CHRISTMAS CARD

I thought about starting
with a quote
but it seemed cowardly

or what about a joke
too impersonal
and I'm not funny

perhaps something sweet
a compliment or confession
of feelings
too much
too soon

I could
keep it simple
say it straight

a haiku

merry christmas beb
hope you enjoy the present
thank me with a kiss

I can be more
profound than this

here goes
I promise

if this is the last
gift you receive from me

no matter

I'll always be

that Woman
small
wild
white
who gave you pure
romance encased
in leather and ink

TO REACH THE CARROT

There came a point when I stopped

believing I would find

happiness, I thought

happiness was an impossible dream

people chase like a Carrot

dangling from a string,

that at best I’d make do

with simply being

entertained in between the rest

of the moments of living.

These moments, expanses

of nothingness, bleak,

filled with human placeholders

for a myth I laid to rest,

because all my heart needs is to beat,

were enough to convince me

that a muscle unchallenged is weak.

In stagnant air, each footstep is

a chore, but you came

like a breath of warm wind

on the back of my sunburnt neck,

a gentle push,

just what I needed to put

one foot in front of the other,

to reach the Carrot.

I'M NOT SORRY

I'm not sorry we moved
from place to place,
because there was a time for wandering,
but home is for growth,
it's just that now we get to pick
where we bury our roots.

I'm not sorry our stomachs aren't flat anymore.

I don't miss the club or spring break.
My hair is slowly turning gray
and I just realized I have never been
as beautiful as I am now,

and you are more beautiful every day,
each wrinkle,
spot,
errant hair,
imperfect shapes that build beauty
in your heart and in your hands,
in the worlds you create every day,
your eyes their holy book.

I am in love with your slow decay,
because I put it there,
in some small way.

How relieved I am,
that you are not young anymore,
that I am the bird on the land.
Our mistakes are still mistakes but
they are less childish and we don't
cry every time
we play a losing hand.

JONATHAN

Thirty is too old
for the club
for the booze cruise

here I am
twenty five and tired
of the overpriced drinks
and shitty bands

he is always in a hurry

I can offer
the rest
is out of my hands

the slow burn of bad years
have taught me to learn
I yearn for a student

he doesn't understand

he is always looking
for a means to the end

I have nothing to offer
I call him a good man
teach myself the value
of the means to an end

L

the last train car smells
like old milk
all aboard to sway
between First and Bedford
on the slow creep
reserved for late nights
drunk

old milk and beer

a child asleep on mother's lap
knit cap
falling over one eye
one aging Asian lady
holding plastic bags
filled with god knows what

who's been drinking ambrosia
is this the new drink
I am behind

my old brown
boots shuffle to make
room for more

THE TRUTH, or AN E-MAIL I SENT AT 2AM

It's been a weird couple
Of weeks with a lot
Going on and now
It's late and I can't sleep
And I can't help
For some reason but wonder
What you know about me

You probably suspected
But if you cared it never showed
I might as well let it out
Like a sigh of relief
That I loved you and I might still
And if I didn't believe
You're a good man

I'd never think something like

Congratulations
You're such a disappointment
Sent from my iPhone

YELLOW LIGHT

our World is the dull
yellow light
my laugh
knees drawn up
on your couch
wet jeans hung to dry

sometimes your hands remember my thighs

yellow light doesn't lay
itself burdensome
itself like day

upon our freckled shoulders
Intimacy is a big word

we are happy and unglamorous
we always share

a fruit before bed

SIENA

I sit in the second
story café drinking
white wine looking down
into the giant square

a mass of people
in groups of two and three
buying small statues
replicas of the David
or the Leaning Tower

proof they’ve been somewhere

proof is in my pudding
stracciatella
frozen and delicious
milky and melting down
my throat
dragging down chocolate shavings
and the last few sips of pinot bianco

I am buzzed and tired
from a day’s worth of walking
it’s busy but so quiet and I can’t
imagine Il Palio just now

LOS ANGELES

When the sky is clear and blue
and the sun is warm, strong, wrapping itself
like a blanket round my freckled shoulders,
I stop feeling hungry.

I’m a beast,
feline,
running across the desert,
muscles rippling under my skin,
searching for Home from ocean to ocean.
I find it where the palm trees hang high over my head.
I find it atop brown mountains, dusted
with Christmas green.
I see the whole world from where I stand.

I smell salt from the coast and thick, rich, milky coffee
and I feel awake and relaxed in my green-cracked haze.
I sink into the sun,
its warm breath on my back;
the lover that never leaves,
not here in my nest
of seventy two and sunny,
where the forecast is forever.

THE ROCK

I am at one with a God
I don’t believe in or at least
it feels that way
the mountain wind rushing
around my hot ears
soothes my mammoth
temper

I am sitting on the Rock
a cliff of sorts
surrounded by sky
dusty blue and
alive

the hills below
drenched in firs

noisy campers nearby
leave me alone
but here solitude
is welcome
for once

these are not Heidi’s Alps
I just happen to be here

JERUSALEM

Golden stones soiled from centuries
of sandals trodding,
flat and smooth underfoot
as I walk down the Rova.

I stop for falafel, hot
and greasy like hoods
of shining cars parked in dusty
streets outside the Old City.

dirty, gorgeous, soaked
in the stench of freshly dyed leathers,
cow carcasses hanging from hooks
and pita with zaatar, all available

in the cramped shuk.
Loud voices negotiate
for goods instead of territories.
I buy a hookah for twenty shekels and stuff
it in my bag out of respect
for the crowds returning
From the Wall.

I DIDN'T GET ANY SLEEP LAST NIGHT

I didn't get any sleep last night.
The notion of eating disgusts me.
It's clear that my brain isn't working quite right,
But, then again, why would it be?

My heart is a muscle I can't relax.
It takes up too much space in my chest.
There's no room for breathing so my lungs just go slack.
Man, isn't depression the best?

At least this time I'm a functional nut.
At least I'm getting my work done.
At least that's one thing to be grateful for but
It's hardly what I would call fun.

Hats off to me and my success!
I'm too old now to expect any less.

I DON'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE

I don’t live here anymore.
The wooden box with the green velvet lining is empty –
I wonder what you’ll use it for,

whose trinkets you’ll someday store
in place of my costume jewelry.
I don’t live here anymore.

And the drum I bought you, though I was poor –
you never played it for me.
I wonder what you’ll use it for.

You’ll collect my hairs when you sweep the bedroom floor
and toss them, along with all our history.
I don’t live here anymore.

You’ll loan my makeup remover wipes to some drunk whore,
though you promised only I could go barefaced here.
I wonder what you’ll use her for.

You have no use for me anymore,
just for the right side of the bed’s vacancy.
I don’t live here anymore.
I wonder what you used me for.

OH, NUTS

Oh, nuts (honey roasted)
the Pakistani man sells
from a cart on Forty-ninth and Broadway,
my nose cannot resist your fragrant scent.

To eat you is nothing but disappointment.

THERE ARE NO EAGLES OR MOUNTAINS

The weight or a weapon – which is it?
Love Can Move Mountains but Love is
dirty and heavy and comes
with complications not covered in
Love Lifts Us Up Where We Belong.

There are no eagles or mountains
in Love.

There are soft, unwashed bodies draped haphazardly
in flannel sheets whispering bitter
somethings in harsh consonants and lazy,
drawn out syllables and they are just
words that sound important but mean
less than a quiet kiss given out of Guilt.

Guilt is heavy.
Guilt is a weight.
Guilt is the weapon you use
to encourage Love.

HAIKU #1

All that’s good and pure!
In my next life I’ll come back
as a macaroon.

A CASE OF THE MONDAYS

I took the day off, took a walk in the park

tried to go to the Met so I could look at some art

and maybe forget myself but the museum was closed.

I've got nowhere else to go since my feet froze.

I've got a case of the mondays, and I'm feeling pretty bad.

I wish I could talk to you, but I don't want to make you sad.

Will someone please remove my thoughts from my head

and tuck me into a warm and welcome bed?

I need you to understand that I give all I can give,

and I need you to understand that I can't help being sensitive,

and when I cry and get upset, it's not because of anything you did.

I'm just made of weaker stock than either of us wants to admit.

THE DAY WE CRIED.

A single, glittering tear escaped, and

my eyes, shiny hot like glass in the sun,

were brimming with the promise of more to come.

When they broke through the gates,

those prisoners of my composure ran wild.

I've never felt more like a child.

Then something broke in you.

I could feel it in your grasp;

a quiet change that came too fast.

After that, everything was different.

WORDS

I'm good with words.
They get thrown at me,

I process them, and respond accordingly,
like passing ball back and forth.

Words are a game.

When it comes to words, I have nerves of steel.

I can handle anything.

But when you look at me like that,

or any way, actually,

I can't process, I can't think.

I'm consumed by something uncomfortably real.

You're forcing me to feel,
and suddenly I can't

remember my name,

and the bile my thinking brain was holding in

bubbles and rises and spills out, chagrined,

and it's all laid out, jumbled
in words I never intended to say.

Words that don't mean anything at all.

Words that are stand-ins for the ones I can't bear to share.

So whatever garbled message you get in response

to all your smiles and looks and the sparkle in your eye

is the closest thing to the truth that you will ever pry

out of me.

IMAGINE, I SIT

Imagine, I sit
wrapped smally upon the bed
Arm curled unsatisfyingly around a pillow
Clutching onto something that doesn't clutch back
Missing the whisper of your hand on my back