I can't count how many times
I've been to D-Tox.
she was always
there by my side.
I turned her on to
the cheesecake and
yogurt berry parfait.
It was a plain yogurt with
fresh blackberries, raspberries,
strawberries and blueberries.
It was amazing- it still is.
We'd stir up the parfait and
pour it on the cheesecake.
It was divine.

I sit here and eat
it alone tonight.
The berries explode when I
put them in my mouth and
chew on them, it's like a
food that the Greek gods
would eat- an ambrosia for
the brokenhearted.
I think of you as the little
blueberries roll around on
my tongue.
It's all so creamy and succulent.

But, I sit here forlorn and eat our
yogurt berry poetry and cheesecake.
And each berry stores a memory in
every luscious bite.
I feel downhearted that you
aren't here with that juicy
purple fluid running down your chin.

Something wicked, this Way comes
When sadness surrounds the Doldrums

Melancholy’s bit is Bitter, Sweet
Looking for mom’s face on the street

Praying as a child to find her and care
Streets of LA, sea of empty faces , cold stare

It’s strange, What we hold onto, cherish
Reminisce, of a loved one who perished

Unfinished business, Hardens the heart
Moments before, we were pulled apart

We find Silent comforts to cradle our mind
Where’d we come from what did we find?

Dealing with death’s passages of times
Needing help with our imaginary crimes

The first person I ever knew who died
She was 46 years young, my soul cried

My beloved mother Throat Cancer
Disenchanted asked God for the answer

Each second Every breath More Shallow
Then the one before, her face Hollow

Questioning The last time for this or that
Lapse memory, The Last time I fed her cat

Yet I never really paid attention
The uneasy emotions we never mention

Now, I pay attention to the smallest details
beauty in rain in hail that clean wet smell

The last thing  I’ll ever mention
Having your full undivided attention

Mom needed all her children near
Leaving earth the biggest unknown fear

Feckless children weren’t around
Couldn’t be bothered wouldn’t be found

What to expect on the other side
Her guardian angel her ethereal Guide

Three days before mom died (her and I)
We were sitting on corner curb outside

Her words were soft, gentle and kind
I don’t worry about you in my mind

You’re like a cat You’ll have many lives
You’ll land on your feet not on the street

Her voice grew intense serious and brave
Listen to me Don’t go to my grave

You need to realize I won’t be there
Find comfort with others Grieve elsewhere

She knew in the crevices of her head
Funerals are for the living not the dead

Pretentious, pompous circumstance
Don’t cry a pity party, Sing and Dance

A gentle smile graced her face
Her wisdom a tear stain trace

Find something Spectacularly brilliant
That will remind you of me resilient

A remembrance you’ll see
put it in your house, There I’ll Be

I found a clear quartz crystal cat with claws
Amethyst heart Dangled between its paws

Daily Family walks Nonchalantly By
A dust collector they see with a naked eye

I see life’s memories in vivid detail
Mother’s Grim Reaper rang her bell


Inspired songs;
1) fire and rain by James Taylor
2) He stopped loving her today,
sang by George Jones
Written by Braddock and Puttman
3) go rest on the Mountain by Vince Gill
4) tears in Heaven by Eric Clapton
5) Live like you were dying
by Tim McGraw
Songs of morning and say goodbye. These are sacred so you don’t need to be religious to have a song universally touch your heart and touch your soul. Each one of these songs has a backstory of death and dealing with that pain. If you listen to the backstory on each of those songs, you’ll hear this song differently. This is why, when I read poetry, I always want to hear the backstory I get a wealth of information, and a deeper understanding of the poem and poet.

Sorry for the lengthy footnote, but I guarantee it’s worth the read

My mother had terminal cancer she did not want the children to see her dwindle away. She left us five children with my father. I was so young I thought she died any time I would mention her I would get a kick in the shin or a elbow in my stomach, learn later, my older siblings in life are now the truth. My younger brother and I did not until I was 10 years old. She tried to see his children. Mother said no I asked my sister who is that person and a small boy she said mom. I prayed every day to God. When I’m a grown-up, let me find her and let her know I care and she made a good person . Grandma (her mother) wanted me to take up with a private investigators left off after seven years of searching for her. (grandma was dying )They had some leads I was 20 years old. I found my mother when I was 21. I had been to every Alley in Skid Row and places young women should not go alone. I had a friend at know downtown LA the roughnecks. The last place of all the places we had been for months with a thrift store women shelter For personal necessities. I showed the photo went through this story to my surprise. The lady clerk pointed to the back of the room.
I took my mother home. I thought she’d be living with me now not on the street but on the third day, she said, I have to go home or they will give my room away she actually was living in a Victorian hospice with Catholic nuns. The headmistress came and asked me if I knew what was going on. Of course I did not because mom didn’t tell me. She told my mom was dying . she only had three months  to live. I prayed just let her be alive. I didn’t pray for more. God gave her to me, and then he took her away. I was angry for a long time. And then I realized God gave me three month to love and be a peace complete unfinished business. It Took me a long time to find my way back to Jesus . so when you see a homeless person , that’s a mother or father, uncle a grandma or grandpa those are people. Some of my family could not make peace with things until they knew she was dying. It was sickening toward my mom didn’t care about going to rodeo drive. They wanted to put a huge angel statue over her grave $25,000 a time ago I said no give the money to the nuns.

I don’t want to sound like a ******
Accidentally pretentious
I sense this, prevent this
With pausings in musings
But consciousness, man
It’s a whole thing, isn’t it?

Moving, zipping, travelling
Across time and place
No shifts in space
Ultimate game of Pong
Bats are half images,
ghosts of smells,
light or heavy ****** impacts,
sounds, songs, poems
Triggers lightly but firmly bouncing us from
now to then,
then to when,
but always here to here
Across time and place
No shifts in space

Sometimes transitions are smooth and buttery-safe
-- I didn’t even realise I was thinking about trains and now about dinner
-- ping, pong, ping, pong
-- a metronomic, Wimbledon soundtrack
But then one player hits the ball too short and too high
and then the
Echoing crack
Bats us into sometime somewhen darker
The feckless defensive player manages to scoop the ball
just before it touches sod, but too short and too high
and then the
Echoing crack
Strongly, crisply, sharply
Smashed into jangly memory
Clear and incomplete
Real and impossible
Laser focus on The Bad Thing
Other details, window dressing
Breathing quickens, heart keeps the beat
The Image, or
The Smell, or
The Grip on My Ankle
Is faithfully replayed
Full colour, Dolby surround sound, Memory cut
The Grip on My Ankle
Is faithfully replayed
The Grip on My Ankle
…
…
…
Mind taps out for a bit
Consciousness slide into foggy nowhere, no time
Breathing slows, heart keeps the beat
Might just stay here
Cool, fuzzy fog is my best friend
Until fog-resistant, persistent stimulus insists
that I return
Ping
Clear-eyed now
Pong
Pasta sounds nice
Triggers lightly bouncing me from here to here

". . .ON THE OTHER SIDE OF SILENCE. . ."

The War? I was so
glad to get out of it alive
even if it was as someone else

who...I was...died
it was the only way to survive
I became a stranger to my self

I had been so scared
I was going to die
now I'm scared of being alive

I watched better men than
me...die so...easily
I hated me for surviving

I still hear their laughter
how real they were
more realer now than I

the dead stare at me
silently
envying me this life

"Here: have it...take it!"
I scream at them
they stare at me silently

i feel as if I've cheated them
out of their future
"I got...lucky...that's all!"

when I get to
the bottom of
the bottle I

put the ***** top back on
trap them inside
the bottle's emptiness

the passing midnight cars
light up the ***** yellow walls
wallpaper roses blossom out of the dark

I reach for the next bottle
they stare at me silently
"I got lucky...that's...all!"

*

If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence.

George Eliot ~  MIDDLEMARCH"

THROUGH CENTURIES OF JUNE
(  for Pinakini Naik )

The stone
stood its ground.

And waited
for me to run

after it. . .

it had flown through the sky
attached to my cry.

Now it was asleep
in the sun

wrapped in its own
silence.

I grasped it
in a fist.

Let my warmth
enter it.

Then spoke to the stone
in the littlest of sound.

"Stone.?" I addressed it
"Do you want to fly

again into the blue
of summer?"

The stone gave a little shadow
of a smile.

I took that
for its: "yeSSSS!"

My hand flung it
to the far away.

Then: raced after
its parabola.

Time chased me
to a tree with a bird

trapped inside
its song.

My stone lay
at the tree's feet

awaiting the next
throw. .

This world
of two

when friend stone
and I

played
with forever.

The great big blue
smiling with all of its summer.

Parfois, j'ai tellement peur.
J'essaie de me cacher dans ma chambre.
Recroquevillée sur moi-même, les yeux fermés.
J'essaie de me cacher de mes peurs et de ma douleur.
Le monstre ne se cache pas dans mon placard.
Il n'est pas sous mon lit.
Il est à l'intérieur de mon cerveau, caché au plus profond.
Il est le fruit de mon imagination.
Il me laisse terrifié.
La cause de tous mes cauchemars.
Un monstre qui semble bien réel.
Je perds peu à peu le fil de ma réalité.
J'ai du mal à réfléchir.
Je vais me débarrasser de mes peurs.
Avec l'eau de l'évier.

(Sometimes I get so scared.
I try to hide in my room.
Curled up, eyes closed.
I try to hide from my fears and my pain.
The monster isn't hiding in my closet.
It's not under my bed.
It's inside my brain, hidden deep inside.
He's a figment of my imagination.
It leaves me terrified.
The cause of all my nightmares.
A monster that seems very real.
I'm gradually losing touch with reality.
It's hard to think.
I'm going to get rid of my fears.
With water from the sink.)