I was am bird

I WAS the girl chosen last because I was skinny & my knee socks didn't stay up

I was the girl whose name was made fun of 

So the girl became bird ....
I was the girl who thought she could change the molecular pattern of
objects and create snow or an apple or direct the wind 
I was the girl who understood that ken & barbie were sleeping together
   and it was time to pack up the toys & turn up Led Zeppelin & the Beatles 
I was the girl who knew the scent & name of every homeless animal in the whole wide world
   and if I thought hard enough, could keep them safe & warm
I was the girl who danced on her bed while singing Hey Jude & Henry the 8th I am am ...
I was the girl who learned about music, weed & how to dance from the best neighbor-boy in the world 

He was 3 years older, gay & funny. He took me to his senior prom. He died of Aids
I was the girl who had a golden ticket to Camelot & a green Pontiac convertible
I was the girl sitting alone at the river knowing answers pooled there 

   along the sandbars & reeds 

   and if I thought hard enough--prayed hard enough
   I would hear the answers and I could then fix things 

I was the girl who discovered James Taylor
   Jack Daniels & orgasm in the same evening (while babysitting) 
I was the girl who found Wonderland under your hands
I was the girl who followed meadowlarks down rabbit holes
I was the girl who married to escape only to be bushwhacked by the karma bus
I was broken girl; weary & afraid, missing pieces of bone & heart
   Only to discover I had them all along
   Bound to my soul with a ribbon of goldenrod & blue sky
I am that girl 
And now I don't wear knee socks (or underwear)  
I still believe if i think fiercely enough, I can shield animals from harm while changing 
   apples into snow into wind 
I am 2 degrees away from knowing Robert Plant
So I sing Led Zepplin with abandon from beds, bars & cars
I have always lived in Camelot & i folded my golden ticket into a tiny origami sparrow

   and placed it inside a wee blue bottle on a thin silver thread
Marriage is ethereal & good magic
All the best stories have magic
I have been to Wonderland

   and some of my best missing pieces are still there 
Every answer to any question can be found in a JT song, 

   a Beatle's song, or a river's song
Karma bus? Well, shit happens. 

Live like you are dying even when you are weary & afraid 
I have stopped trying & wanting to fix things
And strangely--things fix.
I am the unbroken girl 

I am goldenrod, blue ribboned-sky & a meadowlark's song 

of light

your watermark lies upon my thigh
parchment skin, burned edges dry
blue jay's call nestled on my tongue
damage wrung
song of salt & stone
dreams of moonlight call me home

tattoo bands of evergreen
circle round the king & queen
days of tourmaline slip past
pearled fast--woven
hold to dormant rising tide
stories old--a thousand years it took to find

spin the bottle--throw the dart
by scent i knew your tattered heart
ancient magic cast the spell
wind shifts--enchantment dwells
lucky we are--the ones who fly
uncharted path
indigo skies

this side of solstice

there is something about the light after five o'clock now

that
moves--transcends--transports
to some ancient mind-place of aquamarine-glossy-greenness
peeling from a hundred & seven year old hallway 

      smelling of cinnamon, shalimar and cherry pie.
this five o'clock twilight 

shimmers in wakefulness as toes skim carpet
lined by narratives of purpose 

and tomorrows
while from a window ice-mullioned
a single skeleton elm beckons .... thread-bare & still 
a butterscotch-honey connection 

on the corner of
11th and this cold new moon

wake me to this light always ...
wake me to winter's slumbered quest to gaze out the
frosty windows to the ice highways of the plains where river valleys sing of loneliness
sing to me of soul laid hollowed and milk-yellowed 

to the lily-green of spring
this light … 

8:29 on a december morning

some days reflect
white on white
white to brick-red briskness bites

clarity lingers upon the landscape of loss
opalescent
pearled

knit-one-pearl-two

wind is fierce 
snow shrinks to whisper pools of winter
softly

this is childhood: folded in

dripping joy through holes pierced by an ache so large it fills the sky 

with blue blue rolled up & spilling upon land frozen 

and waiting

knit-one-pearl-two

crispness becomes home becomes bone
as
a cardinal red comes and sits upon this folded day
blue-blue rolled up & spilling

knit-one-pearl-two

тоска

PAINT me a picture of dragons & orbs
weaved of the blood and the pain we've absorbed
lacquered in memory of fire & air
curled up asleep alone in his liar
persian & azure--scales tarnished by time
smelling of snow & turkish key-lime
i stand at the entrance opal with shine

paint me a picture of loss & regret
the heart of a dragon will never forget
impaled by a brushstroke
twilight crimson-fire smoke
as hearts synch in three-quarter time
this ancient twining answers all rhymes
the cord transforms to silver-quartz-fine

paint me a picture consistent & true
of dragons & hollows & the magic of blue
who sees the dragon
who sees the soul
transparent to all as trust is the toll

redemption is found in fissures of light
there in the twilight--we hold--we fight
to open in wonder 

       & dance with delight

paint me a picture of dragons & orbs
weaved of a story
     all light we absorb

i told myself a story

words once easy liquid 

feel buried 

deeply hidden beneath sorrow's debris and a forest thick with minefields of contentment 

i told myself a story that i was only a writer when yearning for the unreachable 

spring in winter -- rain in drought

mountains from the prairie plains 

where lives the fire-rise when the present drapes from a vast blue sky?

what words matter when a heart rests in these pink molecules of light? 

why is it harder within the soft folds of these feathered days? 

because I tell myself a story that it is 

portraits captured remain tied tight to the fabric of these slow hours 

tied to the belly rumblings of routine & madness even in the absence of grief's striped cage 

my tarot game remains a shuffling of sensation bookmarked by Sunday's funny pages 

words crafted from the bowels of whales & dreamers 

lay them in the sun  ....

await the burn 

solstice

some days the brush stroke is wide
the paint layers upon the canvas 

fiercely thick
bold
decisive
my grip sure
the paint silk-white-goose-grey
heaven becomes earth becomes heaven
another stroke
brings
the smokey haze of forgiveness
thicker
bolder
ridges reveal fearlessness
the space between
reveals
the sun

winter becomes heaven becomes earth
grip loosens
to the crispness of
becoming blue

(2013) hello to stars, alleys & the folly of 51 days

i have spent 51 days waiting to see if i have cancer
that might seem abrupt, perhaps even insensitive
i don't rightly give a fuck
51 days 

getting ducks-in-order
my ducks are slightly mischievous & typically but in no certain prioritized order:
complex

myopic

hungry 

&

happy Game of Thrones is back on
spending 51 days in the pre-diagnosis paradigm plants me squarely alongside my mother

Norma
Norma first discovered her breast cancer when i was about 12 or 13 … she was 42ish
it brought a hard plastic bubble to my pollyanna-technicolor-groovy-childhood
and
i began to understand the fragility & chaos of life

i also understood cancer 

and the psycho-trippy shit it drips upon a family
my mother survived 

… but that darkness resurfaced 5 years later in her brain
she survived 

       even that for nearly 25 years

but she was forever altered in so many not-so-pleasing & warm-fuzzy ways
i understood the purgatory of symptoms--lumps, bumps & things that keep one up at night
i understood how until you know you don't---you do
i made my peace with cancer (aka death)
baked it a pie

took out it's trash

held it's hand

fought with it

yelled at it
buried shadow-parts 

       in alleys & my backyard in the violet darkness of night
then baked it yet another cherry pie
and
every every year on christmas eve would talk to the stars in a grateful seethingly angry sorta-way
i made my peace, sure 

but in a furious-angry way

my mother & i finally began to get along during the last two weeks of her life

nearly 25 years after that first lump & bump & scary thing

of course, we didn't know it was her last two weeks

but for the first time in a thousand years

she seemed happy

crazy-funny

hopeful almost 

& 

i was learning to appreciate her wit & caustic attitude

i am sure i don't have have cancer---nope nope nope

these 51 days are but a phase of my moon--a bit untethered 

barren

but rich in awareness
i have made my peace

and now it is okay

it is no longer furious & angry 

but golden rimmed in wonder & light 

i will be okay always 

     in large part 

to my mother 

who
rode in this rodeo 

and taught me the weight of my bones.
and i write this for no tea & sympathy
i adore tea

i loath sympathy
(i also appreciate cherry poptarts & large bags of almond m&m's)

i write this because this season smells of rain & the bark of the white birch
and
i write

well ….
because i have to
and
everyone has their very own 51 days sometimes
lost between stars

burying shadows in alleys & backyards

in the violet darkness of night 

elements

white 

this sun 

a tulle skirt 

swan-velvet-trimmed 

    a scratchy twirl-of-a-thing 

bright ribboned to dance upon 

old wood floors shiny & creaky 

a mystical black void movement 

ties the sky to a corset of hidden stars 

twirl 

and 

twist 

    this cosmos 

dance with the day held tightly 

    to these december cloud's 

white leaf girl

We danced the
lindy hop
and the twist
shagging on hi-lo sundown carpet
twirling under arms
holding hands
she took me to her world
her face--a thousand suns
always tan
dazzling
dancing
dancing

We went in search of Autumn's first leaves
turning
deepest reds and bronze maple
yellows like the fields
down a road of towering trees
crisp the air
light drifting to twilight
her face--animated with delight
dazzling
turning
turning

We were caught between worlds
love
and
pain
reach and retreat
afraid to hold to close that which dissolves
to dust
loves twin of loss
her face--mine
loving
loving
she was

dazzling  . . .

landed

 

the spell is brief 

cast upon the crimson stone 

i can hear the river folding from here 

coldness pierces like diamond light to bone 

i wait no more for magic 

but make my own 

Caelum

The desire to grasp the glimmer if for only a beat, a pulse
of smooth encircling light before allowing the liberation
allowing the evaporation to shimmer--become cerulean
cerulean = copper + colbatous oxide mixed & mingled upon a palette
canvas endless of prairie to sky to river wide widening widest
hold fast this pearled moment trembling in forgiveness lost

dimmer than sky blue and azure where the overlap is felt as morning

To clutch--catch the breath hot--hopeful on the capture
there within hands crepe'd and crinoline loomed in sleep
enfold the burst for a beat, a pulse before the stark primordial beauty of
opening knocks the westerly wind from sternum & throat to release the grasp
desire sharped and pressed from gravity, luminous the love comes
crashing, thundering & colliding as stars shift to form constellations
of gods & heroes to cloud our hearts with the scales of verdant regret
green is the actual color of the sun bursting its gleam upon our open hands

dimmer than sky blue and azure where the overlap is felt as morning

Once loose, the glimmer boundless becomes
the thrumming of the day, the ripple of domed-sky of waking-earth of river winding
ceaseless & circling in splendor blueness reflected reflection glistening
towards those nameless, absolute things not mentioned among true companions
except when pirate-punch-drunk on love cracked open as desire shape-shifts
love lies in the gap, a bridge waiting for the next beat, a cerulean glimmer returning

dimmer than sky blue and azure where the overlap is felt as morning

matter

what matters 

nothing is real real 

everything a dream dream 

dreams are real 

birds & branches 

wind & water 

this sun 

this age 

a dream that dreams of a bike, a movie theatre, my dad & you 

sometimes it rages 

sometimes it floats 

this sun 

this age 

this moon 

tuck the dream into the branch and await the bird 

-fucking music- 

moments tinged with golden difference 

we were real we were a dream 

sometimes raging 

sometimes floating 

a bike, a movie theatre, my dad & you 

unpack the dream

sort by color 

     the moments

     the age

     the evolution of self 

goddamit 

the sky changes

the dreams come 

the music plays 

not better without you 

just different

 - somehow - 

i am becoming the sun 

the wind 

the water 

the branch 

the bird 

the sky 

write it across the pink morning sky enough times and the story sounds like mine 

 

omnipresent encounter

weariness flattens bones

{collagen tissued matrix}

pressing white to red becoming  

pink 

weariness is a feather from a migrating bird 

loosened by weather & wind 

falling to prairie's 

gold 

weariness stills movement 

paused--finding stasis 

muscles await the electric thrum of 

silver 

weariness kaleidoscopes intentions 

into hollowed sparked feeling 

an alchemy of time & age turning 

green 

...if we allow its gift of space 

stay 

still