Thanks to Bunny Sophia Behal, 3 of my poems from my book Hurricanes never apologize will be presented on her podcast: PoetsUnplugged.com.
The first will air on July 2nd: Crossing the border.
Thanks to Bunny Sophia Behal, 3 of my poems from my book Hurricanes never apologize will be presented on her podcast: PoetsUnplugged.com.
The first will air on July 2nd: Crossing the border.
Rainbows,
that used to highlight Pride season,
are now painted & illuminated
on windows.
As we remain inside for protection,
many of the beloved population
are no longer hiding
in the closet—
Even in
contagion,
we are free to be
who we are.
From Avenue A to Abingdon Square
I traced my tracks towards the setting sun
on one of the loveliest afternoons one week before the summer solstice,
stopping only for vegan ice cream
handmade by adorable, tattooed, black eye-lined angel girls
who top off every sundae with coconut whipped cream and an organic black cherry.
That made the trip worth taking.
The LES still rang its punk bell since the early ‘80s.
Young punks still piss and moan loudly on the street under tagged tenement buildings
as the old-timers and confused tourists escaped into Russ & Daughters and Katz’s.
On Orchard Street, I was feeling nostalgic,
but since I misplaced the boutique where I brought my wedding dress twelve years earlier,
I had no business remaining there.
4th Street brought me to Cooper Square, NoHo, Lafayette, and NYU,
as the sky slowly turned golden.
I wanted some more day time in the East Village
before darkness claimed its hold upon the city,
so I walked to Bleecker, a special street;
(sometimes I wish it was a man, so I can both fuck and romance it).
As the sky grew bands of blue, gray and pink,
I rode to M12 home, chasing the last, magnificent dregs
of this golden hour, of this golden day, to evening:
crossing under the High Line,
lapping by the mighty Hudson,
towards home, to the middle of the city.
No one cares
if a black, kindly neighbor
goes to the neighborhood bodega
& ends up dead
No one cares
if a woman, clad in a tight miniskirt,
gets fondled, fingered or raped
without her consent;
she was probably asking for it—
No one cares
when Asians get harassed
or spat upon in the subway:
they’re the carriers of disease.
No one cares
if Native Americans lose
another acre of land
to big corporations fracking & pipelining
No one cares
about the illegals:
they should remain at the border,
penned up like animals
No one cares
about sexual deviants.
Why should they marry each other & raise kids?
Why should they want to change their gender?
& no one gives a damn
about the children:
when their parents die,
when injustice wins—
Wait a minute:
Everyone cares!
That’s why they’re marching,
Mr. President—
They do give a damn!
Not everyone’s apathetic;
that’s why
they’re taking it to the streets!
Not everyone
are looters or criminals
or rebel-rousers;
they don’t need to
wave their Bibles—
Enough is enough.
Even those staying at home
are with the protesters.
That’s why we chose
not to tune in to your speech
on television yesterday;
you want to change America
into a military task force state.
That is not our America.
We don’t care for that.
Black lives matter.
Women’s lives matter.
Asian lives matter.
Native American lives matter.
Latino & Hispanic lives matter.
LGBTQIA lives matter.
Children’s futures matter.
We all matter—
we’re still alive & kicking
& we don’t care
to be considered
as criminals
in America,
no more!
May 1:
“Damn straight,” she commented under her breath,
as another rainy morning began, ruining the annual parade.
May 2:
Traffic lights change for no reason
in the 2 am rain; she’s still awake,
May 3:
raising her knees over her heart while in bed,
keeping the swelling in her legs down.
May 4:
Trying to let go of all tensions with deep breathing,
random words and musical motifs still play in her brain—
May 5:
Gratitude slowly germinates in her bones,
even with buried sorrow & pain.
May 6:
Time burrows under the skin,
compounding all drugs affecting internal organs—
May 7:
She screamed at her man, for spilling bathroom refuses
before he got rid of his full beard.
May 8:
Thursday night: Serious words were going down;
she showed her heart on video & was recorded for sound.
May 9:
A bonus margarita (without rocks) came in the 2nd delivery bag,
as an apology for the missing pair of Mexican Cokes.
May 10:
Mama’s love is everlasting; it keeps us
grounded, steadfast & young during dark times.
May 11:
But Mama’s love couldn’t erase her daughter’s inner pain;
stars are not random objects stuck on black bitumen—
May 12:
Everyone’s betting upon where & when we all can travel again;
she wonders if she could ride the subway to Queens without getting sick—
May 13:
Time moves slowest
when one wants to receive any message—
May 14:
Fears inside of her spill out during meditation
through her toes, with the consistency of black tar.
May 15:
“People, we y’all need to breathe. The worst has passed; our state’s reopening!”
But—we still need to wear masks outside & in the subway…
May 16:
Is there anyone out there?
We wait for our nephew’s birthday to virtually begin—
May 17:
The toy dinosaurs were a hit.
Thank God they weren’t alive—
May 18:
Caught in her cocoon, she waits for the sun,
wondering if her wings would ever reappear—
May 19:
Last night’s steak smell overpowered the early morning at her apartment.
Her Southbound wings were still in transit,
May 20:
Her anger was like a watercolor painting; every color bled into each other
as she screamed & destroyed the room (like Barry Egan did in Punch-Drunk Love)
May 21:
Her inner fireworks never stoked her fears,
but today’s now quiet—it’s time to go back to work.
May 22:
The cold water caught in a red Solo cup;
she swallowed it down, getting rid of last night’s Parmesan.
May 23:
First book is now out-of-print;
the fates of the musical spirits who had played Carnegie Hall are now unknown—
May 24:
A freshly-minted panic attack woke her up
from deep sleep—or, a mini-seizure (in reverse?)
May 25:
On Memorial Day, she saw women strut the screen
as the words in her head violently danced.
May 26:
She heard a poem about the newly dead after waking up.
When will her heart stop its constant racing?
May 27:
She woke up, alarmed, in a stranger’s bed; charmed by
her dream of a parallel life: She was married with 3 kids—
May 28:
It was just a crazy dream. Still married, sans kids.
Still has a major crush on Gov. Cuomo—
May 29:
This hot, little honey has made it back on Zoom!
Oh, money! Good to see her friends again.
May 30:
But the library will still take a while to open up—
to staff members, to patrons & to the public.
May 31:
But right now, thanks to police brutality against George Floyd,
the streets are on fire, nationwide.
Paging Oceanside Poetry (Oceanside Library)
Open Mike Poetry! (7 pm — 9 pm?)
Featured poets: Ellen Pober Rittberg & Carrie Magness Radna (me!)
Hosted by Tony Iovino.
April 1:
“When a person shows you his/her teeth,
it doesn’t always mean he/she is smiling,”
April 2:
Her sister tried to warn her: but she saw
his practiced grin under a mask—
April 3:
Now she’s running in a red desert to music;
seeing all the footsteps she’d made behind her when stopping,
April 4:
this vivacious girl never stops moving
even while asleep & dreaming.
April 5:
When we are asleep,
others see that we were all children once–
April 6:
Her lovers become birds with golden-tipped wings;
they transform into fish as they hit the water,
April 7:
While real teenagers in hospitals
wear tongue depressor crowns for their prom,
April 8:
The Pink Supermoon rises
after the street shouts; before the misty morning.
April 9:
“Some days are diamonds, some days are rocks” (from Tom Perry’s Walls (Circus))
She wonders if this day would become a diamond—
April 10:
Her hair matted & twisted from sleep,
she kicked the bathtub as if she was a mermaid.
April 11:
Today’s uncertainty is worn
like a fur coat pelted by fake blood—
April 12:
Found like an egg; caught like a rascally rabbit,
sending Easter greetings to those who practice (not me, Darlings! Can’t help it…)
April 13:
In a bag of water,
there was a bruised human heart, glowing—
April 14:
Words are needed today.
Will these become the right ones?
April 15:
Crossing-over—watching male/female groupies done up,
pumping early ‘80s music made for the holy catwalk,
April 16:
and when I made friends with one of the dark corners of the dance club,
she with teal blue hair, came to meet up my full lips with hers—
April 17:
Like Frida Kahlo, she was on fire;
seeing her toes dip out of the water in her NYC bathtub,
April 18:
she cried: “When my big mama check comes in,
“I’m touring Japan, when the world’s safe again…”
April 19:
But she was still haunted by 1995’s Oklahoma City;
McVeigh’s bomb crumbled the Alfred P. Murrah Federal building into an ashen, gutted cake piece
April 20:
So she broke the invisible, tactile tension of the said Universe,
to gain sensation back in her fingers—
April 21:
Still high from her radio show debut,
she fell down towards Earth, as the sky opened up
April 22:
Hovering over a river, she inhaled;
breaking tension with a steady exhale—Earth blooming
April 23:
“But—I wonder,” she said, “After Shakespeare took a shit,
he then wrote another amazing sonnet?”
April 24:
Suddenly, her heart broke, hidden behind her sensitive bosom:
“When will this sick sadness ever stop?” she questioned out loud—
April 25:
She found herself in the mountains, in an old country house
surrounded by green trees, short grasses & wildflowers
April 26:
The silent meditation of the countryside
was interrupted by loud chattering of migrating birds—
April 27:
Zooming into the virtual world, she spoke with people in Paris,
Morocco, Abu Dhabi, North Carolina, New Orleans, Boston & New York City
April 28:
Head’s too busy; she blinked back into her apartment’s sweet bed,
her world tour was just a wonderful dream—
April 29:
In the flesh, her sister now looks like a baby Goth;
it’s the first time she’s seen her since her cancer diagnosis—
April 30:
After their dinner, she drifted to sleep listening to the last song on her playlist;
it’s the song everyone will remember—
Watching TV episodes
taped before March 2020
is like traveling back in time
when crowds were not dangerous
I’ll be reading 4 poems from the upcoming Alien Buddha Press book: This one time the Alien Buddha got so high, & the other time the Alien Buddha got so high on the Songs of Selah radio show, on April 20, 2020, 8-9:30 pm.
https://www.blogtalkradio.com/17numaradio/2020/04/21/songs-of-selah-with-scott-thomas-outlar