Neighbors at close quarters
and I wonder exactly
how many of us
had the same thought
perched on balconies
and fire escapes
I can’t exactly look away
as one tired woman carries
her bags and her feet
up three floors

I watch her through a narrow
hole --all at close quarters
buildings choking buildings
and on top of every ceiling
lays another screenplay

someday, I think,
I’ll write them all
all the stories in the world
I’ll visit every floor
and knock it out
find eulogies in dust bunnies
and the toys we lost long ago
in the vacuums under our beds
there, with our dreams
under our beds
because they scared us too

it’ll work when it’s meant to work
as it’s meant to work
and you shouldn’t force it
any harder than that
or it’ll lose its taste
and you’ll push it away
to the side of your plate

some things can wait till later
just don’t drop the pen
let the ink run dry
then let it run with your wet eyes
there was something in them
maybe just a bit of grime
or maybe you drove with the window down

call it what you want
because that’s how it works
when it wants to.

Welcome world:

The pen is yet to grow cold, in fact it grows warmer
and with each movement a somber expression
becomes my face. One does grow somber
when thinking about the human race.
We tried to trace it back, but I think even Darwin
would go blank if he tried to grasp what it has become.

I thought, once, that I might be a smart one.
But I find I grow dumb year after a year
turned a deaf ear to education and left it
to the next generation, thinking they need to
catch up. And I believed my bluff.

And now, unlike them, I need a pill to get it up,
need to huff and puff badder than any wolf,
its grown tough, and I feel I’m of the weaker stuff,
not fit enough to tact and plan,
not sure whether to play this hand, I stand in limbo,
amidst shouts of choose, choose, choose!

You’ll never win if you’re afraid to loose.

come in multitudes
come in boots, pulled up, strapped
come with hairnets, bowlers, beers
come with husbands and mothers

the starlets come, the celebrities
the politicians and adversaries
bring your conflicts
bring your problems
stoners, bring your insights
bring philosophies and religions
bring visions, or lack thereof
bring weekdays and weeknights
bring the sofa
bring reality shows or documentaries
bring the series
and bring the cat

but come
with quirks and queers,
with stubbornness with anger
with broken glasses and fists
with fits of rage, with opinions
statements, facts, figures, conspiracies
bring every one of these, but come

with your broken hearts and talents
or genius, or with yesterday’s news
with the crosswords and comics
or the convicts or the cartoons  

- hell, we’ve got more than enough room

We’ve passed resilience.

It’s not a question of getting with it,
I’ve pushed it to the limit and now it almost feels repetitive,
this sedative motion of
Day to day,
Pay to paid,
Lay to laid,
I made up the rules to a game,
and find it played exactly like how I said it should be…

And now that you see this new light,
you also see it right to put boundaries
that might have been better well placed.
Has the student risen to put master in his place?
Are words truly used in my own face?
Your wasting empty breath,
since love, I wrote the test,
and it frustrates me to come out last.
…But I’ll write this for myself,
and cross my fingers and hope for the best.

You went east and I went west.
And lest there be no miscommunication
let me be put your equations at rest…
I was moved by temptation,
locked and loaded and triggered with anticipation,
I’ve been waiting to have a taste of this elation,
to experience a fraction of the exhilaration
that could possibly course through these veins,

But I guess I wait in vain if I ever thought my name was about me.

Just a reflection of what you’d like to see.
And integrity finds itself dragged through the mud,
and affection finds itself waiting for no hug,
like a virus lacking the bug to go and do the ***** work,
and worth depleted to no value.

Like a ****** with a $1 rolled up bill
but no will to take the line…
I find myself in suspension.
With just an occasional call to attention,
calling for attendance,
(Should I lift my hand up like this?
Would I get extra credit if I blew you a kiss?
Should I cover up or lift my skirt,
should I shut up or continue to flirt?)

- I can’t seem to understand what works anymore.

I can’t seem to understand where to go
when you’ve asked me to leave,
yet lock the door and swallow the key,
and get on your knees,
claiming understanding please…
I wore my heart on my sleeve,
but you just picked so much at the seams
that it seems I’m unraveling away...

Just a little more every day…

Did no one teach you that’s not ok?
That people shouldn’t be played with?

And now I find myself on the search for revenge,
with humanity posing as my victim,
affected with a venomous vision
of alteration of the soul.

If for a moment you thought you were whole,
we’d like to say: Who told you?

Can’t be whole if humanity didn’t mold you.
Didn’t scold you for what it didn’t like,
or tell you what time to be home at night,
and to say your prayers right,

Because He ‘might’ be listening.

Zen minimalist, tool
slipping words ******* in
and seizing hold, mixing in subtle verbs
spinning worlds, filling up voids
with a tantalizing wetness

Yes, minimalist
and less is more

so clean that up you ***** *****
and speak only silence
leave them lost in awkwardness
born from want and wanting more, like

‘I know you want this
and yes I got this
minus man or wing by my side
rising instead from happy feelings, inside
sounding wise enough to me
and maybe soon I'll see exactly
what they meant’

as we drop and rise
in two time beat
knees, bent, in, weak
quivering at the seams
diving into dreams and coming
out breath stopped, heart attacked,
jagged and off

then two scenes later, maybe three tops
jumping ahead, fast forwarding to
the quick bits
the grimy bits
the slimy bits
the ins and outs
proving what drive thru is all about-

- since there's no need to waste time
on the things we can do
again, and again, and again.

Then, reverse spin
back to the beginning, cowboy
back to the drawing board
back to the sheets

put your back in it and ride, harder
calves carved in, jump the fleet
lift arms up in victory

the downward dog days are over
and we saw them coming
inhibitions released
letting go of the sweet
and drizzling, no just
jizzing all over the ******* place

hot and flustered, in our face
rushing to encase thoughts that
had always filled the space
but still, found no place in design

rather finding the time
to bleed them out, in epiphanies,
calling them nirvanas
calling them divinities

but titling them Truth.

And swearing, on your life
that that's what it was to you

and I lay there, only trying
not to believe it too.

Day by day I lay it down,

“All right men, here’s the plan;
you go on in, and get 7 of them
(because 7’s a holy number)
and we wouldn’t want to offend
any defender of the other inclination.

Our nation would suffer at their loss,
and that would cost too much in terms
of net profit, would disturb a delicate
balance, we wouldn’t transgress
or progress, rather stagnate,
in a backwards state of mind."

You told me you liked my poetry.

But would you really
if you could see what I
see the ladies hooked on
Turkish series and
not enough men
to count fingers on?

Our men left long ago,

got hooked on the same show we were watching,
and it was alarming how it was cut with some
breaking news, something about how Syria was
going to lose another plane, and we felt some pain
and flipped the station, where we were met with
temptation masked as the latest ads only to add
to the list of the things we’ll never have.
So much for bad TV.

Could we please see something real?

And I fear the Kardashian’s aren’t quite enough,
you see, I’ve caught onto the bluff that **** must
be staged. But that’s ok I’ll let it pass, perhaps some
movie to catch my attention. Attention becoming
another word for distraction, and we carry
that emblem all around, hoping for anything
to evolve this frown into laughter whether
humorous, devilish, or maniacal in tone.

If not TV, reach for your phone.

Anything to get to another zone,
another place, just space out because
anywhere is better than here.
Where is the end, be near?

- I want to meet it smiling.

I just want to throw in the sack,
don’t want to get back on track,
flap jack, slap it on up
and saddle on
sick of this race,
since long ago
my lethargy has shifted
to let-it-go,
go with the flow,
don’t let things get to you that much
coz thoughts shift at such a rush,
every updated status
makes you so outdated,
Oh wait, you’re here?
We’re glad you made it,
and no time to let this all soak in,
off we go on another whim,
are you worried what you’re saying?
It’s all right, just fake it,
are you getting nervous?
Imagine the audience naked,
and if you can't smoke it, bake it,
just to take it,
anyway you can,
because people clang, clang, clang on
and everyone’s right
nobody's wrong,
Everyone’s dressed in hard-ons
running along for their next ****,
kind of makes me thank God
when the electricity cuts,
because for at least two seconds
everything stops.

And we breathe,
and look around,
and wonder,
how’d I get here in the first place?

But not first place,
we popped out and joined the rat race,
and it takes a while to figure out
how to move at our own pace.
Hard not to get caught
up in the glitz and glamour
of it all,
in the identities and
stereotypes we can perform,
they said we could be anyone
we wanted to be, and somehow
it's to my benefit that I should be me?

You see, it wasn’t always like that.

For a long time this forum didn’t exist,
(and still doesn’t for a list of your neighbors.)
Do them a favor, recognize.
Stop criti-size-ing what we
don’t know, so much easier to sit in the back
puffing on homegrown, so much easier to
point fingers and scream “I told you so!”

Yes, we know.

But even if you do the world carries on.
Stay calm,

It waits for no one.

Who knows?

Maybe someday your bones will be
what life is made of.