Was flipping through an old notebook, flailing for an idea and instead found these, written while wasting time at work about a week before Halloween in 2004. I could have sworn that I posted them then, but searching my own websites for keywords like “bobbing for apples” has yielded no results.

So here they are. They kind of cracked me up. They’ll crack Bee up and they’ll entertain my mom, who sends me a package for Halloween every year, even now.

Yeah, we’re entering my favorite season. Here in New York, the fall is getting glorious. I can’t remember when we last had a glorious fall, so I’d say we’re due.

a fairy princess
“Want some candy, little girl?”
voice much higher now

tonight is Halloween
little kids in their costumes
where are my glasses?

orange, black and purple
Halloween has many shades
this vomit looks peach

trick or treat at night
empty pillowcase at dawn
intense tummyache

mean old neighbor man
toilet paper running low
“Hey! Get off my lawn!”

bobbing for apples
i spike the tub with whiskey
little ghost passes out

Dang, but those keys were stiff. How did guys like Hemingway do it?

Haven’t done this in a while; figured it was time.

Storyteller’s Ghost

You come to the graveyard, like a traveler,
for rest: weary of your daily journeys, of
battles won and lost in classrooms and girls’ rooms
and the plastic chair behind your desk; you slip
through the gate unnoticed in the broad night, the
moon dripping heavy silver from the sky to your
skin, slippery, leaving you sleepy as you step,
carefully now, between the stones to your own
place of peace: a small bench of cool granite
nestled between my new home,
a tall tomb with a single keyhole, and
the green grass dotted with acorns and fallen
leaves, and soft patches, bearing messages
of what lies beneath. I am the faint voice
whispering between the stones, dipping into
your ear just as you get settled, with candle in hand
and book covering your bare boney knees like a blanket.
I am not at rest. I was a storyteller once, not
long ago, like you, before your young mind
learned language, before words flowed, when
backs were turned, from your own pen like
clear water from a porcelain glass. Come, stay,
I say, it’s your company I seek, with your candle
and lantern and head full of tales, gathered
between the cracks, in the dust, in battle, in dreams.
Fill my empty belly, rattling bells, hungry like earth.
Tell me one I haven’t heard before, the one I
could tell my children if they ever came, if they heard,
about pixie mischievous sprites that play tricks,
talking birds, hunters, owl moons and good mothers, or
perhaps what it’s like to sneak behind the neighbors’ house,
out to this lonely bone yard,
and how the world moves
with my body no longer in it.

Mine (left) and hers (right).

This house is old, with paint
peeling in large flakes and
flecks of plaster like tiny secrets
falling from the ceiling. I laid
the white dress hanging lonely
in the closet to rest, gave the
forgotten sheets to Goodwill,
shined up the empty rusted picture frame
and placed you inside it. But
your smoke has seeped into the walls;
no matter how much I scrubbed or
painted, the footprints on the steps
remain. Now, the cats have conversations
with empty corners. I don’t hear the
whispering until it’s dark and
I’m lying in bed, a hushed heart, beating
ever so slight, like moth’s wings.
As I pull the covers up to my chin,
I wonder: when I have moved on,
what will I leave behind?

i’m mythological and confessional
and non-negotiable
words like song lyrics with no song
who is this girl with the grey fur coat on
maybe her eyes stay yellow
after the transformation has come and gone

“The space between the space where you are and the space where nobody goes.” — Leland

where Manhattan meets the Bronx
Fort Tryon Park
the Brooklyn and Williamsburg bridges
downtown 4/5 @ Fulton St. subway platform
Battery Park City, Hudson River walkway
the Staten Island ferry
the top of the Empire State

a blue dress
a red journal
a necklace of the Puerto Rican flag made from pony beads
an “I *heart* NY” plastic bag
a crucifix
Timberlands
steel-toed boots
US flag patch
NYCTA work gloves
chipped plastic flashlight
music manuscript in a 3-ring binder
empty Gatorate bottle