The Things I Always Lose

The things I lose always find me again
like homing pigeons in tiny packages,
like boomerangs that barely miss your head
as they zoom through the air.

But the one most valuable, the thing
most cherished hasn't returned for good.
There have been glimpses and utterances
of you, from you, but you haven't returned
to me.

I wonder if I'm better off, if this
test of patience is part of growing
and learning, my personal odyssey.
You're no Odysseus, but I'm always
Telemachus.

The Psalmist

Breath passes my lips in ropes
and heaves.
I’m on my knees now, in awe,
in a silent reverence that
knows no equal.
David’s words maintain their
mantra:
I’m nothing but a fleeting
shadow; I’m nothing but small
exhales and inhales and
then…gone.

My hands untangle from one
another, reaching out
like a dowsing-rod in my desperate
urge to quench the driving thirst
within me.
I’ve realized that I understand so
little, that it’s not Your face
hidden behind the desert curtain,
but mine.
I am still, Lord. I am still
here.

Frankensteins.

The walls, though freshly painted, still
hold the smell of chemicals.
And they should.

By covering these walls in white, someone attempted
to relieve an artist of her duty,
her obligation to create.
The painter ushered in new technology
and welcomed it like a newborn, passing out cigars
in his triumph.

But the scent clings tightly to the air
with a strong, bald fist.
Acidic and salty, slightly sour like tears.
Metallic like blood.

And I remember the contradicting dense and freeing
feelings of creating, of being
holed up inside myself, bearing my soul to these
four brick walls
and the
zaps of light flashing here, flashing there,
brightly exposing me to a dark world
of horror and hope,
me to myself and to my own
little Frankensteins.

This Girl.

Oh, I understand why a blonde mother
of two would stick their pretty little heads in the oven
and how one could fill her pockets with the
heaviest stones she could find, marching
stoically into a raging sea.

I wish I had the nerve to sail
to Brazil and live amongst the natives
draped in color and the golden sun
simply on a whim.

But this girl, oh she can't move.
She's paralyzed, her spinal cord
stolen, leaving her to dream
of the living and dying,
an immobilizing paradox.

She sees and hears it all,
watching with green eyes that are invisible
to ones threadbare and unclothed.

Geraldine, Revisited.

There you are, planted on a bed
of rocks,
wheezing and hissing slowly,
choking every so often.
I turned you over successfully,
but you won't be moved.
I swore at you, I coddled you,
I prayed aloud,
but you sat, stony, silent, still.

_____________________

There you are, lying in a dirt
bed,
a stone marking your place on
earth.
I circle around, examine this new
filthy place and
decide that you don't belong here
amongst the damaged and forgotten.
I began to cry for you, to sob for you,
to pray for you,
but you sat, stony, silent,
still.

On God.

I fear that I am losing God
deliberately
forcing a life preserver to
fall from the clouds
like manna
to be chewed up and swallowed down
and eventually mocked
by desert voices
that cry out for more because it's never
enough
and I fear that my needs won't be
met by
Your perfect hands that
supposedly hold me close and tight
because I can't feel the warmth
of the people that claim your
name and
force confessions and throw guilt
around like insults
when all I want is to be
me.

On Flying (A Working Title).

Daring to leave the nest is the first
step.
You have to move one leg forward, first
envisioning mobility, convincing yourself
that the seemingly impossible is
possible;
that despite all odds, you will make it
out alive.

Now, move your leg forward, the right,
then the left
until you run out of plank
and there's nothing but sky and
earth.

Begin flapping. Flap harder, flap faster
than you believe possible.
If you relent, even for a second, it's over; you're done for.

After mastering your wings,
you must now trust that they won't
fail, which is the most difficult part of the whole process.
Step off the plank.
You'll begin to float.

You'll begin to fly.

Magic.

Picture this:

leaves falling
(gold, red, green)
all around you.

a warm hand for your left
and cocoa for your right.

Brilliant chicago with
brilliant lights and
a brilliant smile
that shines
all the way into your heart;

and a scarf to keep the cold
from ruining the moment.

Yes. This is magic.

Meeting Elizabeth Bishop.

Yesterday-
I read Elizabeth Bishop
and thought nothing,
felt nothing.

Today,
I read Elizabeth Bishop
and thought something,
felt everything.

Now
my eyes grow misty and soften
but tears can't fall.
Line sixteen changed
it all.

Again.

I’ve untied your fingers from
around my neck, slowly allowing
air to fill my lungs
again.

It’s a strange and distant
process, even painful, but
it’s nice to feel….something…
again.

There’s a sense of shock that
I wasn’t more cautious, more wary,
that I allowed you in
again.

Now that your frozen, heartless skin is
relieved from mine, you had better
believe that there won’t be another
again.

Building a Portfolio.

A bright haired professor wears glasses
and discusses God’s plan for my life.
A scary thought, indeed.

I never heard a sound escape His lips,

no gurgle, nor whisper.
But I haven’t met resistance.

They say, “How do you know? You might be wrong.”

But I’m not. Trust that I’m not. Believe that I’m not.
I’m definitely not.

“You’re the most disorganized person I know.”

Yes, I’m not denying that. Let’s examine my passion
and proceed from there, shall we?

I need to learn and I need to teach

what I know to those that don’t.
I need to be needed and to influence.

So. Carolina.

We both swore it.

We never said the words, but it was understood…like

spitting in our hands and shaking

or picking scabs to smear our blood together.

You’re taking it all back, now.

I’m not sure if you realize it, but

every promise has turned to dust

and every swear flits away.

Tonight we’ll drive and

I’ll try to change your mind for

all our sakes. Yours, mine, everyone.

You see, if you go, you’ll have turned

into the man we knew you could be, the man

we hoped you never would be.

You said you’d never be him.

You said you’d never be him.

You said you’d never be him.

On Revolutionary Road.

A dream differed does indeed explode.

And implode.

Sometimes it’s an unexplained spontaneous combustion.

In the most tragic cases, you can hear the soft hissing of life exiting

through tiny puncture wounds,

hovering,

pooling red, and

begging to be ignited like monoxide.

Sing.

Damien's voice hops on my station,
riding harmony's rails, seducing me with the feeling
of sleepiness.
He grows louder and more insistent,
"Why'd you fill my sorrow, with the words you
borrow? From the only place that you've known?
Why'd you sing 'Hallelujah' if it means nothing to ya?
Why'd you sing with me at all?"
I remember suddenly that this was our song
and that was our movie.
A man running across the screen after skipping rocks
with a deaf kid,
Damien's voice loud and clear.
I wonder if you've asked yourself why you
came back at all.
Why you came back to me, at all?

gilded age.

Mmm…Gershwin.

The low whine of the muted trumpet

penetrates my skin and enters

my veins like osmosis.

I should be smoking a cigarette

through a plastic holder in one

gloved hand

and drinking Scotch in the

other.

Time is warped, like faded photos

found in antique shoppes.

Everything has a golden tint

and sways to the beat of the music.

I was born eighty years too late.

a fiddler's hearth.

Breathe it in
slowly and it's intoxication.
Guinness is in your nostrils
before you ever take a sip
or get the foam on your
upper lip.
Breathe it in
slowly to smell the wheat,
take a heady swig,
swallow, repeat.
Breathe it in as you
step outside and inhale
Djarum Blacks, talking
of your latest fire sale.

first stoli.

Men become women and
the women don beards.
There's glitter and neon
shining tight through the smoky haze.

Everywhere there's movement
and everyone is moving
together in a mating ritual
that's completely new to me.
Boys with boys and the girl in the corner
has her tongue down Gina's throat.

Billy Blue gives me a smoke
then drags us around the dance floor.
Somewhere along the way
you found some guts and took a chance,
only to end up with The Old Guy.

Pink Lesbian grinds against Blond Straight Girl
in an effort to convert her, not realizing that
BSG loves Bald Straight Guy; they've been
bumping uglies all night.

The sin is palpable, delicious
and intoxicating in the darkest
way possible.
Like a train wreck, I want to look away.
But I can't.

cardiac arrest.

I wonder:
Can you hear it?
The sigh,
a snap....
beats?
It breaks, you know.

Faster and faster it thumps
and it often simply stops to listen
to your delicious voice,
holding its liquid breath.

But you should listen closer, dear.
It hums and sinks, battered.
I'm bared and bleeding
and beating.

There are tiny, almost silent
pits and patters
like baby's feet on the oak floor.
It begs to be sought and captured
only to plead for release.

rough draft: nicholas.

I've replaced you out of necessity
because you were gone far before I knew you.
And now I find you
hanging, swinging at the end of your rope.
You're no longer swimming upstream.

But didn't I know you?
Your mother is mine and we
knew her by the same means.
She read to us through the womb
until she was too heavy to hold us.

This...event has placed you in her shadow forever,
swallowed up in the mimicked sadness
you'd read about so many times.

tuesday/thursday,

I find myself frustrated every

Tuesday and Thursday. From 11-2

I sit in a plastic chair while my brain

atrophies and slips through my ears

and nose. I try to use my hands to catch

even a little bit of the grey stuff,

a last ditch effort of self-preservation.

My attempts seem futile.

For the first ninety minutes I stare in

awe at two central figures: rosey cheeks wears khakis religiously,

while the sage is unaware of the kippah lying on his head.

They seem to be searching for the perfect answer

without knowing the question

and they aren’t disappointed when eager students

chirp and flap their wings, preparing for a lift off that won’t come.

I do my best by sitting in the corner,

observing and taking hurried notes through

horned-rims.

Rarely do I chirp or flap, knowing that the others

understand the questions before they’re asked.

A second ninety minutes is almost too painful

and a mighty Mississippi intrudes during the ten minute break,

flowing down the center of the room.

This Maginot Line divides the students, natives on one side,

foreigners on the other.

A grey headed rooster sits on the edge of a government sealed

desk and asks inane questions,

never expecting an answer.

It’s a one man show.

I participate in earnest here, pulling out all the tricks to impress

and stupefy my young classmates.

There’s no clucking or skittering around here, these spring

chickens know when they’re beat.

what am i?

Click, click, click

clack. A typewriter in the distance

and the clipping and clapping

resonates in my ears.

Diligently the poet taps and

taps and taps, seemingly

unceasing. What new and

glorious adventure has she

conjured today?

Maybe a story about her

childhood, one yet untold,

or perhaps one of the monsters

in her past or her present.

No, she’ll probably leave them secret.

But what to write, what to write

what to write?

Visions dance onstage

and exit to the left until curtain

call, but none hold the spotlight

and capture the sole audience

member’s attention.

In making an effort, she finally dons the most

sequined outfit she can find and

prances and flutters around until

she’s breathless,

then does it again.

And for what? Certainly not for money,

maybe for fame, but could there be love?

The line is ever so fine, some days she hates

and others she’s obsessed.

Still clicking and clacking, she doesn’t

want to write about love or her distant father

anymore.

She’s grown up and grown out and grown in

and it’s time she shows it.

She takes a step back, examines, sighs.

The only addition necessary is a soundtrack and

a dance routine.

geraldine.

My tiny, purple Neptune, oh

your rings have vanished from ‘round

your waist.

You’ve fallen from orbit and into

a parking lot, glass and gravel

stuck in your feet.

This is betrayal.

My pockets have been emptied

again and again and again

on your behalf

and this is how you repay me?

With screeches and halts, a clutch

untouchable?

Oh baby, your mouth has rusted

away,

rotting from the outside in,

leaving behind the clank of a

trailer park.

Hints of nicotine stains your most

middle finger.

I can’t help taking notice as you wave it in my face.