When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people’s gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practise a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

Jenny Joseph
from Warning:When I am an Old Woman I shall wear purple (Profile 2021)

some years back, not too difficile to recall,
revive and animate those memories of love and disasters,
but the distance is comparable to half-a-dozen
eighty day trips around the world, many frequent
flyer  miles accumulated with trips to love disasters,
interspersed with the days of shock and awe believing
(sigh) that stumbled, fumbled my way in what we silly
call true love, which is really the high of believing
that you deserved the easy way, but now know, there
is no easy way, and romance is a hard earned privilege,
and sensory deprivation can  fool you, absence makes
you vulnerable, don’t be vulnerable, stand up right,
**** out, and eyes smiling but phasers on full, nonetheless…

this not a downer, but a dis-claimer, even I claim the
never be sure of the 100% foolproof methodologies for
discerning the genius of genuine,
when the risk is the reward
maybe when your 22, even 23,
you’ll be better at true discernment,
but until then be wise,
there is no saving the day,
till your knees are scraped,
and crackling and cracking
heart seem like the same thing


but they’re not
do not confuse
causality with correlation
love is not your cause, be-all,
or even the end-all, do the  work
on your self to betterment
24/7, knowledge to be wiser
comes with vive les expériences!
and

someday you’ll senses will be tickled,
and the aroma of possibilities will
arose that dormant hunger, and may
be a correlation to another human in the
immediate vicinity, a man, swimming
in your moat without permission, then,
check him out and maybe, jump in,
once you’ve passed the red cross lifesavers
test, cause the murk is murky, and is never
fraught with just rose water, but jump a
few toes in and if you’re still sinking,
hell he’ll
find away and give him the rope to help
you climb a board, yeah, a broad tough as
clear varnished nails with a heart radiating
the nuclear fission of Strontium 90.

near three years, nearer to eclipses,
since last scribed here, been there
been loved, mistreated, done my share
of giving beatings, for the deserving,
never been any body’s biatch, no starting
now=ever.

men look at me, their eyes self-seducing,
a crook(ed) finger never summoned me
or any self respecting woman of valor,
with a full fist of words, a tongue sharper
than a deli slicer, if looks can ****, then
left my fair share of men on the Riviera,
the Hamptons, the Gold Coast, uptown
and way downtown where the cool kids
pretend play @ being prey hunting grownups.

ya, hear your thinking and it’s stinking,
my generated magno-electric vibes that’s
to blame, get this kids! never your fault
being whom you the actual F are, it’s their filters
that ***** their vision, their desires unbidden,
casual dispensed, thinking glory is theirs to share.

my road is not broken, there are signs even I spot,
when the man I crave is nearby, whose calm is not
couched cool, who doesn’t wear his possessions on
his sleeve, one who says adventure, yes, let’s go,
never saying when, for the only when is what both crave,
the loving of immediacy of “right now,” and add
to that pithy, my name, Brandy, acknowledging it’s
me, just me, he addresses and not some vision that
was crafted by others into an ideal,  and ‘because’ is
not sufficient but the perfect rationale, to trust what
your absent father called your “finely tuned instincts for
human finery, humans who eclipse ordinary stars”

everyone has gone back to suburbia,
city streets are dangerous, if you look
at someone cross eyed, it earns you death.

don’t celebrate this madness,
mourn it in black, it has a taken
a pandemic to school me again.

this a broadcast, shout out, email me
if you know how I’m feeling and can
share what other mutualities crisscross.

Do you like Jazz? Me neither.
Flouncy bouncy dresses? Nah!
Sweats? Unnecessary, I can sweat
just by concentrating.

You like me, own soulful bluesy singers,
femme fatales, who coax and croon,
wet the spun threads of subtle emotive,
who live by light of candles votive,
I live in black, day and nighttime,
write in midnight blue, a woman who!
takes no b.s. and doesn’t ever take no
for an answer...

the men I crave
speak blunt,
wanting me for
my poetry persona,
strength sheer as a cliff,
me to be their tour guide to the edge,
my sexuality unabashedly to be their owing

they speak plain,
believing directness
is an aphrodisiac for me,
my style, direct unvarnished,
so that must be whom I am, surely

but they err deep grievously

I do love my poets so, the
ones, soft spoke, genteel, feeling
using first, no never, guile, words harmonizing,
softening the edges so smoothly rough necessary
for me to protect, confounding the harsh takers,
who never think to ask, never cradle, stroke,
don’t go below, see deeper that my nerves
are feminine, that pink is but a color,
that anyone could love, not an
invitation, a philosophy of
automatic surrender

now you know why I write poems,
to understand better the heart human,
ferret out the chaff, the bad, for everyone else.

#brandychanning

not even, your doubting Jill-from-the-hill voice,
asking, are you sure? really confident?

you desire me
to seize up,
cease the finger pointing
and begin the fingernails
scratching glass, agonizing

what I propose,
why I came here,
to defend and protect

women

demands I, we,
answer to no one.

especially
the little voices implanted

to erode our con-fidence.

indeed, they are the con.

yes, neither is white.

these two no-colors are

all I know. my palette

complete.

you say

flesh?

whataboutit?

flesh is just space between black and white


colorless for those with open minds.

open hearts.

open minds.

opened eyes.

the truly free,

the blind.