I Wonder

Okay, this was very experimental for me.  Writing in my own voice.  How I might talk.  But it brought out something that I didn't know was there!

I would never feed
the birds. They're gross.
Remind me of the Alfred Hitchcock movie.
You know, The Birds, where the whole point
of the movie was....birds.  Attacking.
Tons of them.
Jenny had a thing with
seagulls.  She'd take tons of pictures of them
when we'd be at the beach.
Chasing, them, practically.
She also used to run into them with her car.
All the time.  I've never really known anyone
else that happened to.
She cried all the time, too.
Was afraid of bees.  Bees made her cry.
Joey, who looked like a tapeworm, made her cry.
I think something else, really, was making her cry.

I never got the bird thing,
just chalked it up to another peculiarity.
It was kind of funny at the time.
She got a huge kick out of the birds
stealing chip bags or any left over food items.
She laughed maybe as much as she cried-
and really, I never understood that, either,
she'd laugh loud.  Silly.
My mom would cringe-
bring it up for years afterward:
"Remember, when you and Jenny
laughed and
laughed about the twins
across the street?"
she'd ask and then sigh.

I don't even know if I'd want
to feed ducks.
They peck and chase and
I think it's the feathers
that gross me out.
Make me think of lice.
I probably would do it for my kids.

I think about Jenny
all the time
and wonder if she's okay.
Any happier.
Her crazy, big smile
and her throwing her head
back and crying and crying
in the schoolyard over Joey.
Her mom's frustration.
My mom's frustration.
I wonder if Jenny still wants kids.

dVerse

The Mag

Adventure

adventures are a funny thing
My prince, my knight,
              easy
              enough to find
riding in to save the day.
like I found you
I the damsel in distress,
           and now every day is an adventure
not knowing I needed you to stay,
us being us
and you refused to leave,
in our mess
armed
and facing fire
of
  fear,
sword in hand, dragon to slay.
                 and chaos
I stood far but still near
wed and woven
not quite sure who was more dangerous-
full family
framed
in the fun
man with sword or beast
of cooking
of lies,
favorite dishes
scorching hot.  But the prince always wins
decorating for the holidays
           the battle, and so the princess.
             hiding sometimes from the allthetime
And I was the fire armed with words
riding the waves
making up the stories and the fairy tales and the horrors
I found us in you a funny thing                
but you did your job so I let down my hair or was swept onto your trusty steed 
                                                              adventure
and we rode off into the sunset
                         
Imaginary garden with real toads

At Home

I made stories up -an entire category of weapons. I felt quite at home in the waging of war.  

I grew up....surprised many.  It seemed the right thing to do.
The objective is connections....Your vision changes....
                            capacity has been destroyed.
I was just a peculiar person.
It
is of course a huge challenge....All the time!
                     All the time!

but

small 
steps
can produce large results.
My mother
would have thought an admirable
                    thing.... a solution to 
                    the whole conflict
and never wavered...
     difficult
but developments are promising...
I talked a little too much, you know...
   agreement was important...
             made more
                    easy...
no...it's done...completely...it was only made up...


Found Poetry from:

Nobel Conversation with Alice Munro  

and

• Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Award Ceremony Speech (The Nobel Peace Prize)

The Found Poetry Review

Childhood Dreams

They are molding,
                    like greens gone
bad,
mushy as a teen,
like frayed Christmas stockings
long packed away
with decayed faith,
            coddling dust.
They are molding, and any leftover mild
glow culminates
                    as only
memory,
melted opulence
               of youth,
sticky puddle mess
of voice.
The brilliance is gone.

But my cells are collard,
and the same comfort
still nourishes
and they wait
to resonate.

They are molding.  Stale breath
carves out the periphery of now.
Fact is here.  Fiction gone.
Awareness, sliding down
                        like broth.

But....
Trapped, kicking.
Love, kicking.
Fawn or colt, struggling in spring's grass
          of dewy brilliance.

Because the tender bursts forth
like a bubble of gum,
troubling and big,
messy glob of hype
that calms the child within.

And they say this happens
when you get older-
that the pestilence pecks,
mocking,
and I've heard the humming cynicism,
the hidden hive of
                                         feeding lies.

Gone.
The dim glimmer gone.
Now, gone.

But I am seed,
glib
and gliding
up,
up,
dawdling in soil bedding
waiting only to wed
      the ancient sun.

Holed up
by dream hoarders, I am rising,
toward sustenance of sky
bidding me
see
what I am still capable of.

Poetry Jam

What Comes

Blooming books of love and madness
inside the quiet of a purchased afternoon-
interruption pending

like a volcanic explosion
like an unspoken implosion.

You do a bang-up job
brooding a sea
of all you can or cannot yield.

You know what you've taken.
You know how to waken

everything in me you know
and you know how
to call the sun.

You know what matches.
You know what latches

the double doors
of want and need
that still shut tight

against the rock of solid noise
against the lack of bearing poise

that comes from the offering
pried from my prayers

that comes from the taste
that comes from the waste

that comes from leaving
an old life behind

that comes from chasing a sound
that comes with breath not found

that comes like unrelenting ringing-
a demand to which there is no answer

that comes like they are on their way
that comes like they will make you pay

that comes like the nightfall
an acquiescence to the day

that comes and comes
like your sweet concern
that I'm not worthy of

that comes like ray of light
that comes without a fight.

You open all the drawn
words and windows
and reveal the bright.

Last Words

I returned your ring
but kept my vows,
and you did not return,
so now,
I bury letters,
long
and sonnets, parsed
in tomb of what I knew
         of love.
Bones, of which,
dry as the flesh I gave,
imprison past.
I lay to rest
specious sinew,
sepulcher purist spores
and garnish grave
with primrose,
        pomegranate-
                    all
I ever was or gave.
Symbol of all I lost.

To the gods of fable,
I yield both my power
and my weakness,
take back wings.

We drank, together,
poison of denial,
and you slowly drifted off.
Departed, darling,
I became.
So, rest, beloved.
Close eyes
that once imagined
glow of truth.
Flutter, soft,
filmy lids
and cloak
the sparkled lens.
I kiss you
one more time,
         kiss
your swollen lips
  of promise.
While you stare
blindly
     into darkness,
      I rise.
Verbosity of verse
     reverberates,
sobbing wild,
rocking vault
  of marrow
         as I ascend,
but you are deaf,
and I am entering
silence.
Adorned spotless,
my skirt billows
as I mount,
bright as Venus,
break through cruel
                       curve
of opalescence,
shatter
show.
Moon lights course.
Perished,
you can not pursue.
I wield war
               and birth
               and I forgive.

The Sunday Whirl

Love Made New

I will not forget last night.
Not just because
you stood waiting,
quiet-loud,
                     in that
varicolored, woven
                    (what was
that?) shirt or because
                  our smiles
                          met
before our bodies did
      or because when
my words
      wandered wildly,
you not only listened,
but declared that you
had missed
       my periphrastic
             prattle.
Not just because
   of the love made new
   or your hand on my
thigh on the ride home-
      home!
But because
you have given me
my voice back.
Because
our lines together
form a prayer,
                     and because
with you,
   I don't need to speak.