static crust

back is burning
eyes puffy, real as a mirror
over in corner an albino moray eel
 breathes  in huge gulps
or it could be a hand puppet.
there's a lot that going round.
someone's cutting the strings though. i hope
they got the fire for cleansing you know fire
is the only thing that destroys completely
back is burning
scarlet a. tweeezer pinch
over in the corner is yesterday's circuits
covered in gold and green. or it could be
just a pile of trash. lot of that piling up too.
burning into the air, into my neck into my back
when you asked me, your blue eyes filled with tears
i can't find a way out of this, is this all there is
and i said pretty much.which is pretty much
no comfort.but i meant
 you can always light a new fire you just
gotta find the right spark.

crowded funders

enter the age of diy wages
backing art, artist,artiste , pages
of help me struggle to make ends meet
i'll sing  for supper or maybe a tweet

in your ear if you're in on the ground floor
a place in my facebook newsfeed and more
i'll message you personal  twice a month
and if we're real close our assistants can lunch

 discuss face to face (if your dont' live far)..
available for weddings, bar mitzvahs
office parties, i could win an oscar
if i could quit my day job. though fast cars

excite me, i promise the money won't
finance that tesla i've eyed so long.. don't
need to assure you  my art's premium,
that's covered- 5 tweets a day, minimum.

about once a month, sometimes maybe more
i'll venture to make a trip out  my door
i'll get up onstage and rip out my heart
present  you a value for what you just bought.

life #85

so i ask her please
how can i do joy?

she says the basis is understanding and empathy.
ah. he nods . we have been taught that, i can reach out
and touch you right now playing the know not know
but would you recognise the fingers?

by now you must be hip deep in memories
that didn't come to pass. those are my favorites.



















~~~~~~~~~>>>












its seems she says you have the blues.
treading water will do that to you
that's why you're here to see me today.
you want to know what path leads to joy
so you're thinking of travel.

that's true he answers i have some time
a bit of money places
i haven't seen there's
a lot of those
but even if i go i know
i'll just be a transient, gamma ray passage.

stop ! she says you don't need to confirm
what the cards plainly say please let me do the talking you
can take notes. hands him a pen and paper.
travel begins in the mind she says.

you have to take a stand you don't want to
you love to drift along, path of least resistance but you must
take a stand. or maybe not.
maybe you should back down if you're taking too many stands
only you know which is your foible.

you came to me she says to find out
what you aren't confronting. and it's this
you're a wastrel. a hedonist so where has your wishful thinking
gotten you. but i! he cries. it's , it's not my fault. blame she says
is a fools way out. you have no joy because
you have wasted your good fortune in lax ways.
squanderer.org.    you should take a stand.

your past has been ruinous. things have not gone well.
thus is it for so many. don't think you're so special

look he says. can i just say a few words?
no! jot your questions down for after the reading
i will try to answer them then, do
 not break into the story again
or it's over. you are the last person we want
to hear from. and sorry, i'm not very sympathetic to you because well, i'm tired of whiners. look you may be laying there with ten swords in your back but why aren't you dead yet?
some people she says get a lot of pleasure from pain.
at any rate, that's past. the good news is youi're in recovery.
the trauma's healing, it looks like there's no permanent brain damage, sadly
he mutters you've still got your home and your job  and people
who love you so really, you don't have to resist
letting the trauma go. you're special enough.
by the way, that hermiting
 you've been doing? cross reference
with what your subconscious below
you slacker.. times a waiting. the cancer clock ticks.
no! you don't have cancer it was a sick joke but
you know, it looks like hard times are still to come
or is that  you may view the times to come as hard
but this is a chance to find your spiritual center
and there you will find joy.

or maybe not. there's this whole other way
you can look at things. the circle is a circle.
but you could barrel straight ahead
 . shoulders back, head up and march out of your rut.
don't tempt the fates. knock on wood. put a lucky charm
on your keyfob. a zillion ways to carry godz. il.la di da
right now i just need a light she said and the spell was broken+

sounds good on the laptop

got the hot set up now.
layin on j's bed, lookin out the window
down the bayuo, curves
stars, birds. change of view
portishead on the pandora
the loud fan in my engine
mercifully quiet. distance to read
just about right. no pain in my back
stretched out, typing. i don't need to see the keys
just the results here on the page. backspace is automatic.

i need a new wallet.
drum circle tonight. someone's birthday,
remind me glass is a liquid.
release this energy. i cnan see why
jake might have got stuck here.
it's kinda relaxing. light the joint. raise the blinds
if i had something delicious beside me
life would be perfect for the moment.
momentary perfection fills the hope, then dashes it.
hunger as a innovator. taste as talent.




so i will try now to go where you lead
to the pasts we didn't have
together
yet how do i know the taste of snow
on my lips, her kiss, the way our bodies titled
on that alley we found after we got lost
wandering frisco.
love in the time of  watermelon .

sincei began writign again, i've been mostly present
tense. memories are mostly painful my aunt
brings em back or tries to use them for leverage and i
don't know how to take her. she's talking but i'm not sure
i want to know how she saw it.
she knew my mom. she knew what went on
lived with us for six months of pregnancy
same as ms hoity toity auntie, even though
the baby wasn't hers. she lived with our house
those years i've forgotten. i want to call her
and say tell me your memories from that time
but i might stir up too much trouble. or find out
i was right to surpress them. lol. i'd like to believe
i had a typical childhood, mostly bothered only
by a bit of neglect, cuz i was the middle of three close babes
and everything so tired the second time. not the last of course.
the last time everything's special again. i dunno.
i always just felt like i didn't belong. like i was adopted
like i was a bad kid, a bad seed. to have her introduce
the idea that my own perceptions were actually responses
to way i was actually treated almost begs a complete break.
why not just say it was my karma and be done.
i don't wish i had more because , well, i guess
i lost that idea after second grade. anyway, it seems
i got the room by myself a lot. i don't remember
much about the times i had to share. i'm sure my sis's
didn't like being the sharer, but they liked the alone time.
brady bunch we were not. my mom didn't like florence
henderson cuz she had a maid and mullet.





















)****





so everyday we'd walk home from school and i don't remember walking
with my sisters. how is it all my memories are about being alone?
it was several long blocks. sometimes i still dream that neighborhood
but changed, as if i know it's much later in life ane there are streets
sprung up and pathways changed but in actuality  there was white flight
and crack moved in and the streets aren't safe like they were
when banana seat bikes could be dropped on your friend's front lawn
and no one would take it. dunno why we didn't have bikes.
we'd just moved from a smaller town, spent a month in the motel
waiting for our house to be ready. it wasn't even new. we didn't
get to see it before hand. the driveway was curved. dad put a basketball
hoop above the garage. two elms in the front yard. a kumquat tree
at the end of the driveway. shrubs between us and the only child
whose doberman pinscher barked at us for ten years. but she
was our friend , singly and in bunches, come play with me
no play with me no play with me i;m not playing with you two was that
me or them? and why do i even think that way?

i dunno. the minefields of memory. maybe i don't call her.
i shudder to think what my daughter's are.

some surprises are good

like your dad, tonight,
when he realized we were all there
to wish him a happy birthday
his seventy fifth, and you, late
again, missed his tears it was quite
touching, he genuinely had no idea
his family and friends would gather
together to honor him, he missed
all the clues lost as he is in his own world i
recognise , no disrespect we all
collide, some just notice it more than others
we sat in the back of the restaurant
by the big picture window your sister, her lover
 and his daughter ,her childhood friend and i
were the on time ones yelling surprise happy birthday
surprise! it took him a moment to understand
a split second of bewilderment at this
unexpected twist, why his birthday is tomorrow, even.
when you and the rest of the guys showed up
it was anticlimatic, but at least you made it.
i told the bee you only have to spot me a 30 mins
but with him you better make it two hours
i brought a present, no one else did. i mean what do you get
for a guy that has two of everything. i'm really glad
though i d didn't get what my seventy year ld
aunt suggested-a blow job. even though i'm sure he'd
be surprised it it's just
i wasn't prepared to spend that kind of money.























&*(((

trouble, she said

trouble will find you
if you mess with me. now
he don't  know how easy it is
to rile him up, and i'm giving him
a break because it looks like
all anyone wants from him is his
money. i don't want to seem
ungrateful for all he's done for me
but honey i'm just beyond
bored
 in this sweet little town
with only my brother and his family
left that i know and i
it's very nice of them to drop
by when they can but  i'm awfully tired of visitin with them
specially when they don't bring
the kids poor things with their daddy
being an asshole and momma
in rehab again i just
have to bite my tongue when he comes around he
is so easy to rile, so i told him brother
i'm gonna wrangle a visit to my niece's house
and when i do will you be so kind to drive
me over there. which
niece he wants to know, not the one
just got out of jail . and why
not, i ask him, ain't she family too didn't
we have the same selfish brother didn't we leave
them kids to fend for themselves when
he got himself killed
out on hiway seventeen drivin that woman's corvette
while his wife , that lying bitch, was trying
to divorce him cuz she she couldn't
take the screwing around anymore i mean wasn't
him dying the best thing ever happen
to her
when she took ALL the money for YEARS
she should have been putting aside
for their eduCAtion and bought horses, horses
can you imagine and them kids without
good shoes in the winter that witch
did not even get her chiildren's father my BROther
your brother a gravestone with that money
so it's no wonder trouble
followed our niece like a ghost from memphis, memphis
he says, what the hell has memphis got to do
with it. well, i says, that's where i need the ride.

hot flash mythology

there are cycles 

on the bayou, related

to moon phases, maybe or

fronts behaving as tides. 

the balmy sky glows from sundown

unspectacular, cloudless. respite

from a cold wet nose. twice 

they go by, mom , dad, toddler.

no helmets.

 i applaud the  defiance of  actuarial tables..

I wish i had your lake memories but 

all i have of the scores of ttimes  hauling the boat

to one of the public launches in the chain is we'd 

stand on the dock ( stay on the damn dock)

watch the ungainly, heavy thing

 go buoyant   as the dripping trailer

pulls out, none of us girls trustworthy enough

to hold the line. or maybe not

 tall enough never mind. i 

  have left   only one compiled

 sunburnt waterlogged mush bottomed day

 filled with  the clean scent of earth filtered water

drowned  the smell of cigar and the way  the   sky  took

 half the  drive home to darken  

 

so when i sleep now it's fitful

half   sciatic smacking old, old

half   burning up the sheets

another actress shows off her forty year old

face, proclaims i love me now more than ever

no one should be shamed for the natural

process of  aging .

but if i had her money baby, i'd trim

my sags a bit, with that new laser surgery they have

on   infomercials a late nite staple 

  in the hoods that only get basic. we ain't 

geographi c we demographic . and nothing's

quite the same sad as fifty something white grrls

tryin to seem hip. i got your hip 

 on a mattress and oy it's painful

 but never mind that i 

  want to hear what ms happy face says in ten

years when she cuddles up to her partner for sleep

and a couple minutes later she's gotta throw

off the covers and the partner cuz she's swimming

in her own sweat and she never sweats not

even when doing pilates. which she shows you how

in her new book, aging with grace 

but that's not even her real name.

copper oxide sonnet

sugar daddy dreams antigua tint skies
underfoot, million dollar dinners on
the horizon. i'm all for it, diamond eyed
and dewey lipped, full of winter song.

listen, if it's   stable in air, it'll
change the course of photovoltaics,
imagine power sprayed in little
particles , painted roof by roof, mosaics


making energy we all can use. For
free? and sugar hems and haws, says well
i like a common cause, but i'm so poor
so long, i'd think i'll monetize like hell.

i'm all for it. like i say. the slave trade's
getting old,poppies roam my alley primed
for a sale, but i'm not buying straight
suicide in a needle yet..yes, blind

me with some science, dear, this year let's heal
our pains with gains from moving toward deal.

how the minnow let poetry back into the world

it was raining again, ice
shut down atlanta then melted
over tampa. at the pond we meet
for bean soup and therapy.

every day is a new crisis
or epiphany. busting out the  ptsd
  grooving on shame and guilt,
making amends with midlife.

and in the rain gone on for days it felt or weeks
or the whole winter was it when did we last
see   sun, a kingfisher perched on a branch
signifying fortune, signifying luck you had to open

call them i said but you didn't.
it was too spinny and dark in here
wet roads, iced bridges, lost lamps
i can't collapse hope's last field.

it rained the next day. colder, if possible.
we lit the smoke, the gist of it you say is
  i've been ashamed. i was given so much
and somehow it all turned to shit that must be me

or the choices you make i said look
look right now here's the kingfisher back
again, did you see that? he had a minnow in his mouth
this time did you see how he flew up

there and just hovered till you looked?
call them i said. and you did.