that's mrs. mediocrity to you

my soul is not for sale
the sky is filled with words
and i love to sweep

my heart has been broken
more times than a promise

look at me sideways
and i’ll disappear

most days i want to change everything
most days i wouldn’t change anything

i walk a plank of wooden nickels
and who i am has no value

i live on vowels fished from waves
in the sea of repetition

censorship is a dark cloud
raining false vanilla

my broom is not for sale
the words are filled with holes
and i’m in too deep

.

.

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

Also joining in with PAD (poem a day) over at Writer’s Digest.

.

.

there will be days to hold onto
and days that burn the skin from your fingers

happiness is a pearl you should wear
when no one else is looking

every movement you make involves a choice
between yourself and someone you love

practice remembering what it was to be a child
and laugh with joy at least once a day

lick wonder from your fingers and
rub hope into your elbows

don’t ever be afraid to be silent
or to speak or to sing or to scream

every mirror is a false apparition
find your reflection in someone else’s eyes

you will grow in ten million directions
and every one of them is who you are

make every mistake you can imagine
and then go back and make a few more

kindness always replenishes itself
and love is the same as breathing

you will never finish the book
that is your story

life is the gift and survival
is the miracle

sit beneath the sky and find a way

.

.

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

Linking in over at dVersePoets for Meeting the Bar.

Also joining in with PAD (poem a day) over at Writer’s Digest.

.

.

if anne tyler shows up, we’ll have homesick for dessert
and she’ll teach us how to breathe and forgive

hemingway is sure to want venison, but after
an extra tall absinthe, he’ll make do with chicken

as miss plath lights the candles and serves up
bitter cookies dressed in marzipan and red

garth stein arrives dripping wet, a bit shy and
empty-handed, claiming the dog ate his casserole

which makes david wroblewski snort

and when erin morgenstern sits down we hear a barker
hawking tickets to a game of musical chairs

a plan mr. king is all for as the table suddenly expands
and the sun starts to sing in the corner

rosamunde pilcher brings bread pudding and roses
and insists that she sit next to salinger

though of course, his chair remains empty and

anne sexton is the life of the party, wearing pearls
and wry and eventually landing in vonnegut’s lap

while franzen sneers behind one perfect hand, his plate
filled with words no one else cares to sample

as toni morrison whispers with somerset maugham,
heads bent in an endless discussion

dostoevsky is straining to hear

cummings offers up broken cake and colored water
he pulls from the pockets of his coat

when edith wharton smiles at mark danielewski
picking leaves from the hem of emily’s dress

and mark helprin sits in the corner, alone
taking notes with long cold fingers

as laura ingalls passes chipped plates

.

.

A little fun today, planning dinner with some favorite authors.
Who would you invite to your party?

.

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

.

.

when i was 49
i started throwing things away

first it was old love letters
and too-short dresses

broken bracelets and lidless saucepans
piles of books and how-to magazines

finally moving on to bowls and worn towels
then shiny bits of empty ornament

the room grew larger but i kept shrinking
i sucked in a breath to keep me anchored

and i cleaned with the faith of a zealot
scrubbing broken brick
and washing stains out of memory

until everything was bleached
as the bones i had scattered in the sand

afterward i lay on the damp wood floor
staring up at a sky i’d drawn with blue pencil

my back ached and my arms were empty
my stomach growled with the pleasure of hunger

i had cleaned my slate and now i was ready
for dessert or silence or immunity

it wasn’t until dawn i remembered
i’d forgotten to outline the sun

.

.

.

.

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

.

.

you run black hills
with the strength of five thousand
orange-lipped sunsets

pounding smoke and dropping rivulets
of pink man blood sweat
but never
tears

everything about you is saturated
ruby rum lips and fiery opinion
erupting in long lava sentences
melting holes in paisley promise

as if you can boil a prism down
to the last grey nugget of truth

but violet vapors and emerald emission
always manage to escape
floating up and out behind you
in a clown-cloud of blush and burnt umber

just a touch of ochre ozone
burns my nostrils as you pass
waving daffodil hellos and
jaded celadon goodbyes

and you wink your sea glass eye
just to prove
with opal portent
that you see
only

black and white

.

.

.

Linking in today over at dVersePoets for a color festival with Poetics, join us!

.

.

.

.

of ever-growth and always-change
married to shadow music and feather sky
by a fine-filmed pastor of sunrise

morning-moves act as guide and angry compass
tea-burnt and beauty believed

by every sacrosanct ripple-day
mind-lair

everywhere ordinary

breath-bane and
mirror time

existence

.

.

Linking in today (if I got this right) over at dVersePoets for Meeting the Bar,
where we are playing with kenning. Join us!

the importance of numbers is self-prescribed

time

weight

date

expiration

days add up to life

lives add up to minutes

the flower

knows

when to bloom

.

.

.

Linking in today over at dVersePoets for Poetics, where we are
playing with macro photography/micro poetry. Join us!

.

It felt like a long ago dream,
that moment in the sun when everything changed.

She remembered the crow cawing loudly overhead, a warning.

She remembered the smell of smoke and the neighbor’s cries,
the damp earth beneath her back,
soaking up the sweat that ran from her body.

Forever stretched all the way up,
touching the cloud of regrettable sky.

She closed her eyes and saw red.

She opened them and saw nothing.

Silence was everywhere in the air around her,
and she held still, so still, trying to listen.

Beside her, a green shoot pushed up through the earth,
a feather tickle to the back of a dark-spotted hand.

A smile flew fast from her mouth, a strong white swift,
and carried old laughter away on the breeze.

The fleeting shadow of yesterday crossed her face,
just once.

And tomorrow became eternity’s muse,
dancing softly and praying for rain.

shadow shard and hollow reflection
dripping sweet song pattern and
endless playback

locked in a house of mirrors
where the laughter
bouncing
from room to room
belongs to no one

and dawn reveals the skeleton
inside the jar of syrup

all the pieces are there
and you can spend three months
striving to fit them back together

or you can leave them
dancing in the light of day

as long as you remember
to watch your step each night

because fool’s gold
puddles in your footprints

leading the way
to the door

listen

some days, that’s all i want
to say

listen

or show me
what’s in your

heart

beneath the stone
you’ve left unturned

tell me

how it feels
to be the seventh billion
snowflake

falling gently from a sky
made grey with uniquity

holding on

until you melt
raging into rivers

groaning with overflow

howling

losing voice and veracity

whisper-stamped and
season-dated

by a mouth
that’s always
open

.

listen

.