Emptyness
Down the pine tree
Lined lane
From home
He left
In the night
Taking with him
A few pieces of furniture
His clothes …….
Tail lights
Faded into Darkness
Never to return…
Leaving broken hearts
Occupying a house.
Obscure half your face
with hands, animal, or random object
to add an air of mystery.
Don’t smile and
filter in black and white
to bolster your brooding nature.
Appear startled
looking up from your laptop
too deep in genious to notice a camera.
Stare longingly off to the side
as if a long-lost lover
is just out of frame.
Turn your back in defiance
forcing the observer
to conjure your countenance.
Refuse to be photographed
thus remaining an enigma
seen only through your stanzas.
and everyone saw it
i woke up from my midday nap
and i’m now nauseous
we have nothing in common
and yet i see you i can’t help but fawn and
i could change your life
i get told that often
i’m trying to get an in with your best friend
cause i’m on the outs with one of them
i think of you being gone inside of someone
you didn’t even come to see i don’t need alcohol to have fun
you want me to meet your dad
i didn’t know that’s where we were at
sorry you’ll never meet my mom
i don’t want you to see her and think that’s who i’ll become
Each baroque cubby-chapel has a half-moon
window—yellow panels, delicate tracings
of painted white swirls—but what catches
my eye each morning:
God’s tracings,
branches outside, ghostly motion,
enough bright Roman sun to evoke
a far-off time, perhaps a time of war
(what time isn’t) where places like
this church, tucked in a neighborhood
off the Via Veneto, were havens
for those hidden from boots
pounding pavement nearby, fists
pounding on doors.
Perhaps a quiet cloister in the sun
was one instant of peace,
one heartbeat of hope.
I imagine God
as much be-
yond this slice
of color, light
and shadow,
as on the marble altar,
below the toiling Spanish farmer
frozen in dark oils,
himself sowing
hope and life.
I think in color and phrases
Like waves off of the asphalt in summer heat, I try to capture words,
Their cadence floating in and out of
Sight
Snippets and pause, I speak with another language rolling off my heart.
My thumbs spilling my soul to the screen
To be read by a hundred strangers united
In
June
Thank you all for an amazing month! See you next year ❤️
Should every moment seem
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 🙂 )
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!
