"Zip your fly and
Wipe off that steak sauce
You're a picture of disgrace."

Hair the color of golden hay
Is swept away from haunted eyes
The screeching harpy of a mother
Is delegated to the nonentity of a flour sack
The child is helpless no longer
His mind soars with the dragons of yesteryear
His thoughts form an unending
Dream of fantastic delight

Abruptly brought back to reality
As his mother yammers once again
Accentuating her words with the tapping
Of a paperclip

In black hat and leather she sits
Oh sooo Cool!
Look again
Closer
Nails bitten to ragged edges
Cool, hides a trembling foot
What is in her soul
Dressed in black hat and leather
Oh sooo cool?

There is something strange about this bed,
Or it is in cahoots with my head.
Some wandering gypsy must have forgotten his curse.
For it matters not how weary mind and body might be,
As soon as my head and pillow greet
Eyes fly open and
Limbs wrestle one another,
While the bed lies on complacently.

Thoughts both somber and silly
Fight for reign in my brain . . .
What's up for tomorrow?
What's down the road?
The words that need writing.
What rooms need tidying . . .

There is something truly strange about this bed
It either messes with or psychoanalyzes my head,
Making sure I scorn the night
And shun the light.

So if you see a gypsy
You might mention you know of a bed
To be had for free!

The story! the story! they tell us
They clamor and yell us.
The collage of the past,
Twists, turns, churns in chaotic pictures.
The Gaia, the earth, the terra
All spinning in shreds.
The land, the world of our birth,
Our foremothers, grandmothers and others
No longer praised, but depraved.
Ravaged, unrecognized.

Tell Us! Tell Us!
They shriek, of the magic time,
Of things called fish,
That swam in water,
That you could eat!
Of feathered things
That flew and sang music.
Of huge four legged animals
That lived in woods all free.
And oh please tell us of woods,
Forests, and strands of giant trees!

Please, oh please they beg us,
Tell us another of your strange fantasies,
When our air was safe and
Our sol, our sun was meek.
Tell us one of your funny dreams!

(Ah yes, your funny dreams
As you read the page and heard the news
An oil spill there, pollution here
Another species disappears.
As your heart contracted you thought
Someone ought to do something
And surely they will.)

As you weave your tale they listen
Slack-jawed, bug-eyed, enrapt.
They skip away from the marvelous dream
Giggling, laughing, what nonsense,
What tripe, what wonderful make believe,
If only such a place existed or ever really did!

I offer you all that I am

Heart, mind, soul, spirit, body.

Yet you will not receive it

Because you cannot.

You, who have become my world,

Whose presence I delight in,

Will not let me become your world

Because you cannot.

My dreams bask in you,

Your look, your touch, your being.

Your dreams will not be wrapped in me

Because they cannot.

You are more real and dear to me

Then my own self.

Because I cannot be so to you

I want to weep,

But I cannot.

As the daughter gazes at her mother
The wrinkles dissolve,
Hair becomes carefree brown,
Work weary bones knit into healthy ones.
Fragility melds into agile strength
As film of gleeful days roll through her mind.

Mom gently kissing the hurt of red scraped knees,
Kindly wiping away the tears of the first broken heart,
Waving a tearful cheerful goodbye to her coed girl,
Beaming with brimful eyes at the sound of "I do",
Proudfully brandishing pictures of grandchildren,
Stoutly, quietly assisting others ....

The gauzy construction of the past unravels
With the squeaky tread of the nurse's shoes.
The tapestry of memories fade as
The daughter dutifully wipes her mother's moist brow
 Hastily sliding past unknowing eyes,
 Dimly acknowledging the earthworn body.
 Wiping away her own tears of what was
 Trying to accept what is.