Posts for June 30, 2026 (page 6)

it’s a wooden bar
a house whiskey
and a shelf guinness
the game’s on 
pints rest on the front
edge of a coaster
because the bar’s slanted
who knows how old it is
i know who: the people who
come here because
the people who
come here
come here
have always come here
for a hundred years
the old guys in jumpers
and the young guy with them
the ex-footballer bellied up
and the couple in their spots
they speak a common
language that’s mine
and not mine
in the morning i’ll be gone
and when the sun finally
swallows this dumb globe
she’ll drink the last few
patrons still sipping a pint

Why does goodbye this year feel like a failure?
This June didn’t knit itself together as usual,
didn’t drape itself across my shoulders
and didn’t comfort me as I cried into the night.
Nothing seemed to work out the way it should:
coffee left half-sipped in the mug on the table,
spoon almost still in motion from stirring;
words caught in the back of my throat,
more of a burn than just a tickle; 
poems whirring around in my mind,
unwritten and furious for lack of fruition.
Why does goodbye always feel like a failure,
even when “hello, July” is right around the corner?

the final day
you’d think I was implying the last of LexPoMo
or June
but not so
I moved house today
the final bits carried across the gravel drive  up the stairs  into the door and room where they feel so familiar
yet hold entirely new existences
this is what it is to be on an adventure
while staying right where you are
commiting to a place
digging deep to discover the rich soil and soul that resides in the nooks and crannies of one place
today I move from one place on the compound ‘back’ to the other
back in parenthesis because it is never the same
over three years I have been an observer of my own dream
living next door to the will to persevere and the gumption to keep going
somehow
someway
some bit took me by my big girl panties
and threw me into my own fire
not to burn
but to live
thank you LexPoMo for this final day
thank you June for this ride of 2026
thank you EncaustiCastle Compound
for one more chance to thrive

I love thee
Let’s count my ways

I love your fingers and your toes
The way you wrinkle your nose

How you walk with a proud sway
and whenever it’s time to go
You always think of a reason to stay

I love you when you sleep
I love you when you’re awake

I love you most when we 
Ball up together on the couch like
A big ole
Anaconda snake

He’s kissed by the desert air,
buffeted in the night over peaks
and into landing, homecoming.
The mountains also remember him,
with a cool kiss in the morning air.
The beloved too recalls a kiss
with a poem and a promise,
        Brokeback  Mountain
        she said. It means
remembrance and yet a sweet
bitterness but more,
love of a kind to last,
which is not some small comfort,
not to be mourned, no—
but celebrated
as rare and lovely
as our Sandia range
is eternal and blue ,
under a too-blue sky.

is in my pocket
and in my heart,
always has been since the start.
why did I run?
why did I hide?
from what has always been inside.
I always looked at the earthly things,
even when they didn’t suit me.
I tried to squeeze myself into a spot
where I wasn’t supposed to be-
trying to blend in
where no one could see,
but something special was looming in me.
Over time, the light inside
became too bright to try to hide.
Now every day I praise and sing
the glory and blessings bestowed upon me.
Each day more I forget my name,
and I embrace the Jesus in me:
walking in the light,
doing what’s right,
and being as kind as can be.

the hunger–
the hunger makes me want for things,
again

I had trouble with my poem yesterday
read it out loud over and over
what did it mean, did it have flow
suddenly a voice bellows
the computer sends a clue
triggered by what it knew
mechanical voice
a pop-up text
note to read
and heed

“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” — Henry David Thoreau, Walden

In a time when much is made of differences,
of borders, and of walls,
I am grateful for the expanse 
and inclusivity 
of this digital space
and its multitude of unique voices 
and their words
–intangible and unbound–
that shore up shared humanity
and reveal the bedrock 
for a better, kinder world.