I spent the first part of my life as a nomad, but relocated to Albany in 2000, and have been here ever since.
As far back as I can remember, I have always been a writer. I won a 2nd grade poetry contest back in the day. My parents still have that poem up on the wall….much
to my chagrin. Since then, I have continued writing and had some small publishing in local papers.
I am inspired by small nuances of each day and the little daily occurrences that sometimes we walk by unnoticing. I believe there is an essential truth in all things simplistic and it links us all together. I enjoy writing because even those objects considered base, guttural, or insignificant can be transformed into divine symbols of hope.
To be honest, I prefer scribbling in the sidelines of my class notes and in the margins or my work…than standing in the a spot light. I don’t think of myself walking around with ‘Poet’ stamped on my forehead or sewn to my sleeve. It’s just more like something that seems so ingrained in my nature that I cannot help but keep writing.
I enjoy volunteering and playing guitar and like to travel whenever I get the chance, but Poetry seems to be the thing that sticks with me through out my life.
Poetry lets you say things without exactly saying them. It lets you speak things that you’d never dare say aloud…unless it was Poetry.
POEMS
UNIVERSAL HYMN
god drinks
death-black martinis
tonight
the moon
is his only
ice cube
DRYING OF THE LAUNDRY
barren alleyways full of city laundry
like expressionless pieces of skin colored by the sunset
pristine and pinned in place
i am strung out like clothing wire between houses
here….where the evening day dyes
white towels into shades of red and purple
i watch an airplane disappear behind a pair of drying socks
a bird’s flight seems to crash into a gathered parade of faded panties
my window is the window to the world
and the hanging laundry like the movie screen of our torrid lives
somewhere visions of you pressed hard against me dance
like french film clips across the neighbors’ dangling bed sheets
so hard and ardent our love was
like wet memories rung out
and dripping into the streets below
i watch the color drip down from the ravels
onto the heads of little children playing ball below
they look up in disbelief and wonder
OUR CITY
a train is chased by a storm into the dusk
and the city pulls her children in
like chicks beneath the scurry of a hen
thin and sweet…the voice of a women
raises above the clammer of traffic
whispering….”stay with me”
in a broken flat a man curls his body around a bottle
listens intently to the rain compete
with the train upon the tracks
the whole world is hushed though an open window
as a mother lulls her child to sleep
an old house still lives
tucked between sky scrapers
in the curve of his dreaming wife
a husband finds sudden comfort
woken from a childhood memory that he long forgot
the whole world revolves with the ceiling fan
the dream is yours and the lips are mine
the miracle ours:
how we still find each other in the night
EGGS AND BACON
last night: i (only) dreamed a dream of passion
like the seeded raw insides of red ripen fruit
today i make your breakfast….fading dreams in my faded pj’s
sagging away with the dying elastic waistbands
i take such caring pleasure to hold up each cold
smooth white egg in the warmth of my half dreaming hands
my head in the clouds
like each fragile egg is brought down sharply
brained on the metal side of the bowl in a smack
scrambled and broken into the death black of a cast iron skillet
sometimes i relish that sudden cold meeting sudden hot
the sizzle of eggs in bacon grease
across the table as we eat
i tell you of my perfect dreams
you mumble back with food in your mouth
“you burnt the bacon again and got shell in the eggs”
sometimes i (guiltily) wish
you would choke on your bacon
but most times….. i just wished you’d say
thank you
LESSONS ON SAILING
you look at me
the way men usually do
at half attractive women
expecting some great revelation
knowing that great revelations
are the last thing on your mind
but i have nothing brilliant to say
with my pen like a wide broom
i push along the dust of words
sorting out fragments and paragraphs
like small pieces of paper
like lost rubber bands
that still cling to hairs
that it once held back
like discarded cups
sticky with evaporated liquid
i am the janitor of words
and there is nothing glamourous about it
i could blame it on so many things
but i just lean against the handle of life
like a great ore
directing me
as if you
the paper
and the empty room
swell into one large ocean
i close my eyes
and smell the sea
my fingers grip around the
lines like rigging
the tablet of white paper
like linen sails spreads
catching the wind
the words
spraying wet and cool
across the wooden
deck of my desk
the salt
tinging my lips
stinging almost
pleasurably my eyelids
and without you knowing
without form and void
i have sailed
gliding soft and silent
as a holy ghosted ship
across the face
of your memory
and what remains
far beyond your dark storms
moored
white as swans
in the safe harbor
i lean once more
on the handle of my pen
pushing out the dust of words
i hold them out to you
upon my wrists
but you look at me
expecting some great revelation
but i have nothing brilliant to say
