confirmation comes from those who know, truly
how the world currently spins 
    security is a myth
when so much is not in our control
I would rather place my hands, my very being
on the very dirt the world consists of
bow down to the miracles which have always, always occurred
tyrants rage and the earth yields
     the oldest story written, cliche yet the only truth
find me touching grass (what a silly saying)
yet find me touching what is real, lasting, redemptive
reality provides evidence

My parents gave me
 a portable typewriter
with a box of onion skin paper
for eighth grade graduation.
It slid out of the box so smooth
and strong.  

An alpine blue hard plastic case
covered the best gift of my life. 
My fingers ached to touch and caress
the keys with the lust
of an adolescent girl
ready to change the world.  

A manual Smith Corona
became my freedom machine
to type my life in words
across the crinkly typing paper
drenched in mystery
and ancient song.

The sound of the keys
clicked in rhythm
like wheels on a train track,
a symphonic language
my own to create,coerce, change, censor
as it echoed through the night.

It was another peaceful evening on the Cumberland
as the sun faded behind the clouds and nightfall
crept up like a stranger in the night.

As the sun went down, shadows loomed across the
water over Bunker Hill, Old Burnside, and the lost
stories of Harriette Simpson Arnow, who once called
this place home.

With the erosion of traditional Southern Appalachian
rural life during the Industrial Age, she penned The
Dollmaker, a best-selling novel much like her own 
story.  Imagine what Gertie and Sophronie would 
have said today.

She never saw the last steamboat depart for Nashville
from the banks of the Cumberland, or the last passenger
train blow its whistle as it rolled out of the Old Burnside
station.

Her footsteps are now covered by water where many 
memories have floated down the Cumberland.  A lonely
historical marker stands above the lake in tribute to her
life.

Her final resting place is nestled in the woods of Daniel
Boone National Forest south of her childhood home in a
place among the wildflowers that is largely forgotten. 

As the spring flowers bloom on the Cumberland, one
should remember the dollmaker, a rural farm girl who
became a literary giant in a time when female writers 
faced so many challenges.

If only the stately trees on Bunker Hill or the waves
over Old Burnside could talk, imagine the magical 
stories that could be told from another time that has
all but faded away.

when crisis or trial strikes hard
there is nothing else that matters
the focus of the mind becomes nothing like the current research suggests
we are capable of a distractionless existence 
face it

What does it mean

What does it entail

How did it come to be

I came to know

When there was need

No where to turn

Believers turn to God

A spiritual power

One can not see

Only believe is there

A human must believe

in the spiritual power

that he/she will provide

We are the spirit of God

Now I know and believe

Damn—
if they think Robert Freaking Pattinson’s not buff enough,
what will they say about my slack belly,
my saggy man-boobs?

Of course I’m barely an actor, certainly no Batman—
never claimed to be. I was also a Spider-Man guy,
& if Peter Parker had abs, he didn’t make a big deal of it,
unlike others I could name. (Hulk, Thor, Captain
America, I’m looking at you.)

Once, though, dad bods ruled the silver screen.
Joan Crawford, Rita Hayworth, Ava Gardner
were required to be stacked & perky, toned head to toe,
but Bogie, Bill Holden, John Wayne,
who looked like they never did a crunch in their lives—
hubba, hubba! Their masculine beauty
was in their faces & voices, not their quads & biceps.
But these days they’d be relegated to the parts
Charles Laughton & Ernest Borgnine used to get,
bless their hearts.

Oh well. Maybe it’s karma. Maybe
what was bad for the goose is now bad for the gander, too—
though being men, we’re not supposed to care.
So go on, tell us we’re not enough. Payback’s a bitch.

Just know that deep down, 
once in a while,
Robert Pattinson & I still need to feel cute.

the room is hard
wood covered
in carnations

your breastbone
is an aching
hook
my waiting    fat

like glistening
aloe vera on
a shampoo bottle

this matrix
obsesses me
gives itself
new names for me

cleaves in
to a chess
a checkerboard

battleships
concealed from one
another

and pins
everywhere
crimson pins
i twitch    like a pigeon

Grandmother Wind 

hair tangled like winter trees
blue with snow
crooked knees bent like 
branches
arms akimbo reaching for
the sky
wearing ragged jeans and
combat boots
indigo skirt spangled with
stars
she sings to herself as she wanders
into our dreams

countless caresses
for the marbled café proprietor
disregarding his customers

This was her response every time he apologized.
She wouldn’t give him an inch, you see?
She wouldn’t give him any ground to stand on.
He always towered over her anyway.

But he turns 78 tomorrow, and he doesn’t seem
so tall anymore. She’s known him half his life,
but she still wonders if she’s ever really known him.
She can’t see the whole, for the part–

the part of him that is wounded and has been
for a long time. Blood seeping, flesh festering,
a Midas touch that leaves everything blackened with hurt.

She looks down at her stained heart and wonders:
Will I ever get this damned spot out?