Items Lost

I never intended to lose so many things.
Buttons, jackets, mittens, oh the many mittens.
Glasses. The ultimate paradox of losing glasses.
If only I had my glasses, maybe I could look for them.
I never meant to lose the trust of my best friend in junior high school.
I can’t decide if I meant to lose my innocence.
One the one hand, it made me sophisticated, intelligent, cool, cynical.
But then there are the days when I wonder why I was so eager to throw it away.
Cynicism makes you lonely, no matter how many cynics you are surrounded by.

Then there are the things I lost intentionally
That homework sheet – Oh sure Mrs. Peterson, I never got that homework sheet
And how could you hold me accountable for the homework I didn’t do when it wasn’t assigned?
Of course not.
There was my sister’s blue satin dress – so shiny and soft
I lost it, but then I helped it find itself in my closet.

My first kiss. All my life I dreamed of giving it away.
I used to walk by myself down the sandy shores of New Jersey
And fling my kisses into the ocean, who for all his roaring
Never did anything more than lap my feet.

Then all of the sudden it was gone.
I was fourteen. It was my birthday.
We were behind my daddy’s rose bushes.
And this boy, who chased me for months
Sprayed me more than that grouchy old ocean ever did
And then only several months later,
Lost memory of who I was.

I lost my first kiss. Intentionally, unintentionally. Either way, it is gone.

Tangled

Tangled,

you are tangled

in your own thoughts

in your own words

you play yourself

like piano chords

hammer each string

until they've crossed their lines

I'll forge each note

to fit my own designs

and each time you don't kiss me

I'll go home and brush my hair

no tangles, no tangles

no tangling there

Tangled,

I am tangled

crossed by your thoughts

bored with your words

I've played myself

by moving towards

a line without a guide

that finds itself over again

knotting and twisting

never to reach the end

each time you don't kiss me

I'll go home and brush my hair

no tangles, no tangles

no tangling there

stroke by stroke

brushing my hair

removing each stroke

of your hand caressing there

stroke by stroke by stroke

I'm struck and stuck 

these knots are just not fair

each time you don't kiss me

I'll go home and brush my hair

no tangles, no tangles

no tangling there

If You Want Me To

There's no shelter in my home
More thoughts than there is rain
She lays in bed wishing you were here
Though she's far away
And she thinks she's wrong, about everything
and she can't hear you
she wishes to
but she can't hear you now

There's no shelter in the rain
if it separates you two
as she wonders if you wonder if
you think about her too

And neither of you can foresee if there will ever be a day
When she will turn to you
Oh she wonders what you'll say

She wonders, she wonders, has she done bad?
Like you, she's learning from you
I could fill your hollow hole and hold you
but only if you want me to

And neither of you can foresee if there will ever be a day
When she will turn to you
Oh she wonders what you'll say

She wonders, she wonders, has she done bad?
Like you, she's learning from you
I could fill your hollow hole and hold you
but only if you want me to

You're fortune's fool, to be punished for this
the badness could end and start with a kiss
I could fill your hollow hole and hold you
but only if you want me to

Fairydust

The dusty light filters in through the one high window in the door frame
The light lands on the stage floor just before the piano where you and I sit
The piano is what they call a grand piano. I call it a grandmother piano.
She is old and elegant, deeply resonant, with many scratches glimmering on her weathered black polish,
creasing her surface like inky elephant skin
Her ivory keys are slightly chipped but as you gently press her, she sings

I am curled up on the hard stage floor. I breathe in the smell of dust

It is bad for me but I love the sweet resin musk.
The vibrations of the piano travel through the floor and come up through the side of my ribcage and the hands upon which I rest my cheek

You keep plunking away, singing softly. Your voice pours like molasses. I am trying not to listen to you. You're singing out the air, to nobody, the love songs wash away, wasted. Instead, I focus on the words of the grandmother piano

Don't worry about the boy, she murmurs
Let me sing you to sleep, to dreams of love requited

But I can't believe her, I can't quite take her in.
As long as the dust fairies fly in circles, in the cyclone of light, I will coil myself around my wounded heart

I stand up quickly, my skirt falling in folds around my knees and I pad over to your bench. I try to sit gently as to not disturb your playing

Your eyes dart towards me then back at the air to which you sing

I watch your pale fingers skipping from note to note, almost as white as the old keys

Your hair smells like the dust that falls from the theater's vault above us
I breathe it in.

I know better. The dust will swirl in, the suspended particles will line my lungs, collect in my tissues. It will run in my blood. But I can't stop - I just breathe it all in.
The piano says, "Be sharp. Be careful"

But. I've already breathed you in.

The Teapot Shop

The Hip Hop Teapot


I went to the teapot shop
to get my teapot shopped
to shop out the teapot stop
the top of which had stopped
I clip clop hip hopped
to the teapot shop
where I stopped with my teapot a lot.
The teapot shop held great lots of teapots
but still the shop owner stopped
to say "Welcome to the shop!"
I held out my teapot, the one that had stopped
so that he could stop and plot
how to stop and fix the pot
and we arranged a teapot fix pot plot.
He took the pot, the only one I've got
and looked at the stopper which was stopping not.
He said, "I guess I can take a shot,
but first would you like a spot?"
and then he held out his teapot.
I said "I do like a spot of tea a lot
but this tea would have to come from your pot
for my pot is not and that is all I have got
and until I have got a pot all my hopes are naught."
Then he said, "But I've got a spot flavored with iris and hops.
For these hops, I hopped to the market spot.
It was there that I stopped and copped the hops."
I said, "Tell me not although I long for a spot,
for I have stopped here in your shop because of my pot.
You have a great many lots of teapots here and oh dear
I cannot leave this spot until I have a teapot stop."
The shop owner stopped, sad for the neglected hops
but said, "Fine, here in the shop you can shop for a stopper to stop."
So there in the teapot shop where I had gone to get my teapot shopped
to shop out the teapot stop, the top of which had stopped,
he gave me a stopper which stopped atop the pot.
Rejoicing that my teapot was once again tip top,
upon the spot, I hugged the shop owner of the shop.
It was then we stopped to get a spot of tea with hops from my teapot
and from then on life was the in the tippity tops.

Remember the Nights

Remember the nights
when the air rolling off the sea
slid in like cold porridge
cool but thick, dense with salt
but the heat rose from the pavement
and emanated the board walk
the two forces would collide above us,
stirring in the troposphere
as we strolled along the boards
licking ice cream cones
and arguing about which arcade game to play
which shiny window to succumb to
we didn't realize how the winds fought above us
twirling tornados like the ones inside of us
the heat of a teenage night, the excitement and pulse like the lights of the boardwalk
the warmth of another body
and the coldness that came with the end of the night
when the lights went out and we realized
that for all our arcade prizes and sandy kisses
we were still alone.

Lost to the Sky

Jack, wasting your time in the sky
Walking on clouds while my life plods by
The puffy pink clouds support your feet
while I'm here begging milky white's pink teat
How could I ask you to give up the gold
and a harp that sings stories, I'm told
Her golden hair falls in curls and she siren serenades
You toss your hair with the smile of the renegade
Could you give up the warm of the giantess?
She saved you but you know I loved you best
And she eggs you on intending to crack you in the pan
Her husband craves your blood of an English man
I know I cannot reach you in the skies
but suppose you come down, you'll find I'm your size
If you loved me, I'm no harp but I would sing
and I'd provide your finger with a golden ring