A little over two years ago I had the wild experience of falling head over heels for a man outside my marriage. It brought up a lot of uncomfortable feelings because of the depth of connection this person and I discovered. I had a lot of therapy at the time, and used writing as a way to process my feelings about it. I took a poetry class from a Jungian poet, in which these poems just flowed from my consciousness. I feel like I want to share them because I think they capture the essence of the summer of '69, but 50 years later! I had written a little bit of erotica before that in the form of my first novel, which fewer than two dozen people have read (to my knowledge). I previewed it here for NaNoWrimo in 2018, and then took it down while I figure out what to do with it. For some reason I am surrounded by erotica writers, so I guess that helps me feel more comfortable sharing these things. I am a human being, and these are things I really felt and experienced.
*****
777
I imagine our bodies together
As a topological problem
Solvable only in space time
Problems of rings, fingers and seeds
For this world, but not the next
Passion is borne like wild chipmunks
And triplet sevens
We come together and apart
*****
OFF THE RECORD
If I ran for President
It would be on a platform of rest
I would give corporations tax breaks
For moving to a four day workweek
And the government would do so, too
Because it seems to me
The origin of toxic masculinity in this country
Was in Jamestown
When an enterprising group of unitasking men
Established a mindless colony
Near brackish water
To send money back
To a monarch
Who saw their bones as fodder for his empire
And nearly all of them died
The first winter
Except the ones who weren’t too shy
To eat the others
Off the record
If I ran for President
It would be on a platform of rest
The descendants of these men
And the ones they conquered
Would get to own 1/7th more of their breath
Giving them more oxygen
To nourish their gasping, struggling
Lungs and hearts
One more day to love
One more day to appreciate
The people and things for which they believe they toil
Giving them time to stay strong
To fight illness
And greed
And corruption in their own minds
Off the record
If I ran for President
It would be on a platform of rest
It would give the caregivers
Regardless of gender orientation
A day to care for themselves
A day to sleep in
A day to let the dishes sit
A day to enjoy their dogs and cats
A day to find that thing that was missing
A day to enjoy silence
A day to remember why life was once worth living
A day to notice
A day to dream
A day to connect
With themselves
Off the record
If I ran for President
It would be on a platform of rest
It would give the children
Time to question
Rather than be questioned
It would give them time to learn
That life doesn’t have to be a giant
Structured competition
It would give them time
To color outside the lines
And make silly videos
And run
And laugh
And yell
And learn to love themselves
So they can love others
Off the record
If I ran for President
It would be on a platform of rest
It would give the precious Earth
One less day of auto emissions
And packaged food
One less day of documentation
Of manufacturing
Of consumption
A day for planting
A day for exchanging
Carbon dioxide for oxygen
A day for birdsong
And flowers
And trees
Just one day
Off the record
If I ran for President
*****
WEED WHACKER
Weed whacker
Weed whacker
You're thinking about
The wrong kind of weed
Sagan and I
Never disagreed
Wrong kind of
Mars rover
Thumbs
River
Blowouts Space-X
Blow this joint
Google Search
Pseudorandom
Oppenheimer
Breathe
Sense is no more
There is only breath
*****
TIRED
What do you do
When everyone around you
Is suffering so
And the things they
Deal with daily
Just to earn the air to breathe
Are a waste of life
Hoops
Hoops
Hoops
Everyone is jumping
Everyone is jumping
Together while
Just a few swing the rope
Those kids for their own fun
Change the rules
Just because
Why not
It's so fun to see us jump
And do our funny
Little tricks
We'll postpone this
Add a form to that
And move up that due date
Because hockey stick graphs
Rely on bone meal
So make lots of love
So we can make lots of war
Here soldier
It's your turn
To hold the rope
*****
BREVITY
You bring the air
Or inner space
In this world
Or the next
Or tomorrow or yesterday
Or maybe even Friday
I hear that’s when you’re in love
Hey, maybe while we’re at it
Working for something
Bigger than US
(But honestly, what’s
Bigger than US?)
We could augment the
Amount of work
And play
Ideally making our play
Our work
Or for those who are still
Finding their bliss
Giving them time to
Do so
Because like that girl
In Sweden (?)
Says
Friday should be
For love
And co-creation
Is love
Because that, like I said
Is why we’re here
To love and be loved
In hallways
And closets
And texts
And hotels
And on the street
And in the boardroom
And around the dinner table
We are love
Pulling the sun across the sky
Is easier
With your help
Dear Brother
They say that brevity
Is the soul of wit
But I have lost
My ego
*****
LOVE, SOPHIA
Why give away something
You’ll never get in return?
These words haunt me
As I hold my
Four Pentacles
The ones I was so eager
To part with
Just a few months ago
As I poured my cups
Eagerly
All over the ground
You asked, earnestly
Standing there
Bodies and backpacks
Sliding down the hall
Past
The pain etched on your
Swelling heart
And in that moment
I knew that you knew
From the cracks
Filled with gold
That there is magic
In selflessness
But did you?
Maybe not in that instant
Beaten down by
Paper grading
Traumatized students
Landlords
Property sales
Missed embraces
Soul threatening
To check out
Forever
Nobody to
Hold it in with you
To give you clean water
As you poured yours
On the floor, too
I watched it
Flow past
My new white sneakers
Keeping them clean
Is impractical
In this world
Something - me or we
Scared you into retreat
With this much light
Would come the dark
Which we had yet
To master
Just like a lizard
Scurries under a
Cool rock
To avoid
Desiccation
From the sun
And I understand, because
Making gold involves
Aching swollen eyeballs
Snot on my trembling upper lip
Drawing tarot more
Than twice a week
Which is apparently
The energetic
Equivalent
Of whoring myself
For the figment
Of a perfect memory
But Kronos, I tell you
It was all worth it
To show you
That your black matrix
Makes lizards
Who rule the world
With their
Cell phones in the 80’s
Second homes
Obsession with safety
In numbers
Theft from the future
And hatred
Of pansies like me
Hockey stick graphs
The shape perfect
For whipping you
Into worshipping
With your breath
And days
False idols
To justify existence
And these are dangerous words, they say
Mustard seeds
They urge me
They worry of the demiurg
They say I’ll unwittingly release it
But have I in just typing this?
Or was it Zuckerburg
Sophia is naughty
But not the Vegas kind
Just the Vegas goddess kind
Burning by the pool in
A bikini
Finding her inner Isis
She’s a terrible
Secret keeper
You should know this by now
I miss you
Even though or especially because I am a portal
To the eighth dimension
And a little bit of a
Know-it-all
Eating up symbols
Clouds
Cats
Ants
Labyrinths
Ladders
You said 52 weeks to
The eighth dimension
But only a woman like me
Can blow your mind
In just 8 weeks
Like this
But time is your illusion
Dear Brother
I commune with the dead
Protected by the spirit of
My Grandmother Kerouac
Who drank herself to death
Cases of vodka
Replacing the herb
That grew
Between friends
When she was my age
Leary
The OG Spacecat
And Gabriel or a Space Alien
Does it matter
If I believe?
No says my therapist
A perfect mirror
Sent by my guides
Shown the truth at fourteen
After a bicycle accident
Just a rock in the road
At 10th and Madison
On my way to a
Soccer game
With my girlfriend
The one who messed
Around in the closet
With me and first showed
Me about portals
How fitting that
The preacher’s daughter
Would show me God
With her fingers
And mine
Making friendship pins
And selling them
To the downtown
Downtrodden
As they exited the bus
And not the preacher
Himself
Hey, last night was great
Neptune and I
Bodies entangled for the
Umpteeth time
So much pain
In 25 years we’re
Almost entirely gold
Still learning new things
About what Divine Union
Really means
Finding it in tenderness
In caress
Rather than
Red marks
And shoulder injuris
Finding delight in my voice
Now returned
The sound
He also yearned for
Amplifying love by meditating
In bliss
Surrounded by tantric spirit
Seems like you got there
Alone
But I felt your
Velvet touch underground
On my alabaster curves
I never got around to reading Passages
Much to the disappointment
Of my writer friends
Books give me their secrets
In stolen moments when
I come in gratitude
In short sweet drips
You were right
The answers were
Inside not outside
The whole time
Released with a little
Absinthe or weed
Breath and bliss
Time with the cosmos
Within
And so, when you told me
You weren’t that smart
I knew that was bullshit
Because humility is the
Ultimate wisdom
And I see how
Compliments make you
Squirm
As an oyster
Holding your pearl
Inside
A Philosopher’s Stone
Because we conflated
Self-worth
Slowing down
Appreciating our bodies
Through sight in light and dark
Sound and silence
Scent in crevices and bottles
Touch of smooth and coarse
Taste of salty and sweet
With the black hole of narcissism
Which threatens to pull us
Into the void again
But yeah it’s all about validation
Like you said
And I knew like you knew
Spreading light comes
From finding it within
Through patience
With mindless chaos
And solitude
Amongst the screams
And gratitude
For the subtle
And that validation
Comes from carefully
And gratefully
Noticing all the ways
We are loved by
The Universe’s
Dirty imperfection
Dear Brother
Please understand that
Your matrix is not bad
It’s just that it should be
To serve us
Rather than enslave us
Because we are
Divine
Meet me in outer space
I’ll bring the water
*****
I WANT TO BELIEVE
I want to believe
That there is a place where the
Earth meets the sky
Will you meet me there?
*****
WHOOSH
Like a therapy ball
Held down in the deep end
I am released
-Team Barbara
*****
DEAR WINSTON
My black dog has three heads
Each tipping an ear upward
Awaiting my
Every word and deed
Water, walk, food
Alas none of them ever
Share their thoughts on the matter
Be they thirsty, eager, hungry,
Alone, isolated, empty
But I can tell they like what they get
From their constant proximity
The whooshing wags
The rumble of snoring
But I’d be a fool
To believe they wouldn’t
Follow the scent
Of someone else’s
Steak
Neptune laps up water like there’s not enough rain
I fill his bowl
From a big plastic pitcher
Splashing as he watches
Barely feigning patience
But he is parched like
The sun burnt it out of him
Like he was locked out
In mid-August
When the A/C was broken anyway
And the ocean itself
Though it has threatened to take us
Miles and miles
Without air
To the bottom
Wouldn’t suffice
Hades needs constant walking
Whether the pavement is hot
Our feet blistered
Sweat stinging my eyes
His tongue lolling
Or covered in slick ice
Our toes frozen
My glasses fogged
Nose hairs become little switches
No matter how long the walk
Down the busy road
To the store
Or up the well worn trail
Toward the summit
He’s always ready again
Tomorrow
The weather is no matter
Zeus thinks constantly of food
Never satisfied
Does he know it’s gourmet?
Does he know how much I pay?
Maybe, but who knows
It all comes out the same
Always wanting more
Maybe with some eggs this time
Or broth
And definitely bones
Or whatever he can reach on the counter
Why I chose this dog I don’t know
My parents thought he was a great idea
He growls at me in the night
When his old joints ache
And he’s not in the mood
To be anywhere but bed
Unless I give him treats
And just the promise
Is enough to get him
Whinging with joy
It’s only by the light of day
When the squirrels
Taunt him on the fence
And the neighbor dogs call
He wags
What’s left of his tail
Maybe I keep him because
I don’t know how to be without him
In the void