It will be that Hospital stay
Laboratory test that could last the whole day
Yet the Doctors will have their last say
There will be times when the Patient will need the bedpan
It’s always nature calling in demand
The bedpan helps when the Patient can’t get to the restroom
Nature is immediately taken care of on the moment of soon
This will be a flush out
But relieve in what the Patient will be talking about
The Nurses will do there normal routine
The Patient will be put on a restricted diet that will be totally lean
A Patient might think that is being mean
The bedpan available is when the Patient needs to go
A nature revelation being the flow
It’s nature in the know
Yet being attention in the Patient’s own show
Yes the bedpan and the Patient giving each other movement advice
However, it comes with timing having no need to think twice.

My uncle is in a twilight home
for the seriously demented
and he'll never be coming back
from the place he's in
even if he could find the ******* way.

"Dear Edna" (my uncle wrote) "I am feeling low today
mainly because of the diarrheoa
I have had for the past week
although how you could get the runs
from eating pre-mashed milk pudding
is a ******* mystery to yours truly
I blame the African chef
I don't think he washes his hands
after he drops a log or two.

"It has been so long since your Auntie Linda passed
over to what may be a better place
than here because it could hardly be
worse what with the bedbugs
and the Asian nurse who keeps making me
use a bedpan in public as a punishment
for wetting the bed.

"To be frank with you though,
sometimes I can't remember
what I did yesterday or tomorrow either
but on other days everything is clear
and I think there is a Chinaman hiding
in my bedside cabinet and I am worried he might be
some sort of homosexualist after my *******
especially after my weekly bath
when it's relatively fresh.

"And, my dear niece (if that's who you are
I am not two hundred percent sure at the moment),
I don't think I got my breakfast today again
what a ****** surprise but at least
I won't have the runs again
it's because the Filipino nurses are eating it
my breakfast I mean not the other stuff.

"Your auntie my dear late wife was a truly gentle soul
and I am sure she is the only woman I have ever truly loved
the others were just a bit of spare how's-your-father
even though she could be very trying at times
and I remember once she bit someone
from the social security services
when they tried to help her up
off the kitchen floor after one of her attacks
she thought he was trying to cop a quick feel-up
below the waistline on the sly."

There's a rather nasty splodge on the paper
at this juncture, it looks like Uncle Bert
coughed up a lump of something
or other semi-terminal.

*"I've been thinking it over
about the nurse who stole my breakfast
and I might be mistaken.
I think it's quite possible she could be Romanian
now that we are in the European Union
there's a lot of funny people about
and they're taking over everything
you can't get Wagon Wheels in the tuckshop any more
only some beetroot flavoured biscuits.

"I am very worried one fine day I shall wake up
and not remember all the happy times
about my long years with my dear late wife
whose name eludes me for the moment
but I am still worried about the carpet slipper
and breakfast thieves round here.

"I fancied a nice piece of boiled salmon for lunch today
but it will be fish fingers once more this Friday
not that there's any catholics in here
and the staff are muslims in any case
and don't these people know fishes
don't have fingers, but flippers and fins
not that I'd eat a fin but that's another
country in the European Union I think
or it might be Frinton-on- Sea
where I think I once got a bit
of outdoor legover action.

"I wouldn't mind dying but I am scared to do it just yet
because I think I have lost my faith in baby Jesus
in fact I can't remember who she is even
and I hope my Linda (I remembered her name now)
will have gone to heaven in spite of biting
that health worker when he goosed her
the thought of going to heaven and she's not there
would be ******* dreadful
as I fancy a bit of the other.

"I think I can hear someone in the next ward
singing obscene songs in a wavering voice
with a la-la-la for the forgotten words
but remembering all the good bits
the bits they miss out of the Daily Mail.

"Where in God's name is my lunch
and who has got my slippers
how many times must I ask
and where is my bedpan when I need it?
Can you bring me one, Edna,
it would be nice to have a bedpan
all to myself as I hate sharing one
with Mr Ali as his son keeps sending him
cold takeaway curries which means
his motions are very strong indeed
Love from your uncle Bert.
PS I will put you back in my will
if you come up with that bedpan."

It was also my violent heart that broke,
falling down the front hall stairs.
It was also a message I never spoke,
calling, riser after riser, who cares

about you, who cares, splintering up
the hip that was merely made of crystal,
the post of it and also the cup.
I exploded in the hallway like a pistol.

So I fell apart. So I came all undone.
Yes. I was like a box of dog bones.
But now they've wrapped me in like a nun.
Burst like firecrackers! Held like stones!

What a feat sailing queerly like Icarus
until the tempest undid me and I broke.
The ambulance drivers made such a fuss.
But when I cried, "Wait for my courage!" they smoked

and then they placed me, tied me up on their plate,
and wheeled me out to their coffin, my nest.
Slowly the siren slowly the hearse, sedate
as a dowager. At the E. W. they cut off my dress.

I cried, "Oh Jesus, help me! Oh Jesus Christ!"
and the nurse replied, "Wrong name. My name
is Barbara," and hung me in an odd device,
a buck's extension and a Balkan overhead frame.

The orthopedic man declared,
"You'll be down for a year." His scoop. His news.
He opened the skin. He scraped. He pared
and drilled through bone for his four-inch screws.

That takes brute strength like pushing a cow
up hill. I tell you, it takes skill
and bedside charm and all that know how.
The body is a **** hard thing to ****.

But please don't touch or jiggle my bed.
I'm Ethan Frome's wife. I'll move when I'm able.
The T. V. hangs from the wall like a moose head.
I hide a pint of bourbon in my bedside table.

A bird full of bones, now I'm held by a sand bag.
The fracture was twice. The fracture was double.
The days are horizontal. The days are a drag.
All of the skeleton in me is in trouble.

Across the hall is the bedpan station.
The ***** and stools pass hourly by my head
in silver bowls. They flush in unison
in the autoclave. My one dozen roses are dead.

The have ceased to *******. They hang
there like little dried up blood clots.
And the heart too, that *******, how it sang
once. How it thought it could call the shots!

Understand what happened the day I fell.
My heart had stammered and hungered at
a marriage feast until the angel of hell
turned me into the punisher, the acrobat.

My bones are loose as clothespins,
as abandoned as dolls in a toy shop
and my heart, old hunger motor, with its sins
revved up like an engine that would not stop.

And now I spend all day taking care
of my body, that baby. Its cargo is scarred.
I anoint the bedpan. I brush my hair,
waiting in the pain machine for my bones to get hard,

for the soft, soft bones that were laid apart
and were ******* together. They will knit.
And the other corpse, the fractured heart,
I feed it piecemeal, little chalice. I'm good to it.

Yet lie a fire alarm it waits to be known.
It is wired. In it many colors are stored.
While my body's in prison, heart cells alone
have multiplied. My bones are merely bored

with all this waiting around. But the heart,
this child of myself that resides in the flesh,
this ultimate signature of the me, the start
of my blindness and sleep, builds a death creche.

The figures are placed at the grave of my bones.
All figures knowing it is the other death
they came for. Each figure standing alone.
The heart burst with love and lost its breath.

This little town, this little country is real
and thus it is so of the post and the cup
and thus of the violent heart. The zeal
of my house doth eat me up.

There's a sickness in me, something I hide
At night I log on and search my inside demons
Low grade image on HD monitors
Guts and glory

I watch the videos, and smile, post a comment
Boy's body torn to shreds, eighteen wheeler destruction
I see you in Mexico, gangland violence
Remove three heads in a four minute clip, machete madness

Lean back in a leather chair, comfort in freedom
Adolescent boy, hung by the ankles
"Allah Hu Akbar", whip his *** ******
Family takes turns, mother holds a bedpan

Black man beats white woman, dominant dictator
***** shouldn't have kissed another man
Beat sense past the bleach on her scalp
Sister apathetically asks him to stop
Weak willed humanity

Who were you, before your face was gone?
Fighting this war, none shall win
Cannot see your brothers
One steals your wedding ring

There is a sickness in me
I derive pleasure from these pictures
"Zlo'radstvo", the sick man vomits

What jail cell is this
That one shoots up so freely
Gambling ***** cash
Am I, a free man, allowed to do the same?

Poor boy, cut the noose from round your neck
The poor girls are fighting in the streets
Childhoods are lost
It's hot out here, getting hotter still

Police brutality, gas station punch-up
Families fight, prostitutes steal
Streetlights are gallows
and the town burns to ashes,
with a skeletal man stumbling through the smog

Incestuous family, filming sick fantasy
Little sister scorned, crying to sleep
Bleeding orifice of a broken *****
Bleed for daddy, bleed, bleed

There is a sickness inside of me

Terrorist, hooded infidel, story to tell
Death to the west and other such messages
Bomb your city
Bomb your school
Upload it all to YouTube

A couple thousand hits of a girl beneath a truck
Dead-eyed cameraman zooms into a strewn liver
Back to her once pretty mouth
Anonymous comments, ****** deviants

There is a sickness in me and I want it gone

Secret currency, pays for a secret vice
I enjoy watching violence erupt,
Warring girls in the schoolyard
Cuts her hair, kicks to the face
I *******, feeling disgraced

Grainy suicide, bounce from the ground
Racist attack on a bus, perpetrator not found
Baby ***** in a crib, video with no sound
TheYNC profits from this,
The human condition keeps me coming around

There is a sickness in me
I call it humanity

Hours whiled away, begrudgingly sordid pixels
Opening new links, delving into insanity
Curiosity got the better of me
Tonight I probably won't sleep

A pale sky hovered above me as I walked
Through mountains and valleys vast,
Passing folk who chattered and talked
About days of old and the past,
Of when dragons roamed freely
Bringing terror and fire and fear,
Of when people breathed heavily
Wanting life while the end was near.
“For only beasts could bring the end of man.”
Although man was one of the greatest,
Condemning kin to their bedpan,
Truly, the worst ever created.
And yet they fear the children of time!
As if marvelous creatures so divine
Could bring harm to those without crime!
Who only care to build temple and shrine!
While the true masters of mankind
Are the ones breathing fire in the sky…
Dragonborn, the last of my kind,
As I wandered, I chose who to glorify.

I brought you my still beating heart
In a bismol pink bedpan,
Your hands lifting from the gurney
Awaiting salvation through my touch.
In my visions I am seventeen.
I am seeing you for the first time at my work
And you make me laugh.
You reiterate the scarring in your soul and down your back
And I ask, rudely, if I may see some time.
You say sure,
But your face wishes that I had never asked.
In my wonders
I am eighteen and telling a group of people my age at a party
Why I am sober,
Because my body is weak
And I am not tempted.
Thoughts of you and my future swirl in my mind
But they do not connect.
I will try in vain for another year
Before I realize that maybe I need to sober up from you.
In my recent memory,
I'm sitting on the side of your bed
Hoping that you do not die.
But I'm half naked,
Underwear and undershirt the only things I have on
And your skin is too hot
And your voice sounds coked over
And your breathing is not a slow hum
But a ravenous wheeze
And I'm scared
And my breathing becomes torn.
I'm nineteen again
But now I am saying goodbye
Though you are still living
And a week earlier I had pledged myself to you forever.
You cry to me that you were saving for a ring
And I had hoped to hear that
But now that you've said it,
I can feel my stomach toss
Into the bedpan
Which houses my heart
In your hands,
I've taken my place among the dreadfully unbalanced
And the perpetually sad.
I have come to the conclusion that I have made a mistake
That is too late in the making to be remedied.

I found my voice in a pocket of oxygen buried in my gut,
it was a hot air balloon
backlit by the aura of my lungs,
my chest was the sky that coughed it up.

Knowing that we are water-based creations
spread thin
like the last spoon of pancake batter,
I wear my impermanence like Jupiter wears her red spot.
I wear my fears like continents wear mountains,
pointing them toward the sky,
hoping to someday adhere a sticker to my chest that reads,
THIS CAR CLIMBED MT. COMMITMENT

I have the scars to prove it.

My mother carried me like the last drop of water in a desert canteen,
there was no need for a soft spot; I was headstrong.

I brought the kitchen to the gun fight.
Held my hands to the stove top
turned my back to the knife rack
kept one foot in the door jam and my mouth to the bedpan,
just in case these words washed my mouth out.

Most people never get close enough to recognize
that the smile on my face is written in Braille--
but you've always been there with a blind eye
reading my innuendos
and holding me to my words.

When your marathon feet hit the pavement
it's a lot like Buddy Wakefield at a typewriter
striking the first letter of the word benevolence--

You taught me how to b b b b b in the moment.

Even at my most negative
when my body is a hearse,
this heart is a corpse
and this life is a road-trip from funeral parlor to graveyard,
so that I may have spent my entire life in the company of mourners,
who loved me.

Even at my most positive
when my body is a universe,
this heart is Hatch Shell located on the south bank of the Charles River
swelling with the sounds of the Boston Pops
and this life is everything leading up to the Big Bang,
so that I may have spent the entirety of my life in the company of creation.

Even on the night we met—same night I found my voice
we stayed up to watch Lake Michigan come to life in a pocket of oxygen
under a Chicago sunrise so inescapably underwhelming
it was covered by clouds.

But we were not disappointed.

Even though all of our rainbows have been stitched into flags,
draped over coffins
and buried by the same people who taught us to believe
in optical illusions.
Our hearts were not drawn by Jeremy Fish,
we're not weighted in fiction,
we did not have heartstrings rigged by Geppetto.

No, we were not disappointed,
this was nothing like (I still remember) when we learned
that we couldn't all be Mouseketeers.

Disappointment is a pastime that we reconciled
when we laid our grandmothers to rest
and recognized that their tombs did not believe in resurrections.

The past is a hot air balloon hoisting us up to a sky we'll never see.
I get it.
I'm not lookin' down.

We are old enough to know the truth.

The light at the end of the tunnel is behind us,
that's where we came from.
We are not running from it.
There's no looking back.

Bring together.
Tear apart.
(SIMULTANEITY)



Command or be carried,

be free or be ferried,

believe or be bleary,

wear on or be weary.



The bedpan of old age,

the deadpan of expression--

at the end

before beyond,

inward evacuation
/
outward ingestion,

a life lived to die--

but life exists, after all.



The "pan" of Pangaea,

the pan of a camera--

at the start

before tectonic cataclysm,

localized catastrophe
/
universal symphony,

indifference until perception--

but perception exists, after all.



Either
/
Or:

equal opponents at one moment

until chosen.



It could be said no dimension is parallel.








-LP

I keep getting these letters from my Uncle Bert
from his twilight home
and you know they quite upset me
but no way am I visiting him
the last time I went it took me
three visits to the laundrette
to get the stench out of my clothes.

"Dear niece Edna" (old Fred wrote,
in his spidery wavering hand,
the notepaper spodged with snot)
"I am a bit more depressed than usual today
which is saying quite a lot as the only thing
which cheers me up is when the old fool
in the next bed gets diarrhoea
after I slip a cat's **** in his soup
when he's not looking, so, dear Edna,
I'd be very grateful if you'd send me some more as
old Mrs Bloggs in the next ward deserves one too
for teasing me about my gangrenous foot.

"It seems I've been in here for centuries
but it's probably only a couple of years
and the pain since my dear wife Linda passed
over to what surely-to-*******-God
has to be a better place than here
bearing in mind the noisome odours
emanating from the rest of the patients
in the run-up to bath night
which doesn't help much in the long run
if you are fifth or sixth in line as the water
gets a bit soiled by then, especially
if that ****** Mr Ali has done a brownie.

"I'm getting more and more worried
about the Bulgarian who has taken up residence
in the linen cupboard as he could well be
some sort of carpet-slipper thief or even worse
a homosexualist after my ringpiece -
or he might be an Islamist who wants
to behead me which would be a blessed relief
if I am to be totally honest with you.

"We had a bit of fun the other week when one
of the Nigerian nurses forced my that Mr Jenkins
to use the bedpan in public as a reward
for stealing Mrs Jackson's home-made enema kit
or she could have been from Liberia
as the accents are broadly similar
(so I read in the Sunday Times travel supplement
they gave us instead of toilet paper when
supplies run out during the dysentery outbreak).

"All the best under the circumstances
from your Uncle Bert and don't forget you stay
disinherited unless you visit me soon -
no more excuses about your car having
broken down - what do you think i am,
some sort of addled dementia case?"

It's all very sad, but I have checked Uncle Bert's
bank account and he's just trying it on
as there's no more than a hundred quid in it
and no way am I visiting him for a lousy hundred;
for Christ's sake, the smell is enough
to knock a cowboy off his horse.

Fairfax Station’s socialite, a trustfundee
Still hallucinates on a lone hammock
In her penthouse.
Her ex-idols still burn the light green foliage
From the Tree of Experience. Her sister’s a screenwriter
Who lives near downtown in a cobwebbed basement.
Each morning she composes a page of dialogue. Usually
There the fragments of yesterday’s conversations
With an insomniac. She is the turned page
In a worn storybook.

Her shutter snaps mental photographs
Through a blurred lens. The girls’ father
Is a patient in an asylum, in his leisure, he treads
Water in a soiled bedpan. Psychotherapy and straightjackets
Cannot restrain his work ethic for Art. Before his admittance
To the institution, in his studio, on a giant canvass
He painted the green youth that struggles to
Grow in an elementary school. The socialite is undeclared
In her major. Unsure of faith leaping.

Remains pessimistic at charity functions. Vast
Auditoriums with smudged tablecloth. She’s accompanied
By an entourage of underdeveloped emotions.
On occasion she side glances from a hand mirror
At a potential love interest. It’s too soon.
The spring is a late bloomer, blue frost clings
To the edges of grass blades. At a coffee shop on
The corner of Main and North Harrison Street,
The screenwriter raps away at her laptop; talking
To herself.

Her coffee foams at the mouth with expired cream.
A welcomed patron to this local getaway;
This is where her father used to read her articles
From the Washington Post. He nearly hanged himself
After the car accident. His wife’s body smashed
Halfway through a windshield. Around his wrist
Is the Movado, she gave him for their anniversary.
For months now, for an hour before night class,
Our writer opens up her treasure chest of demons
To a word document.

She’s almost thirty. The divorce took her strength,
Along with her two legacies. Yesteryear, or
Was it the day before yesteryear? The talented
Family met at a Hibachi restaurant. They had a
Gift card to use. It was a day after the funeral; there black
Clothes were wrinkled, just a bit. Napkins lay
Folded over their laps. Silverware untouched.
Hot bowls of miso soup grew cold. Visits to
The bathroom were common. Tsnumai of
Mixed emotions: trickled, flooded, filled there eyes.

The foreign chef noticed their mood, he
Could only offer body language. In the air
Swan eggs were cracked into two halves.
The yolk sizzled on the aluminum surface.
Fire soared from an onion volcano. Mouths
Watered, and eyes were parched. Kobe steak,
Grilled vegetables, juicy chicken, fried rice.
They chewed their food with shut mouths
And gutwrenched eyes. They sat and ate
Until every last morsel disappeared.

Over her balcony, she leans on the railing
Of her loft. Ashtray spills Marlboro’s remains
That plummet onto a city of funny people.
She can’t use humor as a defensive mechanism,
Why should she? Her credit card is her alcohol.
Her eyes daydream of elevators
And clothing stores. She lays out in
Her hammock, wondering why an automobile
Had to be the antagonist.
They all live above the billboards, below the heavens.

Chapter two

December 24, 1979;
This day or, should it be said, night… is the night a spark alters this heart’s understanding of a heartbeat with such desires which were never thought possible. After most have gone to bed; it’s 4 in the morning, Kelli, Julie .Joe and my-self were sitting up downstairs talking in Rose’s living-room, enjoying her lovely Christmas decorations.  Kelli goes up around four-thirty and Julie sat-up on the armchair by the archway; Julie was talking about things going on at her work. Funny enough, the only thing going through my mind is ‘Oh my, I sure hope you go up stairs before others begin to waking; I want to have time to talk with him by himself.
Finally, “Goodnight Uncle Joe!” and up the stairs Julie goes; It’s now, five fifteen, he and I are alone on the couch together and finally I could talk with him ‘til others wake or ‘til he tells me he needs to go sleep.  I would have been happy just having he be as a friend but knowing he was no longer with Connie… could heaven feel this near? We sit talking… I edge towards him; I feel a touch, his hand gently he reaches and then pulls… no guides …, for I more than anything want this to happen, to the warmth of his lips; my heart pounds as the taste of his salty-sweet lips rushes into my mind beside all the sensations his lips touching his arms give…tingling warmth, surrounding me, enveloping me?! I’ve never known this feeling before; such depths of wanting; of needing, of a desire to be here in these arms.
“Joe; Joe, Joey I love you…” Did I just say…???
“Don’t!” he says, “Don’t, this is a just for-now thing; but there’s no commitments, no responsibilities?!”  
I know why he says this… Connie?!  He doesn’t know, these words of his only make me want him so much more?! He has no idea how fearful all this is for me; these words, his words make me feel safer in his arms; it is safe here in these feelings I’m having?!
“If you want…; it’s your choice?! No commitments.”
“Fine.”
How could Joe know just how much he’s already a part of me?  I would never…  I could not say no.
How could Joe know how I’ve already thought of him; he couldn’t know how special he is in these eyes; how he has been long since a time before the 77’ blackout, back in summers-passed?!  On a day I was looking out the window, watching, Connie and him in the backyard working on his car. I held such envy towards Connie, looking out, watching the two of them, and ever since whenever I would see them together. If only; but who would truly want what I am…beyond my Chameleon’s mask? Dreams are nice to have but you can’t ride pipes all your life?! You can only live in what there is in this life.
Days earlier than watching them from that window… I had walked in-on Billy, the one I was with; he was in bed not alone they were in the midst of the most explicit acts?!  There weren’t any blankets on them and it wasn’t right away that they knew I was there stunned in the doorway!? This being something which one could never un-see?! And yet, I seem to be remaining?! A part of me already knew this about him but it’s just, I, never thought it would ever be in my face or who it’d be…I’d see?! Which as it turns out is what was most overwhelming of it all.  Billy was raised by foster-system and he’s been living with this man, Joe McAtamney, since he was nearly eight years old; you’d think… but no; No boundaries??? I thought Billy would be aged-out of this man’s wants…But no; and, to think several months earlier my dad signed papers for Billy to be my husband?! I ran from the three of them down in City-hall; I should have kept running?!  But oddly to say this little tat-a-tat doesn’t even close to being the worst of happening in my life; I was Billy’s first female … to think, barely, thirteen years old and next to him I’ve already have had years of expertise in the activity, merely on a physical basis; I did have no comprehensions on how to conduct or relate beyond that… not a real clue on how to be in a normal male/female relationship out of the ****** interactions?! And hell, as much as that was concerned lord knows I’d rather be clipping coupons???  I would have still been with Billy if it wasn’t for the loss of my daughter back in May of 79’!  Joe, Billy’s foster-father, rented Billy a Rockaway's bungalow I thought it was to keep him from being under foot but that’s wasn’t it?!    Billy’s foster-father and my mother figure in bribing Billy he would/could convince me to abort or if nothing else to give-up my baby if it comes to it. Most of April we had set up house out there in Rockaway; I thought he and I could find work, a place to live of our own and make a home for this baby. But no, every penny I could hide he’d find and spend; he’d have other boys over who are friends with his foster-father, like these are the people anyone would want around any child???
The last week I was out there, Pat Current was out there with us; I couldn’t stand this boy he was every bit the same as having my brother Kevin around?! You wouldn’t want to fall asleep in a place where he might be able to find you. A sociopathic horror, a ****** deviant and a thief; someone who wouldn’t have a problem in delighting in and/or causing other’s pain as a form of his own entertainment; Why Billy has Pat here knowing what he’s about?! I know Pat’s a time to time lover of Billy’s Foster-father but he isn’t here with him???
It was the morning of the 14th. I woke-up not feeling well; Billy and Pat said they figure to go down to the beach so I could rest and they told me they’ll  be back around one for me make them something to eat. They return only to find all those from the other bungalows along with the lady who rents them out were all inside the bungalow with me; they were staying with me so I wouldn’t be alone until the ambulance comes.  When the lady heard my screams she ran down into the yard and entered the door; I was holding myself up trying to make it myself to the front-door to find some help. There were ****** puddles all over and handprints over everything; there’s such pain and pressure I wasn’t able to move a step more. She helped me back to the bed. When I got to St. John's Episcopal I was all alone; nobody could come with me in the ambulance. By the time Billy arrived I was there about five or six hours has passed and she, my baby girl was gone.  The Doctor wouldn’t allow me to touch her, to pick her up or hold her in my arms. The doctor just left her next to me lying there cold and blue …exposed ; they had her laying there in an old metal bedpan; my child.  
Doctor, “When you’re ready you can get up and leave; make an appointment with your regular doctor for a hemo-globin shot.”
The nurse told Billy he needed to come in the room and get me out, he needed to take me home. He would not; he said he’d wait until I came out on my own.  The nurse walked over to me and she look at my face she could see I wasn’t about to walk away from my baby; she reached to remove her… I blocked her path I couldn’t allow her, to, to take my baby away from me?!  The nurse went over by the table across the room; she picked-up a small baby-blanket and return over to where we were and she made a shush sound and said it’ll be alright; she understood. She gently wraps my baby into the blanket and had me sit-down then the nurse placed her into my arms… the nurse remained by my side while I held my poor little girl in my arms. Touching her face, “Please forgive me for not protecting you better; I am so sorry…” I kissed her and, “I love you; I’ll miss you, always.”
The nurse held out her hands and said, “Don’t you worry I’ll take care of your little Baby Rose;”
“Thank you.” I left my baby there in the arms of the nurse and I left the hospital with Billy. We walk to the train station and we begin to head back to the last place in the world I want to go. He and Pat were talking about where they’ll be going to go tonight??? Billy turns and says,” If you feel like it you can come; it’ll be fun!”
‘??? He didn’t just say…’
“You can go to where-ever…” I looked at the two of them, “I’m going elsewhere?!” I back-step-it off the train at Broad channel the doors closed and I waved. I went to sleep that night in my bed at home on 66 Street. I couldn’t stand to have to look at his face. Afterwards, I was told Billy was rather happy that my little baby girl was gone. I awoke in the morning, first day back and things around here were no different. I went to Dr. Tierney’s office about the shot I needed and he told me I should never try to have a baby ever again; “You need to go on the pill and don’t ever allow yourself to get pregnant again!”
“No problem Doc… I no-longer have a boyfriend and I don’t have much luck with them?!”
“Easy said but only takes once?! Go on the pill; be sure!”  He writes a script and I go home.
I had a boyfriend before Billy; his name was John (Stretch) Thompson, its funny John was 6’4” and at the time I was only about 5 feet tall. He lived around the corner from the St. Sebastian’s church down in Woodside. This was back in 73’ he and I met at and worked together in the Burger’N’Shack on the corner of Queens Boulevard and 58th. He was night shift and did all the prep-work for the next day and they, the worker’s of the nightshift, paid me with eats and tips to clean off tables and to do quick-mops during the night; and, after John would finish his shift we would go over to his brother’s house. Both of John’s parents died back in 66’ and he lives with his brother and his brother’s wife. John went into the military… he told me when he returns we’d be married; eight months after John left his brother found me and he told me John was killed on his third day over there. I hadn’t seen John’s brother or his wife after that; I stayed around Key-food and carried bags to cars for tips or I’d walk with woman to their nearby homes with their bags. Big Frank, Little Frank and Denis allowed me to take out a store-cart from the lot so I could make money; Big Frankie, Oscar from the deli department and Mr.C, the owner of Big-Six’s Key-food, like me. And, the owner was also a very good friend of my Great-Uncle Patrick’s. It was sad John’s death but…  Move on; No-one the wiser.  This is the year the Dunn’s moved in on the block. Me, myself is odd, on my own block once more… act like every other kid! Even, when you see others who know different… you are a child?!  ...but not; silence is silence even in the loudest room it’s there. All you need do is to open your eyes to hear it.  To think, if it was that Norman Rockwell and Picasso were to blend their styles together…  Oh, how it would be of those on these blocks of Woodside?!
    Back then, for me, *** was an activity devoid of any kind of desirous wants.  For the most part those near my own age would get my delighted saying to them,” Cut it off and Brass it then put it by your baby-shoes!” or, if I thought better of the individual I’d tell them, “What you care to tell friends, who cares it’s your business, but there’s nothing happening here, don’t waste my time, or yours and go away!”
But here my being in Joe’s arms there is such a difference; I had never wanted, anything, anything with this intensely. We made plans to get together at the house once everybody has left for the day; oh, Wednesday.  Wednesday morning could never be soon enough. The last person is gone, everyone is gone… I open, closed the gate was up the stoop and inside the house before anyone could have ever seen me enter the gate. Joe and I chitchat a little while looking at one another… Joe repeated “… this is a just for now, no commitments, your choice… if you want…?  suddenly even-though we were nowhere near that couch the touch of his arms… the taste of his lips, the scent of his skin…  time melts; it feels as if he we hadn’t been away from each other a single second?! But here we are, now, with the hall-door locked, the decorations no longer being on; there is no worry of someone stopping us…and, we go into his room. Joe has no idea how, in this moment, being here in his room frightens me; it’s not him not a bit… it is these sensations of wanting… Joe would not understand, I don’t, how could he; Joe thinks me being more knowing of things like this?! No wrong, though he doesn’t realize these feelings he, now, is bringing out of me are all so new?!  Every breath, every heartbeat, and every gentle movement of his body against mine… his touch made me feel! “Joe, Joe I love you.”
“Don’t!”
You said; If, I want?  It’s my choice; …as-if there could ever be any-other.
  
Since then whenever we were alone together the feelings were the same for us; we’d drive around in the car talking then find somewhere to park enjoying each other’s company for awhile… just talking and having a wonderful time. And, then… a touch, one of us would reach out towards the other the sensations overtake and cause time to shift into its stillness and no-longer do our moments separate; the first… this… all of time bound within this sensation we share. But time, time never allows long…. It cannot when such appetites’ seem endless. He’d need to get home. I’d need to do things as well. We’d both need time to do what must… I would usually put up a fuss; many times Joe laugh,  he’d need to tell me he’ll kick me out the car if I didn’t get out on my own… I never wanted to be without… this sensation, these moments we share; I never want to know again what life would be without him.
Things between us remain; even after I told him…
I told him about having a baby?! Asking him to be the child’s God-father would assure  that nobody would think differently about his being close to child; I couldn’t take the chance of his not wanting me to have this baby?! And, he hadn’t asked; I was in bliss. If he had asked me I would have had to tell him. Is there any wonder why I feel the love I feel… we would still be together; but he wouldn’t allow me to be as insatiable as he made me feel; Joe was always so careful with me when we’d be together even in our most sensual of moments he was always mindful to keep the baby safe. I had never known; never experience such loving tenderness in this life as at this time being, held, here in his arms. Everything I am everything… belongs to him.
Until the day of June 28th.

i.

diapered
fat legged

baby, propped in posture
by a stack of wet bricks
the flooded basement

provides     and provides

often

ii.          

     baby, under foot

bedpan for the sadness
of the upright

iii.

I stand
to sleep
standing

Vitiate the hull of mutton
Taste the stringy woman lungs
Suffocating in coiling scaly black tar demon ***** smoke
The voluptuous carpentry is anxiously hyperventilating
Your throat is baby xylophone
You teeth are fuzzy rabbits
Their fur is thick and itchy upon your tongue

The slide of octopus silk is massaging the nerves to pointy slumber
Deep in the cauldron the baleen gates are straw and rapidly parting
For some reason they won’t swim up
You taste salt’s bite
Emerge from the sea before you drown
You silly fool

Pilgrims are waging the mass death
Great lynches mandated by God
Wailing with stinking dying young
Having a picnic at the gallows

Whiskey shivers alive
Boiling and screaming in tongues
Strobing from inhuman pain to morphine stupor’s loving numb

Your ****** is a pastor
Your child is the angel that keeps you from returning home to rosy Eden

Eve
Your families’ legs are sewn in a knot
They are frantically dancing the reel of the beheaded roach
Untie their rainbow thighs
To pay penance for your grave disobedience

Apologize to your hardworking father
He’s doing the best he can
Forgive your ungrateful daughter
Adam
Cain
David

Washroom
Pam is crying
Towels are crying
Soap is laughing
I’m laughing  
You’re Pam

You are mouse and you are crumb
Yellow red striped glaucous cat
The fawn’s neck pulsing thick with squirming lump of rat

Realize
This is all occurring
In the wan lakes of your lady eyes
Seventy six have you
Love
****
Breed

The paper walls are breathing in melodic unison with
Thee

You are the Christian
Frantic running from the lion’s jaws
You are bored and waiting for the Greek tragedy
You are Hindu
Attempting to dodge Britain’s guns
You mercilessly ram the bayonet into his muddy wrinkly face

You see the assassin firing
See the bullets pierce
Yet all you feel is your index finger hooking the smooth trigger
And the rough handle of the handgun

The black eared checkered cat
Hissing with xiphoid lizard teeth
Not pretty enough to support your drug religion

Hungers for smiling child
Hungers for drowning fear
Glazed on tattered wings of shredded feathers  
The hot slaughtered meat

Escape the toilet’s screaming
It needs
Exact
Change
The sink bedpan is overflowing with bleeding
Singing
Roses

Air is acid breakfast scented cereal *****

This film is bad it’s bad
It’s Nixon
Lenin
Jackie
Gein

EEEEEEEEEEE
A high pitched eerie screeching
Pitch shifted hymns echoing in Westminster

Your sister the spinster of my festering whisker!

Sacrifice your schedule to the great lord Day Plan
Burn the calendar
Burn the crying trees and their hair accessories

Tiny arms are sprouting from your fingers with their own tiny hands
Tiny arms from their fingers are growling with gushing stumps

A body within a body’s body
You are the human macrophage
Be a cannibal when you grow up

You realize your son isn’t yours
He’s the ******* of your rival pack
Become Cronos with radiant mane and the hairs of the velvet sun

Across the wood frame mirror
You see me smear
The graffiti crooked and huge black words
God is great
Get the pants

It has been a long fortnight of half-change,
Collecting tips for charity buckets
And scrawling ink in my hand-bound notebook.

I am nesting. Preparing my bedpan
For tomorrow’s hangover, as I learn
Artefacts of knowledge passed through these books.

There is no career plan. No thought of the
Ladders I’ll need to set on the brickwork,
Just to weep at the windows of success.

I am learning for the sake of learning,
and loving for the sake of a story.
Sorrow is wanted, just for the moment;

Just so that I can stumble through the door
And hold onto the receipt in your mind.
These agonised thoughts have to mean something.

If not, well, I suppose not much will change.
I’ll work this shift and retire again,
Always slipping back into a routine.

let me ask you

you’re sitting in a hospital room
visiting a friend or mother or son in a critical care bed
an alarm is triggered, an ominous warning
you nervously step outside looking for a nurse
you tell the nurse there’s something beeping
the nurse comes inside and fixes the occluded line
you nitpick about the time it took
you question procedures as the nurse is doing them
advocating for the patient
the squeaky wheel gets the grease, right?
yeah but guess what
the nurse doesn’t want to come into the room anymore
whether you’re in there or not
the vitals will still be seen to
but other patients suddenly need more attention
and by the way
every time you ask me if i washed my hands
(like the posted signs advise you to ask)
i think:  if you’re that worried about infection
i’ll just stay out of the room; that much less exposure
that means painful bedpan delay for your loved one
or lying in filth a little longer
waiting thirsty minutes for that sip of water
staying in one excruciating position half an hour more

so have you done your friend or mother or son a favor?

he's there lurking, in the background,
sometimes a woman, sometimes a man
sneering, smirking, i feel drowned
helpless i lie there, a ***** bedpan

I want
in the cookie-cutter’s
dream
to find out
I’m pregnant

/ what do you feed
absence

/ in most kitchens, the microwave
is above
the oven

/ tornado

it does not
put

a bedpan
in a projection
booth

/ before it is born, the mouth of the hole is open

to my long deceased mom...
Harriet Harris née Kuritsky

My mother succumbed to a terminal illness
two score minus three orbitz passed away
no matter she fought tooth and nail
to keep ovarian/uterine cancer at bay
disease metastasized throughout major organs,
hence demise found grim reaper to carry
her Bag of Bones into The Dead Zone -
where Misery loves company
Four Past Midnight
well nigh seventeen
and a half years ago to the day
thus a flash in a bedpan idea flit
thru me mind setting task at hand
to forego bidding on eBay

and ruminate how she felt
knowing her end to be near, -
where her psyche did flay
with anger writhing at the injustice
to ****** thee lover of life
her deadened flesh became ashen gray
yet, a recurring memory
replays in my mind,
whereby this ordinarily
sole sunny trooper
blackened hole within her sons' psych
doth feebly booster morale
with a lame duck uttered hay
huzzah, but flashback to last moment

I saw mother, yet
merely stood mute in close proximity
within the kitchen of thee predominant
century old mansion stone
built home donned with English ivy
once glorious complex edifice
sans domicile razed
no stone left unturned
remains longer only in me noggin
twittering memories flutter
and tweet like a blue jay
keeping visage intact
the house (formerly known as Glen Elm)
at 324 level road,

Collegeville, Pennsylvania -
amazed at my ability to recall an okay
dough key mixed meadow
for with many emotions arising
from where siblings
and me did blessedly play
our oasis, a rural route number 2 -
or rd2 for short a constituent key
per our residence, which like a quay
Tsar seemed light years
removed from civilization,
a remnant tract of idyllic ray

dee hance, upon with open space slated
to become outfitted
and transformed into an urban stay
shin for mobile Americans hopscotching
as short term owners of a new home they
never knew what fractious
mother-son trials and tribulation,
now invisibly harbored and enshrined
forever pristine sanctuary
denominated secular way
down deep in thy conscious, which access
to retrieve nada so

excellent circumstances of youth
(oftimes meditating while dwelling
upon expansive roof
many an outlook raised)
on par with hop, jump,
or skipping to Uruguay
but nothing can recreate
and make real one again
deconstructed house where dwelt pangs
of pre and post adolescence
no matter I mouth
and soundlessly mutter oy vey
till the cows come home,

cuz the days of boyhood,
teenage and emerging adulthood
(matter of fact, this heir -
overstayed his welcome)
accentuated courtesy corrosive
contumely contretemps
thus ambivalent feelings
doth owe way
kin this day of the month
every year the aura, charisma,
and persona delighting like galena zany
persona, thine late mother of pearl

and milk of human kindness
yes, this cingular male offspring doth miss
when he gives pause (all faux),
thus aye scrawl this poetic mini opus
knowing full well,
ye will never be cognizant,
but cathartic to press
any black key (on this laptop)
and expunge thru
Times New Roman font size 12
discombobulated words

buffeted bitta bing bitta bang
in situ jewel flowing emotions
akin to Rapunzel unfurling long tress
buffeted by the war wren inside mine being
for love unspoken, I confess
and tis thru fatherhood
(which beautiful granddaughters
ye would marvel) despite obloquy
when ye and papa de address
me in harsh terms, but objectionable traits
wove within mein kampf DNA less

or more, and angst riddled
body, mind and spirit
rent asunder with emotional duress
essentially encoded within
the twisted sisterly chromosome strands
that wrought Matthew Scott Harris,
now the boss and master
of his own psychological domain,
whereat he closes with mum --
I feel terrible ye got angry and cross!

It’s such a strange question
It should be self evident
Anatomy physiology
but apparently it’s not?

My generation
cherished a dapper swole man
Arnold Schwarzenegger
7 time Mr.Olympia took it a tad too far

But you get the picture
A strong man who can provide for his wife
The Bible says a man’s body is not his own.
It belongs to his wife.

A woman’s body is not her own.
It belongs to her husband.
In this way, each person is
Looking out for the other’s needs.

Love, honor, cherish till death us do part
Each other own’s their heart
A novel concept, but who Actually practices The words, Jesus preached

When a man and a woman are
Walking on the sidewalk
The woman walks on the inside.
The reasoning is as follows;

The woman is shielded by her man.
From sewage splashing bedpan dumping
Crashing cars dangers from the street.
This is been the case since medieval times.

The strong virile man protects his lady
first and foremost, even to his own peril.
As there is a left and a right hand, so too A man and a woman a complete pair