with five minutes left,
i scramble to write one more;
decide on haiku. 3 years ago

Paid a visit
To the thrift store
After morning’s meeting
Only to find
A treasure,
Kafka’s letters

“I began to run
As fast as I could
And always the thought:
‘If only I could
Take her with me’”

Each and every word
Deserves to be loved
Reaching from one
Far away world
To another one
Real but untouchable
Out of respect

_{Well, I had to finish
Writing a paper
Before reading it…
Such is the story
Of over-expressed
Sense of responsibility ;)}3 years ago

Senior citizen
life drawing class. At the front;
his favorite model. 3 years ago

Climbing the hill
my headlamp is
lighting up kangaroo
eyes in the brush.

The city lights
wink multicoloured
tapering off in
dark, dendritic ravines.

Stars are peeking
down from around
ragged clouds torn
apart from the storm.

Then it’s follow
the circle of light
with no mind just:
breath in and out.

And splash in the
occasional puddle
..on purpose.

_{Just because.}

))){3 years ago

Unthinkable, horrible, all agree,
Standing in hallways, phones
Wedged or thumb-tapped, not
Knowing that as it ripped loose
Inside her, as blackness drained
Grey, she thought yes and finally.
Do not presume to judge anyone’s
Tragedy. Do not trust every story;
Do not trust mine. I have sold all
My words so that someone would
Love me and someone has
Not. 3 years ago

Roses upset the
Ground each year they push up through
To touch nothingness

(they think)

Winter can break you
All you can do is
sleep under dirt; wait for Spring 3 years ago

Waiting too long, gazing at the
Heavy beams between the
Overdressed walls of the Mexican
Restaurant he chose, she remembers
The Spring she memorized every
Sad-eyed knot in the piney walls of
A lake cabin far enough from her
People to forget what they had
taught her, unteaching herself the
Civilized, blinding manners of a
Good woman, good child. His face,
Equal parts calm and composed as
A carefully worded memo, fills her
With fierce, protective love. Forty
Minutes later, waiting in line to
Buy sunscreen and wire nails, the
Happiness opens her chest with such
Ferocity her eyes fill with tears. She
Can smell, in her too long dry life,
Fresh water, hear again the powerful
Engine of frog voices pulling her
Heart into morning. 3 years ago

What? I just have a thing
For obituaries…
People taking time
To see the good
When someone is gone

And break-ups
That magnify
The delicacy
Of human mind,
Masterpieces
In structure,
Much better thought of
Than falling in love
(In comparison,
Love is frail
Beautiful, maybe
But too flimsy) 3 years ago

Because my darling
wife has expressed
her firm disgust of
all things nautical
and Melville or Dana
I break into spontaneous
song now and then:

“So, we’re off boys
to kill the evil whale
fish – kiss yer ladies
good-byeee, and now here
sounds the bosun’s pipe
so we’ll turn out and
climb the mizzen so hiiiigh..”

..and so forth until
she sticks her index
fingers into her ears.

_{Shut my pie-hole, aye-aye!}

))){3 years ago

It’s no colder than any other
Morning. She can’t stop
Shivering. Who are these
People who enter our heads
As we sleep, tell their stories
In violent detail, leave us with
Hangovers more vicious than
Those from the liquor we drink
To not dream. We drink to not
Dream in all sorts of ways. It
Is time to shake out the night
And move on. She can’t
Force herself to throw
Off the covers. It is
No colder than any
Other morning,
Except inside. 3 years ago

Finding a way to
Talk yourself out
Of talking about it…
Just as easy as
Not talking at all.

Finding a way to
Escape the thought…
Impossible.

Sometimes it is
Not about power;
Some days one has
To make the choice
To take the blow
And outlive it
And wait and wait
For the change to come
When the time comes. 3 years ago

• needs to be intimate
• things changed
• evolved
• and charged
  instead of simply being replaced. 3 years ago

They don’t know
I’m composing
poetry here
with my notebook
on the steering wheel.
Just sport stats
and pop song lyrics
and which shoes
with what bag.
A maniac pontiac
moves around me.
The pontiac might know. 3 years ago

the coffee rots
& I lie
about the stench
claiming,
“I smell nothing,”
in a flat voice
while the
sneaky impy girl inside me
rubs her hands
in glee.
I never give in
and you glare at me
while scrubbing
purple mold
out of your mug. 3 years ago

and now to be here
with it
beyond quiet
instead of
low keystrokes
and mumbling
like accustomed,
I cringe to think of
what the new library
must be like
because of all places
they’re supposed to be
old and full of
imprints left by
hapless student asses
and here this one’s been
deconstructed, gutted with
brown dust cover
put up over all the doors.
so silent that
even I
can hear the
pipes quake
and rush with
water as
a funny lady
who loves everything
flushes her
waste away
above me. 3 years ago

He touches his back pocket because he’s afraid of me. And only
if I can become very small will it end well. It’s not entirely
possible for you to have any sort of control because he didn’t fall apart.
Words were of direct, correlative importance to you. You looked at
my eyecenters which might not be any longer than his but his eyes
are large and brown round and mine are only very small. And sometimes
sad. 3 years ago

removed 3 years ago

here

And the usual reminder that “every day or so” can mean you write half of one poem the whole month. Here, have some prompts:

Baseball bat in the corner
Jacket on the coatrack unclaimed for months
Gold jewelry vs. silver
Flowers vs. root vegetables
Six keys found in a desk drawer
Papercuts vs. broken hearts
A blue hard plastic sandwich container with a name written on it in faded ink

Okay….ready, set…GO! 3 years ago

A sweetness runs through me,
But I am not sweet. I keep a
Clear channel for tenderness
Open. I am a nurturer of the
Sharp-beaked type. If you
Bear no scars, thank me for
Restraint, not essential
Harmlessness. I am not
Harmless, have never been,
Though I am vulnerable, even
Easily hurt. This is to say that
You should not have done
What you did to one that
I love, and will pay at
My hands if you do not
Stop. 3 years ago

i don’t feel so
hot right now
and i’ve
fallen behind
and all the while
i am trying to grip
onto this earth
with just my toes
while we whip
around outer space and
inner time. 3 years ago

Aerial spiders are
defying gravity and
floating like little
black balloons that
were twisted into
funny animal shapes
by a phyla arachnid
specialist named Stan.

A practical but lonely
joker who uses a dental
irrigation syringe filled
with helium to blow them
up and send them out the
open window and away over
the rolling wheatfields
and clothes lines.

They’re mostly invisible
but not in this golden
light of honey dusk shot
through with dust and kids’
laughter and the remaining
blinking light bulbs that
still have a filament intact
on the empty Ferris wheel.

_{For Ray Bradbury}

))){3 years ago

He says the word beautiful
As if it were a bidding price.
There was a time I would
Have loved being bought by
His eyes, red under thick
Eyelids. Now I employ the
Smile I borrowed from a
Snake friend and move
Away. I am priceless. 3 years ago

I’m at the library and..

oh, shit I’m outta time.

_{I always spend too long
on my poem titles which
are kinda sorta poems
themselves.}

))){3 years ago

(removed) 3 years ago

Reading about panic, she thinks
They know nothing, researchers
Rigging up mild electrical shocks
To sane people playing video games
In MRI machines. Our brains are
Similar to rats’ when it comes
To predator avoiding impulses,
How the fire leaps from avoidance
To running into wall terror. What
Their research lacks is a meeting
With the rats later in a coffeeshop,
Where all is meek and mild, a mall
Full of shoppers, to watch them
Hide and scuttle the edges, run
Into mind barriers, hide beneath
Their own tongues. It’s Tuesday,
She realizes, the day of Ares or
Mars, gods of war. Appropriate. 3 years ago

“I can’t go on
Like this anymore,”
She says and overcomes
The shake in her voice
With the firmness
Of her decision

“What?” he reacts,
And regains his poise,
“What’s wrong, honey?”
Back to his usual
Calm and placid way

“I can’t go on,”
She repeats herself,
Her decision solid,
Her voice not so much.

“Something I have done?
Or is there anything
You want me to do?”

She gathers up
All her emotions
Into choked up words
“Insufferable you are,
And it’s suffocating
All my senses.”

He tries in quiet
To digest the words
And he still
Does not understand. 3 years ago

Pale white cupped in light
Pink, black ribbon running
Between, she has tied back
Her hair, is bent over looking
For an earring and he is frozen,
Mesmerized by the curves of
Her, the way her back muscles
Move as she finds and fastens
It into her flesh. She stands
Straight, stretches, and he
Knows they will not be on
Time again, knows by the
Rush of blood and warmth
Of his thighs. She picks up
Her dress and feels his smile,
Knows by her answering heat;
They will be late,
Again. 3 years ago

He does not believe I am
Beautiful and I am wise
And wrinkled enough to
Know he is wrong and
Grin into his untutored
Eyes. She thinks I may be
Too optimistic, unrealistic.
I hold her cold hand and we
Pray for the courage to dream
A bit bigger, believe. It’s a
Wonderful story, this life in
Which I’ve been warrior,
Wanderer, fool, and sage.
It has left me unafraid to
Burn the book and write
In sand, wait for the wave,
And trust true love. 3 years ago

Even for her, predisposed to
Losing herself on the road—
The planet—this is ridiculous.
Three unnecessary trips over
The bridge. On the fourth and
Final, she pulls to the narrow
Shoulder, endangering two
Economy cards and a third,
Extravagant chariot driven
By a woman nervously
Steering through last night’s
Tearfall, who stutters and
Swerves, wonders if she should
Stop and will find herself,
Years later, weeping at the
Sight of a black hatchback.
Meanwhile, on the bridge,
Driver one has discovered
What floats and what sinks,
Has resolved, once again, to
Keep her mind tethered snugly
To destination. She knows now
Where she went wrong and
Drives on. 3 years ago

Teary eyes, stones skip
One an escape from the last.
January’s dark.

and,

Chicago, you are
the place for loneliness and
Flamenco dancing. 3 years ago