Hands up, feet in sand,
stray sticks from the nearby
forest in hair, bromeliad
blooming on your dress—  

you are done with indoor
complaints, like Whitman
was all those years ago
because it is everyone’s
right to throw away
the canoe & sail on  

& you know you contain
a thousand passionflowers
with wavy blue threads
reaching out to lick air  

& you know you contain
a million bat flowers
with purpled wings
& whiskers like tentacles  

& at night you carry torch
ginger with a fragrant cone
& red leather skirt-petals  

& you wake up with hoya-
hair—pink clusters falling
to waist while hummingbirds
feast on the centers.  

That’s what you must do,
savor the centers of
everything—
palm/artichoke/cloud/
cat pounce/mountain/
hooded warbler’s weeta-
weeta-weet-tee-o.  

Now gleam, briny, burnished
by sun, follow wave back
to shaggy shore
of self.

You say I am full 
of excuses, yet these words 
I am full of have 

always been your aid—
if they drip from my mouth like 
a leaky faucet, 

at least something is 
inside this vessel of me, 
beyond your critique

and spilling forth like 
a downpour, a waterfall, 
a wash, not a weight. 

I was once told that
extreme success is 99% luck—
as if effort is a footnote,
and passion just filler
for those who didn’t draw
the golden straw.
As if the stars must first
shake your hand
before the world even sees you.
It stuck with me—
not because I believed it,
but because some days
it feels true.

I’ve watched lesser hearts rise
on borrowed beats and poisoned messages,
while I carve myself
into every chord and line—
honest, raw,
but rarely seen.
Sometimes it feels
like I’m pouring fire
into a world so drenched in noise,
it can’t feel the flames.
It’s deflating.

I keep going, though.
Because there’s therapy in melodies,
peace in these pages,
a grounding I can’t find anywhere else.
This art steadies me—
keeps me tethered
when life tries to drift
too far into the fog.
Each lyric a confession,
each rhythm a reminder
that I’m still here.
Still fighting.
Still healing.

That makes the numbers 
lose importance:
Luck
Skill
Willpower
Pain
Pleasure

None of that compares
to what this gives back.

I want to inspire.
I want to give vision
to eyes blinded in routine,
hope to hearts
starved of truth.
To say something
that cuts through
what’s easy and empty
and speaks to the soul.

I’m learning more and more that
I may never rest comfortably
in that 99% luck
column for success—

though 99 is just another number.

A number the Shepherd
would gladly leave behind
to find the one.
                            
                               I am that one.
                              I am found.

That’s all the “luck” I’ll ever need.
Blessed…to be a blessing.
That’s why I do this.
That’s why I can’t stop.

I am sensitive to noise—
and I don’t mean the loud kind.
Often, noise is quiet, but incessant,
like the build-up of a low and slow rumble.
What starts as a mumble tumbles into a roar,
then explodes into a clamor, a chatter cacophony
of sentences that never end, of long lines dragging on,       and on,            and on.

I don’t know which is harder:

saying goodbye to the past

or saying hello to the uncertain future.

Not that I have a choice about either.

Part IV: An extended day of extreme heat advisory? No way!

I walk outside at 5 a.m. Humidity zaps my strength away.
I decide if I’m going to dive into a painting again today,

perhaps it should be one of my creation? No hidden nothings,
no emotional ties. I pull out an 8 x 8 gesso board and

a new acrylic sample set. Three inches from the bottom,
I swath on teal bleu lagon and tinge of titanium white

with a three-quarter flat brush. I mix touches of diarylide
yellow, crimson, ultramarine blue, and much white

to create a beach below. I play a while with a rainbow
of colors for background, and when all dries, I sponge

on fluffy white clouds for a welcoming sky.  I step back.
All feels safe. Now I sketch on a tiny margarita glass.

Then fill it large. I step back again. One more detail.
I sketch on a second margarita for you.

ekphrastic from Margaritaville by Michele LeNoir. Acrylic on gesso. June 26, 2025.

(both the tiny painting and poem will need touch-ups later)

Noon pins the feral cat’s cry flat
against the brick outside.
It’s hard for me to give in
to impulse—even this:
to lift my body, brush off
the heat’s blanket, and place
a dish of bologna out for the beast.

When I do
the heat flattens me
soft into this same-old spot,
while I wait and beckon–
stare at a stain of some thing spilled–
my shadow pooled like condensation
under the concrete, cracked–
an accident of fate.

Two streets over,
a siren dissolves into the heatbleached air.

I count the dead cicadas
like so many blossoms: their beige-ing edges
curled akimbo–broken dancers.

My split heel grinds a pebble
into itself: A/C crack
in the thick hum.

I fight against the stasis
every now-and-then
to surprise myself—
Then—

electric.
Feral as a minnow’s dart
I watch, hold,
wait for the cat to come
or not. To take this offering:

my dumb, animal insistence—
this shared and confounding inner mystery.
One we both hold,
one that refuses our names.

was built to live in this 
    blue heat 
                    think it birthed me sweet
baked me in those years of living in 
    the childhood home i actually remember 
clear    & shiny like a mirror in the smoky 
past            it was a house cooled 
by fire        a house baked in my father’s blue
tongue && his desire to live the white suburban 
life                        his fantasy         would prove to
to be the undoing to my small indigo pschye 
                &&&& we don’t speak of the years
i thought he would die by his own hand
            we don’t speak of burning         or 
how his self taught narratives got him caught up 
    & obsessed with a snake of a women even satan 
                would cower at 
        but i can still feel it simmering beneath 
my bones             the betrayal & also the years held 
hosatge by her families roots & how they wanted to 
wash all the black of my blue body out of me
                in search of the small drop of spanish blood
hidden deep in my teal veins                i never loved 
them but i always smiled so wide they could see the sky burning 
inside me                    they all mistook the heat of anger bubbling 
in me for         soft warmth            to them i was a forever softened sun
        dim & quiet               & too black for them to truly love 
but i swear they were always in awe around me 
            like i was a puzzle they couldn’t figure out         one they couldn’t touch 
but mull over from a distance

Ice cream on the hottest day