that's mrs. mediocrity to you

outrage
…….makes me tired

i know it’s not supposed to
i know i’m supposed
to stand up
for what i believe in
stamp my feet
bellow
charge

and some days i even
…….consider it

but then these words
fly at me in a barrage
of bellicose belief
…….misogynist
…….broken
…….war
…….fight
…….fix
…….heal
…….demand
and i find myself
turning my head
to dodge
meanings injected
with fortitude
…….and after a while
…….i tune it all out
…….all of it
…….word by word
…….letter by letter
…….bouncing hollow
…….because i just
…….don’t want
…….to fight
…….anymore

…….i want to stand here
…….in silence and sunshine
…….and breathe in
…….the moments of life
…….that still want to touch
…….my skin
…….and besides
…….i’m already
…….hot
…….all the time
…….already
…….bent
…….and so over
…….the differences
…….you vouchsafe
…….in all directions

…….and

…….no matter what you say
…….or how loudly you say it
…….i can still
…….hear the beat
…….of your

…….heart

.

.

.

A poem a day for 30 days.
In honor of National Poetry Month,
this post is part of NaPoWriMo. see more here.
And also dVerse poets Open Link Night, join us!

i live in a place where quiet roams the streets

and birds are my alarm

windows open all night to a symphony of peepers

and the possibility of predator is

a four-legged shadow that almost never

crosses my path

while silence hides under rocks and slithers

away from the light

never quite reaching its destination

this is the anti-city

overpopulated only by mole and chipmunk

tunnel travelers who dig their own map

bending around rock and rising up

to find the jaws of hunger

or absolutely nothing

just bare sky hanging low

so close you can smell

the fragrance of stars

or feel the brush of a wingtip

on your shoulder

::

::

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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.

the way love can grab you
in the words of a song
playing in your head from
thirty three years ago
when you thought you were
someone whole and perfect
long before you saw the way
the roots you’d grown
had taken a turn in
directions you’d never
dreamed of and everything
you thought was real
became tangled up in
everything you know is true
and there you are growing
towards the sun with all
these bits of you
exposed in tendrils
of yesterday that
look like tomorrow
dancing in the breeze
a broken ballerina
and that is the
tree of life

::

::

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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.

in my dreams

there is a house with too many rooms
painted in colors i don’t really care for
filled with someone else’s furniture

books fall from stacks on a staircase
floors have paths worn deep into filth
bedrooms are all filled with strangers

i am lost in the heart of nowhere
where no one ever offers a map
there is always light when i want darkness

and no one has ever heard the word

escape

::

::

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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.

can you write a poem
about the things you do every day
without being mundane?

dishes and laundry,
smoothing sheets over last night’s dreams
sweeping bits of dust
into piles of promises?

i’ve worn a path into these hardwood floors
27 years of back and forth
around in circles
and i think of all the life
that has fallen through those cracks

unnoticed.

how many times have i wiped
the shine back into this wood stove
just so i could sit before it
and watch it gather dust?

i can build a fire in two minutes flat
but i’ve never had to put one out.

i’ve traded diapers for litter boxes
and mops for steamers.

this house knows all my habits.

it knows, too, to look away
at all the right moments.

we’ve lived together long enough
to recognize the shape
of each other’s

silence.

::

::

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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.

the strangest memories come to visit
while you’re standing in the shower

all naked and alone and washing life’s
dusty coating down the drain to nowhere

the old console stereo my parents used to
have in the dining room, bigger than a couch

big enough to still be playing songs in this
40-something head, songs that come to me

in waves of too hot water and saggy aging skin
i’d prefer not to look at, (the same way the only

mirror i use these days is the reflection i catch
smiling back at me from atop a glass of wine)

since they don’t make things like they used to
everything must be smaller, thinner, lighter

because we don’t need no stinkin’ gravity
to hold us down and keep us tethered or

even strung along, it’s never been the force
of earth or magnetic pull keeping us here,

preventing us from floating away like a bubble
about to burst, it’s always just the strangest

memories.

::

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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.

well, cuz,
you used to say in a lazy
d r a w n-out southern drawl
that was half swagger half tease

and i always cocked my ear
in your general direction without
looking because i liked to hear
your voice so much better
than i liked to see
who you were.

::

::

::

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

chased you down, really, down the street, two blocks, then three
hollow-tipped holes filling my heart as you became child,

and i, mother.

we both raced the ghosts that lived in your memory
and you ran faster so much faster so much faster and
i couldn’t tell you that i would protect you because

i didn’t understand that i was too short too young too innocent
to see even the tiniest glimpse of the demons you saw

coming on just over my shoulder.

in the end, it was you who talked like a child
me that patted shoulders and calmed as best i could
though inside my brain was screaming

stop and i

couldn’t find my way out of the forest we’d just entered
having forgotten to leave the trail of crumbs
that would lead us back to

before

and by the time you returned
to being you
the you
i thought i knew

i was someone completely

other.

.

.

.

A poem a day for 30 days.
In honor of National Poetry Month,
this post is part of NaPoWriMo. see more here.
And also dVerse poets Open Link Night, join us!

compassion lies crumpled on the floor

manners moved on to warmer climates

grace goes to shiver in the corner

grammar was gilded and hung on the wall

respect reveals scars of abuse

kindness was killed in an alley

sanity slithers towards a crack in the door

balance became powerless to perform

sensibility stands alone,

too proud to say anything

::

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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.

kettle over cave

as departure looms

the only sound

is the silence

of hope

::

::

{Image by Tracey Grumbach}
as a prompt for the Poetics link-up at dVerse poets, join us!

::

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