"The Road" - 9/20/16 

only a couple weeks ago a friend of mine tried
to take her own life but thankfully did not succeed
as I fold my brightly colored underwear
magenta lace and polka dots red roses ruefully
glare back at me laughing hyena-like silently
at bittersweet dreams held dear since I was a child

there is so much of which we choose not to speak
when living lives intended to entertain others
we may sing it subtly, or joke or paint it at bay
sublime with denial we may screw it away attempting
pathologically to turn a stranger's lust into the love

we've lost along the way sometimes you may crave
the stage because you can't see past the back row
of an audience it's all so ephemerally limitless
you can't make out a single face through the confounding
din of witnesses clapping for something fleeting
you're not sure you're worthy but you embrace it fully

then afterwards you can't sleep even though you need
to reconcile more now than ever in your dreams the role
of friendship amidst your own quest for success I am
always leaving but more often left it feels like the higher
I fly my spirit's kite the deeper the loss of time I might've
spent preventing that which I cannot outrun via art

"Gossip" - 9/18/16

Gossip is as close as I've ever come to evil
Gossip may even be more even than violence
As much as I've tried to resist her wily serpentine ways
She has nonetheless worked her way into my crevices

Wondering withering relegating excitement's innocence
To doubt and judgement before I've even had time to form
My own opinion it's my own damn fault don't ask if you don't
Want to know and yet is there a difference between hearsay

And prophesy when your source is someone you trust
Or is it merely gossip a Pandora's box a a reputation hoax
A burning smoking gun in your own hand when you agree
To listen to anyone else's truth when you only have a partial view

I could never be a lawyer I could never be a judge I want so
Badly to judge no one to be The Devil's Advocate I want
So badly to belong to the person who wants me foremost
I know I'm drawn to sweet-talkers deference is my drug

Music is romance the unknown is romance approval is
Potential and assurance is overrated when it comes to my
Psyche the virtue of early middle-age is knowing who I am
I know I am open to circumventing trouble with the aplomb

Of an ice-skater it brings me pleasure to have been wrong
It brings me peace to know both sides it brings me poetry
To know both victims have died and come, however slowly
Back to life and I was there to comfort or at least listen silently but

Gossip precludes all of this it turns what once was passing bliss
Into the need to know the rest even if rest will not arrive
By hearing truth through another's eyes or seeing the view
Vicariously I know better I was as a child so badly bullied

Gossip ruined me then "she's a lesbian" "she's stuck up"
"She thinks she's so great" "she always gets 100"
"She's never even kissed a boy" "she's a slut she's a cunt"
If there's any sin I need to shun especially coming upon

Rosh Hashanah it's this one. I will go now to The Bowery Mission
And try to remember no one knows anyone else's tsuris
At the end of the day it's better to dodge your own bullets
Life's magic is in experience and loyalty to confusion is disloyalty

To the the truth.