Literally Speaking

I work on precipitous angles
For your Grecian upper half-
Pounding like a drum-
To bend and cover my angles
Scraping the wooden floor
Like an actor, discovering the art of dying
Breathing over and over
A lullaby or monsoon.
Angles feverish, they cling like a child
The god’s face
Yours
Yours
Yours
Falls forward
A lusting lily in the rain
White and loud
My precipitous angles carve the wooden floor
The heart underneath is readying her escape
To dance in the storm
Arching with a
Fool
Fool
Fool
High on the tempest…
Wishing only for lips stronger and stronger
Colors brilliant and bold:
The hourglass wrapped in a white flag
Than search our bodies with desperate violence and disbelief
Happy! Rumi at the height of his passion
Happy! A new mother
Happy! Frames shaking with happiness
And ready to leave
Understand this cannot stop when the wooden floor is clean
We may sit composedly next hour
Remembering with hilarity
Our passionate young heads
But precipitously against my angles
A chest is pounding and pounding:
Fall in love again.

Or Tales From New York City That I Forgot to Write Down At the Time

My forgetfulness is comparable to Marilyn Monroe’s housekeeper- yes; the one who found Marilyn dead- as a witness of scandalous controversy, who didn’t understand the significance of events until it was too late, when she was standing in front of the cameras and Miss Sunshine’s microphone. Or a child reliving what truly happened on that ice rink in a reluctant therapy session. Only after I spent a couple weeks breathing sagebrush did the magnitude of this past year become manifest.

Nothing is sacred, you understand, as a writer, and suddenly I have stories to tell that I didn’t know I had. This means that for the next few weeks, Literally Speaking will be living in the past. Most of the time. Before I start in on my metropolitan drama, I have some present concerns that won’t take too long to address:

• On September 11th, I was asked no less than five times what date it was. Were they fucking serious? If Hollywood has been holding back an epic 9/11 masterpiece in mind of the timeframe, (”It’s just too soon to put Ben Affleck back in a careening cockpit. You know? Waaayyy too soon.”) their timely respect is unnoticed. Why, exactly, are people forgetting something as catestrophic as 9/11? I don’t really want to know, but it’s pissing me off.
• I thought that Family Guy’s premier would be much funnier. I laughed audibly only three times. I blame it on Stewie Vadar’s limited screen-time. However, this last episode in which STEWIE ACTUALLY KILLS LOIS was so amazing that I don’t mind anymore. What a twist! And how lame am I that I’m actually very excited about this?
• Speaking of LOL, I really hate that acronym. ILA (I laughed audibly) doesn’t sound so trite, but really, does it take that much effort to type “You made me laugh out loud!”?

With that off my chest, let me introduce the next two stories. One is fact. The other is fiction. Which is which? You tell me later.

Madison Avenue is a Royal Cemetery

When I realized that I was not invited to the fourth of July, I went instead, to chat with a bartender, who in turn made me a wonderful Jolly Rancher. The drink was cold and it was beginning to rain. I didn’t have an umbrella, and chances being that the rain would get worse, I left most of my drink, jolly and pink, on it’s glowing counter top and cast out into the storm.

I was heading for Madison Ave. It was not raining enough yet to buy an umbrella, or even cause concern about getting electrocuted while talking on a cell phone. So when my phone rang, I stopped and talked. About everything. How ironic that he found his independence on the 4th of July, and there was a lot to talk about. Where was I going next?

Well, the day before Apple released their iphone and there was something of a block party on 60th and 5th at the Apple store.

I didn’t know anyone there. And as fascinating at the iphone was, I felt bored after about five minutes. I headed back to Madison Ave… it’s very beautiful at dusk when all the shop windows look like nightlights.

I still didn’t have an umbrella, but an unfortunate aspect of my construction involves an inexplicable thirst for water in every form it comes by. Being raised in the desert was nothing short of torture… now: I didn’t want to go inside. The stores were lonely and lovely.

My presence was seamless.

I actually started singing.

The sun is still rising
And the lights will go out
I rush for the exit
(You can’t stop in this town.)
I will work it harder,
Everyday I feel smarter.
The traffic moves faster
While they carve me in plaster
So return white and lonely
To my throne in the sky.
“What do I have to do?”
But I cannot forget you.
I cannot forget you.

I return to my window
The sun sets again
I sit in the shadows
I sing and drink gin
When I dream I’m uneasy
I fall out of sleep
I remember how you smell:
The places we would meet.
So my phone rings
-I sing louder, I sing louder
“When are you calling?”
Teacher, your face is so haunting
Your face is so haunting.

At 79th St., I was sopping wet, grateful for my waterproof mascara… for it could have been worse. It must have been midnight, and the bus would take awhile. I was in the middle of the road, torn, gazing at the abandoned bus stop. My figure must have been a gothic one.

“Lady! Lady!” From what only could be a taxi cab…

I turned and walked to his window.

“You’re completely drenched. Get inside,” as kindly as his rough voice would allow him.

“I haven’t any money,” I said… he should know. Surely it isn’t terribly uncommon to see derelicts in designer in this neck of the woods.

“Get in,” he insisted. “I can’t leave you here. Where do you live?” as I stepped in.

“79th and Amsterdam.” As I was riding home, I tried not to think about what this day would have been if he were here. He being nothing but a voice on my phone eons away. Because we would have driven to the beach with a bottle of wine and made our own fireworks. Instead I watched the water drip off my body and form a pool in the black leather seat.

I Found My Inspiration In A Leaf

“Have you ever seen Pulp Fiction?” Adam asked. “Because you look like that girl in it… Charlize Theron. You look like her. With your hair. What do you say we rent a movie huh? Like Pulp Fiction?”

“Do you have an umbrella?”

“Nah. Blockbuster is two blocks away. I’ll just hold my jacket over my head like this,” and he swung his arms up to stretch his jacket over his ears.

“It’s a bird! It’s a plane!”

We ran to blockbuster and back like deranged bats.

Give or take fifteen minutes, we were fairly high, because Adam had it on good authority that Pulp Fiction, like Alice in Wonderland or Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, is most appreciated with marijuana. The gale outside was pounding my windowpane. Titan the Sea King was knocking. Blood was on the screen, but the thunder was outside and shaking my mind to pieces. Adam found some headphones and watched Pulp Fiction like a mute, but my eyes weren’t on the movie at all.

I leaned against the sill and slid the window open wide. I could see how high I was: it felt like miles and miles.

I dare you to knock me!
I dare you to time my fall
Until the end of time my voice will climb
And find and punish you all.

Gene Kelly Deserves Some Screen Time. Thanks For Reading.

Temporary ain’t a question
Just a blessed suggestion
I don’t have much future
I fall back all the time
I could use some composure
Feel sweeter, looser
I’m useless as a rich babe
So I’ll try to stay poorer

What irony
Brought you to me
I don’t deserve your steady eyes
Won’t run
Won’t bother
I’d just cry harder
But I’d wished you arrived
After I’d found my feet.

Imagine a lady
Who lived until eighty
Though died at twenty-five
I’ll be
Too relieved
To find she is me
Than lie to your perception
I’m just not that sweet.

My black clothes speak louder
No longer sing in the shower
What death did you say?
Just my spirit rotting away
When I settled I settled
Serious dreaming is hard
So seriously heady now
My laughter is all sold out
The words are just beginning

What irony
Brought you to me
I don’t deserve your steady eyes
Won’t run
Won’t bother
I’d just cry harder
But I wished you arrived
After I’d found my feet.

Imagine a lady
Who lived until eighty
Though died at twenty-five
I’ll be
Too relieved
To find she is me
Than lie to your perception
I’m just not that sweet.

I’ll be
Too relieved
To find she is me
What irony
What irony

I like 11:11 - for that moment holds a panicked wish
and reminds me, if only for sixty seconds, that
that son-of-a-bitch still has a vice-like grip on my subconsciousness.
That moment yesterday, when I saw your face on 3rd Avenue,
the blood left my lips and froze my face
like a terrified mannequin, only to realize your face belonged
to someone else. In fact, you were sitting in a bar once too.
It appears some people, people with lean height and messy hair,
are meant to be ghosts of Christmas’ past.
But I don’t want to talk to them.
Then there’s that smell. Pardon me, a scent,
that was only yours until so-and-so sat next to me
with his wife beater and cigarettes in his back pocket.
That isn’t you, but that cologne hit me so
so I began hallucinating that so-and-so
metamorphasized- Funny story: he is positive I am in love with him.
Do you know what this means, you frustrating ass?

In a twenty-four hour day, there’s your spot.
It isn’t very long at all, but it positively drains me.