Rob The Cat Box

Happiness -
just a stone's throw away.
You put your speakers
in your window.
"Rock the Casbah,"
Joe Strummer sang.
The Clash on cassette -
our mix tape.

Happiness -
just rolling papers away;
a knock
on my bedroom door.
"Rob the Cat Box?!?!"
my mom would exclaim,
and we'd laugh ourselves limp
on the floor.

For Izy's prompt at Real Toads

This Do

painting by David Ligare

First born of the first families of pharisees!

Bow your heads.

You pew perfect women and broad-shouldered men

with cowboy hats in hand -

let us pray.

This do in remembrance

of the drowning space

between the red words

and the black;

of the dances

forbidden and the wars

cheered;

of the smug standards

and the whisper whips

that uphold them.

This do in remembrance

of a cross too heavy

for all the saints outside

now wearing a much easier yoke.

Even Jesus spoke of wine

and refused to cast the stone.

This do in remembrance

of the gospels of women,

the ebb and flow of faith,

and the dark birth discovery

that belief

is the decision to believe,

to take the body on the tongue,

to taste the copper in the communion cup.

This do in remembrance.

Amen.

Drink up.

A VERY rough draft for The Mag

Act

Act like a lady.
Act your age.
Or, act out of character
and tear your page
to stutters and stars.
Start affairs, start wars.
Just act.

For Poetry Pantry at Poets United

Loose Head Hammer

Loose head hammer
lost its taste for nails
and rusted

broken claw
afraid
of wood and walls

heft
half-remembered
a hollow sound
hand
half-hallowed
a ghost

buried in leaves
by the backyard fence
loose head hammer

lost

A bit of Poetry of the Ordinary for Play it Again at Real Toads

Best Friends

Dusky deep in the trumpet vine,
your dusty bare feet next to mine;
you gave me a necklace made of fishing line
and feathers from your favorite lure.

I almost kissed you then and there,
but I was just old enough to be a little scared.
To this day, I wish I'd dared -
it was so pure,

and we were

best friends.

For Marian's prompt at Real Toads

Climate Change

The sun refused to rise.
The tide's been out all night.
The beach is dry as desert,
and it's raining in Dubai.
I'd start a pot of coffee,
but I'm not sure of the time
or the season

in this new Eden

of unnamed animals.

For Midweek Motif~Climate at Poets United

Baby, I'd Rather

turn
and turn to salt for turning

than wander wondering
what I've left burning.

For The Tuesday Platform at Real Toads

Summer Reading

I left evidence of my passing
into another world -
a bit of chocolate fingerprint
on the page.
As long as I could stay there,
I was more than a gawky girl -
pre this or that,
in "some sort of phase."

With a rugged, wild-haired hero,
some rogue with rippling arms
and shoulders strong enough
to bear my cares;
in a soft-grass English meadow,
I'd succumb to his devilish charms
(what that entailed
I wasn't yet quite aware).

Fairy tales with a tongue kiss.
Prince Charmings with a past.
A little heavy petting now and then.
Happy Endings - oh! Eternal bliss!
Like countless girls before me,
I ruined myself
for ordinary men.

For Poetry Pantry
My runner-up poem in the Shiny Poetry competition

After Reading Wallace Stevens

I talk as if I've never
met a stranger,
but only to strangers.
You treat me
as if I'm a stranger;
polite discourse
and a tidy smile.
I'm no stranger
to the well-mannered cut
of your courtesy
and distance.
I wonder,
would you touch my face
and see me if I stole
your eyes.

For Karin's prompt at Real Toads

Shake A Spear

It was like a scene from Shake A Spear
in the parking lot
when the text just disappears
and the actors choose a plot

from the deck of dying clouds -
I saw him.
He was naked,
but for skin.

His hands were smooth and fine
working welcome on my back.
Loosening my spines,
exposing evolution's lack

of planning
for an archetype's
understanding
of fucking, fire, and fear.

And our need to carve the cave wall - we were here.

For Izy's prompt at Real Toads.  Please forgive my absence, guys; I've been waaay under the weather.

Let's Hold Hands

Let's hold hands and pretend
our hands still fit and then
walk down to the beach
and into the water.

Holding hands again,
we can forget
that we can't swim
and kiss the current
as it comes
to pull us under.

Forehead Crawler

Take the money on the counter,
run down to the store,
and pick up the things that I forgot
when I was there before.

Grab me some Ben & Jerry's;
we'll call it a "surprise."
I need a forehead crawler.
The Thunder play tonight!

Note:  A forehead crawler is something so chocalatey yummy delicious that it makes your forehead crawl.  My mother and I had a ritual of creating something divine and nutritionally dubious to eat while we watched basketball games.

I miss you, Mom.

For Poetry Pantry at Poets United

Dandelion Theology

In dandelion theology,
each wish is given gravity

to fall precisely where it's meant;
to find a friend and nourishment.

Mama, can we never rest?
Please love me more and teach me less.

The seed spins sure.  The seed drifts true.
Mama, you have work to do.

For Grapeling's Get Listed at Real Toads.

If you have time, please drop by my other blog and congratulate my little girl.  She won the Oklahoma Writers Project Young Writers contest in the short story division.  I couldn't be more proud!

Unfamiliar Loves

like a sip of strange skin
a southern slant of light
a road winding and unwinding
the knots in my neck

are we there, yet?

no,

but we're close.

For The Tuesday Platform at Real Toads

Broken Carousel

I am not the one who broke the carousel.
It wasn't me that fed the horses
amethyst and bone
and hid, defiant, in the darkness
to watch the sparks fly
and the strength of the spinning slow.

I am not the one who burned the ferris wheel;
burned it to the ground -
ashes at a hearth of steel.
I didn't giggle
at the midway made oblivion.
I'll cry if you will.

I am just the one who shut the games down.
Pulled the ancient levers
and let the spirit leave the eyes
of all the horror story clowns
we couldn't help but keep around -
you and I.

For The Sunday Whirl.  Sorry I've been slow to visit.  We've had a stomach at my house.

ESP

When you told everyone I had ESP-
extreme stalker potential -
you robbed me

of the radiance of your smile     how many miles
did I drag you
to shape and curve that skin again      every night

has its errors
and terrors        every town
has its open all night

car wash

for the messy side
of love.

55 extreme words for Kerry at Real Toads.  Also submitted to Poetry Pantry.

A Girls Florilegium* Of Necessary Numbers

Zero is the absolute,
the egg inside -
fertile, but unfertilized,
and waiting.

One is the creep of light.
The begetter of two.
The center of periphery.
God in isolation.

Two is a pairing -
a static pull.
Sun and moon.
Prophet and witness.

Three begins,
middles, and ends.
Clings to the body,
a skinside alchemy.

Four holds the world,
perfects the square,
and rivers milk
from ritual.

Five is first counting,
the first wild reach.
The first prayer.
The blooming.

Six is the swallowing
of three and three.
Long days of creation.
Stretched luck.

Seven brings you six
beautiful sisters,
six cows and a bull,
and 80 octaves of song.

Eight is the wind,
the beatitudes;
the plenty promised
after a fast.

Nine calls the muses
dressed in fire;
the purest poetry
dancing.

Ten is the tithe
owed to your order -
Ten Commandments,
Ten Thousand Things.

Eleven is the generous
gift of beauty -
neither male, nor female -
better.

And twelve is the torment
of grim resignation -
the return to chaos
in the hours of night.

Note: A florilegium is an anthology.  It was my word of the day, and I fell in love with it.

For Kerry's prompt at Real Toads

Centrifugal Shake

This is not an earthquake.
It's the centrifugal shake
of Lincoln spinning in the sod
at what we call debate;
at the nastiness and nonsense,
the hucksters and the hate,
and what passes for Republican these days.

For Open Link Night at dVerse

Content(s)

Courage.
Enchantment.
Permission
to work magic.
Persistence!
You have it -
divinity.

Sort of found poem from the table of contents of Elizabeth Gilbert's Big Magic.  For The Tuesday Platform at Real Toads.