My Poetry

  The first time I was homeless was when I ran away at seventeen.   I never had to think about food or shelter, I just stuck out my thumb for seven months my shelter was the car or truck I was in people were nice enough to feed me. I was too dumb to be scared.   Yesterday, I got a letter in the mail, telling me that my name was near the top of the list for a low income apartment. I put my name on this list, NINE YEARS AGO!   Nine years ago when housing market was getting really tough. I was nearly 50 years old, disabled and my son was still in high school.   Nine years ago   After my divorce and my mom's death I knew I would lose the house I couldn't pay the mortgage on my own The bank would not even talk to me about lowering the payment because only mom's name was on the paperwork and she didn't leave a will. Nine years ago   I applied for the few apartments that were in my price range but so did dozens of others.   Did you know they charge 30 dollars per person to pro

  A missile strike turns day into night and there's no longer power to turn on the lights in Gaza.   Missiles scream like a woman in the pangs of labor. Sirens scream warnings mothers scream in fear for their children and children scream for their mothers to make this rain of hatred STOP! There's no food to be found. It sits in hundreds of trucks that line entrances leading to Gaza while children starve to death in their mother's arms. Mothers can't halt missiles or manifest food so they look in their children's hungry eyes and lie; "Shhhh go back to sleep. Tomorrow, tomorrow you will eat. Everything will be okay. I am here with you."   At night, children dream of sprouting wings to fly their families to safety. But in daylight they are one winged butterflies still endeavoring to fly.   Israel has destroyed beautiful, sacred temples and historic sites flattened every university. they have removed the Palestinian's past, stolen their present, and destro

  Shots were fired in Dallas three years before I was born one of the Baby Busters middle child misfit too young for Studio 54 too old for a mosh pit. Raised on a steady diet of television and Tang. Vietnam was a series of black & white images while drawing with crayons. Watergate was background noise while eating TV dinners. Lying on our bellies chins resting in our hands we waited every Sunday for Tinkerbell to let us in to Disney’s wonderful world. We carried The Force in our back pockets and lived the Wonder Years on a white Huffy with the banana seat- nobody had a helmet everybody had a latchkey. After school we watched the Brady Bunch dreamed of Walton's Mountain and grieved for the perfect family. We never wore saddle shoes or poodle skirts nose rings or bellybutton things. Individuality was our conformity.  We were there when Disco drew its last breath and gave birth to  the MTV Generation. We saw the Berlin Wall crumble like Jericho and watched the Gulf War from a comf

  I said, "I'll see you tomorrow."  You nodded weakly and replied, "Tomorrow."    But tomorrow never came.  "Tomorrow" is the last word  I ever heard you say. "Tomorrow," haunts me.    For weeks you said you were ready to go  because you were in so much pain but I was afraid to lose you, Mom,  to lose your wisdom  all your love your strength.    The world is colder without you my poem shivers on the page.  I try to embrace the echoes of your voice that still linger.   Your dog stopped eating no matter what I tried  he just laid  with his head on your purse still full of prescription bottles and butterscotch candies.   Graham buried him this morning under your favorite pine tree.  When your heart stopped for a moment  I thought all the clocks everywhere, would too.   How can the world   continue to spin without you?   I pretend you aren't gone I'm just too busy to call, but yellow roses make me  think of you.    You created stories,  d