a real life love poem

Roses are red, violets are blue

sugar is sweet and addictive

and love is too.

it’s sunny Sunday driving,

an orgasmic late afternoon,

it’s endless frustration, but for

a life lived over the moon.

it is patience and silence when

harsh words come to mind,

its my favorite home-cooked meal when

the world has not been kind.

love is easy in the good times

but those don’t last forever

love is compromise and sacrifice,

choosing us over me in this ever

changing world

continuing to choose us

choosing not to get upset

choosing to trust.

love is knowing he’ll be there

him knowing i will too

knowing the kid will never question

love means i’m here for you.

God Bless Us All

In Toni Morrison’s new book, God Bless the Child, she rips the rawness from humanity like roots from the ground and plants it on the page for you to explore. I recommend it, and the extremes of empathy that come with it. What I took from it primarily, was a practice that was carried out each Saturday morning around the breakfast table. Each member of the family was made to answer two questions. 1. What have you learned that is true (and how do you know)? And 2. What problem do you have?

I like this very much. And since I have been in need of a prompt, and I don’t have enough people around my own dinner table yet to contribute to such a discussion, this one’s for you. 

What have you learned that is true (and how do you know)?

Men and women are fundamentally different. I know because of the havoc that is wreaked when one of the gender’s expectations are not met. And how different those expectations can be. I’m generalizing here, or shall we say genderalizing, where the woman is more sensitive and the man is more practical, while she is thoughtful and multi-tasking, he is steady and diligent. She expects flowers and kisses, he expects dinner and Sports Center. She wants conversation about all of the aspects of both of their days, he wants a few good hours of not solving anyone’s problems. She really needs intimacy, he really needs a good night’s sleep. She’s soft, he’s rough. In the best relationships these are all the beginnings of compromises that we learn to make for each other, to complement each other. In the worst, well, we all know how that goes. Inevitably, it doesn’t matter that he’s stinky and forgetful and crass, or that she’s bitchy and demanding and emotional, what matters is finding the places where the love fits in between all of that diversity, and holding on for dear life, or love, to that. 

What problem do you have?

Pregnancy. Not the baby part of it, that’s magic. The hormone bit, though, is a nightmare. It has changed me in ways I never expected, which makes coping with them all the more difficult. (I’m noting this theme of better managing my expectations.) The problem is a two-parter.   

1. Extreme allergies, including but not limited to: wheat, cheese, sugar, heat, citrus, spices. (I live in Miami – those last three are borderline sick and twisted) These new allergies have tested my patience and general will to be awake and go on living my life – a baby is a miraculous consolation prize, don’t get me wrong, but nine months is an awful long time to go without a bagel and cream cheese or spaghetti and pecorino, or donuts, especially when I want to eat so many donuts and get fat and bake in the sun. This was the time I was supposed to be allowed to be fat in a bathing suit, but I can’t go out in the sun. It’s a first world problem, I get that. But that’s the world I live in, and it is a problem. 

2. I am so sensitive now. Or rather, I have always been sensitive, but I used to be able to put a cork in it, take time and think about what I really felt, and then express it in an appropriate manner, like aging a fine wine. I was civilized, I think. Now, it’s like my emotions are stuck in a P. Diddy video and at the slightest injustice I’m popping bottles and spraying emotional backlash all over everyone within range, shouting, crying, uncontrollably. I can see what I’m doing as if from afar and I wonder who that psychopath is and why she can’t reel it in, but I can’t reach her to help. And I have never been a crier.  I used to read fiction, endlessly, but now it all seems too sad. I write less and think so much more. I worry and brood and that’s never been me. So, trying to get to know this new me and make peace with her ways, after thirty years of trying to get used to the old me and barely getting a handle on her ways, is a problem.  


Feel free to comment with help. 


P.S. I’m sorry for my long lapse of no blogging, please forgive me this rambling return. 



My mother’s endless love. 

The love of my mother has no prejudice.

The love of my mother is not blind. 

The love of my mother has no bounds.

The love of my mother is always kind. 

The love of my mother never pauses. 

The love of my mother simply searches

for ways to make you feel better inside. 

The love of my mother is relentless, 

whether you are a new friend or old. 

The love of my mother rings in her laughter.

The love of my mother is bold. 

The love of my mother is intense,

like the Miami sun that she adores.

The love of my mother is refreshing, 

like the Atlantic that to her heart calls

The love of my mother is inspiring, 

like the divinities that she knows.

The love of my mother sparkles, 

through her eyes and smile, she glows.

The love of my mother will never extinguish.

Though, the love of my mother I have tried.

The love of my mother knows no limits.

The love of my mother is always on my side.



Happy Birthday Mama!!! 

Thank you for teaching me how to live a life full of love. 

To Forty, With Love

Surprising is the sentiment that sisterhood brings

To a life once thought to be full.

It turns out that the sister-less are, after all

Without a love most pure and wonderful.

A sister-in-law, to be clearer just here,

Is an especially delightful kind.

Born from the love of the love of her life

And the blind puppy love that began mine;

Matured through the freedom to laugh and to cry

At said love, both with him and without.

But it doesn’t stop there, no one is safe

For she knows my family inside and out.

This gift and small curse she bears gracefully

Though perhaps I’ve been sort of short-sighted.

Maybe sisters aren’t always so perky and fun,

Pretty, witty, clever and open-minded.

I do know Jen though, with her warm eager eyes,

Inquisitive and mischievous smile.

She’s been the best sister I could possibly have

Invariably, through life’s greatest trials.

I hope to be as strong, sweet and patient as her,

For all of the rest of my days.

So with eternal love, humility and gratitude

I wish her the best of birthdays.

.

Neruda’s Love Poems – Rewritten

I love your feet
only because they walked
upon the earth and upon
the wind and upon the waters,
until they found me.

in the skin of the grapes
I thought I touched you.

do not take from me your laughter.
when your laughter enters
it opens for me all
the doors of life.

in the spring, love.
I want your laughter like
the flower I was waiting for.
deny me bread, air,
light, spring,
but never your laughter
for I would die.

on waking, your mouth,
come from your dream,
gave me the taste of earth,
of the depths of your life,
and i received your kiss
from the sea that surrounds us.

Hide me in your arms
just for this night.

Let the wind rush
crowned with foam,
let it call to me and seek me
galloping in the shadow,
while I, sunk
beneath your big eyes,
just for this night
shall rest, my love.

in the night and the shadow,
with your steps will enter
perfume’s silent step

But wait for me,
keep for me your sweetness.

we shall always be, you and I,
alone upon the earth
to begin life.

with you I become again
the earth that you are:
I know again how I am born.

you came to my kisses with the fire
of an unchained meteor
you melted in my blood

all thirst ends in our embrace.

pure, with the purity we created

You were a little leaf
that trembled on my chest.
Life’s wind put you there.

spring
offers us the sky,
but the dark earth
is our name

Bring your substance deep down to me,
heavily,
let your existence cut across me

lineal strings
inheritance of smoke.

a surge of water with remnants of the sea
strikes the silences that wait for you

Advance in sweetness

That is why you are endless

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Straight Through the Sunset

We got in his old pick-up truck and he started the ignition. The vinyl seat was like ice beneath me, but he had lit something within me. Jack was rugged and charming, he had the swagger of an athlete from birth, and that voice, like the trucks engine, making me both nervous and excited.
He wasn’t driving away and I followed his gaze to a delivery truck on my right. It was open, unmanned, and full of beer. I raised my eyebrows daring him to say what was on his mind, but before words intruded he was out and running. I had never seen someone act so impulsively, simply crack the mold of good behavior like the thin bits of ice on the pavement beneath his boots. I had spent my high school career visualizing myself raising raucous disturbances, but was always brought out of them by a sympathetic teacher wondering if I needed a pass to the restroom or to the nurse. I never needed a pass, what I needed was a radical.
Jack’s face was bold and excited, almost terrified but completely cool as he hustled back to his truck with a twelve-pack of imports tucked under his arm. He stepped on the gas and I laughed. I inherited the laugh from my mother. As a child I’d watch it rip into the room and turn every head, scared certain that I could never live up to it. It just made Jack drive straight through the sunset pulling out all the stars.

Native

Across the sand
Bare feet
deep breath
dive in

calm, clear, teal
farther and farther
lungs scream
tiny schools

mermaid hair
soft sand
reflections
waves

tepid Atlantic
wraps around skin
hearts aglow
loyal sunshine

foggy brain
molecules cling
his presence lingers
dive deep

The First Snow

The first night that the snow fell he had a bag of cocaine in his pocket. It hadn’t snowed in Rome in twenty years. It was beautiful, and it was a party.
We had gone from the restaurant, and their endless supply of house red wine, to the house, and their endless supply of blow. Friends, brothers, and a sister-in-law, laughing, yelling, drinking, watching, whispering, smiling, sniffing, celebrating.
“You know,” said his brother, “I’ve never seen him kiss a girl in front of any of us.”
I just looked at him.
I knew affection was held right next to intimacy, and that they were both reserved for when we were alone. I liked it. It made it like our little secret that no one could see, how we fit into one another without any other.
But I hadn’t known that he had always been that way. Or that those few minutes before when he’d kissed me so deeply that it pulled me inside out I wasn’t the only one who had been left speechless.
He had been mine for months, by his definition, and he’d been mine for years, by my intuition. He had never been one for communication, but that night he seemed to be the only one talking.
“I never met anyone like you,” he said and I scanned the room. Through swirls of smoke I saw other conversations, laughter unconscious of his tone. My reserve mirrored his, even if he’d abandoned it for the night.
“Let’s go outside,” I said taking his hand and pulling him towards the door.
The silence was almost as shocking as the cold. The warmth of the fire and festivities vanished into a vacuum of white.
“You have a really big heart,” he said into the stillness.
“It’s yours,” I promised, placing my hands on each side of his face. His green eyes were glistening and fighting to reveal feeling.
“You are too good for me,” he said. I shook my head. “You are perfect,” he whispered and tears rolled through my fingertips. The snow kept falling around us.

Paper Thin, Black and White, One-Sided, Insatiable, Insomniac Love

I am an intimacy junkie. Ask my boyfriend. I need it like oxygen.

The closeness, the familiarity, the private cozy friendship, the feeling that my feelings are shared. Without it I feel lonely, even in a room full of people. It has only recently occurred to me that the fault of this doesn’t fall upon my parents, or myself, not my sun sign or moon sign. Instead, I have Edith Wharton to blame. Along with Ernest Hemingway, Pat Conroy, Jane Austen and every other author who has written a story with characters so engaging that it became a world within and completely outside of my own.

Books define intimacy. They make you laugh, cry, blush, shiver, shriek, and tremble. You take them to bed with you again and again, and then, never again. They let you in. They show you their deepest and darkest secrets, the really sick ones, and the cheesy ones that just seem like bragging. They trust you. They let you love them. And then it’s over. So, you pick up the next one and hope to be satisfied. Or you stick with the same one, and you learn new things every time. As you grow, it changes, but the closeness is always there.

And, thanks to fabulous people like Mitchell Kaplan, and The Knight Foundation, and Miami Dade College, and everyone who continues to buy books – real, tangible books – this cycle of paper thin, black and white, one-sided, insatiable, insomniac love continues. Because, let’s face it, junkies need their fix.

So, as we welcome the big weekend of the Miami Book Fair International, here are some tips of the trade that I’ve gathered over the last few days to help you navigate the oddly cool and wet streets of Downtown Miami this weekend. Or to help you sound a little more industry savvy at your next book club.

 

1. Books are called “titles” as in, “Do you have the new title by Paulo Coelho?”

2. Published writers are called “authors” as in, “I prefer this author, to that one.”

3. If you are coming to the fair as a writer who is trying to talk to publishers about becoming an author, I’ve got sad news for you, there are not a huge number of opportunities for that. The publisher’s advice: get an agent. On the plus side, there are a huge number of writers wandering around to commiserate with, or to learn from on Writer’s Row.

4. People who work in book stores are called “book sellers.” These are the people who physically get the book into the hands of the public. Thank them, and be patient when they can’t get to you fast enough. There are so many of you, and so few of them.

5. This is the largest literary fair in the country. You should come. It’s only $8. Seniors and teenagers are $5. Kids are free. I assure you there is something for everyone. Like comic books, and funnel cakes.

Ordinary Won’t Do

In what world is this
Too pretty to kiss
Too bold to relate
Too pedantic about fate
Too sure to question
Too pure, this breath
Too undying this passion
Too soon this death

Where mediocrity thrives, certainty dies
Petulance cries and devotion tries
For a stronger pull in this way or that
The way strangers stare at a fabulous hat
Like a bird of paradise lures his mate
Ordinary won’t do for an extraordinary fate

In generalities, where some subside
It’s too slippery a slope down which depth will slide
Too much beauty to see
Too much wine to drink
Too fresh is the fruit
The nectar, too sweet
Too tangible to ignore
Too potent the scent
Too intoxicating the joys
Too drenched in wonderment

Too spoiled by lovers who knew all too well
Too sure of the truths that one kiss will tell
Too fickle to stay in one place and wait
Too tempted by the promise in every day break
In what world is this? I ask faithfully
(Wearing a fabulous hat and coat of serenity)