Start Writing Now

 

"Start Writing Now" You Said, "The Moment Needs You."

But I'm only good at love songs about missing you.

I fainted at Kaiser when I was pregnant

In the hallway by the elevators

Alone.

I woke up on the dirty carpeted floor

to yelling nurses or someone

You came to get me but you took the bus

So we wouldn't have two cars there

How did you think that way

So practical

You were just barely not a child yourself

you were barely a grown man

You wanted to be a father 

you picked out a name

and a tiny forty niners jacket

and you were mine and 

I was yours

and he was ours.

I don't think about him much

His name his age

what he'd look like now

more me or more you

he'd have wrinkles now 

grey hair

and maybe a baby of his own

I don't think about how I wasn't ever a mother

I never said, "My son"

except once in Spanish

about my dog

as a joke

and they laughed.

How did you get so good at this

I asked

"Practice"

you said. 

maybe it's ghosts in the walls

 maybe it's ghosts in the walls

not a chittering onyx squirrel

or plump persimmons thunking on the roof of the tin shed next door

maybe it's wolves plinking through the leaves

maybe it's the ghost of high school you 

looking for a criminal princess

maybe it's humming birds sleeping. their wings have finally stopped.

maybe it's donut boys on bikes after midnight 

whooping through the darkness

maybe it's you slithering down the cliffs on your butt

maybe it's me tapping out poems about you 

on a pretentious old-timey typewriter

maybe it's nightmares slithering through the walls

bad grandfathers and demons.

Maybe it's fat rat raccoons spelunking for clicks and likes

maybe it's just my imagination

or a dream or a wanting 

maybe it's half the world's on fire

and the other half is dead and cold as ice

maybe it's you haunting me 

or the stillness of the cold 

making the pipes and the wood and the glass of my house

expand and contract

maybe it's all of these things and none of them

bump bump bumping in the night

if I get one song out of meeting you it's almost as good as getting two 

Saturday Morning of Memorial Day Weekend

I felt you this morning
In my prayers
You were the whole blue sky
and all light.

You were laughter
You were love
You were forgiveness
You were whole
You were time

You were gratitude
You were full
You were the universe contained
You were free.

I felt you this morning
In my prayers
You were everything

Is it so hard to surrender
to stop fighting
Is it so hard
to wash his little paws

Is it so hard
to buy him a toy he likes
even if he already has that same toy
Is it so hard to buy all the unicorns
one in every color

Is it so hard to buy him healthy food
that he wants to eat
and vitamins
and treats

Is it so hard to call his friends
for a play date
Is it so hard to call the doctor
when he has a bump or a sticker or a scratch

Is it so hard to keep his curls neat
to keep him dry from the rain
to buy him clothes that fit
or have a birthday party for him

Is it so hard to be a mother

Is it so hard to shield him from bullies
or those that would harm him
or shut.any.threat.down.

Is it so hard to keep a man around
who would protect him
is it so hard to take him for a run or teach him yoga and prayers
Is it so hard to tell him he could be anything and he's beautiful and strong and smart
Is it so hard not to break his heart
Is it so hard not break his spirit
Is it so hard not to break your child

Is it so hard to be a parent
Is it so hard not to scream swear words
Is it so hard not to hit
Is it so hard not to throw things
Is to so hard not to bang your head on the wall until there's a dent in the wall
Is it so hard not to shriek "I should have had an abortion of you!"
"Everyone born your year was an accident and an unwanted child!"
"My mother didn't want me either!"
"Just wait til you have kids!"
"Stop being so hysterical!"
"Your grandmother wasn't interested in you!"
"I'm not going to kill myself to make it easier for anyone else"
Is it so hard not to give your child away
because he wouldn't sit still and read a book
when he was five. 

I thought it would be too hard
to love someone more than I love myself
It's not that hard.

Unlikeable Me Meets Lords of the New Church

“Lords of the New Church”

Elena, one of the Wiccan girls from Santa Cruz, was petite and beautiful, she had long blond hair and contrasting dusky dark skin, almond eyes, high cheek bones, and a soft reassuring voice and presence.  She wore gypsy belly dancer outfits and talked about spiritual things that I pretended to understand. She wanted to go to Toulouse to see a band called “Lords of the New Church”, and I was up for anything. The train ride was four hours long. Toulouse was on the way to the south of France, like Bordeaux it was another bustling industrial University town.  The buildings were pinkish brick and the busy town had more of a zesty, relaxed southern feel due to Toulouse LaTrec paintings and murals everywhere.  We drank wine on the train with our bread and cheese.  There were soldiers on the train trying to chat with us, so when they became loud and raucous, we were in our element. 

We determined that the bar that the band was playing in was way out of town and that no public transportation could take us there.  A sympathetic bartender suggested we go around to certain bars and just see if anyone was going and if they would drive us, or perhaps we could hitch-hike.  A bar scavenger hunt- sounds fun!  So we went around to bars, and I got drunker and drunker.  We met a man who looked like a blond David Bowie and told him our plight.  He laughed heartily and happily agreed to go on an adventure with us.  We told him about the band and how we couldn’t get out there without someone to drive us, and he said coquette-ishly, “Is that an invitation?”

We both kind of liked him, but we were being mature and neither of us were thinking that making a move on him would be a good plan. 

He drove us out to the bar.  The band was some punk rock/ new wave thing and I didn’t really care for it.  Elena was swaying back and forth, her eyes half closed, enjoying her moment.  I determined that the best course of action was to keep drinking.  The David Bowie look-a-like was watching me, and as he told me about his sister, we moved over to the bar to talk. 

Somehow I was on the ground out in a field with the band gathered above me.  “What’s this girl doing here?” they asked each other, in English.

“My father owns this field,” I lied, because I didn’t want to seem like I was so drunk that I passed out in a field behind the bar.  The earth felt comforting, with the stars above twinkling, it was a pleasant place to fall asleep.

“Come on,” they said, “get in the van.”

The van was right-hand-drive and they were having a hard time figuring out how to drive it.  “Lemme do it, I can do it,” I muttered, climbing over the driver.

“Get her in the back, please” one of the long haired new wavers said.

They got me back to the hotel which was a fancy American one unlike the places we usually stayed.  They had several rooms and a long hallway in which to continue partying.  The leader of the band who looked like one of the Ramones, was telling me about his girl friend, Martha Quinn the VJ from MTV.  I told him that he was pretentious and I didn’t give a shit who he was dating, he should be with her instead of talking about her because she was famous.

He gave me a sip of his drink, but I didn’t know that it was Barcardi and Coke.  I didn’t eat sugar so I didn’t want to drink the coca cola.  I spit it back into his drink.  I felt like I was being punk rock and he wouldn’t mind.

“That’s it,” he said, “Give her to Lofty, get her out of here.”  They laughed insinuatingly, and I was carried off to the big bouncer’s bedroom.  I was a little scared, as I wasn’t really sure I wanted to be “given” to a big bouncer.  The room was dark, and the big bouncer was fortunately asleep.  There was an extra twin bed. I fell straight asleep in it.

I woke up with the sun and saw the sleeping giant bald man in the next bed, which made me decide to leave right then.  I made my way to the road, pulling burrs out of my hair.  Lucky for me the black motorcycle jacket was good for sleeping on the ground.  I was laughing to myself because the burrs in my hair were really funny.  A French man in a truck came along quickly.  He took me straight back to Toulouse.  I handily found the house of the David Bowie Look-alike where he and Elena were so glad to see me.

“I knew you were with the band,” Elena said, “We looked for you everywhere.” She was disappointed in me, that I would get so drunk and just disappear, but she didn’t want to scold me.  She treated me as if I were a grown-up and let me do what I do.  I had to tell her that the band were jerks anyway.  The David Bowie look-a-like took us to an open-air market with African artifacts, the noise and smells of which were not helping my horrific hang-over.  The tiny bottles of orange juice that they served in bars did nothing for me, and I was homesick for the giant weekend brunches we got in Santa Cruz, with eggs and cheese and vegetables and sour cream and buckets of coffee that just kept coming, and the fact that everyone in the restaurant was someone that I knew and they had all been copiously drinking the night before.

Our scavenger hunt tour guide caught a glimpse of how bad I must have felt and took us to a fabulous rose tinted church which was being remodeled and was totally empty, completely devoid of pews and altars and decoration, with a hundred foot tall ceiling.  I was ennobled by the space, completely in awe of the years and years of prayers and tears that this sacred place had seen. The light streamed in the windows in dusty shafts that looked like they were bringing prayers back from heaven to us here on earth. 

March 15, 1929 Berkeley, CA

She heard him laughing through the door before she ever saw his face and she knew he was the one she would marry.  Edie had just moved to Berkeley from Oregon and the other girls from the Five and Dime were always finding blind dates for each other from the Fraternities at University of California, Berkeley. 

These boys were from the Jewish Fraternity, Sigma Alpha Mu, the Sammies. Edie and her sister Ethel had never met any Jewish people that they were aware of. But moving to the Bay Area meant new people and new experiences and a very different Cosmopolitan life than the one they left in Oregon. They were grown up shop girls now and were looking forward to trying new things and seeing the world. Their girlfriend Miriam had accepted an invitation from her beau, George, to go to San Francisco and go dancing with his Fraternity brothers, Sam and Morty.

Edie pulled on her white gloves and checked her hair again in the mirror, they were going into the City so white gloves and a hat were de rigeur. She pulled the soft dove grey cloche a little farther over one eye and winked at Ethel in the mirror. "Off for fun," she said, one of  their Mamma's favorite sayings.

Miriam introduced the boys all around and Sam gave Edie a special smile. Sam's hair was pomaded within an inch of its life, plastered down on his head like a painted on wig form.  Sam was quick witted and sweet, when Edie saw those big brown eyes that went with the laugh she was completely smitten. 

"Are you girls ready for the big City? You got your coats?" He clapped his hands and made a large gesture. He was wearing a giant fur coat that could have been a little too warm for March.  Edie gave the fur a look, "What a beautiful coat!" she exclaimed.  "Thank you," Sam boomed, "My father is a furrier- he made it just for me.  It's foggy in San Francisco- almost year-round. You'll especially need to keep warm on the Ferry!"

They piled into the old jalopy that the boys had all put in $20 to buy and prayed it would get them to the Ferry.  "It's getting up the hill to Nob Hill that will really be the test," Sam said. They swooped down to Jack London Square at the end of Broadway in Oakland  and got in line with the other cars waiting to board the ferry. They could see the sun sinking over the hills and the Bay and the Golden Gate, it was just breathtaking. "Beautiful!," Edie exclaimed, "I've never seen anything so lovely."

"This'll warm you up," Ethel's date, Max, said as he pulled out a little silver flask.

"My, aren't we the jazz babies!" Ethel laughed.

Her carefully marcelled  blond hair came a little loose in the breeze as she took a long swig from the flask.  "Careful, Ethel, that's not coca-cola!" warned Max.

"You drink it like that and we'll have to buy stock in Coca Cola" Sam laughed.

"Oh no," said Edie, "I'll keep my money in a shoe box under the bed, those stocks are just pieces of paper."  "Wise lady, Miss Wilson," Sam said, smiling with an extra glint of awe.

They arrived at Hyde Street Pier on the San Francisco waterfront and made their way out into the bustle of Saturday night in the City by the Bay. Sam kept up a running commentary of interesting facts about the Barbary Coast madams and hooligans and robber barons.

"Remember Mama telling us about her brother Charlie in the 1906 Earthquake?" piped up Ethel.

"Yes, she said he was looking for his wife and he thought he saw her body lying in the street and then the police conscripted him into a work crew," said Edie.

"He never saw her again," said Ethel, reaching for the flask again and taking a long sip.

The old jalopy fought valiantly up the little rise of Columbus street towards North Beach.  Morty almost side-swiped a Cable Car by whipping around it trying to beat the light.

"Oh we'll never make it up Nob Hill- let's see what jazz club we can find around here," said Morty, cigar jutting out of his mouth towards the giant hill on the right with the sky scrapers lighting the fog an impossible glittering spires of light.

"That car has some pioneer spirit," said Edie.

 "It certainly has seen its share of ups and downs," winked George, Miriam's date.

"Sam, isn't that where we waited tables last week?" He pointed out a fancy dining room, with a crowd of merry makers dancing inside a gilded restaurant.

"Yes, that's why I keep the coat on, so they won't see me wearing my waiter's tux about town," Sam said.

They found a parking space and with much maneuvering and Fraternity brothers hoping in and out of the car, managed to ease the battered old workhorse into a spot.

"Wow, I feel like this has been enough of an adventure for a week," Edie whispered to Ethel behind her compact and puffed a little more powder on her nose, after all that exertion her freckles would show again.

They entered a smoky club ballroom and a great fussing of coats and furs were piled up on the poor coat girl.

"Drinks, ladies?" Sam asked as they girls found a table.

"Bourbon and Soda," piped up Edie, the first to chime in with her order.

"Same for me," said Ethel.

"I'll have a Coke" said Miriam.

Sam returned with the drinks as the band started playing a lively Charleston.

"Oh my favorite," exclaimed Edie, "Do you dance?" she asked Sam.  Sam proffered her a hand and off they went to the dance floor.

They were almost winded after a few turns around the ballroom. Edie's shimmery green beaded dress had been shaking up a storm. "What a lovely dancer you are," Edie said to Sam. "Yep, all the charm money can buy," he joked.  "Where did you learn your skills, charm school, too?"

"Well, there weren't any charm schools on our Socialist Commune I was born on," she laughed.  The band shifted into a slower number, "Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love," by Cole Porter. The singer wore  a long white beaded gown and a magnolia in her hair.

"It would be rude to stop dancing now," Sam said and twirled Edie around.

On the way home on the ferry, Sam wrapped his big coat around her and she said, "Won't you be cold?" and he laughed, "I'll be warmed by the light of your smile."

Virgin Dirty Shirley Cupcake