Posts for 2020 (page 35)

everyday the lord gives me a new test,
and everyday i take the deepest breath i can manage, 
point my red face up towards the sky,
and scream back to give me a fucking break. 

let god hear this over and over and over again. 
let him know that i am shameless.
that i will continue to roll up my sleeves  
and reach down my throat into my own gut 
to scrape more and more poison from it. 

let god talk at the water cooler about the way my voice cracked, 
tell em that my mascara ran, 
that i tripped on my way out the back door 
to scream at you again. 

let them know that i am fucking shameless. 

Smooches

I don’t want to pursue a significant relationship

I love you

No marriage, living together, lovers, etc.

Sweet young thing to take care of me

I am fond of you

Sweetie

Our house near Santa Anita

I’m a loner

Hon

I really don’t want anything more than a casual friendship with you

Love, (Name Deleted)

This is not a response to a bad day

I couldn’t have made it through this year without you

You’ve saved me

This is me

I love you, baby

I am very fond of you

It’s me; you can tell me anything

I don’t want to talk about this

Tell me more

I don’t want to examine it

What are your wildest fantasies?

It’s not a negotiation and not a debate

You’re my sexy little girl

Please don’t call me for a while.

In this pandemic

with feelings worn,
disheveled like the bed
from which I rise each morning,

words evade my mask
these nights and days
as though dead,

chilled,
they are
to my touch

not heeding
my tears,
my mourning.

In a red sky,
from the southwest,
red sand drifts,

with words ahead.
I will gather the best
of them

like heirloom seeds
saved
for spring planting.

I will dig them
into a blank page,
running horizontal

like furrows
across a garden.

I am pulled like a tide
under this crescent moon.
My thoughts gravitate to you,
a resolute rhythm.
I wax and wane with 
longing, I wash up 
on the shore of moments
half-faded by memory
but held fast in my heart,
less detail now, more
raw feeling, I 
ebb and flow
with your pulse 
in my veins,
your cool light reflecting 
off my surface 
like gratitude.

visited the roadhouse on days after
a brawl to pay for damage to the premises

fought on the battlefields of France in WW I
held a classified position at home three decades later

writhed and moaned during a recurring nightmare
about a kitten, coat and railroad station

drank whiskey, shot craps on Saturdays
taught Bible class on Sunday mornings

tried to live according to the teachings of Christ
yet rejected the concept, Son of God

ran his thumb through a power saw right after
he finished teaching a class on safety

read philosophy, history, Shakespeare, the Psalms
delighted in Peanuts, Pogo and musical theatre

When my children’s
lives depend
on the fate of a
world that feels
too much
like a dystopian novel,
and humanity
is failing
the simplest tests of
compassion and empathy –
it is too much.
I take them
into the woods
often to learn
the plants
and mushrooms
and berries,
to learn to build shelter
and track animals,
to soak in the
life-sustaining
beauty of our world and
to understand how we fit
with these trees
and cliffs
and squirrels
despite our
educations and
technologies;
despite the ugly sides of
ourselves we see paraded
across the news, and
to know we can blaze
our own path
when we need to.

As I lie awake,
stars glitter the bruised plum sky
Cool breezes flutter tent walls,
carry sweet perfumes of blackberry vines 
entwined with honeysuckle.

A male whippoorwill cries out 
to attract his mate,

and I wonder 
if my words 
beckon you.

I never had that signature rebel phase as a teenager,
so I’m surprised when it bubbles up in my thirties: 
dark purple lipstick here; a bottle of half-drunk moscato
in my closet since Christmas; vivid orchid hair paint
in my Amazon cart for a few days just to mull it over.

If you’d asked me at seventeen what I’d be like 
at thirty, all I’d have been able to conjure up
was the pitch-black vortex of unforgiving space.
Never could imagine myself past my twenties,
but if I had, I’d have told future-me to finish the wine. 

My hydrangea are all pink
pale pink, rosey pink, pretty pink.
I want them blue
violet blue, sky blue, purple-black blue.
When did Barbie arrive here in her high heels?
waving her pink purse around,
giggling in my garden,
even the pink roses are not amused—
she is taking over—
her blossoms big and bossy,
I have never seen pink this sassy—
the dianthus are fading fast!

 
,

She sits on the moon

Fishing for stars

She casts at the dim ones

Because the bright ones

Are too easy

She catches glimpses of shooting stars

And sings a wish.

She dances on the craters

And stares at the sun

She makes conversation with Mars

And floats to Jupiter

She holds Pluto in her hand

She dreams of the Milky Way

And the places she’ll go