that's mrs. mediocrity to you

i have hands that need to be worried
knitted brows and empty eyed needles
clicking and clacking in time
with a grandmother’s song

she told me all her stories once
from a field of corn and desperation

broken backs and clattered crows
stealing all the shiny bits

i made a choker of her words
red silk knots and sour drops
on the tongue of overdrawn wisdom

she knew everything about me
before i was born

and nothing of the taste
of redemption

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month.
This post is part of NaPoWriMo. see more here.

i want to put your youth in my pocket
and save it for a rainy day

i want to tell you dylan thomas was brilliant
and bob dylan was his love child

i want to tell you to listen

but i know you won’t hear anything i say
with my cloak of old age singing me
invisible to you and your friends

i want to tell you nothing kills you but death
not heartbreak or disappointment
failure or ridicule
loss or even down and out

even so
you will die a tiny bit every day

in the same way a tree dies every time
a leaf drops

and a mirage gives up when you see it

but you

and me

we’re all dandelions

growing where we land

sending down our tap root of survival
blooming garishly bright
and then withering grey

and even when we’re spent

there are seeds

to catch a ride on a breeze
and carry us
into tomorrow

so i hold my tongue
because you are young
and i’m just the sun
holding court
with yesterday’s clouds

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month.
This post is part of NaPoWriMo. see more here.

Also linking up with the fabulous dVerse poets for Open Link Night, join us!

i can tell these two crows are teenagers
by their hunger and their recklessness

i feed them anyway and they never say thank you

like all youth
their gift is their presence

they haven’t yet learned how to tell time
or rather, they don’t think about time at all
just the way you don’t think about breathing

until you can’t

i hold onto the edge of this curtain
dusty lace and faded white (or is that my hair)

and smile at nothing but birds and sunshine

because it isn’t
silence that haunts you

and to turn away is the same as standing still,
moving forward is no different than sleeping well
beneath a smoky sky filled with endless flight

stars in reverse

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month.
This post is part of NaPoWriMo. see more here.

life keeps raining down around me
even as i close my eyes in a vain attempt to hide
even as i refuse to see anything but beautiful
even as i say goodbye and goodbye and goodbye

and i listen to the music of the weather you
bring to me in a jar the color of sea

i listen to spring creeping in just beneath
winter’s worn grey tattered dress

i listen to the sound of
………….another year dying
………….another heart trying
………….another eye crying

my palms turned upward to catch diamond drops
………….and bits of glitter that will leave with the sun

there is more light than you can see
………….more hope than you can harness
………….more time than you can shelter

and there is less of you
………………..less of me
………………………….less of yesterday

in this puddle building up around my ankles
….this ocean of silence that roars in my ears
….this river that runs straight to the cave of your heart

….this avalanche that keeps raining down

……………………………..raining

………………………down

…………………around

……………………………..me

..

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Linking up today with the fabulous dVerse poets for Open Link Night

Well, if I were February, it would be. Instead, I find color where I can, strewn about the house in bits of glass and fabric. Tulips from the grocery store. Eggs with a rainbow of peppers for breakfast.

Magic is the word I chose for 2013, reading is the word that’s chosen me. And everywhere I go, it’s quiet.

Our oldest cat is fading away and I watch her fighting. I think about life, and death, and everything in between. We make her a fire every night, and feed her all the tuna she wants, and give her lots of extra love.

The other night I broke out the afghan I’ve been working on for something like three years now… I only have a few rows to go, and it feels like it’s time to finally finish it.

Sometimes, endings come when you’re least expecting them. Sometimes, even though you know they are coming, it’s hard to look them in the eye.

The book I’m reading now is going to be hard to let go of. Fremont by Elizabeth Reeder. It’s filled with beginnings and magic and the trials of life. And, of course, endings.

And I’m in love with it.

This book. This grey sky, this grey cat, this life.

Every small, silent moment.

.

why are we so afraid of empty?

we fill our homes with too much stuff

our bellies with too much food

our minds with too much information

{stop}

give me a clean sheet

an unfilled bowl

a barren cave to sleep in

.

i want space

wide  •  open  •  hollow

.

nothing

absolutely nothing

to distract me

.

from life

.

and what i want

is to tell you to run

the life of a poet

is filled with blood

and you will never be safe

you will always be sorry

your heart will always

fall from your sleeve

to be trampled

but we both know

it was never a choice

so i bite my tongue

purse my lips

squeeze hard

to hold the words in

just like so many other

long quiet nights

when i watched you

sleeping

and the only one

that escapes is

write

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Linking up today with the fabulous dVerse poets for Open Link Night

2012 was the year of discarding.

It was amazing how good that felt, amazing how opening up a little physical space in my life made my mind open up a bit as well.

Of course, it wasn’t just things that I let go of, it was also ideas. Perfection was at the top of the list, followed by the notion of being caught up. I also tossed some fear to the wind and watched it fly away, despite the fact that it kept telling me those wings were broken.

Truth is, I tossed with abandon.

I threw out boxes of things and bags of possessions. I flung words into every corner and watched them wrestle. I hurled old hurts into the fire, and grudges got the boot.

And then I opened my arms wide and embraced the sky.

My hands are empty, but my heart is not.

I became a gypsy.

Well, okay, not exactly.

But you know what I mean.

.

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::

Reverb 12/Cultivate 2012:

What do you need to let go of to cultivate your best life in 2013?

What did you learn?

::

So much of life comes down to that.

What do you really need?

How little does it take to make you smile?

Beauty is never elusive.

Every day,

there is a lesson.

this lake this forest these trees

i see nothing i see everything i can’t hear a thing for all this

noise

this deafening

silence

these colors all drawn in black and white and red all over

and i bleed

i cry

i close eyes i’ve never opened

i build castles in sand made from glass

throw stones into the fire

this blistering brilliant fire

shadows dance in the embers

crickle cracked red hot

embers

remember

the ghost shape of branches

the geometry of lumber

shelter

the diaphanous

pretender

this lake this forest these trees

.

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Linking up today with dVerse poets for Meeting the Bar and some postmodernism, join us!