You don't know how this feels.

Most probably
there are people at your table
fighting over puffs of corn
or raging pink and blue rings of sugar laced
Os.

You might be wrapped in an embrace now,
a man creeping up behind you
smoldering a fire between your shoulders with his lips.

Or your mother is smashing beans or broccoli,
your father is relaxing in front of the news,
or sweating after a day of work.

Perhaps, your friends are calling to invite you out to play.

Poetry is the voice of the simple.
Even the simple understand grief
abandonment
terror
devastation
surprise
elation
satisfactio­n
delight
resolve
surrender

The agony of love
can know nothing
of the blood
that spills
niagra style
out of my heart.

You are walking, I am walking;
We breathe in the same-exact-moment
We are both alive.

It is like my womb still holds us both
we are twins being warmed by the same pulsing beat of life.
Our skin is the same one made from the other.

I am following you,
seeking you,
my mind reaches for you.

GO OUTSIDE!!!!

three women looked in at me
one black man barely glanced,

I couldn't step onto the stage
that year, or any other year.

thirty thirteen year-olds
moved into the arena like cattle

wearing too much lipstick. unstoppable.
385,000 babies entered the world that day,

all crying. I became irritated, anxious,
like I needed to go back in time.

I kept reading, losing my breath, until I had to leave the room.

There is a hope in our children
when we birth their tiny hands
waiting for them to make their
first markings.

They are bluish, cloudless skies and
miracles, like magicians
out of thin air
waving wands coaxing
a future mother has been
dreaming of.

Empty nest of twigs broken
against arms holding,
reaching, straining to take back
the damaged days burnt under
a sunlight.

draft

story idea

Not I in this life,
though I wished so hard,
and prayed every night.
Not God's dream for me,
though it hurt much
not to be.

Still with each breath, Lord,
though you may not give this,
I can feel one man, arms long, singing
craft, and peace, loving creatures
gently, and waiting for only my tune.

Though a wife I will (probably) never be,
though hope refuses to leave my soul,
it is what I listen for, the sound of
rugged wood, of fire, and reason.

Scoffers and fools
wasting away
chafed by the wind
ruined, crumbled
stolen from, rejected.

The poverty of the poor is their ruin,
I am in poverty.
A rod for the back if you have no sense,
I make foolish choices.
I worry and dread,
and yes, it comes true.

How much more of me and mine will be destroyed?

Turn me around, O Lord.
Make my mouth, my lips, my words righteous.
Guide me with your instruction
and keep me only along your path
that I may find men and women,
brothers and sisters, to learn with,
to pace my life with, to encourage one
another towards your solid way.

The only person who calls me today is
the creditor man.
God told me I was supposed to date him from now on,
and I guess I'll listen to him this time.
There was a fear I had at 25, that I would crawl out
of an old apartment house each day,
stinking of agedness.
People, that fear is about to happen, and I don't know
how to stop it.
Death has me in it's grip, and despite everything
Christ promises, I can not feel the light.

I can feel my leg still,
cut off still,
bleeding still.

My leg looks like a cabin,
a dark shingle, logs rotting
from being loved.

Phantom cabin pounding
my frontal lobe, I hear the hammer
pounding still to build.

Foiled at every turn
some say this as cliche,
for me it is true.

Every love affair spoils,
each chance at wealth stolen,
any opportunity to get ahead blocked.

Flower petals fall when
the bee refuses it's kiss, or
light reserves its brilliance.

I can hear him laughing from his grave,
he found a way to take back the cabin.
He sent an emissary from Hell
to conspire,
a ***** Demon riding on the same fiery wind
the Hells Angels fly upon.

God called him home,
I can hear the violence in the house of the Lord.
He refused to go through the gates,
Instead, sailed into the flames,
swan diving into the raucous-
heat, sweat, blood, and laughter.

A throne awaited him.
While he sat in the high backed seat,
gorging on the sights of sensuous agony,
red devils dancing like gypsies upon his lap,
he laid his plan. He sent a dark messenger
to whisper in the ear of the demon soldier,
animating his eyes until he found me.

Out to plunder me. Devour me.
Trap me. Convince me. Surround me.
Bait me. Test me. Sample me.

How many of them were there? How long
had they been watching me?
Sniffing me, digging around,
until they heard the words "the cabin".  

The ***** Demon had the job of waiting.
Of seducing, tempting, arousing, convincing.
And steadily, with solid consistency, with daily reliability,
like the morning train into work,
like a husband who comes home every night,
he sent lyrical promises,
called me "baby",
kept me swooning with his stillborn smile.

Even when I knew he was a lie,
like a fiend scratching the street
for a dollar to buy a hit,
a gambler who can not quit,
I kept asking the sky, "what if he is real?"

But he wasn't, he was sent,
by the other who would not rest,
until he wrestled from my grip,
the cabin.

The land was worth half a million,
with the large log cabin and
the tiny one on the edge of the hill.
He found the property for $10,000 just,
and logged it gaining $11,000 back.

I was worth the potential of half a million,
I had value at last. I had trees, and a home to build
and design, with family history and stories written
along the roadway.

I could have walked that road, carrying my granddaughter
telling the tales of our men,
how they came, saw, conquered for themselves,
and how their women held onto their gold as though they
would have to be killed first before they let someone take it.

Another day, stewing in the lies you told.
My head aches,
Will I ever feel right again?
Why would men and women do this to people?
One pocket is not emptier than the other.

Every moment I feel the gaping hole that is the home I once owned.

The earth under its foundation, the moisture of the air surrounding it's log walls, the history of tiny feet padding over soft mud.

My heart dies when I understand I can never re-earn that wealth.
That I am too old to recover from this loss.

And I know, whatever gain you found from the dollars collected from this cabin can not be equal to its true value on the earth.

I already feel dead,
not because of the virus,
rather because of my grey hair
I refuse to color over to
hide the white of my nature.

I am poor, I wasn't poor
until I was lied to and stolen
from. Now I am pitifully poor.

I need to rebuild, but I am old,
I am weaker, I limp, I sag, I
have no youthful beauty, I have
nothing to attract anyone to care about me.

I am terrible at the job I
choose to attempt as a second career. I
might lose my job and become penniless
and homeless.

There is no one who wants to help me.
You can read the progress of my life here...
I was not always this sad, there have been happy
moments in my life,
when I was young.

I accept this award for all the other writers who
weave stories through finer mesh with deeper complexity
and with a genius of the human psychology.
I feel as though someone may have bought this award for me.
Although, out of respect for the possibility that a phrase of mine
may have reached out to another,
I accept this on behalf of all of us who speak to one another
through words and characters that tell the hidden thoughts of our own lives. If any grouping of words I have written pierced into your core enough to stir your spirit giving you the feeling that you knew me and I knew you, that we were kin or kindred, then I accept the award in honor of that moment.

My ranking was 115 out of 300 or so
people at the high school I attended in
Kansas. Ineffectual. By most standards.

The university denied me membership into
the honors community, blacklisted by peers,
ignored, forgotten like a transient looking through
the cafe window at the revelers eating and drinking.

young voices contributing to publications, singing
thoughts, shaping the tenor of future days, heralded
like shining angels transcendant of mortals, supremacy
allowed to decide the shape of our cities, schools, feelings.

Entrusted with the duty to chisel our lives into a shape, the approval to think for us, or be the catalyst of our own thoughts, or rather simply, the winners who wrote it best, they ran faster, they ranked higher, they knew more.

Not one of them my voice. my voice was silence,
shoved back by the bouncer
at the threshold of influence.

Words floated inward, I witnessed the streams
of phrases float passed me on soundwaves,
reaching the ears of luminaries, academicians, renegade thinkers.
crowds rallied, wept, and devoured the ideas embedded in the poems, essays, articles allowed to reach the readers of the day.
Minds opened, wealth shifted, a flight towards a new horizon saw people preparing for the liftoff.

Yet, nothing changed.

The wounded continued to bleed upon the sidewalks
outside my apartment. Tiny children ignorantly ran past schools
refusing to walk inside. Men and Women preferred to dance viciously, like celebrating heathens, rejoicing in their ****** rituals, unashamed to entice one another into poverty.

SHOULD things even change?

Would the presence of my voice even make a microscopic difference? What vanity did I carry that imagined one hope
of a thought birthed from my mind might create the tipping point for human recovery? Wouldn't it be better to remain silent and let the masters continue with their work? Let the fittest push me out of their way, leaving me in the trench to camp and rebuild my primitive shelter. I will die soon enough. My dust enriching the soil as best it can, preparing the earth for tomorrow's crop of leaders.

I am sitting here, or lying there, yes, across this bed, penning in my diary as the tropical winds off the Argentinian jungles
breeze through my curls and a whisper tickles up my thighs.

I have left the din of sorrowland,
I have taken flight into the drifting clouds,
I sit atop a cottony cumulus, bouncing surrounded by delight,
for I have found love.

There is a window through which I climbed
out towards an edge that promised me
pain and painted lights and desperation too sweet
to pass up the taste, a lust, a danger, a disaster
of life and I wandered happily out towards it's calling song.

Singing repeated songs, the strong arms of men,
playing around and around as I sifted through the moments
of thought and image flashing in day by day.
a young woman swept up in the transience of the traveling musician.

The tornado that lifted me out of my shelter
never did settle me, and I fly still, gazing down upon the
distant patterns of grids and circles, laughing
with a miraculous hysteria,
at what the breeze blows in each day.

Springtime awakens the concerto of fliers,
fluttering awake, rejoicing in their strength,
They sing to sound the morning and life itself,
calling through thin airs, while the cicadas sleep,
dominating the cathedral with their sunrise choir.

And you, as you rise, are showered by their concert.

It's funny when you look back
to find out you have been erased
from the lives you thought you'd
played a role in. Who will remember
me? Did I even exist? There is no one
around me to remember I am alive. I
disappeared from the memory books,
covered up, erased.

I will die alone
closed eyes remembering
how it felt when he
chose me to be the
girl he called each night.

dying alone with the wind
blowing maybe.

A fire might burn and
I hope there is someone I know
holding my hand or wiping my brow.

I will die alone, all these days,
these faded blue jean years,
brown boots dirt. Music soothing,
I hear Noah Gundersen singing my death.
He sways the tunes of woe,
I hope my death sounds like his song.

Terrible for all the days there
is nothing a fortune teller can see
Between sundown all the way to marching into our
last breath.

Waiting, we shall watch, foxes all,
like calculating merchants ticking out pennies,
wiping our counters, holding onto towels moistened
by water dripping off the glasses of laughing diners.

After hours we walk out the kitchen door,
sit down on a stool in the alley way,
in the glow of the low tangerine sun.
Exhausted, we are, from dreaming all the day.

on the dating site I subscribe to
poor like I am, but full of quality
content to never be perverse
thrilled you found me
like the boys I used to run with down the railroad tracks
free, unimpaired, undefined
open to change, open to evolving slowly
discovering me
cutting wood or planting a garden
listening to soft music
keeping time to my footsteps.

Hello Poets,
my only friends
those who understand
why we sing into night.

Life is terrible, I can finally
say that now. Love, love,
It bludgeoned me twice.
Men, men, shiver at my song
sung to them while laughing.

Never did I intend to wound.
I hurt, with the sheer honesty
of my ignorance.

Age, Age coming near.
I am begging you for a home,
where I can be humble, earthbound,
dusty, and poor.
Where the heat of the sun is my only luxury
and wood on the fire means I am rich.

Life, life bring me back my youth,
just two years ago, when I thought the sky
was still open.

Crying today, I wish I'd done things otherwise,
I remember a day  when we walked down the lane,
I was more innocent then,
you had been the one hurting me.

It was the quietest day of the year
when I discovered I knew nothing at all
except the loss of everything dear and knew then
it had been all my fault.

Without thought or time to think I'd wounded
every last one. Because I had no filter to speak
of, and I thought people were made out of stone.

Not so, as it turns, we are flesh, mostly flesh
with very little bone.

There is a little river that I sit by when I'm sad,
I'll stay there everyday
until I'm no longer mad.
When the rains fall down
upon my head,
I'll shelter under cover
of the trees growing tall
by the river.

There is a little river where I can be all alone.
No one can find me there
I can disappear and disappear.

That you are able to say anything you want
and our actions will determine
our metal?

Satan uses people too you know,
how do I know you are not filled with his grace?

Is God silent
watching
while Satan plays his chess?

I don't want it to be true,
but if you are a brother,
why am I struck down by you?

Why are you here in my place?
Why could you not keep
a kind moment kind
and our lives at rest?

Hello strangers
wishing to just share
a tiny moment
to fellows
without really knowing you
only joining in camaraderie
of being alive,
and tormented,
and seeking refuge
without ridicule,
or chastisement,
or lies,
or false words.

I sought this place,
for days and years,
only to have never found one
small corner.

So here i stay
persecuted
spied upon
teased
and stymied.

I only hope there are a few
unknown eyes with whom I might
share my song.

There is no relief. Death could come faster.
My only fear is who will take care of my child.
Nights like tonight,
I wish someone would die,
he or I. Take one or both.

Send me to hell if that be my home.
Or is this chamber on earth
just the first of many.

Why did you send him to torment me?
Why does he choose trespass?
Why can he not stay anonymous?
Why did he have to signal me his presence?

If it is God's work he does, why does he bother me?
Why does he not keep a timely distance?
Why does he not disappear into his own time and place
that is not mine.

Give me my private hollow,
forget me from the minds of anyone,
let me die in the minds of everyone.

This is like a spirit circle
feathers in our hands
none of us listening
just given a private moment to express.

breathe spirit
sigh into your chest
cry into this troubled night
where you dream of a midnight sky
twenty years ago.

this song is not for you or you or you
to hear. Our deafness blocks all sound
or feeling.

These songs left here
are simple prayers
sung over and over
and over again.

with grace I hope
fraught with wickedness
to my shame.
brought to madness
through lies and sin.
I forgive you if I am able.

Found and watching,
this is my singing place
simple and slow.

That is how I will fight.

I'll ***** the pin through the paper
to bring the light back through.
Not all darkness persists.
In our desperate cries
into the void
God does listen.
Faithful to us
until the end.

Just not smart enough
All your disguises
I knew from long ago
you were a black box
a blank canvas
a bored interloper
toying with all the rest of us.
Until one day, there will be a maiden fair
she will laugh, joke, cut, chop, hit,
powder you
until you can not resist.
Follow me some more,
I led you there, and here, and
wither and nither until
what happened?
An answer.

Will there ever be a time when fallen love
releases me from it's talonous grip?
Allowing me to flow into my own
pulse, like river water free?
Like freeing air blowing from the West,
Like the crack of dawn, all yesterdays forgotten?

Will I ever be reborn, will the night purify
my new day until I awaken and only  
warm arms to keep me
welcome me back to life?

Order I say, order.

This tide sweeps over me
until I no longer want to live.

despair invades every breath
until I agonize over the pain of
going through each day alone,
walking over dandelions, watching
children sing,
spotting young men and women
embracing,
while I have only known rejection.

A prayer for today. Bless you. May Christ give you the lessons in this day that might guide you further into his grace. For all of us, may we learn from our struggles and trials, and know that among those who sing with poetry, our souls are heard by our brothers and sisters in Christ.

This is a new day so they tell me,
hello new day, I want to thank you
for what you have given me.
A chance to become myself again
to be true to myself,
to love myself,
to not sacrifice myself,
to not compromise myself,
to find hope again,
to just love this one more new day,
and see what amazing moments you contain.

God didn't give me an epiphany
He didn't give me the tragic life of a *******
or drug addict
that brought me to him
in a spell of repentance and tears.

He quietly, gracefully, gave me a child.
He gave me the fear of keeping my son safe
in a world that so readily devours it's young.
I chose Christ, in a long, slow, up hill climb to him.

Taking my time to shed my Jewish heritage,
sinning over and over again on the quest
for marriage and a happy home.

Still climbing, now one more attempt has left
and I can resume my journey, my pledge,
my desire to be a Christian. To give that to my son.

What does that mean, even, to be a Christian?
Where can I find others who truly live that life?
So many I have seen, men and women, in love, married
But one man I knew denied even them the title. I guess they were doing it wrong.  

Who is right in the game of Christianity?
Some will say Jesus, Jesus, yet he will say
He does not even know them.
Which one of us are they?

The people you keep in your life are the people you love.
Only them. Only them.

Is that God is in control.
His almighty power
knows my life.
Guiding me,
giving me the life he has planned for me.
All pains and troubles are a lesson,
growth.
Where was I before dear Lord?
Where am I now?
For you I shall live. To love you.
In the emptiness where there is noone,
the loneliness of being alone,
I will sit here in solitude,
knowing this is how you wish my life to be.

New friends, old friends took you away.
had you loved me, you would have seen
all that I gave up and gave for you.

It was like you took every step I made towards you
and moved in a new direction.
it was like every move I made gave you a reason to back up
and create a life for yourself that did not include me.

You found new friends because you thought I had new friends.
All I was doing was trying to find a job I enjoyed
so I could feed you and make a home for us.
I had co-workers,
you retaliated with getting your own social life
that did not include me.
Perhaps you are emotionally 14.

And it is true, I broke up, and I looked.
I ran, and you stayed. I considered other men,
but could never. That didn't matter. I was guilty.
Never mind I always came back.
Never mind that last weekend, you said you loved me
only to throw me away.

Now you have your guys to hang with,
and a woman you can talk to every night on the phone
the way you used to call me.

You say she is just a friend, but you saved her deep in your phone,
then when you were ready to reemerge, you sought her out.
You did something much different than I ever did.

No dear, you never did love me,
because love does not behave like that,
love is blood, something you can not live without.
And now you very much, and happily live without me.
Because you made the choice to call her.
And there can only ever be one.

Look at me and all my flowers,
look at me and all my mess,
do you see yourself in what I have to offer?
Or are you more like her? Two peas.

But we were a disaster from the start.
So really, the disaster drove us apart.
But why all the blaming? Why all the hate?
Why all the lying? To ourselves and one another.
Had we loved, we would still be together.

If you do not like what you see,
Reading my words,
Gazing at my photos,
Then turn away.
Do not enter my life.

Before time began I had no name
nor face, nor home
I needed no future, nor plan
no clothing.

only skin
with sand blown against
the rough dry surface,
tan, dusty.
desert worn.
Earthened.

The days promised to carry on without end,
I never aged, never grew old

the silver in my hair fit.



I could climb the sierras, scale rocks,
swim the American river if I wanted to.
Men and women smiled at me.


I had beauty.



Time steals,
and now I only wish to make peace

so she might return my aim towards grace.
So my silver might return,

so the sand of my skin might roughen me
into a well worn woman

of the hottest day.

Old
Dead
Left
*****
Fat
Pathetic
Ugly
46 yrs
Wasted
Used
Unwanted

Lost to the tides swept out,
all the days in California
loving the forests, knowing the prospects
of opportunity that waited for me around every corner.

Life could happen, all my dreams lived there.
The ocean rolled out towards Japan
We rose last and stayed up later
the countryside rolling out between each of us
there was room to breath and be happy in our nature.

My home, my tiny corner,
my clean pine bench and sweet drop-leaf table,
my wicker chairs with linen-covered, feather-filled pillows
padding the seat.
Gone now. Gone.

And where am I? Far away in a land that does not want me.
There is no sunshine here, there is no hope.
There is no health here,
there is no love.
Only ageing and death to follow.

Will I fall down in failure here?
Unable to hoist the weight of any task,
inept at thinking, speaking, answering.
Tick Tick Time
Tomorrow's answer will arrive.