Process


Crickets beckon the dawdling Fall.
Ripe tomatoes, bursting, beg picking.
Cool night and blankets. . .
   the heat of summer's rage is past.

But,
out of sync, as ever,
  the spring of my reawakening wanes
 under the glare of 
   burning vernal anger
and endless tears can't sate
the desert of my soul.

Yet,  still the crickets call
While fat tomatoes plop,
  fly-festering, to the ground,
And cool nights do nothing for my rage.


Untitled 

Poised on the brink
   trapped in a forever
  grey of
    NOW
       between
            WAS and YET-TO-BE . . .
I hesitate. . .
  The YET-TO-BE
     with its parameters still untested
beckons me with promises
I weigh so carefull
against its
unfamiliarity.
   What WAS
 with all its pain,
offers the tempting comfort of 
the known. . .
   I hesitate. . .
  swamped in the mire
    of day to day details;
contented with. . .NO
  reconciled to,
    the grey sameness of my fear.




Facades

It's midnight.
I drive through the town,
from nowhere to nowhere,
past houses--
windows dark, doors locked,
fresh-painted fronts,
well-tended lawn--
happy families must live there
I think.

It's midnight.
Cars drive through the town
from here to everywhere,
past my house--
windows dark, doors locked,
fresh-painted front,
well-tended lawn--
how can they guess
the sorrow that's within.




You Think You Have Problems--
There are People Starving. . .


To Janie Deem

Poor thing,
are you hurt?
Here's some cookies and milk
to make it all better.
Another box of cookies, please,
some more ice cream. . .
anything to 
satisfy the gnawing hunger
within;
body overfed
my spirit starves.
Cases of cookies can't fill the
abysmal nothingness
inside
and others' eyes can't see past
fat
to where
the bones are sticking out
in my soul.



Untitled


I am a baby in my crib
crying
I'm cold, I'm lonely
Hold me, love me. . .
and you give me a bottle.

I am a child, locked in my room,
crying
I'm hurt, I'm lonely,
Hold me, love. . .
and you give me cookies.

I am a adolescent, imprisoned in my fears
crying
I'm afraid, I'm lonely,
Hold me, love. . .
and you give me pizza and the TV Guide.

I am a woman, trapped in self
crying
I'm lost, I'm lonely
Hold me, love me. . .
and it's too late.



To the LDS* Relief Society


It would be less
humiliating 
to be a whore
than
it is to depend upon the
"Charity that never faileth".
At least a 
whore
doesn't have to love
the people who 
screw her.



Lion Tamer

March 1989

They found her lying in a pool of
her own blood.
I guess even the best of us slips
eventually.
Maybe she just got tired.
All those years of living caged
with the lions,
cracking her whip to make them
jump through hoops for an
indifferent audience. . .
smiling when she should,
laughing when she should. . .
had gotten to be too much.

The coroner says she took her life,
but I know she was 
torn apart by her lions.


Untitled

Caged
Trapped
Imprisoned
Insubstantial words to describe
agony of Self
pacing within
seeking exit . . .
  to be realized
actualized
  integrated
whole
  at one . . .
	to be