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

And saw him pull the trigger back

Imagine the surprise on his face when we

Still stood eye to eye 

the bullet jammed in the chamber

My life handed to me on a silver 

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 that dotted line 

I know when it’s time to sign and give in

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 said

holding up my open palm,

"You misunderstand.

I said it's ok. Go with your government job 

and all your big benefits.

It’s ok if you refuse to share.

I swear I don’t care. 

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 willing ready and able to bend

I’ll sign on that dotted line

I absolve you from all your future debts to me

Please let me go by the grace of God

Thank God I’m not dead 

Here I go, I got a 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 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.

We thought it was for one last time.

Certainly for me I thought this is the last wink I’ll ever see.

Pulled the trigger in the blink of an eye

A gleeful smile on your “no mercy for the bitch 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 went through me and 

by the mercy of God I still stand here before thee

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

Free from all my demands you could no longer stand 

that made you be so cruel to me

Now I’m ready to sign on the dotted line as long as you’ll let me be

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 to me I’ll give it all up to stay alive

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

Big Bad Corn - graphic by Sarah Wenger

Big Bad Corn
Subsidized corn grown for fossil fuel alternative has turned out to be inefficient source of fuel. Not only that, ethanol from corn actually increases the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at a higher rate than gasoline. Yet, the U.S. pays $10 to $30 billion dollars each years in farm subsidies to raise even more of it, with no clear benefit to consumers.

Will It Ever Stop

Everyone complains when it rains. Rain tantalizes,

fills me with anticipation and gratification,

recognition that redemption is on the horizon.

My soul burns with fire

hit with a live wire until

goose bumps rise on my skin

Wait and watch diamond sparkles water curtains fall

from a vivid bright lit up silver sky

iridescent gray shaded clouds move high

Sitting in a soft luminous green velour parsons chair

watching through my plate glass window

from my 16^th floor perch

Gazing through the sheets of rain

I am transposed to a different time,

Contemplation of gains or losses,

how much garbage can I toss or give away

find people to buy what I can no longer use

I compose a poem and string words along

wonder if I’ll truly belong anywhere or go anyplace ever again

No place to call my own, no home no

Love left me alone again soul searching for diversion

I enter seclusion and decide the rain is nothing but a mist

and the sun has won out

It’s time to get out of the house once more

Tripping The Light Psychosis

I’m going to start writing narrative poetry again because they say they don’t understand my poetry anymore, I’m not writing poems, I’m writing songs. People rarely get me because I’m always so off tune. I heard a few new stories about myself today, so many people telling stories. I wonder why so many stories are untrue and always unkind.

My neighbor said, “Hey let me share what people are saying about you. Many people living here say you’re very unstable, like Ms. Humble on two says this is true about you. I try to explain you’re just a little different, that your mind is very good and it’s not true you’re unstable. I tell them you worked hard all your life so you can collect a pension and how could they think someone unstable could think that one through. I know though, it took a lot of planning and calculation, but they don’t want to hear it.

Their minds are already made up, “Unstable,” you’re labeled. They say you’re really not very sane; you don’t do things the right way. I point out that you’ve been able to thrive, you calculate interventions, and you’re savvy to the system you survived. They see how colorful you are so they judge you by the colors you wear and are blind to your capability. They don’t see you know how to face adversity. They define you as flighty.

They judge you by their own veracity. They can’t see who you really are.

I am tired of this same old story. Well, better stop telling them then I say to my supposed friend. They can’t hear if they refuse to listen.

I’ll always be an outcast. What can I do? I keep making amends and trying to make new friends.

Leave me alone to sing my blues, tone deaf and off tune, alone, singing my blues.

BODY OF EVIDENCE

Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean my fears aren’t real

Fears speak in foreign languages in dark places of my soul

They confide in me tell me where I’ve been and where I’ll go

Beyond my comprehension

Cognizance jells constancy with perceptions and prehension.

In the starry night the sun set forth with glee

Misconceived, under the impression
the sun was there to see

Seen only in one’s heart enjoying ministrations of beauty

Duped by impulsivity trying to capture eternity

Existence of time proceeds, a moment, a year, a decade,
years pass and we’re still here.

Pass like a train in the night.

Several generations away nothing’s left but the mist.

Everything in its time, beginning and end,
true love bereft by death. 

Games played to be won - there are no rules to make the world spin

Dancing in delight in the wan moonlight waiting for a generation of change

to make its way into the light

Beside me stand Jimi, Janis, Billie, Bob Marley, and John F. Kennedy before they were born

We can’t find the light to see the way out of a bad dream a nightmare in reality

Relativity exists the nightmare is as real as the window I gaze through at midnight

Looking for a light a sign that everything’s going to be alright

What is true is a lie

Searching for truth

Secrets overwhelm us

Secrets lie hidden beneath the earth still warm with the regrets of my piss

I have no more left inside that was a lie I scream as my entrails are pulled out

Steam engine losing control seamlessly riding the track

Meant for dancing then changing course before making that last turn

One turn after another wondering what choices were right

What else should we have done? Did we leave any any secret unturned?

Needing release was it left ignored to rot to die with our bodies

An epiphany of infinity a chronological weighing of events adds up to peanuts

Imminence of ends finds not one of us survive forever acceptance of the next rain

Contrives a storm a demise of quintessential gains in a new sunrise

Judgement Day

“You’re not a Jew,” she says, “not one of the few chosen ones, you’re a big nothing, a song a dance, a few laughs.”

A Johnny come lightly flowing to my rhythm, I reply, “And you’re a bitch, a vicious witch with a twist, you give me a stitch in my left side.” A brutal switch to her words, I continue, “You call yourself a Christian yet sit in judgment, call me a nothing. Step lightly," I caution. "Everyone is someone. You think because you sit in church and pray to Jesus it erases your sins, your forgeries your jealousies. Who died and made you God?”

Her mouth falls open. She is not accustomed to being answered back.

I continue, “Who gives you the right to decide what I am.”

I stop. I’m tired of this dance. What’s the purpose? I cannot change how she sees. She has cohorts of sorts who see the way she does. I live under the misconception I’m a Jew because I was born one, through and through. No one can take that away from me.

Impassioned by the fruits of my labor I know I’m a Jew. In a stew, it’s not important to define myself by her illusion. Misconceptions, putdowns and judgments morph into perceptions. I look at her again and see she’s never been my friend.

Get thee behind me I say to myself as much as her and continue on my way.

Mean People Suck!

Sally Is Dead!

I should have known how wrong things were when she rang my bell suddenly at midnight on a day before work. I didn’t know what to do and at first considered not ringing her in. I hadn’t heard from her for at least ten years. I rang her up and tried to make short work of it but spent over an hour listening to her repeat the same sentences, sometimes as many as three times. I knew something was amiss but couldn’t figure it out. I wondered if my old friend had Alzheimer's. Sally was only 43. How could she have Alzheimer’s? It seemed strange that she would repeat sentences I told her and act like it was the first time she asked the question. I gently asked her, “Sally, don’t you recall? We just said this same thing 20 minutes ago. Realizing that it was now going on 1 a.m., I told Sally I had to get up at 6 for work the next day and escorted her to the front of my building both of us promising to keep in touch. After many unanswered calls, I ran into John, her ex-husband, in front of the hospital where he’d worked for 25 years. It was 10 p.m. He sat there calmly eating a sandwich in his blue scrubs, chatting with a co-worker.

“How’s Sally?” I asked.

“Didn’t you hear?” John responded.

“Hear what?”

“Sally’s dead.”

“Dead from what?” I asked surprised.

“She died in her apartment about a month ago. She’d been dead at least a week and neighbors noticed the smell.”

“She visited me two months ago and I hadn’t seen her for years,” I said. “She showed up at midnight.”

John laughed. “That would be Sally,” he said. “No one could handle being around her anymore. Even our daughters moved in with me.”

“I didn’t know that. How old are they?”

“Stephanie started college this fall and she’s 18. Brenda is 23 and just graduated Queens College.”

“Congratulations,” I said. “How did Sally die?”

“Sally just stopped eating and going out. She was found on her bed. They said it was death through starvation.”

“Oh my God! Just starved herself to death just like that?”

“She said she was too fat and needed to diet. She used to come here on my lunch hour and sit here with me while I ate my sandwich. She did it at least once a week.”

“Yes she told me too she’d gotten too fat but she didn’t seem too fat. Maybe she could’ve stood to lose 15 or 20 pounds. She had no one else in her life?”

“Her mother died some time ago. Her grandmother is gone too. There was no one left. I guess that’s why she used to come here to sit with me. She had no one else in her life.”

“No one knew how desperate she was?”

“We were all used to her eccentricity. When she showed up here a month ago and said she was starting a new diet, we figured, here goes Sally again, off on a new spin.”

“No one saw how ill she was,” I said, “not even me. I saw she repeated herself over and over but I didn’t suspect things were that bad that she’d starve herself to death in seclusion.”

We said our goodbyes and I left wondering if there was anything I could have done to prevent her death. I knew her mom had been institutionalized when Sally was a child and we used to hang out at her grandma’s apartment. I remember we visited her mom together in the institution. Her mom never left the hospital except once for a visit. I remember grandma made us matching dresses in a beautiful stretch nylon sleeveless with a round neck and knee length. Sally’s dress was gold, burnt sienna and brown diamond patterned and mine was blue, turquoise and green diamond shaped pattern. I remember because it was the first really pretty sexy dress I had clinging to all my curves. Back then I wore a size 34 size A bra and had a 25 inch waist. I weighed 125 pounds. Sally weighed 115 and had brown gold eyes and a heart shaped face. I introduced her to her husband. She married him when she turned 17 and was pregnant with her first child.

I sit here today, 18 years later, remembering Sally and wondering if anything could have prevented her death. I miss Sally too as she was my first true friend.

 Sally took this pic of me in the dress her grandma made for me when we were 14 years old.

Jamming in the Heights

There are bad days and there are good days, stupendous days and plain old shitty days and sometimes there are bad days that stay around forever or it can seem like that anyway. Yesterday was a big day for me, one that made me feel better than I've felt for a long time, months actually, better, healthier and happier.

Today is about shout outs for me, shouting out to all those people around me who enrich my life by being part of it.

Yesterday was the Annual Ring Garden Art Show, Art In The Garden 2012, and as usual, I was listed on the menu. I use the word 'usual' because back in 2006, when I first proposed to Liz Popiel who organized the event that I read poetry at her upcoming event, Liz politely said, "Well, I kind'a made up my mind after the last poet who performed, not to include poets."

"What happened then?" I asked.
"He caused me no end of grief about the noise, about the crowd not paying attention, and about our sound system, which I provide."
"That's it?" I said. "I promise not to do any of that and just be happy to be there and be part of it."
We shook hands on it then and I asked if I could include a few of my neighborhood poetry buddies who felt the same way as me. When poetry and music began back then as part of the  annual garden art show, there was me, Demetrius Daniels, Fred Arcoleo, and Robin Glasser either reading her adult Dr. Seuss poems or reading her geisha stories.

Over the years we've continued to add many more talented performers including Carlo Baldi, Dubblex, Ruben Gonzales, Peggy Ann Tartt, Greta Herron, Carla Lynne Hall, and Amy Soucy who usually performs back up for Fred and who occasionally graces us with one of her own numbers. This year Ruben didn't show and neither did Amy, but the rest of us came and performed our little or big tushies off. This year another newbie came, Roger E Ranski, and Ranski worked it out.

Demetrius took a minute to back me and I was like, damn what's up here but later he said he guessed he became like Dubblex, afraid to intrude. I'm like, "Please don't wait for invitations in the future!" I really swooned the last number, Stormy Weather and our small but enthusiastic audience threw in, swooning right along with me. Thanks to Demetrius for his tromboetry, Dubblex for his soulful melodica and Roger E Ranski for his improv guitar.

A shout out to Donna Deming, our illustrious and charming host who replaces our beloved Liz Popiel, who nurtured this event for many years. A shout out to all the participating artists who come every year.

A special shout out too to Carolyn Stanford for her tireless work in supporting and promoting art created by incarcerated non-violent offenders through her organization, "Inside Out Art".

I am looking forward to June 30th to Poetry & Music In The Garden. Please come and enjoy and BYOB!~

Hopefully this will help to banish those blue days that don't want to go away ~

This is the line up so far:

Joy Leftow
Carol Lynn Hall
Peggy Ann Tartt
Greta Herron
Demetrius Daniels
Dubblex
Roger E Ranski
Carlo Baldi
Arthur Sherry
Mario Coppola
Curtis Becraft of Curtis and The Dilettantes fame.

More info to follow ...

New drawing

A drawing I did yesterday of someone I had just met from a very old friend of mine. It took a few minutes and I didn't have a good pencil.

No Easy Answers

I live my life in service as if curing the ills of others 

will make my maladies go away.

I define myself by the self I give away

defined by people who say what I do
but don’t see who I am

Help others define their existence helps me define myself

Help others learn to do is what I always do or try to do each time around
but can’t succeed each and every time even if you want to

so take the edge off, smoke some ganja

It’s all about love, that’s what they say; it takes a village to make a revolution

Reviewing life’s worth

Money counts but love counts more and how long does love last

when there’s no money no money no money no money

No no, no money

I didn’t do it for the money I did for satisfaction that money can’t buy you love

it doesn’t matter how hard you try money can’t buy love

I did it because that’s what social workers do is help others grow

I was a social worker before I earned my Columbia degree.

Born with the ability to see

Astrologers, tarot readers, doctors therapists teachers all agree,

I’m a mitzvah to humanity shaped to suffer their sins 
they all agree what can I do do do….

Lessons follow from Sabbath to day’s glow

I watch the surface of society grow designed for consumerism it’s not a joke.

Today bill collectors froze his bank account took three thousand. No joke!

Looking through loopholes is what bill collectors do

Money went from checking to savings, that’s their loophole to steal from disabled. 

Lawyers hired by bill collectors take everything we own – just doing their job.

No bail out for the needy! 
Only bankers and mercenaries are in charge of society.

Only they get bailouts.

I want my bailout and I want it now. I want my debts forgiven. I paid mine to society a long time ago and intend to keep paying so please please give me my bailout – I can’t survive these streets with the pennies you throw me.

And while I’m at it, please… please … no more wars…

What if everyone lived altruistically dreamed like parents

loving children unconditionally

The rich giving to the poor and paying their taxes

Let’s build a better society right here right now right on

Let’s build peace on earth forever more

We don’t want war we want peace right now right on

Peace on earth – right here not delayed heaven doesn’t exist

Let’s get it together and think of each other peace peace peace

My brother and sister after the revolution there’ll be peace on earth

Amen

Shalom

As-Salaam Alaikum

Peace out

Peace Peace Peace