between now and when

Between now and when you left me
my head has pounded in that
Uneven rhythm to the semi divine
Vision of when you poured coffee in
My garden and made the flowers grow,

Sowing things that only I should sow.
But I don’t blame you.

It is the woman in me who keeps brining
about these irrational tendencies,
pulling on my thin heartstrings with
her teeth and bringing me dreams of being,
just being, without meaning or fear.

Yes, simply being, just being,
And having you near.

But the fantasies that she brings,
Only happen in the spring,

And winter is my weather
So I’ll put on my black coat and wait,
Pound out frantically about this standard fate,
Of being caught up all over again and why the rose stems won’t sever,

Dreaming of being, just being,
Simply being, nothing less.

She talks through my own mouth,
Straighten up and fly right-
Throwing even my darkest dreams into a forgetting light,

For he wants me to take off my coat and admit,
That your coffee really is sustaining the roots,
that when I put on your garden boots they fit,

and that’s it.

Nightmare Chronicles

There was always a maze,
a door she knew.

Solitary windows that
Anne peered through.

Walls with gaping holes,
floors with no strength.

Sweat that gathered on her neck
for Satan to wipe away.

They were always amazing, she said.
Damn crazy, he said.

But his were of repeated things—
angels lined up while he bit each wing.

Destructive things.
big black trombones.

His mother in hysterics,
him locked outside.

Southern sun blazing,
eastern promises nothing at all,
the western lullaby in her tongue.

Trying to reach her on the phone only
to hear her breathing with the other one—

He could here that rustling,
her faithful theme music weak,
that old racist swing she loved.

Repeated things, he said.
Sweet things, she said.

He wiped the sweat from her neck,
Letting Satan stand and watch,
perverted nightmare theology,

angels still waiting their turns,
watching too, but she never let him
in and the show fell through.

He smoked away, he and his
father in their man like ways.

Flipping off the economy,
cupping themselves to democracy.

Confessing, digressing, until
his eyes were again wet.

He wondered how he could forget
that he couldn’t bring him back with Newport cigarettes.

He told her this.
They needed one another.

They slept, and he had another nightmare.
She dreamt of a mother.

Spoken Lullaby (East 56th Street)

Time keeps ticking as
cars keep driving past my window as
girls keep laughing on my bed as
the playground on east 56th stays young.

But it’s not—there is no more
innocence unless you are talking
about that which lies in those little
shoes that come play by day.

Because then the bigger boys
come lean by night, they slap
palms in exchange of goods and
blood and they roll the dice to
what they would call in Rome “dogs”
but here with the good old boys it’s,
snake eyes peering up from the dirty concrete.

Time keeps ticking as
the suits straighten up their ties as
stories creep through my head as
I have had enough noise.

I climbed into my closet just to
be alone with myself for a while
so that the noise from her story, and
his story and hers too wouldn’t,
couldn’t keep chasing after me.

I fell asleep on the floor dreaming
a world of fantasies where I’m no
longer eating bowls of travesties—

but time keeps ticking as
the dice still rattle and peer as
the playground with the children,
the— blood,
the—good old boys,
those—snake eyes.

The exchange.

Time keeps ticking as
my voice spills out sweet and
I speak this lullaby about
east 56th street.

love letters

Sometimes pen scraping paper
sounds so harsh it has no soft
overtones, only dirty implications.

But this is a love letter that I write
with the best intentions and
thoughts worthy of good soap.

And there must be days where
you wonder if i am to full of
words to speak to you-

There must be days where you
follow my shadow through that
door and when it closes on your
foot, you good shoe, when I do
not answer the bell-

I cannot answer the bell because
it’s an elite society that only lets
the few through.

There is no room at the
table for both me and you.

But I love you.
Really, I do.

holy interlude

i missed you too much today,
it is never like this.

no, no,
i do not like this.

the bright lights turn white to form a big blank
page across which the memory waltz in picture play--

no, no,

look, there is that bridge, no, yes, and look,
there sit you and i.

no.

i prefer to only see it when i close my damn
eyes, not like this.

i must paint it black again to a scene where there is nothing
but a fleeting dream or too.

to one where there is merely a woman who sits
and types out the daily news,

her red nails clacking away before she throws the papers up
to waiting angels hand.

i prefer those days to these.

the light flickered through holy stained glass, i put the pen back in my
shirt and prayed up.

With Her

ashes fell from her bent cigarette and
would not go out where i stepped,
but we did not burn up.

on the back lot certain things we
discussed. carefully, i turned the thing
i pretend is my wedding ring.

"what do you think we'll be when we stop
growing up?"

do you think we'll be inside when the rain
shows up.

no.
oh.
her gray smoke went into the air real slow.

sink or swim?

you and i will learn how to get by.
women like us- well. well.

well. i think i will have some regrets.
there is a poem in that cigarette.

Hollywood

why do those streets shine?

because it's those broken glass hearts
that sink into the pavement when the people
shatter.

meanwhile, the holly babies continue their
empty chatter at the coffee shop everyone
knows is run by hispanics but it was
the white man who posed for VOGUE--

this is the world you crave at night--
so seduced by this culture who's sins
are on too tight, and when i say how can
you want what you see you ask me,

haven't you ever had fantasies?

yes, but on tuesdays i separate stories
from dreams (and the nightmares in-between)

look.
smile, holly baby.

so you know why they shine?

sin is in. sparkle cheap. it's all those quarters,
thoughts, and dimes. that broken heart glass.

you know, you know,
hollywood jazz