Tag: poet

Most of my writing is shit

Lately. It’s because

I’ve been self loathing

And it’s not good to write

Depressed.

Ok. I’m not depressed. I’m lonely

For people I never see. I’m lonely for the years before my mother was sick

When I had a friend in this world

Besides Henry

He never needs anyone

He has it all figured out

He drinks his vodka and passes out

Maybe in the morning we’ll make love

If he feels like it

If not I’ll make crepes and bacon

And he’ll be happy enough

To make it out of another week

Sometimes I write when I’m going through some shit

And it makes me feel better.

I dont know what I am supposed to say

Anymore. None of it makes me feel

Better.

Everyone is breaking. Everyone is trying to hide

Until summer is over

Until it’s all over

Wash your face

Somethings don’t have to be said

I know that all humans are not bad

But I have a hard time fingerings out the good ones

I don’t trust my ability fully. 

 There is always something I can miss

This uncertainty is my armor 

I try to keep one foot on the ground

And one hand on my pistol 

I not going to put up with bullshit

Its nothing personal, you understand?

It just, you see, I don’t know

how long I have to live

It may end soon or something

so I don’t want to waste any time

on bullshit -You get it

You’ve wasted time on bullshit

I see it on your face

I don’t want to die

Doing what I love.

There are a lot of things I love including writing, cooking, bodyboarding, reading, playing video games, playing ball with kids, dancing,  painting, making sex with Henry,  flying and taking a walk to name a few and if I die doing any of them it’s not beautiful.  It is horrible.

It is always ugly to die, dip shitwpid-20150718_144730.jpg

Dear Mother,

wpid-20150918_134849.jpg

I miss being able to call you
And hear you tell all about your day of weeding your huge garden or teaching English as a second language, or your studies of foreign language for another mission trip or about the new poem you wrote, usually about praising your god.
I could ask you for your oatmeal cookie recipe or crepe recipe or what temperature to roast a chicken and you would take the time to tell me, each time I asked.

I could have looked it up but hearing your voice gave me courage. I suppose it was a way to get your love and attention, even as a grown far away woman.

Now you are a broken baby crab, so diseased and crippled you can barely pick up the phone and can’t talk when sitting and can barely stand and you talk so quiet I can’t understand what you say besides the shuffling sounds of the 1 minute it takes you stand before you say hello. These sounds haunt me and let me know you are alive

I would share this with you but I can’t . This pain is not yours

You struggle in that big house next to the pack of wolves, with the forest and swamp surrounding you, falling and grabbing at the walls, banging off the furniture and wood stove.
You fight to get up.
you fight to stay up.
You fight to sit down.
You fight to lie down
Every thing you do is a battle

And I am afraid of what ails you is coming for me or worse, your grandchildren, zombie grandma

Each day I stand and clean my house I’m grateful. I have been pumping iron and dancing and scrubbing the floor on my hands and knees, smiling as I do it. The harder the better, if I can do it because I know how lucky I am to be alive and able to clean any of it.

I know you want to die fighting alone in your house in the forest of howls but it hurts all us kids to see you do it. One of these falls is going to be breakfast for a bear or pack of wolves but that is your choice and my burden and my brothers to hold dear

One that hurts more and more because it is the end of your fight, dear Mother

The deathmares

Stopped about a month ago

I waited until now to make sure or not to jinx it

They were bad. Everyone died. Night after night
They were locked and stiff
Grotesque with strange smiles and wide eyes, in fancy silks and cheap jewelry, shoeless with crosses wrapped around their hands
They were waterfalls.
They were moon illusions.
They were sun spots.
And I’d find them
in their beds and in the their backyard. I’d see their feet poking out of the lilac bushes and hanging from clothes lines
their hair grew and wrapped and knotted around my legs

Each time I leaned in, searching with fuzzy Dream eyes, trying to understand what I saw, then I’d realize in new shock it was my dead family. I was a minute too late . I dropped them and ran. But they stuck to me. They came out of the furniture, or the walls or other loved ones bodies.

I awoke scared and weepy night after night until I learned I would be lucky when I died

That’s when the death-mares ended

I’m not sure

If you are capable of love

You are the last
of of my pride
so I  hung on
even though you hurt me
so  bad  – I couldn’t tell you

When I should have let go
I hugged tighter
  made excuses for you
how you were a sick
little baby and needed
my help
how you were stressed
out cat and needed a nap
how you cared too much and were too honest

Dearest Rose,
you made me believe
I was the thorn
For the last time
You probably think
I will forgive you
-say sorry for getting
hurt like I usually do

But you are Shakespeare  to me

I thought I was on something

Or I was onto something
It was a story I had told until I believed You wanted my voice or I talked too much or I needed love or shelter or a great lake Or a lemon hanging ripe inside your hand And or you come but I leave.  There is dirt in my heart. The road calls. Then shouts. Then stops by. Then stares open mouth, and yes, then grabs me by the hair at the base of my neck and beats me against you, my life. To look down a road is a dare onto something and or off another Story that inflicts me

With the tracks more than the view

Over the worst of it

Life can get so overwhelming that time slows down

Each day on waking you are happy to live and breathe. Your nights are cocoons; your mornings are butterflies. Their suffering shadows you.   They flash inside of you. You don’t have a cure. You can’t give back .  You are an atheist. You don’t pray.

You research all night long, all day long. You do it over and over searching for a cure or a clear path to life

All hope is lost but You don’t give up.  And then there is a doctor that puts his hands on their arm and listens and says, I am going to cure you and then does.

This is the power of science. This is the result of reason. This is the price of love.

Sometimes you have to lose your religion

Fatty fuck fuck

How many times are you going to tell me Henry  is going to leave me for some skinny younger beautiful shiny warm bag?

What happens  if he does, you can say see, told you so, no one could love a fat fuck like you?

We’ve been together since we’re kids, now we are old and we have fucked through bad and good, through young and fat, through grief and birth.
 

I am an old fat piece of shit now and I get it anytime I want.

You haven’t got any.  You are skinny and hardworking and smart and good looking but you don’t know how to accept or love others. You put people down in guise of helping but it’s not helpful. Its hurtful and mean and hateful

Old blue house

I put her things in boxes
load up the back
of the suv and drop it off at a second hand store again, and again, I give her stuff away.

There are books in  Hungarian and old poems and a wedding dress, and old county western tapes, gospel 45s and candle sticks and maps of Rome and crosses on beaded string. The old papers that were once important and orderly now heapped and bagged and ready for the dump and all of it smells sweet like candy and perfume, like her, like she still lives

here.

A strong young man is going to rent the place. Soon the place will smell like him and all the traces of her will be sweated and dicked and lived out

now, done with the haul I pause, and allow the grief to surface and take one last breath inside of her old blue house and now, close the door on the life that sustained and raised me

Am I Good enough

Sometimes I think I am wasting my life and am suck ass loser
Who should dig a hole and lie in it until the wind covers me with dirt
Sometimes the inner critic gets so loud and hurtful I can’t do anything but listen as she cuts me into bits of flesh and failure

After a while she shuts up and then I can put myself back together and finish another line

Don’t you dare

God damn it Henry
you son of a.    -fuck- Hell. No

There is no defense.
No cure. it’s hopeless

You smile at me and look at my face and rub my back and tell me jokes and  get me to tell you jokes and you tell me how smart and funny and sexy I am and kiss the back of my neck and pour me brandy and ceva ask me questions about light and shadows and time until i start looking down and smiling
So easy
Before I know it your snoring
On my face with your right hand on my ass and left around my breasts
Locking me for an hour or so
With a grateful smile
Sighing
Fuck. Hell.Yeswpid-20150420_100605.jpg

The Stage

The stage is black.  The curtain is closed.

.

Sit and wait as he might no clap of his

will cause you to step onto the stage

and sing  -“Luck be a lady tonight”

.

In his joy, he miss judged  you for a gentle son who’d

be open for coffee or talk and never leave  for good

How could you after all you’ve accomplished?

.

Does the thick fabric of the curtain hang onto some

of your DNA where you rubbed as you rushed by

to change your costume for the romantic scene?

.

Are there skin cells of yours on the make-up brush

that helped your eyes pop so the person in the back

could gage the twinge of your expression?

.

Is there a hair of yours on the jacket

that you wore when you went outside

to rehearse your lines and get fresh air?

.

Did you leave your voice in the creeks

and falls of the building, rhyming in

rhythm with carpet hairs and the very foundation?

.

Is there some magic left that a father may find

or did it leave when you killed yourself?

Here lies the body

Here lies the body of a well-loved

human -under this pile of stones

a power decayed

Even though, in his generation

his people loved and praised him

now he is a sonnet; a sealed container of dust

We stand, his future, new generations

sprouted from the past and remember his

name and the territory of  his revolution

but none of us can smell his morning breath

or feel the warmth of his penis in their mouth

Some advice

Here is some advice.

Finger what you love

This day is all you have

Lose for it.

Waste your life for it.

This is bad advice. Don’t follow it.

It will get you into heaps of shit.

It will make your heart fall out.

You’ll lose any respect

you’ve gained.

 

 

It is easy for me to drop this

on your doorstep and light it

on fire  -I’ve never gained respect

and my heart, long ago dried out

Jerky?

Hot body in Cold Water

I went to lake superior

and put my hot body

in the cold water

I went body surfing and jumped off a cliff

I floated on my back for an hour

I hiked along her, clumsy with aching

muscles and sat in the shade of her forest

I watched the sunset with a fire whistling

and had a few bottles and fell asleep

to the crash and fear of her waves

The problem is I couldn’t stay

Five days later and

I had to leave for my life chances

to stay optimistic and excessive

It’s a long good bye and even after

days of being back in the city

I’m dazed out and prone to smiling in sadness

Henry and I are going to die

we are not going to be making

you dinner forever

we won’t be pouring your wine

for eternity

so now, while we are here

please share your cigars

and play that song

-the one that makes Henry

cry and me horny

(he is easier to seduce after a good weepin’ and smoke)

diagnosis

my sister is lesbian

she licks another woman’s

breasts

they hold and cuddle on

my couch after dinner

they are uncomfortable

coming out with their

relationship

my sister’s love

says, you’re the only we can kiss in front of

I don’t know what to say

a tear cracks my cheek

and burns the flesh off

I know what it is like to

shout your love out

or hold a hand and tell

your mother this is the one

this is the one I want to make with

here is the only place they can

be natural.  in my closet they

can bang and  sass and touch

and I don’t stop them

when my sister starts to

explain herself I shout,

get real.

do what you want

when you want

fuck the world

fuck the couple

on the greeting cards

and books and calendars

the her and him

movies made for prime time

in the irrational embraces

fuck the boxes and neat shelves

the filing cabinets and manicured lawns

I don’t know if my words get deep enough

to beat the fear or the rationing of how

she found love.

I don’t understand

I don’t know what love is

to others or how they go about finding

it.

or sharing or holding it in

I see two beautiful women

I watch my sister’s love

wash the dishes while my sister

drys and puts away

I watch my sister’s love pour her

a glass of wine with a big smile

and hand it to her with a sparkle in her eye

and see my sister kiss her

and tousle her hair

I don’t understand it at all

maybe it’s a passing experiment

or a new rush or

the real deal

my sister speaks in riddles

as the wine begins to inhibit her

poise

her back bends a little forward

and her worries begin to be spread

on the table with the deck of cards and two

empty bottles

I push out all the uncertainty and confusion

I push it out.  I forget that the world

is fighting out place and roles and freedom

I ignore the pants and belt I wear, the blazer

and the scarf, and long tangled hair down my

back, free and out of control.  the flips, the bra that

lifts my breast,

that in another place or time would leave me

hanging from a tree or stoned to Hades

or cast out of town or home

as dirty or cheap or the devil or against nature

I forget it and enjoy life, the blood and bone, muscle

and cartilage

the nervous system

the sight, the smell, the taste

This is it. This is what I want you to believe in

sister -There is nothing wrong with you

Well Meaning

Well meaning humans

friends and family members

tell me to write a novel

something I can get paid for

They ask if I write

if I write at all

if I do, why don’t I show it

to them

they say with ups at the ends of the words

I mumble about the poem

about the line

about when I sit down and write

a poem  I do what

I can and hope

their war will be lost

on my ability to write a

decent poem

Of course I have a lot of

horse shit that I don’t

finger until it becomes apart

of my identity but the

process of writing a poem

I’ve put everything in

I’ve excepted

that I will never get drinks or licks

in exchange for my poems

But if I don’t write these bloody

stumps, if I don’t fuck on the mother

tongue and smear her ideologies

in my gruesome fantasies

her neat and organized world

may beat out the orgasmic

and thirsty

Huh- What Are You Sayin’?

I don’t want to alarm you but

I can only hear potato chips

crunching.   May have two

dollars and nine cents?

Please?

I’m losing my ability to focus

just listening to you eat

On My Road Trip

I didn’t mean to bring

you with – Henry

You rode with me in

my brain and when the road

opened to new sights and smells

and sounds

you were in the right hemisphere smiling

and each night it was

hard to focus and feel alone

The poet inside kept singing

those old romantic numbers

with the salt of the pacific

in the mouth I clung to

lake superior as the anchor

of sanity

And lamented

I don’t know who you are

without the warm touch

of my hand

he walks in

he walks in and says –

“Hi

I ‘ve got a sore butt from biking

I love you – keep writng

I am watching a dumb movie

bye”

And so I get up and drink a porter

and smoke a stick and ask while

he dies, does he think he’ll pray for life

after death

 

 

and his answer is

a strong and sturdy

“no”

Number Two

Dear husband

Two nights ago we made

love.

In two months we will

be married for three years

And for the first time

we have made love

like they tell it in the stories

We made the kind of sex

that heal wounds or end battles

And I did not realize that we had not before

until two nights ago, when we did.

Do you want to do it again?