Tag Archives: poem

The Weight of Hours

Time drips like water through cupped hands,

each second a small death

we cannot hold.

The clock face stares with hollow eyes,

counting down what we pretend

is infinite—

this borrowed breath,

this temporary warmth

beneath our skin.

In hospital corridors,

fluorescent lights hum lullabies

for the sleepless,

while somewhere a heart

forgets its rhythm,

stops mid-beat

like a song

cut short.

We are all walking

toward the same door,

carrying our small griefs

like stones in our pockets,

heavy with the knowledge

that morning

may not come

for everyone.

The earth keeps turning,

indifferent to our names,

our dreams scattered

like autumn leaves—

beautiful in their falling,

brief in their glory

Beyond the Veil

Beneath the willow’s weeping bough we stand,
Where shadows lengthen in the dying light,
Your memory carved deep within this land,
A beacon burning through eternal night.

Though death has claimed your mortal frame from me,
My heart remains forever bound to yours,
Like ancient oak roots drinking from the sea,
Our bond transcends these temporary shores.

The seasons turn, yet still I keep the flame
Of promises we whispered long ago,
No grave can hold the power of your name,
No winter wind can make my devotion slow.

In dreams you walk beside me through the years,
My loyalty flows deeper than these tears

Celebrate

The griefs are many

but find value in truth that:

Each breath

Each heartbeat 

Each moment celebrating

Each of those

Is a courtship of death.

By embracing 

THIS breath

THIS heartbeat 

THIS moment of joy

Is a nod of recognition 

To infinite mystery

Blazing celebration

Our age is known

By the buried bones

Of our bloodline

Reflected in chosen heritage

And the legacy of their love.

Survival Safety

It is safe to play with the darkness again.

To coax it out from underneath the basement stairs.

To enthrall the dust from the bone filled closet.

To embrace the shadow that lurks beneath pallet.

The darkness loves to cuddle with the little self

reassuring the little, that learning deep truth

creates a Tower, crumbling accommodated fears

Darkness births wisdom from soul insults and betrayal.

The little’s shadow begs grief for the heart song abducted

Begs sorrow for the wounds caused by caustic demolition

caused by atrocities witnessed, experienced, coerced

The Darkness beseeches with terrified shrieks

anxiously imploring for tenderness and compassion

among the surplus of debris once cherished

Sermon of lies

On the knees of submission 

Hard on the floor

The sin of omission 

A morality score

Prayer hands clasped tightly

Like folding chair pews

Hymns resound violently

Long-sleeved black and blue

Submit to your husband

Follow his lead

Open your thighs

to embrace his seed

If life springs forth

from your virgin womb

raised the red, white, and blue

over a gifted soldier’s tomb

If your life becomes sacrifice

respond to what you allow

remember your promise,

remember your vow

Obey all the rules

follow the commands

Do as your told

Do not give demands

You’re less than a fetus

but more than you should be

tone down your laments

while living hypocrisy

Notes I write myself

I used to write down affirmations I’d find

encouraging words for a desperate receptionist

I creep on the cusp between late middle age and becoming a senior

Inadvertently, I’ve added to my counsil a ticker-tape parade

A collection of curated constellations of firefly stars.

When I felt like I was broken, a commodity to trade,

I used to write down affirmations I’d find.

They called out to other spirits in the abyss

where depth of character is most typically defined

by diagnosis

by trauma

by abuse

by neglect

By unasked questions that create black holes in conversations.

But, I realize now, that the affirmations were crutches for me

a way to organize the parts (corruption tried to kill) into pretty piles

I know now, that the people I’ve met were not, by me, to be saved.

I had no tools of my own. I couldn’t and can’t fix someone else.

Despite the advertisements of affirmations I forced myself to witness,

I felt safe among the wounded and the broken

as if acknowledging their suffering, I could heal my own.

By hand and earth, I lit my beacon, my lantern, and held it aloft.

I’m not a map, but I can point you the way out of the inky depths

I used to write down affirmations, but now, I hold the moment

learn from it, accept it, savor the flavor, come what may

I’m an animal!

I started out as a Mare

A pirate loudly aging

But I soon became an otter

Clinging to my people

Handle to handle

I turned into a fish

Overturned yellow tube

This was unintentional 

I scaled rocks 

Ducking under a sunken branch

Finally back on my trusty steed

I was a floater

Landing in dead pools 

With big rocks and shallow water

Butt’s up was flowing over

Rapids that jostled rapidly 

Happily lapping at the shore

Without good position,

I transmogrified into a T-Rex

Short little arms no water could reach

Neither could any feet 

I magically became a turtle

Floundering on my back

Finally in the flow again,

Mostly sunny haint blue skies with

Partly cloudy wispy white

Lava-floe sun shrieking hotly

A hawk and a turkey buzzard

Circle the sky at different altitudes 

I think out loud, “Ah, what a metaphor for my life.”

Chaos ensued, shenanigans had,

I laughed at myself in genuine mirth

I essentially stuttered downstream 

One challenge to the next victory 

How deeply grateful am I to learn

How I move in the depths 

And handle the shallows 

Ending up beached; engineering solutions 

As I concluded the journey 

I reverted and emerged, once again, Mare, but better for the experience.

Four years

A funeral is a condensed soup of stories

a testament to how they moved through the world

honoring the human they are no longer

wish flowers blown free by a child’s breath

The absence of their laughter, wisdom, joy

is a sullen void of yearning

Haunting the rooms where they lived

with a sharp recognition of the hollowness

The mortality displayed on our own faces

The recognition of our fleeting contribution

Our role in the stone soup of life

Our own responsibility to love so loudly

that we echo through our children,

leak into the community with emboldened abandon

Cherish each gift of spent intimacy

whether it came neatly wrapped in shiny paper

or a hurried wrapping in Sunday comics

Who we are is a reflection of everyone we know

who we become is the distillation of their best parts

Miss Mabel, June 13, 2025

Desiderate

I feel an animosity towards time

It proceeds without caution,

barreling through individual’s lives

destruction and creation embodied

A shallow dagger tattooing memories

in a word.

I swallow in lusty gulps the mana

that ever and again poisons me

with child-like misplaced trust

of the perpetuation of consistency

bathed in my blissful ignorance

in a word.

It’s not enough to hold resentment

towards the testament of our days,

nor is it a hobby to be taken frivolously

It is neither good nor evil,

but yet it commonly holds the dichotomy

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”

Or so the story goes

in a word.