Carpet Burn

It's a damn shame we can't have everything.
You learn to walk to the beat of a different drummer.
You try to make peace with the past.
You try to grow up.
Someone said it's like a house with rooms. You knock
on the door and a can of worms opens.

My mother-in-law was old school Italian. We tried to hang out
couple times a month. See Indy Films. Both voracious readers.
I painted Trompe 'L Oeil on her corridors.
I loved the old ladies especially now that I am one. We met for lunch
in the family restaurant. Lots of skipping to the head of the line.
I ordered soup and quiche. She scolded me for putting my purse
on the floor.
Like germs bungee jump backwards to invade my tubular lungs.?
"How about those Red Socks?" I said.

The End of the Beginning

I made a big mistake when I planted mint in my garden.
It was like Pearl Harbor overnight.
Who coulda' known?
You start with this sweet fresh smell then it's invasive.
I couldn't teach math any more.
3rd grade, I'm done.
I'm not a civilian.
So I let the hungry yellow school bus devour them into comformity.
I like, couldn't do it anymore.
Turns out, when they got their choice, they came home to finish school.
How cool is that?

"I want the fairytale." Pretty Woman

So who knows why we get married? It's a crap shoot between petty and sacred.
Maybe take a shot at tryin' to do it better. Like a recipe.

5 Things To Do Before I Die:
1) Make a perfect pie crust, scratch.
2) A year in Tuscany.
3) Write at least 2 books.
4) Quit smoking. 34th is magic.
5) Truly love.

Y2K took us to the country. Man, the ultimate Butterfly Effect.
We had 16 acres and a spring fed pond. We raised a few beef cows, Chuckie
and Beefy. I learned how to castrate calfs.
Nick slept with one eye open.
We incubated eggs and raised chickens.
I painted murals on anything that didn't move.
We built underground forts and we homeschooled life.
We designed a catapult and made it out of culled lumber.
Bonfires and dirtbikes and jars full of fireflys.
It was a good ride.
My best ride.

Bread and Wine

After the cat angel, Otis and I started gettin' tight.
I'd do good things in secret cuz I felt like someone's
Watching me. It was an inside job. Like in 'MIB',
but angels invade instead of those kool graphics.
(I know I'm a little hard to follow sometimes, just go with
the flow, besides, you should be reading this backasswards)

I cleaned up my act. Little by little.
I got off the booze. I turned my little pottery biz into a goldmine.
I was asked to talk shows. I flew all over. I volunteered at the Mission
in Detroit. I made alot of money. I was on top of my game.

So I'm sittin' behind this guy with the grey temples in church.
Nick paid me no mind at first. His sister in law was a friend of
mine and she was playin' matchmaker. At lunch he sat as far
away as he could. Sorta like he gets hit on alot.
I say 'Whatever'

Next time I saw him he was friendly. Maybe he got some buzz on me.
It's great to taste Power.
Then I gave him the keys.

Verse Visa

Nick made me feel different than myself.
You Girls know what I mean. Some among
us 'marry up' which is an insult from the start.
Why would you want to marry someone like me?
Otis Forbid!
I had to go undercover, cuz I liked the grey temples.

Mansion of Cards

I drove a 27 foot UHaul to a new old world.
I moved from a 62oo foot crib with an indoor pool,
sauna, 2nd kitchen, 6 decks, blahblahbla blah....
to a 600 ft. apartment on the rooftop of old Victorian
house in a sleepy harbor town on the South Shore of
Boston.
But that's where I am now, so you can't
know the end.
Yet.

The Third Rail

I spent 8 days in Michigan.
I sat next to a physical therapist on the 2 day train ride.
After a night of fetal sleep, I was tempted to employ her services. After all, I’m supposed to be an old broad, right?

I wake up to Blade Runner City, my nose pressed to the window, takin’ in the foggy wasteland of Detroit.
Car graveyards, broken glass and tented gutter.
Major heart speed bump.
What are these people thinking?
It’s a two mile walk out of the ghetto!
Otis can show you the Way!
Find your destiny!

Eight days is some kinda Biblical number, sounds like.
Saw friends from ten years ago.
From before I caved.
We cut our teeth on having babies together, some too many, some prayed for, some adopted.
A first time mother alliance that never goes away.

When it was time to leave, James drove me to the station in Ann Arbor.
He’s hovering around like a big brother whose 15 years younger than I am.
Checked the bags.
We do goodbye.
I waited and watched him leave like a hired gun.
Then I power walk 2 blocks to the neon signed liquor store that I noticed when we took the right.
Fifteen minutes to train time.
They have what I want behind the counter.
I’m next in line.
I notice a vibe behind me.
James put his arm around me and we walk out.
I was just gonna buy a pack of butts! I said.

Countdown

The world was gonna crash and burn on December 31rst, 1999 at 11:59 PM.
Our bomb shelter was filled to it's starless dome with the sustinence of life. We had it all over the pedestrians.
We canned food at the Morman survival factories.
My ten year old twin boys dutifully measured dried peas.
My two and five year old daughters pitched their tiny fingers into huge burlap sacks of dried wheat. We learned about vacuumed air and how food encased in tin could last for years.
We scanned dry food cookbooks, hungrily looking for recipies that don't use dried eggs.
Because how could an egg that's dry taste good?
Nick bought a ‘State of the Art’ generator.
Our fire wood was stacked higher than the Weeping Willow.
We bought elixirs and pills that purify water. We huddled in hushed whispers about the panic and chaos that would surely knock on our door.
Some guy wailed over the Am radio from a stone fortress in Colorado.
All the clocks crept toward Zero.
In the morning of the year two thousand, I woke up.
I saw from my kitchen Window that snow had fallen the night before.
I looked past the barn and noticed a sixteen point buck grazing by the pond.

I figured we wouldn’t need the meat.