AlL AbOuT Me…!!!

Cat stands at the fridge,
Cries loudly for milk.
But I’ve filled her bowl.
Wild cat, I say, Sister,
Look, you have milk.
I clink my fingernail
Against the rim. Milk.
With down and liver,
A word I know she hears.
Her sad miaow. She runs
To me. She dips
In her whiskers but
Doesn’t drink. As sometimes
I want the light on
When it is on. Or when
I saw the woman walking
toward my house and
I thought there’s Frances.
Then looked in the car mirror
To be sure. She stalks
The room. She wants. Milk
Beyond milk. World beyond
This one, she cries.

No radio
in car

No radio on board

No radio
Already stolen

Absolutely no radio!

Radio broken
Alarm is set
To go off

No radio
No money

No radio
no valuables

No radio or
valuables
in car or trunk

No radio
Stolen 3X

No radio
Empty trunk
Empty glove compartment
Honest

In car
Nothing of value

No radio
No nuthin
(no kidding)

Radio Broken
Nothing Left!

Radio Gone
Note Hole in Dashboard

Warning!
Radio Will Not Play
When Removed
Security Code Required

Would you keep
Anything valuable
In this wreck?

No valuables
In this van

Please do not
Break-in
Unnecessarily

Thank you
For your kind
Consideration

Nothing of value
in car
No radio
No tapes
No telephone

Some of what we do, we do
to make things happen,
the alarm to wake us up, the coffee to perc,
the car to start.

The rest of what we do, we do
trying to keep something from doing something,
the skin from aging, the hoe from rusting,
the truth from getting out.

With yes and no like the poles of a battery
powering our passage through the days,
we move, as we call it, forward,
wanting to be wanted,
wanting not to lose the rain forest,
wanting the water to boil,
wanting not to have cancer,
wanting to be home by dark,
wanting not to run out of gas,

as each of us wants the other
watching at the end,
as both want not to leave the other alone,
as wanting to love beyond this meat and bone,
we gaze across breakfast and pretend.

He’s had the chest pains for weeks,
but doctors don’t make house
calls to the North Pole,

he’s let his Blue Cross lapse,
blood tests make him faint,
hospital gown always flap

open, waiting rooms upset
his stomach, and it’s only
indigestion anyway, he thinks,

until, feeding the reindeer,
he feels as if a monster fist
has grabbed his heart and won’t

stop squeezing. He can’t
breathe, and the beautiful white
world he loves goes black,

and he drops on his jelly belly
in the snow and Mrs. Claus
tears out of the toy factory

wailing, and the elves wring
their little hands, and Rudolph’s
nose blinks like a sad ambulance

light, and in a tract house
in Houston, Texas, I’m 8,
telling my mom that stupid

kids at school say Santa’s a big
fake, and she sits with me
on our purple-flowered couch,

and takes my hand, tears
in her throat, the terrible
news rising in her eyes.

Two years hence. When I’m ready.
After one more set of poems
about my beautiful confusion.
After I’ve read Anna Karenina
and Don Quixote
and the first volume at least of Proust
and one big novel by Thomas Mann—
say three years. Three years hence:

after I’ve written an essay about the word "enough"
and after I’ve done something so delectable
weaving together phrases from Henry James and Bob Dylan
and after I’ve written an amazing meditation on Luis Buñuel
and after I’ve spent a month in Frankfort, Michigan
being very real and thoughtful and full of perspective
and fresh cherry pie
then—
then—

in four years at the most—
I see it there ahead of me casting a silver shadow
back upon me now, bathing me in its promise,
validating the self that will arrive at it
in four years or less (maybe just two years?)…
Glimpsing it there is sometimes like already living it
almost and feeling justifiably proud.
Water pollution and toxic waste and air pollution;
the poverty of black people in my city;
the nuclear arms industry; in my moral life these things
are not just TV, they push my poems to the edge of my desk,
they push Henry James into a sweet corner,
they pull me to meetings and rallies and marches
and meetings and rallies and marches.
There I am in a raincoat on the steps of City Hall
disappointed by the turnout but speaking firmly
into the local news microphone about the issue,
the grim issue.
When I’m ready.
Four years from today!
Silver shadow

Somehow it got into my room.
I found it, and it was, naturally, trapped.
It was nothing more than a frightened animal.
Since than I raised it up.
I kept it for myself, kept it in my room,
kept it for its own good.
I named the animal, My Life.
I found food for it and fed it with my bare hands.
I let it into my bed, let it breathe in my sleep.
And the animal, in my love, my constant care,
grew up to be strong, and capable of many clever tricks.
One day, quite recently,
I was running my hand over the animal’s side
and I came to understand
that it could very easily kill me.
I realized, further, that it would kill me.
This is why it exists, why I raised it.
Since then I have not known what to do.
I stopped feeding it,
only to find that its growth
has nothing to do with food.
I stopped cleaning it
and found that it cleans itself.
I stopped singing it to sleep
and found that it falls asleep faster without my song.
I don’t know what to do.
I no longer make My Life do tricks.
I leave the animal alone
and, for now, it leaves me alone, too.
I have nothing to say, nothing to do.
Between My Life and me,
a silence is coming.
Together, we will not get through this.

The Internet is more than a cooperation of computers. It’s a cooperation between people. And where people meet, even anonymously, it seems that Romance and Love will enter the equation as well. If you’re like me, you probably think falling in love over a modem is unusual and perhaps even rare. But, like me, you would be wrong. Perhaps the very nature of a web site devoted to poetry brings these couples to the fore, but I have been amazed at the number of people I’ve met through Passions that have found their significant other on-line. Some have met through email, some through chat or forums, some through personal ads. All have found a connection, that elusive thing that binds them to another human being.

Some people think of Teen Love and smile. It’s not real love, they say. Puppy Love, they call it. Those people, I think, have very short memories, and no longer recall the realities of their first love experiences. While few expect teen love to last a lifetime, that hardly makes it less real. Half or more of all adult love doesn’t last a lifetime either.

Teen love is very real. And powerful. Perhaps at no other time in our lives are the joys and pains felt as strongly, or experienced more deeply. Who among us, after all, can ever forget our first love?

When you start to feel lonely- and a little blue
Just think of those words- I've whispered to you.
Lips pressed gently- against your ear
\"I Love You\" escapes- for you to hear.
	
When you feel sadness- and thoughts start to change
Remember our dreams- that we hope to arrange.
When you're laying in bed- and just can't sleep
Feel my Heart- it's yours to keep.
	
Remember the smiles- and what they're about
Just focus on \"Fact\"... whenever in doubt.
Anything else- is simply not real
Listen to your heart- it hears how I feel.
	
And if you get tempted- and start debating
Be reminded again- for YOU... I am waiting.
When thoughts run wild- and you start to wonder
The sun always shines- after all the thunder.
	
And when it gets hard- and you want to give in
Despite all opponents- Love CAN win  ; )
Hold your head high- feel the Rain through the Drought
Remember my Love... whenever in doubt.

We started off as friends
Not the best we could be
My heart would’ve been easy to mend
But you just had to like me

After we made it known
You and I were one as two
A light from heaven shown
And I knew I loved only you

I waited too long to tell you
‘Cause now it’s too late
You broke my heart in two
But I guess that’s just fate

Weeks after that day
I told you my true feelings
And now all you can say
Is absolutely nothing

You tell me now from the heart
That you weren’t completely honest with me
You should’ve told me from the start
You were in love with her, and we could never be

We don’t talk as much as we used to
And now, since you know I will never love anyone
As much as I’ve loved you
You let the world know… I was just a fling

I know in your life I will never take part
But as long as I live
From deep down in my heart
I will always love only you