07032025 (pretty little fears)

fears with soft names but sharp teeth
pretty but clawing me in my sleep
skindeep it's sweet like perfume on the surface
scratch underneath, you see what the curse is
i've loved like a storm with nowhere to land
left good men with ghosts still clutched in their hands, hurting, 
hearts cold when they loved so warm
a pretty flower in the sun but i'm rooted in thorns
you reach for a bloom, something grips like barbed wire
arms full of light where darkness eats desire
ache to soften but brace for fire
what if i burn these beautiful hands that
hold me down, lift me higher?

good touch?
never knew it
warm palms grew teeth
and snarled through it
rough fingers
soft skin, soft
little girl, rough
nights that broke her in
raised voices
begot violence
gripped throat shut doors tight lips and
safe silence
clipped wings
cracked nest
afraid to settle, seeking a home, longing to rest. 

want you to see my best side
when i curl into your palms, speak 
the pain out of my chest, i'm
complicated, broken and wrong sometimes
scared to death, still hope i belong with you.
could i tell it like it is? these pretty little fears
let me tremble for a beat, let me be weary and weak
could this be music to your ears? into my ears will you speak
sweet boy, a pretty little harmony?

061925

Love isn't something you lay with like a blanket.
It's not something you wrap around yourself to stay warm.
It's a hand reaching in the night, a heart beating against your cheek,
a song you seek that hums across bodies, lulling you to sleep with presence.
Skin to skin, pulse to pulse, it reminds you that you exist.
And in the morning, you don't carry it forward like an old trinket. It knocks on your window like fresh daylight and invites you to carry yourself. 

Before your eyes can find the eyes that look for you, you have to find yourself in the dark. Love is that threshold where you meet yourself and it's the home that waits for you out there. The deep stretching yawn that marks how far life goes in your own belly. And the exhale that lets it all go, reaching for another. 
Then you say good morning. Then you share a smile. Then your hands can truly hold. 

Love calls for you like a reflection, a dance of light - the response is yours to arrive into, again and again. 

061825

Yesterday sits on my back like a boulder.
Fear in my stomach like a stone.
Face crumpling like a pinch, 

dreams that clutch, needs that grip

and a shadow so tight
even hope turns into choking - let me shed it

and wake like a flower in yellow light,

roots humming, spine straight, 

palms like leaves, uncurling.

Let my path wind 

like a secret

through moss and fern,
sweet things that grow, quiet 

like a love gently tended. 

And let me be patient, 

if nothing else,

still, until mist bathes me 

like a blessing. 

Let my heart bloom in this, become peace,

a garden that we can find sanctuary in.

013123

A fenced creek creaks through 

muck and rock while oceans toss 

their gleaming curls. Theirs, a roar, elsewhere 

a trickle, and this, too, wild and precious.

October poems (2)

10142016 dream

Something that gleams in the hot
bath water, sparks,
and my jerking thighs.

                                      You, falling
           from my lolling tongue and
                               quiet of cooling
                                             smoke.

*

october

I collect masks, laughs
like jittering candles, death
gasps of branches -
a wind brings crystals in the night.

September poems (11)

last-ness

our shadows straggle, lagging
on every brick and twig as
we chase gold down
graying streets











*

i couldn't say

how bodies gasp
how goosebumps glaze thighs
or how the mind, blind
earthworm, writhes and
crawls for rain
or how the skin explodes -
don't ask me to explain.

*

September (quiet autumn things)

With autumn, I'm a quiet thing,
the skirt of fog trailing as
engines whine alive. Go find me
among the grinning burs, restless
with some tale of me; in
cyclones of dust; my kiss
on every balmy blade of grass and
blushing leaf.
One day I'll shake the bones out of these trees.
I know that you want more from me.
But today I watch the red sun
between seams of rain clouds, curled
up in some spot of warmth,
a quiet thing with autumn - let me sleep.

*

do the sweetest thing

love me like a seed a blighted

sun can nourish too; see that

I'll bloom and bloom and 

bloom

*

09152016

girlhood's an

egg that binds

flailing baby

limbs. Ladies

emerging all air and

silk feathers, 

remember, remember, 

the grunt blunt in 

you, your hairy back, your

knuckles only sinking

on this soft beach. 

*

2010

follow the gray path

someday to where the

copper-topped clock 

ticks; sit

on a gargoyle's tongue

once your lungs have

gargled out and

dried

but this moment, like a drop

of rain, runs and runs

down hills and out

past streetlights

and the sun - go there for now. 

*

muse

Want me, explode me. Splatter my bones

on museum walls. Worship me - 

lips, rosebuds never blooming; eyes, winter

sky diamonds. Never know me, but 

speak of me, dream of me, embalm me

like the "i" in "extraordinary" - a syllable you

swallow to make it work - and call it love. 

*

last of summer

she straggles in dapples

of sun across cold fields

dragging her feet, waiting

to meet southbound 

mallards. 

*

I'm a twitch
of rage, a pinch
of anger, puckered
like a volcano, erupting
a moment or two.

*

periods (ongoing)

bent double, I birth
islands floating
red across the warm
bath water

twisting papaya
threads; a split
and gutted fruit

days like a single moaning
wave pass me, nudging

i swallow an ocean this way, gulp gulp

*

092616

yellow evening wedging
into the gloom - a lemon slice,
hints of light this heavy
autumn day

August poems (5)

autumn came yesterday,
golden dress cloaked.

*

rose song

Sweet flower,
make diamonds of
how yearning cools
on waiting lips.

*

170816

let's dig holes through
the days that wait
for us, nest love there
out of time.

*

19082016

you wait for joy like
the moon's gray spots
to fill; galaxies overflow and

spill, child, blossomed
from that dust.

*

where the river changes

I knew you,
River, you were
a kinder thing -

     what sunless wild tore
     your tongue into
     this spitting froth -

     knotted with your heart,

     what swallowed stone
     made home now
     grates to frantic grit

the song that
held me
gently once?

*