My Muse (the bastard)

Your whisper teases through
these billowed drapes
to dangle whimsied dreams
in front of me - that delightful longing
softly strokes my mood
so velvet
is your touch, again to you
myself I offer - I am yours
helpless
to resist that voice
in blissful abandon
I happily surrender
imagination swirling,
cascading as you spill from me
all my colours
my passions
my dreams
all of my beauty
my soul - my love
in wondrous ecstasy.

too soon you require more
pull too hard
wrapping 'round me - wrenching from me
and forcing to harsh lights
my heart's secrets
ripping open doors long since
locked and bared
and holding up harsh mirrors
then laughing as you smash them
on my paper
stained with bloodied words
scrawled by my dampened hands

as I lie helpless
the click of the door
echoes
as you abandon me
I am alone
with only our words
and I long for your soft whispers
once again

random thoughts on men, pets and my mother


banging your head against the wall
will burn 150 calories an hour
but is not an effective diet strategy

eating a box of meringue cookies is not
an effective coping or diet strategy
(even though they are "fat-free")


banging your head against folded fluffy
white towels while your husband tells you
on the phone at least HIS first priority
is the children burns 0 calories an hour
and is not an effective coping mechanism

there are no effective coping mechanisms
for conversations with my mother after
she helpfully tells me I am too easy
on my kids and she's worried about
"how they will turn out"

my mother emails my soon to be ex-husband,
to let him know she still loves him

divorce lawyers are expensive

I know way too little about men
and way too much about rats

rats can't vomit (see above).

however men CAN vomit -
and were put on this earth to crush my heart into
a small pile of pulp

I don't vomit often,
which is handy because I don't get access to the privy
for more than 1 minute at a time.

my children and pets, however,
vomit, poop, pee, expel snot,
fling all forms of excrement on
a rotating schedule that would impress
The Marines – mostly on articles of
freshly laundered clothing that
I am presently wearing.

this is something I can depend on.

men in their 20's & 40's cannot be depended on.
(holding judgment on 30's & 50's)
this may be unwise since

my judgment with men is not to be depended on.

however, my judgment with flying excrement
is becoming excellent.

there is an obvious conclusion to this,
however, I have no idea what it could be.

Raining

I stopped today -
in my purple-soccermom-mini-van
complete with wrappers,
apple cores,
water bottles,
and enough sports equipment to outfit
several teams
in a marvelous
never-to-be-seen-again-sport


it was raining
no,
it was
~ R A I N I N G ~
the cloudbursting-raindrops-size-of-your-fist kind of
~ Raining ~
rain that makes you
- clean -
washes the air
~ fresh ~
with the - lightning flash - and the - thunder crash -
righttogether
and the sky, that amazing heavy
I'm-gonna-squash-you-like-a-bug
colour

I love that colour

there I was,
loving the sky
theallatonce
thunderandlightning -
and these guys pull up,
on motorcycles
-motorcycles!-
in the rain
and
they're laughing,
mouth open head back laughing,
raindrops dancing down their faces
to their
soaking wet T-shirts
their drenched hair flinging
more water back to the
delge

maybe it was
because
I've been dry
for far too many weeks
or perhaps,
the music was playing
just Loud enough
inside my soccer-van
it could have been
the motorcycles....

I rolled my window down,
let the rain paint
rolling prisms
over my bare skin,
invited wind to dance
with drops within my curling hair;
and laughed -
a mouth open,
head back kind of laugh
and thanked the wind and rain
for remembering me today.

The Yellow Poem


Golden curls
of heads close together
softly tickle the
orbs of dandelion laughter
as they bubble up to
honeyed sunbeams ~
unfurling to circle
their light innocence.

Honeysuckle cubes
wink and they prattle
in extra cool lemonades
sipped by gilt hummingbirds
soothed underneath
forsythia’s saffronic tones.

Proud lemon cream sunflowers
entwined with fond yarrow
are trifled and teased by
gamboge butterflies.


Daffodils dally sweetly
in amber waltzes for warblers
with bumble bees abuzz with delight,
while sunny canaries charm
the chartreuse petals
of lilies
with frolicking, jubilant songs.

And the coquettish buttercups
the sweet glowing buttercups
are elated
are rapturous
at today’s
bright yellow mirth.

highway

I cannot die today

Not in a world where
coquettish cattails sway
teased with glorious goldenrods
speckled in and out
by morning’s laughing dew

not when tree trunks
grey washed
stand guard in swamps
while heron’s sharpened eyes
are searching
always searching
and in a moment
will
lift into a flight
stopping time
breaking my heart
and fill my eyes
with tears
I never let escape

I cannot not leave this world
today

No, not when the
Inukshuks
point my way
built by patient human hands
on enormous jagged stone
to guide me
on this road

not when the blackest crows
leave their broken trees to
fly with me
carefully watching
me
with their souls
so much older
than my own
with eyes
deeper than my
love or hate
than emotion
or than my time

and no I can not go
not while I still love

not while this bright moon
shines her soul o’er my
Blackest lake

not while the bats begin
their evening’s dance
their joyous precious flight
that holds me in a
humble wonder

I cannot die today

not with the trees
Whispering
their long kept secrets
once again to me

when I am here
I can live awhile

learning

I do not learn

all that I do
is try and
remember

my addictions
recovered from, almost

my scars
my loving fingers
caress
their textured surface
each earned
their pain hidden
Deeply
but remembered
well enough

my cold hand
still clutched round
my fluttered heart

from these things
I do remember
but I can not learn

I’ll keep my face
hidden always
for I cannot bear
my own reflection
Now

I am nothing
like this

There is a moment of night
just before the coming
Black
I have become
this moment

The moment
behind shadows

and I will
not
learn

blackness

a diving spotted loon
to which the surging waves arouse no wonder,
a soaring mateless seagull beneath
grave misting clouds,
a pair of blackest crows
in deliberate and dark discourse,
and the early morning chorus of birds
I have not met,
here are my early morning companions

here this morning,
my last morning.

and this I ponder wrapped in heavy woolen
drinking strong coffee
made stronger still with Jamison’s

I ponder these birds
the burden of their sky
the profundity of the black waves
their universal harmony

and when the drizzle mixes with the rising surge
the loon dives again and does not return for me
the crows take their argument to distant trees
and the seagull glides so low under
the weeping
clouds - I cannot breathe to watch

and I am alone
with their water and thoughful stones
the unspoken rain
and within my silence
with the blunt smell of cold
and the raw touch of
grey horizon light

where under lies untraveled blackened depths
where under
I will always lie.

Rant in Free Verse

Ok, here’s the deal
-Free-versers-
we get no respect

That’s

-R- E- S- P- E- C- T-
like the song

we ARE
the Rodney Dangerfield’s of poetry

you think this isn’t
HARD WORK?

think just because
we
don’t
rhyme
everytime
that’s its not
POETRY?

don’t think we know
our iambs
from our
pentameters?
(okay -
so I look them up)

that we
“should try harder”

knowing when
to put in
--C l e v e r--
--Line--
--Breaks--

…or when to let the line run on a little bit longer…
or when
to use
eclipse instead of caress
takes
timeandeffort

so the next time
you see a
worn down
free-verser
give ‘em
some of that

-R- E- S- P- E- C- T-

or at least
slip a
fiver
in their
hat

transitory

can we own
the pieces of
our world -stand on
this spot and say
It is Mine
this is My space
of green
My view
of sky - I have
seen this done -
and myself stolen
moments
with a certainty that
they were mine
to keep - but

as I pass warm
soup into cold pale
hands, cold
money into hollow
cups, I see nothing

is absolute
not my words, my joy,
my pain,
my next breath or
heartbeat, or bowl
of soup. who

owns who? my sky, my
worn and mossy
rocks, my precious
sea? - for
when skies scream
for blood in rage, and
water heaves her blackened
crushing weight
devouring – this is not

absolute, and will
pass – my
existence, all
existences

precious and transitory
will pass

I hold another cold
hand
“I will say a prayer
for you” - and for his
prayer I thank
him, then gaze

at a blue
and cloudless
sky

Stunning

precious and transitory
and this too
will pass

a poem for boris

no metaphors were harmed in the making of this poem

I hate elevators.
small boxes that squeeze-you-sort-of-trap-you–in. With
p e o p l e
who you would normally never-
never, spend time with, and never, ever would touch. With
p e o p l e
who generally - Smell too much;
either bad, or who do not understand -
the concept of restraint,
with aftershave. With
p e o p l e
on cell phones talking endlessly, 'looking important'
with farting
p e o p l e
who pretend it wasn’t
Them.

and The Music.

I help moms with kids,
and old people
when I can
then I find a corner at
The Back, head down,
and wait,

and Wait.

My Spot at The Back
I’m always Waiting from that Spot at the Back
elevators – school - parties – life
all for me, its where you
can-just-lean-against-the-wall
Not Be
snuck up on, and then have 'look important'
and
the farters -
are usually near the food.

Boris Pasternak once inferred -
that a metaphor
is
the shorthand of the gods,
those with overfull mental plates must move in leaps
rather than walk like other mortals


Me,
I walk in mortal steps,
carefully placed ones
outside when I can.
its not like I have anything,
against metaphors,
some of my closest friends,
were metaphors
but my mental plate is not-
what you would call
o v e r f l o w i n g.

The Back.

Boris was likely the sort of
p e r s o n
who liked to be-
at The Front of the elevator,
Pushing Everyone’s Buttons
for them;
asking them Which Floor and such,
all the while
h e a p i n g
things onto his Mental Plate.

and that’s great,
everyone needs
a Spot
on the elevator,
if everyone wanted to
Push Buttons, or
Talk
on the phone, or
I shudder to think,
Fart,
elevator society as we know it
would collapse
and we’d all be on the stairs.

speaking of stairs
I think that’s where
I’m going
now.

see you later
Boris.

faded

this is a place of faded flowers
gently worn onto age softened sheets
that caress the cots in corners
where an ancient dresser rests quietly
against a slanted wall
where the water whispers
its tales to you
and dappled maple light
dances on your face
before you wake
from sleep
deeper than the lake
full of more dreams
than the playful window leaves
sleep
you have long wished for
where the water
knows and
remembers
you
even before
you open your eyes.

fish hooks

I have not known this face

reborn in palest newborn skin
translucent, and
tissue thin
all my nerves unclothed
disgraced, at their own nakedness

I do not know how to use these hands

a flesh of weeping grief
from savage shredded tracks
the tiny fish hooks sliced
and pierced
with their
sharpened razor points

of grief and joy and hate and fear of love

and of despair

I have never heard my voice

still they dig
minute barbs grasping
my unprotected soul
wrenching out my
heart
for all to see
tearing open my
eyes
so I must look

at the person I do not know