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

Call waiting

The woman on the phone
won't stop talking.
But I love her anyway.


Nov PAD #14 - stuck

cummings and goings

"It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are."
- e.e. cummings


I have sprouted like a wildflower
in a summer patch of green,
stretching tall in the happy sun.

I have wilted and drooped,
a sad, forgotten weed in the
midst of a dry, lonely winter.

And I have shriveled to dust,
a speck in the breeze that carries 
away what is left of me. 

And still I remain - weed and wildflower,
ash and seed, underfoot and in the air 
as you breathe in a lung full of hope and promise.

--
Nov PAD #8 - talk back to a dead poet

When he's gone

Hasn't happened yet, but it's so close I can already feel it.


WHEN HE'S GONE

When he's gone,
you'll miss the smell of
cologne he used

too much of;
the mess of his room
and the socks

on the floor.
You'll wonder if he's eating
or studying enough;

if he's using
a condom or smoking too
much cheap weed.

When he's gone,
you'll be glad he's off
exploring the world

as young men
eventually must, but wish he
would call home

once in awhile.


--

Nov PAD #9 - When he's gone

Interview in Poetic Bloomings

I know everyone who visits this blog has probably already seen this, but just in case . . .

Put out

She breathes fire
the smell of singed wood
the subtle soot
sitting on happy words 

It lingers
in the corner of her eyes
an insatiable heat
burning into her thoughts

The burdens
The book
The smiles
The love

Lost

You could see
in the corner of her smile
a wet sigh
extinguishing the fire in her soul

 carried in the flames of her laugh

 --

Archived from Feb. 11, 2008 on Rising from the Ashes

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

waiting

My eyes cannot 

stay open tonight. For weeks

I have longed

to pull back 

the thin sheet that separates

me from anxious

dreams; the kind 

where I'm waiting tables in some

vaguely familiar place 

and people are 

waiting for me to take 

their dinner orders.

The guilty panic 

starts setting in just as

I remember that

I haven't worked

at a restaurant for years.

Still, I feel 

them waiting for

me, just as I wait 

ever more impatient 

for just one restful night.

Poetic Bloomings #65 - Betrayal

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