Like a dropped call
The line went dead
A bridge washed away
I stand on the broken piece
See you on the other side
No connection

I can see through that like a transparency
running, running from the truth of who you are
made by what you do
it must hurt to do someone ***** like you
do
and I always think, they feel nothing, these flyers in the night
bully me, suspect me and think they're clear, see
through them all I do,
the one whose suspects you always plots against us always
and he's only thinking you're playing his game, because its all he knows
and you, who don't have three minutes to look at my video but have hours
to do dumb things a lifetime really, it's not the three minutes, it's to look
at me, and to see, you done me wrong
so run, men, run, but like the cat running across the yard
away from the duct tape stuck to her fur
you are running from something inside yourself
and this I know, this I know

Everyone wrote back today
Except for you
Serious answers to silly questions
unimportant information taken to heart
The mundane and the banal, back and forth

How quickly the electronic mail appears
out of thin air when it doesn't matter to me

A response from you would cause my heart to pound
Are you waiting for my second plea?
More charming than the last
Coy and more serious with little clues about the answer I want
An explanation couched as a question
so you know what to say

The afternoon turns to the adrenaline sapping heat
I've no energy for this anymore
Your answer to my question must be given up
I must look into the sky and watch the clouds pass by
and hope the answer floats into my head
It will come to me, and you will not be important anymore.

Shopping in discount stores
living the unglamorous life, that's me
It's not strife
but rife, with challenge and epiphany
telling me what I want to be
no matter what I see in me now
He talks to me like he's shopping for me
comparing me to these other females
must be making a lot of e-mails
I love your voice, I like your hair, great body
does he even care I feel like a product on the shelf
is he talking to me or somebody else and now
I'm in full blown obsession, no connection but Facebook
messenger tells about his session
and it wasn't with me, you see
What to do, I don't know, he cast the hook,
I wouldn't go just can't know what right
but this feels wrong when I got home
I opened the bomb, the wine and took a big slug
worked better than his cyber hug and
promises of massages
check my phone a million times a day
I'm as crazy as yesterday
It just lies dormant in the night
I can't fight
I check the phone a million times
Oh God, here it comes again
I don't remember when I was so confused
Should I have taken is invitation to go on that impromptu vacation?
Up with his family, how awkward can that be, what to do
I'd be ballin' baby. I can't afford it. I just have to ignore it
and turn off, turn down that voice in my head
that said: you must have him now
you can't survive on your own
you must belong to someone
but I'm just fine with no one

Many years ago
I'd watch TV shows
then there'd come the ads
and I'd be a little mad
and women cooked and cleaned
and used a little Visine
And took care of the kids
And men did their important work
And also had their play
so when I look today
I'd think 30 years, it may
have changed some things
But it's still the same it seems

So why do I follow
check my phone a thousand times a day
and wallow
in the pain of rejection
that's really for my own protection
don't like him much
we haven't even touched
If I pursue
it's what I do
Habit and addiction
Looking for that love connection
for that hurt little girl
who wanted to hurl
herself into the sea
because her mother abandoned me

not so beautiful a life
normal on the outside
filled with internal strife
the day you said you loved me
My heart opened up to see
the day we parted
i felt tossed into the sea

the unfamiliar Atlantic
so way far from shore
an open heart is bleeding
don't need it anymore

So I closed my heart forever
sealed it up with a stitch
covered it with a zipper
threw it in a ditch
and I've been living ever since
in a fine kind of life
but now I want my heart to open
to peak out, risk being broken

even for a moment
the fear comes howling back
will I drown in the cold, dark ways
or now do I have a knack
for balance and resignation
to the fact that nothing lasts forever
we just go from station to station
on a train ride with no destination

You see me, but won't look at me
Hurry past, important things to do
Return, spend a long time
doing nothing but being very busy about it
beating a circle around me
with your feet

I see the pain
Brow furrowed
Adrenalized jerky motions
of a man over-burdened, behind schedule
carrying a heavy load
making a point to ignore me
Let me help you
You are angry, upset
I will listen
I can heal you

Mother
You are so angry
I am young and need you
I know you've been so hurt
I will help you
Please look at me
Don't leave
Don't walk out the door and drive away
many busy activities, eyes to the road
A list of accomplishments
No time for me
At home, still upset, hurts
from long ago haunt you
Eyes look in my direction
but only see a reflection
of your inner world
Let me heal you
So you can love me

There is this energy to it
all the dramas and he did that and so i did and said
and so did she and then...
it buzzes on and you cannot get any peace
and my parents lived like that and never payed any
attention to me most of the time
and it is a drug
it prevents you from sinking into yourself and your
fears, and it is exhausting
recognize the energy, that drug frenzy energy and know you
must just stop and be here
and breathe and calm your mind until it is a placid, loving lake
peaceful, yet alive and lively, with the reflections of the beauty
of world just here, in the moment, light reflecting off the mirrored surface

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

for one in a series of misrepresentations
at last the army went home for dinner
after I threw a grenade
one given to me by the union
and my friends
one from a small cache
all I have against their hundreds
but it's the first thing to come over the wall
clink down into a safe a well
and do it's best to detonate and make alot of noise
and it reminded them there's something alive
on the other side

Haifa, Israel, a Saturday before the Second Gulf War
The Iraq War, the Shock and Awe War, the war with embedded journalists traveling in
tanks across dusty deserts the smart way with no bulky supply lines following them
And they arrived and it quickly became apparent the supply line was a good invention

The beach is filled with people, enjoying their last few days of peace
People color the beach a kind of brown, moving brown, like ants wandering around a hill the entire beach is their hill right now in that moment a respite of the stress to come
Funny how War could be on some kind of timeline, with everyone waiting for it
like a Super Bowl game, or the second coming or a tornado or flood or nuclear bomb
Breathe this fresh air now, for tomorrow will find you smothered in a bomb shelter
crammed into small spaces with strangers even, or people you don't like, and screaming children

Your plane was due to leave for Florida the next day, but there was no seat for me.
At first that bothered you, that we had no money for me to go anywhere, only you
but now you took any chance you got to leave this place that was our new home
"We're making cookies," a couple said who we ran into down there.  
If there's an air raid, you can stay with us they said to me.  
And I imagined the pleasant aroma of butter
and sweet and nuts filling a windowless room with a Hebrew TV station crackling quickly in a language I still couldn't keep up with while we munched until we were like full balloons
in a land with the bus driver turning up the news updates on the radio every hour really loud so everyone could hear them, day in and day out, because this was part of life here. And most of what I could follow after so many hours of study was that most words at the end of a sentence on the news ended with -eeem.  Usually in threes, -eem, -eeem, -eem, which is maculine plural and sometimes there was MemShalah, which is Prime Minister.

It was your most noble hour, coming shortly after you rampaging up and down the hallways
of our cement apartment building, just a box but a nice one with a view of Haifa Bay saying Saddam does too have a bomb, and you just wait when the scuds start falling. You just wait.
But you weren't waiting.  You were going home.
And no I didn't believe Saddam had a bomb although I've never met anyone who agreed with me since then and that is getting to be a long time ago.  
Even though there were Freedom Fries now and a ban on French wine and I don't particularly like the French in many ways, still I believed them and Mahomood El Baradei
because he was a very smart man except American don't believe there can be smart, effective individuals and people working very hard in places filled with dust and ignorance and lacking
so many comforts and conveniences
And how could you check a whole country anyway?  
With connections, by being an insider and by being very clever and that's what I thought sitting in the living room watching CNN International being piped for free into our living room.
And you were terrified and you left in a sweat and a day or so later the War began

and I watched the War on CNN International in our living room after you were gone, and it was just mass destruction from great heights like someone's ridiculous plan of Urban Renewal from way too high up and I felt sorry for all the
people who would soon be called "collateral damage" and I felt ill at our Generals bragging about this mayhem, this obscene, idiotic pounding of a city without intelligence or sensitivity or perceptions and I felt no shock and awe, but only horror and sadness
and I, by myself, an American living in Israel, who now had dual citizenship of course,
you see, but Americans are never dual, we always leave.  We are only American.

I saw my country as something angry, and violent and dumb and ugly
And you waited in Florida for the WMD, and I watched the story unfold
and there were still no WMD by the time you got back and the Patriot missiles were lowered from their mountain top heights.  And there were still no WMD when paper plans for a bomb were unearthed underneath rose bushes in a scientist's back yard and I felt sorry for the rose bushes
and hoped they were re-planted.
And like my country, you slipped down a notch in my eyes,
Running away from nothing telling me there was danger and leaving me
when it was only you who believed I might die.  Only You.

Finally earned my Santa Cruz creds
after decades
My first wetsuit
O'Niel in pretty purple and pink
across my ******* and I look like I'm
wearing rubber muscles like actors playing
action heroes but I feel like I am water proof
at last, have come of age finally
A member of the tribe of cold water human fish
as I swim on in the slanted winter light

Frozen pictures of men some not smiling
as if looking really tough is a great way to entice
wondering why I'm doing this again
but knowing I want to
contact and texting, some endlessly
all a fantasy, what is he thinking?
Why am I answering so many texts?
Send me a pic, I already have them posted
send me a pic, babe
sweetheart--I don't even know you
who are you? Easy to give up
To find a human being on the other end
of the screen
I think back to the guy I knew in person
why couldn't he have worked out?
He was as bad as the 2D frozen guys on the screen
only in living breathing 3D

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

I am not here, but somewhere else
feel like I cannot face another day like the last one
that it's a catch 22 if I believe him, then I can't move, can't work
But believing in me is so new, and the muscles are not strong
And I fall down into his opinion of me, which kills me
incapacitates me because it's not true
but I believed my mother as a child
had no choice and now it's habit
so I must keep pushing those tiny tired muscles so I can keep going on

Work and work and nothing else on my shelf
Accomplishments, yes...in work, no less
But I'm ready to escape and live a little
No longer this fear...don't know what happened to it
everything bad has already happened so
the bear crawls out into the Spring sunshine
Not really lonely, just curious about what's out there
want to sit on a bar stool in a tight dress and sip a drink and flirt
Want to wear those six inch heels and laugh and be tipsy
dance to the beat of life and forget about it the next day
Want to buy that corset and denim at Fredricks and wear it with the
mad high heels and see what happens

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 can't pretend I don't see
that you're with her...married no less
arching her back, crossing her legs with her foot in a high heeled shoe and sitting so close to you
why is she there every day for those important discussions to be made
and you act like you don't even know me, around them
You invite me on ski trips, day trips and when you see me
around her, I am nothing
nothing to you and I can't do that
it hurts too bad, so it's over before it even started
I see that warning sign.  I'm not blind
Try to talk myself out of it...
Life so stressed, now I'm more of a mess
because of you, never prepared for this
only if it was easy, and not hurting and burning
because I'm already on a knife's edge
so you're number is gone from my phone
my drug, I've thrown away the last bottle
if you want to talk to me, then see, me
there, in front of her, and let her see what you said to me
I'm not a hidden woman, letting you play
Let the cards fall as they may, but hurting this bad, please
let this be the last time
over you.

My crazy mind, roller coaster mind, mind is a whirl pool can't comprehend
Makes no sense, comes in waves, a moment ago I was broken and done for
over some dude I don't care for and now he's forgotten
Is my head filled with cotton?
This makes no sense,
I'm crazy as all hell
Can't you tell?

Sometimes too many bad things hit at once
My eyes stay open, but see nothing
The world goes by in muted colors and noises
Not quite sure I am where I am
Staying steady becomes the priority
No time to let go into grief or even anger
that would let my guard down
put my focus inside
right now, I can only think about
what is happening outside
make vague calculations about
how much it will hurt
later

what were they thinking, as I am here and still working
with four months to go and knowing there is no improvement
to be noticed and only betrayal after betrayal
and I've never been done so ***** as at this place
whose management thinks we are making 10 figures
and wheels and deals and has a blonde obnoxious secretary
who gossips and no I don't fit in because this is absurd and I am
reminded how a nasty person can ruin anything
a meal in Paris at a restaurant hundreds of years old
and a crabby old man who was my father in law and his
horrible girlfriend and we sat in this fancy place and I could
only think I wish my husband and I had gone out alone to McDonald's tonight
because we would be free of this hateful presence
or maybe we had just bought a loaf of bread and some cheese and at it
walking down the Champs Elysses, or maybe just starvation
would be better than these people and here I am again
in a perfect little "green" brand new school and I think it
is definitely located in the middle of hell and not surrounded
by wineries and fields and wealth

Means you suspect others
but it also means
you are suspect
because you think we're all up
to the same ***** tricks
as you,
little man, in your big office
with the blonde secretary
who keeps no secrets

We sat around for hours
And it was like that days on days
Sipping wine, eating cheese, just enjoying life's malaise
Of course we were in France, your favorite country
I barely understood a word of what was said, but I still felt care free

Oh, you were my Golden Boy, my Prince, my Knight, my Friend
Oh, we had those good times, and of course they'd never end
I was young, I was scared, I saw what I wanted to
I couldn't bare to face what I knew would come soon

Back in New York we married, had a wedding, such a big party
We invited all our friends, such a big company
I lived through that, feeling like a stranger in my life
Even that big show is not what I like

You promised me your everlasting love, your devotion and your means
Sure, you looked like you had a lot, but things are not always what they seem
I had to learn the hard way, coming back hearing "I could've told you so"
That hurt, it was the truth, something even I know

I left you, standing there, a half a world away
In Israel, you gave me a shallow hug and you didn't stay

That's the last I ever saw of you
Walking down those stairs
Twelve years of love
Like you didn't care

That was eight years ago
People say, get over it, you need a life
After all, you've moved on, I read it in the New York Times

You must have had twenty girlfriends, and few more besides, and then lucky you, you met your future wife
And me?  I come home still today,
and notice how happy I am that there's no one to ruin my day
No one to insult me, no one to call me sick
No one to blame me for his problems which can't be beat back with a stick

I still tense up, walking to my door
I still walk in, waiting for the sore
The projected pain, the insolence, the sickening ingratitude,
I sure know how to pick'em, you were quite a dude

So I'm still alone today, not ready to go
Still scared and scarred, but there's one thing I know
Someday I'll be healed
Someday I'll walk out that door
I'll hold my fear, yes, but it will not haunt me anymore
And then I'll know, you didn't win, because this is what you wanted of me
To be alone, to be afraid, anyone can see

He does you ***** once
you don't feel much
you're not involved
a little voice inside says,
stop
but I don't head it
but it happens again
like he's a horse testing you
how much can he get away with
until you burn
every time is bigger
each time you are more of a mess
So get off the first time
and rest

they don't have sweat glands and
mud acts as a sunscreen.

In San Francisco, three types of trash exist now
Recycling, Compost and Landfill
We now notice with our vast wisdom

And I work in the public library and
fill my water bottle with water from
Yosemite's second valley that is
used as a bathtub for this place
I imagine the water I use causing the
water level to drop enough in the resevoire to
cause the bathtub ring to be seen.

And as I take a break I ponder
a carefully and wonderfully explained
exhibit which shows
which parts of this great city will
be submerged by 2050 due to global warming
and it is all very neat and scientific and clean, so clean

And I think pigs roll in filth because
they are animals meeting their needs
and we roll in filth because we only
think ahead to the next hour and never
of the consequences of our desperate actions
that far exceed our needs

Fingers trembling
sweat on the keyboard
shoulders ache
the sky is black now
as when I woke up
but my task is complete
that dreaded thing is over
and done and I feel a pleasant
lightness beginning as my whole
apartment once again seems like a home

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

An aquafer, underneath Saudi Arabia
As far down as an oil well, maybe further
A desert country with too many people and
for five years, the desert bloomed
then the well ran dry
as it has for us
and we don't even know
We can't feel it through our wealth.

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

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

Just little tiny pieces
inside my battered psyche
I'm not writing about wars
or climate "change" even though
I remember when we called it Global Warming
I guess that was too much reality
And it's now an eventuality
today I've backed from the abyss
It's personal, I admit
Nothing that will effect life in the Middle East
or even the next street
But for me the change is huge, that I can pick myself
up from the blues so much faster than before
And if I can do it, so can anyone, that's the score

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

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

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

Healing droplets from the sky
ping my bamboo plant, then off they fly
I sit inside cozy and warm
Nightmares in my mind are my thorn
Move toward the monsters I am told
Only then will they crumple, weak and old
Why am I cursed with a mind like this?
that only wants the good things for me to miss
It's still a child's mind trying to cope
without love, without hope

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

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.

Didn't want to go back to the torchure chamber
Monday morning, I am back
"Keynote Speaker" harranges us to be better
at what we do
We are never enough
No one knows what exactly we're doing wrong
but it must be something or we wouldn't be subjected to this
Everyone sits docilely, hands folded
or immersed in a sudden fascination with a muffin
and not enough coffee

Breakout sessions and I feel a zit form on my upper lip
We are taught like we are imbeciles
And then we learn something we didn't know
that contradicts what we've been doing
and I want to contact you, my boss
the man I'm trying to forget to tell you
there is something wrong here
so I do

I succeed in getting the flu and eating every available sweet
On the third day you write back to tell me my concern is nothing
but we will talk soon and I don't want to talk to you
who I am trying to forget
and my nose begins to bleed
in protest of this confinement and frustration.

The fourth day it is over, and I am home with a flu
and a cat I love more than anything who has cancer
and the "expert" writes back and tells me thank you so much for
noticing her mistake but its all the fault of us who don't
understand what we are doing
but she will make it all right
so it is over and you are silent
You who I was trying to forget who I now can't
get off my mind

I reread your e-mail,
look you up on-line and notice
a new picture of you with your wife
clinging to you like a fungus
I check my own old married pictures
and no, I didn't cling to my man's arm that way
hiding behind him like he is my father-protector
trying to become one being like some experimental
modern dance

And I wish you'd worn your ring when
we met a year ago so your sweet flirtations
would have disgusted me, not confused me
and I don't even like you anymore like I
don't even like my mother but
this is so compelling to yearn for
someone who doesn't care at all.
It is a pain that kills me and an ache I crave
and I don't want anymore

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

Like a surge
finger in a light socket
the current dazzles through me again
I pull away breathless and in pain: I miss you

Last week, you were a distant mountain
barely visible through fog and haze
Mixed in with the others, a part of the landscape,
there but blending in, your uniqueness forgotten
Today you are the centerpiece of it all

I forgot how hard this is
I know there's no turning back
The trail that lies ahead is
insurmountable, steep and slippery

My thirst for you dries
and I am a hollow shell
Nothing inside but the air that dessicates

You don't think of me anymore
You are consumed by someone else
I can't stand to watch this
I am not longer special
Must move my attention away, shove it aside
as it is not willing

One foot, then another up the steep
winding hill home
Dust billowing up from the path
Coating my body, making me forget
creating a grand, filthy, distraction

Like a surge
finger in a light socket
the current dazzles through me again
I pull away breathless and in pain: I miss you

Last week, you were a distant mountain
barely visible through fog and haze
Mixed in with the others, a part of the landscape,
there but blending in, your uniqueness forgotten
Today you are the centerpiece of the landscape

I forgot how hard this is
I know there's no turning back
The trail that lies ahead is
insurmountable, steep and slippery

My thirst for you dries
and I am a hollow shell
Nothing inside but the air that dessicates

You don't think of me anymore
You are consumed by someone else
I can't stand to watch this
I am not longer special
Must move my attention away, shove it aside
as it is not willing

One foot, then another up the steep
winding hill home
Dust billowing up from the path
Coating my body, making me forget
creating a grand, filthy, distraction

Never thought you'd do something so low
When it happened I thought, let this not be so
The diamond ring you gave
twelve years before that day
you stole from out of my luggage
before you brought it up the stairs

And when I found out
half a world away
You screamed and swore
and denied it that day
but then some how, some way
You managed to find it--ay?

You sent it to me like a letter bomb
All wrapped in layers and tape much to long
And box inside box like a Russian doll
And that was bad, but that's not all

The last box was one made
for the storage of nails
the kind that build houses
or the kind you put in bombs
And with you, there was really something wrong

The UN was all abuzz
Everyone was talking cuz
Saddam has got a bomb

Oh, no way, the French they say
and that crazy El Baraday
Sitting out in some Paris cafe
All they say is he ain't got a bomb

But back in America, they know best
Cuz we're a better country than all the rest
And everyone there knows Saddams got a bomb

I'm in Israel on that day still in danger
just like yesterday
And the last Gulf war Saddam threw some Scuds our way

My husband, we argued
that week before you left
I said I'm afraid I agree with the French
You said better watch out
Cuz you got to stay and see
And they'll be Scuds landing right here on our street

Then with great courage you said " I can't stay,"
Got important business in the next days
And for two we really cannot pay
and I say "oh, that's OK"
I'm getting more Israeli every day
When it comes to bombs I'm quite blase
And besides I've always been really, really strong
But deep inside my mind there's something wrong
What if Saddams really got a bomb?

So off you flew to the United States
Where everything was peachy keen and safe and sound
And I was in the path of Scud that could hit the ground

Back in Haifa I'm up late
Patriot missiles up on the mountains those days
Aiming high, pointing out to Saddam's way
And I watch the TV nearly all day
over and over the UN they say
Saddam he really, really ain't got no bomb

My friends tell me they'll be a help to me
If the bombs fall we'll have a party
and we'll drink and laugh and eat cookies
all inside the bomb shelter, it will be fun you'll see

I waited in Haifa and watched TV
Listened for the sirens but none reached me
And watched a night time shock and awe Iraq block party

It looked kind of like a pretty morbid fourth of July

And daily life went on that day
even in the Jewish state
And you'd never know that a war was going on

And then they say he got away
And when the awe had gone very far away
And the shock and the blood were very, extremely dry

The coast was clear
You could dare to come near
My hero man
I see you don't give a ****
So you flew back to our fair city
and you have to face up to me and say
You're right, Saddam ain't got a bomb

No mushroom cloud
No cheering crowd
Just a dusty state
crumbling at a rapid rate
No bomb in sight, they looked with all their might
No matter where they went the couldn't find the scent
just the scared and the saved and really dead bodies
And all of us scared Israelis

And then the world it had to say
The French were right and so was El Baraday
Saddam doesn't really have a bomb

I went through all this
Without you to kiss
To be scared with
Or be calm with
And I realize now
if I can do this
without you by my side
with you I really don't need to hide
cuz I can really make it on my own

There's sand in my car
on the seat, the floor, underneath the brake
I brush and brush but it just jumps up and falls back down
exactly where it is, as sand always did
as the sand from the Monterey Bay does
when I grew up and now
and I try to jog on the beach
but my muscles are so weak now
and I remember my young body
jogging and getting tight again within days
but I am home,
and that is what I feel more than anything
and the decades seem to be diaphanous, like clouds or
whispy spray, not so heavy and real
and after crunches in the sand
I am on the couch writing in a notebook
and I touch my hair and sand falls out
making tiny little sand noises as each particle
hits the paper
and I remember being in high school
when this happened all the time,
and sand will fall, and cling, and put itself on you
in your car, in your hair and into your life
until you can't live without it, must be near it
And my body will fade, and worse still my mind
but the sand will stay forever, tiny and infinitely monumental

A plump girl
sees her ride, steps off the curb

Purple cat ears on her head
A string of Purple hair
Butterfly tattoo across her shoulders

Glittering bustier
Poofy short skirt clashing with everything
ripped fishnets
combat boots
huge over stuffed bag weighs her down
It's a concoction, not an outfit

She crosses to a middle aged man
In a non-descript car
Wearing Walmart's finest
They argue

A story begins

Is the priority
because no one is looking out for me
but me and it's hard for me
to look out and see people I wanted to like
and hate them
See corrupt manipulators and just accept it
Like somehow that makes it harder
But if for some reason you find yourself
stranded in a rock forest with little water or
provisions and only the merciless sun beating down
on you as a companion it does no good to say
I am at a lovely beach under a canopy
That doesn't help you find a way back home
You have to look out and acknowledge this harsh
hostility and try to navigate it as best you can
accept that there is harshness and rocks and a burning sun
and you stand a chance to stay alive

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.

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.

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