The Last Moon in September

I told her I wanted to be free. She said you can. Sharpen your pencil and start a new story. Draw a new face, an ugly face on a wall somewhere in the clean city. Scratch with colored pencil and charcoal the white asylum walls where you spend many moons without a window. It's the last moon in September. That's when all stories begin. That's when you'll remember your story began.

Her name was the night. She knew I was born to be lonely, and she came to be lonely with me. I built a small sand castle and let her in. I cried as I was leaving. But it was written that I would never leave.

She said I was beautiful. But she's the night and everything is beautiful in her eyes. When she throws her black cape over the desolate city, the spiders and the monsters hide between old bricks and under sidewalk trees, and all you see are shining apartment windows, sleepless cars, shaded lamps on old porches, and flickering red and green neon lights. She said we were all beautiful. I crawled out and fell asleep on a bed of her eyelashes.

It's the last moon in September. They say nothing ever changes. But I will sharpen my pencil and scribble a new story on a dirty wall. Maybe then I will forget all my ugly faces. Maybe I will remember who I am.

Is it Ever too Late to Rebuild

 

Today's Brats

Tomorrow's politicians..

My home

A wall of bricks of brown and red
A pillow on a cozy bed

A door unlocked for guests of night
A light to read, a stove to light

A chair that rocks you back and forth
A window always facing north

A tight wood roof above your head
Or one that won't leak much instead

A plant to water and to hold
A blanket when god's breath is cold

A glass to pour some wine and drink
A tub, a faucet, and a sink

A dull knife and a copper spoon
A lucarne winking at the moon

An easel, two brushes and paint
Faint background songs, but not too faint

Three drawings on an empty wall
Colors for spring, colors for fall

An osier throne weaved just for you
A queen there sitting, a queen for two

An old door with an engraved plaque
With letters gold on matted black

"My life is you. My home is you
A kingdom, or a little shack"

STAND UP!

 

Fall Blossoms?

 

No. Anachronous and off season. Born of a season inside.

September Rain

It comes suddenly and washes almost everything. Then it stops, alone.

I stood under the back porch of Medical Center North and watched.

People were mostly leaving. Some were going in.

Ty is one of the most refined and gentle people I know. His young wife just contracted bad diabetes. We were all shocked. He, on the other hand, was still calm and distinguished. His face was still a song for peace.

"Are you waiting for a ride?" No, I said smiling.

"For the rain to stop?" Not even.

What then. Nothing. I'm just here, like that oak tree, feeding off little droplets of water sprinkling my tired face.

I didn't want it to stop raining. I wanted to help it rain even more.

A fifty some year old guy in an immaculate black suit stormed out of the door and stepped under the downpour onto the alley that leads to the parking garage. He held an umbrella in his left hand and a brown leather suitcase in his right. His right shoulder and his suitcase were getting soaked. I wonder why no one has thought of an umbrella that's slightly off to the side. One shoulder always gets a beating. And no one ever seems to care.

When September rain stops, it leaves behind an earthy smell that lingers around for an hour and disappears. It also leaves a greyer, yet more peaceful firmament, greener leaves on branches, redder leaves collaged and stenciled on the ground, and louder melodies of raindrops tap-dancing on cars and sidewalks.

It also leaves me behind, not waiting, not watching, not being even, just wanting to be, like a single raindrop that trickles off a brick roof unto a forehead onto a cheek onto a finger onto the ground, then back up, and up, and up, lost, dispersed, one with everything, one with nothing, never again alone.

a toi

 

Will We Ever

America

Let us be lovers we'll marry our fortunes together
I've got some real estate here in my bag

JJ's market. I always come here to work. But I never do any work.
I drink something. I write something, maybe. I watch people. I think of you.

kathy, I said as we boarded a greyhound in pittsburgh
michigan seems like a dream to me now

Something about herbal tea sounds like I should drink it. Peppermint chamomile, the barista said. That's fine. I get it twenty minutes later. I spill it before I find out, again, that it's tasteless. I stand up to get napkins, and I get a sudden spastic pain in my right hip instead, and I can't walk. It's their fault. There isn't a physical handicap they inherited which they haven't passed on to me. You laugh. Maybe that's why my hair is so grey. Maybe I'm just much older than I am.

So I looked at the scenery, she read her magazine
And the moon rose over an open field

People. I don't know why, but this guy looks so much like a chair. And the girl sitting on my right reading, she looks like Quentin Tarentino. Maybe Rachel Weiss too. She has a masculine chin and three pimples on her left cheek. She painted over them with make-up, but they're still there. They can't be hidden. Nothing can.

"kathy, I'm lost," I said, though I knew she was sleeping
I'm empty and aching and I don't know why

I know why.

He's left-handed and is writing on a piece of paper on his lap like he's in love with his knee.

He's right-handed and his book is open. But his eyes are wandering around the room looking for her.

They're loud. She looks at me. She probably saw the stains on my shirt. Or she saw you in my eyes.

So we bought a pack of cigarettes and mrs. wagner pies
And we walked off to look for america

I never looked. They somehow found me. You found me.

Counting the cars on the new jersey turnpike
They've all gone to look for america

The tea is cold. My home. Stay awake a little. I'll call now and listen to you fall asleep.

Take me there

 

and just drop me,
behind the broken windows, behind the missing door
Take me there but don't watch me
I'm flirting with the moonlight, I'm waltzing with the floor

9/11: A Remembrance

To those who died for no reason
To those who lived and still live through the pain
To the victims of hatred, injustice and tons of melted steel not just under the sunny skies of New York, but also the sunny skies over Darfour, Baghdad, Ghaza, Southern Beirut, Saida, Sour and Bint Jbeil

Just a word of remembrance. And a prayer. And hope for a better day.

From a Distance

She walks at the edge of the ocean like too many hours had kept their love apart. She smiles. Her feet gently dig into the wet sand, the place where, it is said, she was born in a clam and raised by Dagon into Arnemetia the goddess mermaid. He watches her from a distance like she never was his and never will be, his heart in her footsteps, his memories tangled in her black hair, his life ready to end like a delicate wave releasing its soul to the wind at the touch of her ankle.

In her eyes there was only one horizon, and she could only hear one song, the song of the ocean calling her to come back. Through the folds of her white robe sewed with the silver foam gathered from the november tide of harvest, the coastal breeze danced on her skin and carried her dizzying oceanic scent to him, to impregnate his sadness with yet another endless memory of her.

She already missed him. Because he adored her, he taught her how a woman is to be loved more than anything, he showed her how true love knows no sacrifice. But she was not looking back. The ocean was pulling her towards him. It was where she belonged, and time was not a moment too soon.

He watched her as she slowly walked into the water, slowly becoming the water. The ocean was now in his eyes. He looked again, but she was gone. He told her he would move on and live. But nowhere was he going. He stayed on the wet sand, his young body stretched out like a memory, dreaming that her fingers would reach and caress his feet, caress them with every pull of the moon, every dance of the stars, every careless wind blowing, every boat rowing, every dream.

Past 1:00

It is past 1:00 at night.
I am not even yawning.
Maybe my clock is running with a sun that's somewhere dawning.
Maybe I have become the people of the night.

A Sunny Day

The fast paced steps of a man walking towards the third terminal where someone else is waiting for a suitcase and a man with a suitcase and a life with a man without a suitcase but with a dream, raw and unstable, scarred by ailments not his, not theirs yet theirs to the bone, bonded by a song with numbers and miles, a talent for the imperfect, a passion for the deprived, a ring that lingers between a joke and destiny, a time that always ends before its time and hangs on to words like a promise, a taste of sadness in smiling eyes, a fall, a laugh, a sunny day under the clouds, under the distance, a sunny day under the rain.

Around all the windows..

 

and under the skin

the way you're around me

the way you're within

the way you surround me

within and around me

the way I give in... and give in... and give in