- Storypoems from the Lower East Side -

New home for Storypoems

2006-12-03T11:36:00.000-05:00

Yessirree, it was time for a new home away from the clunkiness of Blogger. I've moved:

http://storypoems.wordpress.com/

Please be sure to update your links, bookmarks, blogrolls and whatever else, and hopefully I'll see yas over at the new digs.

xoxo
deanna

Event horizon

2004-12-03T13:42:00.000-05:00

Sneaking through barred windows over fire
escape, barbed wire on roof next door catches glinting
sudden sunshine after early December rainstorm.
Furious event horizon passes over with the
speed of NYC rush hour pedestrian traffic.
Wind kicks in, knocks me down in the
crosswalk of Broadway.
I knew it was coming.

Carport

2004-10-31T21:41:00.000-05:00

Bare walls and rolling down hills, climbing
back to the top for a tumble. Holding 4th of July sparklers,
ghosts in the goblin. A picture of tension I never
had is recognized in pumpkins of memories. My mother holds
her breath, my father exhales too loudly.

These are her people.

There are valves that release
and close off blood that ties us together in times of
inconvenience, insecurity, and unreason. I am inside the currents
of her joy and surrender. Her desperate need to
empower me shines on the surface.

He mows the lawn to break away fallen leaves, to leave the
women to their kitchen talk. He is outnumbered in his
old age. A woman is missing, I am standing next to her footprints
in the home she never abandoned. We sneak cigarettes in the
carport. She hands me the lighter, asks me to ash
like a lady, we laugh. I wish her ghosts away from her
neverhome, haunted with the joy and unreason of
her people, my people.

Happiness Deli

2004-10-21T01:06:00.000-04:00

Amin is behind the counter,
gold teeth and long curly hair, a rockstar
mustache. Latin boys walk in, Amin says
hey, Frankie, mi amigo, como estas?
Frankie says, bien, bien, turkey hero. Amin makes
it for him. Cop walks in, says Ma'assalama,
Amin says Ma'assalama. The cop asks for some
more lessons on Mohammed, Amin explains
and Habib makes all the coffees. Old black man
walks in, says, what up, homes. Amin says,
hey, what up Holmes, ham sandwich tonight?
The man says, nah, Yankees lost. I can't eat
tonight. Amin understands. Crazy schizo named
Lucky walks in, selling a radio from 1985. Ten bucks,
works and everything, he says. Amin tells him,
no man, thanks, we got radio here in Happiness.

At Clinton and Stanton, Monday morning

2004-09-13T04:50:00.000-04:00

I walk up Clinton Street to buy
a pack of cigarettes at four a.m. On the
corner under the streetlight are
two people encased in each other like the war
is over and the street is celebrating.
Their bikes dropped beside them,
lay abandoned for the occasion.
The scene of a crime.
I want to know.

They ran into each other after
many months of not, dropped to lock up.
They rode into each other, invited
guests of circumstance.
They rode home together, a simple
thing creates this scene.

I lower my eyes to the street.
In a pause, he says to her,
I wouldn't do anything with you
unless it was in color,
and I wish it true.

Radio stitches

2004-08-30T01:56:00.000-04:00

Making stitches,
needling like the sting in my face
when the frisbee hit it on the Great Lawn,
surrounded by giggles and little swimming stars.
I want to reach through the fabric,
ripple it
with my stitches, giggles,
make waves like that piece of pain
running from my ankle to my ass.

It's OK because when I breathe
it touches you across radio waves hijacked.
In here we can pretend that it's OK
to feel grass between toes,
make every chant funnier
by ending it with "in my pants."

I don't want the view from above.
Down here we can fling raisins,
origins unknown,
into garbage cans and we can
make popsicle pirates in the park
spread eagle, defenses down and out
with the wind of my breath on your radio waves.

Cupcakes

2004-08-06T19:18:00.000-04:00

Ticket on a windshield, Ohio on Stanton Street. My name
in the newspaper, wandering thoughts passing by like the guy
with the geri curl and his arm around his tapered-legged pants
girlfriend, now or two decades ago. Sixteen years ago,

there were riots here, carving out names scratched into
film, now ten days till my birthday, I am reminded:
I wasn't there. Trying to keep up in green track pants I
don't remember liking, I want to bring cupcakes to school,

except school isn't a building anymore. A musty, sweet
nap on a couch in the back room is summer vacation, I owe
everyone everything. An ex-boyfriend skirts down Essex.
To be expected, I got banned from dating on Ludlow centuries ago.

Threading.

2004-07-06T23:42:00.000-04:00

Patching words into sentences into stories
we used to tell to make each other mad, now laughed
away with a wave of a wand of passed time. Tour buses
travel time up the Bowery, the farmland,
sprouting roses of brushed steel
and thumping bass, following the thread of electricity,
repeating clauses,
following frequencies of New York's disease:
nostalgia. Things are always better in a
different time before me, and things will never
be better or worse than they are now. Things, we, them,
all living in the present tense. An undercurrent
plays connect-the-dots, watching recognition
light up the footlights of our
collective memory. We hold hands with strangers,
know they save our souls now; without resumes
or reason for trusting, we do so presently, here in
this bar this club this park this sidewalk this street this
vanity. We save each other from the men who would
otherwise pimp out our farms, our Bowerys in a
heartbeat. We hold hands with the angry and the
hurt, the hopeless and the apathetic, slashing
the tires of crusaders in their multinational
man-made machines of war. We are snickering in the dark
corners of what New York used to be, still is
in our present tense: corrupt and unclean and free
from the ordinary, still in some parts.
Wait for me. I will be here now, forever, without
knowing or willing. I will stand locking hands
with strangers: I will always choose to make
the better never end.

**poet's note: y'all must read "Forever" by Pete Hamill.

How to kill fruit flies.

2004-06-24T10:27:00.000-04:00

3:15am:

A glass of vinegar and 2 drops
dishwashing soap
with a paper funnel on top
will kill swarms
in the humid rotten.
Preferring to crawl frantic
instead of fly, blind to
the aperture of escape.
One on the edge of the cupboard
hasn't moved in twenty minutes.
Do fruit flies nap?
Would you nap if you only
lived ten days?
Fucker.
I knew once I got up
to get another cigarette,
he'd jump in.
Two or three fight
on the edge of the funnel
and fall. Dead.
Drag on a cigarette
as they sink.
I have dreams later
that survivors are pissed
and swarm me to death.
Stupid flies.

Why I stay.

2004-06-05T11:37:00.000-04:00

A sinking balloon with string tied to my wrist,
the week comes to Sunday and I am not responsible for rooftop
skyscape, with the perfect moon tugging on your striped
shirt sleeve to remind you: I am not on vacation.

Sip bad shiraz, sit on laps,
sound subversive
intrusive
when the moon and the Empire State Building take over
the conversation. I am not on vacation here,

I live this, all my shit piled up to the
bed, jeans and books and underwear and schedules
frolicking wildly. I'm not looking. My ashtrays
runneth over. I won't disappear when the plane
takes off. No vacation here,

I don't get on any planes, I never even take cabs anymore,
my feet are rooted to the cement garden of this city.
Citibank and AmEx send their goons; I
have to ask you to buy me a drink, you sailor,
my first trick.

My blood flows like traffic up First Avenue on days where
the Limited bus catches all the lights; it gathers at
the center like the day the lights broke at Bowery and Houston,
only one lone cop who happened not to know how to direct
traffic was there. Luckily, I am not on vacation,

I am not a tourist standing here, mouth-breathing, fishing
for clean air. Maybe I scratched the surface too hard, but
too late -- now I know you play piano and go to the Sonic
Ballroom or maybe Blue Shell looking for pieces of me, and
I'm your first. I will be your last, it's too late, the lid
is blown and the plane is taking off. But I am not on vacation,

I am looking down the hazy subway tunnel, waiting for the tracks
to glimmer, light up, tell me my train is coming. A man walks
down Houston with his boxers over his jeans, dancing to Michael
Jackson on his little radio. We dance a little together and he
makes me laugh with him. This is why I can't leave New York yet,

why I can't give up yet. I can't help but think I make a
difference simply by not saying, Fuck this, I'm going to Europe.
I can't leave them behind -- who will change the lightbulbs
for my old neighbors upstate and make sure they get
a square meal? -- which is why we ate spaghetti for dinner
every single night this week and splurging is buying Paul Newman
sauce instead of Prego. The current is spiraling
but I've still got three fingernails dug into the sink,
foamy bubbles of cynical laughter keep us all afloat here.

Old habits die hard.

2004-05-31T02:24:00.000-04:00

You are a bass drum thundering in my
chest and it makes me want to lick your
empty coffee cup after you leave in the morning.
I want to hover under neon Bulgarian techno beats,
listen to you tell me that you missed how I
smell like, insist that my German has gotten
far worse than your English, get to miss you from
only Attorney Street to Fire Island.
I knew the moment I saw you that you would
remember for me that I make words, you play
piano, and I knew you would remember sarcasm --
old habits die hard.
There are ten people in the universe;
you and me are two of them.

How to spend 5 free minutes.

2004-05-29T16:30:00.000-04:00

This poem has to be more than just how I
feel right now because otherwise it will become
a monologue, and unsent letter, an unclicked email,
a rant down Avenue A that no one else can hear
but me, lost in the synapses of streets and bound
pages of my brain. I will do away with
metaphor and hyperbole, figure out if the line
breaks when I pause or just
bends. I will show it to my friends' glazed eyes, pounce
on the bridge that it creates between me and a phone
call still not made, answered. I will
bask in the glory of self-doubt and self-pity, and convince
myself that here in ABC Playground, the weather is
just playing hokey-pokey with me.
Soon it will be too hot to write in the sun.

West Village as vacation

2004-05-20T12:57:00.000-04:00

I want to celebrate looking
in the mirror, but I don't know how.
I can walk from 28th Street through
8th Avenue throngs,
asking where the park is,
getting them saying,
depends on what you wanna do in the park.
We're trying to figure out the
meaning of life, of course, they shoo
us back east, towards Union or Tompkins Square.
Sit on the bench and pretend that
I put my head in your lap, asking for some
tangible touch of real
in ghosts acid the Bible.
A man whose khakis and stretched t-shirt
canvas across his belly
screaming tourist tourist tourist
checks out the statue a little too closely,
and it reminds us that yes,
New York is still New York.
When an older guy with a rainbow belt
wrapping his high-waisted shorts
hovering over tube socks
asks us if we need a cup of coffee,
we are offered a slice of
New York that tourists don't get
to see because they still won't
sit in our parks till 2am,
in the West Village as vacation,
figuring out how to kiss
goodnight without getting off
I-95 just yet.

Vignettes in Tompkins Square

2004-05-11T01:11:00.000-04:00

A park scene in the diaspora. A guy holds his dog up to dance
for a baby, and she thinks he's waving goodbye. A wrinkle with
gray dreads howls with laughter at all of them.

If I make myself hold the pen long enough, I will remember to write
without thinking. Memory will feed me when I am too poor to try, my love
will sit cradled in my brain, waiting to be hatched.

I moved here not to quit dreaming on rooftops but to make dreams on
pavement. To fashion a bouquet of stolen thoughts so I can sleep at
night.

I keep holding this pen up not for genius but for piece
of mind. Look at the birds with the airlock brakes. Launching pad? I
never realized I had balance till I stood up and went on out.

Missing you. Wishing you could be the pieces of my fractured brain in
the crosswalk, but then, age and spirit aren't the same thing; sorbet
and ice cream aren't, either.

I don't want love on a diamond -- okay, maybe served on a silver
platter, sure -- but I do want two feet someday, arms and cheeks to
chew on.

They ask me why I write about New York so much. We know each other
really well, so it's easy. NYU film students, bottled blonde, bottled
love, bottled up.

Afternoon naps aren't nearly as satisfying as they used to be,
now that I can't sleep at night without wondering if I'll ever finish what I
started. You call me to complete the conversation. Start a new one.

Choosing to bake cupcakes and chasing pigeons are good
ideas. Two coffees in recycled coffee sleeves and kiss
goodbye while walking. Cooperation.

Cosmic tortilla

2004-04-16T01:07:00.000-04:00

Drop me a psychic postcard full of
pictures and poetry from the other side
of town, and I will tell you all about prophecy
mixed with numerology, Arabic writing on
all our palms that makes God appear when
we pray or hold hands.

The phone rings.

An ocean away sits the 18 to my 81 and I
know how to calculate time zones quickly these
days -- both forwards and backwards. A piece
of me here, a piece of me there, and all the glue
spilled out, sticky yolky yellow that tastes good
with a pretzel and a coffee.

Disconnect.

Puzzle pieces spread over the kitchen
table, like my legs were there a few weeks ago,
but I said my prayers last night and kept
them crossed. It's okay to be a good girl.
Your hair still says it all.

Declined.

56 rejections. 28 submissions. 14 years
old, and the boys still don't like it when I say
"No." Happiness is still the center of the
universe, where good coffee and good girls
giggle and learn why Mecca makes sense, tell
each other that the rain will stop in a few
days, and each time it stops beating, it'll
beat again. In the good way.

ma/gramma/me

2004-03-27T19:26:00.000-05:00

I look at my mom and see the imprint of my
grandmother tattooed on her brain. I hear

them speak to me in concert, the
same voice I use to rabble rouse. I reject

what parts of them do not fit my body, it being
just as lanky, knobby-kneed, flat-chested

in each generation. I don't want
sometimes to be so regal, hold my head so high,

be so graceful, be so in control
of what we are. I reject this, try too hard

sometimes to be my father, a man of
the people, a grain of salty earth, clinging

to his name, though people know me
best by the one I share with my grandmother.

Looking in the mirror, I realize that I too
am tattooed, regal, and there is indeed a shred

of grace, lace and ribbons that I'll never
quite be able to leave behind.

My mother sent me a Mother's Day card,
it's the sort of thing she does, and it said,

"I smile because you are my daughter. I laugh
because there is nothing you can do about it."

Ode to Cowboys and Combat

2004-03-15T07:27:00.000-05:00

You can look at a table full of empty
beer mugs full ashtrays dirty dishes
and used napkins
say that either we have a lazy waiter
or that it was a really good fuckin' party.
I guess I'd be a used or dirty too
except I don't wait around
to be cleaned up.
I still like cowboy boots and phone calls
at 4:30am that ask
where are you
do you want to come over
do you want me to come there
and I like that I can't grow out of
black combat boots and a broken heart
just yet and I like that there's still boys
that read my bravada as an invitation
and not a threat.
You can die a New York death in Berlin,
and that's how I know I belong here
and not there.

To sum up.

2004-03-09T22:37:00.000-05:00

The important thing is that I made it outta there
relatively unscathed when a bike riding the wrong
way down Clinton Street carrying someone's
pizza swerved to miss me and the girl
in the heavy coat causing the gypsy cab to first swing wide
skimming the Nova who'd suddenly decided to park
but then gypsy gunned it to make the light and slammed on
the brakes when he saw girl heavy coat my eyes' fire
in his headlights. The Latin men on the corner
watched to see who would go down first. Me.
I lay down in the crosswalk and cried.

I want to take back everything I ever said and replace
it with words that don't mean. That picture of my dad
and me shoulda been the picture I took of a flooded
subway station last summer, when you were just a creek
whittling your way into the canyon of me. Not
the one, certainly not the only, more like passing
sideshows in life's circus of where there's never
a main attraction. Now, if I were her, I'd boot
your ringmaster-ass out the door so fast,
you'd wonder who loved you more
or if anyone ever did.

I'm not her, I'm not you, I'm the trapeze girl
swimming air in a blues-spangled costume. You don't know
me naked: the light was never shed. A candle is
not enough to see poems stripteased and my
flipped hips blurred are not my preferred likeness.
So you can take your Jersey-lined circus
and get the fuck outta Dodge,
because I quit this job and wash distraction
in an unflooded avenue -- Manhattan Island.

If I could be anywhere at the moment (aka, the 2003 poem)

2003-12-19T01:24:00.000-05:00

Go home and put a tank top on as if it were
summer, as if all of this had happened already
and we knew the answers to how and why. We
could imagine that we could eat shepherd's pie
whenever we wanted, and that Christmas
shopping is a distant memory or worry, and
that, in spite of his reputation, Russell
Crowe will marry me someday. Put your
sandals on and let your toes breathe a sigh
of relief, pretend that you didn't break
anyone's heart and that yours will never
be hurt again. Make-believe that chipped
nail-polished hands hold paintbrushes for
friends creating mini-miracles, that your
ego doesn't matter when skin peeks through
when it shouldn't, and that they never told
you that your body or what it does or what
it wants is wrong. Hold someone in your
heart or arms or both like it matters more than
anything if your mom likes him as much as you
did or will. Remember that the future is something
to make or create or forget at your leisure.

60,000 thoughts a day

2003-12-12T00:35:00.000-05:00

You'd think after writing four or five poems
about things having a knack for leaving me,
I'd chain that shit to my body.
But no, oh no, there it goes...
and I wander around the neighborhood,
which feels like I'm watching cable TV tonight:
87 squillion channels and nothing to do.

So I let my mind wander over to apple pie,
and remember these wise words of wisdom from my father:
"You can't go wrong with Granny Smith apples for baking."
Then I flip over to the other night and smile at the fact
that when you fuck me, you're fucking every pretty girl
that ever said no, now saying yes, please
yes, now, yes yes, please now, yes,
and I am happy to mop up the mess of their mistakes.

Someone told me last weekend that you have
sixty thousand thoughts a day.
Sixty.
thousand.
thoughts.
a.
day.
And the fucked-up thing is that you'll have
ninety-nine percent of them
the very
next
day.
But I figure you're only really in trouble
if you're having the same thought
sixty-thousand times.
Not that I have, not that I would know
about that kind of obsession with
one.
single.
thing.
that can drive me
MAD sometimes like I just want to
BANG the shit outta that
ONE fucking
THOUGHT.

But I digress.

Making the next right off the highway,
off this freight train of consciousness,
I land six thousand miles and an ocean away,
but I can't help but wonder if I thought this... yesterday.
So I kick the remote down the block,
and sit myself down to wait
for someone to knock.

transplant

2003-11-15T12:16:00.000-05:00

I want to live in the neighborhood of you.
I want to find the bodega around the corner
that knows my name.
I want to know what it used to be like here,
twenty years ago, before I moved in.
I want to pick up my clean clothes
and give you my dirty things.
I want to pick up your litter
and throw mine away.
I want to find the bodega around the corner
that knows my name.

I want you to take me on a Gray Line tour,
make me follow your colored umbrella,
spend too much on souvenirs I know I'll lose.
I want to skip to the front of your VIP line
and get dirty looks for doing it.
I want to sing on your streets
loudly and obnoxiously because I know I can,
while wearing my PJs and smiling
with unbrushed teeth.
I want to find the bodega around the corner
that knows my name.

I want to wander your parks in spring
and curse your wind in winter.
I want to have to get dressed up for you,
so that I can be undressed later.
I want to be surprised when I find
the no-named place around the corner
has always served my favorite food.
I want to find the bodega around the corner
that knows my name.

I want to explore the interior
of your gentrified thighs.
I want to feel the danger of your ghettos
and sit on the subways of your veins.
I want to rent a car and play
pinball bumper cars on your FDR.
I want to forget where I was last night
and be happy that I woke up at home.
I want your din to comfort me while I sleep.
I want to find the bodega around the corner
that knows my name.

the day i messed up my pills

2003-11-05T01:11:00.000-05:00

(dedicated in love + friendship to the rockstar, haha)

It's just that this distortion of chemicals, a twisted
rainbow of hormones and instant response are making me
fall asleep in the elevator, much to the dismay
of my fellow passengers, not understanding that I
could be a junkie for the melancholy. And when it's dark
already at 5 o'clock, I want to
cry a river of weeping for summers lost,
28 of 'em now.
Yes, summer's lost.

I knew I shoulda taken the subway
to work this morning but I was late,
too late to make a phone call that says
I'm sorry again and again and again.
I'm sorry I was an asshole, I don't even
remember what I said, but I'm sure
that it was nowhere near
I love you, too.

But there are meetings for me to go to and a table
to drink myself under, convincing myself that
I can handle it
while convincing no one else.

Another cappuccino?
Si, oui, si,
that would be lovely.
Thursday is booked, but maybe we can
talk at ten.
I can't, I have to go to Philly on Friday
and make words on Saturday
and finish that story on Sunday
before i have dinner with the guy I slept with
a few years ago, doing it all backwards:
sex first and
friendship later.

I have become too confident once again
in my abilities to produce gems
with the blink of an eye or the swish
of a smile across my now-sallow, jaundiced face.
They said, You look like shit, and I said
Well, whaddya want, I work three jobs
and still struggle cuz some of them only
pay me in warm fuzzies, which is fine until it's time
to pay the rent.
Party all night long with everyone you know on the 31st
because tomorrow, Mr. Misrahi comes a-knockin'
for that fat check to cover the 300 square feet
that I call not home but mine.

Oooooooohhhh
Whoooooooooooooooaaaaa
Hooooold on to your hats kids,
another mood swing's back,
swingin' on up,
it's maaaaaania, wheeeeeeeee!
This is a breeze!
The cappuccino's workin', y'all, so get
on board, if you think I'm something
you can afford.

Topology

2003-10-12T21:35:00.000-04:00

The geography of everything is changing.
The network topology of skin cells across my face,
creasing and pressing against each other,
wincing while hearing another artists' space
can't afford to live in an artists' neighborhood anymore.
Off the stage faster than you can say
'gentrification'
twenty times fast.

Twist your tongue for me
while I sit here and wish
that I could just sit here and wish all day,
and watch the waves of traffic honk at each other.
But alas, I have stabilized rent to pay,
and now that your tongue is tied,
I wish I had never asked you to do that,
or I wish you had just said no.

I rock and roll myself to sleep each weekend,
and wake up to find another For Rent sign on my block,
and another apathetically received lie
from our thief-in-chief on the morning news.
As if it were okay, because our own office buildings
still stand in everywhere but lower Manhattan.
And though the paychecks are thinner,
there's still a TV to watch
and the states of things to ignore
in this ever-changing geography topology of things.

Erupting tongue twisters turn my fire to water,
thick and slippery with the love I have for you.
That's why they call it poetic license.

the rite aid

2003-10-01T08:46:00.000-04:00

i need help up front
help up front please
help me up... front

i've had enough of the 9-to-5-mohawks
and the tip-top-tight trucker hats
that change colors faster
than the leaves around this time of year
faster than the tone in that
testosterone-infused performance
that would almost be poetry
if he'd just admit it

admit that you're a man, man
cuz you meant what you said
stop spending more on your hair products
than you do on your words
and notice for once that the woman
behind me in line
is antsy
and frustrated
because she's got a pregnancy test
clutched between her dog leash
and trembling terrified fingers

pay attention
just this once

magic hat

2003-09-22T21:33:00.000-04:00

the hard heel of my boot thunders
and resonates through my body
as i clamor down canal street
illicitly sneaking out when i shouldn't
and later teasing ghosts that i shouldn't
with an imaginary hat that gives me
superpowers of indifference and cheer
and the strength to say
nah, shit don't get to me

I like you that much

2003-09-16T10:35:00.000-04:00

There's a lone spot of dry on the sidewalk when I walk home
that lets me know that it's still okay to be alone.
I know that I can throw out two spoonfuls of vanilla ice cream,
'cause I got me a whole pint on my way home that screams for me.

How easy it is to forget
forget
for get.
To keep swirling in a muddy puddle of,
"I got that ConEd bill to pay before the
terrorists come get me and if I don't finish
that fat report by tomorrow my boss is gonna
kick my bad-ass to high heaven which reminds me
that I have to do yoga right before my date that isn't
even really a date on Friday night and jeeeez I hope he
doesn't cancel because I got this red pedicure just for him
because I like him that much."

What happened to
I like me that much?
What happened to
I like you that much?

I like you,
this person that I met out on the street,
this person that I shared stories of addiction
and the cowardly nature of suicide with.
Now that we've shared three words or more
there's no way I could draw my double-edged sword
to your heart, because I know now
that I live in there, too.

Rita lost her kid brother in the towers,
and she told me tonight that after these past two years,
an ordinary time is wonderful.

Who are we
to disagree?

johnny cash

2003-09-13T19:21:00.000-04:00

all this shit happening around me makes
my taste buds lie down on my tongue like i
drank too-hot coffee and they scream and plead
god just don't do that again

and in the bars johnny cash rang out all night long
but the only song people knew the words to
was ring of fire
heh... hey baby
i'll show you a ring of fire
cuz it burns burns burns
this ring of fire

so you know i just packed up my bags and walked out
that's all it took
though the smoke is so hazy you can't
even see houston from here
at least i can taste again

self-portrait

2003-09-13T01:13:00.000-04:00

i swore i saw the da da da guys
drive by in their jetta
the night my wondertwin showed me
how to really paint my soul

it's only out of habit that these words
come to me when i think about
red desert sand and the earth below

the shooting stars tell me that
god does exist
whether i call him that or not
whether it's him or her or not

with this hand i can reach 3000 miles out or in
with this hand i could deliver my sins
but i always forget the name for that place
that space i've never been

and these goosebumps deserve a better name
but i'm tired and i'm hungry and
that thought went and came

still fires are burning on the desert by accident
waiting for someone to come home
to glance at my soul
to giggle with delight
"now, baby, we're on a roll"

To husband or not.

2003-09-05T21:39:00.000-04:00

Weddings make me sad because I still don't understand them.
I mean, at the ripe old age of twenty-eight years old,
I stare out there at the rings on people's fingers
and watch lips hug words before letting them go
for us all to hear.
And I'm still out here in the atmosphere,
thinkin',
"Wha'?"

Yeah, you could say to me,
"You just haven't met the right fella."
And I would say back to you,
"You're probably right."
But I'd still sit here, secretly deflating,
because I cannot fathom being
the void that someone else
steps in to fill.
I mean, I'm sorta just okay here,
vaccuum-less,
responsibility-less.

But then,
do I have the right to whine
when no one understands me?

ideology

2003-08-31T02:43:00.000-04:00

i don't wanna be a shred
of a pencil on your page
erasable
and fade-worthy
the very least i deserve is ink, i think
preferably something like a gel thingy
with one a them nice grips
because... because... because
yeah, i'm doing just fine

i used to be able to hang out without
somebody trying to get in my face
or trying to get in my pants
or trying to change my mind
because everyone seems to know
so much better than me
how it is
and why i'm wrong
when all i want is to sit here
and write a little poem for someone
that made me feel good today

but instead, yeah,
here's this one from my side of the fence
telling me i sold out
just cuz i'm not nineteen anymore
just cuz i'm not naive anymore
just cuz i saw enough fucked up things to know
that my political platform buddies
make me wanna scream
YOU JUST DON'T FUCKING GET IT

because we don't know how to listen
and we are three-year-olds throwing
temper tantrums of hope and peace and love
telling each other that we respect
each other
that we have all the answers

and no one seems to get the fact that
that factory man in nebraska don't wanna know
shit about nothin' but the bread on his table
and the bible under his belt

so please don't write me down in pencil
don't make me erasable
paint me in reds, whites and blues
because i'm one of the last ones
that gives a shit about more than ideals

easy

2003-08-17T05:05:00.000-04:00

it is only on the inside that i sometimes still feel misfit
but better to misfit than to be prescribed
as the solution to someone's missing hole

black me out with the beauty i've forgotten
furrow your head into the crevices i didn't know i had

filling the cracks with my own repair kit
patching up holes with sudden realizations

how sometimes it all just makes sense

blackout

2003-08-15T22:06:00.000-04:00

is that your silhouette against a defective skyline?
were those fireworks against the window
of that blight they call a hotel?
is that the moon showing up finally,
shining light down onto rivington,
the night the lights really went down on broadway?

there he sat in our common pitch black
next to a white girl with dirty blonde dreads
that almost made her pretty
and certainly made her not me

my red curly curls weren't enough
to afford me the graciousness
i once so easily commanded around here

everyone's got their theory
and as antsy as i am i would be moreso
if i were anywhere else but here on this roof
surrounded by flashlights
flashing cops lights
and the cherries of cigarettes across the way

will i ever be able to get away with this again?

simple things

2003-08-11T18:33:00.000-04:00

you lay your hand on my
hand and then on my
thigh when we walk
down the street
and later when i'm
asleep in your part-time
bed you kiss my feet my
calves my thighs my back
my face sweltering and feverish
you lay your whole
body on top of
mine and with one swift
move you tell me i am yours

it is in this surrender
that my delight is free

window on a bridge

2003-08-06T23:58:00.000-04:00

if you can take that part of my back
that i hold most precious most dear
and make it stand out in front of
everything else
then i think i might call you my friend
i might understand what's going on
when you think you might kiss it
but aren't totally sure

you think what is could not be what should
and i know the same to be okay
in my world looking out your windows

i still have two and a half minutes to spend here
but i won't know how much i'll miss this bridge
until it thunderstorms tomorrow

fire in the LES

2003-08-06T23:53:00.000-04:00

i sat inside my thought-to-be-burning apartment
and firetrucks buzzed buzzed buzzed around the LES
like big horseflies around a macaroni salad
like fat mosquitos around a lamplight
like they didn't know where to start

false alarm
brooklyn was burning
and the subways were flooded

when i walked my sandal broke
so i was left there barefooted
limping limpishly down houston
waiting for my building to burn
waiting for someone to ask me for a light
and to look confused when i handed them
that cheap-ass three dollar sandal
because my matches were already sparked

reunion

2003-07-28T10:58:00.000-04:00

the air is so quiet you
can almost hear the leaves
growing
and we shoot holes in the air
with the punctuation
and punchlines
of our stories

the hills around roll up and yawn
there's the sweet smell of
barbeque and cut grass in the air

it's easy to watch stories build
up in front of the bright lights
of tractor trailers
it's hopeless to wonder what
it would be like any other way
or with any other configuration

it's easy to visit and revisit
each niche of every twist
and turn
it's impossible to wonder
where this all is
when we are not here

timeline

2003-07-22T19:54:00.000-04:00

i am basking in the power of humility
which is a paradox i suppose
but last week is today and
tomorrow could've been yesterday
if i preferred pedestals to picture frames

but just like brendan and his lover
we are guilty
we are dangerous
and i like to live like
i could actually think like that

i can share a BBQ potato chip moment
with pavel and call him my friend
my brother in mesquite
because he is of the sort that
understands that sort of thing

dennis i think it was dennis
he said he was happily pixelated
at the bottom of a bottle
looking down or around
but isn't that us in there
sitting right there next to him?

scanned in and broken down
from the sum of unequal parts
into happily digestible pixels
picture cells
provided to us by a tube
you know... that tube
fed our trust without question
fed while we choke on that tube
till we stop reading the ingredients on the label
because we trust
that the FDA wouldn't want to hurt us
because those are my goddamned tax dollars

i'm just like my pop really
but don't tell him that i winked
when i told you so

still some of us notice that there are
three cabs lined up on third street at the bowery
and some of us see the fires unattended
out of instinct i lean forward
out of history you know that this means to kiss me

miss

2003-07-16T23:47:00.000-04:00

somewhere in this egosystem we see fireflies
if we just know where to look.
though there's holes in my ozone,
i know how to put curtains around them now
and to take my friend by the arm
to assure her that there is zen
in here
in this
this... fertilizer.
and yes, indeed, that is a lovely shade
of bitter you're wearing,
but that's also why i love you.
why i hold your hand through
the dark spots of the park.

full moon

2003-07-16T23:43:00.000-04:00

i had this conversation with the moon the other night
out there on the sidewalk i stared at her
till my contacts were blurry
till my point of contact was three feet below
and i realized it took a year
a whole goddamned year
for me to finally fall into my own skin
and here she was again
passing through us all
and the summer nights are cooler now
and maybe the wine flows a little slower now
but she shows her whole face to mine
and y'know i think i got it right this time

hide and seek

2003-07-06T04:17:00.000-04:00

i spent time in a thirty-ninth printing
living a history not of my making
and it would seem that i have lost myself again
in the short pants of seasons past

the day-shift shifted home while i smoked
and the heat was still unforgiving while i wrote
but here i was
stuck in the passage of time
hearing the ice cream truck song while
i sucked on a lime

and i remembered that my love
will always play hide and seek
maybe for another day
maybe for another weak

play

2003-07-06T04:14:00.000-04:00

it is sometimes okay to sleep alone
because it is sometimes known
that we are never really alone

i am only now sort of approaching and negotiating
this whole "do what i want" thing
and it is a strange taste
acquired
but practice makes perfect
because this time i just wanted to walk away
i just wanted to be somewhere else
and to know that in my bed
i was alone with a love
that never seems to leave me alone

because sometimes i remember times never better
and most times i accept that sometimes
it's simply okay
to just have good times

cuz poetry sings to me on saturday night
whether i'm lashed or not
and it just so happens
that i am
and have been
in so many ways
huhn huhn huhn

but tha dj playz da funk
and an empty bar empties itself
of drink and i told you
i told you i had juu-juu about this week
i said so
and so it was
so it was the blind playing the blind

passing through

2003-07-01T15:27:00.000-04:00

just for a second you caught a fleeting glimpse of me
behind that heaving slammed door and just for a second
i think you understood what it means to be me

for thirty seconds or slightly more i believed in a man
who believes i have the power to change the world
and if that feeling is replaced by hangover in the morning
at least i have these words to serve as my memory
or my warning

because thirty minutes ago my wallet went walking again
and for the first time ever i just laughed at its wanderlust ways
before picking up the phone to call citibank and say
no no no no no more

but twenty-five minutes later my wallet found a mommy
this time from tennessee on the upper east side
a few blocks from my first apartment
my first encampment
in the city that i learned takes care of its own
whether with tunafish or swordfish
it is there

i wrapped two arms around its plastic sheathed coating
and danced on the bed screaming that i was
in love in love in love love love

out the window and through the door into my love
it held me close and wrapped a blanket of sticky steamed heat
around me just to remind me that enough time had passed
to let a lil streak of summer peek in

my skin is sensitive you know

2003-06-28T10:45:00.000-04:00

my skin is sensitive you know

it remembers things that i don't
and shows us the scars that i forgot
and i wonder how it finds the time
to hold the heat of the sun against my back
while smelling like a scent i'd long since lost
and raising the alarms when something
just ain't right

i peeked inside the haunted cranium
and steven
he said there were pretty little
orange birds living inside it
i wish sometimes that i could just see the birds

bubble

2003-06-10T19:49:00.000-04:00

do you imagine yourself to be more than you are
than what the sidewalk says when you fall
off that invisible curb for the hundredth time?
it's easier to forget the heartbreak you
passed on or passed over
while sailing along on an inner tube
made of bubble water till
pop
a finger touches the edge and it's all there
all that grit is left in the bottom of the tub
after the water drains
and you can't ignore anymore
all the places you've been
all the times you've sinned
so hold yourself up for wednesday's rain cloud
and stop looking for answers here
because soon enough a shiny new sun
will light you again

a silly ramble

2003-06-07T21:19:00.000-04:00

a crazy psychic on the corner of some piazza
told me that i extinguish fires with gasoline
and i couldn't think of a more appropriate way
to describe my behavior.

so now the problem is not description,
but explanation.

well, he also said that i was murdered
several times in a few past lives here and there,
so maybe i'm just here to make the most of it
while my soul looks over my shoulder for me.

my judgment is coming, said the cards,
and the puffy bits by my index finger and thumb
say that i got the element of crazy,
and that i got intelligence but not wisdom,
and that i always pick the horse born for the rodeo,
and that my gut is always dead-on.

thank my lucky stars for my charm.

limoncello

2003-06-07T21:15:00.000-04:00

if it's poetry in a skyline then line me up
for the next shot because people
will always look for the right language
to speak into my book
if i borrow a pen that writes
i will find my true love
in the ink on the page

unfinished business

2003-06-07T21:13:00.000-04:00

you can run, but you can't hide
'cause we live on the smallest planet in the world
share a birthday with my dad
and make me laugh
so that i will grin back halfway around the world
to egypt and back across the mediterranean
we got bought for five euros and a pikachu
but a belly full of pasta makes yummy girls smile, too
as long as we can make the statue of david
say the things we always wanted to hear

art history

2003-06-07T21:11:00.000-04:00

eve was a thief
and jesus was a white guy
just ask those coupla texans
sittin next to me down at the uffizi
where it rains every time i go outside
overwhelmed by tour groups monopolizing
the paintings that revolutionized
the way we look at our bodies
pigeons flock in for leftovers
cannibalizing each other
and we only stare
thanking god
that we're civilized humans

[vacation notice!]

2003-05-30T07:35:00.000-04:00

i'm currently in italy (!!!) with only limited internet access, but will hopefully be posting much, much italia-inspired work upon my return... if i return. ;-)

nickels, dimes and pennies

2003-05-26T20:45:00.000-04:00

my floor has an insatiable
                appetite for loose change
these are the souvenirs of
                the places i've been
change is only loose when
                presented in cold hard form

the reality of change i've made is piling
                up in a bucket over in my bedroom
these are the the pieces that
                i have left
from the times i've given over
                something larger

so maybe when the bucket is full i'll go
                out and slam it
down on a counter and ask
                if it's enough

nourish

2003-05-21T01:38:00.000-04:00

good food will flood needy bellies
if the stars align and tell us that
it's okay now
it's safe now

god smiled at me last night
in the last place i'd expect it
and with fever pitch i tingle
just like my face does when
i eat starchy thick mashed potatoes

it's with a quiver that i shudder
to think that i could be convinced that
this was all wrong
and not the right way
to eat my heart's content
and to give till my belly is full
of laughter and song

winter in may

2003-05-13T12:11:00.000-04:00

the winter doesn't seem to want to leave us, i fear
so pack up your things and run clear of the storm clouds
cuz the sun is still shining on rivington street
even tho people try to sell me something i don't need
smack replaced by libations and greed and other things i can't afford
and still
it seems
the winter doesn't want to leave us

evidence

2003-05-07T11:25:00.000-04:00

it's another blank page, here
it's another chilly morning with this
little brown leather book staring at me
daring me
seething, "i know what you did last night
so tell me baby, you got the guts
to tell it right?"

i tried
i tried it out there i did
but it all leaves a bad taste in my mouth
where a geyser the size of old faithful used to be
and he said...
he said he was disappointed in me

i can lie reeeeeeallllll easy believe me
but there are these truths that i hold to be self-evident
even if you don't
cuz self-evidence is all the evidence i need these days
even if you doubt
so please
please
don't press me for something that
won't ever follow the rules

quote

2003-05-04T23:20:00.000-04:00

no poetry tonight. only a quote from another poem/song.

"did i mention in there
somewhere
that i traded babe ruth?
yes i traded the only player
that was bigger than the game
and i can't even tell you why
cuz you'd think i'm insane
and that's the truth"

"serpentine," ani difranco

home on the LES

2003-04-30T21:35:00.000-04:00

(in progress)

In the town where I grew up, it was a safe place to live.
Cradled in a valley of two rivers, hugged by the end of the Endless Mountain Range
right before those big glaciers came through and gorged out the Finger Lakes.
That's where it sits, unmoving, unchanging
yet somehow always spiraling downward.

Big Blue decided one day that this
was no longer the center of all things beautiful,
or more importantly, prosperous
so they shut down the town
and all those zipperheads
(and anyone else with a few bucks left)
they took off on the IBM 500
swung wide around Kamikaze Curve
hit the gas on the bridge
and left us to fend for ourselves.

Fend we did and as soon as I had wings big enough to fly,
I fled.
Even my own father said,
"Don't waste your time here, kid."

So around half a world and back up then down,
I found this here town and that's when I knew
I'd found my home.
Not long after that I uprooted myself
in the gargantuan feat of moving from uptown to downtown
below Houston where the cabbies didn't know
if Orchard Street was east or west.
East, I said proudly, having caught the tail end
of a picture so pretty
it would make old poets cry with relief.
No East Village broker-speak for me, no,
I was joining the hodge podge mismatched tossed salad dream
of the Lower East Side
where junkies and cons were sold and died
their ashes fertilizing some kind of
enclave of smalltownUSA
inside the deep dark city.

I used to sit out on my fire escape and watch the traffic patterns
of people on my days off.
Meandering shoppers all afternoon getting heckled
by Pakistani and Puerto Rican guys selling leather
on sale today
good price good price good price
till the schoolkids came home and played ball in the street
while their older brothers and sisters circled each other at the payphone.
Soon the calls of mothers from doors and windows
in what, thirty different languages?
Stray early dinner folk looking for something hidden behind no sign
soon replaced by the life of night
who stayed out there dancing under me until 3 4 5 6 in the morning
until the tint of the sky would hint
that it was time for it to start all over again.

It took maybe a month before my neighborhood knew me
before I could sneeze and have someone yell "bless you" from two blocks away
and soon I was whipped up in the rush of small town gossip.
You know that guy with the tattoo from the record store?
I saw him toooootally makin' out with that girl
from the bar the other night
the one that flipped her ponytail in my face...
yeahhhhhahahahaha

I blended in the blur.

And now?
Who sneezes on Ludlow Street?
Who are you to come through and drink Moby's tea
while waiting with your trend-setting friends in--
do my eyes deceive me?--
lines that woulda been guarded velvet and not chains
if this weren't the gritty LES
hoping some celebrity
will show up because Gawker
said they were there just last week.

Now it's all in Vogue
en vogue to be LES
en vogue to push out the people who've been here 30 years.
en vogue to push out the shopkeepers who've lived upstairs
from their store for even only five years
because you can get more money outta the Kate Spades
than you can outta my friend Eva.
Not that I was that fond of drive-bys and dealers
but when the Dell kid is getting arrested on my corner
for buying marijuana
I gotta wonder.

No, we can't have cars of black guys pulling over to ask directions
on the Bowery, having it look like they was selling dope to those poet kids.
Uh-uh, not now that the former flophouses
house smooth sterile steel for well-bred well-fed students.

Where will you be when they let it all go?
When some other place is the center of all things beautiful,
and more importantly, prosperous?
They'll abandon us again, I know.
But this time my wings are grown
and I know where I will always fly home.

wanna taste?

2003-04-16T07:14:00.000-04:00

could there be anythine more blessed than this breeze?
more sweet and thoughtful than mother nature's tease?
wicked and mischievous she throws this premature curveball
into our laps and we lap it up in tank tops and sandals
on a night so clean
you can taste the end of it
you know tomorrow won't last so you let those low-riders ride
and roll up your sleeves
to dig in on this feast for a fleeting, anxious squeeze
tap the tip of your tongue for her
and consciously lose the end of the night
for me
please

untitled

2003-03-21T12:33:00.000-05:00

cruising down a slippery slope
afflicted by desire and pride
i am easily tossed side to side
across puddles of ice, snow and
my own self-deprecation
and each time you are there watching
batting away stinging flies of failure
watching my tears boil over the lids
my cheeks are wet with the embarassment
of my previous behavior
so you hand me an elixir of love and coffee
to soothe the harsh blaring purple
bruise of my ego

miami in winter

2003-02-27T13:11:00.000-05:00

the city for all it's might and mercy
seems a distant memory
along with the cold
and the wet snow
it is hard to imagine
not having to peel off layers
not having to wipe sweat from your forehead
it is foreign to think of
shoes covering feet
pants layered over leggings
sweaters surrounding thermals
and a thick wool coat completing the package
where identity disappears
and is replaced by a heaping lump
of unhappy new yorker
trapped inside
the depth of february

new york takes care

2003-02-26T16:07:00.000-05:00

(featured in issue 1.1 of dirt)

and just when you thought the city didn't care anymore there's a woman
from Avenue C who came walking with her husband saw your life
sprawling out on the sidewalk after bingo on tuesday night
so she picked up the pieces
and remembered the $100 she never got back
and called you and said
it's okay, i got you

step over the shattered shot bottle of vodka
and wonder what it all means when the
package gets there just in time
in the midst of your family falling to pieces
tossed out onto the sidewalk
till an angel of mercy comes from bingo
with her husband and wonders
what you doin' there to begin with
while she hands you your life back
before you know it
just when you thought the city didn't care anymore

breathe

2003-02-19T13:20:00.000-05:00

your breath always tastes like you
and your eyes always feel like you looking at me
even with the thousand ways you manifest in a day
in a night
it is always you
lying there with a heavy arm around me
breathing me
feeling me

february 15, 2003

2003-02-16T18:38:00.000-05:00

it was the weekend of love and peace
on the day colored red and decorated with flowers by tradition
we were tinted orange for "safety"
and decorated with fear
some of us held steadfast in this city
knowing what the Truth was
and held our own private vigils of love
in the peace of our minds

by evening it was clear
that we were in the clear
on what they implied would be
the last night of our lives
so we did what we always did
drank a beer
laughed with love
and kissed goodnight

in the morning the sun greeted us
and infused our soon-numb feet with fire
when it was time to dance to the rhythm of peace drums
love and passion for life lifted us
through the newly militarized zone of midtown manhattan
we held true on our promise
to stay on the sidewalks
while we exercised the most American right of all

but the sidewalks burst open to the streets
and it soon became clear
that they were not ready
for such a voluptuous volume of love to erupt
after dousing some flames with the denial to march

but they were ready for violence
they incited it themselves, don't let them fool you

they penned us in like animals
and lest we forget
we humans are indeed animals
and will carry out our natural duty to act as such
when trapped and caged
and denied our basic human rights

with horses and mace they drove us back
flaunted smug power against absolute reason
in china we would have been killed immediately
but we are not in china
we are in america
land of the free
and the first amendment
is it enough to be simply not dead?

they broke us with time and weather
they separated us
stopped us
held us down and took us away
but it was the weekend of love and peace
so we fought back unarmed
and pushed through to remember
all those who had pushed before us
and finally stood in the rally cage with millions worldwide

we sang our love with swollen throats
and danced for peace on broken feet
never to be tamed by the unjust

blind

2003-02-06T21:28:00.000-05:00

so tell me
can you see my scars?
do they glow in the dark?
are they raised up and mangled,
like they were at the scene?
or are they just smooth disruptions
on an otherwise stubbly body?

to me they're part of the scenery
telling a parable from ancient history
(or sometimes comic reruns from last week)
they are motionless and malleable
they tell my story too easily
and with a recklessness i've long since forgotten
i am too careful now
to see them in all their glory
but i listen every day
to what they have to say

masquerade

2003-01-23T21:22:00.000-05:00

when i walk in all smoky
you still kiss me like i'm clean
when i stumble in with swollen eyes
you still dare me to dream

you made yourself at home
in the confines of my brain
you saw the dirty laundry
and you washed it down the drain

i parade around town
as a woman with many masks
you applaud each one of them
and peel away the last

there's no more hiding for me
there's no reason to act it out
there's no room for masquerades
when heaven comes around

gold

2002-12-27T17:12:00.000-05:00

a snowflake can bring joy in
an otherwise dulled existence
he hovers just below my radar
and shines tiny nuggets of
glistening gold onto my eyelids
without explanation or request
for returned favors
a hummed tuned inside my head
sends me to the echo in his
and i wander forward
expecting nothing yet
receiving showers of sunshine
from faraway places

i will wait this time
and see

rachel

2002-12-27T16:47:00.000-05:00

she who has read so many of these words
with the patience of an angel
and the care of a lion tamer

she who smiles with the innocence she had long since lost
but so often found again
in the faces of many

she who shines with a light beaconed out to the lost souls
comforting all but loving select few
who meet her secret demands

she who could be the devil if you asked her right
will always know where the music plays
and touches the hidden orchestra of all our hearts

2002

2002-12-26T23:30:00.000-05:00

back and forth to forward and back
a wish-wash across a palindrome
we slid and dove deep into surfaceless adventures
while others skated on thin ice

loss left us
feeling empty and sad
like we'd finally had enough
disappointment in a shimmery blue sky gone cloudy
could be swept away again by
the knowing smile of an old friend
or the decadent taste of a newer one

expanse reigned as we contracted

overwhelming nonsense can make
giddy girls giggle on a stoop
and when remembrances are long forgotten
we will always have these nights together

break

2002-12-20T19:24:00.000-05:00

when i was ten did i really
fall to right off my bike
only to have my left knee break?
there are faces stuccoed to my brain
and only time and the occasional
spiritual sandpaper make them smooth again
what have i hoped to learn?
what have i learned to hope?
old hot buttons can still be pressed
but at least now i know how
to turn the alarms

off.

blank walls

2002-12-20T19:23:00.000-05:00

the paths in front of me
are painted on the same four walls
and it doesn't take but a bit
of chemical induction
to make them all look like
paradise

the paint i could use
costs something more
than i can afford so
i still have my sharpie
bleeding into my back pocket
and my book is full

i've been taking little
excursions into blindness
and if all the universe allows for me
are fleeting moments of relief
in flights of fancy
then sign me up

this is my bedroom
this is my living room
this is what i live
thist is where i am
sure, peek in the windows
and peel apart the curtains
don't be surprised when
you find the door is unlocked
don't be surprised when
it looks like i've been robbed

alarm

2002-12-20T19:21:00.000-05:00

(11/19/02)

if i could
if i could just
if i could just get the car alarm
to stop alarming
then maybe i could just
i could just get side of mashed potatoes
with the extra gravy
on the side

i may lose your love
but i've still got your lighter
and there's a file in my brain
where this all belongs
but i need to be taught
how to be a patriotic progressive

in a sense
sense
this makes none
but i can hold a thread longer than
you can needle me for it
and while i pop a knuckle in my back
the future stands whistling an idle tune
filing its nails
holding
waiting
blistering its feet

trashy novel-less banter will always make me...
make me
smile
can i dream the dreams of children
once more?

color of rose

2002-12-20T19:17:00.000-05:00

(10/27/02)

we held her cold plump hands
and told her it was OK
right before she opened one eye
peered at us
and died
she's held true on her promises
to haunt us to no end
yelling out instruction from eternity
in her spare time
evil practical jokes via Bette Midler
infect us and we can only laugh
to know now that
souls not humans
have color that isn't of rainbows
and humor that isn't of this earth

standing it

2002-12-20T19:14:00.000-05:00

(10/21/02)

i stood over you with a washcloth on your neck
while you puked into the kitchen sink
just to see if i could stand it
and i'm pleased to report that i only dry-heaved once

when we sat on the bathroom floor drenched with
not-the-fun-kind-of-sweat
i waited for the judgement call
had i the selfless nature of a mother
to hold onto you through the worst?

i love you because you say things like
"my mistake, you are right" when you're wrong
and because we laughed when we cleaned up
your mess
where does the icky green stench of sick fall
on the scale of love?

bliss

2002-10-02T23:09:00.000-04:00

from broadway all the other avenues look crooked
and the sky is the color of electricity
jumping jacks of cosmic intervention under skin
make old muscles antsy and prickly
and the taste of summer lingers
on the back of my tongue
whisper sweet instruction to me
and my body will fold
into familiar hands that hold
mold
and roll
my soul

untitled

2002-08-12T16:08:00.000-04:00

(08/03/2002)

the rain came down in yards of yarn
flooding orchard with a wink
crisp cracks of laced lightning
tore through the heavens and
made our eyes tear with base fear
huddled under scaffolding grown men
shed their shoes and ran with
their children to play in the
lanes of fresh-brewed rivers
while some simply strolled
having given up the fight
nature is always right

my city

2002-08-12T16:05:00.000-04:00

(07/18/2001)

in my city
the traffic cops seethe sarcasm
and the coffee stand man
gives a big silver smile
he's happy to see the people
he hasn't seen before

in my city
the streets change directions without warning
and russian cab drivers
talk about anemic wives who hate A/C
we pick up margaritas to go
because we can

in my city
a newspaper can mean
a million different things
omens and guiding lights are scattered
and we are all bound together
by unexplainable circumstance

midsummer night's steam

2002-07-02T15:54:00.000-04:00

the whirr and trickle of air conditioners
white tank-topped latin men lean over fans
in windows while taxis troll for tricks at last call
fire escapes are fake balconies
and our world is one of make-shift
as we make do

seeds of mercury

2002-06-11T21:42:00.000-04:00

sunflower seeds on lips make them
salty and later metallic like
mercury milky smooth across barriers like
skin hair mind
knowing truth in eyes as clear as
amber burned into impressions
but prevented from understanding
what makes it tick
bubbles of mercury are lips on lips
and nose to nose i will speak
through sunflower seeds' remnants
and listen through smoky haze
of mazed conversations not asking
for even truth only understanding
behind distant murmurs of spies and soccer
and salty sunflower seeds

unfinished and untitled

2002-06-04T01:19:00.000-04:00

i am a wick in the middle of waxy buildup
you are a match struck to my head
and soon enough the rest of it all melts away
until there's nothing left but liquid ooziness
and a guess of what i used to be

untitled

2002-06-04T01:16:00.000-04:00

(05/29/02)

i wipe sweat off your forehead
you are feverish at heart
the air has suddenly turned
stifling and muggy and muddy
choking our thoughts
fresh air comes in the form
of a breeze of honesty
your sleepless form hides
under my skin and bones but
i will let my heart beat through

5:30 to frankfurt

2002-06-04T01:13:00.000-04:00

(05/21/02)

a coffeehouse on wheels takes me
up and across back down through lands
efficiently quartered off
punctuated suddenly by small villages
known for their red roofs and stringent ways
only a train station here and there
reminds me that this trip will come to and end
and i want to ask the waiters how much they earn
maybe this is a living that can steal me away
from my favorite place on earth thus far
i look in the window and three faces
stare back at me in ghostly presence of
times past, times now, and times yet to come
ten years have passed but somehow
the only thing that's changed is the ten years
that show themselves mysteriously in
new laugh lines around my eye corners
somehow,
it's never too late
to make something new

airport wine and car rides

2002-06-04T01:12:00.000-04:00

(05/14/02)

airport wine and car rides flow
uneasily across lanes and veins
of disconcerted thrills
i sit in the smoking place philip morris
has so congenially provided me and
an older classy lady lights her virginia slim
squinting wrinkles out
and i fall hook, line and sinker for the PR party line
they have generated this plastic jazz and these art deco tables
for me to suck down my sorrows
the water they give is cloudy then clear
will you still love me when i wrinkle
with smiles and cigarettes of youth?
we are gambling with our lives, you said
and i'm putting it all on black
the black of your hair your eyebrows your eyelashes
and the red of your passion comes up black unending
swallowing and welcoming me into the fear
of making one wrong move
billie sings on the wall with no trace of heroin eyes
santizied for this corporate formica
and a mural captures a previous essence of New York
in two towers and a bridge
forever aglow with possibility

jerusalem

2002-06-04T01:11:00.000-04:00

(04/24/02)

you said you come from jerusalem
but i know better that to make the association
with someone else's promised land
you think you can get away with anything
with a voice is so deeply luxurious
lilting over words and through them and into me

my eyes are wide when i kiss you because
if i close them i know it won't be long before
i'll be stumbling through darkness
with only you to guide me
and it's then that
i'll be forced
to trust you

match

2002-06-04T01:03:00.000-04:00

(05/05/02)

striking a match is an art
and the curve of your shoulder into your neck rising
is music to my ear
as i unfold each fear
lay it splayed out in front of you
vulnerable aggression seeps out
in bursts of frightened tantrums
evolving rapidly
into ecstasy

you call me by my name so unfamiliar
to non-ancient ears ringing with humility and haste

for the first time i am aware that it is me
who provides the mystery
and it is me then
who treads warily
answering to a name that has no definition
having to accept blindly that all is right
and all is good
having nothing to hold on to but trust in you
in the expanse and kindness
of our love

2002-06-04T00:57:00.000-04:00

untitled
(04/20/2002)

friday at 5:00 and it's not enough
that we want to go home, no
mother nature triples our pace
with a fresh-brewed pot of
thunder and lightning
the raindrops are as ripe
as the love i have for you
just about to burst open
into a thunderclap crash of lightning
everyone on the street runs screaming
from the warm wet bath
but i stand alone against the mayhem
and let this love cleanse me free
how free i am to wait
for this downpour
now that the winter is really over
and this season, my season
is finally here

big black arrow

2002-04-15T21:32:00.000-04:00

there's a big black arrow pointing
to the core of me and i wonder
if there's a big neon sign humming
over my head that says
"i love you, you know"

you are magic
and your kung-fu is strong
so strong that it can rope this
wild child in under a spell that
all the wild in the wide world can't break

you are magic
like the water that washes
all my sins away every time i bless myself
with a good hot shower after
a sleepless night

your audacity infuriates me
and your chivalry intoxicates me
and the combination of the two
drives me to drink
to drink in the magic that you pour into every look
and that you load into every coded question

this madness that has retreated and resurged
too many times is always eased
by the elixir of you and me

eight sixteen, part II

2002-04-09T14:15:00.000-04:00

for every awkward moment that
was absent from our first encounter
there were six or seven more hanging
between us as we shifted warily
on listening feet
a futon that had seemed so inviting then
seemed now ominous and avoidance-worthy
all i could offer you to drink was
beer or water and my lack of
domestication seemed suddenly
not "cool" or "edgy" but rather
uncouth and immature
as i regressed past my tough girl shell
into the queasily familiar territory
of my teenage years feeling gawky
and twitterpated as i watched
you eye my belongings which you
had played with tauntingly just
a week or so before
something in the sense of you
told me that you queased through
the same river in a parallel boat
brought back to me by the watch
you left on my end table and i
held it hostage, wondering at the
intent (or not) of the leave-behind
you smiled and stalled for more time
as i unwillingly escorted you to the door
this is how we, you and me
achieve the balance of ease

sunshower, LES-style

2002-04-03T15:56:00.000-05:00

the edges of the chrysler building
pressed creases into a premature
thundercloud hovering over midtown
and the lower east side got its
first taste of a sunshower
the vendors on orchard flew their
plastic canvases over precious goods
and a curious bead of sweat
formed on my forehead
i left it there not wanting to
rid myself of the first taste
of summer salty and clean
moist delicious love filled in the gaps
as the tourists struggled
with unfamiliar non-numbered
streets and i watched with
passive glee as mister big scary
thudercloud brought up the wind
and let us know that more of
the same was on its way

eight sixteen, part I

2002-04-02T18:08:00.000-05:00

i could taste the alcohol on
your fingers when i kissed
them and in that moment
everything about you and me
and the non-space between
us was fluid and free
i noticed with intense
fear how the high of chasing
and being chased sank from
the waves of adrenaline
across my chest into the deeper
more intimate and hidden
rumblings of my gut
surprised and arguing with myself
it's silly to say that i'm taking
it slow with you considering
well... you know...
but i am
because everyday your words
reach deeper more intimate
and i am confused and desperate
to hold on to that which i've
just discovered not in you
but in me

my one and only love poem

2002-03-21T17:08:00.000-05:00

(02/20/02)

for you and only you will my
wandering eye, my wandering
whatever come back into the
fold i know so well
in the darkness you hold me,
caress the wounds inflicted by
so many others onto my weak
but willing flesh and mind
we don't speak of them fully
and though i hint at my indiscretion
you know my choice was made
so long ago and though i sway
back and forth, batted around
by tides of time and hormones
you know in the goodness of your
simple pure heart that
you hold me
and i humbly let myself be captured
inside your breath
always welcome back am i
with the wholeness of your lips
on my forehead right before
i surrender to slumber

commute

2002-03-10T18:41:00.000-05:00

every morning we dance and glide
at some unknown time just before nine
paying our fares, huddled up stairs
weaving make-believe lines again
through turnstiles bursting we scatter
like frightened birds we seek comfort
in familiar routine
bagel with butter, coffee with cream
we dance together everyday
same partners, different face
up escalators, crossing streets
dodging taxis, shuffling feet
it's a dance, don't you see?
another routine
not beasts of burden are we
we are dancers
on every day in every way
if we'd only open our eyes to see
take action to listen
set yourself free

lottery

2002-03-10T18:40:00.000-05:00

the sweet smell of an indian summer's
eve left on me cheek and hotness
of breath on the nape of my neck
remind me how memories most pleasing
will come reeling in to where i find
comfort in healing hands and curly words
tickling my insides and out
i fall so swiftly and with mind-numbing ease
back to one who holds hope so close at hand
and i buy that lottery ticket not because
i think i might actually win
but instead because that anticipation, that hope
feeds me
and i can almost taste
the first drag of the cigarette
the morning after

snack

2002-03-03T19:02:00.000-05:00

you know when you wake up
in the middle of the night
and you're starving, famished, ravenous?
you just need a little snack
to hold you over till breakfast
so you drag yourself to the cupboard
grab a cookie to nibble on
because it's there and it's easy
but when you finish you find
you're hungrier than when you started
and that was the last cookie in the package
and the thought of going to sleep without more
is nearly unbearable and unconquerable

i still don't know how my TV screen got ashes on it
because i never watch it and it's about eight miles
from the ashtray and i try very hard not to smoke
anywhere else but at my writing desk
but nonetheless they are there
smeared in constellation on milky gray screen

i try so hard to keep my distance and yet
i still find something unpleasant smeared onto me,
smeared onto the unused screens of my brain,
and if i wipe them clean i'll turn around
to find you holding a cigarette with a two-foot-long ash
waiting for me to open up
and get dirty all over again

remember

2002-02-19T23:44:00.000-05:00

do you remember a time
when you felt impassioned?
having nothing to do
with another's own passion?
having nothing to do
with true love of another
having only to do
with yourself, not others?

do you remember what it was like
when you were young?
you wanted to play,
just to play and have fun
there was no scale at all
for you to measure
whether fun was correct
or business was pleasure

do you remember freedom,
not justice and liberty
free as in free
unbound from misery
which has no meaning
in the concept of freedom
if you choose to let go
of your concept of kingdom

do you remember innocence?
no, not like first kisses
not like first touches
or tense near-misses
those things are all
too far far along
already caught up
in right, good and wrong

do you remember the free flow
of thought in your head?
a moment when no one
kept making their bed
out of folds and creases
that make up your brain
the free flow was yours
without any shame

do you imagine like me that
this all could exist
that it could be more than a whim
more than a tryst
in philosophical endeavours
and late-night pursuits
that it could only mean pleasure
to be accepting of you
to forsake the glass shell
that's been built since birth
to dive deep in your well
your essence your earth

there's a moment in time
right before sleep
when all is forgotten
and surrender complete
look for that moment
with wide passionate eyes
in each beating moment
lies exalted surprise

tuna

2002-02-19T02:51:00.000-05:00

i cut sliced and diced my thumb on
a soup can about five minutes after
realizing that my wallet was vacationing
in upstate new york

rich red blood paraded around kitchen
into my tuna white trash noodles and
i screamed obscenities i never knew i knew
how amazing, in an instant a world so small
can seem so large as it comes whirling
down dancing into the bathroom
still screaming and my life seems
ridiculous and impossible as i hold my
tattered weak little thumb under cold water
made weak, diluted
as i pine for the wallet that left me and for
the love that chose not me and for the spattered
tuna on the stove and the movie i'll never make and
the world i'll never save and for the life i can't afford to live
and for the inhumanity of it all
in my tiny swirling world caught in a
sink of pink dilution

how quickly it all stops spinning
and the tears dry and the sniffling
stops whimpering when a friend calls
to say he's on his way to bring me
some money to last till my wallet
decides it's time to come home
and that a cup of coffee is in order
and that yes, it does all suck right now,
but he's on his way so it's okay
and i remember that i'm hungry
and my apartment is still mine
and love's choices are not
to question sometimes

definition

2002-02-19T01:20:00.000-05:00

when does charm metamorphose into
manipulation? it's a question that's
plagued me for weeks now
and even in the clarity of a bright
february afternoon i see only
milky faded photograph memories
of moments considered charming
then manipulative then charming again
and it's not like this time i can
ask anyone what they think
because a million people will see it a
million ways and none of it is mine
i force my head into a linear expression
to be confined by language, to
give concrete evidence to what i
witnessed, what i participated in,
in the hope that definition will
come, but it only allows me to
interpret every look, every word
a different way, every time
i envy those who can be satisfied
with the assurance that a
situation would have turned
out in their favor had the cards
fallen slightly different, because
i will never be satisfied with pure
knowledge of a situation, i will
always seek out definition and
evidence and cold hard facts
(which sometimes most times
are not so very cold at all)
even though definition never comes
to me and i am swirled deeper
inside the mess i leave my brain in daily
left to dreams and conjured images
of what had happened between
two people breathless fierce tender
passion waves of recognition forced
over my empty stomach and
throbbing head as i awake
sweating twisted drooling wide-eyed
and pain in my back
this is what definition with no
answer provides me, this is the
melodramatic misery that tastes
so sweet on a warm winter's day

if you know what i mean

2002-02-14T13:58:00.000-05:00

the cab driver held up a pack of dunhills
and asked if i minded
i didn't because i did too and we lit up
smoked together through the ensuing
enveloping deepening canyon of first avenue
the sun faded further away as the buildings
loomed larger and he asked what i would
be doing tonight for valentine's day
"nothing" i said "except throwin' back a
couple of cold ones with my girls"
he said "that's not the spirit" and i almost
retorted "mistresses don't get flowers
from sugar daddies on valentine's day
if you know what i mean" but i didn't
because he wouldn't and i didn't have
the energy at eight a.m. to explain this
affair of the mind i have in the comfy
interior of my brain with a sugar daddy
who isn't even real if you know what i mean

i wondered up the escalator if i was
the only one on it who was having dirty thoughts
about someone who i shouldn't even be
having clean thoughts about and i smiled
at my own mischievous naughtiness and
winked at the security guard at the top
because she seemed to know
if you know what i mean
i fantasize about pageantry and melodrama
to make the database days go a little faster
and hopefully the object of my discreet
infractions will feel a twinge of me behind
his left ear as i whisper in it that i'm waiting
here for the next time to come
if you know what i mean

west twenty-first street

2002-02-10T22:34:00.000-05:00

the streets howled with me as i screamed
on the phone across the hi-tech stream
bits and bytes, mouth to rae's ear
"it's over it's done now get me a beer"

broken glass somewhere on ninth avenue
cut my boot while familiar buildings on macdougal
made my insanity worse than usual

i replayed over and over the scene of my demise
watching it again inside your eyes
those eyes that lied to me in the darkness of unfamiliar sounds
your voice rang through straight to my swelled
sense of me came crashing down
all around me shards of my shattered ego cut into my gut
kissed my heart shut
with my ego fell long held theories
that people like you
would always seek out
people like me
in dreams of sweet taste, free

and still your eyes continued to betray you
and the thoughts your lips had forbade you
an abyss of anguish spilled out in that look
it broke me down, so for my turn i took
the chance to show what you had blown in me
some smoldering frenzy you left alone in me
out from darkened room into the darker street
my cheeks flushed with rage my head flushed with need

away from the cab away from your lies, your eyes
that said your desire for me was overwhelming
and your lips that said you would not surrender
to it or to me
you would not resume the misery
that always followed us again
no instead
you'll transport that anguish over to me
and think comfortably
that i'll be okay with it since i was the one
who'd walked away first from what we'd begun

i only did so to respect the limits
of desire and passion versus commitments
limits you so clearly marked with your phrase
and so fiercely blurred inside your gaze

i won't see you next time as you suggested
because i won't have the courage to be twice rejected
i won't let your words shatter my gut
and closed it shall be, the door that you shut

free choice

2002-02-07T01:31:00.000-05:00

my friend told me that in
his part of ireland when
someone gives you something
for free like when someone
buys you a round of drinks they say
you get it for choice because
choice is free

if i walked by you on the street
and didn't see you would you
stop me yell my name say
hey it's me?
you probably wouldn't, no,
because you don't even have
the balls to tell me when
you'll be around and for that
i sort of admire you
and yet still feel sad at the
choice you've made
you had your getoutofjailfree
card with me and still you
chose to pretend it wasn't there

i can read between the lines
of your eeeee-mails and i can feel
what you really want to say
i know that you know that i know
that you're here,
not so far away now compared to
sixty-nine minutes twenty-four
seconds and a few millis
at least i chose truth, i say

i told my friend that told me
about free choice that if
a belief system is killing him
more than helping him then
get rid of it because martyrs
are only bunch of people, dead
i don't want to die this way or your way
so i chose living freely
bound only by my own thoughts

my friend said, "i let his words
control me and i was weak"
and i understood oh so well
you were squeezing my brain
and i don't even think you knew it
with every brain squeeze brain freeze
i remember better the squeeze of my hip
against yours and how you pressed
me for more information than i
was willing to give
then you left you came back
you left back came

it's easier to think of you as
a mindless philandering bastard
but i know in my gut this
isn't you, it's only a choice i
make freely to stop myself
from wondering if i walked by
you would you stop grab my arm
and say it's me?

hierarchy

2002-01-27T13:08:00.000-05:00

they told me your status in the pecking order
was higher than most and there's some
sort of evolutionary, primal instinct that
kicks in inside my loins
aided and abetted by big blue eyes and
a smile that says "you could come over
here if you wanted to but i'm not sure that you will"
so inside this context i had a choice
and it was like a choose-your-own-adventure book
but i couldn't read ahead and see what
was waiting for me
what it came down to was seeing what i have
in store for me when the time comes,
when it's time for me, too, to "settle down"
and "raise a family"
there are, at this point, two choices available:
i will choose to be a wife just like yours
at home with your kids while you're begging
me not to leave you alone in your hotel room
six thousand miles away and you lay my clothes
out on the bed when i insist on not
sleeping too soundly next to you
or...
i will choose to stay strong, single,
independent, free, untainted and alone
i will not tolerate this bullshit evolutionary excuse
that me, men just like you, you all just can't
help yourselves. it's biology it's darwin it's just
the way things are and who can argue with that?
i can, that's who, because i've also cured myself
of the biological drive to kill and cook the first
living creature that crosses in front of my face
so you know what? i think you can do your
part to keep your you-know-what
you-know-where it should be
because me, me and my sisters, we're forced
to adapt to the changing whims of the patriarchy
we have to have our jobs and cars and apartments
these days in the jungles of concrete and student-loan payments
because your evolutionary-retarded ass might run out
on us at any minute for someone like me
because if it's me or not, those big wide eyes of yours
will always wonder at the newer, shinier model
it's greed, lust and sloth, plus a few others
all rolled up into one tiny little gene package
that says "it's just the way we are, baby,
but i still love you, she didn't mean anything to me"
the servant can't ask for more soup as long as
the master knows there's other servants out there
to be squandered
so what do i do?
i take what i can from you and remind you
every once in a while of the power i hold
in the palm of my womanhood and
remind you that evolution is no excuse for me
and i make you beg for me since,
within this paradigm, it's the only power i'll ever taste

the wedding

2002-01-21T00:36:00.000-05:00

(dedicated to adam and myung-hee)

it was january, far too cold for blossoms of love to peek and
greet two young lovers in the church in the village
of four hundred people only, but we bundled up
and slipped through the snow to witness
the life of two made one.
cross-cultural the essence of time made intertwined
with my guest and i as we sat behind the lady with
the big hat and watched the bliss on our groom's face
the unending joy on our bride showered on us all
from aisle and altar
i reflected briefly on my own life (how could i not?)
and sank inside one biblical phrase that caught my ear:
love keeps no record of right or wrong
it was spoken in not one but two languages that day
not one but two hearts would keep record of those words
and i would try my best to do the same

snowflakes were our blossoms that evening
my guest and i found the reception hall
we gabbed and giggled and mingled
but while the bride and her groom danced
i caught a brief glancing instant of
what it must feel like to know
the person who you're holding
in your arms at that moment
in front of all those people
is the one that you would hold
in your heart
for eternity
and in one simple instant
tears flooded and rushed to my eyes
and i couldn't imagine knowing
that truth for longer than that instant

my brain was broken apart with discussions
of freemasons christianity patriarchy infidelity
good music bad movies floundering relationships
as my guest and i resumed the deconstruction
of everything we knew and quoted our favorite
movies in the spontaneous combustion
of like-minded individuals
and i knew i would have the arduous task
of reassembling it all when i got back home
kind of like putting back together a rubik's cube
when i was a kid because i was too frustrated
too impatient
to do it
the right way
what is the right way?
i asked my guest and he replied
"be a good you, that's all anyone asks, is for truth"

we stopped watching watches and meandered back through
upstate new york with bad singing voices and an un-need
to get any certain where by any certain time
the catskills and the hudson at the newburgh-beacon bridge
slowed time down for us and we imagined our future selves
in future houses hidden in those rolling hills that wrapped their
furry bodies around our car
and when the road become no longer familiar we kept driving
straight through to see if we'd find a point of focus anyway
and we did

soon the triborough bridge ended and the disjointed
disfigured weary manhattan skyline brightened
for a moment and smiled and hugged me
like i had been missing for too long
and it was glad to see me again
i hugged it back with a whoop
and a yell
my apartment arrived at my feet and pulled me
in for a big wet smooch hello
my guest departed with promises of
future infinite road trips to nowhere in particular
i dropped my bags on the bed, my boots at the door
my need for the world outside at my feet and
settled back into the obvious
the ordinary comfortable familiar.

spectrum

2001-12-30T05:30:00.000-05:00

in the absence of thought or action
exists a coefficient of friction
from unforced crash landings
inside a badly lit cosmic fit of
comic misunderstanding
why they follow a fool
like lemmings to a pool of misguided
judgement is not beyond me
i, too, kept my head above that water
while staring at the other
before i understood what i had to do
what comes next in the palindrome
of two thousand two?
surely it must connect the dots of
this madness that splattered
across two thousand one
with random serendipity
forgotten puzzle pieces and rising suns
broken hearts, lost hope, collapsed dreams
restored friendships, savory kisses, synchronicity themes
color-by-number with missing crayons
only forces us to play on
the spectrum of what we're given,
less the things that have not been forgiven