Orange

Let me tell you this

Even if it’s the last thing I say to you

This is not an orange.

This is an experience

Orange orange orange

Complete.

I peel through and

hidden under translucent skin

Wet with cold water

I bite into it

Lord, more orange flows down my chin…

Another bite

Who said you had to peel them apart?

Chew and spit

while thinking of a prince who wouldn’t laugh.

Curse of the citrons,

Morgana your underpants are a hoot.

A childhood story.

I bite in

Chew, spit, swallow

There is a feeling of waterfalls

and endlessness

there is electricity and hope.

Then again, this orange

Will be over soon

Morgana you enchantress

My hands will be empty

Savor savor

There is a funeral march beginning in italy

king of clubs, your son laughs no more

your imaginary kingdom in ruins

I hide away the mangled mess

as you walk in a tight tee across my car

followed by a girl half your size…

orange dripping down my chin

I leave off a small belch

and stare at a dirty ashtray.

embarrassed you look away

Write you must, you said

What should I write about?

Oranges for all I care…

But, write you must.

in love

I am in love with Dali.

in love with the man

who will not let me burn

no matter how I try to fight him

he paints with my ashes 

with the lick of his paint brush. 

I am in love with bukowski

the man who told me the heart roars like a lion

at what they’ve done to us at what they’ve

yet to do to us. is there any difference?

I am in love with shakespeare

the man who saw how ridiculous we are

and laughed at the tragedy, wept at the comedy

I am in love with vonnegut.

with tolstoy.

with nabokov.

I am in love with salinger because

god knows

they won’t love me back and isn’t

that the beauty of it?

I am in love with edgar allen poe

I like the way they say he died on the park bench

the empty vodka bottle to his side

the hollowness of it echoing my loneliness

i like to tell myself I loved these people

because they understood me 

but they do not know me.

i know me.

i like to think i do.

…

…

…

unbecoming.

while we brave the world greeting it with "Hello" and "Am okay" we sometimes reach such desperate solitude that we may cross a boundary beyond which words cannot serve, and at such moments there is nothing left to say but simply Bark. In desperate times we growl and bark and let our robot faces rust. 

You

Tennyson said “If I had a flower for each time I thought of you…I would walk through my garden forever” I sit here staring at my computer screen and I wonder if you are thinking of me at the same time as I fondly move my curser over your name.

What would happen then?

Would a star fall out of the sky to tell me so? Would the hair on my arm awake in agreement? Would my gut gently nudge me to gather my attention? Or would you just pop out like a Jack in the box and call my name?

Yes…

Farewell

I found a loose slab of stone outside the department store.

I tossed it aside and began to dig; the earth was

soft and caved in easy, soon I was in to my

waist. Size 34;

A crowd gathered but stepped back

before my screaming lungs and

canon ball like shots of mud.

and by the time the cops came, I was in below

my head,

Frightening crawlers, eels, and finding bits of golden

inlaid skull,

and they asked me, are you looking for oil, treasure,

gold, the end of China? Are you looking for love, God

a lost key chain? And shoppers dropped keys and peered

into my darkness, and a psychiatrist came

and a

high school teacher and a size zero movie star in a bikini and

a Russian spy and a Jihadi bomber and a Chinese soldier,

and a drama critic and my accountant, a leather jacket clad old boyfriend,

and they all asked  me,

what are you looking for?

and soon it began to rain…submarines changed course,

Bukowski rolled in his sleep, and my hole filled

with water; I came out black as the night, shooting stars

and epitaphs, my pockets full of beautiful worms,

and they took me in, gently nudging me toward a shower

and a nice cell, rent-free, and

I hear people picketing in my cause,

I have signed contracts to sell my words

I have signed contracts to appear on stage

I have vowed to vote for a better government

I have enough money to last me several years at the best hotels.

But as soon as I get out of here,

I am going to find me another loose slab of stone and begin to dig

dig, dig and this time I am not coming back….rain, shine or leather jackets.

Yet, they keep asking, why did you do it?

I pour me another bourbon and smile. 

Constantly, slightly drunk

Sometimes I want to scream, so I try. I open my mouth; clench my eyes shut and I try to throw that scream, that blood curdling, and gut-wrenching scream. Instead, all I can make is a noise, not loud, not a whimper but a pitiful sound. A sound that mocks my effort at bashful screaming. Next, I decide perhaps if I were to break something, do what most people do when they are angry or sad or helpless. I pick up my globe like metal ashtray and point it to the mirror and I think all right, this is it. I am going to take this ashtry and swing it to the mirror and watch my reflection shatter to pieces. That should explain how I feel. I will leave a physical evidence of my mental condition, accompanied with a noise, visual to see after, if am lucky I might accidently snip a finger or bruise. Something that I can nurture and make better, in that process my mind too will perhaps heal. I see myself thinking this through too much and then the mess, who will clean up the mess? Shattered pieces of glass, do I wear a glove to pick the larger pieces before I sweep the smaller one’s out. How will I explain it to the people I live with, it can’t be an accident, I wouldn’t want them worrying about me, or say “do you need to be so dramatic?” or “Have you lost your mind?”  That must be it, I must’ve lost my mind to think a scream or general disruptive behavior is cure to how I feel. I see a trickle of water streaming down my eyes now, this can’t be, and do I let it stream down or wipe it? Do I find a way to stop this; perhaps if I stand under the shower, it would all mingle in, water to water and not much of a mess to deal with. Its sorted now, I’ll take a deep breath, empty out my ashtray and take a shower.  All of this should be normal. People take deep breaths all the time, ashtrays are cleaned and showers stream down your skin.

Confession

and some people are a grand waste of your time
and some people not worth the words
there is a reason they leave so early
a reason why you never bump into them
a reason why you should never make that attempt
a reason why they pass you by the other door
a reason why you will never notice them at an arm's distance
a reason why you will forget all of the above and chase an object of desire
a reason why the world is full of beautiful things
a reason why its only fair to be distracted.