A Funny Memory

Florence said, “He’s nice enough, he’s got money, he's a doctor and all but he’s not a lot of fun. Worst of all his dick is so small it’s like a button. I can’t do anything with it.”

“Like a button,” I say unbelievingly, “you mean like this?” and I hold up my pinky to show her.

“No, Florence says, “more like the nail on your pinky. What am I supposed to do with that?”

I look at her in disbelief.

“Oh, I know he’s in love with me,” she continues, “but I have to have something to work with.

“That is just too much to have it so small. Even rubbing on it can do nothing at all. The first time I saw it I was shocked. If I weren’t a nicer person I would have laughed. Maybe he could get a skin graft to enlarge it or if he had some skill or craft, but all he’s got is that little button without a shaft. I’m not a glutton for punishment so I can’t continue to see him no matter how much he loves me. He calls me every day. I don’t know what to say.”

“Is it the same size when hard?” I ask.

“Yes, it’s no prize, a hard little penny he rubbed on my thighs. I don’t want to see him anymore. I’m not shallow. I know the score, but what can I say to him? Your dick is good for nothing, it’s too small?” 

Although this conversation happened in 1998, I recall it like it was yesterday. It's strange how these conversations stay in our minds and replay themselves day after day, even long after the person who said it has passed away. 

Reinvent The Universe ...

Need alone down time

To survive threatening circumstances

Need to listen to the hurt, hear the cries

Regrets I try to forget, leave behind

I turn a blind eye to the answer

Vow to leave doubt out of the question to my answer

Lies survive my lips deny my heart

Fear a mishap on the horizon

An angel forsaking our great nation on the verge of denial

Does Gehinnom exist? - Jew’s purgatory

Refuse to accommodate doubts about heaven or hell:

Gehinnom

Intensification exists no doubt

Fingertips feel my heart beat with passion

Sensation alive in my drive

Pain sears through my womb

Pain, rips my soul from a concentration camp

Revive a better nation based on the assumption

That they do what they want to and we do what we’re told

Secrets we hold near, they hurt but they stay there

I deny what we live through

Live outside my head in the grip of a constant illusion

Hear conversations that never occur

Survive the delusion I live inside my head

Rich imaginings of what was said

What never was nor will be

Die and I never said what I meant to say to you and now I never will

The pain never stops

I keep moving my feet to a beat only I hear,

I try to help someone hear,

Please hear but no one hears but me

Standing alone in a grim bleak reality, coming and going alone

Solutions flash by and are slashed off by reality as 

I follow the path of Dorothy unafraid of what precedes me, lays in wait 

In a roughened bush burning by the side of an elegant brook 

In forest of deceit I wander hearing innocent animals slaughtered 

Cries calling out in my head instead 

Reality frozen in a time frame 

Waiting for a way out of the underflow 

I call to every passer by I see

Please, I beg, a hand please, I beg you don’t hurt me 

I’m only a first time offender 

I didn’t mean to raise my hand, 

Absolution for the abortion, 

Please stop the pollution, 

I hear the cries of an ancient race of animals now all dead, 

There’s no more of them to kill, only a lab created animal exists 

Please father, a benediction before I go and leave this universe

Can you give me a calculation of where you think I’ll be?

Father I have sinned, 10 hail Marys and go your way and sin no more 

I promise, father I have sinned

Afraid there’s another life waiting somewhere to find me 

Explore, seeking to find my way out of mischief into a glance of an inner richer universe

No exsanguination please

Try not to cry but the tears build in my eyes betray me

Water builds but doesn’t flow, yet you see me

I explode into another me who is she? 

I don’t know 

I didn’t make her 

She is I bubbling beneath the blood 

Warm ready to burst forth in flames fires 

Burst forth from my mouth like a dragon breathing fire I

Explode into a new me

Once more a reinvention of whom I want to be

I Feel Like Joyce Kilmer Tonight

The sky is falling upon me

So stifled I can barely see

Droplets of rain assuage the pain

Insane in the membrane, refrain

In life itself there is no gain

Kind of like a runaway train

Tremendous shame causes anguish

I wish I had some other dish

I am a fool to fall in love

Duped when someone fits like a glove

I’d love to live a life of bliss

Learn how to dismiss all of this

Not try to fill the emptiness 
Experience true happiness

I Think I’ve Gone Crazy, Don’t Tell Anyone

The old tell the young

Don’t leave the store unminded

I’ve gone a step further 

Left the store of my mind unminded

My unminded mind is a travesty beyond words

Licorice on my fingertips makes me

Feel like a psychopath

Waiting on a Sabbath never comes

My unminded mind gasps for breath

Resuscitates and recreates words

Paints edible pictures to make you

Get your second wind in my breath

Make you open your liliaceous lips to

Hungrily absorb my sentiments,

Your temperament

Feels my words cry

You see & feel your loneliness

Like you thought you never felt it before

The helpless ones, the children and the hunger

Desires awaken, I’m a word monger

Forget your Oreo cookies and ice cream

Desires die tomorrow along with the wind

They didn’t mind the store of their mind either

I’m not alone in not minding

Unsolicited freedom rings in some country far away

My mind leaves behind

Stores energy of its kind trying to find out & unwind

Another way in or another way out

Of this rabbit maze my world whirls

Whirlpool faze with sheeps in wolf’s clothing

A different design

The I and I goes way 

Beyond the words we know

copyright 2008

CAMILLE

Your light snuffed out like this candle

I light in commemoration

Not permitted full potential

Never reaching maturation

Your flame put out prematurely,

Wounds my heart like a sword surely

Michael requests positive energy

To help her on her journey

Light a single white candle at sunset

Blue, yellow and red flames ascend

Many loved you, will not forget

I would redo, make amends

Stopped literally in your tracks

Flames soar; see you clutching red wine

Forced before time to pay death tax

Passion and spine created your shine

You were like my sister, my family

Joey recalled movie class, your arm

Resting on his shoulders, your words

Softly spoke, a blue rhapsody

Short winded, precise and clear

Owned the gift of repartee

Camille possessed much flair

With her, no boredom guarantee

Times gone, I snuff the candles light

My mind’s eye reminiscences

Memories live, my delight

Death abandons all; relentless

Loss and Bereavement - Tribute to Camille Vega-Willard

I recently heard my beloved friend, Camille Vega-Willard, passed away. Her husband Michael Willard wrote to let me know that Camille had passed away on August 4th and that he was "flying with her physical remains and sisters to let her join her mother and father in the family plot in Luquillo, Puerto Rico." Michael added, "Request good memories and positive energy to help her on her journey." As we age, it is inevitable that we will experience loss.

Here follow my good memories and thoughts about my dear beloved friend Camille.

I recall Camille fondly, nursing a bottle of fine and inexpensive red wine with her wit and intelligent banter, listening to her pontificate on a variety of subjects, listening to her short whispered insights and stories. Her lust for life and her love for Michael were evident in every word. She was fun to listen to too. She could discuss any subject with clarity and sensitivity. Camille knew how to use satire in her talk. She was very precise and short winded. Listening to her made me laugh and made me think. Camilla made me feel special, like my ramblings mattered.

I remember when we were at Columbia University together. I had a young child and Camille was very friendly. Camille convinced me to take a class on film with her. One day, my young son Joey, 7 years old at the time had no school and I had my movie class. The class was packed and Camille led me to in front of the front row of seats and we lay down to watch Fassbinder. Joey loved movies too. He ended with his head on Camille’s shoulder with her arm around him. After this, Joey loved Camille too. When I texted him that she’d passed, he came down and we commiserated several hours remembering Camille.  

I remember when Camille would do one-third the amount of work I did for a class and she’d pull an A and I’d pull a B or B+. She gave me her paper to study, telling me to say less and focus more. All of our professors loved her too. One came to weekly family dinners and it seemed like roles switched when his marriage was on the rocks and Camilla acted like his therapist.

I recall when she told me she’d met Michael. I asked how they got together. She told me that she’d been planning to go to Mexico to study a Gypsy community there and Michael protested that they’d just only met; he didn’t want her to go. Camille said she presented her solution: “Marry me and go with me to Mexico.” He did and they’d had a big adventure in Mexico.

Camilla was honest and forthright. You knew you could depend on her not to bullshit you. If you wanted the truth of what she thought, she’d give it to you straight. She wasn’t beyond offering coddling when needed either. Plus she was simply and deliciously beautiful, inside and out. Whoever knew Camille knew Camilla could make you feel special. Camille never tried hard to look sexy or pretty, she didn’t have to. She naturally had the most beautiful hair, the greatest skin, and she had va-va –voom!

Camille had many special talents. She made you feel like every utterance, every incantation, every word, was only meant for you and that your every utterance was just as meaningful. I remember how impressed I was when Camilla began exploring her more creative side with photography. Up till now I’d only seen her intellectual side. She even began producing her own photos in a dark room she designed and made with Michael’s help. Her photos were stories that began to develop into complex tales. She became very adept and I imagined her work in galleries. They were good, tasteful, and artsy.

I will achingly miss her. What I will hold dear in my memory is that Camille is a bright light who shined upon us in this world. I was blessed to have been included in part of her life.