that's mrs. mediocrity to you

for twenty years
you kept a frame on a shelf
always out of reach
and tilted just so
encasing a photo
of nothing

no one ever asked
and you never
mentioned why
and eventually
your dust
colored it forgotten

but nothing ever dies
without revealing bones

and one day
the earth
grumbled just enough
to tip that empty square
into transparent
shards

slicing
through silence
with the clean
cold precision
of yesterday’s
knife

to reveal
a second picture
always hidden
from view
screaming
the truth

in lost time

.

.

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

Also joining in with PAD (poem a day) over at Writer’s Digest.

.

.

my soul is not for sale
the sky is filled with words
and i love to sweep

my heart has been broken
more times than a promise

look at me sideways
and i’ll disappear

most days i want to change everything
most days i wouldn’t change anything

i walk a plank of wooden nickels
and who i am has no value

i live on vowels fished from waves
in the sea of repetition

censorship is a dark cloud
raining false vanilla

my broom is not for sale
the words are filled with holes
and i’m in too deep

.

.

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

Also joining in with PAD (poem a day) over at Writer’s Digest.

.

.

there will be days to hold onto
and days that burn the skin from your fingers

happiness is a pearl you should wear
when no one else is looking

every movement you make involves a choice
between yourself and someone you love

practice remembering what it was to be a child
and laugh with joy at least once a day

lick wonder from your fingers and
rub hope into your elbows

don’t ever be afraid to be silent
or to speak or to sing or to scream

every mirror is a false apparition
find your reflection in someone else’s eyes

you will grow in ten million directions
and every one of them is who you are

make every mistake you can imagine
and then go back and make a few more

kindness always replenishes itself
and love is the same as breathing

you will never finish the book
that is your story

life is the gift and survival
is the miracle

sit beneath the sky and find a way

.

.

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

Linking in over at dVersePoets for Meeting the Bar.

Also joining in with PAD (poem a day) over at Writer’s Digest.

.

.

if anne tyler shows up, we’ll have homesick for dessert
and she’ll teach us how to breathe and forgive

hemingway is sure to want venison, but after
an extra tall absinthe, he’ll make do with chicken

as miss plath lights the candles and serves up
bitter cookies dressed in marzipan and red

garth stein arrives dripping wet, a bit shy and
empty-handed, claiming the dog ate his casserole

which makes david wroblewski snort

and when erin morgenstern sits down we hear a barker
hawking tickets to a game of musical chairs

a plan mr. king is all for as the table suddenly expands
and the sun starts to sing in the corner

rosamunde pilcher brings bread pudding and roses
and insists that she sit next to salinger

though of course, his chair remains empty and

anne sexton is the life of the party, wearing pearls
and wry and eventually landing in vonnegut’s lap

while franzen sneers behind one perfect hand, his plate
filled with words no one else cares to sample

as toni morrison whispers with somerset maugham,
heads bent in an endless discussion

dostoevsky is straining to hear

cummings offers up broken cake and colored water
he pulls from the pockets of his coat

when edith wharton smiles at mark danielewski
picking leaves from the hem of emily’s dress

and mark helprin sits in the corner, alone
taking notes with long cold fingers

as laura ingalls passes chipped plates

.

.

A little fun today, planning dinner with some favorite authors.
Who would you invite to your party?

.

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

.

.

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

.

.

.

.

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

.

.

i stand at the kitchen window long enough to grow roots

twisting down through the egg-cracked floor
into the fallible foundation of basement

this is my mirror and my afterlife and i know
i will haunt this place with my broad moon face
for seven wing-tipped generations

yet you taunt me with your hollow hope umbrage
moving through me as you glide overhead

my fingers the branch you choose to land on
though i never catch a wing or move a feather
and your song is more metaphor than melody

still, we know each other through this dark dirty pane
recognition confirmed by the silver you drop

even as you know i will tarnish-change to black
just like you and your silhouette of hands cupped
life running down my white sketched arms

as this sink filled with mud overflows

.

.

.

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

.

.

bone dried and bleary eyed
i walk through the forest of neversleep
dreams muted by sharp edged branch
and echoes of earthquake
on a horizon always curving
to the left

i am not lost
in the blue pooled darkness
and my feet are always moon bare
beneath the sky laced curtain
of shift and shadow’s
star-studded chemise

there are screams left behind
in cold footprints
and howls mirrored
trapped
in black ice

and the light that arrives
just to save me
from the corners
of brevity’s
night

.

.

.

Linking in over at dVersePoets for Meeting the Bar, with a little rhythm.

.

.

.

.

.

.

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

.

.

.

Linking in today over at dVersePoets for a color festival with Poetics, join us!

.

.

.

.

.

you just have to

cozy up

and take a nap

together

.

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

.

.

Linking in today (if I got this right) over at dVersePoets for Meeting the Bar,
where we are playing with kenning. Join us!