Customer Insights Survey!!!

Dear Prospective Shopper,

We are currently accepting limited number of applications from competent shoppers to evaluate Western Union's services and programs, both in-store and on their Website.

Job Description & Responsibilities;

(1) As our shopper posing as normal customers, you will be required to visit the nearest outlet near you to perform specific tasks such as purchasing a product or using a service.
(2) Funds will be provided in form of a Certified Check to cover the expenses of evaluating the outlet.
(3) While there, you will secretly evaluate things like customer service, store cleanliness and quality of service rendered.
(4) Upon completion of the survey you're to simply send us an E-mail with your rating of the store.

Payment Terms;

You will receive a flat sum of $200.00 per assignment. It's fun and rewarding. There is no charge to become a volunteer and You do not require any special skills for this opening.

Application Procedure;

We would like you to participate because it's Fun & Rewarding, please fill out the Application below as we hope to Welcome You to PineCone Research ;

Full Names:
Address Line 1:
Address Line 2:
City:
State:
Zip Code:
Home Phone Number:
Cell / Mobile Phone Number:

We're dedicated to providing our customers the best services possible, and you can help!

Thank you.

PineCone Research™
50 West Rivercenter Blvd. Ste 600
Convington, KY 41011-5813
Copyright (c) 2013 PineCone Research™
UNITED STATES

Important Documents

Hello,

 

I've shared a document with you , It's not an attachment -- it's stored on-line at Google Drive. To open this document, Go to http://drive.google.com and just sign in with your email to view

 

---

Note: You'll need to sign into Google Drive with your email address. 

 

Best regards

Canopy

I was a stranger, lost at the station. Green at the ankles and the knees. Absent direction, absent expectation. Tender and willing as you please.

The canopy above your bed. Once I came with your permission here. But I went and thought the worst instead, and I mistook my fear for a premonition.

Your better judgment, your, your reservations. The reasons you put me on the shelf. I have no use for your recriminations. I can recriminate myself.

I've never asked you to bear my weight. I'm on my feet. Please hear me out. Look my way again. It's not too late. Make me the beneficiary of your doubt.

Action Verbs of Summer

hang upside down from the neighbor's tree
muster guts enough to swing
ignore the visiting kid who juggles
slam the fridge door, slam the screen door,
eavesdrop at your parents' door
press against the cotton sheets
whisper smuggle/snuggle/struggle
long after midnight, blaze into sleep

Future Poets of Amenika

Her husband found he could not watch the kitten bat at string
All the figs were dry, sweetless
Any gnats descended without warning buzz

Grey laborers dithered by the vines in new hats
Masters crunched by rattling keyrings and lozenges
Eviscerated lizards lined the steps,  trophies of the spartan felines

It was the summer the tea party swallowed climate change
The summer sugared organs went viral
That time we earnestly remember, even conversing with strangers
while sitting at the vet's.

Past LIfe Letters, pt. 4

Dear Girl I Was,

Sadly, your fears never leave, though they multiply.

They never drift. They're burrowed in.

Examining your conscience remains excruciating,

and your secret sureties that you will never really age

or Be Your Mother sag like that satin sash too heavy 

for the organza dress folded still in the dressmaking cupboard.

At fifty, the thought of fleas will unhinge your safety

like nuclear warheads disturb your sleep now

So, when you double your lifetime,  scratch off

 the fantasies of pioneering legislation, or draping

paper chains of peace letters from refugee children

on the giant pencil armaments.

You're merged with that fear, and the ones you shove away

are small, like conservative Supreme Court appointees,

trees dropping branches , and precious children in fast cars.

TRANSPARENT FRIENDS POSE AGAINST THE MONUMENT

I fell asleep planning boots to march in: zippers at the toes. I fell sleep to the shape of the oval alarm clock, tangerine still bright through the black. Throughout the course of the day, sweat changes scent. I’ve read books where fists are pounding down the house walls but in my neighborhood there is a silence as sober as clouds. You rode the subway downtown with the sign in your lap. On the way home, high school kids were folding pamphlets into paper airplanes. 

THE CHILDREN SWING IN ALL DIRECTIONS (COME OUT AND PLAY)

Take any square inch and narrow in to where there are monsters, to where there are reductions, to where there are cartoon reckonings of your love in a house coat, and a self-portrait hovering high up in the canvas corner, making shadows with wingspan. Telescope to a colorful time where dad fell asleep in the sand and all the screaming sounded safe in sunshine. 

The search to end my worries

After years of living from one milestone to the next,

I am now worried.

Spending years from task to task, job to job, degree to degree,

now all I have to think about are worries.

When will I get the job I deserve? 

Should I leave a place I love?

Who to pay this or that bill?

Should I fix my bike?

Travel to see my family?

Take a sick day?

These are my worries but I share them with others.

I thought I had a plan, a goal, I would have the job, the pay, the benefits just because I worked hard.

That is no guarantee,

so now I worry.

EVERYDAY WITCHCRAFT

What I was told:

face of a fox
and do you
curl your hair
wait, no
maybe it's straightened

open me another beer, okay?
I'll spend the whole night folding origami animals.
I'll build you a zoo.

Past Life Letters, pt 3

To: Other Sister, Often Older
From: big surprise

In my slinky pajamas, my mama's forgotten,
Buttons resist, Claudette's fight in my fist
my piping is hot tempered AND even
Bumpy mattress soaks up fevers, dismals, bliss...
who told us full sentences, who held us to them,
moth speech acts in the miniscus of the sputtering candle
ssssszzt!

Pants

The bottom drawer for jeans and things like jeans like aprons
which, why, well, the things I commit to, the jeans, that drawer but
nothing else needs to be, as long as one thing is, the jeans in place
in that one drawer but everything else goes wherever aside
from things I consider to be like jeans like aprons which, why
would I even but here I am, with all the pop hits, a white dog named Magic
and a glass of water.

know each other

the hallway burrow eat

hollow out

cold clap river where 

he diagnosed or whatever

for sale like junky old

sunny check pause

once burst

palm dive

Today I feel

Like my insides are screaming!

They are groaning and moaning.

My head feels hot

my blood feels like lead in my veins.

Today I have a cold and it sucks.

We all have colds on occasion.

The types that rip into you.

It makes you a slave to tea and water.

This is that type of beast,

the animal of microbes and percolating germs.

Beware the cold and it's grasp!

Triple decker

Troubling slapstick on the train

mu-doom-a, salon, saloon, dining car.

Public feast, gravitational feats, the ne' switcheroo.

Whirling trainers,

a glimmer of hip flask,

its latent shower of hope.

BONE BEACH

I am not my hair

nor my home

nor my sofa

all yellow

to match my teeth

I am something much smaller

I ache with generations of pain

there is a battle

somewhere deep

in the middle of

my bones where

good and evil play

out a tired tale of

dichotomy I deny

even as it rips

through my joints

like fire through

a dry forest

everything crackling

to a flame

somewhere else

deeper inside

my bones there’s a whole

beach of eroded

dreams I inherited

from my mother

her tears lap my shore

like a mermaid

yearning for legs

just for a day even

just to feel the earth

under her feet

just once the heat

of our ancestors

between her toes

I need this beach

the way I need bones

to wade into water

on a hot day

the way she needs me

to hold her sand

to carry it with me

to and fro

across the borders

Past Life Letters, pt.2

Dearest Beloved, Smell this paper
i dropped it in the flour canister and it
has a wheat tang. Pencil is cheaper than ink,
so you get pencil. Ink is for church letters
and for grandmothers. There, i waited two
sentences before begging you to come back
soon; come back sooner than soon. I feel old
without you. Your mother fainted in church
last week when they read the names of the service
men (and my cousin Lydia! she's WAC). Mother
reckons your mother hasn't been sleeping well.
She says she almost fainted herself when the Deacon
sang in her direction. She thinks I'm sweet on him.
She thinks I was writing letters and baking cookies
for the Christian Girls' League bake-off
 more than spiritual fervor. I do feel fervor,
but it is all for you, for you, for the best and bravest
machinist in the entire Pacific fleet. I am making
cookies like a mad girl, like i could glue them into
a raft to sail to you, to sail myself to you. Then you
could hold me, and I would smell like flour, too.
Flour and ocean waves, i'd be glue, your glue girl.
Forever True, Cora Susan, your Cora.

TRAVEL JEEP PARKED IN TALL GRASS

You took him on adventures. You paid money for them, but still, they were adventures. Skimming the white water. Gathering round the ranch donut.

I am not her, but I feel akin: girl with the massive gum bubble growing out of boredom. I blow more air into it, sure that it will burst. Pink, purple, sour green. I had dreams about the ship titanic, and a floral scent. A red stamp proved to me my best friend was dead. The grief was mostly frantic.

Girl at her job.

 I had dreams about reservations of parties of six or more. I had dreams about Okanogan. I woke up with a pain in my throat, symptom of running all night for things without a price. I work for free for lemons, ice, napkins, straws. Flash rock on to Paul in his usual seat. Grimace and shriek. Shimmy into a bar stool. Carve my glare into an icicle.

Those clouds were not painting clouds or candy clouds or food fight clouds. In foreign contexts you cannot categorize the clouds the same. I wake up and think I am in the bathtub. I wake up and dream that I am dreaming, somewhere in some backseat, someone taking me somewhere.

Magazines

I look inside the magazine.

I look up and down and read all the little letters.

The women are fit

They smile

They beckon.

I rip out the pages, slather them with glue,

doodles,

layer faces, body parts, places.

These magazines are full of worlds.

With perfection inside.

I want to be inside them.

I want to BE them.

Emulate each outfit

Take the advice

Use the top 10 tips.

But these magazines are just glossy paper.

Full of ink and letters.

Written by people as confused as the rest of us.

Burnish

Shellfish-star friend, name like a flower,
I like seeing you.
Over two slender knuckles
you're wearing a stick of gold.
Pow!
But it's quite clear, in how you touch that shoulder,
tender, without hesitation,
that you've disarmed.
Like a color on a butterfly
or a marking on some other prey
that over time, and circumstance,
(and something else,
something you did,
what was it?)
adapted through disuse
into ornament.
Uniform into costume,
weapon into custom.
When we were half the ages we are now you were so sad!
Now of the habit of hurt,
just elegance remains.
Lovely mysterious inside-out
you-more you.
One day all the scraping stops
and you're glossy.

Past Life Letters, pt 1

Dear Mam,
The cowboys here are ugly as muledeers,
with just as many flies at their snorting nostrils.
I know you were praying otherwise.
It's been hot. There were squirrels fanned out on the branches
regretting their tails and it wasn't even noon.
I poked Cousin You-Know-Which-One in the solar plexus
for calling me fanciful three times before breakfast
and once when i was ironing his shirt.
I know i must stay through the apples and i must learn
everything i can from Aunt Chess
but some mornings i waken balled up like a spy
wishing i could  catch the first slingshot outta here

Ribs

In concave flinching moment pressed,
breast-valley heaviness, bones.

What is it if it's not my heart but hurts,
what is it if it's just the bones.

A bruise is not a thought/
a thought is not a thing when it's dissolved

in welling eyes in sudden rising
throat in catching of the bones.

Oh my dear I'm sorry for my face
its twist is just the bones, the pressure on them

I think it's all, the dread is just a bruise
just bones, a bruise, just bones

The little ticks

We all have little ticks.

Secret habits we hide behind,

with smiles and shrugs.

We all have annoying little things we do.

Things that drive those around us crazy.

Twirling hair

Snapping gum

Saying uh or um.

These little ticks pile up

like a mountain of headaches.

Often

it's how much i think of you

unconsciously
unintentionally
by accident
on purpose

i keep the focus on me

          (i promise you)
i do

it's just how much my thoughts
               (whatever it is i'm thinking)
will turn
to something you said
or the inflection of your voice
or the way it felt to be with you
the last time
the days
after the storm

or a space of silence
or a moment of laughter
or a long ago memory
captured

then fleeting...then something
something that makes me wonder if you're really okay
what you'll say

when i see you

something / something
that turns me around

and it's that thing
that thing that happens
when i think of you

and wonder if you're happy
hope that you are doing what makes you happy
wonder if you know ...
          what it takes

and i say to myself, choose

choose whether you will be happy or sad today

i choose happy

and then it's often...

when and where my mind goes
certain times of the day
or night
or when i'm driving

i think of something you said
in few words

words that i will remember
i listen as i remember

they soothe me
and touch me

and (i promise you)
                                         i am keeping the focus on me

and its just that

honestly

man

i think of you

often

       and

imagine.

WOMEN WAIT IN THE SCHOOLROOM

I could bawl and bawl just thinking of the ankles, the birds, the electric organ soundtrack to the imagined mornings, and the sunshine, it must have been fierce and cubist, teasing through the station wagon’s windows onto their faces..

Did the light gold eye shadow spread easy over the lid, or did you need a special set of tools? How many purses were there to choose from? Who was the easiest to wrangle out of bed? Who finished their toast?

On the beach I am surrounded. A pregnant girl with a face like a pony dips her Roman feet into the lake; her stripes contain her belly – perfect orb –  leader of everything. They are speaking Portuguese, they are distributing snacks, they are waiting for a baby to come.

After you left them in the carpet room, where did you go, how did you occupy your granted hours? Rubber wheels on linoleum. A slew of other women passing by. The micro click of the second hand as the plants kept growing.

I could bawl and bawl. This is one of my favorite songs. But I like rock music. My bare feet are planted on the rainbow fringe and I am forgetting to make a movie out of it in my head.  Turquoise, red and cream. Children and their women. Women and their children. 

MAN ACROSS THE COBBLESTONE

Write the title out, the words as pure as steam. This will be an okay abstract ode. In and out flickers, like in Lake Saranac, some solo feeling of wading through other people’s objects, and now the boy you flash flood loved is in love with a bigger girl, a girl with her own littler girl, named for the Lion King and screaming down a backyard waterslide.

A letter or a poem? An explanation, or a trailing tangent? I left the burner on. Cliché is an ingredient in the psychology I poke and prod. Herbal gloss that makes the pain diluted. Alanna making a U turn and we were talking, talking, until we realized we were driving, driving two hours in the wrong direction. Rise to turn the burner off. Strain the grain out from the coffee, black like a lake isn’t but seems.

I inherited her angle device. I inherited a lot. Man juts his leg cross the cobblestone, man wears tank top, man has a whole life that is a whole mystery to her then to me now and I’ll loop-de-loop more get-off dream equations to any barfly who’ll listen -  no, not any, I’m lying again. The two Rainier Beach girls testing out the rich white bar that has no money in the bank. They are peacocks I am pigeon. They have baroque gothic script up and down their fore arms, I have jam on my knee. They have me take their picture again, again, again. None are right but they thank me anyways.

Cole made a meal at an establishment’s table with foods from another establishment because that is one of his trademarks. Cole is a bag lady and a tramp. Cole is a vixen hermaphrodite. He is a small boy saving chocolates so his mother won’t die. He is a believer in other people. He is a believer, crying into the steering wheel outside of the Laundromat while the city cries rain. We are reckless and hateful on the boring roads looking for a store with a blender. Back home I am just normal.

Did you let yourself get like that, Nonnie? Yes but different I’m guessing. Documenting plant life in the spiral bound. I won’t try and make it romantic. If I had been older, wiser while you were living I would have worn perfume, I would have shown you how funny I can be sometimes. Shaking talons in and out of the pocketbook. Strong nail beds. Broken nails are my motif. 

Tammy's Picnic

14 doses to my 4 and she's throwing a party, in the sunlight, with dairy!
I don't feel competitive, I'll lose at every ribbon, last place at every walk.
I'm not even going to walk. Or bike or hike or do anything to cure
how uncomfortable it is to see sick people, and know that the way they are sick is the way you might become sick too. Are likely to, really.
Though not so soon as me, I wager.
(And loves, I hope. Don't get sick at all, please.)
I want all the sympathy, I want all the cute ones to color on my cast,
and I want all the awe, for being statistically unlikely,
and visibly altered, and walking ahead into the hormonal
empty light we are all walking toward, but I arriving
decades early, not walking, but transported,
sped there in just two dripping hours,
and maybe my womb will come back from the dead,
like a TV reenactment, a voice will say,
"It's not your time yet. Return." and like two eyes
in the head of the comatose, my two ovaries will
blink and smile, see their loved ones, weep
and little tears of estrogen will pool and spread
lift my flesh and keep on crying
they'll flood my pores, they'll wet my thighs,
when I kiss that one, anyone.
Maybe TV time is over and maybe reenactments too.
Tammy's eating ice cream and she's got no uterus now.
On the other side of this, what's love, what's loving?
How many Brooklyn parks have I sat in,
damp from kissing, damp with what comes next.
Womb come back to me. You glow and float
above the earth of parks. I planted this,
I planted that. Here and there, not watered, not weeded,
not wanted? Wanted like an ice cream cone.
No, I wanted the park, but now I want a home.
Womb, come back to me, I won't trot you out
every summer night. There's no summer here
and I know now, parks aren't for planting.
There's fog and vitamins in the sky and
I'm very slow, slow enough to grow
something in a box, in a yard, in a
bound. Come back to this bay with me.
Across the land there's a patient friend
knowing what to celebrate,
knowing how to want to win.

Bare of Foot

a grassy walk, i watch my step without noticing my feet
in fact, my feet could not be there, if a walk on grass
or otherwise
could happen without visualized feet, my feet, which are not needed
when i watch my step
so ridiculous to lose left foot:
 little toe typer, little mary wiper, little millie middle, little billy widdle, & Great Big Thumping Tom! then right foot:
Great Big Thumping Tom! little billy widdle, little millie middle, little mary wiper, & little toe typer and christ knows how many bones
and ligament bundles and a deck of muscle sheaths and nails, the kelp of the toeshore
and impact, how odd to lose impact, too
because when i watch my step, it never arrives
and even in the gravity-after, even in the gravel disaster,
the judder has yet to shank up my shin.

Today is the day

Today is the day that we get up.

Stand up from a long sleep,

stretch

Eat

Comb our hair

Shower

Use the bathroom.

Then today is open.

Defined by us:

Full of adventure

Learning something new

Watching something,

someone.

Meeting new people,

hearing new sounds.

Today is that day

seemingly like other days.

But each is different.

We are different people

Molded for the day ahead.

it is time for a poem

Yesterday's Poem

(for Tommy)

was the color of your eyes

reflecting against the hot clouds

of a sky a thousand miles 

away from me

where I imagined your voice

a short distance

about the width of the circle of our embrace

my fingers tracing your face

breathing you in

remembering

when i thought i'd lost you forever

again

and this,

yesterday's poem

is my way

of dancing

slowly into the tomorrow

when i can hold you

and be held by you

again.

drafty

I lay beside a very cherub,

Kissed on a young blue-eyed brat

sporting a longish hard kick in the pants

that I took down the throat like communion,

come on. 

OLD FRIEND

you know that flower is named love-in-a-mist

you know that’s my one and only party trick,

no, I’m lying, I’ve got  tons

and we were both around

when they were worse,

and I employed them more –

the problem with recovery is

it’s harder than ever

to tell when you’re being

a jerk

I worry about that

After a Walk to Muir Beach

My cold skin holds together a place

where the landscape lights up in patches

of ache, and hard dry grasses scrape 

each time the thing breathes, tries 

to digest, tries to sleep. Numb in the sunshine, let

the tongue go to sand, the knee creek.

Half an hour forgetting then three-quarter's day

face and organs in a fist. Nothing to grip on

but the exhaustion fissuring through.

If I were

Lightning is traveling sidewards
                not staying long enough to say
                and gone before I get to
         
               is a blueberry pie bursting through
               and staining the picnic blanket
               not steady like you

              bites into a plum and sees itself
              would be the cosmos
              won't put down roots

For Don, a Birthday Card

(written on the occasion of learning that appetizers  are called zakuski in Russia, and in Japan, zensai)

Come home = I've forgotten the snip,

 the crumbs on the pillow,

fragrant fellow, my daily zakuski.

Git home + sprawl on the cats,

the pissy yoga mat flat in the dirt-

we okay the grit, damp blanket seduction.

Twittery birds lift in flower formation ```/``

all ours for the taking, our 

hour appetizer, it's zensai,

a Zen sigh, a mouth upside down,

a nose is two funnels,

it's comic, it's toothless, a destined-nation.

I'll bite your lips when you come home.

Git home; I'll bite your lips

and begin.

Little and Large

Life is full of the little and large

Pleasures and pain 

all small and big and massive and minute.

From the stomach ache to heart break

Indigestion to revelation

Tears of breaking

to tears of insane happiness.

Our lives are balls of all of these things.

Strings of memories, regrets, dreams, wrapped again and again tightly.

Building a life from the little things

to the large.

NOT YOU, NOT ME

My tongue heavy,
I am choked
Grasping for salt water
bodies sweet.

the distance grows
thick
like black milk honey,

An omission.
chapped lips, and vertebrae in
all the wrong spots

something clearly lacks.

The River

Elise's reading Jack Gilbert poems

Jet's reading about Frida
I'm reading Marguerite Duras
We are lying around on large warm rocks shaped like us
The river roars right by
As we read in silence
Together
This was one of her favorite spots too

first gift

a wall.
bare,
beige.
catch your heat.
press you cool.
and outside,
rain.

Colonic for the colonial

We're western.
You're here, we're here.
So let's relate.
Why are you here?
Let's not relate.
It makes no sense for you to be so pleased,
Here,
A terrible voice,
an unfair cadence rocketing about the conch,
dim fade, reverb staid.
Glass blown mind made pure and willing
for the feedback loop of bluey colonial scoff.
Grandad and his switch,
Mum, dad all checked out and gone.
Gold clogged, silver fatigued.
A puke on my hands,
glistening, trembling streaks,
chilli crab residue,
the pause before I find you -
Ya-ya-ing, yawing,
as you were,
yawning.

Seventythree To Go, Mrs. Dalloway

When the cousin you could lose without much regret
sends you a gizmo, via email, to calculate how many days you have lived,
(did i say without regret? did i say self-actualizedly?)
and the number turns out to be
seventythree
short
of
20,000
(did i say leagues under the sea? did i say miles for an oil change?)
....
A party must be planned for two and a half months hence.
Remarkably close to my 52cd birthday/I'm thinking underwater theme?
submarine sandwiches, pickled octopi, corners lit with lava lamps,
or maybe just a play on julesverne
jewels, vernal, green jewels, emeralds, ah,
suddenly we are back to Oz,
ok, an Oz theme...
munchkins, small appetizers, poppies, opiates suspended from the ceiling, sentimental songs,
the movie playing in the background, maybe upside down,
flying monkeys outlined in chalk on the floor,
(therapy has got to have SOME results)
Mulish kick, must the cousin be invited?
Planned my wedding in a much shorter time.
Mulish kick, didn't invite the cousin to that, either.

Dorothy's Biographer Struggles With Why Witch?

The look on her face
good witch or bad witch?
Never, why witch?
Not, You Don't Belong/Which Way Should You Leave?
Not, Dog owner
Not, Braids Offend The Great and Powerful Oz/Lop Off Its Head
Not, Even In Oz We Know Dress=Girl
Never, Miranda! At Last!

The 74 years' question exhausts the subject.

The biographer corks her pen, ties the curtains fluttering too close
to the bed where Dorothy rests, under green eiderdown,
blue-ish skin sagging over frail hands too arthritic to handle an egg.
The transplanted Californian stares out the window where the real confusion began.
Did this wood square a reality too grey to ever re-enter?
Would this ancient, crazy biddy ever give  an answer
one could hear uninterrupted
by chicken noises?

Song of the Fels-Naptha

Song of the Fels-Naptha,

     Golden Bar of Sodium Cocoate          

                                                          (apologies to Longfellow)

In the corner of piled up laundry

little bar of useful stringent

rumbles with the big machine.

Sing out your kitchen chatter!
while our necessaries

spin with river force

edgy threads unweaving, 

wads of fuzz adhering to the wide and slimy lintel

behind the round screen, reading rain,

then sudsy sudsy briskly busy

You must shout over the washing machine's chunking about,

shout Hallelujah! Rinsed and Revivied!

Praises be to machinery agitato

to the internal rapids and snowy show of its
morning Zumba

carillon of metal swishes,

every skin cell

sweat drop

bit of ink

loosed

 and

free

Promissory Note

In the act of being that which sent myself something. Receiving what it is in haze and being sent up. Vague idea about what I should be doing, when I should be doing it. When, when, why? Still locked to the law, operating a personal assessment, a dark sheet of paper, handed over, sadly skimmed with a blank, infirm scrawl. A personal assessment, running me through, a self-criticism. A conference on what I have done and how it was wrong and what I will do and when it will be wrong. Flapping for a gambit, losing the thread, sweating profusely as a volunteer; few know how to ask me, and when.

its like

down the street

up the street

down the way

up the way

down the stairs 

up the stairs

basically, 

not

nordic skiing. 

Get somewhere you can let your hot steam off. 

I'm in a pink diamond, my face and skin and hair floating all around my face, connected from my beaming heart, everything else is a cold blue lake. 

I've collected a love token and now I'm on fire in a perfect shape. No one can see me except for those who play the game which I'm pretty sure is just me. Is it a secret then? That I am the only non-person-shaped explorer in my neighborhood, and possibly in the whole world too. 

I rub myself on a tree, over on Evans' yard, feeling the bark-skin making prickly noises on my tights, and making the side of my face pink like I've been sleeping on my side a long time or got into a scratch war with my brother. 

There is a soccer ball sleeping in the gutter near the park. I run up and scoop the dirty ball into my arms, holding it like a baby and giving it some mad mother dirty baby kisses, getting elated and pulling my whole self up onto my toes like I can fly away just on the feeling of this ball. 

There are dogs. I bid adieu to the dogs and walk on. I know they are a rude bellwether to ending. 

I get a wild burst in my eyes and yell out loud down the street. Crows lift from all of the trees. I go pink fading diamond go, and walk on. 

Masked Intruders

Raccons steal the doormat from Helene Cixous.
They eat her red lipsticks, and track mud typographically
across her gravel path.
She does not notice them, or hear them, or seem to see them,
even when they sluice a manuscript in her small mossy trough
beneath the outside taps. Even when they waddle right over her shoes,
which are unmatched, and equally chic.
She says, "Where is my favorite victim?" a repetition from a lecture at UCBerkeley,
and the visiting scholar chuckles through the kitchen window
where she is finishing the washing up.
Cixous leans back over her laptop, uneven feet nosing at the stones.
She curses the impossible choices:
Does she want to UNDO TYPING or CANCEL?
Neither is a choice not offered.

Circling Like Aching

can't break off the -ing endings
from the zero-ing in, how the pain scoots along
then slips up the arm, evil ferret, critter-ing in the head
knocking over piles of worries/ shelved, a mishmash,
never filed orderly-ish, cleverly humping over the chest,
lipping at the other breast, circling, like aching,
only worse
like the tomorrow you cannot have,
the was and the did

Last Days of the Matriarch Butterfly

clings to the trunk with a zillion other flubbers

not ready to go on, not ready to ease up the flex-

ing motion that had always served so well,

still thinking ahead to moisture, to sun, to the tilt of the planet,

not thinking deeply, as that distracts from the flubflub

flub of the groove of airspace allowed by neighbors

not missing the sweetness of past field flowers

or the joy of contrast in the woods, or by the sand,

just steady on the bark, under the branch pointing South

giving lift to the next tigered patch of citizens,

giving all that can be spared,

with just a little marmalade pot for tomorrow

Commakazi

Still with us, sigh,
the faux comp instructor 
whose heart's desire...
uniform comma usage
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

comma soldiers, in formation

2/
Fie on thee, faux comp instructor!
Pry thine mind to thoughts provocative,
expression vocative,
vocation polka-dotted....
................................
And cut the crap,
brave some rhetoric,
grow some nuts,
brain, heart, and stummich.

3/
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,   "     ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
,,,,,,,,     "        ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,   "   ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

making waves
the comma way

comma comma comma, comma comma comma,
ooh! making caterpillars, the comma way!

,,,',     ',,  '',,,,  ,,,'   ,',,,
renegades in comma families
(sometimes more than one!)

a comma walks into a bar, the bartender says, Hey we don't serve commas here,
and the comma says,

Gin and tonic, easy on the splice

making ical
the comma way

4/
nothing can come between u,s

making tragedy
the comma way

5/
ammocammocammocammoc
backwards commas
mud sounds
grasshoppers chewing for the microphone

Burning Sandalwood

This baby tunnels, plows, thrashes, flops, lifts an entire
torso with amazing baby-abs, arms in the air, olympian of bedtime,
rubbing face in my sweater, in my neck, twining my hair,
heaving up up up from sleep, like Shamu, corking up from the
natural state, the water, the dream, the arms breast soft so soft...
NO! won't be suckered, won't be suckled, won't stop walloping
legs against mattress, won't stay down, must haul up the crib rails,
must jump, again, jumpjump, more jumping and that does it!Heart
pumps faster! Eyes flutter open! Awake again! squeaking the springs
squealing for the nanny slipping in the blankets,head hits mattress,
sleep crashes back,fought off, shakes head, renews vigor,
jumpjump, eyes bright now! Room is dark! Lava lamp glows!
Baby glows, jumps and glows, squeals, jumps, and glows...

vanilla

strain heave wrapt vanilla white sheets throes of vanilla plain mort reincarnate re-enlighten light strong waft vanilla vanilla where did thou come from? i am fond of thee i gasp for survival fittest most fitting a la petite mort vanilla conceive thee i shall carbon bonds clitoral fragrance carbon molds clitoral quintessence

Thanks for the love

Former lover,
I want to say thank you for leaving.
For giving me reason to cry.
I couldn't fathom how you'd leave me when you pledge me your forever.
But that was then, this is now
A new day
I have found a new way
Better yet a new love
One that I have always dreamed of
All those times when my toungue tied up and waterfalls would wash me into invisible
When there was nothing more to be said
I ran so fast and furiously from my pain
& right into her arms because
She waited.
Never in the same place twice.
But always with arms open wide
inviting me to partake of her.
She doesn't embrace me,
she engulfs me.
From the tips of my toes to the top of my head.
She the best.
My reason for breathing.
Spark to my flame.
She drowns out your pain like a shot of novocane but mixed with cocaine.
Cause i can't be clark kent in her presence
no known weakness' remains.

She's all you said was wrong but proven right
Its the opposite of what i get from you caused by what i get from you. She is cataclysims of  emotions, she is the suns rays warming oceans.
She is the change of the tides,
she brings the strength to my stride,
she makes everything alright when I am staring down the barrel of a shotgun begging for life to end. She takes time and allows me to take mine.
She gives me pause.
A reason to remain still and calm until peace comes from the pieces you broke me into.
So lover i want to say thank you. For leaving me broken and angry. Releasing your grasp
so I can be free
and find the love I found with me.

Love & Light,

C. Joi Sanchez
www.jsanschez.wordpress com

Caterwails

Close my eyes to the cost of pet-keeping
 Sleep away daily regret
 that a menage of mewers
 make me weep out of doors
 kitty-kitty? one lost kitty?
 in the dark.

Goodnight Nobody

Bedtime negotiations with an almost three year old
 thoroughly modern self-actualized listened-to moppet.
Eysha simmers down tapping her jammy-feet on the wall,
 waving her pink horse flashlight about the ceiling
she sings Old McDonald "...she hadda farm,
, an' on that farm she had uh ELEPHANT, eieiOOOOOO,..."
(she'd saved her cookie for Nobody
she'd brushed her teeth faster than Nobody)
she knows she is somebody 'cuz Nobody is a ghost.
 Maybe I am Nobody? she is suddenly alert.
I say Maybe, but I am not a ghost.
Very sleepy, she lifts her head to turn and nod to me.
You can be NoGhost, Miss Per.
 Her head drops down, her feet slide still.
I love my coronation,the robe and crown 
warmer than ermine, lighter than air.

hi sophie

bibuybb

my anal gifs

i wrote zit

Nameless seaside ghost town...
That's where I go when I see the moon
Living in an abandoned firehouse with you 
You're in your own little head in a field of sunflowers 
And there's blood in your mouth and there's rats all over town
(C): Take me out to the beach and I'll tell you my secret name 
Take me under the sea and we'll derail the trains 
Let's run away into the caves I still love you I still love you baby
You're in your own little box with ribbons in your hair 
And there's dust in your mouth and worms in the air 
Hideous city of unknown words... 
That's where I live when I go to sleep 
In an abandoned firehouse with you. (C)

My Look

the cold weather makes it hard
to dress appropriately
too cold for tights
but my jeans don't go with my new boots
the metal jingles when i walk
i want to wear my turquoise tshirt
but it has a tiny red spot on it
some kind of juice
or alcoholic beverage
from years ago
i own too many sweaters in varying shades of turquoise
so i choose the grey sweater with a hole in the sleeve
just above my armpit
my hair comes next
the curls less curly lately
longer than it has been in years
becomes easily knotted when i lay against my pillow
i put it in a ponytail that emphasizes the uneven cut
and now i look like high school
all over again

Nancy

when Nancy was 13 she played piano in the homes of white folk
while they gabbed and barely listened

when Nancy was 21 she was a concert pianist
and filled the halls with sounds of her sweet music

when Nancy was 23 she married a church going man
and they stayed together till death did them part

when Nancy was 32 she marched with Martin Luther King
and stood up for her rights as an African American woman

when Nancy was 74 she retired from teaching
after 30 plus years of working with young adults

Where is your hall pass
I don't have one
Why not
Because we don't need them anymore
we're in a new school now
It's called freedom

The end of the affair

The end then of this business of
looking deeper -
of making something of the blue pad of gum on the sidewalk
-the boy among cops who says
if I catch something with my good hand,
I keep it.
My hand around a twix bar.

Now I'll walk lightly
a little too so
seeing only the bouyant
that make it up to the surface.

The hearing trumpet

immovable like a post
the note held long
rubber bands holding the keys
in place
the sound is taut-
the first hangs in the air
til next pushes out
whole
the boy's ear hangs low
just one stop,
then go the other directions

starve happy

i blunder milligrams and micrograms
you stop me 
i expect a lash
you grasp my wrist
firm
gently make a point 
that it's not a major point
but enough to point
i advance millimeters and micrometers
to
blonde streaks swim in light brown
waves upon waves floating at the nape
masculine narrow blue eyes determination
feminine grasping hand educating encouraging
faint lines of age proving your worth and time 

i go outside
look at the usual fare
decide to starve
happy

Re: Naturally a Disaster

Naturally
This could be disasterous
Mixing fire with air
Is just asking for a massacre
Or it may be a masterpiece
Its all in perspective
What you choose to see
Like others look at my harmony as crazy
As if to be daring,
consistantly sharing the hidden pieces of me
is a definitive indication of my insanity.
Not her, she gets it.
Sees it as fulfilling the destiny
I was born into.
Perspective
Glass half full vs half empty
I wonder how many,
times she has given the same excuse in order to not be loved.
I wonder if i ran with arms wide open through her celestial rains to the eye of brewing storms
If she let me keep her safe from harm.
See my storm chasing as fearlessness in the face of resistance
I steadily keep the course charted by love
Direct from my spirit to hers,
i hope she knows my bag is always packed
in case of emergency all she need do is break the glass.
I will stand watch in day
and at night, keep vigil for her safe return to herself.
She says she is a disaster
So naturally this mixing of fire and air may be disasterous
Or maybe once perspective shifts it could just be a masterpiece
All depends on what you choose to see

Re: Naturally a Disaster

Love & Light,

C. Joi Sanchez
www.jsanschez.wordpress com

SAVE ME A PLACE

Is it fair or unfair

cruel, or not

sometimes instinct 

gets traded

for circumstance

If I was wild, in love

the sheets and dust and dishes

would not matter

I'd be shaking

I'd be myself

I'd be the tangerine neon

against the powder hue,

of a blue sky

winking

ALL MY FRIENDS

all my friends are poets

all my friends are geniuses 

of love

her sweatshirt smells like 

comfort, milk, and chlorine

he's made of hair and breath,

regret and coolant

all my friends are poets

all my friends are geniuses 

of love