Table of Contents

poetry

(the passionate stuff)

performance art

(10/7/17 show “In Autumn, Love is in the Air”
at the Bahá’í Faith Center in Austin)

prose

(the meat & potatoes stuff)

Faces

i won’t be lost to your nightmares

won’t surrender
i am who i am
there is no
reason for me to
be ashamed or apologize,
and you should look
in the mirror
before i call the pot black;
i am not that same
little girl
paralyzed in pain and fear
of the consequences of
your rage—
i know you thought one day
that i would see you were right,
but all i can see was
you were cruel;
starved for love
what i really needed was a father
you instead gave me a monster
who bullied me worst
than the kids at my school
who made me cry so many oceans
into existence it’s a wonder
that i didn’t drown—
now that i have found my voice
i won’t be lost to the wailing, howling
wind no matter how many
of your nightmares still wake me
i am goddess;
won’t surrender my divinity or my light
to any darkness.

Linda M. Crate Bio

    Linda M. Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville. Her poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. She has three published chapbooks: A Mermaid Crashing Into Dawn (Fowlpox Press - June 2013) and Less Than A Man (The Camel Saloon - January 2014), and If Tomorrow Never Comes (Scars Publications, August 2016). Her fantasy novel Blood & Magic was published in March 2015. The second novel of this series Dragons & Magic was published in October 2015. Her third novel Centaurs & Magic was published November 2016.

you won’t bully me

just because i am quiet
doesn’t mean i don’t have words
just because i’m shy
doesn’t make me your doormat
i won’t let you walk
all over me
or sweep the floor with my body
stop speaking over me
i have not expired
this isn’t my funeral,
and i have as much right to feel and speak as any
of you;
so don’t think you are clever
because i’ll take the cleaver to that
thought right away
for you that would be a difficult endeavor,
and i won’t be dismayed to sever these ties;
i don’t know what you think
binds us—
in the garden of my life i will pull any weeds
that come in the way of my dreams,
and this kingdom is mine;
so i won’t let you kick me in the face
demanding i kiss your
feet
because firstly i hate feet, and secondly you’re
not that important,
your power in my kingdom is null and void
so don’t let the door hit you on your way out
or allow it to if you wish
that decision is your own—
but you won’t bully me
any longer.

Linda M. Crate Bio

    Linda M. Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville. Her poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. She has three published chapbooks: A Mermaid Crashing Into Dawn (Fowlpox Press - June 2013) and Less Than A Man (The Camel Saloon - January 2014), and If Tomorrow Never Comes (Scars Publications, August 2016). Her fantasy novel Blood & Magic was published in March 2015. The second novel of this series Dragons & Magic was published in October 2015. Her third novel Centaurs & Magic was published November 2016.

i’m not single but i’ll never be yours

“are you single? are you single? are you single?”
searched for my phone to tell you what time
it was,
and you insisted once more,
“are you single?”
no, i answered, cold and confident;
i don’t have a man in my life right now but i don’t
need nor want you
pretty bad i need to lie to a stranger to feel safe

just wanted to walk home from work
without some weirdo bothering me
i don’t know why you think you’re entitled to
a stranger just because you find something about
them attractive
i am a girl who works hard and has both
ambitions and dreams
don’t need someone like you only looking for a good time
to walk into my life so feel free to always walk away—

a new co-worker and i were just discussing
if there were any good men left in this world,
and then i had to happen across a monster like you
pretending to be anything like human;
you walked away when i said i had someone
i only felt safe when you were gone
don’t know why you thought you were entitled
to a stranger, but you’re not, even if she’s single.

Linda M. Crate Bio

    Linda M. Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville. Her poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. She has three published chapbooks: A Mermaid Crashing Into Dawn (Fowlpox Press - June 2013) and Less Than A Man (The Camel Saloon - January 2014), and If Tomorrow Never Comes (Scars Publications, August 2016). Her fantasy novel Blood & Magic was published in March 2015. The second novel of this series Dragons & Magic was published in October 2015. Her third novel Centaurs & Magic was published November 2016.

living skin

you know we live
in a messed up world
when a perfect stranger
thinks it’s right or appropriate
to approach a woman
walking home from
night shift
asking her if she’s single only
leaving her alone
when she answers no
simply to feel safe,
and i don’t know what he was
thinking walking so close to me
as if i wasn’t going to feel his presence
behind me;
my coat was on and hood was up
so i can only assume
he thought of me as an object
of his immediate sexual gratification—
guess again!
i will never be that girl who
succumbs to the need and desires of others
i have so many dreams and ambitions
that i put on the back burner to keep others happy
now is my time to shine,
and i will burn every nightmare and monster
pretending to breath in the living skin of humanity.

Linda M. Crate Bio

    Linda M. Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville. Her poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. She has three published chapbooks: A Mermaid Crashing Into Dawn (Fowlpox Press - June 2013) and Less Than A Man (The Camel Saloon - January 2014), and If Tomorrow Never Comes (Scars Publications, August 2016). Her fantasy novel Blood & Magic was published in March 2015. The second novel of this series Dragons & Magic was published in October 2015. Her third novel Centaurs & Magic was published November 2016.

Dark

After finishing off your bottle of wine,
and smashed on your ass, you confided in me
a divulgence you’d later wish you hadn’t.

That night in Bristol I became a keeper of secrets.

I can still see your tears, Georgia.
the hidden you emerged
and in dark portrayal you spilled it all.

I believed in something
like an ‘us’ and so did you.
We made a pact, but ours was a relationship
codependent to the rafters; doomed from the start.

We were more than
fuck buddies- we were friends,
kindred in many ways, but the soul.

Two intimate junkies;
two addicts trying to shake a habit,
clinging to each other- like it just may work,
but you were betrayed too many times;
the first being the victim
of something monstrous- shamed by the evil
that some men do.

The story unfolded- a haunting blackness,
that yet resides entrenched in your heart,
and plagues your dreams and waking hours,
still.

At age eleven,
following your brother’s, then your mother’s death,
years of horror and brutality followed.
Your protector, that incestuous fuck
you called Daddy
had an appetite for his daughters.

At long last,
after six years in adolescent desperation,
you ran for your life;
broke the binds that held you captive,
...or so you wished.

That night of reveal you likewise
wept for a fragile sister,
your ill- fated, 14 year old stand-in.
who just 15 months later
killed herself.

You condemn yourself still
for her suicide.
Yours and hers; a violence kept secret;
two childhoods brutally stripped,
stolen by the ultimate perversion.

My anger raged at Daddy’s impropriety;
his lack of moral restraint or principle,
and abuse of that marvelous privilege
of being a parent.

I raged inside over your step mother’s
sanction in denial.
I felt your pain-
dwelt for a moment in your heart;
a horrifying place to live.

My response was hard- wanting vengeance
for you- your sister, and for me...

Then and there, I made a somber decision.
I offered to execute him.
I wanted more than anything,
to make that inhuman thing
pay the ultimate of costs...

Through running mascara I saw your reaction,
your expression said it all; one of absolute hatred.
You looked dangerous.
Another personality took your place.

You pulled away violently,
were abhorred at my suggestion,
spittle and revulsion erupted from your mouth.
Eyes narrowed, your index finger in my face
then clawing at my face, drawing blood.

Yes, you laid it all down that summer night
for me and all of our neighbors.
All that I needed to hear,
see, and feel,
was before me; a view of our future.

You stood to her feet-
head slowly turning, side to side,
a snarl crossed your lips- through your teeth it came.
“You mother Fuck - How dare you - He’s Still my Father!”

Grabbing the keys to my car,
cigarettes, pocketbook, the last of the vodka,
you flew out the door.
I followed- apologized, and let you rant
as we trotted down three flights of stairs.
The tenant on the first opened her door
warned that she was going call the cops,
and she did.
They arrived ten minutes after you left.

Jumping into the driver’s seat,
you fired up the motor
followed by a grinding of gears.

Behind closed windows and locked doors
you flashed me the “Fuck You” finger,
popped the clutch, and squealed the tires.

You were gone...

In the days that followed I was dumbfounded,
feeling pathetic.
A week later I was back shooting heroin.

You stayed away for 3 weeks, but on the 23rd day,
I heard my car pull in the drive.
There you were on my doorstep
looking beat down and staring at your feet.
Tears rolled down your pale cheeks.
You begged forgiveness.

With an ailing heart, I welcomed you back,
no questions asked.
Within a year it was over between us.

A year after our living nightmare
I found myself downtown,
straightening out an old court matter
and found out from my friend, Danny
as I left the courtroom.
He told that after you left that first night,
it was to the bed of another you sped.
The same bastard, who you insisted,
had forced you into prostituting 14 years prior.

...there I was, beseeching a vacant universe
for your return; all the while;
feeling guilt ridden- low down
then back on the shit;
one night even contemplating suicide,
and there you were screwing another guy-
and once again tricking,
paying for both yours, and his,
drug habits.

Addiction was bigger than both of us,
we had to do it on our own,
or at least I had to,
but we both promised at the beginning,
no regrets.

Following our break- up I checked into rehab,
followed by a brutal self examination,
sojourned there for seven months and graduated.

I eventually went back to school.
Three and a half years later,
I was rewarded with a bachelors degree.

You on the other hand, gravitated back to the streets,
caught up once again;
continuing as before, except on this run,
you contracted HIV.

Yet still,
the gorilla back on your back
remains a beast you still can’t tame.
These days you conduct yourself
as though we’re strangers, but then again,
you eventually shun anyone who gets too close.
The risk too great...

Your father’s crime was appalling.
A diseased man to be eradicated from the planet;
your heart and mind,
but I believe you hold on to that willingly-
blaming all your troubles in life on it- on him,
never seeming to understand
the part you play in healing-
corralling your habit, kicking the dope,
and taking responsibility for your actions.

Instead, you’d rather sit in your own shit
and complain about the stink,
all the while laying on well scripted excuses
of lies and deceit- to anyone who’ll listen.

You’re toxic...

I see your life as a black and blue canvas
with corrupt boundaries,
undefined and smeared in obscurity-
one short on feel or meaning.
A life without compassion or integrity.

Last week Sue and I saw you standing on a corner,
handing out leaflets- you and Simone.
There you were, my broken girl,
on Weybosset Street and Empire,
hand delivering salvation and spreading the gospel
for a fly by night church
in the Hispanic section of South Providence,
one led by a preacher I knew from years past
while doing a bid for felony possession.

A intimidating operator; Rueben was out on parole
armed with a certificate of completion
from a mail order prison ministry.
These credentials for his God
he acquired doing a 19 year stretch
for murdering his X and a life long friend.
Killed them both as the two lay in bed sleeping,
a particularly brutal double homicide,
both dispatched by Pastor Reuben,
hacked them with a machete,
cut off his one time amigo’s dick,
stuffing it in what was left of his X’s mouth.
This reformed and anointed felon
set up his church in South Providence.

I visited there
in a renovated tenement basement
with uncomfortable folding chairs,
the nauseating smell of Lysol permeated the air
of his devil’s den for the needy.
Old negro gospel music resounded
from an outdated Panasonic cassette player.
From a rafter, behind a makeshift stage and pulpit,
hung the dead savior, fastened to a wooden cross.

Imagine you- handing out leaflets for that charlatan,
advocating for a savior you weep to- believe in,
always when it’s too late.

So, there I stood with Susan;
both of us watching your show.
Heard you granting false promises to passersby;
promises guaranteed by 5,000 year old prophecies
and basement preachers.
I wouldn’t have doubted your sincerity
if I didn’t know you.

That day you were handing out salvation
we walked up on you and Simone.
You acted as though you didn’t know me-
looked straight through me.

Why cringe when we meet?
Why so much hate, Georgia?
No need concealing the dagger,
we know each other well enough.

This wasn’t the first time
I’d witnessed these conversions.
Jails and rehabs are chock full of them.
I imagined that the whole street corner thing
came naturally to both you and Simone.

Word on the street; you were still tricking,
but there you were,
selling deception- endeavoring to lay guilt trips on folks
while harvesting their halleluiah money.

We; you and I, that is,
know better, don’t we?

Sue told me she’d recently seen you
copping dope over in Central Falls,
buying from my old dealer, Angel.
Had with you, that piece of garbage, Bruno.
I grudgingly listened to my friends words.
It felt like getting punched in the stomach;
didn’t want to hear it- but I know it’s true.

Then, a few weeks ago
because my car was in the shop
I had to go to the city;
was riding the bus taking in the scene.
the old stomping grounds was there before me;
so grateful I’d not returned,
and there you were.

I saw you first hand, flagging cars on Elmwood.
In a curly blonde wig, heavy red lipstick,
wearing a bright red and white, plastic mini skirt.
Your cheeks looked like a Raggedy Ann’s;
a rag doll in cat eye make up.

I sadly passed by and shook my head.
Your shadow world; its entire existence,
is born in the fantastic;
a life short on the imperative-
an excess of futility.

Old friend,
your counterfeit prayers are carried on the breeze.
The salvation you seek- is where you look not;
truth, is found somewhere within,
that which is hidden behind the deceit.

Illusion yet carries you away- beyond reach and earshot
of any gold trumpets blown by sympathetic angels.

Fly far and fast, Georgia.
For the love of everything contrary,
find a reason to live.
For I see in your face only death...

You know it’s true.
Don’t hack at me out of anger;
I’m just the messenger.

Sure,
call me a hypocrite- an asshole,
remind me of my past
and shove it down my throat,
but I speak from the heart;
that life is over.

Get it together Georgia-
your world is so critically fucked.
Don’t pass on the lifeboat simply because,
you don’t care for its color.
Don’t bludgeon me because I’m a reminder
of everything you wish to be- or forget.

My world isn’t perfect by any means;
yes, you’re quick to point that out- cut me to the quick,
but at least I’m trying.
It all starts with surrender.
Your mind-set and choices may chill my heart.

But I still care enough to bother...

The Med Student

Why am i nervous
Of this woman sitting across
From me?
Petite, hiding behind glasses
Who would be considered unspectacular
By most
Yet, somehow got my attention
This woman, plain as daylight
Easily, half my size, like a leaf
Nonchalantly, sat at my table
Her face is undistinguished
Blank and cold
Yet, there is something extraordinary
About her ordinariness
She’s a miracle packaged
As a routine, a
Revelation in plain sight
An angel dressed in plain jane
Clothes

What Did He Expect?

God. many believe, made us
in “His image and likeness”,
(or so I was taught in
Catholic grammar school).

But he didn’t really.
He built some “fuck-up”
into us and then had us
populate through incest.
That was a good recipe
for real success!

He gave Adam & Eve everything
— including curiosity and then
pointed out an apple and said
“Dont eat it.”
What did he expect?

He gave men cocks
and women cunts
and built in a hunger
to use them .. and
then proscribed how,
when, and with who
they could be used.
What did he expect?

He demolished two
towns for “immoral
behavior” and told
a group not to turn
around and look.
What did he expect?

God told us to love
each other and worship
Him – and then gave
different rules to different
groups, letting each think
that they had the truth.
— Don’t eat pork
— Don’t eat beef
— Keep holy Friday
— Keep holy Saturday
— Keep holy Sunday
— Jesus Christ was God
— Jesus Christ wasn’t God
— The Pope is God’s Representative
— The Pope is the Devil’s Whore
— Mohammad is God’s Prophet
— Mohammad was a con man
— Don’t say My Holy Name
— Use My Name Often In Prayer
and so the zealots killed (and
continue to kill) each other.
What did He expect?

And now less and less
educated people say
that they believe in Him!
What did He expect?

Stand-Up Guy

In my old neighborhood
One of the highest compliments
To a person was that
He was a “stand-up guy”.

That meant that
If he were your friend
He was there for you
He “had your back”
-- on a basketball court
-- on a football field
-- in a bar
-- on the street

He didn’t have to be
-- tough
-- strong
-- a good fighter
but
-- he didn’t run
-- he was there for you

Never have we had
More stand-up guys
Than in World War II
Our “Greatest Generation”

After WWII
We thought that we
Had beaten antisemitism
Yet Americans marched
In Charlottesville
Under Nazi flags

Part of the American Dream
Was the “Melting Pot”
Yet today there are
People in our country
Who demean American citizens
Who are
-- Muslim
-- Jewish
-- Hispanic
-- Black

We need more
Stand-up guys

Why do You Love Me

You wore a necklace with planet Earth hanging from it
That jingled like a wind chime in a light breeze when you walked
Your earrings each a silver sphere with a hoop around each one

I said you look like a solar system
Planet Earth, two Saturn hanging from you ears
No, Neptune
The hoops are vertical like Neptune’s not flat like Saturn’s

Your eyes are like stars in the deep dark...

Neptune is blue when seen through a telescope, she said
And these are silver

But when the naked eye looks out at Neptune
It appears silver in the night sky, I said
Like your earrings

Neptune is the only planet that cannot be seen
With the naked eye, she said
It is six times dimmer than the dimmest star
Which means its many times brighter than you...

Tell me again...
Why do you love me?

Detroit-A Precis

In 1956,
foreign observers
were international students.

In 2016,
foreign observers
are forensic pathologists.

The Culture Vulture
Meets The Serial Smartass

The Culture Vulture
and The Serial Smartass
screened a famous sex-tape
featuring Kim Kardashian
to see it was boring.

For Sunday dinner,
the perpetual jokers
drove to Trump’s steakhouse,
tried the Cowboy Steak
to see if it was tasteless.

Altered States

Once he discovered his mind was
a sensory deprivation tank, everything
in life became clear. History was a
downhill race against the fluidity of
time dissolving the world as it went,
each piece removed another link in
a chain that leads nowhere. Sometimes
it was like waking up in a David Lynch
designed interior room in a house of
the dead, all those red curtains, and mind
bending patterns on the carpet, just another
signal that portal from one world to
the next ends in a locked glass box in
a Beckett play that has yet to be written.
Sometimes it was more like Dostoevsky,
House of the Dead, stiff, frozen bodies
on wooden platform beds, the living huddled
against those no longer here, trying to preserve
what warmth they could find not knowing
the vision was of the future: part Kafka,
part Stalin, with an overture by Wagner
that made the politics seem less horrible than
what they were. Sometimes he felt himself
transported to the veldt, sticky with sweat and blood,
leeches clinging to the folds of night as if it
were skin, sucking the blood from life so that
the moon was always full, and pale, and the tides
rose to such an extent, only mariners who knew
the true meaning of dead reckoning could
find their way home. Once inside the
self-containing box, images recoiled like
celluloid nightmares, each frame destined
for a cutting room floor, the one where a butcher
waits with scissors and a knife.

Faces

“When you’re strange,
faces come out in the rain.”
                       Jim Morrison

Portrait galleries with empty wall
spaces, frames left for missing faces,
the grotesque and the deformed,
the ancient and the decayed, beauty,
once it has been sullied by perdition.
Faces without titles, names,
disembodied in dream state nowhere.
Voices they spoke with, that challenged
them, rebuked and reviled, guttural
tongue ripped out, useless, and the horror
stories they might have told.
Plastic surgeries that alter nothing,
a marriage of form and substance leading
nowhere.
Atrocities committed in the name of love,
all the outtakes from a cutting room floor
that never develop, all the images that refuse
to cohere, pain exhibitions, wonderment
and bereavement, streets filled with crocodiles,
all the similes for the worst thing imaginable;
actual humans with no souls.
The end of reason.
Art for Art’s sake, illness as metaphor,
this, all of it, a fable for modern times,
that story no one survives.

Cat People

He had the kind of face that
suggested he’d never been underage.
A badly set broken nose and perpetually
blackened eyes will do that for you.
Hung in bars with pool table back
rooms where band members played
eight ball and got righteously ripped
while look-alike clone punks played
their gig across town in low lit clubs
to whacked out Clockwork Orange
extras living up to their self-styled
images of droogs on acid.
A few fireball shooters with schooners
of high test German beers and he’s
an alt-right crusader, ready to do battle
with anyone slightly off-color or vaguely
vertical and able to swing first and not ask
questions later. Occasional women
found him alluring in a sordid kind of
masochist, role playing, fantasy kind of
way. What followed was the stuff of
legend, that if written down would make
Juliette or, vice amply rewarded seem
tame by comparison. Seem like a script
for your Aunt Julia’s telenovelas slated
to be serialized on After Dark channels
on subscription only cable TV.
Interactions like these involved public places,
unique otherworldly settings, the odd zoo
for heightened effect, that gave new meaning
to the concept of one night stand.
These kinds of encounters of the bawdy
kind led to severe memory gaps, lost
hours, even days, that reappeared like
bad acid flashbacks involving a stolen
classic sports car, disturbing U-turns against
traffic, police cars, and helicopters on your
ass, but no solid evidence of how the chases
ended or even if they were real. Often
there were marks, fresh wounds, beneath
rent clothes like long scratch marks on his back
that might turn septic. Sometimes they did,
sometimes they did not. It all depended
on their origin: human....animal...both...neither....

Her Broken Body

There was a slurred speech in her voice,
its sound shifting frantically in the empty
air, its mechanics losing its taste, like an old
woman in a hospital bed.

I stared at her broken body in the silent room,
searching for the spark inside her soul, letting
my existence drift into the inner world of her heart,
letting the pain in her eyes seep into my life.

I followed her unsynchronized steps to its sudden stop,
my eyes focused on the tears trickling down her somber face,
her hands trembling at her twisting hips. I could hear the teethbiting
crowding the air, how it echoed in my ears and down the shadowed halls,
the way it conflicted my thoughts, the way the sound seemed to curl in towards
my chest.

I covered my ears, but I could still hear the reverberating verbs trapped inside my mind,
dark and sinking, cold and shattering, a painful cry pounding my brain. A wave of shock
ran down the back of my spine, more intensifying than a splintering blade, as I studied
her featureless frame, the smell of death lingering in the atmosphere.

I looked outside at the fallen leaves from oak trees, its dull, diminishing hue a reflection
of a lost angel detached from her dimension, like a sunken star. I leaned next to the
window and inhaled the chalky taste of the smoky trees, not much of a lifeline, slowly
drowning in despair. I turned back facing the girl, as her depiction became a blood scarlet scene,
slowly fading into nothing at all, every breath of its existence crashing off course.

The Pain That Never Fades Away

I stare across the horizon at the branches falling from the stripped trees,
its nakedness and flaws visible to the world,
its mirroring depiction cast upon my existence.
There’s a silence in the air that surrounds my soul and these winter trees,
while the cool breeze grows cooler and the beating rain begins to fall in our sight.
The sky is grey and sinking and the landscape is chilly and shifting.
All the words between me and the barren trees have vanished,
drifting away to an undeserted place slammed shut.
I inhale the icy winds whipping through my sunken face,
letting it sift in deep into my drowned heart,
until I can understand the pain that never fades away.

Former vs latter

Whom would you consider bad?
With what bias would you blame?
When someone scathes heart and soul.
Felon is decried, branded
But sufferer loses his
grievances against offender
When the worst mortal aggrieves.

Harjeet Singh bio

    Harjeet Singh is an Indian English poet and short story writer. He is post graduate in English from his district college Hoshiarpur (Punjab). Punjabi is his mother tongue and regional language. Hindi is his national language. His father Principal “Joginder Singh” was an ardent lover of English language and his guidelines have made him able to grasp some of the fundamentals of this language. His work has appeared in Conceit magazine, Children Chruches & Daddies magazine, Literary yard, Indian ruminations, Scarlet leaf review, Creativity webzine and other magazines. He is the denizen of district Hoshiarpur (Punjab).

My Girlfriend had been Raped by Bikers

My girlfriend had been raped by bikers
It made her into the gentle, sensitive, loving soul
I wish someone would do the same-for the bikers.

A Big Clear Out

Towels are the things
which will survive us.

Shirts will remind us.

Suits and coats
will remain after us.

So many things,
to which will be added
just the dust
into which we change.

At the Table

An infirmary of flowers of the field
in a vase.
So many of the white
that the blood inside our veins stiffens.

Thus we wither together
torn away from
life.

I am crying you, morning

Behind the horizon the light is spraying.
The sky trembles like a tear.
The winged summer wilts.
Through the algae a lonesome dew slides.

Trees hold empty nests in their hands.
I quietly sing birds psalms.
In the empty night, empty star is falling.
Empty gaze of water is still cloudy.

I read an exclamation of silence
and drink the morning blood stream aloud.
The morning is taking deep breaths.

With its soft palms of the hands,
the haze crumbles poems.
Heart’ls beating is not quieter.
Unbelievable sobs, like as if it was dead.

Mirrors After Nightfall

Somewhere it’s lit up
as if a misty memory
lights up in me
about the origin of the cosmos.
You smell of the flowers
whose petals
snowed our bodies
to annoy every kind
of communal service.
Your eyes in spite of directives
shine irresponsibly in the dark
as if they reflected the dim light
of insignificant explosions in the sky.
Intoxicating you made me lose my mind
and clear conscience
at variance with the law
on the struggle against alcoholism
and toximania.

For you
I’m illegally drunk forever.
Until today you’ve stopped my breathing with desire
at the most inappropriate moments.
You explode within me
like an export explosive
freeing the energy
of fruit pips.
You pulse in my veins
persistent as piercing light.

Through the permanent breaking
of traffic laws
we will be convicted forever
by an unextinguishable fire in my blood
in the back window
of your eyes.

No Matter the Question. The Answer is Love

What do you do when those closest to you don’t seem to believe you
Don’t support you in the way you imagined, needed, wanted...
Counted on them to
You wouldn’t want to blame them just because they are men
Nor excuse them
You just want to love them
But-yet-you just wanted-
But you didn’t get
Is it still the perfect gift?
No matter the question-The answers IS Love
And Love IS a Verb
How do you respond to Rape with Love?
How do you respond to your father, your brother,
Your family-those designed to protect you-
Don’t believe you-support you-
How do you respond to this dynamic with Love?
I pray. For Help. Omakiye. Makakejelo-Unchimayelo
Take pity on me-have compassion on me
I do not know how to answer to this with Love
Because I am angry with men I thought I could count on
A community I thought I could count on
A prayer still waiting to be answered
These skulls do not belong to me
But I will drag them if it will set me free.

Free Speech Canto XLIX

Washington Post headline 1891
(almost forty years after her death):

“She was a Holy Terror
Her Pen was as Venomous
as a Rattlesnake’s Fangs”

She
was Anne Royall, who in 1829
in United States v. Royall
was convicted of the common-law offense
of bei zpn offense only females could be convicted of,
for objecting to the blurring between church and state
when a religious group was granted use
of government property,
for cursing those attempting to convert her,
for writing “The missionaries have thrown off the mask”
wanting mankind “to shut his eyes against the truth”

The Latin phrase communis rixatrix
is usually translated as common scold,
and the judge in her trial found her to be
“a common scold and disturber of the peace”
found that she “did annoy and disturb
the good people of the United States”
with her “sundry wicked sayings . . .
and various outrages upon
the peace and harmony of society”

For her ‘offense’ she was fined $10
and required to post a $250 security
to insure her ‘good’ behavior for a year

Her fine was paid by two fellow reporters,
the security by three government officials,
including a Cabinet member

She remains as of now the last person
to be convicted of that ‘common-law’ offense

Free Speech Canto LI

Comstockery redux

The prime tenet of his theocracy
was expressed by a politician supporter
(though not so succinctly) as
better dead than sexed before marriage

(There is no irony in a theocracy, either:
in order to protect public morals
the organization appropriated $500
“to aid in the passage through the Legislature . . .
a bill against Obscene Literature”
such a bill was being held up
awaiting such greasing)

And
his theocracy made a mockery
of not only the First Amendment,
but several others as well:
first
seizing, and then destroying,
all manner of visual media
(cards, photographs, etc.)
that offended his sensibilities
and thus violated the law
And such destruction took place
no matter the outcome of the case:
cases with guilty verdicts,
cases with not-guilty verdicts,
cases not even brought to trial,
were all treated the same,
and
such treatment took place with the tacit approval
of the legally-constituted authorities
local, state, and federal

you and me and your girlfriend

we went out for drinks together
you and me and your girlfriend
to a restaurant in Malibu
with a balcony that hung over the water

had a perfectly lovely time
you and me and your girlfriend
talking about life, catching up
and you suggested that we go out on the balcony

and I thought that would be charming
for you and me and your girlfriend
but we hadn’t paid our bill yet
so your girlfriend told us to go on without her

we stood outside, leaned on the rail
you and me
listened to the water crash on the rocks
below us and we talked

but now it was not about catching up
you and me
it was about ideas, dreams, plans
and before I knew it we were out there

for nearly an hour, and I said,
“what about your girlfriend?”
she was waiting for us all that time
and you said, “oh, yeah” and didn’t move an inch

The Way You Tease Me

What I think I like the most about you
is the way you always leave me wanting more.
When you kiss me, and we start to pull back
I want to cock my head and kiss you again
but I never know if you’ll let me.

What I think I like the most about you
is the way you roll your sultry deep voice over me
like a wave of heat on a summer afternoon.
You use a pause to tease me with your words
until sweat dances down my hairline and tickles me neck.

What I think I like the most about you
is the way you slide your arms around my waist
and make me just want to collapse in your grasp
and run my hands up and down your back
until I hear you moan and sigh.

What I think I like the most about you
is the way that absence makes the heart grow fonder
and when we touch you say we should take it slow,
take our time, enjoy every moment
and you know, you couldn’t be more right.

What I think I like the most about you
are the things that make me think I have to fight for you
are the things that make me second guess myself
because nothing’s ever easy, not you, not me,
not relationships, not sex, not love.

What I think I like the most about you
is the wondering, is the waiting, is the teasing.
That’s what I like. This high-charged guessing game.
The flirting. The first touch. The first everything.
Thinking about the possibilities. Yeah. That’s what I like.

Looking for a Worthy Adversary
(an extreme sestina variation)

I’ve been looking for a worthy adversary
someone I can lock horns with —
though my life makes more sense when I’m alone
it’s not nearly as interesting

alone, it’s not nearly as intreesting,
so I look for a worthy adversary
someone I can battle to the death with
because it can’t be about love, you see
love can’t exist on the terms I demand
it’s never that pure

what I demand is never that purse,
as I’m looking for a worthy adversary
I slither up to you like a snake
and I tempt you with a golden apple

I tempt you with that golden apple
but all I’m offering you
is fruit from the tree of knowledge

this snake gives you the tree of knowledge
because all this time I’ve been playing a part
an actress on stage, spouting lines on cue
but that role was tiresome,
those lights came on night after night
and I still had to play my part

I played my part
until my night off, where I saw your show
your protagonist was doing what I was doing
right down to faking it with those who don’t matter
right down to going home and still feeling empty

I play my part, I still feel empty
but I liked to see your boiling underneath
no one else could see

I know what that emotion really means

when I know what that emotion really means
I wonder if we can get together
and write our own play

if we wrote our own play,
it would be a masterful performance
curtains would close,
we’d hold each other’s hands
as we leave the stage
and the audience would know there’s a happy ending

when I know there’s a happy ending
I walk out on to the set
and there you stand, in front, stage left
I wait for my cue to make my move
none of the rest of the scene matters

if the rest of the scene doesn’t really matter,
I wonder if the audience would see what we have...
maybe they’d like our little play,
maybe they wouldn’t
who really cares

who really cares
because after I tempted you
you now tempt me and tease me and torment me
and tell me everything I was afraid to believe

I was afraid to believe
and now you talk,
you reach your hand into my brain
and pull out my thoughts
and shove them into your mouth
and spit them back at me

you spit my thoughts back at me again
and instead of filling me with terror
it fills me with joy

it fills me with joy
because I thought I’d lock horns
with that worthy adversary —
but now every day is like Valentine’s Day,
it’s like candy and flowers and springtime
and hearts and cupids and sunshine

and these cliches are beginning to make sense

no longer locking horns,
and everything making sense,
I stand here like a statue
after the performance of our lifetime
and wait for the reviews

as I wait for the reviews
I wonder what they’ll say
though none of it matters

none of it matters
because I know what you are going to say
it’s everything that I’ve always wanted to say

all I ever wanted to say
is now you, taking my thoughts again
and shoving them into your mouth again
and spitting them back at me again
so I will wait for you to come on stage again
where we have our happy ending
and you tell me what I already know

Sepia Leaves

Never before in my life
have I needed to water a tree.
But here I am,
bringing buckets of water out
every couple of days
so my “mighty oak”
will be a healthy tree,
filled with colorful leaves
at the changing seasons.

Granted, my “mighty oak”
is about three feet tall,
it was the only “tree”
on the property we bought,
but okay, I’ll water it.

And maybe when
no one else’s tree leaves
transform through vibrant colors
for a month before
Autumn turns to Winter
in this semi-arid town,
maybe then I can smile
at my three foot tall
“mighty oak”,
the only tree I’ve got,
as I reach down
to touch the golden
and sepia leaves
at the top of my tree.

And I’m Wondering

I’m wondering if there’s something
chemical that brings people together,
something that brings people to their
knees, somethings that sucks them in

And I’m wondering if you’re sensing what I’m
sensing, is it just me, am I making this up
in my head, or when I glance up and catch your
eyes, well, are you actually staring at me

And I’m wondering if it could work out this
time, if we’d have one of those relationships
that no one ever doubts, especially us,
because we know we’ll always be in love

And I’m wondering if you’d find
my neurotic pet-peeves charming
like how I hate it when someone touches
my belly because I’m so self conscious

And I’m wondering why you had to tell me
when we happened to be sitting next to each
other that the fact that our legs were almost
touching was making your heart race

And I’m wondering why I felt the need
to take your cigarette and inhale, exhale
while the filter was still warm from
your lips, there just seconds before

And I’m wondering if a year or two from now,
after we’ve been going out and should have
gotten to the point where we are bored with
each other and sink into a comfortable rut

if you saw me making macaroni and cheese
in the kitchen using margarine and water
because I’m out of milk and I’ve got my hair
pulled back and strands are falling into my

eyes and I’m wearing an oversized button-down
denim shirt and nothing else, well, what
I’m wondering is if you would see me
like this and still think I was sexy

When I glance up and catch your eyes from
across the room, when I see your eyes dart
away, when I feel this chemical reaction, well,
it makes me wonder if you can feel it too

Marry you
in Autumn

When I fell in love for real
he then said to me,

I want to marry you

I want to marry you
in Autumn
when the leaves are changing
when the weather is perfect

I felt the enchanting
changing season

this is now our transformation

when he said to me,

I want to marry you
in Autumn

Just By Holding His Hand
(extreme 2016 sestina variation)

when we’re walking down the street in stride
and our feet pump out the same rhythm
and our shoulders are almost touching
and our hands seem to brush up against
and along each other for one brief moment

in that one brief moment, our hands almost touch
and he reaches over and takes my hand
he slides his fingers around my hand
and I feel him move along my palm to my fingers

when he moves along my palm to my fingers
no one knows what it feels like then
when his fingers curl and hold me tight
well, it feels like... pop rocks

you know when it feels like pop rocks
that candy is sliding down your throat
after you let it explode on your tongue
and it’s tingling, oh, you know that feeling
and no one else is eating these pop rocks
and no one knows that tingling feeling
and this is my little secret

and I love keeping this little secret
when I feel this feeling like never before
and it makes me want to laugh and cry
because when I look around the room
I know no one else is eating those pop rocks
and no one knows the feeling when he’s holding my hand

no one knows the feeling when he’s holding my hand
it’s like candy and cupids and hearts and sunshine
and all those generic symbols of love
that never explain it just right

words can never explain it just right,
it’s catching your breath, falling from an airplane
it’s climbing a mountain, it’s standing on a glacier,
it’s following dolphins, it’s swimming with sharks
it’s turning your head and seeing those fingers
interlocked with yours as you’re walking in stride

because then and there, walking in stride
you think of those pop rocks, tingling down your throat
but now this feeling hits all of your nerves
because pop rocks never felt like this

and now nothing has ever felt like this
it’s in all of your muscles and all of your nerves
and now you want to hold on for your life
you now feel something you’ve never felt before
all
      just by holding his hand