reinventing>me

My head is spinning,
I can't sleep or eat,
but I think it's good.

good like a
rollercoaster ride
you finish sick to your stomach
and dizzy in the head

or a black diamond ski run
where you're pretty sure
you didn't deserve to get down
without breaking any bones

worry

I wake
in the middle of the night
with to do lists
all ready half grown
in my unconscious state..
like those things
growing on potatoes
that have sat
in the cupboard too long.

Questions needing answers
tangled in my head;
monkeys in a barrel,
I lift the lid to take out
just one
to wrestle with
and they all come
in a big knot of furry,
screaming mischief
and lodge in the pit of my stomach.

Staying the course was tough
but this venturing into uncharted
territory wakes all the sleeping
beasts

the mirror

a flash
of me
caught
in the corner
of my i

the mirror
diverts,
seizing
my i
in a
reflective
trap.

suddenly
there is
no more we
enraptured
by music,
only
the scrutiny
of i
whispering
insidious
slander.

gods, lovers
despise
a divided heart,
the i
triumphant
over
we.

that egoist
i
forcing them
to witness
destruction
at their expense.

blindly
i turn,
choose we,
let him
carry me
forgive me

i abandon
i,
let music
and mercy
resurrect
we,

the i
humbled
to accept
we
as grace
enough.

NO tame tigers

My favorite tigers
are the wild ones
that come right up
to the bars
& look you
in the eye,
so close
you can feel
their breath
on your face
and hear them
silently speculate
on how you might
taste.

a good german house/estate sale

did death creep in quietly
or did you just
wake up one morning
and surrender.
to dust, mildew,
and decay?

I hope you struggled
against the shroud,
with the same
enthusiasm for life
that made you buy a
chandelier
three times too big
for the dinning room and
40 cases of Cuban rum.

in the end,
I hope you chose life
even on nursing home truce-terms,
crazy, angry, alive,
aware of the price you paid

a free soul,your birthright
green to the end
in communion with
God and humanity
not stillborn into eternity
wrapped
in a precious chrysalis
of possessions
alone
on a cold
grey
January day.

honey bee irony

the honey bee
in sensuous and
intimate pleasure,
sips a little nectar
from the nipple
of each flower
and leaves
a fertile pollen-gift
from her dusty body
in return.

she,
consummating
the love affair
between others,
is yet unable
to share her own
with another,

being utterly
other,

alone.

how ironic
that she
should be
a symbol of fertility!

porteno kid

I pick him out because
he's tall,
moves sweetly
and reminds me
of Jimmy Stewart.

I watch him
joke with his friends,
flirt with the girls
at his table.

I invite,
he protests,
I insist,
he yields
with instinctive
Argentine gallantry,

and
bravely soldiers
through the tanda,
apologizing
for all the things
that don't really matter.
He will be
really good
one day.

Blushing,
he escorts me
from the pista
anxious to retreat,
nurse his wounds,
embroider the truth,
ponder the feminine mystery.

I leave a bit
of myself to grow,
to return to
and check on
sowing wild oats
in a foreign port.

gilded cage

on Sundays
I dance in a gilded cage,
a secret retreat
from the real world.

My jailors indulge my
every whim,
handle me with
velvet hands
like living
treasure.

The cage door is
open for they know
I thrive and am
content with their care,
having no desire
for flight

into the unknown.

wages

wild dolphins
play tag
with flying fish
at sunset,
dancing
in the bow wake

same as I play
free in the
milonga/sea.

Sea World dolphins
still smile,
but they dance
now for
dead-fish
wages,

wild joy
stolen by
a price tag.

sterile/fertile

her tango is sterile,
no sweat, no blood, no tears.
no dirt.
lifeless, perfect
hard
as polished marble.

make mine
fertile,living
organic soil,
regenerating the
pain and garbage of life
into food for the
tap root of my heart.

I sleep

I sleep,
dreaming.
belly up
to the night.

nostalgia, the argentine virus

virulent as bird flu,
I'm infected
with nostalgia
for something
not in my past,
a foreign passion
not part
of my genetic pool
or experience.

like antibodies
for a childhood disease;
the memories of others
carried by music and flesh
infect my soul
with mirror image of
tango.

this miasma!
without knowing
barrio
or castellano
without ties
of blood
or tradition!