[sweet pungent synthesis]
always with dank hysterical women demonstrating the distilled liquid elixir of their many years in isolation.
they are the nitrogen-rich followers of an ultraviolet shrine, such is
a photosynthetic life-form, reacting/enacting/enhancing.
they reach for holes in the moon &
on four-legged fumes carbonize seeds into sons and daughters. birth/
life.
all flowers ache forth to display color and/or
their varietals of hairy oil content.
to dip psychotropics, thus the worship of brain frequency and light.
fresh progress,
the sugar crystal compounds impacting, intact, and swollen.
trichomes, like huddled little masses of grandbabies bowed upon the ridge.
she drips
in dance and derives her form from properties plucked by time,
by moms, and pops.
to discover is to find purity in a moment.
pure travel/ pure
death.
this growing force,
this apparition of sound within me. organics.
organisms bound by great beauty and failure.
sense not the vivid panic, or the shock of last black, but hold true
to an inner joyous/outer motionous, tessellation that is, this
fluttering of us.
us suit of hearts.
suit of leaves.
the fusion of two bodies far beyond substantial pressure.

I was buried in this dirt,
Leaving you behind.
Sad, torn, and begging
For me to come back
Into your arms.
I see you visiting my grave,
Your sisters too.
Everything is hitting you
Like a ******* hurricane.
My son, I have lived my life, and
I'm speaking to you beyond
The grave.
You will see my old face again
When you pass through this
Black hole that is nothing.
But my love, I'm
Not hurting anymore. There's so
Much I want you to see before you
Come watch next to me.
Watch everyone you love,
And that have loved you.
Watch your grandbabies and
Great grandbabies grow
As I am now.
I love you my sweet son,
My strong, strong son.
I'm sorry I let you down but
I hurt for much too long.
There's a place for you next
To me that will always be open.
Come sit and watch, then,
Only then, will you see.

The Christmas angel sat sadly on the shelf
She sat there all by herself
She had been sitting there for years
You could tell she had cried many tears
For she was covered in dust, except for the streaks
On her beautifully round cheeks

For there was no tree for her to grace the top
One year it wasn't put up, it just came to a stop
All the children had grown up and left
In them the Christmas spirit had been kept
They had always been the reason
The mother had decorated for the season
The reason the smell of cookies baking would fill the house
Now there is not even a cookie crumb, not even for a mouse

So the angel sat all alone
Watching how the darkness had grown
The mother no longer caring
Her sadness, over bearing
Every year it seemed to get worse
The mother feeling Christmas time was a curse
The angel trying to figure out how her cold heart to traverse
How to chase away the darkness and the pain disperse

Then like magic, one Christmas eve a knock on the door
What the mother saw knocked her to the floor
Her eye's filled with tears of joy
There in the doorway stood a little girl and a little boy
The grandbabies had came
Christmas would never be the same
Those tiny little arms held out to be picked up
Had more than over filled the Christmas spirits cup

With laughter and song
The put up the tree, it didn't take long
And the angel was dusted off
Given a kiss and placed on the top
Although old and slightly tattered
It didn't in the lest bit matter
They plugged in the tree, fingers crossed they hoped it would light
All those gathered round the tree gasped at the sight
That little angel had never shined such a bright brilliant light

A single tear rolled down the mother's cheek, the same time one rolled down the face of the angel
A tear of joy and of hope for the future, then the Grandmother scooped up the grandbabies Kimberly and Abel
Held them up so they could see
Just how beautiful that angel could be

©Pauline Russell

The Christmas angel sat sadly on the shelf
She sat there all by herself
She had been sitting there for years
You could tell she had cried many tears
For she was covered in dust, except for the streaks
On her beautifully round cheeks

For there was no tree for her to grace the top
One year it wasn't put up, it just came to a stop
All the children had grown up and left
In them the Christmas spirit had been kept
They had always been the reason
The mother had decorated for the season
The reason the smell of cookies baking would fill the house
Now there is not even a cookie crumb, not even for a mouse

So the angel sat all alone
Watching how the darkness had grown
The mother no longer caring
Her sadness, over bearing
Every year it seemed to get worse
The mother feeling Christmas time was a curse
The angel trying to figure out how her cold heart to traverse
How to chase away the darkness and the pain disperse

Then like magic, one Christmas eve a knock on the door
What the mother saw knocked her to the floor
Her eye's filled with tears of joy
There in the doorway stood a little girl and a little boy
The grandbabies had came
Christmas would never be the same
Those tiny little arms held out to be picked up
Had more than over filled the Christmas spirits cup

With laughter and song
The put up the tree, it didn't take long
And the angel was dusted off
Given a kiss and placed on the top
Although old and slightly tattered
It didn't in the lest bit matter
They plugged in the tree, fingers crossed they hoped it would light
All those gathered round the tree gasped at the sight
That little angel had never shined such a bright brilliant light

A single tear rolled down the mother's cheek, the same time one rolled down the face of the angel
A tear of joy and of hope for the future, then the Grandmother scooped up the grandbabies Kimberly and Abel
Held them up so they could see
Just how beautiful that angel could be

After miles of coasting,
trailing a stretch of steel remembered
more as an artery than a scar,

(back when the sun-stained arms
and scratchy palms that laid each track,
across an endless America felt
ageless and exhausted;
gripping great-grandbabies and bibles and whittled pipes,
fingers coiled and knotted with stories, ready to spring forth
and croon out if only they were ever asked.

They didn’t talk much during the inbetween:
that window of time when their bodies were no longer
cracking and howling, rooting rungs into dry grass
from ocean to ocean; fitting the landscape
with a skeleton of its own-
but before the true rest
when they let their bones shake out the tight
grip of untold tales
and sink into the dirt they helped carve.

You think of them now as dust and a rosary planted
under pine, a Sunday grace, a shared plot.
You do, don’t you?
You’re not really looking.

Life is like a camera, so,  

We must capture each moment

Like a pro, with the important

Of being sweet and innocents as  

We held them closer to our hearts,

the eyes of her grandmothers

The fingers of her father,

Said its all, a princess of both worlds

Our number one girl, Nyla

And old saying, if we raise our children right

And without spoil them,  

We will not have to end up raising our grandbabies,



Her mother smiles when her baby smiles

A grandmother laughs out loud  

When her grandbaby gurgle at her

As she coo and make eyes contact,



We just have to listen to find real poetry,

As we make any day with Nila our favorite day,

Pink looks well on her, as we capture,

The beauty of an adventure future Queen,

I saw adventure,

I saw the colors of the rainbow,  

I saw Ilene smiling in heaven,

I saw prophet, prophesying,  

I saw two families coming together from different world,

The cool color of pink symbolizes the joy of happiness

As I listen to the sound of real poetry

My cousin, our sweet pea, my cotton candy,  

Our baby Nila..

,

wrapping fine bone china
in yesterday's news

memories float like dust motes
sweeping across my mind

so many years of husbanding
the china cabinet
only for it to remain behind

her precious china
dispersed to grandbabies
now soon to be newlyweds

newsprint smeared on noritake
and wedgewood, tears on eyelashes
and the lily of the valley tea set
witness to it all...

Looking for a single man for the chance to listen to him play his music, tell him that he did a really good job, talk to him for a while, about school, family, death, life, people, exchange numbers, get a call from him, talk for a couple hours, say goodnight, wave to him the next day in school, share homework, secrets, lunch, fight about if I have the better pesto, tomato, turkey, spinach sandwich, or if he has the better ham, mayo, cheese sandwich, give him some of my animal crackers from the second isle in sprouts that just melt in your mouth, with the possibility to keep this lunching up, ditch school after third period and go to the movies, he drives, hold hands during the movie, the first actual touch, laugh together when we think that everyone else is learning about biological macromolecules, go out to chick fil a, order two chicken sandwiches and two lemonaids, one regular, and one berry, snicker at the nosy waiter who kept looking over at us, entertain the idea of us running for senior prom king and queen, don’t submit our names, cry about how we won’t be together at college anymore, promise to call each other every day, keep that promise, get jealous whenever another name is mentioned in our calls, be it male or female, decide to move back home, soon after, get engaged, plan the perfect wedding with all our old friends from high school, all our new friends from college, with purple flowers, and gorgeous dresses, cry when reading our vows to each other, laugh when the maid of honor, your sister, reads her speech, go on our tropical honeymoon, get really tan, tanner than normal, maybe just a little burnt, but not enough that we still can’t have a good time, stress about worries of life, jobs to do, bills to pay, friends to see, children to make, sometimes it seems like it’s way too much for us to handle, but we do it together, I encourage you to get back into music and you encourage me to start playing volleyball again, perhaps coaching volleyball, we never make it work with a baby boy on the way, I finally find someone I love more than you, you find someone you love more than me, we foster and nurture our baby in all the ways in life, teach him to grow from his mistakes, try not to be too over protective, but sometimes it’s hard knowing what’s out there in the world, have another baby girl that gets spoiled way too much from an early age, watch her grow to be in love the same way we were in love, with a boy that could never be good enough for her, go for long walks at night, get to know each other in a way we’ve never gotten to before, send our kids out into the world, praying that everything we’ve tought them will be enough, retire from our jobs that we never really liked, reilize that men die earlier then women, travel the world, see Costa Rica, Austria, Germany, Japan, Mexico, reminisce on all the good memories we’ve made over our whole lives together, long to see our children that we haven’t seen for so long, find out that we have grandbabies we were never told about, love our grandchildren with everything else we’ve got in ourselves, until we’ve got nothing left, lay on our death bed, side by side, hands holding onto hands for as long as possible, one last kiss, one more promise that we love each other no matter what.

After miles of coasting,
trailing a stretch of steel remembered
more as an artery than a scar,

(back when the sun-stained arms
and scratchy palms
that laid each track across
an endless America
felt ageless and exhausted;

gripping great-grandbabies,
bibles and whittled pipes,
fingers coiled and knotted with stories,
ready to spring forth and croon
if only they were asked.)

They didn’t talk much during the in-between:
that window of time when their bodies
were no longer cracking and howling,
rooting rungs into dry grass
from ocean to ocean;
fitting the landscape
with a skeleton of its own-

but before the true rest,
when they'd let their bones shake
out the tight grip of untold tales,
and sink into the dirt they helped carve.

You think of them now as dust,
a rosary planted under pine,
a Sunday grace,
a shared plot,
a middle name.
You do, don’t you?
You’re not really looking.

May all my family and friends
Have a blessed day
Focus on the stuff is
Very important to us
Just like me
I focus on my kids
And grandbabies
Especially does one
Who push me away
They could have a blessed day
To as well
May they find god in
There heart
And ask forgiveness