what I really want to say is nothing
just take a long walk alone,
my little break from awesome
each foot lifted with thought
i'd live my slow stepping with cream on top
maple yogurt with a bit of  meditative eating

save the moment, then sit like a stone soaking… Read full post »

“Adult” feels closed in, as if spontaneity must be set aside
for proper planning, a perfect shade of blue that never falters.
I'd rather grow up on a song and call it love,
let its shape evolve with every understanding.  

We're passing a garage sale somewhere in the US,
bits… Read full post »

Some kinda everything has been building
for days, creeping in the quiet,
staring back at me from empty corners,
cluttered walkways, confused strangers,
sunshine hot, thick-damp, a musty cabin,
too short shorts in the frozen food aisle,
makeup caked on tanned faces

but it isn't even that (I was only… Read full post »

All I've got is this deep down whine,
started right after I thought,
for a brief moment, I was first up,
about to enjoy time alone in the morning,
just as I heard the sighing stretches,
creaking boards, soft good mornings
from a ways off and too close.  

Prayer helped,… Read full post »

My lunch companion, provided by Sandra's Restaurant

I've got company in this Louisiana cafe: scattered thoughts, a bit of self pity, cold chicken, hot coffee, and a bright cloth flower.

I'd like to have a poem for lunch, but nothing gives.

I… Read full post »

we have kansas sun before dusk
lighting our westward trail,

a case of water, racing winds
calling through open windows
this is what you prayed for

easy laughter,
food in a purple plastic box,
booster packs of gaming cards,
a funny smile on dad's face,
appreciating of his sons'… Read full post »

I keep company with what I know
I cannot predict or control.
Every second for sure, but I forget,
mercifully.

My reaction, my intention, my hopes, yes,
but nothing else.

I check as if reading a thermometer.
More energy today mom?
How's your appetite?
Pain?

She finally asks… Read full post »

This is the missed one,
another midnight dance
behind closed eyes,
only last night
there was no dance,
only the memory
of what wasn't.
Yesterday's poem,
that I put off
until after dinner,
beyond the 9pm nap,
until all intentions
of such a creation
slipped into no thought,
right up to… Read full post »

When all but my small light
have been turned off for the night,
when each door closes
and a certain quiet envelops the house,
I feel pieces of me shimmer with the ticking clock,
refrigerator hum, ever so slight ceiling fan whistle.
I become silence, weary but lifted.
Emotional notions set… Read full post »

I half dreamed yesterday's poem
in the singsong quiet before midnight,
liquid images playing behind closed eyelids,
snug under a patchwork quilt.

Another time, I would have crawled out of bed,
carried my body through the dark,
held the alphabet in my lap, bleary-eyed,
back bent over slow-moving crea… Read full post »

I waited at 3am, The Good Earth in my hands,
centuries whispering wisdom, I am also human,
Marlboro swirls collecting in my pajamas,
time trickling forward with unfulfilled yearning.

Years passed. I handed out hamburgers
and conversation to faces I will never forget,
names I never knew. I paced Stat… Read full post »

Who were we gathered tonight?
Your dancing hands and perfect wrinkle lines
from years impish smiles,

his whole-face-grin lighting
grey eyes from within,

a mother, observing the roomful,
one ear upstairs where her two-year-old
plays with bigger kids (including the two I raise),

my niece, her teeth… Read full post »

Picking up onion slivers from beneath the cafe bench,
walking to the garbage, shoving the door open with my pinky knuckle,
might not be a good beginning, but it is mine tonight.

At the point of being ready for the silent noise of opening my laptop,
hallowing my poetic muse… Read full post »

I can be poetic in the morning,
by moonlight, alone in a clean house,
beside a flowerbed, at a local cafe,
after a bike ride in autumn,
a walk through freshly fallen snow,
while holding a sleeping child,
through tears, to Mozart, Simon and Garfunkel,
silence.

I can write a… Read full post »

I'm content to wait.

I know all four points on this afternoon's list.
What to buy, what to do, how to prepare for the next doing,
later, beyond this pleasant spell.

Already after four, I am aware the day is marching forward
for so much of the world while… Read full post »

I wanted to give it to you, the real beauty, the bit of sweetness,
the way my breath caught barely when I saw the whole picture.

I love to see it there, the full moon framed in a pocket
created by my window, lamplight, and the great living room fern,… Read full post »

I smell everything cookies rising in the oven.
Cinnamon, raisin, walnut, chocolate chip.

I made them and I didn't.

Measure, dump, mix, pour, shape, heat,
cool at a prompting beep.

Not till, water, weed, witness,
pluck at perfection.

My company was the dishwasher's hum,… Read full post »

"Worrying is praying for what you don't want."  This quote and the tornadoes in Dallas this afternoon, trying to get a hold of friends and imagining what they might be feeling as the roaring passes so near, gave birth to a poem.

It is this thing that, when allowed… Read full post »

What does it feel like after you win the Olympics,
drink champagne carried aloft on the arms of manic frenzy,
begin to inhale deeply again, then stretch your winning body
in an unfamiliar bed a thousand miles from home, still the same
flesh and blood who emerged from your mother so… Read full post »

In honor of redirecting words to clearly reflect
the unexplainable at times when grammar
gets in the way, when I wish only for shades of meaning
to wander through your mind, I commit to creating
a quantity of poems equal in number to the days
in my birth month (how fitting)… Read full post »

I don't even know why I'm crying except that I have to because something hurts so very much, something with a name that I cannot reach. I just turned off the porch lights so the neighbors might not see me out here crying. I know it's… Read full post »

It is what I would write when you're not looking
that I need to say, pressing through the still night air,
not whispers or wisps, but transparent shadows,
their voices the barely-wind, hawk's call, promise,
long low breath of flute song, a thing being crafted.
I never tell this story.

If you were here with us, you would smile at his soft voice, heart-shaped face, feathered blond hair just a bit long in a cool way, too-big little red sweatshirt sleeves crumpled at his wrists, with an ease I am lacking just now. Just now needing to not… Read full post »