You Don’t Know Where Her Mouth Has Been

Lines Upon Visiting the exhibition for the first time.

Satellites
weapons of war
at the teet we watch,
pointing at me
I can’t look away.

The blistered conch
split at the seams
empty inside.
Jaws at the ready
or wounds opened dried?

Together they hang
stone’s throw
from each other
like prisoners of war.

Blue roses tightly wound
ready to breathe and hatch
laying still on its small
pedestal for a survivor of antiquity.

Rock candy chandeliers
hanging low
like sagging breasts.
Pink cotton candy
memories on the façade
of sandy days now
measured in glass.

Simple bliss under porcelain
Roses like a crown
A Queen in Sheep’s clothing.

Arms stretched wide
like an ancient
bird lay forgotten
petrified span
of once fruitful wings.

Condor Crystal Crustacean
headless hunter here and now nary a sign
of power or majesty.

Soft and wrinkled
brittle and wasted

What once was
will never now be
but something new shall be formed.
 

Satellites
weapons of war
at the teat we watch,
pointing at me I wait.

The blistered conch
split at the seams
empty inside.
Jaws at the ready?
Or wounds opened dried?

Together they hang
stone’s throw
from each other
like prisoners of war
tethered to darkness.

Blue roses tightly wound
ready to breathe and hatch
laying still on their operating table,
banners and a small pedestal
for a survivor of antiquity.

Rock candy chandeliers
hanging low like sagging breasts
of an ancient goddess,
while pink cotton candy memories
on the façade of sandy days
remain encased in glass.

Simple bliss under porcelain
roses like a crown.
A queen in sheep’s clothing.

Arms stretched wide
like an ancient bird laid forgotten –
Petrified spans of once fruitful wings.
Condor crystal crustacean,
headless hunter here and now,
nary a sign of power or majesty.

Soft and wrinkled
brittle and wasted.
What once was
will never now be
but something new shall be formed.

On the 19th of January 2012

The morning’s sunrise was quite beautiful, in fact I don’t remember a more beautiful one. The colors at least, the picture she created would wash over the grand expanse of the skyline. I’m gonna miss this town, as I always do, but something of today would bring warmth in days to come. The clouds above my father’s car were a myriad wash of glorious colors. The clouds above 395 were a warmer fuchsia while the far off heavenly crown surrounding the National Cathedral were lightly dusted with rose and baby pink, a careful canopy to a frozen facade of blue and grey beneath. On the other end of the world towards National Airport and beyond Old Town the sun’s rays were a hot orange leading to rich red and gold, like a fairy tale illustration of navel oranges mixed with raspberries in the rain. But what the blacktop blocked ’till the 14th Street Bridge was the blinding white essence of her intense and effusive self. White.

Blinding white and I look away softly diverting my attention from the Potomac to the Tidal Basin, the Jefferson Memorial beyond these slabs of concrete and asphalt, and my head leans again towards the waterfront where Le Rivage used to be, where my father took my family out for our 14th birthday dinner, me and my twin sister and older sister and mom. Le Rivage with pink table cloths under pressed white ones. Where the waiters used to scoop up your bread crumbs with magic pens from their vest pockets. Didier M. Crespi, I remember his business card read, could the M have stood for Michele, the name of my sister but my name in French, I never asked. He always seemed mysterious but still approachable to me. Didier was French and his wife was Chinese. She would stay behind the bar making cocktails and conversation as you passed with her cheerful wide smile greeting us with a muted bow and nod of her head; he would greet us at the door and usher us to tables with effortless charm, you would walk in from the street and up the stairs through the restaurant on a cloud air. Passing china and clinking silverware like a fanfare subdued by civility and aplomb. He would pull your chair for you, wiping the table cloth and his hands together swiftly, finishing touches with efficient panache, his long delicate fingers would come together in front of his jacket, his gold bracelet and rings the only constants to his ever changing wardrobe. Nicely dressed and put together, sport coats and ties, dress shirts and handkerchiefs all coordinating and matching in some interesting yet unassuming way. He would chat with us, turning his warm countenance toward me patting me on the back, he was someone who could make you feel like the most special of guests and the dearest of friends. I wore a tie when I would visit for those special occasions to dine, this is where I learned to eat catfish, crawfish and duck liver pate. Even Ping, Didier’s wife, would treat us once in a while with the freshest of tuna delivered that morning, and sashimi I learned was a delicious delight. So many things a boy might not care to eat, but this I now know was a place of culinary comeuppance. I have been blessed in all aspects of my life, but between my father’s Slavic heritage and my mother’s Ecuadorian one I am proud and lucky to say I have a most diverse taste for food. I think it’s one of the best ways into a culture and the most telling in terms of finding differences but not surprisingly a wonderful way of seeing our similarities. It can all be boiled down to combination, preparation, and ingredients, I guess. But philosophical entreaties aren’t on my mind right now, and I finish off the last of my everything bagel.

For now the sun is unforgiving to this memory of Le Rivage, casting harsh sideways light to the distinct box arched roof, and as we pass and my eyes land on the long forgotten restaurant, memories of lessons in how to compose yourself, and perhaps how to be an adult. Now some mishmash Asian fusion joint with a Budweiser neon sign in the corner window, my heart turns away and I ask my dad to take 395 north instead of going through the federal core. My heart is heavy enough leaving home for now I don’t need to see the Monument or the Capitol, or any of the museums I love so much. The national mall will have to remain a memory for me today and we’re off on the ramp, more highway ahead. The exit to Union Station passes right by and then underneath of the Rayburn House Office Building where I worked, the first of three office buildings flanking the congressional side of the hill, before the Library of Congress and just across Independence from the Capitol dome. Across Independence, south of Constitution and my mind takes flight, having fun with puns and some more philosophy, but my heart is too heavy to hold any more and my wit falls through the cracks of these creaky buckets on my emotional yolk. Shall I let it all go and step forward into tomorrow, at least allow today to begin?

No more memories right now of yesterday and lives before, for north of the Potomac is her sister Susquehanna and the Delaware river too. And soon enough is the mighty but narrow Hudson River, the East River, and the Harlem River through. And the lovely capitol city washes back to the recesses of my mind, and I prepare my heart for the winter ahead. Connected by dashed lines and automobiles like morse code meditation they seem not far away. But atop this asphalt and concrete, these cities I love, seem like estranged family or lovers, destined to reminisce from time to time yet never the two shall meet. Except through me I suppose. And everyone else on this bus.

From H Street heading East to 95 North, to the Turnpike winding through the expanse of New Jersey, here I sit and wait for Lincoln Tunnel traffic. Another familiar skyline awaits me now. And I’m ready for her. Big and bold New York City. Here I come once again. And I am ready.
And into the tunnel I go.

This coffee hasn’t started working
So I resort to gulps and concentrated breathing.
Across the way over building tops
There blinks in cadence two red lights,
I try to realize their pattern and before the essence comes to me,
A siren down the street
Just west of here
Arrives on the scene.

Fans and coils
Drones and toils
Writhe and buzz underfoot.
Like waves of electric shock
They come and recede
Complaining and waning
While I try to escape these sounds
But even more surround me
And the sky seems like a joke
Or some long lost implicit memory
Of freedom and fearless nights.

Rough rectangles
Like window panes
Illuminate the outside world
Beyond these metal grates
These covered climbing pieces.

There she is, sky, oh plenty,
Oh sister of long lost youth,
Drab as brick, beaten and weathered,
Like canvas stretched and primed with age.
The sky seems like no sky at all.
No shape, no color, no bold bright blue
For the night hath taken over,
And for I know and only hope
That day will surely follow,
Right now between these metal stairs and quickly cooling coffee,
The sky to me just isn’t she,
Or not like I want to know her.

Between the pages and frozen screens
And inside the static pressure
There lies a voice that’s not oft seen,
But she screams to me a while.
And I listen but don’t understand.
Because of all the noise.

A plane flies south along the Hudson,
I guess she’s still a sky
Some chartered course
Along the night
Some route to God-knows-where.

I try to relax
And try to listen again
But the voice is gone
And coffee’s all but done.
What was she saying
I’m all at sea
Amongst all this noise that does surround me.

What was she saying?
I’m all sea.
Amongst this metal fire escape.

The looking glass accentuates
And deteriorates the true
Sense of any face.

So aware of your own features
That your face within a glance
Reverts to some mask-like faction
Of its normally vicarious self.

So what do we see
When we look into the looking glass,
For we never truly see ourselves.

And why do we look at all?

Blocks away from yesterday
and miles from where I started.
Not sure exactly what to say
but talking of those departed.

Those that hold us in their literary love
Those that take us from below to above
and over and under and through every blunder,
away from the pain and out of the rain.

You dry me and warm me
and coo me and woo me.
and there’s something in your eyes
that tells me to stay
to hold tight “don’t fret, don’t fight”

I see an invitation
a declaration
or maturation
of feelings I’ve known before

Something I’ve smelt
Something I’ve tasted
those tears on my lips
and throat that’s been basted
by the warmth, so hollow
deep down in my chest
that moans will soon follow
and sparks in my breast
vaporized and motorized.
She beat hard to keep up
with this mud clay that I’ve crafted
into this sad mold
of a man and shell of a boy
she’ll hold in her hand
and smile and look
far into the distance…

Your eyes shimmer like streaks of moonlight
are caught, and those pastures of mystery
and I wander far and deep while
you take no notice, while you think of
something else or no doubt of someone else

Your mind wanders off and you look off into the distance
and your hair stands and streaks angelically in place
and I wonder back to the time I held you
in an embrace standing there,
still. holding you
caressing your hair
whispering some sort of affirmation
while thinking of unvetted declarations…

Then all at once you glance back at me
and probably wonder why I’m so lost
and just where I’ve been.
And I blink like a boy caught asleep in first period.
and I smile shyly and look inside
but you’ve put up your green wall
and my soul stops dead, in its unrequited path
just passed your eyelashes and ahead of your cornea.

There seems to be life between the storms that pass, between the patches of night and rotten dreams. But if you look close enough, as if awaking from a dream, there’s a world between the string of days. Texture towards the night.

Nary a world oft seen,
That lies right in between
The waking moments
And restless sighs,
The us that does release,
That looking in those eyes
Locks the torrents in surmise,
And quakes the lost within demise,
Of fear and trepidation — flight
Sans mediation,
And love — repudiation.

Just me.
At night.

I stopped moving a block or so away and noticed a puddle on the ground, nestled on the corner alongside a high concrete curb. A building ripples with the warm breeze, swaying gently on the asphalt, while across the street life-size fuzzy cartoon characters stand idly by, their dirt and greed veiled by goofy painted smiles.

I make my way down to the one train against a flood of those just departed. “Where do you think you’re going?” Says one with his eyes. “You just missed it — what’s your hurry!?” cries one with his shoulder. I slow to barely walking letting gravity take my legs as I make my way down the short staircase. It’s hotter underground, I think and continue against the wind that burns my eyes and ears. Indeed, the dragon had just departed.

I make my way against the stragglers from the front of the train, who are obviously in no hurry, and I sit at the furthest seat on the furthest bench. I lower my head and close my eyes, because of that hot wind I had walked all this way through mostly closed lids. I hear a drummer across the way, thumping and clanking, slow yet melodious rapping against empty trash cans or paint buckets, but the beat remained fixed in a way that seemed odd, so I scanned the opposite platform across the four sets of tracks and saw a woman in grey work clothes wheeling a huge trash barrel on wheels, thumping and clinking against the grooves in the cement, thump-clink-clink and a long drag. Thump clink clink drag… (No drummer at all, just the music of work and the sounds of refuse.)

Still sitting on the bench I hear, “Because of a train derailment at 125th street…” The announcement came buzzing loudly from the ceiling, and I noticed an elderly woman next to me covering her ears, preparing for an auditory onslaught. Then I saw it. The train across the way, the downtown express, came hurtling towards us. The woman’s eyes remained fixed on the metal spirit as it launched into the air, and they shone bright against its flickering lights. Clank clank thrash! The two ton monstrosity ripped towards us making shreds of itself against intermittent metal poles like silver cheese through an industrial grater. Grumbling whirling wheeling and squealing. Flecks of metal, bits of glass are whizzing past but all I could hear was this dark and heavy drone, like a dying whale, like a mechanical sigh. Thrashing overhead, heaving itself like a lost soul expelled from centuries of oppression, that sound rained down as the train moved so slowly through the air. My eyes glued to one car in particular, one set of eyes within the car as the train moved slowly towards us, a young girl moved off her seat, through the car. Car and girl into the air. Her eyes raised and revealed no terror, just a slow and steady recognition with a mouth slightly agape.

She had on a black dress with small white patches that looked like a photo-negative of a Dalmatian’s markings or puffy clouds in a moonless midnight sky. Her dress remained still, her eyes remained fixed, full and open. Her white wire headphones swayed forward gently and she glided like an astronaut through the car towards the window.

Upon impact, a floodgate was released and everything came crashing back to tempo. All the sounds that had been muted rang out loud and hard. A squeeling descant of emergency brakes locking, vainly grabbing hold of the bits of track that it could. People screaming, on the platform in the train. And the train itself was a cacophonous symphony of destruction. Strange blasts of cold air from the cars’ air conditioning came whistling passed up and escaped like spirits through the sewer grate above.

It was like an assault. Heat and frigid air, deep drones and delirious descants, screaming and open-mouthed shock. It all came pressing against me.

…

ricocheting through time, like pinballs lost through shards of glass like stars flickering against dark soot-filled tunnel.

she — who was no longer a girl or woman but limbs and an expression of lost wonder.

blood like florescent lights surround vacant space on faces like masks of themselves, frozen in time.

These are a few of my favorite things: Writing music and putting thoughts down on paper, being onstage, dancing and even walking a dog.. the simple things in life that shouldn’t cost a thing.  One of the greatest of life’s pleasure and one of my favorite things to do is laugh.

I grew up watching Looney Tunes, Tom & Jerry, and Mickey Mouse cartoons… Fraggle Rock and Animaniacs along with the Muppet Show and Sesame Street too.  Although my humour hasn’t changed much since my early youth, my tastes have expanded for sure, and for years I’ve enjoyed the classic comedy of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton as textbook forefathers of physical comedy and I’ve always taken their amazing talents with me along the way.  Katherine Hepburn, Judy Holliday and Lucille Ball are women comediennes that have kept me laughing as well.  Their effortless command of language and punchlines are truly inspiring and totally entertaining.  It’s one of my favorite actors who has such a beautiful facility for comedy as well as drama, Cary Grant, that takes slapstick seriousness to a whole new level.  But today in particular calls for a celebration for one special lady in particular.

My first introduction to black and white comedy — yes, even before the silent clowns caught my eye — was Lucille Ball in her landmark, standout performances in “I Love Lucy.”  She had me hooked by the heartstrings and by the collar!

Happy 100th Birthday, Ms. Lucille Désirée Ball!

Thank you for the memories and the laughs :O)

While outside
Botero’s Beauties
Bask and bust
Near midday.
Chomping on chicken
With glistening faces
They wade through the heat
In gelatinous paces.

Faces so alike
(Generic genetics
Flirt dumbly with pop fashion.
They) Drift by, like the summer wind
From every direction,
Warm and indistinct.
Faces so different
(Like burnt out letters
On hotel marquees
Spelling something new)
Stand out long after
They invade your view
And subconscious.

Trash dance on sidewalks
Toying with irresponsibility.
No one seems to notice
The beautiful dance
Of myriad scattered flecks
Flying fancy free.
And no one seems to care.

Looking uptown
In the downtown traffic
The blur slows down
To a monotonous many.
And then the many fade away.
While some swagger
Some sway
Loose with lilt.

Yet limping and dragging,
One sticks out beyond the rest,
In his own world pace place and time:
Head down and forceful pointing
Talking to the “others”,
Stopping to dig in trash cans on the corner,
His head never raising above a shameful bow.
He mumbles spits and curses
In my general direction –
I reassess my tracks,
Replay my last few steps –
What did I do to offend him?

But I know better so I try to ignore him,
Pass him by and mumble something too.

Under my breath, avoiding eye contact.
No need to make friends or enemies right now.

Some look for a fight
And some look as though they’ve just come from one.
He however, in tatters of layered clothing,
Listens and waits for his psychotic drumming fool,
Where to go, what to say,
What to do, who to blame.

And whether he disappears
Or I round the corner,
Unable to hear and see his sunburnt face,
We disengage from our ricochet,
Happenstance tangents clear away,
And we live to meet another day.

For there lies always deep within
The city-folk strangers next of kin,
Like oil rigs on countrysides,
Those with leather hearts and hides,
Burnt and weathered, cracking skin,
Under many a-layered shirt,
More pained and lost than mean or curt.
Blind to us as blind to them,
Flower pistol pollen stem,
None’s the better, none’s the worse,
A city garden’s hard to prune.
But like the rising tide of glass and stone,
The whole needs the whole, not one to grow alone.