Poem in G#
Side-tracked on I-95
Hijacked on a rural road
I tried
to drive back
but you can’t rewind time
I’m the English patient’s mistress
In the time of Cholera
I hit my head on the roof when my heart
Hit the ceiling, the fifth wall, horizontal
restraining my de-containment
I sink back into the softness of the couch
And begin to sing
The overture begins
In a Zoom chat with 200 people
Chanting Sondheim
On his 90th birthday
And ends with a
Covid-19 survivor
Playing the viola
Solo
Because we lost
7 of the octet
When they all contracted it
from Aunt Barb’s 60th birthday party
The song is a movement
But I am still
In an Egyptian tomb
With two broken legs
Waiting
For you
For someone
For anyone
to save us.
EXCERPT From the play Shooting Stars
SCENE 2 The Prayer MAE is grieving the death of her teenage son, killed in a school shooting. She is alone with her son’s coffin when SPIRIT, a multiverse-version of MAE, enters after the first monologue. It is early evening.
MAE: Cruel beast of a hundred billion suns, carrying with you the souls of every creature alive and dead in this universe, like a mighty buffalo lumbering across the Great Plains, while your heart continues to beat, opening and closing and opening again every second. Electrons spinning inside your cells, bonding and reacting like big bangs and black holes. Organic matter dividing, multiplying, dying, scrubbed out and reabsorbed. (beat) I feel as though I don’t exist!
(The SPIRIT version of MAE has entered. MAE takes a pill from her purse, swallows it.)
MAE: (to her son) I want to kiss you for living inside of your beautiful flesh. Warm and glowing, with the materials of the stars. You were so young.
SPIRIT: He was ancient matter changing form, never destroyed. It’s science!
MAE: Death is everywhere…what a waste.
SPIRIT: Nothing in nature is wasted. (beat) Look, it’s morning already.
MAE: (time has moved, MAE is shocked) The sun is rising!
SPIRIT: The earth is turning.
MAE: Who are you? My, God.
SPIRIT: I’m the God part of you, I guess you could say. Technically I’m you, in the 15th dimension.
MAE: What about me?
SPIRIT: You are beloved. You’ve done nothing wrong. You have empathy. You want to end suffering. You care about using too much plastic.
(The space has become MAE’s kitchen.)
MAE: How did I get here?
SPIRIT: First you came from heaven. And then you came from the earth. You’ve been here for a very very long time.
MAE: I’ve always felt like my soul was new, like I’ve never been here before.
SPIRIT: Did you get that idea from astrology?
MAE: Yes.
SPIRIT: Because you’re an Aries?
MAE: Yes.
SPIRIT: We are all the great bison lumbering along.
MAE: I feel…hungry.
SPIRIT: That’s good! You’ve been through a lot this morning.
MAE: What should I eat?
SPIRIT: Eggs.
MAE: Ok.
SPIRIT: Tomatoes. And salt.
MAE: Ok.
SPIRIT: Everyone is rushing to the table to be fed.
(We hear gunshots. The space is transformed into a classroom, during a school shooting. MAE and SPIRIT hide under a desk. We hear heavy footsteps and random shots fired. The footsteps are approaching.)
MAE: Are we safe here?
SPIRIT: We are safe under this desk.
MAE: I think we should move to the closet before...
(SPIRIT places a hand over MAE’s mouth. MAE shrieks quietly. AIDEN, the shooter, appears as a small grotesque creature. He does not match his heavy footsteps. He holds an automatic rifle, struts around the space. There are Twizzlers nearby. He takes one and takes a bite. Chews. MAE begins shrieking in fear under the hand of SPIRIT.)
SPIRIT: Shh…
(AIDEN spits out the Twizzler and points the gun in their direction. SPIRIT comes out of hiding with their arms up.)
AIDEN: Are you alone?
SPIRIT: Yes.
(AIDEN shoots and kills SPIRIT. They die. MAE comes out of hiding screaming, inconsolable. She wrestles AIDEN to the ground. There is choreography and vocalization here. MAE manages to take the gun. She points it at him.)
POEM
Ode to Sales Force Tower, from the view at Jackson Playground
Oh, Phallus-shrine!
Erection Force
above it all
Post-the gold rush, hush
tap tap iron axe and pick
pricking up the earth
skin coated turmeric
with clay dust
the fracking causes
ground to shake,
plates to shift,
and kitchens to shut down.
Post-1906, sex
sexless madams, shut down
brothel’s out of business
there is an earthquake below our feet
but we brave it out
like the gold-diggers,
and fortune tellers,
like the truth-seeking,
fire-worshipping people
we are
the San Francisco wind
Spanish-Speaking
Nannies park strollers
next to benches
and raise
another woman’s child
while
wildflowers
civilize
the rusted chicken wire on Mariposa.
Someone’s mom
hung a painting of
a cabbage moth there,
to mark the remains of a garden.
EXCERPT From the play Shooting Stars
SCENE 5 Worst Nightmare MAE and her deceased teenage son BEN are stuck in the 15th dimension with SPIRIT. It’s a dark void with points of light and color, pleasant droning sounds.
MAE: It’s every mother’s worst nightmare.
SPIRIT: Is it though? (beat) I mean, there are forever chemicals in mother’s milk. PFCs? Polyfluoroalkyl substances. Highly fluorinated chemicals used for their their oil-, stain-, and water-repellent properties. Carpets, cleaners, clothing, cookware, cosmetics, food packaging, furnishings, outdoor apparel, paints, papers, protective coatings, sealants, and firefighting foams. PFCs. Found in every living creature on the planet. They accumulate in your body. Cause cancer and who knows what else. (to BEN) You could’ve been born with a severe birth defect. Because your pregnant mother ate a contaminated cow cooked on teflon. Not to mention the new carpet that was installed right before you were conceived, and the fire retardant sprayed onto the fabric of your baby pajamas. Mother’s milk, cow’s milk, goat’s milk. You could have been born with a physical deformity so great that your parents would have been afraid to even look at you. You could have been born without the ability to think. I mean. That’s worse right?
BEN: I guess so?
SPIRIT: Of all the things it means to be human, of all the gifts we have, to be alive in this life— it’s consciousness. We are the expression of the consciousness of the universe. Like the delicate folds and curls of a flower. Intelligent design. But the creator is consciousness itself!
MAE: That’s Eckhart Toll.
SPIRIT: No, I just came up with that.
MAE: No, you got it from a book called A New Earth in 2007.
MAE and SPIRIT: (together) And now you think it’s your own original idea.
SPIRIT: Maybe we’re just copies of ourselves. Of each other. Facsimiles. Similes. (to BEN) Smile.
(SPIRIT smiles creepily at BEN. He smiles creepily back.)
SPIRIT: (to MAE) Smile.
(SPIRIT smiles creepily to MAE. She smiles creepily back.)
SPIRIT: A smile is contagious. We copy each others smiles. Because we’re conscious. What does our consciousness do with the forever chemicals? Human consciousness created forever chemicals to make non-stick, fire-proof, water-proof things. Convenient. Comfortable. Carcinogenic.
BEN: Mom?
MAE and SPIRIT: (together) What is it sweetie?
BEN: I’m so hungry.
MAE: Can we please get some food for him? What is this, hell?
SPIRIT: I don’t know.
MAE: What do you mean you don’t know? You brought us here!
SPIRIT: I was just following my instinct. You know, you could have worked on your own psychic abilities a little more. Maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess.
MAE: You could have gone to grad school instead of relying on magical thinking.
SPIRIT: (corrects her) Magically thinking.
BEN: Thinking is kind of magical though, isn’t it?
(MAE and SPIRIT both stare at him. MAE falls to her knees. She is stricken with pain and grief. SPIRIT places a hand on MAE’s shoulder, then walks to BEN.)
SPIRIT: You’re so smart. You’re magical, my darling.
BEN: I mean, we have actual electricity inside our brains. Synapses and dendrites.
SPIRIT: (She tickles him) Zip. Zap.
BEN: Ah! Stop!
SPIRIT: Zip. Zap.
(he laughs as if he were suddenly a kid again, and then stops.)
Ben: Stop.
SPIRIT: I’m sorry. You’re just so cute.
BEN: Ugh. (He steps away from her.)
MAE: We should have moved. I hate that town. I wanted to leave. I never wanted to be there.
BEN: Why did we stay?
MAE: I had a job. Your father had a job. He didn’t want to leave. You had your friends. We were fixed, immovable.
SPIRIT: We were like forever chemicals, stuck in the town.
BEN: The town being…?
SPIRIT: Mother’s milk.
POEMS
The Working Class Elites,
A Comedy in Three Acts
The Post Office
The Why?
The, "Where's my package?"
The "I don't work for you."
The kisses we missed
While we were working
While we were working
While we were working.
I tried to text you
But that felt like working too.
So I sent you a map
In the bathtub
Because you couldn't find
Your shirt
And I
Signed up
For a job to do chores for
People with money.
You “didn,T” respond to the map
Then China called Donald Trump,
the man they call President
the man they call President
the man they call President
Hello?
Are you still?
Awake?
Remember Love?
Where is my Love?
I am so trapped
in my everyday
coffee making rings on wood,
Dishes pile while
vape pen-
a new invention
outsmarts fire
And quiets the wild, disgusting desire.
Everything’s been done before but
I still sing for you, Love
I sing for the familiar foreign territory.
I sing for the earthy dirty warrior to win me.
Sex me out of my soft weak ways
but play like a child and twin me.
