Posts for June 30, 2024 (page 8)

Pen to paper:
a release of the soul.
Bits and pieces
of the parts of us
placed in the gentle care
of ink wells and parchment
since the dawning of humanity.
We were never meant to be contained
in the decaying carcass of the flesh.
He once said “I (we) contain multitudes”
and, therefore, we mustn’t imprison ourselves in glass bottles we place on
the back recess shelves of our being.
It is our duty to release ourselves wholly
not just the pristine and beautiful
but the damned and rotten parts
of who we are
for if we do not
we trap ourselves in a prison
made up of our own
flesh, bone, hurt and fear.
So, I beseech thee,
pick up a pen
find a place to write
again and again
until every multitude of who you are
is freed to be seen
and not trapped
in the destructive body.
We owe it to our souls
to release them into the unknown
even the messed up parts of our hearts
because every piece of you deserves release, it all makes up
who you were meant to be.

(Happy LexPoMo! Thank you all for an amazing month! It feels good to share words with a supportive and welcoming community of writers. I hope you all have a great rest of your year and I can’t wait to write next year with you all 🙂 ) 

Fear never helps.
Occupying myself
Can help, if the right tasks are
Understood and completed
So I can step into success.

The mission oak, arts and crafts
gift, notches of history across is surface,
came as a surprise on her birthday
when he still loved her.

He knew she wanted a writing desk and 
set it up while she was at work. It was
impossible to contain her exciement and
gratitude for something she least expected.

She always sensed her writing got in the way
of their relationship, typewriter taking up space
on the kitchen table, papers and piles hilled
around the house, frustration with rejections.

The purity of the gift said he loved her still, and
she was ready to settle into that sacred space
once the girls were asleep.  One drawer with 
two brass pulls held her secrets as days passed.

His love faded, the way old fabric fades exposed to
the sun.  Their time together faded the way memories
fade with age.  She moved the writing desk to 
a new home, old secrets kept locked in the drawer.

One day it was time to move again, downsize, give away
sell, donate so many things.  Pieces of her life that no
longer fit into a small space.  The writing desk went to 
the local Re-Store. She felt a twinge of sadness as it left.

It was not until she saw a Facebook post of her desk
for sale that she realized how attached she was
to that gift, to his love, to the dreams that once were
depositied in secret in a single drawer with brass pulls.

there once was a girl online

who’s poetry quality started to decline.

with community cheers

and a couple of beers

she made it across the finish line!

We have made the mistake

of inviting the dog

into the bedroom

to cuddle with us

for hours

during the day.

Now at night,

after our walk,

she stands at the bottom of the stairs

outside the gate

(trying to grab my shoes

if she can reach them)

and whines,

her voice a sweet sad song.

““How did she learn how to bark cute?”

my partner asks.

It reminds me

of all the gates

I have had to stand behind,

not because of healthy boundaries though.

But rather

not being holy enough

or attractive enough

or popular enough,

not being trans enough

or being too trans,

not being gay enough

or being too gay,

not being bi enough

or being too bi,

trying to turn my howls of pain

into poetry

while waiting for invitations

that had never been written.

Clouds laze along

I’m from
Pieces of tin foil, folded for reuse
Fels Naphtha soap,
Used on shirt collars and sassy mouths

I’m from
camelias, white, pink and variegated
A prolific Meyer lemon bush and an ancient apricot tree,
Whose abundance became pies, jam and canned fruit

I’m from
An RCA Victor record player in a special kitchen cabinet,
Fats Waller, show tunes, Mitch Miller, and big band,
Parental spins around the kitchen

I‘m from
The cigarette butts squished out in egg yolks,
Sky-high, from-scratch waffles, bread and angel food cake,
Warm summer evenings of barbeque smoke

I’m from
“Watch your tone, young lady”
“You’ll remember this discussion longer than you’ll remember a beating”
“Lift up your head, square your shoulders, take responsibility, and move on”

I’m from
Irony, sarcasm, love
Laughing out loud at yourself
And above all,
Grit.

i

Here’s a poet
who hates to see
self in a mirror
Too much gray
Too many lines

Not as fine
as a clock
or calendar
though all three remind
of the finitude
of time
time
time

ii

Who says 
poeming is careering
how does it trump (no pun)
a job

I used to write truths for print (and was good [not great]) 
Now I only write to learn
and every lesson burns
with kindling left unlearned
 
iii

Frost
or Warren
or Heaney
or Thomas
(not I)

It’s not my place
to poem of place 
my roots so rotted as the suburbs

my diction
so much fiction
or just plain tired

(((Truth)))

Then what
and how
is this
careering 

 iv

Back to that blasted mirror
reflecting more than gray & lines

so little time
to change the endgame

(or    with the endgame just the same    unfinish
the finished)

rewrite the rhyme
however little the final verse
may rhyme

Damn time 

Time stirs like sunrise, 

I dream of not planning it in time 
birthday parties the-day-of wake me
sweat slick in my bed, humid covers
sticking to my back where terror digs
her breath in my ears, sighs, it’s too late 
chairs sit empty, but I still arrive 
with confetti in my ice cold hands