Jan 16 2024

hunger strike

eating nothing

but these hours

that devour

and the

black hole distance

between full

and fortified

in the night sky

lost eye

feast

of raw

subsistence

 


Dec 15 2023

the forgotten cave of hope’s lost earthquake

scarred scared and disrepaired
the tagline of last soldiers
loss holders
heart boulders

we are the collection
of collectors
gathering bones and
burying stones

building cairns
in bare memory
corners

and backing away
ever so gently
despite the premise promise
of tumble
and tremor

. . .


Sep 27 2023

morning stories of the modern world

it’s dawn
and the mockingbird
is spinning

suddenly i want

to fly again
straight off the ends
of this square peg earth
into the winding path
of freedom’s glee

burrow deep into the heart
of day-blind skunk
and know the strength
that builds red bricks
from beasts of prey

ripple down
across the shoulder
of this rolled-boulder current
pounded smooth against
a blanket of doused flame

no longer
broken
but
broken open

open

and mirrored
plain

yet again

i climbed a mountain to return a heart-shaped rock,
walked a forest
and forgave the past of everything,
broke a leg and knitted living back together,
skirted
vulture cliffs and jumped only with my smile,
buried
crack-lipped hallelujahs beneath the twisted tree of pain

it’s morning
and the mockingbird

is singing

 

. . . . .


May 19 2023

burying the stone

in that hole in my heart
(you know the one)
left behind in the wake
of a wave

core scoured clean
scored by sand
and detritus
scars scratched
into every blind surface

echo etchings
scratched
into permanent
reminder

water always runs
to the lost lowest point
filling crack and crevice
with surface reflection

magnifying truth
and creating mirage
in the desert
of dutiful
destruction


Apr 1 2023

sense and possibility

the way it all shifts
when you learn
to walk through
rather than running
astray

the way trust
is a shell
balanced on backs
until we outgrow
the idea

the way a heart
always knows
its measure of weight
and its own
constellation of scars

the way hope
is not hollow
and just holding on
is more fragile
than strength to let go

.

.

listen here


Mar 17 2023

scattershot

i’ve got all these pieces
shard sharp and jagged edged
heart blood dark
and silence hole

splayed across
this worn wood floor
tracing steps and trapped pretension
as it all rolls uphill
sideways

mirror mirror
pasted smile
fallen glimpses in the corner of reflection
shape shifting
loose oil carnage

and the dream I had
before
our room filled with smoke
my mind-body
shaking us both awake
certain there was fire

i still see the haze each midnight
floating right
above the quilt
i bought
to shelter the you
(or me)
i can never quite
remember

 

 

.

listen here:


Feb 22 2023

as it turns out

the year I became
an old woman

was the same year
the snows never came

the same year
your heartless mirror
turned my skin truth-brittle

the same year
black birds refused to fly

and i remembered
(at long last)
how to cry

heart and hands
bent and broken

scrabble-holding
weightless forest

neither you
nor i

but the (w)hole
damn mess

the same year
water taught me
how to whisper

the same year
i spat bitterness
back to center

washed myself clean

the same year
as those that marched
in pattern-dashes
of before

you always leaving

me always loving

someone
never there

and only trees
know the last
ancient riddle

bearing witness to the scars
of hollow hearts

still standing

(always standing)

shedding leaves
like tears
at the threat
of yet another

dark-buried
bold-cold

winter

.  .  .

.

.

listen to my reading of as it turns out below:

 


Feb 3 2023

on the market

none of us are free

we all come at great cost
to ourselves
to others
to this bold green earth

to those we love
and those we hate
to those
we cannot know

own yourself

pay the price of reflection
add loose change
to the plate of collection

pick up your actions
hold them high
look deeper

examine

have the good guts
to stare yourself
in the eye

have the true grace
to accept
all consequences

own yourself

none of us
are free

 


Feb 1 2023

what i meant to say

the sun is shining just now, but it’s so cold.
the snow is glittering with that false, enticing promise.
beautiful to look at, brutal to hold.

and now i’m thinking of you again.

it’s a vicious circle-cycle.

life and loss and the truth of living.

survival of the fittest.

survival.

of.

we all have our own sky.


Jan 28 2023

the things that save us

the second poplar tree in the front yard is dying.

it lost its mate a few years back, and being the romantic that i am, when it started dying from the top down, i decided it must have a broken heart. ha. then again, perhaps i’m right.

i have to figure out what to do about it this year, how to afford to cut it down, if i can bear to cut it down, the hole it will leave in my view (and my heart) when it is gone. how much i will miss the sound of poplar leaves rustling through the darkest hours of long summer nights.

it will mark another ending, in this winter filled with endings i have not yet learned to process. all part of the same era, the same time-vine of hope. i planted those two poplars when i first started my garden. i planted my garden when i first started my marriage.

and now i am surrounded by empty spaces, dying graces, loaded places.

there is so much to say and nothing to be told.
so much to grieve and nothing real to bury.
so much to carry and nothing left to hold.

my truth is a dark burden, and in the silent hours of night, i sit by my window and watch those bare dead branches pierce the sky.

the gap its absence will leave on my horizon is too difficult to consider just now.

i’ll deal with it this summer.

. . .

there’s another tree in my front yard, a young river birch with its own painful story.

last summer, i actually thought about killing it. of course, i didn’t. i couldn’t. i wouldn’t.

after that, i thought about moving it, to somewhere out of sight from that same window.

i didn’t do that, either.

i decided, in the end, to watch it grow. it has three trunks. i have three children, three grandbabies. we all have roots here.

it doesn’t even begin to fill the sky yet, or close the hole in my horizon, but i’ve re-framed its significance in the window of my existence.

one day, it will offer shade to this tiny house still filled with love. in the fall, i’ll watch yellow leaves drop down through the night and think how often we all begin again. each morning, each month, each year.

the seasons have always marked my cadence.

i’m looking forward to the spring.