the sieve and the sand

standing more on the pads of my feet
and leaning slightly backwards to improve
my posture as i complete my sweaty run
all but barefoot and walk back into my
house feeling bigger than samson richer
than jobs and sexier than, well, my normal me
today i press the wife.

“what woulds’t thou have me to conquer?”

for i’m empowered right now to take on the
world. but your coffee? you want it ground?

conquered.

I feel so under
qualified some
times when I con
sider all the lit
tle things comp
letely wrong wi
th everything but
I must rimain st
alwart at preten
ding that I’m just
as qualified as
the next ave
rage joe who cer
tainly will weigh
their two cents in
as deep as it
will rest, and it
will rest, so rest
assured you’re
not the only one
protecting this old
wishing well. Just
try not to let
your back be
turned too of
ten

I can not tell
weather the man in the stained wife beater
and the 25 dollar sunglasses is
reading the plaque at the bottom of that fountain
or considering his entire existence at
7:45 on a Friday night in the small-business
district of a little big city’s downtown.

Perhaps he wonders where he’ll be in ten years,
when the retro furniture boutique and the
mid-city semi-exclusive jazz club will most likely be gone,

Or maybe he ponders where the time went,
he with two kids and a regular job doing
odd sorts of labor for a landscaping outfit.

He could even be counting down the days
before he finally catches up on back child support
and can relish in the full-sized checks he’s
been denied for so long.

Or,
he’s wondering what comes after
‘Dedicated in memory…’
on the worn-down part
of the fountain base

…I’m certainly not going to ask him.

Let my snotty rags left everywhere
(even in mid-summer) stand
as sufficient retribution against the
OBnoXious taptaptapping
your knee makes as it hits the bottom
of your work desk.

Let it go without saying, and perfectly
understood, that you
won’t tell me to pick them up,
and I won’t cut your leg off
at the fucking thigh

in patiently awaiting my new home i’ve discovered something like yoga. i call it misery.
take three and call me in a few weeks. if that doesn’t work. take more. overdosing leads to extreme misery, and then small amounts of joy followed by a positive life change.
it’s hard to plead the grass is greener
when there is no grass.
but then again… on the other side….

tired nights of manic thoughts
cut my rope with the knife i bought
fill the silence with perpetual talk
got my bed all lined in chalk
stupid feelings may come or not
i don’t care and it wont stop
4 am songs
my nerves rot

after sitting
for hours on end,
drinking,
hoping,
wanting to feel,
hoping to forget,
and finally,
with a little scotch ice,
the chill sets in,
and i’m good to go.

because mine’s not,
and at least one of us
needs to think good
and to be able to
open their eyes,
despite the harsh fluorescence,
and the bright computer screens,
and the dull pain
just behind the right eye
and the feeling that all i want to do
is close the door
and lay down on the cool,
rough office carpet
and sleep

but for now i’ll settle
to rest my eyes
as i type,
hoping that no bosses walk by.

I was checking the tags in the back of my shirts
when I realized, you know,
once upon a time we were just a bunch
of dumb punk kids.

But time hasn’t once upon’d in a minute,
and we havn’t been kids
since at least back when,
so what’s our excuse this time around?

I am wearing a suit today.
I have hidden my tits inside this prim blouse as if to say ” I will not f$$k my way up.” I am a professional. My foot is inside the door, I am cut-throat. Look out. I discarded my soul a long time ago along with my college boyfriend; the sanctimonious sod.
I was raised by a feminist when feminists weren’t  simply thought of as lesbians( bless them), ugly loud men-hating frigid bitches.  There was a time when feminists were women seeking a fair and better place under the sun. Today, even half naked skeletal creatures call themselves feminists eventhough they have relinquished their brainpower and conformed to a distorted image of what a woman is supposed to be. I am no exception; I have assessed myself by counting all the body parts at their market value ( my ass is moderately tight, my face palatable, my brain fully functional but the extra pounds, the somewhat sizable breasts, and the average height are a deal breaker) . My brain as my only asset, I have optimized, kept my feminity under tabs and let my soul go. Now, I am a successful career woman. My name is modernlady, I am a feminist failure, and a kickass cunt. Bite me.               

never worrying about whether
the answer will come,
or not,
just keep talking,
in a constant tirade
of ass pulled words
until in a moment of clarity,
the perfect idea arrives
and all of the asses are rolled away.

as the train approached our stop
we saw the edge of the storm
a wall of rain quickly advancing

when we stepped onto the platform
into the deluge the other passengers
laughed at our misfortune

we held our umbrellas like shields
they flailed and failed to protect us
the wind carried water in all directions

in seconds our shoes were sponges
wet clothes clung to wet skin
three blocks never seemed so far

but laughing beneath our umbrellas
loud enough so the other could hear
three blocks never seemed so near.

today i brought something into this world
which was not here before
i birthed the non-existant into the air
giving it oxygen to taint
tomorrow i’ll set me sights higher

i promise to bring for you
something more than poo

Some days it’s awful hard
writing songs about pictures
of things you havn’t seen in a long long time.

Nine days out of ten, though
it’s harder still to try and
take those pictures again.

The light never seems to hit
the same way these days.

i’d give away your smile
to rid of your stupid ass
if only i could stand it.

i can’t write beautiful words with you
my beautiful
looking over my shoulder.
i’m sorry but it’s true. your eyes of judgement bear down on my every letter and i feel small. as insignificant as i truly am in the midst of your presence.
and frankly i need delusions of grandeur to write.

trees absent in this barren land
i don new lack of shoes and grip
every bump, splash every puddle,
grinning as when i was a boy

I only hope
the truth of life is
not so divine
that I won’t understand it

I see you’ve got the look down
and I smell you’ve got the smell down
(ain’t showered in weeks I reckon)
and with the nonchallantness of your grin
and the way that perfect Ibanez shines
in the late afternoon sun, I would almost
see you hopping trains right out of here.

No worries, no stress, everything in the
little hand-sewn bag that you’ve slung over
the one shoulder, just right. Absolutely picturesque.
I would almost bet the money that you’d
had to run from railroad bulls, especially
when that hobo tune comes ’round
on that guitar again.

Everything checks out
but that one little thing:
That Ibanez is just too damn clean.

I hope that there’s a baggage claim
at the end of all of this.
Some grand processing system
to sort through all the things we brought.

Hopefully it is an improved system.
Hopefully it only returns the things
that are worth a damn.

I fear we are not so lucky,
and that the processing was, well,
you know,
sort of our responsibility.

But if there is a baggage claim,
whatever the modifications,
I’m taking someone else’s bags
and hoping that they packed
a little better

i don’t know if i mentioned about the time when in sixth grade i excused myself from mr. stage’s classroom and proceeded across the thinly carpeted windowless hallway to the mens toilet. where i peed. in the urinal. while staring off into something like space i managed to find in the divider between stalls.

then as if in slow motion my hand moved to towards the flusher and as i pulled, the ‘american standard’ pulled itself
away from the wall.

now i remember quite vividly the feeling of shock and horror i felt as i pulled my first urinal clear off its piping and watched as water gushed from the pipes behind it. i also remember the feeling of excitement i felt as i opened the door back into my classroom and returned to “social studies” which apparently is just a word for “history” and doesn’t address even basic sociology.

the next day when i returned to school i found the urinal safely fastened to wall as if it were all a dream.

then my shock and horror turned to pride. i pulled a urinal off the wall. i am awesome.

i try to recall the park that night
(beneath a sea of stars?):
how we walked around the pond (twice?)
our hands brushed (by accident?) as we
sat upon the cold (wooden?) bench,
how you looked wearing my (grey?) hat
with your (silver?) hoop earrings
as you slipped off your (shoes?)
and i tried not to shiver.

the details are foggy,
elusive approaching fictitious,
but what remains are two things: that
feeling that something
really fucking great
was about to happen
and the taste of the scent of the leaves.

Inundated.

Sentances dripping from mouths
dampening collared shirts
only making necks below
uncomfortable

Unimaginable.
‘I miss you’

Unfathomable.
‘Come home’

Those tracks
are out of service.
They’ll be torn for scrap
eventually.

Inundated
with the world watching
the world watching
the world.

Problems hardly fix themselves
dripping from mouths to
collars.

Please come home