Heart heavy and hard as stone
Swore she’d never be alone
Wore the stone around her neck
Made every man a nervous wreck

Its been a long time
We haven't seen each other
you and me
the one inside that fills my soul
the one who only knows my role
you are I and I am you
striving thinking and praying
what should we do

you're married now,
who knew
that that man in the mirror was looking at you
you combed his hair
you let him near
you listened to his goals and his fears
all in all keeping a distance to keep him near
you married him and thats all you know
how to love is a great mystery
and we know thats why we are here
to learn
to be taught
to feed our souls for that one thought
of what to do
being loved, by me to you
I said who knew
you
thats who.

For Emma Ottinger “I put out (my stories) just because”

“just because”
that’s the best excuse you got girl?

cause be-ing
just
is a **** good one

way back in March
wrote a declaration^ to all those just
beginning with an iota of courage and
a good story telling
way of seeing and the
secret sauce-way
to spin my imagination in
my eye sockets
with their well words,
for I am a drinker of
the beaujolais firsts of the new grapes
of young poets

words welling springing from between
the oohs and ahs and the damns -
I wish I had wrote that...

so here’s a hero push - so many kinds of bread to
fill our baskets, please girl may I have some more?
so here’s to you - and the Great Plains that birthed you,
and the breadbasket of four poem/stories you poured out
that were so far from plain, how could you know of seas and sea foam and cobalt and mahogany human body parts?

and the speech patterns of waves that took me decades to learn?

use those “Jacob’s ladders between your fingers,”
“whistle me like a stray dog following,”
for that’s what “the kingpin of my flighty wits”
requires, for this old scribbler is now:

“firmly rooted for a girl who's bold enough
to crack the whip over her head if
ever went to war with myself.
A confidant that won't run,
won't offer half truth when
the whole of it
is all that actually matters.”

so write with that window light on and
wheat fields that can be reenvisioned as the gray-blue sea
from which I crawled out of croaking...
to read you rightly

6/25/18
10:25PM