Ones life story unfolding is a wickedly vital, riveting tale. Part of the attraction of existing within these mortal pages, is the curiosity of what happens next, the simple wonder of being and the growth of comprehension that has us leafing back to past chapters, rereading the words, re-examining things past with new eyes. New insights shine luminescence lanterns of depth comprehension on to all but the deepest shadows, until clarity and meaning emerges for us, and we can continue on with understanding.

... I know and then I know again ...

The moments in between

I do not want to talk about the moments in between

that stretch dark velvet

as a breathe held hug

I dress myself in black cotton tee and jeans

pocket my cards and keys

embraced by cloth, the familiar

for the tired lead lined morning.

Sometimes, being is formidable

though tears mend laugh lines,

laughter mends life lines

and so does honest earned sweat.

Salt ether, trickles between breasts

and into the sacrament of backbone

as I carry my bags home

one foot in front of the other

that is all that is required

I fall between the spaces

Quite frequently

as moments flash in

windscreen under streetlamp faces

orbits and angles

and the image of deep sky

split by sharp splintered stars

It all slides by sinuous as a cat

I do not want to talk about the moments in between

Re- m -embers

Grey matter they call it

like in ash and concrete and the underside of the mop

with the sediment of grime and crumbs

and house dirt, grit and glass long broken into teeth

without fairies to take them

Tell me about ash and about words falling from lips

like bread crumbs sprayed from laughter

I imagine, music spills from a live soul the way ash falls from a body on fire

Ashes are what I remember more then anything much of the time,

especially when it rains

I had to know

what they were doing with Nana's

smile and heart and arms

the ones I loved

So I walked into the back gate of the crematoria

a curious, curly blue-eye child

Right there, implements rest against the brick wall

the pitchforks of Ogres

and a scarred singed mattress

like a leftover wedge of pumpkin bitter and burnt at the edges

a glimpse of a door much like an oven

and a smell I could not breathe to

Still, memory holds no air, just grease smoke

and embers

after, Nana's little bag of human-being ash

in its little sandwich bag

in the little granite cubbyhole

and the perfect lawn of the memorial garden.

They call it love

when it is a sense of heart and warmth of feeling home and safe,

but it isn't? Is it?

Love is more a heartbeat hot in veins, a cry in the night, the wings

of sparrows huddled together feathers fluffed against the winds weep

Autumn smells like ancient books with binding that crackles,

parchment leaves litters sidewalks, a manuscript discarded

and I wish I could read the veins that thread each one, like words

I may know something then

Why does it feel like we are caught in a storm so much of the time,

and made of trees unbending, not like palms that can withstand hurricanes,

but deep oaks, rooted and sentient, uprooted and lost,

the morning after, leaves littering the floor like cigarette butts, soil and ash

They call it love, and say it is a wellspring of sweet water

but it isn't? Is it?

It is the wings of a raven caught between the rib cage

fluttering fist pounding against itself

It is the gentle wind of soft, sweet lips pressed to the forehead of an infant to feel for fever

Love is rare, but can feel so naked, that eye to eye is fingertip in flame

immortal immolation

and we are not just broken shards, but shattered into powder and paste

and sculpted imperfectly perfectly

a clay that never hardens

by the fingers and hands of chance meetings of strangers and words from lips

and mouths, brain and bone, spirit and senses

a whisper of ash on their breath

I wish I could read their veins like words

I may know something then

Let the droplets fall from our hair

 It is all we bring with us, all we own, us huddled over it all.
A Grimy plastic lattice shopping cart, crammed with bottles, plastic and glass, labels non faded, but nevertheless, little is what it ever seems to be.
Screw-capped burdens of shadow, despair and pain so profound, there is a sound to it, like the clink of pennies falling from fingers and rolling away, under wooden floorboards,an endless, splintering loss.
Stoppered wide-eye fear, and the dead smoke of wait-for-it-to-come-to-pass stickily brown in the bottle like congealed blood.
We are simply scars upon scars, lips that are wordless, eyes that know much, ache-stone-heart and helium balloon stomach that will float away if you don't hold it down.
Scar upon scar stoppered horror, not celluloid bogey- beings horror with red eye holes, but blood frozen to powder horror. Absolute horror is wonder inverted. It is the utter wrongness, of impossibilities, come to pass like gorgeous fairies dying at our feet, when we were still children. Horror is theft, of gifts wrapped smoothly with tucked in triangle corners and taped down, and only misery and maggots in the box.
That is what we bring with us.
Other bottles though, reside in that cart of us.
Bottles of bubbles, with stick figure wands, that turns soap and water into rainbow threaded flight.
Moments of spirit smiles, uncorked joy, bewilderment, happiness, deep stubborn hope as warm as the fur of a loving dog or cat on ones lap.
First kisses, long awaited and the butter moon outside the window pane, and the first snowfall reflected on the wall. Slow blink and shy grin, freckles and pebbles and British chocolate and potato chips, and a new uncreased book to read in a hot bath, when all seems simply too foreign or too lost.
Looking upwards into the skies, hand in hand, or alone but not lonely at that moment, hands clasped perhaps but gladness in the ribs and hips, for mere existence as a star among stars in a universe, such as ours.
...and we collect the water turned to wine hours, shared with friends, murmur-talk to those rare ones we trust.
Words about everything and words about nothing, all something, and words with sweet fleeting strangers who spark and smile.
All of it, warm wind words eddying waves,and green gauze veils on the neck of summer trees, with sighing, heavy, curls bent brightly towards sunbeams. They wear times gentle passing, as a belt wrapped around their round trunk-Mother bodies.
There are bottles of our blood-roots within us, most known to us as old pictures in sepia frames. The ones who came before with half forgotten stories, and the bottles of our future blood-promise, of nestled infants not much bigger then a brick of flour, who curl against mother, the scent of milk and heaven, fresh on their breath.
Our eyes drink in the flowers of riotously sedate gardens, and take heart in the delighted mischievous growth of wildflowers on the side of the highways, like giggling toddlers, running after bunnies. A dandelion heart, touching ours, with flight and seeds.
The scent of the air in moments, a transitory sigh, cinnamon and vanilla, pumpkin and apples, roses and shampoo. Salt and skin and lips, trust, love.
Earth, under fingernails, over fingers, mud and soil, the ground and us reaching down to work the earth who reaches back up with palm-up, wide open hand, feeding birds and beasts and us, always us, the cleanliness of simplicity.
Our anchor rocks, stolidly squat, absorbing the warmth with slow sentience. They have always been there, since there was an always and of course the infinite lighthouse soul beacons, always there.
We breathe, and we laugh in between, when we can, and draw strength of sinew of body and bone and bright-eyes and store bottles of wait-and-see and sun-dust-on-eyelashes.
As seasons surrender into each other, like a couch in the window, our shadows fade, and wounds fade too, as we collect all that we are into our carts, we can bear all of this better, as we find the courage to collect what we most need.
And our music, surrounds us, calling out to the silence and secrets, and pulls them forth from inside with wise threads, like a whales call in the night of the ocean, black water sounds to describe all things left unsaid.
Eyes reflecting candlelight, endless fire, endless spirit, a forge, a hammer beat of sound and the fire of flickering spirit and the words. They are the keys that open substance and spirit, a sorcerers spell casting, hot honey flowing into veins which need blood infusion. A simmering cauldron of syrupy alchemical absolution that can be poured and stored within.
We are both more and less then what we are right then and there, at any given moment.
Love-is-lightning-is- love-playing over our masts and spires like St Elmo's fire, and love needs no save, because it is always there, if we look within.
We are day by day cleansed by the beauty of this world. Marks and scars are warrior marks, and storm clouds just the gray matter of a laden dream-scape. The chalk outlines of wounded nightmares, have been taken out and shot, no need for suffering. That wet on our hands, is not blood, nor tears, only rain.
We may rise from the water, wash off the dust, and let the the droplets fall from our hair
No need to dry off.
Let us stand in the sun...

Random thoughts for a random existence

Humans are forever ruining the social lives of their dogs.

.......................

You can not erase the past, but you can buffer it as sand soothes shards of glass, not by forgetting but by making it less significant to here and now, less relevant to your present and future.

You are unfettered and anything is possible.

.......................

Sometimes it is not a matter of electricity usage. I need to keep my bedside lamp burning, my bed unmade and illuminated like a beacon, just to bear in mind, my bed is there, softly waiting for me once I get everything done today.

.....................

A dream, hooked in my mind like a folded pocket knife full of beautiful menace at the thought of losing myself within it.

Oh September

24 hours=a day,1440 minutes, 86 400 seconds too. My body has its own calendar and it remembers, though my mind whispers 'be strong.'

Every single moment on the day, so full of memories, my heart might have fallen out of my chest with the heaviness of it, but it didn't.

Hearts beat broken, but never fall from between the clasped fists of the rib cage, leaving splinters & space.

“Music is like making love: either all or nothing.” Isaac Stern

The taste of danger

I left you at the

threshold of your room

with the animal skin

drum of death rhythm

redemption coming close

underneath your window

painted iron bars

to keep bad men out

and keep you

from puddling out

of your body

and staining the

wicker and flower chairs

again

flaccid fingers

slip through mine

in these boiled food halls

of bone rot and skin folds

taste in my mouth

"Mom, I really do not know

if I can watch anyone else die.

I must go."

sixteen

a suitcase

the dry Faberge eggshell

of an airplane

I breath in collective air

clouds, steel

and hues of blue

my eyes

too dry and tired

for food in little packages

America,

a taxi to Brooklyn

fifty dollars

a fortune

friends

future

fingers bones and skin

and diet pills hidden

under my mattress

she flushes them

when I tell her

and I let her

I can always buy more

words curl on thermal fax paper

and wedge in my throat

'Sorry to inform you'

from Mom

on her letterhead

and a picture drawn in pen

"Grandpa died this morning"

I should have been there

tears

the deep

hot sound of

grief chuckling

her arms hold me

'I am so sorry,'

apple shampoo

baby powder

the taste of her lips

and utter confusion

There are too many kinds

of toothpaste

and cereal here

I have never had before

the taste of want

is honey nut cheerios

and milk drunk sweet

from the bottom

of the bowl

lips burn still

I rub them

with the back

of my thumb

but sharpie heart

pictures drawn tenderly

on an arm

do not fade easily

'out damn spot!'

says Lady Macbeth

to her blood ghost stain

as I touch my lips

A moment of flight & In memory of the storm

These poems are very much connected...

A moment of flight

I watched her put on the white dress

and ruin her manicure

because she could not keep her

twisting in her lap

hands still

a wedding cake mess

with too much lipstick

and a groom who knew

as much as she did

and she was never me

All she ever dreamed in the devout hours

of page turn prayers

was of the way love might feel

undiluted raw-root and essence

For her, it had only ever been

soul silent unrequited

slow blink and look away love

for Orthodox faith had failed

her, and there was no space

the plans had been in place for years

written, signed and sealed

in her yearly birthday cards

the blessing to grow up and build

a 'binyan adei ad'

a Jewish edifice of a home

based on the laws of the Torah

the rest of her life was details

and thirteen years elapsed

as wife in skirt and a wig

while "man tracht un God Lagt"

The plans of men rose and fell

the laughter of God

flowed as always

along with the woman's

profound quiet loneliness

A soul stranger to the man

called husband and Father

to the children

even wrapped in each others

arms, him inside her

closer then hell fire's

breath on her neck

she could never meet his eyes

curled up alone

in her rib cage-bred heart

that beats the ice drum

of wrong, wrong, wrong

and she knows now

with the clarity of sunrise

and now he knows too

soak her to the skin

as a burnt offering

in the temple of torrents

and tears that cleanse her of sin

for that rather then this existence

of shrouds and lies and

God sanctioned emptiness

rises and roars in her ears

and her throat

the scream of a summer hurricane

she climbs and she climbs

up the steps of the building

and plans to leap

and to fly for a moment

What is life without truth, without love

without touch, without dreams

and a moment of flight is

almost

like falling

in love

In memory of the storm

Somehow swept

into the paper heart maelstrom

a handwritten fragment of a

shredded love letter

seized in a barbed wire whirligig

and me, the battered veteran

wept for rationality

The surge, was wicked,

sharp and savage

to love then-like a love-that has never loved

a spiral sensual seismic need

so keen it pulsed

like the minute hand of a schoolroom clock

waiting for the bell

an illicit kiss of shock

as stones thrown by my neighbors

met their mark, and matter

and shattered the windows

of my soul in audible

stage whispers

the screech of ice as it clinks and falls

flailing into a glass of water

and shard blades spread and splinter

in slow motion

and bite into flesh that wills it

in a kaleidoscopic pattern

like a hand sewn quilt

for the lovers bed

Pick up a handful of stones

hurl them true at my breast and bones

so I can watch the bruises bloom

a legible testament on my skin

that aches with love

Please,

I want to see the bright sheen

of my blood on your hands

and your lips,and on your cheekbones

so beautiful, in hot blush

Touch me, my love,

thrust me into the fire

and the flame of the forge

and immolate this seethe and softness

extinguish mercilessly into ash

as I try to breathe

hurt me, my love

do what you will

for that I can endure

more then this

who were you,

with your tempered fire

a blacksmith in the foundry

you held what should have been

nigh untouchable

a precious metal

that yielded so reluctantly

I was a mere molten glow

in the sacred trays

amongst the gorgeous embers

purified in fire, but

your hands were idle

your bellows laid aside

and you simply looked away

What of these witless on the wind

tears that streamed from my eyes

like a fallen bottle of virgin oil

and tell me what has become

of my wise wolf woman eye

and my sensible spirit

of the raven?

I fell back into the rain of obsidian rocks

as they flew from the clouds

into eyes so full of dust and ghosts

that I might not ever know

the shaken to the core, oak tree

huddled under the howls of thunder

curled arms around knees

when the sky is no longer a shelter

we all appear like dream sequences

of angels in the exquisite

purple crackles of flash bulb lightning

before we fade forever

into the gravid heavens

and love, my raven

flew into the storm

This is the poem I finally tell you

This is one of the hardest poems I have ever written..

I did it in twenty minutes, without overthinking or letting myself censor my heart...

I cried...

This is the poem I finally tell you

I am two

a mere piece of a person

and I stand against the wall

wait for a moment the teacher turns

then slide out the door like a butter moon

down stairs, freckled stone

and away to where the dandelions grow

I do not care for the preschool soprano

circles of the teacher

singing prayers

or the way she makes rules for art

or the bible stories

that have to be heard without pacifiers

I am six

my Nana is garnishing the tree

and tinsel alights on plastic boughs

snow constellations and colors

red like fairy tale hearts

green of magic potions

sapphire blue and sword silver

and the gold of fools

Mom doesn't know

that Nana tells me of Jesus

Mom at her shabbos table

full of guests and food and hospitality

it almost makes sense

except it is drowned in the feel of

duty and rules and

synagogue so tedious

slow and foreign Hebrew litanies

only when they sing

do the chords strike my belly

and why doesn't God understand

my English?

and Nana is not wrong

and Mom is not wrong

they both need spectacles

or something

to see clearly

because none of it matters

but light and color and feel

which drips from the crust

of the heavens and glimmers down

like icicles at the corner of eyes

when you know and see

I am nine

now

and he is going to die

the life fades from his blue eyes

my eyes

dusk fades in my spirit garden

and the religious laws

seem so much more stupid

for him to abide now

a fucking waste of time

when even small tasks

are so difficult

and there is no time left

but there is love,

so much love

and love is all

I am ten

and Nana is mute

her words eaten by a stroke serpent

a giant theft in the night

and she looks at me

with the blue eyes

of a wounded sparrow

my eyes

Where is the hot white warm net

of all that exists in heaven and earth

where is the dove

and the owl of the spirit

that calls to the pull of the tides

and the music crescendos

and the scent of cinnamon and flowers

and the neck of a woman I love

where are the wings of the angels

as they brush the babies cheeks

where is the tree and the bastion

and the rock and the edge of coherence

where is eternity and its gentle hands

the eyes that know

the love of it all

that brings me to my knees

with the embrace

and all I cry for

this is my God