The Gypsy
Green solar plexus envious
fastidious and plagued in dis-ease
bikes to ride past your house
eye balls on springs and wide open
glued hairs in scrapbook
voodooed photographs and bottled tears
grimaced grew cats teeth and whiskers
grew a warm layer of fur
scratched you+me on my bedpost
and voodooed that too
stole ten dollars from the grocer
stole ten persimmons and thirteen oranges
sold persimmons and oranges on the bridge
sold collages of voodooed photographs
sold tears as divinity potions
glittered the cement with golddust
grinned despite green chakras
and hid envy underneath my shawl.
First
published in Burningword Literary Journal
portrait of the lady in a big
blue hat
so this squishy underbelly fleshy tender
pescanoce-nectarine tummy
your pink-white fruit
juicy
dangle gently
swaying
with the movements of limbs
arms
like snake trees
long limbs
fine form
of genetics
praises and salutations
to grandparents with good family planning
generations of high cheekbones
thick shiny hair
straight legs
& fine noses
like thoroughbred
you are agile and conditioned
high strung
high society
with hat (bridle)
hanging precariously
tipped over one dainty ear
you careened
on heels of crocodiles
on carpeted boulevards
into studio
out of navy blue diane furstenberg
you undressed
splashed onto canvass
and became
immortal.
First
published in Burningword Literary Journal
Ninety nine percent
present—let not the revolution die.
I.
We have no hope but to unite in love:
The 6th great extinction isn’t imminent
It has already begun and we are paralyzed.
We’ve emerged into adulthood
As the passive generation.
We have the hipsters
A whole subculture lacking true direction
Devoid of true connection
Entirely superficial—entirely for fashion.
The beats/hippies had their fallout shelter
Paranoid Parents, Russian enemy, Cold war
doldrums
But the beats beat the system
Grew beards and hitchhiked
MAD across America. Sharing love
Be-ins love-ins sit-ins flower power.
We are clutching the means of our destruction
With bloodstained hands
Oil—money—petroleum—plastic—money
As though it were savior—as though we are not
slaves.
Remember when we were innocent?
Babies’ heads smelled like promise
Like hope and a milk breakfast.
Now we have Ukraine protesters killed like
cattle
Olympics strategically at the big bad next door
neighbour.
Remember when we were young?
We slid on garbage bags down snow banks
And ate brunch on sunny January mornings.
Sometimes I wish I were the new beat generation
Then I could be heard thru my words
My voice would be my weapon and my rose,
I could make love to my whole country
Create the greatest hand-in-hand chain of
solidarity
But I am logged in—I am staring at this screen
And clicking the same app
And posting my life away
One update at a time.
II.
Look! I want to be a human being—a being present
in person
Now I want to laugh in circles on the floor
Now I want jam sessions in the basement
Now I begin a project to unite us
To find the shoulders rubbing
The sacred silence.
Now I will visit New York
Sit on a corner in Greenwich Village
Find the ghosts of Kerouac and Corso
We’ll drink at the Whitehorse Tavern (567 Hudson
Street)
I will solve this whole mess over beers
I am sure of it.
Look! I want to be a human being—more than a
soldier for the system
I see a debauchery—this corruption paints our
perspectives
The media has fed us the Image of Us
Being atop the mountains of materialism
Burning bills upon a golden grill
Glowing face of Her Majesty
Illuminating ruby faces
Ecstatic under static star filled heavens of a
Christian God
Ecstatic amidst the snoring symphonies of
popular taste
Ecstatic underneath measles infected complementary
woolen blankets
Ecstatic under watchful eye of Big Brother
security.
But, we are not ecstatic, we are home alone
Staring at humming screens of bluelight silence
Slowly collapsing into ourselves
And once we dreamt of sweet surf mornings
And once we dreamt of rooftop paradise parties
in Tarifa
And once we dreamt of our clan of sisters
And once we dreamt of clean air and water
And once we dreamt of Peace on Earth
And once we dreamt of Nineteen Ninety Two.
III.
Where is our hope?
I have bathed myself
Baptized in holy rivers
Peripatetic to understand Buddha
I have cleansed my soul on the Camino
I have drank the kool-aid
I have read Nietzsche, Twain and Dr. Seuss
I have eaten the fungi
I have sang sutras from the highest order
Read tarot in the foothills of Banff
And I still cannot find what is proper
And I still cannot seem to find God.
I’ve been quoting di Prima, Dylan, Thompson,
Sitting on the courthouse steps
I’ve been contemplating with this quart of
Whiskey
Naked but for this carnival mask.
OH!
Malkovich. Malkovich. Malkovich.
The lies they tell us
And all we do is tag and repost.
I am done with your economic excuses
I am done with your disposable love
I am done with your fifteen seconds of you-tube
fame
I will cut off my ear
Just like he did
So that I cannot hear the plastic auto-tuned
opera.
IV.
You with ten dollars and twenty-five cents per
hour
You with illuminated prosperity
In front of a backdrop of junkies
You throwing matches at me while I’m walking
Driving by in gasoline powered V8 motors
You who washed our hands with turpentine
You who cleansed your souls with paycheques
You who cheered at Euro unity
You who rode the metro smiling
You who then graduated to town cars
Quickly followed by the paparazzi
You who laughed when we were drowning
In the unforgiving sea of silence
You who started wars of petroleum
You who did not value working class
You who perpetuated ignorance
Hoorah to red scarved communists!
Auguri to the brave ones!
I have filled my tank with hand outs
I have replenished my tomatoes
I have drawn the lines out on the concrete
I have the guidebooks to revolution
I, the ones who see the hope still
With eyes red from never sleeping
With mouths open to the raindrops
With ears shaped like sea-shells
Howling with the full-moon high-tide
Give us bread or let us sleep now
And our armies of peaceful protest
Will wake up tomorrow morning
And rise like phoenix from the ashes
And we’ll coalesce with the masses
And our guns will fire peonies
And our soldiers will hand out poems
And everyone will lift their faces
And turn into doves under the sun.
First
published in Penny Ante Feud
The Gods of Homelessness
Places I called home in two thousand and ten:
A
fine mattress of ferns and horsetails
By the ocean a salty bedroom beneath cedar
boughs
Under
a tarp roof erected in back yards
I was kept safe in the court of this Church.
Where Nuns corralled a herd of six year olds
inside
Sweet
sisters of mercy turned blind eyes
Let me sleep safe underneath these oaks.
I
was blessed with lentils and with love poems.
I was blessed by Gods you’ve never heard of.
I ate sardine and sriracha sandwiches beside the
pacific.
I
ate boiled fiddleheads in the rain,
I positioned strategic tin can rain catchers
above my head.
I
met at least a hundred Gods of kindness
I met at least two dozen street smart Gods of
generosity.
First
published in The Furious Gazelle
The Junkie
The dread spider the afternoon shakes the weirdo haircut the animal bar rioting
the antique footstool the working mama my bathtub tortured my windsock limp my wango lifeboat put
out on the curb backache death your
dew dew door knob your wild
worldlessness you attitude adjuster our forever yawn spazz overtime
naps matchpoint a plasma thrown pillow against a windowpane cracker skin and
casual bear life a normalcy handshake a
just pope stick a lewd leopardskin coat my silence eating custard my custard pussy purring I am purple and poisonous I am tired of this game my cheek hollows twitchy my spoons twisted in agony and the elusive dollar dollar bills
dropped in the toilet bowl goodbye.
First
published in The Furious Gazelle
The summer of my twelfth
year
I was wearing pristine
White jodhpurs
When the symbol
Of my ladylife bloomed.
I was laying roses
Among the snow
I was weeping rubies
All over the sheets.
I saved the petals
Preserved in pages
Drops dried in vials
To use as future magic.
My hands bloodstained
I prayed to Yoni
I prayed to Sekhmet
Goddess of my blood.
I cried to lost childhood
I painted red footprints
Through deserts of Jasper
Crystal blood of Gaia.
First
published in The Furious Gazelle
joy of childlessness chosen
big hills will be walked and I will walk over mountains too.
fuck and develop arrow straight ideals of what
fucking should be like.
brave the indigo searching for dragons on new
moon nights.
give the renaissance of the two
thousand-and-something’s a chance.
bang about the iridescent halls of another
manic-panic brain chamber spasm.
eyeballs peeled in wonder at a saint or gargoyle
in another foreign town.
another statue another cappuccino another
whiskey sour glass of Barolo.
always the post-postmodern equivalent to the old
maid question
brought up in awkward dinner silence by uncle or
by high school classmate.
always a small surreptitious smile pasted inside
my skull
as I say I may be selfish but at least I
don’t have to change diapers.
First published in Bluestockings
Magazine
Dogs of Summer
The men play cards in the square. A stray dog is
pissing
on geraniums wilting in the heat.
First Published in Paper Nautilus
