16 Tuesday Apr 2019
Posted in Poetry
12 Friday Apr 2019
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Birth, Brook, Children, Courage, Fear of Death, First Born, Freedom, Gratitude, Happiness, Hope, Life, Love, Mothers, New Soul, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Son, Soul, Souls, Spirit, Spirits, Strength, Yearning
Some, come into the world as old souls,
like they’ve been here a hundred times,
a bit weary, wise, or jaded, made cautious
by pain & an understanding of human hearts.
But not my son, whose eyes saw the earth
as if he, and it, were just created.
Yes, from first breath he was a wanderer,
like his father in his lust for the world,
possibilities stretched out before him,
no person stranger, no place strange,
a modern day viking making his way
across an infinite, angry sea, with no map.
Unless, music is a map. Song after song,
his heart in waves of hard-plucked strings.
He sang loud, and I wondered how
he could pour himself out in front of crowds.
I see him, even now, upon the ocean,
his wooden ship, the waves, the sails.
08 Monday Apr 2019
Posted in Poetry
Tags
aspen, Divorce, Hope, Loss, Love, Masochist, Metaphor, Pain, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Survival, Violence
I searched metaphors to describe you,
the aspen’s branches beating against themselves,
waving for help, like desperate arms,
but that was the work of the wind.
The coyote, who devoured all except the head,
and what appeared to be a shoulder
of our girl cat, and left her among the weeds,
but that was the work of hunger.
Then I thought, maybe the foal,
when they drove off with his mother,
her whinnying, more distant and more distant,
as he crushed his tender body against the rails,
but that was the work of love being torn away.
No, in the end, I came up empty explaining
your helplessness against self-loathing,
our loss of hope, and leaving,
but that, it seems now, was the work of surviving–
surviving the things even poems can’t explain.
02 Tuesday Apr 2019
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Canada Geese, Cowboy, Freedom, Hope, Horse, Horse Poem, Horse Poems, Horse poetry, Horses, Life, Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Ravens, River, Soul, Souls, Spirit, Spirits, Spokane, Spokane River, Spring, Survival
We rode dirt and mud,
through standing water,
like ponds, to verify
the sun, and life
of returning things:
Canada Geese, wood ravens,
mule deer, grazing at dusk,
and the river, surging
with the spring run off
of our souls, singing.
29 Friday Mar 2019
Posted in Poetry
Tags
aspen, Aspen Trees, Beauty, Courage, Death Poems, Dying, Hope, Life, Love, Love Poems, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Soul, Spirit, Spring, spring poem, Survival, Women's Poems, Yearning
early spring,
a cold aspen, clothed
in soft buds, robed in white,
like ash, born of snow;
to touch her is to quake
with the anticipation
of a thousand leaves
desperate to unfold;
a thousand leaves
desperate
to unfold you.
11 Monday Mar 2019
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Aging, Cancer, Death, Death Poems, Dying, Fear of Death, Foal, Hope, Horses, Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry
My father is eighty,
has cancer,
lives two hours away,
and I worry—
could I get there
soon enough to say
I love him,
should his last moments
come quick, unexpected—
like a foal born in the night
while I’m sleeping,
even though I’d been there
to catch him all day.
09 Saturday Mar 2019
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Afterlife, Belief, Cedars, Death, Death Poems, Eternity, Flower Poetry, God, Hope, Infinite, Life, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Soul, Soul Poetry, Souls, Spirit, Spirits, Trillium, Truth, Unity, Women's Poems
O, Jamie, it’s beautiful—
everything is connected,
she said, before dying.
And Jamie thought of trillium
blossoming beneath musty cedar
at the edge of the sound,
the whole world epitomized
in heart of flowers,
and spirit of ancient,
mouldering trees.
07 Thursday Mar 2019
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Afterlife, Aging, Alone, Courage, Death, Happiness, Hope, Life, Loneliness, Love Poems, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Soul, Survival, Tulip, Yearning
Like the yellow tulip,
who blooms every year
in the pit behind our house,
who was dumped, long ago,
after her blossoms were spent—
yet, she screams, I’m still alive!—
every spring, among garbage
and weeds; like that tulip,
you don’t belong here.
04 Monday Mar 2019
Posted in Poetry
for my brother, Danny, on his birthday
Have we improvised too much,
lost sight of our true selves, surviving;
the world is a tough audience.
And now I remember,
when you said you wanted to be a candle,
and we laughed until we cried, and cried,
then we’d ask you again,
and again, laugh and cry,
strange, how life, with time, has changed,
and I think it’s worth a try
to be a candle.
What better man to be a light,
than one who brightens,
and who thought being a candle
was possible, and right?
02 Saturday Mar 2019
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Afterlife, Bernie, Chimes, Death, Hope, Loss, Love, micropoetry, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Spirit, Wind
He’s been dead for four years,
but I have his chimes,
and time, like wind, passes
over their wrought iron curves,
nudging the striker,
and making its voice to sing,
ring and rise up
like message from a grave,
or another sphere,
or a person I loved,
sitting next to me, speaking.
#micropoetry
16 Saturday Feb 2019
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Belief, Confusion, Creativity, Crystal Ball, Death, Future, Holy Oil, Hope, Life, Mind, Palm Reading, Placebo, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Prophesy, Raven, Soul, Tarot Cards
1.
If I offered you a placebo,
would you take it and believe
in yourself, and finally trust
that what you have to write,
is what needs to be read?
You see failures like supreme
rulings, their many judgments
as self-imposed gag orders,
but there’s a pill for that;
it’s sweet, and round,
and goes down easy.
2.
You can open your eyes now,
and when I snap my fingers
you will not remember any of this,
but you will be as the raven
who flies against fog and snow,
the black outline of her body
hurtling toward the need:
truth, authenticity, love,
forgiveness.
3.
I anoint your head with holy oil
from an olive tree that grows
in Jerusalem, whose roots
extend thousands of feet
beneath the ground,
into hidden aquifers,
tears and blood
of your ancestors:
their unanswered prayers,
their cries from dark nights,
their suffering,
their death.
4.
The Three of Swords;
I see you have suffered,
but it’s time to face what rose
from the ashes.
Everything you said you hated,
what he did to you,
the lies, the infidelity,
the leaving.
Do you see it there,
in the tower?
That’s you,
tearing it down.
5.
So many lines, intersecting other lines,
your life is complicated, intertwined,
your heart, easily broken.
Look at your love line,
how it curves up here,
toward contentment,
then here, toward turmoil.
Your head line, see how long–
all the way to your pinky,
tells of much consideration,
your life line, such caution,
what you’d expect from a palm
of fire, and of earth:
a hand of many deaths,
a hand of many births.
6.
I see your future–
Ah, it is clear;
here is sadness,
and here is celebration,
here is hurt and confusion,
and here is clarity.
Here, a day of silence,
the whole world muted,
void of color, sound,
and the ground hard,
infertile, stubborn.
Yet, here is a day
so vibrant, your fears
are drowned out
from birdsong,
a chittering breeze,
and flowers so eager,
you can hear their spathes
bursting up toward the sun.
What more can I tell you
that you don’t already know,
but refuse to tell yourself:
you are sun and snow,
joy and sorrow,
selfish and fully poured out,
justified and guilty–
what more can I say
to make you believe
you are all
of what you’ve been
desperate to become,
desperate–
to make go away.
05 Tuesday Feb 2019
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Begonias, Childhood, Death, Hope, Life, Loss, Love, Magnolias, Memorial Day, Memory, Poem, Poems, Poetry
I said magnolias,
you said, peonies,
how you remember her hands
tending them, day after day.
I imagine a grandmother’s hands
reaching into a profusion of blooms,
wrinkled and wise and tender;
it’s a good place
for the mind to wander.
Memorial Day.
You were so young,
and your brothers, one older,
one younger, even than you,
would cut the luscious stems,
and place them in a wagon
alongside empty pickle jars,
mayonnaise and jelly jars.
The cemetery.
You’d sell your bouquets
for fifty cents,
three big blooms to a jar.
What a memory,
and I imagined families
pulling up in lonely cars.
It’s the sixties,
and there are waves of Chevy sedans
with heavy doors,
hoods, stretched out in lines,
like plots.
We sold them all, you said.
And I’m not surprised:
regret in empty hands,
is no small thing,
as they walk toward their loss,
tombstones, which remind them
of loss,
of lack.
And then, the relief
when they can fill those hands
with the heft and smooth skin
of a glass jar filled with water,
and a few fleshy blooms.
23 Wednesday Jan 2019
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Appreciation, Beauty, Car Accident, Death, Gratitude, Hate, Hope, Life, Noise, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Snow
Beasts, bigots, build the wall:
the sound of lives
beating like a drum
in our face, a chant,
a cheer we hear
thousands of miles away.
Yet, you sing me a song louder
than the thunder of hate,
breath of bird and caress,
snow sound, breaking of twig,
and I must confess
I need to feel as fresh
as the five inches of snow
we nearly left the world to last night
when the light turned green,
but she couldn’t stop her car
from sliding. The beauty of brake lights
glowing off an infinity of snowflakes,
all seen through a fog-window.
And the sound of twisted metal,
sirens, the spark in my soul
when I realized
I’m still alive,
and still part of this loud,
hurting world.
The dead don’t know anything.
But I know
I walked away from the dead
to the sound of your poems,
songs written from the cries
of your heart,
siren calls begging us all
to look the other way,
for a moment,
look, look, look the other way.
07 Monday Jan 2019
I was the best flutist in my elementary school for two and a half years–4th grade through 6th. Sadly, in the 7th grade, my reign came to an end; I was challenged, and lost, and sent packing to second chair.
At first, I thought it was because the girl who beat me was more talented–gifted–and I was deficient. But in truth, it was because I never, ever practiced–and she did.
It took me many years to understand that simple truth about those who excel and those who are left behind. Those who keep going, who keep writing, who keep practicing their instruments, who keep making foul shots or whatever it is they love doing–they’re the ones who succeed. Those who stop, don’t.
I started Bits of Poetry in 2014 to write to the poem.
Bad poem. Good poem. It didn’t matter.
I didn’t enjoy playing the flute, even though I continued playing to the 12th grade, but it wasn’t a total loss. Through it, the opening of a musical door, I learned enough to find my real love, the piano. And then, the guitar. Playing either one of them isn’t a chore, like the flute was. Playing them is a gift, and the real gift is the love of them. I knew I loved music, started an imperfect journey toward music, and found my musical soulmates.
And it’s not about playing perfectly. Far, far from it. Rather, it’s the enjoyment I get from one note, two notes, one chord, one measure. The same goes for writing. I love the written word and, eventually found my way to the poem. I love the poem. Every imperfect part of it.
If I can write towards a poem and find one good line, it feels so good. Just one line, like one solid measure of a song. Eventually, maybe two lines, and so on.
All of this is to say, in 2019 I’m re-dedicating myself to the original idea: write, write, write. It’s not about perfection, it’s about continuing on with what I love. Resist the temptation to be discouraged, but more importantly resist the temptation to be a helicopter mom to my baby poems. They will survive and grow up as long as I keep nurturing them with an open floodgate of words, honesty, observation, respect, and love.
I hope you all continue to do the same.
07 Monday Jan 2019
Posted in Poetry
Tags
Afterlife, aspen, Aspen Trees, Conversations With Maggie, Death, Death Poems, Dying, Eternity, Happiness, Heaven, Hope, Infinite, Life, Loss, Love, Maggie, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Souls, Spirit, Winter, Winter poem
Looking back, I see you
looking back, smiling,
I say your name,
as if to summon
the dead to life,
and it works,
for a moment.
It’s winter,
and the earth feels
like your absence,
the once living things,
here, but not here.
How many times
did you sit
next to me looking
out at the aspen?
And now, here it is
bare again, waving
its naked branches again.
Today, it looks like
it’s doing The Twist,
and, I think, it hears
a song I don’t, no,
a song I can’t, hear.
Looking back, I see you
looking back, smiling,
your secrets, a dance,
a song that plays
while the world listens,
and twists to a secret melody,
it cannot hear.
02 Wednesday Jan 2019
Tags
Belief, Courage, Forgiveness, Freedom, Happiness, Hope, Identity, Life, Love, Love Poems, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Self, Soul Poetry, Yearning
He said, Tell yourself who you are,
or others will make you a minor character
in a play where they are the stars.
So, I gave myself permission to be
a poet, a musician,
a good all-of-the-above:
wife, mother, sister, friend—
the many roles I inhabited,
but always felt deficient.
I have rarely known love
in the way I need love,
yet, I am surrounded with love.
Tell me, self, where have you been?
Why haven’t you defended me
against the dark thoughts?
Why haven’t you picked me up
and protected me,
held me in your arms,
and told me I am worthy
of these simple things?
28 Friday Dec 2018
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
Afterlife, Bird Poem, Bird Poems, Birds, Conversations With Maggie, Death, Death Poems, Dreams, Freedom, God, Happiness, Heaven, Hope, Infinite, Life, Love, Maggie, Memory, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Reality, Soul, Soul Poetry, Souls, Spirit, Spirits
it was a dream, and hard to tell
where borders and countries began,
but there was a dirt path,
and only I knew the way.
The dirt was soft, and the day
beautiful, I was barefoot
and running freer than ever I have
in wakened-life. It felt good
running in a warm sunshine,
ducking under the Velvet Mesquite,
with their canopies, their shade,
their branches, like open doors
to some better, magical place.
I liked the dream very much,
and could have kept running,
but I came to a lone house,
stark in the barren desert.
A blonde girl stood outside a fence,
scared and holding a gun,
and just like that,
I was shot in the arm.
I said it was a dream, didn’t I?
So, you won’t be surprised
I was impressed with her aim,
rather than the pain of being shot,
and I had to go pee.
I looked for a bathroom,
but had to wake to find one.
What is memory, I asked
later over coffee,
a little box in our brain,
a string of pictures?
How do we get there?
Memory is what we tell ourselves,
he said, about what we see
and what we feel.
You see, when Maggie died,
she passed into a prairie falcon,
she banged against windows,
day after day after day,
then left a last gift of quail,
and traveled the road of her happiness
to some place better than here.
Months later, the sun smiled,
and I ran on dirt, soft as baby powder,
passed through door after door,
on long, liquid legs, more of wing
than bone, and only I knew—
only I knew the way.
29 Thursday Nov 2018
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
Bird Poems, Hope, Life, Poem, Poems, Poetry, politics, Soul Poetry, Truth
In a world of untrue things,
I choose to celebrate
the migration of wild geese in November,
and the stillness of this sunrise,
a quiet, broken conversation
passing through a cloud-filled sky.
28 Friday Sep 2018
Posted in Uncategorized
If you want to find the place
where the horses graze at night,
follow the dark path.
Even when the moon
is covered by clouds,
and there is only the light
of a few dim stars,
follow the black line
as it curves
through the tall brown grasses,
and you will find them there.
10 Monday Sep 2018
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
Afterlife, Death, Death Poems, Eternity, Hope, Infinite, Loneliness, Loss, Love, Poem, Poems, Poetry, Souls, Yearning
Sometimes, missing feels like stone,
a fear that what seems over,
really is over. To be alone,
is no small thing, even though,
it seems, we always are.
Between us, an invisible thread
throws itself out, and stretches—
have you seen a silk thread
blowing itself out with the wind,
reaching, reaching—how far it reaches,
attached to nothing, but air.
Bits of Poetry 