I wrote about you last night
when there were supposed to be
a million falling stars

clouds got in the way
but hell, those weren't really suns
falling to their death

would have been fitting
if they were, for the cliche is apt:
you being my light of day

and you did fall from the sky,
though not through the firmament at night
with others tracing your trails

you jumped solo from the
GW Bridge, on a clear Thursday
at a low high noon

your obit was politically polite, not
describing your terse flight, or the bones
the Hudson's waters crushed

so I wrote about you last night
a missive to me--I asked what the Times did not,
what was your final thought

when you stepped from the rail:
did you see your whole life fly before your eyes
or just sky, water and the helpless bridge

cracked an elbow making a tackle,
ruptured a kidney throwing a body block;
my less than illustrious football
career curtailed

so I chose to run:
an active verb--organs, bones,
are nouns, things to be damaged,
broken, frozen in almighty time

which slowed my sprint to a
jog, then my jog to a hurried hike
on my arid prairies and around
my wooded lane

where the young neighbors eye
me zipping by, deep in thought--who
is that old man pondering parts of speech?
don't let the children listen to him

for I know they have their own bones
yet to break, their own journey to make,
from fanciful fields of fame, to cruel knowledge
nothing remains the same--nouns decay

I'll keep walking wild as long as I can;
I recall making the last tackle, that final
fated block--those nouns now long gone, and no
adjectives can bring them back

that afternoon,
the boy fried an egg on the sidewalk,
sunny side up

Mother said to waste food was sin,
though she had no qualms about dumping
Daddy's rot gut and gin

while Daddy was comatose
with drink, down the sink she would pour it;
the son knew the ritual well  

tonight was the same, Daddy ******
and couched, Mother cleaning his puke
before the dinner dishes

Daddy wouldn't recall a thing tomorrow,
another day which held mother's silence from fear,
shame--Daddy's from ethanol's eager eraser

Daddy would never know a transformer
blew but a block from their house, leaving
unsettled scores in the dark

or that for once Mother and son
wouldn't have to look at Daddy's hangdog face,
the incandescent haze which bathed it absent,
thanks to a blessing from a blackout
of another sort

I have never believed in the principles of physics because they do not apply to girls like me. Girls who disobey Newton's straight-mouthed rules with scarlet leaps of blind faith, girls with hopes soaring past our pastel heavens, never weighed down by any mystical force of gravity measured by dead men. The audacity of the physicist's rotten rules anchoring themselves into thick velvet skin-- as if to stifle the daydreams that keep twirling unpredictably even if acted upon by an unbalanced force. There is no way to silence my momentum, I will keep blooming-- slender hands outstretched toward the flickering sun, past all of the white numerical lies and formulaic cages that ache to confine me. What a perfect contradiction, that a soft-spoken girl can rise at the break of Einstein's miscalculated morning, illuminating the sky with the poetry of her defiance.

She, who loves gracefully without friction. She, whose bones cannot be broken by the laws of heat. She, who keeps herself warm when the cold mathematical wrath of their graves fails to keep her quiet.

with moonlight, he travels mostly
at night, past snoring hikers and embers
of fires that cooked their food, kept darkness
at bay, and heard what they had to say

if the coals could only speak, perhaps
he would find the right circle of stones,
a black heap of carbon that once glowed
red and gold, and her tale would be told

at least he would know the last words
she spoke in this wilderness--whether she
chose to vanish into the deep wood, fodder
for the scavengers

or was the prey of evil men,
who lurk at every turn--in bustling city
and quiet forest as well--vipers who strike
without warning, without curse or cause

when the moon's light wanes, he moves yet
in darkness, feeling his way, a nocturnal detective,
hoping to find what the others have given up
for lost and registered among the dead:

sign or scent of her--black coals or white bones,
a piece of tattered clothing, the canvas backpack
with her name, the hiking boots he laced for her
which left tracks he forever yearns to find...

Rhyming verse is a woman scorned
to whom lip service must be paid.
Set free from meter, unadorned
Her lyric fury waits, delayed
as she rambles on in a free verse swoon,
oblivious to whoever's listening,
babbling to the crescent moon
illuminated, horned and glistening,
bathing her deluded mind
in lunar metaphors of doom.
Do not provoke her—treat her kind
and let her pass to a padded room
or an attic space beneath the eves
where she can rant and find release;
until her frenzied soul believes
that words have meaning...
                              and rests in peace.

my old street,  
a perfect bicycle drag strip,
needed no gutters--all rains drained
into the bay  

but today,
the lane where
I learned to drive, is a place gulls dance
and killdeer prance

this river
is a dozen inches deep
at street’s end, but a yard and growing at the bay
where the hot dog stand once steamed  

the melting monsters
were a million miles from us, you know;
a threat to a Titanic, though  surely inconsequential
to the Atlantic, or so it seemed

all the hype about heat, carbon emissions,
ozone’s demise, and other gassy notions, we thought
belonged in tomorrow’s world of worry  

but tomorrow became today,
and now it’s commonplace to say,
"the shoreline receded--that neighborhood’s gone."    

a continent constricted,
a lowly inch a year, by greed or divine design?
retribution from an earth that never forgets?
or a fickle force we cannot fathom?  

I am ancient now, though I recall those admonitions,
ambiguities that fueled futile debate, until it was too late
and here I be, watching waters at low tide, lapping
against my feet on a once dry and driven street

I'm gonna take a wild guess
I'm gonna play you a blind chess
I'm gonna tell you how to deem
I'm gonna build you in my dream
You're an angel in a white gown
You're the diamond in my crown
You're the light glowing wide
You're the prayer I always hide
Now I'm awake and cannot see
Now I'm crying inside your sea
Now I'm handing you my last plea
Now I'm giving you all of me

Peace and Prosperity,
Flowers and Food.
Those are the promises I make.

Spring & Fertility,
Laughter and Joy,
That is the future I promise.

I ask for 'Blood'
I have a never ending thirst.

War, fight and Battle,
is what folks call me.

I have promises to keep,
All I ask for is 'Blood'
I have a never ending thirst.

I can wipe out a race and bring equality,
Steal all that is mine - trust and fraternity.
I am 'War' and I have promises to keep.

Burn it all to the ashes,
No music, no cries.
Peace it is! I am War, I deliver my promises.

I ask for blood,
I have a never ending thirst.

Babies and Widows, is all that remains,
A land without men and ****.
As good as it sounds, 'innocence' is what I claim.
Engulfing the little hands in the shade of long beautiful hairs,
Hatred is what I breed.
Future and Fertility - I keep my promises.

War is what I am,
I have a never ending thirst.

Caucasian, brown and black,
I will swallow them all,
there would be laughter all around,
HA HA HA,
mine, my laughter!

I AM WAR & I have promises to keep.
I ask for blood,
& I have a never ending thirst.