Music Man

Blackened by your funeral clothes and face of sadness,
Mr. Paris, your music is all I hear.


The Strength of Sisterhood

Though she is schizophrenic and scares me with her episodes of madness,
I love her more than I could ever love a man.


Justin

Your eyes offer more gold,
more jewels,
and more truth
than the eyes of God.


Beginnings

The beginnings of poems are like
women’s legs running through my mind.


Love

I ache for thee thus
I write poems for thee.


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To prove how happy I can be,
to affect people truthfully,
to be good: this is what I want.


Seeing

But his is not a pretty face which she loves;
Hers are not smooth feet which he touches.
Still he loves her, and she him,
all the more for what they are not.


Courage

I refuse to be a shadow or printed version of myself.
Let me show you who I am.


Woman Waiting to Rest

When my past memories bring me to stillness,
and the sands of fatigue wash over my feet; then, I will rest.


Stubborn

I hear a ringing,
but refuse to give into the call.


My Love Cannot Be Personalized

All of life is beautiful, therefore it is with life that I am infatuated.


Blindness

Mine hands are mine eyes.


Sounds from Under the Door

I hear kisses and murmurings in the bed across the hall.
I wonder how the lovers feel trembling inside one another,
as I tremble alone in my poet's bed or purity.


Disguise

Intensity is painted into the eyebrows which I’ve made dark and curved
to fabricate my confidence and success; do I appear a woman to be feared?
I've succeeded, then, with my disguise.


Visions

You are affected by my clear eyes and lovely aura, yes?
Gazing into you, I see all of you. Seeing souls is a crime, and
I commit it daily. Do you see me?


The Drink

Beverages flow into my mouth and through
my innerness(bubbling), I drink and drink,
soon will come the words of influence.


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We haven’t talked about this, but I can’t
look you in the eye when you wear the silver dress.


A Ballerina’s Death

The beautiful lady who dances, we haven't talked about her finish,
but it will come. Tell her I will miss her grace and fearlessness.


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Who do I love the most?
I cannot breathe, speak,
or think about her.


Ritual Binge

I get up in the middle of the night as hungry
as a ravenous monster. I want to fill myself, to kill myself,
to will myself to be satisfied and settled again.


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I've now accomplished all the things on my list and I feel
defeated rather than proud. How should accomplishment feel?


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Melodic notes fade and float on the breeze.
I hear a woman singing for her life, as I fear for mine.


Mother

I bow at your beauty
My world
I bow at your beauty


Ambition

I crave to be like thee, though I have but a child's simple soul.
I am desperate for wordly validation and power;
I yearn like a child for its mother.


The Eternal World

I am completely arrested by your days
which remain the same as my perception changes.


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At the completion of my to-do list I see that
pride is a teeter-totter, and I am but
a child on the playground.


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I pledge to be a Great Artist always.


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Come beauty, come truth.
Let me make love to you.


On Being in Love

Food tastes like you, fingers feel like you,
Stone of city looks like you--
Everywhere there's nothing else, You.


Narcissism

I want to take care of myself.
I want to depend only upon what I happen to accomplish,
to be dependent upon nothing but how I happen to feel.
I want to take care of myself, and no one else.


My Dance

There comes a moment of truth and embodiement,
which has arrived in me, now.
At this precious time of self-realization one stands tall and proud.
All one wants to do is to live and never stop living.
Lord, please, show me the way; I am dancing as fast as I can.


I Write My Vows

As I live and as I create,
I become more and more a woman.
To love one's self is equally as important as
to love another; in fact they are the same.
Earth and moon: I am bequeathed of thee;
to make art is to become more me.


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Picture us in a hut in the mountains, wolves
howling. Dream up the haven, then draw the feeling.
I'll color it and together we'll escape into that imaginary
world wolves howling.


Pretender Poet

Flowing through my mind, then out the pen
are mysteriously-crafted, numb and dirty words.
I am a drunk and unnatural writer.


Femininity

We are fragile like dolls; we move as in another
world, and when sleeping truly exist as girls.


Cemetery

The dying ask what is she doing—
I am dancing on my grave, she whispers—
My legs need to move and my feet need to leap.
I cannot lie here through the hours,
The breath be gone but the dance never leave me!—
And a corpse beside her smiled, remembering freedom.


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I wanted to be somewhere by now,
But destination is unknown and goal is mysterious
I wanted to be a proud woman at the age I am,
But confusion set in and contempt took me over
I wanted to be another by now, but
All I am is the woman who writes poems
Line and line, going nowhere, motionlessly.


O, Bitter Life

Everything is spiteful!
With life’s new meaning my mind has awakened
while I’d never wanted anything but sweet thought to be shakened.


The Focus

Dance, my hands, dance;
Carry out your mission!


Incapable

It’s not that I don’t love you, because surely the day I met you,
We were tied at the heart. But I have no ability to be close or dear to you
Since the heart within me is of failing health. The chest knows nothing
Of intimacy.


Crying

Thinking about how life has played out thus far, thus far,
I am still angered by notions that have been present for years,
Still hesitant about the same childish fears,
But willing to try and willing to be firm—nah,
I am honestly only willing to give into my tears.


Machine

The humming at my feet is the working of a mad machine
Its drone drives me insane, but its necessary workings are what I live on,
so the sound persists and I drink down its exquisite annoyance.


Therapy

Think of all the good there is
in family and virtue, clean laundry and wind.
Release the anger and send off the sadness
to where hard times dwell only in story books
in toy chests in basements.
Close the lid and don’t open again.


Submissive

Wanting to be better than best and cooler than cold,
Needing the approval that anyone can give but satisfied with nobody,
I have only my pride to depend upon.


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I am on a diet and a budget.
I am hungry and very poor.
I would suffer twice as much for my art, My Lord.


Then Fall

There is no earthly ground to hold me here
I only witness air and the thick smear
Of clouds that beckon for my coming
And far off trucks and trains’ engines humming.
I’ve no hold on what you tell me
I only look to sky for answers, believe me
Nature teaches what we wish to learn
But only if in your lifetime you earn
The beauty, the majesty, the worthiness of it all
Arising summer, spring, winter’s all around us—
Then fall.


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I know who I am when I write:
Someone who wants to be heard.
I know who I am when I make photographs:
Someone who wants to be seen.
I know who I am when I dance:
Someone who wants to be beautiful.
But who am I the moment I wake?


What Cannot be Swallowed

a child’s soul compared to
a feast of bread and butter is nothing.
shaped like a woman of sand
I walk and move in my town,
bowing my head as I submit
to the title society has lain on me.
I will not swallow the stale bread
you throw at me, nor will my children.


Clueless

I have no answers, and the questions scare me.


The Realization

Either I fail or succeed,
There is nothing in between.


Justice and What is Fair

Balance is an art of the immortal.
To be human is to know only the flesh, thus
To live unjustly and without fairness.
To live justly and in fairness,
One must be of the soul.


Sex

It's clear that your ideas are innocent,
as mine are; I am completely innocent;
so tell me why I feel guilty, Man.


God of the Girls

Watching them as a god would, I feel mad with frustration;
Two women mad for, and in love with, one another;
But how do they get the Truth they each need, when only
Artless satisfaction is possible with one of your own?
Watching, and feeling equally as mad as they, but
Far less lucky in love, I retire
My responsibilities as their god. Anyway, what can
One woman add to a relationship of two involved women?


Single

To promise herself to no one is her stubborn wish,
and artistically, she breathes alone.


It's When My Hands Touch Clouds of Sky

It's when my hands touch clouds of sky
That I shall be satisfied, for living upon
The grounds we walk is nothing more
Than Birth and Death; it is not Beauty.


The Performance

It pains the performer to give for his art
Every field and meadow begs to be beautiful
Every audience member waits for his entertainment due
Words swirling memorized but nervous in my head
Hands muttering praises and good wishes behind the curtain
Frightful to offer less than is demanded, but passionate to display my lover’s heart
My stage is society and your eyes are the tickets purchased as a nod toward art
This art, this obsessive way of living brings a tear as I bow, thanking you for your time.


If Destiny Fails Me

Even if my name is never known I vow to write.
Even if my beauty is never shown I vow to enlighten.
Even if my picture is never taken I vow to smile.
Even if my charisma is never celebrated I vow to beguile.


Abandonment

My hero, she is, lying there,
the body of a beautiful woman,
a friend who left me.


Fooled

I write with great force, I speak with willful ease
but underneath I am soft, eager to please.
I will fool you and lure you to love me the most
but underneath my assertions I have no room to boast.
I'll hurt you and punish you, leave you high and dry
while always to myself silently wondering why you listened
and trusted and allowed down the manipulations, the tattles,
the madness, the fun. I am only a child, and forever I'll be--
naive and scared, lost inside me.


Diet

Now ready to give it all up
Every morsel I've greedily shoved down
It's gargling, it's bursting, it's rumbling like
A monster before it attacks
The food inside me is a curse,
And living a nightmare I am one also,
Take me back to when nutrition was nice.


Jaime's Poem

She encourages me, telling me I am smart
She likes me, keeping me as her friend
She holds me, not letting me be scared
She warms me, keeping me from winter
And when she goes I feel the absence of her care and love
The world becomes different, my aura less light,
And I become darker.


Photographer

I often request that a female friend sit, or model for me. She usually agrees.
She knows that I will bring out her beauty. And that is all I can hope for:
to make a picture as beautiful as the living friend I am photographing.


Subjects

People are beautiful. The human body is beautiful. Sometimes
the appearance of a person is too good to be true. That is when love
introduces itself. Do artists fall in love with their subjects?
As the earth circles the sun, they do.


The Puzzle

Where does love fit into art?
Life mixed with the beauty of art results in love, I suppose.


The Meaning of Things

Art was Aristotle’s way of “gathering the meaning of things.”(Poetics, 1457)
Without meaning, life demands no thought. Humankind would be
unintelligent. I suppose art is a form of intelligence.
It is a method of bringing information to the mind;
to keeping it there.


Inner Things

I want to make an impression on you. I want you to come away from this
site thinking that art is powerful and necessary, and that maybe
there is art waiting to be created by you.
What inspires you? What makes you
want to be better—what exists
inside of you?


Channeling Energy Through Art

Maybe art is a channel for energy; a way to find the thing you live for.
Maybe for one, painting is a way to learn about the self.
Maybe for another, sculpture is one’s education.


The Human Race and Pain

The feeling of pain comes from frustration and anger.
Artists have pain.
All people have pain in their lives.
I suppose it is part of the deal.
One cannot be a member if one does not
understand the feeling of pain.


We are Alike

We each have an allotted time on earth.
We each experience pain, heartache.
We each experience joy.
We feel.
We are human.


What Do You Practice?

It is only in the day to day routine of living that
I realize that what is practiced becomes learned.
In moving forward, the body learns to go forward.
In stillness, the body learns to be still.


Pools In My Eyes

One human wants me to succeed.
One human watches me as I falter and fail.
One human am I, and one human are you.
The flecks of our commonality fill the
pools of beauty in my eyes.


Nancy’s Poem

Why do you create art? My mother and I have never had
a very strong relationship. At a young age I thought that she and
I had a normal mother/daughter relationship. I remember wanting to
learn about how it was to be pregnant with me. We sat together in
our kitchen and I asked her ‘Mom, what did it feel like to be pregnant with me?
Tell me everything! What was it like?’ And I waited for her answer.
I’ll never forget what she said. She looked at me and said ‘I felt ashamed.’
Her face was blank, her mouth straight. Those three words changed me in a way
that nothing else has. Now, I block all memories of my mother from my mind.
She is like nothing to me, because when she carried me, I was nothing to her.
She felt ashamed—ashamed. (Written for Nancy Escalante)


The Magician

“Horst P. Horst magically transformed simple boards of wood
into exquisite furniture. Cardboard rolls into antique columns and plaster figures
into marble sculptures. He leaves, however, the ideal world that he creates as
fiction as the projection of an ideal conception of beauty. His beauty is distant,
cool and unapproachable, erotic and seductive, but only as a figment of the mind.
This distance between his photographs and reality makes him an artist of his time, who,
even though he loves the material world, the illusions of advertising, of beauty and of fashion,
and photographs it with devotion, is aware of its illusory character
and for that very reason reveres it.”
(Written not by myself, for Icons 20th Century Photography, Museum Ludwig Cologne.)


An Artist Depends on Others to Create

Moonlight, (because it gives off no light of its own, but only
reflects) is what I am.
I was not made of the sun. I was made
of moonlight.


Be a Brave Lover

Bare without limit, fear or crumb of inhibition,
yourself to me.
Take me to bed with you.


I am a Poetess of the Night

To dream holy I’d close my eyes with glee
and never wake—this my death would be.
In the moonlight a bare body shineth—
this my womanhood for all to see.


The Girl Who Loved

Beauty is fragile and people are soft,
to withhold affection is to live in hideous pain.
There is truth in intimacy for it is golden.
(Golden as the day they say she be—
dreaming my dream, I hear them speak of me).


What I Hope to Do, Where I Hope to Go

G’bye, I’ll be off skipping stones and climbing hills, driven
helplessly toward what I hope to gain—
Stay here and take care of the world for me.


Urges

Nature, sing to be for my own music is strained.
I am a woman and you must be a man, for I am drawn to you—
what shall our parts be lured to?


I am Only Reflective

I currently call myself Miss Moonlight, for I have not desire, responsibility,
nor creativity of my own.
My artistry must come from, and be given to, others.
They are the sun, and I am the moon.


Bending in the Wind

Tree, how does thy branches
gracefully bend in the wind?
Why am I not a tree?
Nature turn your green,
velveted face from me,
Your ways are a bitter truth
upon my falsity.


Oh, Desperate Fool

I should not be here, reveling
in my own piteous state of jealousy and greed.
I am a desperate being;
forgive what I do.


It is God’s Life

Let only my art be the Proof
of my own existing light.
Let my body be nothing more than a
carrier of the art, a channel for the Proof.


How I Feel

Beneath the light of true
friendship is joy, I assume.
Beneath the dark of hunger
is pain, and reversed.
Beneath all I yearn and strive
to be is a woman failing in
Her quest; and there I am.


Let Me Speak On

Are you interested in hearing more,
or have your eyes already
tuned out my voice?


In Praise of Our Earth

We are wonderful beings, us humans.
We’ve built incredible buildings and created
masterpieces in sculpture and painting.
We’ve traveled space and taken photographs
of the inside of a beating human heart.
We wake in the morning and lay
our heads down for rest at night.
We live together on this Earth; what
a nice and comforting place is our
Earth.


The Things We’ve Achieved

We have achieved monumental goals, us humans.
Marriage and love. Heartbreak and crying.
Children and aging. War and famine.
There is murder and rape, violence and crime.
We sign peace treaties and grow organic food.
There are charity groups and community
clubs. There is laughter and Memorial Day
picnics. We kill each other. We enjoy each
other. The things we have achieved!


Quiet Times

Sometimes I like to sit naked in my chair
and write in my journal, thinking
about the day.


We are Never Fake

A cheerleader might hold the stereotype of being fake.
But a cheerleader is as real a human as I, you, and the others are.
We breathe and move and live and grow and change at more
rapid a pace than any other mechanism on the planet.
We are never fake, neither in personality nor spirit.


My Red Flesh

A pair of lips is different from any other pair of lips,
as are palm trees different from the pines. I have always liked my lips.
Though small, they are round and pointed on the tops
like an upside down heart. They look best in red lipstick.
When I want to impress someone, I wear my red
lip liner and I color in the flesh real good.


These are the Things that Matter

We do not live in, or of our own destinies,
but under some other destiny,
some ultimate plan of Earth, and of God.
The universe has a story, or a rhythm.
And all I intend is to hold the peace
of my woman’s body in me, in that universe.
Kindness matters. Respect matters.
Having friends matters. Knowing what
is good and what is bad matters.
These are the things that matter.


Independence is Education

When sheltered,
we lose a certain aspect of reality.
Be independent.


The Wise Stranger

I went to a party last night and
I met a woman with old, wise hands.
She smiled at me and said, “I like you. I see you.”
Her strange recognition of me scared me,
but like a guardian angel she told me
that all I need to do is be myself.


Simple Girl

I am finding me and being me on this earth.
Myself, I greet you. Life is fragile.
I am only a shy princess waiting
for her handsome prince.


Have a Nice Day

I hope you will enjoy your day.
Do not be idle, but active.
Though, if the moment is idle
and you are in it, then be idle.


Make Your Peace with God

The earth will continue to turn on its axis
regardless of what you do. This is
not heaven.
You do not have to be perfect.


Too Good for the Earth

If she were to fly away without a face or head
The skirt upon her silent body would surely rule her dead
The air like water pushing through
Billows of skirt and skin—
And there on the ground like cement shavings
Would be the foot, the statue, the pedestal she lived in.


The Real Poet

"I knew that what I had always felt must happen had now begun to happen, that her real self, being the real poet, would now speak for itself.” – Ted Hughes

I commit myself to art. But tell me, what is art?
Perhaps art neither lives nor dies, but goes on forever, like a legend.
Let me be a legend, or let me be nothing at all.
To be obsessed with one’s literal self must be evil,
though I can think of nothing I would rather live for.


Enigma

Can a hand touch nicely in public if
behind closed doors, it commits only
sin and filth? I’ve become an enigma.
Femininity is the only art form I know.
All else is fabricated. The rest of my being
and existence is false, like a fur coat
which is somehow free from animal rights
activists. However, I am not free from
any body.


The Living Doll

Michele, I want you to know that to dance
is something I long for, cherish and dream about, even as I do it.
Let you be a lover and keeper of movement too; let you grace
the wooden floor with your bare doll-like feet and black, satin,
ruffled doll dress.


To Mother and Father

You created these hands; you raised them and loved them,
And now I thank you for letting them help me,
For dancing with me and creating art,
For befriending me and giving me heart.
You comforted me with shelter, transportation and food;
I am in New York to live what I most love to do.
Let this thank you be in the form of dancing hands,
Let my poetry be a gift and my photography a blessed sign,
Let me be clear and real and true; Parents,
I admire, respect and appreciate you.


My Dream

I do not know why regular human beings roam the earth—
not one of them can answer to the deep call within its volcanic core.

The pulling toward the beauty of the middle of the earth is like a temptation,
a deathly lust, a hope to be one with the Purity of Soil, a dream to be nothing but a soul.

This cannot be the intended way of life; if then, what of Joy? I do not know
why what I believe matters, nor why my utterances are subject to intelligent praise

or high regard. I do not know why we judge one another. I can only witness my hands—
quiet and humble in their doings, shy and graceful in their movements—create good. I can

only be a woman who watches well and thinks true; who speaks low and loves deep.
So will you decide and know the woman who lives in you; her mind is your destiny

and the end of all your needs. Earth is a flawless sphere of life, and the universe large beyond
our imagination. What exists in you, Dear Girl, is a tiny and precious world, like a floating

fragment which exploded from a far-off star. I do not know intimately all the people
I encounter, nor should you. I do not know or understand every heart. I do, however,

feel every hurt, for surely I feel your hurt. Being together is protection against the great pull
of a deathly, black core. Sincere intimacy is the only strength which opposes sadness.

An untimely meeting with soil does not promise peace but regret. If you and I believe in
our borne goodness then we shall survive and we will; there can be no other truth.


Wicked

God never works, it’s all in play
He made me, and this thing too
But why are we so different, I ask of you.
And fervently tell me that my mother hurts
Gently tell me my father’s unkind
This thing of beauty created by God
Why couldn’t her beauty be mine?


Weak

Manic I Am. Crazy I Dwell. Foolish I Exist.
Surreal I Breathe. Weak I remain.


Rebirth

My darling, I’ve been idle for so long.
I’ve been a stranger for too long.
I want to be me, I want to be free.


Day

The birds sing their morning song,
The house awakes with sounds of breakfast
My bed lay in rumples where I just slept,
And the bathroom sink is wet with my cleansing water.
I want to claim today as my day, because, criminal,
You stole the others.


Theirs

The others I live with, the others I work with, the others who’ve
Claimed this day as theirs too, when more than one fights for a prize, who wins?
And do the birds singing know even that the fight occurred?


Who

People everywhere struggling to gain what they believe is rightfully theirs
But what is a right? What is a gain?
And how do I prove that today is really, really mine?


Sick

I don’t believe I will ever get into the act of habitual eating,
Of feeling hungry and then naturally satisfied.
I don’t know if what my stomach feels is real,
I don’t know if what I feel for anything is real,
Maybe a disorder is only present if the mind is absent.


Population

My precious friend
You are all we have
The little artist inside you
Be strong, please be strong
Find your identity
You can do it
My precious darling
Everyone means something
You are an artist
Nobody has the art that is inside you
But you, only you.


Identity

I don’t try to be fake with these clothes that I wear
I don’t try to impress with my fabrication and flair
I don’t aim to be anyone but who you see,
A beggar, a thief, a scared little me.


Learning Acceptance

You seek perfection in yourself
You seek perfection in a mate
But this is not Heaven, Justin, this is
Earth, as broken and battered as thee


In This Room

Black marks on the white wall beneath the window
And my tired feet just below the marks
My feet are gritty and tired and seething with wear


Platonic Correspondence

I don’t know if we’ll ever see one another again
One is never sure what the future holds
But love between friends lasts forever, I’m told.


Career Choice

Being alone makes me want to cry,
But I’ve chosen this life of being an artist,
Of listening to my own poetic thoughts and to
No one else’s. I must continue to live and work like this.


What

What comes after all the thoughts have come
and there’s no more thinking to be done—
What comes when I’ve dried my inspiration
and emptied my energies,
What comes when nothing else come?


A Single Soul Working Toward Refinement

What would it take to redefine beauty in society today; what
Actions do I need to take to convince all of you that beauty is only
As wonderful as you believe it to be? What do I have to say to teach you
That what one possesses outwardly is small in comparison to what one has inside?
I fear you’ll learn on your own. I am only one woman with her pen, ink and paper,
And you are a thousand miles away. You have much to discover.
May your journey be nothing less than beautiful.


Devoted

I devote myself to writing words for you
I have always had these words, and
Today I share them with you.


Grave

So many things make me sad.
Is it supposed to be like this, this
Yearning for the grave?


Legacy

Just one little jewel pluck from my mouth and into your being
You can have any jewel, I offer many, everything glimmers
Humanity may you shine through me forever


The Artist’s Home

Being an artist surely cannot condemn and commit me
to this desk hour after hour, year and year,
going nowhere and speaking to nobody.

Surely the term artist encompasses more than just my humble
creations and your maybe viewings. I must be crazy to think
that all I battle for is the right to my own imprisonment.


Family

Movie star?
Oh yes, that’s me, the girl who’s been down so
long the only way up is up, up to the sky—
and all that exists beyond. This star needs to
get back home, home to her family.


Old

All that’s flown, all I once knew
Is safe inside my memory box,
Safe inside my awareness—
All that’s flown and will ever be known.


Emily’s Poem

World, hear me speak
World, this is my prayer
I want nothing but your love for me
Nothing but your adoration of my body
And your devotion to my words.


Haughtiness

Covet me proudly. I am a queen among fools.


Humility

Your royal lace circles my blackened neck
And I am bound by the straps of femininity put

On me by men—wanting to please the cowards, but
Refusing to give them pleasure, I choke like a dog in a collar.

Choke me no more, I want free from this jail,
You expect too much from Women Who Fail.


Born

A gypsy child dancing in the lake is all I’ve ever been,
and all I yearn to be.


God’s Creation

Unto earth a poet is born, pen and ink in hand
Scribble upon scribble, thought after thought
Creating nothing so lovely as His land


Eaten

It is still a VUltuRe, a BEaSt, a LiOn—
My HuNGer eating me alive, though I should eat it.


Affected

When Alfred Stieglitz saw art done by Georgia O’Keefe,
He said ‘finally a woman has given herself.’
The couple married, he photographed her many times,
And their art lives on today. I hope you will enjoy
My art tomorrow.


A Woman’s Legacy

Looking into the future
One woman hopes to make art divine,
Her words are flowered with pearls and red wine,
She practices and produces as only a true worker would—
The other woman, she lollies, as only one so gifted could,
Easy in her beauty and friendly in her manner,
She is always spontaneous; and the first a planner,
But what does either mean to give and therefore receive?
My friend, after you’ve gone, what will you leave?


Less

Only half as pretty as any flower ever grown
Only half as perfect as any baby ever born,
Is all I claim this poem to be.


Missing

Please let me get back home,
Let me have my childhood of the farmland back,
Life as an adult does too many treasures lack.

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