WHATEVER

last of the sesame oil
laquered on your sciatica
in cloudy apologies
meant for?
not the one breaking
a sweat and promises
made to drugs
seratonin re-uptake
makes me pious now
feel nothing
want nothing
calculated sorrow
grieves with her throat full
"Your mouth is so hot."
(whatever)
effleurage practiced
routine memorized
devoid of passion
clinical strokes
until you sigh
and bored
I strip
and straddle
a bad fit
nothing stretches
my walls outward
nor pushes up against
my cervix
nothing more than
seroquel apathy
reasonableness
compromising wife
performing duties
in water retension
nonchalance
until nothing comes
causing your exclamations
your sweat
you shuddering
beneath my stoicism
you continue to sigh
and I slide off
grateful that it's over
a whole three and half minutes later ...

...time to take my meds

FOR ELISE COWEN

For as God watches over the sparrow
so shall he watch over you
even now
the mentally ill
mourn the loss of you
had you lived
to see Freud's theories
proven wrong
would you have read the Yipster Times?
would you have joined The Weather Underground?
would you then
have the strength to embrace
to love
the Kether in thy soul?
Had you held on
just seven more years
would you have made love
to Janis Joplin? or Patty Smith?
would you spit in the face
of Tori Amos
or french kiss her?
would you have laughed
with Ani DeFranco?
Sung
"Little fish little fish
swimming in the water
come back here man
gimme my daughter"
with PJ Harvey
and meant it?
would you have taken your meds?
they're better now, Elise,
these days the meds are better
would you have adopted a child
or stuck with cats?
Yeah - cats are easier
would you have voted for
Geraldine Ferraro
or Hillary Clinton?
would you have published your poems?
would you have liked this one?
the one that would never
have been written
there would have been no need
would your mother have apologized to you?
would you have accepted it?
would you have a cup of tea
and peyote with me?
don't be scared
I'd hold your hand
keep you safe
watch cartoons with you
and make you laugh
Shalom
Sweet Sparrow
Shalom

Looks Is Everything

Beauty is a celebrity.
It can walk down a street
and attract more attention
than even Johnny Ramone.

On a Chelsea street
in the evening heat
long hair blows in the breeze,
and she is everything.
Sssst!
Hey!
Mami!
So good!
You got it goin' on babydoll!
You're the fashion queen.
You sell everything
in scented magazines
that represent what we want life to be.
Have you seen our Cindi
in that micro-mini
in last spring's march issue of Vogue?
On the phone she complains
while she pets her great dane
to her manager, or her agent
or whatever he is,
that her flight has been overbooked
but she will never be overlooked.

On the same Chelsea street
my boyfriend I will meet
see I bought that micro-mini
but my ass ain't quite so skinny
and eighth avenue ain't last march's issue of Vogue.
No scented smells
just cat calls swell
in my ears, somebody whispers "how much?"
The skirt's designer may never be overlooked.
But if I don't split soon,
I'm liable to get booked.

Beauty is a celebrity.
It can walk down a street
and attract more attention
than even Johnny Ramone.

Hey Johnny ...gotta match?

Robert Stanley Terwilliger

Somebody died today.
He fell away from my life like a leaf
that has lost the battle too early;
an Autumn leaf fallen in July.
A fallen leaf has died today:
a man I did not know;
the kind of man who made mistakes,
like leaving his tree too early.
Shunned for his lascivious drinking,
for the cockroaches that roamed upon his walls,
for sheets that were thumb tacked in doorways,
because a six-pack cost less than a new door.
*
It is summer and my willow tree is in full bloom.
He tells me of a fallen leaf's abandonment.
He forgets that he, too, once abandoned me.
He says he doesn't believe in second chances.
He forgets that I gave him a second chance once.
He says that that sort of a let down is unforgivable.
What a let down it is for me to see him so human.
We sit skipping rocks on the water
beneath our childhood's lamenting willow tree.
Father, who taught you how to advise me?
You preach on saving money:
you preach on being true to oneself;
yet you live from paycheck to paycheck
and your life is the result of matriarchal desires.
Are your parenting skills genetic?
*
When I die, I want to be buried beneath my willow tree.
I want to be proud, not ashamed,
of who I am and where I came from.
I want to embrace all the drunks,
the womanizers, and the homo-phobics,
because if genetics can pass down the bad,
mustn't they also pass down the good?
I don't know.
I wasn't given the chance to.
Somebody in my life has died today;
a man I did not know.
He was my grandfather.

Strawberry Fields

We walk along the streets you married long ago.
The memory sold by shouting sidewalk vendors
is the picture of your face.
A face still replenishing belief
is on a vagrant's dirty T-shirt.
And he too lives passively,
vicariously
surrenders control to those
around him.
He too lashes out
and disappoints.
Yet who here is the martyr?
Who among us is missed?
Your doorway swallows us inside out
leaving us longing ...
hollow, where you had lived,
yet still you feed us back to ourselves
like a mother bird,
who believes in the myth
you perpetuated.
We took a wrong turn,
didn’t we …
We still believe …
as all your wobbling toddlers inspect the flowers
that always accessorize your memorial.
You're in the fatness of their curious little fingers,
and in each strawberry blossom every spring.