I had purchased a round-trip ticket, and that I would be returning on such-and-such flight and told me he’d be there to meet me when I got off the plane. If I didn’t arrive on that flight, he’d come to me. He was going to take me from the airport to the hotel, and I’d ship out to basic in the morning. It was that, or he’d have me court marshaled.
I was done with this. I told him something to the effect of, “If that’s how it goes down, fine. I won’t argue. I will go with you. I really don’t want to go to jail. BUT- here’s the deal: my heart isn’t in this anymore. It was when I signed and swore, but it simply is not there now. I need to stay a civilian and I need to be a teacher. If, however, you don’t agree with me, think about this: Because my heart’s not in it, I can do the best I can, but I will still be a liability. Do you want that? You can’t afford that. I don’t want that. I swore to bust my ass, and I will if you want it that way, but the whole time, I will be wishing I were somewhere else. We can’t afford to have that around those engines.” After a painful silence, he said, soft for the first time, “Do you have a fax machine available?”
In the mail a few weeks later, I received my letter of Unspecified Discharge, signed and sealed by the United States Navy. I still have it, in fact, as a reminder not to pray for ignorance.
Looking back, it was fun being a fugitive, but I much prefer a red-light violation to a court marshal. I think Becky would agree.
- - - - -
of everyone in this room
i am the most patriotic
i love this country in which i live
as if i were willing to stand watch
with a seven-spired crown
and a torch to light the way
how dare you disrespect me in my home?
the ground on which i walk
the cities in which i sleep
your own father weeps
when you spit on the soil of his grave
hold your tongue
and what of our elected “dictator”,
as you call him?
child
you assume he holds the power
but you fail to realize
we are the power
we light these halls
we plow these fields
we bleed for our unborn children
how dare you laugh in the faces of our mothers?
you blame me for sins committed centuries
before my family bled for this land
when your parents held those reins
you curse the faces on our money
but you then insist on paying in cash
because you are too weak to leave the nest of this country
how dare you call me naïve?
you cower to your own
self-determined futility
refusing to “waste your vote”
but you lie in the streets
failing to stop the rolling of the war machine
the “American dream”?
maybe,
but don’t lie to me that you hold the key
we are the lightening of this path of ignorance
don’t waste my time
the putrid stench of your bickering
i am the stronger of the two of us
i have accepted i will not witness utopia
but i am doing my part to help my children have a better life
i am doing my part to help your children have a better life
i am building a better me
i am building a better we
you flail frantically
with one paddle
drowning in your own saliva
spitting epithets against my family
why are you in my way?
i am not against you
you are killing yourself
how dare you try to take my daughter down with you?
- - - - -
From inside her workshop, you can’t hear the rain, and the thunder, no matter how loud or violent, is never more than a passing truck. On bright summer days, it is still darker in that room than the ink on a restraining order. She prefers new things when she can afford them, so the light switches never make a sound, either. Every morning, she descends from her loft and, in turn, commands the work lamps to attention. She wired them herself, and they create and remove the walls that section off her small fortress.
There is her waiting room, where her clients and prospectives can examine some of her past triumphs. Next are her kitchen, dining room, and office. Her boilers, generators, and compressors stand at attention just beyond the public areas, like corrections officers outside a courtroom. Continue, and you find her solace: her machine shop, where she can mold, manipulate, wash, or weld just about anything.
She keeps all her toys neatly arranged and all her scraps ready to be recalled at a moment’s notice to stand in for an elusive straight-edge or an errant measurement. She takes great pride in her creations. Some are on display in front of office buildings, others hospitals. Her favorites are the ones on the desks of her friends. Every year, when the women in her group assemble for ‘secret santa’, having purchased something for at most fifteen dollars, she presents her not-so-secret gifts, each weighing at most fifteen ounces. Some are colorful, others plain, but all are meaningful.
Of course, one year, they were all identical: small trinkets that looked like the photograph of an assassinated apple, made of tiny links of chain. They were sundry assortments, some bits from a fence, some from a chain fall, and crowned with three tiny rings from a pair of handcuffs. The crown was barbed wire.
She laughs, sometimes, at the irony of those gifts; for it was one of those office-building lawn-ornaments that brought him into her life the first time. It was that open area next to her lathe that brought his car into her home. It was that torch that brought her past another of her creations on one of those nights with lots of trucks rolling by- the night he came back.
To say you can’t hear the rain is a misleading statement. You can hear it, but it isn’t rain; it is a tin symphony. Not the melodramatic, mood-melding music in a movie, but a personal record collection playing down from the eyes of those who didn’t survive. She always forgives the memories that come with the equinox; she is grateful to have her radio back. Whatever her mood, the spring showers sing for her and wash away her pain or bathe her in laughter. Her eyes sometimes sing along, and she loves the sound of her notes when they fall upon the hot metal in her hands, though that sick cry always rushes her back.
Some of the women from her group sat with her screaming daughter in the waiting room that night. Whenever any man would walk through, they would circle like dinosaur mothers around the terrified girl. Some of these men didn’t notice as they ran past, on their way to the clean room with their pagers still wailing frantically. Others didn’t bother, and found someplace else to sit to wait for news of their son or daughter or wife. Still others simply didn’t care, and went about their duties, “…here’s some more water… where do you want these?... watch your step.”
The following winter, she saw to it those five women each received their own steel “thank you”. One more went to Ahalya, the brave, petrified little one. The last stays on her own nightstand. Every few months, she receives a phone call from one of these angels, “I was in such a rush and it caught and tore my sweater… it must have slipped, but it sure got me good on the way down… Mom, I love you. When can I see you again, so I can go swimming? I miss you, Mom.”
She doesn’t go out often, except to the scrap yard, so nothing of hers ever catches on the metal thorns. She can’t relate much anymore to the playful whining about the small cuts on the hands and wrists of her friends; scar tissue doesn’t easily bleed. But, to her baby, she simply replies that she can come home anytime she wants, even if it’s only to go swimming.
When the doctor emerged and saw the five women standing watch over the little girl, he knew exactly for whom they waited. Haly pouted softly up to the bed and pulled herself into the sanctuary of her mother’s arms, falling right back to sleep, not noticing that this time, someone else’s fingers were the dolphins in her hair.
Brighid remembers how she sang dirges for days, and again after the bandages were removed a few weeks later. Every time she would come home from the therapy sessions, she would sing herself to sleep. One night, when there were more trucks than usual, Haly came into her room and pulled herself under the covers the way she climbed into that hospital bed so many months before, saying, “Mommy, don’t cry. It’s okay, Mommy; I’m here.”
The welder smiled through the tears and embraced her little rescuer, feeling her purpose in comforting her comforter. Usually, the child would snuggle in when this would happen, but this time, she took the hand of her creator, and stared at it. She focused on the lines and ridges of the stretched and scorched flesh.
Brighid could feel herself pulling away, but the innocent wonder in her daughter’s voice gave her pause, “Mommy! Your hands look like they’re made of water!! It’s like I’m swimming!”
- - - - -
we were where you admired my veins
and i wanted to kiss you
i was afraid,
so, instead, i went on
nervously talking about
toilets, gutters, and cats
your slender ivory
felt warm in my palms
as i watched you dance
and we talked
you looked so soft,
lying there on my bed
and i wondered what
your eyes would say to me
in the pale whiskers
of morning sunlight sneaking in
through my small windows
- - - - -
Inspired by “In the Time of the Butterflies” by Julia
Alverez
From 1930 until 1961, General Rafael Leonidas Trujillo (Weiss) dominated the Dominican Republic, ruling with a gauntlet and a pistol grip. Over the course of the three decades of his regime, he executed, assassinated, and martyred over 30,000 of the island’s residents, many of whom were his own citizens. Among the ranks of these multitudes laid to waste by the megalomaniac were Las Mariposas, “the butterflies.” These women revolutionaries showed it was possible to be a mother, lover, daughter, and wife even while pushing the limits of an oppressive dictator. The Mirabal sisters, Minerva, Maria Theresa, Patria, and Dede, each had a unique perspective on the revolution, and a unique perspective on their home lives, as well. Many have wondered what they would say in regards to the concept of the balance between revolution and romance. What we have in the pages that follow are interpretations of responses to that dichotomy. Minerva, the determined fighter, found love within the revolution. Mate, the timid follower, found the revolution through her lover’s footsteps. Patria, the boundless mother, took up the cause to save her country for her children. Dede, the fourth and final of our voices, could only pray for her sisters as she struggled to keep together everything at home to support them. They were four very different women with one public goal and a separate goal in private. Though they were diverse in their methods, they fought the same battles, both inside and outside their homes.
Viva Las Mariposas!
-----
They say that to give your life
so another may live
is the only noble way to die
to fall in battle is honorable
I didn’t fight for honor
I fought for my people
I died for my country
I was romancing the revolution
they knew I would be born
with steel between my teeth
they named me for poetry, science, and war
and I lived up to this name
I fought my entire life
from dinner table arguments about skirts in the courtroom
to hiding guns in coconut groves
I fought
and somehow, within those blood-stained years
I met the man who would kiss me with his fire
he taught me to walk through the shadows
and straight to the mouth of the lion
I promised God I would die with and for him
and we promised each other we would die with and for liberty
in the eyes of each other
we were wedded to our people
love does not die when the heart stops beating
and the revolution does not stop
when concrete and iron
enclose the soul
but, as the rough hands of the goat
constricted the life our people
so my love grew stronger
for my lover, my freedom
and, so the hands of assassins
“condemn me
it does not matter
history will absolve me” (Castro).
- - - - -
They say that to give your life
so another may live
is the only noble way to die.
to fall in battle is honorable
I didn’t fight for honor
I fought for my lover
I died for my country
I was romanced by the revolution
Papa once said
I would “make lots of men’s mouths water” (Alvarez 8)
and I guess that became true
but only one would return the favor.
Hiding boxes that night,
I knew I wanted to be a part
of whatever he was
and I wanted him
I had always followed my heart
and my heart suddenly followed him
so, where was I to go?
“love is the deeper struggle” (Alvarez 147).
love cannot be imprisoned
love is bigger than La Victoria or La 40
and love is a reason to fight
a reason to hold on
these children
with their good hair
and bloody hands
know not what they do
forgiveness is harder to find, sometimes
than sunlight
or smiles or freedom
but they are puppets
we fight for them, too
we lie to make them look better
then leave paper bread-crumbs
so others can find their way to us
“and down I went
sucked back into the body…
and I walked out to the wagon
on my own two feet” (Alvarez 256)
- - - - -
They say that to give your life
so another may live
is the only noble way to die.
to fall in battle is honorable
I didn’t fight for honor
I fought for my children
I died for my country
I was raising the revolution
as the oldest of the daughters
I was the first to leave the home
Minerva came with me,
but she came as a butterfly
I was still crawling on my belly
learning praise and prayers
for La Virgencita
and her son
when he came to me
I was Magdalena
upon my knees
as I bathed his ankles
he helped me to my feet
and held me strong
with his farmer’s hands
and his lover’s touch
when I bore his children
they were cocooned within my belly
when they emerged
I emerged as a butterfly
from them
I drew the strength to seek out
a return to my first lover
the one I thought had forsaken me
I saw him again
the night I thought
I might meet him
but he was busy
he was embracing the hearts
of my countrymen
fighting in his name
fighting in my name
the chief plunged pins
through my wings
when he ripped away my sisters,
my baby, and my husband
for months, I fought for their return
for months, I returned unsatisfied
I could have lived under house arrest
forever
I liked the country drives
I liked having my sisters home
I liked flying again
and on the third day, he rose… (Alvarez 200; Nicene Creed, par. 2)
- - - - -
They say that to give your life
so another may live
is the only noble way to die.
to fall in battle is honorable
I didn’t fight for honor
I fought for my sisters
they died for me
I was restrained by the revolution
I stayed home
to keep company with papa
the butterflies flew away
to the chrysalis of the city
Minerva played dice
with the devil himself
Mate followed suite
until she grew wings of her own
I knew none of this
and naively followed
to the stories
and the propaganda
then they told me our old friend
was an outlaw
in with the homosexuals
and the criminals (Alvarez 77)
I knew would one day see my sisters
on pegboard with note cards
I never guessed
I would write the captions
and everyday
I die for them
because they flew away
all at once
I relive that
with every sunset
saying to mama, every night
“there’s no need for the bag” (Alvarez 307)
hope is the cruelest of the emotions
hope does not mean “maybe”
I means only
“wait”
- - - - -
I can still tell you
from memory
the things they gave us,
pulled from the jeep
with that photograph,
I relive the attempts
to dishonor
Las Mariposas
for our people they fought
for our country they died
‘when you die for your country
you do not die in vain’ (Alvarez 311)
and so it was,
through their deaths
I learned to be a martyr
and they learned to be free
- - - - -
you clung to my teeth
your legs around my face
you gripped my neck
like an anaconda
burying yourself in my throat
impregnating my chest
you burn like an ulcer
beneath my ribs
until you are ready
you left like a god
my eyesight fades
i shudder
violently
you make me quake
my heart hammering
like a head against a wall
i fear your arrival
knowing you will kill me
when you come
i am ready to die
take me now
i’m not ready to die
take me now
i don’t want to die
burst from my chest
while you pierce the darkness
with your cry
- - - - -
we were silver-plated flatware
watching fish on my television screen
when they were done,
instead of watching an aquarium,
we talked of scar tissue
and the way it doesn't evaporate quickly
the implications of that statement
convinced my fingertips
to swim through the ocean of your hair
my rough palms were whales
my fingertips, dolphins
i told you how i could smell you
when we were in that dark place
but i didn't know if i should have told you then
so i waited
it's your skin
your hair
your perfume
your sweat
your womanhood
your power
that make you so beautiful
your beauty permeates the air
and i know you are near
when i am not looking
i wonder if you think these things about me
in those moments before you fall asleep
the oceans move the earth
swells rising with every turn of my wrists
when i reached to kiss your neck
you turned to kiss my lips
inviting me in
holding me against you
i pulled toward you
but we are oil and water
my fingers stumbled
clumsily across your chest
like this were my first time
and your scent rises
like blood boiling among sharks
and i wanted to taste your skin
but now is not the time to swim
and like summer sunset storms
we stopped
hovering among the tides of my sateen sheets
and i held you
and i held on to you
and i laid my head next to yours
and i slept well for the first time in weeks.
you woke me softly
told me you had to leave
kissed me lightly
and quietly
you left me there
when i woke
i had to remind myself you had been there
i had to remind myself
it wasn't a dream
i didn't remember hearing the door shut
i don't remember hearing the door shut
even in the darkness
i could somehow see the pale
outline of your breasts
as you licked the lust from
my lips.
we pulled at each other as if
hoisting a sail
and we were pushed along by
our own breath.
my eyelids cannot press back
your beauty.
i could still see your
shudders, smooth skin, seductive.
i would, with pleasure, snap
my back in half
if only i could do so as a
farmer, tilling your fields.
sowing sighs, reaping rewards
of your nature
sift, shift, turn.
you pushed back my hands,
exposing my eyes to the sky,
your fingers, strong as
bamboo, between my own;
this magnetism balancing you
above me.
enwrap me
cover me
become my atmosphere
let me breathe you in
and blow you away
i kissed your head.
your eyes flinched as if you
were dreaming.
when i rolled away from you,
your breath called a sharp
resistance,
commanding me to return.
i wish i could say that i
will never refuse again,
but you are nightingale and i
am lark
and we meet as do the sun and
moon.
i know you did not hear the
door shut when i left,
longing for twilight to
return
- - - - -
Slam Version, Spring 2004
The painter told me I have beautiful hands.
I could only respond with cheeks like
so many rose buds
these hands have handed to
so many lovers over
so many cups of coffee and
so many thresholds over
so many "I love you"s over
so many lifetimes.
These hands are beautiful?
These hands have cupped a
drowning body while trying to
resuscitate that dying light
with cartoon-cuddle-time
and stargazer lilies.
These hands have shaken hands with
capitalist devils in bleeding
cesspools of finance and aspiration.
These hands constantly paint
words on receipts and diner napkins
only to type them onto the
hard-driven memories of
mothers, children, brothers, sisters
in rooms that emanate love and energy
like the nucleus of an atom.
Blood-soaked and soiled, these hands are beautiful?
These hands have held back this hair
to keep these precious locks
from being plastered with
the vomitous regurgitation
of alcohol, pain-killers, heroin,
and love.
These hands have gripped these ears
in futile attempts to quell
the myriad voices yelling at me
from inside the fortress of my skull.
These hands have scrubbed floors and tile walls
in search of
green-golden respect,
only learning to hate my self in the process
of servitude to a tyrant king
with a liar's smile
and a false prophet
promising me a better life.
Bruised and torn, these hands are beautiful?
These hands have traveled the vast
waistlines of unwritten love poems
whispered in twilight sleep with
skin against skin.
These hands have roamed over fret boards
seeking peace on
an ax and an amp
with candle-lit scores
of gut-wrenching lyrics
sooner forgotten than spoken.
These hands have cupped breasts in
motel bathrooms and dew-covered fields,
vacant theatres and automobiles,
searching for heaven in an orgasm,
but only finding the false god of
sex-without-love and another trip
to the laundromat to clean my soul
of loveless-sex,
only to return as Lady Macbeth,
throwing myself at the courtyard floor
with my heart as my jury and a verdict of
"Not Guilty" because
though I throw myself toward the ground-
that doesn't mean that I am falling.
And that makes these hands beautiful?
These hands have gripped the wheel of an
automobile rocketing to a pharmacy at
Two A.M. for an emergency fill-up of Xanax
to stop the manic attacks
of the fifth letter;
shaved head and unshaved legs,
scared, scarred, and shaking
in the passenger seat of my truck
as we climbed the highest mountains
of stress and pain, frustration and fear.
These hands created
entire universes over
Six day's time
and ripped the Lego city apart
on the seventh.
These hands have carried silver-plated flatware
over dinners with elders who taught me
about my history
their history
OUR history.
These hands have tended the hanging gardens
while climbing Jacob’s ladder
out of the hell of addiction
into a sober heaven with
angelic poetesses singing
triumphant chorales
as I walk through
the pearly gates of self-esteem and self-respect.
These hands have clung to the trapeze of sanity
above the netless pit of manic-depression
with Jiminy-Cricket at my side
and Pinocchio as my guide.
These hands have done all of this and more
and for that I can now stand
Proudly here before you and say,
Hell yeah,
These hands are beautiful.
- - - - -
Slam Version, Fall 2003
It is just as my first time on the stage.
I am so nervous
I can hear my breath, heavy on the sound system, echoing from the walls to the coffee cups
I bring my lips to the microphone and the speakers squeal in feedback as the poetry strips me of my armor and I lay bare-
shattered in ecstasy
I can’t move-
I am so Nervous.
And I want to be poetry-
I want to be ONE with her
But I am afraid, so I throw myself into a silver-screen fantasy
Running from the reality of the stage
I disrobe my words-
that only the truth be heard
and no more hiding from myself.
I see that this mistress,
Poetry,
Is a LIE,
An ACT,
A Façade.
This Art is Life and
This Microphone is Truth and I want to become ONE with the Truth- I want to embrace this Life and my senses peak- I am living in clip.
and I want so bad to do Art justice with the perfect poem- to paint a Tchaikovsky ballet on this stage with my words and the sounds from the mic get louder and I embrace Life and I dance with the Microphone stand and I am so afraid
That Life will deny my inspiration
That Art will shun my devotion
That Poetry will discard my love as meaningless ranting
And I will be left
Naked and Shivering
But I gather the strength to throw life to the mat and pin poetry to the wall
Diving in with reckless abandon
I make three minutes last an eternity
Because time and space are suspended while we flow through assonance and alliteration
Onomatopoeia and syllabics and I am so afraid of finding rejection from Life and being denied three times by Art or destroying Poetry and all that she is
So I focus-
On paying homage to Calliope
I drop to my knees to both feed and share nectar and ambrosia
And the microphone drips with honey and sweat as I continue my dance of praise-
Gratitude to the gGods for placing this Poetry, this Art, this Life in my hands and in my heart and in my soul
And in my pleas,
I beg her not to stop-
To give me more
To never stop blessing me with my muse
To never stop flooding me with inspiration
To never stop feeding me lines like a drug-addict
Because these are my sin-dens
These are my squatter’s rights
This room
stage
microphone
Silence
When I catch my breath and the judges have quieted themselves
I return to the stage
And it is
Constant
Unwavering
Never stopping
And yet new and always different
But somehow familiar
And STILL I am so nervous
I feel like Oedipus when I sing
Because I am making love to Poetry and Life, but I am of this Art, and I revel in the touch of her words. I slay the daemons of fear and the vodka-fire rages in my chest as I bury myself for the fifth time into this Life and I am wrestling with the microphone- trying to make the eternal sound, and I don’t feel OM, but I feel that this is right- this Life and I are ONE- we are Righteousness Forever-
Sannathana Dharma
We are Righteousness Forever
So I am on my knees in reverence to this Art form that is Life and we are swirling in some astral place I cannot feel the stage anymore I have no flesh I have become ONE with her and for a moment
we are pure
- - -
- -
1
why,
thank you, thank you.
coming from you, that's huge
i appreciate it
2
Springstein, Dire Straits
These all remind me of her
Driving in her car
3
When we love someone
We bury them when they die
Headstone/ Monument
4
dead bodies smell bad
most retired people, too.
old po'ms smell of love.
5
the hyperlinks took
maybe your browser just sucks
just like your mom, bitch
6
These photos are great
I think these go on the site
beautiful people
7
a hungry man is
an angry man; you see I
am starving for you
8
We're Starving and Crude
We Hunger for Your Presence;
Fasting for Your Taste
9
little blue pill crutch
it's keeping me from crying
keeping me working
10
he was kidding, hon
threw that in to confuse you
her and Hait-er, too.
11
Jerry McGuire;
Maybe I should buy this, and...
Empire Records. (em-pie-er)
12
Everything I do
is first and foremost for you
then it becomes mine
13
you are golden sun
therefore, my universe is...
heliocentric
14
when you write for me
i can see the potential
to be great, myself
15
and potential is,
afterall, the cruelest word;
WE are twin pillars
16
she does not realise
that which she has thrown away
but she will, someday (*reel-ize)
17
i often wonder
if she wants me to fight this
to see my passion
/to see if i'm real
/to stand up to her
/instead of giving
/resist dismissal
...yeah... not set on the last line, but, hey...
18
if she had one thorn
poison arrow it would be
cupid as a girl
19
you are beautiful
the object of my desire
you are all i want
20
i miss you, my love
the same way i miss my skin;
naked without you
21
i would sleep soundly
if only you were with me
nestled at my side
22
giuliette misses
the comfort of your presence
scratching 'tween her ears
23
i chose these colours
while i had you on my mind
you're paint on my walls
24
you are my best friend
i know i would fall in love
if only i were
25
you, naked, satin
running circles around me
"you cannot make me!"
26
you make me tell him
the time we were making love
when you popp'd your cork
27
god damn, i miss you
but i need to ask myself:
love or obsession?
28
i'm trying to write
something never said before
and you've never heard
29
there isn't enough
LSD in the world to
see my love for you
30
and "the boss", springsteen
comes on the radio- thoughts:
riding in your car
31
i know i know not
but, o'er coffee, might i have
opportunity?
32
a pair of lovers
i see two of you, as one;
beautiful image
33
yet another drop
"Dark Storm Cloud", "Sweet Vanilla"
I tire of painting
34
never have i been
happy to not see you un-
til now. I love you.
35
funny irony
his life is dedicated
learning non-ado
36
Together we are,
braided and strong, steel cable,
holding to Brooklyn
37
It is not raining,
But, there is not a picnic...
I must be at work.
38
I am here to grow.
Being proven incorrect
Enables me to.
39
i realise now (*Re-ah-lize)
i am not the only one
of us who needs growth
40
so
there, i did it
"i saw your mom" just for fun
i want biz-ness cards
dad's basement submerged
time to get my butt down to
Alexandria
long, brown hair; blue eyes
fun, intellegent, sexy,
loving; a good man
43
i love you, my dear
but time has built a sense of
animosity
44
I am trying to
Move along, having reach-ed
re-alisation
45
You cannot be what
I need for you to be, and
what I thought you were
46
So, I, of course am
Attempting to get over
this wall: resentment
47
Philosophy is
Wonderful, if you can put
Theory to Practice
48
I don't believe in
this thing call-ed regret, but
seek absolution
49
I want to be friends
but, if that's how you will treat
your friends, your lover...
50
Why would I choose to
Allow a repeat offense?
You haven't tri'd change
51
I wish we could just
Go back to what I thought we
had, but wasn't there
52
So, when I saw a
woman I have met before
Smart and Attractive
53
i asked her if she
might want to get to know each
other o'er coffee
54
she said she would, and
we could make plans on Monday
but she never show'd
55
I thought that I had
Call'd the right number, but it
was disconnected
56
When I got back home
i saw i had di-all-ed wrong;
hers is 443
57
I call'd the correct
area code and number
and left a message
58
I have yet to hear
anything from her, but I
guess I should have known
59
I am sure it's good
Ev-erything happens as
ev-erything should
60
Rhyming Senryu:
You know you are tired when...
And you should wake up
61
Fan belts were Squealing
Purchased new ones at Salvo
Then, one of them broke
62
I popp-ed the hood
Alternator belt hanging
Time to get to work
63
After Half-an-Hour
Discovered all three belts were
Siz'd Incorrectly
64
Reassembled Car
Puttered to Salvo, Praying
Purchased three new Belts
65
This, after spending
Another hour in the lot,
Struggling to pull belts
66
Finally, TIN SNIPS!!
Making quick work of Rubber
Hell hath no fury
67
Student, Mechanic
Angry Man in the car-park
These and More am I
68
That took way too long
A/C Compressor wouldn't
Rotate to loose belt
69
Attached the new cords
Tighten'd accessories
I Missed my first Class
70
Show'd up late to Alt's
Philosophy 101
Hands black with oil
71
Missed Psychology
AGAIN, having been absent
Monday; woke at noon
72
I have an exam
Friday, for which I just miss'd
The review lesson
73
It's no matter, though
I got this shit locked down, man
it is "all up ons"!
74
I want to follow
with my tongue, to your center
the curves of your hips
75
most people are smart
some, however, can just be
uneducated
76
stickers, soap bubbles
shiny things shimm'ring, sliding
down my stainless sink
77
I have known you, Jim
For over a decade, friend
Now I mourn your loss.
78
Our skin is Canvas
we paint our lives upon flesh
in Life's gallery
79
i wanted to call
but nothing but 'miss you', which
i've said too often
80
progress being made
ripping out hardwood with sweat
fuck you, isabel
81
you call'd me tonight
i sighed when i heard your voice
i still miss your breath
82
we both achiev'd goals
but, on what field did we play
full contact avoidance?
83
my mind and I change
each other so often we
can't trust each other
I'm not my body.
"Cogito, ergo sum", hmmm?
But, am I my mind?
83
She said you're a ghost.
You're killing yourself again;
Still caught in headlights.
84 & 85
5 She told me you are,
T again, a ghost. I wanted to find you.
T Costumes are rare, unless it's Halloween.
9 Your secret rushing from you again?
86
INBRED FAMILY
father, brother: one in same
oedipus complex
87
UNFORTUNATELY
opinions and solutions
often disagree
88
improper boundaries
have been known to lead us to
CROSS-POLLINATION
89
Boots and bolo tie
I want to lasso you and
MOUNT YOU LIKE A HORSE
90
you and i, as one
in my bed, our love will we
CIRCUMNAVIGATE
91
approach your altar
as i bring you to my lips
COMMUNION WAFER
92
hands press'd in prayer
i beg for your pale blessing
COMMUNION WAFER
93
ONE FINGER SNAPPING
sound eerily similar
tree in the forest
94
ONE FINGER SNAPPING
next time, it's your fucking knees
where's my money, bitch?
95
Man, woman, as one
Plato's perfect bond of love
HERMAPHRODITIC
96
NAMETAG ON MY HEART
your love calls and i answer
i am so your bitch
97
NAMETAG ON MY HEART
your love calls and i answer
you are my best friend
98
glistening, starlight eyes
are exploding with passion
LIKE SUPERNOVAS
99
EMPEROR PENGUIN
he presents you with your crown
black bruises, pale skin
100
when i was a child
i would ask my mother to
CUT THE CRUSTS FROM BREAD
101
YOUR BUSY FINGERS
counting out your syllables
late night, diner, words
102
ZODIAC SPINNING
the stars you cast in my eyes
your touch is stellar
103
WITH NO STRINGS ATTACHED
i invite you to my bed
my marionette
104
POMEGRANATE JUICE
a substitute for his seeds
still cause for winter
105
a night within you
your heart and lips cold as ice
ZAMBONI BLOWJOB
106
capitalized words
represent the assignment
lower-case are mine
107
dropp'd you at airport
drove to norfolk, Virginia
miss you already
108
insulting phone call
my aunt cathy is a bitch
my father agrees
109
left norfolk at ten
rocketing in my volvo
up the interstate
110
queen-size bed empty
except for my pale body
turbulent blue sheets
111
i still think of you
when i look at my new clothes
lion, witch, wardrobe
112
you made me a book
fill'd it with your favorites
now they are mine, too
113
i don't know why, but
i never know what to give
you have everything
114
beard and guilt complex
and wonderful gift-giver
"quad" is in the book
115
Hando II guitar
red lining in hard black case
thank you, delrica
116
i'm here on the ground
waiting for you to come down
when you get back home
117
you cough beside me
crumbled tissue of woman
may my touch bring health
118
ex-girl and Best Friend
A party on New Year's Eve
Auld Acquaintances
119
sonya renee, damn!
fourteen people in small house
sounds like a hundred!
120
happy holidays
you are all my family
I love you. Be well.
121
don't insult my craft
or my intelligence, bitch
I was thanking you
122
def poetry jam
recording session at dream's
late night editing
and little snippets
5 and 7 syllables
to use in haiku
(chris)
123
friends, lovers, brothers
weaving tangled passion web
INBRED FAMILY
124
though the sex is great
you and i don't work, doofy...
UNFORTUNATELY
125
CROSS-POLLINATION
lies buzz and soil what is true
stream of consciousness
126
MOUNT YOU LIKE A HORSE
i grasp your reins as you buck
ride into sunrise
127
CIRCUMNAVIGATE
you tip-toe around the truth
not the shortest path
128
COMMUNION WAFER
your pale form you offer me
this is my body
129
beatnik/ zen poem
sound of one hand clapping and
ONE FINGER SNAPPING
130
you are what you eat
i taste you like i praise you*
therefore, i am you
*taalam acey
131
HERMAPHRODITE
they say you are what you eat
therefore, i am you
132
blank page on my chest
fill it with your lovers-touch
NAMETAG ON MY HEART
133
LIKE SUPERNOVAS
you and i reach orgasm
simultaneously
134
stand upon my rock
if i should please you, my love
please accept my feast
135
EMPEROR PENGUIN
stand upon my rock, my love
please accept my feast
136
CUT THE CRUSTS FROM BREAD
remove what is not needed
discard your stale lies
137
late night diner booth
i reach across, hope to calm
YOUR BUSY FINGERS
138
pale green stars of your
hanging mobile in your room
ZODIAC SPINNING
139
i'll knit you a scarf
to keep you warm in winter
WITH NO STRINGS ATTACHED
140
seasons of your life
her blood, for you, is just like
POMEGRANATE JUICE
141
ZAMBONI BLOWJOB
smooth the ice of our life's fights
with your melting kiss
142 - HSA1-01
anna catherine schein
older sister/ role model
never sitting still
143
Back from St. Thomas
Abrupt entrance at the Slam
to the crowd's applause
144
The water walks barefoot in the wet streets.
From that tree the leaves complain as though they were sick.
-P.N.
- - - - -
late night, lamp light, youth
words dug in apartment mulch
some just say "seven".
“Invitations for the Ashes” Haiku
I.
electric teardrop
envelops and protects you
crying in a smile
II.
make me your pupil
take my hands into your own
teach me to hold you
III.
how many times now
have i called your name, and still,
you have not heard once
“Dredging Patricia” Haiku
wintry landscape
silent drip, azure water
secret and wooden
“Questioning the Painter” Haiku
I.
Pity a poet
would stain, bleach, water this art
down to Love or Death
II.
Taste your innocence
Inhale your earthy incense
Smell your inner scents
the
perfect haiku
would be your name repeated;
sung seventeen times
Harold and maude haiku
I took
the pills ov-
er an hour ago. I'll
be gone by midnight
sarah
haiku #??
"it's
all i can do,
sometimes, not to ask you to...
stay," she said to me.
sarah
haiku #??
what
do i want?
i want
what i thought i had
when i
thought i had you.
-Rebecca
haiku series 1-
kissing
your pale lips
with
each and every goodbye
a
stronger greeting
when
you shut your eyes
i
reached out and touched your hair
afraid
to kiss you
this
is what i learn
hesitation
makes us fools
my
apologies
just
don’t let me talk
take
my cheeks into your palms
press
soft lips to mine
with
you, there is risk
tripping,
falling, pain, again
possibility
i
know: no excuse
though
it kills me to do so,
i am
waiting for you
i know
i should ask
because
i don’t want just sex
i want
small windows
Rebecca
Birthday haiku
i.
anniversary
day of birth celebrated
congratulations
ii.
springtime sunset kiss
cool mist blown on gentle breeze
your eyes outshine stars
-----
All material copyright 2001-2004 David Donald Schein II, except where noted. All rights reserved.
Any unauthorized duplication of this publication, in part or whole, is a violation of applicable laws.
Published by figmentofimagination Productions
Cooked in granma’s Kitchen
Baltimore, MD, USA
Printed at Printergy, Inc.
Baltimore, MD, USA.
To contact fP, gK, or Printergy:
Works Cited in “Romance or Revolution”
Alvarez, Julia. In the Time of the Butterflies. New York: Penguin, 1995.
Bible-Study-Online.Org. “Nicene Creed”. Apostle’s and Nicene Creeds, Original Faith. Ed. Norman McIlwain. 2003. 25 March 2004 < http://www.bible-study-online.org/index_000007.htm>
Castro, Fidel. Speech, 1953. Trans. Pedro Alvarez Tabio & Andrew Paul Booth. La
Habana, Cuba: Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, 1975.
Weiss, Emily. “Flown Away, but Not Forgotten”. Unbound (12/12/2003). 25 March 2004. <http://www.tcnj.edu/~unbound/features/butterflies.html>
fP
Archie nodded, smiling. “A
lovely treason, hm?”
I could not speak. He led me
out into the dazzling light.
-jerry spinelli, stargirl