I had seen a play recently by an organization called “Hidden Voices” (on the web here). The play was called “Home Is Not One Story.” What a powerful performance that was! I was brought to tears more than once by these stories. I think that many of the participants, actors and actresses, were telling their own story. I cannot be sure but that is what I wrote this poem below. I spoke to one of the actors in the play on Saturday night when I ran into him in town at a local restaurant and he said that indeed some of them are still homeless.

I do have a hard time meeting strangers, and approaching strangers. Yet somehow, when I saw this young woman who was in the play, at Weaver Street Market, I found the courage to approach her and tell her how moved by the performance, her performance. That is unusual, very unusual for me to approach a stranger and say something. I usually will comment to someone if they just happen to be standing near by. However, I was very interested… not because she was a woman but because of the nature of the performance, the play, and how moving it was. I thought that when I wrote this, it might read like there was attraction but that wasn’t it, any more than I was curious to learn more about the stories behind the guys that acted in the play. Were they indeed telling their own story?! The guy I met Saturday night, the night after I saw the play, didn’t say if that was his story.

They certainly gave the impression that it might have been their own stories they were telling. That to me, almost felt like being nude before an audience, raw, exposed. I suppose that’s how I’d feel. I do that with poetry, but I suppose even the most honest “confessional” poets, have limits to what private details they will reveal.

Exposure and Courage

I did it, confronted my fear, over came it,
and went up to introduce myself to someone.

I met a star today.
Her name is Rita.

Her play is called “Home is not one story” -
a powerful drama on homelessness,

Filled with personal, painful, honest stories;
She had told HER story to audiences.

I wanted to ask her so many questions -
What motivates a person to reveal

private details of suffering,
I mean where does one find the courage?

Where did I find the courage
to admit that during the performance

I was in tears at times?
Do you want to be left alone?

Was that enough bare exposure on the stage?
You sit alone at the market.

I sit alone writing,
but for a few moments, just moments ago,
I wasn’t alone.

If I got up on a stage,
told a crowd what I wanted,

Would I still sit alone? Be alone?
Probably.

Well, his full name is Bruce Thomas. The location is Weaver Street Market, a hang-out for the town folks of Carrboro and people of Chapel Hill come here as well. There is the co-op market and the lawn where they have tables and often there is music provided by bands. Families come with their kids, or individuals come. It’s where you go if you live in Carrboro. In March, the Independent Weekly, our local, weekly paper did a story that is available online here. So, while I sat there at a table outside, I wrote this.

Footloose Bruce

I saw Footloose Bruce
at Weaver Street Market,
a local hangout for our town.
He sat alone… walked across the lawn alone.

I read about him in the local paper recently,
an occasional curiosity,
most of the time,
I see him here,
alone.

No one notices him today -
there’s no music.
He seems invisible and purposeless,
this evening,
but maybe he feels something
I cannot feel -
carefree to just be,
always in the spirit and flow
of life’s rhythms,
like the tai chi
that is a part of his dance
when the music plays.

I wonder if he comes here
to make a connection
or just to look for some motion
and to become a part of the motion.
He dances with the kids
on the lawn but it still seems
to me, that he is dancing alone.

There will be more music here,
and Footloose Bruce will remain famous
as he dances
alone.

This poem is another true story. This is about a homeless person I helped. I was going to say more but maybe I shouldn’t, because as I say in the poem, maybe I really cannot know what this is about, I mean with her.

The Stalker

She passed me at the market
where I sat there reading…
seemed innocent enough,
she said nothing,
just smiled to let me know
she saw me.

Just to let me know
she saw me;
she didn’t want to talk.
We never even were friends.

So, what did she want?

We were never friends,
never lovers.
What did she want?

Just to let me know
she saw me…
or that she was there.

She was inside my home,
I discovered,
just recently.
there were just a few signs,
but enough
to let me know,
she was there.

I suppose she imagines
I am afraid.
Perhaps that’s what she wants.

How many times
had she been near by,
watching,
so close and unseen,
like a snake,
in the shadows,
outside my door,
that I nearly step on.

What does she want?

Here is a dark poem about a girl that I almost let back into my life. That would have been dangerous. Am I being cruel to compare her to an encounter with a snake? Have you met her?

The Seduction

I cannot believe she’d contact me
after what she did to me!
And the gall, to think I’d actually
speak to her.

I guess it’s the part of me
that loves horror stories,
loves roller coasters…

I think about snakes.
I have a phobia of snakes,
and yet, every time I visit
Wilmington, I go to the Serpentarium,
where they have so many snakes,
as well as other reptiles,
behind glass enclosures,
so close you can almost touch them.

However, repulsed by snakes,
I’m drawn to this place
and mainly to the snakes.
I look and watch them
sitting or slithering about,
or I watch the cobra
rise up 3 feet or more off the ground…
I read about how deadly each snakes is…
my hand, my fingers move
in front of a small enclosure
and the small snakes follow
my movements.

I can feel chills
run up my back,
as I imagine
these enclosures
breaking and all these
snakes filling these rooms.

I suppose it’s like that with her,
Amanda.

I’m repulsed and yet
curious; fascinated -
in a morbid way -
like I am by stories
about serial killers
and other sociopaths…
I’m not alone…

We want to know
something about them.
Why they do what they do.

Yet, with that demon,
Amanda,
I nearly invited her into my home
again,
letting some dark desire
squirm its way around my brain…

I’m safe though.
She never got her invitation -
she never crossed that threshold,
as far as I can remember.

So, I’m safe -

This time.

My poetry mentor, Dr. Martin Kirby, told me never to write love poems. He had several reasons. One was that they are so common, so many poets through the centuries had written such poems that it was almost impossible to come up with anything original. I just heard from a student of his and that got me thinking about Martin, his advice. I guess it was good advice, as back then, in 91, I was writing about having been a love that I had known and the grief of loss I had felt after she died. He said it would take me 10 years to be able to write about that… The loss and the love? It seems that they were one in the same, almost, in this instance.

When one thinks of the word love, it does seem to have unclear meaning, or at least to me. Even in-love is used in ways, I would not use it. I read of a psychologist advising his client that he would fall in-love many times. So, how does one describe that singular experience that happens only once, or maybe twice, perhaps three times in a life time (if it happens 2 or 3 times something tragic, traumatic or grave must have happened along the way)?

Anyway, I don’t know what made me think of love at this time but here is where I discovered that singular type of love. It’s a rather straightforward poem.

Where The Love Was and Is

They said you were an angry woman -
I could see it as well…
but where was your anger at me?
Could you be so angry at the whole world
but not at me?

I guess that has something to do
with love – our love.
I kept waiting for that anger
to turn on me,
for me to do something
to provoke anger,
yet I only seemed to see
your smiles at me.

That’s where the love was.

And what about all the
“I love you’s”
we exchanged -
I never heard those words
so many times -
I never felt so inspired
to say that so much,
up to then.

That’s where the love was.

Or maybe it was in certain
snapshot memories…
the time we sat in the park,
I was sharing a story from my past,
a not so fascinating story, I thought,
and looking up,
I notice you looking at me,
with such interest -
interest in me -
and love.
I still remember this,
20 years later.

That’s where our love was.

Finally, it was in all tears
I shed after I heard you died,
I’d never cried before that.

Actually, the love is in the memories
and in the knowledge
that you are always a part of me
and I a part of you,
and the comfort that brings.

I guess, the love isn’t
just in a place long ago.

I am

I am
like this poem
written
on the first day
of spring,
indeed,
the warmest day
this year.

There will be new life,
new revisions.

I’m ripe with imagination.
I see leaves
on still bare trees
and so can you.
Just pause with me,
read me.
Look! Look!
See what I see,
even when there’s nothing
there.

I want to be read.
I want to be loved.
I want to be born again,
reinvented,
revised and revised
and revised,
forever.

Another one of my experiences with knots, social knots… my observations.

In Certain Social Situations

I came to a party
everyone was playing a game.
I know they were playing a game
but I don’t know how to play
because I never learned
how to play.

What if they were playing a game
of pretending to play
a different game
or what if they just seemed
to be playing one game
when they were actually playing
another game?

I was afraid I’d play the wrong game
and never be allowed
to play more games
even though,
I don’t think,
I ever played
any of these games,
because I never knew what game
they were playing…
or if I was playing
the game,
I didn’t know
I was playing the game
nor did I know,
if I was playing the right
game
or not.

Act Naturally – Part II

Naturally, I want to act,
naturally
and act on my feelings
but not too quickly.

I have to know,
what I really feel
so I’ll know what I want
and so I’ll act naturally
without having to stop
and think about
what I feel
I want.

I want to feel
like I’m acting
naturally.

I want to feel
that I know
what I want
and so I won’t have to think
about what I feel
I want
or think about
how to best act
naturally.

People learn these things
naturally.