that's mrs. mediocrity to you

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.

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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

.

.

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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

.

.

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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.

.

as we fly
blindly

towards the filament of sun

our very own
mirror map mirage

beckoning
from cloud

carved by wing

and strength’s
survival

.

.

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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.

.

your song is less music than savior
rippling up
through barren branch and filtered bud
and i want to hold it in my arms
with the betrothal
of forgotten afternoon
golden grey and cerulean
swirled together in marbled veil
beneath this sky
holding you aloft and me
down
raking my skin
with feathered dance
and dripping wind
and the jewel you bear
on each closed wing

.

.

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.

.

i see you best
through broken edges

you are (w)hole
and I am fence

and together we form
our own boundary

.

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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.

.

who are you
to break my name
when you’ve never held my hunger
or bled my flame?

who am i
to step on these black borrowed stones
drowning in this pond
of hollow bones?

there’s a space between stars
filled with wing-shaped answers
and the ladder
hangs from clouds
strung by bees

.

.

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.

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