Deanna 88
Neither fertile nor god
Ordained a church leader
I live in the shadow of mountains
Standing here
looking at you
standing there:
I want nothing more
than to hold you
so long and so close
that I feel the warmth
of your breasts
and your belly
through our clothing,
to kiss you so long
and so longingly
that your taste becomes
inseparable from mine
as a part of each moment
until the universe collapses
at last in upon itself,
to wonder even then
what sorcery you weave
and cast to change me.
Like Persephone with the pomegranate I was hungry.
Wanting more than 1/3 of you
and I thought that’s what you gave me.
You were the smile on a screen
the secrets shared after dark.
I kept every promise that I made you.
But while I was worried about bruises
and another girl was worried about broken bones
you hadn’t really fallen.
In every fever dream
poetic rhyme
I never blamed you
Could’ve never should’ve
buried me in grief and jealousy
waiting for the day where your name doesn’t send chills down my spine.
One could say you came with your own support system
Waiting for me to take off the rose colored glasses
So I could realize you never really cared at all.
Disappearing into simplicity,
from my will, into the heart’s will be done,
the Divine’s will, one’s true will.
Divisions in the mind released through
inquiry, sincerity, humility.
Seeking Truth for Truth’s sake alone.
The illusion of security and persona fall away.
Lighter and freer having no attachments
and not being possessed.
Not being greater or less than anyone.
There is compassion for all.
Without image or fear,
letting go and falling into grace,
into the natural state,
of life itself, one’s own life.
Moment to moment with infinite possibilities,
endless wonders.
Down on my knees
with my thumb I push another seed into the earth.
(Gassho ADYA)
There’s a choking haze
in the days
following the strawberry moon
My lungs feel like dried up
worms on the sidewalk
pelted by sharpened shards of light
I take some moments to read
maybe 20 poems
and several are like deep conversations
with strangers,
my own heart poured out
in the mirror of their eyes
They are as much myself as I am
I try to roll my body around on the floor
stretch and move-
Like dried out dough, it resists.
I try to ignore the pounding of my head
The nausea from piles of aspirin
and week long migraines
My eyes long to open wide
through their screwed up squinting,
to kiss and hug everyone
to see myself as a deep, cold well
in glistening colors
as on fine sables
a softness that trembles
the very foundation of science
We are so much more than bodies
struggling to make functions
calculators in pails of treacle
We are more than shapely buttocks
We are more than strands of lavender
and wishes fulfilled
We are more than wonder blooming
within rocks
making time look like a toy dog
that rolls along, wagging its tail
We are more than words scrawled on a page
more than wondering what-how-why
more than hoping for what how why
more than longing
Perhaps when we die we find out what it is to be all that and nothing
And perhaps we are only here or there,
or beyond here or there
to be reaching
to trickle downhill
to never culminate any way, how, where.
What is it about love that shows us this?
What is it about contrast
that encircles,
that continues to define
beyond ends
beyond time
in my mother’s house there is a
painting called
“Self Portrait With Hummimg Bird
Necklace” tiny dead birds strung
around an old woman’s
neck like turquoise and lapis
lazuli
we used to ask who
killed the brilliant
birds
where did they come from? who is the
crone with all those
wrinkles?
“Abuela Luna,” my mother
says
some think she painted
it herself we
wonder is
Abuela Luna just a
character in my
mother’s
dream?
This poem is written by Rosylin Flowers, a character in my novella, “Crooked.”
Starting Old Blue
is a solid coax.
first, pat her
on the dash,
call her baby
as I turn the key,
give a little gas
and see,
too much and she
will surely flood,
not enough she stalls.
tap the pedal twice
and pray.
she rumbles
up a cloud from
the exhaust,
shakes like waking dog,
be patient,
wait,
sometimes the warmup
lasts all day.
words are seeds
throw em in the dirt
in hopes they grow
into trees
hope you reap
what you sow
this an ode
to the leaves
in the breeze
that fall on a road
or in a stream
of thought
where the meaning
gets caught
in between
meaning and not
water just leaning
on the rocks
that’s you and me
but we switchin off
cuz we’re a team
Nah I forgot
that’s just what we used to be
that’s just what it used to be
Life is heavy, costly,
relative to wonder
which is energy swimming
for light and air,
a solid anchor, wings
to lift the body.
They say you’ve gone wonky.
You tilt to the right
as if your spine
is curved. A subtle
scoliosis. You wear a different
shoe on each foot
and then you tilt to the left.
Other women do this—
wear two unmatching shoes—
and no one notices.
It’s a mad fast world.
Some architect designed
your house as slanted as you,
like Julia Child’s kitchen.
No one notices
the height
of Julia’s counters,
but we notice you.
Frankly you’ve always
been wonky. You don’t even
know it. You were born this way.
You’re no Lady Gaga.
