Spring jumps out from behind winter.
Even though we know she’s hiding there
we are still delighted
when she appears.
We never tire of her run-away smile
and warm persona.
She dances the rumba
one step forward, two steps back.
Never seems to mind being
the opening act for sold-out summer!
My once nomadic mind
has lost its tent,
moved into a closet.
I return, return, return
to the phone in my hand
looking for substance.
No eyes for butterflies or clouds.
Owned by Smart Phone
and not smart enough
to turn the damn thing off!
If only I had answers
I would spatter them like rain ….
quench the “not knowing” drought,
relax in a silky puddle of bliss.
“Should I?” crouches dark-eyed
drags shadowed indecision
through my days.
If only I had answers
I would sing louder,
stop the worry,
start to live, be different …
happy maybe.
If only I had answers!
We should bury our assumptions.
I’m talking full-scale, full regalia funeral …
teak wood coffin, hand carved with the faces
of the fallen; those who did not measure up
to pre-planned notions
in our dramas.
Mute assumptions lurk behind our words,
always introduced, after the party is over.
Here is the guillotine line:
“I thought YOU, of all people,
would know THAT, about ME!!
So the head of that constitute is
lobbed into the basket
labeled, X’s.
Oh the life and times of illusive agenda’s,
unfulfilled expectations, assumptions!
The funeral is tomorrow
9 A.M.
When we find out things about ourselves,
uncover blind stitches in our truth,
threads held together by anger
for a long time,
it all comes unraveled.
There is something gentle in awareness,
soft, relaxed.
Black-eye lists turn to ashes
in bright light.
Amen, amen, amen, amen …
Mad floats away in transparent bubbles
of understanding.
Between the stars and
mundance cash flow,
tightropes are the access routes
our only transportation …
Unless of course,
we learn to FLY!
We swore to banish lies, vowed slingshot truth.
With sober oaths to real boysenberry johnnycakes
and homemade cottage cheese,
we were stalwart advocates of authenticity.
We made nearsighted promises.
Neither of us noticed meany-mind hobgoblins
sprouting out of each straight forward,
well intended observation.
We beat each other half-to-death
with blunt verbiage.
We named it honesty
but an ugly duckling hatched,
truth is: critique kills sunflowers.
Od to the peevish pledge
to rational romance.
It turned us into tedious, fretful
stonecutters ….
chunking out love’s eulogy.
We are balloons …
bumping around in a dark room
with the fan on high.
Dog-eared logic says, “Living blind”
must have purpose since
“Pin the tail on the donkey”
appears to be the game we came to play.
I could tell juicy stories
about forays in forbidden bushes,
feeling full of hope for finding
just the place to pin my tail.
If we could hang out in my living room
most certainly the stories of our
hunt for purpose would entertain.
There would be hooting, howling,
rolling on the floor with laughter at the
telling of our exploits in pursuit of happiness.
Still I am an optimist, and choose to think
that hidden in confusion, is the ‘straw to gold’
the ‘Grail and ‘Avalon’ …
all present in our common days;
truths we cannot see, because the mind
in hot pursuit of logic, is blind to angels.
Braided in corn rows
problems embrace reasons.
Like a brides wedding hair
they interlace in patterns,
one cannot exist without
the other.
So should we take one half
of the equation out, reason …
the problem disappears.
I first saw you when I was seven,
in the lilacs behind the house.
You looked like a gypsy.
I followed your barefoot prints
into deep water … Color had to save me!
Red reached out, jerked me back from
drowning in too-tight places.
You pulled your painted wagon into my heart
set up camp, waited for me
through the drama years.
I finally learned I could say “No” …
It took a long itme.
The jingle of your bracelets
tending spirit fires eased my pain.
Blue released me back into the wild.
Symbols splashed on canvas
words darted like barn swallows
out of the shadows, into my ink.
One stick at a time I dismantled
my cage of self-doubt.
We sat by your fire at night,
planned my escape.
I couldn’t have done it without you …
Wild woman of my heart,
Sacred mother of creation,
The One who speaks authentic.
Open the window – Snap the sash up
let the fizz pour in. Welcome neon feet
that skip in carbonated chaos
leak light under the dark door
waltz naked in your tidy room!
Swing a pulsing garden hose
around your careful head,
squirt possibilities in all directions.
Let thrills run down your decorated walls
to puddle in forbidden places,
pale two-way mirrors reflecting back
the “other” you,
(Ipona’s wild fairy daughter
you disowned at twelve years old.
Fill hollow bones with yellow pollen,
send corn silk prayer flags up the wind.
Circle love-hips in red hula hoops
of purple motion. Sing your joy to real.
GIVE BIRTH!
Because great grandma was an English lady, we all learned table manners.
It was encoded in the blood line, an invisable directive from the past.
No matter the tin cups we had for drinking. Poor did not excuse
bad table manners. …… So when my grandaughter questioned
all the flury around holding forks and cutting tiny pieces, I explained,
“You want to know how to eat properly when the queen invites you to tea.”
Fast forward some years, my grandaughter says:
“I was very mad at you when I found out there was no queen!”
Fast forward again: She will be grateful for the skill when
she finds out she is the queen! (Metaphorically speaking of course.)
Speak mystic magpie.
Call Raven, Crow and Hen
to fire the feminine.
Red painted nails flick sticky words
at art, chase down metaphor’s with a
staple gun. One stone drops
to the bottom of fifty years,
sends round messages returning on themselves,
spins drama from perception’s spider silk.
She rewrites her resume’ impurpetuity,
maid, mama, artist, gardner, grandma, goddess,
lover, indian chief, expert, in charge of
crop circles …… alias; Poet.
Beg heaven, rattle the right side
of my curly brain ….
call forth potent words, wild phrases
that scare wiley foxes from the bushes.
Abstract clattering rolls like marbles
on dark staircase.
My grounded ear detects wild horses
on red-carpeted horizons.
Star-ladder pulls me left and right
too tall to balance ….
like a staggering drunk on the highest rung,
I swoon in dizzy circles.
Butterfly net in one hand,
apple picker in the other ….
my catching tools extended
to the Gods of verse
I capture silent air and scream!
“Throw a line! Shoot profound expression
through my poets pen!
Water the thirsty camels
before I fall from grace
and drink the ink !!”
Color paints eyes
in the back of my head.
Mixed crowds of possibility
push for front row seats.
Promiscuous glazes
marry with explosive
abstract consequences.
Pens point at lines and circles
sacred geometry calls Yin
to dance on fragile line.
Yang, sings A minor chord
in a booming colbalt
background.
COLOR SWOONS AT SPEED OF LIGHT
Poet flings words thick as starlings
darting through the
holes in logic,
splashing holy vowels
on paper.
Imagination drops it’s
yellow feathers
on the alphabet.
INK BUILDS BRIDGES.
A brush breathes under water
happy, in a fistful of ethnic diversity.
Angled flats, brights, rounds and liners
cannot wait to run screaming
into a sea of cobalt blue,
roll with abandon in fields of hooker green,
toss color, like mad fragrance
onto wide-open canvas,
celebrate
turquoise afternoons
and
madder red mornings.
Kiss the neighbors, fling
umber, raw sienna, Aztec brown
across a white washed fence.
Stroke antique rugs, splashed with
speckled jewels and roses
onto grainy fabric.
How lucky is the hand that holds these
uninhibited bohemian travelers?
License to take credit for new worlds
created by green magic wands.