January 12th
Sun on snow drifts that
Lean on denim skies show me
Deer tracks from last night
Category: writing
An Ocean Full
Grief is an ocean of memories
Some days
I can stand on the sand
and watch the day begin and end
with a sky of color
achingly beautiful
and traitorous
while shallow breath
makes me feel a thousand things
about still being here
still breathing
still not giving in to the urge
to dive in
and never come out –
When the tide is low
and I can sit peacefully
and watch
the seabirds ride the air
it almost feels like joy
could make its way back
And if I bring myself to the shoreline
in the dark of night
in person
or in dreams
the moon, without express permission
sends the water,
filled with your voice
and your smile
and you’re whole big life
up and over me again
and I have to brace against the pull
of that dark cold sweet nothing
where we swim together
in collected moments
of the life we knew
Marie Kondo Doesn’t Live Here
| There are these houses we enter with picture perfect placement of trendy furniture and spare but carefully selected items that echo the muted palette and the space feels more like a movie set with a false back wall that leads to a parking lot and not the rest of a real home. Conversations tight and timed like scripted moments of insta ready scenes and photo ops for the digital scrap book so it looks like easy flow but it’s really a regimented schedule of check list items meeting standardized expectations of life on Earth. And then there are these homes that start somewhere down the road in a community that reaches in all directions with neighbors who know their names and as we enter the dwelling we’re met with a colorful cacophony of motion and stillness and smells of plants and herbs and flowers, pets and perfume and leaves whirling outside the screen door that’s been left ajar to enjoy this rare fall warmth before the snows. And all around the space is proof of life with art by the person who also picked that sofa draped in soft blankets and squishy pillows that cocoon us. And if you reach just a little there will be a cozy cup of tea at your hand and a plate of cookies baked this morning just for you because they hoped you would stop by to nest a moment and share a piece of this wild day as it unfolds before you. |
Poetry day: Factory Reset
Let’s get those factories built!
the places we can send our parents, children and siblings and spouses and neighbors and co-workers and anyone else who we don’t understand.
the people who are old and have broken parts inside their minds and bodies
Those glitching, fucked up people whose operating programs were adapted along the way so they could survive in difficult situations
There shouldn’t be anyone out there who doesn’t do things the right way,
There should only be people who use the words that I want to hear exactly the way I want to hear them and exactly when I want to hear them
It doesn’t matter how or why they were broken.
It only matters how they are when they are in front of me.
I don’t need to know the story of their lives.
I just need them functioning the way I want them to, right now.
Where are those damn factories?
There should be places where we can send them to wipe their hard drives and install a new, clean and efficient operating program so that I can finally, have the person that I want standing in front of me, saying what I want to hear the way I want to hear it and doing the things I want them to do exactly the way I want them done.
Where are those god damn factories?
Poetry Day: The Waterway
The Waterway
I am in the water
Just one drop
Yet a vital piece
of the world’s oceans
And when it’s my time
To return
I will move with the wave
Back into the blue
To become the rain
The snow
The place
where ancient whales roam
And microscopic life feeds
All the creatures great and small
I will move back through the people
I love as cold relief on a hot day
And when I emerge
From that tight place behind your eye
As a tear
I will see what you see
And I will feel
The soul embrace you give
That sets me free
To caress your face
Once again
poetry Day: Shame Sticks
If you come to me
With your heavy heart
And your windblown thoughts
I can be the quiet listener who will
Hold your confusion
I’ll hold it up off your shoulders so you can get a full breath in and a little peace as you start to figure out
the next step in your journey
to whole and calm
Or I can be your guide if you tell me what you’ve packed in your duffle that you drag through life. You’ll need a swimsuit because we will be leaving the safe shore and diving deep.
We will be on the hunt for signs and turns that you followed and we will sit in discussion until something wiggles loose from the tight bundle of shame sticks that you keep like secret offerings.
You have used your finest ribbon to wrap those, as if they were the hallmark moments of your life and not the thousand times it all went perfectly and love and magic flew from your soul out into the world touching everyone who witnessed your glory.
You’ll go home with words and songs and a new map to navigate what lies ahead
So be ready
Tell me who you need me to be for you right now
This
Is why I came to this world
Right now
You only need ask
I am ready
POETRY DAY: THERE ARE SOME PEOPLE
THERE ARE SOME PEOPLE
THERE ARE SOME PEOPLE
WHO ARE LIVING PORTALS-
WIDE OPEN DOORWAYS
TO THE GREAT RIVER
OF ALL THINGS THAT FEED OUR SOULS
IT’S NOT THAT THEY TRAINED FOR THIS JOB
OR
EVEN ASPIRED TO BECOME THIS WAY
THEY WERE CHOSEN
BY SOME
WINGED BEING
HANDPICKED
TO STAND AT THE GATE
TO THE DIVINE
THEY HOLD THE DOOR OPEN
SO THE REST OF US CAN
WARM OUR HEARTS IN THE LIGHT
THAT BLAZES THROUGH THEM-
ILLUMINATING THE DARKNESS
YOU
WERE ONE OF THOSE PORTALS
A GATEKEEPER
AND WE
ARE ALL BETTER
FOR HAVING KNOWN YOU
Poetry Day: Already Broken
by the time we met
i was already broken
a thousand pieces
scattered round the world
like so much garbage
among the detritus
were some damn fine things
like
shreds of hope
bouquets of trust
boxes of wonder
jars of light and joy
winds of change-
the same kind I’d already
weathered early on-
it pulled those pieces
off the laundry line
where i was airing things out
planning to put them back in use
after cleaning off the
lies and betrayals
i’m on the hunt now
tracking down the things
that used to be mine
welding them back to my heart
and breathing life into them again.
again.
again.
by the time we met
i was already broken.
NAPOWRIMO 2024
#2
Mostly silent in this tourist town
As winter crawls back
to where it came from
Rhythmic thump of a base
from a car
Down on the highway
So loud it’s like
I’ve rested my head
On the chest wall of
A slumbering elephant
Lilac sky slipping away to indigo
Reminding me that time is
Moving faster now
And all those things I have put off
For another time
Are coming due anyway
NAPOWRIMO 2024
Poem #1
The picture on the surface of my coffee
Scatters with the slightest movement
And all that was
And all I saw again
Dissolved back
Into the ethers
Where it waits like a
Song sung low and soft
At the edge of consciousness
Until another day arrives
Some time ahead
And the picture forms again
Of what was
And the world that could have been
Word Ninja Girl 