Criticism betrays me

I’m so bad that people gather together to conspire to criticize me. They review and share my misdeeds sitting in judgment of stupid things starting with how improper I am to scratch my head. I say out loud the unsaid things no one else would ever say.

Criticized on all sides. One sister calls me fickle because I dumped some stupid guy. But she sure dumped a lot more guys than me. In her next breath she said I was insane and proved myself a doormat to put up with his shit.

My miss fine manners –I always looked up to her, saw her as more beautiful than me and so smart. She knew how to behave. She could fool anyone into believing anything. She probably believed it all herself. She fooled two therapists at one time proving two was just as easy as one to deceive. She would see each and tell them different versions of the same events. She told me she needed one for her heart and the other for her mind. She discards garbage passing through our lives, hiding things from herself. She can no longer see what is deception, an illusion, sees all as her own private truths. Like me, she lives in a private world of delusion, a flimsy sense of right and wrong betray us, see the world through a film of gauze and baubles. I am let down by my perceptions.

Others are more sensible, think it through, avoid trouble. I try and do the same as I observe others have done, and am called insane and crazy though I’ve been called worse than that too.

I dream I’m talking to Buck Henry, “Buck,” I tell him, “I’d rather be faithful but when I get unhappy I also get unfaithful.” He laughs and agrees.  It’s like I told Buck Henry about being unfaithful. I’d rather not throw stones but how many do you take and turn away before you throw some back. Imagine! She is a plagiarizer and you a drunken fool who have nothing to show for all your years of work because of the alcohol. Killing yourself slowly, your brain no longer tells you where to go.

Criticizing you doesn’t make me feel better. I feel the worst for it. How unkind to put down a friend for a silly thing like scratching her head. That is crazy. I resolve not to continue to be unkind so I apologize for all my wrongs.

Who gave you leave to play god to my queen or think you’re so perfect you have the right to judge anyone.

He has a predilection for prostitutes along with his alcohol. He doesn’t use protection. I know about these things but don’t use it as a weapon. And my other accuser, his favorite girl, is a plagiarist. He wrote all her papers. She explained that God put him there to write them for her. She wouldn’t be a nurse if it weren’t for him. I pray she’ll never nurse anyone I know. Oops my bad, I agree you’re both better than me – so where does that get you? This is friendship for you? I have lost my way to call someone a friend who criticizes me for stupid stuff.

I’m selling tickets now so stand in line to criticize me.

Julio says,  “These people are not your friends. Leave them behind. Put yourself with positive people. You have no luck sister because you were a fallen in a past life. Everyone kicks a falling star. It’s in your planets to be a humanitarian. Take yourself away from negativity. Don’t think about negative people and only be with those who are positive. Do this sister and stay positive and move towards the light and everything will be all right.”

I’m moving on to a new hemisphere. Bygones are bygones are even woebegone. I’d accept an apology but I understand it’s more important to be right. New beginnings are out’a sight! I make a new year’s resolution to make more friends… and to always make amends.


______________________________________________
Author's note*

*Originally I wrote this then changed it a great deal but today in looking at my various versions of this piece, I felt this one had merit too, so put it up. I get confused sometimes because I have so many versions of the same piece. The later version can be seen here:
Stand In Line To Criticize Me

Rainbow Fantasy

I live in an age where when I go to CVS and ask the sales person for Mercurochrome he has no idea what I’m talking about. Live in an age where most people under 25 have never heard of Marilyn Monroe. Some few saw the recent production of movies and T-shirts shown all over the fashion industry. I bought a Marilyn shirt at Macy’s. Probably people who grew up during her time saw the movies about Marilyn’s life.

They had to kill Marilyn. True she’d been passed down through the Kennedys and I recall how she sang, Happy Birthday Mr. President with that Eartha Kitt sexy breathy voice, a husky tinge promising more to come.

People don’t know who Janis and Jimi are either, don’t see why they should give a damn about them. It’s more about who you are today in light given years. You see what I mean. - O’lay!

Living in an age where stars are criminals and the more props you gain from your evil deeds the more famous you become.

No one cares about a starlit gaze, a maze of illustrious dreams; everyone thinks things so easy now-a-days. Com’on and get happy, throw all your cares away.

Get on a reality TV show to show your bad, show your stupid fat ass fad and that and 2 cents makes you famous.

Now-a-days they don’t make stars or Mercurochrome anymore. None of the real stuff can be found. A few stars pass by unnoticed and unnamed and no one can see what you see even when you explain it to them using a light show. No one knows anymore. We just imagine a new world we can make unable to see the waste of talents over years. No one knows anything anymore…

Used to be a time when people knew, a time when we knew what we could do and would join together to make things better.

All the fizz is out of the jizzmo.

No one’s going anyplace anymore. All out of that brand? I can’t understand why it hurts so much.

Know I’ve got to go where I can show I understand the flow of the naked glow - no one understands what I say. Is it because I live in a different realm and can’t be in this one?

The universe doesn’t exist or my mind resides on a faraway star, a space in a hidden universe.

I never conquered the space between the roses. The thorns bite to the quick when you try to pick one, a delicious hurt I want more of.  I savor the taste of blood as it rolls down my fingertips, a tribute to Eleanor, I suck my bloody finger, relish my taste when I'm too lazy to use the Astrogel. I slide my finger inside for more wetness. I lick my finger. It tastes so good, enjoy the scent and put my finger back on the buzzer.

Is this what they mean when they say you have 9 lives, do they mean that the universe I die in is different from the womb that birthed me.

What exactly changed that the fare went from a dime to two fifty in the timespan of half of a century or that the planet is hotter than before like summer days where they urge you to stay inside for your own good or you may explode inside the time it takes to walk outside to go where you decide to go.

Are people still the same or are they different? You have to shock people, force their eyes wide open, make them feel something and if you can’t do that in the span of a second then you’re second place, you’ll never be first.

If you have to ask the question you’ll never understand the answer no matter how many times it’s explained to you. You have to know, if you don’t know it’s like being dead, walking in a dense cloud of obnoxious smoke. Create a new trend, dubious dreams seem delirious. Next night I was there when it happened yet never witnessed the change.

The gap between space and time closes.



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*Author's note

*I actually do know that Mercurochrome is outlawed because of the mercury because when I had this experience of going to a drugstore and not finding it on shelves and no one knowing what it is anymore, I looked up why and learned. 

Thanks to Thomas Hubbard to corrected my spelling of Jimi.

Mississippi blues festival Gussow and Turner), 2013

Finally Finally ...

This was a very tough issue for me as I had no one to do layout except me. As it turned out, the cover was created online using pages which it took me a minute to figure out. With the rest of the issue I used microsoft word which didn't seem any more difficult than pages but is a bit easier than Adobe in Design. I spent about 20 hours and a full day sitting at my computer. Boy was my butt sore!


UuuuuugggggGGGGG

Here she is in all her glory.

Short stories, poetry and art.

Featured Poet:   M. Miriam Herrera

Featured Artist: Chor Boogie

Yay for me I made some headway!

The Cartier Street Review is out July 2013

Other artists:

Joe Giodano

Florence Weinberger

Thomas Hubbard

Williams

James Maloney

DAYBREAK

Cellophane moon rides high in sky

Moon tides burst with song

Stings my unnurtured heart with ruptured longings deeper than sea ringing inconsolably

Jimmies the lock triples the false starts below the bistro glows yellow lights glimmer

Flickr the night away dreaming fritter the morning sun warming the ground I lie upon

Pray to the diverse universe of sounds emerge reborn from the womb

I am

The sting hurts worse the first time I lay claim to Cleopatra’s birthright

Scent from heaven

Love makes wrongs right

You get it or you don’t

Try harder to bite the dust emerging from my womb

Clean house, sweeps dirt from beneath the rug

hidden corners emerge bathed in dawn’s light

Aglow with merchandise to show I sweep the surface below words running rapids

Afraid of the flow falling unbidden from lips unspoken nerves violet loves

bright blue golden fringed butterflies dance in my eyes

Walking through the rain at daybreak, no longer feel teardrops flowing with the rain

Flooded by memories, past difficulties, unable to eradicate even one memory

Live through memories daily, replay in my head, I can’t deny

Memories thrive, can’t forget no matter how hard I try

Memories linger, replay day after day

Memories cling to me like worn out clothes

I have the sense to trash these memories insist, resist any effort to throw them away

Memories return to torture me repeatedly

Lure me to decipher hidden sentiments tucked away

To lonely dark secluded places deep beneath the rubbish that stands for anything real

I assign a name to a place tortured by time grown wise beyond the horizon

anger seethes beneath crimes committed, I admit my guilt,

“The fault … is not in our stars, but in ourselves.” *

Memories stand in my way. I am my own personal Judas Iscariot.

Between dawn and dusk searching for remnants of luck, stuck in no man’s land

Under a moonlit sun

Lost in traffic disgruntled and disavowed

Eyes gaze into mine deeper than the deepest

see emerging from the constraints in my veins,

crumbs from my womb sweep clean, a diamond ruby triumphs

Blinding sun breaks at the crack of dawn, mystifies soul watcher

Desire tinged edges lost in the catacombs of fire

* Julius Ceasar