Dressed in red
and wrapped in white
I wait in warmth,
wait in splendour
for the high and shivery
delight of your approaching
presence, in your silver
laughter, in your ringing
song that echoes off the stones
and reaches here inside
these ermine furs
so soft.
Tag Archives: Poetry
Advent Poem: To Go To Bethlehem
Uncanny, peculiar,
uncomfortably strange,
I tend my fires and tell my story…
the story of
this quirky girl
overly-intelligent
and stuck in time
that is not time, so
unreconciled to time
so bound up in its realm.
I am strapped there
on Your wrist (watch)
a condor in a cage
passing from quick present
to some furious future
and thus so fast becoming
dim, and dark, and past
and wondering if I am
ever? present?
ever a moment?
ever a significant occasion
or an immeasurable quality?
I want real time!
time which breaks through
with a shock of joy
like a leap into Crater Lake
on a snowy New Year’s morning,
time where we are completely
un-self conscious and far more
real in some eternal now
I thirst for a moment jeweled!
a moment
so sweet or magnified
it seems to stop time
but doesn’t because time
becomes a point so limply moot
and thus no longer dirty moat
between me and my true self
And here I sit, beside time’s bonfire
and sparks fly up
and away so quick
to join the stars
and glimmer and
I poke at this fire
hot and tender
and tend it…
with my tinder
and wonder how to be
here in this already
and not yet, between
That Eternal Now
and this one,
and the One
Who There Inhabits?
wonder how to be aware
of life while I am living it?
wonder how to limp courageous
and relinquish all control
of self and self awareness?
wonder how to laugh courageous
and look for glory
in the storied
wonder of the ordinary?
wonder how to live courageous
and be surprised by One
who dares draw near?
wonder how to love courageous
and take off rings and watches?
I burn calendars and open
my heart uncanny,
strange peculiar…
to see eternity in
the midst of time
to go to Bethlehem
today and everyday
in this time and place
where glimpses of the eternal
come quiet, unexpectedly
they come and they upset
our every notion static about time
and all we discover there within.
I open
my Uncanny Peculiar
Uncomfortably Strange Heart
to the story of All and Ever
ending Never
I choose
to live somewhere between
the already and not yet,
caught and held
by the One who
dwells within Outside.
And so the fire burns away the moments
And we must choose our portion:
whether here we tarry or if
we choose to journey
Pregnant by some God
To Go To Bethlehem
I Am A broken girl And I Am
I am a broken girl and I am
not so easy to love like
carefree normal confident girls
next door in cotton and flannel and lace.
I live inside a fortress and I hide
inside shields and my soul
lives centuries in seconds
I am a survivor of wars
that break the strongest
men so flimsy.
Can you love me so strong that mountains
collapse into the dust of quiet surrender?
Can you melt my doubts and burn my soul
hotter than cold death and abandonment?
Can you endure my very worst days and stand
me not knowing that I am beautiful,
can you erase the thousand tormenting words
the sibilant whispers from hell’s pits of isolation and horror?
Can you stand that I am thinking even now “Why would you?”
Why would anyone?
I run from you,
but do you see that I run
far slower than I could?
Do you even know
what that means?
Why won’t you chase me?
Could you provide me anything
that I can rely on, any routine
that will be as sunrise and sunset
again and again?
Could you give me a pet name?
Could you kiss me, touch me?
Then do it again, and again.
I am a broken girl and I am
thirst itself so strong that Sahara is oasis.
I am a broken promise but I love
with loyalty that is the stars’
commitment to shine in the night.
I am a broken girl and I am
I Am Burning
I’m on fire,
burning in words
burning in images
burning in thoughts
and torched again
by the why why why
why? Why do they say,
do, laugh, eye roll?
I honestly do not know
In Lonely Woods
I walk alone in lonely woods
fading from fall to winter snows
moving from the warmth of home
to wander lost and barren
I wonder as I move from tree
to tree and touch the scratchy bark
concealing living wood within
and warm there in the cold
if I can find a home inside
this tree or that one, twisting in
the gloamy air I wander thru
and thus root down to earth
But no, this tree is walking still
moving and not going there
stuck here but there and not here
I walk alone in lonely woods.
Hear Me Screaming (Transgender Remembrance Day 2015)
I am a ghost wandering in the dark
and you don’t even know,
you don’t even see.
Wandering lost and in sorrowful shades
and you don’t even know,
you don’t even see.
I am a wailing voice keening in grief
and you don’t even know,
you don’t even see.
Wrapped in a funeral shroud black and white
and you don’t even know,
you don’t even see.
You walk into the nook, seeing me here
but you don’t even know,
you don’t even see
you don’t even hear me screaming.
My Peculiar Love, Arise!
Look up, arise
my Peculiar Love!
You tumble still
wracking rocks
wrenching ravines
clawing cliffs
and scratching
with nails broken
and bloodied in the plunge.
No…I have not left
your side, your side
(it’s only bruised, Love)
so vulnerable to that lance
and the stinky rough
warhands of that coward
masquerading as a shepherd
covering for a rapist
And on that note remember
He who lays by your side
He who took the lance
He who went all the way
coming to common terms
with loss
blind as wind…
But I float now…see?
You will too soon…
And this is waiting…
there…and so I lay these words of care
upon your lips like mountain blood
white and clear and clean and cold
to slake your thirst with sop
(not hyssop)
of beauty, healing, Promise…
Oh my Love…my Love Peculiar
the day will come to
Arise
and join me in the Liberty
you prophesied when you spied
your baby’s heart eternal.
I Don’t Need To Go To Paris
I can stay right here,
no passport, no visa
no access to that fairytale
land of opportunity and liberty
I don’t need to go to Paris
to find those willing
to gun me down, blow me up,
kill me in the name
of their bloodthirsty god
called gender.
Those terrorists
walk the streets
of my world behind
white faces, middle class manners
and smirks to rival the Riddler’s.
Paris comes to me
everyday.
Your Waiting Pyre
Go ahead…
light it, the match
and let the spark
fall on the twigs,
the tindre tenebrous
I will stand
on your perch
you made for me
under the sign
saying suffer not
a witch to live.
Even while
the flames lick
and curl around
my ankles and calves
I still see you clearly
From my perch
(your perch)
Standing on
Your Waiting Pyre
The Barrier You Are
You sit, snide, sneering
behind your nicey face
feeding your inner mean-girl
bonbons and envy
You turn green and then white
As fingers of dread and doubt
Grab your throat and choke
Because you cannot spin
Or weave or throw clay
So you weave tales, innuendo,
wage war of resistance
and haughty head tosses
That brain barrier has
gotta go…gotta shatter
and I am just the girl
to break it.
Powerless Silly Random Facts
Mont Blanc is the highest mountain
in Europe. It sits on the border
between France and Italy.
A black-headed gull walks in the snow
on a wall of the Palais de Chaillot
while the Eiffel Tower sings laments
in the background.
The wetlands of Camargue are found
between the between
of the Mediterranean Sea
and the Rhône River delta.
Not one of these silly random facts
can unring that bell,
can unsay that hate,
can un-rip those shreds,
can mend up those shards.
Cartographer of the Heart
Come to my town, my street
come to my house, to me.
Come find me, bags packed and parked
in the hall like puppies puddly-wriggling
to take a walk…come take a walk with me.
I will ride shotgun with words for shells
And heart for sound and I will
hit the target every time.
I will sing to you, for you
I will sing of the roads we wander
and make each strange unknown place
known and forever written in your heart
for I am a
Cartographer of the Heart
I am a Poetess, and I would
belong to you and you alone
if you would but just stop by
and say how you stroll.
I will make you groan,
I will make you thrill,
and bring you home again
and again and again and
your fire will never go out
for I will feed my limbs
to the licking flames of
your desire
for I am a
Cartographer of the Heart
I am I, and waiting…
Grace In The Gulf
It is in that gulf
that vast distance
between
that meadow hanging
on the wondrous mountainside
beautiful for situation
and cupping the wind
in its song-chamber bowl
and sounding like angels
and that desert looming
that desperate dryness
and filled with the winds
and the wails of the desolate
and the bleach-ed dry bones
that confound Ezekiel
That gulf is witness
and proof of the Heart
that freely pours Grace
until it is full,
that emptiness stark
repulsive in being
Charissa the Graceful
Full, overflowing
and liberal of gesture
Charissa Bereft
and so empty and jagged
and a curse on the lips
Both of us Mama’s Girl
One speaks of Grace Given
One speaks of Grace Needed
Lord
In Your Mercy
Hear my prayer
That Eternal Aftermath
It’s burst,
that Red Balloon floating
over the spindly-legged delicate
black lace Eiffel.
It splattered balloony-guts
in violent gouts
so grotesque
it’s nearly absurd,
and their
rubbery red-joke streaks
on the side
of that squatty arc
are anything but
Triomphe.
That’s how it works, terrorism…
that shock,
that
out-of-the-blue-blow-up
and your life
is doomed to never
the same
and yet never
recover
rinse-repeat cycle…
That’s how it is…
in my own private Paris,
misogynistic othering
phobic policing
sacks of pure hatred
shitting swaths
of bullets from
gender-uzis
and bursting Balloons here
and over the rainbow
LEAVE ME ALONE!!!
You come at me with your fancy eye-teeth
all sparkly and shiny and pointed behind
your smile pasted there friendly on the front
and ravenous in the rear, hungry for blood…
my blood. the blood of my desire, of my fire,
the blood of what I make, create.
I feel like a rabbit frozen in the forest
trembling in the cold black.
I see the bones hidden behind the flesh
beneath the blood, I see the lurch
of your skeletal undisciplined hands
as you tear and clutch at me and my tasks.
Why can’t you just leave me alone?
The Manse
You stand there, so distant, so stark.
You glower, outlined in the dark.
Your face the knife, my heart the mark
you leave with your hard stoney glance.
I look for a way around you.
A way beneath, around, not thru.
You standing there like hellish dew
or maybe a wrecking crew dance.
I need the trees, grass, the peaks
of high snow covered mountains and leaks
of stars, birds and wind, they all speak
of the Grace that grows, given a chance.
But you, standing there on one rock.
You on the sand near the clock.
Your words either silent or chalk
and your heart just an empty black manse.
This Knowable And Yet Unseen Fine Line
What is this mystery
that imbues us with mercies,
that makes us worthy?
What Hand unbridles us,
makes us like fire
sweeping quick and inexorable
across dry crackly pampas?
Is calculated bravery even that?
Calculated?
Brave?
Or is it that opening,
limitless in love,
that casual bravery that
sets apart stark and unique
and truly free?
The bright light and sounding fury
of your sharp inhalation as you stand
just on the verge of this blessed virgin
landscape, uncharted territory and at last
without a method for its mapping!
Your miraculous secrets
can now be made known,
open to the depths
of your deep core!
God,
the planet’s very core
trembles at the prospect
of you unearthing your mysterious you!
Face them down, confront them,
hair gleaming in the moon,
eyes ferocious, feminine
in the sun and perfect chaos
of a new creation being born!!
Wreak havoc in the hearts of those
who fear lord foul and want to break you open…
they only serve The Sacred Heart
which alone can touch you only
with the Mercies and the Grace!
They hate what they cannot control
and deem you far too much
but I ask them how could you
ever be too much
or anything but
too much
when you can fly above
those lofty snow-graced peaks
and you can warm those
star-kissed ocean-swept
beaches and speak to trees
in profound whispers in
the dead of night
or in the desert
at dawn?
Change and transformation beats,
a drum within your soul,
that elegantly crafted
straightforward chorus
and procession of passion
and purpose and melty-love!
The notion of you resurrected
sends battalions bowing, backwards
and rejoicing that they caught sight of you
there beside our Sister Joan
and the silver noble mantle
she wraps you both within!
Oh Ship Graceful!
You with the stubborn faith
and ridiculous courage to dare
the tempestuous seas of transformation!
Oh you dark and light pulsing!
Oh you unstoppable hurricane spinning!
Oh you warm rain and gentle embrace
glowing with Mama’s swaying rhythms
and untameable electricity and containing
the very formula for birth!
Let your passion become elixir,
life-force, fuel of legions of the lost
destined to be found!
Let jewels drip from your lips
to the mouths of we your sisters
and send us sailing on clouds
and lay us basking in light!
Let your heart be a home
and golden chamber
of comfort soft
and yet unyielding!
But now, sit in deserts
and wrap yourself in silence
while your spirit howls at the moon
and sings the songs of freedom
from the palace of yourself
restored to you.
Let your temple you
be that magnetic masterpiece
of completely unconscionable strength
and grace and majesty untwisting time
with every bump of your Holy Hips,
every twist of your spine fro and to.
And do not neglect your softness
at the heart of you, of your force.
Carry yourself like breezes in sweet meadows,
swaying like the willows in joyful moving hymns.
Remember to be small
when you speak stars
from your very lips.
You are a walking
breathing, living
temple in whom
our Mama
dwells
and
beautifies
so stark and lovely
that the very stones
give up their tears that
lay so petrified and still!
And so…sister exhale gently.
Let your lungs blow ancient magic
and conjure blooming flowers in the exhalations.
You are Mama’s Girl and are becoming
as a goddess by comparison to the dead
who shovel shit upon their brethren
dead and buried.
This is my solemn promise and exhortation,
I who have dwelt a season at the heart of a scream
and now stand ever in the Red Wonder of Her Heart…
join me here…
the water is just fine
in this knowable and yet
unseen fine line.
That Instant Untimeless Moment
You know that moment
(or is it an era or an eon)
that time in which space expands
(or does it contract)
or rather that space in which time
runs faster or stops all together…
that moment when you must
step up or step back
you must be quick-eyed and instant
not sluggish, slothful, mesmerized
by the glimmer of light on the waves
and the ripples of the sea towards the shore…
you must take your chin from your knees
raise your nose to the stiff water breeze
and let your hair blow free and unafraid
I have heard a lot of empty words
devoid of solid stance and foundation
in that expanding time,
that folding space,
that instant
untimeless
moment.
If One Shall See
your eyes upon these words
are like these words upon your heart
is like your heart upon this soul
is like this soul there in your eyes
upon these words
upon this heart
upon this soul
therein your eyes
but one must look
if one shall see
The Future of JP
a heart that’s purged is empty
and yet full all at once.
stuff and nonsense banished
pomp and pretense vanished
and only there remains
windows stained and clear
and incense in the air
and just the cross…just there.
A Rain-Fall In Autumn
I am standing in the midst
of mist and swirling grey streaked lengthy
with soft silver songs sung sighing
lost so long ago and dying
as the stone piled up on stone
oh so regal, stark and solid
now gives way to winds a crying
over years and years and years
and the rains fall washing all
in the bittersweet wet fountains
of the coming Bright Steep Mountains
falling from Aurora Rainbow
Skies, landing on earth in ruins
ruins, yes, in rain and ruins
I stand lonely and alone
and musky light smudges my cheeks
so wet and blood deserts my body
and runs to the earth between
my toes and there upon the soil
it does lay herself to die
alone
abandoned
and deserted
Only Different Now
Be yourself only
different now
somehow
with all
that
grief.
In case you ever
thought that
you were just
a being, just
a humble
presence
you are not just
anything, you
mean something,
more than that
you mean
everything,
because everything that
means something
beats inside
of you.
My Secret Strings
Will any
fingers ever find
my secret strings
stretched taut inside?
Intricate, delicate,
intimate, articulate
invisible to any eye
not naked, any heart
still dressed in sheaths
and robes and layers.
I am
layers
I am
robes
and sheaths
(or rather,
I am
hidden
in those swaddles)
I am
those strings stretched
from Terebinthia to Gondolin
I am a song
played by wind
on window panes
by drops of rainand lightning fingers
dancing cross
the crests of frothy waves
silver in the light
of hidden stars
and stormy moons.
I am
not accessible
to just
anyone,
and if you
find yourself
become bored
easily, then
shove off,
move along
go and listen
to the Beatles
or someone else
like them
(there are a million wannabes).
But until
the Time
might ever
come, I still…
wonder…
will any
fingers find
my strings,
hands caress
my neck?
Tonight Inside This Skin
It’s lonely here tonite
and all alone inside
my skin
while music plays
and pretty soon
the air is filled with
shadow shades
that sing,
lament, remind me of
my failure to be what
you wanted, what
they wanted.
And there…
in yon wood there
sits the bear
in silverlight
there in the rising
dark and that bear
part and parcel
of itself and
of the wood
but me…alone
inside this skin
well, it’s lonely
here tonight
inside this skin
inside this skin
Irrevocably Loved By God
there dogwood lingers
lost in long and cooling nights
side by side with sassafras
brooding over browning grass
and sumac stands
with red oak and sheds
leaves in broad daylight
while maples paint
in crimsons, scarlets, purples
yellow brush upon the air
and splashed across
the transom of my heart.
winds and rain come now
and colors muddle, fade to dull
and make their ready to fall down
into the soil dark that croons
and calls them to their fall.
and I am shattered in this fade
of yellow birch and maple red
the flower of spring is there unmade
and frost laments now come in lace
and nibble at my tender face
and precious profound beauty
here and gone and me
that hardest of hues to hold
as my life falls in leaves of days
is here and gone in just a wink
and nothing gold can stand untouched
and how is it, Eternal One
can love so strong and fierce this shade
who passes from the day to night
and fades into the mists?
The Seams of Our Beautiful Story
And all this time
I thought I was
building you up
as you grew
and became.
I really never
realized (really)
you were breaking
so unbecoming
and I was failing bad.
It breaks
my heart to
know you were
ripping apart the seams
of our beautiful story.
And now
tatters, shards
shatters, shutters
mutters and
clogged gutters
and it
is too late
at last
I realize
alas.
In Time To Come
Touch me
with unconscious hands
Unaware but
not unknowing
Find me
with yearning heart
untroubled in
the mists of time.
For I am here
dying, Love,
dying on
this slum’bring vine
And I know
myself alone
now and in
time to come
Behind Bars
Behind the bars
of socialization
and choices made
unawares and assumed
I look and I long
to be set free quick
and to have my own day
to have my own day
In Mid-Air (Ode To Facebook)
Your words,
tossed off
trumpeted out
staccato,
running trills
like some
Miles Davis
of the trivial
not-thought-thru
remark
leave me
set on fire
and hanging
in mid-air
I Love Mama’s Hands
I love Mama’s Beautiful Hands
so dirty with me, with us.
I love that She is not distant from me
But draws close and plunges to muss
My hair, my heart, my head and my soul
She molds and She mushes and messes
And then She will wash me and clean me right up
And put pleats in my Lonely Tresses
Waiting For The Winter Drums
Blood Red Sunsets smothered by the sea
Parting birds flying south in songs of sorrow
Deep sad hymns are birthed deep within me
sung by longing winds unto tomorrow…
The hawk screams and jumps,
grabs clawfuls of fading blue sky,
rips them loose from the fabric
of the dimming day…and then
away….jpg)
While the red alder sees and sheds tears
in gold showers of dry rustly leaves
that spin and sigh and softly sing
a falling lament, a longing ode
to summer past and gone…
All is falling upon the cooling soil
waiting for the winter drums
waiting for the winter drums…
My Face Against Your Glass
The monolith of your decided thoughts
looms large in dreadfall shades and shadows stark
of lost judgments formed in historic fogs
and lacking light and love, short on comfort.
and I am shrieking-dwarfed in their shot gaze
unblinking, baleful red and white and black
for all those choices made back in lost days
in reactive guilt and in hidden shame
give recoil now to even the mere name
of who and what I am, what I am not.
and still I throw myself against those stones
those bastions large and looming, standing there
in granite ground into your heart and bones
that glass unbreakable that you have set
to look thru, thinking seeing is the same
as being, but it’s not, not even close.
because you cannot touch me…no…not quite
…you will not touch me, that’s it, you will not
then I am naught…and my face…ohhh my face
my face against your glass red, blue and white
red and blue and white and I can’t get a breath
my face against your glass, your glass my death
Frozen White In An Instant
I froze white
in an instant
just a glance
just seeing
everything
except me, eyes
bouncing here there
everywhere
except me, fingers
draping, dragging
dancing around
edges, middles,
dabbling in puddles
and oceans, seas,
except me
black hole
in the middle
of your
universe
A Morning Phase
It’s a Morning Phase I’m in here,
walking in fogs and mists
thru familiar places long past
and gone but glimmering…
hinting,
haunting,
high above
in shrouded skies
wrapped in what?
Funereal splendour?
Swaddling clothes?
I can’t tell which
but then again
does it really
matter?
They signify
the same.
And I pass
along the path
dirt crunching
scrunching under
my trodding feet,
my padding feet
my tramping feet
looking for home
it’s a
Morning
Phase
I’m
in.
A Song For Autumn Without Music
Could I leave the bright waves
and take to the blue skies?
Could I leave my cold skin
and sail into your eyes?
Is the moon high above
just reflecting to me
all the love that you hold
in your heart?
If the leaves on the trees
can turn red, yellow, gold
why can’t I find a heart
that will tenderly hold
my body, my spirit,
my mind and my soul
while the tale of my true
love is told?
Mount up! Mount up!
Take courage on the wind!
Lift the hands of your sails on the waters!
Rise up! Rise up!
Leave the surface behind and let the bow of your ship
carve the clouds on your way!
I will sail all the seas
I will follow the stars
I will listen behind the beauty
beyond what mars
And someday I shall come
to my sea-harbour home
I will finally rest
deep in you.
Yes I will finally rest
deep in you.
To Skim Thru Night With Me
I skim quick thru the darkling night
I skinny along those fissures deep
and rough faults in thick dark.
The sable satin curtain parts
and I slide thru, slide thru alone
and hot with dark-fire smoke.
My eyes flash flash light to light
and gleam within the velvet night
and promise there’s an end.
But you must strip off layers, yes
you must there disrobe complete
and scrub away the past
to skim thru night with me right here,
to skim thru night with me.
Heart And Henna
Mark my heart with loving henna
not with needle-inky hate
let me feel your brush-sienna
early, lasting, long and late
Worry not that it will fade
victim of time’s ceaseless flow.
I am inside, tender-laid
and marked by your faithful brush blow.
Ever shall your marks on me
Bind my soft heart to your own
So mark me love, with glyphs made free
Heart of hearts, Bone of Bone.
I Wear Your Blood With Honor
i gladly lay beneath you
i wear your blood with honor
it glistens on my white skin
like moonlight on the water
just lay me down here easy
and let your choice flow o’er me
i wear your blood with honor
like scars of precious battles
and every drop, it burns me
tattoos and marks forever
i wear your blood with honor
and ever me your banner
upon the leaping windsong
i wear your blood with honor
upon my face, my soft skin
i wear your blood like medals
And I Think Of You
i pull on
my stockings
soft and black
and i think of you
in the evening
i sit by the fire while
the teakettle sings
and i think of you
i pull up
my covers over
my sleepless visions
while the stars shimmer
shaking behind rainy cloudweeps
and i think of you.
i pull on
my silk blouse
it’s yellow and blue
and i wonder if i’ll
ever be good enough
and i think of you.
i have so much
to give you
meadows of emerald
skies of pure opal
red heart so true
soul of soft pink
and my
thoughts are just you
thoughts are still you
and i think of you
and i think of you
Thinking About Nothing
A man must dream
a long time in order
to act with grandeur…
and dreaming is
nursed in darkness.
a long time in order
to act with grandeur…
and dreaming is
nursed in darkness.
| — | Jean Genet |
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
and women?
dreams?
what are dreams to women?
who work while it is day
and watch in darkest night
o’er all the sleeping dreamers
and their slumbering sight…
and what about me?
I, who sit and think
in the night’s
encompassing embrace.
I do not dream of grandeur
but watch in nights of dark
and I think about nothing
that thing impossible
distinguished from what is
and thus having being
in what it never is
and never can become…
I think about nothing.
Twining Ice And Fire
the ice is silent.
silent and perfect.
silent and perfect and blinding.
the silent
perfect blinding
ice.
the fire sings
sings and dances
sings and dances and sees
beyond
the singing
dancing seeing
flame.
see them twine
ice lacing flame
flame licking ice
heating and cooling
drips in drops
of unity.
i promise you
my love
though ice
ascendant rules the day
fire will win
in The Day
and thawing come
and passion rule
and only water
here remaining
And I Fortunate One…
…I have lived into this…thank you dearest one.
“I want to fall to sleep with you,
and I could care less
whether it is in
layers upon layers
of clothing
or only our skin –
all I really want is to wake up
not knowing
where I end and you begin.”
– Beau Taplin
In The Waves
If I should walk into the sea
and find a bed soft, sandy-wet,
and there lay down, there, lay down me
would you reach out with your heart-net?
I’d lay aside my evening gown
of gossamer and pure moon beams
and let my feet find pathways down
beneath the waves to swaying dreams
that shimmer thru the quiet deep
and beckon me with promise made
If I lay there still, would you keep
my heart inside, every debt paid?
We share a bed upon the land
and swim there in the waves of night
Ah, but in that bed beyond the sands
Will you there be my sweet delight?
The Quiet Lonely Lake
the lone swan
flying across
the face of
the moon
like a tear
falling to
the quiet
lonely lake
below
my
heart
the swan
the moon
the lake
and you
forever
gone
Jack-O-Lantern Of Hearts
When I got home that night,
I noticed the smiling jack-o-lantern
in my front yard was crushed.
No October Orthodontist could
ever repair that ruptured smile
so crooked at its best, and simply broken, now.
I thought about our last talk,
jack-o-boots flying over hob-nail heart
and guttery scuttery candle-hopes flicker-fade
over cooling coffees neglected in the heat
of the moment, where carving knives were wielded
underneath the punkin-spice latte scents, and those blades
sent us reeling like Cinderellas at midnight
our heart-mice flying from Ichabod and his boots
and those words which left us out front, crushed.
***This was written to a poetry prompt…the first stanza***
This Water, Cloudy
No…the water
is not dirty
or polluted or
even stagnant.
It’s just cloudy,
this water, cloudy.
It was clear and warm,
luxuriant and lazy
but quick-like, to pull you
in and then lay you
down easy and gentle
and snug.
But you
never came in
so my desire,
that unknown
cloud unknowing
leaked out,
just trickled away
around me
until the pool
was cloudy
and thick
with my
longing want.
Before The Icicles Fell
they were caught here, frozen
before the icicles fell
before the snows all melted
before the laughter faded
before the tears unfolded
before the digger shoveled
before death walked unfettered
they thought this moment
would last forever again
and over again,
and sitting here
i cannot tell
if I am the snowball
or the thrower
or the moment
hanging in static
time stood still
My Unpicked Branches
It’s the season of harvest and fruit,
the culmination of that brown sweat
shed in summer-shimmer sheets
and red-hot ribbons that somehow
twine around roots and snake up
trunks and push out thru branches
in the swollen tender tips of twigs
become blossoms become
fruit…ripe…heavy.
The real mystery to me
is why nobody picks these
crimson circles crisp and crunchy?
Why I stand here full and verdant
fragrant and feeling fine,
and not an apple plucked or pulled?
I cannot pick myself.
I cannot harvest that which
is perpetually out of my reach
but is only one ladder away
from anybody who hungered
for those apples bobbing
on the swaying branches.
But I am used to that, being
a feast for birds and bugs
and winter worms in the cold,
a fermenting hearth in a frosty night
under the stars so bright
and dancing and the wind
still caressing my unpicked branches.
Spectacle
those marks,
a series of slashes
joining a smatter
of dots and blobs
and curves arcing
across regimented
lines fixed in space
and speaking of
time and tone
indecipherable to
the common eye
and singing
of sublimity
in a master’s mind
and playable only
by those filled
with the desire
of the ages
On Seas So Grey
What’s it like, on the grey seas
in the silver wind, with sails
so green and full and billowing?
Skimming swift and dangerous, light
on the waters while the crew scrambles
‘neath that Captain loud and bellowing?
Stinging spray by facefuls founting
up from waves slosh-frothing, faithful
and fateful leading cross the edge
to horizons promising much more
of the same and something different,
something different, too.
Charissa's Grace Notes 
You must be logged in to post a comment.