Section Line Road

Words
and words wound with music.
Sun sneaking through the blackjack trees.
I learned my lines where the hay met the hollow -
walked the stage with dew wet feet.

I slopped hogs with the palms of a poet.
Called cattle with a choir in my throat.
My treble and staff - my own two hands -
I danced down Section Line Road.

How I danced down Section Line Road!

For The Tuesday Platform at Real Toads

In The Early Hours

This silence
is fragile.
I handle it with care.
Reflect,
genuflect,
and climb it

like stairs
to share with you-

shhh . . .
my finger to your lips

Shh . . .

careful,
you'll wake her.

For Poetry Pantry at Poets United

Pictures

Somehow I got
from girlhood to gray
with barely a scrap
of booking.

I forbid my photo taken,
despite being very good looking.

But now that I'm old,
I'd sell my soul
for a camera's flash
in my eyes.

At my age,
every picture of me
shows my insides!

A note: After a recent medical procedure, I was given a set of glossy, color photos of my . . . innards. Can anybody tell me what I'm supposed to do with these?  Christmas cards, maybe?  WTF?

On a slightly less disgusting note, I have a new poem up at The Five-Two.  Check it out!

For Words Count at Real Toads

Colors

Nurses wear white.
Hookers wear red.
Nuns wear black,
and the dead
                            wear nothing at all.

Assuming the moon is right.

The thief wears a suit
and a fine silk tie.
The judge wears a blindfold,
but uncovers an eye
                 
                             he drawls -

make sure the noose is tight,

the branch is strong and high,

our tracks are covered, the blood is dry,

and the money's green.

For the Poetry Pantry at Poets United.

My Stretch Of Sky

My stretch of sky
is clouds

dead dying

interstated

removed from the land
removed

from removal
we've been settled

let's feather at first light and fly
like arrows backward

into the bones
of old black fires

of life
and good death

when the night
still shattered

stars for kindling

and stories
were worth the burning.

For Brendan's prompt at Real Toads

Dog

Your teeth are my teeth.
When you scent the night I follow

to a hunker low in the high grass -
God     twitch/still     a rabbit.

For Fireblossom Friday at Real Toads

The Seamstresses

Each star's a stitch mending night
for the sky to wear to meet morning.

Morning's a stitch pulled tight,
ending night and making day.

My star  stitch, stitch, stitch
I wonder which stitch will scar

what I dream tonight.
I wonder who the seamstresses are.

For The Tuesday Platform at Real Toads

Smoked Glass

Driver's side -
smoked glass.
Passenger side -
smoked glass.
But the windshield -
dumbass -

is see through
so I can see you
in my rearview picking your nose!

Eww!

A personal pet peeve for Poetry Pantry at Poets United

Invisible Things

Unwrapped stars
taste of chocolate,
but only once
per wish.

The moon crescents
into a kite -
I'm a stick girl
sodded to earth.

Michelangelo painted
a womb, a brain,
a man
navelled to nothing.

My tongue's out to taste
every apple crisp
temptation in this garden
that's not.

For Real Toads

Peony Town

Peony peony
peony blue
blue as a girl left
by someone untrue

untrue to his whispers
whispers do get around
about girls who bloom fast
in a peony town

For Poetry Pantry at Poets United

A Ghazal: Perfume

A bruised blossom bleeds the strongest perfume.
A laywoman's potions - vials of perfume.

The light notes, the sweet notes, are the first notes to die.
A child sneaks a touch of her mother's perfume.

The mid notes are family to which you belong.
Girlhood gives way - the crush to perfume

the base notes that fix you and hold you in place.
Pine, pine - humility's perfume,

the mix of a Merlin, the Guinevere's Lace
I wear at my throat and call simply perfume.

Kind of rough, but I didn't want to miss out on Susie's prompt at Real Toads.

I have 3 poems in the latest issue of The Woven Tale Press.  It's a gorgeous publication.  If you love art, I highly recommend checking it out.