If I were to say that life has no meaning
(life, being a little four-letter word that will not
let me go) I would only mean that
all the breaths and births and broken bones that make up
L I F E are a lie; that’s right;  take away F and you’re
Left with a lie;                  
endless numbers in phone books,
bones births breaths brought to naught
an overwhelming onslaught of anonymous information.
Life is a lie.

If I were to tell you that love does not exist, this I think
would be a harder sell; 
after all, you might find love in the phone book,
and if you relinquish L you’ve still got
ove,  ovuum, egg, conception, product thereof
of Love. Remove E, and there’s still
Lov, luv, lv
cannot be reduced so easily to a lie, though it is a profanity
by construction, and sometimes experience.

Now, love life, or Love life;
the telephone numbers take on new importance.
Take a deep breath before you call her,
hearts are broken like bones,
and even if lov is a lie it is still Love,
a conception of breath and bone
borne by way of a profanity that is often anonymous,
but with which, endless and overwhelming, 
we can construe each other
before we let go.

Coming soon. . .an exciting announcement!

For more information on Estill Voice Training, click here: http://www.trainmyvoice.com/

I’ll be posting a poem a week on topics grouped in the following (for now) categories: friends and family, natural beauty, relationships, and backstage antics. Short stories and essays not published elsewhere will also appear. Here’s the first installment.  All rights reserved.

block pattern  9-25-02

I can’t wake up these days, the quilts weigh me down, 
stitch upon stitch in old clothes
cast off and abandoned to color and fold. 
They smell like women,  and many tender fingers
Prick me to perfection while I doze.

My aunt didn’t want them anymore; she lives in Napa,
And I think of her guest bedroom, and the high stars,
Roseville swarming the walls,
my first chance.

It didn’t occur to me that my passions were inadvisable;
I would not have guessed that I could not withstand them. 
I was plums, and fall, and throated like a thrush.
The days were long.

I can’t give them away;  they are heavy with labor,
begotten in the weft of a woman’s touch.
One is stained in splotches of white,
bleached when it should have been left a little dirty.
They are fading and sighing and spread like butter.

I see a walnut tree black against a brilliant winter sky,
A neighbor, long dead, gathering into buckets,
We are numb, and cold and focused on our task,
Even though most of the nuts are rotten.

She’s holding out for the good ones, the ones the squirrels missed,
Because she’s the kind of woman who doesn’t waste anything.
A woman with a basement full of unfinished business.

In other news, I would like to welcome Lauren Ensor, Erika Herman, Carter Kryzaniak, and Cassidy Steinke to my studio.

http://pd.capeweb.org/view_units.php?id=88&page=tab1&skip=3

Soulstice Theatre’s production of CHESS, in which I am playing Florence Vassy, opens this weekend!  Love, loss, and 1960s-era espionage take center stage as the three main players (Freddie Trumper, American challenger for the world chess champion title; Anatoly Sergievsky, the somewhat reluctant Russian world champion; and Florence Vassy, Trumper’s second and Sergievsky’s eventual lover) struggle to overcome the political and personal limits that doom their happiness from the very start. 

The talent represented in this ensemble cast—musical, vocal, and dramatic—cannot be overstated and I am so incredibly proud to be a part of it.  The score (composed by the guys from 1980s pop supergroup ABBA) ranges from sweet lyricism to pulsating retro pop. Don’t miss what will be one of the finest musical theatre performances this summer in Milwaukee! For more information, or to reserve tickets, visit http://www.soulsticetheatre.org/index.php. Show runs Fridays-Saturdays July 29 through August 14.