The Poetry Marathon

LA I love you. All the extra words are junk. I just fucking love your gritty, pungent, greasy streets in the morning dew. I love Sunset Blvd… the lights, the stand still traffic, the hookers. I love your hard lines, and that everytime I am with you,  famous people are there, too. I love Little Tokyo, getting fresh mochi and sitting by the fountain eating it. I love Olvera Street, her tacos and Tres Generationas shots… bright paper mache flowers! LA I love that we were only about 20 minutes to you on the five without traffic, and that no one ever cared that we played in the glass elevators at the Bonaventure Hotel all night when we were wild teenagers. I love you, LA. Your garment district, my home away from home for many formative years, your quiet North Hollywood neighborhoods, your welcoming Weat Hollywood, with lots of kissable girls and boys, good places to eat, and shops with rainbows in every window. LA I love you

I love Guitar Center, The Getty, The Greek, The Pantages, Mark Taper… Hollywood Bowl…  I love that you always treated me like I was somebody… even when you knew I wasn’t. 

I love you, LA.

Tiny kitty meow
orange found us kitty meow
kept us and loved us
brought life back into our hearts
and saved us from the lonelies.

Best orange kitty
in the history of all
orange kitties who
ever were soft and orange
saved us from our covid sad

Joy kitty orange
tiny meow petted darling
kitty of snuggles
hippety hop kitty meow
wonky hop orange love beans.

.

It’s been a very long day
for a very long time
Scratching at the door to get out
is always a possibility.
Don’t cook bacon.
Don’t become bacon.
Don’t cut yourself.
Always wear pants.
Keep your tamber light.
Do not. Do not tease.
She has no mercy.
It’s been a very long day.
Stay on your two feet.
Wear pajamas.
Do not look her in the eyes.
Scratching at your flesh
is a definite.
Do not beg. Do not beg. Do not beg.
If you want to keep her sleeping
Do not beg.
She smells your need.
She will get to you
if you want her to.
You do not want her to.
Even if you think you do, you don’t.
She doesn’t want to get to you
but if you want her to
She absolutely will not stop.
It’s been a very long day
for a very long time.

I feel her stirring.

The sun is millennia from setting.

.

Being breathless now
no responsibilities
I rarely feel her.
A Raggedy Anne doll jumped
into view recently in

a gift shop in the
SFO airport,  let me
know she was close by.
She felt light and lovingly
curious. She felt whole. Free.

Tell me, Mom, where do
you go now with no constraints,
nothing holding you?
Is it everything you’d hoped?
What are you doing out there…?

…beltingly bleed you spilling out for Me burning that soft flesh near your wanting to please Me over your quivering let it go give it to Me offer it up from your fours wet shower floors fours ins and outs for only Me to watch you and the theys of your blushings and resistings for the ties and the under waters and the absolute trust in Me hanging you in closets dropping you in bathtubs strapping you to arm hairs stuffing you with coats of coats of coats of your own stuffing you with all My colors overflowing on the beating kitchen floor of your pleasurable begging you have always been Mine. Mine. Mine…

It is said that Grampa Fellows’ Grandma was a daughter of the Iroquois Chief of the Mohawk Tribe outside their town. When she was a small child, the government demanded her, cut off her hair, and sent her to a white man’s school to become “civilized”

There, she met and married  Great Grampa Fellows, and they started a family. My grampa was one of their sons.

It is also said that I greatly resemble her, and that is the reason Grampa Fellows loved me so much.

That, and I also looked a lot like Betty Boop, which was a fairly impressive boast for a 1940’s gambling old playboy like he was…

She could pinch on the
inside of your arm with her
thumb and index nails
so fast and hard a bruise rose
immediately, water

spilled out of your eyes
as a reflex, and if you
flinched, you got one more.

I wore sleeves for five
years, kept my hear down, sang all
the right notes… always.

They say a little
black dress, the right one, will change
your life, and it’s true.
I wanted that sleek sleeveless
shift more than her approval

more than her threats of
never being good enough
for her, more than her
intimidations, and her
promises of leaving me.

That little black dress
saved me. In the shower one
morning, she grabbed my
upper arm. Seering hot pain
blew through me to my fingers

familiar blood welts
made crescent shapes in my flesh.
That afternoon I
bought the dress. I left her that
night, and I never went back.

I didn’t wear the
dress for almost a year. When
I finally did
my arms were clear, and my head
was clear, and my heart was healed.

And I looked fabulous.

.

Before the virus
we gathered at my home
orphan islanders making our own family. Humpday board game nights
quarterly whiskey tastings
hurricane all nighters playing cards by candlelight, Cameron bedded down under the kitchen table, our feet all around him, keeping him safe, and feeling protected.

Thanksgivings
Christmas’
New Years’
Fourth of Julys…

It felt like the family of my youth

familiar faces dropping by unannounced
impromptu grilling
family friends
people we called our own.

And then there was no one.
Just a Gramma and a Grandson
trying to be a bigger family than we were.

Trying to adjust to our new
quiet smallness.
Trying to hold onto each other
be everything to each other.
It was hard for us both.

.

.

.

Yesterday, a knock on our door
brought an unexpected catch up visit
over tea and long remembrances.
It felt almost normal. 
It felt like home again.
It felt like family.

I must send notes
welcoming everyone back.

I must sign them
Ollie Ollie Oxen Free Free Free!

When the tickle hits her
head splayed back
mouth wide
eyes squinty tearing,
the most gorgeous joy
flows from her entire being
fully, shamelessly, contagiously.

She is captivating.
intoxicating.
She is rapture.

A bear greeted them
gently on their wooded path
would they be so kind
as to share a cookie or
perhaps a half a sandwich.

In my head he spoke
a proper British accent,
but it could have been
any polite whisper I
suppose, being a bear and

all who speaks instead
of growls. With sandwich in hand
he further asked to
join them on their midday hike
and being such a gentle

and such a strong bear,
he carried all the backpacks.
When his friends saw him
not eating his new hiking
pals, they taunted and teased him.

But, the gentle bear
offered the others halves of
sandwiches, too, which
filled their bellies and softened
their big and growly bear hearts.

They all walked along
together, with the hikers
sharing their canteens
And the bears picking the most
perfect berries on the trail

for them all.