ruff ruff

i talked to her over the phone
and she licked it. my mother told me
she was just back from the vet, a pound lighter,
with a nice, soft crew cut. my brother asked me about
the parakeet we had when we grew up. the one that
used to ride around on the back of daisy maidle,
our pup. davey crockett, i told him. but of course.

remember me

don't know what's more important. memory or substance. as in, what do i remember in my conversation with my mother vs. what were we really talking about. and then, let's not forget this other dynamic that gets in the way. huh? the question? why? where? was i there? were you? love, love, love. that's what i keep reminding myself. all about love.

is mother dying?

i really can't ignore the plaintive cry of the Long Island Railroad anymore, especially in the middle of the night. and when i lose all patience, lose all sense, lose all focus, not for anything in particular but for the cumulative effect of life itself, i have to admit (unlike my parents) i know nothing. i do know...i know nothing at all.

can the can can?

not sure how to explain what's going on here. it's moving around,
down and out. seeing with blurred vision. the crown, it weighs heavily,
the crown of love, of responsibility, of duty, of vision. the fucking thing
weighs a ton. want to set myself free, ya' know? take off.

hospital holiday

always seems those days are the ones in the emergency room. don't feel right. hot. spaced. having a hard time. who is thinking of me? who am I thinking of? who can I, how can I, think?

i keep saying, why am i still here?
what have you been up to?
no. talking makes me feel more relaxed. makes me feel safe.
what do you mean you have to go?
there's a perfectly good bed in the second room.
a TV, a computer, ice cream, vodka.
what else could you want?
i haven't heard from her in a long time. i keep calling. usually she answers.
i thought, no one would know if something happened to her.
how would anyone know? who would tell us?
what? yeah.
we talked yesterday.
i know. i was talking about today?
who would know? who? tell me who?

why does my world...

seem so skewed, so out of sync, so out of control. we're talking impact not addiction. family not stimulant. when the love is so big there's so much to lose. when the love is so skewed, it's out of control. when the love... the love... love.

Long Time No Write

What can I say? Life is an expanding universe that is so hard to keep up with sometimes you just give up. Not give up literally, just figuratively and then
one breath of fresh air, two, three, thirteen. Why is that number so magical?
Do you remember? I do. Everything about that age was transforming. New AWARENESS,
new BODY, new PRESENCE in the WORLD. I sat at a cafe in Nice and ordered
my first drink, a Cinzano. When the waiter returned and saw that I had not diluted the drink with water, he looked disgusted and I finally figured out why it had tasted so bad. The reason I was there was because Bea, the sister of
my foreign exchange sister Suzanne, tried in her very liberated yet respectful way, to say I have to fuck my boyfriend so scram. She was stuck with me in her apartment that summer. So I took to the streets, talking
to hookers. The pressure to wear a bikini was formidable and I painfully marveled over the rocky beaches with their amazing boulders that were so flat, all these sexy French women laid their nearly naked bodies across them to pray to the sun. I wondered why I couldn't be like them. Have their bodies. Know the love. Hunched over, I made my way across the boulevard, thankful to get to the other side, while trying hard not to expose myself too much. I was 13, after all.

love like you never loved before

a friend lost her daughter in a car accident. how did we survive all these years? how did i not lose a sister, a brother, a lover? losing a loved one, young, unexpected, in an accident, how can this be reconciled? you get older and think you've gone through it all and just when you think you've nailed it, the longest journey, the most arduous, insurmountable experience comes knocking on your door unannounced. how to help each other through this... that is the question. how to love like you never loved before.

Brother, sister, where art thou?

The streets are slick with rain and I keep wondering where we went wrong.
Not when or why, because the when, the why, doesn’t matter any more. The why is why not?

I drive the snowy roads and remember that wintry day, the white out,
our photograph on the front page of the Atlanta Journal Constitution. Barely daylight,
there we were throwing snowballs, in the front yard on Highland Avenue. Happy. Our lives on fire. We were one.

12-1-07

a miracle

Tonight I have to say it's a miracle that artists (painters, photographers, dancers, writers, performers, actors, composers, every conceivable form) manage to survive with such little support. Have you noticed that those closest to you not only can't relate but can't even find something substantial to say about the work, that is if they even look, read, study (that's ambitious), focus or check it out at all?

anatomy of a serial killer

That's the title of the unfinished novel from yesterday's excerpt. What really fascinates me is not the gruesome details but the back story--the family in which the serial killer grows up.

Family is the thread in common that weaves throughout my work--whether it's a play, a screenplay, a short story or a novel. We're not talking 'family values' here; we're talking dysfunction, malfunction, inextricable love and all the complex issues that make family an endlessly fascinating subject to explore. The gay sibling, the straight daughter, the suicidal father, the psychopathic son, the intersex child, the bisexual mother, the adulterous grandparent. You name it. They come in all flavors and sizes.