CellPhone Poem 10
So on the day of your eviction
three blue sentinels stood
at the edge of a parking strip,

almost a year
since your father had died
on a Sunday that stretched into police reports,

when sunflowers in the backyard
spit their black and white seeds
into my face.

You hugged me then
mostly because you didn't know what else to do,
before you crawled beneath the linoleum and sub-flooring

and buried yourself hissing my name.
Go away. You are a mother
of Shit Heads.

You said other things to me
I can't repeat
because I am a mother,

and because I'm trying to remember
how you're my son,
who taught me the miracle that life is.

I'm not sure when you started to hate
with the green stare of a cat's eye marble,
who'd already dismissed me from my post.

I don't know how a child can even do that,
you who discovered pill bugs beneath every rock
and tamed snails,

always searching for more
through mint and calendulas,
maybe learning from them

how to hide your terror.
Are you listening?
Can you hear me?

CellPhone Poem_WhatIs
A cellphone poem is music
how we sound

as we dial talk text message
and the breath between

the warm bath
of lymph nodes

that keeps lines open
in our groins back and forth

between listening
and expression

at right angles
broadcasting

I and Thou
me and you

perched on a molded cornice
where a voice speaks its essay:

Hold on, hold on
a soul shift does not occur

in the limelight,
it comes from shadow.

The planet will heat up,
species will die,

but when, and how many
and can we change?

CellPhone Poem 8
I'm here
walking down the supermarket aisle
where the strawberry yogurt
meets the fish counter.

Why d'you think containers of yogurt
are near the fish counter?
Those two things don't go together.
Yogurt sauce over salmon

is the closest I've ever come
in my whole life to anything like that,
but I don't think it was yogurt,
maybe cream cheese.

I'm here
sitting on the bus counting my change.
The Queen is eating bread and honey.
I said that to be funny.

I'm here speaking to you from the dental chair
in the few minutes I have left to me
before the dental assistant
sticks blue goop in my mouth.

I'm here,
but I'm almost ready to leave.
I've been here all day
standing in line.

What do you mean what tickets?
They're the ones for Andy's birthday
this weekend he was coming in from Fresno
and we were going to take him out.

Remember? I'm sitting in traffic.
Actually, I'm sitting in my car
listening to the radio,
and all I can see are brake lights.

It'll be hours
until I can return
to my reality show. I'm here,
but I want to be home.

CellPhone Poem 7
I'm repeating this again
because it needs to be repeated
like a bobble-head
that keeps waggling its eyes at me.

About time.
About him.
About me.
About place.

A woman warmed her nose
inside a tunnel of fingers. She saw:
eye-gougers, pliers for ripping ears,
a necklace of nails.

There was a small door
in a large wall
covering the spot
where something breathed.

On Hitler's birthday,
he'd served cup cakes
iced with red swastikas
to a guest with 1,000 eyes.

Now the interrogator gets close,
drenched in contempt.
The only thing protecting her
was his jet lag.

Later on, burning tires
floated down a river of oil.
Others sold images of the Virgin
on grilled cheese sandwiches.

About time.
About love.
About face.
About now.

It keeps coming up.
Memory extends my hair
to the next country.
Call me ASAP.

CellPhone Poem 6
I don't get it.
Why'd he say he'd get in touch
when he didn't?

When the next set starts,
he said he'd call.
That was three weeks ago.

Sitting. I'm almost there.
I'm looking out the window.
Take-out.

You told me
you didn't want to cook.
I don't want to either.

Pick me up. No, rice.
A few minutes.
Stop screaming. I got it.

CellPhone Poem 5
Waiters are bringing wine to the table
Chardonnay - the house
we have to leave in a half hour

here they come
did you talk to the realtor
about the surge protector?

I can see grass out the window
sprouting over my parent's graves
it's where last time they walked

my friend's test was positive
the cancer is malignant
she wants to lop them both off.

CellPhone Poem 4
Once I jmpd frm a cliff
I had time to fly.
I was a fly-grl.
U so l00kd dwn on me.

CellPhone Poem 3
I cn taste salt on yr shouldr
as u Ntered me lke you wre throwng
a duffel in2 the bck-seat of a car.
Neithr of us evr l00kd bck.

CellPhone Poem 2:
I called officials from Tokyo,
just like you advised,
gave an interview on prime time,

also an anchor in New York who wanted to know
what I'd eaten for breakfast,
as if viewers hadn't heard

enough about cereal bars
inside the shuttle.
We discussed the wing heat shield.

The anchor wanted to know how it's possible
to peel foam so thin it's like sand.
I told him carefully. We laughed.

But when I talked about earth from outer space
where air appears thinner than the pulsing white
of an eggshell, how the planet's scalp

is scarred with the stump of ridges,
the anchor talked to me during commercial break.
He said to can it.

You, who allowed me
to see creation, I am slow of speech,
and slow of tongue.

*

I am an old voice
that seeps through stone,
one stone at a time,

I am the so-called old man
that has heard way too much
speaking for myself.

Whenever I open my mouth,
it's Biblical.
Who knows what to say?

Do u think it's easy for me sounding
lke this all the time Now u've done it
R you satisfd U don't have to sound lke me

For God's sake u're an astronaut Moses tlked the sme shit
abt nt knwing wht 2 say Wht do u nd?
Sme kind of staff?

Keep rpeatng the sme thng u knw
people hear insde their own holding pattern becse
who wouldn't wnt 2 be held love catches throats

& strngs thm up
wth their own snd
rather than bng loved it's so mch easier.

Cell Phone Poem 1
I'm leaning against a parking meter
looking at a car that's not mine,

but it's a nice car, a two-seater,
taxi-cab yellow sports coupe

blinking aren't I hot from its tail-lights,
and if you follow the arc, spreading its wings,

two molded lines that meet on a hood,
which is to say it's lunch-time,

and I'm hungry for a sandwich with pickles
and stoneground mustard dripping from the side

of a sour dough roll that's been cut
into two halves folded over roast turkey,

but then I couldn't talk on the cellphone,
my ear pressed into the metal,

my ear picking up signals,
listening for a voice that's not there.