Foxy lady

You do not seek
to see behind
my mask
of timid refinement

You do not see
how I slink
unseen
into the background

You cannot hear
the faint pant
of anxious breath
trapped in this cage

You wear me around
your neck
a fine catch
to show your friends



April PAD #26 - animal

Love, rinse, repeat

What can be said that
has not been
uttered by thousands before me.

I am no Rumi or
Shakespeare or Shelley.
I  trip over trite words

and into your ready arms,
laughing at the
foot in my bumbling mouth.


April PAD #24 - love or anti-love

The jury is out

Your throne, dear sir,
is not heavenly nor kind.
Your tone will win you no souls.

You sit, so blind,
at your father's right hand, but
he's fit to judge for himself.

April PAD #22 - judgment

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

Apology accepted

There are nights
when he cuddles in
to feel her
body close,
a warm apology for
all he has failed to
do today.

There are times
when she accepts the
naked truth
that he is
trying his hardest to be
the man he really
wants to be.

On those nights
she pulls his hand close
to her chest,
kisses his
fingers and slips an icy
toe toward his toasty
feet and laughs.




April PAD #7 - two people interacting without speaking

Before I wake

Myworld ends
every single night

I
close my
eyes and die

to
a world
no more real

than
the one
in my dreams



April PAD #14 - Doomsday

Clear direction

We climbed the mountain
for the journey to the top.
We sailed the ocean
to feel the wind and salt air.
We left the compass at home.



WD Poetic Form Challenge: Tanka

No such luck

There is no difference between
the unlucky ones
and those who are fortunate.

We all get what we
want deep down.
We decide our own blessing

and design our own curse,
hiding behind fate
so we can't blame ourselves.


April PAD #13 - unlucky

99% chance of gloom

It's not hard to find a shady spot
in the center of downtown.
The world is dark with the gloom
of commerce and concrete,
buildings full of people who think
they hold up the sky.




April PAD #9 - shady

Stripped bare

I saw her from across the meadow
a doe tiptoeing tentatively through
the grass, glancing back at her home
a thicket of dark, dense green

She was delicate, but deliberate
as she strode toward the stream
a ballerina beautifully exposed
and perfect in her nakedness



2012 April PAD #10 - forest or tree

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