Fasting

Salty lips

weak body

sleepiness

I want to drift out on the ocean,

I want to see penguins breeding on the shore in Chile;

I want to be carried everywhere like a baby;

I want to be naked all the time, and safe.

I want to find some peace for myself while he’s sleeping.

The dog sleeps under the table.

The visions of nakedness are gone;

the colored lights dancing over my eyes have faded, as with the stars…

It’s now late afternoon,

only 2 1/2 hours until we

can break the day-long fast

until next year

Contrite

concerned

peacefully

We are all trapped by the curve of our signatures.

Our histories are somewhat similar,

even though the names and locations we come from differ…

We are almost the same, but we are not the same.

We are carved in complementary shapes,

my skin on your skin, your skin on my skin,

even when reality blows forth an autumn chill,

and we are nothing more than friends,

Summer dreaming is as heavy as whipped cream,

our pseudo-children are golden and green,

but you don’t feel the same,

you don’t share the same dream,

I let the sleeping kids lie.

I lie to myself,

making lions out of tabbies,

words are the only currency

I can afford,

music the only God I pray to.

Could I will you to

cross the border towards my side?

The girls are waiting to lay down,

sinking with the sun on the greens.

I.

Sky’s heavy with clouds,

it’s still humid & warm outside.

The leaves are still green….

Summer hasn’t left the party yet,

she still wants to play upon our senses.

Fall is waiting in the wings,

but has forgotten his lines;

tomorrow is the autumnal equinox,

the show will happen, no matter what!

We wait for him with bated breath,

when the kids return to learning.

II.

Now is the day of turning time’s wheel

towards the New Year.

He sleeps heavy on the sofa before services,

before the kids run through the temple door,

before our prayer shawls are draped over our shoulders,

before the prayers, blessings

& readings of the Torah

Let us feast on apples and honey,

to lean into the sweetness of life’s journeys,

to have one day free from uncertainty, injustice and violence.

New pants

Yesterday I bought enough things

to wear for Fall; I saved almost $150

thanks to the sale.

I still heard my mother’s words:

“New pants won’t buy you happiness

when you’re in debt.”

We came out of our mother already in debt;

we grew up with almost nothing,

wearing hand-me-downs from Target.

We wore out our dreams too fast

even when they were too big for us.

Credit card payments are now heavy.

I wore my new navy pants today.

The seam on the side highlights my ass nicely.

The thigh area is not full of holes,

unlike the other pants that remain in my closet.

Why can’t anything fit or last anymore?

If there was a tree where one finds

happiness growing out of it,

at no cost for each consumer,

where can I find it?

For right now,

even while I’m in debt,

these pants do look good;

they were a wise investment.

Yo, Slick,

the tragic event

earned its license to drive;

it’s speeding down every single bridge,

sailing on every ferry,

while most jerks wear funeral clothes to work

Smoke is invisible; the fires still burn inside

the yards are dug up, lined with electric wire

As they read the names of the lost

Downtown at the holy memorial,

she tries not to feel dead,

remembering how the audio of that day

played loudly in the museum

did bring her to tears.

It’s inevitable;

patriots and non-patriots alike,

we will walk in our own ashes

The naked eye only captures gold from sunlight,

but, like songs set in the key of C,

it may look or sound easy, but it’s not;

All specters of insurmountable color,

clearly defined by a human artist’s palette,

are trapped within the golden light:

One color is many colors,

one note feeds numerous songs.

Even those who brag about their supposed purity,

are not purely pure anymore.

We all have hidden colors & bloodlines,

we all come from many different places—

Why stop those who are trying to become better

by coming here to make a new life & situation,

and why demonize their children, steal their future

even when they were born here?

Do songs only exist when they are sold for mass consumption?

Do we have to sell ourselves to get ahead?

We need to breathe easy when we can do so,

even with pollution in the air,

even after the fires stop burning.

When I see sunlight hit all of our faces,

golden tones by Noon may be mined by our eyes first,

later frozen in time by Technicolor,

but the bright tones, still transparent within our minds,

are yet to be discovered as we continue

to evolve

at our own pace.

I thought my adventures in 1994

was noteworthy:

graduating college the same week Kurt Cobain died, flying home from Sweden the same day OJ’s Ford Bronco was trying to Escape…

But I didn’t grow up in LA, or had worked at Spin like John, who

once watched Madonna perform

her “Holiday” grunge-style at

her own house for a Halloween party.

I can’t help feeling a bit nostalgic

about twenty years ago,

when one can listen to world music

at record stores’ listening stations,

and can dance shamelessly with

huge headphones on, for an entire afternoon, or after the late-night movie,

and when everyone had only

answering machines,

and could disappear for whole

days if they wanted to,

and 2 hot dogs cost $1.00.

Explaining the ’90s to Millennials is exhausting.

Princess Di was a major treasure!

I’m in my mid-40’s now.

I need a nap after drinking two beers, and I still sway whenever grunge music plays on the radio.

Sent from my iPhone