Rain can fool you.
It trickles softly
those secret licks that tease
your face into titling
ever upward tempting
beguiling moisture
that your dryness
lusts for.
Only to be drenched
when the floodgates open.
My tears and the rain
the same.
Rain can fool you.
It trickles softly
those secret licks that tease
your face into titling
ever upward tempting
beguiling moisture
that your dryness
lusts for.
Only to be drenched
when the floodgates open.
My tears and the rain
the same.
Our worries
tangled,
your heated
breath sighed,
and my fingers
sweat traced
condensation trails
when in a sudden
inhale,
I felt
my surging
rain of laughing
tears wash
us both away
in our cloud
of cotton.
Her eyes held
the same contempt.
Their reflections
mired in the puddle,
her pollen filled words
landing on his back,
and he brushed them off
like a discarded book
jacket.
No amount
of tugging
them around herself
could warm her
as he crushed
a wet cigarette
beneath his boot,
and she felt
her insides
discolor the rain.
Procrastination
and I have been friends
for a long time
so it should not have been
a surprise
to see my expanding waistline
reflecting
on my rain-washed car door
morphing it
into a fun house mirror
horror show
that caused
the passing birds
to lose their bowels
finally allowing me
an opportunity
to use the short
four-letter collection
of words I have been saving
for just such an occasion.
(Many of you know that I have not been in the best of health for over a month. I am now on a medical leave, hoping for less stress, and more healing. Thank you for your patience. I appreciate those of you who I see still coming back.)
Spring brings the deluge,
the pouring of sky’s soul.
Here I drip
many days’ deluge
finally feeling
ready to fall.
Eyes blurred,
I planted iris bulbs
crooked.
First shoots,
curved leaves leaned,
proved my pain.
Yet today’s stem
of tomorrow’s flower –
straight up.
Straight down,
a pint of past beauty,
for a bud of hope.
Only her eyes moved,
darting back and forth,
my god, oh, my god.
His eyes open,
starring into the sky;
she knew him, dead.
They took him
in hushed tones;
she alone on the hill.
Her screams bent
allowing no words,
just agony.
Her body curled
sobbing with her softly,
then gut wrenching.
He took her life.
Even her pockets
were empty.
I have reached for the tissues
more than five times
and the pile of my agony
still grows.
Tomorrow I will pick them up
and toss them in the trash,
but today the floor
is where my heart
will lay.
Somewhere around
tissue eight or nine,
anger will come out of the box
and I will cry
no more.
I have never been a fan of singers
whose voices lift
the spirits of thousands.
And, Wind,
I am no fan of yours.
You roll my child’s ball
making her run
far away from me.
You curl my shoulders,teasingly tossing my hair
to obstruct my view.
Every second I have lost
from seeing
my sweet child’s face
in playful laughter
can not be returned.
Wind,
do not sing
your beguiling song here.
The price you charge,
too high.
Darkness hid every drop
of rain that evening.
I could hear only
the tiny pings on the roof.
I felt the heaviness
of pressured air.
There was no line
between day and night,
between calm conversation
and drips of cutting cynical words.
Unwarned came the torrents,
the angry cry of clouds.
Finally, when it returned to a drizzle,
soft and steady,
the rain became my comfort
as you went out the door.
They all stood on this hill,
stomachs hungry
for more than the rinds
of day old bread.
Yet their voices are lost,
wispy like dying fires
after the dead coals
are stomped and ground.
We have not feed them,
filled their need,
while our own greed
has stolen their future.
Children can not play,
innocent in their day
when the sun only makes
cross shadows on the hill.
My large kitchen spoon
bent too easily
as I tried to dig
to China.
The top soil
was thin,
so thin,
barely covering
the rock below.
My mom
wasn’t impressed
by my efforts then.
I just kept
on digging.
Please keep
those tasty,
tempting,
tantalizing,
thesaurus teasing
bites of you
in this place where
I devour them.
According to me
it is easier
to fight
the robot codes
that to fight
my weight.
I will be
the Biggest Loser
if you bail and post
where I can’t
read your words.
Yesterday, there was one leaf,
green and growing strong.
It was the promise
of one tulip,
the mystery
of its color,
red,
yellow,
pink,
growing by the base
of my tree.
Today,
chewed off, again.
Just like last year.
I could blame
Princess,
my white squirrel
who circus walks the top
of our cedar fence.
I could blame
the rabbit,
who doesn’t deserve
a name,
chewing his door in the bottom
of our cedar fence.
Or I could blame
the fence.
Selfishly
holding back
this year’s view
of the carried,
buried treasure
of my neighbor’s
tulip bulbs.
Sr. Mary Aloysius,
fingers sliding
over pearlized beads,
keys jingling
in an unseen pocket,
bends down
to tie her black shoes tight.
Then a quieting finger
covers her thin lips.
She points to God
who apparently
was still looking
down
on us
even though we had already checked
our laces
and our manners.
I wanted to say
she was making more noise
than us,
but little girls
wearing tissues
for our missing chapel caps
already had enough
Somewhere around fifty
our brains shifted
from abstract thinking
about the events
of the day,
who is going where
and what they’re going to do,
to the minute details
of puss oozing
from our ears
and sciatic nerve damage
that radiates down our legs.
To remember the day
that meds our should be increased
while calculating
the effort needed
to climb a flight of stairs,
we need to shift
our creaking bones
to a place where we
remember the day
when we were too young
to care that we’d grow old.
Just when I think
I know it all,
the electrifying
realization
of your 2 to 1 ratio,
proves, once again,
the magnetism
between my spoon
and a quart of frozen custard
is justifiably intensified
by the viscosity
of my tears
and the volume
of her breasts.
Global warming,
earth’s demise,
heating arguments
conflicting
with knowledge
we all insist
is true.
Scientists can’t cool
the fiery tempers
of melting icebergs
and angst filled teenagers,
floating soul sisters,
colliding
and damaging
their sinking feelings
hidden
below.
He is thirteen
seen forever
by sensitive souls
who pass his hillside,
who hear his muffled
cry.
Scissors.
Duck tape
wrapped around
his mouth
his nose,
his eyes alone
cry.
Scissors.
I drive on,
no scissors
in my car,
my radio,
just a little louder.
A piece of paper,
value kept,
worth
fifty percent off
any number
of items
needed,
desperately
needed,
has now died,
died,
an untimely death
with the flipping
of the calendar.
Expired.
Hoarders lament,
tearing their treasure,
each half
now fifty percent
of nothing.
Only an old cat
can chuck up
a hairball,
stringy,
stinky,
slippery,
that floats
like an island
in a sea of slime.
Only me
left to wipe it up.
That old cat
and I
ebb and flow
with my paper towels
and his rough tongued kiss.
Wheels spun,
rolling down the road,
screeched us to a halt.
Time was my enemy of love,
held a hand up,
prevented our crossing.
No opportunity
to look both ways,
longingly down the road.
Then my heavy breasts,
filled past love’s capacity,
rested before they got home.
Damn flat.
Chequamegon Bay
quiet as the foaming
washing of rocks,
slow as applebutter
spread on toast.
Where lupines wave
their purple spires
giving seed to
crumbling
sandstone churches.
Barren blueberries
dust of pine
buckets of smelt
batter dipped
and fried.
Then brandy slush
it all till snow
covers the land
marking my trail
home.
Anticipating adrenaline’s rush
mingled with salty popcorn,
the script,
the first sacrificial victim,
heavy in the weight
of the writer’s agonizing
choice of words
falls
to its live or die
ending
with the first reader’s
ominous words:
“I don’t get it.”
look, look deep into your eyes
behind the color blue
______rimed with darkness
a nebula world, one few know
few care, few will ever see
in twilight, your eyes open
letting in the nights shadows
_______shadows that fill you
shadows that complete you
weaving webs of deceit and fear
beware the dimly lit paths
aglow around you, drawing, pulling
_______like spirit lights on the moors
we will suck you dry and snatch your soul
no second chance, no escape
extreme sadness
____heart empties
into river of tears
hardens
as your face fades
nothing, nothing left,nothing
no you ,no us
_____alone with
just shadows of where you once were
old creaking joints
skin drawn tight
across skinny bones
lips once soft, smooth
pulled slightly apart
reveal yellowed teeth
hideous form caught in time
indurated, it blinks while dreaming
of tea party’s and lacy pink dresses
feeble, mind dull, it stops and grins again
my face, it’s face slid from it’s once firm place
a face that shadows me
useless, feeble, slow when once I know
yes, once I know I ran deer footed
and laughed, laughed out loud
when once I wore those lacy pink dresses
and danced the night away
trailing soft summer flowers
fleeting are our days
count count the hours as they pass
petals drop fore lorn
Bags tied to an old cart
Again and again she stops
Garbage her only friend
Lonely and homeless
Agatha walks on unknown
Day after day seeking cover from the cold
Yielding in the end to the ice and snow
did I remember to forget your kiss
drinking while softly singing your song
did I run out in the rain, too late
where now nothing but silent shadows remain
will you fade from my heart full of pain
Cover my windshield
with mist,
rain that morphs
into torrents,
torrents that flood
into fear,
fear that reminds me
of bloody sockets
where eyes
were lunch
for Hitchcock birds.
Leave me to grope
with my arms out straight,
bump into the chair
in the dark.
Darken my room,
cover my cage,
don’t let me see
the crimson water
streaming out of your
eyes tonight.
Your eyes are left
with empty promises.
Don’t let me see
tonight.
From the protection of the roof’s overhang
I stand waiting for the rain to let up,
but my hectic schedule and the rain’s
are on different timetables.
Somewhere between the store and my car
the accumulation of wetness
reaches the point where my shoulders drop
from their guarded state to acceptance.
My feet stop as my head tips rain
down the slippery slide of my face
to my shirt now completely soaking
while other shoppers scurry by.
They shake rain from their hair
in disbelief as I completely surrender
my grocery bags in uplifted hands,
a helicopter between parked cars.
A dry child in the next car,
her Nuk and eyebrows raising,
already possesses enough knowledge
to see I’m slipping through.