The Man on the Moon

Tonight 

the Moon is a Pearl in the milky throat of the Night Sky

what an oyster.

This World.

What a filter the human condition is. 

At this point in the poetry, 

I am deliberately *not* going to express feelings about the trash fire the world is right now,

as a metaphor for being a filter, 

blah blah blah make the connection or don't.

Wait- oops...

Wait, no, because! 

I don't want to be here to write about that.

I want to dream of the Moon.

And the Man's face She illuminates when She is full.

The way it looks like he's sighing her name..

"Moooooooonnnn..."

The way She lets Him kiss the Stars goodnight.

The way He longs for Her to be full so He can be seen.

So, God, Bless the Moon.

And God, Bless the Stars.

And Blessed Be all the Pearls,

nestled deep in the breaking alabaster tide pools of the Night.

And God, bless all things that shimmer against the dark..

 

Long Stretch

Maybe I am 17 again

Briefly. 

Driving a long stretch of highway 

With just my knee on the steering wheel. 

I wasn't even 17 when we were together. 

But it feels like-

2.5 hrs into our conversation-

That maybe 

In this moment 

I am again

Phone on speaker

Radio turned down

The summer sun closing on the horizon

Only difference is

My daughter asleep in her car seat

The talk of my ex-husband

The way you sound when you say 

You've been alone

The way I have too. 

But when we finally hang up-

On purpose-

(Dropped calls from bad reception don't count)

I've cruised passed almost 200 miles

I might be 17 again

For just a minute

Younger than I was the first time

Smarter than I was the last time

Two hundred miles between

The ringing 

And the dial tone

Filled with the sound of your voice. 

Verdant

In the beginning, 

everything here looked beige to me. 

All the buildings, 

and the land, 

and everything 

was beige.

But now, not so long later, (but just later enough to be late-)

I'm finally seeing all this green.

I am obsessed with it;

Verdant. 

The word repeats in my mind as I navigate the scenery, 

The mountains are purple and grey.

That the sky is always blue- 

Unrelenting powder blue. 

And the sun is a molten ball of white gold. 

"The sort of violets that could grow on the moon."

and 

"The wind from the desert is sweeping me away.."

All that Terra Incognito jabber.

If I'm not SEEING-

If I'm too FOCUSED 

I will miss it.

And I will wonder where I was while all this

LIFE was happening.

Talk of connecting the stars, and the dots, 

the points on the map of my life. 

My Then to My Now with a

zigzagging squiggle of a line.

Tracing the history of my generally uncharted course.

Pulling my head up out of the proverbial sand that is

Life-as-a-new-mother;

At least I can look back- 

I have reference.

To notice how the world has changed.

How my eyes have changed, 

how this desert has changed.

Something beige

Transformed into

unexpected shades and hues of life.

Foreign Constellation

I look;

The reflection in the mirror.

Somewhere in there,

I am still existing.

I still believe in things

Art. Music. Poetry. Dancing. Love.

Clean sheets. Good hair days. Shoes.

High school.

This face though..?

I don't recognize

Like I did before.

It is perception

without understanding-

It's disconnect.

I know what I'm looking at:

That's an apple, that's a tree, that's a parking lot,

That's me.

Shape of the brows,

Blue eyes,

Long nose, weak chin but

regal profile.

Mess of hair.

I know it's me..

But...

In there?

Under the twenty pounds,

Under the wide hips and roundness;

Expansive roundness.

Round shoulders

round breasts round belly

round and round

the world

round and round

spinning.

I look?

Disconnect.

And I forgive my strangeness.

I forgive the stranger in the mirror.

Anyway,

I try.

What was and what is-

How does one make the points touch?

Like stars in a foreign constellation

Or my thighs.

I use to know

these dots

Freckles and eyelashes.

Spots of toothpaste.

Before and

After.

I look.

After,

I see.

I understand that I do not.

These dots- that touch like strangers at a carnival-

Shoulder to shoulder but isolated 

somehow 

ignorant on purpose?

I look.

I see.

Same eyes.

Different context.

Spinning, touching, round and

Disconnected. Forgiving 

strange skies-

I am still in here?

Somewhere.

Making all the stars touch.

Bridging the round and the gap and the unfamiliar spin.

New gravity.

Blue eyes.

Music. Poetry. Love.

I still believe.

This is a tree.. This is a parking lot...

That is a Joni Mitchell song and

There I am..!

And gone again; A flash of shadow down an alley I think I remember,

Quiet.

I keep looking.

Flash Forward

The other day we were returning that UHaul truck we'd rented-
You were asleep in the backseat.

The sun was already hot at 8a.m.; Another one hundred degree day.
Desert living.

And there were mountains all around- we passed the sign for the freeway
Leading to El Paso
and I thought: Let's just keep driving

I'll turn the radio up and you'll keep sleeping and
we'll just take an adventure- 
Go to El Paso.

I've never been to Texas.
Lone Star State.

Desert living. 
It was already hot at 8a.m.
Another one hundred degree day, the mountains all around…

Since we've moved, I've decided to try and write poems again
While you're sleeping and I have time on my hands. 

Life's not like it use to be.
Neither is poetry. 

Maybe that makes sense. 

Someday.
When the car is full of gas and the rents been paid, 
We'll drive out to El Paso. 
Just to say we did. 

I'll be 
crazy, 
and you'll be 
sleeping.

Desert. 
Living.

Requiescat In Pace / Releve d'Identite / This Too Shall Pass (hymn to the leftovers)

She wore a cameo in her hair,
and mourned her unborn baby on a Wednesday.
Knee deep in concrete, she wished she could play the piano.

Wistful of hand prints on the wall; I leveled
Fist full of smeared reflections- in the glass, rainwater
in the coffee, petri-dish turned ashtray... Evolution.

Warbled out another note, singing-

"I saw. 
You haven't written anything in a while.
I've been playing Tom,
On the stereo and standing in the closet. 
Dreaming.
My hearts afraid of taking 
chances. I still remember 
Your hands around my waist.
Hope the crops come up... 
healthy 
this harvest. 
Wishing you well. 
-L."

Same old song and chicken scratch.

Whispers called her heart a graveyard.
Rumors said, "Cemetery." 
She said, "Well,whatever, it's where my lost are dead and buried." 

And dashed out in her ribbons, fraying, to the old church yard 
for praying psalms over those cold love letters
Inked up in red: "Return to Sender"

True Story

Looking back now I can taste February like it was last week.

The acrid flavor of winter rises in my throat and miles and millennia have passed away. These hallways haunted with dreams and failures. What a small corner of the world for such epic nonsense and leaving. The place is ripe with leaving and crawling with the bedbugs of change.

This was never forever. But we settled against our better judgement and started taking up the notion of home.Wherever we hung out hearts. Strung out like laundry in the alleyways. Pinched and soggy, flapping heavily against a meager breeze. All around the cards are falling like leaves of September.

Now for the disbanding. Now for the disarming. Now starts the countdown. The annihilation of the camp. There will be nothing left but an empty fire pit and a lost group of ribbons tangled in a tree limb. Plastic bag in the wind. 

We will all go from here and when we've nailed our hearts to somebody elses wall we'll look at the shadow of a beer can and weep for what we couldn't keep and where we couldn't stay.

Perfume of cigarette smoke and lashes of ashes.

Sets of dirty hands around the last supper table- All the white linens gone grey. I will miss you. Many moons from now I will remember how our voices bounced off the bricks, how the music was always too loud and the dirty dishes sat on the kitchen floor with mice running over them. How there was always piss on the seat and never any toilet paper and the angry look written in Spanish on the cleaning lady's face.

I will remember the tags on your walls, and the fingerprints everywhere, and the dirt. The smell of weed smoke and stale liquor, spoiled milk and bleach. Old mildew. Bad raves, fairydust, drugs and pipes. Flip flops in the shower with no curtain. Flies in the hallways. Hot plates on fire. I will remember the hungry nights, and the bellies full of wanting, and the eyes full of dollar signs and all the endlessly empty pockets.

Pale light up on the morning-after sleepless night tableau. Hipster eyes adjusting to the sun, Nosferatu rubs the hangover from his temples and walks his pit bull up to the corner bodega so he can buy some smokes. This is the future and everyone wears Elvis Costello frames and rides their grandmothers bicycle with no brakes. Doughnuts are vegan. Pizza is free. PBR has replaced the water in the East River. Williamsburg has swallowed all of Brooklyn. And we're all moving out.

I get to weeping- thinking about everything left behind. You and me and the Mac truck. Rusting, rusting, rusting, and needing proof that we existed. Ancient History. That there was purpose and meaning. 

Or maybe not...

You know that monster on the roof? Well he's lying in a pile; King of the Meserole skyline, now dismantled and nothing but splinters and kindling. Last night we sat waiting for the slow burn in your absence and he gave me good advice. He said, "Somedays you exist, Kid, and then maybe one day, you don't anymore... But we were here."