Ok readers, please excuse the spacing – WordPress has added a new format which I clicked on. O Lord! It’s making a mess of my poems. First, it won’t allow me to keep lines together, then it removes spacing between words & within punctuation marks. So errors are NOT mine! I am in correspondence with them about this. ALSO, I am happy as a happy clam, so do not assume that I’m in a cell of depression just b/c some of the poems are sad. OK? Thanks! Happiest of clam holidays to you all!
My heart is lost
Wandering
A balloon with no string
Nor a wrist to tie it to.
Visiting landscapes I have not seen in years.
We perambulate & each horizon brings new to the old
A childhood at the beach
Winter in all weathers
Dunes blown & tracked with triple-toe prints of gulls
Landed & windblown, feathers flashing wrong-way-out
And they turn to face the whirling squall, stately as small can be.
I perceive old enemies waiting behind boardwalk stanchions
It is Christmas Eve & I am on the shore
Of my mind
Watching my heart lift away across the sea.
—————-
I am not alone tho all around me except me is invisible.
I am the child of a universe
So bright with delight
So filled with gifts & laughter
It sparkles with my blessing
Mirrored back to me
I slip the ties of dreams
For open fields swimming in sunlight
I lie down next to you in holy anticipation
Of your whispers & feathering my hair
Oh God, your hands…
Repeat your tattoo on me, my love
Charge me with ecstasy; you know just what to do
And if you do not, I am not shy to direct you
Sweet carnal Angel to lift me, dancing,
On your fingers.
Lips & lives meet, late & in the land of lost, lonely dreams
We have waited long for this:
I cannot think but that time prepared us so well
That when we touch, all the connections of years
Fall away until there is only us two
In all the stars.
Your Jupiter, my Venus
We are ruled by benevolence smacking
Its lips in cosmic delight we have met
Whispering behind hands now joining
As our passion sparks theirs
As our coupling moves planets
From their accorded realms.
—————
I know. I’m brilliant.
But it’s because I shine with your regard…
This is not me…I am bitten with a dratted dream
A swatted swing… I am cupped in your hands
Like a kitten, purring, yawning pointed kitten teeth
I am caught like a kite in the thorn tree
Wanting the pain of your missing touch turned into longing
Into pleasure.
O Lord! I am a selfish woman.
Yet these are not my tears, this is not my longing,
This is the whole world banging through my door
Barging into my kitchen,
Raiding my drawers for secrets.
I am a song at the edge of your lips
Sung with sweet longing, an echo of notes carried
On chill December nights
Promising Christmas.
——————-
Caught in the open without you here
I am bared to elements hard to fathom
My coat, my scarf, my gloves all indoors
My Uggs upstairs in the back closet
I am made of pearling snow
Frozen in posture – my arms reached out
For you, for love, for all that could be
Were all that is now, not all there is.
But I am gonna survive this; I’m a woman
Made of steel standing in front of the
Foaming Forge.
I close my eyes & walk on.
————–
There are seasons when life is different to bear
There are times when I live only by wits & what
Little wisdom I can rustle together, one
Hand on the recipe book of life
The other holding a spoon.
Salt & pepper on the table
Frypan heating on the stove
I am starving in the land of plenty.
Will you not find me tempting?
Will you put me back on the shelf?
No. I see your hunger; sense the rumbling
In your heart.
Come, devour me. I breathe my love
Into your mouth, over your body.
I am no sugar confection, pinkly spun
Atop a cake.
I am a force of nature
As you have never tasted
A flavor created just for you.
Dig in!
—————-
Wait, I hear another poem coming on
Not the train in the tunnel
But whispering up on fox-feet
Almost invisible, an intransitive verb
At the tip of a fricative…
Push me around again, world
& you’ll know I’m here
I’m not one to sit down
If there’s a performance to be held
I’m up in front of the mic
Capturing hearts
Not asleep at any wheels
Turned toward me.
——————
I want to pour myself over you
Like syrup on pancakes
Finding all the cracks & crevices
I want you sticky with my love
Fingers & face
I want to push you around the bed,
Chase you to the headboard
Tickle your toes with mine…
See? There it is!
I want you smiling!
—————-
A life divided by books I have & have not read.
Music I’ve listened to & that I never shall.
A love I can call my own & that poor excuse for it which I now have.
There are too many truths to understand anymore
Far too many opinions to be shared
When all I crave is silence &
Seagulls overhead.
I want an easy touch
Becoming more familiar
A burnishing here,
A tiny kiss there
The penetration of each other we allow.
I’ve seen it already:
The divisions in my life
Before & after you.
—————
On Learning My Grandson Writes Poems
“They’re quite good,” says my daughter
I sense the surprise in her voice & hear her smile
This one little gene pops out…piping a shrill note
I may yet live beyond my days as a Babushka!
————————-
The Washing Machine of Emotions/
The Wishing Machine of Time
Banged about by both,
I surface for a breath
Once more gone under
Water overhead
While I orient to air
And swim.
These omniscient waters
Cold & warm by turn
Bathing beaches arced by rainbows
These impertinent frothing bubbles
Tickling up my body
No one save me now
Caught in-between these elements
It’s only a life I lack.
——————
True North?
Is it true the man finds the woman he loves?
I read this long ago…in some dusty book
Some outlived tome.
I could not know how it would end
The days I imperiously marched thru the door to Love
Took it by the ears, pulled it down atop me.
In this lies my forgiveness.
If men find love
Why are women so charged
When they lose it?
Can’t these yearnings
Thick enough for spoons
Be fed to hungers
Wide-mouthed with tomorrow?
——————–
The Tan Egg in a Dozen of Brown
Why are eggs sold by the dozen?
Potatoes by the sack?
Why so many names of measure
Ounce & pound & by the rack?
I eat potatoes paid tomorrow
With a fork earned yesterday
In a world turned pay-to-play
Down a street that’s marked One Way
All the signposts of this lifetime
On the black & yellow row
Where the colors cannot go
In the space I wish to know.
—————-
What Child Is This?
Peering from atop my heart this Christmas –
Why do her hands tremble on the rim; tears on her lashes?
What is she seeing from her pulsing landscape?
Rich with copper-smells & red…
She is an orphan of all its storms
I scarce reach my hand to her
What story do I have except our own?
There! She clambers out & looks at me
“I have a story now,” she begins, “Would you listen?”
She takes my hand, inviting my head to her lap
She combs my hair with tiny fingers.
“I started in darkness with only stars to light my way,
Before the world had air & light.
I danced when you thought of me – I got here first,
Remember?
I called the snow
And showed you how to bake bread
I howled for you like the wolf
So you would find me
Yet you needn’t be afraid to be we.
I kept all our moments safe
Full of presents & love, porkchops & beans,
There’s a Brother in here with me & a Sister
One of Daddy’s laughs,
One of Mother’s frowns.
Plus all the time you ever lost
With Christmas Eve & Christmas Passed
There’s a bunch of relationships knocked about like tenpins
Each one with a face.
Believe me, I’ve looked ’round hard
There are no monsters here.
It’s safe for us both.
Now, maybe you would like to play?”
———————-
The songs went through me
Like an express through the station
Stopping for no one,
Stirring up leaves so sere & dry
They snowflaked down.
I have no words for me anymore
Just a pen whispering in a heart, taking notes,
The pen so sure, the heart so not.
I should have kept on singing, even without a voice,
I should have counted all the gathered shells I
Envisioned in glass bowls on wooden tables.
Instead, I have collected my sins
Numberless & flickering, like lights on a tall tree
A rosary of pain I now ignore: old sins don’t count
Only the fresh ones, yeh?
Life is emollient
Ebullient
Opportunistic
Capable of living itself
Without interference from the outside.
I have no extant record
Tho I’ve been dragged to the copshop now & again
I’ve smoked stolen cigarettes
Wished others harm
I’ve muddied incandescence
More than once…
I’ve watched the light change so many times
Skirting the liminal edges rising
Tattered, tattooed, footsore & scaly
Yet the sun rises on me with incoherent joy
Burning me clear; I rise, translucent
Open beaming wings to fly.
