that's mrs. mediocrity to you

the ripe ones are always waiting

closed up holed up sewn up
biding time like the best of new mothers

and you think you know how to birth them

“sounds like so and so” i hear you snort
as you rustle past with your wrinkled paper
on your way to tea and toast

all posh and proper
confessional only on bitter days

the rest of the time you’re sure to rhyme
though you much prefer to couple

and i always listen

ears pressed to the floor with fingers tapping

waiting for more

there’s always more

cadence calls and you’re off to supper
swilling syllable and savory refrain

waving your fork in the air mid-rant

even as the knife continues sawing
through the vein

i serve cold soup and sorry sentence
in a too-tight apron laced with stain

and hope that later
once you’ve finished

we’ll invent a new word
for dessert

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An ode to poets, both here and gone,
and all of my friends over at Dverse Poets Pub,
celebrating their third anniversary this week!
Come on over and join the fun!

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that fragile thing

called hope

lives everywhere

your heart

goes

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i remember when romance and hope were the same thing
he loves me, he loves me not
tattooed in a circle round my ankle

an ink drawn fresh dried forever shackle
offered in exchange for the customary key

but a young girl’s heart is always moving forward
ready to burst into star-struck song and
a brief exchange of whiskey serenade

until she learns with a crone’s bold eye
love is not the flower, but the root

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Linking in over at
Imaginary Garden with Real Toads for July’s Word List prompt.
Join us!

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all the memories
become a jumble
of forgotten chances

paint peels
and the sky
blinks

clouding birds
with gun flint
steel

a southern hurricane
whispers blindly
through the poplars
i planted

one day long ago
when i could not
say your name

now those same trees
shade our bedroom
telling secrets to a
clear clown canvas

and i paint circles
on your chest
with knobby-edged
fingers

wondering
if the rings
at the heart of those
tall twin trunks
are made of time
or gold

or if it matters

shadows dance
as leaves shimmy shake
across the surface of a lake
we never managed
to explore

and we watch the sun
set down color
like a promise

or a platter
filled with food
from a picnic
never taken

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a dance

with the sky

requires

bare feet

a dab of scent

and

arms wide open

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mother nature invented fireworks

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love is everywhere i turn

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outrage makes me tired

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reading keeps me sane

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writing keeps me whole

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my garden keeps me centered

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fireflies at midnight are still magic

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every sunrise is a page in the book of possibility

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every sunset is a sentence in your story

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whispering poplars sing the best lullabyes

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birdsong is the symphony of life

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half is half and whole is whole
and open is never closed

the sky is unconcerned with your welfare
even as it paints your evening red

silence is impossible to silence

full or empty
black or gold

drink it in with your pessimist’s stare
pour it out with an optimist’s grin

overflow

and the earth will take your offering
run it downhill to the pool of purpose

gather
mingle
transmogrify

despair and hope and courage

and puddle them all
at the feet of fortitude

an elixir of entropy
reflecting

cirrus clouds
and broken blue

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the bells of time

are always ringing

in the garden

of possibility

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whether you hear

music or

cacophony

depends

on the rhythm

of your heart

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It’s been a month of things being broken. I hear Mercury’s to blame, and smile at the notion, but then I believe it anyway, because it’s been a month of things being broken.

Some things get fixed and other things get replaced and still other things get discarded.

Clearing the air and the space and the clutter that looms in my mind. I want to fix everything, I can’t fix anything, no, I can fix this.

Somehow, I inherited the fix-it gene. And with it, the particular strain of stubbornness required to make it work, whatever it is that I’m fixing. Both a bane and a blessing, I suppose.

But I like fixing things better than discarding. We throw away so much these days, without thinking, without taking in the bigger implications of where it all goes. Some days, I want to stop buying anything. Tiny bottles of cream in boxes four times their size. Two grocery items in one shopping bag. Cardboard and cardboard and cardboard. Recycling bins overflowing.

There are too many things that can’t be fixed, things that are intended to be discarded as soon as they stop working.

Some days, I feel this notion is filtering over into our humanity. I see so many quips about discarding people who have hurt you or don’t encourage you or don’t do this or that, and it makes me wonder. We used to fix our relationships along with our toasters. Have we abandoned that practice, as well?

We have so many choices, too many choices, and that becomes its own kind of stuck.

I cant find a decent charcoal grill at a decent price to replace the three we’ve had since this one that my husband took to our camp. The models they sell now are so visibly cheap that they might last a year if you’re lucky. And everyone uses gas grills these days, because it’s faster, and perhaps, a little, because it’s cleaner. I try to talk my husband into gas, but he’s old school, he likes the process of starting the briquets and waiting for the right temperature. I think how much easier a gas grill would be, but I’m not the griller, so charcoal it is. Besides, I suppose a gas grill would be just one more thing that would break.

It’s been a month of things being broken.

But even so, my garden is lush, we have food on our table, and people we love, and blue skies at least half the time. It’s summer and the glass is half full. Another year, pouring itself out for the taking.

I drink to you, June.

Now come on over here and sit next to me while I fix the torn hem of your dress.

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some days
my heart breaks four thousand times
and that’s all before
i open my eyes

heartache is the farmer of contentment
planting seeds he knows have little chance
of bearing fruit

if you want 40 plants you sow 68 seeds
and if you’re lucky you’ll end up with 50

think too much and you’ll always have just enough

but no one ever said happiness
was a permanent state
and no one ever said
survival was a given

we stand in a field of black soil
and cry when our feet get muddy

the rain will wash you clean
as long as you don’t run
and sometimes the sky has to cry
just the same way a mother
has to worry

have you ever tallied the scars
on the tree that shades
your bedroom?

missing limbs
broken branches, gashes
peeling bark

sap runs slowly through the veins
of existence

but every spring
green
new growth
insists on piercing the cloud
blocking your view
of the sun

and four thousand leaves
never seem
overwhelming

until tomorrow
when they’ll fuel the flame
you find impossible
to douse

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Linking in over at dVersePoets for Open Link Night.
Join us!

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