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THE ROOM IS VERY WARM LIKE THE WOMAN
The room is very warm like the woman.
Can you guess what she is doing?
She is holding on to her fate.
The woman is the wise warrior of night.
She says: It was always someone else's war.
An animal war. Which means numbing
not nurturing or measuring the hurts
by him and his artillery. The way an animal
measures how we lay beside each other
in a war that was not ours. And how the night
was wonderful. As we lay beside each other.
Two of a kind. Mama's name and Mary's breast
breathing in us.
Dorothy A. Friedman__
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HEAVEN MUST BE A BEAUTIFUL PLACE
Heaven asked me for a letter of recommendation.
Okay I said. But I'd like to see the place first.
When I did it was as lovely as I'd been told.
God sat in front of me, her desk piled with bills,
smiing and engaged me in conversation.
Heaven's chairs were green and blue pastels.
Heaven's hair was painted green and blue too.
I'd never seen Heaven up close where
anarchists like Judith Malina meet, but there's
ample room for catching up on your reading.
And a giant screen that plays War and Peace.
Dorothy A. Friedman__
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HOW LOVELY
How lovely to be deeply involved.
To be unafraid of death.
To be attached to your family
and not complain of either hardness
or softness of being misunderstood.
How lovely to live a life not unlike
the one you read about in books.
To resolve all the problems of humanity.
To envy no one and believe in yourself.
How lovely to be Ellen with deep green eyes
and Lucinda with deep grave eyes,
and Belinda with twinkling blue eyes.
And suggest that they are all
extensions of yourself.
Dorothy A. Friedman__
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TIME RUSHES BY
When I try to write the music of life
time rushes by cruel and relentless
producing a cascade of stars that whirl
around the mezzo forte of should we say
carousel? But that would be too much
of a cliche. So I try to write the music
of a moving image, a cavalcade of bodies.
Beginning the new day with one version
in my mouth, the other up my ass, while
egg shells crack under the pressure
of my feet crashing down on the floor,
as I move, one black foot and one white,
& my black head and white body merge.
Dorothy A. Friedman__
©Bob Heman: Straying From the Herd
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IN THESE HOURS GIVEN US
When the hours are weeping
who consoles them
but other hours?
Who covers their bruises?
Before conscious hours
are the hidden hours,
where the timekeeper keeps
the schedule of
the twisting leaves.
Dorothy A. Friedman__
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