The Poetry Marathon

My heavens, Tennessee!
How lovely this has all been, to be
Your many women

Lord have mercy on my
Little old pea-pickin soul, I
Love what you’ve given!

I love it. Indeed, I love them all
In different ways of course. I’d call
Amanda a masterpiece

And Blanche a train wreck.
Well, perhaps a streetcar, then, if I check
Myself correctly.

Poor Maggie deserves a mention
I’d have been her had I the intention
Of acting directly.

Oh they are all such joys
Tennessee Williams, your girls and boys
Of the stage.

Moonlight kissed the sky the moment you left
And smiled
With promise of no return.

Where are you now?
And what do you dream of?
Where are you now?

Who do you love?
And what do you think of?
Who do you love?

I miss you like the moon misses the sky
On the moonless nights
I need you in my life
I need you.

There are days when I manage not to think of you
Days when just work gets me by
There are nights when I manage not to dream of you
Nights of a silent lullaby

Lullaby
Lullaby
Lullaby

I can never say goodbye
I can never say goodbye
I could never say goodbye

The time is spring.
I love the spring!
Would that it were spring
All year long.

Rain and sunny days
Gardens and wild flowers
Rivers plump with snow melt
And baby bunnies emerging
From the woodpile.

Dragon Country: A Book of Plays
From “In a Bar at a Tokyo Hotel”
Tennessee Williams

The silver lining.
All too clearly I recall the day
She taught me to look for it –
My faux mother.

I’d been there for weeks it seemed.
Would they never take me home?

“I go outside to see Mommy now.”
I told her.

“What??”

“I go see Mommy now, outside.”

“Your Mommy’s not out there.
I’m your Mommy now.”

“You can be my second Mommy,” I said.
“I go see Mommy now.”

My mother was out there.
She’d been visiting me each day
Since she’d died.
Murdered, you see, but a mother nonetheless.

I was just three,
Standing there in the hot
Houston kitchen
Of my captors.

“Honey, your Mama is dead.”
I didn’t know what that meant.
“She’s with Jesus now.”
I didn’t know who that was.
“You can never see her again.”

The truth of that statement
Hit me like an arrow.
I died in that moment.
Fell to my knees
Lost, crying,
Realizing I never again
Would be held
Or loved.

Only fed
And clothed
And eventually sold.

“Make the best of it, honey,”
She demanded.
“Look for the silver lining.”

She cautioned me to stop crying,
For the faux Daddy might kill me.

It took me years to find that cloud.

Why would I tell the world
My favorite thing?
My most precious
Beloved
Possession?

Are you kidding me?
After what I’ve been through?
Just to tempt those who want it all?
All I’ve got? All I’ve earned? All I’ve ever had?

I may as well hang it
By a ribbon
From my car.

I am too tired to make a poem now.
It’s late, and Hobbits grace my flatted tube.
My stomach hurts from eating way too much,
But I get bored without a bit to taste.
Unorganized, my house, it’s such a mess.
Too many jobs. Too much creative love.

I think too much that I should have a love.
But it’s too late to love this woman now.
My womb is spent, my life a dismal mess.
I brush my teeth, forget to cap the tube.
The counter top has now the minty taste,
But clean it up might take a time too much.

At least I’m not depressed and sullen much.
Who knows! Some man I know might learn to love
This gilded aging dame’s eclectic taste.
Oh, I want one. I just don’t want him now;
For I no longer fit the model’s tube
With bulging gut, a broken flabby mess.

I’ll ne’er find passion’s heart, mine’s such a mess.
This world’s too dark, expecting far too much
Of minds deceived with propaganda’s tube.
We’re taught of lust, too rarely learn of love.
That instant rush, we always want it now!
To kiss too quick, forget to stop to taste.

Too few years left, no freedom here to taste
Democracy is just a fascist mess
And even though the world is waking now
Too few have taken oh so very much
They say we’re free, and sometimes speak of love
To us who sell our lives out to a tube

We are all gone! Our minds a flattened tube
No morals left. Just hate. A bitter taste.
A memory, a thought, the myth of love
Just shrouds what’s real – the whole disgusting mess!
The politicians that we trust too much
Are in it for themselves. We see it now.

And as I watch the tube, the fiery mess,
I realize I taste the fat too much
When I should know that love is always now.

Are you a God, my darling angel?
You, the one who saved me that day.
Was it in May? Or June?

I’d been dead so long.
For months it seems
Flying about with the Sylphs
And faeries.

And then you came.
You with the heavy load upon your back.
You with the smiling eyes and sweaty brow.
They mocked you.

I loved you then as I do now, my Lord,
My God. Are you a God?

Just
One
More
Tiny
Bite.

And I am heavier than before
In underwear too tight to bear.

A closet full of pretty clothes,
Designs I used to wear.

I
Was
So
Fair!

But wine and burgers
Fries and steaks
In those few moments
Merry make

This
Fat
Blob
Of
Take
Take
Take

Just one more bite.

I didn’t choose that path back then.
I was afraid. Too oft warned of the
Consequence of being myself.

I am Janice Joy, not Joy Elizabeth,
The child whose body lay in blood
That hot August day.

The dogs were gone, and my arm
Still whole, yet wrapped in bloody
Cotton torn from the shirt of my hero.

I have chosen the wrong path
Again and again, wondering of the
Consequence of truth, or opening the door.

It’s been the devil waiting there
To test the sacredness of life,
And prove that Jews are not a chosen few.

Who knew a child could prove them wrong,
Come back again, and with a song
Remind these demons of eternity?

Yet still, the pain of death and life
Is not a pastime I adore
Or want still more.

No.

I am done being her.
Probably the wrong path again
To take in this fascist state.

The will to move. To sweat.
To feel the breath of my life
Cough forth from my lungs
Escapes me, like a fly.

In the kitchen I forget
The need to feel the strife
Of movement as my tongue
Tastes fat and sugar for my thigh.

“Oh honey, you’re too pretty
To be so fat. You need to lose
Some weight!” Said the bigot
Who hates all those unlike herself.

Had I the will to move… A pity
To blame it all upon the booze.
If only I could close the spigot
And live a life more like an elf.

So gracefully I’d move and play
And sing and dance each lovely day.