06.24.2017
Beloved
Child of kith
Not kin
Of heart
Not flesh
Beloved
You are the light in the room
The sweet in my sorrow
Fullness when my well feels dry
I bless the day of your birth
The first moment I saw you
Every night that I rock you to sleep
Now, long limbed and lanky
Child, giraffed.
your keen intelligence, brings me joy.
Your silly nature
Sparks the same
Tapping into the font on my own ridiculous.
You bring me back
To easy afternoons
Naps, sprawled across the bed
The bright inquisitiveness of exploring
A world
Infinitely wide
You tell me that
Your brain is so full today
It's going to explode.
We talk about learning
Neuro-Plasticity
I find in you, a like-minded heart.
Wakes up my awe
Desire to know
Everything.
I sing my childhood songs to you
In sleep’s twilight
And relish the weight of your slumber.
Beloved
Child of kith
Not kin
Of heart
Not flesh
Beloved
You are the light in the room
The sweet in my sorrow
Fullness when my well feels dry
I bless the day of your birth
The first moment I saw you
Every night that I rock you to sleep
Now, long limbed and lanky
Child, giraffed.
your keen intelligence, brings me joy.
Your silly nature
Sparks the same
Tapping into the font on my own ridiculous.
You bring me back
To easy afternoons
Naps, sprawled across the bed
The bright inquisitiveness of exploring
A world
Infinitely wide
You tell me that
Your brain is so full today
It's going to explode.
We talk about learning
Neuro-Plasticity
I find in you, a like-minded heart.
Wakes up my awe
Desire to know
Everything.
I sing my childhood songs to you
In sleep’s twilight
And relish the weight of your slumber.
06.14.17
Thinking on the difference
Between gratitude and Gratitude
The-- not so fine-- line
Between
Smile! And, my heart is full to bursting
The not so subtle, constant oppression of Being
Not that whiny crip
Good crip
Happy fat
Positive
Positive
Fuck fuck fuck your fucking positive!
I have a beloved client
Who blushes
Apologizes
Every time he nears complaint
I want to wrap him up
In righteous anger
In boundless joy
To show him the difference between
Coercion and prosperity
Fury and gratitude
Incarnate
Inchoate
I feel grateful for the weekly lesson
In not replicating shame
In fanning the flame of righteous anger
Of holding space for well earned tears
As if they need excusing?
Thinking on the difference
Between gratitude and Gratitude
The-- not so fine-- line
Between
Smile! And, my heart is full to bursting
The not so subtle, constant oppression of Being
Not that whiny crip
Good crip
Happy fat
Positive
Positive
Fuck fuck fuck your fucking positive!
I have a beloved client
Who blushes
Apologizes
Every time he nears complaint
I want to wrap him up
In righteous anger
In boundless joy
To show him the difference between
Coercion and prosperity
Fury and gratitude
Incarnate
Inchoate
I feel grateful for the weekly lesson
In not replicating shame
In fanning the flame of righteous anger
Of holding space for well earned tears
As if they need excusing?
11.8.2016
In the aftermath
It took me 'til today to feel impacted
a crater
Marring the surface
of the moon.
Still shining down
Still turning - But impacted
Like a
sick tooth.
Worrying the swollen
Achy center of it
Leaves me
ill
So I leave it alone
As if that were enough
To let it heal?
In the aftermath
It took me 'til today to feel impacted
a crater
Marring the surface
of the moon.
Still shining down
Still turning - But impacted
Like a
sick tooth.
Worrying the swollen
Achy center of it
Leaves me
ill
So I leave it alone
As if that were enough
To let it heal?
10.15.2016
Insomnia and
I have this perfectly
This perfectly good car
And I can't drive tonight
Perfectly angry
Perfectly tired of this conundrum
Tonight I'm angry
With the fits the starts
These non-starter days
Endless nights, nothing
Insomnia and
I have this perfectly
This perfectly good car
And I can't drive tonight
Perfectly angry
Perfectly tired of this conundrum
Tonight I'm angry
With the fits the starts
These non-starter days
Endless nights, nothing
10.15.2016
Ben
When you were a Jew in Harlem
I would ride the train
So far up, in all my whiteness
We made sweet noisy
Love in the heat of Tenement
Dim-lit Air shafting
Noise echoed down aging hallways
Under the burden
of your father’s boxed remains
Ben
When you were a Jew in Harlem
I would ride the train
So far up, in all my whiteness
We made sweet noisy
Love in the heat of Tenement
Dim-lit Air shafting
Noise echoed down aging hallways
Under the burden
of your father’s boxed remains
2016
Thinking this morning of love
and loss
inextricably linked
across time and place
Awash in a slew of faces
some, more prominent than others,
Some, burned brightest in the moment
and lost in the receeding decades
I've loved, of sorts
each lover, once wrapped around my skin
pressed beneath the weight of
shared desire
It's in my nature to commit
to memories at least
and to hold
each kiss, and thrust, closer to my heart
Miracle in the moment, sometimes
too little, too much, too soon
too glaringly obvious for one who can't bear
to see the adoration of that moment in my eyes
I've loved every child held,
beating heart, to heart
skinned knee, crying on the blacktop
scooped up and comforted, each one heartfelt
I keep recycling the memory of
that one redheaded child?
My last cooking job,
who was always reaching up my shirt?
They called it trauma, and pushed her hands
gently, and persistently to her sides
I was the only one who could lull her
spent each lunch break rubbing her small back and crooning
She must be 20 now
and I still yearn for her sweet and sticky face
leaned up towards my own
fighting so valiantly, the pull of sleep's embrace.
Now I have another child
I sing to sleep, and on rare evenings
will allow my hand to rub her sturdy back
and sing a lullabye into her seashell ear.
The kind of love could break my heart
wide open, cracked and mending.
Also brings an urgency to my own recollections,
Only two years older than this- how could it happen?
This week, a distant friend's story,
chased in the streets with her little love.
Transmisogyny, transphobia, my fear each time
I take my nieceling to the men's room.
Nothing more dangerous in the world than loving.
all the scalpels and needles
every medical intervention pales in the face
of their faces. Semi- indelibly etched into my mind.
I haven't got a single picture of my childhood, between age 2 and 12.
No birthdays, or best friends, and I take small solice in the
images of my once best friend's children
so close to her own.
My other best friends missing
one to substance, and the other moved as much as me,
and changed her name more often.
Left her running scholarship, and married a mormon boy.
Disappeared and receded so far
I can see her mother's face, long raven hair
Can picture the swirling blue painting
That hung in our many living rooms after theirs
Michele's face is like a blurred photo, taken as she lept
She was always leaping
First to have sex, pills at 14
First to disappear. My heart still aches for my loss of her.
Like the loss of my first teenaged loves
Both misplaced before I could return
Tumultuous sojourn in Philadelphia,
Robbed me of more than stability.
I love deeply, and tenaciously over time
I love each client, just a little bit
or how can I show them their worths?
Unconditional, on my best days, persistent at my worst.
I like somehow to think myself well-gaurded
After all the heartache, shame, abuse
i like to think myself protected from the inconsistencies of love
But also? Can't find living without love.
Can't find living without loss, and resilience.
I've come back from each precipice,
stepped away from every ledge,
and remade love, to be worth living.
I'm also powerful in love
Powerful in my vulnerability
brave and strong and fearless,
in my own ways. I leap, and fall, and remain.
Thinking this morning of love
and loss
inextricably linked
across time and place
Awash in a slew of faces
some, more prominent than others,
Some, burned brightest in the moment
and lost in the receeding decades
I've loved, of sorts
each lover, once wrapped around my skin
pressed beneath the weight of
shared desire
It's in my nature to commit
to memories at least
and to hold
each kiss, and thrust, closer to my heart
Miracle in the moment, sometimes
too little, too much, too soon
too glaringly obvious for one who can't bear
to see the adoration of that moment in my eyes
I've loved every child held,
beating heart, to heart
skinned knee, crying on the blacktop
scooped up and comforted, each one heartfelt
I keep recycling the memory of
that one redheaded child?
My last cooking job,
who was always reaching up my shirt?
They called it trauma, and pushed her hands
gently, and persistently to her sides
I was the only one who could lull her
spent each lunch break rubbing her small back and crooning
She must be 20 now
and I still yearn for her sweet and sticky face
leaned up towards my own
fighting so valiantly, the pull of sleep's embrace.
Now I have another child
I sing to sleep, and on rare evenings
will allow my hand to rub her sturdy back
and sing a lullabye into her seashell ear.
The kind of love could break my heart
wide open, cracked and mending.
Also brings an urgency to my own recollections,
Only two years older than this- how could it happen?
This week, a distant friend's story,
chased in the streets with her little love.
Transmisogyny, transphobia, my fear each time
I take my nieceling to the men's room.
Nothing more dangerous in the world than loving.
all the scalpels and needles
every medical intervention pales in the face
of their faces. Semi- indelibly etched into my mind.
I haven't got a single picture of my childhood, between age 2 and 12.
No birthdays, or best friends, and I take small solice in the
images of my once best friend's children
so close to her own.
My other best friends missing
one to substance, and the other moved as much as me,
and changed her name more often.
Left her running scholarship, and married a mormon boy.
Disappeared and receded so far
I can see her mother's face, long raven hair
Can picture the swirling blue painting
That hung in our many living rooms after theirs
Michele's face is like a blurred photo, taken as she lept
She was always leaping
First to have sex, pills at 14
First to disappear. My heart still aches for my loss of her.
Like the loss of my first teenaged loves
Both misplaced before I could return
Tumultuous sojourn in Philadelphia,
Robbed me of more than stability.
I love deeply, and tenaciously over time
I love each client, just a little bit
or how can I show them their worths?
Unconditional, on my best days, persistent at my worst.
I like somehow to think myself well-gaurded
After all the heartache, shame, abuse
i like to think myself protected from the inconsistencies of love
But also? Can't find living without love.
Can't find living without loss, and resilience.
I've come back from each precipice,
stepped away from every ledge,
and remade love, to be worth living.
I'm also powerful in love
Powerful in my vulnerability
brave and strong and fearless,
in my own ways. I leap, and fall, and remain.
Self Love and Fallacy
05.23.2016
Thinking as I do,
Perhaps more often than most
On mediation, of self-
Love in the touch, gaze,
Of how our self-ness hinges,
On the responses of others.
I don’t eschew the concept of purity
Self-love as construction
Done best in our own- time and place.
But, do challenge the narrative of
Independent function
As if we were individual molecules
Bumping against our own walls...
What if, instead, we harvest the excitement of friction, grinding
Sweating against the skin of other bodies?
Trans embodiment relying, in part,
On the gaze that we internalize,
From the concept of other, another, none.
I see parts of me,
Not visible in mirrors
In the eyes of lovers, of others, seen.
05.23.2016
Thinking as I do,
Perhaps more often than most
On mediation, of self-
Love in the touch, gaze,
Of how our self-ness hinges,
On the responses of others.
I don’t eschew the concept of purity
Self-love as construction
Done best in our own- time and place.
But, do challenge the narrative of
Independent function
As if we were individual molecules
Bumping against our own walls...
What if, instead, we harvest the excitement of friction, grinding
Sweating against the skin of other bodies?
Trans embodiment relying, in part,
On the gaze that we internalize,
From the concept of other, another, none.
I see parts of me,
Not visible in mirrors
In the eyes of lovers, of others, seen.
Taller
05.24.2016
I hope I'll never forget the day when I figured out that I was taller than her..
Lisa, what's her name from up the hill.
Me, world wearied after a painful year in Atlanta,
followed by the shaking brutality of mom’s fucked up second husband,
and my beloved grandfather’s death.
That first day back in my small town home
Making that brutal trek uphill,
Sweat sticking my too-thick hair to my neck?
Waiting for the brutality to begin, again.
That day I turned to face my tormenter,
two blocks into the heckling jeers, half broken already.
That day I turned, and on that sharp precipice,
towered over my tormentor,
And knew that something had changed irrevocably.
In that moment, perhaps before,
begrudging, trudging survival,
transformed to fighting back.
Gravity on my side, the first swipe,
I don't remember, but can picture her falling,
in perfect time warp effect, tits over teakettle,
windmilling back to earth.
Ten years forward, Goliath,
conquering my bigger evil,
looking down for the first time
at my mother’s fists.
I waited ‘till she almost broke me,
dislocated jaw,
and bruised shins,
before the anger came.
Growing up with a mother who could lift me,
like potato sacks, the dawning of that moment in time,
impossibly taller, for once,
and hit her back.
We reeled and stumbled from then on.
Guilt a powerful glue, beyond the longing.
But forever shaded by the tilt of earth and sky.
Her looking up at me.
05.24.2016
I hope I'll never forget the day when I figured out that I was taller than her..
Lisa, what's her name from up the hill.
Me, world wearied after a painful year in Atlanta,
followed by the shaking brutality of mom’s fucked up second husband,
and my beloved grandfather’s death.
That first day back in my small town home
Making that brutal trek uphill,
Sweat sticking my too-thick hair to my neck?
Waiting for the brutality to begin, again.
That day I turned to face my tormenter,
two blocks into the heckling jeers, half broken already.
That day I turned, and on that sharp precipice,
towered over my tormentor,
And knew that something had changed irrevocably.
In that moment, perhaps before,
begrudging, trudging survival,
transformed to fighting back.
Gravity on my side, the first swipe,
I don't remember, but can picture her falling,
in perfect time warp effect, tits over teakettle,
windmilling back to earth.
Ten years forward, Goliath,
conquering my bigger evil,
looking down for the first time
at my mother’s fists.
I waited ‘till she almost broke me,
dislocated jaw,
and bruised shins,
before the anger came.
Growing up with a mother who could lift me,
like potato sacks, the dawning of that moment in time,
impossibly taller, for once,
and hit her back.
We reeled and stumbled from then on.
Guilt a powerful glue, beyond the longing.
But forever shaded by the tilt of earth and sky.
Her looking up at me.
Where I come from
04.28.2016
They don't like my kind find where I come from- there's no in-between.
There was that one summer when I ran home to Bristol? Walked all the way to Walmart to be told no, again. The manager actually looked sorry just that once. No ice cream scoop, no gas-stop window wash, no minimart would hire me there.
And in my memory, my father asked me how the hell I failed. What did I do all day? How could I not find a shit day-job, and did I spend the whole afternoon on the couch?
In my mind I say how the hell could you not know? How the hell could you not see me the way that they saw me?
No one would hire my queer ass self in that small town. The summer so fucking hot I walked on blisters that split, and leaked into my shoes. Trying so hard, knowing I didn't have a chance.
The final straw snapped the day I came home to my father raging. Yelling at my stepmother for sewing up the piss hole in his boxers. I was speechless.
I didn't know why I was crying- but in hindsight I can say- I had to lie to buy those boxers for myself. Don't remember who I said I was purchasing them for, but I still recall the hot flame on my face as I stumbled my way through the men's department. Stitched up that flap with the needle shaking in my hands.
Some twig snapped that day and tore me up inside. Blamed, called out as lazy, and so damned angry, all at once. 1988 was not the time to be transgressive.
They don't like my kind where I come from.
How much simpler would it be today with new laws on the books, weekly, talking about how dangerous my kind are to their daughters. No language for how dangerous their kind are to their daughters who run, as if San Francisco were kind, and big enough to hold us all.
I entered this mecca when there was no space for me, yet so much more than where I ran from. Visibility, both a blessing and curse.
How can they not see that every time I go home I'm still in danger? How can they not see that every time I step off the plane I bring my own sheen of sweat, small protection from what awaits me.
There was a time when I could pass for a rural sexual. Would seek the eyes of women in coveralls, hoping for that quick flick of gaze, and most often watched their eyes go from welcoming to fearful, just like that.
Some mark upon me, my hair too sharp, nails too clean, would out me once again as other. Barring those rare moments when some mullet sporting hard eyed butch would melt an ounce and return my gaze.
It’s always meant so much more there, than any other place or time. I remember the desperation I’ve felt, each time I reenter the South, to see another queer face, pointing and bouncing in my seat at the sight of a single rainbow bumper sticker anywhere between Alabama and Eastern Tennessee.
After decades of trying to explain why I don't go home much- how much easier is it now to say- they made a law against me? They made a law against my kind, and if I can't piss, how the hell can I come home?
Truth is though, I couldn't stay there anyway. I ran from there so hard and fast, and the one time I went back? It broke me. Broke me in ways that took years to repair beyond the years I spent repairing myself to start with.
I can't go through that again. I won't go through that again, and who's alive there anyway?
My aunt Betty died this year, and with her with the last of her generation that really saw me. Even my aunt Marcia found a way to hold me close, in her death. In the last decade I've lost my uncle, his wife, my closest aunt, and I don't know how go home.
I love my siblings dearly. Some visit and other others don't. I resent the one-way street sometimes. Resent that I carry my disabled body to them more often then they come to me.
Some of them live on farms, and I remember well enough why you don't travel when you have livestock. The country Dr. can't make it out too often, my father is aging, my other sister struggles to be away from home.
She's not the only one though, who struggles with being away. I struggle still with missing having somewhere to go home to, even in the hateful South. I long for misty mountains, and somewhere to return.
04.28.2016
They don't like my kind find where I come from- there's no in-between.
There was that one summer when I ran home to Bristol? Walked all the way to Walmart to be told no, again. The manager actually looked sorry just that once. No ice cream scoop, no gas-stop window wash, no minimart would hire me there.
And in my memory, my father asked me how the hell I failed. What did I do all day? How could I not find a shit day-job, and did I spend the whole afternoon on the couch?
In my mind I say how the hell could you not know? How the hell could you not see me the way that they saw me?
No one would hire my queer ass self in that small town. The summer so fucking hot I walked on blisters that split, and leaked into my shoes. Trying so hard, knowing I didn't have a chance.
The final straw snapped the day I came home to my father raging. Yelling at my stepmother for sewing up the piss hole in his boxers. I was speechless.
I didn't know why I was crying- but in hindsight I can say- I had to lie to buy those boxers for myself. Don't remember who I said I was purchasing them for, but I still recall the hot flame on my face as I stumbled my way through the men's department. Stitched up that flap with the needle shaking in my hands.
Some twig snapped that day and tore me up inside. Blamed, called out as lazy, and so damned angry, all at once. 1988 was not the time to be transgressive.
They don't like my kind where I come from.
How much simpler would it be today with new laws on the books, weekly, talking about how dangerous my kind are to their daughters. No language for how dangerous their kind are to their daughters who run, as if San Francisco were kind, and big enough to hold us all.
I entered this mecca when there was no space for me, yet so much more than where I ran from. Visibility, both a blessing and curse.
How can they not see that every time I go home I'm still in danger? How can they not see that every time I step off the plane I bring my own sheen of sweat, small protection from what awaits me.
There was a time when I could pass for a rural sexual. Would seek the eyes of women in coveralls, hoping for that quick flick of gaze, and most often watched their eyes go from welcoming to fearful, just like that.
Some mark upon me, my hair too sharp, nails too clean, would out me once again as other. Barring those rare moments when some mullet sporting hard eyed butch would melt an ounce and return my gaze.
It’s always meant so much more there, than any other place or time. I remember the desperation I’ve felt, each time I reenter the South, to see another queer face, pointing and bouncing in my seat at the sight of a single rainbow bumper sticker anywhere between Alabama and Eastern Tennessee.
After decades of trying to explain why I don't go home much- how much easier is it now to say- they made a law against me? They made a law against my kind, and if I can't piss, how the hell can I come home?
Truth is though, I couldn't stay there anyway. I ran from there so hard and fast, and the one time I went back? It broke me. Broke me in ways that took years to repair beyond the years I spent repairing myself to start with.
I can't go through that again. I won't go through that again, and who's alive there anyway?
My aunt Betty died this year, and with her with the last of her generation that really saw me. Even my aunt Marcia found a way to hold me close, in her death. In the last decade I've lost my uncle, his wife, my closest aunt, and I don't know how go home.
I love my siblings dearly. Some visit and other others don't. I resent the one-way street sometimes. Resent that I carry my disabled body to them more often then they come to me.
Some of them live on farms, and I remember well enough why you don't travel when you have livestock. The country Dr. can't make it out too often, my father is aging, my other sister struggles to be away from home.
She's not the only one though, who struggles with being away. I struggle still with missing having somewhere to go home to, even in the hateful South. I long for misty mountains, and somewhere to return.
04.24.16
I find myself sad on Sunday morning
As you sleep through yet another sweet invention
This is the time that I ask of you.
Slow morning wakeup
Tea in the good pot, pajamas and
You sleep through another sunny day
Restless night, perhaps
dreaming of the pain you're in
I struggle with feeling uncoupled
Can't make a plan on weekend mornings
Saving space you seldom fill
I don't want to wake you
Both the hope for rest
And vaguely wanting you to want
To set your clock for me
Finally drag myself from bed
Another tea and eggs for one
Find solace in the book I'm almost through
I know you're hurting
And it hurts me too, to watch you hurting
and, to spend so many couple moments on my own.
Wishing for the magic pill to save
To reset the clock and wake you
Begin another week alone with you.
04.22.16
04.23.2016
I want to fill up on you...
Neil and Olga
First and latest loves
Not even in my native tongue
Your wilder cadences
Rhyme and drop
Heartbeat skipped like rocks
Sinking in and driving
Pulling threads
Like memories
Some deeper core
Unravels in me
When you sing
..................
Waiting
Is it any wonder
That I hate the unknown
waiting more?
Learned the hard way
Conditioned to
Conditional love
Mother all sharp angles
Knives and broken pottery
Warfare domesticated
Father- manchild
Brokenhearted mamas boy
No-one ever loved him right...
I'm the sum of generations
Iterations of poverty of loving
Paucity of understanding
I was the first to say I love you.
Siblings soulmates
Save that for the ones you can't cut out!
Saying I love you cuts
Both lies and hearts
Bound by social conventions I despise
But when you said it first?
The first time
Love of friendship
I was taken aback
And time and change
As they will make fools
We shifted sands
And next time I stepped
Listing moorless towards the words
Fuck the lines we etch
Fuck the division between worthiness
And loving. You.
Loving only parts of you
Doesn't work
Goes against my best momentum
Closes doors I've barely cracked
And maybe I'm just terrified
Of more doors closing
................
Longing
Bleached bone piles
Words stacked
And pushing at the tides
Lapping at my edges
Spilling over
Prostrate, beached
Banked against a chilly hour
Burning late into the night
Resurging in the dawn.
04.23.2016
I want to fill up on you...
Neil and Olga
First and latest loves
Not even in my native tongue
Your wilder cadences
Rhyme and drop
Heartbeat skipped like rocks
Sinking in and driving
Pulling threads
Like memories
Some deeper core
Unravels in me
When you sing
..................
Waiting
Is it any wonder
That I hate the unknown
waiting more?
Learned the hard way
Conditioned to
Conditional love
Mother all sharp angles
Knives and broken pottery
Warfare domesticated
Father- manchild
Brokenhearted mamas boy
No-one ever loved him right...
I'm the sum of generations
Iterations of poverty of loving
Paucity of understanding
I was the first to say I love you.
Siblings soulmates
Save that for the ones you can't cut out!
Saying I love you cuts
Both lies and hearts
Bound by social conventions I despise
But when you said it first?
The first time
Love of friendship
I was taken aback
And time and change
As they will make fools
We shifted sands
And next time I stepped
Listing moorless towards the words
Fuck the lines we etch
Fuck the division between worthiness
And loving. You.
Loving only parts of you
Doesn't work
Goes against my best momentum
Closes doors I've barely cracked
And maybe I'm just terrified
Of more doors closing
................
Longing
Bleached bone piles
Words stacked
And pushing at the tides
Lapping at my edges
Spilling over
Prostrate, beached
Banked against a chilly hour
Burning late into the night
Resurging in the dawn.
04.13.16
Fell Behind
Something fell behind the last time we spoke
which was, also
the last time we touched
Something infinite, sinister, leveled it's head against
resting heavy on our hearts, minds
and tore the rift between us, never mended
*************************************************
Fell Behind
Something fell behind the last time we spoke
which was, also
the last time we touched
Something infinite, sinister, leveled it's head against
resting heavy on our hearts, minds
and tore the rift between us, never mended
*************************************************
04.11.2016
Laying down the negative
looking instead to the positive edges
letting go self- emboldened
by your desire to hold
tighter and yet looser than some
the strings that tie me
Read a thing today about the differences
between top and domme
between you and me and every other lover
Read a thing about the spaces between
wanting you and
wanting to please you
and, wanting you- to take
pleasure
in my salty skin.
Wishing you could stay.
Laying down the negative
looking instead to the positive edges
letting go self- emboldened
by your desire to hold
tighter and yet looser than some
the strings that tie me
Read a thing today about the differences
between top and domme
between you and me and every other lover
Read a thing about the spaces between
wanting you and
wanting to please you
and, wanting you- to take
pleasure
in my salty skin.
Wishing you could stay.
04.06.2016
Counting down the hours
now less than 24
until we meet
flesh to flesh
to skin
bare
********************
For you-
I shave the things I can't reach
patch together some semblance of bravery
step onto your stage
and shine.
Counting down the hours
now less than 24
until we meet
flesh to flesh
to skin
bare
********************
For you-
I shave the things I can't reach
patch together some semblance of bravery
step onto your stage
and shine.
04.04.2006
early morning you were fighting
2 a.m.
a misery of pondering
life without you
or to seek- perhaps inevitable pain?
flinging sheets
and
pillows to the floor
restless turning
wondering if you would be
quite so unkind to yourself,
and to my heart
were it me ?
early morning you were fighting
2 a.m.
a misery of pondering
life without you
or to seek- perhaps inevitable pain?
flinging sheets
and
pillows to the floor
restless turning
wondering if you would be
quite so unkind to yourself,
and to my heart
were it me ?
03.26.2016
Perhaps, in the long view,
the best test of congruence is
Cranky old man
Sitting in
Cranky old man body
Shaking head to refrains of
Kids these days
What do they know?
And
Sickfest headache
Residual incense
Or someone missed the mark
Worried for the subject
Stage bound
Maybe sicker than myself
20 bucks is pretty steep
For chapbooks
Bound yet also curiously empty
Pages waiting
To be determined
Not sure, still if my visceral response is need
Or loathing
Recoiling from the ugly page
Like slaps from my unwelcome agent
Fulcrum
Point of no return
And I am sweating still
Already overwarm in thin pants wishing there was air in this hipster hovel performance venue
Then, again
One human connection
One remembered line
One spark of recognition
Pulls me back to longing
Back to the ache for human contact
That drug me, knowing from my bed
Flailing for some footing on foreign ground
The whole wide world a stranger
After endless months in bed
Perhaps, in the long view,
the best test of congruence is
Cranky old man
Sitting in
Cranky old man body
Shaking head to refrains of
Kids these days
What do they know?
And
Sickfest headache
Residual incense
Or someone missed the mark
Worried for the subject
Stage bound
Maybe sicker than myself
20 bucks is pretty steep
For chapbooks
Bound yet also curiously empty
Pages waiting
To be determined
Not sure, still if my visceral response is need
Or loathing
Recoiling from the ugly page
Like slaps from my unwelcome agent
Fulcrum
Point of no return
And I am sweating still
Already overwarm in thin pants wishing there was air in this hipster hovel performance venue
Then, again
One human connection
One remembered line
One spark of recognition
Pulls me back to longing
Back to the ache for human contact
That drug me, knowing from my bed
Flailing for some footing on foreign ground
The whole wide world a stranger
After endless months in bed
01.18.15
Mt. Tam Writing
Reveling in the simple
Predictable pleasure
of Tamalpais
to Stinson Beach.
Borrowed wealth.
Privileged existence of accessible beauty.
Fog lifting.
Stunning vistas.
Mt. Tam Writing
Reveling in the simple
Predictable pleasure
of Tamalpais
to Stinson Beach.
Borrowed wealth.
Privileged existence of accessible beauty.
Fog lifting.
Stunning vistas.
01.22.2015
On Mothers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
How does one refer to one’s ex mother in law
who was not of either’s choosing
shorn suddenly, as acquired
rough divorce?
No more big Thanksgivings
My once mother in law still inspires me
Reinventing herself, again, in her own image
I want to send a card-
congratulations- for page 54-
The New Yorker!
Over breakfast, I read again
Her wit, and phrase
cutting and restoring her own
new aged visions
community tropes
Not my favorite
Of them all,
I gravitate towards the subtly familiar
poems- that speak of her love
for my once- other mother in law
I seek a sense of familiarity
of allusion to my abrupt departure
I read her brilliant words
filtered through a lense
of once belonging-
in an intrusive way perhaps-
but never there
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We often speak of family
in absolutes
lacking language for
the intricacies of claiming
and disclaiming
I travel to see my mother
absolute, but not.
Mother of birth
and longing
but not my parent.
I travel with a sense of foreboding
prescient, no, but expected
rejection of my unshared reality.
She will hurt me.
I will see her before she dies.
These are truths of practice
walking forward
eyes open
This is our reality-
this is what she has to offer
I choose to have a mother who isn’t,
rather than to be motherless
Sometimes the longing hits
knife sharp,
need to be held
to be parented
To experience that ideal
Unconditional love
but then reality.
Only the longing
acts as glue,
that ship has sunk
On Mothers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
How does one refer to one’s ex mother in law
who was not of either’s choosing
shorn suddenly, as acquired
rough divorce?
No more big Thanksgivings
My once mother in law still inspires me
Reinventing herself, again, in her own image
I want to send a card-
congratulations- for page 54-
The New Yorker!
Over breakfast, I read again
Her wit, and phrase
cutting and restoring her own
new aged visions
community tropes
Not my favorite
Of them all,
I gravitate towards the subtly familiar
poems- that speak of her love
for my once- other mother in law
I seek a sense of familiarity
of allusion to my abrupt departure
I read her brilliant words
filtered through a lense
of once belonging-
in an intrusive way perhaps-
but never there
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We often speak of family
in absolutes
lacking language for
the intricacies of claiming
and disclaiming
I travel to see my mother
absolute, but not.
Mother of birth
and longing
but not my parent.
I travel with a sense of foreboding
prescient, no, but expected
rejection of my unshared reality.
She will hurt me.
I will see her before she dies.
These are truths of practice
walking forward
eyes open
This is our reality-
this is what she has to offer
I choose to have a mother who isn’t,
rather than to be motherless
Sometimes the longing hits
knife sharp,
need to be held
to be parented
To experience that ideal
Unconditional love
but then reality.
Only the longing
acts as glue,
that ship has sunk
08.23.14
Peripatetic
Childhood spent
by days and hours
Itinerant longing for home
for shelter from the waves of grief
loss on loss
friends like leaves in fall
blown north and south
chill winds and rakes undoing
Still, longing for the ease of less
boxes in the closet
More constant friends than bookshelves
Which can always be rebuilt.
Peripatetic
Childhood spent
by days and hours
Itinerant longing for home
for shelter from the waves of grief
loss on loss
friends like leaves in fall
blown north and south
chill winds and rakes undoing
Still, longing for the ease of less
boxes in the closet
More constant friends than bookshelves
Which can always be rebuilt.
07.20.2014
In response to my once mother in law, in empathy.
Dear Ellen
Who are we to think that we can fool the gods of wanting
Duck free and shirk the mantles of another pain or loss?
Loss being the story of life
passing, fleeting, like joy and children
Growing older means to reap the pain,
with luck, also, the the joys of growth, passion, plenty
I risk the wrath of vengeful gods
each time I name the fleeting good, the days of safety
Watching for the fall,
the end of days, exhausting
Once I had the luxury of letting go, and still recall the relief of leaving
but, this work is both of letting go, and holding tight to something.
Each week a new discovery of pain, of longing,
wanting to go home, where no home exists
Some days, tomatoes are enough, ripe on the vine
to bring solace, succor, bright moments of joy, bursting in my teeth
Others I simply gird my loins, heart, spirit, and hope
No one is suicidal today, none perched on the precipice of too much, too hard
Unbearable
Each shining moment in the balance of the tears of dearest strangers
We only see what they choose to show us.
Mostly pain, and loss, and fear of wanting
Waiting for a miracle of change, for better days and sweeter fruits.
04.12.2011
Money Child
Why should I be the one, calling the public utilities
I learned early that children get the power on…
We all do our part
Dragged foot-sore through every downtown office
Begging for another week
Another paycheck, time
I spent my youth, grownup child to your young parenthood.
Single mother, sometimes
Making ends meet
I remember church basements
Stale sugar cereal with powdered milk
Lumps of white in watery sludge
Government cheese melts best on white bread
Now the Diabetes fear
My fault for not trying harder
RC cola and moon pies on payday
Boom and bust a way of life
A way of living held
Some days I wake and never think of money
Freedom from those years
Until some small reminder of what was and could be
I catch myself afraid to buy new books and magazines
Simple decisions
Paralyzed in airport terminals
I still carry each humiliation
Each hungry morning
Clutched inside my chest
Money Child
Why should I be the one, calling the public utilities
I learned early that children get the power on…
We all do our part
Dragged foot-sore through every downtown office
Begging for another week
Another paycheck, time
I spent my youth, grownup child to your young parenthood.
Single mother, sometimes
Making ends meet
I remember church basements
Stale sugar cereal with powdered milk
Lumps of white in watery sludge
Government cheese melts best on white bread
Now the Diabetes fear
My fault for not trying harder
RC cola and moon pies on payday
Boom and bust a way of life
A way of living held
Some days I wake and never think of money
Freedom from those years
Until some small reminder of what was and could be
I catch myself afraid to buy new books and magazines
Simple decisions
Paralyzed in airport terminals
I still carry each humiliation
Each hungry morning
Clutched inside my chest
04.12.2011
I feel anger boiling up inside me
Spilling over in my work, my life
I hear stories of women told- take it quietly,
Don’t fight
Don’t struggle as the prick breaks the skin over your beating heart.
I want to scream a feminist manifesto
I want to hold each tight in my arms
Hold off the crush of hate and pain
Take back the wounds of parental rejection
Oh but you- who told her not to fight
You who forgot somehow that moment
Where you lived or died by fists and feet
So much kinder to believe the hate is over, danger past
That sisters walk the street, heads high, no problems
This is not a revolution
Rather first and feeble steps towards survival
This is a war zone, fought on women’s bodies,
This is urgent, danger spelled out in pats and cat-calls
For those who offer lessons in comportment to young transgendered women
I would invite you to remember that day when you survived,
Only by fighting back,
And know that it’s not as long ago as we like to think.
I feel anger boiling up inside me
Spilling over in my work, my life
I hear stories of women told- take it quietly,
Don’t fight
Don’t struggle as the prick breaks the skin over your beating heart.
I want to scream a feminist manifesto
I want to hold each tight in my arms
Hold off the crush of hate and pain
Take back the wounds of parental rejection
Oh but you- who told her not to fight
You who forgot somehow that moment
Where you lived or died by fists and feet
So much kinder to believe the hate is over, danger past
That sisters walk the street, heads high, no problems
This is not a revolution
Rather first and feeble steps towards survival
This is a war zone, fought on women’s bodies,
This is urgent, danger spelled out in pats and cat-calls
For those who offer lessons in comportment to young transgendered women
I would invite you to remember that day when you survived,
Only by fighting back,
And know that it’s not as long ago as we like to think.
12.06.2010
Stumble
I want to write about stumbling
falling over uneven ground,
or my two feet.
I want to talk about the day I saw her on the television
My lonliest time
Laurie Anderson on late night PBS
Talking about walking,
and falling
Tiny screen at 2 a.m.
Her gender-bending self,
Broke open some piece of me
Embodied my unshared edges
I tell the story of my body
different each time
I talk of pain and joints,
of chair days
cane days
good or bad
I forget to tell about the falling
The inexorable moment
my feet forget
my fear of concrete
etched across my skin.
Forget the moment
one foot hanging in the air
knee buckled
and canes my only saving grace
My fear of concrete
hard won in battle with SUV’s
city streets
that day I came to on the sidewalk.
I forget some days
I dream of walking
Legs moving in their own rhythm
Body memory
Penn station to the Met
Miles slipping beneath my shoes
I forget sometimes
good days
I catch the momentary grace
Walk until my legs shake
No rhyme or reason
Connective tissue inflammation
High spasticity
Each step my first and last
Today I dance around my kitchen
hoping it will hold
grace and balance
fear and surrender
walking and falling
Stumble
I want to write about stumbling
falling over uneven ground,
or my two feet.
I want to talk about the day I saw her on the television
My lonliest time
Laurie Anderson on late night PBS
Talking about walking,
and falling
Tiny screen at 2 a.m.
Her gender-bending self,
Broke open some piece of me
Embodied my unshared edges
I tell the story of my body
different each time
I talk of pain and joints,
of chair days
cane days
good or bad
I forget to tell about the falling
The inexorable moment
my feet forget
my fear of concrete
etched across my skin.
Forget the moment
one foot hanging in the air
knee buckled
and canes my only saving grace
My fear of concrete
hard won in battle with SUV’s
city streets
that day I came to on the sidewalk.
I forget some days
I dream of walking
Legs moving in their own rhythm
Body memory
Penn station to the Met
Miles slipping beneath my shoes
I forget sometimes
good days
I catch the momentary grace
Walk until my legs shake
No rhyme or reason
Connective tissue inflammation
High spasticity
Each step my first and last
Today I dance around my kitchen
hoping it will hold
grace and balance
fear and surrender
walking and falling
(for TS, 2008?)
Ten short years I found myself mourning
Not the loss of her
her loss of self
my loss of girl
wife
partner
Now I see the opening up
new work
home
life
a continual struggle with my past
Give and take between
old memories and fresh
driving need
desire
I want to offer the world
I think I know what there is to lose
even up and to myself
wanting
fearing still
wanting you
wanting safety
heart
home
knowing those needs
must meet within
I step forward
tides of loss still slapping at my feet
tilling rows of icy water
splash my face
and plunge
Ten short years I found myself mourning
Not the loss of her
her loss of self
my loss of girl
wife
partner
Now I see the opening up
new work
home
life
a continual struggle with my past
Give and take between
old memories and fresh
driving need
desire
I want to offer the world
I think I know what there is to lose
even up and to myself
wanting
fearing still
wanting you
wanting safety
heart
home
knowing those needs
must meet within
I step forward
tides of loss still slapping at my feet
tilling rows of icy water
splash my face
and plunge
Esalen workshop, winter 2000
Shattered
Narrow trail…
Painstakingly picked across a hardwood floor
Pinpricks
Each surface
Kissed by mother rage
Glass-splinters, paper thin
hands
ankles
knees
white cotton nightgown
bare feet
Decades later
Trying to explain
No phone calls… no letters…
I grasp for shattered glass
Small dents in the wall behind me
Milk in cups for weeks.
Shattered
Narrow trail…
Painstakingly picked across a hardwood floor
Pinpricks
Each surface
Kissed by mother rage
Glass-splinters, paper thin
hands
ankles
knees
white cotton nightgown
bare feet
Decades later
Trying to explain
No phone calls… no letters…
I grasp for shattered glass
Small dents in the wall behind me
Milk in cups for weeks.