quiet poem

quiet poem

its just too quiet in here

for some emptiness is fullness
for some emptiness is just emptiness

but it turns out that its both filled
with joy and pain in equal measure

but that's what's intended

and you
are a bluebird
that always lives
in someone else's backyard
singing

and you always fly away
when i try to make you mine

Young Widow

Young Widow

I sat myself firmly

at the steel, round-topped table

bolted to the floor we shared

once at Riverhead jail.

I chose the empty seat

directly opposite the bully on purpose

who proclaimed proudly that

My Mom can beat the crap

out of anybody! And by the looks

of the daughter I know this

must have been true. I stayed

friendly—poked fun at the inedible

food--for a moment we shared

a common enemy.

You were seated to my right,

to my left another of your jail-friends.

You spoke of your two daughters.

Not to me directly, their father

now dead, another heroin victim.

You would never inflict a stepfather

on them—your girls—Worse than a mother

in jail? I thought. My Higher Self,

sometime enemy, sometime friend

stepped in. Judge not lest ye be judged,

he said. Always a He, he is and

He is mine, not some hermaphroditic

nature god playing his flute

while civilizations burn but

definitely a He. I held my tongue.

If you only knew how
difficult for me.

Wanted to say I understood

more than you could possibly know—

maybe even more than you just yet.

I spoke softer than this angry place

we shared—touched your arm

and you let me—told you that you’d

love again. You just aren’t ready.

Someone who would be good to you

will be good to them. I hoped my words

pierced you black veil, even if for just

a moment--I chose one of my

very few lies carefully—

I have a good stepfather. I got up,
thanked you and your friends

for sharing a meal and their

table, took my tray to the trash

scraped it clean.

Stained Glass Prison

-->

Stained Glass Prison

               As long as we’re together

                With the moonlight shining—

                It doesn’t matter what I did

                It doesn’t matter what I did

                                                Meema (Ally)

                                                5 East South, Suffolk County Correctional Center

The girls have all gone out to yard—

to walk endless circles

cover a blacktop beach—t-shirts

rolled up, ripped shorts hiked up

become bikinis.

It’s the ordinary things

will break your heart. Coughing,

menstruating, struggling for soap

utensils, shampoo, shoes

for the shower.  

Trade backrubs for coffee

Cosmetics—all these girl things

still so important—a bit of lotion

chapstick, hair ties ripped from

standard issue socks.

Smells of coconut linger.  Male guard

watches them shower  from his booth.

Scrub whites in the sink, hoard bleach

and plastic bags—tampon strings clean up

eyebrows—are made into rings

Barbecue sauce made of syrup

ketchup and mustard packets

a stolen onion

a hoarded tomato

Woven mats of old news cover

toilet seats, peanut butter packets

warmed between our hands.

Girl on suicide watch walks by in her green

velcro dress and her 24 hour guard.

 

At night you can hear them singing,

Screaming, banging their heads against

cement walls, withdrawing from heroin

crack, prescription drugs

and heterosexuality

crying, masturbating, praying.

Sargent makes his rounds

moonlight shines through

an iron window grate

divine light shape of chain mail

and cathedrals

hits the floor near beds

chained to prison bars

on names scratched everywhere

even in the soap.

Night fades

and its morning

slowly familiar birdsong begins—

a cacaphony of a single bird

strong enough to nest

on this roof—sun rises

presents itself to everyone

everwhere equally

on prisons of our own making.

Stones for Michael

Stones for Michael 
     and Tammy Jean

You told me
that people were bringing stones
from around the world

for your collection
from the places your 17 year old
would never get to see. I brought

a common, garden rock
a little fresh earth still clung to
from my own backyard

a place my own son--so close
in age to yours who died--no longer
visits but still thrives.

I cried reading your poems
again today. Excruciating elegies and
mother's grief, for both of us.

Spider Lessons for Barbara Southard

Spider Lessons 
     for Barbara Southard

I asked one of the monks
at the local buddhist center
right in front of a piece

of the original bodhi tree
how to make the little knotted

bracelets they give us
as a reminder of mindfulness.
He pulled out the string

in long draughts of three
gathering tensile

strength in a graceful
orange-robed ballet.
Suddenly I burst out

Spider Lessons! Transformed
I became--all at once--

the little, laughing spider-monk
his mummified cocooned prey
and his shimmering web

in the moonlight
anticipating the sun's dogmatic return.

But who taught the spider his craft?

Spiders don't teach
their young to weave and spin.

They give them life and tools
those that survive learn somehow.
In my vision my little spider-monk
is smiling, laughing, spinning.

Red Queen Meets the White Queen at an Open Mic on meeting Jane Lecroy

Red Queen Meets the White Queen at an Open Mic
     on meeting Jane Lecroy

O! You are a force of nature--
Never start a journey on a full moon
but on a winter's night at the cafe
Lewis Carrolls Red Queen meets
the White Queen
one looking for her child
the other living her life in reverse
at a poetry reading
in Amityville
of all places anti-parenthetical and
anti-poetical

For one night they are
evenly matched
living outside the pages of a book
admire one another's talents
and ambition
share love of poetry
in front of a painting
of the Red Queen
dancing in front of a full moon
by a Pagan Painter and Dancer
and for five minutes

We only get five minutes!!

They are equals and alive
as myths can be
forces of nature
and divine energy
flowing in all 7 directions

The Red Queen
catches a train
back to Washington Heights
back to her teaching job
her computer tech husband
her three children
and her life as domestic goddess

White Queen hops in a white pickup
rides back to the country
both where they do and don't belong
the end and beginning
of the journey
started on a full moon.

Barren
     for Tom Stock