The threat

My serenity is in a bowl of nickels
that got gambled away
one night in Lake Charles Louisiana
I sat like an idiot
at home hours away
probably eating popsicles
and watching old movies on TV
thinking you were at your computer
or talking to a client
instead the only authority call you
made was to the credit card company
to advance money
you didn't have and to take it to
a cheap venue
that had its own plans for sucking
your sense of dignity
completely dry.

My desire to have
a sweet kiss or maybe even
a roll in the hay flipped down
the felt table
along with the bouncing dice
pop! in one second of
unconsciousness
you just forgot
that if I found out how
immature you'd get in the need
to delude yourself one more time
at a casino
or at the click on the charge button
of  a gambling internet site
that I would get so mad
and so scared of your insensitivity
that I might this time
really mean it
pack my bags
and walk out the door.

Casino loss

My love for your didn't suffer
not too much
My hopes for you got
a bit trampled in the rush to deal
with the truth
My own expectations of your ability
to face reality are lying on a bed
in a seedy hospital unlikely
to recover without a lot of help
My desire to see you get better
overwhelms my trust
and patience in you
and that is my problem
I cannot
or have not
surrendered you
and your addiction
to something greater than us
And today I just
want a cigarrette
and I gave up smoking 20 years ago
and I want a beer
which I hate
and I want a bus ticket and a sleeping bag
and a whole different place on this
mental planet to lay
my aching heart
and throbbing head.

August 2005

Healing Series

Sunsets/Stolen Innocence/Jailbird Ghosties

The ocean's breeze

wraps me in moist heat

waves crashing

and memories bouncing

off the beach blanket

as I sit with a now fiftyish body

trying to remember the details

of my first steps 

along a sandy strip

of land in Southern California

a deep ocean blue

another setting sun as big 

as a beach ball

on the horizon

The startling voice of a worried

young mother

Mine

as she picked me up

crying 

because

the beckoning waves

in their constant froth and frolic

took me away 

from the family picnic

and to the edges of 

a sparkling brand new world. 

Corpus Christi, July 2005


Stolen Innocence

How many times did
you do it to her?

How did you get her to go
into the car?
What words did you use to
tell her you needed her
to sit there, still
to look the other way
as you sat in
broad Southern California
daylight
in the driveway of
her own home
together
but separated
by the rage she
dared not express

How many seconds or
minutes did it take
for you to unzip
your pants
and pull out
the thing that you
forced her to hold
in her small left hand
until you had had your way
with the little body
she would come to treat
like you treated it
as a thing that would serve and
do what others pleased
a spiritless unfeeling
part in a mechanical land
until you had soiled it
with your putrid essence
until you had
communicated through
the touching
and the pulling
and the raping
of her soul
that her body was not
hers to control
that her feelings were not
hers to express
that her spirit was not
hers to feel
that her confusion was
to become a dream
that you and others like you
would become the source
of a recurring nightmare
that even the daylight would
from then always frighten her
that she better not disobey
that she might as well do nothing
because there no use to saying
NO, anyway

How many times did you do it?
were there times when you were
almost caught?
how many times did you whisper
her name
and watch her stop like
a frightened little squirrel
pretend you were not there
or that she didn't hear her name
how did you figure out when
she could be caught
when she could no longer say no
and she went along
taking the only thing she had
left to fight with
a determined will never to forget
an inner voice that said
my only fight is pretending
this isn't so
I am in the dream world
the nether-world
and someday I will get away

How many times
did you do it
but even more important
is
Why?

Austin, TX 1993

Jailbird Ghosties

Less afraid

less angry

awake

and almost

barely

almost

bored

thinking

where are the ghosts

that like to haunt

in between the sheets

when daylight breaks

and my lids flutter

like a frightened bird’s wings

who came to pick a seed

and sensed in her whole being

a presence

and turned to fly away

The ghosts are

sleeping

or drugged by

the happy leaves

we put in yesterday’s meal

or they only

exist

when I want them to

but that also can’t be true

Steel blade

as long as an inchworm

cutting across a small

tender hand

one cut to a child’s

suffocating spirit

left her wondering

would anyone ever

hear her cry?

Today

the scar is but

a reminder of a long gone

past

a longing to find

that small hand

who is today a sweet

and friendly ghost

Dulce espantito

You are vieja

old

and you are young

you are in a purgatory

I jailed you in with

my confused and guilty heart

Forget the past

and the blood and the dirtiness

of his sex on your innocent

hand

Your wound is almost healed

come out and use that hand

to reclaim your life

I shall describe you

and love you

and clothe you

in glitter and stardust fragments

of playful thought

No need for fear

I won’t leave you in there again

Baby ghost of mine

I feel this morning

as a sweet breath of memory

on my cheek

Shriveling Ovaries

My restless head is thick with curl
the pen and I are joined in
a united front of apathy
Lethargic is my main attribute these days
the temperatures rise
but nothing spits forth from the pen
though flashes and beads of sweat do so often
I cluck and chuckle in the corners of my nest
like an infertile hen
I chuck
she ducks
what a pair we are
in our fifties
much too aware
that mean-o-pause sucks.

August, 2007
Austin, TX

Body Scan on the Cape

Enjoy today
No
right now
the contrasting rich brown
of a thickened hand
a right hand
my own hand
that has always resembled
that of a mother and a grandmother
color de café
color de amor
brown like the earth
against the pale green
of a warm shirt
and the faint moss against
this brick step
a place to sit
to reflect
to remember
to avoid the fight
and hold the light
so enjoy today
and let tomorrow be
and yesterday go
and watch the mist settling on the beach cove
and listen to the awakening gulls
looking for breakfast
and enduring the noisy
cars going by at a busy speed
and hear the thruuuummmm
of the church bells
beckoning all to worship
on this morning in the Cape
at the end of the month
of a very lovely May
at the beginning of the 31st day.

Provincetown, MA 2007.

Hot Pink

A hot pink rose
nestled in a pot
looked back at me
as I sat in a spot
perfect for holding
the beat of my heart
and perfect for
shifting my worrisome thought

A bit of grass beyond
the porch
made a blanket
of serenity
and called out for my own
equanimity

If I could
I'd take this picture of a
morning time
and carry it with me all through my mind
I'd pull it out now and then
in a desperate effort to relax
to unwind

A sweet little tune of spring time featherlings
leapt from branch to branch
announcing
the time for love
I noticed all this as my
empty side of the bed
entangled the warm sheets
with the muffled sounds
of my lover's snores.

September 2007
Provincetown

Doing Less

Is sitting
incense burning
candles bright
jammies still on
memories of past
loved ones
pass through my closed eyes
on a Venetian canal of remembrance
yearning
a pen with purple ink
holds open the door

Ah. I have run into my neighbor
with whom I am upset
she is breeding dogs in my home
I swallowed some feelings
others not
they got
vomited on to her '
pretty tight dress
I so wanted to kick her out that
very second
but how cruel
she has no job right now
and so what?
she is going to earn her rent
by breeding another set
of designer dogs?
in my home?
bitch!
Oh yeah,
doing less but
doing lots to myself
to be pissed off
as I sit in the stew of my burning
silence
So go ahead
sit in silence.
Bitch.

Spring 2010.