Beach hair

Sunning my face
under a city street light
soaking in winter raindrops
I refuse to wash the beach out of my hair

Guiding flags

Between red flags in sand dunes
and yellow in the field of cattails and bamboo
I walk forever wrapped in white flags-
surrendering to the bottomless sky

Cookies on the beach

Sunning until I bake
like a cookie
I’ve been called delicious
but I am a guilty pleasure
the enemy of every fat girl
Happy round girl don’t cry
this cookie doesn’t rise, but deep fries
Done over and over again
past the timer
Lying flat and crisp
under the oven light
burnt, dehydrated, inedible
inevitably suspect to any cup of milk,
even that imposter-Silk
Imagination only can bring
the sensation-
Sweet
I am no treat to meet
There are no secret
ingredients to soften
the absurdity
of a cookie
left on the beach

Burnt

Your mosh-pit is silent now.The crowd has polluted and left an empty lot letting the fires that wove to a metal song burn to the ground. I walk through the soot and ash of a short lived chaos high off the toxins in the air and playing with the devil.

A hallow tree

Warm November leaves color the breeze and brush the door.
The hallow room whistles to the lonely mattress on the floor.

The emptiness incubates in here, grows on furniture, and creeps up my arms.
A moldy isolation makes memories out of the fungus that bubbles over my white paint.

Over my notebook I draft the hours, cut each minute down to seconds, reclaiming time lost. A hallow tree peers into my window as if it were watching an art exhibit.

Turtlenecks

Your guitar lyrics wore turtlenecks in my presence as my deep eyes stood naked watching you stand with your arms crossed waiting for the poetry to seep from every crevice of my body until I was dehydrated.

Nude November

The trees undress
allowing the moonlight
to penetrate through
the curtains,
color my face,
and put a spotlight
on my secrets,
fears,
and questions
that can no longer
hide in the foliage
when I whisper
them into the dark wind.

The branches look weak now
And so do I-
Bare and skinny arms
reaching out to the sky,
giving it all to autumn-
awaiting winter

I remember
many Novembers
in slow motion,
fragments,
and isolated
moments
playing over again-
The shivering,
As I mimicked,
the shaking trees,
exposing,
still posing,
nude,
through the fall,
as the crispy
colored leaves
outside
are loosened
and taken.

Tonight
stripped already,
I strip some more
in between blank walls
And now I am but a
transparent sentence.

I hate my name
from beginning to end.
I write it down,
peal and tear
off each letter,
shake them up,
spell other words,
and try to say it backwards.
It is an empty word
that only disappears
in an empty time
when there is little to fill
the barren spaces
on the clock
in a month that passes
slower each time.

A sunny wreck

I always wanted
to save you
from the wreckage
of the past
and the unfulfilled dreams
of the future,

Your heart that will hurt forever
lying next to mine
in a bruised field
where explosions
have trapped
them beneath debris
and keeps them in the dark
breathing in toxic fumes.

My fighting eyes
would take wounds to rescue you,
pull you from this burning wreck
that keeps the mind
from defining-
Free,
the burning
that fills real
bright and airy rooms
with dark and rusty metal furniture.

The wind is always dusty,
I walk in its potent cloud
woozy and doped-up.
Yes,
we are both wounded,
cut-up,
stitched-up,
and re-opened,
but simply by default.

As I watch you get
stronger I find
the truth is
I can’t save you,
but have come to
learn from you and depend
on you-
unlike I have any other.
It makes me fearful
to think I would ever say:
“What would I do without you?”

I still hear
the whispers and the screams.
I still feel my bones shake
and my insides turn green,
but I can still walk
and even laugh
as the voice whispers again:
you are a fighter
When I think of you
I believe it this time.

Black Sand

I kissed Spain last night,
fell asleep

on an empty

train platform
dreaming of a beach

of black sand
and polished rose quartz stones

The strange little things you do

The strange little things you do
After watching close
I noticed I do them too
The weird and impulsive things you say
or the way you grip onto
the hand of those you love
until it hurts
You’re emotional and over-sensitive
I even hurt like you too, but can never tell you
I am incapable
Though my fragility is invisible
My body rough like stucco and solid as cement
You cry and tell me you’ll never let go
Look at me with those brown eyes
that are like mine
inside I crumble
and I say to myself- finally.

Cosmic Nights

Writing-
Fabricating
cosmic nights
with back strokes of a pen.

Swimming-
In my own words
paralyzed
by the moon’s reflection.

Floating-
Forever
on a letter or two
at the top of the ocean.

Photo by eye2eye at flickr

Underwater

There are rocks on the bottom of my ocean’s floor and I refuse to walk anymore, but only swim underwater with my eyes open until you grab my hand again and pull me back through the passing wave, back to you.

Oceans in the Sky

There are connections
that only can happen in the dark.
Whispers from other worlds
with moments of silence
between slips of the tongue.
Undercovers wondering
where it all goes from here or
where it could have came from
as the wandering
wanders away
from all its plans
wishing there was at least
one thought
that hadn’t been stripped
and tossed to the floor.
It then all becomes an afterthought
and I look in the sky
as if it were the ocean
and I was looking
for flying fish.



Photo by pwnedbyryan on Flickr

Caribbean dreams

A New Yorker
Who dreams
With a Caribbean soul

Pours out their heart
Solely to the ocean
Sings out loud on crowded trains

Loves to dance in heavy rain
Then craves a warm fire
On a summer night

Plays in the riptide
To forget and remember
Surrendering to fairytales

Summer Reading

Tony Iovino, the creator and host of The Summer Gazebo Reading Series, put together a collage of all the performers.

I am so glad I had the opportunity to participate in this series. Follow the link to read bios of the incredibly talented participants.

Thanks again Tony!

(This photo and all others were taken by Ali Iovino and Betsy Transom)

Here are the poems I had the pleasure to read: Love Notes , Conversion, Madrid, and Crowded

One empty. One full.

That bottle of red wine-
the one we saved for a rainy day,
a sexy hour,
a dim light,
that bottle that turned me on.
It floated far from my mind,
holding imaginary love notes,
but it’s only a bottle of old grapes
to get me tipsy,
inspire a little poetry.
Two glasses left empty
proved it all phony,
left a lonely bottle on a dark
pantry shelf collecting dust.
I feel alone
tonight,but began to drink it by myself.

Lit

I would have turned up the flame if I knew it was going to burn so slow...

There are no next times, no. Only past times screwing new ones,

but I can let them go-

you know, when the wind takes lit ashes

they look like fireflies in the dark

and I have learned to gladly dance in them.

Writer’s Dew

The dewy air tonight drowns my inner dialogue
My pen grows heavey and falls

I can only see shadows and faces dance across my walls
silent like old black and white films

Buried a Jew

Sometimes when I close my eyes
I walk in my mourning clothes
to visit tombs I have never seen,
searching for the mausoleum of my grandfather.
To kill his living memory,
to bury him with the floating
spirits of his Barese peasant ancestors
who prayed everyday slaving away by the Adriatic Sea
without a thought that one hundred years later
I would be here.
A mutt,
mixed with the Anglos,
the Micks, and the Jews
stripped of their Barese last name,
not living for the land,
but riding on a dirty subway train-
Underground I sat waiting desperately to see
a man before he closed his dark brown eyes forever,
went back to the lands of his fathers,
to reclaim his name,
to repent for his dirty deeds,
to wipe away all the disgust
he held for his heritage in life-
Behind a glass window,
It was so simple.
So quick.
Just a few words
from a woman in white
who told me politely,
“he was transferred”
and she will never know
how I shattered
as I replied, “thank you.”
Moved from the hospital bed,
he was dead-
And I went back underground,
my soul at civil war,
exploding and destroying
until it stopped and I felt dead.
Helpless.Betrayed.Disowned.
In darkness
I felt God, but it still hurt.
I felt God, even though
I am not a catholic,
protestant, a Jew,
baptized, or confirmed.
My grandfather’s poor Barese soul
watched with his fathers
as he was given a Jewish funeral.
I can only imagine
his burial site,
unless I can catch him as he floats
around in my dreams
to show me the way back there,
but for now my eyes will only over flow
when I see the funeral card,
my grandmother framed,
but cannot read because it is written in Hebrew.

There's a Soul Down There

There’s a soul down there
That I touch when my soul’s energy finds yours
It is somewhere
Maybe behind your ribs that cages you in this misery

When I am silent only your soul knows I’m there
and never comes through
I often try speak to it, but when your soul
moves up to your lips, past your breath,
it dances with humanity and your personality fucks it up

I dream of days when the sun reflected off of the snow,
turning our faces and noses red digging for things that were
frozen to the ground.
My eyes couldn’t see then, but through a narrow scope
finally I became tainted myself
Now even my soul is silenced
resting up against my heart

There’s a soul down there, I know
Ours only play on a different snow
Each day my soul presses on my heart
and I feel myself crying inside,
stifling the soul from the world outside

Casualties (working it out still)

We are all casualties of time and war.
Some of us hide our scars,
Others turn them into tattoos and worship every mark.
The clock ticks and I only hear chains rattle.
Each day another minute is really taken away and every freedom
only appears to be freer when it is becoming more fabricated and fictional.
I can smell the smoke and see it before it rises over the horizon,
but I will never know who lit the fire.


We are casualties, who are really ghost soldiers,
fighters with imaginary swords,
dying for our blinded fathers
who have taught us to see too much color
and killing for the words that have been marked on us
before we were anything to mark.

We are casualties, I told God.
And I knew since I was just a small child
that with time I would only bear more scars
and have deeper wounds that would never close.
That I would look into the eyes of strangers
and first be afraid. And next feel sorrow.
That I could hold out my hand, but know it could be cut off.
And that love wears out, but pain only incubates and regenerates.
That I will cry inside until I die for the false belief that there can be unity
and peace between two souls.

We are casualties underneath the armor.
Our eyes look innocent, but if you look close
they are broken up with little cracks and imperfections that let light in.
These eyes are blinded by many skies.
Blinded by God’s words that they never heard themselves, but were given as hand-me-downs.
And blinded again by the distant screams of the wounded who seek revenge from lives before.
We blindly walk on a planet that is stale and has hardened,
sealing in tears, blood, and other fossilized ammunition.

We are casualties and we continue to walk among the wreckage.
We invent what we can only conceptualize as beautiful,
painting beauty mostly at the expense of another.
There is a war always already waging even when we think we're cleaning up.
Yet we hold on tight to things that allow us to sleep at night
As we dream in worlds that don’t exist.

Grasshoppers and an Opal Rose

Green dreams
rest in a garden
where grasshoppers
are as common
as blades of grass.



Opal roses grow
with emerald stems
sparkling in the daylight
as the sun coats my skin
with a warm silk covering.



These red lips
cant help but to
compulsively release stories
on the exhaling Z’s
stirring a still breeze.

I am a Dreamer

I’m a dreamer
Strangers sleep in my living room
At night I write about the places
they travel to in their sleep
as I morn for the seashells
that sacrificed themselves
when they went to die on my window sill
I can pretend this room is a deserted ship
and it has run aground

Under the moon I dig my feet into the sheets
like silky white sand
Here I am with my pen
lost on an undiscovered island
I hear the rain and I am put into a trance
Never before have I been so fascinated
by raindrops running down my bedroom wall
They streak the paint and give this space some history
There are snoring sounds that shake me
free and my eyes grow heavy again
I let them fall
And run off with the strangers
I am a dreamer

Escape

The dreamflies get louder as I get closer to you.

I can’t control my fantasy to runaway with some one I know nothing about.

His eyes are mysterious, but familiar

They appear in my dreams. Over. And over.

Whispering, seducing my escapist tendencies.

The Walk of a Stranger

Empty hands fly free
as butterflies
towards a sky that is open and deep
while walking familiar paths
remembered from dreams
or stories my elders once told

Talking to myself,
I pretend to ignore the dark whispers
from hallow and rotten trees
and I begin to speak
to the crickets to drown out
this reality

Under the moon
I wrap myself in imaginary quilts
dreaming of a purple mountain
in the distance
and in the morning I find myself
holding onto the earth tight
after falling asleep to close to the fire

The sun slowly rises
gradually prying my eyes open
This morning
I watch the leaves
as they fall from my trees
slip through the cracks
in my brown eyes
and I realize
that I am a stranger again
naked and cold

Swimming in the Dark

In my darkest night
You let me swim
In my black bay
Of solitude

Mourning

I see cemeteries
in the patterns of
the cushions on the couch
There are no floral embroideries
only death lilies
in distant funeral homes
that I believe
may be planted
in my nose.

Wearing black,
I am invisible,
a chameleon
on this couch.
I mourn.
I crumble into
my own rubble.
I hear them as
they question my rationality
and wont turn off the lights
that sting my wounds
but they don’t try to help
incapable of clearing these red eyes,
afraid of my pain.

I lay the fetal position
dreaming of head stones and dirt
I close my eyes and I am clawing
at the top of a coffin
covered in mud
in the rain.

Passion is my Poison

Passion is my poison

Under a dim light
My thoughts bubble and fizz
They glow neon blue
Get me drunk
In front of you

Passion is my poison

I write words at the rate my heart pumps blood
Mine have no rhythm or pulse
But they have a soul
A spirit with no plan in mind
No concept of time

Passion is my poison

And it turns my insides all different colors
A mood ring or a healing stone
I once thought I was a witch
Now I am convinced I am just passionate

Passion is my poison
The ocean moves me
And the leaves on the trees make decisions for me
A beautiful pair of eyes captivates me
And I often seem stoned when I’m sober

Passion is my poison

And I crave strange feelings
As most people crave chocolate or cheese
There is no luck.. Only fate
And my soul feels and sees things from other worlds

Passion is my poison

I can’t sleep at night
Some thoughts take time to come to a boil
And bubble over
There are intense feelings that have always incubated in my chest

lost

Sea-tears
Fishing-lines
Bait-lies
Fish swim lost in time
Lucky-Fish
Swim under the
Seaweed that reminds me of
The kitten eyes
That chased birds
Across canals
Holding killies in my palms
Calling out into the night
Like an animal that lost its way

Gaps

Between your lips and my ears there is a nameless place- a disconnect-
an empty space_ one where thoughts are vacant with only remnants…. letters left behind by my free loving sentences that couldn’t see the dark gaps that were clouded with grays, blues, and deep greens:::_:::_:::_
These are empty words calling my name and I often forget to call myself__when you ask me about then and tonight I can’t recall now.

some pieces

the broken mirror
still resembles
your face
no matter how
many times
it is broken
over and over
again
each time
every time
with time
in the broken glass
the brokenness
in my eyes still
sees you

Electric confession

Confess
Lips connected,
hooked up,
plugged in
and shocked-

Electrical attraction,
transparent rationalization
only seen in the fringe of your hair

Dark rooms
lit up by eyes
whisper.
Begging
confessions
to crawl ou and surrender

Lured from laughing wounds
they confessed,
acknowledging
the confusion fusing
over executed dreams

Conversion

These words
are my sexy little red dress.
Wrapped around me tight,
form fitting,
revealing all
the syllables,
magnetized
for the wondering
eye.
Outside the poet’s closet
they are vulnerable,
promiscuous, and risky.
Wild and dangerous,
seducing with
lips spilling poetry.
Wearing sentences
around their necks
they dance
out in public
kissing all
the non-believers
in hopes of poetic conversion

Madrid

Tonight you’re on
my mind in
my bedroom
I grip
bed sheets
imagining,
the warmth
of all the roses
and sweet dreams
you gave me
on park benches.

Corinne

Crowded

1

There is a mysterious texture to the paper
that composes the thick layers of the city.
The artists have wet and stuck them together
dampening the communication of words and sentences.
“Intricate,” he says
“I could’ve done it,” she says
“It’s genius,” the critics echo together
“What the hell is that?,” says the guy over there with the tie.


2

In the streets the crowds of plots are suffocating,
coming and going, up from, into, and over the ground.
The mortal storytellers step and stomp over little and defenseless plots
on the cement, in pocket books, and on pamphlets.
Confused plaid shirts made to be patterned, and formulated,
droop and hang from the bodies they desperately attempt to define.
There are animals in this city.
They dress themselves eccentrically in the chatter,
and speak irrationally with their fashion and through their eyes,
quickly on speeding subway trains, trying to keep up with the time.


3

Cluttered by the clutter, cluttering the thinking,
where, what, who,
how much, and when will it come?
Questions questioning the answers,
stripping the mind of the body’s certainty.
City dwellers thankfully living amongst debris of all kinds,
survivors sifting through the rubble of nothingness that leans, stacks, and builds.
Buildings outline the many passing minds and alter the lights of day and night.
“Which light is real?, “Ask the eyes of those who hide within these plots, layers, chatter, and clutter.
Are these eyes the eyes of truth?

4

The room has paintings on walls that are painted.
We move through the room with the other critics.
You and I staring at the colors, staring at each other, staring at the others
They say staring isn’t polite. I don’t feel right.
Something has changed, maybe it was all the fumes from the paint
and I must go now.

5

I’d love to talk to you, but when my thoughts move through
the crowd they become altered.
Forget what I said before.
It was polluted, they tested it and it turned purple.

LOVE NOTES

Love notes seasonally
change color and fall
as they fell from
red lips and loosened
the gold locks of your hair.
I can hear the notes as they bloom,
sway in the breeze, paint our trees,
and float-
slowing time.
Mama don’t stop singing.

The guitar strings sing
lyrics that tune the room,
rock chairs,
and open the curtains
to let in the light
of the stars and moon.

Stories, histories, and myths
swim in rivers of rhythm
producing reflections of lives lived,
living, and lives to be born.
Stories are the pulse of
human existence.
Mama don’t stop singing.

The first time I heard you sing
a country song
it was about death.
I cried.
Songs end.
Our songs can never end.

Love notes grew
in the garden
on our bush of pink roses
that stuck me so many times
playing quarter notes into my life,
little drops of blood-
My own notes that made
me feel more alive.


The guitar is in the closet
waiting for the next line
to accompany the next love note,
change another season,
and give rhythm to this life.
Mama don’t stop singing.