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Many closed doors

Many closed doors

I arrived empty handed near my old stomping grounds

where I learned to hate myself due to disapproving frowns

It’s where I learned that to survive is to run freedom unbound

Yet here I am a-haunting my past which I’ve long since outgrown.

I have been with rings on my fingers and bells on my toes

I have been ground into dirt and from the grave rose

I’ve stepped through the portal, forsaking the spirit world

For now, I must reinvent this stronger, stranger home-town girl.

Through the gate

A bunny in a garden

A bunny in a garden

The military straight fence posts stand sentinel against wildlife.

It amuses me when the rabbits squeak through to indulge in

the abundance of ripened fruit dripping from the vines

Ripe tomato juices blooding the hand-crafted stairs with their offerings

while the green beans are green together, envious of size

The wind sculpture shifts in time to the darkened rolling clouds

it startles the rabbits back through the gate to another buffet

I wonder if this is what beauty looks like when it is no longer imaginary.

I wonder why the voice I spoke to every day feels absent.

I wonder if I remembered to pack it or if someone else did it for me.

I wonder if it will return with barrels blazing with razzle-dazzle or

if it will slip in quietly through the gate to show me a different way to be.

Dark Moon Reflections

Night time is a go

Night time is a go

The midnight air is clamorous as crinkling cellophane.
The cranky crickets tick-tock in the grass with leggy chants.
The zz-zzt of the cicadas clamor boldly in jumbling rants.
The nearby expressway donates the rumble of trucks in lanes
trumpeting progress of deliveries unmet.
A flash of light shifts the shadows in the next room
as a car passes like a shooting star at the crossroad.
I open the door to feel the whispering kisses of the cooling air,
opened the windows to let in the songs of what’s out there.
The scent-dripping lilies stain the night

with mortuary perfume visited too often eons ago.

The click-clack of puppy toes traipsing laminate floor in the tone of wood
reinvent the solo of a long-hauler’s jake-brake slowing progress’ brood.
Barely audible, the neighbor’s open windows
bail laughter out in rapid chortles blended with giggles.
I smile as the humidity of their family
adds to the breath of life I’m inhaling with my senses.

The trumpeting herald

Trumpet Swan

Trumpet Swan

I drew my face of happiness upon my colored mask

I hobbled down two decades of steps that led into my past

I touched the ground at mother’s knee with my wings reborn

Straight from devil’s flaming pit stabbed forward by his horns

But I arrived with soul intact despite the battle fought

For I was embraced in cherished state, learning as I taught

With patient hands on comforting arms, I heralded the news

There are always both sides of the story that always comes in twos.

The fading mask falls to the floor in porcelain jags and breaks

To see my own reflected back challenging age old fates

Have I truly conquered the demons that once hunted me down?

Have I earned my place once again in this familiar alien town?

What will be the price I’ll pay for rebuilding from my past?

Will it be worth rejecting anything that ain’t kick-ass?

I know who I am now but I’m curious to see

if the world to where I physically birthed, is ready to meet the real me.

The leak

I’m leaking proof of a former life onto the new lawn.

I followed the hose all the way back to the beginning

but I can’t find the place I need to repair yet.

If you hand me a tissue, please, I’ll dab the melancholies

with a brush of orange tint a ballerina’s blush

I knew the sacrifice made will be larger than I expected

but the gifts and blessings I’ve become familiar with grow

They’ve landed on healthier soil, soaked in similar whiskey

aging better than most I’ve known but the hose is leaking

I just pray it doesn’t kill the grass.

Where am I?

The weeping Southern skies can’t promise to choke me humidly.

The rising stars refrain from performing to crickets and frogs.

Abandoned is the sinkhole of basal intent to protect!

I lay unfamiliar in a bunk bed I don’t own; reeling

I am packed tight in the blankets like my luggage.

The air (thank you Kay) is different here; archived scents

I watch walls blooming colors warm with sunset, not Volunteers

My breath keeps coming but I’m still holding it,

The weeping angels of Southern skies wave; I love them

I blow a “kiss my ass” back at those who stole illicitly from me

But that’s barely a toot of air forgotten after a pizza bird

The process will digest as slowly as Mayfield milk gravy.

Self Sacrifice

Feathers

Feathers

When you came to me, you were more than a dozen.

Everything about you was something it wasn’t

I bent my fingers to shape your hands

I reconfigured my halo to destroy the badlands

I stripped the feathers from my wings that flew

I fashioned them to show you the skies of blue

I made horrifying textures smooth for you to build

I wrapped your intimidated heart against the freezing chill

I comforted primal screams from your terror filled nights

I kissed your cheeks lovingly while you fought the fight

I defended your body, your mind, and your spirit

I gave you safe haven, wouldn’t allow bandits near it.

I guarded you with a Battle Queen’s power

but (SNAP!)

like that

you snaked away in the witching hour

while the bells of winds change rang in the bower

to return to the dark from which you came

afraid of the light that I showed you again and again.

I release you back to your puzzled up mess

It is with deepest sorrow, I lay you to rest

I shutter my windows, lock up my doors

mourn who I knew you could be; but won’t be I’m sure

until you know your own value, nay, worth

my heart no longer yours, your memory dispersed.

Stardust and Oceans

I held your hand while stroking your cheek

Whispering to you the depth of my hearts belief

You stared blank at the ceiling but I knew you still there

When the winds stirred the curtains to brush at my hair

With rattled breath you returned to the ocean

Waving goodbye with the power of rawest emotion

Your sweet and gentle passing has erased your pain

But in doing so has increased mine, bring on the rains

Silent your breast, cooling of skin, I sat next to you so very alone.

It was a sacred privilege, an honor, to walk your stardust spirit home.

Mother Moon

Mother Moon

Mother Moon

We feel the sway of the moon

To our mother’s bosom we cling

At the heaven’s feet we swoon

Full or dark we’re worshiping.

The pull of tides cradle hearts

At her breast we are mollified

In her arms we’re created art

Full or dark, we’re pacified

Stars in her eyes

Reaching for the stars

Reaching for the stars

When I awakened from the dreamless deep,

I was shocked to realize that my eyes could not see.

I had no way of finding upon which path to set my feet,

because all I’d ever done was walk around in sleep.

But then I found the very stars of which you, longing, write,

and I followed them into the sky; into the sacred night.