Review of Joy Leftow's Blog Written by Carla Zanoni

At the time this was written, it totally missed my sights. Lucky for me some friends put aside for me and gave to me when they saw. It's old but better late than never. Thanks again Carla!

Volunteer at CAAC (Center For Animal Care And Control)

 Got Milk deserved a home but no one wanted her.

 Above is Got Milk. A life lost.

Cats are a part of my life. Recently I decided I would volunteer at NYC Center for Animal Care and Control to take babies in, since I'm always doing this anyway. It turned into a nightmare. When I took home the 3 infants, their entire back legs were covered in encrusted fecal matter and they had very bad diarrhea. This was pretty disgusting and took a lot of effort to clean. The poor weak things cried pathetically during a thorough bathing that was a kind of long process trying to remove and wash fur encrusted fecal matter that had probably been on them since their birth. Keeping them clean was extremely difficult since they all had consistent diarrhea. In spite of this the babies still put on quite a bit of weight during that time.  but were still only about one pound each, all with big tummies.

I had asked if they’d been dewormed when I agreed to take them but later learned this was untrue. I took them back for shots but they refused because they said “the vet had no time.” I think they didn’t want to make the investment of the shot. Later one young man who adopted one baby took his baby to the vet. The vet called the CACC not wanting to replicate what had already been done. Surprise, surprise, no papers could be found!

The deal was I was supposed to keep them until the afternoon before I left for my vacation on July 8^th, only 12 days more to help the babies. One of the babies I named Got Milk because I had to bottle feed her and she was so hungry plus she always a white spot on top of her mouth.

After I cleaned away all the shit, hiding beneath the shit was ringworm. I dipped them all iodine. I couldn't cancel my vacation, since my fare alone had cost over $1000. I found two people to adopt, which meant I had to return the unadopted one to the CACC. The lady who had promised to adopt Got Milk, the beautiful very hungry kitty changed her mind when I told her I had treated them for fleas and ringworm.  Poor Got Milk had to go back to the CACC.

When I returned Got Milk, they tried to keep me speaking low and said they didn’t want anyone around to know. They said they'd put her down because of their lack of resources. Poor Got Milk had to go.

I remember ...

IN THE SHADOWS OF MY MIND I LOVE JOY...

was written in black ink across
the dark photo in my hands
A black, fine, scripted line
a message in time
slipped carefully under the door

I examined the photo
She stood in the shadows
her hand draped casually over
the back of her upholstered chair

I remember Rosalie well
with her short, dyed, brunette hair
cut into a keen, neat bob
All held back by a dark brown net
Her clear dark, deep blue eyes
her cool crisp voice,

A cutting edge of guttural coarse sounds
escaped from her throat when she spoke
Rosalie was alive and genuine
moving in a world of reflected off-beat colors
She wavered on the border
between blasphemy and refinement
quicker than you could wink an eye

Rosalie was argumentative yet warm
agreeable and loyal
She could be deliberately cruel
and bitchy when she when she chose to be
I suspect it had to do with suffering she'd known

And I do believe she loved me
Rosalie is dead now almost 20 years ago
She was over 65 when I met her
(don't ask me by how much)
they said she died from a stroke caused by her alcoholism

I remember how our paths crossed walking down Broadway
me cramped over in pain and misery
I looked up and saw her staring into my eyes
and recognized her
Every time we passed one another,
we smiled at each other
I make a lot of friends like that
So me and this old lady had a habit
I meet a lot of people like that
one gal told me you're the most smilingist person I could ever wanna meet

This day I walked in pain, bent over, holding my womb
"What's wrong, dear?" she said, questioning me with true concern
She took me to her house and
treated me with naturopathic methods she'd learned at some fancy class
She wrapped me tightly from head to toe in a big iced up towel
then rolled me securely in a blanket of wool
leaving me two hours to chill out my fever
gifting me with the first relief I'd felt in two weeks
I stood straight as a result of Rosalie's remedies

How could I help but love her
with her wide open eager smile
her passions and her jealousies her quick anger
her petty aggravating assaults on any behavior she deemed wrong

Rosalie... her sudden quirks
and eccentricities
her confessions to what
she labeled high class prostitution
and past alcoholic history

I figured she needed to dull her sharp senses
her gall and quick wit
her tender loving ways
I'll remember Rosalie without her photo
for she inhabits the shadows of my heart
her words forever imprinted

I love Joy in the shadows of my mind

© 1994

I know it I know it I know it

It’s ok guys I’m putting it away

In and out like the wind my tongue flickers through words faster than my brain can process them, jumping ahead leaping over boulders 

my words transcend become one

Eat crow again and again to no end to the viciousness of innocent crimes committed time and again daily 

idly imbibing sand fills my mouth escalating escape envisions fantasy visions bleep counting sheep once more it ends begins no end time begins ends

Tomorrow is mother’s day I get my way automatically it is whatever I say it is - honor my motherhood day

I know it I know it I know it

I can show you how to do it,

I know it

Listen to the words the beat shows I know it

Reverberations dance in my eyes and visions hide

no one but me can see

Illicit Romanic Encounter

Meet me outside clandestinely

Kiss me passionately

No one else has to know

I promise not to tell

Agree to meet at Starbucks on
Second Avenue at 80th Street

where hopefully, no one knows us.

I reckon you’ll be late but you
beckon me from the corner

On rare occasions when we meet and you think
no one else sees, you pull me to you fiercely

Playfully and forcefully, always by surprise

Press your lips down hard push

your tongue between my lips

enter without consent

Your hand holds my neck firmly,

your other hand applies pressure to my face

Suddenly, like an unexpected summer storm
Flashes of lightning and downpour on a sunny day,
quickly disappears, the sun
brighter than before the storm

you’re gone in less than ten seconds

Maybe when we’re 80 we can finally get together

again you’ll whisper sweet nothings, stare in my eyes

but then you won’t turn and leave me
We’ll have a few years together before I die

I can always dream
Maybe I'll be a size four when I'm eighty

Then you'll want me forever
You like little slim girls
Not a big girl like me size eleven or twelve

I want to be smaller but that’s not what it is

You just like her more than me she’s trimmer has more muscle

She is artistic just like me

Besides you love her, not me

So why do you insist every time we meet

When I least expect it you act like you’re only being friendly

Suddenly you grab me and my dreams are reawakened
in an unbridled sunrise explosion

Maybe when I’m eighty you'll finally be all alone
Maybe then it will be different

Spill the Beans, A Drug Dealer Poem

Scat it verbally

Rift through a blind alley

I stumble through a valley of words

I am not forsaken

I do not deny the allegations swimming in my head

My tone-deaf ears betray my frustration as I try to work through them

Deny the valley of death, I stumble ahead

A new gestation of wandering words joins the tribe

wondering where to go before I die

I digest the contents

Of a symphony, words define my lust

betrays and defines my trust

Ignore the shallow depths, I forge ahead.

Follow a new design

Wallow in just and fine deserts,

dust my mind free of desert sand

Trust in salvation

Like a fruit fly,

I follow light breathlessly without focus

jealousy becomes wounds inside out

from way back in the day,

Lucky to have survived till today.

So many chances and choices - should’ve beens and could’ve beens

never evolving to more than a memory of a dream

Live to survive

Reminisce on what could’ve been; still not dead

An angel stands between me and death

Consumed by an urge for vanilla fudge ice cream

Trapped in the midst of a drug heist

I live to tell how the story went down that night

My son asleep in his bed by the window

they climbed down the fire escape from the roof to enter his room

Stoned cold criminals, killers seeking drugs we survive to tell the allegory.

Our son slept beneath an open window the moon gazing in

My husband went to the window, screaming

Grabbed our son from our one-bedroom flat where he rested on his mat

on the floor and handed our son to the retired old couple from Spain next door

took our son from Felix’s arms.

Later they watched Felix through their peephole.

He held a wooden kitchen chair by its leg and went in the hallway, swinging it.

Cowardly and afraid, the criminals ran away.

My husband took my baby son to my sister’s that night

Caught between enemies on all sides, the law and so-called friends are enemies

No one on my side, and me a mother, woes multiply

The world reversed her orbit tonight I swore it was over

One way or another I had to start another life - survive

Wounds of a life lived so hard there’s no escape

I take root in another fight to be won delight in moonlight

A miracle to survive a story to be told

Yes, I had someone to be and someplace to go go go go go