When you look away...
not even a savage sky
to brave as refuge

 

.I.

“Shut up, Bobby Lee,” The Misfit said. “It’s no real pleasure in life.”
Ending of A Good Man Is Hard To Find by Flannery O’Connor

Hear the big idea bubble,
the lightning flash inside your head?
How can you
with closed eyes, limp hands,
and snores like steam engines?
When you wake, the pain
will soak in, and you’ll grieve
your broken heart, your nightmare’s hints.
Being the misfit that you are,
you’ll wonder if it’ll be worth it,
this struggle to remember
what dreams tried to tell.

.II.

The wake itself remains, etched out across the water’s surface; then it fades as well, although no one is there to see it go.
Ending of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

You pushed too hard, I’d say
feeling the weight, as the current took you.
Between liquor and youth,
you threw it away
in a flicker, instead of
singing in the sun,
just to avoid searching
how to awaken and listen
to your heart.

.III.

“Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood; and how she would gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago; and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days.”

Ending of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

When you and I shared midnight giggles
in our kiddie pajamas, who’d know
we’d soon leave our magic funhouse
in the wonderland of lands and omit
looking through time’s telescope
into future…
Later on, we perched on verandas
with babes on our laps to forget
the other side of the moon so dark,
and today, we still smile together
at grandkids at play.
Awesome, isn’t it
sipping Earl Grey, spurting
the liquid out in a sudden burst of laughter?

.IV.

“Yes,” I said. “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”
Ending of The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway

Isn’t it pretty to think so
like the boy who believed he could fly
then fell off a tree, breaking his arm?
I wonder what he thought,
at the instant
when rotting leaves
and damp earth stuck
to his face and extremities.

Fearing mutilation for life,
how he cried in pain
two hours later, amidst
the cracking sound—crystal-like--
and the stench of medicine
when the bone was set.

You’d think he’d lose his swagger
afterwards, but other illusions
strayed in the back of his mind
past wisdom or light.
Another noise rang in his ears,
sending a powerful shudder
through my spine, and
another omen surfaced
from his tectonic plates
to quake my calm existence.



 

Where are you going,
tiny winged seed?
You transplant yourself,
hoping for utopia
when, at best,
you might land on
pebbles and dirt,
then stay
for the love of sun.


 

First try, scared.
Mistakes, yes,
failure, no.

Same curve repeats
beginning, end,
the grind.

This will be like
holding the moon
in my hands and
not knowing
what to do with it.

I remind me of latitude.
direction, anti-gravity,
unrestraint, hunger,
and I lean
on other shoulders.

Funny, how some fears
take years
to accept...
 

Toolbox

Pliers,
wrench,
screwdriver,
hammer,
nails,
chisel,
glue,
nuts and bolts...
Still, all those
cannot fix
lives.
 

Inability

A part of me wants
what I cannot have,
like the emptying
of my heart,
cleaning of all spills
known or unknown,
and the uttering of words
I should have said.
On the other hand,
I know for sure that
all misfortunes
cannot be contained.
 

Sci -Fi

I wrote Sci-Fi
as if thousands of suns
burst apart and a
new spectrum,
a harsh light,
confused my universe,
or as if the traffic
of mind found
an alternate route
for the intergalactic travel,
but a raw universe
is nothing to take
for granted
since this neophyte
has discovered
fracture rips
in her new truth.
 

Fixing Me

The green gel on my skin
to secure the Holter
itches as if millions of
ratchet wrenches are
boring into my skin.
The doctor isn't on to the fact
that there's too much to fix
besides the atrial fibrillation,
like the holes in my head
or my cumbersome life.
 

The Dressmaker's Bust

The dressmaker's mannikin
is a bust without a head,
limbs, and feet;
more matter than mind.
Matter or mind, to strike up
a conversation, nothing
is too small for me.
What if the mannikin spoke?
I bet it would chide me.
" Just a chest with a heart
will do; can you say
the same thing
for yourself?"
 

Same Spot

When a child,
my shoes always
got holes under them
at the same spots.
It was the way I stepped,
the doctor said.
so they restrained my feet
in kiddie boots
with laces all the way
to my ankles, but
that didn't help
even if I learned how
to tie things up.
Now in my sixth decade,
I step the old faulty way,
putting holes in everything
except the shoes,



 

She Let Her Garden Go

She let her garden go
to the weeds, rising
over her head,
to the moss and the mildew,
invading the stone walls,
as she sat among the reeds
because her world fell
for he just couldn't listen
to what she was saying.


Missed

He gave her the moon
then took it back
and hid it behind the clouds.
Poor fellow!
In the dark of the night,
he missed her curtsy
as she left for good.
 

Kudzu

Kudzu, here you remain suspended
and wait, hanging
in all your hideous independence.
No water, no roots,
you get everything you need
from the air.
Unfortunately, for me,
poems do not come from the air.



 

Venus

Night sky…Venus on the East
like desire, standing put
and coming back again
night after night, altering her position
just a bit, as if repelling risk.
Its light, the brightest. Yet,
in the neighboring houses,
one foolish person coils in smoke;
another hides in his Scotch,
not understanding the eyes
of the night sky, watching us,
Venus threading her way
with the luster of hope.

On Holidays

Some of us do weep
on holidays,
some as they search
some as they wait
for those who’ll never come.
For the lonely and the lost
celebration is pain
with a savage taste.
Yet, memories strike
like lightning, melting
iron fences, and
we hold hands, smiling
through tears.


Reflection

The colors you spot
in front of you
reflect your colors,
and the farther you can see,
the wiser you are.
The sum of your years
may lead you to the end
but life will expand
as large as
you have loved.


Behind You

Where the sidewalks curve
at each corner,
tenements like giants,
their windows blinded
by dark curtains,
will fill you with fear
drop by drop.
You’ll walk fast
without turning to look back
toward the place
where pitch black begins
as if you’ll catch me there.
The sound of your footsteps
will amplify in the night
adding mystery
to your mystery
and you’ll search for me
without grasping that
I’ll always walk behind you.



Learning

To see the arc of the backyard,
I climb a tree, feeling like Tarzan.
The ants are tigers;
a caterpillar turns into a caiman.
And I swing, holding on to a branch
four feet above the ground,
with a savage cry
to tumble in a heap,
to end up bawling,
with scraped knees.
Sixty years later,
not much has changed;
I still fall from high and low,
except my wild self knows
how to rise again.
 

On the Starbucks Line

"Double shot espresso and
two chocolate grahams, please!"
Complete with adrenaline,
I listen to the orders
as I wait for the seven
in front of me, and not care
about waiting, a fool
so pitiful, but
Banana Frapuccino and
my net-book are chums;
plus, the young man in front
of me-who said, "The name's
Felix"- is trying to pick up
the girl with crimson curls
in front of him. Then the woman
with long sleeves sitting at
the table to the left
signals to the grey-haired
man in summer shorts and flip flops
behind me, mouthing "Mocha Latte!"
Stacked in line, I mark
my spot and claim territory;
so afterwards, I may
compete for an empty circular table,
flinging my knapsack on top of it.
My Table Technique tangoes with
the pace of the stampede, since
a stranglehold on a table can be
as tricky as the brew, and so I
shall act when my order is filled.
For now, toward the end of my life,
with a steaming cup in my hand,
I can promise nothing to no one.

 

Haiku

a moment before
there could be another life
now your chance is gone


Seaweed

Seaweed on the rock's crust
swishing around
within the upside down reflections
of grey hair
and eyes like olives.
One woman wondering how to
shape-shift into sea-grapes
and reflecting upon herself,
a reflection
all mine.


Buses

I rode the buses once
and watched the traffic outside
stop and start,
from their windows.
When rain conquered the city
and the land swam,
fat black wheels doled out mud
from the puddles
to the pedestrians,
to bestow upon them
the dirt of the streets.
When snows came,
buses slid backwards
and riders twitched
like caged cheetahs;
yet, akin to mystics,
they sat with frozen gazes
until the next stop, and
after they got off,
the fragments of their lives
washed out on me,
glinting like broken glass.
Now, when I visit the city,
the buses pass me by
their headlights like searchlights,
but they do not spot me
on the sidewalk
with mud on my coat.
 

Driver

I am the driver
fighting off sleep
on a lonely highway.
I look in the rearview mirror
and I notice
my mussed up hair
that only obeyed the wind
and my bloodshed eyes
like binoculars
peering into
the long distances
I have left behind.
It is no hard science
to see I am a woman,
a fact my mother
omitted to tell,
but still, I sit up straight
and drive on.



He Who Doesn't Hear

He doesn't hear me.
He just doesn't hear
anybody, but
he listens
with his sense of touch,
feeling the stones
and the thorns
on my path.
He tastes my ramblings
and tells me if
they are sweet or sour.
He observes the colors
inside me,
inside my liver, my heart,
with the kind of dedication
only I could imagine.
 

Thoughts Wide and Far

No end to the cosmos, the galaxies, the stars
or no end to the black holes that could take you
on an infinite journey, but you never think of these things
when you eat, sleep, go to work, have children,
lose a job, find a job, fight or make peace.
There may exist one universe or many, it does not matter
since there is only you, no one like you, and
you may as well be more than you
or you may not be who you think you are.
 

Family House

We do not replay errors
or hide inside a bubble under water.
We do not dine in candlelight
or dry ourselves with designer towels,
but we make love to our memories
locked inside our poetry in a hutch
that opens to a desk that opens
us to each other. Then,
we pass the nights, back and forth,
as if sipping beer
from the same cup,
rejoicing in how
we built our family house.

Unspoken

A ghost paces the room at night,
drifting away from the truth
like the wind that tears the sails
off a boat suffering a vague existence.

A ghost floats at night when
a dark moon hides its eyes
like a tiger waiting until dark to hunt
on the other side of unspoken words.


A Greeting of Sorts

You found out about the stalking
a sense of fear overtook your heart
my voice floated like a storm cloud,
"Hehehe! Hello. Jim Willis—are you scared?"

Then, with my hook tearing into you,
you turned, but could not find the courage to flee;
then brutal vultures from nowhere
descended upon your mind.

Down you sat, and your bleeding heart,
decided to take whatever I might
bestow unto you for no other talent
you ever had, and with a half smile

You acknowledged my greeting
that, like a plough, I had driven into you
akin to the words I stabbed you with.
You nodded back, something like consent.


 

Beach

When the young woman appears,
like a shadow in an empty mirror,
the breeze on salty water
brings in the sea foam
on to the sandy beach.
To her, turquoise waves,
dunes, gulls, crustaceans,
all speak of the same thing,
and she kneels and digs
beneath the sand
for sea shells and memories,
something to keep for eternity,
something that floats and glides
far over the horizon
to the other side of the ocean
where warplanes burn,
rumbling, roaring,
high into the red sun,
where the one who left
does not hear the surf anymore.
 

Today

Today is a gift;
Today you bought me “Amore”
the CD of my desires.

My happiness tonight is not
because of the CD,
but because of your
pulling the moon down
to light up my heart.