Category Archives: Poetry

NaPoWriMo: Valued Activities in My Poetry

Experience, Embrace, Enjoy

Southern Spring

Southern Spring

The winter haints poke billowy chill
In the clouds that pass my window sill
My sight obscuring by the white washed flowers
Coaxed from sleep by rumbling showers
I release my heater from whimpering to silent
As the spring rains come with stormy violence
I creep my window up inches by foot
Dependent on if the weather is good
The dogwoods bark perfume
As the red-buds come to bloom
The lazy flowering magnolia trees
Smell like Southern backyard orgies
I heed the spring promising summer lawns
With the haints of winter fading
Now
Gone.

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TRIGGER WARNING: Spousal abuse is no joke

The First Husband

April is Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Awareness month (among others). I am a survivor of Domestic Violence.

April is Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Awareness month (among others).
I am a survivor of Domestic Violence.

I felt the wash of rage strike through my stomach when I saw you there

With a ONETWO punch of viciousness, I cringed as if it were a physical blow

Violence flashed before my blackened eyes that have long since healed

I remembered in crystal clear detail the fire you created

That burned my possessions forcing me to be your possession

That charred my childhood into echoes of musical damnations

Removing the blessings my mother gave to me

On sunny afternoons in the plant room of my childhood home

And you, with lighter fluid in hand, me begging forgiveness

You tossing key upon key into the blaze despite my please, thank you.

There you were, glaring your judgement on my friend

Turning your nastiness towards someone I love

Every bit of forgiveness I thought I could give was erased

“I think you’re just being vulgar for the sake of vulgarity.”

Fuck you! You’d still have the wife you pledged to protect

If you wouldn’t have pulled her gun on her, or slapped her,

Or pushed her, or punched her, or threatened her, or raped her

Or abused her, or took her love and threw it like your smelly shoes, away.

You no longer are allowed access to me, you son of a bitch.

You are denied access to love from me or my tribe.

You are rebuked and are denied absolution from my heart because of your actions.

Lie all you want to the people in your life now, but we both know what happened.

We both know you are not the “Christian” you claim to be.

We both know what you’ve done.

The door is closed, return to your own hell.

NaPoWriMo: Poetizing the News of 1913

The assignment is to write the news poetically, from 1913. I express that I do not believe every cop to be a representative of his brothers and sisters. I believe there are good cops as much as I believe there are good people everywhere. If this strikes your conscience, then perhaps you need to evaluate where you stand on race. I, personally, stand on the side of the Human Race with love in my heart. I do not condone the use of violence that seems prominent in law enforcement (admittedly it is reported because it riles up the masses) currently. It was in 1913 but for a different reason even if there are strong similarities.

Negro and Phagan

Negro and Phagan murder trial headline

The Knights of Mary Phagan

The Knights of Mary Phagan no longer wear robes of white

Instead they put on the shades of gray, wear badges in broad daylight

The Knights of Mary Phagan were making “justice” of perceived wrongs

While now the blue badged brothers sing the same lyrics of the lynching song

Mary Phagan was a 13 year old girl, found murdered on an April night

When the nightwitch discovered the heinous crime, reported it forthright

Battered was her death, filthy with dust her face,

Her childish life void of life or innocence in grace

Her neck emblazoned with her own petticoat, her childish body ransacked

That the responding officers were convinced at first their victim to be black

But she was Mary Phagan, just shy of turning 14

just trying to get her paycheck, instead her labor demeaned.

Leo Frank, a Jewish man was accused of committing the crime

The evidence said he’d dragged her face down, which caused the face of grime

But yellow journalism sensationalized the slightest breath of truth

The state of Georgia ran amok chasing stories like the fabled golden goose.

After Leo Frank was convicted and sentenced to life in prison,

The Knights of Mary Phagan, refused this coward judge’s give in

They stormed against the “who cares” guards and took Frank to the lynching tree

Where they made strange fruit of the Jewish man just like they would a darkie.

Over a hundred years have passed since street “justice” faded to shade

But now we’re shown it differently, yellow faux journalism with failing grade.

And we’re told, to look over here while the story is in plain sight

So we can’t tell the difference of 37,000 days and nights

The Knights of Mary Phagan no longer wear robes of white

Instead they put on the shades of gray, wear badges in broad daylight

The Knights of Mary Phagan were making “justice” of perceived wrongs

While now the blue badged brothers sing the same lyrics of the lynching song

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These Are My People: Ray and Coral Juras

I was scrolling my Facebook feed and I found a picture of Coral and Ray looking into each others eyes while they danced together. When I first met them, it was in the social hall at the old church building. They didn’t attend the service but had scooted in to “hang out.” They were so warm and kind that I instantly realized they were kindred spirits with one another. They were just content as clams to be nearby. I loved them warmly then as I do now. This is a poem inspired by that picture I found but can’t yet retrieve.

I barely knew the sea, ne’er touched the heated sands beneath my feet

I didn’t know the lighthouse song or the foggy waves clashing the beach

I didn’t taste the salty air or dream of it cleansing cool against my skin

I never watched the tides roll the beach, tossing shells as the waves washed in

But then I looked into your eyes with the warm smile of the sun a beacon…

I am intimately aware of the soul of the sea with the heated sands beneath my skin

I heed the beckoning of your loving heart and with the lighthouse of your love sing along

The fogs have lifted where once it was shady, but you and your love light my way again

I embrace the kiss of the salty air in the dream where I get to be your spousal song

We’ll dance like the tides ebbing and flowing, splashing playful at the shore,

As I return again and again to you, my beautiful, the one the ocean dictates I adore

NaPoWriMo: Estranged and Cut Off

Songs of Nation’s Pride

I truly believed at my mother’s knee

That when I sang, “My Country Tis of Thee”

The words I sang were truer than true

That if I bled for honor, it would be red, white, and blue.

But I’ve awakened to find a land divided

Bathed in disparity, desecration of what was once united.

I was taught at my Navy Veteran Daddy’s knee

That the Star Spangled Banner was to be honored deeply

That if I sang with truth in my heart

I’d stand united with my countrymen, never to part.

I believed in the land of the free, home of the brave

But I’ve awakened to find a land of the fee, home of the slaves.

I understood from my Grandparent’s legends

That America the Beautiful open armed beckoned

The words describing purple mountains and amber waves

Breathing life into the fruited plains of graves

But I’ve awakened to find a dying fracked rocky tops

Blackened drought plains laying desolate of crops

Where my family is from in Michigan The Rapids, la Grande

Makes me, all joking aside, a Yankee Doodle Dandy

Where the emblem of, the land I loved

Was supposed to be where there’s never a boast or brag

But I’ve awakened and I’ve found this only applies to non-fags

If you’re slightly brown skinned or poor, they turn you away

Ain’t nobody got time for that, they’ll remove you from society’s gray.

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NaPoWriMo: Poetry For The Blood Flesh Bone And Spirit

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Immortal Life

The Universe beckons with unlimited views, of endless possibilities, of impossible creativity

The Milky Way skitters about like a kitten, while I chat with Orion about deniable topics

I sing a new planet to life while dancing spirals around a tangerine moon

I embrace a tree that has soft pink fur and mint green fingers that hug me back tendril-ly

My body has infinite form. It is how I discovered you searching for me at just the right moment.

Just as I am immaculate in my divinity so are you in yours, together we are creators and destroyers.

Come, let’s dive into black holes to be born again and again like an eternal slip and slide

So that we can laugh with one another in the air of different worlds,

So that we can sing in languages so ancient they’ve not been invented yet

So we can make love under waterfalls of diamonds or daisies while clouds hold us aloft

Let every trouble we’ve ever known fall desolate and lonely into the darkness

Come, let’s join as one; dividing centuries with our offspring flourishing anew each season

Let’s burn rage to the ground, wash tears from our children’s eyes, breathe death to life, and fill our footprints with the petals of flowers that sprout into massive forests of lively discussion.

Let every wonder be a present of unlimited views, endless possibilities, and impossible creativity.

NaPoWriMo: I Made This Poem

The ending lines to this poem are not on this art. Diane Crump of Wyoming, MI is the only one who has the true and intended ending of this ditty.

The ending lines to this poem are not on this art. Diane Crump of Wyoming, MI is the only one who has the true and intended ending of this ditty.

The Dandelion Dress

I want a dress made out of dandelions

And a crown made out of stars

I want shoes the color of the Milky Way

To wear to a dance on Mars

I want hair the color of rainbows

And a song as warm as the sun

Come, take my hand, my friend

Come follow me to the fun!

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The Public Execution of Walter Scott

April 4th, 2015 North Charleston, South Carolina
Weather forecast called for weather in the mid to upper 70’s,
But a new low front was ushered in under guise of hate

I checked the forecast but it said nothing of despair.
It said nothing of the wrenching guts or the tearing of the hair.
It didn’t think to warn, on the balmy day in spring,
Just how much that father would be sacrificing
Because he bought a brand new car, a Mercedes, shiny clean
But like a beacon to the racist rants it attended glaring screams
A cell phone captured video of the systematic lies
Told by Walter Scott’s murderer that watched that human die.
No remorse, no regret, just a planted Taser laid near blood
Deny what crime your hands committed, deny the hateful flood
But truth is not as fickle as the weather we predict
The rules are far less flexible, in fact, they’re rather fixed.
When will you foolish humans learn, LOVE ALWAYS WINS, not hate.
April 4th, in Memphis on a balcony, 1968

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NaPoWriMo: This Poem Is A Myth

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Philemon and Baucis

“Welcome, dear companion! You’ve come to hear the tale?

Of the truly loving mortals that stand before this temple trail?

What? You’ve never heard of Baucis and Philemon?

Climb that branch of Oak there and I will climb the Linden.

Yes, ‘tis true they are of one trunk, get comfy hear this story

For tonight I tell the tale of a humble immortal glory.”

Upon Olympus Zeus sat bored twiddling his beard,

“Hermes, my quickened friend, let’s explore some weird.”

Hermes was always eager to dip his toes in mortal world

Grabbed Zeus’ hand before his mind changed to Phrygia swirled.

“We can’t go door to door, looking like we do.”

So they dug some dirt and conjured clothes making beggars of the two.

Hundreds of doors they knocked upon with no the final refrain

Zeus was boiling with fury, Hermes with disdain.

“Do they not realize,” Said the patron God of travel.

“That when they turn away a stranger, their luck will soon unravel?”

“Apparently not, my friend,” Zeus replied. “But let’s try one more time.

For up ahead is a dilapidated hut that’s way past its prime.”

“If you say so Zeus, but you’re bound to be disappointed.

That’s certainly no place, where wealth has e’er anointed.”

Before the hand of the beggar ever came to rest on the door,

It opened up warm and widely, to a dirt, but well swept floor.

“Come in! Come in! Come join us while we feast.

It’s rare when we are visited by such company as thee.”

Baucis began feverishly to put the food together.

While Philemon worked diligently to make the visitor’s comfort better.

The old woman boiled a pot of hot water and raided meager provisions

The old couple worked the room feverishly under watchful supervision.

She prepared olives, bread and bacon, radishes and eggs

While the old man took a broken dish to fix the table leg.

They spread out the table with everything they cut loose.

They even chased until breathless both, their family pet goose!

They filled the plates with generous portions. They filled the cups with wine.

And among the love and laughter, the four people heartily dined.

With a burp and a push, the Gods revealed their true being

The old couple nodded with love at each other then to the Gods now seeing.

“What is it we can do for you, name anything you wish.”

Philemon nodded to Baucis, his eyes filled with tenderness.

“This humble cottage has always been our home, though our pockets are slenderest,

We’ve never known a moment of sorrow, never had to borrow.

We’d like to live here, if you care not, to serve you our living days

But we ask that neither one of us live alone when one passes away.”

Baucis smiled up at her husband with tears in her sweet blue eyes.

Philemon smiled back at her, then they bowed to the deities.

A beautiful temple of marble and gold sprouted where they stood.

He grew leaves while she grew leaves as they turned to wood.

“Farewell my dear companion, were their blessed lasting bliss.

You sit upon the tree they became with the final lover’s kiss.”

If I die before I wake

I woke up covered in sweat with the blade of a knife I didn’t own mere inches from the face of my sleeping husband. I’d just stabbed a brown and tan hairless creature, that was trying to eat my arm, with a vicious punch. A child of about two clung to my chest as I adjusted enough to skillfully (Where did I get that skill from?) hide the blade again. I was panting with exertion, as the large brown eyes of the little child (Why do I have a child?) stared back at me with complete trust. I sat up in my bed. The child touched my cheek with a tiny fist and slid from the waking world back into the mist.

My muscles twitched from unusual exertion. My legs, gimp foot, and arms felt like I’d been running for my life. I searched my naked body for the blade I’d held in my hands, I pushed and pulled blankets searching for something that wasn’t there. I looked at the clock on my husband’s bedside stand. In accusing red glare, 4:47, alarm still set, gentle snore and roll over from my husband.

I settled my breathing as my mind tried to sort through what had awakened my physical being. My little dog snuggled closer to my left hip. My cat paraded with pride up my body to curl at my right shoulder. But I just couldn’t shake the feeling that I was in the middle of a war I knew nothing about in the waking life.

The night before this happened, in the sleeping world there were three men, one a sheriff who had given me false hope that he would rescue me, chasing me through swamps. I’d hidden low tide in a bunker. There were so many dead bodies in this bunker. Across the rising water against the opposite wall was a girl who was long dead but her blonde curls, like mine, were still mostly in tact. She wore a pretty dress like an Easter one I used to get. It was blue and had a white lace “bib” on it. She was wearing Mary Jane shoes with most of the patent leather shine gone.

If I’d been wearing shoes, they would have found me, but I drowned in the water. I was mercifully gone before they discovered my body. I woke up vomiting swamp water, barely making it to the toilet before it launched.

Why am I suddenly entrenched in a battle? What mysteries are laying behind my dreams? I need to figure out a way to keep control of the violence before it wanders into this world.