Early Education

In Mrs. Brown’s

first grade class

we had to learn

two-place addition.

Adding one-place numbers

vertically

like

3

+

5

_

8

was easy enough

but

11 +

22

__

well, that was

from another

planet.

I didn’t understand

and I was kept

after school

struggling with this puzzle

until

the light finally

came on.

I arrived home

late,

scared as hell

because I knew

the fate

awaiting me,

because

according to my father

only bums and

miscreants

stayed after school.

I was summarily

beat

with the thick leather belt

and, in time,

I became an

overachiever,

an anxious, nervous-stomached

overachiever.

Today I am

a dean

at a college

my father could only

dream of attending,

and

as my 14 year old daughter

struggles to complete

her homework

saddled with

cerebellar dysfunction

dysarthria

dysgraphethesia

dysstereognosis

dyspraxia

obsessive compulsive disorder

general anxiety disorder

and sensory integration dysfunction

I remind her

that while I like that she’s smart,

I love her

when she’s kind.

Autodidact

Just show me the basics

-where my fingers go

-when to wait for the laugh

and I’ll tinker away

fashioning my own

version of it.

No technique

but to listen

for my own voice.

I’ll hack my way

through the jungle

of formal training

and come out

with some weird

twisted mutant,

one with a reassuring

resemblance

to myself

and whatever it is

you call

this.

Making

My normal state is

making:

making myself get up

making all the green lights

making small talk

making quotas

making deadlines

making compromises

making a reputation

making a scene

making documents

making mistakes

making a name

making arguments

making dinner

making grownups out of children

making an ass of myself

making masks

making chocolate chip cookies with M&Ms

making memories

making poems

making a good argument for invisibility.

He Never Dared to Dream

All these treasures,

the beautiful, devoted wife,

the mother of his children,

on the deck of the hilltop house

overlooking his adopted valley

against a rainbow sherbet sunset,

and the Delfonics are playing

off in the distance

as the Yorkshire terriers

gnaw and wrestle at his feet,

and he is overcome with giggles.

All this,

and he gets to sleep with her too.

Maroon

As the maroon spilled across the table
she couldn’t help remember the wine
they drank that first night
and all the promises they’d made,

and now what was once wine is now blood
sprayed across this linen tablecloth

like the aftermath of an exploded contract
ripping apart her soul.

Ringside Table at the 10 O’ Clock Show (Prompt: different perspective)

Normally,  

we’re so divided

we can’t agree upon anything,

but here,

with a 50$ cover and a

two-drink minimum,

we are all of one accord:

he’d better be funny

or we’re gonna kill him.

“Of Course, Our Love Has Changed” (Prompt: Change)

Of course,

our love has changed.

Carefree beginnings

beget inevitable scrapes and missteps

which beget arguments and

emotional slugfests

and children

always ruin Eden.

Recalling every pointless casualty,

every sleepless rumination

when tears were the

only language,

I watch as you sleep

next to me,

and I cannot help but feel thankful.

Of course,

our love has changed,

is it now hard won.

Sherri (June 22)

Where are you,

crazy lady?

I miss you,

because I never had a baby sister

to look up to me

and you’re the closest I got to that.

Don’t think that

just because you’re always the one

making desperate decisions,

uncertain of which way

tomorrow is pointed,

doesn’t mean

I don’t need you as well.

You’re one of the few people

who knows what’s

under this skin,

the weaknesses

of our shared DNA.

Sher,

we are more than kindred spirits,

more than familia,

I recognize

the self-deprecating humor,

the desire to please,

and that kernel of doubt

at the deepest part

of the soul

just as I recognize

my own face in the mirror,

except,

you’re prettier.

Call me.

Jeff (Some Version of the Truth)

You were so little

when Aunt Nancy brought you by

the first time,

and I loved to watch you dance

as I huffed and puffed

on the harmonica.

Years later,

when going through photo albums

someone asked of you

“Who’s the Black kid?”

At first, I didn’t see the color,

but eventually

I pieced

some version of the truth together

as I’m sure you must have.

As far as I know,

you’ve never been told

who fathered you,

and maybe your mom

doesn’t know,

and maybe your dad

never knew that

he had a son.

I doubt

knowing the truth

would help now

as you sit in the penitentiary

with your admission of guilt

and life sentence

without chance for parole

for killing your girlfriend’s mother

because you believed

the allegations of her abuse.

I’m sorry you thought

your girlfriend

was telling you the truth

too. 

Welcome to the Mine (prompt: Welcome Poem)

You need to be prepared

to outwit the frustration

work past buckets of sweat

and mostly persevere.

We miners

tinker ceaselessly  

blessed infrequently with

a sliver

a sparkle.

Some days there is

so much to harvest

and sometimes it’s a glint

and that’s all you’re gonna  get.

When you don that prospector’s helmet

and dive deep into the mineshaft

where it’s dark and spooky,

remember, it’s a numbers game

and sometimes

all you’ll have to show for your work

is yesterday’s dust.

You gotta like the digging,

the challenge of breaking rock,

disrupting the Earth

and finding something new.

So, welcome,

now pick up

your pencil

and get at it.

This Desire (Prompt: "Don't Start That Again" Poem)

These moments

of inexpressible happiness

sneak in

as though I shouldn’t hear them coming

and I feel the profound

connection to everything

and then the truth breaks through:

I am only spirit,

unencumbered

to light upon all things

knowing only

the compassion and love

of a truly enlightened being,

but then

just as soon as I become

aware

it vanishes

and I desperately try to gather

the tantalizing details

to hold forever –

and this desire

to possess

that which is not mine

signals the return

of my cursed,

flawed

humanity.

Silly and Magnificent (Prompt: Serious Poem)

By definition,
tomorrow never gets
here
and I am convinced
that God is forever 
re-creating the past
as a cosmic collective
reconstructed memory
for His own amusement.

So all that 
exists 
is in the 
here and now

and even this 
is an illusion.

So, 
when I say
I want my illusion
to be 
beautiful
compelling
sweet and juicy

equal parts
silly and 
magnificent,

I’m serious.

“Priorities” (Priorities Poem)

Looking at the list

of all the things I want to be

and then comparing it

to what I’m doing,

--explosion management

for my 14 year-old

talking monkey

blonde landmine

balancing and structural support

for my two adult children

as I run alongside

while they practice

riding through life

without training wheels

dream and wish fulfillment,

with a side order of

emotional, spiritual and

recreational partnership

 to the most beautiful woman

in the world

cultivator and synthesizer

of ideas, profound and trivial,

and multimedia documentarian

of this life

willing follower  

critical deconstructionist

and very flawed example of

the power and the glory

of Jesus Christ --

I notice

I put others first,

then myself,

then God.

My priorities are not

in order of importance,

they are in order

of grace and forgiveness,

from the smallest

to the Greatest.

Worse Than the Bars (One word prompt: domesticated)

Trained
and sitting in cage,

he’s domesticated.

But
worse than the bars
that surround him

is the minimum security prison
that he’s locked himself into
from the inside 


and he tossed that key
far far out of reach.

No Technique (Telling It Like It Is poem)

Is 

No Technique

a technique 

in itself,

I wonder 

as the prompt

reminds me 

of why 

I hate poetry

and why I like

whatever it is

I write.

Seeing, Paying Attention

Since everything is always moving

all the time,

my challenge is

seeing, paying attention

to the many kindnesses

hidden in this as the world -

from the promise of a rosebud

to a perfect storm-klatch of words,

because they were all

put here for me.

Yes, even you were put here

for me

and I for you.

May my life fit

perfectly

into the space of time

I have been given,

and when I am taken

may there be

no debts owed on my bank account

no apologies or tributes left unspoken

no dreams or desires not sated. 

Epiphany

Before I knew it

there were wrinkles

taking up residence

by my smile,

stray gray hairs

curling wildly from

my sideburns,

my aching, crackling

knee joints

betrayed me,

the memories

stuck somewhere in the back

require a more complicated

set of cues

to loosen them

from their

hiding space.

I needed longer arms

to read the small print

on my blood pressure

medicine

and I understood

the necessity of

euphemistic language like

“erectile dysfunction”

and I smiled because

these were proof

that I beat the odds

and have lived

longer than I thought

I would,

long enough

to be an old man. 

Suspend My Disbelief

I’ve stretched my mind

trying to understand

the scared mystery of

The Holy Trinity

but in the end

I gave up,

and accepted this puzzle as

an article of faith.

Furthermore,

I stretched my reason

and logic

like philosophical silly putty

to understand that

God loves us

in a way that transcends

human understanding,

unless, of course,

you don’t profess

your belief in Him.

In that case,

you will burn 

in everlasting hell.

Everlasting?

Eternal?

Like,

as long as

God Himself 

has been alive,

longer than the Sequoias have climbed

into the sky,

deeper than the Coral Reef,

past the boundaries of

outer space?

That kind of

eternal punishment?

Seems vindictive to me,

vindictive

in a human way.

In the name of faith,

I will suspend my disbelief

only if it brings others

into the Grand Re-Unification,

but I didn’t join up

to scare others

into signing on

the dotted line.

I am a follower

of the Christ,

and I am here to tell you:

God loves you

and wants to be reunited

with you.

I am not a salesman

for an after-life

insurance policy.

Wisdom (Prompt: On the Other Hand)

Maybe

the grass is greener on the other side

and you can judge a book by its cover

and the first restaurant you see may be the best

and it’s ok to let the sun catch you crying

and pride doesn’t always go before a fall

and love is not all you need

and the good don’t always die young

and the Lord doesn’t help those who help themselves

and the free market system isn’t best

and the early bird doesn’t get the worm

and he who hesitates is not lost

but on the other hand

I have only four fingers

because of a

freak industrial accident

which

for all my wisdom

I could not foresee

nor prevent.

Word Cloud of PAD 2011 Favorites

So, I took all the names of all the mentions I made during PAD 2011 and let wordle.net make a word cloud for me.  When I think of talent writers, this is what I see. - Moskowitz

As I Leave the Time Machine (Prompt: After Leaving Here)

Sitting here 
with the time machine,
I make glorious plans.

I am taken back to 
memories 
some golden, some bitter 

and taken to dreams, 
allowing myself the conceit 
of clairvoyance.

In the time machine
everything that I am not
does not matter 

it’s just me 
these fingers 
this keyboards
and these thoughts

all
somehow
inexplicably 
working in concert 

for some creative
common end. 

While a man sitting alone at 
a machine 
can hardly be called noble,

sometimes 
if he strikes the idea 
just right 
and the Muse 
has been kind

he’ll write something
that might make a difference

even if that difference 
is only
a smile.

So,
I keep trying, 

though the ideas be 
modest or miniscule.

Perhaps they’ll outlast me
as an incomplete legacy, 

and 
as I leave the time machine
of writing

I will re-engage 
with the real-world

long enough and
deep enough 
to hopefully find 

still more
to bring back 
to the machine.

Ode to Julius (Prompt: Ode)

As far back as I can remember,
you were the uncle that I only read about
and saw from a distance
in black and white.


You were sardonic and intelligent
and the first man
I ever wanted to be like.


Your nightly prayer:
“Unborn yesterday, dead tomorrow;
why fret if life be sweet?”
might’ve made
the Buddha smile.


The fact that you
always made the wisest crack
in the room
was awe-inspiring.


Some may have forgotten you,
but I carry you as an iconic ideal,
and keep studying,
in my vain attempt to become you.


In you
I saw a reluctant prophet
whose mission was to deflate
the world’s pomposity,


and in this self-important,
narcissistic society,
it is a calling worth emulating.


I regret that
the only time
we ever met
was at Eden Memorial Park Cemetery,
at your marker,
decorated with
a lone Star of David:


“Groucho Marx,
1890-1977.” 

The World Without Color TV (Prompt: The World without ___")

Feather-like,

Anita floated into my world

and brought to everything

she touched

new life,

new meaning.

How could I not

build my whole existence

around her?

It’s like I once heard:

“She's like color TV. 

Once you have it,

you never want to go back

to black and white.”

Into the Heart of this Mess (Prompt: In the ___ of ____)

Life is a series of 
huge, unpainted canvases
and every day 
I prick myself
just a little bit,

and let the blood
wash over all that space
and I’ll write a melody,
or puree the language, 
deface an advertisement
with my inky piss,
give a spare dollar 
to an otherwise
invisible veteran,

and all these 
quiet acts of agency,
are my protests 
again the mundane and 
inevitable conclusion
to this existence.

Everyday’s 
waiting for my mark
my blood, 
my time, 

and when I am taken
from this plane

if you gather 
all these explosions 
these splatters of blood
and
look deeply 
into the heart of this mess,

I pray you find
it was worth it.

Ahead of My Time (Less Indulgent Version)

1977 -
In junior high school PE,
I was one of those boys
who wasn’t a great athlete
and I didn’t aspire to be one.

I liked talking to girls
and reading
and listening to records
and daydreaming
and watching
Heckle and Jeckle cartoons.

I dreaded the miscreant sadists
we called “Coach,”
and their misguided attempts
to make men of
"sissy boys" like me.

I never understood
why all my classmates
loved this -
even as a kid
I knew it was sweaty,
messy
and not conducive to
learning.

And now, as I see the fattening
of middle school boys
in 2011
texting girls
plugged into their iPods
playing Call of Duty
and not wanting to get sweaty,

I smile
at how I was 
ahead of my time.

Ahead of Our Time (Prompt: Leader and/or Follower Poem)

1977 -

In junior high school PE,

I was one of those boys

who wasn’t a great athlete

and I didn’t aspire to be one.

I liked talking to girls

and reading

and listening to records

and daydreaming

and watching

Heckle and Jeckle cartoons.

I dreaded the miscreant sadists

we called “Coach,”

and their misguided attempts

to make men of

"sissy boys" like me

and Armando,

the other overweight Mexican

kid in the group.

Our skinny white classmates

ran like grinning idiots

at these coaches’ command,

but Armando and I

protested as we

walked the track

far behind the pack.

I never understood

why all my classmates

loved this -

even as a kid

I knew it was sweaty,

messy

and not conducive to

learning.

Maybe they were

acting out some homoerotic

army man fantasy

as they bobbed in anticipation

and divided themselves into

teams.

One day, Coach Perez,

the only other Mexican in class

(imagine our  betrayal!)

had enough of our apathy,

so he had us lay on our backs

on the blacktop

and do leg lifts,

at 30 degrees

then 60 degrees,

then 90 degree angles

for the entire period.

Our guts burned

but we didn’t

say a word to complain.

We just took it,

silent and stoic –

like men.

For the remainder of the year

we had an unspoken compact

with Coach Perez,

where we would half-try

and he would half leave us alone.

And now, as I see the fattening

of middle school boys

2011

texting girls

plugged into their iPods

and playing Call of Duty

and not wanting to get sweaty,

I smile

at how Armando and I were

ahead of our time.

Cosmic Banana Peel (Prompt: Falling Poem)

Falling is the reminder

to keep myself humble.

When I try to present myself

as perfect,

flawless

or more simply,

merely balanced,

the rug slips from under my foot,

the shower floor becomes slicker,

the height of the curb, higher.

The challenge is not

how quickly I can right myself

and regain dignity,

but rather,

how happily can I accept

this indignity

that I did not want.

I do not deserve

smooth, unwrinkled perfection,

none of us do,

and the minute I think otherwise,

I slow down

and check myself

for I know

there must be a

cosmic banana peel

somewhere out there

with my name on it.

Prayer for Just Enough (prompt: Prayer Poem)

Lord,

please bring us world peace
but just enough to keep things
tranquil 
without becoming boring.

Please bring us good health
but just enough 
so that our own occasional
ache and pain 
will remind us to have compassion
for others’ hardships.

Bring us prosperity
but just enough
so that no one ever goes to bed
hungry
and that no one ever becomes 
possessed 
by their possessions.

Let us be sure 
of your infinite forgiveness
but just enough 
so that we never cheapen
your grace 
by taking it 
for granted. 

Lord, 
let us love one another
and take care of one another
just enough
to eventually
replace this list 
of petitions
with an endless psalm
of thanksgiving.

Baruch Hashem Adonai.

The Plea (Prompt: Quit Doing That Poem)

Of the multitude of sins
you commit:

from dishonoring our mothers and fathers 
for comedic effect,
to encouraging the coveting of all
things material and shiny,
to violating the Sabbath 
to attend the early bird sale,

I implore you, 
Madison avenue:

please stop co-opting
the soundtrack of 
our collective 
culture and memory 

to sell more
beer,
cell phones
and SUVs.

No Separation (Prompt: Only One in the World Poem)

There is more to this world

than can be seen

by the untrained eye.

If you accept this

then also know

that the line where

my body ends

and where the space

around me begins

is

continuous:

no separation.

The air that touches me

touches you

and the idea

that there is any

distinction

between

me and you and

anything else

is a shared illusion.

The differences

we think

we see,

are just things

we think.

If one looks

very closely

and sees everything

as holy

there is no separation
from anything

including God

and this is

good news

indeed. 

First Thought, Second Thought (Prompt: Second Thought Poem)

I’ve never read Kerouac

but I’ve heard his motto was

“First thought, best thought.”

I guess that’s why

he’s a genius.

Often I set my ideas

up on the high dive

only to find

    - splat!-

no water in the pool.

I own my mistakes

because

at the time

I never

made the

second best decision:

every mistake

seemed like

a good idea

at the time.

My first thoughts

are rude and messy,

combustible and inelegant.

The second thoughts

are the polite ones,

the properly socialized

and educated ones.

The first thought

may be me,

but the second thought

is Me.

Message in the Bottle (Prompt: Message in a bottle poem)

I drained the first bottle

looking for the message.

It was fun,

but I didn’t see any message,

so, thinking I had

a defective one,

I drained a second bottle.

The second one felt good

right away,

so I didn’t mind

draining a third

in search of that

ever elusive message.

Years passed,

bottles fell,

and nights wasted.

I don’t remember

when it stopped

being fun,

but I realized if there

was a message waiting

at the bottom of the bottle,

I was too damned drunk

to see it.

When I drained

the last bottle

just before midnight

February 10, 1990,

a message finally made it

through:

“you can’t handle this.”

It wasn’t profound,

but it was honest,

and, thankfully,

I haven’t handled it

since.