that's mrs. mediocrity to you

i am lost in the corner of distance
covered and the sun
keeps melting my ennui

this is the room we’ve buried, filled
with leftover promise

as you can see, i’ve kept every one
in a box lined with amethyst motion

i want a cloud soft as cotton and you
want to trust my dissent

or feather my decline
depending on the shape of stone i carry

but i leave the jewels you just cut
in the doorway of sanity’s sharpness
as i search alone for the smooth shiny bits

of drought’s unquenchable key

.

..

A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month. Day 17
I’m participating in NaPoWriMo, and Writer’s Digest Poem a Day Challenge.

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one eye to the sky and both feet on the ground
the science of whole and the new math
of half

roses and ridicule
softness and seed
whispers and wandering
never and need

the filter worn thin
and the devil’s
tight grin

and the earth
building gravity’s fortune

spinning moss
for each gathering jewel
in a pattern of laughter
and parody’s waltz

forward left
forward left
sidestep right

black and blue
sharp beaked
shiny wing

half is whole
whole is half

and the circle closes
with the perfect measure
of preen

.

..

A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month. Day 16
I’m participating in NaPoWriMo, and Writer’s Digest Poem a Day Challenge.

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it’s not what you think

it’s not that i’m wispy
or somewhat lost

transparent or
barely present

wise or wistful
dream or dreamy

but simply that
i’m always

{there}

nestled tight
between the smooth curved edges
of e and a

and most days that
l
is the only thing stopping
me from falling
off the edge

of the page

.

..

A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month. Day 15
I’m participating in NaPoWriMo, and Writer’s Digest Poem a Day Challenge.

.

you can float without walking on water
the same way you can fly without wings

sunshine has no color
but we always say yellow

my eyes are windows but yours
are a cage

or your eyes hold answers but mine
are a stage

and we dance to the steps
pasted down on the ground

spin and twirl
bow and curl

though you see jazz and i
hear blue

dishonest truths
playing loud silent music

.

..

A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month. Day 14
I’m participating in NaPoWriMo, and Writer’s Digest Poem a Day Challenge.

.

to hide the wall of never enough

i draw birds
to fountain up from dark trunks
and skeletons laugh-dancing in one corner

perfecting pretty and discarding
all the dirt that comes from
mining

soot and sanity brushed off
in time for dinner
and a habit

of sinking

.

..

A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month. Day 13
I’m participating in NaPoWriMo, and Writer’s Digest Poem a Day Challenge.

.

i buy
the wrong kind of bacon
and walk into walls
at least twice every
obstinate day

sometimes i think i’ve gone mad
as i lie on the floor
wondering why all the corners
keep shifting six inches
from blown out
half gone retina

but when i pull myself up
i see stars

and this isn’t the shape
of our story nor the smell
left behind
on a wrinkled up pillow
branding form onto feather
and bone

just a kiss implied never taken
as i dream of rising
and {then again} falling
into the cracked steeple
of charity’s morn

.

.

.

A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month. Day 12
I’m participating in NaPoWriMo, and Writer’s Digest Poem a Day Challenge.

.

if you’re going to fall in love
with living
you have to accept that grief will be
a frequent visitor
showing up at odd times
key in hand
bulging black suitcase tossed
at her feet

you might even
become friends
brew her tea and bake
some cookies
put a vase of red tulips
by her bed

she won’t stay forever but
she won’t ever leave
and after a while
you begin to clear out

a drawer in a dresser
some space in your closet
and then you’re mates
sharing space
in a house of one hundred
barren rooms

passing hours and days
without an encounter

but you hear her at night
rattling heartache and stain

and eventually
find yourself listening

with a crinkled up smile
as you lie with a quilt
built from stitched over
memory and faded thin
patches
of once was
and gravity’s chain

.

.

.

A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month. Day 11
I’m participating in NaPoWriMo, and Writer’s Digest Poem a Day Challenge.

.

one brief glimpse

through this self-imposed fence

reveals

nothing at all

and all that exists

in the tangled-up briar

of dawn

.

.

.

A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month. Day 10
I’m participating in NaPoWriMo, and Writer’s Digest Poem a Day Challenge.

.

she’d flown in from tuscaloosa
smart and shiny when she started
ready to take on the world

her world

made of sky and rain
and wind bent on murder

no one from home missed her
leaving
sun rose and bloomed
each morning and moon
danced a parody of light

earth was green and
flying geese pattern
and in between
there were great gulps of air
solid and ethereal by turn

in the end her thirst became
compass
spinning off kilter between star
and saloon

and the way
she kept coming up empty
turned each tiny bone
to lost stone

still

she found her legs

home

.

.

.

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

.

i remember the day i grew up
my hand on your shoulder and my heart
left somewhere in amongst the gravestones
we’d run through without tripping

and i realize now we made a trade
that day
you standing still
and me never stopping
chasing ghosts i’d never known
but surely

inherited

the clouds sung a choir
of revelation
just before i knelt

to pray for silence

and then i was off
like a shot or a doe or a wild-legged
mustang

wind in my hair streaming long
back behind me
your hand outstretched
but never grasping
how i’d left you alone

with your fear

.

.

.

A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month. Day 8
I’m participating in NaPoWriMo, and Writer’s Digest Poem a Day Challenge.

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