images (not feeling very inspired, but images nonetheless)

i create in silence but i see more when i hear music
i see movies, scripts, theater onstage, and dance
i see hands reaching up to the sky and pulling down the stars
cobwebs from the fingers, stars sticking and coming down
a curtain, a canopy, a veil, and beneath is a woman singing
in the dark, dark hair, moving her head to the side,
hands up in "what do i do now" except offer a prayer
without saying a word, the feeling every songstress gets
every dancer feels, with the pulse reaching inside and pulling
the feeling out, and you tap it out, shake it out, and it
falls loose, like the mud pancake hardened by the sun and
turned to dust with one firm knock
like the dust from the dried paint in a can of brushes
dust from cigarettes, dust from powder on the vanity
as the powder sifts from my hand i see
powder from the heights, as you work the moguls
of every kind
nothing is out of your reach
you know how to make something out of nothing
skiing with the ipod, ignoring all consequence
not coming down to sit by the fire, but to take the lift up again
you do not give up but strive to be better
no one knows it is you behind the mask
except maybe me
and i am inspired to paint swaths of green across the walls,
from wall to wall, hills and valleys and countryside
happy you are safe and wanting you to be free
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coke cans lined up like
beer bottles in a college dormitory
when did you start drinking the stuff?
what are you saving them for?
i say you make a tin foil hat out of that
you never know, you.
in your position, really, it might
come in handy
i'm tired of reading your mind anyway,
it's starting to piss me off
this esp thing
so i say you flatten them out into a cone
and see if someone knows something we don't
for halloween you could be the tin man
and i'll be the scarecrow
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do me! do me!
so many ways to take that
okay, i'll do you.
give me something to work with though
hands, writing sample, or an object you like to hold
vitamin deficiency, high sex drive noted by large loops on y's,
and a purple sheep jumping over the moon with a pitcher
of rye and a bent spoon
mean anything to you?
how about just a sheep?
do you know any sheep?
no. okay, a lamb?
no. okay, someone with the last name
"sheep" or "lamb"?
well , let's skip that then
it must have been the pattern on the wallpaper
in the nursery
the rye is what you drink every night
and yes, you lead a flock of sheep and can't sleep at night
not with the baby crying
it's your spoon, from when you were little
and it reminds you of your childhood
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new jersy entering orange
this must be where the turnpikes are?
because all i have seen of jersy is trees and chainlink
a line which separates the garden from the state
eden doesn't have soup lines
the city doesn't have snakes
******************************************************

it's a very large bed she sleeps in
curled up with the sounds of the shore
like a concha shell
muslin rippling
knocking over a silver frame
pen on the desk, unfinished letter
more in common with the wind than a friend
she sees herself in the reflection of the crystal above
grabs the corners of the cover to enfold herself
too tired to crawl undercover
escaping the cold as sand turns under to
escape the surf
***********************************

pattern recognition
frost and the headless horseman
they think they know all about me
cutting the corners
it turns out
i know more about them than they
would like to believe
as if i didn't and don't know
sleeping with the enemy
is playing with fire
some say the world ends in fire
some say it ends in ice
i take my chances, roll the dice
but i've not given up my soul
not to anyone
perhaps someone thinks
my soul can be
sucked out with a leech
but i always know how to take
my medicine
i take the good from the bad
and make something beautiful from
pure evil
it is possible
to play with fire at the glass refinery
to dig in coal at the diamond mine
to love someone who will never love you back
to have faith in someone who has robbed you blind
it is possible to feel one's way in the dark
it is possible to take chances
hoping redemption will tear the nails
out of the armor, the knives out of the back,
the hell out of the holy
******************************************************

christ is right. christ, they said.
something is wrong.
something went terribly wrong
standing still now
absorbing the shock
the tops of the trees are bare
the fruit has fallen
pigeons carry seeds of hope
carriers of the future
dropping them into my lap
i am the writing on the wall
but no one wants to tell me what they know

*******************************************************

i've walked through mind games
with my heart intact
through the minefield
with armies watching
as i was alone
intended to fall when i ignored
the warning signs
with armies watching
as i held a child in my arms
intended to fall from the
isolation and weight
i walked through the minefield
and felt brave
despite the trips and traps
knowing my army was one of angels
and that my archangel
was michael himself
watched my son dying and knew
i wasn't the only witness
screamed, knowing god is a
more reliable witness
than any enemy who claims to know me
or all about me, or have an inside track
why did an angel become jealous of me
i wonder which one was betrothed to another
who fell for me
simply because my head was uncovered
my hair was down and shining
when i walked through the field, i was singing
birds of prey heard my voice
they wanted to sing over me
they can sing now, their hallelujahs and melodies
if they had only realized they were given
the same measure of beauty and gift
they had only to discover themselves
we are each given different talents
some more valued by the world
but all equal in the eyes of god
my head was uncovered when i walked through
the minefield, and through the mind games,
i brought it upon myself
this favor from the sun
*******************************************************

eating crow is not unfashionable
it's the west coast version of chicken
hell hath no fury like a woman scorned
by another woman
********************************************
encantation


pipper, piper, snipper, sniper,
snippet, pippet, packet pyre
talisman entyre me to naught
everything you want you got

i am ready for more
ready for you to break my heart
the way you find a mark
shoot your arrow through me
break my neck and arms and knees
mend me
*********************************************

i do not love you and never could
i wish i were able to see you differently
to feel what you feel
but my selection process, either genetics
is to blame, or fate, is saying no
blame mendel, and his peas, and the recessive
gene of pickiness for giving me an excuse
but i can't think of anything else
take comfort
in the state of the union
with the knowledge i do not get what i want either
and all this rubbish about "it happens
when you least expect it" is simply rubbish
if it were true, i would have met you by now,
my soulmate. you would have found me in the
bathroom, completely absorbed in brushing my
teeth or sitting on the toilet.
hark!
what light through yonder window breaks
it is my very own peeping tom
and i should be thrilled besides
but no, i am chased by one and the other
who i've no interest in
the early morning text "love you" from some
psycho i talked to once, for a half hour, at a gay bar
who isn't just saying, "girlFRIEND" i love you but
still hasn't come to terms with his frank heterosexuality
i get the text from him
after amazing shooting stars come through my window
and wake me up
i draw the line and know where things stand i think
but why is this one possessive of me? when i'm not his
girlfriend? why does he discourage others from being
with me, including his good friends?
am in training to be a mistress? will do, if done right,
and it is possible there is more or less to this
but i despise the way the transvestite with the long nails
tries to take me home with him
after telling me it's "beautiful" that i've never been in love
maybe they all think i need something TOTALLY out of the box
and that a he-she should suit me fine
then tonight, the "what is your type" question again
if i knew, i'd make a list
i used to make lists but they always changed
how the hell do i know what my type is?!
he can't be stupid, boring, a bully, or only interested in
team sports. that's all i know. oh, and maybe not
REALLY REALLY fat, though chubby is okay
depending upon the person
blame mendel and his peas and genetics
for giving me an excuse not to love you
but i cannot and never will
and the pea brain i like to some degree seems
as ill-equipped as i am
to tackle any recessive trait
perhaps this is nature's way of saying,
"we've had enough of your kind, young lady"
someone decided to make me fickle and choosy
and yet still interested in being cared for and loved
leave me alone enough and then be available
don't embarrass me and then don't bore me
i can't have my cake and eat it too
unless i have it in secret maybe
maybe only then could i have it at all
"i think you're bullshitting yourself"
someone said to me tonight
he said i have all this "guilt" stuff and i
don't remember telling him about any of it
like that's what's holding me back in life?
what am i too guilty to do, that i should do, that
i would enjoy and benefit from?
this man tonight, so so nice and i hope will be
a friend
but the twisted hand of...it's not fate anymore...
it's just pure evolution or devolution
has screwed up the chances for happiness once again
i felt two people watching me today, before i saw them
i turned around and i was right
how can i be gifted with instincts like this
and be so cold and unrelenting?
what's so beautiful about being a virgin to love
when you're this damn old
when you've met so many men and never felt a
match was right
it is easier to be penetrated by flesh than by love
and since i don't know what it's supposed to look like
yet, why should i take a chance?
i practice safe love, or safe lust, my heart
sealed.
it doesn't seem wrong. it seems like common sense.
my type is whatever my genes and pheromones have
decided is attractive, which is out of my control
my mind makes the final selection and cut
my heart doesn't get involved in the decision-making process
trust must be earned
and yet look at all those people from one relationship
to the next, seeming so happy or content enough
and even falling in love
"i'm so in love!"
first of all, falling in love is a mutual thing, in my opinion
to fall alone is infatuation
to fall with someone while holding hands
is falling in love
if i could help it, i would. it's not that i think i'm
"all that" or better than anybody. it's that i can't
help but pick apart or be turned off or bored out of my mind
or not attracted, or embarrassed to be seen in public
so i have to compartmentalize
i try to give everything i've got, in that moment
and then i shut it down
open for breakfast
serving eggs alone