Posts for June 8, 2019 (page 7)

1.  
She has broken through the loam,
urged upward 
by waiting sunlight
and just the right timing.
She is freed;
her promise unburied
and opening 
into velveteen petals bright
with unabashed color.

2.
Nothing is that simple, of course.
The wind swirls with forces
that test her stem strength.
She risks being thwarted
by choking weeds,
by raging rain,
by her own temptation
to sink back down
into familiar dark
suspension.

3.
She dreams of reaching
full bloom
on her own terms:
never cut short,
never stuffed into a vase,
trapped and wilting.

4.
Dreams are just the start.

In the throes of job hunting
     you receive another rejection:

“Good Morning,

I am eight years old

and sleep with a backpack

full of prized possessions:

My Hilary Duff CD

and my dance trophy.

I am prepared for disaster

but afraid of everything.

I know who’s footsteps

sound like shuffling

or stampedes.

My father is the boogeyman.

I an older now

and sleep with ambien.

I am afraid of footsteps

I no longer hear

the boogeyman.

I love you as if you were one white weathered column,
eternally silent and performing your duty.
I love when you are not beside me smacking that mouth of yours.
I love you a just a little bit, the kind of little bit
offered to the nice neighbor’s jumping dog.
I love you like clammed-up saltwater in my ear.
I don’t have to put up with you,
you, a bloated romance novel;
you, a wind-up toy that has just quit.
I hold you in my tender hands
like a butter knife against the horrible butter.

This flesh is an oil painting hidden in an attic     my pigments fading

as they drag down across the canvas     my bones cracked and rotting

and flaking onto the dusty unfinished floor     while in the parlor

below my mind dances for company     argues over the finer points

of Egyptian mythology and eschatology as it relates to the Age of

Aquarius and our current political climate     listens to deep cuts of

free jazz and sips coffee from an unknown country     flexing its

sinuous bicep energies to impress its guests     its subtle body

marinating in this touchable room     this sensual feast     it says let

the flesh fail     let the liver collapse upon itself     let the heart seizure

under paint thinner fumes     the spirit will live on     gyrating in the

cosmic rave     a swirling current in the waters of the unified ocean

a coat of paint that never dries     a portrait never finished

Birds

When you seize
something don’t just take it,
grab it urgently maybe
even illegally, or perhaps
secretly, but
with the determination of a hard
boiled mercenary or small
child, who on her fourth
birthday imagines she
is Superwoman and, in her play,
confronts the bad guys and plucks
them away from their corrupt
mischief —thus
saving the world. I
wake to routine cable
news interrupted to report Turkish
authorities have taken over Zaman, the country’s
newspaper. Syrian
troops have seized the neighborhoods
of Aleppo. In a suburb
of Nashville today, my cousin decides
between spending her tax return on a thigh
tattoo or a spa day. My neighbors
squabble about vinyl
siding.  I clip
coupons for pot pies, detergent and frozen
pizza. Two days have rolled by since a 15-year-old
walked into high school cafeteria in Benton, Kentucky—
50 miles down the road from me—and sprayed
bullets into 14 classmates. I want to cobra-strike
all this disunity, cut it
down to size along
with my friends, as we assemble
and gain heft and strength—a gathering of
Grizzlies. I want to seize it, watch
my voice grumble and eradicate,
a 500-year typhoon. Wham.
Pow. Kaboom. We make
the change.  I have one power,
Batman says. I never give up.

My friend posts on Facebook, Not OK.
Please help me. A white
supremacist has mowed down
her cousin, Vickie Lee,
in a Kroger parking lot. What can I give
my friend? This galaxy-sized
anger? My willingness
to act? Wolverine bellows,
If you cage the beast, the beast
will get angry. Catwoman purrs,
A long time ago
before I put on this mask,
I was afraid of everything. Wonder Woman spits,
How dare you?
How dare you?

Всеки иска част от мен 
и ме побърква,
това, че цяла вече
аз не съм. Помръква
моята душа, обречена 
Да СЕ натъква,
все на  обстоятелства
в които 
Изсмукана се чувствам  
Нито
любимите неща да правя
Нито
границите си да браня 
аз успявам.
Но ще забравя обещавам, 
крещятото си его,
което 
свръхчовек ме кара да съм.
Но не съм.
Аз просто съм 
обикновен човек 
със нужди и с въпроси. 

healing is
necromancy.
bringing back
the parts of me
that died
when i gave up
your shackles
for a straightjacket.

The gods might call me She Who Refuses.
I have denied myself several incarnations.
Partial. Wholesale. On commission.
And then I get behind on my walk with the gods, keep fiddling, getting more and more
in the way of their will.
I can not blame them for the discord. I make
my own storms. In the flurries, I freeze,
petrified to take meditative motions of no-thing-ness,
the patience of letting the fates hold my Forward.
When grace doesn’t dig me out of the drifts,
I avalanche.
Self-imposed snow, in season
each moment I forget to check my moral compass.