UWS Slide

Hear that melancholy slide                                                                                                       of a jazz clarinet on the UWS? 

Endless books sold here for a dollar

titles thought unworthy of bother. 

Autumn whistles, wrestles lost leaves; 

foreheads wrinkle, people roll down sleeves. 

The player has talent; As Time Goes By.

Throw him a coin for an evening's lullaby.

A cap in his lap, but his name won't fly

like sparkles across a marque wide.

Hear that melancholy slide 

                  of a jazz clarinet on the UWS?

They've all got wishes to hide

behind day job desks, shirts well pressed,

walls of steal & loss of jest. 

Like the memory of a well lit flame,

eyes yearn for the familiar warmth of fame.

Who knows from where this idea came?

Keys to success, yet who guards the lock?

For now, meander a forgotten block.

Folk or funk or love will be playing

the price of Art, though no body's paying. 

Hear that melancholy slide 

                  of a jazz clarinet on the UWS?

Irony

It was you and me and a little thing named Irony....

all bundled up in hats and scarves the shade of sea. 

Just you and me and Irony along for a ride. 

Lets lift up our heads and cover our eyes—the sun pierces, the air slides. 

You better learn the things you’ve been told.

I shouldn’t forget to be nothing but bold.

Irony watched our disaster unfold—the swift current of demise.

 

This sounds all too dramatic, lets talk more of sky.

It was a reflection of water, the Hudson beneath the statute green.  

Why, those we’re sights I’d yet to see; 

you, me and Irony hand in hand towards the Bowery.

You’re taller than I’d like you to be.

You seem rather short, is this how it should be?

They both have a hang up, that’s easy to see.

 

You, me and Irony--what a funny song we weave. 

Us three, two we’s, one chance to be.

Each woe can now be shared with a smile.

No use rewinding the pain, it’s not worth the while.

Bowery. Hudson. Your keen sense of style.

The sky and it’s blue.

Irony, me and you. 

intrepid whim

Why does one cling 

to a moment altogether brief?

Time can't provide relief 

for the silly wants we weave, 

strung out in solitude as widows who weep.

How can all our hopes be met

like poems each to pet 

with strokes of a petty pen?

Not all rhyme schemes score a win.

Take Keats, a failure at 5 & twenty.

Later, still, his words in plenty we keep--

tokens of intrepid whim.

Perhaps, old loves will rise as him--

ashes prove the right to begin. 

To begin and then to begin again. 

Perhaps, our love will rise as him--

ashes prove the right to begin. 

To begin and then to begin again.

Seeking: Felicity

I often sit and watch the hem of my gown take shape along the tops of my shoes. 

How is it I can find such pleasure in the curves of fabric, the angles of a corner, the wisp of a cloud in the sky? 

Symmetry and fluidity, each captured by the lilt of my hands; perhaps the task of hand to paper, pen to ink will make this life more apt to stay.  

Beautiful things dance all around me. I am young and life seems delicious as custard pies; rich as the crimson hue of this blanket I sit upon. Every pinpoint my eye can absorb moves in a fantastic rhythm and it is all I can do to follow its meter. 

I must draw quickly what I see before me, lest it disappears forever.

A pair of lovers sit outside, across the courtyard. See there, two at rest on the bridge above. I take a moment to examine the scene. Notice how he leans into her dainty frame, like a willow drawn to the water? He seems to drink her very essence. She sways ever so slightly, he a mere ripple in her eyes so blue. The tip of her bonnet tilts up, as if to catch the first available sight of something new.

She plays a tricky game, hoping to catch his attentions more so by aloofness. What a grown-up way to be romanced. It seems, the moment I land in the way of someone's interested glance, all servility is let loose. To hold back as she, a flower to his weed--what wisdom.

How nice to be quite sure of yourself at one and twenty, with eyes like sky.

My father says I am too young for love. I peer into the mirror before me and believe it is not my youth that is undeserving, but my looks. My eyes are too round and mouth horribly pouty. The hair round my temple is wispy like tangled wheat in a field. How long will I have to ponder over the heath of my complexion or grimace at the endless ramblings my mind can produce? I have all the time to capture the world on paper, but what good will those captive colors or moments do? 

Will I ever be who I'm meant to be? A girl can hope for nothing more than what she has--attentions that lead to marriage. Then in marriage, a chance at felicity. 

What more can a girl hope for? 

Felicity is a remarkable word, for it sounds as its definition implies--free, with the slight crispness of expectations met. Here I sit, expecting. 

What more can a girl expect, but the promise of expecting? Only trouble with expectations--sometimes they are painfully mistaken.  

Here I sit, still. See the charming way the hem of my gown takes shape along the tops of my shoes? I think I shall title my drawing, "Seeking Felicity." 

Do you hear the crispness of my breath as the words dash onto the page...felicity.

________________________________________________

Marie-Denise Villers was the subject of the above painting, "Young Woman Drawing." She lives in the Metropolitan Museum of Art here in NY. 

My favorite thing to do here is visit the museum and write poems and short pieces based off of the faces and characters depicted along the exhibits here. This young woman has always been an inspiring image to me--my last trip to the Met I was so excited to find her at among the art work.

"Seeking: Felicity"  was a gut response to the above mentioned painting. 

Someday

I once knew a girl in the years of my youth
With eyes like the summer: all beauty and truth
But in the morning I fled, left a note and it read,
“Someday You Will Be Loved”

And I cannot pretend that I felt any regret
‘Cause each broken heart will eventually mend
Just as the blood runs red down the needle and thread
Someday you will be loved

You’ll be loved you’ll be loved
Like you never have known
And the memories of me will seem more like bad dreams
Just a series of blurs: like I never occurred
And someday you will be loved

You may feel alone when you’re falling asleep
And every time tears roll down your cheeks
But I know your heart belongs to someone you’ve yet to meet
And someday you will be loved

A death cab for cutie song........love it. speaks my thoughts right now.

As the morning rises above the east river, clashing with the buildings silvery, I know my heart belongs to someone...somewhere. 

Same Colors: Different Patterns

 

Same Colors: Different Patterns

To my Huckleberry Friend.

They know who they are. They found me at such an interesting point in time. A time where you finally discover that you have inner thoughts that turn into actions. It’s a time where you finally start to feel alive. Before you were alive, but your inner monologue was too busy being alive to listen to itself.

I met this friend at a time when I began hearing my inner monologue. The realization is like discovering a soundtrack playing overhead, underscore to some ironic moment where you begin to forget that life isn’t a movie with a full orchestra score to cushion the blows or warn of impending troubles. 

The monologue takes shape and form and you begin to relate to it.

This story isn’t about the inner monologue though. This story is about my friend.

Being found at the right time and place is a rare gift life sometimes grants us. So often we don’t realize it has happened. We watch Harry meet Sally up on some dark screen. We become promoters of these perfect meet-cutes.

Funny when we’ve totally missed our own improbable collisions of paths—too often we’re daydreaming or editing our inner monologues.

I can’t even remember the first time I “met” this person. I suppose it was at school, 10^th grade year, during lunch or after a shared class.

I remember the first time I saw this person. I remember feeling sorry for them. They we’re new among 51 other people who had almost all known each other since Kindergarten. I would soon see this person would hold their own just fine, without my help or opinions!

I don’t remember when this person and I first met, but I do remember when they finally entered the script of that famous inner monologue we’ve been discussing.

It’s a dangerous thing to be involved with someone’s inner monologue.

I could be the main character in a script I know nothing about, playing a part I’m totally not suited for. But there I am, star of someone’s monologue.

It can happen to us all, be ye warned.

This piece started as a letter to a friend. I’ve written and said a lot of things to this friend. We’ve talked for hours and hours and hours. We’ve spent going on 7 years playing varying roles in the other’s lives—like a spinning kaleidoscope placed up to the sun; same colors, different patterns.

At the end of distance, time, hurt, laughter, dances, plays, dinners, mornings, lockers, cars, classes, churches, lunches, and even mountains we’ve come a long way, with one through line to boast—friendship.

Now over 2000 miles apart, with no promise of a reprise to our contrasting roles, here I sit in contemplation.

Thank you, friend. You have given me happiness and sadness alike.

We haven’t always made the right choices. So often we failed each other and ourselves in the process. Other times, we were like I hope to stay now—the best of friends.

I didn’t always deserve you and you certainly didn’t always deserve me! 

You’ve been the Copper to my Todd; the Clyde to my Bonnie; the Ricky to my Lucy; the Mickey Rooney to my Judy Garland; the Scarecrow to my Dorothy.

Ha…all gender specification aside, you have been a blessing to me.

I love you, friend.

May God fulfill His purpose in you.

I am thankful He brought you into my life during that precious time when I was becoming the person I’ve yet to fully embody. We’re both on a journey.  

Different patterns, same colors.

-Bitsy

 

“LIFETIME relationships teach you lifetime lessons; things

you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional

foundation. Your job is to accept the lesson, love the

person, and put what you have learned to use in all

other relationships and areas of your life. It is said

that love is blind but friendship is clairvoyant.”

 

Author Unknown

 

 

Wishing

                                                      

I’m trying not to put expectations on things, because I’m pretty sure the only garrentee in this life is that nothing turns out like you think it will. So, you let your self be surprised. You cover your eyes and say up to the heaven’s, ‘Alright, look—I’m not looking.” Meanwhile you’re bumping into things and are so intent on being surprised that you miss moments completely or worse, you’re left terribly un-surprised. You’re sitting in a room with rainbow streamers and balloons and a sign with your name on it…and no one is there. No one showed up to your own surprise party. How could this have happened? 

Basically, you can get burned lighting the candles and not lighting the candles. Either way, the moment you wish for something its out of your reach forever. So don’t wish. I’m not gonna wish, even though the one guy I’ve loved since 3^rd grade may show up in New York City all the way from Arkansas on a random summer’s afternoon with only the intention of seeing me, the one of three friends he has living in the city now from back home.

If I wish this to be the moment he realizes after all these years that I am the perfect person for him…..then I might as well never have gotten on this train to meet him at Port Authority.             

You know, I used to close my eyes and imagine all the things we’d say and talk about together. He lived in a neighborhood next to mine and we shared the same classes and friends and lunch tables. We stood in the same place for 13 years and never knew each other. Maybe he wasn’t looking my way or maybe I was just too damn afraid to be myself before him. Perhaps he isn’t as beautiful or kind or interesting as I’ve always pictured him to be.  (beat) I don’t care.

You just love people, and no matter how impossible it all seems, you get to choose it.  At least that’s one thing in life you have control over.

I’m planning this party....and even if no one shows up and the evening’s a flop, at least I’ll have an uneaten cake to keep me company until the next chance for wishing comes my way.

 

a little monologue that maybe will be in a play someday. Its actually one of the first monologues i've written that can stand on its own.  

I've been writing a lot since I moved to NYC. More to come....