A loss of some sort

The quiet was
comparable to a death
Silent embraces
Deep, consoling stares
Exhibiting true
passion.

A & T

when summer ends,
my optimism dies
and blooms in another pasture

today i did the miraculous
i turned negativity into positivity
water into wine

the beginning autumn chill
clear blue skies
i warm myself under the sun

I shouldn’t, but I will and I am.

outdoor psych ward

frail ugly old man

in the alley

your fixed stance and pink

trucker hat scares me.

your eyes shielded by dark shades

are you asleep–

or just dead?

8.28.10.28.8.10.1.3.38.19.10.8.28.

RADIO

a note played
a smile made
no tips paid
just coffee, tea, and
lemonade

tuesday, mother’s birthday

what does it take to be a
noteworthy writer?
an inventor instead of an author

a mother to words
they’ll sip, settle, and sink
after my breast

my head, a cage of black chickens
they peck and prod but
peck and prod with purpose
laying eggs like me, like mothers
warm their spawn the way mothers do

live in these
these eggs i manage to incubate
some scrambled in a hot pan
oh, the struggle beneath this striped
this striped, this striped, ummmmmmmmmmmbrella

and this heat– the heat makes
me resent it all

sickly

when i hug you,
i feel your bones through your shirt
and when you open your mouth
all that comes out is dirt
your hair is fake
but your eyes are still brown
boy, do i miss having your light around

Buffalo Wild Wings-inspired poem

…Originally inscribed on a guest check.

This poem is about being abused at work.

Bdubs, oh Bdubs–
This crowd that you attract
Snorting, drunk men
who don’t know how to act
civilly in public.

Your crumbs I must sweep,
Your fries I can’t eat,
And your audacious to think
that I live to refill your drink.

You’re not my Jesus Christ–
so don’t think once, but twice
that your wings are my purpose.

I can see my car from this hostess stand;
Want to storm out like a man
Move hundreds of miles away–
How ’bout Japan?

Sometimes my mind will go astray,
and I’ll throw your silverware away

Yet I feel little to no remorse.

James Joyce

“A girl stood before him in midstream, alone and still, gazing out to sea. She seemed like one whom magic had changed into the likeness of a strange and beautiful seabird. Her long slender bare legs were delicate as a crane’s and pure save where an emerald trail of seaweed had fashioned itself as a sign upon the flesh. Her thighs, fuller and softhued as ivory, were bared almost to the hips where white fringes of her drawers were like featherings of soft white down. Her slateblue skirts were kilted boldly about her waist and dovetailed behind her. Her bosom was as a bird’s soft and slight, slight and soft as the breast of some darkplumaged dove. But her long fair hair was girlish: and girlish, and touched with the wonder of mortal beauty, her face.” James Joyce (1882-1941)

Quotation by Stephen Spender

Critics of visual arts and of music describe in words—that is to say, a system of signs other than those made by brushes on canvas or chisels into stone or notes of music—those characteristics of painting or sculpture or music which can be described or analysed. Visual artists and composers can disregard critics on the ground that the medium of verbal criticism bears so indirect a relation to the medium in which they make something. Poets are in a different situation. With the development of so-called scientific methods of criticism they are made ever conscious that criticism of poetry is in the same medium of work as the art which they practise. “Close analysis” is useful to critics and readers. But for the poet there is the danger of disintegration of poetry into paraphrase, examination of technique, influences, all analysed in the language of criticism.

Tired

is it perseverance –
or denial of one’s own fate?