POEM

Brick wall sun
Mocking my ache
Doubting my name

Brick wall sun
Swallowing fire
Swiping my flame

POEM

Is this what you truly want
To return to the four walls
Where man has created
The rules of your faith

In place of your heart
Rows and columns
Of expectations and borderlines
Giving you a place to fall

But also a place to tread
Not moving beyond
What has been promised
And not yet delivered

An illusion of safety
A hug that slowly over time
Breaks to splinters your brittle
Spirit to seep out your burned flesh

Leaving you with nothing but your reach
That falls short and always will

Song

Sweat dripping down his back
Subtle chill in the air
Tonight someone here is keeping secrets
Worse someone else just don’t care

There’s a burner on in the kitchen
The tv is turned up too loud
Someone’s putting something in the oven
S’got nothing to do with being proud

Chorus:
There’s no love in here
No love in the corners of this place
There’s no love in here
No love in here

She goes to bed early
He stays up for the night
He leaves before the darkness
She’ll leave in the light

Not one thought during their days
Not a moment of wanting to call
Tonight he’ll be home late again
But she never asks him at all

There’s no love in here
No love in the memories on her face
There’s no love in here
No love in here

Bridge
And shadows are dancing
On the stained cellar walls
Melodies bleeding into the night air

He thinks about when they were young
And their wedding day
That moment of realization
He shouldn’t have let slip away

But a promise is a promise
Coming with or without love
A promise is easily broken
When lover never was

There’s no love in here
No love in the memories on her face
There’s no love in here
No love in here

South Street Diner - Boston, MA

POEM

In my reflection
A familiar stranger
A flogging stick
To my ache

In my eyes
An apology
A window pane
To the dark slide

In the silence
Of my empty room
Foul words ricochet
On my shattered glass

And I’m left with
My captor
Who will never fade

POEM

Due to my shortage of new poetry, here is a poem I wrote several years ago:

Am I to blame
Letting you enter
the secret room inside me
like a ghost watching you capture
the screaming voice who owns me
slowling taking you over
oblivious of my obsession
blindly allowing my captureof the tender heart inside you
like a prey unaware
I held the keyto all this turmoil
that could have been the end
I must be to blame

PHOTO-Footbridge in Holyoke, MA

POEM

When I paint myself
My fingers drag down my cheeks
In place of tears that must
Always be there
I’m a downhearted spirit
Even in the abandon of pretend
I cannot escape it

PHOTO - Gerbera Daisy

Joint effort with my husband, Mike

POEM

This poem was inspired by Flannery O'Connor's short story "You Can't Be Any Poorer Than Dead":

My great grandpa
Was a simple man
Raised me the only way he could

Thought my father
A vicious man
Taught me what a man should

The day he died
I was left alone
Save for the voice inside

What’s black has faded
What’s clean is stained
For the first time, that day I cried

POEM

You saw no way out
A jumbled puzzle in your mind
A pitch-black cavern
An infinite abyss in your heart

You stopped the flow
You stifled the ache
And left one word goodbye

POEM - REALIZATION

It came to me
Like a September morning
Like a blue sky gone gray
It swallowed me
Then spit me out
Left my mind without a way

It stays with me
Like a first born baby
That cries deep into the night
Soft on my shoulder
Heavy on my mind
Casting countless traces of light

I keep it close
Like a whisper in my ear
And give it room to grow
This realization
Something’s not right
Move on ahead move on low

ANSWER

There’s an old warehouse burnin’ down
In a town where no one is born
Flames eagerly kiss the night sky
Kissing the ground by early morn’

In a crowded lot out on thirty-three
Someone’s son is holding a sign
Asking for grace in a life gone wrong
No reflection found in his eyes

Some day we’ll all be gone
Nothing but a stone remains
How much will our love matter
When the story’s always the same

I’m just looking for an answer
What does it all mean
If you have an answer
Will you sell it to me
I’m just looking for the answers
I’m a lot like you
I’m just looking for the answers
After the day is through

Adore the bride dressed in white
Smiling shyly behind her veil
Posing pictures in the church light
Counting on life to set sail

See the widow crying on the green lawn
Her baby wanders through the trees
The sky above a devil blue
Over a cradle of sunburned leaves

Some day my name will be lost
But for only where it’s engraved
And nothing in this moment will matter
For the story is always the same

I’m just looking for an answer
What does it all mean
If you have an answer
Will you sell it to me
I’m just looking for the answers
I’m a lot like you
I’m just looking for the answers
After the night is through

PHOTOS - SPRINGSTEEN

PHOTOS - SPRINGSTEEN

POEM - DANIELLE

Fifteen years gone
Now I cry for you
Who would have known
I would cry for you
Your American face
Your childlike ways
A girl woman like me
Looking for a place to belong
You rose like a vision
Tight in my throat
Long ago mourned
Taken too soon
I listened to the headlight song
And Let myself cry for you

POEM - When I am a Mother

When I am a mother

I will not cut my long hair
Or drive a mini van
I will wear heels to the mall
I will work out five days a week
And never spank my child
I will keep up with the latest music
I will write in my journal daily
I will go back to school

and still see the concerts and movies

that i enjoy
I will not have cartoons on all day
I will not eat my child’s macaroni
I will not lose myself
I will not lose myself

PHOTOS - Black & Whites

POEM - Twisted Games

i can see in his eyes
masked bravery
at the sound of my words
insecure spasm he’s learned to hide
with a reminder of my love,
my fearless love that will not
be broken tattered shaken
though maybe for a moment
in my own anxious need
to find sanctuary at the thought
of some day losing him

PHOTOS - Ireland

View from Claire Island

Claire Island Beach

A Session in Doolin

View from the road

These flowers are everywhere in every color

Graveyard near Dublin

POEM - Where God lives?

The thought of being there
Makes me sick with dread
My stomach actually turns upon itself
Ready to vomit someone else’s plan for me
And asks the new me who I have become
To banish all thoughts of it
But I cannot and never will
Forget sitting there
In rulered rows of mauve chairs
Turning the pages of my bible
On the cover
The date of my baptism inscribed
My fate decided
As it lay on my skirted lap
My small fingers
Searching
The answer is here
It’s supposed to be here
I’m told to go back
And look again
But I just can’t

POEM - Every Morning

Every morning I step into the lift
It seldom fails to bring me down
Up to the fifth floor
This morning the other person
Is a girl my age
Who has taken no effort with her appearance
Her large white calf is dressed
In a large green tattoo of something indiscernible
Drawing attention to the wide ankle at its base
Which floor she politely asks
Every day I go down to number five
Three is her number
Only two floors a short ride
Don’t do it I will her
Don’t do it
Just two floors
You can make it that far
Beautiful weather and we’re stuck indoors
You had to say it
Bring up the weather in the elevator
Because that is expected stranger-in-the morning conversation
Or a need to fill the silence
That reminds you of this futile ride down
Up to our cubicles of blood letting poison
The way in which we follow our scripts
Without question not pausing long enough
To build the courage to say no
I will no longer talk about the weather with
Strangers I have known for ten years
In the public box that takes us to our own private boxes
Sucking on lattes and drowning
In idle conversation
Isn’t that always the case I say
Fuck