blocked and dusty

Celestial standings in waiting lines of star dust
gritty with irritation, a little heart-felt swinger flew
into the rings of a saturn like sky
hitting some invisible ozone
bursting like fireworks
he gave us something to oooh and ahh for

Jostle me from my writer's block
give me reason to not jump this planet
and find me some different air to breath
I am a wandering piece of energy
changing degrees and patterns
fluctuations bursting through seams

A word sits, bright on my desk
like a little star it shimmers
I reach for it and place it here with the rest
and it wiggles into another meaning
wiping my sentences confused

The little image making time in this cluster of words that chafe to scatter
is you and I covered in the dust of a star we rolled in
intent on a different kind of satisfaction
our fronts our fingers
our backs our hair
we rolled there sweaty and wet
we laughed because we didn't need air

Scuff my boots on the rocks of planets that light up like crackling logs
in a universe telescopes haven't yet created
I will always be here, there
grey dust boots and hands in pockets
searching for those wiggling words that jumped and hid.

Escape, chapter two

I slid out from my safe haven, reluctant to go back to my table. I was actually thinking of a way I could get to the exit, out on the street and in a cab to anywhere but here. But I walked the path through the other diners wondering why in times like this we project that everyone else is free, happy and having the best time of their lives.

I tried to make eye contact with Tonya, give a 'let's go' signal. She looked up while talking to Sam as I approached. I pumped my eye brows up and down and jutted my chin towards the door, "let's get the fuck out." I thought she was getting it but I realized her gaze towards me was vague and she was lost in her conversation.

The act of reentering a scene of a crime knowing you are about to commit the murder before it happens is excruciating. I pictured Sam and Dave with concern and dismay in their clucks and hugs as they open the door to a distraught Tonya tomorrow. She would be crying and looking smaller than normal, they would sit and wonder why I would break from her like I did, what could have occurred in my thinking since nothing seemed wrong. They would guess an affair, then come to the conclusion it's just some troubled writers need to be alone and brooding, that it's our nature in order to create. More consoling, choosing sides, (Tonya's), making the spare bed so she could stay close to friends who loved her, etc.

I didn't much care at the moment. What I needed more than anything was to get the hell out of here and away from the glances of the woman who just toppled my life. Without realizing I picked up my fork and made an aggressive jabbing motion at her that luckily no one caught but her. Her eyes widened and she looked as if she were staring at a rabid squirrel.

I'm loosing my shit and I need to get up from this table. Dry mouthed, I lurched towards my glass of water knocking it over. Simultaneously everyone scooted their chairs back and lifted their arms like they were on a roller-coaster ride, all exclaiming, "ooohh!" I flushed and stammered an apology, collecting all the available napkins, uselessly dabbing and rerouting the water away from laps. The server came with a towel and I grabbed up my coat, scarf and hat, "So sorry, listen I'm not well, I mean I don't feel well. I'm gonna end this, or rather say good night and go away, home and leave here...yeah, I'm just gonna head on home, away, to the apartment. Tonya I'll see you later. No no, stay. I had a great time." Quick pats and shoulder squeezes, quizzical looks and then I was free.

Escape

I made my way through the crowded hallway to the back of the restaurant. The kitchen sat open and the cooks and wait staff eyed my briefly as I put my head in my hands and took a deep breath, oblivious that I was standing in their path to the dining room. After a moment of complete self absorption, I wedged myself into a corner to make way.

She was here, some woman I'd forgotten I'd met, months ago. She sat with Tonya, Sam, Dave and I. She and her lover had walked in, saw Sam, an old friend and sat down with us. She ordered a vodka tonic and her lover and mine spoke across the table of insignificant where's and whats. She and I sat, remote, wary, looking at each other.

Tonya and I had moved in together a month earlier. Our connection was easy and pleasant, I thought why not? She was practically living with me anyway. And as these decisions are like dominos I also started to consider going back to the ad agency for something stable to tide me over till I got back to writing and finishing my novel, which would probably result in another slew of bad reviews, barely making enough to live. And why not get that closet in the hallway cleaned out so when Tonya's family came for Christmas we could open it without being frightened books, umbrellas and games would fall onto our guest's heads.

Yes, this was the sound of my mind settling and I didn't notice since this action only creates a very subtle hum, like the machines my grandfather was attached to just before he died.

I stood wedged into the corner near the kitchen in the panic one feels knowing one has committed a grave, unconscious error. This isn't a revelation that this forgotten woman who sat across from me, trying to remember where we met, is the newly realized love of my life. What she was was the reminder of a freedom I almost gave up for a subtle feeling of a dim happiness.

A light turned on, illuminating my sleep walking of the last six months, and with this comes the waking. I know now, when I walk back into the dining room I will see Tonya and our friends, I will remember our hall closet, I will think of my old boss at the ad agency and I will never again see any of them as I saw them a half an hour before. And this was the beginning of my plan to escape.

what I was really doing

I was picking a stalk of bok choy in the grocery. A mindless action that ripped open a praise, a revelation, that adjusted my point of view just enough to see the whole picture.

What I thought I was doing was selecting food to fit in my basket while consciously keeping my irritation at a minimum at being constantly bumped and gently pushed out of the way of the hordes of people on the train, on the sidewalk and in the store.

But this rip in my grumpy occurred and the booming game show voice said, "Well, well! You are the next lucky motherfucker to get a glimpse at how fucking happy you really are! Look around you and see where you are and feel your realness outside of that voice in your head..and you will know a moment better than any joy your inner banter can create because this..this is real."

I stood there, continuing to keep my head down as to not scare the hordes with my ecstatic revelation. Just me and the Bok Choy, havin' a moment.

the freedom in the root of violation

My hand hit the ground as I prevented my body from landing heavy. A pain shot through and I could feel the stones under my palm pierce the skin. They seemed to belong and I welcomed their violation.

As I watched and felt myself on the ground, I thought about the roots of the tree in my grandmother's yard and wondered if the stones were pained by roots intrusion into their space in the dirt, under the tree, deep in the earth.

Everything has it's turn of violation and I hope at some level we, violated, can find the little opening where we take that breath of awareness, of the vitality of being ruined, and say, in truth, it was worth it.

god renamed

There was a whisper in my ear, as I turned, I caught only a fleeting glimpse of your ethereal mass as it escaped through the portal back to where you really belong. I've made you a cautionary tale to be told to little children before they learn romance.

But I speak through layers of sheer, emotional color that I laid upon your ghostly presence and my voice is muffled even to me. I am sorry little wolf, forgive me what I made you and unmade you.

There is an indian dentist who fixed my tooth, he said to me, "there is no god but the one you make and I can see in your mouth that you have spoken a name and it has become your god. But what I question is, is the person attached to the name worthy?"

He chipped a piece of your name away and peered. Stoically he huffs, "You must find your reasons to bind this lass to the story you have made of her." And on he poked and drilled.

So now, I look for my truth so I may release myself from the tragedy I see you through. It is a waste to make you less and more than what you are because who you are is perfect enough.

strum

There is a song written with me in it's chords. It started in a park in the mind of a musician. She carried it home to her guitar. Hands to wood, it slipped onto the strings to be strummed.

There's a neighborhood in Brooklyn, I remember from summer. And this song sits here or near, in winter, in the hands and mind of a musician.

I wonder, does this make me eternal? Do the chord's vibrations enter the universe, to be heard by something somewhere far? And will the strum say, 'it was for a forgettable lass somewhere in a place and a time long dead, but for this distant sound she is dust'?

There is something appealing about being forgotten, but for this one song. Maybe it's the only marker worth having.