My Poetry

Monet could have flavored the sky with saffron, ginger, cinnamon or whispers of mint but he left it unadulterated vanilla for children whose taste buds are still chaste fat and pink not yet spoiled by the bitter-sweet of spiced sunsets. __________________________________________ I just watched the video on Youtube of you sharing the Monet prints in your home. You have great taste in art. How generous of you to share it with your fans.  After seeing the video, I wanted to send you a little poem I wrote about Monet's painting Vanilla Sky.  I don't know much about art, but I adore Monet. I particularly love his juxtaposition of colors and how he did multiple works of the same view at different times of day to study how light affects color.   If I had to choose, (it's Monet, who can really choose?) I think his water lily series is my favorite. 

I got my hair cut like Dorothy Hamill when I was nine and I would try to spin gracefully on my roller skates like the Olympian on ice- but the secret to skating ability wasn’t in some follicles. I stood next to him at the bicentennial parade watching my older sister twirl a baton long blond hair bouncing with a starched smile like a Barbie doll in a red, white and blue sequined, body suit. His smile was toothy like Donny Osmond’s. Thirteen, with brown hair and a crooked nose where his father broke it two years ago- a going away present. I squeezed between him and my sister on the tailgate of Grandpa’s blue, Ford Falcon. Eyes trained as flaming geysers splashed the sky fireworks sizzled and popped loud as my heart’s thrum before they fizzled and died. He was the only one on the block who could out run me which meant he would catch me every time I stole his baseball cap. Grab me by the back of the shirt as he closed in behind laughing, he’d snatch it back our daily ritual. He was my one

  Summer Nights A poem bubbles in me peroxide on an open wound. I simmer in the humidity of lost summers. Childhood summers melt together like crayons left in the yard. When I was eleven, summer nights were hide-n-seek and sneaking into the garage with a boy four years older than me. The warmth of his hands was like the first taste of grapefruit sprinkled with sugar but then it all goes sour. Summer tears burn worse than bare feet on hot asphalt. Now the nights are sticky too sticky even for sex, so we lie nude, barely touching we ache for relief. Longing vibrates from deep inside like the reedy resonance of a Native flute. There is beauty in desire and in reaching for each other in mild minutes before sunrise. On the front porch cigarette smoke curls. June bugs cling to the screen door and hiss when it slams. They remind us how to laugh. _________________________________________ The cigarette smoke was from my ex. I've never been a smoker.  The summers in upstate NY are so humid.