I will overcome some day

I sing misty blue for you today

Misty blue just for you today Daddy

Sing misty for you every day

Waiting to hear you say

You’re coming on home today

My life’s on hold – my mind strays

I see you in my mind’s eye drinking that Bombay Gin

Sitting alone in a Starbuck’s café

Knowing life plays me like a Violin

But I can’t stop myself from hoping there could be a better way

Please tell me you’ll always love me Daddy

The way you know that I love you

So please come on home to stay

My soul has turned misty like the weather before the storm

While it keeps playing the same old song

Play it in reverse today and tomorrow

Let me coerce you to come on home

Let your worries disperse

Things can’t get much worse

So come on home baby

We’re going to jam the night away and 

play new music all day today Daddy

until the moon wanes in the sky and 

the sun shines again today

Someday I will overcome all obstacles put in my way

Compression

We laugh and make jokes about the stockings and me.

I say, “They’re holding me together.”

He says, questioning me as if I’m not telling the truth or maybe I don’t know, “They’re holding you together?”

“Yes, holding me together literally,” I repeat.

We both laugh hysterically hardly able to catch our breaths

bursting as though about to explode

We act like this is the first time we laughed at this.

Our laughter is like a rhyme held together by glue and impending time.

 “They’re holding me together,” I repeat and again he repeats after me, “They’re holding you together, “ and again we laugh hysterically.

It is better to laugh than cry. Sometimes I cry and laugh at once because of the absurdity of life. Don’t try to anticipate the unexpected. It can’t work. It’s a joke on me just like my father before me. Tears stream and peals of laughter burst through at the same time. I laugh so hard I cry and cry so hard I laugh. Maintaining mirthfulness merriment helps me get by with a little help from my friends.

Life plays jokes while I dance through with songs in my head. The fatuity is not futility. I remain hopeful to a new cause. Each joke has its own device; No more criticizing –I pray that way – if I refrain so will they. One crazy white Jewish poet is one of the 99 percent – they’re moving everywhere, like a silent storm creating a new reality, I struggle to see the light, make wrongs right with the rest of the 99 percent.

I love how they squeeze me tight, expand my sight, I don’t fit it with the left or the right, helps me feel more strong & erect.

“They’re holding me together,” I tell my dentist.

My dentist replies, “It’s good for your circulation.”

Another friend asks, “Doesn’t it hinder your blood flow?”

“To the contrary,” I say, “They improve my blood flow.”

“The elastic band on the stocking’s top, I mean, doesn’t that cut off your blood flow?”

“I wear them all day – all night and they don’t bother me.

They’re keeping me together.”

 “Wouldn’t it be better if you wore pantyhose up to your waist?”

“No, my pelvis likes to breathe and be free,” I say, “I prefer these even if later in the day the elastic on top feels slightly tight but that’s only least ten hours at least. So soft tender cotton caresses my thigh.”

“Oh,” she replied, “If I had to wear them I’d wear the other kind.”

You have no idea I thought in my mind’s eye I didn’t say out loud.

“OK,” I say out loud, mind on overtime to report, create a retort resort to.

don high-quality blue workman’s gloves with smooth rubber fingertips and palms

I stretch and pull them, almost pure skintight up to my thighs.

My legs enjoy the ride. Umm… Umm.

Holding my craziness and me together forever whenever.

Compression…

Zuccotti Park & Occupy into month two - Links to use!

I have worked hard at compiling this list and although some links are repetitive I have done that so that one doesn't have to begin new searches to find something to see the important things. You may wonder why is a poet interested in this. Much of my poetry focuses on the inequities in our society.

I am licensed clinical social worker and a double alumna of Columbia University. I attended Columbia in the Johnson era through the auspices of the Higher Education Program. I was admitted because I showed potential and fit the economic criteria and had been educationally disadvantaged. I was a single mom raising a child who had various disabilities and let me tell you - it ain't easy.

I too, was raised very poor. Mom had cancer and was left disabled after surgery and even though my dad worked he could never make enough to get us into a larger apartment. My dad, my mom, my brother, my two sisters and me all lived together in a one bedroom apartment and it was too tight.

Poverty is not noble. Other children made fun of the holes in my shoes and my limited wardrobe. I hand washed and ironed my own clothes at seven years old because my mother could not do it. She couldn't lift her right arm even to waist level because doctors had removed all of her muscle tissue along with lymph nodes. They did their best to help my mother live. She only wanted to survive to see her children grow and take care of themselves.

My dad was part of an immigrant family. At eleven years old he was forced to go work to help support his family. All my dad and his brother wanted to do - being the natural musicians that they were - was to be in vaudeville. They got to participate but they were not permitted to live artistically and were forced to ignore that part of themselves. They were forced to help support their families.

As a humanitarian and a humanist I see that things are getting even worse in many ways now. We poison our environments and habitats and it is permitted legally for big business to survive. So mostly what needs to change is that we must be here for each other and we must do things to benefit the greater whole of humanity not private enterprise. Fracking our water supply and denying the future consequences is not good. Promoting the use of oils and other expensive methods of energy are no longer necessary. We have the technology. Now we are back to the times in my childhood when it is becoming harder and harder to survive unless people know how to connive their way through the system to get more than they are supposed to. Now, more than ever, it is becoming harder to make a living support your family and to get an apartment to live. Many adults are forced to share and rent rooms. Many families join together to share rent on one bedroom apartments to survive.

I am fortunate to have a pension that I worked hard for plus my social security. I want to make certain that the planet and our children will survive along with the planet's many other sentient beings. It is clear that society is not protecting people or our planet. Government and private enterprise are interlocked. Can you imagine all the things that would not be done if those in charge truly took care of all of us the way we deserve to be? Someone asked me if I am a communist. No I am a humanist and I love my country and want it to be better for all of us. Meanwhile 99 percent of us suffer and try to make do and survive. It is not easy for any of us. That is why I consider myself one of the 99%.

Take your time to go through the links below and bookmark the ones you like.

These 3 links below are the official “occupy” links.

http://occupywallst.org/

http://occupytogether.com/

This following link is to the members of the Occupy Arts and Culture section. Anyone may join.
http://www.occupennial.org/

My published poem can be found here:
http://www.occupennial.org/poetry-and-spoken-word

Adbusters helped support and get the “occupy” movement started.
http://www.adbusters.org/blogs

Kevin Zeese is one of the original organizers in addition to being a lawyer. His blog is an invaluable resource and almost everything you need to know can be found here.
http://october2011.org/statement

Zeese’s listing of occupy events can be found at this link including the plan for June 2012 when all United States Occupiers will march and occupy Washington D.C:


http://october2011.org/blogs/kevin-zeese/99-are-standing-everywhere-occupy-together#comment-3036

Zeese also has a wonderful listing for media and Blogs to explore.
http://october2011.org/media

The site below is also a radio station and is one of the best sources of accurate information and news about occupy in addition to Zeese’s blog.

http://www.democracynow.org/

Another website new to me called velvet revolution is interesting.

http://www.velvetrevolution.us/newVR

More links to explore:

http://readersupportednews.org/

http://www.breakingcopy.com/occupied-wall-street-journal-issue-2-pdf

http://www.breakingcopy.com/category/news-journalism

Call to Action for Washington D.C. 2012

http://occupywallst.org/forum/a-call-to-action-2012/

http://notanalternative.com/

The Marines are coming:
http://www.in5d.com/occupy-wall-street-the-marines-are-coming-to-protect-the-protestors.html

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xlw0b7_marine-shamar-thomas-interview-on-nypd-brutality-towards-ows-protesters_news

Other newspapers or sites that maintain an alternative view and support occupy:

http://alternativenewsreport.net/2011/10/23/occupy-everywhere-demands-obamacare/students-in-iran-support-occupy-wall-street-protests_image-2/

http://www.alternet.org/

http://Credo.org

This site below is managed by Mike Palecek. He sends out regular emails and runs a radio interview show in addition to being a publisher. His email is Mike Palecek.
http://www.newamericandream.net/top_button_issue.html

More links to digest:
http://cromalternativemoney.org/index.php/en/media/news/nobel-winning-economist-supports-occupy-wall-street-protest.html

http://gothamist.com/

Below is an interesting and inspiring video. Israelis visit Syrian Border speaking out for peace ant social justice and change and peace between the two countries:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6x_p7Eksa0k&list=FLhEeHal1VUMF_wfXn001f3w&feature=mh_lolz

Another interesting movie available for free is “Shock Doctrine” by activist Naomi Wolf. Here is an interview with her.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKr_soG4DUA

The entire movie can be seen here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFF_-BrmRWE

For a little levity and humor - you've got to see this video with Stephen Colbert visiting Zuccotti and later interviewing two people, Justin and Ketchup, who were chosen by the press group to represent the 99 percent. You will laugh and I think being able to laugh at ourselves sometimes is necessary.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/ketchup-and-justin-foil-colbert-optation/

An acquaintance of mine – knowing how sensitive I am about being Jewish told me the 99% are blaming everything on the Jews on Wall Street and Bolling of Fox 5 reported this. I have suffered a great deal of prejudice about my Jewishness my entire life, starting when I was a child and other children called me “Christ killer.” Do not believe this propaganda being fed to us to keep us separate and hating one another. I researched this piece of information and discovered that Bolling from Fox 5 did try to smear the Occupy Wall Street movement as anti-Semitic.

Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, responded to Bolling in the New York Times “that while there may have been incidents of anti-Semitism in the movement ‘they are not expressing or representing a larger view." Foxman stated, "the movement is not about Jews. ... It's about 'the economy, stupid.'"

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201110270001?frontpage

Having been to Zuccotti and attended many meetings and participated in many dialogues I can honestly report and assure any of you with doubts that in the many times and hours spent with the occupy movement I never experienced any type prejudice.

I am considering doing guided tours and spoke to the person in charge at the welcome desk and they actually need someone who is familiar with the site to do this. I plan to go again to make certain I know where everything is so I can take this position.

For the 99%, for art, for artists, for all. - Blog - A Poem by Joy Leftow

For the 99%, for art, for artists, for all. - Blog - A Poem by Joy Leftow

I am proud the above poem was published by Occupennial Art Database for OccupyWallStreet artists and art actions.

Zuccotti Park & Occupy into week 4

There's an excellent energy down at occupy wall street and finally demonstrators and occupying citizens are being taken seriously. No one goes hungry and even the homeless have joined them.

The first time I was there, I'd just lost my health insurance because my ex dropped me when he lost his job. We'd both signed our divorce stipulation where he'd agreed to cover me until the divorce. Without telling me anything then, he dropped me when he was fired from his job. I went down to the employee benefits board on Rector Street and explained my dilemma as a retiree. They agreed to reinstate me from the first of the month when I explained my concerns that I had seen several doctors that month already without realizing that I wasn't covered. After finishing I decided to walk about since I am rarely in that part of the city. I looked at the world trade center and decided to get a salad. After finishing my salad I looked out the window and saw there was a crowd in the square facing me.

Entering the square I looked around me and it seemed the park had been overtaken by homeless. I found myself standing next to a young lady with blond hair who appeared very business like. I started a conversation. "Are there a lot of homeless people who have moved into this park?" I asked, this only being day two of the occupy movement and not knowing anything.

The young woman who was dressed in a plain gray skirt and blouse with a jacket looked at me and laughed at my question. "We are demonstrating here," she said. "We're the 99 percent who have nothing because the 1 percent have it all. What better place to protest than here where it starts? I guess though to answer your question, there are many young people who can't get work and since they can't get work they figure they may as well get a head start with claiming a spot since pretty soon there's going to be a lot more of us homeless than before with degrees and all. So many have moved here so they have a place to be."

We discussed the possibility of a performance space since I always think about poetry and performance. I promised to research their since I liked what I heard. I hung out for several hours walking around and checking out the boobs which were nice to see and wrote down the website, occupywallstreet.com, intending to google it when I got home. Over the next few days I kept expecting to hear something on the news but it never happened. I decided to revisit and bring my poetry hoping there would be a performance space. And it just so happened that The People Staged was on when I got there. I signed my name and performed. The audience was great and there was no one drink minimum or entrance fee and they all screamed "encore!" For the first time in years I felt hopeful about our political state of mind. The country has turned into us the worker bees, being peons, and the big folk take everything we earn except leaving us enough to be strong enough to work for them.


Below are pics taken today.

Below is G. Wagner who displays his sign along with his art and support. Occupy Wall Street is inspiring artists.

David Everitt-Carlson 
a homeless blogger getting his point across.

Good writing graffiti by homeless blogger.

We asked for change, we prayed for change, we looked for change but there's been very little.

Don't box us in. We need space and freedom to grow.

Don't give to the greedy, give to the needy - yes indeedy! We will overcome!

Jamming the day and night, to bring about peace and change. Occupy all day all week!

This man works as a home health aide but still has to live at a shelter. He works so doesn't qualify for health care or food stamps. When I told him about the "medicaid spend down" he had no clue what  I was speaking of.

The smell of people, incense and pot permeated the air along with hopes and dreams.

Yom Kipper and Russian Bluetry

 Oh my father - please rest in peace - you never had any while you lived. A musically gifted prodigy forced to leave school behind to go to work everyday - forced to help support his family and still to this day, it irks me when I hear people say Jews are rich.

A musician who loved learning, a cruel joke in life - your entire life lived in fear - the world a dangerous place. Eleven years old - forced to leave school and work; you looked for places to recluse yourself inside your head you hid from the world by living in dreams where you played your violin instead.

Father I feel for you, a young boy told, "Son, we’re sorry but you have to help support your family. There are six of us,” his Dad said, “so you have to work to help pay the rent and buy the food we eat.”

Forced everyday to work in a drug store in Harlem and of your own device going to school at night so you could finish your Latin and math and be a real pharmacist not just an apprentice. You figured you’d get a pharmaceutical license if you finished your physics and math so you did it. By the time I was born you'd lost your focus trying to stay alive and support a wife and four children. Your temperament led to arguments with bosses. Then you gave up and stayed with the apprentice license even though you performed all the same tasks. You said you made medicines from scratch using Latin formulas.

One night you were forced to work late –ordered to close up all alone. That night there was a violent riot in Harlem- forced to work late. Climbing up high to a small hidden window near to the ceiling saved your life you said. Otherwise you would have been dead. A man outside the store lay dead while you waited inside until the noise in the street died. You waited over 10 hours you said, hidden behind a heavy black curtain in the storage room, wondering if you’d get out alive.

Terror and frustration created a monster inside who ate his way out of the hive and proved he was in charge. My Dad beat his first wife. The second was my mother who suffered greatly. She kept trying to stay alive to help her children survive.  Her cancer ate her alive. Poor Dad gambled our money away and came home mean and exhausted. If got worse if she fought.

My two sisters, my brother, my Dad and my mother all crammed into a one-bedroom apartment. It wasn’t too pleasant but I have a few good memories. Uncle Leo visited Dad every Sunday and they played their violins, sang tunes and lyrics they created and accompanied each other all day, showing each other what they'd learned and created.

Then Uncle Leo’s wife went off her rocker and was never the same again. Day after day, she chanted the same words, “They go to Argentina and they think they’re great!” referring to Jews who had escaped and Nazi's escaping the holocaust. Uncle Leo died when I was ten. Poor Dad went crazy too. His sisters and mother got him out of Bellevue by paying a fine of two and a half thousand. My father chased the doctor around with a knife, the doctor who’d removed my mother’s breast – my dad chasing him wielding a big butcher knife. He claimed the doctor was having an affair with my mom. Dad flipped out and never recovered either.

Poor Dad –never easy for you- your mother kvetching in Yiddish bragging about her dancing on the Russian Stage but how she gave it all up and left it behind so you could be born in America. Lucky for you – she had the foresight to see forty years ahead.

Poor Dad, working all day when all you wanted to do was be like your Dad who had accompanied your mom with his violin – the violin became yours. No one ever taught you to play but you played like a pro. Rest in peace Day - may you finally have the security and peace you longed for in life.

times are tough for the 99 %

Help me go & speak to Obama for the 99% & you!

I'm a poor artist surviving on a pension & SS. I'm seeking donations to go Obama's dinner so I can break things down to him for how it is for the unprivileged. I would love to have an opportunity to explain how hard it is for us who will never own a home, for those of us who live right in the way of people fracking our water supply so that in several years probably half of us will be dead and those of us who survive will be diseased. I would definitely like an opportunity to voice my opinion. I want to tell Obama how it is everyone's basic right to have adequate medical care food and shelter.

I want him to know that the poor need an expansion of social welfare programs like we had in the Johnson era and that he needs to stop giving big pay outs to people on Wall Street, that he needs to follow President Roosevelt's tactics when it come to taxing the very wealthy because the poor can no longer shelter everything plus pay for everything the rich want.

No one can afford their own apartment anymore. Where are people to go?
There's no jobs and what about the man who makes 23000 and has 3 young children and a wife? He pays taxes and can barely pay the rent.
Things are rough all around for the 99 percent.

For the first times in years - spending some time with the 99% in Zocotti Park and participating in their activities and sharing their space, I feel hopeful that sometime in my lifetime there will be change and more equitable distribution of resources, jobs, money for food medical care for working poor. I haven't felt this hopeful in years.

I even got to hang out with Uncle Eddie & Robin which was great fun. Robin said they'd traveled from West Virginia to be with their brothers and sisters. Uncle Eddie even accompanied me with his banjo when I performed the following poem. Very cool people.

Billie’s Consumerism Blues

What I find crazy is that none of this is being reported in the news. I mean why should we know that a grass roots organization has moved into a park on Wall Street or that this same grass roots population has the same type demonstrations going on in at least 50 more cities.

Yesterday at occupywallstreet.com I was surprised to learn that this occupation is going on in other cities simultaneously and somehow miraculously this news is being kept from our citizenry.
I was really happy to be there today and see so much going on. They even had a performance corner which I participated in which was great fun.

A lot of solidarity permeates the air!

Check the link below at Kevin Zeese's blog to see exactly where and spread the word everywhere to everyone you know:

occupy occupy occupy 
This is a great blog for disseminating information.
http://october2011.org/blogs/kevin-zeese/99-are-standing-everywhere-occupy-together

Celebrities Susan Sarandon and Michael Moore visit Zucotti park

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2042317/Occupy-Wall-Street-Michael-Moore-joins-protesters-New-York.html

Above is a profile of Uncle Eddie and below is Robin.

And here's Robin, his cohort in crime!

occupy wall street all day all week is the chant you hear!

My first short film is now online: "Toss up and Sides again"

Ben Hopper filmed his first short film - check it out! Shot over a period of 2 days using a Canon 5D Mark II during the 18th Israeli Juggling Convention in Gan HaShlosha (Israel) back in April this year.

My first short film is now online: "Toss up and Sides again"

We Are the 99 Percent

We Are the 99 Percent

Misunderstandings

Nurtured with contempt instead of acceptance I came to understand that contempt was what I deserved. A world filled with maladjusted tendencies, constrained to a room, one of many to come. Three beds stood in our one bedroom with two side-by-side windows with deep sills that faced a wide open schoolyard that ran the entire width of our square city block.

Six of us lived in a one bedroom walk up gratefully situated on the first floor of a five story red brick building. There were two graceful entrances to the left and right of the main courtyard surrounded by well tended shrubbery. 

In our one bedroom there was a double bed plus two singles side by side against the wall, facing outwards so that all of our feet directly faced each other. The two single beds pushed together were mine and the middle sister's. The double bed on the opposite side facing ours was occupied by my eldest sister, Georgette, and my mother. 

My bed was closest the window and Harriet's bed was pushed alongside mine, the heads pushed against the wall. There was only a few feet of space left to walk between the four beds. I spent a lot of time in bed. That was where I did my homework, read for hours and dreamed away the hours.

My favorite part of weekends and mostly all I looked forward to was the ability to stay late in bed gazing at the sky. If my sisters came in or my mother I would climb on the window sill behind the curtain where they could not watch me and I could imagine I was alone with my dreams of clouds constructing lives of gods and goddesses while I instructed them on how to play nice with one another to have a good time.

I never did fit it with anybody, especially in first through third grades. Children made fun of me. A girl name Ruth told me she and her friend were going to get dressed up and have a lollipop party and everyone was invited. Did I want to go? I looked in Ruth’s face feeling suspicious of their niceness I felt trapped but didn’t know why. I nodded yes. “Sucker,” they yelled gleefully laughing hysterically, whilst staring into each others eyes, they danced away arm in arm. I stared after them.

I sing misty blue for you today

Misty blue just for you today Daddy

Sing misty for you every day

Waiting to hear you say

You’re coming on home today

My life’s on hold – my mind strays

I see you in my mind’s eye drinking that Bombay Gin

Sitting alone in a Starbuck’s café

Knowing life plays me like a Violin

But I can’t stop wondering and hoping
That there's a better way

Please tell me you’ll always love me Daddy

The way you know that I love you

The way you know that I love you

Please please come on home to stay

My soul has turned misty like the
weather before the storm

While it keeps playing the same old song

Play it in reverse today and tomorrow

Let me coerce you to come on home

Let your worries disperse

Things can’t get much worse

So come on home baby

We’re going to jam the night away
and play new music all night long
till the dawn lights up the sky Daddy

The weather of my insight has changed.

The days grow shorter sun up to sun down yet they feel longer. I toss nightly sleeplessly awakened by the pitter patter of rain on my A.C. Relentlessly the same way every day like the A.C. upstairs  at the Medina’s  drips steadily down on top of mine. The storms won’t abate. Although the wind is gone a steady rain remains like the leak in my heart. I’m bleeding out and can’t say when. Only it’s not blood, it’s the leaking of love and spinal fluids and I can’t hold them back. I know it’s going to rain again today.

I look out the window. Quiet yet in spite of the quiet the rain falls like a silent cellophane sheet blanketing my world. Consumed by tireless passion I consider my options on how to avoid contact with the world. As though hearing my thoughts a breeze awakens outside my window whispering to me about the loss of his mother, the rainbow warrior. I console us and entreat him to try again.

He foreswears off the grain alcohol and thunder and moonshine light up the sky.

The wind is my friend. He whispers words only I hear so I listen again to see if I fear the answer. 
My thoughts and the wind have moved on. I hear a car barking down the street. The sound of the city whistles and my ears ring.

The pain in the crook of my arm keeps me alive. I google ‘pain in crook of arm’ to see what I can find. It’s described as some weird tendonitis. Ice as usual oh my. Shouldn’t I know that already?

I google group venus astrology. My astrology tells me “Avoid pessimism and don’ t retreat into yourself. You must expand psychologically and seek new experiences.”

Story of my life…

Onwards to new adventures!

What am I waiting for…

The Only One

 I thought about you and watched videos of us inside of me. I sat and cried for what I thought we’d had but slowly over the next year I realized our life was recreated from a fantasy of what I desired from you. In my mind the dream I’d created of who you are became real. Slowly over time you proved to me again and again that the dream was a fantasy. Being subjected to your unrelenting anger and sarcasm was nothing new. What became new was now I saw the things you did for what they are. You proved that I never possessed the dream I desired. You proved that I only see things the way I want to see them. I went back in time in my mind rearranging the pieces of our lives. I had never wanted to see you for who you are so I created the man I hoped to find. Picking through the events in time now I see I saw you, as I wanted you to be.  You were always the way I see you now but I refused to see who you were when we were together. To survive I lived a fantasy.

Living in dreams enriches my life but there is the comedown when I realize it’s only a dream, a rich fantasy about how I want things to be but not the way they really are. Everyone I see is colored through whatever lens I am wearing that day. I live in bright-distorted colors of varying shades and intensities.  Blue is rarely true blue and it is in my nature to stay true to myself. I am fickle. I change colors.

My sad is midnight blue yet I keep trying to see stars peeking through. Green seeps through me helping me keep in touch with nature yet I’m streaked with red where I’ve been led astray by envy or anger. My lust puts a golden dust on the dawn. It’s all I see when I’m in love, like being trapped in a lovely crystal ball with gold dust all around. It ends with releasing blood ties at season’s end; the red turns shades of yellow and orange, where I struggle with my faith in mankind. I’m ready to begin again. My color is aqua. I become a shade of royal plum. Like the Aegean Sea I float in the arms of eternity searching for the right you to understand me.

After the gold dust settles pastels show me like a misty savior heading towards threatening seas to rescue them from the dark. Colors shift from dawn to dusk inside of me as I rearrange my life accordingly with a party cake pink; a perpetual continuity lives inside of me as I struggle with the colors. They consume me. I realize I’m not the only one who can’t escape so I pray for us all instead.

I recycle the stories in my head and see they are all the same. The names change but the stories remain the same. After some time telling stories, the men run into each other knocking each other down because they don’t watch where they’re running. After a few stories I realize it doesn’t matter who did what. It’s like any one of them could have been in any of my stories doing the same things the other one did. The faces and names become interchangeable. They blur together and become one. For God’s sake it’s the same old stories with new and different faces.

LIFE JUST GOT BETTER

“It’s ok.” I said, “I’ve been there too

I understand where you’re coming from.

Just show me the dotted line and

I’ll be ready to sign,

I promise I’ll make no demands

for alimony or child support.

My life’s worth more than you could ever pay.”

The gun trained on my face

I heard the click,

saw him pull the trigger back

Imagine the surprise written in his eyes

when still we stood eye to eye 

bullet jammed in the chamber

My life handed to me on a

platter that day, I understand now

But for the mercy of God 

I’d be dead not only broke

Lucky not to succumb to a bullet that day

I said, “Show me the dotted line 

I know when it’s time give in and sign

Because I’ll never get nothing from you 

except a hard way to go.

You never liked sharing anyway 

so I’m glad to let you know

I’m glad to see you go

I want you to know 

I’m glad you know 

I don’t need you to have my own

I had my own before you were born

no - please don’t interrupt," I continued,

holding up my open palm,

"You misunderstand.

Go with your government job 

and all your big benefits.

It’s ok if you refuse to share.

To care for and love your children,

I swear it’s o.k.

I’ll sign it all away to you

As long as you let me go my own way.

I'll sign that dotted line, 

I swear I will!

I’m not giving in to death yet – 

it’s premature to date.

Please don’t make me 

leave my son motherless

Hand me a pen 

I’m ready, willing, able to bend

I’ll sign on that dotted line

By the grace of God

I absolve you from all future debts

Please let me go

Thank God I’m not dead 

Here I go, pen in my hand 

I’m ready to sign on that dotted line.”

The surprise registered in your lifted brows

as you pulled the trigger

and stared me dead in the eye

no remorse for what you’d planned to do

“An eye for an eye,” you quoted, 

“So bang you’re dead, gone in the wink 

of an eye,” and you winked at me.

On your way out the door,

Certainly I hoped this was the last wink of yours I’ll ever see.

In the blink of an eye, my life is worth more than child support

Gleeful smile, no mercy for the bitch written on your face

A New York City minute changes life

when you saw no bullet had emerged from the chamber

no bullet came clambering through 

no bullet rammed through me

By God’s mercy I still stand here before thee

So let me be me and I’ll allow you to be free of me

Free from responsibility demands you could no longer stand 

You were so cruel to me

Ready to sign on the dotted line as long as you’ll let me live

Yes I’m ready to sing there’s a song in my heart

Glory Hallelujah I'm so glad I survived

I'm so blessed to be alive

money ain’t mean nothing, I’ll give it up to stay alive

I got a song in my heart so glad to be alive