Bird in a Box

Devendra wants to be a math teacher

2012-01-29T15:08:00.000-06:00

Devendra says he does not give a rat’s ass, guns it andscrapes hard, crushing the downspout drain with his jitney cab just to proveit.

The club owner is standing outside smoking, but he justdrives past, no apologies:

Shit happens—just keep going.

That’s what he says.

I jump in fast up front and hold on.

He drops the men in back at another club. It’s raining and they want curb serviceand umbrellas. He has a stash inthe trunk.

He gets back into the car, wet, huffing.

Is it alright if I . . . I start.

Hells yeah, he says

and shoves his last tip bills at my purse.

Drunk boys bang on the hood, humping the cab and rubbingtheir khakis on my window.

This shit, he says

and drives off.

Takes me to his room.

No touching.

He lets me be, lets me plop on his bed.

My heels are soaked.

He props them by the radiator. The paper insoles crack and rise.

He lets me dry out as he sits cross-legged at the end of thebed, smoking in the dark.

I watch the red coal of his cigarette breathing with him,neon glow, a watchful dragon with a small jewel in its maw.

He lets me cry and sleep.

I draw on paper bags and dream of mountains and Mother.

She says the garden is fifty fucking percent trash trees andbriar, as she leans on her hoe, smiling and smoking. With one hand she sweeps her brown hair, tucking it under atortoise shell:

Just keep talking and crying.

It’s alright.

She’s going to hang my clothes out tomorrow on the sun porch.

And tomorrow is a grapefruit slowly shrinking in a bowl,

an avocado pit skewered in a juice glass,

egg curry and toast.

Devendra bought me a tin of watercolors.

I spend the morning

dropping small white dots

on the red brick mountain,

One thousand times over:

cherry blossoms of snow.

Testing Dandelions in January

2012-01-03T17:49:00.000-06:00

I sleep naked with you

and awake so pleased

to see the white,

snow-covered lake

of my skin,

free of clothes

lines

and run my fingers

down

to where you bravely launch

your craft.

Far From It

2011-12-17T14:42:00.000-06:00

Every morning I tie

a capelet of sorrow

around my neck,

letting the velvet

plush, as dense as

a cattail’s, weigh down

my shoulders,

my glance~~

even now,

when Grandmother fluffs

her feather bed,

and the ground hugs

a comforter of white.

I measure time in bowls

of tea,

like Goldilocks testing

her tongue:

Too Hot! TooCold!

And each night

I fold paper cranes

into my sleeves,

bright and jagged

as the sorrel

and frisée,

still green

in the snow.

Designed to fail

2011-12-17T12:28:00.000-06:00

And so I befriended a little boy

and he trusted me and I him.

We’d tell each other stories

from our day;

mostly true,

some pretend.

He told me of the backyard,

the dirt world,

the little berms of daisies

and snail swirled ponds.

And I gave him my wisdom

of the grown-ups:

how we think that they’ll

never lie or let us down,

but inevitably they do;

they’re designed to.

And in that moment

of disappointment,

we bow to them,

and acknowledge

their broken muddiness,

as also our own.

Later, I heard that his family

was moving away.

I didn’t know where.

I stood on their vacant lawn,

trying to remember my number

to leave for him on a receipt,

a cookie fortune in my pocket,

a cracked toy tractor plastic piece.

It began to snow and I still could not

write the number where I could be

reached in case of emergency.

Even if I did remember,

wouldn’t it get left behind,

somehow, onlyto become

a scooting gutter canoe

in the thaw.

Oh how, oh how

I didn’t want to let go

the sticky frog summer

of his smile

when he saw me.

Oh how, oh now

to know

a phone line would never come

close enough

to save me.

Never Trust a Sailor on Dry Land

2011-12-12T11:19:00.000-06:00

The Addict andMe, Part IV

Never Trust aSailor on Dry Land

Back to theromance, as it were.

We arrived in town. I wassmitten. S. stood in the blazingsunlight outside the bus station in his suit jacket and jeans, a cigarettedangling, backpack slung to one side, joking with his mom on his cell, smokyblue shades over his brown eyes, just the right combination of urbane and offbeat.

Mom held courtat a local coffee house and we went to meet her there.

She got up fromher table that held a small pile of Smithsonian’s and newspapers and otherjournals. She took off her readingglasses and gave me a warm hug. Iliked her immediately. Mom waslively and chatty and I watched as S. brought his energy up to match hers. But she was a mountain stream inspring, a freight on the open rails; she kept rolling. S. began to flail his hands inagitation as he tried vainly to interject. I instinctively reached my hands across the table to holdhis, to calm him. His mother hadabout a hundred suggestions on what we should do. I hadn’t eaten anything but a scrap of a donut for about sixor seven hours and was famished. This brought approbation from her. What was S. doing? Here hisguest was about to faint from hunger. Mom described a few places nearby and their menus, at least what she wouldorder. There was a nice deli downthe street. The ice cream parloron the corner also had sandwiches and soup, perhaps. Didn’t they have soup? Would I like some soup? Wecould also go to her place in the foothills and have fresh Colorado peaches andice cream. S. and I finallydecided to go to the deli.

At the deli Iordered an Eggplant Parmesan sandwich and S. got a Rueben. We sat on a bench outside as I inhaledmy sandwich and S. called his sister. She had just recently had a baby, her first, the first grandchild forboth families, and they were all getting together at a restaurant fordinner. S. was too nervous to eathis sandwich. I didn’t know it atthe time, but he was nervous about my meeting the baby. He thought that since I didn’t wantchildren of my own that I hated them. It wasn’t true. In partysituations, pets and babies are practically safety nets for the sociallyawkward. At the restaurant, Ipolitely said hello to everyone and then got down to cooing over the baby. She didn’t or wouldn’t judge me or askme any embarrassing questions. Icould just smile and hold her little fingers while the grown-ups talked. Since we had just eaten, we didn’t stayfor dinner and as quick as we were in, we were out. All was well in my eyes. I was entering S.’s world and I wantedto know everything about him. There was so much I didn’t know, so much which would take a long time tounderstand.

S. and I hadplanned to go hiking in the Rockies the next day, so we had to make a groceryrun to get gorp and such. I lovegrocery stores, especially in new places. I find fruit and vegetable displays mesmerizing, even if I’m not buyingany. Here was a large bin ofpeaches for less than a dollar a pound! The butter had a picture of an elk onit! I needed some coffee andyogurt and granola for breakfast. We picked up some gorp, but I also wantedchèvre and crackers. We needed to buy a knife if we were going to get cheese. I had promised to call in to a friendback home who was worried about me flying off to see some guy I had met on theinternet. So, while S. was offhunting for a small paring knife, I called my friend and told him everythingwas fine, S. was just off looking for a knife, ha-ha-ha.

In my mind,everything wasfine. I was having a goodtime. But as I started to look atdried fruits and nuts, I could see that S. was getting fidgety. “I just can’t stand fluorescent lightsfor too long.” he said. OK, wecould go. He apologized again inthe parking lot, “I needed to get out of there; it was taking too long.” As we drove back to his place, I wantedto put my hand on his thigh, his knee, something; but I felt a wall had goneup. He was silent.

He had a smallroom in a house with space enough for a desk and a bed. We put groceries away and climbed onthe bed to watch a movie. There wewere, inches apart on top of the covers, but those inches felt like a widegulf. I saw his eyes start toflutter shut and I thought, “Now! I could just lean over now and quickly kiss him.” But he soon opened his eyes and keptstiffly far away. I didn’t darebreach this gap between us. Helooked almost fearful. When themovie ended, I left to go to my motel room and sleep.

Posh Puja

2011-12-11T21:48:00.001-06:00

Darjeeling Train Tracks in the Himalayas

Come by train, my love,

Your heart straining

through the rusting heat of Delhi,

From the dust rise up

And come

To a lake in Kashmir,

Beneath the Himalayas~~

I’ll be waiting.

Follow my voice,

Whispering your name,

Soft as pashmina,

Through supple fields of semolina.

And we’ll embark,

Shikara together~~

Your feather cockaded,

My pale orchid veil,

In the green-grey rippling

Silk moiré waters,

We’ll shyly eye each other’s reflection.

There we’ll filigree sigh,

the air, crushed pearls between us;

The rosewater sky will deepen to dusk.

A single gold thread of light will bind us.

I’ll touch your feet with mine,

Your hands, I’ll clasp.

Under the red canopy,

Sheltered together,

The heavens will shower us with flowers

At last.

A Shikara docked on Dal Lake, Kashmir

Your Name

2011-12-05T20:59:00.001-06:00

I want to hold your name

As a book I keep reading—

Hands aching into the night.

I want to pin it in my hair

A bright shining jewel—

Wear it round my wrist

A jangling charm.

Let it follow me adoringly—

Then lead me like hounds,

Ebullient and braying,

Into the woods

Where frozen I crouch,

Your name

Like a secret

In my mouth.

May 2007

Love the Fearless Artist in You

2011-12-05T12:35:00.001-06:00

Earthbound

2011-12-04T12:24:00.001-06:00

Are you rocks or roots, now.

Clumps of dirt from heaven

Drum down and drown the yellow pine.

Black thorns and shriveled hips

Bristle under the grey skies.

Once

A box of chocolates,

A heart held

In sweaty palms,

Slubbed red ribbons tied thick,

A handprint left

A slight shudder

On lily silked flanks,

Lupines and Anise Hyssop kisses

Uprooted and crumbled,

Drawn from the elk-flecked meadow,

New & sweet, spotted like a fawn,

Sleeping soft shallow breaths,

A whispered promise to the crook of a tree,

No names carved,

Only an impulse

Suddenly

Immobilized.

Book Shelf

2011-11-28T17:41:00.001-06:00


The Row of Spotted Dog Guardians


The Soulful One

OK, kitty-cats, here are some pictures of my book shelf. I live in a very small house (600 sq. feet) and had to lose a lot of books to make the move. This used to be a very small closet, but ex-boyfriend converted it into a built-in bookshelf on this side and a walk-in bedroom closet on the other.

I had to include close-ups of my little Japanese friends. I was hanging out with some people who were avid collectors of vintage stuff. I decided that I would limit myself to one specific thing. I bought my first pair of Japanese Spotted Dog Salt and Pepper shakers at an antique place on Clark Street in Chicago. They are not terribly rare, or expensive, or collectible, but they make me happy.

Hmm. Bookshelf notes: I didn't want to post these because I seem to have such a hodge-podge of things. Some pairings make me laugh. "The Complete Photo Guide to Home Repair" rests on top of Edward Gorey's "The Doubtful Guest." "The Immoralist" is atop "The Ethical Slut" which is above "The Heritage of Russian Verse." (Oh, dear. I considered polyamory for a minute, once, but it didn't work out. I can't even manage monamory.) I've got lots of short stories and poetry. Much Rilke, of course. And unfiled cds here and there. A Zeppelin boot below Billie Holiday and Aaron Copland. Rostropovich. Yup. Ooh, there's some Rory Gallagher. I might listen to that right now. "This is the Empire State Express . . . " Yes.
"The Golden Notebook" I "borrowed" from a housemate twenty years ago and have never finished.
The Barthelme I had forgotten about until I read a poem that reminded me of "The Falling Dog" and I had to pull it out to re-read: "Yes, a dog jumped on me out of a high window. I think it was the third floor, or the fourth floor. Or the third floor. Well, it knocked me down. . . ."
Anais Nin's "Delta of Venus" is rightly beside Meridel Le Sueur's "Ripening." Sylvia Plath has the ignominy of resting next to three books on Dachshunds while a vintage postcard of deer in the northwoods falls out of its frame.
A Christmas cactus grafted from my mother's pokes into the frame of the bottom shelves which house photo albums, some music books (Italian Arias?), and hidden behind an oversized book of children's stories is a lovely picture book entitled "The Female Portrait in Russian Art" which leans on Helmut Newton's "Sleepless Nights."
Well, I guess that about sums it up.

The Next Right Thing

2011-11-27T22:27:00.001-06:00

My neighbor came over to give me tomatoes

and some basil sprigs from his garden.

He seemed agitated as we stood in my yard.

He petted my little dog Bela as I held him

and then he touched my arm

as he said goodbye:

“I have to go make dinner.”

I have to go make dinner for my girlfriend,

for my loving partner

that you don’t have

and in our nice cedar-sided house

with our friends who come over

for barbeques and beer on weekends,

unless we’re camping,

are we camping this weekend or next,

maybe next. Canyou look in on Lola Kitty?

He petted my arm.

It has been so long since someone has touched me,

caressed me.

I went into the house and cried.

I’m trying so hard to do the right thing.

The post-it asks:

What is the most compassionate thing

you can do for yourself right now?

I consider a beer and the couch,

and crying it out,

but I do core exercises and yoga,

followed by a half hour’s meditation outside:

blanket down, blank me on the green green green.

Back inside I check some poems online.

There’s a post on Hemingway at Key West,

and I recall my trip there

with boyfriend long gone,

arriving at the grenadine sunrise

with the roosters and the cats

and being swallowed by something in that house

some feeling came over me under the draping crystal

chandelier, asmy hands passed over the field guides

that lined the shelves going up the white washed stairs,

gasping

and then to Cozumel

where I was horrible: anxious andbitchy.

I just wanted a decent cup of coffee

I just wanted everything to be perfect.

I didn’t know.

I didn’t know how to live.

I want to make amends.

I apologize to the air,

poor boyfriend,

to myself:

I’m sorry,

I didn’t know.

And all that is gone.

It seemed that I used to go

places and do things.

Now I just stay at home.

I’ve gotten so much better, though.

This morning I, perfect me, who

glides through life with ease and grace,

knocked over and broke a full cup of beautiful Mayan coffee.

I didn’t cry, or swear, or try to blame the dogs.

I just mopped up the brown and jade shards

and made another cup.

I didn’t know

I could do that.

Desk

2011-11-23T15:08:00.001-06:00


The Marble Topped Table from my mother's house last summer when I intended it to be an art workspace.

A Collection of Postcards spread on the table after an impromptu antique mall outing.


The Table Today: some books have moved in and a blank comp book awaits.

The Picture on the wall by my computer (in the same room): My mother at the Indiana Dunes in the mid 50s.

The Bristlecone Pine Thrives

2011-11-14T12:03:00.001-06:00

I have to thrill

at the sight

of your rose gold flats

beneath the Chiavari chair,

your warm scarf of silk orchids

and lilies draped there.

The gift of red orange

bittersweet vines

you twined in your hands

now wreath thelamp

and I wonder at the

soft rise of your breasts

above the white flowered

flow of your belly

beneath my hands

the timeless give and take

of your breath,

at rest.

Flame in Snow

2011-11-13T21:06:00.001-06:00

for Jillian

Quiet flame,

mountain azalea,

all the little bones

of your fingers fan dear,

unhooking pale crinoline butterflies

hammocked underold growth

here.

Crank down that window

as you breeze through the forest

and inhale the luxury

of the least expected.

From behind plumes of lace,

the egrets which edge your face,

from the swamp of the car,

the smudge pots of then.

Now breathe in skeins

of canopied light,

your heart a phoenix,

a brass cornet,

triumphant,

singing high.

Even the waxwings

know who you are.

Old Rose

2011-11-12T21:03:00.001-06:00

Along an Avenue of White Elms in the Sun

2011-10-22T14:02:00.000-05:00

yellowing at their tops,
how I would too
change for you,
in a glad wave
curl up
to your voice,
warm-dark oscillation,
my green edges
bending to yours.
I asked only for open eyes
before the night’s wild shards
brushed over.
And I see.
I see with my hands
reaching up
to touch dear limbs
ageless aging,
all beauty,
ever-changing.

At the Club

2011-10-17T13:41:00.000-05:00

Open the temple gates unto my love,

Open them wide that she may enter in,

The sacred ceremonies there partake,

The which do endlesse matrimony make,

And let the roring Organs loudly play

--Edmund Spenser from “Epithalamion”

There is a certain feeling,

A visceral vibe,

You know it’s going to be a good night.

The DJ is spinning,

Spilling treasures ebullient onto the floor.

Crossing over Jordan,

No worries or dangers or cares

On that bright shore.

No poisonous pairs

Looking to wheel home a third.

The men are all clumped dark and far

Away, skulking at the bar.

The night, the dance, belongs to the girls.

Eyes kohled, hair hennaed.

Fantastic-lashed pastel petals glitter.

Grown-up schoolgirls

Catholic short-skirted.

Azerbaijani princesses girded

With black leather bras

And leopard poly skins.

Goth nurses twisted hair

Ghostly openly stare

Black and periwinkle wide.

High strapped booted tight

Atop heels of consequential height,

All are lost in essential delight.

Rose attar, neroli, clove,

Patchouli, musk,

The garden roars

Cinnamon, jasmine, sandalwood.

And all, we all are such touch whores,

Endorphin freaks demanding more

Wordless promises petting, praying:

You won’t hurt me, I know

You won’t hurt me.

Only comfort to cut the pain

Connect reassure another smother

Shyly asking with hands brushing

A shoulder smooth

A breast caress sweet

In Drum & Bass

House trance bump ass

Scratch vinyl slick.

But our romance ends

When the needle comes up.

The smoky remains,

A tremolo echo

That lives only here

At the club.

2008

Will we make it to the Ball?

2011-10-12T20:29:00.000-05:00

We've been a bit delayed by some mending that needed tending.

Got a bit of gin and tonic, though. Hope to see you all soon!

Check out all the action here:

Willow Manor Ball

The Distaff Side

2011-10-02T17:41:00.000-05:00

You come on

aflame and rolling

through a room,

from slack-hips

to paint-blistering fingertips.

A flickering St. Christopher

blazes high above

your breasts.

My lip catches the crest

and drags across,

running the length

of your shoulder,

unsealing that envelope,

pulling smolder~~

An ash-borne crumbling acrobat,

glancing off

fawn-brushed thighs,

threading silk slung

pink crinkle crinoline loops.

Speckled marble balustrades melt

under the weight of sighs.

Waxwings beat aflutter

and down-dive.

Flywheels shudder

off singing sinews’

sympathetic cries.

Satellites luminous

rise

and expire,

Shunted down dusk alleys

of defunct desire.

Runcible

2011-10-02T15:48:00.000-05:00

come, charming spoon,

so thin & elegant,

silver thrilling,

cold and brimming

with sea cockles

from warm plush

cream and green

bits of moss

scrubbed clean.

and butterfly

do we then

their shells

that wing

our lips

supping

blue.

who then is the pussycat

who then is the owl

who?

Golden

2011-10-02T15:11:00.000-05:00

On your way home,

on the wooded,

hidden path

to your door,

where flagstones jut,

tectonic,

you told me,

in that careless mess,

where that rod of re-bar

sprouts menacingly

for no reason,

you saw the sudden yellow

of an aspen leaf

fallen

in the last light,

indescribable.

Nonetheless,

in your breathless,

in your silence,

that golden

I knew.

Accepted Rejected

2011-09-25T20:18:00.000-05:00


Jimmy Page

Well, so, uhm, I'm published, I think, and also not.
My entries into the Rattle Poetry Contest were all rejected, but something I sent to Unadorned Press was accepted for publication. I took the Rattle rejection rather hard. I had lots of support (and one guy at work who said, "What, do you think you are that good?" To which I got to reply simply, "Yes.") from you all here and in FBlandia and my local writer's group. One person in my group had been a reader for a small press. He told me that it was easy to discard the stuff that was poor, but among the good works the decision process of what made the cut was more arbitrary. Often times pieces he would champion wouldn't make it.
The Unadorned Press situation is cloudy. I had sent them two poems and was informed of acceptance by being tagged in a photo on Facebook. No email message, no indication of which poems were accepted. I have a feeling that this is a very small press, maybe just one guy in New Hampshire who, if I send him $5, will send me what looks like a plastic file folder for a term paper with my work and about ten other poets.

So, the question remains: What do I want?
And that is where I am right now. I was reminded by my writer's group that I do have an audience, I have readers already. And for that I am grateful. What would being published or not being published change about that? I still feel this sort of desire to be acknowledged and given a stamp of approval by some unknown "them." Meh.
And, why the picture of Jimmy Page?
It's a fairly arbitrary addition to this post, but when I was trolling around the interweb, I came across this picture on someone's page of "Things I Like" or some such, and I thought, "Yeah, I like that, too." So, just a random picture of Jimmy Page reading someone's horoscope in a random world.

in that bed with Dena

2011-09-18T15:32:00.000-05:00

There where you stir the sugar insufferable,

incessant, you stir it. Hard crystalsdissolve,

handfuls of blazing whitego milky and soft,

hot blue lips lovingly kiss and sing radiantly under

your copper. Your ping hammered kettle turns solid

to liquid. Melting chainsform as you work

the Rosary {SottoVoce} Queen ofHeaven

The Mysteries Joy & Pain

slowly added,

washing down gems, precious blessings

And the turmoil slows, bubbles slack and link,

dragging like school-less summer days, shoe-less

in hot amber. Sticking all the little tics,

once thrown high as branches, hair whips

rain sheets and lung-lust cries,

click clipped as

errant bugs and bees.

You are on the fault line. Platesare shifting.

Under the sweet bunch grass, a Vireo gray and small,

secretive you whistle then listen.

The colors change The desert painted

Tongues of flame

waver in your wild white eyes:

You hold

Waiting waiting

suspended

Pinching the grain

The salt

The pink rose

Essential

The tiny blade

The straw

The stone

You drop

Marigold Garland for my Sister

2011-09-08T17:37:00.000-05:00

no cigarettes at all, no champagne on your birthday

2011-08-11T16:13:00.001-05:00

For Stacy

My dear girl,

I don’t know any prayers for the dead.

I can only burn the cedar wood

as the arbor vitae is engulfed in the last light,

then blow out the candles,

exhaling your name.

Osiris resisted you once before

as you were lying intubated

and mummified after your accident,

but now he sucks the lime

and bleeds green for you.

Sweet stalks of wheat

line your vessel for the other side.

Moss roses crown your curls.

The Mourning Cloak butterfly,

in clinging ink shadows,

falls from its fluttering sky

as I place loosestrife

and hyssop

and the last of the warm day

lilies by your pink bauble face,

kissing you good-bye.

Contests & Competition

2011-08-01T11:25:00.000-05:00

I took the big (for me) step of submitting a few poems to a contest and a few more to an open call for submissions to a small press. I haven't submitted anything for publication in 30 years or so when I had the temerity to send my works to Poetry and American Poetry Review. My rejection notices commented that my style was clever, but scattered, or some such.

Yesterday I was jumping around like a bug on a hot rock, hastily editing and formatting poems to email by deadlines of August 1st. I felt as though I were submitting tax forms. I crossed my fingers and hoped that I had "done it right." Today I wonder what all my anxiety was about. I felt the fear of judgment, that my work wouldn't be "good enough." I felt the fear of finality--is this the final edit, or could this poem use more polishing? So, I'm left with questions about what I want, why am I doing what I do. I don't have high hopes of "winning." It was important for me to just take this step and see what happens.

I was pushed into doing this by a friend who is always telling me to submit my work, that my imagistic style is what the market wants. I don't know. What is the market? Is it a closed system of incestuous MFA logrolling? I think online blogging has changed my market. I enjoy reading and following blogs. Small press and self-publishing seem to make sense. If you have an online following, why not sell them your chapbook? Why not find a like-minded soul who can illustrate it?

Anyway, curious about other's thoughts on this. Yesterday, I felt as though I were sending my children off into the netherworld without sweaters or galoshes, but today I am thinking, "What's the big deal?" Either I get published by a small press or a magazine, or I don't. Does that change what I want to do?
I still want to work on my craft. Posting online and getting feedback and support and reading other blogs is the most helpful poetry workshop I've been in.
I'll be pulling some poems from my blog that I've submitted. Thank you all for reading and commenting.

Rowboat

2011-07-30T16:53:00.001-05:00

Mesmerized by the lustrousglittering beads,

the sweat on your upper lip,

damselflies alight and riseagain,

spiral in a haze,

haloing~~blue green grey.

You keep rowing.

I'm handling diamond-backed snakes

and speaking in tongues tothe sun.

You keep spitting outproblems,

tricky equations.

Tell me Tell me Tell me

What’s the sum?

I’m trying to reach out, toget there.

Between incessant strokes,

I screw up my eyes to ablackboard,

but decimal points are fluid,

pages in a magazine, fragrantink motes.

Backwards floating,

Catalpa brushes my neck

and I remember how to breathe

out loud.

Unlocked, your yellow pinewrists

and your green apple pulsetwist

through me. Your sorghum kiss

Drips into my heart

Which opens,

Fluttering.

Madame X

2011-07-28T23:31:00.004-05:00

Sitting here tonight, heavysummer air

sagging at the screen door,

in my plunging black slip,

single fluorescent lamp lit,

a bit of sunburn blushing mypale edges,

dodging flits of furred moths

and watching the pendulous

crook legs of the harvester

spider work the small arc

of the crown molding,

I think of the long gunmetalrows,

the back stacks, where I’dsneak

deep in the library to listento opera:

Prince Igor, perhaps,

large headphones strapped on

heavy and green with a blackcoil,

waiting out the light untilclosing.

And while the boyars wailed

I handled the old spinesclose at hand:

a slim set of faded turquoiseChinese Love Poems,

a thick, glossy, mis-shelvedJohn Singer Sargent

with its jacket slightlytorn,

in which I might chance upon

a card, a fuchsia 3”X 5”

tucked in a page where youhad written

two or three lines about me,unmistakably:

the chime of my laugh,

or the tangle of my thinsilver

earrings, small hammered

glinting pieces

which invariably you’d feel

compelled to straighten

in your desire

for order,

squinting through the slow

pale curl of the MarlboroLight

dangling from your lips,

your soft hands

easily smoothing the twists.

Common Nighthawk

2011-07-28T20:46:00.000-05:00

I used to be flesh and blood,

but now I ghost down streets

gray-cloaked by dusk;

no weight to my muted feet.

When did I fade out and husk

to a thin hollow reed.

A blaze of Canary grass

gathered up so warmly once,

now strewn down,

feeling only the twilight sound,

the rasping, invisible skree

of the nighthawk calling me.

Comparisons only lead to overstretching

2011-07-28T19:12:00.001-05:00

(A found Rhyme Royal, kind of)

Stretch to a point where you feel a mild tension.

Do not bounce! Breathe slowly, rhythmically.

Any stretch that grows in intensity is an over-extension.

If possible hold onto something and keep your knees bent slightly.

Be relaxed in your mind and body: breathe easily.

Interlace your fingers and gently pull backward.

Hold only the tensions that feel good.

St. Louis Blues

2011-07-24T15:48:00.001-05:00

Bricky, Bricky City,

Lawyers begetting Lawyers,

Police-issue pistol grip heels

Pump & Sway,

High-rise glinting the catenary curves

As Saarinen’s Gateway broaches the West.

Beleaguered at the frontier of your chair,

Whip-stitched,

Pan-Am Blue,

I escalator,

Ratcheting in bumps,

Beautiful & bifurcated,

Burbling:—Baby—

Plummy soft we polymer

Ashiver, Half-clad.

Can I pull the shades of your sudden cement-buckling sigh?

Can I trace the thudding plush halls of your heart,

While my own laps your thighs thickly,

Slow & full,

The Mississippi itself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Addict and Me: Part III

2011-07-24T14:34:00.001-05:00

Some Back-story

I feel that I need to plug in some details here. How is it that I’m off on a bus with someone I had never met; yet longing for a deep romance even after I had decided (or some part of me had) that was impossible?

(I’m also going to have to give that “someone” a name, for the sake of clarity. I’ll call him S.)

I first met S on MySpace. I was dissatisfied with my life and saw MySpace as a way to open it up, to meet new people, to reignite my long dormant writing “career.” Also, though I wasn’t quite aware of it, I had a story to tell that was burning inside of me that was aching to blaze out in the open. Wow. I had no idea how transformative this little step would be. I felt lonely in my pastry career. I felt lonely in my life. I had a boyfriend, but I was feeling the limitations of that relationship. We were companionable, but I couldn’t talk to him about all that interested me. I needed friends, and there were friends a-plenty awaiting me in cyberspace.

S was one of the first people I met online. I was immediately fascinated. He liked my Sarah Vaughan on my page. I liked his Rachmaninoff. We were both pastry chefs, voracious in our taste for music and food. We loved the same movies. We were addicted to crossword puzzles. We both wrote poetry. I could hardly believe it.

Our first phone call was odd. I felt that there was something wrong with him, but I couldn’t quite figure it out. He wasn’t connecting with me in conversation. It was as though he was just talking into space and not to me. I was relieved, actually. He was just a guy, a quirky guy whom I could befriend. It would be all right. My relationship with my boyfriend wasn’t in danger. A week later, S told me he was an alcoholic. Huh. OK, I knew that there was something awry. I didn’t exactly know what an alcoholic was, besides someone with a drinking problem, but I accepted it. Then he got sober. What a change! He called me after an extended weekend rehab. We had a wonderful conversation; he opened up and started sharing with me. We talked about God, about Jazz, about the Twelve Steps, about being free and living life openly, without fear. I found myself being drawn closer to him. I realized that I was hungry for just this kind of connection. He seemed surprised that I didn’t have this with my boyfriend. “Is it just about sex, then?” S asked, and that notion hung in the air and troubled me. I was afraid of the answer.

Within a few weeks of meeting online, I asked him for an intimate friendship. As I typed the words, I felt both the danger of it and the improbability. Could I have what I wanted? My heart was longing for a confidant, someone to whom I could tell my story, to whom I could show my true self. I said that I wanted an intimate friendship, and I did, but I didn’t trust that it could be, or if it could be, I feared that it would inevitably be sexual, and I wasn’t looking for sex, I had that, I wanted something more. He said that he wanted the same.

For me, MySpace was an incredible workshop for poetry writing. I had felt the interest in writing re-blossoming in me just prior to signing up. S wanted to read my work. I began posting poems. It wasn’t long before I had several regular readers and I had, at one point, about 150 subscriptions. It was crazy. It was heady. It was great. For the first time I had an audience, for the first time I was in a writing community. I felt the opening up that I had wanted. I began to tell my story in poetry and I began to open myself to S in conversation. I had sincerely hoped that my opening up would open up something in my relationship with my boyfriend. He was constantly telling me not to cling to him, to find other interests. I think he thought I would take up knitting, or some other quiet hobby, instead I jumped on MySpace and begin to make friends all over the world. I couldn’t shut up about it, either. I told my boyfriend excitedly about all my friends. I was writing all the time, or reading others’ work. Boyfriend was not enthused about poetry which to him was just “words on a page” which would never make me any money. He also feared that I wasn’t writing about him. (And, I wasn’t.) He was jealous. He felt the split between us coming long before I could conceive of it, or accept it. I told boyfriend about S. I didn’t want to be dishonest. I didn’t want to cheat. I didn’t know what I was doing. Anyway, boyfriend said that S sounded perfect for me. Yup. That’s what I thought, too.

And even though I was trying not to, I began a courtship with S. I had never been in a situation like this before. I had never met someone so perfectly matched to me with whom I could talk and talk for hours. We had so much in common and so much to learn about each other. So, I strayed. It seemed inevitable. And after my boyfriend broke up with me (Surprise! I was shocked. I didn’t see it coming at all. ), S and I began to talk openly about love. It was bumpy, but the beauty of it all for me is that I was able to practice being in a relationship the way that I wanted to be. I found out that I was able to address issues as they came up. Each time something uncomfortable came between us, we were able to talk it out. I had so much fear of rejection, of doing, or saying the wrong thing. S let me say what I had to and then took time to process it and then talk it out with me. It blew my mind. I kept thinking that each revelation would be the deal-breaker—my attraction to women, my ill-tempered ways at work—that something ugly or incomprehensible in me would make him turn away, but what I found was myself growing stronger in each instance I had to speak my truth, even with my fear of rejection shaking strongly inside of me. I was coming into myself.

In the autumn of that year, S and I started to make plans to meet in the spring. I knew that I wanted to have sex with him and I had to tell him my big, bad secret: herpes. Even typing it now makes me anxious. OK, I spilled it out. I told him straight up and he handled it beautifully. He thanked me for my honesty. He told me that he loved me. He told me that he would have to get back to me, because he had never had to deal with something like this before. I let him go and process it. I was ecstatic. I had faced my big, bad secret and it was accepted. I was still loved! Or so I thought.

Was this the deal-breaker at last? S got back to me: How would herpes affect my ability to have children? Wow. Would this be the deal-breaker for me? Children? I was almost 46 at the time. I had never considered having children in my life. I didn’t think that was likely to change. I felt my beautiful dreams of my perfect romance crashing. I crashed. I couldn’t be his perfect woman. I couldn’t give him what he wanted—children—and I didn’t know why. It just wasn’t inside of me. I didn’t have the desire. My fledgling sense of self crashed into the rocks. I cried and cried and hated myself for not being “womanly.” What was wrong with me? Suddenly pregnant couples appeared everywhere I went—many of them Asian women with quiet careful white males shepherding them. They were so smug and so perfect in their little precious cocoons. And I was stung over and over by the sight of them: You’ll never have this. This will never be you.

A few weeks went by. I processed my stuff with the help of my therapist. She helped me see the situation more clearly with the drama toned down. I was who I was. There were things I could not change. So many times in relationships I had tried to remake myself to please the other. This time I just couldn’t. S was who he was. Alcoholism was a big deal. Like herpes, it wasn’t going to go away. It had to be faced, too. Even if I had wanted to have children, did I want to have children with an alcoholic? We didn’t match up. We had both met our deal-breakers. What did my truth tell me? I said it quietly in my session: I cannot have a romantic relationship with S.

S and I talked a few days later. He told me more about his alcoholism. I didn’t know how serious it was, how he was near to checking out of life a few times. He told me he couldn’t have a romantic relationship with anyone at this point in his life. I nodded. We were honest with each other and it felt good. We decided to be friends. I had a funny feeling inside of me that I would have trouble keeping that distance, but, at the moment, all was well. I had made it through. All was not lost. But I still hung on. I couldn’t let go of the connection.

Papir iz dokh vays

2011-07-04T16:40:00.003-05:00

Papir iz dokh vays

un tint iz dokh shvarts.

Tsu dir, mayn zis lebn,

tsit dokh mayn harts!

Paper is still white

and ink is still black.

To you, my sweet,

my heart still pulls!

Yiddish Wedding Song

Outside, in this night, the birches are white,

reaching up from the earth still and black,

dark as the blood which clouds my heart,

and slowly floods my sex.

I hear you singing the wedding song so aching,

here where we first confessed~~

two fresh blushing girls, sweet-smiling and shaking,

holding hands beneath this bar, in secret,

so long

in the past.

I didn’t know I’d see you. I only stopped for a drink.

A klezmer band clad in khaki and Birkies,

with violin, clarinet & soft drums, start up a waltz

and on stage you appear, outré as ever,

your fire red hair curled above white shoulders

in blue satin, strapless, with a doll’s pink bow

trailing down your gown, you begin singing.

You sing to me, I think as I swing my sweet orange slice around

circling my foggy summer beer, a tall Oberon.

But that’s the trick of the stage, in the spotlight,

straight ahead you gaze and into my heart without seeing.

I want to tell someone at the bar,

“You see that girl? She once was mine.”

But I sit alone and wonder if that was true,

as if I had possessed you, as if I could.

I had the desire, and so did you,

but we slipped through it, that wedding dance,

luminous moonlit breasts and kisses,

crepe lantern roses, so quickly eclipsed.

At the end of the song you come down

and drape your arm around another.

My heart drops, too. I cannot face the loss

of the love that had seemed the answer.

I’d let it go, that question, I thought,

I’d made peace with what was empty.

I’d painted you as my dream girl,

but I soon saw the cracks, the ways we’d never match.

You were wise enough to end it, saying,

“I love you too much to offer you less

than you deserve.” It was true It was true

But, tonight, I cannot face it.

Tonight, I kiss the dark arches of dripping branches,

sigh the sidewalk air home,

& listen very softly as my crowded heart breaks
quietly

all alone.

June or July

2011-07-02T15:31:00.000-05:00

Grosgrain ribbon Beige, Bronze, Brown

wrapped on the bias

all around the pointed toes

of your clicking shoes

that snap and catch on my mid-morning peruse. I wonder if you would take me to the garden, the bois beyond the Square,

plunge past the fountain’s shush, pin me to a shag-barked tree and fix me there.
Your kisses would slur my name, smudge carmine crayon smoky sweet cardamom
& marzipan.

I can’t change. I can’t change. I’m tumbling in the tangled

briar,

in turbid swirls of venery tumultuous, cirrus wisps feather-tipped high

dear

drained.

Restless trees shift green leaves

in your eyes
&

then curl

again.

I don't care what the neighbors say

2011-07-02T14:55:00.001-05:00

your dress

Tutti Frutti

ice cream

you come

melting

up.

don't say

nothing

bird

held

with your diamond ring

false promise

again & again.

Southbound

Astrolabe,

Venus

astride,

winking,

always

lost

on high

in pink

ruffle flutter

squeezed

from

sweet

green-giving

calyx,

sugar sugar

marzipan

rose.

The Addict and Me: Part II

2011-06-28T17:54:00.000-05:00

I had made the decision to go visit my friend. The flight was booked, room reserved, rental car ordered. When I faced my true intentions, my feelings and desires, I felt doomed. There was no way this was going to work out in my favor. I tried to work through scenarios of what could happen:

1. We would meet at the airport with passionate kisses and be locked in a frantic naked mambo for days. Not likely. Our moony love phase had passed. We had worked out that we weren’t each other’s paths, that we couldn’t have a romance. Maybe.

2. I would see him face to face and realize that he was a total loser and wonder what I had been thinking and spend the whole time trying to politely get away from him and the whole situation. Possible, but then I would know the lay of the land, as it were, and that would be a good thing. And I had my own hotel room and rental car and could escape, if necessary.

3. He would see me and reject me and I would spend the whole time in my room in tears. That would suck, but, once again, I would gain knowledge and, hopefully, be able to move forward in my life.

4. I would try to seduce him and be rebuffed and feel like crap. I would be the total loser in that scenario.

5. He would be indifferent to me and I would spend the whole vacation secretly longing for him without being able to express my desire and leave frustrated. Hmmm. Possible.

Thus began my descent into crazy world. I thought that I was doing the right thing for myself. I wanted to see this guy. I wanted something. It seemed that to go see him would settle things one way or another. I had put myself in the position of being in love with someone and desperately wanting that love in return. I didn’t know how to make this happen. After his “public” relapse, he had been rather incommunicado, focusing on his sobriety and new job. I was unsure of what was going on with him. I realized that I had desire that might not be met and matched. Plus, I didn’t know what I was going to wear. I went on several clothes shopping outings. I had a vision of myself as something, but everything I tried on made me feel inadequate. I was trying to hard to be young, sexy, or at least cute and somewhat desirable. I broke down in dressing rooms. I felt panicky. I cried. Nothing looked right. Who was I? I wanted to be me, I thought, but some more idealized version. I felt that I had only a little time to create the stunning woman I wanted to be. Or the woman he wanted me to be. Or the woman he couldn’t possibly resist. It was too much to ask. I was completely outside of myself, my true self. I was trying to make myself up to be a magazine girl. I picked out a new cologne: Euphoria. I liked that it was amber-y and exotic, but not too exotic. It seemed to be blown into every magazine I picked up. Couldn’t I be that? Couldn’t I be every pretty airbrushed glossy girl?

I felt unbalanced. I felt crazy. How had this happened? I thought I knew who I was. I thought I was OK with myself, but this situation unhinged me. I had expressed my physical attraction to him months earlier (we had seen each other in online photographs), but what had he told me? About all I knew was that he liked that I had red hair. I also knew that his previous love interest was a younger, petite Asian. I was a tall, older, white Midwest farm girl. I had no confidence in my appearance. We were also planning a hiking trip in the Rocky Mountains—more anxiety. Was I in shape? Could I handle the altitude? I had a month to prepare. I began biking 13 miles a day. I read up on altitude sickness. Water Water Water. OK, I could do that. I’m not much for hydration, but if it kept me from dizzy spells and passing out, it could be worth it. I got my legs waxed for the first time and a pedicure. I know. For hiking. I wanted to be a super sexy hiking chick, I don’t know. I wanted to be everything. It felt good to get a pedicure. Getting my feet groomed and massaged was very sensual. I liked my toenails being crimson and shiny. The waxing was easy. My clinician said I was a natural. It seemed better than shaving. I was going overboard, but I justified it by saying it made me feel good. I felt more womanly. I felt different. I hadn’t had sex in ages. I felt I needed bolstering up in my feminine charms. Even if the man I was going to meet couldn’t have cared less about nail polish and smooth legs and hairstyles and shoe styles, I still felt the need to go through this to try and steady some insecure girl part of myself.

The night before my flight, I was even a bit more of a wreck. I had to pack. I had to get it together. There were several phone calls and what I heard from him was that he didn’t know what to wear either. He finally said, “I don’t care what you think of me,” and I laughed with relief. We were in the same boat. We both wanted to impress each other. We both were unsure of how all this was going to go. I relaxed. We had spent so much time getting to know each other from the inside though hours and hours of phone calls and IMs, what difference would our outsides make?

I woke up the next morning happy and excited. I hadn’t felt like this in years. I was going to meet a dear friend. The day was sunny and fresh, as though dawning after a thunderstorm. A little sunflower smiled through the cracks of the airport parking lot, I smiled back. I checked myself in the big mirrors of the airport bathroom. I looked cute. A little heavy on the makeup for 9 AM, but it would fade. I was wearing a somewhat see-through Autumnal patterned blouse with a black lace camisole underneath; a simple black rayon knit just-above-the-knee length skirt and my blessedly comfortable soft black Mary Jane’s. I felt I was a good mix of sexy and girlish. On the flight, I felt that I was running towards him. I’m coming. I’m coming. I’ll soon be there.

The airport was huge. I called his cell phone as soon as I landed, but I had a long way to go before I saw him. I was run/walking as fast as I could, bumping along with my wheeled carry-on trailing. I saw him before he saw me. I was coming up the stairway from the transit trains, and I saw him. Hundreds of people all around, and there he stood in a metaphorical shaft of light, so perfectly the man I loved. Cupid rained arrows down on me. “I’m in trouble,” I sighed inside myself. I knew I wanted him and I didn’t know what he wanted. Not at all.

We smiled at each other and exchanged an awkward hug. We had a bit of time to wait for the bus. So, there we sat in the airport, two people who had talked and talked so openly about so many things over months and months and we were suddenly shy with each other. He let me take his big warm hands; interlace his long lovely fingers with mine. I wanted to kiss them. I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to jump all over him. I wanted to lick his face. I felt like a puppy all wiggly with “Love me! Love me! Love me! Because I can’t help but love you!” I could feel his heart thumping, but he was stiff and pulling back from me. He looked scared. This was a bumpy start.

I still drank him in: slim and pale and boyish and just a smidgen taller than me. He was wearing a beige linen suit coat, a white button-down shirt with a thin blue and black art deco style tie, black jeans, and buff suede shoes. He hadn’t slept well. He hadn’t eaten breakfast. He needed a smoke. I wanted an Italian Soda. We couldn’t find any. I settled for a $5 bottle of water (must remember: Hydrate, Hydrate, Hydrate!) and we went outside. He had a crumbly chocolate vending donut in his pocket; he offered me half. It was hilarious. Two pastry chefs meet and eat crappy stale donuts. I laughed. Oh god. I couldn’t help but be joyful. I couldn’t help but beam at him. The voice that I had learned to love came in this amazing vibrantly nervous boy/man animated package. I could feel the warmth of his skin radiating. I wanted to brush the small stubble of his chin. I wanted to inhale him. I was fascinated. I completely forgot about my appearance. We got on the bus and he let me drape my arm on his thigh. He rested, a little uneasily, his head on my shoulder. All my focus was on him, and, then, on the beautiful blue brown grays of the snow-capped front range of the Rocky Mountains which were getting closer and closer as our bus rolled forward.

my little girl

2011-06-27T16:53:00.000-05:00

my little girl stays in the country,

in a house so far away

that no one ever goes there,

hardly.

my little girl has a new dress for Easter,

don’t she,

though hardly nothing in the closets,

someday someday.

sister said there will soon be plenty:

lots of pretty lace and ruching

not to wrinkle, hanging,

lovely.

my little girl will need boxes,

lots,

for all the jewelry

coming,

someday,

and for tampons she won’t know

how to use

anyway,

will she.

my little girl has dragged her sleeve

in the mayo, already,

trying to get to the pie

on the table we set

in the sunshine,

didn’t we.

my little girl would rather watch the cows

mowing

the green pastures to sundown, slowly,

then listen to me tell her how,

lowly,

the hands of the clock move one way

only.

Little Boy

2011-06-27T16:11:00.001-05:00

Mother tows you

down the sidewalk

you drag slowly

behind

in her hand.

A stick! A stick!

Must stop for it!

Oh, how lovely!

You trail it along,

head bent to its ticking,

clicking over each crack:

this this this

Mother Son Stick.

At the coffee shop

you get a cookie,

walk with it so

very carefully.

Big Brown

Peanut Butter

crosshatched

on a turquoise plate.

Your glasses are difficult,

black and hard,

the cookie wants to slide off

the shiny plate,

the door is huge,

the latch is up up up.

Can glasses stay put

can hand hold cookie open door?

I love you so much

in your concentration,

your balancing act

of desire for the cookie,

and to do what’s right:

not break anything

not lose anything

to be grown up.

I want to help you,

but I think you might

misread my smile

as mockery.

I’m grown up,

my glasses,

thin and umber,

blithely

scooch down my nose

towards my yellow book,

my difficult reading:

The Myth of Freedom.

I love you.

I can’t help it.

And, I can’t help you.

You make it out the door

triumphant

in your own eyes

and mine.

On the patio of the café

you spy a Radio Flyer

red in the sun.

The stick, a cookie

and now this.

You pick the black crusty

handle up & look around

for approval.

Is it OK? Can I take this?

Is it mine?

Where is mother?

You look at me,

(Simon says . . . .)

but I am all green light;

books and cares

dropped from my

reading glass eyes.

I will say yes,

always,

but you don’t know this.

(Simon’s a trickster, isn’t he? isn’t he?)

The world is your little red wagon:

Grab hold and go.

But already there is fear

inside you,

the widening divide

of loss,

of others,

of judgement:

I’m not your Mother.

I don’t know what’s best.

You drop the handle

and run

and hold onto her dress.

Art Fair

2011-06-25T19:24:00.000-05:00

Buckingham Fountain

(Chicago, Illinois)

@2000

Watercolor by JoAnne Hauser Warren

joannewarrenwatercolors

I went to an Art Fair today and I was immediately taken with the above print of a watercolor, which first caught my eye in a pack of 4x6 note cards. The artist had larger prints, but the paper had not been kind to the printing process and the detail of the yellow cascade of water was lost. So, I bought the pack of note cards and scanned this one.

I felt it had the feel of a vintage travel poster and also reminded me of this painting by Mr. Whistler:

Nocturne in Black and Gold

The Falling Rocket

James Abbott McNeill Whistler

American painter c. 1872-77 Oil~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~I'm sharing another purchase, which, once again, was only available in note card size.This is the confluence of the Yahara River and Lake Monona in Madison, Wisconsin.I love the mirroring and the sepia tone and the wide open fogged-in space in the center where the shore just evaporates.

Yahara Monona

Sepia Photograph

Don Mendenhall

donmendenhallphotography

a plunging stone

2011-06-19T08:52:00.000-05:00

Though I scrubbed my feet

with myrtle and mint,

I did not make it to Chicago.

The caterpillars

of Black Swallowtails

work the rue,

and I,

I watch.

I watch as the day

Coltrane-rolls into afternoon;

Miles in jodhpurs, perhaps,

a white oxford shirt

half untucked,

leaning in on a single bright note—

a gooseneck lamp bent

over a desk of

whiskers and polka-

dots and moonbeams

through years

of eventides.

years.

White Peony

2011-06-15T20:13:00.000-05:00

Westerland Rose

2011-06-13T17:24:00.000-05:00

The Addict and Me: Part One

2011-06-12T12:50:00.000-05:00

If I think of him as an addict, then it becomes clearer and I can let it go; I can let him go, a little bit more, a little bit more . . . .

The first time I experienced him having a relapse, I saw it coming. I saw it coming from miles and weeks away. I am, occasionally, a very regular keeper of a journal. I was mulling over his issues in my journal (OK, obsessing), and I wrote: He is going to drink. If I was writing in my journal that he was going to drink, how much stronger was it in his mind? I didn’t even know all that much about alcoholism, but I could see his issues colliding and compounding and the easy answer was there. A straw cropped up and the camel’s back broke. A hurtful email arrived. He got it on a Friday night and shared it with me over the phone, and I spent the whole weekend fretting about it. I did. What did this have to do with me? I worried. I hoped he was talking to his sponsor, I hoped he was talking to someone. He sure wasn’t talking to me. And there I was, waiting by the phone. Frustrated with myself, but doing it anyway. Damn it. The positive for me was that I wrote a poem. I decided that if I was going to sit and wait for a phone call that I might as well write something. And I did. And I liked it. A lot. It was Bird in a Box. I think now that it might be a crap name for my blog, but at the time I was really enamored with the poem. I made something out of frustration. I made something in spite of being frustrated.

OK, so he didn’t call me all weekend. I knew he was in trouble. He sent me a brief message late Friday or early Saturday morning that he wanted to talk, but he never called, messaged, nothing after that.

He called me Monday night. He seemed a little odd, not the warm soul I knew, but someone more petty, more paranoid. He was living with family members. When they came home, all hell broke loose. Our phone call was interrupted. He called me back later to confess that he had been busted drinking in a house where there was zero-tolerance. It was surreal. I was on the phone with someone I felt I knew well, yet had never met, and suddenly felt I didn’t know at all. I knew that a relapse was a possibility, but from 1,000 miles away, it felt like, well, 1,000 miles away. He could have kept it from me. He could have been drinking all along. How would I have known?

What I did know was my reaction. I saw myself being sucked into this drama; spending whole weekends, lifetimes, waiting and worrying. And for what? I knew why we weren’t together: his addiction would eat me alive. I couldn’t help but be sucked into that vortex, because that was my nature, that was my idea of love. And it would do me no good. I gave it a couple days of thought and then told him straight up: We can’t be together because your drinking problem would swallow me whole. I was shaking, but I had the courage to speak my mind. It felt good.

It’s three years on, now, and I’m still trying to make the break. I don’t know why it is so hard. I didn’t let go, for one thing. I didn’t step away from that vortex. I kept hanging on, hoping for something. A year later I went to visit him. We had made a little break from each other after the public relapse (private ones had occurred prior). He re-committed himself to AA and staying sober and stopped talking to me. After a year and a half of regular contact, it hurt. I tried to bargain with God. “We can be friends!” “I know how to do this.” “I’m not going to get sucked in. I know my boundaries, how to stay safe.” But, no dice: I got to live in my own life, and he, in his. But my life was in turmoil. In the space of two years, my long-term boyfriend left me, my mother died (my father had passed two years prior), both my dogs died and I was on the edge of losing my job. I felt as though everything was flowing out and away from me.

In a therapy session, I had a vision of flying over mountains and feeling wonderfully free.

On a moonlit walk, it occurred to me that I could fly and go see him in the mountains.

I could just ask. What would be the harm in asking? I wanted some kind of comfort in my life. I felt so lonely and abandoned. I had made this friend and shared all sorts of deep confidences with him. Couldn’t I just go see him once?

I thought I was following The Four Agreements: Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. I sent out my request: Dear _____, Can I come see you?

Ah, but what did I really want? My mind was muddled.

He called me. After a few months of silence, I heard his voice. He was amenable to me coming to visit. He sounded excited. There were details. He wasn’t sure where he was going to be living, but he had a new job and things were going well. We could work it out. We could have fun. I felt my heart as I got off the phone. I was excited. I had forgotten the way his voice made me feel. Oh, dear. I was in trouble. I didn’t just want to go see a friend and get a hug and a “there, there.” I felt my heart saying, “boom shaka laka.” I wanted Love.

Bird in a Box

2011-06-11T18:36:00.001-05:00

This poem has been submitted for possible publication, so I've pulled it from my blog.
Thanks for reading and commenting.

it's not that I don't love you

2011-06-05T18:13:00.001-05:00

I’m in my parent’s bedroom

the house is on fire

the phone is ringing

I know it’s you

but cannot answer

not now not now

it’s not that I don’t want to

it’s not that I don’t love you

but the house is on fire

and I have to get out

and I’ve forgotten how

the door is latched,

it’s latched and I’m paralyzed,

forgetting how things work

how to open doors

how to free myself.

once I fell into a strange

seizure on my mother’s side of the bed

she came to wake me

but I couldn’t move

I spoke, but my words were gibberish,

a glossolalia from the other side,

the place of peeling birches

and red roots

that dragged along the mossy banks.

she was terrified

and I was trying to tell her that I

was ok

I’m ok, Mom. I’m ok.

she said that my eyes were open

but rolled back to whites.

my brother is outside

he’s telling me to lift the latch

a bit incredulously,

Duh, lift the latch.

mockingly, but scared for me, too.

you’re doing it wrong:

Lift the Latch.

and there it is

that rusty hook

how many times did I shift this

dark crook out of its eye

just unthinkingly

a mere finger flip

to get to the back porch

swinging the screen door out

to the trumpeter vine

to the garden

to sit with a small bowl

of new strawberries

that I had easily lifted

from their sand.

Lullaby: Page & Plant

2011-06-05T14:28:00.000-05:00

Carte Blanche

2011-06-03T07:01:00.001-05:00

This poem has been submitted for possible publication and, therfore, I've removed it from my blog.
Thank you all for your kind comments.

Alone I fell twisted

2011-05-30T17:03:00.000-05:00

Alone I fell twisted in a tumble

of army blankets from your bed,

fellating the dark green bottle

of your name in my head.

You walked in from Matins

to see me drunk on my own bower,

spiraled in the white jasmine

still-starlit sheets,

tonguing the thought of you

and twining the rose

wet conch of my lips

around my hot fingers.

You stared at me as though

I were a stranger

dropped from the sky.

We once were brothers,

soldiers together,

and here I had crossed the line,

betraying our friendship

with the purple outlay of my sex.

You left.

I got up, hoping to glimpse

the pageant of your life

I had never known:

So many players parading.

I sat at the foot of the stairs,

a child thrilled and clapping

at the endless twisting surprises,

Jacks and Jills kept popping.

But no one had a name.

I asked a man who looked

at me askance.

No one was so foolish here

as to give that sort of thing away—

your given name, your private,

sacred self.

Your wife appeared in a fanfare

of gasps, brocaded in barnacles

and circuitry. Her auburn hair pulled

to an elaborate knotted chignon,

speared with scrimshaw

curved in loving homage

to the soft yellowing

nape of her neck.

Her palazzo pants

swept along,

satiny waves,

an inky caress

of us all.

I vowed to honor

your pledge to her

and bowed low

only

to see you lying laughing,

soft-spun in cashmere,

sparkling aquamarine,

starfish woven across your chest,

dredged in fine gray salt—

a silica confection

I longed to taste.

Silently I kissed your breast,

stinging my lips

with your impossibly

beautiful sand.

The Strong Clasp

2011-05-29T16:56:00.002-05:00

How I suffered to give you Sunday.

You’ll never know, I suppose, since

most of the sorrow was my own mix:

Guilt from betraying my current

lover, slipping out of my once

strong clasp, and that thorn

of hurried worry to catch you

before you left the station,

to give you this piece from under the bracken,

this part of my own heart’s song that hummed

off the blasé beige bricks wet from a dull rain.

My man picked me up—stopped for coffee

to wait out the storm—slow low clouds.

I could barely see him,

blurred through my urgent mission.

Don’t go, yet.

I was breathing to you,

I need to give you this

talisman, this beating beauty,

my prayer for your journey.

But I had to wait wait wait

Ungrateful girl,

living in the somewhere,

not in the here.

How I burned both ways

with desire

and shame.

~~~~~~~~~~~

And what gift did you hold for me?

The strong velvet marble vein

standing in a shaft of light.

I didn’t even know.

I stood at the opening

longing to undress.

yet so afraid of my nakedness.

Something kept pushing me

though these clouds

I dreamt of mountains

and then I could fly~~

I could fly!

Why hadn’t I known

before?

So softly were my ankles held,

I didn’t need to be afraid~~

I was cradled in light.

How could it be otherwise?

And I broke open for you

by the fire

where the Celtic gypsies were keening.

You knelt and unhitched the black lace mantilla

that held my breasts. I still recall your lips

shushing the floating plum isle

of my left nipple

while you brushed my thighs,

my rippling new-born flesh.

How could it be other

than this?

Caught and released,

Bodhrán

stroked

tip toppled

wasn’t it, then?

As I sang out into

your arms your mouth

your hands?

Hold me again

in your eyes

so wide.

Oh, darling,

how did it

how could it

end?

2011-05-27T21:39:00.001-05:00

emily strong, or I write myself down

2011-05-27T12:03:00.000-05:00

"We'd never know how high we are 'till we are called to rise; and then, if we are true to plan, our statures touch the sky." ~ Emily Dickinson

"There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. We seek out problems because we need their gifts." ~ Richard Bach

(This is basically a journal entry, unedited. I may pull it, but I cannot bring myself to edit it.)

I’m acting like a jilted lover

fuckfuckfuck

Jesus, I can’t believe this.

I just want love and . . .

it’s not available to me.

I thought I got it.

Last night, I got it.

I went through my story

and it made sense.

Yes.

But today I can’t do it.

Fuck

I want love, goddamit.

I don’t want to be alone.

I don’t want to be precious Emily Dickinson.

I want someone to hold my hand

to hold me

to kiss me.

I don’t get it.

I didn’t do anything wrong.

Why is everything wrong?

I can’t do this anymore.

Everything is a fucking process.

I’m so tired. It has been so long.

It takes so long.

I CAN’T.

So I made it up.

I made the whole goddamn

thing up.

I wanted love so badly

that I just pretended and made up scenarios

and then they came true,

sort of.

But it wasn’t enough.

It wasn’t right.

Shit.

I don’t get to have what I want

and I’m so goddamned hurt.

I hate it.

I hate being like this.

I hate myself for being like this.

I don’t know what to do.

And fucking love songs.

Shit.

I can’t even listen.

I feel so cheated.

Somebody tell me.

Today I banged my fists against the wall and said,

“It does NOT get better!”

Where is this “better”?

I worked so fucking hard on this

relationship. And now it’s shit.

This was what I wanted and I can’t have it.

because it only appeared to be what I wanted.

It was only part of a very complex mosaic.

The most efficacious way for me to change my life,

my path.

To fall in love with someone while in another relationship—one that seemed all right, but wasn’t. To fall for someone with whom I seemed so perfectly matched, but who had this HUGE flaw that would always keep us apart. One who I felt, for once I had an honest and open connection to, who ironically couldn’t be honest with me, because he couldn’t be honest with himself. Bullshit, universe. I see part of it, in retrospect, only. The beautiful plan of having to break up a relationship that wasn’t good enough, by dangling one that seemed better, but always just out of reach, because I needed to be broken down enough to turn to my mother and cry to her as I hadn’t in decades, or maybe ever, so that she could tell me, at last, that she had loved me, forever. So that I could hold her hand while she was dying, without any other clouding my view of her sparkling blue eyes. All that had to happen.

And I wanted it to. I wanted change. I asked for it.

I didn’t know for what I hungered, exactly, but what I had wasn’t enough. My life was too small.

I didn’t know I wanted something spiritual until an alcoholic asked me what I thought about God. And then the Twelve Steps and meditation. I was envious. I wanted somewhere to go that would accept me no matter what. Someplace at which I just had to show up as myself.

And soon-to-be previous boyfriend didn’t offer that.

Suddenly after meeting an alcoholic, I found myself surrounded by a cadre of affected folks. Those who had been married to an alcoholic, were in a relationship, were trying to get out of a relationship with, or were in recovery. A support system sprung up for me. I slowly began to see how my life really was, how I was building resentment towards soon-to-be ex-boyfriend, how he didn’t and couldn’t meet my needs. The alcoholic friend in recovery started up a chorus of “Go to Al-Anon. Go to Al-Anon.” I did not want to. I don’t think anybody wants to go to Al-Anon, until they get there. My first visit was eye opening. Although I had been resisting for a long time, as soon as I stepped through the doors . . . .

The first thing that happens at a meeting is the reading out loud of the Twelve Steps. Step One (We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.) which I had previously thought to be so impossible, suddenly made sense.

I was there because my life had become unmanageable. I was powerless. I needed help.

Boom. I knew why I was there. By the grace of God, I had met and fell in love with an alcoholic and that had led me to this spiritual program, which opened up more in my mind and life—the change for which I had asked. Of course, that realization didn’t happen all at once, but I was on the path. Through Al-Alon, I met a yoga instructor and started a regular practice. Through yoga I learned a formal practice of meditation. Weekly interaction with supportive strangers in Al-Anon gave me the courage to join other groups and show up as myself. Most recently, I went through the twelve-week course of The Artist’s Way with four other creatives—what a gift! I found out that I have an interest in watercolors. I’m not just a writer. How cool. I can make art and have fun! Art feeds my soul.

OK, universe, I get it. Kind of.

Just not very graciously at the moment.

Here & There

2011-05-23T17:04:00.000-05:00

Transit my dolorous planet

benevolent conduit,

luminous love.

Slip across my meridian

gently as milkweed

aloft.

Pillow me

wordlessly

in your blue.

Here below,

on this broken tor,

this spiny divide,

I cannot decide

to which ocean I flow.

Tethered eddy,

I pony-circle ride

heartbreak

again

again.

Unhitch me &

let me sigh into you,

slowly unfolding, unfencing

under cottonwood whispers high

& low trilling crickets and toads.

Hold me in the glow of late-night radio.

Incandescent brushes of your hand

smooth tear-matted curls.

Echoing shushes of snares

you breathe,

a willowy sax lullabies,

a piano skips stones easily~~

warm kisses

across the black air.

And the bass,

upright,

steadily keeps time:

There

There.

July 2008

how can the wind with arms all around me

2011-05-16T22:21:00.001-05:00

I’m annoyed at the same burdocks,

the same box elders greening, the same yellow rocket

all aglow suddenly now that it’s mid-May,

after months of gray.

How often can I marvel at the cottonwoods’ arch,

the same patch of spreading vetch and bobbing violets?

And then, close by my head,

a violent orange shying,

up into the breezy poplars,

with a syncopated

slurring whistle flies:

tree, deedle dee dee.

And I spy the Oriole returned.

And my heart, sandbag silted,

cries.

II.

Osborne once said a hundred pounds would take us to Australia.

I do not know what I need today.

What passage is a hundred pounds?

Osborne was a poet. Sickly.

He died just off the road.

He lay down

watching the spring trees just budding sticky green and blowing so wildly,

eyes to the vaulted sky~~

and then a fly crossed his face and you knew he was dead.

A Poetic Death. And I do not want to die.

I ring you up at 3 am in tears,

my emotions too big for my skin,

paralyzed.

My thoughts larger than the darkness:

I don’t want to die.

And you say, “You’re not going to die, go back to sleep.”

I rest my matted hair, my hot cheek,

into the shoulder of your voice.

down

soften,

then, I.

I try watercolors

2011-05-15T21:06:00.000-05:00

What I saw on break at work

Daffodils in the Woods

PHALAENOPSIS

2011-05-10T19:26:00.000-05:00

Warm rolling waves up over roots recumbent,

Comes all blanketing an ardent flooding.

Aloft in your sudden gracious tropics,

A newly epiphytic orchid am I.

White-hot, free-flowing showy,

A fluttering moth living on air,

Finally full. Igniting dust motes

Reflective flashing in moonlight,

Bathing through cracked panes

And smeared through sashes.

Deep from the dreaming,

The time of horses half-remembered,

Cashmeres plush kissing

and Sandalwood burning,

Smudging mists singing . . .

The mahogany grooved spindles

Of the four poster surrounding

And girding the rise.

Swinging on the rope bridge

Inside, pale and tenuous,

Finally catching fast

On to you at last . . .

The other side.

August 2007

What I didn't tell you

2011-04-18T20:36:00.003-05:00

did I say how the snowcrunched beneath those rusty runners,

the baler twine frayed in wetmittens,

how the gravel stuck to sand,but not rainwater?

did you get the musty smellof the haymow,

the mud nests of theswallows,

how my tears were pillowed inthe black grey ruff of my dog,

facing north,

blurred as the shiftingstreaked curtains of the aurora

A linky-thing

2011-04-14T17:45:00.000-05:00

Blue Butcher Orchid
A lovely scribble in honor of my birthday by dear Amanda Joy.

Nymphaeum

2011-04-04T21:23:00.001-05:00

Crepe de chine flowers

Shine, then lose luster.

In wishes and dreams

We ask always for the other

And come to the pool

Misted over,

A mirror.

Feed Your Pain

2011-04-02T14:29:00.001-05:00

You are holding it so tightly,

Trying to bleed it knuckle-dry with your fists,

Bury it in blankets and sighs,

Ashamed of your dear little pain.

But perhaps your pain has fur and teeth

And wants feeding:

Fresh walnuts and white goat brie.

Perhaps your pain bites sharp

In red rounds of radishes

Or stings keenly like vodka

In breathtaking gulps,

And only sniffs the salad

You offer it.

Perhaps your pain rises in chunking clumps,

A funicular up the slopes,

Flushed full of Bull’s Blood

And bittersweet chocolate covered marzipan.

Perhaps your pain is suffused

With tarragon

And melts so slowly over warm petit pans.

Perhaps your pain cries

High in summer trees

For fraises des bois in cream

And asks:

Darling, are you happy, or very happy?

Perhaps, Finally,

Your pain stretches out next to you,

Trimmed green on a hillock

Of blazing white daisies

And goldenrod fringe,

And asks only only

for one more kiss.

The Milk Sick

2011-03-19T13:17:00.002-05:00

As I pull the white snakeroot from around the cow tank

the choirboys come sand shoe scuffing:

What they want, they won’t say.

As I bend I show the lazing wester sun my beads of sweat,

my mudhen’s pride. I need not rise.

The woods once green and full of poke weed--

not yet poison-blood fruited--and turkeys and such.

But now brown herringboned feathers and acorns

and dusty boughs litter the ground: the boys are gone.

A flutter in the mallow and the lavender mother comes,

dressed in rags like a Cloutie well,

sighing through her roots, her eyes~~

thrumming the air with jewelweed notes sung

soft as London lace chemises tucked deep in black walnut wardrobes.

The hawthorn swells red with berries and the finches~~

Beaks & sweet queried notes & wine dipt feathers

change places against the bark:

A promise of both surfeit and bleak night.

I hear your whistle in some upswept locust limbs.

Am I your touch piece, perhaps,

Your coppery silted delta,

Plugged in your pocket as you wend

Far river wide.

The sky goes bluing, a hazy ice moon rising,

Circled the way I do you

In my dreams,

As I would loose your collar

And close my eyes to bring my lips,

Trembling,

Where first I kissed your neck,

There, below that soft sable of hair

Warm skin for the asking,

For the want of asking,

This sickness

For the silence of small stars

Shining.

More from the Museum--Van Gogh and Hans Hofmann

2011-03-16T22:55:00.001-05:00

Bedroom in Arles

Vincent van Gogh

1888

Van Gogh Museum, Amesterdam

August Light

Hans Hofmann

1957

Chazen Museum, Madison WI

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My Sunday afternoon trip to the Chazen Museum (which I still want to call the Elvehjem), brought me not only face to face with Mr. Rothko, but also, an old favorite, in Hans Hofmann. Upon first glance this day, I couldn't help but see Van Gogh's "Bedroom in Arles" slightly re-imagined. The depth of the Hofmann is amazing and, thankfully, there is a bench across from it which allows longer contemplation. I felt I was looking into an ever-expanding world which would magically reveal whatever I dreamt up. I saw a muddy green vase with yellow dendrobium orchids arching out of it. I saw blue composition books piled next to the bed. I saw a brown cat crouching on the covers, etc., etc.

Rothko, Untitled, 1968

2011-03-14T15:20:00.000-05:00

Teal black pulses

Above

Below

Ready to consume

The line

Flooding

And soon

you will only

Know

this

Inky darkness:

The red will be a memory.

Into your dark

I wanted to see.

I had no ticket

No entrée

To you,

Tangled of words,

Chimes in the gale,

Thoughts as

Spinner webs

Shimmering

Cottonwoods.

Come back,

I want to fix you

In my own sky,

That outstretch~~

I only breathe

& you shift,

unconstellate

starlike,

slip

Sometime in Winter

2011-03-13T19:00:00.000-05:00

Seafoam banquette,

The plush, the lulling nap,

The velvet cove we were tucked in,

Bolstered with bronzed silk brocade,

Buttoned in pearly nacre.

Chiming sweet liquid crystal glasses.

Lush with thick white Riesling

Or floral lilts of Moscato

And melting flesh of pears.

And you, in plum~~

Lovely.

How it brought out that

Pale blue,

The melancholy winter field

Of your eyes.

And your jacket,

The light grey cashmere,

That brushed,

That playfully

Kittened up,

Begging to be touched.

As ivory notes

Shushed off

Slick sloped

Charming

Cambers.

Felted hammers fell.

A caressing tumble

thrummed

in a White Spruce

Hollow.

We dined on Artic Char,

Blackened and grilled crisp,

Yielding all sweet beneath,

Plump falling white flakes.

And the snow came down,

Cathredaled through windows.

Soft bright lights.

One

then

Another.

Endlessly falling,

Silently into this night.

All edges softened,

Drifted and drifting,

Mysterious and jubilant.

A new world

Blanketed down

For us alone.

2:15 AM

2011-03-06T18:34:00.000-06:00

In the night of cold boughs

quietly snapping,

the freight rolls through,

trumbling.

Wheels on seams

trouble the lonely,

rusty veined rows:

Chelank, chelank.

Threaded over dead roads,

stilled by old snow,

the empty cars still chatter:

Begin again, Begin again, Begin again.

Wordlessly the horn wails,

high and long

as it crosses under the wan curve

of the new moon,

spooning a vast

collapsing

into my unseeing sigh.

As I Gather Love Around

2011-03-01T17:29:00.002-06:00

Macaroons & Chocolates inthe dark corners

slowly blooming. Our Blessed Lady

fingered full up and laced,

a pastel littering of petals:

What fun at last! Hidden from sight,

your breasts are perfect onthe other side.

I could barely breathe

To come put pins in yourhand.

And I still have them,

those precious days of gumweed,

mad with mosquitoes and bees.

I cling to your voice, atearing scream

so strangely illumined, faraway, smiling,

curls falling forward as youwork the Rosary

and the world explodes givingout kisses,

gently washing down where youleft me

on your satin knee of shinycream.

I pushed it and a big holeopened up:

A paper bird~~A skyless lark,

Listening.

I have cried never morebrilliant,

barely melting on yourtongue.

I talked myself out of it.

The worry in the back of mymind

was like candy to me.

How thrilling and exhaustingit all was:

a few cattails and Canadageese,

piles of cassette tapes,

tomatoes and cilantro andlots

of fresh cracked pepper.

That’s about it.

Threatening rain

Sustain Sustain

Go out and come back

With a song again.

Tell me, what is it?

The gift floods riversunstaunched,

blushing and random. How so like a woman~~

plush violent veils, ablessing and comfort to me

so far from home and respect.

Who ruled me?

Metonymy, or the etymology

of oleander, hibiscus andjasmine

with Moroccan tea on theveranda,

putting broken glass in myshoe and Chopin.

Upstairs to linen as anothernocturne tender

was red and wrecked

Quietly Quietly

Carelessly torn around thecorner,

slowly exhaling sweet juice,

looping chains,

pin-ups, rose-hips . . . .

Just beginning Endlesslyenchanting

A dirty raw mess

of a girl.

The water goes shallow,drenching slow.

Wings and legs The morning so full.

You hold for me a savarinpillow,

sweet citrus and azure pools

melting into each other.

This vein of lead stretchingout,

this low growing sea foambanquette,

shushes off there at thelake’s edge.

We will cross over to theisland--places have been set.

Loveland is so lovely

between your fingers andbetween your thighs.

I hold close and kiss,hushing over until night.

Just as I expected, Hansel& Gretel

soon swallowed my sugar, mysweet.

And I loved you for hoursthrough windows,

fragile and dear.

Yet, anything I could ask for

could not hurt the glaziery.

I could feel your smile: wave washed warmth.

Tell me again that you loveme,

palmed and drowned,

intoxicated,

an ant over a peony.

I won’t cry,

blessed by finches

tangled through my hair,

cloistered in blush burgundysilk,

as I gather love around.

Inaccessable Areas Exist

2011-02-27T14:33:00.001-06:00

An abalone in a pail,

Large and lonely and muted,

Sits in a galvanized jail. While

Its own mortared shell, gray-hued,

Hides delirious light:

Amassed motes

From years of labor

Imbued iridescent.

Now hauled from home,

Sublittoral,

By an eager boy who works up the slope,

Bright and whistling

Through the serpentine,

The outcrops above the ocean

Where the Mendocino cypress barely cling,

Closed-coned and bending.

A flycatcher lifts and flits,

Startled,

With a quick trilling cry.

So small and then gone

To redwoods high.

Oh, gray-green passerine,

Take me with you

On your little barred wings~~

While in rooms below,

Counterpaned in black and white

Of the new night,

Ruby slippers gleam,

Lustrous sheets glacier up,

then flow.

MY EAST EUROPEAN SUMMER: WARSAW

2009-08-08T17:29:00.000-05:00

I could breathe a little again,
In Poland,
Here in its heart, in Warsaw,
After weeks of Russia,
The poverty and punishment
Of camping and traveling.
And of you
Constantly scolding
And demanding~~
Worrying and wearing my soul.

We had crossed over and
Suddenly there was light
And color and music.
The streets of the Old Town
Were amber and amethyst.
Brightly painted carts with
Vendors hawking
Mushroom pierogi
And clothes
And crafts.

And Chopin.
Buskers on corners
Strummed and
Sang Preludes
Chiming and sliding
Off cobblestones.
Shop doors were
Propped open with Etudes.
Window boxes
Bloomed
With Nocturnes.

You even relaxed;
Let loose some
Principles
And changed money
On the Black Market.
Lech Walesa
And the Workers
Were in the streets.
Poland was on the brink:
Disaster or a Brilliant Future.

You took me to the finest
Restaurant on the Square,
In the Stare Miasto.
Wrought iron double eagles,
Warm sable balustrades
That led up stairs
To linen and candles,
Tables overflowing,
Dark and lush
With grapes and roses.
Smoked eel and sturgeon,
Tiny pickled vegetables
And caviar.
Borscht in porcelain.
Roasted pheasant.
Crepes with sweet cheese
And black sour cherries.

And, Yes,
The workers were in the streets,
But we were high above
And warm with wine
And plush damask.
Charmed, charmed.

Zubrowka,
The buffalo grass vodka,
Was brought out,
Liquid vanilla
Threaded with a brace
Of bitterness,
And the music began.

Another Nocturne,
Soft piano
And then the high luring cry
Of the gypsy violin,
Trilling in a minor key.

I was full up
And edging with tears,
As you began in on me again,
Telling me how I was seduced,
Narrating,
As though I were a show,
A story,
Something you had made up.

I could not bear the thought
Of you breaking the spell,
Again.
You knew me,
No doubt.
I had no protection.
My soul was bare.
But, I could not have you
Mock my soft, romantic,
Sentimental heart.
You were trying to be tender,
Perhaps,
But, your words were too rough
For me,
I could not hold their weight.
As your hand reached for mine,
I begged some little brass groszy
Off you and ran for the refuge
Of the powder room.

The gilt mirrors and the marble.
I could not look.
I knew my face was red
And wrecked with tears.
All around me
Beauty.
It was choking the air itself,
A thick perfume of little lilies.
The longing, the luxury.
Why was every sweetness
Only a moment?

I slipped a coin into
The old woman attendant’s
Flower-ringed dish
As she handed me the gentle towel
With a soft smile.
And there she was,
Small in her small chair,
The old woman who knew,
Who had gathered up the harvest of nights
And days,
Silently in her eyes.
How many songs,
How many lines,
She held in her heart
That hummed
So deeply
Beneath her white blouse,
Her little white sweater.
Quietly, quietly
Telling me
It was all
all right,
Everything,
Yes.

The Red Lacquered Box

2009-07-27T17:21:00.000-05:00

Christ’s words are crimson
As your paper curls
That spill, quilling
On your opaline neck,
Cathedralled unabashed
In velvet azure.

Milk-glass, you daub
Jeweled fingers into
The marble font,
Coolly ruffling some pool in me.

My mouth, my craft
Is too small to ride
The river that is rising.

The cloth of me too rude
To glide with your satin
Through woodruff and violets,
To trace your eyelets and taste
the warm cakes of coriander
and orange.

I duck behind shadows, edges,
Catching fast my breath
That I might be graced
With the red lacquered box
Of your lips exposing
Such roses . . . . Such roses . . . .

2009-06-29T10:58:00.000-05:00

A breeze runs streamlike, spiraling

Palms trace columns,

Sea-washed pylons

Lost so far inland,

Fossiled kelp & acrita-mottled,

Here encircled

Under lindens and solemn birch trees

Hilazon warbler,

You limn brackish manuscripts

And I catch only fringes,

Iridescent distrails~~

Your comings and goings

Through the ether,

The altocumulus featherbeds

You ruffle aloft.

Away, away

Cold rains come

Grey blurring.

Through sleep-smeared fieldglasses I spy you~~

Smiling and languishing,

Turned in and out.

Are those your lips,

Your words,

Salted blue through time?

Come sing to me

Long chains

Of rhyme.

Come sing to me

And untie

The places where I keep drawing lines,

In sands, in skies,

Through hearts and parts.

Bring your hand

And warmly twine with mine

And let us softly

rub them out

over time.

Dill & Hollyhocks

2009-04-11T18:20:00.000-05:00

Dill & Hollyhocks
You come with the sun.
Waning rift of moon mists
Disperse in your wake.
Red-rimmed, the enamel dipper
You tender aqueous,
Gifts my lips truly
Overflowing.

In this light, I crimson warm,
I strawberry fan on your tan
Melon belly.
Swinging open, the gatefold
Welcome of your smile
Is where I hang mine.
Your generous hands &
Your tongue slowly
Catch my drowsing heart.

~~~~~~~

Inaccessable Areas Exist

2009-03-22T18:22:00.000-05:00

INACCESSIBLE AREAS EXIST

I feel the pull of the lowering call

As the tide comes and the fog fills in.

The verdant bloom,

The coral orange and pinks of sky and land

Now blanketed with grey flannel

That wools over unfolded

From the cedar chest

As summer ebbs.

An abalone in a pail

So large and lonely and muted

In its galvanized prison.

Years of tiles labored on.

Bricks mortared up in ardent diligence

Hiding the iridescent glory,

Heaven's own light.

Hauled from its home

Sublittoral

By an eager boy who works up the slope

Bright and whistling

Through the serpentine,

The outcrops above the ocean

Where the Mendocino cypress barely cling,

Closed-coned and bending.

A flycatcher lifts and flits

Startled

With a quick trilling cry.

So small and then gone

To redwoods high.

Oh, grey-green passerine

Take me with you

On your little barred wings~~

While in rooms below

Buried in the black and white of night,

Ruby slippers gleam

And lustrous sheets glacier up,

Then lushly flow.

~~~~~~~~~

Atlantis

2009-03-22T18:20:00.000-05:00

ATLANTIS

The flame I lick

Deepens as it flickers.

I consume whole towns,

Bricks and bridges.

Cloisonné paisleys

Hennaed with Sanskrit

Bead games and barnacles

Threaded with fishnet

Microfiche petticoats

Silica sparked and frayed.

I would take a lifetime,

Lost,

To explain.

~~~~~~~~~

In acquiescence

2009-03-22T18:13:00.000-05:00

In acquiescence

Your once fluent saltine sleeve,
Now strangely inarticulate,
Thinly swathes the chair
Just there where the wild ginger
And rosemary fades in the air.

Your eyes close a moment
And I lean in to breathe your honey skin,
But I feel hot tears starting,
Tapering out of me~~
One dripping drop
& you will disappear

A friable onionskin kiss
And gone.
Recalling Shiitake on my tongue,
The buff pleats of your umami
Still unnamed, unknown.

Wood-lorn, I wait on the slope
Where the creek spumes frizzante.
Hands folded until the cream-crescent moons
Of my thumbs adjoin.
I sigh.
My thoughts carom off grey rocks
Falling finally upon a small upturned
Smile of a stone.
And I reflect upon it until the stream
Flows back to where you come~~
Your soft approach,
Your gentle love
Which so lightly rests on my shoulders,
Chirring.

There, where the dun grass mats down,
I reach around your trunk,
Your flinty shagbark,
And feel the warm sharp pant
Of the hart, antler-bound,
Strung up in moss branches,
In acquiescence hanging,

Slowly, slowly
Exhaling.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Rowboat

2009-03-22T18:10:00.001-05:00

This poem has been entered in a contest and, therefore, pulled from my blog. Thank you.

Austeria

2009-03-22T18:01:00.000-05:00

Austeria

It was neither night nor day.
A rise of rabbits in dusty crates girded the shore~~
Lostland driftwood vigil, mute and grey.
I swung barefoot, sweeping the straw air.
The breeze was warm, but the land was cold.
Glass-eye agape, I spun gold sand in my hands
To green fields that opened, stretching up
Past salt-spit stones to faraway pale,
Where the lilac lilted out,
Spilling crepe trumpets,
Violet tumbled glacéed notes.

Skirt-tucked, I wished to run to the fragrant one,
But, I turned away, unboxing my shoes,
Lacing grommets over canvas tongues.
When done, I rose, But she was gone.
A hundred folks spackled over the field,
Bent on writing their own cribbed works,
Troubling rocks, cuckooing through rills~~
Versifying the earth.

A town came up yellow and brown
And I was looking for you in flat places,
where you might have pressed through:
buttons & books badges & signs
Inhaling your name off the pavement,
Querying letterboxes with my palms.

Heat-seeking, I had come to the end of the world.
I found instead a clear pool
Where a little girl held a turtle~~
Black with carmine-etched lines.
She’d let it swim a few strokes ahead,
Then catch it and laugh as its legs pulsed in vain.

While thousands of miles away
The speckled olive damask of the Pike
Moved unseen below the ice:
Waiting, waiting . . . .

~~~~~~~~~~~~

2008-11-26T18:39:00.001-06:00

SHE KEEPS SHEEP BY MOONLIGHT

{For Dianne}

Siberian squill flood up to the sill,
Feather-tipped, blue-veined bells.
The nectaries of Hellebores tonight are hid,
Downcast violet and olive peplum shells.

Sheathed in moon-stained yellow charmeuse,
Albatrossed with seeded strands of pearls,
She stands stock still, a prisoner of the window.
The single slip of periwinkle crepe~~
The Aerogramme~~troubles her hands.

She traces again the slight scratch,
The little stitches of black script,
The nimble loops so quickly slipped
And pulled so unmistakably masculine,
As knotted swards of silk tie weeds
Clumped in drifts on a papery blue sea.

The sharp tang of iron and sulfur
Rises from the bath and stings her tongue.
From the crook of her small nib
She would billow out on vellum to him~~
Cattleya and pomegranate,
Jasmine and attar,
A seductive quelling finger to his lips,
A slurring opalescent lullaby.

In the morning she dreams
Under a hazy circle of midges and sedges.
The shrill tocks will come
And the sun will crash off bevels.
Will the honeysuckle still twist and rise
So sweetly? Will the warbler sing?
Or has all been lost, torn down &
drowned in the wreck of the night?

~~~~~~~

2008-11-26T18:35:00.000-06:00

Forest Hill

As no one’s mother,
Being wife to none either,
My stone is silent.

~~~~~~~~~

2008-11-25T17:20:00.000-06:00

please say yes

tobacco and toffee
inch in kisses, softly
across my dappled maple floor.

sweet cherry syrup drips
luridly from your dear, parted lips,
slipped through salty laces.

chloroformed by your charming sleeve
I drop flat, pressed into a folded seam
that flaps in places, still fluttering.

to your flint rock I’m pinned,
drinking in formaldehyde again,
longing to fix

this moment, this precious
delirium, elusive, senseless,
in perpetuity.

somewhere, on a coast, perhaps, we breathe,
grey-green pebbles washed over and over that shush and seethe,
shining desire that rushes in and out in waves,
in tumbles,
drawn thrilling
tripping,
trilling endlessly.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Carte Blanche

2008-11-25T17:16:00.001-06:00

This poem has been submitted for publication. Thanks for reading and commenting.

Bird in a Box

2008-11-25T16:11:00.001-06:00

This poem has been submitted for publication and, therefore, has been pulled from my blog.