Gold City

My key was stolen
along with my little black purse.
It was my fault.
I left it unattended
on a chair near the pool,
but I still have the lock
unlocked and waiting.
It was only a ninety-nine cent lock,
but the key was magic
when it matched a dream
and story I'd written.
I carried it everywhere
examined it with wonder, but
I didn't realize
what it meant to me
until it was gone.
My heart was broken.
I should have kept it safe,
but maybe it was meant
to be taken.

Now, the lock is cold and useless.
I often contemplate
throwing it into the sea,
but I can't.
It seems meaningless,
yet signifies hope
something I can hold..

and then one day
I found the perfect match,
the locks that line this gate;
their keys all lay
beneath the water
of the Fountain of Trevi.

But my lock was at home,
and the key gone, so
I took this picture,
and I can still pretend
because as long
as I still have the lock,
the story never has an end.

Poor Kitty

(Moose at 6 weeks)

Poor Kitty

It's one of those nights
time just needs to pass.
My daughter's cat was spayed.
She's home from the vet
still a little drunk from anesthesia.
She won't listen to my daughter
trying to follow instruction for her care.
Keep her quiet,
keep the collar on,
so she can't bite at the stitches.
Give pain med in the morning.
"Mom," she yells.
I go in her room.
The cat is on the top bunk
with her collar off,
growling and twitching her tail.
"How did she get up there?"
My daughter has tears in her eyes.
"She just climbed up there. She won't listen,
and she won't let me help her."
I pushed the collar over her head,
lifted her down and put her in a dog kennel.
She worked the collar off again,
pawed the door,
upset about being confined.

I have this
indescribable discomfort,
a misplaced guilt,
that doubles as responsibility,
to do the right thing,
and lack of control
to make Moose comfortable.
Our poor sweet kitten;
she trusted us,
and we've suddenly turned to torture her.
Her blue eyes stare,
her body seems weak.
We are all miserable,
watching her through the door of the dog crate.
And I paid money for this.
I want to return for an undo,
just give us back the other cat.
You can keep the money.
She can have kittens
until our house if filled with cats
and they in turn may have more.
That's the way nature intended.
We are sorry Moose,
time just needs to pass.
When Christmas comes,
we'll buy you a sock full of toys,
by then we'll all have forgotten.

Yesterday and "Blood Test"

I'm looking through the new Palomar College catalog trying to decide what to take next semester. I'm thinking I need to know more about politics or law. So many of the famous poets had either law, or psychology degrees. But then I was thinking, maybe I could take philosophy over; I don't remember much about Socrates and Plato, Descartes, and those. Maybe it will help my writing. Or maybe I should paint; that was my first vision.

I went to the university yesterday. I need to apply to admissions, so I can graduate. I climbed the stairs, looked at the statue of Caesar Chaves, "si se puede," is written on the stair beneath him, which translates: "It can be Done." I remember the years I climbed those stairs every day, looking out the windows like the girl in the "Sister Christain" video I posted on my Facebook. That video actually lit a fire under my seat, it's time to graduate. OK, So I went to the university. The faces are always so kind and helpful there. If only they could know the hell I've seen, but how does one explain? and how does one explain without blaming one person or another. Some one stole my wonderland? or maybe it's the same for everyone. It's the collective conscience. Everyone is wondering the same thing. We are all one creature and we're injured - yowling into the fabric that tells the future. If I speak, I'll ruin it for everyone. They'll all think I'm stupid - or crazy.

I always hoped they had the answers that I was missing in my life. The air smelled so perfect, I ran my hand along the sitting height brick wall that leads toward the admissions building, passed Starbucks, and a line of students waiting to go through the door. The bricks were warm. I thought how time had passed so fast. I didn't appreciate those years enough, and now returning to finish made me feel like a loser. I should have a career. I never figured it out; I never figured it out. Maybe I just need to graduate. That's it. I'll understand once I graduate. The bell on the clock tower rang, and I looked at the windows, remembered the video, remembered looking out from those windows at one time, but I didn't see me here today. I was thinking about drawing a picture, or writing a metaphor.

Admission's stamped my official transcripts and sent me to another office for counseling. I ended up at a long desk explaining why I was there. They gave me a card and told me to email the councilor to make an appointment, so I came home, emailed, but I haven't got a response yet.
About that Sister Christian video.. what's beautiful: I posted a poem at Myspace awhile back. It was more of a journal entry than a poem. It's called Blood Test. That poem is really about what's eating away at me inside. It's about defining my personal identity. When I was writing the part about visiting the Vatican and having a vision, it came to mind that they wouldn't like me. Why would a Catholic church give a holy vision to a Christian? Of course they didn't know. Nobody looked at me weird. I was just another tourist visiting Rome. And what I saw was just an artist's spirit roaming the Vatican, and besides religions hate and kill each other. Then I thought, what a beautiful acceptance at that level. To think of oneself as a sister Christian, and in my own needy way, it seemed like humanity was on course... and isn't that what this is all about...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z92bmlcmyq0&ob=av2n


Blood Test
The doctor took my blood today,
two vials of dark red juice.
I should have gone yesterday
but, I forgot to fast.

The hawk is calling,
circling high.
I've sat in this place,
so many times to write.

The sun is calling too,
I have to close my eyes to see,
leaving me to hear,
the neighbor
with his weed eater.

I changed into old shorts,
the ones I wouldn't wear to town,
and the white tank I should have trashed,
the one with a tear.

I think about my blood and urine,
left at the clinic,
the doctor placing labels on the vials,
my name typed on each. That's me, yep.

The church bells sound,
reminds me of the day,
my father and his friends
carried my mother's coffin.

The bells had a similar sound,
as we walked across the fresh mowed lawn,
to where the hole awaited,
a nice place to rest.

I remember walking through the Vatican,
wishing I'd been baptized.
The artist's spirits
alive in labor's left to be admired.

Whether religion is right or wrong,
I like to believe there's a God,
one that loves all human kind,
that doesn't wish to kill the others.

I dipped my fingers in a sculpted bowl
held up by cherubs,
found the water with my finger tips,
touched it to my skin like perfume...

to sanctify I vision I saw,
while admiring the crosses,
and statues, filled with holy dream
to share with the future.

Letting Go

I slept well in the bed I chose,
the tall one with a flowered comforter.
As the elevator door opened,
I saw him across the hall.
He was with a party of six or so.
They gathered near the door;
the button arrow pointing down.
I started to go after him,
began to speak,
but didn't let the words go.
He was right there,
he would have heard me,
he would have stayed.
A lady in a nice dress and handbag
spoke to a younger woman in jeans.
"You sure have put on the weight."
The numbers above the door
moved down, stopped, and the door opened.
I stepped forward,
began to say his name, but I didn't.
He would have turned;
he would have stayed.
A voice spoke from behind me,
a woman quietly said:
"Let him go; that is his family."
So, I just watched,
as they all rolled their luggage
into the elevator.

10/12/10

Freud’s Perverse Polymorph (Bulgarian Child Eating a Rat), 1939
Salvador Dali


Oh Rats

Her future riddled
by a clean white bib
stained before she left the crib.
A long gestation
the artists creation,
unclothed before a cheering crowd.
What a surprise left to a promised prince.
Will he still want her
after she swallows the rat
after the biter taste
saturates her pretty pink tongue,
hairs of rodent
clenched tight her mouth.


She's cute as a kitten
with her first catch,
his limp body
might have made a steady steed,
until he tried to run, so now
dangles from her fresh cut teeth.
One gaze into her loving eyes,
will see a future bow
where once this little thing of curls might curtsy
past the blood that soils her lips,
past the reek, the drip, and
rotted breaths stole by the corps
to leave his one last mark.

Oh Rats baby
what have you done?

Gusano Rojo

Gusano Rojo

It calls again asking for an attorney.
Since when did the wind
need money to blow, or leaves forget to fall.
The wheel spins
instead of earth, and she was only burrowed
to transgress an other's freedom
then tossed in the trunk
beside what's left -
of last night's tequila.

Bits of madness
leak from the book shelf.
The characters escape
on tiny ropes and hooks
planted in a cherry wood desk
once prized and shined with Pledge,
now bows beneath the pressure
of yet - another life story.
The mechanic is over booked;
the wheel of time rusted.

Her's - was only a worm
floating at the bottom
of a bottle of mezcal, an artifact
thrown into the sea
uncovered now and then by currents.
Unable to speak until ingested
and it is them - again
again - again;
the current settles.
She wriggles just below the surface,
a red, gusano rojo
and the mermaids laugh.

The sailors bait their hook
cast into a rojo sun,
and Melville wonders - who?
has set a hook in Moby Dick.
"Gusano Rojo, Gusano Rojo,"
they shout from the deck,
the wind disrupted once more.
They reel fury and fiery breath
in the hot summer sun,
mad with the voice of the worm.
"Gusano Rojo, Guasano Rojo..."
and the current settles.

8/9/2010

Poetry

Poetry

There's she is, it's Gertrude,
standing on the top shelf
of my bookcase.

She claps her hands,
a cut-out card
held up by her elbow
that rests against the word - poems...

and there's Teddy Chaucer
he's there too
balanced between Shakespeare
and Donald Hall.

Gertrude applauds.
The fan blows cool air
across the room,
vibrates the blinds on the opposite wall.

Poetry is not always available
to share its spirit, it wanders off
to visit the neighbor,
to take out the garbage,
follow an old yellow school bus.

Gertrude applauds.
The poetry waits
till I look back, wonders about me too,
and where I might be,
and I am busy, washing dishes,
folding clothes,
I've gone grocery shopping.

We become like the couple
that pass in the hall.
I sit to write
and poetry stepped out,
is visiting with an old friend.

It's climbing a tree.
I paint myself - an illustration and follow.
Where has poetry gone?
It cracks from an egg,
asks its parent for a worm.

I want to be like poetry
inspired by everything it sees,
dipping, bending round corners
watering mountains, flowing with streams,
and dripping from faucets.

I climb the bookshelf,
sit next Gertrude Stein,
so she can rest her elbow on my name.

Gertrude claps her hands.