Mercy and Serenity

Standing watch on either side of your bed
Are two angels disguised as I.V. Bags.
Mercy and Serenity, I think they are called.
At least that's what the doctor said.

And they sang each in divine stoccatto
So fine that I couldn't hear it
But their corus ran straight into your veins
Through gaping tunnels on the back of your hands
Like stigmata in reverse.
And I could tell that you were grateful for the melody
Even though their voices burned like sunlight.

Praise be to the angels of Mercy and Serenity
And to the blessed god they serve.
If it is truly man's unavoidable purpose to suffer on this earth
Then perhaps the only blessings we truly need
From the moment we slip into this burning cold world
Are the mercy of pain's occasional ease
And the warm serenity of sleep.

(Room 8, general ward, B.H.P.L. February 14, 2009)
(Happy Valentines Day, My Darling)

5:40 pm - Filenes Basement across from Union Square Park - 5th Floor Window Seat

In New York we walk against the light. There'll be no delay to our daily pursuits. No insincere righteousness to fix us to your worn, bitter road. Why should we give way? Why yield? Why should we walk when our goal is to fly? Why should we stop? For a little thing like danger, or fear, or failure? For a little thing like the loss of a life? A life which we never know the true value of until we stand to have it taken away. And what would a spent life be worth, having never walked against the light?

10:15 - 4 Train from Mosholu Pkwy to Grand Central

New York is written on the walls. The four train glides on through the sky, weaving past brick and rock and i see it there: barely legibile shout outs. The Boogie Down is getting up. There's no green here. No gardens. No wildlife. Bit like desperate weeds i see grafitti climb from the cracks and assend. It creeps up the side of apartments buildings like its own version of central park Ivy. It settles, gathers, and thrives in little nooks like an east village garden. And in some places it is tended to. Places where the lines between rich and wealthy broadens like the hips and lips and noses and accents of those faithful gardeners. The gardeners take precious care of their charges. They fertilize them regularly while talking shit to the boys. In the summer they let merengue play from open windows and freestyle hip-hop from the front stoop. Everyone knows gardens grow best when sung to. They don't eat without eating among the Spanish Montana leaves. And they don't drink without wateringfoundation first, for all those that have gone before.

They care for the ever growing vines and brambles with equally chaotic calculation; pruning with whitewash, simultaneously culling the rot while giving reverence to the dead. And in the spaces they make, new limbs grow stronger, the blossoms bloom brighter, and the graffiti gardens grow taller, and taller, and taller out of the shadows. Like everything else they strive to reach upwards. Let Manhattan keep their copses and shaded paths. The Village can have their occasional streetcorner trees and guarded, gated gardens. All that is fine for them who have clear days and singing birds and the everpresent sun in people's minds. Let them escape it if they want to. The Bronx is so hungry for light.

A Study of Hands

The worker's hands are calloused

all along the flat palm,

tough as tree bark

wearing down the saw's teeth.

The tool thinks itself superior

but like that calloused worker

its victories are all

long sough,

hard fought, and deceptively expensive.

Slowly, slowly, time consumes

leaving little more than

callouses and bone.

Be you made of iron-wrought flesh

or skin tough as nails, you'll know

with time and work

leaving a sawdust trail,

the teeth are the first to go.

The lover's hands are tender,

often more so at the fingertips.

Like hot smoke carried

on cool breeze it twists upon itself,

turning the surface while underneath

a greater heat rises,

gathers together

and boils the sweat,

siphoning lust

and distilling passion.

What remains is the smoke.

Tossed into the air

from fiery friction paths

traced by the lover's hand

along his lover's flesh

leaving them tender

often more so at the figertips.

The ash of the two lovers mix

and settle in the hair

(Where they both know the scent)

and mark the burned paths

(Where they can always be re-traced)

The poets hands are smooth and rough

at the palms and fingertips respectively

and often with a signle callous

at the first knuckle

of the third finger

from either direction.

The palms bleed constantly

like stigmata over stock paper,

pouring blood rich with

pain, pleasure, perseverance, and poetry

till its thick, black, and trailing

down the hand and into the pen

where it cannot be coaxed or cajoled

int extravagant words on plain paper.

It must be choked.

Pressed against that

lonely callous till it bleeds.

And like the worker,

and like the lover

There'll soon be little left

than a broken tool

a disposable body

and a spirit that lasts

in memory alone.

The Unlucky Pessimist

People can't tell the future.

This fact is pretty widely accepted. But for Ruth Springer, things were a little different. It wasn't that she couldn't tell the future so much as it was that fate had an annoying tendency of proving her wrong every time she attempted to.

It started in her early teens. Every night she'd read trashy romance novels and listen to Power Rock Ballads into the wee hours of the night. And just before she finally did get to sleep she'd complain aloud "I have a test tomorrow and I just know I'm going to fail." She did this almost every night for four years. And graduated top of her class in high school.

"You're always so lucky," her friend Jill said to her one day. "And yet you're always complaining. You've got that pessimist's luck, I think."

Ruth did indeed whine a lot. On her first day of her first year in college she groaned that she'd never meet any cute guys living in an all girl's dorm. The next day a few members of the Drama and Dance clubs, all handsome, well groomed men, were granted permission to establish their frat house across the street. "Oh great." She said dryly while watching them carry furniture and heavy boxes into their new HQ. "I bet they'll all be gay." Needless to say, they weren't. At least not all of them.

She constantly griped about never having enough time to complete her assignments, and her professors constantly fell ill on or around assignment deadlines. She complained about never finding a proper job, with a high enough starting salary to afford her own apartment, and when she was fast tracked into the most prestigious law firm in the city, she practically wept because she wouldn't be able to spend as much time with her best friend Jill.

Yesterday was the first time in a long while that Ruth felt genuinely depressed. She woke up in her lavish penthouse apartment and ate her breakfast in front of the large oval window, staring blankly at the view of the large park below and the rest of the city beyond it. She got dressed in her favorite blouse and pencil skirt and drove her Mercedes Benz E-class from the private parking lot below her apartment to the private parking lot below her office building. Once in her office she sat in her executive massage chair behind her huge, wrap-around, oak desk and sighed.

Eventually, she had enough sighing and decided it was time to get to work. She hit a button on the intercom attached to her desk and tried to sound pleasant while asking her secretary to bring in 'That damned Gelman file.' She wasn't doing that great a job in the way of being pleasant. But it was for good reason. You see, the Gelman file was huge. So huge in fact that when Ruth's secretary finally brought in the two file boxes and three overstuffed file folders, it appeared as though the entire stack had sprouted two rather shapely legs, lumbered through the door and sat on the edge of the sturdy desk.

"Thanks, Jill." Ruth sighed. Jill might have replied with something like "No problem, boss lady", but she was still panting from having lugged the boxes of files in. When she finally did speak it was to say "What's the matter, Ruth? You look a little down."

"It's this damn Gelman case. I feel like I--"

"Like you'll never get through it?" Jill asked eagerly. "Like it'll never go away? Go on, you can say it."

"Gee, thanks Jill. You really know how to lift a girls spirits."

"Well, aren't you going to say it? Aren't you going to - y'know - Complain?"

"What would that do?"

"Well, in your case: Everything. For as long as I've known you, every time
you've complained about something things take a turn for the positive.
So why not just complain this case away?"

"Please Jill. The man's been accused of embezzling millions of dollars! This case isn't going to go away any time soon."

Just then the phone rang. Jill grinned at it beamishly and Ruth glared at it a bit apprehensively. The phone rang again, completely non-plussed by the strange looks it was getting. Jill answered it saying "Good morning, Neil, Jefferson, and Springer law offices. How may I help you?" rather sweetly into the receiver.

"Certainly," She continued. "Please hold."

Jill placed her hand over the receiver and turned that mad grin on Ruth. "It's for you." She said. "It's mister Gelman."

"Hello? Yes. Come again? I'm not sure I understand. Well how was it-- You're sure? Well there's still the matter of our fee. Oh. Well in that case...have a nice day?"

Ruth hung up the phone and stared at it perplexed. She opened her mouth to speak but nothing came out. Then she looked at Jill and said "That was--"

"I know." Jill interrupted and she began stacking the now useless Gelman file.

"They...they found the money."

"Oh, that's nice." Jill said. She sounded genuinely pleased but completely unsurprised.

"It was all just a big accounting error."

"See, I told you."

"The case. It's gone. I complained it away."

"I'll be at my desk playing Sudoku. You call me once you're over the shock." And Jill left, leaving her friend to untwist the pretzel shape she'd put her brain into.

That night, Ruth lay in her large, sprawling, mostly empty bed. It was empty, Jill realized, because she hadn't complained about a single thing for the rest of the day. Not even the fact that when she got home, she'd have no one to fight over the covers with. She sat here just as she'd sat in her office after that phone call. Silent and mesmerized.

"I know!" She suddenly erupted, so sudden in fact that it even startled her for a moment and she continued talking to herself in a softer voice, like a madwoman telling herself a secret. "I know what I'll do. I'll prove that it was just a coincidence. Tomorrow-" Ruth paused and her eyes scanned the room for any sign of glimmering magic or ardent glamor. "Tomorrow I'll wake up...and it'll be raining...and...um...thats it."

Ruth lay back slowly, letting her head sink into the goose down pillows and clapped her hands cautiously, as if in turning off her bedside lamp she might accidentally un-make the universe as well. At first she fought off sleep. She lay in bed with wide, searching eyes on the lookout for mischievous pixies or naughty elves. But all she saw was the silver moonlight filtering into her penthouse apartment from the massive oval windows.

And then she could fight it no more. Ruth Springer surrendered herself to sleep; and never woke up.

Three Verses

Three items, works of rhyming prose

I hadn't considered the challenge they'd pose

I'll just whip this up

One, two, three,

Commit the lines to memory

and just like that I'd have three verses.

Things seldom go the you rehearse it.

So I sit and admire the morning dew

pen to paper, Idle thought flowing through

As I set out to write three future classics

that someone else might read one day

And in search of quick inspiration say

Grant me three works of rhythm and rhyme

Let me write three verses set to time.

Kenny vs The Devil

[Illustration by Iselma Sosa.  Charcoal on White Paper]

There were a lot of things Kenneth didn't understand. Half the time he had to be verbally reminded that he wasn't home, but that the bed he slept on, the plates and cups he ate off of, the tweed recliner and sixteen inch color television that he sat and watched were all the property of the Rockview Hospital for the Mentally Ill. It was a concept he had trouble with, primarily because of the fact that between the confused, over medicated saps that ran around the place and the insane, maniacal bastards that ran the place, everyone was either trying to steal his stuff, or poison him.

Paranoid Schizophrenia, the doctors told them. Them being the traitorous people that put him there, the people he thought were his family. He didn't quite understand what that meant. Hell, it probably didn't mean anything, just a reason to keep him in this hell hole. Nurse Leslie was a homely woman with short, trashy hair and a formidable ass which she'd threaten to crush patients with. Rumor had it that she'd already killed a man after sitting on his chest, though he'd slit his own wrists a short while prior and was threatening others, so they couldn't really be sure. It had caused a bit of controversy, but eventually it blew over, like it always did. No one wanted to cause too much of a fuss about things that happened here. It had been placed a good thirteen miles in from the main road, where no one could see or be bothered by the mad ravings of the patients.

There was one thing that Kenneth had to give her credit for. Sure she was evil, sure she wanted him dead, but she didn't lie or try to sugar coat any of it. "You're bloody crazy that's why they have you in here," she told him once as he paced back and forth in front of the far fence to the rear of the compound, desperate to get out. "Too damn crazy to be let out. You can't go home, you might hurt somebody. Hell, you might hurt yourself. You're too damn crazy to be left alone. Now bring your crazy ass back here and take your medication."

It wasn't just the things he felt that left him confused. There were things he saw that other people insisted he had not seen. He'd come up to nurse Leslie after a rather disturbing night spent tossing in his bed, half asleep, half awake, and completely terrified. He was chewing away at his lip, afraid to speak for fear of either being laughed at or tied down and heavily medicated. So when the nurse, feeling his lurking presence there, turned to him and indignantly declared "What?", all he could manage to say was "The devil was in my room last night." And then he crept away embarrassed.

"What the hell are you talking about this time, Kenny?" He didn't really know himself, but he'd seen and heard enough to know that nurse Leslie didn't like talking to people's backs. Not wanting to be sat upon, he turned to face her, stood stiff as a board, and remained just as silent. She stood just out of his reach, but Kenneth knew that was just a ploy. She may have seemed like a swollen, bumbling woman, but she could strike at any moment, and squeeze all the air from his lungs. And like some dangerous creature, she gave fair warning in her strike posture: hands at the hips and an impatient look in her eye.

"A ghost came into the room last night." He finally said.

"Then what's this about the devil?" Her foot tapped, the final sign that she would attack.

"Joan said it was the devil." And his eyes lifted from the ground over to the woman cradling a cold, plastic doll. Due to a simple genetic fluke Joan was physically incapable of carrying a child to term. Of course, neither she nor her family knew that, or sought to find out. Not even after her fifth miscarriage somehow brought on the compulsion to cradle, speak to, and generally care for the cold, hard, plastic doll she presently held to an exposed breast. There were medications and special care that might have helped with the previous problem, and counseling coupled with support from her family might help free her of the dependency on her plastic surrogate child. Technically she would get neither. That she had "gone crazy" was diagnosis enough for her family to plop her here where she belonged. That is, with all the other crazies, and away from the public, hidden away where she wouldn't embarrass them.

"I saw when the devil went to her" Kenneth continued. "And now she says she's going to have his baby." Nurse Leslie pursed her lips at this. Later, while re-telling the story to the other nurses with more of a sane, logical twist, she would sigh and shake her head, but nothing more.

"Well, you just leave Joan and the devil to their business."

"No. He's hurting her. I see it."

"Close your eyes."

"I hear it!"

"Calm down, Ken."

"He's fucking her!" He screamed so loud he startled himself as well as a few other crazies. The sudden excitement attracted the attention of two burly orderlies. Kenneth knew it was time to move on about his business.

Later that evening as he sat against the far fence at the rear of the compound, which was where he usually spent his yard time, Kenneth struggled against his chemical restraints to clear his head. As he did he came to a conclusion: It was hopeless. The nurses thought they were all crazy. The doctors would probably just increase his dosage. No one would stand up for Joan; no one would protect her from whatever it was. And Kenneth had nothing to offer. No comfort, no help, he didn't even have shoelaces. All he really had here were the clothes on his back, his shoes, and his socks. He knew how to defend himself from the insane bastards that were always trying to kill him, but all that ultimately earned him was a reputation for being "harmful and disruptive", so he had the courtyard to himself. Or at least the little corner by the fence where the grass encroached on the gravel and pebbles. And let's not forget, he had a reserved bed and a room. A room shared by several other restless maniacs, including Joan, who would be visited by Satan himself again tonight.

That night Kenneth had trouble sleeping. He wasn't supposed to have any problems falling asleep; they had pills that helped 'problem patients' such as him. Only a short while after he'd swallowed those pills Ken had taken advantage of his natural gag reflex and brought them back up, along with any other poison or drug he was certain they slipped into his supper. Now the smell of the hidden evidence under his pillow was starting to affect his stomach. The warm, moist feeling against his neck and creeping down his back wasn't helping matters either.

At lights out the entire wing was swathed in black. Ken could hear the creaking bed springs and troubled moans and whispers that came every night as the other patients drifted off to a fitful, medication induced slumber. The little bit of light that danced through the curtains cast irregular shadows on the ceiling and walls across from Ken's bed. As he stared at them the shadows began to swim just in front of his face. The random, angular shapes molded themselves into soft, muted curves. They reached for him and he made out the clawed hands lunging and scraping at him. He flinched away as they came at all angles, and suddenly the world lurched forward and the grasping hands had somehow stood him up on his feet. For a moment Ken questioned the wisdom behind not letting the cocktail of pills just dissolve into his bloodstream.

That's when he saw it. It looked as if one of the shadows had somehow coalesced through wrath and sin and had managed to swing the ward door slowly on its hinges. He fell back to the ground and crept crablike; sideways and vigilant; under the edge of his bed and stayed deathly silent. The other patients hardly stirred, no doubt dreaming of Benzodiazepine gumdrops and Barbiturates suspended in green gelatin. Kenneth was most certainly not asleep. His heart beat as he watched from under the bed, and he could feel it in the hollow of his now empty stomach as the malevolent specter crept across the room, around the beds, and loomed over the spot where Joan lay sleeping deeply. Though the ghost seemed intent on ruining her sleep and it made itself just solid enough to unceremoniously yank the sheets off her probe body. "Shhhh..." hissed the shadow like a cluster of snakes. It even writhed as a snake, twisting its way into the bed beside her.

Now it is important to note that Kens shoes were neatly arranged side by side next to his bed, with his left sock in his left shoe. And so he made hardly a sound as he crossed the floor barefoot. As for his right sock, that was in his right hand and heavy with the larges rocks he could find in the yard. Slowly, he raised the sock high above his head.

"No!" Joan moaned as the shadowy fingers undid her blouse and squeezed at her breasts. "Shh-sh-sh..." it hissed again. The sock came down much faster than it had been raised and made a dull thud on the shadow's solid skull. Again Ken raised the sock high and brought it swiftly down. The shadow fell limp on top of Joan, but still it was solid. When Kenny smote the wicked demon a third time Joan let out a piercing, hysterical shriek. All she felt was something heavy on top of her, pinning her to the bed, and something wet and warm dripping on her face.
Kenneth would have swung that sock, clobbering the malicious shade until it dematerialized or was banished by the light of the rising sun. The sock, however, had other plans. By the fifth swing it tore its seams and sent its load of rocks scattering around the room. It wasn't enough. Joan was still screaming and still pinned to the bed by the figure which Kenny was now certain was the Devil himself. Finding himself suddenly unarmed Kenny grabbed for its head, intent on taking hold of the beast's horns. The only thing he managed to grasp as he dragged it off the bed felt an awful lot like hair wet, greasy hair.

They'd told Kenneth that there was something wrong with his brain. Split mind, they said, was what Schizophrenia really meant. Of course he'd never believed them until just then. It was as if Kenneth had shirked away in some protected corner of his own skull and could only watch in horror as something else took control.

"Stop, stop now!" he cried from within his own head-space. His body kept moving. It dragged Joan's molester off the bed and halfway across the room before the hair broke from the roots and came off in Ken's tightly clenched fists.

"We're going to get in trouble" Kenny whined, but he couldn't stop his body from driving fists into what he thought was a face.

"They're coming!" He whispered. And they were. Roused by the screaming and hollering, he could hear the footsteps of the hospital staff dashing through the halls toward the ward.

"They're coming, we have to stop! We have to hide!" It would have been a simple enough task if he was in control his senses. If he could actually feel his hands slamming down onto flesh, or could move his feet to feed off his fear. But the other half of his mind refused to let go; and didn't let go until someone ran up from behind and struck him over the head, leaving Kenneth to deal with the headache and the force of Nurse Leslie sitting on him.

Later they'd pump him full of drugs that made it hurt to even think. They'd sit him in their psychiatrist chairs, in front of their doctors and ask him why he did it. What had caused him to crack so violently? Why after months of therapy and impressive progress, did he attack an orderly from behind and beat him unconscious. Why had he continued to beat him after that, even to the point that he hurt his own hands on the bones of the orderly's face? In a single moment of semi-rational thought he'd managed to clear the drool from his mouth and give them an answer. "Someone had to" he said. "Someone had to stand and face the devil."

The Block

Pen to paper
and steadily ink flows
to a single dot
a scratch
a line

No word written
No thought given image
No clever rhyme scheme
Can't find
Rhythm
Measure

Cotton for Brains
And teddy bear stuffing
stitched and sewed so tight
My thought pipe clogged
head gone
skull numb
gone dumb