Loose curls —
found scattered throughout 
my house
DNA traces —
Declaring existence
Beyond these poems;
Manifestations.
And fleeting interactions
In tight and wide-open 
Spaces.

Brave birds bop 
On bare branches outside;
Grandpa’s dominating morning —
Grey and makes everyone flee.
Logic larks: get up and walk, see!
But bed, with an abundance of blankets
And rain, lots of rain, drips don't be insane,
Get warm!
Despite this, cold sausages and coffee call:
“Eat me!”
And I do oblige.

For me,
Writing is like praying
in the middle of a tragedy.
When the world has cracked upon.
When something breaks
that words can't fix,
but must weave them together.

Tragedy doesn't ask for beauty,
Only truth.
Even if that truth is trembling,
Fragmented,
Barely breathing
on the page.

The blank document becomes a place
where I can speak
to something
or someone
without needing a reply,
Without having to explain myself,
Without apologizing
for the mess of it all.

Some people write to move on.
I write to stay,
to sit behind these ruins
and whisper:
"I saw this,
It mattered.
It hurts like hell."
And in those moments
writing about lost love
or people who are gone
but never truly absent
something shifts.

I find GOD there,
or maybe GOD finds me
in the wreckage.
Not in thunder,
not in easy answers,
but in that quiet breath
between one word and next
In the space where honesty lives.

Thank You for the pain —
Thank You for Your wisdom.
Thank You for the angst —
Thank You for letting it run its course.
Thank You for Your grace —
Thank You for letting me be,
fancy-face and free.
You are gracious and kind.
You are loving, Your words bind.
You are tender.
With no remorse, You're re-making me slender.
Your fingerprints are love marks all over;
Kisses from heaven.

Dear Father
I’m alone in a very scary place
And I’m not certain how I got here.
I lost sight of the footprints I was following
And wandered off the pathway you laid out for me.

The wind is cold and the sky is dark.
I just heard screeches from the nearby woods
And this path ends in only brambles.
Kneeling on the rocky ground
I beseech the Lord to rescue me.
He either doesn’t hear my cry
Or this is where I need to be
To learn to never take my eyes
Away from the light that guides me.
ljm

Lying here,
again, in the bath.

My thoughts turn
To the Ancient Romans
Gathering together
At their community baths;
Sitting naked,
Talking politics, pottery
and…poetry of course…showmen?!
Did they have no shame?
Did they let it hang
For all in sundry to speak
Their ancient prose
And then finish up
With a wash-down, cold hose?