April Twenty-ninth

The end of Space
Is the beginning of Time
The end of a word
Is the beginning of Rhyme


It all turns in on itself somehow
The end making the start
Making the end
Making the start

I don't know how to sustain it
A model of the Universe, broken
A blinking arcade game
Without a token

April Twenty-eighth

Andrea,
How do you do it?
How do you carry your heart around?
Do you keep it on a trailer bed
Between shows?
You are so small--
So slight of frame
So delicate
A darling boy
With bed head
And little shoulders
And the voice
Of Mother
Of Sister
Of Pleading Lover
Andrea
Are you weary?
You seem weary
But you're moving all the time
How?
Are you falling?
Are you falling back onto the crowds
Like a rock star into the pit?
Are those hands trustworthy?
Do you fall?
Or just surrender?
How do you surrender?
How do you let go
And not fall away?
Your heart is so full
It gushes into mine
How do you
Carry this?
I can not carry this
I have been ignoring you
Because you
Speak to me
But I don't have a trailer bed
Of my own
I either hold this up
Or fall away

it, April Twenty-seventh

"it"

Sometimes

I really hate

Feeling "it" in my bones--

That inexplicable knowing

That comes before you're 

Supposed to know

I am sure that it is

Some of kind of

Psychological bla bla bla

A cognitive error

Brought on by a 

Selective memory

My brain attaching

Significance

Where there is none

But I don't care

I don't care 

What it actually is

It feels like knowing

I would much rather

This feeling in my bones

Not be there

I'd rather it be

Part of the white noise

Of a chaotic universe

Where fucked up shit

Happens and sometimes

A person we're thinking about

Is the one

Who falls

And, when we find out,

We think, "Oh... sad." without

Feeling in our bones

That we knew

Before we heard

April Twenty-seventh

On the road again
Songs that sound like other songs
Clog the radio

April Twenty-sixth

Rain has cooled the valley
The sun is that
Odd bright
Refracting sun
I keep walking around
Setting things aside
Thinking
"I'll sort that out later"
But later we will
Be on the road again
I need to
Sort it out now
But the light
Hurts my eyes

April Twenty-second, April Twenty-third, April Twenty-fourth, April Twenty-fifth

April Twenty-second

It's Earth Day
And all I can think about
Are the geese not flying
The ravens not clicking
The cats not mewing
The chickens not clucking
The rain not falling
And the wind chime
... sounds lonely


April Twenty-third

"Danger" with no "D"
Is "Anger" and Anger is
Very Dangerous


April Twenty-fourth

The darkness is thick
Hanging about with the mist
Like moss in the trees


April Twenty-fifth

The drive is quite long
And dark and windy and late
But mostly it's dark

Dystopia Distraction

I am all weird & reactive

Running out into traffic 

Because somebody

On the sidewalk said

A mugger was coming

And now

I am starting to believe that 

I would make 

An excellent citizen of Oceania

I would scream the loudest

At that monstrous screen

And, if this were Fahrenheit 451,

I would spend my days

At the demolition parks

Smashing everything

With great enthusiasm

Then I would go home

Put my earbuds on

And weep

And if I roamed the

Polluted allies of The Sprawl

I would, at best,

Be a 

Meat puppet

And, at worst,

Linda Lee.

April Twenty-first

Sometimes
"Shiny! Shiny!
Ha!Ha! Shiny"
Trumps sense
And by "trump"
I mean
"Completely distracts me
When I should know better"

April Twentieth

Flashing lights
Hand from trunk to pocket
In time to have
A 4-20 Easter

April Nineteenth

In college
I wrote a story for class
Speculative Fiction
I wrote about a woman
Who worked in a
Cloning facility
The sun dangerously strong
Through treated windows
Civil Rights
On the brink
Security checks
Parking far away
Inside an empty garage
Indicative of her status
She grew & harvested
Babies
She tinkered
With their brains
So that they would
Never grow
Beyond autonomic
Functions
Fiction-- okay
By a girl who knows
Shit
About neuroscience
And I-- that girl--
Pro-Choice
Childless
Wrote about
Fetuses in glass vats
And the woman
Does her job
Tra la la
Tending and testing
And
Terminating
And
Transferring
Little thoughtless "Vessels"
To different parts of
The facility
There were images I never shared
In the story
Vessels of every age
Clones
Why quit smoking?
When you can afford to grow
A new lung
A new heart
Hell-- just keep a whole set
On hand
Something that is your blood type
Your everything
There. Asleep.
No other purpose but to
Be there for you
To be an extra You
They are getting up
They are walking around
Sleep walking
Searching
For themselves
I never wrote how they were
Searching for themselves
I just wrote
About that woman
And that one vat
The Vessel
With fluttering eyelids
Dreaming
It was maybe a week later
That Dolly
Hit the news
The first cloned mammal
I put the story away
And now here we are
We might be able
To have cells on hand
From which to clone
Organs or... whatever
We are closer now
If you can afford it
You can get a new heart
Brand new
Made of you
It will beat
As you go
Searching for yourself

Walking to the Beach on 4/14/14

On my way to the beach
There was a man shuffling along the street
I thought he was just some sketchy guy--
There are a lot of those around here
-- wandering teens, drunken stoners, weathered homeless--
Just not "all there"
Coming toward me
Black pants with less-than-useful buckles
Red jacket
Spiky hair-- Sticking up
Not because of any
Obvious use of hair products
But because it was cut that way
Grew that way
I don't know where this guy was going
But he was on his way
Shuffling, eyes mostly closed
Because of the sun in his face
His face-- I thought there was blood on it. Or paint.
A smudge of something...
A smile.
It was a smile. A clown smile.
He turned his head and body slightly,
Perhaps to hide from me
Perhaps to avoid the sun
His face was tan
His eyelids heavy--
Like clowns' eyelids
But the painted smile made this whole affair seem
Scary.
When I thought I saw blood,
I worried for him
When I saw the painted grin,
I was more worried
But I couldn't quite screw up the courage
To ask him if
He was OK
I couldn't keep looking at him
It seemed he didn't want me looking at him
I wondered if he was unwell
I wondered if he was a performance artist
I wondered if he was an unwell performance artist
I didn't stop to ask
Or watch
Or even glance back
As I passed
I had to get to the water
I needed the terror to subside
At the beach
There was a family playing together
On the shore
A little boy was tossing a florescent green ball
It bobbed upon the foaming tips
Of dying waves
It seemed part of the show

April Eighteenth

A gaggle of geese like to meet
On the school grounds across the street
They land on the grass
While kids are in class
And enjoy a pleasant retreat

April Seventeenth

My heart

Won't let me write

About anything

Worth feeling

Assignment #5: Share a Poem

I pinned Allen

To a bed of white noise

Breathless

Walt & I zig-zagged

The empty street

Wayward, unsettled

He rested a time

In a bed of succulents

(poets & their beds...)

Until I helped him slip

Into a closed shop--

A trespasser, visible through

The window pane

Just resting there

Silent, gazing

April Fourteenth, April Fifteenth, & April Sixteenth

April Fourteenth

There is an odd grumpy-faced clown
Electric blue hair on her crown
Her look that seems quaint,
A trick of the paint, 
Is a real perpetual frown



April Fifteenth

Club initiations
In sitcoms
Are funny tellings
Of kids choosing
The right path
Usually by
Rejecting
The initiation
Or the club
Was this ever a thing?
Or just sour grapes
Of the
Uninitiated? 


April Sixteenth

From a distance
The ocean is
White noise
And white noise
Is a kind of
Quiet

April Thirteenth, the second

Beauty does not exist in Architecture
But in Ruins
It is weeds through the cracks
It is Life from ashes

April Thirteenth

I pinned Allen
To a bed of white noise
Breathless
Walt & I zig-zagged
The empty street
Wayward, unsettled
He rested a time
In a bed of succulents
(poets & their beds...)
Until I helped him slip
Into a closed shop--
A trespasser, visible through
The window pane
Just resting there
Silent, gazing

April Twelfth

In dreams
We'll seem awake
But there will be that
Absurd thing
Like floating
Or
Lighting matches with your mind
That, upon waking, we
Wonder how we
Did not realize
We were asleep
How did you not
Realize
You were asleep
?
Who would brush off
The exhumation of an
Angel skeleton
Like it was just
A thing
?
Who accepts you
As Queer
Because you said so
?
Who would shrug that off
To watch National Geographic
And hope the flesh of the wings
Stays intact
?
Since when do people
Recognize Enochian
And smile
?
Since when have you ever
Actually felt your heart leap
And stay there
Up high
Not from happiness
But from knowing
Even though you
Feel terrible
You know
When has that
Ever happened
?
The heart up high
From knowing
...
It's like
Floating
Or
Lighting matches with your mind

April Eleventh

I truly favor being eloquent
And I try to spin my words into gold
But after just a few lines, I am spent
The flush drops from my cheeks and leaves me cold
A delicate glint of light that did shine
Whatever alchemy I thought I saw
That miracle was from nothing of mine
Just rays of sunlight on handfuls of straw
So I retreat and rethink and revise
I pare down, replace gold with grass now dead
Surrender the hope of my searching eyes
To the darkness inside my weary head
No transformation emerges from shame
No liberation by saying a name

April Tenth

It is a bit annoying that

My tenderness

Was described as

Judgement

You claim 

It seemed

I was judging you

Because 

I wouldn't

Just believe

That you were ok

An alcoholic

Standing in a bar

Holding a beer

(It's just a beer)

You want me 

To drink with you

Assure me

It is safe

To even

Get drunk with you

Really?

And you say it's fine

And not a big deal

You bring it up

Ask questions

Then act like

I am the one

Who won't let it go

But gee

I could totally drink with you

Why won't I drink with you?

You just want to show me how

Okay you are

And how it is not

A big deal

Why am I going on about it

Anyway

When you ask me 

Again

Remind me

Again

That it is totally fine

Then you want to know 

If I am mad

And when I 

Apologize for seeming mad

You run with it

And make that the new thing

Try to elicit guilt

You thought 

I was judging you

You say

But you didn't really think that

You were just hoping

I'd change my mind

Maybe if I feel guilty...

Now

I am 

Judging you

Girly (April Ninth, the second)

I still call mixed drinks "girly" drinks.

And Sweetened coffees with 

Whipped Creme on top

"Girly"

And let's be real

They totally are

In the sense that 

Pretty, sweet things

Are considered "girly"

And I've called people

Pussies

Only to insult them

Because they're 

Stupid enough 

To think 

Pussies are bad

Hello?

But I catch myself

Rethink it

Girly drinks... 

I stand by it but 

Only because

It is a compliment

Girly things

We think they are so

Pretty and sweet

And safe

But consume

Too many "girly" drinks

And you're on the floor

Begging the Goddess

For Mercy

Girly makes Pain

Pleasurable

Girly takes time

To look amazing

Before facing

Every predatory "ism"

on every street corner

Girly is a pussy

That withstands

A fist

A wrist

An arm

Girly

Can take it

Can you?

April Ninth

For a long time
I didn't know my mother's name
I recall Grandma telling
A story
Of my Uncle Pat
Announcing the birth
Of my mother
"Come see Maria!"
It still didn't register
I figured Pat had been
Speaking Portuguese
Then one day I see
My mother's birth certificate
Maria de Lourdes
As in The Virgin Mary's
Incarnation at Lourdes, France
My aunt is
Gloria de Fatima
Her Glory in
Fatima, Portugal
Holy names
Goddess names
But I didn't know
Because
Maria de Lourdes
Went by "Mary Lou"
And I felt a little cheated
Like "Mom" had been hiding
Like the Blessed Mother of God
Had been hiding
Mary, Marie, Maria
Of Lourdes
"Mary Lou"
It is the name
Of Bernadette's best friend
Maybe that's better
Feels better
Like praying to a saint
Instead of to God
Saint Bernadette
Is Mary Lou's
Best Friend
She will
Put in a good word
For you

April Eighth (published the 9th)

One hundred and five
Is too young an age to die
When it is your mom

April Seventh

I am afraid of age

I am afraid of fading

I am afraid of the page

I am afraid of relating

I am afraid my heart is a cup

I am afraid my heart is spilling

I am afraid my heart is corrupt

I am afraid my heart is filliing

I am afraid I am coal

I am afraid I am small

I am afraid I am Soul

I am afraid I am All

April Sixth

Darkness
Is strange
Because
It seems to disappear
When you
Turn the light on
Ask Dumbledore
He will lie to you
About it
Until you know
What he means
There is no
Light
That washes out the
Shadow
Cast inside us
Shine from within
The shadow
Stretches tall
Beside you
It will serve you to
Remember that
Nox

April Fifth

The slap on the face
The force and firmness of it
Just made you light up

April Fourth

Sometimes I sleep through the
Witching Hour
And my dreams set to work
My peace is the
Sacrifice

April Third, the Second

We went out
The other night
And the bartender
Was wearing this striped
Skirt
A tight black and white number
That messed with the eyes--
An optical illusion
It was like watching
A hypnotist's pendulum
Swinging
Back and forth
As she moved
Around the bar

April Third

I do
Not understand
Why sick people
Can buy guns
But can't
Get help
Corporations
Are people
But people
Are nothing
But cheap labor
Or a liability
Falsehoods
Are Freedom
Yet Truth
Is unpleasant
So
Keep it
Away from
The Children

April Second

Curiosity
Is not the same as Concern
But people pretend

April First

I dreamt a child had died
Likely drowned
Though her blood
Suddenly
Filled the waters
Where her friends stood
Looking for her
Then she was out of the water
Sand over her body
My daughter laughed
So I slapped her
Hard
And she...
I don't know
It was like
She turned to sand
Insides first