His hand was outstretched, nabbing a pesky windswept hamburger wrapper
near a garbage can alongside the exit to the cafeteria
Bent over, exposed, frozen, pretending the hamburger wrapper
required more effort than normal to dislodge it from the open air just above the ground
Perhaps it was a turnip or a beet, that he had to carefully, surgically remove
and it was only that he saw me coming
if I could have slowed down time, to slow motion
Seeing my boss, the principal of the school, up ended like this
for the sole purpose of not having to look me in the face, I would have
more kids would have had a chance to stare at this strange posture,
and wonder how a hamburger wrapper could have such a difficult
time being removed from the ground and I want to remember this pose
it only gets worse, and as my exit comes nearer, I feel lighter
but he still can't look me in the eye
if he felt secure in his decision, in all his decisions about me
he could, but he doesn't
So he will focus more time than needed to grasp that delicate
wrapper, which contained a stale bun and the remains of a dairy cow
spent and gone before her time on a factory farm in the central valley
and if insecurity can impose such ludicrous postures on a person
I will take this lesson, and remember always to be brave

Rejected, contract not renewed
and I hate these people but the rejection still hurts
because no one likes rejection, really even from people we hate and disrespect
which gets lost now because I'm still there and am surrounded by them and
I think I know why this all happened, because I don't fit into the principal's kingdom
where you must have only one drama director and not one and then another one
out there who was just forced out through seniority because she might cause TROUBLE
and it's true I don't fit in because I have gone to excellent schools, even an Ivy, and
I've traveled the world and learned an obscure language and I have so much more
experiences than most of those people could ever imagine having or even wanting

But it's still like the wind has been knocked out of me and now I'm feeling down, so down
and scared, waiting for my next plan--will I be accepted there and what is wrong with
me that I--
must stop these thoughts because they lead me down my dark alley
there was Craig last, who I befriended and tried to love and he could never love
me back and I thought if only I can get him to love me I will feel better and like
I'm Ok in spite of being rejected
and now it's Drew. and I don't like Drew and he kind of likes me
and yet I chase him and spend time with him and I'm not even enjoying
it and he is unpleasant and never says anything nice about me and never smiles
and  is happiest staring at his turtles as they awake from hybernation
and planning his cross country trip that will take all summer combing the country for any national parks he hasn't yet seen
and i yearn for his love and when I've had an awful frustrating time
with him, I ask him when we can get together next because
next time will be better and he looks at me with a stare
and at school a girl comes in at lunch and flirts with him and
i can't stand to be in the same room because its so inappropriate
and his boss struts in wearing high heels and onoe foot in a brace and flirts
and she is married and she gives me resentful, knowing looks
and i don't even like him but this
punch to the gut, this fear now, this not knowing if I'll be accepted back
into the school to get a new credential, the school I left to take this miserable
job. this is driving me crazy like I'm hanging onto a vine, suspended off of a cliff
with water and rocks a thousand feet below and I'm so scared, and every
day cold be another blow and I have only fear and
I must wait and I must build myself up again so I don't chase
Drew, who will only make me feel worse, because he is rude and pushy
as all my friends say and yet I ask to get together with him again.
And I must learn to appreciate myself again so there will be no Drew.
Please no more Drews, or Craigs and the list is quite long.
And one day I do well and ignore him and then as the week progresses
I get tired and it gets worse and I think, that thing, my drug
please I need my drug, and off I go.
I don't need any more drugs.  I need to feel good about me
again, from the inside out
despite the rejection

Never knew how many there are
I see them now, and notice no other car
and compare them to his: the red jeep in the exact same
parking space, every morning, as clean as a cup out of the dishwasher
and I noticed the modifications he made
and now he travels, away from me
and I know he'll never come back to me
And someday I won't notice anymore jeeps
and I will know deep down to my core
that I didn't really like him

I remind myself as I stare through the blue water blemished by floating small objects that
I don't want to know what they are
It is me, who once again, will save myself, and take a turn,
and I am determined, that after I slog through this stinking muck
and have washed off, and have recovered from the fatigue of escape
there are fair days to come, days which open out to me now as the
beach dunes near where I will live, stretch out into the distance, forever
shrouded in gentle fog and my cell phone area code,
my home area code, will again match my locale
and I'm no gangster, but this simple fact,
represents returning to hope and strength and sanity on my Earth
and better days are to come, I know

Oh how I'd love that
and from a San Francisco organization no less
a month in the Santa Cruz mountains, no less
the most liberal city in America no less
and last year's winner has his picture displayed
and it is not innovative or interesting or shocking but all too predictable
Like something I saw how long now has it been?  twenty five years ago...
how many times have I seen this picture
a white guy, looking very much the suffering, creating artiste
handsome, like an actor, but not an actor, a creator of meaning
of art, and he can't smile, but looks away from the camera
mimicking an ad for J. Crew
it's amazing how only white men can write about the important things in the world
and the background, how many times before have I seen it
a graffiti sprinkled nowhere in an urban jungle
somewhere where preppy white guys never go
street art, street communication created by people
who don't see this concrete as an exotic backdrop for their egoistic posing
but as a part of their lives, as part of their meaning, their world
and he stands there, in front of it,
Mr. Screenwriter, the gulf of culture separating him from that background
spans the entire country, or an entire universe
but the implication of the picture is: he is home here
this is who he is and he can emcompass everything, since white men
as we know, have a magic ability to understand and synthesize everyone
all genders, all races, all religions
the rest of us are merely stuck in our own myopic little worlds
of gender, race, socio-economic status
but these spanner of time and space and human difference, they can be anyone
they can understand and represent anyone
So I look at the picture
and think, I could apply, but I'm busy during the blissful month of the residency
but how dissapointing, that I feel looking at this picture, now online of course
that it is the same picture that I looked at over twenty five years ago
pinned to a film school wall
in Los Angeles, in New York, in those edgy more conservative places
and it is the same guy.  the white screenwriter artist who will write about me
and others and it will be a lie
and we are excluded.  all the rest of the human race.
but what he writes will be exalted as truth
when I know, that no matter how time he spends wandering
the foriegn worlds of ghettos and genders
the one thing he knows, the only thing he knows how to write about is
white guys, because he is no superhuman
he is like us.  He will write about white guys and there will be
more films about white guys, who are supposed to represent all of us
but they don't, because they are only human,
and can only represent themselves.

On V-day
I spent lunch crying
There were two drops
that didn't fall into my arms

Two little pools of sadness
from the worst of the madness
over someone I don't even like
when I look back over our history

I see, this wasn't a surprise.

We are going to bomb them so that they will stop the rocket fire
Says the memshellah: prime minister, in 2014
Funny how that seems like a transparency
Of what the memshellah said in 2004, 2003...
Sounds something like what was being said
On the bus to the University of Haifa
Radio Turned up by the Bus Driver:
mmm--eeem, mmm-eeem, mmmm-eeem
Which must have meant: we have bombed them
and now the violence will stop

Do we have the memories of a fruit fly?
Every twenty four hours, a new death, a new day
Begins and the same thing is done
An endless repeat of a survival
with no wisdom, no intelligence

Pilgrims on their knees, travel to the church
in Mexico
Like pilgrims and tourists, gawk at the treasures of
Jerusalem: to be near God
God has wisdom

So what does God have to say?
Looking down, the next bomb drops
And for awhile, after the blood spatter and tears,
Or maybe after the explosion and the body meat
is picked up and put in plastic bags
And it begins anew

What can God say, to make it stop?

"Was that your brother?"
the colorist asked me at Empire Video
a reference to a Christmas Party
where you came, my husband
He was the same guy
who said I could be a hair model
after 16 hours editing a spot for Pantene

Laughing together
how funny, to be in sync
Sync, sync: sound and picture
must be in sync
husband and wife as well

How when I saw you I would relax
and your sense of humor would
deconstruct any trouble
"When he was a child, he could make adults laugh,"
your Aunt said
and I believed it
what a gift

Troubled by my boss, "he looks like a used car salesman"
a smile, it was true, the last thing I'd think
taking him so seriously
So many times, you'd pick me up
your response would puncture
the bubble of fear and angst and heal it with laughter

After parties, our impressions
are the same
this person, that person
Howling in the streets over some dumb movie
or chance encounter
anything upsetting
you can cut to the quick
and pull out the ridiculous

My best friend
I had you
I trusted you completely
If only I could remember just that
There would be no trauma
and I'd go on
without so much fear
If only I'd seen just that side of you
I guess I must pretend

In Israel, you live in today
you never know what tomorrow will bring
if there will even be one
or if you will be asked to shed your civilian blood
on a bus or at a falafel stand

Today is what you have
connected to the dirt
under your feet that is
not taken for granted that is
a second chance at life
and is precious
and precarious

So you smoke
you yell and scream
and forgive the next second
everything is up front
there is no time for hidden agendas
everything on the table now

Everyone in a strange bond
On the day to remember the Holocaust
Sirens scream through the entire land
In the middle of nowhere on a highway
at the appointed hour, the siren
and all cars stop
and people get out and put their hand on their heart
united in a common grief

feel the pulse of your beating heart
feel the miracle that you exist
that despite an industrial scale effort
to destroy you, you are here
despite the millions who didn't make it
who were shoveled into mass graves
whose flesh was burned and the fat spattered and monitored
you are still here
today
a testament, to survival

No time for so much focus on the pettiness of ceaseless consumerism
A strange relief comes when you
realize, you are now a part of something larger than
yourself and are precious to a community of strangers

There was a dog eating festival in a province in China
and tens of thousands of hapless dogs were brutally killed
and it happens all the time, cats too
why?
I want to turn into a superhero and pick up all the helpless creatures
who suffer at our hands
I want to protect them, but can't
I can't imagine how people can do this
No that's not true, I can

I sat with my attention deep into the computer screen
As he came back with two biscuits on a paper towel
"do you want one?" he asked
and a little line was crossed of caring I haven't had
in a long time and I was afraid, like a feral cat
reaching out furtively for a treat offered by
a concerned lover of the feline and
I reached out slowly for it, pink chipped nails
and fear, overcome
and he feeds feral cats around where he lives
a man who feeds cats...I never thought I'd know one

Should I call you "Supreme Leader" little man?
Smarmy narcissist, frightened one, I have found you out
Holding court in the lunch room we are all supposed to lick your boots
as your partner does
follow your example
as you do evil things, behind our backs
You order your little partner about, hither and thither, although she is supposed to be an equal
You played a role in eliminating me because I think for myself
As you lean back in your chair, directing the conversation
cutting people off in mid sentence, if it doesn't please you
Rudeness is not something you know of
nothing is sweeter than the sound of your own voice
you can learn from dissent, but this you don't understand.
That is how you make a better product.
You can value diversity and learn how people from different points of view
see things through a different lens, and maybe they see more clearly
But all you want is to listen, to that sound of your own voice
to dominate and shut out, and shut down, until there is no one left but you,
the Supreme Leader and no one to challenge you
and I hope someday, you will be left, all alone

The stress in my body was palpable, and at work, still heading to that dreadful place
The theater where I wasted countless hours and now had to go to an endless meeting
with death by Powerpoint and be told that if I just SMILE then students, even low
struggling, alienated, overlooked students who have fallen through the cracks of society
so early in their childhoods that they now prefer that dank and ***** environment to
daylight
But if I SMILE at them when talking about taking a standardized test which will determine
if these forgotten abouts and given up upons who are now hardened to that reality and resent any
disturbance of it, just SMILE and they will be excited to take that test and it's been proven by science after all said the principal who was also SMILING at us, the staff that doesn't matter except if you have been there a thousand years and one half and also went to one of their schools, and the Powerpoint, the powerpoint I could hardly watch because it featured our mascot the coyote hunting down and killing in the snow, and ended with a coyote, blood on its gums, snarling past the camera viciously, like a true predator, and that, that was supposed to motivate me to SMILE and get juiced to tell the downtrodden to look forward to their fate of failing the test and trying again and again in order to graduate.  Over and over, the same test. That haunting snarl.
That threat. That fake, pasted on smile. There is no love there, only control and threats and backstabbing, but it is only work.

And she stood there, her hand firmly massaging her chin as if there were whiskers there that needed to be combed and comforted and the high pitched presentation went on and I felt my body filled with energy and desire and maybe this is what a testosterone soaked man feels but
she didn't even look at me as I passed by, just made a purpose of staring at her set which is such a feeble attempt, that the big guy hasn't even been called in to help with it

And I thought the most satisfying thing in the whole world would be to just walk right up to her and clock her one in the face with my right arm which is stronger, followed by a left hook and some kicks and after that it would be just crazy mayhem and no girlish hair pulling because...
I was so angry and it was like a thirst to destroy this person who just picked up my accomplishment and called it her own to the applause of the smiling principal and the high pitched associated principal and his endless powerpoint the content of which I can't recall except to know it's a lot of work that no one wants to do and I volunteered for it and was rejected but I don't really want to work for a coyote who snarls and spits blood and tells me to smile and be warm.

But it was frightening, yes, more frightening to me than the pictures of viscious wild animals, because they are only animals, and just trying to survive.  
But I, the beast in me, the bloodthirsty anger and desire to destroy in fantasy was so
terribly and sensuously satisfying.

I want to be retro hot dog iconic pop
I wanna wear red lipstick and rock my normal ***
And be in there, a step ahead, off off broadway
sharper, finer, a knife's edge leading the way
and meow to the groovy tunes
rockin' the moment of my delicious inner light
so not hollywood so much greater finer heights

There's one e-mail I always delete and it's yours
and it's not the boring repetitive ones or the ones that have nothing at all
to do with me, I can let those stack up in my mail box
I have a collection, thousands of them
But you and yours, make me ill.  How you brag and have
taken over what was my job last year and is now so clearly yours
and have you ever, ever even said a word to me, even though I was
the one to do the ***** work to get it all started?  No, I am just
so last year to you.  I don't exist.  I see your bragging testimonials
to your greatness followed by pleading ones for money--teddy grams?
Really. And the one time I did see you, you were not nice.  
So I delete your e-mail and really I'd like to delete the whole experience from
my mind.  All those late hours in that cold theater with undisciplined kids
Always thinking, I am doing this to have a job for the future.
This is why.  And then you just waltz in and you were so excited
I sent you my acknowledgement you were given the job and you were
so breathless oh can I tell everyone?  Like you just won the lottery and
now I want to send you an e-mail to tell you, do not contact me about this again
Leave me completely alone if you can't be nice.  
I don't like your play and I don't like you and this was all a bad experience in total.
I want to delete you, not just your mail.  I want to delete you from my mind and my experience
and all the rest of the people involved in this whole sorry affair.

Fatigue is setting in giving my affect a kind of relaxed
hereness, because there is very little energy for anything else
Tomorrow remains a mystery, but there will be a battle, I know
the forces will arrive, armed with ipads or paper or their phones
and their judgemental brains of varying sizes and capacities
I am tired, and I need to avoid the unecessary confrontation and most
especially desist from worrying about anything that isn't happening in the moment
the battery is low,  I have no grenades only a small shield and that's
not really enough to battle with, and really, I've always been out armed
and totally outnumbered and overpowered and yet somehow I'm still here
through sheer cleverness.  But I make mistakes and there is so little power left now at
the end that I must be shrewd and watch them like a lioness watching a herd of gazelles

They smile, and they attend social functions and are in pages of
a city's social diary, a mockery of a democracy
the Hearsts and the Bloombergs  and the others rolling in it
so their aging women can have too much plastic surgery
because time happens to the elites, too, and cancer and unhappiness
and the smiles hide the discontent and the slow death
and they are afraid of us, can't bear to be with us, this other species we are
and once, with my now X, at a fundraiser for his elite boarding high school
I listened to a pretentious speech that was so intolerable
underneath the canopy of a white tent in the middle of a gigantic field
with every grass blade evenly spaced and the same height, and the soil
filled with nitrite.
And the speech ended and the applause served as cover, like brush and I ran
out into the open air and flattened the springy grass
and I walked away because I could take no more

Went to film school, want to be a filmmaker still
My dream unfulfilled, but still unfolding
I look at what used to inspire me: magazine articles about
the great directors.  always male. even today.  I used to want
to be the female version.  Not anymore

The New Yorker has a piece on one
Describes the process: a demanding scene where
Julia Roberts walks down a street and then gives a LOOK
This is not drama.  drama is conflict.  the new yorker doesn't know this
describes the making of "art" as the shot is repeated with different LOOKS
It's all taken so seriously: a large photo of the ARTIST on the facing page
He has four o-clock shadow times a few days.  this is the look of a filmmaker
you will see it in the second half of the semester at any film school
and he looks worried, intense, confused...gassy?  artists are never happy
is life a pretty picture?  the artist knows this and cannot, will not smile

Later, "the Brille Building," in New York.  wow.  a building with a name no less
a building where many films are edited, have been edited over the years.  
a sweatshop for editors of picture and sound, and a place for the director
to continue, now out of the shadow of the STAR

He's using a lot of profanity now. Just because he's an old white geek don't think
for a minute he ain't kool, he ain't street.
Actually, go ahead and keep thinking that, because you're right
Amazingly enough, he, from his heights of artistry, is slumming it with take-out
Oh, the dedication.  Oh, the fear of ever leaving the building and being reminded
there is a whole world outside that doesn't care about you

His brother is the editor (no, don't say there is nepotism in this business, it's your imagination)
They review the shots of THE LOOK
There are many takes and now, this director who adapted someone else's novel
to the screen now claims, he wrote it.  Really.  It is all his.  

Yes I still love making films but I've never loved the biz
And as I get older, the more I think that real artists don't get written up
in the New Yorker with such verve because they'd think it was just too silly

I was furious, completely screaming in the car at the "alcoholics" who dared to have a wine festival
in the park, and blocked off the swimming pool where I intended to seek endorphins, relief
from the painful thoughts that my head was swimming in, the anger, rage at my soon to be X job.  
Today was graduation day, but I was not there to smile with other teachers and administrators I hate
and I couldn't do it, luckily I don't teach seniors
Absolutely enraged at the quietly joyous celebrations around me,
the happy smiles, and blissful walks people were having heading to the festival,
I sought out a lake I had heard of where I could derive some endorphins from a that swim
My phone GPS lead me to a dead end and a dusty trail, beyond which lay a fetid green pond a glimpse of a larger lake, so I set out with my 50 pounds of swim gear, along the dusty path behind a housing development cursing and raging against the world.
And then, a beacon, a parking lot and cars backed up and I was there

I've never swum in a lake before and it was cold, and I couldn't see where I was going
I saw no fish, only green dusty water and some dead looking water plants
but the swim served it's purpose and I wandered back to shore as a water creature
walking to a strange new world
I boldly put my towel underneath the lifeguard tower and lay as the lifeguards
kicked sand onto me, and I read "All Quiet on the Western Front" on my phone
I began to feel as a soldier must feel, that my little comforts, the shade of the life guard tower, the book, my over stuffed bag as a head rest were the supreme comforts of life,
And when I bought a heaping pile of Nachos and the guards kicked sand into them,
I continued to eat and swallow sand, and save them by my head as I read.
In and out of the green depths and I noticed the people around me, mostly not white, mostly Mexican, and one girl, with long black hair who was one of those girls that make me understand
how men can fall in love with us.  She was so beautiful, so perfect, with white skin contrasting with the black of her hair and clothing and if I wasn't straight, I would have been smitten
She was with a rough crowd however, and later I saw her, standing around the back of the bathroom, looking so vulnerable, a priceless flower among tough, although stylish characters
no good will come of this

I became drunk with the sun, and on my way back, I was again imagining a speech I'd give to my oppressors, in my alter ego Southern accent.  
My feet were hideously dusty, but the way back was clear and when I arrived home,
I realized, graduation had come and gone, and I was safe and one step closer
to freedom

Or some kind of Countess
Even though she looks like kind of a mess
and my shrink was right
as she is every time
he likes her cuz she's rich
My X and me, my shrink says it's still raw for me
and him
but they fine
My cousins live in Oakland
And they work a day and have a Union
Back to the middle class, on my ***!
As he floats by with millionaires, but they do have cares
I know that now, and how
He lives on his trust fund, and works some
and takes happy pictures in bars
And they seem happy enough, yes they are
but what can you see online?
I saw she's insecure
big surprise, just why
you need to announce your relative?
and I know he's only nice after he's had a few
nothing new, to me
His best friend has a trophy bride
Or maybe he married his daughter
So gross, these rich men and their habits
Sometimes we can't change our outer circumstance
But we do have a chance
if we try real hard
to rake up our little zen yard in our mind

My favorite new word, but your dictionary only knows outsourcing
When we think of creating new jobs, when we thing of working
Now we think of other places
Long hours, cramped spaces

No rights, governments that don't protect
The people have no choice, they can't connect
My gadgets are produced by these poor souls
And everything "made in china" is getting old

Lets have some insourcing

It was a stormy night.  
But our flag was still there
as the war drums beat
and the children came out
wearing plastic bags to protect
their instruments

Rain slanted in the Friday night lights
The fake grass field was slick like ice skating
Our National Anthem was dutifully sung
as we stood and worshiped our flag
and were reminded of the violence of our beginnings
and felt a surge of pride for the blood and death
spilled over two centuries ago
that has allowed this war in a small town
to occur on the territories once inhabited by
annihilated civilizations whose dead languages
haunt this place

The soldiers came out.
Young boys trying to look brave
When I watched my first war,
in my own small town
a boy was paralyzed from the neck down
and can today use one hand in a limited way

I am taking tickets and freezing
Getting a cold as surely as my body
feels as if it is freezing up
but there is no rain date this is too important
and the ambulance waits outside
Last week a boy's hand was crushed for this glory
into a little pieces
They have a new leader now and the show goes on
It is so important

It is our favorite sport
It is violent
It excites us, unites us
And when the other team scores I privately
cheer
So this can end
And wonder, what might be done
in the age of scarcity with the resources
that run this war
and how I wish, it wasn't so important to us

Which is why you shouldn't drink and dial
because I tried to call you, turtle man
who has two turtles and 57 unanswered messages
on his phone

I never would have noticed
had it not been for you
who look like a turtle, that unfortunate Caucasion trait
of no chin, though you are thin
is that why you like them?

I saw one yesterday in a nature preserve in the middle of Walnut Creek
So I call, masked call, no answer
you are unavailable, eternally, and I am wild with two Vodkas
and I think it would be so kool to connect with you

And the phone rings and rings and of course you don't pick up
and I can't feel my pain in my back and feet from all the walking
and swimming and hiking
and you will never be what I need
and that makes you the perfect target for me

Sunday night fright,
anxiety
takes me to the phone, to drink and dial

1979, A live broadcast, my father bid me come
to our new color TV set, the high pitched whine
it gave off muted by meaning
"remember this moment" he said
and we watched, in awed silence as
two men, Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin shook hands
and our President presided
a cold peace at last
In retaliation for... Sadat was later shot through
the skull and died on a stage in a pool of warm blood
surrounded by his brethren

A letter dated 1944
My father's fingers trembled with it in his hands
He brought it out to show me
"I am the only survivor...all the rest are gone...
I am going to Israel"
Written hastily with pen and ink, our last
surviving relative who we know not of
bid farewell to Russia and was on track to a new land from the wellspring
of grief and ******

A Jew, my father
A half Jew am I and would have been all the same
to the **** killing machine I thought one languishing summer day
as I ate unripe apples with small wormholes at a farm
full of horses
Safe in the quiet, if uncaring peace of a world far away
from dead Nazis and the abandoned killing centers


Rabin Square in Tel Aviv, 2003
We walked through at night, my husband and I
A large empty space in a city without largeness or emptiness
We walk without recognition
as it is now just a place and not only a shrine
But I linger to look at one corner
At an embedded sculpture of confused cement blocks
jagged angles and useless plains, rendered in immobile lasting cement
a testament to futility
It is pain, frustration and the sickness of human violence--
Itzak Rabin
who was shot and bled to death
in a crowd in the dust of his also unknown and forgotten ancestors
in retaliation for the hope of peace

News of more bombs today
Fresh death
Mangled human potential rendered useless
In retaliation for...

Broken into a thousand anxious pieces
stomped upon and disliked
rejected and neglected and humiliated
like a broken dish someones gone crazy on
until the porcelin has turned into the powder it came from
Like sand, or flour, it does not resemble a dish at all, but could
become something else, most likely swept up into a dustpan and dumped
a million microscopic pieces of a former dish, that is me
A mess of powder splatter on the floor
what will I become next?

Hello gorgeous, haven't I seen you someplace before?
Open with a line like that, you be lucky not to be shown the door.

I look ten to fifteen years younger, maybe I'm blessed
Sometimes, I put myself to the test
Once I had a boyfriend eighteen years younger than me
We lasted a year and a half.  He thought I was thirty.

And sometimes, I see him, a guy who I like
I sidle up slanted, you know, slithery ****, it's what they like

You have a drink, it's a whole different world
Your fear goes out the window, thrown away, out that door

You been here long?
You like to dance?
Doesn't matter who says it, so long as you're in a trance.

Yeah, I like that.  You're really fine.
We are both really having a good time.
You get a little closer
You can smell his alcohol breath
And in that moment, it might as well be ****
Cuz it's a kind of intoxication
In itself, just the chemistry, this temporary cohabitation

If he's young, he might be ready to go
Let's go back to my place
I know no one will know

Sometimes I did that
I never was afraid

But now, I just slither, and drink, and bathe
in the silliness of it all, these instant connections
The shape of his hand, that shy guy smile
The square jaw, with the stubble on the side
Oh yes, men, oh my
The young ones get aggressive, let you feel what they've got
You're not supposed to do that in public, do they care?  Not.

It's all so fun, so just in the "now"
Someday I'll venture out again.

My best friend Katy, an Okie
taught me useful life skills
as we walked along
train tracks covered in rocks
behind the Wrigley's factory

In every vent there were clumps
of fresh made spearmint gum
deposited fresh daily
and free, ours for the taking

And as we made our way
down Mission Street
loud, with dust and gravel
wafting up as big trucks drove
by and a row of ****** bars beckoned
to unknown lost souls

We'd arrive at 7-11 for
a slurpee

Saw you today
first time in months
you hurried by
got something to hide
like when I walked in on you
sticking your knee to another woman's
like glue
ringless married man
you didn't have a clue
I stood there
the energy between the two
of you could be felt
And suddenly you were aware
so you stood up like a mole
looking out of its hole
it's what I need
not what I want
like when I heard other women
on a guy's answering machine
Right near your office
she's been installed
you're no longer bald
short brown hairs now cover
half your head
like a newly sprouted lawn
trying to impress?
I think you've already caught,
your catch has been bought
I can't compete
I sensed this last year
from her in e-mails to you
"oh you're so funny"
"oh, that was so great"
must of been an exciting meeting
for you to get such a wet greeting
Wish I didn't care
Just forget him
they say
I guess today
is supposed to be the day

He was out the door, slammed shut in 2004
and he couldn't get back in even if he wanted to
because the lock broke after he moved out to Hadar
the arm pit of Haifa, and wouldn't tell me where he was
as a punishment for my banishing him.

A friend saw him on Masada street.
In the end that proved to be his street
oh, the time I had for friends, in the hot Mediterranean sun
dinners in cramped living rooms with laughter and wine and always
houmus.  You can't eat a meal without it, and prints of art on the wall
and the cement floor, and the too many cats

So he'd crash in, do something that had to be done, insult me, and leave
and this was it
I sat in that big apartment with he fancy black cement floors and smoked
cigarettes and took the bus to the cat shelter to clean 25 cat boxes in a cold water
bath tub and set them out to dry in the sun
and hang discarded clothes on a fold out clothes rack, each cat got a shirt to lie on
and instant coffee and chocolate at 4:45 PM and cigarettes as cats walked around in the
sunset

But at home, sometimes I'd try to get him back, if I could
But he could always be so much more mean, poking at the tender spots
without remorse and I learned, not to fight back
Just to collapse and cry as the door slammed or he said something
and then stormed out, absolutely not caring

There were my friends, here I have no time for friends,
and I talked to him and prepared for a time when I'd go back and
have no time for friends again
Everything would be work, work, get yourself back on track
you've lost so much time

But here, too, the losses are deep and I sit in my own apartment, with
carpet and a dishwasher, that I could only have dreamed of having then
and my own car in the parking lot,  and

People make me cry.  
People where I work, people I mistook for friends
and it's better now, I now, if I can only follow through
to seek no revenge
but just to mourn
Because the world can be more cruel and cold and uncaring
than I can ever imagine
there's no competing
it's better to sit and cry here, too

I gave the box of books you gave me
I removed the box of books to ease the pain
I trembled as I carried them downstairs
to your office
you were behind a closed door talking to a false blonde
she listened to your words and nodded

What are they?
Words I listened to as you began to guide me
to work I enjoyed
As a shark circled around me, the one before me, taking me in, finding the right time to attack
So hungry.  
I felt her presence the entire time
Did you know?

You gave me the benefit of your past
Set the bar for me, worried over it
and I came through for you.


Walking through the empty halls
An ominous feeling
Something is amiss
I always know
Why do I always have to have the premonition?

The office door closes, I watch you take your seat
behind your power desk
A big space between you and me
like I'm a threat to you, something to fight off
Attack first, so I don't send you flying
What are you thinking?
You words come out, fresh from the corporate factory of talking points
You're not it, she will take it to the next level
You are not enough for us. You are done.

If I am surprised on the hopeful side of my brain
it's because you dissembled, don't you see?
Now you act like I'm an upstart
Claiming what was never mine
Don't I know my place?
I wasn't hired for this
These words
I sit passively
Feeling the poison set in

My mentor, my guide
I want to drop my keys on the floor
run from the room
drive from this place and never come back

I am tied by a paycheck to the chair
How I dream of running from the room
In my mind, I have escaped from your daggers
In reality, I sit obediently on the chair as you
stop talking realizing no one is talking to you
I can't remember how I left the room

I give you a box full of invisible tears today
I return sadness

Later, you are
Slumped in your vast leather chair
Looking tired

Tomorrow I will see you again
rushing around with the other bosses
breaking heads, crushing spirits
My pain forgotten

like my mind is filled with ideas
my material world is boxed in by things
over capacity knowledge stores on paper pads
and journals by the pound
around me they surround
time capsules prepared industriously on the daily by me
notes and books and handouts and work outs, all strewn about
my mind externally, representing fragment thoughts ideas left whole
thoughts pursued and cast aside and fleshed out to live a life of their own
Ordinary mortals see a cluttered desk, books and papers spilling over this
But it's a furnace of the imagination, taking shape, each item a puzzle piece to be
put together, and torn apart and worked on through the night until it's just right.

I want to save all the cat and all the kittens
and all the wild cats and all the cubs
I want the killing to stop
and I am powerless

Others, how so uncaring?
They look inside the cage and see something
like a stuffed animal I guess
nothing real, no soul underneath
easy to destroy

War around me, and it's like I've got a ****** at my back
I'm in his gunsights and he follows me around with no
friendliness how I ever could have thought I could be friends
with this person and I need so much the strength within and I
am standing there and there is no me inside and I can't let this happen
because I am in his sightlines and others, too and it's completely different
a battlefield every day and I can't let myself go, the strength has to stay
and he is only my enemy, trying to shoot me down and I can't
I have to stay and fight because there is no choice and this is
so wrong but it doesn't matter things never matter I am a member
of a much maligned group, and it doesn't help but what I can do
is not lose me. I may go down but I will go down with myself intact
my opinions that I know and not believing their lies which come
flying at me every day now a new one.  And I can hear the disrespect
and sarcasm and belittlement and the value on the stupid and I will
stay with my own thoughts this time.  I will not abandon me and what
I know.  I will not let them take over my mind.  What happens on the
outside I can't control.  But my opinion of them, of what they're doing
it will be mine and it will matter to me and I will believe it this time. I swear.

"You never get closure in an abusive relationship"
the advocate looked at me, softly, as she could waiting to see the hard news
soak in
the other women in the room were silent
Their "hes" were still around town, coming in and out
interfering, lying low, but at least paying attention,
abandonment is worse than punishment I thought
I was on the other side of the world, a reverse time zone
falling into the abyss
He took my wedding ring and engagement ring out of my luggage
then brought it up the stairs to me
and waited for the shuttle to come
I hugged him, but he didn't hug back, he shoved the bags inside
I was crying, he was stone cold, he payed the driver of the "sherute"
the shuttle to the airport in Hebrew, people stared but I didn't
care anymore, I was so used to people staring as he now
spoke to me and offered me a cigarette in front of the Mercez Horev, the mall
siting on the ***** concrete benches watching the line of people having
their bags checked before going in
Here I was smoking like I'd done my army service and gotten bored
and smoked to relieve the boredom and the stress
then something would go wrong and he'd get up, screaming at me
in English, and I'd run after
I didn't look at anyone in the sherute but I just knew they felt sorry for me
as we pulled away, after twelve years together, the last I saw of him
was him heading down the stairs
and now, the people at that job
I am learning new things in my classes
and, for one crazy moment I think:
I want to share this with them
so I write to my former boss
and that's the last thing he would ever want from me
He is the smart one, I am not, no one is smarter than him
He will never listen to me
Like I hugged my husband
not knowing he'd stolen my engagement ring and my wedding band
just like the Tel Aviv lawyer told me he would
the end. you never get closure in an abusive relationship

Last year, you were gracious
We sat attentively listening to your endless commentary
on the making of coffee and watched carefully as you used your two hundred dollar
coffee machine and grinder to munch up cooked beans and
make them into brown slightly oily bean juice
and so long as we were sufficiently impressed, we could partake.

This year, you gossip behind the scenes
approach people about what to do about me
drinking your coffee creamer, which is also special
and you stare at me with a look that seems to want
me to make your world flourish and grow and the sun to shine
on you every day and to renew your life with my heartfelt amazement
at your being
like a mother at her newborn child

And I am only trying to survive, and you have plenty of coffee creamer
so I can't even make it up to you, and I do not share your worry
that someday, you might open up the now crowded fridge and find nothing
I do not understand this kind of devastation
It seems petty and silly to someone like me who has woken up
to the blood and guts and body meat scattered around
her own life and had to scramble and fear and survive somehow

So when confronted, there's nothing I can do
but apologize, and I dissapoint again by not sharing things in common with you
and this angers you and you behave like an ignored child because I'm supposed
to share your world and interest and if not at least fake it because
that's what you need and I have the body of a mother
who is to give to the world who needs and needs
and that is supposed to be my job, my vocation
and my only wish in life

So I make my own bean juice and it's foul and rancid but I don't care
because the truth is, I never cared about your coffee
like a lover who is jaded and has given up, I was only faking it

What horrible emotion will I feel?
Anger--I'm being accused of doing something
I'm not doing, never intended to do.
was trying to do the exact opposite of,
and have been identified as a saboteur...
inspiring students to take hard classes
my students wanted to strive but were
turned back...I had committed a crime
Jealousy, my X boss, now at last
walking with the new English department diva
a woman, as spicy as white bread
as electrifying as a jello mold and they walk
along so contentedly, old friends down a tree lined path
through the quad and the blistering sun
and I've been raged at for making a joke about meetings,
a reference to a "Annie Hall" where Hollywood types have meetings for the sake
of more meetings and there is an end note: he gives good meeting
which is the goal...a mobius strip of meetings...around and around we go
treading the meeting notes like water filled with little packing crate styrofoam
making the noise of important work, the movement of it,
but in the end, creating nothing
and...now it's over and what will life be like without this dread
I feel like I can read five books in a day, run twenty miles and
cook a three course vegan meal for five and it would be less stress than
what I've just emerged from.

His ears are soft now, not scabby
His purr is deep and mellow
He played with catnip this morning
Now on my lap, nestled between my naked *******
soft fur, never knowing or caring my clothing status
fluids, pain killers, anti-nausea
I never thought it would help
but it has and today is a good day
almost like his old self
my thirteen year old pancreatic cat reborn

he or she will do this: the child meltdown crazy act
in an adult
and I will blanche into an affectless emotionless marble slab
deflector shields up, they can't hurt me
the dysfunction energy will well up surround me
rush over me like a tornado flows over a house
as I hide in the basement

My favorite cat is very sick
I did, I spent, to find out what is wrong
to help him, my heart is breaking and I walk,
hike around Briones Park, even though I haven't hiked in over two months
and the hills are steep and the anxiety is great and I take quarter pills of clonozipan
along the way as I finally get the courage to call the vet for the lab results
just like last year when I walked three hours before I could stand to call and it was worse
and I know now and walked on, finished all those clonozipan and made it up the steepest hills
adrenaline driving me and I have no more money and I could mess around at the loan place
but finally I get the courage, as usual, at the end of the four hours, to call you
and there is the first shred of concern and then the deluge and you are hurling accusations
at me and this is the price I pay always for your help and I know I am not perfect
and I know I must live within my means but my cat,
I begin to cry and sit down on the mountain side, a child again
and you lash into me, for my huge problem with cruel words that make my psyche bleed and
you remind me so much of my X husband, as I sit and cry and hikers and joggers go by
and you make your point but that is not enough, you must drive the dagger deep
deep into my sternum and twist it around until I am reeling and bash my head
against granite and I know I will be reeling from this conversation for days and why,
why couldn't you ever have this passion against the people who hurt me, at this job,
in my marriage, why did they get such respect and peace when I am bashed against the rocks, blood in my eyes, salt water stings, tangled in seaweed and a wave crashes over me
please stop I beg you.  stop.  you don't have to be so cruel
which makes you angrier and the angriest you ever have been in my life has been
over money, why, such a Jew?  Like your mother, like my X.  This has taken on a meaning
as I drift away from the conversation as one does when pain is so intolerable that the body shuts it out and dissassociates, and I am up high floating now above the city below
an ironicly beautiful landscape and you lie, yes father, you lie and say you are
struggling in your million dollar home with season Opera tickets and trips all over the world
and I think, I feel so at home, just like my X, so much like my X.
And yet, I am changing and a  voice inside me, drunk now from being knocked in the head, I tell you to stop, that this is not the best way to talk about this as I did
to that guy I rejected who hurt me, and my boss, and I feel, I am changing
and I will fight for what I value, what I love
and on the way home, tears in my eyes, I buy the medication to keep my cat more comfortable and he responds and I think, this is worth it
I am worth it, and you father, may never change, but I can
and I can change most importantly, my opinion of you

It rises up like a wall
A flaming, raging wave
I think of a cliff in Santa Cruz
In a storm, the water hits and sprays

So suddenly, without warning, in my private precious moments
The ones I looked forward to to savor
My feelings, suddenly foment
And here I am in fear, without a reason, without a cure
Something awful is upon me, of this I am sure

Zen tells me, back to the body
And hurriedly I go
Back to the breath, just counting
This isn't fair, say it isn't so

"It's like an anger addict, it just flares up, without notice"
I am told this, so here I will post it
It goes back a long way, to a time when I was two years old
This can be defined by science--do I feel better now? No.

Why me? I wail, feeling sorry for myself
Why must I suffer like this when others walk, a carefree self

Back to the body, count the breathes, and for that moment I return to "here"
Until another anxiety attack sends me into fear

The corporate sports shop has erased the swim section with snow sports
and I can't find those jagged ear plugs I like there
must go back local to where I got half a wet suit
made by O'Niel, the inventor from my home town
and I remember a friend who was a great skier and even
better ski ***, and he hung out with Tommy Moe in Wyoming and
he almost put his eye out going down a Black Diamond ***** ******
and maybe that's brave, but I don't think so really because true bravery in
my mind is rarely physical, and most commonly, but perhaps rarely mental
as I see the Christmas shoppers like every year doing the same things and dysfunctional
families everywhere pretending to get along when they'd rather **** each other
understanding why, like Freud first tried to show us, in his strange 19th century way
has led to a situation where everyone could understand why, what really drives them
and so few do, because it is scary and expensive and long term and frustrating and you have to go back
over and over and realize you are doing the same **** thing over and over and it's worse than
school when you were a kid, when it was just over and over and a teacher blaring at you until
you finally got it and moved on, because that can really happen.  You can get it and move
on and you won't need the salve of the alcohol or the forty big screen TVs or endless ballgames
watched as if they held some kind of key to a special universe and if just one more game, like one more quarter in that slot machine, and what you are really running away from is yourself and your pain.
And I am different, it is true, because that inner journey to understanding is essential to me and
psychology is amazing, how the mind tries to protect us from ourselves by creating more distraction
when we all have that Black Diamond ***** to go down and it is scary and frustrating
and we may fall but in the end we will understand.  And that is the most important thing.

I had to do it, since I wanted to see him again
one last time, it was OK
Just a guy in a typical poofy too big man's shirt
Funny how men try to puff themselves up with their clothes and suit
and we try to look smaller,
undershirt borders underneath too big white sleeve his wife bought
A married weight, a paunch that began at chest level
and made him look like a mango and brown slacks
a tan, and that curly hair with the little twirl on to that seemed to asked to be
grabbed onto and pulled back
and his authority the sexiest part
I needed him to sign a form and he took a long time to sign it
read every tiny thing, as I squirmed inside, but sat up straight and
perky so happy to be here.
was he drawing out--for me?
Then he looked at me with those baby blues
up from the paper on the desk, with those deep rivets in his forehead
all these huge scrunched up muscles
why do they need muscles even on their forehead?
and I was pierced to the center
and I know I'd think he's a bore
and as I drove away I saw him walk out of the building
carrying a lunchbox his wife probably fixed for him
and no, I'm not proud that I feel like this
and no, it's never something to act on
but as I drove home, I thought of him
despite the mango body, the huge shirt
and my not in shape profile that would have to be
crammed into a corset I thought about a lot
and if I could forgive him his middle aged flaws
I should be able to forgive mine
because humans are much more complex than those
dumb two dimensional magazines let you believe and
we haven't been photographed for all the thousands of years we've been reproducing

I went and saw and lost myself and never thought it would happen to me
like a car accident with fire trucks and ambulances and police
and stretchers and pour souls waiting
that will never happen to me
Until down into the abyss I go and time seems to slow
and I surf without getting wet
pathetic just like the rest
An addiction nevertheless that freezes thought in an instant
and replaces them with endless searching for meaning and fragile connection
Circling around, look here, no direction, life on hold and desperate without risk
spinning out of control on the internet.

I forgot part of the question
                                                          what was it?
Learning                                  history                                your
she  was too young, so was I
need a good grade...am at the coffee shop...drank the coffee....ate the cookie
wasted time on FB                    the question WAS
It pulls on me and someone puts on Death Metal and there's this gutteral gravely synthesized voice
and (what was the que--)
being pulled, resisting, but it's too strong
and I'm in
floating in memory....the question
to answer I have to slit my chest open and let some of the contents run free
as I ... it wasn't all books and pencils and how dare you ask such a question
my life wasn't a hallmark card
she was only 10 and she was my best friend so that means I was only 10
My learning history--how can I even think...we had a psychic bond we did a test
and it showed and she was a little chubby with golden skin and
her father was creepy and he left out his copies of Hustler for me to see and
told me beauty was in the eye of the beholder
but to **** a ten year old that is vile
I remember...a day or so later, going over to her house where she showed me
what she brought home from the hospital
(chalk and teachers, and winning jelly beans for knowing state capitals)
and she had coca cola in her fridge and all the latest appliances from Sears because
her father worked there, like a push button phone and a washer/dryer with a digital display
and clocks, too, like that and when she told me what happened it was like
being electrocuted painlessly for about three hours and I had to leave
because...books.  drawing things and teacher don't give a **** about anyone
and today, children are much more protected and people talk about things
but then
(my learning history? I remember desks, and boards and being nervous)
and how can a grown man take a ten year old he knows and tell her
they were going to find someone and instead
stop the van, just looked like her father's van
(today we are doing long division)
demand she goes into the back of the van and take off her pants
and stick his tongue in her mouth
and then kick her out
bleeding so she ran to a vet and they called the ambulance
(and she never came back to school)
and I started piling on more clothes, layers.  
You can't show those ... what is happening to you
and my learning history
I can first give you this
caked in blood and no, it's no longer bleeding, thought it was
I have unearthed something
there was something in the way and
that's why I couldn't answer the question

lifeguards, free life vests, at least 15 lifeguards, always holding red flotation devices
always on the watch, telling little children to get out of the deep end
to give a rest break, a child looked faint, one guard approached, nothing
forever on the watch, no one gets hurt, required swim breaks,
guarding, guarding, keeping everyone so safe
I wondered how anyone could even cough water down the wrong pipe
here in this fully, totally, completely covered and safe lake and beach

waiting for an outdoor rinse, the screams of terror of a small child and tears
and then whack, whack, whack, and the crying increased and it took me
awhile to adjust, to reframe, that this, a deliberate endangerment, an infliction
of pain, could happen here, in a place so absolutely and intensely safe
but there is was again, the sound of striking and crying and harsh words in Spanish
and I gazed at the lifguards wetting down the sand where they had to walk to cool it
a lifeguard with that perfect surfer boy look, like the ones I grew up with
but again, the striking sound, in the relative darkness of the men's room
and a man followed by a tearful toddler emerged
the man looked like he's just performed a self satisfying act and the boy
followed him like a dog and I realize that
we as children are dogs, little animals who are abused
and follow our attackers home and live with them in order to survive
the man carried no obvious weapon, but I knew what he'd done
to be that two year old child, unable to soothe oneself, in a dark, strange room
with a man towering over him, inflicting pain for some trifle
I wondered what to do, but they walked by and dissapeared into the crowds of
picnics and music and the safe beach, with the lifeguards standing, always holding
their red flotation devices, all eyes staring at the water, the beach
it now did not look so safe at all

"I saw what it does to people," you said
with a mixture of disdain and disgust like
you were talking about **** addicts before
and after pictures.
"I hate girlfriends," you said to me after you told me
we weren't going out on Valentines Day because your
ex set you up with someone else and you "have to" go
and who is afraid of Berkeley and all those new idee-ers
The vegan restaurants with rice milk whipped cream
The pleasant outdoor cafes with people learning, studying
the only "Ivy League" public University...
All those things there to open your mind and make you
think differently and you may begin to believe in Global Warming
and even though you don't, those thoughts may haunt you
but I know there are scientists working in labs all over the world trying
to figure out what to do about it ...
Socialism, you are afraid of that too
but what is it when Walmart hands out an application
for public healthcare to all their new hires
since they will never be able to afford their own
and Walmart can't share any money on their behalf
In the Netherlands, mink farms have been outlawed
yet you like to dissect them in your class and
carry around the poor dead skinless creature in
a clear plastic bag around the school
and many of those places prefer to pay the fees
and citations of skinning the animals alive rather than
pay to **** them before skinning
why doesn't that bother you?

Three kitties
tabby and white, tri-color siblings from under a school portable
and their adopted father, hunched backed, grey and white, bowl legged:
circa 2000, the best from the Israeli streets
groom each other one tongue on each sleek fur covered skin
the rhythm of certain satisfaction rises
and it is the vibration of love

My old vacuum lasted over five years
Can't tell you how many times
I unscrewed it and cleared it with
a wire hanger to make it fine
On TV the Olympics roar
people making history
but I'm just happy with my new appliance
in my humble home, making it clean

In 1850, the first white person visited Yosemite
Native people lived there for 5000 years
Lived with the environment, not against it

Sixty years later, we destroyed a pristine valley there
used as a bathtub for water
for thirsty San Francisco

Yosemite: the only national park
with a hydro electric plant in the center of it
I am ashamed
of my people, our priorities, our endless need for destruction

A tornado of busyness, preparing to go away
You were a ghost today

I predicted this
Then why is it you I still miss?
Ensconced in your job, you're already gone
Wanting you, but I must move on

Hoping for a connection
Just a little wisp of affection