Dozens of Dreams Deep

Just
   Once
      One time i knew what life was about.
Once foreseen in a dream;
Then,
Somewhat suddenly,
In Providence with you.
The trees all stood as still,
As they never could be.
In their entire lives.
A feat unto itself--serene.
As unmoving as soldiers at attention--proper formation.
Not a branch shook, or shimmied, or swayed,
Not the whole night, or
The whole way.
Strolling over bewitching mist,
All the way there,
And then,
All the way back again.

And,
i knew quite suddenly, in fact,
Rather purely,
That this was as it was,
Even before this was what this is.
i found myself,
Pouring my heart into,
What i knew to be,
What it could not be,
What i could not keep,
But, what simply just is,
Living truth hidden dozens of dreams deep,
Under layers of lifetimes.

Truth

My long nose-pointed toward a silver rectangle--
Toward a silver rectangle with a flat surface
And there's a truth that it shows
In it, and there can not be two or three truths
Only one truth.
Truth that wasn't my mother's words.
I revert to those words when i don't like the answer-the mirror shows.
Fogged up after a long shower,
Under the cover of fog: i can hide but
I am still there.
I am not able to rub the truth from the surface
I can only walk away from the silver glass.

Him

His toes curl up 

As he lies upside down on the bed
With his goods exposed.
His black bottom lip quivers
As he sleeps
Engulfed in the dreams
That only One like him dreams. 
Through his senses,
He is Easily woken from his slumber
With the slightest stir of movement.
His big eyes look at me in saturation mode,
Startled at first
And then—
In a foggy admiration.
Stretching, he licks my toes
With his tongue and tickles them.
Annoyed, I push him away with my feet.
He turns over and stretches his ass
Up in the air like a child
Who has slept rather oddly,
And as if he is bowing
to some demi-goddess,
Who is long forgotten,
Except by him.

Then
he lies back down
Rubbing his face,
And his nose.
And he sneezes because of the dust
That I stir when I reach
and open the curtain
To peer out the window
At nothing in particular.
He tugs at my NYC night shirt with teeth,
As if to say
He wants to play.
His nails are long,
And I realize
They need to be cut.
He smiles and shows his teeth
With his underbite
Surrounded by his Foo-Man-Chu beard.

We rise up and he races me down the stairs,
Him moving a mile a minute.
His salt and pepper appearance
Makes him seem like he is old,
But he is not. 
I open the back door
And we exit,
Me in my night clothes and him naked.
Running around like mad
Through the freshly dewed grass,
He suddenly stops.
He hears something from afar,
Something I cannot.
One can only wonder
As he barks once,
Listens,
Then
Goes about his business,
Then comes back home
to eat.

I am American

PublicFriendsFriends except AcquaintancesOnly MeCustomClose FriendsFamilySee all lists...Providence Community LibraryPawtucket Public LibraryProvidence, Rhode Island AreaRhode Island College (RIC)Community College of Rhode IslandEast Providence HighUniversity of Rhode IslandRhode Island CollegeAcquaintancesGo Back

I am American.

The room wafts of perfume as I walk in the door
With my name brand apparel and American Swagger.
A cold aura hangs about me because of American greed instilled
In me from our American culture.  I like to Puff, puff,
Pass, at the 420 club… and beyond.

My mind needs to be numbed sometimes because

I am American.

I have been Abandoned,
and loved, and kissed, and Fucked,
And Beat, and knocked out-twice, and cut,
And drugged and raped,
But not all at once;
And not shot…YET.  But maybe I’ll catch a stray someday because

I am American.

I like weapons and movies
And beer but not Budweiser
…it sucks.
I believe I am ugly as sin
And have been told this
On more than one occasion
Which served as a confOrmation
Of my beliefs. . . But I don’t care.
Because it doesn’t matter because

I am American.

I hustle and live and like my freedom to choose
But find our kind of freedom has too many rules.
I love that my troops fight for me
But want them to come home because

I am American.

I sometimes to dance and Cruz and buy whatever and
I like to sit on the stoop
And
Feel the flow of the hood because

I am American.

I vote because I can.
I have a gas guzzling car
because

I am an American.  

Paving Roads

Asleep as the shadow of a night birds wings

Pass over me in my dreams,

Conveying an image to me:

Roads cracked by the growth

Of pods and seeds and such,

That were there long before the pavement,

And have now fought to retake their land—

A raging series of battles that lasts

For as long as pavement makers and their opponent exist. 

Humans come and come again

To resurface and repave and rebuild

Over the territory of the wild.  The wind,

And the rain, and the cold, and the heat

Of the glaring noonday summer sun

Hammer away at the pavement. 

The elements win their battle when civilization forgets

Or abandons

Built up areas to move on to conquer other things

And then don’t bother to take notice—until

The land is needed again. Vines and trees

And such pop up to reclaim what they can when they can.

Then,

The road is paved again, for us to travel past buildings

To go from one manicured park to the other,

To smell the fresh scent of Nature

In what humans only Believe to be is Nature’s finest.

I wonder just what are we repaving, building, and covering

Over as I wake up to the sound of a jack hammer disturbing

My sleep.

But ah!

I have lost my dream, and with it, the night birds!

There is just something about Mother Nature

(Even in dreams)

That doesn’t love civilization.

Settle?

What is love if not different from soul to soul,
A search for the perfect match
Turns up empty, always.

Because Imperfection is the perfection.
My thought of what love should be
Is constantly
Different from anyone else’s.

Settle.
Settle for the subtle differences,
Settle for the wide gaps.
Settle for admiring the red winged black bird,
And they adoring
the Blue Jay,
As the birds both shit
Purple berry shit on your freshly washed cars.
Settle for the paper hits
And they the mescaline pill
Which give you both that tingle
in your brain
At the point just off the center
of your foreheads
About an hour after you partake.

Settle for the sky at night
With the big dipper
And a full moon
And the shadow of a flock of bats
Crossing its course.
All the while their preference is the plain blue of the day—
With clouds.
Settle for the toke of a joint
While they light the blunt
And you both get high differently—
But together.

Look into each other’s eyes
All you fancy.
They will never converge,
They only peer at one another
And then are compelled
To look away
To other
More sexual
Elements of the body.
This is the kind of love I recall
This is the kind of love I know—
No other actually exists
Right Now
In my world.

Kisses upon

The orphan weeping beneath shadows
And loathsome when delirium impresses upon
Forgotten whispers hushed murmurs
Meek where sickness kisses upon

The loneliness engulfs this child’s life
And drained when sadness impresses upon
Misbegotten child of unknown parents
Wreak havoc when abandonment kisses upon

The child sickly with discontent
And eyes do not glimmer when longing impresses upon
Downtrodden spirit, Saddened soul
Bleak when mourning kisses upon

The casket small and made of pine
And tragic when usefulness impresses upon
Soddened with want for betterment
Complete when death kisses upon

What is a Poet?

What is a poet?

A poet is Someone who laughs and cries
And sometimes sings—most times, badly.
Or who stands with both feet on the ground or stumbles and falls
And sometimes can’t put the pieces together even though they once fit all as one.
A poet is someone who has both broken hearts
And had their heart ripped to shreds and thrown on the floor.
The latter is me all day long.
What is a poet?
Someone who has burned those who have trusted because
of trusting and being burned—often multiple times!
A poet is someone who breathes and sneezes
And sleeps, and dreams, and wishes, and falters under the weight of a heavy heart
That is Too complex to analyze or to Ever FIX.
What is a poet?
Someone who may be well known, or like me maybe not so much,
Who dances with words and who thinks the world of people who treat them like SHIT.
A poet is someone who wants to BELIEVE there is goodness in everyone,
but can no longer figure out how to complete this arduous task at hand,
And who always wants to help but hasn’t always the means or the mental faculties to do so.
A poet is someone who wants to have true friendship and normalcy
Where trust is lacking and idiosyncrasy runs rampant.
What is a poet?
A poet is sometimes lost but never really found.
A poet is abandoned even when still surrounded by people who think they love adequately enough
But really don’t.
A poet is surrounded by hurt and anger and rage, and sometimes by love, but less by respect.
A poet is fun loving and hard working but sometimes lazy as a DEAD FUCK.
And sometimes a poet desires to live but mostly wonder intensely about Death.
What is a poet?
A poet is someone that either likes to rhyme or just can’t find the time.
Who sporadically drinks E&J, Frangelico, or Amaretto and who likes chocolate cake.
A poet is someone who knows the grass is never as green as it looks on the other side
But still persists to hope that it is or will be someday.
A poet is someone who’s heart
Is into writing words
That can
Never
EVER
Really express what the true feeling is that they are feeling.
A poet is Human but more often than not, is not perceived as thus.
A poet
Is wanting and giving and caring and becomes NUMB
Because of the surroundings
A poet is me.

18th September 1973

18th September 1973

In my Grandmother’s
Kitchen,
i raced to the Drawer
to pull out Linen
to wipe the cola
i had just spritzed
Out of my mouth
Onto the table. On
The linen towel,
Was printed a calendar.
It said 1973. It was 1979.
i was six. My mother
Was cooking on the stove
And the steam from the boiling water
Was billowing out
And over her short red
Haired head.  i told her to be Careful,
then i studied
The towel’s calendar
Of twelve even squares
And focused on September eighteenth.
A golden pumpkin color border
Surrounded by the fancies
Of a fall flowering décor
Now stained with Cola
From a ‘quiet child with
An old soul.’

There came
A rap at the kitchen
Window.  It was spooky
—the Black and Orange Cat.
She wanted in,
And always let us know
By jumping up and clawing
At the screen. My Grandmother
Slid up the screen and spooky
Leaped with ease.  In her mouth
Was a field mouse.
She spit it out onto the freshly
Laid out plate lying on the table—
As if to say ‘here, look what i caught
For you!’  She seemed proud.

My Grandmother half
Screamed ‘For heaven’s sake.’
And my mother Jumped
And then screamed ‘cause
Her sleeve was lit ablaze
And She
Was franticly
Flailing Around.
i grabbed the 1973
Towel, in 1979, and nonchalantly
Handed it off
To my grandmother
As she passed by
On her way to extinguish
The flame.

i had known this scene was impending
and also knew
That no one would be hurt.
i laughed in my head
‘cause it was comical.

But as I glanced again at the calendar i wondered why i
Was there in this place
In this time, in this ‘Three Stooges’
Type scene with these people
That called me Carrie Anne.
And Why? On this date in 1979 while wondering about the eighteenth of September 1973
Why did I know?

Perspective

Fear:

is a big
elephant
thunderously loud and rampaging
in midst of the circus crowd


Scared of the trainers that beat him.

Willows Always Weep...

Willows weep because it is their way, 

Yet, our emotions come in a wide array. 

And while the Willow impulsively cries, 

With its arms attempting to diverge, 

its leaves shake and sway in a temperamental disapproval, 

all the while our emotions cease and change and then, 

Begin again--

But The Willow--

It always weeps.

Well

Well, Yes. 

Many times I would like to just stop by those woods

Especially on his famous snowy evening.

And I have on a few occasions--but was not allowed to enter.

So, Would you follow?

                          If I was to be burned...

Why give a funeral pyre?

A fiery illumination,

To light the path...

And

Then to follow the ashes

         like breadcrumbs? I rather think not...

And, my things are few and far between

So they wouldn’t be that hard to divvy up.

But why make it easy for anyone?

There are still many things to collect.

Things that sit in wait and

Things that haven’t even been created yet.

                                                              Or will it be more of the same?

And my acquaintances could all fit very nicely

On a hand scribed letter

Inside an envelope

Laid out by my bedside.

But Really, Why bother? There are still plenty of other things to write--

Or has it all been written?

Lost

Miles away but it might as well be light years…

The decades between us are impassable

And it has taken a toll

Lost like light falling 

And failing

And Flailing—No.

Lost,

like

Being sucked into That

Black Hole 

That 

Your Pride

Your irresponsibility

And Your inability

Created 

Just for me.

I Just Can’t

You didn’t respect so now I don’t
You wouldn’t bother so now I won’t
You couldn’t have my back so now I can’t 
You just shouldn’t have
--so now I shant. 
Too little to late.
Space and motion continue on. . . 
and
I just can’t
And though two wrongs don’t make a right
Your three wrongs make me realize what’s left is
Worth far more if I don’t let you take that away too.
But you can have your knife back. . .

And Suddenly

And suddenly,
I am reminded of a blacker time
when the darkness hid the clouds
and the moon shined as bright as it could
to reveal only the silver linings.
And then when I found myself back in the light
with all the clouds visible. . .
There was not a single silver lining to be seen.

Carrie