Waterboarding

Would you love me more 
if this body was thinner 
his thinning hair thicker
her thickness less sexy
their sexiness more tame
his tameness more fierce
my fierceness less fiery 
her fire more water
our watered down selves 
so dampened
that we drown ourselves 
without seeing you’re 
holding our heads underwater 

—

April PAD - Poetic Asides Day 2 prompt: what does the future hold 

Beauty crowds me ...

a lovely stranger pressing his
skin against mine
in the crowded
subway car at rush hour,
nudging me ever so slightly
during the curves
of my commute
as if to remind me
not to forget
he is there

--

Creative Bloomings prompt 160: Emily Dickinson

Refuse

Mom never thought
the house was clean enough.
Because it wasn't.

Dad collected newspapers
and paper scraps he might
need some day.

Piles of randomness
gathered in every corner of
every single room

waiting to be
sorted through or purged once
and for all.

She'd secretly thin
the stacks and toss the
abandoned items that

filled our garage
into the outside recycle bins
on trash day.

He'd rage when
he realized that things were
missing, even though

he couldn't tell
you what had disappeared or
how long ago.

Dad clung to
those scraps as if they
were long-held memories,

cherished moments stolen
right from his chubby hands,
clinging as tightly

as a child
holding their security blanket and
begging you to

let it go.



--

Poetic Bloomings Memoir Project: Part 3: Welcome Home

If I had a hammer ...

She was a fierce little girl
determined to tie her own shoes
and make her own way

"I can do it by myself,"
she'd declare, as if Mom and
Dad had nothing to offer

Stomping into the street in her
pink overalls, plastic hammer in hand,
ready to fix the world

--

Poetic Bloomings Memoir Project Part 2: Look what I did!

Runaway

A little girl came across our lawn
and knocked on our door. A pawn
no more. She was gone.
Past the dawn. 
Flew. 

Just a baby, innocence foregone,
she lay on my couch and yawned,
"No more." She was gone
past the dawn
to

late the next morning. She yelled, "Come on!"
when she woke. A little fawn
no more. She was gone.
Past the dawn.
New.

--

Creative Bloomings - Triquint

Crushed

You
tossed her out
just one more can in
a heap of recyclable
hearts

--Poetic Bloomings, Oddquain

Summer Solstice

The sprinklers were cool in
the summer heat,
spraying slivers of rainbows like
holograms hovering above
the thirsty summer grass.

We frolicked through the fountains
bathing suits sticking
to our slick skin, tanned
by our afternoon
forays in the yard.

We peeled the wet fabric
over plump bellies
filled with laughter and lunch,
shimmying and tugging
our bare-threaded bikinis

tossing them into the bathtub,
relishing our nakedness
ready for the next adventure. 




Poetic Bloomings #104 - time flies

Who do you think you are, child?

Kids have a way of
Immersing themselves in the
Magic of everyday
Imagination, not
Knowing that this
Openness we think ordinary

Lives wild in our
Youth, so
Near that we
Never believe it can disappear.

Years later we will see that
Optimism challenged as the
Unknown morphs from
Newness to negativity. We 
Grow wiser, we think,

Master our own lives
And wonder why
Reality is far less
Tantilizing than
It was when 
No one was looking.
Evermore we seek the 
Zen of childhood.
 
--

Poetic Bloomings Memoir Project
PART 1 – Who do you think you are?

Birth day

Happy 16th birthday to my Monster.


You rushed in
as you've done every day since
pushing your way
into this world with fierce determination

I wasn't there
more than two pain-filled hours
before you appeared
blue and twisted and perfect

The doctors rushed
to unwind the twisted gray cord
around your neck
and hear your first full-lunged cries

You turned pink
before our blood-shot eyes and wailed
I kissed your
forehead and was forever changed


Poetic Bloomings # 82: The most important day of my life

i can entirely her only love

i fell for you
before time was time,
as we tumbled through the summer grass
and back yard sprinklers.

i unlocked your smile
on secret adventures
into closets and blanket-covered
couches-turned-tents.

i laughed
as we trick-or-treated
in kimonos and
Wonder Woman Underoos.

i fell for the
wondering woman
navigating the twists and turns
of an emerging adulthood.

i smiled unlocking
the still-giddy girl
hiding her secrets in the creases
of adventure-seeking eyes.

i laugh
at the face i see
in the fogged-up bathroom mirror,
sweating in the summer heat.


Poetic Bloomings #72 -- At First Sight

Back to Jack

Back to Jack

The way my father tells
it, Great-Grandpa Jack
was a lawyer in L.A.

back in the days when
the city was
really beginning to take shape.

He walked out of the
courthouse one day,
fed up with the system,

and across the street to
a construction site
and asked for a job.

He never looked back.


The way I remember it,
it was hot
where he lived. He was

frail and his head shook,
a subtle nodding,
as he smiled at me

and my little baby sister.
I squirmed, not
understanding why we were smiling

and sweating at this house.
Perhaps they knew
that death wasn't far off.

We drove away and never looked back.


I was 6 or so
when Dad whispered
to my mother in the

upstairs hallway that Great-Grandpa Jack
had passed. "What
does that mean?" I asked.

"He died. Funeral is Thursday,"
Dad said. I
wanted to go with him.

He couldn't understand why I
wanted to mourn
a man I barely knew.

Perhaps I just wanted to look back.



--

Poetic Bloomings Memoir Project
Part 8: Death, be not proud

Your mean-ing

I just don't know what
you mean when
you say you're a follower

of a religion whose deity
clearly stated that 
the greatest spiritual law is 

to love one another as 
you love god;
to judge not; to forgive. 

And yet, you judge. Harshly.

You call it god as you
judge true followers
who know to love you

despite the self-righteous wrath
you spew at
people whose lives, decisions, and

agony you could never imagine.
They will never
forget your judgment. Your mean-ing.




Poetic Bloomings #63 - Uncertainty, I don't understand

The Way

Just finished watching "The Way," so this prompt couldn't have had better timing.

Sometimes we walk
down paths chosen for us
by well-meaning folks

Sometimes we choose
the well-worn paths for ourselves

Sometimes we chance
down paths with well-meaning folks
who choose to share their journey

while searching for a path
of their own

Sacred warriors

Inspired, perhaps, by Earth Day and watching "Howl" last night.


We left the compass
at home, forgotten in some
drawer full of coupons
and crumbs and fortune cookies.
We knew where we were going.

We felt our way through
the flat night, navigating
by murky moonlight
a spiderweb of street lights
that led to something beyond

city water pipes
and cookie cutter housing
divisions and fast
food drive-thrus. We followed the
elemental pull of some

primal lust buried
deep in our mother's mother's
bones, a knowing that
this land was the breast milk of
thousands who had walked and died

crossing great plains and
mountains, sacred warriors
led by ancestors
who traveled beside them and
honored their transcendent quest.




Poetic Bloomings #52:  from every ending comes a beginning

Going the distance

He thought I would come
to my senses
after I'd missed him awhile

as if distance could make
my bruised soul
fonder of the late nights

worrying where he might be
and who might
be siphoning his angry love




Poetic Bloomings # 51 - senses

Hide and seek

When I was young,
I closed my eyes and
the world disappeared.

I hid in plain sight
and my parents
pretended not to see.

When I was older,
I hid in plain sight
hoping someone would

see me with open eyes
and our pretend worlds
would disappear.


Poetic Bloomings #50 - Comeback

The warrior

Dedicated to Sgt. William Stacey, a 23-year-old Marine who died in Afghanistan a few weeks ago. And to all the warriors we have lost and love.


William was a warrior.
So off to war he went,
as warriors often do.

He kissed his girl
and faced his fate,
in a far off place

full of warriors who
had kissed thier own
wives and mothers

faced their own fates,
fighting to protect
an idea that burned

as deep as their love
for the women who
would stare at some

far-off place as they
thought of the men
they loved, off at war,

hoping they would
come home to love
them once  more.

William was a warrior.
He died for this love.
As warriors often do.


Poetic Bloomings #42 - moral of the story

A long hold

His days were long.
Hers was too.

His was filled with
factory work, which
stuck to his face.

Hers was filled with
five children who
stuck to her legs.

Worried sighs drew
across his brow
as he sat at the dinner

table and whispered
to my mother about
bills and layoffs.

Worried eyes met
his as she held his
hands across the dinner

table and whispered
that everything would
be just fine.

Their talks were long.
But their kisses were too.



Poetic Bloomings - Prompt #38  (Hey, that's my line!)

Semper Fidelis

~For my Marine

To say goodbye will be so hard.
I'm not the type to disregard
a love that we've been moving toward
the span of both our lives.
So, I'll stand in the Navy yard
and wave with all the wives.


Poetic Bloomings -- In-Form Poet -- Rime Couée

On the surface

this pristine prison of glass
is nothing more
than your imagination running scared


Poetic Bloomings #37