THE HOLLYWOOD RAGE PAGE

I stared at the night sky like stars were diamonds and my eyes were jeweler loupes I stared at the girl who made my heart twirl like a Duncan Imperial top I stared into the crystal ball of my wild gypsy daydreams I stared at the covers of books like they were on this season’s runway I stared at the impending animation of sculptures and paintings I stared at birds flying in formations as if they all got the memo I stared at the brief life of hand held snowflakes I stared at the technicolor dream coats of autumn trees I stared at window displays and gave voices to mannequins I stared into the whirligig wake of my past I stared into my Wild West of my future I stared at scrapbook pictures and wished I was in all of them I stared at album covers and pretended that the singers were the friends who knew me best. I stared at dogs and wished they knew my name I stared at parades that moved like never ending rivers I stared at my babysitters and whispered, “I love you.” I stared at windows, wat...

Keep the kisses That I will never return Keep the dances That I will never share Keep the ball That I will never catch Keep the hand That I will never touch Keep the songs That I will never sing Keep the babies That I will never meet Keep the tenderness That I will never feel Keep the tears That I will never brush away With the magic wand Of my finger Which will land At the feet Of my chair That sits like A broken-hearted dog Staring at the door Waiting For me to come home And then one day Release them all Like a sudden burst  of  Wedding day doves Sent  Fluttering for the heavens Where I will sit And wait For word That our love And our faith Have survived.

  I imagine that the leaves Which cling to their branches like Wigtails Who are even braver  in the stock-still snow Are the winged intubated  Who are holding on for dear life Caught in the life and breath struggle With the viral tempest That wants to erase them  from the landscape of the sky. And I imagine  hundreds of thousands of them Falling to their death Like the women of the Burning Triangle Shirtwaist Factory immigrants who screamed for their lives in the language of their Fatherland As they leaped from autumn red windows Their skirts billowing like failed parachutes As they landed on the pavement below Like shattered Schoenhut dolls  Tearing through the life nets of The rescuers who were unable to save them Who later that day carried them off to Misery Lane to be identified by Men and women Friends and family Who howled with grief  Because they were all denied a   Final kiss The touch of a soft warm hand And the chance to say goodbye.

 I spent hours yesterday reading my mom’s diary from 1940 and it was like taking the wheel of a Time Machine and eavesdropping on my 17-year-old mother.   It was meeting someone who I did not know existed.  Not like that.   She was stunningly happy, full of life with a close-knit group of friends who sat on stoops and childhood beds, gossiping and dreaming about love.  She went to the movies on Brooklyn’s Kings Highway every other day, seeing a double feature which she would review in a descriptive word or two.  She shopped for slips and girdles and the occasional pink agora mittens in Macy’s and often took my Grand mother out for “chinks” (Vernacular of the day) and ice cream sundaes. She ironed often.  Tidied up.  Fretted about passing history and all the other regents exams. (She always passed with flying colors). She fell in love over and over again with different boys like Stanley, Irving and Murray. She danced at parties, “heard” the radio, ...

Don’t vote because you have to Don’t vote because you to need to Don’t vote because it is your civil duty. Vote because you love America the way you Love your babies Your dogs Your closest friends Your Mom Your Dad And everyone else who keeps your feet Steady on the ground Vote because a man has attacked Everything that the flag stands for And burned it all to the ground Vote because despite its devastation You know it’s still there Like your God Or your heartbeat Or your dreams Or the wishes that have yet To come true But still might. Vote because you will stand in Harm’s way To protect the innocent The good The least powerful The everyday Jane and Joe Vote because from the time You were a child You pledged allegiance And you asked not what your country Could do for you But what you could do for your country Vote because people Men and women Lose life and limb every single day To make sure that your freedoms Are protected and guaranteed Vote to right the wrongs That evil men have wrou...

After a life spent repairing a heart   that has ruptured as often as a field of oil rigs in the dust bowl heat of the  summertime blues Autumn has finally arrived in  the form of a  gunslinger of some years who has just emerged from the billowing clouds Like a Texas cowboy with rusted spurs and low-slung belt past the platform of twirling parasols that from space must surely look like daffodils As he heads for his high noon showdown  At the mission  which stands in judgment  at the crossroads of tree lined Main Street whose leaves,  as red as Malbec cling to their branches like desperatos who quietly sing the verses of scripture  and wait  just like he does for the signal from the angels  to fall and return to the dust with their boots on.

I wish Sinatra was still here to sing about the lonely hearts in the wee small hours of the morning. I wish John Lennon was still here, to sing about romance and the rights of the common man. I wish Robin was still here to make my heart laugh and my soul quiver. I wish Ruth was still here to keep the hopes of women alive. I wish John Lewis was still here to be a good kind of bad. I wish my mom was still here so I could say, “I understand now.” I wish my dad was still here, to teach me more about rooting for the little guy. And I wish I didn’t have to wish to make good things come true and good people come through. But the good news is that all these wonderful people and more: the lawmakers and the lawbreakers,  the merrymakers and the heartbreakers Will never forsake me Because they are as indelible as the wind As warm as the sun As powerful as the snow And as challenging as the moon That as far as I know Despite our unimaginable distance  will never leave me.

Sometimes I’m a rose planted in the battlefield of the war torn heart Or I’m a sunflower shimmering with madness like Van Gough in Saint-Paul Or I’m a calla lily Crippled by grief whenever precious things disappear. And yet Sometimes I’m an orchid Drawn to unbearable beauty  and the fathoms of the fully ripened soul which knows full well that when the starry starry night finally arrives Despite the consensus of the asylum and the population at large I will close my petal eyes listen for the Song of the earth  and dream of endless wildflowers.

I’ve been in this war way too long Immolated by endlessness Deserted by hope Exiled to this outpost. My armor Which was meant To protect me from  Nothing more than  the unforgiving blows of my  Very worst impulses Has become flesh which makes it impossible to To feel anything anymore. And yet The sudden vision of my miles away saucer-eyed Soft as a marshmallow grandson enraptured by the fathomless mystery of An empty Amazon box Somehow manages to Pierce through  Riveted mail and plate coat Like a well-placed thrust dispersing like a downpour of dreams Into the cradle of my heart Which, when it sways Pushed by breath And the ancient memory of  My mother’s favorite lullaby Makes me want to Surrender Lay down my sword And for the first time in months, Cry.

I am in here. Hidden behind  layers of  paint  the pentimento  of this poem still longing to be seen I am in here. A message in a bottle cast into the very same sea That I used to swim in uncorked Like a pliant pollywog In between  My father’s patient bowed legs At the salty, Shell-slathered edges of a once upon a time Atlantic shoreline. I am in here. Sending out signals drawing hieroglyphics  writing in the mystical code of The carefully selected word Which are like doe-eyed dogs In a kennel  who speak in  the universal sign language of  The desperately waving tail Aching to be loved. and pleading to be taken home.

In days past Unlike the no longer here my daily commute  was aboard a most reassuring wind The kind that blew kisses to sailboats And made sheer curtains perform a secret summertime striptease. I would make my way past a battalion of trees Dressed in their army greens Who quietly sacrificed their Lives to defend my right to sadness And passed a playground Whose memories to this day I continue to plagiarize and rewrite in order to tell the story of my mom Who always smelled like the exhale of roses And hemorrhaged from her thorns And my dad Who discovered early on That despite his outsized fears It was the little things in life That brought him comfort like the cordiality of chestnuts And the succulence of peaches slurped over a sink. The wind carried me faithfully Right on schedule Right on time. For years. For always. Past incidences and landmarks And towering monuments of regret. Until now. For despite its infallibility The wind has forsaken me And left me here in quarantin...

The curvy ramble With its fallen infantry of leaves Lit by the epitaph of the sun Does not lead me forward. Every step, Orchestrated by the final gasp of A snapping twig, Escorts me back... To my mom, Waltzing with her  Carpet sweeper partner Singing with Sinatra Who crooned directly to her   From the cathedral radio of her  Bobby Soxer heart Still dreaming of kisses to come Despite the sadness  That raged through her veins Like an uncontainable prairie wildfire. To my dad, Slapped silly by Skin Bracer And the slow death hours of a Salesman Sneaking Chuckles Like the boy he secretly wished He could be again Behind the citadel of an afternoon newspaper As he sank into the mother arms of his chair Whose cushion had Memorialized his head  Like the hand and shoe imprints at Graumman’s Chinese Theater. The moments that come to me Are like that battlefield of leaves  That lie along with the ramble By the thousands when they were still  Fresh recruits  s...

The sun is distant But I feel the warmth of its skin The stars are unreachable But I see the light in their eyes The moon cannot hold me But I am counseled by its tides Music fades away But I can still hear every song  The air is invisible But it’s as pungent as Slapped on aftershave And it swells my heart  Like a party balloon And it makes me feel safe Especially on these days that are as dark and terrifying as  The shadow world of the nighttime nursery Where I used to cry out your name Because Sleep always felt  like certain death And you always  always  came As if from outer space Armed with a smile which was The absolute currency Of the resolute salesman who Had something very real to sell.

Are the frozen people In my family photo album like the one snapped by my Uncle Raymond during the war, of a freshly immolated Japanese soldier barbecued by the business-end of a flame-thrower in some south pacific island trench which appears right next to a picture of me blowing out my 4 th birthday cake candles and another of my bare-chested dad flipping burgers at the beach. Which,  perhaps subconsciously, created a theme featuring all the different fires that sooner or later had to be put out. My feelings are every single Girl and woman who I have ever loved And still do The one that I did the Mexican Hat Dance with While sporting a wind taunting paper sombrero on Cinco De Mayo The one who accepted my i.d. bracelet at The World’s Fair And flaunted it like it was an engagement ring, The one whose bra I unhooked Like I was defusing an Iraqi road bomb Until her boob finally sprung free and wiggled Like a Jello mold ...