The Poetry Marathon

The photograph – it’s crooked

They’re sitting on a balcony at dusk,
it’s a café in Krakow
the layered dessert in the center of the table
with sharp-sided precision of geometry.
But their faces are soft,
enjoying the adventure of new love
on cobbled side streets.
20-something hostel love.

Why’s the photograph always tilted

She fixes it each time she walks by.
Maybe it’s from the construction site down the hill,
setting off explosives at noon.
Monday to Friday-
vibrations travel through the house;
the sunroom rattles and cats hide.

or it was an earthquake-

what if she was alone

The glass sunroom would surely shatter.
The bathroom or his walk-in closet-
that’s where she’d go.
!
!
!
How’s it possible to be this high up and compressed?

He’s not here

even when he is

The photograph – it’s crooked

Driving up the dirt road into the mountain campsite, this is not the behavior of a beetle. The car was home for the next two weeks, and I felt free. Caught between an unfulfilled dream and a status quo future. If I could use the hazard lights to warn myself- life is about to get bumpy. No one can help me start the engine.

Here in the Sierras, the altitude almost cures bondage.

Why do mountains tease?
The landing cracks the body,
Fire sickens the tree.

Apple Watch

It’s watching me.
I’ll turn off the screen,
but it comes back on.
It watches my chest rise and fall.
The wristwatch knows every toss and turn,
each midnight bathroom break.
The blue light silently winks at the ceiling,
In sync with the insidious hum of electrical wiring.

It’s watching me-
That monolithic screen for a face.

Uncle Stasiek

Stanley lived with Mama.
The farm was once the home of chickens and cows,
of his thick-handled Polish immigrant Tata.
He was the eldest, behind the two Mama lost as babes.
The six siblings loved and fought,
Polish tempers run amok in wild Mississippi woods.
But the milk had long since soured,
the claw-foot tub frozen in time under the muscadine vine.

Yet here was Stasiek.

The Pacific Theater had toughened his smile.
He grew okra and patty-pan squash.
He cared for his Mama.

Before Darkness

Part I

Don’t brush teeth.
Let Sweet Pea purr at the foot of the bed,
Eyes darting about for bugs to hunt.
Rub eyes, smeared mascara.
Stay awake.
Tabs:
Pilates Waist Workout,
15 things to make you a better inline skater,
both gmail accounts,
Zillow listings in Seattle.
The nightstand.
That half-read library book is due tomorrow.
Did I lock the front door?
I should turn off the lamp.
Too much work.
I really should read that book…

Part II

I’m playing Beethoven’s Pathetique.
Is someone practicing piano on my back?
Awake.
Sweet Pea bonks my head.
Up again.
Cat in the hallway.
Door shuts.
Lamp switch clicks…

Scratch scratch

meow?

Youth

Let’s run away!
I think there’s a tree we can climb.
I’ll make a bed for you with your favorite blanket.
Yes!
The one your parents would bring to the beach in the Jeep.
It’ll smell of the salty Gulf in the canopy of trees.
I’ll collect morning dew for you to drink.
We’ll forage and keep our promises.
Can’t you feel the life tingling under your skin?
If your fingernails could speak,
They’d say, “Grab it!”
Sing your days and hum your evenings to rest.
Be now!

Found, End

Do I have endings?
I never leave things behind.

I still think about the guys,
that amorphous blob of boy-men.

the one’s I crushed on
the first kiss
the first fuck
the first soulmate
and the second

the one who didn’t know what No – meant

There it is

My heart stopped

he’s out there
shapeshifting

The end of trust
The beginning of Rage

If memories could sift into

Par

tic

les

Hi everyone! It looks like I’m in good company. I haven’t written much since 2005, when I lost all of my writing in Hurricane Katrina. I was fresh out of college with my B.A. in English. It’s taken me 10+ years to feel ready to push myself again. Since then, I received my bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music (vocal performance) and sing opera in San Francisco and San Diego. This may sound strange, but the thing I feel that I’m missing as a singer is my own voice. The words and music are already provided in the libretto and score. Sure, you have to explore the characters and their motivations, but it’s just not the same as creating something where there was nothing. I’m excited, and a little scared, to do this. I hope the words come to me and that I can stay awake.