January Left-Overs

THEY TELL ME I CHOSE THIS, BUT
When ministers are malignant narcissists
The church doors close gently
Trapping some inside, some out.
There is proof to me I am not right-minded
Only left-brained
With a certainty of being inside out, all seams poorly stitched
Tags showing content: 100% salt – sweat & tears.
Force is fashionable now: talk over anyone speaking!
Wave off impending doom with flickering annoyance!
Ignorance is for someone younger who thinks the Pow in Power
Is righteous when delivered to the face.
I fumble for my paper prayers – a handwrit’ life dodging AI algos…
In a landscape laced with sorrow, the horizon waits, limned in light
My God says “there, there, I see only what is love,”
“Put all this down: I have a new world to give you now!”

READY, AIM, FIRE
Never a gunsmith, just a weapons-master of words
Belief is all I’ve backpacked out of this wilderness.
Risen from the thorn-bed,
Tended by midwives
Packed away in cottonwool & fiberglass
One breath away from being Sent Back In
Finding life where I left it last…
Born behind the barricades of politics & war
I rise up, bloodied & unbowed.
I take my fight to the Masters of War
Hiding all of humanity behind me.
Every time.

THE JANUARY CALENDAR

The January birthdays are no more,

My sisters gone, my brother too, before his time.

My mother’s chores forever un-done

My dad a cipher in the family photos.

The aunts all dead, the uncles no longer slipping

This wide-eyed girl a dollar for ice cream.

I still know so little of Life

The circle becoming spiral

Down & down I go.

Mornings rekindle, afternoons fleet

The dark lasts forever

As I dream myself awake

In its deepest center,

Finally free of expectations,

Debt & doubt,

And calendars.