When I'm seeking shade from a relentless sun,
And brush a rejected leaf off my shoulder,
I feel poetry.

When I brought my girls home,
From hospital, school, a bad night out,
I've experienced poetry.

Walking Front St., or  Centennial Park,
While the buskers are busy,
The children are laughing,
The dogs are barking,
I've heard poetry.

If fortunate to espy a shooting star,
Enjoy the fullness of an autumn moon,
Witness the dawn light up my lawn,
Like a diamond mine,
I've seen poetry.

I've tasted poetry on my lips
With kisses and endearing words,
And lingering tastes from what you serve.
Yes, I've savored poetry's flavors.

Who reads poetry.

my tears aren’t forced
they flow in that
dark tunnel that she
dreamed so long ago
she wasn’t ready
to take her first steps
I wasn’t ready to
take mine without her.
Little things bring her back
like empty bowls or the tower
of books she’s never going to read.
People have been calling this a
trauma, but they’ve forgotten the
loneliness of life’s journey. She dreamed
a tunnel and added bright lights
and dusted the floor with powdery snow
she traveled far yet I can
only see the trails of
milk puddling around the lost key that she
dropped under blankets
of memory and phrases of
I-promise and tomorrow. I’m growing up as
she falls down. She wasn’t
perfect but that’s why it
was so easy to love her.
My journey’s ongoing, and the
deep undercurrents of pain and
grief are pulling me through
that tunnel.
I’m rowing softly by,
quietly, quietly,
as she is laid to rest.
her memories swallow the emptiness
she is kneeling at the throne.
I follow slowly and leave my
tears for her to know that life’s
path isn’t paved in water but
with sorrow, with endings, and with lost
boats on turbid seas.

we have direct associations of
things long past and no
way to connect random
words. I wonder, then, why I always  think of peanut
butter when someone says winter
or I taste eggs when someone
mentions Christmas. I don't
even celebrate Christmas and
I taste caramel popcorn
and crisp wintermint and
what a cloud would taste
like. why is that? where do
our words go? others would taste fish when they hear
the word tooth
paste, or crave oranges when their feet first
hit pavement. if you're trying to fit the
words together, and see
why the bitter taste of chicory
is reminisced with coppery blood and
love, and you are sure your own word associations are
completely logical, one day you'll come across
the skeletons in closets, the snake slithering in the
greenest grass, things that mean
so little to you yet are bright points
of deep connection. you try to
fit the words together and
suddenly, you'll know. then.

When I say "I miss you"
it's not just an automatic response
like when people say
How are you I'mfine
or
It wasn't my fault
or
You have the right to remain silent!
These are just normal, day-to-day conversations
and I forget we need them sometimes
But
I do not have the right to remain silent
when after I write ten times how much I miss you,
and that I think about you every time I check the mail,
or make a peanutbutter sandwich,
and all you write is a lousy "Lol. K."
I do NOT have the right to remain silent
when how much I miss you is as big as the rain,
the rainbow, and the *** of gold at the end of it,
when how much I miss you hurts so much
that it makes me wonder what it feels like to not feel like this,
I will not remain silent when you just say,
'miss u 2'
because I miss you in that stalker-ish way
that the waiter misses serving you your morning coffee
because he thinks you're kinda cute
or the way that girl always finds a way to walk by you
even though you rejected her other other night
and she clearly isn't over you...
When I'm sick of how "I miss you"
doesn't make the universe
implode
and it's disappointing when you don't hear everyone in the world screaming "Yes" at
the same time
I want you to hear the silence
when you see me off at the airport, train station, wherever,
I want "I miss you" backwards to spell "Because, that's why"
instead of having a reason why I called you.
I want to not run out of things to say when I finally
call you
I want "I miss you" to mean
everything again, including, I love you, you're so awesome,
what does your new haircut look like, and unfortunately
our own lives are so messy
that distance no longer makes sense
But,
hey,
I guess our memories were worth it.

need to write
something
to soothe
my soul...

write now of
skies, the perfect blue
of the smell of salt
tantalising on the zephyr breeze

write to ease
a heart so tired
so mired
in daily crud
so stuck in this viscose mud

need a day
far away
from the
maddening

a day in the green
and verdant places
see no other faces
hear the stream
make it's way
from source
to sea

need a day
to follow path
to pond's
to be tickled
and embraced
by young palm fronds
to watch nature thrive
need this badly
to survive

need a day
to recover me.

I have lost my muse
in the hustle and hustle
of my days
I have put her aside
and now she is gone
from me..

and my writers place
is lonely and bereft
of her joy and life
a soulless room
dusty and...
well,  just .... beige and bland.


so if you see her,
my muse....
ink-stained and laden
down with words unwritten
please....let her know
I miss her terribly
and would like her
to come home....

I promise to take
better care of her
this time....I promise.