The Man with No Heart

so you take from the dirt what you can,
we weepers have a hard time in maine
hard he struck at the dirt with a few words
and he desperately prayed for the rain.

there aren’t that many people with souls left
but you’re after the ones with no heart
and though mother had said it’d be tiring
you can see that’s what sets them apart.

he is walking around with his maker
quiet smiling not saying a word
and you didn’t run off with the baker
though he always made sure you were heard

in the late night the forest was empty
it was nighttime and nobody stirred
but the man with no heart said come with me
i’ve the back of my horse and a bird.

Copyright 2016 Golden Star Poetry

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A Tour that Never Happened

grand dame, center stage, cool lighting
the kapellmeiester flips his tails
like a fish.
you wait,
in earnest hesitation,
hand clutching the box railing.

there she is:
mystery and magic,
nothing but music,
your own mother
your own mother.

you recall watching the ball
during fall, in that hall.
the lighting dimmed,
save for the twinkling stage,
you sat in his lap, barely five years of
age.

two years later you stand in the doorway
and father is nowhere to be found.
in france,
you say,
in france.

there are three different types of ice cream in
italy;
the kind that you devour
the kind that brings back memories
the kind that is all sugar and cream.

in salzburg there are no people
only faces,
empty coffee cups.
people in little glass windows and
cubes,
trying to get out.

“it’s exiting to think about
what people will use
to tie their shoelaces with
in 28 years,
or if they will tie up their laces at all,”
you think,
after the credits to ‘back to the future’ roll,

“or, will my life begin
when i prop myself up at the apron,
my feet dangling near the woodwinds,
as i peer down to see the conductor
giving me one of his grins?”

Copyright 2016 Golden Star Poetry

Gag Reel

what are the odds!
he rolls the dice and the words come out
like the script does!
he’s ready with twenty
thirty
comeback lines in his pants pocket

we want an explanation
for the ready made reaction
we want to know how you get it so good
the girls are all dying to know
the boys all want to know how to make a good show

step out with confidence!
he says,
we don’t wanna see any fear in your eyes.
just say it, you know?
be a hero
he cracks up
or you try imitating my grandmother when she
stops taking her zoloft

and the man says hey you did it again
and he says i’m sorry what
and he said you did the thing again
and he said oh im sorry i guess it just comes from my subconscious
and he smiles goofy.

or maybe it’s culture,
or what tv shows you watched as a kid
or what you did in your free time in college
or how late you stayed up reading Nabokov.

try not being so nervous,
he says
it ruins the vibe.
you have to be cool
he says, and makes a funny face.
we all cracked up.
but nobody knows how to do it like him.

Copyright 2016 Golden Star Poetry

Ode to Bed

you incumbate, still sucumb to nothingness.
so this is tired.
hello bed.
i need you but i never nest in you.
i want your covers for a thousand years,
filling a thousand sheets.
comfort, blanket, quilt, duvet,
mother sleeping close at bay
the pillows lining up in just the right way
to pandiculate:
i am running from life
in this motionless coma
never to deal
with all of life’s drama.

Copyright 2016 Golden Star Poetry 

Perspective

you become aware
that breath in itself is hypnotic;
anyone can bring you in.

if that’s true,
i shouldn’t cling to your voice
like a charm,
but i do.

hypnotism-
it is the same as dreaming.
one moment you are awake
and the next moment you are awake again
but something is missing.

i missed out on nothing
with you,
just the absence of light and
shadow in the absorption of my thoughts.
one mass hallucinogen,
training my thoughts to revolve around you
in a faithful moon orbit.
i saw into the stars for you.

you become aware
that speaking is hypnotic;
tongue tracing the back of the mouth
lazy relaxing
the unfurling of your O’s and the drawing out of your
A’s, i was impassioned by the sound
in any whether.
but to say you’re all i have is a
misconception:
i have the stars behind me;
they can see everything.

Copyright 2016 Golden Star Poetry 

Daydream

there, it will stop
my bottle feeding:
constant nourishment.

we dance together, playfully.
the old man at the bus stop
sees me (only) and smiles,
because he thinks i’m a carefree girl
he couldn’t be more wrong.
i need to be careful,
if he’s looking.

sundays aren’t good
too much thinking
thinking on ones own leads to drowning.
i write poems about you and
never read them aloud
i think they might be
too personal
for others to figure out.

there, he says
soothe your bottle feeding.
i will check up on you
every couple of hours
i will make sure the nurses
give you drip feeding
and that you have plenty of rest.

i will sit by your bed and
read you bedtime stories,
with my hand over your heart
i swear
i will speak in soothing voices
i will never let go.
this is what i imagined my heart
to tell me, but it quickly turned around.
all i can think of is earthlyness
i cannot know of love.
you become earth bound,
physically possessing what you have not
no emotional desire,
go on lung power,
long as you can breathe.

no,
he says,
i stay here for ever.

Copyright 2016 Golden Star Poetry

To the Degree

in which i am alone, i swim
in fantasies
based on nothing
a river deep and cutting.
i construct a heartbreak
based on nothing
i am so alone
that i get my heart broken
by someone who does not exist.

Copyright 2016 Golden Star Poetry

For my Girl

i hate you,
but you don’t even respond
to say you
hate me too.

didn’t we used to laugh?
didn’t we used to cry?
I i guess I didn’t know how close we were
until you had to say goodbye.

I love you,
but you don’t even respond
to say you
love me too.

Copyright 2016 Golden Star Poetry