Birds and bees

He bumbled and buzzed
staggering across the bar
toward the woman
with feathers
in her hair
who

flitted and flirted
from one end of the room
to the other with such
staggering grace
he could not
resist


---

November PAD Day 28 - bird

Black Friday

Hallmark cards can't express how
much I loathe
Black Friday super mega sales


---

November PAD Day 29 - commercial

Sunsets

You rode into the sunset
disappearing behind a
horizon of your own making

I the steadfast sun and
you the earth
turning ever away from love



---

November PAD Day 30 - disappearing

Free at last

I had a dream
that one day
we would hear
church bells
clanging
like the love
in our chests

that we would
no longer
walk alone
but be an oasis
beckoning
each other
across the desert

--


November PAD Day 26 - free (blank) or (blank) free

Eclipsed

You eclipsed my view of the stars
when I put you on that pedestal,

leeched on like a remora to a
wretched, self-immolating man 

lost in the sun.

--

November PAD Day 22 - use three: ideogram, remora, casket, eclipse, selfie, wretch

S.O.S.

I never sent
the letters I wrote you
turns out that

the scribbled words
were really more for me
than for you


--

November PAD Day 21 - secret message

Baby

How do I
hold on to one who's
outgrown my embrace?

How do I
embrace letting go of the
grown man before me?

--
November PAD Day 19 - love or anti-love

Always a bridle

Hold your tongue
and stay the steady course
for the win

Don't dream of
letting go of the reins
to run free

--

November PAD Day 20 - Always (blank)

Alchemy

Sparks may fly
but I cannot turn leaden
heart to love


---
November PAD Day 17 - element

Maybe

Maybe
we would
be laughing now
rolling on the floor
like the children we are

Maybe
we would
be holding each
other's hands as we
journeyed into old age together

Maybe
we would
be bouncing babies
on our arthritic knees
remember our own little ones

Maybe
you could
forget the words
that drove you away
and remember this life instead

--

November PAD Day 18 - forget what I said earlier

What child is this

For all the homeless kids in Hollywood

Who are you
that send your lambs
to slaughter

The City of Angels
is no place
for children with dreams

Hope litters the sidewalks
like shards of
the broken bottle laying

at your baby's feet
as he sleeps
on the cold stoop of the YMCA

dreaming of a place
and face that he used
to call home

---

November PAD Day 15 - what (blank)

little explorer

she grew up
on the shores of discontent
dipping her toes

in the stagnant
waters and scraping her feet
on jagged rocks.

she breathed in
the poisoned air of temper
tantrums and adults

acting like children
instead of looking after those
in their care.


--
November PAD Day 14 - exploration

Anima

Inanimate: not endowed with life or spirit 

Empty 
chambers in my chest
fill 
with blood that cannot 
bring
back what's been lost. 



--
November PAD Day 8 - inanimate object

Crushed

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

--Poetic Bloomings, Oddquain

Loveliness that hides

A line from "I am more than this" on April 22 that takes quite a different turn. Inspired, in part, by all the horrific "you deserve rape" stuff I've been seeing. It's appalling to me that the way a woman dresses or looks could ever be "asking for it."


Behind the burka
is a face
too lovely

Beneath the skirt
is a treat
too tempting

Between his legs
is a beast
too savage
to control


April PAD Day 29 - a line from a former poem

Palm reading

I used to
hold your hand when we
crossed the street.

It was warm
and firm, unlike the bony
fingers I hold now.

April PAD Day 28 - shadorma

Morning routine

Snooze button pauses
my morning system start up.
Where is the coffee?

April PAD Day 27 - mechanical

Making the cut

When you came on the
scene I knew
the search was over

April PAD Day 26 - casting

Everybody bleeds

There's a story for every line
striping her forearms;
a name for every slice,
for every time they called her
slut or dyke or wetback.

There's a tear for every cut
she now covers
with long sleeves;
for every time she believed
the lies of the unloved.

April PAD Day 25 - everybody (blank)

Autocorrect

I do not
think you meant to say
what you did

April PAD Day 24 - auto

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

The fragments

Sometimes it takes
a big explosion to remember
together we're whole


April PAD Day 23 - love or anti-love

Complexion

"It's a bit complex," he says.
She staring in the mirror,
analyzing her pores, tugging
at the laugh lines that make
her want to cry.

He's in the bedroom pulling on
his pants going on about
some scientific discovery he
read about yesterday, oblivious to
his own uneven complexion.




April PAD Day 22 - complex

I am more than this

I am more
than a dark
loveliness that
hides between
thick grown
womanly thighs

I am more
than a disposable
plaything that
fulfills all your
secret little
pubescent fantasies

I am more than
a played out
stereotype that's
perpetuated in
every rapper's
uninspired lyrics

I am inspiration,
secret stereoscopic
fantasies that
grow thick
with love and
groan for more.

April PAD Day 18 - I am (blank)

Coo coo

Her lips curl to smile
with the baby on her lap.
"I want one," she says.

April PAD Day 21 - senryu

Beyond the horizon

I waited as you wandered
through the confusion
to an oasis of calm

You dipped your hands into
a river of
my tears, cooled your head

and wet your throat with
the sadness of
the dark desert between us

April PAD Day 20 - beyond

Singed

The slow simmer
of your indifference has burned
straight through me


April PAD Day 19 - burn

"Words can't express ..."

They were waiting on her front porch
when she walked up the driveway
after a long day at the shoe store.

Their uniforms were crisp and clean.
Even from here she could see the shine
of their polished brass-colored buttons.

Even now as the sun was setting, she
could see the glints of light bouncing off
them as they waited for her.

They could have been there for hours,
standing somber and still, just as he had
for so many formal occasions.

And in the military, it all seemed formal.
They always stood so tall, proud, patient, official.
These two were the same, brothers

in a family she didn't yet understand,
staring at her and knowing perhaps
that she had expected,

no, dreaded, the day that the man in
the crisp, clean uniform on her front porch
was not her husband.

She wished she were back on the express
train, back at work, surrounded by the stale
smell of socks and sweat,

anywhere but here, walking this impossible road


April PAD Day 17 - express

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?

Learning to sit still

Sometimes when I'm alone
I cry softly
into the emptiness
just to feel the vibrations

Sometimes when I'm alone
I sit quietly
in the vibration
just to let myself empty

--

Carry on Tuesday #194:
Sometime's when I'm alone I cry