Poems from the 1980s (Mostly)

Without Hugs     (1/20/83)

Without hugs

My paper skin is stretched on stiff wires

My flesh dries away, my edges crumble

Only hungry guts

Keep me three-dimensional

Ode to the Oil Refineries      (2/14/83)

Under a dangling crescent moon

Under smoking L.A. skies

The molecules of dinosaurs

Course through the starry lights

On the skeletons of refinery towers

And rear their heads again

Ungraspable millions. Dead millions of years.

Extinguished for almost eternity.

Enormous grand creatures, reigning for eons,

Gone forever.

Yet their blood turns on the refinery lights

Enormous grand structures

Grotesque spewing towers

Frozen mid-stampede

Glow and glower over the city.

They come alive at night.

Changes     (11/21/83)

Sometime

In the not distant enough future

I must give back the molecules

That temporarily organized

Into my life

Will there be a feeling of release

When I let go

And entropize into the universe

Sometimes I wonder

With peaceful envy

What my molecules

Will form into next

Dirt and worms I bet.

Eventually

Maybe birds and stars.

In eons

Maybe one or two

Will make it to a star.

In Kenya     (1984)

Lines of a million wildebeests

Like black ants crawling

Over the plains

From one luminous horizon to the other 

Fill the eye

Stun the mind

Life here is extravagant

Profligate in diversity, number, beauty

Life to spare

A few thousands

To death

Bones and bodies among the herds

Replenish vulture, lion, crocodile

Barely dead

At once enter life again

Life into death into life

The eternal cycle renders

Familiar dichotomies irrelevant

life death

good evil

human animal

kind cruel

free determined

Have no meaning

It is all beautiful

It is all pure

It is the garden of Eden

Without the will of man

It is paradise

Thoughts on Separation      (3/8/85)

So I made every change

You said you wanted

Now you say

I didn’t love you.

What do you call

All my trying?

Now you’re leaving me

Now you’ll become

Everything I wanted

Why do you need to leave me

To do what I wanted?

Why didn’t you love me enough

To stay and do what I wanted?

Why didn’t you love me enough

To grow up?

Sing Song     (8/1/86)

My little lost girl

Appears before the concrete walls

That years of competence helped build

I told you so, I told you so, she skips and sings

I told you not to fall in love

Then she goes into hiding again

My well kept secret from myself

I used to try to catch her

Coax her out with offers of care and kindness

But she doesn’t believe me either

When I think of love I sometimes cry and

She sometimes leaves the bunker to come sit by me

My Babies     (11/6/87)

Last night I cried for my babies

I turned my head for a blink of time

Just to do something or other

Earn a living, write a book

I can’t remember what it was

And they were gone

Whenever I see a baby

A little like mine

With big round eyes and

Toothless grin spreading dimples and sunshine

Or pudgy knees or the way

They stretch out their little baby feet

My gaze is captured

My head will not turn

My arms twitch with longing

Until the nervous mother

Pushes the cart into the next aisle

Or disappears down the street

When I was lucky

I should have held them

All day, all day

I would give anything

To hold them again

The Fake Mom    (2/88)

You’re not my real mom

My indignant six-year-old said today

My real mom wouldn’t yell at me

Then go live with her

We spoke burning poison

A few tears sparkled in her eyes

I revealed nothing

You’re cold, she said, 

At only six

After I had fixed her french toast

Dad     (2/14/88)

When I dream of you now

You never speak

While in life

You were such a good talker

Though you said little

When I was little

I could not risk

Exposing my feelings to

You who demanded the

Proper amount of joy

And allowed no sadness

Pain or anger

And you with all your sadness

Pain and anger

Never spoke of it

Letting it leak out in

Bits of puzzling behavior
Fits of rage

Frightening little me

Into a tower of strength

When I was big

The habits of denial

Became a suit of armor

Rusted shut

And we spoke not

Hello    Good-bye

Your last words to me

When you telephoned

Nothing in between

As always

We did not relate

You didn’t know me, father

I didn’t know you, father

I cried for you today

Nine years late

Exposed     (3/17/88)

Like a naked sea urchin

Stranded on a city sidewalk

Mortally wounded by an unintended touch

I search puzzled

For my spears

And fallen armor plates

I finally put them down

He said it would be alright

And without their weight

Ran wildly free

For a minute

In the sun

The protecting spines keep things out

But also in, I forgot,

Ripping off a scab,

And the blood of ancient wounds

Begins to run

In salty tears

Happiness     (1/28/89)

Happiness creeps in on little fog feet

Unlike misery crashing in

Or the felling blow of hurt

Quietly, softly, it seeps in

I have great children

I have my dear mother

I earn a decent living

At work I mostly enjoy

I own my own house in Pacific Palisades

I have my independence

I have my health

Most of the time

Happiness creeps in on little fog feet

Quietly, softly, it seeps in

So you may not notice it

Until it’s gone

Heart    (2/14/89)

Ten years past

I spent Valentine’s Day

Burying my father

In earth and red roses

Amazed and impressed

That he had managed to die

I had never imagined

Ten years without him

Hello, Darkness (with apologies to Simon and Garfunkle, 9/21/05)

To the tune of “The Sound of Silence”

Hello, Darkness, my old friend

It’s time to walk with you again

Good parts of life are done

My mother is gone

My daughter is lost

Darkness, let’s review it all once more

Time’s flight explains a lot

But not the daughter who is lost

To an obscene world

That destroys her soul

And the drugs that

Seal the deal

Look here, Darkness, tell me this

A rare day of happiness

Seems unseemly

Until I can feel

It’s acceptable to accept

The unacceptable

Now 2011

Dad has been gone for over thirty years

Darling Mom for nearly nine

The lost daughter came back to us

The older daughter has three children

Whom I adore with abandon

My life is rich with hugs

I get to hold my babies again after all

My molecules are still pretty well organized

I’ve grown a lighter set of swords and armor plates

Darkness is countered with gratitude lists

Painting replaces poetry

Plenty of challenges to embrace (I hope with grace)

Time too short to do other than

Enjoy all that I can while I can

And give only money to good causes