Category Archives: Personal

I really dig

I really dig that when I open up my blog reader

I find people-y readers lurking about, liking this or that.

I really dig that when I peer back through the shop window

the readers grunt, groan, lust, hug, love and hate like I do.

I really dig that when I peer through the looking glass

I don’t find my readers slumped sleeping in side-chairs.

I really dig that they poke fingers to keys while:

drinking coffee

popping pills

drinking bourbon

honoring artists

dancing with desires for origami people on paper they will print.

I really dig that the people I don’t know by face

stare back at me as we travel, passing on our reader’s train.

I really dig when we arrive at the same destination of personal truth.

Because that’s when the shit gets real.

TRIGGER WARNING: The Only Sane Person In The Room

You were the only sane person in the room that day in Earl’s basement in November of that year. You were the one I clung to as my savior because even Janet, his wife and sole witness, rejected the truth before her eyes that Ron committed against my nine year old body.

I escaped through the portal into the apartment that Mork shared with Mindy. I thought of you, Robin Williams, the way you brought that alien to life. You sheltered me from the horrors that happened to me that day. You allowed me a place to recluse myself so that I witnessed what happened to me from a distance. That the pain was unfettered was too much to bear and you, without knowing it, were there with me. You stood by me in rainbow colored be-pinned suspenders and danced around the Colorado apartment. You protected me. Mindy didn’t matter as much as you did, dear Mork. She wasn’t strong enough of a personality to shield me from personal tragedy like you even though she was there too.

I can’t thank you enough for what you did for me that day in the basement unbeknownst to you. If it hadn’t been for the character you brought to life, ironically, I would have emotionally shattered. I only wish that I could have returned the favor to you. I only wish I could have eased the hurt, sadness, and tragedy that haunted your life.

My beloved friend, that I didn’t know in person, I will treasure your gift to the world as if you made it just for me, because that day…that one day, you did.

Truly and Dearly

The day we met, I knew, that from that day forward

The sky would have to embrace a truer blue,

The stars couldn’t sparkle except from your eyes,

The sun would shy from your radiance,

The moon would hide its face in shame,

The oceans would flow from your fingertips

Bending to your whim and desires,

The earth, itself, would long to capture your attention

And when you smiled

There was my Happy Ever After staring back at me

It was then that I realized that I’d move any obstacle

To bask in your heart

In your love

Forever

The Death Knell

Three times

The death knell called my name

The spear impaled my soul

Rivulets run thick, hot, flame

To fill the vulture’s bowl

Three calls

The crow yelled out my name

Vortex-ed by a black hole

Nemesis’ smile, mother’s bane

Lost virtues to extoll

Three times

The gruesome knell rang out

Drowning the sobs of longing shouts

Purging the bosom blooming full of strife

Judge’s sentence now through life

Three calls

The crow yelled out a warning

While the locusts came down a ’swarming

Shredding loose what once was cherished

Forcing surrender of love to perish

Dusty thoughts

 

The dust has barely settled.
My cup is empty again.
The protests of the floor above
isn’t you. It’s them.

I sit at my table wanting
to be left alone
I have no need for antics
knowing you are gone

I’m not really sad
I’m not really upset
I’m not really happy
Wishing to forget.

These Are My People: Shanna Harris

Sheba

Sheba the cat never smelled that good again.

She went unnoticed, unimportant, just another face to greet and forget. Politely enough she smiled, laughed a bit, joked a bit then faded quickly.

In the freezing cold of a February winter on the mountain’s edge overlooking the valley, the sun came out and shined from her face. She forced a double take from me.

The snow melted away as if July had suddenly sprung a leak before it was supposed to and stole the frigid air right from our lungs.

I stood there and looked at her and she at me. Our eyes blinked like newborns at the sudden bright light that ignited in between us like a bonfire.

As the snow drifted on the winds that tickled the pine needles down from the branches to land on the pristine white, we became believers in faith and one another.

We picked up our brooms, our mops and our feather dusters and buckled into mundane work while we wove our foundation with light and shadowed ghost stories.

Our hands took away the dirt that accumulated on surfaces long ignored, like she’d been, like I was. The intricate loom swish-clack-swished our lives together into a southwestern design.

The colors were rusted sand, Ponderosa pine, snow white, gravel gray, sunset pink, sunrise yellow, and broken sky blue. We wrapped within each stitch making it our fortress.

When the work of the night was completed, the cleaning utensils put back where they belonged, we remained. We stayed bonding our bindings with tomorrows that have yet finished their tasks.

These Are My People: Alicia Menninga

A Love Note

A Love Note

Goddess

Her hair flows like cool rivers around her shoulders

brushing softly at my cheeks

she leans in to touch my arm

whispering thoughts that caress my ears like a song

Her scent is musky rain with a hint of sandalwood

It cloaks my breath with its subtle incense

My heart shudders, bounces, tossed as if on a rolling sea

Her soul floats openly in her kaleidoscope eyes

Her tranquil gracefulness is haunted

with echos of vulnerability and pain

She glows like an oil lamp, flickering, heated,

fueled by a passion for life…and love

She pulls away and with a simple gesture of her hand

she proves herself to be exquisite, delicate, powerful

Her gentleness sweeps against my skin like a searing hot fire

Her giggled words, like cannons,

firing…exploding

encompassing me.

One kiss would damn me

One intimate touch would be my downfall

The consequences harsh and brutal

The risk too great

I hover, instead, around her light in hopes

that perhaps she might shine on me again.

Phoenix (1995-Revised)

I don’t feel like a phoenix anymore
I feel overthrown and solitary
In my dreams and nightmares
I hear his cries, his pleas
I am as defenseless as he
I can’t save him from living death
Any more than I can save myself
In my meandering daydreams
I cuddle him closely to my skin
But the sun snows clouds of fog

and I become confused in the ashes.
And I can’t feel his hair
I can’t smell his skin
My body aches to hug him tightly
To tell him everything will be okay
I wander around in darkness without him
I don’t feel like a phoenix anymore

Jedi Garden

Your sugar-coated violence was used

to coax my sympathetic heart back

from where I felt safe

from where I felt protected

from where I felt alive

from where I could be myself

instead of a role that you glued on my back

a role that I allowed to be superimposed

a lampshade to dim my light which shined anyway

Did it ever occur to you

that once you punched me

that once you slapped me

that once you pushed me down

that once you pulled my gun on me

that maybe, just maybe,

you shot me alive

by demonstrating the very reason

I could no longer stay by you

because you’d have destroyed

the very me I’ve become,

a light to guide others through

the loss of their power.

Had you succeeded

the skies would have gone dark

My tears of mourning would have drowned me

I gratefully would have rejoiced in the absence of me.