milk or lemon?

ambulatory grief am i
not bed-ridden misery

i nod & chat & pour & stir
& do it all with glee
but underneath this gay facade
is something more of me

a heart that beats, it faintly beats,
but only beats for he
from whom with bated breath i long,
i yearn, i beg to be set free

but i am caught in tangled web
of golden memory
of denim eyes & copper hair
no future guarantee
without the wistful, haunting smile
i'm nevermore to see

so capture him, i'd try to,
in words of poetry
but every word is ashes
every phrase too twee
a fruitless undertaking
i'm sure that it would be

so it seems there is no respite
for a cognitive refugee
for the walls are closing in
on my aching reverie

& in my sad dementia
i dream of him on bended knee
a paradise quite different
from my grim reality

but i'll hide my agitation
as i smile and sip my tea

The Wind and Me

“Whither art thou blowing?” said I to the West Wind.
“Such high flown language!” the wind said to me.
“Well then, where are you going?” said I to the wind.
“I am going to the sea.”

“But that’s thousands of miles.” said I to the West Wind.
“Is it that far?” asked the wind of me.
“Perhaps even farther.” said I to the wind.
“It seems but a mile to me.”

“And why are you going?” asked I of the West Wind.
“It’s just my nature.” said the wind to me.
“And what is your nature?” I questioned the wind.
“I see all that I can see.”

“I share my cool breezes and smell all the flowers.
I dance with the leaves.” said the wind to me.
“I fight with umbrellas and play with the showers.
As I make my way back to the sea.”

“Do you enjoy your trip?” asked I of the wind.
“I do.” said the wind to me.
“And what do you do when out on the ocean?”
“I kick up a storm or three.”

“Can I go with you?” asked I of the wind.
“No, you’re far too heavy for me.
But someday when you’re old, build a strong boat
And we’ll dance all day on the sea.”

“Yes, we’ll dance all day on the sea.
We'll dance, just the wind and me."

Farewell

Once you asked the world of me
So my world I gave
Giving all to make you glad
Happily your slave
But all I had was not enough
You wanted more and more
So I watched you pack my things
And shuffle out the door
Off to brave new worlds are you
While here I'll sit and sigh
With sweet memory abating
And a wish that you will fry

truth

secrets like cancer
metastasizing
insidious and incurable
sins of omission
bald-faced lies
misdirection and misanthropy
all the things we never say
untrue with what we do
the chipping away of precious moments
in a maelstrom of mendacity
leaving in it's wake a flood of tears
destruction and desecration
memories rendered inadequate
in light of overwhelming evidence
that perception was skewed
from the start
broken hearted
spirit broken
for no reason
but a saving of face
a postponement of the inevitable
the inexorable
the inescapable
the truth

Regret

The bluest eyes
The strongest arms
With freckles dotted is his face
Red-golden hair on
Crown, jaw and chest
Limbs that move with rough-hewn grace
His lilting voice
That cheeky grin
Those tender whispers in the night
I wish to God
I’d known before
Love’s fire in me he’d set alight
Choices made
I wish unmade
Changes to the house of time
Go back
And make myself perfect
For this perfect boy of mine
But far too late
I cannot alter
Things now past that haunt me so
And so his sweetest
Tender touch
Will stay a joy I’ll never know

For St. Valentine

The wheels go spinning round and round
The train, it passes by
My love is gone
I cannot say that I know where or why

He loved me once, I'm sure of it
I thought he loved me true
Yet still he left and left no word
Except the word adieu

I search through sites and look for a new job.
I hate to work, and yet, I need the dough.
I sit here in my cube and join the mob
Who long for work that will not bring them low.

Hiding the screen so others cannot see
I scan the ads and learn what I most fear
Is that I'll never find a job for me,
Where I won't spend it kissing someone's rear.

But jobs are scarce and so it's here I'll stay
Dreaming of change and places yet unseen.
I'll keep on looking on another day
And hope that then the pickings won't be lean.

Until that day it's back to budgetry
And longing for the time when I'll be free.

To put your heart in words upon a screen,
To give your all to one defining dream,
To throw your lot to that which you most fear,
Just email one whom you hold very dear.

And with one click your hope is gone away
Into the ether, where you can't delay
The repercussions of what you have said.
Those words of love are now what you most dread.

If you could bring them back to you again
You'd change them all to something that you ken
Would save the heartache of finding you're wrong
And that your heart to him does not belong.

Still, waiting to find out what he will say
Will make you find your God, and pray, and pray.

I wake, and try to greet the coming day,
And yet my bed's so comfortable and warm.
So hit the snooze and under covers stay.
I have no wish to rise and greet the storm.

Eventually, I get out of the door
And to the subway walk, and catch the train
Upon which feet stick to the nasty floor
Before returning out into the rain.

Then, through the drizzle walk to coffee shop
And get overpriced dirty taste of grinds.
Then back through rain 'til on the bus I hop
So, on to work with all who've lost their minds.

This daily battle kills the best of me.
If I got paid to sleep. . .I'd happy be!

melt

inside your shy smile
i dissolve like
sugar on a tongue
snow in an oven
the West Witch
an interrogated snitch
the basis of a lie
whipped cream on hot pie
terrors in the light
monsters of the night
egos once derided
atoms which collided
chocolate in the sun
inhibitions after rum
i melt, i thaw, i resolve myself into a dew
inside your shy smile

Requiem

I think I hear the pipers.
I think they play for me
This lonely song a-wailing
From across the vast, cold sea.

I think it is my death dirge
That echoes every tear;
This lonely sad, cold wailing
That only I can hear.

The wind, it knocks me over.
The rain drips on my brow.
I think I hear them coming.
Yes, I'm sure I hear them now.

The Father stands waiting to free me from sin
For the pipers are playing and I'm home again.

inner/outer

trapped inside this decaying carcass
lives a girl I've long neglected
underneath the mounds of flesh
she breaths and moves
struggling against the outward
fighting to be
against the forces suppressing her
the despair
the laziness
entropy
she surfaces like a drowning body
gasping for air
grasping at straws
refusing to succumb to the darkness below
the comforting darkness of oblivion
anonymity
loveless but for love of self
a minimal feeling at best
loathing of all but mostly self
a sad state
fat cow
giving in to outward forces
smothering the girlish figure
with chocolate and self hate

Ode to smoking, in the style of Dorothy Parker

If I choose, and choose I do
to have a cigarette or two
and it's my smoking that you rue
well then, my love, to hell with you.

Travelogue

Compendium
Byzantium
Alone again at last
My time well spent
Under the tent
Where I break my fast
Each day the same
Replayed refrain
I eat, I drink, I snooze
The heat decays
Neural pathways
(Though that might be the booze)
I traveled far
By plane, by car
World history to see
But sleep away
Most of the day
Sir Laziness is me
Yet better still
This lack of will
Than bustling like a tourist
I instead avowed
To avoid the crowd
And be a travel purist
No café visit
Whilst in transit
To Mahmutpasa Bazaar
To buy some things
Some food, some rings
A gadget-like guitar
Which home once more
I’d only store
And surely never use
Preferred by me
Is memory
Than buying future refuse
I’m soon to leave
No plans achieved
I’m far too lackadaisical
But better spent
Was time in tent
Than scurrying nonsensical

Librarian

I saw his inward soul today
Beneath the outward stoic face
Which up to then was all I’d seen
Each button done, each hair in place.
More proper man I never saw,
So dignified and so austere.
Yet in him beats a heart so warm
Beneath the frozen hard veneer.
I dropped my book. He picked it up
And gently laid it on the stack.
I barely dared to raise my eyes
For fear he’d see how much I lack.
“You clumsy oaf!” I inward thought,
“This dapper man will surely shy
From fumbling arms and messy dress
And barren and alone you’ll die.”
But, then he stole my heart away
With secret grin as rare as gold.
A precious moment just for me.
A spur of hope to make me bold.
Throat locked, the words just would not come.
Until, “Thank you.” I meekly squeaked.
Flush-faced, I turned my head away.
As through my eye salt water leaked.
I feel so terrified I’ll die
Alone and withered on the vine
With head in book and house of cats
Until I’m laid in box of pine.
So self-defeating is this fear
Sweet dapper men all walk away.
“Shy one, shy one” of Yeats’ rhyme
I have become my own cliché.

9-12-01

smoke rises and the winds blow over Queens
the acrid stench surrounds the TV's carnage
my blisters unhealed
open sores from six miles in heels
the 59th Street Bridge parade
small reminders that sting even when
liquor decays the hazy memories
the phone keeps ringing
I'm okay, I'm okay, considering

We are all accounted for
Our little coterie
one was late to work, got off the train
hung over
to buy some asprin
walk outside to clear his head
small miracle that kept him whole

another quit his job
across the street
the week before
feel guilty feeling so lucky

we flick from channel to channel
reception is barely there
antennas somewhere in the rubble

eyes curiously dry, all of us
unable to take it all in
towers replaced
by a pillar of smoke on the horizon

For Daddy

On Father’s Day

The years go by and older I
Look back at what I’ve learned.
The things I’ve seen, places I’ve been,
And all the bridges burned.

The trips I took in life and book –
Have taught me quite a lot
But more it took (than life and book)
To get me where I’ve got.

From you and Mum, the basics come
And on which I have built:
The wit, the smarts, the drive, the heart,
A healthy dose of guilt.

Look back a ways, to early days -
Memories I treasure so:
The training wheels, my girlish squeals,
Of “Daddy, don’t let go!”

And next to you, I’d sleep right through
The end of Barney Miller.
My fears you’d quash when bugs you’d squash
Or spray with the roach killer.

You’d play guitar or drive the car,
And then we both would croon,
But with the beer and Tolan near
We rarely were in tune.

The give and take, the jokes we’d make,
The cribbage and the Scrabble,
The movie shows, my teenage woes
About which I would babble.

More recently a game we’d see
Some football and, once, hockey.
Billiards we play when I come to stay,
Though winning makes you cocky.

Politics debate – the difference great -
Our divergence of opinion.
You’ve seen me through maturation to
New Yorker from Virginian.

I cannot say, words can’t convey,
The things for which I’m grateful
And if I could this poem would
Be mailed by the crateful.

For through example you’ve shown me ample
Strength, warmth, and dignity.
Because of you, and Mummy too,
I’ve seen who I could be.

I’m not there yet, but don’t regret
The journey I am taking,
For you’ve shown me, though hard it be,
My life is my own making.

The gifts you gave, sacrifices made,
Have shown me what is Love.
So now I strive a life to live
That you will be proud of.

The years go by and older I
Can see how far I’ve gotten,
But further still I travel will,
Your lessons unforgotten.

Hail to the Chief

He thinks that he’s like Julius Caesar.
I think he’s more like Nero.
Playing while our cities burn,
Yet thinking he’s our hero.

But still, the “Liberal Media”
Is lax in its reporting
Pretending that the man’s at work
When actually he’s cavorting.

He’s traded in the fiddle
For a set of golfing irons.
He thinks that it’s “good business”
To chop down sacred environs.

He tells us that we’re safer
(Though some people plan to bomb us)
Because within his righteous mind
The apocalypse is upon us.

He tells us that his God
Has put him upon his throne.
And that the choice of life or death
Is his and his alone.

Those who voice another plan
Are called unpatriotic.
Believing in the Constitution
Makes us all quixotic.

His friends who own the voting booths
Will try to steal the ballots
And leave no trail of their deeds.
“Impartial” right wing zealots.

But if we disagree with them
The Court will have it’s way
And then another coup d’etat
Tomorrow or today.

I find it quite ironic
That he “builds” democracy.
For we live in a Republic
And he lost his “victory”.

The are no words exact enough
To describe all his disgraces;
The scheming and the leaks,
Service records he misplaces.

But Hail to the Chief
For our mission is accomplished,
And if you don’t agree with that
Ashcroft will see you punished.

Prostrate

Above a blackened sky: I
Stream through the abyss
Unplumbed
By men of your ilk
Free from the encumbrances
Of life’s everlasting why
Earthbound:
Misguided in my courses
Misshapen in secret places
I squirm in my skin
Quasimodo underneath
Unassuming above
Mistaken for normal
Whatever that means
Inside: I
Fly away from facile descriptions
No words can cage
The rage that age has brought
To light at
Innocence deconstructed
Words dry and arid
Like the dust of long dead corpses
Effects in late night horror shows
Hosted by Elvira
But like the zombie dead
Words rise unbidden
Gutting all before them
Undead and not undead
Objects of ridicule
Until the lights go out
Pictures flashing on the backs of eyelids
Like movie screens
Words like screams
Rising from the chasm
Eternal darkness of the ravaged mind
How happy I
Could be
Free
From the everlasting why
Forever
Brief interludes aren’t brief at all
But repeat and repeat and repeat
Ad infinitum
Respite too fleeting
And always
Returning to the everlasting why
me

sonnet 3 or sexless in the city

Alone in all the crowds, I sit and wait.
At bars and parties men just pass me by.
In New York City it is hard to date,
Especially when one is rather shy.
And yet, down city streets the lucky walk.
Those couples hold each other's hands and smile.
So smug, they kiss and hug and baby talk.
They fill my empty chest all up with bile.
Is it at bars or cafes or the park
The couples met and mated, two by two?
I go these places and the time I mark
Waiting for someone to arrive, but who?
New York, I know you have the man for me
But where the fuck in all these crowds is he?


(yes, I did copyright this, thanks)