that's mrs. mediocrity to you

i stand at the kitchen window long enough to grow roots

twisting down through the egg-cracked floor
into the fallible foundation of basement

this is my mirror and my afterlife and i know
i will haunt this place with my broad moon face
for seven wing-tipped generations

yet you taunt me with your hollow hope umbrage
moving through me as you glide overhead

my fingers the branch you choose to land on
though i never catch a wing or move a feather
and your song is more metaphor than melody

still, we know each other through this dark dirty pane
recognition confirmed by the silver you drop

even as you know i will tarnish-change to black
just like you and your silhouette of hands cupped
life running down my white sketched arms

as this sink filled with mud overflows

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Linking in today over at dVersePoets for Open Link Night, join us!

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bone dried and bleary eyed
i walk through the forest of neversleep
dreams muted by sharp edged branch
and echoes of earthquake
on a horizon always curving
to the left

i am not lost
in the blue pooled darkness
and my feet are always moon bare
beneath the sky laced curtain
of shift and shadow’s
star-studded chemise

there are screams left behind
in cold footprints
and howls mirrored
trapped
in black ice

and the light that arrives
just to save me
from the corners
of brevity’s
night

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Linking in over at dVersePoets for Meeting the Bar, with a little rhythm.

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you run black hills
with the strength of five thousand
orange-lipped sunsets

pounding smoke and dropping rivulets
of pink man blood sweat
but never
tears

everything about you is saturated
ruby rum lips and fiery opinion
erupting in long lava sentences
melting holes in paisley promise

as if you can boil a prism down
to the last grey nugget of truth

but violet vapors and emerald emission
always manage to escape
floating up and out behind you
in a clown-cloud of blush and burnt umber

just a touch of ochre ozone
burns my nostrils as you pass
waving daffodil hellos and
jaded celadon goodbyes

and you wink your sea glass eye
just to prove
with opal portent
that you see
only

black and white

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Linking in today over at dVersePoets for a color festival with Poetics, join us!

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you just have to

cozy up

and take a nap

together

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of ever-growth and always-change
married to shadow music and feather sky
by a fine-filmed pastor of sunrise

morning-moves act as guide and angry compass
tea-burnt and beauty believed

by every sacrosanct ripple-day
mind-lair

everywhere ordinary

breath-bane and
mirror time

existence

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Linking in today (if I got this right) over at dVersePoets for Meeting the Bar,
where we are playing with kenning. Join us!

they dressed her in an avalanche of neutral
andrew wyeth beige and winslow homer grey
winter sunrise and stormy mountain

forced her arms into deep black holes
wrapped her in yards of starless night sky
tied neatly with ribbons of pavement

her crown of thorns was a veil of apathy
covering over emerald eyes and hiding ruby lips
and her tall boots were caked
with cement

as if the sky could ever be tethered
as if a heart could be covered in silence
as if the hem of her crazy quilt skirt
wouldn’t always find a way to show through

no matter how they tried
her name was color

azure lavender
blue chartreuse
forest crimson

her mind was a hurricane of freedom
born again every third sunrise
with a litany of o’keeffe orange
and pollock purple

bleeding out from the tear
in her side

a permanent fountain
of dye

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a mistake of a photo

malfunctioning focus

so exactly

spot on.

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This was yesterday morning, and the blizzard had just started.

And a blizzard it was, nothing pretty about this storm, no gently falling snow, no winter wonderland, just crazy blasting wind, hard white pellets, dropping temperatures.

This morning it’s nine degrees. And this window feeder is buried in snow. This little chickadee was the last bird I saw there yesterday. After that, I hope he found a bit of shelter. Along with all his friends.

Later this morning, I’ll have to go out and start the clean up process, digging out, shoveling, clearing snow off the roof, which was already leaking when I got up. But first, I’ll feed the birds, the feathered warriors of winter. And I’ll tell them that tomorrow, it’s supposed to be in the high 40s again.

I’ll tell them that spring is working its way here, albeit slowly.

Hang on, Mr. Chickadee, hang on.

Mama’s coming.

the importance of numbers is self-prescribed

time

weight

date

expiration

days add up to life

lives add up to minutes

the flower

knows

when to bloom

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Linking in today over at dVersePoets for Poetics, where we are
playing with macro photography/micro poetry. Join us!

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It felt like a long ago dream,
that moment in the sun when everything changed.

She remembered the crow cawing loudly overhead, a warning.

She remembered the smell of smoke and the neighbor’s cries,
the damp earth beneath her back,
soaking up the sweat that ran from her body.

Forever stretched all the way up,
touching the cloud of regrettable sky.

She closed her eyes and saw red.

She opened them and saw nothing.

Silence was everywhere in the air around her,
and she held still, so still, trying to listen.

Beside her, a green shoot pushed up through the earth,
a feather tickle to the back of a dark-spotted hand.

A smile flew fast from her mouth, a strong white swift,
and carried old laughter away on the breeze.

The fleeting shadow of yesterday crossed her face,
just once.

And tomorrow became eternity’s muse,
dancing softly and praying for rain.