Just Sayin'

rock the boat

throw out the baby with the bathwater

worry be happy

criticize what you don't understand

count your chickens before they hatch

judge a book by its cover

cross bridges before you come to them

look a gift horse in the mouth

make a mountain out of a molehill

rock the baby with the boat

throw what you don't understand

judge your chickens before they be happy

worry the bridge to spite the horse

cross noses out of a molehill

criticize a gift hatch you come to its cover

look out with the bathwater

cut off your book by a mouth mountain

make a face

make a baby the boat

criticize bridges in the mouth

hatch a horse you don't understand

cut off your molehill to spite its cover

rock out with mountain bathwater

look be happy before you count books

come to throw chickens

worry a gift face

judge before you

don't

A Different Tree

Fire tendrils wrap around logs

Slowly consuming them

I am scared of being consumed

Not exactly by you, or love

As you enfold me in your arms

Or when I put thoughts into words

I am being eaten alive by assumptions

The physics of the fire are simple

The carbon cycle

Turning sunlight into fuel into flame

By magic through a living being

And water back to fuel again

Maybe it's just easier to love than be loved

There is a universe of assumptions

Based on gender and who knows what

I read the Book of Assumptions

Is this really what I wanted?

I want to throw it in the fire

Maybe we can plant

A different kind of tree together

Polyam Slam

The self hating Jew

Of LGBTQ

I recognize my privilege

And hide behind

Your intersectionality

Last on the list of

Stigmatized identities

I/we

Hold all the stigma

And you barely even notice us

Sometimes we trick you

Into cheating on a partner

Having infidelitous thoughts

Worse, being honest about it

But you

Tell us maybe this isn't the one

Or the right time

To sweat the small stuff

When others are seriously being targeted

Because let's face it

They're out

And we're still hiding in the closet

With all the other Jews

Poly Amorous

Say our name 

To David, A Poem About My Day

Being not judging

The space in between

You tell me

Meaning exists

As to why

Should I need this?

Waves come and go

But not really

Tides come and go

But not really

People, dogs, balls, words

Clouds, come and go

Day, night, driftwood, sand

I am privileged to experience

The infinite ways people branch toward the light

Taking a torch to their childhood home

Shattered by flashbacks of adults fighting

Or recognizing they now have skills

To help their distressed Mommy or Daddy

And this was yours

Auden always regretted

His most famous line

We must love one another or die

I watch the waves

Not really come and go

Clouds gently blanket

Bridges, mountains, towers

Being not judging

Between land and water

Between earth and sky

Between us and meaning

I am the beach

Sometimes swimming in the Bay

Makes my hands and feet feel like snow or static on the TV

Melting into the sun-baked sand

Lulled to sleep by memories of waves

Rocking my flailing body to shore

I don't know you and you don't know me

Let's always remember that

And not as the bow vibrates the string

More as the cloth finds dust in creases where rosin has fallen

Or the first time you touch a singing bowl

The ocean licking the rocks

In the cave mouth at low tide

Sucking the shingle

As the music travels across space and time

From a dead man's brain

To the cider filled room

Through my housemate's good intentions

And resonates with my memories

Of the ginger cat making big paws

Milking my belly

On my grandmother's gold velvet couch

Of ocean creatures pulsing together

A scent I only notice after you're gone

"Let me tell you for sure"

(Maybe holding my hands)

"Meaning exists"

Kindle It

The art of starting fires

Requires a spark

So easy with a lighter

And some fire starter

Oh but the art of love

Requires a spark

And there's no easy way to fake it

Just a lot of ways to break it

The art of starting fires

The art of starting love

Requires a spark, requires

You hit the mark

Maybe it's just harder

When you're jaded and you're aged

And you're not sure you can make it

Maybe stick to starting fires

When your heart no more desires

But sometimes there's a spark

So kindle it

Ritual Forgiveness

For years afterward I ritually forgave you
by email during the High Holy Days
not that you're even Jewish
or asked me to.

It wasn't until this "me too" epidemic
that we actually talked about it
on the phone.

I was surprised how hard that was
for both of us.

I'm not angry anymore
but felt fearful, charged.

So maybe I don't really forgive you
because if I did
why was it so hard?

Dear Facebook

I appreciate your help and consolation
in times of trouble and pain
but I want to know who's in control
who's mirroring whom

I can go for weeks without you
yet as soon as I log in I'm hooked

Anyway how do 2 billion people
have time to like and dislike?
If that many people read and access the internet
what else could we do if we set our minds to it?

Because you only show me more of the same
and I become stale repeating you.
It's been 11 years. Time to grow up.
I know that to you I'm just data.

I want to reach my arms across the page
and touch another living constellation
until we save each other and the world!