Las Vegas 15.24

City of sin, din
sights and lights.

City of luck
Mega bucks
cherry red lips
Chicken Ranch hips.

City of lost wages
redeemed savers
wedding chapels and
venture capital.

City to lose
drink too much booze
rack up coins
wolf tenderloin.

A city with eyes
cameras up high
and Cirque shows every night
while gorgeous show girls
show off their girls
and Criss Angel levitates
breathing deep in a red rock scape.

A city of slots, high rollers, big shots
musical fountains and Roman art
River pools, sidewalk misters
Shopping malls, iconic vistas.

Where dry heat is a relative term
as flamingos drip on a Venetian urn.

And tourists leave last dollars
in Wheel of Fortune slots
shouting
honey come quick, I’ve won the jackpot!!

Pen Women Luncheon 15.23

Welcome to New Year
Artists, Writers, Musicians
inspired menu.

Alien Seed 15.22

Ancient astronauts
designed Egypt's pyramids

Do the math earthling!

Labor Day Stroll 15.21

Kailua beach swarms
outriggers pass flat island
sea turtles swim free.

Mental Abuse 15.20

I love you
so much
sweetheart.

Now follow
all my
commands
to the letter.

Overindulgence 15.19

Spoiled
myopic youth
neglects his teeth.

Gummy candy
belly and
devouring habits
dentist’s dream.

Communication 15.18

Hiking

unfamiliar trails
with foreign speaking
strangers.

Accessing understanding
utilizing
sunscreen and sign language.

Contentment 15.17

Septolet

The Septolet is a poem consisting of seven lines containing fourteen words with a break in between
the two parts. Both parts deal with the same thought and create a picture.



Daylight streams
gold
pink and
sapphire vistas.

Silver encircles
uncharted white nimbi
admit one.

Low Battery 15.16

Recharge Battery

Find adapter cable
plug into computer and wait.

Remember when an apple a day kept the doctor away?
well, some things never change
apples still fuel the day.

Dieter 15.15

Dieter
is a serious man
who doesn’t care much for children.

He is still single
in-between women and loves his imported beer
although not quite as much as he did in his youth.

At fifty two, he wears thick eyeglasses.

Dark blond and blue eyed, his pock marked skin is clean shaven.
He wears an aloha shirt and loose tan shorts for evenings out
complete with white crew length socks and a clean pair of deck shoes
inadequately concealing his portly frame.

He hoards his money
earned from
installing razor wire fences around prisons,
this has been quite lucrative over the years.

In his spare time he looks through the real estate ads
and waits for that special parcel
in a neighboring state, not too far from his Mother,
who is eighty two now, an ex smoker burdened with emphysema.

He has many friends.

One has a Hawaiian themed backyard complete with swimming pool
around which preside Tikis which he carved by hand from oak, cherry and other hard woods.
At the intricately carved bar
blowfish twirl from suji fishing lines and swim
in the heavy air
bright with white lights stuffed into their diaphanous round bellies.
Voracious mosquitoes thickly blanket this upstate New York town
underwhelmed by the lack of trade winds or repellant
overwhelming his cousin, Crystal.

Koko Head Hike 15.14

Climbing

Up railroad ties

Drenched clothes dizzying heat

Shaking while crossing the trestle

Dump fear.

Reassessing Preferences 15.13

Precious moments

reflect Hawaii’s leisurely pace

fade in and out on a cerulean zephyr

and sandy walks in Kailua

imperceptible as they light in our footprints

marching to a German cadence

and settle at last on love’s single red rose

so sweetly presented.

New York minutes

vividly unfold as pages in a prized book.

Healing moments inhaled and exhaled

with family

while strolling country hills

retracing past lives

outlining a memoir’s flawed pattern

and pausing for a moment to capture

as brazen deer

feed on emerald lawns

and toast the amber dew.

Not an Addict 15.12

Hello, my name is Cornelia


and I’m not an addict or an alcoholic,

I am his Mom


and I am stubborn

a family trait.

My past behavior reflects

that I can be glaringly stupid too.


I had a moment of clarity recently

it seems my main problem

is that I’ve developed a nasty habit of speaking my mind

I also have some forgiveness issues.

I want my chocolate chip cake and ice-cream with the pirouette cookie

and I don’t want to share.

I want to sit on the right hand side of god

and then tell him how to run things.

I like pants

and yet

skirts are also nice.

I love my family

and I am embarrassed by them.

I invite suggestions

but will do what I want.

I tend to ignore gorillas in small rooms.

My problem is

I can’t have it all and I’m running out of time.

So my brain talks to me and says

Cornelia, choose already!

Find out

if all your hard work and effort

all the time you put in

all the tears

was worth it.

Keep going.

You are almost there.

Let go of the false hope

the alternate reality

where life is always fair

where you get Prince Charming --and the castle.

Just Be Happy!


But Just Be Happy--is bull.

You have to work to make yourself happy--it’s hard

you have to decide every day---you have to choose it.

Happy is a metaphor for good choices.


So stop moaning

about what you don’t have

about what life didn’t give you?

how you didn’t deserve to suffer

and about how tough it was

all those years

in the blistering heat

in the tropics

working as a roofer

twelve hour days

having to go home

crawl into bed

only to wake up and repeat the same thing the next day—year after year

to go shopping after work in filthy sweat stained raggedy clothes

walking through Safeway looking

like I was homeless

only I wasn’t—I was building a life

carving it out of stone—me and the other fossils

who could’ve done it better in your instruction book

yada, yada, yada

cause nobody wants to hear it!


Sometimes the only thing left

is to get down and pray

yes –pray, from a non believer

Pray for peace

Pray for enlightenment

Let go of the entitlement fantasy

Pray that your hijacked memory comes back

and that you see really wake-up before you get locked up or the reaper comes for your sorry ass.

Pray that you see what really matters

before you drown in that pit that you’ve dug for yourself.

Because there is one thing I do know

I was quite willing to get down there with you

to wander dark alleys

hunting for discarded scraps

forgetting about family

blanking out my own sanity

lost on some river in Egypt.

Face down, eyes closed, teeth grinding, always there

a phone call away, waiting for you to have one lousy moment of clarity.

I did manage to learn a few things though

I learned that

I count too

that my wants and needs are, just as important as yours

that if I constantly drive against traffic with you-- ignoring reality

that I am not taking care of me.

I learned that it’s not only okay to say no, it is a requirement.

So don’t ask me for help anymore.

Don’t ask me to sit quietly and watch

while you destroy the most precious thing in my life

one day at a time

bit by bit

because if you don’t care enough to help you

at least have the guts to leave me alone

because I could sure use some help right now.

Because I’m mom

and even though my brain is saying no

my heart is saying yes

because my off switch

is stuck

and because even if I could turn it off

I won’t.

I will defy logic

Dad

and the law if need be

because that’s how I’m wired

but you already know that.

You are betting that Mom

will come and bail you out again and again

and tomorrow will magically be okay

and hell the world’s coming to an end anyway in 2012

so, WTF!

Might as well go out smiling

kiss your bony butt goodbye

take your mom hostage with

drag her stupid ass through the mud too.



We could make up some

Mom’s coming to jail to visit me and bring money, so I can do more drugs-- T-shirts

make them this shitty brown color

or maybe a piss yellow

or how about a purple barf stain.

Purple’s my favorite color.

So when mom has to drop her laundry

to see your sorry ass in jail

she can tell herself it’s because she loves you

and it wasn’t really that bad

and then promise you again that she

will keep jumping back into that pit with you-- forever if need be

because she couldn’t possibly let you do it alone.

Someone might rape you

or stab you repeatedly

leaving your bloody corpse unrecognizable

and then she would have to bury you in a closed casket

and then mom would have to

dig up some old photo

before you were a drug addict

when you still resembled something loveable and pure

and pretend to all the relatives

and friends-- you still had,

that life had just dealt you a bad hand

and if you had just had some breaks

and a little help--you might still be alive today

only--that would be a lie

because it really wasn’t about that at all

If the truth were to finally come out

long after your rotten corpse

decomposed

and the cockroaches crawled around

your intestines and had millions of babies

nesting inside

your ruptured skeleton

buried in an unmarked grave

that the real reason you died

the real reason you wasted your life

even though you had it all

was all because you made some bad choices.

Barbel 15.11

Thirteen
and in love
with a new boy
every day on Face Book.
Posters of Justin Bieber
hang in her bedroom
soon to be replaced by the latest teen idol.

She is the hot one
in her crowd
and likes being the
center of attention.

Silver braces line her teeth.

Her bright eyes
one blue
one brown
and long blond shoulder length hair
will make her Dad
pace the living room
in a few more years.

Right now
she’s still into sleepovers
with her chubby
girlfriends
and swimming at the town pool.

Karl 15.10

Karl

is a bear of a man

owns his business.

He is the man to call when
you need heat in the winter
and AC in the summer

He charges more for his time

because he’s good, damn good.

He is a proud man
honest and
has integrity

so long as you pay him.

Competition is fierce
and cash flow
a constant juggle

although he is
pretty good at
balancing work and play.

An agreeable man
he enjoys his imported beer

retired from both the Army and National Guard

he was stationed in Germany
he has siblings there
family means everything to him
since his mom and brothers escaped
from his wife-beater father

and moved in with his step dad.

Food is a comfort
after a hard day of service calls
and since he quit smoking

as it is with Heather
their stout gray cat
who demands breakfast
at six a.m.
scratching
at the bedroom door
her tail swishing to and fro
in cadence with clock
as it chimes at the hour
every hour

Ding, Ding, Ding, Dong
Ding, Dong, Ding, Dong
DONG, DONG.

He is married to Sabine
his soul-mate.

Crystal 15.9

The oldest
most world wise
writes it all down
She digs out the old

foundation exposing the rotten wood replacing it, careful to maintain the integrity of the structure, a painstaking process, as she crafts and starts to build a new stronger base discovering along the way how the cement was first formed, alert to to how the form needs to be outlined first reading the instructions and then mixing the sand and gravel then slowly adding water building layer upon solid layer smoothing the surface until it is compacted and firm. A sly sally she knows exactly what needs to be shown and what should fall away hidden, the work means everything to her.

The work paves the way.

She is not to be fooled with.

Her short cropped light brown hair
exposes a few gray roots
her penetrating blue eyes
see the cracks.

She is the athlete

tough and tenacious
willing to bend
but only so far
her roots grow deep
and she remembers everything
separating the reality
from the fiction
separating herself
from the characters
within her fragmented past.

The others inside her sleep
and remain silent for now.

Sabine 15.8

is Playboy material

her blunt cut flaxen hair
parted in the middle
frames an oval face.

Sharp blue eyes
question everything.

She is the queen in her castle
complete with central air
and vacuum
sucking out the waste
transferring it
to face again at a later date
a perpetual motion
defining the orbit of her existence.

A mom to a teenage girl
who looks more like sixteen
she does it all
from house painting to
to riding the tractor and
when she’s done at home
she cuts the lawn
for her mom
risking poison ivy and snakes.

She feels trapped
but resigned to staying
in everyone’s good graces
for another summer
as the thunder builds
and echoes
a warning
of an impending cyclone.

Carolla 15.7

is the middle child
a fighter and
an ex smoker
often noticed for
her Dolly Parton-like bosom.

Short and fierce
she breaks through the bull
divides her time
between
FOX NEWS
and QVC

her zealous tongue
encouraged
by her
redneck husband.

She works at the school cafeteria
mostly for the medical
suffers from
allergies and snores
like a lumberjack.

A new grandma
she proudly carries
pictures of the baby
in her wallet

along with
her menopause badge
and a silver revolver
with a pink pearl
handle.

Gisela 15.6

She doesn't hear them anymore.

Her attention is held captive
by wishful thinking.

Her sparkling blue eyes have turned gray.

Buxom and petite
wearing last years
bargain basement
matching dress and hat
she stubbornly
wait for Godot.

Lost in yesterdays
rotary dial
and rabbit ears
fearful and furious.

He has scolded away
her innocence.

She still works for nickels and dimes
to regain control
convinced
that it really doesn't matter
that she still has to work
that her brothers and sisters
don't write.

Fifty years
ignored away
as fine.

Sometimes she takes things
shiny beads
a ring
briefly
satisfying her hunger
though
more and more
thirsty now
for the fermented white grape
and her arthritic
ankles and fingers
ache from the damp.

Horst-- 15.5

He can’t tell them what he wants

lost inside another vodka fog
sneezing green balls of phlegm
into his palm while
searching for Kleenex.

His hairless
white belly
distended inside a white t-shirt
overlapping beige
shorts, the only pair that he can find,
as he mechanically belches
and squeezes out farts
that would’ve put Hitler to shame
as he starts to sing from another old German opera
unable to resurrect his youth
failing to amuse his
sedated audience.

Happy hour begins at eleven
in his tiny world
and continues
long into the night
every night
as he salutes the setting sun
with cracked deformed nails
constipated and
cursing at his bad luck

and to anyone who will listen

pausing for a moment as
he tries to ingratiate himself
on a practiced widow
down the hall from his room.