Early Summer
 Time of birds and mowers,
hammers beating nails
Mated pairs strutting and bobbing
Doing their dance for the chance
to fill nests waiting empty
In the backyards petals blow like sweet snow
From trees that will soon offer apples and cherries
My windows are fully open to noisy newness
I wish I could pry them wider yet,
and break all the walls and windows

---

 

Three Haiku

it is quiet here

at the cusp of a new day
the scent of tea in my cup

sitting at my desk
the lamp light illuminates
how dark the night is

I stare at the screen
a shawl wrapped around my gown
and I touch the keys

Dystopia
 
When I was a little girl I expected everything
Those unreal things children think true
The future in pink and blue

Spending time to purchase acceptance
Buy me plug me in it’s what I want
To be in the current, in the flow
To go where utopian females go

Girlish, groomed and gleaming
I wore myopic views
Instead of real expression
Of my un-utopian self

Walk down El dorado and ask the way
To Utopia from some corner
You’ll go far if you look straight ahead
Have faith and don’t look down

Howling mad at the fraud
I bought and perpetrated
I piled the brush and resin wood
And set match to childish toys
Plastic bright and cheery as hell

 

 

Baggage

There is sadness for things gone by
things held in my grip
needed things for being happy
fingers loosened ,I let them slip.

Looking down at empty hands
what they held was gone
turned to dust and drifted
sifted into wind and lost.

Now my hands no longer hold
what wasn't gold but dross,
detritus from old dreams
fading and cold.

I am free to touch the world
having no things to fear.
I dropped my burdens to the ground
and found the path clear.

Things that go bump in the night

 
I hate clocks ticking in the night.
Tick tick tick
my eyelid keeps time
my right foot does a painful jig
under the sheet
 
I hear a faucet drip
Splat splot split
My foot hears it too
And changes it's beat
 
Pain shoots down my neck
It greets the ache in my arm
Like strings connecting
a hellish marionette
 
This body electric sings at night
my legs twist and tap
in a Hoffmanesque ballet,
and currents make my legs jump
like a science class frog.
 
Trying to take off the damned red shoes
To be still, to rest, to pull the plug
And let the current flow away
Swallow more  pills
The faucet drips
The clock ticks
And the music plays

It takes x-ray eyes
to see through rags.
People can't see

through their own smoke,
can't see themselves
they're normal folk,
not always wise.

These rags aren't real,
but hold me fast inside,
have colored my experience
because you think it's me.

Look no deeper than you do
and it's your self you'll see.

I'm not bothered by what you think.
It doesn't change a thing inside the rags.
What I wear now means nothing.
I'm a soul in drag

 

The Painter
I carry hints of my predilection,
spatters of color here and there
on my sleeve and hands I wear
colors I loved this day

I tried to find a new direction
the four corners I think have found me
the story wants to be told and seen
I lift the brush and find the way

into this dream I go
it takes me to that place
where time and outer world fade
and the fearful mind slows

I paint the fresh white field
dipping brush in alizaron
and sublime pthalo green
this trembling brush I wield

Moonrise
The moon rose quickly tonight
over the rooftops of my street
it seemed eager
to be up high and full

 
now I can better see the shadows
in the woods behind my house
and the long dark path
the apple tree makes across the ground
 

it is lovely ,
in this chiaroscuro night
a moon that shows the darkness
and hides the light

 

monkey people

You're so bright up there in the night sky
I think I would like to touch you, but that isn't real. It only seems that way.

Maybe you're where we came from,
home of the monkey people.

I stand out here at night and look at you,
as if I'm waiting for you to speak.

Down by the creek the ground flickers with the glow of  slugs who think they are stars too.

They must worship the night sky.

It isn't your cold fire that I love, it's the mystery of what could occur.

Silently by dark of moon
I slipped through the house
settling by a window to see
stars and planets and planes

Specks of light above moved westward
each bent on a journey of its own
flickering steadily on through night,
towards separate endings

In darkness at the quiet end of day
finding solace from the world around
where sounds of daylife would intrude
when I slip into dreaming night

The darkness smells of honey and spice
outside this window , and summer grasses.
strands of thought like cobwebs catch
flotsam of the day , shimmering briefly
and fading away

grass green so still then bitter yet
dripping from my lips pursed against
I cannot hold my life inside it sours
glisten as honey beckons sweet taste

dreaming takes me to a garden of bells
sweet dew drips off the garden walls
humming air chimes sweet with sound
long throated lilies bow golden bent

acrid smoke of bitter burning leaves
one minute full of beauty and color
sting eyes to tears of joy and crying out
in confusion spitting out poison seed

I can step off the edge of a real world
fly over the boundary of this earth
open eyes to a dreaming world so close
buzzing green and sweet air singing life

Daybreak

it's dark outside
I have opened my eyes to darkness
in the silence of that time
before the warmth of my house
stirs itself
I lie in bed .

hearing my eyes opening
a cat creeps close to welcome me
to the new day
this the best time
to feel soft fur
to feel comforting purr
against my neck.

pulling the blankets up
under my chin
the chill in the air
makes this bed
seem softer

my restless mind
and my restless body
won't let me stay here
they compel me
to go and look at the day

there is good in this new day

and I arise
I accept that this is the way for me
and I feel joy   

 

The Garden of Medusa

I once walked through the garden of medusa
not knowing where i was
through toxic stratus
through evil greed
I stumbled in

I stayed too long in the garden of medusa
playing in the noxious twilight
not seeing crumbled walls of stone
not seeing dying birds
the oily fen

In that place I slept
under the doomed trees
a sleep disturbed
by fitful dreaming
sibilant warnings
gone unheeded

because I looked up
and beheld what I could not see
there in the toxic land,
in the heart of betrayal
in the dark of mans intention
I slowly turn

                           Time 

White Rabbits

It's quiet here in the dark of the house
no one stirring but me and the mouse
my cat woke me up so I crept out of bed
I should have gone back but I'm here instead
 
it wouldn't hurt just to sit here and see
if anyone else was awake like me
I went to the kitchen and put on the kettle
I'm ready to play , I'm in really fine fettle
 
I seat my pajama'd self down in the chair
and warm up my fingers to start talking there
but it's so easy to get side tracked
led astray by an interesting fact
 
once more I've followed that little white rabbit
a virtual pest and a virtual habit
into the wonderland of my computer
and if I get lost I can always re-boot her

Panic
 
my mind spinning off
in a rush of confusion
I chase tangled meanings
flying like leaves in the wind

reaching for fading thoughts ,
and unsure words , lost memories
escape me like a childs balloon
rising up to the sky

I am losing substance
each time I stumble
or some object falls
from futile hands

darkness grows into places
made of forgotten things
there is panic hiding
I don't want to see

I open each door to see
if there is warmth and light
outside

fear does not love the light
it hides away inside waiting
to sting the heart

 

For Greg

Behind me sits a man playing 3-d-pinball space cadet  at this quiet hour, a word, a phrase thrown over his shoulder in the darkened room. No baying wolf this night, no dour words of doom. Ham-handed he mumbles, saving a virtual world from certain death at the hands of alien flunkies.

It may have been subconscious, urged on by Jungian noise, a slice of synchronicity, "The Hatfields and McCoys" procured some hours previous to this ramble.

Festinating from one aisle to another, fondling volumes and earnest about the importance of what he sought. He explained the reason behind that curious choice, he had a yen to find.

Yen or not it sits at rest, reasons found now he rids the universe of pests and militant space cadets while pin ball zapping sounds leak from his computer and the odd chuckle reaches my ears.