Posts for 2020 (page 151)

I fall asleep on the sofa

Rain falls,
the only poetry
this night.

It was my intention to write
stanzas of three
lines,

but rain
wrote one better
than I could achieve..

being released,
coming back to youself
after a long, ignorant encagement
is jumping off a bolder
outstretched over a river
and coming up for air
once again

the realization of how lonely
it is to miss youself
to be so distant
from the God living inside you
the God living all around

to not stifle the way you love
to embrace everything
and live
like the future
will hold everything
you dreamed
while you were caged

I’ve been a lot
of places,
but this land
I grew up knowing
that has suddenly
changed
is by far the
most preposterous
and dismal.

They’ve torn
down the
mountains
and hauled
them away
in big trucks,
and widened
the roads
stretching
miles out of town
to anywhere else.

There’s a menagerie
of gas stations
and fast food
and amenities
designed just for
pit stops
because no one
wants to stay
here anymore
in the town that
used to be a forest,
but now is
nothing but
high gray walls.

I scream songs in my car

I know the lyrics to a billion songs

I drive with one hand out the window

I dance in empty parking lots

I eat in my car alone

I laugh at my own jokes

I over love and over care

I give people my all

I break stereotypes

I do what I want

I say what I want

I drive too much

I dream big

There’s so much more

That I should appreciate

When it comes to me

I am weird, I am different, I am wild

And to me that’s beautiful.

This poem is to remind myself that I am me, and I should love me.

If your knee to the pavement
meant more than your knee to the neck,
you’d have kneeled before now.

If the lives of the Black people in your community
meant more than the jobs of your police officers,
you’d have charged them with murder before now.

If the treaty at Appomatox Courthouse 
meant more than lip service to the Union Army,
you’d have torn down your Confederate monuments before now.

If your words meant more,
you’d have said them before now.

i am a tree with no roots.
i bask in the sunshine,
but when strong winds blow,
i reach down deep for 
a balance i cannot find.

i am no longer fixed 
to the land where i was raised,
and though i’ve sought shelter
in another far too many times,
my own soft soul is
my only true home.

i am a rudderless boat,
my bearings lost long ago on a fickle sea.
i squint into salt spray for the shoreline,
wonder how i’ve come so far.
not aimlessness that brought me here,
just my spinning-compass heart.

is it too late now–
with my teetering babel tower
rising up, built with so much 
care and hope–
to backtrack and pour
a foundation?

how to even start…
I will dig My toes in deep
to grip a loamy constancy.
I will grow roots, seek water,
and where I find it, 
drink.

I will drop My anchor here
while time still stretches
out before Me in waves,
We old dogs can learn
new tricks. We lack only
the audacity.

Her veneration
Hand to hand the circles cast
On a swift cool breeze

All eastern spirits
Element of air, guiding
New beginnings gaze

All southern spirits
Element of fire, crafting
Transformation rites

All western spirits
Element of water, cleanse
The autumn of life

All northern spirits
Element of earth, winter
Covers frozen soil

Hail the waning crone
Wisdom kept in fragile bones
Slumber in cold crypts

Mourn the resting crone
Wisdom shared amongst
Maidens & mothers

Hail the waning crone
Memories etched within our
Hearts vast inferno

Autumn breeze carried
A waning crone, to winter
Crypts in frozen soil

Snowflakes melt
on my
warm lips
like
the tentative
kisses
of a would be
lover.

Dirty hands staining the bathroom porcelain
I wonder if it makes a difference 
Maybe God notices 
Preferring cleanliness over desperateness
I notice the mans hands
Fingers  intertwined and gripped tight 
He prays in silence
His hands clean on the surface
Hiding whatever stain he’s tried to scrub away 

My stomach is hollow
My eyes are red
My passion for my business is unimportant
And there’s a part of me that just wants to 
Put the books back on the shelf
And try to teach the real history to the neighbor kids

Although,
A part of me wants to be the old lady who owns
A dusty antique store

It’s still a pandemic
I’ve been out 
But know I need to quarantine again
The house is dirty
My mental health is strangling me 
Things won’t go back to normal for me 
I don’t know if I can continue to worry about clothes 

Life is too never ending and this generation is amazing
I’ll never treat these kids like I was treated
“Damn millennial,”
I’ve heard over and over again
Yes, damn me
For doing the right thing and being upset about the things that mean something

I’m an old soul
But don’t care for old values
Soon I’ll be old
But I will continue to grow my values