12 Tuesday Feb 2019
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Sentient explorers
rogue shoulders
wild breathing
last gasp upon the shore, hammerhand, quartz-carver
cloak of invisibility
keeper of secrets
Mistress
impossible blues
Polaris gleams upon her black spine, hope for men aloft on Poseidon’s foaming mares
and dreams for little girls wanting to be mermaids.
15 Saturday Dec 2018
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I heard rain was coming this week. I was so excited. I love rain when it comes here, particularly the pounding rain on the roof I can barely hear because the building is built well and my ears don’t hear so well, but there’s just this something that tells me it’s rain and I run outside 20 times a day to see it hurling down and dripping from long, green pine needles.
I waited up stayed up wanting to hear the rain and all we got was less than what I wanted, a fuzzy drifting wet, tiny things you couldn’t even call drops, more like midges circling the lamp post jostling for the best mate, only a little damper. That was no rain.
But fog did come. When I finally caved in to the tired I stripped and rolled in and watched the orange sky (the weather sky, the one that tells me we’ve got weather, otherwise the sky is mediocre blue) but heard no beating rain. The trees beyond the window didn’t seem all that wet, but the one significant sound was white fog and one calling horn. The foghorns did not sound all day, it was more like off and on, and mostly they horns are loud from the back bay, not the ones in the channel who tag team “horn” and “horn,” the lowing that I love.
I slept eventually and the sun rose and moved but you wouldn’t believe it because the sky was white, mother of pearl white, drifting from north, damp, feigning rain, cloaking the sun but the horn keeps calling from the back bay.
I am in love. But the persons who pilot ships would not speak so honorific of the white gray mother of pearl steel fog I uplift and watch drift for I have no reason to care.
26 Wednesday Sep 2018
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Tags
aliens, border, cars, children, dream, fingerpaints, fishing, Hoya, justice, life, music, ocean, peace, potted plant, questions, rain, son, sunrise, Universe, writing
I wake up at 0400, I don’t know why.
My Hoya plant climbs and changes direction all day, pushing out leaves that start out maroon then turn green, looking for something cling to, I guess, but I don’t know how. They don’t care why.
Somebody’s gorgeous, imperfect black Mercedes 350 D sits in the parking lot, and I don’t know who it belongs to. Should I do penance for coveting?
I had a dream and you were in it and I was awful to you. Should I apologize?
My son shivers under a pile of covers every few weeks and nobody knows how to fix him. When will we find the answer?
Who will tend our nerves and muscle, spine and hips, and tell them stand down, the money has come, go and get well, healthcare has come?
What does an unaching body feel like?
Where does music come from?
Why are those finger-sized fishes jumping out of the bay into the air?
Where did my pouch of flash drives go?
What will my next best writing look like, and who will tell me “Yes, we want this.”
Are you the one tapping on my window at night when it rains, sounding like somebody is dropping berries onto my windowsill from the roof in the middle of the night?
Who’s going to put all this stuff away, and wash laundry, and take the garbage out, and pay bills, and wash the car?
Does anyone else hate the fact that Greenie’s is gone and wonder what will replace that beach bar that the mayor said yeah that was nice but it’s time to move on?
How many children are still without their parents at the border and will they ever see them again?
Peace in our time?
Are aliens shunning us?
Who made the first fishing net?
I dunno. It’s all just Universe painting, I guess. Meanwhile….who can think with all this going on… 
21 Friday Sep 2018
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I want to stop dreaming about that place where I used to work. I don’t want to remember that place, their faces, and the stress I brought home.
I want to look inside every apartment here and see where their cats and dogs live, what books do they keep, what furniture they’ve arranged in this small space where they live in between here and shipping out.
I want a week of rain, overcast, gray, dripping. I want a week of rain all the time. Nobody else wants this.
I want pepperoni pizza, but it has to look and taste like the kind we had in Flushing, small pepperonis, cupping the grease, crammed atop the cheese, a flavor and texture found nowhere else. My brother knows what this means.
I want the job I applied for so I can see many faces and rise to the challenge of helping with a smile and you go away feeling like nobody else mattered but you.
I want to write about the National Memorial For Peace & Justice in a way that has nothing to do with me, but I can’t figure out a way. Yet.
I want to find my pouch of flash drives and SanDisks that I lost somewhere so I can recover memories, my crappy writing, my happiness, my sanity, my everything, but I know that’s not to be.
I want my friend back, and my Dad back, but only if they’re not angry anymore.
I want to write about those ladies and their kids playing in the ocean who clearly had other ideas about staying dry, but I haven’t figured out the right words yet.
My windows are open tonight, a/c off and fan still. The air is cool, finally. This writing thing is coming back to me, finally. The plan is to heat up a sweet potato and broccoli and some rice, NYPD Blue in the background. The plan is to stay wide open to everything that comes to me, and to approach my bed tired, a prayer, and deep breathing, hoping to be empty so sleep will be full and lengthy.
I have a thing about people who are all about “I want I want I want.” I get aggravated by their “me me me.” But then, everybody wants. It’s not wrong to feel a need and a want. My wants and your wants may never meet, but I want to know and understand. That’s where give comes along and lights a candle and puts “give” into motion.
If you are prepared to stand in the knock you over ocean, naked, then you are prepared for “I want, but let me give you what you need.”
Give someone what they need, and enjoy the wants you receive when it comes.
24 Thursday May 2018
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Tags
amwriting, beach, dragon, egg, fear, Jim Morrison, ocean, pain, poetry, prompt, the Doors, weather
I awoke abruptly, squintingly, because the sun peered in my bedroom window, an alarm my body cannot refuse. Strange sun, Jim Morrison said in his notebook poem, and I opened my door after I put clothes on (but not shoes because no one needs shoes to walk from the balcony to the cool beach sand that was not far away.) Strange sun well-riz on my right also known as East, the train of cool blue dawn retreated into the distance, laughing gulls squeaked overhead and moved on instead of making their usual mocking laughter from the breakwater that sounds like children a mile away calling out for help because they are drowning.
I walk barefoot on a beach where I found seashells in all stages of their lives tossed on the shingle by an uncaring sea, but all those shells and emerald mermaid’s hair wafting in the tidal pools are gone. The Army Corps of Engineers came and did one heck of a job building up this little spit of land that had been slowly reclaimed by the ocean one winter storm, one summer hurricane at a time and now my feet trod sand the size of peppercorns instead of soft, creamy quartsy silt I fell in love with, all those tidal pools gone. I am grateful yet disoriented. Strange.
So this morning I woke and walked and found the dragon’s egg. Should come as no surprise to anyone because the system that came from the west moved in and brought us a week of rain and a night of high wind, fearsome wind too early for hurricane but made us reach for our batteries and bottled water anyway. I plucked the egg from the sand poor thing blown from her nest, abandoned, knowing that’s the worst thing I could possibly do but when did I ever abide by the rules, and I held it in my hand wondering what could I possibly do? And then the shell broke, the creamy satin shell broke open and spilled out venom all over my hand and it hurt like the sting of a bee that begins slowly and takes over your interstitial fluids and spreads out and swells because it really, really, does not want you to be offending it yet you have by simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time and you are paying for your transgression. I held the dragon’s egg, seeping fluids hurting so much, but my pride kept me from screaming so I ran down and into the cold, cold water and submerged me and the egg hoping the pain would ebb. The silken shell stuck to my hand. The venom came forth like a ginger lady’s tresses, Rapunzel-like, then dissipated in the brine. The shell dissolved and my pain dissolved too as I panted hopping foot to foot hoping not to step on a skate just going about his business.
30 Saturday Sep 2017
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It’s always a gift waking an hour before sunrise. Some mornings are rote and uninteresting, while others are a conscious running away from my bed because I cannot take another minute lying there in a void or in the presence of terrible dreams. Waking at 2 in the morning is rarely a good thing.
I pulled on my leggings made of penguin skin, or so it seems, for it can keep out the hardest wind, the coldest morning. I pulled on flannel and a hoodie and made way for damp sand and a sun I knew wouldn’t be right where I left it.
The Corgi boys were tussling, cute piles of black and blonde fur, their dad sitting still nearby. Crone was walking her three: Great Dane and two Vizsla. One is pregnant and tired (or stubborn) so she leaves her Crone to come sit with me and scratch her back and her butt for a little while. I offered to hold her leash while she walks the other two, but… she’s determined to keep her three-pack walking. Otherwise, all eyes are on the east. We are waiting.
Well, maybe not the lobster boat (near) or the small cruise ship (far), and Mister Dante who sits on the patio, pale legs propped on a chair now because his heart surgery changed everything. Crabs cleaned their burrows, no precipitation forecast for quite a while. There are no fishermen dancing with their nets this morning.
The sun rose not in an orb, gracefully clothed in magenta. He was orange and fiery and misshapen through the clouds like mashed potatoes squeezed through toddler fingers. Why did I feel I needed to take my sweatshirt off, hot already? A trick of the mind.
Mister Determined has his luggage packed, and he canes his way slowly down the patio. His wife (nurse?) will be far behind, carrying the rest of their bags and they won’t be back for weeks. I wonder, where do they go? Meanwhile, I wonder if (or when) the cat across the way will forgive his person for letting her guest dump his orange hood on his windowsill. Oh… she’ll pay all right.
29 Friday Sep 2017
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Well, it happened again. I stumbled into the kitchen to slurp down lukewarm water from a coffee mug on my sink, eyes half-glued shut. I pulled on whatever clothes I could find and headed down to the beach, sunglasses and a flannel shirt in place because the sun is bright and the breeze is stiff. Interesting that the breeze is not chilling, it’s “warm” according to some. It’s the same beach where I got pounded by three guys who don’t see anything the way I do last night, and yet we all agreed the giant, orange sun taking refuge behind that house at the end of the spit was really fucking cool.
This morning I stood on the empty beach watching the USNS Comfort, a Navy hospital ship, heading down to Puerto Rico, post Maria, escorted by a destroyer whose name I do not know. This morning I had cauldrons full of bullshit still boiling over from yesterday, or hell, last year. I had empty pots clanging from my belt loops making empty noise, but that one particular seagull really didn’t mind. He was busy scoping me out for danger or for food.
This morning I inspected the character of the beach, her new hill, post-Maria. I lament that I do not see many of my neighbors anymore, because. That’s all anyone needs to say is “because.” You don’t need to know why he stays home or she stays home now.
And it happened again, as I walked barefoot with brimming cauldron and empty pots clanging. I stopped moving. I became still and dumb and silent in body and mind because the waves mesmerize me. Everything drops off, the scales from my eyes, last night’s venting in person and to the silent four walls where I rehearse my protest speeches. It all drops off and blows away and I can’t do anything but stand there and listen and stare at the waves coming in and breathe the scent of clean ocean. Okay, and side-eye the gull because I know what he wants and I think he knows we’re at an impasse. Energy comes from somewhere out there and pushes the water in and it lifts up, foamy white heads that maintain, maintain, up, ope, starting to break down, down, break, a gentle crash and a retraction. Begin again. Again. I lose time because I get lost, and I cannot begin to speak my gratitude for it.
I like being held captive and silent by the waves, and all the things she does to me.
Amen.
10 Sunday Sep 2017
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Writing, committing thought and wonder, questions and desire, hope, longing, confession and manifesto leaves one naked. You are naked when you write, and if you’re afraid to let the world see every lovely ugly, then the “enter” key should not be allowed. Hold fast your pen, keep your files hidden. Wait until you’re ready to slam it all down, unlock your door, let the stranger in to see you emerge from your bath, wet, bloody, home, and real.
I’m not writing so the stranger can rate me on some fixed scale like exhausted figure skaters or boxers who throw their fights walking away with millions. I’m not writing for your approval or to raise eyebrows or cause trouble or to make history. I am writing because, as a wise man said what seems so long ago, I can’t not write. It’s a driven and it’s a given that I will have pen juice on my fingers, that I stare long and lovingly at journals in the bookstore and have a hard time not buying binders and loose-leaf like some kind of kid going back to school. I love the smell of pen and ink and this laptop hardly creates the same kind of vibe, but that’s all right.
September has come and somebody turned the cicada’s song switch off: their voices are gone. The north wind brings a scent of flowers which I cannot explain. A hurricane comes and I am tired of figuring out which way to run. I colored my hair and bathed late, very late last night, and I wonder if my neighbors heard the water running. My hair is clean and smooth and fragrant. I woke smelling its scent on my pillow feeling more content, happy, and pleased than I have in a long time. The moon is full and bright in my bedroom window again, which tells me what season we are in. I slept with the windows open beneath piles of covers so I can be warm and still hear the wind in the trees. I think your name and I can smile and write it in the sand, I can even allow you in my bed as I coax sleep once more, instead of fighting, fighting, fighting you, waking feeling like every little thing’s gonna be all right.
This morning’s beach is scoured clean by north/northeast winds, maybe 10 knots. Small, round rocks perfect for skimming peek out from the sand and I see no crab burrows. A large, dead fish. It looks like something began to devour him and spat him back out, leaving his body on shore. Why? A dead turtle, a kind I do not recognize, his small clawed limbs point southwest. I am sorry he died and hope it wasn’t because of plastic. A black dog running wild on the beach that for some reason, no reason, for lack of anything I can explain, I do not trust him. Sea glass seems extinct since the beach restoration, but I found a little bit of blue and white ceramic that I put in my pocket. On the final few feet back to my trail, I found a piece of shell the size of two fingers. She is deep blush-colored on the outside, and mother-of-pearl within, and she looks like how I feel when I hear his name.
I feel alive and well and ready to write. I feel grateful for everything that brought me here, what good, bad, strange, and otherwise. Time to commit the rest to paper and ink.
27 Sunday Aug 2017
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4:30. The sun is coming. Crickets are loud. I lean on my balcony in a t-shirt, listening.
5:30. The sun is coming. Crickets are loud. My neighbor breaks open a soda can. Her cat inspects the windowsill. Time to make tracks.
5:45 The sun is present, though its magenta globe has not broken the horizon. Crickets do fade. Bladders and udders need care, reptilian sleep begins to break, active glands send erotic messages to fingertips. The world is astir.
The wind is 12 knots. Gulls work hard to wing into northeast wind. The wind drives the sand across itself. If I turn out of the wind, my dull ears barely perceive the sound of sand upon sand and it sounds like sleet on a windshield, so very faint and magical.
Middling clouds make canvas for a star we have not seen yet to become rose, magenta, blue and slate. Some believe this is an unremarkable sunrise because we could not see the chariot’s wheel rise behind the CBBT.
No crab boats motoring. Crab two-packs are rare at the deli the year, and we have the ignorant fishers to thank, oh but plenty of shrimp.
No dolphins. Or secret dolphins. Only they know.
Mr. Corgi man hasn’t come out yet. Cell-phone sunrise takers are here, gooseflesh hinders their portraiting. Will they return tomorrow in layers?
Tiny whelk blows onto my finger. She never made it to teenager, mother, or crone. She sits in a place of honor, a shield of mother-of-pearl, stunted, benign, but not without a story.
06 Sunday Aug 2017
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Yesterday was a perfect beach day, well for me, anyway. I’m the Goldilocks of being outdoors unlike some of my neighbors who are beach pros. For me, I like it not too hot, not too cold, and no wasps in sight makes it all just right. The wind was high yesterday coming out of the north, northeast, kicking up high waves and blowing the heat far off the sand. The high, curling rollers kept the lifeguard’s skilled eyes busy.
It was a good day to sit on Samantha’s towel beneath the umbrella her husband held firmly down in the sand mound to keep it from blowing away, watching their son, a new beach pro, fling the world’s best toy with a simple yellow shovel. She unfolded what was going on in their lives and what the future holds for them. Big changes for everyone, everywhere, it seems.
Change. Water, mirror, child, grass, sand. All subjects I study for a piece that I’m working on that touches on proof of time, but the subject of me still can’t get over some of the things she sees. She slowly adapts to change. Change means I’ve had to get used to seeing guns worn on belts in public, and dealing with how I feel about that. I’ve always believed that once you come to the beach and sit down, listen and watch in silence, you will never want to check your watch or social media. Something about the sand, the waves and the breeze, where we come to sit together or miles apart, makes us one somehow. You cannot be the same once the ocean puts her finger on you, but here was a man who wandered the shingle with a revolver on his waist. I cannot understand why.
The first gun I saw in public other than law enforcement was at the laundromat. Just a dude doing his laundry, Glock on hip. Ho hum? It’s not like we live in the elder wild west where anything goes, no sheriff in sight to lay down the law. Norfolk has its hands full, but our neighborhood is kind and stable, and the beach is certainly well patrolled. The dude washing his laundry was exercising his 2nd amendment right, and I’ve slowly gotten used to it. But the dude on the beach left me speechless. I wondered if the lifeguards are trained to deal with gun things? I mean, who could feel so insecure and afraid they need to carry a revolver on their hip on the beach? You hate seagulls that much? Or hate people who tease you for wearing white socks and Adidas flops with shorts and a cut off t-shirt, or maybe it was your bandanna you needed to defend? Why in the world, in all the places of the world, did you hang a revolver off your brown leather belt that belonged around a pair of Lee jeans instead of board shorts? What was going through your mind as you prowled the wet sand, staring off into the water like you were looking for some shark we needed to be defended from? I dunno. Maybe it was a drug thing, and I dislike typing that more than you know.
With some conversation and reflection, it appears that many people here on my beach are carrying where I hadn’t had a clue. They’re good, gotta give them credit. But my question remains: Why are you carrying a weapon to the beach? A place where we are all here for the same reason, feeling that same feeling? There are children on this beach, and I’m not worried about you but I am worried about what seeing a revolver on a hip might mean to them as they grow up. Well, I guess since you’re permitted to carry concealed it won’t bother anyone. Maybe you believe you need to be prepared 24/7 for a personal affront, or you need to be prepared 24/7 in case a neighbor or fellow beach-goer is in dire need of protection before the cops can come? Is this the world I live in? No. No. And no.
I watched a little guy pushing teeth through his gums laugh while mom held him as the ocean waves pushed and lifted him from behind. I watched a little girl lie on the sand in her floral print dress waiting for the waves to lick her ankles and tickle her feet. I watched seagulls swoop down on a camp in search of food while the humans were away laughing in pummeling, frothy water. I think of my neighbors who live a quarter mile up the way where there are no lifeguards, and we tend to know each other’s dogs names better than our own. I don’t want to get used to knowing that we are carrying guns openly or concealed because it makes me feel like we are all too afraid. Afraid of each other, afraid of the unknown. Don’t tell me it’s all about being prepared. There are no cougars or lions or packs of wild dogs coming for us down here on the beach. What y ou call preparedness is what I call fear.
I believed there could be no fear here on the beach, before our mistresses of water and wind. I am not ready to relinquish that belief, and I believe I will never need to.
