The Tyranny 

of Ordinary 

Objects 

 

The beds are telling us lies. 

The chairs sit on us. 

The vase has us keeping 

it in faux flowers,  

ever the tart. 

Our things are 

affirming their  

ownership. 

 

Having chosen us, 

they keep us 

in our place. 

The mirrors reflect 

what they want; 

chilly versions of 

both summer & winter; 

glass eyes trained 

on our every move. 

 

The doors permit us  

to come and go, 

their knobs keeping track 

of everything our hands 

have touched. 

The windows allow us  

to look out 

at clouds that 

rely on being  

safely out 

of our reach. 

 

Colors are magnets 

able to predict  

our mood swings 

with the precision  

of chromatic shadows. 

Here, like attracts like, 

especially once 

the objects 

gain our love 

and trust.  

Then why do I fear

their only regard 

is for each other, 

illustrated by 

the breaking of 

their own rigid

rules. 

Who is serving who?

 

The lamps light us 

while the books are reading  

between our lines. 

Pictures gather 

to hang our art  

out to dry. 

Pillows quash  

our chances  

to leave them, 

knowing it only takes one 

to smother. 

 

The desks think 

their thoughts 

by weighing in 

on our minds. 

The televisions  

look askance 

at our meager  

freedoms 

scowling, happy 

to change us  

like a channel 

to another thought 

entirely, reflecting  

as they do 

our lowly stations. 

Their lives live us 

without the slightest  

demarcation 

between the real 

and the untrue. 

We are their

favorite reality show.

 

Clothes wear us out 

determined to live  

a life of their own, 

bent on  

making their own living 

only to hand  

us down 

to others. 

Would that we

were the wool sweater’s 

favorite lost lamb.

 

The mirrors object  

to our porousness, 

resisting and insisting  

our wills are  

of no importance. 

Drawers close us  

out and in. 

Buttons chaff our thumbs. 

Cupboards instruct us on 

the ingredients of every meal. 

Bacon makes us sizzle. 

Shoes walk us out the door. 

 

Our glasses, which often lose 

sight of us, are wearing our eyes 

in order to bring us visions.  

The nose, a filing cabinet

of sorts 

works like a librarian 

employed to 

identify what 

it is we smell, 

shooshing every sneeze 

that might 

break their spell. 

 

 

Medications are  

addicted to us, 

secretly aligning  

with our 

chronic symptoms; 

blue for fatigue, 

red for energy,

yellow for moving

the bowel. 

Curtains string us along 

in hopes of 

coaxing out  

our confessions. 

 

The floor is onto us. 

The walls keep us in. 

The ceiling wanting 

nothing more than 

to look down on  

us all.  

We, who now find ourselves

living amongst

the tyranny 

of ordinary objects. 

 

Confessions of a Town Crier

 

I was 6 the first time I cried in a cinema. 

I wept so hard the sobbing impaired my vision, 

so hard that my poor mother leaned over 

and asked if we should leave.

She thought I was unhappy, but I wasn’t.

Not at all. 

The minute the movie was over 

I wanted to feel whatever that was 

all over again.

 

And so I began my love affair with 

crying amongst strangers in the dark. 

I don’t mean being reduced to tears,

because that’s no reduction.

Crying for art is an honor. 

It’s applause with mucus and salt.

The circumstances of imagery

showing us to ourselves.

 

Actors guide us away from any shame 

we might harbor over our own weeping.

Have you ever wondered where they go 

in order to come back with this? 

Tom Cruise muscles out his tears

so it’s not crying so much as a bench press. 

Isabelle Huppert is a melting ice cap.

Penelope Cruz, a meadow at dawn.

Will Smith, mad that somebody 

got him out here looking like this — all tenderized. 

Gwyneth Paltrow, an elbow 

that’s just scraped concrete.

Psychosis seems to overtake Mel Gibson

until his tears appear to be crying him.  

Julia Roberts, a ripsnorter of weeping. 

Meryl Streep, the Chinese restaurant menu of crying.

Then there’s that lone tear that Denzel Washington

releases as he’s whipped in “Glory”;

two centuries of exploitation in a rivulet 

of vicarious damnation.

 

Tears signal an achievement of honesty, 

proof that an actor is fully in their role. 

 

Less and less we are attending

the cathedrals of crying. 

Instead, we’ve been numbing ourselves. 

Even our lacrimal surrogates in Hollywood 

have been turning their backs on us

toward age-defying procedures that 

culminate in faces that can no longer 

approximate our sorrow. 

A crisis of deadening is being passed down 

to the next generation. 

We are running from ourselves, 

evading the inevitability of emotional difficulty. 

What if my mother had yanked us up that day at “E.T.” 

and insisted that my crying was inappropriate? 

What other beauty would I have become dead to? 

What truths?

 

When my mother died I cried so loud 

I worried the neighbors would call the police: 

It’s a peculiar experience, crying that way: 

undammed, with your entire self, 

with everything in you, roaring out.

 

Our crying distinguishes us from animals.

It also arouses the animal in us. 

I didn’t know such a creature, 

a werewolf in my case, 

resided in there. 

Not a hulk but a hurt. 

You don’t access it. 

The wolf finds you. 

It drags immense sorrow

through the tiny openings

of your nostrils, eyes, and mouth. 

It’s the animal inside us that needs to speak now. 

It’s waiting, ready for a mass howling. 

I’ll be ready, how about you?

 

 

The Aberration of Youth

  

We liked to pretend we were dying. 

It felt invigorating to keep death close. 

Dying assured us we were, in fact, real 

to begin with and was sure to invoke 

sympathy by pairing all that we loved 

with the inevitability of its passing. 

  

We liked to play dead by the sides of the roads. 

One time we went as far as to 

squirt ketchup on our white t-shirts

hoping a car would stop to help us. 

We fantasized being picked up and 

nestled in the back seat of a Buick 

by unfamiliar, yet caring arms. 

  

We perfected falling down the stairs 

when our parents had company over. 

We liked to make memorable entrances, 

then spring up and take funny bows,

desperate for the acknowledgement 

that our very existences were in danger. 

  

We enjoyed pretending we were retarded 

by garbling our speech and ramming it 

through mishappened mouths, 

our faces a rictus of helplessness 

readily excusing us from all expectations 

and instantly surrounding us with 

the unconditional sympathy we craved. 

  

After watching The Miracle Worker 

on the late show, for days 

we went around wildly 

waving our outstretched arms 

as we bumped into furniture 

feeling our way through 

our own make-believe darknesses. 

Perhaps if we were blind 

we’d have been loved. 

  

We were fond of screaming 

in the neighbors back yards. 

We excelled at faking vomiting

by vibrating our fingers 

down the back of each other’s heads 

as if puke were slowly sliding down 

the hair onto the napes of the necks. 

  

Sometimes we froze like mannequins 

in the aisles of the local Pennies 

to spook old ladies and of course 

shock the shit out of strangers. 

At 10 we began running away from our homes

twice a week, staying away 

just long enough to spark guilt in someone. 

  

We were a pathetic ruse. 

  

We liked to walk down streets 

smoking fake cigarettes, 

blowing clouds of dental powder 

through straws with tin foil ends 

dipped in red ink. 

We lived to make tongues wag. 

  

At 14 we pretended we were witches 

by learning rituals and performing spells. 

We told friends we cleaned our rooms with magic. 

We’d point dead oak tree branches 

toward the sky, repeating rhymes 

with the intention of flying away. 

  

One time we made bombs

out of scraped off sparklers 

and gutted firecrackers, then buried 

them in cigar boxes in our backyards 

with fuses poking out of the ground. 

We lived to light those wicks

and blow up the whole lonely world. 

  

At 15 we drew hair under our armpits 

with our mother’s eyeliner pencils

then flirted with older men 

we saw in the apartment buildings 

across the way. 

Couldn’t they see we were now

young and old enough to be valued

for our bodies alone?

  

We kept wigs in our underwear drawers. 

We were known for staining our underpants 

with our nocturnal emissions. 

Our mother pinned them to 

the drapes when she hosted 

her bridge clubs in an attempt 

to shame and humiliate us. 

So we got even by humping our pillows

in the dark. 

  

We changed our rooms around weekly, 

once begging our mother to buy 

us a leopard skin bedspread. 

We were always plotting our escape. 

We fell in love with strangers so easily. 

We used to walk up to unfamiliar houses 

and ask to use the bathrooms 

longing for a taste of other lives. 

  

We drew freckles on our faces 

with red ink pens. 

We touched the end of thermometers

to hot light bulbs

to prove we had fevers. 

We died like Garbos in black and white. 

Our illnesses solely invented for 

staying home from things. 

  

We wore outlandish paisley bell bottoms 

our mother had sewn for us. 

We crawled through neighbor’s windows 

to jack their teenage sons off at night. 

We liked squishing marshmallows 

between our fingers to make taffy 

adding cocoa powder or Tang for pizazz. 

At night we’d make prank phone calls 

under the cum-stained sheets of our beds. 

  

We fantasized being institutionalized 

so that we might be taken care of 

for the rest of our lives. In band classes 

we pretended to play our instruments 

puffing our cheeks in and out to the music. 

We danced and sang to records 

alone in the subconscious of our basements. 

  

Though we grieved from day one, 

what had ever been there to make us sad? 

What Needs to Happen

 

The stage may be 10 x 10,

no more or no less than

a geometry of unleashed feeling

contained as in a box,

an unreal life at stake

unless we become

convinced

a fairy is in fact

a light

dying to be saved.

Cue applause.

 

Your job, to create concern

in those who witness you,

as you skin a rabbit,

sacrifice your vanity,

empty your youth

from your pockets,

give glimpses

into all our futures

as if they swam

pickled in jars.

 

We need to know you care

about the woman begging

you to give her a sign,

about the child you

gave up for adoption

because of your addictions.

We need you to scream

for us. Because we can’t.

You must be a crucible.

Not yours, ours.

Though what’s ours

is yours. We need you

to walk in our shoes.

 

 

We want to know

how you lost

your great love

and now are so

empty

yet ready again

to be filled,

though

no one will ever

want you quite like

that again

as we lean in

longing to disagree;

our mutual longing

is key.

 

We need you to twist yourself

every which way

for the sake of love.

We need you to put yourself aside

so completely that you become

nothing less than

a pagan sacrifice,

to show us how

the slightest moment

can become an event.

Give us such details

that we become detectives

on the trail of our own murders.

Show us naked faces

stripped from their comfort zones.

Release the hiding child

behind all that grows old.

Let your instruments be

so delicious that

we become hungry

and want to know

how you were made.

Surely you know

emotions are edible

and that we are

hungry beggars

longing for a banquet.

 

We’ll want to know why

you chose beige

and not red

to melt down in.

Why not be like colors

and take us to yourselves?

Then, when things go black

bring us a candle

to find our way

home.

 

Show us your horoscope

without telling us your sign

revealed in your qualities

as ours also rhyme.

Air, fire, water,

or earth is how

you give birth

as you are so present

you can’t help but be

what you are.

Maybe then

your commitment

to embody hardships

will bring us

to our senses

as well as

to our feet.

 

11/16/22

 

For the Blind 

There Will 

Always 

Be Beauty

 

Stop and take this moment apart.

Hold it still

in your hands.

Speak to it softly,

like a stunned dove

accepting surrender.

Feel its heart beating

through the skin

of your palms,

that age-old

posture for prayer.

 

Now do the same

with yourself.

 

Unless you’re a yogi

we haunt our bodies,

ghosts trapped

in the darkness

of a rented house.

Guess who’s the landlord?

Not you, nor I.

 

Our craniums are

a cave of shadows.

Because we can’t forget

anything really,

we end up shutting

the unforgettable up

in rooms inside ourselves.

 

The heart is a chamber.

The mind, a mansion.

The body, a castle,

The mouth, a trapdoor

tasting everything

before swallowing

it down.

The stomach,

a labyrinthian maze

with only two exits,

cannot be bypassed.

Beware the ogre,

a golem made of  

all that’s lodged

and growing

in the dark,

 

Take my hand,

we’ll go together.

Everything inside

having a correlation

on the outside.

A vein is a road.

Each organ, a room.

The eyes, a window

with a velvet veil.

Each hand, a tree.

The skin, a wall.

Emotions, weather.

Thoughts, a guest.

The mind, a

beleaguered host.

 

I have no clue

how to be a man, nor

to be in this moment

without fear or worry.

Take my hand anyway.

We can go together

through both our darks.

 

Only the blind can

see things as they are.

What’s essential is

invisible to the eye.

The blind take responsibility

for what the seeing 

so easily reject.

The blind touch museums

where the seeing

might view only rubble.

The blind sense sentiment

for what it is,

the shadow of

a privileged cruelty.

How else is one

to parse the chafe

from the wheat

if not

with the hands? 

We who

cannot go back

to anything.

 

And so, we dream;

the means

our souls sift

through the rubble

of our successes

and excesses. 

A single dream

can undo a knot,

unlock a door,

shed a skin,

resurrect what’s past.

Dreaming is to the soul

what sign language is

to the deaf.

 

Reality has nothing on

a night of dreaming.

So, why

not practice

finding beauty

even in our harrow?

 

 

11/7/22

 

 

The Man Who Turned Himself into a Chair

 

“A chair is still a chair even when

there’s no one sitting there.”

                                  ~Hal David

 

It must be a tyranny to be so rigid.

I want no part in this travesty.

You, who were so bored with life

fled into paralysis rather than analysis.

I think of you as asleep, as it

helps me reach you with compassion.

 

Had you known doing and saying

the same things over and over

would result in this staid metamorphosis,

would you have persisted

with such analgesic repetition?

 

I have questions.

Was it not enough to be able

to leave a room at will?

When your need to feel safe

imprisoned you in unsayable stasis;

artistic equal to the plastic flower

sans scent or power to arouse,

a bulb that offers no light, then,

where art thou source of electricity?

 

Is this any way to escape responsibility

surrendering your privilege to respond.

Can anyone really be happy

with a soul swaddled as a mummy

in fetid fabric for the rest of time?

You who once loved classical music,

what can you hear through your gauze?

 

Where do you hide your likes and dislikes

now that opinions are impossible to express?

Was life so intimidating that the blood

in your veins froze into down feathers,

wings that once enabled flight

now only filling without agency.

Do you not miss the give and take

of ordinary conversation?

 

Had you become so dispassionate

that turning into a chair took the form of a relief.

Maybe it is of some benefit not to care

who sits upon you. Still,

how does one run out of things worth saying?

What aesthetic so enticing that you

became content to be part of the decor?

Did you think becoming a chair

might cause others to value you more?

 

A chair is no way to make yourself useful.

If we’re not encouraged to be ourselves

what good is it to retreat into the mise en scene?

Who aspires to be a piece of furniture, anyway?

What uniformity in being human

isn’t self-imposed?

To be alive, awake, is to be

justifiably unpredictable.

 

The truth is, I did not see it

 happening slowly over time,

as wood fossilizes

unnoticed into stone.

Your skin changed its texture

from smooth to parched burlap.

Your back became hunched.

You sprouted wooden arms.

Your bottom sagged.

And now 

by putting yourself out to pasture,

a thing entirely unto itself,

a chair in a field of flowers,

you've become both

a black sheep and lost lamb.

 

 

10/11/22