He's not your type, not even in the top 200
before the Gothic drama had even escaped my mouth
Therapy.... can ....blow...your mind
I highly recommend it
Except its frustrating like watching laundry
roll around and around, the same patterns are found
over and over, and just when you thought you were so over that
you are back again running down dark alleys of your mind
splinters and nails stuck in your feet but you keep running to and from
in the dark so certain this is the thing to do
She is there to stop you
"you like the idea of him, not him, just like with _
ITS AN OBJECT ATTACHMENT"
there's been a lot of 'em
So what if someone you don't like goes out with someone else at night?
Why couldn't I see that before?
I was spinning out that door
at the same time watching him strut
away, duck feet, an apple core in his milk crate
and still no chin
His messy hair slicked down
resembling a piece
ready for his big date
hopes to fornicate
a day's sweat coating him
and still no chin and afraid of socialism
and darwinism and not a believer in global warming
or that scientists ever harm lab animals or make them suffer intentionally
every day less attractive, without those rose colored glasses I see
I don't really like him at all

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

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.

And clawed and hacked at everything she hated
about herself.
My original ultimate authority: my mother
a woman who does not know who she is
I remember her being so tall and powerful
In the kitchen opening the refrigerator on Kaines street
A cold box with rounded corners and the brand in cursive
as I passed by through the garage where there
were mice the cat wouldn't catch she was furious and
I was scared about what she would do to the cat
So I went out into the overgrown yard, and made a little maze
I flattened down the long grass leaves and sat, protected
from her rage in the warm Berkeley sun
a rage to venomous and frightening I thought
it would **** me, or the cat, so I mustn't get too attached
to the cat because she may just vanish suddenly
and my mother is just an older woman now
but her ghost, lives on
my bosses, the authorities of my adult hell
scare me as only she could
But they are not her ghosts
No one will ever have such power again

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.

We went out back
After the meeting
when we knew we had nothing
and had a long way to go and were now
much happier

To the little barn
Stuffed with donations
from magical beings with money
who bought things from stores and used them
and then left them silently
in crackling plastic bags

We had listened and found
all the he's were the same
We were not alone and strange as he had said
Those he's always said that
we had nothing that he had taken and we were not ashamed

Digging deeper into the bins
hoping for treasure

Lingerie with lace
Sparkling silly bling
Shoes for work
I still have the purple lamp
you picked out for me

Your check for tuition
bounced as we shopped
and we thought it was funny

Taken down, step by step
like an animal infected by a poisoned arrow
one day, an ache in my back, no surprise at that
next day, aches all over, and things are feeling overwhelming
Next day, aches in big joints, and hour by hour, I feel like I can't move
and a heach ache has moved in that won't  leave and I'm confused and
things are so diffcult, and I find it hard to get up
I can't dial the numbers for the sub, must take it slowly
and  somehow I made it to the drugstore about 24 hours ago
and bought stuff I could make purple drop out of
and I'm down, in this other world, thinking skewed nightmares
my cosolation.

I was quite content
Amid the struggles around me
the car that nearly ran over me
people so busy to make something
out of nothing
cosmopolitan, am I
you must know, can't be shy
In another land, a non Christian one
Christmas doesn't happen, or Thanksgiving
I lived like that for years ignoring it
forgetting them or looking at them from a distance
like an odd right performed by some other people
who dance around a tree
have made it into an industry
that powers an economy
I forgot our holidays, and now I'm back they come along
I remember that sense of duty and obligation
I had before I lived in other worlds, to make them happen
and do what must be done
and now, I don't care and today I spent doing as I pleased
and I was perfectly happy and the"beginning of the year"
will now come and I know it is only St. Sylvester's day
there are so many options about what to do
and one of them is nothing
You may feel sorry for me, that I am so jaded
and I think I should feel wrong for what I do or don't do
but actually, I am happier now, and more free

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sometimes I did that
I never was afraid

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

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

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

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

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

We'd arrive at 7-11 for
a slurpee

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

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

I 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

You are my drug
"All beginnings are beautiful"
The French say
So sweet at the start
I discover, you have someone
Should stop me, it doesn't
Took a long time
Then your words became cruel
My drug can't be mean
I drop down from the high
Into the place I don't want to be
Just me, no fantasy

As I try to balance through
this avenue of grief
your absence is relief
I still remember your voice
Your blows as I squirmed in pain
over a loss like this
I can imagine you
in your New York life
with your new wife
Making fun of me for caring
for feeling
and I am only too glad
I can't hear you

When my mind is quieter from torment
When my inner world has "settled down," I will find you
who you are, where you are, I don't know
We won't meet on College Walk or in the library
It won't be so bright and innocent
but it will be a better match and knowing my past mistakes
we will find each other, not just kids anymore
but now fully formed, who we really are
and ready to match together

You walk across the street
and get run over by a truck
It happens to the best of us
Even those with luck

First there comes the adrenaline rush
Then comes the real hit
You're spattered across the pavement
Thinking, this is it

I'm being metaphorical, so I don't mean it's real
It's just what happens when something bad
finally slips, and you reel

There's tears in awkward places
You discover that at work
No one bothered to design a place for crying
So you're feeling like a dork

There's sleepless nights
Trips on your break
to buy some premium Visine

Time goes on and a new plan emerges
from your psychic mist
And even if you still feel down
You know everyone takes a hit

The thing is to keep going on
take on the role of gracious loser
That's really all that's left
Now you can't be a chooser

Gradually, you become attached
to new goals, hopes and dreams
and looking back
maybe it won't be
as bad as it seemed

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

And it's all just a blur, like out of body experience as I
take risks I never used to take like singing
into the microphone, and really I never sing
and I sang "I Believe in Miracles" with feeling
and what is happening to me, as  I just kind of ooze from one hour
to the next and I asked a guy to see a movie with me
but that's weird I never do that and the fog has lifted
and I take a picture of myself in blue
like I used to when things were simpler and happier
and I can't tell why I used to be so stressed and anguished when now it
seems like there may be hope after all and escape
and a job you hate can really be a kind of jail of pent up
feelings of anger and it just kind of rots you and makes
you hate life and even if you only have a vague notion
kind of a fuzzy, idea of the future, kind of like
walking on cliffs in Marin county with clouds, thick ones,
rolling in so fast you can see them and you can feel them
on your face as well but you can't see the trail ahead
but it is so beautiful and bracing and alive

The more you do
The less trouble will follow you
And if you should get off track
Return to the breath
It will bring you back

Time and time again
You will repeat this and then
It will get easier and one day
"I do this without thinking," is what you will say

I had run about, and my feet hurt,
all I could think of, is let me make it end today
and I did it, signing off with a secretary, as she left with her friends

I carried the small burden of a year of persecution
the worst job I ever had,
and he was there, in the cement quad,
talking, saying goodbye

What horrible things he had said to me this year
I wasn't even suited for this profession since I was so anxious
in his presence, since he is all knowing
And when it was too much, I cried, and of course
I shouldn't do that, but that made things ten times
more offensive, I felt like I had a target on me
so I made up a labor attorney I had in my corner
and when he was on the attack, I brought her up
and he fell silent and was more careful

And I saw who he'd promoted, as chief rooster of the English department
since it is a hen house, and he gets too lonely just as a vice principal
that he has meddle and control and pick and decide and ogle
and pretend he's not and revel in so many women in one room,
and he has power over us all

And just that day, he strolled through a Paris City Park
Tree lined, in Spring, with dappled shade on the ground from tall
trees, and metal fences, and people sitting on benches
having fascinating and illuminating intellectual conversations
and well employed and turned out people
strolling along, perhaps some even dressed in nineteenth century clothes
everything in two dimensions,
He the gentleman, her the lady, an impressionist painting
colorful and imprecise, more a dream than reality
of the good life, and harmony, all with a slight Sienna tint, in two D
it was, in reality,  in the gum stained quad in the blazing sun
and she was married to someone else
but she had that perfect English teacher look, blonde
and bland, with giant blue eyes and a bun,
and a dress that cut just below the knee
and blew gently in the hot breeze, flaring out and revealing nothing
but the middle class acceptability of the fabric
and I dashed, really ran by holding my charger, to the computer I turned in
and through the scene, tore a wave of three D, and the Sienna tone
had a trail cut through it of true digital color
and he said "wow," as a vision from the 21st century ripped into his world
and I imagined her boring me to death
making my favorite literature as lifeless and dull
as a computer manual, or a endless apartment lease,
and together this lady and gentleman, they were totally in sync and ready
to frighten another generation of students away from reading
forever...

Later he stood and he saw me
speed walking away from this world
and he gazed at me, waiting for me
to pause, for there to be a bit of nostalgia
and warm good will between us as we exchanged
niceties that were only the tips of a much deeper affection
and respect between us, and I saw him preparing for this
and my pace didn't slacken
and I felt like he was again in two D on a film screen, I, a steadi cam
smoothly floating past, taking in every detail, in slow motion
And I looked at him as more of an object, not a person,
because I couldn't bear all the feelings and thoughts and anxieties so I left him in two D,
watching him I said "bye"
and I couldn't hear what he said because the camera moved
past very quickly and all the sound was muted,
distorted, impossible to understand except to know
it was sound like what you hear underwater

and it was only later, five blocks away, that I burst into
frustrated, pained, angry tears, and I felt again, three dimensional
and alive and hurting and the sound around me boomed back, in all it's chaotic detail,
cars and people and the radio and my own human pain and I realized
I made it

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.

Rain all around, and then a clear sky
I went looking for a place to swim, but all lanes were deserted
I ended up down in a basement pool, backstroking with a view of a roof
and I began to feel dizzy, like I drank something 150 proof
So I got out and put on my brightest warmest best
Made it to that cheap old grocery store,
and they gave me a free bobble head
and as I walked out to the parking lot a sweet old lady said,
"You f'n b--, for hatin' that N--" and I looked, could I have imagined it?
And a younger woman sat and  just looked on
and the old lady with the Santa hat well she just wouldn't stop
and I thought, maybe she'd like my bobble head
maybe then she'd calm down, but I wasn't brave enough
so I got in my car and drove on

Little girl synchronized swimmers moving to a piano beat
Toes pointed, smiles on, gotta keep that happy going
I remember in the haze of childhood, a faint clip
walking around our WW II housing turned Married Student Housing
Underneath empty clothing wires--why sugar and spice?
Which spice and could I really live up to being so nice?

And for the scary boys who liked to tear the tails off little puppies
Why did adults arrange things like this.
Polar opposites.  I was supposed to love a boy
with a ****** tail in his hand?

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

By now, I've got a swimsuit printed on my body
So you can see I'm not being too naughty
Or  even maybe going to a fake tanning booth
I don't have the patience for that, that's the truth

Bad knees and back lead me to the pool
Even though it bores me, like sitting on a stool
In a bar where I'm really not feeling it,
Even though there's nothing wrong with the place where I sit
It's just the company, I look around, they're not my type
And yeah, I love to drink but I want to call it a night

I bought a book about different strokes
And the pictures and diagrams, showed all different folks

The time passed by a little less fierce
And when I got out, people looked at me like I was all kool and pierced
A lady told me I swim well, did I learn in school?
And it's weird I just read a book, and jumped in the pool

So many times I've felt your glance
A strange little dance
Tapped out in hallways
Spun around on outside paths

I listened to your inner desire
You told us what you admire
On your silly birthday
Grown folks shouldn't be this way

I gave you your wish
And you felt moved
And finally came that truth
That I can make you warm, sweet and not aloof

You gave me a hug
An earth shattering little shrug
You pulled me so tightly to your chest
that away went my breath
You left me trembling, confused, surprised
And I know I'm trying so hard, but I'm still not wise

Things are different now
I see your vulnerability somehow
An uncertain little boy smile
Oh, that we could spend awhile
I want more, that's all I know
I dream of it, it's beautiful like fresh snow

I know I shouldn't care for you
I'm not supposed to, but I do

On my chest
the small of my back
a place where my husband said
no other man should touch

Other places
more intimate

It shows the animal
that is me

Why do you ask why?

It's a **** stroke, no matter how you look at it
especially if you look at men from underneath
from the bottom of the pool
It's not to hard to see
where that movement comes from

I have them written down for the big scary meeting
Yet my mind races, reviews the scene again, creates dialogue
find new innuendo
Anxiety.
It can be quiet now
I know what will happen, I know how I will be painted
as an incompetent
And I now what I will say in return...variations on
I don't agree

writing is thinking
teaching is what I do for a living
you're not supposed to say I like teaching for
the vacations, but that's a big perk
Plus, you don't have to sell things
and you get to do something meaningful for money

My thoughts become murky
How do I get my script from A to C?
the B part, it's shrouded in mist
like a grasp for it but there is no spine

I wanted to finish it this vacation
but I always want to vacate, too
Life is too short and we do our best
the worst is to waste your precious energy
worrying because you only have control of so much

Stay in the moment, even if it is painful and not what you want
Even when you are tired at work and it's the last place you
want to be and you think you'll be fired
just be there
it makes it better
be there for all your moments
is all you can do

At Bookshop Santa Cruz
I look at a book about the East Bay then and now
One picture strikes me: 1969 Sproul Plaza
Govener Ronald Reagan has the National Guard spray
tear gas on protesters on the steps of this Berkeley Administration Building
People run in black and white
they look like my parents
The helicopter is so close to the ground, like the Vietnam War

I was three
In the backseat of our VW Bug
My mother was driving me to Strawberry Canyon
for a swim
Then she got scared--something on the radio
We turned around
I didn't understand
She had to protect us from tear gas
We lived in a war zone
Everyone was very upset
We were attacked by our own government
Even children were fair game

An innocent frog is placed in water
If the water temperature is raised gradually
the frog will sit there until it dies

In 1980 Ronald Reagan became our President
Much to our dismay
"70% of pollution comes from trees" he had announced
as Governer, he was obviously a man of science

The vice grip clenched, the water temperature raised
as we felt around us the world becoming more
difficult as a middle class
we were supposed to wait for crumbs to fall
from the table of the rich folks
fighting over the bits like starving animals

Budgets were cut
Prices rose, wages fell or disappeared completely
We were at war

1985: I took a class in Economics in college, a UC
I learned that Supply Side Economics was
a silly idea written on a napkin at a fancy restaurant
where the fat ones eat
and the crumbs are thrown away

It was all a sham
An excuse
The vice grip tightened, the world became
more difficult
not the American Dream my parents grew up in
To be middle class was to struggle and struggle and still
not have anything

The frog began to die
Somehow we saw that
Reagan drifted away, but his ghost
remained, a respite in the 90's

Then we were at war again
Not just tear gas, but carpet bombing
Guerilla warfare in the streets of a hot arid country
Oil companies, already saturating our ground and our air with their products
Cashed in

The frog is near death
We struggle, and nothing gets better
Only a respite

At a fancy restaurant
on a napkin someone wrote
a new theory of Economics
that became like Scientology
Outgrew it's ridiculous inception
And became real

Ronald Reagan dropped tear gas
from helicopters on Sproul Plaza
and it drifted to Strawberry Canyon
where children learned to swim

But that is child's play now
the frog is about to die
I want to pull it out.

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

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

I see, this wasn't a surprise.

What comes next?
A fusion with brain and internet? *** text.
descriptions of positions and inhibitions undone
crawling down the screen,
like  morse code across the sea
or an old computer reading cards, blurting out silent sentences
passing lights on the screen,
then gone
or the News crawl passing on the bottom of the TV
without the repeats
all in our imaginations
the touches, movements, even some sensations
the connection of  two biologies
two living breathing human beings,
much more complicated than simple machines

But this is the computer,
the technology star
that brought us fame and power and wealth
Now seems a bit in ill health.
A downward spiral,
like a old rock star, playing at a seedy corner bar:
the technology that sent a man to the moon
and fought the Soviets until their doom
the frightening technology
of my childhood years,
big computers creating bigger fears
and now being put to good use
as I have my fellow in a metaphorical noose
our fingers go across the keys
and send signals to each other's bodies
connected in imagination with mine
and it's frightening how it works to well
Almost like reality, I can barely tell
but then it's over and in the after glow
A thought taps me on the shoulder, tells me I should know
that in the end the bond with the human being
has evaporated like silent steam,
Not because we're mean
But because he's not there
but now I'm aware
of a peculiar new bond with my phone

Fear and anxiety
A prickly pain in my skin
As it bursts to the surface
So intense and miserable
A yearning for you
Imagine your happy home
Everything in place
Wife, children, house
Me, alone
Can't earn your attention
Can't wait to see you again
I'm told
this is pathology
Why does it feel so real?

Mother and Father
a perfect unit
until I invaded, destroyed it
They stick together
talk about me in the third person
shut me out
always on the outside
Please include me in your family
No, you don't belong
Stay in your cold, lonely room
You are an invader here
Be happy to be tolerated for a time
This was reality

Oh, I need a man, that will solve it
is what my brain tells me
No, really I need 500 new friends for my life
to really be
but the only thing happening is I'm getting kind of
nervous
and my brain has these few packaged things
that repeat over and over like customer service

I'd been hiking for four hours
I was *****, sweaty in need of a shower
But I was relaxed, having a good time
Finally some peace, for less than a dime

I saw him coming up the hill
Walking his bike, his son struggling still
"Lets just walk our bikes" I heard him say
And obediently his son did obey

As we passed he gave me that look
Right with his son, I thought I must have mistook
But that's what its was, it's plain to see
Now my imagination runs wild, mercy me

What if we had been alone?
What if I was frisky to the bone?
Would I have beckoned him to the brush?
Just taken him by the hand and said "hush"

And then we'd pull off our sweaty clothes
And reveal to each other what only God knows
That survival instinct, between male and female
Would pull us together, no time to wait

The parent loves the child
and the child learns to love itself

But what if your parent basically put you on a shelf
What if they had you to prove they were a true couple?
And were then horrified at the child, and all the trouble

Then the child learns she is a problem, she is not good
And grows into an adult with the same idea, which is not good
She never learns to stoke the fires within
That she is worthy, as good as anyone, not full of sin

So she looks to others, especially for love just like she found it
from people who didn't love her, didn't like her as she was
She has to chose men who care only a little
and tantalize and tease with their daliances in her direction
while she forever yearns for their affection
So she can feel good inside

That most desperate bond she first formed with the parent
Can be a life sentence to terror and torment
Unless she can learn to fill the empty space inside
With love that should have been there, from the start
She doesn't know how, so she struggles
How to do it?  How not to be dependent on others?

Holidays--everyone should reconnect
even with people you see everyday but
never speak to because you can tell
you won't like them...
show them some sunshine and brighten their day
overheard while showering in the women's locker room:
"How's the baby?"  "He's four and a half."
Whoops
"Hows Max?"
"He's in Rehab, he's not coaching"
"Ah,oh, ah"
Clothed, she rushes for the door
Continuation with another as I toweled off
"The pool at Concord is cold" "is not" "is" "is not" "well, the air there is cold"
(it's' only five minutes away from here)
Let's try this again, shall we? "So what do you do? I mean, besides swim?"
"I go to water aerobics in the morning
then I swim, then I pick up my kids and swim again. And we had a party and some doctors came over (she looks around, especially at my less than perfect physique,
she is about to expel a naughty, bad word that should never meet the ears of polite company
her eyes are red and look like they will fall out of their sockets
like those little ****** dogs
My friend the vet said one's eyeball fell out during an operation
So he put it back
she's roughly my age, but she has a natural tan in the middle of winter
and the sun has written it's thin lined signature all over her face creating the look
of a satellite image of an area once filled with rivulets of water,
but now experiencing a severe drought
but she truly is 99% fat free)
and they were...OBESE.  Can you believe it?"
L'horror.

It really is in my control
It must take patience to be a shrink
She's told me this more than a few times I think

But I never got it, never could see
that it really is all up to me
I thought it always depended on someone else
they could love me, or put me on a shelf

"You felt good about yourself, that's what is is"
Could it be so simple? Yes it is
"You can do this on your own, you don't need him"
At this next line, my thinking got dim

All my life, you see
I knew I could only depend on me
to survive, at the least
but my emotions? Out of my control, so say the least

"I can't do that," I protest to her
"Yes you can," she doesn't concur
I'm thinking it's like when a teacher challenges you
to things you don't think you can do

You are floored and protest and squirm
But she just eyes you and turns
back to the task at hand
OK, let's go, face up you will land

For the past few days I've tried
To create the glow in my life
I've had a little success
I'm used to being put to the test

So this challenge, I will take
In my life, what a difference it would make
To finally be emotionally independent
That is the dream, and it is splendid

Back to work
all these smiling faces
I never saw or heard from
all summer
suddenly we're all one big
whole
I don't even know these people
And I'm surrounded by them

Nearly four decades ago, nearly half a century
I walked Freedom Boulevard from
a lonely bus stop and as I drove there
the other day I saw a girl standing at one who could have been
me, in memory -- frozen

Would it still be there? One of my treasured childhood memories
Still living, not someone's brand new home, or a bunch of Villas in a gated community, lost
The land bleeds in California, but has started to scar over and forget the apple orchards
across the street from The Barn, where I used to ride, and now the houses are at least
covered in trees as nature tries to overtake the foreign, like in Cherenobyl

The big red barn sitting atop a small hill, crammed with horse paddocks now that
the little barns turned to condos.  But it is still there. Like magic, frozen in time.
The red barn, I walk in, it looks smaller than I remember
but the ***** brown cobwebs still cover the cieling and I am
nine years old again

Before I knew the boundaries of my gender
When I felt powerful, if neglected, strong and in charge
Before I knew the bindings of my ***
The limitations
I felt strong, and as I stand here,
I may as well be nine again, a single digit
And my fear melts away, and the lessons learned about my place
in the world evaporate
I stand, and look around at the barn nearly unchanged
and reclaim myself

I cling to the rejection, like my next breath may depend on it
All the little details.  Conspiracy theories. Sudden realizations.
Oh yes, that's it, that's why, then nothing, it's all clouded over again
and yet I am certain, like tripping over a log in a fog, that there is hope

It lies there, like that drift wood log, the ones I know lie out on the dunes of Monterey
and whiten in the sun, and are carved by the waves
It awaits me and is now as solid, as those pieces of dead tree, whose skeletons are so appealing
as they float, or lie still, partially covered in sand, home to an insect or crab,
and then wandering again, a perch for a bird, or for me
and on to their next stop

They will always be there, so long as there are trees and the Monterey Bay,
and it all beckons me.
As I sit in a muck, stuck somehow, if I move, I'm certain to lose a shoe
and yet, move I must, even if I will look silly slipping and sliding around
to that sandy shore, as the other muck dwellers watch me
some ridiculing. Some curious.  Some sit on nice pieces of mud, elevated from the stench
Others, sunk to their knees.  I must leave.  However awkwardly, to hope.

He can just walk away
say "uh-oh" as you cry
run over your feelings like roadkill
again and again until they're smashed into asphalt
have become one with it
can just walk away and you beg him not to go
that things were supposed to last longer than this
and you are sorry and please
he leaves anyway and you never hear from him again
but you don't know how they feel.  don't know, if they are happy

The name of the mansion in the Hamptons
Forty rooms and a line of expensive cars in a traffic jam
spewing out fumes the same as a line of Hyundais
To raise cash for a potential future King

And all I can think is
before there was "The Creeks" there
were natural creeks
and they must have been pretty
and much more valuable to me
than what takes the space there now

So many mixed emotions and feelings of...guilt for not feeling worse about
being fired
Like it should be just a devastating mixture of an acid knife cutting through my
stomach, but it is more like, I am lighter like a Monarch butterfly, despite needing to
shed fifty pounds, and more hopeful and optimistic as I
walk around and finish out my tour of duty at this school
that really feels like I'm in a bombing raid with everyone miserable around me all the time
and no one really hopeful and just there and now I get to leave, or must leave
and it is so hard to leave a paycheck that had I not been forced
I might have stayed
And I was so miserable and no amount of wine from the valley would have made it palatable
and I don't mind moving on at all, was really looking forward to it rather as my mind wandered
up and down the miserable stretches of time and spent a good part of down time commiserating
with fellow sufferers of the place
And now I have high blood pressure, to compound it all, and I feel like maybe now
I can maybe, just maybe find something less toxic because this was certainly
not for me
So I do get scared, but am balanced on a knife's edge and I don't feel it,
so perhaps it isn't a knife's edge at all
perhaps I've fallen into a pit of feathers and can relax into them for awhile.

It was a front cover picture of Oliver Stone on some New York magazine
New York has a different magazine for every hour of the day
He was standing there, legs apart, looking a bit heavy,
In front of a cement wall or something dreary (who has time for aesthetics when art is being made)
And he looked off to one side at something much more important than the camera
He wore a black wool New York coat
I thought, if I could be like that, I would be in Nirvana
He was so important, he didn't have to look at the camera and charm
all he had to do was say his great words and the room would fall silent listening to
his wisdom
The power of being so powerful
I was twenty three and at that age, a lot of superficial things can be taken for real
I put on my recently purchased black wool coat and looked off to one side, my eyes
averted back to my bathroom mirror.  
If it were today, I would 've taken a picture of myself with a cell phone

There've been many, from two coasts, two continents
And I'm here to tell you, they are heaven sent

There's a Freud street in every city in Israel
And I am living proof and here to tell
There's a very good reason for this
His descendants are an important part of life
For those of us who missed
Important pieces of the puzzle when we were growing up
And then they came back to haunt us, and really messed us up

All those women, staring at me from across the room
So thoughtful, so introspective, looking at their latest catch
Knitting their brows, trying to make sense of that
Which I never could,  not all by myself
If I could, I would have, maybe just read a book off my shelf

When I think of all the hours
I've talked and tried to understand
It would add up to a short lifetime
In a simpler land

My current one's my favorite.  
She lives in my former hood
She's a ****, she's progressive and she'd heal me right now if she could

But alas, there is no short road
there is no easy end to this
You must be quite committed,
You must spend a lot of money and never miss
an appointment, because if you do, you'll trip
And before you know it you'll be back in the dip
where you started
That would be a shame
For a problem is a problem by any other name

"There is no other way but through"
I've read so many times
I imagine a stuffy, grey haired man speaking that line
And yet, it is true
As painful as it is
If it were easy, there'd be a lot more sane people in the world
And we all know it's not like this

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

"I hear you're threatening to go on a date!" my mother jabs
and I'm reminded why Facebook is passe, because it is for spies
Barbie likes Ken doesn't she?  But when you think about it
he's just kind of there.  They never even met
and Barbie still can't spread her legs
she doesn't really know him
that eternal plastic smile and a man who exists
but is not known and never speaks.  Both are silent and smiling.
I am not a Barbie doll

The blows come, the lies
the incompetence that frames you
the person who doesn't mind destroying you
if it will make her life easier for a moment
We are rocks beaten by waves every day
Sometimes a storm, but always that ceaseless battle
And yet, inside ourselves can be a safe haven
or a basement of agony, if we side with our attackers
against ourselves.