Coltrane and Me

When I hear Coltrane
and his saxophone playing
against the backdrop of
soft-pedaled notes
on a jazz piano
I relax, close my eyes
and then
I'm back in New York City
on Bleeker Avenue
or maybe Basil's on 7th Avenue
and I'm in a black sexy dress
smoking a thin cigar
yes, a thin cigar
and holding a fluted glass
that I tap with my fingers
long red painted nails
fizzy bubbles moving
a little back and forth
and the blues notes
of a darkened club dance
over my table
and I smile at the musicians on
my personal stage
as I shift my weight
a little bit forward
hungry to embrace
the notes of
A Love Supreme.

Te pareces a tu mamá

I look in the mirror as I put
on the color rinse to my hair
and recognize a certain look
that as I age returns you to
me in that mirror
and then haunts me as you follow
me with your judging gaze

The magic in the box will
take away the natural grey
much more than that
it shall put off and delay

the moment of my coming to terms
with the hardening fact that
outwardly I am becoming you

while with fierce intention
I place the dye on my head
and wait
and charge against my future
with the energy of my past

you know
those teen years
when I hated you were my mother
and I that was your daughter

and look here I am
becoming you
and still resisting you
with the promise on the box
that the grey will go away
but the reason for
the treatment will not.

 Austin, TX 2011

Roxanne's DNA

Roxanne is a wild cat
Green eyes stare at me defiantly
with a loud unspoken
NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!
Stay away from me
You have toenail clippers in your hand!
NOOOOOO!!!!!!
What do I care that you paid
$2000 plus for that French antique
farm table!
I see TREENice scratching post
thank you and
Meoooowww!!!

What do you expect
I'm a kitten
born of a feral mother
Saved from the incinerator
Bearing me and four orange tabby
Brothers
I am your bundle of joy
and exasperation
I am your kitty
and your own little monster
I am a furry coat
of spinning atoms
a thousand years of
cat Will-ful-ness
and as many ways
to say - uh-uh-no-no-noooo
And by the way
do NOT confuse my purring
For love and obedience
Or I will scratch your eyes out.
Batavia, Illinois 2010

Java and Toast

The peanut butter on my bread
Matches the color of the brick
Building outside my 9th floor
Chicago window and the apricot
Jam the color of the building next to it
And I gaze out as I munch and chew
Wondering who’s eating breakfast with me at this 8’ish hour and is
Anyone having eggs the color of my soft pajamas
Or if they will wait for a Starbucks
Latte filled to the brim with foamy milk that is the color of
My mood upon eating this sweet toast fluffy and light
And warmly wrapping itself around a hot brown soft woman java!

Chicago, IL, Winter, 2000

Professional Ghost

I am a ghost
and I am leaving now
this haunted house of academic spirits
of greed and competition
of desire and power run amok
of childish tantrums
and wasted millions
on fluff heads and bald heads
of pseudo-intellectualism
hard knocks
on a soft reality
men and women
without hearts
students learning to mimic
empty smiles and the rules
of containment of one's values and soul

I was haunted by the spirit of lies and myths
and by the rumors of my own fictional identity
that I was strange and probably even a witch
that I couldn't teach my way out of a paper bag
that my students had all been brainwashed into
giving me those excellent marks
and that I dangerously
threatened the formalism
required to maintain
legal traditions

But I know
I spoke from my heart
and my brutal desire for honest connection
and I learned to pray in my office
before opening the door to another
bitter confrontation
with the coldness of indifference
and the antics of fear
that are the world of politics
little and small
by men mostly
carrying fat cigars
tugging at their groin
and never stopping to look
at the love in the stars

I am a ghost of my own creation
of a woman who is only now learning
to howl like a wolf
in search of mountains high enough
to carry my voice to the winds
to the people I touched
with a radical thought now and then
and dangerously warned of the
intimate connections between life,
lust, love, and the law

Yes I am a ghost of many complexions
red for the embarrassment I have felt
when I made mistakes
pink for the dozens of times I laughed freely
in the moment of flowing ideas between my
heart my mind and the moment of seeing
the light bulb switch to "on" in a student's head
I am a green ghost when I jealously think
of the people who did find a home
on this haunted hill
and I am a grey ghost
when I remember that I
spent thousands of days and hours in worried
agonizing and painful reflection
of the time it has taken
to learn a simple lesson
that ghosts are both alive and not
and that the mysteries of the past
including the reasons for my coming
here
are no clue to my future
that I was neither killed by my enemies
nor was I murdered by my own self
but I did
like a ghost only whisper
in these halls
the essence of my being
which is a truer and open heart
than the one I came with eight years ago
the one I reclaim now
as I leave this house of spirits both evil and good
and the memories of the moments
when I did come alive
even though I had been resoundingly
confirmed
as professionally dead.

Fall 1999 (upon clearing out my first professor's office).

The Visitor's Worry

Not one ray of hope today
Not one pretend ray of sunshine
to paste on my forehead?
Not one rosy cheek to turn the other way
in case I get slapped by the fierce
Chicago wind or by one more
biting criticism of who I am
or what I love to do
by a student
No, I guess not
I better get on with the day
and just accept
that I am walking out this
door in a very bad mood.

Chicago, Feb. 24. 2000

Snow Observed

Shall I ride a snowflake
to work?
Shall I be ready for life today?
Shall I listen to the music of love
in the silent fall?
Shall I drift and melt my mood of fear
into friendliness
Shall I be brave enough
to fall downward if I must
gracefully, leaving my mark
on the earth
happy to have been on a ride?
Shall I ride a snowflake of love?

Chicago, 2000