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if there is a love in your hands
be kind
like winter is on the unexposed
root of a tree,
be gentle
as if in your hands was a soon to hatch egg

be all that you are, naked
baking under the sun
but whatever you do, do not underestimate
love
like a novice swimmer does the sea
or the way a traveler does a new city's river currents
Dec 2022 · 237
Miraculous wings draft
In my pit of sorrow
I grew wings looking at you

the flight of winged sparrows above
me common to the city dweller was a miracle  to me
Dec 2022 · 102
a boat of kindness
keep this boat of kindness
anchored to dock of this tiny
speck of a body born into time  

may all violent waves and turbulence
never break the mooring line
correct all the mistyped words
with correction tape
bestow upon me the click of the roller as you turn it
with volition
yield me the appropriate inches
of mental space -margins
as I type a new year of life away on an eternal canvas
let me place them as numbers over a birthday cake
so that all the thoughts are eaten by the white space over  a rainbow sprinkled cake
in need of direction
I have asked the dropping branch
not to yield it’s snow like it yielded its leaves
Dec 2022 · 383
A portrait of us
You sleep in the next room tenderly
splayed out like an elegant silk dress

while I sneak  out of bed to write poems
in dim oven light

tomorrow we will see Jung Seob Lee paintings, I haven’t told you why I want to go
(He reminds me of you)
fueron lazos tus escombros
que después del huracán
de ti me ataron a tu memoria

divinas fracturas
que mi cuerpo terrenal
no pudo más que entrar
en capullo
Ciertas cosas son seguras
cómo el calor del asfalto
sobre cadera
arenada

cómo la agua tibia en la piscina al atardecer
cómo la tierra a su alrededor que recuerda la calor así te recuerdo a ti

cosas conocidas enlazadas
cómo si todavía estuvieran costado a costado presente las arenas del pasado
Dec 2022 · 93
Fleshy flechas
Without the piercing
arrow of the night
who is to say
what daybreak is
por amarte se me partio la lengua en dos
el lado izquierdo una rosa avenida larga capaz de querer tu manos y saboriar el manto humano de tu cuerpo encajado sobre tu alma  

el lado derecho igual, bajo mi paladar sensible a tu tacto
se rindo pues es  incapz de juzgarte  

aveces pienso que parezco aserpiente por quererte
y me hace querer inventar nuevos mitos
pues cada mito de mujer y culebra me roba la lengua
this week I have been reading so much in Latin American poetry that poetry in Spanish just starting flowing. Feeling a different rhythm in my tongue made me feel very calm :)))
Nov 2022 · 238
Untitled
I will write until there is nothing left of me until everything is poured out and given. Until it’s over: these hands &   their warmth.
Until someone else comes to let us know what their world has been too
Until my writing is of no need in a world of peace
in a world of beauty
in a world of compassion
Until we have conquered no one’s land except that of our own mind and laid eyes on the cruelty and ailments just as much as on the kindness and cures inside us

Make the decision to see all and pick to nurture only what will bring peace on earth.
Se lo quieras ser
y selo completamente
que te acompañen los racimos
de cada flor y cada fruta
a la adecuada primavera tu y ellos madurarán

Lleno y llena
bajo sol y luna serás
como toda flora y fauna
      vivirás y morirás
         madrugaraz y hacia el sol te volteas

puedes arrumbar las historias, puedes derrumbar la reja como raíz que busca  encontrar la ruta más corta hacia la luz
recuperando la tierra y tú recuperándote a ti misma

Se lo quieras ser
y selo completamente
You stretch your hand and this time you will grasp not because your hand is long  but because the line of love that like yarn was made of prayer, of hope, of courage to bring about change by others is strong enough to hold your body as it high lines. over the canyon. You prepare because you know this will take all your focus, all your wisdom, all your agility, and your discipline and all your human heart. Others may shy away but you will not
I run at night and try to jump like a doe towards the sky (it’s the closest on land that I get to a dolphin jumping out of  the great horizontal-ness of  its own life

Under the moonlight
could my two feet multiply into four

At the peak of outward youth  
should I breed

what but love and kindness is better to breed in this world
Oct 2022 · 101
Untitled
Thank you to the temporary thing that I cannot keep
that have passed me
thank you for letting me hold you in this one splendorous life
Oct 2022 · 148
Your bright colored being
You are the last rose in autumn before winter
on cold night bright defying the muted sky
Be an opening flower
the touch of  warm rain water over your  petals releasing
the smell of your lilies

Your smile-sudden and blooming with laughter,
                                                                ­                          I see.

Tasting rain water with my tongue,
                                                         ­                                 I understand

Hear.                                                ­                                 Clarity. Clearly

The flowers is on my bare chest and I become we. And we delight in each other  and in the rain and in the turning of the earth’s soil and in the material dance of form. The way that the sun makes us both perk up let’s  me know we both recognize where warmth is and where it is not.
Needs directions
Section or no section
Actions
Oct 2022 · 225
I smile so wide
Oh joy you make me smile

you with each day charm me
woo me into more bliss
keep me laughing

Thankful for all living
The rain refreshes
with each drop skin,
stem and silt loading
on paved roads

brings water to my lips
I, a human flowers, feel
Hiding in your smile are the fresh flowers
in the vase and the hours you spent decorating your mind with book lines
Hidden in your smile is the mediation cushion
and the feeling of your healed sprained wrist touching the mat

Hidden object in your beautiful eyes
is the dark soil with dying insects, and crumpled brown leaves you turned
into a radiant garden

they see, but who knows
if they really see
water in a cloud
or the challenge in your expansion
Dame tu abecedario para comérmelo
para finalmente tragarme todo esos límites y esponjarlos para abonar las flores que nos quedan por plantar
Sep 2022 · 69
Quick write
(It is a question left in my throat
I wish of  the little things to be granted wisdom and safe passage )

Dear flower,
keep my gentle and soft like you
share with me how you bursted through the dark earth

Dear sky,

who has blessed me with rain
whisper your wise counsel over me
like the rain and mist that engulfs us in June–what way is the sea ?

Dear red dirt,

When I hold you in my hands I cannot help but feel I awe. How do you remain so beautiful
have we always been as beautiful as you?
Sep 2022 · 219
Cometa (El verbo amar)
Aveces mi corazón cómo un cometa
sale de mi pecho y se desplaza con amor

sobre tu estancia temporaria
con tanta alegría que se

que el vivir es la jornada del verbo amar
The thin layer of burned bark sits black
over your hand no more hostile

than a passing thought preparing to exit
for a new one to emerge

from the mind’s entrance
Sep 2022 · 103
If
If
the sun becomes a river in my eyes, engulfing all,  maybe then the majesty
and luminosity of everything will shine
as does the golden beauty of a sunset or of a compassionate word perched on the lips of another
all is possible
why change the lenses, see more pf what is already, sincerely there
There was a time when I would run to your door so wholeheartedly with sincerity as my bread offering along side a red wine full of my clearest intention to simply see you smile and be more confident in your own beauty

I would melt  like a small chubby stick of butter and feel like perhaps in those chairs we sat we all melted and became yellow viscosity –inseparable

There was a time when I foolishly saw my mothers eyes in you, her broken unhealthy relationship cloaked the room perphaps more present than the music-even you were clocked with it. In my mind, If you were my mother leaving my father, I would be the lover who showed up with open arms to offer a new safe shoulder

What heavy cloak that was. What an illusion. How I thought perhaps life was calling to stand for my love regardless of what others thought. This heavy cloak came off the day that love did not stand for up for me.

this cloak was so thick so heavy and when it came off and I could see by the non stop crying  and rapid way in which my eyes reddened around the lids and pupils
that I was wrong

that I was a truly alone in a place so far
But still my life in MY hands
Sep 2022 · 134
quietly coiled in my chest
I have tired to release too many times
but it’s like a spiral winding inwardly

and I accept it’s traversing and infinite nature always coiling and surprising me

at how it is still there
Sep 2022 · 255
I just needed (draft )
I just needed
solitude to move my aching willowed heart
to drop another seed just outside the periphery of my shade

Where a newer dream would have enough sunlight to flourish
and  burst as a sprout through
the  darkness of rich moist tears and acidic soil to became a sapling growing
Sep 2022 · 307
Untitled
The blue sky and scent of cosmos flowers are crispy
like the brown leaves that begin inaugurating autumn

I see lines of periodic motion caved
by the birds dancing overhead

When they look at us , those birds, do they notice our lines- our traversed geography made  obvious by our commutes

Does one of them know the shape of the line your steps make ?
Abrupt is the formicidae’s descend
into plummeting disapproval

this brisk ant mountaineering
over the hot terrain of my left foot

Is  not brushed off by my partner hand but my his fear of  a “crawly thing”


I tell him of my childhood-
alone in the garden with the animals - my mother in our home depressed- the plants and the insects were my friends.

I used to play with ants.


“ a life is a life no matter how small” i read in one of Dr. Seuss’ books. I would look at myself in the mirror– a worn out pink stool below my small eight year old feet. I was  in the third grade, but I couldn’t sit with my bottom on the chairs. If I did only my eyes and forehead would rest above the table. I so I began to sit over my knees and propel myself forward when I needed to grab my rolling pencil. Small hands reaching forward.


What is it about small things that makes someone try to dominate them to try and tell them where their place should be. When I saw the ants so steadfast move through their course I started to tear.

I realize now why, why I couldn’t let him step on the ant after brushing it off. Why I take take insect out of my office or my home in Tupperware.  

My life, their life  and our lives are  miraculous even if they are brief, even if from above we seem like those ants  scattered over green and brown splotches of earth; our cars lined on an overpass mimicking their lines.

(there is not such things as a small life)
**** cool
**** trying to be like everyone else and playing it cool. That is the way you lose your time, your love, your humanity and your will to stand out .when it play it “ cool” we all lose the unique contribution you could of made to the betterment of this world
Sep 2022 · 102
Feeling
I could feel the difference
between a thin strand of hair
and a thin thread of spider web
I do not want to have the same seasonal wardrobe fashion
that everyone else has
I do not want the trendy jewelry
or to  make the same pose in front of a camera
I want clothes I can wear that suit
my mood
earrings with a story behind them that you can hear  
a candid that captures corner smiles

Frankly,I do not want to be anyone else
you can take
the “fit in” trophy and put it on your mantle because I am glad, glad, glad
Gleeful and cheerful that  I get this opportunity
To live and  to walk in this skin
with these gifts and this inner light
At the foot of a mountain, I come to bury the ashes of all my past lives. I come in joy to lay down what sorrows were of old
to empty my heart as if it were a pail of water to be soaked up by the earth below me

to build another mount to honor all the challenges that like rocks struck skin
those difficulties that winded across time and felt like chains
but that were really sections of a map
that were really my healing under a long period of time  
that were a gift worthy of receiving

I come to sing and play and love and be under the moon by the mountains as I commence the burial of all which weighed me down
Aug 2022 · 152
Quick write 2
He has a life line that runs right across his entire palm
so his grandmother used to tell him he would do great or fail great
( we all fail great if we live long enough and do great if only we can see how stupendous our simple acts of courage and kindness are)
He listens when I am

angry because my ego (my little I, my concept of “me” with all its stories is in full gear) activated dancing circles around my sanity,

sad because I cannot see past the veils of ecstasy and sorrow and peer into reality (where these is no story attached to anything, a pencil is pencil, ) for that moment,

hopeful that the small caterpillar hanging from the tree will survive and enter chrysalis ,

goofy dancing  good bye as the train doors close and he’s off to his home  and when I talk his head off about the albums I have been listening to (most recently everything Branford Marsalis has played on)
at the foot of the mountain and ask that he please be my climbing partner.
                He hikes. He hikes  though the forest in summer with me despite the inevitable  encounter with his arch enemies (the mogi) the mosquitos 🦟

stretching my hand out he reaches for it and we take a long peaceful walk
The Sierra Nevada is a dwelling
for the old limbless sages
rooted firmly into the ground  
three thousand years slid off their annual needles
like rainwater in front of them I disappear into the fog; there together 
   We meet like old lovers while outside
  the others cut tree trunks and ask for more lumber
     And of me demand  my hands and their labor
They want our lives to be spent for them but in the mist alone we know that the clearest things can be hazy amongst but not lost in the madness of our cultural weather
Notes to self: Potential images or metaphors for next portion:
Sunlight crown is where the smallest needles grow
The weight/ massive quality of something can be negated by the metaphor of the small needles are the ones where the sun hit.

Then,= what does small represent: must decide and zero in


I absolutely love the redwood forest; it has a special place in my heart because it was the first place I moved to by myself.  I was  18 alone facing my self (mind, body, spirit) and there was no place to run. I had to simply face myself and the world around me. These trees saw me weep and heal. It felt so good to be in their presence. Some of the are 3,000 + years old. That are real magic, earthly magic-how seeds grows or how our limbs stretch what real life magic
“You can love the whole world” floats from up to the surface from the ocean in my chest

I can love the whole world within
me–the love affair commences
in the  limitless heart there we are introduced
so eager, so light and meaningful such small fleeting things are like a smile, the sound of steps and the tips of another’s  cold hands warming when you cusp them to try and hold them although they are like water destined to change and move along without you
Aug 2022 · 99
Untitled
These are the girls that dream
one speck of dust turns into a planet
orbiting their soul
To all the beauty in our hearts that will never end
to that infinite microcosm pumping
in each lub-dub love is dubbed in physicality
(as is to be expected in this world of form)
Musing 2
Lean in further
to lick the iron of the rod
that used to stand in your way
now it has been repurposed
now it seems timely to taste

(how it reminds
you that there is iron in wine)
Musing
Aug 2022 · 101
Infinity
grateful                  life      
Be                 an/a                   well of
    constant is        infinite
Aug 2022 · 74
curious child (d.2)
the full moon is a fresh cut catalina
mariposa lily that you placed in a vase
next to your virgencita de guadalupe
(the one you hung by my little bed, I'd yell
when you'd ask me to dust off stuff)

in the childhood  blanket of my dreams, the inquiry glittered
Aug 2022 · 84
Age (draft musing 1)
Just appreciate your youth
go wear silly & funky stuff, cut
your hair ,change your hand writing
go for a new pair of shoes
Dang, pick a favorite new color every week
until you cycle through the rainbow
and then do it again
change what you think young is
Pull of the masking tape that says 20, clean off the sharpie lines that read 40, laugh at the fact that next it you wrote 60, baby head for the jugular and once and for all liberate yourself, no age is the right age
for feeling youthful and fully alive
no age comes with requirements
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