Tag: poetry

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Calico Dream

I was in Asia staying with newfound friends

It was the future – soft light warmed everything

Sounds and sites of vegetables simmering in pots were everywhere

I shaved part of my head making it easier to wear wigs and put on disguises

Wearing this bizarre 1970s motorcycle helmet, white with red racing stripes

The stress of being in these new surroundings was so exciting it made me vomit 

A cute calico befriended me, always looking like they were going to speak – they never did of course, just kept purring, following me, or were they guiding me?

I found you in a scrapped-out airstream, told you I loved you being my best friend 

We cried a little, it wasn’t sad, just being there with each other was good – for the first time in a long while I felt like myself

It took a dream, waking from sleep on the couch in pain, being transported to feel like me, if even for a moment again. 

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San Diego

Sitting on the balcony of our hotel room,

A still morning greets us, looking out over the water

Drinking French press Kona

The oils from the freshly plunged coffee mingled with the smell of morning dew

Surrounded by sail boats and the view of Tijuana

You discovering the bliss of lox on an everything bagel

The day was crisp

Wrapped in cozy sweaters

Watching the gulls catch air, floating effortlessly by

One of my favorite memories

Captured in the amber of my mind

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Fresh Legs

Stretch, feel skin cracking from beneath Winter’s permafrost.

Ache at the bones snapping into place after the yawn of cold morning shrinks in the Spring sun.

Pull off scratching socks that heated you through the night, cold toes be gone.

Smooth oil over this organ, this canvas that’s been painted black with the loudness of heartbreak and righteous discontent.

Robbed of the season’s stolen time.

Not a single bit of goodness fits through the strainer you’ve ripped gaping holes in.

There were things to celebrate.

Yet they shared the same room as the shattered pieces of heart.

Feeling like an awkward lanky teen yearning to burst from anxiety into their prime.

Selfish in these feelings.  In this push through, in the same house fighting through the awful and the sublime.

Spring arrived lacking anything that sniffs of newness.

Pull the curtains shut, put a sweater on, pull the hood over your head.

Lay down in the unmade bed.  Sheets needing to be washed that still smell like her.

Refuse, just one more day to rot in the love of stolen kisses.

Stuck in the ordeal of perpetual eventide.

Every single memory tied up in her hair, in her ashes.

A smooth red wooden box embellished with her name.

The urn, the lingering frankincense clinging to the drawstring silver bag.

Her hand pressed into clay for remembrance. 

Plant the rosemary, plant the wildflowers.

Hang the chime. 

Place a sleeping statue in her favorite napping sun.

Mourn her.

Celebrate her.

Move tomorrow, embrace Spring slowly with fresh legs.

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Year of the Cicada

It’s the year of the cicada, it is deafening. 

Their voices rise from the ground like a million corpses resurrecting.

They usher in the cast of characters changing the global scenery.

A blood-curdling fevered pitch of waking violence, sickness, and death.

Death of how we used to live.

Death of comforts taken for granted.

Death of mankind that choke our hope.

They usher in the cry of change.

The blood-curdling fevered pitch that wakes collective consciousness.

Rebirth of how we now will live.

Rebirth of comfort found in Mother Nature’s ingenuity.

Rebirth of mankind embarking on newfound paths.

They mark the year that found the world on fire, waking growth like a forest after burning wild.

It’s the year of the cicada, it is deafening.