Al Capone called a hit from some Chicago hideout
and there was a ****** of a bunch of other mobsters
and a reporter came in and said I had more brains on my shoes
than in my head
and isn't that funny?

I took a risk, I know I'm a crazy loon when it comes to guys
some guy I don't even like that much but I turn to him in my
pain trying to get through my days, now
and I try to get him to go out but no there are excuses
and suggestions of him drinking a bunch of beers when one
makes him whoozy
and it was a Thursday, and I was back after two days
trying to plan my new life and everyone there was so nice
so I come back to "that place" to do my sentence, and
I can't find him at his normal spot--he's hiding in a little room
in a bunch of chemicals
and we talk and I ask him about going out after work
and he states flatly I have a date

And it's like I've been hit by an invisible bomb
I don't know what registered on my face
adrenaline rush in my stomach and just trying to fake it kool
like no big deal, I can't get you to come out, but
his ex girlfriend set him up with a woman and he "has to" go
and I translate in my mind, you "want to" go
and it feels sickening things were a
little more hopeful, driving through the fields of Monterey and a friendly
department at Cal State Monterey Bay

And wind, and sand dunes, and a hope for a better future
and now this. So I stammer out a couple of lame things
and he tells me he doesn't like girlfriends and will be single until he's 75
and I don't know what happens then and he's 41 and only been with someone for three
months, tops and I just sit there,

the kids, high school romance all around and hearts and chocolate and balloons
and stuffed animals and they ask me what I'm doing for Valentine's day
and I say, the guy I liked just told me he's going out with someone else

So I come home and mix up some crystal light and ***** like four times
until i'm talking to myself in a Southern Accent and explaining to myself
why this hurts and my cat lies across my face and purrs so all I can hear
is a smooth soothing sound and I cry and cry

And I know, I'm not ready for the dating game.  Because if I was
I'd have someone up my sleeve too and I'd be comparing and contrasting
and all of that
but I don't
I just took a risk on a flirt and I knew I could get hurt

and all the empty desperation of my child self abandoned floods back
in and my friend says you don't want him, really

and it's true and I cry again and nothing makes sense

I read of my suffering, and the writing has depth, meaning
nuance imagination and now
it's just a smooth comfortable silken slide of living
I guess I have no eye for detail, no feeling for nuance
Living in a rip tide for so long, the fight
the struggle to stay afloat and not die with water
in my lungs brought out a technicolor world
that I can't feel, can't see now, can't get it to appear,
and every day things happen, but I can't feel them, think them
It's just smooth and easy and I'm used to rocks and sharpness and pain

Please forgive me, but it was so tempting, you see
And I know that doesn't excuse me
I looked them up again, my X and his catch
I found something I hadn't seen, a video they had made from the NY Times
I turned green, or maybe it was a shade of lime 
Of course I had to watch it, I'm in the bar, might as well order ***** and tip a dime
He seemed nervous, professing his 26 year love symbolized by a picture
Said he knew who he was now, mumbled other things a muddled lecture
This photo as a kind of insurance?  Always hidden from me
She was 41, feeling the pressure to combine for the world to see
He made a big rush at her, I guess that's fine
His love based on a brief event in high school 25 years ago, a moment in time
But no one cares what happened then, that's just too old
You're just a kid, your memories by now are covered in mold
She couldn't see through it, and they couldn't have ***
They skyped for hours a day, what would come next?
Just pining and dreaming, a 19th century romance
Waiting, hoping to meet to take the chance
But then her friends said "this is crazy, he's just mooching off of you"
As his father told my parents when they complained, he's a shlemiel through and through
That means a mooch, a user, a parasite
If you've got what he wants he'll be there overnight
So pressured and blinded by a simpletons idea of romance
(she edits dime novels for a living by candlelight by chance)
They met in a whirl in Switzerland
Of course that makes it better, being abroad makes him kin
And quickly he worked and they were engaged
And suddenly they were "an item," all the rage
In the Times video they walk through ***** New York snow,
and stop at a cupcake store and feed each other, you know
And it's all staged so perfectly but somehow doesn't ring true
All smiles, all closeness, but there's greyness, coldness in their hue
and as he speaks I feel like I'm watching a police video where a criminal lies
Says he didn't do it, and he was somewhere else besides
And I shouldn't of done it, shouldn't of googled them, I admit I'm bad
But even through the loss of my own dream with him, her situation looks kind of sad
So in my future, I'm sure I'll seek romance
But I'll take it easy, go slow and listen to my friends
For this man nearly destroyed me, brought me to my knees
And I can't ever go through that again, so other's advice I'll seek

We make grooves in our minds, I'm told
Our thoughts, the racing ones, that we go to
are like grooves, the ones we obsess about
and when we clear our minds we make new
connections, literally
new grooves and rivers and inlets and that's why it's so hard to break
a thought pattern and my groove

is a man, always and once I've done with one I am relieved and think
I will never do that again and then the going gets tough and
I am anxious and I suddenly start thinking about a new one
and I don't know him and or I don't like him and it's better
if he has a girlfriend or wife because I can think
oh, they have the perfect life and I am cold and outcast
looking in a perfection, out in the cold and

it's existential really, to ungroove this, to make
a new pathway I need to know, to make a groove that
says, no one is perfect and always happy
it doesn't exist in this world
and you are not the abandoned child looking in at
your parents happiness forever and ever

But it's so hard...my new one I don't even know...only in pictures
a kind of celebrity, of sorts, but I don't like things he's done and he's got
a wife who is on TV and I don't like her either since she's with him and she
knows what he's done, and is doing and she still married him
and they are not always perfectly happy
they are rich, and go to gatherings of the elite
but I've been to those and I hated them, was bored stiff
Couldn't breathe

But I am anxious--
A student next year will I be nearly all the time,
and it has been a long time since anything so freeing has happened to me or
frightening, because I've been used to a kind of hopeless drudgery,
but I will emerge with a new skill and live near the beach
and near one of my favorite places on Earth.
So what is there to be afraid of, really?  Only the grooves
the grooves that take me back to suffering
only in my mind

And I really do mean men.  And mostly white men.
I learned that at Columbia film school
In LA, at USC, all those male filmmakers were somewhat suspect
What they made, could not often be called "art" but even worse
they tended to extreme geekines
They wore ***** athletic shoes everywhere and spent long hours on sets
in t-shirts, wearing caps with the name of their film on them and not smelling particularly fresh
They were not particularly athletic in a city that sport "muscle beach."
But here, they were MEN.  They could hold their own in any test of masculinity
as art is a serious undertaking, and requires great powers of the intellect
And here, where most life is spent indoors, the men dressed well,
in proper leather shoes that had names, and followed the fashion of the bohemian moment
which was not considered bad, maybe because you need clothes so much there
You are always freezing or sweltering and sweating.  You freeze outside in winter
and you sweat when you come indoors.  In the summer you boil outside in hot
and air conditioned New York, like you are in purgatory, and then freeze again in the air conditioning
To have that artistic authority, no woman can come close
It isn't a woman's world, at least in the early nineties in New York, it wasn't
Such a dissapointment for me since I thought I could somehow slip through by sheer cleverness
It's like a black person hoping to be identified as white.  It can't be done.
There was a place for me, like no matter where I hid in a cinematography class
in the front, middle or back I always became the woman who is photographed
to demonstrate lighting
"You learn the most up here" said Beta Badka, in a thick Ukrainian accent as he set me on a stool
But that's not where I wanted to be
I longed to be taken seriously, telling stories about women, about girls
and having them be respected with that same cache
that came with stories of men

Your embrace, like being pressed against a
fridge door
Painful, but I couldn't rub the pain
in public, but endure it as I walked away
through the silent quad
Your goofy smile as I gave you
your birthday present last year
when there was that heat
And when I touched your heart like your mother once did
and you tried to hide, but couldn't resist
You are coming
Looming large
Coming yes, with your newest girlfriend
They come and go and come again, swirling around you
backs arched, hands splaying as they reveal their inner thoughts to your
rapt attention, cross their legs, uncross them, flip their estrogen hair,
your little subordinate girlfriends
What pleasures you could have if only...
You come to judge me, with your eyes and hers.  
Your eyes I used to watch, but now you avert most times
You must maintain your detachment and judge me and
converse about me with her, as you "mentor" her
Meld with her. It must be a palpable connection between your center
and hers. Teach her how to think like you, feel you, be a part of you
Let her accept you into her
And me, up there, trying to impress both of you
to keep my job
to save my apartment, my unpaid bills, my cats
my dented car, my anti-depressant pills, my life sans
trifles, but deep and thoroughly lived
I am a slave dancer, unclothed and unprotected, but skilled and
nothing can take that away from me, not even you
As you will not look at me, only at your little electronic pad and at her,
As she sees me perform for the first time
and she won't have any idea that I was once in her place
and you were not detached
And I can only hope, that through it all, my skill
will prevail
And you, now detached little man
That I mourn, will keep me at my job
And sad as I will be to watch you watch me
and feel the energy between you both, as I
an experimental animal under a scientists eye
As I am there, and she is next to you
I still hope you stay detached and
let me keep my job and
I will be free forever.

He wore a onesie with hearts a floating on pajama day
Hearts all over his **** and hearts all up and down the length
of his lean body and in the inseams of the onesie
and right near his package and the girls
were taking pictures with him, these under age girls who could
now see the entire length of his entire lean body and see it is just a stick
with another potential stick pointing out in the middle
and no one said anything, none of the bosses and his friend
had on pajama bottoms too small with hearts right there and
a big looped piece of fabric to hold it on his trim twenty something body
and the old guys, the bosses said nothing as they admired
the length of the hard bodies
and the girls look and I wonder if one day one will reach out and touch.
and i don't remember it being like that in my high school

Why I ever lamented
your advertisement
in the NY Times
Your sickly look, it's she you took
swept off her feet
I know how it feels
Found her again on the internet
while you were desperate
In Haifa, a million miles away from English without an accent
You hunted her down

A clown you are
She, editing dime novels by candlelight
manufacturing romance for the racks of Walmart
Next to the car mags and tattoo girls are those things
women read
gotta make a living somehow

So she can fill in the spaces between your attention
with her imagination, stoked daily from corporate romantication
She can live in her bubble world and see what she wants
eternally and think it's real

So she's better for you than me
because your love isn't real, never was, never will be
Both of you from the land of fake nobility
Prep schools and Ivies that lead to jobs
in sparkly NYC lobbies and decaf mochachinozeenos
with a side of 100 calorie pastry

Before dinner at the Italian restaurant
where you can show you are loved and love

And you, with your fakery
You shallowness, can collect your trust check
And work just a little, and blow the cold coals of her love once
in awhile to get the corporate machinations again in her head
to spin a fantasy romance

I'll look for it at Walmart.

Endless at times
after swimming,
I dry off and there are droplets appearing on my arms
and chest...have I been rained upon? Many times a day
I sit in a cool breeze and grass clippings attach themselves to my legs
like coconut shavings to frosting
Working here, my laptop for companionship
hot machine highlights the labour of this
don't want to do this work
sweat, worry, will I finish?
she said, Nothing is wrong with your life
you're just taking classes you don't like
I was dissapointed

To this mess, that has shown me
how awful I can be when I forget me
and let myself get pushed around
Did I say that?
The hatred, a boiling Spring, with a nuclear core
that won't die out, not for a million years
It sits in me, abrasive, I can be
Did I do that?
This place, unshapes me, like play doh
and I, mishapen, lash out with barbs
Barbed tongue
words so not calm, cool, collected, the proof
to myself of what they say
But I am not this
The persecuted, begins to persecute
to lose sanity and act strange and wander around shouting
outrageous insanity
can't find my center, the salvation
the sanity within, please
let me in and
let me stay

On on select part of an Israeli beach in Haifa
Army kids, boys and girls
Crowded in this one place
Cordoned off by Kadeema
Badmitton without the net
or soft little bungy thing
Two ping pong rackets and one
hard ball back and forth
Bat! Bat!
Two boys, in lines up and down
their beach, two rows deep at least
near the water's edge for traction
Walk through and a ball heads for your face
but never hits
they are that good
and you feel silly
for being scared
until a racket whacks near your ear
and your hair moves
with a current of air
Zillions of bat! Bats!
They never think to
stop for your benefit
that is not in their culture
as you are unscathed,
only fearful
A beach cluttered with boys and girls
sit on old towels close together
Ceaseless, lively chatter in the hot sun
Displaying to each other as the sound of kadeema
and the ocean waves slosh in and out
Girls relaxed *******, start to peak out
of their string bikinis
As boys look on, move closer
ever closer
and the *******, feeling safe, expose themselves more
to the Mediterranean sun

Behind my apartment complex
is a small creek
dry most of the year and filled
with trash
it gurgles this time of year with
brown foamy water
the wash of industrial civilization
at first the smell is foul, but now
is merely murky and there is no
smell and a pleasing sound of water

I look for signs of coziness around me
and I notice steam rising from the laundry
room that is visible in the cold
like a chimney puffing comfy smoke
into the rainy air

And I think of you and I'm afraid
I thought of you in Walmart
My life--this is the real thing
there are no romantic castles, only
a wet shopping cart in a crowded exploitive store
As I passed by the packaged vegetables
and stared at the racks and racks of ugly clothes
I thought, I am in control

The fear wells up inside of me
fear of HIM.  That him who squashed me
who took over my mind
I think of all the books I read, as people pass
by with very important shopping to do and
a homeless man makes a decision about which milk to buy
and he smells horrible, like decay and wetness
and people resent him and I wish
there were no homeless people
I wish there was more caring and less brutality in our world.

The key is not to care about HIM until you know who he is
The key is to keep your distanced mind in judgement
And I must remember this key because I swear
no one will ever hurt me that much again.

I am a hidden creek, a pristine one, because I would
never hurt the natural world as we have
He cannot see it, or any other he, until
I know exactly who he is.

I found him on a beach in Haifa
next to a road, covered in tar
Left there to die,
by someone who didn't care
he has brought so much joy, this life with him I share

Most breeze through the Boardwalk Big Dipper Bling
Ocean Street Sleeze, and a walk on Cowell Beach and say
I've seen it all, that's Santa Cruz, as they cruise off on highway 1
or crash into the barriers or 17 but that's not all, at all
I love Santa Cruz on a bright sunny day in May as I
gorge on the Indian vegetarian buffet, available all day, by the way
And check out the O'Niel sidewalk sale, and then past the sweaty crowds in front
of the Cineplex and the sign in the window display at Camouflage that reminds:
May is National ******* Month, are you doing your part?
and at Pergolesi a homemade sign says "friends don't let friends drink Starbucks"
and there are two art house cinemas within 200 yards of each other
and there are lesbians holding hands and homeless people breathing the fresh air
with their shelter pets and I feel free
like anything can happen here, even me

In Hebrew you say that
you talk "in" the phone, not "on" the phone
prepositions aren't international

I worked with Ari and Zohar at the cat shelter
in the afternoon shift
Ari lost his job at the cement plant
after twenty years
There are no trees so cement makes everything
cement is your house, your floor
your city
Now he worked for minimum wage
Thirteen sheckels an hour for a few hours
in the afternoon

Zohar was a law student
with a passion for animals
"they must all be Americans," my American friend sniffed
when I told her of this group
dedicated to the welfare of Haifa's cats
No one was American but me

We worked near the Kryote on the road to Tel Aviv, the Haifa
Soccer team sped past our dilapidated
caravans on a dirt road to their practice field
I always worried they would squish a kitten

Near a boarding school for agriculture
and a cell phone tower spewing out cancerous radar
I loved working there

I cleaned, then washed at least 25 cat boxes
with a hose with no hot water hooked up to an old bathtub
outside.
Palm leaves strung up
for shade above me
gave some medications
the afternoon shift
at four, we politely sat down to instant coffee
(water boiled in an electric ***, a koom koom
the only way to make it warm here)
and chocolate
and cigarettes
Always cigarettes

I didn't know where my husband was
one morning, he had taken the car
so I couldn't keep going to this place or anywhere else
I think he was living with his new girlfriend
a former student of his, in Hadar
Hadar means beautiful
It was the cheapest place to live in Haifa

I took the bus, and if I had the money
a second

If no money for a second, I'd walk past the military base then
through the banana groves
taking my first shaky steps to independence
wind through the leaves so soothing
Lost in giant waving leaves
they seemed to embrace me
wave to me, cheer me on
like bystanders at a marathon.
Plants living their silent lives so peacefully,
apart from the hot struggles of humans,
through dirt roads and finally at the shelter
where kitties awaited me.
Some of them were mine
he dumped there
I wanted to live here
to me this was now home

Sometimes Ari gave me a ride
I'd walk an hour, wait at a bus station
Sometimes a dead cat nearby on the street
hit by a car, common and unnoticed
Smoking now, like everyone else
cigarette butts around every bus shelter
trying to say goodbye to this place
that for all my poverty
my desperation, was lighter now
that he was gone


Grieving, my psyche spinning,
Trying to handle all the contradictory feelings
Loss and relief,
Grief and freedom,
Respect and love for this place
now that he was gone
Surprised by this feeling
Fear of the great unknown
waiting for me, a town
I escaped from eighteen years before
would soon be my new home
on the other side of the planet
I was in nowhere

To watch the brute force
that takes the place of reason and communication
Wars have titles, but they are the worst things on Earth
How is it that violence comes to us over and over
like an alcoholic, thinks, this one last drink
then, I will never have another
This will be the war to end all war
some really thought it

I have lived in the Holy Land
I have felt the sun of history on my face
The sands that so many have sought out have been in my path
And with all that wisdom collected
through the human ages--isn't it there
in a place of such value?

I remember, an Israeli soldier or two
killed, bodies dragged around
brutal ugly deaths celebrated by the mob
and out of the sky came a power that
destroyed the building where the murders took place

And people celebrated, as if this
would end the bloodshed
This power, this explosion would
bring peace

Thousands of bombs later, gallons of blood spilled
even some I saw with my own eyes
body meat on the street and we still
don't know that the most powerful force
we have is our brains and the ability to communicate
and come to the table to talk and fight the battle as a debate
and search for answers in our voices
and why do we give up this power over and over
and return to brutality that is just a mobius strip to more?
If we are really so brave, why can't we come to the table
two opposing forces, and wage a battle of words
to work these things out
Why is this never the priority?

I've been hiking in the hills for two straight days
It's beautiful out, there is no haze
A ten minute drive from my place
And I'm in a different world, like outer space

By outer space I mean outside
And it takes me for a nice ride
There's nothing to me as beautiful as nature
It relaxes me, maybe someday I'll hike a glacier

I've passed by a marsh and heard a bullfrog's song
I've seen a coyote whose tail wasn't long
I've seen wild turkeys in the mist
And back at work, it's this I'll miss
The bluebirds flitting here and there
Red wing blackbirds on a fence without a care
And always the red tailed hawks circling above
It's their wildness that I love


I remember when I lived in New York City
"We Got Park" was the slogan, and Central Park is pretty
But it's tamed and broken, not at all wild
And I wasn't happy, I liked it, but the feeling was mild

Once I rented a horse and rode through the park
And then when we hit a certain mark
I walked the horse right across a baseball field
You're not supposed to do that, I think the horse thought it was weird

Another time I went riding in the rain
I galloped the horse, can't remember his name
We galloped along Madison Avenue
Taxis going the other direction, we had attitude
And then my hand slipped through the wet reins
And I nearly fell off, and there was a little panic, but hey
I grabbed the horse right by the bit
And then, we finally stopped, but I dropped my whip
And some passers by picked it up and offered it to me
But I said no--really that's the last thing I'd need

And now I'm back on the West Coast side
California, it fits my stride
The wild things are much closer here
And these are the things I hold dear

I want to look at it, pose with it
take pictures as I caress it and aim, wearing very little
Feeling very ****, especially if it wasn't loaded
It would bring me such excitement,
but ultimately, I'd get bored, and there it would lie
amidst all the other junk that once got me high

"She is such an excellent student in English,
and I'd ask her teachers why her grades were low
and they'd say she wouldn't turn anything in.  And
it was true, she'd say this isn't ready yet, it's not perfect."
Perfectionism.  That's it.  I don't have it, God knows
but after 500 years of therapy I can look any psychological ailment
in the face...now she's dropped out of college and
he is not happy, my former boss,
"she says it's a 'gap' year" like the British Royal Family takes after
prep school, to be sent to rope cows in the British Empire,
Be an Australian cowboy and post to the trot like a proper Englishman
He's right, it's not a gap year.  
He speaks so quietly, he has judged me so harshly
pathologized me, behaved as if he is perfect and I am nothing
this is quite a large crack in the perfect facade
and I'm still here wondering
so I do what the courageous do and I google perfectionism and
before long I gather details of a childhood spent trying to have accomplishments
so your parents will notice you, a childhood where your feelings aren't important
an emotionally impovershed childhood lacking mirroring, positive mirroring because
the parents were to wrapped up in other things or they didn't really care and suddenly
I understand why this boss of mine would dig into my very soul
because he is so much like my parents
and yet, so afraid, because if I can google this,
then so can he, so why doesn't he when he's the one
with the degree in psychology, so why am I the one
trying to figure out his daughter's problems
and I know the answer
I want to solve mine
Is it the Jew in me?  That kind of willingness to look into that vast
horrid place of self hatred and take a flashlight even and look
at the ****** mess of a psyche and try to attend to the wounds
to heal, the be willing to walk in, squishy entrails cut off
and ****** under my feet, to try to sew them back together
to get the whole system working again.
I want to e-mail her the articles I read about her
I want to heal her, I want him to read this and know
that he is known and he was not such a good father
and she needs help
but no.  it is only me I hope to understand
as I realize I am in the cave, the immensity of my own psyche
trying to understand it, fix it, yet again

Early on a foggy morning
Each workday, past year and a half
My eyes wander to your lights
Your office, are you there?
Are you at your laptop
Sitting in your over sized chair
eyes glued to the screen

How I wanted to know you
To befriend you
How I wanted to look to those lights with warmth and trust
To feel your presence as protection

Only now I'm afraid
I can't trust you over most things
Your eyes have flashed at me in anger
as I disintegrate into something you can't manage
Pure emotion and sadness
Frustration at lies

Something in me dies now
When I see those lights now and remember that hope
"All beginnings are beautiful" I know the saying
And this is not the beginning, and may be the end

How I yearned to find the key
To friendship and soothingly
we'd chat and feel so good
And now I'm frightened. I don't feel good

You said things would be fine, but they aren't
Can I dig my way out of this hole?

I want to run away
I hate this place, don't want to stay

"You incite it" she said
Me?  The quivering victim
pain radiating out of severed nerve endings
he/she said it, and he/she targets me
"You think it means something"
Of course it does...after all...but wait
"She's not your mother. He's not your mother."
Mother, destroyed me. Can't criticize her.  Hurts her too much.
She lashes out.  I fall.  I must disintegrate into a writhing mass
Crying, water evaporating out of my eyes to drain the life from me
Destroyed, she stands over me, gives me a hand up.  All is good.
It doesn't mean anything.  It's just a crazy person.  I react like
something has been found out
That this craziness has merit to it and should be considered instead of just
let pass like a ball aimed at me that misses it's intended target.
Not worth the effort

A respite
Brush the charred remains
off, clear the soot out from my eyes
to get a clear view
A vacation, one week to strengthen the knowing
side of me
How I feel lighter, knowing this will be a time free
of attacks

There is so much I don't know
Thinking I know, drives me in a circle of pain
One week, to build those internal muscles
so when the attack comes again
Perhaps, I will be stronger

I could think of many swear words to express my
profound distress at the need to work again
Such a normal thing to have to do and yet
I turn against me
I'd rather be doing other things,
Wouldn't we all?
Your words still wound me and I'm supposed to forget them
What a tough time this is
All my flaws suddenly turn technicolor
They're all I see, all my mother would see
You have taken her place and I want you to love me
What a joke. Really when I can walk on water she will love me.
And so will you.  But those moments that filled me with rapture
I had your positive attention, and I was was floating.
It was an illusion.  I was the one forgiving my flaws
I was the one suddenly appreciating me
I was the one feeling useful and worthy
You were just standing there, giving me a flash
of your time and no more because you are basically stingy
So today, I felt like such a loser but I asked a cute swim coach
about the Master's work-outs and I could join
Me who only swims because of a lifetime of bad knees
But there are men of all ages thrashing about in the pool
Walking out for the world to see in the Speedos
And I look up for a breath of a breastroke and I see what lies underneath the lycra
So, honestly, it would be a social, healthy, motivating kind of thing
If I am worthy of it, if I can forgive my out of shapeness and lack of technique
The men, bare chested, some with hair, some not, all nearly naked
swimming back and forth and then chattering about their man lives
One more piece of motivation

All I have are memories and curiousities
which I try to satisfy hunting around the internet
and finding very little except what I already know and
was it a dream? NO a thousand times no
How do I KNOW?
My poems are the breadcrumbs to my dark memories of the place
A place without honesty a place where I struggled to find the appropriate
illusion or delusion or denial that seemed to work for those successful here
but could not stand it, bear it, do it
and some could, but it wasn't good for them either
"this program is working" "we are at the cutting edge of education"
"our leaders are smart" and I couldn't do it,
couldn't activate that switch which is so close to those switches I struggled so hard to turn off
"my family is happy" "if I am unhappy at home it is all my fault"
and to turn them back on, for they are all connected somehow, would be a kind of death
and I'm not adept enough, compartmentalized enough
not yet. I made many mistakes there,
leaning on the unstable which caused him pain
trying to get comfort from a stone, which dislodged him
but it's over now and today I have a scholarship and I have little notes on my work:
"nice job," "very thoughtful response" and I am that same person I was only a few weeks ago
that same person who wasn't a "good fit" who didn't get it,
who was causing problems with her quick mind and rebellious thoughts
but now its over and all the people I offended have moved on
and the dagger stuck in my belly has been removed and the bleeding
has stopped, and healing has begun
and someday I will make peace with all this

What are you thinking?
What are you made of?
You brush against me, it's like steel
what is it, to live in a body made of granite?
Your expression so down
In the afternoon, come to think of it
in the morning, too
Why? You tell me nothing
The power, you must be a blank to me
I see you eye so many women
Their ******* make you hot, I see in a meeting
Their long hair, like your daughters
When they hold it up, and sway towards you
As they pontificate, arching their backs
in your direction
Showing you their feminine articles on their chests
As your eyes zoom in
You are wicked, little man
You can't hide it. Never learned.
Mouth moves, like a baby wanting a meal
You are aging
Painting your "girls" rooms
While your wife wrings her hands
The girls have grown and don't come home
Will they come if you spackle?
What drives you?  
Little man, with power over me
I imagine, myself covered in oil
Doing a dance before you
Seeing what it's like to be naked for your
emptiness
Oh, power, that I don't have
Oh, little man, that is what I want
That power, not what lies behind your eyes

A pair of flip flops
are delivered into his lair
also known as my apartment
they have been coated with some dust
from alongside a lake, where wild things roam
then washed in the lake,
just for his enjoyment
and he tears into them, kicking and biting
in the morning, they are presented to me
in a new style: the corrugated look
a bug he's found on the patio and killed
is brought in and he sets it down in the middle of the living room
freshly vacumed rug shows it off well
then back to more stylizing
Last year's Walmart's purple flip flops
are now objects d'art
and now eating the expensive hypo-allergenic food
meant for the old cat, his foster father/mother
who used to chew off his whiskers when he was a kitten
and then, time for nap

There, when I feel my mind flooded with all this honesty
and like asking questions as we stare at data and can only see
details not the big picture and I think about things like why is it
that our school is below the state average in testing but it is so expensive it's upkeep
can't be afforded and we spend so much money on technology
but it's still below the state average and I know
you've told me that teachers moving around 3-4 times a day to different classes
prevents ownership by them but you haven't told me why this helps student learning
and now I hear admin says well in Japan the students just sit there and the teachers move
Japan?
And when I went to apply to the SPED program I told the professor I taught 70 kids in a double wide classroom and I had a microphone she looked at me like I was crazy
and so does everyone else I tell
But really, getting back to the first item, we spend so much money on technology but
the students score lower than the state average which is abysmal
It's like a fog has lifted and I never thought these things before

As we are assaulted
by words or deeds
or lies or misinformation

Fight back, not accepting
the undeserved damnation
of another
no matter how powerful

Fight back
as the naked girl waiting in line
to die in front of the **** gas chamber
was asked by an officer if she was a dancer

So she danced towards him
Perfect movements
Grabbed his gun
And shot him

And in that moment
Before her own quick
death which came from
another ****'s gun
she reclaimed herself

Fight back
For even if we lose
the external battle
We do not lose
the strength that lies inside

Although I'm sure he was popular with the girls
He descended from the "people of the book"
So likely he sported the Semitic look

You may have heard differently on on Fox News
But I'm sure that this is the truth
And here's another interesting fact
Martin Luther King Jr. was definitely black

Four messages on my phone, his is the last
"You're more difficult to get a hold of than I am, see you at work."
Rejection assumed, blow her off, see her at the copy machine
I call, already feeling like I'm invading his space, since he's said
see you at work and that's a week away
But he answers and it turns out he is injured from mud football
Sitting there, in pain, wondering if he's bleeding internally
An Emergency room down the street.  He'll tough it out.
My X.  Rugby. He scored and exploded a part of his spine in his neck
but we went to three bars that night and he refused to go to the ER
which was just down the street.
I woke up alone, he came back floating on meds, an X-ray in tow, asking for warm things
I found an electric neck wrap, then
he was plastered onto the floor
fast asleep, neck wrap on high, the cord stretched taught across the living room.
Never fully recovered.  His muscular arms, the right one, withered away.
One day I gasped in internal horror as I saw it, smooth, looking more like mine
extending out from the now loose fabric ring of a sleeve of a polo shirt
His left arm now the muscular one, filling out the shirt on the other side
It was sickly, and unattractive, and I lost some faith him that moment, and felt guilty
and his pain, it never fully left him
When we divorced he blamed me for not stopping him
from playing Rugby that day.
We had to divorce, or I was going to end up like his right arm
I tell this new one--go to the ER.
So he decides to.  Why does he need a woman to tell
him to make sure he is not bleeding internally?
"it hurts, it usually doesn't" stating the obvious
"I'll take some magazines" he says, now showing a bit of initiative
Sure, I think,  make sure to take some ****, to pass the time and take away the pain
And that's all there is, no time for conversation
Except when I talk he likes it, but then has to go real quick
How many men have died without a woman to tell them to get help?
Same old...how to just let it go
How to not get wrapped up?
How not to care, but just eye him
as an object d'art, noticing his features
a reporter, taking in his personality
But resisting the urge to dive in
Leave it hazy, just walk away
it's not worth it, at least not yet

I ignore you
You are upset
Snap at me
so I butter you up
Chocolate
"You don't have to do that," you say
mouth watering
I turn to get your treat
Rush down the hall
Feel your eyes
All over me
In all my curvy places
The touch so real

She sends pictures of a very happy self
Her two kids in Miami and of course, herself
She loves Cuban food, the warm weather, the wine
In fact, everything looks quite fine

It's nice to see her happy right now
She lives in rainy Oregon, so why not go South?

She was the Homecoming Queen, it was quite a big deal
For us, just kids in high school I stood on the field

Standing in a band formation, I was holding a piccolo
I watched her be "crowned" and "her life will be perfect," this I know

I was very wise at seventeen
If I could handle what I was presented with, I thought I was keen
I really had no idea what it's like to be alone in life
I got educated, worked hard, even became a wife

But I always expected a rocky road
And I got it--some things did just plain explode
But what of it? That's just me
But my perfect friend, it is different for her, you'll see

So now where is the father of her beautiful kids?
Not there with his family, you can be sure of this
He didn't want to be with her anymore
So, he just left, didn't want to work it out, just said "no more"

And if it could happen to her, is anyone else safe?
I guess the answer is no, and I guess I'm figuring it out pretty late
I had more in common with the homecoming queen than I thought
Now I give her encouragement and kind words, to help her through this lot

So many stories of men on the run
To really think about this, no this isn't fun
I was so naive as a girl
I thought the love of a man was lasting, like a pearl.

A student again, how cute it is and really I feel free
the thoughts, of life, and planning and how things could be
not tied down to a job and obsessing about my boss did this and that
and what does it mean for me now and why and
today I had a wasted day but that is normal

Because life is full of wasted moments, and
the most tragic moments are those we don't feel
The painful part isn't that we were at the laundromat
and put our stuff down to study and highlight in different colors
and a woman put her family there on top of our stuff with McDonald's for five even
though there were only three, and that there was nothing good at the Goodwill
Even the Rainbow colored sweater from Lane Bryant, which was way too big
and that the laundry from a month took hours and yes, we really do have that many socks

What is wasted are those moments folding the pile of shirts where we are not there
we are somewhere lost in mourning over a lost love and thinking,
he loved me more than he loves her, I just know.
Because all we have at that moment is this pile of a zillion articles of clothing
most of which looks like it could be hanging at the Goodwil and
a flimsy plastic chair and two times the amount of highlighters we needed because they were half price and we are hungry, but the snack machine is turned off and you can
only look at the cookies and hot cheetohs
and yearn for them and imagine the flakey tenderness of the vanilla wafer
crumble gentley into your mouth, and watch your creepy
neighbors walk into the strip mall listening to a song on a phone
like it's a boom box
and this is your moment to feel and live

it says something about them not you
contextualize...
be in the moment, breathe
you have to date a lot

ok, but ****, it hurts and ***** and I don't need this right now when
I'm scared and things are changing and so much depends on that interview
or does it and if you're in a frying pan, and jump out only into flames you are still not
safe
Own that reality as you own your own words and experience and look at that person
who rejected you and think: how much do I really like him and
stick with that, because chances are, it's not as much as you think
it's more about that primordial childhood abyss inside where love and warmth and fuzziness should have been but weren't but you are not that child anymore
and knowing that will save you.

Notice the bad thoughts
and watch them pass away
don't try to push
fighting them makes you
hold on tighter
only notice, gently
and let them float by like a fallen
leaf in a stream
a cloud on a windy day
an abandoned toy in a back yard pool

Do not cross
the weathered plastic, still yellow, faded blows in the wind
the unsolved, cold case file
there lies, me
"we decided a long time ago," says the detective
"it was pointless to continue.  this will never be solved."
so we put the evidence away in a cardboard box with a label in sharpie and
little plastic bags full of samples of entrails and remnants of a life she once had
and buried the body
but she was still alive
and the box was taken deep down into a sub basement 17 floors from the surface
and filed and there it sits, gathering now a thick layer of dust, unmoved
the cardboard becomes fragile and the evidence dessicates and the body
remains buried, hidden and
yet the victim is still alive and apparently normal
Apparently, but not really, some kind of cold dead inside ***** snatching
a heart stolen and sold on the black market by someone she trusted
but she still moves, walks, lives

Little black dots on the hillside
All fuzzy and free

I come across some, and they look at me
Black eyes questioning, am I a friend or a foe?
So gentle, so simple, never very bold

I know that they will all come to a bitter end
The process has been started and I tend
to notice these things, poor animals, so used
Simply products to us, no one is enthused
about taking better care of them
Most just never think
But watching them now puts me on the brink

They've been branded, ears cut, and even crueler snips
No anesthetic, and when they're gone, they won't be missed

Others will appear in the green grass fields
A never ending supply
Why isn't animal life held dear?

Later at the store, I see them again
Neatly stacked in packages, frozen and then
I know there is no possible way
I cannot be a vegetarian today

At least you have a shred of a conscience, but you don't know what you've become.
You think you are my friend.  
When do we go out?  
It's too late for the drink you suddenly asked me about.
People may lie, but feelings never lie still, and when they can't be expressed
people move: eyes twitch, faster, quicker, chasing someone down who has no business knowing
anything about this
Your collaborator doesn't feel guilty, though.  
He's only afraid of being caught, ensnared
Really, he should have thought about it first
No one is supposed to be told when you are fired, so you are not supposed to
arrange for the new guy to come in and check out his new digs when you are being fired
when you are in the hell room, with the devil men, the stupid little vicious savages,
who can't make eye contact with me as they wrinkle their nose like an elephant skin and say
"it's not a good fit."  I laugh now.  
Not a good fit.  I'm sure, because they're all too small.
And I'd never let them try to fit themselves into me anyway.
Pond **** is not a good lover, or even a slimey frog.
Alas, the damsel, she doesn't want to pay for her sins so the energy
the unexpressed emotion, makes her scurry
the little princess, who has done the nasty deeds, scurries
Around and around, making herself look silly
and guilty, so guilty.

Why do we remember some moments like a photograph
and others only forgotten or through a haze
Santa Cruz High School theater we were called in to get
our PSAT scores, since there was no internet and it was only paper
and I didn't know what the PSAT was or anything and the counselor said
this is really not a prediction of your life you are not a loser if you score low
and went on and on and I got mine and opened it and I was in the 96th percentile
in language and I couldn't believe it so I called my mother on the school payphone
I can even remember the wire connecting the phone to the box and she was so
blase--not higher? Oh, and that's compared to kids in the expensive prep schools.
and I realized that she knew there were expensive prep schools and I wasn't at one
but later, I opened the gate to my flute teacher's driveway and it was full of
splinters and I remember this so clearly as I touched the gate and thought
I am in the 96th percentile despite not going to those expensive prep schools
and I felt like I was smart and capable and I could really escape my parents
and figure things out

I have a dream of a house full of cats and more outside
there will be plenty of black ones and lots of kittens and all will be street cats
given a new chance at life.  And there will be adoptions and trap, neuter, return for the ferels
and a low cost spay and neuter clinic close by to everyone in need and I will be
surrounded by cats, little beautiful creatures living out there lives near me
and there will be a cat's house in Haifa, and children and their families will
comes and learn about these animals and how to take care of them and not abuse
and surrounded by cats and infused with education, people will learn to be
what they can be, gentle, good and kind to the voiceless little survivors

Hopping along in six inch heels, angling toward a mirror
A little Asian woman, must have weighed six ounces, coming near
Followed by a white guy, who held a **** party dress
His eyes were all on her in those shoes, and she spoke little English
I saw her distress, and the power this man seemed to have
And I could only think of one thing, ease her imbalance, make her a little glad
"Comfy?" I asked as she struggled and hopped in front of me
She mumbled and shook her head, but then there was that big "he"
"Looks to me like he likes those shoes more than you,"
The untinted greys in my hair flashing,
I could see she was doing whatever he wanted, afraid, wanting to look attractive
I see girls trying to walk around downtown in shoes eighty miles high
but at least they speak English and they're not potential purchase brides.
"Can you dance in those shoes?" he asked  and she shook and mumbled no
So he backed down, and off did those shoes go
Later I saw him buying her dress and a little bag
While she looked at Hello Kitty watches behind the ***** case of glass
He didn't buy her mile high shoes, and I breathed a sigh of relief
She may be in a precarious situation, but at least she'll have her feet.

I shoulda known going out of my league
I thought this would be nice, if only it's easy
but it sure aint' at all and I'm really in the fall
flat on the cement, body parts evident, splattered all over the place
even some in my own face, body meat spray, just like Israel on a day
of a suicide bomb
spent lunch time in a sob
why I am such a dumb one?
Why do I fall for such pond ****
ok, maybe he's a diamond
to someone I can't find um
but my darling he's out with someone else right now
and I'm on the shelf
four vodkas to my name
and it's such a shame
can't keep torturing myself.
should have not fallen at all
but I did, and it's true, this love
ain't gonna do, cuz as soon as I was out of sight
he ran with all his might
into another's arms
and that's really ok
because come what may
only I'm not ready for this
not playing this dating game,
not waiting for a kiss
and that's all there is
just me, vulnerable and amiss
and I thought, he's not like me
he's playing the field
and of course I was right
and now I'm out of my league
lonely
in the night
but that's gotta be the way it is.

cuz that's who I is
right now
just still a kind of pudding
of a loving human being
easily squashed and
the pain is too much
so that's how it goes
just me and the ***** and forgeting
everything that goes

Something I'm only learning now
and it's empowering how
what you think stay inside your head
and if it's not said
you can just think what you want
and no one can taunt
because it's private

I can sit in a stultifying meeting
think these people are fools and should be leaving
their jobs to some one else
Because their inept and fascinated only by themselves
and I don't like them much
but I can think that and they can't touch
me at all
and that's power, finally I'm finding this all

I see them all the time, walking entwined
oh, there are problems i see too but there is this glue
sticking them together a rubber band connected, sometimes snaps
sometimes doesn't last
but for me it is ruined, i still can't answer the question you asked me ten years ago
in Haifa Israel at Ha Bank cafe: what would you do if this ended
your cold hand and heart and I said I would be a nun meaning
deadened feelings and no connection again because I trusted you
and I should never of but I believed in you
and never should of and I can't open up again I am not over it
will never heal this fresh wound from a decade ago
never will the raw bleeding stop and I can't
I can't to that again, that opening and hoping and stupid dreaming
that ends in betrayal and being cast off like garbage
with a wedding dress sold to a filthy store in the armpit of the city by you
and my china, some kind of symbol of hope and love to be
some kind of promise of married happiness and fidelity
you sold that too the day I left
you destroyed me
so love is for other people, not the road **** that is my heart
baking in the sun and unrecognizable flattened into oblivion

I didn't make it through the movie "On the Road"
It didn't translate well to film, or maybe it's me
worry grips me and I cut my clonozapan carefully into fourths
and take one fourth and smash my finger into the dust and lick it off
I value it more than their benzodrine
The moment I awaken, the fear grips me, and then what?
One pill is consumed every few hours in the morning and early afternoon
leaving the next, for the panic of the evening
how will it end.  I don't want to go back. I am told not to think of it anymore
there is nothing more to be learned and it is only like rubbing my wrist
against a razor, trying to get through those tendons to reveal the pulsing red
their faces, my bosses, with their pasted on smiles, Stepford wives every one of them
the male, the female and everything in between
focus on the students, they will lose a good teacher soon
I am sad for that, yes and buried down in some black hole of my consciousness I know it is true.  I am that good teacher for
the girl who must move again this year, like last year and walks home
to the poor neighborhod where she lives and hears gunshots every night
My intervention and pleading for her teacher
to please reach out to her, because she is failing, and is afraid of you
even if you don't believe in gunshots or her cousin shot and dieing in front of her
and yes having mercy is one of my strengths, as my pancreatic cat rests on his catnip toy
and I care about those kids
not the stupid school
and even if I've put myself on the line, I am no phony Stepford wife
and if their reality, those kids reality is ugly and we know about it, we must help
even if it makes my bosses uncomfortable and squirm in their eggshell world of middle
class comfort.   I don't care anymore.
The kids are what matter, helping them with whatever time is left.

A few weeks ago, I could feel
Now there's no time
My grief is just a problem to be flicked away
like fuzz on a clean work table
out of place

Who cares about your humanity at work?
Work as an end in itself
As proof of being
When I slow it down I see strange things
Confusion that is never clarified
Wanderers through the daylight responding
to fantasies
Take a moment and breathe
Feel that you already are

There are many things to do
Not much time to be
How did it get this way?
Facetime Facebook happy meetings
feigning enthusiasm for strangers who
are only curiousities
who I don't know and yet spend hours a day with

How did we get this way?
We all have our lives, tucked away, unimportant
As we plow through what is thought of as worthwhile

And I feel like a hamster on a treadmill
Running ever faster
Returning again and again for more
of nowhere

Have you seen _?
She asks early in the morning when I'm tired and upset
have music blasting through my ear drums so I can stand to exist in this place
On our break, she re-appears, to deliver a package, some materials to help you
I am with you, still, we are work aquaintances, and I see you already have a lover here
A former baseball mom who has remodeled herself, at her new job
pretending husband and children don't exist as she seeks you out, hair done perfectly
dressed to accencuate the ******* and behind, sits so close, has promoted you in her department
to the position of soul mate

And when I flirted a little with you about going together to a fundraiser
you resisted, and now I know why, because you already have a date
and now I know why she tried to be assigned to our work group
when she is really in another because you are there, and you are her light
and my former married flame saw this,
and after the meeting, he ran, as if stung by a bee
to his new work flame, by her side
not alone, and I've finally forsaken him
and he may fire me, or not, but the ring on his finger still isn't there
for her to see, and she needs him, for her own career rehabilitation

Just watch, I am told.  Just watch since you are really not my type and
that is what discerning women do, who don't get swept off their feet by
posssessive and abusive men...and I won't go there again even though
I was defenseless then...given my background and insecurities
but stronger now and men near us nibble juicy meat off ribs
and talk about them, as we sit together, ****** tension still a bit there
even though it's fairly casual "It's so tender and moist, so soft, tender, but a good chew"
and I can't help but smile thinking that these heterosexual men are describing what
they most love, and at then end there is only a hard bone left
which should be of interest to me, except that is not enough since
there is little feeling in me to receive its pleasures, and that is just a compromise of nature

And I tell you I adore you, which is a complete tongue in cheek exxageration
but to get through your thick skin it is a plea for you to stop teasing and judging me
and let us just be friends who are nice to each other
and wander away

Feeling persecuted, my Achilles heel breaks open
And I'm flooded with emotion
I feel as if I've been sliced open
And healing this will take more than potion

When I was a child, at the hands of my mother
She took the swipes that lead to this feeling
She was the first to persecute
To make the pain lasting
To dig deeper and deeper, jamming like a brute
As I squirmed and begged for mercy
Said I was sorry a million times for nothing

And today when it feels the same
Back comes all that pain
A wellspring
My blood drains out
And I'm in a pool of emotion
and can't get out

Arriving at work and fearing the day
My inner world destroyed and neglected
I would walk, and look for my guiding light
If you were there, the lights would be on
and I could see that long thin greenish light
from hundreds of feet away and it would be like
the lighthouse in the storm
and I would warm my tattered mind in it
know that I would see you

And it was always a disappointment
You don't care about me, only yourself, your job, your family
I am noticed for what I can do to help you with these things
Or for a brief ****** moment as you glance and flirt
Like a tasty little high

Today I walk, my eyes averted from your office
trying to soothe my shattered inner world
and take care of it like a wounded child
and build my own warmth
my own fire within
to nurture and sustain me.

What kills comes
Not
from the outside
but
From within