He Said That To Me

When the blues came in and held me
I knew I had lost my mind
It's true because
I was (almost religiously) taken
by my swollen arms
And thrown into a puddle of mud

A day ago
I had been obsessed
With my sad face, my drowning spirit
Had taken all my hurt and made my
Fears disappear and reappear with a clown suit -
and no clowns are welcomed here!
He said that to me.
He said I should leave!
He said I don't deserve him!

And I cried. And saw my tears disappear like magic.
And the stone melted my ice cream
I longed to scream
and I longed to touch him
Myself
Me
I long to touch myself too
Like that mud that ran down my face
I am magic he said
So disappear he said

I said
For fuckin' god sakes
GROW UP!
And he said goodbye
And that's the last time I felt pain
The last time I felt invisible
And now I'm known for my courage and known for my brains
My brain is happy
Like it was never before
And I learned to tell jokes
I learned how to say 'Goodbye'
Goodbye too.

Goodbye!

No Longer Lost In You

We are no longer tied
by invisible strings
I am no longer an item
on your wish list
and I am no longer inspired
to be your muse...

I am no longer this pretty thing
that hits you
that bites you
that loves you, like that
the way you want or wanted me
was like putting a pole in between us
And our reaching arms would almost touch
Our finger tips touched
sometimes

We are no longer tired of each other
or angry for some petty thing
or happy to eat ice cream while
watching figures move on your tv screen
We are no longer kissing in showers
Or whatever lovers do
After storms pass

How winter makes lonely people lonelier
have you forgotten because I have
I have forgotten
I am no longer inspired
or no longer wish to hold you close
I am no longer your muse

And when I see you walking by with empty hands
I no longer want to feel them or fill them up with me
because I am no longer lost in you.

No longer your muse. 

I love you Man

I surely miss you man
Like I miss the aroma of coffee
In the middle of an afternoon
And the woods too
And the strange smell coming from you
Has moved further from me
And I feel like I have to go
Like you left

And then I remember you
So beautifully set like a perfect
Dream. Waking up hurts sometimes.
It's not easy. It's not easy.
Not easy man

So when there is no trust
In time, the world feels sad
It feels sad sometimes
To even wonder about you
I hear your music, sweet melody
That sometimes in my waking moments
Lulls me to sleep, even standing here
Man, it's sad

I don't want to wake sometimes.
I want to sleep but it's not luxury
And I want luxury
The Past is sometimes weakening to the soul
I see that man
And it's sucks. It's like a vacuum
It sucks all the life out of me and maybe I would rather face the truth
The fact that I still love you should mean that it's ok to say goodbye man.

So in my prayer here i say
It's ok. You. It's ok
How unpoetic this story is
Something that started so epic
Has boiled down to a film
Without a Hollywood ending.

I love you man.

Fresh Flowers

When I woke
To a pair of hands around my heart
Squeezed me it did
With a strong grip and
I knew that if I wanted to fall
Wanted to strip its arms from my
Heart, I'd have to want it badly enough

I woke with my eyes
Covered with mud I realized
That my thoughts had covered me
My thoughts
My damned thoughts have made
mud out of me again

And I woke up again
With my toes nailed to the wall
And I became flat
Like all the paint that had lived on my walls
My fucking walls were layered
With cat hair and dirt
Layered with yester years and today
My little friend has poured wine, red wine onto me
And I've become aware of how tragic it is
To lack love and luster
To lack a vision

I woke
Like in the midnight hours in a cemetery filled with fresh flowers
(Amidst thoughtful sorrows)
And I took the pin from my pocket
And I began making hearts on the tombstone and left the stars to the sky
And I knew that if I didn't want to lie
There
If I wanted to live
I had to try
I had to do what I was meant to do
Wake up!

Waiting For The Second Hand

When there lies
Like a moon I have a face
Smiling beyond the shadows of a wake
It's like a dark friend
With fangs, with broken dreams
Without A friend, I am

And when I see your wrinkles
Showing your life, it's like
A stream
I'm sad, to see you go
Because I've grown accustomed to your leaves
Accustomed to your pillow
As you lie too, like me
With broken things

You suffocate me with the past
You took my dreams and made a quilt in which you've burned
And now you want to take it and cover me with it?

You lie, sweet in my stomach too
Like an aroma in my nose
Like an untuned song
I too lie
And why not? Why is it that I have
Sad answers to you? Or questions too.

I was lost last night
And I walked after the wake
I walked and it took me four times as long
I was raped by a pack of wolves
I did feel it deep
It didn't hurt so much
But I wanted to lie
I wanted to stay on the grass and maybe wanted you to come too
And I saw those two lovers kiss
And I felt that maybe they are liars too
Like me
Like I want to be, lying with you.

I will be alone in the desert of my thoughts
In the shadows of my eyes
I see you too
Waiting like he said
'For the second hand'
For my hand perhaps.

I Have A Friend

I continue marching past my feelings

And I have even looked through foggy windows

Thinking I’d find home

And I found leaves hanging with blood

Dripping down its frame…

And I took my finger and painted the frame

Of my face… and I smelled the scent of

Olives and then the sudden smell of

Spoiled avocadoes… and I am hungry so I

Reach toward it and I

Take it and eat some...

And I wait for the wind to blow

And I wait for the leaves to fall

So I can bury my tears away with it…

And the rain comes

and I am frustrated

Because this is my imagination

I am spoiled and spooked and lonely

And sad… I feel the darkness closer

And I do feel like I have a friend

I have a friend.

It Isn't a House.

I don't know why I wonder  

I do want to know

Is there something to be done when 

you stand there and you see the house you've built

in rubbles? 

Do I just pick up the pieces? 

Do I try to tape the edges together 

or do I just leave.

Quietly

Or do I stay till the rest of it 

falls on me... and I too become a piece 

of another piece of another piece

or do I leave before this happens again and again

Love is mysterious, sure

it is. It doesn't mean what it means

it's like a puzzled puzzle and like a story 

with missing words and a sometimes it's just a word with 

two vowels and nothing else

Love is sometimes just 

and sometimes not and sometimes pain 

and sometimes I have none

I don't know why I wonder but I do want to know

How is it that things just break 

even when they're sitting 

Sitting in some corner 

so untouched- why does it fucking break? 

Why do I have to pick up the pieces of this phantom

faceless, and cruel thing!? 

Do I just leave them there? Do I just let the dust settle 

and from the rain I see what's really left? 

What is love? Why does it have to dictate some sort of story? 

Love is Mystery. But it understands that existing takes more than 

two happy people... If I don't know what love is, I am sure I know 

what love isn't: It isn't a house. 

I Feel, I Fell, I Come To You.

I long
Like I long to hold you
I'll take the rope off your neck and I'd swim in it
I, I, I!

It hurts to see you
See you go
all purple with little flame
All blue, was the sky screaming in me
Hello!? I'll hang from those ropes. I live
by the swamp and I too
drink that water

I believe in tales when I feel them around me
I feel it around me
I feel. I, I, I,
Fell.

It's almost like the eyes on me. Take me
Hide me. Make me scream and
with little ecstasy, I come to you
You come to me

I long and feel
Like a snake in me
Its true; it is true
I fell.

It is your retina, the roundness of your eyes
It is the water in your eyes
The fullness of your lips
The emptiness inside you that lingers
there, I linger there.

I feel, I fell, I come to you.

Reasons To Live

When there are reasons to live

I know you will bring me the paper

And read it to me

I am six or four or maybe two feet below 

the gravel that you walk on…

You run so fast, so damned fast

But I don’t feel a thing

More reasons 

More and more lies

When there are reasons to live

I know you will again remind me

That these dark windows are

Really the eyes on me

Really the eyes that comfort me

I am six or four or maybe two scared to live

I am not six years old but I feel like a lost bug

Waiting for spanking… don’t fool yourself.

Don’t pretend to be my messenger when

Those days are gone… they choke me

They suffocate me

They take the life out of me

They are criminals

Dark clothed

And dark folding chairs in my consciousness

If you sit on them you will fall

Place the chair right below me

Below

Me

Be

Low

Me.

I Land In You

I am sitting here

Don’t want sit for long

But I do want to become like that naked tree

Wrestling within other sounds of nature

I don’t want to become that dark substance that

Suffocates the speech of silence-ness

(Words begin to make sense mainly

Because there is nothing but silence)

When do I become yours?

When can I walk into your mouth and

Climb down your throat and fall

Fall beyond reach

And get to a slippery part of you?

I die, I die because it’s like music

Music when you say nothing

But just remember me

Because when you drink that coffee

I’ll then get burned

So if you care, take care of me

I can take care of you

I land in you

Cushioned with your love

I land in you because your silence lulls me

And I feel like I have to go through

The better part of me to be with you

But I’m inside and sometimes I feel

Cold and yes sometimes I feel like I am yours

And sometimes I disappear

And that’s because I have become waste

Food that passes through you and I am

As you are here

Going through the changes meant for me

And then I am that tree

That tree that’s sitting…

I am sitting here.

Just Another Day

Oh well. She asked me to write her a poem
Maybe some say that's ... I don't know
I just find it rather sweet
Like when birds chirp in the morning
(In the country where there are no fumes
from unkept car engines)
and like brief sounds of leaves swinging in the air

She is an eternal birthday girl, oh yes she is!
Her with soft short hair
Her twenty one candles
flaring, firing the sky

At night when she sleeps
she wishes on lightness
she reaches her hands to the sky and
pleads: "Oh please, let there be sun in the sky for me
and breeze in my hair"
-She wants her hair to move her like water moves

So what she is too young to understand that
today is just another day... when you've passed the mark
today is another day
So what she gets her wish a few weeks late
Today is just another my love...
Just another day.

Whoever Said A Rock Can Sing?

When in doubt take a tagger and shoot it straight into its mouth 

And make music with the words that come from that

I have written stories that have stirred even a hard rock man 

into tears... like a river, he weeps and I 

sing, I sing because I hear the wind 

and it lulls me in- 

My throat is deep and shallow too

my words are empty crosses with 

stick like figures, tears

like rain water fill 

the buckets, filled like mother's breast

Milk from heaven 

My mouth is yet in pain- 

Wisdom is in yesterday's reports 

and he cries, cries in vain

in vain he cries

Do close up shop

Do pull the curtains down

The show is over

Whoever said a rock can sing

Whoever said that? 

Here It Is:

I feel like

writing a letter to my soul today

I would start with Dear

and end with I wish you were here

I would ask "where are you

Friend?"

When are you coming to me 

like I come to you... You betrayed me

You took my lollipop and now I feel

so sad...  don't you know when my mouth 

is busy I have no time to talk or even 

complain

Where is the nearest stop sign?

the big red love affair

has to begin

and not when the loud noises

of New York City on a Saturday 

morning- goddammit! 

I do open my eyes

I am still sleeping

but do you believe me?

I see you change like the arms of my clock 

you come around and 'round

me when? 

Are you waiting for me, huh

someplace else for me? 

I have written you once before 

or maybe thrice

and you still forget 

that I am no longer

a child... I am.

I am, I am, I am! 

When, did you say you were coming!? 

Right when I thought you'd become one with me

you show withering signs and I have no hope

I really do end this letter with

"Yours Truly" 

But what does that mean exactly? 

I've often wondered if they reach you too

Friend. 

If there is a ring of truth in my words too

Friend.

just to feel like you understand me and not

you playing "pretend"

Friend.

So I add the ps

and say come what may

you sit silently 

riding on my tired shoulders or inside me somewhere

waiting for another letter

And here it is:

Gray

I am gray and cause of you

I see myself falling from the edge 

and I pick myself up

drugless I pick myself up 

You try... to pick me up

I am bright

my mother says I'm bright

I am also new 

and old and new

sometimes, to you

I am gray 

you make the colors 

in me darker; you spit black paint into me

and I have fallen from grace 

no, not from God but from you

I've fallen, and keep falling

failing too, and waking up to you

I am not new but old

and new to you sometimes... 

and that's when you knock me up

you knock me up to knock me down again

You want me to rise, that's it. 

You want to see me rise from dead, alive

you want the best for me

the best for me, for you

You want me gray sometimes to see me 

turning red and see me turning red 

and red and red... 

But I'm just gray right now

You say: "Show me your colors"

You sing to me, you praise me 

but only when I turn to you in colors 

Do you believe in me

When gray hides 

And it does, yes it matters to me

You see, what you want to see  

when you look at me, 

with blue, or red and violet

or even pink 

covering your eyes

you see-

I wish my colors 

Would make you proud of me

I wish my colors 

would leave black jealous of my love for you

I am just gray right now-   

I wonder when you would,

Stop spiting black into me!

Awake

When I was dust
Water never touched me
And I was surrounded by grace
the grace of love

The willow weeped
and I brushed off its tears
and I smiled because
I didn't drown...
in sorrow or in sadness

I wasn't lost
because my friends didn't desert me.
I was the desert
So, I couldn't lose myself!

When I was dust
The stormy winds
Kept me strong
It blew by me and through me yes
But I was more than dust
I found, I had made castles
of my dreams

I screamed
(as loud as I could)
with laughter in my voice
and with a sense of ... security
I was everywhere-
Now,  I am here
Awake.

Nightmares Lived.

I was walking "desertedly"...

When the life of all my dreams
became a nightmare
and the darkness like
painful stings-
blood dripped on sandy winds
and the face of god was created

I wonder how much of that is real
in my dream
Nightmares happen

They never cease...
They exist in deeper wants.

Sediments that left the belly
of a hungry bum
hungrier
thirsty and hopeless
He walks toward the face of god

He sits... and waits

And when both the sands of time and
the blood faces this man and I, this woman
(passing the hardness of my breasts)
I am wet again-
when the tears worn exist
in all the doubts and all the worries of ...
the could have beens

His sad face I remember
and I'm worn out by the heavyness
of his yearn
and I'm tired of my self
like mother is tired of her self

Blood runs deeper than water
runs colder than the horrors
of my wishful soul
and the dreams once again
turn into nightmares
Nightmares lived

...and I now I sit and wait.

Dysfunctional Trivia

Sometimes I see my dysfunctions
and sometimes some see it before
I see my chance to face it or name it or own it
So it catches me by surprise, rarely,  granted
I have myself on a panel
Where there's a judge, Me
Where there's a lawyer, Me
Where there's a jury, Me
Where there's the paper, Me
my neighbor, Me

I see my dysfunctions as possible threats
when I have my back to them
I feel the cuts, like paper cuts
painful with lemon in hand
hurtful with stinging force
and I have myself on the screen of all the TVs
and all the sitcoms, and dramas, and
even commercials...
I see.

I see my dysfunctions as tricks
a god-like trick to make me see
that work is due
and things need to change
I need to change
but I see new tops and new trousers
hanging on my bedside...
I just wake up too late to see
the tags hanging;
are they on the floor?
and I realize my dysfunctions are
something I rather not see but then I think
by seeing them, I grow
sometimes mad
sometimes sad
sometimes scared
sometimes green
and only sometimes
I'm happy at first.

My dysfunctions function in some
place, some time
maybe not now but later
maybe tomorrow
maybe right now
dysfunction is a gift and a treasure
sin and pleasure
and a box of sand sitting in the middle of the desert
where water runs like a helping hand
and a pitch black night
The moon? Not here, not now

My dysfunction has its place
a place where function lies
a place where function's do
a place that's here right now
a place not near or hell
and I'm supposed to know...
but all I do know is:

My dysfunction is mine for the taking
and sometimes mine for the making.

A Wishful Heart and Courage

She buried all the love (hellos and goodbyes)
under a tree which wishes to grow-
understanding moments
"to come and go and go to come again''

She goes and sits on berries
melting it's essence into dust
what was, is now
what is, no more

No more songs-
Grandmother hadn't the courage
but to kill all her seeds in the burning sun
and that channel that once was running
oh, overflowing channel
has only dust and wishful rain -

Dead old skin
began building mountains on the land 
land that once had hope and land 
that once had love

And while she begs for food
in places where famine lies
"food hiding"
in deeper grounds that lie
(empty wishes too)
I remember now, mother
complaining to me
even now, complaining
that she was given
rough, dark, deep and empty airs but love
no love

There is Grandma with her white hair and her
invisible glass, glass that stood erect
all these years supporting her from falling into channels
channels that once ran clean and pure waters
What reigns there now is
dust and wishful rain
Oh, wishful rain!

If only she had courage to fall
then maybe she'd learn how to love
how to receive the gift that mother-
that mother never had...

Grandma sang to other ears not hers
other ears had the glory of her voice
when she sang songs mother couldn't hear
She had been deaf to feelings too

We all know that
Soon she'll lie for good, grandma
without care and without wonder
lie like the days of flowing waters
not into the channel but long into the wind
and maybe rivers that flow deeper than my mama's longing

deeper than the longing I still wish for her

Soon dust will be the news on yesterday's
reports and today what wishful rain may fall
will be the rain that falls into tomorrow's channel

And until then:
Mama lies in the dust as she dreams of tomorrow
while grandma breaths the wishful rain
away, away, away, away from mama's wishful heart

I hope for courage to grow there.

I Don't Like Myself

I don't like myself
When I cry too much in my work
or I play too much the innocent

I live in life knowing
I'm a grown woman
and sure when I'm taken by surprise I act in my
reprised role: a child with pig tails hangin' low
down to my toes, cryin' cryin' but the blues don't leave me
no, not now, not yet or through the back door.

I don't like myself so serious and so
urgent with fear or when I become a
stranger to myself...

I live in life knowing
I can only get away with
so much cat and mouse or
being a hamster in a mill
Thinkin' of ways to trick myself to loving me
or perhaps you loving me instead

I don't like myself so selfish and so cold
So cruel and humorless

I live to tell stories and to
help my self to more
As I feed my thoughts and dreams
with more than petty grief

Grief so deep
Fear so strong
Love so weak
Beauty so tired of being beauty
and sometimes silence - shit even fire tires
at the site of me

I don't like myself so pale and sunless
or blue without passion
or red without heat
Just red with anxiety and fear
and any other creature creeping through my soul

I'd spoil myself rotten if I knew how
I'd speak a verse by the best versed poet
dead or alive
I just don't like myself enough
You must feel the same
as I, when cold is colder than
winter, deep below iced waters

I don't like myself and I'm sure
you'd agree- that person that lives in you
has full control of you
BUT
That's of course unless
you take that knife
that lives so close to your feet (on dirty grounds)
and cut and cut
And cut it out!

You Laugh With Me Inside

The mention of hearts broken
Makes broken hearts bleed.

I was a distant vulture in the night
then I became your angel

I cry-while kids jump on my structure
on my frame
they scream and play with loud toys
making me cry tears of frustration

Tears of ghostly menacing creatures
fall on my beaten face.

I cry- they know why
I don't give up, in or out
Its because I have a metal beam holding
us together
Earth Wind and Fire can't take us down
No not even fire.

I cry- they know you cause
some heartache but they know you mend
my heart when broken

My cat sits on the edge of the building
waiting for me
waiting for me to feed and comfort him
and he cries like I cry

Hearts are broken everywhere.
But it does feel stronger here
and so I will cry and while I cry
you laugh with me inside.