Dream noir

John Lithgow died somewhere in my house, in his sleep, while visiting us.  Maybe in the basement?  It's not my fault.  But it is my problem.  The longer I wait to alert the authorities, the worse it's looking, the more complicit and criminal and indefensible my inaction will seem to be.  When a bad thing like that happens, you don't just wait three days until it's convenient to call the authorities, but that's what I've done.  There's just a lot of other shit going on right now.  

For example, there's a party happening, and I'm the hostess, preventing sleepy-seeming teenage boys from stumbling toward the guest bed in the curtained-off cellar corner.  

I can see a huge, inert human shape under blankets on that bed, in the dim cellar light.  I've not actually examined or confirmed that it's the larger-than-life famous actor.  I'm trusting what I've come to believe, but you couldn't pay me to go lift that blanket.  I just keep hoping the shape will be gone the next time I look over there, like he wasn't really dead after all, and got up and left on his own.  

I'm aware that perhaps people are even now beginning to look for John Lithgow at the hotel he was supposed to check out of several days ago.  They'll be asking the taxi driver where he got dropped off.  So, like, it will not look good if I haven't made the call before that search party arrives at my door.  

What am I going to say about this thing though?  What lie sounds more defensible than the truth, that I just didn't want to deal with it and hoped it would go away?

And yes, I am also sad about the loss of this fine man to the world.  I do feel that.  But it's not the dominant anguish.  I'm seething, because this should not be my job right now.  I should not be held accountable for hiding an unwieldy dead body, nor should I be punished for delaying its necessary revelation.  I didn't invite this burdensome man into my home, and I am not the one who killed him.  

He just died, and I'm probably gonna hang for it, because I'm sure a woman must pay the price for John Lithgow dying in her house.




  

Oppression

A late September dream that should probably come with a trigger warning not fully conveyed by the title.
__________________

He's barely conscious, and he's taking up all the space on our king-sized bed, crushing me.  Maybe he's dreaming, maybe he's drunk, maybe he's dense.  But I can't get him to wake up and be aware.  He persists in crushing me, and when roused he's like an angry bull about it.  I'm so sensitized to gently managing his inert self-interest that I can extricate myself unobtrusively, moving over to his side of the bed when he rolls over me to occupy mine, at which point he falls half off the bed.  He can't even stay on the bed he's so unwieldy and restless and out of it.  I can't ever get out from under.  Every time I free myself, he rolls to where I am.  When I try to help him get back on the bed, and I get out of the space he's trying to occupy, he begins to wake and becomes enraged.  The light is dim, but I can see once he's got me pinned again that he's silent-rage-screaming an inch from my face.  I become absolutely still.  I can't fight back.  All I can do is hope he doesn't kill me.  He's much larger than any human, though his face is much like one I used to love.

 

 

Logo

I'll be changing my logo.

First, I need the old logo.  
Make it recognizable, but no longer right.
Betty Boop's face, or a ladybug.

We need a new logo that says:   
Magnificent In Her Reckoning

and an old logo that says:   
cute! no trouble (-:
  
I'm changing my logo.

Not to the "om" symbol, though I like the design.  
I can't scream it.

Not the equation for the speed of light, though I like the calculation. 
I can't scream it.

I'll become crow by night,
screaming.
I'll become crow in swan's clothing by day,
dreaming.



 

 






 

  




 

 

 

 



 

Detonated Diary

"Detonated Diary" is the title I gave that piece I wrote when I was 25 for a "Vietnam and the Artist" class in college, which I re-read a month ago when I was 53 (before letting my dad have a copy), and in which I re-encountered forgotten material about the lover who died obscenely young of cancer after telling me we'd be friends for life but also admitting that I'd never be plan A for him.  (Plan A was a married woman named Tricia.  That part's not forgotten.)  While looking for that piece, I also rummaged through old diaries and saw a sketch I made from memory of that same guy, because I had no photograph of him and liked him that much, not because he was not long for this world, which I didn't know yet when I made the sketch.  I also wrote down his birthday, December 26, 1959.  

And on my knees in the basement unearthing all this I muttered under my breath... "fucking Capricorn"

He was good though, a good friend, and I sometimes still sense his infuriatingly platonic presence and love for me, like he'll meet me on the bridge, he'll be there when it's my time, all smiles and teddy bear warmth, with those brown eyes and those biceps.

(but I'm still not plan A, I get it...)

Maine-bound

driving into storms
"wimple-shipers" slapping time
(the child in her sings)

she grew in this place
of grim pilgrim settlements
quaint villages now

white-steepled churches
in wild terrain or in towns
blueberries and god

rosehips and seaweed
pidgen-speaking lobstermen
ancient new english

we breathe salt, eat fish
admire authors, work hard
and keep to ourselves

we were bound for Maine
and to it, and then away
too restless to stay



 

 


 
 




 

Totality

I was born three weeks late on a full moon.  I mean, it was full if you looked at the sky.  But it wasn't quite full.  It was 10 degrees shy.  

Shy, but luminous, imminently full without attaining the real deal, existing in that state of anticipation just before you step onto a stage, when your heart is in your throat, and time stands still.  I don't have to perform yet.  I don't have to abandon a secret joy or cope with a disillusionment when everything's suspended like this, in suspense, pending.

I like it best when the gift is in my lap and I haven't yet pulled the ribbon.  I like it best when the roller coaster is about to crest. "There's more to this story" is music to my ears.  Ambiguity is at the heart of all my favorite poems.

Shy is the neutral ground between performing and self-destructing.  Anonymity is the refuge, until I see that I haven't ever been seen, that I'm disappearing (without a trace). 

At 15 I wore the cigarette and the flannel shirt with unlaced boots of the girls who weren't good, but I was good.  I hated Aerosmith and pretended to like them.  I knew every Joni Mitchell song by heart and feigned indifference.  I was ambivalent, and I could become anything, for anyone.  I loved a guy madly, secretly, but I was eclipsed. 

Monday I will celebrate turning 53 during a solar eclipse.  I like how this is a new moon, and maybe I'm coming full circle with this one.  Maybe I can imagine being full finally, and holding onto that fullness.  Until then, I will make shadows here.






 

different

He might be all of 18, my slave.

You think this is another dream.
It's something different.

He has something to say, something to sign.
My arms are full but I happen to be empty. 
So I'm already listening before he speaks.
Today for no reason this stranger is different.

You seem so different he says. 
By different, he means kind. 
Kind is different (though they're antonyms).
I'm kind of different, for my kind.

Write your number down right here he says
pointing to a line on his petition.
if you want me to be your slave.
?? (smile)
Oh I know you ain't like that.

This kid.

He doesn't know that I am like that.