I find myself wondering
about young men today
why don't they open doors
for their women?
What happened to chivalry?
Please don't start screaming
about women "burning their bras"
because there's more to it than that
What happened to the generation
of fathers that taught their sons
about respecting ladies
and protecting them?
now it seems most of the
younger male generation
use girls for ****** gratification
and personal idolization
I have granddaughters
they have been taught well
they will not degrade themselves
for some pimple faced ****
with a bad attitude
come on down to Maw Maws house
I'll give a lesson or two about manners
yup me, my sweet tea and my trusty 347
bring it on *******
this old lady ain't no frump

I don't know if I should be
Ceaselessly hopeful
That I am understood
Or ecstatic
That I can finally understand you.
You, without me, outside me,
Much larger than life, and me,
Before me, far from me, unlike me,
Are magnificent,
Sweaty sweet,
Systematic and
Symptomatic,
Making a difference to the universe.
While I sit here,
Waiting for the world
To make a difference to me,
Making excuses that everything I'm thinking
Has been thought already.

I have had ideas, many times;
I have had anger at all the world
And its plates and cups and knives and forks
And pots and pans.

I have used coffee scrub, up
To my elbows
And sugar scrub on my face.

I have stood over rose beds
With my legs far apart
And bled colour to the world below,
Trailing my hell along behind me.

I have had bitter blandness
Blanch the back
Of my throat and the roof of my mouth
Until all that was left was bleach.

I have held glass bottles to the sky
Waiting for thunderstorms.

I have whispered my love to the palm of your hand,
Then watched it drain out through the cracks into sand.

But still I will eat
All my meals out of teacups/
I will let my blemished body be/
I will smell every flower
Growing along the side of a drain/
I will gargle before bed
With pinecone and cherry grain/
I will watch
Outside my window for hail/
I will whisper other things to you
Until the end
Of time
Or tomorrow --
Whichever comes first
-- and hope that inspiration strikes.

She was 87 years old.
Has trouble with arthritis.
Daughter said
Can you smell that cream?

She told me her mother
Was full-blooded
Cherokee
And I told her
I could see it in her face.

She said I had cherokee blood
She said she could
See it in my face

She said someone
Brought her a seven-sided statue
She said she didn't know if she believed
His story.

He said an old chief
Came out of a tree
And gave it to him.
He said the old chief
Said it was meant for her.

He said he would
Take her to that tree
To see if the old chief
Would come out
To meet her

I told her
I believed

I always have to wonder
When folks compliment me
On my wonderful
Imagination.

They never
Imagine
That my reality
Is just wider
Than most