Is obviously unsolved to this day.
Is a heavy blizzard subject to drought.
Is a crater in the ground launched into space.
Is the lowliest temperature in a dance hall fire.
Is said to help stem the spread of ceasing to exist.

Critics call it the finest film ever made.

by Rose Linke

You didn’t know me. We kind of pretended to like each other because we wanted ***. And so we pretended to have a relationship. But  we really didn’t. This is a hardship. This is a struggle. Something to take on together. Otherwise, we are just living our own individual lives in tandem. This is the first piece of honesty that has shown itself in our relationship. This is the first sign of weakness. No, I don’t want it to happen again. I want to be cured of it. I want it expelled from my heart by the power of love. I want someone to wrap me up tightly in their arms and shush me as they rock me back and forth promising they will help me to overcome. I want their patience, acceptance, and understanding to be stronger than the anger and frustration that boils me inside. I want their kindness and devotion to give me the time to get better. I want them to watch over me as I grow. I am still the 19 year old girl living in her own flat for the first time in her life. I am still the maiden waiting to be molded by the man who becomes captivated by her youth and beauty. She has never been found, she is still waiting, hoping. Until…time runs out, and then she is thinking of building the walls, so she shares herself with no one, for their own protection.

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.

A slate chill
Beating morning
Chuckling
Drips of life.

Yoga is the union with God,
God is love.
I believe in Christ,
a word not often spoken on the mat.

The pain and agony of sin
tears at our souls and brings tears of suffering.
Ahimsa: Thou shall not ******.
Satya: Thou shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
Asteya: Thou shall not steal.
Brahmacharya: Thou shall not commit adultery.
Aparigraha: Thou shall not covet.

Then:
    You shall have no other gods before Me.
    You shall not make idols.
    You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.
    Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
    Honor your father and your mother.
    
It goes deeper,
not even to think a harmful thought, or wish a harmful deed.
Not even to steal an extra moment of someone's time,
Or lie to yourself about how happy you are.

Lift the sin, lift the illness, lift the suffering.
Like a miracle disease is erased once the lie leaves the room.  
God, Christ, watches each moment,
every breath,
each half of a thought
we just made.

A breath of prayer and honesty
lifts the veil we hold in place
over our eyes.

Careful not to lower it too fast all over again.

beyond the measure of any cure
sits my pleasure of sought after
dreams delighting in roaming with your
grace filled presence in city adventure
or sat at a table shedding quiet tears of adoration from afar.

A frozen house stilled mid life,
while the lives within shed
blood from a tear mid stride.

hearts stopped beating,
loving strokes suspended mid brush,
her dappling with the voice of another
pulled her love into adultery's pouch.

his seduction cloaked in friendship,
his lie of never leaving,
his deception of his true nature,
he could have known he would never love her.

her home barren of noise of family,
empty, gutted, a winter's frozen shell,
she will lie now in the out lands upon the ground,
freezing alone, unforgivable, a harlot, wishing, hoping for death.

A frozen house stilled mid-life,
while the lives within shed
blood from a tear mid-stride.

hearts stopped beating,
loving strokes suspended mid-brush,
her dappling with the voice of another
pulled her love into adultery's pouch.

his seduction cloaked in friendship,
his lie of never leaving,
his deception of true nature,
he could have known he would never love her.

her home barren of family noise,
empty, gutted, a winter's frozen shell.
she will lie now in the out-lands upon the ground,
freezing alone, unforgivable, a harlot, wishing, hoping for death.

shadows of people I've known before
I see you all again
here upon this blanken sheet
carving upon words
with tipp-ed hats
I've seen you before
I'll see you again
it is SO good to see you!

I'm glad we've met in this version here
you are that much nicer now!

A lane of Yellow led the eye
Unto a Purple Wood
Whose soft inhabitants to be
Surpasses solitude
If Bird the silence contradict
Or flower presume to show
In that low summer of the West
Impossible to know -

holding a tragedy lie between
nervous hands glancing as
my eastern sun bombards
this sierra western *****
plummeting veins solar
caging my fragile wrap
boiling my lungs while I
cradle a tragedy lie.

isolated
solitary
deserted
abandoned
forsaken
forlorn
friendless
­desolate
solo
singly
solus
only
hermit
unaccompanied
detached
lon­esome
unmarried
unassisted
stag
apart
destitute

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.

The child remembers my failings,
so much so he separates.
The day he disembarked from the bus,
leaving me in my seat,
doing what he was told.

I can't even say if he turned around,
to wave. Was he scared?
Off he wandered,
on his 10 year legs, into town, alone.

Did anything traumatic happen to him that day?
Did he cry because he had noone with him?
Does he hold resentment from being left
to fend for himself
the entire day?

A small child
with no one to watch over him.
So much so
He doesn't care
to know me?

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.

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

Autumn crept in without word or a doubt.
It slept all summer, or so they all thought.
Really it traveled round trees and plains,
To find it’s real home among the oak laden trails.

Never did it speak only scent told its tale.
Cool acorns and apples growing fast for the cold spells.

Slow seems fast when a chill rolls by                                                      
during a late summer swim on the river rock slide.                                  
The children looked round, then heard a school bell.                        
They knew the call flying through the pine trees as they screamed,
“Hurry, Hurry, only one more time!”

Round the death and dying came,
the end of young summer into a lady.  
The end of girls and boys for all.  
Into proper gentle children
dressed in sweaters and tightly rung curls.  

August 10, 2011

Back into the dark
where I am undiscoverable
left nightshade cloaked,
no stone turned,
no bell rung,
no tree carved,
no hammer swung.
No strong man,
no whipping post,
no beat down,
no anniversary toast,
no smart ***,
no sassy *****,
just floating now,
alone, alone, where I've put myself.
To find God again, to find God again.

Baltimore will change you. Seen through the eyes, ears, and hearts of Black American, your liberal effort will be read as a white occupation.

It doesn't matter your intentions, if you've meditated on it all year long, if you yell at a black face, you have cast the whip.

You're not allowed to have emotions, you have to subservient yourself to the trauma of your students, your fellow teachers, the parents walking on the street. Your trauma no longer matters. It is not the same. It might not even be exist. Or rather, you're over 50, haven't you processed that **** yet?

Oh, Baltimore will change you. When you came here you wanted to help, you wanted to solve the problem of racism, of less than equal, you wanted to uplift like MLK and make real the sentiments of your 60s parents. Then you met the attitude, the snares as you walked through the Aldi on Orleans Street, the ostracization of your Black colleagues, the Black clicks, the Black power, and the side glances and suspicion waiting for you to be racist and oppressive. The questioning eyes looking at your old white face and grey hair, expecting you to control or belittle the Black man, woman, and child. Why did you come here to teach our children? What do you want with our children?

You face the slow walk of the Black man and woman. Why are they moving so slowly? Don't they know I am in a hurry? Are they doing that on purpose because of the years of white control and oppression? Are they punishing me for all the sins of the Whites? Or is it because that person is big, slow in pace because of the sheer weight they have to carry? Is that racist to think that? Does the butcher move slow at the meat counter because he wants to make me wait? Why am I even thinking this? I never thought this before! Baltimore is changing me.

You face the fast driving and the motocross culture of danger, noise, and recklessness. You meet the street fights our your front door, parents surrounding their children, cheering them on to kick the other 15year old's ***.  You get called a white ***** time and time again simply because you speak your mind. Or...did I do something wrong?  WAS I oppressive? I just wanted to....how can I even breath here? I might do it in a way that hurts the Black community. Why are they that fragile? Are they that fragile?

Baltimore will make you ask, where should I stand as the Black community moves into it's place? It will make you ask, "Why am I defending the white man? Why do I feel a need to play devil's advocate?" But why do I need to feel obliged to step aside for the Black? Isn't that the sentiment I have felt all my life? Move over for the Black. White people have had the lead for too long. Move out of the way for Black people, let them get ahead. Let them get ahead?  Like I hold the keys to the door? We were told (by MLK) that the dream was for us to play side by side, hold hands, walk up or down the mountain together. That is so hard. For both sides. Why are there sides?

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.

Pleasure is for the beautiful,
while with ease of face and blessed body
they float, flow, slink, and slow grace.

Puritan rigor and worked hands
for comely folk.
Thick of stock in legs and waist,
face puffed, fattened cheeks, folding in upon itself.
Grown into a gross excuse
fitted only for hard labor.
Barely surviving.

We’re sitting at the gate, our first romantic getaway together.

It was really supposed to be my first “out of the country with a passport “ trip of my own.
The El Salvadorian didn’t want to take me home with him, so his **** him, I’ll go my own **** self!

Enter Him.
And then the next thing I know we are on our way to Puerto Rico,
Don’t even NEED a passport.

So we’re sitting there,
At the gate,
He’s talking about the next trip we go on
Will be HIS choice,
As if he didn’t pick this one.

Then I say, “Then the next one after that I will REALLY pick!”

And he says, “Greece.” Like a whisper.
And I say, “That’s your pick.”

Thinking, he says, “Greece, Italy, yes, Italy.”
“I thought we were going to Guyana.”
“I’m going there on my own. Maybe Germany.” Where his ex wife lives.

Huh….interesting. Here he invaded MY private getaway, yeah, I let him. But never again.

Wow, what a heartbreak. And here I thought we were on a roll. And here he is, planning a getaway without me, to go visit his ex no less. Fantastic.

Bubble burst before liftoff.

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

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.

I love your voice,
your smile,
your lower lip,
so **** when it's thinking
just relaxing waiting to
pounce in daredevil
spontaneous.

I love your skin
the color it turns
after sunning, reddish
burn, like your hair,
your beard.

I love how you tolerate me
the devil, the nag, the sad
doll, unhappy, discontent,
searching, demanding.

I love being with you and
being the one who gets to
touch your strong arms,
flexing with work, always cut,
how do you get that way
with no fitness?

You are July, you are
what the summer was
waiting for.

How lucky I am,
to spend my days
near you, coming home
to you, curling next to you,
you let me kiss you, these
are treasures I will carry
all my life.

Black 5,
Phone dead.
No lines,
Whispering winds.
Kittens on the table,
The world still spins.
Black 5,
Phone dead.

Frozen, crazy, sprawling on the floor, drunk, forgotten, wasted, slobbering, stabbed and stapled, whining, cluttered, contaminated, stolen.

Our friendship was born dead.
Born into offenses of the flesh.
Birthed within burning hearts
crying for a tiny fragment
of the tastes
of our young days.
Days bound in sheets
scented and flavored by love making.

Ocean
bluing beneath
my hands brushing over
warm Caribbean bathing salts
at dusk.

Cannot be extracted when during meditation
liberation is gained thought becomes more
They do not see society. Unfortunately, Shankara's own
loss to a nation, transcendental consciousness the
becomes greatly overshadowed.

A woman wants to be wanted
she wants to be pursued everyday to exhaustion.
She wants you to keep coming back, letting her know you have definitively chosen her above all others, and then she wants the option of breaking your heart, saying "No" to you. But she wants you to run after her everyday. She wants you to always make the first move, so she knows you want her more than she wants you.

It's always been this way. On the playground, when the game of chase was on, who was chasing and who was screaming with the thrill of the hunt, screaming not to be caught, because what would being caught mean?  It would mean capture, loss of freedom, and maybe something worse....a kiss.

Because if it were the other way, if she chased after you, you would call her names, ***** to your friends, make fun of her, and get sick of her fast. If she called you everyday, you would get tired of it, you would want more space, you would find a woman who was more aloof. You would blow her off, stop calling her back. You might keep ******* her if she showed up to your house, but you might feel bad about yourself afterwards and promise yourself and all your friends that was the last time.

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.

feeling...
it seems like I
will never be rid of
my feelings for you even if
I should.

In order for our voice
to work properly,
our heart
must be spinning
while simultaneously
our mind
has clear vision.

All the while,
our will must possess
enough force to push truth
through so as to connect
the song of our life.
Then, God too might even listen.

Amen.

Monday morning
kitten climbs
cloudy sky.

I'm going to read your poem or your story or your novel and write a response.
Not a response, but a reply, or rather, answer you.

It will be a song in meter and stanza that might flow like a soft conversation.
When I am finished, you will have a time to answer back.

This will go on for a while.

Tonight I wander through yellowing pines
through days of autumn while I
am twenty nine dancing drunk on northern Cali
wine, cold, wet, between an angry coast and
the moss on ancient tree groves.

Dancing like a Dervish in my crinkled cotton
gauze skirt tickling at my naked ankles and
washing my dirt covered feet.  

Hair wet from misty air, curling and dripping
he stares at me, mesmerized by some magic
that does not exist. It is only me 'neath the moon.

He wants to be in love with a freedom that has no
place near me.  I mean entrapment, commitment,
ownership, caged.  

If he holds me, I'll want him there forever and ever,
that will never change.  He should not want to leave if
he walks through my door.  Keep walking if you're only going to
walk out.

He does, he smiles, laughs, drinks, then, as I'm turning
one more spiral, he falls into the dark and walks on
to a woman who will let him love her for only a
fraction of a lifetime.

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.

too fast
I  ran to the
sun as I hurdled the
pits dug for young ladies too small
to dare.

within a year they will be as thick as thieves,
elbow interlocked with elbow,
whispering in hushed tones,
hearts interwoven so their laughter becomes one great explosion.

divine grace moved them into one.
from my seat thousands of miles away
I listen to the patter of their new found friendship,
grow, grow, in this sunny day.
He paces in his tiny office, counting the minutes,
gaging if it might be a respectable time to call.
Is her mother okay? Perhaps she must tend to mama.
They are both up late in the wee hours of the night/day,
They share the same life.

They might begin by bickering,
then he will quell her with his need to connect,
he will placate her, explain how he is fair sided,
he sees logically, he sees the Truth with a capital.

Is she still on the side of the psychics? The healers?
Will she bring to him what I brought, only in a sweeter wrapping?
Red rather than Black.
West rather than East.
Or has she cast that away, a relic of her younger days, and now she too has found what he sees. On the Eastern Shores.

This day, they share this day.
I too wait in these hours,
I heal the open **** he cut in my life,
my person, who I am and what I know.
Suture here, stitch there, cry my story until my blood dries.

This sun we all three share, this air, this breath.
All three of us here, in the heat of this day, together at once.
Will she tell him in uncertain words what I had tried to show him?
Will the same healing energy, spirit, power come through her to unite the world for him? Will he find the love he thought was not alive in me?

In me the energy faded, the spirit was dead, for why?
The shade of my hair?
The tone of my skin?
Yes, yes, it is as simple as that.

Cat sticks in the thicket deep.

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?

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.

My tired gray hair destroys zeal.

nothing to say with nothing to do
on a day when all that i've heard
reminds me of lies told to me in my youth.

Rocks fall into our laps without
tearing one thread of our lives or futures,
money will fall and grow from trees

Men love larger women and thin ladies
struggle more than we are told.

Beauty is more than skin deep and different than in the eyes of the beholders,
although beauty has no consistency and anything can be beautiful.

Risks and amazing lives wait for us all, waiting for us to open the door, call our agent,
answer a casting call, play our drums.

Do anything you like, it will be the right turn,
all I've heard today were echos of lies.

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.

It's so easy to lose faith in God
when the men and women who
preach so vehemently
stab knives into your heart,
call you less than worthy.

What was it that made me
so wrong? So less than them?
Was it my Jewishness,
my heritage,
my still learning even from them?

What I learned was they can
hate, wound, laugh at, destroy,
throw a human away.

Why?  Because I am not famous enough?
talented enough?
well known enough?

What does Christ think looking down?
Should I instantly forgive? Even though it makes me feel like dying?
Does Christ instantly forgive them?
Even though they twisted me around
so tightly I didn't have time to learn fast enough?
Will they do it again to someone else?
Would they do it again to me if I gave them the chance?

Why did they even want to walk through my door???
What did they think they would find here?
Why did they get so angry when they didn't get what they needed?
Why didn't they just go in peace?

And more than echoes talk along the walls.

'Tis education forms the common mind. Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclin'd.

I am his Highness' dog at Kew; pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?

Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.

A Lame Beggar
I am unable, yonder beggar cries,
To stand, or move; if he say true, he lies.

Hero and Leander
Both robb'd of air, we both lie in one ground;
Both whom one fire had burnt, one water drown'd.

Antiquary
If in his study he hath so much care
To hang all old strange things, let his wife beware

I suppose society is wonderfully delightful.
To be in it is merely a bore.
But to be out of it simply a tragedy.

I hope you have not been leading a double life,
pretending to be wicked and being really good all the time.
That would be hypocrisy.

The only thing to do with good advice is pass it on;
it is never of any use to oneself.
To be modern is the only thing worth being nowadays.