oh father where art thou; cause mum ain't far behind

I think of word clatter and wheelchair meditation
an amorphous time not filled with anything other than breathing; his mine at some point yours
when you aren't so busy with your baskets of tasks nor distracted by the sum of your anger
when you're free to let him drift and freer to join him
funny cause with a bit of breathing room, he stays right with you
funny cause your slumps your disappearances are just like his

and when all is said he comes back more readily than do you

is bert on the train

he hadn't looked like those earlier photos for a very long time
living way past his prime
it was some pantomime
nudging the ridiculous and the sublime
sharing the table top his hand in mine...can I get you some coffee, is bert on this train I cancelled the trip did you see dad bigger shot bigger shit abegezundt c'est la vie I've been working on a paper about sex differences and IQ is dvora here did you get any coffee there weren't any differences that we could find were you there when mother died...

the bleak foothills of her heart...

mentis lost paradise long gone
she goes with her lips set at pursed; shucking and nagging

how was he today
what did he say
I don't play I stay out of the fray I far prefer the gray
and appreciate that sleeping dogs lay
he'd made plenty of hay
there are no more dragons to slay

not one to delay
he'd have his say
rubadubdub thanks for the grub
goddamn it! It better be good

hey diddle diddle the cat and the fiddle
give the poor man some rest

...gave way to the escarpment

the widow goldberg the widow marcuse

body memories of anxiety age old and not up to date dusty as bubbe's kisses dry as zayde's bones yet demanding attention response carefulness...the sound of her voice the graze of her look the demand of her touch...I gave her the mother's day card made with crayons and construction paper that shrieked in reds and blacks if you don't love me I'll kill you but 50 years later I see it came from her this sense of blackmail this sense of desperation this sense of love me or else

the widow black

stories

her lapses unlike his are not in time or space but of person as if the light dissipated and the beam moved to illuminate some one some thing other as if center stage had shifted and left her high and lonely
her lapses unlike his are not of rhythm or timing not of cadence but of person as if the animus turned tail
he muses ruminates says or not
she plans&plots her next move greedily as if air starved gasping grasping starved to tell the any her story over again

and being eighty-two is only part of the history

yet it was under her tutelage that I became me the center of a universe but never at her knee naches fun de kinder but never once home made cookies most important but never once picked up from school; grown up from the start and thankfully, as the words go "younger than that now"

a mother unlike any other
trusted beyond her reach left to explore the world stumbling flying mistaking mastering outliving but not outrunning anxiety hers mine

at least she had guts enough to stick it out

my father choosing to kill himself instead of run the gauntlet

who's who

the irony is that it was the surviving parent who'd lost credibility in the face of the sainted-parent who'd died so though it was MotherG who lived and made sure we safely crossed the desert, she seemed the imposter...it was FatherG who'd stolen my heart & FatherM who'd earned my respect and thatdirtyword my love
so Ma forgive my shortsightedness and thanks for your tenacity and presence of mind & for not dying all of a sudden

for not testing my potions&charms which I was sure were what had kept you safe, even if in my mind, not sound.

brown and yellow fog green wind strewn leave litter sky gray against the slate day muddy hillside running rivulets into stream fed river rampaging out to sea spray brown and yellow fog green wind swept wave swells high tide tea and crumpets secrets and strumpets cats in and out in and out rain tormented wind blown chasing fragments the yarn unfolding

candle bright starlight damp to the bone I come in out of the cold brown and yellow fog green wind strewn leave litter face wet rain tears running rivulets not sad heart overflowing

messes kitchen floor

what a day!

tapestry

tucked into the storm
raging

leaves fly sand shifts

poetry is kinetic walls moveable heart transforms
wisdom is age life is growth
change is definite

entropy is chaos hollow indifference
purposelessness inactivity
not waves not wind or immorality
godlessness
not passion

decaying disappointment
spiritless
lack lust er

I wrote my last will & testament
in the sand
I live my life without remorse everafter a bore the neverafter intrigues me more;
permanence a trick a shoddy step-sister stand in

practice the chords she'd said & get off your thumb
invaluable advice for playing the Moonlight Sonata
or moving off the whinedream

bio's blurbs and o'bits

ack some of the hardest stuff to write self reflecrive description other reflective praise and seduction and sanctified diaphanous descriptive praise honestly come by dishonest honesty honest saccharin self serving servings mouth size sound memory bites wow
reviews as an honest day's work...

judigee virgo par excellence pain in the ass cofounder PenHouseInk a guild of wise women in relentless pursuit of creativity whose poetry shortstories and wordsnapshots can be found hither and yon
lisa aych fearlessly lyrical tackling the queenmother scullerymaidslut in all of us
michaeltee bigger than life ubiquitous dreamer reverand rampant reviler reveler

salutations
I'm going to quit she says again as a tease as a sidling gesture as an act of engagement no different than throwing stones or saying hello or fuck you. Fine thank you I say no longer baffled as if plugged into the universal translator. Familiarity contempt rolled into one we smile and hug glad just the same to see one another. Neither fox nor foul never here always shucking ducking two-step jiving, hard to go from there. Damned if I do damned if I won't; but truth be told hello are you is not what you see either.

I want to know what you think she says as an act of intimacy now that the other is gone now that her flank is unprotected now that possibility rears it's inconvenient head. Fine thankyou I say and you? settling into my chair, coffee in hand. She runs her hand through her hair, licks her lips cants her chin. I trust your opinion she hisses. The gauntlet laid bare. What does she know of honesty, she colors it red keeping it under lock and key pulling it out like my granny gertie did chocolates or my bubbe chana did favors

Habits as provocative as memory as sex as peeves. Den mother knowitall pushy princessheiressgoddesswithambience hard to give up for knowing better...fact is, mawkish flattery unbecoming itches just the same. Older now, old dogs learning new tricks able, I'm less inclined to the point&click outbursts of pubescence or the early stage of coalescence and I did give up fix-it-all for discretion. Valor comes in lots of flavors. So I sit coffee in hand, nodding with interest my counsel intact, conversation in passing not to be mistaken for blessing or friendship.
Twelve years later we still have little to talk about.

Voyeur vicarious thrill seeker... what I want to say to her is goddamnit if you're not willing to do your own feelings why the hell play dress up in someone elses? The round-robin perversion of expectations is in fact just that: taking someone more seriously than they take themselves, doing there share of the work, taking their responsibility robbing them of blameworthiness of effectiveness of voice...and giving up our meagre sense of self in the process, mistaking the shapes.
Bullies using slight of hand and being master of blind man's bluff...for all my pomp&circumstance I still get got

fall colors; evening

leafless trees recapitulate the silver gray light
sky pinks same as my fingertips
tule fog spreads inland
dampens

bare tree color not gray not silver not brown slate gray fall red not blood red yellow sister to orange cousin to brown
greens bleeding
decay
the horizon flattens the sky broadens and I'm reminded of montanna so busy is this landscape in spring the sky gets tangled in the trees

there is a waning hush the changing shape of my heart lightens fall light fall evening light the sky's rapture cheeks pink

season set sun set

slack tide

the color of fall has changed my point of view bottom line is change one way or another as in perpetuity is change as in it's change which is unchanging and violent change as violent violence inert static violent as process as in counteracting entropy entropy decay as in energy not available

love as destructive; preliminary to

got it walking the shoreline feet just below the surface of the water holes left under my feet as the sand shifted with the waves slipping back to the moon's tune brown gold spirals sunlight captured along the sandy ridges

love as change

follow the line the grail is the chase--
if she's never happy and you never do anything well enough
no matter what you do will not change either of those operative conditions
so why would you consider her setpoint as the mark
it's wasteful & dishonest and it defaces your aesthetics and your values--sinful yes, in the purist truest sense--the mark missed

she's got your point&click down and she's got you as long as you chase the toy but
she loses nothing and you lose everything and your grail goes missing for another go round...

see, she doesn't care

happily ever after is the nonsense of spring the single mindedness of optimism & romance (to have a love affair with) by definition unattainable

love is the chaos, the travel, the deconstruction, the precursor, the clearing of...fall
it is an agent
it is a way a path a tao--like there's no way to peace; peace is the way--
a chord an element a season a tide a wind
it is a time and it is kinetic cyclic undulating
it is not secure once found
it is not benign not encapsulated
it is momentum
it upsets your footing recalibrates the compass

anxiety as entropy
chaotic energy not availiable for use
as inert encapsulated
asin not love
as self loathing
ohmygod

any passion as precursor

yellow orange red
yellow brown green

flesh as frail
his flesh was frail doctor didn't save him, as in being the doctor not only didn't save him...

it's the worst of patrimony the worst of patronizing to rob someone of accountability & blameworthiness
it is same as--equal to--losing and giving up ones voice; one can have no real right without equal responsibility
as in you don't count

I'm sick of excuses; currency is doing the time

humanness our humanness is all we've got the best that we've got it is the sum total of the christly and the godly if there are laurels to rest on those are the ones it is elegant in its simplicity and the wiles and guiles shed it is the proof of the pudding and love is where your humanness and my humanness touch mingle and change the world change the day change the shape of the sky yesterday I was glad to have been one of the elders pleased to know all there was to do was simply be human

frailty embarrasses us or frightens us or pleases us depending on our trajectory our tangent depending on our way like sadness it demands skills we don't often use honestly ah the cart is before the horse barn door shut after the horse is gone frailty like sadness poignant like a forest for the trees is hard to see stripped of its bangles so we send canaries down mineshafts and add scent to gas that would otherwise kill us for the not being able to discern it

he stood there before us going wrong stock still disappearing into a bodily betrayal

being a doctor didn't save her either, human not always on the curriculum not always in the job description not always valued not always in the tool bag (never in the bag is the trick) and so already we have forgotten in this time of hysteria and warfooting the lessons hard come-by--not revenge but community–blazing guns and glory, boots on dying, is I'm afraid boys will be boys and who can piss furthest is the wrong question the wrong paradigm and yet another device which masks our frailty

it is not frailty which will be our undoing, oh my

the rest of it is that we are our best and our worst; individually & collectively and in the end, the sum will be: I (generically) can be no better than you; that (group) wisdom of--we can't go faster or be better than the weakest link and for the want of a 15¢ piece the ship goes down

and so (for the third time) she cried rape everyone knew it was patently false and the poor bugger was still fingerprinted investigated and otherwise blackballed & redlisted
for our part we kept her on strict watch

the more so to protect ourselves

liar liar pants on fire!
the hen is in the foxhouse raising cain and karma being what it is she in the end will hopefully be eaten by the damn wolf and human frailty being what it is we will I'm afraid, watch gleefully, but dang!
today is another one of those days it is good I'm not the leader
discretion is undermined--hey! I'm only human and can whine and visualize not peace but violence with the best of them

shit! the rock rolled down the hill again

sisyphus buddy here I come

oh, when will we ever learn

so there is a season turn turn turn & there is a burned-in protective sense of not dumping the buffer before the material is on paper as in writers can't just willy nilly clear their brains before the raw goods are harvested...so the work done, yesterday with a clear conscience I got in the water; nice fall day fog blew over lots of organized white water moby ocean liner rides (well he was the ocean liner riding) time to think so I stood up a couple of times; still a player not a surfer but getting there; these simple pleasures

not talking about it part 1

how's the kid I asked, not an unreasonable question since I was there when he started coming unpleated, since his pleats were coming undone as he stood in front of me, since we were humans in the same space&time as he'd started losing his pleats and not unreasonably directed at her since she'd been there with us
WE'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO TALK ABOUT IT! she shrieked as if I'd lanced some boil WE'RE SUPPOSED TO DIRECT ALL QUESTIONS TO DR WHICHWAYTHEWINDBLOWS she said not able to disentangle herself get away from me quickly enough

part 2

truth be told I laid in wait for the good drwhichwaythewindblows and he blew this way and that with more aplomb than drgaveupherwits I'd have to give him that but oh my goodness folks there's an art here to not talking about it especially given that IT happened and was participated in and witnessed by a whole host of people who are not simply vicarious thrill seekers in querying afterward and who should not be rendered impudent by dismissive patronizing answers especially if the intended outcome is to have the now getting bigger instead of smaller IT disappear

part 3

so had the good drgavaeupherwits simply said, wow thanks for your help the other day he's doing ok and the confidentiality issues have gotten a bit dicey...I would have could have felt it slip away and been done with it I mean that's part of the culture part of privacy part of every one gets their due and no little bits of dust flare up and I wouldn't then even notice anything amiss, like when you look at your watch and can't remember what time it was because you were more interested in what time it wasn't

part 4

so see now how what could have been a simple come and go question answer come and gone be done with it greeting with no prurience whatsoever has turned into an unfolding drama and they might just as well have posted a goddamned bulletin fucking board that said hey gang we lost another one he just plain nutted up dang and everyone loses all the way around...cause it wasn't any big deal starting out and now I've lost respect for everyone involved...anyway just to say lipservice withstanding his depleation (heh) was apparently intolerable
ain't that nuts!

part 5

honesty is not simply not lying and it depends on rules on courtesies on civility on interpersonal graces
there's an art to visibility and invisibility in plain sight
an art to directness a gift to knowing what all the fuss would be about and knowing the differences
honesty is not always telling the truth
the grace is in retaining ones vaules and ones humanness
I'm embarrassed to have been party to any of it

poor asshole had a bad day is all and as a bunch we didn't stand for anything at all,
certainly not what we tout