Relationship

Pronto? (Hello?)

Inspired by Robert Rossellini’s film L’Amore

Cold water on lips

Eating, sleeping, why?

Exotic hell in the mirror

Black phone on white pillow

Eyes broken listen

Expectantly

Disheveled hours of waiting

It rings

A storm on a trembling mouth

“I told you not to speak; I’d accept anything.”

“You sound distant, how strange.”

“Hearts and stars, I can see with my ears.”

The Reply

I heard the returning

In a temporary thing

Heard it trespass

As keenly

As your steps

I heard a song

Come back to me

On the wind

I heard the stanza

It comes and goes

I heard a window open

I heard a heart

A beating of life

I heard a strange evening

And someone say

Say something

I heard silence

When Angie Speaks

When Angie speaks

It’s not words I hear

It’s the clack of a pool ball mouth

When Angie speaks

It’s the burn of whiskey on a dry throat

It’s crushed cigarettes

Buried deep in the sand

On some Corpus Christi beach

When Angie speaks

I hear agony in Texas grit

Nightmares exploding in her mind

When Angie speaks

I hear her head bashed in

I hear her feet

Wildly trampling over the grass

When Angie speaks

With lowered eyes

I hear caskets shut

I hear the flowers cry

I hear Angie’s joy die

It’s not words I hear

When Angie speaks

Ruined Sonata

Back then

You’d be writing and humming

It was sort of beautiful

Now a stab in the heart

I’m not far from

Every night

Every door

Every light switch

Every staircase

Not far from despair

You always kept to yourself

Didn’t you?

Everyone could see it

Your defenseless confusion

But still I loved you

Would break for you

Which no one can explain such things

Can they?

The morning has left bags under my eyes

Just like that time in Paris

Where we took the lift to that apartment

With the cocktails and the music and the madness

You ripped my dress in the street afterwards

A drizzle of rain came down

I knew how coldness felt right then

A ruined sonata

And we just start again

Don’t we?

Hot blooded couple

Who smile

When it’s over

Lie about what really happened

When asked

For Jack Albee He could sling the funniest sarcastic observations, but he was never cruel. He called our mutual friend Steve Berman, The Maniacal Crayon, Steve, an artist, had his art doodles stuck all over the walls of his Hollywood apartment. And I mean, there wasn’t even any space left to stick on a wad of gum. Albee was a member of the Albee theater family. He was a mime, an artist, a prankster, and one of the most in-the-moment people I have ever known. Jack would come up from LA to see me in Northern California, and we would spend the day in Sausalito. Jack introduced me to the Renaissance Faire, where he used to perform in his younger years. Jack Albee, my friend, I dedicate this poem to you.

He’s a Troubled Maker

It’s time for Joyce

And Joyce is time

For Ireland

My own mind

Honesty-certainty

And Dubliners

Is doubling

Doppelt

Doble

Duppio

Double

It’s time for William’s will

Deliver

Liver

Ah it’s time for Bergman

And hypersensitivity

Hyper-viper

Flashback of Katrina’s

And then there’s Albee

Not Edward—not that one own

But he knew dirty Gertie

That’s what they called her

He’s a troubled maker

Breathe

Greif and pain and grief and pain and grief and pain

And grief and pain and grief and death and pain

And grief and death and grief and pain and grief and death and pain and grief and death and you are coming through the sound system. Breathe, breathe baby breathe, breathe baby breathe

I hear your spirit through the acoustical tiles at the Houndstooth Pub on 8^th Ave.

I hear your message in the song

Breathe breathe

“breathe, baby breathe”

It weaves its way barely audible

Floating between conversations

And over

And above the TV

but I hear you

I hear you I hear you I hear you I hear you

And grief and death and pain

Where did you go?

For Tim

It is the way I am and the way I was
taking in our loud silence in a car
with the leaves of autumn on the floormat
reading about the life of a contemporary voice

I am found sitting up
You were hoping for an encore
That I might push you out there and introduce you
But all I could think was what a prison I am in with you
In the morning when the sunlight closed 
Behind the arboretum of trees
The air 
I couldn’t even breathe

I’m disappointed that you can live
Live with the darkness beside the freeway
“Extinguished you mean?”
In every direction!
You laugh on asphalt

I would be blind if I could not ever touch you
Over the hot dessert
Upon something tiny and insignificant
And when I hid my eyes
I knew who I was
The sky forbidding change
Completely comprehending the end
Which fell on its knees
From nowhere in delighted joyful smiles