“A Different Kind of Hero”
Mother...O Mother!
Mother-dear...O Mother-sweet!

Your eyes are burdened by sorrow,
but there are slivers of happiness here and there.

That’s all I used to see when I was little--
when I was weaned--
happiness in your eyes! Happiness tearing the sky in ribbons,  stripping it of any trace of gray!

But now I know that you are a creature of suffering and celebration entwined.

I many never gather all the shards of your shattered past for my mind’s curious collection;
I may never discover that person behind that maternal mask you strive so hard to wear;
I may never see you for who you truly are....
but you will always be my mother.

You will always be the one who nurtured me when I was weak, 
who comforted me at every stage where comfort was what I craved more than air itself.
Sometimes Earth’s elements can not substain life, especially an ailing heart.

You don’t qualify for their definition of ‘perfect’---nor do you qualify for mine!---
for the world sometimes fails to see who you are:
my  mother. And you don’t have to be perfect because you are....

A woman of patience and virtue,
strength and experience.
A woman whose paintbrush has touched the entire spectrum of human emotion
and colored my life when it was blackened by gloom.
A woman who can predict my every move, even when I can’t do so myself.
Because she knows what I do not.

I can not know what she does---what you do--- until I become what she is---what you are---:
someone’s mother; my  mother.
But even then, she will be my hero. 
Even when I am a mother myself.
A different kind of hero, perhaps,
but a hero nonetheless. 



“Plain Poets”
If this is ever published,
I might see it someday in a paper,
while drinking tea with lemon.
Never without lemon.
Plain tea is dull.
Plain people are dull.
And poets who think they are not plain are even duller. 



"Computer"
These keys I've struck so many times
like the actor reliving the life of a man longer than the man himself.
These keys I've abused so many times
like the drunkard stumbling home to his children each night.

If I were to open another document, send another e-mail, press just one last key...
would it all just explode into infinite pieces of plastic imported from Korea and Japan?
Would each shard of China and Taiwan hover in the air, as if gravity had not awakened that day?
Would I be able to breathe?

Or is this just a machine more powerful than myself,
With exhaustion a mere memory of a technology's fragile past?



“Fog and Rain”
What are we to do in this world of fog and rain
where Winter’s harsh eyes are all too present?
If only there was enough seed for 
all the little larks.



“Celebrity”
A statue before them all.
An Adonis in their hearts.
Life is so cruel.



“Egg Yolks”
Maybe if I were to sit here, the stars would melt into my hands
and return what they sequestered so long ago:
my heart’s most intimate wishes.
These fairies of the evening are no more than than the changling Puck;
Robin Goodfellow with my dreams stored in a jar where egg yolks once wallowed in their juices.
My hopes have become chicken’s things,
golden as summer sun.
Yet these dreams will never hatch.



“Peach”
This peach is a peach of the sort
that you always see but
can never taste.
No one can taste Heaven.


“Sleeping”
If a heart is meant to love---
If a heart is meant to sell itself to another---
why is my heart still sleeping within my breast?

Lethargic little creature!

The coffee grinds sail the air with their roasted scent
and the eggs are already frying;
the bacon’s popping in this skillet my mother sent to me last Christmas
and the milk’s been poured.

But someone’s still sleeping.


“Corridors”
The cherub within me--
the lamb within me--
the innocence lurking within my heart’s bustling corridors---
tells me not to.
Their whispers diffuse through my mind and into my cogitations.
Whispers advising me not to.

But the demon within me--
the wolf within me--
the evil lurking within my heart’s empty corridors---
tells me to.
Their ejaculations diffuse through my mind into my cogitations.
Ejaculations advising me to.

And who do I listen to? 
Why, the wolf is stronger than the lamb.



“Anonymity”
Who will I be tomorrow?
Will I seduce the skies for my own
or wallow in this pit of anonymity?


“Her Mind”
She is secretive.
She lives alone,
eats alone,
thinks alone.
At least her mind is hers alone.



“City Girl”
It’s a vintage blouse, they told me....
worn by a glamour queen,
who milked smoke from cigarettes and splashed it across the air---
as if she had lived in Kentucky all her life.
But she was a city girl,
they assured me.
Country ones ain’t got no class.


“August”
Raindrops tear through the clouds in August,
scarring my skin with memories, 
brazing my mind’s inner forest.
A century from this summer,
I will wander through that same forest and explore its secrets.
And a century from now, I will still remember the raindrops tearing through the clouds
in August.


“Beast”
Cemented to my past are things I can I have no more.
I can reach,
I can stretch,
I can meander through my memories---
but the present is a beast I have yet to slay.


“Higher”
I’ve fallen from the oak tree,
the birch tree,
the magnolia and the maple.
I tore through their branches and ripped their frail hair.
I scraped their bodies in anguish, hoping to pull myself higher, higher, higher.
But they flung me to the mud in rage,
fracturing my femur.
And I never went any higher.


“The Moonlight”
I sat by my window last night
and took a swig of the moonlight.
There is no slumber when the stars are bright,
but nourishment alone for one’s hungry sight.