Thursday, November 15, 2018

Lightening

I want to explore the world,
My body filled with lightning,
sizzling and luminous.
Under a blanket of stars.

The Five Horsemen

The Five Horsemen arrive
every morning at sunrise...

Who
What
When
Where
How...

Will this day go, start, middle, end, schedule.
The currency of the day already becoming
Precious barter
To be spent.

These fucking horsemen. They steal from me.

I have lived the days of my life,
searching for what they demand.
Where each day was a deposit or
productive withdrawal of funds.

Some days I simply ignore them,
because the pounding of their hooves
Is no longer so demanding.
They don't run through my yard like they
used to.

Message Received

Always to be awakened, I awake and begin the search.
The light level of morning spreads over my cuddled nest
of cotton and fur.
An open window beckons
to trails to be traveled and those which
close to home will be the way to stay close.

The quiet reverie is broken by the
ding ding of message received.

Sunday, July 8, 2018

Two Haiku

Fat ripe green caterpillar
Arch, expand, squeeze across stones.
The road fell apart. 

When fluffy seed puffs
Toss and spin white stars overhead
The sky blue is thick.

Sunday, July 1, 2018

In Gratitude to a Rock at Machu Picchu

There are times when there are
other languages to discover.

In conversation at the top of the world,
I have selected you, unpolished quarry rock,

to converse with, touching spine and bone
on your slanted outlook of granite.

We speak of mist and shadows.
Purple orchids, Pachacuti.
Exploding Stars.

Life and death, life and death.

A llama has defecated nearby,
drawing large beetles.
An ant makes a trail like a tiny mountain climber.

In deference to solid advice.

Saturday, April 7, 2018

What happens in airports


Philadelphia 

She saw me at a table tapping at my laptop. 
I looked up and saw an airport ID on her large bosom.
She said you look like a writer. 
Can you help me write a letter for my church? 
She wears shiny gold dresses on Sunday she says.
She gives roses to pregnant girls on marble stoops.
She says to them, join me in the house of the Lord,
She wants to help her church people fly.

The Feeling of Scissors Cutting Away

There was never a scream when you died,
only the sound of inhalation and exhalation.

Scissors can make an itty bitty cry
at the axis of of two blades.

Long cuts are slow and steady.
Little snips are quick breath around curves.

What has been cut away is considered negative,
disqualified and discarded.

Intentionally, remaining cloth can be
draped and darted into something new.

A beating presser foot
pumps matching thread into matched seams.

Let no one split apart what God has
joined together.

It seems I have lost the ability to believe this,
Because my careful wedding dress is gone.


( My mother sewed my wedding dress and my sister's wedding dress. A few years ago, I took the wedding dress out of the plastic and a pink foam hanger had permanently ruined it. I secretly put it in a dumpster. This poem is the poem of grief).