The scent of raspberries is Forbidden

The scent of raspberries
is Forbidden

But for me, the smell of the apartment hallway
evokes
the faint gas from a hundred cooking stoves
all burning turkeys and potatoes

I don't smile at the janitor wearing a red knit cap
carrying a leaking black garbage bag down the hall.
past the blue door leading to the stairs

because the sound of fear
the sound rushing through my ears
waiting for the elevator
deafens me

The sound of fear at each shudder of the wind hitting the window
in the room the size of a closet
blinds me
Then I see
His eyes at night black are this early morning, a simple molasses brown

On having two dreams

I dreamed last night of being a lark
and then I was to be Pope.

asja

she dreams of snails and grey cats
she dreams of mice and generals

the little lieutenant who flew through the door
her wings made of yellow scrambled butterflies
a nose of powdered yellow fluff

the little captain who rushes out to
sit for hours in the grass
dreams of blue mice
and the dancing wings of grasshoppers
bouncing through the crabgrass into the open door
down the hall

bad poetry

Here I sit writing bad poetry
While reading Shelley’s Ode To The West Wind
I write of the end of
a love gone
like a deck of playing cards, that was tossed up in the air.
Shattered in the air.
The eye of the queen of spades lands by my foot
The jack of hearts lands in his eye.

It is the end of love.

It is the time of parting.

I cling to the car door.
My fingernails digging in the metal.
Etching the finest of impressions.
In the background
I hear laughter,
a choir of broken glass and frozen birds,
when the midnight sun touches my left eye

And so, I spin in my chair from the window to the desk to record
More bad poetry.

spiders

Love comes from out of the corners
a spider who
can no longer make
a web
silver threads
broken
trailing in bits behind her

An abstraction
this spider
her web
a mosaic drawn upon the window pane


Drawn as he says good bye
As she walked down the corridor
8 am
the threads of the carpet so low so worn one flat surface
she goes sliding to the elevator


Every night
she dreams the same dream
spider fingers crawl down her neck
resting on her shoulder


Every night
She draws the same
spider on a paper
waiting for his message

for days

For days now, I have been trying to write the perfect love poem
one that would include the love that was
those sweet kisses from the boy who I met backstage, who I still hold in my heart
those heart stopping kisses from the man whose green rimmed brown eyes freeze my breath
the biting kisses from the cinnamon-eyed man who holds my heart, with a dark passion that is not unlike the power of Quetzalcoatl
and the unknown kisses from the man I have not yet met, whose kisses will last forever, last as long as the dark stars in the autumn sky

lies

“What does a lie do?” she asks, leaning over the edge of the train station bench.

“It rips open your soul, and leaves a smooth edge, which can never be stitched back together,” she replies to herself.

I look over.

Is she speaking to me?

The lies that have come thundering through my life of late have left more than one tear, more than one tear that can never be healed. The edges never quite meet. The scar rips open before it is healed. The lies have ripped my eyes open to the complexity of the human soul. What is a truth is now a lie. What is a lie becomes the rocky foundation for a truth. The lies that were truths become demons in the middle of the night, rocking me awake.

Should I ask her why I am the perfect target for lies?

She seems wise, this woman wearing a pale blue cardigan, and a smooth strand of pearls. I look at her closely. Her eyes, grey green, reflect not the beautiful blue of her sweater but a sadness. I look closely. She looks hundreds of years old suddenly, as she looks up and smiles at me. Her head tipped back, the eyes radiate a flash of awareness, a certainty that the human race has so much further to go. She looks downward at her short fingernails, the cuticles worn and torn. They look familiar. Her hands stroke her pearl necklace, slowly worrying each pearl.

I look down at my hands.

My hands are hers. My eyes are hers. I am thousands of years old. And I still don’t understand these lies.

dragonfly and leaves

After that first kiss, which took my breath,
turned into
a tangle of leaves:

the darkest autumn leaves under the shower of yellow and red.

Then, the acid yellowing pine needles
slowly etched
a nervous network into my heart.

The dark brittle dead leaves
shattered under foot
falling to pieces
under your touch

I watch a dragonfly
Self-immolate in the light
outside the door
where you stand
so casually looking at the night.

For J.

The day you kissed me on the street was the day you took my breath away. Literally.

The second that you took my face in your hand and turned my mouth to yours, my heart stopped for a minute.

But I began having trouble breathing before that moment. It started when you put your hand on the small of my back to guide me around the rushing tide.

I swallowed hard.

Then that first kiss left me completely breathless. When you asked how it was, I could only say nothing because I wanted another kiss so that I could breathe again.

The street around us disappeared. I have no idea who walked past us. I was blacking out from desire. From lack of oxygen. From meeting you.

And so it goes on still. Your eyes are these magic colors of hazel nut brown and green. When you look at me, I forget what I am thinking.

But when I think of you, it is the night we had the chairs outside on the grass, and you talked to me with your beautiful lilting voice. The world disappeared around us but for the cool air. I would have sat there until dawn.

Alas, you had to leave. And in the leave taking, again my breath disappears for a moment. A moment longer each time you take leave.

wave goodbye

The good bye is like the sea
That endlessly tosses the shells crashing onto the rocks:
A splinter here, a splinter there.

I wave good bye,
This single flat wave
From the palm of my hand, ice blue.

Once the man, who walks this beach, could pour this sea water into a glass
hand it to me
And I would believe it was the most rare of wines.

Now the water
I see is gritty with dust and dirt.
Now I see the water is bitter with salt.

Now I throw the glass to the rocks
Shattering the dream into a million shards,
Which vanish upward into the green-gray sea foam.

no poet

No poet
who saw the poor widow
down the street
Ever offered her candy

Or roses
from his balcony

this poor widow,
You see,
was not really a widow

She wore long black stockings
Her method was severe

He smelled of milk
milk from his daughter's breakfast
milk that had spilled
from her blue cereal bowl
she thought of him as through this haze of milk

Her method was severe to
hide the beating of her heart
which stopped frequently
when she saw him
walking past with his daughter


She cobbled together a life
from Bette Davis films
flowers from the grocery store
a bag of candy
a collection of dolls
for his daughter

but no poet ever offered
her his heart