Prepare to Die (Prompt: Preparation)

Everyday
I prepare to die,

by slowing down
and not fighting
the inevitable.

I practice
wide-eyed breathing,
taking in everything
without judgment or attachment.

I feel less scared of death
but I am still not ready
to go.

My best poem
hasn’t been written
and my best melody is still
hiding somewhere
inside a piano
waiting to be coaxed out
and I just hope I find it
before Death finds me.

I wonder if every goodbye
is going to be
the final goodbye,
but before I can
do anything that would
constitute a Grand Finale,
I just leave,
to prepare myself
for how random and mundane
the inevitable end must be.

This life is
an improvised play
in a theatre with
outdated permits
and it’s only
a matter of time
before the Fire Marshall
unceremoniously
shuts it all down.

So,
play on, I say!

Transvaginal Probe

“Before proceeding,
I have to tell you that
your answers are being monitored
for quality assurance purposes,
and they can and will
be used against you
in a court of law.

You have the right to a
born-again Christian attorney.
If you cannot afford one
or scored “Less Than Competent”
on the “Morality Inventory”
you answered when you registered
one will be appointed for you
at no cost to you.

Do you understand?

Yes, I can see you’re
bleeding,
but before we proceed
I need you to tell me
you understand.

Very good.

Question 1:
Are you now
or have you ever been
sexually active outside
the boundary of traditional,
one man, one woman
marriage?

Very good.

Question 2:
Have you ever inserted
any object into your vagina
other than a tampon
for anything other than
hygienic purposes?

I’m sorry, could you repeat that?
I couldn’t distinguish
your response
from your moan.

Very good.

Question 3:
Have you ever
used any of the following
products:
male condom
female condom
spermicide
diaphragm
cervical cap
contraceptive sponge
birth control pills
Depo-Provera
Lunelle
vaginal ring
intrauterine device
withdrawal
sterilization or
natural family planning
to prevent the
fertilization of
your precious irreplaceable
ovum?

Hm.
Could you elaborate
on your answer?

Your doctor prescribed it
to regulate your cycle?
I thought so.

Alright then,
I think we’ve everything in order.

Just take this sheet
into the green room,
change into this paper gown,
and after your procedure
the nurse will inform
you of when your results
will be uploaded
to YouTube.

Thank you.”

(Written for http://dversepoets.com/ #OpenLinkNight)

Open Mike (Prompt: Risk Poem)

In my bedroom
at my parent’s house
me and my little $28 guitar
performed concerts
at Carnegie Hall
at the Universal Amphitheatre
in Abbey Road Studios.

Starting in 1975,
I strummed and sang
to adoring, imagined audiences.

(I even planned for my
New York debut
to come out and start
the show with an
acoustic version of
“Nights on Broadway.”)

But
I never worked up the nerve
to sing my own songs,
my own heart
for others.

Flash forward to 2001:
My father died,
I lived in a passionless coupling,
my chippie went back
to the man she would eventually marry,
my OCD was at fever pitch,
and while the Prozac
didn’t kill my erection,
I couldn’t come anymore.

The ad said
“INLAND EMPIRE
SONGWRITER’S OPEN MIKE.”

Dr. Warren said I should do it,
so I found myself there
armed with what I thought
were my best songs.

They called my name,
and my nerves jangled
all the way onstage.

I couldn’t see
past the stage lights
so I closed my eyes
and
launched into
the first song
I remember
ever writing
from 1981.

By the time the chorus
came around,
I could hear
their laughter,

and it felt good,
since they saw the humor
in a song titled

“If I Fall In Love
With You Again,
It’s My Own
Damned Fault.”

It took 20 years
to get there,
and I reveled
in my three minutes.

Some Cry

Some cry
in the stall
of the men’s room
during the sermon

and some cry
at the far end of
the Target parking lot
with the windows
rolled up
and the music on
loud.

Some cry
just sitting there
in the Starbucks
afraid to be
anything but invisible.

Some cry
but you’d never know it
for all the pain
they inflict
on others.

Some cry
only when
they’re happy
for to cry
otherwise
would start
an endless flood.

Some cry in the spotlight,
and some in that moment of
massive quiet
after they orgasm.

Some cry for the
mistakes that brought them
here,
and some cry
for the dreams that
never will be.

Some cry
because they can’t un-learn
how not to cry

and some cry
because it’s all
they have left.

Everybody cries,

but in this universal
malaise
lies the hope
for the birth of
empathy
which can give birth to
compassion
which can give birth to
love.

(Written for http://dversepoets.com/ #OpenLinkNight)

What My Neglected Lover Thinks (Prompt: What _____ Thinks)

We used to make
music together, and
though you couldn’t say
it was beautiful,
it was ours.

We would fly away
to quiet islands
where his touch
would bring forth
my sweetest sounds,

I was there
when every other female
broke his heart.

I’d take him in
all busted up and pitiful,
even smiling as he croaked out
the Great American Songbook,
until I nursed
that ungrateful bastard back
among the living.

Now I stand
waiting in his closet
with the rest of
his neglected digital concubines,

each with the empty promise
that we’ll be loved soon,
but we’ve all grown a bit jaded
waiting.

I should’ve seen
it coming,

The guitar
and the drumsticks
tried to warn me.

The King of Romance Speaks (for Sarah Lynn)

Flowers sent
on February 14th

rarely smell
as sweet

as the bouquets
sent

on any other
day.

(Posted for #OpenLinkNight, #31, at dversepoets.com )

Rock Bottom (Prompt: Dead End)

When the police ask

if you have any
unused vacation time
so you can go into hiding
until they can
find and dissuade
the man who is
trying to kill you
because he (erroneously) thinks
you raped his wife

and you pack
as many of your possessions
that’ll fit in the back of your Honda

and you take
one last
good look around
at the room
and think
“what if I never see this
again?”

then
you’ve probably hit
rock bottom.

My Secret Motivation

My acts of selflessness

are those of

a flawed Christ,

and I do not accept

their approbation;

their lauding.

Ostensibly,

I feign modesty

when my actions

are seen and praised,

for I know

my secret motivation.

I never dreamed

I would be walking through life

with someone so

beautiful,

so in order to keep her

I became a different person,

a better person,

to remain in her

circle of grace.

Sensing I will die

long before she will,

I work daily to leave

a legacy

so loving,

inimitable

and unexpected

that she will never

ever

want for any another,

but me.

So,

at the heart

of all this

grandiose selflessness

is a niggling kernel:

selfishness.

(Written for OpenLinkNight at dversepoets.com)

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Shpritzo (Prompt: Habit)

Maybe it was years
of being picked on
for being fat,

or being the middle child,

or my training to be a
comedy writer,

but there is an ongoing
internal monologue
that answers
everything I encounter

with a shpritz,
a comic insult,
a smart-ass remark.

They are unwanted
and arrive instantaneously:

in quiet moments reserved for intimacy,
at deathbed confessions,
during pompous sermons,
while reading narcissistic status updates
and I just can’t help it.

Being a professional
I’ve trained myself
to keep them in line,

but sometimes I release them
because I think they’re too good
to keep to myself,

and I often realize
I was wrong,

usually, 

a word or two too late.

Then I wonder
what light is it
that shines through me,

Jesus Christ or Don Rickles?

The Crying, Brown Bear

He kept me company

every Sunday

when I dragged myself

into the empty computer lab

in graduate school.

It was lonely work

crunching all them numbers

chasing my thesis,

but his plaintive

beautiful voice

sang to me

like a lost brown bear,

crying in the black night 

trying to find

his mate.

He wrung poignancy

out of every lyric

and when he played piano

it sounded like it had

a million keys

and was 30 feet long.

When I finally got the chance

to meet him

the following year,

he was as genteel and kind

as he was tall and dazzling

in his sharp blue blazer

and his sequined captain’s hat,

and my only regret

is that I shook his hand,

suppressing my instinct

to hug him.

(Written for Dverse Poets Open Link Night )

My Best Friend’s Best Friend (Prompt: Friend of a Friend)

On Facebook

I see all the friends

of my friends.

They all look great.

Wonderful, glorious times

with gleaming movie star smiles.

They do not look incomplete.

They do not look melancholic.

Smiling happy people

reveling in their college memories,

with that same REM soundtrack.

Summoning my imagination,

I try hard,

squinting,

to picture myself among them.

Too fat.

Not brown enough and

not white enough.

Hopelessly uncool smile.

Too square to party.

I haven't forgotten the sting

of exclusion,

of betrayal,

so I became

my own best friend,

and sensing his loneliness

I am also

my own best friend’s

best friend.

Hibernating

It is a quiet,

sullen

sour grape of a month.

Jealous that it’s sandwiched

between the showbiz spectacle

of Christmastime

and the sexy pink orgy

of Valentine’s Day,

January is the

“get your tax forms ready” month,

the “sober up from your holiday bacchanal

and pay those

‘I don’t care,

Christmas comes

but once a year’” bills.

And this January

was the 12^th time

my father’s birthday

passed without his embrace.

January

finds me hibernating,

in my bed,

at my desk,

in my heart,

storing up my energy

for brighter,

more verdant days

that I am almost certain

are on the way.

(Posted as part of Open Link Night http://dversepoets.com/2012/01/24/open-link-night-week-28/ )

A Fatherly Perspective

My brothers in Christ

tell me of the lost souls

who have not accepted

and will be separated from the Father,

damned for Eternity.

I realize that is

a brotherly perspective.

In many human families,

children vie for the loving attention

and protective embrace of the father,

thinking

if they do the right things

if they say the right things,

they will be favored.

Since becoming a father

I can report that

and each of my children has

betrayed me

disappointed me

and saddened my heart with their actions,

some intentional,

some incidental.

However,

I do not

and I cannot

love them any the less for their

shortcomings

ignorance

or meaningless noisy rebellion,

and I welcome their return

even if it takes

years.

I realize this is

a fatherly perspective,

and this is very good news

indeed.

Her Empty Bedroom

Her empty bedroom

as silent as my heart

when I think of

her unexplained,

abrupt

departure.


(Written for the http://dversepoets.com/ January 20, 2012)

I’m Just Being Honest (prompt: Cruelty)

Look at the fat

dripping like fleshy syrup

off that gross stack

of pancakes

he calls a torso.

He had the nerve

to put a tattoo

on those arms?

Like trying to draw

the Mona Lisa

on a drinking straw.

And when

he gets his guitar out

and tries to sing,

he thinks adding vibrato

to his warbling voice

will make it soulful.

It doesn’t.

His nose

has the width of his old man’s

and the length of his mom’s,

and I won’t even mention

the wart on the left side.

Don’t be fooled.

He might sound

authoritative,

but if you

question him hard enough

he’ll cower

and back down,

assuming that he’s wrong.

Worst of all,

he writes this pseudo-poetry,

wrapping his fear and insecurity

into trite monologues

and foists them upon

an unsuspecting internet.

I’m not trying to sound cruel,

I’m just being honest

and trying to anticipate

the criticisms that are

inevitably headed my way.

So,

now that I’ve exposed

my weak spots,

I trust you won’t use them

again me,

for to do so

would be cruel

indeed.

This Passionate Communion

I bring the delicacy

to my lips

and breathe in its

presence,

the hint of steam
and the scent

immediately swimming

in my bloodstream,

finding my heart

and rocketing

its adrenaline magic

throughout

my body.

I am brought out

of the gray silence

into a fresh new dimension,

a secret garden,

and I am unashamed

at my gluttony,

but that naked vulnerability

I share with only you,

liberates me

and I unravel

like a morning glory,

petals unfolding

to catch every bit

of life from above.

I cannot,

nay, will not

stop this

passionate

communion.

You are here

bringing me life

and my response

is ravenous

and messy

and unrestrained;

I never feel more alive.

Now, bring that canister

of aerosol frosting over here

and let’s tear the roof

off this sucker. 

(Written for the http://dversepoets.com/ Open Link Night, January 17, 2012)

Sparrow

In the parking lot

of the big box pet store,

a lone brown sparrow

flits and hops,

a displaced sprite

in search of

the discarded French fry,

cellophane with a smear

of something edible remaining,

a stray sunflower seed.

She is too consumed

with her tenuous survival

to notice all the people

returning to their cars,

with bags of overpriced kibble

for their kept,

chosen animals.

She doesn’t know any better

and perhaps that’s why she

looks happy:

she doesn’t know envy.

Protocol

Serious meeting

confidence shattered

not by miscreant ringtone

but an uncontrollable

coughing

fit.

The Moment (February 10, 1990)

The pointy- toed-

shoe-in-my-eye-socket

hangover headache

made its

predictable

return.

The voice:

“How many days

are you gonna do this?”

Shutup.

My stomach felt like

every disease in the world

was inside me

fighting each other

for bragging rights.

7am,

which meant I wouldn’t

get back to normal again

until that afternoon.

The voice:

“Turn over and look out

the window.

Look at the sky.”

People always tried

to point out “nature” to me

which I always hated,

but I was in no condition

to fight.

I turned over

and pulled up the shade

an inch

and I saw it.

No clouds

to give a sense of perspective,

just a clear

blue

infinite

serenity.

It awakened my heart

and I smiled,

and as if on cue,

gossipy birds

sang and chirped.

I laughed

at how

“perfect”

it all seemed.

The voice spoke

one last time:

“OK, now what if

you’re not here

to enjoy this anymore?”

It was a question

too pointed to ignore,

and a moment too beautiful

to throw away.

I lingered in the moment

a few minutes more

before confessing my alcoholism

and changing my life.

(Check out Open Link Night at dversepoets.com)