Category Archives: story

when life imitates art~

In the little known gallery,
I smiled and surprised him into watching me as
I watched him work,

The exciting little things he did for me,
when he finger-painted my belly like an early
Jackson Pollock.
Showering me with volatile reds, blues
that swirled and wrapped around my naked back
like lava
or glacier rivers when his hands were cold.

The words he said,
when we talked in tongues on an Austrian balcony
and the stars were hiding
from the excitement, the fear, and
the thought of flight back home, that blue period
when night dissipates to light.

He captured
the flame from my bedside candle in his arms
wrapped it ‘round my shoulders and sketched in the details.
Those fine lines of
late nights and stiff drinks
leaving their lasting mark.

Somehow it happened that
we can no longer stand to stand apart
and I must have him so
to see my belly rise and fall,
and he must have me to complete his vision
of what it means to be famous.

the ex-stripper

in the bathroom of the dirty bar,
she hits up a line,
that white dust, like angel wings ground up,

sniffing she walks to the bar skinny,
her usual red wine glass,
so plum and rich, waiting patiently,
her confidante, her lover,

god the music is fast,
the wine is sharp and biting, fast,
the drumming bass beats,
her heart beats hard, fast,

somehow she’s up in front now,
tossing hips and long hair,
feeling her tits, thighs,
swirling down and up, a kick,
wearing platform stiletto heels,

the bearded men drink their Budweiser cans,
the leather jackets talk of riding,
their attention turns to her, a long minute,
then,
back to Harleys, football,
silent tackles on the five TV screens,
a Monday night tradition,
they’ve seen her all before,

she tastes the wine on her lips, speaking fast, to no one,
“i’m twenty, and
undiscovered, washed under,
drowned”
she whispers more, feet tapping,
hips swaying,

they always let her down in the morning,
such a fall,
always that big empty hallow hole,
skinny arms and legs tangled alone,
the halo tossed careless by the bed,
next to the padded bra, red thong,
wings in tatters on the bathroom floor,
broken wine glass spilling red,

next night the white line ready,
waiting patiently,

Gemini

Written right after college, after my introduction to the corporate world. I did have some terrible insomnia then due in part to my friends who played some great music late at night. And well, we all know us Geminis have those split personalities…BTW, check out Susan Miller (astrology zone) if you are into horoscopes.

Gemini

I have The Verve on headphones
and a bottle of tap water
dressed as Evian
and a loose fitting cardigan that
might be my mother’s. My daylight
look is un-glamour. My smile is wide.
My corporate mind works only hard enough
to avoid boredom. I see
my outlook as partly sunny considering
these co-workers who laugh
and schedule happy hour drinks.

Days turn to nights;
I carry on with my
habitual insomnia.

I have two crinkled dollars
in cobblestone Fells and
wonder what
dark fishnet freaks think of me. One time
they yelled prophetically,
“where you going?” and I didn’t reply.
Yet, I hear the night crickets
and I chirp with them to the Horse
for a surreal scene of bebop cool; an
irrational scene of lost legs
doomed to be tired in the morning
but glad for it.

In star-read, tousled dreams,
we discover the meaning
inherent in the two.

heroin overdose

He wanted.

One more hit and he would
nod off into that euphoric world
of soft cool skin,
lazy limbs,
unconcerned, untouchable,
free of the sin of the world.

An ephemeral release.

Then the roar,
the low tide like the darkest pit of hell – burning and clawing
and depression so intense it sucks the breath straight
from his heaving lungs.
Where are they now while he shakes skinny in the corner;
are they scared to talk about dying?

The streets aren’t;
their asphalt teeth vomit up the junk he needs.
Only the old get older and suffer longer – not him.

He is immediate gratification; a take when you can, while you can.
It is about what they will never understand –
everyone is trying to escape.
just the methods are different.

He wanted more and got it.
He wanted peace and got that too.

We’re still scared to talk about dying. We run and run and run.

(to mike. r.i.p.)

Inheritance

After dinner, by candlelight,
in a bed chilled by October,
reading Silver Threads
by Alice B. Johnson, my great-granddaughter fingers
turn aged pages, and
my eyes drink in words
that taste so familiar.

Is it possible to know
someone who is only a line on a family tree, shadows and
browned pages of poetry,
and Swedish recipes,
and memories from those who are also gone?

I put the thin book on my bedside table,
beside my cell phone,
and a plate of Florence and my
grandfather’s old pocket knife,
and my matches.

From the pages, an inheritance check slips out.

Oh God, I would give it all up!
Just to witness the writing of those threads, the
revisions, and better yet,
the inspirations.

Give it all up just
to hear her daughter explain,
in a warm kitchen,
her version of her mother’s poems.

I blow out the candles, and realize,
with one quick verse,
the past lives on. It is breathing in words
of mothers, daughters,
and home. Will another one find these
so familiar when I’m gone?

North Platte

I wrote this in a motel room very late (or early in the morning) after a long day of driving across Nebraska (towards the end of a cross country road trip with 3 college friends). We had arrived in North Platte in the middle of a great thunderstorm, lightning striking everywhere and tornado warnings on the radio (sadly my friends would not let me chase them). The hallways of the motel resembled a scene in The Shining, and I think all the traveling had really started affecting my brain – especially since I had left MD weeks earlier knowing that I would never see my great aunt ever again (she died of cancer just a few days into the trip). So was born the following….

North Platte

My stomach knots
and this hotel room smells familiar
and my clothes for tomorrow
will be the same as a few days ago
and my big thrill at two in the morning
will be brushing my teeth and showering.

I have the comfort of not caring—
outside the wind stops
and the moon slowly dissolves into shadows
and a mountain lion slips across an asphalt road
staring at the headlights of an intrusive car.

My friends will travel out in the morning,
but I will have slipped away,
Finding a way to grow a flower
in a littered empty coffee cup,
Kicking desert dust up under flip flops
Running towards away,
away to oblivion,
Taillights dimming around a curve
and my friends forgetting to wave goodbye.

Somehow in the dark
I can see my past clearly like my great aunt’s eyes
that stare from the coming sunbeams
and the white clouds and the dark clouds that
flash streaks of splitting lightning
and I grow older and older.

Just yesterday I was a fire ant
marching beside our tent
by the side of some Colorado river and cliffs
in some Colorado valley
where an old fashioned cowboy’s voice sang modern country
to a fading full moon
and ranch workers drunk around a bonfire
who went to sleep sometime.

My friends sleep—they breathe in and out
like the stale hotel room is alive.
But me, I am spitting up blood until dawn
till there’s no more left and I can look forward
to being the skyscrapers of bright city skylines
and the sharp cliffs of national parks.
Tomorrow you’ll hear my relief
exhale across the plains.

my grandfather’s amazing life

Ok, so this is not a poem (it’s technically from the obit that I helped my uncle edit). But, I feel like posting it anyhow. I just want the whole world to get a small taste of what I’m trying to live up to….////

Charles (Chuck) F. Burrows was born August 15, 1915 in Cleveland, Ohio, to his parents Ethel M. and Harry O. Burrows of Shaker Heights. He graduated from Case Institute of Technology in Cleveland with a BS in Metallurgical Engineering in 1937 and a Masters Degree in Metallurgical Engineering in 1939. He was a member of the Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity.

Thanks to a fortuitous trip to Baltimore, Chuck found the Glenn L Martin Company. The rapidly growing aircraft company was seeking young engineers and offered to hire Chuck on the spot. He started work there in December 1939 and watched the company grow to over 50,000 employees during the war and then downsize to 600 before he retired. Chuck spent a combined total of 45 years with the Martin Company, most of which was spent in the AMT (Advanced Manufacturing Lab). He retired from what was then called Martin Marietta in 1984.

During part of his career with the Glenn L. Martin Company, he worked at the Omaha, Nebraska plant from 1941-1945. There he worked on the Enola Gay, the B-29 Bomber that dropped the first atomic bomb during WWII. He led a team to structurally test the bomb carrier assembly on the plane and had no idea at the time it was for an atomic bomb. At one point, he almost lost his life when a window exploded out of a B-29 during a pressure test, missing him by inches.

One of Chuck’s most notable achievements was the Granting of Patent for the Martin Hard Coating Process, which is still in use today.

Martin Hard Coating is a non-metallic oxide resistant coating applied to aluminum, which provides exceptional corrosion wear resistance. An excellent example of this technology can be found today in Analon Cookware. Chuck’s expertise in metal finishing techniques was world renowned and this was only one of many patents he was responsible for during his career as a metallurgist. Chuck was an avid member of and lecturer with the American Welding Society.

In the late 1950’s, Chuck started his own business, Metal Finishers, Inc., on Franklintown Road in Baltimore. His company was the first Alcoa-Certified, Martin Hard Coating licensee in Baltimore. The business grew to about 50 employees before aggressive union tactics eventually forced him out of business. With partner Bernie Bandelin, another metallurgist who worked and retired from Martin Marietta, Chuck also started B&B Services, a metals joining and consulting service.

Chuck owned his own airplane for many years, a 1940’s Ercoupe, which he flew all over the country. He had plenty of hair raising stories to tell of landing in corn fields, leaking fuel tanks, and flying without instrumentation. But this was before meeting the love of his life Florence, who gave him an ultimatum: her or the airplane…. Chuck chose wisely, and he and Flo were happily married for over 58 years.

Another major aspect of Chuck’s life was his passion for sports, in particular ice hockey and skating. He was on an ice hockey team destined for the 1940 Winter Olympics in Sapporo Japan; however, these games were cancelled due to the onset of World War II. Tough as nails, he had a hard slap shot and even stitched himself up on the sidelines in order to finish the game.

Chuck was an avid bowler in one of the oldest established men’s leagues in the country, the Drug Trade. He bowled over 50 years in that same league, with 20 of those years shared with his youngest son, Rick. Golf and tennis were other passions. He played as often as he could, especially after he retired. Chuck had an excellent short game, always giving friends and family a fit.

An active Shiner, Chuck was a member of the Waverly Lodge and a longtime member of the Boumi Temple Harem. He most often paraded in full Harem Costume. He and Flo attended all sorts of functions with the Shrine: dances, the famous Shrine Circus, and of course, the wild Shrine Conventions. Many longtime friends were made in the shrine.

Vacations with the family were cherished events that took place every summer starting out in Ocean City Maryland and eventually moving to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Playing with his grandchildren, golfing with the boys, playing horseshoes on the beach, relaxing with a newspaper, and going out to eat were Chuck’s favorite pastimes.

During his retirement, Chuck spent many hours building various woodworking projects that he enjoyed giving away at Christmas time. The family displays them proudly. He and Flo were also active members of St. Timothy’s Lutheran Church for over 50 years.

Remembering Spring Break 2002

South of the Border coffee
during the bleary night time morning, we
lost a bumper along 95
and sped our way like fast and furious
rebel riders. We were,
with walkie talkies, heading
to spring break.

Salty breezes
and some fat keyboardist with
fuzzy beard peppered gray
singing political satire and no one cared.
Dane, you, and I were
sitting sipping ritas in sloppy golden
honey sunshine famous in Key West.

Cool night, we
drank grain alcohol from odd angles
for prized smiles of being cool amongst
all our shiny beaded friends.
Your naked moments won us
a free frozen drink koozie
and jet ski ride we never took.

Long hours after the karaoke,
you and Sush found a credit card and brought home cold waffles at 5 am.
I sat in the trailer writing frantically, high on caffeine pills and palm tree fingers:

the blurry street lines, the charcoal miles, the hot rum, the mac and cheese, the seafood buffet, the southern girls, the scooter scars, the trailer smell, the Chicago gospel, the Hemingway cats, the frantic hunger, the ephemeral buzz….

Your car gasped for air when the week ended but there was none;
we were overheated, belly-up fish in Miami rush hour.

Sunburn behind and
and dark interstate miles ahead,
we sat on the dented hood.
Our sweaty hungry friends
waving at prudish traffic
a “honk if you’re horny” sign,
reminiscing and waiting to move on.

(r.i.p. Sekula 2003)

Sip n Bite

While I should be job searching, instead I’ve been reading back through a lot of my old writing. It is an interesting journey. Almost like reading someone else’s diary (were those really my words? did I dream those things or live them or a combination of the two?). For those who don’t know me, I used to be a bit of a “night crawler” … Late nights live music drinks friends who also couldn’t sleep like me… There are many under this category. Here is just one, more to come.

Sip n Bite

Florescent haze on our
two booths with an aisle between
the seats dressed in
that scrappy orange color
famous in diners at 3am.

You breeze
through the door and effortless
slide into the booth across
from our crowded one,
and instantly the waitress
with the long dark ponytail
and chocolate brown sweat suit
divines that you want coffee.

What else
does she know? Does she know
I want to sit over
next to you
and stroke the tan corduroy covering
your legs?

Seems not.
She is dealing with the drunks at the
counter, one a dirty-minded man
in a sweater of wine, whispering
in a public voice
his intentions for her.

Eggs arrive that match
the florescent pale that has seeped
into my eyes and hair.

We nibble on our separate islands
and reminisce the night across the
sullen pale tiles. Our words
make sense in this insipid lighting, at this
domestic breakfast
Rockwell would have understood
had he enjoyed Fells Point as much
as us.

Leaned back, full, I see you freely gaze
at my collarbone in the comfort of your sunglasses.
It sends a shudder
racing through the blues of my veins.

The Goodbye Party (John Mackey of the Baltimore Colts)

The Goodbye Party

While some were swirling drunk on the dance floor,
Holly cried goodbyes into
empty beer bottles and tipped wine glasses, and
half-eaten cake,
some smeared on her jeans.
She was in disbelief of
such a dreamy move to Key Largo
and
John Mackey of the old Baltimore Colts was
signing autographs.

The song was “Satisfaction” and Ron
clutched and gasped like Jagger back then
and sang it from the floor dirty.
He didn’t care.
He had already slid across it with Coco and Sylvia in a dance
that seemed primitive and animal and
private except for obstinate clothes. We were all watching mouths open.
It was really just another exhibition. He had already swung across the rafters just to make the crowd go “Oooh” like
I imagine all the young girls said when he was
twenty-three.

Holly grabbed the microphone. Over the hip hop,
she cried “Thank you, oh, i love you” to those
still hot jiving on the dance floor, fast and boogie feet,
and holding each other up with hugs and clapping for Holly.
She didn’t think about the move,
only the flashing moment,
the blood bursting in the arteries of her heart from the heat of it.

Ron slow danced alone
and friends thought to steal his keys.
Holly slurred more goodbyes to the scattering crowd of ten.
They would miss her in the morning,
after the hangover and back in the reality of it all.

John yelled “Touchdown”—
his Alzheimer’s making the tavern seem unfamiliar
and the field
much closer and more brilliant.