waking

devastation in my stomach
regret in my mouth
eyes open to find

I didn’t actually annihilate the universe
by fleeing to Bali to sleep with the shaman
who seduced me in my dream
realizing too late
the fatality of idiocy
of impulse
of id

my most treasured love shattered
a star exploded
bleeding light for centuries
nothing left where love once lived

night terror melds into daybreak relief

gravity pulls me down into bed
I wind around your broad back
slip into the quiet curve of your legs

you twist and open
to embrace the receding vapor of my sin
welcoming me home again
holding nothing against me and nothing back
as my limbs weave apologies and promises
restaking my claim
and renewing my vows

finding reprieve in the generous blessing
of your hands
and the faithful absolution
of your lips

spirit rock

I placed my cell phone on a high rock
in the middle of the stream.
it glimmered there, silver and white, with a blinking red beacon
calling for attention like an audacious insect.
eyes closed, I focused my breathing
surrounded by the music of the running water
until the electronic device became
a kaleidoscope of butterflies and rose up from the rock
to take flight in all directions.

I placed my laptop on a low rock
in the middle of the stream,
its sunken silver case gently passing
for water molecules and sunlight.
eyes open, I watched
surrounded by the music of the running water
until the electronic device became
a shoal of shimmering, twitching fish and swam away
to take cover in the reedy shallows

I placed my heart on an ancient rock
in the middle of the stream.
its rhythmic cadence creating coronas of light,
sparking the silver and gold in the altar’s granite face.
eyes everywhere, I prayed
surrounded by the music of the running water
until the aortic device became
a choir of meadowlarks spreading their wings,
singing oratorios to the divine in everything.

June

The roses are opening. Within minutes
there will be a deafening cacophony of roses
on every block. The dust from the road
is no match for the rose noise. And
I could weep for the absence of snow.
So tragic and profoundly sad.
The simple sadness of this undoes me utterly.
Two women knit and talk in the corner,
unconcerned with the rose canes that
threaten to tangle their wool.
After hours of counting stitches and chuckling
over their private yarns, they pull on mittens
and scarves and peer out at the cloudless sky,
then bend their heads against the cold
and depart the shop, leaving a hailstorm
of rose petals hollering all the way to the ground.

Cassandra Dream

In this story I am Cassandra and you are deaf.

I agonize over gestures, the sand dripping mockingly
through the waist of the hourglass. Time rushes ahead
in direct proportion to the urgency of my message.
I try to breathe and slow down, but there’s no fooling
Apollo, so naturally, tragedy ensues.
And you smile and laugh in merry silence,
raising your drink to the innkeeper,
reveling even as Troy begins to burn.

Self Improvement

the jeep trails we force the Subaru up and over
are rutted out
and threaten axle damage.

the butch woman at the chalet (when we finally arrive)
takes control of the situation, calling down rules
for word choice and boundaries.

the walls give.
my body lodges in the lathe and plaster, half on each side.
I am dissected.

you are nowhere to be found.
I remain, limbs dangling, immobile.
such is the arbitrary nature of the world.

meditation on rock and moss

the man watering the bonsai tree
moves quietly through the room where we write
smiling

Simple Gift

running and reaching
muscles lengthening in response
halos of evening light
behind each leaf
laughter from across the court
a moment of clarity
in the rush toward death
I will remember this miracle
of cells and oxygen
I will not take for granted
this perfect day
or my ability to play

Reflection

there are children wading
in the fountain
down the hill

someday they too
may stand in a distant decade
to remember a moment

and reflect their own
half an image
onto their father’s face


in my scrapbook
of twenty years at your knee

you welcomed every face
that ever peered
around your office door

no matter what we’d interrupted
you were always
delighted to see us

and introduced
the person seated opposite
with the enthusiastic pleasure

of someone entirely certain
that we would all adore each other
as much as you adored each of us

and that’s saying something

professor-father figure to many but
father-professor to me
I got the best of both of you

five o’clock family suppers
before heading back down the hill
to rehearsal

lucky Saturday
when we’re off to Samuel French
and I am the companion on the journey

shall we have
an intellectual discussion?
sex?money?politics?art?religion?

or off to the Mark Taper
for the first half
of a disappointing play

and then – oh joy – out for pie, analysis
and deconstruction
the evening redeemed by cocoa and conversation

does anyone else remember their childhoods
only in terms of summer times?
a few Nortons, perhaps, or a Paxson here and there?

company meetings at midnight
coffee, popcorn and Junior Mints
patter songs bouncing off Oxy Hill

verses from Shakespeare and phrases from Shaw
weaving through trusses
and up to the owl at the top of the bowl

eucalyptus trees that even now,
even still, stand tall
and graceful in the wings

listening for the cue
that will bring the curtain down
on this third act

raise the houselights just beyond
and fling wide the doors
on the waiting world

Lying in the Bed You Built

I love that I can lounge
on cappuccino mornings
and watch you
in the kitchen
strutting in your
stolen pink bathrobe
from cupboard to sink
crafting the perfect pull
with just a hint of hazelnut
smiling across hardwood floors
all the way back to our bed
where I needn’t do anything
but nest in the down
one leg flirting
with the edge of the sheet
still humming from where you
last kissed me

Why I Read Fiction

You’ve no interest
in things that never happened
to folks who don’t exist

but every time
I turn the final page
(The End)

a timber bar
across a castle door
lifts up

the drawbridge
of a slightly broken heart
slides down

inviting you across
a brackish moat
into

my fortress of non-fiction
love

where I live and breathe and wait
only what’s true

only for you

a musing

When I read the daily post
from The Writer’s Almanac,

I often think to myself –
‘well, there’s a poem that someone actually bothered to write’

and it’s never about much:
a t-shirt on a clothesline, a misunderstanding,
a child who died,

and it’s easily as mundane and insignificant
as all the scraps of nonsense
that crowd my brain and choke my tongue

except that these poets
were moved beyond thought to actually
transpose the image into ink

to inhale an ordinary moment
and exhale a small slice of meaning
or pain

unlike me
who feels the synapse fire
and simply notes
the possibility of a poem

fleeting phrases that hover
and shimmer around the edges of a thought
like the veiled threat of a future migraine

too lazy to reach for a pen
too close to asleep to recognize the folly of
‘you’ll remember in the morning’

Wow

Wow. Hello.

Come over and love me
or just call to say hi
to seduce with low erotic syllables
that slide across the tightrope of the phone line

I lie in bed in the dark
listening to them vibrate
purring like my neighbor’s cat
thinking

Wow. Hello.

Driving Past Autumn Aspen Groves

the uphill splash of tangerine
bursts out of the darker evergreen
to shimmer and pose
like the most audacious dancers
in a ballet of such grand scale
even truckers with their
tins of chew are rendered dumb
and forget the details of the road
as we are all brought closer to whole
closer to absolved
slightly more full of grace
than we were at summer’s end

lotus position

every morning

breath and heart chakra
picture of Zen serenity

cranial symphony of mismatched voices
inside soundproofed head

abandoned to chaos
fluency and ego

squiggles and dots make
sense and nonsense

stillness and surrender

Parking Lot Dance

We each place an arm
across the backs
of our passenger seats.

In perfect unison
we glide backwards
out of our places
and into the aisle
between the others.

Headlights mirror headlights
as we pause face to face
slide the gear shift into first
and rotate slowly

a graceful promenade
with small pliés
and gentle accelerations

passing each other
into the opposite directions
of the rest of our nights.

in the name of harmony and conciliation

in the space between the marriages

in an effort to respect the stories other people
invent and then believe

the fictional fiction

the manufactured manifestation
of a million grains of rice

scattered like these words

left out for everyone to see and judge
or ignore and think not of

but the vanity and challenges of breaking open hearts

and the fields of boulders over which we scramble
away from each other

shift

(the little poem’s been packed away to Poland
crammed in cattle cars and denied all food and drink)

we are done

and all the ways

and all the ways in which
you cannot see
and do not know
and cannot be
you flail your little fists
and stomp your little feet
you try to grab my hair and twist
and so I cut it free
and take the bastard down

a fierce, uncomplicated love...

a fierce, uncomplicated love

fueled first by the intensity
of shared blood and oxygen
and uterine real estate
and then by the added miracles
of profound regard and common joys

(this love is unrivaled–
free from issues of power or sex,
finances or careers)

and now

(as we sit in the ballpark
and eat our soft serve cones
and scream when the ball flies
over the centerfield wall,
stomping our feet with the contagious fervor
of the true fanatics that surround us)

my ribs swell and expand
against the context of my skin
stretched this time to contain
the softest, most ferocious tenderness

reflected in the golden moon of your face
your chin raised for a sticky kiss
your devotion crystallized
in your sturdy arms as you wrap me
in the ecstatic squeeze of camaraderie

knowing and being known
loving and being loved

so tired

head leaden on weary neck
eyelids suffer
stretching from rim to red rim

dark bags of tender skin
migrate south
into cheekbone territory

shoulders cave
under the weight
of twisted bra straps

ribs fold and collapse
like cheap
Chinatown fans

pelvis tips forward
a too-heavy pitcher
in the hands of a too-small child

arthritic knees stiffen
and surrender
abdicating the throne of responsibility

ankles curl around chair legs
like the gloved hands
of a drunken debutante

and feet dangle inertly
trapped in shoes against their will
powerless to flee

memorial day

entrenched in your arms
safe to briefly remember
the battle begun in the Subaru hatchback
turning the corner at 95^th and Arapahoe
gauntlets thrown and troops advanced

the Seven Day’s War
that encamped me in the guest room
alert to the smell of danger
and afraid of snipers after midnight

we sought the triage tent
to try to staunch the loss of faith
but came out soaked instead
impossible to tell whose blood was who’s

reduced in our panic to solitary soldiers
shell shocked and scarred
abandoned to face defeat alone
in the jungles of middle-aged failure

now we make commemorative gestures
placing flowers on the graves of the fallen
and crossing grassy battlefields
whose dandelions belie the former violence

we walk both hand in hand
and shed our separate tears
for the loss of life and innocence
and the horror of our wars

Sad Wife

I grew melancholy after my first marriage, too.
But I attributed that to post grad school blues
and funerals
and identity crises.

It got us into therapy, which was good.
(I wonder how much money we spent
sitting on couches over the next fifteen years.

Clearly not enough.)

That first time, I sat in the rented house
on Fourth Street in Columbus
and sewed curtains
and watched reruns of Mary Tyler Moore
and cried.

I wonder if that scared you.

That first therapist wanted to make your childhood
into something sinister
but there was nothing lurking behind the facade.
The Myers-Briggs was helpful, though.
Things made more sense after that.

And then fifteen years passed
and we were someone’s parents
with mortgages and debt
and I stopped wearing all five earrings all at once.

And the melancholy must have been lost in New Orleans
or packed away with all the baby things
or forgotten in the apartment on Williams Fork Trail.

After that, sorrow always had a cause
and the effects were always tragically obvious.
Not this mysterious weight that has no name
and sits behind my breasts
frightening you, brave husband number two.

You who wake up joyful every day,
who has such utter faith in me
and proffers all your love without a string in sight.

How impossible I am, how wrong to live
in my magical life
and yet confess this gentle sadness in my eyes
and stuffed up in my throat.

I have no explanation.

except divorce and death and fear
and loss and love and lack of follow-through
and laziness and self-esteem
and loneliness and fraud and grief.

But then so do you, too,
yet you are fine to jump right up each day
and celebrate the sunshine or the storm.

My grandmother was mad.

Perhaps this is her legacy to me
and I should simply pin it to my collar
like a brooch
and wear it without fear or shame or guilt.

I think that I would rather ride a bike.
Or walk along the boardwalk holding hands.

I’d rather sleep in late or read a book
or make sweet love to you or draw a bath.

I’d rather bake a pie or make a cake
or take you out to lunch and sit outside
watching the people walking through their lives
on their way to the therapist’s or their OB appointments.

Watching the rotating blooms of flowers on the mall
and the various hats on the cart by the courthouse.

Watching the sad girls and the gentle boys
loving each other the best that they can.

Trumpet Voluntary

within the cupboard
of my chest
a trumpet lives
the herald of my song
and master of my breast
celebratory marches
together or alone

t’was strange inside
the child
stranger still
inside the crone
but heavenly sounds
of God’s own laughter
when it would play
me home

the complete package

papers filed
novel simmering
house painted
lawn boy mowing
furniture polished
flowers blooming
wardrobe revamped
widow waiting

primary source

you can do all the reading you want
but until they write the book on me

you are wasting your fucking time

there isn’t an expert sitting on my head
taking notes and faxing them
to the local library for your edification

so that you can more quickly reconcile
your dick’s social life
with the product of its fidelities

she’s not ready and neither am I

how many assholes does it take
to spin the earth off its axis?

New Rules

no clocks in the bedroom
from now on insomnia shall go
uncontextualized by time

laundry shall be a manageable pleasure
sweet smelling and warm
completed in less than an afternoon

flowers shall adorn the home
a tribute to the seasons, to the planets
to the virgins and harlots who live here

my best fiction

the madwoman in my attic
keeps pasting poison-pen letters
to the insides of my eyeballs
halting information to the brain

and
requiring a mirror to read them
from out front

narcissistic reflection combined
with fumes
from wallpaper paste

all of which result in promises
to restrain myself
(homicidal
only in my best fiction)

On Sundays

There is no room for me next to you
you push me over slowly

You start over.

You slowly ooze over onto me throughout
the hour and I
turn and adjust and show you my back
and feel you pushing me

Your chair is not enough for you
you take mine too

Your air is not enough for you
you breathe mine too

Your song is not enough for you
you sing mine too
and leave me voiceless mouthing words
gasping for breath

and at the end you feel Renewed
Rejuvenated
Fulfilled
Affirmed

and I am coiled in a knot under
my chair (yours now)

on the floor
between the feet of the faithful.

When the pen lies...

When
the pen lies
like a dead seagull on the shores of the page
there
is nothing left to do
but head back up the beach, toward the defunct lighthouse,
noticing
the empty shells scattered on the sand.

Thanksgiving

you standing on a chair
next to me at the counter

our four arms
in synch

our four hands
on the pie crust

fork between your little fingers
pressing birds' feet around

the edges that will contain
the farm-grown pumpkin

faces of the grannies
peeking over our shoulders

like visions

in a mother-daughter
country-western duet

Wax Works

the fury I will not unleash
flows like melted wax
into the corners and crevices
of my body

like the sand candles
we made in second grade

hot paraffin

searing and casting
the shape of anger in my limbs

requiring a lifelike stillness
enacted only to protect and serve

to spare the bystander

one more breath from you...

one more breath from you
and I will exceed capacity

overfull of carbon dioxide
blown hot from across the room

leaving only hints of bruises

irresponsible id with
its sense of entitlement

hurtling through space
to lodge in my limbs

like a tugboat

ramming the dock
and knocking people
into the sea

while the crew laughs
and disembarks

looking for a vegan café
that serves wine in stemless glasses

poured from tattooed hands

glass girdle

glass girdle
woven around my
hips and through
my vertebrae

curved beneath my coccyx

attached delicately at
the tips of my pelvis

needs shattering

Homecoming

Tremendous
grief.
Galaxies spin around
inside my belly.


Pain like smeared
zebra stripes
across glass.
what am i doing here?

my ego shrinks and withers
under this
intense heat.
Fruit rots.
They do not grow and

I cannot have
been away or surely I would not feel so
desperately dead inside.

Innocent bystanders watch and dodge
the arrows so carefully
aimed to miss.
Rubber tips
and suction cups.
Impotent.

I am in the crossfire.

Shame like indigestion moves around
inside me
and rises to the
surface of my skin
like gas in water.


If I were
a sculptor
I would sculpt a woman out of lead
and I would leave
the edges rough and bulky
and I would twist it like
a grotesque helix
and I would hand it to my family and say
YOU MAKE ME FEEL LIKE THIS.

Then I would leave it in their house and
go away for Christmas
with a special friend I chose myself.

Philadelphia-area Premiere of "Music's Music"

Renowned composer Steven Sametz used one of my poems as the lyric for a commissioned piece for the Los Angeles Master Chorale. "Music’s Music", originally one of the poems in the "Mother Music" series, premiered in Los Angeles last February at Disney Hall as a part of a program featuring new works by contemporary American composers. It is having its Philadelphia-area premiere this weekend at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, PA. Concert details are available on the Lehigh website.

Blue

you fell in love
and so I had to paint the room
where nine years before we laughed together at
the vitamin E that should have eased my swelling belly but
somehow landed four feet up the wall above our heads
and now the frozen wasteland on your side of the bed
has sprouted white and purple crocuses
and the spring thaw has begun

Mourning Men Who Haven't Died

incredibly
the power of your choice
leaves me eviscerated
deboned
like a naked piece of cold poultry
and it’s all just happening again
really and truly
for the very first time
as if you just came in and broke it to me
and the floor just tipped out underneath my feet
and I am reduced to nothing but viscera
no skeleton nor muscles to hold me up
no words nor voice to articulate my grief
only worthless puddles of blood and pus
seeping across the carpet in oily pools
putrid like me

Bomb Shelter

my hand explodes

and I can't reach you from over here

trapped between your infidelities

and the wall

scattered shards of cardiac muscle

decorate the bedspread

in flecks of red and blue

that seem

at first glance

like part of the floral print

but stick to my skirt

and leave a stain

that sends me to Heloise and the internet

looking for the remedy

to heal the inconvenient mess

Spoiler Alert

To the lonely reader who may one day pass this way
by happenstance or misdirection:

the poem you were seeking here has been judged
and found guilty of threats to the Fatherland
and so has been relocated to colder, lonelier climes

these harmless words forgotten here
are scattered grains of rice

benign and impotent
free from power to offend or harm

safe for readers of all ages

Praise Poem

for Traci

the perfume of her labor
permeates the school

subtle as air

invisible hint of love
humbly shared

lingering
before and after bells have ceased to ring

she is
the unknown variable working quietly
behind the curtain of each equation

the thinking space between the words
before the showy sentence takes the credit

a century ago
we would have named her
for her virtues

Faith
or Constance
Patience, to be sure

but here in our small moment
we turn to simpler tools
of many poets

impossible expressions of illimitable love
and blessings on the fortune of her birth

Continental Breakfast

the fruit on my plate arranges itself
around the virtuous bran muffin
and the pious hard-cooked egg:
watermelon nestles
next to cantaloupe stained by strawberries
grapes are conspicuously absent
but the requisite honeydew
occupies its watery place
on the periphery of the plate

acolytes digest
the words of the keynote speaker
while chewing and spewing
into notebooks and laptops
and I

loner in the corner

horde the pineapple
like little yellow bricks of redemption
saving its pulpy rewards until
every other morsel is consumed
and the PowerPoint presentation comes
to its impotent climax
and the speaker sits down to sign his books
and then

only then
do I allow it to traverse my tongue
and lodge firmly
between my pencil and my teeth
receiving absolution in its transubstantiation
from simple fruit
to momentary miracle

So Many Unexpected Things

Outside the window,
the snow is falling off the eaves
and crashing to the deck
in raucous heaps of springtime defiance.
The branches of the evergreens
and canes of dormant grape
bend low under its watery weight,
while the roses you arranged on the table
(the one you built,
just for this meal)
stand sentry, pink and white,
and the ache in my ribs
where your bicycle bucked me off its back
throbs, like a car stereo’s subwoofer,
muffled by traffic and steel.

The cup that holds my tea
was thrown by the first woman
who stood before an altar
and pledged her troth to you.
Not worth much in the end,
as it turned out, but odd to think
her hands caressed and coaxed
this vessel into shape,
like they once caressed and coaxed
you into her.
I am surprised when my tea
tastes better than usual.

And these strawberries on my plate,
the reddest, plumpest of the lot,
I would not normally be so greedy
as to take the ripest for myself
but no one else is here,
and no one else will eat them,
and so my motherly inclination
to choose the smaller, paler fruit
is shocked and set aside
as for once I give myself first dibs
and taste the privilege
of breaking fasts alone.

drips from the wet ends of my hair...

drips from the wet ends of my hair
feel like bold print asterisks when they explode
on the inky surface of my skin

but despite my absolution
I’m still quivering in my father’s chair
like the wrung out dishrag I’ve become
cleaning up messes and forgiving trespasses
like all patient mothers are meant to do

it occurs to me that
saplings bend and sway with the seasons
but older trees grow brittle and break
crashing down to the prairie floor
too many tire swings hung on their branches
too many curse words carved in their trunks
eventually they twist and fall

and I am growing taller every day

shift to compassion

shift to compassion


open suitcase
try on theory of relativity
find shoes to match
(desperation is so unattractive)
click

feel the ache in her body
understand (no) her pain
click slam shut

exercise compassion
(with passion)
without reason
or right
or justice
or goddamn common sense
click

so disappointed
we expected more
click

doing the best she can
seeking something she cannot name
wanting what she thinks we have
casting spells at the pity party
pathetic
click

so disappointed
wanting a vote
more maturity in a can of cheez whiz
click

shit
(back to the beginning)

shift to compassion

open suitcase
try on lobotomy
find earrings to mask
the dull ringing in both ears
click

smile through razor blades
click

spit out bits of bloody tongue
click

struggle with the stains
reach for the bleach

quit
off
out

the words pile up...

the words pile up in angry red scales
on the surface of my skin
flaking off into cups of tea
handed smilingly across white tablecloths
to the outstretched hands of simple-minded actresses

they execute tour de force auditions
ingénues doing backbends
into leading lady roles
contorting themselves into obscenities
designed to charm and delight

I am a snake in the footlights
coiling around their sequined ankles
shedding my carmine skin
leaving trails of blood and pus
daring the handler to misjudge me again

On the High Wire

balancing on tiptoe between faith and fear
I suddenly understand the need for parasols

not just to aid in fall-prevention measures
but to shield against the thoughts
that pummel down from clouds
where Worry waits

she must have played college ball
such an arm on her
hurling nuggets of nightmares
at my unprotected head
laughing when her aim is true

while I’m left gasping
trying to focus
on looking straight ahead
ignoring the fate
that will rush up to meet me
the second my footing is false

I would choose a pretty parasol
with two pink flamingoes
surrounded by red hibiscus flowers

their necks would wrap around
to form a heart

and people on the ground
would squint into the sun
and then move on
indifferent

worries don’t begin from down below

Former Lovers on Facebook

they post pictures of themselves
with their toddlers/beautiful wives/happy dogs
nothing to suggest
the horizontal hours we shared
when we were young and free

and if they don’t remember me?
and those days that shaped my knowledge of myself
were less than nothing meaningful for them?
only half-hearted glances back
at times they’d just as soon forget
and not the moments when we set the bars
by which all future lovers would be measured?

the man stretched out beside me
loose and lanky in his sleep
is neither memory nor mystery
and all I have to do is slide down next to him
to be embraced in warmth and sinew
unconcerned with histories or legacies
except to hold my face and say he’s sorry
that I ever shed a tear or spent a moment grieving
over any kind of loss

and all those stamp-sized faces seem so small
and looking in his eyes I have to kiss him
just to close the dangerous distance
between dissolving into lovesick adolescence
and spontaneously combusting in a fit of fever
and the only face I wish to read
is his wide open book of devotions
whispered nightly down my spine
and spread out oh so slowly over everything

Overnight in Joshua Tree

I bled on sheets that weren’t my own
and hid them from my hostess,
not knowing what to say or do
to cover my faux pas.

She was a performance artist
who liked to burn things up
while local townsfolk stood around;
the smoke became applause.

I later learned
her house burned down,
an act of jealous arson
by the married lover’s wife,
(those who play with fire and all that.)

Such relief, you cannot know,
the calcination of my stains,
particulate floating above the smoke
into the desert night
and then, at last, to nothing.

in an instant

walking through the world with the tears of forty years
embroidering the cuffs and collars
of my clothes
sleeves damp with weeping
the moist surface of living
the sharp inhalation of falling in love
or falling apart

premonition

the onset of madness
scares away the crows
all its shiny moving parts
floating in my eyes
above the crops you planted
before last summer’s drought

a la mode

sometimes the poetry comes unexpectedly
like a side of ice cream
on a slice of pie
sweeter than you planned
but still willing to make an exception
especially since you
didn’t intend to order it
which means you can’t really be faulted
for going ahead and eating it

Wisdom of Solomon

one blue eye for me, one blue eye for you
one right thumb for me, one left thumb for you
shuttling back and forth across the warp of our separate lives
we’ve made her life the weft
pulled tightly in opposite directions
stretched to the place between taut
and snap

Invitation

Contributor reading for
IMPROV Anthology of Colorado Poets, 2008 - Peace, War, Love
published by Green Fuse Press

Friday, October 10, 7pm

Loveland Museum, Main Gallery, Downtown Loveland, 970-962-2410.

Readers include but are not limited to: John Blair, Connie Boyle, Hilary DePolo, M.D. & Mari Friedman, Megan E. Freeman, Gordon Holladay, Amy Irish, Shirley Kobar, Pat Maslowski, Veronica Patterson, Maggie Rowlett, Jared Smith, Katherine West…and many more.

Copies of IMPROV 2008 – Peace, War, Love will be available for sale and signing as will be copies of individual volumes of the contributors’ work.

it's pretty simple really

we do not have to lose those things about each other we adore
we do not have to sacrifice our friendship on the altar of intimate histories
we can love each other with the passion of siblings and the ferocity of parents
celebrating the freedoms we loved each other enough to risk

Beetle Kill

the valley has broken out in hives
blotchy and red-brown
the earth twists and rolls
in an effort to scratch its back
but the rash spreads too quickly
and the as-yet untouched acres
hold their breaths and squeeze their eyes closed
pretending quarantine
not wanting to see as they are slowly consumed
in the contagion of the ages

Fraser, Colorado 7:48 p.m.

so much to lose in a sunset
the fading colors of the western mountain sky
dusting the golden meadows with shades of rose
and falling streaks of gray
divided sharply by twin contrails
slicing blades of light across the darkening clouds

below in the twilight
trains stretch the length of the valley
as far as the eye can see in both directions
pulling with all their might
the fuel that keeps the country warm

what happened to cabooses?
tugged along at the rear
the exclamation points at the ends of steel sentences
traversing the pages of highways
through the darkest side of midnight

the confidence of rose hips

the confidence of rose hips
fat and sassy on their feathered branches
clustered in cliques of three and four
triumphant
gleeful
downright noisy
celebrating their successful metamorphosis
from delicate pink blooms
Mother Nature’s happy plan

adrift

did the leaf that just floated past fall in the river of its own accord?
or
did it slip from its branch when a black bear bodychecked the tree that grew it?
or
was it blown from its perch by the exhaust of earthmovers shoving
boulders and concrete into shapes of winter condominiums?

perhaps a little boy
set this leaf on its course
for oceans and adventure
then
bored of the game
and
abandoned the helm

leaving the leaf adrift
on the
swirling currents
of
autumn

Waiting for their mother

three children crouch
on a round picnic table

cranking the umbrella
closed over their heads

eliciting giggles and peals of delight
as the sky collapses

octagonal wonder of the world

here's what's real

here’s what’s real
on this page
with the shit and the blood and the drool
that come from the messy acts of human life
exactly from the beginning
with meconium and amniotic fluid and shreds of placenta
and the start of the beginning
with semen and mucous and sloughed-off uterine trash
seeping from our bodies as if it isn’t obvious
that metaphor is fact
and symbols are simply accessories
we hang around our throats
and dangle from our ears
here’s this poetry
here’s what’s real
outside the porcelain facades
of professionalism and accepted norms
our chemical selves in all our juicy mess
leave trails of truth shimmery as any snail’s

sightings

hummingbird, green, darting between Bluebeard blossoms
grateful for the rain that keeps the bees in bed

rabbit, kit, darting across the sodden lawn
sacrificing dry feet for juicy breakfast

swallows, two, weaving long black horse hairs
into the mud of their bassinet

happy Saturday

happy Saturday to be alone and miss you
to remember why this love of ours is rich
and why - when we unite - our bodies stretch toward one another
like this thirsty thirsty earth that arches its back and tips its chin
to try to catch the rain at the earliest possible moment

the poppy seeds on my muffin are small attempts
to imitate the plenty of this storm
here in this town where rain is rare and ever welcome

this is an all-day childhood rain of indoor recess and soggy shoes
as opposed to the occasional rains we have here
one-night stands where no one leaves a name
and later on we ask if it was worth it

Nesting

I am the only one awake
on this street of sunburst puzzle houses

rain drips off the leaves
like sweet beads of sweat earned from honest labor

our swallow still perches on her nest above my head
her mate sits on the porch light by the door
reminding me that my place on this stoop
is allowed through generosity of their trust

after all, we chose this house to shelter our beloveds
and so must see the kindred in each other

setting*occasion*action

chest (yours – concave)
curled around spine (mine – convex)

arm draped over ribs
tucked under breast
terminating in fingers interlaced right and right

(safe)
I graze freely over the acreage of your heart
protected from predators (though)

the scars of battles fought and lessons won
still smart in the bright sunlight

(and so) you tuck your knees more tightly into mine
left arm up to touch my hair

face in my neck
voice in my ear
your kiss (your whisper)

frees me
(so nourished am I in the sanctuary of your embrace)

Believe it, Baby

the last time my lover made friends
with an unhappily married woman
it didn’t end well
– or rather it did end but not well
for the long-term health
of that particular relationship
– mine and his I mean not theirs –
except that in fact
theirs hasn’t ended yet so
it remains to be seen
whether theirs will end well
and if it doesn’t at least
it won’t have anything to do with me
since surely he’s not comparing us sexually
and having me come out on top
– ha ha no chance of that –
so if it doesn’t end well with them
he will have only
Buddha or the Pope to blame
but in retrospect
it actually ended perfectly
given that she carried him off
and freed me to wink at you
– you sexy dog –
so naturally when your phone rings
and the woman named for the wreath of victory
flashes on the screen
I feel triumphantly devastated
and the moment we shared an hour ago
– me on my knees/you convulsed –
is exposed as a sham
clearly not real despite the heat and wet
and the sheets down in the laundry
what’s real is her name digitized on your phone
and her expectant breath anticipating your hello

Empty Room

the daisies stand up in their vase
like the spray from a sprinkler
before the drops arc out across the scratchy
summer grass to plop against the neighbors’ car
parked against the curb

the cut glass crystal hangs
from the base of the light fixture
catching sunlight and throwing rainbows
onto surfaces throughout the room
with no apparent regard for taste or equity

the chair where you sat waits
apart from the table
separated from its mates by the force
of your decision to stand
and go

its own little island
in the sea of dining room floor

landscape

my fingertips follow
the topography of muscle and veins
like mesas rising from the desert of your skin
sweeping down the valley
to the canyon bed of my sex

you portage across my hips
as I scale the precipice of your back
pausing to lick the limestone crevices
tasting traces of chalky fingerprints
left by other climbers

I pitch my tent
in the shelter of your gluteus medius
making camp against the elements
drinking coffee from blue tin cups
watching thunderheads roll in and away
to storm on other fronts

Settlement

From this day forward
our stories become mine alone.

Dusty dinner conversations
are packed away in brown paper.

Pride is cut and folded neatly into fat quarters,
stored in bottom drawers.

And humility is taken out, shaken out,
and draped across my shoulders like a shroud.

the very much of alone

the very much of alone
wears me like a coat
a vapor of fog surrounding
the surface area of myself

pushes past gravity
into the absence
of his height and breadth
the trunk of him in the center
of the forest of not here

now wraps in skeins of voids
pinning bows and arrows
between my arms at my sides
leaving only space for fingers
to caress quietly
keeping small company
in the interim

In the Used Bookstore

The Power of Feminist Art
spins across the ceiling
and I wonder why no one has ever thought
to equip a couch with seatbelts
for gravity cannot be trusted
and I’m drowning on the water in my throat

the stripes on the opposite easy chair converge
in a million vanishing points and I fall forward
into the center of all that sharpness

until
the book is on the shelf again
next to The World Guide to Antiquities
and the stripes are parallel once more
and I have to go to the bathroom which is surely
a symptom of a normally balanced brain

Reading Your Name in My Inbox

under the canopy between my pelvic peaks
cumulous clouds turn themselves inside out
exhaling convex puffs that multiply and expand
to settle in the basin of my belly
waiting with little sighs
to be called to the surface by the moment
of your tongue (on my lips)
(your breath) on my neck
your voice (at the base of my skull)
rum-tumbling slowly down ladders of vertebrae
to melt in the marrow of my core

Conception, 1967

She woke to webs of valentines strung across the ceiling
above their married-two-years/wedding-night-virgins double bed.

I waited patiently, weighing different combinations
of fatherly eloquence and motherly love,
trying on traits like discount shoes,
leaving them in piles in the aisles of infinity.

He hung them while she slept, romantic spider with big, thick hands,
spinning silk of paper and scotch tape.

I waited patiently, studying tintypes and photographs,
maps of Germany and the British Isles,
reading names and passports,
ignoring the stillness and impossibility of time.

The red hearts circulated gently in the easy February air
whispering promises that would, as it turned out, last a lifetime.

I waited patiently, until, I began,
exploding in a symphony of cytoplasm,
splitting and multiplying in deafening combinations of electrical impulses.
Crafting instantly my list of things to do and people to love,
already onto the second page before my mother’s breathing slowed
and her laughter bounced off woven paper hearts
to germinate the nucleus of me.

Despair

the detritus of which is hope
like tea leaves in an empty cup

telling fortunes and promising tomorrow

I am a wall...

I am a wall against which firing squads
execute their victims

riddled with bullets, flesh and brains

hiding innocent children
and determined not to crumble

The rug you pulled from under us
was quite the magic carpet,
for where I thought we stood upon the floor
there’s only air
and gravity’s a cosmic joke
they play on married women.

All the plates I haven’t thrown and smashed against the wall
could re-shingle my roof.

The Famous Writer in the Plastic Frame

he looks jaunty and slightly wicked
as he smolders
out of his low-resolution place of honor
next to the hand soap pump on the vanity

no doubt confusing the Christian woman
who cleans my house each month
and my daughter
who wonders who that man in the bathroom is

yet I’m pretending he’s my boyfriend
seems to satisfy her and she resumes building
Lincoln Log civilizations across the kitchen floor

I am not a stalker
though I fixate on his picture and imagine
having sex with him on top of the washing machine
at the summer house on Nantucket

an unexpected tryst en route to the backyard BBQ
raw steaks forgotten on the shelf next to the Dreft

he takes me despite propriety
and the actual difference in our heights

on the back of book jackets he is much taller

the other woman goes for a run

we had to step aside to let her pass
trapped, it seemed,
between where she shouldn’t be
and where she didn’t belong

trespassing in hostile territory
crossing lines painted in sand
an international incident
only narrowly avoided

foolish little diplomat
breaching protocols and practices
so clearly understood by those
already fluent in the language of fidelity

perhaps we’ll send in peacekeepers
to secure the borders
and observe the next election
(at least Jimmy Carter only lusted in his heart)

Conjoined

The separation of the twins
made no use of anesthesia nor
the standard tools of the medical profession.
The surgery,
if you could call it that,
was more along the lines
of tearing a bandage off a wound
when the wound has wept so thoroughly
into the dressing that the bandage has, in fact,
become incorporated in the torn flesh,
leaving little or no demarcation between
before and after
and
the white weave of that
which was intended to heal
becomes a scar unto itself
which, when removed by force,
reveals patterns of over-under-over-under
like
a grotesque frame around the
evidence of violence
leaving all observers in the theater
wondering at the chances
that this flesh
will ever have the capacity to reconcile itself
to the absence of its other.

mother music 3

music has been
God’s quiet breath on the back of my neck
turning hillsides into temples
and every tree into a member of the choir

my angels are the mockingbirds
singing blessings into sleepy midnights
caressing broken hearts
with memories of melodies I heard somewhere before

every note ever sung or echoed
collects in a pail of river stones
rippling across my life
like the laughter of my children’s child

Featured Poet

On Thursday night, October 4, I will be the featured poet at the Fall 2007 Open Reading Poetry Series at the Loveland Museum. There is a poetry open mic at 7, followed by me reading at around 8. I would love to see friendly faces, and even better, to hear you read your poetry in the open reading! Click here for more information.

mother music 2

music woke me in the womb
winding and wound around
the heartbeat of my mother
breathing first breaths of ancient prairies
and forest fires
and I am still awake

music braided my hair each night
twisting rhythms of the day
into memories replaced by morning
scent of new oranges
across the moonlit flume
chorus of a thousand crickets

music walked me down the aisle
wedding me to mine
coming home to harmonies
with forty year refrains
breath beside me
cadence of fidelity

music brought them home from school
called and responded
when the three-o-clock door slammed
stories told and dishes danced away
refrains of laughter
set the supper table

music held my head in grief
when my own hands were far too small
and rivers carved the shadows of my face
across the broken earth
requiem for innocence
echoed on canyon walls

music woke me in the dark
whispered promises of coastline pines
singing midnight melodies
with mockingbirds and moths
rain on the roof of happiness
curved against the steadiness of love

and I am still awake

mother music 1

my perfect moment of this moment
the many endings of the beginning
the memory of God’s gentle breath
sung on the back of my neck
that is this music’s music

my hillsides become temples
embracing choirs of trees
around a ring of summer times
and under owl moons
that is this music’s music

my life divined in mockingbird songs
watery echoes from long before
and after and after and after and after
my quiet thanks on the side of God’s cheek
that is this music’s music

So Much for the Secret of Happiness

The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world,
and never to forget the drops of oil on the spoon.” -Paulo Coelho


clinging to the lip of your spoon
oily streaks of fingerprints
mar the psychedelic sheen
feet dangle in the void
until gravity wins
and the tipping point spills
forgotten in the marvelous seduction
reduced to liquid fat
in tiny explosions on the floor
staining your trousers
as you kneel to embrace her hips
eyes closed with your head
on her empty womb
absorbed into residual nothingness

Gourmet or Not

The best intentions don’t make soup
just sitting on the counter.

Organic and nutritious are no match
for incompatibility of essence.

Ingredients rot in the colander,
inanimate, impotent, benign.

Micro-colonies form the surface of themselves –
refrigeration just slows the inevitable.

Even rice grows bitter in the face of
perky thirty-two year old tits.

Even celery.

raindrops

raindrops

pummel the daisies
as the cat
prowls beneath

stalking
the audacious leaf
on the gravel path

flowers
bob their heads
in warning

but the leaf
is deaf
and doomed

Spicy Child

for Madeleine

swings out
past the monkey bars
gravity be damned

chili and
cinnamon
float in her wake

upside down rainbows
of flavor
perfuming the air
and her mother’s
tongue

sug-ar n

sug-ar n

sweet-tasting substance
simple carbohydrates found in many plants
term of endearment
means of persuasion
strong drug (dated slang: heroin, LSD)


When a cube of sugar dissolves
in a glass of tea,
the sugar disappears
but the tea gets sweeter.


dis-so-lu-tion n

separating, decomposing, disintegrating of
something into smaller more basic constituents
breaking up or destruction of an institution
end, termination, death


When fifteen cubes of sugar dissolve
in a river of melting snow,
the sugar’s just gone.

Perhaps the river’s sweeter,
but by such a small degree
that the backpacker filtering water
and the cougars and the deer don’t notice.

Chemists would likely say yes,
but children throwing sticks
from the banks would say no and be right.

If the tongue can’t taste it, it’s really not there.

He loves me...

How many petals ripped
from yellow centers
and dropped in the sand
like bread crumbs
in Hansel and Gretel’s woods?

Little girls singing afterschool
flower songs don’t realize that
the blossom starts dying the minute
it’s pulled from its stem

and as sweet as it is
in a vase by their beds
leaving a ring on Nancy Drew
later it’s nothing but dried stalks of death
for their mothers to vacuum away.

When Gary’s Mother Died of Cancer

she had nineteen different clocks on the wall
one for every year of your life

circular patterns of round and round
like death was a folk dance

ticking the beat of breaths exhaled
the heartbeats counting down to zero

until that moment when the cuckoo’s door
stays shut and the silence is greeted

by applause for the band
and dancers who need to sit down

to sip a glass of punch
and chat with neighbors from down the way

The Cowboy Riding on the Side of the Road

somehow he knew
walking the fence line slowly
in the direction of the school year
as we flew past
in seven seconds going 60
he sensed our admiration
for how he enhanced the landscape
and lifted his hand in greeting
our horn calling back to him
as we rushed away laughing
toward summer

Of Unhappy Men and Minotaurs

galloping astride themselves
chasing red skirts and roses
with thorns intact

dimly aware
of the roar of the crowd
they snort and they stamp
in their labyrinthine rage

determined their fury will
win in the end

it’s 1983 again...

it’s 1983 again
and I’m fifteen and a half
learning to live above the arctic circle
in half years of darkness and light
reflectors on our clothes
for hiking up to school
aurora borealis skating overhead
as we skated down below
on frozen fields
the most desolate of years
with no one but Johns Irving and Updike
for company
and the post carrying three weeks of wishes
across 10,000 miles of homesick
intimate relationships with chocolate
and one night stands with cigarettes
playing at being human
masquerading in the snow
I stuck pins in the bubbled wallpaper
to hold the cards and letters
from farther away than Christmas
with no return address

Purple and White Interrupted by Yellow

the wave of thunk
in the chest
or stomach
after such a good day
breathing on the bench
outside the bookstore
the man on the opposite bench
talking to the phone in his ear
the man on the closer bench
talking to no one in particular

I should go
but feeling sorry for myself
takes time
and believing
that I am capable
of being loved
or even moderately admired
when so many
noble efforts failed
seems to have taken
its toll here now
beside the variegated pansies
and the one rogue dandelion

Lessons on Sleeping Alone

there has to be a trick

the virgin mattress still warm
from the Eastern European breath
of chiseled delivery men
crisp queen sheets tucked tightly
beneath the nickel plated headboard
posed like a crown on coronation day

I always used to leave the extra pillows
on one side
but now they seem too hopeful
and the wasted space too hollow and full
too ominous

and I begin to understand
the older women I know
who sleep in single twins
no pretense
no desire for company
carving a world on their own terms
with no room left for lovers

then my daughter falls asleep reading
in the middle of the bed
covers pushed asunder
and limbs splayed open and out
like nine years ago cradled and free
and I see she’s kicked the extra pillows
onto the floor
so that her whole dancing self can
claim the space for dreams
and I note the critical difference
between waiting for something
off to one side
and the choice to make a little room
later on
if I feel like it

bear attack

bear attack
fur on flesh
breath mingled in breath

spine curled over viscera
head tucked into breast
tumbling eclipse of bodies

her jaw contracts
my thumb on her tongue
teeth find purchase in bones

until her cub rolls by
and she glances up
more intrigued by youth

and I’m alone
and cold
preferring devoured to abandoned

the seabirds...

the seabirds carry the weight of our past
on their wings
from Key West to Cozumel
to Cayman and Montego Bay
I sit in the tropical shade
and nurse my sunburn
but they fly overhead and remember
everything

fire cleansing

separation
disguised as vacation
pulls and pinches where the skin
would rather bend
scalded by violent rays

stretched tight across the bones
on which we hung our married hopes
flesh on flesh leaves too hot an imprint
to touch

To my next lover

thank you for not arriving
before the time specified
on the invitation

(you who finish what you start
and love the work you do)
i like your patient confidence
and the shadow of your arms

illuminated finally
when i flip the porch light off
and throw the deadbolt home

that I loved you...

that I loved you unconditionally
left me in no condition
to know my self
the fact of which has me utterly lost
in the bedding aisle at Target
looking at sheets I think I love
but are centuries from any
on our marriage bed
and I can’t even find my mind
let alone my wallet
so must find my phone instead
to call my mother
(though I’m almost forty)
needing her permission
to buy these little rosebuds
to tuck around my self
as I learn again
to sleep through the night
alone
without waking

embarrassing yourself and your university

can posses possess poetry? particularly
in pathetic presentations of professional
performances that punish pedagogues
who pursue passions but suffer painful
patronization by pompous pinheads? or
perhaps a practice of proofreading would
be prudent?

Heirlooms

they blink and squint against the light
peering around closet corners
and out from under beds
emerging cautiously from exile
to be greeted by gentle dust rags
much like the opinions I’d forgotten I could form
sublimated over time and compromise
still disbelieving as they look timidly
around and find there’s room to stand up straight
now that you are gone