Two Things

Two things I
I know:

Stay humble
or God will keep you
humble,

and don't
bullshit yourself.

I try to be
honorable,
virtuous,
Christ-like

but I know
the soul
inside this
unassuming
shell,

and I keep
waiting
waiting
waiting

for that
other
cosmic



shoe




to




drop.

Skeletons

The skulls
the bones,
lie in the dirt
in the desert,
among lonely cacti
against hot,
unforgiving skies.

They were once
alive with ambition,
inflamed with passion,
wracked with worry.

Now,
they are but
silent reminders,
mute witnesses
to the sheer folly
of empty bluster
and shiny objects.

Skeletons
bring the wisdom
that even the richest
among us,
those most privileged,
will share
the same
exact fate
with the humble.

Who will leave
a richer legacy,
the humble
who shared freely
the fruit
of their grace

or those
who lived
in opulent vanity,
clutching every crumb
to their bosom
lest it be stolen?

Skeletons
remind me
of what is
important.

When the Fruit is Ripe

You have to trust
that when it is
ready
to spring forth,
it will.

It does so
out of necessity,
because that
is what it was
made to do.

When the fruit is ripe
it will fall.

When the faun is ready
it will walk.

Don’t try
to predict when.

Just try
to be ready.

Life presents
all that
you need.

The trick is
to know when
to reach out
and grab it.

[Posted at Open Link Night on dversepoets.com.]

Numb (A Rehearsal)

I walk these
faux-comforting
corridors,
past loss,
elation,
birth,
death.

Numb.

Someday
I’ll walk these
one last time.

Last night
was just
a rehearsal.

Madre Moskowitz, awaiting dialysis

Holy Communion

Everywhere I look
I see the flock
lost in their prayers:

young and old
rich and poor
Jew and Gentile.

Each in holy communion
huddled around
their electronic beads,
their mutant rosaries.

Speaking in tongues
to unseen companions,

each believer
in holy solitude
connected
to something greater
than themselves.

In gratitude
they offer
the abstract sacrifice
of their time.

At last,
the world is of one accord.

Bridging the gap
between human loneliness
and cosmic emptiness
is this
God With a Hundred Names:

Verizon.
AT&T.
T-Mobile.
Sprint.

[Posted for http://dversepoets.com/2016/03/03/open-link-night-167/ ]

The Mexican Carnival

The Mexican carnival
creeps overnight
onto the empty lot
next to the dollar store,
across from the storefront church,
grimy,
miles worn,
paint chipping.

The smell of
sickly sweet
deep fried pancake batter
wafts over the
loudspeakers blasting
Adriana Grande
y las bandas ultimas,
enticing the crowd.

The rigged games offer
plush prizes,
faded by the sun,
mutant knock-offs of
Spongebob Squarepants
and slightly misshaped Minions
made in Viet Nam.

It’s only when
night falls,
and darkness obscures
the spit smears,
overflowing trash bins,
with the music blaring
from invisible demonic speakers,
the red, white and green twinklers
give everything an
ersatz showbiz glitz.

It's pretty,
even inviting.

I stand in the middle
of it all,
every sense engaged,
quietly smiling,
feeling very much
like Bukowski,

an unassuming witness
to the unlikely pageant
before it all packs up
and is gone.

[For http://withrealtoads.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-edge.html and http://dversepoets.com/2015/09/17/open-link-night/ - come along and play!]

Countrypolitan

The sadder the song
the sweeter the sting;

tales of regret
spun around
countrypolitan arrangements
call to me
as sirens
cutting through the AM static.

Why I am helpless
to I follow them
in bittersweet masochism
though their poignant goodbyes
and scenes of
unrequited splendor?

As I watch my sleeping angel
the answer
comes to me:

once she and I lived in
one of those songs
until the day
I dared to leave
my self-imposed prison
and join my life
to hers.

As the songs play
I hear lessons learned
a little too late
and smile

that
for at least
once in my life

I got it right.

[The definition of countrypolitan, "For the Good Times" by Ray Price.]

[Go post at http://dversepoets.com/ - say hi to Anthony Desmond and buy him a drink!]

Identity Politics

Am I one of those
writers
who only comes out
when there's an audience
in need of distraction?

Close down the
Tuesday night poetry club,
turn out the lights,
remove my avatar
of Chunky King David.

Without your reflection,
your approbation,
am I only
fingers tapping
on an anonymous keyboard
in a blip of a blog?

No.

I am the minesweeper
clearing a way
through her moody minefield
of stultifying depression
and angst.

I am the handyman
fixing leaky relationships
dripping human sewage,
patching torn parachutes
and crossing my fingers
that they'll work
if ever needed.

I am the servant,
trying and failing
before a God of
infinite mercy and kindness,
who remains
ever silent,
so that the only
castigating voice is
my own.

I am all these things
and many more,
but I only ever
become a writer
when I stop being
everything else.

Clean Break

You said you wanted
a clean break.

So I cleaned
the apartment
just like you trained me
(as you disdain
messiness and clutter).

I can clean anything,
but a lie
no matter how white
can never be cleaned.

Don’t bother to check
as I cleaned out
our joint checking account
and gave it all to charity.

As for my broken spirit,
a little hydrogen peroxide
should cleanse
that wound.

I even cleaned out
the barrel and chambers
of the little pre-owned
snub-nosed accomplice
I purchased
just for this occasion.

So, goodbye.

And, for the record
it wasn’t an accident
that I decided to do this
on your favorite white rug.

This is one stain
I won’t be able to clean
for you.

Three Laughs (for Harold Ramis)

The first person
I ever wanted to be
was Groucho Marx.

When I was a teenager
I wanted to be part
of the Second City
television show.

In my early 20’s
I thought I could be
a Mexican Woody Allen.

I told myself
I wouldn't give it a go
until after
I graduated college.

When I was 22
I got up on the stage
where I tried
and I failed
miserably.

It was a Sunday night
and I remember
I couldn't get the
flush of the embarrassment
of my face.

I spoke
to one of the regulars
who told me
he worked
different clubs
in the valley
every night.

I asked him
how much he made
each week,
and he said
“Thirty-five dollars.”

Putting my college degree
to work,
I calculated and
I realized I lacked
the drive,
the desire
to pay the dues.

So that night
I put the dream away,
and eventually went back
to graduate school,
where I earned a
Master’s Degree
in sociology.

Throughout the nineties,
I worked evenings
teaching sociology
at the local community college.

All the years
of studying the masters
Durkheim,
Weber,
Marx,
Cosby,
Dangerfield,
Cheech, Chong
paid off

as I peppered
my lectures
with original jokes
and observations.

I finally
found my audience
when I realized
that a nightclub comic
who only gets three laughs,
is a sucky stand-up,

but if you’re a college teacher
and you get three laughs,
then you’re the fun professor.

Relative Gratitude

My brother Masuda
who is dying
two days at a time
tells me
about his leg
which may have to be amputated
and how the diabetes
is raping his system
and that its working
with the vasculitis
to speed his immune system
into oblivion
and how he’s so broke
he trades his pain meds
for hamburgers
at the local diner
and how one of his daughters
won’t talk to him
and how his computer crapped out
and will it cost $65
that he didn't have to fix it.

I take it all in
and heave out a sigh
“Man, I’m sorry to hear that.”

Masuda changes the tone
“Hey, I ain't complaining,man.
I could be in Afghanistan
somewhere dying.
At least here I got a place to live
and I’m still alive.”

It’s a simple but compelling
argument:
relative gratitude.

I store it away
in the part of my mind
where I keep my
nasty spritzo insults,
orgasm memories
and hacks I use to tweak
my programming

so when I feel like
walking away
or driving into the oncoming headlights
or giving into something
wet and forbidden,

I stop
and reboot.

Now
when I'm in the angry pitch
sinking
in the blue quicksand
or if I’m feeling cornered
I’ll be able to say

“Hell, at least,
I’m not Masuda.”

[Posted for my pal Masuda and #OpenLinkNight at www.dversepoets.com - go there and drop yourself in the healing, poetic waters.]

With Sweetness and Wonder

He stumbled through
grad school,
and a first marriage
that didn't survive a season.

He philandered,
ejaculated hatred,
and received
a death threat
credible enough
that the cops advised him
to hide.

He hid in her house,
lost himself in
her PTSD,
and finally found his way out
only after
a painful, adulterous affair,
his father’s
unexpected cardiac arrest,
and two planes
flying into
two buildings
almost knocked him
off his axis.

Since then
he remarried,
bought a house,
raised kids.

Yesterday,
he hit 24 years of sobriety,
and I've seen him
through every frame
of that movie.

The fact that
he can slip
at any given moment,
and somehow doesn't,
imbues his every day
with sweetness
and wonder.

[Written for #openlinknight at www.dversepoets.com - love poetry? Get'cher ass ovah there!]

Space is an Illusion

Space is an illusion
because
not only is the glass
always full
(it is half water and half air),

but the glass is connected
to the air
that is connected to you
and to me
and to everything .

The illusion is that
such false divisions
even exist at all:

what separates
the property from the boundary
the inside from the outside?

Nothing can exist
because everything
is connected
to everything else.

The Buddha knew it
and so did the Christ,
and sometimes
so do I.

So, why then
do I keep swimming
upstream,

vainly
trying to stand
apart
from everything else?

[Posted for #OpenLinkNight at www.dversepoets.com, where even empty-headed poseurs like me can find love!]

Necessary Evil

Thank God for the sinners,
the child-rapists.
the wife-beaters.
the small animal torturers.

God lets them all exist
because deep down
God is fair
and I know God
loves me too,

because I was put here to
create misery and panic
and heartache.

to mow down daisies
and set loose
the flamethrower
on the innocent brown victims.

If I weren't here
(or for that matter
everywhere)
then there'd be
no need for
Heaven,
Holy Grace,
no Christmas presents,
no Easter eggs,

because there would be
no need for God.

God created me
as a form of job security
because if I weren't here
causing a catastrophic illness,
or helping a battered wife
set fire to her sleeping husband,
everything would be
peaceful
tranquil,
at one,

and no one would ever seek out
His holiness,
that sense of purpose
that transcendent Being.

So, the more I keep
stirring the pot,
the more you all
keep praying to your God
and the more He is happy.

Let’s face it,
without me,
God’s nothing.

[Whew! Come over and take a dip into the pool of art that is #openLinkNIght at www.dversepoets.com - and cool off with some refreshing poetry!]

Patients' Rights

I stare across
the waiting room
of the juvenile
psychiatric inpatient
treatment center

at a framed document
screwed to the wall
printed in
English and Spanish
announcing
“Patients’ Rights.”

I mindlessly scan
the litany of legalese
printed in the teeniest
font,
columns of
blurry gray
rectangles

reassuring me of
my 14 year-old
daughter’s rights

as she is admitted
for a 72 hour observation
as she’s been deemed
a suicide risk.

I look at the document
realizing its intent
is to empower,

but all it’s doing right now
is reminding me
of how little control
I have in this situation.

[Posted for #openlinknight at dversepoets.com - where words and love are shared in great abundance.]

The Kiss, Transformed

The kiss
starts slowly,
tentative,
as it explores
new, slippery terrain.

As it gets stronger
the kiss becomes visceral,
athletic,
setting the stage for more.

The kiss sometimes
subordinates itself
and becomes
the means to an end,
as it explores
other regions
of the recipient,
which sometimes
include lips.

The kiss transforms
into a greeting,
a blessing,
a magic charm to
ward off evil
when parting.

Years into the story
the kiss still
seals their promise,
ignites passionate possibilities
and bounds the sacred place
where their love grows
without end.

[Written and posted for #OpenLinkNight at www.dversepoets.com - visit them and discover your next favorite poem.]

My Ungracious Opponent

"Mental illness is not patient, it is not kind. 
It envies, it boasts, it is proud. 
It does not honor others, it is self-seeking, 
it is easily angered, it keeps a record of wrongs. 

Mental illness does not delight in the truth,
but rejoices with evil. 
It never protects, never trusts, never hopes, 
but always perseveres.”

I used to look for
the broken,
the violated,
the lost,
and vowed to love them
through their
mental illnesses,
naively convinced
that I could
love their problems
(and their inevitable fates)
away.

Ask Darra
or Lan Anh
or Teresa
and each will tell you
how I left,
each time bowing
in defeat to
mental illness,
my ungracious opponent.

Anita came to me
with both wings intact,
and three beautiful seedlings
who I came to love
and keep as my own.

Nobody predicted
that the short, blonde
4 year-old chatterbox
possessed a latent
recessive gene,
that has now flowered
into obsessive-compulsive disorder,
general social anxiety,
and profound depression.

So,
here I am again,
trying to love someone
through mental illness,
but this time,
I cannot leave,
reminding me
that no matter how much
I try to avoid
what is inevitable,
I can’t fight fate.

[Happy New Year! Written for #openlinknight at www.dversepoets.com - where love and writing and love of writing come together!]

The Judge Shrugged

The courtroom was set up

so that I had to sit next 

to him.

We didn't make eye contact,

but we’d already traded intimacies 

of a sort,

what with me 

hate-fucking the hell out of 

his slutty stalker wife,

and him threatening to shoot me

because she mislead him 

and told him it was rape.

Before the judge granted

the restraining order, he said

“I've read the details of this case,

Mr. Amberg have you apologized

to Mr. Moskowitz?”

and he said he had

because it was true.

The Judge continued:

“And Mr. Moskowitz, 

have you apologized 

to Mr. Amberg?”

In a voice, 

confused but unequivocal,

I said 

“No, I haven’t”

because that was true too.

The judge shrugged,

thought for a moment 

and granted my restraining order.

I left the courtroom,

feeling relieved,

vindicated and safe,

but not innocent.

[From the #thisreallyhappened files - Written for #openlinknight for www.dversepoets.com - come over and get your poetry fix.]

Empty Dates

 A year passes
and there are empty dates
on the calendar
where birthdays,
holidays
and other milestones
belonged.

Families are owed
memories and dreams,
and everything that wasn't
given away to charity
or tucked quietly
into an abandoned toy box,
is  arrayed into a makeshift
altar,
a reminder of the shock
and random cruelty
of this loss.

Inside the
still-unwrapped
Christmas present,
a smiling, pink plush pig
has been waiting
since last year
for an embrace
and a smile
that will never come.

[Written for #newtown and posted for #openlinknight @dversepoets - with love and sadness.]

Fathers and Sons and Men

Danny was 49
when he lost his dad,
after a long, slow
debilitating
descent,
but while he was alive
Ed saw his son
marry his love,
make a beautiful baby,
become a tenured professor,
make a home,
resolve any unfinished business,
and he saw his son
as a man.

John was also 49
when he too lost his dad,
after another long, slow
debilitating
descent,
but while he was alive,
John Sr. saw his son
find his perfect partner,
build a home together
also became a tenured professor,
also make a home,
resolve any unfinished business,
and he too
got to saw his son
as a man.

But, Pop, I was 35
when that dormant
heart disease took you.
I was still immature,
unfocused and
self-righteously selfish,
living from
one hedonistic decision
to the next.

However since your death,
I married
the beloved daughter-in-law,
and adopted
the treasured grandchildren
you never got to meet.

We made a home
and I know you would've
loved the view
from the back patio.

I've made a modest
but respectable career
as a college dean,
and if I play my cards right,
I'll be able to retire
with my house paid off
in a decade or so.

Sometimes I regret
that you never
knew me as the man
that I am today,
the man
I would have never
become

if your
sudden death hadn't
forced me
to grow up and
become a man.

[This is a continuation of the poem last week.  Bea was married to Ed, John Sr. was married to Willie, and Dan was married to Pat.  Written and posted for #OpenLinkNight at www.dversepoets.com - where I am thankful for the support and love of the community.]