The Fires Always Come Back

Years ago, I asked
the wise Dr. Warren:
“in therapy, what happens
when the insurance money
runs out?”

She smiled
to soften the truth
spoke in jest:
“We say,
it looks like
the patient
is cured.”

This week
Sarah graduates
from her
Monday, Wednesday, Thursday
program
at the world famous medical clinic,
and at least this time
the therapists spoke the truth:

“The insurance company
believes she’s met
enough of her goals
and they don’t want to pay
for any more.”

At best,
every therapy has only
given her two-thirds
of what she’s ever needed:
they spray water
on the fire,
but never actually
extinguish the flame.

The fires always
come back.

So, on Thursday
I’ll proudly celebrate
her hard work
for the past eight weeks,

and reconvene
the search
for a therapist who can
complete that missing third,
and
for the faith
to believe a miracle
is still pointed
in her direction.

[Note: Lest anyone misinterpret, I am totally grateful and thankful for the compassionate and skilled mental health providers at The MEND Outpatient program in Loma Linda, California.  In honor of May being Mental Health Awareness Month, please consider making a donation to Loma Linda University at advancement.lluhealth.org.]

For What Binds Us (Mother's Day, 2015)

For what binds us
are not the bonds
of blood and heredity.

It is the mutual
care and interest and love
freely given:

Earth to animal,
animal to human,
human to Earth.

Love is nothing
if not volitional,
and the phone lines
go both ways, Mom.

My Surprising, Deceased Father

My deceased father
surprises me
everyday
by where he appears.

He shows up
in the music I listen to,
in the crinkled
corners of my eye,
in my impatience
for all things
faddish,
adolescent,
transitory.

I find myself
gently surrendering
the spotlight
to the coming guard,
the reckless,
seemingly bulletproof
youth,
quietly watching
them,
like he did,
sometimes lost in
private reverie
and memories.

If my dad were
still here, I'd tell him
I bought a book
so I could finally
understand electronics,
and fix those broken,
buzzing things
like he used to do.

Even when I spy
the arrival of
straggling stray
white hairs,
I laugh,
and I am comforted
because it is his laugh.

My High School Prom Prank, May 1981

In our prom portrait,
gazing off
into the distance,
we're wearing competing
500 watt smiles,
and in spite of my rented
cinnamon-colored tuxedo,
we looked like
a happy couple.

We entered late,
and surprise rippled
through the ballroom
as I entered with a girl
who wasn't from our school
who pretty enough to be
a model,
which, she was.

We danced,
we laughed,
we made small talk
with the popular kids
who play acted at being adults,
and for one evening,
high school wasn't bad.

The prank was
she was just a good friend
and nothing more,
partly because she was
a good Mormon girl,
but mostly because I didn't
light her fire.

So,
for her selfless collusion
in humoring my delusion
to help create the illusion
of my desirability,
I'm forever indebted.

Thanks, Bonnie.

Cripple (For Johnny Masuda)

This world is stocked
with misery and sickness,
suffering pustules
and weepy abscesses
that don’t heal.

We've social leprosy
infectious paranoia
and contagious fear.

Limbs are broken
by greed and distrust,
backs wracked with
painful memories
and regret.

We've gone deaf
from cranking up the volume,
drowning out
all the advertisements
calculated to exploit
the unspoken suspicion
of our innate worthlessness.

We are blinded
by too many things
bronzed in covetous flesh.

We didn't start out
like this
but this world corrupts
perverts and
convinces us
there is no other way.

But I've found my way
out of this madhouse,
one desperate prayer
at a time.

My detractors try
to discourage me
but they speak the truth:

“Christ is a crutch.”

Yeah?
Well, I’m a cripple.

[Posted for Poets Pub at http://dversepoets.com/ -where we are to write on a poet that influenced us to write.  Johnny Masuda was my friend and colleague, in writing and in life. He died last year.  This was based on something he said to me. Rest in peace, brother.]

The Eternal Transaction

The rose,
the flame,
the babe;

these living things
exist
temporarily
and then
pass away
from this plane,

and this
reminds me
to not hold on
too tightly
to that which
I have now,

because
either I will outlive
that which I hold
or it will outlive me;

and this is
the eternal transaction:

freely given,
freely taken,

and what I want
isn't part
of the equation.

Remember Me

“I know your world
is full of
noisy details
and there’s always something
or someone trying
to get your attention,
but, please,
remember me.

When you see
a rose,
breathe in
its sweet scent
and remember me.

If you see
a skating chimpanzee
wearing a tuxedo
and smoking a cigar,
laugh and
remember me.

When you hear
“The Tears of a Clown”
by the Miracles,
remember me.

If you remember me,
then I’ll always
be with you,
alive in your world,
neither gone
nor forgotten.

Remember,
this wasn't my idea,
and don’t blame the
public defender;
we all know
I was framed,
but that doesn't matter
now.

I know
I have to go now,
but,

remember that impossibly
bright summer day
when we went
to Newport Beach,
and we just watched
the waves,
and we breathed in
the sea breeze
until the sun went down?

Well,
thank you
for letting me
love you,

for letting me know
how sweet
it all could be.

I’ll wait for you
on the other side
of that sun.”

Burlesquing My Soul

I started out
wanting to be
a song and dance man,
an entertainer.

I haven't
the hubris
to assume
you'll follow me
down the
rabbit hole
of vague,
inscrutable
imagery and
poetic conceit,
so I just try
to amuse
with the
workman's toolkit of
humor and pathos,
sex and violence.

I need
an audience
for confirmation,
so I'll sing,
dance,
and in desperation,
burlesque my way
into a motley strip tease,
revealing my
naked soul,
every hairy orifice
and unflattering bulge
on freakish display,
hoping you won't
turn away
and find someone else.

I don't write about
the horsetails in Asia,
or a church bell's lonesome tail,
or anything noble
like that;
its most just about
me.

Seemingly, in humility
I don't describe myself
a poet,
but rather a documentarian
and my only subject
is me,

which,
upon reflection,
is hubris
in its purest form.

Masuda is Dead

Masuda is dead

and I am sometimes

caught off guard

knowing that he isn't

in his wheelchair

somewhere I Oregon,

a phone call away.

I mourn because

sometimes I avoided his calls

because I knew he was going

to ask me for money

and how do you say no

to a man with

an incurable illness?

When I was an atheist

he told me I was

one of the most

Christian people he knew.

We went through

graduate school together,

he also wrote poetry

and he was able to crank out

entire books

thanks to the manic part of

his bipolarity.

He was Vince Neal

until 18, when he

accidentally learned

he was adopted

from a Japanese-Norwegian

couple named Masuda.

He was a red-headed

mountain of a man

who loved Jesus

and still considered himself

married, a Catholic,

even though his wife

threw him out

a decade ago

for philandering.

In many ways

he was a cautionary tale,

but he was also

just another broken kid

who wrote brutally honest poetry

about social injustice

about the challenge of the Christ

about getting raped at five years old.

Now

he’s free

from the vasculitis,

from the diabetes,

from the poverty,

from this moribund

life sentence.

The last thing

he told me

was to read

“Ragman and

Other Cries of Faith”

and I told him

I would.

It arrived

months ago,

but I haven’t

opened it,

as if somehow

my reading it

would somehow

close the door

on him forever.

I’ll get to it

someday,

when I’m not so

weepy.

Me and Johnny Masuda, August 2005.

[If you want to buy Johnny's book, I think it's still available at lulu.com .]

My Secret Recipe

Take a beautiful,
unique child
and unfavorably compare him
to everyone else.

Buff out his unfinished edges,
sand off his spiky angles.

Paint him ghastly colors
(because those are the colors
that are on sale),
and dress him not for
aesthetics,
but rather
because they fit
his bulky girth.

Feed him daily
three squares of
shame, guilt and self-loathing.
He’ll balk at first,
but he’ll get used to it.

Make him a bookworm,
call him a sissy,
give them a ringside seat
at the glorious childhoods
of his joyous, unworried
classmates.

[Extra Spicy Option:
Make him Mexican,
but don’t make him
dark-skinned,
that would be
too obvious.
Make him
light skinned
so that he thinks
he’s one of his
white classmates,
until they start
telling Mexican jokes.]

Let this concoction
stew for 15-16 years,
and then
when he’s 5 foot 2
and 210 pounds,
with greasy skin,
an erupting face
and tumbleweed hair,
make him suicidal
after the girl he’s been
writing love poems for,
tells him that she only
likes him as a friend.

But
don’t let him die yet.

No.

Give him
a pen,
some paper,
and the loneliness
he’s known for years,
stretch him into
a full-grown man,
and whisper in his ear:

“It’s ok to be angry.
Now, write.”

Teach him how
to deny
everything he
used to shove
in his mouth
(because he’s so
orally fixated)
and teach him
to begin running
obsessively.

Awaken him
so he can
write his own destiny,
paint his own paradise
and then enter it.

Guide him
through college,
through losing
his virginity
(wherein an angel of mercy
took pity and
deflowered him
a month shy
of his 20th birthday,
just so he could say
he had sex at least once
as a teenager),
through college
and into adulthood,
where he will become
a nervous-stomached,
130 bpm pulse pounding
faceless, over-achieving
college dean.

Then,
he’ll crank out
these poemonologues
to miniscule acclaim,

never really triumphing over
his guilt, shame and self-loathing,

the secret ingredients
in the recipe of his success.

My Lord's Prayer

Lord,
please.

Please help.

Please help me.

Please help us all.

If it be Your will, help, please.

You know what I need,
hear my pleas,

please,

please,

Lord?

Sadie the Cat is Missing Haiku

Dirty gray cotton
threatening, menacing rain;
find a warm place, cat.

For Adults Only: An Incantation

When the tiggle-de-biggles
go bump-bump-bump,
and the mischkel-lee-fishkels
go glump-glump-glump,

don’t look an oopy-dee-doopy in
the eye-yi-yi,
lest your dingle-mack-shmingel
might die-yi-yi!

No, better bratchet your fatchet
with a wee small small-wee,
and don’t fobble your dobble
under the brown globble tree,

just grab your sexi mac-lexi
and squish-up your dish-up,
forgot the blah-lah-ders
and mish-up your frish-up,

by the zizzel of kizzel
I invoke Lord Snapwaggle,
does any of this schmizzel
make you want to persnaggle?

The Leg Man Speaks

“Every leg
I ever worshiped,
from the ankle
on up,
ended
beautifully.”

Love Poem Recipe

1. Decide if you want
it to be
abstract
or representational,
as this will
determine the
poem’s trajectory.

2. Pick three memories
of your beloved
(two obvious ones
and one almost forgotten one),
and set them aside.
Later, scatter them
throughout your work
to suggest
your beloved
has casually become
the center of your
universe.

3. Write something
about your beloved
that you cannot say
about any other person
in the world.
Do not despair,
if necessary,
fabricate something credible
and trust that the person
will grow into that.

4. Make a positive comparison
about one of your partner’s
physical attributes
to something non-physical,
“your lips
hold the promise
of a hundred
Christmas Eves.”

5a. (for men only),
if you must write
about her body parts,
do not use slang
or the anatomically
correct Latin term;
either of these will
kill the mood,
5b. (for women only),
if you must write
about your future plans,
do not mention marriage
or wished-for children;
either of these will
kill the mood.

6. Dump all
these ingredients
into a word processor,
hit the start button.
Turn it off
when your words
begin to look
like mush.

7. Do not present your poem
in calligraphy
or have it center-aligned,
both of which
imply insecurity.
Simple handwriting
or a plain font,
left justified
should suffice.

8. If you realize
that your poem
doesn't adequately
convey the expanse
of your love,
that means

a) congratulations,
you have a love
for the ages! or

b) your poem
needs a rewrite.

A Gentle, Wet Kiss

Gray mist envelopes
the valley,
blessing everything
with a gentle, wet kiss.

This fog
makes everything
soft and beautiful
as if I were driving
through a
soft-focus photograph.

There may be
disappointment and
despair waiting
somewhere in
my day,
and I can’t change that,
but for now,
my heart is near
bursting,
my soul,
silent but electrified,
gliding through the dawn.

My Name Is Buddah Moskowitz (and I Am Funky)

Self-abnegation
brought me to
Buddah Moskowitz.

My teenage plan
was to be a sitcom writer
when I grew up.

Growing up happened
when I realized
there were no sitcom writers
with last names resembling
Reyes or
Martinez or
Garcia or
Ramirez or
Gutierrez or
Torres or
Salas or ...
...you get the picture.

Also,
I didn't look like
anyone in
Hollywoodland,
and I didn't have
the self-confidence,
the flamboyance
to bust out as
the fat freakshow
that I was.

I wanted a name
that would confound
these prejudices
and be all my own,

Q: Why Buddah?

A: Because Judas was
already taken
and I tend to be
a non-dualistic,
non-materialist.

Q: Why Moskowitz?

A: Because even though
there is nothing but
gentile Mexicans
in my lineage,
I know my soul
is Jewish,
plus
I think it looks
very cool.

So, when you see the name
Buddah Moskowitz
do you picture
an overweight 52 year old
Mexican American?

Neither do I,

and I like it
that way.

Anita (April 20, 2015)

I see her
on the treadmill
focused
and determined,
her stride
controlled and
graceful.

I watch her from
the weight machines,
wanting to
catch her eye
but not wanting
to distract her.

Her chestnut hair,
bouncing like
children on a hayride,
makes me smile.

She cannot see
herself
the way I see her,

but she is perfect,

and for her
I will lift a little more
run a little faster,
try a little harder,

and I cannot believe
the good fortune
that she wears my ring.

Mindfulness Exercise

Feel the crush
of the grass
beneath your feet
as you
inhale and exhale.

Take note
of the breeze
how it kisses
your face and
tousles your hair
as you
inhale and exhale.

Witness the
many shades of green
and the blues
in the sky
as you
inhale and exhale.

Be grateful
for every moment
because you know
each one is a miracle
as you
inhale and exhale.

Know these things
are true and remember
life is sweet
even as
you scoop
the dog poop
as you inhale and exhale.

Ocean Haiku

Infinite ocean,

terrifying but soothing;

meekly, I wade in.