Hello Friends,

I've moved to a new site: Follow me there!

http://ihatepoetry.blogspot.com


Thanks for your loyal readership,
Moskowitz
ihatepoetry@verizon.net

The war machine presses on
seemingly without a cause or vote,

the water in our shared ocean
is testing positive for radiation,

a young adult woman lures
an 11 year-old girl
into a public park bathroom
where she is gang raped
by seven underage gangbangers,

and all I can be
is thankful

because my 14 year-old
is being released
from the hospital

where she has been
on suicide watch for
the past week.

Yes,
it’s a small
brutal
world
after all,

and often the victories
are even smaller,

but
I’ll take them
wherever I find them.

Don’t be so full of yourself.

Your competition is everywhere,
mostly toiling in anonymity,

and I saw the greatest proof
of that at Don Jose’s
on karaoke night.

Across the way
we spied
a young single mother,
baggy eyed
and flailing arms
orchestrating
her 3 kids’ meal,
as she was handed the mic
and tore a soulful,
defiant hole
in Alicia Keys’
“If I Ain’t Got You”
making it her own.

It was madness.

There but for
familial responsibility
was the greatest singer
in the world,

or was it her lot
in life that gave
her voice
The Truth?

So, Pampered Artist,
don’t be so full of yourself.
Chances are
the laundress cleaning out
your shit stained shorts,

the plumber
snaking your throne

and the gardener
leaf-blowing away your debris

has the same talent
but more heart
than you’ll ever know or see.

Thank your lucky stars.

2:30 a.m.

I stare across
the waiting room
of the juvenile
psychiatric inpatient
treatment center

at a framed document
screwed to the wall
printed in
English and Spanish
announcing
“Patients’ Rights.”

I mindlessly scan
the litany of legalese
printed in the teeniest
font,
columns of
blurry gray
rectangles

reassuring me of
my 14 year-old
daughter’s rights

as she is admitted
for a 72 hour observation
as she’s been deemed
a suicide risk.

I look at the document
realizing its intent
is to empower,

but all it’s doing right now
is reminding me
of how little control
I have in this situation.

An app for this
an app for that,
thousand of them
mostly free.

Make your own ringtone,
personalized wallpaper
and
wrap it up in its own
protective plastic skin
designed from
your own uploaded
jpeg.

Customize your phone
so it’s no longer
the ubiquitous
tool of
instant
human connection.

Change it
from the window
that could remedy
the disconnected multitudes

into the mirror
that reflects
you you you
and bask in
its hi-tech
narcissistic glory,

as we create
a whole new nation
of disconnected
multitudes

one subscriber at a time.

For the moment
it’s a clear sky –
so blue it almost hurts

and I spring-step
across the parking lot
with enough money in my pocket
to buy the milk and eggs.

There is curly breath
in my lungs and it’s forcing
this smile to peek out.

The girl scouts smile back
and ask if I want to buy some cookies,
but I shake my head
still smiling
at their determination,
their perfect innocence.

For the moment
it’s almost too much
to for me to gather
and pull into my embrace

until I stop

and ruin the moment
by trying to figure out
how to make it last
longer.

Dear Readers,

Guess who's been away - it's me, Moskowitz.  Do you care?  Didya notice I was gone?
Anyways, I've been on the hiatus, but am gearing up for the April PAD for this year.  

And now, courtesy of the good folks at wordle.net, the word cloud of the words used in my blog.
Enter yours and let's share!

I've missed you all and hope God has been good to youse all, love - el Mosk

What really happened
is I decided that I didn’t have to be
the comic relief in my own life anymore.

I didn’t have to be the
good-natured, lovable
schlemiel that never caught
the brass ring.

I decided I didn’t have to be
Rhoda Morgenstern anymore.

I could be Mary Richards
and I deserved to be happy.

From there
the next logical step was
to marry
the woman of my dreams.

20 hours after waking,
I finally carve
a hole out of my
wall-to-wall life
to write a poem,
and as I dig into
my back pocket
where I keep the facile
and glib poetic ideas,
I reach in
only to find
a hole.

What matters most
is that I slow down enough
to drink in the
swirl of clouds
against the fading pink
and orange horizon,

but I will not linger there
too long,
for life
and all its demands
speeds by
like a cable car,

so I’ll pick up the pace
run alongside,
and hop on,
letting the breeze
wash over my smiling cheeks,

as the streetcar
randomly picks up some
and lets off others,

setting the stage
for the next
marvelous,
breathtaking
surprise

to rouse me
from my
quietly
grateful

reverie.