Year: 2016

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Kneel Down

  
“FuckFuckFuck!! No, not my knee!! Not again!”

I’ve done it this time.

Goddamm beginner throwing me off, 

catching an edge, and bam! down–

landed on my knee.

Now the thing is huge and blue,

achy and done with me.

Stressed beyond elasticity,

abused beyond belief,

the joint’s gone bad for good.

They begged me,

left and right,

pleaded for reason

for years.

Then right went wrong: gave out, gave up

and I gave in to the knife.

A quick stitchery and I was back.

But for far too long, so many years,

I ran too far too fast–getting nowhere, 

jumped one too many bumps–slowing me down, 

slammed to the ground–rising up again,

drop-down kneeled in defeat–blowing them out,

cross-checked, side-swiped, full-on collision

knee to knee, knee to shin, knee to head,

pressing their limits to hold me

carry me on, onward and beyond,

only to let me down.

And now, after avowed respect

caution, and a pact:

you be kind to me and 

I’ll return in kind, 

I reneged on our deal.

I beat us up once again.

And landed there,

in the cold icy wind–felled,

torn, beaten and crushed

in the frozen crusted hill,

crying, “No more!”

Pounding the frozen earth,

“Not one more fucking minute!!”

The last run to the bottom

yielded only pain 

where pleasure used to be.

Going down was always the easiest.

Not any more, not this time.

“Not my knee, please God not my knee.

Who’ll stand up for me now?”

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Call Me Beautiful

  
Call me beautiful.

I don’t care for the truth.

What pleases an eye

derives within and through

adoration, love, fondness and

gratitude painting its source

winsome hominey hues.

Aesthetically speaking,

beauty lives outside,

objectified cultural cues,

like Adonis or Loren,

Farung, Omar or Denzell,

and, of course, Marilyn,

but whose standards sway?

No matter the cause, we

seek her, the alluring sashay

across our sensual, our pang

to be her, stare-slaught subject,

all gazed heat into the kiln

of beauty’s claim–fleeting 

hypnotic charm–elite, select.

Common, I carry no beau bearing,

not even in my own way; yes

your hunger draws me sublime–

bony feast: scent, moan and caress.

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Bow to Mystery

I went looking for my calling 

until my calling found me 

but forgot my name.

Before I could hear, 

I wanted to be a 

journalist,

teacher, 

biologist,

writer,

mommy, 

dancer, 

artist, 

dragon, 

nurse, 

sociologist,

tightrope walker, 

doctor 

and boy.

A few wishes called to me 

and a few I summoned once 

on a boring Tuesday afternoon, 

or was it Wednesday?

Days go nameless 

when your suit does not fit (unfit), 

your business is none of yours, 

and your words remind you 

of the unspecified advice 

given by that unnamed source 

on a forgotten date or 

something someone once said or 

letters you read in a book.

Endeavoring turned out a total bust, 

all that flapping and folding 

just to breathe the same air we all do 

and  always have since birth.

And after so much wind, 

when good fortune dropped in my lap, 

I turned to the skies looking for the bird.

Where does all the world’s blindness come from?

“Who created the creator?” my father asked, 

surprising me with the quality of the question. 

We all were.

But the truth is, 

the laurel crowns all word-walkers emerging open-eyed 

envisioning the final curtain call 

–as if there were a stage. 

I bow to mystery. 

  
 

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Some Like it Rough

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Speaker 1 (Sitting at the end of the bar with an open palm propping up her chin, her long wavy auburn hair flanks her shoulder down the arm supporting her head and disappears under the bar. She appears to be in her late thirties with lean, defined arms and angular jawline. I cannot see her face): He says he wants to be a good man but just doesn’t know how. His anger overruns everything. He never got used to being denied, anyone telling him ‘no.’ It still strikes him like a punch to the gut. “No-POW!” As if his brain fires bullets to his fists on the command “No.” A reflex just like Pavlov’s dogs.

Speaker 2 (Facing Speaker 1 and sitting upright in her bar stool, her platinum shoulder length blonde sort of long bobbed hair framing her face in manufactured swooping S curves, maybe from a curling iron. Her make-up is drawn on tastefully, painted in long black lashes, heavy heather brown arc’d brows and smooth sandy color coated foundation. Her shoulders are set back, making her spine arch convex. She’s far too lithe to be a Marilyn Monroe knock-off, but she is a slender bosomy silhouette of her or perhaps early Madonna): Send him my way. I like an angry dude, full of piss and vinegar, strutting himself like God’s gift. I know how to handle those types.

Speaker 1 (Sitting up straight now, eye level with her bar companion, her thick hair drapes down her back stopping short of her waist): No, not like this guy. He isn’t just arrogant or confident, “strutting” like you say; he’s mean and borders on violent. He once grabbed my arm to make me stop walking away from him, and it felt threatening, more than firm, more like in the gripping with force range. We’re not even involved with each other romantically. I mean, what is that all about? I only know I was uneasy about it. Not so much scared as we were in a public place, but it did give me pause.

Speaker 2 (Shrugs, her head veering slightly to the left as her shoulders rise trying to meet the dangle of her earrings, something sparkling when the dim light hits them at an angle): I like it a little rough. Give him my number. 
 

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The Lover’s Monologue

  
I could have written all those fucking 7,8,9 or 100 ways to save your marriage articles. I tried everything I read for decades.

How many relationship “experts”, writers and doctors preach honesty and openness? How many times in 20 years have I opened my heart to her, told her my hopes and dreams, listened to hers, answered her most probing questions about what turned me on or off, what she needed in bed…I tried. It was so hard to be honest, despite her insisting. I didn’t want to hurt her. I knew my words would hurt her. The truth hurts.

What she didn’t tell me, probably didn’t know herself was that she couldn’t handle hearing what she wanted to know. Early in our marriage she would ask me about my fantasies, first like it was a game, like she was being cute about it. And when I refused to tell her, she got irritated and moody. 

But I was embarrassed and it was hard to talk about. It was extremely uncomfortable and felt a little dangerous, like exposing my weaknesses. After a while I think she was driven by this thing, this idea of something I was holding back from her, and demanded to know what I fantasized about–she wanted it in the name of honesty. While it was important to be honest, I also knew some things just needed to be kept to myself. I resisted hard.

But she was clearly disturbed about me keeping something from her, so I gave in. When I told her some of the things I got off on masturbating in my younger days…and occasionally afterward, she got quiet, then distant and then hurt. I watched it happen, the changes cross over her face like a quick moving time-lapsed eclipse. 

She wouldn’t talk about it for a long time. And when she did, she tearfully confessed she couldn’t do what I wanted. She didn’t like anything that might be painful and then it got so messy because I told her I didn’t actually want these things from her, which was the right thing to say but she took it wrong like I wanted it from someone else or didn’t think her capable; it broke down from there into silence and brooding anger. 

Just one of the many breakdowns and resentments that collect and heap up over time.

Be open and honest. Right. How much is too much honesty? Not enough? This is the person I chose to share everything with, who I counted on to build me up not tear me down for what I think or say. I always felt she was on my side and wanted what was best for me. I still do. But there is a slow but steady growing crack widening in us we can’t seem to repair. 

There were other misunderstandings that ended in injured feelings, both of us shut down and protective of our own. She casually mentioned one too many times that the company should give me more time off, more pay, more respect, just more of… what?  What SHE wanted? Was she defending me or looking out for her own interest? 

It’s degrading to be reminded you don’t make as much as you should or have as much as you deserve. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t work there. There’s a sense of how things operate, something she couldn’t know. And for someone so sensitive, it’s downright insensitive not to know how that burns. 

Now I sound like her with the mindreading. She should know…I should know…No, I should have told her how that humiliated me. Not angrily but calmly. But then…I’d been burned so many times by that whole honesty thing before.

My head just spins with this shit. No wonder so many of my college buddies weren’t too keen on getting married any time soon, preferring sex, partying and freedom. Funny, how I judged them then as shallow. Maybe they in their blind denial intuited the danger, all the pitfalls of relationships going long, going stale, expecting too much, tolerating too little…I just chalked them up to chickenshits. But maybe they were right.  

And yet I couldn’t imagine life without her. Too painful. The struggles you suffer and overcome, my dad described as the ups and downs of marriage: “it ain’t easy but it ain’t that hard either.” Yeah? Seems pretty damned difficult sometimes. It’s fucking hard! 

Then again, it’s harder to give up…until there’s nothing to give up, like knowing when you’re bested or outdone, checkmated. There’s no point in trying. Until then, you just keep figuring it out.

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Cryogenically Yours

 

 
“Wait, Walt Disney was cryogenically frozen, right?”

(We are in the car.) 

“No, I think that is just rumor, one that’s been around forever.”

“Really? Because I think he actually was frozen.”

“Look it up. You have a phone.”

“Oh look, ‘Disney on Ice’ it says, so it’s true, right? Wait, that’s a joke isn’t it? Oh shit, he was cremated.”

“Yep. Hard to freeze ashes.”

“When I go I’m going to be cremated and have someone throw my ashes in Harry Styles’ hair.”

“Um…you better put that in your will, so that your ash delivery person can justify throwing your dead-ass ashes in the man’s hair. And so he’ll feel bad enough to allow it since he will feel compelled to  honor someone’s dying wish. Bet that would go viral on Twitter.”

(high pitched laughing) “That’s a great idea! It would so work!!”

(SMH, eyes on the road ahead)

 

credit: http://www.flinthosts.co.uk

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Deny Me to the Moon

  
An exile of his own skin, he dances around himself

like a forgotten memory, webby-silk and opalesque.

Missing at the core he is, out and outwardly leaning,

seeking last letter spaces, the crossword’s final clue,

bluntly obvious solutions, words clearly spelled out,

none save himself a riddle, yet unanswered to mind.

Self-realized men confess, embrace inherited power,

weakness staring truths, scorched in skin worn open.

Banned men envision, only scoff-turned accusations,

toss blocked revelation, obstructing responsible claim

in twisted other-outerness, blaming all not one source

he who self-circles doubt, brandishing blind knife ego

’til none know his name, only echoes like tinnitis ears,

trace stirrings in songs, a residue of teflon-tinged taste

on tongues never spoken, refusal in face of god’s moon.      

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Small Favors

  
Small favors, thank goodness for them, like finding a dollar on the sidewalk

or pulling up just in time to nab the last parking spot.

Still underpaid and broke, struggling, the dollar shines like a 

ribboned gift nevertheless.

And yes, a spot probably opens up for those who wait, 

but all drivers treasure time.

Larger small favors look like winning the raffle at the company picnic

or an impromptu sparkling conversation out of the blue while 

perusing the nonfiction aisle at the bookstore.

Unsuspecting, like those bracelets.

My beloved’s gift, the one I wore til it broke as I shed the last

shred of clothing, naked before a lover’s gaze,

my panties catching its piney speckled beads

and shattering its thin knotty hold on my ankle.

The wood bead’s dull clink on the ceramic tile motel floor. 

While the other, a punishing thick relentless reminder, black 

plastic prisoner’s promised ring, cut into pieces, stabbed in shouting outness,

that one that wrongfully shrunk skin and tamped tibial boxes, receding like

the mote of my motivation, and then gone, freed–but only fake freedom.

I cut it at its malignant root, vengefully scissoring its mad fastening.

And the final ring to replace the broken ones, a gift, simple plastic beaded 

black, silver and white, sweet, puerile and true to salve the wound

and psyched out phantom circle chain.

A charm, a trinket, a child’s delight, and one small favor thoughtful and big–

infinite to me. 

 

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Quote of the Day

“And some folk need killing. That’s all there is to it.” Gran, in The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss
 

Simple.

   

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Positively Pressure

 
 

No more apologies:

I disappoint.

Not enough, not long, hard, gentle or 

joined in heart when I hold you,

I hear your silent reproaches.

A lip corner flick.

No sorries in my storage.

Unrepentant lashes, 

un-sick over baggage.

Time I give is all the buzz

I have, all my life,

before run before hide 

–before–

and composed thus

I always was.

Heaving breath,

the sigh of it all,

sense-fire hearth, 

shorting electric

with your, his, her, their

expiry utter other grunts, twists, glances or

dances belly deep,

and all I beg is a bite of sleep.

My gutters sag under the weight

of leaves and leavings and arrivals,

the spinning door rotates you for you

and him for her for him for them,

and back again, 

a reversion ahead of me, the fool

to believe in words

deployed poison control tools–

bright, early, sunny-gregarious 

gets the worm–

the norm of help-me-happy right

keeping the dark ones light.

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