that's mrs. mediocrity to you

i’ve buried all the pieces no one ever gets to see

fickle fallow and everyday shallow
not enough coin inside oversized purse
cold confidence and chartreuse envy

and in between daisies
tiny fingers
of longing

in my garden i am always
over-exposed
and therefore
hidden

sun beat and wind burn
the torture of
bent back
long squat
digging
in the soil of silence

crows
are my charm
and for them
i leave glamour

gifts of
gilded bone and
beaded sinew

and we dance to the rhythm
of hidden heart broken start ritual
refusing to accept the blue bowl bright sky storm

raging just beneath the lost forget me not sea of invitation

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month: Day 9
I’m participating in NaPoWriMo, and the Writer’s Digest Poem a Day Challenge

Today’s theme is a combo of NaPoWriMo’s lines that scare you and PAD’s: hide-out.

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you think this means in the country
(where i live)
there is no garbage

you think a centipede is the monster
and the suit is a shield

you think cement is a bed
and people are stairs
and the sky is a mean green blanket

oh, i don’t mean you you
i mean them you

of course

i’ve no idea what you think

tell me

i’ll build a tower filled with wheels
and act the cog

i’ll ask everything you hold
in the talon of answer

i’ll tie ribbons in your wind
and watch the hair

we’re both after flight

we’re both

after flight

electricity

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month. Day 7
I’m participating in NaPoWriMo, and Writer’s Digest Poem a Day Challenge

Today’s theme is a PAD’s: Write a poem titled Urban ________.

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remember the marriage of pronouns?
i held you tight and we both wish-kissed
and the river ran silent beneath loose boards
and scattered petal

that bridge is still standing
but years ago one side sank deep
into the mud of bottled anger

you can still get across
but you must walk crooked
and the path to the sky
has filled in with unspoken apology

all bridges are metaphors and ours
was no different

any day now the stream banks will sing
with a riot of daffodil trumpet
and we’ll hold hands in the rain
because we have two chairs

and this garden became us
or them or in the evenings at least
you and me

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month. Day 6
I’m participating in NaPoWriMo, and Writer’s Digest Poem a Day Challenge

Today’s theme is a PAD’s write an ekphrastic poem—a poem inspired by art

devotion is a curious spring
rippling up through time and history

a veil

of interlaced attempt and failure
stubborn reveal
bruised experience

hope

at the bottom of a well named fortitude

drawn up
in a broken-rope bucket
swinging and splashing

despair

on walls built of mud and stone

there is always growth

there is always frustration

there is always

beginning

born

of defeat

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month. Day 5
I’m participating in NaPoWriMo, and Writer’s Digest Poem a Day Challenge.

Today’s theme is a combination:
Experience from PAD and Heirloom Seed Names from NaPo

Now that March
has put some distance between us
February

I can see you didn’t mean
to be cruel, exactly
and April still holds sway

after all
you managed to hand us
an extra twenty-four hours
pretending it was gift
and not correction

but it was another terse-curt day
just like all your bitter
Napoleonic efforts

and don’t think
this means your dark laughter
has suddenly become okay

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month. Day 4
I’m participating in NaPoWriMo, and Writer’s Digest Poem a Day Challenge.

Today’s theme is a combination:
Distance from PAD and Is April the cruelest month? from NaPo

sitting shoulder to shoulder on on earth’s last boulder
remembering things we thought she said and forgetting
the way it rained on the night we learned

forgiveness.

in a drawer upstairs lies a box full of words
mine, not yours, his, not hers, lined with the echo
of unspoken progress. we never stopped moving

and thought shelter

was hidden in a shadow somewhere deep
beneath the ocean of your bed. i never asked to be held
and the waves kept breaking, even after the whisper:

you won’t drown.

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month. Day 2
I’m participating in NaPoWriMo, and Writer’s Digest Poem a Day Challenge.

Today’s theme from PAD is he said, she said.

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we all play the fool

for a sky

fixed with one blue chance

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month. Day 1
I’m participating in NaPoWriMo, and Writer’s Digest Poem a Day Challenge.

Today’s theme is a combination: fools and lunes.

this is not a poem and i am not my shadow

the wall is solid but the light is not,
yet you cannot feel the difference

there is no baby bird begging for food
beneath a dark cloud
in a pot full of tulips

 perhaps there are no tulips

perhaps where i see purple you see green

perhaps this is skin and not plaster

there are no certainties

on this day

in this sun

or this room

with ghost shapes

dancing

but this is not a poem and

therefore none

are necessary

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with the calm assurance of a master
beating back forest and flight and wildflower
in a dark cloud of apprehension
broken just enough to let the light through

one bird’s sky is another bird’s justice
and we call this fair on days when the sun shines
sitting in shadow with friends on either side
claiming balance

there’s a riptide of ballast claiming souls
and blooming has its own cost
one dime for pretty and two for compliance
while whispers of revolution father breezes

seeds will find a way to scatter
because we’re rooted in this circle
rose and thorn as proof of humor
bleeding through each window’s lock

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Alice holds a doll in tired hands. I want
to smile each time I walk past,
say hello,
but tears always well and my mouth
turns down with the pain
of perpetual forecast.

“This feels like prison,”
someone whispers, and I
don’t think it was me but
old Joe’s eyes dart straight up to mine
and hold me with watery challenge,
though neither one of us knows
who spoke.

I don’t want to walk this gauntlet
disguised as hallway or write
these words
pretending to be poetry,
but here I am
scooting by with my purple sharpie
concealed in one hand.

Hope sits in my purse
next to car keys and kleenex and
crumpled receipts,
though I’ve paid for nothing
and everyone here
will be sure to testify.

Proof.

Of life and legs
moving,
always moving,

away

away

away

to places already been
and never seen.

Away.

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