The texts of plays, Code Name Triumph, Who Are You, and the screenplay, “A Tantalizing “ are by request only at Shareen@twosisters.media
POEM 1
And sometimes
I just want
To quit it all
And run away
Where it is simple
And real
And all that matters
Are how the eggs
Are easy
And how
The sun is
Setting.
Sometimes
I just don't care
About success
And whatever
That means
When I
Sleep alone
Too few hours
And measure my success
With yelp reviews
And followers
Of image
On Instagram
Who will never
Know my breath
Or hold me dear
Or listen
When it is really
Silence I
Need to share
Sometimes
I want to quit
It all
Knowing well
the
much I can
Do
Because
It is
hard this
Walk
Of
Difference
making
And harder yet
To make it
Alone.
Published in Darling Magazine
3/22/14
Her Classic Plaids and Tweeds.
Her’s are the first eyes into which we gaze. Her’s the first hair that enchants and the first necklace that entertains. She is the first model, the first fashion show, and our first icon. Some of us adopt our mother’s taste and some of us her manner, but all of us in some way can take from her a lesson in style.
My mother kept her cashmere sweaters in plastic bags, and her perfumed handkerchiefs ironed and folded into the top drawer of her dressing table. Her day clothing lived in a small tidy closet, shoes in boxes, jackets separated from dresses, skirts in a row. By day she wore classics; slim skirts in plaids and tweeds, jewel necked twin sets and flats. By night she was all glamour, elegance and chic theatricality. The basement closets were reserved for her evening wear and they were her private costume house.
She would dress quietly and alone in her room. Sometimes I would peer in to see her sitting at her dressing table, an actress at half hour…taking out her pink rollers, brushing out her hair, applying her lipstick. Always a Revlon red. My dad would round up the three of us into the car and pull down the driveway up to the base of the front walk and there the four of us would wait for Mom. From the middle of the back seat between my brother and baby sister I would sit, head turned to the left, eyes firmly fixed on the front door. Soon it would swing open, her long graceful arm would push out the screen and out she would step, 5’10, all legs, hair curled, red lipstick, painted nails and on this night in a cream pleated palazzo jumpsuit with gold and turquoise earrings, sandals and a simple gold bracelet high on her arm. Around her waist and dropping onto the pleats, a gold coin belt turning a queen (a proper English woman ) into an Egyptian dancer. My dad would say, “Look at your mother. Isn’t she beautiful?” We would all watch her round the front of the car, pull open the door and dip gracefully into the front seat. Glamour would become the air around us as it would fill with Chanel 5.
I see her too, arriving to us many a Sunday morning before church and the entrance was always the same. The door sweeping open, her long legs reaching out over each long step of the walk, and now prim, she would be in a plum tweed Jaeger suit with a classic jacket and pencil skirt, always just past the knee, low heeled pumps, the small gold watch that always graced her wrist, and of course, her sunglasses. If I wasn’t in the back seat waiting for show time, I was at the base of the staircase sitting in the blue chair to the left of the front door. I would hear her bedroom door open, my heart would tighten with anticipation and I would fix my eyes to the top step. She would round the stairwell and I can still see her hand reaching for the banister. I wouldn’t smile but instead with awe I would watch her like a movie star. Tonight gracing her long line, a slim black caftan trimmed with gold and bronze embroidery, slit up both sides revealing her legs, chandelier earrings, hair up and wrapped with a braid. The Queen of England had become the Queen of the Nile. Over my head, just to the side of the door frame was a small mirror and often she would bend forward into it to make a final adjustment before stepping out. “Be good”, she would say on her way to meet my dad, always seated in the blue Cadillac at the bottom of the walk.
I do not own any of her clothing but I share her mixed heritage and a love for two sides of the world. We are the Queens of England and the Queens of the Nile. From her too, I took the value of quiet preparation and a grand entrance. These are the timeless pieces of womanhood I inherited.
Humanity 2
I think that humanity hungers to be led into its highest self. I think most of us want to be good, to do good, to create good and to see the fruit of that good. I think, we are, at bottom, creators, and we are stymied by the limitation of a system of capitalism that argues that he who has most wins. When, in truth, he who loves most wins.
POEM 2
I didn't know I was calling angels but angels came with wings wide. We spoke of home and sang songs from heaven. We shared stories of belonging and found we are engaged in like work. I didn't know I was calling angels but angels came and we laughed in recognition. We laughed in harmony. There is only one love song and she sang it clear and true. No matter what, all the time, every where, I love you. I didn't know I was calling angels. But only angels came.
POEM 3
The bar in Cambridge,
the blues and greens
of preppies,
But he was Portuguese
Sexy man
Who taught me about freedom
We shared a love of the truth
His Pulitzer
My business
Our hearts lived
Apart and at a great
And comfortable
distance.
And his first kiss on
Valleyheart
When he argued
For his limitations
Daring me to love
Him anyway
Nine years later,
three cats
and laughter
I’d dared
And lost
The argument.
And the intense stare
across the theatre
Eyes locked
A slow approach
I thought was sexy
Only to find
he was just depressed
The black jaguar
The penthouse
And me
Sitting
Patiently
Beside sadness
And how I lost
three years there
which weren’t as fun
as three years lost
in a trailer park
along side him
in the pick up
Marlboro reds
and flamingoes.
Real, sexy years of tequila
And jerkey, Montana and shooting ranges
He had a glock
Under his pillow
We’d have been ok anywhere
And then there was Yale and Smith
And the Olympics and Avignon
And shells on the Thames
And the river Charles
A green Porsche
and the secret society
His book
My glamorous job
Endless betrayals
his with others
mine
by absentia
And he had a lisp
and was a valet
and loved me like
No other and
I wanted to make him
my Pygmalion
and I could have
If only
We hadn’t lost a child
And one I distrusted
hypnotized me
And another
dying to love me
left me dying to be free.
And one I adore
Is out of reach.
After Paris (November 2015)
When my house is in disarray I start in one corner, and work my way out bit by bit.
The world is a mess. If you feel off or down or confused, slightly insecure, flashing anxiety, it is because though your room may be tidy, what surrounds it is in forms of upset ranging from disorder to disaster. The air that touches us is filled with the echo of grief.
As you begin your day today, as you venture out into your immediate world, pick one corner and make it better.
In my church, in churches around the country, near the end of the service the pastor will ask you to ‘pass the peace’. Though you may feel sometimes uncomfortable you will turn behind you, then turn again to reach out in front, and either take a hand, or in my case, embrace a stranger with a hug, and say, “peace be with you” .
At the Presbyterian Church on Fifth avenue, standing beside me was Steve. He was grizzled and big and sweaty. His hands were swollen and cracked. He stood and kneeled and stood again and sat beside me sharing in the service. A stranger holding a respectful distance and silence. But at “pass the peace”, when I took him into my arms, he became mine, a friend, a fellow, a journeyman along my way. “ Peace be with you” I said near his ear. “ Peace be with you.” He said into my hair, and as I pulled away from him, I looked into his eyes, mine then filled with joy at having felt his heart beat. I beamed at him, then leaning in to whisper I said, “ It’s the best part, isn’t it? “ And he smiled too. “ It is. “ he said. And we smiled into each other with shyness and knowing and gratitude. My heart lifted and filled with singing.
Isn’t it sometimes just unbearable sweetness to feel your love penetrate another and receive that gratitude returned?
Pass the peace. Do it everywhere you go today.
Let us begin in our small corner. Hand out a dollar, reach out a hand, deliver a kind word and bit by bit let us make a difference.
I dream of a day when we all agree that at a certain hour on a certain day, all over the world, at once, we will turn to whomever is standing beside us and say, “Peace be with you.”
POEM 4
7/13/13
The rain is quiet and makes the morning soft.
I tip-toe out into the small concrete of my sweet backyard.
There an apple tree lives bent over with the weight of its fruit.
Gorgeous little apples, green and pink, the red ones
ready for picking.
On my fence I see grape leaves, wet and slick.
Were they there last year?
Like a surprise, better than a birthday, hiding under big leaves,
I see a bundle of jewels in bright green, perfect and healthy,
the artwork of a genius.
My vine has made grapes, gorgeous fat bundles of them.
I am inspired by the modesty
of a small little apple tree
in an un-celebrated back yard,
bent over with abundance and
humbled by creativity.
I am directed by a vine
reaching and wrapping around a fence
that runs along a path rarely walked
and how privately it delivers perfection.
HUMANITY 3
13 with braces.
Trying hard to be grown up.
We took off from Logan.
I asked him if he was alone.
"Yup ", he said, "My first flight without my mom and dad ."
I asked if he was ok and he nodded his head like a tough guy, in spite of his turned up nose, bangs and braces. "Oh yea, it’s cool. I’ve flown a lot. "
"Oh. Ok ". I said, nodding. Impressed.
And when we were up in the air, I had trouble with my wifi and he helped me, and he had trouble using his gift card and I helped him.
He offered me his Pringles and I declined.
" Oh, you don’t want to go down that road ", I said. " Those things are dangerous for me. I can’t have just one. I’ll go through your whole box."
I smiled.
When we were almost in New Mexico, he asked me if that was the Grand Canyon.
" Oh no “ I said, " No, when you are over the Grand Canyon you know it."
We spoke on the canyon and did some research on my Ipad and we found it is in Arizona.
And just past Arizona, where we did not see the Canyon, he passed me the Pringles box and
said, “ Do you want them? "
I peered into the box.
With all the wisdom of his 13 years, he added, "There are only three left. You can have them now, because, you know, there are only three. It won’t be dangerous."
I took them, and thanked him, and told him that I had been hungry.
When we were in the base of California, he said, "I guess we're going to make it."
Surprised by the remark, I said, " Oh yeah, were going to make it. We’re safe. "
" Uh huh," He nodded like a cool dude, looking out the window, all casual.
And then, he said," You know, I admit that when we left I had butterflies in my stomach a little."
"Oh, yeah, that’s normal" I said. " See, if everything goes well, it’s easy to be relaxed, but we think about what if something goes wrong, and then, you know, it’s scary being without the people we love. "
"Uh huh," he nodded, surprised that I might admit that.
I looked away, and back to my work, just to be casual about it, and then I said "Just so you know, if anything goes wrong, I have your back, OK? I got you covered. "
He looked at me, his little haircut, his braces, just barely past his mom’s lap. "Cool, Yeah, Ok. " He said, looking out the window and across the blue sky. In a moment he turned back and looked up at me as if he were climbing a mountain. " Well, just so you know, I got your back too ."
" Oh wow, thank you " I said. " I appreciate that very much because I’m flying alone too."
We sat back in silence flying over Baja on our way home.
And I thought, right there, that is God.
I loved that boy. I would have died for him.