"Remembering Patrick"     **

I remember Patrick in junior high,
black hair slicked back and a smirk on his face.
Imitation designer duds covering all his short&skinny
He was a parody of grace.
Pat was the long-lost white midget addition to the BoyzIIMen.
Half goth, half dance-floor poster boy
He walked the edge of popularity,
started a few geek trends.
I don’t remember how we got together
Or why he flipped for me.
But we went to the Valentine’s dance and yeah,
he flipped all right,
A backflip with a screaming split.
Did his thing in the middle of the gym floor
While I just stood by.
Afterwards he tried to kiss like he’d seen in some movie.
I wanted to die.

Pat would jump over the banister and surprise me in the halls.
In fifth period
I could look to the small window of the classroom door and see his eyes intent on me,
peeking, making a sexy wink or a suave gesture
and sometimes I swear he could see me through the very walls.
I finally worked up the courage during the month’s seventh serenade:
watching him kneel in a dried puddle of ketchup and croon some romantic soul groove
While the lunch-crowd leered and whispered
I cut him off short.

Within the week there was the letter,
seven monstrous pages
of nonexistent, long, romantic-sounding words, like nacturalasity
whatever that was.
Pat’s scrawling was scratched in a blunt, soft pencil, 
Took me twenty minutes to decode.
I was guilty for wanting to laugh,
Guilty for planning his demise (as he said I must have) 
and then showing his clumsy epic to my friends
so they could get a load.
I found a new guy later on, a safely boring John
Who couldn’t dance or sing
and didn’t stalk me between the bells.
He, also, could not spell.

"Recovery"           **

He blinks at us with rough eyes,
wife, son and future daugther,
and flashes his quirky crooked smile
like a child, completely unaware
of his situation.
He pokes at the skin around his IV
as his bruised ego flails around its boundary,
eager to be on with it
and never mind cholesterol anyway.
Twenty-seven years without a sick day:
a sparkling record now marred by angioplasty.
Scowling a bit, he eyes the three of us to judge
his easiest sympathy score,
rasping about the inadequacies
of your average high school substitute
and how he feels
fine. just fine.

"After Dad’s Heart Attack"         **

All that he wants
is a good breakfast:
poached eggs,
toast drenched in butter,
A black cup of coffee.

All that we want
is a twenty-four hour guard
so that Mom can go to work
and know
that the laundry in the basement
won’t be done when she returns.

"CVS Odyssey"         **

Ramona and I would stand behind the counter
and talk, only a year apart, pretending to be friends.
I tried not to stare at the way her left eye
stuck its gaze somewhere on the ceiling, up in the corner
where nobody ever took down the cobwebs.
She’d rhapsodize about her little boy and curse the father.
I just wanted to pass my summer class.

Five months of hell in the heat of ’97
Standing, standing, standing till I can’t stand it, 
Wearing out my knees for no better reason
than “do you have any coupons Ma’am?”
and “I’m sorry Sir, your photos will take three days to develop.” 
Clean the shelves, remove every insignificant item
and kneel in the pile
cutting my fingers on the edges and dousing the wounds
in dirty industrial Windex.


Supervisor Susan, stumpy manly dumpy,
Interrogating me when I finally got the nerve
To purchase condoms on my lunch break.
It wasn’t as if I needed them then.  Who, Chan the stockboy?
Suspicious of my dust allergy, too;  she thought
I scratched my nose all day long to annoy her,
Or some secret inside signal to the others.
(Drugstore intrigue! Bond in a smock and nametag!
Ramona complaining of her persistent octopussy?)
“Happy Fourth of July.
Your change… Happy Fourth of July.
Would you like this bagged? Happy Fourth of July!
Aisle 8, Happy Fourth of July.
Please hold. ….Happy Fourth of July.
We have no public restrooms,
we have no public restrooms,
We have
No public
Restrooms, Happy
Fourth
Of
July!”

"Echo"        **

On the edge of a cliff
My voice runs out to meet itself
And passes through a cloud.
It comes back in a jumble
Like the way my mother used to sigh
But it makes more sense
Than the needle of sound
I sent across
As my embassy.
I’d rather be judged coming than going.

"Gainful Employment (ii)"        **

Now nurse’s aide at the retirement home
Peter Pan, you walk the halls
Your first day
upturned green slippers replaced
with ugly white utilitarians,
white jacket and slacks
to hide your tights

No Cap’n Hook here,
just crotchety Mr. Andrews sitting in the corner
behind the TV
lunging from his wheelchair
with his clawed hand
to knock the juice tray from yours. 

When you bend to right the pitcher
he’ll lunge again to smack you
then start yelling that his yellow
afghan has slipped
and he didn’t get his juice
and it’s your fault, you young twerp.

But don’t lose hope, Peter. You see, 
You’re finally stuck in the system now,
not Neverland, we have taxes
and Social Security and gainful employment
And when you begin to wheeze and rant
worrying about your arthritis, not Tinkerbell
We’ll dress you in a nice green bathrobe
and give you medication every day
And some nice young twerp with wide eyes and hidden tights
Will come to marvel at you.

"Dave the Poolman"         **

There’s not much to it, really. Drain, treat, scrub, patch, fill. I’m an afternoon observer.
I started years ago,
Kept it up through college, and never really found anything
better to do. Or it never found me.
They usually leave me alone.  Sometimes
they bring iced tea.

I take my lunch break around the fifth pool,
Ham sandwich wrapped in tin foil
or maybe bologna.
I can’t say I’m lonely,
exactly.

When I go home at sunset,
My car’s rattling muffler fidgets through its judgment
and is barely acquitted in time to return
To my dingy little apartment on the second floor
Where one light is always burned out, a patch of black water
And my bed is a diving board with sheets
That dangles my hair out over the deep end dreaming

I reach into the pocket of my chlorine-stained cargo shorts
And pull out my lunch remains,
One more afternoon walking eight feet under,
my ear whispering to itself in a deep blue jar of empty,
One more pruney pair of hands,
One more day of summer and a sunburnt neck.
I plaster the foil onto the days before,
smooth it onto the growing sphere of summers,
And gaze like a gypsy into
the growing beach ball of my future.

"Was it me?"  (song)

We can't say we saw it all coming, my dear
For I'm not admitting to  failure
There's something alive in the air tonight
But I doubt that it's me.

Now please hold my hand and pretend that you're happy
For some people weren't meant to see
There's someone who makes you feel good about life
But I doubt that it's me.

I'd let you go but I'm scared that you'll leave me
Or maybe I'm scared that you'll stay
There's someone alive who is sure of their soul
But I doubt that it's me.

"In the Berry Patch"

Trancelike silhouettes of your face on my
             shirt in the candlelight
Leaves falling into your hair in slow motion
You've grown, my friend
Since I last saw your true emotions.
Nothing's left, you say
Of the honest man who kissed me then
Gone like the other hairy demigods
Who tried, each in their own fashion,
To lure me out of the berry patch.
I'm not yours anymore
             but whose fault is that?
It seems, as the wind blows your hair
Into the eyes I loved sincerely,
That you never needed me anyway.

"Anyway"  (song)

Take my hands, I don't need them anymore
No touch could be so pure as yours
Anyway
Take my feet, I wouldn't need them very long
And they only want to go where you are
Anyway

I can't stop these feelings getting stronger
And I can't pretend that nothing's wrong
I can't make myself believe that I'm older now
And nothing's in my heart where you belong

Take my life, I need nothing of the past
It all went by too fast for me
Anyway
Take my love, it's all I have to give
I'm sure you had it long before today
Anyway.

"Welcome"

Where was the sky blue
Eyes of a thousand answered
Questions for the rains
We dried together.
Once I knew you
Dreaming upon an ancient lake
And laughing in the moonbeams
That splashed across your face.

Welcome to my island
Enjoy your stay
As you did before
One day.

"Meeting the One"

Was there an angel with your name
In the city of water?
The voice of sweet reunion
Sang in my heart when we first met
And you laughed like my brother.

Was there a life I didn't keep
In the city of water?
We shook hands, exchanged pleasantries
But by the time the night was through
You held me like my husband.

I wonder what my name was then
In the city of water
When two or one we were together
And hand in hand we touched the sky;
You know me like my soul.

"Still Moment"

Falling silent in my arms
Like a stillness in the ocean breeze
Your eyes hold me gently.
I trust in your breathing
In your treasuring touch
In "it'll be okay"
And in "fate" and "eternity".
It scares me sometimes.

Brush your fingertips
             soft and white against
My childhood fears
And watch the tide go out.

Slowly I come to remember
Why my all and always.

"Visions"

I dream a cactus, arms outstretched
Waiting in the darkness
             for the sun he has come to know.
You are gone to return again
The purpose of life
The reason for growing.

I dream a bit of dry desert grass
Alone in a barren sanctuary
Knowing all there is to know of heat.
Then came the rains:
             flooding flushing floating
My world upside down
             and suddenly green and green.
You were the surprise.
My reason for growing.

"Colorblindness"

The color of wisdom
is a steel blue ocean
Shining like the sky
The color of caring
Is an auburn scruff.

The color of tenderness
is soft shining brown
The color of hope
Hides in a scented collar
And smelling hope's enough.

My eyes were blind
To all of nature's splendour
Held bleak in the simple
grays and greens of life
longing for something true.

But now the world blooms
Each day anew with vibrant
blue and silver daylight
My heart is filled with rainbows.
The color of love is you.

"For Jason"

I don't care if you've reached puberty
Or if you've reached the end of your rope
The world's a bitter place, and I
Don't need your good intentions
To hold me down.
You're secure in your inadequacy
And I'll just let it go
Because the going price is better
Than anything you've bid on me.

I won't be your toy
or your artifact
And if I could erase my fingerprints
from your memory
The starriest night would be the first to go.

"Service"  for Jaleh and the brothers of Alpha Phi Omega

Friendship is as friendship does.
Why, when sweeter never was,
Among the world's most varied folk
Even yet do some uncaring walk?
All to all and one to one,
Deed by deed the good is done
For world, for brother and for friend;
The chain continues without end.
A life used up in bitter strain
Is one whose living was in vain;
Although the task is never through
The good is done with pleasure. Glue
The piece you give from your own heart
Beside those of your brothers; part
Not from the duty you have set
To give the truth you harbor yet:
And more the puzzle soon shall prove
To you of friendship and of love.

Friendship is as friendship does:
Greater treasure never was
Than service given from the heart.
The greatest end is but a start.

"Na Na Na..." (song)

I never knew the way your eyes would look in sunlight
I never heard the words you meant to say
--but never said to me
I never thought you'd take the chance
to fool the world--pretend you're normal
'Cause you and I both know now, baby, that could never ever be

na na na... no I never knew
na na na... never never knew

I couldn't see where I was going
--but then I got there
I never tried to realize just what it was you said
I never saw the way you looked at me behind my back
That said you knew it wouldn't last,
I knew you knew it wouldn't last

na na na... no I never knew
na na na... never never knew

They never thought that we could ever make a couple
Put us in the shopping cart and pay to take us home
And maybe now we'll prove them wrong,
But more or less we'll prove them right
God only knows if this is how it was supposed to be...

(missing verse)

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