that's mrs. mediocrity to you

when i was 49
i started throwing things away

first it was old love letters
and too-short dresses

broken bracelets and lidless saucepans
piles of books and how-to magazines

finally moving on to bowls and worn towels
then shiny bits of empty ornament

the room grew larger but i kept shrinking
i sucked in a breath to keep me anchored

and i cleaned with the faith of a zealot
scrubbing broken brick
and washing stains out of memory

until everything was bleached
as the bones i had scattered in the sand

afterward i lay on the damp wood floor
staring up at a sky i’d drawn with blue pencil

my back ached and my arms were empty
my stomach growled with the pleasure of hunger

i had cleaned my slate and now i was ready
for dessert or silence or immunity

it wasn’t until dawn i remembered
i’d forgotten to outline the sun

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month.
This post is part of NaPoWriMo, see more here.

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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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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!

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.

shadow shard and hollow reflection
dripping sweet song pattern and
endless playback

locked in a house of mirrors
where the laughter
bouncing
from room to room
belongs to no one

and dawn reveals the skeleton
inside the jar of syrup

all the pieces are there
and you can spend three months
striving to fit them back together

or you can leave them
dancing in the light of day

as long as you remember
to watch your step each night

because fool’s gold
puddles in your footprints

leading the way
to the door

listen

some days, that’s all i want
to say

listen

or show me
what’s in your

heart

beneath the stone
you’ve left unturned

tell me

how it feels
to be the seventh billion
snowflake

falling gently from a sky
made grey with uniquity

holding on

until you melt
raging into rivers

groaning with overflow

howling

losing voice and veracity

whisper-stamped and
season-dated

by a mouth
that’s always
open

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listen

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I believe in spring flowers on the kitchen table.

I believe the moon knows all the world’s secrets,
and if you listen, she’ll whisper to you in your sleep.

I believe cardinals were sent to keep color alive during winter.

I believe ghosts are the physical manifestation of hope.

I believe gardens are the very same thing.

I believe there are 56 days in February,
but every calendar is missing a page.

I believe mountains are the keeper of silence.

I believe there are 9,837 different kinds of love,
each one a leaf on the deciduous tree of life.

I believe music is the wind, whispering through those leaves.

I believe in messes, beautiful, beautiful messes.

I believe snowflakes are the only form of perfection.

I believe light makes us grow, but darkness keeps us sane.

I believe forests remember
every person they’ve ever encountered.

I believe words are the oldest religion.

I believe north is the strongest direction.

I believe we are all in this together,
most especially those who stand alone.

I believe birds were the world’s first poets.

I believe in spring.

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we do this dance round the kitchen

bouncing off each other like pinballs in a space too small
for one communicating in a language evolved from grunts
and sighs and a pat on the leg that means: excuse me

our life grows from this place and there are always flowers
purchased with food because they offer the same slow
sustenance and this one tiny window does not

reveal as much as it keeps the light out behind
curtain wall curtain and there’s no room for waltzing
but we make do and break our bread in the silence

that falls between now and forever even though
you never like what i cook and i never eat what i
like we never go hungry or further than the living

room with its fire our food a dark chocolate finale
as dishes pile up in the corner crooning leftover notes
of consumption and waiting to be washed while we

do this dance round the kitchen

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

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is always temporary

like the darkness
you’ve learned
to forgive

dawn is never your saviour
but almost enough
to make you
believe

clean is a fresh white cover
despite the mud
crawling through
what lies beneath

a map of every step
you’ve ever taken

you could be followed

you cannot wash yourself in crystal

you never were pure

this is the way you will melt

a pool of poison
sifting merriment
from bones

this soil contains us

eternity’s sacred measure

gravity’s compression

gleaning diamonds
to atone

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

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