I know what it feels like
when nobody hears you
when you show you hurt
They go about their business
like that’s not my problem
that’s yours
Wrong
she’s showing you
different
Stop gaslighting her
senstive yourself
to what she’s saying
She’s saying a lot.
There was a brief respite
In the summer heat today
In the form of a brief rain shower
But I missed it because I was napping
I love the smells and atmosphere of a
Summer rain
But I also needed the deep sleep of a
Much needed Sunday nap
The singing white trumpeter swan is so white
you couldn’t attempt to imagine her any other way.
Like marble she’s so painfully, breathtakingly white
that if you severed her heavy head, you’d imagine
there’d be no blood to flow into the ripples around her,
just a smooth snowy blankness inside her hollow neck.
And if you severed her graceful head, the song would die
in her empty throat, last notes lilting to a shrill stop.
She’d careen, thrashing water once still into motion,
a headless goddess with no eyes anymore to watch
her tranquil lakeside world fall, feathers unpeeling
like peony petals, except still so beautifully white,
as she devolves, decays to whirlpool and wind.
She may try vainly to flee from the end of herself,
and if she flew the sun would suck her into its arms,
and if she swam she’d sink into a calm oblivion,
listing like a ship overloaded with precious cargo.
Her stone heart is so heavy it’d drag her down.
Like marble she’d sit at the bottom of the lake,
of the whole world, looking up, peering coolly
into that sliver of starlight piercing from above,
and she’d glow in the dark of her own accord,
so dazzlingly, somberly white.
Lavender Fields (June 22nd 2024)
(the poem I wrote yesterday that I forgot to upload)
Sweet smell of soft sleep,
slow, hazy summer dreams.
Fall into calmness.
You can make me angry, but you will never make me act just like him.
“You know you do.
We all have a PoMo crush”
– Unnamed PoMo Friend
Planted in beds and soils
my roots will never taste,
even so, you are the flowers
melting at fingers’ touch–
pouring color from palette skies
across my June-ish mind
like viscous drops, ever falling:
I’m an Afremov painting
under layer after layering–
distant knife, always reminding
petrichor doesn’t have to be
smelled to be fragrant;
affection doesn’t have to be
owned to be beautiful.
no one needs a ceiling fan on a breezeway. landscape
fabric only lasts a few weeks–black plastic works but sickens
mother earth slowly. flowers last longer when you change
water daily and trim stems. don’t eat other people’s
birthday cake–you’ll eat their spit. it’s okay not to shake
hands. don’t let someone else open the door for you if you
get there first. it’s okay–no, it’s good–to explain what is
polite for you–some just don’t know. there’s more, you
know, but not many read long anythings these days.
you expect me to end this list with a nugget of life’s
meaning, don’t you? but i’m still searching. hey, maybe
you know? sometimes i wonder what’s the point of life if
i’m always searching the why–not simply enjoying the now.
I remember as a little girl staring up at the sky and the moon. I loved how it followed us as we were driving keep me safe.
As I got a little older I had more important things to do than notice where the moon was in the sky.
As an adult I still didnt give it much thought I was too busy and too tired to worry what the moon was up to.
Then it seemed I wasnt chasing whatever it was I was chasing in my 30’s and 40’s and the moon was just there still waiting for me to notice.
The first time I saw the moon through a telescope I cried. All the years I ignored it but it was still there just waiting for me.
I have so many pictures of the moon, I have a moon globe so I can learn what the dark spots and craters are named that I can see.
I know the names of the full moons like this last Strawberry Moon, I know how it got those names. I know the different phases and the illuminations.
I step out to see the moon as often as I can. I hope that others slow down to look at it too.
Even if its blocked by clouds or trees I still know its there watching me and waiting for others to watch it too.
Sleeping cats
laughing babies
Forest bathing
deep red roses
The feel of velvet, the color purple
a lover’s kiss
Lavender scent
Hazelnut flavor
Lacy valentines, butterflies
cherry flavored anything
Lostlost in a book
creating art
makes the sunshine
in my heart.
…and I Wonder
is the second verse
and What If the third,
but all day everywhere
in the sleepless night,
screamed and whispered,
I hear the off-key, ruined prayer
of every ugly flightless bird,
this No, No, No…
winter was the thief I blamed while I picked the lock
sweat on my brow from the furnace when I pawned joy
crunch Doritos in my bed watched by clicking clock
sink each night into a mattress and pillow void
I knew I was the villain as much as victim
slicing my own Achilles and sampling the blood
and Rolling in my self induced psycho schism
if I stood up I was rushed away by the flood
call the doctor on the phone made of thick lead
but the poison sinks in, I fall that much further
into the prison made in my pity soaked bed
and every last step I take is laced in terror
how do I get up, exist, when my body hates me?
they’ll be so thrilled they were right, calling me crazy
