Butterflies were her favorite thing.
Her pillows had Monarchs in full winged flight
Needlepointed by an artful hand.

One perched on a perfume bottle’s cap
It’s crystal wings composed for rest.

Her jewelry box was full of them
In precious stones and colored glass
In every size and metal base.
If they all rose in magic flight
The air would shine with rainbows.
                               §
Today I found a tiny golden brooch,
Set with green and yellow stones
With tiny diamonds for the eyes.

It was dropped by someone rushing home
From entertainments where I do my work.
Will it be missed and my phone ring,
Or is this a message from my Mimi.

The minute that I saw it
She was in my mind
As gentle as the butterflies she loved.
She settled on the flower of my heart
And cocooned the little moth of me
And wrapped it up to metamorph
Into the unique butterfly I will be.
ljm

Why do I reach out to comfort the whole rest of the world
And have no pity for the little girl that hides in my dark corners.
Why do I extend the hand of empathy to everyone but me.
Why is it I don't find me worthy of the love I give to others.

There is no answer to those painful questions.
No one to ask - no book to read.
I either find a pathway to the sunshine
Or content myself to live in shade.

How many ways are there to hate
To loathe, despise, and vilify.
How many fantasies can you build
Where evil returns to those who birthed it.

How many kinds are there of hate.
Cold as an ice floe or burning hot.
Sharper than a scalpel blade, or
Duller than a breaking heart.

How do you work with so much hate.
Build a stair and climb above it
Or fabricate a prison cell
That robs you of the sun.

How do you learn to  swallow hate
And **** it out the other end
Without it tearing up your guts
And leaving you a *******.

How do you spell the names of hate
In blood or bile on ***** walls -
Or glitter on the seaside sand
While waiting for the tide to ebb.

How do you give back so much hate -
Fed Ex will not deliver it.
A carrier pigeon could not fly
With such a heavy parcel.

How do you juggle such mountains of hate
And not miss a catch and be buried.
How do you drop it at the edge of the road
And travel on unburdened.

Please, somebody, tell me.
                         ljm

Blah  Blah  Blah  Blah
I write the crap
That no one wants to read
Not even those who share my blood.
Depressing was the kindest word
They offered on my tripe.
So who the Hell did I  think I was -
Some highfalutin' poet dame?
No, just a hack at choosing words
That paint a dreary picture
Of a scene nobody wants to see.

Blah Blah  Blah  Blah
Aren't I sorry for little me.
Get off your *** and haul the load
That what's left of your life will be.
                         ljm

Joy stills the pen that gushes forth in sorrow.
Happness is lived, not written down.
Tears can best be dried on ink soaked paper.

Happiness will dance off of the pages.
Heartbreak rides on words into catharsis.
The butterfly of glee can not be captured.

Pain is limned in black and trapped by parchment.
Happiness is painted on the sky.
Sadness wallows in the dirt of midnight.

So my pages overflow with misery
While gladness hides away inside my heart.
                                ljm

Am I to be forever maimed
By a childhood I did not devise
Pulled down from every step I've gained
By the phantoms of my night
That twist and shift and leave me bare
In that harshest light of scorn-
That cannot be explained away
And haunt me even as I  rise
To struggle up the stairs again.
                          ljm

The paper drips with red blood from my soul
There’s no ink left in my pen
The clock has used up all its hours
The music of the spheres has ended.

I set out to build a village in a place
Not hard to find without a map
Proudly I used local lumber
Made sure the walls were square and true.

Sadly no one wants to live there
No one stops to hear my song
(Just one clear voice and not an opera )
People look and listen briefly then move on
     ≈
Wandering through the others’ harvests
I see words stacked in random order
Piled like fancy autumn haystacks
Held in place with azure ribbons

Mumbled voices raised in solos
Whose words I cannot parse or learn
Where verses run from one to twenty
And the applause is deafening

What seems real is evanescent
Fleeting as the winking of an owl
Impossible to braid with just two strands
And painted over with graffiti.
   ≈
How am I to fly when it appears
That I can barely walk and yet
I thought that I knew how to dance.
I guess I never found the beat.

I can’t but keep on building sturdy
Little one theme dwellings
It’s the only thing I know
And I’ll live there all by myself

And hope a visitor or two
Will stop by now and then
To say hello and how are you
And share a cup of my brand’s tea.
ljm

The too-long constipated pen
Strains for movement
And it hiccups out a line
That joins the rest in
Mediocrity and dross.
          ljm

He offered me a
golden future.
It came postage due.
           ljm

I live my life alone with you
You're here, but not with me
You travel in a different orbit
That only sometimes crosses mine.

My cup of joy is not half full
It's cracked and liquid seeps away
To vanish in the same place as my tears
Though it looks pretty at a casual glance.

The things that once beguiled my heart
Now chafe up blisters on my soul
I try to tell you of my pain
But we don't speak a common tongue.

Our eyes don't look at things the same
Our ears perceive two different tunes
When I reach out to take your hand
It feels like 'dead man's finger' -

Childhood game in a grown up world-
A guarantee of shivers
In the eeriness of misperception
That so mirrors all we do.

Now I'm lonely in bed beside you
Back to back with dog  between
The distance that we've slid apart
Measures out in months and  years

And I long for a sharing touch
To tell me I don't live alone
It isn't there although I search
Leaving me empty, lost, and all alone.
                                 ljm

I thought it was the breeze
Sighing past my window
But it was only the echo
Of a rejected love song.
                vvvv

It may be time to go away
Too many cookies are uneaten
And a few are only nibbled

I baked all night for many days
And used up all my spices
But few customers appeared

I laid them on my very best tray
And priced them as a bargain
Now most of them are growing stale

I think it’s time to close up shop
The other’s cakes were obviously better
Their customers waited in long lines

It will be hard for me to stop
My hands are white with flour
And my apron’s tied so tightly

Still, no farmer wants to plant a crop
That never will be eaten -
Are cookie bakers not the same

Perhaps my wafers were too plain
And lacking decoration
I thought that flavor was enough

But recognition brings me pain
I felt my recipes were special
But everyone had better ones

It seems that I cannot sustain
The dream of being Mrs. Fields
When It comes to writing cookies
               ljm

The years are liars and they don't keep their word:
They promised me maturity,
But all I got was soft places where I should be firm.
They swore me wisdom,
But all I found was a different kind of foolishness.
They said I'd have new insights
But all I saw was how I miss the flowers of youth.

The years are untrue and make vows they don't intend to keep
They promised me contentment,
But all I received was a slower paced restlessness.
They told me I'd find fulfillment,
But all I've discovered is a bigger yearning.
They assured me these years would be golden,
But I can see through the veneer to the green beneath.

And I curse the days and weeks and years
For they lied to me and then ran away.
                                         vvv

How can you solve the needs of the world
When every window is a mirror
Reflecting only vistas of you.

How can you feel the pain of the hungry
When tail coated waiters serve you your meals
Hundreds of feet higher than the truck on the corner.

How can you embrace the common man
When you consider him covered in germs
Wanting a cheerleader more than a guide.

How will you acquire respect that’s not bought
When you function on a ten year old level
With a Junior High bully as your mentor.
         ljm

Living in a city where the trees have names
And blank walls and bus stop benches
Have a language of their own,
I wonder who I am
And wonder who will read the lines I pen
And if I'm writing in an unknown tongue.

Wandering among the spray paint
                           proclamations
That declare existence
And 'my gang can beat up your gang'
I try to fathom the kind of emptiness
That only tagging can implete,
But I was never, at my worst, so hollow

A poem, a poem I've got to write.
But nothing seems to come tonight.
I guess I'm just not very bright
When it comes to writing poems.

I crumple paper sheet on sheet.
I think of deadlines I'm to meet.
I haven't time to sleep or eat;
I've GOT to write a poem!

The time ticks on --it's two o'clock
Our light's the last one on the block.
Perhaps if I could take walk
I could better write a poem.

Then suddenly I get a thought--
I put it down to the very last dot…
And then I think, "It's not so hot."
Why CAN'T I write a poem?

But then I say, "'Twil have to do."
The morn is come; the night is through.
I'm tired but proud, I can tell you,
'Cause I just wrote a poem.
                        ^^^

Inside out
Collar frayed
Ragged at the hem
Stitches showing through the thin spots
The cloak of civiliztion needs a laundering.

Buttons missing
Flapping in the wind
Dragging in the rainy mud
Sliding off stooped shoulders
The coat of civility needs a skillful tailor.

Hands disappearing
Sleeves way too long
Holes in all the pockets
Faded plaid in last years colors
The jacket of humanity is now on sale at Goodwill.

Building an inferno
Is a part time occupation
Finding retribution
Is a pleasant moment's pastime
Marrying the two takes more
Than just a pastor

Zeus is back from his vacation
And he wants a glass of water.

*******!  In my mind a hundred times a day it caws,
A black and flapping creature hopping awkwardly
Across the even furrow of my love.
Dining on the choicest seed, uncovering the rest,
Making sure no crop will ever flourish here,
As I stand and gaze,
Too weary from the endless days of planting all alone,
Too hungry from the meals I've missed to care,
I turn into an ineffective scarecrow
Who just watches.
                        LJM

I'm scolded even in my dreams
By the inner me who judges
Everything so harshly.

All I do is try to help
And even in my slumber
This is not allowed.

Sleep knits up the raveled sleeve of care
So Shakespeare says
But I unravel in my dreams.

I'm lost, I'm chased
In in a house of many rooms
And cannot find my way.

The clock is running out
And I'm not ready
So the wedding will not start on time.

And though I look, I somehow never see a bride
As I am searching for the candles
And bows I need to do my job.

Variations on a theme
That always spells inadequate
And failure to my sleeping mind.

Why am I so mean to me
Am I so bad, compared to all-
And who must I live up to.

What angry fire burns deep inside
That nightly roasts my spirit
In the oil of it's incompetence.

Why can't I ever win the race
Or find the prize in question
Or be the one to take the bow.

I am my own worst enemy
A therapist once said
Why didn't I believe him then,

Forgive myself and let me be-
To see if I could build a dream
That ended with me smiling.
                    ljm

Just a little more than half
The ration for my little cup.
I cannot say it's empty
But neither is it full.

The wine has been not always sweet
But mostly soothed my soul.
On other days its bitterness
Brought rawness to my throat.

The cup is cracked; it's handle's gone
But still it does not leak.
It holds what life's poured into it
And does not cut my lips

When timidly I lift it up
To sample what I've been given
As my portion in the little cup
That represents my life.
                ljm

She looked and looked at the storm-black sky
And couldn't visualize it blue.
But still somewhere down deep within her
She knew the sun would shine again.
                                  

I am smoke from a discarded cigarette.
I am a dogeared page in an obscure novel.
I am rain on the ocean.

I want to be a sunbeam dancing in a glass of pink lemonade.
I want to be a tall pine's love whisper to the silvery moon.
I want to be a baby's first smile.

I am the dark side of the moon.
I am a blank cartridge.
I am a penny on a train track, waiting.

I want to be yeast bread rising in a warm place.
I want to be newly poured concrete growing firm.
I want to be a toddler's prayer.

I am a schoolyard after recess.
I am a Saturday matinee.
I am mist dying in the mourning sun.
                    

You spilled my half full glass of living.
You clumsied it onto it's side
And everything poured out.
Now how am I supposed to play
The game that says it's half way full
Not half way empty?

Any fool can plainly see
This glass has nothing in it,
Even if I Pollyanna up a smile
And spell out all it used to hold,
It's absolutely empty now
And nothing I can say will fill it.
                    ljm

No eyes will parse
My squiggled lines,
With meaning clear
Enough to slap your face.

Their joy is in the search-
The digging out of what
Is longed for, in the
Most obscurant phrases.

No hand will tousle
Rumpled hair
On recognizing that
Another saw the selfsame bud

And helped unfold it
To a bloom, so
Those in later times
Can share the fragrance.

No lips will purse
On being told
With unmistaken
Clarity what is,

For that's a lesson
Not adventure
And the readers
Have dressed up for the hunt.
                    ljm

Rain, falling in broken-goblet shatters
That splash and ricochet on the sidewalk
Wets my unprotected shoes
And slithers through my stockings
Chilling more than just my feet.

The "Monkey's Wedding" sun peeks through
At intervals to fire up rainbows
In the drops that move too fast to study
Here again and gone again
This dark and bright will blind me.

Rain, now sheeting like a ***** shower curtain,
Cuts off the view of what's ahead
And soaks my flimsy parka.
I never knew an Autumn storm
Could smell so strong of winter.

All the leaves that clung so long
Are beaten from the branches
To land on me like snotty tissues
From a nose blown somewhere in the ether-
And I feel tainted by them.

Rain that looks like it can fall for days
In places where its rhythm is unknown
Becomes a dirge as I trudge on
With soggy clothes and cloudy temper
Contemplating years without a Spring.

How I wish my stout umbrella hadn't
Vanished at the party, but I left it
In the hallway when the dancing started up,
And when I headed out into the storm
I couldn't find it anywhere.
                           ljm

The Merry-Go-Round is stopping - I can hear the music fade.
I can't believe it's ending,  that the last tune has been played.
My horse is still in prance formation - she wants to go again.
How do I say the ride is over and all good things must end.

How do I slack the tightly held rein
How do I slip from astride
How do I ease the stabbing of pains
That tell me this was my last ride.

The carnival is closing - I can see them start to pack.
I don't want it to leave us - it may never again come back.
I haven't ridden all the rides yet - I haven't played the games.
How do I turn and go forever, forgetting all their names.

How do I put the coins away
That I had planned to spend
How save for them for a rainy day
And still have some to lend.

The festival is over - all the revelers are gone.
The only sign they've been here are the footprints on the lawn.
I have not finished celebrating - I want to laugh some more
How do I know the dance has ended - it never was before.

How do I turn and head for home
This was my home, you see
How can I feel that if I roam
I'll find a place for me.
                

Play fair
Wait your turn
Don't cheat
Help the other guy
Don't be cruel
Don't be selfish
Be friendly
Be kind
Care about the Earth and its people
Take what you need and leave some on the plate for the other guy
Smile more than you frown
                                  ljm