Friday, June 4, 2021

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. 


Thursday, May 20, 2021

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 mingling with the smell of morning dew

Surrounded by sailboats 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


Tuesday, April 6, 2021

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.


Tuesday, February 9, 2021

Pixie Dust


Lick the pixie dust from your lips.

You’re laughing at the Unicorn’s warning to be careful, "that fairy’s not to be trifled with.”

But it’s your last night in Chicago and you want to revel in the magic, drink in the jazz, throw caution to the wind.

You’re not going to heed the warning, succumbing to the danger that you’re in. 

“Isn’t this fantastic?” You shout over the saxophone player while you’re sitting at the corner of the bar.

“Killer.” Whispers the pixie queen as you collapse into her arms.


Wednesday, February 3, 2021

Summer and the Clouds



Summer sits.  It sits with its head in its hands deciding what to do with this lightning that never seems to end.

Curious, the pregnant clouds also sit.  They’re at the same small table, drinking shit beer and smoking – nature is getting half-lit.

“Aren’t these bugs just stupid? I wish they didn’t bite as much but scratching your skin riddled with bumps is just part of summer.”

“You can’t be mad at it.  Well, you could, but your bitching just seems wasted – go make lemonade. Or cut up watermelon, that’s something better.  Grab a towel while you’re at it, I want to go for a swim.”

The Clouds are up from the table, obeying Summer’s whims.  Getting their picnic prepared.  Everything is ready now, skinny dipping in all this heat, the water feels just right.  It’s a nod to their childhood.

“Jump in without caring! God-damn it! I stepped on a bee!”

“That’s what you get for running through the clover barefoot, Summer.” The Clouds chuckled, getting back to their backstroke, smelling like coconut suntan oil.

“You’ve always been too lazy, you never learn.  Remember last year when you got stung running through the water blowing out from the garden hose?”

“But it was coming out so cold!” Summer never gave a shit about the flip flop recommendation – too busy laughing, hopping on one foot, throwing out lightning.

The Clouds, they can’t be bothered, floating around, eyes squinting, pruned up fingers pull the swimsuit from their cheeks while they towel off, wringing rain from their soggy waving hair.

“For the last time, put some got dang shoes on your feet, we’re leaving.”  Summer relents like a toddler, the last hurrah before packing up – summer is finally over.


Monday, February 1, 2021

Bunny



“Piece of bunny!” She ran to her mother, knowing this was wrong.

Cybil, the German Shepard had a piece of a bunny.

 

Bouncing it like a ragdoll off the end of her blood-soaked nose.

Horrified, her mother smothered the child's eyes with her palm.

She wasn’t meant to see this violence.

 

Now grown, the child can’t remember her first dog killing the rabbit,

kept in the hutch just outside their home.


Disco



A violet crepe deep plunging V neck wrap dress,

cork heeled shoes with rhinestone straps


Metallic mauve eyeshadow swept across a lid

Bad Girls fills the air with music

 

You mastered the hustle,

time to go out and dance


Hang On



Hang on tight while racing downhill, helmet on, the motorcycle thrills 

Hadn’t thought of that memory in so many years, a happy recollection of a father-daughter time

Hanging in the space of her mind, held precious, playing frame by frame

Her thoughts become music, his hero’s welcome song


Friday, January 29, 2021

Perfumed Wild



You smell like toasted tonka beans and bergamot, folded in with a suggestion of raw amber. Lips dark as cherries, holding back so many secrets it plumps them out fully. Hair carelessly falling like strands of honey, golden, dripping, and flowing.

A halo of afternoon just rained light is framing your body. The spirit that compels you beats like a drum set to the pace of wild horses tearing across grasses. A stampede, holding nothing back as they race to their death fearlessly over the edge.

Everyone’s eyes follow you from the top of your head to the black patent leather heels boosting you up in the puddle, they reflect. No one seated in the café is doing anything, frozen in time while you subtly touch your neck.

Intoxicating as you may be, I’m wary of your wiles. The houndstooth jacket you’re wearing keeps your crazy buttoned-up, while I allow myself to get caught up thinking, just for a moment, this should be love. 

But it isn’t, you left the vase of flowers strewn across the floor after hurling them at me. It wasn’t love after you pressed that clove cigarette into your lips years ago and told me at the stroke of midnight everything would be over.

It was love when I saw you dressed as a clown in cowboy boots wandering through the party where we first met. The nervous laugh of yours silenced as it bit into the lime and licked the salt from my hand after mutual friends introduced us over shots of tequila. 

Now you’re the girl in the café that everyone dreams about. I knew that girl, she’s a gorgeous, mind-blowing, burn the world down, take no prisoners disaster. Finish my croissant and cappuccino, breaking the undissolved crystals of residue sugar between my teeth at the same time we break our stare. 

Turning my eyes downward, away from your Hollywood glamour, I lay my tip on the table, careful to tuck it below the bill, you've been a delicious distraction. But I've grown too smart now to be caught up in your beauty and rotten to the core no one can see aura.

We smile that first-night flirting smile, happy to cross paths, and wince in the same moment, ripping the band-aid off our past. I wonder who’s horse you are now, and reflect on my fortune, I made it out as a heart bruised survivor. Stopping before being hurled over the edge by your unbridled perfumed wild.