Naked in Public. Collected works from 2011-2013.
Atlantis
Today the grey sky is my mind
silvering from time
and with brightness flashing humor
among shadows.
It calls for the rain to come
and make everything glisten
by being washed
in the sea from above.
Let us all become mermaids and mermen
swim into the clouds
for a better view of our beloved city
below.
Candyland
The Men on Park Avenue
in New York City
are the most beautiful in the world
It's an international male runway
where they're all dressed
in tailored shirts and suits
and Italian shoes.
They are so pretty
well groomed
I think they must be works of art
They would look perfect on my wall
But would they be worth the cost to purchase?
And can they live outside a frame?
Michelangelo's best is still a man unable to move
But so perfect
Beginning Works from 2012
The New Year Comes and the Old Year Goes
This is true as a relation between time and space as we experience it
But this New Year and the night and day of it's change
It's arbitrary
It is of our choosing
So much is in our life
And yet like the passing year of space and time
that which will never come again
it is also utterly beyond our reach
Somewhere between the experienced truth
and the cold hardness of fact
is the brilliant grasping of a moment
held in suspension with gravity and possibility
Soprano's Falsetto
I think I would have made an excellent man
I have the hungers of a man for meat
for flesh
for drink
and a man's ambition
but I have no desire to inhabit any other form than my own
even that... is rather manlike
And in keeping with my womanly form
my aesthetic is feminine in the extreme
my intellectual investigations lead me to an impassioned female point of view
one that is so apart from men
that I find myself looking at them like strangers when I look too deeply
at their actions and decisions
the divide in thought perhaps coming from the difference in our bodies
others would disagree
I am not positing a biological determinism
Living in the body of woman is a particular kind of experience
not just with concern to moving, lifting, fighting
but being dealt with as the world deals with women
changes one's entire perspective on what life is
Life is different in the body of a man
to have the expectations of worldly success mantled about you like a man...
strengthening and encouraging you forward into the full capacity of yourself
to be treated like man...
to be respected like a man...
to be revered... to be loved like a man...
What a host of luxuries
and yet, I cannot say I wish to abandon my own sex
It's not penis envy that fuels this
I wouldn't want one attached to me
I don't envy it
In fact, I enjoy it as a heterosexual woman enjoys it
I like it as part of the body of my lover and inside of me
So why then am I so out of tune with the chorus of my sex?
I love the melody of the verse, but cannot sing with the chorus
Impossible Questions
On quiet mornings when I don't have to hurry out of bed
When I can linger for hours at last
When there is only the pen waiting and an afternoon show to attend
When it's the shower or the gym or the gym and then the shower
When my body is heavy on the mattress and my eyelids blink slow
Sometimes I imagine
I wonder
what it would be like to be pulled from slumber by a small hand
by a head of dark curls and shining eyes that look like mine
I see that little body reaching up to be held
I reach down and want to raise the blanket to make space.
To cuddle in and embrace, hold safe, dream
or get up to make much needed breakfast...
I wonder what that must be like
and whether it's something I'll ever know
Reading the Ever Changing Deck
The swirling mystery of what is
what was
and what may be
Looms like a Tornado of Possibility
From the past of hazy inaccurate memory
to the present of slippery reality
into the moment when I realize that something has changed
had changed
in the world
and in me
and the future that was
can no longer be
Oh Mr Right
Oh Mr Right Now
How charming you are
How handsome
How fun
How smart
Oh Mr Right Now
How almost right you are
How near
How lovable
How endearing
How marvelous
Oh Mr Right Now
If only you were able
If only you were older/younger
If only you were more of yourself
If only I were Ms Right
and not Ms Right Now
for you
or for me
Coming/Going
I can still smell you coming out of my skin
You leave so much of you inside me
even my palms smell like you after two days
It takes that long for you
your words
your expressions
your jokes
your body
your reservations
your abandon
your curiosity
your surprise
your arrogance
your fears
your gentility
your complex essence
to work your way through my soul
pumped by and into every ventricle
fired through each thought pattern of my brain
and eventually to my instrument
the surface
my hands
and out again so strongly
that your exit is like an entrance
The NYTimes
There's good news and then there's Good News
I've received some good news
and that's nice
There's bad news and then there's Bad News
I've been given some bad news
and then a bit more bad news
and some news that was bad and sort of Bad
But then right away I got some contradictory news that said
the Bad News was only bad news.
So I'm trying to hold on to the contradictory news
and read it like it's good news
Good News is hard to come by in the NYTimes
It might be on the last page
Gotta keep turning...
The steep assent
to the summit of a single pillow
on my unoccupied bed
Sometimes the way home
Up the spire staircase
To my tiny chamber
Is a gauntlet of truths and magnifications of truth
I must prevail over in order to find solace
Each floor higher than the last
Bringing me closer to the metal behind the glass
The only thing that waits
Is that deeply staring reflection
That which causes my halting gate
Can I force it to wish me goodnight?
Only so much as I can force my walk to the warmer side of the street
Where perchance I meet
a brief touch of sun
in the dark of night
goodnight
Them's The Breaks
Some truths exist like fiberglass splinters in the mind
They are a constant state of agitation
to attempt to remove them is to cause agonizing pain
They only borough deeper
to examine them too closely is to menace all the surrounding calm
So what's to be done when there is no plausible deniability ?
Perhaps just take note...
For there they are
and there they stay
The world spins on obliviously in its merry way
Any Day
I love you
I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you
I also
Love
You
InSalt to Injury
I hate being told that I’m in my sexual peak
No one needs to tell me something so painfully obvious
It's like pouring turpentine into a gunshot wound
this, Time
I've built a house of cards
The wind has come and blown them all down
I'm left looking at all the pieces
and everything they've been trying to protect, console, and comfort
Standing naked among the shattered glass walls of an illusion
peering out to find a reflection but there is none
only the gaping discontent staring back and through me
it's a troubled perspective
A eunuch in love with a castrato
bended out of shape and twisted from nature
the proper course aborted in favor of formality and propriety
caged for a society that is corrupt and itself a sham
my mortal enemy - my only friend
I give all into her hands and wait
Letting the sun and moon bed one another
While I blunt my fingertips on the keys to write a better year ahead
I have too little it seems
And yet nothing but
Bright Lights in the Biggest City
There's a steel mist that rises from the manholes
in Time's Square at dawn.
The taxis fly over it
making swirls like smoke from dragons’ nostrils.
The twinkling flash of billboards
with huge naked bodies
are windows into an alternate world of giant fairies
who peer curiously on the exhibit
of we fully clothed humans
anting our way to and fro
beneath their glossy gaze.
I make my way to work
among the mythical names and lights and buildings
scurrying along to get to where I’m going
to eventually find myself staring up
at a literary version of my own reflection,
a giant with my name
while I stand on the street below
and wonder how long she can stay in that magic place
before the earth’s gravity pulls her back
into my shoes and aware of the chill.
Lamenting the Lack of the Phrase and Days and Ways to Get it Done
The Distance between me and where I need to be
Is longer than my eyes can see
And how to traverse this unsure path
Is a gamble at every missed and taken pass
There are wrong turns
Double backs
Backward falls
and iron traps
There is Hourglass Quicksand
Holding me like a carded player
Fouled into a penalty box
and so losing the chance
The minutes mock me even now
If only I could learn to write better
Faster
Somehow
Ellipsis
My silent giant
I need you to stain my skin
with the inked words you keep caged
Tattoo them all over me
Each thought
Deep or errant
Complex and confusing
Wide and sprawling
Simple or comical
Or merely sounds of vowels
Parceled out
with the breaking of consonants
upon my naked flesh
The slated parts of me
that are waiting to hear your life written
Etched by your mindful hands and entire person
Oh the empty pages
of our unwritten nights!
(Photo of the Great Carmen Amaya by unknown Photographer.)
After Math
Already CNN is speculating
Counting the minutes until
The President will return
To the campaign trail
They are wetting their mouths
To sup from the disaster trough
Trying to sound smart
While pitting relief efforts against failures
And framing them in the stacked odds cockfight
for their bloodsport paychecks and zingers
As if there can be nothing more important than that
Given all that's still going on
In our drowning downtown
and darkened skyline
Our NEWS disintegrates
Like subway power lines drenched in watery sea salt
While the Power Lasts...
I'm sad and scared for my beloved New York
The water is rising
falling cranes and explosions set the backdrop
for the climbing waters
I remember the floods in Iowa
when peak reached above a person's head
and shop and restaurant owners and workers
had to return to their place of business
to cry and clean
the fights with insurance companies
and the parks that look like a desert wasteland
all life swept away
It was as though one was stepping back in time
and witnessing the aftermath of the dinosaurs' extinction
I shudder to think of our Lady Liberty tonight
drowning in the waves and rusting
I take your shirt and hold it close
I scent you and some tears escape
I'm almost not alone because I have a physical thing to touch like a child with a teddy bear
I breathe in your heartbeat and remember the feel of you near me
I hope everyone is safe
These are dangerous tides
Hurricane
The wind is blowing a chorus
between the skyscrapers
swirling down the clouds
like sailors answering the Siren song on the open sea.
The moon and storm
are dancing up the tide
so we are pressed between all that is above us and all that rises.
Soon all the bridges and tunnels will be closed
and we'll be marooned on the Island
like a sinking ark.
It's days like today when I wish I could grow gills
so I could let myself rest in the arms of the waves
and happily surf in them to calmer shores.
Sunny Side Up Town
The morning broke like an egg
As I walked down Park Ave to get to work
The night’s edges spilled away from the yolk of dawn
They tried to pull me back along with them into some angry purpose
But the blue above me refused to allow me to yield to flavorlessly flawed pursuit
Instead I soldiered on heading south for warmer greetings
Leaving behind me the shells of pickled and prickly exchanges
Hoping that my imagination is fouler than the truth
So I would be justified in letting Karma ride rather than take up my sharpened pen
And that those whose methods of advancement repel me
Will get their fill from another plate
One I needn’t taste nor scent and its fading remnants
Frame the brightness of the day to come
9.20.12
I am a reluctant vision
The untouchable version
Reaching into the blackness
But daring not to touch
Because I know what waits...
nothing
nothing
The violence of insufficiency or the anger of disappointment
the pity and embarrassment of a mistake
no thank you.
I'll stay in my convent and keep the only thing I cannot loose
distance...
Held in the frame of now
but never in arms or hands or in the embrace of a kiss
or many
I am the ethereal me
Trapped behind morays
and corsets of quietude
restrained as much by my pearls
as the binary bars through which they are seen
Is it me that demands the distance unknown, but by my being?
Or is it life pressing it's role of me
into me
upon me
shaping me
changing
in any case it's unappealing to one who loves to laugh as much as me
it's unfavorable to one who loves to sweat and scent the sweet man perfume of an inner crook inside a bent elbow
where a soft cotton is folded and pressed with care and heat...
ah... men...
so beautiful and so...
so
so
so...
far away...
Train Ride Home to the Convent. 9.13.12
Damn it.
It another too long day
of fighting the ups and downs
and what I need is the flesh
embodying the human
with thoughts and ideas,
dreams, drives,
heat of lust and anger and desire,
the arms, fingers, lion paws and claws,
the legs and thighs,
the feet of wide balls and strong toes,
the firmly planted heels,
with stretched Achilles,
the bent and straightening knees,
veined calves,
flexing back,
broadened from lifting and carrying and caring shoulders,
the neck that bucks
at society's bridle as much as my own,
that's strong from pulling
all in the cart
that must be delivered
which is laden
from the intake
of too much seen
by young eyes made old
and skins toughened
by a combination
of the ability to feel and the path too rough.
That firm housing
that man is what I seek
at the end of this long
and lonely night
after a day spanning a decade.
If only I could come home to that,
to him,
Instead of crying on the train..
Oh for someone to hold in my weary arms,
for someone to listen to with my hungry ears,
For someone to love
To give my love to
And to be loved by
Excalibur 8.20.12
Can't sleep.
There is a part of me that's hungry
and it's in my body, mind and soul.
I jolt awake
in the night
realizing it has not been satisfied
and so it nags me from a dream
to shake reality back into focus.
There is more
to be done
in this one
day.
I search the catalog of things
to find the answer
of a small stone
I forgot to unturn
to search beneath...
It's not there...
And then I try
yet one more time
to reach the mountain
under which it lies,
but come face to face
with my lack.
So I try to close my eyes
for now.
Yet I'm too far away from it to rest easy.
Unless it's near enough to touch...
I know I'll have no peace.
Let the dawn come soon
and I'll try again
under some other stone
with better light,
where I doubt it will be
but hopefully
I will get stronger in the effort
and know myself better
for when I am close enough face the mountain again.
5.18.12
The sunrise this morning on the water
played jewelry music of gold bracelets
with amethyst and sapphire sparks…
a mined and pressurized paint
for liquid traffic lines
making streets of black water cobblestones
that only boats can cantor across
and we are stranded
on the landmasses who strive
to meet or part
like all bodies celestially inclined to exist
held in our love affair with gravity
And it is no accident the same word%2
