People only ever want to ask me about
the poetry -
those verses about
busted up noses in outer space;
about the pros working
way down passed
the corner of Broad and Main;
about fistfights and hard, hard drinking.
But I built a flowerbed this weekend...
Twenty two tastefully irregular stone blocks
in a crescent moon shape,
filled with the blackest of soils.
The sweat of toil.
The digging.
The planting.
Exotic grasses. Asian maybe?
Purple and yellow flowers.
Zinnias or some **** thing.
All covered in a thick blanket of brown mulch.
It's a fine thing to have dirt on your hands
instead of blood.
No one ever asks me about flowerbeds.

This is the end time of a life
unfulfilled
a hurricane of possibilities
unexplored
storming through a life
untended
intended for Love    yet
somehow skipped
unrequited
except by Godlove
Kyrie eleison

Lord, Have Mercy


c. 2023 Roberta Compton Rainwater

a fantasy of love is
a sinkhole
full of water and deaths,
of hearts torn in sacrifice to
false gods, human gods,
indignities, caricatures of reality

I gave everything to them
believing
because it was easier,
because it was the program,
the curriculum,
the single choice available to me

it made of me a cenote,
drowned my heart in waters
caught
by the stony hole
in the indifferent jungle

sank me
in a deep blue hole
waiting to be discovered
by you, who made
of me a treasure, a precious cargo
priceless
worthy
beloved


c. 2023 Roberta Compton Rainwater

it’s like,
I ride songs into sweet
remembers
of my daddy
of my friends
of my sister, and my twin

I float in a star-strewn nebula,
a compostella, each star
a different scene and cast,
each a member of my asterism of
memories
each and all beloved
clear as the ringing of a bell
flooding my eyes with tears
of sorrow and joy and laughter

I ride music like
a flying carpet lifts on the magical,
gently carrying my heart
into the beauty and sorrow and laughter
of Love lost and
Love found


c. 2023 Roberta Compton Rainwater

Love demands Truth.
Love that bends and lies to pacify feelings
When Truth stands, resolute, cannot be
True Love.

It may be frightened, maudlin, corrupted,
Or many other things, but it cannot be
True Love.

Some, hoping to change the shape of Love,
Would pummel the footings of Truth,
But they haven't shovels enough,
Nor dynamite powerful enough,
Nor lies lasting long enough to dislodge
True Love.

True Love stands resolutely with Truth.
This relationship has always existed, always will,
While the Resistance has a beginning,
It must eventually meet its end.

      (DB, meanderings, July 10, 2023)

Can you see it?
Can you recognize it?
Can you feel it?
Can you touch and embrace it?
Can you become the very best person you can be?
Can you right the wrongs?
Can you?
I knew that you could
You can be a work in progress.

C@rainbowchser2023

if I close my eyes and fall like forever
deeper and deeper, just deep enough
I can feel the speed of the earth
it spins me further away from the path of harm
if you want to know me just look at the clouds
they carry the rythm of my tears
far away into the roundness of a blue heart