~Understanding begins, but does not end, with the act of perception~

"Welcome to your life.."

"For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin--real life. But there was ALWAYS some OBSTACLE in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life."

-- Alfred D. Souza

Tuesday, June 28, 2022

Shut Up

 Tonight-

A week after I put down my best love of 200 plus Dog years

After Roe v Wade gets tossed

After almost a decade of raising a girl child and Myself

After however many years of pandemic, and war and discourse and death-

Some asshole I probably know revs his fucking big dick fast car engine down the main drag of my small southern charm town at eleven o’clock at night.


SHUT UP!!!!!




I-literally-cry into the night. 

“THERE ARE WOMEN MOURNING, HERE…”

You wouldn’t rev your damn engine at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem would you???

Jesus…



Tonight-

Every night 

ACROSS THE UNIVERSE  

There are Women-

YourMotherYourSisterYourAuntandGrandmother 

                             And Your Daughter…


All.

Crying into the night. 

SOMEWHERE SOMEONE IS MOURNING.

So Be Quiet!

Anything else is Disrespect.


Monday, April 18, 2022

Passover Moon

 This is a retrospective apology. 

(Read: Don't Respond)


I’m sorry.

I held you hostage 

with a relentlessly unyielding love.

Which possibly felt like a warm blade on your aorta

for...

Well, for probably the forever and never that we've been always together. 


You tried to tell me a lifetime ago

That you were not ready.

But I am stubborn. 

And believe I always know what's best,

For everybody,

Despite my poor body of work. 


I have a slow-to-quick learning curve..

Box step.


Anyway-

I wish for you, 

Some Wan.

A Love that you don't have to question everyday,

why you love them with your whole heart-

And.

Still.

Can't love them like you "should". 


...anyway. 


I Love You.

You Are Everything Wonderful and Terrible about 

Water and the Moon.


And. 

So. 

Here is the biggest 

bestest 

truest, 

most loyal and honorable 

gift of true love 

I can ever give you...


Goodbye. 

Friday, December 17, 2021

The Man on the Moon

Tonight 

the Moon is a Pearl in the milky throat of the Night Sky


what an oyster.

This World.

What a filter the human condition is. 


At this point in the poetry, 

I am deliberately *not* going to express feelings about the trash fire the world is right now,

as a metaphor for being a filter, 

blah blah blah make the connection or don't.

Wait- oops...


Wait, no, because! 

I don't want to be here to write about that.


I want to dream of the Moon.


And the Man's face She illuminates when She is full.

The way it looks like he's sighing her name..

"Moooooooonnnn..."


The way She lets Him kiss the Stars goodnight.

The way He longs for Her to be full so He can be seen.


So, God, Bless the Moon.

And God, Bless the Stars.

And Blessed Be all the Pearls,

nestled deep in the breaking alabaster tide pools of the Night.


And God, bless all things that shimmer against the dark..

 

Monday, September 4, 2017

Long Stretch

Maybe I am 17 again

Briefly. 
Driving a long stretch of highway 
With just my knee on the steering wheel. 

I wasn't even 17 when we were together. 
But it feels like-
2.5 hrs into our conversation-
That maybe 
In this moment 
I am again

Phone on speaker
Radio turned down
The summer sun closing on the horizon

Only difference is
My daughter asleep in her car seat
The talk of my ex-husband
The way you sound when you say 
You've been alone

The way I have too. 

But when we finally hang up-
On purpose-
(Dropped calls from bad reception don't count)
I've cruised passed almost 200 miles

I might be 17 again
For just a minute

Younger than I was the first time
Smarter than I was the last time

Two hundred miles between
The ringing 
And the dial tone


Filled with the sound of your voice. 

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Verdant

In the beginning, 
everything here looked beige to me. 
All the buildings, 
and the land, 
and everything 
was beige.

But now, not so long later, (but just later enough to be late-)
I'm finally seeing all this green.
I am obsessed with it;
Verdant. 
The word repeats in my mind as I navigate the scenery, 

The mountains are purple and grey.
That the sky is always blue- 
Unrelenting powder blue. 
And the sun is a molten ball of white gold. 

"The sort of violets that could grow on the moon."
and 
"The wind from the desert is sweeping me away.."
All that Terra Incognito jabber.

If I'm not SEEING-
If I'm too FOCUSED 
I will miss it.
And I will wonder where I was while all this
LIFE was happening.

Talk of connecting the stars, and the dots, 
the points on the map of my life. 
My Then to My Now with a
zigzagging squiggle of a line.
Tracing the history of my generally uncharted course.
Pulling my head up out of the proverbial sand that is
Life-as-a-new-mother;

At least I can look back- 
I have reference.
To notice how the world has changed.
How my eyes have changed, 
how this desert has changed.
Something beige
Transformed into
unexpected shades and hues of life.




Friday, September 19, 2014

Foreign Constellation

I look;
The reflection in the mirror.
Somewhere in there,
I am still existing.
I still believe in things
Art. Music. Poetry. Dancing. Love.
Clean sheets. Good hair days. Shoes.
High school.

This face though..?
I don't recognize
Like I did before.
It is perception
without understanding-
It's disconnect.
I know what I'm looking at:
That's an apple, that's a tree, that's a parking lot,
That's me.

Shape of the brows,
Blue eyes,
Long nose, weak chin but
regal profile.
Mess of hair.
I know it's me..
But...
In there?

Under the twenty pounds,
Under the wide hips and roundness;
Expansive roundness.
Round shoulders
round breasts round belly
round and round
the world
round and round
spinning.

I look?
Disconnect.
And I forgive my strangeness.
I forgive the stranger in the mirror.

Anyway,
I try.

What was and what is-
How does one make the points touch?
Like stars in a foreign constellation
Or my thighs.

I use to know
these dots
Freckles and eyelashes.
Spots of toothpaste.
Before and
After.

I look.
After,
I see.
I understand that I do not.
These dots- that touch like strangers at a carnival-
Shoulder to shoulder but isolated 
somehow 
ignorant on purpose?

I look.
I see.
Same eyes.
Different context.

Spinning, touching, round and
Disconnected. Forgiving 
strange skies-
I am still in here?
Somewhere.
Making all the stars touch.
Bridging the round and the gap and the unfamiliar spin.

New gravity.
Blue eyes.
Music. Poetry. Love.
I still believe.
This is a tree.. This is a parking lot...
That is a Joni Mitchell song and
There I am..!



And gone again; A flash of shadow down an alley I think I remember,

Quiet.


I keep looking.

Sunday, July 6, 2014

Flash Forward

The other day we were returning that UHaul truck we'd rented-
You were asleep in the backseat.

The sun was already hot at 8a.m.; Another one hundred degree day.
Desert living.

And there were mountains all around- we passed the sign for the freeway
Leading to El Paso
and I thought: Let's just keep driving

I'll turn the radio up and you'll keep sleeping and
we'll just take an adventure- 
Go to El Paso.

I've never been to Texas.
Lone Star State.

Desert living. 
It was already hot at 8a.m.
Another one hundred degree day, the mountains all around…

Since we've moved, I've decided to try and write poems again
While you're sleeping and I have time on my hands. 

Life's not like it use to be.
Neither is poetry. 

Maybe that makes sense. 

Someday.
When the car is full of gas and the rents been paid, 
We'll drive out to El Paso. 
Just to say we did. 

I'll be 
crazy, 
and you'll be 
sleeping.

Desert. 
Living.