There is a raking
a scraping
in clearing away
be it darkness
or debris
a clawing at
that which endangers
suffocating
obfuscating
before we can heal
before we can be healed

There is a lighting
a righting
that must be done
be it biological
or psychological
a transformation of
that which encroaches
a reclamation
an immolation
before we can heal
before we can be healed

There is a turning
a learning
to our evolution
be it revision
or ignition
a demo-day yearning
for returning to wholeness
for renovation
and invocation
before we can heal
before we can be healed




SuzAnne Wilson Regalia
8 March 2020

“Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world.”
- attributed to Teresa of Avila

Yours are the hands
  that cup the rain
  to quench the drought barren field
Yours are the hands
  that sow the seeds
  to fill tomorrow’s empty mouths
Yours are the hands
  that play the chords
  to make a chorus of us all
Yours are the hands
  that pull light down from the stars
  that lift fire from the depths of the world
  that mold the darkness into a vessel
    to hold the quenching fullness of
a single note sung in unison






SuzAnne Wilson Regalia
7 March 2020

The hike to the waterfall
          multiplied
                    my fear of falling by
my fear of passing out from exhaustion.

The hills climbed like
     terra cotta slices of cheesecake
          cut for giants.      To the south, hoodoos ringed
like wedding cake, encrusted with
               shimmering slices of Anjou Pear.

“She’s better at hiking
          than she used to be,” Mike said.
“She made it further
          than I expected,” Leilani said.
“She didn’t stop;
          she’s right behind us,” said Celine.

I missed
                    my dogs.  I missed
     the way they would tug at the leash to
propel me toward good smells.  I missed
               the way they would tug behind when they felt
     something looked dangerous or difficult.

Dwarfed by the stone cliffs, I felt
          like a gnat
     at the Marin Farmers’ Market.  The sky and stone
weighed heavy on my soul.

My mind clawed at
          purple seas armed with
                    chisels slashing at the landscape.

To shine

   she lay before us the night sky in
somnolent waves dusted with
her own chimerical astrology
studded and dimpled with
compressed carbon and
     time made material
sweeping her hand across it
like Asteria hanging her mobile
over the cradle of civilization
nodding gently to Zorya
brilliantly conjoined twins spanning
the Slavic night sky
   dotting our lives with
multi-faceted tears of joy
like champagne held immobile
bubbles suspended in gold
at unions and births and
fading scrapbooks with worn edges
as a pulsating joy vibrated
   trembled
meanwhile
shared
   like the wind chime hung near
     though not next to
the one disturbed by the breeze
   a breeze that bends the path of raindrops
glistening toward new summer meadows
to kiss blades of grass with
a dusting of diamonds and
pearls floating on the wind like dandelion fluff
seeking a relative weight
and a landing spot
   with color
to call home
     with clarity
to rest easy
   a cut above
and
to grow
  to bloom
    to shimmer
      to sparkle

to shine

Swimming through organic almond butter with an empty scuba tank
I rise to the surface of the day only to be caught in an avalanche of
sleep-deprivation before rolling into a tumbleweed of
Donna Summer-esque Workin' Hard for the Money on a day
that should be branded by Dyson

I arrive to a twenty-one gun salute presented by
three-year-olds
who don't even lift and I
am flipped and tilted from
Q to A until tossed salad slides through my ears and out my mouth

I boomerang to the outback
and back out
backing out of the blank draft card
before tug-a-war with a bungee cord and

Then I'm back to swimming through organic peanut butter with
an empty scuba tank and you peer over the edge
of the jar
glaring as you hold the spoon

On Monday
you are sponges
Squeezed empty by
Pokemon tournaments and
Supernatural Watchathons

On Wednesday
you are dictionaries
lexicons of hyperbolic histrionics
thesauri of sturm and drang and
angsty angsty goodness

But Friday
you are IMDB
airbenders and Fassbender and
light bending across the sails
of a ship bound for the

unreal
implausible
impossible
unnatural
illogical

while Monday
you are rabid
like word-eating mongrels

and Wednesday
you are 1930's radios
spewing never-before-heard myths and mysteries

but Friday
you are careening
between the moons of Jupiter

ungrounded
unfettered
untethered
unrealistic
imaginative­

but Friday
you are
gone gone gone gone

gone

Seventeen
is an oversized
triple-xl
sweater with arms and neck to fit
a toddler
and as you puff up your chest
with pride and indignation
designed to fill the Hefty-bag-sized body of
cheap acrylic yarn,
you struggle to push your arms through
sleeves like penne pasta
and a collar like a stale donut.

Seventeen is
unfinished
like a great American novel
stewing in a powerless crockpot
that bubbled briefly

Sometimes we are a foggy day
a brindled mist that hangs like a beaded curtain
across the doorway of the altered bikers from down the street
and walking through us requires a
machete of caution and silence and
a flashlight of sixty-percent honesty

Sometimes we are a Thanksgiving break
a respite from the weight of responsibility and
a monster dustbunny of anticipation that tumbles from
beneath the bed requiring
a broom of clarity and Potter-esque frenzy and
a damp paper towel of decisiveness.

Sometimes we are a banana
Spring-green on the precipice of perfection
only to tumble into the ravine of
only good for banana bread or compost
a sliceable bite of tropical gratitude and
a sticky sweet batter of hostage taking.

Sometimes, not often enough,
I reflect upon the void you fill which
I never imagined existed until it was filled
like concrete between flagstones
Grand Canyons made plateaus by
a surprise and a sigh and a homecoming.

Art is an unshaven stranger
with a delicious
rainbow of candy
inviting you
into his van.  
The danger is that
you'll get
lost in art
and never
crawl back out . . .
which can be
both delicious
and deadly.
He scatters
doubloons of butterscotch at
your small, wary feet
dancing a jig of joy and
fear, walking a tightrope
of excited tension and
nervous expectation . . .
and we are hummingbirds
seeking the nectar of
creativity and abandon,
lupine and columbine of
words and pigment and harmony,
and we flutter forward,
amnesiacs to the cost,
for the sweetness
of genius marrying
peril and possibility
in a ceremony
of light,
a flurry of color, tint, and shade,
both particle and wave.

First, Tom Cochran, and next, Rascal Flatts,
sang that
     Life is a Highway
and that's partially true if
you're willing to consider that
     coasting is not an option
that you rarely have the opportunity
to drive hundreds of miles without
rubberneckers or blue Q-Tips driving
     forty in a sixty-five
to drive from Napa to San Diego without
stopping for mixed nuts and a frozen coffee
     and Smartfood
to drive with movie-like abandon without
the Thelma & Louise slo-mo sending you
     careening toward the crevasse
Life is a highway riddled, web-like, with
unexpected off-ramps and
unforeseen on-ramps and
inconvenient detours that take you places
     you never dreamed you'd go
          you never thought you'd end up
but there are
     rest stops and
     diners and
     fruit stands offering organic sunshine
and there are
     flat tires and
     empty tanks and
     road crews repaving your path in 104 degree heat
and there are
     national parks and
     natural wonders and
     the world's largest frying pan
      the world's largest ball of twine
       the world's crookedest road
        the world's newest you
Your life is a highway that is made of
     choices
which lead you on your own
Choose-Your-Own-Adventure
with epic battles for good and evil and
pots of gold at the end of sprinkler-rainbows and
endless hints that
     YOU MAY ALREADY BE A WINNER!!!
Your life is a highway and
     if you miss your off-ramp
accept your new path
           . . . because there's no going back and
     if you miss your on-ramp
enjoy the scenery and the cows and the Texas Stop-Signs
           . . . because you never know when you'll
see them again
Your life is a highway and
     this is your off-ramp, so
take it with
          your eyes open to wonder
          your heart open to magic
          your life open to change
               because that is you evolving
Honor the view in your rearview mirror as you
keep your eyes on the horizon and
     with joy
      with fear
       with electric anticipation
Take your exit!

The Queen lays frozen in time
  as she has for millenia
  both eternal as stone
  and decayed as flesh
     gone grey green
  dessicated and mummified by
  elements of itself and
  its own nature
And from her I rise
  vibrant verdant voluminous in
     my own right
  my weathered hand cranes from
  her heart
  alien and archaic as one
  we whisper
Forever is the blink of an eye
  in the face of the universe

Yesterday-today faces blend into
empty tomorrows that are an
echo of fog long disippated,
hanging in the air like a
demented memory of a song
that was never written about
a girl who never lived outside
the egg white and wood pulp
of four scores ago

On the court
   she is a calculator
      Texas Instruments tattooed on her shoulder
On the court
   she is a fire chief
      Barking orders like a high strung dalmatian
On the court
   she is Agent J
      Picking physics-loving Tiffany out from the monster crew

But here
   she is waist-deep
      in the muck of academia
   slogging ever more slowly
through the murk
   toward the crisp vellum
      of someone else's
   wanting to know
through the mire
   toward the cubicle prison
      of taking orders
   from bosses or
for burgers

On the court
   she is a calculator
      Texas Instruments tattooed on her shoulder
In her mind
   she climbs the walls
      of the slime-sided well
On her terms
   she lifts her face to a sunlight
      that is hers alone.

SuzAnne, nee Christine
Irascible, Incorrigible, Indefatigable, Affable
Adopted sister of Doug and Mike and sort of Jill
Lover of ideas and stances
Who fears laryngitis and deafness
Who needs music and malleability
Who gives grades and advice
Who would like to see Firenze and the Pyramids of Giza
Who lives in Hot Water
Wilson, nee Doe

He was larger than life
   even shriveled
      even the size of a
septuagenarian
   even at 85
      even growing smaller in mind
and spirit
   the last year I saw him
he was larger than life and
   I still looked up . . . .

He was 59 and I
   was a child with
arms and legs dangling
       as though they were made of
purple and orange pipe cleaners
and when he said to hang on
   I thought of Forefathers
      of Revolutionaries
   hanging on to their ideals
and my arms wrapped tight
   like the rubber band on his bread . . . .

The long-ago far-away again and
   again of the
Last Year I Saw Him
   seems to come around
      like Fruit Stripe on a bicycle wheel
   seems to come around
      like a broken holiday of
can/can't come because/without
and you drop
   like a barbell weight
like a drop of blood
      like a ream of cardstock printed with maps
to find you and
   to find you and
to find you had just received a thick file from
   the Feds.

     Again.

I fell into a dream
waking up into a
cookie-scented utopia
of apostrophes that indicated
   ownership
because it was Marc's cookie
and participles grasped and
   secured
like a balloon tied to a toddler's hand

I fell into a dream
where nothing was kool or
   rite
and everything had been
twice read, reviewed, evaluated, and
   deemed worthy
like the cupcakes that get placed
on the plate in a
Cupcake War

I fell into a dream
of silence during silent work time
not invaded by a slithering serpent
fork-tongued and effulgent with ideas
   expressing expressions
idioms cliches redundancies falsehoods
   lies
and the silence hung like
an anticipated snow
cold cloaking with excitement
and a feeling of being completely

awake.

Like a C-clamp
pistons in my ears
drawing together as if magnets
drawing together as a punishment
for having thought for myself
for having thought of others
for having thought and
my thoughts diverge like
a meteor shower
splaying hither a-thither like
blood spatter at a crime scene but
the victim will not be silenced
even in death there is an
effluence of ideas like
beads at Mardi Gras and
a sense of here and now expands like
easy-cheez on a ******* and
your vice-like grip on my mindset will
     not
contain my ideas
because my mind is a river
undammed and
inherently willful
because my mind is
set free

There's a frenzy around ID cards
when you're fifteen
an excitement like trapping bees in an airtight jar
which cannot be replicated as an adult
although the behavior is the same:
     Criticize the picture
     Berate oneself for being
     A human with height and width and coloration

Then there's the barber shop mirror replication of self
the meta-selfie of taking a picture of one's ID
and posting to
     everything . . . ever
so you have a sounding board for your self-aggrandizement
     enrobed in self-deprecation like
     a chocolate-dipped madeleine
which will inherently lead to a
knitted afghan of praise and adoration
which was entirely the point

Then there's the dismissal
the abandonment into a wallet
from which it will never escape
living out lifetimes ad infinitum in vain
never recognizing the worth of

Your student ID
113809

which identifies you
but is not you because

You could never be so two-dimensional

There is a monster who eats time
and he always knows when I’m running out
         the door
         of milk
         of time
and he often seems harmless, mewling like a kitten in
a sunbath on tile
    but then
his teeth gnash like a bear trap and
he growls like a starving grizzly and
he bolts like a tabby
         lightning fast in a quest for the red dot, and
as I claw at my time with
         jagged
    chipped fingernails
begging it to stay
the monster eats my time
engorging himself on the
        ever-hastening electronic cucking of the
clock
consuming my days like a teenage boy eating a
pizza.

I have a monster
     and I hope he chokes on sand.

Once upon a time, we shared a Tuscan moonlight,
A reflective glow illuminating our worlds
Thousands of miles apart,
But shared nonetheless,
And it’s ochre glow hummed down on you
Just as it would thrum down on me
Several hours later.

     Once upon a time, we shared a Tuscan moonlight,
Sharing a cool breeze after a
Day oppressive with heat that
Cloaked the world like a long absent grandmother,
And fruit flies hung in the air like a beaded curtain
In your world
And gnats hung in the air like tossed confetti,
Frozen in time,
In mine.

     Once upon a time, we shared a Tuscan moonlight,
In the same timezone,
In a village described as “Italianate,”
As though that might mask its very
Californiance,
And we dreamt of a summer day in Italy
With countless stairs and winding paths
That unfurled like a waterfall onto sleepy piazzas like a
     “Once upon a time . . .”
          And a shared Tuscan moonlight.

You pass the gryphon house,
     mythology perched atop like Snoopy,
And pick a lemefruitange from the
     omni-citrus tree, and
You cross the threshold onto the
     marshmallow carpeting of my brain, and
My monkey heart leads you by the hand
     to the furtive frenzy of my
          butterfly garden lungs, and
Through my eyes, you watch a movie
     while a unicorn makes ice cream
           on the comfy sofa of my
     stereophonic
laugh . . . .

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.

A 70th Birthday Poem

My mother had a series of rules
     by which we lived
And by which I think I still do

For instance,
     to keep my brothers and I from fighting
         fighting to cause star-shaped pain,
two-dimensional and primary colored, like on Batman
         fighting to cause welts from
rising like tectonic plates heralding the end of Pangaea
         fighting to bring forth blood
     red blood
      red blood
       burgundy and green and iridescent blood
she said,
         “As long as you’re laughing when you hit them,
it doesn’t count,”
     and it became true
     as the forced, adrenaline-driven guffaws
           tumbled up and over one another
            like rocks shattering one another
              into pebbles exfoliating one another
                into sand
     white and soft and meandering
seaside to tomorrow and forever.
         Know what I mean?

My mother had a series of rules
     by which we lived
And by which I think I still do

For instance,
     to keep from clashing
in a fashionable/unfashionable dissonance,
it’s important to remember:
     “Just because two things are red,
doesn’t mean they’re the same,”
or blue or white or black
     that when held together like paint swatches
each holds a different value,
         and the painter tries to make the best choice
because a purple shirt can be pretty,
     but . . .
“Nobody wants to live in a purple house.”  
         Right?

My mother had a series of rules
     by which we lived
And by which I think I still do

For instance,
     housecleaning should be done to a polka,
or not at all
         joyfully or begrudgingly
as best suits the cleaner
         and the polka,
     because . . .
“Doesn’t a little accordian make everything better?”
         Well, doesn’t it?

My mother had a series of rules
     by which we lived
And by which I think I still do

For instance,
     today is the 31st anniversary
         of her 39th birthday
     just as it will soon be
            the 15th anniversary
         of my 29th birthday

Of *course, it is.

You shone there like a watermelon in the sun
glistening gems of pink and black and white
and a variegated bowl of jade
       sage and emerald and algae murk
   holds them like a hand
And the smell of you like summer and laziness
You pull longing from each of us like a
   tug-o-war
where we have given up
But the taste of you is like
       nothing
like a ghost of summer longing
   a faded photograph of when we were
happy.

a velveteen grey cat
   crossed to Las Palmas
   and chose a corner table
   basking in a tsunami of
Sunlight
   while piccolo birds and
   winter water gardens
   sent morse code warnings
   through the air
reporting on the
   bombing of Wilmington
      sinking of the Titanic
         assassination of the Archduke

I wanted to
write you something
that said something
and I looked at your hands
like the losers of a street fight
beaten until they are no longer hands
and thought of nothing . . .
well . . .
nothing that would mean something
anything to you

and I looked at your mouth
that rolled like waves on a stormy day
in a movie
a celluloid memory that is blind to me
hanging like a silver ghost
tethered to the wall by the
wrong kind of light
and it rolled and pitched and
yawed until it was no longer a mouth
and I thought of nothing . . .
well . . .
nothing that would mean something
anything to you

and I looked into your mirror
that was a boomerang
a u-turn
a paddle ball in the hand of an
obsessive-compulsive mute
keeping the beat
like Belinda Carlisle
like Jane Wiedlin
and it came back to me again
again it came back to me
it came back again
to me
and I thought of nothing . . .
except . . .
anything that would mean something
anything to me

And I wanted to
write you something

submerged in a life with no todays
a submarine dive in dank water
a muck and a murk that can’t be shaken
awakening to a déjà vu
unviewed in an era or two or ten or when or
then but not now and never next
electrical fences building themselves
unyielding as we scale
flailingly failingly toward
a date and time and place indeterminable
subliminal signposts spray-painted by
anarchists railing against awareness
obscuring and obfuscating
translating into languages undocumented
concocted from alien metals and foreign shrieks
weaknesses in the armor show like
rusting bruises on the intangible
cruising through an imaginable maze
while memory like a rabid wolf bays
submerged in a life with no todays

This woman speaks in tongues
Foreign languages roll from her mouth
Like summer fog ladled over the rim
Of Candlestick Park
In the not-so-distant
Far far away of long long ago

This woman speaks in rotund sentences
Effulgent with vocabulary
That shimmers with the electrified joy
Of lights over Ghirardelli Square
In the not-so-darkness
Of the clammy and cabalistic night

This woman speaks with her hands
Impresciable, implacable, and inconsolable
As she tries to mold untranslatable words
From air that is as thin
As the promises she’d preferred
And purchased with the shards of her heart

This woman speaks in lyrics
Arpeggios of adjectives and alliteration
That tumble acrobatically with the intricacy
And grace
Of a hummingbird in spring
On the kiss of a blossom
Rich and fragrant and giving as
This woman speaking in tongues

You think poetry's all sunshine and lollipops

Greeting card verses in fine hand by polyglots

You think it's all moon and june and song of the loon

And raining on plains in Spain and

Refrains in melodic whispers

waxing rhapsodic with Grecian goddess sisters

but it RANTS

and it RAILS

and it WAILS

flailing fists to punch out the night sky

leaving stars like scars as the clouds cry

weeping for anger steeping like

an overbrewed tea of loathing

while your clothing is rent in mourning

anger adorning you as

thoughts collude in a stew of

bitter brine of attempts and flops that's

not all sunshine and lollipops

Lucky/not 13 is a black cat
         a broken mirror
    a shoe on a table
Lucky/not 13 is a new old school
         a shiny, new flute
    a blue bike
Lucky/not 13 is a lost dog and
         an invisible Italian
Lucky/not 13 is a babysitting job and
    a tiny pyromaniac
Lucky/not 13 is a shoe on a table
         a broken mirror
    a black cat

I used to have a thesaurus in place of my heart,
fifty-thousand words to say how I hoped
I would someday feel.
In place of love, I had a fountain pen with a bent nib.
Instead of kisses, I had wirebound sketchbooks.
While other girls, giggling, wrapped
   phone cords around their fingers,
I wrapped sestinas in proper syllabics around enjambements.
        tiny crushes were
        replaced by Haiku gently
        wafting on the page
Love sick sighs were ignored in an echoing of
   alliteration and onomatopoeia,
and now I look at you and I rack my heart,
but I can't come up with the right . . . .

I stare at discolored paint
waiting for a muse
to wander through the drywall
to risk the rusty nails
driven home by sweat-slicked carpenters
who care nothing for allusion

I wait for an idea
a Sylvanian glow of something
I haven't yet seen
I haven't yet discounted
ignorant of new wrinkles, freckles,
scars riddling the back of my hand

I dream of believing
in a dream I've stopped having
falling into down and steam
falling out of the high and mighty
knowing there are muses
amused by my plight
as I write of their abuses
escaping from the walls
into my room

I can say definitively
and without reservation
that I once had more to say
and once I said it well

The taste of the words
of the children in flux
the ex-children
the children in recovery
leaves an aftertaste of
sweetness I can mimic
but cannot make my own
though I know I have
the recipe

somewhere

Their words tumble
like dusty pebbles racing
downhill rebellious
ebullient and unruly
avalanches to ants
while mine drag
the feet of their tiny
y's and g's
p's and q's
like rainy-day-slogged
future people
wending their way through
weeds and reeds of
bullies and written responses

The taste of the words
of the newly-minted
suddenly people
with centuries-old ideas
cellophane gift-wrapped for their
     daily birthdays
beribboned and bowed for
kindergarten picture day
leaves a memory of
butterscotch and peppermint I can imagine still
but cannot make my own
though I know I have
the recipe

somewhere

Surely
your eyes smile like
sunflowers in August
dropping their seeds
from skyscraper heights
as you hang from your cross
nailed together by your own
rough-hewn hands
dropping their seeds
as the wind runs its fingers
through the weeds
windchiming like a
platinum-plated Joni Mitchell
and surely you touched mine
surely surely surely
and I wish like Christmas Eve
                      like a first junior high dance
                      like a death bed watch
that I could afford even
a bottle of you
but the demand for you is high
and the supply . . .
         well, you know, there's never enough
and you keep raising the price and
surely surely surely
                    you know, there's never enough
so I lie here
among the weeds
seeking out your seeds
some small, priceless part of you
as you rise out of my reach
                         like a house with a seaside view
                         like a villa in Tuscany
                         like gold
which you are
surely surely surely
you are
with your sunflower eyes
and your Christmas Eve wishes
you pay for my sins
dropping your seeds and
surely surely surely
                     you know, there's never enough

gasping for air
deep in the nitrite-laden murk
grasping at what lurks
in the reeds
needing the darkness lightened
the haze brightened and
offering clarity and
the rarity of an honest phrase
the razing of a debt that weighs
that brays its neighing and nagging reminder
a tick-tock doll wanting you to wind her
a quick chalk scrawl of admonition
desperate incitement and sedition
left breathless by your rescission
by your willing dispair
I'm left
gasping for air

I remember that first taste
of that first sweet college poetry class,
how much I wanted to learn,
how much I learned,
how much I didn't learn.
I remember that moment
when I realized that
    drone
is an onomatopoeia too,
not a comforting
blatting
wah-wah-waaah
of Sally Brown's first grade teacher,
or the baritone perfumed bath
of the religion teacher I hadn't yet had,
but the droning
in slow motion
or a drone
in slow motion,
buzzing, humming, droning by
in slow motion
too slow for the doppler effect
to dopple effectively.
I remember that first smell
of fear hanging in the air,
sharing in that cabaret of pain,
wearing hearts on ripped and bloodied sleeves,
baring our souls to demons who ate them for snacks,
understanding that the stacks of bodies
and broken minds
littering the halls
were the real lessons,
not the importance of breathing
or knowing Linklater from Viewpoints from
Organic Synergy from
how to get up when
a fat rock and a catwalk
in slow motion
pin you
in slow motion
to the north lawn
in slow motion
too slow for the doppler effect
to dopple effectively.

Third grade was a long year
     she said
They had habits like coffins
And rulers like hammers
And the Sisters of the Blessed ****** Mary
Showed slightly less mercy
     she said
Than the Sister for whom they were named
And St. Brigid loved learning
But the one who went home and
Told her father I hit her
Was no saint
     she said
Though she wanted to be a nun
     she said
And the nuns in San Anselmo
Were like
  dying
and
  going to heaven
     she said
And the air in the city
Was like breathing a bruise
And Auntie Rose was a fixer-upper
     she said
And
     she said
  Thank you.

Unchained day beneath dumpling clouds in a baby boy broth
I tumble from the snake's mouth into the belly of the bullfrog
kicking across the river in fits and starts of sloshing and falling
great mirror arms reach imploring
asking the sky to see their brilliance
as steel-grey bracelets encircle one wrist and
then another
and skyward we turn
and vomited unceremoniously from the bullfrog's mouth
I slog easterly through the setting concrete of the new-fettered day
kicking across the avenues in fits and starts of staring and falling
shiny electronic arms reach imploring and
ask the stars to hear the cries
as invisible chokers encircle one's throat and
then nothing
and skyward we turn
and jostled and sweating as fresh popcorn into the gluttonous hall
I ride the current past the kiosks and shuttered kitchens of boutique cafes
kicking down the rapids in fits and starts of surfacing and falling
a majestic and world-weary arm reaches defiantly and
shakes a fist forever at one moment and
then knows
and northward we turn
and
     the girl shared my Luna bar
and
     the phones were passed around
and
     the woman had no shoes
and
     the conductor took no tickets
and
     the women shared their seat
and
     the man gave her cab fare
and
     the woman went home with no purse, no keys, no shoes
and
     the girl went back to Buffalo
and
     still we turn
and
     still we turn
and
our shackled arms raised against the sword reaches
                                                                                             necessarily and
blocks the blow as if we were one arm and
then holds
and
     still we turn

We queue up like
indentured servants
grateful as ripe fruit for
the opportunity to
bend our back in an
eternal question asking
how few grains
how few beans
how few drops
do I need to survive
in a world that fits
like the abandoned sweater
of the world's tallest man

We line up like
Hoovervillites
eager as dogs for
the opportunity to
plunge our paws into
scalding pots of wondering
how many coins
how many beds
how many children
must I offer to subsist
in a world that spins
out of reach like the apples
of the world's tallest tree

We row up rank and file like
slaves
servile as a Christmas and Easter parishioner's lips slathering for
the opportunity to
kiss the papal ring imagining
how many hours
how many loves
how many lives
will be lost to languish
in a world that ossifies
like Gluttony's cast off carcasses
left by the world's fattest corporate cat

We queue up like
indentured servants
dolorous as dying vines from
the bonds and bridles that
bend our back in an
eternal question asking
how few grains
how few beans
how few drops
will I have left
   after they've taken the sweater
   after they've taken the apple
   after they've taken the scraps
in a world that fits
like the abandoned sweater
of the world's tallest man

The newspaper called my father
a Tonsorial Expert and
a Smiling Gentleman
My father whose head is like
a Christmas tree lot on
New Year's Day and
whose mouth was like a rainbow
photographed in sixty-four shades
of gray but
that might have been my fault
even at six
that might have been my fault

He had done
a nice job of hairstyling
according to the pleased
customer, Mr. Holmes
just as he would do
a nice job of mopping floors and
a nice job of rewiring classrooms and
a nice job of growing weaker each day
growing hunched like an unused fishhook but
that might have been my fault
even now
that might have been my fault

a day spent in shades of gray
of Havisham wedding cakes
and once untattered lace
of some eighteen-thousand yesterdays
of both ****** and present hair
and a never-again tie
"not unless you bury me in one"

tumble out of my mouth
like gumballs
black licorice and grape flavored
like gumballs
because I said so
now lie in it
until you know the rules
but when they filled the machine
it's what they gave me
new and used gumballs of
rough-hewn brick and lumpy mortar
to build what should be
a shaky foundation
but the gumballs tumble
black licorice and grape flavored
staining my tongue
with bitter righteousness
because I said so
now lie in it
until you know the rules
and what should have been
a shaky foundation
stands strong
a hundred years after
the building burned down

His silence screams like a searching wind
a death-hungry spirit painted in
pallette-knived smears of
grey and fear and crimson
streaking across the night sky of his heart,
lightning-bolt ricochets striking, incinerating
the solitary oak tree of his soul,
scattering his acorns down the hill where they
are lost among the weeds,
shocked into infertility,
But he is a seascape pine,
weather-worn but razor-straight,
Gargantua in wood and steel
establishes his personal space
like a rabid porcupine,
And he is a tower,
hiding his soap bubble dream
while she brushes her hair
one hundred times
one thousand times
one million times
until the dream is
lifeless, breathless, armless
and tucked neatly in a refrigerated drawer,
As his silence screams like a searching wind.

now.  I am
enjambed
the tips of my toes radiating
scarlet and plum from
gripping the slowly eroding
precipice upon which
everything balances.  Freezer-
burned ice crystallizes
my lungs as I
draw breaths
dredging a lake for
my own body.  I am
scales weighing
what I have lost and
what I cannot disgorge from my
over-macerated soul of
olives long-forgotten in
a rancid
brine.  I am
enjambed
half-baked and
eager yet
incomplete without
end.  I am