shake rattle and roll

shake rattle and roll

will it be an earthquake or wildfire

that settles it once and for all

or just plain age?

got hurricanes here and tornadoes

floods at the bottom of the hill

nature in rage

i don’t understand my sudden fears

or why my blood is running cold

i shouldn’t care

something evil tingles in the air

i hope that I’m just being dumb

i dare not dare

don’t care about dead or dying men

they left me to survive alone

and I aced it

this chance we have to rescue the earth

is being lost to sex and chatter

we will waste it

Sonnet 51 – Barbarians at the Gate

Sonnet 51 – Barbarians at the Gate

The time has come, the Walrus said, to speak,

And look away from Ipads and MacBooks,

To smell our World, which has started to reek.

The Knights and Bishops lost all to the Rooks.

They lied and cheated to get our money,

And are working now to usurp our rights.

We can’t escape this by being funny,

Our freedoms will die if we lose these fights.

Remember, there is more to Life than sex,

And stop being a slave to easy debt.

Don’t doubt that they’ve already stacked the decks,

And think they’ve already covered each bet.

E Pluribus Unum: from many, one.

All people united or we are done.

We Need A Plumber to FIx This Drip

The Steady Drip, Drip, Drip of Reinhard #7

What do you imagine the perfect love match to be? Endless conversation or endless sex?  Do you see yourself laughing and cooking together and walking hand-in-hand. Since many of you are younger than me, do you still, in this economy, picture children and a house? I married twice. Both of them told me repeatedly that they felt they were doing me a favor and did not love me because I wasn’t “special” enough. If there was any daydream of being supported by a man, I usually had to pay a little more than half of everything, but #1 did take the credit card with more charges run up on it to atone for being the one who rang them up. I am 62 years old and there are 2 million more women than men in America. I don’t see any Knights riding MY way and I sure as HELL am not spending another cent to be told what’s wrong with me. If there is to be anyone, he will be my age, retired and comfortable. My generation was SO much better at sex than any man younger than me can imagine. If I do meet my Grandpa, we may only talk about the old days in the sack, but we will be smiling. And I never forget that any man who stumbles into my life usually has a coterie of adoring older females who hiss and snarl if I get too close. They work hard to be more clever and more attractive than me and I don’t care. This is me. Plain and simple, no dye or makeup. No fancy clothes or witty bon mots. I don’t have the time for being “special.” I only have time for being myself. Take it or leave me alone. I don’t have time for games…literally…I’ll be dead in ten years, I don’t have time.

The Steady Drip, Drip, Drip of Reinhard #8

I really don’t want to worship anybody or anything except Nature. While I am fascinated with Philosophy and learn from teachers, I don’t want to be a follower of Buddha or Dharma or whoever is hip right now and I have a feeling that those guys would nod and say, “AH! She gets it!”, slap hands, and move along on their journeys. Our society is turning into one that is making plants and animals and people die. I’m starting to get what they are up to: Make everyone with problems or anyone they disagree with…just go away…disappear and let me eat whatever I want and do whatever I want until I…just go away. I have a friend who can commune with animals. If he sits on the ground, they gather around and no one says or barks or honks a word, they are just comfortable with each other and the world. Maybe that’s the secret for the rest of humanity. Sit down. Shut up. Share your cookie and just enjoy the warm breeze and sunshine and be quiet! Don’t make anyone else’s life worse. As the Masters have said, “We are all bozoes on this bus.”

Off the Market, Into Life

Love is where you find it, in many forms.

It’s more than a box of hearts and flowers.

Right now, the world is full of hate and lies,

Only friends will shelter us from showers.

Damsels in distress; Knights in white armor,

Don’t exist in real life, my pretty boy.

The dreams of houses and children are gone.

We’re just too old for sex to be our toy.

Let’s take the business out of friendship

And ask nothing in return but laughter.

Give our greatest love to our Mother Earth,

Making all happily ever after.

A Speech from Ohio Finale No Character Yet

I do know what the word “psychedelic” means. Orange and lime green and in your face purple that was solid as a rock  and yet flowed like a river, and you…wrapped your eyes in it and it all, like, fucking dripped and ran and bled down the wall. And it crawled right up into my fucking body and entered my eyes and, like, exploded out of my ears.  Fuck! Black light posters and lava lamps and the music….that fucking music, man….“Inna Gadda De Vida, baby…that’s where I’m…somethin’…you…” No, man, don’t worry, I’m not going to go all Woodstock on your ass. “One, two, three…what are we fightin’ for…” Shit! Probably owe somebody five dollars nowadays, for singing a line of their song, but that was OUR song! It was ours! And we didn’t call it “denim” so much as “blue jeans”, like our blue jeans jacket with a big peace sign, POW! In psycho-delic colors covering the back. And the front all with the pins and badges: “Make Love, Not War.” “Make LOVE…not WAR.” And oh, we did make love and it was love even when you didn’t know her name. Pure love, Baby. 

Time To Make The Donuts

Some days are formal

Others are free verse

I am not normal

But I am not worse

I need certain rhymes

To lift my spirit

Remember the times

Trying to clear it

Forgive the forcing

Of my poetry

I am just horsing

With the moiety

Spellcheck says it’s real

And that’s all I need

To know that I feel

And that you can read

The Steady Drip, Drip, Drip, of Reinhard, Continued

4.

We missed the boat, didn’t we? Sitting here wondering what to do when you’re supposed to have kids and grandkids to take care of those empty hours. Or, we should be rich enough to meeting “The Gang” or lunch in NYC or LA or ATL or wherever “it” is “happening.” But, we blew it. We are merely surviving. Sure, there are friends and lunches and dinners, but then we go home alone. Those days of waking up in Queens with a beautiful male model are long, long gone. I don’t even want to see my naked body any more. And yes, sure, Sir, you can still make kids if you want, but do you have the energy to keep up and will you be there to see them graduate, if you can pay for college? I’m not sure why I am still here. I lost a friend last year who told wonderful, magical tales of his huge family and his lunches in NYC and LA and London and after his death, we found out that every story was a total lie. But, I must say, Frank, you did make life more interesting.

5.

I haven’t smoked since 1991 and I never was that good at it to begin with. My mother would shake her head and sigh that a pack a day of the lightest brand wasn’t really SMOKING…and I didn’t inhale deep enough. We were forbidden to smoke in the Ohio University Theater Department, so we all did it. I coughed and choked to get addicted at the age of 20. And today, after enjoying my second gluten-free beer, the thought of a cigarette crosses my palette and slides down my throat and fills my lungs and then it’s over. Not at $6 a pack. My one pack a day habit would be $200 a month and I’d rather spend that on chocolate. What made me quit was my doctors told me that if I didn’t quit, they wouldn’t see me any more. And then, my assistant director of the King’s County Production of “Alice ‘91” offered me $20 to quit. He wasn’t that rich, and no, we weren’t. He was 22 and I was 42; but I just did it immediately. Maybe Mom was right. Maybe I just didn’t know how to do an addiction right.

6.

It’s finally dawning on my pea brain that I have it fairly easy and comfortable and settled. Even accepting that I will live alone and get weaker from the MS, at least I’m not fighting huge regrets and hungry demons. I  have seen the destruction the HR and HD can do and while I am not a has been, I am a never was and that’s easier. Remember that, my theatrical children, and concentrate on the work. Concentrate on making the audience think. The stage is an event that only lives in the memory and each performance is its own piece of art. Even the audience changes the dynamic. Have fun with it. All I ask is that no matter how hungry and broke you are, don’t compromise, especially the female actresses who are often asked to prostitute their bodies for a paycheck. That’s when you wait the tables and wait for another break because, if you take THAT one, you may never escape till you age out of it; and then all the doors will be closed. As for the playwrights, well. Write something, damn it. Get your friends to read it for you. Do it in the public square. Get it on paper on the chance it will exist and remember, there’s always Google docs.