Impossible

Never one to give up easily, you slowly ease your left, then right foot into your own mouth and swallow.  Now, if you can just manage to get your legs down, you think, the rest will be a breeze, you’ll show them all, and you slurp at your knees, but you can’t seem to make any headway. Your back is on fire, and your jaw, throat and stomach feel like they’re going to burst.  Tommorrow, you tell yourself,  tomorrow you’ll show them what happens when they tell you  "impossible”.

Second Hand Reminiscence

The song “Ein Li Eretz Acheret” comes on the radio, and it reminds you of her, and on the movie screen of your mind, you see her sitting alone on the corner of her mother’s bed, listening, like you are, to Gali Atari, and moved, like you are, because it reminds her of her childhood in Israel.

Fade to flashback she’s lanky and nine, sun tanned, pigtailed, sandaled and shorted, and her brother, Tzion, is there; carelessly they’re devouring enormous yellow and red summer peaches that drip down their chins and stain their shirts. Though you're not there, she looks at you and smiles a drippy smile, the peach’s stone apparent beneath her cheek.

As the song ends, she’s there once again, sitting at the foot of her mother’s bed: neck bent, head down, face obscured by that mess of curls, waiting for something to begin.

Boom

Let’s just say, the bus you’re on goes boom, and you survive, not only survive, but you’re totally fine, like, not a scratch on you… now, let’s just say, all around you, everyone is dead, there’s no way they’re still breathing, and let’s just say, you’re walking through the corpses, and instead of blood and guts all over the place, there’s half a woman lying by your feet, and hanging out of her torso, where her guts should be, there’s a bunch of CDs and a Walkman, and there, to your left, is the chest of some kid popped open like a pan of jiffypop, and where his heart and lungs should be, there are two slightly deflated soccer balls, and a Sony PSP, and over by what used to be the front of the bus, you see what used to be the driver, and he’s got a book sticking out of his chest… so you pick up the book and open it, and amidst all the sirens, and the smoke, and flashing lights, you sit down on the street and you read, and it says “Let’s just say, the bus you’re driving goes boom…"

Fidget

When Fidget was in kindergarten, his teacher gave him his nickname because he couldn’t sit still.  He kicked his feet through naptime, drummed his fingers through story time, and, rather than coloring in his coloring book like all the other children, he’d play rockets and missles with his crayons. 

When Fidget was 22, he won a trip to London by being the millionth customer to walk into a supermarket, and when he visitted Sotheby’s, unable contain his fidgetting, he accidentally bought Queen Anne’s sleigh bed for 93,000 dollars at an auction.

When Fidget went to a benefit dance for Hadassah, he met his future wife, Na’ama, who thought he was funny because, even though he was sitting on his own, he seemed to be enjoying himself, dancing in his seat; when she introduced herself to him, she told him how impressed she was that even though he was there without a date, he seemed to know how to have a good time by himself, not like all the guys who just stood around, lined up against the wall trying to look cool. 

Every night in bed, Na’ama would think that Fidget wanted to make love, because he would shake his leg against her; she interpretted it as him reminding her of his presence, and not wanting him to feel rejected, she’d start to stroke his thigh.  Six months after they were married in Cyprus, their daughter, Miri was born.

When the terrorists broke into their house, they hid in the attic; While the terrorists went room to room, shooting their guns, throwing handgrenades, Na’ama held her hand over their daughter’s mouth, and Fidget sat crosslegged, holding them both tightly, but his left foot was free to fidget.

Not So Bad Really

None of this was in the brochure they give you, but I guess it’s true what they say, you really can get used to anything, like how wherever you look, just on the fringes of your vision, everything goes all fuzzy like, and it's really only real the moment you reach for it or something, otherwise, it's just like a projection or something, and I mean, other than that, it looks pretty much like my old place, except, you can’t find anything good on tv, only Nora Ephron movies and Disney cartoons, and even watching boxing is pointless, because at the end of the game, both guys win and all they do is hug each other, and you can’t get really hot charif on your falafel, no matter how much you put, it’s just never that hot, and even though I threw myself on a grenade to save a bunch of the guys in my unit, the girls around here are never that impressed, so I haven’t gotten laid since I’ve been here, but at least the beer’s cold, and like I say, when it comes down to it, I guess you really can get used to anything.

Jellybeans

“It’s the speckled white ones that send you into the next world” says the candy lady with the pretty blue eyes. You hold the little wood box in your hand. It’s made to look like a miniture orange crate, and it’s full of different colored jellybeans.

“What do the purple ones do?”

“That’s a mystery” she says, “I’m only allowed to tell you about the white speckled ones".

You take your candy home, and the first one you taste is like a trip to New Mexico; small octagons appear on your ceiling in vibrant shades of silver, yellow and white, and you go through them. There’s a vague taste of blue corn tortillas to this one, you think.

Back at your kitchen table, you choose the next one; its surface looks like liquid opal, and you think to yourself, how could the plain white speckled one be more special than this? Tentatively, you taste it, and you’re sitting in a movie theater in Pittsburgh, Pa., and it’s 1943. There’s smoke swirling around your head, and Micky Rooney is just about to lay one on Judy Garland, when you feel a Jujyfruit hit the back of your head. You turn around, and see your microwave flashing at you.

Now you're convinced you have no choice, and you pick up the white speckled one, and pop it into your mouth. When the neighbors complain about the stink, the super breaks down your door, and when they find you on the kitchen floor, you’re still smiling, with a chunk of meteor sticking out of your forehead.

Grandma's Chair

When Daddy died, Grandma moved in. Since she had a hunched back, she couldn’t sleep in a bed like normal people. Instead, she sat in our old easy chair in the corner, so that she wouldn’t be in the way. As Mom and everyone grieved, she sat. She sat through summer, when we had a blackout, and the air conditioning stopped working and it was 100 degrees in our apartment, and she sat through fall when we had company over for the first time since the funeral.

One day Grandma said, "I feel like this chair is swallowing me", as little by little she became smaller and smaller.

When I asked Mom, she explained, “it’s just her scoliosis; she used to be much taller, but that’s what happens. You just shrink. Plus, she doesn’t eat much.”

One day, when we were doing spring-cleaning, Mom handed me a broom and told me to go sweep the living room. When I got over to the corner where Grandma’s chair was, she wasn’t there.

“Where’s Grandma?” I asked. Mom came into the room, with her yellow gloves, carrying her bucket and sponge, and wiped a stray hair out of her face with the back of her wrist. “I don’t know,” she said, “she must have gone home or something.”

I sat down in Grandma’s chair. It was much cushier than I’d remembered it. I leaned on the handle of the broom and cried. She never even said goodbye.

Tragedy affords us the illusion that we’re being ultra honest with ourselves; someone close dies, and immediately, we transform into some sort of hybrid between a philosopher, super hero, and  poet.  We compose virtual tomes of universal and undeniable truth.  We even seek to martyr  ourselves on the altar of understanding and compassion.  But we’re assholes, aware as we are of all the inherent glory in it.  

Detritis

Last night my brother in law died. When we went to the apartment he’d been staying in, we found his wallet, cellphone, keys, slippers, clothes, and a half crushed, half smoked pack of Marlboro 100s. It was in truth, the Marlboros that were the saddest thing to find: something so personal, and so disposable: a half smoked pack, from a half lived life.

In My Parents' Backyard

The ten a.m. breeze sweeps the yard,
the leaves clap
drops of last nights rain play timpany on
an overturned brown cracked bucket.
The cynical crow laughs,
having seen it all before.

Cleaning

Today, I cleaned my apartment;

Boxes of books shipped from my past address long ago

found places on already crowded shelves,

and dust that’d hibernated

like wintery bears,

I evicted from cave-like corners.

The papers I’d meant to file

last year

the year before

last weekend

now all neatly away.

And with my feet on the coffee table I looked around

appreciating my newly steril surroundings

and then realized--

It’d been the mess with which I’d kept such good company.

Dear ____ ,
I’m sorry but
today I cannot take
your salad emotions
your disdain crackling like
iceberg lettuce
your leaky cherry tomato eyes,
and flapping onion tongue.
Please dear, just for once
can’t we be
like stew instead?

to be smart
is small art

Sidewalk Trio

1. Oboe
myopic contemplative toads
contemplate stucco walls
under a ceramic sun
while furtive passers-by
furtively pass by
hoping they don’t dodge behind flower pots
mocking them


2. Piano
smell of hot summer showers on ancient city streets
becomes as insence giving up sweet ozone asphalt scent to the igniting water
releasing a history in exhaust fumes
and footsteps


3. Viola
Renee Descartes
Is buying a hotdog
From a sidewalk vender on 5th
“mustard and kraut?”
asks the vender
“I think not”
answers Descartes,
and dis-
appears

“long day”
you say
as you dissolve
like sugar
into your coffee.

Distillation: 3rd Av., 11/17/06, 6:17 p.m.

traffic sweeps up Third Avenue,
crystal spikes cut
clear blue dusk
with pointed yellow fingers

Two things I'm convinced of: that New York City busses hunt in packs, and that their drivers work on commission.

New York Manifesto (originally published on yelp.com)

It's time it was said; it's time we yelped-- nay, barked about it from each corner deli and every neighborhood pizzeria! New York is being rapidly bleached to death. Times Square has become an extension of Epcot, and we're being eaten alive by Starbucks, 7-11, and Domino's. I know you've heard it all before, the pained outcries of many a New Yorker, lamenting the dearth of texture that once upon a time made our city unique, but what I'm talking about now, is something far more vital: our very survival. Each time I go uptown, I see yet another glass and steel million dollar plus luxury condo sprouting like an insistent weed from the rubble of another neighborhood, another victim of gentrification.
Not only are long time residents being driven from their homes and neighborhoods by ambitious real estate developers, eager to plant the next acronym (i.e., did the Financial District REALLY need to be renamed "FiDi"?), but our beloved bodegas and delis are being replaced in the night by 7-11s, Jambajuice, and Starbucks! I'm hardly worried about being labled as hysterical when I assure you that, one Sunday morning, you'll walk out your front door and feel as though you've wandered into some alternate dimension sponsored (like much of Broadway already is!) by Walt Disney, L.L.C.! If at that point, you find yourself pining for a taste of actual art, craving a "regular coffee" handed to you in a paper bag, or any of the other myriad minutia you've come to simultaneously treasure and take for granted living in New York City, you'll have to travel to the "Olde New York" theme park, located across the G.W. Bridge, in New Jersey.
If, dear neighbor, this vision of the future scares you and sends you into a cold sweat, wipe your brow, take a breath and listen; there's actually something we can do about it. It's simple, easy, and Gandhi, Emerson and Thoreau would approve: shop local. Yes, as simple an act as eschewing the Starbucks that opened on the bottom floor of your building for that little deli on the corner for your morning coffee, can actually make a difference; choosing the neighborhood health food store over the exorbitantly overpriced Whole Foods that just opened on The Bowery can help yet another New York family make ends meet.
I'm well aware of the fact that my diatribe places me in imminent danger of being mistaken for Sally Struthers, but let's face it: the middle class in this city, (I shan't even mention the rest of this country!) has now surpassed the status of being merely endangered; we are now in a very real way, on the verge of extinction. Anyone who is knowledgeable of the history of this city will tell you how we have always been the ones to hold it together. We have been the richest thread in the tapestry that is New York; we are the cornerstone of its commerce and the driving force of its creativity. Therefore, if we wish for this tapestry to survive, we must be willing to do whatever is necessary to keep the thread from further unraveling. If we don't wish to see our city turned into some corporate theme park cum mall, we have our work cut out for us, and I charge each and every one of you to take up the gauntlet!
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm hungry. I think I'll go grab lunch from the corner deli.

*** By way of a postscript, I'd like to extend this challenge to people everywhere; wherever you live, please take up the cause. Support your local economy; instead of patronizing outsourcing corporations, support locally owned businesses. It's the best way we have right now of reclaiming our economic power from these shitheads who're engaged in mortgaging our future at what I feel is appropriate to call, "The United Corporate States of America, Inc."

Looking at her, it’s the strange parts of her body that you crave;
You know her lips are perfect
full fat and moist
her tongue soft and probing
but it’s the back of her wrist
you crave to kiss
You long for her ankles
and the backs of her knees

the arch of her foot, 

     because these 

belong to you.
The world can lust
her breasts
her ass
her eyes--
but only you know
the treasure that's found
in the thin
wrinkled
skin
of her inner elbow

Today, I’ll don my green wellies
Just because they make me happy
It’s dark and raining outside
the kind of day I love, but
I’ve nowhere to go
So I’ll sit at my computer instead,
Trying to think of some clever way
To talk about the deep significance of my wardrobe choice,
But there really is none, so I smile to myself,
And I eat
My peanut butter and jelly
In my pijamas and green wellies