Poetry is like my diary
I can tell her anything and everything
I can scream from my soul
In aching longing
Intense rage
Or sadness beyond measure
Perhaps it’s TMI
But I tell her my secrets
I tell her how you taste in my mouth
How you took the time to figure me out
How I love the feel of our own rhythm of life
Indeed no one else understands but who cares
My poetry, my diary, my life
It’s messy as hell

Learn more than you can teach yourself -- teach more than you know yourself!

We must learn
to not love
in a way that
is fulfilling to us,
but in a way
that is fulfilling
to whom we love.

I will her to put her feet up, my mother with swollen ankles
She’s been standing all morning in a hot kitchen
making borscht
I bring my lawn chair close
We three are sharing lunch, the breeze
through thick cottonwood shade
cools us

“I would lock him in his room”
says my daughter, “I would kick him in the shins
and spit”

We pretend not to hear, but her words linger and I taste them,
sweet vengeance

“Stop fussing. He’s a crazy old man”
“He’s been your husband for sixty years — he should know better”
“I would hit him over the head with a frying pan”

I watch as my daughter tends to Emo the caterpillar
She adds fresh grass to the jar

“He’s had a hard life”
“We all have pain”
“I would mail him back to Siberia”

Of course she is listening—
always an ear for a good story,
for injustice

“Betrayal is learned”
“So is kindness”
“I would poke him in the eye”

I leave the zwieback for last—always best for last
Butter melts in the hollow

“It is our destiny to learn love”
She does this sometimes, shuts me up like nothing …
“I would wash his brain out with soap and …”

She stands bewildered, jar in one hand
Emo lifeless in the other—
reconciling

I'm too ****** up to go back
My brothers gotta come and save me
They gotta drive my car for me

I'm strobing in and out of consciousness
But it's still not as bad as getting knocked out in a fight
The nausea's not even as bad as the first time I stole whiskey
And vomited black chunks

I'm going to do this again
And things much worse afterwards

I'm hanging out the window
Slumped and rag-dolled
On my way to rent a tuxedo

I'm starting to figure out
What the chasms between me and you are made out of
Where the differences of deep values lie

I know why I can sleep right next to you and still be an infinity away
And no amount of drugs, drinks or ***** will ever rid me of it