Stop.

Stop being a mason without the ring

building brick walls you cannot break through.

Stop pretending they are insurmountable

and you are Humpty Dumpty.

Stop.

Stop being Atlas and shrug it off

like a light dusting of November snow.

Stop believing this is all yours to carry

and that your knees will break.

Stop.

Stop being an earthbound astronaut soldered to the earth

by 12 layers of biaxially-oriented polyethylene terephthalate.

Stop pulling on the heavy boots that

won’t let you fly.

Stop.

And then.



Go.

Be.

Do.

Live.

Fly . . . .

with the dog between us

still
we sit here
still
unwavering
your anger unflagging
my sadness incurable
still
        we sit here
still
like marble statues
you are ROMAN
cold and white
I am greek
distant and disarmed
still
        we sit here
still
in blue-black light
frozen solid
as dots of color
dance and sneer
still
        we sit here
still
unable to turn
away from the dissected
lives on the late night news
unable to turn
to each other
still
        we sit here
still
and that’s something
                right?

She is a moon
Satellite woman
Orbiting
Ostracized
From a world
        Full of people
She is the last
Oil and honey cookie
Lonely moon face
Abandoned on a plate
Sweet as she is
        No one will accept her
She is a shoe scuffed and worn
As those carrying her
Franticly fragilely
To her bus stop
But it will not wait
       And she will walk alone
She is a worm
Craving home soil
Braving the careless bite
She chances the apple
Aching to be part of this earth
        But she is a moon

The wheels on my bus
go 'round and 'round,
eternally and
        invariably
ending up here
but my apple is bruised,
scored by the countless times
        I have dropped it.
    Peechee folders and binder paper
turn to dust in my hands
and my history ends
        long before I've begun.
    I am a soaked and sodden sponge
but I have spilled my milk
        and I must be cleaned up.
    The wheels on my bus
have gone flat from overuse
on an unforgiving terrain,
which would be cruel enough
        but I have lost my drive as well.
    The wheels on my bus
keep taking me to the place
where I started,
        and it seems it never ends.
    I want to drive this bus
so that I can decide where
        I am going,
who will board,
what we will sing,
where we will find ourselves,
when to turn in a new direction,
why we have made this journey
and how to know it’s time to stop.
    I want to be the driver,
but I am the infinite rider,
holding my books as though
their pages were made of glass
and their lessons might shatter,
leaving my mind with cuts and scrapes,
knowing that the nurse
is not in today.
    The wheels on my bus turn
as I sit there sleeping,
dreaming of a destination
that is only a rumor from
the dark-haired girl who always lies,
and the wheels on my bus go
        'round and 'round,
         'round and 'round,
          'round and 'round.

This is my poem without words
        my poem of images enrobed in
    oppressive silence like the
        pressing of a Salem witch
    who is really just a girl in tears
   and a bonnet:
You asked what I would do
    if you died and I said
  "I would have you cremated and
   I would have your ashes,
    at least a bit of them, mixed
         into a bit of red glass
    fashioned into a heart-shaped
  kiss and
   I would wear it around my neck
        on a silver silk chord . . .
             a silver silk chord . . .
             except when I venture out on
              a date with a familiar stranger
            because you will not
                                              have been introduced and
               the rest of you
   I would sprinkle here and
        there to haunt the old brick
buildings I love and the sharp angry
mountains you love and
                              here and
        there to feed the verdant
grasses our toes haven't ever moved."
    You raised an eyebrow
        askance, saying,
  "You've thought about this quite
     a bit,"
but this is a lie I let you hold
    a pork bun of a brown bird with a
        backward-bent wing
which you rest in a wooden puzzle box
  wrapped in a velvet pouch
    sewn into a heart-shaped pillow
      locked in a three-sided room
and on the ceiling
   a hand-painted truth:
        I never thought the choice would
  **be mine.

She perches
  a bird on a
spindly winter branch
her pious breast
  puffed up with
    self
     and
   righteousness
she builds her nest of
  pillows and
    lap blankets -
     afghans of granny
squares like a motley
  jumble of feathers
the shredded remains of
  a circus clown
rising from her army green
        Crocs (R) to her
poly-chiffon hanky
   a mantilla of lies to
      her
     self
  and she nestles down on
her egg of wine and host and
   judgment
weaving into the walls of her
   nest her prayers for the
     unfortunate for the
     unbelieving for the
     undisciplined for the
         flaw of being
less holy and less wholly
   the child of
Big G God
   she knows she is

Otto was ill-timed and
   out
of place
in his black suit and
   hand-hemmed
pants
bearing the sheen of long wear
and his umbrella
   reaching from floor to his elbow
its wooden handle as crooked
   as his spine

"Where were you," he
   admonished with his
eyes and
"Why didn't you," he
   accused with his
cane-handled umbrella and
"Where is she," he
   screamed from his
wrinkled shirt and
  creased brow and
   worn wool pants and
    ill-timed arrival
  one foot in the train and
one foot knee-deep in misery.