He was a brick wall. I was a rubber ball
bouncing off him. He was the stone. I was
alone sitting next to him. He didn't read

a line/didn't hear a word I
said. My words, winged as birds
flew over his head. I swear

I was fog. I'd no visibility. I hung
like mist. But he'd no agility. I was
the blood-filled cyst he drained. He cut off

the tip and let run the pain. My screams
were bottled he didn’t uncork. I was
just a model he repeatedly forked.

a hand
you gave me a leg
and tripped me
till I fell flat
on my face

When I needed
a shoulder
to cry on
you gave me yours –
cold
to rely on

When I needed
a mirror
to reflect my light
you smashed it in pieces
all over the floor
throwing the frame
in an empty drawer

When I needed
a friend
you were a stranger
and stranger still –
I stuck with you

makes or breaks you
your life depends on people liking you
and people are fickle
but if they don’t buy you
you have nothing
you live your life
on a shoestring
and it’s getting shorter
you have nothing in order
no savings account
let alone retirement
no vacation money
and yet you write
because you must
and when people ask you why
you haven’t a reason to tell them
except that it’s your unrequited love
that breaks your heart
and gets you out of bed
every morning to tell them
the heartache that this has cost you
you’ve never been a 9 to 5 gal
you couldn’t fit into that world
but you aren’t considered in this one either
so, where does that leave you -
in neither

as the petals fell from a blushing
blooming rose. Worn like a pair
of pantyhose. Now I’ve rips and
holes. Stretched as he fetched for

his revolving door. Waxing his
ego. Tallying the score. Feeding his
libido with a silver spoon, as if we're in
a cartoon. Bathed in this infection

he cloaks as an *******. The sickness
hasn’t left me. Still fluttering like a  
honeybee. I tell myself I'm strong. But
I'm wrong. I’m torn. Like an axe to

the tree. I’m split into three.

You Can’t Separate Yourself

enough to give to anyone else. You think
you lose a part of yourself each time you have
a bowel movement. You hate to see even your own ****
flushed down the toilet. It disturbs your perfect world,

which you have no control over. Your emotions
are your best kept secrets. They’re like money in a safe
deposit box. You check them daily. Only you know the combination. You’re narcissistic. You can’t face your own

immortality. Your body is steel. To think that someday
you’ll be cremated is unacceptable. You’ll come back
as a vulture, no different than you are today,
except for the pretty face.

he would say. I hated
uncertainty. I wanted the answers
immediately. He introduced me Gibran
and Rilke. He encouraged my poetry –

to accept what is without question. He sacrificed
his greatest love for me – psychology
I sacrificed my heart, which had already been
broken once, ironically by another psychologist –

the one that he would see. I introduced them. We
went to couple’s counselling together –
to answer the questions because they were getting
more and more unbearable living them. And at the end

when I found out he had lied I said to Jim
“your life is over” and I took him for everything –
His career and eighty thousand. He died a little over a
year from the day. But he died with the answers. Though I
don’t think knowing them helped him in anyway.

I can’t plant them in the sand. My toes
can’t giggle from the rocks
and pebbles. The stubby rebels like
to dance!  And how can they splash
taking out the trash? What shall they leave
me as they drain of my blood?
Footprints in the mud!

The problem is my legs.
They’re stuck as pegs in
a board. And both play off –
chord. I can’t swim in the ocean. I sit –
no motion. What shall they leave
me, the twin evils?
Tons of pins and needles!

I got pennies in my pocket
That’s all of my change
Inside of a heart shaped locket
A man that looks strange

I got nothing in my fridge
One last bottle of beer
And I don’t care a smidge
If I get out of here

I collect bruises like trophies
They all line my shelf
Got a quilt of my nana Sophie’s
Yes, I talk to myself

I’m not what you call intellectual
I don’t give a ****
Most of my words are ineffectual
Love me as I am

There’s never enough money
The kids need this and that
The baby’s nose is runny
The tire got a flat
There’s a friend’s funeral to attend
Another’s in a crisis
You can’t believe how much you spend
weekly on the groceries

Your hair is getting thinner
Your waist thicker
You get heartburn from the dinner
You can’t hold your liquor
The years are flying by real fast
while you’re moving slower
They don’t build things to last
any longer

telling me I can’t report the abuse
that I’ll ruin his life
as if he had no choice
when he used me and here I am
defending myself
to other professionals
it’s sick if you ask me how
they all stick together
like tar to feathers
how they place blame on the victim
how they hold me responsible
I didn’t take an oath to do no harm
I wasn’t making a six-figure salary
to sit in an arm-chair and listen to
an emotional woman who came to me for help
I was just his patient
not his friend
not the one
he was supposed to lean on
not the one who could fix
his problem
I had too many
of my own
they all stick together
while I come un
done

So, don’t tell me this or that
doesn’t rhyme. I’m not Dr. Seuss. And this
is not the Cat in the Hat or some nursery
rhyme. I don’t care about meter. The only feet I have

is my left and my right.  I write with purpose. I write
of my experiences, my thoughts and my idiosyncrasies,
my dreams and interpretations, my pain and my
struggles, and everything in-between like my *******

and my *** and my cutthroat way of thinking. Some it
will resonate with. Others it won’t. Some it will
move. Others it will offend. I hope it will only help
some poor soul in the end.

Evening bleeds
a flaxen seed

Will not make this -
an easy read

Smudges smear
Words tear

So de soleil
It’s not engraved

Moss in clumps
as matted hair

Thick as knots
in tapestry

Tell a tale -
A quick story

In lines as fine
as silky thread

Back at the top -
the first line read

understand
what you do
Do it anyway

Not everyone will
approve
They’re bound to have their say

Not everyone will
support you
in your efforts to be yourself

But you’ll die inside
if you’re someone else

parts of you each day
will be chipped away
until you’ll become a thought –
that they all forgot

he said. He doesn’t know what
he’s asking! Does it snow in Alaska? Is the
Taklamakan Desert barren? I pushed it
so far down it would be like a shot out of a canon. If I

were to go off, I would lose my balance and
stagger out of this office in a daze and then get into
a psychotic rage. Because what’s inside of me is
explosive. I’m talking TNT or dynamite. Once I’m lit

everybody ought to run for it. I’m a tiger in
a cage. And caged with good reason. You can’t
put an ax to the tree without it toppling. It doesn’t stay
hinged on a string like Janis Joplin. I only have

these lines to play, to snort to convert to music. To let
out a ****, to be amusing. Why would I start to go
on a rampage? I stay out of the hospital that way. And use
my ***** to null the pain. Feelings, doctor –

you want feelings? He doesn’t know what he’s asking.
Maybe he ought to visit Alaska. Or better yet the Taklamakan
Desert. He’d have better luck surfing there, like Tom Cruise
in his underwear.

dark
it is light in another place.
Snowflakes melt on my head.
In another spot the sunbeams
bob like a sled.
Far as a distant star

Where there is
weeping
people are smiling rainbows
and dancing on unicorns
in my neighbor's yard.
My grass is honey-mustard,
burnt as custard.
Only high fences
between us
and locked screens.
Still, I see their
full lawn of forest green.

Where there are
starving men and woman
people are filling their faces
with caviar -
two-hundred dollars a jar
traveling to Monaco
in their polished, furnished yachts  
while I'm throwing dice
playing Yahtzee.
This world we live in
is crazy.

I’m not the accumulation
of all your hurts
you can’t blame this snowflake
on the blizzard
you can’t call it a dinosaur
if it isn’t
if it’s in a pet store
it’s a lizard
go ahead and rip out
my gizzards
but you’ll never convince me
that I’m the bane
of your insane life
if it isn’t
you held yourself back
in your own prison

putting you on a pedestal
wearing rose-colored glasses
as you rise like a phoenix
from my ashes

I feel stupid
wasting all the years
counting all my tears like a peddler
counts his wares
but couldn’t count on you

I feel stupid
throwing myself at you
making myself crawl
flatten as a paper doll that can’t lift off
the page

I feel stupid
exiguous as a rubber check
a speck on the gilded bed
spread out as eagle wings
clinging as hardened stool
a dusty mule

I feel stupid
sawed off at the knees
fallen as a tree
you holding the axe
I shall not splinter
I'll build a house up from this timber

It’s gone many miles,
in rain and snow. Skated on the
ice like an Olympic champion. But now its

threads have worn thin. It’s gone flat
a few times because something sharp
played it like a harp. It’s been changed

more than a baby. Rotated more
than a file drawer. When it retired to the
junkyard it was still useful. It became

more fun once it wasn’t driven. Just a rope
and a tree made it a perfect swing. It was
happier being lazy and carefree. It didn’t forget

the days of high-speed rolling. All those stops
and starts. And those lulls when the engine
was shut off. But now someone could

get giddy when it was pushed from
behind. Now it never touched the pavement. It
only reached for the sky.

You, the mountain. But when
I poked holes in you, you spilled out
as a fountain. And the reds all
bled into a pool of liver green that stank

so high and lost the sheen. I couldn't move
myself, bathed in the bath. I couldn't find
my footpath. My skin so wrinkled. The light
dimmed. I lost my twinkle. And my wings,

waterlogged. So, bogged down
the colors caked like make-up on
a clown. I washed them off in the sherry. And
also, ***** just to vary. I couldn't move

the hands of time back to the day
I climbed the mountain with the dizzying
view and threw myself off. I fell. But in the falling
I flew. And in the fluttering my wings lifted me
beyond mountains.

This Me

is me there,
what you interpret of it,
project onto it. This me
is me here,

what I interpret of it,
what I project onto
it. Who is right then? One is
a stranger, the other

a friend. One I denounce,
and one that I love. Little hint,
the one I denounce
is struggling hard.

It All Began with Mother

She sustained and nourished your life inside her
own body. She was the shell to your seed until you became
her appendage, as the dangling mobile, the one that hung over
your crib. She turns the **** and it plays a lullaby as it turns in

circles of swirling colored jungle animals that dance before
your fluttering eyes. It’s supposed to lull you to sleep by some
artificial means. It’s never mother’s arms that hold you,
never mother’s breast that feeds you, never mother’s voice that

soothes you. It’s all done by some mechanical toy. She sleeps soundly in the other room as you cry, wet and cold and
lonely. The stuffed animals have stopped dancing. The music
is silenced. They look scary in the dark. Their shadows

are larger than life on the wall. The lion’s mouth is hungrily open. The Rhino’s horn is a sword  What was comforting is haunting. You wail out and wiggle until you’re redder than a cooked lobster coming out of boiling water. It all began with mother.

this runs out he asks. I’ll reinvent
myself! What happens when a model
loses her figure? What happens
when an actress ages? What happens when

the sky turns to ice? When you lose your
love, your paradise? When everything you
believe in turns to rust. What happens when

it rains dust? I thought about the
question. And I came up with this –
what happens when it ends?
A new beginning somewhere still exists!

Some are sunny and clear.
Others hazy and grey.
Some short as a nap on an airplane.
And some wear on like gears on a train
filling buckets and buckets of icy shard rain.

Some are quiet, so quiet they don’t make a sound.
While others are hurricanes knocking everything down.
Some are ****** upon us without warning.
Others are gentle as the orange sky dawning.

Some a gift and some a curse.
And some are so trite like they’re rehearsed.
Some we’ll not forget.
Others we write off like a rubber check.

But isn’t a tinge of pain in them all?
The hinge is broken and the dreams just loll.

out of the mouths of conservative gals
who hate their lives. So, they find someone
to tear apart, piece by piece. It’s become their art. You

will find me in words of a poem. It’s my secret hide-away,
black on white, Times New Roman. You could learn
something if you get between the spaces. You will

find me before the antebellum, in school-yard nosebleeds
broken ***** and garage band singers, bell-bottom pants and
butterfingers, chubby thighs and cellulite. You will find

me after the break, when hair has thinned, but belly
bloated. Drinking wine and eating cartons of Rocky road, watching
reruns in my pajamas.  You will find me

when it rains. You’ll smell the ocean and feel
my pain. But do not cry a single tear. Sing my song and
you will dance because I did what I wanted to do.

with losing weight or
stopping drinking. Misery is
a heavy weight that sits on your chest
from the moment you get up to
the moment you go to bed. You can buy
jewelry – that gives you a high for
a day. You can dress yourself in lacy
******* and bra, but that won’t make it
go. You can  eat a slice of chocolate cake and
wash it down with a milkshake but you're still
the same. There is no “happy pill” like
the doctors try to push on you, some
instant cure that will snap you back from
the depths of agony that you find yourself
drowning in. You need to recharge, but how?
Going outside yourself.  They all say look
within. They don’t know you’ve been
looking into a vacant line and you’ve had it.

brought to life
marched to earth when they saw
the light. They were short two,
mother and father. Still they marched on

farther and farther.  They marched
through rants and raves, storms and
graves. They marched with discipline. At every
corner met with sin. They marched on

through a very dry summer
in the year 2007. They marched so much
they became exhausted, until their legs fell off
and they needed horses. High on their horses.

they flew through the city,
with resentment, deception and pity. The Paul
Revere’s of modern day drove with lanterns
lit. Warning an army of soldiers was

surely coming. And to evacuate. Some hid;
some stayed. One by one the gunshots
fired. Blood was shed. Bodies piled. And then
there were none. Except for two, mother and father.

any better than I know the raven
from the lark. I thought I knew the day once,
before it turned dark. And then it was called something else,
separate from itself. Sometimes it was a gangster

from an old movie, or one you read about. Sometimes
it was a prankster who turned into a lout. They try
to be the superhero until their clothes come off. They
want to get their name on the marquee studded with ginseng
and marlin. Though some fall short with trout. They take

pictures. So, I know they work out. Their biceps have
their own address. But my guess is it’s on a residential street
in a gated community. They’ll end up in a Doonesbury comic
book I’ll read and likely write about. And I can’t say

I know you any better than I know them. But the mystery
is such a tease, like pulling tangles out of my hair. It’s easier when
its wet than when its dry. Though I’ve worked with both. I joke it
down with a glass of wry and a twist of rue when I’m the mood,
a heartfelt pinch of cayenne. OK. Enough. Goodbye.

into pieces. Every man
that held the chisel chipped
a little. A speck, a flake; it’s
snowing cake. A forest of crumbs
lies on my rug.

Day Breaks
too. The sun cracks open
as an egg on the morning
dew. My head is scrambled. My face,
toast. It’s raining in my kitchen. I can’t
stay afloat.

Waves break
on rocks. You run a ground,
bound to sink. In a blink your life
flashes as lightening. Tightening your grip,
only to slip into the abyss.

Banality of My Reality  

Emotions can be as high as the stratosphere
or as low as the plains, intense as an inferno or mil
as a sun-shower passing through a summer’s afternoon. They bring on tears when sadness is experienced from loss of someone

or something that was important. Not everyone can
cry. Some people hold their sadness deep inside.  That’s a shame, because tears because a catharsis when they’re released
and not repressed. Tears can also express great joy, deeply felt

love, and miracles too. Anger is as passionate as
desire. It makes your heart beat faster. Your mind becomes nebulous to reason. Your blood pressure rises through
the ceiling. Your throat is tighter than a stripped *****. You sweat

profusely, ready to pounce at the slightest provocation. **** indignation! Love for another is the ultimate human
experience when it is shared, but the most painful when it is
not.  Pining as an evergreen, your tears become

needle-sharp leaves that fall to the ground in bunches, faster than
a balding man’s hair washes down the shower drain. I, myself
have lived through such pain, and came through it out the other end. It’s the banality of my reality, the dip in my bend.

for money.
That’s a joke.
I’m always broke.

I’m not in it
for love.
I’ve no such luck.
And I’m always stuck.

I’m not in it
for fame.
No one knows my name –
And that’s a losing game.

I’m in it
for me.
The only way to succeed –
is to do it for yourself

count the seconds
as she the years?
Do you
turn around
fast as a spinning top
so not to see
a drop
fall
as the rain
on the pane
streaking the glass?  
Do you
play the music loud
to drown out
the sound
in your head?
Do you
run
not looking back
at the scene
of the crime?
Do you
fill your time
as your desk
with clutter –
lower the shutters
in your window?
she’ll see you’re not home
but the car engine
is warm -
the only warmth
she can touch
and she naps
as a cat
under the hood
Do you
chop her up
as a piece of wood
The pile's growing bigger
but it's many months
til winter

I Drink You

hard as steel
you cut my throat
as a razor wheel going down
until the blood collects
in a pool
in my stomach

I drink you
frozen as an ice-cube
until I'm freezer burn
and my tonsils
turn to icicles
and scrape my gizzards
destroy my innards
until they're broth
with foam
on top

I drink you
as a cyanide capsule
because I never want to
give you the satisfaction
that you destroyed
my will to live
reduced me down
to a pill

but when it's mine
it's pungent as turpentine.
I grow restless for more.
But more is less yesterday and

bigger tomorrow when dreams
are all you have to follow. And dreams
are like the weather. They change
once they come together.

Your over there
The distance is an empty chair
Can you read between the lines?
Well enough to catch this vibe?
I wouldn’t want to hurt you.
So, I leave this space alone to imply
You can take it as a fragment of a drunken
woman’s empty mind
Or roll it as a snowball uphill
getting larger and heavier to push on the climb
You’ll do the former
Predictable as
This Vibe

Turn off your phone
Hide under the covers in bed
Be by yourself, alone
Replay all the things people said,
the chances  you’ve blown
Count the tears that you shed
No one has known
the kind life you have led

where you could eat the walls. The roof
was made of royal icing. It dried on thick and
hard. And the tiles were sugar-coated gumdrops
that the birds pecked off before the fall. Candy

canes for doorways you could lick. But they’d stick
to your lips. And after that you couldn’t get
your mouth open a crack. It looked to all outside
a very pleasant place to reside. But no one knew

it was a cathouse, and that the field marshal
was a master of disguise who drew the curtains
over her candy-shop of horrors. And welted our bottoms
with hot molasses stuck to a long wooden spoon. Some

where even jealous of me. They thought I had chocolate
pudding drawn for my bath. And that my bed was made
in lemon meringue. I wouldn’t tell them the truth. I didn’t
want to break the spell they were under. Everyone needs to
believe in something.

You can only take one of this,
one of that. The toddler outside in the short-shirt sleeve
shirt, with no adult watching his back, you told him
get inside before he gets frozen. Black folks holding

overstuffing bags of whatever they can get
just to tide them over till next month. It’s your very first
time. You shamelessly recognize the woman from the poetry
group in the library. They give you a number. You’re

83. So, you sit patiently, knowing it’s one less thing
you’ll have to steal. This is what it is, when you’ve nothing
left and they’re willing to give at the church
in your neighborhood. But you’re so willing to go

on this day. So, you pack in overstuffed bags
some cans and of this and of that. And you’re thankful,
even glad, that your refrigerator won’t be
so empty. But still when you get home you turn

to the bottle, like a baby whose mother’s on crack,
just to drink out of an empty ******. Can’t believe you sunk
as low as this. Someone smells just like ****. Probably
haven’t seen soap since they’ve shut off his water.

crystal lavender tears
that melt as dewdrops
in honeysuckle fields. They’ve
cried them for years.

Buterflies cry
a kaleidoscope of colors
in patterns of green, blue, red
purple and yellow. They've cried
them over every gal and fellow.

Butterflies cry
in flits of beaming light
that dance in the shadows
of shimmering moonlight. They've cried them
all night.


Butterflies cry
all by themselves, spreading
their wings to cover their felt. Their tears stick
like glitter to all that they touch.

Butterfies cry not often but much.

I don’t want to look back on it
with rue. So, I’ve got to do everything I can
while I am here. Go to the places

I want to visit. Love the people I want
to love. Chase the underside of the
rainbow. Hitch a ride on a unicorn. Live my life

with full intention. Pick carefully what I leave
to chance. Come up with an invention. Write the
song. Dance the dance. Fill my heart with

a love bouquet. Laugh out loud. Play all
day. Fill my head with pleasantries –
absolutely No negativity!

Kindness for everyone. Be happy for others
and what they have done. Bid them
well. Be genuine. We only have a limited

time. I don’t want to be wishing in the intermission
that I had done something different. I want to know
when they close the curtain that I’ve lived
a life that’s certain.

The anger hides
the emptiness inside
But if the truth did show
I guess you would know
of the displaced self
When there's no one else
who could take control
I hand you my soul

Though I might be blind
I am not resigned
What I do not know
shall not be foe
I'm too strong to quit
give up on it.
The past remains.
Yet my path has changed.
And I must follow
the empty hollow
of a displaced self

And if freedom rings
I'd give up these things
to let in the light
that brought me sight
Though this shape is bent
it’s heaven sent
If you believe in prayer
then all is fair

It's a beauty song
that rang along.
But I just heard it when
I believed, and then
it sang for me
in a higher key.
And so shall it resound
now that I am found!

to the end
the women I called friends
after the spilled perfume
they left the room

the men
I said looked out for me
as my shadow
were soft as Brie

They didn’t make it
to the middle
to them, I'm an image
the bonbon
that is spinach

They didn't make it
to a beginning
they judged this tree
from the splinters
they couldn't make it
past the winter

There’re more curves to the bends.
There’re more pieces of what’s broken.
Your holes are entrances for my love.
Your scars are burning stars.

You’re not stationary; you are motion.
Like a pendulum you swing.
I’ll catch all your tears.
And with your tears we’ll swim.

When we reach the end, we’ll fall over together.
Don’t know what that’ll bring.
It doesn’t matter.
Because if we break, we’ll blend.

new. I reinvent myself
into something else. I never
get bored or discontent. If I
were to get bored I’d

become a city. And if was looked
down with great pity then I
wouldn’t stay stuck being dumb. I’d
turn  myself into a kingdom.

I laid my mattress in
the living-room. And camped out
every day with the shades pulled
down to block out the light

from outside. I ate and ate until
my weight was one-hundred and
seventy-five. I had just miscarried my
baby girl. Her name would have been

Sarah if she came into this world. But
she never made it to her May birthday –
She was taken in a very sober October
when the colors of the leaves shined against

my pale face and barren waist. We died
the same way, taken before we could
consummate, like I did with Jim. And after we had
our fling he died too. Then I turned full-on to

the bottle. My son never made it home
from the hospital. It was too much to bear on anyone –
and this old woman is no longer young. But still
depressed, spending her time in a cold basement

video-taping ******* – *******, ***
and ***** for money. Her poems are just as her
baby girl, son and Jim –
all brain dead. No light has been shed on a one –
if it doesn’t involve a **** or tongue

You packed your bags
your running shorts
and kayak
reading books
t-shirts and sneakers
took off
left me here
like the mail
that comes each day
when you’re away
to sit
and wait
accumulate
like my emotions
that you’ll
attend
after
your vacation

You Were Callous

when she went for her second
breast biopsy. You said she’d already been
through it. Blew if off like it was just
another runny nose. She was scared and

shaking. So heartbreaking to have
the man that she loved treat her with such
contempt when she needed him
the most. That was the point of the

breaking. That was when she rushed off
to the board. Maybe it was cold calculating. But after
she was treated that way she didn’t care. All
that went before that faded to black. Seven months

later your own wife needed a biopsy - it came back
cancerous. Wasn’t she there to deliver the
basket of fresh fruit and chocolate, the warm greeting
card and a loaf of fresh blueberry bread.

Probe deeper -
Disrobe the fallacious

coverings. As the baby chick disrobes
it’s down to sprout out wings. Assumptions are

a mistress. The seduction will leave
you twisted. Disrobe the past. The lining that held

the ends up are splitting. We can’t keep
together what isn’t. Fall down the hole

with me once more. With eyes wide open
they’ll be no floor.

you turned to frost
looking like white moss
I knew I had lost you forever.
I could floss my teeth on your

spiny shards you planted as
body guards to protect you
from invasion. No gentle persuasion
could pull you out

of this. I knew no more of bliss,
only this - deepest sorrow.
I pray to you I miss those endless days
of sunshine when you grew apples

in your backyard. Was before
the frost hit them hard. And the apples fell
off the boughs. Down came baby, cradle
and all. Head first, hitting the earth.

If I couldn't walk
would you be my cane?
If I couldn't think
would you be my brain?

If I couldn't talk
would you be my tongue?
If I couldn't breathe
would you be my lung?

If I couldn't see
would you be my eyes?
If I fall down
would you help me rise?

If I get lonely
would you be by my side?
If I lose my way
would you be my guide?

If I get sick
would you comfort me?
If I'm locked up
would you be my key?

If I lose someone
would you help me grieve?
If I lost hope
would you help me believe?

If I get riled
would you calm me down?
If I get sad
would you be my clown?

I need you more
than I’d dare say.
If I asked you
would you promise to stay?

there is to laying
down
so low
is there’s not

a big drop
to the bottom. There’s
no place
to crop

in Autumn. It’s the
men on top
that have to stop. Those guys
have the longest

fall
when they’ve reached
the pinnacle
of it all.