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I feel you there,
blurred around the edges.
Can you feel me here,
this patience game
I'm playing -

A swell at the base of my spine,
an act of divinity or
the dorment
beast waking
with the sunrise -

For every misstep taken
I lie in waiting,
for a time when
the hopped, mist edges
of gold fill your lungs.

When the sky alights
with fireflies,
miles away you kiss
another's misguided flame,
ask questions with no right answer;

and flit across fingertips.

A Prayer Worth Posting

Green, is
the color of envy, and
so is her jacket, so
in its folds remember, the
strength needed, by another
to match breathing, calm
your nerves to sleep, think
who would do this for you, and
who would you in return, imagine
who to care for,
sit

face

be
there for, pace
yourself until you've
mastered, the art of
digesting deception, and
well meaning intentions,
as the moon doesn't lie
and neither will dreams -

so let the green of her jacket
melt into the grass and pass
through the earth until it
is absorbed by space and
the infinite beyond.

Five Year Plan

You ask
as the ambulances pass,
What's waiting?

and I deflect,
throw back

after seeing
a broken man
lying by the
side of the road,
a strong woman
in grey uniform
standing at his side.

What's waiting?

Flashing lights to our right
to the left, no sirens yet
the tears nearly brimming
I pull back
to the river, the churning
waters of Dimple
and the flip of the raft.

What's waiting for
you is your son
awake, happy
waiting for you
waiting to walk

and instead of what's waiting
I think on what we've just left -

Two years spent
dreaming and scheming
wasted hours in
negative space -

instead
now
finally
after an eternity
the strength,
the power of
the river
churns my
day to day.

I don't want to
dream of what's waiting,
of my five year plan.

I want what I have in
the space we've just left.

Match.com

The locals describe the festival as a "modern day Woodstock". It's earthy, and dirty, and reminds me of my youth group days, where as teenagers, we used to sit out under the stars at retreats and talk the night away. Bonnaroo has (I think) about 100,000 attendees each year (maybe more). All camping, dancing, drugging, and sunning together. There are three stages and three tents where bands play, the main stage is the "What Stage", the second largest playing space is the "Which Stage", there's also "This Tent", "That Tent", and "The Other Tent". There are vendors lining the paths, a ferris wheel, and a freak show with fire eaters and a peep show.

As you walk to the freak show, you'll pass a community art project tent. Hanging from the trees above are giant raindrops. They have wooden frames, and are hung from wire cabling. On blankets outside the community tent (and on tables inside) people paint squares, mixing eco-friendly paint on cardboard palettes. As days pass, the raindrops become covered in cardboard squares painted in water tones: shades of blues, greens, yellows. As they finish, artists turn in their squares and the workers twist a nail through the top of each piece, then attach each to a raindrop. Later when a raindrop is completely covered, workers fly them up into the trees.



One of my squares was an interpretation of the henna painted on my arm - the earth meeting the sea in swirls of blue and green, never touching, an inch or less from meeting. My second, a dedication to one of my favorite songs. On it was a big blue head with a golden crown. Later at the Phish show, someone was passing around name tags, and I became, "Prince Caspian". During Phish's second concert, the song was played in the second set.

But what I will remember most happened in the lull between Phish's sets on the last night. Allison, Carl, and I sat where we stood for the first set. Then small talk: We are all from Philadelphia, although Allison and I have never met Carl. Carl is a stand up comedian by night. I work at People's Light by day. Allison works at the National Constitution Center...Then Carl asks if Allison knows Nora Berger-Green, who got him an acting job in The Laramie Project at Arcadia. And I remember that he was the best thing in that show, that we couldn't stop asking "Who is THAT?" And the only answer we ever received was "He's a Grad student." So, Allison says - "I'm directing a piece called Four Dry Tongues. Would you want to be in it?" I say, "Do it. You were the best thing in Laramie." And so Allison casts a piece for the Philadelphia Fringe at Bonnaroo, in Tennessee. A part she has been turning over in her brain since weeks before the trip, and which she was never quite able to cast. On the trip home she asks if I will Stage Manage/Assistant Direct, and I say yes.

almost broken

Mirror, you are cracked
seven years bad luck.
Snapped shut, denied a last cigarette.

Thirteen splintered edges,
seven refracted pieces,
carried in a purse.

Mirror, you are shattered,
cracked, refracted beyond repair.
Seven years, now seven sutured scars.

untitled

Currently
stretching
a giant carrot
across the room.

As it twist turns
from orange to purple to blue,

remind the students
that a white wall
can be any color they choose
because

white reflects all color into light.

The Disintegration of Matter

The persistence of memory
Splitting
across conflicting schools of thought –

Suspended over the exterior world,
I am
immersed in the interior
landscape of the mind.

The uncertainty principle of
the exterior world
criss-crosses against
my father Freud
to a point where
all I can see is
a wedding dress
and broken glass.

The barren landscape
points in no other direction but
towards nuclear physics
and the annihilation of
Hiroshima.

wordplay

my mouth
runs away
from my brain.

the other day
i inadvertently
mentioned
in a question

that i thought
my boss suggested
i sleep with her husband.

A Face I Will Never Forget

Today
Frannie and I met for lunch.
New Wave Cafe
has excellent salads
and bacon crisped
with charred edges
that melt in your mouth.

I saw Bones across the street.
I noticed his ribs first, his foster mother second.
She stopped at our table on her pass
back to their home in Queen Village.

He has the sweetest eyes
when you pet him
he looks up to you,
it's as if he knows
that this moment
is forever,
that this day
is the only one,
and your hand
on his head
is all he needs.

If you stop
he will wait
for you to come back
for your finger tips
to find his chin.
All those scars
aren't getting
deeper, nor lighter either,
and they can wait -
for he is his namesake,
he will always
be Bones -

But for one moment
on the corner of
a clear, crisp day
with a breakable sky,
Bones has his moment
and I have mine.

Mr. White;

i built a wall.
it was exhausting.
but i also got to build angle wings.
and create a human sociograph, bar graphs.
i took a journey
where i met a woman
from the 1800s who wore gloves
to hide the red dye on her fingertips.
she told me she is leaving her husband
and of her dye brush,
hidden behind the house,
left for her daughter to find.

i'm working on completing the story.

i noticed how in philly
the sky comes to the tip of the trees
or the flat of the rooftops
depending on which side of my axis
you stand on.

never the ground.

i talked to david bradley.

the something we created
was filled with overlapping voices;
poetry,
cardboard symbolism,
child's play,
musical instruments
created out of the floor.

i built a wall to protect myself
but stripped down to uncover
Lady Jane.

it was

exhausting.

the moon shifted
it's telling yesterday.

always smiling right
before they leave-

maybe it's not
a Warning,

the hazed grin,
laughing whisper,
of limitations,
all his misgivings -

but instead
a reminder
to stay me.

Sara

laughs when i say the "h" is extraneous.

i watch as she decorates a cookie
green with purple icing,
swirling ties that shift
with a small flick of her wrist.

he says, "it's very asian."

behind a self deprecating smile
she replies "exactly as planned".

she can't know
the choice she made
two years ago
shifted my universe
completely,

set me here

watching intently -


i have cultivated
an apathetic manner
for moments such as these.

she hands over hot apple cider,
keeps whiskey and water,
as i paint a lopsided
christmas tree a purple stump,
green leaves, adding a fudged star,
and little gingerbread men
all too small for the scene.

not exactly the
styling i was going for
but i was distracted
as i am

watching

this
ethereal woman
i've never met
in my dreams.

Neutral Scene

A: It's so weird in here
B: yes
A: Where's your team
B: offsite
A: ...
B: tomorrow
A: ...
B: what will all this look like
A: An outer line - extending out
B: i've seen
A: Inside a room
B: and here
A: Much like there
B: like there
A: Like here
B: good
A: Yes
B: no cattle stalls i hope

A:

torn out, magnolia tree

mental block rim front -
plush grey dust bunnies
at my eyelids
jump in unison
to block your
question before me -
plans fall fast
as yesterday spirals
out my ears
in iridescent webs
before the imprint
can settle behind my eyes -
what day it is
fades fast from memory
as thought lines,
venn diagrams,
drip down and out
to twist upon the matted tissue
in my lap -
webfoot ed
falsify ed memories
form streams of
needless excuses
on shredded kleenex

as walls break way
with the annihilation
of an age.

while you were in the bathroom...

spherical / metamorphosis
cocooning in ourselves
exponential / expansion
revolving out upon itself
iridescent / web
trapping us between -

you and me

and this tangent
on the American Dream.

city hall/suburban

forest under the subway/concrete secretions/blue peaking through/just past/ a soothsayer's broken arm/midnight calling to the morning rush/hush/walking on/two blind prophets sing/ one speak easy guide dog/an armed guard towering above/wishing well/a change charmer's silver bowl

offering up

a quarter of his worth.

shelf life

i'd break those glass eyes
if we didn't have long range
planning to get through.

untitled

Tonight
is a night
to sit on the moon.
Hammock in misty,
hopped edges of gold.
Tongue the stars
until black clouds
envelop the sky.

a!

she says over mock meatballs,
vegetable egg rolls,
sweet and sour sludge:

"...it's a heavy burden -
having the capacity to
return to the past,
while simultaneously
looking to the future...

in case i've missed it:

...this human brain."

cowbuoy-ed bear
catty
foe collar-ed:
proud

wear your sweatshirts

find time to
send images
of baby hippos:
frail

skeletal
purple speckled
guinea rats

remind me
how you wouldn't

ever

put something out there
unless you could
speak it face to face

and for god sake
find me in the hallway
mid-break to dance.

of rosaline

Out, damned spot,
Out.
I command you
back, into the recesses

stop your fishing
act
Reeling me in to hook
me line and sinker

To you I say
Out
of grace, to you I
say be free
no apologies
just leave.

Sunday is My Birthday

and they've dredged Hillcrest Pond.

Drawn out the water, left a gaping hole -
that had always been, never seen.

Looks how my soul felt this morning -
sludge and mud, with a few brave ducks
carefully stepping among the rocks,
some trying to swim in an inch of water.

At left there is a stone wall
that keeps the river
where Odysseus sailed
through siren song -
Calypso -
the water monster -

Odysseus survived
thanks to the fishing line
we secured to his waist
and the death defying leap he
made into my hands
as Steve ignited the ship.

I siphoned gas from the lawnmower in my parents' garage,
Steve threw the match into ship's hull;
sprang the giant flames we chased down river,
once we realized we set a gasoline fire we couldn't stop.

Sunday is my birthday,
they've dredged Hillcrest Pond -

And somewhere there is a vhs,
where Odysseus
sails upon sirens,
lands upon Calypso,
and escapes unscathed
from his burning ship.

to amelia

completely, at a loss.

duelling stormed seas mus've
caught you, sucked you to the
bermuda triangle.

mornings were the best part -
trace your curves, soundlessly
take in last week's pin wheel
of stale cigarettes, each
complicated Haiku,
the circling race of the

3 am mistake.
styled mutiny this,
your blog, each line, run on
miles distant from this
still life of mine, lost in
the humdrum beat, mundane
as heartaches, daybreaks.

you left before we met.
yours was a reason, an
unexpected tread in
the waiting. cue the end.

No one can write the six
syllable line like you.

In Light

Love,
in Light,
I am here.

Stay
in Waiting,
in Stillness,
with me
until
the night
dissipates.

Do not second
guess your
purpose.

You have faced
darkness before
renamed her
and reclaimed her,
Outlived her.

You will do it again,
and with more on your back,
in your bag,
than ever before.

Bags are meant
to be filled
to be carried
to be emptied
into the hand
of others.

Friend,
here there
are those that
love you and
are holding our
hands and hearts
out to you.

Accept this Light,
this Love,
and let's make
it right.

Be Still -

Even in
darkness
You
and I
We
All
want
you to
stay -

You

Though Today,
you may live
enwrapped in
Shadows -

Trust the Light,
it will guide
from the
Inside
Out.

10 Minutes

Ten minutes till the show starts
Ten minutes -

Dibbles says "Working furiously, I can hear you're typing."
Then mimics the sound as she walks away - dee dee dee.

I smile.

She didn't see my screen,
she counters back,
the ladies walk by on their way
to the show -
stopping to tell me of
food babies,
Dibbles glances at my screen,
then leaves.

I wonder what she saw.

A minute and a half, and I realize
I'm not writing anything
of importance
nothing to be remembered
except to say
I smiled.

Alma Jean

for everyone who leaves;
who rescinds on the job;
Fuck You;
and the horse you rode in on.

buffering

truth lies
in love's non-existance,
life's breathe created
in sweat.

truth lies
in intellect, the solving
of small equations
1 + 1 = 2.

truth lies
in the 5am hour;
the lack of breathe
hearts open, hearts broken

truth lies
grows up, grows out
stops self medicating
on life , instead moves to death.

playground

tree houses lined with grass ceilings/ flowering magenta hues/ blue lit houses inside houses with pillows to portals/ curtains of worn linen above the going on below where grown children play jump rope double dutch/ no bra holding their chest close their german lessons computer lessons philosphy discussions closer/ in sectioned off sections painted pregnant alligator love/
no rules/
but ladders everywhere/
a blacony for private screenings feet above astrid free/ face on a giant screen mutated smiling turning rythm of the avant garde choir functioning on a dock of wild rides/race saltine crackers sixty seconds flat/ share home made popcorn spill't on the floor/ drive in back out breakdown/ all in the game of Art.

the doe

I ignore the rusted drum,
sit by the water,
and flip the Riverside open.
When my eyes begin to hurt -

I go for a Walk,
down a path twisted in vine,
find the tuffs before I find the bones.
Ivory licked clean months after -

She lay down to die alone,
the Portal of her eye,
open to the thumbnail moon.
In the cavity of her skull -

I am not afraid of the wolves,
nor these bones alone,
but the rusted drum at my back
Terrifies me.

Retraction

My mistake;
your Heart
is not to be printed
on the office supply of
Boca Standard Stock.
Much the same way
my Body
is not the weary traveller's
Rest Stop.

Lock Up

the best of my day
is the build up, the break down
and how the space breathes.

Camp 420

I have a picture of us.
I don't remember
how it wound up
on my computer,
when I scanned it in,
or who took it.

But it was taken before
we got stoned
out of our minds.

Just you and me
on the bank of the river,
side by side.

I am holding an American Flag,
wearing boy shorts and a tee,
braids down my back.

Today I remembered how,
behind the tarps
we rigged up to hide
families and their
kids from us kids
doing everything kids
do, but never supposed to,

You tried to climb a tree
out over that same bank
and fell face first
into the river.

And how you refused
to leave that bank,
instead danced with
the same American Flag
that someone,
I don't remember who,
handed you
between hits,
and how
you sang to
yourself,
and danced
for

Eight Hours

until you dried.

Pucker Up

Pucker up Mae West,
there’s something in the water.

Oil on the surface
beautiful in its separateness,
deadly in its own right.

Covering the surface,
oil is always one to reflect the light.

Pucker up Mae West
there’s something under my skin.

Relentless as probing fingers
pushing
driving
me
to become
the oil,
to reflect the light
and to … sep - a - rate.

Pucker up Mae West
I’m the one to watch.

With just one,
simple promise -
I am the oil
deadly in my own right.

Discrete, all-knowing,
guilty in my
reflection

of light.

So, pucker up Mae West.
You fooled them once,
I can do it twice.
Pucker up.
Pucker up.

Kiss your legend

while I kiss my soul

Goodbye

24 Hour The Bald Soprano

9pm
At 8’o’clock sharp,
The Bald Soprano opened.
Twenty-three shows left.


10pm
The doorbell sounded.
A tune filled the dining room.
It was “Three Blind Mice”.


11pm
True fatigue simmers.
Briefly stalled with sandwiches.
Beware the triptophan.


12am
That show was quite smooth
But Keith pondered the question,
“Wow that was just four?!”


1am
Punch to Adam’s face
Oh, sweet self inflicted wound!
Own worst enemy.


2am
All the bars have closed,
Cigarettes in the booth,
A brown mustache falls.


3am
Dearest Delante,
You know you are our sunshine
You are our bouquet

4am
Body getting tired
Neck and shoulders tight, so tight
Muscles atrophy.


5am
Sleep deprivation,
Sinks his teeth into the air.
Still rockin! We don’t care!


6am

“haiku in a snowstorm”


7am
When the doorbell rings
Sometimes there is someone there.
Other times, there’s not.


8am
Laughter has broke free
Like a shot of fresh canned cheese
Aiming for your mouth.


9am
Breakfast was tasty.
The comedy was tasty.
The “Fun Cheez” was not.


10am
Quiet audience
But one man has been sitting
For at least eight shows.


11am
I’m out of haikus
It saddens me a little
To have no more poems.


12pm
Wigs are falling off
A bit of fixing helps them
To get them back onstage.


1pm
Damn good energy.
Toss around a ball of yarn.
Do the roboto.


2pm
We’re still going strong.
Bobbi Block laughs for Adam.
Mary moves sexy.


3pm
Bigger crowd baby!
Awkward silences, big laughs.
Spit-take not so great.


4pm
Fast, silly, and bald.
Krishna Murti Manchester.
Fire Chief molested.


5pm
Sleep will rule again!
Rings around the eyes, glow brightened
Like being on drugs.


6pm
One more show to go.
Now a naked Fire Chief
Sends chills through the crowd.


7pm
To the top, my friends.
The last the same as the first.
Leave it all behind.

From the Booth

On June 29, 2007, BRAT Productions took over The Wilma Theatre in Philadelphia. With a cast of six and a crew of four, the 24 Hour The Bald Soprano ran on the hour every hour for 24 hours.

2 am.
I have to stand up. I pace around the conference table in the booth, keeping my eye and ear to the stage. I pick up my third cup of cold, stale coffee. I put it down without a sip. I light an illegal cigarette, smoke it, put it out in our ash cup. I pace in front of our command station. I sit down. I look to Richards, she’s checking the time, sending a text, waiting for the next cue that will come in ten minutes. Something doesn’t feel right. At a time when, in an alternate universe, I would be swapping out and giving in to sleep, I look to the stage and feel a misstep in our connection. I feel a lag, and I feel the need to change up, energize NOW. I turn, and say to Richards, “We need a dance party.” With a tired smile she stands and hooks up her I-pod. We dance and sing for five minutes, it feels forced, but when we sit down again, I feel a little better. Yet, my energy and the energy onstage is not the same, that misstep has not been fixed. Our sixth consecutive show ends, and I ask the ASM, Delante, over the headset, “How are the actors?” He comes back, exhaustion and strain in his voice where I’ve never heard it before. “Okay. Some of the actors feel others are going too far, pushing too hard.” Dissention in the ranks. Funny, I didn’t see this with my eyes happening onstage, but I feel it in our energy as a whole. There is a strain happening, an uneven give and take occurring in our space. Richards and I, Delante, and the actors are not on the same page. During our next ten minute break between cues, I close our vocal connection with Delante, and lean over to Richards.

“Let’s sing to Delante.”
“What are we going to sing?”

In the terrible, tone deaf way that I am prone to, I sing to her.
She joins in, and in a matter of minutes, we have a round going between us.
I press the button and connect to Delante.

Me: “Hey Delante…”
Richards: “Hi Delante…”
Richards: “We just…”
Me: “We wanted to tell you something…”
And, giggling, together we sing:

“You are my sunshine,
My only sunshine,
You keep me happy,
When skies are grey,
You’ll never know dear,
How much I love you,
Please don’t take my sunshine away.”

Dead air, then Delante comes back.

“Well I guess it would be nice,
If I could touch your body,
I know not everybody
has got a body like yoooooou.”

And then we’re all singing together, TERRIBILY:

“Well, I gotta think twice,
before I give my heart away
And I know all the games you play
‘cause I’ve played them tooooooo.”

We break into laughter, and push on.

The next set of cues comes and goes, ending in an escalation of earsplitting clock chimes, translucent walls, the actors screaming “IT’S NOT THAT WAY IT’S OVER HERE!”. Then black out, lights up, and we begin again, our 8th consecutive show and counting. Charlotte and Keith sit as the Smiths, with Sarah and Adam on deck as the Martins. Reinforcements arrive, as only Madi can do – an upper, a downer, and a beautiful boy. But even with the reinforcements, exhaustion pulls, tugs at us, pulling attentions in different directions.

Once alone and between cues, Richards and I plot how to steady ourselves, how to let the actors know that we are right there with them, even in this late hour of complete exhaustion.

“We could flick the lights up here.”
(pause)
“Write a note on the window.”
(pause)
“Walk the catwalk.”
(pause)
“Throw paper airplanes.”
“From the catwalk.”
(silence)

“What if at the end of this show, we open the booth window, and scream ‘It’s not that way it’s over here’ with the actors?”
“I could use a good scream.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“Let’s do it.”

And so, eyes to the stage, we watch and wait as we have done 7 shows before, only this time we have a different role to play ourselves and so are reinvested in the action onstage. The anticipation builds, almost eerily in tune with the chiming of the clock, until Richards and I are on our feet hitting cues, sliding the booth window open, joining the actors, and screaming with all our might into the black “IT’S NOT THAT WAY IT’S OVER HERE! IT’S NOT THAT WAY IT’S OVER HERE! IT’S NOT THAT WAY IT’S OVER HERE! IT’S NOT THAT WAY IT’S OVER HERE!”

Lights up and FUCK. Sarah sits as Mrs. Smith, and I can see (feel?) she’s shaken. I whisper, “She’s pissed.” And Richards and I settle into position, set for the first round of cues. I sit on the edge of my chair watching Sarah intently, hoping that I am mistaken, and that she isn’t pissed, she’s fine, all’s right in this world we have spent a month creating, 48 hours perfecting, and 8 hours living. But no, I am not mistaken; Richards and I have overstepped our bounds. The stage is the stage, the booth is the booth, and they do not, DO NOT meet without prior consent. Then why do I suddenly feel alive and connected? Why do I feel the rush of adrenaline that I feel with the opening of a show? I look at Richards, she looks more alert, more awake then I have seen her in hours. I look to the stage, and although Sarah was shaken, she has fallen back into the rote of our show. And here come the others, onstage, who appear more committed, more alive. Or is that just my imagination, the high of my newfound energy? No. There’s a new, refreshed energy to the space, I can feel it, but I can also feel the ripple from the shock wave Richards and I sent through the actors.

Enter the Fire Chief.

Nate is prone to practical jokes, and the director has given him free reign. So far, he has done a show where 1) he handed out candy to the actors and audience., 2) done the Roboto for the duration of his scene, 3) entered without pants or a shirt, in black boxer briefs, with his nipples painted white, 4) brought water with him onstage and done spit takes at every conceivable moment possible and mostly in the other actors faces. I pray to god he doesn’t have something like that up his sleeve.

Richards says, “What’s that in his pocket?” And in slow motion it seems, Nate withdraws a can of FunCheez.

Before I realize it I’m saying, “No, No, No. Don’t do it Nate, don’t do it. Sarah’s going to kill him. She’ll never eat it. She’ll kill him first.” But my heart is beating a million miles a minute and calling, “Yes! Heee.heee.hee.hee. D-do it. D-do it. D-do it.” She addresses him, and Nate turns to Sarah, lifts his hand and slowly brings the FunCheez to her mouth. She can’t say no, and, so, opens her mouth and takes it. I can’t imagine how disgusting it is, but she continues on through her line as he feeds her more and more. Finally after her line ends and she sits, he moves onto Adam, then Keith, and finally Charlotte. They each take their turn, continuing as best they can through the scene with a mouth full of FunCheez. Nate even gives himself a shot, and the audience is going nuts. But in the booth, between laughs, we’re going “Where in the hell did he get that? We’ve got to get them some water. And how old is that FunCheez? How long has it been in the Wilma’s greenroom?” We connect to Delante.

Then-

Enter Jess, The Maid, as she’s done before, only this time with a tray containing glasses of water and napkins. And when Nate comes at her with the FunCheez, she reaches into her pocket, pulls out a cracker, and has a picnic. The show goes on. And together, we are HERE. Together we will run this show for 24 hour straight. For this moment, there is nothing but the stage, the booth, and the in between. We are all. We are together. There is nothing else.

hi you

catching me in form,
surprised at the link from he,
whose content are you?

Traded In

Pulling the front two loops on his jeans
together with tie line -
a perfect little knot -
Sapphire says,
"I haven't bought a new belt yet."

Trading in black
for a forest green
North Face fleece,
tie line for
a belt,

Sapphire lights another cigarette
and moves on his way.

Our Dream...

02/21/08
~
I am dreaming
that
I am walking on the moon.
With chairs.
Chairs that press down into water.
I found some sea weed that tased like licorice.
Out onto cement.
I stepped out of the water onto the cement and there was a restaurant.

...

I stepped from the moon to the earth.
The moon was next to the earth.
I went and told Ms. Waterman and she said,
"We're going to have to do something about that."
The moon changed from yellow to orange like last night.
I woke up.
~

To The Moths and Bats at My Back;

Gentlemen,

Before you open your mouths,
before you profess your love,
or lack there of;

Please, educate yourselves
on the nature of me.

Many Thanks,
Yours Truly,

Scoober

Because I Love Women

I am condemned to the Seventh layer of hell.

Guarded by the Minotaur,
the fury,
and encircled within the river Phlegethon,
filled with boiling blood;
The violent, the assassins,
the tyrants, and the war-mongers
lament their pitiless mischiefs
while centaurs armed with bows and arrows
shoot those who try to escape their punishment.

The stench here is overpowering.

Home to the wood of the suicides-

Stunted and gnarled trees,
in twisting branches,
poisoned fruit
hanging from their branches -

The Harpies,
foul birdlike creatures
with human faces,
make their nests.

Beyond the wood
is scorching sand
where those who
committed violence
against God and nature
are showered
with flakes of fire
that rain down against
their naked bodies.

Blasphemers and sodomites
writhe in pain,
their tongues
loose to lamentation,
and out of their eyes
gushes forth their woe.

Usurers,
who followed
neither nature nor art,
also share company in the Seventh Level.

Because I love women,
find solace in a smile,
a hug from a friend -

Because I love
midnight talks,
our round table,
fishbowl of goddesses,
and our endless
beehive dance -

Because I love the
expansion of your lungs,
the vibrancy of your fury -

Because I love,
upon greeting,
how you tuck your nose
into the nape of my neck,
breathe in the scent
of the jasmine powder
I dust on each morning -

Because together we revel
in the beauty of womanhood -

Because I love -

I am condemned to the Seventh layer of Hell.

A Mother's Kiss

"You might stand next to the fire;
if only to feel the heat.
And it'll be hot.
But for goodness sake,
don't step directly into it.
There's no sense in
burning yourself."