It Passes
the sky is lucid
with the day's last light
cleaving the gathering
of rain clouds
one more dusk survived
still alive
after all that went before
and before
god knows what
the cat on the chair
next to mine
fades with me
into oblivion
Kurtsgesagt (In a Nutshell) 2020
We were still in high school when a classmate, one of the boys I considered sophisticated, asked whether I preferred to be the “spooner” or the “spoonee” when sleeping with a lover. Being of the generation spawned by my mother’s generation, but wanting to sound as experienced as my classmate undoubtedly was, I answered, I preferred the role of “spoonee” which sounded to me more “appropriately” feminine.
Not long after, and after a very unsophisticated and calamitous marriage in my teens - with medical consequences that radically curtailed plans I had for my life by making it impossible for me to have children - I left my husband of five months and moved to Venice, the Southern California version of Haight Ashbury, at the time. That clause in my life searched for complete sentences in caverns of dark paragraphs that were mostly indiscernible at the head of a syringe. County records of my exploits in search of usable nouns attest instead to my transgressions with transitive verbs and prepositions as I slid in, under, around, and through the cracks of the judicial system.
Still, that system taught me about the kind of sentences I did not want, and after my final time in jail, I left Venice once and for all for Hollywood. My parents, i.e., my mother and stepfather, had been actors, and so it was natural for me to follow that path.
While living in Laurel Canyon, I studied acting - although most alcoholics like myself are already masters of the craft when they can remember their lines - and after some floundering, I managed to get some acting work, both in theater and in film, though I was never famous - as my parents had been. Mostly, I waited on tables or served alcohol in bars.
Around age 30, after a profound “aha” moment in which it dawned on me that I might have a problem with substance abuse, I realized I had had enough of the slow suicide, and I made perhaps the most fateful decision of my life up until that point: I resolved that I would allow myself a year without any mind-altering improvisations on my brain. If, after a year of a clear head I still felt the need to phase myself out, I would do so quickly with a gun to my temple. Go out like the universe came in, with a big bang, though admittedly, more of a particle blip in the greater scheme of things.
That approach seemed more honest and less cumbersome all the way around as I was not the only one who suffered from my addictions to drugs, alcohol, and haphazard self annihilation.
Albeit somewhat estranged, I still had family: two half-siblings and a mother and grandmother, and whatever lover had the misfortune to ride with me through my lethal maelstrom.
On the fringes of existence reside the outliers: those who have been so damaged by their addictions that it renders them incapable of either nurturing or being nurtured. They were the ones during my years of quaffing, to whom I was drawn as we were kin. We were each others’ attraction and repulsion, but that was then.
Surprisingly, after a year of a more without mind-bending substances, I became aware that there was, after all, a woman residing in me that I cared enough about to attempt to salvage. My former obsessions had robbed me of all the options that I now realized had been open to me all along, and wanting desperately just to be a normal person, after some years of studying acting and landing a few parts in the movies and one on T.V., I returned to school. I knew I was too old to be an ingenue but still too young and pretty to play character roles. I was in the in-between stage, where if you haven’t yet made a name for yourself by 30, you may as well quit until you are much older. While I continued to nurture my interest in acting and joined a theatre group where I also did some play-writing, I thought it more prudent to return to school.
When I finally comprehended I that I wasn’t the victim of circumstance I had imagined myself to be, and that I was as responsible for my own misery as I was for my own happiness, I found I liked both roles in life when interacting with others: the “spooner” and the “spoonee.” The part of the nurturer and the part of the nurtured. I concluded that both roles are intrinsic to survival in the theatre of a balanced life.
In the sober and sobering years that followed - as the teacher I eventually became after I left Hollywood and the life of the thespian - I have tried to share my experiences and what I have learned, and there are times when it has proved useful for others along similar paths. Feeling useful helped my mending process and continues to do so to this day.
Today, I find myself, many decades later, still alive and contemplating the nature of reality in Mexico with my dearest friend and husband of 18 years. I was fortunate enough to find a sane, compassionate, and patient man to marry while still in California. Here in Guanajuato, we live a relatively uneventful life with our three canines, three felines, several turtles, an aging aquarium fish, and my husband’s mistress, a Harley Davidson by the name of Chocalata.
We share a love of painting, politics, science and gardening, and separately, I enjoy writing paragraphs with concrete words and sentences as well as writing poetry and doing photography. He makes furniture, frames for our pictures, and he spends hours on bike maintenance and going on occasional excursions.
The pandemic and current Mexican social policies destroyed my husband’s optometrist business, which he nurtured for 13 years. In an effort to adapt to circumstances, we’ve converted to a gallery where we can feature our own as well as other local art.
Much of the time, we experience the joy of just being alive in a world which often seems at odds with our plans and desires, but we feel, we see, we absorb, and we improvise where needed. We swirl with the planets as we zoom through the ever evolving Milky Way - and when the urge compels us, we spoon.
Mr. Goodbar
sweet promise
of fulfillment
plundered
by your
heroic
performance
your dyed hair
and tummy girdle
belie your intelligent cheekbones
your fingers molest my privacy
your fingernail tears my
self esteem
I try not to hate your vanity
I tell myself
your body is warm
your soul is a child
desperately trying
to be a man
but you frighten me
even asleep
I nightmare us
the smell of you
unwashed
stains my nostrils
sober now
I try to recapture
last night's wanton hope
before my bravado toting barstool
kissed the sawdust floor
The Audacity of Love
love sifts gratitude and pink folly
like sand through open fingers
to share with Cupid
and anyone else who dares
to feed on the happy dust
autumn eschews summer
in the seam of survival
in the refrain of the day
when clouds adrift in blue remission
sing red to echo with the throbbing sun
love sleeps softly unaware
of impending nights in iron garb
as sanguine drips the horror of a war
death and dishonor
long to smear love's lust
but an atom of grace
emerges from the sand
sifts love in gratitude and pink folly
like cotton candy
softly webbed around a cone
and clouds again drip the honey of the day:
love's sweet anguish enfolds once more
No More, We Beg (April 2020)
No more laughter, no shouts, no tears
permeate the collapsing walls
only rubble remains
and open eyed shock in the chimera of day.
Broken children sprinkled on listless streets
hands open toward the sky
pleading for they know not what.
Flailing war wounded howl in the ruins
unable to extricate themselves
while glassy eyed elders stare at disrobed illusions:
still seeing what was there the week before,
and all just wait
hungry
wait
dumbly
wait
wait for death
wait for rescue
whichever comes first
A Teacher’s Tale (May, 2022)
She tried to call 911
but gravel lodged in her craw.
All over, blood squirted as if from water pistols
and spewed like leaky hoses
without a shut-off valve.
A small hand, severed from an unseen wrist
still wiggled its little finger
next to the eraser on the floor by her desk.
Her throat froze in place
where she lay in fragments of shattered glass
lining the walls under the windows -
splintered pieces pierced her hip and thigh
though she felt nothing
not the bullets in her legs
nor the one in her shoulder.
A whimper stole out from under a table
hiding beneath the cloth she had put
for the cake and cookie treats
earlier in the hour:
a celebration for work well done.
As if with eagle eyes, she tried
to bore the table’s camouflage
to search for the unsettling mewl
All at once, the cops burst in
clogging the space and yelling
searching for kids
that never screamed
They had stayed hidden and silent
(like they’d been drilled, she thought)
still as mice
amid ricocheting bullets zinging
off metal desks and chair legs
now little mute torsos
blown apart under bits of red soaked clothing
all over and everywhere
bodies and parts of bodies that minutes before
(or was it hours?)
wriggled and squirmed
waiting for the bell to set them free
to romp away the summer.
No need to shush the giggles now,
only whispers from under her pillow
late at night.
Transformation (June 2022)
On a recent afternoon, a shiny scarab
crawled across a path in the garden
languidly making his way
from one side to the other:
I stopped and absorbed his sojourn.
Later that night, I groped my way
through a Kafkaesque dream:
I had transmuted
into a beetle who scurried
hither and yon
trying to return
to its human body -
the young one I inhabited
before I metamorphosed
to my present state
Apotheosis
A pale green walking stick
passed from his to mine
trusting in the warmth of hands
as if they were benign
I could barely feel
the fragility of his touch
a faint tickle only perceptible
because I was looking
tiny vibrations motored the movement
of his exquisite form: twig like body
with legs finer than a beading needle
which clung to my finger
not wanting to let go
as if the plant I put him on
was a foreign object
and my finger was home
Fall Beetles (2020)
Because it feels right
I turn them back onto their stomachs
as I pass by
even though I know when I go my way
they’ll shortly be on their backs, again.
Am I fiendishly compelled to prolong their death throes
legs wiggling up in the air,
helpless as the tides against the moon?
Lifelong Minutes (2020)
A bird hit the windshield of my car
right above the hood on the driver’s side
a small blob of feathers and red where it landed.
I stop, but it’s too late.
To appease my conscience,
I go through the ritual of seeing what I can do
in this futile moment of deep remorse.
I think of Michael, laying pale and helpless
mouth wide open on the bed in the motel-room
he had rented a month before.
I go to touch him to reassure my mind.
What my eyes see: the glacial reality.
A policeman, tall and dry,
comes into the room,
instructs me not to step into the scene,
not even to touch my own brother
- as if he has a right.
Imaginary fists swing in his face,
nails scratch his eyes and claw his cheek,
but my wobbly body can’t muster
the energy or the courage.
My knees buckle and I tiptoe back out
I, a worm confronted by a crow
conditioned to retreat underground
around hovering strangers with beaks
I let costume and custom annul my need,
and leave my brother simply there
for the embalmers to examine and dissect
as if he never counted -
leaving me only the humiliation
of my failure to bid my brother
- the one I shared both parents with -
our final adieu.