The Forgetting

Monster

We wrestle with the monster
which we perceive as sometimes you
sometimes me
why we do, say the things 
that come out wrong in a war against each other
when it is the Monster who fucks with our heads

Monster robs you of your cognizance 
makes rationality impossible
coupled with loss of short term memory
extreme frustration and irritability
over the struggle with everyday tasks
that now seem insurmountable

as you lose your patience
I invoke composure, compassion
all the while I am frightened
tense in our world that is upside down
where you who have always been supreme
now must take the backseat to me

I must make the decisions
not just what's for dinner but financial
selling the house, buying another
preparing for the questionable future
I don't feel up to the tasks while I wrestle
with the Monster

Leader

 Am Not A Leader

I am a leader in absentia
I demur but then I strike
with suggestions
ideas of how things might go
how it could be better

I never want the podium
never the limelight, I just
see a way and I suggest
often to resistance
falling on deaf ears

I am not a leader
prefer to abdicate
let those with vision
take charge while I am happy
to ride on their coattails

I prefer equality
yet leaders are necessary
someone to take charge
make decisions
for the benefit of all

I am a wise woman
perhaps I should
step into my shoes

Prayer

Prayer

Oh Lady so many to pray for

but you are life without control

the original cell

every bit of you mitosis

it is you growing into each of us

physical mutations 

psychological mutations

we are all happenstance

many weaving a Magic Carpet

that I believe we can fly away on

in prayer 

chanting heats up atoms

gets them shaking

sometimes a miracle

if we believe

I pray

I chant

Falling

Falling

I jerk awake

just before I hit bottom

my heart feels as though

it will explode out of my chest

I gasp for air

it is always dark

I am not one 

prone to falling

in love or for a gag

I protect myself

rarely physically fall

I'm great at correction

Sometimes I go down hard

just laugh and never cry

until recently I seem

to have lost all control

stumble flayed
go down in tears

From the War Zone

Little Acts of Sedition

Little acts of sedition

are my sanity

or spawned perhaps

by my insanity

Little acts go unnoticed

I flush with excitement

a way to be about danger

not the one waiting

I need the warmth 

running through my veins

from playing little games

harmless I promise

Little acts of sedition

living in a war zone

no chance of escape

no way out

Blue Martini

Support Group

Today we 

at Blue Martini

met to be

together

I startled didn't fit here

they had moved beyond

Maybe Tomorrow

Maybe Tomorrow

The reel will reverse
no ocean deep earthquake
no tsunami in Japan
no radiation threat
twenty-five thousand people alive
no families searching, no families
grieving, no families displaced

The reel will reverse 
no 9/11, two thousand seven hundred fifty one dead
no war on Afghanistan, or Iraq, 919,967 dead so far
soldiers sent to attack countries who did not attack us
innocents in both countries dying and we're not talking
about all the maimed, about lives destroyed, torn apart
and there is Egypt and Libya, and yet another war

The reel will reverse
no earthquake in Haiti, no hurricane in New Orleans
no ozone layer depletion, no financial meltdown
no Vietnam, they're still counting casualties forty years later
no Korea, no Third Reich, no genocide, no camps, no ovens
no more atrocities the reel must spin madly ahead to find
a peaceful world that respects all needs, no wars

Maybe tomorrow we will stop warring in our own government
between the haves and the have nots, and the parties who
pretend to represent each all the while they are representing
their own interests and it has nothing to do with the people
it is their own posturing, their own agendas, whoever is lining
their pockets and we are the dupes, once upon a time there
was dignity and honesty and best interests for the people

now the parties have people fighting people over the things
that will help the people, but everything is cloaked in innuendo
and no one without a law degree understands what is real as
they take up the cudgel to smash that which benefits them 
because they are too easily led to the slaughter of big business
self interests with politicians in their pockets and so nothing
happens on The Hill because morality is dead

The reel reverses all the way to the beginning of homo sapiens 
and not a thing changes, we look after our basic needs, clan together
to protect ourselves from the enemy, our brothers and sisters in the
rest of the world, create our weapons of destruction to defend or attack
just chimps chewing on ligaments, meat eaters, when we should eat
leaves, and we wale away on each other with drones and stealths
and it will only end in war or cataclysmic events we are unprepared to face

Never Again

Never Again

Never again will I bear a child
my body no longer lays eggs
Never again will I phone my Mom
her body now lies in a grave
Never again hear my Dad's stories
he and his Liar's Club passed on
Never again enjoy my Grandmother's
old fashion garden of flowers and herbs
Never again eat my Grandfather's 
own homemade sill and lutefisk 
Never again romp with Max
Bufo Toad took him down
Never again hear cousin Nancy
play guitar and sing folk songs
Never again look for Norm
to pass me in a sports car
Never again run an eighteen minute
5K, runners need not laugh
Never again will I not write poetry
no matter how bad
Never again will I not thrill to beauty
nature and love all around me
Never again will I not give thanks
for every blessed day that I live

Thoughts After a Mary Oliver Reading

Thoughts After a Mary Oliver Poetry Reading

"Appreciate the violets before they disappear,

The heron swooping over the pond is the poem 

I wish I had written"...her voice fades away.

The US in financial ruin, one trillion dollar debt

every year for the next ten years, no hope.

Climate, education, health care, police and fire

protection, jobs, homes, industry all crumble.

Politics as usual, a dirty little game played to

stay in office, line pockets, laugh all the way

to the bank, while the middle class disappears

two classes now, many poor, wealth concentrated 

Wars the world over, brothers killing brothers

Japan devastated in the latest natural disaster 

while Haiti and New Orleans still strive to recover

Donal Trump is campaigning for President

courting the Tea Party vote, a ticket I envision:

Trump/Palin in 2012, "and the beat goes on."

"Some days it's not worth even chewing through the restraints."

Viruses

 Viruses

They're family you see
one week housed
visit as they please
immunes doused

they could stay forever
no possible eviction
as hard as we endeavor
to rid the affliction

our armies reconnaissance 
goes after their own troops
autoimmune intelligence
kicks us with their boots

I am rising from 
my week of misery
coughing done
I'm ready to make history

I do a 5K in the morning
hope I walk across the line 
I will give the golf carts warning
I might need to take a ride

Seven

Seven

Rain rises

off cherry stained pavement

I skid along in torrential

downpour

Sam are you

my Guardian Angel

circular you appear

from your blog that

rounds back to my

Guardian Angel poem

et vous timide?

Your poetic responses

play pinball psyche

with my soul

Against My Window

Against My Window

No rain appears across fields

that roll gold to the wind break

hazy sky over blue mountains 

sheers billow in on breeze

moisture coming I hear his truck

grind up the road kicking dirt

while I watch by the window

he's been gone three days

his customary practice for which

he allows no conversation

I suppose I should be happy

that he returns home to me

takes me to bed and pounds 

out his fury upon me

No rain appears across fields

burned to brown to the wind break

clouds over blue mountains

sheers lash in gusts

lightening strikes I hear his truck

grind up the road kicking clouds

while I wait by the window

he's been gone three days

his customary practice for which

he allows no conversation

today he gets his chance to talk

rain is here sheeting in rivulets

running quick to gully washers

flushing everything away 

From the Tropics

From the Tropics

Don't let summer come too soon
this spring day will float away
brief butterfly two months gone
iridescent wings flutter my cheek
grown damp in summer advance

It's April

It's April

I want to write a poem

a poem a day for April

National Poetry Month

but, I'm down and out

a bad cold, exhausted

uninspired

I want to write a great poem

the best poem for today

but I am tired and worn

my whole body hurts

drugs waft through my brain

coagulating my intension

I want to write a poem today

I know it's stuck in gray matter

disrupted all night by coughing

not sleeping well, just tired

so damned tired, third cold

this year, what gives

I want to write a great poem

I am limited by my slow brain

so I am trundling through 

getting words down to try to

explain why I am stymied 

I can't write a poem today

If The World Never Knew Me

If The World Never Knew Me

Is the timbre of my voice such
that it rhythms perfectly 
cascading outward forever
a part to balance the universe?

Some say there is a lesson in everything.
Was I an instrument of edification for those 
whose paths have crossed mine?
Did I bring pain because I was pain's purpose?

Was I a vehicle of growth or destruction?
If destruction, was our karma intertwined?
Would the world be unfolding better or worse
or no different if I had not been born?

Were there people I touched who were happy
because they knew me, angry or disappointed?  
I have known both and not known how or if
I may have affected some. 

Would the world have missed my daughter
could it have gone on without us, could it
have been better or worse?  Are we born
for a reason or is there no plan, no design?

Were there lovers I knew who still remember
that night we lay together in sweet new bliss?
Do they wonder where I am, if I am or whether
I was a figment of their imagination?

Has the world heard my sweetness and my
anger and were they both part of the whole?
Is the world a big jigsaw puzzle and I don't fit
and are there others who wonder the way I do?  

Red

Red

White snow world
black tree branches
glimpse of tan deer
leftover berries startle
winter worn existence 

How I Got Here

How I Got Here

I seem a sharp spiked bit of plant
a seed stuck on a flannel shirt ride for thirty years
exotic invader without direction
ever on the move farther and farther from my roots
unable to loosen my fierce attachment
put down new roots and bloom on my own
at last I look from this flowerpot at a foreign scene
can only hope my chosen vehicle 
remembers to water me