Memoirs

of a

Well-Meaning

Antagonist

This is the story of a man 

who tried to sit quietly in a room

and failing miserably, made

trouble for himself and others

by believing that “doing” 

something, anything, all the time, 

was the way to live 

a proper productive life. 

Intent on being generous he began

giving money to assorted vagrants

he saw living on the street

who then managed to save and raise

enough funds to buy firearms

and rob every liquor store

within an 8 block radius.

There were 4.

On hearing a neighbor was dying

he went to the local parish

to ask the preacher to pay a visit

possibly to perform last rites, 

resulting in the ill man

infecting the clergyman,

sickening both he and his wife

and killing their infant son Stuart.

Reading every self-help book

he could get his hands on 

to build up his confidence,

the man began lecturing

a neighbor who he felt was not

living up to their potential,

prompting the tenant to overdose

on 40 phenobarbital tablets,

leaving behind a note confessing

utter shame for having failed others.

Determined to help a hoarder

he met at a suicide center

after being invited back to meet

her tabby cat, easily concluded

that owning too many things

was like owning nothing of value

and offering to help bring order 

to her clutter, was promptly 

told to go F%#* himself

as she preferred living

in harmony with her

own eclectic

yet happily 

lived-in mind.

Needless to say

he was not invited back.

Hoping to be of assistance by

giving back to his community

he volunteered at a soup kitchen

twice monthly, dressing down

so as not to offend the poorest

amongst him, only to drop a full ladle

of steaming hot minestrone

scalding a homeless woman’s foot

so bad she worried a limp

for weeks.

Then one day

convinced he could fix

what ailed a fellow co-worker

who was not meeting his quota

and not following proper protocol,

but by now having figured out

no good turn goes un-stoned

and that its best to leave 

well-enough alone,

sat down on a rock

beneath a tree

in leu of a breeze

and held his tongue.

09/15/21

 

Time Passes and Other Fables

Lying in my bed before being 

dismantled by morning light,

I untangle myself from a thousand lies.

None of them mine. 

Dispensing with maps & calendars

I do what every dreamer does, 

defy the horizontal

for more vertical climbs. 

My best thoughts arrive

as a mockery of assumptions.

Awakening will involve

seeing my confusion more clearly.

Every night an egg dispenses with it’s shell.

Dreams, even the most casual ones, inseminate.

This bit of earth, of land, of space,

is not a confessional.

It’s a crucible. I clear away debris 

hoping for a glimpse of your face 

peering out from some felonious past;

an actor awaiting an entrance 

that may never come.

What are you waiting for, 

when we both still have 

so many lines left unspoken?

But the man I was, you were,

 has fallen away

and the one we’re to be 

has taken his rightful place

as if we were a story 

the other meant to tell.

I am a discarded philosophy,

an abandoned body

requiring a re-thinking 

in order to return

my heart to its original chaos.

So let us be strangers who agree on the same truth,

and as time passes, we’ll move on to other fables.

09/13/21

 

Mushroom

I woke up this morning to this 

little miracle mushroom growing

on the balcony. I never planted it. 

My screen keeps airborne seeds 

from alighting onto a faux field. 

I’ve never had a fungi grow 

out there before. It’s like a little thought 

that suddenly presented itself 

and started growing in hope

of becoming a full fledged sentence 

that will eventually adapt into a paragraph 

that with the help of colluding elements    

draws down the attention 

of a lumbering careless giant 

who drops to his knees 

in helpless wonder to know more 

of it’s mysterious story which 

he imagines surely 

included tears and a journey.

09/13/21

 

A 

Passion 

for Pruning

I’m doing the wind’s work

pruning the geraniums 

with impersonal care

though I love them (sort of)

do they even know I’m there?

Pruning is my favorite pastime,

I’d weed and shape myself (and I do!)

knowing how buds are easily born

by beheading a stalk or two.

Lord, let me never tire of growing,

no matter when it comes or where;

out of my element or off my game,

I refuse ever to cease to take care.

For all of us are like flowers,

whether our petals are pink or red.

We need the rain, the wind, and sun,

to insure we’re properly bred.

If beauty’s in the eye of the beholder,

then we gardeners have work to do,

because being in charge of a flower

is a privilege when it falls to you.

If you’ve no interest in blooming

here, there, now or ever again,

then what’s the point of beauty

if it can’t be offered to a friend?

We are tulips with burnished edges,

roses with a sunset’s purple hue,

dandelions meant to wander

filling in a field with yellow (or two!).

Being both gardeners and flowers

is a conundrum that’s for sure.

But the purpose of our horticulture

is to be the cause of one’s own cure.

09/09/21

The Difference Between

Yourself and Your Self

Is as simple as 

night and day

One can only be

put on, while

the other can be

taken away.

One like paint

on a canvas,

the other

an image

that fades.

One that knows

all the answers

while the other

plays solo 

charades.

One is awake

and responsive,

the other asleep

in its bed.

While the first

is one with nature,

the second lives

on in its head.

My advice to you

every evening is

take yourself off

and

lay your self down,

drape it on a chair

if you have to

then sit in silence

all around.

Be barely you

and hardly there

knowing everything

has its disguise.

Try to be true

as the look

that accrues

in the depth of

a wise man’s eyes.

When there’s

no stopping

anything from

happening

and nowhere

else to go,

nothing to see,

nothing to hear,

be vulnerable as

a winter crow.

That’s when 

your contrasts

reach their zenith;

darkness and light

both needed

to call your

shadow home.

09/07/21

 

HOT 

PINK 

BUDDHA

She let me in to clean up

her grungy one room apartment

with its unobstructed view of Saturn.

I knew how to stifle that part

of my brain that judges

but, really, I’m only human.

This chick was reference grade skank

and it was immediately clear 

her taste was

all in her mouth.

At the center of the room 

was what looked like a torture device

but was in fact a treadmill machine

straddling 4 sound-proofing pillows

“My neighbor says I make too much noise”

graced by a polka dot bra 

dangling off it's handlebar.

Some would call that

a tone setter for the room, that is

until you saw the hot pink Buddha

seated indian-style 

atop the mini-fridge.

“I take it you know what to do,”

she said in her paisley crop top

and turquoise spandex capris. 

“No problem,” I said, seeing as she

was living her life out loud

right in front of me

with such perfect abandon.

For all I knew she was putting

her best foot forward. Even so,

I’d found a way not to care

who says or does what.

It always helps.

“Should I start in the bathroom?”

I asked, bracing for bacteria.

“Sure. Just pretend I’m not here.”

I couldn’t think of anything less possible.

But I’d learned how to stay in my zone.

Whether I was a poet who secretly cleans toilets

or a toilet cleaner who secretly writes poems

it hardly mattered, though

I’d discovered a long time ago:

intelligence makes people wary.

So I try not to be eloquent.

The whole apartment smelled 

like that artificial air-freshener

they use in truck stop rest areas

hopelessly camouflaging

the unromantic nature of real life.

I made my way to the bathroom

with my cleaning supplies.

“You know, I’m a teacher,” 

she said out of the blue. 

“Oh, really,” I said, trying

not to appear gobsmacked.

“Yeah, we start back to school next week.”

“Wow, that must be challenging,”

considering all the Covid restrictions

mercilessly in place.

“Kids today are a lot to live up to.

I need my stamina. 

They’ll take you down if you’re not

100 percent on your toes.

I’m not gonna lie, 

my feet hurt already,”.

Faced with the hymen colored walls 

inside the pit-stop of the bathroom

I could feel the oxygen level

dip and close in

as I came face to face

with the transformative job at hand:

the mirror spattered with spray,

the sink spotted with flesh-tone gook,

the back of the toilet cluttered

with bottles and jars of all sizes

purchased for their promise of beautification.

The collective smell prickled my nose,

fabricating a scent not found in nature,

feminizing me by sheer osmosis.

Or was it some insidious infiltration?

And then it happened.

She and I were suddenly one;

my consciousness reincarnated.

I want to be pretty 

no matter what I am doing,

Walking, shopping, working out,

teaching the grateful and ungrateful

alike. But just when others think

all I am is pretty, I'll hit them with

the hard won reformation

of my inner character. 

I am nobodies pretty fool.

I have grit and gumption

and emotional intelligence

that can top any muscle headed

man and if that weren’t enough

I can enlarge or shrink myself 

to any size because 

my heart, having been so

repeatedly broken, no longer

needs to be loved in order

to love

anyone or anything 

in any way.

09/02/21