The Mistake

Noi viviamo sommersi nel fondo
d'un pelago d'aria
(We live submerged at the bottom
of an ocean of air.)

--Evangelista Torricelli

I knew immediately
you were a mistake
that I had been tricked
as had your birth mother before me
into something I should have resisted
but for desperation
for a home, for love
and a cosmic error--
and a malady, not a melody
as might be the autocorrect
version of this story. 

An illustrated version
of why some believe that evil
is created at the point
the infinite meets the finite.
Autotune your way out
of that one
on your way out. You will find
your exit
more graceful than your
entrance but equally
as excruciating

But your mathematics were so beautiful
your poetry an acquired taste
I was fooled into thinking
that your soul must match--
unfortunately this turned out to be true
a predator always
shows his colors in the end

Neither the fullness of emptiness
where the divine is easily
found through simple
machinations in equal measure
to the complicated
but the emptiness
of a black hole
at your core
the coldness of deep space
inverted at the plane
where a star goes to die
because it had nowhere to hide

I think of you with indifference now
it took great courage
and came at great cost

and what helped the most
was that it impeded you not at all
and yet you held on
to something that had been mine
after I had thrown everything
of yours I could away.

Seagull

What have you learned Seagull?
Have you learned how to love the wind
and rolling sea
or do you weary of your freedom
storms blowing--
of survival. Do you fly alone?

Do you tire of your role as Symbol
of Christ
of sacrifice
of loss and pain

mistaken for an Albatross
a weary evangelist
flying nest-to-nest-to-nest
instead of door to door

water wearing away
your resistance over time
washing over you
without a marker or sign.

Suffering through More Suffrage

Suffering Through More Suffrage

10/10/2020

Back in 2013 two friends who shared

An October birthday put an ad in the Classified section

Of Poetry Magazine calling for like-minded

Women to form a political action group

That wanted to change the world—

Again.

They were living in a homeless shelter

And took up a collection from their meager means

To purchase the ad and changing the world

Gave them something to do between

Dinner chores

Bathroom duty

Housing search

Hopeless job interviews

Recovering from addictions and battering

By husbands, boyfriends and society

Being raped and thrown from vans

Naked and high into Stop n Shop parking lots at 3am

One woman actually saying these words

Well if you put yourself in that situation—

Someone read a statistic in a local paper

That stated Female registered voters outnumbered

Male registered voters 2 to 1 and 20% of male voters

Will vote for female politicians

Regardless of their preferences, politics,

Policies or character. Armed

With only their passion and this misinformation

They decided to take over the government

Of the most powerful country in the world.

In the beginning they drew up fliers with only scrap paper,

Crayons, and glue as this was all they possessed.

They evangelized on buses, at church, and

At the railroad station. Somehow the word caught on.

At first a nebulous crowd formed by word-of-mouth

In unused public spaces bringing women

From all walks of life—businesswomen, housewives,

Homeless, activists reliving their glory days

Of student protests in the 1960’s and the

Occupy movement of the early 21^st century

But this time slowly a clear leader emerged

From the mist willing to take the heat

Even with kids at home and a husband

Who allowed her to do whatever she wanted

As long as dinner was on the table by 5

And his needs were met.

Finally they had a candidate

And it took 7 years but they eventually took over

The government but another less idealistic

More opportunistic group

Rose to challenge them and stole the election

In Florida and won and instead of reform

Of corrupt social programs and systems

They abolished them altogether

Threw adulteress women in jail for life

Shouting Jez- e – bel! Jez- e – bel! Go to hell!

Made abortion illegal and thousands

Of women unequipped for motherhood

Became burdened with unwanted, unexpected babies.

Children were forced into homeschool camps

Surrounded by barbed wire and 7 Seals

And we have gone back to an age of ignorance

And repression no one alive can remember.

Found on old newsprint

Riverhead County Correctional Center

Worker Bee

Worker Bee

You have been here a month

lying on your back, unburied--
legs raised skyward

blackened, mummified

fallen, mid-flight, wings intact
upon a shroud—a faded yellow

tablecloth. Smothered by imitation

blackened eyed susans

on the raised platform

of the deck, hidden from the sky

under the protection of the overhang

your divine purpose

a single drop of honey,

your entire life’s work

crystallized beside you

fossilized to amber gold

gleaming in the sunlight

Pyrrhic Victory

Pyrrhic Victory

What you see on the surface

a jail sentence

abject poverty

obfuscate

my recent 

we shall overcome

moment

considering myself a political prisoner

doesn't counter the traumatic

ongoing experience

of my son's father

waging a war of loyalty

when countering my petition

for therapeutic visitation

with my teenage son

ravaged by years of war

with a willful violation 

of child support

unjustly assessed

hiring a shark

in a pink fitted suit

with barbie icon on her pocketbook

to annhilate my requests

for mediation

reconciliation

to save his own sorry ass

I gave him a hug

at our first session

I did that for my son

who I desperately hope

I can save

Iris

Iris

  after Jamie Abatella's painting

  bj spoke gallery 9.14.12

crucial texture

fluid conflict

crowded posture
amnial parenthesis
ceremonial offering
fledgling boundaries
passion trembling

Epistle from the Collateral Damage

Epistle from the Collateral Damage

I took it personally
that you diminished me.
Shooting me from a loving place
doesn't make me any more alive
or feed my family.

Your cause, the greater good
boundaries
stuff
nonsense
are not for me when
the sacrifice
is me.

My limbs, organs, eyes, ears, nose, throat, heart
my beautiful still fresh umbilical cord
my fledgling philosophies
my provincial views
of life and art were mine.

At least with a vengeful God
I knew where I stood.

In killing me
making me a martyr
you have planted seeds 
of your own destruction

Christ died for the sins of others
self-made martyrs
often play this game.

Your therapist told you
that you always have a choice.
Yet none of this was mine

I was innocent of dictators
and mutilators in this life--

I will get you in the next until one of us
finally gives in.