teach me

what my heart is singing

for i don’t know the language

it speaks

tell me

the words i am saying

for i don’t know the meaning

i feel …

this is the day

when people ask

“where were you

when the sky went black

when we lost our innocence

when the world collapsed

in fire and smoke?”

it is the first of such

days for me

i know it shan’t

be the last

my mother’s father was born

the year the great war ended

her mother was alive

when wall street fell

my father’s parents

were children of the great depression

who remember peal harbor

grandpa nearly died

in a war hospital

my parents tell me

about jfk and the shots fired

mom saw the second shooting

live on tv

as for me

i was three weeks distant

from my fourteenth birthday

plodding through algebra

at a snail’s pace

while downstairs mom

checked the news

i don’t remember how it happened

but i saw one tower fall

then the other crumble

into dust

no more ‘top of the world’

where mom had stood

i hardly knew

what those buildings were

but now they were gone

hollowly my mother

echoed that refrain:

“the world trade center is gone”

we held each other

on the recliner couch

sobbing in fear and disbelief

eight years in the future

i don’t think anyone

really understands

what happened

that sunny september day

heroes were born

to die the next minute

‘hate’ for the first time was real

and came with the price tag

of 3,000 souls

for a few months

we were a country

bound together by grief

then blame and greed and power

crept in unawares

and none of us was

really sure anymore

what was happening

or why because

we’d let ourselves

forget

in eight more years

the memory will be

further yellowed

until it becomes

just another day again

like pearl harbor

or armistice or normandy

days dusty scholars

drill us on in history class

but few remember

perhaps forgetting

can help us here forgive

but a wound uncleaned festers

poisoning the body quietly

so recall what courage won us

what love bought us

what justice brings us

and mercy gives us

and remember, remember,

remember

i had dreams once

of things that i wanted

or people

watching them melt away

like fog on a hot afternoon

makes me realize

how blind i’ve been all along

how blind i can be still

comfortable in the pattern of lassitude

and custom-designed galaxies

there are so many little things

which i fear greatly

and so confuse myself

as to the consequences

of chastening and pardoned sin

am i a hypochondriac

or just carelessly guiltly?

i play mind games against myself

naturally, nobody wins

it was dark at the end of the tunnel

the way blocked by cobwebs

and nightmares of doubt

was this to be eternity?

a constant struggle against lethargy

lassitude, despair

who was the body

inhabiting her person?

what was the gremlin overtaking her soul?

she wished, in a tired way

for the end to come

swift and clean

a permanent end to the person she’d become

but not a bridle on who she could be

i imagine you rest on your laurels easily

dictionary of excuses at the ready

compendium of caustic jabs at the tip of your tongue

yet for all that i wonder if it’s your definition

or just a bastardized use you’ve casually adopted

too lazy to let anyone examine your etymology closer

or are you afraid? are you actually reclusive inside?

what a story for the ages that would make

if you didn’t protect yourself against slippery rogues

and someone divulged your innermost secret

fighting words with words creates a need for silence

quiet is out of place in a battlefield

but my wit is ready-sharpened and bright

in defense of the end of roguery, en garde

the candle you gave me is glowing

winking cheekily in the breeze from the fan

happy as jupiter

the scent of pine is comforting

as i sit here in my pajamas

looking in the bottom of an empty mug

for the milk i drank an hour ago

the fragrance of foreign spice

makes my mood seem more exotic

my medieval music contemporary instead of past

but i cannot write the words i’ve imagined

seeing on the page black and crisp

nothing keeps them in

except my inability to concentrate

i’ve never told you about writing, have i?

to be honest, i don’t remember

what we talk about when we talk

do we?

maybe we never need to

this candle flame is dancing

keeping time to the gypsy tunes

mischievous but steady

full of mirth

like you

this is a poem for you

the reader

who chooses

to wade through my writing

like a guppy

caught in

a school of piranhas

i wish i could see you

reading

observe what makes

you smile

or shake your head

and abandon me

for something else

if we sat down

to coffee together

(mine is dark roast taken black)

you could tell me

what my poetry

is about

to you

because

you see

we are each as

much authors

as the other

almost every word

of mine

has a meaning

dreamed and defined

by me

whether mad or merry

as the mood took me

but you

impart your own meaning

as seeing without my eyes

and emotions

you write your own version

of what is happening

what was found

or might have been

lost

i find that fascinating

truly i do

how you shape the sounds

in your head

on your tongue

whether your vowels

are round or flat

and your consonants crisp

all of that

is a gift you give

to the act

of writing

committed by someone

else

but adopted

even for just a moment

by you

like an actor

living his playwright’s

dreams

thank you

i am writing this to

prove to myself i

haven’t forgotten

how

truth be told i

am a bit rusty

at the seams

since it seems every

poem i’ve written lately

has revolved around a

boy

i couldn’t have

or didn’t want

to have, or who simply

made me insatiably curious

those are perhaps the best

and worst kind

because i don’t know anything

about them

and never do

there was the one

addicted to coffee

the one who

loved chocolate madly,

the one who never read

anything but the news

the one there 5,000 miles away

who vanished when i

was a little girle still

the one who never smiled

i really have quite a

collection by now

perhaps i shall open

a museum and call it

‘the gallery of lost boys’

someone has found them

i suppose

or is finding them

or will find them one day

some days i wonder

if anyone will find

me

that is a narcissi

to unconsciously consider

oneself the sun

center of gravity

north-aligned pole

one ant in a hill

of millions looks like

any other ant, doesn’t it?

but then people are built

peculiar

designed individually

to comprise a whole

 2 in the sma’s

is no sane time

for theological rambles

i think i remember

 how it’s done

i’d run to miss your waking world capture daydreams

brittle, stale, and in hope of hearing them crash down

i’d exhale to slay them slower, sweeter

than any shrike’s arrest could mutely crowd and clutter

and muffle, uncaring, keeping at distance

the glowing pines that signal morning and radiant beams

that come as warning; i’d roughly stay your stillborn buds

and cloak all joy for peace that heals the mind and

goads the thoughts of ones who skulk down city streets

preoccupied with shards of glass that whisper wounds beneath their soft

bare feet; i’d iron shod, miss the roar of trains

while your nightmares woke impatient for the reign of night

to leave, return their faithless fears to darkened light

and chasms deep where i abide in dulled spite

and wend my way, omit to map a flawed mankind

when you’d asleep i’d grimly frown … yielding up my shattered crown

some things can not be said in words

brilliant though they are, words disappoint

we cheapen them

transmuting meaning

into a common stale

used up, cast off

the purity of emotion unsullied

requires silence

but poets are paid to translate the unexpressable

into the inexplicable

do i dig my own grave

every time i give birth

to rhyme?

the rime and albatross

around my neck

persist

unanswered

______________________________________________

i have stopped thinking

to feel