family

She was mine and I was hers

Gambled hard and split the purse

a patient and her patient nurse

She was mine and I was hers.

"Jesus Loves Me"/"What Fresh Hell is This?"

my current favorite photo of my mother jill

My mom died from a heart attack on Monday morning, much to my surprise.  She was overindulgent, compulsive, impulsive and took a lot of pride in being the person to appreciate the peculiar beauty of objects like old clothes, toys (vintage, dumpster-dived, bought at the 99 Cents Store, or bought brand new and for a fair amount of money she should have used to buy food instead), jewelry, blank books, old aprons and tin plates with chipped enamel surfaces.  One of her last texts to me was:

Reading kate braverman...my favourite poet...I think my poetry was good.  couldn't write a poem to save my life...what do I want to write about...doll suitcases, blue with silver stars, plaid inside...circa 1954.

With all this appreciation for objects and the temporary thrill of discovering them, she loved buying and making me gifts, which she gave to me a million at a time -- I have boxes full of things from her that now seem like historical artifacts.  I have  bookshelves double-shelved with books from her, boxes of jewelry and collage books she made for me, and letters with their envelopes stuffed full of clip art and photos of her cats.  I was looking through some of her old letters and poems she'd sent me and I found this one that is a real fucking kick in the stomach because of her imagining her death, but it's also comforting because at the time she wrote it, she was still devoted to being a rebel:  she supported Ho Chi Minh during the Vietnam War, and threw herself whole-hog into each counterculture movement I dove into in my teens -- Goth, Heavy Metal and finally, Punk.  She'd been raised Catholic so of course she renounced organized religion, but you could tell she was really drawn to the idea of being saved and watched over by God and Jesus.  At the time she wrote this poem, I remember being annoyed by it, because I couldn't understand her nostalgia for religion, having not been raised religiously myself, and having been badly bullied by Christians in high school for dressing like a 'devil worshiper.'  
She finally stopped trying to be cool and tough in the last decade and got really involved in a church -- she was surrounded by members from her church as she died, which I am glad of, for her:

Fairness Poem

Sometimes my body feels like a rattrap. 

I can feel some small animal, hardly a morsel, sickly and slowing down inside my skeleton. 

Every day for a year and a half straight I pondered

the meaning

of every inconvenience.

Was a flat tire a sign that I shouldn’t leave the house?  I walked everywhere. 

I was always seeing something I thought I should write down –

a violent protest to end the war, a cop throwing his cigarette butt

on the lush green grass of a public park.  Eventually,

I tried to help homeless men and women and even children

decipher a meaning to life. I approached it like a math problem:

this one person has to suffer enough to cover a sadness deficit

so some other guy and his girl can live in a decent apartment

and both own cars.

You shouldn’t describe the meaning of life to a sick person

unless you are also sick. 

My body is a rattrap but I feel okay, all in all. 

I feel better when there’s so much noise I can’t hear that last disappointed moment.

I’m grateful for friends and for my health.

Native Angeleno

Framed beneath the smoggy, pink sunset,

the gray frankness of lonesome smoggy streets

lets Angelenos know that the city is a heartbreaker.

Good and bad and mean and nice and happy and sad.

Why does there have to be so many people?

How can there ever be enough attention

for each of us?

Dear Native Angelenos,

I have no siblings.

Can we be brothers and sisters?

Do you like me?

Am I pretty?

I like dangerous streets 

and safe ones,

too.  

I like attention but I also like being ignored.

Early October 2015

prelude

What did you do in the dark and the cold?

I smoked and I shivered with no hand to hold.

Where did you go when your teeth got fucked up?

I slept on the stairs and I never woke up.

Who was the girl that you used to be?

Nobody much, 

Just little ol' me.

***************************************

Dear readers, I have  been in a psychiatric hospital since last Thursday and just got out today.  I would say I just got sprung, but it was nice in there; the food was okay and sometimes good, the nurses were nice, Christian, pretty Armenian women who wore a lot of make up and who I would have written off as being dumb and mean when I was a teenager, just for being pretty and religious.  I had a nervous breakdown.  I haven't gotten over the summer's heart surgery and my new ticking heart yet.  I take too much stuff. I am moving to Florida on Friday, to stay with my dad and stepmom for a few months.  

I just wanted to let you know.  

xoxo princess robin xoxo

Life Poem

sometimes I feel so old

I feel like a woman 

instead of a girl.

Ain't We Got Fun

Ain’t We Got Fun

In my darkest hour of need

Still I reek a bit of greed

Hands that shake and legs that lock

A heart a lung a cunt a cock

Who’s that sleeping ‘neath the sun?

Why, it’s me!

Ain’t we got fun?

Tired Glamour

tired glamour like a magnolia leaf fallen from its tree.  it is losing its velvety whiteness, starting to crinkle dry at the edges, but it still smells sweet, like the pasadena streets of my childhood.

Children's Verse Zine

Here is Children's Verse, first published Autumn 1998.  Jesus but that was a cold season, obviously.  I misspell Cemetery in here, which is funny because I ended up working in a cemetery for a couple years shortly after  graduating college, and I misspelled it for awhile even when I worked at one.  Enjoy.  or, I mean, enjoy?
xoxo robin