death

you texted so many times
complaining that you hadn’t heard
from your next door neighbor for days
I awoke to 77 or so texts between you
and our other sister
the worry in your voice
breaking through the tiny words on the screen
I told you to just
fucking call the cops
when it comes to things like that
there’s never time to worry
just time to act
and today
you told us
again
through text
that your neighbor is dead
Your fiancé
found him in a puddle of his
own vomit.
He had either overdosed
or just got sick
while he was
detoxing
41 years old
wife just left him.
he checked in
and checked out
of a rehab.
didn’t like its structure.
wanted to do things his way.
what was he thinking in his
last
final
moments
hovering over the bathroom sink
or maybe
falling in slow motion
onto the bathroom floor?
I hope that last sight or smell was somewhat
pleasurable
maybe that time you got a balloon
when you were 5 years old
flashed before you
or maybe it was one last final waft of
grandma’s cheesecake
before you hit the ground
before you took one
last
final
earthly
breath–

Advertisement

74th Street

big, empty rooms
each one had a door
to a hallway that
led to the front of the house
a dark, secret passageway
no one ever used.
i remember opening it
one time, unlocking the
giant brass lock
at the top
almost too high
for me to reach
but *click*
i did it, and opened
creaking
slowly
the giant, heavy
ancient door
peaked beyond the pink
white safe haven
that was my childhood
room and saw
the brown and black
inner
outer darkness
the large, wide open
dusty Victorian stairs
the dust bunnies dancing
in the slip of light
that cracked through a
forbidden window
and love lost
beneath
frayed and hollowed
and torn patterns of the
floor
and wood
and lonely heart–

Waiting

Filtered yellow light
Shines on and on
My perception of luminescence
Here in bed is
Dimmed by my aching for you
To come home
And tell me everything is going to be okay–

The Breathing Universe

The moment of clarity
that descended upon me
as I walked down the street
coddled by gray skies
and still swaths of clouds
told me in an instant
that I am still a powerful woman
a dynamic set of molecules
integral to the thread that
makes up

the breathing universe–

TDK 90

Missing puzzle pieces
but they all FIT back then
and somehow we thought
they didn’t–

Memories cascading
down the back of my brain
adolescent dreams swarm up
and then a phone call–

I see us on playground
park benches smoking
cigarettes and eating chips,
chips I’ve ended up loving

for years, dreams I wish I
had seen come true, bathtubs
full of and overflowing water
cocaine on mirrors we did not

want to get wet and yet I
would not trade it for the
world, for all the missing
puzzle pieces, I want none of

it because they never were
missing, not missing then, not
missing now, just my jaded
and upside down perception

of a perfectly perfect imperfect
world with scars and bandaids
and tissue galore, the tape needs
to be turned over. I think I’ve

heard this song before…

 

 

Nothing More to Say–

Loneliness taunts me
like a weathered child
beaten by the winds of
aggression and
embarrassed by the wave
of immense solitude
I feel beaten like a
dead horse
left to rot
on the side
of Victorian
cobble stoned
streets–
and you can’t meet
me half way today
like you do on other days
and I had nothing more
nothing more
to say
to make you
stay–
tonight.

Sad Kitty Haiku

kitty stop screaming
I know I came home too late
just leave me alone.

A Slightly Compromised Spiritual Nature

I feel as though
something has been
lost
something higher
The Calling
my inner
spiritual nature
slowly disappearing
how exactly
did that
softness
get compromised?
Where did the
cool peace of mind go…?
Through the ear
and drifting off
into the big, black
Outer Space
I know it’s
still mine
and it’s certainly
still yours
and I know
together we
make
One Being
the unconscious/omnipresent
and still–
I find myself
suffocatingly alone
here
at the 21st century computer
a modern monkey
selfishly
seeking more
the endless banana
not enough
the typing on
white keys
a tiny rat race
to be the best
and get the most
likes.

Monomania

Monomania

I looked up that

word a few minutes ago

It sounded expensive

something I could write a

poem about

the obsession only

partially lifted

in doing some

work on myself

and in writing new

poetry–

and so you’ve

taken the bank card

and shut the apartment

door

the cats are crying

in hunger and I have

to vacuum the floor

still the inner gnawing

presses on

the empty silence

within

keeps clasping

onto something higher

the joy of honest

living–

to make a mark

I’ve heard

starts with something

very small

the shy smile

the soft hug

is really all

I need–

I stood by the river
watching the small waves
lap upon the somewhat desolate shore
Your voice rang close
in mind
I’m bare–
naked once again.
What is that empty
void that keeps haunting my core?
The inner gnawing seems to cease
and then
it comes
again
like the following question:
How do I make these poems
sound new?
Even the sing-song rhyming
scheme has become a bore
as I feel that I
have nothing left to say
as if the Void
has consumed it all
by the banks
of the unimaginable
fantastical
and somewhat
desolate
and now
silent
lapless
shore.