I can offer nothing more
Than this silence
No soft touch on your cheek
Zero reassuring words
All I have is an ache
A tearing hole in the fabric of space
An abandoned spacestation
Where nothing tastes
Colors are dulled
No oxygen tanks

(JL)

I recall that time
I was Cinderella
...........
Tired and dirt crusted
Hands bleeding nails torn
Dresses
Ruined
The mice scurrying about
The birds waking me up
Driving pumpkins to hidden castles
Dancing with a prince
Totally beats that moment
I found myself beneath the ocean
Legs for fins forgetting to breathe
Voiceless in the world of the deaf
Those were the days
I'd much rather have been
Sleeping in strange men's beds
Eating apples with little regard
To who may have cursed them
So that now I'm not sure
Whether I'm still asleep
Or if the spindle scar I carry is real
I swear I remember my Bear Mother wrapping it
In the library of a beastly man
She was telling me to stay strong
Reminding me I was a prisoner
But that Beast wore me down
With his shedding charm
Patiently standing in line
Behind the boy with a flying carpet
And one holding a shoe of glass
Why are they all soo thirsty?
Why didn't anyone bring a ladder?
Can't they see I'm a prisoner in this high
High
Tower
Instead they bring golden shears
And tiny cuffs disguised as rings
But no wizards
No shoes with wings
All I got is this winter heart
That I can't let go
And a silk dress
I do have that......

(JL)

Some times
With a random amount of time to ****
I will hold it tender
In my pocket
And cruise Target
Sometimes it's K-Mart
Except that those places
Are rapidly disappearing
Like rainforests or wolves
The circle of life
Priced according to the neighborhood
It wants to attract
Honey to flies
Flies pumping out popular hits
Over almost too quiet speakers
Just loud enough to down out
The mark up prices
Of Dollar Store quality footwear
I walk the aisles
Lined in fruity colors
Soft textures
Containers to contain all the things
That made you feel better
For a moment
I ****** the 89$ sheets
Disappointed
Of coarse
That I do not want them
That I do not need them
In fact
I roam this florescent lit sheet metal deathhouse
(In tornado season, of coarse)
With the distinct point
That I do not Need any thing
Lined up on shelves
Displayed in temporary box displays
Except.....
I should get some T.P.
And cat litter....
Cause really,
Everyone does ****

(JL)

Let us all hold hands and bow our heads
Although
Grace surely is not
Soo easily held
Sliding slowly off aristocratic heads
Entertaining
At it's flattest moment
At it's least
And this rain is never-ending
And just like that book
I am repeatedly falling
At all costs avoiding the 101
The dammed 101
It does not rain in Phoenix
Ancient bird rising
Quenching its own thirst
With our desperate praying tears
Hands held and raised pleading
For a moments moisture
Watching our pages dry and wither
Into forgotten parchment colored sand
Funny
How this grey has held onto my heart
And now
I would rather not see a drop of rain
For a long time
(JL)

I wait
Swaying with the long grass
Humming low
Whispering the bear songs
I wait
Palms open to the the evening breeze
Legs tense in suspense
Eyes closed
I wait
................All the time I bent for you
................ All the time I spent changing for you
..................All the moments I kept myself in check for you
I have nothing left to give
Now I wait
I wait
For the Moon
His gentle touch on my soul
I wait
For the Moon
To rise and ask nothing of me but what I am
I wait
For the Moon
In this long dusk into twilight
Breathing in the dark
As I set

(JL)

I used to dress like John Wayne
Minus the vest
Of coarse
But then again
So did everybody
I worked and lived with
Somehow I'd acquired
I little pink Appaloosa
And into the sunsets we rode
Searching
For El Dorado

(JL)

I can perfectly recall
The slight green tint
To your storm blue eyes
There were these perfect
Sun enriched creases
That spread like rays
From the corners of them
Watching me with intensity
Rising heat even in the cold
Closing my own I can still inhale
How you smelled
Sweat and horses
Old leather
Sometimes all your scents
Combined with mine
And I would catch my breath
Gasp with surprise
That no one else noticed
You would touch my cheek softly
Despite
The telling work worn creases
on the backs of your hands
flecked with soft white
Barbed wire scars
Nails regrown after hammer altercations
Stubborn ball-hitches
Renegade gates
Turned to suede
Lifting my face to yours
The velvet caress
Of your high desert lips
I can feel your stubbled chin still
Brush roughly across my shoulder
Shockingly coarse
Leaving the skin tender
Whiskerburnt
You would drive
With soo much weighing
On your mind
In your heart
And in my youth fullness
I would watch you
Worship you
Write love songs and poems
That I folded into origami horses
Saddles
braided into reins
All this time
I remember you
Except..................
I cannot recall
More than the whisper
Of falling clothing
Our own muted sounds
And the dust
set alight
In those summer scorched buildings
Did you say something
Did I
My voice file for you is incomplete
And soo far away from that moment
Here I'm still writing
Poems
Only
The creases are mine now
Folded still
No longer horses
But instead
Into the shapes of our mountains

(JL)

Every time I hear Leonard Nimoys' voice
I think to myself
Dammn
That guy
****
He was the Man!
Acting his way into a life's role
Intellectual
Empathic
******* hard
It brings up
Why
Do I think ******* are hard?!
Oh wait
No
It really brings up
Why
Can I see this Man with little
More
Than a cinema bio
And his makedup ears
Giving me emotional comfort
His voice offering insight
Without ever attending brunch
Together

(JL)

always a reflection
a sorrel mare with one white sock
a stock color to produce
whatever you would want
this is where i have been
eternity trapped in this..... mask?
i wear no mask!
i was not burned in acid, or something.....
only stuck being the kind of girl
you would take home to Mom
after a week of fun
my always open arms
embracing the human flaw
the Greek hero who drowned
reaching for himself.....
.....me......
it's not conceit
anyone who has looked has seen
a reflection of themselves
their wants
their dreams
not a carbon copy
only this reflection
imperfectly perfectly
what every man wants
is it any wonder
i always wanted to be a Grulla instead.........

(JL)

I was nothing more
Two eyes and two ears
With two hearts
Out of mind
All the while gazing
Always through the fire

All the fires
Others fires
Mirroring each flick and fleck
Over and over
The same fire
All the while
Denying
The heat burning my toes
Ignoring
The flames skrimshawing
In the soot of my soul

Two hands dipped in paint
Stringing sentences around my neck
Two legs limp
Burned and bleached
Logs of what the fire ate up
Nothing more
But smoke
Dancing through the leaves
Of books I had wrote
Meant to write
Watched be written

None of them mine

Too long I had gazed
Endlessly into the flames
Throwing paper into the fire
That has burned me up

Blackened stumps dot
The leather
Cover of my skin
Italics in bold sans script
Read
Two eyes and two ears
Two hands
Two legs
heart
mind
Pencil
Paper
Battery
Steel wool
.......... Grinning still

Nothing more

(JL)

I've been writing this novel
For a long time
As long
As I have
Been alive
Centered in lead
Scratching on paper
Cursively engaging
Building in plot
Filling in the margins
With side machinations
Occasionally
Pausing
Lingering on a particular line
While taking the care to design
A bookmark
(Bookmarks
Those crafty place keepers
Designed in paint and pen ink
Thicker than page
Indenting the chapter
Permanently altering
The binding)
Ornanate slips of cardstock
Decorated
In delicate flourish
Complex mandellas
Sacred geometric design
This novel I am writing
It's leafs dogtoothed
Still awaiting it's leather
Porcupined and thickened throughout
Promises
To be the intrigue of a lifetime
If only for the art itself

(JL)

I begin every day with a fluttered lid
A deep breathe
And certain knowledge that everyone
Lies
It iss not to say that it is something
Constantly expected
Or projected
Just that I am prepared
So that when the lie happens
My heart is not soo broken
As to lose sight of the fact that we are all
In fact
Only human
In spite of the benefit of no doubt
That I imagine Gwen herself
Did not find funny
But I do
Everytime.....
Everytime

(JL)

I do not believe in
God
His ever present
Essence
Nothing more than
A lingering scent
Long after the kitchen
Has been cleaned
And the dish washer run
Of roasted pork
Garlic potatoes and boiled gravy

(JL)