About this author: S. Anderson lives/works/eats/sleeps in and about the bay area. She is pursuing a MFA in writing and is near the finish line. Contact this author at: chiriquip03(at)yahoo.com

Done

by S. Anderson
May 2006

It's true I've passed up a few oppoortunities
Like a Links Security post nabbin' crooks & the
Meat counter at SafeMart packagin' veal
Jobs without even pennysize appeal

Everybody's breathin' down hard,
Can't hardly catch my own breath
Music is my life, the manna of my ma'ana
No one understands that anything else is death

Criticism won't pop my musicality as long as Granny's
Prayin' on me gettin' my foot in my kind of door

All I need is space to create a phat tune and 1 good break

Weather's breaking up
by & by. Droppin' rain
with no bows from the sky.
Droppin' rain, droppin' rain,
and no bows from the sky.

Sometimes it gets so bad that I feel
hard and crusty like burned toast

I wish I had special powers like a genie
so I could stop everything by saying
abracadabra or snap my fingers and poof

This year I don't want toys or clothes
I wish for you to make everyone nicer
so my parents don't divorce, my brother
will stop being suspended, and the kids
at school will Stop calling me Chunky

Just so you know I already asked God
but I'm asking you cause you have an
address I can send my letter to AND p.s.,
Can you make me skinny like Olive Oil'

Oh feel the sway in the
thin heart of midday.
The skin-hollow sway
of a tuned out croon
in the heart of midday.

My husband, Sam, is a good good man
He'll wade through water & sift through sand

He's been laid off two years, going on three
Despondency is nettling quiet as a still water sea

He's been to many interviews,
been called back two or three times
An excellent candidate
though the fit's never prime

I see his confidence losing its heft
as most bosses have yet to reach high noon
He shrugs it off with that good nature of his
joking that lead and wood don't mix with stylus'

A drag on time, over the hill, that's all he is in their eyes
Green wisdom knows little of intuition or fine contradictions
Ever realize in the day there's only one sun, one star in sight
But more than one is apt to shine in the dim blanket of night

In the gray blanket of day,
a bent-yellow melody banks
my sway. Yeah, a gray
melody banks my sway
in the yellow blanket of day.

Shorty & me
go way back to knick knack paddy wack
in a crusty old sandbox
We'd??skip???hide???chase
?????crawl???dig???skate
?????& sometimes walk
through Alger, a scrawly park
of rotting relics behind Pico's Auto Detail spot
Dig long enough & the ground'll fish up
lost parts or half pairs
left by schizos winos hobos junkies flunkies
girl mommies???dew-eyed daddies &
fresh sprouts like us punchin' with the grass
through mushrooms and weeds
through the mushrooms and the weeds
living under a pungent sky of donut dreams

Baby, if I give you my sky,
will you promise to hold me
when the night's coming by?
Will you promise to hold me
if I give you my sky?

Mary Mary, full of grace
I've got blood on my soul
and no right to lay my head
at your unleavened soles

Today, while sorting Mr. P's
clothes for the goodwill pile,
I discovered my crush-cotton
apple green panties, now washed
and dried, among other young
panties in Mr. P's goodwill pile

Eight thousand moons ago
beneath the flicker of a malted lamp
within the slight walls of a room
upon a leathered carpet

I vowed?

Since I found them, now dry,
but fermented with memory still humid
with fear and the hot sting of ammonia
tears and the metallic taste of fever-sweat

My dark soul has searched the red chamber,
searching for a most ordinary way to
hurry those footsteps at the door
???a bitter tea,
???a trail mix of pills,
???a malfunction, hex

Or dare I? Could I?
close the vow with the
tight air of a close pillow?

It would be so easy

Eight thousand moons ago
and here I am there
still caught somewhere
between heaven's lean eye
and hell's open gate

Mary Mary, full of grace
Guide me from this troubled place

Your blues ain't my blues
&
My blues ain't your blues
cause mine's plain rain with no bows
while yours is a pebble hollow
croon of a tune
A low mellow melody
marooned in the soft shell of night
moaning high?????????????????????????
moaning low
Moaning to catch that tiger??????
'?let go